Oklahoma bill proposed to keep politics out of the classrooms - The Schools of the Taliban

For Oklahoma to want to keep politics out of the class room is sort of like the Taliban point of view for control of the people. Keeping the education low in a world of like living in Oklahoma in the 1900's with simple minded farmers scared of everything because it's unrecognized!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_drama)

~~~~~Teachers raise questions after bill proposed to keep politics out of Oklahoma classrooms Senate Bill 574 would require every school district to create a code of ethics for teachers, and spend three hours in training each year to make sure classes don't get political.

Emily Harris teaches AP US history. The Will Rogers High School educator said she's concerned about the impact of Senate Bill 574, which said teachers can't advocate for any issue that's part of a political party.

"Young teachers like me are often stereotyped as indoctrinating students, that we're telling students to think a certain way. Just because I might be a millennial and a teacher, that I'm telling students how to think," Harris said.

Harris said instead, her goal is to help students think critically and become active citizens.

The bill has caused teachers to speak up over the range of issues that could be considered political, including everything from the economy to criminal justice.

"My fear is that if we take any kind of talk of civics or politics out of the classroom then it's going to affect our society in a negative way because we won't have citizens that are actively engaged," Harris said.

If passed, teachers would also be unable to support candidates or legislation in front of students, and they couldn't introduce a controversial subject or current event if it isn't related to the course. A teacher who violates the code could be fired.

"In the classroom, kids are always asking questions, especially over the past year and a half or so. A lot of students are asking questions about what's going on, why are we walking out, etc. and so forth. I think we're doing them a disservice if we don't answer those questions," Union High School teacher Jim Douthat said.

Multiple teachers say they believe the bill is a response to last year's walkout.

"They want to put a lid on a lot of things and kind of squander our voices. I think after last year you understand, there's no way we're going to be quiet about anything," Douthat said.

The educators say they do understand the importance of not swaying students on anything political. 2 Works for You reached out to the bill's author Senator Mark Allen, and we're still waiting to hear back.
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/teachers-raise-questions-after-bill-proposed-to-keep-politics-out-of-oklahoma-classrooms

~~~~~The Taliban’s Teachers
According to Frotan, in some areas of Badakhshan, such as Raghistan district, “schools are closely supervised by the Taliban and the teachers are not allowed to teach or provoke the students… against the group. The teachers are under the influence of the Taliban.”

Perhaps the most worrying aspect is the presence of Taliban fighters in schools.

According to Yar, Taliban fighters sometimes double as teachers. “[The] majority of the teachers in Taliban schools are madrassa graduates along with Taliban fighters. But there are also a significant number of educated Afghans who are paid monthly by Taliban authorities,” says Yar.

Mujahid, however, denies this: “The teachers are not Taliban fighters, but local teachers that teach in other schools and we have also hired them to teach students.”

In Paktia’s Batoor Qala Surkh district, which has been under Taliban control for the past three years according to residents, the Taliban fighters themselves do not teach in the schools, but they regularly come to monitor what is being taught to the children, a headmaster who requested not to be named said.

A number of propaganda photos distributed by the Taliban include fighters holding assault rifles and standing beside young school children. This seems to support the fact that even if the Taliban fighters do not themselves teach, they at least pay regular visits to schools.

As more and more districts fall to the Taliban there will be an increasing number of children in Afghanistan who grow up studying the Taliban curriculum. What the long term impacts of this will be remains to be seen. Worryingly, the government seems unwilling to recognize the problem.
https://thediplomat.com/2016/11/the-schools-of-the-taliban

Oklahoma Teacher pay raise $1200 plus Support Staff Crash needing fixed working on it.

The Oklahoma Teachers are getting a raise but support staff is not on HB1780!
There is a bad crash on the support staff. This is a time to be looking and getting ready for the  "Knowledge Economy." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EzOLhYNd84
It is not a time to have impoverished workers. What will the schools look like with overwhelmed workers working in a time limit spending all of their time on petty issues getting done in the very last second! Getting it done half ass but faster as they have to do more with less in that says it's a fail a panic to get things done! Your workers should not be out in that position in the first place!

Teachers need the funding and also support staff because buildings will get bad with no foundation to keep them up. They will be kept down! 

The Oklahoma Teachers Union responded and is pushing for higher pay!

~~~~~"It is positive that Stitt wants to make teacher pay top in the region, but $1,200 won’t get us there. We’re asking for a $3,000 teacher pay raise this year. At the same time, we can’t forget our support professionals, many of whom make just above minimum wage in very difficult jobs. We are still seeking a $2,500 raise for them. The OEA is also asking for $150 million for our classrooms, to help schools hire more teachers to lower classroom sizes and bring back AP, fine arts, world language and other dropped classes."
http://okea.org/oea-blog/oea-response-to-gov.-stitts-2019-state-of-the-state-address

~~~~~House Passes $1200 Teacher Pay Increase
The State House of Representatives today (2-21-19) passed HB1780, a $1200 pay raise for teachers. Here is Pres. Alicia Priest's response:

“It’s a positive development that the House invested in public education today with a pay raise for teachers. We must remember, though, that a $1,200 increase does not get us to the top of the region in average teacher pay. It does not put a dime into the funding formula so schools can hire more teachers. And it doesn’t give our support professionals a badly needed raise. We’re optimistic more can and will be done for our students, and we’ll continue to work with legislators to see that progress happens.”
http://okea.org

~~~~~Oklahoma support staff bill SB43 2019 raise. "Bill Title: Schools; increasing compensation for school support personnel over certain time period. Effective date. Emergency." https://legiscan.com/OK/text/SB43/2019 Support staff is like glue less glue well...

~~~~~Support staff pay raise and restoring cuts is key to improving Oklahoma’s schools
Total number of school support staff is down across the state
Over the past decade, the number of support staff in schools has not kept up with student enrollment. This 2018-2019 school year has almost 54,000 more students — more than double the total undergraduate enrollment of the University of Oklahoma — than a decade earlier, but 391 fewer support employees. With more students to serve, schools have fewer support professionals to get students safely to school, ensure they are well-fed, keep buildings clean, and provide needed classroom assistance. 

Apart from special education support staff, which can be funded through federal dollars, districts use general funds received through the state aid formula to hire support professionals. In the face of insufficient state aid funding, districts often have to cut multiple support positions in order to hold on to a teacher. The declining number of support staff across the state likely reflect these kinds of bare-bones staffing dilemmas. 

Poverty-level wages and support staff turnover challenges school climate 
Administrators at one school district explained that staff turnover is a problem in many of their schools. Low wages can force staff to look for jobs outside public education or find positions that more easily accommodate working two jobs. Just as high teacher turnover negatively impacts student achievement, high support staff turnover challenges a school’s ability to create sustained collaboration with staff that is necessary for vibrant school climates. To create climates where students feel a strong sense of trust and belonging, staff must establish shared systems of communication, interaction, and response to student needs. Fostering a positive learning environment takes time and consistency. High staff turnover challenges a school’s capacity to establish these norms. 

Despite their importance to student success, support staff earn poverty-level wages. Last year, support staff received a $1,250 pay increase, which nudged the average support staff salary to $21,583 — just barely over the federal poverty line for a single parent with two children. Low salaries mean that many live paycheck to paycheck, and Ed McIntosh, President of American Federation of Teachers Tulsa, says that the vast majority of support employees in his organization take on second jobs. Many support professionals also rely on safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) to supplement their low wages.

