slamboard

I include images on my site mostly for aesthetic reasons. I don’t want my blog to look boring. That is not the only reason. I noticed a long time ago that ‘readers’ end up on my site via Google Image search. Every now and then I will get a spike of traffic on this or other blogs all because a particular image has risen to the first page of a popular search.

I recently got thousands of hits from people looking for animated images of Christmas trees. That traffic has inexplicably tailed off in recent weeks. People may be hunting around on the internet for pictures of egg baskets soon…

First, three very basic facts about head lice…

• Head lice have been around since the dawn of Man
• Man has been trying to get rid of lice with increasingly sophisticated methods throughout history.
• We still have lice.

Some schools are run by smart people. These days, some school boards are voting to rescind the No Nits policies that have caused more trouble than they are worth. Many other school boards are standing firm with draconian policies.

It doesn’t matter which school of thought your local board ascribes to, if your child has live head lice crawling around on his or her head you are going to have to deal with it at home. I suggest that you do not even bother trying any toxic shampoos. These days, super lice have developed resistance to most popular insecticides. Putting a toxic chemical on your child’s head is not a job that any parent relishes. Finding out that it didn’t work feels horrible. Click on the image below to find out about an effective way to get rid of super lice. It is chemical free and it was tested in my own home a few years ago with excellent results.

Multinational companies fight hard to protect their trademarks. If your name is McDonald and you think you have every right to open up a restaurant with your name on it, think again.

But the big boys choose their battles. I have lived in a few very small overseas markets in recent years and I have observed many cases of flagrant appropriation of trademarked images and names. I considered devoting a whole blog to the subject, but I stopped myself after worrying about the possibility that these mom and pop places were being left alone as an oversight rather than a conscious decision.

I have decided to use this photograph for this post because it is from a country that I may never visit…

Can a super strict school policy stop Super Lice? No Nits Policies at schools have tended to result in more missed days of school and in more missed days of work for parents. The policies have been around long enough for some people to say with authority that they don’t work. Here is a rundown of what concerned parties have to say about No Nits Policies

PEDIATRICIANS:

Although having 5 or more nits within one fourth inch of the scalp was a risk factor for conversion, most children with nits alone did not become infested. Policies requiring exclusion from school and treatment for all children with nits alone are likely excessive. Instead, these children may benefit from repeated examination to exclude the presence of crawling lice.*

*PEDIATRICS Vol. 107 No. 5 May 2001, pp. 1011-1015
Lice, Nits, and School Policy

NURSES:

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses that the management of pediculosis should not disrupt the education process. Children found with live head lice should be referred to parents for treatment. Data does not support school exclusion for nits.*

*From position statement of the National Association of School Nurses

The National Pediculosus Association (they wrote the policy):

The No Nit Policy encourages each family to do its part at home with routine screening, early detection, accurate identification and thorough removal of lice and nits. Establishing consistent guidelines and educating the public about procedures in advance of outbreaks helps minimize inappropriate responses.

Parents are likely to have to deal with lice at least once regardless of what kind of policies their schools choose to implement. To learn how to get rid of Super Lice go to Super-Lice.com

Seth Godin was riffing on the concept of expertise and passion today. He was basically making the argument that some positions in an organization do not have to be filled by people who are driven by a passion for the product that is being produced. I concur with that and I have a personal story to support it.

Several years ago, I left my soul sucking job at a huge sawmill for a job as the roaster at a fair trade coffee cooperative. I have some enthusiasm for coffee (the tangible product) and also for social justice (the intangible product), but I wasn’t extremely PASSIONATE about either. My skills were developing efficient systems, performing repetitive tasks efficiently and implementing quality control.

The man and wife founders are PASSIONATE about their products. When their baby of a company outgrew mom and pop style management, one of them bit the bullet and went to school to learn how to be a general manager. I was with the company during a period of major growth. When I recently checked on its progress I was pleased to see that it appears to be thriving in ways that I couldn’t have predicted three years ago.

I can’t think of any instances where slightly mismatched worldviews caused problems between me and my coffee-making coworkers. When the entire production crew was given the day off to support and participate in an anti-Bush demonstration, I chose to stay at the roastery and perform some maintenance. For the record, I am not a fan of GWB. I just chose not to protest a foreign leader who was on an official visit to my country. That, and it was time to sweep the chimneys.

It doesn’t matter if it is business or personal. Accidentally sending an email that you have not finished writing is embarrassing and potentially damaging to your personal life and/or career.

I just made this mistake three minutes ago, possibly for the first time ever. I was belaboring the process because someone was having hurt feelings and I am always uncomfortable about that kind of thing. Belaboring for me involves saving drafts and surfing the net while I procrastinate. The last words that I typed were ‘Please don’t’ , it doesn’t get much more awkward than that. I pressed send instead of save. Save is the word I would use to describe the very quickly written follow up email.

Catherine told me after the fact that she often leaves the ‘To’ field blank in order to avoid this kind of accident. That’s very good advice.

Google has fallen in with a nefarious cartel comprised of several national postal services, countless shopping malls and, last but not least, NORAD. It’s quite a paradox when you can choose to find hard facts proving that Santa Claus is a myth on Google Search OR you can follow His movements on Christmas eve using Google Earth.

Which is it Google? Is there a magical toy factory at the North Pole or not? If there is, can you explain why most of the crappy plastic toys that people get their kids are made in China?

Interesting links found using Google:

• Teacher Tells 7 Year Olds that Santa Isn’t Real
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

If Walmart has a diametric opposite, it might just be No Sweat Apparel. They sell mostly organic union made clothing. They currently are promoting an initiative related to a Palestinian garment manufacturer and an Arab/Israeli Peace Organization comprised of former combatants from both sides. In addition to all the ethicalness, the Organic Bethlehem Initiative Tee actually looks pretty cool.

Sunshine Bob - Funny home videos are a click away

This disturbing short film seems to be about passivity.

The effect of this movie is very surreal. It’s main character is designed to not be an exact representation of a human being. I have seen an equally disturbing documentary in which a real human who fetishized passivity was seen to fall away from it during his last days. Passivity is a survival strategy. Aggression is a survival strategy, too. My observations lead me to believe that passivity is abandoned more readily than aggression. Thoughts?

There are a few reasons why someone might prefer to use a video site that is not the default site that Google bought.

YouTube aggressively removes content that breaks the TOS with regard to copyright or adult content. Some alternatives do not have the resources to police their own sites and some sites have less restrictive terms to start with.

YouTube shares revenue with a select few users while some other users get nothing. Sites like Revver have a policy of sharing advertising revenue with all members. That sounds great, but my experience has been that I only have five cents worth of pending payment.

Because YouTube is the default website, it bears the brunt of political censorship. A handful of countries have longstanding policies of blocking YouTube and others have done so temporarily in response to specific content. Other video sharing sites slip under the radar. I was in a second class train car in a developing country just last week and I had to walk through the first class coach in search of the snack trolley. The young dudes with the laptops were mostly watching stuff on Metacafe.