3 Top Reasons Why Men Should Read

The Obvious: Reading Improves Intelligence

It’s been proven time and time again, reading makes you more intelligent. The more you read the better your reading comprehension becomes. Reading also improves your emotional intelligence as well as your vocabulary. The more exposure you have to new words the more improved your conversation skills become.

Reading Broadens Your Perspectives

Reading exposes you to new views and perspectives. There are entire worlds outside of your social circle and reading is the best way to relate to and understand those worlds. Reading brings forth new beliefs and ideas that may have never occurred to you. Reading stimulates the right side of the brain, opening our minds to new possibilities and helps us analyze the world through a different lens.

Reading Fiction Improves Imagination

Reading helps acquire the ability to improve your imagination. Science fiction and fantasy novels are especially good at fueling imaginative thoughts. The top inventors at Google, Microsoft, and Apple all read science fiction when they were young. Science Fiction opens your mind’s eye to innovations and turns your gears to create and imagine other possibilities.

May I Suggest

If you’re ready to start reading but need help finding the perfect book, may I suggest Journeyman by Mark J. Rose. Journeyman is a science fiction time travel novel set in 1762 colonial America. While hiking, Matt Miller is caught in the cross fires of a time-travel experiment gone terribly wrong. He is inexplicably transported to an unfamiliar barn residing over 200 years in the past. Now he must use his 21st century knowledge in a time before all modern-day conveniences.

The time to start reading is now. Improve your intelligence, expand your imagination, and broaden your horizons.

Find your copy of Journeyman on Amazon.

Respect the Privacy of Our Fallen Soldiers

A recent photograph of an Armed Forces widow with her soldier husband in an open casket was posted on Twitter with a totally inappropriate and insensitive message criticizing the NFL players who are kneeling during the National Anthem. The same sort of thing has been done hundreds of times now with former National Football League quarterback Pat Tillman, who sacrificed his life as a soldier for Uncle Sam.

There is a disturbing trend among those who call themselves patriotic to intrude on the privacy of veterans and their dependents for social media posts and viral memes — not so much to commemorate their heroic sacrifices on the field of battle, but rather to push some kind of political agenda. Celebrities and so-called influencers are using these unauthorized photos to push their own agendas at the expensive of the privacy and tender feelings of widows and orphans. Even our politicians, who should know better, are not above using the fallen to boost their own campaigns and platforms. Sad to say, the Commander-in-Chief is one of the biggest abusers.

This unwarranted invasion of privacy is creating a groundswell of complaint and protest from military families who feel they have been used as a tool by unfeeling and calculating busybodies. And they are starting to push back. In the Gold Star community many widows and widowers are turning their back on pleas by political groups to use their fallen spouse as a so-called symbol for some trumped up appeal to patriotism or as a stick to beat political opponents with. Widows like Seana Arrechaga have aggressively shied away from allowing anyone or any organization from using the image of her fallen soldier husband, Army Sergeant First Class Ofren Arrechaga, in any public display. She says that the dignity that comes with grief is stripped from those who have to watch as images of their deceased loved ones are juggled on social media like a circus act.

Can America honor its war dead without partisanship and exploitation?

The Defense Department maintains a photographic repository of all those who have fallen in defense of their country. This repository is in the public domain and is accessible to anyone at any time. This is done as a public service to Americans and is often also used by foreign journalists when reporting on American involvement overseas. But these photographs were never intended to become political memes or used to promote fake news and/or the intellectual hobby horses of senators, governors, and other news hogs who use the immediate emotional appeal of the soldier’s grave to tout their own ‘patriotic’ vitriol.

There can be only one response to this dismal abuse, according to Gadsden and Culpeper. Casualty Affairs Officers in all branches of the United States military need to make sure that grieving families know and understand that photographs of their loved ones remain their private, inviolable property even after they give permission for the Defense Department to put such photographs in the public domain. If and when such a photograph is used to push an inappropriate agenda, or used in any commercial manner that would demean the memory of the fallen warrior, the family has the right to issue a cease and desist order, which in most states can be enforced by a court of law. In this way the sacred memory of those who gave up their lives for their country can be kept sacrosanct.

