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I have found that the rewards of blogging have been inspiring and engaging. I have had my thinking challenged, my perspective is wide and I appreciate what others have to say and ask in regards to what I am sharing. Through this type of online conversation I am inspired, my thinking is challenged and I begin to connect and learn from others, collaborations develop. Take a risk at sharing your voice with others.

Maybe it’s time to start your own blog. However, if you have something to say and don’t have a blog of your own, you are always welcome to be a guest blogger here. The invitation has been extended.

 

The public had envisioned a system where its representatives could finally simultaneously speak to their colleagues and constituents. The representatives could look into the camera and say to their constituents and the American people what their position was and that they were willing to defend that position. Many thought the system overall would and should have benefited from this transparency, but they were wrong.

No one could have fathomed the unintended consequences that would follow C-SPAN’s entrance into politics. As soon as those cameras started rolling, many of our representatives saw it as an opportunity to further their political ambitions. If controversial bills came to the floor, rather than work out a compromise with the opposing side, they took the opportunity to preach from their bully pulpits. They could snarl, huff and puff at the camera, showing their audience how dogged they can be because their constituents and, more importantly, their donors like to support candidates that they deem unwavering. What these politicians forget is that for the flag of democracy to fly, both sides have to be willing to waver on their positions.

Unfortunately, C-SPAN and the like have given these political divas extra air time to express their grievances, and oh have they come up with grievances.  They have now found ways to play the role of the establishment’s anti-establishment — such as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with his hour-long trashing of the U.S. Senate. Cruz has successfully honed that charade into a formidable campaign for president with a clearly crafted public persona: Ted Cruz, the establishment’s anti-establishment.

This strategy has unfortunately worked in favor of unbending representatives as they have been re-elected multiple times based on quick clips shown to their constituents and donors. They can snip a clip of a staunch speech they gave to their colleagues back at the Capitol. The clip will, of course, show them speaking into the microphone passionately about why their position is blindingly the right one and the opposition is wrong.

 

C-SPAN was supposed to break the  wall of American politics and make our politicians more accessible to their constituents. Instead, what we have is a reality TV stunt with overpaid actors looking to land their next big gig. While playing the American audience for fools, they are gaming the system and benefiting from it. The only ones who benefit from access such as the ones C-SPAN and the like provide are the multi-billion-dollar funded Super PACs that have the resources to sift through those clips and find a scene damaging enough to end a politician’s career. These Super PACs do not represent you or me; they represent one percent of the one percent, and they are the ones benefiting from this so called transparency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids are back in school and beginning their routine for success. Many times people will tell a student that gets good grades that they are “just smart” and it comes easily to them.

That is a slap in the face.

 

People want to be viewed as intelligent. Everyone  loves being associated with the adjective smart, and I, in turn, also have complimented others’ intelligences freely. It wasn’t until later that I realized how damaging and invalidating that simple praise could be.

Some people would try to take the hardest class of any subject they were remotely interested in, sacrifice time with friends and family to study and stay up late to get the grade desired. They wanted people to instantly think of “smart” when they thought of them.

As one gets older, however, being called smart no longer makes them feel accomplished, but rather seemed to degrade all their hard work and effort. Although it was meant as a compliment, “smart” became an excuse that described how success was achieved.

“Of course you got an A,” people said about high level classes. “You’re smart.” With that sentence, they discredited all the nights that were put in with only four hours of sleep because of studying. Instead, they attributed the grade to a single trait.

Smart isn’t just an excuse for successes, but also became an attempted condolence when one fails.

 

Following Stanford professor Carol Dweck’s research on motivation and mindset, the difference between praise for effort and praise for ability is significant. People who are used to their abilities being praised usually experience lower task persistence and enjoyment. They also experience increased negative self-affect and self-cognition.

On the other hand, praise for effort increases task enjoyment and performance. The praised demonstrate greater persistence in face of failure. Improving is more plausible when intelligence is viewed as malleable rather than fixed.

Being known as “smart” no longer flatters but  adds on to the pressure felt. People much rather prefer acknowledgement of to their efforts than to the simple, yet destructive, adjective “smart.”

 

How does a guy in a mountain lion suit inspire a shrine, a book, and 107,000 screaming fans? There’s something about mascots that stir up powerful emotions. Penn State’s Nittany Lion is a larger-than-life symbol of the pride that fans feel, says Jackie Esposito, University Archivist and co-author of The Nittany Lion: An Illustrated Tale. “Mascots embody that desire to support your school and are a visual representation of what we believe to be the best parts of our school or organization,” she says.

