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On Wednesday, culminating a more than yearlong effort, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) outlawed fox and coyote pens, the gruesome practice of releasing a fox or coyote inside a pen to be chased and often torn apart by dogs. The Humane Society of the United States has long been campaigning to end this abusive practice, and we have made a major advance with the new policy in Florida that will save countless foxes and coyotes from this form of staged animal combat.
The process of “penning” begins with the trapping of wild foxes and coyotes. The animals are then packed into cramped cages and sometimes trucked long distances without food or water. When they reach their destination they are released one by one, bewildered, into an enclosure and forced to run for their lives. Dogs may chase the fenced-in wildlife for hours, to the point of exhaustion, but no matter the size of the enclosure there is no escape.
Georgia DNR
Judges score dogs on how relentlessly they pursue the captive animals. The “winner” is the dog who can stick to the prey the most often. The loser? The fox or coyote who is ripped to shreds or mauled to death.
In Florida, the Maines family spent more than a year painfully witnessing what went on in the fox pen next door to their house. They took photographs of dogs attacking a cornered coyote on Christmas Eve, and listened to the eerie sound of dogs killing animals in the murky depths of the pen. They then took their story to the Fish and Wildlife commissioners, sometimes driving 10 hours to testify about their heartbreak. They made a website, spoke to their legislators, purchased billboards, and quickly built a grassroots movement 3,000 people strong.
Backing up their story was the tireless work of FWC staff, who spent months investigating the illegal black market of trafficking foxes and coyotes and arrested 12 people for illegally buying dozens of animals to replace those killed by dogs.
Thousands of HSUS members also got involved. Some attended their first FWC meeting, others wrote letters to the editor, and the most dedicated traveled to shake their state representative’s hand for the first time and ask for help.
Through it all, the FWC commissioners listened with rapt attention and they inspired constituents with their interest in forging a solution to stop the cruelty within pens. In the end, they refused to continue the practice with useless regulation, summing it up perfectly when stating that they just couldn’t figure out how to find the right way to do a wrong practice.
In their unanimous decision, the Commission stopped a callous and cruel practice. They showed how hunters and non-hunters should be working together to ban every single fox pen in the country and showed the power of what happens when the good in all of us unites to stop the worst of what we can do to animals.
Now the other states that allow fox pens need to fall in line.
This post originally appeared on Pacelle’s blog, A Humane Nation.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A World of Sauces for Labor Day
Without labor nothing prospers. Sophocles
As Labor Day approaches, with the last big grilling feasts of the year, I can’t help but think about my favorite part of a mixed grill – the sauce you put on top! Every country seems to have its own take on this critical accompaniment and they’re all delicious. My dear friend Nestor Almendros, the great Cuban cameraman, used to tell me that the only reason I wanted to go to a Cuban restaurant was to eat the Argentinean chimichurri sauce which I managed to finish bowls of with the appetizers. And the Italians have their delicious green sauce or Salsa Verde which goes with meat or fish, depending on how you make it, and completes every platter of grilled food for my family. The French aioli is an acquired taste but if you are making bouillabaisse, there’s nothing like it. And here in the United States, we have an exhaustive list of barbeque grilling sauces. My family favored a Texas barbeque version that my mother said came from John Wayne’s recipe files. I don’t know about that, but it is mighty good.
Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I
thought you would I’d never leave. A. A. Milne
I’ve been told that I can’t get through one of these blogs without talking about someone I’ve lost in my life and it looks like this one is no exception. My father’s birthday was September 2nd so it often coincided with the Labor Day weekend and of course, there are lots of food memories from this time of year. Daddy loved lobster, so the traditional grill was accompanied by lobster which he consumed with a gusto and completeness that I have never seen before or since. No portion of that crustacean was left unappreciated. We also had to have chicken wings with that aforementioned Texas barbeque sauce. Again, my Dad could consume the entirety of a crispy chicken wing and I must say I have followed in his footsteps. Happy Birthday, Dad.
However, of all the sauces I’ve ever tried, my favorite is the one that our good friend George Duran, host of TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off and Food Network’s Ham on the Street, makes. George grew up in Venezuela where they make Guasacaca Sauce. It’s based on avocados and has the tangy addition of vinegar and the sweet addition of bell peppers. It’s incredibly easy to make and tastes great on absolutely everything – meat, fish, vegetables, corn, potatoes, and anything you put on the grill. I have to make double batches and everyone asks for the recipe. So this Labor Day, expand your menu and introduce your family and friends to George’s Guasacaca Sauce. They’ll be so glad!
This recipe and many other family and travel favorites are available on my website, DishandDine.com. Stop by and become part of our grass roots global food community!
George Duran’s Guasacaca Sauce
Description:
Here’s the plan: Get yourself invited to the next neighborhood barbecue. Make a batch of my guasacaca sauce and tell everyone to drizzle it over everything-meat, chicken, fish- even vegetables and potatoes! Bask in their immediate adulation, as you become a neighborhood hero! (Then tell everyone to buy my book.)
Servings: four to six
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 green sweet peppers, seeded, deveined, and roughly chopped
2 ripe avocados, peeled and seeded
2 cloves garlic
bunch fresh parsley leaves
bunch fresh cilantro leaves
cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
teaspoon black pepper
1 cup olive oil
Preparation:
Put everything except the olive oil into a food processor and process until mostly smooth. Add the olive oil in a stream with the processor running and process until smooth. Let stand at room temperature for at least 1 hour for the flavors to blend. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve sauce at room temperature with meats, fish, or vegetable chips. If made in advance, store, covered, in the refrigerator, but bring to room temperature before serving.
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The re-introduction of wolves in a US National Park has not helped re-establish quaking aspens, as many researchers had hoped.
Writing in the journal Ecology, a team of scientists found that wolves in Yellowstone Park were not deterring elk from eating young trees.
It had been assumed that the presence of wolves would create a “landscape of fear” and no-go areas for elk.
The team says more work must be done if the park's aspens are to be protected.
Writing in the Ecological Society of America's journal, the researchers added that conventional wisdom suggested that as the wolves were predators of the elk, the elk would eventually learn to avoid the high-risk areas in which wolves were found.
This would then allow plants in those areas – such as aspen – to grow without being eaten and, over the long-term, the habitat would be be able to regenerate.
“Predators indirectly influence plants in two main ways,” the team wrote. “By altering either the density or the foraging behaviour of the herbivores.”
Crying wolf
Since the early part of the 20th Century, wolves were removed from much of their natural range in North America as a result of hunting, which allowed elk numbers to increase.”The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone beginning in 1995 was heralded as a great success, not only because it re-established an extirpated species, but because it was expected to restore ecosystem function through cascading indirect effects on other species,” the researchers said.
While elk numbers did decline, the team concluded that there had not been a noticeable change in the foraging behaviour of the animals.
Lead author Matthew Kauffman – a US Geological Survey scientist – suggested the findings showed that claims of an ecosystem-wide recovery of aspen were premature.
“This study not only confirms that elk are responsible for the decline of aspen in Yellowstone beginning in the 1890s, but also that none of the aspen groves studied after wolf restoration (in the mid-1990s) appear to be regenerating, even in areas risky to elk,” Dr Kauffman explained.
Because the “landscape of fear” idea did not appear to be benefiting aspen, the team concluded that if the Northern Range elk population did not continue to decline (their numbers are 40% of what they were before wolves were re-introduced), many of Yellowstone's aspen stands were unlikely to recover.
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is a native species to North America, and its common name is derived from the leaves “quaking” in the slightest breeze, as a result of the species' flattened leaf stalk.
The species is credited with being among the oldest and heaviest land organisms because it propagates primarily via root sprouts, forming extensive clonal colonies.
However, there has been a marked die-back of many aspen groves, which have been attributed to overgrazing – especially in highland areas where grass is in limited supply for animals such as cattle and elk.
Another theory suggests that wildlife suppression policies could be limiting new growth, as the species is a fast-growing tree that is able to capitalise on the open space created by natural fires.
But Dr Kauffman observed: “A landscape-level aspen recovery is likely only to occur if wolves, in combination with other predators and climate factors, further reduce the elk population.”

