Creative Ways to Save Local Governments Money

How have city, township and county budget cuts affected you? Locally and across the county, budget cuts have been made in places that effect us the most; police departments, fire departments and road departments.


Fire and police departments are cutting their staffs. Road departments are plowing our roads less often and salting them even less. And while I understand local governments need funds and that, at the same time, they cannot hike property and income taxes on people who can barely afford to pay now, something must be done. You can't sacrifice your citizen's well being to save a few pennies.

Here are three creative ideas:

Turn off the lights -- If an office has a lot of natural light, you don't need the lights on during the day. Shut them off. They'll save a ton on electric bills if you think of how many government buildings are in operation.

Close down one day out of the week -- Some communities already are doing this, making their employees work four ten hour days. Not only do you save money by keeping the offices closed one day, but you make it more convenient for citizens who otherwise would have to take time off work to go get licenses, file documents, ect.

Seek corporate sponsorship -- If it's good enough for major league sports, it's good enough locally. What better way to fund parks and sports programs than with corporate donations.

Where Were You 25 Years Ago Today?

Where were you on Jan. 28, 1986? I remember where I was that day. I even remember what I was wearing. January 28, 1986, is the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded.


According to the Associated Press, "It was the world's first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live TV. Adding to the anguish was the young audience: Schoolchildren everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe."

I was one of those schoolchildren. I can't remember what happened earlier in that day or even what was said after the explosion happened, but I remember how the classroom was arranged and where the TV was and how my teacher was sitting near me. And I remember the precise moment the tragedy occurred.

When Challenger exploded, spaceflight was thought of as a commonplace thing. NASA didn't believe anything could go wrong, yet it did. And in 2003, it went wrong again when space shuttle Columbia met a similar fate.

And now we have an end of an era. The entire space shuttle program is about to be grounded for good, set to be replaced with something else.

As we stop to remember to those who died in the Challenger explosion, let's not forget that space flight is inherently dangerous. There will death and there will be challenges, but there will always be those who are brave enough and adventurous enough to take up the challenge to pursue on. That's what pioneers do. That's what every explorer in human history has done. They are true heroes.

Read the AP story.

Do You Believe in Miracles?

Some people believe in miracles. You can be sure the mother of Nejdra Nance does. That's because Nance was kidnapped from a New York City hospital in 1987. Nance was a newborn at the time.


Nance began to suspect that the people raising her were not her birth family, so she contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after she found a photo of herself on their website. Or at least she believe it was herself. The Center was able to connect Nance with Joy White, her birth mother.

DNA test later proved Nance and White are mother and daughter. Last week, they were reunited.

No arrests have been made in this case.

Read the whole story.

Things Babies Born in 2011 Won't Know

Stacy Johnson on Money Talks News created a list a few weeks back of 30 things babies born in 2011 will never know. The list includes such things as video tape, telephones with wires, dial-up internet and CDs. The list also includes a number of things we hope doesn't go away like the separation of work and home, being able to escape for a while from technology and loosing contact with every person you've ever met in your life.


You can read the full article here.

In addition to the items on Johnson's list, here are some more I've added. Babies born in 2011 won't know ...

A world where school bullying occurred at school -- In this day and age of texting and social network websites, kids bullied at school no longer feel at ease at home.

A world where you don't need a credit card -- My grandparents lived their entire life without a credit card. Now, it's a necessary evil to build up your credit rating and prove you can pay back loans and hold down a job.

A time when TV programs weren't on 24/7 -- Remember when TV stations, even cable ones, stopped broadcasting around 1 a.m. or so. Now you can watch infomercials, reruns of primetime broadcasts and 20-year-old TV shows.

A world where WW II vets are alive -- Everyone who was an adult during WWII are now in their 80s, 90s and 100s. There aren't many of them left and more are dying every day. When I was born, there were still WWI vets alive. When the the WWII vets were born, there were still Civil War soldiers around.

A world with gas powered cars -- With more and more hybrid and electric cars on the market and with the prices falling, hopefully, babies born today will drive environmentally friendly cars instead of gas guzzlers.

When the Cure is Worst Than The Disease

When is the cure worse than the disease? All the time, it seems, if you listen to pharmaceutical ads. Ever read the fine print in ads or listen to all the warnings in the commercials?


It doesn't seem to matter whether the drug is for something serious or for something as mild as an annoying skin condition. They all have a long list of potentially nasty side effects including suicidal thoughts or actions, an increased risk of death, cancer, blurred vision, a decrease in hearing or vision, an increase in diarrhea, performing actions in your sleep with no memory of them and increased bleeding. Think I made those up to prove a point? Well, you're wrong. Those are actual side effects from real drugs that are advertised on TV every day.

