While illegal drugs are now readily available, even in grade schools, it should not be so shocking that adolescent alcohol abuse is also a widespread problem. Unlike prescription and street drugs, alcohol is legal and readily available in most people’s homes. While you, as a parent, may have a stock of alcoholic beverages in your home bar inventory, you might never imagine that your kids are imbibing.

You certainly must worry about the drug culture going on in every school, but may not realize how far down this reaches, even to the grade school level. By the time your child reaches middle school, you can be sure that they are exposed to alcohol and drugs. Peer pressure plays a big role in fostering a desire to ‘be cool’ and experiment with both alcohol and drugs. Drugs may scare off some kids, but alcohol is a socially sanctioned, legal, ‘recreational’ step into the world of adult privileges.

Kids don’t seem to distinguish between alcohol and drugs, except that drugs are illegal, while alcohol is not. Perhaps this is why adolescent alcohol abuse is on the rise. “My parents drink, so why shouldn’t I try it?” is a common refrain.One thing does lead to another, and in the case of adolescent alcohol abuse, kids can sneak alcohol right from their own home. They don’t realize that their physiological development is not that of an adults and that alcohol affects them differently. They also don’t understand moderation in all things is the best course of action. While you may enjoy an occasional drink with dinner, or be able to enjoy a simple relaxing effect, kids tend to overdo. They are looking for that absolute high. Alcohol provides such a high. Adolescent alcohol abuse is what ensues.

So how can you help your kids distinguish between moderate enjoyment and abuse? If you, as a parent, choose to drink alcohol in moderation, you must prove, by example, the difference. Talk to your kids. When you pour a glass of wine with dinner, confine yourself to a glass or two.

In European households, children are sometimes allowed to have a few sips, on special occasions. They may get that heady feeling, along with a sense that it’s not some forbidden enjoyment, but is tied to the enjoyment of the food. They are not likely to be tempted to indulge outside the home and may not even enjoy it.

You may think that such repeat criminals with felony convictions, should be incarcerated for life. Many people, when they think of a felony crime, assume this must mean murder, violence or heinous acts have been committed. This is not the case. While other state’s three strike laws require that each of the three crimes are of a violent nature before the life sentence is imposed, California makes it mandatory that a life sentence be imposed on a person convicted of a third felony crime, regardless of whether the third crime was violent or not. The criteria used in the California three strikes law only requires that the first two be violent, or more ambiguously, ‘serious’ in nature.

You may have heard of the California man who was sentenced to life after stealing a piece of pizza from a group of kids. His previous record included one violent assault and four others of a non-violent nature. Does this man truly deserve life in prison? His case caused such an uproar in the public, that the man’s sentence was eventually reduced to six years.

Another problem with the California three strikes law is that the defendant may rack up his quota of three felonies in a single incident. You’ve doubtless heard the phrase, ‘throwing the book at him’. This is a strategy often employed by prosecutors in order to have the defendant agree to a plea deal, where some charges are dropped if the defendant pleads guilty to one or two others. The prosecutor may know that some of the other charges won’t fly in court, perhaps due to lack of evidence. The defendant, faced with a multiplicity of charges, true or not, may realize he’ll do less time by taking the deal. In doing so, he may be setting himself up, in certain respects, for a future of life imprisonment, should he commit another felony.Under the California three strikes law, qualifying felonies include petty theft or possession of a controlled substance. In addition, previously sealed records of juvenile crimes, are now fair game. This is just another way in which a guy stealing a piece of pizza ends up with a life sentence.

Most Americans believe in social justice and rehabilitating repeat offenders of petty crimes. The idea is not to fill prisons, but promote a better society. It seems that more careful legislation could enable justice. You decide.

Though some joke and say caring for the elderly is much like caring for a baby, that is usually not the case. Some do develop conditions like dementia or have debilitating strokes that render them unable to communicate their needs and wants, or unable to think about much of anything. In that sense, elder care can be somewhat like caring for a baby, but many older people have full capacity for thought and speech. It is their bodies that fail them. If you find that you are soon going to be caring for the elderly in your home, you have quite an endeavor in front of you. Hopefully, you have talked it all out with your spouse and your children so everyone knows what is going on and what will happen. You may find some help and advice from local organizations that deal with elder care. You may need special beds and have to make special changes to your home. Research can help you understand what you will need to do and even what type of demands this is going to put on you and your life.

Some choose caring for the elderly as a career. It takes a special type of person to do this, as it can be very sad to care for those who are nearing the end of their lives. It is doubly sad when some do not have family to be by their side as they go. Many want to work with caring for the elderly as a career, but they find that they just can’t handle the emotions that go with it. Others find a satisfaction is doing all they can to ensure the end of someone’s life is as fulfilling and comfortable as possible.

