It's the debts of honor and respect that last a lifetime and require real work to pay off. (Toni Sortor and Pamela McQuade, The Word On Life, 19 July)
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I attend the twice-monthly meeting of the Computer Club yesterday. I arrived a little early because I wanted to take a look at the PDF minutes of the last meeting on the public computers. I wasn't able to use the hot-links on my home computer. I didn't have any problems with the Senior Center computer. Apparently my older version of Adobe Reader doesn't work well with the PDF I created using Google Docs.
Eric, a club member, give a very nice demonstration and talk about Video Spin, the free video editor, from Pinnacle. The version they sell is called, Video Studio.
After the meeting I got back on the hallway computer. I copied 343 photos from my camera onto a CD that I brought with me. I'm thinking about clearing the photos from the camera card.
As club member Dennis and I walked to the parking lot it began to rain. The storm got worse as I got closer to home. Later, while watching the news I learned that the winds were severe in some areas, particularly Arlington, VA and Oxen Hill, MD. Many trees and power poles came down. There were widespread power outages again
In the evening I watched part of the Rachel Maddow program. She gave an outstanding account of how Richard Nixon and his henchmen let an Air Force General's reputation be ruined in the early 1970's. Nixon had secretly ordered the bombing of North Vietnam. There was a public outcry about the bombing. The Nixon administration needed a scapegoat. Melvin Laird fired and demoted the general, blaming him for acting without proper authority. Rachel Maddow played audio clips of many conversations, over a period of many weeks, between Nixon and his "crew" where the president lamented what was happening to the General. Of course, he never once mentioned directly that it was his fault or that he held the power to stop it simply by calling a news conference to tell the truth that he had given the order for the bombing. When listening to the tapes of Nixon and Johnson it is interesting to note how vague the presidents and their advisers are when they speak to each other. Often they don't speak in sentences. If you examine a phrase or sentence by itself you often must ask yourself, "What is he saying?" One would hope that the men and women working in such high places would be capable of speaking in ways that leave little doubt as to their meaning. If you think we aren't in trouble, just listen, observe and read.
Mr. Dickie
6/Aug/2010 8:19
