News for today's 2018

President Obama and Hillary Clinton Do Lunch, and IWS is There

9:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal">Holaaaaaaaaa y’all! As you might have heard President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had lunch today at the White House. Well, as always, Matt-Man and I were there to snoop around and find out what they talked about. Because we are White Ninjas (according to <a href="http://www.artmustdie.com/">Jo Seaquist</a> at least) we were able to get pretty close and listen in. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Mkie4FceNAPBq045lVnJkgR3nAk0ywZ2P_DI2Ix3_rRO5fCowh2K2sU_qt6hN-YevyFsxOVYwNFEW9dEQtKg-uuDswsYHm1DtGIsaMWtlqTe0m3qbjhvEUKAkNeTIBiTIcQGINnKVPo/s1600/Obama-Hillary-Lunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Mkie4FceNAPBq045lVnJkgR3nAk0ywZ2P_DI2Ix3_rRO5fCowh2K2sU_qt6hN-YevyFsxOVYwNFEW9dEQtKg-uuDswsYHm1DtGIsaMWtlqTe0m3qbjhvEUKAkNeTIBiTIcQGINnKVPo/s1600/Obama-Hillary-Lunch.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Who needs drones and NSA data mining and shit like that when you’ve got a lot creep to ya? Anyway, he’s a rough transcript of their conversation … <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Barack Obama:</b> So nice to see you again Hillary! <br /><b>Hillary Clinton:</b> Thanks so much for inviting me to lunch! <br /><b>BO:</b> You and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the only women Michelle will let me have lunch with.<br /><b>HC:</b> I should have had a similar rule with Bill. <br /><b>BO:</b> Oh well, live and learn I guess. <br /><b>HC:</b> Of course, I didn’t care enough to even bother. <br /><b>BO:</b> Are things going to get awkward?<br /><b>HC: </b>Nooooooooooo …. Not at all. <br /><b>BO: </b>Good because it always does with Bill. <br /><b>HC: </b>I know how he wears his emotions on his sleeve. <br /><b>BO: </b>And leaves his “emotions” on blue dresses! Hey-OOOOOO! <br /><b>HC:</b> HA! Good one! <br /><b>BO:</b> 15 years later and Clinton jokes are still hilarious. <br /><b>HC: </b>Yeah, that’s great isn’t it? <br /><b>BO:</b> Okay, enough of that. Let’s have lunch.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn33L09wZA7n_Brvx6HWBI0EjkCTCb2SysbqnBmrI5m5DA42o3zERU1fB0i0oeRR7WMfwVIUasfNmiXzcdkwSONW-sC1q7YpjWB9iHEgb24rYmTvIF5o5oBQWFNZuAeLsmcy3Pm8lyCsg/s1600/Hillary-Clinton-Eating-Sexy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn33L09wZA7n_Brvx6HWBI0EjkCTCb2SysbqnBmrI5m5DA42o3zERU1fB0i0oeRR7WMfwVIUasfNmiXzcdkwSONW-sC1q7YpjWB9iHEgb24rYmTvIF5o5oBQWFNZuAeLsmcy3Pm8lyCsg/s400/Hillary-Clinton-Eating-Sexy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>HC:</b> Great idea! I’ll have a large pizza. <br /><b>BO:</b> Okay, I’ll have a HUGE chili cheese hot dog! <br /><b>HC:</b> Damn, you go wild when Michelle isn’t around. <br /><b>BO:</b> Hey now! I wear pants in this family. <br /><b>HC:</b> Yeah, tell me another one! <br /><b>BO:</b> No really! If Michelle were here I’d have the same thing. <br /><b>HC:</b> You sure talk big. Too bad you never back it up. <br /><b>BO:</b> I don’t think that was necessary. <br /><b>HC: </b>You’re right. I’m sorry. <br /><b>BO:</b> And it’s not true either. <br /><b>HC: </b>Okay, if you say so. <br /><b>BO: </b>*stares* I do say so. <br /><b>HC: </b>*rolls eyes* Let’s just move on, shall we. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiullDipV3Aa5EEeMr3PVYQN19rw4YhiHsPVXSFuNnc0KirlJItzb5knFSlVLTHemePgCrWVbXsAQLDAbCeSwnXB1Sq3s01qPx9imE1XtrX-ejHlP5S9d-WKD3WKfZvkC2IRMs_H7R6Y/s1600/Barack-Obama-Eating-Hot-Dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiullDipV3Aa5EEeMr3PVYQN19rw4YhiHsPVXSFuNnc0KirlJItzb5knFSlVLTHemePgCrWVbXsAQLDAbCeSwnXB1Sq3s01qPx9imE1XtrX-ejHlP5S9d-WKD3WKfZvkC2IRMs_H7R6Y/s400/Barack-Obama-Eating-Hot-Dog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>BO:</b> You’re flying pretty high in the polls these days. <br /><b>HC:</b> I’m looking pretty good. <br /><b>BO:</b> Of course what goes up must come down. <br /><b>HC:</b> Just ask Anthony Weiner! <br /><b>BO: </b>HEY-OOOOOOOOOOO!!! <br /><b>HC:</b> That poor dumb bastard. <br /><b>BO:</b> I’m just glad I told the NSA not to open an attachment sent by him. <br /><b>HC:</b> I did … uuuch! No warning at all. <br /><b>BO:</b> He sent you a dick pic? <br /><b>HC:</b> Subject was “Standing tall in support of you!” <br /><b>BO:</b> That’s not all that creative. <br /><b>HC:</b> It wasn’t standing that tall either! <br /><b>BO:</b> HEY-OOOOOOOO! You’re on fire today! <br /><b>HC:</b> It’s low-hanging fruit! Hahahahahahahaha<br /><b>BO: </b>Ha! Damn Hillary! I don’t know why nobody thinks you’re funny. <br /><b>HC:</b> Me either. <br /><b>BO:</b> So what are you going to talk to Joe Biden about in the morning? <br /><b>HC:</b> I’m gonna tell him that if he runs in ’16 I’ll cut his balls off. <br /><b>BO:</b> Oh. That might be why people don’t think you’re funny. <br /><b>HC:</b> *shrugs shoulders* <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The rest of the lunch was boring policy talk and something about using the NSA data mining technology to help Hillary in her campaign in 2016. I didn’t really understand it. Anyway, that’s all I could write down before a couple of Secret Service assholes made us leave. I guess the 1<sup>st</sup>Amendment doesn’t apply at the White House! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:Jayman@gmail.com">Jayman@gmail.com</a><br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jayman68">Facebook.com/Jayman68</a><br /><a href="http://www.twitter.com/jayman_iws">@Jayman_IWS</a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div></div>

President Obama and Hillary Clinton Do Lunch, and IWS is There

Holaaaaaaaaa y’all! As you might have heard President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had lunch today at the White House...

Rained out Sunday

2:10 PM Tukiyooo 0

We were up early on Sunday and went for coffee & pastries in Nick's Coffee.  We then walked in to the city and cycled back home on a Dublin Bike.  We got the best of the day as the weather changed and it began to lash rain.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTkTQmB2nQQr2aMU6iCyBOKFh7Mcu066rrmMeb_La9AHv3HTTRrBxlB7kSkaMBGMnSDVKFBNRF1CM-slWLjFnBC8FTEkynpGk_Nc7yQhLLhbYPYZ3_Ym8xEMgz7UOxfa4lnyYjEqn2l3_/s640/blogger-image--277128361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTkTQmB2nQQr2aMU6iCyBOKFh7Mcu066rrmMeb_La9AHv3HTTRrBxlB7kSkaMBGMnSDVKFBNRF1CM-slWLjFnBC8FTEkynpGk_Nc7yQhLLhbYPYZ3_Ym8xEMgz7UOxfa4lnyYjEqn2l3_/s640/blogger-image--277128361.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">With the rain pounding down we decided the afternoon would be best spent in the cinema.  We went to see "Beyond the Candelabra" the story of Liberace's love affair with Scott Thorson.  Michael Douglas was really excellent as Liberace - such a pity this movie is not eligible for Oscar nomination as it was made by HBO as it seems it was too gay for any other film makers.  </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Matt Damon was also brilliant.  He was surprisingly believable as Liberace's 18yr old lover.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><br></div>

Rained out Sunday

We were up early on Sunday and went for coffee & pastries in Nick's Coffee. We then walked in to the city and cycled back home on a...