Source:BBC

“An economic policy which does not consider the well-being of all will not serve the purposes of peace and the growth of well-being among the people of all nations.”(Eleanor Roosevelt)
In case you are tempted to feel sorry during these troubled times for the corporatocracy . . . this just in:
The CEOs who fired the most workers during the current economic recession also rewarded themselves with the highest pay. Top managers at the fifty corporations with the greatest number of layoffs were paid an average of $12 million in salary, bonuses and other perks — 42 percent more than the average for the Standard & Poor’s 500. To make matters worst, at most of these companies – a whopping 72 percent in fact – layoffs were announced at a time when earnings were increasing. This according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies that covered the period from November 2008 to April 2010.
Isn’t it comforting to know that while you and I are experiencing the worst economy we’ve seen in our life-times, with jobless claims rising to 500,000, the CEOs are thriving? They are purchasing luxury cars, yachts, new homes, and even buying off foreclosed properties at fire-sale prices. Perhaps we should sleep better at night knowing that they are working so hard to offset their ruthless firings of employees by trying to revive the Rolls Royce dealerships and mortgage companies!
Not only are some of the world’s richest CEOs getting richer off the backs of laid off employees, but they’re doing it at the same time profits rise and shareholder cigars are lit with martinis in hand celebrating the companies continued reign of predatory capitalism. These same 50 top layoff leaders’ companies also enjoyed a 44% average profit increase in 2009. And many of them paid little or no taxes (e.g. Exxon, with over $45 billion in profits, recorded no U.S. income taxes and GE generated $10 billion in pretax income and took a tax BENEFIT of $1.1 billion).
I have to admit that I was never terribly enamored with Karl Marx. When I was a young man, many of my peers called on his writings to justify taking to the streets against the Vietnam war, but I – a business student – saw that war more as an excuse for the military-industrial complex to get rich than as a class struggle. Now, however, I have to suspect that Marx was wiser than I used to believe. In fact, the Institute for Policy Studies report estimates that CEOs in the U.S.’s largest publicly traded corporations earn an average compensation 263 times higher than the typical American production worker. Sounds like the exact situation Marx warned us about!
The study cites some very telling specific examples. Among them:
- Wal-Mart’s CEO Michael Duke laid off 13,350 workers and earned almost 20 million for his trouble;
- The now disgraced Mark Hurd of HP managed to reduce his work force by 6400 and still earn $24.2 million;
- AMEX’s Kenneth Chenault earned $16.8 million while American Express laid off 4,000 employees accepted $3.39 billion in TARP funding;
- Intel Corp’s Paul Otellini trimmed about 5,000 jobs and received $14.4 million in compensation.
The report notes, “The $598 million combined compensation of the top 50 CEOs in our layoff leader survey could provide average unemployment benefits to 37,579 workers for an entire year – or nearly a month of benefits for each of the 531,363 workers their companies laid off.”
As I wrote in Hoodwinked, “When we examine the state of our economy – the shortage of businesses that produce real things that people need, the huge gap between rich and poor, the current national debt, and the exploitation of the many by a very few – we see a profile similar to that in the Third World.”
Our overall standards may be higher than in the Third Word; however, in relative terms the similarities are shocking. And each year, in fact each quarter, with every new report, the situation grows worse. The sad fact is that the rich get richer and the middle class is disappearing.
Some of the most shocking statistics that highlight the discrepancies are those around hunger. While the CEOs feast on caviar, nearly 17 million, or almost 1 in 4, American children are at risk of hunger. Those hungry children are the victims of bloated, unregulated, corporate Robber Barons who lay off workers (parents) for bottom line greed.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
You and I can change the future for the better by taking action now. Demanding accountability and regulations that protect workers and stop the excessive payouts, golden parachutes and layoffs. A list of the companies is available at
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2010 .
Please send emails to every company on that list that you patronize or are temped to patronize and tell them the you will NOT buy from them until they change their ways, until their executives are willing to reduce their compensation and hire back those fired workers. Only through expressing our discontent will we make a difference!
We must demand a completely new economic policy that benefits all not just the wealthiest in our country. It is up to you and me!

