800 Quit Now Handout: Fill & Download for Free

As someone who used to frequently be in this situation, I think I can offer a bit of a different light on the subject.My family wasn't a fundraising family, and we were poor.We weren't ever homeless, but it was close a few times.Keep in mind that I also grew up during a period where they were pushing away from door-to-door sales, so even though no one in my family could pay (including my extended family, though that has a variety of reasons that changed multiple times over the years) I didn't have anyone to teach me alternative ways to fundraise because my Dad was always gone (and grew up poorer then me) and my Mom is extremely introverted.So I couldn't pay. Period.You know, no one ever listens when you say that.You tell the teacher, or the coach, or the random adult or parent or whatever ‘I can't pay. I can't go' you don't say, ‘I don't think I can't pay. Help me.’ or ‘Give me alternative methods to make the money' you say ‘ I can't go. I don't have the money.’And, without fail, they will always, always tell you ‘Well then get the money'.There was no mystery scholarships. No kind teacher willing to pay hundreds of dollars for me to go. No fee waivers. Just a 30+ year old teacher staring down an 8 year old and telling them that it doesn't matter what they say. They're going to pay.I didn’t. Most of the time I didn't even mention it to my parents. What would be the point? Over time I just started refusing to take the fundraiser packets. I'd leave them on the desk if the teacher insisted. I never bought anything anyway.Now, the reason I answered this question is because it brought a very specific incident to mind.In 8th grade, I was in band. I'd moved to a new school for 7th, and I decided to give band another try after horrific and not quite horrific but I still didn't like him band teachers in 5th and 6th grade. Mistake.Mr. D, which we'll call him, refused to print out a concert schedule. He would give paper handouts before each concert if you must have them, but he didn't want to. I told him what my Mom said, “If I'm going to take you over there, then I want a paper saying the time and place.”He said, “Well she'll just have to communicate with you.”What a brat…Funny, though, given that when I told him that I couldn't pay for an $800 dollar trip to Vegas he called my Mom.Oh, now you want to directly communicate with my mother. When it's convenient for you, that's right… which one of us is the child, again?Though, I don't hold it against him to much, it was entertaining enough to hear my Mom recount how he practically begged her to pay for me to go on the trip. Wait, what am I saying ‘practically' he literally begged my Mom to pay for me to go to Vegas with my Band class.Adults have no respect for the people in their care. They do not care if what you're saying is true or not, they only care about what benefits them. They don't want you to go on the trip, they want to be able to say you went. They want the (probably overpriced) money you're giving them to go.This got mostly better in high school, at least in the classroom. Can't say the same about my coach… lol.

1. When asked why he had named his company Apple, he said: "Because it came before Atari in the phone book." Jobs worked for Atari before starting Apple and he also said that he likes apples and that they had to come up with a name by 5 o'clock that day.Apple2. Why was he fired from his own company? Everyone knows that in 1985 Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. Some might even know that it had to do with a fallout between Steve and John Sculley, Apple's CEO at the time, but few know exactly in what consisted the disagreement. Well, Steve Jobs wanted to drop the price of the then underperforming Macintosh and shift large portion of the advertising budget away from Apple 2 over to the Mac. Sculley disagreed. He argued that price had no bearing into Macintosh's poor sales, but rather the unimpressive software it ran. Sculley took the matter to the Apple's Board of Directors which sided with the former Pepsi CEO, thus firing Jobs.3. "I'd rather sell dog shit than PCs."In the mid 90s, with NEXT sinking after failing at coming up with a successful computer, Steve Jobs faced the discouraging prospect of having to sell the software they had developed. "But Steve," a friend told him, "why don't you just sell PCs?" Steve replied: "I'd rather sell dogs' shit than PCs."4. Before starting Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built and sold digital blue boxes, a $100 equipment that could hack telephone systems and allowed them make calls to any number in the world. One of their first calls they made using the blue box was to the Vatican with Wozniak pretending to be Henry Kissinger, they asked to talk to the pope. Without success.Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak5. Steve Jobs calls one of the mysteries of life how his friend and Apple's Co-founder Steve Wozniak never built a floating point BASIC for the Apple II, despite Jobs having begged him for several weeks to do it. As a result of Wozniak's refusal, Job reached out to Microsoft to license Bill Gates' BASIC.6. In the early 80s, Steve Jobs visited Adobe Systems. Impressed with their technology, Jobs made an offer to Adobe Co-founder Charles Geschke to buy the company and integrate it into Apple. Geschke refused it. Apple and Adobe had a very good professional relationaship until Apple of Steve, by the end of the first decade of 21st century, decide to rid their very commercially successful mobile devices of Adobe's Flash."Anywhere But Here" movie poster7. The movie "Anywhere But Here" starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon was dedicated to him and was based on a book written by his sister Mona Simpson. The story is about a mother and daughter who are searching for success in Beverly Hills. Anywhere But Here is dedicated to "my brother Steve."8. He took LSD in his younger days and had no regrets. In abook interview, Jobs called his experience with the drug "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." As Jobs himself has suggested, LSD may have contributed to the "think different" approach that still puts Apple's designs a head above the competition.$1 dollar bill9. Steve Jobs kept his salary at $1 since 1997, the year he became Apple's lead executive. Of his salary, Jobs joked in 2007: "I get 50 cents a year for showing up, and the other 50 cents is based on my performance."10. Jobs dropped out of college. After graduating from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California he went on to study at Reed College. He only took one semester of classes before dropping out. For the next 18 months, however, he continued to audit classes that interested him.Abdulfattah Jandali (Handout)11. Steve Jobs was biologically half Syrian Muslim. He was adopted and his biological father's name is Abdulfattah Jandali. His biological mother was Joanne Carole Schieble, an American. Her father, however, objected to the marriage so Steve was put up for adoption.12. His parents were two graduate students who were perhaps not ready for a child and put him up for adoption. The one requirement his biological parents had was that he be adopted by two college educated people. His adoptive parents were Clara and Paul Jobs.Mona Simpson13. His biological parents went on to have another child, Mona Simpson, whom he later met and connected with.A dinner plate with fish and vegetables (Source: Pixabay)14. Jobs was a pescetarian which meant he ate fish but no other meat.15. Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. When they made Breakout for Atari, Wozniak and Jobs were going to split the pay 50-50. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to do the job. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.16. At the tender age of 12, Jobs asked William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard for some parts to complete a school project. Hewlett offered Jobs an internship at his company.Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Credit: Reuters)17. Jobs met Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in high school when Jobs was 13 and Wozniak was 18.18. Steve had a brief fling with Joan Boaz, the folk singer back in his hippie days. Unfortunately though, she left him for his favorite musician – Bob Dylan.19. His Full Name is Steven Paul Jobs.20. "We'll lose our money, but at least we'll have had a company." It's quite easy to fall into the mistake of thinking that the at the creation of Apple, now one of the top two largest companies in the world, the founders were these amazing visionaries filled with conviction of success and their ability to change the world with the product they had created. Well, it certainly wasn't the case with Apple. In fact, both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were pretty certain of how improbable were their chances of success. "We won't see the money we've invested in back," said Wozniak. Jobs replied: "Yeah, we'll lose our money, but at least we will be able to say we had a company."Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo Concept21."Let's hide our porsches." When an investor was coming to visit NEXT one day in the early 90s, Steve Job ran off to the parking lot to take his Porsche out of sight and had his employee Randy Adams do the same with his porsche. "He's gonna think we've got money if he sees the Porsche's," Jobs said.22. When he returned to Apple in the mid 90s, Steve Jobs donated Apple's first computers, machines, blueprints to Stanford University. Clearing up the old to make space for the new. That was his way of letting go of the past and embracing the future of then seriously troubled company.23. Following the success of Apple II and subsequent IPO, one of Apple's engineers went to Steve Jobs and told him he would give stock to another employee if Jobs