Words from the SoapBox

“It’s one of the more curious stories in American education,” notes Bruce Price, founder of Improve-Education.org. “Classroom teachers often identify with the elite education commissars who control the system. In truth, the two groups have little in common. The education bosses, dedicated to left-wing ideology, are trying to use public schools to reshape the country, and in the process they end up misshaping the schools. This is not good for parents, children, teachers, or anyone else.”

All the statistics tell the same story: our public schools are much below what we need and what we could have.

“American public schools are mediocre,” Price explains, “because the Education Establishment has embraced a lot of bad ideas. These ideas tend to dumb down the students and–this is where it gets very interesting– make life difficult for teachers. My sense of it is if we had intelligent policies in the schools, teachers would have a much better life. And our entire society would have much better prospects. It is important to know who your enemies actually are.”

Price writes about education on many sites and sees a lot of comments. One of the most surprising aspects is that many teachers assume that any discussion about education is about them personally. (It’s as if people were discussing military policy in Iraq; and a soldier here in America asked, “Why are you criticizing me?”)

In fact, Price has little interest in teachers because they do not decide what goes on in the schools. Who does decide policy? A tiny clique, typically professors with a Ph.D. in Education, make all the decisions. Ever since the time of John Dewey, these education commissars have been far-left and quick to engage in indoctrination and politics.

“I try to be very careful,” Price explains, “to make clear to teachers that I’m never discussing them. I am talking only about the top-level people, what I call the Education Establishment. The shocking thing is that many teachers actually seem to feel they are part of this Establishment. A teller at a bank would never think he is part of the Banking Establishment. You don’t see this kind of confusion in most parts of life. Labor and management are typically at each others’ throats.”

Price continues: “But our Education Establishment makes all future teachers attend a school of education for two years; and that is apparently where the teachers are brainwashed into thinking they have the same interests as the Education Establishment. They are told that any attack on an education policy is somehow a direct personal attack on the teacher. Which is completely absurd. But you can see how it serves the interests of the Education Establishment.”

Price suggests that teachers Google “31: Teacher Liberation Front” for a fuller explanation of what might actually be best for teachers.

As for parents and citizens generally, Price urges everyone to learn why so much of modern education is a scam. Whole Word doesn’t teach kids to read. New Math and Reform Math don’t teach kids to do arithmetic. Constructivism is not a good way to teach kids basic information.

“The more you know about education,” Price comments, “the less you’ll trust the judgment of the people in charge.”

Author Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is the founder of Improve-Education.org, an outspoken education and intellectual site. One focus is reading; see “42: Reading Resources.” Another focus is education reform; see “38: Saving Public Schools.” Price is an author, artist and poet. His fifth book is “THE EDUCATION ENIGMA–What Happened to American Education.”

UFO History is filled with sightings of strange lights, and even spacecraft, appearing in the sky. These days unidentified flying objects are becoming increasingly popular to the general public. This can be seen by the many movies in recent years that feature aliens and spacecraft.

However, it wasn’t always this way. Not that long ago people who spoke out about what they had witnessed were subjected to ridicule much more often than they were listened to.

We must keep open minds and consider all evidence objectively. One thing I consider is that, in this modern world of ours, it is easy for us to imagine UFOs and aliens. After all, we have seen them in movies many times.

I’d like you to consider a few questions: What prompted ancient man to draw saucers and rockets on cave walls? Why would someone living during the middle ages include flying craft in their paintings? The key question is where would these ideas come from?

Personally, I think there is one answer to these questions. They were drawing and painting objects and events they had either witnessed firsthand or they were recording what others of their time had witnessed and shared with them.

Skeptics around the world have said these UFOs can be explained in other ways. Their explanations range from weather balloons to light from Venus reflecting off swamp gas and illuminating a meteorite. Other people say that in fact these sightings are visitors from another world.

The first sightings in UFO history were recorded on rock faces in ancient Hunan, China. The carvings depict figures coming out of floating cylindrical objects. According to scientists, these drawings date back to the time of Neanderthals around 45,000 BC.

The earliest UFO sightings in what we would consider recorded history can be found in 4th century Chinese texts. These texts state that a “moon boat” hovers above China every 12 years.