Penn State’s Nittany Lion mascot does one-handed pushups for fans after a touchdown vs. Notre Dame.

One of the most famous mascots was Old Abe the bald eagle, who was said to have called out a fierce battle cry as she circled the sky above her regiment, the 8th Wisconsin infantry. After the war, young men carried on the inter-state competition through sports. “Historically, post-Civil War was when intercollegiate athletic games and rivalries emerged,” Esposito says. Some mascots even trace their names to the war. For example, Illinois College’s teams are known as “The Blueboys,” or “The Lady Blues,” nicknames that began when many of the college’s students volunteered for the blue-uniformed Union army.

 

Schools or teams become embodied in their mascots. While many schools choose lions or panthers or bears for their fierceness or physical strength, other mascots convey decidedly different qualities. One such belongs to the University of California-Santa Cruz-Sammy the Banana Slug. “It sounds funny,” says Esposito, “but this mascot denotes something about the school.” With an emphasis on science and conservation, UCSC describes itself as “nestled in the redwood forests,” which is the slug’s home. Another example of an “anti-mascot” is found at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, which doesn’t have an athletic program, but does boast…The Fighting Pickle.

 

 

Philosophers of liberalism and socialism actually have very different visions for the world. They don’t disagree at all on the idea that spreading the wealth around is good for everybody. In fact, this idea finds one of its greatest expressions in the work of the philosopher of welfare liberalism, John Rawls. He proposed two principles of justice, one of which—the “Difference Principle”—claims that inequalities are permissible if and only if they benefit the worst-off person. Since many inequalities arising from the free market violate this principle, some wealth must be redistributed.

The difference between liberals and socialists, rather, is founded on their different answers to this question: Can the principles by which I vote differ from the principles by which I live?

Liberals say yes, they can. Rawls, for example, said that you must be guided by  principles of distributive justice, such as the Difference Principle, only when you think about the basic structure of society. Roughly, those times are when you self-consciously think of yourself as a citizen: when you vote, when you debate political ideals, when you think about those ideals in your time alone. Otherwise, you don’t need to heed principles of distributive justice.

So a liberal allows you to accept a salary that is four, ten, 100 times greater than that of the least well-off person in your society, so long as, when you step into the voting booth, you don a new hat and act so that all inequalities are arranged to benefit the least well-off.

 

 

Clearly America is not a socialist nation. That possibility is a long way away; and, the liberal might argue, there it will always remain. Inescapable human frailties make it impossible. Concern for others will not motivate enough people to work all the arduous though necessary jobs. Nor might the socialist ideal be desirable: the price of communal ties is individual liberty, and it might be better for each of us that we not have a close, and therefore demanding, relationship with each person who is to provide us with some good.

But the socialist can point to other nations, such as Sweden or Denmark, in which, supposedly, a true egalitarian ethos has taken hold, nations which have not only generous social welfare provisions, but also citizens who are shocked by accepting privileges for themselves which others do not have. And to address the desirability of such polities, we can point experience of the people who live in them. They tend to be happier.

 

 

 

The New York Times reported  that Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s chief political backer, Ken Griffin, made $1.3 billion last year as manager of the hedge fund Citadel Capital. Griffin made as much personally as 26,000 average Americans making the median wage. He made as much as 16,000 civil engineers.

Griffin made $625,000 per hour. By the way, for a portion of this income, he might have benefited from the federal tax law that allows hedge fund managers to pay a maximum of 20 percent tax rate, though his press spokesman claims that he he paid the full rate on all of his 2014 income.

Not only did Griffin donate $2.5 million to Rauner’s campaign for governor. He also contributed millions to right-wing Super-PACs — including one controlled by the notorious Charles and David Koch.

And he contributed $10 million — half of a $20 million campaign war chest — that Rauner plans to use to run opponents against members of the legislature who dare to oppose his policies that are aimed at destroying unions and cutting worker wages and pensions.

But one thing Bruce Rauner forgets in this is Illinois and not Wisconsin which he wants to emulate.

