Our Democrat Cat

It's not at all uncommon for people to abandon cats in the country side. I wasn't surprised to find three kittens abandoned about half a mile from the farm house. As they grew and displayed their personalities, it was uncanny how well they represented our three main political parties.

I couldn't know for sure if the momma cat was dumped with the kittens. I observed them for awhile from a distance, but it wasn't very long before they found their way to the farm house. I could tell from their condition that they had not been fed; I took pity on them with milk and food.

Often times, cats dumped in the country go wild. These were obviously domestic and very friendly, well - except for Scratchy. There were two females and one male. They appeared to be siblings. The male was all grey, one female was white with grey stripes and the other female was orange and white tabby.

We named the grey male "Lost Juevos" after he was neutered. The white female with grey spots would be Nina, and the orange tabby got a name that didn't stick. She quickly earned her real name - Scratchy. We had them all fixed.

Scratchy was very independent, cautious, and unforgiving. She earned her name by refusing anybody trying to pick her up in dedicated violent fashion. It tooks years for me to gain her trust to be the only exception to the holding rule. But still, I had better not press my luck by holding her longer than her alotted time. She would cover vast distances just to accompany me working alone in the field. And sometime, she got in the way of progress.

I once had an order to deliver four tons of hay for twenty miles in the cold beginning of winter. When I began unloading the hay, I discovered that Scratchy had made the journey on the trailer. She was covered in frost, cold, and scared. I cuddled her up and put her in the cab of the pickup.

When we returned, the other farm animals could not believe her tales of the journey to the far away land. No doubt her adventurous spirit contributed to her demise. She was the first to disappear. We suspect she was kidnapped by a bold coyote judging the recent signs in the region of her regular domain.

Nina was not as independent as Scratchy; she was balanced. She was rarely late for feeding time, but there were times that she was too busy off hunting. She was lovable to a certain point. She would never lash out or scratch. She would merely keep a safe distance from suspect or overly affectionate humans. She was the smartest cat and the best hunter during her time. She paid the most taxes since she often brought her catch to the yard; it was often stolen. She disappeared a couple of years after Scratchy under similar circumstances.

Lost Juevos has been through a lot. He took the incidince of neutering like water off of a duck's back. He was always the most affectionate. Our daughter used to carry him upside down and he loved every second. He wasn't choosy who or where he got affection from, it was all good. He never met his cuddle quota. He would take it all in, purring loudly with drool running out of the corners of his mouth.

For the earlier years of his life, he was a card carrying democrat. He never did any more work than he had to. He was a fixture on the back porch, waiting for a handout, feeding time, or the chance to be pet.

He didn't go hunting very often, but one fateful day, on a rare hunting trip, he suffered a severe injury. Somehow, he'd broken a bone in his right front leg. I felt the break and considered trying to splint it, but it was straight and he was a good patient. He layed around a lot anyway and he would just lay around more than usual as he was healing.

He eventually made a full recovery. The experience had surpising lasting effect on him. He started going off hunting more! I would have expected the opposite, but his hunting career really took off after his injury. His specialty has become catching gophers. I have seen him consuming the better parts of gophers three days in a row.

We can still count on him at regular feeding time. And he still spends a lot of time on the back porch, mostly looking for affection. But he has progressed to pulling more than his own weight on the farm. Go figure?

