People at Walmart

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

I honestly don’t think Sam Walton wanted Wal-Mart to become what it has become! It’s really a pathetic joke to the American people! “Let’s all shop at Wal-Mart, where 80-90% of the items are made in China, who owns our debt”! “Let Wal-Mart (Devout) customers become the face of America”! Yeah right, a bunch of brainwashed idiots who act like zombies in that store. And I shop at Wal-Mart too, but my god, so many people who shop there are complete idiots! Mindless zombies wondering around!

People of Wal-Mart

I don’t mean the website, I mean the actual people that shop at Wal-Mart. Not only are they hardcore deal-finders, but they all seem to have some sort of an issue they feel it absolutely necessary to share with the world. Some of them have an issue with dressing – wearing clothing that is entirely inappropriate, and even unnecessary, for shopping at the big box retailer. Some of them have significant other issues that they feel it necessary to blather around the store on their cell phones, screaming at each other, or even sharing with the Wal-Mart employees. No matter what the issue may be, it seems like every person that shops at Wal-Mart seems to feel that it is their duty to turn the Wal-Mart experience into a therapy session/hillbilly fashion show. I just want to get my discounted goods and get the shit out of here. Why must I stand here and endure your issues?

A lot of people hate Wal-Mart for a lot of different reasons. In addition to these I have listed, I hate Wal-Mart and refuse to shop there because for years they have systematically broken down the notion of loyalty to a company. Big box retail took over small, locally owned businesses and the people of this world fell for it in the name of getting a good deal. In the end, though, there is no deal that is worth what Wal-Mart represents.

Posted in Articles, At Work, Company, Other - At work, People, Retail stores, Salary, Super Markets, Supervisors, Videos | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Gas prices never down

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

—>Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it’s most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall. As gas costs were near $5 a gallon until falling and oil companies earn around $100 billion each year, it’s a good time to question what really goes into the price of gas. The numbers on the gas station sign hide a complex set of transactions. Before gas can power your car, it must be discovered as crude oil, traverse three markets, and be refined from crude into gas. Inside, we’ll explain the three markets, walk you through the role of refineries, and show how oil companies use creative tactics to manipulate gas prices…

The Three Markets: Contract, Spot and Futures

Both oil and gas are traded on three markets: the contract market, the spot market, and the futures market. Each is influenced by different factors and impacts the price of gas at different stages of production. Unlike the futures market, the contract and spot markets are not the kind of markets found on Wall Street; they are informal networks of businesspeople.

The Contract Market
Though it seems like oil companies spend most of their time ruining your day by raising the price of gas, their primary business is exploration. Once an oil company finds a field and coaxes it into producing crude, it takes that unrefined oil and sells to refiners. The vast majority of oil is sold by contracts. A veritable orgy of contracts signed between oil companies and dealers, oil companies and refiners, refiners and independent dealers predetermine the fate of most oil and gas.

Refiners plan their purchasing and refining activity to ensure that these contracts are fulfilled. In exchanged for this privileged standing, refiners charge contract customers a premium.

The Spot Market

Need some extra oil? Got a spare barrel you need to sell today? The spot market is for you. The spot market fills the gap left by the contracts market. When a refiner needs extra oil to meet its contracts, they find people with surplus oil on the spot market. Unlike the contract and futures markets, which trade pieces of paper, the spot market involves the trade of actual barrels.

The best deals are often found on the spot market. Since neither the buyer or seller is locked into a prearranged deal, the laws of supply, demand, and free market are mostly in effect.

The Futures Market
Crude oil is the bees knees of the American Mercantile Exchange. A futures contract might stand for 1,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate to be delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. The futures market represents that collective state of the oil market at any particular moment. When you hear reporters talk about the price of oil reaching $100 per barrel, they’re talking about the futures market. Because fluctuations on the futures market are driven by information, its prices guide the contract and spot markets.

The people buying and selling futures rarely, if ever, collect on their contracts; a seven year period saw 5 billion barrels traded, of which only 31,000 were ever delivered.

