Harlem Shakers misled - Here is the original

The Harlem shake, originally called the albee, is a dance introduced in 1981 by a Harlem resident named "Al B". The dance was initially referred to as "albee" after his name, but later became known as the Harlem shake as its prominence grew beyond the neighborhood. The dance became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured the Harlem shake in his music video "Let's Get It".

Originating in the 1980s in Harlem, New York, the dance is based on an East African dance called Eskista. Since its beginnings it has spread to other urban areas and became popular in music videos. The self-purported inventor of the dance was "Al B", a Harlem resident. Because of its founder, the dance was originally called the "albee" in Rucker and Harlem, but then later became known as the Harlem shake.

Al B is quoted saying that the dance is "a drunken shake anyway, it's an alcoholic shake, but it's fantastic, everybody appreciates it." He said it comes from the ancient Egyptians and describes it as what the mummies used to do. Because they were all wrapped up, they couldn't really move, all they could do was shake. Al B states that he has been doing the Harlem shake since 1981. The dance first caught on at the Entertainer's Basketball Classic or EBC and spread from there to other areas.

Unfortunately guys, the Helmet has nothing to do with the Harlem Shake...........although funny, this is the real deal. 

This just goes to show you, that God chooses his strongest soldiers to send a message to the world.  We all can take a part of Zach Sobiech life and apply it to our own.  This video is such an inspiration to me and how he choose to live his life to fullest and not let his illness hold him back.  I feel terrible for the things that I have complained about, to see that life is really great.  It is really all up to us to view our lives through another looking glass, to create our future.

I hope this video touched you as much as it has touched me.

His life:
 



One of his songs:
 

Why Society Needs Strong Families

A house in want of order

We hear it all the time: “The family is the basic unity of society.” But do we, as a society, really think about what that means? The bonds between husband and wife, parents and children, are so firmly planted in history and experience that we often take them for granted — until, as happens from time to time, those bonds break down. As a solid body of research shows, there is no replacement for the way this institution creates and develops human relationships. Family is no longer, nor ever has been, something that is simply “granted.” As anyone who has tried it knows, raising a family and sustaining a marriage are challenging things to do. However, at stake is not only the health of the individual family but also the prosperity and future of society.

Social scientists agree that not all is well with family and marriage. A report on a recent national survey captured the mood: “America’s parents are anxious.”[2] And as the report shows, anxiety about family decline taps into “a larger perception that our communities are less safe, our work ethic has slipped, and American religious and spiritual life has ebbed.”[3]

The institutions of family and marriage are wearing down. Marriage rates continue to decline[4]: the average couple marrying today has a 40-50 percent chance of divorce or separation.[5] Cohabitation is increasingly commonplace[6] and when children are involved results in more break-ups than marriage.[7] Around 41 percent of all births take place outside of marriage[8] and for the first time more than half of births to women under 30 occur outside marriage.[9] The institutions that are meant to provide security have become a source of insecurity. As many as 44 percent of those in the millennial age group agree that marriage is becoming “obsolete.”[10]

But what does this portend? The health of marriage also has economic implications. According to Pew Research, “married adults have made greater economic gains over the past four decades than unmarried adults.”[11] In addition, children in single-parent households are more likely to live in poverty.[12] But children in two-parent families around the world tend to have better educational outcomes than those living with only one parent or without a parent.[13] Of course not all families are alike, and it takes mutual commitment and community support for even the best of them to work.

Marriage and children, now and in the future

While society is blessed by the contributions of virtuous citizens from all walks of life, research indicates that married people tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive, and they provide the best environment for raising children.[14] Children raised by their own married biological parents experience less poverty, less drug and alcohol use and less crime and delinquency; they gain more education; they are more likely to marry; and they have better mental health compared with children from other family arrangements.[15]

The presence of children in families and societies summons responsibility for their care, encourages productivity, creates an orientation toward the future and pulls individuals outside of their own needs. Though not every couple has children, whether by choice or by circumstance, children remind us all that human flourishing goes much deeper than the happiness of the present. Fortunately, in the United States most children born to married couples will grow up in an intact family.[16] What one spiritual leader said years ago still holds true today: the greatest work we will ever do is within the walls of our home.[17]

But what happens when children no longer become a normal part of life’s plans and patterns? The answer is not just smaller families, but smaller populations. Birth rates have been falling in many places around the world, including the United States. Declining birth rates are making it hard for many Asian and European countries, for example, to replace one generation with another. A report called “The Rise of Post-Familialism” — a condition in which "the family no longer serves as the central organizing feature of society” — describes “a huge population” of people around the world “who have no offspring.” Choosing not to have children, these people “may be less focused on those things necessary to assure a better future for the next generation.”[18] The state of the family figures into a whole spectrum of societal problems, including demographic, economic and sociological.

