Monday, September 17, 2012

Those MILFs Always Means More Sex in Twitter Porn


MILFs! Yes, Mothers I’d definitely truly really ever very actually like to fuck! If anything about porn is coming up at this Twitter Porn, then that has to be these hot sexy voluptuous mature ladies who are dying to suck and eat more cocks, especially those of their younger ones. And there really is something so attractive about these mature women. It may due to the fact that they have been so maturely experienced with sex, and all kinds of sexual experiences imaginably doable. Or, it could be due to their nature motherly figures that always so nice to just having them around with.

Yet, of course it could be because of something else. Probably it is due to their big voluptuous racks and (amazingly!) sweet little tight twats. And what about their pearly shaped asses which could easily turn every head whenever they walk everywhere? That certainly counts for something good, right? Indeed, to put the matter quite simply, all of these hot looking older women are so beautifully sexy! And that is just one thing. The other thing is that they are always ready for some hot sexes anytime, anywhere with almost anyone!

And do you know what another thing is? These mouth watering mature pussies are always craving for more and more sexes in whatever positions you like best! Just look at them doing some nastiest yet most wonderful doggie sex. Later on, they are up to some gangbangs. Few minutes more, they are just wanting for more sex and cocks to completely fill up every single hole which is left open in their great and sexy bodies. And probably, this is what makes all these hot fucking mothers look so beautifully desirable! Every time, everywhere, and with anyone, these voluptuous mature females always mean just one thing: sex and more sex!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Format For Writing a Newspaper Article

You basically have two choices when you want to become a news article writer. It's either you write for broadsheet or for tabloids. If you want to focus on more serious issues, broadsheets will suit your best. Here's how you can write articles for them:
1. Choose your stories wisely. As you're writing for broadsheets, that means that you're serving people with higher level of education. Your articles will most likely to be read by politicians, businessmen, and young professionals. As such, you need to be very careful when choosing your stories. Your audience generally does not care about local news and police reports. They'd rather spend their precious time reading stories about the government, the economy, sports, and news from around the globe.
2. Research your stories thoroughly. Your audience expects to get complete information and nothing less. So, research your stories thoroughly and make sure that you do not leave any stone unturned. Make time to interview all people who have something to say about your story. Then, verify the information you have gathered and make sure that they are all based on facts.
3. Use captivating headlines. Get your audience to read your news articles by using compelling headlines. Using as few words as possible, tell your readers what your article is all about. Whenever possible, use terms that can evoke action or those that can push the emotional hot buttons of your target audience.
4. Use the inverted pyramid technique. Give your readers the most valuable information that they're looking for on your first paragraph. Doing this will help you make sure that you'll still be able to educate or inform these people even if they choose not to read your articles until the end due to time constraints.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Education Crisis

Take a moment and think about that. One Hundred Fifty Million Dollars in one city, Chicago, and it barely made a dent. No matter what newspaper you read, TV news that you watch or radio talk show you listen to, the conclusion is always the same, "Spending more money on a broken system will not fix the problem, it will only make it bigger".
Interestingly enough most school districts in the United States offer more "Special Education" programs for students each year than the year before with very little improvement on the academic advancement of the students that these programs were created for.
 
The public school crisis in the United States has become much like the nursery rhyme entitled, "Humpty Dumpty". By adding a little twist, the ending could go like this, "All the legislators and all the tax money could not put the public school system together again". However, the problem does not end when a student leaves high school. Many states have had to establish programs to teach high school graduates basic educational and social skills to enable them to be assimilated into the work force. 
 
So what is the problem? Why is the public school system failing? There are several answers to these questions, but I want to address one issue that can have a great impact on the public school crisis, parenting. Parents must become responsible for their children. The public school system was established to help educate children not to be responsible for children.
 
One of the greatest mishaps that have happened in the United States especially among the "boomer" generation is the thought that more money makes for good family life. Their certainly is nothing wrong with parents pursuing a better life for themselves and their children, but money will never take the place of a parent devoting daily time interacting with their children. It is never too late to shut down the excessive television viewing or turn off the excessive video gaming and spend time interacting one on one with your children.
 
According to an October 1 2007, CBS News report, researchers found that children who watched more than two hours of television per day from age 2 1/2 until age 5 1/2 were more likely to develop sleep attention, have fewer social skills and develop aggressive behavior problems than those who watched less. The report also reveals that parents need to monitor their children's television use, especially during the early childhood years.To combat this problem parents must adjusting their children's play and free time with less TV and more parent child interaction.
Numerous studies reveal that the greatest impact upon a child's development happens between infancy and age 6. This means that when parent invest their time through daily interaction with their children between these ages, they will be providing them with the ability to successfully grow and learn. When you think about it, what parents are actually doing during this phase of a child's life is preparing them to become successful and productive adults.
 
What greater legacy than to see your little boy or girl become an adult more successful and more productive than you and to see them invest quality time into their children because of you. As more parents participate in the daily lives of their children, they will receive a far greater return on their investment than they will from their 401k plan
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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Activity Can Be Educational For Children Too

When adults think of children's toys or activities which are educational they may have a tendency to think of children sitting quietly undertaking a task by themselves such as reading a book or playing with a jigsaw. In fact toys and activities which are viewed as good for a child's education and development are far more wide reaching than you might first imagine, and can include anything from helping you hang the washing out to charging about enjoying a noisy game of football! With today's media hype about childhood obesity never far from our screens, radios or newspapers the fact that activity can be educational and good for childhood development is one piece of news we can all welcome!
Get motoring
When a child is active they are essentially developing their Gross Motor skills, recognised as an important contributor to a child's overall development. These are the skills required to move the larger muscles in the arms, legs and body, for example to walk, run, throw, lift and kick. They relate to body awareness, a sense of co-ordination, reaction, speed, balance and strength. Traditional toys which help stimulate gross motor development include things like ride on toys, skipping ropes and bicycles for older children.
Get kids involved
The great news about encouraging kids to get active is that as busy parents trying to juggle many activities in your own lives, you can get the children involved alongside you rather than always separating play time and 'task' or 'job' time. No one is disputing that one on one focused play time with a parent or carer is essential for a child's wellbeing and development but it's good to know there are ways you can successfully incorporate playing with your child into your own daily routines so that you can get on with the job in hand while your child develops, learns and is active alongside you.
Get on ... together
How many times have you told the kids to 'go off and play' while you get on with the chores, such as preparing dinner, a spot of DIY or tackling the ironing bin? Instead, how about getting your child their own toy ironing board and iron and chatting to them as you 'iron' together, or their own toolkit so they can feel like they are helping you build that chest of drawers / hang that curtain rail up? Children just love mimicking activities undertaken by their older role models and you can really bond with a child in this way as well as teach them as you go. Show them how you press the clothes carefully, then hang them up to look after them so that they begin to learn important lessons such as respect for belongings. Help them overcome the frustration they will undoubtedly experience when trying to build something explaining that it's important not to give up but to keep calm and try again. And share the excitement and sense of achievement when they do complete the task in hand.
Get them involved in your hobbies too - if you love being outside in the garden encourage them to be involved. There are plenty of children's gardening toolkits on the market which can also double up for some fun in the sandpit. Sometimes it's not the children's imagination that needs stimulating, it's our own creative outlook on how to approach things! So go on, get active, get them involved and have some fun with the kids!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Forex Education - 6 Vital Tips for Novice Traders

