What's the Difference?

Well, what do you know? 

 Recently released "secret" documents reveal that the previous Democrat government, under the guileless leadership of the slippery-but-popular President Bill Clinton, had ample warning about the potential threat from one Mr. Osama Bin Ladin. It seems that the terrorist threat from that particular individual's chosen country club, otherwise known as "El Qaeda," was already well known in the "intelligence" community during the Clinton administration. 

Many sounded the alarm, but most were ignored. During Mr. Clinton's "cigar trial," the administration did begin to make noises suggesting it was taking the situation seriously (Wag the Dog?), but when the president finally decided to launch several cruise missiles to Bin Ladin's known location, he first called Osama's friends in Pakistan to warn them (ostensibly to prevent a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan due to the unexplained presence of missiles flying over their airspace.) 

Of course, when the missiles arrived at their destination, Osama and company were long (at least two hours) gone. 

Since that time, many opportunities to curtail El Qaeda's operations, mainly by taking out their leadership, have been passed over due to a certain hesitancy on the part of the politicians in and over the intelligence community to believe reports from anyone but a red-blooded member of the US intelligence community. 

Virtually all opportunities to destroy the terrorist leadership have been missed due to the inability of the intelligence community to confirm these reports from people on the ground in the areas where the terrorists are residing. 

 Pardon me, but isn't it a little difficult to confirm these reports? Western intel will never even get close to these men! If the West is going to win, the West has to start trusting friends "over there." 

This brings me to the whole point of today's rant: What is the difference between the present US administration and the previous US administration? The Democrats rather loudly decry the present Republican administration for not catching Osama Bin Laden and his friends, but the Democrats are crossing their fingers and hoping everyone has forgotten that THEY had the best opportunity to take out Bin Laden and prevent the 9-11 tragedy than anyone so far, and they blew it! 

 The truth is, the Bush administration has been left with the unenviable task of picking up the pieces dropped by its predecessor.

The Murder of the English Language

What has happened to the English language? In scarcely a generation, it has been murdered, butchered and nearly forgotten in radio, television and the printed media. 

Our once beautiful language has been reduced to a small handful of monosyllabic grunts, and continues on its dizzying nosedive into oblivion. 

Back in 1611, at the time that great literary work was printed, the Authorized King James translation of the Bible into English, our language was complex, powerful, meaningful, expressive, and incredibly beautiful. Today, if a Bible translation is rated at higher than a Grade 5 level, it's considered too complex and difficult for the average reader, and many translations are even simpler than that. 

In the time of King James and Shakespeare, you could tell by the words that were used, for example, if the speaker was speaking to a group or an individual, depending on whether the word, "thou" was used, or the words, "thee" or "ye." (singular and plural) The same rules applied with many other words, making the language clearer than it is today. 

In the 19th century, some of the greatest classics of all time were written by people such as Charles Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper, the Bronte sisters, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott, and many others. 

In the 20th century, works of such magnitude as those produced in the previous century became far fewer, to the point where it would be both extremely unusual and likely very poor business to produce such a work today. It just wouldn't sell! 

At one time, anyone who could read would find it pure joy to immerse themselves in a book written by a great author, even going back to the time of Homer and Plutarch. The books were vividly and brilliantly written with such descriptive and excellent language as to put the reader completely into the setting! 

Today, most of the words that would create such a setting are too long, too difficult, and too much bother to read. People would rather watch a TV show with people speaking to one another with at most a Grade 3 level of English, and more often than not, with language filled with idioms and colloquialisms that would make a person from a foreign country, who has actually learned English properly, shake his or her head in wonder, having absolutely no idea what the people are saying at all.

Will it end? It doesn't seem so. The "new" approach to teaching language in the Western World is the "whole language" approach, which teaches children simply to sight read a small handful of "key" words, and to guess the rest by their context. The idea is that children learn to talk by being immersed in language in their home, so they should be able to learn to read by being immersed in words at school.

It seems to me that the people who came up with such an idea have read far too many Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes books! Thankfully, there are still some good teachers who are still trying to squeeze in spelling, grammar, and excellence in reading, but they are swimming against an ever increasing current of opposition. 

Parents MUST spend time with their children encouraging them, helping them and challenging them to read ever more difficult language if there is to be any hope left at all for our once-great language. Otherwise, it will continue to be cut up, cast off, and buried in the refuse it is rapidly becoming. 

That's my rant for today. 

Hurry!  Hurry!  Get in at the Top!

How many times have you received an email with a subject line like that? I hope your first reaction is to delete it! 

 As a rule of thumb, if you have to get in at the top, it's because it's probably not going to go anywhere. It has an awful or horribly overpriced product, a hopeless commission structure (usually one that pays out FAR too much to survive), and is designed only to make its owners a whack of cash in a big hurry.

 "Hurry! Hurry!" That's the cry of the huckster trying to grab your cash BEFORE you do your due diligence. 

 "Hurry! Hurry!" Did you notice the date at the top of the page? You only have 23 hours, 9 minutes and 34 seconds to "get in at the top!" 

 Guess what? If you come back a week from now, you'll only have 23 hours, 9 minutes and 34 seconds to "get in at the top!" These hype artists use a simple java script to create a sense of urgency in the hope that you'll shell out your money before you take the time to check them out. 

 Good companies will still be good a year from now. There are billions of people in the world; that's a HUGE market! If the product is good, competitively priced, and tied to a reasonable, workable compensation plan, it will stay good for a long, long time. 

 Be reasonable and use reason when choosing a business. Do not let your emotions rule! The BEST rule to begin with in making any choice is to sleep on it. 

 Beware of those who say you have to "strike while the iron's hot." YOU may be the one who is about to be struck... with another dent in your bank account and another unworkable, worthless, soon-to-disappear "business" opportunity.