The mayonnaise jar and the coffee
Here's another story I received from a list and since it has good info and my favorite subject...coffee, I thought I'd share.
The mayonnaise jar and the coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24
hours
in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the
coffee..
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in
front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very
large and
empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He
then asked
the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into
the
jar.
He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar
was full. They
agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the
jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more
if the
jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table
and
poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the
empty
space between the sand. The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided," I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things - your God, family, your
children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions -
things that if
everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would
still
be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your
house,
and your car.
The sand is everything else - the small stuff.
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is
no
room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If
you spend
all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have
room for
the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play
with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your
partner out
to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the
house
and fix the disposal."
Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter.
Set
your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee
represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just
goes to
show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always
room for
a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."
Please share this with someone you care about. I JUST DID.
I ran across this news story and read part of the website Spinsanity.com and it seems pretty much even. This is how I want news; even, honest and not promoting either side. I know that most of the political stories I post are pro liberal, but that's just what I find that seems worth posting. It might change when John Kerry is elected. I believe he will be elected in November simply because there are too many jobs being outsourced, the Iraq war is becoming a problem with the truth being different than George Bush states in his speaches and other reasons too numerous to mention. Plus let's not forget that even though the National Guard memos were fake, the secretary stated the facts were true. Personally, if the facts were
true, I could care less if they were written by the dog. It's the facts that matter. But maybe I'm naive about it.
Namaste,
Brian
Web Site Takes Aim at 'Arms Race of Spin: "www.spinsanity.com"
Web Site Takes Aim at 'Arms Race of Spin'
Sep 25, 9:53 AM (ET)
By STEVE HARTSOE
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Everywhere Duke University graduate student Brendan Nyhan and his partners in the political Web site spinsanity.com look, they see spin.
It comes from both sides of the political spectrum, they say - from President Bush's campaign distorting John Kerry's health care proposals to over-the-top liberal rhetoric comparing the Bush White House to Nazi Germany. It comes from U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, who says the president should be above criticism in a time of war and from Democrats who exaggerate the nation's job losses under Bush.
"We're in an arms race of spin, and John Kerry is going down the exact same road as Bush has, and that's going to lead to disaster if everyone in the political system tried to do this, Nyhan said recently.
Nyhan, Ben Fritz and Bryan Keefer are founders of spinsanity - where the slogan is "Countering rhetoric with reason" - and authors of the recent book "All the President's Spin: George W. Bush, the Media and the Truth."
Collectively, they're on a crusade to rescue a political system and media they believe are seriously off-track.
Reporters, they say, are too soft on President Bush, while the president spins his message with half-truths better than any of his predecessors.
The result: a vacuum of shallow news stories and an uninformed electorate, according to Nyhan.
The threesome and their analysis are getting big play this election year. Their work has appeared on the Web magazine salon.com and is a weekly feature on the commentary pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer. And their book has made The New York Times' paperback nonfiction best sellers' list and ranks 390th in sales on amazon.com.
Nyhan, 25, Fritz, 27, and Keefer, 26, all have past ties to liberal or Democratic politics, but believe their work on political spin is evenhanded.
In a recent posting on the Web site, Nyhan criticized "a long pattern of Democratic trickery with net job loss figures."
Kerry and his party have repeatedly presented the number of private sector jobs lost during the Bush administration - currently 1.6 million - as if they were the total net job loss during Bush's presidency, which is actually 913,000, Nyhan wrote.
He quoted Kerry as saying in a radio address earlier this month, "Over the past three years, we've lost 1.6 million jobs in the United States."
Nyhan, who is studying toward a doctorate in political science, said his discontent with political coverage peaked while working in 2000 as a spokesman for the failed U.S. Senate campaign of Nevada Democrat Ed Bernstein.
"Coming out of that election, I was frustrated with the state of political coverage in the media, and I felt like there was a void there in terms of watchdogging," he said. "I had this very vague idea for a (Web) site to try to change that."
The site launched in 2001 and was followed by last month's publication of the trio's book, which maintains that Bush has taken the spin and public relations techniques of Presidents Reagan and Clinton to a new and dangerous level.
The book has won praise from national pundits ranging from Jonathan Chait of the liberal New Republic magazine to CNN conservative Tucker Carlson.
While Nyhan, Fritz and Keefer criticize Democrats, Republicans and the media alike, they reserve special venom for Bush.
"He has added something far more destructive to the mix: a willingness to engage in day-to-day dishonesty on nearly every major issue he has addressed," they write of the president.
When Bush addressed the nation about Iraq in October 2002, the authors write, he carefully chose his words to link al Qaeda, Iraq and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Each of these statements was true, but Bush's words were carefully constructed to leave a false impression," the authors write.
The book also criticizes the media for not digging deeper, particularly during the buildup to the war in Iraq. The New York Times, for one, has written that its prewar coverage of whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction "was not as rigorous as it should have been."
The ability of the Bush White House to stay on-message and avoid leaks has left reporters with less to write about than they had during the scandal-ridden Clinton presidency, Nyhan said.
"Their message discipline is incredible, it's kept the media largely focused on what the White House wants them to be talking about," Nyhan said.
Tim Vercellotti, a political science professor at Elon University, disagrees with the assessment that Bush has gotten an easy ride from the media.
Questions about Bush's National Guard service are one example of the media pounding the president, he said - although those resulted in the recent faked-documents scandal at CBS News that has raised more questions about the media's political coverage.
Vercellotti added that some of the most critical stories about the administration aren't being written from Washington, but from Iraq and places across American where jobs have been lost during the Bush presidency.
"I think the bottom line is this: since Reagan, every White House has wanted to limit leaks and stay on message, and this White House does that better than most," Vercellotti said. "And the media and (Bush) opponents find that fairly frustrating."
---
On the Net: www.spinsanity.com
"All the President's Spin": Touchstone, 352 pages, $14.
A Day in the Life of Joe Republican
I received the below e-mail from a group I'm on and thought I should share. So what are your thoughts on this? Is it right or wrong?
Namaste,
Brian
A Day in the Life of Joe Republican
Joe gets up at 6:00 AM to prepare his morning coffee.
He fills his pot with good clean drinking water because some liberal fought
for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medications with
his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some
liberal fought to insure their safety and to work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan
because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical
insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and
eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for
laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is
properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents
because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his
body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep
breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree-hugging liberal
fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the
subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him
considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal
fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the
opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union
members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays
these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call
the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get a
worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn't think
he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It's noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills.
Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted
to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking
system before the depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below market
federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the
government would be better off if he were educated and earned more money
over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm
home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dad's; his car is
among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety
standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to
live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers
didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until
some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and
demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republicans would still be
sitting in the dark)
He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social
Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take
care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad, he gets
back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the hosts keeps saying
that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't tell Joe that
his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and
benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, we don't need those
big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I'm a self made man who
believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have"
