Okay, it's now officially a recession.
I watched a cheery documentary on the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl last night. You can't help but wonder if this one bad year will drag on for a decade. Weathering one lean year is way different from trying to weather a decade.
One of the ways I'm keeping costs down this Christmas without cutting out gifts altogether is to use up the points from my credit cards. Although I never carry a balance, I also never carry cash, so the cards get used a lot and we do rack up some serious points. Especially this year when we found out we can charge the kids' college tuition bills!
Which made me wonder about Oprah. If she uses Discover and charges her dinners out, her clothes, her groceries like the rest of us, imagine the points she racks up! I bet she gets more in freebies than our household spends in a year!
I wonder what she does with her points? With my cards, there's a cash option and I think there's a donation option as well. Some of the points can be redeemed for double their value, like at Blockbuster. No one can watch that many movies!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
$500 Million to Keep India's Smokers from Lighting Up
I guess it's just pocket change to Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, but together they have pledged that many millions to fund smoking cessation programs in India, China and Africa. That's sure swell of them. It's today's top story in Newsday.
Yesterday's Daily Herald explained how staying healthy may be more taxing on our health care systems rather than less. As Froma Harrop said "Let's put it bluntly: Longer lives cost more money."
If I had $50 million burning a hole in my pocket, I think I would build a really awesome boarding school, like Hogwarts. Then I would collect all the children whose supposed guardians are starving them, beating them and destroying their souls. I stayed home to raise my own children, and I firmly believe that's the best way. But there are people who, while they can biologically produce children, are absolutely incapable of raising them and should be kept as far away as possible.
I think many kids would choose a cool Hogwarts-style orphanage rather than take a gamble on a foster family that may or may not work out. Of course there are wonderful foster families out there, but there are also bad ones and way too many kids have way too few options.
But sleeping in four-poster bed in a turret with your best friends? It worked for Harry.
Yesterday's Daily Herald explained how staying healthy may be more taxing on our health care systems rather than less. As Froma Harrop said "Let's put it bluntly: Longer lives cost more money."
If I had $50 million burning a hole in my pocket, I think I would build a really awesome boarding school, like Hogwarts. Then I would collect all the children whose supposed guardians are starving them, beating them and destroying their souls. I stayed home to raise my own children, and I firmly believe that's the best way. But there are people who, while they can biologically produce children, are absolutely incapable of raising them and should be kept as far away as possible.
I think many kids would choose a cool Hogwarts-style orphanage rather than take a gamble on a foster family that may or may not work out. Of course there are wonderful foster families out there, but there are also bad ones and way too many kids have way too few options.
But sleeping in four-poster bed in a turret with your best friends? It worked for Harry.
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