"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use." ~ Emily Post, Etiquette Expert

Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to our little time to visit out on the front porch here at the ole blogger ranch. It's good to have this time together here on this Thursday, September 10, 2015. I would advise us all to mind our manners as we are out and about going here and there over the hills and through the woods, or wherever it is that we travel. Folks are armed with these mega pixel smart phone picture taking devices and many love to post anyone they deem to be acting rude. I saw one the other day of some folks sitting in front of this particular individual at a football game. The folks immediately in front were all sprawled out making it next to impossible for those around them to see and enjoy the game. Rather than confront them they Facebooked and/or Instagrammed a photo out for the world to see. They do this at movie theaters, restaurants, at work, and almost any other public venue. You have a number of issues here. Is the person really being rude or is the person interpreting them as being rude? Shouldn't the folks being photographed with their images going viral at least know that this is happening? The answer in today's social media world is: Roll tape! No time to talk just post it while it is hot. I've seen some who even have posted photos of people waiting on them along with posted negative comments about their physical appearance. Really? That's when you would love to see one of the picture taker with a caption saying: "Who died and left you in charge?"

When I look out over the fruited plain of the political landscape I am immediately reminded of this sentiment: I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I've gotten to where I'm not even certain what it means to have the glass half full or half empty view. I do know this. People can say what they want to about this, that, and the other. They can play games with the numbers all day long. But, we are closing in on 100 million people who are out of the workforce. One hundred million. Unheard of in our history! That's a recovery to be proud of? Over 50 million are receiving ongoing assistance from the government. Oh yeah. They don't get counted because they have dropped out of the system. Now you know why we have such a low official unemployment rate. I'm not that bright folks but with people eligible to work but not working and no longer even counted in the system, I have a question for you. Who in the world is going to pay for the oceans of red that continue to be spent by our federal government? Who? We may soon get to that majestic full employment goal based on the official unemployment number, however, the number of people continuing to op out of the system continues to grow and it is staggering. Here's one you can take home. Leave it to us to be officially at full employment but not have enough people working to pay our bills. Sorry. I was in a sharing mode and like ole Humpty, it all came tumbling out.

I apologize to my wife for the preceding paragraph. She gets a headache when I write about political stuff. Hey. There's plenty who will disagree with my assessment. There are huge throngs of those who are still singing the same song for nearly eight years: "It's all Bush's fault." I got tired of that lyric about 8 years ago. Since I've already blown my typically rosy happy happy face for today let me just add another little ditty. I heard a respected former military leader say something pretty odd about the soon to be in-acted Iran nuclear agreement. He said it was better than nothing. That's the best he could come up with. Better than nothing? No list of positives. No list of advantages for the United States. Just a better than nothing assessment. This, by the way, is how the current administration sells most of what they get done. It may not be that good but it is better than nothing. That's extremely flimsy if you ask me. Oh yeah. To make the Saudis and the Israelis quiet down about this agreement which they see as a huge threat, well, we are going to see to it that they get tons of new bombs and other technologically advanced weaponry. This stuff would be laughable if it were not the reality of how these people are dealing with opposition and concerns regarding this so called better than nothing agreement. I was thinking about thinking about doing a funny story for the closing but this agreement popped into my mind and I felt like since I had already set the tone I might as well finish it off. Thankfully, God knows about it all. Those who think they are the masters of the future will one day know with certainty that God and God alone is Sovereign. Having reminded us of that makes me able to return to my glass half full attitude. Thanks for tuning in and may God bless us all and may He bless our nation. Amen. ....More later.