Continue reading May He Give You His Peace….

On this particular morning, I was faced with a photo of a food stamp with a note to “those on welfare” who “don’t work” and “milk the system.” The post was calling for “accountability.” I just shook my head in disappointment. While most political comments don’t hit me very hard (we all have a right to our opinion), I have a difficult time with those that group any set of people into a section and blame and berate them… You may not agree with me and that’s okay; we don’t have to. But I will still show you respect, not … Continue reading How It Feels to Be a Kid on Welfare

The 78-year-old screen legend has been bankrupted by a string of poor business decisions…. The 78-year old actor was one of Hollywood’s greatest stars in the 1970s, but a string of poor business decisions have bankrupted him and already forced him to sell several of his homes… SOURCE: Burt Reynolds Is Auctioning His Belongings to Tackle Financial Woes | TIME. Burt Reynolds was not one of my favorite actors but some of his movies were entertaining at least at a gut level. Burt was a “guy’s guy” so his level of acting didn’t really matter much. Kind of like Schwarzenegger even John Wayne. … Continue reading It Is Never Enough….

 Philadelphia public schools are in trouble. Not enough money. Overflowing classrooms. And the unkindest cut of all, more than one-third of its students, 70,000, are in charter schools, which Philadelphia has to pay for, but doesn’t control…. individuals are choosing away from us, simply because they don’t think that our schools are meeting the needs of our children…. So what we want to do is to become a part of that choice. Our survival depends on our ability to innovate, to think differently about how children are educated…. Some teachers might have given a lecture on brain development, but that’s not … Continue reading The Least Common Denominator…. And the Charter Schools….

All that lovely wealth isn’t trickling down. The country’s median income hit a high of $56,080 in 1999, went into slow decline, dropped to $53,644 after the 2008 economic meltdown — and five years later, was lower still, at $52,100. Raises remain tiny. Many newly created jobs pay a pittance. For tens of millions of people, the economic recovery is an illusion. The voters are right: Wage stagnation — and the resulting erosion of the middle class — is this country’s biggest problem. When hard work no longer produces upward mobility for workers who lack elite skills, America’s implicit promise … Continue reading America’s broken promise

The above title seems very American in its character. We Americans, me included, just don’t like others telling us what to do or especially what to think. To some extent we are all rebel rousers in that regard. Some take this to an extreme by there “don’t confuse me with the facts”. We just don’t like being told what to do. Prohibitionist tried to mandate what we do. We let a small handful of extremists convince us that drinking beer and such was the root cause of all our problems. If only we kept people from drinking we could shut … Continue reading "Who Are You To Tell Me How To Live??"

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Friday, leaving the benchmark S&P 500 with its worst weekly performance since May 2012, as investors pulled back from the markets in response to oil’s free-fall and more weak data out of China. SOURCE: Oil slump leads Wall Street to worst week in 2-1/2 years – Yahoo Finance. I am by no means an economist who espouses to understand all this stock market stuff but it seems to me that whatever is good for the common guy economists think is bad for the stock market. Declining oil prices will put billions of bucks back into the … Continue reading Oil slump leads Wall Street to worst week in 2-1/2 years..

The coming season is a very important one for my Asian friends. Many travel great distances to be with family. Many also take this season as a time to contemplate their life and its purpose. They ask searching questions of themselves to be sure they are living their life as they want to instead of just letting it happen. Many change jobs and occupations during this season. I kind of wish I had  learned that lesson from them. I kind of wish I done likewise during my years on this earth. Instead I, like many Americans, just seem to let … Continue reading Contemplating Life….

Alaska It has always seemed strange to me that Alaska became a State. I know we bought it from the Russian some time ago but it just seems so remote to the other States and has very few people. There are … Continue reading Alaska Coast Guard..