WORST KIND OF POVERTY...

True enough, poverty has a way of distorting one's sense of priorities sometimes even eroding it. Living in subhuman conditions always boils down to simply a matter of survival. The immediacy of food and shelter first, before the comforts of cleanliness. Poverty is a serious problem. It needs to be recognized, addressed, and resolved. It is found everywhere. Every country has its percentage of low-income earners, but some countries have many more people living in unfortunate circumstances than others do. Poverty is an area of concern as it brings with it a host of problems within the country, as well as on a global scale.

The worst kind of poverty is when people cannot get food and therefore they are thin and weak and many starve to death. Unfortunately, this is still happening in many parts of the world. The gap between the world's rich and poor has never been wider. Malnutrition, conflict, disease, and illiteracy are a daily reality for millions.

But it isn't chance or bad luck that keeps people trapped in bitter, unrelenting poverty. It's man-made factors like a glaringly unjust global trade system, a debt burden so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery and insufficient and ineffective aid. It doesn't have to be this way though.

JUVENILE CRIME

Crime by adolescents has long been a problem. For years many social scientists used what might be called a socioeconomic explanation of juvenile crime. Most juvenile crime, they argued, was committed by young city males from low-income families. They explained that crime was a means of survival and a way to both increase self-respect among peers and fight back against the cruel society. Later, the social scientists added a psychological twist to their theory. They said, crime by adolescents from fatherless homes was especially high.

Both the poverty theory and the absent-father theory have supporters. But the many males from low-income families where the father is absent, who do not commit crimes indicate that the theories are incomplete. In addition, there have been increases in the juvenile crime rate in wealthy communities.

There are other ways to explain juvenile crime. One is alienation from the society in which they live. Alienation means being cut off from society and not accepting society's norms, or standards of behavior. Some social scientists see the main cause of crimes as coming from within the individuals who commit these crimes. Others find the main cause in society. Most include both social and psychological factors in explaining juvenile crime.

Some offer psychological explanations: "Some people have violent personalities." Others give social explanations: "We live in a violent society."

It is clear that explaining adolescent crime is difficult. Preventing it is even more difficult.

PAGES FROM THE PAST - HANDKERCHIEF

A 15th - 17th century laced handkerchief

Among the classical heritage rediscovered during the Renaissance was the handkerchief. It had been used by the Roman, who ordinarily wore two handkerchiefs (sudarium): one on the left wrist and one tucked in at the waist or around the neck. In the fifteenth century, the handkerchief was for a time allowed only to the nobility; special laws were made to enforce this.



A Roman emperor wearing sudarium on his neck

LOVE IS A MIRACLE

Love is the word we use to magnify the miraculous feeling within us. The word itself is the manifestation of God Himself. What in man corresponds most to God's being is his capacity to love. And we resemble God most by the manner we love.

Love, unfortunately, has become one of the most misunderstood and confused words in any language. Some want it to mean nothing more than the attraction between the sexes. Others want it to mean no more than desire and its satisfaction. And when others speak of it, it seems that love and sex are synonymous. It's all so sad because love understood as any of these is hardly love. It is confused: the wrapper is taken for the content.

Love is really like life, and life is a miracle. It is so vast in its meaning, so varied in its expressions and so rich in its manifestations that one has to be fully alive in order to understand it fully.

The measure of love, then, is not what our hearts dictate or what our desires lead us to. Love is very much greater than the urges we feel within. It is above all, the goodness that is within us that we must share with the goodness of other persons in communion that is stronger than death.

In this sense, love includes the goodness of a man seeking the goodness of a parent toward his or her child, the goodness of a friend seeking the goodness of another. Yes, love never dies because goodness never dies.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

No one can argue that we do not live merely to satisfy our bodily needs. We spend a lot of time and energy doing many things, such as working puzzles, reading, going to church, window shopping, visiting friends, internet browsing, blogging, and a host of other activities that serve no immediate biological purpose. Unlike biological drives, which are similar for all members of the species, psychological and social motives are much more variable and dependent on cultural learning. For example, many cultures encourage individual competition. Being a winner enhances self-esteem. In other cultures, competition is frowned upon. Needs for self-esteem are met, not by excelling individually, but by being a contributing member of the group.

What we will look at here are those motivations that pattern our lives. Some may be characteristics of our culture alone. Some may span cultures. Sometimes we are self-motivated by forces in our environment. Often the reasons why we do something may be interpreted in a number of ways. Only you know what makes you tick.

"Motivation is everything, you can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people."

Lee Iacocca

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - MOTIVATION

"Everyone expects to go further than
his father went; everyone expects to be
better than he was born, and every generation
has one big impulse in its heart to exceed
all the other generations of the past in
all the things that make life
worth living."