Refineries

Refineries are the temples where crude oil gets Bar Mitzvah’d into gas. Shifts in the refining world over the past two decades have helped ratchet up the price of gas. In the early 80′s, there were over 350 refineries, mostly owned by the oil companies. The oil companies didn’t see refining as a place to generate profit, but as an integral part of a larger operation.

If a refiner’s rack price is consistently too high, dealers will take their business elsewhere when their contracts expire. If the rack price is too low, buyers might swamp the refiner, leaving it unable to meet its contractual obligations.

To ensure pricing continuity, refiners used to call each other and share pricing information. Activist judges on the Supreme Court called this “collusion.” The refiners, unfazed by the justices, came up with a crafty alternative: publicly posting their rack prices. Somehow, the Ninth Circuit Court found this to be illegal, too. Nobody knows how refiners discuss their pricing arrangements nowadays, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it involved a members-only group on Facebook.

Despite multiple warnings, the American political system is so dysfunctional that very little has changed since a president named Jimmy Carter tried to get us to get serious about reducing our dependence on gasoline. Oh, cars and trucks get better gas mileage than they did back then. But the nation still lacks a coherent policy for radically reducing consumption.

The frustration over prices at the pump is likely a major contributor to Obama’s sagging approval ratings.

Earlier this month, Gallup’s daily tracking poll showed that the president’s favorability rating had slipped to 41 percent, tied with his lowest ever. Voters tend to blame the person in the Oval Office when gas prices soar.

I understand the frustration. Families struggling in the post-recession economic landscape — some still jobless, many earning less than they used to — are hard-pressed to fork over more and more money at the gas pump.

And for many of those families, driving has become a necessity. They’re not taking leisurely spring-break road trips. They’re trying to get to work, to the doctor’s office, to the grocery store.

Over the last 30 years, suburban and exurban development, especially in fast-growing Sunbelt cities, have produced sprawling mega-lopolises, wherein workers may live an hour’s drive (or more) from the workplace. Those suburbs aren’t exclusive enclaves of the affluent, either. Many suburbs are economically and racially diverse, so more families of modest means live far from work. A dime a gallon can break the budget.

Posted in Articles, Cars All models Brands, environment, Goverment, Goverment and Politics, People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

World without religion better or worse

Posted on January 9, 2012 by admin

Obviously, given how totally dominant religion has been throughout human history, up to about 250 years ago, that means that every human institution or idea that’s more than 250 years old was originated by religious people. So science, the hatred of science, war, peace, tyranny, rights, racism, the opposition to racism, slavery, the movement to abolish slavery, all were originated by religious people and in that sense you can say that all of them are “products of religion” or “launched from religious roots”. This isn’t evidence for whether any of these ideas or institutions are essentially compatible with or opposed to religion.

n the case of science, specifically, the reason it has “been perfectly able to stand on its own” is that it is essentially incompatible with religion. Religion requires that you accept certain truths on faith, with no backing in evidence and logic or in contradiction to the evidence and logic; science requires that you make evidence and logic your only criterion for the truth. That is why progress in science required that it be separated from the influence of religion

Religion is akin to physics in that each adheres to metaphysical laws: laws that are outside of the natural system itself. The university itself was originally a product of the church, and science a product of those universities, developed by religious scholars who postulated that, since the universe had a legislator, it must follow laws, and then set out to discover what those laws might be. Galileo himself was a religious scholar, and he continued to regard himself a good Catholic for his entire life, writing “the book of nature is a book written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” His problems mostly resulted from his arrogance in defying the pope who had urged him to make it clear that his work was based in science, not theology. There’s a good account of the affair in Rodney Stark’s For the Glory of God. Thus were the disciplines of math, science, ethics and economics first developed. To the extent that science requires a continued belief (“faith”) that nature follows laws, I suppose one could say it is religious, but that is not what I was saying. Since its launching from its religious roots, science has been perfectly able to stand on its own. I was simply saying that both adhere to laws and that those laws can be discovered.

The pages of history are filled with violence orchestrated by various religious groups seeking to impose their beliefs on others. Violence remains with us today on a world wide scale as religious organizers continue to make claims that their religion represents the absolute truth over all others. The recent gathering in Assisi hosted by Pope Benedict XVI included some 300 representatives of world religions as well as a small group of agnostics gives rise to the hope that maybe someday we will find common ground albeit probably without the support of organized religions.

