Thoughts By Ben Stein

I know this e-mail that has gone around is a bit old and many of you many have already read it, but for those who haven't and if you want to enjoy a good bit of writing again, here it is:

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary, Sunday, 12/18/05.
Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?
I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young, it's not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.
But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to. In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.
She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"
In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about and we said OK.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.
I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.
Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.
Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.
Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

GOT A JOB!!!

I am very happy to report that as of this morning (Wednesday October 18, 2006), I accepted an offer to work! Fortunately, I will not look anywhere like the guy in the picture to the left.

On Friday October 13 (Yes, Friday the 13th), I had a great interview with transportation company in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. The person in charge of the department I was applying for was a rather jolly guy with a great sense of humor and he had two younger people, about my age, sit-in on the interview. They asked some good questions and supplied a wealth of information about the company. I had heard about this company in my past transportation jobs as they were a competitor.

Some of the things that impressed me were: 1) the owner of the company has an open door policy that any employee can walk in and talk to him about anything at anytime, 2) the owner still comes in everyday at 8:00am and works a full day, 3) they are a very family orientated company that has barbeques, picnics, and holiday parties, 4) they are growing by 20% every year, 5) this growth will provide tremendous opportunities for advancement, 6) everyone dresses BUSINESS FORMAL Monday through Thursday and Casual on Friday (they provide a professional atmosphere and pay attention to image), and 7) they make all potential employees go through a drug test.

The position I will be working is a multi-dimensional job where I will be wearing several hats including Collections (Account Receivable), Claims, Credit, Customer Service, Pricing, and Tracking/Tracing. This will play well to my background and will allow everyday to be a different day, rather than doing the same thing over and over everyday. It will take a little time to get use to the business formal dress code as I have been use to wearing jeans and such at my present job.

My last day at my present company, which is shutting d0wn, is this Friday October 20 and I will be starting my new job on Monday October 30. This is VERY good for me as I will have a week off to get some stuff done and relax a little after two months of hard job search. Also, I will not be elligible for vacation until January of 2008! I am happy that they will be giving me 2 weeks then, but in the meantime, if I want to take a day off, they will give it to me, only unpaid.

So I am very grateful to God for blessing me with this opportunity and am also happy to have this job search finally over! I hope that you will not be reading about my next employment again as I intend to make a career at this job opportuniy and do not want to go through unemployment again!

Kids in Church

3-year-old Reese:"Our Father, Who does art in heaven, Harold is His name. Amen."

A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am.

"After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."

I had been teaching my three-year old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord's Prayer for several evenings at bedtime. She would repeat after me the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer: "Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us from E-mail."

One particular four-year-old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service,"And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother, Joel, were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked. Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See those two men standing by the door? They're hushers."

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.' Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand. "Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked. "He died and went to Heaven," the Dad replied. The boy thought a moment and then said, "Did God throw him back down?"

A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"

English Hospitality

An American tourist in London decides to skip his tour group and explore the city on his own. He wanders around, seeing the sights, and occasionally stops at a quaint pub to soak up the local culture, chat with the lads and have a pint of Guinness.
After a while he finds himself in a very high class neighbourhood with big, stately, residences, no pubs, no shops, no restaurants, and worst of all, no public toilets. He really, really, has to go after all those Guinnesses.
He finds a narrow side street, with high walls surrounding the adjacent buildings and decides to use the wall to solve his problem.
As he is unzipping, he is tapped on the shoulder by a London Bobby, who says, "I say, sir, you simply cannot do that here, you know."
"I'm very sorry, officer," replies the American, "but I really, really have to go and I just can't find a public toilet."
"Ah, yes," said the bobby. "Just follow me."
He leads him to a back alley, then along a wall to a gate, which he opens.
"In there," points the bobby. "Whiz away sir, anywhere you want."
The American enters and finds himself in the most beautiful garden he has ever seen. Manicured grass lawns, statuary, fountains, sculpted > hedges, and huge beds of gorgeous flowers, all in perfect bloom. Since he has the cop's blessing, he unburdens himself and is greatly relieved.
As he goes back through the gate, he says to the bobby, "That was really decent of you. Is that what you call English hospitality?"
"No, sir" replies the policeman, "That is what we call the French Embassy."

The Serenity Prayer

A spiritual group has taught me the true value of this prayer. I have used it MANY times to help me through my trials and tribulations with trying to find a job. I hope it may be of some help to you as well!

