From now on, whenever you see any article that talks about the US budget being "tight," it means that money has been stolen from some worthy cause by George W. Bush, who diverted those precious tax dollars to pursue what is turning out to be one of the biggest financial…
This is mind-blowing. To think that I used to have some respect for John McCain. The question recently put to McCain, on his Straight-Talk Express campaign tour, was straight-forward. Here's the transcript of what unfolded: Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions…
Three weeks ago I noticed that I was overweight again, but I’m doing something about it again.
I’m not quite sure what did it. Maybe it was the almost-nightly bowl of ice cream or maybe those french fries weren’t really counteracted by those side dishes of broccoli. Whatever it was, three weeks ago I noticed that bad eating habits had kicked my weight more than 15 pounds over my usual weight. Those 15 extra pounds I was carrying around weighed as much as a bowling ball.
I’ve had to lose weight before. Five years ago, I decided that I was tired of carrying around lots of extra weight. Back then, I noticed how bad things had gotten after a friend showed me a photo of that 194 pound version of myself at the beach. Back then, I decided to see if I could lose 10 or 15 pounds. After doing a bit of research, I implemented a series of the eating and exercise strategies that worked well for me. They worked extremely well. I’m going to share them in this post. I dropped more than 4 pounds per week, week after week, until my 194 pound carcass melted into 159 pounds, a swing of 35 pounds. After I got going with my program, it was almost painless. I found myself feeling better and I looked better. Based upon well-established statistics, I knew that I had substantially decreased my chance of being afflicted with heart disease, stroke and various kinds of …
How should you take care of them? According to one book I’m reading, you need to give them lots of exercise and they need to eat good food. You need to buy a good leash and collar. No, I’m not referring to a childcare book–I’m talking about a book on dog care: The Complete Dog Care Manual, by Bruce Fogel, president of ASPCA.
To use a dog book to raise a child, you’ve got to pick and choose the advice, of course. You don’t put your children on leashes or toss them bones (except when they misbehave!). It is interesting, though, that dog-raising books are full of good ideas that also apply to raising children. And it’s especially interesting to compare the way we are supposed to raise dogs with the way many people actually raise children.
My family has a dog (“Holly”) and two human children, aged 6 and 8. I am thus an expert on this topic.
My dog-training book stresses that taking care of a dog requires a lot of work. We need to invest a lot of time in order to have a healthy animal. The dog book places a premium on early training? “Your dog relies on you to train it from an early age to be trusting, even-tempered and sociable…” (page 48). Compare this advice with the way many people actually raise children, ignoring them for long stretches and often abandoning them to the commercial wasteland of television.
Feeding is critically important, according …
“If I didn’t care about my kids, I’d have an easier time.”
“No real-life problem is ever actually solved, it seems.”
For three years, Geri Anderson has worked as a grade school art teacher. She wakes up every day, willing to try her hardest to make a difference in the lives of the students who attend Walnut Elementary School. “Geri” and “Walnut” are not real names; Geri and I decided to use these pseudonyms to allow Geri to speak freely. Everything else in this article is based on my recent interview of Geri.
Geri is a soft-spoken woman in her mid-twenties. Before being hired for her current job, Geri often substitute taught at expensive private grade schools. She took her first permanent job at Walnut to make a difference.
Geri teaches art to each of the 200 students who attend Walnut. They range in age from preschoolers to sixth-graders. The average class includes about twenty children, although some of the classes have almost 30 children. Not all of the teacher positions are filled at Walnut; for many months, the school has sought the help of adults from the community to fill in for the non-existent science teacher, for example.
Walnut is located in the urban center of a large U.S. city. 98% of the children attending Walnut Elementary are African-American. More than 90% of these students receive free or reduced price lunches. Based upon Geri’s observations, the great majority of the students live in single-parent homes. Classroom behavior issues, including …