JP's drinks to consider

Its Friday and all is well! As you listen to the final moments of the enraged customer or file your last monotonous t.p.s report your mind begins to fantasize about the sensational activities you have planned. Who are you going to hang with? Where are you going to go? Most importantly what are you going to drink!? A good beverage has the ability to make or break an experience.

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Johnny Media

The latest sports drama is the rehab check-in of Browns quarterback and East Texas native Johnny Manziel.  Johnny "Football" has  made many declarations throughout the 2014 season that he was going to alter his behavior and perpetuate an image that reflects what one expects from a Pro NFL quarterback. 

Words can only get you so far and he proved throughout the season that while at the press conferences he said one thing, behind closed doors he was doing just the opposite. For that fact his critics certainly have had a leg to stand on all season with the critiques of character. With that being said, checking himself into rehab displays a monumental first step into getting his life back on track. It goes beyond just saying you are going to change. It is physically and mentally creating clear and concise alterations to ones normal patterns of behavior. To get an idea of what goes on at rehab check out http://alcoholism.about.com/od/pro/a/drug_rehab.htm.

 Yet even while making the right choice he is still being met with a wave of hate and intolerance. This highlights that no matter who you are or what you do there will still be a level of negativity someone is perpetuating at your expense. You will not satisfy everyone, but you certainly can satisfy yourself. The best anyone can do is utilize that opposition as fuel to increase their internal motivation to succeed.

 To Manziel and those alike I wish them luck on their journey of self enlightenment and improvement. For those who wish to dig on people trying to make change I can not say it better than Torrey Smith of the Baltimore Ravens "Folks criticize Manziel for trying to get help and laugh at overweight people in the gym...they are trying to fix a problem support them smh"

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Week Break

Unfortunately my schedule this past week and the week coming up has not allowed me much time for writing and for that I appologize. Do not fret though as I will be back on track next week! Still I'll try and post 1 or 2 interesting reads this week as well. Thanks for visiting!

-jc faubion

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Daily antics: This afternoon

I guess these daily antics are not really being so daily, so I will try a little better about providing some more reads. Aside from moving from the bed to the couch I haven't taken on much of any physical labor today. I think we're all deserving of at least one of those days a week, right? 

If anyone out there has suburb fireplace starting skills I applaud you. For what feels like the 30th time I attempted to start a little fire only to have the entire house be engulfed in smoke! I don't understand this contraption. Even when I open the vent the place still looks like the inside of a cloud. I guess this is natures way of telling me to stick to the heater and blankets from this point moving forward. 

Now today was suppose to be my day off, but I decided to pick up a night shift, bills never sleep after all. I just watched this really neat documentary about Burts Shavitz on Netflix. For those that dont know he is the co-founder of Burts Bees. I recommend if you have time, to watch it in its entirety! 

I'll close with saying that young cats can be extremely annoying at times, specifically mine. A guy can only take the constant meows and the picking up of a knocked downed Christmas tree so many times before taking them out to the pasture starts sounding like a good idea, but alas I love the little guy.

Have a phenomenal day!

- JC

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Right or wrong? School district removes religious holidays from its calenders

One of the largest school districts in Maryland voted unanimously (7-1)  to remove ALL holiday names from their calenders after the Muslim community sought a form of recognition of a holy day (see. Eid al-Adha). Of course, the students will still receive their time off from school for the christian and Jewish holiday. This is not a new move as several districts throughout the country have already removed religious words associated with breaks(e.g. winter break). 

It would be naive to say that there is not a percentage of the American population that holds a prejudice against Muslims given the misinformation and over-generalization by the media and government.  With that being said there has been a major uproar in the Maryland community, specifically the christian sector, concerning how the religion of Islam is being forced down their throats and their own beliefs being squandered.

It is important to realize that the Muslims who were looking for recognition of their holiday did not have the overthrow of other religions on their agenda. It was the districts decision to remove the Christian and Jewish nomenclature as opposed to just granting the Muslims the same rights that the other two religious sectors already had. It would seem that this is not a case of religious rights,but more so the fear and intolerance from a small group of people. 

Given that America was founded on the idea of having religious freedom it is logical that there should be an innate provision that all religions get some form of recognition.  There is just one monkey wrench of course- the separation of church and state.  Right of the bat it can be argued that there should NEVER have been any mention of a religious group within a schools jurisdiction. 

It is safe to say that this argument and clash between the religions will not be settled easily or quickly. Everyone has their own set of paradigms when it comes to these issues which will generate a lot of debate and conflicting views. Whats yours?

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