Open Journalism For All - News, Documentaries And Information Services

Stumbling block # 1- Fear of seeming outlandish-
Being unique is one of the key factors of creativity and by trying to conceal your differences in order to appear “normal” you are limiting the amount of quality ideas you can generate. the best way to release your creative side is to dare to be different. There are endless possibilities so take a chance and show your differences.

Stumbling block # 2- Fear of rule breaking-
Although rules are in place for a reason sometimes breaking the rules can be beneficial to you and your employer. Most employers need knowledge workers whom they do not need to monitor every minute, so by breaking the simplest rule or finding a faster and more efficient way to do things, you are showing your employer that you are an independent and creative thinker. Now this doesn’t mean completely disregard your employee handbook or show utter disrespect for the rules, it simply means be an independent thinker and do what you think is best.

Stumbling block # 3- Fear of messing up-
We are all human and as such we are entitled to make mistakes. Forget about always trying to be right. One of the keys to being a successful manager is to learn from your mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, but how can you do that if you have nothing to learn from. Being a perfectionist is not always good. Making mistakes entitles you to gain new perspectives and there is no growth without mistakes.

Stumbling block # 4- Low self-esteem-
From time to time we tend to view ourselves in a negative light and that tends to inhibit the creative process. In order to generate creative ideas we need to believe in ourselves. If you don’t believe in your ideas how can you expect your teammates or your manager to. Remember beliefs are not always facts so just because you believe something negative about yourself doesn’t necessarily mean that it is true.

Stumbling block # 5- Backed up thinking-
When we have so many thing to do our minds get bogged down and we become too busy to think creatively. We get so wrapped up with the things we feel are drastically important that we forget to take time for ourselves to think and reflect. By allowing yourself that time to think you free up space in your mind for creativity, and who knows, you just might find a creative more efficient way to get everything done.

Stumbling block # 6- Ruts-
Ruts occur in your brain when you are in a repetitive cycle. Have you ever woke up in the morning, gotten dressed and the next thing you know your at work. You have no recollection of how you got there or even how you got in your car. that is because going to work is so imbedded in your mind that you don’t even have to think about it. Try taking an alternative route to work or do something different in the morning. this will get the creativity flowing.

Lauren Hunter is an Alumni of Johnson & Wales University. She has several years of management experience and has participated in numerous leadership courses and discussions.

Non-indexed mutual funds try to keep it secret that actively managed mutual very funds rarely do better stock market indexes. The higher fees of the managed funds really make it hard for these funds to out compete indexed funds. Smart financial journalists occasionally rat out fund managers for not educating the public in this regard. When this happens the mutual fund managers make a feeble attempt at self defense by pointing to something called the 5% rule.

This rule says that for a fund to market itself as diversified it cannot have more than 5% of 75% of the funds total assets in a single stock. In other words, a fund can have 25% of its holdings in a single stock, but the remaining 75% must follow the 5% rule. The 5% rule was created by the Investment Company Act Requirement. Fund managers claim that this hampers their performance instead of admitting that they are in the business just to clip you for high fees while the mutual fund under-performs the general market.

The truth is that the big killer is the herd mentality of active fund managers. They follow each other around buying and selling the same junk. They flock to the same familiar companies and often overlook the new, obscure companies that show great promise. They take great comfort in knowing that, even if their fund misses out on a great opportunity, most of the others in its group will too. They also know that they can pull their huge fees out during the whole time your retirement savings are parked in their fund. Over the years they spend a lot of marketing money to make you think that they actually care.

