Thought For The Day – Who Packed Your Chute?

From Larry Meredith:

I saw this years ago, and it’s a great story!! Very well worth the time to read and share!

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb
ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, ‘ You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!

‘How in the world did you know that?’ asked Plumb.

‘I packed your parachute,’ the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude.

The man pumped his hand and said, ‘I guess it worked!’

Plumb assured him, ‘It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.’

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, ‘I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good
morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.’ Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, ‘Who’s packing your parachute?’ Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what isreally important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone onsomething wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.

I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my parachute. And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped pack yours! Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us without writing a word. Maybe this could explain it! When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do – you forward jokes. And to let you know that you are still remembered, you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get? A forwarded joke. So, my friend, next time when you get a joke, don’t think that you’ve been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you’ve been thought of today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile, just helping you pack your parachute.

Jim Rice Saves Jonathan Keane

Jim Rice Saves Jonathan Keane

Fast, effective action saves lives.
Be alert.
Respond promptly.
Be effective.

The date was August 7, 1982. The Red Sox were playing an afternoon game at Boston’s Fenway Park. Suddenly a screaming foul ball whizzed past the first base dugout and Red Sox left fielder Jim Rice heard the unmistakable sound of ball striking flesh. Looking around the corner of the dugout into the stands Rice saw 4 year old Jonathan Keane bleeding profusely from his head.

Realizing in a split second that it would take several minutes for park EMT’s to get to the scene, the future Hall of Famer sprang into action. Rice leaped over the railing into the stands, cradled the young fan into his arms and carried the boy into the dugout where he received immediate attention from the team’s medical staff. Within just a few minutes Jonathan was rushed to the hospital where doctors credited Rice with saving the boys life. Jim Rice played the rest of the game in a blood stained uniform, a true badge of courage.
(Written by D.J. McCoy)

(*** Postscript: Jonathan is 41 years old now and has no memory of the incident. His only reminder is a small scar above his right eye).

Trust Me Not

Trust Me Not

This is my experience in life.
As soon as someone says, “Trust me.” I don’t.
He is not trusting me to look for myself.
Why should I trust him to look and conclude for me?

Palm Oil Deforestation

Palm Oil Deforestation

This morning I received a forwarded email from Greenpeace and one directly from SumOfUs re palm oil and orangutangs. The image and linked petition is from SumOfUs and here is the email from GreenPeace:

My name is Emma Thompson. You may know me from films like Love Actually or Sense and Sensibility…or, you may not have the foggiest idea who I am. But today I’m writing to you as a Greenpeace supporter, like you.

Over the years I have been truly moved by everything we have achieved to protect the world’s rainforests and infuriated by companies that have chosen not to play their part. They promised that by 2020 rainforests would not be destroyed to grow acre upon acre of palm oil plantations. Palm oil that is in over half the products on our supermarket shelves.

That means we have 500 days to get companies to stick to that promise.

Which is why I have narrated a short, powerful animation following the journey of a little girl and her orangutan friend, Rang-tan. I hope this film makes more people realise the weight of this moment and the opportunity we have to pull back the curtain on unsustainable palm oil for the sake of Indonesia’s rainforests and the orangutans that live there.

Rang-tan is a short video we need people to see so that they know what the palm oil industry is doing to our rainforests and the orangutans living there. Please, sign the petition and watch the video.

Rang-tan shines a light on the impact the palm oil industry is having on the rainforests of Indonesia when they are cleared to grow palm oil that is used as an ingredient in our chocolates, soaps and snacks.

This year we can spread this story far and wide. The more people that see Rang-tan the more pressure we can put on brands and companies in the next 500 days.

Can you share Rang-tan, so that more people see what the palm oil industry is doing to our rainforests and the orangutans that live there?

Watch and share Rang-Tan here

We have fought banks funding deforestation and won. We have told brands to drop companies who destroy forests to make paper – they have. And we have taken giant leaps to clean up an industry that is driving orangutans to extinction.

Let’s get people talking and build on the monumental achievements we have had in the last decade. This is our moment to tell the world that now is the time to stand up for our forests and all the Rang-tans that rely on them for their survival.