Follow John Perkins on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Churches — and their denominations — can be hotbeds of controversy. In these times of troubling differences on fundamental issues involving faith, theology, and life, there’s no telling how people who disagree will treat each other.
Some years ago I attended a denominational convention whose leaders were struggling with the issue of how, or whether, to welcome gays and lesbians into their churches and include them in their leadership. The lines were clearly drawn; the debate was strong but mannered.
I’ve been a part of a congregation that wrestled with the same issues many years ago, leading ultimately to a painful split. This was particularly grievous to me, not only because folks on both sides of the issue were dear friends, but because one of the aspects of that church that drew me into its fellowship was the fact that people with a variety of views could still come together in love around the communion table.
Your faith group may be grappling with some other issue. Maybe it’s about political issues, worship styles, or other doctrines that are causing division and discord.
During such times, God invites us to accept other believers with whom we disagree. The Apostle Paul wrote:
Let that sink in. It’s pretty basic stuff:
Welcome authentically and fully those with whom you disagree.
Don’t jump down their throats when they say something you don’t agree with.
Realize that they’ve come to their views as a result of their own history — just as you have.
Treat them gently.
Perhaps your disagreement is not theological — it might be a decision someone has made that you think is unwise. By all means, share your views with that person, but do it gently and lovingly.
This is not an easy assignment. When we feel that what we believe is right, it’s very difficult to accept the right of others to disagree.
Of course, there is a limit. To allow grievous injustice to oppressed and powerless persons to continue is not an option for any follower of God.
Even so, God beckons us to converse with believers with whom we disagree, to be in community with them, to interact with mutual respect and tolerance, to embrace them in genuine fellowship marked by gentleness and sensitivity.
Out of that kind of relationship in community, things happen. God can work. The Spirit can change hearts and minds. And we can honor and serve God together.
Is it possible? Yes. The God who invites us into this sort of dialogue is able to give the strength and guidance to make it so.
But it begins with our decision to be in community.

Follow Rev. Peter M. Wallace on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/pwallace

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

With the advent of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), there was hope that for once and for all the debate over who is the best Division I football program could be settled year in and year out. We all know that despite the best intentions and the lack of a real playoff system, that has not yet happened. Now whether or not that debate over the BCS Championship is healthy and drives even more buzz is one issue, but the fact remains that sans a playoff system the question still lingers. That of course is not true in any other NCAA sport, where season-ending championships are the rule not the exception. We know who wins March Madness, the College World Series, the Frozen Four, the NCAA Wrestling Championships etc etc. No doubt, it is out there for everyone to see.
However like the BCS, there would or could be some debate as to which overall school, at least on the Division I level, is the best at college athletics. For years quantity — the schools that had twenty or more sports — seemed to rise over quality. While there is no doubt that the real reason intercollegiate athletics should exist is to grow the overall student-athlete for success later in life in whatever field, there is still an interest to find a way to see which university is actually getting a return on the field as well as in the classroom for the dollars and time invested.
So along comes NCAA partner Capital One, with a solution to find a way to answer which school is best in show across athletics. This past week at a news conference in Manhattan, the brand joined with a team of former NCAA athletes of various renown to unveil the Capital One Cup, which will be awarded to the top men’s and women’s Division I programs based on cumulative on-field performance across multiple sports. According to the plan, colleges will earn points based on their teams’ top-10 finishes and in final official coaches’ polls in 13 men’s and women’s sports, including cross-country, golf and tennis for men, and volleyball, softball and rowing for women.
Official standings will be released at the end of the fall, winter and spring athletic seasons. In July, the two athletic programs with the highest aggregated point totals will be announced as winners. Each university will be presented with a trophy, along with a $200,000 scholarship donation from Capital One, at the ESPY Awards.
The athletes, all of whom have not only achieved onfield success but garner a bit of a Q rating, ranged from former NFL and Boston College quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie and CBS announcer and former NCAA star Clark Kellogg, to Olympians like Lisa Leslie and Brandi Chastain, will also take an active part in bringing awareness to the cup throughout the calendar year, in the form of media appearances, commentary and perhaps promotions, all designed to make sure that a large swath of schools know the process, the levels for success and the upside from working together.
It also helps to have media partners like CBS Sports and ESPN on board to help generate awareness through their extensive on site activation programs across the seasons, a great compliment to the vast dollars Capital One already spends to build their own brand in a consumer market that is constantly looking for a diverse for of ROI and ways to cut through the clutter.
Maybe some critics will say this type of program is not needed, as it will ultimately reward the most elite of schools who can consistently put dollars back into a wide variety of athletic competitions. It is hard to see even a school like Boise State, who has cut through the clutter of football success, or Gonzaga, a powerhouse in hoops, be able to hoist the trophy because the dollars for recruiting are just not there across the board. Some may also say this is a program which again sets the public schools apart from the private ones, which unless you are Stanford, Notre Dame, Boston College or maybe Northwestern, means the closest you get to the cup is on a big screen TV.
Maybe that is true in some aspects, but what the cup does is bring clarity to a cluttered system, helps an NCAA partner grow its brand, gets some ancillary and much needed scholarship money into the system, and really brings some added value, even at the most elite of athletically successful universities, to those programs which usually shine away from the bright spotlights of hoops and football. It links revenue sports with non-revenue sports and helps gain buzz for all, and hopefully additional school spirit as well.
Could this be the start of something bigger, and pull in other divisions at some point? Maybe. What it is is a good start. Well thought out, multilayered and promotable program that is easy to explain to consumers and participants in a business where simple can often get lost in a morass of buzz for the sake of buzz.
Will the Capital One Cup take on the significance of long retired trophies like the Lambert Cup (which rewarded excellence for eastern college supremacy at one point)? Maybe. It certainly has the media and national cache to help it grow and maybe it’s time has come.