If you want to make money in currencies you need the right forex education and it's a fact any trader can learn forex trading and be successful but most fail to make money. This article will give you 6 tips so you can enjoy currency trading success.
Here are your forex tips in no order of importance but there all essential to your trading success.
1. Success Rests On Your Shoulders
No one else can make you rich you have to understand what you are doing to get the confidence to follow your path with discipline. If you don't understand what you are doing then your discipline will go as soon as you have some losses.
If you cannot follow a forex trading strategy with discipline you have no system.
2. Forex trading is NOT easy
Anyone can learn to trade but the really hard part is the mindset to succeed.
Do not believe anyone who tells you that it is and sells systems saying that you will make money every month or they can predict prices they can't. There is a huge market for these systems and there mostly junk and come with a worthless simulated track record. As we said success comes from understanding what you are doing and self education is the key that will make you successful.
Forex trading is not easy and wouldn't expect it to be with the rewards to be had but the good news is - it's not that hard either.
3. Work Smart Not Hard
Most traders think the harder they work the more money they will make. In many areas of life this is true but not in forex markets! You get paid for being right with your trading signal and that's it.
Work smart and learn the right knowledge and avoid all the common myths that most traders fall for which include:
- Day trading systems make money.
- You need to predict forex prices to win.
- The more complicated your trading strategy the more likely you are to win.
- Trading news stories is a great way to make money.
None of the above are true - there all myths we have covered even more in our other articles so look them up.
4. Use Forex Technical Analysis
It's simply the most time efficient and best way to trade.
You can learn it in around two weeks and then spend just 30 minutes a day executing your trading signals - and that's it. All you need to do is learn to act on the reality of price change and not predict.
5. Keep it Simple!
Simple currency trading systems work better than complicated ones, as they tend to be more robust.
Complicated systems fail in real time trading as they have too many elements to break.
6. Know Your Trading Edge
Your trading edge is something that will give you an advantage that will allow you to make profits when 95% of traders lose. You must understand it and be confident that it will lead you to forex trading success. If you don't know what it is you don't have one and its time to continue with your forex education until you do.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Education for Spa Directors & Professionals - Too Expensive, Not Accessible & Poorly Focused

Have you been searching for a career in the spa industry, but found that the educational opportunities in this fast-growing business are limited at best? With an industry that is showing annual revenues of nearly $10 billion in the United States alone, you'd think that there'd be spa management programs available just about everywhere. While there certainly are a lot of programs out there, finding ones that offer quality, affordable, and accessible spa management training are far and few between.
Today, there are nearly 14,000 spas operating in U.S., including day spas, resort spas, hotel spas, medical spas, club spas, mineral spring spas, and destination spas. These spas vary in size from small in-town day spa locations to the large, sprawling destination spas that exist in beautiful locales like the deserts of Arizona or the mountains of California. Surprisingly, there are only 124,000 full-time and 101,000 part-time spa employees working at all of these spas. This means there's an average of 9 full-time employees and just 7 part-time employees for each individual spa. While this might seem just about right for a small day spa location, when you think about the dozens or hundreds of employees that it takes to run a large destination or resort spa, you soon realize that there's a huge shortage of qualified spa professionals available to run these growing spa locations!
What does this mean for the millions of people who go to the spa to escape the everyday stresses of work, family, and the pressures of living in this fast-paced, modern world? It means that there just aren't enough spa professionals working in the spa industry to provide the kinds of services that their clients expect. Let's face it, spa treatments aren't cheap, but clients are willing to pay higher fees as long as they're getting the highest levels of service that they expect from a high-end spa. With so many quality spas available in just about every part of the world, clients demand quality because they know that if they don't get it at one spa they can certainly get it at another. In an industry that thrives on satisfying their customers on a physical, mental, and emotional level, it's essential that every spa has plenty of qualified and friendly staff members, therapists, and managers on hand to meet the needs of each and every spa client that walks through the door.
The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities for well-trained and well-educated spa professionals in the fun and exciting world of spa management. The bad news is that it's difficult to find quality professional training for a career in the spa industry. There are plenty of Hotel and Restaurant Management programs available that have now added "Spa Management" to the end of their program titles, but many of them don't really focus on the unique details that make owning or running a spa different from a hotel or restaurant. These programs have sort of squeezed in "spa management" as and addendum to their regular curriculum, but the overall focus is still heavy on general management skills rather than specifically on spa management skills. There are also loads of spa management seminars given around the country that are great to attend for additional training once you're already working as a spa professional, but these seminars will not prepare you for a career in the spa industry if you don't already know the ins and outs of running a spa. It simply comes down to the fact that the spa management training that is out there today is too limiting to properly prepare you for a successful career in the spa industry.
Another thing to keep in mind when looking for a spa management training program is the price. Because quality spa training programs are so limited, many charge exorbitant rates for their training courses. While this may turn out to be money well spent, you have to be careful that you're going to get what you paid for and will be able to earn that money spent on spa management training into a lucrative spa management career. You also need to consider how accessible these spa management training courses are to your physical location as well as to your time availability. While it would be great if schools paid you to take their courses, this just isn't the case in most instances and many of us still have to go to our current jobs while we're training for that new career, whether it be in the spa industry or not.
All of these factors need to be considered when looking for a quality spa management training program that will actually prepare you for a great new career in the spa management industry. The jobs are out there and every day more and more spas are opening up their doors for the first time at an industry rate of approximately 6 new spas every single day. With each new spa there are new spa management positions available and one of those positions could become yours! Just make sure you choose the right spa management training program that will provide you with a quality education that's affordable and easy for you to fit into your already busy schedule. Of course, once you're in the spa industry, you'll be able to take advantage of those relaxing and refreshing spa treatments too. Now that's a career worth training for!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Helping our Children's Education