D Gary Young Builds Young Living: How His Essential Oil Farms Began

An old adage promises that hard work can reap the biggest of dividends for people who commit themselves to a job done right. This saying especially holds true for Gary Young and his company Young Living Essential Oils.

Thanks to years of hard work, research, and dedication, he has built a company that millions of people around the world hold in the highest regard. Moreover, the legacy of the essential oils sold around the globe can be traced back to his first farm in Idaho.

Young Living’s First Farm

Company founder D. Gary Young created his first essential oils farm in St. Maries, Idaho. He purchased 160 acres of conifer land that had not been plowed or farmed in 42 years. It took him 10 days to break the ground and transform it into fields in which herbs and flowers could be planted and grown.

After the ground was broken, an extensive task that took its toll on Young’s John Deere eight-bottom and eight-wheel tractor, it had an initial pH level of 4.2. Young needed to bring its pH level to 7 to 7.8 to make the soil ideal in which to grow herbs that would produce the highest quality essential oils.

To achieve this pH level, he injected the newly broken ground with microbes and enzymes. After the soil was at the right pH level, Young then planted lavender and melissa seed that he brought with him from France. He also planted clary sage that he began growing in Seattle.

Expanding His First Farm

The farm in St. Maries, Idaho became highly successful in growing high-quality herbs that could themselves produce the highest quality essential oils. Year after year, people who were dedicated fans of the oils came to the farm to help harvest the herbs. They joined in the work of harvesting the herbs, unloading chips from the back of the truck, and then loading and packing down the chips in the farm’s 42,000 liter distillery.

Each harvest season brought its fair share of fun and unique stories. However, the first time that Donald Gary Young produced blue spruce essential oil became a hallmark moment in the life of the St. Maries farm. Even Young expected the essential oil from the blue spruce to be true to the name of its parent herb and come out of the distillery a bright blue color.

However, to his amazement, the oil came out as a champagne pink color. He quickly called to one of the people working alongside him, a woman named Cherie Ross. She also was astonished to see that blue spruce essential oil was not blue at all but instead a unique shade of soft pink.

This story is one that Young likes to recount as he remembers time spent working and harvesting on his first Young Living farm. He thanks the many people who came to help him harvest and distill the herbs each year. He acknowledges that without their help much of the work would have taken longer. He captured the memories of those times at the St. Maries farm in photographs that he has published on one of his blogs.

Young Living’s First Farm in France

Armed with the farming success he enjoyed in St. Maries, Idaho, Young traveled to France in 1992 with his sights set on establishing a farm there. Despite not having enough cash to purchase any land outright, he was able to secure and lease a piece of property in Simiane, Provence in France.

Shortly after starting an essential oils farm on this property, he hosted several members of his company and gave them a tour of his new farm in France. By 1999, he was able to host 90 percent of the company members there.

Young made a success of herb and essential oils farming in France. In 2002, he was able to purchase an 80 acre farm in Provence. This new farm, which is used primarily for the production and harvesting of lavender, came with a castle that is more than 1000 years old. He was able to lease the castle directly from the community in which it is located.

The castle has since been converted to a visitors center and training facility for company members. Young takes delight in taking members to the castle to show them the view of the farm from the castle’s windows. The castle combined with the scenic, successful essential oils farm create memories that Young and company members can recall for a lifetime.

The Mona Farm

Young expanded on the success of his essential oils company by purchasing another farm in Mona, Utah. On this farm, he began growing peppermint and lavender among other herbs. He recalls one harvest season in particular when he and other company members tried to install a cooker. There was no room in which to install it, which at the time created a real challenge for Young and the others who were there. However, the story is now recalled as a problem that they all successfully overcame together.

He also recalls how he had no harvester at the time to use to harvest his peppermint. He converted a hay baler into a harvester that he could use on the peppermint crop that year. He likewise used his mechanical ingenuity to design and create his own wheel line and mini pivot as well as a three-line lavender planting machine. The planting machine is still in use today on the farm in St. Maries, Idaho.