Grade changed to A for political donor's outsourced school in Indiana

2:10 PM Tukiyooo 0

An outsourced school in Indiana that should have gotten a C for performance instead got an A because it was run by a prominent Republican donor Christel DeHaan.<br /><br />DeHaan founded the Christel House charter school.She also gave more than $2.8 million to Republicans since 1998, including $130,000 to Bennett.<br /><br />The <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-gop-donors-school-grade-changed">Associated Press</a> reported today,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">...when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, former Indiana school Superintendent Tony Bennett's education team frantically overhauled his signature "A-F" school grading system to improve the school's marks. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan's school received an "A," despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a "C." </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The emails, which also show Bennett discussed with staff the legality of changing just DeHaan's grade, raise unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has broad implications. Indiana uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend private school need to first spend a year in public school. They also help determine how much state funding schools receive.</blockquote>The Associated Press reported other schools had their grades changed, but only because the grade was changed for DeHaan's charter school. According to AP:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Bennett consistently cited Christel House as a top-performing school as he secured support for the measure from business groups and lawmakers, including House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long.<br /><br />But trouble loomed when Indiana's then-grading director, Jon Gubera, alerted Bennett on Sept 13 that the Christel House Academy had scored a 2.9, or a "C."<br /><br />"This will be a HUGE problem for us," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12, 2012 email to Neal.<br /><br />Neal fired back a few minutes later, "Oh, crap. We cannot release until this is resolved."</blockquote><div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And why were we not surprised to learn that Bennett is now Florida's education commissioner, where he is reworking the grading system?</div>

Grade changed to A for political donor's outsourced school in Indiana

An outsourced school in Indiana that should have gotten a C for performance instead got an A because it was run by a prominent Republican do...

Teamsters organizing victory in Michigan

1:47 PM Tukiyooo 0

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZrrukdO4WaPMeYhKITm5fi_iul9N7TPIVCl88A6RJtbun00IozBIc0YnMqLMubRBsnYZJzqrFqSdrWHlSnMeqlXjDrtxlwoO6EsA99Kh0tFosAqDqHs_-kOfn_MK76JUFFVQyhAk7Qao/s1600/Teamsters+organizing+victory+waste.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZrrukdO4WaPMeYhKITm5fi_iul9N7TPIVCl88A6RJtbun00IozBIc0YnMqLMubRBsnYZJzqrFqSdrWHlSnMeqlXjDrtxlwoO6EsA99Kh0tFosAqDqHs_-kOfn_MK76JUFFVQyhAk7Qao/s400/Teamsters+organizing+victory+waste.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our new Teamster brothers and sisters in Detroit.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Please give a warm welcome to our 55 new brothers and sisters who drive trash in tractor-trailer rigs for Stafford Transportation in Port Huron, Mich. They voted overwhelmingly on Friday to join <a href="http://www.teamsterslocal337.com/">Teamsters Local 337</a> in Detroit/Port Huron.<br /><br />Jim Parrinello, trustee for Teamsters Local 337, said the workers are seeking fair wages and respect on the job:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The workers remained strong and united, and they had a very strong committee of 13, which grew to 25.</blockquote>The Stafford drivers won even though the company fired the main worker-organizer, Mike Williams. He had refused to give the company the authorization cards signed by workers as management demanded. Teamsters Local 337 has filed charges with the NLRB over the firing. The charges are pending. <br /><br />Local President Mike Martin said General President Jim Hoffa stressed the importance of organizing at the Teamsters Joint Council 43 spring delegates meeting.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">This victory at Stafford is our second organizing victory since then. Earlier, we won an election at First Student.  </blockquote>Parrinello thanked Teamsters Local 419 and its members in Canada who came into contact with the Stafford workers. They talked about the benefits of being Teamsters. He also said Teamsters Local 299 President Kevin Moore, who serves on the Joint Council 43 Executive Board, helped make the campaign a success.<br /><br />Bob Morales, director of the Teamsters <a href="http://www.teamster.org/content/solid-waste">Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division</a>, said:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We’re enthusiastic about organizing many more members across America.</blockquote>

MI organizing victory Teamsters organizing victory in Michigan

Our new Teamster brothers and sisters in Detroit. Please give a warm welcome to our 55 new brothers and sisters who drive trash in tractor-t...

Unions cautioned about surveillance

12:34 PM Tukiyooo 0

<a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/15346/why_nsa_surveillance_should_alarm_labor" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In These Times cautioned last week</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> about the potential dangers posed by government surveillance to labor unions.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sam Adler-Bell and David Segal detail the long and troubled history of the federal government spying on unions and their leaders in an effort to quash their activities. But most distressingly, it explains how such efforts continue today. <span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s plenty of evidence that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other U.S. intelligence agency are working on behalf of Wall Street and multinational corporations:</span> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All this points to the fact that today’s ever-expanding surveillance state should strike fear into the heart of organized labor not only because there is opportunity for abuse, but because there is motive. Thanks to Citizens United, the funding of most major political campaigns by the richest fraction of society, and the increasing coziness of Washington and Wall Street, we’re living in a moment in which the interests of the U.S. government and its representatives are increasingly synonymous with the interests of the wealthy, the banks, and major corporations.</span></blockquote></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Efforts to monitor labor activists go back to the 19<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>century, when </span><a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6759/" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the Pinkerton Detective Agency surveilled, infiltrated and ultimately brought down Pennsylvania miner activists</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> known as the Molly Maguires in the 1870s.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There has been no shortage of incidents in this century as well, ranging from the </span><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F20916FD3C5F13738DDDAD0994DE405B868DF1D3" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">New York Police Department wiretapping the phones of labor organizations</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in 1916 to </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/opinion/29terkel.html" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sen.  Joseph McCarthy calling union supporters Communists and blacklisting them</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> for employment during the 1950s. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Now with the technology available, surveillance is even easier. The article notes that employers increasingly monitor strikers and other workers deemed “trouble makers” using cameras and videotaping capabilities available on most cell phones:</span><br /><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s this reality—that the NSA’s new spying powers represent an extension of the kind of repression regularly engaged in by union-busting employers across the country—that we hope the rest of the labor movement will come to appreciate. <o:p></o:p></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Will it?</span></span>

Unions cautioned about surveillance

In These Times cautioned last week about the potential dangers posed by government surveillance to labor unions. Sam Adler-Bell and Davi...

HOW CAN WE ATTACT YOUNG PEOPLE?

