The U.S. House and it's silly punishments

Representative Charles B. Rangel was censured by The House because of some unethical conduct. He was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee which is heavily involved in writing tax law. His unethical behavior included things like, attending conferences in the Caribbean payed for by corporations, not paying taxes on $75,000 of income from rental properties, not paying mortgage interest for 10 years, and using his office for fundraising activities for the Charlie P. Rangel Center for Public Service including seeking donations from companies that had business before his ways and means committee. In total there were 11 charges he was found guilty on.

From the way he speaks in defense of himself it sounds like he thinks this is all an overreaction and nothing should happen to him, and that his service in the military should count for something. It is clear that he committed these crimes and should be punished for them.

So here's the houses punishment. A censure. A censure is a very serious punishment and is rarely used. It entails his charges being read by the speaker of the house in front of the entire house of representatives (Though from what I've heard she only read one charge). Can you believe the severity! Can you believe people are debating the death penalty and all the while something as horrific as censure is going on!

This is a joke. They could easily remove this guy from office and even put him in prison (I believe Wesley Snipes just got put in prison for not paying taxes). Instead the house basically decided not to do anything. He even got standing applause after he gave his defense.

Miller's Justice - Throw him out of office and put him in prison for 2 years. Throw anyone who applauded him out of office. Revoke voting rights from the people in New York that re-elected him despite the charges until they have taken some basic courses on ethics and how to do some research before casting a vote.

I'm telling you where to shop

Here's a few businesses you can feel good about purchasing from. If you don't need what they sell it may at least brighten your day to know what they do. Enjoy!

Verymeri.com - T-Shirts that are designed by kids. You can buy these for your kids, and 3% of the sale price goes to the kid that designed it and another 3% goes to a charity of that kid's choice.

M&E Painting - This painting company is in Colorado so it may not be practical for you to use them, but at least we aware of them. They were supposed to paint an old woman's house but she had to cancel the job because her husband died. The returned her deposit and felt bad for her. So they then decided to paint her house for free, to the suprise of the owners all of their employees were willing to donate their time to do the job. Now they seek out people in need of a free paint job and try to do more free jobs each year. Here's a link to the story in Entrepreneur Magazine.

HivesforLives - At ages 10 and 12 these two girls started a business harvesting their own honey and selling it to raise money for cancer research. When their grandfather died of throat cancer they wanted to do something significant to help find a cure, 6 years later they find their honey being sold in a wide variety of retail outlets including Whole Foods. Check out their website for more of their story or if you would like to buy honey, lip balm or candles.

As I find more cool businesses I'll be sure to post about them.

Post Election Commentary

So Elections were Tuesday and I've put together some of my takes on what went on. Some of these thoughts are related to issues that came up in the elections and some are on the candidates and results. You're welcome to comment with your own thoughts, I'd love to hear your analysis.

Where were the issues? Instead of Meg being called a whore and employing an illegal immigrant, why not clear plans on things like water distribution, job creation, budgeting problems, prison expenses, businesses and residents leaving our state, the state deficit?

Campaign Spending! Outrageous! Here's my suggestion. Limit candidates to 1 debate televised and put on the Internet, a website, and a one page summary of why they are a good choice distributed in the sample ballot.

Boo Barbara Boxer! I was really hoping Boxer would lose. If I were running Fiorina's campaign I would have played over and over again the video of her insisting that a general refer to her as "Senator" because she worked really hard to get there. Attention Barbara! You are a democrat from California, did it really take that much work to win? I'd say at the least she didn't work any harder than the man she was addressing.

Fiorina oversaw layoffs at HP! Is it really that difficult to understand the difference between a Senator's responsibilities and those of a CEO at a public company. She has to produce profit or the company goes under, sometimes layoffs are a part of that.

Education - Why all the comparisons to other countries? Isn't the core concern more along the lines of "We want our kids to finish school and be well-equipped to enter the work force or go to college to continue learning" rather than "We want our kids to have better test scores than the kids in Japan."

President Obama - On Wednesday morning the President made a statement and answered some questions. At one point he basically said that moving forward the two parties will need to work together to give Americans what they want. Rational people probably already determined this back when the two party system was established.

