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When you communicate with your staff, do you speak to help and instruct your staff, or to make you feel better?

Filed Under: BUSINESS

Scripture reminds us, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification…” (Ephesians 4:29 NASB).

Often, we tend to pontificate and make speeches to our staff. These statements may make us feel better, but are rarely helpful.

When you have an issue with staff or co-workers, carefully identify the issue, and outline your perspective on how to improve a situation. Avoid judgmental statements, or from making personal attacks.

Focus on the issue, and possible solutions. Be objective, and instructional.

The result will be improved communication with staff..

Is every word you utter useful and constructive, or do you let off steam at times?

Filed Under: BUSINESS

Scripture tells us, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such as a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29 NASB).

Consider each word we utter. Is our motivation to teach, instruct or help, or are we demonstrating frustration or anger.

Accept the responsibility of every word from your mouth, and accept the responsibility of maintaining personal control at all times.

When we insure each word is constructive, we save time, energy, and maintain positive business relationships. In addition, your staff will become more effective with constructive instruction.

‘Charlotte’ Review: An Affecting But Conventional Portrait of an Artist Whose Work Survived the Holocaust

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, Variety

Few victims of the Holocaust left behind such a methodical and memorable record of their life as Charlotte Salomon, a native Berliner who died in Auschwitz at age 26. As if anticipating that premature end, she’d spent much of the preceding two years painting about a thousand gouaches composing the illustrated autobiography “Life? Or Theater?,” […]

Dianne Feinstein’s Cognitive Decline is So Bad That a Lawmaker Had to Reintroduce Themselves to Her Multiple Times During One Encounter

Filed Under: Gateway Pundit, THE NEWS

Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), 88, is in such bad shape that her own Democrat colleagues want her to retire before her term expires at the end of 2024.

In December 2020, The New Yorker, citing people familiar with the matter, Feinstein had been “seriously struggling” and her short-term memory “has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have.”

Feinstein has now significantly declined since the New Yorker’s report and Democrats are worried she cannot fulfill her duties.

According to Democrats who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle on the condition of anonymity, Feinstein’s cognitive decline is so bad that a lawmaker had to reintroduce themselves to her multiple times during one encounter.

The Chronicle spoke with four US Senators and three former Feinstein staffers about the California Senator’s cognitive decline.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

When a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years.

Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.

Rather than delve into policy, Feinstein, 88, repeated the same small-talk questions, like asking the lawmaker what mattered to voters in their district, they said, with no apparent recognition the two had already had a similar conversation.

The episode was so unnerving that the lawmaker — who spoke to The Chronicle on condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic — began raising concerns with colleagues to see if some kind of intervention to persuade Feinstein to retire was possible. Feinstein’s term runs through the end of 2024. The conversation occurred several weeks before the death of her husband in February.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” the lawmaker said. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.”

Feinstein declined an interview with The Chronicle.

“The last year has been extremely painful and distracting for me, flying back and forth to visit my dying husband who passed just a few weeks ago,” Feinstein told The Chronicle. “But there’s no question I’m still serving and delivering for the people of California, and I’ll put my record up against anyone’s.”

Dianne Feinstein in February announced her husband of more than 40 years, Richard Blum, died of lung cancer at the age of 86.

The post Dianne Feinstein’s Cognitive Decline is So Bad That a Lawmaker Had to Reintroduce Themselves to Her Multiple Times During One Encounter appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Launch SiriusXM Station Ahead of New LP

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, Spin

The Red Hot Chili Peppers will join peers such as Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead with the April 1 launch of their own dedicated SiriusXM channel, “Whole Lotta Red Hot.” Broadcasting from channel 315, the station will kick off with the band’s track-by-track commentary about their new album, Unlimited Love, which arrives the same day.

Later that day, the channel will feature a previously unaired 2006 concert from the Forum in Inglewood, California. And at some point in 2022, the Chili Peppers will play for the first time at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater as part of SiriusXM’s Small Stage series. The show will be open only to SiriusXM subscribers and Pandora listeners, and will also be broadcast live on “Whole Lotta Red Hot.”

Channel listeners can expect to hear music from throughout the Chili Peppers’ nearly 40-year career as well as selections from other artists and influences “personally curated by the band,” including Fugazi, Parliament-Funkadelic, Iggy Pop, Stevie Wonder and Prince.

“We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together,” the Chili Peppers said in a statement. “Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission.”

As previously reported, Unlimited Love is the band’s first album since the return of guitarist John Frusciante, who was absent from the Chili Peppers from 2009-2019. It was produced by longtime collaborator Rick Rubin.

“When we got together to start writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, The Kinks, The New York Dolls, Richard Barrett, and others,” Frusciante said. “Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”

The Chili Peppers begin an extensive world tour June 4 in Seville, Spain. A North American stadium leg gets underway July 23 in Denver, with support from such acts as Thundercat, The Strokes, St. Vincent and Haim.

The post Red Hot Chili Peppers Launch SiriusXM Station Ahead of New LP appeared first on SPIN.

Even if it WERE the ‘don’t say gay’ bill, I would still support it

Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

I have previously noted that there is no such thing as the “Don’t say gay bill” and that those words are the creation of opponents of the bill. In fact, I have noted that you could just as well call it the “Don’t say straight bill,” since the bill, which passed in Florida, simply forbids schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity issues with children in kindergarten through third grade.

