Life

Building Breast Cancer Awareness

October 4, 2014 By Twila Van Leer

October is breast cancer awareness month.

The long fight to make Americans more aware of breast cancer is flagging, some advocates say. As October, the long-standing month when the campaign is at its height, gets under way, they are questioning whether changes should be made.

Some National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) folks are using words such as “gimmicky,” “over-played” and “waning.” The pink ribbon that has been the traditional, and well-recognized logo for the campaign may have lost its freshness, they say. Even so, it is one of the emblems most widely associated by Americans with a particular disease. Bradford Exchange, one of the most successful personal check printers in the country, has recently issued new checks featuring the pink ribbon of support.

The need remains as great. Breast cancer is not a “solved problem.” More than 520,000 people throughout the world die of it every year. That includes 40,000 in the United States. Patients need support and researchers need funding, Elaine Schattner writes in a Forbes article.

Shattner suggests a shift in focus more in keeping with 2014’s information and approaches to breast cancer management. She would like to see people better informed about the number of people living with metastatic breast cancer. Even in the United States, their numbers are not sufficiently tallied. Their form of the disease is not curable and they require treatment until death.

Critical areas for more research are the ongoing quest to determine what causes breast cancer, how it can be prevented from spreading once diagnosed, better and more effective treatments and pathology improvements that would avoid over-treatment.

As always in the battle, patients need to know what their options are, Shattner said. The most effective care occurs when patients are educated and share in decisions about their treatment.

October will come and go and the drive to keep people informed on a nasty disease will continue. Whether the specifics of the campaign will change is a question for the future.

Start A New Thanksgiving Tradition

November 20, 2013 By Twila Van Leer

Traditions have to start somewhere. Besides gobbling up the turkey and trimmings, which is at the heart of the annual feast, you might consider something new this year to help cement family bonds and give deeper meaning to the holiday.

Suggestions from moneycrashers.com include the following:

Put technology aside for the day. Outlaw all the gadgets at least for the duration of the dinner and for a period of uninterrupted and uninterrupted visiting. Collect the cell phones in a basket as family and guests arrive. And let host and hostess lead the way by keeping conversation flowing and providing opportunities for children’s entertainment (Nope. No TV) to bridge the “tech fast.”

Choose a charity project and use the usual pre- and post-dinner periods to fulfill it. If it’s feasible, volunteer as a group at a local soup kitchen or other organization that provides for the needy. Organize a neighborhood food drive to be completed after Thanksgiving. Or actually go out to collect items. Plan ahead to donate to annual Christmas toy drives by asking each child in your group to find ten expendable toys. Visit an assisted living or long-term nursing facility. Contact the facility ahead of time to learn what particular needs are. Reading, telling stories or providing music are simple gifts that have great meaning to patients. Take dinner to someone you know might not have ready access to family during the holiday. You’ll return to your own table uplifted and more grateful for what you have.

Make a jar for “thankful” comments. Put it in a prominent place and provide sticky notes or notepaper for family members. Encourage them to think about daily blessings and the extraordinary graces that come from time to time. Pass the jar and have each person read a note during your meal.

Register for a race. Many communities sponsor a “turkey trot” or 5K race of other outdoor events to mart the holiday. A list of such events is posted on the Running in the USA site. What a great way to work off the extra calories hidden in those yummy holiday specialties.

Write a letter to a hero. Maybe he or she didn’t make headlines, but we all have heroes. Encourage children to identify those they most admire and then write that person or persons a letter expressing thanks. If they need help recognizing their heroes, remind them of church leaders, teachers, doctors, special friends, family members, even favorite entertainers who contribute to the joys of his or her life. Then be sure to post those letters when the post office re-opens.

Theaters usually have special family movies lined up for the holiday period. Buying tickets ahead of time might save some frustration on site. Some theaters allow you to reserve seats. Just do it in plenty of time to avoid any last-minute hassle that would detract from the meal.

Instead of eating and then running for the football game, take time for some genuine family conversation. Give each member of your group time to talk about him or herself. Call for everyone to say something positive about little Suzy or Uncle Bill. Or ask each person to choose just one other member of the gathering, focusing on good qualities and explaining how valuable that individual is in the life of the speaker. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to celebrate those qualities that make us willing, wanting and waiting to sit down together for feasting and family nurturing.

The Ripple Effect of The Gulf Oil Spill

June 25, 2010 By Sherry Tingley

The catastrophic nature of the Gulf spill has affected 14 million residents of the Gulf Coast and could ultimately affect nearby Latin American and Caribbean shores. Predictions have been made that the spill could reach the Mexican coast by December, followed by Cuba, the Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands. The Gulf oil spill has far reaching effects beyond the U.S. borders.

Such a huge disaster has everyone wondering why it happened and how we can prevent it from ever happening again. There are numerous liability issues surrounding the spill. BP’s oil spill cleanup response costs have hit $2.35 billion. It has been speculated that BP could eventually be fined $258 million a day. This would be in addition to payments for cleanup costs and economic damages to businesses.

There is no doubt that the regulatory systems in place for overseeing offshore oil and drilling failed. That system is controlled by an agency called the Minerals Management Service (MMS). It has been reported that they allowed BP to run the oil rig without demonstrating the ability to shut off the flow of gas and oil.

With fingers pointing to the MMS and pressure mounting, the head of the MMS, Elizabeth Birnbaum, resigned from her position. Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department prosecutor and inspector general, has been appointed by the President to restructure the agency to make it a more effective regulator. There is now an independent commission investigating the Gulf oil spill that has been given subpoena power so that better regulating systems can be developed.

Is the United States accepting help from other nations? There may be offers made that haven’t been accepted however there are skimming systems and other assets accepted from Mexico, Norway, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. The President has also authorized the use of 17,000 National Guard members to help with the clean up.