I would love to know what goes through the heads of people at the FDA when they are drug testing. I know for a fact there are numerous drugs, approved in Europe for years, that the FDA will not approve. There is a reason why Europeans are healthier than Americans and it goes beyond their diets and socialized medicine; it's the drugs available to them. The FDA won't approve drugs that help people with serious diseases, but they'll approve drugs that cause cancer.

Think about that for a moment. You take a pill for arthritis and end up getting cancer. I once worked with a man who's wife had crone's disease. She took a drug that limited the flare-ups of her disease to one or two a year. She loved it. Problem was the drug was known to cause at least 14 forms of cancer. What ended up happening? You guessed it. She got cancer.

A friend of mine is in medical school. We've talked about prescription drugs more than once and we're both on the same page about it. In this country, doctors are more likely to prescribe drugs to help you with the symptoms of your disease than try to find the cause of your disease. They are taught that in medical school. It's the mindset that modern medicine can solve anything with a drug. And why aren't drugs that can actually help someone get approved by the FDA? Because it all boils down to money and how much the pharmaceutical companies can make.

Food for thought.

Eight Things We Take for Granted

Why is it we humans take for granted the things that mean the most to us and don't realize the value until they are gone?

Here are eight things we take for granted:

1. Our closest family members.
2. Loyal friendships.
3. Our health and the health of those we love.
4. A steady job that pays all the bills.
5. A quality education.
6. Our safety.
7. A roof over our heads.
8. Having food to eat.

When you go to bed tonight, count you blessings and know that if you have any or all of the above you are truly blessed.

Another Icon Dies

A number of famous people died in 2010. One of them included a woman who's face is very familiar to you, but who's name you no doubt don't know. She's Geraldine Doyle, the model for Rosie the Riveter.


Doyle, who died at age 86, is one of two Rosie the Riveters. Rose Will Monroe is the Rosie showing her muscle in the WWII posts. Doyle was the Rosie in a Norman Rockwell painting which appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943.

She was only 17 when she took a job at a metal processing plant. She ended up quitting two weeks later after Doyle, a cellist, feared she'd injure her hands. However, she was there when a photographer toured the factory to take pictures of women helping with the war effort. Her picture was later used on war posters. The war poster was not very well known until the 1980s when it was embraced by feminist groups to used it as a symbol of female empowerment. Her image has since graced postage stamps, t-shirts and other items.

Read full story.

Your Sign is Safe

I'm sure you've heard a lot in the news -- both on TV and in print -- about how your sign is changing and how there are now 13 signs in the zodiac, thanks to one astronomer.


It's all much ado about nothing. Why, you may ask. Because the media has confused astronomy with astrology. They are two very separate and distinct things. Astronomy is the scientific study of the stars. Astrology claims to be able to predict our futures.

In astronomy there have always been 13 signs of the zodiac. It's only in astrology that Ophiuchus was left out. The new dates refer to the dates during the year when the Sun passes through the region of the sky occupied by a particular constellation. Over the course of centuries the Sun's position in the sky changes. This is because the solar system rotates around the galactic center and the position of the Earth's poles also changes over time. The sky the ancient Egyptians saw was different than today's, but only by a few degrees.

So if you believe in astrology, your sign is not changing. It is staying as it always has been. If you're an astronomy buff, you'll know we're just continuing our journey through the night sky.

The Five Minute Rule

Chances are if you had a child, especially in the not-so-distant past, you had a camera with you in the delivery room to snap those first precious moments of life. How old was your child in his very first photo? In many hospitals, he'll have to be at least five minutes old.


The five-minute rule is a recent trend. Hospitals are instating it because they say a child's health needs to be evaluated before photos are taken. Most parents agree with this, but not all. If the parents are not okay with this rule, some hospitals will work around the parents' wishes.

This story made it onto both the local and national news during the last week of December. When a local pregnant woman was interviewed, she said that the five-minute wait was "unacceptable". Unacceptable? Obviously she was a first-time mom and didn't realize the delivery room is full of people who will clean and examine the baby before she will ever get to see it anyway.

Five minutes in the scheme of things is not really a long time. It's not as if most hospitals have instated this rule to make it difficult for parents. They're doing what's in the best interest of the child. Also, we need to remember we've come a long way since the days when women were put half asleep to deliver their children. The first memories of our children aren't clouded by gas induced fog.