Republicans - The party leadership has already come out and essentially said they want to make sure the President is not re-elected. How is that conducive to making progress and helping out our country? Even if that is your aim, what is the value in telling the whole country? Why polarize when now is a chance to start working together.

In closing I hope you all voted even if there weren't great options for you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the elections, you're welcome to comment on the propositions as well.

Bias Detection

When I was in school I remember tests frequently having a reading comprehension component. I always liked this section because I was pretty good at it. I think when practicing reading comprehension skills there should also be some element of developing a skill for bias detection. This occurred to me as I'm now hearing and seeing campaign ads everywhere. Campaign ads make their bias obvious by saying who they are in favor of and who they don't like. I would say that most information we receive has a bias and often times it is not as clear as a campaign ad. For example in school we are taught that certain sources are acceptable for research and paper writing purposes but the reasons for their credibility aren't always clear. They may use legitimate facts in their stories but without examining their bias can we really use the information responsibly? Even in a news story that would claim to just be relating the facts of what happened can communicate a very subtle bias by the use of a couple adjectives.

Obviously we can't eliminate bias, and we shouldn't. But I think students should be learning how to detect it. When they read or hear things they should be equipped with an evaluation process that encourages them to ask questions like: Who is putting out this information and why are they doing it? Is there potentially more facts or another side to this story that isn't being given? and why is that? Is the source known for feeling a certain way about things? Is some specific action being encouraged? if so what would be the result of that action?

How wary are you of bias in the information you receive? I know I have certain sources of info that I trust more than others but I think due diligence is still important before we let some one guide our beliefs or actions.

Kids these days

See how this concept strikes you. When people who are say 40+ were growing up they probably had a lot more statements like this than younger people: "wouldn't it be cool if..." or "somebody should make..." or "It's too bad there isn't an easier way to..." or "...that's impossible" or "...that could never happen"

I know, I know you've all said that and a lot of you are under 40, but let me finish my point. People in my generation or younger have a much different perspective. We have developed and progressed to such an extent to where things that were only imaginable 20 years ago are very possible today. What I mean is this, when a 15 year thinks of something that would be cool, it isn't a matter of possibility it is more a matter of how do you do it and who knows how.

It may not be clear what I am trying to communicate so I apologize if that's the case. I have just been astonished lately at the things our society is able to produce. Web advancements, health care tools, communications capabilities..etc. It's all very impressive and while we may think things like "oh kids these days don't like to sit down and read a good book." We have to admit that kids are capable of some pretty sophisticated stuff.

I'm sure we all maintain this thought in the back of our mind that things must cap out at some point. Amazingly enough we don't show any signs of slowing in the creation of new things. It wasn't long ago that there was no Digital, Online, Hybrid, Mobile Devices...

Just because I can't imagine what is coming next doesn't mean some one else hasn't.

No more great Americans

When we look at our nation's history we remember certain individuals as being great men. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin...etc.

I don't think we'll ever remember anyone else with the same pride or fondness. I think our current treatment of leaders or prominant people is to find the negative about them. Regardless of what they accomplish or do for our country or the world, we seem to be eager to find something that will tear them down.

It's too bad that we can't seem to accept people's mistakes or shortcomings and still be thrilled with their accomplishments.

A big question is what's the impact of this? Does it discourage people from pursuing greatness?

Sensitivity Training

Is it just me or are we steadily becoming more and more hypersensitive about more and more things? When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's it didn't seem like every little thing that happened offended everyone, or if it did they didn't inform the world that they were offended. What happened to having thick skin, or letting things roll off, or any other expression that means don't take offense at things, just let them go. If people want to be hypersensitive and get bent out of shape about everything I guess that's fine. My problem is that now people have come to expect some sort of recompense whenever they feel wronged. If some one says something mean, they don't want an apology,they want their moment in the spotlight to publicly bash that person and then they want a payout.

My big issue with this hypersensitivity epidemic is that I think we've lost a true sense of what we should be sensitive about. There are things I'm sure we could all agree on that require our sensitivity. Here's a couple of examples - discussions of child abuse with people that have been abused, movie or video game selection when hanging out with friends who have seen combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, listening to a girl relate a story about how she was raped. These things require us to be sensitive to the people around us, and most of us probably are. But when people become hypersensitive I think the lines between truly sensitive topics and people's personal preferences become blurred.

