Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Erica Jong: A Busted Father Writes to His Kids Top
Dear Madison, Lexington and Parker, Your mother and I have always pledged to give you the best of everything, but our new president is, alas making that impossible. We have had to fire Hassan, the chef, let Ahmed, our driver go, and sell the houses in St. Barts and London. I know that still leaves New York, Aspen and Southampton, and finds you all embarrassed in front of your friends. But think of it this way: sacrifice is character-building. Traveling on a commercial jet will prepare you for many things in life--like packing a picnic lunch and champagne from Petrossian. Girls--you may have to marry billionaires--if indeed there are any billionaires any more. And Parker--try to get into politics. I feel ashamed that my present truncated salary doesn't allow for the style of living you're used to. But if your mother can stand it--so can you. She had her heart set on that Louis Seize scritoire--but she'll have to make do without it. Not to mention the jewelry she's had to sell. The Duchess of Windsor diamonds and the Czarina's tiara. Things are tough all over. Look at me. I've given up S/Y Wretched Excess and am about to buy a reconditioned vaporetto the Serenissima let go of cheap. I no longer buy my shirts at Charvet nor my bathrobes at Sulka. It's not yet time for Old Navy, but that may come soon. I am so ashamed of our shrinking lifestyle that I've had fantasies of doing what that French guy did--but things have to get better. Pull up your socks. Tighten your belts. Stiff upper lip and all that. Your mother is out in Southampton planning her Victory garden. Good for our waistlines and the environment. Think of it this way, being a recessionista is chic. You may even get a book out it. Not that books pay any more. But maybe a movie? Thing have to improve eventually. Your loving father, Pop More on Billionaires
 
Jeffrey Feldman: The Voice Of American Pragmatism Top
More than policy details, President Obama's first press conference showcased an aspect of America that  8 years of Bush-era pessimism worked hard to destroy:  American pragmatism. For those of us who watched Obama, last night, we heard the voice of American pragmatism for a full hour, but few if any of us have much experience stepping back and talking about it.   Decades of Reagan, Bush and now Limbaugh Republicanism have create such a toxic environment for American pragmatism that even the anyone who dares to step in that direction has been ridiculed and silenced. That ended last night. What is American pragmatism?  It is a political philosophy rooted in the twin principles of action and usefulness.  "If we take this action, will it be more useful than that action?"  That is the basic question of American pragmatism. The great American pragmatists, of course, are names that we once held up in this country with great pride, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Abraham Lincoln. Listening to Obama's press conference, it was strikingly clear that he was speaking in the voice of American pragmatism.  Consider,  for example, this comment that President Obama offered about 21 minutes into the event: As I said, the one concern I've got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what's been said in Congress, is that there seems to be a set of folks who -- I don't doubt their sincerity -- who just believe that we should do nothing. Now, if that's their opening position or their closing position in negotiations, then we're probably not going to make much progress, because I don't think that's economically sound and I don't think what -- that's what the American people expect, is for us to stand by and do nothing. There are others who recognize that we've got to do a significant recovery package, but they're concerned about the mix of what's in there. And if they're sincere about it, then I'm happy to have conversations about this tax cut versus that -- that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project. But what I've -- what I've been concerned about is some of the language that's been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth. (link: CNN ) What we hear in this statement is a fundamental concern for action and usefulness, and a deep impatience with political strategies aimed at advancing this or that theory as the goal of policy.  The point of the Recovery Act, in other words, is to bring about useful change, not to advance a system of beliefs for the sake of establishing this or that theory as 'truth.'  What 'concerns' President Obama, in other words, is not just that his bill advances through Congress, but that the actions we must take as a nation not be blocked by a debate that wallows in word play at the expense of usefulness.  To pass a bill designed to benefit the American public, in other words, President Obama is willing to talk to Republicans about anything that pertains to useful actions, but he is not willing to allow either Republicans to turn the debate into a self-indulgent conversation about belief in government. The purpose of government in the eyes of American pragmatism is to solve problems by asking what actions will be most useful. To bicker endlessly over the belief in government is to waste a profound amount of energy and time. If a series of actions intended to be useful do not all turn out to be so, then ask the question again:  which actions have been useful? What we are faced with as a nation is something far more corrosive than an 8-year emphasis on tax cuts or a willingness to give away unregulated public resources to Wall Street.  The real problem posed by Bush-era republicanism is that each time the government takes action to improve the life of citizens, the Republican leadership insists on hamstringing the conversation with useless questions about belief in government, rather than focusing on pragmatics. But what if that changes?  What if each time a series of programs are put forward we return to them in six months and ask which actions have been most useful instead of throwing up our arms and debating our theory or belief in government?  That change is precisely what Obama intends when he talks of 'change.' In this second long passage from the press conference, notice once more how Obama makes this point about debating useful action versus hijacking the debate into word play about theories of what government should and should not do.  He makes the point over and over again using the examples of energy policy, healthcare, and education: Now, maybe philosophically you just don't think that the federal government should be involved in energy policy. I happen to disagree with that; I think that's the reason why we find ourselves importing more foreign oil now than we did back in the early '70s when OPEC first formed. And we can have a respectful debate about whether or not we should be involved in energy policymaking, but don't suggest that somehow that's wasteful spending. That's exactly what this country needs. The same applies when it comes to information technologies in health care. We know that health care is crippling businesses and making us less competitive, as well as breaking the banks of families all across America. And part of the reason is, we've got the most inefficient health care system imaginable. We're still using paper. We're still filing things in triplicate. Nurses can't read the prescriptions that doctors -- that doctors have written out. Why wouldn't we want to put that on -- put that on an electronic medical record that will reduce error rates, reduce our long-term costs of health care, and create jobs right now? Education, yet another example. The suggestion is, why should the federal government be involved in school construction? Well, I visited a school down in South Carolina that was built in the 1850s. Kids are still learning in that school, as best they can, when the -- when the railroad -- when the -- it's right next to a railroad. And when the train runs by, the whole building shakes and the teacher has to stop teaching for a while. The -- the auditorium is completely broken down; they can't use it. So why wouldn't we want to build state-of-the-art schools with science labs that are teaching our kids the skills they need for the 21st century, that will enhance our economy, and, by the way, right now, will create jobs? For Obama, the Republicans are not trying to debate the economy so much as they are trying to push philosophical word play about the role of government. And so long as they push that useless debate, the American people will not benefit. And this brings us to the big story that lies behind American pragmatism: the believe in a larger purpose of American life. For decades, now, the Republicans have been telling us that the purpose of American life is to create conditions in the present that allows us to, effectively, go back in time and reclaim a set of moral beliefs that supposedly gave our nation stability in the past. Those moral beliefs, we have been told endlessly, were solid and in tact in the past, but they have fallen apart in the present. Of course, whether or not that Republican claim about moral beliefs in the past is true is not the point. What matters is whether or not we are better off as a nation for having followed that Republican course of action over the past decade. Have the actions we have taken as a nation--by government and by individuals--been useful to us? Have our lives improved as a result of trying to create conditions that allows us to go back and get these supposed moral truths that, in theory, made for such a stable and beneficial American society 'back then.' No, they have not. And this, too, was Obama basic pragmatist message in his press conference--and in his inauguration address and campaign stump speech before it. The policies of the past have not been useful to us as the Republicans said they would be. And so, rather than wasting more time with more debate about what is and what is not the right truth to hold about the place of government in our lives, we will simply try different actions that have a better chance at being useful to the greatest number of Americans. To be deemed 'useful,' the actions of our government must do more than align themselves with a belief. They must demonstrate improvement in the lives of people. And by 'improvement' we mean: the opportunities of individuals must not be less and the conditions of individuals must not be worse than those of their parents. The chance--the possibility of a healthy and secure life must must be equal to or greater than what came before. How, then, will we know that the economic recovery package designed by Obama is working--Adam Nagourney's question last night at the press conference? We will know because we will see that people's lives are improving: My initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs. That's bottom line number one, because, if people are working, then they've got enough confidence to make purchases, to make investments. Businesses start seeing that consumers are out there with a little more confidence, and they start making investments, which means they start hiring workers. So step number one: job creation. The foundation of useful economic policy, in other words, is not that it serves the belief that a market is 'free' if government keeps its hands out of the business of regulation, but whether or not the actions in that policy have resulted in an individual reclaiming up the tools of work. If the actions in the recovery act put people back to work, then it will have been useful. In this note, Obama and Biden alike have emphasized that pragmatic leadership begins with a very different opening premise than the ideological word play of the Bush-era. Whereas Bush told us that the priority was the ideology, and then defended that ideology at all cost, Obama is telling us that the priority is usefulness and so we must expect constant re-evaluation and fine-tuning as we go forward. In a pragmatic form of leadership, the executive never stops asking: "Has this action been useful?" Actions that have not been useful are revised or discarded, actions that have been useful are amplified and applied more broadly. What a different country it will be, if Obama's emphasis on American pragmatism goes forward. It will be a country of achievement, instead of ideological positioning. In the meantime, individual Americans and the media must step up and do their part to reclaim the spirit of pragmatism maligned so relentlessly by two terms of George W. Bush as president. In a country where pragmatism is attacked in the name of ideology, little if anything gets done. Elected officials stuck in the Bush-era will remain forever spectators rather than actors. But in a country rallied again to pragmatism, our leaders become the driving agents of useful action. We have waited long and hard for pragmatism to return.  Now that it is here again, Americans everywhere should reclaim it with pride. (cross posted from the new Frameshop front page) More on Barack Obama
 
Katherine Thomson: Does Nadya Suleman Think She's Angelina Jolie? Top
Does octo-mom Nadya Suleman think she's Angelina Jolie? Both women are 33 and are mothers to arguably, at least for now, the two most famous broods in the world. They also survived divorce, longed for children and chose to become single parents. Consider this: In photos of Suleman pre-octuplets out Monday, she looks noticeably different. She has had what appears to be lip implants or filler injections to pump up her pucker. She's also evidently had a nose job. Both nose and lips now mimic the features of Jolie. Scroll for photos and a closer look. Suleman already had brown eyes and has now grown her dark brown hair all the way down her back. But beyond the physical, Suleman chose Ann Curry to break her media silence . Curry has long been Jolie's go-to girl and has flown around the world for multiple interviews with the movie star, including to Cannes and to Namibia while Jolie was pregnant with Shiloh. Scroll down for photos of just a few of the Jolie exclusives. Curry flew to California for the octuplet scoop. Sure it's just speculation, and I don't know Suleman. But, I've read everything about her and I'm both fascinated and outraged by the story. She's struggled with mental illness before her octuplet pregnancy, she's on food stamps, three of her first six children receive disability payments, and she didn't tell her mother, with whom she lives, about the $167,000 in disability payments she herself received. And I think Nadya Suleman believes she is like Angelina Jolie. Here is Suleman on Today : And here are some of Curry's interviews with Jolie: More on Angelina Jolie
 
Marcia G. Yerman: Smear Tactics in the Feminist Blogosphere Top
I thought the dust had settled five months ago, after Hillary Clinton gave her rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention urging women to actively support Barack Obama. While some feathers were ruffled on the left when Clinton was appointed to be Secretary of State, I presumed that feathers further right would be relaxed and tidy. The one thing I should have known was that birds of various feathers rarely flock together. On Sunday, February 8th, I got a series of e-mails alerting me to a blog campaign against a potential candidate to fill the top post at the US Department of Labor's Women's Bureau. Actually, the job wasn't even on my radar. I've been focused on the drama of the stimulus bill. The candidate in question was the President of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy . I had just heard her speak in Washington D.C. about the imperative need to fund 1.6 million women's jobs. In addition, I was aware of her long history as a lawyer, fighting for a woman's right to fair and equal treatment. Seeking out the back-story on this "call to action," I traveled from link to link. I ended up on the site of an organization that characterized itself as a "national non-partisan women's rights group." There, a letter was posted to President Obama stating why they did not believe Gandy would be appropriate for the job. Radiating out from this page, were links to other blog posts. Remarks encompassed statements including: Obama was a misogynist, true feminists would support a woman candidate regardless of her views, a reference to a Gandy quote about Larry Summers (later corrected and put in context by The New York Times ), angry statements directed at the NOW endorsement of Obama, and assorted accusations against Gandy that ran the gamut of pejorative labels. Calling George Mitchell!! Forget the Middle East. Your services are needed in the sprawling community of women who have different visions of "feminism." My concern is the tone permeating the anti-Gandy rhetoric. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek pointed out at a 2008 new media conference that writers on the web, emboldened and sheltered by the cloak of anonymity, present invective posing as commentary and insight. Differences are to be expected. So is civil discourse. Technorati Profile More on Barack Obama
 
Robert Mackey: Want to Help Veterans? A Guide for the New Administration in Two Easy Steps. Top
The return of tens of thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years, and the expectation of the largest wave of war veterans into US society since 1972 has become an important topic for the new administration. Paul Rieckhoff and the folks at IAVA are advancing the cause by bringing to public notice the issues of our returning troops http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/more-soldiers-lost-to-sui_b_165510.html . This is good work; it helps not only our vets, but our society as well. In ancient times, warriors were the elite caste of a society. The idea that a Spartan warrior would have PTSD is ludicrous; the society in which he lived was shaped around the "glory" of organized bloodshed. Things, gratefully, are different in the modern era and there are serious psychological and medical issues that need to be addressed by the Veterans' Administration and Congress. Luckily, IAVA, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and many other veterans' groups are lobbying to help our men and women who have served. I want to talk about two other issues that are often overlooked, that would not only boost morale in our serving military members, but correct oversights and deficiencies that have been, or will in the near future, punitively applied to those who have served. I am talking about two issues: gaps and omissions in the New GI Bill and the 1981 Former Spouses Protection Act. I firmly believe the New GI Bill is a great boon for those who served. It provides a realistic stipend for the veteran to go to college, pays for tuition and books, and should have the same societal benefit as the World War II Era GI Bill did. However, there is a glaring problem with the New GI Bill. Provisions for transferring benefits to spouses and children--a wonderful thing, given the problems than many enlisted personnel have in paying for college for their kids--only applies if the service member is on active duty after August 1, 2009. In other words, if a soldier was wounded in Iraq in 2004 and left the military, they get their GI Bill benefits, but cannot transfer them to their spouse or children. This is, I believe, a simple oversight in the legislation that unfairly punishes anyone who served between September 11, 2001, and July 31, 2009. In full disclosure, I'm one of those caught in the gap. I would love to pay for my kids education with a benefit I will never use. And I know I'm not the only one. The second area is much more sensitive. In 1981, a court case [ McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210 (1981)] determined that military pensions were not actually divisable assets in a divorce. They had never been considered so since the first pensions were issued in the 1800's. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the fact that military pensions were the property of the service member who earned them, and not the spouse. In response, Congress pushed through a badly worded, confusing and now infamously abused law, the Former Spouses Protection Act (FSPA). The FSPA basically overrode the Supreme Court decision, by backdating the 1982 law to one day prior to the Supreme Court decision. The intent was to ensure that housewives who spent twenty years raising children and moving from military base to military base only to be divorced by an ungrateful spouse at the last minute would not be left penniless. In the era before the 1980's, when most women worked in the home, this made a lot of sense. What did not make sense is that the FSPA did not apply before 1981; in effect, it allowed anyone who received a retainer pay (technically, military retirees are only "retired" at 64; before that date, they are subject to recall to active duty and are being paid a "retainer." ) before the law took effect (e.g. the guys who dumped their home-bound wives at the last minute) to keep their money. It only took money from those who retired after 1981. I, like many of my fellow military retirees, did not fully understand the FSPA until I went through a divorce. The FSPA does not consider situation or condition (adultery is treated the same as a mutual split due to incompatibility); it does not consider remarriage of the former spouse, unlike the retirement programs of other US government organizations; it does not consider either the sex of the spouse; it does not address the possibility of multiple marriages to military personnel (there is a case where a former spouse is drawing three 50% retirement checks from the US government and there are many cases where two checks are being drawn); and it is not based on children in the home or child custody. Lastly, what many do not understand, is that there is no magical year limit for a former spouse to claim a portion (usually 50%) of a servicemembers retired pay); a person can be married to a someone in the military for a single day on the first day they enter the military, and can appear 20 years later to claim 50% of their retirement from a state court (however, they cannot apply for direct payments from the Defense Department unless they have been married 10 years). The world, including divorce laws and child support laws, have changed substantially since 1981. Most military spouses have jobs outside the home, just like the rest of America. Child custody does not automatically go to the mother anymore; father's rights have increased greatly in the past 30 years along with societal understanding that gender does not automatically equal perfect parenting. The initial law was intended to protect women from being abandoned by military husbands, but today's military is gender-integrated except for a few fields. Consequently, women in the military are returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan to find philandering civilian husbands who happily demand half of their hard-earned retirement pay for life . That's right--if you get the money, you get it forever. The only way the retired soldier can get her retired pay back is if the former spouse dies. Division of military retired pay does not consider alimony, marital asset division or child custody. Cases abound where the retired service member not only loses 50% of their retired pay, but has custody of the children and has to pay alimony to the former spouse. Luckily, alimony and child support are determined by comparing income; sadly, the FSPA is not. Divorce laws have changed over the decades to address changes in American culture while the FSPA keeps to a model of the nuclear family that disappeared around 1965. The FSPA has become such a problem for service members, that the New GI Bill has explicit provisions to prevent the division of educational benefits in event of a divorce. Numerous Congressional bills, along with appeals to the Supreme Court, have attempted to modify or outright repeal FSPA, but have been blocked for years by people who think that the FSPA 'protects women and children'--when in fact it does not. What it does is unfairly punish those who have served and acts as an impetus for the upswing of military divorce cases in the recent years. What I propose is that the either Congress outright repeal the FSPA and abide by the U.S. Supreme Court decision (not very likely) or that Congress update and modify the FSPA to meet the changing needs in American society. The FSPA benefits need to cease upon remarriage or entry of the former spouse into a condition similar to marriage (cohabitation should not be a loophole) just like Social Security benefits do. This will put the military retiree in the same framework as other members of the U.S. government. Gender should not be a consideration in the FSPA; this is not the 1950's and women are not only working outside of the kitchen, but are retiring from the military in large numbers. Child support should not be a consideration either, as child support laws in most states are based on income (of which retirement pay is part; this prevents a "double hit" by the service member paying child support and giving up 50% of their retirement). Congress needs to fix the gaps in the New GI Bill to cover those who served after 9/11 but before August 2009. This is an easy fix compared to the FSPA. The FSPA is an unnecessary and unjust law that surreptitiously bypassed the decision of the Supreme Court and is obsolete in today's society. It needs to be repair or repealed to recognize the changes in American society that no-fault divorce and community property laws now recognize. Let military service members keep their retired pay. They earned it. Let the same laws and regulations that govern other parts of the Federal government be applied to them as well. Do not let the fact that they wore a uniform mean they must be specially targeted, when others are not.
 
