All About Green

Everyday lately, I’ve thought about the color green. 

I don’t know why. I think the reason is that winter is fast approaching, and we will see no more green in our neighborhood until next spring. The homes on our street are made of brick. None are trimmed with green. There are no evergreens on the lawns. No neighbor drives a green vehicle. Soon the Blue Northers will sail down across the Red River and freeze all the leaves, grass, flowers and shrubs to an ugly, drab brown. Then I’ll miss green.

Green is the fourth color in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, GREEN, blue, violet. Why is it more talked about than the other colors?

The Metroplex phone directories list hundreds of Greens – and a few Greenes. Yet there has never been a President Green in the White House.

Do you wear green jeans? Why do some kids dye their hair green? Why does Santa wear red instead of green? Do you eat green eggs and ham?

Green trees fight pollution. Green veggies are good for you.

Green features prominently in our descriptive vocabulary: green eyed monster, green with envy, greenhorn, greenbacks, green beans, green lights, Green Bay, Green River, Green Mountains, greenhouse, green pepper, green apples, green grapes, green hills.

We have green alligators, green snakes, green grasshoppers and green lizards, but no animal with green fur. I have a bright red dress and a pair of red shoes.

I think I’ll put them on and try to overcome this green mindset.

GEDs Online

“Here’s your test. You passed. You failed. You’re on your own.”

That was the attitude of the old GED Testing Service. Now there is a whole program developed around the test takers.

In late November the My GED web portal will be available for people to take an updated, computerized GED test aligned with more rigorous academic standards that start in 2014.

The overhaul to the 70-year old test is an attempt to meet the call for more skilled workers. In our nation where about two-thirds of all jobs require more than a high school education, 39 million adults did not finish high school. These drops outs need a second chance.

The non-profit American Council on Education, which administered the old test, partnered with Pearson, the world’s largest education and testing company, to finance and engineer what has become a $30 million, three-year endeavor to overhaul the exam.

If you need a GED, stop delaying. Get it online in November.

Choose Happiness

It’s official – lots of folks in Texas are unhappy. Who knew?

The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network has just published the 2013 World Happiness Report. Researchers analyzed data on happiness from people living in more than 150 countries. (Nobody asked me. Did they ask you?)

The five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The United States ranked as No. 17. If more Texans were happy, the ranking might have improved. We are slightly happier than Ireland (No. 18) and a little less happy than Mexico (No. 16).

Apparently a lot of people never got the word that happiness is a state of mind – not a condition.
The happiest person I know is a 92 year-old widow, totally blind, living in a nursing home. She also lives with a multitude of ailments and pain. She never had siblings or children. A retired school teacher, she tells me her students were her children. On one of my regular visits, I asked her why she is always smiling and cheerful.

“It’s a choice I make,” she said. “Every morning when I wake up, I choose to be happy. Then I count my blessings. My neat, comfortable room is arranged so that I know exactly where everything is. And I love my window. I can’t see anything out of it, but I feel the glass panes – warm in summer and cold in winter, and I imagine the view. I hear birds singing and children playing in the near-by park. I’m served good food daily and my medications are furnished on time.

“Can you imagine the kindness shown in assigning a blind person a room with a window? Of course I’m happy!”

Yes, some people in Texas are unhappy – but not all.

Space City, Texas

Unless you have a compelling reason, such as to watch an Astro game or accept a lucrative job offer, don’t go to H-Town (Houston). 

I just returned from a four-day visit to Houston for another compelling reason: to visit grandchildren. On the road home, I stopped the car, got out and hugged the Weatherford city limit sign. Then thanked God for my safe delivery.

Founded in 1836 and named after Old Sam, President of the Republic of Texas, Houston has the world’s largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions. A global city, it has a broad base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics and transportation.

It is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the USA. The 2010 Census reported a population of over 2.1 million. Every one of those people timed their trips out and about on the streets and highways to coincide with mine.

If you crave daring and danger, just play Russian roulette – it’s safer than driving in Houston.

Freshly Minted

Have you visited the Bureau of Engraving and Printing facility in Fort Worth? You can go there and watch people make money.

