Growing up, I ate meat at every meal. We ate ribeye steak at least once a week. I never considered becoming a vegetarian because that was something that only hippies would do.
But fast forward to a world that is in ecological decline — and surprisingly, making the change from a hardcore carnivore to a vegetarian/pescatarian/vegan was easy to do.
Here are some things to think about:
– Americans eat about 225 lbs of red meat and chicken per year
– Raising livestock causes deforestation, which accelerates climate change
– Raising pigs in high-rise buildings, then spraying fecal waste in the air causes human health problems
– Growing feed for livestock consumes 36% of farmland
– 96% of mammals in the world are livestock and pigs; only 4% are wild
– 70% of birds are farmed poultry; only 30% are wild birds
– It takes 600 gallons of water to produce just one pound of hamburger
– Our water supplies are contaminated with livestock waste
If we reduce our meat intake by 90% — Yup! – we could eliminate world hunger AND stave off climate change destruction. Eating vegetarian or pescatarian can also improve your health – it has turned my health around 180 degrees!
Growing up, I ate meat at every meal. We ate ribeye steak at least once a week. I never considered becoming a vegetarian because that was something that only hippies would do.
But fast forward to a world that is in ecological decline — and surprisingly, making the change from a hardcore carnivore to a vegetarian/pescatarian/vegan was easy to do.
Here are some things to think about:
– Americans eat about 225 lbs of red meat and chicken per year
– Raising livestock causes deforestation, which accelerates climate change
– Raising pigs in high-rise buildings, then spraying fecal waste in the air causes human health problems
– Growing feed for livestock consumes 36% of farmland
– 96% of mammals in the world are livestock and pigs; only 4% are wild
– 70% of birds are farmed poultry; only 30% are wild birds
– It takes 600 gallons of water to produce just one pound of hamburger
– Our water supplies are contaminated with livestock waste
If we reduce our meat intake by 90% — Yup! – we could eliminate world hunger AND stave off climate change destruction. Eating vegetarian or pescatarian can also improve your health – it has turned my health around 180 degrees!
Did you know that 400 American families have more wealth than 80 million American families? Yup. Think about that for a minute.
FACTS:
* Top 1% = 40% of the wealth in America!
* Top 5% = 74% of the wealth in America!
* 18% increase in CEO pay in 2017!
* Average CEO pay is $19,000,000 (MILLION) per year!
Don’t be fooled. Free market and “smaller government” is NOT going to fix this!
VOTE for change in the November election – and get your friends and neighbors to join you!
As if we needed something else to worry about… If you haven’t heard of the Momo Challenge – and you have children – you need to check this out. This is an internet game that allegedly lures kids to complete escalating tasks that are dangerous and involve self-harm. The final challenge in this game is suicide. By blackmailing the kids to do these tasks, Momo gets kids to do things that they normally wouldn’t do. Kids can download the WhatsApp game on their smart phones. “Momo” is a terrifying image of a girl with bulging eyes. So far, there are at least 3 teen suicides cases that may be linked to this Momo Challenge.
Although the authorities have not determined whether or not the Momo Challenge is real or not, parents need to understand how these challenges work so they can monitor their children’s activities. A few years ago, a Russian “Blue Whale Challenge” asked players to do 50 daily challenges – many involved self-mutilation – and ended with suicide. At least 130 people died as a result of this game.
Tweens between 12 to 14 years old are the most vulnerable to these terrifying games. Check the games your children play on their phones and computers. This game appears to have started as a Facebook group, and WhatsApp has over a billion users. We need to protect our kids from sick people who threaten, blackmail, and cyberbully our youth.
[Source 1]
[Source 2]
One of my students wrote this on a college application essay. Imagine writing “I’d’ve come over if you asked.” (I’d’ve = I would have).
Seems like the English language has become so informal that rules for punctuation and contractions are arbitrary.
Believe it or not, it’s actually in the dictionary and everywhere online.
Check this out:
Definition of ‘I’d’ve’
English: I’d’ve
I’d’ve in British
(ˈaɪdəv)
contraction of
informal
I would have
I can’t understand why I’d’ve bothered to do that.
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
I refuse to use “I’d’ve” and encourage all of my college-bound students to refrain from using it in their college application essays. Yikes!
Another way social media is destroying our kids’ self esteem.
My students suffer from depression and feelings of isolation more than ever. I have the unique opportunity to talk and engage with students one-on-one as we discuss all things that lead to college admissions. Over the years, I have seen what used to be optimistic and hopeful teens become insecure and depressed. They spend more time alone – thanks to social media – and they feel left out. Now, “Snapchat Dysmorphia” is causing teens to seek plastic surgery to physically change their facial features so they look like they have larger “adorable” eyes with “perfect” flawless skin.
