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Reed’s parents Troy and Denise were members of the Ohio State University Marching Band, and their school spirit has turned the family into diehard Buckeyes fans.
Two years ago, Grand Reed’s tumor was diagnosed and almost immediately he decided to give his tumor the name Michigan.
The story of the boys tumor and his choice in naming his cancerous spot led OSU Head Coach Urban Meyer to stop by the hospital in December.
Before he left the hospital, Grant Reed and his family donated two wagons for future patients. The wagons says “Beat Michigan” on their sides.
While Grant Reed’s tumor fight against “Michigan” might seem like a silly way for a kid to deal with cancer, research has shown that a positive attitude in the fight against cancer can mean all the difference. Any diehard college sports fan can tell you that there is a lot of motivation in defeating your schools biggest rival.
Birthdays: Opera singer Sherrill Milnes is 84. Rock singer-musician Ronnie Hawkins is 84. Movie director Walter Hill is 79. Singer Rod Stewart is 74. Steely Dan singer-musician Donald Fagen is 71. Boxing Hall of Famer and entrepreneur George Foreman is 70. Singer Pat Benatar is 66. Presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is 38.
In 1776, Thomas Paine anonymously published his influential pamphlet, ‘‘Common Sense,’’ which argued for American independence from British rule.
In 1860, the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence collapsed and caught fire, killing up to 145 people, mostly female workers from Scotland and Ireland.
In 1863, the London Underground opened as the Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway.
In 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London. The first manmade contact with the moon was made as radar signals transmitted by the US Army Signal Corps were bounced off the lunar surface.
In 1967, President Johnson, in his State of the Union address, asked Congress to impose a surcharge on both corporate and individual income taxes to help pay for his ‘‘Great Society’’ programs as well as the war in Vietnam. That same day, Massachusetts Republican Edward W. Brooke, the first black person elected to the US Senate by popular vote, took his seat.
In 2002, Marines began flying hundreds of Al Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan to a US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2006, Iran resumed nuclear research two years after halting the work to avoid possible UN economic sanctions.
Last year, immigration agents descended on dozens of 7-Eleven stores nationwide before dawn to check on the immigration status of employees in what officials described as the largest operation so far against an employer under Donald Trump’s presidency.
Top 10 Burger Joints In D.C.?
Happy 23rd Birthday Stephen Strasburg!
Fancy Food Show Hits D.C.
When an old person dies, a library burns to the ground.
In the mid-1990s, Mrs. Irene Harrison (1890–1999) from Akron, Ohio, stayed in my bed-and-breakfast in Western North Carolina. On her last visit, Mrs. Harrison, daughter of famed tire entrepreneur Frank Seiberling, was 105 years old. She was a petite, gracious lady of the old school who proved highly entertaining on some occasions. Once when I was passing through the living room, she was discussing politics with her son. I paused to ask her to name her favorite president.
I was stunned. Franklin Roosevelt was this stanch conservative’s favorite president?
Later, I calculated that she was 18 years old when Roosevelt—Theodore, that is—became president. Given her father’s many accomplishments, Mrs. Harrison probably met President Roosevelt in person.
I heard several stories from her past, but if I had my wits about me, I would have sat this woman down, pen and paper at hand, and asked her scores of questions about history. Here was a woman who was 13 years old when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, who was married by the end of World War I, and who lived through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.
With her departure, at least in my case, a library had burned down.
I did interview another centenarian, Miss Lindsey, who lived down the street from me. Though her life was not nearly as glamorous as that of the well-to-do Mrs. Harrison, she had many good stories about our town and about Mrs. Palmer, who had established our bed-and-breakfast as a tourist home 80 years earlier.
Here was a lesson about human beings and history not commonly found in a textbook or taught in a classroom.
Our ignorance of American history, or worse, our misperception of our past, is wreaking havoc on our culture. Many of us have laughed, sometimes sadly, at those videos on YouTube of young people who don’t know the reason for the Fourth of July or who believe we fought the French in World War I. But the damage caused by ignorance runs much deeper.
Our lack of enlightenment about the triumphs and sufferings of those who have come before us, some of whom faced far greater trials than we have, causes us to exaggerate our own importance and difficulties. Moreover, our benighted ignorance renders us more simple-minded in our approach to public affairs, more childlike, for it is children who live for and in the present.
Teaching our young people their history, the cost and sacrifice of what it took to make our nation, is the solution to this problem.