Stable families as cooperative unions

One might think that family matters are entirely personal, detached from the surrounding society. Does one person’s family or marriage really affect anyone else’s? The answer is a resounding yes. None of us lives in isolation. A report on the state of marriage in America put it this way: “Marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution. Marriage fosters small cooperative unions — also known as stable families — that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times.”[19]

David Brooks of the New York Times goes further, explaining how maximizing personal freedom does not necessarily give people what they want. Rather, he argues, individuals are better served “when they are enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice — commitments to family, God, craft and country.”[20]

None of us is born a mere individual. We come to this world with a network of pre-existing relationships, bonds and obligations, both familial and civil. Eighteenth-century statesman Edmund Burke affirmed that society acts as “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."[21] As Orthodox rabbi Meir Soloveichik sees it, family works in much the same way: “Marriage is about continuity and transmission.”[22] The hard, humble work of building and strengthening family relationships is worth undertaking, not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

If these trends remain unaltered …

If current trends continue, what will the family look like 10, 20 years down the road? What kind of future awaits our children, our young people, our neighborhoods and civic relationships? These are serious problems that need to be addressed — not when crisis boils over completely, but now. Projections are notoriously difficult for social scientists to make. The future is not set in stone; society falls into slumps and climbs back out of them. However, given the current trajectory the future looks pretty bleak for many American children.

Demographer Joel Kotkin sings a similarly somber tune: “It’s time for us to consider what an aging, increasingly child-free population, growing more slowly, would mean here. As younger Americans individually eschew families of their own, they are contributing to the ever-growing imbalance between older retirees—basically their parents—and working-age Americans … creating a culture marked by hyper-individualism and dependence on the state as the family unit erodes.”[23] Calling family “truly indispensable,” Kotkin says that strengthening it is “a case we need to make as a society, rather than counting on nature to take its course.”[24]

This discussion on family is much more than a numerical exercise; it’s about the lives and hopes of real people. These societal drifts need not be our destiny. Yet, as one commentator recently noted, such pervasive trends “can only be reversed by the slow accumulation of individual choices, which is how all social and cultural recoveries are ultimately made.”[25]

Great story of conversion to the LDS church

“I laughed hysterically the entire show,” Morong said. “I thought, ‘Wow, these people are crazy. They must be brainwashed."

It was underneath the lights of Broadway on Sept. 25, 2011, that Boston resident Liza Morong’s life changed forever. She just didn’t know it then.

The 21-year-old musical theater major was sitting in the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City, watching “The Book of Mormon" musical.

Written by the creators of “South Park,” the edgy, irreverent but enormously popular musical is about two Mormon missionaries who try to share the Book of Mormon with the natives of northern Uganda.


“I laughed hysterically the entire show,” Morong said. “I thought, ‘Wow, these people are crazy. They must be brainwashed.’”

With her interest piqued, Morong, who was raised Congregationalist, found herself on the official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon.org, simply to continue her amusement with this seemingly bizarre faith.

After her questions, Elder Boardman invited her to chat again. Her initial reaction was a resounding no. “But then I thought, ‘You know, I do want to chat again.’ I caught myself by surprise,” she said. .

When she found a link for a live chat with missionaries, Morong felt like she had hit the jackpot. But what she found wasn’t what she expected.

It was when she started chatting with Elder Trevor Boardman, a missionary in the referral center at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, that everything changed.

“I thought, ‘These clowns are in for a treat with me,’ ” Morong said. “But (Elder Boardman) was so incredibly nice. I could not be mean to him.”

It was his genuine kindness, not his message, that caught Morong off guard.

Morong was able to ask sincere questions she had since attending the musical. After her questions, Elder Boardman invited her to chat again.

Her initial reaction was a resounding no.

“But then I thought, ‘You know, I do want to chat again.’ I caught myself by surprise,” she said.

The missionaries added Morong on Facebook and began teaching her the lessons through Facebook chat near the end of October. Not too long after this, Elder Boardman asked if he could send a copy of the Book of Mormon to her.