11:14 AM Tukiyooo 0

<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Oh how I wish each of our congregations would read, mark, and inwardly digest this article!!! </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">Why Millennials Are Leaving The Church </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Rachel Held Evans. </span><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/" style="font-size: 14pt;">http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I wish it so much because the things I see our churches doing “to attract young people” are flat wrong. Our no-doubt well-intentioned efforts are shaped by what we imagine would have attracted us (usually Boomers) when we were young. Evans and her peers are trying so desperately to tell us, “It’s over, people!” but we still have the 70s ringing in our ears so loudly that we can’t hear them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">There is a great deal of hand wringing, lamentation, and despair in our Church about having lost the next generation. I often hear people, including Nevadans, say, “the train has left the station.” The church is just waiting for the great Jurassic die-off. Then we close shop.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> It is a proven fact of cognitive psychology that facts don’t do much to change perception. But for those who love the Church and want to see the Kingdom Mission advance, I hope it will be possible for us to overcome our natural cognitive resistance to truth so we can do a little reality check. So let me challenge the fixed assumptions about our relationship with the Millennial Generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">    </span></span><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The exodus of the Millennials is exaggerated.</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Robert Putnam’s <i>American Grace</i> is an objective sociological study of religious beliefs and practices. He demonstrates that there are both generational variables (as in young adults of the 50s as compared to young adults of today) and stage of life variables (as in people in their twenties as compared to people in their forties). The dramatic exodus of the Millennials is a sociological exaggeration because it combines some real generational variable with a big stage of life variable. People in their 20’, whatever their generation, have long been minimal church attenders. That doesn’t fully account for the absence of Millennials from the pews but it’s a big part of it and it will pass in a few years. Or it may pass if we don’t do something unwise – as we are so apt to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">    </span></span><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s not all about us.</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> To the extent, there is generational shift; Millennials are not particularly abandoning churches because we are doing something wrong. People today are far less likely than the WW II generation to be affiliated with civic institutions, including religious institutions like synagogues, political institutions like the NAACP, and service institutions like the Kiwanis. But here’s the kicker. That happened with the Boomers and with Gen X. If anything, the Millennials seem to be more open to building community than their more individualistic elders. Everywhere I turn, I see civic life beginning to come back. World Café processes, Community Organizing, Socrates Café, etc. etc. etc. all point toward a return to the civic life. In an earlier book, <i>Bowling Alone, </i>Putnam showed that historically civic life (voluntarily associating for a shared goal) is cyclical. It sometimes comes together in a big way as it did in the 50s, then disintegrates as it began to do in 60s and has continued to disintegrate until recently. Then it comes back. The introductory section to <i>Behavioral Covenants In Congregations</i>by Rendle is a neat short summary of how that has played out in our lifetime. But the point is: it is cyclical and we are just beginning the upswing. That doesn’t mean we ignore Millennials. It means this is a moment of evangelistic opportunity, not despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">    </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <b>To the extent Millennials are “leaving the Church,” it isn’t our church.</b> If you read only one thing in Evans’s seminal article, please read this:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Many of us (Millennials) including myself are finding ourselves<b> increasingly drawn to high church traditions</b> – Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. – precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being “cool,” and we find that refreshingly authentic.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> (emphasis is the young author’s)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Let’s try that again with a different emphasis:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Many of us (Millennials) including myself are finding ourselves<b> increasingly drawn to </b>high church traditions – Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, <b>the Episcopal Church,</b> etc. – <b>precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being “cool,” and we find that refreshingly authentic. </b></span></i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">(emphasis mine). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The moral: our gimmicks “to attract young people” are not only ineffective; they are throwing away the one thing we have that really does attract young people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">So what is the truth about “Millennials leaving the Church?” After all Evans is writing about it. Well, Putnam’s sociological studies – these are facts, not anecdotes or personal opinions  – show that religion boomed in the 50s (especially among us mainline Christians). There was an anti-authority libertine cultural revolution in the 60s and early 70s, then a backlash of The Religious Right in the 80s and 90s. That’s when the Evangelical Churches and Mega-Churches all grew so dramatically. The real generational shift today is that the Millennials are leaving those churches in droves. The largest evangelical denomination is losing the equivalent of our entire denomination each year. There is a massive repudiation of the social conservatism and emotional hype of the days of Falwell, Robertson, et al.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Ironically, I hear Episcopalians, including Nevadans, saying, “if only we were more like (fill in the blank with the name of a Christian Right congregation) we could survive.” But those are the churches that the young people are leaving. Adopting fundamentalist theology and a pop worship style would have been a successful (albeit wrong) strategy 20 years ago – not today!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">    </span></span><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The Myth Of The Decline Of the Episcopal Church.</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The prevailing assumption about the decline of the Episcopal Church is largely a case of bad math being used for political advantage by some of our own factions and sects within the Church. This humorous, accurate, insightful, and inspiring speech by Dean Ian Markham of Virginia Theological Seminary exposes the fallacy of it all. (There are two URL’s because YouTube has his speech as parts 1 & 2). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Ry0TWIek4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Ry0TWIek4</a>and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xJkW0bMzlM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xJkW0bMzlM</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Liberals say we are declining because we are too religious; conservatives say we are not religious enough. Here I will step on the third rail. The emergent church movement (sell the buildings, meet in bowling alleys, talk about spiritual stuff when you feel like it, and make up rituals to express how you really feel) promotes anti-institutional “spirituality” as the way to reach Millennials. The thing I notice is that most of the emergent church folks are Gen X, not Millennials. Despite my sardonic description of emergent church, I’m actually for this as a way to connect with disengaged members of Generation X. Let’s do what they propose – but as an evangelistic outreach to people in their late 30s and early 40s – not Millennials. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It turns out the dismal numbers are quite wrong (except about stewardship – that is a problem – but for another article). Our church attendance and other signs of vitality are strong, especially given the anti-institutional disintegration of civic society downswing of the historic cycle we have just been through. Ian Markham says we are 3 to 4 years away from the upswing. The question is: are we going to be ready? Or are we going to have leapt so far into the past (meaning the 60s or 80s) that we miss the future?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">    </span></span><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Why do we want Millennials anyway?</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Relax. I don’t mean we don’t want them. But I am dead serious about asking the question. I fear we want Millennials in the pews for all the wrong reasons – like our fear of mortality, or our need to feel cool. We want the Millennials to save us from extinction and boredom. Well, they do bring gifts. They will bless us beyond measure – but not if our agenda is to use them. We need to stop selling a product. We need to stop trying to seduce and manipulate people into joining our club. The agenda has to be connecting people to Jesus because he is our hope and salvation. He is <i>their</i> hope and salvation. Our mission is sharing blessings, not recruiting fresh meat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">So, if we intend to be the Body of Christ here in Nevada, let me urge you to take to heart what Rachel Evans says about Millennials in specific and what Ian Markham says about the Church more generally. Stick to what the business leadership folk call our “core values.” That would be Jesus. Be who we are – liturgical Christians committed to infusing gospel into the world around us. But be willing to embrace the new and even the strange. Connect, connect, connect with the community outside our walls including the young and the old alike, the rich and the poor alike, the in groups and the out groups, people of different ethnicities and traditions, people who speak different languages (both literally and figuratively). Commit body and soul to the Kingdom Mission and trust God to make us flourish.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div>

HOW CAN WE ATTACT YOUNG PEOPLE?

Oh how I wish each of our congregations would read, mark, and inwardly digest this article!!! Why Millennials Are Leaving The Church b...

New neighbor

11:07 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifslJ-6QPHL71KLiHmszYhKcrW8bJhzw_4G3uT7f4C2FNz7bhykyItobzDDsLov4rvZSWbqWsPMRWwB9Q-Sf56Z7EuSLsJkdz5J4-Djz7tKe6v0H00r6BN5rteCaBKWaO_oiMNbIo9ih6P/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifslJ-6QPHL71KLiHmszYhKcrW8bJhzw_4G3uT7f4C2FNz7bhykyItobzDDsLov4rvZSWbqWsPMRWwB9Q-Sf56Z7EuSLsJkdz5J4-Djz7tKe6v0H00r6BN5rteCaBKWaO_oiMNbIo9ih6P/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">While trimming the wisteria vine on the porch, I heard a <i>clop-clop, clop-clop,</i> and looked up to see a horse and rider. SWAC Husband was trimming a cedar tree near the road so the rider stopped to introduce himself as a new neighbor, a 26-year retired Air Force veteran, which opened a new conversation when SWAC Huband told him he was also an Air Force vet.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73LXB6p0by5KYGEL2AYQTl2Lu4WCBDj2Qnwcgm6HJlNBgxsVKB5W-ajv3Y3bwpXsJaW9xLYic2ZEUfGqecDZWKJrw59FykCHb5y-Bo8VQV26i3-HeJmcvkRJmhLJPz_m9o-_xZBaKXasv/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73LXB6p0by5KYGEL2AYQTl2Lu4WCBDj2Qnwcgm6HJlNBgxsVKB5W-ajv3Y3bwpXsJaW9xLYic2ZEUfGqecDZWKJrw59FykCHb5y-Bo8VQV26i3-HeJmcvkRJmhLJPz_m9o-_xZBaKXasv/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">We are an equestrian neighborhood so occasionally neighbors go horseback riding on the properties but it's always fun to see and it was good to meet someone new to the area, especially a veteran.</div><br />Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell<br />July 29, 2013

While trimming the wisteria vine on the porch, I heard a clop-clop, clop-clop, and looked up to see a horse and rider. SWAC Husband was tri...