That is certainly not the attitude I want the manager of my retirement to have! You should be asking your self why the mutual funds don’t just mimic the same portfolio stock composition as a major index like the S&P 500 stock market index. Well, some have and those that are indexed out perform actively managed funds at the minimum management cost. For this reason I strongly recommend that if you can only buy mutual funds as in the case of the 401(k) then restrict your purchases to indexed funds like the Vanguard 500 (VFINX).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Scott Brown, Ph.D., a.k.a. “The Wallet Doctor”, is a successful futures trader, real estate investor, and stock investor. Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of South Carolina. His 1998 articles in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities were prophetic in predicting an impending stock market crash. He has helped many people become profitable investors by teaching them to look out over many years to spot stocks that are low and primed for rise in the new bull market. His second article met with approval by Dr. Bob Shiller of Yale University. Dr. Shiller is the economist that Alan Greenspan most highly regards who coined the term “Irrational Exuberance.” In 1998 he shouted to the world to “get out” of the stock market but now he is shouting to everyone that it is time to “get in!” The Wallet Doctor is not only sought after for investment advice and coaching in stock investing but also in futures trading and real estate investing. Visit Dr. Brown’s site at http://www.BonanzaBase.com or sign up for his investment tips at http://www.WalletDoctor.com

Alzheimer’s disease is an illness that sneaks in and attacks a victim without warning. Once it establishes its foundation it slowly robs the victim of time, energy, function, and perhaps the most precious thing of all, memories.

It seems the old adage, “No one can take this from you,” doesn’t hold true anymore. Alzheimer’s disease starts with mild symptoms, and slowly progresses and interferes with everyday functioning and even impairs simple judgment and movement.

The seven stages of Alzheimer’s disease have been documented in correspondence directly with underlying nerve cell degeneration. The damage to nerve cells began to affect the victim with memory and learning. Nerve cell damage gradually affects every day thinking, judgment, and behavior. Alzheimer’s disease is unique in that it does not manifest itself with the same symptoms in every victim. Many times, a person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease will not show signs of their illness for years after diagnosis. Survival of victims once diagnosed, can be anywhere from three to twenty years. Medical science has established a Global Deterioration Scale, which corresponds directly with underlying nerve cell damage that takes place with Alzheimer’s disease.

Global Deterioration Scale

Stage One

No signs of impairment. During this stage, individuals will typically show no signs of memory or impairment of judgement. They present no evidence of Alzheimer’s disease to the health care professional.

Stage Two

Mild cognitive impairment. Individuals in this stage will typically present with very mild symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Symptoms during this stage will typically manifest themselves with short memory lapses, such as forgiving everyday items such as car keys, and television remotes. It is difficult to detect symptoms at this stage for the health care professional.

Stage Three

This is the stage where individuals began to show consistent signs of Alzheimer’s disease to family, and may be easily detected by the health care professional. Detecting Alzheimer’s disease during this stage will usually be noticed by close family members, or the closest of friends of the individual. Common symptoms during this stage may be forgetting simple short passages of reading material, misplacing common everyday items, decrease in ability to organize and plan events, difficulty in remembering names of new people, and not finding the right words during discussions with other people.

Stage Four

Moderate cognitive deficits. This is also called mild or early stage Alzheimer’s disease. During this stage a health care professional will detect deficiencies and knowledge of recent current events, difficulty to perform easy mental arithmetic, decreased ability to plan events such as dinner, decreased memory of personal history, and social withdrawal from close friends.

Stage Five

Moderate to severe cognitive decline. This is also called moderate or main stage Alzheimer’s disease. Memory deficits are much more severe during this stage. The health care provider can usually detect Alzheimer’s disease very easily during this stage. Common symptoms include inability to recall important details in personal life such as address or phone number, counting backwards, difficulty in choosing clothing for the season or current weather conditions, forgetting where common items are placed such as car keys, television remotes, and other items used commonly.

Stage Six

Severe cognitive deficits. This is also called moderate to severe or main stage Alzheimer’s disease. Memory difficulties are worse than stage five. Individuals’ personalities are affected and they may begin to withdraw or manifest severe personality changes or disorders. The health care professional will commonly detect inability to recall current events and events that took place in the last three months, inability to recall personal history, inability to recognize close family members consistently, inability to dress for current weather conditions, and difficulty or inability to perform personal hygiene tasks. The individual may also show signs of wandering, or hallucinating intermittently.