This post is inspired by the Muslim community center being built 2 blocks from ground zero in New York City. The debate is raging with some people saying Muslims should have just as much right to build there as anyone else, and some saying it is a provocation meant to celebrate the September 11th murders.

It may be that the people building this place truly just want to have a nice community center for everyone to enjoy, and they absolutely have a right to build it wherever they want. My question, is building it right there being sensitive to the people who lost family and friends in the attacks? Couldn't it be built in another part of the city and serve the same purpose?

What are you afraid of?

At Bible study the other day we were discussing fear. The discussion stayed with me over the past week or so and I've been thinking a lot about what I am afraid of. Then I started thinking about how much fear limits us in our lives. We hold back from a lot of things out of fear; granted that is good in some cases because our fear pushes us toward caution to protect ourselves. But sometimes that fear robs us of experiences that we would enjoy or would prompt growth in us.

A lot of this occurred to me on Tuesday when I was helping my friend (the onion farmer) move his trucks up to where the farm is. These are pretty big trucks, of a size that I have never driven. These trucks are also manual transmission which I know how to drive but I've only done so in small cars and it has been probably 6 years since I've done it. So I was reluctant to help because it didn't sound fun and actually sounded like potential for me to smash his truck or another vehicle on the road. But he needed help so I went out there to do it. We took two trips, and the whole first trip I was pretty worried. I was gripping the steering wheel tightly, I was afraid to turn on the radio and I was paranoid about stopping and going at stop lights and signs. I was praying extensively that I wouldn't kill anyone or damage any vehicles.

I and the 2 onion trucks I transported survived the ordeal. Now not to say that this was some amazing experience or anything. But I did overcome my fear and drive a big truck and was able to help out a friend. All the while the fear I was feeling was telling me to "find a way out of it, remain cautious and don't do anything you're not comfortable with".

Have you missed opportunities because you were afraid? Does fear inhibit you on a regular basis in your day to day life? Have you overcome fear to do something really awesome?

New News

I'm ready for a new news source. Yesterday I heard a radio news snippet that there were some deaths in Afghanistan. So I looked up the AP story and was very disappointed.

What if we had a news company that was committed to reporting events to us through a lens of love and respect. Instead of reporting "just the facts" and numbers, instead of slipping in judgements and condemnations of people, instead of putting spins or pushing agendas, instead of pretty much everything that is characteristic of our current news sources; this company would love the people it is reporting about and to.

Can you imagine this news company? I hope you can. Think about it, and tell me what it would be like.

Here's one thing I know would happen with this news company. When reporting on recent deaths in the war it wouldn't be just a statistic to be compared with how many deaths we've had in days past and it wouldn't be used as a chance to point out the deaths that occurred a while back because a helicopter crashed while not engaged with the enemy. It wouldn't comment on how long the war has gone on and how many troops the president has sent. This news company would acknowledge the sacrifice that was made by the ones that died. It would tell us who they were, why they were serving and what they had accomplished. It would encourage us to appreciate their lives and to let our hearts break with those of their family members and friends. We would see anguish in the face of the news anchor that has to relate this story and it wouldn't be crammed in between sports scores and weather reports.

What would this news company be like? Remember, they report in a spirit of love and respect for those they report about and to.

More Creativity

Here's a couple creative people and what they did:

Matt Moman works in the plastic flower business. At a trade show he saw a bunch of lemons and limes that looked very real. A few days later he is sipping a beer and an idea hits him so he went for it. He used the fake limes to create a bottle opener with a magnet inside so it sticks to the fridge. Once the product is ready to go he then pitches it to Grupo Modelo (the company behind Corona beer) and they loved it. This cool little bottle opener is now going to make millions for him and the beer company, all from a simple idea that he decided to go for.

