Corning Ware, one of life’s simple pleasures.

I enjoy cooking, which is good since my wife informed me that the skill was one of several requirements for marriage (strong sarcastic sense of humor was another). Seems a man in the kitchen is worth two behind lawn mowers or six watching football.

Of course, the plan might’ve run aground since on our first Thanksgiving (the one before we wed), I managed to punch a hole in the roasting pan filled with hot turkey drippings while it was in the hot gas oven. A smoking puddle formed across the bottom of the oven. Yes, oh my, or perhaps OMG!

With less luck, I might’ve burned down the apartment complex, but as it worked out, I reacted fast enough to smother it, the turkey was delicious and Ruth forgiving. Okay, at first, I groveled some, but she still allows me to cook turkey, demanding however, that I not use an aluminum throwaway roasting pan.

All of this brings me to the point of this discourse. Recently, I discovered a Corning Ware Electomatic skillet on EBay. This was a necessity in our home when I was a boy. My mother used hers until it exploded, or something, which required fifteen years of continuous daily use, probably.

When I sent the link to Ruth, the skillet became a must have. We did, got it, and I discovered a couple of things.

First, why my mother loved hers. It’s terrific, easy to use and turns out a well-prepared meal, meaning not under- or overcooked.

Second, what is wrong with corporate America (no that‘s not the new name of our nation, yet. Give the CEOs enough time and leverage, billion dollar bonuses, and. . .).

What I believe corporations have done is to put low costs and high profits ahead of customers and their ultimate satisfaction. Corporate marketers led us down the crimson path of promises--or would that be a yellow brick road--with advertising designed to brainwash us into buying whatever stupid, cheap crap they designed and manufactured.

Like disposable aluminum roasting pans.

Sometime back about 10 to 15 years ago, Corning Ware veered off the path of stable success (less profitable perhaps) and joined the fad parade. Instead of sticking with the tried and true, they abandoned it for high profits and low cost.

Don’t think it’s true? How is Corning Ware doing today?

I say bring back items such as the Corning Ware Electromatics line of kitchenware. Make it so it will last for a decade or more and see what happens.

The throwaway mentality that brought us to the brink of financial destruction should die a thousand painful deaths and be forgotten.

A Second Walk Through the Garden of Faith - Part 1

I had no plan to revisit this issue until I read in today’s paper, an article regarding the revision of Christianity due to the many discrepancies in the bible.

I regard the Old Testament as a cultural history of a line of kings, their followers and the means of keeping the status quo of the time. This required using God as a weapon. Of course their understanding of a Supreme Being was vastly different than if the concept were first verbalized now.

Three to four thousand years ago, a flash of lightning was frightening. When a child was snatched off a riverbank by a Nile crocodile, it was deemed an act of God. Disease decimated populations repeatedly. Without an understanding of the cause, the effect needed to be explained to keep communities from fragmenting.

Certain foods poisoned people if not prepared safely, or cooked thoroughly, so laws of God were written to keep people alive. Circumcision prevented disease; therefore it was mandated by God. The list goes on, and people lived longer and healthier.

One might think that God got bad press due to all of this, but I believe the opposite is true. Who is not awed by the sight of a star filled sky at night? Who is not awed by the idea that two single cells can join and create a human or any other living thing? The entire process is magnificent!

Yet it is troubling too. The creation of sentient life creates a vacuum. A void where questions dominate and demand answers. Why life? Why am I here? What should I do? Why is anything alive? Does life serve some purpose for us or not? If not does it serve a purpose for the Creator of the universe? If that’s the answer, why should I care, or do I have no other option but to care?

Here’s where the founders of religion saved us all. They recognized that all humans had faith. Faith that there was purpose, hope, dream fulfillment. Okay, some of them used others for personal gain. Some committed crimes in the name of religion, distorted faith into a tool for evil. Others created Hell to explain and balance such behavior against its opposite.

The words written down to explain all of this and more were penned by men. Some were faithful to the original ideals, some were not. We cannot separate the two from the documents we now possess. We can recognize this simple truth and use faith to interpret what we read and believe to fit our personal needs on a daily basis.