The idea that such meetings could prove to be cathartic was vividly illustrated when Benedict used this occasion to finally apologize for events such as the Crusades or the use of force to spread the faith in the New World. Pope John Paul apologized in 2000 for Christianity’s historical failures. In recent years an increasing number of awakened and informed people have rightfully become suspicious and alarmed about the real aims of some institutional religions.

While in Assisi Benedict suggested that these suspicions may have caused people to doubt in God’s existence. But this argument, if it was intended to support the institutional hierarchy, may be rather ill founded. It is far more likely that more people today believe in a loving God but do not see the need for a heavily politicised and dogmatic religion that does not serve their particular needs or sympathies. This rejection or disappointment is clearly reflected in the number of Catholics who have left their beloved church in droves in the last two decades. Sadly the Church hierarchy continues to avoid meaningful dialogue with the people they serve.

Acts of violence in all its forms carried out in the name of God can never be justified. God does not make demands, punish, or reward or ask us to act as his soldiers or martyrs. Our common deity does not need our help to accomplish his work. We merely need to treat each other as we would like to be treated ourselves. God simply loves us unconditionally regardless of our beliefs. We need to embrace a new way of understanding one another. We must free ourselves from rigid beliefs and rid ourselves from some of the trappings which institutional religion has brought us.

We now share the planet with more than 7 billion inhabitants all with unique and separate qualities or abilities. More significantly our technological advances continue to bring us closer and closer together resulting in the inevitable clash of differing cultures. While we may celebrate our individual cultural differences they must never be used as means of establishing a cult of superiority. Such displays and attitudes will only hasten conflict and hatred. Exterior religious signs and symbols cannot serve as a substitute for the much more needed interior expression of the heart.

In the meantime world peace will remain elusive perhaps until the divisions and separation between the world’s religions are finally resolved. In God’s realm there are no institutional religions, or separate levels of equality. Man or woman, In the eyes of God we are all equal and holy creations. This Creator desires to save all, not some, not just Catholics, but all!

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Life and kidnapping Colombia

Posted on December 7, 2011 by admin

We could say that the guerrillas in Colombia has more than half a century, I still remember my years, I thought in the revolution of ideas and in which, the only viable option was the guerrillas, who had ideology, fighting for slogan for the people, their rights, decent social life, a better distribution of wealth, land, the end of landlordism and the right to life and land.

But all this has changed over the course of the years, and only left us one more story of violence, a violence that seems never ending and Colombian society which got used, but if you have to say is that after the abduction of the military for more than 15 years in the jungle rot, waiting for more than a decade, has an agreement or negotiation, or are not expected not too long, I think is the longest sentence for any crime you can know, but the prison would be better, it would have more comfortable and could see your family at each visit, but they only live in the jungle chained to a tree, like animals, living in the worst conditions, without food, health, some will be free to dream and see their families again, but that for many of them it was not possible and many have died in captivity, hoping someday to be released.

But if you have achieved something besides the usual speeches and in Colombia, there are a lot of armed groups to fight the guerrillas as well as hundreds of political parties is no longer see the soldier, or police as the enemy the people, that he had a gun in his possession and the law into their hand and committed atrocities, today there are hundreds of justifying their fight, kill kill whole villages whole families, orphaned children left without until We have not killed his parents in their own eyes, that this war without mercy does not end and continues to have children of war.

We are all children of a conflict that has not improved but worsened the social condition of thousands of Colombians who had to leave their land and leave only with the clothes, to go do some of that new class called displaced, a conflict that if I can expropriate the land, and generate wealth but only those who can pay for your monitor and you can pay to kill others and have more land.

During this time we have seen the news have the best novel, with the respect that many of the hostages they deserve, but it was the best novel in ratings, but selling not only entertainment, but if the pain of others, that feeling that when these outside and free, without the shackles of abduction can not imagine the horrors of war, and why not respect the dignity of people, because the world allows prisoners of war are protected life, and only see Nazi period films, and think as it could be possible, as could happen for so many years, and nobody did anything.