Samsung win the battle of top position of most profit gain mobile company on the planet , replace Apple .

8:59 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 style="text-align: left;">Apple slipped from no.1 position as most profit gain commercial mobile company, Samsung reach ahead. Global mobile handset shipments (April to June 2013).</h3>Company  <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Units (millions)  Market share<br />Samsung<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>                107<span style="white-space: pre;">     </span>27.7%<br />Nokia                    <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>61.1   <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>15.8%<br />Apple<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>                    31.2    <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>8.1%<br />LG<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>                        17.8    <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4.6%<br />ZTE<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>                      17.6    <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4.6%<br />Other<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>                   151.3   <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>39.2%<br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">SOURCE: CNN</span><br /><br />According to a report Samsung has become the most profit earning mobile company of the earth left behind Apple. Samsung galaxy series plays a major role to making No.1 position of it. Net profit touches $5.2bn in the second quarter of 2013. The speed of enlargement of Smartphone market, a key of its latest success, can slow down.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nDcWoFDN7IU/UfaLvalFs4I/AAAAAAAAAGw/oNX3C0URHxA/s1600/samsung-galaxy-s4-i9500-400x400-imadkbmd6quvhc9t.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nDcWoFDN7IU/UfaLvalFs4I/AAAAAAAAAGw/oNX3C0URHxA/s400/samsung-galaxy-s4-i9500-400x400-imadkbmd6quvhc9t.jpeg" width="205" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: samsung.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Samsung put out of place Nokia as the world’s largest phone maker. Android smartphone sector gives contribution of 95% of total profit to Samsung, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. If Samsung want to maintain its position for long term, it need to introduce new and innovative products in market. The strong demand for Android Smartphone in Asia and Latin America also help Samsung to reach at No.1.</div><br />Samsung made and separate 107 million units and capture 27.7% of market share and it is enough to made Samsung the king of Smartphone. “This was the mobile phone industry’s fastest growth rate the second quarter of 2012” said Neil Shan, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics. Samsung made a good advantage of this growth. Total shipments of mobile phone were 386 million in the April –to- June, that record the 4%  increment on the same time of previous year.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xtoy8q1ekQ8/UfaN3Kk_UoI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/8m-XzKTuRB4/s1600/hero+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xtoy8q1ekQ8/UfaN3Kk_UoI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/8m-XzKTuRB4/s400/hero+(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: apple.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">                          </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On the other side Apple’s share of smartphone market decrements 14% of three years. Research firm’s director said that iPhone range is under performing. Samsung also reached at No.1 in manufacturing section with the 107 million units, replacing the Nokia with a big difference of 46 million units. Nokia holds the second position in both sections of market share and manufacturing unit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>It’s hard to maintain the top most position in future for Samsung because another companies are also ready for battleship with their latest Smartphones with new and better features. Mainly the Nokia with its <a href="http://pc-gadgetworld.blogspot.in/2013/07/nokia-lumia-625-will-get-in-market-in.html" target="_blank">Lumia series</a>,<a href="http://pc-gadgetworld.blogspot.in/2013/07/htc-desire-600-dual-made-entry-in.html" target="_blank"> hTc</a>, <a href="http://pc-gadgetworld.blogspot.in/2013/05/reason-behind-apple-which-made-it.html" target="_blank">Apple</a> and other companies will do their best to get NO.1 position.<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/100638775997274345522" rel="author">Anil Swami</a></div></div>

Samsung win the battle of top position of most profit gain mobile company on the planet , replace Apple .

Apple galaxy HTC iphone news Nokia profit smart phone Samsung win the battle of top position of most profit gain mobile company on the planet , replace Apple .

Apple slipped from no.1 position as most profit gain commercial mobile company, Samsung reach ahead. Global mobile handset shipments (April ...

A wish for every staff member of every school: to get it and get at it!

