March 2018

Pre-employment Predictors of Prejudice

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*When you look at job descriptions, many times there are phrases and descriptions of prejudice that, apparently, are not recognized as prejudiced. Diversity is more than ethnicity, race or gender, but I will leave it to you to determine what other factors should be considered. But don’t take my word for it; the U.S. Congress said so in 1967, when the Gen-Xers and Millennials were just a gleam in their parents’ eyes.

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Toxic Tar Sands Cooking Our Planet

On February 24, 2018, the mercury at the Cape Morris Jesup weather station, northern Greenland, soared to 43 degrees (F), 70 degrees above normal – unprecedented. During that month, temperatures in northern Greenland were above freezing for 61 hours, three times the number of hours in any previous year. Terrifying. Our planetary life support systems are rapidly overheating, deteriorating, dying, and dead.

Emaciated Polar Bear
Photo credit: inhabit.com photographer Kerstin Langenberger
As the Arctic melts, the incidence of starving polars will escalate quickly. How much longer will people turn a blind eye to the death of animals and plants as Earth’s rising temperature accelerates from burning fossil fuels?

The Arctic is warming twice as quickly as any other region on the globe. For example, the Arctic has just experienced its warmest winter on record. February Arctic sea ice cover was 521,000 square miles (almost twice the area of Texas) below its normal – the lowest monthly record ever witnessed. At the South Pole, the summer Antarctic sea ice cover reached its minimum extent, the second lowest since the inception of satellite data.

The missing Arctic sea ice and the heat escaping from the Arctic Ocean into the atmosphere is unhinging the polar jet stream. It’s linked to record-breaking flooding, firestorms, heatwaves, droughts, torrential rains, blizzards and even China’s airpocalypse.

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Pray for Trump – The Grass is not Always Greener

As things in and around the White House deteriorate before our eyes, millions of Americans continue to steadfastly support the President.  Meanwhile, millions of Americans revel in the idea of his ouster, assuming that any situation would be better than the one we’re in.  Assumptions tend to result in uncomfortable situations, and it may never be truer than in this case, as Pence might be worse than Trump!

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Hey Doc – a Little Help? Life In the Era of Opioids.

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* I did it. *

I turned down the Vicodin during the pre-op appointment.

When he asked why, I replied, “I like it too much.”

Vicodin

Instead of considering the acknowledgement I’d just made that I am to some degree addicted to opiates, or perhaps even complimenting me on my self-restraint and self-awareness, he pressed the idea that I would need some pain relief over the weekend, and we compromised on a prescription for ten pills of something ‘similar’ to Vicodin.

During interactions with doctors, nurses and support staff in the hours before and after my surgery, I told five other people that I like Vicodin too much. Each time I expected them to make a note in my chart but no one did, although Heaven knows that anything else you tell them gets noted and is then impossible to get deleted, even if it is in error!

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The Digital Death Blow to Sarcasm

That highly-touted, often-quoted, super- scientific website “Mother Nature Network” on the internet is now reporting that the internet is dealing the death blow to sarcasm. To quote the website: “Of course, that statement could be dripping with sarcasm and you wouldn’t know it. Don’t worry, your sarcasm detector isn’t broken. It’s just that words on a screen — the prevailing mode of communication in the digital age — just can’t handle the fine nuances that sarcasm requires. As a result, sarcasm is dying. And if anything, the internet is dealing the death blow.”

I sure hope that America’s dear friend and ally, that poor self-sacrificing Vladimir Putin doesn’t hear of this. Of course, this report also coincides with and is an indicator of the end of the world, which will happen in just a few months.

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Swearing Off Software with Savoir Faire

I see so many positions that require “software experience” with very detailed specifications that give me pause. It would seem that someone should be getting wealthy teaching all of this software.

I learned a cutting-edge software a few years ago, and my instructor told me that knowing how to use that software would mean an instant hire. After investing a considerable amount of time and money (bought the software) none of the organizations that required knowing the software ever called me.

Ever.

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Amnesty For Lolita – 47 Cruel Years

In a concrete tank four times her length, a 51-year-old apex mammalian predator with a brain more than two times the size of a human, Lolita the orca, paces back and forth exhibiting an indomitable spirit.

Lolita was abducted from the Salish Sea on August 8, 1970 in Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, Washington. She is the only living captive orca, of 45 members from looting the Southern Resident pod, during the gruesome pillage of 1967 to 1973. At least 13 members of her family were brutally suffocated during these ghastly captures.

Orca Capture
The violent and brutal kidnapping of Lolita the orca along with her brothers, sisters and aunties in 1970. Photo credit: Dr Terrell Newby

There is every reason to believe that Lolita is suffering horrendously.

Lolita has been forced to perform for 47 years at the Miami Seaquarium. She exists in a tiny bathtub-like tank in solitary confinement. No human could bear these abhorrent conditions yet still regularly carry on for almost five decades.

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Securing Education – Guns or Metal Detectors?

* Where would we be without teachers?  It’s like asking where we’d be without the sun.

