Get your kids on board with going meatless once a week

By Casey Seidenberg

I am not a huge meat eater. I haven’t officially broken this to my boys because I don’t want them to get the idea that they can boycott large categories of food. Also, my older son loves meat. Given a choice, he will choose meat every time. He is growing faster than I can buy shoes, so clearly his meat cravings are his body’s way of demanding the protein, iron and vitamins that it needs. I don’t want to discourage that. He should listen to his body.
When you fill your plate with vegetables, you fill yourself with fiber, which can make you feel full longer. (BARBARA DAMROSCH)

But he, as with all growing children, can obtain some protein, iron, essential vitamins and good fats through sources other than meat. Regularly eating a meatless meal is a positive thing. The average American could lessen the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes by reducing consumption of animal protein.

Our family eats a vegetarian dinner a few times a week, but if you are a family accustomed to meat on your plate, start slowly. Start with meatless Mondays. The concept of “Meatless Mondays” became all the rage a few years ago when the city of San Francisco and the Baltimore Public Schools jumped on board, along with companies such as Toyota, as well as restaurants, celebrities and families across the country. Adopting the Meatless Monday routine is a relaxed and fun way to introduce vegetarian meals to your family.

Share these facts from MeatlessMonday.com with your kids to help them understand the benefits:

■ You can reduce your carbon footprint by cutting back on meat just once a week. According to the United Nations, the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide.

■ Approximately 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into producing a single pound of beef. That far surpasses the amount of water needed for vegetables and grains.

■21 nations across the globe have their own Meatless Monday movements, including Britain, Australia and Brazil.

■ When you fill your plate with vegetables, you fill yourself with fiber, which can make you feel full longer. (Your kids might then have less room for dessert, but perhaps don’t mention that!)

■Eating vegetarian can save money. (My boys beg me to give them the money we are saving by not eating meat every night. Not going to happen, guys. Sorry!)

Going meatless doesn’t mean having plain pasta or cereal for dinner, and it doesn’t mean a lot of extra work. Be sure your meal offers enough protein, calcium, iron and good fats to nourish the body. Beans, peas, lentils, quinoa, nuts and seeds are healthful alternatives. Also think ethnic foods, as many wonderful Indian and Asian dishes are naturally meatless.

An easy start is a simple meal of beans and rice. My kids like to add their own toppings such as chopped tomatoes, peppers, avocado, scallions, grated cheese and sliced mangoes. Set the table with toppings and watch your kids create their own meals.

Why not start this week? Go meatless on Monday, and let me know how it goes.

Stress Takes a Toll on Your Body and Mind

Stress doesn't just rattle your nerves and put you on edge. The effects of stress can include forgetfulness, sexual problems, insomnia, and hair loss.

When most of us think of the physical effects of stress, our minds jump to common complaints like headaches and upset stomachs. Stress, however, can affect many aspects of physical and mental health, ranging from hair, teeth, and skin to memory and concentration skills, and even how well we sleep. The good news is while these problems may seem serious, stress relief can lead to real improvements in your overall health and well-being.

By: Kristen Stewart

Forgetfulness Due to Stress

We all have our moments of not being able to find our car keys, but research shows that the more stress we are under, the more frequent these mental lapses may become. In fact, not only can long-term stress (over a period of weeks or months) disrupt communication between brain cells, but even several hours of acute stress can affect the brain’s ability to store information and create solid memories. For many people, frequent bouts of forgetfulness can lead to fears about Alzheimer’s disease. But before jumping to conclusions, take a step back and consider whether any chronic stress in your life may be playing a role in memory issues.

Stress and Reduced Immunity

Excessive stress and anxiety can lead to reduced immunity and an increased chance of getting sick. This link between stress and the body’s ability to fight disease may go all the way back to childhood. Researchers have found that adolescents who were abused or experienced other, intensely stressful situations as children were less able to ward off certain infections even years later. It’s crucial to keep daily stress under control as much as possible to offset the effects of past stress and encourage good health in the present.

Concentration and Stress

Bad news for stressed-out students cramming for exams — it turns out that being under pressure can affect how well our brains work. Specifically, one small study showed that medical students studying for board exams had more trouble focusing their attention than others who were not stressed. The good news? A month after the stressful period was over, the stressed group’s mental skills returned to normal.