KFC Stores Colonel's Secret Recipe In New, Safer Vault Top
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Colonel Sanders' handwritten recipe for fried chicken was back in its Kentucky home Tuesday after five months in hiding while KFC upgraded security around its top corporate secret. Nothing went afoul when the recipe was returned from an undisclosed location to KFC's headquarters late Monday in a lockbox handcuffed to the wrist of a security consultant. KFC President Roger Eaton was visibly relieved when the door to a new electronic safe was shut with the single sheet of yellowing paper stashed inside. "Mission accomplished," he said. "It was very nerve wracking," Eaton said later of the recipe's hiatus from a vault where it has been kept for decades. "I don't want to be the only president who's lost the recipe." KFC is a subsidiary of Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., which also owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W All-American Food. The recipe lays out a mix of 11 herbs and spices that coat the chain's Original Recipe chicken, including exact amounts for each ingredient. It is written in pencil and signed by Harland Sanders. The iconic recipe is now protected by an array of high-tech security gadgets, including motion detectors and cameras that allow guards to monitor the vault around the clock. "It's like an onion of security _ many layers," said security expert Bo Dietl, who brought the recipe back to the building. Thick concrete blocks encapsulate the vault, situated near office cubicles, that is connected to a backup generator to keep the security system operating in times of power outages. "I can guarantee you, once it's in there, it will be safe," Dietl assured Eaton. The recipe is such a tightly held secret that not even Eaton knows its full contents. Only two company executives at any time have access to the recipe. KFC won't release their names or titles, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents. "We've very comfortable with the security," Eaton said. "I don't think anyone can break into it." Just how valuable is the recipe? Thomas P. Hustad, professor of marketing at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, said the recipe "goes to the core of the identity of the brand." The recipe, along with the man who created it, conjure images for the chain that help set it apart in the minds of customers, he said. "I would say that the heritage value is just as high for this secret recipe as the stories around the Coke formula," Hustad said by phone Tuesday. "I guess I'd put the two of those at the top of the pyramid." Dietl said the security measures he installed replaced an "antiquated" system. For years, the recipe was kept in a filing cabinet equipped with two combination locks in the vault. "The colonel could have used a pry bar to open that thing up," Dietl said. Sanders developed the formula in 1940 at his restaurant in southeastern Kentucky and used it to launch the KFC chain in the early 1950s. Sanders died in 1980, but his likeness is still central to KFC's marketing. KFC had 15,580 locations worldwide at the end of 2008, including 5,253 in the U.S. The chain is hoping to revive sluggish U.S. sales with the launch of a value menu and an April rollout of a new grilled chicken product aimed at health-conscious consumers.
 
Jeff Madrick: Geithner: Where was the beef? Top
In today's press conference, new Treasury Secretary Geithner talked tough. He even talked right. Indeed, he talked beef. America needs a full-blown bank rescue. It must devote a lot of money to stem losses in the housing market and limit new defaults. Geithner talked in the needed trillions of dollars. But then the meat did not show up. Fine principles aside, what's the actual plan in real life? Geithner was short on the details and that was disturbing. Is there still infighting among advisers on how to proceed? The New York Times reported yesterday that Geithner won the internal debates. Sounded like a clever press plant to me. Just a couple of issues: One, Geithner says he will involve private capital in helping determine the price of toxic assets: the classic public-private partnership. An earlier idea about simply buying up toxic assets was criticized because the government does not know how to price them and may pay too much. Geithner says involving private capital will help determine a better price. But he plans to create incentives and guarantees to attract the private capital. How do you do that without making an implicit estimate of the value of those assets? It's simply a horse of a different color, I think. Pricing is still the issue. I await the details. Two, I waited breathlessly for details about how to rescue housing. It is the toughest of problems and Geithner made clear it was the "most" critical. It is very had to get a handle on the issues because to bail out the bad mortgages means also bailing out lots of goods one at a high cost to government. So what's the plan? It will be rolled out over the next few weeks. Not few days but few weeks. In other words, it's not ready. More infighting? Bickering with Congressional leaders? This administration is far more on top of the issues than the last one. They are working hard at doing the right things. They are talking serious money, which is required. But the details so far are skimpy and the value of the public-private partnership at this point hard to understand, except as an ideological political ploy. The principles are encouraging. But the tale is in the details.
 
Randall Amster: A Googlement Above the People, Around the People, and Ahead of the People Top
Conspiracy theorists long have mused about a " shadow government " working its machinations from a secret locale with a cloak-and-dagger ethos. But that's not the post-postmodern way of doing things anymore; in the age of hyper-spectacle, one puts it right out there in a manner reminiscent of what's known as "hiding in plain sight." This is the genius logic that could very well lead Google to conquer the earth and all of humanity -- and with governments everywhere seemingly on the verge of financial collapse anyway, who else would you want keeping track of stuff, watching your back (and front), fighting our undeclared cyber-wars, and making the trains run on time? Next stop, Googletopia! Before turning to the inevitable conclusion, however, let me deepen the premise a bit more. The days of dark shadows are largely over -- this is what made the Bush Administration so woefully outmoded in its heavy-handedness, namely that they were still trapped in the old-school "Boris and Natasha" way of thinking about the world. You don't accomplish surveillance clandestinely anymore; you simply show up with a camera, self-assuredly point it at people, and watch them volunteer their views. If you want to know what people are up to and who they associate with, you give them a cool avatar and a jazzy personal web space -- plus the buzz of garnering more "friends" every day (just like high school) -- and watch them willingly lay bare the details of their lives. If you want to track someone, hand them a cell phone and let them tweet away their whereabouts for the world to see. Thus have we attained the self-surveilling society . The whiz kids at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) understand this. They basically invented the Internet (it wasn't Al Gore after all!), GPS (Global Positioning Systems, duh), HumanID (you don't want to know, but they know), FutureMAP (predicting cataclysmic events and making a buck in the process), Deep Green (not just predicting but planning the future), SNM (this one might be painful if it were even remotely comprehensible), LANdroids (they may already be among us!), and a bunch of other cool things like the development of "total information awareness" technologies. Yes, they were commissioned by the Department of Defense to implement the now-defunct (supposedly) Information Awareness Office back in 2002, and were given $200 million in seed money essentially to create electronic dossiers on 300 million Americans (i.e. everyone). Word of this got out, however, mainly because they didn't really even try to hide it, and folks got a bit squirrelly at the notion. So it ceased in 2003, but DARPA still works on aspects of the program today (just for fun -- trust them). Hey, if you like to chuckle at the emerging brave new world order (and who doesn't?), please visit DARPA's " ongoing programs " site now! Not only is it a science fiction author's ultimate idea repository and writer's-block alleviator, but the folks at DARPA obviously have a sense of humor about their overtly Matrix -like, world-dominating aspirations. These guys make James Bond look like Elmer Fudd, and aside from the fact that what they're doing over there (somewhere in a Virginia mountainside) will likely keep you up at night, they actually seem like folks you'd want to have a beer with someday while kicking around all-too-real concepts like Chemical Robots and Educational Dominance. Just be sure that when you shake their HAND it's actually a real hand and not a "human-assisted neural device." Oh, and they apparently are packing PHASERs over there too, so be cool and don't make any sudden moves greater than a certain unspecified number of Tera-operations per second. Look, I'm not making any of this up (are they?). But what does it have to do with Google, everyone's favorite way to find free porn -- ahem, I mean, to conduct important research? Well, take for example DARPA's "Scalable Social Network Analysis," which Wikipedia notes "is aimed at developing techniques based on social network analysis for modeling the key characteristics of terrorist groups and discriminating these groups from other types of societal groups." Well, you can't always (ever?) trust Wikipedia to get things right, and indeed they (we?) might be in on the whole conspiracy as well. In fact, DARPA does possess a previously-mentioned SNM program that is blithely described as follows: "The goal of the Scalable Network Monitoring program is to provide new approaches to network-based monitoring that provide maximum coverage of the network (i.e. from the gateway down) with performance independent of the network size and computational costs that remain a constant (or decreasing) fraction of the computational power of the total network being defended. This technology will provide gateway-and-below (i.e. providing ~100% coverage) network traffic monitoring approaches that scale not above linearly with network size. The end deliverable of this program will provide network defense technologies with performance capabilities orders of magnitude better than conventional approaches." Got it? Let me translate: Dude, they are all up in your stuff! You think that Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and all the rest are just cool ways to be cool with the cool kids? Uranium and coal, pshaw -- it's all about data mining these days. Devices like Carnivore can smell out your virtual footprints, literally using a "packet sniffer" to monitor all of your Internet traffic. When enough data is compiled, in true DARPA-esque fashion they can basically predict what you'll do before you do it! In this way, your next need can be met before it even fully emerges. This will become the basis for the age of micro-marketing where everyone is a "target audience" unto themselves -- after all, they know you better than you do! -- but alas, this will have to be a subject for another day (the good people at DARPA will help me to discern exactly when is the best time for this). For now, though, think about who has their finger on the pulse of all of your personal data, from books and friends to emails and searches. Who helps you find whatever you need, and even stuff you don't, at the click of a key? Who completes your search strings, passwords, and email contacts just by you typing in a few letters? Who gives you massive amounts of free online storage space, allows you to take your bona fide credentials along as you surf, maps the surface (and below) of the Earth, digitizes everything ever written in the history of humankind, stores all legal documents and official records, provides banking and financial planning assistance, issues calendar reminders and celebrates holidays with cute images, and now can track you anywhere anytime? Sounds like a perverse (and way smarter?) version of the government, but it's really the Googlement , which "displaces government" even as it "raise[s] comparable issues of legitimacy and authority," and ultimately will comprise a "modern networked administrative state." The data on you goes somewhere, rest assured, and at the end of the day it's obvious that in Googlement terms, " having that much information is market power ." This is eerily reminiscent of DARPA's Information Awareness Office and its classic slogan, scientia est potentia (smile when you say it: "knowledge is power"). Could these two modern-day leviathans -- one operating aboveboard and other toiling underground -- be in league somehow? Well, DARPA's little Internet invention has made Googletonians fabulously wealthy, and they do have some similar language in their respective privacy policies. Quite tellingly, Google Earth has censored DARPA's headquarters from its mapping and imagery databases. Some have even speculated that Google and DARPA are both really just elaborate "brains" developing strategic intelligence . Consider further that their nascent union will almost certainly be abbreviated as G-D, which has all sorts of crypto-hegemonic implications (and in any event is better than GORPA or DARGLE -- or would they go with GARGLE?). And then there's this creepy yet critical little item from 2007: "Those who worry about Google's impending world domination are probably going to be terrified, but for the rest of us, this is just neat: the search engine giant has made a deal that involves Stanley, the robot car that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge." Just another conspiracy theory, you say? I think not. They've got all of our vital statistics, they literally control the map of the world, and now they've got Stanley the robot car working for them as well. C'mon people, wake up and smell the virtual coffee! Orwell wrote that "Big Brother is watching you" -- and later the Situationists realized that it was actually the case that "Big Brother is you, watching" -- but today it should read "Big Brother is you watching others watch you watching them watch you." Get it? Frankly, I don't. I think I'll just do a Google search for DARPA and see if they know what's going on, so that I can finish writing this piece before they go ahead and finish it for me .... More on Google
 
Michelle Pfeiffer: Turning 50 Has Been Liberating Top
BERLIN — Michelle Pfeiffer has no problem with getting older _ in fact, she says, she found hitting 50 "liberating." Pfeiffer appeared at the Berlin film festival Tuesday with "Cheri," directed by Stephen Frears, in which she stars as a 1920s lady of leisure who strikes up a relationship with a much younger man, played by Rupert Friend. "It seems that my leading men just keep getting younger the older I get," Pfeiffer said a news conference. "It seems that people have an aversion to casting people of the same age _ luckily for me, I don't really mind it." "The older you get, the roles actually become more interesting," said Pfeiffer, who turned 50 last year. "If you think hitting 40 is liberating, wait till you hit 50 _ and I was surprised at how liberating it was," she said. "The anticipation of something is always much worse than the reality." "Cheri," a melodrama which also stars Kathy Bates, is an adaptation of a novel by French writer Colette. It teams up Pfeiffer and British director Frears 21 years after "Dangerous Liaisons," a film of which the actress said she had "fond memories." "Cheri," which had its premiere in Berlin, is one of 18 contenders for the top Golden Bear award at the annual festival. The winner will be announced Saturday.
 
Obama says urgency needed on stimulus plan Top
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Pressing for urgency, President Barack Obama ventured into another hard-hit, Republican-leaning area on Tuesday to prod Congress to stop debating an emergency economic deal and just get it done. Coming off a prime-time news conference, Obama was holding his second town hall event in as many days. The tenor of his remarks was to be much the same as Monday's in another economically staggering area, Elkhart, Ind., which is also a Republican stronghold. En route to Florida, Obama said "The American people don't need to be convinced" about the need for action. He spoke as an $838 billion stimulus bill was headed for expected Senate approval on Tuesday. If and when that happens, difficult Senate-House negotiations on a final plan still loom. "We just wanted to shine a spotlight on how severe this downturn is all across the country, and to make sure that members of Congress understand the sense of urgency that I feel in getting something done," Obama said in explaining his travels to reporters aboard Air Force One. Back in Washington, on a day loaded with economic news, the Treasury Department announced a sweeping plan to rescue the nation's banking sector. Obama will travel the country to talk to the public about that bailout plan, just as he has with the stimulus, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "The American people should know directly from the president what's involved and how he intends to do things differently," Gibbs told reporters. The Fort Myers unemployment rate, at 10 percent in December, is more than triple the rate of only two years ago. Nearly 12,000 jobs have been lost in the past year in the area, and Florida overall lost 255,000 jobs last year. The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area also had the highest home foreclosure rate in the nation last year. The White House, eager to put a real-people and real-communities face on the president's argument for action, e-mailed statistics around Tuesday to key reporters before dawn. Obama was to be introduced by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist; he is one of several Republican governors who want their brethren in Congress to stop fighting the stimulus and pass it. Obama's overt message is that the pain being felt in American homes demands Washington's quick and bold attention. But his more subtle message, delivered through his choice of hard-hit but GOP-leaning locales and in the kind of sarcastic barbs he lobbed at Republicans in his prime-time news conference Monday night, was a nakedly political one: Republicans may well pay in voting booths for ignoring the president's call to pass the stimulus. More on Barack Obama
 
Deadly Political Violence Overwhelms Madagascar Top
Hospitals and mortuaries are being "overwhelmed" while both rivals at the centre of Madagascar's political storm continue to blame each other for the violence that has now left some 130 people dead. In the latest clashes heavily armed security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators marching on the presidential palace on Saturday 7 February. More on Africa
 
"Clean Coal" Myth Suffers Another Defeat Top
NV Energy, Inc. announced that it is postponing plans to build a "clean coal" plant in eastern Nevada, citing "environmental and economic uncertainties." This bit is worth noting: The company will not move forward with construction of the coal plant until the technologies that will capture and store greenhouse gasses are commercially feasible, which is not likely before the end of the next decade. Meanwhile, they're still building the high-voltage transmission lines that were part of the original plan -- they're just going to use them to carry renewable energy. More on Energy
 
Fairy Tales With Dennis Franz (VIDEO) Top
Remember Dennis Franz? The guy who always showed his butt on "NYPD Blue"? Well he's back as a raconteur via comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. Mulaney, a writer for SNL, has appeared on Conan, Leno and "Best Week Ever." Nick Kroll, who starred as one of ABC's "Cavemen" last year, is now voicing two shows: "Sit Down, Shut Up" and "The Life and Times of Tim." They often perform together in live shows. Here's a weird, weird video the pair made that sometimes rhymes, and references Karen Carpenter, Mario Lopez, Sarasota, Martin Lawrence and barf carpets. WATCH: More on Funny Videos
 
