News for today's 2018

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 ...

Branch Manager - Hartford Public Library

7:57 AM Anonymous 0

<strong>Branch Manager - </strong><strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Hartford Public Library</span></strong></strong> seeks creative and flexible individual to manage a branch location.   Qualifications: Masters degree in library science from an ALA-accredited  institution with previous supervisory/managerial experience. Previous  supervisory/managerial experience required, preferably in a service  organization. Candidate must have general computer proficiency,  including knowledge of library software and Microsoft Office products;  ability to communicate effectively and establish and manage effective  working relationships with users, employees, supervisors, and the  general public; and possess communication skills necessary to resolve  issues with library users. <a _fcksavedurl="https://hplct.org/assets/uploads/files/about/Jobs/JOB%20DESCRIPTION%20-%20BRANCH%20MGR%20%202013.pdf" href="https://hplct.org/assets/uploads/files/about/Jobs/JOB%20DESCRIPTION%20-%20BRANCH%20MGR%20%202013.pdf" target="_blank">Full job description</a> and <a _fcksavedurl="https://hplct.org/assets/uploads/files/about/application.pdf" href="https://hplct.org/assets/uploads/files/about/application.pdf" target="_blank">application </a>are  available from the Administrative Offices, 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.

Branch Manager - Hartford Public Library

Branch Manager - Hartford Public Library seeks creative and flexible individual to manage a branch location. Qualifications: Masters degr...

Programming and Events Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library

7:53 AM Anonymous 0

<strong>Programming and Events Manager (full-time) -</strong> <strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Hartford Public Library</span></strong></strong>  seeks a Programming and Events Manager in support of library wide  innovative programming, within the Library’s broader program of  services.  This position requires substantial application of  professional knowledge and experience. Responsibilities: Minimum  requirements:  Masters degree in Education, History, Art, Humanities or  other related field. Previous experience with program development,  planning, implementation and required.  Applicant must have extensive  knowledge of project management standards.  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 is required 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.

Programming and Events Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library

Programming and Events Manager (full-time) - Hartford Public Library seeks a Programming and Events Manager in support of library wide i...

Biggest wave of fast-food strikes begins today

7:50 AM Tukiyooo 0

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container tr_bq" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlw40T38H_W-SA6YquGRfzhF25aLpbV6LLI47lAD4TGCVwiiUP_3S18ylCb7uKJyop0iwapZh7j6DJUThdhXu8ZKQPZurw1_6YSwKs-dWqJS2CZNR4-boWuTOcvWOY6MbCTmMiJ6MOUF4/s1600/fast+food+strike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlw40T38H_W-SA6YquGRfzhF25aLpbV6LLI47lAD4TGCVwiiUP_3S18ylCb7uKJyop0iwapZh7j6DJUThdhXu8ZKQPZurw1_6YSwKs-dWqJS2CZNR4-boWuTOcvWOY6MbCTmMiJ6MOUF4/s320/fast+food+strike.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fast-food strike in New York City today.</td></tr></tbody></table>A wave of fast-food strikes began in New York City today as workers prepare to walk off the job in seven more cities over the next few days. It is likely to be the biggest mobilization of low-wage workers since the short, sudden one-day job actions began in November.<br /><br />Fast-food workers are striking in restaurants like McDonald's, Papa John's and Wendy's in New York City. More walkouts are planned for Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Mo., and Flint, Mich. The workers demand a living wage and the right to form a union without retaliation.<br /><br />The success of previous fast-food strikes has given momentum to the growing movement for livable wages. Josh Eidelson, writing in <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/29/fast_food_strikes_intensify_in_seven_cities/" rel="nofollow">Salon</a>, spoke to a fast-food worker a month ago:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">St. Louis Jimmy John’s employee Rasheen Aldridge told Salon that there “was a whole lot of nervousness” when he and three co-workers at his store first went on strike in May. “There was a big chance that I could of got fired,” said Aldridge, “because that’s just how, you know, fast food operates.” But when they returned to work in one piece, he said his co-workers’ reaction was “You know, you guys sort of took the step we all need to do.”</blockquote>Today's walkout is generating national media attention, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/sunday-review/fighting-back-against-wretched-wages.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">The New York Times</a>, broadcast and cable news networks and the <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/fast-food-strike-detroit-st-louis-new-york-chicago-3-other-cities-striking-monday-increased-pay">financial press</a>. Steven Greenhouse at The New York Times writes:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Often relegated to the background, America’s low-wage workers have been making considerable noise lately by deploying an unusual weapon — one-day strikes — to make their message heard: they’re sick and tired of earning just $8, $9, $10 an hour. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Their anger has been stoked by what they see as a glaring disconnect: their wages have flatlined, while median pay for chief executives at the nation’s top corporations jumped 16 percent last year, averaging a princely $15.1 million, according to Equilar, an executive compensation analysis firm. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">In recent weeks, workers from McDonald’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants — many of them part-time employees — have staged one-day walkouts in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Seattle to protest their earnings, typically just $150 to $350 a week, often too little to support themselves and their families. </blockquote><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/fast-food-workers-strike-for-higher-wages-in-u-s-cities.html" rel="nofollow">Bloomberg News</a> reports that low-wage jobs are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, is adding jobs faster than any other sector in the U.S. In June, the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/USEHTOTS:IND" rel="nofollow">sector</a> added 75,000 jobs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fast-food cooks make $9.02 an hour, or about $18,760 a year, on average, according to 2012 <a href="http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag72.htm" rel="nofollow">data</a> from the Washington-based agency.</blockquote>The problem of low wages isn't limited to fast-food workers. Today, Hope Yen at the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/poverty-unemployment-rates_n_3666594.html?utm_hp_ref=tw">Associated Press</a> reported that 80 percent of adults in the United States struggle to earn enough money at some point in their lives:<br /><blockquote>Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream... </blockquote><blockquote>Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession.</blockquote>

fast food workers low-wage jobs strike Biggest wave of fast-food strikes begins today

Fast-food strike in New York City today. A wave of fast-food strikes began in New York City today as workers prepare to walk off the job in ...

