Inspirational Adam Cintz Accentuated the Positive

Adam Cintz lived through two World Wars, was confined to the Lodz ghetto by the Nazis during World War Two, and then sent in a cattle car to Auschwitz where he lost his eight-year-old son Shlomo to the chimneys. He was also separated from his wife Genia with whom he was miraculously reunited after the war. Adam came practically empty handed to America, found work and worked hard, learned English, started his own business, and looked for the positive in life and in people and always was willing to help in whatever way that he could. At ninety-six he started speaking about his experiences to students, as many as three hundred at a time, and inspired them to also do good in the world while they were around. Adam is no longer around as he died peacefully on Memorial Day, one month shy of his 100^th birthday. Unlike the stories that follow, Adam always accentuated the positive and eliminated the negative, exemplified in the words of Johnny Mercer’s song. *

For more on the extraordinary life of Adam Cintz see posts on April 17 and 26, 2010.

Others Are Positively Negative

Each Side of the I’ll Says, “Get You Next”

You can start with the obvious — the politicians —who find no good in their opposition’s programs, brazenly describe their rival’s faults to the media, and make little or no effort to compromise on anything. It is not only party against party, but in California during the primaries it’s been GOP candidates against their fellow Republicans in an acidulous manner. Good news — there will only be twenty-two weeks of nauseating negative campaigning after tomorrow’s primary before the November 9 election. 

Doomsday Groups Fear End of Oil

They are lurking out there, people who feel oil supplies peaked two years ago, that an oil shortage is eminent and the economy may collapse followed by a breakdown of civil order. Some people are stocking up on food reserves in case the oil squeeze prevents food from reaching market while others are converting their investments into gold and silver. Good news —this fear brought together a Democrat and a Republican in Congress and they formed a Congressional Peak Oil Caucus in 2005. There is no record of this two-person caucus accomplishing anything, much the same as is with all members of Congress.

We Gather Together to Find Out Who Did It

On June 5 in San Jose, 400 discerning men and women met and the general agreement was that bad things are being secretly done to them. When asked who is responsible for this outrage, individuals accused Obama, extraterrestrials, the military-industrial complex, Communists, Jews, the United Nations, the lead guitarist of AC/DC, or in some case, a combination of two or more of these entities. They were attending the 10^th annual gathering of people searching for alternative truths at the Conspiracy Con 2010.  Good old “Con Con” probably best describes the promoter’s motivation and those of the vendors.

Good News May Not Equal A Good Story

Those in the news business will say that you can’t blame the messenger — the media — for delivering the unpopular messages that permeate print, broadcast and online media today. It’s not their fault and to counteract the barrage of more than twenty-five minutes of dismal news each broadcast, some television networks search for something positive and close their evening newscasts with a story on a “Person of the Day” or “Someone Who Made A Difference.”

Today’s newspaper headlines (June 7, 2010) proclaim one gory story after another, and these were found in either The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle or the Santa Cruz Sentinel: “2 Men Seized at J.F.K Accused of Plotting Jihad,” “Coast Guard Sees Oil Spill Cleanup Lasting Into Fall,”  “Markets Prepare for Week of Turmoil,”  “Midwest tornado kills 7,”  “4 Killed in Iraq Bombing,”  “Millions of patients overtreated in U.S.” and  “Two window washers in critical condition.” One headline offered the question that’s been on everyone’s mind day and night, “Are contractors bribing Taliban?”

Ready for the Good News?

Bad news has been covered in perpetuity and about fifteen years ago a newspaper was started by some naïve, well-meaning individuals to counteract the overflow and it only presented good news. It quickly went out of business due to a lack of advertisers and readers.

*Lyrics to Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive”

You've got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative,

And latch on to the affirmative, Don't mess with Mister In-Between.

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum, Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or pandemonium's Li'ble to walk upon the scene.

To illustrate  my last remark Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark.

What did they do just when ev'rything looked so dark?

Man, they said "We'd better accentuate the positive "Eliminate the negative" And latch on to the affirmative -Don't mess with Mister In-Between,  no, no,  Don't mess with Mister In-Between."