Friday, July 22, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
And Like a Good Neighbor, He Cut the Grass for Me
I should have posted this back in the summertime, when this happened ...
I was cutting the grass one night. It was a Saturday night, and by night I mean it was after 7:00 PM or so. Nobody in their right mind in Augusta cuts grass in the heat of the day. I had just finished my own yard and had started on the yard next door because the lady there was on vacation. Our yard man normally takes care of this chore for us, for a small fee, but we hadn't seen him in over two weeks. Judging from the thickness of the grass, maybe it had been more than three weeks.
I had just got a good start on the neighbors yard when a stranger walked by the house and nodded a greeting. I acknowledged it but kept right on mowing--or trying to. The grass was so tall and thick that I could only advance the mower a foot or so with each thrust in some places. By the time I reached the edge of the yard I saw out of the corner of my eye the "stranger," who is actually a new neighbor on the street, riding through his own yard on his mower. My first thought was that he was showing off, that he had a riding mower and I only had push one.
Then I thought of New York.
I lived for a time in Johnstown, New York, on a nice street with nice enough neighbors. Except when it snowed. In the winter, after a snowfall, the driveways in New York have to be shoveled off. So the first thought I had of my Georgia neighbor zipping across his yard on a riding mower was of my New York neighbors with their snow blowers, blowing two feet of snow off their driveways in a few minutes while I spent four hours doing the same thing to mine with a dented shovel. The memory set me in a bad twist toward my new neighbor, two houses down.
Then a funny thing happened. My Georgia neighbor motored right on through his own yard and into the street, then up into the neighbor lady's yard whose grass I was trying to cut, and asked me, "Do you need some help."
My normal reserve broke down at that point. What a relief! I had fun bagging up the clippings while my new neighbor cut the neighbor lady's grass for me.
________________
Afterword: I can think of at least one occasion when it would have been nice if one of my New York neighbors had done something like that for me.
I was cutting the grass one night. It was a Saturday night, and by night I mean it was after 7:00 PM or so. Nobody in their right mind in Augusta cuts grass in the heat of the day. I had just finished my own yard and had started on the yard next door because the lady there was on vacation. Our yard man normally takes care of this chore for us, for a small fee, but we hadn't seen him in over two weeks. Judging from the thickness of the grass, maybe it had been more than three weeks.
I had just got a good start on the neighbors yard when a stranger walked by the house and nodded a greeting. I acknowledged it but kept right on mowing--or trying to. The grass was so tall and thick that I could only advance the mower a foot or so with each thrust in some places. By the time I reached the edge of the yard I saw out of the corner of my eye the "stranger," who is actually a new neighbor on the street, riding through his own yard on his mower. My first thought was that he was showing off, that he had a riding mower and I only had push one.
Then I thought of New York.
I lived for a time in Johnstown, New York, on a nice street with nice enough neighbors. Except when it snowed. In the winter, after a snowfall, the driveways in New York have to be shoveled off. So the first thought I had of my Georgia neighbor zipping across his yard on a riding mower was of my New York neighbors with their snow blowers, blowing two feet of snow off their driveways in a few minutes while I spent four hours doing the same thing to mine with a dented shovel. The memory set me in a bad twist toward my new neighbor, two houses down.
Then a funny thing happened. My Georgia neighbor motored right on through his own yard and into the street, then up into the neighbor lady's yard whose grass I was trying to cut, and asked me, "Do you need some help."
My normal reserve broke down at that point. What a relief! I had fun bagging up the clippings while my new neighbor cut the neighbor lady's grass for me.
________________
Afterword: I can think of at least one occasion when it would have been nice if one of my New York neighbors had done something like that for me.
The Five
The new program in the five to six p.m. time slot on the Fox News Channel is really, really bad.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Cops Shut Down Little Girls' Lemonade Stand ... in America!
Dateline Midway, Georgia.
(Find Midway, Georgia on a map)
Meanwhile, real crime is happening--probably even in Midway. Nice work, Midway police. This is absurd!
