When many of us think of the iconic Texas cowboy, we conjure up images of a rugged wrangler with a quick draw.
We think of a man like Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, who said the best way to live life is to enjoy the everyday things “like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”
But would you believe that a number of these colorful characters also spent many a night wrapped up in a saddle blanket, under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, thumbing through pages of Byron and Tennyson? It is volumes like these, some historians claim, that instilled a love for poetry among American cowboys and inspired them to create their own verse, with its unique style and rhythm.
The genre of cowboy poetry was born on the cattle trails of the West after the Civil War. Cowboys with spare time began developing this verse – combining the traditional ballad style with the songs of sailors and soldiers, and even a bit of Victorian poetry. They added their own touch, with personal stories and likely some “tall tales,” too. The result was a genre that celebrated and documented life on the cattle drives—the sweethearts they longed for, the open spaces and natural beauty that embraced them, precarious encounters with shady characters, and the often rugged conditions they braved.
The earliest known book of cowboy poetry was penned by Lamar County native and Texas cowboy Lysius Gough (1862-1940). A runaway teenager, Gough did a little of everything during his lifetime – from cattle driving to teaching, and then onto real estate, farming and well drilling. Gough was one of the first settlers in Castro County and eventually went on to serve as president of the Texas Wheat Growers Association. He also helped form the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society. Somewhere in between, he published Western Travels and Other Rhymes, the original book of cowboy poems.  Years later, when Gough was discovered dead in his Amarillo home, the poem that was found still scrolled in his typewriter was eerily titled “Gone.”
Decades later, this slice of Americana is alive and well. Every February, Alpine, Texas—in the heart of Big Bend country—hosts the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the nation’s second oldest gathering of its kind. Held at Sul Ross State University, the 2-day gathering (with a cowboy church service on Sunday) draws hundreds of enthusiasts and performers—cowboys and cowgirls—each year from across the country. Roughly 80 percent of the performers are authentic cowboys, who run or own ranches or work in a related industry. While some performers recite their own, more contemporary poems, many choose to pay homage to the original cowboy poets and stick with reciting 19th century works. Listeners can hear not only classical, traditional and contemporary cowboy poetry, but also musical performances and storytelling. Sessions are held throughout the day, awards are given, and everyone is invited to a traditional cowboy breakfast of eggs, hot biscuits and gravy, served from an authentic chuck wagon.
This year, organizers and attendees will celebrate the gathering’s 25th anniversary, from February 25-27. Tickets are available in person, at the University Center. More information can be found at: http://texascowboypoetry.com. Thanks to these dedicated performers and their followers, this unique art form lives on—and with it, a request made by the original cowboy poet, Lysius Gough, in his poem “Reminiscing:”

Many changes more have been,
in one life’s fleeting span,
brought about by sturdy men,
who never failed to duty stand.
Historians, to thee this
charge we give,
write for us three
cherished words,
let them through future ages live,
cowboys, cutting horse, and herd.

Sources: Center for Cowboy and Western Poetry, Inc; Odessa American; “On the Trail of Cowboy Poetry” by David Stanley, Westminster College; Texas State Historical Association; Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering; Western Folklife Center. Sen. Cornyn serves on the Finance, Judiciary, Armed Services, and Budget Committees. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee. He served previously as Texas Levitra cheap Attorney General, Texas Supreme Court Justice, and Bexar County District Judge.

Did you not apply for the job you really wanted because you thought you wouldn’t get it anyway?

Do you feel it’s too late to start a new career, so you continue on your current path even though you’re miserable? Have you settled for a relationship with someone because you believe this is as good as it can get for you? When someone pays you a compliment, is your first response to deny and discount rather than simply saying thanks?

It could be that you’re suffering from what some consider to be the most dangerous disease — self-doubt!

Perhaps it’s time you grab your pompoms and become your own cheerleader.

Sometime in the past year I recall receiving an email or Facebook post about a YouTube link titled, “Jessica’s Daily Affirmation.” It was this adorable rather precocious little girl standing on her bathroom counter looking in the mirror basically proclaiming all that was wonderful buy prescription drugs on line about what she saw and declaring her grand expectations for her day and life.

