Mark Johnson was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) 24 years ago. His prognosis at that time was about two to five years before the disease took his life. But Mark wasn’t ready to go just yet. He had one dream. Even with ALS ravaging his body, Mark Johnson wanted to go skydiving. Better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a fatal neurological disorder that affects muscle movement. As the disease progresses, motor neurons stop sending messages to muscles, leading to atrophy and difficulty breathing. A person with ALS slowly wastes away. Mark outlived his prognosis by 20 years! When entering hospice in April, he had only one unfulfilled wish. Even though ALS was robbing him of his ability to move, he still wanted to go skydiving one time in his life. Image from YouTube. Mark Johnson piloted airplanes in his youth. He always dreamed of jumping out of an airplane one day. When ALS interrupted his dreams, Mark battled for his life. Mark’s friends arranged for him to go on a tandem jump with a certified skydiving professional. A tandem jump is where an amateur straps to a skydiver, and the two complete the leap together. Image from YouTube. Once they jumped, the tandem pair free-fell for a short bit. When the chute opened, Mark smiled as the two drifted down under the parachute. Image from YouTube. The two jumpers were able to converse a bit as they drifted down. When they got close to the ground, the skydiver prepared to touch down safely. Image from YouTube. Mark’s jumpmaster was skillful in the landing, absorbing the force of the graceful return to solid ground. Skydiving With ALS Is A Dream Come True Mark can finally cross skydiving off his bucket list thanks to the “What If…” program through Shirkey Hospice and Palliative Care. As he continues his fight with ALS, Mark has been a strong advocate for others fighting the battle. Mark is one of the longest-surviving people with ALS. He says he will keep giving back to the community as long as possible. Please share this tale of a man with ALS achieving his dream skydiving adventure. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Man Battling ALS For 24 Years Finally Sees His Dream Of Skydiving Come True appeared first on InspireMore.

The origins of the band Iron Butterfly began in the city of San Diego, California, in 1966. After multiple personnel changes during the band’s first couple of years, Iron Butterfly released their debut album in 1968 entitled Heavy. However, the band’s second album, labeled In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, made the band a household name. With their 17-minute title track that took up the entire side of a vinyl record, Iron Butterfly would achieve legendary status. While the song “In-A-Gadda- Da -Vida” was a watershed moment in rock and roll history because of its length, it also bore the brunt of many jokes. Legendary The post Top 10 Iron Butterfly Songs appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

All is not well with America’s teachers. Surveys published this spring paint an alarming picture of the reality teachers face every day in our country’s classrooms. Inflation has hit their earnings. Top-down regulation has smothered their creativity and motivation. Union-driven, one-size-fits-all contracts thwart career advancement. Teachers complain of a lack of control over discipline policies, verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. According to the Pew Research Center, more than four-fifths of teachers surveyed by the RAND Corporation said public education has gotten worse in the past five years. More than half say it’s likely to keep getting worse over the next five, and a majority would not recommend their profession to the class of 2024. A Brown University analysis shows that since 2009, the number of parents who say they want their child to grow up to become a teacher has fallen by half. High school students considering future careers say better pay is the no. 1 factor that could make a teaching job more appealing. Next on the list are meaningful opportunities for career advancement, more autonomy on the job, and more professional prestige. Effective teachers deserve these perks. But they won’t get them from existing public school systems. We need to increase teachers’ ability to choose where they work. As a Certified Public Accountant, I had a choice of career paths. I could have applied to an international Big Three accounting firm, joined a smaller specialty firm, taken an in-house job with a company or government agency, or gone into business for myself. Right now, nearly nine in 10 American teachers are stuck with the first option —working for a large institution, usually a school district. Some take the second option, working for smaller private or charter schools. But for most educators, that is where the options end. We must make it easier for teachers to go into business for themselves, creating their own schools or offering their own courses, tutoring or other educational services. In my home state of Florida, more teachers are going this route, serving families who use the nation’s largest education choice program. As one teacher said after founding her own small academy for 16 middle school students: “I am 100 percent free. And I love it.” Every teacher should have the freedom to design their own education solutions and market them directly to families. Imagine Uber or AirBnB for education: An online platform that allows educators to offer their services to as many families as are willing to pay. One teacher could offer Advanced Placement English to hundreds of students at a time, and be compensated based on the popularity of their course, instead of a flat district salary schedule. Websites like Outschool are moving in this direction, offering tens of thousands of courses, most of them electives or enrichment options. When school districts have to compete to attract the most talented teachers, the best teachers’ pay will rise and excellence will be rewarded. Studies have found that expanding school choice options can create a bidding war for excellent teachers, pushing salaries higher. To make this a reality, we also need to stop forcing new teachers to jump through pointless hoops. Teachers fast-tracked into classrooms during the pandemic performed about as well as their colleagues who cleared the usual bureaucratic hurdles to get traditional teaching certificates. Economists recently ran the numbers on the value of different degrees, and found the return on investment for a traditional teaching credential is close to zero. It’s no wonder. Teacher preparation programs can be money makers for colleges, but they offer little practical guidance on how to manage a classroom or deliver a lesson. Certification requirements mostly serve to detract candidates with agency from pursuing the teaching profession. Those who persist are forced to take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt to sit through hours of abstract theorizing and ideological indoctrination — only to walk into class on day 1 of their first year ill-equipped to handle the student who won’t take his seat. Teachers deserve better. They deserve to be “100 percent free.” Editor’s Note: This story originally ran on Tribune News Service. The post America’s Teachers Are Unhappy. Here’s How We Can Turn That Around appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Moscow on Friday to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare trip to Russia by a European leader that drew condemnation from Kyiv and European leaders. Orbán’s visit comes only days after he made a similar unannounced trip to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and proposed that Ukraine consider agreeing to an immediate cease-fire with Russia. “The number of...

A few easy homemade ingredients are thrown together into a filling, cheesy, noodly, meaty BBQ beef casserole, for a stress-free and satisfying dinner.