Budget cuts also mean many support employees are doing more work for the same low pay. Carmon Williams, an elementary school secretary in Oklahoma City who supports herself and four children on a $19,000 a year salary, also fills in (unpaid) as the school nurse, handing out medication during the four days a week her school does not have a dedicated nurse. She often stands in for other staff when the school is short-handed. 

Schools can hire more staff and increase pay with additional state funding
Education support professionals are central to the success of every school and child, but they are too often overlooked by policymakers. Improving Oklahoma’s schools means increasing education support professional pay and funding state aid so that schools can hire enough staff. This session lawmakers have the capacity to fulfill these goals, and Oklahomans should remind them that this is a top priority for our schools. 
https://okpolicy.org/support-staff-pay-raise-and-restoring-cuts-is-key-to-improving-oklahomas-schools

Trump’s new rule to defund family planning hits the most vulnerable - Going backward

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson.

Please vote Blue! My friend in college had the light bulb moment once. He wondered, "Why do conservatives vote against their best interest... Because they like it that way!" They like to suffer their own tyranny! Just because they like to suffer doesn't mean you have to suffer along with them! Don't be low grow!

~~~~~Trump’s new rule to defund family planning hits the most vulnerable
he Hyde Amendment, a sexist and unfair provision, already prohibits any federal funding from being used for abortions. The new regulations, designed specifically to remove funding from Planned Parenthood, would make it impossible for low-income patients to receive birth control, cervical and breast cancer screenings, STD testing or treatment, pelvic exams or sex education from any organization that provides abortions or even tells their patients where they can get one. It prevents groups that provide abortions from using this federal money to provide any reproductive health services at all.

The move to threatens to have a broad impact. About 4 million people receive Title X-funded services every year, and they tend to be among the most vulnerable: they are disproportionately young, low-income and uninsured. Most people who use the funds are women who do not have medical insurance through an employer and are ineligible for Medicaid; their incomes are too high to qualify for free care, but too low for them to afford insurance out of pocket. The funds disproportionately help people of color: 21% of Title X patients are black, and 30% identify as Latino.

About 4,100 clinics around the country provide services that are Title X funded. But if the new rule goes into effect, the total number of clinics that can use the money will drop dramatically. The result is that Title X funds will now be concentrated in fewer organizations – and many of the groups that this money will now go to have anti-woman agendas.

Instead of going to women’s health facilities that offer a full range of reproductive health services, like Planned Parenthood, the Title X money – roughly $286m a year – will now be going to anti-woman, anti-science groups like so-called crisis pregnancy centers, the fake clinics that attempt to coerce and shame women into remaining pregnant even when they do not want to be. Some money will also go to other faith-based, predominantly Christian, initiatives. In other words, money that was earmarked to help women stay healthy and make independent, informed choices about their own bodies will now be given to organizations that have a track record of lying to women in order to constrain their choices.

In fact, the supreme court has already ruled that crisis pregnancy centers are legally allowed to lie to patients who come to them seeking medical care, a reality that is unlikely to change now that these groups are going to be entrusted with millions in additional federal funds. Money that was meant to help women will now be given to people who actively hurt and deceive them.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that Title X funds prevented 822,000 unintended pregnancies in 2015 alone – which, according to their data, means that the program prevented about 278,000 abortions that year. This does not account for the illnesses and deaths that are prevented by the STD and cancer screenings that the program also pays for. You would think that anti-choice activists would be happy about this, claiming as they do that they are “pro-life”. But the push to remove Title X funding from Planned Parenthood has long been a loud and angry demand of the religious right. It is not the first time that the anti-choice movement’s professed respect for “life” has been undermined by their actual choices and priorities. The anti-choice movement’s actions only make sense if you understand them to be motivated not by a respect for “life”, but by a hatred of women.

Women’s rights groups are certain to challenge the new Title X rules in federal court. But if the fight is headed to the supreme court, it is likely that the Trump administration’s move to inflict more suffering on women will be gleefully upheld by the misogynist conservative majority, led by multiply accused sexual assault perpetrator Brett Kavanaugh and credibly accused sexual harasser Clarence Thomas.

It bears emphasizing that it is unjust for women’s freedoms to be determined overwhelmingly by people such as Trump, Kavanaugh, and Thomas, who have been open and frank about their personal capacities for sexist contempt. This state of affairs, in which women are asked to submit, again, to the authority of men who hate them, is an ongoing insult to women. It makes the notion of our equal protection under the law seem like a patronizing fiction.

In 1975, the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin wrote: “Our enemies – rapists and their defenders – not only go unpunished; they remain influential arbiters of morality; they have high and esteemed places in society; they are priests, lawyers, judges, lawmakers, politicians, doctors, artists, corporation executives, psychiatrists and teachers.” They are also, at the moment, the president of the United States, and two associate justices of the US supreme court.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/26/trump-administration-title-x-abortion-funding

Uncle's lover was the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago, not his wife

Lovers have best interest in mind making a better person for all.
Like holding the ladder so the love can go high up the ladder.
Best interest in mind is better than not! Don't we all need lovers!

~~~~~My great-uncle's lover was the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago 
not his wife.

It was in 1935 that Boris Pasternak, then aged 45, first spoke of his intent to write an epic Russian novel. And it was to my grandmother, his younger sister, Josephine,  (who married her Pasternak cousin, hence the continuation of the surname) that he confided that the seeds of a novel were germinating in his mind; an enduring love story set between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War.

 Josephine was stunned. She later told me: "I could not believe my ears. Was this the man as I had known him, unique, towering above platitudes and trivialities, intending to lend his inimitable prose to a subject petty and vulgar? Surely he would never write one of those sentimental stories?" 

My grandmother could not have predicted the power nor legendary success that Boris's "sentimental" love story would hold. Doctor Zhivago would win him the Nobel Prize for literature after six previous nominations.  It became an instant, international best-seller in 1957 when first published in Italy, but it wasn’t until 1988 that the book, regarded as anti-revolutionary, was legitimately published in Boris's adored "Mother Russia." (Until then the novel had been considered so controversial that British intelligence  would smuggle in banned copies to Soviet readers as part of covert publishing programmes that flourished during the Cold War.)

Central to the novel is the passionate love affair shared by Yury Zhivago, a doctor and poet, and Lara Guichard, the heroine, who becomes a nurse. It was during the research for my book Lara, that I discovered that the true inspiration for this character was Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya, a twice widowed editor who met Boris in 1946 when was 34, he was 56. Their affair lasted fourteen years until Boris's death in 1960.

Her character was immortalised in 1965 by a breath-taking Julie Christie in David Lean's film adaptation of the book. The film won five Academy Awards and was nominated for five more. It remains the eighth highest-grossing film in American film history. Yet the true love story that inspired it has never been fully explored before.

I became interested in the story 1990,when I asked my ninety year old grandmother to reminisce about her brother. Three years before she died, I sat with her in her Oxford home  as she vividly brought their Moscow childhood and life alive for me.  I was haunted by the sense that so much was left unsaid about Olga’s love affair with Boris. Fifteen years later, after reading copious biographies of my great uncle, I knew that I wanted to write my book, Lara, about Olga and Boris's love affair.