 

Unfortunately for Rauner and Griffin, ordinary Illinois voters are not so stupid. A recent poll published by Public Policy Polling found that:

• Only 33 percent of voters in the state agree with Governor Rauner’s agenda on “right to work”, compared to 55 percent who think everyone represented by a union should have to pay something toward negotiating and administering its contracts.
• By 81 percent to 15 percent, voters oppose Rauner’s attempts to gut the state’s Workers’ Compensation system.
• 68 percent of voters in the state think that the wage standard should continue to be set locally with a prevailing wage, while only 23 percent think the state should be able to pay below the local prevailing wage.
• Voters just generally disagree with Governor Rauner’s philosophy toward unions.
• Only 42 percent think unions have too much power, compared to 56 percent who think they’re necessary to fight for the middle class.

 

It’s not so easy for people who make as much every minute and a half as a minimum wage worker takes home all year long to convince voters that it’s a good idea to cut the pay of working people. It’s not so easy for people like Rauner and Griffin to literally propose taking food from the mouths of hungry children by cutting the Illinois nutrition program in order to allow the state to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Appearances are not so good. And to top it off, Griffin has a massive personal interest in eliminating the rights of workers — particularly public employees. Griffin’s firm owns Service Master, a company that makes part of its money by privatizing public services.

But Rauner’s monomaniacal obsession with eliminating the rights of ordinary people to engage in collective bargaining over their wages and working conditions comes from something deeper than simple desire to put even more money into the pockets of people like himself and his friend Griffin.

They believe that the rich should have the right to call the shots in society — it’s as simple as that.

Griffin and Rauner believe that America should be a plutocracy.

What is a plutocracy?

A plutocracy is a government that is ruled by the wealthy or controlled by wealthy individuals. The term usually is used pejoratively, because it implies a lack of democratic freedom and social mobility. Many historical governments were plutocracies, controlled by an elite class of wealthy people, and some modern governments have been accused of being plutocracies, including the government of the United States.

The term “plutocracy” comes from the Greek words ploutos, or “wealth,” and kratia, or “ruler.” Many nations have experienced a state of plutocracy at some point, because wealth often comes with immense power, especially during the formative stages of a new country. Some countries that have valuable natural resources, such as oil and precious metals, have also experienced this type of government because the entities that control these resources generally want to maintain conditions that are favorable to them.

An outright plutocracy governed by a handful of wealthy individuals is relatively rare in the modern era. The governments of many nations, however, are heavily influenced by wealth. Wealth can buy political power through lobbying, campaign contributions, bribing and other forms of legal or illegal financial pressure. Many nations have tried to limit the influence of the wealthy through laws controlling things such as campaign finances and lobbying, but these laws can be difficult to define and enforce.

 

 

 

Fortunately ordinary people in America disagree. Most Americans believe that we are the point of the economy — not just some “input of production.” The goal of the economy is not to make a few people fabulously wealthy, it is to produce widely-shared prosperity for everyone who is willing to work hard.

Now they have the audacity to demand that ordinary people who work in public employment and make modest middle class incomes shouldn’t be allowed to combine their political contributions to influence the outcome of elections. But they are happy to allow the super-rich like themselves to control politics with more and more $10 million contributions.

 

 

In 2016 we will have a chance to stop the plutocrats like Rauner and Griffin from snatching away that future and returning us to the plutocracy of the Gilded Age. Time for Progressives to saddle up. Failure is simply not an option.

 

 

Kids love to play. We know that it is good for relaxation and will fuel the imagination along with other things taht are good for them.

Well, adults are no different. Playing is great for problem solving, creativity, imagination and mental health. Playing with your kids or grandkids helps them become less stressed, makes them smarter and better adjusted.

But adults should not stop playing even when there are no kids around. We focus on work, family commitments and other things to much and have very little pure fun. We have stopped playing. Our free time is not to be more TV or computer time and engaging in fun. We need to rejuvenate play like we did as a child. 

I am not advocating that we forget the work and/or other commitments in our life. I am saying we need to find some creative things to do that is not fun and is not a structured goal in any way. Play could be simply goofing off with friends, sharing jokes with a coworker, throwing a Frisbee on the beach, dressing up at Halloween with your kids, building a snowman in the yard, playing fetch with a dog, a game of charades at a party, or going for a bike ride with your spouse with no destination in mind. By giving yourself permission to play with the joyful abandon of childhood, you can reap the benefits.

Some of the reasons we play:

• to learn
• to create
• to feel challenged
• to lose ourselves in a pleasurable activity
• to calm and focus ourselves
• competitively to win
• cooperatively
• for the fun and joy of it

 

WHY?