We always hope the story and see them off, hope to see with his family, then change the channel with a sigh, but nothing more. But many still being held hostage until another chapter begins and is the front-page news, without having an end. But how much longer I take it.

Looking at the comments people are always the division of opinion between the government should negotiate and not redeemed, if you were in the jungle with them beyond would think so, or my question why those who have been released, only decided to continue with their lives and do nothing for their classmates who were there, return to freedom. until when? Until when? They live in Colombia with the idea of ​​the government does not act, it does nothing, when the people who one day felt it was his guerrilla army of liberation, act and demand that violence must end that although we have no weapons and hundreds of armed groups, are more and have ideas and want a new country, that that one day get that poverty is not an incurable disease and work together to get something better.

The slain officer notebook to let her daughter

“As a tribute of love I’ll hopefully keep this book as a treasure of love that makes you remember every time you see your father distant and diffuse, confined to a jungle serving a whim that men invented but not yet distance and time can make me forget the little angel of love begotten. “

That first paragraph on page 91 Viviana Duarte helped him to meet his father, who was fired after 2 years and never seen alive again. He had to settle for survival tests in which he always saw a being without libertad.Hoy, the object came in a package with everything that one of the world’s oldest abducted saved as their treasure, through letters of love, portraits and a chess

He was one of the 4 officers who were killed by shots in the head, by the guerrillas to be near the army. They were killed in captivity after waiting many years for his release.

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Stop Violence against women

Posted on November 24, 2011 by admin

Oppression and harassment of women is a consistent and systemic global phenomenon that dates back over millennia. In many countries, men still hold the legal right to beat, torture, imprison or kill the women they “own.” In the U.S., a man beats a woman every 12 seconds and four women die every day as a result of beating by a man. In Canada as in the rest of the industrialized nations, assaults and killings of women and male incest with children are too often treated as individual acts by media and politicians in spite of the fact that statistics clearly tell us that there is a global war going on against women. Slavery is certainly not done away with as the official line goes. It has just changed. Now a majority of the slaves brutally trafficked and sold around the globe as sex slaves, soldiers and unpaid workers have women’s and children’s faces.

Against this background it is outrageous that men’s ongoing violence against women and children is not even mentioned in the prime minister’s “tough on crime” bill.

It’s a month of reflection; a month for all of us to consider the effects of gender-based violence for women in our society, for their children, loved ones, and co-workers, and, indeed, for our community.

Intimate partner abuse is not about love or anger or the result of alcohol or drugs: it is about power and about controlling the other partner.

And unfortunately, it’s tragically common.

Whether we have proof or not, most of us know a woman or child in our circle of family, friends, or co-workers who we suspect is being abused.

No one is immune or protected. Gender-based violence affects women of all ages, socioeconomic status, educational level, cultural background and race.

this story is the same a hundred of the same pattern

This subject hits close to home, lived it, endured it and survived it. Thinking it was all my fault, thought it was the way it was supposed to be. Thought others lived the same.

But years later, the recorder still goes off in my head, when someone rises there arm or hand too quickly, I still react by ducking. Loud noises remind me of gunshots and set me on edge. Yelling and screaming, do amazing things to me. Touching my neck even though you’re playing, remembering getting choked till I couldn’t breathe.

This man damaged my life, mentally and physically abused me, he manipulated me, wanted me to be who he wanted me to be, not allowing me to be me. Not to wear make-up, not to have friends, not to go anywhere, timed when I did, he knew how long it took to go to the store, get his beer and be back, don’t be late he would say, you know what will happen, he didn’t want me to have a life accept him and my children.

It has taken me years to quit looking over my shoulder, and not to look at the time to make sure I was getting home on time.

Pregnant with his son, which claimed at birth not to be his, then he raped me and I was pregnant again with my third child he wanted me to abort the baby I flat out refused, and he had nothing to say about the baby the whole nine months I was pregnant, being pregnant didn’t stop him from being a abuser. When my baby came home she was suddenly his pride and joy, go figure.

This is what really helped me decide to move to another state and taking the children, left in the middle of the night with my mom and dad would came to get us. Thinking the mental abuse was over, he couldn’t haunt me, he would be so far away.