Job Search Part II

It has been somewhere around 7-8 weeks since I found out my fate at my present company and still no job to speak of.
Since work is so slow in the office, shutting down the business, I spend 4-5 hours a day looking for a job. I have resumes posted on about 7-8 websites, including Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. To top it all off, I have submitted my resume to over 95 postings I have seen on these sites! Ninety-five, can you believe that?!
Well, I have had a few interviews during this time. The first was for sales position that was cleverly disguised as a "Marketing Representative" position. I also had an interview with company that sold health insurance to small businesses and people who work for themselves. This position entailed working on a 100% commission basis and they had you sell and do some marketing while working for yourself with qualified leads that they gave you and you generated through your marketing efforts. Needless to say, they wanted you to go out and spend your money and sell their services and after all of your hardwork, you might get a commission after all of your work and they risk little. Not a great opportunity, though it was tempting and I spoke to several people about this, including my wife, my brother (who is a successful businessman with his own company), and my brother's friend who sold insurance.
So I did have a GREAT interview with a company that is involved with home delivery. I went into this interview not knowing much about the company nor anything about the position. This nice lady from HR sat me down, asked some questions that I feel I answered really well, and explained the company to me. I liked the position because it entailed me combining my sales and marketing experience. I liked the company because it is growing and is hiring for this position because they have come over-burdened with business! Furthermore, I like the philosophies of the company, like business casual attire and casual day on Mondays and Fridays. Everything about this position looked great.
Well I spoke to my contact a week after the interview because she said that I should hear from her within a week and I did not get a call from her. She said that the job had been put on hold, but that she if she were a betting woman, that she is sure they are going to hire someone for it in the next couple of weeks as the position has needed to be filled for several months. The best part: she said that of everyone she interviewed for the position, she referred ME for the job! I know she interviews all day and that it wasn't like I was the only person she did interview. In fact she mentioned during the interview that she did interview one person with a Masters in Marketing. She said to wait a couple of weeks and contact the person in charge of that department.
I waited a week, then mailed my new contact a letter explaining my interest in the position and that I would follow-up in a week. This past Tuesday I left a voicemail for this contact and have not heard back. I have it written on my calendar to call him again on Monday.
In the interim, I had a phone interview with another company on Tuesday. I submitted my resume to them for a General Manager position for a new office they are looking to open soon. This interview went equally well and liked the guy I interviewed with. The company has a great future and some very interesting positions it is hiring for. Although I was not quite qualified for the General Manager's job, one of the other positions is Sales, which I have said all along that I would only go back to Sales if the opportunity were almost perfect. This position could fit my criteria for almost perfect.
This morning, I got a call from a transportation company who saw my resume posted on a job website. They said they also have a few positions open and would like to interview me to see if a fit may be there. I know a little about this company, as it was one of my competitors when I was in Transportation Sales. So I set-up an interview for tomorrow morning (Friday morning).
Needless to say, after almost two months, I do not have a job that I will be starting immediately, but I have a couple of leads. God is REALLY testing my patience and I am not doing too well as I am starting to run out of steam. I know he has a plan for me and am trying to keep this in mind as I go through all of this. I know things could certainly be a lot worse for me and am also keeping that in mind as well.
So I will keep you posted and let you know more details as events warrant!

Streisand Outburst

This article is courtesy of Yahoo News...some celebs think they can act ANY WAY they want to...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061010/ap_on_en_mu/people_streisand

King Tut

On Wednesday, my mother-in-law, wife, daughter and I had the opportunity to go see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. I have to say that I was not sure how much I was going to like it, but I kept my mind open and am glad I did as I have to say how interesting and unique the exhibit was!
We paid the fee that included an audio headset we could wear and listen to Omar Sharif narate certain areas of the exhibit. There was some VERY unique facts that people who did not pay the fee missed!
As we walked throughout, the exhibit had lots of artifacts from the excavation that occurred in the 1920s. The exhibit was broken into areas starting with what Egypt was like BEFORE Tut came to power (his ancestory, life in egypt, religion, etc), Egypt during his reign (he was only 9 when he became king and still had a tremendous impact on its culture), and the last part dealt with his mysterious death at only 19 years old.
Today, his death is still a mystery, but what is so fascinating is that modern science has helped scientists, historians, and archeologists get a better idea of why he might have died. Back in the 1920s, tests were done on his body. Then over the years, more tests have been done using more advanced technology that was not around then. Most recently, in 2005, tests were done and many discoveries about his body were uncovered, including that there were no signs of murder and that some of his bones were probable broken, perhaps due to a fall.
Fascinating how someone who lived SO long ago could still have such a impact on our lives today. His legacy is one that will live on until man and science are able to work together to solve one of the greatest mysteries of mankind history!