Author: timelliott49gmailcom

Time is the currency of our lives. How we spend it matters. I have had to reassess how I spend my time as I realized that time was passing without me accomplishing those more important things. Thankfully, I am being more productive with my time…my life. I enjoy my electronic toys but have had to dial back my time entertaining myself. There is nothing wrong with self-entertainment in itself but it can become a time robber, just like movies and TV, which I also enjoy.  To spend too much time in these other worlds would keep me from embracing this world and its people as I should. I’m going out on a limb here. But I’ll bet I’m not the only one with this challenge.

 

Time: When NOT to wait 

We often find ourselves waiting for the government to fix our problems. We shouldn’t wait for others to fix our world. We have the abilities and freedoms to change our world for the better ourselves. Don’t let the big picture overwhelm you.  Start small. Identify a need and get involved. Millions do this as volunteers around the world. Be part of a charity, a religious organization, or be a friend or good neighbor. It all counts. It all can make this world a better place to live. Use your time positively.

 

Time: Changes for the Good

The first time that I served in the Army was during the Vietnam Era. We were often abused, disrespected both during our service and after. I’m so glad to see the changes for veterans now. There are benefits as well as organizations to support and connect with veterans as they return. I have been able to send support to some of them. Here are a few. I suggest we do what we can to support them.

• Wounded Warriors Project
• Folds of Honor
• Disabled American Veterans
• Paralyzed Veterans of America
• The Mission Continues

There are other ways to help. And if you are a reader from another country please consider helping your veterans there.

And take time for yourself and your loved ones too.

 

Think

I’d rather live in a land of hurt feelings than be enslaved by political correctness.

The movements to limit how we think and talk may be the next great challenge to American freedom. My point here is not that we should disregard people and their feelings but we should be careful that we do not give up our freedoms of thought and expression. In a free society with wide varieties of people, there are bound to be things at which people take offense. I am aware that there are things offensive to me daily. I refuse to force my sensibilities on everyone else. I love freedom too much. Freedom plus diversity will equal offenses. Do we want to give up all freedoms to ensure there are no offenses? We should ask ourselves how far our love for freedom goes and where do we draw the line. It is worth discussion and thought.

 

Chuckle

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing.

 

• A woman came to ask the doctor if a woman should have children after thirty-five. I said, “Thirty-five children is enough for any woman.”  Gracie Allen
• I lent a friend of mine $10,000 for plastic surgery. And now I don’t know what it looks like. Emo Phelps
• If someone tells you to be open-minded, it’s usually code for “Why don’t you agree with me?”
• If all is not lost, where exactly is it?
• Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Mark Twain

 

An Epic Rematch

Kung Fu Kitty vs K.O. Kat

 

When confronted by life’s negativities don’t forget that there are millions of positive things happening and millions of good people working to make things better. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Give these things a thought and a chuckle.

 

 

 

What’s not to love?

 

Humor

• If penicillin is such a wonder drug, how come it can’t cure bread mold? Ron Smith
• A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running. Groucho Marx
• To err is human. But to blame someone is politics.
• What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Reinhold Niebuhr
• Be amusing; never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones. Benjamin Disraeli
• Freddy’s ambition was to be a procrastinator, but he could never quite get around to it.

A Suggestion

Turn off the News. Talk to your neighbors. You’ll find we have more in common than we are being told.

Be a cool cat this coming week.

 

White Privilege? 

I, like many other white folks, bristle when accused of “white privilege” I did not grow up rich. I had to work if I wanted anything. I did not see the privilege. Then I got to know some black friends and witnessed that they were treated differently.  They were good people. Our only difference seemed to be their color.

As I considered this, I realized that it was not so much that white people shouldn’t be treated well, but that my black friends should get the same “privilege”. Some of us don’t consider it a privilege but fairness, basic human rights.

I have been blessed with friends of different colors and ethnic groups. They are people who work hard, people who care, who love their families and their country.

I have been a soldier wearing my uniform who was refused service because the soldier I was with was not white. Thank God much has changed. But bias persists.

Each generation must fight against bias, whether by the majority or the minority. But understanding only comes if we get to know one another as people, not categories. We can’t live in the past but we can be informed by it.

Now for a Lighter Note

I want to share with you information about a very good, but unusual music CD.  It’s called Rythm Country & Blues. It has R&B and Country artists teaming up. Following are a list of the pairings.