Miles Mogulescu: It's Time for Obama to Potty Train Congressional Republicans Top
When my daughter was about 7 years old, she went to a birthday party where each child got to pick one wrapped gift out of a grab bag. Another child (ironically, or not so ironically, the son of a wealthy businessman with a $40 million trust fund) liked my daughter's gift better than the one he had picked. He asked my daughter if he could hold her gift for a minute. My daughter politely let him. When she asked for it back, his face turned red, he yelled "no tradebacks", and ran away screaming. This boy's childish and boorish behavior reminds me of Congressional Republicans in their response to Obama's attempts at "bipartisanship" on the Economic Stimulus Bill. As with a spoiled child, Obama has two choices: he can let Congressional Republicans get away with their childish behavior, or he can try to teach them how to behave in civilized company. Obama attempted to treat Congressional Republicans like responsible grown-ups. In an effort to gain Republican support in this national emergency, he put forth a pre-compromised stimulus bill with about 40% Republican-oriented tax cuts to 60% Democratic-oriented spending (without ever asking first if Congressional Republicans would go along.) In return, Congressional Republicans yelled "no tradebacks" over and over in front of the TV cameras; House Republicans gave the already-compromised Stimulus Bill exactly 0 votes; and Senate Republicans threatened to not even allow the majority of the Senate to vote on the Bill by filibustering. Finally one Republican child, Susan Collins of Maine, came forward and, acting like she had been elected President, agreed she would allow a vote on the Bill if Democrats would cut out about $80 billion dollars in stimulative spending and add about $64 billion in minimally-stimulative tax cuts mostly to the wealthiest 20%, which by Paul Krugman's estimates, would eliminate about 600,000 jobs. Two other Republican friends from Collins' little so-called "centrist" clique, Olympia Snow and Arlen Specter, said they'd go along too. So Obama has two choices. He can reward these spoiled Republicans children for their irresponsible behavior by pressuring House Democrats to accept Collins' harmful changes in Conference, in which case he will probably get 61 Senate votes for cloture, the bare minimum necessary to allow the majority to vote on the Bill. If he does, he will get a Bill that's certainly far better than nothing, even if it creates hundreds of thousands less jobs than it should. But Congressional Republicans will have learned that they can roll Obama. If, at the height of Obama's popularity, with economists from right to left warning that the country faces economic catastrophe without a Stimulus Bill, and after Obama makes major concessions to Republicans, all Obama can only muster is 3 Republican votes to end a filibuster, Republicans will smell blood in the water. When Obama later wants to pass a budget, cut a wasteful weapons program, increase aid to education, or reform the health care system, Republicans will filibuster again and demand even bigger concessions before they will allow a Senate vote, if ever. So it may seem as though the easier course is to give into the demands of the rump Republican caucus led by Susan Collins and get a flawed Stimulus Bill passed a few days more quickly. The result, however, may be to doom Obama's chances of passing other vital parts of Obama's Change agenda over the repeated filibusters of the Republican "Dr. Nos". There is another choice: Obama can act like Community-Organizer-Iin-Chief and, along with grassroots movements from around the country, force Senate Republicans to allow the majority to vote on, and pass, an improved Stimulus Bill. Obama can allow House and Senate Democrats on the Conference Committee to restore many of the spending provisions (like aid to the states and computerization of medical records) and eliminate some of the tax cuts from the Senate version, saving 600,000 jobs (while making a few other modifications to fix some of the handful of examples of overreaching by House Democrats.) He can then politely ask Republican Senators, even if they oppose the Stimulus Bill, to at least allow it to come to a vote, while making it clear that he won't permit a "gentleman's filibuster" in which all Republicans have to do to block a vote is say they intend to filibuster and the Majority Leader cancels the scheduled roll call. Instead, if Republican Senators still try to thwart the will of the majority, Majority Leader Reid must make them stage an old-fashioned filibuster in which, in order to prevent a vote, Republicans have to give speeches from the floor of the Senate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through the Presidents Day weekend if necessary. It used to be called "going to the diaper" as Senators prepared to hold the floor without a bathroom break. Give the Senate Republicans a little potty training, if that's what it takes. While the television cameras capture cots and Porta-Potties being carted onto the Senate floor and diaper-wearing Republicans read the phone book from the podium round-the-clock to prevent a majority vote on the Stimulus Bill, I predict with a high degree of probability that the stock market will be crashing by hundreds of points a day. (Don't worry; it will recover when the Bill passes). Obama should then make a major address to the nation, turning the Republican filibuster of the Stimulus Bill into a major teaching moment. As with his address after the Rev. Wright controversy, he needs to treat the American people like adults and explain the complexity of the economic crisis. Expanding on his Press Conference, he must explain how 30 years of free market fundamentalism and deregulation--mostly under Republican leadership but also under Democrats--led to the biggest market bubble since the 1920's and the biggest economic collapse since the great depression. He must teach basic Keynesian economics--Why, when private economic demand collapses, only the government has the economic resources to spend enough money to restart the economy and create jobs. I believe that Obama's intelligence and eloquence, if he lays all this out for the American people in a way in which they can understand, can reclaim the leadership of the economic debate from the Congressional Republicans and rally 75% of the country behind his Stimulus Bill. Simultaneously, grassroots organizations, community groups, labor unions and the netroots must mobilize the country behind the Stimulus Bill and against the obstructionist Republicans. Take to the airways and the internet. Run ads against key Republican senators. Mobilize Governors and Mayors (including Republicans like Charlie Christ of Florida and Arnold Schwarzenegger) to lobby their recalcitrant Senators. Use the Obama campaign machine, the unions, the netroots, and the progressive infrastructure to mobilize a massive email and phone-in campaign. Organize tens of thousands of teachers, firefighters, cops and nurses to overrun the local offices of Republican "moderates" like Susan Collins and Olympia Snow in Maine, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, George Voinovich in Ohio, and Mel Martinez in Florida demanding the Senators save their jobs by allowing the majority to vote on the Stimulus Bill. Organize tens or hundreds of thousands of other citizens to flood Senate offices in Washington. With President Obama showing his extraordinary leadership skills, tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens mobilizing, and the stock market tanking, I'm confident that the pressure on at least two Republican Senators will overwhelm their resistance within a day or two, if not sooner. Obama can then offer a couple of face-saving concessions--say $10-$15 billion in cuts to the least stimulative spending provisions of the Bill in exchange for their ending the filibuster. The nation will get a better Stimulus Bill than the compromised package now emerging from the Senate and hundreds of thousands more Americans will find jobs. But almost as important, Obama and a mobilized popular movement will have potty trained "moderate" Republicans to act like responsible citizens. When it comes time to pass a budget, organize a responsible financial rescue package, or reform the health care system, they won't be so fast to back a monolithic Republican filibuster to thwart the will of the majority. Obama will have greatly increased his odds of passing his Change agenda and achieving a great and transformative Presidency. More on Barack Obama
 
The Progress Report: The Establishment Vs. The Public Top
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers To receive The Progress Report in your email inbox everyday, click here . While Congress debates the economic recovery package this week, President Obama is touring areas of the country hardest hit by the economic meltdown. Yesterday, Obama spoke in Elkart, IN, a town with a 15 percent unemployment rate, the nation's fastest-rising. Obama will be traveling to Ft. Myers, FL today, which is plagued by a 10 percent unemployment and America's highest foreclosure rate. On Thursday, he will visit Peoria, IL, where Caterpillar has 22,000 job cuts. In the meantime, the debate in Washington has somewhat turned against Obama's recovery package. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) argued that congressional conservatives are "standing up on principle and just saying no" to the recovery bill. The national media have been blindly following right wing talking points, baselessly lambasting Obama's recovery legislation as excessive spending. "A lot of America's high-powered political journalists seem, at least as evidenced by the questions they ask, to have a very poor grasp of macroeconomic issues," observed Center for American Progress Fellow Matthew Yglesias yesterday. PUBLIC WANTS A REAL RECOVERY: The national media has proclaimed that Obama is "losing [the] stimulus message war." But the perception across the country could not be more different. As a Gallup poll released yesterday noted, "The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is handling the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill." Despite conservatives' vocal opposition to the recovery bill, 52 percent favor a roughly $800 billion package, while 38 percent are opposed. Independent voters favor the progressive priorities set forth by Obama: 50 percent independents favor "increased government funding of projects" in the recovery package, compared to only 36 percent who favor "tax cuts for individuals/businesses" promulgated by conservatives. Congressional Republicans, who see political gain from their "party of no" status, have a "staggeringly high" disapproval of 58 percent. Their approval rating is at 44 percent compared to 60 percent for Democrats. PUSHING THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA: The media debate over the economic recovery has been reduced to one that is hostile to government spending and increasingly receptive to the conservative "tax-cut-only" line. Yesterday, for example, after Obama's press conference, CBS's Bob Scheiffer told Katie Couric, "He's got to somehow keep [Democrats] from loading up this bill with more spending -- so much spending." "As you know, there's a lot of people in the public, a lot of members of Congress who think this is pork-stuffed and that it really doesn't stimulate. A lot of people have said it's a spending bill and not a stimulus," remarked ABC's Charles Gibson last week. "I'm confused as to why we're being tricked into thinking this is a stimulus bill, when it's packed with welfare programs," said MSNBC's Mika Brzenzski. The list goes on. The Progress Report has conducted two analyses of the debate showing that cable news is helping advance the right wing's message. During the Senate debate, between Feb. 2 and Feb. 5, Republican lawmakers outnumbered Democratic lawmakers 75 to 41 in interviews. During the House debate the week earlier, cable outlets hosted a 2 to 1 ratio of GOP to Democratic lawmakers. RESTORING CONFIDENCE: Examining "districts that tend to be swing or conservative districts," Rep. Chris Van Hollen's (D-MD) office determined that 92 percent of the local stories portrayed the recovery package in a positive light, "touting the benefits the spending would bring to struggling local economies. Of newspaper stories, 91 percent were positive; TV, 96 percent; and radio, 85 percent." As senior Obama advisor David Axelrod observed, "The American people support [the recovery], and we're urging everyone in Congress to catch up with the people on this one." "I think there's a myopic viewpoint in Washington. And I think Washington needs to understand what happens in Florida, and Indiana, and Michigan, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania -- states that have seen huge in[creases in] unemployment," added Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Obama's tour of the country seems to be having some benefit in returning public hope. Prior to his visit, the local newspaper -- The Elkhart Truth -- wrote, "We are weak. We are tired. We are frustrated, and sometimes the burdens of our struggles cause us to stop and cry." One day later, the same paper wrote that Obama's visit "brought back some confidence to a community struggling with high unemployment." More on Stimulus Package
 
Media Watchdog Urges Obama To Stop Detention Of Journalists By US Top
UNITED NATIONS — A media watchdog group is urging President Barack Obama to end the U.S. military's practice of detaining journalists without charges, and has asked for a full investigation into killings of journalists by U.S. military forces. Officials with the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday the detention of journalists without trial by U.S. authorities in such countries as Iraq has emboldened other countries to do the same. Paul Steiger, the group's chairman, announced he sent a letter to Obama's transition team last month. The letter said 14 journalists have been held without due process for long periods in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. He also said 16 journalists have been killed by U.S. fire in Iraq since 2003. More on Barack Obama
 
NATO Mired In Stalemate With Afghanistan's Taliban Top
Britain and her Nato allies in Afghanistan are stuck in a stalemate with the Taleban, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, admitted yesterday. His pessimistic view of military progress in Afghanistan coincided with a new poll of Afghans which reveals that confidence in the future is significantly lower than it was three years ago. More on Afghanistan
 
Tamar Abrams: Open Letter to College Seniors and Recent Grads: Stop Whining Top
Okay, so the economy tanked. All the years of livin' easy have come to an abrupt halt. No more flipping property -- now recent college grads may be faced with flipping burgers. It's true that in the "olden days" of the late 1970s when I graduated from college, most of us walked out of the quad with a golden ticket. So what if you majored in obscure Gothic architecture. Could you put two sentences together? Could you stand up in front of a room full of people and make a case for something? You were hired! Of course, the salaries were nothing to write home about, even in 1970s dollars, but you knew you were headed UP. So now our kids (and maybe grandkids) are whining about their bleak prospects. What about those jobs they'd been envisioning with the telecommuting and the free lunches and the day off every month to pursue their passions? What about the six figure starting salaries and the value of their innate ability to navigate the internet while texting and reprogramming a blackberry? What's going to happen to their dreams in this economy?? Well I'm here to say: Quit your whining. There are the same possibilities for you that existed for me. But they involve work, not dreams. Forget that crap on some poster that reads, "If you can dream it, you can be it." My question to you is: Can you write? Not text messages, not facebook wall postings, not emoticons. Can you actually write a persuasive paragraph? Can you make words sing and wail and grab me by the throat? None of the new technology has changed the fact that being a skilled writer will help you land a job. It will help you write a compelling cover letter, a meaningful resume, a heartfelt thank you letter. It will allow you to freelance while you search for the job that will get you started on the way to somewhere. And while I'm at it: Can you talk? Not slang, not profanities, not song lyrics. Can you speak English grammatically? Can you explain in one minute or less why an employer should hire you and not the other twenty young people waiting in the lobby? Can you convince her that your skills, education and potential will make you a stellar addition to the team? And, if necessary, can you use your words to convey your complete willingness to do whatever work is required, even filing, making coffee and answering phones? If office jobs elude you, do volunteer work. Make the world a better place while you search for your own place in the world. There's no shame in waiting tables or stocking shelves either. We all began somewhere. Learn something new every day and know that each new skill or lesson will lead you to where you want to be. The salad days of starting a career with the word "manager" in your title are probably over. You may need to begin as an "administrative assistant." Oh the horror! But you know what? It's only up from there. You may need to commit to staying at one organization for several years, mastering tasks and being promoted. You may need to scale back your expectations. You may even need to learn a second language! But the good news is that the economy, no matter how bad it gets, is not going to hold you back. Even if some miracle happens and the economy suddenly recovers and then some, it won't be what gives you the opportunity to succeed. Only you can do that...and no whining allowed. More on Careers
 
British Girl Starved After Teeth Pulled: Parents Claim Top
LONDON — When 8-year-old Sophie Waller cracked a baby tooth eating candy, it set off a chain of events that led to her death. Sophie had such a fear of dentists that she refused to open her mouth for examination, so doctors at her local hospital took out the tooth in an operation. One of the medical team told a coroner's inquest that they removed all seven of her other baby teeth at the same time to avoid the need for future procedures. After the surgery Sophie refused to eat or even open her mouth for her parents, the couple told the inquest. But she was sent home anyway, and starved to death three weeks after the operation. "No one saw her after she was discharged from hospital," mother Janet Waller said. "I told (a child psychologist) she was sucking on a watermelon, she told me that was enough for her to survive on." The parents said the hospital mishandled Sophie's follow-up care, referring them to a child psychologist who told them not to worry about Sophie's plummeting weight. Janet Waller said she also was told to consult her family doctor, who prescribed nutrition drinks over the phone but did not see the girl in person. Pediatric pathologist Dr. Marie-Ann Brundler said Sophie died at home on Dec. 2, 2005 from kidney failure caused by starvation and dehydration. The inquest was told Sophie weighed 72 pounds (33 kilograms) when she went into hospital and lost a third of that weight before she died. An official at The Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, 250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of London, said there had been failures in Sophie's care, and it had changed its procedures. "The impact of Sophie's death has been a wide-ranging impact across all of the disciplines that were involved," John Ellis, a pediatrician at the hospital, told the inquest. "There have been changes." The hospital said it would not comment further until the end of the inquest, which was continuing Tuesday to establish the facts behind the girl's death. Janet Waller told the inquest in Truro that Sophie had developed a fear of dentists after her tongue was nipped during a checkup, and had refused to let a dentist look at her loose tooth. "Because Sophie would not open her mouth for examination, I wanted to eliminate any further dental problems," Tamsin Hearle, a specialist in pediatric dentistry, was quoted as saying by The Times newspaper. Hearle said the parents signed a consent form for the procedure. The Wallers said they thought they were consenting to one tooth being removed. Janet Waller told the inquest that Sophie was "devastated" when she found out the eight teeth had been removed. She said that doctors did not adequately take care of Sophie after the girl was sent home from hospital on Nov. 17, 2005, eight days after the operation. Janet Waller said she and her husband phoned the hospital to express concerned about Sophie's weight loss and refusal to eat, and were told not to bring her in, but to talk to the community child psychologist assigned to the case. Sophie's father, Richard Waller, said he phoned the psychologist "every day, sometimes twice a day, to say how unwell she looked." "I kept asking her to come round but she said she would next week and there was nothing to worry about," he said. The psychologist, Kerry Davison, told the inquest Tuesday that she spoke to the parents two days before Sophie died and was told she was eating. "On Nov. 30, Mr. Waller said he was concerned about Sophie's weight, he passed the phone to Mrs. Waller who seemed more optimistic and said she had been eating fruits and yoghurt," Davison said. Ellis, the pediatrician, said Sophie had stopped eating when she had loose teeth in the past, and "it was clear there were psychological issues" around her refusal to eat. A coroner's inquest is required in Britain to establish the facts when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes, but has no power to punish anyone. The coroner is expected to rule next week. The Wallers have criticized the time it has taken to hold the inquest. The coroner's office said it was a complex case and it took time to gather reports and inquiries from the different agencies involved. More on England
 
Linda Stone: TED: A Celebration of Ideas Worth Spreading Top
This year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the TED Conference . Founded by Richard Wurman, TED, stands for Techonology, Entertainment, Design. In 2002, Chris Anderson, a successful entrepreneur, used his Sapling Foundation to purchase TED. While there are still threads of Technology, Entertainment and Design, many attendees this year suggested that the trend was more toward Technology, Environment and Democracy. Chris' passion for solving some of the world's toughest problems, influences the TED agenda. This is a conference like no other. Speakers are asked to speak from the heart, to share their passions and their knowledge, in eighteen minute segments, which can be viewed by anyone at ted.com . On this site, viewers can enjoy talks from past years by Jane Goodall, Jill Bolte-Taylor, Dave Gallo, Phil Zimbardo, Majora Carter, Dan Gilbert, and a host of others. High School teachers report using TED talks to spark curiosity and expose students to world-class authors, artists, scientists, activists and thought leaders. Friends gather in small groups all over the world to watch talks together and discuss. I began attending the TED Conference twenty years ago. The passion of the speakers is contagious and the audience is comprised of fascinating people from all over the world. Every aspect of this conference, from the intellectual stimulation, the opportunity to learn, and the chance meetings with remarkable people, opens one's eyes and feeds one's spirit. Talks from TED 2009 are being posted now. For starters, be sure to check out: Elizabeth Gilbert , Willie Smits, Dan Ariely, Sylvia Earle, Sarah Jones, and Lena Maria Klingvall. What's your favorite TED talk? What's your favorite idea worth spreading? More on Environment
 
Geithner's Speech Fails To Staunch Stock Slide Top
NEW YORK — Investors are turning skeptical about the government's latest bank bailout plan. The Dow Jones industrial average is down nearly 300 points as financial stocks lead the market lower. Wall Street is concerned about the government's ability to restore the health of the banking industry. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced a plan that the government says could mobilize well over $1 trillion in public and private support to get the frozen credit markets functioning again. It includes a government-private sector partnership to help remove banks' soured assets from their books. Investors are worried the steps won't be sufficient. At midday, the Dow Jones industrials are down 285 at 7,985. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is down 31 at 838, and the Nasdaq composite index is down 58 at 1,543. More on Timothy Geithner
 
Marshall Fine: An offbeat list of romantic movies to rent for Valentine's Day Top
It happens every Valentine's Day: Someone publishes a list of romantic movies to rent for the perfect Valentine's date. Round up the usual suspects, as Claude Rains says in perennial list-topper, Casablanca . These days, if you plug the words "romantic movies" into any search engine, you can generate endless lists of titles - most of which have the same movies jockeying for position: Sleepless in Seattle, Titanic, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally . Worthy films, to be sure, if a tad clichéd - and popular enough that most of them will be checked out by the time you get to the video store, or will be hard to come by on any sort of timetable if you're listing them on your Netflix queue. So here's a brief alternative list: an offbeat six-pack of movies that pack a potent romantic wallop, but which don't immediately spring to mind when you say the words "date movie." Try one on for size this Valentine's Day: 1. Eyewitness (1981): A Manhattan janitor makes himself a target for a killer by claiming to have information about a murder - in order to get closer to the TV reporter who's covering the story. William Hurt plays the janitor, Sigourney Weaver is the reporter, in a movie from before they were major stars. They create heat through personal chemistry, thanks to a smart, understated script by the late Steve Tesich. 2. The Terminator (1984): "I came through time for you," Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) tells Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), in a dazzling romantic moment - which, of course, is sandwiched between startlingly tense chase sequences as they flee the seemingly unstoppable Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, I know - strictly speaking, it's not a romantic movie. But the movie itself is an action classic, and it's hard to ignore the sweeping sentiment when the two of them finally have a few minutes of alone time. For the rest of this post, click here to reach it on my website , www.hollywoodandfine.com.
 