Follow Joe Favorito on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I find it highly amusing to keep hearing the leaders of Tea Party America hold up Western European Social Democracy as the type of society we must avoid becoming at all costs. What is it, exactly, they find so horrific? The universal health care? The excellent public transportation? Four weeks of vacation a year? True, Europeans don’t go to church as much as they do in Texas, but denouncing them as Godless probably has more to with the fact that they worship soccer. Who but atheists could love such a non-violent sport?
It’s doubtful most evangelicals even think Catholics are true Christians, much less could tell you where the Vatican is. In fact, I would bet everything I own that upwards of 80% of the types selling “Yup, I’m a racist” t-shirts at Liberty rallies have never even been to Europe, much less lived there. Xenophobes aren’t afraid of Xenon — they’re afraid of everything foreign, i.e. unfamiliar. And that starts with language.
My mother is French, I learned it quite well over several summers and three semesters there. I took every course I could fit in to pick up Spanish and Italian, with some grounding in Latin and two semesters of German for variety. I edit film subtitles for a living. I’d feel very comfortable in Switzerland, but I certainly wouldn’t be an oddity there. Here, not so much.
Among other things, my lucky linguistic legacy has left me thoroughly unintimidated at the idea of learning a foreign language, and has sensitized me to what a rare sentiment that is. Virtually everybody has taken at least a stab at a foreign language in high school, and the inability to remember any more than a phrase or two, if that, leaves a lot of people feeling stupid. It’s not too different from math — if there was a country called Arithmetica there’d probably be a lot of resentment against that too.
This feeling of inadequacy in those who have always lived within borders and never across them has fed immeasurably into the current wave of nationalism, xenophobia, and rabid anti-intellectualism. It foments such phenomena as sneering at President Obama’s Ivy League smarts and imagining Hawaii is a foreign country. This attitude goes hand in hand with the elevation of all pursuits that don’t require much exertion of the gray matter, i.e., guns, football, church, shopping and watching TV. The ultimate manifestation of this thinking-phobia is a dumbing down of textbooks and a slavishly literal interpretation of the Bible. Anything to increase the possibility that “just folks” will feel accomplished instead of ignorant.
This would be fairly harmless provincialism but for some very toxic effects. When Birther Bob goes to Target and hears Consuela arguing with Raul, he feels excluded. He even wonders if they’re talking about him instead of the price of toilet paper. Likewise, when Baptist Betty has zero understanding that Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, much less any capacity to find it on the map, then it becomes woefully easy for her to imagine that “30% of all Muslims are terrorists” — as a Tennessee mosque opponent insisted to Aasif Mandvi on The Daily Show.
Beck’s “I am a Nightmare” rally might as well have been called the “Million Fear March.” And yet it is we who watched who had reason to be most afraid. They don’t want their country “back.” They want it backwards.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

News came this morning that the U.S. unemployment rate increased in August, to 9.6 from 9.5 percent in July. The job loss was less than Wall Street had predicted.
With the announcement came the good news that 67,000 new jobs were added to the private sector, including 28,000 in health care, 17,000 in business services and 19,000 in the construction industry. At the same time, the federal government laid off 110,000 workers, many of whom were hired for the census, trimming public spending.
This growing number of private sector jobs and the cutback of the federal workforce is exactly what the GOP/Tea Party has been demanding. But you would never know it from the instant response of the Fox media axis setting the agenda these days for GOP/Tea Party followers. The headline in Glenn Beck’s aptly named new “news site,” “The Blaze” shouted: “Wrong Way for Labor Day”:
Fox followed suit, burying any positive news in their story, “Jobless Rate Rises, Republicans Press Obama to ‘Change Course’”:
Only Lucia Mutikani at Reuters was evident first thing this morning in offering the good news that:
with the caveat that “. . . the data will likely do little to take the political heat off President Barack Obama over his handling of the economy or improve the Democratic Party’s chances in November’s mid-term congressional elections.”
After nearly two years where the Obama administration demonstrated its preference for building consensus over getting effective legislation passed, there are many who hope that the administration has learned the lesson that short of leaving office, there is nothing President Obama can do to please the GOP/Tea Party. And while there may not be an opportunity to get major legislation passed before the November elections, the Obama administration certainly has the opportunity to “seize the narrative” of such important national issues as the economy, health care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and religious and racial tolerance.
With just 60 days until the November 2, 2010 elections, they need to start now, or else suffer the Fox and Beck headlines on November 3rd.

Follow Bill Lichtenstein on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Blogging in from Oxford, England from the Compassionate Conservation Conference- a ground-breaking International Symposium on animal welfare in conservation practice. The Symposium, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and the Born Free Foundation, has brought together scientists and practitioners from a range of disciplines to debate animal welfare issues in conservation, look for practical outcomes and promote a dialogue between the two disciplines that are often perceived as mutually exclusive
The Symposium is organized around the following themes:
Animal welfare in field conservation
Captive animal welfare and conservation
Conservation consequences of wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release
International trade in live wild animals
Here with me is my colleague, good friend, and Project Coyote Advisory Board member, Dr. Marc Bekoff who addressed some challenging ethical questions around reintroduction and conservation projects in his keynote address including:
Should we kill for conservation?
What trade-offs must be made between ethics and conservation goals?
Can conservation biologists do good science – save individuals, species, and ecosystems – and also be compassionate?
What role does sentience play in our decisions?
Representing both Project Coyote and the Animal Welfare Institute, I ( http://www.projectcoyote.org/contact.html#camilla) spoke about predator management in the United States and why we need to move away from indiscriminate killing methods like poisons, snaring, and aerial gunning and recognize the important role that native carnivores play in healthy ecosystems. I also discussed an alternative model that we created in my home county in Marin Co, California ~ known as the Marin County Livestock and Wildlife Protection Program ~ that assists ranchers with implementing non-lethal animal husbandry techniques instead of killing native carnivores with taxpayer subsidized trappers through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program.
It is refreshing to see these challenging issues- how we balance conservation with the needs and lives of individual animals- debated in an international forum with some of the brightest thinkers and visionaries of our time. It is my hope that out of this symposium there will be more collaboration between conservationists and animal welfare advocates where we can identify common ground.
For more information about this conference and related issues:
Compassionate Conservation Finally Comes of Age: Killing in the name of conservation doesn’t work: Ethics must be firmly implanted in conservation biology
By Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today
First do no harm ~ In putting conservation into practice, we often cause great suffering to animals. Marc Bekoff argues that we need a new ethical perspective
By Marc Bekoff, New Scientist
Animal-welfare needs to go wild say Raincoast scientists- http://www.raincoast.org/media/announcements/animal-welfare-needs-to-go-wild-says-raincoast-scientists/
Raincoast Conservation Foundation
Project Coyote

Follow Camilla Fox on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/projectcoyote