The Mona farm became so successful in producing lavender that Young had to import four harvesters from France. All four of the harvesters are still in use today.

From the early days, which were filled with challenges and struggles, to the success that the Mona farm boasts of today, Young appreciates the help and input from all of the company members. He is proud of how far the Mona farm has come from its inception.

Young Living’s Ecuador Farm

Young expanded his essential oil farming and production to Ecuador where he now owns and operates another herb farm. He built this farm out of ground that was totally undeveloped and cleared. In fact, he had to build the two mile dirt road leading up to the farm himself.

After he built the road, he added a guardhouse and a gate at the entrance of the farm. He also built a reservoir in which to hold water for the farm’s own use.

Today, the Ecuador farm is the site of a beautiful and successful essential oils agricultural production. It boasts of its own lake as well as a spa clinic and restaurant, which are both located along the lake’s shore.

He and his family also live on the Ecuador farm in their own house. He regularly hosts company members who belong to the Platinum and Gold membership clubs. They get to see for themselves how beautiful and successful the Ecuador farm is in person.

The most humble of beginnings can lead to the greatest rewards with hard work, dedication, and knowledge. Young has used this recipe to create his own successful with his essential oils farms that are located in the U.S., France, and Ecuador. Thanks to his agricultural savvy and expertise on essential oils, he has expanded his company’s reach to millions of people across the globe.

Eric Lefkofsky’s Tempus Group Gathers Data Doctors Can Use In Cancer Treatments

It’s safe to say cancer touches the lives of people around the world in one way or another. Cancer is a silent villain that impacts the lives of family members, neighbors, friends, business associates, teachers, and church members. Once it starts its unforgiving act of cellular destruction, it leaves a trail of pain, suffering, heartbreak, and death in its wake. The medical profession is making progress in its quest to find a cure for various types of cancer, but there’s still an enormous amount of work to do. One of the people who is dedicating his time, talent, money, and energy to helping doctors gather important data about this internal enemy is billionaire entrepreneur Eric Lefkofsky.

Eric Lefkofsky is a University of Michigan graduate who received his law degree at that university’s law school. He serves as a Trustee of the Chicago’s Art Institute, the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Plus, he is Chairman of the Board of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. Lefkofsky is also an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago, and he authored the book Accelerated Disruption.

But one of Eric’s greatest accomplishments is co-founding Tempus. That group built a platform that helps doctors collect, analyze, and structure clinical data. That data includes unorganized information from patient charts that is floating around electronic medical record systems. The group is also capable of generating genomic data. Tempus does that by sequencing patient DNA as well as gathering other patient information. The doctors who use this technology find better ways to treat patients. The information doctors receive from this innovative technology gives them direction in terms of prescribing a therapy that showed promise in treating other patients with similar mutations or disorders.

The company’s technology helps patients with diabetes, neurological disorders, and cardiovascular diseases as well as patients who have certain types of cancer. According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, Lefkofsky is contemplating expanding the company’s technology, so it helps patients in Europe, Australia, and Asia. Lefkofsky and his team may expand, so their technology can help people suffering from other diseases in other countries. But the expansion is still in the research phase. The three-year-old company has 500 employees, but Lefkofsky said the company hires 20 to 30 new people every month. The company is operating out of the old Montgomery Ward building in Chicago. But Lefkofsky opened an office in New York recently, and Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco may be next.

According to the Chicago Tribune article, Lefkofsky’s startup has a value of $2 billion. In March, the group raised $80 million, and that gave the company a spot on Chicago’s “unicorn” list. That’s the term the industry uses when a private company has a value of $1 billion or more. According to the Chicago Tribune article, the group raised $320 million in 2018.

The list of investors is impressive. The investors who participated in the latest round are Baillie Gifford, the U.K. based investment firm, and Washington D.C.-based VC firm, Revolution Growth. That investment round raised another $110 million for the group.

The Lefkofsky Family Foundation is another way Eric tries to enhance the quality of life for the communities it serves. The foundation’s mission is to help people receive a quality education and improve the fundamental rights of women. Plus, the foundation expands cultural initiatives and helps propel new medical research. Eric believes education is a basic human right, and the foundation finds ways to ensure a quality-driven education is available for all students.