My research took me to Moscow, to meet Boris's son, Evgeny, (then 87) and to Peredelkino, the writer's colony outside Moscow where Boris wrote his novel, to speak with his daughter-in-law, Natasha. I travelled to Stanford University, California, where Josephine bequeathed her archives and to Milan, to the Feltrinelli Foundation, where I touched the original Zhivago manuscript that had been smuggled out of Russia for the Italian publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who bought world rights.

When it became clear that the Russians would never publish Zhivago, due to the anti-revolutionary stance of the book, Boris risked death under Stalin by sanctioning publication abroad. Feltrinelli's son, Carlo, who discussed his father's meetings with Olga with me, agreed with my thesis; that Olga is the unsung heroine behind the publication of the novel.

This is controversial as the role of Olga in Boris's life has been consistently repressed both by the Pasternak family and Boris's biographers. Olga has been belittled and dismissed as an "adventurous" and "temptress." Josephine, who refused to even mention Olga's name, tried to convince me that Lara was based on Boris's second wife, Zinaida. It is true that when Boris started writing the novel, he had not yet met Olga. Lara's teenage trauma of being seduced by the much older Victor Komarovsky is a direct echo of Zinaida's experiences with her sexually predatory cousin. However, as soon as Boris met and fell in love with Olga in 1946, his Lara changed and softened, to completely embody her.

Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the film, Doctor Zhivago CREDIT: SHAROK HATAMI/REX
My family downplayed the role of Olga in Boris's life because they held him in such high esteem that for him to have had two wives - Evgenia and Zinaida - and a public mistress, was indigestible to their strict moral code. They were loyal to Boris's second wife, Zinaida, to whom he remained married throughout his affair. Boris had two sons; one from his first wife, Evgenia, and one with Zinaida.

It took me five years to persuade Olga's daughter, Irina, to meet me. Irina is immortalised as Katenka, Lara's daughter in the novel. She was eight when her mother met Boris and her teenage years were dominated by their affair. I was finally to meet her in Paris, where she has lived for thirty years. It was a precious moment when she showed me a translation of Goethe's Faust that Boris had given her. She proudly read the final inscription to me: "Almost like a father, Your BP." After Boris's death, both she and her mother were sent to a prison camp on fabricated charges of smuggling royalties, yet Irina still worships Boris. 

Olga paid an enormous price for loving "her Boria" as she also became a pawn in a highly political game. Stalin, who had a special admiration for Pasternak, did not imprison the controversial writer for writing anti-Soviet slander. This is miraculous; after 1917, nearly 1500 writers in the Soviet Union were executed or died in labour camps. Instead, Stalin ordered that Olga was harassed and persecuted. She was twice sentenced to periods in labour camps. Firstly, in 1949, while Boris was writing Zhivago.

Rosalia, Leonid and Alexander in the dining room of their Moscow apartment
For nine months she was interrogated about Boris's work in progress yet not once did she reveal the content of the book. The interrogation transcripts are testament to her courage and loyalty. She miscarried Boris's child in the Lubyanka before being sent to a Mordavian labour camp for three and a half years. Her mother, Maria, looked after Irina. Boris, meanwhile, channelled the anguish, guilt and pain caused by their separation into his prose, creating scenes of aching longing between Yury and Lara.

When Olga was released on Stalin's death in 1953, she became Boris's "right hand"; indispensible to him. While he lived with Zinaida in "the big house" at Peredelkino, Olga moved nearby into "the little house." He openly split his days between the two. Olga typed his manuscript out twice for him and acted as an unofficial literary agent. After he won the Nobel Prize and the Soviet authorities savaged him for daring to write his truth about the Russian Revolution, expelling him from the Writers' Union, Olga persuaded him from committing suicide. Although Boris did not do the one thing that Olga wanted - he did not leave his wife for  her- he loved her wholeheartedly. He would say to guests "Lara exists, go and meet her" handing out her telephone number.

If he had left Zinaida and married Olga, Olga would not have been sent to the gulag again after his death. The Pasternak surname would have protected her. On his deathbed, Boris expressed his guilt at his weakness. Doctor Zhivago is his lasting cri de coeur to Olga. As Boris writes of his Lara/Olga in Doctor Zhivago:  "How well he loved her, and how loveable she was in exactly the way he needed..."  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/my-great-uncles-lover-was-the-inspiration-for-lara-in-doctor-zhi

The push into the Knowledge Economy, Fail, Walmart going with the changes.

Walmart is pushing forward with the changes. "Moving forward, Walmart will invest in growing online instead of opening up physical stores. The company only plans to open 10 new stores this year. It already has more than 4,700 US stores, and more than 90% of the country lives within 10 miles of a Walmart. Walmart plans to bring curbside pickup to around 1,000 more stores this year, but predicts that online sales growth will slow to 35%."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/investing/walmart-earnings-stock-holiday/index.html

Not only Walmart there are many places going into the knowledge economy. A bad thing when there is no social mobility for the many workers that can't afford the job skills they need to get. They are too far low! So raising the wages for living workers that can afford to live is needed. The poor will win the war as there are more of them in these times. The cost of college etc is just not there. The income divide is just too big as it is. Wages need to go up for foundation anyway to get people brought up to the jobs that are needed. The poor as they are is a crash!

There is too much Inequality so the poor is really poor and so the labor force is not doing well to face the coming growth. How is there to be growth if the poor can't grow themselves? All of this shows the need to get a foundation for the changes! Who is going to run the robots or stock the items it said was out trying to figure out to connect with their flip phone to know!

The bad about the Knowledge Economy? If it takes a college degree to work at McDonald's then how high are the wages going to be to cover the cost of the student loans because no one will work at McDonald's at $8 an hour because they wouldn't be able to pay off their loans. $25 happy meals to cover the cost of college workers? Things get costly to others that make $8 an hour! 

The Knowledge Economy does not work in small towns that can't compete with bigger cities that have more resources. Getting rid of your unskilled workers then crying there is a job skills gap for the next 10 years is stupid! Raising the prices to cover the cost of hiring skilled labor to the poor elsewhere will just not go there because they can't afford it with their wages. There is a lot of people burring wood in my neighborhood lately!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhZmkyEujCk&list=PLceEzjybohu61OsPO6NfsUrJneKlbDSHi

US immigration policy has totally lost touch with US immigration reality

Is there a National emergency for people wanting to live better vs dying if they stay?

Drugs are already in America. Crime is done more by our own in America!

The immigrants at not having a war with us there is no shooting people in war.