Stage Seven

Very severe cognitive deficits. This is also called severe or late stage Alzheimer’s disease. This is the final stage of Alzheimer’s disease and manifests itself in individuals with inability to respond properly to their environment, inability to speak properly, inability to complete coordinated muscle movements. The health care provider will also commonly detect an individual’s inability to speak clearly, recall current events, recognize close family members consistently, inability or severe difficulty with walking or transferring, and inability to swallow.

The Global Deterioration Scale is a system developed by medical professionals and helps to categorize each individual in a certain stage of this unique disease. Proper diagnosis and determination of which stage an individual may be in is critical to the proper care of the individual. The improvement and rehabilitation of each individual is dependent upon proper diagnosis and placement within the proper stage. Some individuals have been documented to show some level of improvement with proper intervention.

William Riopelle, MS PT, is a senior physical therapist with over twelve years experience working with people in the area of Home Health. His popular website provides more information, in downloadable audio format, for family and care providers on Alzheimer’s Disease: => http://www.audiomedicalscience.com

For the reason that London’s the capital city it’s constantly going to be a hard thing to decide where to dine or perhaps which alehouse to drop in at.

There’s nothing worse than when you are arranging something with someone, be it a client or maybe just your buddy, only to discover the venue you’ve chosen is unpleasant. So save yourself an inconvenience by picking up your copy of Time Out. You can always find out all about London music with Time Out London’s detailed music section.

Bars within London’s Greatest come in many varieties. Are you looking out for a cocktail Bar or a tap room? If, much like millions of Londoners currently, you now have a quenchless taste for cocktails then you will constantly be on the watch for cutting edge cocktail lounges.

The thing that Time Out does is to conjure up a guide book of the cocktail bars within the capital, whether you’re looking out for that apres work cocktail lounge, a great venue to awe a friend, a dash of old fashioned style or purely a conveniently close tap room to chill at, Time Out able to head you in the right direction.

One of the finest bars nowdays is known Asia De Cuba and is found in Covent Garden - Asia De Cuba is recognised for its drinks and fine dining. With this bar one has the best of both worlds - excellent grub and superb drinking. Then there is of course Apartment-195 which is planted on the Kings Road, an uncommonly swanky part of London and so the tone of it communicates this. You might well have to be on the place’s guest list to be allowed to enter & there’s occasionally a bit of a weird attitude but strangely it can make for a nice atmosphere.

Medical Miracle or Mistake? by Lady Camelot

Fundamental elements of life and the aspects of cloning bring
dramatic advancement to the scientific and medical community;
however, is this fast-paced artificial reproduction an intrusion
of Nature or a doorway to infinite, medical cures?

In lieu of scientific developments in the biological mainstream,
the human intervention of life and it’s natural state are of
utmost concern. Questions are being raised as to what
constitutes life produced naturally into this world as opposed
to man-made biocreationism. Current events depict a dangerously
evolving senerio that will eventually lead to life altering,
moral dilemmas.

The query here is whether we, as human beings, can justify the
birth of alternative life. Physicians of all fields excitedly
anticipate what expectedly will stimulate medical achievements
on a phenomenal scope.

If you can, imagine the limitless possibilities. Heart
transplant waiting lists would be a thing of the past. Accident
victims could eventually have limb replacements by way of
simple, DNA extraction. The ideology that manipulated organs can
be created on demand, will definitely expand human lifespans.
This, in turn, will bare increasing weight on this already
over-populated world.

What becomes the deciding factor of who lives or dies will have
serious reprecussions. “Logan’s Run,” a 70’s television series
comes to mind when faced with this imminent technology. In this
program, the Earth is overpopulated and depleted of natural
resources. This fictional dramatization depicts life without
illness; however, when one reaches the age of 30, he or she is
incinerated to create more space for those remaining. Although
“Logan’s Run” was only a novelty, it was indeed a sign of things
to come.

