Thursday, March 19, 2020

Reduce the Amount of Junk Mail You Receive by 90%

Reduce the Amount of Junk Mail You Receive by 90% If you’re interested in living a more eco-friendly lifestyle, heres something you can do that will help protect the environment and preserve your sanity: reduce the amount of junk mail you receive by 90 percent. According to information from sources such as the Center for a New American Dream (CNAD;  a Maryland-based nonprofit organization that helps people consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice) reducing the amount of junk mail you receive will save energy, natural resources, landfill space, tax dollars, and a lot of your personal time. For example: 5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually.The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equal to 1.5 trees every year- more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined.44 percent of junk mail is thrown away unopened, but only half that much junk mail (22 percent) is recycled.Americans pay $370 million annually to dispose of junk mail that doesn’t get recycled.On average, Americans spend 8 months opening junk mail in the course of their lives. Register Your Name to Reduce Junk Mail OK, now that you’ve decided to reduce the volume of junk mail you receive, how do you go about it? Start by registering with the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). It won’t guarantee you a life free of junk mail, but it can help. DMA will list you in its database in the â€Å"Do Not Mail† category. Direct marketers are not required to check the database, but most companies that send large volumes of bulk mail do use the DMA service. They realize there is no percentage in routinely sending mail to people who don’t want it and have taken action to prevent it. Get Off Junk Mail Lists You can also go to OptOutPreScreen.com, which can enable you to remove your name from lists that mortgage, credit card, and insurance companies use to mail you offers and solicitations. It’s a centralized website run by the four major credit bureaus in the United States: Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion. Most businesses check with one or more of these companies before accepting your credit card or granting you credit for a long-term purchase. They are also a huge source of names and addresses for credit card, mortgage and insurance companies that routinely send junk mail to attract new customers and solicit new business. But there’s a way to fight back. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires credit bureaus to delete your name from their rented lists if you make the request. Contact Companies That Send You Junk Mail If you’re serious about ridding your life of as much junk mail as possible, then simply registering with these services may not leave enough space in your mailbox. In addition, you should ask all of the companies you patronize to place your name on their â€Å"do not promote† or â€Å"in-house suppress† lists. If you do business with a company by mail, it should be on your contact list. That includes magazine publishers, any companies that send you catalogs, credit card companies, etc. It’s best to make this request the first time you do business with a company, because it will prevent them from selling your name to other organizations, but you can make the request at any time. Keep Track of Your Name to See How Junk Mail is Generated As an extra precaution, some organizations recommend that you track where companies are getting your name by using a slightly different name whenever you subscribe to a magazine or begin a new mail relationship with a company. One strategy is to give yourself a fictional middle initials that match the name of the company. If your name is Jennifer Jones and you subscribe to Vanity Fair, simply give your name as Jennifer V.F. Jones, and ask the magazine not to rent your name. If you ever receive a piece of junk mail from other companies addressed to Jennifer V.F. Jones, you’ll know where they got your name. If this all still seems a bit daunting, there are resources to help you get through it. One option is to use stopthejunkmail.com, which can provide further assistance or guidelines for reducing junk mail and other intrusions, from unwanted e-mail (spam) to telemarketing calls. Some of these services are free while others charge an annual fee. So do yourself and the environment a favor. Keep the junk mail out of your mailbox and out of the landfill. Edited by Frederic Beaudry

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

A look into sectarian academic institutions selective student admission policy

A look into sectarian academic institutions selective student admission policy Hashtag: #TiwaLaSalle (â€Å"Trust in La Salle!† University) The Nature of Sectarian Schools About four years ago, several schoolchildren with lesbian parents were rejected by a Catholic school in Boston, Massachusetts. A Lutheran High School in California, on the other hand, expelled two students simply because they were members of the third sex. Sectarian schools are also famous for rejecting students with different religious belief, of different skin color or with a physical or mental disability, but gets away with it. How is that possible? Sectarian schools are private institutions, as they do not receive funding from federal government or directly administered by the state. For this reason, sectarian schools are self-governing entities with freedom to discriminate or reject a particular type admit a certain type of student. Therefore, those shouting #TiwaLaSalle are students who passed the discriminating standard of the university and deserving of education for the elite. Owners of sectarian schools are either Catholic or Protestant religious organizations aiming to propagate and advance their respective religious beliefs. A sectarian school, therefore, is only open to students with similar faith. Moreover, since government or people’s taxes do not fund private organizations, students in sectarian schools are normally sons and daughters of parents who can pay expensive tuition fees and support expenses associated with exclusive education. Get your portion of inspiration here: Why High School Years Are Often the Most Memorable in Later Life? What Are the Common Problems faced by Students in School? Relieving Students School-Related Stress High School Is a Must-Do? At School, I Have Been Bullied by a Teacher Discrimination in Schools of the Holy Most sectarian schools are named after a patron saint or religious figures (ex. Saint Anthony’s College, La Salle University, Saint Francis Xavier University) but their practices seem far from being divine. They continue to exist and operate under the law regardless of the fact that denying student’s admission on religious grounds result in racial exclusion and violation of children’s rights. Under the law, sectarian schools as private educational institutions can have different rules. For instance, a Roman Catholic nun and leader of a Catholic school in New Orleans openly admit that students and faculty have limited rights in a Catholic school. In fact, they are free to ignore freedom of speech and due process rights, hire and fire staff on religious grounds, employment regulations, and reject admission of anyone mainly because they are ministries funded by private donations. These practices according to school official are not religiously bias but simply a matter of choosing those who are members of the church. Moreover, since the school is part of the ministry, they need to model and protect Catholic values. This may be true as most textbooks according to the study of Christian schools are politically and religiously bias and often identical to materials produced by partisan organizations promoting conservative Christian ideas. Discriminatory practices of sectarian schools such as those promoting Catholic values, in particular, seem contradictory to Christian teaching. For instance, discrimination is never a Christian value. In fact, Jesus, through his ministry, emphasized the need to love one another, as God’s love for all is unconditional. Evidently, these include those we deemed unworthy or people with different belief, gender, and race. Sectarian schools should realize that independence from government funding and control does not necessarily mean freedom to discriminate and promote false religious values such as providing exclusive education for the elite.