And here is one way to start immediately. You don’t need textbooks. You don’t need a classroom.
You just need an old person.
Having the young talk to the old can bring the past to glorious life. Whether it’s Mrs. Harrison praising the Rough Rider or Miss Lindsey enthusing over toilets and showers, the past bursts into life.
Some high-school students I taught in Asheville, North Carolina, volunteered for a project interviewing veterans in the local VA hospital. They came away from those interviews deeply appreciative of the sacrifices of some of these soldiers and much more aware of their country’s history.
Another reason to ask questions of the old is regret. Both my mother and father have passed away. I know a good deal about their past, but wish now that I had taken a greater interest. The 14-year-old who asks her 80-year-old grandfather or 90-year-old aunt about their past may find a treasure beyond reckoning. And in the best of circumstances, what they learn will send them off to the history books to read about World War II, Vietnam, or the early history of rock-and-roll.
An immediate way to teach our young people history is to introduce them to elderly men and women, who can give them a perspective on history unavailable in any high-school textbook. In the case of Mrs. Harrison, for example, we are talking about a woman who remembered the Spanish-American War, who had lived through the Roaring Twenties, and who had lived during both the flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk and the American landing on the moon in 1969.
So if we want to teach history and if our books are inadequate, then we should turn to the elderly. We allow our children to connect with the past. We give them the opportunity to share that past with their own children and grandchildren. Maybe we even teach them that the past is not as clear-cut as stated in textbooks or popular ignorance.
Have your kids talk to old people.
This post, The Best Way to Teach History to Children, was originally published on Intellectual Takeout by Jeff Minick, a free-lance writer and teacher living in Front Royal, Virginia.
It's important to know that you don't need to know everything about education, your children, or homeschooling in order to start.
A slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a different destination.
How the government’s flagship homeowner relief program hangs borrowers out to dry.
Fausto Ordoñez tells his story for what must be the 10th or the 15th time, but the edge in his voice is as fresh as if this were the first. It began near the end of 2007, as the Great Housing Crisis swept across the country and all but wiped out Ordoñez’s real estate business in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Unable to keep up with his mortgage payments, Ordoñez turned to his mortgage company, Texas-based Saxon Mortgage Services, looking for options to help him save his home. Yet more than a year later, as the crisis deepened and the federal government rolled out its multibillion-dollar homeowner relief initiative, Ordoñez’s fate was as unclear as ever—and his drawn-out negotiations with Saxon had turned into a nightmare.
By the time the Treasury Department unveiled the centerpiece of its foreclosure prevention efforts, the $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, in March 2009, Ordoñez had endured countless setbacks. Saxon had first told him to stop making mortgage payments in order to qualify for a modification, then attempted to foreclose on his home when he followed the company’s instructions—the first of several foreclosure attempts by the company. As Ordoñez grew ever more desperate, he filled out the same paperwork on multiple occassions only to be told the company had lost it. Then, for an eight-month stretch, Saxon ceased contact with him altogether, no longer even sending him monthly bills. “It was one screwup of theirs after another,” he says.
When HAMP was announced, it offered Ordoñez a glimmer of hope. But Saxon wouldn’t modify his mortgage under the Obama administration’s much touted program. So he took matters into his own hands, filing complaints with the offices of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and the Texas attorney general and contacting CBS News with his story. That outside advocacy, Ordoñez insists, is the only thing that saved him: In late June, he finally got his government modification. By then he estimates he’d called Saxon more than a hundred times, lost more than $4,000 on deposits for moving companies and rental housing when it looked as if he’d lose his home, and saw his credit damaged after multiple foreclosure attempts.
Believe it or not, Ordoñez is one of the lucky ones. It wasn’t easy, but he was able to take part in the government’s program and keep his home. Thousands of struggling homeowners have been less fortunate, which raises serious questions about the efficacy of the administration’s foreclosure rescue strategy. Interviews with homeowners, consumer advocates, attorneys, government officials, and lending experts all suggest that HAMP, now almost six months old, has struggled mightily to live up to its hype. Hundreds of pages of congressional testimony likewise detail the program’s flaws and shortcomings. And the numerous lawsuits filed against mortgage servicers participating in HAMP alleging shoddy lending practices suggest the companies the Treasury is relying on to execute HAMP may be ill suited to rescue struggling homeowners. Just the same, they are poised to receive millions—even billions—in taxpayer money for participating in the program.
