Junk Mail...Does It Ever End?

Junk mail, junk mail, and more junk mail. I can take it in my mail box for once I walk in the door I can readily sort through the mail and immediately toss it into the garbage. My email box is another matter where to my frustration it clutters and multiplies.

While the junk mail keeps coming to my street address, the volume is limited by the costs which run about $0.18 to 0.23 per item, excluding production and name costs. Costs are not the same limiting factor with emails addresses as once the name is purchased for a two to four cents per address, the cost to send emails when done in bulk with millions of addresses becomes less than a penney. Hence the volume of email junk mail keeps building and building.

I have tried to avoid getting on email junk mail lists but it is not possible. I know it will keep coming. All it takes is for one or two product registrations and subscriptions to sell the address to a broker and it multiplies. It took me some time but I finally concluded that I needed to create one or two email addresses to use for product registrations. Now I have two "dummy" addresses that can get cluttered to my hearts.

Check the Details or Rue the Results

We have all been victimized by not double checking our work, but when it is going into print for wide public circulation it is even more important. Check the details and spelling or you may end up with unfortunate result.

One of the classics in the development field was a southern California advertisement campaign for a religious organization that was launched in print, in direct mail letters and on television. Some one forgot to double check the phone number. When people called the number it went to a sex line. Two numbers got reversed.

Below is another recent advertisement. One letter difference significantly changes the meaning...or maybe it was a Freudian slip.

Why Are People Celebrating Women Outnumber Men at High Council As Progress?

I am somewhat perplexed by a host of Salvation Army blogs and other blogs by Salvationists that are making a big deal out of the upcoming High Council having more female representatives than male. They make it sound like this is a sign of great progress.

What gives? When did we stop thinking? Has our bloviating shut down our ability to reason? When did we settle for a shadow of the real thing?

Last decade, once the General elevated the spouses of TCs to the rank of the spouse, every High Council going forward was bound to have females equaling or outnumbering males. It is a demographic reality. Rarely are male TCs single, and even then, their wives are deceased. Single female TCs or IHQ department heads are a much more common occurrence than single male TCs. Hence, it takes only one female as a TC or IHQ department head to bring about females outnumbering males at a High Council.

A big measure of progress on female equality about which to crow would be either a) one of the married female High Council attendees being elected General rather than the husband, or b) that a female married officer is appointed to be a TC rather than the husband.

For well over century, theoretically both "a" and "b" have been possible but neither has happened, and it is not likely to occur in the foreseeable future. How many Salvationists truly believe that one of the married women at the High Council will be nominated ahead of her husband? How sad it is that none of us envision that happening. Does this mean that we do not have highly gifted females who are married to men who may have skills and talents, but less so than the wife?

I do not take such a dim view of our female officers. As Catherine Booth noted, it is not due to lack of nature on the female's part, but a lack of nurture and opportunity that married female officers are not in a position for either "a" or "b" to happen. Once either "a" and "b" happening more often we then will have something to celebrate.

Even before the wide spread of the suffrage movement the Army had female leaders. We had a great start and were well ahead of the crowd, but now where are we? It is unfortunate the western world has long passed us with regard to female leadership and equality so much so that we brag about females outnumbering males at the High Council.

Sigh!

We Have Been Victimized Again By a Great Fraud

What a laugh. I guess Evie and I will need to think twice about planning a trip to Greece. We are all victims of a great fraud. This was the precursor to the global warming conspiracy and fraud.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks,18209/

Preflight Presentation

Monday at 6:30 AM I fly to Cleveland for some meetings, including dinner in at the Football Hall of Fame in Canton. I return home late Tuesday night. On both flights it is unlikely that I will be watching the preflight safety presentation as I have heard it so often.

On the other hand, if the presentation is like the one below, I may well watch for the entertainment value.