Listen to them and pay attention to their problems.
Children need to know that you, as a parent are concerned about their problems and are always ready to listen to them. If kids don’t know their concerns and feelings have value, they will be less likely to share them with their parents.
Read with them.If children see their parents taking an active interest in reading with them, they are much more likely to continue reading on their own. It is one of the best things a parent can do to help younger children build a solid base for the rest of their school years.
Tell family stories.Not only are family stories a great way to expose your child to public speaking, but they create a sense of connection and family that ads stability to a young persons view of life. Your children are much more likely to retain a story that involves a family member and then be able to re-tell the tale to others.
Limit their television watching.Television is considered by some to be a major obstacle to education for children today. As elaborated on at www.tvkids.us [http://www.tvkids.us] , Kids spend more time watching television than any other single activity other than sleeping and school. Limiting the time spent watching television important, but controlling the content is equally important. It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure their children’s brains are not fed with junk. There are some quality children’s television shows that are educational and fun for the kids too.
Have books and other reading materials in the house.This is a no brainer. There is really no reason not to have books around the house for children. Children’s books are readily available and are not expensive. You can pick up second hand books at garage sales and flea markets and popular online auction sites for very little money.
Look up words in the dictionary with them.Challenge your kids to listen for words they are not familiar with and look it up. Try a new word every day. This is a good exercise for adults too!
Encourage them to use an encyclopedia.If you don’t have access to an encyclopedia, use the internet. There is vast wealth of knowledge on the internet, just waiting to be explored. www.encyclopedia.com is a great free resource to start with.
Share favorite poems and songs with them.After you have shared your songs, ask them to share theirs. There are a ton of song lyrics available online. Look some of you kids favorites up, print them off and get them to practice reading them back to before singing them.
Take them to the library--get them their own library cards.The first time my kids went to a library, the absolutely loved it. With all the information available at home these days I tend to forget how cool libraries were when I was a kid. Kids still love to see all the books, and when they get their own library cards and understand how the library works, it teaches them responsibility.
Take them to museums and historical sites, when possible.Take the time to do this one, especially the museums. It is an experience they won’t forget. It opens up children’s minds and really gets them excited about learning. It’s really fun for parents too!
Discuss the daily news with them.The news is not always good, so focus your conversations towards interesting topics and skip over the stuff that they are to young to concern themselves with. Local newspapers are usually a good source for community events and milder topics.
Go exploring with them and learn about plants, animals, andlocal geography.Take along a plant guidebook and search for the different species of flowers or have the children write down the names of the animals they see. The key is to keep them involved and interested. Bring along a camera and when you get back, print off the pictures and have the kids make a scrapbook of the things they saw that day.
Find a quiet place for them to study.Its very important to establish a place where you child can study without being distracted by the television or younger siblings.
Review their homework.Always have your children show you what they did at school and check their homework with them. It shows them that you think it is important and then they will think is important. It will also keep you up to date with the progress they are making.
Meet with their teachers.Remember, your children are probably spending more time with their teacher than anyone else, aside from yourself. Teachers can give invaluable insight into the kind of person your child is becoming. Parents have a hard time being objective about their own kids, it is only natural. That’s why it is so important that you know the person that is guiding your children’s education.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Wikis Enhancing Education at All Levels

A number of educational institutions have opted to upgrade out-of-class interaction by leveraging wiki software to create easily accessed and edited wikis for teachers and students to interact. While web 2.0 solutions such as wikis and social media have been shunned by some government agencies and businesses, they have provided an easy option for teachers and professors to establish a web presence and reach students outside of the classroom.
The enterprise wiki is still a prominent way for executives and other managers to interact with their employees, but its optimum use may be in the classroom. For many educators, developing a highly functional website can be difficult since it requires web hosting and knowledge of design. Meanwhile, wikis can be implemented with minimal knowledge of web design and do not require as much maintenance as websites.
The Yale Daily News, the student newspaper at the Ivy League university in New Haven, Connecticut, recently reported the Yale School of Art's primary website is a wiki, which has allowed faculty and administrators to take a more proactive approach when interacting with their students and alumni. Students also have access to the website, which allows them to make announcements more quickly and to a larger audience.
"We wanted the website to be a transparent window onto the art school," Dan Michaelson, a lecturer and alumnus at the university, told the news provider. "There's no reason why the website shouldn't be a space that belongs to the students as much as the building."
Similarly, Bowling Green University in Ohio has a number of wikis currently operating throughout its network, according to BG Views. Among the items available for students and other members of the university are tutorials on various programs at the school, homework assignments, test dates and class and campus discussion forums. Also, some professors have made free textbooks available on wikis, which has helped students save money without falling behind on their schoolwork.
Like many other aspects of IT, such as agile development, wikis have made certain organizations and programs more interactive and accessible for those involved. Implementing them along with other Web 2.0 solutions, such as social media and blogs, is an easy way to ensure that an organizations is taking advantage of all the technology and options available to them.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Physical Therapy Continuing Education: What Can We Do to Decrease the Risk of ACL Injuries?

ACL related Physical Therapy continuing education courses have taught us there are four factors, that can be addressed through exercise, that decrease the risk of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in the female athlete. We recently interviewed an ACL expert to expand on this. Here is what he had to say.
Interviewer: So we now know about ligament dominance, quadriceps dominance, leg dominance and trunk dominance. Is there anything we can do about these things?
ACL Expert: So, we think these four neuromuscular imbalances underlie these four mechanisms that relate to ACL injury risk that we see more often in than males, in females.
So, what I've been talking about so far is really the bad news of this entire situation.
Interviewer: Okay.
ACL Expert: The good news is that - you know people have conjectured for years that this is really related to female anatomy; wider hips or a greater quadriceps angle, and they've thrown out that it's related to hormones, it's related to the estrogen surge in the middle of the menstrual cycle and that's what leads to a weaker ACL and greater injury risk.
There's no doubt that this is a multi-factoral problem, however, our findings related to these neuromuscular imbalances give us all hope because neuromuscular control is one thing we can readily change. Women can adapt to interventions and neuromuscular control training that can make them better, that can reduce not only these neuromuscular imbalances that we've shown in the lab - in the mid-'90s we did a series of studies where we showed we could use neuromuscular control training to alter and reduce some of these neuromuscular imbalances that I talked about, actually all of them, and then we could take those exact same interventions out onto the field and drop relative injury risk by about half.
Interviewer: Wow.
ACL Expert: That's the good news in all this. Yes, these findings that it is primary neuromuscular is really good because that's the one area - we really can't alter anatomy and we don't really want to play around with hormones too much without getting ourselves in a fair amount of trouble. But, neuromuscular control we can alter and we can do that.
The only sort of side effect of neuromuscular training is a more athletic individual. So, the side effects you get out of this training, in attempts to reduce these relative neuromuscular control deficits, is you get not only probably a safer athlete with an effect size of about 50 percent, but in these young women who have low powered engines relative to the size of their machine you increase that power and control and relative muscle recruitment, and you also not only have maybe a 50 percent reduction in risk, you have anywhere between a 10, 20, 100 percent increase in power and neuromuscular control, depending on what you're looking at. That's the good side effect you get out of this training.
It's also very similar to what you do - what we did is we took these exercises from athletic development training, from rehab, and they work well not only to create greater neuromuscular control and potentially lower risk, but also a more balanced, more powerful, more in control athlete.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Texas Making Use of an Online News Database

