Professor delivers one last lesson before he dies

Are you Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams?

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com This lecture will be broadcast via the Internet at 4:30 p.m. ET. Here's how it's described on the school's website: Almost all of us have childhood dreams: for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don't achieve theirs, and I think that's a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I've actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/), of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how *you* can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.

War Critics Question Obama's Fervor

Some Say Actions Don't Match Talk. Your opinion?

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com For antiwar Illinois Democrats, the speech that made them fall in love with Barack Obama was not the one he gave in Boston in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, but one two years earlier at a hastily organized rally in Chicago on the eve of the congressional vote to authorize the Iraq war. "I don't oppose all wars," Obama, then a state senator, said on Oct. 2, 2002. ". . . What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

The time to end this war is now.

From Barack Obama.

clipped from my.barackobama.com My plan for turning the page on Iraq is clear: remove our combat troops from Iraq’s civil war by the end of 2008 take a new approach to press for reconciliation within Iraq escalate our diplomacy with all of Iraq’s neighbors and the United Nations confront the human costs of this war directly with increased humanitarian aid

Who said the following about the President's address to the nation

Do you know?

Your reaction or comment?

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com I thought the president was correct to follow General Petraeus's recommendations. ... it seems to me that our goal in Iraq is no different now than it was at the very beginning. The goal, the mission in Iraq is to provide safety and security so we can have an ally in Iraq against the Islamic terrorists. That was the mission that most of the Democrats agreed to in 2003. They've kind of changed their minds about that. He is bound to the same failed course that we have seen for the last several years. The President’s strategy in Iraq is not succeeding. It is not making America safer.  Doing more of the same would be a disaster.  After almost five years, tonight was just more of the same. It's not progress nor is it the strategy for success our troops deserve.

Obama rolls the dice

Smart Clips: Obama rolls the dice

Smart Clips: Who said the following about the President's address to the nation

Smart Clips: Who said the following about the President's address to the nation

The early signs of Dementia (Alzheimer's)

Looking back, there is little doubt in my mind that if I had had the proper education or information I would have realized my mother was suffering from dementia sooner. Most people like me tend to ignore the symptoms at first believing they are simply signs of "old age". Anyone who ends up in my shoes knows and understands that a person in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s can function with some normality--even drive a car. It is not until they deteriorate or until some "event" takes place that we wake up to reality.

The article on the next page is one of the best I have read. The basic underlying premise is that behavior changes slowly in the elderly and if they begin to suffer cognitive impairment it will be evidenced in behavioral changes. Sometimes these changes can be quite subtle but if detected could raise a “red flag”.

If my mother had been enrolled in any of these studies I feel certain she would have been diagnosed with dementia sooner. This would have allowed me to get her in an exercise program, get her proper nutrition, and insure that she was taking her medicines as prescribed. I leaned in the last three years how important these three factors are in the quality of her life.

My mother turned 91 years old in June and she suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. I am her CarGiver.


I am an Alzheimer's Caregiver: The early signs of Dementia (Alzheimer's)