Erroll Le Vant Observations

I have always enjoyed those blogs that use photographs to illustrate and highlight their posts. And I admire those who take the beautiful pictures that inspire and instruct. Unfortunately I am not a very good photographer, although my digital camera improved my ability to capture an image. And the memory chip makes it so I can take about five hundred snapshots without running out of space!

The biggest problem is that I forget to take the pictures. On a recent trip to the China, at the insistence of my firstborn, I took my camera with me. I had it with me at several locations that were absolutely stunning.

But when I got home I had taken only twelve pictures! My daughter was furious with me. And I had little I could post on a blog! So I joined acobox.com so I could take advantage of their free photo hosting service. It is easy to use and provides a big boost to my ability to enhance the words with blog pictures. If I can do it, anyone can!

Last night as my wife and I were enjoying the kick off of a new season of Law & Order, I commented to her how satisfying it was not to have to listen to any more political ads for a while.

A bit later, I saw one of those ads by a company promising to help customers avoid having to pay their credit card debt. They promise to reduce the amount you pay back by half or more. There are other commercials trying to attract folks who owe big tax bills, promising to settle their debt at perhaps a seventy per cent reduction.

These ads are perhaps more irritating to me even than the political ads, because I know who is going to pay for those discounts. Me! And people like me who always pay their bills and their taxes.

Now that the campaigning is over, I guess we’ll see even more of these type ads! GRRRRRRR!

Shortly after school started I walked into a local discount store and saw that the Halloween displays were being put in place. It wasn’t even Labor Day yet! I wondered if witches and other practitioners of the Black Arts were outraged that the meaning of their most cherished holiday was being diminished and hijacked in the name of higher profits. Do they condemn the commercialization of their sacred day? Don’t the merchants, not to mention the consumers, remember the reason for the season?

This morning my wife called me to let me know she had just bought gasoline for $3.14. That is about fiftten cents less than we had seen it yesterday. But I just bought gas for $2.99. The only shame is that I am excited to pay that much!

My daughter has put together a small consortium of blog sites that will allow advertisers to deal directly with the bloggers to place ads at reasonable prices and cut out the middle men expenses of dealing with a broker.

The blogs are carefully targeted and present the advertiser the opportunity to select the blog or blogs that match their advertising interests. Each of the blogs is maintained with a high level of writing and creative content.

I have attended dinners to show appreciation to a person or group, I have signed letters or posters to show support, I have witnessed the unveiling of statues and monuments in honor of some celebrity. I have seen the stars in the sidewalk in Hollywood, watched as athletes’ numbers are retired, and participated in the dedication of a building named for the honoree.

 If you someone were to honor you, what would you consider the best/highest possible way to do so?

Reading 1776, Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough, made me realize just how close we Americans came to continuing as a British colony for a long time.

McCullough did a masterful job in compiling and presenting the records and papers of important men and bodies on both the British and American sides of the matter of independence. The descriptions of both the noble traits and the frailties of the key player in the pivotal year were very enlightening. I had always held George Washington to be a man of almost superhuman strengths. To read of his indecisions and misjudgments, as well as the intrigue on the part of some of his staff, made the story of our independence even more a thing to be cherished as a gift!

I highly recommend this book for your enjoyment!

So Mr. Obama has selected Joe Biden to run with him this fall. I suppose he will be the attack dog on the campaign trail, barking at McCain in a way that Obama does not want to do. He will maintain his dignity above the fray, but he will be feeding the dog.

I just finished the third in the Civil War trilogy of novels written by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen. The series is very entertaining. The historical work of these two authors is impressive. The depiction of the weight of command in the midst of war is intense and the horror of the carnage in our country’s struggle is gruesome. The strategies are illuminating.

The most fascinating element of the last book, Never Call Retreat, to me was that the Gingricgh and Forstchen brought the war to a close about a year and a half earlier than it happened in history. Their presentation suggested that if the war had ended in the way they depicted, the country would have healed in a much shorter time and the equality of all men would have been a reality at least a century earlier.

If you enjoy good writing and a look into some of the most important people and issues of our society, I would suggest you take the time to read the entire trilogy!

My duties at church camp last week were to teach the tenth graders in Bible class and to serve as counselor in the tenth grade boys’ cabin. We did not spend much time in the cabin during the day, just one hour for rest in the heat of the day. But the conversations were interesting. The boys talked about everything from sports and music to politics and the best acne treatment. And girls! It was fun watching guys from different areas of Texas interact!