The Texas Education Agency has made a deal with the New York Times. This deal will allow for the use of an electronic database.
This database is different than a typical database. It isn't based on MYSQL or Oracle programming knowledge, and won't be used by IT professionals or database administrators (at least most likely). No, this database is for the kids. In essence, the creation is an interactive portal that will search news articles - all the way back to 1851. If a student wants to write a paper on the Gettysburg Address, for instance, he can pull up the paper's entire text, and, the various news stories written about it to gather relevant information. Students can also now access modern content, stories, related multimedia, and source content related to all of the news recorded over the last 150 plus years.
Texas also plans to eventually use the database to deliver vast amounts of varied educational content to schools all over the state. The $1 Million contract, which initially purchased statewide use of the portal, might change based on usage numbers (though these increase are likely to be very slight).
This is a small footnote in the ongoing story of weeding out textbooks. Books are getting old and outdated faster than publishers can release them. Information technology principals change every day, databases across the world are updated, and hardware improves with the times. With an up to date, valid news database such as this, Texas will have the opportunity to provide quality information for children in their public schools for decades to come. At least that is what Anita Givens hopes. Given's is the agencies chief of textbooks and technology. She states that the "statewide license allows for economies of scale that we just don't see in any other kind of agreement." This makes a lot of sense for Texas.
Down the line, this project will open up the opportunity for "ePortfolios," where students can display their classroom projects and writing assignments. They will even be able to store large multimedia files and band/choral performances with this new technology. This plan most excites Robert Scoot, who says that the ePortfolios are "going to be a pretty big deal in a few years... It's an opportunity for teachers and students to show what happens on every other day besides test day."
This program should help to save money in the long run - at least that's what the state is hoping. "It's a system to organize future content," Scott said. "Stay tuned. We'll be adding more apps."

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Is Sex Sacred? Fathers and Boys in the News - Profane Sex by Default

Two prominent news stories in the past few weeks may seem at first disparate, unrelated and quite historically and culturally removed from each other. However, to my mind, both raise serious issues of attitudes towards sex and children in any society.
One story involves the tawdry revelations surrounding baby-faced Alfie, the boy said to have conceived a child with a fourteen year old girl, at the age of just twelve. Although at the time the news of the birth 'broke out' there were whispers that there were other, slightly older and more physically developed contenders for the title, no longer poor Alfie's, following the results of a recent DNA test. To give Alfie credit, he proclaimed his willingness to take responsibility for his actions, even though he did not understand the meaning of the word 'financially'. Perhaps one of the financially astute grown-ups capitalising on the cherubic features of 'father' and child could have explained. Max Clifford, who took on the role of publicist, or the girl's father, who appeared in public wearing a devil mask?
Masquerading behind the face of Christ, it could be said, were the priests exposed as having sexually abused many boys in Catholic institutions in Ireland, between the 1930's and 1990's. Children who were truants, deemed delinquent in some way, or the progeny of single mothers were amongst those sent to these establishments, presumably for their own good and protection.
So what do these stories share in common? Both have elements of a vulnerable underclass, child protection issues and therefore, the matter of prevention being an important strategy in the task of protection. On one hand we have a group of disadvantaged children being used for the gratification of adults who were supposed to care for and educate them both spiritually and academically. On the other we have gratuitous sex among older children, in the context of high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, particularly, though certainly not exclusively, amongst a low educated, low-aspirational section of our society. A void also seems to be the common ground here. What needs to be put in its place?
John Banville, who grew up in an Irish Catholic institution run by the Christian Brothers, wrote in the New York Times recently, "What happened to them within those unscalable walls was no concern of ours. We knew, and did not know. That is our shame today."
The shame of Alfie's story is that we know, are told too much, and do not seem to know, or want to know, what to do about it. Our teenagers function in what has been described as a 'porn culture', without much, apparently, being presented to address the balance in our largely secular society.
Having personally experienced some of the down-side consequences of a Roman Catholic convent school education. I am therefore, not advocating a return to the ignorance, dualism, guilt and idealism of such traditions, nor do I want to take the fun and freedom out of sexual expression. I am proposing that we offer our children a much more wholesome view of sex, that places it firmly in the context of loving relationships, holistic health and wellbeing. Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived concentration camps in World War II, noted an absence of sexual perversion in the camps. In the face of extreme and total deprivation, sex ceased to become a concern, and that, apart from a longing for food, generally, Frankl said that it was the 'higher emotions' which manifested in the inmates' dreams. In his magnificent book, 'Man's Search For Meaning', he says:
"Love is as primary a phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of love. Thus love is not understood as a mere side effect of sex; rather, sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love."
I cannot think of a better way to explain the connection. And if we seek to emphasise to our children that, apart from having the physical equipment and skills, sex is a pleasurable act which requires trust, responsibility and respect, if not love, it may be elevated, if not to the sacred, then at least above the profane.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Globalization, Online Education and the Role of the Internet

Online ticket booking for nights out, online chat rooms to socialise, online newspapers to keep up to date, online dating to meet lovers, online concerts to watch music, online shopping for weekly groceries, online universities for online education ...I could go on.
Considering that the Internet is a fairly new introduction to modern life, it is amazing to see how much it has developed in such little time. The Internet has gone from being a new and exciting commodity to an essential tool of 21st Century Life.
We are able to update the Internet instantly. Unlike print, the Internet is fluid, information is not bound into physical print never to be changed. This is why online newspapers have proved so popular with readers. They are able to check the news for developments every few minutes, always being rewarded with another snippet of information or a new breaking news headline.
The Internet has proved itself to be a powerful factor in the spreading of globalisation. Hundreds of countries, states and islands share the same bank of information, dipping their heads into the giant pool of the Internet and receiving the same electric shocks.
Scottish boys can race cars with kids from California and Italians can flirt with Brazilians on i-life. At the same time teenagers in New Zealand are listening to obscure Chinese musicians via My Space. All through the amazing medium of the Internet! It is even possible to attend university courses on the Internet by reading lectures and listening to podcasts online in an educational revolution. Imagine no more classroom lectures!
Of course it has been a matter of debate about whether or not this kind of globalisation will be a force for good or a force that brings something more damaging.
Many people believe that the Internet will help eradicate any sense of national culture and identity whilst some people argue that this would be a good outcome.
It is useless to try to stem the tide of progression and to do so would be to hamper science and the nature of humanity itself. It still remains to be seen what the effect of the Internet will have because it is still growing and developing, a technology that develops society whilst being simultaneously developing by society.
As I was saying before, companies are tapping into the market with online universities. Universities are partnering up with innovative businesses to create tailor-made online courses aimed at people who want to gain more qualifications but whom may have been in the world of work for a long time already. This not only has the effect of enabling individuals to potentially earn more than before but it contributes to countries as a whole by offering the adult population further education.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Why Teaching NLP in Mainstream Education Would Greatly Benefit Societies

