I just ran across a very creative team at Creative Arts, Unlimited Inc on the History Channel. The work they do is amazing. If you get cable or satellite it is well worth the time to watch them. Their creativity is truly inspiring. And they get their projects done so quickly it is hard to believe… Continue reading Museum Men…

The title of this post was written by my folk music hero Wood Guthrie many years ago but that is not the topic of this post. Instead it is to say so long to a fellow Hoosier Dave Letterman. Although I was not a regular late-night TV viewer in any form I did catch Dave’s show on occasion. I have a certain kindred relationship with Dave even though it is  assuredly one-sided. Dave is a younger fellow than me by almost six months. I think he was born in the same Indianapolis hospital as I was. I almost took a … Continue reading So Long, Its Been Good to Know Yuh…

Maybe the title of this post is a little over-inflated :) but I am going back as far as I know about family. My mom never talked about her family and I only met a brother once so I can’t say much about that side of my family. Much more about mom in that regard in incoming posts.  The only experiences with family  was on my dad’s side.  Grandpa Walters was a pig farmer and I believe his father was also a pig farmer. It is what he did. He had a farm of about forty acres near Belle Union Indiana. … Continue reading In The Beginning… About The Grandparents

I found this interesting place recently in the panhandle of Texas. I guess it used to be a gas station of sorts but that was likely years ago. It is now surrounded by wind turbines. The old and the new fit nicely together.. Continue reading Old and New..

According to my camera gps this shot was taken in Groom Texas along Interstate 40. I don’t understand why it says Britten but if they don’t do something soon I expect that some of the people of Groom will be without water for a while. Continue reading Leaning Tower of Britten?

I know all you young folks out there who might accidentally come across my blog know very little about the history of prosperity but most of the older folks have recollections of more prosperous times.  I can remember the 1950s where everything seemed to be going well  for many of us. We couldn’t build enough houses or cars to meet our needs.  Instead of our returning vets coming home to unemployment, jobs were being created at a vigorous rate. The 1960s was my decade for growth. Even though I was raised in the single parent household and my father was a milkman … Continue reading Prosperity and Taxes…My Recollections

Anxiety is tough, isn’t it? Not just for the people that have it, but for you – the people that stick with them – while they’re going through it. It’s emotionally taxing on both ends, it’s physically demanding at times, and of course mentally demanding most of the time. Plans have to be changed to accommodate the anxiety. Situations have to be avoided at times. Planning has to be just that bit more thorough. Emotional needs can change daily. It’s a lot to work through, and it can be hard to get in their head to understand on top of … Continue reading 13 Things to Remember If You Love A Person With Anxiety

In a half-dozen nations, tyrants who once ruled by fear and repression have been toppled, unleashing centuries-old sectarian rivalries and bloody struggles for power. Syria’s horrific civil war is spilling into Lebanon and threatening Jordan and Turkey, while Iraq has effectively devolved into three nations — one Shiite, one Sunni, one Kurdish. In the chaos, a particularly malignant form of radical Sunni Islam, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq…. Why is that rivalry raging now? It has fueled conflict and repression since the dawn of Islam in … Continue reading The grand Shiite-Sunni struggle

They aren’t actually anything new, just a variation on long-standing labor-organizing practices that have come back into prominence. “Micro union” is a recently coined term of art for bargaining units that encompass one category of workers at a business — the cosmetics workers at a Macy’s, for example — instead of the more traditional model of organizing all the workers for the business into one single bargaining unit. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided a group of certified nursing assistants at a nursing home constituted an appropriate bargaining unit in themselves, in a decision called Specialty Healthcare. … Continue reading Meet the new workers’ movement that is terrifying the wealthy and the powerful

This is no longer a trend – it is now a lifestyle that is too comfortable, for consumers of all ages, for it to go away anytime soon,” he said. Millennials’ tendency to rent instead of buy is also turning the retail industry upside down. SOURCE: Rebellious millennials are turning into a huge problem for retailers – Yahoo Finance. It appears from the above article that millennials (19 -35 years olds) are turning away from “fashion” and its annual almost dictated changes. They are giving up the high heels, yes especially the seven-inch ones, for more comfortable athletic shoes.  They insist … Continue reading Fashion is Out….

Around the country, special courts are set up for former military members who have been charged with crimes after returning to civilian life, and who may be struggling with PTSD. Judges, lawyers, probation officers and others work together to treat or punish each defendant. Special correspondent Spencer Michels reports on how the new approach can offer troubled veterans a path forward…. JUDGE JEFFREY ROSS: Our goal is to find an outcome which will both prevent recidivism, keep the public safe, keep the victims from being re-victimized, but also deal with the person’s background and the reasons he that he committed the … Continue reading Special courts…

Peanut allergies are one of the most common forms of food allergy among American children. And the last two decades have seen a dramatic rise in the number of cases. It’s estimated that today 2 percent of all children are allergic to peanuts, four times the number as recently as 1997. And it’s the leading cause of death from food allergies. For parents, of course, a key question, how to avoid the risk to their children. And now comes a new twist. A study published in “The New England Journal of Medicine,” it finds that exposing higher-risk infants to peanut … Continue reading Free-Range Kids??

Total U.S. defense spending (in inflation-adjusted dollars) has increased so much over the past decade that it has reached levels not seen since World War II, when the United States had 12 million people under arms and waged wars on three continents. Moreover, the U.S. share of global military expenditures has jumped from about one-third to about one-half in this same period. Some of this growth can be attributed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the baseline or regular defense budget has also increased significantly. It has grown in real terms for an unprecedented 13 straight years, and … Continue reading About Our Defense Budgets… An Historic Perspective..