It seems children are born with an innate sense of appreciation for themselves. This included you and me a few years back, by the way. What happened to our ability to cheer for ourselves and our lives in a positive and passionate way?

Somewhere along our life journey we learned to argue with and against ourselves. And in doing so, we lost the high regard we once had and became obsessed with self-criticism.

The good news is we can learn to root for ourselves again and stop underestimating our potential and settling for less than our best.

Self-appreciation is not arrogance! There is nothing wrong with valuing and honoring our God-given gifts, talents, abilities and skills. I have no doubt that God cherishes and blesses the uniqueness of each one of Her precious children. Why would we not do the same?

And of course we should celebrate our successes! Why should we only have pity-parties?

You are not inadequate, insufficient, deficient, limited in any way. You are not at a disadvantage. When you make an estimate of the quality or worth of yourself or your abilities that is lower than what God makes, you are cheating yourself out of seeing your potential, genius, passion and purpose. And you need to recognize your value, in order to reach it!

You have only become unmindful or forgetful of the child God created. And this child — like little Jessica — knows very well that anything is possible and whatever is possible will be great!

I can’t help but think that Jessica’s daily affirmations are a good way to begin each day. We, too, can make daily affirmations of our strengths and capabilities when we wake up each morning. It makes sense that if we are to reach our full potential, we need to begin by appreciating who we are and what we can do.

So be your ally, your friend, your cheerleader. Know you can count on yourself to be in your corner every step of your life journey. And know that God is right there along side of you cheering, applauding and rooting for Her child with you.

Today is big with prospects, possibilities and potential. And tomorrow is promising to be even brighter. Your enthusiasm and exuberance for each day will give you the sparkle, hope, faith, inspiration and encouragement you need to make each day be all that it can be.

You’ve got a lot in your favor, buy 20 mg acomplia online my friend — stop selling yourself short!

What woman hasn’t wished her husband or boyfriend could read her mind? Perhaps we’ve thought, “Just once, could he know what I’m feeling or what I need without acomplia order me explaining it to him or writing him a book?”
Sorry to tell you this, my women friends, but not even Superman could read minds, much to Lois Lane’s dismay.
I spent years in anguish and agony over my husband’s inability to understand what I was thinking. The thought never occurred to me that I couldn’t read his thoughts so why did I ever imagine — or hope — he could read mine?
I knew a couple who were married for almost seventy years. The wife wrote her husband weekly letters explaining to him — in infinite detail — her feelings, frustrations and longings. I used to think it was a funny thing to do. But it seemed to work well for them. I don’t know if he ever wrote her letters.
I must admit that many years of my marriage went by before my communication skills with my husband began to improve. Why was it so hard to talk with him about my innermost feelings?
I remember many days I spent crying that he didn’t understand me. And he didn’t. But how could he have without me making an effort to help him?
Perhaps the place to get to in a marriage is the desire to understand your husband as much as you want him to understand you. I think this is the essence of the “Golden Rule.” The idea of treating others the way you would like them to treat you.
Webster defines communication as “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals.”
“Exchanged” is the key word in this definition to me, as it suggests two parties exchanging — communicating — with each other.
Another definition of communication is “the exchange of thoughts, messages or information by speech, signals, writing or behavior.” From my experience, speech and writing have been more effective at getting my point across than signals or behavior.
Every time I’ve tried the “silent treatment” when I’m upset about something and go to bed in that mode, my husband just thinks I’m sleepy and he goes on to sleep while I lay there half the night stewing. When I wake him — eventually — he is totally clueless that anything is wrong.
I’ve almost always found that signals can get crossed, which then results in a mutual misunderstanding, or in other amoxicillin without prescription words, a failure to communicate.
Using words to effectively impart information could be considered an “art” — as another definition of communication suggested.
There seems to be an art in how we say what we want to say. Specifically, implementing the proper use of tone and emphasis as well as body language when speaking, are significant factors in getting our meaning across correctly. Without the correct usage, however, the “recipient” in the exchange could become defensive or get hurt feelings as well as totally misunderstand the meaning the “sender” intended.
I have definitely NOT mastered the art of communicating with my husband. And if there are wives out there who feel they have, I would sure love to hear from you. Tips and advice would be most welcomed!
Of course, it could be that women really are from Venus and men from Mars, so we’re destined to never completely understand each other. But perhaps recognizing that men and women have different needs and communicate in different ways is a good way to begin.
It’s probably important, too, to realize that words can have different meanings to men and women.
I heard a comedian explain this once. He gave the word — communication — as an example. He said women define communication as “the open sharing of thoughts and feelings with one’s partner” while men define it as “leaving a note before taking a fishing trip with the boys.”
Alas, without the ability to read each other’s minds, men and women may never be able to completely understand each other, but we can remember that we never will without trying. And that takes some form of communication!