matched it. Jobs replied: "Yeah, I'll match it. I'll give zero and you give zero."Buddhism (Source: Pizabay)24. His Religion is Zen Buddhism. He went to India to meditate and learn about a simpler way of life.25. He was very private about his marriage. His wife was Laurene Powell Jobs and they got married in Yosemite national park on March 18, 1991.Laurene Powell Jobs (Source: Reuters)26. His wife is an MBA graduate of Stanford and was appointed by President Obama to be a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions due to her active involvement in the non-profit community.27. Despite his wife's work in the non-profit sector, Jobs was not known for his charitable works. In the early days of Apple, Jobs cut back on all of their philanthropic programs saying they would “wait until [they] are profitable.” Although they never restarted their programs, they may have donated anonymously.28. He denied paternity on his first child, claiming he was sterile. The mother had to initially raise the kid using welfare checks. The child did turn out to be his daughter who was named Lisa.Apple III "Lisa" computer (Source: Wikipedia)29. As an ode to his daughter, he named the "Apple III" computer Lisa after his first born. The mother is Chris-Ann Brennan.30. The excitement you feel when opening up a new Apple product is not by accident. Jobs was passionate about packaging and a group in the company obsessively open boxes in an attempt to get the right emotional response.31. Apple had three founders, not two. The company was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.The first Apple logo (Source: Wikipedia)32. The first Apple logo was drawn by Ronald Wayne who also wrote the original partnership agreement and the Apple I computer manual. Unfortunately, he sold his 10% stake two weeks into the partnership for just $800.Jonathan "Jony" Ive (Source: Flickr/ marcopako)33. Jobs did not want to offer products in white. However, after designer Jonathan Ive showed him the shade “moon grey”, he was convinced.34. Steve Wozniak ended his full-time employment in 1987. However, he is still an official Apple employee and receives a stipend estimated to be worth $120,000 a year.Pixar logo35. Jobs purchased Pixar Animation Studios from George Lucas in 1986.Reed College photo handout36. Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1972.37. While working at Atari, Jobs was actually put on the night shift because of his hygiene or lack thereof. It is said that he never bathed, and would walk around the office in his bare feet.38. Jobs never used license plates on the silver Mercedes SL55 AMG he always drove.Disabled parking sign (Source: Flickr/ bobosh_t)39. He would always park in the handicap parking zone.40. Steve Jobs GPA was 2.65 / 4which is considered pretty mediocre. Jobs never thought of himself a good student and instead preferred to learn in different ways and didn't enjoy much for the structure of schools.41. Steve Jobs' signature was inside every original Macintosh. Jobs would get the team to sign a piece of paper which would become the model for a metal plate that would go inside every Macintosh computer.42. His attention to detail was unlike anyone had ever seen. He frantically called a Google Engineer on a Sunday with an emergency: the gradient on their O was slightly off.Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google handout)43. Jobs acted as a mentor to Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page after seeing the potential in the company.44. Jobs took on Eric Schmidt, the company’s eventual CEO choice, as one of his board members at Apple.Android Vs Apple wallpaper45. Jobs felt betrayed by his former apprentices from Google after the company entered the phone market with its Android devices.He said “Apple didn’t enter the search business, so why did Google get into the phone business?”Apple iPhone (Apple handout)46. Jobs believed Google had stolen some of the features of the iPhoneand decided to keep the development of the iPad a secret from Schmidt.47. Older Apple laptops used to have the logo upside down. It wasn't a mistake, but a user-friendliness decision.48. Apple I was the company's first computer and was priced at $666.66.Steve Wozniak priced it without realising the devilish connotations, instead pricing the machine one-third over the wholesale price of $500 and preferring one repeating digit as it was easier to type.Apple with Love Steve written on it (Source: Kimberly White / Reuters)49. The Apple Macintosh computer was named after an actual apple, the McIntosh, because this was Jef Raskin's (an Apple employee working on the Macintosh project) favourite variety.Steve Jobs (Source: Flickr/ marcopako)50. After ending a long battle with pancreatic cancer, Jobs' last words were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow" while looking over the shoulders of his family. Mona Simpson, revealed this in her eulogy which was published in the New York Times.