Thank you,

Dame Emma Thompson

https://actions.sumofus.org/a/tell-rspo-to-sanction-nestle-and-pepsi-business-partner-indofood

Greens, experts echo Bob Katter and CEC on full bank separation

The Australian Greens on 8 August announced their policy for a full separation of Australia’s too-big-to-fail banks. The Greens have long expressed support for ending vertical integration in banking; their announcement clarifies that their policy is for the complete, Glass-Steagall-style separation of traditional commercial banking from all other financial activities that Bob Katter MP introduced legislation for on 25 June, the Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill 2018.

“The Greens are sick and tired of regulators fiddling around the edges”, Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale and financial spokesman Senator Peter Whish-Wilson announced via email. “They’ve been doing it for decades. That’s why we’re announcing today that the first step to fix the big banks is to break them up.”

The Greens plan goes slightly further than Bob Katter’s bill, in that it requires all financial institutions to operate in only one of four areas:

Deposit and loans, including savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages and business lending

Large-scale superannuation funds, including default funds and choice funds

Insurance, including life insurance and general product insurance

Complex financial products used for investment banking, hedge funds, self-managed super funds, financial markets, auditing and liquidation

Bob Katter’s Separation of Banks bill separates the first category, which is traditional banking, from the other three. The Greens would also require any non-bank institutions to do business in only one of the other three categories. While the separation of the first category of traditional banking is the most important, the Greens’ policy would end many of the conflicts of interest that riddle Australia’s vertically-integrated financial system.

The Greens also plan to strip powers from the current, failed regulators: “The second part of our plan ensures customer safety, by handing over regulation of the sector to the ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission]. The current regulators, ASIC [Australian Securities and Investments Commission] and APRA [Australian Prudential Regulation Authority], have shown over and over again that they are more interested in keeping the big banks happy than protecting customers. This sector needs a powerful regulator who stands up for us.”

The Greens’ announcement immediately boosted the debate about bank separation, which has been raging globally for years, but for which the Citizens Electoral Council has been a lone voice in Australia until the past 12 months. Around the world, many experts are firm advocates of Glass-Steagall, including Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Nigel Lawson, US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation vice chairman Thomas Hoenig, and former Citigroup chiefs Sanford Weill and John Reed. Following the announcement from the Greens, Australian experts spoke up in support.

In The Australian on 9 August, Adam Creighton quoted former ACCC chairman Allan Fels’s endorsement of full separation. Professor Fels reiterated his April 2018 call for an end to vertical integration: “There are a number of serious structural issues that need to be considered, the first and most obvious is the separation of the activity of creating financial products and then offering so-called independent advisory services to customers on what are the best products,” he said. The experienced regulator also addressed the need to end so-called horizontal integration, by which risky trading activities get subsidised by bank deposits: “A second very important one is whether there should be a structural separation between traditional banking activities and the more risky investment activities. … Banks benefit from the implicit guarantee on their deposit liabilities which flows into their trading activities.”

Fels acknowledged the arguments that customers should be more careful and that more competition was needed in the banking system. “But what can’t be ignored is [the] deep structural conflict of interest between profit maximising activities and the need to provide essential services”, he said. “Some aspects of banking are comparable to a utility, everyone needs banking services to be available, to that extent it’s an essential service.”

The 8 August Guardian reported other expert endorsements: “The former ASIC chief economist Alex Erskine described the package as ‘comprehensive’ and said it ‘directly addresses several of the failures inherent in the existing regulatory architecture’ revealed by the banking royal commission.

“Andy Schmulow, a financial regulation expert at the University of Western Australia, said the policy was ‘far-reaching’. ‘But I cannot see lesser responses breaking the cycle of misconduct-cum-consumer abuse followed by apologies and undertakings to put things right, followed by further instances of misconduct,’ he said.”

The Citizens Electoral Council had criticised Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson for his statement in the Senate on 14 February that “I do trust the regulators—people like APRA, the Reserve Bank and ASIC”. Whish-Wilson was justifying the Greens’ support for the APRA crisis resolution “bail-in” bill that the government pushed through the Senate without a formal vote and with just eight Senators present, which the CEC had warned opened a back door for APRA to bail in deposits in order to prop up failing banks in a future financial crisis (similar legislation in India has just been withdrawn due to the concern about deposits).