Many years ago I stumbled onto the delights of murder mysteries and, inevitably, became Buy Generic Cialis hooked. I believe it was Jewish writer Harry Kemelman and his remarkable amateur sleuth, Rabbi David Small, who administered the addictive drug. Then came the descent into the depths of detection: Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Erle Stanley Gardner – purveyors of fascinating schemes and characters that irresistibly draw one into layered webs of intrigue. The desperate reader feels compelled to solve the burning question:  Who done it?

A good mystery always entertains, often informs, and, at the highest level, engages one’s moral faculties in serious thought. For instance, Agatha Christie’s brilliant drama, Murder on the Orient Express, confronts us with a troubling problem: is it ever right for us to execute justice as we see fit, when the usual legal machinery has failed? For victims of crime – like the parents of a brutally murdered child – this is no mere academic discussion. The recent PBS TV version of Orient Express elevates this issue to yet a higher plane. Do we honor God by accepting justice as fallible or may we lend him a hand in punishing evil?

Generally, mysteries are pretty clean. One can find hundreds – yea thousands – with practically no profanity nor graphic sex. This is important to me. I don’t want to ingest that kind of content.  However, subtexts need not rely on straight pornography to insinuate a pornographic message. One must watch out for subversive writers with personal agendas.

Which brings me to a book, which I’ll call Sandville.

In Sandville, no one is married. Glenn, the chief suspect has been married and divorced twice. The deceased victim, Felicia, was also married and divorced twice. The amateur sleuth, Claire, is a middle age single woman who fondly recalls her recent affair with a young college student. Kiki, also single and middle-aged, has two one-night stands in the course of a week. Lark, a divorcee, is always on the prowl, though not particularly successful.

Larry, the homicide detective, appears to be married to his wife, but – wouldn’t you know it? – he eventually confides to Claire that the marriage is virtually over. In his words, “We decided to split. We had a long heart-to-heart talk, and, without rancor, decided we could never realize our dreams with each other. Both she and I are free to find love elsewhere.”

In Sandville, near the end of the book, a highly emphasized “marriage” ceremony does actually take place. Grant, in his fifties, “weds” Kane, in his twenties, as the cast of characters utters sweet blessings. Grant “professed to Kane his deep love and promised to stay with him forever, ‘come what may through thick and thin.’” Kane thanked Grant for where can i buy cialis “a happiness I had never thought possible.”

In the universe of Sandville, normal marriage is always a disaster. Adultery is somewhat pleasant and liberating. But same-sex union . . . that’s the ticket! Only the deviant know fulfilling, lasting, joyous relationship.

This celebratory propaganda, without any graphic description, nevertheless is a form of pornography, perhaps more insidious than the outright blatant stuff. It seeks to undermine the sanctity of marriage. The writer wants to poison our minds and enlist us in destroying the chief cornerstone of our civilization.

The wisdom of Genesis has never been refuted. In that narrative God observes, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” God then goes to work “to make a suitable helper.” He does not make another man. He makes a woman, a magnificent woman suitable for an equally splendid man and brings her to him. The two quickly become husband and wife.

That was and is the Plan. It cannot be improved on. It enables humanity to flourish. Thus, we’re left with a real life mystery. Why do so many today try to murder marriage?

By Gary Hardaway

A friend of mine recalls growing up in a well-organized home where the four children each had many assigned chores every day. On one occasion his parents took in a foster boy of about three years old. In the evening, as the kids and their mom systematically went about preparing for supper, this little tyke, who was closely watching all this activity, suddenly burst into tears. Banging his spoon on the table, he proclaimed, “I want job! I want job!” They quickly gave him something to do.

