thought for the day

[nagarifle]

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. ~Author Unknown

[nagarifle]

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! ~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836

[m24]

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!

Depends.

Regards

[Virendra S Rathore]

This one is my product
I wish to use this one as a slogan someday .. in a rally sorta thing may be

"Did you throw stones at the AK 47 wielding terrorists on 26/11 ?
Its time to pick up a gun.
Speak up for your right to self protection ...
your Right to Keep and Bear Arms
http://www.indiansforguns.com"

[nagarifle]

Two little girls, on their way home from Sunday school, were solemnly discussing the lesson. "Do you believe there is a devil?" asked one. "No," said the other promptly. "It's like Santa Claus: it's your father." ~Ladies' Home Journal, quoted in 2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs by Edward F. Murphy

[nagarifle]

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

[nagarifle]

I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart. ~Terri Guillemets

[nagarifle]

I'm Only a One-Star

Years ago I was talking to about 50 Army generals responsible for weapons and equipment purchases. When I raised the issue of professional integrity, one of them reminded me there's a big gap between the way things are and the way they ought to be.

"Look, if the chairman of the Appropriations Committee comes from a district that makes trucks," he said, "we're going to buy those trucks whether or not they're the best."

I suggested that was bribery. Without missing a beat, he said, "That's not bribery -- it's extortion!" The implication was, if they didn't cater to the politicians, they would pay a high price.

He then added, "That's the way it is, the way it always was, and the way it always will be."

"How can you sound so powerless?" I asked. "You're a general."

"Yeah," he said, "but I'm only a one-star."

I'm only a one-star. I hear this abdication of moral responsibility a lot.

Later I heard a similar claim of helplessness from a middle manager who protested my appeal to moral courage. "Do you really expect someone with a well-paying job and heavy family obligations to put it all at risk?"

"Yes, I do," I replied. "There are lots of people who would rather lose their job than their integrity." More than ever we need people to stand up and be counted.

When there's a gap between ideals and reality, people of character don't surrender their ideals. They fight for them. They work to change the way things are to the way they ought to be.

As Edward Everett Hale said, "It's true I am only one, but I am one. And the fact that I can't do everything will not prevent me from doing what I can do."

Michael Josephson

[nagarifle]

The Doctrine of Relative Filth
In the early nineties I was asked to spend a full day talking about ethics with the entire California Senate. I was their punishment. Three senators had been convicted the previous year, and voters had passed an initiative requiring legislators to receive education on ethical principles.

This was a high-profile, high-prestige program, and I didn’t want to be naïve about Sacramento’s political realities and rationalizations. I spent days interviewing senators and staffers beforehand.

During one interview, a senior staffer confided, "We need this program. People lie a lot up here."

I wondered if I should act surprised. "Lying in the nation’s capitol? I’m shocked!" But before I could respond, the staffer added, "I hardly ever lie."

"Gee," I thought, "do you hardly ever take bribes?"

Although his statement about lying sounded like a confession, he wasn’t embarrassed at all. In fact, he was proud. "Hardly ever lying" made him feel morally superior. In a culture where lying is common, the occasional liar feels like a saint. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

I’ve heard variations of this justification ("I’m not so bad as long as others are worse") so many times that I’ve given it a name: The Doctrine of Relative Filth.

It’s a rationalization used by cheating athletes and coaches, dishonest businessmen, and others to minimize their moral shortcomings by comparing themselves to others who have even lower standards.

What a pathetic defense! People of character aren’t satisfied being better than someone else. They strive to be the best they can.

Michael Josephson

[nagarifle]

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
It's getting so we all need a Miranda warning: "Anything you say can and will be used against you."

With today's technology, it's so easy to collect and disseminate pictures, words, and data captured by ever-present microphones and cameras, hard disks, and flash drives and then publish that information to the world by mass e-mails, YouTube, Internet blogs, or the endless replays in traditional print and broadcast media.

That's why we all know about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade when he was arrested for drunk driving, Michael Richards' n-word-laced rant against two hecklers at a comedy club, the anti-gay slurs by actor Isaiah Washington and NBA spokesman Tim Hardaway, and, of course, the sexist and racist description of a women’s college basketball team by Don Imus.

In each case, careers and reputations were badly damaged by the backlash to imprudent remarks. Many think these consequences were unfair. Shouldn't we be more forgiving about spontaneous expressions of unfiltered thoughts?

Putting the issue in that way misses the point. The real question is not whether we should forgive a person for a slip of the tongue, but how we should deal with someone whose words reveal hostile and hateful beliefs and attitudes. After all, the attributes of respect, love, kindness, and tolerance are matters of character. Doesn’t character count?

But how come some people lost their jobs and others didn't? To answer this we have to consider both context and content.

Imus and Hardaway were fired because they uttered their intolerant slurs in a public setting from platforms provided them by their employers, CBS and the NBA. Both organizations were made well aware of the fact that it wasn't just careless words that offended so many people; it was the racist, sexist, and homophobic attitudes those words revealed. The comments implicated their companies.

Although the other mentioned verbal miscreants didn't lose their jobs, their enduring sentence will be dealing with an unattractive image of intolerance and bigotry. And, I suppose, that’s fair.

Michael Josephson

[nagarifle]

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Mohandas Gandhi

[nagarifle]

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
Mohandas Gandhi

[nagarifle]

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
Mohandas Gandhi

[nagarifle]

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
Mohandas Gandhi

[goodboy_mentor]

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

Example: Arms Act 1959. As per our brilliant MHA, firearm license for self defense will be issued only if you are lucky to get a "provable" threat and threatener waits for 60 days till the license is issued. If you keep firearm as a precautionary measure for self defense without license you spend 7 years in jail. In other words the Constitutionally guaranteed right for self defense is only for the lucky ones who get "provable" threat and the threatener waits till the license is issued to the threatened. All those victims who are attacked without a threat have no right to self defence.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

Do we have freedom?

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

Is there any conscience left?

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.

Courts of justice have become practically useless. Conscience is almost dead. Such is the pathetic state of affairs that even Supreme Court says- "What can we do if our orders not obeyed" Reference: http://www.zeenews.com/news645542.html
http://www.legalindia.in/what-can-we-do ... apex-court
http://www.lawyersclubindia.com/forum/W ... -22324.asp