• Vince Gill and Gladys Knight
• Al Green and Lyle Lovett
• Aaron Neville and Trisha Yearwood
• Little Richard and Tanya Tucker
• Patti LaBelle and Travis Tritt
• Sam Moore and Conway Twitty
• Clint Black and the Pointer Sisters
• Natalie Cole and Reba McEntire
• Chet Atkins and Allan Toussant
• The Staple Singers and Marty Stuart
• George Jones and B.B.King

If you are curious some of those duets are on YouTube. I enjoyed the music myself.

Humor

• Logic- the ability to be wrong with confidence.
• How do you get down from an elephant? You don’t get down from an elephant’ You get down from a duck.
• A survey has revealed that cigarettes are the most significant cause of statistics in the world today.
• Never answer an anonymous letter. Yogi Berra
• What’s the definition of minor surgery? An operation performed on somebody else.
• Time is said to heal all wounds, so is the bellybutton a notable exception?

Have a great weekend and following week.

 

 

This week I share only a little of my wit and wisdom. I am sharing others’ wisdom and humor. It is so good and there is so much out there about which to think and laugh. Let’s start with some pictures you may have seen before.

You smell like a nose.

Sibling Rivalry                           Incognito                        Kung Fu Kitty

 

Wisdom

• Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. Proverbs 16:24
• If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we have lost the future. Winston Churchill
• No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. Theodore Roosevelt
• When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. Thomas Jefferson

Humor

• What’s blue and not heavy? Light Blue.
• What’s blue and smells like red paint? Blue paint.
• What’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot.
• Horse sense is the good judgment that prevents horses from betting on people. W.C.Fields
• I’m not a vegetarian, but eat animals who are. Groucho Marx
• If all is not lost where exactly is it?
• I like sleep. It’s a bit like death, but without the commitment.
• I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early. Yogi Berra

 

Have a wonderful Easter weekend and Following Week.

The people of earlier generations are often seen as wholly evil, bigoted or clueless. But that is an unfair bias of those of us who live in the twenty-first century.  True, we have made great strides in human rights. But that did not start with us.

Even back during the settling and founding of the U.S., there have been people working for fair treatment of native people, women, black people.  In those times they were working counter to the status quo.

The progress we have enjoyed often started with persons of conscience willing to stand for the minority point of view.  Though progress was slow and much evil and injustice has been our history the voices for human rights and fairness were not silenced.  They are an important part of our history too.

Like all nations, our history contains both bad and good. We need to acknowledge all of it, not just the part with which we personally are comfortable.  The main point I am trying to make is that there have always been good people trying to do the right things. And if we have the courage to stand for what is right in our generations our children and grandchildren will be our beneficiaries.

( In future blogs I’ll share about those good people in our history.)

 

WOW! the northern lights

 

Humor

• The early bird always gets the worm.  So remember- you’d be an idiot to be an early worm.
• Never knock on death’s door.  Just ring the bell and run away. He hates that.
• Always give 100% whatever you’re doing.  Unless obviously, you are donating blood.
• Remember-things are never impossible for those who don’t have to do them.

 

Have a great week.

Saint Patrick the patron saint of Ireland was not Irish. When sixteen years old he was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates. After six years he was able to escape and return to his family. Later, after he became a cleric, he returned to Ireland where he had been enslaved, as a missionary. He is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. It is not hard to celebrate such a man.

 

Give things a fair look.

Give people a fair shake. Assumptions and stereotypes cause more trouble than they are worth. I remember as a teenager I read about General George Custer in our history book. Mostly it was dates and battles information. I wanted to know more.

I read My Life on the Plains by Custer himself. He was the hero of the book. Then I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and saw another view of the story. Since then I have come across further information to aid my understanding. My point is this. One source history can be similar to a one source stereotype.  To give history or people a fair shake we need to not jump to conclusions or familiar categories or stereotypes.

 

Why so positive on your blog?

I was asked this by someone who knows me well and knows some of my circumstances have been less than positive.  The injunction was to “be real”. I said, “I am real I just choose to live as positively as possible.” There is enough negative stuff all over cyberspace. We need more positive places.

 

Thoughts and Humor

• Noah was a brave man to sail in a wooden boat with two termites.
• He who throws dirt loses ground.
• Well done is better than well said. Benjamin Franklin
• I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. Thomas Jefferson

 

Take an I Love Beauty Break.