Stories of these encounters have been told for thousands of years. For example, a Roman author by the name of Julius Obsequens, believed to have lived in the fourth century A.D., compiled a book Prodigorium liber stating that people had seen a fire in the sky.

Despite numerous people having seen unknown objects in the skies, the first real investigation did not occur until 1232. The investigation took place in Japan after members of the army reported seeing odd lights in the sky for several minutes.

Recent interest in UFOs started around 1947. A sighting of several unknown aircraft was reported and was thought to be German technology. Soon after, the popular Roswell Daily Record issued an announcement from the military stating they had captured a crashed alien ship and its passengers.

Soon after, the military contacted the newspaper again and a retraction was issued saying the object was a weather balloon. There are many people who believe it is simply not possible for the military personnel to have mistakenly identified a weather balloon as an alien ship. And it seems even more unlikely considering the original announcement also stated that the military had found the bodies of several alien beings.

In 2009 and 2010 there have been many sightings around the world and particularly in China. Indeed, today it seems that China is one of the hot spots to find UFO activity. There have been over a dozen sightings across the country in a very short period of time.

Another country that is experiencing increased UFO activity is the United Kingdom. Particularly around the Huddersfield area.

Regardless of your own personal belief of these UFOs, they are very much a part of our lives. Few subjects have such a rich background going back as far in time as UFO history. The amazing drawings that have been discovered provide some basis for the belief that life exists outside of our world and at least some of them have visited Earth.

Author Bio: If you liked this article I encourage you to learn more about the latest UFO news and UFO history.

There are two names that patriotic Americans should fear, they are Cloward and Piven. In fact we should all have signs on our lawns and apartment doors that say Beware Cloward and Piven.

Who are Cloward and Piven?

Richard Andrew Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven the husband and wife sociologist team from Columbia in the 1960′s. Today Piven is an honorary chair for the Democratic Socialists of America. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy”, first proposed in 1966, seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. Today many of the advisors Obama has surrounded himself with are believers in the philosophy of Saul Alinsky, Cloward-Piven. How does that make you feel?

With this as a lens through which to view what is happening today in Washington D.C., the view becomes quite frightening.

It doesn’t take a CPA to know that

- Aggressive spending (trillions of dollars) is not the answer to a financial/deficit crisis
- The way the stimulus funds were distributed would help some state budgets but would not create lasting jobs
- That adding 30 million plus people to the medical insurance system without increasing the numbers of doctors and nurses will result in diminished care for all

So why did the democrats bury a government takeover of college loans in the health care bill?

The answer is two fold. First, some accounting gymnastics allow Obama and his team to show that the government will make some money from the interest on the loans. With this in the health care bill they can claim that the money helps off-set the cost of health care. The second reason, they did not want an open debate about the merits of the government takeover of education loans in the open congress, so bury it in a bill we know we will force down the throats of Americans.

The immediate side effect of this government expansion is the loss of over 30,000 jobs in the private banking arena (and I thought the focus was supposed to be on job creation). A counter argument being put forth is the current system is giving the banks a sweetheart deal and removing the middleman will make it more efficient. I ask you, Have you ever seen the government take something over and run it more efficiently, ever?

Now here is the really scary part. The government now mandates what your medical insurance coverage has to be or the power of IRS enforcers will be set loose on you and your family. Now what happens when the “share-the-wealth” crowd doesn’t like the curriculum of a college that your kid is applying to and seeking a student loan to help with the costs? (what do you think in the over and under on the time it will take to see the government’s control of college loans steering students to the ‘right’ schools?).

The other provision in the bill says that students graduating from college will have more time and less stringent terms for paying the loan back, And, if a student gets a job that doesn’t pay a lot part or all of the loan will be forgiven over time. What about all the money the government was going to make on the interest on the loans? This will surely contribute to applying pressure to an already damaged political and economic system further pushing toward collapse.

Can you just hear Cloward and Piven cheering?

We must return to the principles of the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. We must be bold, passionate and unrelenting in voting for only those who will help us take our country back. And for heaven sakes use good old common sense and a calculator to test the truth of all future Obama proposed programs.

Author Bio: A marketing consultant was moved from a political couch potato to a patriotic activist by the actions of the Obama Regime and started a company to help American patriots go face-to-face with their politicians. check out http://www.commonsensewear.com and http://www.commonsensewear.wordpress.com

It’s not enough that the Education Establishment of this country has dropped tons of stupid policies on us. No, they have done something else almost as diabolical.