Life took some time to get use too, looking over my shoulder, worrying about the children, at school, worried all the time.

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Here’s How To Move Your Complaint To The Top Of The Pile

Posted on November 14, 2011 by admin

When Spirit Airlines botched my flight home from Montego Bay in July and stuck me with an 8-hour overnight layover in Ft. Lauderdale without bothering to inform me, I saw shades of red I never even knew existed.

Experience has taught me that if you want speedy customer service these days, nothing works better than stirring up a good stink on the company’s Twitter or Facebook page.

Unfortunately, my fantasies of seeing “Spirit Air Is The Worst” shoot to the top spot as a trending topic were killed when I realized the company had neither an official Twitter or Facebook page to speak of.

Given the airline’s track record of abysmal customer service, it’s not hard to imagine why.

Companies basically open themselves up to a world of hurt when they offer customer service on public forums like social media sites.

These sites have rapidly become the new “town halls” for consumers to bash brands for falling short, much like National Bank Transfer Day gained steam on Facebook after banks announced plans to charge consumers $5 debit card fees.

But a new survey released this month by Conversocial revealed social media isn’t always the surest way to have your voice heard. In fact, some companies are straight up ignoring your tweets and wall posts.

Of ten retail brands surveyed, the worst offenders were Costco, Kmart and Kroger, which were found to ignore 100 percent of all consumer complaints on their Facebook page.

Sears and Safeway scored high marks, answering 57 percent and 40 percent of complaints in less than 30 minutes, respectively.

But overall, the study found the majority of complaints voiced on Twitter and Facebook were largely ignored

Here are some ways to give yourself the best shot at having your voice heard:

Be persistent. I set up a reminder for myself a week after I emailed Spirit with my first complaint so I would remember to email them again. After my second message, I received a response from a representative and had a full refund within a month.

Power in numbers. There were a couple dozen other passengers on my flight just as annoyed as I was when we were stuck overnight without any forewarning. As a group, we decided we would send in complaints and that may have helped us in the long run. It’s far more difficult to ignore a slew of identical messages than a single complaint.

Don’t underestimate the hashtag. Even if the company doesn’t have a Twitter account, that doesn’t mean you can’t cause a ruckus anyway. Tag your tweet with a hashtag and the company’s name (ex: #SpiritAIr, #Costco) and anyone who searches for their name on the site will eventually see your tweet. I tweeted a gripe about Spirit and saw my message retweeted by users who had similar experiences, which gave my message more impact.

Skip the phone. Customer service lines are a labyrinth seemingly designed to make you want to hang up. Going to a store in person to speak with a manager makes you harder to ignore. If that’s not an option, check out Gethuman.com, a great source for tracking down phone numbers for real people in companies.

Track your moves. It’s important to keep a record, so you can back yourself if a company tries to tell you they never received your complaint. Email leaves a trail, but if you call, record the date and time of the call and ask for the full name of whoever you speak with.

Take it to the top. A friend called Subway’s corporate office when he had a terrible experience at one of their shops and received a response in record time. The CEO does not want to be bothered by consumer complaints and it’s likely he or she will put pressure on lower level departments to get back to you if you pester their office too much.

Be nice. I’ll be the first to admit I can be hot headed when it comes to poor customer service. But before I call a company to complain, I give myself at least half an hour to gather my thoughts and calm myself down. You’re far more likely to have a positive result if you are kind and polite.

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Chinese girl run over

Posted on October 19, 2011 by admin

China toddler1 300x225 Chinese girl run over

It is a story that has deeply unsettled millions in China, posing troubling questions about whether three decades of headlong economic development has left nothing but a moral vacuum in its wake.

It begins last Thursday when a two-year-old girl totters into a narrow lane in a wholesale market in the thriving industrial city of Foshan in Guangdong Province and is hit by a small, white van. The driver pauses, and then pulls away, crushing the child for a second time under his rear wheels.

It is not the accident itself, but what happens next — or rather doesn’t happen – that has left millions of ordinary Chinese wondering where their country is heading.

