The Roland Allen Post

Two articles caught my attention this afternoon. The first addresses how Americans do not take vacations. It seems that we work all the time. It was on CNN.com. Why is America the "no vacation nation"? One man speaks about the culture in his office: "The running joke at Brock's company is that a vacation just means you work from somewhere else." The article points out that this isn't the case in other countries where people actually take vacations and they leave their work behind. One of the findings of a study is that Americans get more satisfaction from work than they do from taking vacations. Yet, doing so, says another study cited in the article, doesn't make our economy more competitive than countries where workers take lots of time off for vacation, such as in Sweden, which mandates that workers take five weeks of vacation each year.  The second article was also reported on CNN.com, Little people, lots of pills: Experts debate medicating ki

Austin Whitney is a 2007 graduate of St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, California, where he was one of the students I advised through the college process. Just a few weeks after his high school graduation, Austin slammed his car into a tree. He sustained severe injuries that resulted in losing use of his legs. I was one of the people who kept vigil at the hospital in the days following the accident. I continue to stay in touch with Austin and his family. I saw this story on his university graduation yesterday afternoon while on a flight from the east coast.

 I wrote earlier about my brother's medical incident on Mother's Day. I also mentioned that he is making lifestyle changes that will help him avoid future incidents of this sort. Of course this entire incident is on my mind, and it's caused a fair amount of anxiety in our family this past week. Today I thought about the concept of change. I thought that it's best to prepare for challenges in advance. It's a simple concept. For example, I change the oil in my car on a more frequent schedule than recommended because I feel that it's good to do so. I know when I'll have the air-conditioning in my car serviced so that I won't have a problem. Maybe the same principal can be applied to life. Preparing in advance might head off certain catastrophe or unnecessary complications. When I had this thought, I made a first attempt to jot down some "ground rules" for life that can facilitate change for improving how I live,  and help avoid unneces

There's a reason I've not posted since Sunday. This was a challenging week that is just now showing some light. I was taking pictures at the beach on Sunday afternoon when I got a call from my aunt that my brother was in the hospital in Houston for what was termed a "mini" stroke. It all began Mother’s Day morning when he called our aunt to wish her "Happy Mother's Day" and he couldn't form the words. Later, he felt dizzy while standing. He did go to the hospital right away where a CT scan was done, which ruled out other possible concerns, such as a tumor. He had an MRI on Monday, which did not come up with damage to the brain. He had no paralysis, although he has somewhat slurred speech. On Monday morning he felt weak using his left arm. He was released from the hospital yesterday, and he has already begun therapy to strengthen his left arm and to rehabilitate his speech. It seems that the use of over the counter cold medications might have co

Friends from the UK were in California last week. They connected the 4-day Easter holiday and the Royal Wedding holiday with a few vacation days and took a 10-day spring vacation. I shared with them my post about ethical eating and lamented how difficult it is to find ethically raised food in the United States. I also complained about the difficulty in knowing how the food I buy is raised. Their comment was, simply, all the beef in the UK is grass-fed. That’s the norm. I was left trying to figure out how those of us in the United States gave away decisions on how food is raised to corporations and government food programs. It doesn’t make sense to me. It makes even less sense when I think about the health crisis in the United States and health care costs. Isn’t anyone connecting this to how our food is raised? I went to Henry’s Market yesterday. Henry’s is part of Whole Foods, the “healthy” alternative to the grocery market. Henry’s had one very small section of the meat