“'Here it comes,’ I thought,” Morong said.

But she agreed.

Elder Boardman sent her a hardback copy of the Book of Mormon. His testimony was written on the back cover, and with it was a reference to a passage from the book of Moroni inviting Morong to ponder and pray about the things she read.

On Nov. 3, 2011, Morong accepted the challenge and began to pray about the things the missionaries were teaching her, including the Book of Mormon. She started noticing a different kind of happiness come into her life, and an ability to make important changes.

Morong said the first time she recognized the feelings of the Spirit was after her first Skype lesson with the elders on Nov. 11.

“I was riding my bike to class one morning through some side streets in an older neighborhood in Boston. I remember the light was just passing through the branches of the trees. I felt this peace that I have never felt before. I thought to myself, ‘That just came from God.’”

Though she said it was a moment that lasted only for a few seconds, it was one that stayed with her.

Shortly after, Morong began attending a local singles ward. The first Sunday she went, she fortuitously sat behind two sister missionaries serving in the ward. Shortly after, Morong began meeting with the sisters, who taught her on campus at Suffolk University in Boston, where she is currently enrolled.
It was in a lesson with the sisters on Dec. 1, 2011, when Morong decided to be baptized. As the three of them sat around the table, Morong said she felt the Spirit strongly and knew that what she had learned was true.

“I looked at the sisters. They told me the next step was baptism, and I realized I wanted to do that," she said. "Suddenly all three of us were crying hysterically at my dining room table."

Morong's baptismal date was set for late December in Mapleton, Utah. Her one request — for Elder Boardman to baptize her.

Elder Boardman has muscular dystrophy, which made it a challenge for him to physically baptize Morong.

But on Dec. 31, 2011, three people dressed in white stood in a baptismal font in waist-high water. Elder Boardman offered the prayer, and with some help from his companion, Elder Ahlstrom, the two missionaries baptized their online investigator.

“If you believe, the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true — you'll just feel it,”. - Book of Mormon Broadway Musical

While her family doesn’t understand why she has made the choice to join the LDS Church, their relationship is still strong. Morong said she knows this is because the gospel blesses families.
“My mom will sometimes say, ‘I can’t believe I brought you to that show. None of this would have happened.’ I tell her that it still would have, just in a different way,” Morong said.

And while she is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when she returns home to Maine where she grew up, she attends church with her mom as well as her LDS congregation.

“I am a member of Christ’s true church, but the church I grew up in is still part of me,” she said.

While the musical has been called irreverent and crude, some of the lyrics still have special, sentimental value to Morong. The words, “If you believe, the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true — you'll just feel it,” from the show’s song “I Believe,” still resonate with Morong because she feels that’s what happened for her.

“My life has changed. I am so much happier,” Morong said. “It’s a happiness that stays with me if I make the right choices. I was an optimist anyway, but (the gospel) has made me even more optimistic.”

This fall, Morong, who is currently a sophomore, will begin classes at the University of Utah. She will declare a double major in musical theater and communication.

She hopes her dream will lead her right back to where she began — the lights of Broadway

Source: Deseret News

25,000 LEDs Illuminate The San Francisco Bay Bridge

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11 Reasons To Get Your Kids Out Of The Government Schools

It should be painfully obvious to everyone by now that it is time to get all of our kids out of the government schools.  The public school system in the United States has been dramatically declining for a long time, and in most areas of the country the public schools are open sewers at this point.  Yes, there are some U.S. public schools that are still very good and that do a decent job of preparing our young people for their adult lives.  But those good schools are the exception to the rule.  Hopefully the school shooting that just happened in Ohio will be a wake up call to millions of parents out there.  Drugs, sex and violence are rampant in American public schools today.  The “teachers” are endlessly pushing specific political and social agendas down the throats of our kids, and the skills that our children really need such as reading, writing and mathematics are often badly neglected.  Hopefully we can get more parents educated about what is really going on in these schools.  After all, why would any parents want to send their children into an environment that is going to be highly destructive for them for six to eight hours a day?

Sadly, “destructive” is not too hard a word to use for the environment in these public schools.  I went to public schools all my life, and they were absolutely horrible.  Unfortunately, they have gotten even worse since the time that I left them.

The following are 11 reasons to get your kids out of the government schools….

#1 You Could Be Arrested For Something That Your Child Does

Yes, you read that correctly.  If your child writes a story or draws a picture which a teacher or an administrator takes the wrong way, you could end up in jail.