They have blurred the distinction between teachers, that is the people in the classrooms, and educators, that is, the bosses at the top. These two groups have no more to do with each other than management and labor typically do. Educators devise policies, often very flawed policies. Teachers have no choice but to carry them out.

For most of American history, this distinction was understood and required no explanation. Now, however, there is an epidemic of confusion. Make a comment about educators, or even education, and teachers wonder why you are saying mean things about them.

I think the Education Establishment has pulled off a cute trick here. They have deliberately tangled up the terms. How often have you heard kindergarten teachers referred to as “educators”? Here’s why this happens. Most people like and admire teachers. But more and more people are figuring out that “educators” are not people that you should like and admire.

I think the guy in the street gets it completely. Teachers are the people in the local schools struggling to educate his kids. Educators are the people in faraway cities who create the insane policies and methods that make educating his kids almost impossible.

So who doesn’t get it? Teachers often don’t get it. They are touchy and sensitive. So if anybody dares to criticize a counterproductive policy in America’s public schools, the teachers react as if the criticism is directed at them personally. Indignation fills up their souls. And they stop thinking altogether. It would be much more helpful if teachers would examine the policy being criticized and ask this question: how would my life be improved if that policy were changed? Probably a lot.

I’m always very careful to refer to “elite educators,” “top educators,” or the Education Establishment. I always stress that I’m talking about ONLY the people at the very top, the commissars with PhD’s and power at such places as the Harvard Graduate School of Education, people who are 1,000,000 miles away from the teachers. But still there is confusion. Somehow those elite commissars have managed to bamboozle teachers into thinking that the two groups have tea together every day.

The whole thing is preposterous, but you can easily see how all this confusion serves the interests of the Education Establishment. They are only too happy to hide behind the skirts of a kindergarten teacher. That part is easy to understand. The weird part is that the kindergarten teacher actually thanks the educators for their dishonorable behavior.

It reminds me of the Stockholm syndrome, where kidnapped people identify with the kidnappers. In extreme cases, and that’s the one we find ourselves in, the victims defend and protect the perpetrators. You also think of abused spouses who adamantly refuse to criticize their abusers. Enough. This perversity is getting in the way of all educational reform.

It seems to me that the Education Establishment has created three separate sets of victims: students; parents; teachers. They are all equally the victims. This is mainly what I write about, that the Education Establishment went off track because of ideology. They became committed to social engineering. As a result, they embraced one counterproductive idea after another, all of which impact destructively on almost everyone else.

If we’re going to improve public schools, we–everyone–has got to be more cold-blooded and analytical. The schools didn’t get dumb by themselves. The bad ideas were carefully created and promoted. That is, forced on the country.

Was anyone asking for the total hoax known as Whole Word? Were students demanding that sensible arithmetic be abandoned so that we could have New Math and Reform Math? I could take you through a dozen policies that our Education Establishment concocted and then imposed on us. My take is that these policies are bad for the country, bad for students, bad for parents, but ESPECIALLY bad for teachers.

Just to take the simplest case: if you are forced to use a hoax to teach reading, and few of your kids become good readers, where does that leave you as a teacher? There is no polite way to say it. You’re the walking dead. Going through the motions, working hard, giving tests, staying after school, but a huge percentage of your kids never become literate. The USA has 50 million functional illiterates. Undoubtedly, there were teachers teaching all those illiterates. But not really…

Aha, you say, so that’s the game?! The Education Establishment uses bogus methods to create the illusion of teaching and even of success, but it’s all make-believe? Exactly. And my message to teachers is, if we can get rid of all these bad ideas, your professional life would be so much better.

Look closely at the people who craft and praise the dubious ideas. In all other areas of human activity, when there is failure, you fire the bosses with the dumb plans. That’s what we need to do now.

(For more analysis of all the bad ideas, see “38: Saving Public Schools” on Improve-Education.org.)

Author Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is the founder of Improve-Education.org, an education and intellectual site. One focus is reading; see “42: Reading Resources.” Another focus is math reform; see “36: The Assault On Math.” Price is an author, artist and poet. His fifth book is “THE EDUCATION ENIGMA–What Happened to American Education.”