Mary Zeiff was a 1st grade teacher. She was frustrated by all the negative T-shirts she would see her students wearing ("Spoiled Brat" or "I'm with stupid"). She was sure these were not the kind of things happy kids are thinking. So she created her own shirts. She asked her students what they would put on a shirt and they came up with things like "First grade rocks!" and "I love mommy!". Well the shirts have taken off and the concept has grown. Through her website kids can submit their shirt designs and customers vote on their favorites. Winners get their shirt added to the inventory and they get 3% of the profits from the shirt, another 3% then goes to a charity of the designer's choice. Very cool idea and what an awesome thing for young kids to participate in. You can check out the website here.

I got these two stories from Entrepreneur magazine.

Have you heard anything creative lately?

More Creative

I think we stifle our creativity. We develop routines, avoid change, and try our best to never mess up or look stupid. The result is lackluster. Then we wonder why we don't get amazing results at work or feel energized by our free time.

The other aspect of this is that I believe we discourage each other's creativity. When people throw out ideas we critique them rather than encourage. One of the things I've read about an idea is that no one is likely to feel its great when they first hear it because it's not their idea. Yet the immediate negative feedback we get is often enough for us not to follow through or to become secretive about our creativity.

All this rambling is to say that I think we need to be creative. We should regularly brainstorm by ourselves and with others to see what we can come up with. We should practice giving some one fair consideration when they have an idea, or even make it a point to encourage and support even if we think its stupid. Think of all the things that started out as a crazy idea that some one was willing to pursue even though people around him/her thought it was stupid. Who knows what you're capable of?

Homework: Come up with something creative, share it with others and no matter what they say you have to respond with "I'm doing it, and I'll let you know how it goes."

Have fun!

Last thought: Try to figure out when you are the most creative, time of day, where, what beverage you need to be drinking...etc.

What happened to creative?

When was the last time you were creative?

Creative in your job, your free time, your relationships, your daydreams?

When you are creative how creative are you?

Is there anything that discourages you from creativity? Why? and do you discourage others from being creative?

What do you and the people around you think of creative people?

I have some thoughts on these questions but I'm gonna wait a couple days before I post them. I wanna hear what you have to say first.

Why Announce it?

So Ricky Martin has announced to the world that he is gay. The big question for me is why the announcement? Why is it important for everyone to know that? The only reason I can come up with is he needed a career boost. So far it seems to have been effective, over the last week I think I have heard "Livin la vida loca" on the radio 5 times.

The even bigger question is why do gay or lesbian people feel the need to make a dramatic announcement about their sexuality. I'm not saying they all do but there seems to be a segment that really needs to tell people.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Should those of us that are straight start putting stickers on our cars that say so? Or when a straight celebrity wins an award should they declare in their acceptance speech that they are heterosexual?

How a bill becomes a law

Do you guys remember watching the video in like junior high that explains how a bill becomes a law? It layed out the process pretty clearly and made it sound pretty simple. I think it may be time for a new video. The new video may need to include something about there being two political parties that dislike each other and try to kill each other's bills on a regular basis.

With the passage of the healthcare bill I can't help but think our process for making laws isn't working quite how it should. I would argue that the average person doesn't know much about the healthcare bill and yet it has already been voted on and passed. If the job of our congresspeople and senators is to represent us with their votes it seems like they should have an understanding about how we feel about the bill before they cast their vote. But if most of us don't know what is in the bill then how can we form an opinion and pass that along to our representatives so they can vote accordingly.

Here's my issue. Who's responsibility is it to make sure the public is well-informed about what our government is doing. Is it on us to research on our own and then send our opinions to our representatives? Should our representatives be taking steps to make sure we know what they will be voting on and ask us for our input? Should some one from the whitehouse be making efforts to explain everything? Should TV and other media outlets do more extensive coverage that gives all the information about a bill?

What do you think? Also, do you feel like you know what is in the bill that just passed? (yes or no, you don't have to explain the bill)

Give Walmart a break

I read a story on Yahoo! yesterday about Walmart that I think is a little ridiculous. In a Walmart store some one got on the annoucement system and told all black people to leave the store. Of course this has to become a huge deal that will probably scar Walmart's name for a long time in the future.