The following example is from thestar.com….

A Kitchener father is angry at police after he was arrested at his child’s school and later strip-searched at the police station, all because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun in class.

“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, said of his ordeal on Wednesday. “I was in shock. This is completely insane.”

The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They say they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.

#2 Your Child Could Be Arrested While At School For Just About Anything These Days

As I have written about previously, children all over the United States are being arrested by police in government school classrooms for some absolutely crazy things.  Just check out the following examples….

*A 12-year-old girl named Sarah Bustamantes was recently arrested for spraying herself with perfume at a public school in Texas.

*A 13-year-old kid attending a public school in Albuquerque, New Mexico was recently arrested by police for burping in class.

*A 12-year-old girl at a school in Forest Hills, New York was marched out of her public school in handcuffs by police just because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly scribbled on her desk.

*When a little girl recently kissed a little boy at one Florida elementary school,  it was considered to be a “possible sex crime” and the police were called out.

#3 Your Child Might Be Bodily Harmed By Security Thugs

All over the nation, public schools students are being bodily injured (sometimes permanently) by school security thugs.  The following are a couple of examples….

*A security thug at one school in California actually fractured the arm of one 16-year-old girl because she left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning up some cake that she had spilled.

*In Allentown, Pennsylvania a 14-year-old girl was tasered in the groin areaby a school security thug even though she had put up her hands in the air to surrender to him.

#4 Virtually Everything That Your Child Does At School Is Being Put Into A Database Somewhere

As I described in a previous article, public schools (in conjunction with the federal government) have become obsessed with watching, monitoring and recording the activities of our kids.

According to the New York Post, the Obama administration is planning a vast new database which will collect all sorts of information about our children.  Is this the kind of information that you want the federal government to keep track of?….

The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.

#5 Our Kids Are Not Learning Anything In These Public Schools

As I have documented before, American public school students are being dumbed-down and millions of them end up dumb as a rock and yet still are able to graduate from high school somehow….

The following are some of the absolutely amazing results of a study conducted a few years ago by Common Core….

*Only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought some time between 1850 and 1900.

*More than a quarter of all U.S. high school students thought that Christopher Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean after the year 1750.

*Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  (This is a topic that I touched onyesterday).

*Only 60 percent of all U.S. students knew that World War I was fought some time between 1900 and 1950.

Sadly, we are rapidly falling behind the rest of the globe.  At this point, 15-year-olds that attend U.S. public schools do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.

#6 Our Public School Kids Are Being Forced To Take Large Numbers Of Vaccines

All over the nation, children that have not received all of the “required vaccines”are being banned from school.

Many parents do not want dozens of toxic vaccines injected directly into the bloodstreams of their kids, but in many states today you will not be able to send your kids to the public schools if they don’t submit to the shots.

This is just another reason why all American families should pull their kids out of these government schools immediately.

#7 Exposed To Rampant Sexual Promiscuity

When you send your kid to a government school, you are sending them into an environment where they will be exposed to rampant sexual promiscuity on an endless basis.

When the kids around you are constantly talking about sex and joking about sex, it makes it nearly impossible to escape it.

What makes things even worse is that the “sex education” courses are becoming more detailed and more graphic than ever.  One example of this phenomenon was detailed in the New York Times….

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

In some U.S. public schools, kids are even having sex in the school bathrooms.

Do you want that to happen to your kid?

#8 Teachers Are Having Sex With The Students

It seems like almost every single day there is another news story about teachers having sex with public school students.

The following are just a few of the headlines that I found from this week….

-”More California Teachers Accused Of Sex Crimes”

-”Teacher Accused Of Sex With Student Appears In Court”

-”Queen’s Teacher’s Aide Charged With Child Sex Abuse”

-”Teacher Caught In Bed With Teen Student”

#9 U.S. Public Schools Are Dominated By Radical Control Freaks That Are Teaching Our Kids How To Live Like Slaves

The level of control that is exerted over the lives of children in many of our public schools is absolutely frightening.

I know that I have mentioned the following example several times, but it is worth repeating because it shows just how far things have gone.  One 4-year-old girl recently had her lunch confiscated by a control freak at one U.S. preschool because it did not meet USDA guidelines….

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs – including in-home day care centers – to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

Do you want sick control freaks inspecting the lunches that your kids bring from home every single day?

If not, perhaps it is time to pull them out of the government schools.