In all the comments I see left on internet articles about education, two themes dominate:

1) The first is, average Americans have no idea how bad the public schools are. The Education Establishment has done a brilliant job at PR and misinformation. They have tried to deceive the public; and the public is deceived. Unfortunately. So here are several quotes from some of the smartest, most successful people in the USA, people you should trust completely. And they are saying that educationally speaking we are now having a near-death experience:

“When I compare our schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I’m terrified for our workforce of tomorrow.” Bill Gates, founder, Microsoft Corp.

“If companies were run like many education systems, they wouldn’t last a week.” Thomas Donohue, president, US Chamber of Commerce

“Our record at fixing our K-12 education system is virtually unblemished by success.” Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin

“If you don’t solve (the K-12 education problem), nothing else is going to matter all that much.” Alan Greenspan, former Chairman, Federal Reserve

Scared? You should be.

2) The second common theme is that the public seems to have no idea that the sabotage of the public schools (and thus our economy) was started long ago, 75 years or more. All the wonderful new methods discussed in your daily paper are the same old dreck from your grandparents’ day. The ideas were bad then, and still are today. (Typically, progressive ideas stress sociological and psychological abstractions, but there’s no mention of actually learning anything. So-called educators actually say such nonsense as, “It’s not important that children know historical facts as long as they can think historically.”)

Probably John Dewey’s quote from 1898 sums up the assault best: ” I believe that we violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.” That is, don’t teach them anything.

I’ve recently read a book called “So Little For The Mind” by a Canadian educator writing in 1953 (Canada being entirely under the spell of American ideas). This brilliant author, Professor Hilda Neatby, tells us how barren the educational landscape already was SIXTY YEARS AGO:

“Probably many Canadian parents would at least understand the attitude of the man who said, ‘Nowadays the school seems to be doing the job of the homes, and the home has to do the job the school was supposed to do. They spend their time teaching my son to wash his face; when he comes home I have to teach him to read and write.”

“For all his talk of democracy, the educator is generally authoritarian and dogmatic. Teacher-training institutions in general exist to indoctrinate; their task is not to discover truth, but to convey ‘the truth.’…[Future teachers] complain that whatever lip service may be paid to them, ‘logical self-expression, problem solving, and creative thinking’ are the very last things the college wants to develop in its students.”

“Whereas in the elementary school the child learned critical thinking, and in the junior high school, critical and independent thinking, in the senior high school he learns critical reflective thinking.” (Sarcasm, of course. Today, every day, we hear chatter about critical thinking. Look how far Canada had taken the same racket 60 years ago!)

All the dopey ideas that progressive educators had unloosed upon kids circa 1950 are still the latest thing today. Our so-called experts have moved forward with new names and terms, new propaganda and PR. True story: schools got ever dumber, the public was robbed in plain sight.

Many people are in despair and say the public schools cannot possibly be saved. Bruce Smartt in his wonderful book “The Harsh Truth About Public Schools” states his thesis that everyone should homeschool their kids, that public schools are a hopeless brew of left-wing politics and raw greed. People influenced by Smartt say we should close down the public schools. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea; I just don’t see this happening. So what are we to do?

One reason I’m more optimistic is that I think even the people inside education know how rotten it is. These phonies have created 50,000,000 functional illiterates. How do they live with that?

My hope is that more people get involved, get informed, and get indignant. Find out why Sight Words don’t work, Constructivism is nonsense, or New/Reform Math are hoaxes. You’ll never trust the Education Establishment again. That’s when we’re going to see progress.

My site Improve-Education.org explains such underlying issues. For example, see “42: Reading Resources” and “36: The Assault on Math.”

Author Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is the founder of Improve-Education.org, a high-level education and intellectual site. One focus is reading; see “42: Reading Resources.” Another focus is education reform; see “38: Saving Public Schools.” Price is an author, artist and poet. His fifth book is “THE EDUCATION ENIGMA–What Happened to American Education.”

Listen To Me, You Rich Successful People In Your Big Houses:

I know, I know, you don’t want to think about all the bad public schools out there. Nothing to do with you, right?? Wrong. The effects are oozing through the society. You are in danger.