There’s an inborn impulse inside the human heart that longs to do something useful. We need to work; we need to contribute. We feel unfulfilled if we don’t produce something of value.

But this innate drive can be snuffed out.

Many years ago, when I was a juvenile probation officer, a young man almost eighteen was arrested for burglary, and I got the case. I soon learned that he was recently cialis nz married. He had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and, in his mind, was manfully trying to take care of her and the expected child.

Hoping Generic Cialis Online to help, I decided to steer him toward getting a job. But when I broached the subject, the blood visibly drained from his face.  Ashen – and quivering – he literally could not visualize himself working. He and his wife had been on welfare all their lives, as had their parents. The possibility of earning a living had been absolutely extinguished from this young man’s consciousness.

Some would label this guy a lazy bum. But what I saw was not laziness but terror – panic. He felt totally incompetent to function in the real world. He had been neutered of initiative, conditioned to believe he had no talent, no ability or potential.

This summer, my 14 year-old grandson, Evan, has his first real job. For five weeks, four hours a day, Monday through Saturday, he’s working in our local raspberry harvest.  He’d like to work more, but state law limits fourteen year-olds to four hours a day. However, there’s an upside to the limit. It enables the farm to hire twice as many young people, 450 kids total, for either the morning or afternoon shifts.

Evan is grateful for the chance to make some money. And, in so doing, he’s growing up now, leaving childhood behind, journeying toward adulthood at a faster pace.

For the first time in several years, he’ll miss attending basketball camp. He had to make a choice. Unlike Yogi Berra, when we come to a fork in the road, we’ve got to choose. It’s a valuable lesson for a 14 year-old.  That’s the way life is.

Seventy years ago, President Roosevelt assured us that everyone has a “right” to a job – a dazzling example of wishful thinking. Jobs don’t appear by magic. They emerge through somebody’s vision, energy, and creativity.  A job is a privilege, gained because somebody else invested a lot of blood, sweat, toil, and tears in an enterprise.

In this dreary era, we hear politicians constantly promising “Jobs, Jobs,” as if the government has a magic wand. In May a paltry 41,000 jobs were created in the private sector. Business thrives only when government deliberately encourages entrepreneurial vision, investment, and risk-taking. Business dies when saddled with high taxes, costly regulations, and complicated bureaucratic red tape.

Government then compounds the problem by doling out endless unemployment benefits. A certain percentage of able-bodied citizens decide to quit seeking work in favor of perpetual “free lunch,” (paid for by the rest of us).

There’s no easy solution, but a rule from the early Christian Scriptures still makes good sense: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Hunger is a powerful motivator!

Evan is pretty lucky. He has what many millions of Americans desperately wish they had – a real job, with a real paycheck. But he’s also going to experience the satisfaction of helping to bring 50 million tons of delicious fruit to market. That sense of accomplishment is priceless.

That’s one reason I’ll be driving a truck, hauling some of those tons from the field to the refrigeration plant.  Old guys still need to feel useful too.

By Jim Hightower

Here’s some free advice: Never buy shares in a goldmine from a guy operating out of a house trailer.

Likewise, never buy a story from the Pentagon about an incredible discovery of gold in Afghanistan.

From out of nowhere, a recent news report excitedly tells us that a Pentagon taskforce has discovered an astonishing trillion dollars’ worth of untapped mineral deposits in that war-ravaged, impoverished country. Gold! Copper! Iron! And more!

“An economic boon is seen,” declares a newspaper headline. “There is stunning potential here,” exclaimed General David Petraeus, the top commander of America’s war operations in Afghanistan.

Hmmm… not so fast, Slick. Isn’t it at least curious that this “discovery” comes when the war is going so badly for us and both the public and Congress are questioning why we’re there? Suddenly, the Pentagon gives us a trillion reasons to keep spending American lives and tax dollars: There’s money in them thar hills.

Unmentioned in the Pentagon’s economic assessment is the fact that Afghans have known about these mineral deposits for centuries and have long been mining many of them, albeit on a small scale. The Soviets even mapped the extensive deposits in the 1980s Cialis Viagra buy Online during their occupation of Afghanistan, and our own geologists have known about the mining potential at least since 2004.