Monday's Late-Night Joke Round-Up: A-Rod, Madonna, And Ann Coulter's Voter Fraud (VIDEO) Top
Alex Rodriguez was the big draw last night for comics. Both Letterman and Conan took shots at the admitted steroid-user for his record on and off the field. Craig Ferguson, on the other hand, explained Ann Coulter's voter fraud saying: "She's registered [to vote] in New York but she actually voted in Connecticut. Why Would you vote in one place but live in another? But, if you think about it, it kind of makes sense for her: Her mouth is on her face but she talks out of her ass." More highlights from Jon Stewart and Jay Leno below. WATCH: More on Funny Videos
 
Heidi Fleiss: Renewable Energy Business Better Than Sex Top
Heidi Fleiss, best known as the Hollywood Madam, had always had plans of opening up an above-board brothel in the Las Vegas area. But the economy has changed, and so have her plans : "I think I'm going to put all my property up for sale in Crystal," Fleiss said recently by phone from her house in Pahrump. "I don't want to work so hard ... and deal with all the nonsense in the sex business." Instead, she is focusing her attention on an alternative energy project she said is "perfect for Nevada." "That's where the money is," she said. "That's the wave of the future." And maybe that's true -- green consumers want more, more, more and there are a few other positive signs: Wind now employs more people than coal New York State thinks it can revive the economy and the environment at the same time Green jobs are looking safer than other jobs But can renewables really beat the sex industry? Maybe it's best if they just work together . More on Sex
 
Lee Camp: A Detailed Analysis of The Republican Plan Top
 
Terry Moran Twitters From Air Force One: Menu, Music, Passengers Detailed Top
"Nightline" co-anchor Terry Moran, who is interviewing President Obama today in Fort Myers, Florida, has been Twittering this morning from Air Force One. Moran's Tweets indicate that: pancakes, bacon, and eggs are on the Air Force One breakfast menu , and Twix and Snickers are among the onboard snacks music on the Presidential Plane includes Jason Mraz, Goldfrapp, "lots of John Legend," Rihanna, and Jeremy Pelt President Obama high-fived children at Andrews Air Force Base nine members of Congress are on the flight, all of them Democrats Moran's Tweets below: # Air Force One landing. Obama visited press cabin, taking congresspeople on tour, joking, relaxed. 4 minutes ago from mobile web # Air Force one, taking off. 9 members of Congress aboard, all Democrats. about 2 hours ago from mobile web # Obama working the rope line, high-fiving little kids, thanking the troops. about 2 hours ago from mobile web # Music on AF1 includes: Jason Mraz, Goldfrapp, lots of J Legend, Rihanna, + Jeremy Pelt! about 2 hours ago from mobile web # On board Air Force One. Pancakes, bacon and eggs on the menu. Twix and snickers for snacks. about 3 hours ago from mobile web # Arrived at Andrews. Security smooth and courteous. Wondering if $1.5 trillion is enough to save the banks. about 4 hours ago from mobile web # I'm en route to Andrews AFB to ride AF1 to FL. Got a question for Obama? about 5 hours ago from mobile web Moran's interview with President Obama will air on ABC News "Nightline" tonight at 11:35pm (ET/PT). Excerpts will also air on "World News with Charles Gibson" and will be featured across ABC News' broadcasts and platforms.
 
Pavel Somov, Ph.D.: Target the Practice, Not the Target Top
Peak performance (or "flow") and mindfulness are two sides of the same coin. "Flow" is characterized by such fundamentals as "action-awareness merging," " loss of self-consciousness," and "transformation of time" (Czikszentmihalyi, 1999, p. 16). James H. Austin, neurologist and the author of Zen and the Brain , speaks -- in somewhat similar terms -- of the so-called "enlightened Zen behaviors" which consist of actions that are "without initial hesitation, quick in execution, simple but efficient, highly creative, improvisational, yet capable of resolving both the immediate situation and of addressing the big picture as well, expressed from a foundation of poise, liberated from word-thoughts and personal concerns" (p. 155). It appears that both "flow" and the "enlightened Zen action" refer to the states of consciousness that, on one hand, parallel the dynamics of mindfulness and, on the other hand, enable peak performance. While Czikszentmihalyi acknowledges that there is no "12-steps-to-flow" method (1999), one can learn to practice setting the stage for "flow." How? By throwing away the target, and targeting the practice of mindful absorption itself. Langer (1989), in her classic book Mindfulness , notes: "outcome orientation tends to deaden a playful approach" (p. 64) and "preoccupation with outcome can make us mindless" (p. 75). Why would that be? You see, outcome orientation is a future orientation. We can focus on the past, on the present, or on the future. When we are preoccupied with the future outcome of our current efforts, we are focused on the future, not on what is in front of us. Therefore, the outcome orientation, by virtue of being a type of future orientation, takes us out of the present moment, out of the very moment in which we have to act. As such , outcome orientation disorients us as it disengages us from what is. We begin to sweat the future possibilities of failure. And instead of aiming the arrow of our attention at a target, we aim the attentional arrow at ourselves -- we target our own ego, threatening to wound it with catastrophized images of a miss. Having targeted ourselves with the threat of de-valuation (should we fail), we become tense, our muscles contract, and we become either paralyzed in inaction or we prematurely release the tension... just to be done, just to get past this moment of stress. A while back, a client of mine, a corporate raider during the work week and a bow-hunter during the weekends, introduced me to Eugen Herrigel's book Zen in the Art of Archery . This client -- a semi-self-cured perfectionist -- told me about how he had "toned down" his perfectionism at work, first, by practicing his archery skill of aim-and-release without a target and, then, by generalizing this mindful oblivion of the target to his work life. Austin, in writing about Zen archery, explains that " one's muscles must learn how to release , not only contract" and notes that it takes years "to develop the subtle skills of let go smoothly, passively." He suggests that the student's "erratic arrows betray self-referent behavior patterns" (p. 670). In other words, if I still exist as a Self, as an Ego, as an archer separate from the bow and the arrow, -- I am not one with the flow of action. No mindful absorption -- no "action-awareness merging" -- no peak performance. To this aim, throw away the target and begin to practice aiming your mind, not at some future target date, but at this moment, right now. And, also remember that no given moment of performance is a test of your validity as a human being. No one moment in your personal or work life is bigger than the rest of your life. Sure there are pivotal moments, make-it-or-break-it times, moments of unique opportunity that are either taken advantage of or forever lost... But none of this is you. These moments are part of the flow of your life. These moments are part of this impermanence that we are so afraid to acknowledge and get lost in. Seeing the impermanence of these moments, seeing that this moment of success and this moment of failure are already gone as if they had never happened, allows you to re-join the flow of what is and, thus, to flow in your perfectly imperfect performance. Ultimately - existentially and performance-wise - it's the flowing that matters , not the outcome of this flow, living - not life's accomplishments, the optimal experience -- not the optimal outcome... Pavel Somov, Ph.D. is the author of Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time (New Harbinger, 2008). Check out eatingthemoment.com .
 
Michael Wolff: The End Is Near But The Times Is Jolly Top
Here's one for you: If a newspaper writes about its own bleak financial predicament in an aggressively rosy light, is that securities fraud? Under the headline, 'Resilient Strategy for Times Despite Toll of a Recession,' Richard Pérez-Peña, the Times business reporter who covers the newspaper industry, gives an upbeat, even breathy, overview of the company's present business predicament. Now, it is true, and perhaps a reporter's sort of joke, that nothing in Pérez-Peña's piece, except its thesis, its headline, its tone, and quotes from Times CEO Janet Robinson's most recent analyst call, together with some noncommittal statements from financial analysts, indicates anything but an unabashedly dismal situation and a recent history of mind-boggling incompetence. On that basis, perhaps the paper can avoid an SEC prosecution: The horrifying facts are there, speaking for themselves, regardless of the bald-faced (possibly, now that I think of it, even tongue-in-cheek) sugar coating. Continue reading at newser.com
 
Obamas Plan To Make Cocktail Parties A Tradition Top
Since moving into their new digs, the first couple has hosted a half-dozen gatherings -- from bipartisan cocktail receptions to a public open house to the more intimate Super Bowl party two Sundays ago -- ending many of their days past midnight. Most recently, on Wednesday, the Obamas opened the White House doors to House caucus leaders from the moderate Blue Dog Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus. White House aides say the couple hopes to make the Wednesday cocktail parties a tradition. Friends say the Obamas are looking to maintain the dizzying social calendar they had in their pre-White House days, while using their knack for socializing to find new friends and win hearts on Capitol Hill and in other Washington power centers. More on Barack Obama
 
Obama Florida Town Hall: Live Video Top
While the Senate stands poised to pass an $838 billion economic stimulus bill, President Barack Obama is going to a region in Florida drowning in foreclosures. He will be in Fort Myers for another town-hall meeting like the one he held Monday in Elkhart, Indiana. During his first White House prime-time news conference last night, Obama built on the dire warning, saying if lawmakers fail to act quickly the crisis could turn into a "catastrophe." He warned "This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession." Obama says the legislation, which has picked up scant Republican support, is "the right thing to do," even though it's expensive. The bill would be a blend of tax cuts and spending. Watch:
 
Robert Stavins: Opportunity for a Defining Moment Top
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States is a defining moment in American history. For most Americans and countless others around the world, this is an inspiring political transition. The question we must face, however, is whether compelling inspiration will lead to effective action. As I wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed (November 12, 2008) one week after election day, environment and energy issues -- particularly climate change policy -- provide a microcosm of the forces that are shaping and will shape the actions of the new Administration and Congress. About eight years ago, President-Elect George W. Bush promised to be President for all the people, not just those who had voted him into office. Bush's ability as Texas Governor to bridge differences across the political aisle provided cause for optimism. But hope for a centrist and sensible Presidency dissolved under the influence of White House political operative Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney. The Bush Administration moved not to the center, but toward solidifying its base on the political right. Nowhere was this more apparent than in energy and environmental policy, with Vice President Cheney running energy policy, and EPA Administrator Christie Whitman virtually driven from office. Will the environment and energy team of President Obama respond effectively to the serious challenges that lie ahead? Or will we find that the corporate lobbyists who filled so many key environmental positions in the Bush Administration have simply been replaced by strident advocates from the other end of the political spectrum? In other words, will ideology trump reason? The first sign of trouble will be if the Administration issues an "endangerment finding" for carbon dioxide, as promised by the Obama campaign, thereby pleasing and solidifying President Obama's political base, but also playing into the hands of those who oppose climate policy action, tying up progress with litigation, driving up costs, and accomplishing little or nothing. Ultimately, will the Obama White House work with Congress to develop climate strategies that are scientifically sound, economically sensible, and thereby politically pragmatic? Will the new President -with impressive Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress -- take on the difficult task of crafting meaningful climate legislation? The only politically feasible approach that can make a real dent in the problem is a comprehensive, upstream cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 50 to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The declining cap will increase the cost of polluting, thereby discouraging the use of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels and providing powerful incentives for energy conservation and technology innovation. The system could start with a 50-50 split of auctioned and free allowances, gradually moving to 100% auction over 25 years. To establish political support in the short term, free allowances should be targeted to sectors that are most burdened by the policy. And the auction revenue -- which will increase over time -- can be used to compensate low-income consumers, finance research and development, reduce the federal deficit, or cut taxes. The best option may be to make the program revenue-neutral by returning all of the auction revenue to citizens through direct cash dividends or annual tax credits. This can go a long way towards making the legislation palatable to Republicans and Democrats alike who are reticent to take any actions that even resemble a tax increase. By making the overall emissions cap gradually become more stringent over time, costs can be greatly reduced by avoiding premature retirement of existing capital stock, reducing vulnerability to siting bottlenecks, and ensuring that long-lived capital investments incorporate appropriate advanced technology. Still, the costs of meaningful action will be significant, with impacts on gross domestic product eventually reaching up to 1 percent per year. But the longer the world waits to begin taking serious action, the more ambitious will emission reduction targets inevitably become, as atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to accumulate. The bottom line is that getting serious about global climate change will not be cheap and it will not be easy. Beware of claims to the contrary. In the midst of a significant economic downturn, with businesses closing and unemployment on the rise, it makes sense for the new Administration to give its greatest attention to economic recovery. There is nothing wrong with sequencing policies. But if current predictions about the consequences of another few decades of inaction are correct, this defining moment provides an important opportunity for serious and sensible action. More on Barack Obama
 
Kay Goldstein: Love and Chocolate Top
I was reading a food reference book just the other day to see if I could find any proof that chocolate is an aphrodisiac. Next to me sat a bag of chocolate chips from which I was popping an occasional single chip for inspiration. I came across the following, "The Aztec ruler, Montezuma, so believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac, that he purportedly drank 50 golden goblets of it each day." -- Food Lover's Companion , Sharon Tyler Herbst So I thought, "If it was that much of an aphrodisiac, why did he need to drink that much of it? Did people have sexual addictions back then? And if it was an effective aphrodisiac, when did he have time to run the country and build all those pyramids?" But it does explain why the Spaniards came and took over. Montezuma was probably just busy (very busy) and not thinking straight when they arrived. So the next thing you know, the Spaniards are taking gold and chocolate back home, and there are all these Don Juan and Casanova stories in the tabloids. Love and chocolate have been inseparable since. The other little known fact I discovered is that the Aztecs didn't sweeten their cocoa, which is why chocolate means "bitter water." All I can say is bless the first person who figured out to mix in a little honey or syrup. She ought to get a Nobel Prize. Just think how much happier old Monty would have been lounging in his jammies by the fire, sipping sweetened hot cocoa with a dollop of whipped cream on top? Now there's something to inspire a little passion. So we know what the rumors say. But is there any scientific evidence to support the love/chocolate connection? I found Janet Vine of Aphrodite Chocolates had some interesting research to report: "Chocolate contains substances called phenylethylamine and seratonin, both of which (put simply), are mood lifting agents found naturally in the human brain. They are released into the nervous system by the brain when we are happy and when we are experiencing feelings of love, passion or lust. This causes rapid mood change, a rise in blood pressure and increasing heart rate, inducing those feelings of well being, bordering on euphoria usually associated with being in love." "Eating chocolate also releases phenylethylamine and seratonin into the system producing those same euphoric effects, plus it can give a substantial energy boost thus increasing stamina (at the critical moment?) so it's probably these effects which gave rise to chocolates reputation as an aphrodisiac. So there you have it, calling chocolate an aphrodisiac is probably stretching it a bit, but eating chocolate does make you feel good and can actually induce or 'mimic' the feelings of being in love..." This is starting to sound pretty good. Chocolate makes you feel like you are in love. And I thought it was all that meditating that put me in such a good mood. This chocolate talk is making my mouth water. Forgive me, but can I share some of my favorite chocolates indulgences now? I will withhold the details of my first encounter with each. I don't kiss and tell. Chilmark Chocolates -- Forget trying to buy them unless you go to Martha's Vineyard during the season and then only Thursday through Sunday. This place runs entirely on love -- of chocolate and the people whose lives are enhanced by the opportunity to have gainful employment in spite of disabilities. Free samples while you wait in line. Squibnuggets, Tashmoo Truffles, Chocolate Covered Island Blueberries, oh my... Richart Chocolates . Conversation is strictly sotto voce in this museum-like shop where each chocolate and each chocolate collection is a true visual and culinary masterpiece. Try to restrain yourself and wait until you exit the shop before deciding between Lavender or Fennel/Anise or Mandarin Green Orange Ganache. No free samples. For the dark chocolate purist in me Dagoba New Moon or Trader Joe's Swiss 71% Dark Chocolate (Fair Trade) both enjoy status at Chez Goldstein as a "house" chocolate and can be found in my pantry of must-have staples or stashed in my travel bag for emergencies -- like not having any chocolate. Proof of the Pudding's Chocolate Brownies -- the perfect balance of cake and fudge, walnuts and vanilla, medium rare. We must have sold a million of them back in the day when I was actually paid to play with my food. Adapted from an old family recipe "Aunt Nora's Brownies," we can always count on Uncle John Goldstein to send us his version over the holidays. Hmm... Maybe I'll send some to the kids this week. Grandma and I can fight over who will lick the bowl. And there's more I can't leave out: Margaret Ann Surber's Chocolate Roulade, Marcella Hazan's Italian Chocolate Mousse Cake, Anne Quatrano's Molten Chocolate Cake, Bova Bakery's Chocolate Cannoli's, John Haber's "Babies" ....Sigh. Personally, my favorite kind of chocolate is of the dark, bittersweet variety. I always look for labels that indicate the item contains 67-75% cacao. I crave the dance of those flavors melting across my tongue in just the right balance. Maybe that blending of opposites is the real reason we think of chocolate on Valentine's Day. Love relationships can be bittersweet, especially the long and good ones, the ones that are truly passionate. And new love, full of magic and promise can in the next moment teeter on the brink of becoming too "saccharine" or blowing up, melting down or drowning in bitter tears. I still don't know if chocolate is really an aphrodisiac. But I know this for sure: I could never be really close to someone who didn't like chocolate. And the more chocolate I eat, the more I love chocolate. Kay Goldstein , MA teaches meditation and writes poetry, fiction and articles addressing the challenges and joys of daily living and spiritual practice .
 
