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Lecrae jumps on “Round of Applause” to salute 2013 graduates. “Proud of all the graduates out there,” says the Grammy-winning Houston rapper in a statement accompanying the track. “Never overlook the unique opportunity you have in education.”

The track was produced by KE on the Track (What’s up with producers and these weird monikers?) and sports a feature from B.o.B. Lecrae also has a special message for recent graduates on roundofapplause.net. Also available on iTunes.

• Lecrae Gives – “Round of Applause”

Glacier National Park  proposed an increase to the fees at Many Glacier Campground and proposed a reservations for some campsites. The changes will provide an opportunity for visitors to plan their trip to Many Glacier with knowledge of a secured campsite. Public comments are encouraged.

The proposed changes will increase the nightly camping fee from $20 to $23 per campsite, and allow for site-specific reservations at approximately half of the campsites, while the other half of the campground would remain first-come, first-served. The increase in fees would off-set the service charge of the reservation service provider and would be applied to the entire campground. It is proposed that the new fees and opportunity to reserve a campsite would begin next summer, June 2014.

Currently, the Many Glacier Campground is managed as a completely first-come first-served campground. The campground is popular, filling every day in the summer by mid-to-late morning. There are 110 campsites and 13 sites can accommodate RVs 35-feet in length. All campsites are first-come, first-serve.

Two campgrounds at Glacier National Park, St. Mary and Fish Creek Campgrounds, have reservations available with a nightly fee of $23.

Public comments on this proposal should be submitted by March 6, 2013. Comments may be submitted online or mail to Glacier National Park, Attention: Many Glacier Campground Fee Rate Increase, PO Box 128, West Glacier, MT 59936.

More: Glacier National Park Campgrounds | Plan a Whitefish, Montana Camping Trip | Top 5 National Parks to Pitch a Tent | The Best in Camping

I recently did not have an opportunity to sit down and speak directly with conservative and controversial radio host, Alex Jones. I suspect that’s because Jones is busy with his daily radio show and way too busy getting into confrontations with TV interviewers like Piers Morgan. So, I’ve had to settle for a non-interview with the increasingly famous Jones. Here now is that completely made up conversation. (Satire)

A few stories in the press over the past week caught my attention and got me to thinking about assumptions.

For one thing, an NPR story on hand dryers: revealed opportunity in an unexpected place:

George Campbell, who used to work for Dyson, now sells hand dryers of all brands through his Chicago company, NetDryers. Using government data, the company tried to measure the potential market for hand dryers.

“There’s roughly 30 million bathrooms away from home in the United States,” Campbell says. “Paper towels alone, without hand dryers, are probably in around 90-95 percent of those bathrooms.”

That means there are well over 25 million bathrooms that are potential hand dryer installations.

That’s a great example of an entrepreneur doing his homework!

Other companies use technology to disrupt traditional industries — and capture cash that might otherwise have been left on the table. This story about apps that help you hail taxis or rent a room through the service Airbnb caught my attention.

In the case of disruptive companies like Uber, the founders could see that there was money to be made in decreasing inefficiencies in the system (i.e., empty cabs during peak times). Airbnb created a new market for people who (like me) actually prefer not to stay in a hotel.

All of these stories are about people who craftily questioned assumptions, and built successful business models.

How good are you at questioning your own assumptions?

Is there a need for your product or service?

Is there a significant customer base?

Can this business turn a profit?

Are you the right person to run this business?

Is your business funded appropriately?

Get tips on testing your assumptions here.

Read: Question Key Assumptions in Your Business Plan

The Best Valentine’s Gift Money Can Buy

I spent over 20 years helping people buy Valentine’s gifts that would get them laid. The angry capitalist machine turns sweet and erotic one day a year, conveying us with deceptive tenderness into bed and telling us to get down to business.