8:58 AM Tukiyooo 0

<p> With major jetlag, I sit here bleary eyed on the couch considering the fact that in 7 days I'll be back at school. The summer will be done and it will start again - the 12th year of teaching for me. </p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Tpg9TJUy2-Y/T5BflDVMsKI/AAAAAAAWrMw/bO8frbxCqeI/s800/Locker%252520Systems%252520Inc.%252520-%252520Metal%252520Storage%252520Lockers%25252C%252520Employee%252520Lockers%25252C%252520School%252520Lockers.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" class="alignright" height="581" id="blogsy-1375112283128.4941" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Tpg9TJUy2-Y/T5BflDVMsKI/AAAAAAAWrMw/bO8frbxCqeI/s500/Locker%252520Systems%252520Inc.%252520-%252520Metal%252520Storage%252520Lockers%25252C%252520Employee%252520Lockers%25252C%252520School%252520Lockers.jpg" width="500"></a></div> <h3>Are you waiting for someone to fix it?</h3> <p>As I look at tweets, I see someone looking at the statistics on poverty saying, "The government isn't doing enough" and another person wanting someone to "fix education" and yet another bemoaning the fact that they don't have enough technology.</p> <p>Here's the thing. If you externalize the problems of the world and expect someone to come in miraculously and "fix" this or "do" that, you'll be waiting forever. </p> <p>You've got the classic superman complex. You're waiting for some super hero sized person or government to come in and fix the things that need fixing. You'll be waiting until your hair turns grey and your skin blows off your bones, my friends. Fixit doesn't happen. </p> <p>You've got problems too. You don't have enough time to do this or do that. You might be overweight, like me. You might wish you had one more planning period or one less student in that tough to manage third period class. Good luck getting any of those things to change. Fixit doesn't happen.</p> <h3>Do you get-it?</h3> <p>Let me tell you what does happen. Get-it happens. When start getting on my exercise equipment 45 minutes  a day. When I get-it and attack my weight by eating healthy and working out then I'll get change. Wishing doesn't make things happen. Blaming just makes us bitter. When we get it and get it at - then, we see real change.</p> <p>When I get the fact that nonprofit organizations with far less money often do far more than the government to help combat poverty and join in supporting such organizations. When I get the fact that some employers are in fact owned by good people who also help combat poverty by taking steps to hire people who can't get jobs in other places and I support those organizations - then we can get at it. When we get-it that student "tech angels" and other organizations that give kids practical skills help them get summer employment now - we start looking for teachable, practical activities to interject into our schools.</p> <p>When I get-it that a child receiving a good education will do more to help that child stay out of poverty as an adult, and start doing everything I can to help that child - then we can get at it. </p> <h3>The Easy Way: It is not my problem - you fix it</h3> <p>You see, there are some educators taking the easy way out - the easiest ways to improve their test scores is for the lowest of the low to drop out. So, they sit back and let it happen and expect someone else to fix-it. <br></p> <h3>The Hard Way: I get it - it is my job to do what I can to combat tough problems.</h3> <p>But there are some educators who are frantically committed to the fact that they want to reach every child. </p> <p>They look problems in the face and yell into the storm: NOT ON MY WATCH! I've got these kids under my care and I'll get at it until I retire and even then, I'll spur other educators on to get at it. The only way to fail is to quit.</p> <p>They want no child to drop out. They will do what it takes to be relevant and reach every child -- they get it and want to do what it takes to get-it. They get at it every day and don't quit. It is hard and they are heroes. They work in all types of schools because every school has tough problems. Those problems might hide behind crisp uniforms and clean faces - but they are there just under the surface. If you teach, you know it too.</p> <h3>Meet the Front Lines</h3> <p>Educators are on the front line of just about every societal problem out there. When we get-it - when we realize just how important our job is, then we can get at these problems in our world.</p> <p>When the world out there finally gets it that we have to all be part of the solution. Teachers can't fix it, sometimes parents can't fix it either. We have societal issues that do start at home but go into the movies we watch, the food we eat, the entertainment we pursue, the schools we attend. All of these things are in a mix that causes poverty, crime, gluttony, thievery, abuse, murder and more. Ah, but none of us can fix it. None of us.</p> <h3>All we can do is get-it. </h3> <p>We can get that <strong>we each have a role and part to play and get-at</strong>-it. We can do our best with what we have. We cannot do everything but we can do something. </p> <p>But if we sit back and make excuses for why we're unimportant and leave it to someone else to "fixit" we will not be doing our part. We are failing because we are quitting and saying it is someone else's job.</p> <p>We all have a role to play. We are all shaping the future of our world, right now. Every classroom and teacher is an important part of this. Get it! Please! Get it!</p> <h3>Teachers dance with the future today.</h3> <p>Tomorrow's debates in Congress are born today in your classrooms. The eating habits of tomorrow are being formed in our lunchrooms now. Healthy habits are born in our bathrooms and PE classes today.  The entertainment of tomorrow is first acted out on the stage in our auditoriums today. The sports heroes of tomorrow are getting dressed in your locker room right now. Tomorrow's congressman may be running for secretary of the Chess Club right now. </p> <p>If we want to impact the words, deeds, and actions of tomorrow - the school bell is ringing. May we all get the fact that we do have some very important work today. It may take 10 or 20 years to see the results, but some results of the future will show that many of you are faithful today. The sorry results will be seen from those educators who sat around with their feet up on their desks blaming society for the sorry state of things and wishing society would fixit without getting the fact that teachers play a very important role today.</p> <p>Educators. Teachers. Para professionals. Volunteers. Principals. Janitors. Coaches. Lunchroom staff. School nurses. Security staff. Front office administrators. School secretaries. GET IT. Whether school is about to start or you're already in the midst of it. GET THIS: YOUR JOB IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE YOU WORK WITH KIDS. Kids are important. They are our future. Please "get it" that unless you handle the problems and struggles in front of you today that no one else will fix it. Don't settle. Don't relax. Don't expect someone else to handle it. If a problem is in front of you. GET IT and get at solving it. Now. This is your job and the future is only as bright as you help make it to be. This is hard work but our future needs us to get how important our job is today. </p> <p>You can't do everything but you can do something. That something is usually the thing right in your face or under your nose at that moment. If more of us would get it and handle the problems right in front of us, it will be less problems for others to handle later. </p> <p>What a place every school would be if each staff member really GETS the importance of their job! Every one of you are important. Every one of you matters because every single precious child in our doors matters. Each one of them is precious and needs love and attention. It will only happen if people who work in schools start realizing that we aren't just here for the pay - we are here because we get to work with the future. Our job is important because kids are important. Do you get that? Do you really get it?</p> <p>I'm ready to start school. I get it - do you? If so, let's get-at-it together. The future is calling.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>A special request:</strong></p> <p>How do you help the others in your school get at the importance of their jobs? What do you read? What stories do you tell? Will you please share in the comments so that others who are working to inspire staff members to "get it" will have those stories to tell too? This is important.</p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Written by Vicki Davis, author - Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds - Posted with Blogsy from my iPad" height="20" src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" />Written by Vicki Davis, author - Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds - Posted with Blogsy from my iPad</a></div>

EDUCATION Inspiration Teaching A wish for every staff member of every school: to get it and get at it!

With major jetlag, I sit here bleary eyed on the couch considering the fact that in 7 days I'll be back at school. The summer will be d...

Giant sunflowers welcome summer to the garden

8:57 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLJe4JUZ7XlN5pThsEJ_-K-G136IhtovnB_Z4lkSN_lH2fSaIXT-ID3o4tlK9YAxFZ5zbW8SdNSVzAP_dLjPpcGMen3zHZm-u22z-SxScV3NiUAc8RV4vXbin_fbGD3yLK-9VyUSxtC-d/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLJe4JUZ7XlN5pThsEJ_-K-G136IhtovnB_Z4lkSN_lH2fSaIXT-ID3o4tlK9YAxFZ5zbW8SdNSVzAP_dLjPpcGMen3zHZm-u22z-SxScV3NiUAc8RV4vXbin_fbGD3yLK-9VyUSxtC-d/s640/9.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">SWAC Husband is not quite 6' tall and standing amongst the tomato plants.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrvbcpM5NkRbQfsXEdTVxn7yNcco-G7KAR1Jlp6lf0pF6jPRTiKeMCWg8vyHyuN0Cl-09SHL45xBTdr8QXPspW0yt2Iox0Rj-LHtDjIHL0bL2ZSe8cIK7feKAyUue927jgi8YY8suIRUt/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrvbcpM5NkRbQfsXEdTVxn7yNcco-G7KAR1Jlp6lf0pF6jPRTiKeMCWg8vyHyuN0Cl-09SHL45xBTdr8QXPspW0yt2Iox0Rj-LHtDjIHL0bL2ZSe8cIK7feKAyUue927jgi8YY8suIRUt/s400/8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The moon was high overhead when the photo was taken at 9:00 this morning.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9mir6JUBe2wkWkYmn4Sb6_3am4PRRPBrK1AmrKtT_f2IHA6efqYPnDO_QPrV4thpPpaVpngj965BGs5uOjVSuJdbiVTWG8e9kufBw6yfuiOjsRl1W49ZgYpk9-BJJafpQvs2tXgQqbo7/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9mir6JUBe2wkWkYmn4Sb6_3am4PRRPBrK1AmrKtT_f2IHA6efqYPnDO_QPrV4thpPpaVpngj965BGs5uOjVSuJdbiVTWG8e9kufBw6yfuiOjsRl1W49ZgYpk9-BJJafpQvs2tXgQqbo7/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The deep blue Shenandoah Valley sky made a perfect backdrop.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguVghIWpdsRgU1lF5-UfKxfRa46auB91QQTGju-Pm_Pi6MyYp2L7IB-4C6-51evvkTUUJynrnQO_aYeE-z3T_SpNy89tntFjKHngDeX0s9t-Oim5zDe9OwAEPfIOBOLgcGnVRWLfEvnf4k/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguVghIWpdsRgU1lF5-UfKxfRa46auB91QQTGju-Pm_Pi6MyYp2L7IB-4C6-51evvkTUUJynrnQO_aYeE-z3T_SpNy89tntFjKHngDeX0s9t-Oim5zDe9OwAEPfIOBOLgcGnVRWLfEvnf4k/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGU2_j8D7EWpGtHr8lFb-7wJZxM-bkTkSLQiw4s_wLqzL6zhPUXRXdlAoHzsEwt41PfSkevlRPvopNf_5wyOFg0-quX5mc4y7DQsoGcocAZm5zJC7aiNvXSvDyjvujl1GKOaO16ERNf-fl/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGU2_j8D7EWpGtHr8lFb-7wJZxM-bkTkSLQiw4s_wLqzL6zhPUXRXdlAoHzsEwt41PfSkevlRPvopNf_5wyOFg0-quX5mc4y7DQsoGcocAZm5zJC7aiNvXSvDyjvujl1GKOaO16ERNf-fl/s400/1.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb1vIINczNd8Legnv0KTG94QNkBHyD5Rkq48pfLVwNIyp8ixEpYiwsG7uz3LWRoNFAVei6B7_4iXGbYwmQSRM1StvBR1OJplv3lo9mWSdtNTej9wjKQe-Lajzrjilw7p_DV_caxyF1Z3S/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb1vIINczNd8Legnv0KTG94QNkBHyD5Rkq48pfLVwNIyp8ixEpYiwsG7uz3LWRoNFAVei6B7_4iXGbYwmQSRM1StvBR1OJplv3lo9mWSdtNTej9wjKQe-Lajzrjilw7p_DV_caxyF1Z3S/s400/4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDPE3gf-UYdoT24cWJkYEP5IOIE26t4zvqK99dc_ux8GPdDAt7TWthxj2-wwu1dnWwdfYZkzR4PtTNIPOdQtVoLuwCNFKR0kCmUx7IaecWaAk3A73TXZkE2lC3zt8Do3IWvkrW1VpDfeZ/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDPE3gf-UYdoT24cWJkYEP5IOIE26t4zvqK99dc_ux8GPdDAt7TWthxj2-wwu1dnWwdfYZkzR4PtTNIPOdQtVoLuwCNFKR0kCmUx7IaecWaAk3A73TXZkE2lC3zt8Do3IWvkrW1VpDfeZ/s400/5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSEh1R4IrXot2EPnMipAUr-NKNiQ7y_5y7MWWgjjoPu-6NEcCSvbip_1wfvVFZ4pbCJpEnwtvarye_bBWaE7lPZr2La2vEfSfOUAfwuys5ff7fgPcY3Z5yBPppRn7lEemb3y60cfolAuM/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSEh1R4IrXot2EPnMipAUr-NKNiQ7y_5y7MWWgjjoPu-6NEcCSvbip_1wfvVFZ4pbCJpEnwtvarye_bBWaE7lPZr2La2vEfSfOUAfwuys5ff7fgPcY3Z5yBPppRn7lEemb3y60cfolAuM/s400/6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiA8uQ2Gfh6zyea71VULf2yz_pnaunrt2FBNwIrlbnR1me2xziwTSkp0Mw44NVqyV3954Cw2DUn3Arsbztp0IBj9Fyder50rpc7h01gL6aixbqRtbNz3RGEqi3MzOYaPdJhi2PTZ9PcIwp/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiA8uQ2Gfh6zyea71VULf2yz_pnaunrt2FBNwIrlbnR1me2xziwTSkp0Mw44NVqyV3954Cw2DUn3Arsbztp0IBj9Fyder50rpc7h01gL6aixbqRtbNz3RGEqi3MzOYaPdJhi2PTZ9PcIwp/s400/7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Sunflowers just seem to shout "summer"!</div><br />Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell<br />Sunflowers<br />July 29, 2013