Jack Myers: TED Conference 2009: Inspiration and an Uplifting Spirit of Hope for Future Generations Top
The value and impact of the annual TED Conference can't be fully realized until several days – even weeks – after the event. Now that millions of people are downloading and viewing TED Talks [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks], the impact of each year's conference is increasingly in the long tail. This 25th anniversary year of TED was my fifteenth, and it had especially poignant relevance since in the middle of TED I made a 20-hour turn-around from Long Beach to New York and back to participate at my first grandson's bris, the ritual circumcision that is required to take place on the eighth day after birth. TED and the birth of my grandchild have merged into a single holistic experience, with the extraordinary messages of TED speakers giving me hope for the future of little Leo Sam Tritt and his generation who are being born during this economic meltdown and most challenging period our world has seen possibly since the depression and World War 2, and definitely since the tumultuous 1960s and the Cold War. TED speakers from Bill Gates and author Elizabeth Gilbert to The Art of Possibility co-author Rosamund Zander and Bennington College President Liz Coleman spent little time and paid little attention to the economic challenges we are all experiencing. Put in the context of TED the words of teenager Darius Weems , who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a fatal genetic disorder. Darius Goes West , a documentary film about Darius made with and by a group of his friends, has been viewed by millions on YouTube and DVD. Darius, who appeared on the TED stage, refuses to be considered handicapped or to be perceived as suffering. Rather than dwelling on his looming and inevitable death, he thrives by experiencing the full potential of his every day. TED speaker Lena Maria Klingvall , was born with no arms and one leg, but she resonates with a positive spirit of accomplishment and hopeful energy. And TED University speaker Aimee Mullins, a multi-talented athlete, wears prosthetic legs and not only overcomes her handicap but uses it to her advantage, exuding optimism, beauty and hope. Yes we are in the midst of a serious global recession – perhaps a depression. All of us are being impacted. We can immerse ourselves in the depressing truths of our condition. Or we can focus on the future and our potential. We can be angry at the politicians and Wall Street greed-mongers. Or we can celebrate those many leaders in so many fields who are contributing to the betterment of society and the earth. These are the core messages and the realized take-away from TED. We can dare to hope for a better future. Listening to TED speakers and interacting with an extraordinary group of TED colleagues inspires greater hope and confidence that the generations being born in the 21st Century will manage the resources of nature and mankind far better than those born in the 20th Century. This period of great transformation, we can dare to believe, should empower us… not handicap us. To communicate with or to be contacted by the executives and/or companies mentioned in this column, link to the JackMyers Connection Hotline . This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.
 
Karen Leland: Valentine's Day: A Chocolate State of Mind Top
A recent Italian survey conducted by the Catholic University in Campobasso, found that 6.7 grams of dark chocolate per day (about a half a bar per week) was the ideal amount for a protective effect against inflammation and subsequent cardiovascular disease. As if I needed another reason to eat chocolate. With chocolaty cosmic-ness, this study came out only a few days after the death of one of the chocolate world's great leaders, Robert Steinberg. Steinberg (61) was co-founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate and a candy maverick who helped turn the humble cacao bean, into a star of the gourmet food world. Both of these events drove me to my treasure trove of chocolate cookbooks to see what delicious deserts I could whip up in celebration of chocolate's goodness, in honor of Steinberg's life and just in time for Valentine's Day. I settled on The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook: Recipes and History from America's Premier Chocolate Maker (Ten Speed Press, 2007). The Ghirardelli cookbook takes the challenge of making cookies, candy and cakes and turns them into a fun time in the kitchen. The recipes are simple (most contain only 6-10 ingredients), the instructions are clear, and the end results satisfying. I decided to stretch my culinary wings and try my hand at crafting English toffee (page 124). It would not be an exaggeration to say that seeing sugar, butter, water and vanilla turn into carmel, spread thick on a baking sheet and cooled to a hardened perfection, was a thrill. Other recipes such as Individual Chocolate Souffles (page 100), Double Chocolate Banana Bread (page 143), and Chocolate Flan (page 105) are equally as easy. A few final notes about how to get the most benefit from the book: 1. Every recipe recommends using Ghirardelli brand chocolate. However, as long as you use the same amount and type, there is no reason you can't substitute a high-quality chocolate brand of your choosing. 2. You will need some basic equipment such as a good double boiler and a candy thermometer to make many of the recipes. Chocolate Mousse Adapted with permission from The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook (Ten Speed Press) 2 cups heavy cream 2 cups 60% bittersweet chocolate chips 4 large eggs, at room temperature 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar ¼ cup hot brewed coffee In a large bowl, with an electric mixer at medium-high speed, whip the cream to form light peaks. Set aside in the refrigerator. Melt the chocolate chips in the top of a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Meanwhile, whip the eggs with the sugar at medium-high speed for about 10 minutes, until very fluffy and thick. Stir the coffee into the melted chocolate chips. The mixture will start to thicken, so work quickly. Quickly stir in the beaten eggs, and then fold in the whipped cream. Pour or spoon the mixture into cups or bowls. Chill until firm, about 2 hours. Makes 8-10 servings. Karen Leland is author of the new book Time Management In An Instant (Career Press) and the national Work-Life Balance Columnist for examiner.com. She is currently hard at work on a food memoir/cookbook tilted Pardon My Pink Pate . To contact her, please e-mail kleland@scgtraining.com More on Food
 
Kerry Trueman: The Politician Who's Ready to Reclaim Our Food Chain NOW Top
President Obama's got an awful lot on his plate. Sadly, it's all lousy leftovers from the previous administration: rotten bailouts, curdled wars, moldy policies. Is there any room for grass-fed, grassroots-led reform? The eat-better-brigade's hoping our new Commander in Chief will be "the prize delivery guy...delivering fresh, steaming change in 30 minutes or less" as Raj Patel put it in a speech last Friday at the Farming For The Future conference in Pennsylvania. Patel bemoaned the monocrop monarchy that rules from our school cafeterias to our diners and dining rooms. He ended with the rousing declaration that we are "not consumers of democracy, we are its proprietors ." Who's minding the store, though? Will Obama even attempt to emancipate eaters from the military industrial complex cabal that helped Big Ag give small farms the boot? Our government's policies have played a scandalously large role in exiling wholesome, unprocessed, uncontaminated foods to the fringes of our culture. But we don't need to wait for deliverance from DC when NYC's got a powerful advocate for fresh, healthy, locally grown foods who's ready to lead the way today . Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer held a press conference last Saturday at Manhattan's Union Square Greenmarket to announce the release of Food In The Public Interest: How New York City's Food Policy Holds the Key to Hunger, Health, Jobs and the Environment , a comprehensive report on how to strengthen our local foodshed by establishing "food enterprise zones" and other incentives to improve access to fresh, healthy, locally grown foods in every neighborhood. Stringer's also a big fan of urban agriculture, eager to help NYC residents curb their carbon "foodprint" by helping folks grow more of their own food in community gardens, backyards and on rooftops. The report, produced with the help of Stringer's dedicated, able staff and input from food policy experts and activists of all stripes (like myself), grew out of a forum he co-hosted with Columbia University last November on The Politics of Food . Stringer's calling for a "radical overhaul" of the disastrous food policies that are plunging us into a future of lower life expectancy and higher sea levels. And he's looking beyond his own borough, hoping to set a precedent for communities all over the country. The Politics of Food conference was the first step in Stringer's plan to "begin the urgent work of creating a...practical and innovative food policy for New York that puts our great city at the front of this debate where it belongs." NYC is, after all, the birthplace of J. I. Rodale, America's foremost proponent of sustainable agriculture. That's right, the founder of Organic Gardening magazine (originally called Organic Farming and Gardening when it launched in 1942,) grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Rodale " believed that modern agricultural techniques and American eating habits left quite a bit to be desired ," so, in 1950, he launched another periodical, Prevention , to promote a healthier diet and combat the food-induced illnesses that plague us. He died in 1971--rather inconveniently, during a taping of the Dick Cavett show , where he had a heart attack--so we can only imagine what he would make of the extent to which our diet has deteriorated in recent decades. No doubt Rodale would have applauded Mayor Bloomberg for taking on tobacco and trans fats. But he would have been baffled by Bloomberg's much vaunted sustainability initiative, PlaNYC , which fails to consider any aspect of our food chain in its goal of greening New York and ensuring a better quality of life for NYC's residents in the decades to come. This egregious oversight of the impact that food production plays in our environment is a sin committed not only by Blooomberg but also by the otherwise visionary Van Jones and Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman, who both lobby tirelessly for a green collar economy but have yet to realize that growing healthy food is the ultimate green collar job, whether you're doing it on pavement or pasture. As Michael Pollan wrote in his open letter to President Obama advocating the "resolarization" of our food chain: ...we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine. ...We need more highly skilled small farmers in more places all across America -- not as a matter of nostalgia for the agrarian past but as a matter of national security. ...The revival of farming in America, which of course draws on the abiding cultural power of our agrarian heritage, will pay many political and economic dividends. It will lead to robust economic renewal in the countryside. And it will generate tens of millions of new "green jobs," which is precisely how we need to begin thinking of skilled solar farming: as a vital sector of the 21st-century post-fossil-fuel economy... But while Obama and his Secretary of Ag, Tom Vilsack, have given lip service to the merits of Michael Pollan's proposals, our bold borough president has been busy actively working to implement them , heeding Pollan's call to reregionalize our food system and rebuild America's food culture. Stringer has even signed on to the politically risky aspect of Pollan's "sun food agenda" that addresses those inconvenient truths about the corporate-sponsored corpulence and petro-fueled pollution that plague our nation. As Pollan notes: Our agenda puts the interests of America's farmers, families and communities ahead of the fast-food industry's. For that industry and its apologists to imply that it is somehow more "populist" or egalitarian to hand our food dollars to Burger King or General Mills than to support a struggling local farmer is absurd. Stringer echoed this sentiment on Saturday: For too long, decisions about our food supply have been made by private parties or by the federal government...We talk more about food desserts in this city than we talk about food deserts, where 750,000 New Yorkers do not have access to healthy food...that must change. We also have a policy in this city of giving tax incentives to Burger King, McDonald's, and fast food operators rather than give tax abatements to people who want to get us the lettuce and the tomato without the burger. And that, to me, is food injustice. That must change. ...We've got to bring food closer to home...we must establish a state of the art foodshed...it is time to tag enterprise zones to guarantee that the healthy food supply will come to all neighborhoods, not just the wealthy ones. ...we're talking about investing in green jobs to deal with food production, but it has to not just be about the President telling the states that it will eventually trickle down to the cities. We have got to look at new development and our economic infrastructure and figure out how we can incentivize the ability to create green collar jobs. Stringer cited the high price we'll pay if we fail to address the diet-related diseases that are crippling our communities: ...we taxpayers will have to deal with that crisis...and healthcare costs will continue to rise because we did not do the preventive work that we had to do. ...if we create the beginnings of a foodshed...if we use land use and zoning as it relates to creating supermarkets and healthy food, if we implement these recommendations, NYC will become the leader in creating a new green economy and making sure that our people have a lot of healthy opportunities in their lives. ...the Mayor's done a great job with trans fats, putting these issues on the table. But we continue to subsidize Burger King and McDonald's, we continue to fail to use the zoning laws that we have on the books to empower people to have a say in what is happening in our neighborhoods. It's time to use our rooftops, it's time to bring vegetation, vegetables, closer to home, and let's use our collective thinking. The people behind me today, they're the experts, not me. They're the policy people, they're the advocates, they're the people on the front line. They're the ones who, now, working together, have told us very clearly that there is a role for government in this battle. This is the road map that they've given government officials--from the governor, the mayor, the borough president, the city council--this is the document, today, and people have got to understand that this is our moment, this is our opportunity. This is indeed our opportunity, and we are so lucky to have a politician who gets it. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Milwaukee's Growing Power , the extraordinary urban farm founded by MacArthur genius Will Allen, and saw firsthand the future of urban agriculture . With Stringer's support, I'm optimistic that NYC could adopt Allen's remarkable model for producing food and converting food waste to fertilizer. Last week, before heading off to attend the Farming for the Future conference, I attended a forum at NYU where a group of sustainable ag advocates, including the marvelous Annie Myers and permaculture proponents Andrew Faust and Adam Brock , discussed their vision for transforming NYU's grounds and rooftops into productive food gardens. And today, New York City Council Member David Yassky's holding a press conference to introduce the Sustainable Roof Act of 2009. The time is now--here's hoping that as goes New York, so goes the nation. More on Sustainable Development
 
Scott Mendelson: Blu Ray Review: Frozen River (2008) Top
Frozen River 97 minutes rated R (language) release date - 02/10/09 price: $39.99 ( buy it on Amazon for $29.99 ) Sony Pictures Classics 1080P - 1.78:1 16x9 wide screen English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English SDH, English and French subtitles Special Feature - Commentary with director Courtney Hunt and producer Heather Rae The Film: Frozen River is one of the best films of 2008... period. Whatever issues I have with the Oscars this year, all will be forgiven if Melissa Leo wins the Best Actress award. Here's what I wrote about the film on my best-of-2008 wrap-up : Melissa Leo, from Homicide: Life on the Street , finally gets a film role worthy of her talents. She and Misty Upam (no slouch herself) anchor a strikingly sparse, but brutally powerful film about the pain and stench of poverty and the desperation of the working poor. Leo stars as an impoverished mother of two, who turns to smuggling illegal aliens across the border in order to feed her family. The film works fine as a slow-paced thriller, but its core value is a stark depiction of a world all too hidden in modern America, where dinner consists of popcorn and tang, ambition consists of being promoted to full time at the Dollar Store, and families dream of living in double-wide trailers so they can be just a little warmer at night. It's a dark, morality play set in a world where people have no bootstraps to pull themselves up by in the first place. The Blu Ray disc: The film is shot on HD video, so this is certainly not a reference disc in any capacity. But the high bit-rate image is clean, bright, and heavily detailed. I can't speak for the surround aspects of the audio track (what's the point in loud surround sound, when you have to keep the volume low-ish for a sleeping infant in the evening?), but the dialogue is always crisp and understandable. Aside from the theatrical trailer, the only special feature is a feature-length commentary (with optional English subtitles) with Courtney Hunt and Heather Rae. While it's unfortunate that star Melissa Leo is not a participant, this is still a rock-solid, information packed track. While there are occasional lulls, there is an emphasis on quality over quantity. They deal right off the bat with that silly 'Leo is a diva' story that broke last summer (basically, they had several conversations about specific character beats and/or choices). There are countless stories about trying to make this bare bones, guerilla style production (under $1 million, shot in 24 days). If you liked the movie, this track is well worth listening to. Frozen River is one of the very best dramas of 2008, and its two major Oscar nominations more than made up for the various snubs. The slim special features and the theoretical lack of repeat viewing (it's not exactly a movie to be enjoyed over and over again) prevent me from recommending a purchase for the casual moviegoer. But it demands to be seen at least once. The video: B+ The audio: B The extras: C The film: A Scott Mendelson More on Movies
 