In theory, HAMP works like this: Eligible borrowers, including homeowners behind on their payments or with a serious chance of default, apply for a program modification through their mortgage servicers—the companies that handle day-to-day responsibilities like taking payments, providing customer service, and foreclosing on those in default, but often don’t own the mortgage itself. If accepted, the homeowner’s monthly payments are lowered under HAMP terms, which say the new payments should not be more than 31 percent of the homeowner’s income. Servicers can lower payments by decreasing the interest rate, extending the term of the mortgage, or even forgiving part of the principal—the total amount owed. HAMP calls for a 90-day trial period for the new modification, and if the homeowner pays those three trial payments on time, the modification is finalized and extended over several years. For each successful HAMP modification, servicers receive a $1,000 incentive payment, and can earn $1,000 more each year (for up to three years) that borrowers stay in the program.
At least Page got a HAMP offer. Some mortgage servicers flatly refuse homeowners’ HAMP modification requests and offer no explanation why, say consumer advocates and attorneys. And if making contact with a helpful employee is hard, learning why someone was rejected for HAMP can often prove impossible. “It is not unusual for the homeowner to get no notice that HAMP is unavailable other than to learn that the house is back on the sheriff sale list,” Irwin Trauss, an attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, which provides free legal services on foreclosure issues, told (PDF) a House subcommittee in early July.
On the servicer side, another crucial calculation—how much a homeowner should pay—is just as flawed. HAMP guidelines permit servicers to take financial information over the phone for admission into the program’s three-month trial period without verifying it. While this surely speeds up the application process, it can also lead to homeowners, intentionally or not, giving incomplete or false information to get in. Once the trial period is up, however, homeowners must submit official documentation—and if that doesn’t match their trial period information, they could end up in an unaffordable modification or dumped out of the program altogether, landing them back in jeopardy of foreclosure. Experts and servicers alike believe the technology exists to both improve the application process and speed it up (like an online application portal for the entire program), but the Treasury has yet to implement such a measure, even though it could prevent taxpayer dollars from being squandered on failed modifications.
Between the Treasury, Fannie Mae, which administers HAMP, and Freddie Mac, which oversees compliance, program transparency and oversight are very much a work in progress. Six months in, HAMP officials have limited ability to monitor servicers and even less leverage to enforce program compliance if servicers aren’t following the rules, lending experts say.
An early safeguard should have been HAMP’s “readiness reviews” of servicers looking to join the program. One bailout watchdog, the Congressional Oversight Panel, warned in March that servicers were understaffed, could barely handle pre-HAMP modification demand, and would struggle with the increased volume HAMP would create. Presumably, readiness reviews could have spotted these problems and helped servicers ramp up to meet HAMP’s demand. Yet according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, the readiness reviews weren’t used to evaluate servicers but merely to make sure the companies understood how the program worked. In other words, HAMP participants were barely vetted. Indeed, 20 of the 27 servicers in HAMP as of July 14 didn’t receive reviews at all, the GAO found.
“Because servicers are not fully evaluated during the admittance process, Treasury is unable to adequately identify, assess, and address any potential risks that may prevent them from fulfilling program requirements,” the GAO concluded.
Saxon, in particular, has been hit with a large number of complaints and lawsuits accusing the company of violating fair lending practices, predatory lending, and unfairly trying to foreclose on homeowners. The Fort Worth, Texas, BBB gives Saxon a “D” rating, and more than 500 consumer complaints have been filed with the Bureau in the past three years. (Saxon declined an interview request and to respond to written questions. A spokesperson said in a statement that the company “has invested and will continue to invest the necessary amount of resources to effectively execute the Obama Administration’s HAMP program” and remains “committed to exceptional service to all of our customers.”) The company’s business practices have even inspired a website, SaxonWatch.com, devoted to anecdotes and scathing testimonials about the servicer.
Despite its flaws, HAMP is a good-faith effort by the government to address the foreclosure crisis, and there are signs of improvement. In June, HAMP officials began conducting much more rigorous reviews of servicers, and have started a “second look” program, in which servicers’ decisions to approve or deny HAMP modifications are scrutinized. Compliance officials are also analyzing samples of HAMP-modified loans to track error rates with servicers. And government officials have on several occasions tried to light a fire under HAMP servicers to speed up the modification process. On July 9, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan sent a letter to servicers exhorting them to move faster with modifications. Several weeks later, servicers’ representatives met with Obama administration officials in Washington to talk about boosting modifications.