gardening summer in Shenandoah Valley summer vegetables sunflowers western Virginia Giant sunflowers welcome summer to the garden

SWAC Husband is not quite 6' tall and standing amongst the tomato plants. The moon was high overhead when the photo was taken at 9:00 th...

Status and Stress - NYTimes.com

8:35 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div id="opinionator" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div align="left"><div class="entry-content"><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there's stress, and then there's Stress with a capital "S." The former can be considered a manageable if unpleasant part of life; in the right amount, it may even strengthen one's mettle. The latter kills.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">What's the difference? Scientists have settled on an oddly subjective explanation: the more helpless one feels when facing a given stressor, they argue, the more toxic that stressor's effects.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">That sense of control tends to decline as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, with potentially grave consequences. Those on the bottom are more than three times as likely to die prematurely as those at the top. They're also more likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and diabetes. Perhaps most devastating, the stress of poverty early in life can have consequences that last into adulthood.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Even those who later ascend economically may show persistent effects of early-life hardship. Scientists find them more prone to illness than those who were never poor. Becoming more affluent may lower the risk of disease by lessening the sense of helplessness and allowing greater access to healthful resources like exercise, more nutritious foods and greater social support; people are not absolutely condemned by their upbringing. But the effects of early-life stress also seem to linger, unfavorably molding our nervous systems and possibly even accelerating the rate at which we age.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">The British epidemiologist Michael Marmot calls the phenomenon "<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/status-syndrome-michael-marmot/1100625927?ean=9780805078541" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">status syndrome</a>." He's studied British civil servants who work in a rigid hierarchy for decades, and found that accounting for the usual suspects — smoking, diet and access to health care — won't completely abolish the effect. There's a direct relationship among health, well-being and one's place in the greater scheme. "The higher you are in the social hierarchy," he says, "the better your health."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Dr. Marmot blames a particular type of stress. It's not necessarily the strain of a chief executive facing a lengthy to-do list, or a well-to-do parent's agonizing over a child's prospects of acceptance to an elite school. Unlike those of lower rank, both the C.E.O. and the anxious parent have resources with which to address the problem. By definition, the poor have far fewer.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">So the stress that kills, Dr. Marmot and others argue, is characterized by a lack of a sense of control over one's fate. Psychologists who study animals call one result of this type of strain "learned helplessness."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">How they induce it is instructive. Indiscriminate electric shocks will send an animal into a kind of depression, blunting its ability to learn and remember. But if the animal has some control over how long the shocks last, it remains resilient. Pain and unpleasantness matter less than having some control over their duration.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Biologists explain the particulars as a fight-or-flight response — adrenaline pumping, heart rate elevated, blood pressure increased — that continues indefinitely. This reaction is necessary for escaping from lions, bears and muggers, but when activated chronically it wears the body ragged. And it's especially unhealthy for children, whose nervous systems are, by evolutionary design, malleable.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Scientists can, in fact, see the imprint of early-life stress decades later: there are more markers of inflammation in those who have experienced such hardship. Chronic inflammation increases the risk of degenerative diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Indeed, telomeres — the tips of our chromosomes — appear to be shorter among those who have experienced early-life adversity, which might be an indicator of accelerated aging. And scientists have found links, independent of current income, between early-life poverty and a higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and arthritis in adulthood.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">"Early-life stress and the scar tissue that it leaves, with every passing bit of aging, gets harder and harder to reverse," says Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford. "You're never out of luck in terms of interventions, but the longer you wait, the more work you've got on your hands."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">This research has cast new light on racial differences in longevity. In the United States, whites live longer on average by about five years than African-Americans. But a 2012 study by a Princeton researcher calculated that socioeconomic and demographic factors, not genetics, accounted for 70 to 80 percent of that difference. The single greatest contributor was income, which explained more than half the disparity. Other studies, meanwhile, suggest that the subjective experience of racism by African-Americans — a major stressor — appears to have effects on health. Reports of discrimination correlate with visceral fat accumulation in women, which increases the risk of metabolic syndrome (and thus the risk of heart disease and diabetes). In men, they correlate with high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Race aside, Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York, describes these relationships as one way that "poverty gets under the skin." He and others talk about the "biological embedding" of social status. Your parents' social standing and your stress level during early life change how your brain and body work, affecting your vulnerability to degenerative disease decades later. They may even alter your vulnerability to infection. In one study, scientists at Carnegie Mellon exposed volunteers to a common cold virus. Those who'd grown up poorer (measured by parental homeownership) not only resisted the virus less effectively, but also suffered more severe cold symptoms.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Peter Gianaros, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, is interested in heart disease. He found that college students who viewed their parents as having low social status reacted more strongly to images of angry faces, as measured by the reactivity of the amygdala — an almond-shaped area of the brain that coordinates the fear response. Over a lifetime, he suspects, a harder, faster response to threats may contribute to the formation of arterial plaques. Dr. Gianaros also found that, among a group of 48 women followed for about 20 years, higher reports of stress correlated with a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus, a brain region important for learning and memory. In animals, chronic stress shrinks this area, and also hinders the ability to learn.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">These associations raise profound questions about stress's role in hindering life achievement. Educational attainment and school performance have long been linked to socioeconomic class, and a divergence in skills is evident quite early in life. One oft-cited study suggests that 3-year-olds from professional families have more than twice the vocabulary of children from families on welfare. The disparity may stem in part from different intensities of parental stimulation; poorer parents may simply speak less with their children.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">But Martha Farah, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has also noted differences not just in the words absorbed but in the abilities that may help youngsters learn. Among children, she's found, socioeconomic status correlates with the ability to pay attention and ignore distractions. Others have observed differences in the function of the prefrontal cortex, a region associated with planning and self-control, in poorer children.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">"You don't need a neuroscientist to tell you that less stress, more education, more support of all types for young families are needed," Dr. Farah told me in an e-mail. "But seeing an image of the brain with specific regions highlighted where financial disadvantage results in less growth reframes the problems of childhood poverty as a public health issue, not just an equal opportunity issue."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Animal studies help dispel doubts that we're really seeing sickly and anxiety-prone individuals filter to the bottom of the socioeconomic heap. In primate experiments females of low standing are more likely to develop heart disease compared with their counterparts of higher standing. When eating junk food, they more rapidly progress toward heart disease. The lower a macaque is in her troop, the higher her genes involved in inflammation are cranked. High-ranking males even heal faster than their lower-ranking counterparts. Behavioral tendencies change as well. Low-ranking males are more likely to choose cocaine over food than higher-ranking individuals.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">All hope is not lost, however. Gene expression profiles can normalize when low-ranking adult individuals ascend in the troop. "There are likely contextual influences that are not necessarily immutable," says Daniel Hackman, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. And yet, as with humans, the mark of early-life hardship persists in nervous systems wired slightly differently. A nurturing bond with a caregiver in a stimulating environment appears essential for proper brain development and healthy maturation of the stress response. That sounds easy enough, except that such bonds, and the broader social networks that support them, are precisely what poverty disrupts. If you're an underpaid, overworked parent — worried, behind on rent, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood — your parental skills are more likely to be compromised. That's worrisome given the trends in the United States. About one in five children now lives below the poverty line, a 35 percent increase in a decade. Unicef recently ranked the United States No. 26 in childhood well-being, out of 29 developed countries. When considering just childhood poverty, only Romania fares worse.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">"We're going in the wrong direction in terms of greater inequality creating more of these pressures," says Nancy Adler, the director of the Center for Health and Community at the University of California, San Francisco. As income disparities have increased, class mobility has declined. By some measures, you now have a better chance of living the American dream in Canada or Western Europe than in the United States. And while Americans generally gained longevity during the late 20th century, those gains have gone disproportionately to the better-off. Those without a high school education haven't experienced much improvement in life span since the middle of the 20th century. Poorly educated whites have lost a few years of longevity in recent decades.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">A National Research Council report, meanwhile, found that Americans were generally sicker and had shorter life spans than people in 16 other wealthy nations. We rank No. 1 for diabetes in adults over age 20, and No. 2 for deaths from coronary artery disease and lung disease. The Japanese smoke more than Americans, but outlive us — as do the French and Germans, who drink more. The dismal ranking is surprising given that America spends nearly twice as much per capita on health care as the next biggest spender.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">But an analysis by Elizabeth H. Bradley, an economist at the Yale School of Public Health, suggests that how you spend money matters. The higher the spending on social services relative to health care, she's found, the greater the longevity dividends.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Some now argue that addressing health disparities and their causes is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one. It will save money in the long run. The University of Chicago economist James Heckman estimates that investing in poor children yields a yearly return of 7 to 10 percent thereafter to society.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; ">Early-life stress and poverty aren't a problem of only the poor. They cost everyone.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; "><em>Moises Velasquez-Manoff is a science writer and the author of "An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases."</em></div></div></div></div><br><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/status-and-stress/?src=me&ref=general&pagewanted=print">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/status-and-stress/?src=me&ref=general&pagewanted=print</a>

