127. Beyonce, Shakira, And Murder Most Foul!

1. Did The Philadelphia School District Murder Another Child?
Where Is The Outrage?

       

For the second time this year a Philadelphia child died in a nurse-less school building. Protecting children’s lives seems to come second to saving money in Philadelphia!

Where Is The Outrage?

The first child died of an asthma attack.
The second child died of a heart event.
Could a nurse have made the life or death difference in both?
We will never know because he or she was not there!

Where Is The Outrage?

     

Isn’t it murder when a parent refuses to provide proper medical attention for a child? What then is it when a school system does the same?

Where Is The Outrage?

    

The Philadelphia School District has over 180,000 pupils. A nurse covers one in four students each day in the Philadelphia Public Schools. This represents cost cutting at its worst. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Two disasters have already happened. How many more will surely happen?

Where Is The Outrage?

   

Staff members wanted to post, on this column, the pictures of the dead students as well as the kindergarten child killed in a school when the lunch tables fell on him. No! Their pictures will not appear on this column. These student’s pictures should be posted on every school door and on the door of every empty nurse’s office in Philadelphia.

Where Is The Outrage?

       

2. Television…The Paradise…Department Store History!

There is an historical running battle as to what structure holds the distinction as the first department store and what is the first modern department store. Every encyclopedia and research tome lists a different entry. We are going with the one that appeared the most in these publications.

We thought the late 1800’s seemed like a reasonable ‘first store’ guess. Missing by 150 years is embarrassing. It seems that Bennett’s Department Store in Derby, England is the winner with its 1734 opening date. It has been open in the same location since that time. The Harding, Howell & Company’s store opened in 1796. It seems to be the second most listed ‘first department store’ choice. London was Harding and Howell’s home base.

    

The Paradise in its third season. It appears on DVD at Best Buys (and others), your library, BBC hosting channels, and on On Demand. The show introduces this new concept of the department store. The Paradise is a store that boards its workers and introduces every merchandising concept that we take for granted today. Can you imagine the hordes of shoppers experiencing the first store-wide sale ever? One hundred years later it is still trample-gate.

Joanne Vanderham, Emun Elliott, and Stephen Wight star is this fashion extravaganza. Joanne is the starry-eyed country girl that comes to the big city with a refreshing head full of new ideas. Emun Elliott is the owner of The Paradise. Emun’s good looks fit perfectly with a merchandising business. He, too, wants to push the fashion and buying world of London and beyond with new ideas. The blockers and naysayers always outnumber the creative even in a department store.

       

If you get nightmares after seeing the X-Men marathon on television or the new movie at your local theater, The Paradise is a good second option. If you remember the nightmares from the first Godzilla and Spiderman, maybe starting from the beginning of The Paradise is a good second option. Fashion, merchandising, and history should win out in this one!

     

3. Community And More…Candy Chang…Before I Die I Want To:

A keynote speaker at the Rutgers University Business School Graduation mentioned a community project by Candy Chang of New Orleans. Ms. Chang took her loss of a friend, inner struggles, and general misgivings and posted this message on the wall of an old building: Before I Die I Want To:…she left eighty spots to be filled in with chalk by passer-byes. She had no idea if she would get any response. Her next day inspection showed all eighty spots filled in a nd extra messages left on every vacant spot on the wall.

     

This one little reach-out has now spread across the world to malls, small buildings, train stations, and giant office building walls. Every high school and college class graduating class should create an electronic portfolio of their thoughts and post their messages. They should, then, commandeer (with permission) a wall somewhere in their community to post their serious, funny, and life challenging messages. Every student should, also, carry a lifelong “Before I Die” slip of paper with three Before I Die thoughts on it. These slips should be revisited at every reunion or during a tough time that life throws at the graduate. There will be tough times!

Please go to Candy Chang’s webpage for a full explanation and links to hundreds of Before I Die I Want To boards around the world (http://candychang.com/before-i-die-in-nola). Send us your pictures and extensions to this life directing idea.

      

4. Brain Games…Building Better Health And Everlasting Brain Power!

Each issue of Let’s Talk introduces some thinking exercise for all thinking levels. Our games and puzzles are designed to stimulate both sides of your brain. Your first have to solve our problems using one side of your brain. Second, using the other side of your brain, you have to analyze the problem and create an exercise similar or quite different from the one you just completed in our design layout.

Every magazine from Teen to People to AARP has been expounding on the importance of life-long mental exercises from ages 2-100. Luminosity through its convincing advertising campaign is making millions of dollars on challenges you can get for free all over the Internet. Go back through past Let’s Talk columns and take some of our challenges. Our index bar also has some unique mental exercises. You will live longer, healthier, and happier by doing so. We promise this for you. It is our tenth promise to you in this column this year! Promises are backed up by the U.S. Mint and can be redeemed at any CVS Pharmacy.

        

Here is an easy starting activity that you can build into a mind spinner with your creative additions. Each clue below will lead to an answer that has the letters E-A-R in them in exact order. After finding our answers, see if you can create a similar or more challenging activity. In the school classroom we determine what fraction, decimal, or percent (choose one) of the final answer is made up of vowels.
E-A-R Search Network

What E-A-R is?
Example…An animal…bEAr (vowels over total letters) (2/4) (50%) (.5)

1. A position of English royalty…
2. What ghosts do in your dreams…
3. A machine part…
4. The opposite of foggy…clear (2/5) (40%) (.4)
5. Sincere…
6. A swimming device…
7. Facial water…
8. The back…
9. A fruit…
10. A letter starter…
11. Types of risers…
12. A feudal weapon…
13. A Shakespearean play…
14. An attribute of a daredevil…
15. One of the senses…
16. A meat cooking option…
17. A battery company…
18. These fill a decade…
19. Ear protector…

Our answers will be in the next issue. Send us your creations (tjpalumbo@aol.com) to feature on the column and mentally challenge the column’s readers and friends.

