New Year Inspiration

H appiness depends upon your outlook on life. - Find the good in all situations
A ttitude is just as important as ability.- Keep your attitude positive
P assion find yours this year! - Do what you love and you will never work
P ositive thoughts make everything easier.- Stay focused and stay positive
Y ou are unique, with special gifts, use them. - Never forget you have talent

N ew beginnings with a new year.
E nthusiasm a true secret of success.
W ishes may they turn into goals.

Y ears go by to quickly, enjoy them.- Wisdom from your elders, listen
E nergy may you have lots of it. - Take care of yourself
A ppreciation of life, don't take it for granted. - Live each day
R elax take the time to relax in this coming year.- Keep a balance in your life

To all my dedicated readers out there. . . this is my wish for you in the coming year. 2013 will be a great year!

End of Time?!

I came across this very funny thought today about the world supposedly coming to an end today! I have to say some of the questions are exactly what I would love to have the answers to! If any of you know some of the answers please share. . . .

We've all made it another day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness for that!




So the world is supposed to be ending today? That's sad. I never found out who let the dogs out, the way to get to Sesame Street, why Dora doesn't just use Google maps, why we don't ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery", why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed, why "abbreviated" is such a long word, why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor yet dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons, why they sterilize the needle for lethal injections and why do you have to "put your two cents in" but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to? Why did Joanie love Chachi? If a deaf person has to go to court is it still called a hearing? Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane? Does the alphabet song and twinkle twinkle little star have the same tune? Why did you just try to sing those two previous songs? And just what is Victoria's secret? You see, the world just has to keep going. I have too many questions......and do you really think I am this witty ???? because I actually stole this from a friend, who stole from a friend, who stole from a friend, who stole from a friend, who stole from a friend ...

Viewpoint: If We Want Gun Control, We’ll Need to Compromise

 

What do you think about gun control now?!

 

In the wake of the heartbreaking mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, supporters of gun control have argued that the attack should be a turning point in galvanizing popular opinion against guns — and producing strong gun control legislation.

President Obama declared Saturday that “We’re going to have to come together to take meaningful action” — though he did not provide details. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that when Congress returns she will introduce a bill to restore the assault weapons ban. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Face the Nation Sunday that “we could be at a tipping point” on gun control legislation.

If any crime could usher in a new gun control regime, last week’s slaughter of 20 six- and seven-year-olds should. But will it? Not likely. The same “tipping points” have presented themselves after previous mass shootings, but little progress has been made. Instead of continuing to act as if the nation is poised to reject guns, advocates for gun control should switch tactics. They should accept the reality that support for guns remains strong and work for a bipartisan “grand compromise” that offers gun owners substantive benefits in exchange for reasonable gun restrictions.

The nation has been confronted with a lot of horrific gun violence in recent years — the 32 killed at Virginia Tech in 2007; the 13 killed at Texas’s Fort Hood in 2009; the attack last year on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) that left six people dead, including a federal judge; the 12 people killed in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater this year. But as mass shootings have become more frequent and more deadly, popular opinion has been moving steadily in favor of greater gun rights. In 1993, a Pew Research Center poll found that support for gun control overpowered support for gun rights by 57%–34%. By this year, the margin had fallen to 47%–46%. This support for guns is not just abstract: the FBI has logged a record 16.8 million background checks for gun purchases this year.

All of which makes the National Rifle Association’s goal of blocking gun control laws a lot easier. It’s still possible that last week’s attack will swing popular opinion so strongly against guns that the NRA is powerless to stand in the way, but the odds are against it. Given that, the best chance for stronger laws would be for gun control advocates to work with moderate members of the gun-owning community and come up with a “grand compromise” gun bill. That means a bill that does not demonize guns, but instead seeks to build a consensus in favor of prudent gun use.

A key to such a compromise would be trying to win the support of hunters by offering a bill that is respectful of gun traditions — to undercut the NRA’s often-effective claim that “they are coming after your guns.” The compromise bill should also offer law-abiding sportsmen and sportswomen tangible improvements in the law — ones that do not increase the chances of mass shootings. The bill could expand the right to hunt certain non-endangered species in particular places and times. It could streamline some of the unnecessary red tape that hunters complain about in getting licenses. The drafters should look at other items on hunters’ legislative wish list, such as excluding ammunition and fishing tackle from the Toxic Substances Control Act.

In exchange for these substantive benefits, moderate gun owners should be willing to go along with important gun control provisions that are not aimed at them. These could include the top items on the gun control agenda: the assault weapons ban; tougher background checks on gun purchasers; and stricter penalties for “straw purchasers” who illegally buy guns for people who should not have them.

Some supporters of gun control have been noting triumphantly that the NRA has laid low since Friday’s shooting — and that according to host David Gregory, no pro-gun Senators agreed to go on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But this is what the gun lobby does after a mass shooting — it would be a mistake to believe that they are going away.