Another issue is loss of life. When the time arrives, (and it
will) that we have unbiasly accepted the fate of actual human
cloning, individuality and the constitution of what is a “real”
human will enter into the field of morality. If a loved one
passes on, will we simply replace him or her with a biocreated
human counterpart or twin? And if so, who is to say that the
individual characteristics of this artificially-created person
will be exactly duplicated, personality-wise? Then there’s the
standpoint of human rights. Will these mimic humans have
equality as do naturally-born ones?

Ethical factors have not been conscienciously studied by the
scientific community. Bio-intervention is expidiciously
volumizing the evolution of mankind. At which interval do we
acknowledge life as mere science? Or do we accept our individual
fates as human beings, appreciating our growth in spirituality?
The question is - what is to become of the soul of our life when
we realize that death is nonexistent? Something to ponder.

(c) LadyCamelot

There are no doubts about the benefits of using hydrogen peroxide properly in a hydroponics system. This becomes especially true if your nutrient reservoir is kept above 72 degrees. Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen, and therefore encourages the growth of more viruses, fungi, and anaerobic bacteria. Hydrogen peroxide adds oxygen to you water and cleans the water of pathanogens. Benefits include healthier root systems, increased nutrient uptake, thicker stems, and bigger leaves.

One expert claims it should be used on all soil gardens as well as in hydroponics sytems. Knowing as much as I do about beneficial fungus and micro-organisms and the benefits they provide to living plants, I am shy in taking this advice. However, when this first line of defense fails and plants become sick I often resort to using hydrogen peroxide treatments on my soil grown plants.

The chemical formula of hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. You may notice it is simply water with an extra oxygen atom. In fact, as hydrogen peroxide breaks down in a solution the result is oxygen and water. Its application helps deliver oxygen to over watered plant roots and helps to sterilize the growing media by killing harmful anaerobic (not oxygen compatible) bacteria and pathanogens that cause disease. This includes bacterial wilt, pythium fungi, fusarium fungi, and others.

I avoid using the common 3% hydrogen peroxide you normally find at drug stores. This is because such low percentage solutions are unstable, and chemicals are added to the peroxide to keep it from breaking down before it can be used. I did a little research because I did not know what chemicals were used for this, or if the plants uptake these chemicals, or if there was a health risk associated with any of these stabilizing chemicals.

Hydrogen peroxide is usually stabilized with acetanilide. Acetanilide is a synthetic compound that was first used for its fever reduction and pain killing properties in the late Nineteenth Century. For many years it was utilized as an alternative to aspirin to treat various ailments, but large-scale medical use stopped when the toxic side effects of consuming acetanilide became apparent. This was enough to make up my mind to use 35% hydrogen peroxide instead.

Firstly, 35% peroxide is caustic and should be treated with the same caution as a strong acid. 35% strength hydrogen peroxide should be readily available at any quality hydroponics supply shop. The stronger concentrations do not use the added stabilizers.

The recommended dosage is to add 2-3 ml to each gallon of water, however, I use 5 ml per gallon and have never had any problems. At every nutrient change treat your fresh water with hydrogen peroxide. The general idea is to let the hydroponics sytem circulate the hydrogen peroxide solution for about a half hour to let the peroxide work against pathogens and to let the solution stabilize before adding your nutrients.

The beneficial effects of using hydrogen peroxide last about 4 days. There are some gardeners who add a little peroxide to their nutrient reservoirs every 5 days in between nutrient changes. If you decide to do this, stick to the guidelines and always make sure your solution is thoroughly mixed before exposing your plants roots to it. Another option is to top off your nutrient reservoir with peroxide treated water whenever it is low.

The original article with pictures and additional info can be found at
http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/using-hydrogen-peroxide.html

Hi, my name is Jason, from Jason’s Indoor Guide. I have ten years experience growing indoors, under lights. No less than two of those years I was using hydroponics methods. It is my goal to improve the results of every organic and hydroponics gardener through accurate, easy to understand information. Visit me at http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/

Do you know what your life purpose is? It seems most of us do not and that worries some of us. Yet there are some people who feel that they have found their life purpose.