The inventor of the idea of sex education being taught from early grades in mainstream education thought that it'd be beneficial to societies in the same way as I've been maintaining for years that teaching NLP from early grades in schools would. So how? What payback would governments get in the long term if they invested in the implementation of this idea?
For starters, since NLP studies and models human excellence, achievement, success, betterment, and the differences that make the differences between the excellent and the rest, its purpose is not bad in itself. If on one hand we talk about and grapple with societal problems with marginalized communities, delinquency, crime, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and diminishing [or complete lack of] respect for the roles of the police, courts, authorities, and prisons, but on the other hand leave the fortunes of the benefits of teaching NLP from young age on the table, isn't that a great waste?
So what would the benefits be of teaching NLP in schools?
NLP would teach people to understand and implement the principles of CLEAR communication from an early age. Just as it is with learning a foreign language or a musical instrument, so it is with learning NLP skills and the skills to communicate clearly. The sooner one starts, the better for one's future. NLP skills and clear communication would prevent misunderstandings in people's personal and professional relationships. In personal relationships this would help toward decreasing divorce rates, lightening the load for the courts and the police [attending to incidents of domestic violence etc.], where costs would be saved for all of us in taxation, and the quality of police service would increase, because the police members would not be overwhelmed by excessive paperwork on too many cases that could have been prevented in the first place. In professional relationships NLP and clear communication skills would prevent misunderstandings that are costly to businesses in time, money, energy, and reputation. Lengthy meetings, job interviews, and negotiations that often turn out to be ambiguous or vague and don't produce results anyway would not be an issue. Productivity, efficiency, staff morale, and motivation would increase and everyone would benefit on both sides of the shop counter.
NLP would teach people respect. Respect for our environments, respect for our ways of doing things, respect for our differences in ways of doing one thing, respect for our capabilities and different sets of skills, respect for our differences in what we believe and most and least value and why, as well as respect for who - and how very different - we all are individually and culturally. Respect is important, yet many people lose it very quickly - if they ever had it in the first place. And without respect there's apathy, violence, destruction, and wars... Just look at the news - the news that sells best and travels the fastest is bad news. The London UK riots of September 2011 could not be a more beautiful example of lost respect for everything by the thugs who never had respect in the first place and instead just had big mouths and the attitudes that the world owed them a living. The wars over oil causing diplomatic manipulation by certain countries is an example of lack of respect for many things - how could manipulation and respect ever go hand in hand? To me, they're mutually exclusive! Or take wars over religious differences between - or even amongst - many countries of the world present or past. Isn't any war an example of a lack of respect for another's religion? If I practise religion A and you practise religion B, and I come to you and force you to convert to religion A, how is that my respect for you and what you believe? If NLP was taught to children from their elementary school age, they would know no other but to exercise respect for others their environments, behaviors, beliefs, and identities.
NLP would teach people to observe and question, rather than take things on the face value and put up with them against their will - brainwashed. Giving ourselves time to observe eliminates jumping into snap conclusions which are based on our interpretation of a situation and thus may have nothing to do with how the situation really is. Observation can spur creativity... photography, sculpture, architecture, and many other visual art forms are based solely on this principle. Observation is a great source of learning.
NLP would teach people acceptance of each other's cultural, religious, and social differences. Have I mentioned me wanting to convert you to religion A without accepting the fact that your religion B might be what you prefer and might be as good as my religion A? Why would I be so manipulative as to want to convert you to my ways of life? Because I'm not willing to accept you as you are, and I'm not willing to accept that your opinions, religion, and ways of doing things might be valid as well, albeit done differently from mine.
NLP would teach people work ethic. Now this phenomenon of work ethic is something that many young people of today in some countries of the world more than in others don't even know, as opposed to have lost [as some would say]. They don't know what work ethic is for two primary reasons. 1. since they come born into a world where every conceivable material object already exists and can be obtained, they have no incentive to work to invent new ways of improving the world - everything's laid on for them. Reason 2 is that since survival is so easy in the developed parts of today's world, and many parents spoil their children by buying them everything the children dream up, the children have no idea of the value of the objects they get showered with by their well-meaning parents, nor do the children have any idea of the value of money and earning it. Since NLP teaches respect, acceptance, the differences that make the differences, and modeling success, work ethic would have to be a natural byproduct of people's ways of life if NLP was taught in mainstream schools from early age.
Would implementing teaching NLP in mainstream education cost governments and the taxpayers? Since nothing in life is free and there's always a price to pay for everything one way or another, yes, it certainly would. But the principle "spend money to make money" from the governments' point of view, as well as that of the "upfront investment in quality will turn out cheaper in the long term" would most certainly apply in this case. The operational costs of teaching NLP in schools would turn out to be money well spent if the money were to buy healthier, happier, more respectful, more responsible, and more productive members of societies. What's your opinion?

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Media Education: A Necessity

