Disposable Society

Disposal. It's such a shame that marriage is so disposable. It's not valued like it should be!

Flipping through the yahoo homepage, I saw link for "15 Ways to Prevent Divorce." Curious as to our culture's remedy, I click and it took me to this article. I thought that some of them were probably quite true, while others were just coincidence. For example, living in a red or blue state, or having a male child, seems like a coincidence. One the other hand, statements like: you live together before hand, you have a same-sex partner, or you have parents who divorced, are more likely a true cause of divorce.

Following this article, there's even a calculator to predict if you will have a divorce.

WAIT!!! Does anyone realize that getting a divorce is a CHOICE, not a mathematical calculation? It drives me crazy that our society can come up with a calculator for this stuff, and that people might even rely on it.

Marriage is sacred, and should not be entered lightly. And when it is entered, it should be embraced and held in high esteem and commitment. I love my husband, and will never divorce him because I committed to love him until death parts us! Sure, being married isn't easy, but neither is life, and honoring a commitment is a worthwhile task.

Come on people, let's start honoring our word and loving those we have chosen to marry. And let's also think long and hard before we marry!

Obamanomics

This video is great. It really show how people are mislead by money matters! So often we don't investigate for ourselves; and then we are carried away without knowing it. Check it out:



That's a pretty great visualization!

Now, I need to do my homework before I vote in the country primaries in June!

good child, bad child

What makes a child good? What makes a child bad? According to a new study, kids think that the color of their skin makes them good or bad.

Watch the video below and you can get an idea of how the survey went. I have a few issues with this:
1) It seems that some of these kids had recently studied Martin Luther King and are therefore a little pre-disposed to answering a certain way. One student even refers to MLK. For such a young age, I find this very interesting.
2) It seems like the people doing the survey would have mixed up the colors of the models instead of having them in a light-to-dark order. I wonder if their results would have been more varied this way.
3) The survey should have been very broad. How many students and in what locations were they studied? I think that would be an important part of a follow-up survey.

Watch it for yourself and make your own conclusions. It seems to be apparent that this should be studied even more!

love me some architecture

I'm not normally a Popular Mechanics reader, but when the link popped up on my yahoo about some of the world's most unique bridges, I was hooked. It really blows me mind that God has given us such creative and inventive brains to think up some of this stuff!

I thought I was pretty cool because I had actually seen the Sundial bridge in Redding, CA. All the others though, were too far away for my meager travels. Maybe someday I will get to see a few more- they were pretty sweet!

Click here to see a slide show of the bridges.

Patriotism

If you came to America to live, you must like it, right?

Apparently not.

I have a student in one my classes who won't say the pledge. That's ok, as long as he still stands respectfully with the rest of the class. However, when this student started making comments during the pledge and saying that America is a horrible country, I got a little perturbed. I quietly took him right outside my classroom door and let him know that it was ok if he didn't say the pledge, but he should still stand respectfully. I also let him know that the great thing about America is that you can voice your opinion and show what you feel. I did this quietly, without making a scene or embarrassing him.

Off the record, I'd like to say:
If indeed, you really don't like America when you grow up, YOU CAN LEAVE.

People have always been drawn to America for its freedoms. You can think, believe, and say what you will. And I would hope that is why one loves this country. That is also why I was so appalled that some students were asked to remove shirts with the American flag on them during the Cinco de Mayo holiday.

Here's three points about this situation that I think are valuable to mention:

1) They are in America, and on any day of the year in America they should be allowed to show the American flag.
2) Students who wore Mexican colors and/or flags were not made to remove theirs.
3) Retaining your heritage is vitally important, but so is embracing where you have chosen to currently reside.

Here's the clip, and you can form your own opinions on whether these students should have complied and taken off their American flag attire...

Justin Bieber's Hair?

Okay, now I know how ridiculous teen pop obsession is! I have been hearing and seeing this Bieber mania at school and in the media. Apparently, his haircut is becoming over so popular too. So popular, in fact, that there is now a YouTube video of this Bieber fellow blow drying his hair. My first question is, when did it become OK for a teenage boy to use a blow dryer? The question to follow would be, who taught him how to use it? He incessantly turns the blow dryer on and off about every 5 seconds of the one-minute video. I kept watching after the first 15 seconds because I thought he might do something different. But no, he doesn't. Want to be annoyed?

Watch this:




What are we coming to America????

Arizona Immigration Law

Two sides to every coin:

Some groups feel that Hispanic people will be targeted by the law. However, the Arizona governor has stated that police are not allowed to profile. The only thing that police will do now is have the law to back them up if they already are involved (drunk driving, robbery arrest, domestic disturbance, etc.) and ask for ID and find that the person is an illegal immigrant. Furthermore, if someone feels that they have been profiled, they can sue for damages.

This doesn't seem that bad to me. Obviously it is more complex, and there is a very serious problem with securing the border. O'reilly seems to have his head on straight. Here's the talking points, which are always helpful:

Cheapskate

Here's how I know that I am cheap, thrifty, stingy, penny-pinching person:

I save the twist ties off of any and all bags. No, really, I figure why pay for these when you can have a collection of 233 in the junk drawer of your kitchen?

Here's how I know my husband is cheap:

He bought the off-brand of BRAN flakes and thought that he could eat them. Silly, I know, but he did. However, now they have been sitting in my cereal basket on top of the fridge for over a month. And he hasn't touched them since the first bite, when he said they were so nasty that he couldn't eat any more.

Sigh.

I also know I am cheap because I can't buy anything unless it is on sale. Some people will go out and buy a pair of jeans for $100 dollars. I wouldn't do that- ever! But, I would go to Ross or the thrift store and spend $100- you'd better bet that I would get a lot of bang for my buck though! I would come out with a couple pairs of pants, several shirts, and a cute pair of shoes.

I do owe my mom for this mindset, and in the long run, I know that it will be immensely helpful. Hey, I paid off my college loan in less than a year, so it is helping out somewhere!

To prove my cheap point, here is a video about whether expensive or cheap jeans have better quality. (And for the record- their 'cheap' $30 jeans are more than I would pay for cheap jeans).