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A Second Walk Through the Garden of Faith - Part 2

The foundation of Christianity took what was then known about faith and God to a new level. A man many of us believe to be the Son of God, once walked the earth among a people of faith who were downtrodden by both the occupiers of their country and their own religious leaders.

It was a horribly difficult time for a majority of the people. There was no middle class. 95% of the population could not read or write at all and many who could had skills limited to what was absolutely essential for their daily existence--existence being the key word. They obeyed, or suffered. There was no middle of the road to walk that might provide a better life for them and their families. There was no escape. You were either a member of the ruling religious class/sect, or not. A Roman citizen or a servant/slave.

Then, one man preached that He knew a better way. Follow me, He claims, and I will give you salvation. Skeptics abounded, but a few for whatever personal reason, decided He offered them a choice worth trying.

What was His plan? Its foundation was simple. Every man and woman is equal in the “eyes” of God. Therefore, the rulers were wrong and needed to be excised from society. Yet, He understood the impossibility of His mission or ministry (most of what people knew back then fell into one of two categories: commerce or religion).

He also knew that everyone had faith, needed to draw on faith to survive.

As more people followed Him, listening to His words, experiencing acceptance in ways never before available, sharing and nurturing each other, His small original group became a movement. But like anything new, there were detractors within who began to feel threatened. They understood that the authorities would not allow this new movement to prosper and grow. All men and women could not be equals.

At the time, the detractors won, but that time, killing the leader only strengthened to movement. Perhaps, this is where the power that created us all stepped in, and the faith based movement became an indelible religion that grew exponentially, underground at first, until it conquered Rome itself.

The New Testament became the documentation of all that transpired during those early years. And like anything written by men, it too was edited repeatedly until truth, half-truths and untruths blended into a homogenized version of the original oral histories.

The debate rages eternally onward regarding the divinity of the religion’s founder. For me, this is distraction from the message.

All men and woman are equals.

The founder’s purpose was the recreation of society so all of us might live together in peace and harmony. Some might see this as an impossible utopia or a threat to their way of life. The founder did not, nor did His followers.

Unfortunately, by creating religion, the ideals were honed and sculpted to fit the criteria of the men who did the creating, which was empire building. Empires do not get built by a society of equals. It gets built on the backs of the less fortunate, such as the uneducated and superstitious. It is built on their blood and sacrifice so the ruling elite can once again reign supreme.

I do not claim knowledge about, nor do I refute the claim that the founder was divine or if claiming His divinity guarantees afterlife salvation. I do state categorically, that His message has been and still is being ignored, or convoluted, and therefore, it and the religion created around it, may die the slow death of history.

Remember this: All men and women are equals. No exceptions.

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What are you doing?

Only about five years ago, when a stranger asked “What are you doing?” the answer, if they got one at all, was often: “It’s really none of your business.” Now, we’re obligated to respond if we want to participate in the new world of communication.

The internet has given family, friends, and strangers access to our lives in ways that feeds the voyeur in us all. Cell phones too are tools for voyeurism. Never in history could we or would we interrupt another person’s life as frequently and for such triviality as we do now.

“Hi, I’m in the post office, or Wal-Mart, or anywhere standing on line, what are you doing?” Answer: “Oh, do you know anyone there?” or some such miscellaneous chatter. Perhaps the answer should be, “Being forced to listen to your verbal diarrhea. Call back when you have something important to talk about.”

The irony is that so many of us seem pleased even excited about these changes. Apparently, the concept of privacy was misguided in its conception and application until now when privacy is lost as soon as you answer the question, “What are you doing?” Or answer the phone standing in line anywhere.

The younger generation of adults, Gen-X, cannot now escape their parents. Unlike in the past, when young adults could be alone whenever and often wherever they wanted, now the internet and cell phones have stripped that away.

Technology has blended generations into a homogeneous melting pot of opinions so we are all of one generation spanning ages 5 to 105. This too was once unimaginable and, I think, undesirable--at least by the youngest among us--but now inescapable.

Not only is Big Brother watching, but so too are mom and dad, grandmother, grandfather, sisters, brothers and even your ex.

