The purpose of this section is intended for opinion, blogging on general topics/issues and features of FOCM members.
The purpose of this section is intended for opinion, blogging on general topics/issues and features of FOCM members.
Just watched a very good Ted talk by Mel Robbins and am sharing it with you at the link below. Some practical things to do to make your life better and more fulfilling. Some things to do are simple:
How to stop screwing yourself over
It seems a fairly uniform response from my friends that the recent new company names: IQVIA (Quintiles – IMS’ new name) and Syneos (INC – Inventiv’s new name) aren’t being received well. They come across awkwardly and while I’ve not heard the rationale for Syneos (i imagine something to do with synergy), the IQVIA rationale has been explained. Unfortunately, while most people understand the idea, the name and whether it’s pronounced IQ-veye-uh or IQ-vee-uh it still isn’t considered compelling. And as we all know, some marketing ad agencies got a lot of money for these names.
So the other day, my domestic partner came up with these bad company names all based on trying to say: “we deliver on promises”:
Deliviom
Delivion
Delivian
Deliverian
What other names can we come up with? I bet an FOCM e-brainstorming session could have done better.
How about a company name for “we tell the truth in advance” or “vaporware is our best seller”?
ProsLyse (prospective lying)
VapeRwe
VapeRus
At the recommendation of Jack Minster (or maybe he actually ordered it for me), I read a book called Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore. What an amazing history that town has seen. The book covers the history of the town from roughly 2000 BC to current day. I highly recommend it for any person who likes World history.
One thing stood out to me, in line with the subject of this blog – happened in 1855-1860. An Italian man named Moses Montefiore, later knighted by Queen Victoria for his service as Sheriff of London and in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people. He followed the Jewish religion and after visiting Jersualem in 1827 he became a more devoted observer of his religion.
In 1854 his friend Judah Touro, a wealthy American Jew, died having bequeathed money to fund a Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects aimed at encouraging the Jews to engage in productive labor. In 1855, he purchased an orchard on the outskirts of Jaffa that offered agricultural training people.
In 1860, he built the first Jewish residential settlement outside the walls of Jerusalem. Living outside the city walls was dangerous at the time, due to lawlessness and bandits. Montefiore offered financial inducement to encourage poor families to move there. Montefiore donated large sums of money to promote industry, education and health amongst the Jewish community in Palestine.
His life’s mission of helping Jersualem’s Jewish people caused him to give so much money that many people became dependent on his charity and that was their sole means of support. When he tried to wean them off of his handouts, they rioted in his camp.
This is certainly been repeated in countries around the world. When people get used to receiving support with little or no contribution put forth to earn it, upon the support being reduced, the response too often is to scream and shout and demand it not stop. This is becoming a problem in Saudi Arabia as unemployment is so high, it costs the government a lot to keep the people complacent by giving out so much money.
I think history shows that the best solution is democracy and capitalism where hard work and effort are rewarded.
it hit me today while talking to members of my family – just how crazily hypersensitive the world, or at least America is becoming over potential slights masquerading as extreme assaults.
While reviewing some to-do lists with my family, I said, “well thank goodness I’m here serving as task master – OOPS!! – I don’t think the word ‘master’ can be used any more because it conjures up the past when there were slaveholders, known as masters, and slaves.”
So I then said, “maybe I should be called the task manager”, OOPS!! i can’t say manager as that could be considered sexist, so perhaps we need a new word ‘personager’ to replace manager. I guess i’m the taskminder, that seems to be a safe word and shouldn’t upset anyone, right? I sure hope that’s okay, but please tell me if that upsets someone.
Our mom, Marilyn, the mother of four children: Betsy, Jenny, Chris and Jon passed away on October 11, 2017. She was 89 years old. She died 10 years and 4 days after our dad, Charles.
I remember a friend of mine, David Holt saying he and his brothers were now orphans after the second of his parents had passed away. Adults are not what you typically picture when you hear the word orphan. There is, at least for me and my siblings a sense of having our lives’ foundations shaken with this feeling, not just of grief, but also that we have lost something and I can’t find the right word for it – a focus, a purpose, a guiding element. I think the last one is close and it’s that we’ve lost our family leader, our guiding light. But we know Mom was confident that we would be all right without her. And in time we will be.
We four kids had fun together while we worked on the obituary, the memorial service arrangements and visits from friends, etc. Once I got home to NC, I have been feeling a type of loneliness – a bit like I’m drifting without direction. To now, not have either of the two people in your life that were so important and always there is a shock.
I realize these feelings are part of the grieving process and we (children and grandchildren) are entering a new phase in life. What I want to share with you is Mom’s unfailingly positive outlook. For as long as we can remember, we always subscribed to Readers’ Digest and Guideposts magazine. Guideposts was founded by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. He is the author of The Power of Positive Thinking. We think she read that book and decided that is how she would live her life.
A few months ago, I had an aha moment which showed the impact of her positive messages. Ever since I was 8 or so Mom repeatedly told me something that I have believed ever since. If Mom or my sisters had a necklace or other piece of jewelry that was tangled, knotted or unusable in some way, Mom would give it to me and ask me to fix it, saying, “you’re good at fixing jewelry”. I have always believed that I’m good at that. Recently, my girlfriend had a necklace that was knotted and I said, “oh give that to me to fix, I’m good at fixing jewelry.” Right then I realized something – I’m probably not very good at fixing jewelry, because generally, I’m not very handy or mechanical. But I believed I was, so like with Deb’s necklace or Mom’s jewelry, because i was good at it, i wouldn’t give up until I had it untangled.