We are not in a war time. Trump claiming a National emergency is not going to
happen it will be stopped in court!

~~~~~US immigration policy has totally lost touch with US immigration reality

The US has long viewed immigrants who enter the country illegally as belonging to two groups. There are Mexicans, and there is everyone else.

The focus on Mexicans, who are the majority, and who traditionally migrate for economic reasons, has resulted in policies aimed at blocking off the border and quickly turning back those who breach it.

But these days, the share of “Other than Mexicans”, or OTMs—yes, this is an official classification—is much larger than in the past. And while some of them might have been lured by the promise of a job, like their Mexican counterparts, many of them are women and children fleeing violence and crime in Central America.

This mixed flow, experts say, poses a different challenge for the immigration system: how to quickly and fairly determine who has a legitimate need for protection. So far, though, many politicians seem to be stuck on the idea of keeping people out (including Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, with his idea for a giant wall between the US and Mexico).

“The popular debate has not caught up to the reality of the border,” said Marc Rosenblum, who worked at the Migration Policy Institute when I interviewed him earlier this year, and now works for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Other than Mexicans,” mostly Central Americans, accounted for 44% of immigrants caught by the border patrol in fiscal year 2015, according to DHS data (pdf, p. 1). In the first eight months of fiscal 2016, OTMs were fully half of those caught:

https://qz.com/584318/us-policy-on-illegal-immigrants-is-based-on-an-outdated-notion-about-illegal-immigrants

Low Taxes = National Debt and here we go.

Low taxes to the poor means less funding. So being the poor takes in more tax dollars than they pay out in taxes to say low taxes to the poor they cut back their own spending to compensate for less funding. Knowing they will more likely have no safety net so must act accordingly. This is a bad thing by itself. But also low taxes to corporations goes to the stock investors being they make more money than workers without having to pay for benefits. One stock investor makes way more than a Walmart with 500 workers with all those wages and benefits to pay. Workers don't see low taxes they feel it being taken away from them. So low taxes goes toward the stocks!

~~~~~Hedge fund manager: Stock buybacks should be 'illegal'
Veteran hedge fund manager Mark Yusko is deeply skeptical of the stock buyback boom set off by President Donald Trump's tax overhaul.

"I call it the tax deform bill. It was just a free handout to rich people who pay a lot of money to lobbies," Yusko, the founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital, told CNN Business. Instead of using its tax savings to speed up the economy, Corporate America is just "buying back stock to stimulate their stock price," Yusko said from the sidelines of the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/10/investing/stocks-week-ahead-buybacks-mark-yusko/index.html

~~~~~National debt surpasses $22T for first time in U.S. history.
The gross national debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time in U.S. history, according to data released by the Treasury Department on Tuesday.

The Treasury Department estimated the national debt reached $22.01 trillion, up $30 billion from the previous month.

National debt stood at $21.974 trillion as of Dec. 31, representing an increase one year after President Donald Trump signed a tax reform bill in which a lower corporate tax rate lowered Treasury revenues.

Michael A. Peterson, CEO of non-partisan budget watchdog the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, also issued a statement noting the United States has added $1 trillion in debt in the past 11 months.

"Our growing national debt matters because it threatens the economic future of every American. As we borrow trillion after trillion, interest costs will weigh on our economy and make it harder to fund important investments for our future," Peterson said.

In its budget and economic outlook for 2019-29, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the federal budget deficit will exceed $1 trillion each year beginning in 2022.

"Over the coming decade, deficits fluctuate between 4.1 percent and 4.7 percent of gross domestic product, well above the average over the past 50 years," the CBO said.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/02/12/National-debt-surpasses-22T-for-first-time-in-US-history/1941550010492

Be My Lover Words Long To Hear

In life those things happen and is worth it for growth for everyone. Way back in the 90's the song from La Bouche - Be My Lover. It was out and running on the dance floor at the hotels a lot. There was a boss at work I liked she knew it. I was trying to go out with her to hang out with her like her pet. She knew my interest and she sung "IT" to me once "I hear what you say, I see what you do, I know everything, I need to know about you, And I want you to know that it's telling me, You wanna be my lover." But at the time she was my boss and I was a white guy but that had no meaning a lover is a lover no racial classification, no boundaries and because I would be her lover. For her. But it was the fact she was my big boss it was a work issue with that but still it was the 90's I tried. I hope it showed her she had value as my interest was for her not myself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pav2f4b-1ZE

Anyway I am real easy I fall in love easy just talk to me and I would say yes! It's that easy! And being older being a lover is a lover for life as life is short anyway. If you are 56 years old you really only have 14 years before you hit 70! Short time be lovers so be lovers till the end! Take in a lover, talk take action is better than not! Well walking down the road of life these things bug you over time and so it's OK to admit it! Note lovers does not mean sex only it's just a matter of what agreement is made. To not take away from but to add to. To supplement to make better!

~~~~~The recipe for happiness? An enduring marriage and an affair with lots of sex.
In an extract from her new book, the controversial sociologist says it is time to redraw marital rules – with a radical rethink on fidelity.

The setting is the quiet corner of an Italian restaurant in the City; the players are George, an IT specialist, and Zoe, who wears a pretty dress and a big smile; they drink an especially good bottle of wine and when they get to coffee he reaches over and kisses her on the mouth. She surprises him by kissing him back. To onlookers it might be the classic opening scene of a traditional romance.

Yet both parties are married to other people, whom they have no intention of leaving. Although they will go on to enjoy all the spoils of a relationship, from intimate phone calls to Christmas shopping trips and, of course, regular sex, this is understood from the outset. They are in fact launching into a “playfair”, a 21st-century affair in which would-be adulterers meet, via specialist dating websites, to enjoy the excitement of an illicit relationship without any of the domestic fallout.

Alongside the internet dating revolution, these “playfairs” are evidence of a potentially dramatic shift in British marriage. As dating websites open up a global shop window of sexual possibilities, as life expectancy continues to rise and we become increasingly sexually aware, how can we still take the crushing old rules of fidelity, that turn marriage into a prison, for granted? Why should we not be able to recapture the heady thrills of youth, while protecting a secure home life?

The time has come, alongside the technology, to redraw the rules of marriage for the 21st century. Just as the Pill opened up premarital sex in the Sixties, the internet is opening up a whole new culture of affairs among married people. Sex has become a major leisure activity of our time, accessible to everyone, married or not, rich and poor. It’s time to start honing our seduction skills and join the playground.

Yet it is the most puritanical nations, including Britain and America, that have traditionally resisted the notion of adultery most rigorously. Here, couples endure the challenges of child care, work pressures, mid‑life crisis and dwindling marital sex against a backdrop of repressive Anglo-Saxon hang‑ups about infidelity, seen always in pejorative terms such as “cheating”.

And they do so at a cost. Statistics confirm that British and American divorce rates are among the highest in the world. Around half of American first marriages end in divorce, closely followed by a third of first British marriages, floundering under unrealistic pressures, often celibate marital beds and drastic overreactions to infidelities.

I have always been baffled by the sour and rigid English view of affairs. Marital love and passion only rarely provide an equally rich source of the exalted feelings, transports of delight and misery associated with love and romance. Affairs are about excitement, being alive, seduction, flirtation, love, affection, sexual bliss, lust, caution, eroticism, fantasy, danger, adventure, exploration and the determined refusal to grow old gracefully.

There is also evidence that the more permissive the attitudes of a country, the longer marriages last. In France an affair is dubbed an aventure, free of insinuations of betrayal. It is estimated that a quarter of men and women are enjoying casual flings and affairs at any one time. Indeed, the conventionality of affairs is displayed in the concept of le cinq à sept, the magical space between 5pm and 7pm when men see their mistresses.

In Japan a tradition of geishas has evolved into a modern society where sex is seen as a pleasure to be enjoyed. Japanese pornography is consumed openly, by women as well as men, on the metro and in other public places. Sex is everywhere and it is also clearly separated from marriage.

