VENUGOPALAN MENON: January 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

educational facts

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London which used to have gallows adjacent. Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course) to be hung. The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''. If he said YES it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD. If he declined, that prisoner was ON THE WAGON

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot they "Didn’t have a pot to Piss in" & were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"
Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt Poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold. (Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ''Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old''.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the Bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ''Chew the fat''.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leak onto the food, causing lead poisoning & death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper Crust''.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell '' or was considered a ''Dead Ringer''

And that's the truth...who says History is boring ! ! !

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The right to death SAURAVPRAN GOSWAMI

The right to death

SAURAVPRAN GOSWAMI

“Take me back to the hospital, son; or else I am not going to be cured!”

This was what the old man whispered in his feeble voice. He was sent back home by the hospital after diagnosing that his was a terminal case and no possible cure was at sight or within reach. Considering his age, ailment and the availability of medical expertise and facilities, besides the affordability of the family, the hospital considered it wise to allow the patient die a natural death at the caring hands of his family. The family accepted it without protest. This is a common scene in countries like India, more particularly in rural India.

In the eyes of the patient, his desperate will to live a few more years had been thwarted by not providing treatment. What is worse, he could even not cherish the false hope of being cured in the absence of any medicine to swallow, any doctor to be found around, or even the mechanical caring of a nurse in a hospital bed. Instead, probably he received blank looks from his sons, daughters and wife. The man was dying every moment as he shed tears out of not wholly physical, but more mental pain — the pain of feeling that he is not cared for.

In the eyes of the doctor, he followed his professional ethics of giving the last humane touch to his patient by not disclosing the truth. He was also kind to the patient's family not squeezing out of it a large sum of money in the name of hospital bills.

The family accepts it as a natural end.

Had this been in the case of a well-to-do or VIP patient, he could have survived a few more days on the strength of expensive treatment. But our rural patient was allowed to die without it. Shall we call it an offensive ‘mercy(less) killing'?

For the last few days I have been seriously thinking of making a death will to be proclaimed somewhat like the following:

I Sauravpran Goswami would like to request the authority/doctor and /or my family to do me the most precious favour by relieving me of the pain of living at the most proper time by injecting a lethal medicine intravenous, or by helping me with a poisonous pill to swallow, or by removing the oxygen mask I might be living on, or by any other effective way he/they could think of in any of the following cases: I am brain-dead; I go into a permanent vegetative state (PVS); I suffer from an unbearably painful and, at the same time incurable disease; keeping me alive to lead a non-humanly life happens to be too costly to be borne by my family; and any other condition materially equivalent to any of those mentioned above.

I would appeal to the appropriate authority to grant me the right to death — good death, painless death if at all it respects my ‘right to life.'

Aruna's case has many aspects:

True, nobody can say the woman, who has been lying in a Mumbai hospital bed for 37 years, has been suffering unbearably as she is not in a position to express how she feels. But a life like that of Aruna's could be allowed to continue only on the following grounds:

The existing laws do not allow depriving her of her life; one does not want to be termed a murderer by taking her life; fear of God; it is against “our value-system;” and one enjoys (if at all it is an enjoyment!) her company.

It is obvious that none of the grounds concerns Aruna's interest; instead all concern the interests of the hospital staff, friends, family and the custodians of value.

Aruna does not, because she cannot, have a will for euthanasia. But defined as mercy killing, euthanasia can probably be rightly applied to Aruna. There is no point referring to ‘our values', since values are not to be seen as ours, yours or theirs; they are humane in essence.

(The writer is a Professor of Philosophy in Gauhati University. His e-mail is sauravpran2@gmail.com )

We make much ado about anything and everything

We make much ado about anything and everything

ILANGO PONNUSWAMI

We, Indians, generally seem to be having the illusion that ‘doing more and more'
is indicative of success. What we need is to focus on quality rather than quantity.

In Tamil, there is a saying that too much of even honey is poison. I am sure that similar sayings are there in other languages of this great nation. However, as a society with such a rich and diverse culture and heritage, we seem to have a national “obsession” with overdoing almost everything. I have often had an intriguing feeling to see this obsession causing so much of detriment to people. In public places, we see people talking loudly and endlessly without caring about others. In buses and trains, even during night, we can find people talking or sometimes quarrelling loudly. I have felt extremely embarrassed by such unruly behaviour of fellow Indians even in international flights.