Do you know, though, 80 percent of the people who have shared with me their life purpose, have all said the same thing. They have each identified the same ‘purpose’ for their life. Why is this?

It makes you wonder whether we could all share the same life purpose. Is life purpose the same for all of us or almost all of us? Or could it be that these people are simply mistaken and have not yet really realized their true purpose?

Do you know that, of all the people who have told me their life purpose, not one person said their life purpose was:

• To make money;

• To work hard for their company;

• To spend time in the office;

• To be more organized;

• To watch television;

• To buy the latest car, computer, fashions, gadgets or whatever.

Yet, these are often the things you may find yourself spending your time on.

True. This may simply be a reflection of the type of people I spend my time with. Perhaps these people are not motivated by money, hard work, television, gadgets, etc.. Yet these people seemed to come from different backgrounds or ‘walks of life’ and still seemed to identify the same purpose for their life.

So we are still faced with the same dilemma. Could we all have the same life purpose or had these people not identified their life purpose accurately?

Up to this point, I have not revealed what it was that these people each said was their life purpose. Before I do, perhaps we should consider the need for accuracy. Is it really necessary to be accurate in defining your life purpose? Just how precise do you need to be? Obviously you need to have a purpose that is relevant to your life rather than one that is relevant to someone else’s life. Yet, apart from making sure it is relevant to you, how precise do you have to be?

I’m sure that some of you will say that if your life purpose is ‘flexible’ then it will allow you to fit your purpose into different stages of your life and into different circumstances. After all, our lives and our circumstances do not always remain the same, so to be able to adapt our life purpose to fit changing circumstances would be advantageous.

If, however, our life purpose is so flexible, is it really our ‘purpose’? Should our true purpose not be more constant throughout our life and should we not bring changes into our life that fit our ‘purpose’? Or would doing this make our lives to ‘rigid’?

So what is it that most people have said to be their life purpose? At this point, I can reveal that most people have revealed to me that their life purpose is; …

… ‘To help other people.’

I reveal this at the end of this article as I guess many of you may feel that this is your life purpose too. If so, then I repeat to you the question in the title, is this really your life purpose? Or do you need to define it further?

Douglas Woods is a qualified life coach and trainer. You can read about his work on finding life purpose on his website at http://www.dougwoods.com/life-purpose-coaching.html

What is a scam and why is it so easy to find them? Scams are
easier to find than Microsoft products online. Over the years
many hard working citizens from all countries have dreamed of
finding a way to make money without working dayshift, swing
shift, and night shifts. How did the Internet change this goal?
For the worst!

Now you can go to any search engine and find every thing on
earth that will take your money and disappear without a digital
trace. How do you protect yourself from being a victim of scams
such as the recent juice boosted, which offered high speed
Internet service for life free!

There are very few honest websites on the World Wide Web today
that actually deliver what they say when it sounds “too good to
be true”.

You are about to be given direction to the most exciting
experience online today that as spread over 6 countries.
Currently membership to this club has been restricted for
upgrades and site redesign due to its success.

How many “double your money” sites have you wasted a value meal
on to see if it really works?

Without further rambling, the Dollar Monster has proven to pay
on its promise to double your money. Rotation days will vary
depending on member status and deposits and withdrawals.

How do you know this program is honest? You don’t. There is no
FDIC protection such as savings, checking, and other accounts.
It’s a risk just like any other stock investment you may buy.

To join this club is by invitation only:
http://easychairclub.com/dm/moreinfo.cgi?u=Investorswanted

Sometimes information doesn’t get passed along. Sometimes it’s tacked on as an afterthought. Sometimes it’s as though the information doesn’t really matter at all. And, sometimes it’s a gender problem.

Babe Lehrer, in her book Men, They Just Don’t Get It! tells the story of a podiatry assistant. She has a nice drive to work. She’s humming and working well. It looks like a perfect day. Wrong.