Some ABC's for U and I

A is for Ability.
"Ability is a poor man's wealth." Matthew Wren
B is for Business.
"Always tell yourself: The difference between running a business and ruining a business is i." Frank Tyger
C is for Chance.
"There are no chances so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage; and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage." Francois De La Rochefoucauld
D is for Desire.
"We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means." Aristotle
E is for Effort.
"Whatever your work is, dignify it with your best thought and effort." Esther Baldwin York
F is for Freedom.
"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do." Eric Hoffer
G is for Giving.
"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money too." Margaret Thatcher
H is for Health.
"Health is the vital principle of bliss." James Thomson
I is for Industry.
"The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words: industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both." Benjamin Franklin
J is for Joy.
"Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit." Hosea Ballou
K is for Kindness.
"In nature there's no blemish but the mind; none can be called deformed but the unkind." William Shakespeare
L is for Living.
"To live is not to learn, but to apply." Legouve'
M is for Money.
"The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket." Kin Hubbard
N is for Nature.
"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences." Robert G. Ingersoll
O is for Opportunity.
"An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity." Winston Churchill
P is for Prosperity.
"That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise." Abraham Lincoln
Q is for Quality.
"People forget how fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it." Howard W. Newton
R is for Respect.
"Reverence for life demands for all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others." Albert Schweitzer
S is for Spirit.
"I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do." Helen Keller
T is for Talent.
"Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some one talent." Seneca
U is for Usefulness.
"The function of man is not to attain an object, but to fulfill a purpose; not to accomplish, but to be accomplished." S.E. Stanton
V is for Virtue.
"Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue." Confucius
W is for Wealth.
"Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service." Henry Ford
X is for eXample.
"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Mark Twain
Y is for Yahoos.
"It is the peculiar quality of a fool to percieve the faults of others and to forget his own." Cicero
Z is for Zingers.
"In laughter there is always a kind of joyousness that is incompatible with contempt or indignation." Voltaire

A Competitive Edge

Boy, does it take a lot of effort to best the competition? Talent and hard work get pushed to extremes, just to get a small step up.  The typical difference between the best and the runner up is only ten percent.

How do you capitalize on a ten percent advantage? That takes salemanship. It's a difficult balancing act. If you overstate your ten percent advantage, there can be misunderstanding. Your honesty can come into question and you could be branded a bragger. Understating your edge will not get you noticed. You will fall into the crowd of the also ran, despite all your extra effort to achieve a higher position.

The more competitive the enviroment, the more things can get stretched to capture attention.  Authors have to be edgy, speakers have to say something controversial, entertainers must display pizazz! The audience has a short attention span.  People are busy and don't like to waste time with the trivial ordinary.  It takes something abnormal to catch their attention.

It's got to be a red hot spark to ignite the fuel in a high compression environment. If you can get their engine started, they will spend another five seconds looking closer.  You have to risk being edgy in order to publicize your edge.

There are few experts in the world. Most of us have a broad knowledge of several subjects. Not many run very deep on any particular thing. Generalists are going to have trouble differentiating ten percent in most subject matter. To the casual observer, there is no apparent difference. What incentive do they have to choose the better option, if they can't tell the difference?

I love Amazon for this reason. They have found a way to make it so easy to compare products. I feel like an informed consumer for nearly every purchase I make. They have a quick visual rating system for the busy bodies, and you can read reviews for more detailed information. I am mostly ignorant of the variety of goods that I want to purchase. They found ways to make learning easy and quick.

When learning is not so easy and quick, it takes a commitment of time to the subject. Sometimes salesmanship is best directed at that objective: getting the customer interested in learning more. If you have the superior product and your customer arrives at that conclusion on their own, it is far more impactful than giving them the raw data up front.

Salesmanship is educational. How can you help your subjects to learn? Many people are resistant to learning. They are too busy and have higher priorities. When I detect that situation, I suggest that they make the simple comparison on price.

Price is a relatively easy comparison to make. Establish an even quantifiable measure and compare how much you get for the same dollar. It could be mass, weight, or pieces that you get in return. All other factors deemed equal, why not try to stretch your dollar? We all want the most for the money.

In the case of matching prices, we have a dilemna. We have to compare the next value contributing factor: Quality. This is often a little more difficult. Sometimes it takes a little expert knowledge to discern a ten percent difference in quality.

Most people don't have the capacity to become experts in every subject that they shop. Educational salesmanship takes a lot of added effort. Is it worth it?

It took extraordinary effort, sometimes extreme effort to achieve a competitive edge. Why not make the extra effort it takes to commmunicate that?