Nobody ever sees the heroes.

Today's Tids Issue 2,117
Opening Stuff:

I awoke upon a cotton candy cloud. I floated through ginger ale skies. Slipping off my sugary cloud, I slid down peppermint sticks into butterscotch ponds. I walked through chocolate flower fields. Finding sweetness in a sour world. While trying to stay on my diet. One serving of this sickly sweet Tid is well beyond our daily carbohydrate requirement of 300 grams. But, it feels great!

I was bothered this morning about the report of the homeless person who was stabbed trying to save a woman from a knife wielding assailant. The unknown man fell to the ground and lay there for over an hour before medical help arrived. During that time street cameras showed many people walk by, glance and move on, while blood streamed from his gut. A Good Samaritan with nothing on this earth, trying to give another a better life than his. A hero that nobody could see.

It will be entertaining TV today as unctuous lawmakers take center stage in an effort to belittle Financial execs. Ever the cowards, these Pols feel that Americans are so against the Wall Street barons that they can sink to lows never before known even to congress people. It should be a juicy afternoon. Would any of these faceoff a knife wielding savage?

And, in about 4 months or so these same self righteous hypocrites will be standing in line on Wall Street looking for campaign handouts from the bonus babies.

The Question:
Portugal was one of the richest countries of all during the era of the great Portuguese explorers. I as a kid was always fascinated by their accomplishments. Name the most famous.

The Headlines:
--Ford Posts $2.1 Million Profit On Strong Sales.
--Oil Company And Authorities Race To Control Slick That Threatens Four States.
--Procedural Vote Slows Passage Of financial regulatory Package; Dems Now Looking At Changes To “Bailout” Component; GOP Sys This Bill Will Pass And Be Stringer In Fight Against Bad Behavior On Wall Street.
--Congress Prepares For Embarrassment Of WS Execs.
--Calif Tech Police Raid Home Of Gizmodo Editor; May Be In reaction To Story Broken About New iPhone.
--Strong majority Of Americans Agree With Arizona Anti-Illegal Law.
--Porsche’s Highly Touted Just Released Panamera In total recall; Could Be Black Mark Against Company Out To Take Share from Maserati Quattroporte and Mercedes Benz CLS.

Back to More Stuff:

Do you get the sense that the medical drama “House” is turning into “Desperate Doctors”?

24-um: --President Logan was at his evil best. Is eye movements are among the best ever on TV. –And how about the weasel of the moment, President Allison. Frankly, I never liked the President. She made me feel irritable when she appeared. –I’m liking Chloe in her role. –But it is Dana, the woman who kept us all guessing, who has become the emerging centerpiece of this last great episode of the greatest program in TV history.

One of the things Dems like to do in the aftermath of the Health Care debacle is recall the Government run plans of SS and Medicare…and or several laws that apparently changed human inequities. Of course it is an irrelevant argument because absolutely nobody knows if we would or would not be better off without the two black hole programs which are not working very well financially at all. Or if natural evolution could change human garbage without a legal mandate. The Dems fail to take into consideration the indomitable spirit of American people and their resourcefulness in finding solutions without the assistance of big Government. They fail to understand that the heart of good people can always overcome. It is totally conceivable that without SS and Med we would have been a stronger than ever nation today.

What honest Wall Streeter wouldn’t want some regulations that keep the dishonest under control? An industry based on trust must rid itself of the untrustworthy.

I was a little disturbed about that stripe running down one side of Sergio Garcia’s trousers at the Zurich Open this past weekend. Worried that the athletic gear makers were plotting to infect the golf clothes industry with abominations I see on grown men walking in public. I was envisioning silky golf pants flopping in the breeze. Basketball style shirts with players names across the back. Where is Payne Stewart when you need him?

Through the Same Eyes: Chapter 68. –After my Sarah/Maggie left, I went back up to my room and bathroom. Nothing appeared disturbed. I wondered if she had seen Laura’s jeans in the closet. If she had, she would easily have connected them to my wife who was known by almost everybody in town to drop in from time to time. And he thought, if Sarah still was as under my control as she appeared she would definitely assume that. That’s the real question, isn’t it? What was she like last night? She certainly wasn’t reticent. In fact, she overwhelmed me for a change. She couldn’t get enough she attacked and attacked. She wore down these aging bones. I must have been out solid when she went up stairs. She showed no shame being there. She wasn’t look for me the wit, the intellectual, the shy appearing man who made her smile and feel comfortable. She was look for me the lust machine.
But, when she left me standing there in the bath room. She seemed different. Did she look guilty? Scared? Evasive?
My cell phone rang. Oh no, it was Laura. I hope she isn’t coming over. “Hi Laur!” I answered smilingly.
“I just saw your aging girl friend going down to the Sherriff’s office.”
“Don’t worry about her”, said matter-of-factly. One thing I don’t need is a hysterical Laura. Laura is very cool but capable of extreme weirdness when agitated.
“Don’t worry. I’ll stay cool. I’m coming over to clean your house. What do you want for dinner?”

Overkill Department:
I think almost everybody agrees that Blind Side was a fine movie and probably a very good book. But do we need any more of Michael Oher? He, an excellent human being, is about to publish his version of his story. And right after that, Liegh Ann Touhy and hubby Sean will bring forth their own memoir. Once again, the commerce watering down value.

From five to ten years ago during my time with a manufacturing industry magazine we were writing quite regularly about the need for the US machine shop industry to transform themselves from the commodity style product to the complex, super quality product. Software and amazing machines allowed these small companies to take on and accomplish formidable new challenges. Among the most visible of new opportunities was the arise of the medical component industry. Last Friday CBS News did a piece on a southern machine shop that beat the odds by moving from the traditional but now very fragile auto parts manufacturing to medical. Maybe a new Web news site that writes to consumers about coming economic changes in the world of industry would help prepare them for events heralded by the consumer media five-eight years later.

The Answer:
I’ve been to the fort and sailing academy of Prince Henry the Navigator which is at the most southwestern point of land in that narrow country. When standing n the cliffs looking westward you have a real sense of foreboding, about falling off the end of the earth. Your mind while staring into the depth of a black ocean pounding on the rocks far below marvels at the bravery of the history book titans - Ferdinand Magellan, Bartolemeu Dias and Vasca de Gama. There were 69 15-16th century Portuguese explorers, many with well known Rhode Island names like Andrade, Cunha, Escobar and Teixeira. Let’s hear it for the glory days of Portugal.

The End:
When I was in my late teens I mentioned proudly to my father (a son of a politician) that I was thinking of politics as a career. He then proceeded with a rant against the occupation with a torrent of four letter words that would make Wanda Sykes blush. So, I went into advertising, a nice honest occupation.

What will happen to the world as we know it when “24” fails to appear next year?