The DSD's Weekly Poll

Are You in Favor of Interleague Play?

Every year MLB switches things up for interleague play, but do you like it?

Before 1997, Major League Baseball (MLB) would segregate the American and National league as much as possible. Teams from both leagues would not play each other in a game that counted until the World Series, each league had their own governing body and umpires, and there were even differences in the rules like a change in the strike zone.  During interleague play when a game takes place in a National League ballpark, the American League team is expected to have their pitcher hit, and when the American League team is home, the National League team must use a designated hitter. The DH rule has been debated ever since it was first used in the American League in 1973 but during interleague play every team gets a chance to allow their pitcher …

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Where Do Adults With Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) Go?

A new study finds adults with ASDs face many challenges when it comes to school and work.

Autism and adulthood, it is looming for a significant number of families. According to Reuters Health, a new study has found that “35 percent of young adults with ASDs had not gone to school or held a job since high school.” The findings, which appear in the journal Pediatrics, also points out that family income plays a factor, putting those from low-income families at an even greater risk. As a parent of a child with an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), I read the story and wondered why the experts sounded so surprised. The majority of programs aimed at children with ASDs are not really thinking that far ahead. The programs are trying to give the children skills to cope with everyday life, to learn how to learn, to learn how to …

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Robert J. Bernstein Educational Services, LLC

11:36 am on Sunday, May 20, 2012

Temple Grandin is terrific, but the solution to transition is not a cookie cutter approach. I do this one person at a time, and each one demands a different approach. rjb@autismspeech.com   more ›

Go Green Before Selling

Going green can often help sell a home more quickly.

Many households still tend to shy away from adopting green living habits for fear they’ll be too hard, time-consuming, or expensive. In reality, there are many green habits that are easy, inexpensive, and will help you sell your home faster. Cutting down on energy usage is often a great way to save money. Do you know that many buyers today will ask a seller how much they pay each month on their utilities? Some might even go so far as to ask for copies of the homeowners utility bills. In order to make this often large amount of money seem more reasonable, going green can help. Consider “greening” up your appliances. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, getting rid of old and outdated appliances can save thousands of dollars per…

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There's No Such Thing As a Bully

There's No Such Thing as a Bully: Confessions

The author emphasizes the power of the apology.

I confess. As a child, I was bullied on a fairly regular basis—sometimes physically, but usually a verbal attack—because I was always the “new kid.” My dad was a salesman and we relocated to where the work was. It wasn’t unusual for us to move on a yearly, sometimes bi-yearly, basis. Clearly, I was an easy target. But thanks to my family, and a few loyal friends, I survived pretty well. Personally, I try to use my life experiences as character builders, but I must admit that if I had the choice I would have skipped more than a few of them. They were quite painful, emotionally if not always physically, and I’d be just as happy if they’d never happened. So when my son came home with stories of being bullied, it really hit home. And if you've…

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Taryn Grimes-Herbert

6:49 pm on Friday, May 18, 2012

Raymond, You're taking the title a tad too literally. Go to http://patch.com/A-pSJh for the explanation.   more ›

Mother Knows Breast

Here we go again: the real issue at the center of any debate over 'modern motherhood' is exploitation.

You don’t want to look at it, but you can’t look away. God forbid your children see it, what will happen when they view such a corruptible, sensational image?! Oh my, it’s a breast! With a child old enough to walk, talk and ask for food attached to it. A child doing what children are meant to do. Getting attention. That’s right, the biggest—perhaps only—winners in this cover story on breastfeeding and attachment parenting are Time magazine’s publicity, marketing and circulation departments. That’s what the cover image was designed to do: Get attention. And it has gotten lots of attention. Blogs, news websites, network news shows...you name it, everyone has weighed in on the 'controversial' articles and accompanying photos. It's been almost…

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Workplace - Wild and Wonderful

Interns: Not Just for Coffee Anymore

The days of interns being office gophers are a thing of the past. Employers need to be aware of the rules for interns.

Need someone to do your filing, sort your mail, fetch your coffee and other grunt work? An unpaid intern is not the answer. Many may remember summer intern experiences where they had hoped to learn about business and a particular industry but instead spent their time being the office errand boy or girl. Woe to the company that tries that now. New federal guidelines for internships were released in 2010 in response to the uptick in the number of unpaid internships over the last few years. The concern was that some employers were bringing in unpaid labor to help them through tough economic times.    One of the issues is having unpaid interns perform tasks that displace paid workers. For example, if an intern performs work that the firm would…

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Anthony J. Bazzo

5:15 pm on Thursday, May 17, 2012

The New York State Dept. of Labor requires that interns working at a place of business either receive monetary compensation or receive academic credit certified in writing by a school official.   more ›

Stay-at-Home Dad: Everything Counts

A child's report card makes me evaluate my own existence.

My oldest son’s report card came in the mail the other day. He is 13 (going on 10) and in his final months of Middle School. His grades were good for the most part, with his traditional spattering of A’s and B’s, but way down at the bottom of his progress report was a brand new letter of the alphabet to add to his transcript–a “D." When pressed about the mark he did a familiar song and dance, and ended up telling me that he just didn’t take the subject too seriously and even worse, didn’t feel like making much of an effort during the semester. Granted it would have been nice to have received a “heads up” from the teacher before his grades were etched in stone, but my wife and I chose to use this experience as an opportunity to convey the …

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