Google and Yahoo, MSN all kept records of where you go, what you do there, the words you write, pictures you post so they can sell that information to advertisers who will then use your innocent desire to express yourself against you.

Oh, it’s a brave new world, Yuk yuk. Wait! Is that you Google Earth pictured while nude sunbathing in the privacy of your backyard?

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A Wolf in the Family

Several days ago, I discovered that I had a German ancestor (okay, I have thousands of German ancestors, and in fact, most of my ancestors are German) with the surname Wolf.

Well, that’s cool, I thought. Maybe it signifies something important like a brutal warrior.

Not long ago, I wrote a blog entry about a practical joke my father pulled on my sister and me when we were too young to do anything, other than scream, wet our pants and run like hell, once we got our legs working again. You see, the Wolf I found in my family history is on his side of the tree and not really that many branches over his head.

Of course, since I was looking at a German surname with its roots in Wolff, Wolffe, Wulf, and Wulfe, there was a better than even chance the English definition would be something like barn door, close it quickly ‘cause the wolf is approaching and the hens are loose.

After several minutes of digging through piles of books, file folders and reams of loose paper, I found my copy of German American Names by George Jones (yes, Jones, and that is his real name, I think) and settled back into an antique midwife’s rocker (no, no need for a midwife in our house unless she can organize 5000 plus books, etc, then she‘s hired).

With the anticipation of a scratch-off lottery ticket addict, I paged into the book seeking the section of W surnames. And finally, there it was Wolff, Wolfe, Wulf and Wolf meant, well wolf. Originating from Wolfanger, which is Wolf catcher, or from a guy who really needed a body shave.

After anticipating the heroic adventures of an old time knight with a ferocious beast emblazoned across his breast plate and shield, I felt let down. But, then I considered the wolf in nature, and imagined the courage required to catch a wolf 1000 years ago, and vindication pulsed through my blogging veins.

What a difference between then and now!

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How to Save the USPS

Two years ago, the leadership of the USPS decided to raise rates for international shipping by as much as 500%. For a small business such as our internet store, the result was an immediate 50% reduction of international sales. Since those sales represented 30% of our overall sales, that hurt and still does hurt our business’ bottom line.

Of course, the leadership also raised domestic rates, including the use of a clever tactic termed Flat Rate Priority Mail. Often, the flat rate costs substantially more to ship an item than normal calculated-by-weight priority mail. In order to even offer an item for sale, we must not only weigh the item, but also determine which rate to use.

The leadership also authorized the purchase of priority mail boxes that would be free to consumers. These boxes should be eliminated.

The rate for the service termed delivery confirmation was increased by 100+percentage from $.35 to $.75. For us, as small business owners, that meant we could no longer afford a service we had previously used on every package we shipped. Now, we use this service only when we ship to areas where we experienced a high lost-package rate, such as NYC.

USPS leadership designed several new forms for additional services. Some of these are basically duplicates of other forms needed such as insurance. There is now one form for items valued at under $200.00 and one for items valued over $200.00, even though the forms carry the same information and are virtually identical. The same is true for several other services, like customs forms (above forms should be made into one form).

Last week we had a customer visiting Canada ask if we could ship a book to arrive by week’s end. We investigated and learned the cost for global express mail would total 64.25. Surprisingly, our customer agreed and was excited she would have the book in time for her husband’s birthday last Friday.
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We took the book to post office, filled in two forms and sent it off believing that we had made a new customer happy.

Thursday, the book was returned because the USPS has an arrangement with Fed-Ex to deliver global express mail and Fed-Ex has yet a third form that needed to be used to complete the transaction.

We lost a customer, which is not something any business can afford right now. Because of this and despite the fact that we were refunded the shipping charges, we will not offer global express mail to a customer in the future.

What happened? No one at our local post office was trained in the redundant paperwork needed to be done to complete this transaction. Three different employees confirmed they they’d never before seen that third form.

Here is another way to fix USPS: use one form for everything. Surely, there is someone clever enough to design such a form and include on it data that works for Fed-Ex too. As they are now, most forms ask exactly the same information: sender, recipient, contents and value.