One by one, no fewer than 18 passers-by are seen on closed circuit television ignoring the girl as she lies, clearly visible in the road, hemorrhaging into the gutter. Not a single one of them stops to help.
The first is a young man in a white T-shirt and trainers. He walks on past the prone form of girl who is by now bleeding profusely, without a second glance.

Next comes a cyclist who wobbles slightly to avoid the dying child and then pedals on, turning his head back momentarily, as if to check he really did see a child dying in the street.
As the pool of blood spreads, a third pedestrian comes by, clearly sees the bleeding girl, but steps out into the small lane to give her a wide berth.

Many viewers reacted with dismay, citing the incident as further evidence that China had become a “world without morals”.

“Everyone is praising the rubbish-collecting granny for helping, but isn’t it normal to help someone who is wounded or dying?”, asked Johnny Yao on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, “This just shows how abnormal is the moral situation in this society! The sad Chinese, poor China are we even rescuable?”

Others blamed China’s compensation culture for the apparent show of callousness, recalling a famous 2006 judgment when a Good Samaritan who helped a woman get to hospital was wrongly ordered to pay her compensation.
“They didn’t ignore the girl, they just didn’t dare help her,” said one comment among many that said that Chinese law had helped create a fear of intervening.

When do we say we are human or being human? May be it is tough to answer that in one sentence. But if you were to ask when are we being inhuman? people will give answers citing recent examples. That is the tragedy of our world. It is ironic that we remember examples of inhumanity than humanity in a world over populated by humans.

“It has something to do with what we call a diffusion of responsibility. The more people who are available, the less responsibility each individual seems to take for providing help to an individual in distress,” said Gaies.

Such theoretical psychological constructs are of course little consolation to little Wang, or her shattered parents, as she battles for her life. Yet, the two-year-old girl who has caused a country of 1.3 billion people to pause and reset their moral compass has in a larger sense attained immortality.

“Freedom to establish our own behavior in a sphere where the choice is imposed by material circumstances, and the responsibility for building your own life according to conscience, are the only spheres in which moral feelings can develop, and moral values are replicated every day by free will.”

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bullying has to stop

Posted on September 20, 2011 by admin

We have all known someone in our lives who has been bullied. Whether it has been our child, our siblings, ourselves, or even our co-workers. Bullying does not stop on the playground that is only where it starts. Children for centuries have found it easy to target one another and elevate themselves by degrading others. It can start with lunch money, a shove on the playground, or a rumor spread through the school. But it can have disastrous effects. Bullying makes a child feel invisible; it makes them feel unloved, unnecessary, and vulnerable. Bullying can make a good child become sullen, sulky, scared, and stand-offish. It can rip apart friendships, families, and lives. Bullying is not just a child being a child. It is mean, spiteful, and malicious. We need to teach our children that bullying does not need to happen.

Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that can happen anywhere. It is not a phase children have to go through, it is not “just messing around”, and it is not something to grow out of. Bullying can cause serious and lasting harm.

Although definitions of bullying vary, most agree that bullying involves:

•Imbalance of Power: people who bully use their power to control or harm and the people being bullied may have a hard time defending themselves
•Intent to Cause Harm: actions done by accident are not bullying; the person bullying has a goal to cause harm
•Repetition: incidents of bullying happen to the same the person over and over by the same person or group

Everyone can help prevent and stop bullying. Adults have the responsibility to protect and be a role model for kids, teens, and young adults.

No matter who you are or who you represent, you can influence lives and maybe even save a life.

Everyone needs to be aware not only about the warning signs and effects of bullying, but also about the ways to intervene and support both the person being bullied and the one bullying others.

Bullying is often a sign of other serious antisocial violent behavior. Bullies are more likely to be underachievers in school, engage in criminal activities as adults, and become abusive spouses. Putting a stop to this early can prevent the potential violence he or she may partake in down the line.

Parents, educators and other adults should take bullying and social aggression seriously. While some degree of teasing is common among children, bullying often gets out of hand and should not be tolerated. Children that experience bullying might develop anxiety and depression and might skip school to avoid bullies. A child that bullies others might think his behavior is acceptable and as he gets older, engage in more serious aggressive behavior.

Teach children appropriate anger management, stress management and communication skills. Education in these areas should begin at a young age. Some children master these skills easily, while others need extra help.