Another thing I have noticed is that during travel, be it any mode, Indians seem to be munching eatables throughout their travel (probably except the time they sleep) which we cannot see in advanced countries, where people quietly read or listen to music. Indian weddings are noisy and elaborate with ritual after ritual and a flamboyant display of jewellery and other material possessions and, of course, food too. Besides, we make a fuss about every little thing. Our filmdom and media world are also obsessed with overdoing everything.

No practical skills

In education, both the teacher and the taught (even many administrators) feel that imparting of too much information and doing a lot of things determine the quality of education. Most students in India write pages and pages of answers, containing just a mere reproduction of class notes or notes from guides without any kind of analysis, synthesis, knowledge integration and application to practical situations.

Even our public functions are elaborate events with lengthy speeches (that too, as many as one can possibly accommodate within the Indian stretchable time). Our governance is ridden with heaps and heaps of paperwork, endless meetings and unimaginable formalities seldom found in progressive countries.

The ramifications of this collective phenomenon of overdoing everything can be observed at various levels, in areas of mundane daily living to more complex societal phenomena. I have been seeing a particular trend among small businesses, large corporate houses and even educational institutions, service industries and, to some extent, even among governments, State and Central. To cite an example, in an urban neighbourhood, after seeing one entrepreneur running a photocopying shop profitably, several others open the same business, that too, on the same street and eventually, all of them go out of business.

Among educational institutions, a similar thing happens when schools and colleges mushroom in particular localities offering more or less the same types of courses, competing with one another, without catering for far-flung, educationally deprived areas.

Service industries are no better either. In the case of governments, they regulate, control or restrict or even interfere too much; or go to the other extreme of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation, resulting in further marginalisation, alienation and social exclusion of some sections. Specifically in economic policies and programmes, we find an over-emphasis on “growth,” which is just an indication of doing much quantitatively without being able to achieve ‘inclusive' and ‘sustainable' development.

We see a rapid, ill-planned expansion of urban centres, mindless acquisition of motor vehicles, leading to unprecedented levels of pollution, chaotic traffic and ever-increasing accidents claiming precious lives; mind-boggling vertical expansion of housing stock with practically no consideration for safety, sanitation, water resources, energy utilisation and skyrocketing real estate costs.

We, Indians, generally seem to be having the illusion that ‘doing more and more' is indicative of success, achievement, progress and prosperity. What we fail to understand is that we need to return to the basics concentrating on the quality rather than quantity of anything.

(The writer is Professor and Head, Department of Social Work, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchi. His email is pon.ilango@gmail.com)

Hard indeed is the life of the corrupt!

Hard indeed is the life of the corrupt!

VED SARVOTHAM

“We need to be always alert... we can't even wear expensive clothes or go to a high class restaurant with family”

Parents and teachers have a vital role in imparting values to children, especially against the canker of corruption.

My first experience of corruption was way back in 1965 when myself and my friend, Vijay Saradhi, were going on a bicycle in Hyderabad — travelling “doubles” was an offence and that too without a lamp. Before the dynamo lamp was introduced a kerosene-based lamp had to be used. A traffic constable, hiding behind a shop without his official cap, ran towards us and caught us, threatening to seize the cycle unless we paid Rs.2 as penalty. We started crying since it was a hired cycle and both of us just had 25 paise to pay the rental which he took from us and warned us not to repeat the offence. This showed that law can be overcome by such compromises.

Then we also saw the leak of school final question papers. We just had to pay Rs.2 to get a copy. These things prevail to this day, and students produce false leave letters declaring sickness or even “kill” some distant grandma or other to cry off from the class!

Years rolled by and we returned to India after years of stay in the U.S. We started to reconnect with our childhood friends and our first meeting was with a buddy who was working in the State government pension office as a senior clerk. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, he expressed his unhappiness that he was not able to join the mainstream revenue departments such as the RTO or Commercial Tax or Registration, where he could have earned a lot than at the current job since it had very little scope to earn “kickback”.

I and Vijay have attended many ethics management courses and have also taken classes. We strongly believe that even visiting a temple with recommendation or even purchasing a ticket for preferential darshan is unethical. Paying bribe to a railway travelling ticket examiner for a confirmed berth also falls under the category.

Why does this happen? The basic reason is the total dilution of values in families; parents do not educate children in moral values and ethical practices. Their greed for becoming rich by hook or by crook sets a wrong example to their wards. The high prevalence of corruption cannot be attributed to government agencies, legal system and the failure of law alone. Corruption is in-built in every walk of life — corporate circles, religion, NGOs, education. Paying ‘extra' to get things done is an accepted norm in society.