Here's my beef. Aren't we getting way too sensitive? Couldn't everyone in the store have just gone about their business and ignored this comment. Maybe they could have chuckled and thought "what an idiot" and then continued with their shopping. Instead we have people demanding that Walmart take severe action and people threatening to never shop at Walmart again. This has been stretched to even say that maybe Walmart is a racist company. I'm not even sure its possible for a global company like Walmart to be racist.

What do you think? Am I not sensitive to the impact of an incident like this? Or is it being overreacted to?

Which is the most outrageous

Make your pick.

1. Our government is about to pass a bill to extend unemployment benefits as well as a couple other programs to help people out in the tough times we're going through. I've seen varying amounts but it looks like the cost of the bill will be around $130 billion. They have found ways to cover a portion of the cost (around $30 billion) so the other $100 billion or so will just get tacked onto our national debt. Will we ever stop spending money we don't have?

2. I heard on the radio yesterday that they US Postal Service has 15,000 employees that they don't need. Due to union contracts they are not allowed to fire these employees so they are forced to keep paying them. They have to cut costs some how, so they are looking into stoppage of mail delivery on Saturdays. Why have we ever let unions have so much power?

3. A chef is making cheese using his wife's breast milk and serving it in his restaurant. People have been visiting the restaurant and calling the chef, eager to try this "human cheese". Would you like your's sliced on a sandwich or a nice chunk of it to chomp on?

They Fired all the Teachers!

I heard a story on the radio today and decided to look it up online for some more details. Here's the scoop according to ABCNews:

The school board has decided to fire all 74 teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. Here's some stats on the school:

- about 800 students

- only 48% graduate in 4 years

- 96% are eligible for free or reduced-fee lunches

- 65% Hispanic, 14% Black, 13% White

- 25% receive English as a second language instruction

- Secondary teacher's in Rhode Island are paid on average $60,000, the national average is $50,000

The school is considered chronically underperforming by the state and the superintendent had a choice among four federally guided models to choose for the high school in an effort to improve. The choice was one that would lengthen the school day by 25 minutes, require teachers to receive additional training during the summer, eat lunch with the students once a week, provide more tutoring to students, and submit to more rigorous evaluations. The plan would pay the teacher's $30/hr for the extra time. The teacher's wanted to be paid $90/hr for the extra time so they rejected the proposal. The superintendent then recommended a "turnaround" model which means firing all the teachers and restricting the school to hiring back no more than 50% of the ones fired.

So what do you think? Is this the right course of action given the circumstances? Do you have an alternative solution that might be helpful?

Here's a few comments from teachers at the school that I heard on the news report, I've included my responses to these people in green. I don't mean to be too insensitive but I feel the need to write responses. You are welcome to respond if you want to.

"I've been at Central Falls for 28 years and I have done nothing to deserve to be fired, I give my heart, my soul to my job" - Consistently not producing the results that are demanded is a reason people get fired all the time. If you truly are giving your heart and soul to the job and you still aren't getting good results then you are not a good fit in that job.

"I'm heartbroken, I would do anything for this school system, I've done everything I can" - You would not do anything for the school because you rejected the plan to put in a little bit more time to try and improve.

"I'm disheartened, I feel like after 20 years I can see some progress beginning to be made and I'm sad that we're not gonna be around to follow that through, to push that forward." - 20 years! 20 years and you are just starting to see some progress. I'm sorry but no one gets a period of 20 years to turn around job performance.

Speaking strictly about this situation I think it is reasonable to fire the teachers. Obviously they are considered responsible for the school's graduation rate and it is not at an acceptable level. If you don't perform at the expected level you get fired, that seems in accordance with most workplaces. They were offered a different solution and said no, so I think the superintendent doesn't really have another choice. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have offered to pay them for the extra time, I thought the extra $30/hr was a generous offer.

I'm curious if this will re-ignite the tough questions that surround our education system. Like, should we have stricter evaluations of our teachers, and if so how do we do it? Should we make the extra efforts to educate students that don't speak English? Should we keep pouring effort into kids that aren't willing to try in school? Should schools be privatized or remain public but be managed by charter school type companies? Should teacher's go through more rigorous training to prepare them for the challenges they are going to face? Do we need longer school days?

The list goes on and on. It seems like it is easier to just ignore these questions and keep trying with things as they are. But I'm not sure that's the best thing for us to do.