Teach children how to respond if someone bullies them. Children should attempt to ignore the behavior. If that doesn’t work, they can tell the bully to stop. They should not call the bully names or engage in a physical altercation. They should walk away from a confrontation and seek help from an adult.

Intervene if you see a child bullying another child. Tell the bully it is not acceptable to bully other children. Redirect the bully into more a more appropriate activity. Provide comfort as necessary to the children that were victims of bullying.

Encourage children to develop friendships with other children because children that hang out with a group of friends are less likely to be bullied by others. Some children possess better social skills than others. Some children might need training in social skills so they can make friends more easily.

Encourage schools to develop and implement an anti-bullying program. The program should include training for all school staff on how to address bullying and education for students about how to respond to bullying. Schools should provide plenty of supervision for children during times bullying occurs the most, such as lunchtime, recess, in the bathrooms and on the school bus.

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Americans overworked

Posted on September 16, 2011 by admin

We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don’t believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.

American Work-Life Balance
■According to the Center for American Progress on the topic of work and family life balance, “in 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed.” I don’t care who stays home and who works in terms of gender (work opportunity equality for all – it’s a family choice). Either way, when all adults are working (single or with a partner), that’s a huge hit to the American family and free-time in the American household.

■The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.

■Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.

American Average Work Hours:
■At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not.

■In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.

■According to the ILO, “Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”

■Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.

■There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.
■The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave.

Not only does less vacation time mean we have less time to develop our most critical and lasting relationships with family members and friends, but our physical health is in jeopardy when we refuse to unchain ourselves from the cubicle. Vacations cut down on stress, which any medical expert will tell you is at the center of so many of America’s most pernicious health crises. Two researchers at the State University of New York at Oswego showed that an annual vacation can cut the risk of death from heart disease in women by 50 percent and in men by 32 percent. Taking time out, exploring new horizons, getting away from your desk and moving around, reconnecting with close friends and family are all safeguards against burnout and depression. But this kind of rejuvenation takes time—two weeks, most studies indicate. The average vacation in the United States is now only a long weekend, which just isn’t long enough.

What we All Need to Remember

What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

■It’s OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.
■It’s OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.
■It’s OK to ask to work from home.
■It’s OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.
■It’s OK… you get the idea.

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Cuban dissidents complain of escalating repression

Posted on September 7, 2011 by admin

The level of police violence against peaceful dissidents was the highest in recent years,” the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said Tuesday in a report focusing on incidents last month.

“In August 2011 we documented at least 243 short-term arrests (some for more than a week) and nine acts of censure organized by the numerous and ubiquitous secret political police,” the commission said in a document released to the foreign press in Havana.

The outlawed but tolerated rights panel said that in the first eight months of this year at least 2,221 arrests were made for political reasons, 1,091 more than in the same period in 2010.

It said that the victims of last month’s repression were mainly women engaged in “non-violent activities,” chiefly in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

The commission added that “it has no doubt that the order for that brutal repression was decreed or approved by the highest ranks of the neo-Stalinist regime that has ruled Cuba for more than half a century.”

The Catholic Church in Cuba said Monday that the government of President Raul Castro told prelates that actions targeting peaceful protesters were not authorized by national officials.

Human rights groups and international organizations believe that these articles subordinate the exercise of freedom of expression to the state. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights assess that: “It is evident that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression under this article of the Constitution is governed by two fundamental determinants: on the one hand, the preservation and strengthening of the communist State; on the other, the need to muzzle any criticism of the group in power.” Human rights group Amnesty International assert that the universal state ownership of the media means that freedom of expression is restricted. Thus the exercise of the right to freedom of expression is restricted by the lack of means of mass communication falling outside state control. Human Rights Watch states: “Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity, the government denies legal status to local human rights groups. Individuals who belong to these groups face systematic harassment, with the government putting up obstacles to impede them from documenting human rights conditions. In addition, international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are barred from sending fact-finding missions to Cuba. It remains one of the few countries in the world to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its prisons.”

A Reporters Without Borders report finds that Internet use is very restricted and under tight surveillance. Access is only possible with government permission and equipment is rationed. E-mail is monitored.

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