#10 Specific Social And Political Agendas Are Being Shoved Down The Throats Of Our Kids In U.S. Public Schools

If you think that the government schools are “neutral places” where all social, political and religious beliefs are tolerated, then you are either ignorant or you are delusional.

The truth is that very specific social and political agendas are built into the curriculums of most public schools.  Often, these social and political agendas are the same ones that are being force-fed to public school children in other western nations.

If your children are attending a government school, a system of “right and wrong” is being pounded into their heads that may be very different from what you would teach them.

In one recent New York Times article, a district superintendent admitted that particular agendas are integrated into classroom instruction anywhere that they will fit….

“We’re trying to integrate it into anything where it naturally fits,” said Jackie Taylor, the district’s superintendent. “It might be in a math lesson. How much water are you really using? How can you tell? Teachers look for avenues in almost everything they teach.”

If you want to see where all of this is going, just check out what is going on in Europe.  In the UK, teachers that don’t promote the “correct agenda” face harsh disciplinary action.

Those that control the public schools don’t just want to “educate” your children.

They want to indoctrinate them.

#11 If Your Children Attend Public Schools They Could End Up Dead

Sadly, the school shooting that just happened in Ohio reminds us all once again that this is a matter of life and death.  Our schools are not safe and they are becoming less safe all the time.

While the odds are not great that your children will actually be murdered in our public schools, the truth is that there is a very good chance that they could be scarred for life by the destructive environment in these schools.

Most Americans that have gone through the public school system emerge from it with deep emotional scars.  If you have some of these emotional scars you know exactly what I am talking about.

The vast majority of our public schools are horrible places.  Just ask kids that are going to public high schools right now.  Most of them hate it.

Sometimes people argue that we should keep our children in the public schools so that they can be a “light” and so that they can be a good influence.

Unfortunately, that is just not the reality of the situation.  Our kids go there to be taught, and it is the teachers that have the authority.  Our children are far more likely to be changed by their teachers and their friends than they are to significantly change the system around them.

When you are young and insecure, it can be incredibly difficult to take a stand for what is right when all of your teachers and all of your friends are going the other way.

We need to protect our children and we need to put them into environments where they will be safe, protected and will receive a quality education.

Growing up is hard enough without having to spend 30 to 40 hours a week in a nightmarish hellhole where you will be physically, mentally and emotionally tortured.

So what do all of you think about the state of U.S. public schools?

Do you believe that we should get our kids out of the government schools?

Reference: End of the American Dream

2012 and what it has brought for me

It is that time of the year again where everyone gets their minds going and determines what the year brought for them.   For me it has been a very interesting year, a year that brought forth new ventures and more struggles.   After spending a year and a half in Pennsylvania My wife, daughter and I decided to come back home to California and take a job with a newer company.  It seemed like a great opportunity to get back into the action sports industry but it deemed to be harder and a more stressful lifestyle.  Not so much the action sports industry being hard, but working for the company itself has been a task.   In taking this position I had to work extra hard to put process’s in place but having no direction made it pretty hard to do and the low pay made it that much more  stressful.   We have been back in California for about 10 months now and living with my parents.  Added upon the low pay, STRESS has ridden my body and mind.  But the positive thing is that I have a job.  The other great thing is while working for this company I have decided to take it upon myself to grow their social media since I have started I helped it grow from 7,000 fans on Facebook to 16,000 that is 9,000 fans gained.  I have learned quite a bit while working here for the past few months now, and that is to make sure you back yourself up and record all the work you have done.  Sometimes all that you have is your work.  Unfortunately I am a person that likes to look out for a team and not just myself, I shouldn't say unfortunately. To move away from this subject an on to another great thing in my life for 2012 is that we are having another baby girl!!  With this great news, brings a greater responsibility to get my family on its feet and move out of my parent’s house.  This year has been pretty stressful but I have been ever so grateful for the chances that were given to me and the blessing of another child.  I almost forgot another great thing that happened just a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were sealed in the San Diego Temple.  That is an LDS temple.  Even though 2012 had been a little hard and understanding the hardships for many of those suffering through this terrible economy.  All that I pray for is a great 2013 year where we all can be at our best and drive toward our goals.  God has his plans for all of us individually and what that plan is only he can direct us.   Before the year ends be sure to take a moment and write down some new year’s resolutions and strive to reach those goals and pray for guidance as I will. 

Until next time Artothebeat out!