 

Music

I love music. I love creativity and great vocals. As I have checked out music on youtube I have found some artists I didn’t know before but whose music I love. Check them out. See what you think.

• Great vocalists in the U.S. Norah Jones and Rachael Potter
• Great vocalists from the UK  Louisa Johnson, Leona Lewis, and Ella Henderson
• Great vocalists from Australia  Dami Im, Reigan Derry, and Karise Eden
• Great creative pianist from the UK Tokio Myers
• Great creative pianist from Australia Chooka Parker
• Great creative steel guitar player from the US Robert Randolph

Have a Great Week

 

 

Women Speak Wisdom

• If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.                                                                        Katharine Hepburn
• Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.                                                                                       Marie Curie
• Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.               Judy Garland
• Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.                              Eleanor Roosevelt
• Forever is composed of nows.                                                                                                                                                Emily Dickenson
• I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.                                                                  Lucille Ball
• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.                                     Harper Lee
• How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.            Anne Frank

Kung Fu Kitty

Meets KO Cat

 

Blessings to You.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So often we think of riches as things. But there are other riches. I would encourage you to look at your friends, family, and your experiences as riches. The parents and grandparents, the friends and family,  the positive experiences in a lifetime should be appreciated…and valued. The older I get the more I appreciate the good memories, the great relationships.  It shouldn’t be hard to be thankful for a mother’s love or a grandparent’s attention. Look around. Consider. You may find you are far richer than thought.

How much beauty can we see and not realize how rich we are?

 

• Nothing is more significant of men’s character than what they find laughable.                                                                                                                              Goethe
• An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.        Will Rogers

 

• We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.                                                                                                        Native American Proverb
• The past is behind us, learn from it.  The future is ahead, prepare for it.  The present is here, live it.                             Zig Ziglar

 

Remember Kung Fu Kitty?

 

Have a wonderful week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a difference between disagreement and hate. Too many people call you a hater if you disagree with them or their lifestyle.  What you do once you identify a disagreement will show whether or not hate is present.  I have worked with and supervised people whose lifestyle I believed to be perverted, but I refused to treat them badly because of it.  There was always something positive about them if I would see it. Disagreement need not be a cause for hate. You do not need to agree on everything to treat each other kindly.

Dad told me about a one-eyed mule named Sal he had when he ran pack trains and herded sheep in Montana. He was running a pack train through some mountain country just after a great storm. Rocks were relocated. Trees were uprooted. Coming down a mountain trail Sal came too close to the edge of the trail on his blind side. He slipped and fell into a crater caused by an uprooted tree. Sal landed on his back. The pack saddle made things even more difficult.  Dad couldn’t pull Sal upright. Finally, he removed the pack saddle and tried some more. He told me that his cussing was creative that day. He still couldn’t get Sal out of the hole. After more than three hours he gave up. He didn’t have the heart to shoot the mule. So he left making his way to camp. As he was getting ready to feed the other mules he heard a commotion, galloping hoofs, and here came Sal. Cussing and pulling did not motivate Sal. But suppertime did.

Back in the nineteen thirties, a young man hopped a freight to take him to California.  The problem was that these were the days before modern trains. He crouched between cars as the train entered one of the tunnels in the mountains. Smoke and sparks flew from the smokestack. And it soon filled the tunnel. A lesson was learned that day.  As the train exited the tunnel a very grimy young man was beating out the sparks that had landed in his clothing. When sharing with an old hobo his experience, all he got was a chuckle and a question. “When you went into that tunnel where did you expect that smoke and those sparks would go?”

A young man I knew was at a party at which there was much drinking. It was a party of teenaged boys until a neighbor girl dropped in.  She was almost pass out drunk. It took little time for her to complete that journey. As she lay there several of the guys decided a gang rape was a good plan. The one man stood in the way.  He was no bargain so they hesitated to try to fight him about it. So there he was standing against six other guys. The group tried to convince him to leave if he didn’t want to join in. He knew that option solved nothing for the girl. He singled out the leader of the group. He let him know at least he would be in no shape for rape by the time he got to the girl. The leader told him that he couldn’t beat them all. So the young man raised the price. He pointed out that they’d have to kill him. Because even if they got past him He’d NOT let them get by with it. He would talk. Things had been sobering to the group and they were not ready for murder to get a little sex. The crowd melted away.

This is a true story. Sometimes the best deterrent for evil is not a program but the courage of a good man.

REMEMBER

There are millions of people out there working to make things better.