Meanwhile, Nordic countries are already way ahead of the game. Couples openly discuss “parallel relationships” within marriage. These range from affairs between work colleagues lasting years to holiday flings lasting a few days. Almost half of Finnish men and almost one third of Finnish women have had at least one significant parallel relationship. Yet marriage is a protected and respected institution in these countries, where families can function and flourish without compromise.

And let’s not ignore the past in drawing up a new 21st‑century road map of adultery. If the internet offers a direct line to affairs, with a proliferation of websites for adults seeking a sexual partner outside of their marriage, it is worth remembering that our richer ancestors practised their own privileged version. Emperors cavorted with courtesans, kings chose their wives for political manoeuvres and their mistresses for company, the aristocracy married for money and took lovers for pleasure.

So why have modern British couples resisted for so long and are they finally ready for this new 21st‑century approach to marriage? Inevitably there is the morality question. Even as religion has lost its influence, Britain has remained coy about openly embracing sex for pleasure, stubbornly conflating sexuality with procreation.

There is also the army of therapists and counsellors who continue to pedal their own secret agenda of enforced exclusive monogamy. This killjoy attitude frames affairs as deviant escapism and fantasies without merit for people who have failed to grow up. Counsellors form a kind of emotional and intellectual police intent on keeping the door to infidelity locked.

Meanwhile, British feminists have already missed the chance to find a new kind of modern sexual morality appropriate to the 21st century. In practice, Anglo-Saxon feminism never liberated itself from the Puritan morality that downplays or rejects all forms of pleasure as sinful.

But sex is no more a moral issue than eating a good meal. The fact that we eat most meals at home with spouses and partners does not preclude eating out in restaurants to sample different cuisines and ambiences, with friends or colleagues. Anyone rejecting a fresh approach to marriage and adultery, with a new set of rules to go with it, fails to recognise the benefits of a revitalised sex life outside the home.

Already two American economists, David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald, have attempted to measure happiness through sexual fulfilment in monetary terms. They estimated that increasing the frequency of sexual intercourse from once a month to at least once a week was equivalent to £32,000 a year in happiness. They also estimated that a lasting marriage provided the equivalent of £64,000 a year. If you add the two together, an affair providing lots of sex and an enduring marriage, that’s a recipe for a lot of happiness.

It is also a handsome sum when you consider how much longer people are living. In pre-industrial Britain marriages only lasted about 20 years, due to early death. Today, marriages can last 40 to 60 years. It is no coincidence that the peak ages for affairs in Britain and the United State is 45 for a woman and 55 for a man.

Of course, it would be misleading to suggest that married dating does not have a certain morality of its own. Just as there are rules for dating non-married people, a new set of rules is necessary to navigate the way through the secretive world of married dating on the internet.

For many interviewees that I spoke to, whose names have been changed, negotiating the new rules can be a fraught business. Married people have less spare time and are often more specific and cautious in their search. Amy liked a man in his advert, but was put off by his wearing a shabby grey cardigan under his suit jacket; Kate was delighted on meeting Benjamin, elegant, clever and amusing, until it emerged he was into very experimental sex; when Oliver met Scarlett at her house for a first date, a swinging party was already under way, which was not what he had in mind.

But regardless of who you meet, the first rule is “never in your own back yard”, where you are most exposed to discovery. This is one of the successes of the websites: they allow everyone to reach well beyond their own social circle. Both parties can quickly establish that they want the same thing and that they are equally committed to secrecy and discretion.

It is also a world away from the deeply unfair old-style “asymmetric” affairs, in which hapless wives would be left at home while older, richer husbands wooed younger, poorer women – often in the workplace – disparagingly referred to as a “bit on the side”.

If anything, married women are at an astonishing advantage in this 21st-century world of modern adultery, not least because of the disparity in sexual desire in modern marriages. Recent sex surveys all prove that the received wisdom about men wanting more sex than their wives is not an unfair stereotype but a fact. The gap in sexual desire between men and women is observed in every country and culture where such surveys have been carried out.

Unsurprisingly a sexless, or low-sex, marriage, in which couples have sex less than once a month, appears to be the most common root cause for married internet affairs. In Britain, according to the British sex survey of sexual lifestyles, couples aged up to 60 had sex around 10 times a month in the first two years of their relationship, with a sharp decline to an average of twice a month after six years together.

This puts women, entering the new online “meet-market” of married dating sites, in a dramatically stronger position. While dating websites for singles are dominated by women looking for “the one”, those for married people are dominated by men looking for a sexual adventure. The ratio is around one woman to every 13 men, giving the women the power to dictate terms, from dates at the most expensive restaurants and luxury gifts to financial rewards.

Take the case of Peter, a rich 62-year-old judge who lives in a beautiful historical country house with his lively wife. He regularly travelled into central London to sit as a judge in important commercial disputes. He also stayed in the same hotel, with views over the Thames. After several years of this routine he began to welcome the idea of a sexy girlfriend to entertain him during his weekday stays. He signed on to a dating website.

When he met his first date, Maya – beautiful and in her thirties – he could not believe his luck. They had a cheerful and flirty lunch, sitting in the sunshine. At the end, they discussed meeting again. Maya suggested a monthly fee for unlimited time with him at his convenience. Peter laughed, assuming she was joking. He considered an expensive dinner generous enough.

But as he worked his way through a similar series of first dates, that were also not followed up, he realised that Maya was right: a crucial rule in this modern world of adultery is that the women are able to call the shots, especially when the men are past their prime.

There are, however, as many success stories. Claire had been happily married all her life to a much older man. When the marriage became sexless she started a sexually rewarding affair with a younger man that lasted eight years. When her husband died, she remarried another kind, loyal and considerate man. But she sought out an affair again, on a dating website for married people, because she wanted the excitement of a lover who would always be a novelty. Already, for Claire and others like her, the new adultery is a way of life.

Crucially the globalisation of sexual cultures facilitated by the internet, where it is said sex in one shape or another constitutes half the traffic, has helped to bring far more varied and adventurous practices into closer view. As a result, we can no longer assume that our own perspective is the only one going, and that it is inevitable and “natural”.

On the contrary, the emphasis on sex as a leisure activity in consumer society allows people in celibate marriages to see their situation as something that can and should be remedied, instead of something to put up with. Websites make it easy and provide mass access to finding your own mistress or lover. Something that used to be a luxury of kings and millionaires is now open to all. Many get lucky, some go away empty-handed, but either way British marriage is finally taking a walk on the wild side.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/9486351/The-recipe-for-happiness-An-enduring-marriage-and-an-affair-with-lots-of-sex.html

