Manns Medium

America was once known as the “Land of Opportunity”, where someone with little to no standing could become someone of great influence.   Where education was not strictly judged by the schools you attended but also by the experience you displayed.   That seems so long ago now because now where you come from and the reputation of a particular educational institution is required.   In other words it’s “who you know” that matters. The “who you know” saga is played out in today’s communities by credit reporting agencies and their control over credit scores.   They can decide to lower them and make 600 the score needed to obtain financial help from traditional sources or they can raise them where only those with 720 credit score can avail themselves of those services.   This is also now being used to determine if you are worthy of being hired regardless of the years of experience that you have.   Right now many employers are using your credit report to determine...

Was watching the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and saw a piece of the interview which was shown on the Today Show with Charlie Sheen.   At first I was truly not interested in hearing some spoiled Hollywood multi-millionaire whine about how everyone was being mean to him but because it was Lawrence O’Donnell bringing it up, I listened.   I must now admit that the way Lawrence portrayed the story was nothing like the message that I got from watching that piece of it.   I saw much more than that. What I saw was a man, who was more determined than I had ever seen, speaks about something that I had never thought about before.   He spoke out about Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and how less than impressive they were at making him better.   He had decided to stop wasting his time in an organization where he did not get better by following the rules created by someone else.   He decided to tackle this problem on his own and rely only on those who to believe that bef...

We are all quite aware of how too much of anything can be bad even if it was reported to be good for you.   Could the same be said about complimenting your children?   As a parent and remembering how it was for me growing up, it made me feel like riding on a cloud when any one of my parents would acknowledge me and once in a while tell me how well I am doing instead of constantly reminding me of my faults.   I make it a point of letting my children know that not all of their decisions are bad ones and applaud them when they do the right thing.   I found myself doing it more with the two youngest ones than I had with the older ones.   I began to wonder if I was doing more harm than good by doing this so often. What made me aware of this possibility was the constant acclamation of my five year old about winning at everything.   She has gotten to the point that she must win at every cost and before this was seriously addressed by her mother and me, it seemed ...

The bracket which holds up the muffler on her vehicle rusted through and began dragging the ground.   After looking closely, we decided that it would be a good idea to replace the exhaust system.   My fiancée decided to take the vehicle to a couple of places and get an estimate.    The results makes me wonder how the conversation would have gone, had I been the one who took in the vehicle and question if women are still viewed as less educated when it comes to business? In an effort to be fair and forthcoming, I did not retrace her steps with the vehicle and these companies. ·          Midas Muffler- 3012 North Main Street, Rockford, IL 61103 quoted her a fee of $277.00 ·          Mieneke Muffler- 905 West Riverside Blvd, Rockford, IL 61103 quoted her a fee of $372.00 ·          Warshawsky- 4315 South Main Street, Rockford, IL 61101 quoted her a fe...

Call it wishful thinking if you want but after reading and article titled China drops death penalty for some economic crimes by Associated Press writer Gillian Wong, it is worth thinking about.   In the article it is described that “China dropped the death penalty for more than a dozen nonviolent crimes Friday and banned capital punishment for people over the age of 75 in largely symbolic moves that are not expected to significantly reduce executions.”   It was also reported that “the committee also widened the scope of punishment for subversion to include the funding of domestic and foreign groups to commit crimes that endanger national security. It approved stiffer penalties for food safety violations, and made it a crime for employers to hold back workers' wages.”   While this may not be “the smoking gun” to experts who know much better than I about these sorts of things, it does cause me to wonder.   I wonder because some of these things are the exact things ...

The longer this unrest in Libya goes on the stronger the chance that the real fighting will begin soon.   While the protestors have carried the bulk of the fight to Moammar Gadhafi, soon those in its military will stop sitting on the sideline and get into the game.   When that happens the world will begin to see a serious push toward Tripoli and the massive surrender of those though to be loyal to Gadhafi.   I say this because as a former member of the military, one can only sit idly by while the majority of their countrymen and women are mowed down by a dictator with nothing but disdain for his own people.   Those with training in military tactics will soon get their fill of seeing their fellow citizens being shot like fish in a barrel and remember that the oath they took was to defend those who can not defend themselves and their country from enemies which may now have become domestic.   They will soon realize that Gadhafi has become the oppressor of freed...

As a former member of this United States Military nothing bothers me more when one group stands proudly on a platform of doing what they believe is best for the majority when it becomes blatantly clear that they are doing it for other reasons.   Prime example of this is what‘s happening to unions around this nation.   While I do not agree with everything that some unions have done, one thing is quite clear.   Without the ability to stand as one to make keep the workplace safe and to receive an honest pay for an honest day’s work (collective bargaining), workers will be at the mercy of business and have no say in how they are treated.   Business and those that they have rented will take us back to a time where only those with deep pockets determine those without destiny.   This is not what we fight for against foreign enemies. I was really irked after reading the Associated Press writer Todd Richmond article titled Wis. Assembly passes bill taking away union...

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone reports that T he U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war.   In the beginning and as a former U.S. Marine, I had a very hard time believing that this would happen in a military of today.   One of the major reason, I now have to rethink my initial position is based on the comment quoted in this article from Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the man in charge of mission completion.   "My job in Psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line." The one line in the previous statem...

How many times have we heard this story about unrest in particular places being the reason for rising gas process here?   I am quite skeptical when I hear his mainly because of the large amount of storage capacity these same companies have and especially since the increases were happening long before this really was announced. Pablo Gorondi of the Associated Press reports in his article titled Oil jumps above $100 on Libya supply disruption that “ Oil prices shot as high as $103 a barrel on Thursday as chaos in Libya disrupted crude supplies from the OPEC nation, and traders worried instability could spread to other oil-rich countries in the Middle East. The mayhem has disrupted crude exports from Libya, which produces about 1.6 million barrels of crude per day and has the biggest oil reserves in Africa.   "With the disruptions in Libya potentially absorbing half of OPEC's spare capacity, we believe the risks now associated with further contagion are much higher," ...