It’s tempting to engage in anti-gun polemics and hope that popular opinion will dramatically shift, but it is also likely a mistake. The smarter course for those who want stronger federal gun control laws anytime soon is legislative stewardship and compromise. The best way to get the job done is to craft a law that appeals to the broad middle of the nation, pull in as many pro-gun moderates as possible, and marginalize the NRA and other anti-gun-control extremists.

One Girl’s Quest to Make the Easy-Bake Oven More Boy-Friendly

You know - when I was a youngster I wanted to play with my sister's toys at times . . . I think this little girl is onto something . . . why shouldn't certain toys such as the easy bake oven be non gender specific . . . afterall, there are plenty of male chefs out there. We should be careful not to stereotypically give gender specific gifts to our kids . . . exposure to variety can only lead to a well-rounded adult.

Pink and purple are not 4-year-old Gavyn Boscio’s favorite colors. But cooking is, and he really, really wants an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas.

Easy-Bake Ovens, however, come in nothing but pink and light purple, as his parents and his 13-year-old sister, McKenna Pope, found out when they went shopping for one last week near their home in Garfield, N.J. Not only did they not find any Easy-Bake Ovens in any primary colors, but the products were displayed in boxes with smiling girls on the packaging. No boys. Not even one.

McKenna, who is in eighth grade, was outraged. Her mother, Erica Boscio, recalls her saying the packaging of the mini-ovens was “detrimental to society.”

“She really talks like that,” says Boscio.

You might think that in the enlightened, gender-neutral era in which we live — where boys are encouraged to cry and girls hurtle into space — that boys would be included in advertising for a toy oven. Males, after all, still outnumber women as professional chefs in restaurant kitchens. “This perpetuates that whole situation where girls cook and boys don’t,” says McKenna, who thoroughly researched the oven’s apparent antipathy to boys by watching every ad she could find online (all girls as far as she could tell) and perusing Hasbro’s Easy-Bake FAQs, which describe the product as a “fashionable fun food brand that inspires tween girls to bake, share and show their creativity.”

Tween girls? “That put her over the top,” says Boscio. “She said, Mom, I have to do something about this. I’m going to film a video.”

On Wednesday, she uploaded to YouTube the short clip featuring young Gavyn unfortunately buying into traditional gender stereotypes and slapped a petition on Change.org. She’s not a newcomer to the site; earlier this year, McKenna got her introduction to how social-media can trigger change when she added her signature to a petition about Trayvon Martin. In her Easy-Bake statement, she provided evidence for her brother’s zest for the culinary arts by describing a recent episode in which he’d heated up tortillas using the light bulb in his lamp.”

Obviously, this is not a very safe way for him to be a chef, so when he asked Santa for his very own Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven, produced by the Hasbro company, for me to help him be the cook he’s always wanted to be, my parents and I were immediately convinced it was the truly perfect present.

However, we soon found it quite appalling that boys are not featured in packaging or promotional materials for Easy Bake Ovens — this toy my brother’s always dreamed about.

…I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work.

…I want my brother to know that it’s not “wrong” for him to want to be a chef, that it’s okay to go against what society believes to be appropriate. There are, as a matter of fact, a multitude of very talented and successful male culinary geniuses, i.e. Emeril, Gordon Ramsay, etc. Unfortunately, Hasbro has made going against the societal norm that girls are the ones in the kitchen even more difficult.

McKenna wants Hasbro to include boys in its promotional materials and offer the Easy Bake in primary colors. Hasbro did not have an official reaction as of Sunday.

It turns out that gender equality in toys is not such a radical idea. If she lived in Sweden, for example, she could consider it done. The country’s Top-Toy Group, affiliated with Toys “R” Us, has turned a gender-blind eye toward the holiday season, publishing a toy catalog that shows girls with (toy) guns and boys blowdrying hair and cozying up with dolls. And last year in England, British toy store Hamley’s discontinued its practice of grouping “girl” toys on pink floors and “boy” playthings on blue floors.

Sweden’s gender-neutral approach comes after an advertising watchdog criticized Top-Toy for pigeonholing children, with its traditional ads that featured boys wielding guns and girls playing house. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The Swedish government has been on the front line of efforts to engineer equality between men and women, with generous paternity benefits and plans to spend the equivalent of some $340 million through 2014 on boosting gender equality in the workplace.

…State-funded child care structures put in place after World War II have enabled women to return to work after having children, and four different government entities are devoted to the issue.

The U.S. is a long way from devoting those kinds of resources to ensuring equity between the sexes. But if McKenna keeps pushing, she just might encourage a major American toy manufacturer to — as she says in her petition — “help the children of today become what they’re destined to be tomorrow,” hopefully paying no attention to outdated gender stereotypes.