The warmth we need to grow, the illumination we need to see new things and the undying pull to keep us on the right trajectory are things we expect both the sun and our teachers to provide for us.  The sun doesn’t have much choice, and at least theoretically we can count on it to continue to deliver until it inevitably burns itself out.

Teachers do have a choice, and when they burn out society loses a little warmth, a ray of light and a steadiness of direction.

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Could Legal Marijuana Bring You More Money This Year?

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Despite this not necessarily being a stock-related tip, I feel as though I don’t do readers justice if I can’t provide an outside-of-the-box way to make money via passive income through reading my articles. Therefore, I want to dig deeper into the mechanics of how business operates in the medical Marijuana realm.

It is speculated that politicians in over a dozen states are now growing jealous of the Cannabis boom happening across the legalized areas of America. While those pouty politicians spill their guts to their therapists, let us examine a truly underdog story which has nearly been a century long in the making.

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Technology, Digital Analytics, and the new Monopoly

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As time and technology march on, occupations, professions, and major market players adapt or fade away. I can recall as a freshman in college being told that newspapers had already had their heyday decades ago.

News isn’t going away, but paper is being replaced by screens the size of your hand and much, much larger, with speed (but not really depth) that travels around the world in split seconds.

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New Skyscrapers Fueling Arctic Meltdown

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* 2017 set a record for the most skyscrapers built in a single year – 144. 2018 is predicted to eclipse it by reaching 160 superstructures. Happy dance. Not.

The fossil fuel energy necessary to produce the concrete and steel in each of those 144 edifices, located in 69 cities (many of which sit empty in China), is cooking our planet alive.

China Concrete Usage
China Used More Concrete in 3 Years than America Used in the 20th Century

In 2018, the Arctic had its warmest winter on record at least 10º(F) above normal. The Arctic is missing 62,000 square miles of ice below last year’s record low.

Minus the ice, the latent heat from the Arctic Ocean transfers immense amounts of energy into the troposphere. It supercharges the polar jet stream which now meanders 10, 20 and even 30º southward, off course. This wayward polar jet stream has unleashed deadly and wild weather around the globe, including recent snowfalls in London and Rome. Keep Reading

Positivity with Strategy, a Recipe for Success

* Positivity is Fickle – Strategy is Enduring*

I like to think that I am an inherently positive person. I grew up in a household that instilled belief, confidence, and encouragement into me on a regular basis. Hearing these things made me feel good – like I could accomplish anything as long as I put my mind to it.

This was great when I was younger, and even to this day I hold these types of values close. Being positive feels good and who doesn’t like to feel good?

Who doesn’t gain gratification from delivering an uplifting message to another person that provokes them into action?

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The Story of Calendars

Remember the days when we used to source things in nature as a way to track time? Of course not. Or maybe you were a scout when you were still in grade school.

Today even the little ones want access to technology. But the fact still remains that days begin with the rising sun and end with it setting. The bright moon and stars light the sky in remote areas today.

Now imagine primitive man in the tropics. When the moon is full and big, it rises around sunset. Human curiosity and pursuit for logic must have led to counting days between the occurrences of these simultaneous events. That interval is still referred to as a lunar month.

Using this month, primitive man must have counted the lunar month interval between other annual natural events like spring or winter to get a lunar year.

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All You Need is Love…. and Enough Money

* Post-Nuptial Money Management

The only time money is an issue is when there isn’t enough money. Nowhere in life is this more true than within the confines of a marriage. As Winter melts into Spring and your June wedding draws near, now is a good time to do some planning; before all the planning begins!

Love is many splendored thing, the old song tells us. What it doesn’t give us a clue about, is that it is also a business.

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Software Abuse – At the Hands of Tech Giants

Children that grow up in abusive households assume that everyone gets slapped around when they make a mistake or spill their milk. When it’s all you know, you believe it’s normal. It never occurs to them that their parents are being mean – just loving them in a way that hurts. Like software companies treat us.

Software abuse is rampant and pervasive. It is being perpetrated by every software company – the bigger the company, the more severe the abuse. If you are thinking, “I use software, and I don’t feel abused”; exactly. You are that kid being slapped around, and you think it’s normal.

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A Beautiful Sight – Hope in the Wake of Tragedy

It’s easy to complain … seems like I’ve been doing it nonstop since November ’16. Determined to write something positive today, I asked myself, “What is the most beautiful thing I have seen lately?”

The answer was there waiting for me before I could finish the question: those students in Florida. The way they marched to Tallahassee determined to make a difference. The way they tempered their anger and pain with their intellect and handled themselves in a manner we can all be proud of. The way they were filled with, and inspired hope; beautiful, human hope.

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A Father’s Journey – Part 2

* Post Surgery Struggle to Survive


Stephen Pecevich, a single dad of three in the Boston area, had his life take a complete detour when his youngest child was diagnosed with a brain tumor before she she was even 60 days old.  Follow the story of how this devoted father found faith and strength on what Stephen calls “a life detour”, as we publish regular excerpts from Stephen’s own memoir, which will be available in its entirety in the near future.

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Chapter 1

“I do believe, but help me not to doubt.” (Mark 9:24)

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