I’m not immune, of course, and for both personal and professional reasons I’m always on the lookout for a great Valentine’s Day gift. This year I found something kind of perfect. It’s something that will turn you on, make you think, provoke conversation, and instead of your money going to blood flowers and chocolate or overpriced lingerie, it goes directly to an author who cares enough to write honestly about sex and present his work hand-wrapped in a tinsel heart (I mean this literally, scroll down to check it out).

What I found, thanks to The Rumpus, is a limited edition of six tiny sex books, self-published and lovingly produced by author Steve Almond. The series is called Writs of Passion (buy via PayPal, $25).

If you haven’t read any of Almond’s sex writing you should. I can’t think of anyone who writes about mostly heterosexual people having sex better than he does. It’s funny, weird, unexpected, with just enough four letter words ending in hard consonants to create tingly feelings from the inside out. It is hard to write good sex, and it may be equally hard to describe what’s good about great sex writing, but what I can say about Almond’s work is that in his hands, sex is smart and smutty. His characters may be stupid for sex, but stupidity exists here only in the service of a good lay. Almond’s work is mercifully absent of the cringeworthiness and condescension that afflicts so much well intended sex writing.

 

Writs of Passion collects ten of Almonds previously published works. The cover of each of the six volumes is one part of a single gorgeous illustration by Brian Stauffer. Arrange each book just so and you get the full image.

I’ve been a fan of Almond’s writing for a long time, so I took the opportunity to ask him some questions about the series and writing about sex.

One of the pieces in the Writs of Passion is a fifteen point manifesto you first published in The Normal School. Can I take this to mean you prefer the word smut over erotica or pornography?

SA: I try not to get caught up in the nomenclature. I’m happy if my stories are a turn-on, especially a story like “Sauce” — which is mostly just one women telling her friend about her first orgasm. But my essential goal is always to write about people in emotionally dangerous situations. And sex, if you’re doing it right (and heck, even if you’re doing it wrong) is emotionally dangerous. Pornography is mostly about sex as a male power fantasy. My own experience, I’m sorry to say, is that sex does more to reveal weakness and shame than power. It’s a struggle for many folks even to allow themselves sexual pleasure. And even if we do enjoy sex, we find all kinds of ways to punish ourselves for that pleasure. I wish it wasn’t so complicated (believe me — I wish!). But it is. I’m trying to capture that.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, can you offer some advice to an aspiring writer of sex, whether it’s for a private or public audience?

SA: The main thing is to pay attention. Attention is the first and final act of love. It’s what people want deep down. So rather than relying on these mass-produced Hallmark sentiments, I’d write a note, or even a poem, that talks about why the person in question is so awesome. And goes into precise details. Not just that someone is “pretty” or “smart.” Those are abstractions. I mean the little things you notice about them. For my wife, it would be how she soothes our kids. And the way her hair curls over her shoulders. And the smell of the skin at the small of her back. (I could go on….) The poetry is always in the precision. People want to be perceived, known. Funny is also good, but get there by way of the truth. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. The Writs has a whole piece called “How to Write Sex Scenes: The 12 Step Program” which offers much more explicit advice.

The sex in your stories is often unexpected, which is part of what makes it feel real. Best laid plans are fine and good, but it’s when you lose a little control (of the narrative, of your body, of your mind) that things get deep and weird and hot.   Is this reflected in your writing process? Do you know where you’re heading and who is going to get off with who, and how?

SA: I’m always happiest as a reader when I arrive at the intersection of astonishment and inevitability. That feeling of: “No way!” and “Of course!” at the same time. But I do have a road map — who I’m writing about. The two young guys in “See You Down There,” for instance, are all about racking up conquests. But they’re secretly in love with each other. And so, when they finally get into that hot threesome, there has to be that shocking moment when they run up hard against the truth of themselves (even if they don’t act on their impulses.) It’s that old Aristotelian idea that “character is fate.” In The Writs, this maxim just takes place with everybody naked and aroused.

Is there a word that is just inherently non-sexual?  Something that you’d never include in a sex scene?

