Check the facts
Issues
ProCon.org: The leading source for pros & cons of controversial issues
Legends, myths, misleading emails
Pinocchio Tracker
Washington Post Fact Checker
FactCheck.org (Annenberg Public Policy Center)
Politifact’s Truth-O-Meter (Pulitzer Prize winner)
2012 Presidential Campaign
Presidential Campaign Ads
TED features a MOOC project this week
Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online — giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks — they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn.
If you need a place to spend social time, a volunteer opportunity, psychotherapy, housing or vocational training, here are some resources for people challenged by depression or another form of mental illness. Please feel free to post resources you know of which aren’t listed in a comment and I’ll add them to the list after checking them out.
For US By US Self Help Center 40 North Van Brunt Street, 2nd Floor, Englewood, NJ 07631 201-541-1221 Hours: Monday-Friday 1-5pm What it is: This program is a place where people dealing with a mental health issue of any type can spend time to socialize or spend quiet time in a place away from home. Activities take place that you can join if you like. The center is pretty much run by peers with professional oversight in the background. Who can participate: You may self-qualify to participate. Admission requirements: Drop-ins welcome – just show up. Feel free to ask a friend to bring you by. Work/volunteer opportunities:Admission requirements: By referral. Call to speak with a program counsellor who can help you understand the steps needed to be referred into one of the organization’s programs.
Over the years, Education Law Center (ELC) has become the “go-to” source where parents, policymakers and advocates can find high quality, in-depth data and other useable information on New Jersey’s public schools. This organization is committed to continuing to provide timely and relevant data in a highly functional and interactive format and is pleased to announce that visitors can now find an expanded range of student data on their website: racial/ethnic composition, poverty rates, limited English proficiency rates, and special education rates of NJ public school students, whether enrolled in district schools or charter schools.
A West Indian friend writes to ask,
This country is becoming more like a 3rd world country. Why aren’t people demanding jobs instead of talking about racism. Sick and tired of hearing about racism. Everything is racism. Find some other excuse rather than racism. If anything is done wrong it’s blame it on racism. People need to stop blaming and stop looking for hand me out. It seems as though some people like to keep stoking the word racism and using the blame game too much. What about Solyndra all the billions that cost tax payers money. That money could have been used to help students pay for their school loans. The unnecessary spending while unemployment is still above 8%.
It’s definitely time to start a proper word usage list. I just spotted the third statement about “peek interest” made by a college educated person. This is going to be a running list. I’ll add to it when I spot anything new that belongs here. If you have a suggestion, put in the Talkback section and I’ll add it.
Pique Something may pique your interest, but it cannot peek or peak it.
Apostrophes (‘) – words should only have them to show possession or when the word is a contraction, like can’t or don’t. Plurals don’t get apostrophes. Let’s make a concerted effort not to misplace this bit of punctuation . . because understanding each other is important.
Resources: Apostrophe Catastrophe, Wikibooks
While the Republicans keep dishing out lies, Obama has to keep reminding people of the realities. Otherwise the liars win. After Ryan’s completely lying performance at RNC, the GOP rose in the polls. People haven’t known what to believe.
Fortunately, since President Obama is consistent, can back up his assertions with proof and encourages people to check out what he says, the public is slowly learning that it’s possible to trust what he says and conversely, much of what the Republicans say is suspect, if not downright BS.
Watch the TED Talk with me: Aimee Mullins, the designer of Cheetah running legs, herself a legless woman, talks about combining form, function and value – and of the power of believing and unifying. Aimee’s an athlete, an activist, a woman’s advocate, a sports record-breaker and a completely awesome lady.
Amy quotes Shakespeare, “When you prick me, do I not bleed; and when you tickle me, do I not laugh?” and adds, “It is the humanity within us that makes us beautiful … Whimsy matters.”