Still, even if the Pentagon has hyped up this story to prolong America’s commitment to the war, it actually could have the opposite effect. We’ve been told again and again how poor that nation is, with a total GDP cialis 50 mg of only $12 billion and its chief product being opium, so our commitment of 90,000 troops is essential to help impoverished Afghans building a modern economy and a stable government. But if they’re now a fabulously wealthy nation, they don’t need us. So…let’s leave.

By Ben Lilliston

Would you like some antibiotic-resistant bacteria with your grilled chicken at your backyard barbeque? Of course not. But that likelihood continues to grow unless the government makes industry change the way most American farm animals are raised.

American industrial animal production has fed our farm animals a steady diet of antibiotics for decades. Now, the bacteria are fighting back and we’re all paying the price.

An estimated 70 percent of all antibiotics (about 24.6 million pounds a year) consumed in this country are used non-therapeutically to help promote growth in our pigs, chickens, and cattle in overcrowded pens known as “confined animal feeding operations” (CAFOs). Without antibiotics added to their feed, disease would rapidly infect these animals.

In these factory farms, bacteria are exposed to low levels of antibiotics for long periods of time. That provides ideal conditions for the creation of bacterial resistance. Many of the antibiotics used to raise factory-farmed animals are the same prescription drugs that doctors use to treat sick humans. Now, antibiotic resistance developed in CAFOs is becoming a public health problem for us all.

The medical community has taken strong steps to reduce the over-prescription of antibiotics to humans to slow the development of these superbugs. But we can’t win this battle without a similar effort by meat and poultry companies.

Antibiotic resistance is already proving costly–at least $4 to $5 billion a year in health costs alone, according to an estimate from The National Academy of Sciences. With few new antibiotics on the horizon, protecting what we have is essential.

After dragging its feet for years, the government has finally taken the first timid steps to address this crisis. The Food and Drug Administration published in June a draft of new guidelines for the meat and poultry industry. The agency outlined a set of principles calling for the use of antibiotics to be limited to treating animal disease and to include veterinary oversight. FDA officials said these voluntary guidelines laid the groundwork for possible future regulations. Unfortunately, the agency sets no timeline for future regulations, which could be years, even decades, in the making.

To protect America’s health, Congress must accelerate action to protect antibiotics. More than 80 of the nation’s public health organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Public Health cialis nl Association, have endorsed a bill that would halt of the overuse of antibiotics in raising food animals. The bill, introduced by the only microbiologist in Congress, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would phase out the non-therapeutic use of seven classes of antibiotics in animals–unless the FDA determines the drugs do not contribute to antibiotic resistance affecting humans. The modest bill would still allow farmers to treat sick animals and it only covers antibiotics also used to treat humans.

But the big drug and meat companies represent a powerful lobby in Washington, and have thus far blocked the bill and FDA action. Why are they expending such effort to prevent this major public health initiative? As usual, it has to do with the bottom line. Banning antibiotics for healthy animals raised in extremely crowded conditions would mean that chicken, cattle, and pigs would require more room. The cost of producing beef, pork, and chicken would likely rise–although it would be nothing compared to the health costs linked to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can raise enough animals for food and still protect the effectiveness of antibiotics. Denmark, the world’s largest pork exporter, banned antibiotic feed additives in 1998. Producers improved animal husbandry and hygiene, and the overall use of antibiotics in agriculture dropped by over 50 percent. A similar ban is now in place in the rest of Europe. And of course many American farmers in the U.S. already use these more sustainable practices, producing pork, chicken and livestock without antibiotics.

Nearly all of us have needed antibiotics at some point in our lives. If we want antibiotics to work for us and our children in the future, we have to get smarter about how we use them. We need to find the political will to act.

By Karen Dolan

Fifteen brand cialis online million Americans are currently unemployed, and nearly half of that number has been actively and fruitlessly seeking employment for longer than six months. The depth and breadth of our labor market crisis is the greatest in over 50 years.

Though the unemployment rate dropped slightly in June from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, this is deceiving.

As noted economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research explains, joblessness receded slightly only because 652,000 Americans left the labor force in June. Additionally, the number of employed workers fell by over 300,000 and the “establishment survey” of businesses, used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that average hourly wages and workweek hours are declining.