Masculinity in Music

The role of masculinity in music is a topic that’s inspiring more debate than ever, with increasing controversy surrounding the issue of “toxic” masculinity and the under-representation of women in the music industry. Narratives in musical performance have long been based around a central masculine figure: the rock-star frontman and the super-confident rap artist being prime examples. Although these established roles are still dominant today, there is increasing pushback against such stereotypes as the status quo is challenged. Despite this, masculinity and manliness remain essential to the personas embodied by some of our best-loved musicians and performers. With that in mind, we explore the ever-changing role of masculinity in music today.

The typical image of the “rock-star” frontman, oozing confidence, charisma and masculine energy, has been fixed in public consciousness since artists like Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley first took to the stage in the 50s. It’s a stereotype that’s endured for decades: just take one look at any festival line-up today and you’ll see a host of bands with a swaggeringly confident male lead. The element of machismo is fundamental to the rock star image – the aura of power and status, the arrogant attitude and the unfailing charisma. Though there are plenty of female rock stars and all-female bands, traditional rock ‘n roll has long been viewed as a masculine genre. This has gradually changed over previous decades, with subgenres such as punk rock, emo and indie allowing musicians to explore more feminine aspects of their identity and move away from typically masculine expectations.

Hip-hop is another genre that’s inextricably tied up with notions of manliness and masculinity. The stereotypical hip-hop artist’s lyrics are invariably full of boasts of sexual prowess and domination: even female rappers tend to skew towards egotistic and self-important rhymes that echo the machismo of their male counterparts. As with rock music, though, recent years have seen conventions thrown out the window. Many rappers today have abandoned the hyper-masculine attitude and disrespectful lyrics that have previously become a trademark of the genre, offering instead positive messages of inclusivity. New-school rappers such as Lil Yachty promote tolerance and positivity, embracing femininity and LGBT culture in a way that’s revolutionary for the genre.

Booking Agency MN2S have a variety of iconic male artists on their roster.

What Are The Forces Driving Men’s Fashion Today?

We don’t know how we missed it, but somehow we did — Men’s Fashion Week has already come and gone in Paris. We apologize for this tremendous blunder, and promise it will never happen again. We’ve already disciplined our appointment setter by making him sit in the corner with nothing but a locked BlackBerry. And our travel agent is now doing penance in a hut just outside of Bruneau Dunes State Park in Idaho. That’ll teach ’em.

After gazing raptly at photos from the Men’s Fashion Show, it is apparent that a revolution is happening for men’s footwear. The shoes on the runway were more sophisticated, yet of a bespoke duality. Celine’s is still refusing to do men’s street wear and continues to be a minimal branding experience. Statement-making initiatives are what’s happening to men’s clothing in 2018, according to Riccardo Tisci of Burberry’s. And who can doubt it, looking at the prehensile hoodies and off-white uber shop for men at Bon Marche?

The sneaker cult continues to grow like a fungal infection (but in a positive way.) Master splicer designer for men’s shoes Chitose Abe has worked her magic once again on pale green Nike sneakers with double tongues, triple shoe laces, and quadruple swooshes. It boggles not only the mind but the doppelganger.

And if anyone out there knows what all the above gobbledygook actually means, please email us immediately. We’d really like to know . . .

The Kind of Men Women Want to Date

If you already think you know what kind of men women want to date, you are probably all wrong. A new psychology study in the British Journal of Psychology says that women are mostly turned off by men who are perceived as too smart or too laid back. Such men find it harder than most to get a date on a regular basis. Just in case you smoke: A lot of women are seriously turned off by smoking. If you cannot quit outright, consider vaping. You can pick a vape that is coffee flavoured or anything else that will make you smell better. A great first stop for this is the website Smoking Things.

The study is based on surveys from 214 Australian college students — 70 percent of them female, and only 30 percent male. The survey asked about personality preferences and physical appearance. But apparently nothing was asked about the use of the word “crikey” when a common death adder is discovered in one’s daks, or why nobody seems disappointed that kangaroo steaks don’t jump around in a comic manner after they’re grilled.