Status and Stress - NYTimes.com

Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there's stress, and then there's Stress w...

Early summer morning in the garden

8:18 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4RK4Y0XqXMHCtqbEvyUgKOsdxOKmrzBlODCNErnwlTtbnAYYcXFM3cVMpPRXeJfiVUgXCd8_jWeOWLfHEB33x45fuOckW2WRaWaqZNcbOvPPULff3pzHE4uUtAjGBSaRU6ugQiK2wnVx/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4RK4Y0XqXMHCtqbEvyUgKOsdxOKmrzBlODCNErnwlTtbnAYYcXFM3cVMpPRXeJfiVUgXCd8_jWeOWLfHEB33x45fuOckW2WRaWaqZNcbOvPPULff3pzHE4uUtAjGBSaRU6ugQiK2wnVx/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">The cool 52-degree air wafted in the open windows this morning as I  reached for a sweater to go over my tee shirt. The late July coolness is  truly appreciated so after breakfast I loaded the washing machine with  towels and sheets to hang out to dry, and then, donning SWAC Husband's  wide-brimmed hat, headed to the garden before the summer sun became too  uncomfortable.  </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmO8pXaGyrpbgJjNbKGITnmhq7kMs_4L5qTkzHoWHJpYIjuPZYd6p1SZcd2fWSmE5XGnT0w_0Ci5RpwhVhB_jAzJ3EPhvDXL9iBqlgobTlYWQdL-wE9NbCIzJHi_4aBnwQOely3tuvIa5/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmO8pXaGyrpbgJjNbKGITnmhq7kMs_4L5qTkzHoWHJpYIjuPZYd6p1SZcd2fWSmE5XGnT0w_0Ci5RpwhVhB_jAzJ3EPhvDXL9iBqlgobTlYWQdL-wE9NbCIzJHi_4aBnwQOely3tuvIa5/s400/10.jpg" width="362" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">My tennis shoes quickly became wet from the dewy grass as I made my way  across the yard to the garden gate. The sun was peeking over the ridge  so half the garden was in shade while the other half was already in full  sun.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVs5Vd1q4Pg3l_bf74lLEBwTih382w3mgGOKsrSkFEm37Wsql7ujFUZFePNdOZjP15T5QYofk_FYi4z-fKjrAlJeNBmn9CJh45v0dcYxDoKGrGzcHcoY92Jyj2EeX2IBuAo-PRgIQo-6Xp/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVs5Vd1q4Pg3l_bf74lLEBwTih382w3mgGOKsrSkFEm37Wsql7ujFUZFePNdOZjP15T5QYofk_FYi4z-fKjrAlJeNBmn9CJh45v0dcYxDoKGrGzcHcoY92Jyj2EeX2IBuAo-PRgIQo-6Xp/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyrFHVOHVRLHvWw2FmFcFm-Nd0d3vPVx8lHI1FuYjGXyKloCG7LEVychQKXAq_W-0ze1d0g2boEYhVn9b5_vTYGofYH6zfy0NOt5W50hVa3ML0bDzXVOsRNmZafV87GS0Q6hEBqZouA1iC/s1600/17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyrFHVOHVRLHvWw2FmFcFm-Nd0d3vPVx8lHI1FuYjGXyKloCG7LEVychQKXAq_W-0ze1d0g2boEYhVn9b5_vTYGofYH6zfy0NOt5W50hVa3ML0bDzXVOsRNmZafV87GS0Q6hEBqZouA1iC/s400/17.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOqtsaic7MlWQ33ooYAS43Km7-IhRH9JAG3c4mJuCOVH34nbJwH64kfvhq-w_iOeoktt6WHa9GvPvcptDcHLtXRGvuqKJPfZcS1MLnArQDDAXEFHiYlv5CDh3CC-Ng9VhK9mW8FBCkvgG/s1600/18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOqtsaic7MlWQ33ooYAS43Km7-IhRH9JAG3c4mJuCOVH34nbJwH64kfvhq-w_iOeoktt6WHa9GvPvcptDcHLtXRGvuqKJPfZcS1MLnArQDDAXEFHiYlv5CDh3CC-Ng9VhK9mW8FBCkvgG/s400/18.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">We have what I would call a salad garden this year. Yukon Gold potatoes  were the exception but they are always so good -- and this year they  have grown so big -- that they are always a first choice for planting.  Otherwise, it's several varieties of tomatoes, several varieties of  peppers, cucumbers, and herbs. Colorful flowers add bright splashes of  yellow, orange, red, blue, and purple while attracting pollen-collecting  bees.</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEienStV1nZxtm6POfZ1Cq9440i6-L9763jTsZBDufyVVeo4KtCYI5TAHsDrqx_2HNhr0qrsuSm-QoGX-yjQFsXm26IemTNRex7W_M4L4dDPzIXNe28CJX4Mw0VLPafVLsnXvH4yjTNt5cmm/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEienStV1nZxtm6POfZ1Cq9440i6-L9763jTsZBDufyVVeo4KtCYI5TAHsDrqx_2HNhr0qrsuSm-QoGX-yjQFsXm26IemTNRex7W_M4L4dDPzIXNe28CJX4Mw0VLPafVLsnXvH4yjTNt5cmm/s400/13.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The necessary June bug <i>aka</i> Japanese beetle trap hangs in the corner of the garden although they have not been much of a problem this year. We didn't get the 17-year cicadas either ... only the usual summer variety.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidPVVcR2BuQYxWOBfBLNrBfyTYf-UsoAz7ESUhjp4Me4DV8PtwTs3Q6K8apm38Mfp5-MZJyXQad17K2d7aGuHEsuEJFIxusWd-wbMZuIzTMvNrzn0-pmcVtOgFndh2U5GLlJI-apVV5S_h/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidPVVcR2BuQYxWOBfBLNrBfyTYf-UsoAz7ESUhjp4Me4DV8PtwTs3Q6K8apm38Mfp5-MZJyXQad17K2d7aGuHEsuEJFIxusWd-wbMZuIzTMvNrzn0-pmcVtOgFndh2U5GLlJI-apVV5S_h/s400/15.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> It's nice to have a shady spot to relax after getting sweaty in the garden. This is my own oasis of quiet under the shade trees.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhXewEmqQkfk13GjxgBoZ4Il2UY49nDxm1CiRhagDEl6STf3OyHxQaH61AComUP8BQpe73d5JfyAgRlNPZu5WHWFCTbbjg0KTVVPhByoQ9iJKf8rtkHaw8a7HLp2xxDEU_bPDV5i4-hqj/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhXewEmqQkfk13GjxgBoZ4Il2UY49nDxm1CiRhagDEl6STf3OyHxQaH61AComUP8BQpe73d5JfyAgRlNPZu5WHWFCTbbjg0KTVVPhByoQ9iJKf8rtkHaw8a7HLp2xxDEU_bPDV5i4-hqj/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">By the time I finished in the garden and had hung the clothes out, the temperature had risen 20 degrees to a still-comfortable 72.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SQZUoDx9gL78COATRgzStm6zlyFuQR1_sJ2kBYnD8IorRTsHNfUV4mgaBBWTDXQdFomWlU1oMHAo3XX98i8tJEdLLcHpR7DrgBeyWqZ6dyPjlT_VOa3iOLP9IEa1IZ34YkqA8Ed0aE-l/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SQZUoDx9gL78COATRgzStm6zlyFuQR1_sJ2kBYnD8IorRTsHNfUV4mgaBBWTDXQdFomWlU1oMHAo3XX98i8tJEdLLcHpR7DrgBeyWqZ6dyPjlT_VOa3iOLP9IEa1IZ34YkqA8Ed0aE-l/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">I've got to say there's something satisfying about growing your own food, and there's something comforting about consuming it and knowing where it came from. We know there are no pesticides on it and how it's been handled and exactly how fresh it is ... from garden to dinner table. Yum.</div><br />Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell<br />July 29, 2013