Thank goodness for unemployment insurance, which helps cushion us from abject poverty in the face of such a dearth of jobs. At least Congress consistently does one thing right. Historically, both sides of the aisle have been able to agree that when unemployed workers are unable to find jobs due to no fault of their own, a decent society provides a cushion so that they can weather the storm until able once again to contribute to rebuilding our economy.

Wait…Goodness is telling me that it has no reason to be thanked–Congress hasn’t consulted it. In fact, Republicans and deficit-hawk Democrats have not only turned their backs on goodness, but on the nation’s 15 million unemployed people, and the children and families who depend upon them.

Even though economists of all stripes and allegiances understand that unemployment benefits are among our most effective tools in a job crisis and the current recession, lawmakers are betting that fanning the flames of deficit hysteria will get them re-elected in the fall. Despite attempts to extend critically needed, but expiring, unemployment benefits, the Senate has once again let us down. Republicans filibustered attempts to help American workers. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a Democrat, joined them, leaving Senate Dems one short of staving off a bit of suffering to millions of us before leaving town to enjoy their own sumptuous Fourth of July picnics.

Then there’s Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee vying for Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Nevada Senate seat. She sparked uproar akin to Rep. Joe Barton’s disgraceful apology to BP when she suggested that the unemployed in our country are spoiled. Following a barrage of criticism, she attempted trying to rewrite these comments with this puzzler as to what she really meant: “What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job…There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now.”

As reported by the National Employment Law Project, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Department of Labor, there are nearly five workers actively vying for every one available job.

So, c’mon. We may be jobless, we may be angry and frustrated that jobs have disappeared and there is seemingly no political will to create more through a second stimulus, we may be plunging increasingly into poverty through no fault of our own. We may be dismayed that goodness has been abandoned by many on Capitol Hill. But we aren’t stupid. And we aren’t spoiled, and our children don’t deserve the long-term effects of poverty that Congress is foisting upon them in bids for votes in the fall elections.

Angle and the filibustering Republicans-plus- Nelson are out of touch and playing a dangerous game. Though they may ultimately lose office, the most immediate and devastated losers in their game are millions of Americans and their families who have been kicked to the curb, as their unemployment benefits expire.

As a co-founder and the current creative director of the Rancho La Puerta fitness resort and Golden Door spas, Deborah Szekely has long been known as a pioneer in health and wellness. She’s now focusing on a new target audience: our nation’s children. Together with Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and now a professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, she’s promoting pharmacy cialis a pilot program they hope will help educate schoolchildren on the importance of healthy lifestyles. It’s called the “living skills fifth grade semester.” It targets fifth graders because they believe children at that age still respect their teachers, parents, and friends, yet are old enough to understand lessons on healthy Generic pills whithout prescription choices and tasks like food preparation, gardening, shopping, and budgeting. This makes them good candidates to be enthusiastic about learning how healthy food and exercise will make their bodies work best, and makes them likely to be excited to share what they are learning at school with their families at home. As Szekely says, “We believe these children will become proselytizers to their family, much as past generations did when confronting their parents about smoking.” How would this semester-long intervention work? Szekely and Kessler envision the program this way: “What if fifth-grade American children receive an entire semester in which all classes in math, science, geography, language, history, and the environment integrated existing fifth-grade educational requirements with studies of how the body functions, its nutritional and physical needs, and proper sources and preparation of healthy, fresh, nutritious foods?” Proven programs are already being funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through land-grant universities and colleges that could serve as models. These include a program at Rutgers University in New Jersey that offers children the chance to work on a farm; a University of Massachusetts program that’s tailored to low-income, culturally diverse adolescents; and a Louisiana State University Agriculture Center program that brings a traveling exhibit on the importance of healthy eating and exercise to schools across the state. The living skills fifth grade semester would build on successful ideas like these and bring similar kinds of lessons right into the classroom. In the sample curriculum, assignments might include learning about the different tactics advertisers use to try to influence people’s food choices; creating recipes for healthy holiday gifts; studying how different Native American cultures used the land; learning about the different parts of the digestive system; planning and planting a class garden; researching heart-healthy activities and foods while celebrating Valentine’s Day; designing a nutritious “child-friendly” restaurant menu; studying how the immune system works; calculating how much energy it would take to burn off the calories in favorite snack foods; and developing a sample family food budget. The program would have goals of teaching children how their bodies work, the causes of disease, and the importance of prevention–the “living skills” needed “for a long, healthy, and happy life.” At a time when more and more experts are sounding the alarm about the threat rising child obesity levels pose to our nation’s future health and productivity, parents, schools, communities, and experts all have a role to play in finding solutions to this crisis. Here’s another crucial proposal to add to the list. As Szekely and Dr. Kessler say: “What if we don’t let our children lead the way to their—and our—healthier lives? Then, as current trends continue, an appalling 86% of Americans could be overweight within two decades. Obesity-related medical bills will amount to almost $1 trillion. The solution is prevention via education, and it must start now.” I hope our leaders and citizens willhear and heed them.