Weird Al' Yankovic at the Grammys and at my High School in the 80's for UHF

Weird Al' Yankovic won at the Grammys! Remember him in 88 going to my high school looking for extras for the film UHF. I didn't make it but a girl I like did she had a red Toyota Celica and was in the scene at the ending when all the people in cars where lined up. Other kids stepped on her roof denting it she was yelling at them in the scene to get off her car! I did love her she was blond and had a red sports car with a speed O that said it went up to 150 mph!

~~~~~Locations
Primary filming for UHF occurred in Tulsa; the film's executive producer Gray Frederickson had earlier finished shooting of The Outsiders in Oklahoma, and found the ease and the cost to film in the state to be favorable for the needs of UHF. They found several favorable factors that made the city suitable for filming. At the time of filming, the Kensington Galleria (71st and Lewis) was being closed down to convert the mall into office space, allowing the production team to use it for both sound stage and interior scenes including those for both Channels 8 and 62; the mall was also situated near a hotel making it ideal for housing the cast and crew during filming. The area and close proximity to Dallas allowed them to recruit additional local talent for some of the acts during the telethon scenes.

The Burger World location was Harden's Hamburgers at 6835 East 15th Street in Tulsa, and "Bowling for Burgers" was filmed at Rose Bowl Lanes on East 11th Street. The bar location was Joey's House of the Blues at 2222 East 61st Street. The building used for Kuni's Karate School belongs to the Tulsa Pump Company and is located at 114 West Archer in Tulsa, while "Crazy Eddie's Used Car Emporium" was filmed on the lot of Ernie Miller Pontiac at 4700 South Memorial. The dead fish in the game show "Wheel of Fish" were real, obtained from the White River Fish Market. The news desk was located at OETA, a local PBS member station. The steps of City Hall are actually First Christian Church at 913 S. Boulder, which has looked the same since it was built in 1920. Channel 8's exterior is an office block (6655 South Lewis Building) occupied by Hewlett-Packard. The "U-62" building was constructed around KGTO 1050's AM radio transmitter site (5400 West Edison Street); the real KGTO studios had been moved elsewhere in 1975. Just the tower itself remains at this location today. The airport scenes were taken at Tulsa International Airport.

Casting
Yankovic was always envisioned to be the central character of the film George Newman, written as a straight man with a vivid imagination as to allow the insertion of the parodies into the film's script in a manner similar to the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). As the focus of the film was to be on the parodies, George was not fleshed out beyond enough character development to drive the principal storyline. The name "Newman" was selected as homage to Mad magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, further referenced by the name of "Uncle Nutsy's Clubhouse".

The role of Stanley Spadowski was written by Yankovic with Michael Richards in mind; at the time, Yankovic had been impressed with Richards' stand-up comedy and performance on the show Fridays. Yankovic had also considered that Stanley's role was influenced by Christopher Lloyd's performance on Taxi, and had considered reaching out to Lloyd to offer him the role, but decided to stay with Richards due to their original premise. Richards' agents had told Yankovic that he wasn't interested in the role as Richards at the time was suffering a bout of Bell's palsy, but when they reached out to Richards again, Richards came to the set, dropping right into the character of Stanley for the test read.

Other principal roles were cast through normal auditions, with most of the choices based on how well the actor fit the role. For George's girlfriend Teri Campbell, they didn't feel that they needed to spend a significant amount of time developing this side as they did not consider Yankovic to be the type of actor for a romantic lead. Although Jennifer Tilly and Ellen DeGeneres auditioned, they found Victoria Jackson's soft demeanor to be well-suited for the role.

For R.J. Fletcher, they found that Kevin McCarthy was in a similar stage of his career as Leslie Nielsen...one of many "serious vintage actors who had crossed over into satire", according to Levey, and McCarthy had relished the role. In the DVD commentary, Yankovic noted that McCarthy struggled not to laugh during takes. (McCarthy himself later described his own character as a fellow who "makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like Sally Struthers".) He also cited one of McCarthy's best-known roles, as the ageless history teacher in the classic Twilight Zone episode, "Long Live Walter Jameson". Noting McCarthy's gray hair, Yankovic recalled a scene at the end, when Jameson aged rapidly, saying, "For just a split second, he looked just like [he did in the movie]."

Fran Drescher was selected for the role of Pamela Finklestein, in part for her established comedy as well as her nasally voice that made for a humorous contrast for a news anchor.

For George's friend Bob Speck, they looked for an actor that could be seen as a friend to George. At one point, they had considered Jerry Seinfeld for the role, but he had turned it down. David Bowe, who had been a long-time Yankovic fan, easily fit the role during auditions.

Philo's role was written with Joel Hodgson in mind, building on Hodgson's stand-up routines of using homemade inventions and deadpan comedy. Hodgson turned down the role feeling at the time that he wasn't a good actor. At the time, Hodgson was also working on Mystery Science Theater 3000. They also had approached Crispin Glover for Philo's role, but Glover said that he only wanted to play a used car salesman and no other part, turning down the offer. As they sought other actors, their casting agent Cathy Henderson offered up Anthony Geary, who at the time had gained popularity due to his role on General Hospital. Geary wanted to perform the role both as a fan of Yankovic and seeing the role as completely opposite from his normal acting.

Kuni was written with the intention of being performed by Gedde Watanabe from the start.

Emo Philips was a close friend of Yankovic, and Yankovic felt that he had to include Philips in the movie, eventually creating the role of the clumsy shop teacher for him.

Although they ended up using Vance Colvig Jr. for the hobo in the film, Ginger Baker of the rock band Cream had volunteered to audition for the role, but Yankovic and the production team found Colvig to be a better fit.

Levey himself appears in the movie playing Mahatma Gandhi in the spoof segment Gandhi II.

Trinidad Silva had performed his primary scenes, but he died in a car accident after returning home. Although they had planned on bringing back Silva's character for the telethon scene which had not yet been filmed, they were too grief-stricken for the use of body doubles and dropped this. The film was dedicated to Silva.

https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Photos/Weird-Al-Yankovic-Anderson-Paak-win-at-the-Grammys/fp/11920

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_(film)

Out-of-cycle Earths Magnetic caused by ʻOumuamua?

Thinking about this without full info about magnetic test of ʻOumuamua as it flew by there is a question I have if it might have iron or unknown content acting like a super magnet effecting our core. Well it was a big event and so the quicker change in the earth's magnetic field could point to relating.

~~~~~While a strengthless object (rubble pile) would require it to be of a density similar to rocky asteroids a small amount of internal strength similar to icy comets would allow a relatively low density. ʻOumuamua is tumbling, rather than smoothly rotating, and is moving so fast relative to the Sun that there is no chance it originated in the Solar System. It also means that ʻOumuamua cannot be captured into a solar orbit, so it will eventually leave the Solar System and resume traveling through interstellar space. ʻOumuamua's system of origin and the amount of time it has spent traveling amongst the stars are unknown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

~~~~~Usually, if we get a measurement from a comet that's kind of weird, we go back and measure it again until we understand what we're seeing," said Davide Farnocchia, of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at JPL and a coauthor on both papers. "But this one is gone forever; we probably know as much about it as we're ever going to know.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/759/nasa-learns-more-about-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua

Out there... What if ʻOumuamua is made out of something related to our core unknown effecting it as it went by us? Also could it be the testing to our core going on here doing it?