Sexual Problems Due to Stress

The effects of stress can extend to the bedroom. While most men may experience erectile dysfunction from time to time, when it happens frequently, its underlying cause should be investigated. Causes of erectile dysfunction can include diabetes, high blood pressure, side effects of certain medications, and chronic stress. Stress can also contribute to a loss of sexual desire in both men and women

Substance Abuse and Stress

For individuals struggling with alcohol ordrugs, stress can wreak havoc on efforts to remain substance-free. Even for people who have abstained for a long time, stress can play a significant role in contributing to a relapse. Interestingly, not only can stress in adulthood contribute to substance abuse, but experiencing a severe psychosocial stressor during childhood can also increase your risk for drug or alcohol abuse as an adult.

Skin Problems From Stress

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, our internal thoughts and feelings can actually affect our external appearance. This is particularly true when it comes to stress. One of the effects of stress is skin that’s more sensitive to irritants. Stress can worsen pre-existing conditions including rosacea, psoriasis, and acne, as well as dehydrate the skin, permitting allergens, bacteria, and pollutants to irritate it.

Stress and Dental Health

Regular brushing, flossing, and dental check-ups — most of us are well-versed in what it takes to keep our teeth healthy. But how many of us realize that the effects of stress can impact dental health? During the day and even while sleeping, people under stress may clench their teeth or grind them back and forth against one another. This action, called bruxism, can not only wear down and damage your teeth, but may also cause temporomandibular joint problems (TMJ), leading to severe jaw and neck pain.

Forgetfulness Due to Stress

We all have our moments of not being able to find our car keys, but research shows that the more stress we are under, the more frequent these mental lapses may become. In fact, not only can long-term stress (over a period of weeks or months) disrupt communication between brain cells, but even several hours of acute stress can affect the brain’s ability to store information and create solid memories. For many people, frequent bouts of forgetfulness can lead to fears about Alzheimer’s disease. But before jumping to conclusions, take a step back and consider whether any chronic stress in your life may be playing a role in memory issues.

Stress-Induced Hair Loss

Some amount of hair loss is normal — strands fall out over time and get replaced by new ones. However, when you’re under physical or emotional stress the normal shedding of 100 or so hairs a day can speed up to the point where half to three-quarters of your hair can fall out. Known as telogen effluvium, this diffuse and often stress-induced hair loss may not happen right away. In fact, it may take weeks or months after the stressful event for the hair to actually shed. Fortunately, after six to eight months this type of hair loss often improves.

Climate of disrespect for teachers gets worse

This was written by Gregory Michie, who teaches in the Department of Foundations and Social Policy at Concordia University Chicago. His next book, “We Don’t Need Another Hero: Struggle, Hope, and Possibility in the Age of High-Stakes Schooling,” will be published later this year by Teachers College Press. This first appeared at educationclearinghouse.wordpress.com.

By Gregory Michie

Just when you think the climate of disrespect for teachers can’t get any worse, it does.

The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has now urged Illinois parents to demand that the state emulate New York City (and Los Angeles) by making individual teachers’ “value-added” ratings available for public scrutiny.

For those not versed in the latest trend in educational accountability,“value-added” formulas are complex statistical calculations that attempt to isolate a teacher’s impact on a student’s growth — as measured by gains on standardized test scores. In essence, value-added measurestry to show how much of a student’s test score increase can be chalked up solely to the influence of their teacher.

If that sounds tricky and imprecise, that’s because it is — and there’s no research to show that value-added models have done anything to help teachers improve, or to help kids learn.

But why quibble with little details like those? Instead, the Tribune’seditors gave a rousing endorsement not only of using value-added teacher evaluations, but of making individual teacher’s ratings public.

They called value-added data the “the gold standard for teacher accountability” and “a powerful indication of a teacher’s effectiveness.”

Really?

Not according to Maribeth Whitehouse, a Bronx special education teacher who scored in the 99th percentile — better than nearly all other teachers in New York City — on the recently released value-added Teacher Data Reports (TDRs). Despite her through-the-roof rating, Whitehouse isn’t hailing the evaluations. Instead, she told the New York Times’ Michael Winerip that the data is “nonsense” — and she’s penning a protest letter with other high-scoring teachers.

Elizabeth Phillips, principal of P.S. 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, said on this blog that value-added ratings for teachers in her school were “extremely inaccurate.” Among many other critiques, she cites the case of one teacher who was rated near the bottom — at the 6th percentile, according to the TDRs. In reality, Phillips writes, the “teacher in question is an exceptionally strong teacher by any other measure (parent feedback, colleague’s opinions, my observations over many years).”

For those who find that evidence too anecdotal, check the findings of a 2010 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. Researchers found that value-added estimates were “subject to a considerable degree of random error” — misclassifying teachers up to 26% of the time.

And just last week, Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who has studied value-added models extensively, wrote in Education Weekthat such methods are “seriously flawed for evaluating individual teachers, and that rigorous, ongoing assessment by teaching experts serves everyone better.”