Short version of audio interview
In this 2010 interview, Irish President Michael D. Higgins – then labor party leader – takes Megyn Kelly to task for attempting to spread Tea Party lies. President Higgins says, “(Your) tactic is to get a large crowd, whip them up, try and discover what is the greatest fear, work on that, and feed it right back in a frenzy.” He speaks of living and working in the United States in the 1970s in “Willie Nelson country,” and being astonished to discover that many decent, hard working Americans, the type of people, “…who are very proud, as they should be, of the man (Obama) they’ve elected president…” and continues
Excellent thoughts about Alyssa Douglas’ unfortunate Tweet about Obama.
If you’re like 23 million other people plus my sons and I, you will love this humourous video clip. In it, Darrel (pronunciation stress on the “el”) tries to get a girl in the movie theater to give him her number. But Darrel is actually a comedy character portrayed by a girl named Nicole Randall Johnson. Nicole as Darrell is a very annoying guy who just won’t take no for an answer. “Work that updo, girl!” he tells his would-be romance. But she’s not having any of it, or him. Darrell’s persuasive antics are just fun.
Reagan-era tax breaks for the wealthy, which were instituted in 1980 and have become the norm for Republican presidents to continue since then, have resulted in the following financial effect on American households, as detailed in an article on An Economic Sense blog
IN YEAR 2010
• Income for the bottom 90% of households is -5% lower than 1980 levels
• Income for the bottom 9% of households is 35% higher than 1980 levels (those with incomes between the 90th and 99th percentiles)
• Income for the top 1% of households is 333% higher than 1980 levels
• The rate of growth for the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has remained steady at 1.9% since 1880
The same information expounded in The Happy Movie that the Wei Family loves so much, is available in a course given by the Institute of Child Education & Psychology (ICEP), which teamed up with Action for Happiness to add to its offerings an online class which imparts the skill of how to teach happiness to others. Isn’t this a marvellous idea?
I was blessed to receive one of a handful of scholarships to take the course Teaching Happiness: Positive Psychology for behaviour and learning, and I’m just wrapping it up this week. I loved The Happy Movie and the concepts it propounds, so I knew I would enjoy this course. But I didn’t expect that so many of the fundamental principles the course teaches would work a direct transformation in me. Moreover, I’m astonished at how rapidly the transformation has taken place. The changes this course has awakened in my own thoughts and attitude is dramatic and gratifying. One basic premises of the Teaching Happiness course is, that the teacher must first work on increasing his/her own happiness, before attempting to teach these skills to others. The premise is that students of a happy teacher will be provided with two resources for increasing their own happiness: they will be impacted by awareness of their teacher’s authentic happiness, and they will also have a behavioural reference and role model close at hand.
Martin Seligman describes temperance as including,
…the ability to protect against excess and delay gratification. It includes humility and modesty. And being careful about choices and not taking undue risks. It also includes forgiveness and giving people a second chance. There is an aspect of self-regulation here – controlling your appetite and emotions, being disciplined, regulating what you feel and do. The temperate person does not suppress motives or desires but waits for until it is wise and appropriate to satisfy them, so no harm is done to self or others.
Bill Moyers tells the story of how both Harry Truman and John Kennedy tried to bring Medicare into being, but it wasn’t until Lyndon B. Johnson inherited the presidency after Kennedy’s death, that it acquired an advocate who worked tirelessly to make sure that the elderly and indigent had access to healthcare services. LBJ told Bill,
My inclination would be […] that it ought to be retroactive as far back as you can get it […] because none of them ever get enough. That they are entitled to it. That that’s an obligation of ours. It’s just like your mother writing you and saying she wants $20, and I’d always sent mine a $100 when she did. I never did it because I thought it was going to be good for the economy of Austin. I always did it because I thought she was entitled to it. And I think that’s a much better reason and a much better cause and I think it can be defended on a hell of a lot better basis […] We do know that it affects the economy […] But that’s not the basis to go to the Hill, or the justification. We’ve just got to say that by God you can’t treat grandma this way. She’s entitled to it and we promised it to her.