Servicers, to some extent, have gotten the message, as many of them have upgraded their capacities and expanded their staffs to meet the rapidly growing demand. To handle more activity, Saxon added an additional shift, The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-July, while upgrading document-scanning technology and increasing training for employees. Coffin, the Wells Fargo executive, told the Senate banking committee that her company had increased trained staff dealing with mortgage servicing by more than 50 percent, and implemented mandatory overtime, among other changes. Chase Home Finance and CitiMortgage have also increased staffing levels, along with retraining employees to deal with HAMP inquiries and modifications.
But even with improvements, it’s doubtful whether HAMP will ever match expectations and slow foreclosure rates, experts say. The Treasury has set a target of modifying 4 million mortgages by 2012, but Moody’s estimates HAMP will in fact modify only 1.5 to 2 million. (For perspective, Goldman Sachs projects there will be 13 million foreclosures from 2009 through 2014.) And a Moody’s analyst recently wrote that the program “will have to step up substantially in the remainder of this year in order” to meet even that total. Consumer advocates and attorneys throughout the country say some of the servicers with whom they’ve interacted often seem outright reluctant to modify loans. And mortgage experts largely agree that cramdown measures must be used to put a dent in the deepening crisis. “It is clear…that this new voluntary, incentives-based program will not and cannot achieve the necessary degree of foreclosure prevention and mortgage debt reduction that are essential prerequisites to an economic recovery,” Alan White, a bankruptcy law expert and law professor at Valparaiso University who’s studied the mortgage industry, told Congress in July.
Busch: Give US Another Hit!
The progression of the economy has moved from a recession to a credit crisis to a financial panic back to a recession. The GDP numbers of last week encapsulate exactly where we're at: Q1 -6.4% and Q2 -1.0%. Due to the incredible sharp reduction in costs and inventories in Q1, earnings beat expectations by a historical amount and generated a massive up move in equities. It is truly a case of falling so far that everything looks up from here.
In exposing the chain of events that led to the market’s collapse (liquidity and capital) and the government’s unprecedented bailout, Lowenstein pieces together the full story of “The End of Wall Street” as we knew it and what he calls, the fall of an entire generation.
If you have to run your business by checking to see what Congress is doing everyday, it’s “virtually impossible,” CEO Jeff Lane.
“In the late summer of 2008, as Lehman Brothers teetered at the edge, a bell tolled for Wall Street,” so writes Roger Lowenstein in his book, "THE END OF WALL STREET." The bell may have sounded, in 2008, but for those who were really listening, there were warning signs of a financial crisis long before the summer of 2008.
Fancy a credit-crunch keepsake or a meltdown memento? Artworks, objects and office signs from the European offices of Lehman Brothers are being auctioned to help pay creditors of the failed investment bank, Christie's auction house said Monday.
To those that knew what their strategies were doing, to those that contributed to the downfall, I reserve the most substantial level of scorn.
During the "lost decade," so many lost tangible assets; that has been well-documented. Less chronicled was the proliferation of art purchases by hedge fund managers in the mid-2000's. Many attributed the phenomenon to "ego-buying," but there was a credible inherent strategy.
The government let Lehman Brothers fail during the financial crisis because there was no other choice, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday.
Is Insider Trading Part of the Fabric?
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been getting tougher on insider trading on Wall Street, but its potential target may be too wide, The New York Times reports.
Lehman Brothers may find itself on more secure ground, but its poor showing in the second quarter has undermined confidence in banks and brokerages and left investors wondering what to believe about the state of the credit crisis.
Lehman Brothers Holdings has pushed out its chief financial officer, Erin Callan, and chief operating officer, Joseph Gregory, amid a persistent clamor over the company's weak performance.
Officials at Lehman Brothers have held conversations about the possible sale of the firm's entire investment-management division, according to a people with knowledge of the matter.
Lehman Brothers, which is actively shopping the entire firm, is unlikely to remain independent much longer.
Wall Street seemed to be preparing for a bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers on Sunday as a special trading session for credit default swaps was called.
Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy Sunday to became the largest casualty of the global credit crisis, is still trying to sell its asset management business, including the crown jewel, Neuberger Berman.
Significant losses that Lehman Brothers suffered from its part of the acquisition of a national apartment portfolio helped to bring down the investment bank, reports the NY Times.