NECESSITY OF MEDIA EDUCATION
Introduction:
Ever since the media world has come into existence, new ways of its influences in its daily life has been seen. What was considered to be a boon has been realized to be a bane in many ways. The use of the media is often mired by controversy too. Here are a few quotes which makes us ponder about media's role and its influences. These quotes were by famous people and perhaps signify how media has deviated from its intended path to another completely new one.
"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."Richard Salent, former president, CBS News.
"We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."Katherine Graham, Washington Post publisher and CFR member. Thus we see that a similarity trend arises. People seem to interpret the use of media in their own ways, ways which will be of benefit to them. People with the power in their hands feel as if they are the authority to decide what to show and what not. When the press has an agenda, it is bound to be not wholly fair and just, as it was originally intended to be. Somewhere, down the line, human emotions, human wants, human intentions, greed, selfishness has come around to prohibit the working of a free press. Just as a utilitarian economy is a dream, a free just press is also nothing short of that.
The very essence of creating the press has been tarnished. As Hugo Black, Supreme court justice of The United States had rightly said:
"The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people."
The media has failed to deliver in its promise of impartial reporting, unbiased writing and true delivery of facts to the public. In this scenario, believing in the facts of the Media and acting upon them can not only be hazardous but may be injustice to the one on whom the action is being taken. The influence of media on young minds are even the more so. This is because young minds are just getting to understand the world and how it functions. Young minds thus can be moulded more easily than adults who have formed more or less fixed opinions on a variety of issues, going by experiences, circumstances and need and wants.
Today's world is as different from the yester years as chalk and cheese. The world today has hi-end products and a new definition of lifestyle. A consumer culture exists now which was unimaginable even a century ago. In this scenario comes the various forms of print - the digital, the print, the audio and the internet.
The internet and the television are the most influential among these. Both of these mediums not only gives us a plethora of knowledge but also enables us to see and visualise them. As the spread of the internet and the television medium reaches new heights, so are the malices of media influence too reaching mammoth proportions. Television channels and internet sites explode you with all sources and sorts of knowledge, which by its sheer quantity, makes you unable to grasp it.
The Influence of Media
Media influence started first in the West mainly because technological advancements in the world were first made there. In this regard, the western people have more experience than the East about media influence and their culture has been subject more to the whims of media influence than has the Indian society. Thus, if we look at the Western countries, we see clearly the marks left by media influence. There are authors like Jerry Mander who in his book 'Four Arguments for The Elimination of Television' have even said that the television is an evil which needs to be destroyed. It is no doubt seen that media forms especially television and internet produces devastating psychological effects on the minds of the people, especially those who are young.
It has been seen through many psychological studies that viewing too much of television effects thinking and behaviour at levels that even we may not know of. Slowly, as India advances, the problem of media influence is grappling us too.
In America, television has literally a huge effect on students and the youth. In fact, in some instances it is said that the first learning tool and curriculum for students is actually the television. That is their primary world from where they learn everything about the world, its ways, is morals and its ideals. Teaching, schooling and parents advices come next. The television as well as the internet has audio-visual instances which can keep the youth hooked and he does not feel them to be 'preachings' which he must follow, rather he thinks of them as a source of enjoyment and automatically the values and ideals in the television programmes become imbibed in his character. The problem here is that of the quality of the media sources and their contents. It is perfectly natural that television sources may not give the correct knowledge about places, people, history, economics, etc. Yet the youth and people get 'influenced' by what they see in the television or read in a newspaper and retain those thoughts and ideas, even if we do not at first subscribe to these ideas.
We inherently tend to have an 'influenced spot' in our brain of what has been told or seen by us through the media, though we may or may not believe it. This can be explained through a simple childish concept. When we were children, many of us didn't believe in ghosts. Yet when any of our friends who believed in them, told us that ghosts existed and narrated ghost stories, we were afraid to go out in the dark for some time, even though we still believed ghosts didn't exist. This was because though we did not believe in ghosts, somewhere or the other, an imprint of what 'others' said was implanted in our brain and we were influenced. Same way, people are influenced by the 'others' who are the different forms of media here.
New role models in fashion, eating, drinking, travelling - they all come up in our lives due to the influence of media. Media even shapes attitudes of ours in matters of relationships and sexuality. Thus in many ways, media tells us 'How to look at the world' rather than 'This is the World'. If this 'How to look at the world' is not right, then it can have catastrophic consequences, not only for the individual but to the world at large. For example, if media teaches and advocates violence, youth of today may be influenced to commit violent acts. This would be detrimental not only to him but to the society at large. And if many youths follow suit, the stability of society itself would come under scrutiny.
Thus, we need to know how exactly should we tackle the problem? Though media is intended to give us news and information as well as provide us with entertainment and advertisement of products, today our world is centred across this media. And if there is no coinscience behind the running of this media, then it would be detrimental not only for our right to get the reality of things but for the society at large to live peacefully. Whatever the media dictates, contain values, beliefs, morals and ideals which are shaped up by the economic and political conditions of that time, and may not necessarily be correct.
Media Programmes and Media 'World'
The virtual reality of the medi world is such that the real world has not taken a back seat. The virtual world is more addictive, you can have many shots at it, and you are always the dictator there. The youth are hooked on to video games where they are the masters and all others weaker than them. Moreover, these video games teach violence, illegal racing, murders, thefts and what not! For children as below as six years, there are cartoons like Shin Chan which have the concept of love and girlfriends. For a 12 year old, the programmes for them contain instances of sex and drug abuse. Family relationships and partying come into the programmes soon as the child reaches his teenage years. All these influence the youth to think that all these are accepted practices in the society and that all people do it. In fact many of the arguments these children have with their parents is based on the fact that "Other people do it, so why can't I?".
Impact on Indian Children:
India is a country which is relatively newer to face the problems of media influence and its repercussions. Yet, there are plenty of problems which can be seen throughout the nation due to media influence. A young child's mind is moulded by the media pretty easily. With rapid modernisation and replacement of old beliefs and tradition with younger ones, India is going through a phase where the importance of media influence cannot be ignored.
For starters, the problem and repercussions of watching too much television are now coming up. People tend to be influenced so much by the audio-visual stimulation and those rapidly shifting images that they keep hooked to the television for hours. This has many negative effects. Due to the continuous movement in front of the eyes, the mind actually gets a lower level of concentration and the person has difficulty in concentrating. They cannot even perform a single task for long and become restless.
The need for new products which first become 'wants' and then 'necessities' also cannot be underestimated. Many youth and children have even committed suicide because they have not been given the things they consider 'necessary' things in life. The 'necessary' things are decided by media influence. Companies advertise their products to make them seem 'cool' to the children and youth and then they seem to just want them to increase their 'status' in the society.
Media even helps the youth to make role models. If the media are not responsible to give the real worthy people the limelight and give limelight to the best golfer in the world who cheated his wife for several other women, or make good stories of a drug addict celebrity people will then take these things for granted. And if they make these people their role models, they would see nothing wrong in perhaps being disloyal or smoking cigarettes.
The situation is such that if any youth has been left untouched by this media influence then he or she is made a social boycott within that group. He or she is excluded from that group and is mocked at for not having 'even that simple knowledge'. Perceptions develop within them that the culture they prefer is great or the language they prefer is great while the other languages or cultures are inferior. It becomes so ingrained in them that it even comes at an unconscious level and people don't understand that they are looking down upon something because of media influence.
The media too supplies programmes which cater to the needs of the people. The people want conflicts, clashes, quarrels and spicy stuff for content. So shows like Big Boss and Roadies is paving the way which teaches no morals but violence and bitching and the human nature at its wild best. If people continue to accept these programs then there is bound to be a culture change too, and violence and aggression will come back in a more powerful way into the society.
Sex and romance is now on the minds of even 10 year old and Bollywood movies and spicy tabloids helps the children to gain access to materials that are unsuitable for them easily. They, at their tender age, get easily swayed by these things and sometimes even commit acts which they shouldn't. It has even become a status symbol now among the youth to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, the roots of which can be traced back to the media influence on these people.
The Importance of Media Education
The media boom threatens to bring in new values by supplanting the exiting ones. Both family and school which are primary sources of information now become the second important one. This has what happened in the West and this is what is now happening in India. Families are changing and relationships too are undergoing sharp changes in India. Children are getting more addicted to violence and drugs and their behaviour and attitudes at school is also changing in an unprecedented manner. Thus if ever there was an opportune time to introduce media education in India, this is the time.
For imparting media education, we would have to shed the attitudes that are indulgent, passive, resigned or even antagonistic towards the mass media. Though media is undoubtedly powerful yet parents and teachers are not powerless to act against it. Many actions can be taken in this regard. Though media will be bound to exist and also it is no solution to regard all media as crap, yet discussion among parents, teachers and students should aim at developing a more informed perspective on mass media. This would help people to understand and use the media in a more measured and conscious manner. This is what is known as 'media education'.
Parents and school can help restrict media activity as well as impart media education in the following ways:
At Home: The parents are responsible to see that children's access to media is regulated and monitored. What they see and when they see, both are the duties of the parents to monitor. Parents need to be aware the influence and exposure to media the child is receiving and how much she could receive without sustaining psychological distortion.
At School: Here is the place where the effects of mass media can and must be neutralized. The schools could develop a course on media education which would create and understanding and working of the various media forms in the world and their influence. Moreover, in schools the power of specific media may also be harnessed in a more purposive manner. The schools can even make the children see programmes which are interactive and make them develop a liking habit for them instead of media programmes which distort culture and are harmful. Libraries of good 'media content' can be created too. In developing their curricula and modes ofinstruction, schools need to include the media environment itself as an object of critical study, while also using recorded audio-visual programmes and other modern media as a means of communicating subject matter in a vivid manner to students.
If we do not start moving now in the direction for curbing media influence very soon, every other people will be influenced every other way by these media programmes and there will be points of clashes all around. This pervasive power of the media in the world is what calls for 'media education'. Media education would develop an intelligence which is capable of using the media for definite purposes without falling prey to its limiting and distorting influences.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