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Limbaugh's White Man Litmus Test for the GOP Top
The great mystery is still why President Barack Obama would whiplash obstructionist GOP congresspersons with Rush Limbaugh. A guy who a big majority of Americans don't like and who rates lower than any other political figure. That was the finding of the Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner poll taken back in late October. The poll released by a Democratic leaning polling firm may well be politically partisan and tainted, and Limbaugh and company loudly screamed that it was. But he is America's long time great polarizing talk show gabber, and it's a role he relishes. Yet Obama still made him his straw man to demand that the GOP reps and senators get on board his legislative train to pass the economic stimulus package and any other legislation he and the Democratic controlled Congress want passed. Using Limbaugh as a foil was a big mistake. This writer warned that Limbaugh would use Obama's taunt to further sell-inflate his importance as a public opinion and political kingmaker. Unfortunately, Obama's perverse hype of Limbaugh didn't end there. GOP senators and congresspersons dutifully kissed the talk bloviator's ring and swore not to say or do anything to frontally offend him. Former Republican National Committee chair Rich Bond was one of the few party men to dare warn against the GOP's grovel to Limbaugh. Bond bluntly asked whether there would be an all-white man litmus test for the GOP. Bond's bulls eye challenge to the GOP to stop paying homage to Limbaugh or risk an even bigger free fall will likely fall on deaf ears. The ascension of Michael Steele as the RNC's first African-American chief won't do much to change that for now either. The brutal reality is that a narrow majority of GOP voters believe the party should think like Sarah Palin and be even more noisy and brutish in hectoring the GOP conciliators. Obama and the media's puff of Limbaugh, his rabid sprawling on-air following, and his ruthless and relentless self-promotion machine virtually insure that Bond's worst fear of a white man's litmus test for the party will hold. Take Limbaugh's listening audience. It's overwhelmingly white, male and hard core conservative. That was and still is the GOP's bread and butter constituency. They vote, are outspoken on issues, bully and badger party moderates and dissenters, and when fully aroused can inflame millions of voters around the emotional wedge issues; abortion, family values, anti-gay marriage and rights, and tax cuts. GOP presidents and aspiring presidents, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush, and McCain and legions of GOP governors, senators and congresspersons banked on these voters for victory and to seize and maintain regional and national political dominance. The strategy was simple; say and do as little as possible about civil rights, talk God, country and patriotism, use racially tinged code words and furiously court white males. The strategy worked like a political charm for four decades. Limbaugh knows that and is never shy about saber rattling the GOP and at times he can still pack a mean political wallop against GOP apostates. When Georgia rep Phil Gentry had the temerity to accuse Limbaugh of taking holier than thou cheap shots at GOP congresspersons, Limbaugh quickly whipped up the talk show pack against him. Gentry got the message to button it up, and he did. Limbaugh is not presumptuous enough to take full credit for pumping steel in the back of GOP congresspersons to oppose much of the Obama economic stimulus bill, branding it another "pet liberal project." But he's come close. Limbaugh's finger in the dike last stand and hike in radio popularity ratings can't change one fact. The GOP is an insular party of Deep South and narrow Heartland, rural and, non-college educated blue collar whites. That's not a demographic to be totally sneered at, because the numbers are still huge. But the number of voters who don't fit that demographic are even bigger and are fast changing. In the past decade the number of black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American voters has leaped to nearly one quarter of the nation's electorate. At the same time, blue collar white voters shrunk from more than half of the nation's voters to less than forty percent. Obama handily won the Hispanic and Asian vote and crushed Republican rival John McCain with the black vote. In the next four years, the number of non-white and youth voters will continue to climb and the white electorate overall will drop even more. No matter, Limbaugh has milked the Obama bash for all it's worth and at least for the moment has managed to cower a big chunk of the GOP into keeping the party the kind of party he likes. And he'll keep using a white man's litmus test to do it. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009). More on Barack Obama
 
Israelis vote with Livni, Netanyahu in close race Top
JERUSALEM — The two front-runners in the race to rule Israel urged voters to head to the polls Tuesday to tip the scales in a surprisingly tight general election whose outcome could determine the course of Mideast peace negotiations. Opinion polls were long predicting a decisive victory for the hard-line Likud Party, headed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But new polls released over the weekend showed the Kadima Party, led by moderate Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, closing the gap. After casting her vote at a Tel Aviv polling station, Livni called on Israelis to do the same despite stormy weather. "I have just done what I want every citizen in Israel to do _ first of all to get out of the house, rain or no rain, cold or hot, go out, go to the polling station, go into the booth, close your eyes, and vote," Livni said. Despite initial concerns that the weather could keep voters home, turnout by mid-afternoon was on par with previous elections, according to the Central Election Committee. Livni was one of the architects of Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month and has been striving to present an image of herself as tough but sensible. Netanyahu is portraying himself as the candidate best equipped to deal with the threats Israel faces _ Hamas militants in Gaza, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and behind them an Iranian regime Israel believes is intent on developing nuclear weapons. "I will do everything so that our enemies won't provoke us, won't think we're weak, won't rain down ... their rockets," he told reporters in the southern city of Beersheba, which was hit by rockets from Gaza during the fighting there. "They'll know that in Israel there's a different government, a strong prime minister who will answer with a crushing response to any attack on us." Despite the narrow gap between Livni and Netanyahu, polls have predicted that voters will take a sharp turn to the right and elect a parliament dominated by hard-line parties opposed to territorial concessions. That would make it difficult for Livni to form a government even if she wins. The national mood is at least partially linked to the rocket fire from Gaza that sparked Israel's recent offensive there, and to a sense among Israelis that territorial withdrawals like the country's 2005 Gaza pullout have only brought more violence. Rami Golan, 60, a chef in Jerusalem, said Israel needed a "strong government." "We need a strong man who knows what he wants to do. We need someone who will keep us safe," Golan said. He had yet to decide who to vote for, he said. With 33 parties running in the election, polls over the weekend showed more than 15 percent of Israelis still undecided. Netanyahu opposes ceding land to the Palestinians and favors allowing Israeli settlements in the West Bank to expand, two points that are likely to put him on a collision course with the new U.S. administration. Livni, who hopes to become the first woman to lead Israel in 35 years, has served as chief negotiator with the Palestinians and says a West Bank withdrawal is necessary for Israel's own security. Neither is seen getting more than 30 seats in the 120-seat parliament, however, meaning the winner will have to form a coalition with smaller parties. A fractious alliance unable to make difficult decisions could further complicate efforts to create a Palestinian state and pose a challenge to President Barack Obama, who has said he will become "aggressively" involved in pursuing Mideast peace. In one indication of current anti-Arab sentiment in Israel, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party has seen its support surge in the lead-up to the election with a campaign demanding that Israeli Arabs, one-fifth of Israel's population, sign a loyalty pledge or lose their citizenship. The polls suggest the party could become the third-largest faction in parliament and play the role of kingmaker in the post-election coalition bargaining. Five Israeli Arabs were arrested after throwing stones and scuffling with police when a hard-line Jewish candidate provocatively arrived in the Arab town of Umm el-Fahm to serve as an election observer, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The candidate was escorted out of the town and there were no injuries, he said. The Israeli military announced a closure of the West Bank, barring Palestinians from entering Israel except for urgent medical treatment. Such closures are routine during elections and religious festivals, when Israelis gather in public places and present a potential target for militant attacks. Security officials are particularly wary of the possibility of an attack seeking to avenge Israel's Gaza campaign, which ended Jan. 18. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health officials, and 13 Israelis also died in the offensive, meant to halt militant rocket fire aimed at southern Israel. Exit polls were expected soon after the polls close, with the first official results to be announced before dawn Wednesday. If the hawkish Netanyahu garners the most votes, he will have to choose whether to form a coalition with hard-line parties or reach out to centrists like Livni. A partnership with moderate parties like Livni's Kadima and Labor, headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, might push Netanyahu toward the middle, but it is unlikely he would agree to uproot Jewish settlements or cede partial control of Jerusalem _ both necessary for peace with the Palestinians. What Israelis want most from this election is quiet, said Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. "Israelis are overwhelmed by security pressures, by fear of the future, by a sense of unworthy leadership. Israelis look at the Middle East and feel the walls coming in, there are terrorist enclaves on our borders and we don't seem to have answers," he said. "We just fought a war that we won and even that war has not stopped the missiles from falling. So Israelis look around and say, 'No one can deliver peace, no one can deliver security, who can we depend on?'" More on Israel
 
Sophie Brickman: Stuffing Sausage In Public Top
"Laws are like sausages: it is better not to see them being made." I only came to appreciate this sentiment, attributed to the German statesman Otto von Bismarck, when I found myself in charcuterie class, faced with a quart container full of intestine and a bowl of ground meat, fat, and spices. At the start of class, my chef instructor asked me to "go grab the Big Dick." Imagine my surprise. I hardly knew the man. "The Dick," or the F. Dick Sausage Stuffer, made in Germany, is the premier sausage stuffer, referred to by those in the know as "the Mercedes of all stuffers." It comes in a variety of volumes: the eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty pound (oh my!) version for use in culinary schools, butcher shops, and army bases. If you prefer to stuff your sausage privately (and who doesn't...you don't have to look your best or spring for dinner and drinks), there is the smaller, 3 lb stuffer. Take a look at this sleek baby: In deed . I followed the stuffing process as instructed: 1) First, I filled the main cavity of the machine with ground meat, and cranked the plunger down to compress the stuffing. After a pre-ejaculatory rush of warning air, out came my sausage mixture, through a lovely long shaft, the "stuffer tube" (I am not making this up). About 4-5" in length, this tube varies in diameter, depending on how thick you want your sausage. This is, of course, a highly personal decision. Casting aside all sense of propriety, I picked the largest tube and screwed it into place. 2) Threading the intestinal casing onto the shaft while in a full kitchen of culinary students and classically trained chefs felt about as decent as popping a squat in the middle of a three-star restaurant. Per instructions, I had cleaned off the intestine with cold running water, and now had to take this wet, snot-like tube and spread it open wide enough to cover the diameter of the shaft. Visions of sex-ed classes re-played themselves in my head as I rolled the entire thing, inch by inch, up the shaft. 3) Once the intestine was secured and knotted, I worked with a friend to crank out the meat and guide the quickly expanding sausage into a large coil. My hands were covered in a slippery goo. At one point, the casing burst open and meat poured out. "Easy there, tiger," said my classmate, chuckling. When my instructor saw the finished product, he remarked upon the girth of my sausages: " Un peu grande, non , Sophie?" he asked, smirking. Who knew that merguez is supposed to be made in the smaller and more delicate lamb's intestine, not the bigger, sturdier pig's intestine which I used? Would Freud have marked me down for overcompensation? Sausage-envy? Suddenly self-conscious, I busied myself by slicing one sausage open and frying up a bit of the meat in a patty, turning the kitchen's attention to the taste. It was, if I do say so myself, phenomenal. There was one last thing to do. After those intimate, personal moments with The Dick, I was instructed to gently clean every part of the machine and, finally, to "lubricate the appropriate parts." In my generation, one lubricates the appropriate parts before the experience, but, as I never stop learning, French cuisine has its own rules. If my culinary idols lubricate after , who am I to protest? More on Food
 
Live Nation And Ticketmaster In Merger Deal Top
LOS ANGELES — Two of the biggest forces in the entertainment business are joining up. Concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and ticketing giant Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. said Tuesday morning that they plan an all-stock merger of equals. The combined company will be called Live Nation Entertainment. Under the deal, approved by both companies' boards, Ticketmaster shareholders will receive 1.384 shares of Live Nation stock for each share of Ticketmaster they hold. The companies estimated the value of the combined business at about $2.5 billion and said the deal will help them save about $40 million annually. "Being able to put Live Nation and Ticketmaster into an equal partnership will allow the companies to get through this difficult period and be able to expand live entertainment options to audiences throughout the world," Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller said in a statement. But regulatory experts have said the deal could be delayed by an antitrust review because of the companies' dominant role in the entertainment business. Ticketmaster sells tickets for more than 80 percent of the major arenas and stadiums in the U.S., according to concert tracking firm Pollstar. Live Nation is the world's No. 1 concert promoter and owns more than 140 venues. It has comprehensive deals to the tours of such artists as Madonna, Jay-Z, U2, Nickelback and Shakira _ and recently developed its own ticketing service. The ticketing-service move brought the companies closer to an all-out scramble for ticketing deals. A merger heads that off, but experts say snuffing out that competition could draw close scrutiny from regulators wary of the company building a concert industry monopoly. On the other hand, the deal could end up benefiting concertgoers by giving the combined company more bargaining clout with artists, potentially reducing performers' stakes in ticket sales and thus lowering ticket prices. The deal already has at least one prominent detractor, however. Bruce Springsteen, already furious with Ticketmaster for directing fans to a subsidiary selling tickets for above-face value, recently posted a statement on his Web site saying a deal with Live Nation could end up "returning us to a near-monopoly situation in music ticketing."
 
Jesse Jenkins: A New Paradigm in Energy Innovation: Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes Top
The Brookings Institution officially unveiled a new proposal yesterday calling for "a new paradigm in energy innovation" at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The proposal , which was developed for over a year and is one of the most in-depth proposals for new energy R&D out there, calls for an "order of magnitude" increase in federal energy R&D investment and proposes a new model for clean energy technology research and commercialization: establishing a national network of regionally-based "Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes" (e-DIIs) to serve as hubs of distributed research linking the nation's best scientists, engineers, and facilities and effectively combining the forces of academia, government and industry. The report, prepared by Brooking's Metropolitan Policy Program (Metro) concludes: This report urges two major changes in U.S. energy policy. First, it calls for an order-of-magnitude increase in federal investment levels for energy R&D, as a necessary step to matching the enormous scale of the nation's energy problem with massive efforts to develop market-ready technological solutions. Second, it argues that the complexity of the nation's energy challenges require that the nation make use of decentralized, multidisciplinary, collaboration-oriented new research paradigms better able to integrate scientific research, technology development and commercialization, and the production of human resources across a broad range of scientific, technological, economic, behavioral, and public policy considerations. More specifically, the report proposes augmenting expanded energy R&D programs across the nation's range of national laboratories and industrial research centers with a new research paradigm proposed by the National Academy of Engineering: a national network of energy discovery-innovation institutes (e-DIIs). Decentralized, multidisciplinary, and applications oriented, the proposed e-DII network would link together a new regionally grounded, "bottom up" drive to accelerate the commercialization of breakthrough technological advances in many domains. When completed, the new network would consist of 20 to 30 e-DIIs, with interagency federal funding building to a total level of $5 to $6 billion a year. In this video, Mark Muro, a fellow and policy director at Metro and co-author of the new report speaks about energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes and their potential to transform both our nation's energy sources and the economies of metropolitan areas: Breakthrough Institute's Michael Shellenberger participated in yesterday's e-DII event, where he commended Brookings for advancing critical new investments in energy innovation. Shellenberger also argued for a robust focus on the full chain of energy technology development, from the earlier-stage R&D initiatives that would be performed by e-DIIs on through the later stages of demonstration and early commercialization and deployment. "What we need is a national strategy to make clean energy cheap," Shellenberger said, pointing out that while the kind of R&D performed by the proposed e-DIIs is essential to this objective, major technology improvements also occur "when you get the technologies out of the labs and start scaling them up, as Denmark did for wind turbines or Japan did for solar panels." Like the National Energy Education Act proposed by myself and Teryn Norris in June 2008, the Brookings e-DII proposal recognizes the critical role of universities in solving the nation's energy challenges while educating and training a new generation of talented scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. The new e-DII proposal contains the most in-depth analysis of how to harness our nation's high caliber universities and effectively structure and distribute a renewed national focus on energy innovation. Overall, the Brookings Institution's e-DII proposal represents a major contribution to the energy innovation policy discussion, and its recommendations deserve serious consideration. I was honored to provide comments and advice to the Brookings Metro team during the later stages of the report's preparation and I look forward to future collaboration to advance new thinking on a robust strategy that can drive new innovation and create and deploy the clean energy technologies needed to build a 21st century energy economy. . More on Green Energy
 
Bill Scher: Obama Attacks Education Cuts, Nelson Unable To Defend Top
Yesterday, President Barack Obama made clear he is not accepting the Senate "Gang of Moderates" compromise as is, while the Senate moderates failed to mount a logical defense of their cuts. In short, The Senate compromise on economic recovery means to prevent $70 billion in unintended "Alternative Minimum Tax" increases largely for upper-middle-class Americans (desirable perhaps, but not stimulative and best dealt with in a tax reform bill), the diminished but still influential "Gang of Moderates" slashed $16 billion for jobs in school construction and improvements, as well as $40 billion for aid to distressed state governments, a cut which will risk massive layoffs for police, firefighters and teachers. Bizarrely, the Senate moderates' talking point is that their compromise is all about "jobs, jobs, jobs," when their version would create or save 600,000 fewer jobs. The President had made modernizing our classrooms a central feature of his case for the economic recovery bill. Despite the Senate cut, he still is. At the Elkhart, Indiana town hall, he was quite blunt: The Senate version cut a lot of these education dollars. I would like to see some of it restored. And over the next few days, as we're having these conversations, we should talk about how we can make sure that we're investing in education, because that's what's going to keep companies investing right here in the United States over the long term. At the evening press conference , he was not explicitly critical of the Senate, but his position in favor of the House school construction funds was unmistakable: Education, yet another example. The suggestion is, why should the federal government be involved in school construction? Well, I visited a school down in South Carolina that was built in the 1850s. Kids are still learning in that school, as best they can, when ... it's right next to a railroad. And when the train runs by, the whole building shakes and the teacher has to stop teaching for a while. The auditorium is completely broken down They can't use it. So why wouldn't we want to build state-of-the-art schools with science labs that are teaching our kids the skills they need for the 21st century, that will enhance our economy, and, by the way, right now, will create jobs? After the press conference, "Gang of Moderates" leader Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) was pressed by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to defend the school construction cuts. His response is nonsensical (emphasis added): MADDOW: Why did you push to cut more than $15 billion of school construction money out of the bill? NELSON: Well, the Republicans who are looking to join with us have an aversion to federal money going for that kind of a program. It is a state responsibility, local responsibility. Local governing boards - boards of education. I, too, am concerned about money coming from Washington. As governor, I faced the under-funded mandate of special education where the Federal Government promised to be a partner with it. I faced back here a decision about "No Child Left Behind," another under-funded federal mandate. There is a very sincere concern about the Federal Government getting involved in local education. My colleagues on the other side were very leery about that, and so they insisted that that not be included at the level that it had been. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy So, because Senate "moderates" are concerned that the federal government won't keep school funding promises to states, these federal legislators are cutting proposed school funding to states. Got it? The argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny. And President Obama insistence on talking up education is ensuring that it gets scrutiny. Next question: will the President do the same today for aid to state governments? One sign: at today's town hall in Florida, the President will be joined by pro-stimulus Republican Gov. Charlie Crist. Originally posted at OurFuture.org
 