Of course, an additional way to save USPS money would be to eliminate layers of high and middle management. Many post offices have several supervisors along with a postmaster. None of the supervisory staff work the counters when customers are lined up waiting for service.

Simplification of forms, elimination of duplication, elimination of free shipping boxes, and a reduction of top-heavy management will all help bring USPS into the black.

However, there is one more ingredient, lower prices! Internet sales are the future of business. All of us business people using the internet depend on services such as USPS, and lose customers every time those service providers increase the cost of shipping. We lose, you lose.

We can only afford to absorb a certain amount before we are forced to pass on rate hikes to our customers. As far as I am concerned, I do not think we should have to absorb a penny of those costs since the increases have to do more with paying salaries such as the $850,000.00 for the Postmaster General, and all of the other items I have described above.


<--------------- Combine into one form.

More on Mickey Spillane

During the short span of time I spent with him, I learned that Mickey was determined to be true to his own vision of himself. It sounds easy, but I think many of us get distracted and don’t succeed to the degree we might want to, if we cared about the concept to begin with.

It seems that when he felt his ego was guiding him, rather than the better forces of nature, he would do some clean up work at his church, or some other mundane task you might think a world famous writer would avoid.

When it was pointed out to him once, he admitted that he hadn’t been feeling very humble and believed that to be weakness he didn’t value in himself. So he picked up a rake and cleared leaves from the church property’s front yard.

He also had a strong New York sense of humor. Which, I think of as often subtle, yet takes advantage of presented absurdity when such can be exploited.

Mickey expressed this perfectly while participating in a writer’s conference. I believe he was 80 at the time. An attendee handed Mickey a postcard and asked him to write on the back his secret for living a long life.

I own the card, and have included it for you to see his answer: Don’t Die!

Of course, he signed it too, as if to be certain that no one was mistaken about who provided the astute response.

Like a Film of Oil on Still Water - Defining Faith

Robert Persig, in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance revealed that quality happens in the moment before one consciously accepts the quality of an observation.

Understanding the concept requires reaching into an area of thought without a physical realm supporting it. I can feel the moment inside, but I cannot touch it or define where it lies. For me it is rather eerie in an exciting way. It makes me feel joyful, fills me with a brief glimpse of wonder, knowledge that there is so much more to know and learn than what we detect with our five physical senses.

There is a strong parallel between the knowledge of quality and faith. Therefore, like quality, one does not need to define faith. I mean, faith is assuming that when you go to bed you will wake the following day. Faith lies beneath the surface. It is not an object, a concept, or even a definition.

While still a small boy, I learned the story of the mustard seed. Once I comprehended the meaning of the parable, I knew the truth of faith, and later declared all other attempts at defining faith to be false.

As a boy, I began questioning religion while I went about the tasks of following the teachers who seemed to contradict that knowledge. What the mustard seed taught called into question the teachings of men. The candles I carried to the altar burned brightly, shimmered gold statues, and cast wavering shadows that I thought hid something with each breath cast by speakers.

Then, I knew that no one could preach faith. Nor could one teach faith and certainly one could not use the threat of punishment as a means of enforcing faith, or forcing a nonbeliever to believe and gain faith.

Declaring that an intermediary god or God can and will lead one to a life of faith and the alleged rewards after life is completed, reminds me of a thin film of oil on still water.

Such faith shimmers under sunlight, offering rainbows of hope through an addiction of need fulfillment. However, if you desire to get a taste of true faith, you must first gently brush aside the oil, as you would do to relieve thirst. What is revealed is something profoundly intangible as is the life sustaining nourishment provided by water. Not something, that can be learned, or taught.

While we travel through life, we walk a chosen path. This is easily understood by revisiting the small seemingly unimportant events or decisions that led each of us to where we are right now. Some we could have avoided, some not.

Events as simple as walking through the wrong door and meeting a person we would not have met should we have taken the correct door fill everyday life. The question now is which was the correct door and why did I choose it?

We all have faith. We are born with it, and we will die with it, but will we use it correctly between the two ends?

If you have true faith, you do not have fear. They cannot coexist.

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