"Dedicated to the premise that no matter what 'experts' say, trends in Education really are fleeting; and that the ONLY goal of all school employees should be to work with parents to help their students become better people in June than they were in September."
This is not a column that I am going to enjoy writing but what follows still needs to be said. And although I am going to appear to be very critical of law enforcement in the commentary that follows, please take my word for it when I say that I am extremely pro-cop. And the reason I am very supportive of the men and women in blue is that I have witnessed on numerous occasions their willingness to be the first ones who rush into a location when God knows what is behind that closed door. But nevertheless I still believe that what follows needs to be said.
Enroll in health insurance by January 15 for coverage that starts February 1. The new year is a time for new beginnings — or at least thinking about them. If you’re considering starting…
Thought about making any resolutions for 2016? You know, most resolutions turn into excuses within days or weeks or months. Don’t make any resolutions you already know cannot keep until first you decide what do you want out of your life.
And as Dr. Eric “ET” Thomas, MSU alum and education professor says in this short video… that’s what you can do… earn each day, week, month, year. Earn it for yourself. Not for anyone else.
As Thomas says, you owe yourself that much. No excuses.
Then wake up every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, waking up and going after it… whatever IT is.
You owe yourself at least that much… to know what you want for your life… not just for 2016 but for the rest of your life… day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for as many days, weeks, months and years as you can earn for yourself.
Know what you want.
What do you want in your life?
In your relationships? In your family? In your job and career? In your health?
My resolution which I made a few months ago was, at this stage of my life, health related… to be as healthy as I can be by never again being an “unconscious eater” – to be conscious of and completely understand that “I am what I eat” and when I looked at myself and my weight and my overall health I really had become what I was eating.
I’ve been overweight and on all sorts of medications most all of my adult life. Part of me had resigned myself to being husky as boy, big and tall as a man. Big boned – what a joke. What a loser I’d become. I had my own culture of being a loser and not a winner. I had all sorts of excuses for myself. I let myself down over and over again, when I deserved better for myself.
But after watching two videos – Dr. Eric Thomas (educator, motivational speaker) and Dr. William Davis (cardiologist and Wheat Belly Diet author) I resolved that I wanted to wake up everyday being conscious of what I was going to put into my body whether I was making my own meal, eating something someone made for me or ordering a meal in a restaurant.
And that’s what you can do… EARN each day, week, month, year. Really. Earn it. You owe yourself that much.
Don’t make ANY resolutions until you know what you want for yourself. Just do the work – as “ET” says, do the “grind” – demand the most of yourself and stop letting yourself down – do what you know you need to do.
For me it all starts with a formula for my health… “grains-be-gone + sugar-be-gone = weight be gone” … and as it turns out “meds-be-gone” too!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.
Captions/Credits: Daniel S. Loeb, shown with his wife, Margaret, runs the $17 billion Third Point hedge fund. Mr. Loeb, who has owned a home in East Hampton, has contributed to Jeb Bush’s super PAC and given $1 million to the American Unity Super PAC, which supports gay rights.Credit Left: Patrick McMullan Company; Right: Doug Kuntz
The poor and middle class (what’s left of it) are missing two very important “L” words… lawyers and lobbyists… that’s why the next President of the United States has to be someone who puts their best interest first… Someone like progressive, democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, in my book.
The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield billions in income.
Here’s an excerpt from the NYT in depth report… try not to throw up on your device’s screen…
“Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans.
The impact on their own fortunes has been stark. Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups.
The ultra-wealthy “literally pay millions of dollars for these services,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, “and save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes.”
Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, andJames Simons, who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans.”
"That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children.... is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination.... It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose... tied to one another by a common bond." —Senator Paul Wellstone --- March 31, 2000
Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning" 