But perhaps the biggest question mark about this whole dating study is why it was even posted under ‘Science’ on several prominent news aggregators. The day the rest of the world starts taking relationship cues from Australian college students is the day we all start guzzling Fosters and wearing bikinis in December. While nobody is saying they’re anything but amiable for the most part, there’s no denying that the unwritten rules of coolness bar any trends being exported from Australia. That’s just the way it is, mate.

Redefining the Man Cave

The Omaha World Herald ran a disturbing piece last month about updating the man cave. The author’s suggestions were rather harmless and cliched, but certainly not threatening. No, what raised the male hackles about the piece was when a prominent Seattle architect, a male architect, mind you, was quoted as saying that the reason the man cave is still so popular is that women in the home have decided to endorse and embrace it.

Now just a minute. Hold your horses. Put on the brakes. Since when do women have any say-so about any man cave anywhere on the planet? No offense meant to the female of the species, but a man cave neither seeks for nor cares about the endorsement of anybody — male, female, or rutabaga. It is designed, if that’s not too strong a word for the comfortable disarray a man cave possesses, for a man and his companions to inhabit for the sole purpose of wasting time — dozing over a televised golf tournament; counting bottle capes; microwaving and consuming an unhealthy amount of jalapeno poppers; and using needle nosed pliers to extract extraneous ear wax.

The minute a man cave receives the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval it ceases to be a man cave and becomes a den or study — a place where anybody can just waltz in whenever they feel like it. A place where a man might feel uncertain about displaying his collection of beaker bongs and dogs playing poker artwork. The man cave, by its very definition, is politically incorrect and disapproved of by every woman in the house. Otherwise, what’s the fun in having one?

Does Football Make For Better Men?

Well, the Huffington Post is at it again: they have just posted an opinion piece on Football, written by Jessica Luther, who hosts a feminist sports podcast called — I kid you not — “Burn It All Down.”

Her Huff Po piece is called “Football Won’t Turn Boys Into Men.” Just exactly what it WILL turn them into is never stated in her article, but the subtext is not reassuring. She pooh-poohs the idea that football will make boys tough, or that toughness is something at all desirable for men anyways. She points out, with ghoulish relish, that what football might do to the average barefoot boy with cheeks of tan is give him Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy from repeated head trauma, even with a sturdy helmet in place.

Luther calls American football, not to be confused with Futbol, which is what they play South of the Border (or is it now South of the Wall?) both toxic and deadly. Tens of thousands of men who played American futbol — uh, I mean football — as boys will probably want to disagree, with a very high decibel level, about that.

And who can blame them? A high school football game on a crisp autumn night is one of the few pure and simple delights left to Americans. Countless movies and TV shows have celebrated it. The Super Bowl has deified it. Take away football from the American male and what do you have? A European, that’s what!

Love Me, Love My Meat!

The website Green News recently ran an article urging men to consider the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. The author, one Charline Fernandez, laments the fact that in the United States 80 percent of all vegans are women. She pleads with the male American citizen to give up his bratwurst, steak, and pork chops for the delights of cottage cheese over shredded lettuce and quinoa jazzed up with tofu.

She quotes another vegan, a man, Alex Lockwood, as saying men are trapped by the stereotype of manly mass consumption of beef, pork, and chicken as an expected way of life — thus leading to more green house gas (since cattle are one of the main culprits when it comes to releasing methane gas into the air) and heart disease.

Ms Fernandez is hoping that the younger male generation will not be trapped by gender stereotypes and that they will start to revel in chug-a-lugging carrot juice and munching on lentil-based chips.

The American Meat Council, of course, is letting no grass grow under their feet, or hoofs, from this increasing challenge from vegans. In supermarkets across the land they are working hand in glove with butchers to offer a Two For The Price Of One sale on roasts and chops of all kinds. This means that while a one pound bag of quinoa costs up to ten dollars, ten pounds of rump roast may cost just five bucks. You do the math, Charline . . .