gardening home summer in the Shenandoah Valley summer vegetables sunflowers western Virginia Early summer morning in the garden

The cool 52-degree air wafted in the open windows this morning as I reached for a sweater to go over my tee shirt. The late July coolness i...

The Ellie Wenker Story

8:17 AM Tukiyooo 0

The Ellie Wenker Story

Thank you Spencer Osborne for this amazing article and story about my journey to Belviq and with Belviq this far. This is probably the most...

Fly Lady

8:05 AM Tukiyooo 0

Cleaning.  Grrrr!  Cannot stand it!<br /><br />Clean a room, begin the next and the two little ones have completely destroyed the one that was just cleaned.<br /><br />It's well established I'm a little <i>off</i> in my head lol<br /><br />I can't function with clutter.  My productive mind completely shuts down and looks for shiny things to play with.<br /><br />I'm a procrastinator to the extreme.  If it's going to be too much effort, or if there's a shiny thing to chase, it's not getting done. <br /><br />I'm a perfectionist.  If I can't do it 100% perfectly, it's not worth my time.<br /><br />And I have little kids.<br /><br />So you can just imagine what my house often looks like.   <br /><br />A while ago I stumbled upon <a href="http://flylady.net/" target="_blank">FlyLady</a>.  She's got a whole system of daily assignments and routines to keep the house clean and organized.  I need structure and rules so this appealed to me.  One of the things she mentions a lot is keeping the CHAOS at bay - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome... because your house is trashed.<br /><br />There's some housecleaning plans I've found online that require you to put in hours each day.  Each Monday, you do these 90 chores, and then each Tuesday you do these other 82 chores, etc.  I don't think so.  It's not 1940 and I have jobs outside my home.<br /><br />With FlyLady as long as you do what you're supposed to do all week, your weekends are completely free for pampering yourself and spending time with your family.  No more spending all day Saturday cleaning up from the tornado that swept through all week.<br /><br />FlyLady breaks down everything over the month.  There are daily routines that go very quickly, then some cleaning and family stuff that must be done weekly.  Each week has a new area of the house to focus on in detail.  The little persnickety chores like sweeping/vacuuming under the furniture or dusting blinds are just once a month.  Of course, you customize it so if dust-free blinds are important to you, it goes into the daily or weekly category.  You can go online and see what is planned.  Or if you're like me and need to know precisely what is coming and when, you can make a big ol' binder with the entire website printed out.<br /><br />The whole thing is set up with a "you can do it" attitude.  I fall off the system a lot.  Like all the time.  But that's my struggle with my own <strike>crazies</strike> brain chemistry, my jobs, my poor kids, and a HoH that only comes out to humor me occasionally... usually when I need him least.  But despite this, I pick up my book, flip to the right page and pick up right where I left off.  <br /><br />So I'm writing this because I had a friend ask me about it over the weekend, and then TL Bucko mentioned the dreaded cleaning today too...  And maybe my writing about it will inspire me to stick to it this time.

Fly Lady

Cleaning. Grrrr! Cannot stand it! Clean a room, begin the next and the two little ones have completely destroyed the one that was just cle...

YouMedia Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library

7:59 AM Anonymous 0

<strong>YouMedia Manager (full-time) - </strong><strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Hartford Public Library</span></strong></strong> seeks creative and flexible individual for management of our new  digital learning center for teens.  Responsibilities: the operation of  YouMedia, a new digital learning center for teens.  Minimum  requirements:  Bachelors Degree in a related discipline; Masters Degree  in library science, education, arts education, or a related discipline  preferred. Previous supervisory experience required.  Experience with  new technologies and social media required. Applicant must be  technologically fluent with Macs, PCs and digital media creation  software.  Full requirements, job description and application are  available online at <a _fcksavedurl="http://hplct.org/about/job-openings" href="http://hplct.org/about/job-openings" target="_blank">http://hplct.org/about/job-openings</a> or Administrative Office, Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street,  Hartford, CT  06103. A completed signed application must be received in  order to be considered for this position. Position open until filled.  Hartford Public Library requires a Criminal Background Check and  Pre-employment Drug Testing on applicants who are selected as a finalist  for the position. Applicants will be provided a copy of any positive  drug test results. A criminal record does not necessarily eliminate you  from employment with Hartford Public Library. Each conviction will be  reviewed with respect to the offense, circumstances, seriousness and the  position for which you apply. E.O.E.

YouMedia Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library

YouMedia Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library seeks creative and flexible individual for management of our new digital learning ...