How Do You Educate Your Special Needs Child for the Real World When they Grow Up?

Educating your special-needs child is extremely important, if they are to ever grow up and participate in the real world. There are many learning disabilities that children will grow out of, and they will be able to overcome in order to live normal lives, active lives, and participate fine in society. Of course, there are some things which are almost impossible to predict, which just goes to prove that your special-needs child's education never really stops.
The other day I was discussing this with a very nice couple whose special need teen was not really cut out to go to college, and they didn't graduate HS in the regular class, nevertheless they got the appropriate education for their particular child, and they would have to continually work with their offspring to prepare them for the real world. Luckily, there are other social services available to help them through this process, but life will always be somewhat of a challenge.
There was an interesting piece not long ago, on FOX News titled; "TSA Admits 'Bad Judgment' After Disabled Man Subjected to Airport Pat-Down" which was published on June 10, 2011. The news segment noted;
"A Detroit father told FOX that the TSA singled out his special-needs son for a pat-down while the family was headed to Disney World. The TSA admitted was a case of bad judgment. The Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents' orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old."
When the father intervened to explain, the TSA folks said to step back, let them do their job, they knew what they were doing, and not to interfere. Perhaps, you can understand how difficult this was for the family, but it gets back to my main point, and that is; just because your child can understand how to perhaps count money, dress themselves, do limited cooking, and perhaps live on their own, doesn't mean they are prepared for all the things that might occur in their lives.
In this case it turned out to be quite an event, and perhaps a traumatic one for the mentally disabled individual. Maybe the biggest problem here is that many people in our society do not understand how tough it is, but maybe some good will come out of this story in the news, and remind us all, that these special needs folks are also members of our society, and we need to look out for them as well. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

New Education

This was the title of one of my very recent speech at a local business school, where I literally went mad, shouting and screaming at professors and teachers to help them realize what we all are doing to the future of our students!
I am a corporate trainer and have nothing to do with the educational systems and models. However, my pain is obvious and apparent, and so thought of sharing it with you people... I can only wish that I am taken positively, and even if this is not the case, I personally won't mind much.
This article has to do nothing with any of my deliberate research - it is very spontaneous, blunt and "as I thought" kind of stuff.
To make things look more professional, I have included several quotes to help you realize my pain.
We are living in the world that was never so unpredictable, materialistic, fast-paced and crazily growing. Everything is changing, and changing with immense pace. What is true today will be an obsolete literature tomorrow.
The bad news is that Education system in Pakistan is as good as the democratic or the religious state of this very country - Confused, Haphazard and typically ad-hoc. The good news is that this system is not that good in any other part of world, so as we can consider them the bench mark. US, UK, Germany, France, India, Singapore and all others... we all are sailing in one direction.
The first and the greatest flow in educational models is the judgmental approach... the approach which tells student how good or bad they are. The misery is that most students take it very seriously. Shame on us as teacher and facilitators to do such a crime. If the creator never did it for humans, how dare can we do it to our fellow-beings.
Another concern, that has been disturbing my mind is the amazing "irrelevance". What is taught at schools - Primary, Secondary, Higher Secondary, Colleges, Universities... what so ever - it has to do little or mostly nothing with the real world. Educational syllabus is structured, predictable and provides an outline - Real world is insanely unpredictable, least structured and has no boundaries. How, by any means, can we prepare the youth of today for the challenges of tomorrow with such a syllabus. Food for thought: How many schools include Reader's Digest as the part of their syllabus... A teacher asked me why to do so - I screamed, "Why Not!"... At least it has a connection to what the child sees outside your "Prison look-alike" schools. Think about it as well... University students having laptops with a Wi-Fi connection, where they search the taught topic, come up with the most recent literature available, and discuss it further. It may sound odd to many, but you know what - it will be a hell to many of us around [so called teachers], because than we know - they [our students] will beat the living hell out of us!
I have been reading and listening about ever increasing tuition fees of schools at all levels. Honestly, I don't mind it, as I know, it's just the beginning. Educational and Healthcare cost will further rise by many folds in near future... my complain is only that by charging such a hefty amount, what's the use if these schools are producing nothing but clones... In my opinion, if a school system can't ignite the spark in the kid to be him / her self - the school system should be immediately adjourned. Today, when I recall my best teachers, it is true for them that "They made me fall in love. They helped me figure out who I was."
Our toughest "learning achievement"-mastering our native language-does not require schools, or even competent parents. It does require a desperate need-to-know. Great teachers are great learners, not imparters-of-knowledge. Great teachers ask great questions-that launch kid's lifelong quest of discovering more. The world is not about "right" & "wrong" answers; it is about the pursuit of increasingly sophisticated questions-but the misery is that we increasingly reward answers, and penalty is the very fate of questioning individual. Shame Shame! Please note... The Three Most Important Letters ... WHY?
Richard Paul, Director, Center for Critical Thinking says, "We need to shift the focus of learning from simply teaching students to have the 'right answer,' to teaching them the process by which educated people pursue right answers."
Now consider what Jordan Ayan had to say in his book, AHA!... "My wife and I went to a [kindergarten] parent-teacher conference and were informed that our budding refrigerator artist, Christopher, would be receiving a grade of Unsatisfactory in art. We were shocked. How could any child-let alone our child-receive a poor grade in art at such a young age? His teacher informed us that he had refused to color within the lines, which was a state requirement for demonstrating 'grade-level motor skills.' "
Schools are busy participating in the massive suppression of creative genius... If you are reading this article, and belong to any senior level position with your school - try this, and you'll testify my words (not 99 but 100%)... Go and ask, "How many artists are there in the room? Would you please raise your hands. FIRST GRADE: In mass the children jump from their seats, arms waving. Every child is an artist. SECOND GRADE: About half the kids raised their hands, shoulder high, no higher. The hands are still. THIRD GRADE: At best, 10 kids out of 30 would raise a hand, tentatively, self-consciously. By the time you'll reached SIXTH GRADE, no more than one or two kids will raise their hands, and then ever so slightly, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a 'closet artist.'
Now if this happens to you, come and meet me - as I will personally congratulate you for participating in this mass 'creativity destruction campaign'.
For what I had to say, and what I have to say about the school system, a substantial amount of testimony exists from highly regarded scientists like [Nobel laureate] Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein, and many others, that scientific discovery is negatively related to the procedures of school science classes.
One last word - "Learning is never divorced from feelings." Children learn what makes sense to them; they learn through the sense of things they want to understand.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Neighborhood News - Real Estate News For Buyers - Sellers And Homeowners

