Here we are at the end of another school year, and once again, teachers throughout the USA are facing uncertainty. Will they have a job next school year and if so, will their classroom balloon to unmanageable sizes? Congress has not acted and now the impact of sequestration on federal...

April has more pet awareness events than any other time of year. It is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)'s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month, American Red Cross' National Pet First Aid Awareness Month, National Heartworm Awareness Month, National Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week...

Short term unemployment which is 6 months or less, according to Forbes, in January 2013 was 4.9% which is only 0.7% above the pre-recession rate. Long term unemployment (over 6 months) is at 3% which is three times higher than before the recession. The long term unemployed make up...

Over 200 years ago James Madison wrote "the greater proportion of citizens who are their own masters, the more free, the more independent, and the more happy must be society itself." Entrepreneurship is a critical measurement of our country's political vitality and our own personal liberties. The more independent citizens...

Homelessness, poverty, recession; you would hope that a New Year would wipe away all of the bad things that have happened to our nation... but it does not. We still wake up in 2013 with the same issues we had in 2012. Is there any hope in sight?

According to...

More Americans used food stamps to buy their Thanksgiving dinner than any time in our history according to US News & World Report. Forty two million of us are on food stamps, and the food stamp program (now called SNAP -- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), cost the U.S. government...

America's national safety net of social services is a curious public/private mix supporting the most vulnerable people in our society. It has been clearly pointed out to us this fall that in our current economic crisis, the government will have to be doing less because the dollars are not there....

We noticed this year on our Facebook page that every time we posted a picture of a dog or cat, it was shared five times more than any other picture we posted. In this modern world of us all moving in so many different directions at such a...

Now that school is back in session, it is difficult for all of us who grew up with ample access to sports and the arts, to see how our school systems have evolved and have practically eliminated the character building program of sports participation.

According to Yahoo!, in...

Now that we are entering another school year, it is hard to believe that our modern school system is less than 100 years old. According to Wikipedia, in 1900, out of 45 states, 34 had compulsory schooling laws for elementary education, of which only 4 were in the South....

We are all teachers, whether we want to be or not. You are a teacher when you help your child take their first step. You are a teacher as a grandparent when you teach the grand kids how to make cookies. You are a teacher at work when you take...

The people of the United States were ranked as the most generous in the world in terms of giving time and money to nonprofits in 2011, up from fifth place in 2010 according to the Los Angeles Times. Sixty-five percent of Americans said they donated money to charity,...

According to Fox News, the percent of married households in the U.S. fell to 48.4 percent in 2010, down from 55.2 percent in 1990 and 78 percent in 1960. This is the lowest in recorded history for our country. In 1960, according to the LA Times,...

"Generation Z" are our kids that have been born since the late 1990's. This generation has grown up with the World Wide Web and is highly connected because of the Internet. Instant messaging, text messaging, smartphones, tablet computers and social networking are part of their fiber. They have 24 hour...

Forbes just came out with their latest list of billionaires. The media during our recession and tax crisis has been concentrating on the top 1%, which are Americans earning at least $343,000 in adjusted gross income as reported on their tax returns. This latest list of billionaires is...

Open Forum reports that there is an 11% increase in the number of small businesses closing and a 17% decline in the number of small businesses opening.

Get Busy Median reports 69% of small businesses survive at least two years, 44% of new firms survive four...

Now that the holiday season is over and retailers in general are reporting slightly higher sales than last year, the business community is letting out a shared sigh of relief, because it could have easily gone the other way continuing the recession we have all been dealing with over the...

What has America gotten itself in to? Just about every state and every city is cutting back funding to services needed by those who need it most.

The Chicago Reporter published the headline this week "Temperatures dropping. Will the state restore funding for homeless shelters?" It goes on...

October is Adopt a Pet Shelter Month, and as far as I am concerned, we should be celebrating this every month of the year. According to the Humane Society site, animal shelters care for up to 8 million dogs and cats every year and euthanize around 4 million...

Last week the White House released their "American Jobs Act" proposal. Two ideas that caught my eye included preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, and modernizing at least 35,000 public schools by supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and...