SA: “Penis” and “vagina” are both pretty awful. They make me think of health class. Or venereal disease. “Discharge” is also ghastly. There are very few human contexts in which “discharge” is a happy word to be hearing. But here’s the thing about the effective sex writing: the language (not the acts themselves) have to be able to surprise us. If a woman is having sex with her husband of 20 years, out of a sense of duty, and he’s a military veteran, and she can’t get the word “discharge” out of her head — that’s the most important detail in the whole story. It says everything about what she’s feeling in that moment. Or maybe it’s a soldier who’s just been “discharged” from the army after a harrowing tour and he’s thrilled to be alive and he and his girlfriend are having sex for the first time and realizing they’re going to be together for the rest of their lives, they’ve found love, they want to make a baby, they’re ecstatic, and both of them start screaming “Discharge! Discharge!” at the moment they climax together. That could happen, too. Maybe it even has. Honestly: there’s nothing that’s off limits, as long as it’s written on behalf of the truth.

Buy the Books: Writs of Passion

_{Image of Illustrations used with permission, copyright Brian Stauffer}

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If on February 1st, you took a look at your lifestyle and found that it wasn’t profoundly different from January 1st–or at least it wasn’t different in the ways that you had hoped!–you may be starting to doubt your ability to make important, stress-relieving changes in your life.

At least you’re in good company!

Countless people find themselves doing the same thing around this time of year! Gym parking lots–always so packed during the month of January–start seeing more vacant parking spots. Schedules start filling up again, dessert starts looking better and better. If you’re trying to change from sheer willpower and perfectionistic adherence to a stringent code of desired behavior for yourself, you may start feeling fatigued. You may have already slipped, or fallen off the wagon completely. You may be wondering if it’s worth the effort to make changes.

First, I can tell you that it absolutely is! If you’re reading this, it means that you care about making healthy changes in your life and want to relieve stress. Your goals aren’t the problem, and using the new year as a springboard for change can work out very well. (And if you’re one of the readers who didn’t set goals for January, I implore you to take the opportunity to set some now!) But perhaps you’re succumbing to common pitfalls that many people find challenging. This is all part of the process. In fact, with my coaching clients, I always mention that somewhere between Week 3 and Week 8, we usually see a dip in progress–the initial excitement of reaching new goals has worn off, and the work is starting to feel more challenging. The following are common impediments to change:

• Perfectionism: are you expecting perfection immediately, or are you gradually working up to your goal?
• All-Or-Nothing Thinking: if you find yourself slipping up, are you tempted to give up completely, or do you consider slipups to be a normal part of the process?
• Pessimism: do you consider backsliding a sign that you’re not cut out to make these changes, or do you congratulate yourself when you catch the backsliding, knowing that redirecting yourself back toward your goal is a big step toward success?
• Support: do you have people in your life making the achievement of goals more difficult for you, or easier?
• Flexibility: do you stick with a plan that doesn’t fit your lifestyle until you can’t take it anymore, or are you able to shift gears and find a plan that does work for you?

Now is the perfect time to stop and take a look at what’s working, what’s not working, and why. Success may be as simple as recommitting yourself to trying again, or as involved as examining what’s made change difficult so far, and seeing what you can do to overcome your obstacles. But now is the time to take these steps, envisioning your goal and keeping it in your mind for motivation.

The following links can help:

• Goal-Setting, and Reaching Goals
• Goals, Not Resolutions
• Free E Course on Making Changes Stick
• Overcoming Perfectionism
• Positive Peer Pressure

So, how are you coming with your goals? What’s working, and what’s not? Share your tips, trials, and experiences here. And if you enjoyed this blog, I’d love it if you’d pass it along with the ‘share’ button!

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In a 13-page directive issued January 25, the U.S. Department of Education informed all public schools they must either include students with disabilities in school-sponsored athletic programs or provide “equal alternative options.”