      

5. Music…Spotify…The Music Service Winner!

The Swedish Company and Music Streaming Service Spotify has passed the 40 million users number worldwide. 10 million of these users are paying customers. If you can’t get your music fix in the networks you are presently using, Spotify’s basic offerings can be used for free. You can purchase additional genius levels to access every American and European recording label. These labels have sold their newest recordings and archives to Spotify. This service seems to be taking music to a very high level of competition. The plan offers 20 million songs, great star interviews and talks, and equally outstanding videos. The streaming taps the musical taste of 56 countries. Spot On Music Lover!

       

Spotify says: “You can browse our listings by artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. You can conduct direct searches as well. Our service streams on every computer and listening device. Our links allow you, the listener, to purchase selected material via partner retailers, too.”

Video (movie/television) streaming looks like their next foray into your television, phone, and computer systems. Spotify will soon follow ABBA as a household name.

          

6. Business…Profit Margins At The Expense Of The Consumer!

Our demographic shows that our readers like lists and comparisons of what is hot in business and entertainment. Each week we scour the news to see what revealing list we can discover, interpret, and share with our readers. The companies below extract the greatest profits from their consumers. This, however, does not translate into profits for their shareholders. If it doesn’t translate into money for the shareholder, who profits from these exorbitant windfalls at our expense? We have made the company rich, but they haven’t made we as shareholders wealthy. Answers please? Our investigation continues! When will your investigations start?

Company	Symbol	Profit Margin %
Gilead Sciences	GILD	51.6%
Philip Morris Int’l	PM	46.7%
Altria	MO	46.1%
Marriott Int’l	MAR	45.8%
Pfizer	PFE	44.3%
Scripps Networks	SNI	43.6%
Lorillard	LO	43.1%
Biogen Idec	BIIB	42.7%
Discovery Comms.	DISC.A	41.1%
Amgen	AMGN	40.1%

The complete article is highlighted for you below:
(http://www.freep.com/article/20140520/BUSINESS07/305200077/Consumers-You-make-these-10-companies-rich)

       

7. Hollywood People…Lake Bell…Million Dollar Arm!

If you have had your fill of Godzilla, Spiderman,and X-Men this week, there is another story out there that you might like.

Thomas McCarthy wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Arm an enjoyable movie alternative to the cinematic violence of the weekend. Million Dollar Arm refers to a major league baseball contest that was conducted in India to find baseball players in the Indian “cricket sport” nation. This quest emanated from a unique look at the similarities of skills necessary to become star cricket throwers and a star baseball pitchers.

         

John Hamm and Lake Bell team up (a sport reference) in this true story that brought Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel to the major leagues. Hamm plays the baseball scout that needs that next great ballplayer to keep his job and put food on the table. Lake Bell plays the next-door neighbor. She understands what it means to leave your country (India) as a youngster and try to assimilate into the American culture and sport of baseball. Lake Bell is the movie, but didn’t even make it into half the movie’s write-ups and promos (see her absence even in Wikipedia).

                

Lake Bell is expecting her first baby this week. If you go back and visit her movies from the last three years including In A World, you will find an exceptional actress, writer, director, and producer. She is, at age 35, Hollywood’s Universal Woman. Expect to be mesmerized by her work!

           

8. Music…The Lucy Hale Experience…Jackson Harris Follows

It is the warm weather, open your car rooftop, crank down the windows, and roll down your convertible top music time. Our two “blast-off” suggestions for the beginning of this “shout out” season are Lucy Hale and Jackson Harris. Lucy rocks with vocals, guitar, and dance numbers. Jackson has young girls and an older following swooning over his vocals and dynamic song presence.

    

Start your ‘crank-down the windows and turn up the volume’ season with these four Lucy Hale picks:
Once Upon A Song (4 million Internet plays)
Make You Believe (from A Cinderella Story)
Bless Myself
Run This Town (song and dance video)

         

Jackson Harris’ Come Back Down To Earth is our second “roll down your windows and blast the sound” song choice.

Follow Come Back with these listening suggestions:
Long Story Short (NYC song and video)
Go Crazy (a sound that will get you up dancing)
Life Through A Lens

        

Third place this week is held by the Beyonce and Shakira multi-song collaboration. Beautiful Liar keeps playing in our hallway, but there are better listens of the two together. We liked Can’t Remember To Forget, because we have all been there.

9. June Contributors!

Join our yearlong, 20^th Anniversary celebration of writing and creative discussion by contributing a story suggestion, book review, movie write-up, art piece, award notice, photography portfolio, game grabber, business join-up, multimedia purchase, travel tidbit, or theater ‘can’t miss’ for our Let’s Talk column.

        

Your ideas and suggestions should be sent to Tom Palumbo at tjpalumbo@aol.com. Please send a photo or two with your two-paragraph contribution. We’d love to display your art and photography on Let’s Talk over our discussions. Thank you for adding your work and expertise to this column! Your varied ideas, experiences, products, and insights will surely bring a larger audience to the column and make the column’s content more interesting and far reaching. We subscribe to the concept of reflected glory! Ask your friends to drop their email in the follow box in the bottom right hand corner of the opening page. This function works on a computer but not iPhone.