Foundations are not readily visible. Take a walk down the main street of your town or city, and look for the foundation of each building. Can you see it? I don’t mean the upper basement walls. I mean the foundation.
As long as foundations are strong, we don’t worry about how they look. They can be […]
I just read a historical account that illustrates how strong character can be. Let me paraphrase the historical facts for you, changing locations to make it more real to us today.
A family in the African country of Malawi, hard hit by famine, was running out of food. The husband read that there was plenty of […]
Imagine Santa Claus, if he were real, telling a child, “Character doesn’t matter.” There’s something wrong with that picture, isn’t there? After all, many people use Santa Claus to motivate their children to goodness. Santa Claus is “making a list and checking it twice” says the song, to see who’s naughty and nice. Another song […]
That’s what many people asked during the year 2005. So many people looked up this word on Merriam-Webster’s web site that it reached number one on a list of most looked-up words on that site. The 2005 Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Year list is based on users’ anonymous hits to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and […]
One cannot escape the fact that there is, in the United States, a war on Christmas. This holiday, filled with traditions that have grown over hundreds of years, is coming under fire. It is a holiday so shining on the calendar that it earns time off for most – and none would want to relinquish […]
Generosity and compassion are still alive in the small town of Russiaville, Ind. I believe it is safe to say a host of other character traits also live in that farming community.
Late in June of this past year, the community grieved as one of their farmers, 64-year old Mr. Winger, was killed in a traffic […]
Tai Shan, a giant panda cub, receives his first general public visitors today at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I understand they gave away 13,000 tickets for this first public appearance of the nearly 5-month old star.
I wonder how many of those visitors have ever heard that pandas are said to exercise great […]
A recent news item says that two secondary schools in Hartford, Connecticut are punishing students for swearing at teachers. Students whose lack of respect is so overpowering that it bursts forth in swearing as they defy teachers and administrators are being fined $103.00. If the student cannot pay the fine, the parents are required to […]
From the first time I met it, as a junior in high school, I have disliked the practice of teaching to the test.
Growing up in Pennsylvania, I had learned to study all of the material presented, and be tested on whatever portion of that material teachers included on their tests. When standardized tests presented questions […]
I was reading a short article today about talebearing. You know: talking about other people; spreading rumors; gossiping; tattling, if you’re a child. The article made me think about what character trait would be applied to avoid talebearing. At first I couldn’t think of one. I reached for my handy list of character traits, and […]