Looking for local facts and figures? Get them all free.
It seems that many of us are fascinated by facts and figures. National news reports are filled with financial, economic and research statistics from a variety of sources. How did the financial markets perform? What does the average house, automobile or gallon of gasoline cost in this country? Most of these statistics are all readily available on the Internet with a few clicks of the mouse. But you may face a greater challenge if you're looking for information on a local level.
The good news is that even though many of these neighborhood facts - income, age, households, education, employment and more - are available on request in a single report that's tailored to your own neighborhood. Neighborhood Reports include city, county and state facts. For public and private schools, information, such as enrollment, high school rankings, funding, Parent Education, income and more.
Interested in housing? Find out about renting versus homeownership, local sales, price trends, current listings and more. Neighborhood Reports even include climate information such as average temperatures and precipitation. Ask your local real estate professional for a free, no-obligation Neighborhood Report - for any neighborhood in the U.S. These reports are great sources of information are completely customizable for you, and are a great way to learn more about your hometown or any town in the U.S.
The sub-prime issue - what's it all about?
One year ago, most homeowners probably couldn't tell you the difference between sub-prime lending and a submarine sandwich. Today, the term "sub-prime" generates heated controversy and is prominently featured in national news stories.
According to mortgage expert Jack Guttentag, a sub-prime lender is one who provides mortgages to borrowers who do not qualify for loans from mainstream lenders. Sub-prime borrowers typically pay higher rates and fees than those with good credit scores. Sub-prime lenders must charge higher rates and fees to cover increased risk and higher costs.
Why the controversy? Many U.S. homeowners are facing issues with their mortgages, including losing their homes, because of sub-prime lending, interest-only loans and other types of "creative financing." Critics are pointing the finger squarely at sub-prime lenders for steering borrowers into unaffordable loans. Looking back, it's become obvious that many lenders had lax standards and were careless about properly qualifying borrowers, many of whom are now struggling to make payments. In truth, compared with conventional loans, a higher percentage of sub-prime loans go into default.
Mortgage industry professionals point out that not all sub-prime lenders are unscrupulous, and that many borrowers with poor or no credit are now homeowners because of sub-prime financing. The controversy is likely to continue, but the best advice to borrowers may be to work on improving their credit scores and heed the old "buyer beware" adage in any type of mortgage financing.
Annual percentage rate is the cost of credit, expressed as a yearly rate. It is higher than the associated interest rate because it includes fees associated with borrowing in addition to interest.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Online Education: Advantages And Disadvantages Of Online Studies

Years ago, education wasn't accessible for everyone except for the elite. In modern society, turning into a student can be as natural as breathing, even if you experience the lack of money or time. Everybody knows that education is vital and influences career expectations a lot, and this fact forces them to go back to school again. But that's not as simple as it seems to be at first sight. Some folks have to work to make their living; others have families and kids to take care of. Luckily, there is a way out. That's all about online education.
Currently, online education has become very popular. Check any college's list of options and you'll definitely find tons of online courses. It can help people to get what they want without refusing to go to work or socialize. Bad news: online education has some negative aspects. Let's dwell upon pros and cons.
Pluses.
The best thing about being an online student is the fact that you are not glued to the campus and can manage your classes the way you want. Are you a young parent with debts and full-time work in some tiny Mid West town? This is no longer a problem for you as long as you can choose online courses.
It's a common-known truth that career expectations are directly proportional to one's education level: but there are very few individuals who would take a trouble and apply for college again. It means that basically, education guarantees success at work. Flourishing career is impossible without considering further education.
The last but not the least important advantage is the fact that online courses are less expensive than regular studies. There are innumerous online opportunities that are affordable in terms of time and price. Besides, it is possible to apply for scholarships or simply grab some student loan with low interest rate.
Minuses.
There are not so many disadvantages of online courses except for maybe the quality. On-campus life and learning is the best way to get the best of your classes, and you can't get it if stay at home. The good news is, there are tons of great computer programs that make it possible to get quality education. For instance, online courses provide soft aimed on sharing the tasks, recording students' scientific researches, let alone video connection and discussion opportunities.
Hundreds of students graduate online courses every year, and this fact proves that it's worth considering. Yes, you will lose the unforgettable student days' experience, but get the freedom of scheduling your own studies at the same time. Courage, patience, and diligence will help you to cope with your online studies.