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When entrepreneur Juan Diego Calle asked the Colombian government to let him sell their Internet real-estate, he knew it was a long shot. The Harvard-educated Colombian native was battling over only two letters of the alphabet, but his request was tall: Let me commercialize the nation’s Internet identity.
Juan Diego Calle
A top-level domain, or TLD, is the letter combination that comes after the final dot in a website address; .com – meaning “commercial” – is the most common. Most countries get their own TLD (For example Mexico is .mx; Australia is .au). Some TLDs, such as the islands of Tuvalu’s .tv or Montenegro’s .me, double as convenient English words or abbreviations, making them desirable electronic real-estate. Domains cost anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred, depending on who’s in charge; in secondary markets, valuable domain names can sell for hundreds of thousands.
Colombia was fortunate to own .co, but for years it had effectively prevented anyone from registering anything. Between “corporation,” “company,” and “commercial,” entrepreneurs could almost smell the money “.co” could bring in if unleashed to the hungry Web.
So, in 2006, when Colombia passed a law giving its Ministry of Communications regulatory oversight of the .co TLD, a change in policy appeared imminent. Internet companies began petitioning the ministry to let them manage the TLD.
A serial entrepreneur from a young age, Calle started a stereo installation business as a teenager. At age 22 he founded TeRespondo, an Internet search advertising network for Latin America, which he sold to Yahoo in 2005. Calle then went to business school and started a “virtual real-estate” company called STRAAT investments. When Colombia shifted .co responsibilities in 2006, Calle began positioning himself to become a contender for the TLD management rights.
Calle, now 32 years old, was clearly an underdog in the bid war against companies like the $1.5 billion Verisign, which owns the rights to .com and .net. He assembled a team under a joint venture called .CO Internet SAS. In August 2009 they presented the Ministry with 1,165 pages explaining why Calle’s team was right for the job, and then they crossed their fingers.
In February 2010, despite Verisign and the rest, the bureaucracy gave Calle – the local man – the contract. “Considering the caliber of companies that participated in the process and the opportunity to do something that would have a global impact on the internet, winning the bid was a surreal experience,” Calle says.
“Part of our competitive advantage was the strong sense of national pride that fueled our team to work night and day to win the bid,” says Lori Anne Wardi, Director of .CO Internet, “and to prepare a bid package and business plan that treated the .co domain as a valuable national asset and symbol of national pride – the export of which would only reflect positively on Colombia.”
Calle’s biggest concern after winning the contract was that nobody would actually buy the domains. Another was that spammy websites would buy .co domains hoping to capitalize on typos or to commit fraud.
Some businesses have complained that .co is another way for “domain squatters” to harm companies by buying domains for the sole purpose of selling them at an inflated price. However, according to the domain parking site Sedo, only 0.001% of parked (squatted) domains get 10 or more unique visitors a day. The vast majority of Internet users use search rather than typing in domains. Even if 5% of type-in traffic (an implausibly high amount) were to mistype .com as .co, most companies would lose only a tiny fraction of potential visits each year if squatters bought their brand’s corresponding .co domain.
To combat squatters and assuage fears, Calle’s team began a marketing campaign that involved giving away some of the most valuable .co domains to the top 100 world brands, and letting entrepreneurs with great ideas register before anyone else. Though some companies have expressed annoyance at having to buy the $29-a-year .co version of their domain in order to “protect” their brand, for only about $2.50 a month, many of them did it anyway. (Of the revenue generated by .CO Internet SAS in domain sales, Colombia itself takes an average of 25%.).
As a result of .co’s multi-phase rollout, companies like Twitter (t.co), Politico (politi.co), Overstock (o.co), and VentureHacks (angel.co) began spreading the word and lending credibility to the TLD. Even before .co’s general availability, 39,000 domain applications were recorded.
On launch day, Calle and company still had their fingers crossed. One minute after opening the floodgates on July 20, 2010, people had registered 8,000 domains.
By 22 minutes, more 100,000 domains had been registered. After 24 hours, 233,000 domains. By the end of week one, 336,160 domains.
Six months after winning the Colombian Ministry of Communication’s blessing, Calle is now an Internet real-estate mogul, with 469,519 domains sold, and counting. He has some catching up to do in order to compete with the 90-some million .coms out there, but Calle and his team say they’re “thrilled” by the response to .co so far. The next step: keep “inspiring startups” to “create a future on their own little slice of the Internet.”
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Shane Snow is a writer and web entrepreneur in New York City. He runs the online printing comparison site PrintingChoice.com and draws financial infographics for the CreditLoan network.

Follow Shane Snow on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/shanesnow