Massive efforts by various non-government organizations have been taken to clean birds drenched in oil. Some question the wisdom in this. According to German biologist Silvia Gaus, it would have been better if they put the birds to sleep instead of cleaning them since most aren’t likely to survive long term. Experts from other countries also say that this is a better way to treat the animals since they will be suffering liver and kidney failure after ingesting oil.

The economic impact of the oil spill in the Gulf is devastating. The fisheries in the area have been declared as a disaster zone making the seafood-producing states lose money with many businesses failing. Louisiana’s seafood industry supplies up to 40% of the United States’ seafood supply and the price of seafood has risen. Apart from this, wildlife in the area have suffered. Tourism is affected as well since many hotels have reported cancellations in reservations.The toll on a wide variety of human health issues has not even begun to be studied.

Many scientists are hopeful something good will come from this oil catastrophe. Americans have gained a better appreciation for their environment. We have turned to scientists to help answer the questions of why this even happened and how to prevent it in the future. People recognize the importance of a healthy marine ecosystem to our economy, culture and way of life in the Gulf Coast.

Control What You Can To Improve Your Life

March 8, 2010 By Sherry Tingley

I have been to my local gym to exercise, swim and use their public steam bath many times. One of my favorite things about this experience is to enjoy ten minutes of sitting in the steam bath. The heat and moisture make me feel good and more energetic during the rest of my day.

One of the things I hate about the steam bath is that many many times I’ve sat in the steam bath when there is barely any steam at all. I’ve watched people use various methods of trying to get the steam regulator to cool down, thus triggering the release of more steam. The small regulating device is strategically placed at a height of 6 1/2 feet and must be all of about 3/4 of an inch wide. Some people are successful at getting it to restart the steam. They were either taller than I was or had a better water bottle.

If you have ever tried to actually squirt water out of a drinking container, you’ll know that the water doesn’t go very far and accuracy is difficult to obtain. I have thought many times in the past as I was sitting in the steam bath that I should buy a cheap water gun and see if that would work. I had the idea months ago, but today I actually went to buy the water gun and make it part of the necessary piece of equipment for my exercise routine.

I walked into the steam room. There were about six people sitting there and the steam looked like it was on its way to fizzling out. I sat down and inquired about the steam. I was told that it had just stopped but had previously been fine. I took my little water gun, filled with tap water and proceeded to take aim at the regulator. My first few attempts seemed to miss the bulls eye, but I continued until I could see that it was hitting it and felt that it had been sufficiently soaked. I walked to the seating area and within ten seconds the steam started coming forth with vigor. It provided the group with the best steam bath. In fact it got so hot in there that several people left.

What I learned from this experience is that if there is something that you can control to improve your life, do it. Don’t just think about it. Do it. The next time I go to the gym, I feel confident that I will be able to enjoy the best steam bath possible at the time that I want it to and it cost me 99 cents. That is really sweet.

When you work on the Internet and devote your days to building your business, many things that you choose to do can grow your business. However there are a slew of things that you can do that will not help you in the least. You have most likely already spent hours and hours getting distracted from your main Internet goals in the past. Choose to do something that you know will help. Are you offering people better information? Are you offering them a reason to link to your site? Are you improving anything about your services and letting people know?

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. ~ Voltaire

Expect the Unexpected With Internet Startups

March 7, 2010 By Sherry Tingley

Great Expectations

I have cut, sliced and diced hundreds of onions. So many that when I cut this onion open and saw these funny faces smiling back at me, I had to laugh. I was amazed at how perfect these images seemed. To refresh my memory of what onions normally look like, I cut into another onion and found the look I usually find – one center and concentric circles. This onion produced two smiley faces. Totally unexpected! Sometimes it is better to expect the unexpected.

In any business people try to predict their success and rely on statistics to back up their predictions. With the Internet this method doesn’t always work.

Many people start Internet businesses and plan to be successful. They’ve got a great business idea and they invest money and time towards building the business. They literally do everything they can do. What sometimes happens is that they don’t get enough traffic to sustain the business and they stop trying. This is not what they expected.

The Unexpected

On the other hand there are people who start an Internet business and have no expectations of being wildly successful, but they enjoy trying new things and testing different methods of getting their business to work. They actual stumble upon little ideas and little tricks that end up making their business earn more money. Repeating this as a regular work habit can make the site profitable.

Think about your expectations of your Internet business. Is it going well or is it a project that you have abandoned?

In a search for “websites that fail” an article was listed called The number 1 Reason Why Most Websites Fail. You would expect this site to tell you about reasons sites fail, however this site was an example of failure. Mistakes on the page were causing major errors that failed to pull in the correct information in five different areas. This is the advice they give.

Websites do fail. Lots of them fail. You will see many of them every day. Some of them fail to inspire or enthuse. Some fail to get found at all. Some fail to get completed. Some fail to understand the needs of the people visiting them. But there is an underlying common reason for all these failings..

This site expected to be an authority on why websites fail, but lost credibility because their own site was failing. That wasn’t what was expected.

Finding Success With Internet Start Ups

In 1969, Honeywell International Inc. developed a computer that sold for $10,600. It was advertised as a kitchen computer because back then, the engineers decided that the only reason people would want to use a personal computer at home was to store recipes. That was what they expected people to wanted to do. Not one of the computers they designed sold. Did they expect that when developing this product? I’m quite sure they didn’t.

When you start your business on the Internet remember to expect the unexpected. It will give you patience while you work on your site and build it and continue to build it. Success for you may be right around the corner.

As Alexander Smith, a Scottish poet

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
~ Alexander Smith, Scottish poet

Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.
~Masaru Ibuka, co-founder of Sony Corporation

Sometimes it is better to expect the unexpected.