If you haven’t seen images that have been altered with cute filters, check them out here. On the surface, these filters can be entertaining as you see yourself and your friends with whiskers, bunny ears, and those adorable Anime-style eyes. Unfortunately, this can have very negative effects on teens who are naturally insecure about their acne, length of eyelashes, and other features.
When our children feel left out or face cyberbullying every day, do we want them to also hate the way that they look? Everyone can find their own personal imperfections. Seems to me that kids need to hear from parents and others that Snapchat and Facetune can be entertaining – kinda like how we laugh at our distorted images in fun house mirrors – but that looking like that for real is neither realistic nor practical.
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Glad to see higher education institutions offering free tuition to all of their students, regardless of their ability to pay. New York University just announced that all current and future medical students will receive a full ride. Woo hoo!
Most medical students graduate with about $180,000 in medical school debt, which means they’re paying around $1500-$2000 per month in student loans. When student loans are this high, many doctors choose more lucrative specialties, creating a shortage in lower-paying fields like primary care and pediatrics.
I hope to see more colleges offer free tuition to all of their students. Education benefits everyone. By making it more affordable, America will continue to be one of the few places on earth where anyone can become a professional and enjoy a successful career.
After Harvard and Yale announced that they were dropping the writing requirement for both SATs and ACTs, Stanford and Princeton followed suit. Now only 23 colleges in the US require the writing portion of these exams for admission. Good news for students!
Many colleges are now requiring students to submit graded writing samples – an essay that they turned in for English or history assignments with comments and grades from their teachers. Others state that they “strongly recommend” submitting the writing scores, even if they are not “required.”
While critics claim that the writing test doesn’t judge whether a student will be able to write college-level essays, I think that there should be some sort of evaluation to determine if a student can write well enough to succeed in college. We all know that the essays students write for their college applications are heavily edited by teachers, tutors, and parents. Students who submit graded essays may be tempted to use friends’ essays and teachers may receive requests from students to “grade” essays that they’ve written (and received a lot of help on) specifically for college applications. My concern is that taken out of a proctored testing environment, colleges will have to wade through a sea of papers to determine which essays were truly written by the student.
Put aside the Suburban Legends (tips from parents in the parking lot) about how not applying Early Decision ruins your chances of getting into your #1 college. Colleges feed this frenzy and parents just lap up the fear and hysteria. Choose just one college to apply Early Decision (binding), a few more for Early Action (non-binding), and the rest Regular.
Senior year for most students is a time of discovery. They’re still young – just 17 years old – and they’re exploring career options and colleges. Forcing them to make a decision on which colleges to apply Early Decision as early as September of their senior year is ridiculous. It would be better if the seniors could choose to make these decisions in April or May of their senior year when they’re much more mature and ready to make these huge decisions but it’s not convenient to the colleges.
When you choose to apply Early Decision, colleges have little incentive to offer generous scholarship packages because you’ve already paid your deposit and you’re committed for 4 years. The Early Decision option benefits the colleges as it improves their rankings and gets them off the hook for scholarship dollars.
With the high cost of a bachelor’s degree and the competitive market to get in to top colleges, students and families need to consider other careers. Not every student has the aptitude to become doctors, engineers, or lawyers. When students often end up back at home after enjoying 4 years of an elite undergraduate education, many parents regret spending their retirement savings on an education that doesn’t land their children high-paying jobs. The good news is that Trump just signed an update to the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which will give states more authority to determine how the $1.2 billion federal grant program will spend their funds.
Surprisingly, both Democrats and Republicans supported this legislation. I think everyone sees that today’s job market is changing and we need to give our students training skills to be competitive in this growing economy. The goal is to provide technical training for high school and college students to rebuild the middle class while focusing on the needs of both small and large employers in America. Let’s hope that these programs really do consider demographics and industry trends as they develop career training programs for our students.
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Feeling insecure about applying to a UC because you don’t have a perfect GPA or SAT/ACT scores?
Applying to UCs during your senior year of high school – along with 100,000 other students – can be daunting.
Consider transferring from a community college with a Transfer Agreement Guarantee (TAG). Yup!
This is much easier, less expensive, and it’s guaranteed!
Here’s how to do it:
- Enroll as a full-time student in a California community college after high school.
- Complete 30 UC-transferable units (2 semesters) to apply for TAG (by Sep 30th of your sophomore year)
- English and Math courses (needs to be completed by end of spring semester freshman year)
- Can apply to only 1 UC for TAG
- UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz
- No Ds, Fs, or No Passes (okay if the course was repeated and received a C- or better)
- No more than 2 withdrawals in major preparation courses
- By spring semester of sophomore year, on more than 1 unrepeated grade with a D, F, or No Pass
- UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz