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Destroy the Palm Trees - Five Reasons Why Palm Trees Need To Go Away

This article is selected for 123ish 3D Gold Coin Art Collection NFT      I'm here to tell you about a vegetable menace that is the AIDS of the plant world. If you live in most parts of North America, these plants have you surrounded.  They're butt-ugly brown sticks thrusting phallically into the sky in unnatural rows, crowned by a spidery fright-wig of spikes. They look like a raspberry on a stick.        I'm talking, of course, about the omnipresent palm tree, found everywhere in your city. It doesn't matter…
Score: 9.94

Why Do We Force-Feed Dystopian Literature To Students?

      If you can read this, you're not living in a dystopia!  You know how teenagers end up so negative, depressed, and pessimistic?  Maybe it's because we shove gloom and doom down their throats as part of their required reading. In the United States, George Orwell's mid-20th-century dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is heavily picked by teachers as required reading for students, and the blues don't end there.        Here is a list of required reading titles for American high schools, let's see how negative…
Score: 3.8

Thailand VS Philippines in language, culture, money, and love

Moving to Thailand or the Philippines and how the English language, cultural influence, cost of living, and relationships could affect your choices.        It is never as easy as choosing a pros and cons list or just doing what works for others.    If one is considering the possibility of moving to Asia and becoming an official Expatriate (or expat for short), two popular choices are:   Moving to Thailand Moving to the Philippines   I use these two more specifically because I have lived in both countries.  In…
Score: 3.12

Jackie Chan may be more unpopular than you think

by Dominus

Jackie Chan is an internationally recognized actor. He has one of the most impressive careers in terms of the number of movies he starred in. He is almost universally loved around the world because he used to portray the capable but clumsy type that has to fight his way out of a predicament, usually with hilarious and spectacular results. The man is a perfectionist and over the years he has developed his own style of shooting a movie that has yet to be matched by his contemporaries. He is known…
Score: 2.69

How To Build An EDH Deck For Magic: The Gathering

This article is selected for 123ish 3D Gold Coin Art Collection NFT      Ready For Commander?  Commander, also called "EDH" (stands for "Elder Dragon Highlander," an outdated in-joke), is the most popular format of the collectible trading card game Magic: The Gathering, counting over-all formats.  While EDH doesn't appear much in competitive formats when the tournament is over, and the last booster box handed out, look for the players to be huddled up in the corner over a Commander game.  It has every…
Score: 2.63

Grief

Thoughts On Grief

While sitting in my favorite spot by the water, the last beams of sunlight warming my skin, I read these words (written by Lisa Gungor in her book The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen) -    “But I’ve found my life is built on ordinary days of going in and coming out… This is where I’ve found grandness. This is where I’ve found what I believe about life and where I’ve found myself applauding others instead. It’s in long nights on a good porch, letting the silence sit next to you. It’s the hard things…
Score: 1.13
Parenting

Helicopter parents

by Dominus

Parents love their children. They want to protect the young ones from everything that can harm them and teach their adorable little humans everything they need to know to become responsible, self-sufficient adults. Parents teach the child the proper way to do things and then they have to give that same child space to practice on their own. That means that in some situations the child has to be left alone to find his/her own solutions to increasingly more difficult problems, based on what they…
Score: 1.81

Post-Apocalyptic Parenting in a COVID-19 World

This may well be the year when the American people learn to appreciate street smarts over book smarts.        Because kids right now can learn important lessons about how badly the adult world has lost it right now.   We have Betsy DeVos in charge of the Department of Education, which is like putting a fox in charge of the henhouse. We have the "demon seed" lady replacing Dr. Fauci as our national pandemic expert. The US is heading into the worst peaks of COVID-19 infection while the rest of the world…
Score: 1.46

Busting The Dad Myths and Advice for New Fathers

by ChefPerry

Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it.”– Mike Myers          So, you have a new dad (or are about to become) a new dad?  Becoming a new dad for the first time can often be a daunting prospect. Especially if you were void of a good role model in your own life growing up. Research tells us that around 47% of fathers today still believe that their role in those first three years of their child’s life is that of a “Helper” – rather than a “Primary…
Score: 1.15
Diving travel

Can you believe that you can dive with sharks near Tokyo?

by Jetfin200

  What kind of scene do you imagine when you hear shark diving?        Were you watching the Great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus, 1758), from inside the special cage offshore South Africa? Or diving with Blacktail reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos (Bleeker, 1856)), or Blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)) in the colorful coral reef of Micronesia?  You can enjoy shark diving near Tokyo, Japan.    The exact place is Ito, Tateyama, Chiba, Japan. Ito is the…
Score: 1.23

Can you believe I took these photos in mainland Japan?

by Jetfin200

       The Japanese archipelago is located on the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean and is composed of many islands. The names of the main islands are, from north to south, "Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu."  This photo was taken in Owase, in the southeastern part of the Kii Peninsula in the middle of Honshu.  If you visit the city of in mainland like Osaka or Kobe, Kyoto, If you like scuba diving,  I recommend the southern area of the Kii Peninsula as the traveling destination. It is a coral paradise…
Score: 1.2
Alternative Religions

Best Devotional Items For Alternative Religions

    > "Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen." -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Lord of Montaigne  What a strange topic for a product recommendation list, and yet what strange creatures we are. We do indeed invent gods by the dozen, so let's pour one out for Montaigne, arguably history's first "blogger." Not only do we invent gods and ways to worship them, we even do it for a goof, just to be silly. Even the joke deities tend to get taken seriously over time…
Score: 1.08
Motherhood

First time Mom

    As the saying goes “you will never realize how much your mother love you until you became a mother yourself too.”       Last July 9, 2014 I gave birth to my daughter Andrei Monique with my mother Ellen by my side all along. Francis, my husband is a seafarer and on board at the time our daughter was born. Andrei Monique weight 2.9 kg delivered via C-section at around 1:20 pm, she was a bouncing healthy baby. When my baby was born I knew from that moment that my life will never be the same…
Score: 1.12
Mental Health

Language Can Indicate Psychopathy

Psychopaths make up close to one percent of our general population and about 25 percent of male convicts in prisons are psychopaths. These are people that show a lack of empathy toward others, a lack of guilt or remorse. They also have very shallow emotions, they can be impulsive, have superficial charm, and a grandiose sense of self-worth. But many psychopaths are people that never actually commit horrible crimes or hurt others. According to researchers, brain scans of psychopaths show an…
Score: 1.45

Fragmentation: the “normal” state of one’s mind (Part I)

  There is a story that I first heard a long time ago, maybe even as early as my childhood years. I would stumble upon it occasionally, each time understanding it a bit differently, each time extracting more wisdom from it. I am talking about the Indian two wolves story.    It goes something like this:    An old Indian is teaching his grandson about the duality of life.     He exemplifies it with two wolves, one white and one black.      One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance…
Score: 1.15

The long way back to normality

     There is a surge of superficiality in the world right now, a trend that has, regrettably, also influenced me. I have had a date with destiny that was long overdue and been faced with the harsh reality that I ultimately created for myself. It was brutal, and I had to deal with the consequences of my poor life choices, only to discover that I was ill-equipped for real life. This is a tale of caution but also one of hope, depending on your perspective. People, under enough pressure, will change…
Score: 1.06
Societal Pressures

Why I'm Not Getting Married

The year is 2018, but for some reason I still feel as if I’m trapped in 1918. I am a woman working three jobs and pursuing my master’s degree on a track towards my Ph.D.; and yet for my family, somehow that still isn’t good enough. When I go home I am hit with a barrage of questions:   “When are you going to stop and settle down? Men don’t like it if you are too smart, you know.”  “You are not going to be able to have children forever you know, the clock is ticking!”   “Aren’t you dating? I know some…
Score: 1.06

On the Subject of Empowerment

  I recall the first time a guy thought he had some unspoken right to my body, as he tried to force me into bed with him. I was able to get out of the situation before it escalated, but that moment haunted me for years. I was angry with him, but my anger did not come close to the shame I felt. I blamed myself, though the situation was entirely out of my control. I did not tell anyone about it for almost eight years   Instead, I let the shadows of shame creep in and set up residence. I began to have…
Score: 1.01
Study Abroad

Nontraditional Student in Japan

  Introduction  Have you ever felt that the world is outside of your grasp?  Things happen to everyone else, why would they happen to you?  That dream job you’ve always wanted, but resigned yourself to never being good enough for it?  This was what I felt even as I started at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. My life was surrounded my dead-end retail jobs and wasn’t going anywhere. After five years of this, however, I reevaluated my life.   Why did I believe that I couldn’t do more? It was time for a…
Score: 1.01
Dating and relationships

Appearance in the current dating scene

by Dominus

Dating is an amazing part of life and the introduction of a relationship. Some people love it, some dread it, and some people seek it out while others actively avoid it. However it may be for each individual, everybody has an opinion and/or feelings regarding this subject. Dating or courtship has been around for as long as there have been people walking the earth. The practice has undergone many changes over time but its goal has remained the same: finding a partner.      It is said that beauty lies…
Score: 1.28

Monogamous relationships vs. Open relationships

by Dominus

I see movies or series on TV or the internet exploring the nature of relationships and that leads me to wonder which one is better: monogamous or polygamous? I find monogamous relationships too old-fashioned while open relationships are too, well… open! I have tried both and finally came to my own conclusion, but I believe that others are struggling with this choice as well. The world is constantly changing and this change comes too fast for some of us. While I consider myself a  sexually…
Score: 1.11

The player’s guide to success with women

by Dominus

Hello there, aspiring player! Are you having trouble getting the attention of females? Is your face so ugly that even Russian mail order brides swipe left on you? If you feel down on your luck and want to change that, then BECOME A PLAYER (to be read as "PLAYA") TODAY!!! No prior knowledge of women required! All you have to do is to embrace the player attitude, attire and general way of life. There is hope for you yet if you decide to become a P.L.A.Y.E.R. (Person Longing for Attention and…
Score: 1.01
Interview Tips

8 Great Job Interview Tips

  Going for a job interview can really make you nervous but being prepared is a great way to stay calm and nail the interview. Here is a list of some great tips to remember for your next job interview.    1. Schedule the interview for around 10:30 a.m.  People are usually at their best at this time. It means they haven't just arrived at the office and they haven't been there so long that they're tired and in a bad mood. Tuesday is the best time of day because that's the day of the week people are…
Score: 1.12