Archive | 2013

The 08/07/13 Joy Jar

7 Aug

The summer has returned to Seattle and it is wonderful. When it is warm outside, nothing refreshes so much as a nice hot shower. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a hot shower.

“I only sing in the shower. I would join a choir, but I don’t think my bathtub can hold that many people.
”
Jarod Kintz, Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change by Deciding to Let Indecision Into Your Life

“Every one who has taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it that makes a difference.”
― Nolan Bushnell

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.
Marcelene Cox

My schedule goes: wake up, running, exercise, downstairs, running shoes off, then to the shower. That’s the Jackie Chan diary.
Jackie Chan

Sentences or solutions occur to me in the shower, or while running on the treadmill, or riding on the subway.
Karen Thompson Walker

“One can talk good and shower down roses, but it’s the receiver that has to walk through the thorns, and all its false expectations.”
― Anthony Liccione

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The 08/06/13 Joy Jar

6 Aug

Moi takes public transportation all over Seattle. She thinks, watches people and sometimes writes. Public transportation is really an exercise in being ‘present in the moment’ no matter what is going on around one. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is being ‘present in the moment.’

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Buddha

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
Tennessee Williams

The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself.
Emmet Fox

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
Thich Nhat Hanh

God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Evelyn Underhill

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Abraham Maslow

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The 08/05/13 Joy Jar

6 Aug

Summer has returned to Seattle and moi had sparkling lemonade. That got moi thinking about why some folk just seem to make an impression. There is that ‘X’ factor called personality. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a wonderful personality, which moi is working on.

It’s beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.
Oscar Wilde

Everything we know by heart enriches us and helps us find ourselves. If it should get in the way of finding ourselves, it is because we have no personality.
Nadia Boulanger

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

An individual’s self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.
Dr. Joyce Brothers

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein

A person however learned and qualified in his life’s work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant.
Hazarat Inayat Khan

Let your personality, and sense of humor shine through, that’s whats makes you, you. Even God had a sense of humor. Just take a look around you…
Nishan Panwar

Attractiveness and magnetism of man’s personality is the result of his inner radiance.
Yagur Veda

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Study: 1 in 3 teens are victims of dating violence

5 Aug

Many adults would be shocked by this report from the Chicago Tribune that many teens find dating violence normal

Ed Loos, a junior at Lake Forest High School, said a common reaction among students to Chris Brown‘s alleged attack on Rihanna goes something like this: “Ha! She probably did something to provoke it.” In Chicago, Sullivan High School sophomore Adeola Matanmi has heard the same. “People said, ‘I would have punched her around too,’ ” Matanmi said. “And these were girls!” As allegations of battery swirl around the famous couple, experts on domestic violence say the response from teenagers just a few years younger shows the desperate need to educate this age group about dating violence. Their acceptance, or even approval, of abuse in romantic relationships is not a universal reaction. But it comes at a time when 1 in 10 teenagers has suffered such abuse and females ages 16 to 24 experience the highest rates of any age group, research shows.

The teens interviewed by the Chicago Tribune placed little worth on their lives or the lives of other women. If you don’t as the old ad tag line would say “don’t think you are worth it” why would anyone else think you are worthy of decent treatment?

Science Daily reported in the article, One in Three U. S. Youths Report Being Victims of Dating Violence:

About one in three American youths age 14-20 say they’ve been of victims of dating violence and almost one in three acknowledge they’ve committed violence toward a date, according to new research presented at the American Psychological Association’s 121st Annual Convention.
“Adolescent dating violence is common among young people. It also overlaps between victimization and perpetration and appears across different forms of dating abuse,” according to Michele Ybarra, MPH, PhD. She is with the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, based in San Clemente, Calif.
Researchers analyzed information collected in 2011 and 2012 from 1,058 youths in the Growing Up with Media study, a national online survey funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study defines teen dating violence as physical, sexual or psychological/emotional violence within a dating relationship.
Girls were almost equally likely to be a perpetrator as a victim of violence: 41 percent reported victimization and 35 percent reported perpetration at some point in their lives. Among boys, 37 percent said they had been on the receiving end, while 29 percent reported being the perpetrator, Ybarra said. Twenty-nine percent of the girls and 24 percent of the boys reported being both a victim and perpetrator in either the same or in different relationships.
Girls were significantly more likely than boys to say they had been victims of sexual dating violence and that they had committed physical dating violence. Boys were much more likely than girls to report that they had been sexually violent toward a date. Experiencing psychological dating violence was about equal for boys and girls. Rates generally increased with age but were similar across race, ethnicity and income levels, according to Ybarra.
The relationship between bullying and teen dating violence was the focus of a separate presentation by Sabina Low, PhD, of Arizona State University, and Dorothy L. Espelage, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Low and Espelage detailed findings from a five-year study funded by the CDC and National Institute of Justice involving 625 American youths who completed surveys six times from middle school through high school.
“Both boys and girls who engaged in high rates of bullying toward other students at the start of the study were seven times more likely to report being physically violent in dating relationships four years later,” said Espelage, principal investigator on the project. “These findings indicate that bully prevention needs to start early in order to to prevent the transmission of violence in dating relationships….”

Citation:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Psychological Association (APA).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
________________________________________
American Psychological Association (APA) (2013, July 31). One in three U. S. youths report being victims of dating violence. Science Daily. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2013/07/130731152208.htm#.UfoIaj10JQg.email
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130731152208.htm#.UfoIaj10JQg.email

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation issued a press release about a study of teen dating violence. Here is a portion:

A new study of 1,430 7th-grade students released today reveals that many 7th-graders are dating and experiencing physical, psychological and electronic dating violence. More than one in three (37%) students surveyed report being a victim of psychological dating violence and nearly one in six (15%) report being a victim of physical dating violence. The study also found that while some attitudes and behaviors associated with increased risk for teen dating violence are pervasive, nearly three-quarters of students surveyed report talking to their parents about dating and teen dating violence. Parent-child communication is considered a protective factor that reduces the risk for teen dating violence.
The study was conducted by RTI International (RTI) on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation as part of an independent evaluation of their Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships (Start Strong) initiative. The data released today is the baseline for this larger evaluation to assess the overall impact of the program. Start Strong is one of the largest initiatives ever funded that targets 11- to 14-year-olds to promote healthy relationships in order to prevent teen dating violence and abuse.
The Start Strong evaluation is one of the few studies, and one of the largest, to look in-depth at the dating relationships of middle school students. Although it is not nationally representative, the study sample included 1,430 7th-grade students from diverse geographical locations. The study collected data on teen dating violence behaviors, as well as risk and protective factors linked to dating violence, such as gender stereotypes, sexual harassment, the acceptance of teen dating violence and parent-child communication.
“There is limited information on 7th-graders and these data provide important insights into teen dating violence behaviors and risk factors among middle school students,” said Shari Miller, Ph.D., lead researcher from RTI. “From this study, we are learning that many 7th-graders are already dating and teen dating violence is not happening behind closed doors with so many students in this study witnessing dating violence among their peers. While we need to do much more to understand this young age group, our data point to the need for teen dating violence prevention programs in middle school.”
Among the key findings:
o 75% of students surveyed report ever having a boyfriend or girlfriend.
o More than 1 in 3 (37%) students surveyed report being a victim of psychological dating violence in the last 6 months.
o Nearly 1 in 6 (15%) students surveyed report being a victim of physical dating violence in the last 6 months.
o Nearly 1 in 3 (31%) students surveyed report being a victim of electronic dating aggression in the last 6 months.
o More than 1 in 3 (37%) of students surveyed report having witnessed boys or girls being physically violent to persons they were dating in the last 6 months.
o Nearly 2 out of 3 students surveyed (63%) strongly agree with a harmful gender stereotype, such as “girls are always trying to get boys to do what they want them to do,” or “with boyfriends and girlfriends, the boy should be smarter than the girl.”
o Nearly half of students surveyed (49%) report having been a victim of sexual harassment in the past 6 months, such as being “touched, grabbed, or pinched in a sexual way,” or that someone ”made sexual jokes” about them.
o Nearly three-quarters of 7th-grade students surveyed report that, in the last 6 months, they “sometimes or often” talk with their parents about dating topics such as, “how to tell if someone might like you as a boyfriend or girlfriend.”
Prevention in Middle School Matters
“Dating violence is a pressing public health challenge and these new data are important and powerful. We know that middle school provides this critical window of opportunity to teach young adolescents about healthy relationships and prevent teen dating violence,” said James Marks, M.D., M.P.H., senior vice president and director, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Group. “Through Start Strong, we are identifying and spreading effective ways for parents, teachers and communities to help young people develop healthy relationships throughout their life.”
The Start Strong program utilizes a multi-faceted approach to rally entire communities to promote healthy relationship behaviors among middle school students. The Start Strong model utilizes innovative program components to: i) educate and engage youth in schools and out of school settings; ii) educate and engage teen influencers, such as parents, older teens, teachers and other mentors; iii) change policy and environmental factors in schools and communities; and iv) implement effective communications/ social marketing strategies to change social norms. “By combining the findings of this new study with the lessons learned in Start Strong communities, we are developing the essential tools needed to promote healthier relationships for young people,” said Peter Long, Ph.D., president and CEO of Blue Shield of California Foundation.
Parent engagement is a key component of Start Strong. As the study shows, many 7th-graders are talking to their parents about dating topics, including teen dating violence. This highlights the important role parents can play in prevention efforts. Start Strong educates parents of middle school students about these issues so they can help their children navigate new relationships (both online and offline), including teaching parents the warning signs of abuse and how to start conversations about healthy relationships at an early age.
For more information and the full study, visit: http://www.rwjf.org/goto/middleschoolmatters