Want safety? Here are three threats we have to overcome:

1) THE EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENT CAN’T BE TRUSTED. Almost a century ago, they took a wrong turn, and went down a road marked SOCIAL ENGINEERING. The problem for everybody else is that these ideologues hope to wreck the society we’ve got, so they can build the collectivized world they dream about.

They justify the planned transformation with this bit of fluff from John Dewey: “Not knowledge or information, but self-realization, is the goal.” What a quack. After all, it’s new knowledge that typically leads students to self-realization. The Left wants to use schools to turn kids into compliant comrades; they can’t tell the truth about their plans, so a lot that goes on in our schools is dishonest. Educators prattle endlessly about “education,” but their true passion is making sure that very little of it, in the ordinary sense, occurs.

2) BIG MEDIA AND ELITE UNIVERSITIES ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. The media seems to think they should take orders from the NEA, etc. I see this pattern unfolding in Norfolk, Va., where the local paper will run 50 articles about one of its favorite liberal issues, but not one line about why a quarter of the kids don’t learn to read, or drop out of school.

Professors at the best universities should have jumped into the education wars, the math wars, the reading wars. But I can’t discover a single professor at my Ivy League school who stepped forward to support Rudolf Flesch or to decry the decline of the public schools.

We have to be disappointed that so many professors and journalists allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Education Establishment. Bottom line, we can’t expect help from the people who SHOULD be saving us.

3) WORSE STILL, MOST BIG SHOTS DON’T CARE. Talk to doctors, lawyers, bankers, brokers, Indian chiefs, executives, psychiatrists, movers and shakers of all kinds. Try to find one who knows anything about education or cares. They went to a good school years ago. Their kids went to private schools. Public schools are for them like a bad neighborhood on the other side of town; there’s no reason for them to think about it.

LISTEN TO ME, YOU RICH SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE IN YOUR BIG HOUSES. A bad part of town will stay put, but the neighborhood called bad education is oozing along your street. It’s seeping through the walls of your house, and into your living room. You might not escape. Tens of millions of people who can’t count, can’t read, can’t do a job correctly, don’t know enough to care about voting–this uneducated horde will hurt every part of your life. What stake do they have in sustaining a civilization they don’t understand and know little about?

So what is the answer to this hopeless situation? Here it is: practical, successful people–in order to save their own skins–have to get more involved.

The Education Establishment has a genius for finding the counter-intuitive, likely-to-fail approach. Almost everything is backwards. Business executives, forced to spend a day in a public school, might have nervous breakdowns. But you know what the even goofier problem is? A bunch of business leaders, eager to make improvements, would hire consultants from some place like Harvard Graduate School of Education! The very people who created all the problems. That’s how cowed and bamboozled everyone is.

No, the practical, successful people have got to stick to their MBA guns. Ignore the faux-experts. Do what works, for a change.

I’d argue that the biggest hoax of the last 100 years is Whole Word. (It’s the reason we have 50,000,000 functional illiterates.) So a good first step is to understand WHY sight-words don’t work. When you personally understand the deception, you’ll be angry. Maybe then you’ll get busy and get bold. We need you.

Then find out why New Math and Reform Math were evil jokes; why Constructivism is much ado about nothing; why every slogan used in the public schools–self-esteem, multiculturalism, and 25 others–is really just an excuse to teach less. At some point you’ll be mad as heck, and you won’t take it anymore.

(Improve-Education.org has articles on many of these topics, for example, “42: Reading Resources,” “36: The Assault on Math,” and “34: The Con In Constructivism.”).

Author Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is the founder of Improve-Education.org, a high-level education and intellectual site. One focus is reading; see “42: Reading Resources.” Another focus is education reform; see “38: Saving Public Schools.” Price is an author, artist and poet. His fifth book is “THE EDUCATION ENIGMA–What Happened to American Education.”

For those who do not know John Lennon, here is a brief scenario (John Winston Lennon), October 09, 1940 – December 08, 1980. Born in Liverpool, England John was a member of the Beatles, a prolific songwriter, and also had a successful solo career. He was shot and killed as he entered his apartment building in New York City. He was 40.

It is hard to believe that it has been 30 years since one of the beacons of light that shined upon our consciousness and our world was extinguished. John Lennon touched the lives of so many people with his music, his strong views about peace, and stopping war. He was willing to expose all parts of himself the good and the not so good. Yet, he always remained true to himself.