Despite the evidence that value-added models are inconsistent, volatile, and inappropriate for assessing individual teachers, some districts and states (including Illinois) have still decided to adopt them as part of their teacher evaluation systems. It’s bad enough that they’re buying into an error-prone approach. But publicizing the results is beyond the pale. What possible purpose does that serve except to further disrespect and demoralize an already thoroughly bludgeoned teaching force?

Even those who advocate for the tailored use of value-added measures believe that publicizing individual teachers’ ratings is flat-out wrongheaded. Douglas Harris, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who is considered a leading expert on value-added teacher evaluation, wrote that the Los Angeles Times publication of teachers’ scores in 2010 was an “ill-conceived, headline-grabbing approach [that] will only breed mistrust among the teachers being evaluated, without doing anything to actually help students.”

Harris added, “Let’s hope that other districts avoid making the same mistake.” Are you listening, Illinois?

If it were just the Tribune’s editorial board clamoring for public value-added ratings, we might do well to just ignore them. But in the current moment, where teachers are assumed to need both constant carrots and stronger sticks in order to work harder and do better, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more powerful voices join the chorus.

But we need only look to New York to witness the slippery slope that would likely result. After that city’s value-added numbers were published — inaccuracies and all — the New York Post shamelessly ran an article about a Queens teacher it called “the city’s worst” — complete with an accompanying photo.

We’ve already created a climate where good, hard-working educators feel justifiably discouraged and unjustly maligned. The irresponsible use of value-added models will only make things worse. Considering the tone of the public debate and the high-stakes working conditions in many schools, we should count ourselves fortunate to have so many passionate, talented, creative teachers still in the profession. Let’s not give them another reason to think about leaving.

Drugmakers Have Paid $8 Billion in Fraud Fines

By Kelly Kennedy

March 10, 2012 "USA TODAY" -- WASHINGTON – The nation's largest drugmakers have paid at least $8 billion in fines for repeatedly defrauding Medicare and Medicaid over the past decade, but they remain in business with the federal government because they are often the sole suppliers of critical products, records show.

Pfizer, the maker of drugs that help alleviate arthritis and other ailments, has paid almost $3 billion in fines since 2002 and entered into three corporate integrity agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at preventing future fraud. It and other companies are fighting attempts by Congress to exclude them from government business because of their history of fraud.

Merck, another pharmaceutical giant, paid $1.6 billion in fines since 2008, Medicare and Justice Department records show, to resolve claims it was not paying proper rebates to the government.

Pfizer's 2009 settlement was for improperly promoting the use of drugs for purposes other than those for which they were approved by the government. Merck's 2008 settlement involved claims the company paid illegal kickbacks to health care providers in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

Government investigators say their hands are tied with the tools they have. They can exclude Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies from providing medications to Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries as punishment for bad behavior, but that would leave beneficiaries without drugs patented through a particular company.

Or they can fine the companies and force them to enter corporate integrity agreements that require government oversight and a promise not to defraud the government again — a promise that often goes unkept.

"We're seeing some of the big companies a second and third time," said Gregory Demske, assistant inspector general for legal affairs for Health and Human Services. "The corporate integrity agreement is not sufficient to deter further misconduct."

In addition, the cases are labor- and cost-intensive as the companies fight often for years to avoid an exclusion, Demske said.

To try to change that trend, the government announced in 2010 that, rather than exclude an entire company, investigators would go after individuals within a company. Demske said his organization, the Justice Department and the Food and Drug Administration have come up with some ideas to use within the scope of the rules — such as taking away a company's patent rights as a condition of a settlement. That could begin with cases being investigated now, he said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced a bipartisan bill that would make it easier for the government to find a middle ground, saying the law now forces "the inspector general to use all-or-nothing, mandatory exclusion penalties against corporations that have committed fraud." The bill would allow the exclusion of individuals from working with the government even after they've left the company where the fraud occurred.

Pharmaceutical companies altogether spent more than $200 million lobbying Congress in 2011, including $12 million spent by Pfizer. At least 12 pharmaceutical and medical device companies are lobbying specifically against a House bill, HR 675, that complements Grassley's.

None of the pharmaceutical companies —Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer or Bristol-Myers Squibb— contacted by USA TODAY responded to questions about their response to the government's proposed enforcement actions.

The industry's trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, says excluding an individual should occur only when there is "significant wrongdoing" that the individual knew about and did nothing to stop, said Matthew Bennett, the group's senior vice president.

Wisconsin Bill Claims Single Moms Cause Child Abuse by Not Being Married

Yahoo posted this, and while reading this over my morning cup of coffee it made me really mad.