All of Mom’s grandchildren and we, her children will miss the great feeling after talking with her. She made you feel great. Phrases we could count on hearing in virtually every conversation:
I know that both Jenny (on the phone) and Jon in person when they would talk to her at night or help put her to bed, htey would say: Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite, … We would take turns saying each part. And she would laugh and laugh.
What a great approach to parenting and to life. Our ongoing tribute to her will be to live the rest of our lives with the same optimism, positivity and kindness that she showed.
Chuck Schumer on the record being opposed to illegal immigration. He stated in 2009:
During a speech at the Immigration Law & Policy Conference at Georgetown Law, Schumer repeatedly argued that immigration reform should focus on encouraging legal immigration and should make clear that “illegal immigration is wrong.”
“The American people are fundamentally pro-legal immigration and anti-illegal immigration,” Schumer explained at the conference. “We will only pass comprehensive reform when we recognize this fundamental concept.”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/06/chuck-schumer-in-2009-illegal-immigration-is-wrong-video/?utm_source=site-share
The thought police are here. Witness this article by John Stossel.
A rather crazy exchange he had with Gloria Steinem years ago:
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem said gender differences shouldn’t even be researched. She told me it’s “anti-American, crazy thinking.”
“Aren’t women, in general, better nurturers?” I asked.
“No,” answered Steinem. “Next question.”
At the time, fire departments had just dropped strength tests to help female applicants. One critic of the change complained that instead of being carried out during a fire, now she would be dragged downstairs, her head hitting each stair. Steinem responded, “It’s better to drag them out … (L)ess smoke down there.”
Now that we’ve seen the hourly wage increases in Seattle and San Diego, there are indications that it’s negatively affecting job growth in the restaurant sector. From an article in Forbes:
in San Diego:
Rather than inch upward from $10 per hour to $10.25 per hour in January 2016, as the rest of the state was doing, San Diego jumped its minimum wage to $11.50 per hour. In the year and three months since then, the number of food service jobs in San Diego has dropped sharply, with perhaps as many as 4,000 jobs lost, or never created in the first place.
Recently saw this opinion piece by John Stossel re: the EPA. The part toward the bottom about the hassles one family had trying to build on their own property is ridiculous!
Regulation zealots and much of the media are furious because President Donald Trump canceled Barack Obama’s attempt to limit carbon dioxide emissions. But Trump did the right thing.
CO2 is what we exhale. It’s not a pollutant. It is, however, a greenhouse gas, and such gases increase global warming. It’s possible that this will lead to a spiral of climate change that will destroy much of Earth!
But probably not. The science is definitely not settled.
Either way, Obama’s expensive regulation wouldn’t make a discernible difference. By 2030 — if it met its goal — it might cut global carbon emissions by 1 percent.
The Earth will not notice.
However, people who pay for heat and electricity would notice. The Obama rule demanded power plants emit less CO2. Everyone would pay more — for no useful reason.
I say “would” because the Supreme Court put a “stay” on the regulation, saying there may be no authority for it.
So Trump proposes a sensible cut: He’ll dump an Obama proposal that was already dumped by courts. He’d also reduce Environmental Protection Agency spending by 31 percent.
Good!
Some of what regulators do now resembles the work of sadists who like crushing people. In Idaho, Jack and Jill Barron tried to build a house on their own property. Jack got permission from his county. So they started building.
They got as far as the foundation when the EPA suddenly declared that the Barrons’ property was a “wetland.”
Some of their land was wet. But that was only because state government had not maintained its own land, adjacent to the Barrons’ property, and water backed up from the state’s land to the Barrons’.
The EPA suddenly said, “You are building on a wetland!” and filed criminal charges against them. Felonies. When government does that, most of us cringe and give up. It costs too much to fight the state. Government regulators seem to have unlimited time and nearly unlimited money.
But Jack was mad enough to fight. He spent $200,000 on his own lawyers.
Three years later, a jury cleared Jack of all charges.
But even that didn’t stop the EPA.
Jill Barron told me, “We won, but after we were home for a month maybe, the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA sent us another letter saying, ‘how nice for you that you won in the criminal court, but we still feel it’s a wetlands.’ And the decision made by the jury did not matter to them. ‘And if you don’t get off the property, we’re going to fine you (in) civil (court).'”
The EPA threatened a fine of $37,500 a day.
The Barrons sold their home and moved into a trailer.
“We’ll be bankrupt, obviously.” Jill told me, “You have no idea what you’re up against. You don’t know the power that is the EPA.”
So I’m glad that Trump wants to limit the EPA. Scott Pruitt, the agency’s new director, understands that bureaucrats often abuse their power. When he was Oklahoma attorney general, he sued the EPA 13 times for regulatory overreach.
I hope he cuts the bureaucrats back to proper size.
The agency was necessary in 1970, when it was created. At the time, cities dumped whatever we flushed into nearby waterways — with no treatment.
Smokestacks filled the air with actual pollutants: soot, sulfur dioxide, etc. In New York City, we didn’t dare leave windows open because filth would blow in.
The EPA required sewage treatment, scrubbers in smokestacks and catalytic converters in car exhaust systems. The regulations worked. America’s air and water is cleaner than it’s been for decades. I can even swim in the Hudson River, right next to millions of people — who are still flushing.
Now, in a rational world, the EPA would say, “Stick a fork in it, it’s done! EPA now stands for ‘Enough Protection Already.'” But bureaucracies never say they’re done. “Done” means bureaucrats are out of work. Can’t have that.
So politicians keep adding unnecessary new rules and keep harassing people like the Barrons.
John Stossel is the author of “No They Can’t! Why Government Fails — But Individuals Succeed.” Click here for more information on John Stossel.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/05/john-stossel-its-time-to-stick-fork-in-epa.html