ProPublica: House vs. Senate Stimulus Bills Top
by Michael Grabell , ProPublica If all goes as expected today, the Senate will pass an $838 billion economic stimulus plan that follows a compromise reached over the weekend. But before the package can go to President Barack Obama's desk, the Senate will have to resolve differences with the House and its $819 billion version. Most predict a bruising battle that won't wrap up until week's end, in part because of fiery differences over tax cuts and spending on food stamps and education, a critical issue for Democrats who control the House. So how do the two versions stack up? We've put together a chart so you can easily spot the differences. Some highlights: The House version would spend $60 billion more on education. The Senate version adds more than $100 billion for tax cuts to individuals and families. The House would spend more to upgrade the country's electricity grid. The Senate would spend more on medical research. And there are plenty more. The chart and other stories are part of ShovelWatch , our ongoing project with WNYC Radio of New York to track the stimulus package. See the chart here... Michael Grabell is a reporter for ProPublica, America's largest investigative newsroom. More on President Obama
 
Robert J. Elisberg: Republicans Build a Roadblock to Nowhere Top
Hats off to the Republican Party for joining Democrats in a noble call of bi-partisan government. It's refreshing, since during the previous eight years, we didn't hear much from the GOP about bi-partisanship. ("Much" is defined here as "anything.') Oh, sure, we did hear calls of traitor, cowards and unpatriotic against Democrats. And we did hear George Bush proclaim a mandate after a hairs-breath victory. Perhaps that's where the problem lies - Republicans mistakenly thought people wanted them to rule "by partisanship." Only today do they weep for actual bi-partisanship, now that Democrats won two landslide national elections, and control the House, Senate and White House. Gee, go figure. Pretty much the only time we heard the word "bi-partisanship" from Republican lips during the Bush Years was when John McCain claimed he was the only candidate who could work across the aisles. Ah, the whimsy. Already, one of the loudest, constant critics of the Obama White House is that same, dear John McCain demanding Republican tax cuts - which helped create this disaster. (Apparently economic "expert" McCain hasn't yet realized that the fundamentals of our economy aren't strong, and it's not just a mental recession ...) And on and on, Republicans en masse continue to cry crocodile tears for bi-partisanship. It's a fascinating spectacle. At the very same time, the new chairman of their party, Michael Steele, momentarily forgetting the Republican Bi-partisanship Talking Point, said in his acceptance speech: "We're going to say to friend and foe alike, we want you to be a part of us. And to those of you who will obstruct, get ready to get knocked over." Further, the Voice of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, called out his hope that Barack Obama "fails." And a leading contender for the next Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney, blasted Barack Obama's tenure as "rocky" - after just 10 days in office. Former Vice President Dick Cheney claimed Obama Administration decisions will lead to a terrorist attack (conveniently leaving out the terrorist attack on his own watch). Even former Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card chimed in to assail Barack Obama - on his wardrobe !! (Which inconveniently turned out to be not only stupid and thoughtless, but wrong.) And House Republicans showed their true interest in bi-partisanship by voting 176-0 against the Obama Stimulus Package. Not one Republican for it. Zippo. All following the tearful lead of their Minority Leader, John Boehner. When you deliver zero votes, that's not political disagreement, that's an order from the top. That's intent. That's a partisan vote. All the while crying for bi-partisanship. (Well, not "all." That head of the Republican Party, Mr. Steele, chortled, "The goose egg that you laid on the president's desk was just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.") From their the top leadership on down, Republicans have been as grossly, unrelentingly partisan as they ever were during the blinders-on George Bush Years. All the while, crying for bi-partisanship. Given the economic crisis their leadership caused, it's a sickening spectacle. On the other side of that aisle, we have Barack Obama naming three Republicans to his cabinet. We have Barack Obama agreeing to let a Democratic governor select a Republican to replace Judd Gregg when he leaves the Senate. We have Barack Obama going to Capitol Hill and meeting with the House Republican caucus. (This already tops the number of times George Bush came to a Democratic caucus.) We have Barack Obama meeting with Republican leaders to discuss the Stimulus Program. Could President Obama have solicited more bi-partisan input with Republicans? Absolutely. But in two weeks, he's done more than most presidents do in their lifetime. (Side note: Republicans like to point out Ronald Reagan meeting with Speaker Tip O'Neill, to hammer out his tax program. Huge difference. First, that's as far as Mr. Reagan bent, one person. And second, he had to meet with O'Neill - because the Speaker's opposing party controlled the House. Barack Obama's party controls the House, Senate and Oval Office. And he's still reaching out across the aisle.) And all the while, Republicans stand near-united to fight the President of the United States out of one side of their mouths - and cry for bi-partisanship out of the other. Incidentally, it's worth noting that the Republican definition of bi-partisanship appears to mean "cut taxes." On Friday, President Obama finally addressed the ludicrous Republican criticism about spending in the Stimulus Bill. "What do they think 'stimulus' is? ??!!" he asked with incredulous bemusement. Acting in a bi-partisan manner is a very good thing. But - being bi-partisan requires having that "bi" part. If your bi-pals refuse to play, if they vote 176-0, it's not going to happen. Further, as important as bi-partisanship is, it is not the core of our democracy. America is based on a two-party system battling ideas in the public grounds. And right now, the party that won that conflict in the last two landslide elections is the Democrats. Here's to bi-partisanship! But here, too, is to American government. And if Republicans truly believe in both, it's time they dry their empty tears and act like they understand it. Be the noble Loyal Opposition. But have the decency to grasp that America is in crushing economic crisis by their own party's causing and accept that they are not in charge any longer. The reach of bi-partisanship only goes so far. Republicans have spoken and rejected it. It's time instead to actually govern America.
 
Paula Crossfield: Building a Sustainable Economy: Learning from the Nearings Top
The stimulus package has passed - and despite whether you are pushing tax cuts or waving the flag of infrastructure spending, perhaps its worth reconsidering the underlying goal either version looks to achieve: growth . I'm not the first to propose that our entire economic system is in need of an overhaul , but thinking back even further, I think we could take a leaf from Helen and Scott Nearing. The Nearings moved from New York City to a Vermont homestead in 1932 because they perceived the capitalist economy was failing due to fundamentally bad underlying principles. Essentially what they started in the New England countryside was a small farm, with a cash crop - maple syrup - which made enough money to help them buy building supplies, seed and necessities. Now, reading their book, Living the Good Life, during the current economic crisis, I cannot help but wonder the same thing they wondered then: Are we suppose to seek profit above all things? Farming in America got a closer look last week when the ag census for 2007 debuted and we could crunch some hard numbers. Total small farms (1-9 acres) increased by about 50,000 to 232,849 -- 80% of whose farmers are making under $10,000; while 75% of the agricultural production (read: commodity crops) took place on 125,000 of the largest farms. Here money and size correlate; our "Get Big or Get Out" mentality has produced giant farms -- producing things we can't eat without processing -- which get a continuous flow of government subsidies, and grow in size as they buy up their neighbors in a quest for the almighty dollar. But what I am most interested in here is those small farms, where more and more young people are gravitating, where organic is often practiced with or without certification, and perhaps most of what is being produced is used by the family unit or sold to neighbors. These small farms might be a chance to learn, or an example of how land expense for a beginning farmer is just too great, or maybe these new farmers, too, have made a political decision to be self-sufficient. But this phenomenon could be part of a real revolution going on in the way we think our society should be run, as well as a hat tip to the pioneering Nearings. La Vida Locavore took a look at these small farms in detail last week, and saw that most farmers were turning a small profit or breaking even. Now I know what I am about to say is controversial, but couldn't this be considered a good thing? I am not trying to insist that we all become peasants again, that we should give up coffee and chocolate, learn how to slaughter a chicken, throw out our laptop and iPhone and never, ever travel again. Nor am I saying that the government shouldn't be helping new farmers with land access and funds: they most certainly should. But I ask, with a full belly and satisfying work, isn't it time we re-frame our society's expectations for growth of the bottom line at any cost? Scott Nearing was an economist and social theorist who lost his job as a professor in the city due to his anarchist and pacifist beliefs. Both Nearings had strong opinions about the uses of money, and self-sufficiency. Here's are the Nearings on the economics of consumption: Life's necessaries are easily come by if people are willing to adjust their consumption to the quantity and variety of their products. Difficulties begin when the subsistence advocate enters the market with its lures and wiles for separating the unwary and the dullwitted from their medium of exchange. Never forget that the private ownership of the means of production, through the monopoly of natural resources and patents, the control over money, the imposition of the tribute called "interest", the gambling centers, which trade in commodities and "securities", to price control and the domination by the wealthlords of the agencies which shape men's minds and the machinery of government, the entire apparatus of a competitive, acquisitive, exploitive [sic], coercive social order is rigged and manipulated for the rich and powerful against the poor and the weak. Keep out of the system's clutches and you have a chance of subsistence, even if the oligarchs disapprove of what you think and say and do. Accept the system, with its implications and ramifications, and you become a helpless cog in an impersonal, implacable, merciless machine operated to make the rich men richer and the powerful men more powerful. The two things Americans value most are money and god, which often act to segregate us. What then should we value in our society? My answer would be community, quality and real justice for all living creatures; and food could be the most fundamental way through which we change our ways of thinking because it is a central front in our daily lives, and has the potential to bring us together. That change is starting already, and Washington will have no choice but to listen from here on out. According to the ag census, organics are growing in demand. (Collin Peterson, are you paying attention ?) This speaks to the fact that we are becoming more concerned about the quality of the things we put in our mouth and the effect our food choices have on our community and environment at large. Woody Tasch, an advocate of what he calls "Slow Money," where the investor is concerned with building a stronger community, said in a recent interview that "there may well be a whole new, wider role for the investor as earthworm, rather than the investor as master of the universe." But first, as Civil Eats environment editor Aaron French reminded us in a recent post , we must define sustainability. It seems we have been dragging our feet about this for fear that ridicule from the growth-focused economy would pummel anyone who dared say something bad about profit. Well here goes: Using growth as the final and absolute indication of a healthy economy is bound to blow up in our face, whether by creating empty calorie foods to increase intake of commodity crops (leading to heart disease and diabetes, and a ballooning tax payer burden of health costs) or starting wars to increase sales of weapons (leading to an endless struggle and antagonizing much of the world in the process) or ignoring science so that we don't have to act on climate change by regulating industry (at our future peril) - we can all agree these things are not sustainable. In an article in the New York Times last weekend, Secretary of Ag Tom Vilsack was quoted encouraging diversification as a means to make small farms sustainable -- focusing on energy production, carbon sequestration, conservation and ecotourism aside from crops and livestock, which he referred to as the "new rural economy." He also said last week that the USDA should represent "eaters" and not just farmers, which made many of us eaters cheer. It is my sincere hope we continue to hold him to his word, because while the Nearings have set a fine example for homesteading, we must work together for change as we are linked through interdependence. The food community must stay in dialog, pushing the fundamentals of our economy towards awareness, justice and quality for eaters everywhere. More on Stimulus Package
 
Summer Rayne Oakes: The Top 10 Coolest African Fair-Trade Fashions Top
One of the best parts of working in Africa is learning about all the amazing community sustainable development-design projects cropping up over the continent. Often fueled by the passion of one or two unrelenting entrepreneurs in the face of many challenges (i.e. civil unrest, scalability, export hurdles, disease, natural disasters, training/education, etc.), these standout programs have begun to permeate our cultural swerve. From beading and silverwork to textile design, Africa as a whole has a rich, often untapped talent pool of skilled artisans, many of which are captured here. Clearly there are many more to mention, so I'll be sure to do a follow-up post, but holler out if you have a program that you want the community to hear about. ETHIOPIA BOSTEX ("By Ourselves Textiles") Solerebels is the premiere brand under Bostex PLC and the first footwear manufacturer in Ethiopia founded by Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu and her family. The key is to bring a viable footwear and textile industry to Ethiopia and utilize materials from the local area. The IFAT fair trade-certified brand ranges in style from sandals, shoes and mocs - and are available on Amazon.com, Endless.com, and have been featured in Urban Outfitters and Whole Foods. GAMBIA KENZA Your children can totally rock out these boldly-designed, indigenous African print clothes created by expert tailors in Gambia. Deep cerulean blues juxtaposed with dandelion-yellows and rich reds as deep as an African sunset are hand-painted on African batik materials purchased in Gambia. www.kippcompany.com . GHANA GLOBAL MAMAS This is the woman-powered brand behind Women in Progress, and international non-profit organization that assists women in African in attaining economic independence. All the beading, batik, dyeing, and sewing is done with girl-power in the West African nation of Ghana. The cooperative takes it back old-school style to the ancient art of of batik, which originated in Java and was passed down to artisans in Ghana. Beads are made from 100% recycled glass; and all dyeing and sewing takes place in the cooperative. globalmamas.org KENYA ECOSANDALS Akala Designs Limited is a cooperative-run business based in Nairobi, Kenya that produces products for Ecosandals.com, a non-profit importer and reseller of sandals. Products are produced from used materials- like recycled tire tread rubber collected from the Korogocho neighborhood and surrounding areas. Other materials include locally-sourced denim, leather and beadwork. Ecosandals.com LISA LINHARDT DESIGNS A cool little jewelry boutique bedecked with reclaimed hardwood and fine bijoux sits comfortably on 1st Avenue in New York City between 9th and 10th Streets. Founded by Lisa Linhardt , this shop houses a personal history to a 100-mile walk she took in Africa to raise funds for girls' literacy. It was on her travels where she met Maasai and Kikuyu beaders. Lisa's most poignant experience, she says, was during her volunteer trip captured here to the Kibera slum where she met the Power Women's Group. The cooperative housed HIV-positive women who came together to support one another, share stories and bead. Many of the Kenyan women create beadwork sold in Lisa's shop or are occasionally re-designed for the urban marketplace. linhardtdesign.com MADE Be bejeweled with the highly coveted baubles and bling from Made, a fair trade jewelry line expertly finished by artisans in Kenya. Made has partnered with designers such as Nicole Farhi (by Pippa Small), Alexa Chung, Natalie Dissel, and in their newest collaboration with Brian Crumley for Urban Outfitters. Their products can be seen all over London, including TopShop. made.uk.com MOZAMBIQUE A.D. SCHWARZ Deep in the heart of the Miombo Biome lies the Mezimbite Forest Centre, an oasis of green halfway between Beira and Dondo in the South Central part of Mozambique. This "oasis" is the result of one man by the name of Allan Schwarz: Architect, designer, forest ecologist, and steward of the land--who singlehandedly set out to reverse the course of deforestation in his beloved forests that he grew up with as a boy. One of his programs, a.d. schwarz, is a luxury label of wooden jewelry, furniture, and wares that utilizes sustainably-harvested wood with the purpose of conserving forest resources, replanting forests and training artisans to live on the land with the forests as opposed to destroying them. The exquisite workmanship of the African Zen designs--made from African blackwood to machata, for example, stand on their own, but house a deeply penetrating story of the forest from which they came. adschwarz.com and allanschwarz.com NIGER OMBRE CLAIRE This is African design with a definitive Parisian flair. Parisian-based Aude Durou grew up as a young girl in the deserts of Niger, traveling on the heels of her landscape-photographer father. There she grew up with the Tuareg, a West African pastoralist nomadic tribe from Niger who have a strong history of carving beautiful silver accessories which they adorn on their heads and bodies. The Tuaregs, who refer to themselves as Kel Tamasheq ("Speakers of Tamasheq") have preserved their culture through the years and their spiritual designs and symbols are carried through the Ombre Claire line. Through her love for the Tuareg peoples, their high quality craftmanship, and her commercial savvy, she has created an exquisitely remarkable line of fair trade, silver talismans steeped in the rich history of the Tuareg peoples. ombreclaire.com UGANDA PAPER TO PEARLS Paper to Pearls, an initiative of Voices for Global Change, is a beading initiative that brings the voices of Uganadan women's struggles and hopes to the forefront of fashion. The colorful paper bead jewelry is handmade by women in the internal refugee camps of Northern Uganda who have been displaced by years of internal conflict by the Lord's Resistance Army. Each bead is carefully rolled by hand and cut from strips of calendar paper and secured with glue, varnished and assembled into necklaces. The women's dexterous workmanship is transformed into bold colors that can be worn singly or layered on. papertopearls.org . For more information on inspiring sustainable design and development stories, pick up the newly-released book "Style, Naturally: The Savvy Shopping Guide to Sustainable Fashion and Beauty" at Amazon.com , BarnesandNobles.com , Borders.com , and BetterWorldBooks.com . More on Africa
 