Yet, even if the bill actually contained the expression, “Don’t say gay,” I would still support it, since there’s no good reason to be talking about homosexuality to these young children. As Bill Maher correctly opined, “maybe kids that young shouldn’t be thinking about sex at all.'”

Again, the bill does not mention homosexuality or use terms like “transgender.” And we must be diligent to combat the media’s misinformation.

But the best way we can do that is by pointing out just how young these kids are in K-3, thereby underscoring Maher’s remarks.

Let’s focus on the youngest group, namely, kids in kindergarten, who, on average, will be 5-6 years-old.

According to the Very Well Family website, “During kindergarten, children … learn to use question words, such as ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ ‘why,’ and ‘how,’ as well as how to make words plural by adding an ‘s’ or ‘es’. They also learn how to use common nouns and prepositions.

“Kindergarteners begin to learn the concepts of addition and subtraction, respectively, as ‘putting together and adding to’ and ‘taking apart and taking from.'”

Yes, we’re talking about very little children here.

They are also taught, “Socialization skills, such as taking turns, waiting to be called on by the teacher, and being kind to others, are also emphasized in most kindergarten classes.”

In this environment, under what circumstances would the teacher need to talk about being “gay”?

The children have no understanding of romantic attraction, while sex and sexuality have no meaning to them – other than knowing that boys are boys and girls are girls. (At least that’s what they should know. Today, simple biological facts are under assault.)

That’s why, at this early stage of life, some of the little boys want to marry their own mothers. That’s how far their understanding of marriage and sexuality often go.

As for your average 5-6 year-old, most boys “like” other boys and most girls “like” other girls. But it’s not because they’re gay.

To the contrary, even the very idea of opposite-sex attraction is foreign to them, since, to repeat, they have no true understanding of sexuality or romantic attraction. In fact, they are just as likely to “like” a doll as they are a to “like” a person of the opposite sex.

So, I ask again, in what context could they truly understand the concept of homosexuality? Under what circumstances would they need to hear the word “gay”?

According to the K5Learning.com website, “The kindergarten year is one in which kids learn more about the formal classroom setting – learning to focus for segments of time on basic literacy and math, and learning simple science and social studies. This is the foundation year for getting used to the routine of school, the process of focusing and learning, and the social skills involved in making new friends. It’s a crucial year for building the foundation of learning.”

When it comes to reading, “Kindergarten students learn how to identify letters in the alphabet and their sounds, and about letters and sounds that go together to form words. Most kindergarten children are expected to read words by the end of the school year.”

As far as math is concerned, it is “all about the basics.” Specifically, the kids “will learn how to count, recognize numbers up to 10 and sort objects. Using concrete props, they will learn the concepts of more and less, ordinal numbers, basic addition and subtraction, creating patterns. They’ll start to learn about time and calendars and cover these regularly in class. Teachers often start the day by having a student come up to the board to pin the calendar day, the day in the week and the weather on that day.”

As for science, “Kids learn about plants, animals, good health habits, the weather and keeping track of the weather, and about the five senses and basics about their bodies.”

But note this carefully. This does not mean they will learn about the sexual function of their bodies, something of which they have zero concept. And they will certainly not learn that they might be transgender, trapped inside the wrong body.

Unfortunately, sex education and LGBTQ+ activism have continued to push the envelope with their radical agendas, seeking to indoctrinate and influence younger and younger children. That’s why I hope that many other states will follow Florida’s lead, even as a starting point. We must push back against this societal madness and against the sexualizing of our children.

What about kids that feel or look different, whether it’s because of their skin color or ethnicity or body shape or facial features or social awkwardness or non-conformity to expected gender roles (such as the “sissy” boy or the like)? The answer is simple.

You teach the kids to be nice to everyone. You teach the little children not to be bullies. You share with them the golden rule.

As I wrote over a decade ago, you can teach children that bullying is bad without needing to teach that gay is good.

The K5Learning site does say this at the end: “In social studies the year start with the focus on ‘me.’ They learn about their immediate and extended families, learn their address and phone numbers and share information about themselves and their interests.

“By the end of the year, they will have broadened their field to look at different families, cultures, the neighborhood and the community.”

This would be the obvious place for an activist teacher to say, “And some of you come from homes with two daddies or mommies, and that’s what we call gay.”

But, to say it again, that is an unnecessary intrusion, and teachers do not have the moral responsibility to cover all the different configurations of a family. Some kids live in polyamorous homes. Must that be included too? Do we introduce the word “poly” to them for short? (Some activists would probably say yes!)

Some kids don’t know who their real father is. Some come from anonymous sperm donors. Many are from divorced homes.

Simply stated, it is not the role of a kindergarten teacher to address these things, especially when we remember how young and socially ignorant and impressionable the little ones are.

That’s why even an irreligious atheist can point this out. And that’s why, even though the Florida education bill does not say “don’t say gay,” there’s no good reason that “gay” needs to be in these children’s vocabulary.

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The post Even if it WERE the ‘don’t say gay’ bill, I would still support it appeared first on WND.