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I’m going to just steal a line from their bio, their track “Let’s Go Surfing” features the best whistling in a song since the infectious Peter, Bjorn & John recent classic “Young Folks.” But, there’s more to this indie-pop-rock New York band than blowing air choruses. Thank goodness. Imagine if whistling was their only gimmick.
The Drums are a buzzworthy band who share a similar 80s new wave vibe with fellow indie-buzz band Surfer Blood, whom they’re fittingly on the road with. The band, whose brand of electro-pop has brought them many fans in New York City alone, just released their debut album and are committed to tour way through 2011. (On a related note, they just covered Arcade Fire’s “We Used To Wait,” and it’s kick ass.)
I spoke with the band’s frontman Jonny Pierce the other day, and asked him about touring, and forming the band, which it so happens he did with his best friend Jacob Graham, a guitarist he met in summer camp (guitarist Adam Kessler and drummer Connor Hanwick joined the band in 2008). Oh, I also asked him about Wilson Phillips. Deal with it.
Where are you guys from originally?
Well, Adam and I grew up in a small farm town in upstate New York called Horseheads. Jacob grew up in Ohio and then moved to Florida when he was young, and Connor was born in NYC. As far as the band goes… I was living in NYC and decided to move to move to Florida to start the band with Jacob who was living in a small apartment off the highway, just outside of Kissimmee. It was there that we wrote our Summertime EP and most of our debut full length.
As soon as we thought we had something special, we moved to NYC to turn The Drums from just a “project” to a four-piece band. We like to consider ourselves a New York-band.
How would you describe your sound? Who are your influences?
Well, any song that you ever hear from us is completely self produced, and honestly, I have no idea how to produce really. I just do my best. We really just consider ourselves a pop band. Our greatest passion is writing simple pop songs. Our sound is very stripped down. We aren’t really interested in being excessive in any way. So if you are looking for experimental, cutting edge, trendy stuff, I guess we aren’t the band for you.
While your tone is pop happy sometimes the content contradicts the sound, is that a conscious decision?
No, it just happens that way. Maybe in a sub-conscious way I am balancing the two emotions. I don’t think it is possible for me to write a happy song and be sincere about it. I am too miserable of a person I think. Happy music is for children, anyhow. Once you are a teenager, and have any brains at all, the world becomes darker and there is no use in fighting against it. I actually find the music we make to sound sad, but maybe that’s because I am writing it. Maybe it’s true that from the outside, the music translates as happy. I don’t know.
It does. You’re touring with like-sounding group Surfer Blood, how’s it going on the road with those guys?
I don’t know how like-sounding they are to us, I mean they kinda sound like Weezer, and I don’t think we sound like that at all. We use really sad chord changes, where I find their approach to be much less melancholy and just more fun maybe? Anyhow we have a history with those boys. Jacob has known them for years, seeing that they were all friends in Florida. We are looking forward to the tour, I mean, it’s our first proper American tour, and while we have run into them frequently on the summer festival circuit all over the world, it will be a cool thing to spend two months with them on our home turf.
Totes McGotes. What’s the songwriting process like for you?
Well, I won’t record anything unless it feels very natural, so sometimes I have to wait a month or two until a song is literally forcing itself on me, then I find some time and quickly record the song — usually in one days time. I think good pop should not sound labored over. It should feel very organic. If I hit a snag, I usually just throw the whole song out. As far as recording, we record every song with the same instruments: an off brand guitar we found lying around while we were in Florida, an old Roland synthesizer that Jacob has had since he was just a kid, a reverb machine a friend gave me, and a thirty-five dollar microphone from Radio Shack. We do it all in my apartment in Brooklyn.
Band name is so vital. Why The Drums?
Well, the name is really the cornerstone of the band, I suppose. I would like to think that everything we create from the artwork to the music videos to the songs are all a reflection of the name. Simple with a lot of nostalgia. And honestly, we just thought it sounded cool.
Can you appreciate a good Wilson Phillips tune like I can?
I really like anything that feels pure. Sincerity is greater and much more interesting than perfection is. In the case of Wilson Phillips, I must say there is a side of me that loves it. It’s actually very strange that you brought them up because about a week ago, Connor started playing them on the road and I’ve gotta say, there’s something unexplainable about them. I mean, they kind of sound like the bullshit Christian music I was exposed to as a kid, but it also sounds like pre-fab Sprout but a little more commercial. I don’t know — strange question. I guess it’s more nostalgic than anything else, and that is comforting, I guess.
Have you started forming groupies? If so, how do you know?
There are kids that travel for hours to come to our shows, and kids that bring us gifts and all that. But we aren’t really that kind of band I don’t think. I guess we have some super-fans, but we try to really just focus on being creative and keeping things pure.
Are you perfectionists or can you take in pure joy from your successes and/or album ?
Well, I don’t think anything we ever do is “perfect”, but we strive to do the best we can at whatever we are doing, and yes, we all love our debut album. It really is a wonder anyone even knows it exists. When we started writing songs, we had never played guitars before and thought that we would be the only ones who ever gave a fuck, but apparently we were wrong and I guess it gave us a degree of hope that we had been needing for quite some time. So thank you for that, world.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Respected polling now indicates that cancer survivor Dilma Rousseff of the Worker’s Party will likely be voted Brazil’s first woman president next month. But election season debate over American-style affirmative action quotas is stretching the nation’s social fabric and could spell trouble down the road for Dilma, who until resigning to run for high office, served as president Lula’s chief of staff.
With the BBC tagging Brazil as the world’s second largest black population after Nigeria, educators and jurists from the mostly non-black political class are questioning programs for people who claim to be descendants of African slaves but fail to create enough equal opportunity private sector jobs to employ them.
It’s another reminder of how efforts to globalize the U.S. model of social organization by race can cause the fragmentation of national identity in a regional power like Brazil, where futebol is the national sport, samba is the national music and “order and progress” and “one nation for everybody” are the national mottos. The american concept of “black” is not used in Brazilian Portuguese in connection with race, as in black America, black power, black enterprise; the operative word is negro.
Considering economy minister Guido Mantega’s prediction that a new government stimulus plan, which Dilma helped craft, will churn out an annual five percent rate of growth through 2014 one would think that Afro-Brazilians would have little difficulty landing high wage jobs. But many global companies in Brazil work around affirmative action by doing the bare minimum to avoid government penalties and then engage workers willing to opt in as units of human capital much like the contract labor from Europe and Japan that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.
Use of human capital, like cloud computing, enables firms to avoid investing in costly manpower and infrastructure by drawing on service providers only as needed. This is hardly the affirmative action opportunity Brazil’s university educated Yanomami Indians living in the Amazon high tech zone or Afro-Brazilians seeking careers in intellectual property, business incubation, venture capital and project management at the government’s new Bahia Techno Center can raise their families on.
While Latin governments and organizations sponsored by the Roman Catholic church are still sorting out human rights issues associated with repressive military regimes, they are quick to forget that the concept of human capital, which treats people as a means of production rather than human beings with equal rights, was a component of the free market “Chicago school” of economics during the US-backed military juntas in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.
Ironically presidential candidate Jose Serra of the neoconservative Social Democrats learned Chicago economics in dictator Pinochet’s Chile, where he thought exile was a more favorable alternative to the military regime in power back home across the Andes in Brazil. On the campaign trail Serra has said little on matters relating to affirmative action preferring to go negative on Dilma, recycling old allegations linking her to drug dealers and the FARC. Even though Serra is Latin America’s top technocrat, the lack of charisma that caused him to lose to Lula in the 2002 presidential race is again a factor this go-round and he has already gone public blaming his party and advisers for crafting a bad campaign strategy.
Marina Silva, the Green Party presidential candidate who identifies herself as an Afro-Brazilian has distanced herself from the affirmative action conversation as well. Marina, who defected from the Worker’s Party after resigning as president Lula’s environment minister, was tagged by pundits early on in the campaign as a spoiler candidate who could take away enough female votes from Dilma to send presidential voting into a second round. But Marina’s platform has more to do with cutting back social programs and restricting a woman’s right to abortion than providing clean drinking water and stopping the flooding and forest fires that are relocating hundreds of thousands of economically disadvantaged Brazilians and has drawn support away from herself and Serra.