Tonya Plank: One-Sided: EMTs Should Not Make Assumptions Top
I was riding the Brooklyn-bound 2 train during evening rush hour when suddenly a man sitting across from me collapsed onto the woman next to him. The man was white, mid-forty-ish, with oily hair and lines of black under his fingernails and in the crevices of his hands. His jeans and jacket bore caked dirt and his pants were very worn. He may well have been homeless. Of course people often fall asleep on the subway, and their head ends up on the next person's shoulder. But they usually wake up, embarrassed and apologetic. This man didn't budge. And I remembered him appearing fairly alert; when I boarded he'd made eye contact with me. The woman next to him tried to inch away. When his body trailed hers as she went, she tapped his shoulder. When he still didn't move, she took both hands and tried to push him upright. When she let go, he lurched slightly left, then fell forward, straight to the floor, crashing head first into the metal gear box under the seats. Everyone in the car heard the thud and gasped. He remained motionless and I started to worry he'd had some kind of seizure or stroke. Others felt the same: a West Indian woman sitting beside me grabbed my arm, saying her husband had had a bizarre seizure two weeks ago. This reminded her of his sudden loss of consciousness. The packed train soon filled with voices debating whether to try to help the man ourselves or get help. "Don't move him; you could damage his spinal cord," someone called out. The consensus was to alert the conductor at the next stop. As soon as the train pulled into the station, a woman rapped on the conductor's door. After some grumbling, he emerged, took one look at the man, rolled his eyes, and, in an annoyed tone, intercommed to the rest of the train that we were stopped because of a sick person and if anyone had medical training to come to the first car. Seconds later, two women saying they were nurses appeared. They carefully turned the man over, felt a pulse, and ensured he was breathing. Sighs of relief spread throughout the car and the West Indian woman squeezed my hand hopefully. One nurse asked for some kind of stick to hold the man's tongue down. A woman fumbled in her purse and produced a nail file, which the nurses took. They told a burly man sitting nearby to hold the collapsed man's heavy, boot-clad legs up in the air and asked a woman to search his pockets for identification to give paramedics when they arrived. When the nurses pulled the file from the man's mouth, it was covered with blood. "Oh no, oh God!" voices echoed. "He probably just bit his tongue," someone said. Several people had now come from other cars and were looking in, concerned. "Is he drunk?" a man asked. "Don't think so. I was near him and didn't smell anything," said another. Ten minutes later, four Emergency Medical Technicians made their raucous entrance. Ramming through the crowd with their heavy gear, they shouted, "Show's over, folks. Everyone outta the way. Get OUT of the way." We tried to make way for them but the platform was now flooded with would-be rush-hour riders. There was nowhere to go. "Did you hear, OUT of the way." "Yeah, what's wrong with you people? You think this is a show?" an EMT said shaking his head at us. We all looked at each other, dumbfounded. "Get away," the lead EMT said to the nurse and the burly man holding up the collapsed man's legs. Two other EMTs walked in carrying a folding chair. "Clear out, clear OUT." "Enjoying the show, folks?" "Oh gaawd, gaawd," said an EMT standing over the man. His tone was jaded, not concerned, as if this happened all the time. Between the legs of the EMTs I glimpsed the man shifting his leg, then pawing at his mouth with his fist, but without opening his eyes. "Wake up, WAKE UP. Y'passed out," the EMT boomed, as if the louder his voice, the faster the man would return to consciousness. The man's eyes were still closed. "You passed OUT," the EMT repeated, now in an accusatory tone. "C'mon, into the chair." Another EMT grabbed the man's forearm and pulled. The man's eyes were still shut. "For God's sake, be careful," said a young woman behind me, under her breath so only we could hear her. I think we were all rather afraid of the EMTs at this point. Finally they managed to lift the man into the chair, his eyes now glazed and barely open, his head circling about like a spinning top. The EMTs carried him in the chair outside onto the platform. The conductor called out that the doors were closing. I tried to watch the man out on the platform, but it was hard given all the commotion. As the train took off, I managed to glimpse him through the window. He was sitting on the chair but was lunging far to the side, his left side, the same side he'd fallen to on the train. His eyes were still half-open and glazed. The EMTs were paying him no mind now, laughing, talking, jokingly punching each other. I hoped they knew what they were doing, that they'd called for further help, and that the man didn't crash and hit his head again. Later, I thought of the way he'd lunged to one side. I remembered one of my first experiences with a rare headache disorder, Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgia. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the left temple with an ice pick. I also had heavy tearing from the left eye, and momentarily loss of hearing in the left ear. It felt like the left side of my head had just shut down. I went to the doctor, a general practitioner. He thought it was a migraine and wrote me a Codeine prescription. I remember trying to make my way to the subway, but with those vicious stabs coming at me, combined with my lopsided sensory awareness I felt like the subway was no place for me. I could hardly walk in a straight path; I subconsciously veered to the right as if to avert the stabs coming from the left. I nearly walked into a light pole. I went back inside and asked the doctor if I could have an injection so the pain would subside quickly and I could walk normally. He said he had no injectible Codeine. Morphine then, I begged. I knew nothing about Morphine, had only seen it in the movies being given for war wounds, which is honestly how my pain felt. He burst out laughing and said if he had injectible narcotics every crackhead in the city would be banging down the doors. I grabbed my head and burst into tears. "I'm sorry," he said, softening, before helping me find a neurologist. I don't know whether the man on the subway was drunk, on drugs, or had a serious medical problem. But he needed help. If I didn't look so middle-class and white-collar - and white, I wonder how I might have appeared to medical personnel during my TAC attack, jittery, stumbling, emotional, unable to walk a straight line, begging anxiously for an injection. As a longtime criminal defense attorney serving the indigent, I know the kind of assumptions often made by police but I didn't know they were made by City EMTs as well. After recently reading Shannon Burke's engrossing, enlightening novel, BLACK FLIES , based on his experiences as a Harlem EMT, I realize I probably wasn't imagining these EMTs were acting on assumptions based on the man's appearance, assumptions that can be deadly.
 
Beth Kohl: Love Can't Buy You Money Top
I've been holding my tongue and itchy-to-blog fingers, trying not to comment on the mother from whose body eight tiny beings were plucked last week, until I'd had the chance to hear her story and get some details. The only fact I could reasonably infer about Nadya Suleman, octuplet mom, was that she'd enlisted assisted reproductive technology to achieve her ultra populous pregnancy. And knowing that, I hoped that she -- like I and gay and single friends did -- would hold her family close, ginormous as hers happens to be, and not feel the need to justify an act that too many people consider sinful or wasteful. But then I caught a P.R. person she hired explaining that her client would tell her story in short order, that this client was a good and decent human being and a dedicated mother to six less sensational children and would make for a fine mother of fourteen. She defined her client as being "alternative" somehow, and in a good way, like a Peacenik or Beatnik or Earth Mother, and not the unethical, narcissistic, selfish whack job that the media was making her out to be. But if this was merely a matter of alternative living, a personal choice based upon a well-considered philosophy or a strong sense of self, why the handler? Why not turn a deaf ear and save up limited resources for the children who will sorely need it, fuck your image? So having watched Ann Curry's interview with Suleman on the Today Show , I'm putting aside my usual qualms about judging what are intensely personal choices, fuck my image. First, what is with this doctor? Suleman sought treatment from the same reproductive specialist who enabled her first six children. He already knew she had six, and even if he didn't know how dire her financial situation (she recently filed for bankruptcy and lives with her mother), he agreed to help her. And then, flaunting industry standards suggesting that a 33 year old woman like Suleman only have between one and three embryos transferred into her uterus, transferred six -- frozen leftovers from her first attempts at IVF. And then when nature took over and two of the embryos divided and became two sets of twins, where was the doctor counseling her about the very real risks of "supertwins" as such crowded pregnancies are called? I mean, even if you are the most religious of people who temporarily put aside your Catholicism to undergo a prohibited procedure like IVF, you have to admit that carrying and delivering eight babies is extremely dangerous. I mean, I know that both God and Jesus are great, but how can you expect them to compete with limited blood supplies, nourishment and way too crowded conditions? How do you expect them to stand between your irresponsible choice to risk at least sextuplets and the many, many potential risks for multiples and premature births, including but not limited to: bleeding in the brain, metabolic and respiratory issues, blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy and learning disabilities? I'm not saying Suleman should have "selectively reduced" the number of babies she carried -- talk about your personal decisions. But I'm not not saying that, either. In fairness, Suleman didn't justify this as God's will, at least not in the Ann Curry interview. Nope, the only will she spoke of was her own. Sad and lonely childhood plus deep desire to be a mother equals parenthood at any cost and in extremis. Suleman is trying to frame her decision as an "unconventional" lifestyle choice, daring to infer that most parents, the so-called stable kind consisting of a traditional mother-father dyad, aren't physically and emotionally there for their children. She seeks to define herself in opposition to such unfit parent-types, stating that she will put everything on hold to be completely present with her children. But without a source of income, save disability payments she receives from the state of California from an injury she sustained while working at a, wait for it, mental hospital, and with the real risk that at least some of her newborns will have ongoing physical issues, Suleman is, wait for it, plain crazy not to recognize how serious is her situation. Don't even ask her to consider how serious are her fourteen children's situations -- that's thirteen more people than she seems ready to focus on. More on Today Show
 
Australia Wildfire Rebuilding Finds A Mascot Top
HEALESVILLE, Australia — The koala moved gingerly on scorched paws, crossing the blackened landscape as the fire patrol passed. Clearly in pain, the animal stopped when it saw firefighter David Tree following behind. "It was amazing, he turned around, sat on his bum and sort of looked at me with (a look) like, put me out of my misery," Tree told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I yelled out for a bottle of water. I unscrewed the bottle, tipped it up on his lips and he just took it naturally. He kept reaching for the bottle, almost like a baby." The team called animal welfare officers as it resumed its patrols on Sunday, the day after deadly firestorms swept southern Victoria state. "I love nature, and I've handled koalas before. They're not the friendliest things, but I wanted to help him," Tree said. Tree says he's spoken to wildlife officials, and the koala, nicknamed Sam, is doing fine. And he, it turns out, is a she. The rescue was one small bright moment in Australia's wildfire tragedy. Thousands of acres (hectares) have been burned out, almost 1,000 homes destroyed and more than 180 people killed. Countless animals were killed in the disaster, which hit farming and forest regions to the north and east of the Victoria state capital of Melbourne, and many more fled in panic. The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said it was establishing shelters to care for thousands of pets and livestock affected by the disaster. More on Australia
 
Americans For Prosperity: "No Stimulus" Petition Circulated Top
A conservative group called "Americans For Prosperity" has started a petition against the stimulus package that became so popular, it crashed their website in recent days. (The site has since gone back up.) Addressed to Senators, the petition reads: On behalf of the members of Americans for Prosperity, I am writing to urge you to vote against the so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Congress should not enact an expensive spending bill under the pretense of stimulus or recovery. No matter which amendments pass, the fundamental approach of dramatically increasing federal debt and spending is a mistake. We therefore urge you to vote NO and will rate a vote against the so-called stimulus as a Key Vote for Prosperity in our Congressional ratings. As I write this letter, more than 200,000 Americans have signed a petition on our web site, NoStimulus.com, and thousands more will likely sign it before you read this letter. They represent a growing majority of the American public who agree with the petition text: "Congress should not enact an expensive spending bill under the pretense of stimulus or recovery. We cannot spend our way to prosperity, and such an expansion of the federal government will put a crushing burden on taxpayers in the long-term." Central planning and bigger government cannot solve our problems. Excessive borrowing to fund consumption was a major cause of our current economic crisis. The first rule of holes is to stop digging, and more than $1 trillion of additional borrow-and-spend big government will only throw more good money after bad. Instead of trying to pick winners and losers from Washington, Congress should cut spending, strip down burdensome regulations and allow individuals and free enterprise to flourish. We therefore urge you to vote no on the stimulus, regardless of which amendments pass and regardless of any individual provisions that may look attractive. Sincerely, Tim Phillips President Americans for Prosperity Prior to his work for AFP, Phillips founded Century Strategies with Ralph Reed, a Christian leader known for his role in jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Indian casino scheme . In the summer of 2008, Americans for Prosperity launched a " Hot Air Tour " to protest "climate alarmism" in Congress.
 
Israeli Election Surprisingly Close As Voters Turn Out In High Numbers Top
Voter turnout has been higher than expected as Israelis brave bad weather to vote in the nation's surprisingly close general election, reports the AP. Opinion polls were long predicting a decisive victory for the hard-line Likud Party, headed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But new polls released over the weekend showed the Kadima Party, led by moderate Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, closing the gap. After casting her vote at a Tel Aviv polling station, Livni called on Israelis to do the same despite stormy weather. "I have just done what I want every citizen in Israel to do -- first of all to get out of the house, rain or no rain, cold or hot, go out, go to the polling station, go into the booth, close your eyes, and vote," Livni said. Voter turnout could reach almost 70 percent, reports Haaretz. Early voter turnout in Israel's general election Tuesday was heavier than expected, standing at 41.9 percent of the electorate by 4 P.M. In contrast, only 39 percent of voters had cast their ballots by the same time during the last election in 2006. Some 34 percent voters had turned up at the polls by 2 P.M., compared to a 31 percent of voters at the same time in 2006. If the voter turnout remains constant throughout the day, the final rate could reach 69 percent, as opposed to 63.5 percent in the 2006 vote. It reports that the relatively high voter turnout could be because the race has gotten closer between the Likud and Kadima parties. If, as people from both parties claimed Monday, the gap between Likud and Kadima has continued to narrow, the race will be decided by three things: organization, organization and organization. All those floating voters will finally have to decide. They will not be happy with their choice, but they always end up voting. Voting and crying. The latest polls, though, continue to show that the Likud Party is the favorite to win, which would enable Benjamin Netanyahu to become prime minister again. CNN reports that whoever wins will face the challenge of forming a coalition government. Whatever the final result, with no single party expected to win an overall majority in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, the party that emerges from Tuesday's election with the most seats still faces the challenge of building a viable governing coalition. The war in Gaza has been considered a help to Israel's right wing parties as the majority of the Israeli population supported the conflict, Al Jazeera English reports. [The] party to have received the greatest boost to its fortunes has been Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, a Russian immigrant. Lieberman insists Palestinian-Israeli citizens must swear an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state. .... Most Israelis seem to have backed the offensive, which Israel said was in response to incessant rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel, and Lieberman with his hardline rhetoric has gained ground in its wake. HuffPost bloggers and readers have weighed on this important election. Former US Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller, wrote in his analysis : It is an arguable proposition but it is eminently fair to ask whether any Israeli leader now has the historic legitimacy, moral authority, and power to make the tough choices and overcome the challenges Israel faces on peace and security. Frankly, neither the military nor political strategies pursued by Israel in its two most recent military conflicts (Lebanon, 2006; Gaza, 2008/2009) inspire all that much confidence. Read more analysis from HuffPost contributors . Check out this CFR Backgrounder on Israel's political system. Read more on the election from the AP: Livni was one of the architects of Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month and has been striving to present an image of herself as tough but sensible. Netanyahu is portraying himself as the candidate best equipped to deal with the threats Israel faces -- Hamas militants in Gaza, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and behind them an Iranian regime Israel believes is intent on developing nuclear weapons. "I will do everything so that our enemies won't provoke us, won't think we're weak, won't rain down ... their rockets," he told reporters in the southern city of Beersheba, which was hit by rockets from Gaza during the fighting there. "They'll know that in Israel there's a different government, a strong prime minister who will answer with a crushing response to any attack on us." Despite the narrow gap between Livni and Netanyahu, polls have predicted that voters will take a sharp turn to the right and elect a parliament dominated by hard-line parties opposed to territorial concessions. That would make it difficult for Livni to form a government even if she wins. The national mood is at least partially linked to the rocket fire from Gaza that sparked Israel's recent offensive there, and to a sense among Israelis that territorial withdrawals like the country's 2005 Gaza pullout have only brought more violence. Rami Golan, 60, a chef in Jerusalem, said Israel needed a "strong government." "We need a strong man who knows what he wants to do. We need someone who will keep us safe," Golan said. He had yet to decide who to vote for, he said. With 33 parties running in the election, polls over the weekend showed more than 15 percent of Israelis still undecided. Netanyahu opposes ceding land to the Palestinians and favors allowing Israeli settlements in the West Bank to expand, two points that are likely to put him on a collision course with the new U.S. administration. Livni, who hopes to become the first woman to lead Israel in 35 years, has served as chief negotiator with the Palestinians and says a West Bank withdrawal is necessary for Israel's own security. Neither is seen getting more than 30 seats in the 120-seat parliament, however, meaning the winner will have to form a coalition with smaller parties. A fractious alliance unable to make difficult decisions could further complicate efforts to create a Palestinian state and pose a challenge to President Barack Obama, who has said he will become "aggressively" involved in pursuing Mideast peace. In one indication of current anti-Arab sentiment in Israel, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party has seen its support surge in the lead-up to the election with a campaign demanding that Israeli Arabs, one-fifth of Israel's population, sign a loyalty pledge or lose their citizenship. The polls suggest the party could become the third-largest faction in parliament and play the role of kingmaker in the post-election coalition bargaining. Five Israeli Arabs were arrested after throwing stones and scuffling with police when a hard-line Jewish candidate provocatively arrived in the Arab town of Umm el-Fahm to serve as an election observer, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The candidate was escorted out of the town and there were no injuries, he said. The Israeli military announced a closure of the West Bank, barring Palestinians from entering Israel except for urgent medical treatment. Such closures are routine during elections and religious festivals, when Israelis gather in public places and present a potential target for militant attacks. Security officials are particularly wary of the possibility of an attack seeking to avenge Israel's Gaza campaign, which ended Jan. 18. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health officials, and 13 Israelis also died in the offensive, meant to halt militant rocket fire aimed at southern Israel. Exit polls were expected soon after the polls close, with the first official results to be announced before dawn Wednesday. If the hawkish Netanyahu garners the most votes, he will have to choose whether to form a coalition with hard-line parties or reach out to centrists like Livni. A partnership with moderate parties like Livni's Kadima and Labor, headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, might push Netanyahu toward the middle, but it is unlikely he would agree to uproot Jewish settlements or cede partial control of Jerusalem -- both necessary for peace with the Palestinians. What Israelis want most from this election is quiet, said Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. "Israelis are overwhelmed by security pressures, by fear of the future, by a sense of unworthy leadership. Israelis look at the Middle East and feel the walls coming in, there are terrorist enclaves on our borders and we don't seem to have answers," he said. "We just fought a war that we won and even that war has not stopped the missiles from falling. So Israelis look around and say, 'No one can deliver peace, no one can deliver security, who can we depend on?'" More on Israel
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)