Idaho Conversation League

Jim Dee ’s sunny power line suggestion My three closest blog followers remarked that I’ve been quiet recently and wondered if I had nothing to write. I replied that I’ve been trying to get outside in the sun more, which reminded me of my friend Jim Dee ’s solar power suggestion: Two years ago, I stumbled onto Mr.’s Dee’s unique proposal . And with recent improvements in solar power efficiency, and a President who actually reads ten U.S. citizen letters handpicked by his staff each day, Mr. Dee’s suggestion is now more feasible than ever. Here is the jist of it, which; with his permission, I have paraphrased from his blog: "I had a moment of insight this morning and wanted to share. It does nothing less than solve the entire American/Mexican border issue in a true bipartisan way. Here's the deal: We take the entire length of the U.S./Mexican border, at a width of a good quarter mile wide or so, and privatize it -- sell it to the highest qualifi...

by Beatrice Mott Authors wishing to quote Eustace's books in their own writing make themselves an easy target for reasonable critics or hate organizations like the ADL. In this way, Mr. Mullins has done more harm to the movement than good. I learned this the long way. Having read Secrets , I drove down to Staunton, VA in the summer of 2006 and spent an afternoon talking with Mr. Mullins. My goal was to find the origin of several stories and statements which I could not reference from the text. Mr. Mullins was an elderly gentleman and he couldn't remember where he had found any of the material I was interested in. He simply replied: “It's all in the Library of Congress. Back then they would let me wander the stacks.” So I moved to D.C., a few blocks from the library and spent the better part of two years trying to retrace Mr. Mullins' footsteps. Prior to this I had had several years' experience as a researcher and was used to trying to find the prov...

Secret Lives of Meter Readers If you are looking for a long walk every day with not bad pay, maybe meter reading is the ticket. Generally, you get to spend a lot of peaceful time by yourself, plenty of serene reflecting space, unhindered by a bickering work crew. Simply dedicating yourself to reading meters all day can actually lead to a very ascetic lifestyle. When a vault into the earth is uncovered, great mysteries lie inside. Neighborhood kids dash over and want to spy. Newts and frogs, snakes, snails and polliwogs are all revealed from these tiny underground arenas. If the meter reader does not watch carefully, he may uncover a hornet's nest. Thus, most workers carry a medicine pouch within their toolkits. Meter reading routes are hard roads at first; but endurance soon builds up, as the man (or woman) becomes self-reliant. As he walks along, he strengthens his full character, all the way down to his stem cells. Striding along, his breathing becomes natural and he fin...

http://criggo.com/2010/01/28/lovin-those-acronyms/

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/archives/937?page=1 A Sun Magazine classic. Key Quote: “But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. It is very difficult to teach “the basics” anymore, because they really aren’t basic to the society we’ve made.”

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar, he shook the jar lightly.... The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.' The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. 'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recogn...

Beth and Ron had both had escaped from the mental institution in recent weeks, temporarily attaining the mythic freedom we often discussed in the sanitized atmosphere of our communal living room. Each of us had roommates in the open ward. Most were there for drug or anger-coping problems, but not me. No, I was there because my basketball dreams had deflated. The patients would sometimes play basketball in the dungy basement too; and there I still had much of the natural ballet flow with which I grew up. Mellaril stifled some of this; but the bigger problem was that I realized how doubtful it was that any basketball scouts would be following up on their scholarship offers, by peeking in on me at the drab mental institution. After several weeks of loitering there, I felt as if this wasn’t a place for me to make progress. So, I took a cue from Ron and went over to the nurse’s station to hang out for a final time. As the nurse dipped behind the partition to parse out a patients evening do...

A few decades ago, a good friend of mine, and his girlfriend broke up. They had been together for several years, and were quite close, but circumstances were such that it was time for them to split apart. They still had places in their hearts for each other though, and even after they moved to different states, they kept in touch once or twice a year. A few years passed, and they had not spoken for a while. Then one day, my friend received a letter from his old girlfriend’s sister. Before he even opened the letter, he sensed that she was no longer alive and the letter confirmed his sad intuition. Her next-door neighbor in a violent act murdered her, and I don’t know many more details than that. My friend has often been an eye-for-an-eye type of person. For several years, he actively petitioned the Governor of the state where she lived, pushing for the death penalty for the murderer. For a long time, I secretly disagreed with what he was doing and with his grim death-row outlook. Final...