I was twelve years old when the Beatles came to America, and I was immediately drawn to the humor of John Lennon. He demonstrated his intelligence in any interview given. The music of the Beatles was magic at that time, and it certainly lit a fire under me that has not extinguished to this day. I was fortunate to see the Beatles perform live three times fortunately I was close to the stage the last time I saw them, and it was indescribable.

John was always the most outspoken, and, at one point in 1966, he was condemned in the United States because of stating that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. He was not saying that they were greater than Jesus but just that their popularity extended farther. It was the truth at that time. From then on he received death threats and was told that he would be assassinated during their 1966 United States tour. This is one of the main reasons the Beatles stopped performing live.

Fame was a great pressure on John, and he looked for other avenues to explore having conquered the world. He discovered LSD and used it to open up his creativity. From there he discovered meditation and went to India to practice and learn from a master. He met Yoko Ono, and they fell in love even though they were both married at the time. He felt Yoko was his soul mate, and they were together until the end of his life.

They started a movement for peace and love. He gained new world recognition for his peace movement and his views against all wars. He expressed his views through his music and many people paid attention. His goal was to have people get along and follow the path of love and peace. For a time John went into seclusion, but in 1980 he was making a comeback with a new album, the first in five years, and ready to get back into his many causes.

Unfortunately there was a man who was jealous of John’s fame and success and decided that he could obtain some fame by killing John Lennon. And on a cold December night he did the unthinkable.

I was driving in my car when I heard the announcement of his death on the radio; it was surreal. Was I having a nightmare? I kept changing the radio channels, and the news was the same that someone had murdered John in cold blood. How could John Lennon be killed so senselessly? The irony of his violent death shocked the world. This man, who had delivered so many messages of love and peace, had been taken out in such a violent manner; it was just unthinkable.

Rather than dwell on his murder I want to remember all that he did in his short 40 years. He definitely kept me aware of what was going on in the world through his music and his peaceful demonstrations. He gave a voice to the consciousness that so many were feeling and unable to find the words or ways to express it. John did.

This year holds so many memories of John because he would have turned 70 years old and 30 years since his death. Ironically he was killed on the birthday of Jim Morrison, singer, songwriter, and poet of The Doors, who if he would have lived would be 67 years old this year. So many brilliant men have gone, but their words and music live on.

Each year new people discover John Lennon for the first time. In Havana, Cuba, they have a wonderful bronze statue of John Lennon sitting casually on a park bench as though he is observing those who pass by. Recently a teenager in the Dominican Republic asked me if I knew who John Lennon was. I just had to smile at that question.

Worldwide he is loved. His legacy will never be forgotten.

In My Life by the Beatles
“There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all.”

Author Bio: Cherokee Billie offers help through the lens of clairvoyance, self-help, wisdom, philosophy, and spirituality. Cherokee Billie is the Author of “Heavenly Seduction” an Amazon.com best seller. In addition, Cherokee Billie is a Naturopathic Doctor (twenty years experience) Life Strategist, a Radio Personality, and an Ordained Minister leading people to a pathway to spiritual enlightenment. http://www.cherokeebillie.com

I’ve often wondered why our perceptions of a landscape are ones of acceptance or denial. No doubt our senses (sight, sound, smell, taste and touch) ”read the site” and relay its values to us. If we sustain a positive acceptance to the site, there should be some guiding influences encouraging us to do so. I’m sure our education and experiences have something to do with it.

Natural chi energies cannot be quantified be seen or touched. They come to us through perceptions to our surroundings and attribute acceptance as to what feelings emulate. For example, feelings such as peacefulness, a sense of place and connectiveness, tranquil thoughts and harmony. These responses surely are important values to incorporate into a site design concept.

Designing a landscape using natural chi energies as a design tool could be an exciting addition to the portfolio. I term such an option as positive energy accumulation (PEA). PEA treats the site as an evolving structure influenced by change and change is influenced by the elements that make up the site and their relationships with each other. Applying PEA breaks the site into positive and negative influences.

