No doubt you’ve heard the story of the Frog in the Pot: If a frog is dropped into a pot of scalding water, it will sense the danger and immediately jump out. However, if a frog is dropped into a pot of tepid water and the water temperature is gradually raised, the frog will succumb rather than trying to escape. Well, people are similar in behavior. Call it gradualism or complacency, it’s happening to the citizens of the U.S. and many other countries. Give us little doses of anything, and we…
Will your child die of Bullycide?
What bullies do
Calling another names, putting them down
Cruelty: excluding the child, and recruiting others to do the same
Taunting and constantly teasing
Ignoring the person, diminishing their importance
Threatening behavior, and singly or group intimidation
Damaging another’s belongings, with no chagrin
Taking their books, hat, other items that belong to another
Making another do silly, embarassing things to be “included”
Physical harm: hitting, pulling hair, tripping another
You Can Do Anything, An Hour At A Time: Suicide Is Not The Answer
It was a normal day at the TV station, I was the sales manager, and also responsible for writing, shooting, and editing some of the station’s TV commercials. There was always plenty to do at the little non-profit station in southern New Mexico. It was the first time that I had worked at a television station, specifically a Christian programming station, having spent most of my career in mainstream radio up to that point…
The Blonde Joke’s On Us: The Dumbest Woman On Earth Was Not A Blonde
I’ve lived my entire adult life with “dumb blonde” jokes. Whoever started them, probably spawned by pornographers allured by Marylyn Monroe types (probably with dyed hair), should be locked up in a room with a hundred blonde professional women on a month-long sabbatical from bad bosses. Think he’d make it out alive? I think he (or she) definitely be a changed creature after that month. He’d gain a new understanding of blondes, that’s for sure.
Sentencia Interruptus: The Texas Pause
I’ve actually never heard anyone talk about this, so it’s up to me to break the news to the world about this phenomenon. It can be a monumental problem, if you don’t know about it, understand it, and adhere to its rule. “It” is, and I believe I’ve aptly named it, Sentencia Interruptus, or commonly known (or soon will be) as the Texas Pause. Problems can arise in communications between husbands and wives, employers and their employees, teachers and students, and others, if one of the parties..
Our Adobe Hacienda
When I was a teenager, my family moved to the largest alpine valley in the world- the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, into a house that hadn’t been inhabited for many years. What appeared to be an insurmountable task, reclaiming the living space in an adobe shack, while we cooked outside and pumped water from a hand-pump, slowly became a passion. The old adobe had been built by a Japanese family many years before, and until we found it, had been a frequent party place for local teens…
Clutterbugs
“This house is so cluttered I can’t find anything,” said my husband. I looked around, and realized that most of the clutter was his, on that particular day, anyway. He seemed to be oblivious to that fact. He’s not only a closet packrat, he builds guitars. He rebuilds guitars- guitars that don’t quite meet his specifications when he buys them. Our living room is a guitar parts morgue. We could open up a store. They ought to make tables that have a slight angle…