Wisconsin Bill Claims Single Moms Cause Child Abuse by Not Being Married
By Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine | Parenting – Fri, Mar 2, 2012 8:12 PM EST


In Wisconsin, a state senator has introduced a bill aimed at penalizing single mothers by calling their unmarried status a contributing factor inchild abuse and neglect. 

Senate Bill 507, introduced by Republican Senator Glenn Grothman, moves to amend existing state law by "requiring the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board to emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect." 

The bill would require educational and public awareness campaigns held by the board to emphasize that not being married is abusive and neglectful of children, and to underscore "the role of fathers in the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect." 

Saying that people "make fun of old-fashioned families," Grothman -- who has never been married and has no children -- criticized social workers for not agreeing that children should only be raised by two married biological parents, and told a state Senate committee that he hopes the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention board, of which he's a member, could "publicize something that's politically incorrect but has to be said in our society." 

"Whether that leads to more people paying attention and having children after they're married or whether that leads to some others making a choice for adoptions," he said. 

A third of all parents in Wisconsin are single. Given that single mothers far outnumber single fathers in the state and in the rest of the country, and given the emphasis on fathers being part of the solution rather than part of the problem, many people feel that the bill is tantamount to an attack on single moms. 

At Tuesday's meeting of the state Senate Committee on Public Health, Human Services, and Revenue, lawmakers and members of the public spoke out against the proposal. 

"This bill is going to do nothing to help children avoid abuse. It's going to do nothing to help families,"Democratic state Representative Chris Taylor said at the meeting. "What this bill does is call out and chastise women who have babies who are unmarried." 

Grothman has advanced and supported other policies "that make it harder to access prevention-based health services so that they can prevent pregnancy, so that they're not in a situations here they have an unintended or unwanted pregnancy," Taylor added. 

Grothman is also the sponsor of Wisconsin State Bill 202, which would repeal the state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act. Last year he claimed in an essay that the "Left and the social welfare establishment want children born out of wedlock because they are far more likely to be dependent on the government." 

In "How The United States and The State of Wisconsin Are Working to Encourage Single Motherhood and Discouraging Children in 2-Parent Families," he wrote that the government urges women not to get married by making programs like low-income housing assistance, school choice, WIC, tax credits, and food stamps more attractive than marriage. 

His solution? Restrict the types of foods that can be purchased with food stamps, make Section 8 housing more cramped and limit the value of assets owned living there to $2,000, and eliminate school choice, among other things. "It is inexcusable that a single mother making $15,000 gets her kid out of the Milwaukee Public Schools but a married couple earning $50,000 is stuck in the public schools," he wrote. "It is also somewhat outrageous that some married couples feel they can only afford one or two children in part because they are paying excessive taxes to provide programs for someone else to have four or five children. 

Edward Kuharski of Madison, Wisconsin, spoke out against the bill, calling it "off target." 

"I don't understand a bill that's just about stating an opinion," he said, "and that appears to be the entire purpose of this bill, simply to assert an opinion and impose it upon an expert body that knows perfectly well how to do its business." 

"Senator Grothman has no experience in parenting," Kuharski pointed out. "The contribution of institutional increase in neglect and abuse of children … has nothing to do with what you learned in Sunday school. Nothing. Before you put a larger target on the back of the people that you have attacked through many other bills, stop and take some responsibility for it." 

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/wisconsin-bill-claims-single-moms-cause-child-abuse-011200419.html




My, Malissa Donaldson's,  opinion on this is::Shame on you!!! How dare you accuse single parenthood of being abusive, when it is normally those delinquent fathers who make it so a mother has to raise her children alone!!!! Allow the schools to teach teens about safe sex or abstinence, but don't blame all single mothers for the stupidity of some! Politicians want to say it is immoral to have children out of wedlock, but how many politicians have children from their mistresses...doesn't that make the mother a single parent? Give me a break, and stop wasting so many people's time and the tax payers money on the office sessions. Jeesh, act like men and be a father instead of having to make laws against women who do what they need to do when faced with trials and tribulations that arise from stupidity!

My House Rabbit

http://www.myhouserabbit.com/

I have been looking for a new pet for my children, and thought to give it to them for Easter.  We have had our share of animals, so was looking for something new...not to mention my daughter has been asking for one of these for two years now.  I have decided on getting my children a rabbit.  

I was looking at some info sites to get all I needed to know to have one of these creatures in our home, and found My House Rabbit.  I thought that it was an interesting site, and wanted to share with everyone who will read this.  

If you need any info on rabbits in your home, this will help give you an understanding of them.

Enjoy!