Corruption has a broad spectrum consisting of major and micro activities — starting with not telling the truth, telling lies, hiding facts, manipulating facts and figures, indulging in fraud, being non-transparent, using forgetfulness as an alibi, giving free lunches, tips, gifts, sponsorship, compliments and donation, showing favour and offering bribe.

Another friend of ours in a lucrative revenue department opened up after a lot of cajoling. He said one needs to be talented, skilful and should have to think on behalf of three people while taking bribe. Once you take the ‘extra', you need to have “professional ethics” to deliver as per the commitment which needs team sharing and coordination. You need to maintain transparency and be honest in sharing the booty!

You need to know the customer, his paying ability and his urgency. Also, you should be thorough with the rules to educate him/her how they are violating the law and how they are being favoured, thereby justifying the pay-off.

We need to be always alert, we have competition, we can't afford to take vacation, we have to maintain a low profile in society, and we need to work carefully in transforming cash into assets and investments, our friend continued. We can't even wear expensive clothes or go to a high class restaurant with family. The tragedy is, we have a lot of money but we can't exhibit it or enjoy among our circle or society. We need to do it outside our city that too carefully. We always have competitors in our own office who are ready to do the same work for a lesser bribe. We always face the threat from the anti-corruption squad since it knows how much we make and we need to take care of them. Besides, it is never-ending demands from our families and they don't care about our stress or pressure. We need to maintain a false image that we are honest, particularly with children and neighbours.”

I and Vijay had full sympathy for our friend. He is like a diabetic owning a sweet shop.

He cursed the Internet and the closed circuit TV, mobile phone recording facility with video camera and, finally, the Right to Information Act. These provided a great threat to his thriving business.

Yet, there was an array of hope. Most of the employees of the anti-corruption squad were from his own department. He did have the right connections to escape but it was costly to handle them when caught red-handed. The greatest challenge, our friend lamented, is the parking of the ill-gotten cash and handling the Income Tax department. He also has the additional tension of investing in benami transactions and so is forced to wait till retirement to retrieve the assets. He cannot even share the happiness with anyone including his wife, who, he calls, is an independent broadcasting service in the family circles! He wanted to learn from us the prevalence of corruption in other countries and enquired about the facility to transfer money to Swiss accounts since his volume has increased and so is his aspiration level! Are there not any honest persons in your department, I asked him.

He promptly replied: We won't allow him to work here, we will transfer him to the records or stationery department and it is better if he cooperates with us. If he is really honest, he should take what is given and not talk about integrity in the office. It is a very hot seat and people are ready to pay for this seat.

Curiously, our friend is very concerned that corruption has reached even the school admission process, wherein you have to pay capitation fees or donations. Corporate houses, NGOs, hospitals and temples are not immune. Even electric crematoriums switch off power if you don't grease the palms. We did agree with our friend and told him of our experience — we wanted one ladoo extra in a famous temple. The counter clerk told us that he could not oblige since there was a CCTV.

Thus corruption has been ingrained in every societal activity at every stage and bribe has become an accepted norm of society. The blame is not just with the system alone. It has to be owned by all of us as we are all driven by our insatiable desire to achieve higher standards of lifestyle.

I and Vijay have had the opportunity to undergo various training programmes on ethics management. Though systems can do a lot to arrest corruption by modernising the processes, the loophole is always there wherever human intervention takes place. To take care of that, the legal process should come into play whereby strict punishment is given and illegal property is recovered. But as long as people are willing to pay bribes, there will be bribe takers. Exploitation and corruption are first cousins.

Many international organisations have their own ethics department imparting training and providing helpline to their employees to adopt ethical practices at all times. In a country like ours, where a majority of transaction takes place through cash, the challenge of ethics starts from the bus conductor. Notwithstanding exceptions, do they always return the correct balance amount (change in popular parlance)? How many times 50 paises are not returned as if it is an interest payment rightfully deducted? The moral is, when it is not yours it is not yours and you are paid to do the job and not to earn money through the job. Tips given to restaurant servers can also be classified as bribe. However, tips cannot be taken as an argument to bribe officials to get things done.

Turning society into an ethical community which adopts integrity right from the home is a great challenge. For that, ethics should be taught in schools and colleges.

The lessons include not telling lies, mustering the courage to tell the truth and maintain it; being watchful of misinformation and manipulation; awareness about corruption and the ways to fight it at the individual level; knowledge of government and corporate ethics and avoiding temptation thrown in the way to become corrupt.