Living in NYCNew York City occupies a special place in the American consciousness as the tumultuous seat of our financial markets and the buzzing capital of our culture. New York is celebrated for its wealth of nationalities, ethnicities and languages. But why would anyone want to live in NYC? It's insanely expensive, there are too many crazy people, it's bundles of energy and famously, "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." And lots of people love the challenge! Most important, it’s the city that exemplifies American pluralism, the “melting pot” that attracts new immigrants looking for work and college graduates drawn from their hometowns by the promise of excitement and opportunity. Its appeal hangs on its image as a city where everyone can try, get, and be anything. It has been my home for more than 40 years and I love it for its social and economic freedoms. My education and computer technology background fit right in and I found great career and social successes. Am I wrong or what?But NYC is not a panacea, it has its own problems just like any other city. First of all, it's terribly expensive, living costs are very high, you live in a small apartment that cost a fortune or commute from far away distances. Taxes are high to pay for all the social services, city employees and infrastructure support. The New York City government's budget is the largest municipal budget in the United States. In 2016 the NYC city government had a budget of $80 billion a year. The best jobs are in NYC and unless you are wealthy, you must commute and the hours required while being stuffed on packed trains and subways which are actually a frustrating second job. Second, the City is densely crowded. People are piled on top of one anther. Third, you will never get a good job unless you have a great education, NYC is comfortable for skilled and educated people only. Others scrape by! NYC is also being seriously gentrified, wealthy people move in to replace poorer people who are moving out.On the other side of the coin, NYC is certainly a playground for adults. There's never a dull moment in NYC. It's the city that never sleeps. It offers a thousand different interesting things to do every day. Besides high paying jobs for the talented in the business, banking, financial, advertising, business, performing art’s world, there is Broadway, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Egypt, parades galore - St. Patties Day, Halloween, Macy's Thanksgiving, street theater and theatrical Flash Mobs, thousands of restaurants, bars, night clubs, museums and parks to pleasure your life away. Living or commuting to NYC is like being a member of Delta Force. It ain't for everyone but if you can do it life is great and you are a very special person.So let's talk about NYC. The New York City immediate Metropolitan area represents the largest city and metro in America with more than 20 million residents. New York City has an extraordinarily diverse population. Half of the residents are immigrants. It is one of the few cities in the country in which four different racial/ethnic groups each make up at least 10 percent of the population. Put it in perspective, and you end up with the conclusion that New York City is by far the most ethnically and racially diverse city in the world. It has the largest number of blacks, close to 3.5 million in the USA. (Atlanta is second.) This is almost 9% of the entire Black population of the United States. New York City proper has more than 2.4 million African Americans.According to the 2010 decennial census, 33 percent of New York City residents are white, 26 percent are Hispanic, 26 percent are black, and 13 percent are Asian. Altogether, 47 percent are immigrants. Some neighborhoods are mixed, but most are of the same ethic/racial groups. Expensive neighborhoods like most of Manhattan and lots of Brooklyn and Queens are white. Immigration from the Caribbean and Central America are diminishing the dominance of Puerto Ricans, and among Asians, where new arrivals now are more likely to be from rural China or Southeast Asia rather than Taiwan or Hong Kong. In joining the ranks of American cities where whites are a minority, New York, in its diversity, is more like Los Angeles and San Francisco than cities like Detroit and Newark, where black majorities replaced white ones.New immigrants do not simply replace old residents in the same jobs. They alter the economic mix. Look at the way Italians shaped the construction industry or, more recently, how Koreans have changed greengroceries. The succession of wealthy and skilled Blue Collar European groups who founded New York and dominated it for centuries have now become a racial minority. Whites are the racial minority residents in NYC itself. And they tend to be wealthy too to afford the expensive skyscraper multi million dollar condos and $3000/month apartments being built by the hundreds to accommodate the huge world migration to NYC. People have their priorities and if one of the top ones is living in Manhattan then they make it happen. Lots of people live in 2 bedroom apartments with 2 or 3 other people they don't know so they only pay $1,000 month each. I don't know how people move to NYC from anywhere else because the amount of living space you'll end up having is just a fraction of what you're probably used to . . . but for us NYers it's just what we are used to. It's also a very different lifestyle. There are a lot of singles and couples, it's exciting, active, socially diverse, people get along, tons of things to do any day with lots of entertainment choices, Very few families live here (in Manhattan).Lots of the people renting