~~~~~The Earth's core is definitively solid, according to new research by a team of scientists in Australia."
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/10/19/Earths-core-is-definitely-solid-study-finds/6211539953900/?st_rec=6611549336507

What ever is doing it if the Earth's magnetic field has been shifting rapidly heading for Siberia that would be a red flag a pole reversal.

~~~~~Over the last few years, Earth's magnetic field has been shifting rapidly. Most recently, the planet's north magnetic pole began lurching toward Siberia. The sudden and dramatic changes weren't anticipated by WMM's previous update.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/02/05/NOAA-releases-early-update-for-World-Magnetic-Model/6611549336507/?sl=17

~~~~~Hypothesized triggers
Some scientists, such as Richard A. Muller, think that geomagnetic reversals are not spontaneous processes but rather are triggered by external events that directly disrupt the flow in the Earth's core. Proposals include impact events or internal events such as the arrival of continental slabs carried down into the mantle by the action of plate tectonics at subduction zones or the initiation of new mantle plumes from the core-mantle boundary. Supporters of this hypothesis hold that any of these events could lead to a large scale disruption of the dynamo, effectively turning off the geomagnetic field. Because the magnetic field is stable in either the present North-South orientation or a reversed orientation, they propose that when the field recovers from such a disruption it spontaneously chooses one state or the other, such that half the recoveries become reversals. However, the proposed mechanism does not appear to work in a quantitative model, and the evidence from stratigraphy for a correlation between reversals and impact events is weak. There is no evidence for a reversal connected with the impact event that caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

Where do you belong?

As we all live far apart there is that point to ask where you are.
What is valued as you just waste your time away. Stupid being hit in the head by something like a life changing event but too stupid to know it unrecognized like being hit in the head by a june bug never knowing! Sleepwalking to the urn! "Sleep and wake and learn, Or sleepwalk to the urn, Wondering where I've been my whole life, Love the place you are, Love with all your heart, Know that it's what will make your whole life." 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbMApdTul3o

Whats holding you back to realize your wasting you life over something stupid! Oh well can't make you not, what a waste of life over something stupid going into natural selection burning yourself out over the petty! 

There is that time to snap out of it and not let yourself die in the dark being life is short!

~~~~~In the 90's I worked at a Marriott hotel and the at the time most of the management went to a training camp so they where out of town. So the banquet manager and the security manager was running the place. One night our banquet manager was running the hotel for a while because the security manager took a few days off. Well the banquet manger had love pains and wanted to go back to her love. Her calling was elsewhere so she quit nicely that night. She told me what was going on and she was quitting, giving me the hotel managers phone number and wanting me to stand up for her. So I did told the boss she quit and so why not because of hating the place but of her family issues etc. The boss put me in charge of the hotel for a few days until security came back. I stood up for her and I was sincere about it! And to the fact she was crying about it. It showed!

But the point was her calling and wanting to go back to what was waiting for her there.
She took the action to fulfill her life. Where are you? Did you find it? Then where is it? 

Turkeys Away! It really did happen!

~~~~~The famous "WKRP in Cincinnati" turkey drop was based on an actual turkey drop.

Probably the most famous thanksgiving episode of any television sitcom is "Turkeys Away," from the first season of "WKRP in Cincinnati." The series was about a struggling radio station that changed formats from easy listening to rock and roll. The conflict (and thus, the comedy) came from the contrast between the people who worked for the station beforehand, bumbling but kindhearted station manager Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump), sleazy ad salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner) and timid news reporter Les Nessman (Richard Sanders) and the new, young and hip hires, program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) and disc jockeys Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid).

The seventh episode of the series, "Turkeys Away" (which actually aired on October 30th, 1978, despite being the show's Thanksgiving episode), showed Carlson trying to take on more of a hand's on approach to prove that he still had what it took to run the station. He came up with a secret promotion for Thanksgiving. It was all hush hush until the end of the episode, where Nessman was on the street, reporting live when the event occurred. As it turned out, the secret project was that Carlson was having a bunch of turkeys dropped from a helicopter high up in the air into the crowd below. The trouble, of course, is that turkeys aren't particularly known for flying. Nessman called the drop in the style of Herbert Morrison's famous radio call of the destruction of the zeppelin called the Hindenburg in 1937, right down to Nessman echoing Morrison's famed cry, "Oh the humanity!" Whatever turkeys that survived then turned on the crowd and attacked.

When Carlson and Tarlek walked in, covered in feathers, Carlson was in shock but also apologetic.

As the episode ended, he uttered the famous line, "As god as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"

The episode was a classic....

However, reader Ed F. wrote in to ask if the story was based on a real life event.

There are different takes on that, Ed, but I think it is safe to say basically yes.

Stephen Bowie did an oral history for the episode on his excellent Classic TV History Blog, and there is a conflict between Hugh Wilson, the creator of the show and the showrunner of the show (and uncredited co-writer of the episode) and Clarke Brown, a friend of Wilson's who worked in sales for an Atlanta radio station (Herb Tarlek was roughly based on Brown, although obviously exaggerated to an extreme). Wilson based much of the show on that Atlanta radio station, WQXI, including the station's sales manager, Jerry Blum, who was partially the inspiration for Arthur Carlson.

Here's Wilson's take and here's Brown's take:

HUGH WILSON: I was allowed to see everything, and then Jerry Blum, the station manager, told me about a promotion – I believe in Texas, and I want to say Dallas, but I’m not sure – in which he threw turkeys out of a helicopter, and they didn’t fly. They crashed to the ground, it was just a horrible disaster, and he wound up losing his job over it. So I said to him at the time, “Jerry, I think you just won me an Emmy.”

CLARKE BROWN: The turkey drop was actually a real incident. It was at a shopping center in Atlanta; I think it was Broadview Plaza, which no longer exists. It was a Thankgiving promotion. We thought that we could throw these live turkeys out into the crowd for their Thanksgiving dinners. All of us, naïve and uneducated, thought that turkeys could fly. Of course, they went just fuckin’ splat.

People were laughing at us, not with us. But it became a legend. There were other stories of this nature that were embellished [on WRKP]; that one was really not embellished that much. Although the turkeys were thrown off the back of a truck, as opposed to how it was depicted on the [show].

HUGH WILSON: I didn’t dream up the helicopter. My memory is Jerry said a helicopter.

Jerry Blum's son, Gary, wrote in to give me the full scoop. Gary wrote:

Contrary to growing folklore and mythical embellishment, the actual "turkey drop" never took place in Atlanta or at WQXI. It was years earlier in the60's when Jerry was at a station in Dallas Texas called KBOX. No, there was no helicopter, but that embellishment made it fun for television I guess.For a radio promotion, they did attempt to throw live turkeys out of the back of a pick-up truck in a shopping center parking lot, and yes, it was amess. Over the years the story has grown to frozen turkeys or even live turkeys out of an airplane, but that is pushing it just a bit

Thanks for the info, Gary!

Now, even if Wilson and Brown exaggerated their stories, it is important to note that there have been turkey drops in various parts of the country going back decades before "WKRP in Cincinatti."

The most famous turkey drop occurs in the town of Yellville, Arkansas. The area is famed for its wild turkeys, so they town decided to begin celebrating their turkeys by having a special turkey day on the first Friday and Saturday in October. The event began in the 1940s, where they would drop turkeys from the roof of the town's courthouse.

In the 1960s, that changed to dropping turkeys from an airplane.

In 1989, the "National Enquirer" covered the event and they made the whole thing quite infamous for Yellville. As the "Enquirer" described:

One turkey slammed into a power line so hard the wire bent down about three feet before snapping back up. The bird hit the ground, shocked and dazed, and tried to walk . . . pitifully trying to run on two obviously broken legs before it was crushed to death by a pileup of kids. . . . After smashing into a tree and coming to rest on a branch, one of the birds was pursued by a gang of kids who captured and fought over it—using it in a grisly tug-of-war that ended when one boy tore the turkey’s wing off.