According to a recent report, 77 percent of marketing automation users use it in place of an email marketing tool. Only 13 percent use marketing automation in tandem with an email marketing tool.
The reason for this evolution is clear.
According to data from Smart Insights, across all industries, the average email open rate is 22.87 percent and the average click-through rate is a mere 3.26 percent. That means roughly 97 percent of all marketing emails accomplish nothing.
Email marketing must become more adaptive and better tailored to the unique buying stage of each audience member. Not surprisingly, full-scale marketing automation produces on average an 80 percent increase in leads and a 77 percent lift in conversions.
For a brand to survive, it has to invest heavily in three email marketing trends that are proving to be effective.
Segmentation means dividing an email list into sections based on either demographic information or buying stage. At its most basic level, segmentation can be based on age, gender, or business size.
But that’s only a start. Marketing automation tools like GetResponse offer a host of advanced segmentation options, most notably characteristics like purchase history, acquisition channel, geolocation, and engagement level (i.e., open and click-through rates).
Creating separate emails for each segment can be time consuming. That’s the motivation for dynamic emails. There are two basic kinds of dynamic emails. First, variable substitution inserts dynamic fields into an email template which represent specific “recipient attributes” like the ones mentioned above. Second, content insertion “enables you to switch out [entire] sections of content — phrases, paragraphs, even images — by inserting different content in different places within the text of your message,” according to a GetResponse blog post.
Because every list contains people in different stages of the buying cycle, a one-size-fits-all approach is incredibly inefficient for both nurturing leads and generating sales. Each recipient’s stage in the buying cycle calls for different levels of interaction and especially different offers and calls-to-action.
The proof is in the numbers. For example, Totes Isotoner Corp. segmented their email marketing campaigns based on the product categories each subscriber visited. The result? A 7,000 percent lift in sales over a 14-month period.
Personalization is the act of sending emails that reflect the unique traits and interests of the person receiving them.
According to a recent study, personalized emails increase transaction rates and revenue per email 6 times more than non-personalized emails.
The easiest way to start personalizing emails is by including each customer’s name.
But again, that’s just a start.
Developing detailed personas can also help.
Personas are archetypal models of ideal customers. One of the most effective and simplest approaches is to divide a list into two types: prospects and customers. By personalizing each email based on whether someone has actually made a purchase, you’re able to target current customers with upsells and prospects with free or entry-level offers.
Personalization also means keeping an eye on the clock — in other words, timing your emails. Your mailing list may include people in different countries and time zones. It’s important that emails are sent when they are most likely to be opened. Simply put, don’t schedule emails at 9 a.m. Eastern for everyone in a list. Schedule those emails for 9 a.m. in the recipient’s time zone. Again, this is where advanced tools are essential.
Customizing emails refers to adding a company logo and other design attributes that make it stand out from the crowd.
Distinct color schemes, high-quality and highly relevant images, and a unique brand voice all help to separate your emails from the competition.
For example, high-end clothing manufacturer Ralph Lauren customizes its brand by focusing on a classic style.
Along with design attributes, you can also customize email by sending discount coupons based on recipient buying history or automated reminders to people who have abandoned their carts prior to completing a purchase.
Today, effective email marketing means more than merely sending one mass email to your entire list. The key is to understand that real people, unique individuals, make up that list.
Segmenting, personalizing, and customizing are all proven methods that will ensure your brand evolves instead of dies.
Dennis Mitzner is a Tel Aviv based journalist covering startups and tech trends, with a focus on Israel and Scandinavia. He also works with startups to devise content and marketing strategies.
Khemaies Jhinaoui, approved by the Tunisian parliament last week, served in Tel Aviv in 1996.
Tunisian lawmakers opposed the nomination of a diplomat to the position of foreign minister because he served in Tel Aviv 20 years ago.
The Assembly of the Representatives of the People, Tunisia’s parliament, approved Khemaies Jhinaoui’s nomination as foreign minister last week, but his candidacy received the lowest approval of all other ministers, with 134 lawmakers voting in favor, 29 against and 23 abstaining, the French news site Dreuz.info reported.
Among the Tunisian politicians who cited Jhinhaoui’s 1996 stint in Tel Aviv as their reason for opposing his nomination was Mohamed Abbou of the Democratic Current party, which has three seats out of the parliament’s 217, tunisienumerique.com reported.