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The separation of church and state has been a debated idea in this country since it was founded, but it hasn’t stopped politicians from wearing their religion on their sleeves. Here is a list of some of more ambitious politicians that wave their flags and bibles at the same time.

Here are some trailblazers who have kept their religion true:

Gov. Culbert Olson (D-CA) (1876-1962)

Raised in the Mormon faith, Olson eventually declared himself an atheist and became Governor of California in 1939.

Gov. George W. Romney (R-MI) (1907-1995)

Though today perhaps best known as the father of another influential Mormon politician, GOP 2012 frontrunner Mitt Romney, Gov. George Romney is one of the most influential Mormon politicians in American history. In addition to serving as the 43rd Governor of Michigan, he served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Nixon administration. (Nixon defeated Romney in the 1968 GOP primary—a primary Romney was originally expected to win.)

Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) (1931-the present)

The Dean of the California Congressional delegation is the first openly atheist member of Congress.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) (1939-the present)

Though he grew up agnostic, the current Senate Majority leader converted to the Mormon faith while in college and has argued that contrary to his more high profile Republican counterparts in the faith, he considers the church’s emphasis on helping others very much in line with the political philosophies of the Democratic Party.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (1942-the present)

The former Freedom Rider almost made history by coming thisclose to becoming the first Orthodox Jewish Vice-president in American history. We all know what happened in Florida in 2000.

For an extensive list click here.

He continued, “I told her that I loved her. I said, ‘You were a wonderful mother, you did a wonderful job, your seven grandchildren love you, and they will be okay.’”

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James, who was seriously ill for the last year and died of complications from her long-battle with leukemia, was unable to speak in her final hours but seemed to be aware of the love her sons were bestowing on her.

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Prework prayer meetings, corporate retreats to discuss faith-based business strategies, chaplains hired to minister to employees and other faith-based programs are sprouting up in businesses that range from mobile home park management to high-tech companies. These are all part of the things that these companies have in common.

Just 12 years ago, there were about 25 faith-based organizations in the workplace in the United States, says the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries, an Atlanta Christian nonprofit group that tracks faith in the workplace. In 2004, International Coalition identified more than 1,200 such organizations.

Here are just a few  companies that spread the Gospel:

George Foreman’s George Foreman Grills discussed his own religious reawakening in an interview with Success Magazine, and said that his personal integrity guides his business decisions. For example, he won’t invest in products or sellers that promote alcohol consumption.

Timberland

Timblerland CEO Jeff Swartz is well-known for his commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility. For example, Swartz moved to sever the company’s ties with a Chinese factory where human rights violations were allegedly occuring despite the fact that it took a hit to the shoemaking company’s bottom line. Swartz attributed his motivation to his own personal Jewish faith in a 2008 Fast Company profile.

Read the entire list here

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Nobody wants to create music simply to create music. With every lyric thats written or tune thought up there seems to be the hidden agenda to achieve fame and fortune. Today it is easier than ever to gain these lustful traits with the media. The world’s media, especially American media, has grown to be the single most powerful industry in the world in many different ways. The term “Pop” music which refers to the highest selling music is short for the world popular. This music as well as the musicians who create it are almost completely shaped by the media. It’s even now possible that through the mass presence of television channels like MTV and large selling magazines that musicians could be fictional and still sell millions of album or you tube a song can become popular in a day.  It’s the invisible trust that every person confides in mass media.

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When a 13 year old girl with one of the most annoying voices ‘sings’ some of the worst lyrics for any song ever written through some kind of mega auto-tune machine and it becomes an Internet sensation with over 60 million views on YouTube, it’s obvious that Etta’s gift of song will be lost.  Sixty million views on YouTube is a huge deal, even if you take into account the curiosity factor of people who just need to hear how bad the song is, it still wouldn’t add up to 60 million. There’s an obvious amount of people who actually enjoy this song in a non-ironic way, there are people out there who actually enjoy this song and love listening to it numerous times a day, which leads me to the whole point of this article.

Etta sang about life, pain and love. Even in the midst of her personal drama of men, money, questionable actions and tragedy you are left with the fact that this woman wanted to sing about the truth, no matter how hard, sad or lonely. The song  “At Last” is a song of desperation from a woman who has known more bad men than good.  When you listen to her voice on that song you are left with the feeling that no matter what she was a brave woman fighting  through to the frontier of  claiming her man.  When was the last time you heard a song like that? The powerhouse singer, known as “Miss Peaches,” lived an eventful life. She first hit the charts as a teenager, taking “The Wallflower (Roll With Me, Henry)” — an “answer record” to Hank Ballard’s “Work With Me, Annie” — to No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1955. She joined Chess Records in 1960 and had a string of R&B and pop hits, many with lush string arrangements. After a mid-decade fade, she re-emerged in 1967 with a more hard-edged, soulful sound. Throughout her career, James overcame a heroin addiction, opened for the Rolling Stones, won six Grammys and was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite her ups and downs — including a number of health problems — she maintained an optimistic attitude

Rest in Peace Etta… Rest in Peace

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Note from writer: Please note the word “great” here is used as description meaning huge. I was using a line from an old 1920′s  song lyric as follows, “the silence will be great my friend, the silence over edge.. the missing you will create a void, from which I will walk the edge, the silence will be great my friend while I am missing you. no one can replace you because the silence will be great.”

Whether by chance, or more likely, by purpose, that is the reality that we must live with. Most of the children who attend New York’s Lower Laboratory School for Gifted Education and Straus School, and their parents, know this all too well.

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Straus and Lower Lab inhabit the same building in New York’s Upper East Side—P.S. 198—yet the two schools couldn’t be more different. The only thing they share is the building. While they utilize the same halls and bathrooms, the two schools never interact, even during lunch or recess. There’s an even more striking area they don’t share—the front door. Lower Lab, along with its student and teachers, gets to use the front door while the Straus students are forced to go around the side of the building to use the back door.

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In Steven Thrasher’s article, “Inside a Divided Upper East Side Public School,” published in New York’s Village Voice, he describes the scene at P.S. 198 by saying, “If you’re a white student and you arrive at the public elementary school building on 95th Street and Third Avenue, you’ll probably walk through the front door. If you’re a black student, you’ll probably come in through the back.”

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Now here’s where it gets interesting. Lower Lab’s population is 69 percent white students, and the rest primarily Asian children, who come from all parts of Manhattan, arriving in dark SUVs, taxis, and towncars. The Department of Education has designated Lower Lab as a gifted and talented school, only open to children who score incredibly high on standardized tests given at age four. Straus, on the other hand, is zoned, which means any child from the neighborhood can attend. As a result, its student body is 47 percent Latino and 24 percent Black, with most coming from lower-middle class families.

Dr. Pedro Nogeura, professor of education at NYU, and author of “The Trouble With Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Public Education,” sees a problem. In an interview with the Village Voice, he notes, “When you send young kids to school where the racial lines are so stark, there is the process of saying there is something fundamentally different about us, which is why we can’t be together… What we have here is really Plessy at work: separate, without even being equal—but very much separate.”

Yet for us to cite Plessy—while both accurate and appropriate here—and leave it alone, does a disservice. We cannot just say that the schools are separate and unequal. This is obvious. We must examine how much of this issue is truly and exclusively racial. It’s also important to examine the effect this may have on the students.

That which children are exposed to during their formative years in elementary school undoubtedly shapes their perspectives, perceptions, and opinions for the remainder of their lives. And what does this social segregation teach them?

It teaches them to stratify and “other” people. This separation creates an “us” versus “them” mentality and draws a greater distinction between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” It also enforces the idea that social segregation is acceptable, even normal. It teaches, perhaps even forces, the students to place the people in their lives into categories according to what they have and what they don’t have—whether it be based on money, intelligence, or skin color. Although, because they live in America, they would likely learn this concept eventually, the fact that they’re exposed to it in a more obvious way at a younger age makes it that much more damaging to their socialization. The fact that they’ll learn more quickly to associate Whites with “haves” and Blacks and Latinos with “have-nots” before most would, means those concepts will have a firmer root in their minds and thus be much harder to change.

In his book, “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” Carter G. Woodson, drives home this point by saying: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”

Although Woodson is referring more to the curriculum that a student may learn, his idea can surely be applied to the subconscious things that students learn as well—some of which may be more powerful than the written material. And not all of a child’s learning takes place in schools. Actually, what children learn outside of school either serves to weaken or to reinforce their formal education.

Perhaps more than anything else, parental involvement is paramount in their child’s educational process. If the parents are not actively involved in their child’s school work, striving to create environments that nurture good study habits and foster creative thinking, no institution, no matter how incredible and innovative, can overcome that. When parents are not critically concerned with and invested in the educational experience that their child is receiving—either financially or voluntarily—the child is the one that suffers.

Failing to recognize the importance of understanding, respecting, accepting, and dealing with your religious differences in your interfaith marriage may have been the demise of their marriage.

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TMZ was told that … Katy and Russell knew the relationship was on the rocks a couple of months ago — but didn’t want to give up on the marriage without making a concerted effort to work things out.

But the effort fell flat … with both sides feeling “it just wasn’t there.”

We’re told both Katy and Russell were on board with the divorce a few weeks ago — but they didn’t want to be in town when the papers were filed … so he went back to England and she booked it to Hawaii.

Since Katy’s parents are evangelical Christians, we’re told she didn’t want to be the one to “officially” end the marriage by filing the docs … since she was raised to believe divorce is wrong.  After he filed the docs, Russell released a statement Friday insisting the two will “remain friends.”

Christians are to seek reconciliation and restoration, and then we are to forgive. It is the duty of a Christian to help his or her spouse grow spiritually and overcome sin. Abandoning and divorcing a spouse often makes the situation worse and prevents true healing in the “offending” spouse’s life. If Christians are to be the salt of the earth and a city on a hill, we must be different from the rest of the world, especially when it comes to marriage and divorce. Katy was most likely honoring her parents.

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The trouble started a few days before Christmas, when the husband, Antonio, 99, was searching through an old chest of drawers and found some letters that his wife, Rosa, 96, had written to a secret lover. He became so upset by his discovery—even though the affair had happened way back in the 1940s!—that he immediately told Rosa he wanted a divorce. She tried to convince him otherwise, but there was no dissuading the cuckolded Antonio.

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The break-up will no doubt be upsetting to the couples five children, 12 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild, who must have come to take their elders’ marriage for granted since it’s lasted for the better part of eight decades! Though they did have a small hint of trouble ten years ago when Antonio and Rosa hit a rough patch. Antonio briefly moved to live with one of his sons, but he moved back in with Rosa a few weeks later. This split—if it ends up going through—will beat the previous old person divorce record, which was held by a British couple, Bertie and Jessie Wood, who ended their marriage when they were 98. But they’d only been married for 36 years, which certainly pales in comparison to Rosa and Antonio’s 77-year union.

Wow,this is sad.

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“Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model,” Sears Holdings CEO Lou D’Ambrosio said in a statement.

“These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home.”

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Sears Holdings, the fourth largest broadline retailer in the U.S., hopes to generate somewhere between $140 million and $170 million by selling the inventory at the closing stores, and will generate additional money by selling or subleasing the real estate they occupy.

Which locations will be closed, however, has not yet been fully determined. Make sure to let us know what you think on facebook.

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Frank Gaffney, president of the American Center for Security Policy, didn’t mince words against the group — likening the OIC to a “multi-national Muslim mafia.It is 57 states and Palestine that have come together to promote what is fundamentally the agenda that is known as Sharia,” he explained.

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Religious rights groups say the U.N. resolution is really designed to prevent criticism of Islam and give cover to Islamic Sharia-based blasphemy laws like those in Pakistan.

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Let’s go over some of the items that will help shape the week that lies ahead.

1. Watch out below, Uncle Sam: It’s the final trading week for what has been a very volatile year. The exchanges appear to be headed toward modest losses for 2011, but odds are that there are more than a few real stinkers in your portfolio.

Tax-loss selling, anyone?

If you’re not familiar with the practice, it’s a way for investors to offset realized capital gains by unloading investments that they will be selling at a loss. If you have enough turkeys in your portfolio to offset your gains, you’re unfortunately fortunate. You can even go a bit over on the losses, though only up to a maximum of $3,000 net loss that can be deducted from ordinary income. The balance just carries over to the following year.

It’s important to know about tax-loss selling for two important reasons. The first, of course, is that it’s one way to effectively manage your tax bill come April. However, even if you have no intention of participating, recognize that some of your biggest losers in 2011 may continue to slide until the tax-loss selling by others subsides.

2. The yolk’s on you: With so many companies and traders away on holiday this week, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find that it will be eerily quiet on the earnings stage.

Cal-Maine (CALM) is one of the few companies reporting earnings. The country’s largest shell egg producer is expected to bounce back after a sloppy quarter last time out. Analysts are expecting net income of $0.89 a share in Tuesday’s report, 41% ahead of the $0.63 a share that Cal-Maine posted during the same quarter last year.

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