• Play helps develop and improve social skills. Social skills are learned in the give and take of play. During childhood play, kids learn about verbal communication, body language, boundaries, cooperation, and teamwork. As adults, you continue to refine these skills through play and playful communication.
• Play teaches cooperation with others. Play is a powerful catalyst for positive socialization. Through play, children learn how to “play nicely” with others—to work together, follow mutually agreed upon rules, and socialize in groups. As adults, you can continue to use play to break down barriers and improve your relationships with others.
• Play can heal emotional wounds. As adults, when you play together, you are engaging in exactly the same patterns of behavior that positively shapes the brains of children. These same playful behaviors that predict emotional health in children can also lead to positive changes in adults. If an emotionally-insecure individual plays with a secure partner, for example, it can help replace negative beliefs and behaviors with positive assumptions and actions.

 

 

 

For me, having a plan has always helped, and every good plan comes with a list. A to-do list of things you hope to accomplish, or a list of work that needs to get done.

 

There is a right way and a wrong way to make a to-do list according to Forbes. They will tell you that a big mistake is making the list of poor quality. Afterall, if you get everything done, even if menial, you have accomplished something. Many times the harder chores are at the bottom of the list and we add things to the top just to avoid that longer and longer. Forbes’s suggestion is to find a way to eliminate many of the little tasks by combining them. When that happens, a person will feel more accomplished and will ultimately become more successful over time when it comes to completing tasks.

 

Another problem is the list is torturous. That means the list is long and mostly never ends and we become stressed in life and believe we are not accomplishing anything. Focus on the task at hand and quit all the worrying about the end result of accomplishment. By doing this, the probability is higher that the tasks will get done, and you will be more productive when completing the tasks.

 

I searched around for secrets to creating a successful list and didn’t find anything very concrete. Forbes suggest to keep the list small with maybe no more than three things on it. Do a “mind dump” and write down everything you need to do to clear your head but don’t create the list just yet. Now divide them into separate lists that may be done by days of the week to keep from overwhelming yourself. One thing to remember is to also create a schedule of when things are due in order to make your to-do include items in order of the highest priority level to the lowest.

 

Another idea is to make the list just prior to when you plan to work on it. Maybe just the night before. Then when you get up and are ready the items are fresh in your mind and you have a plan to get things done. Then you can spend your time getting the tasks done instead of wasting time and energy of thinking about what tasks need to be completed.

The first thing you should do in the morning is to tackle the first item on your list. The morning is the time of the day when you are the most fresh, so having a harder task at the top of your list is a benefit not only to you, but also to the item that you need to accomplish.

Ok, that about covers it. Now I am going to make a to-do blog list of upcoming blogs.

 

I might wait until tomorrow. Ah, procrastination might be good topic.

 

 

Truth. Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

When an election is here, the truth becomes elusive.

There are some places you can look at that checks the facts but more on that later. When a political campaign is in full swing, candidates begin stretching their thoughts which in turn stretches the facts and distorts things. Numbers seem to grow or shrink depending on if it makes the person look good.

Don’t you just love political mailers? We, the voters, get way too many things in the mail about their views or even a chance to write negative things about their opponents. It is a fact that you can believe what you want in the political year as psychologists have research that shows people tend to have a strong connection to accepting anything near what they believe without question. In other words, if it is close to their views, they accept it as fact and the line is not blurred. It confirms their position.

 

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour

 

Where can you find unbiased political information? Here are some sites that check the facts. They vet the information.

 

• FactCheck.org – This is from the University of Pennsylvania and they use former journalists to research and offer analysis on the things being said and written by candidates. Recent articles included a look at Republican claims that the new healthcare law is a job-killer, as well as an analysis of President Obama’s accuracy in the State of the Union address. The site addresses individual claims, searching for original source material and relying on statistics from reputable entities, such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• PolitiFacts.org – they have a truth-o-meter and rate claims made and track whether campaign promises are fulfilled. This site has 35 editors and reporters devoting time to the cause. It was founded by the Tampa Bay Times.
• The Fact Checker – this offers analysis of political claims and is the brainchild of The Washington Post and Glenn Kessler.
• VoteSmart.org – This site offers checking in six area which include financing, voting records and position on issues among other things. They don’t look into promises or statements.

 

Some things you can do to understand the process is to ask questions. When you go to a website look at it and read who is actually producing it. This will help you decide if they lean in one direction or the other. Sometimes claims of nonpartisan-ism is not valid. Another thing is to follow the money involved and evaluate who is funding this endeavor. Then analyze the site. Is it leaning too far one way or another and what sort of balance to they bring to the political process.

 

Doing your own due diligence will help you make a more informed decision when you step into a polling place.