The school setting that I teach in is quite diverse. The main focus we have with our students is respect. Respect yourself, respect other students and respect each other’s differences. I believe that in order to respect others you need to understand them and they’re believes. I spend a great deal of time talking about the various cultures that are prevalent in our school. This month we are concentrating on African American history. I involve the students in the lesson plans. Three students are going to present the African American history of their particular families. The neat thing is that these students did not know the full story until they began working on the project. They are learning things about their great grandparents that they never knew before. All students are involved in each segment that we do. Those students that are not African Americans will report on a more general topic having to do with African American history. The purpose is not only to have a better understanding of each other’s past and culture, but to realize that most cultures have common elements. The Native American students and the Hispanic students will realize that some of the celebrations they practice within their culture are done for similar reasons. I do not correlate the different months or topics with national observances. January is the national African American history month. I do not do it then because some of the importance gets over shadowed by the media coverage of national events at the time. The students report to me that they are enjoying learning about each other and understanding each other better. As an educator I need to say that I am optimistic for the future of our country because I see young people doing great things.

The basis of the show was a group of adolescent friends that call themselves The Midnight Society. Each episode finds them sat round a secretly located campfire in the woods, taking it in turn to tell each other scary tales. These stories never overstep the mark of what is an acceptable fright story for a child and they stay away from anything graphic. A typical plot would involve a haunted house, magic curses, witches, aliens, or ghosts. The episodes would conclude with a happy ending, at least for the main cast.

The storytelling group included Ross Hull as Gary, Jodie Resther as Kiki, Rachel Blanchard as Kristen, Kareem Blackwell as Quinn, and Daniel DeSanto as Tucker.
In addition to the regulars in Are You Afraid of the Dark, there were recurring characters, such as Sardo, who owned a magic shop that the children frequent. Another character was Dr.Vink, who was portrayed as a mad scientist.

For anyone who missed the original run or for those who want to indulge in nostalgia, there are DVDs available of the series. The complete seasons are all there and feature bonus features of episode synopses. The sixth season DVD also has a photo gallery from that season. There is also a compilation of eight episodes called Are You Afraid of the Dark? – Freaky Favorites. Fans of the show can also announce their loyalty with a Midnight Society T-shirt. The fan base isn’t confined to the United States, as re-runs of the shows are watched in the UK, Australia, the Czech Republic and in Latin countries.There is an excellent website, called Are You Afraid of the Dark – The Campfire, that celebrates the show with pictures, games and information. Fans can watch entire episodes, read episode guides and biographies of the characters. They can also read about the actors and what other TV shows and movies they made later. There are fun quotes and bits of trivia. The site began in 2004 and has proved very popular, keeping interest in the series alive. These stories, often taken from existing fairy tales and urban myths, inspired other shows aimed at a horror teen audience.

This is why it is important for American singles to use every tool at their disposal to meet the man or women of their dreams. Online dating services used to be just a tool for the super geek to try to meet someone to be romantic with. Nowadays, they are practically mainstream. Everyone wants to meet someone online. After all, it makes it so much easier in many different ways. On the one hand, you are not going to be judged by your looks. You don’t have to be quick and witty, and you can spend the time to think of the perfect thing to say. Best of all, if you don’t like the American single you are talking to, you can always go elsewhere and never deal with them again.Although online dating is a lot of fun, there are a lot of other ways to meet interesting singles. One of the most popular ones is activity groups. People are absolutely fanatical for hobbies in this country. If you are not involved in a particular activity, you might as well have a sign on your back that says no friends. Once you get out of college, this is practically the only way to meet someone. Get involved in hiking group, take dance lessons, or whatever. Just get involved. There are plenty of American singles who are there for exactly the same reason, so you don’t have to feel weird about going just for the purpose of trying to pick someone up. And even if you don’t meet someone, you do not need to think of it as a dead loss. After all, you now have a hobby and a few new friends. That is always worth something.

American life is different for everyone. You can probably be assured that each person who might be asked to explain what it means would come up with a different and interesting answer. The public radio show The American Life might attempt to answer the question by offering things that seem to make Americans who they are, but even each person listening to the show would have a different answer if asked. It does, however, seem to refer to old fashioned values, but even then, everyone’s idea of what those might be would differ.

You would probably find an interesting array of videos if you searched for ‘American Life’ online. This would give you a glimpse into what many are thinking in regards to what it might be or what they think it is. Does it have to do with the American Dream? What is that anyway? It seems even then, people have differing ideas as to what that Dream might be. Is it the same dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. had or has it become distorted because of the widening divided among our perceived classes? Whatever the case, no answer is wrong. American life is different for each person. Think of the rich and famous, and you can see how they might view life in this country differently than the guy next door who has two jobs and still can’t quite make ends meet. Even so, some companies, especially those selling life insurance, might use that term or idea to sell their insurance. If nothing else, it doesn’t matter what one thinks, as the term American Life is generally a favorable one to most, even if they have different ideas about what it means.

When thinking about American life, don’t forget that America is more than just the United States. North America includes Canada, and there is also South America and Central America. That opens the term even wider. Those in the US and those around the world often refer to citizens of the US as “Americans” but that term is faulty.