The national outcry led to the event no longer being sponsored directly by the town, but rather by a private group so that the event continued, just without the official support of the town. That kept up for decades until eventually outcry led to it stopping for a bit. However, they picked up again this year (one of the first batch of six turkeys died during the drop - the other five managed to glide to safety).

So while "WKRP in Cincinnati" played the whole thing for laughs, it really does go on in the country, so the legend is...
https://www.cbr.com/tv-legends-was-wkrps-famous-turkey-drop-based-in-reality

Your Hours Are Cut at Work?

There are many places cutting back your hours at work. Walmart is also cutting hours as Walmart is also changing their stores. Changes means changes!

It's not a good time to make hardships for workers that have low foundation for change. I would advise Walmart and others to invest in it's workers future more as it's their future also!

~~~~~Investors have faulted the chain not investing enough in its 5,000 U.S. locations. As a result, customers have complained that shelves aren't adequately stocked and checkout lines aren't adequately manned. Walmart ranks dead last among its peers in the closely followed American Customer Satisfaction Index.

"We now have further evidence that Walmart's so-called 'wage increase' was nothing more than a cruel PR stunt," wrote Jess Levin, a spokeswoman for the union-backed Making Change at Walmart campaign, in an email. "Hard-working Walmart workers -- many of whom did not even see a raise in pay -- are having their hours cut all so Walmart can pad its bottom line."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-walmart-is-raising-wages-and-cutting-hours

Cutting hours of workers effects the labor force and also they are consumers. Cutting their pay is cutting sales for businesses as with cutting pat the workers cut their spending to compensate. More people staying home on the weekend for your town to deal with! Risking consumer based pricing as if they don't lower their prices the stuff will just sit on the shelf taking up space so it will not be there soon to make room for something they are buying. Stock investors likes sales not non sales!

Also cutting hours is less money so there is less to pay for getting better job skills making a bigger skills gap. The social mobility these days are just not there so there is no real way for many to get better job skills. This is a issue that places like Walmart needs to work on for their future. 

If your hours are getting cut there are a few things you can do.

~~~~~What to Do When Your Employer Cuts Your Hours Down
Know Your Options

If you were working full time and your hours were cut back to part time status, you could be eligible for unemployment benefits, according to Monster.com. Check with your state’s Department of Labor to find out for sure. In the meantime, save your money and cut back on unnecessary spending.
https://work.chron.com/employer-cuts-hours-down-20952.html

~~~~~What Should You Do When Your Hours Are Cut at Work?
Strategy #4: If the Answer Has Nothing to Do With You, Seek a New Job

If the answer you get is unclear or it has nothing whatsoever to do with you, it’s time to seek a new job. Those types of things are outside of your control – there’s no action you can take to restore your hours.

The solution in those situations is to seek out more hours elsewhere. Find a different job that gives you the hours you need to make ends meet.

Depending on your situation, this may or may not involve quitting the first job. You may want to stick around with the previous job if it’s easy and enjoyable or if the shift is seasonal or the issues outside of your control are predictable. If they’re not predictable – such as if there are questions about the long term health of the business or if there are severe personality issues involved – you may be better off simply finding entirely different employment.

If you do choose this route, find new work before you leave your old job. Don’t leave ten hours or twenty hours a week on the table because they won’t give you thirty. Keep working your limited hours, then use your other hours to find new work. If that new work takes precedence over your old job or if you’re going above the number of hours you can work, then quit your old job. Don’t throw it away until it has outlived its usefulness.

Also, never, ever “burn bridges” as you leave a job. It provides no benefit whatsoever to you other than a short term “this feels good” that quickly fades and usually turns into regret. It also ensures that you’ll likely never be able to be employed there again, even if things change, and many of the people there will have a very negative opinion of you going forward. 
It is not worth it.

If you do have legitimate issues that the business needs to be aware of, request an exit interview with your manager or someone else in the management structure and lay out your grievances calmly and clearly in a closed meeting. A public emotional outburst will not help you in any way, nor will it resolve any of the concerns you may want to be bringing to the table.

Strategy #5: Find Out About Local Unemployment Laws
Another thing to consider is whether or not your reduction in hours can trigger local unemployment laws. The laws regarding unemployment are different in different states, so it can be worthwhile to check with your local unemployment office if your hours are radically cut to see how they can help. A quick Google search for unemployment offices in your town can point you in the right direction.
https://www.thesimpledollar.com/what-should-you-do-when-your-hours-are-cut-at-work

School superintendent pretended sick student was her son to get him treatment

This points to what many question when you see homeless people, living in cars, sick kids, people burning wood. Why are we all not brought up yet? Where is that safety net people rely on? There is always that time for action from what is going on!

 "Protesters Rally Into The Night For Brooklyn Inmates In Freezing Jail Cells"
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/protests-brooklyn-jail-freezing-temperatures_us_5c5648b2e4b00187b5517ff8

"Thousands more migrant children separated from parents than previously reported."
https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/thousands-more-migrant-children-separated-from-parents-than-previously-reported-1436697667520

And so from the many dangers that is going on with a demising safety net the school superintendent that had resigned after being accused of pretending a sick student was her son so he could get medical treatment in the light of the fails in the systems today she acted right. If there was a working system then there would be no need for her to to do what she did!

~~~~~Casey Smitherman, the superintendent of Elwood Community Schools, was charged January 23 with official misconduct, insurance fraud, insurance application fraud and identity deception. She officially resigned Friday.

In a statement to the affiliate, she said:
"I have dedicated my entire professional career to children and ensuring they have the best possible chance of success. My record of accomplishments clearly shows I have been successful in doing that. Unfortunately, my recent lapse in judgment has brought negative attention to the community and myself. I am very embarrassed for that, and I apologize to the board, the community and the teachers and students of Elwood Community Schools.

"I sincerely hope this single lapse in judgment does not tarnish all of the good work I've done for students over the span of my career. As most educators will attest, the board, community, teachers and students need to be in alignment for a school system to achieve its goals. I do not feel that alignment exists at this time nor could exist in the near future and therefore, effective 02/01/2019, I am resigning from my position as the Superintendent of Elwood Community Schools. I am confident the board will take the necessary steps to ensure the school system works through this period of change in the best possible way."

Smitherman noticed the 15-year-old student was missing from school on January 9 and checked on him at his house, where she decided he needed to see a doctor because of a sore throat.

She took him to an emergency clinic but was denied service because the child was a minor and she wasn't his guardian. At another clinic, she checked him in using her son's name and insurance and received a prescription for medications, which she picked up at a pharmacy before taking him home.
The student's guardian contacted the Elwood Police Department on January 16 about the student receiving the medical treatment. According to police documents, the student tore the label off the medicine bottle because "he knew it was wrong."

Smitherman told police that in the past she and her husband bought clothes for the student and helped clean his house. She said she didn't want to contact the Department of Child Services for fear the boy would be placed in foster care.

Smitherman's attorney, Bryan Williams, said she has entered in a diversion program that will dismiss her charges if she doesn't get arrested in a year.

The school district, about 47 miles north of Indianapolis, has more than 1,600 students in grades K-12 with another 200 students in the preschool program, according to the school district website.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/03/us/indiana-school-superintendent-resigns-over-insurance/index.html