Charting of chi flow can be undertaken to support a PEA application. Charting chi flow helps establish chi energy points, barriers to chi flow and movement, destinations for chi flow, chi energy boundaries and locations where harmonious or beneficial (sheng) chi can enter and accumulate. The process potentially nullifies negative chi influences and helps to build upon positive energy influences. Feng Shui tools such as Yin and Yang oscillation and five element balance are two worthwhile applications to compliment chi flow charting.

Personally, I see great merit in applying my 8 elements of light, shadow, shape, colour, sound, smell, movement and temperature. When each is harmonised and the 8 collectively harmonise, the site takes on a harmonious appeal. Accepting harmony isn’t a permanent feature of the site but a feature worth incorporating for its opportunities in harmonious design. The 8 elements incorporated with Yin and Yang oscillation and five element balance make up a powerful combination and introduce the site as a dynamic entity responding to its influences including climate and seasonality. The site is in a constant state of flux and acceptance of that premise offers connectiveness.

PEA to me offers a unique opportunity to monitor change and respond to it. Change the necessary evil to a landscapes evolution. PEA can hopefully nullify sha (detrimental) chi energies from accumulating and their taking away opportunities for harmonious experiences. When we visit a natural area, we encompass PEA in action. Nature guides chi energy flow through interaction and acceptance of the components that make the site up and their adaptation to the site e.g., native plants, birds, animals and insects. In the manmade landscape we can model nature and set into place some checks and balances to ensure chi flow is balanced and negative influences aren’t encouraged to dominate.

Author Bio: I hope you enjoyed reading my article as much as I enjoyed pondering over and writing it. For more related topics and complete eBook Publications, please visit my website Feng Shui Garden – a Modern and Unique Concept to Feng Shui in the Garden and Harmonious Chi (Qi) Within Our Lives. Drop by and pick up your Free Feng Shui Ebooks Sample today!! Regards, Ross Lamond

About 4/5 years ago I read Gill Hale’s ‘The Feng Shui Garden’ and was relieved to have found a publication recognising the potential role Feng Shui could play in gardening practice.

The publication reinforced my conviction about Yin and Yang influence on 5 element balance and applying this method alone could stimulate positive chi energy accumulation in our surroundings. Complimentary Feng Shui publications suggested beneficial chi accumulation was favoured if the site was protected from external sha (negative or detrimental) intrusions. In some situations, external intrusions being negated by applying the tiger, dragon, tortoise and phoenix quadrant around the boundaries to the site.

My first introduction to Feng Shui occurred at Port Douglas in Queensland and a discussion with a couple of people enthused with the subject. I had no idea what they were talking about and following the discussion I drew on a sheet of paper what I thought chi energies represented. The image showed beneficial (sheng) chi was highest in a ”core” of chi and the core protected by a mantle of supportive chi energy. Detrimental chi energies couldn’t access the core and the level of beneficial chi accumulation was in turn governed by the controlling or stimulating influences of chi entry to the site and treatments applied to prolong beneficial chi energy.

I suggested these treatments were clean, smooth, meandering lines of space for chi to move along and guided by the edges or boundaries which didn’t contain sha chi influences. In other words the core was protected by a mantle of beneficial chi and chi was able to move freely around and stimulate the core. The core was nurtured by beneficial chi and chi in a sense could accumulate within the core. Like some type of nucleus.

If this scenario is valid and could be transferred to a site, it indicated a core (or place we want to retreat into and garnish beneficial chi energies), was a place where harmony could evolve. The core was a nucleus of beneficial chi energies. Surrounding the core, open space for uninterrupted chi flow to meander and garnish beneficial chi influences emulating from the boundaries. Additionally, a mantle of supportive chi formed physically by screening, etc. Entry to the chi chamber through an entry designed to discourage detrimental chi (sha) and allow beneficial (sheng) chi to pass through. In summary, a process where beneficial chi energies were in a progressive accumulation mode.

This theory I suspect could be treated as an environmental science but cannot be quantified other than presumption and comparison with similar phenomenon.

Coming back to the topic, that sketch was drawn over 10 years ago and I had inadvertently by-passed Feng Shui readings and created a notion the ancient Chinese Taoists would have inspired to. This is conjecture of course. But it’s interesting.

These interpretations could be taken further and use of the acronym PEA (positive energy accumulation) given to describe a useful urban design and planning tool.