Cultural Affairs and Public Programming Assistant (part-time) - Hartford Public Library

7:46 AM Anonymous 0

<strong>Cultural Affairs and Public Programming Assistant (part-time) - </strong><strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Hartford Public Library</span></strong></strong> seeks creative and flexible individual for Cultural Affairs and Public  Programming.  Responsibilities: responsible for assisting with all  aspects of space rental and room reservation requests. This includes the  responsibility for scheduling, accounting, and logistics for all use by  internal and external customers. Minimum requirements:  Bachelors  Degree or equivalent experience required. 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 fully completed, signed application is required  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.

Cultural Affairs and Public Programming Assistant (part-time) - Hartford Public Library

Cultural Affairs and Public Programming Assistant (part-time) - Hartford Public Library seeks creative and flexible individual for Cultural...

Easy Methods To Shed Pounds, Anybody Can Lose That Weight

7:32 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawbyline'>By Frederic Leblanc</div><br /><br />  <div class='uawarticle'>Have you been waiting for the proper time inside your life to truly buckle down and seeking to shed pounds ? Nicely that time is right now! Study on to discover the tips the pros use when they need to lose weight. It is by no means been easier- just read and adhere to these tips to a healthier life!<br />  <br />  An excellent way to assist you to shed pounds is to carry out three, thirty minute cardio sessions per week or if you want something much more difficult that takes much less time, you can do HIIT cardio as well. If you perform this many cardio sessions per week, you will burn roughly about 1 thousand calories via exercise. If you're dieting and performing workouts comparable to those in the same time you are able to lose about a pound every week, even more pounds if you are overweight.<br />  <br />  A good eating habits can significantly assist you to shed pounds<br />  <br />  Avoid eating when you are bored when attempting to lose weight. When you consume to relieve boredom, you're much more likely to consume high fat or sugary snack foods like chips or candy rather of healthy foods. You're also more most likely to eat much more food than in the event you plan your snacks.<br />  <br />  A important trick to eating less and reducing weight is to place your fork down after every bite you take. Doing this will allow you to eat more slowly, and it'll give your stomach time for you to send the signals to your brain about whenever you have had sufficient to consume.<br />  <br />  1 fantastic tip to shed pounds would be to steer clear of condiments that are high in fat, like ranch dressing or bleu cheese. These can add hundreds of calories for your diet plan every day. Instead, try to use a vegetarian bean dip, such as hummus, that is much lower in calories and is actually good for you.<br />  <br />  To keep your nutritious diet plan in check, don't really feel that you simply have to restrict any specific meals. By performing that, you are going to crave that meals even more and that will throw your diet plan completely off track. Just consume the not so wholesome meals in moderation and also you will probably be fine but it's recommended to not consume more than two meals of these foods per week. It can be a good way to boots your metabolism up but once more eat these foods in moderation because it should not be delaying your weight loss results.<br />  <br />  Soda is one of the most dangerous drinks for your body. It'll help pack on the pounds, it has no nutritional value, and it could actually erode the lining of one's stomach. Put down the soda and grab water, and you will be amazed to determine a increase inside your weight reduction. You would most likely be shocked to know how numerous calories a day you're obtaining just from your sugared sodas. If you trade 1 super-sized soda for a no-calorie drink rather, you are able to reduce 400-500 calories. Multiply that more than a number of drinks a month, or perhaps a week, and you can see how quickly that adds up.<br />  <br />  Getting a gym partner that motivate you is another great way to help you shed pounds<br />  <br />  To help in weight reduction one must consider their motivation behind wanting to lose weight. This motivation will increase ones will to lose weight and stop one from providing up on their weight reduction struggle. Motivation may be the difference between effective and unsuccessful weight reduction for an individual. When having a gym partner, it is much more easily to stay focused on your diet and training by motivating each other.<br />  <br />  So, now is the time! Buckle down! These weight loss suggestions that you simply just read will work, in the event you give them a opportunity! Don't hesitate- setup a weight loss schedule for yourself now, and begin losing weight and feeling great! Shed pounds and reveal a slimmer, happier you!<br />  <br />  </div><br />  <div class='uawresource'><br />  	<div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawabout'><br />  		About the Author:<br />  	</div><br />  	<div class='uawlinks'><i>If you liked these tips on <a href="http://www.empowernetwork.com/white700/blog/shed-pounds-with-these-weight-loss-tips/?id=white700">how to shed pounds</a> and wish to have more info, visit my blog by <a href="https://www.empowernetwork.com/white700/blog/category/fat-loss/">clicking here</a>. </i></div><br />  </div><br />

Easy Methods To Shed Pounds, Anybody Can Lose That Weight

By Frederic Leblanc Have you been waiting for the proper time inside your life to truly buckle down and seeking to shed pounds ? Nicely ...