http://www.rwjf.org/vulnerablepopulations/product.jsp?id=74138

See, Teen Dating Violence: One In Six U.S. Students Age 12 Are Victimized, SurveyShows http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/one-in-six-us-students-_n_1389326.html?ref=email_share
Advice to Teens in Abusive Relationships

Terry Miller Shannon gives teens advice about avoiding abusive relationships She advises teens to watch for the following danger signs:

1. Sweeping you off your feet and declaring love immediately. This is the number one sign of a potentially battering relationship.
2. Jealousy: Not wanting you to have other friends. Thinking everyone around WANTS you. Expecting you to spend every second with him. Sorry, extreme jealousy isn’t a compliment – it’s a problem.
3. Controlling behavior: Keeping track of whom you’re with and where you are. Telling you what to wear. Picking your friends. Keeping you from getting a job. Taking your money. Threatening to commit suicide, to spread gossip about you, or out you if you’re part of a same-sex couple (gay and lesbian dating violence is under-reported due to pressures not to go public).
4. Violence (physical, mental, or sexual): Punching the wall. Yelling. Insults. Name-calling. Isolating you from family or friends. Slamming the door. Insisting on any kind of unwanted sexual activity. Throwing things. Pinching, pushing, spanking…enough said?
Bottom line: If you’re uncomfortable with your relationship, something’s wrong. Mind your instincts. Be realistic – don’t expect your mate to change. Don’t believe him when he tells you the way he acts is your fault.
See, Five Things Parents Must Know about teen domestic violence. http://teenhealth.about.com/od/relationships/tp/teenDVhub.htm

Popular culture makes teens who are not involved in activities as “couples” seem like outcasts. Too often, teens pair up before they are mature enough and ready for the emotional commitment. The more activities the girl is involved in and the more sponsored group activities, where teens don’t necessarily have to be in dating relationships, lessen the dependence on an abusive relationship.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:
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The 08/04/13 Joy Jar

