GET VACCINATED - OR ELSE?   Can employers require you to get the vaccine... or else? First published in Go Banking Rates - Nicole Spector   Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers can require workers to take medical tests that are “job-related and consistent with business necessity” — and that includes tests for COVID-19. The logic here is simple — COVID-19 is wildly contagious. Additionally, you can spread it like wildfire without having so much as a single symptom. That’s a big reason when we’re still trapped in the trenches of this pandemic. The virus passes through some people with less impact than the common cold, while...

With spring just around the corner, a gardener’s thoughts turn to fertilizer. Although its’ application would seem to be fairly simple, it really isn’t. Every garden is different, and the types of fertilizer needed could vary greatly. Additionally, depending on what the gardener is growing, the type and amount of fertilizer required will be different, as will be the timing of its application, and both dependent on current environmental conditions.   How do you know if your garden needs fertilizer? Well, if its’ growth is stagnant, it’s not thriving or living up to its’ potential, it needs help.    The majority of fertilizers belong...

NASA didn’t decide one day, “let’s go to the moon” and then shot off a rocket in the general direction. They started, in 1958, with Project Mercury, which resulted in launching John Glenn into orbit in February 1962. The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin beat him there by 10 months. Then NASA moved on to Project Gemini, which provided the tools needed to ensure that astronauts could survive and work in space, and finally advanced to Project Apollo that took mankind to the moon in July 1969.   I don’t imagine any of us have plans to become space explorers, although I could...

6 Months = 4 years?     For the last several generations, college was the gateway to the good life. High schools started offering fewer and fewer “shop classes”. Home Ec was a relic of the past, and college prep was the only post high school career path that any school counselor wanted to talk about.   And why not? College was (relatively) affordable, promised at least four years reprieve from the old 9 to 5 grind, and was a way to avoid standing next to your Father on an assembly line. At one time, college could even save you from going to war.   Then, the...

The immediate way forward appears to be bipartisan negotiations with Republicans.     $15 Minimum Wage – Not So Fast   The immediate increase of the federal minimum wage is dead, although Progressives in the Senate, led by Bernie Sanders (D), VT vowed to keep advocating for the increase.   The immediate way forward appears to be bipartisan negotiations with Republicans. Several Republicans, includes Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have indicated openness to a wage increase, but it is unlikely that this approach will bear immediate fruit in today’s hyper-partisan political climate.   While the $15-an-hour minimum wage has increasingly caught on in cities and states across the country over the...