Senator Whish-Wilson’s declaration of trust preceded the hearings of the banking royal commission, however. With his announcement of the policy for complete bank separation, it seems Senator Whish-Wilson has lost his faith in APRA. “Our regulation of the financial services and of the big banks has failed,” Mr Whish-Wilson said in a press conference. “There’s been a lot of evidence that our regulators both across ASIC and APRA have been captured.”

The CEC welcomes the Greens’ policy of full bank separation. As yet, the Greens have not indicated any plans for legislation, but there is already legislation to achieve full separation, which is Bob Katter’s private member’s bill. That Bob Katter, the CEC and the Greens can agree on full bank separation is illustrative of the bipartisan nature of the support for Glass-Steagall around the world, which spans the entire political spectrum, from “left” to “right”. Bob Katter greeted the Greens’ announcement with this wry 9 August Facebook post: “Normally I like my greens with a T-bone steak but it’s good to see them and former ACCC Chair, Allan Fels backing policy for full bank separation.”

<a href=”https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6136″ target=”_blank”> https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6136</a>

Beat the drought: build Bradfield

Bradfield_Irrigation_Scheme

It really gets my goat that the people we have elected to provide leadership are doing far from a good job at it! Here is a plan that was tabled DECADES ago that would provide incalculable benefit yet the powers that be engage in petty and not so petty scams and outrages, altered priorities and destructive actions!

THERE are renewed calls for the Bradfield Scheme to be developed as a way for Australia to mitigate future droughts and to help meet its future obligations as a food supplier to the world.

The massive agricultural scheme first proposed in 1938 aims to irrigate a staggering 1000 million hectares of land across Queensland and South Australia.

The calls follow the Queensland Government’s announcement that it would develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU) as “a transparent and comprehensive assessment pathway” for the proposed $1.98 billion Etheridge Integrated Agriculture Project in the Gilbert River catchment near Georgetown.

The Integrated Food and Energy Development (IFED) project is expected to include the development of sugar and guar industries in addition to cattle, meat processing and aquaculture over 50,000 hectares.

The much larger Bradfield scheme was envisaged by Dr John Bradfield, a Queensland-born civil engineer, who also designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Brisbane’s Story Bridge.

The scheme would divert water from the Tully, the Herbert and the Burdekin Rivers, across the Great Dividing Range into the Flinders and then the Thomson River. The water would flow to eventually fill Lake Eyre.

Townsville based industry identity Tim McHugh, from livestock and property agency Hogan and McHugh, said Australia should revisit the long planned Bradfield Scheme as a way of positioning Australia as a major, and more importantly, reliable food supplier regardless of seasonal extremes.

“We are now in the worst drought I think that Australia has ever experienced, certainly in the lifetimes of the people who would directly benefit from Bradfield being developed,” Mr McHugh said.

“Bradfield remains the greatest agricultural project Australia could ever hope for and would impact across all of agriculture and the economies of the regions.

“The economic activity for all of Australia would be fantastic. It would allow the use and further development of existing infrastructure and result in new infrastructure and we really would be far better placed to be a food supplier to the world.”

Although officially abandoned in 1947 because of discrepancies in both claimed water flows and topography, the still popular Bradfield Scheme is regularly promoted. Advocates include Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, and former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who proposed a reduced scale version of the scheme.

Under the Etheridge Integrated Agriculture Project water would be diverted from the Einasleigh and Etheridge rivers into two artificial off-stream lakes and channelled to pumping stations which supply irrigation.

The project is expected to create more than 1700 jobs during construction and more than 1000 jobs during operation.

Substantial numbers of those jobs are expected to be made available to local Indigenous people.

<a href=”https://australiannationalreview.com/2018/08/08/beat-the-drought-build-bradfield/” target=”_blank”> https://australiannationalreview.com/2018/08/08/beat-the-drought-build-bradfield/</a>