Congratulations Mr. President

He Wore a flag on his lapel and put his hand was on the Bible as he took “a sacred oath.”  I can’t recall any inaugural speech in recent history that was as eloquent, intelligent, thoughtful and inspiring as President Obama’s speech today.

He called for accountability, transparency, responsibility, courage, work, sacrifice, honesty, equity, justice and unity. He promised to lead by example, to restore the rule of law, to seek peace from a position of friendship and strength. He declared war on corruption, greed and selfishness.

This was a good day, a celebration of that which is good in America. Today I feel proud of our new president. I pray that he will have the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Samson, the patience of Job and the blessings of our Heavenly Father bestowed upon his head. As he shoulders the heavy burden he inherited, he will need our prayers and support to fight the battle that is before him.

Congratulations President Barack Obama! May God bless you and your lovely family.

Violinist in the Metro

I often get fun emails of an unknown origin. This is one of them. I checked it out on snopes.com and it is true. You can go there for more details.

Violinist in the Metro— Wash, DC

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work

 

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. 

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? 

 

I guess one of the reasons I liked this email was I LIKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC. Beautiful music to me is any music that causes my spirit to celebrate the wonders of earth, heaven, life or the soul. It doesn’t matter if it is a child who can’t carry a tune or a father who can’t really sing, an orchestra or band full of children who are just learning to play, or the average middle aged person giving music their best efforts – I love music!

 

Interestingly I was actually evicted from an apartment for singing once upon a time…

 

An opera singer who lived beneath me used to wake me up very early every morning when she did her vocal warm-ups on the patio. One day I went out on my balcony and joined in her song. I gave it my best operatic effort. Unfortunately it wasn’t appreciated… No Money PLEASE

 

Anyway, I hope you take the time to appreciate the beauty of music and all the beauty around you.

Bride Wars – A Movie Rating Review

By Janet Walgren

Bride Wars is a PG rated movie about two little girls who observe a wedding reception at the most sought after venue in New York City while having lunch with their mothers. From that point forward, the two girls obsessed over their own weddings, planning out every detail and acting out the ceremony time and time again.

When they grew up, they skipped their weddings and lived with their boyfriends… fornicating until their boyfriends finally proposed. Then, they rushed to the wedding planner whose secretary made a mistake and booked both weddings on the same day. Neither bride was willing to alter her date or plans. Instead, they went about trying to sabotage each others weddings.

(In the real world, the girls’ unseemly behavior would have landed both of them in jail, convicted on charges of  battery.)

Before the weddings, there was a vulgar bachelorette party where the brides did a raunchy dance off ending with one swinging on a rope instead of having simulated sex with a pole. Yucky!!! (Apparently this was OK with the rating committee because the men working at the bar didn’t strip nude… although I think the costume department spray painted underwear on them with silver thread.) 

Finally the wedding day came and the brides got into a physical fight in front of their guests because one bride exposed the the other bride’s history of  bachelorette party behavior to her wedding guests. Then, one couple figured out that they didn’t love each other and that bride joined the other bridal party as the maid of honor.

This movie’s rating gets 10 thumbs down. It’s an F, a 0.0 GPA!

It doesn’t take much thought to figure out what is wrong with America and why. All you need to do is ask yourself who is teaching morals to our children and how are they doing it.

Perhaps we ought to demand that movie ratings come with a money back guarantee.

Who’s on First – the Madoff Debacle

By Janet Walgren

Many years ago, almost before my time – and I’m sixty-two, there was a comedy sketch that became quite famous called “Who’s on First?” It consisted of a funny dialog between a person trying to get information about the location of players in a baseball game and a frustrated person trying to inform the bewildered questioner. Confusion ensued because the questioner didn’t know the players had unusual names like “Who”.

 

Silly? Totally… even ridiculous! At least I thought so until I watched a Congressional hearing about the Madoff scandal last night. At first I thought the man being grilled was rather cavalier in his responses.  I thought to myself, “Why don’t they nail that incompetent turkey to the wall? After all, he’s the one that heads the agency that is supposed to be watching over the S.E.C. and he has no clue why this whole debacle happened…” Who saw what, why? Why were the many warnings that were received by his agency ignored? Why were the red flags that were apparent to so many invisible to his agency? He had no answers – NONE AT ALL! But, he was going to get to the bottom of it… “Isn’t that what you were supposed to be doing all along? What do we pay your for?” I thought.

 

Then, FINALLY, one bewildered congressman tried to set him up for the kill only to find out that they had the wrong guy. It was pathetically funny, in a morbid sort of way, to realize the committee, our Congressmen ‘who get paid to create bureaucracies to protect us’, had no idea who they were questioning or what they did. They actually had not only the wrong guys, but the wrong agency! They were questioning men from the external watchdog rather than the internal watchdog that watches over the watchdog.

 

So WHO’s ON FIRST – the runner, the first baseman or both??? Actually the correct answer is probably no one.

Gay Parents – A Child’s Perspective

By Janet Walgren

I ran across a post written by a person who was raised by a gay man. She has written a book about her experiences as a child. Her father’s behaviors she described in the post are similar to the behaviors of a gay father who was in a custody battle with a woman my clergy asked me to help through the legal process.

In a society so engrossed in SELF RIGHTS, isn’t it about time we consider the rights of children who can not or are not allowed to speak? Here is the link: http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/homosexual-parenting-a-childs-voice-heard/

New Year’s Business Logic

By Janet Walgren

I went to the grocery store and spent $87.50. The cashier told me I saved $6.75… You would have thought I had just made a deposit. Did she forget to thank me for spending money or did she think she was working in a bank?

I got an advertisement from an insurance company in the mail. The only BOLD ALL CAP TEXT in the advertisement told me that I could get a “FREE QUOTE” if I called a phone number. I’m not sure if they were going to tell me how much it would cost me to buy insurance, or if it was a poetry hot-line.

I passed an apartment complex on the way to the store. They had lots of colored flags out front and a humongous “Now Leasing” banner hanging on their building. I wonder what they did for the last thirty years they were in business… manufacture flags???

At least the apartment industry doesn’t disguise itself in camouflage. Have you ever wondered what ADP, USANA, BRG, or BILCO do? Rhino and Stallion are not in the animal business. Would you have guessed they are locksmiths? Rhino also sells flooring.

Perhaps the insurance company would get more business if they hung out a banner that read, “Now Selling Insurance.” Surely it would be more effective than FREE QUOTE.

I’ve been thinking about developing another stream of income in 2009 ~ perhaps I could start a consulting firm. I could advise businesses to advertise what they do and to be sure to charge their potential customers to find out the price… no more FREE QUOTES!

Or, perhaps I could become a consumer consultant and teach potential customers how to start a bidding war… AT&T said they would charge me $89.95. “Hi AT&T, I have a quote from Comcast for $63.95… What? You say I can have it for $55.00. Great! Would you put that in writing?”

I think that 2009 ought to be dubbed “The Year for Honest Advertising!” and we should all demand that businesses, especially BIG BUSINESSES, tells us exactly what they do and how much it will cost us. Then, if we decide to do business with them, we should demand a “thank you!”

To make this idea a success, I think we should all get together and target one big business to set a precedent. Let’s start with CONGRESS!!! It could be our New Year’s Resolution.