Dilma is banking on the political capital generated by the 20 visits Lula made to African nations she took part in as a basis for growing of the government’s south-south economic cooperation plan.
It took nearly two centuries of American democracy to produce LBJ’s “Great Society.” But affirmative action spawned half a century ago doesn’t play in Peoria anymore because economic changes brought on by globalism have rendered it obsolete.
And it doesn’t play in Brazil- where the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Economics lists over 40 categories of people based on skin color — either. In his book Brazil Second Way, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, who served president Lula as minister for planning and development, characterized this type of national project for strengthening Brazil’s young democracy as being “too expensive, too restrictive and too unfair.” One reason perhaps that he has returned to academic life; his former student at Harvard, Barack Obama, meanwhile, currently serves president of the United States.
Unger has called for Brazil to think outside the box and find new ways to empower favela and rain forest kids so that they don’t lose human dignity and default to becoming just human capital. If that doesn’t happen, high wage jobs that can help break the pathology of underdevelopment will remain the realm of the white and pardo (mixed) elites and the idea of one nation for everybody will just be another public service ad on the Rio Metro.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The following is a personal appeal by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khmene’i, to show Islamic compassion during Ramadan, the month of fasting, and free the three young American hikers who have been held in Iran for over a year. The appeal comes in advance of the Night of Power, which falls in the last days of the month. It is the time when Muslims are called to show special mercy and kindness. Ambassador Ahmed delivered this appeal, the first on behalf of the hikers by an Islamic scholar, to the senior most Iranian diplomat in Washington, D.C. last week.
The following is the text of the letter:
August 27, 2010
Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Khmene’i
Tehran, Iran
As-Salamu Alaykum and Ramadan Kareem, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khmene’i,
Let me introduce myself. I am Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington D.C. and the former High Commissioner from Pakistan to the United Kingdom. For the past three decades, and especially since 9/11, I have been heavily involved in promoting dialogue and understanding between the Muslim world and the West. One of my challenges has always been to convey the Islam that I know, consistently and publicly telling non-Muslims that God’s two greatest attributes in the Quran are Rahman and Rahim–compassion and mercy. It is with these two attributes in mind that I appeal to you now.
When the blessed month of Ramadan began, I received a letter from Laura Fattal, the mother of one of the three young American hikers currently detained in Iran. Ever since this episode involving their children began, the families have experienced constant pain and anguish. They decided to reach out to me, the first Islamic scholar to whom they have turned.
The Iranian government has stated that Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd crossed the Iranian border while on a hiking trip in Iraqi Kurdistan on the last day of July 2009; and they may have. All former top students at the University of California, Berkeley, these are the best and the brightest of America, much like the American students I have had the pleasure of having in my classes. But I know that sometimes young people do things that land them in trouble, and travel to places they should not go.
After listening to the pleas of the families, who poured their hearts out to me, I believe these young people did not set out to cause any problems or tension between the U.S. and Muslim world or the U.S. and Iran, but had the opposite intent. They were committed to dialogue, understanding, and making the world a better place. The day after 9/11, Shane, who would major in Peace and Conflict Studies at Berkeley, decided he would do all he could to improve relations with the Muslim world. He moved to Damascus both to write stories that promoted justice and empathy for those of cultures different from his own and to take photographs to convey personal stories. The woman with whom he is engaged to be married, Sarah, lived in Damascus and worked with Iraqi refugees, teaching them English and helping them enroll in American universities, at the same time she was enrolled at the University of Damascus learning Arabic. Sarah also wrote many articles, which often focused on the plight of women and the many souls affected by war and upheaval in the region. Their friend Josh, concerned about the environment and public health, worked as a teaching fellow with the International Honors Program in Boston, officially traveling to countries in Asia and Africa as part of a group of faculty and students. He lived with families to learn more about the challenges they face in attaining health services and was planning to begin graduate studies. Though not Muslim, all three were living the directive of God in the Holy Quran: “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other).”
These young Americans are driven by the example of their Founding Fathers of the United States, who had the highest respect for Islam. John Adams, the second president of the United States, called the Holy Prophet of Islam, Peace Be Upon Him, one of the greatest truth-seekers in history. Benjamin Franklin, America’s great philosopher, called the Holy Prophet of Islam, Peace Be Upon Him, a model of compassion. Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president and author of its Declaration of Independence, owned and honored the Holy Quran, which informed him to host the first iftar at the White House. George Washington, the first president of the United States, who Americans revere as the “father of the country,” stretched his hand of friendship to Muslims around the world, welcoming them to America.
As someone dedicated to helping alleviate the suffering of all humanity, whatever their cultural or religious background, I am concerned about the mental and physical well-being of these young people. All are at risk for permanent psychological damage due to their isolation in solitary confinement. They cannot speak Farsi, apart from requesting to be led to the bathroom blindfolded.
For over a year Sarah has lived alone in a prison cell for 23 hours a day. She also may have cancer. Sarah has a precancerous cervix, which requires treatment every three months. She has been taken out of prison once for testing, but the results have not been released. In addition, Sarah has discovered a lump in her breast which demands immediate attention. Besides being potentially afflicted with cancer at such a young age, Sarah is also clinically depressed. Shane has severe stomach problems, which could include hemorrhaging.
This ordeal has also greatly affected the families of those involved, all of whose lives have fallen apart. All three mothers have stopped working. Shane’s mother has shut down the business she had for 18 years and is worried that if Sarah does not get urgent medical care she and Shane will be unable to have children, in addition to her life being in danger. Sarah’s mother, who lives alone on disability insurance and is in a great deal of financial hardship, is in desperate need of major abdominal surgery, and has had to be rushed to the emergency room numerous times over the last year. Yet she feels that she cannot bear to undergo the surgery without her daughter present. Aside from one short meeting and one brief phone call in the case of Josh and Shane and two for Sarah, the mothers have had no contact with their children. They write them letters every day but have received none back. All the mothers have trouble sleeping, and when they do, they have nightmares.
Other family members are also suffering. Shane’s two younger sisters are traumatized, with the youngest feeling unable to begin university last year and the eldest developing a stress-induced thyroid disease. Josh’s older brother has taken a leave of absence from his Harvard doctoral studies, and the aging grandparents of all three have been hit particularly hard.
I can assure you that I have not been asked by any government or private agency to initiate this letter. I am acting purely out of compassion after hearing the stories of the families. I am a father and a grandfather so I know how parents love and feel for their children.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khmene’i, in the name of God, the most Compassionate and the most Merciful, I appeal to you as an esteemed scholar and religious leader to show compassion and mercy to these young people and their families.
I ask this in the spirit of your noble ancestor, and our beloved Holy Prophet of Islam, Peace Be Upon Him, who is described in the Holy Quran as a “mercy unto mankind.” Your great namesake Hazrat Ali was renowned for both his wisdom and his kindness to all. As Laylat al-Qadr, or the Night of Power, approaches in this blessed month of Ramadan, it befits all of us to remember these great examples. We know that on this sacred night, the gates of heaven are open and God blesses us with his special mercy. I pray to God that you will respond in the spirit in which this letter was written, as one Muslim appealing from his heart to another Muslim. I am prepared to travel to Iran to meet with you in order to help end the suffering and anguish of all concerned.
With high regards and high expectations,
Professor Akbar Ahmed
Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies
American University
Washington, D. C.
Cross Posted at the Washington Post’s On Faith