4 Aug

Moi’s computer is dying and it is an XP machine and Microsoft will no longer be supporting XP. Moi would love to call the softies a group of money-grubbing weasels because she and countless others love our XP. So moi is on the hunt for a new computer and has started researching systems and brands. She hopes to have her new machine by September 1. Still, moi loved XP, the operating system for techno-idiots. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is embracing change even if it was forced upon you by money-grubbing weasels.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
Anatole France

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
Lao Tzu

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Wayne Dyer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr

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The 08/03/13 Joy Jar

4 Aug

Seattle has a light rail train which goes to Seatac Airport. Eventually, it will go all the way to Everett. Right now it winds its way through South Seattle which is where one sees people of color from all over the globe. Along the tracks are those businesses being shepherded by immigrants who work hard and still believe that America is a land of opportunity. These businesses are sprouting like flowers growing up through concrete. The train ride allows one to collect their thoughts. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is any train ride.

“My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing,
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetry

“I can remember the first time I saw a train whistle, I thought, “Boy, those are some big lips.”
― Jarod Kintz, There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can’t

“It’s my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they’re going. For them it’s the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.”
― David Baldacci, The Christmas Train

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Morihei Ueshiba

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.
Corrie Ten Boom

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The 08/02/13 Joy Jar

4 Aug

Moi is organizing her life, diet, and living space to increase her energy level. There are many things that moi hopes to accomplish over the next few months and she will need a high level of energy. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is increased energy.

We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power and strength.
Charles Stanley

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Benjamin Franklin

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
Aristotle

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.
Napoleon Hill

It takes a lot of energy to be negative. You have to work at it. But smiling is painless. I’d rather spend my energy smiling.
Eric Davis

The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.
Norman Vincent Peale

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.
Sloan Wilson

Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.
Margaret J. Wheatley

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The 08/01/13 Joy Jar

1 Aug

Moi is totally reorganizing her writing space so that she can be more productive. Moi loves to read, write, and think. There is a peace in being able to think on one’s own schedule. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar is a comfortable writing space.

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
Hans Margolius

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.
Marya Mannes

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where I renew my springs that never dry up.
Pearl Buck

What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it – like a secret vice.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
Voltaire

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.  William Penn

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.
Harold Bloom

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
Jack Kerouac

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Marcus Aurelius

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau

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The 07/31/13 Joy Jar

31 Jul

As moi walked this evening, she looked up at the night sky and wondered at the various shades of the midnight blue hue and the dark outlines of clouds. There was just enough night light to highlight the beauty of the night sky. Tonight’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a beautiful night sky.

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays

“Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.”
Ptolemy

“Some praise the Lord for Light,
The living spark;
I thank God for the Night
The healing dark.”
Robert W. Service

“Night is a world lit by itself.”
Antonio Porchia; Translator W.S. Merwin, Voices

“The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.”
Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

Night time is really the best time to work.  All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.  Catherine O’Hara

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.
N.P. Willis

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
Vincent Van Gogh

“Without the dark, we’d never see the stars. There also would be no use for the moon if there was never a night.” Tessa Emily Hall, Purple Moon

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The 07/30/13 Joy Jar

30 Jul

Moi is a proud OLD FART and she unapologetic about NOT politically correct. So, today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is glorying in NOT being politically correct.

I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.
Hal Holbrook

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.
Jacques Barzun

Transcend political correctness and strive for human righteousness.
Anthony J. D’Angelo

I detest politics, to be honest with you. It’s a cesspool. And I don’t think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don’t believe in political correctness and I certainly don’t believe in dishonesty.
Benjamin Carson

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.
P. D. James

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.
Gary Oldman

While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing and teach it equally well. This is one of the many delusions borne of political correctness.
Sam Harris

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
Gore Vidal

“The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one’s peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.”
Lynne Truss, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.
Clint Eastwood

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