Pretty much everyone (outside of the nutty “he’s the Antichrist” coalition) thinks President Barack Obama did the right thing in firing his Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Unfortunately, he did it for the wrong reasons.

McChrystal got fired for shooting his mouth off about his disdain for our president, his civilian staff, and our allies within earshot of a Rolling Stone reporter. (Generals and high officials get so used to kid-glove treatment from the mainstream press that they’re often shocked when a real reporter shows up and actually reports.)

Obama had to get rid of the guy lest he, Obama, be labeled a wimp and lose his already slippery standing with the military and our allies. He immediately won points, however, for naming Gen. David Petraeus as McChrystal’s successor.

This, Obama assured us, would mean a seamless continuation of the strategy we’ve been following in Afghanistan.

You know times are hard when keeping our Afghanistan War strategy is considered good news.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed (with the World Cup and all, times are busy) but we’re not winning the war in Afghanistan; we’re not even tying. The strategy, whatever it is, isn’t working.

There’s a reason for this: Strategies that depend on invading and pacifying Afghanistan, thereby bending it to the invader’s will, never work. Never.

It didn’t work for Alexander the Great, for the Mongols, does cialis really work for the British Empire or for the Soviet Union, all of which considered themselves experts at invading and pacifying. They all came into the country with flags flying, and all left sadder but wiser–mostly sadder. It’s what Afghanistan does to invaders.

Now it’s our turn.

Whenever critics of the war bring up its parallels to the Vietnam Folly, supporters sternly admonish them with: “Afghanistan is not Vietnam.”

Really? Let’s review:

We’re trying to suppress an indigenous insurgency–albeit one augmented with troops, weapons and support from outside sources–in a faraway land of which we know little.

We’re bombing the hell out of them, using $500,000 missiles and multi-million-dollar drones to destroy mud huts, and in the process killing innocent people and converting indifferent bystanders Generic pharmacy into angry, hate-filled militants. It is a policy of destroying villages in order to save them.

In this effort, which is increasingly ours alone, we’re dependent for legitimacy on a corrupt, feckless Afghan government that lacks the support of its people.

And, lastly, our success depends almost totally not merely on being able to reform that government, but on our ability to transform its largely unmotivated and illiterate army into a modern fighting force so that we can turn things over to them and desert the battlefield without seeming to.

Sounds like Vietnam to me. And, like Vietnam, it will end badly.

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, knows that. That wily man is already negotiating with the Taliban and its Pakistani sponsors. He knows we’re not long for this war.

The Republicans would have it otherwise. Led by military geniuses like John McCain and Dick Cheney, they’re incensed that Obama has set 2011 as the sell-by date of this war. Apparently, they’re willing to keep fighting it forever.

And when we do leave, they’ll blame the Democrats for “losing Afghanistan,” much as they used to blame Democrats for losing China.

We’re not going to lose Afghanistan, for the same reason we didn’t lose China. We never owned it.

The Bush-Cheney bunch had their shot at taming Afghanistan. They didn’t do it. Whatever their strategy, it didn’t work. If they get another try at it, it won’t work again.

A Taliban spokesman recently said this of his country: “Before Gen. McChrystal, many strong military generals suffered defeat. The Americans know that Afghanistan is the Graveyard of Empires but even so, they invaded this country.”

The reporter was reminded of a Taliban saying:

“The Americans have the watches, but we’ve got the time.”