In essence, the site offers a potential encapsulation of beneficial chi energies for all the benefits and physically discourages detrimental sha chi influences through the design process.

For example East Nowra on the New South Wales South Coast contains a public housing estate which had a reputation as an undesirable place to live. The area possesses all there is to discourage sheng or beneficial chi and basically is a sha chi goldmine. Street crime, violence and family disharmony. Poor visual aesthetics, uncompromising soils and topography, juxtaposition of housing types, poor public transport to name a few dissuasions to want to live there. Bad enough for a tenants association to form and they seeking solutions to harmonise the community and apply reforms to make their community more cohesive.

Sheng or beneficial chi influences was unlikely to enter and accumulate within the area unless the sha influences could be downgraded. For example improving public transport, urban beautification, streetscaping, upgrading public open space, supervision for recreational activity, neighbourhood watch, access to policing and health care, and refurbishing the existing housing stock. Suggesting once the sha chi energies have been abated the area becomes more hospitable and harmonious.

The flagrancies of the East Nowra example could be represented in any design concept to identify the influences of negative influences to harmony and using sha and sheng chi energy influences as the means to do so. The outcome is humanistic and responds to what nature intended and that is harmonious interaction between what to the site can yield with its occupants.

The concept of PEA as a design and planning tool could be the subject of an interesting and ongoing study with beneficial outcomes to urban design and livability.

Author Bio: I hope you enjoyed reading my article as much as I enjoyed pondering over and writing it. For more related topics and complete eBook Publications, please visit my website Feng Shui Garden – a Modern and Unique Concept to Feng Shui in the Garden and Harmonious Chi (Qi) Within Our Lives. Drop by and pick up your Free Feng Shui Ebooks Sample today!! Regards, Ross Lamond

Here in British Columbia, Canada the latest lottery winners were a gay couple. Regular working people. Cool. I wonder if they would be as generous as an elderly couple in Nova Scotia who won 11.2 Million in July 2010. They have given away most of the money to family and charities. Now that’s cooler.

I always wondered what I would do if I won say.. 10 million dollars. Tax free, of course. (This is Canada!). First – debt free. Own a nice house and so on. That’s going to burn oohh about $600,000. Then I’d want a boat, maybe an apartment somewhere nice and hot. That’s set me back another $600,000. Or more, who knows.

I would quit work. So I would set up a fund where I could have a steady income for the rest of my life which is about another 20 years. So to clear $10,000/month just from a 3% financial vehicle I would need $15,000 per month gross. Or $180,000 per year. That would need about $5,500,000 invested.

So far I have spent about 7.7 million bucks. Left is 3.3 million dollars. Hmmm… family? Ok, I’d set up funds for the kids. Travel? Sure, let’s take a cruise around the world.

So within mere months I can blow through 2/3 of the money. Easy. That’s what people do. Lots of people that win big have nothing left after a year or two. They have no sense of the future. I think that with a big win – the lottery corporations should provide a free financial advisor. I also think that having winning pots more than a few millions is silly. Wouldn’t it be better to share the prizes? Say take the 50 million recently won here and make it 50 one million prizes? Chances of winning would be greater.

But no, this is one of the reasons for people buying lotto tickets in the first place. To hope for the big win. Someone told me the other day when I asked why he bought lottery tickets: “It’s a cheap way to dream a little for a few bucks a week.” Good point. Go to any mall and hang around the lottery booth and you’ll see the same people there all the time. Especially elderly people. It’s their entertainment.

Do they get hooked? Perhaps some do. It’s like anything – moderation. Even though most people have no idea of the math of lotteries. However, they saying goes: “If you don’t buy a ticket you are guaranteed not to win anything.” I guess even a remote chance of winning is something.

Can you increase your odds? As a data analyst I would say yes. The drawings are random, but you can increase your odds of winning by buying a set of tickets and mathematically pick numbers that cover more combinations. There are lots of systems out there, the most popular is The Silver Lotto System. See link below.

Play the lotto within means. Only spend money you can afford to lose. And good luck.

Author Bio: Ingvar has been on his own since 1988. He’s an internet marketer, but his “day job” is that of a database programmer. He’s particularly fascinated with lotteries. http://www.LotteryWinningNumbers.ca