Similar to Title IX, which requires equal athletic opportunities for women, the new directive requires schools to either make “reasonable modifications” to their athletics programs necessary to allow students with disabilities to participate or provide equally-supported alternative athletic programs for students with disabilities.

Issued under the authority of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the directive applies to all public schools and colleges that receive federal funds and offer extracurricular, interscholastic, intramural, or intercollegiate athletics.

“Sports can provide invaluable lessons in discipline, selflessness, passion and courage, and this guidance will help schools ensure that students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to benefit from the life lessons they can learn on the playing field or on the court,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a press release.

The directive does not require schools to guarantee every student with a disability a spot on a team for which other students must try out. It does, however, require schools to “afford … students with disabilities an equal opportunity for participation in extracurricular athletics in an integrated manner to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the student.”

The directive requires schools to make “reasonable modifications” to their policies, practices and procedures whenever “such modifications are necessary to ensure equal opportunity,” unless the school can show the modification would result in a fundamental change in the nature of the sport.

“Federal civil rights laws require schools to provide equal opportunities, not give anyone an unfair head start. So schools don’t have to change the essential rules of the game, and they don’t have to do anything that would provide a student with a disability an unfair competitive advantage,” explained Duncan. “But they do need to make reasonable modifications (such as using a laser instead of a starter pistol to start a race so a deaf runner can compete) to ensure that students with disabilities get the very same opportunity to play as everyone else.”

Also See:
19 Percent of US People Suffer a Disability, Census Reports
Why Feds Banned Term ‘Mental Retardation’

A recent study, reported in the Journal of Adolescent Research, caught my eye. It was a term in the title of the article that I had never heard before: “Relationship Churning in Emerging Adulthood: On/Off Relationships and Sex With an Ex.”

Relationship churning? What could that mean? I had, literally, a gut response, remembering all those times when I couldn’t figure out if was still in, or completely out, of a relationship. Did that slammed door denote the end of something or was it like a starter pistol, a bang that signified the hard work was about to begin, and I better get moving?

As it turns out, this is more or less what the authors meant when they coined the term. The study, which relied on data taken from a longitudinal study of 7th, 9th, and 11th graders in Lucas County, Ohio between 2001 and 2007, examines how often people reconcile (for any length of time) with someone they were formerly dating and how often they have sex with their ex. This middle space, where you may be broken up but not really, or really broken up but still having sex, is what they call relationship churning.

I was surprised by their findings. Not by how frequently people reported it, but that they didn’t report it more. Forty four percent of those surveyed reported getting back together with a romantic partner they had dated in the past two years. And of those 53% said they had sex with their exes. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem as if they asked about having sex with an ex that you didn’t reconcile with.

But still, it’s one of those statistics that makes me wonder how non-representative the people in my life are. Way more than half the people I know have, at one time, had sex with an ex. Most agree it was a bad decision in the long run. Almost all agree that in the moment it was either comforting, hot, or just inevitable. The researchers note that their numbers may be low because they only asked people about their present or most recent experience and not lifetime experience of reconciling or having sex with an ex.

Other than the terminology what struck me most about the paper was how different it would be if we let people produce research on themselves. In this case we have adults describing young people. Only they aren’t young people, they are “emerging adults” and the context of the study is the idea that during this time, adolescence and early adulthood, “learning how to form, maintain, and gracefully end romantic and sexual relationships with others is arguably one of the critical developmental tasks.”

As an adult, it’s hard not to read that without laughing. Does anyone really emerge from their youth knowing how to do this well? I mean some probably can do it better than others, but outside of movies and television shows, when do romantic and sexual relationships end gracefully? I think I’d like to argue that the idea of relationship churning is less a discrete period of time between other kinds of relationships and more of a parallel experience, that is tied to opportunity and context.

But that might just be me. I have a very weak stomach.

If you’re interested in reading more, the paper is available for free download for a limited time. You can access it here:

Journal of Adolescent Research: Relationship Churning in Emerging Adulthood: On/Off Relationships and Sex With an Ex

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