Parents and teachers have a vital role in imparting values to children, especially against the canker of corruption. It is high time that everyone of us in the family tried to be blemishless so that our children follow in our footsteps. Let us take the first step by not giving donation for school admission. I and Vijay are ready to lose the friendship of our revenue department friend!

(The writer, trained in ethics management, is a corporate trainer. His email is kashyapved@hotmail.com)

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Observe the word "IMPOSSIBLE" carefully..

Never underestimate your Clients' complaints, no matter how funny they might seem!

This is a real story that happened between a customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Pls read on.....

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors.

"This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of having ice-cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies. Every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have, and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.....

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice-cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds. What is there about a Pontiac
that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice-cream and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?"

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway.

The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well-educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice-cream store. It was vanilla ice-cream that night and, sure enough,
after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start. The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the Engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice-cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of
data: Time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: The man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in
the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice-cream!!!!

The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "Vapor Lock".

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the Vapor Lock to dissipate.

Even crazy-looking problems are sometimes real and all problems seem to be simple only when we find the solution, with cool thinking.
Don't just say it is " IMPOSSIBLE" without putting a sincere effort...

Observe the word "IMPOSSIBLE" carefully...

Looking closer, you will see, " I'M POSSIBLE"...

seed

The Seed

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together and said, 'It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. The young executives were shocked but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man named Jim was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, But Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by-- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however. he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - he so wanted the seed to grow. A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection..

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick at his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the boardroom. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful-- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him! When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "What great plants, trees and flowers you have grown" said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO." All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the financial director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "'The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired! " When Jim got to the front, The CEO asked him what had happened to his seed. Jim told him the story. The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive! His name is Jim! "

Jim couldn't believe it. He couldn't even grow his seed. How could he be the new CEO the others said? Then the CEO said, "One year ago, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it and bring it back to me. But I gave you all boiled seeds. They were dead. It was not possible for them to grow. All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees, plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive! "

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
If you plant hard work, you will reap success
If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, lets be careful what we plant now; it will determine what we will reap later.

The value of a man or woman resides in what he or she gives, not in what they are capable of receiving.

I was walking around in a BigBazar store making shopping, when I saw a
Cashier talking to a boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years
old.

The Cashier said, 'I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy
this doll. Then the little boy turned to me and asked: ''aunty,
are you sure I don't have enough money?''

I counted his cash and replied: ''You know that you don't have enough
money to buy the doll l , my dear.'' The little boy was still
holding the doll in his hand.

Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this
doll to. 'It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so
much . Iwanted to Gift her for her BIRTHDAY.

I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it
to my sister when she goes there.' His eyes were so sad while
saying this. 'My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says
that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that
she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.''

My heart nearly stopped. The little boy looked up at me and said:
'I told daddy to tell mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait
until I come back from the mall.' Then he showed me a very nice
photo of him where he was laughing. He then told me 'I want mommy
to take my picture with her so my sister won't forget me.' 'I
love my mommy and I wish she doesn't have to leave me, but daddy says
that she has to go to be with my little sister.' Then he looked
again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly.

I quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy. 'Suppose we check
again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll?''
'OK' he said, 'I hope I do have enough.' I added some of my money to
his with out him seeing and we started to count it. There was
enough for the doll and even some spare money.

The little boy said: 'Thank you God for giving me enough money!'
Then he looked at me and added, 'I asked last night before I went to
sleep for God to make sure I had enough money to buy this doll, so that
mommy could give It to my sister. He heard me!'' 'I also wanted
to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy,
but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to
buy the doll and a white rose. My mommy loves white roses.'

I finished my shopping in a totally different state from when I
started. I
couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. Then I remembered a local
news paper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a
truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl.
The little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a
critical state. The
family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining
machine, because the young woman would not be able to recover from
the coma. Was this the family of the little boy?

Two days after this encounter with the little boy, I read in the news
paper that the young woman had passed away.. I couldn't stop myself
as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home
where the body of the young woman was exposed for people to see
and make last wishes before her burial. She was there, in her
coffin, holding a
beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and
the doll placed over her chest. I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling
that my life had been changed for ever.

The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still,
to this day, hard to imagine. And in a fraction of a second, a careless
driver had taken all this away from him.
Please DO DRIVE CAREFULLY.

Monday, January 2, 2012

some tips lateral thinking

1. You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus

An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
An old friend who once saved your life.
The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Knowing that there can only be one passenger in your car, whom would you choose?