are struggling actors or such and they sacrifice space for location. I have friends who live in only a small room and share bathroom and kitchen. I know people who commute 2 or 3 hours to work . . . I am one of them, which is ridiculous but I have six kids and wife Upstate in the Catskill’s mountains, so its worth it. If you know the right spots to look and the right people you can get something affordable in this town . . . but for most people you're better off moving somewhere else. It sounds crazy but it's just life here.Most New Yorker's don't own, they either rent and/or live in the burbs & commute. When I first moved here, I lived in Hell's Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. I worked in the Village and spent one hour on the F Train each way to and from work. The average rent for a Manhattan apartment was more than $2500 in 2005 and it's only gone up since. It would be more realistic for you to look for a studio, deep in another borough and even then you will have a hard time finding something acceptable that is that cheap. There is an affordable housing crisis in NYC and things are bad for everyone. Luxury skyscraper condos are sprouting up for sale everywhere but nothing affordable to rent. You could always try renting a bedroom in a share situation. It's possible that you won't find much less than $700/800 since you don't want to get shot or have an hour commute.NYC is a commuting culture. Millions of people commute to Manhattan every day, they ride trains, take ferries, subways or buses to Manhattan and there are tens of thousands of amenities to accommodate them. They come from Westchester, Long Island, Connecticut, Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Upstate. This Metro area is more than 30 million people. Consequently, transportation is everything in NYC. But if you live in Manhattan, don't even consider a car unless you're wealthy, because you'll have to pay big time to keep it in a parking garage which cost around $800/month. You can get around by train, subway, taxi and bus. Subways go everywhere but are full of smelly homeless, hot, dirty, loud with rude people, constant beggars and candy sellers etc. But the entertainers at the stops are great. The A Train travels the entire length of the city, from the Bronx all the way through Brooklyn. It is quite the ride . . . a bucket list thing. Busses aren't bad but it tends to be slow. Living in Manhattan or Brooklyn and having a car is suicidal. A car is needed if you live on Staten Island. In Queens a car is helpful, and not a pain. For most of the Bronx, forget it, except for Riverdale. Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have alternate side parking, which means you have to move your car every day except Sunday and find a new parking spot. Loads of metered parking also.When I moved to NYC, I kept my car. I love the freedom that driving gives me and I hate having to rely on public transportation. My only issue with cars would be traffic & parking. It's HORRIBLY hard to find parking in Manhattan. And no one drives a nice car in NYC, just whoopdees that suffer lots of dings and dents. Your car is also apt to be hit or sideswiped so if you're very anal about the way your car looks, you'll have to pay extra to fix it . . . And yes, insurance is expensive.As for "deals" on apartments, some neighborhoods are cheaper and some more expensive. Location counts for a lot. I, for one, always was more interested in space than in location. I was always willing to live on off blocks (but never dangerous ones, just skuzzy looking ones) to get a bigger place. Right across the Hudson, Hoboken is a great pace to live. Hoboken is a very up and coming place, lots of young people who commute to Manhattan, lots of bars, restaurants. It's just so clean, quiet and friendly here. There is the PATH Subway and ferries to take you to work in NYC.Speaking of commuting, New York City has one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. The New York City Subway System is one of the largest subway systems in the world with more than 700 miles of tracks covering the four out of five boroughs of New York City. It is the only subway system in the world that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Penn Station is the busiest railroad station in the world, with more than 800,000 commuters in it every day. In addition it hosts the Long Island Railroad, which bring million of the commuters from the eastern suburbs into the city daily. Grand Central Terminal is the largest railroad station in the world. The GCT is home to Metro-North Railroad, which operates train from this fame rail hub to the Hudson Valley, the northern suburbs and Connecticut. And now also the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan's east side.Other form of transportation operates to and from New York City, they included The PATH, NJ Transit, Amtrak, and both national and regional buses departing from and arriving to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There also five airports, (Newark, LGA, JFK, Newburgh, and White Plans), as well as an extensive ferry system that include the Staten Island Ferry. So there is definitely no way you'll need a car to get around New York City. Manhattan squeezes people in skyscrapers and more are built every year for business, condos and apartments. Most people who work in those tall Manhattan skyscrapers of Manhattan live in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, or even the NJ cities. Asking whether the City or New Jersey right across the Hudson is better is like asking if surfing is better in the Great Lakes or the Pacific. Stay away from Long Island, New