Maggie's Farm

California may ban conventional lightbulbs by 2012

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2007-01-31T095034Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-285688-1.xml&archived=False

California..I mean what does one say about the place? It's a foreign country. It's not possible to describe California anymore. Fucked up is about as encompassing as I can get without being vulgar.

Difficulty...I learned a good deal about that in a number of lifes challenges, as most of us do, but one incident really impressed me.

The wife and I had been hiking part of the Appalachian Trail for about three days in North Carolina. It was fun, but the fun was getting a bit thin and we still had another fifteen miles to go to get to our car, which had been driven ahead for us.

We'd stopped to just enjoy some of the beauty and solitude, before hitting what we knew was going to be a tougher section. So as we sat in silence we hear another hiker coming toward us out of the tough section.
He stopped and we talked for about fiftenn minutes, then he said he had to move on. He was what is known as a thru hiker..he was doing the entire trail in one season.
We made sure he had granola, water and other essentials and he assured us that he did. So off he went.
My wife and I looked at each other in a kind of embarrassed shame, for our four day hike was pretty puny compared to this guys thru hike. But what really caused the embarassment was that this man was a double amputee, from the knees down. We didn't discuss with him the who,where,when,why's of it. It was to him what it was. He'd been fitted with prosthetic lower legs and feet, the shiny stainless steel showing beneath his hiking shorts.
There he was, alone doing a very difficult task........difficulty I do not believe was in this mans vocabulary, but you can bet challenge and fortitude were.
I often think of that encounter, and that man. I hope he is well.

and remember..
The Constitution poses absolutely no threat to our form of government.

Buddy, You can get Ed Murrow's interviews on CD from Amazon..it's very good I hear and Ill probably get it.It's like 8 cd's with hours of hte 50's personalities. Somewhere his WWII broadcast exists I'm sure.

Phoenix,
"Difficulty is the excuse Americans never accept." Then we could laugh at how stupid the quotation is for present-day Americans."

You nailed that right on the head. I often wonder how so many of the Boomer (I call us Bummer) generation got so screwed up. I believe I know, at least I'm satisfied in my mind with how I feel. Seems like those of us that went to the left, well they left God and Country and they left all the sacrifices our forefathers made to create a truly great nation. It makes me terribly angry.
Best,
Habu