“Right after lunch came the bombshell! The good doctor told all of us that he had offered free podiatry services that afternoon, to anyone who wanted or needed help from the mission downtown!

As I came out of the lunchroom, I opened the door to the waiting room and took a peek . . . not only was every seat in the waiting room filled, but people were sitting close together on the floor . . . I glanced up . . . there was a very long, seemingly endless line of people waiting to get into the office.”

The office didn’t close until well into the evening. The assistant nearly crawled to her car. As she drove home she fantasized about a nice relaxing bath and a shoulder rub. When she arrived home she found cars parked all down the street and in her driveway. Frightened she got out of the car and ran through the house and out to the back porch. There she heard her husband yell out to her, “Honey, I forgot to tell you that we’re having a barbecue tonight.”

Men and women think differently. Those differences are neither right nor wrong but they can result in confusion and conflict. In the story above, the doctor probably thought that the office was going to be open anyway, and everyone there was prepared to work with foot problems, so the information about the huge influx of people wasn’t needed. As far as the husband not telling his wife about inviting everyone to a barbecue . . . that was just wrong.

Dr. Pat Heim, an expert on gender differences knows that men and women grow up in different cultures while learning different lessons. She says, ” The hitch is that the rules of these cultures are typically invisible and these invisible rules are the cause of many misunderstandings as men and women work together . . .”

Dr. Heim’s diversity training video, Invisible Rules: Men, Women and Teams provides information and insight that is the basis for better understanding and communication between the sexes.

Among her insights:

Substantially Equal Payments Relief

If you initiated early distributions from your Individual
Retirement Account (IRA) in the last couple of years using a
Substantially Equal Payment plan, your annual distribution
amount may be more than your current account balance can bear.
You may think there is nothing you can do to alter your
distribution amount and slow down the depletion of your IRA
account. This is not true. The IRS now permits you to make a
one-time, permanent reduction to your annual distribution
amount.

The primary purpose of an IRA is to accumulate assets for
retirement. Therefore, distributions taken before age 59 are
subject to a 10% premature distribution penalty, unless an
exception applies. One such exception is a Substantially Equal
Payment plan, which as you know is subject to several
requirements. For example, your may not stop or otherwise modify
your distributions until the longer of five years or until you
reach age 59 .

Under your Substantially Equal Payment plan, your distribution
amount was probably calculated using one of three IRS approved
methods: annuity, amortization or life expectancy. The annuity
and amortization methods are used more often because they
produce the large distribution amounts that are easily matched
to income needs.

Both the amortization and annuity methods have a fixed annual
distribution amount. It is calculated once - at the beginning of
your payment stream - and the annual distribution amount may not
be modified. This is what distinguishes the amortization and
annuity methods from the life expectancy method. If you are
using one of these methods and your account balance experiences
a significant decline, you may be running a substantial risk of
depleting your entire account.

The annual distribution amount for the life expectancy method is
recalculated annually based on your current age and account
balance. If you have experienced a significant decline in your
account balance because of the current economic conditions, your
annual distribution amount will be automatically adjusted
downward. This flexibility ensures that distributions continue
at a rate your current account balance is capable of sustaining.

If you are currently using the annuity or amortization method,
the IRS now permits you to make a one-time, permanent switch to
the life expectancy method so that you may reduce your annual
distribution amount. For example, assume you were a 54-year-old
individual taking distributions under the annuity method of
$49,460 each year. If you elect make the switch, your
distribution amount for the current year would be reduced to
$14,234. This is a significant reduction.

In evaluating whether to make this switch, you must consider
many issues. For example, you must weigh the effect of
continuing your current distribution stream against taking a
reduced annual distribution amount. You must also consider the
timing of the switch. Not everyone will be able to make the
switch for the 2005 tax year. Before you make the one-time,
permanent switch, please discuss these and other relevant issues
with your financial advisor or tax professional.