Currently they are printing new $100 bills for prompt circulation. The C-Note has undergone a major makeover that includes a color-changing ink well, a 3-D security ribbon and more texture on Ben Franklin’s collar. I’m told it is a work of art.

At the Fort Worth Bureau of E&P, 32-bill sheets of money paper are printed, stamped with individual serial numbers and sliced into individual notes. The notes are sorted into piles 100 deep, banded together and eventually stacked into 4,000-note bricks worth $400,000. Those bricks will be shipped to Federal Reserve banks for distribution. Soon the bills will be in the hands of John Q. Public.

I must schedule a tour ASAP. It’s the only way I’ll ever see thirty-two $100 bills.

Fact or Fiction?

Publishers producing high school biology text books to be used in classrooms across Texas have been pressured to water down lessons on evolution and climate change.

The State Board of Education has considered new science books that could be used in Texas public schools for ten years. But board members rely on citizen review committees that can raise objections before the approval process begins.

Some reviewers had objections that were ideological in nature. One reviewer said, “As an educator, parent and grand-parent, I firmly feel that “creation science” based on Biblical principles should be incorporated in every Biology book being considered.” Others questioned if global warming is based on scientific fact.

Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit agency that monitors the State Board of Education said, “What our kids learn in public schools should be based on mainstream, established science, not the personal views of ideologues, especially those who are grossly unqualified to evaluate a Biology textbook in the first place.” Watch out, Kathy, in Texas “ideologues” and “unqualified” are fightin’ words.

Texas has more than 1,000 school districts so publishers often make suggested changes in textbooks. These changes sometimes affect classroom materials sold in other states.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature approved a law that allows school districts to purchase any instructional materials they choose. Many districts, however, won’t consider materials not approved by the board for fear they may not meet state curriculum standards.

Miller commented, “Once again, culture warriors on the state board are putting Texas at risk of becoming a national laughingstock on science education.”

That’s strong words from a person of authority. Are they fact or fiction?

Student Loans……continued again

Student loan debt has reached all-time highs. More than $105 billion in federal loans were extended in the last fiscal year and more than $1 trillion in loans are outstanding.

Some colleges are recording student loan default rates as high as 22.9 percent. If more than 30 percent of an institution’s loans default in one year, the school is put under review by the federal Department of Education. If the problem isn’t fixed in three years, the school can lose Title IV funding.

Educational institutions, concerned about their continued eligibility for federal aid, are acting aggressively to see that students graduate in a timely manner and meet the terms of their loan repayment plans.

America’s student-loan crisis can’t be fixed simply by focusing on borrowers. Colleges must also focus on borrower education.

1. Some schools offer courses that include in-person counseling and instruction in financial literacy.
2. Some are enlisting faculty to help them determine which students may need assistance with their loans.
3. Some are offering career services that help alums advance within their chosen fields.
4. Some students may benefit from alternative payment plans such as “Pay as you Earn.”

To student loan recipients:
Your debt is a moral, as well as financial, obligation. Please pursue every possible avenue of repayment. Get those loans repaid.

Menopause The Musical

Does the crazy weather stress you out? Are you worried about Obamacare? Or the high cost of groceries? Then go to a stage near you and see this delightful production.

Last Friday evening 24 Methodist ladies (and 2 brave gentlemen) boarded church buses and headed for the city. We all needed a night of fine dining (Furr’s Cafeteria) and Broadway entertainment (Bass Performance Hall). And we got more than we bargained for.

First we dined with the entire football team from Abilene Christian University on their way to a game on Saturday. About 100 clean, well-dressed, friendly and polite (and HUGE) young men filled the room with testosterone.

Next we entered an auditorium ruled by estrogen and the hilarity began. From the opening number of “Change, Change, Change” on to “I’m Having a Hot Flash” to a rousing finale celebrating women and their ability to overcome anything, we were entertained beyond expectation. My sides still ache from laughing.

Set on various floors of Bloomingdale’s, four extremely talented and perfectly cast women swept us along with no intermission through their deepest anxieties and frustrations, which just happened to be our own.

This highly personal and often taboo subject was explored without vulgarity or coarseness, but with acceptance, humor and the attitude of “It is what it is! Deal with it.”