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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 25, 2006 ISSN 1538-8794 NOTE: Most of the time WITandWISDOM(tm) will be placed at: http://witandwisdom.org/archive.htm so that it is available early in the morning of the published date for those of you west of the International Dateline. Otherwise it will arrive for you by e-mail later in your day at the usual time I have been sending it. Wherever you are if you don't receive WITandWISDOM(tm) at your usual time by e-mail you can check at: http://witandwisdom.org/archive.htm – Richard :o) ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. - Walter Lippmann Source: Quotes of the Day, http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: One time I ducked into a busy restaurant for lunch. There wasn't a single table available, so I sat at the bar. A waiter rushed by with a tray full of dirty dishes. He saw me and said, "I'll be right with you." He came back and told me, "This isn't my section, but I don't want to keep you waiting." He took my order, which included a Diet Coke. "We don't carry that, sir," he said. I told him that a glass of water would be just fine. Minutes later he appeared with my food, then rushed back to his section. He showed up again with a surprise. An ice-cold bottle of Diet Coke! "Where did this come from?" I asked. "There's a grocery store around the corner," he told me. "But you're running around like crazy. How did you find the time to go get it?" "I didn't, sir," he said. "I asked my manager to go!" What terrific service! It would have been easy for him to grumble and think, Why do I have to do everything around here? But he hadn't. I went back to that same restaurant two months later. I asked for my favorite server. "He doesn't wait tables anymore," I was told. "They promoted him to management." I wasn't surprised. He'd been willing to do the small things that often lead to big results. By John Miller, Denver, Colorado Source: Guideposts, Copyright (c) August 2006, http://www.guideposts.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: A naturalist visiting a farm one day was surprised to see a beautiful eagle in the farmer's chicken coop. Befuddled, he asked, "Why in the world is that eagle living with chickens?" "Well," answered the farmer, "I found an abandoned eagle's egg one day and laid it in the coop, and a chicken adopted it and raised the creature after it hatched. It doesn't know any better; it thinks it's a chicken." The eagle was even pecking at grain and strutting awkwardly in circles. "Doesn't it ever try to fly out of there?" asked the naturalist, noticing that the bird never lifted its gaze. "No," said the farmer, "I doubt it even knows what it means to fly." The naturalist asked to take the eagle a few days for experiments, and the farmer agreed. The scientist placed the eagle on a fence and pushed it off, bellowing, "Fly!" But the bird just fell to the ground and started pecking. He then climbed to the top of a hayloft and did the same thing, but the frightened bird just shrieked and fluttered ungraciously to the barnyard, where it resumed its strutting. Finally, the naturalist took the docile bird away from the environment to which it had grown accustomed, driving to the highest butte in the county. After a lengthy and sweaty climb to the hillcrest with the bird tucked under his arm, he peered over the edge and then spoke gently: "You were born to soar. It is better that you die here today on the rocks below than live the rest of your life being a chicken. It's not what you are." Then, with its keen eyesight, the confused bird spotted another eagle soaring on the currents high above the bluff, and a yearning was kindled within it. The naturalist threw the majestic beast up and over the edge, crying out, "Fly! Fly! Fly!" The eagle began to tumble toward the rocks below, but then it opened its seven-foot span of wings and, with a mighty screech, instinctively began to flap them. Soon it was gliding gracefully, climbing in ever-higher spirals on unseen thermals into the blue sky. Eventually, the mighty eagle disappeared into the glare of the morning sun. The bird had become what it was born to be. By Doug Batchelor in Broken Chains (Pacific Press 2004) ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: A mother and a daughter are shopping in the mall, when the mother eyes an expensive fur coat. "This year," she says, "I think that I will buy my present instead of making you and dad shop for me." The daughter nods in agreement. "And I think this fur coat would be perfect too." The daughter protests, "But mom, some helpless, poor creature has to suffer so that you can have this." "Don't worry honey," says the mother, "your father won't get the bill for a couple of weeks." Source: Marty's Joke of the Day, http://www.geocities.com/martysjotd ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: September 21, 2006 09:17 PM ET TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said on Thursday it would cut the prices of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting in the retirement haven of Tampa, Florida. http://tinyurl.com/grazg