Jersey, Hudson Valley, etc. if you're not looking to start a family, or simply do not prefer some of the most exciting activity in the world.NYC is heavily minority but overall, whites are much better off - they are better educated, have significantly less out of wed lock births, suffer less drugs, idleness and do much less crime than minorities. The evil doer whites steal unethically at the top in Wall Street and the blacks steal violently at the bottom on the street. Social progressives are always trying integrate the neighborhoods and schools, but it is the old story, how do you mix poor minorities with educated affluent whites? So the melting pot image belies the reality that much of the city remains divided along racial or ethnic lines. In dozens of neighborhoods, a single racial or ethnic group predominates, at rates of 70 percent to nearly 90 percent.New York schools are the most segregated in the country according to a new study. More than half of New York City’s public schools are more than 90 percent black and Latino, But these numbers don’t mean very much when placed in the context of the demographics of the school system as a whole - more than 67 percent of all students in the NYC system are black and Latino to begin with and live in their own neighborhoods. There just aren't not enough white kids to go around and integrate. And the white kids come from a different demographic too - more wealth, better educated and less dysfunctional homes. Sounds like Atlanta to me too! This is the worrisome inequities hidden beneath the New York’s glowing facade.There is a “tale of two cities” and the growing gap between the city’s haves and have-nots, which all too often follow racial lines. Indeed, racial segregation in New York is frequently accompanied by socioeconomic segregation. Across the state, the typical African-American student “attends a school where 69% of students are low-income.” For the typical Latino student, that number is 65 percent. For whites, less than 30 percent. Mandatory efforts to force integration - such as busing - are unlikely to gain political traction today. This causes great anger among whites and they move out.New York’s elite high schools are some of the city’s crown jewels, are the best in the USA, renowned for their merit-based exclusivity. Changing admission requirements to the city’s top schools for the sake of feel-good social justice would erode the schools’ tradition of excellence in the service of dubious ends. Absent a massive program of busing, or forced population transfer, there aren’t enough white people to satisfy the social progressives. And many of the best-regarded public elementary schools are getting whiter.More than a third of the 100 most diverse schools are high schools, reflecting the city’s practice of allowing students to apply to any high school. The Mathematics, Science and Engineering High School at City College is the most diverse. Every year about 80,000 students will soon receive high-school acceptance letters, and for many this time marks the culmination of months—sometimes years—spent hitting the books, meeting with tutors, and sprucing up resumes. That’s because admission into one of the city’s 400 or so public high schools is rarely automatic: Each kid ranks and applies to as many as 12 schools, and recent statistics suggest that less than half of a year’s applicants get into their first-choices, while 10 percent of them—nearly 8,000 kids—don’t get a match at all.Then there are the crème de la crème of New York City’s public high schools: the nine prestigious "specialized" institutions that are often seen as informal feeders for the Ivy League. Only 5,000 kids are offered admissions to these college-prep schools, which students can pursue in addition to their 12 choices. You get into them by passing a test - a 150-minute multiple-choice test known as the SHSAT. But critics say the test encourages a culture of exclusivity - one that, matched with the schools’ notorious lack of student diversity, has been subject to intense debate over the years. Social progressives suggest new desegregation efforts that link “choice” with “key civil rights standards, such as strong public information and outreach, free transportation and no admissions screening.” Personally, I think that admission screening is a must unless you want to water down academics.NYC is the epitome of capitalism and socialism - called Plato's Utopia - in the USA. They are conflicting values, but everyone on both sides gets along. In such a highly people packed environment, where ten thousand people work in one skyscraper, getting along is a must. Immigrants, entrepreneurs and business make the world turn, the socialists want undeserved economic equality.I am old school - you work for what you get - and I do not agree with much on the progressive social agenda that I equate with giveaways and guarantees for the free lunch crowd. I don't have a problem with providing a "hand up" but dislike the handouts that never go away and encourage laziness and dependence on the government. Excellence starts in the home and grows stronger in the schools. I do not favor increased social welfare spending - life is sweet but can be hard, getting educated and keeping a job and your nose clean is perquisite for the good life. In another words, "personal responsibility" counts more than welfare spending. Social progressive wanted to eliminate tests and merit-based criteria for schools, busing to mix populations, reserved housing for minorities in wealthy areas, etc. I totally disagree with any of that. I say stimulate the economy, create jobs and that will eventually take care of most of the problems.��?�$