William Allen White

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - SPOONERISM

Spoonerism is a transposition
of usually initial sounds of two or more words.

Examples:

"tons of soil - sons of toil"

"know your blows - blow your nose"
"flutter by - butterfly"
"it's roaring with pain - it's pouring with rain"
"go help me sod - so help me God"

The Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) was celebrated for his habit, accidental or cultivated, of transposing the first letters of words in phrases. It is reported that in conversation he referred to the well known two-wheeled vehicle as "a well boiled icicle" and to a friend's new cottage as a "nosey little cook." And they say that he would startle listeners at his sermons by referring to "tearful chidings" or assuring them that something was as easy as for a "a camel to go through the knee of an old idol."

THE CAKE bowww!!!

Wal-Mart Cake

It took me a second, but make sure you read the story under the picture. Keep in mind this actually really did happen. This cake is for someone who was moving from an insurance claims office.

Okay so this is how I imagine this conversation went!


Walmart Employee: "Hello 'dis be Walmarts, how can I help you?"

Customer: "I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week!"

Walmart Employee: "What you want on da cake?"

Customer: "Best Wishes Suzanne" and underneath that, "We will miss you!"

STOP LAUGHING!
Some people can't be fixed!


Many, many thanks,Tita Adele!
I enjoyed every bite of it!

TRIVIA - THE CORNEA

Did you know that the only part
of the human body that has no blood supply
is the cornea? It takes its oxygen
directly from the air.

BEAUTY IS ALL AROUND US!

Learn to appreciate the beauty around you!

Poets tell us that the world is full of beautiful, wonderful things. We don't have to be a poet to realize that this is true. All we need is to rub sleep out of our eyes and look around with a keener, more observant gaze. Watch the clouds as they float lazily across the summer sky, study the outlines of trees, smell the freshness of the morning breeze, listen to the happy, lively chirping of the birds, hear the buzzing of the busy bees hopping from one fragrant bloom to another, feel the gentle, warmth of the early morning sun. Commune with nature!

We don't have to be a poet to know that the world is full of beauty.

"God's love is all around us,
it is not just things that we can
see or own, It's also what's inside us,
to help to take us home...."

ANIMAL WORLD - CAT WALK

The cat, although not related to the camel or giraffe, shares one striking trait with them. When other animals move the front leg on one side and the hind leg on the other move together, followed by the other two diagonally opposed legs. The cat, camel, and giraffe move their front and hind legs on one side and then the front and hind legs on the other side.

JOKE TIME 8 - BETTER THAN A FLU SHOT

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all. One afternoon, the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea.

As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom!

When she returned with tea and and scones, they began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist.

"Miss Beatrice", he said, "I wonder if you would tell me about this?"

Pointing to the bowl.

"Oh yes," she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful?"

"I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease."

"Do you know that I haven't had the flu all winter?"

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - FEAR

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me
and through me. And when it has gone past I
will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where
the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."



Frank Herbert

IT'S FRIDAY THE 13th

Western culture's fear of number 13 is evident enough to acquire a name triskaidekaphobia, and the people afflicted with irrational fear of Friday the 13th are called paraskevidekatriaphobics. What a word for a number phobia.

How did Friday the 13th become such an unlucky day to many superstitious believers?

Dossey, a folklore historian traced the root of number 13 to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a festive celebration at Valhalla, their heaven, when an intruder, an univited guest joined in. The 13th gatecrasher was Loki. Once in the group, feeling unwanted, he arranged for the blind god of darkness, Holder, to shoot Balder, the Beautiful, god of joy and gladness, with mistletoe-tipped arrow. It was fatal, Balder died, and everything went black. The whole earth mourned for his death. It was a bad, unlucky day. From that moment on, the number 13 has been considered ominous and foreboding.

The fear of number 13 is still strong today.

And why Friday?

A HEALTHY FAMILY

What makes some families strong? How can we nurture a wholesome relationship among the family members? How can we create our own unique, healthy family? We have to consider many aspects in our lives, look into different angles and decide where to start the healing process. We have to determine which areas of family are already strong and identify other areas where we want to be stronger.

Even strong families have conflicts. Members may get angry, criticize or reprimand each other. But strong families are able to deal with conflicts without bickering or destroying each other or family well-being. Families get stronger by expression of caring and appreciation, commitment, spending time together, encouragement, communication, spirituality, community and family ties. Members of strong families find ways to encourage and support each other. Love and respect are freely given and extended, not as a way to buy family members' love.

These all together make family foundation sturdier and able to withstand time.