Police are working with attorneys to find a solution, bah! The solution is to let the girls run their lemonade stand. If the Midway police department was a sharp bunch, they'd take turns patrolling the girls' neighborhood just to stop and buy and cup of their finest. Maybe in some third-world communist country, New York City maybe, or out in California, you might need to get a business license to run a lemonade stand; but this is Midway, Georgia, for crying out loud. Wouldn't hurt the shiftless attorneys to drive over and buy a cup either.
And the girls were not running a business! The report is clear on this. They were simply raising money to go to the water park. What are the Midway police trying to say to these youngsters, that they should steal the money they need? That they should ask for a hand-out? What is the crime in a little self-initiative and hard work?
If the enterprising folks over at WSVA-TV are worth their salt, they will publish the local crime statistics for Midway for the week and note that, while these crimes were happening, Midway police were running honest citizens--three little girls--out of business for selling lemonade on a hot, July afternoon.
Police in Midway, Ga., shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls. The girls did not have a business license and required permits, WSB-TV reported.
The girls were in operation for just one day last week before the crackdown; they were trying to raise money to go to a water park. Police say the children needed a business license, peddler's permit and food permit to operate the stand, even on their lawn.
The girls were not arrested or charged, WSVA-TV said, and the police say they are working with attorneys to find a solution or a compromise to the issue.
The girls are now doing yard work and chores for money to go to the water park.
(Find Midway, Georgia on a map)
Meanwhile, real crime is happening--probably even in Midway. Nice work, Midway police. This is absurd!
Police are working with attorneys to find a solution, bah! The solution is to let the girls run their lemonade stand. If the Midway police department was a sharp bunch, they'd take turns patrolling the girls' neighborhood just to stop and buy and cup of their finest. Maybe in some third-world communist country, New York City maybe, or out in California, you might need to get a business license to run a lemonade stand; but this is Midway, Georgia, for crying out loud. Wouldn't hurt the shiftless attorneys to drive over and buy a cup either.
And the girls were not running a business! The report is clear on this. They were simply raising money to go to the water park. What are the Midway police trying to say to these youngsters, that they should steal the money they need? That they should ask for a hand-out? What is the crime in a little self-initiative and hard work?
If the enterprising folks over at WSVA-TV are worth their salt, they will publish the local crime statistics for Midway for the week and note that, while these crimes were happening, Midway police were running honest citizens--three little girls--out of business for selling lemonade on a hot, July afternoon.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Understatement of the Decade
Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when recently asked whether President Obama deserved a second term, replied with a straightforward, "No." Then he said that no is probably the understatement of the decade. Watch--
Thursday, July 14, 2011
A General Stares Down a Monster
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| LTG Susan Lawrence Army CIO/G-6 |
In the "money" paragraph, Hoffman quotes Lawrence giving a heads-up to industry. Speaking of the current network, she challenges--
“Get us something else fast. It is cumbersome. It is hard to use. We have to protect our identity and make sure our information is secure but we have to do it a little bit better than we have today. Those were designed in 2002. It’s time we move on to new technology and I think you guys got it so you’re gonna see something from me very shortly,” Lawrence said at the Association of the U.S. Army breakfast July 14 in Arlington, Va."Once more speaking of the still loosely federated network "enterprise," she said--
“We can’t have an enterprise with 50 quarterbacks and 50 playbooks on the battlefield."Well, great. A lot of us are in favor of what she's talking about. We really want to see this happen. But here's why I thought the article was really interesting. In order for Lt. Gen. Lawrence to get what she wants, she's going to have to tame this monster--
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| The Department of Defense's Integrated Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Life Cycle Management System |
Monday, July 11, 2011
So, Why, Exactly, do We have a Modular Force?
Sixty years prior to the Army's transformation to a modular organizational construct; that is, before the Army mixed and fragmented its formations on purpose, the Army in the North African campaign was doing so simply because they had no other choice--given the constraints, self imposed and otherwise, under which they operated, one of the nation's heroes wrote: "To mix and fragment units is a military crime of the gravest sort."
The officer who penned those words was Brigadier General Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt, Medal of Honor recipient.
(Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 276).
The officer who penned those words was Brigadier General Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt, Medal of Honor recipient.
(Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 276).
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