Sorry for the lengthy post, hopefully it wasn't too dull. Feel free to comment, I'm curious about your thoughts on this stuff.

Vocabulary I Should Know

Anytime I hear or read a word that I feel like I should know I make it a point to look it up. Sometimes these words are common knowledge and I feel stupid for not knowing them and sometimes they are uncommon words that I've never heard before. In some cases I will hear a word and am familiar enough to know what the person means and I could even use the word myself but I couldn't give a true definition for it.

So without further delay, here are some words I have looked up in the last week or so. If you know these words already then good for you. If you haven't then maybe you can try to use them in the next few days.

Dogmatic - Root word dogma - 1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.
3. A principle or belief or a group of them

Psychosis - 1. a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.
2. any severe form of mental disorder, as schizophrenia or paranoia.

Anorexia (I saw this one in a medical dictionary and it occured to me I had never thought of it independent of anorexia nervosa) - 1. loss of appetite and inability to eat.

Allay - 1. to put (fear, doubt, suspicion, anger, etc.) to rest; calm; quiet.
2. to lessen or relieve; mitigate; alleviate: to allay pain.

Dissemble - 1. to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of: to dissemble one's incompetence in business.
2. to put on the appearance of; feign: to dissemble innocence.
3. Obsolete. to let pass unnoticed; ignore.

Somewhat common words but I couldn't have defined them for you. Hopefully one or two of them are new to you, I'll be sure to give you more as I hear or read them in the future.

Cool Little Shop

On Sunday Amy, Brittany, Tim and I went out to LA for an exciting little adventure. We went to Galco's Soda Pop Stop (http://www.sodapopstop.com/). It is a pretty awesome store. This guy has over 500 types of soda and none of it is coke and pepsi products. He gets stuff from all over the world and it is all in glass bottles which apparently maintains its flavor and carbonation better than plastic bottles. The guy who runs the store is pretty cool. Here's a link to where I found out about the guy, its a cool little video, http://videos.komando.com/2009/10/11/amazing-soda-shop/

I Included some pictures up above of some of the sodas we bought, but here's a list.

Double Cola

Bubble Up

Rat Bastard Root Beer

Leninade

Mr. Cucumber "The Original Cucumber Soda"

Route 66 Orange Soda

Izze Sparkling Clementine

Virgil's Black Cherry Cream Soda

Dr. Pepper - The Original Flavor

Moxie

Jack Black's Blue Cream Soda

Kickapoo Joy Juice

Sioux City Sarsaparilla

Sweet Blossom "The Original Rose Petals Soda"

Chocolate Soda

This was a pretty cool little shop and I recommend it to anyone who happens to be out in LA. You'll certainly find a soda you like and if you don't, you'll at least have fun searching for one. They also have like 400 varieties of beer and a bunch of old fashioned candy brands.

Legislative parenting

I heard on the radio the other day that they are working on a system that would make the texting function on phones not work while driving in a car. This is motivated by trying to keep young people from texting while driving. We see things like this more and more in our society. We are making a law to go after the symptom of a bigger problem rather than address that problem itself. I would say the big problem here is that young people don't care that they are putting themselves and others at serious risk. If asked why people shouldn't text while driving they could probably tell you that it is dangerous but I think it is difficult for them to personalize that danger. Whether this mentality is due to poor parenting or just the nature of being young I can't really say. But I will say this, if we have deemed talking on the cell phone or texting while driving to be too dangerous to allow then we could very easily put a stop to it. Just make the penalty a confiscation of the phone and a revocation of the license for a year or five and a $10,000 fine. If you ran the risk of not being able to drive for 1 to 5 years there is absolutely no way you would decide its worth it to text while driving. For those that did think it was worth it they would hopefully get caught and we could get those morons off the road, and the fines would generate a little revenue for the state.

Does this sound reasonable? If you decide it is too drastic please tell me why otherwise I might assume you enjoy texting while driving or something.

Cheers!

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away...

Enjoy this link and prepare yourself to be uplifted by arguably the best TV theme song ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKtS25F3L0


Forgive my absence from blogging. My plan is to get back into it.