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

BP has removed the blowout preventer that should have stopped oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico when a drilling rig exploded in April.
The 300-ton device will be examined as part of the inquiry into the leak of 206m gallons of oil into the Gulf.
The company said it had spent 8bn (5.2bn) in clean-up costs and compensation to Gulf residents.
Meanwhile, BP have said a ban on offshore oil drilling may impede its ability to pay for the damage.

“Existential threat” recently entered the political lexicon, courtesy of Israeli paranoia. The expression sounds portentous, but all it seems to mean is that someone’s or something’s existence is in jeopardy. If so, the world is full of existential threats. But the expression is seldom used to refer to any of them except when the threatened party is Israel. Thus Iran’s still “aspirational” nuclear weapons program or, sometimes Iran itself are existential threats and so is Palestinian “terrorism.” An existential threat makes an excellent casus belli, a justification for war.
It is unclear, however what users of the expression think is threatened: is it the existence of the state of Israel as a state not of its citizens, but of the Jewish people? Or is it the physical existence of the inhabitants of that state? Those who promote the expression relish its ambiguity. It serves their purpose well.
In reality, of course, there is nothing in the offing emanating from Iran or occupied Palestine that rises to the level of an existential threat in either sense, notwithstanding some remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to conventional wisdom, the Iranian threat is the more serious one; in reality, it is the more fanciful. Even were Iran to succeed in building a nuclear device — an unlikely prospect in the short term, since, according to all available evidence, they are trying only to build the capacity, not the weapon itself — they would have to be suicidal to use it against Israel for any purpose other than deterrence. Israel, after all, is the most bellicose state on the planet, judging by the number of wars it has started; and in addition to being otherwise armed to the teeth, it has more than two hundred of its own “deterrents” at the ready. Does anyone think that, if threatened, Israel’s leaders would be sane enough not to use them? They’re crazy, but not that crazy.
Ahmadinejad may not have all his marbles either but he isn’t crazy enough to risk annihilation, and neither are the theocrats who hold ultimate power in the Islamic Republic. Nevertheless, Iran’s nuclear program makes sense. The Iraq War demonstrated how urgent it is for Iran, and other countries in the way of imperialism’s designs, to be able to deter American and Israeli arms.
It is well to keep this in mind as Israel agitates for permission to bomb Iran from its protector of last resort, us; and as face-to-face Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resume in Washington under American auspices. An Israel-Iran war would be so harmful to American interests that it is hard to see how even an abjectly servile Congress and administration would permit it. Israel may just have to learn to live with that existential threat. But, on the Palestine question, count on Israel to get its way — again.
Getting its way means having the latest round of negotiations fail. That is almost certain to happen because there really is an existential threat that America will continue to let Israeli leaders deal with in their own way. The threat has nothing to do with those who resist the Israeli occupation — “terrorists,” according to conventional parlance. It comes from the fertility of Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation. What they wield is a “demographic bomb,” as they call it in Israel, a birth rate that threatens the existence of a Jewish state in mandate Palestine. This is why Israel has not annexed the territories it occupies, and why a “two state” solution is acceptable to many Israelis. It is the only remotely acceptable way to assure that the Jewish state will remain predominantly Jewish.
Israel could tolerate Bantustans under its control, but a viable Palestinian state with which Israel lives in peace would be unacceptable; a point Israel’s leaders, left and right, have always understood. It would undercut the state’s rationale and therefore, ultimately, its legitimacy. This is why peace has remained elusive, despite the fact that the general contours of a negotiated settlement, acceptable to all who believe in a two state solution, have been clear for decades. The details were spelled out at Taba in January 2001 during the final days of the Clinton administration. In the ensuing years, Israel has created more “facts on the ground” and, thanks in part to Israeli and American connivance, the Palestinian Authority has been severely weakened. But it would not require Solomonic wisdom to bring Taba up to date. Even Hillary Clinton could do it.
However it isn’t going to happen. Because Israel holds almost all the cards while the Palestinian Authority holds almost none, the only way forward is for the United States to force Israel to make peace; it could do it, but it won’t. And Israel won’t do it on its own — not just because many Israelis harbor hopes for a Greater Israel or because the Israeli political class is in the thrall of a nefarious and religiously driven settler movement. The more important reason is that if there were peace, Israel’s reason for being and therefore its hold over “diaspora” Jews and indeed its own population would diminish, not abruptly but gradually and inexorably.
Leaders of the Israeli political and military establishment understand this. It is why they have conjured up an existential threat from Iran, and why, regardless what they say, they repeatedly draw back from making peace with the Palestinians.
The animating principle of the Zionist movement from the 1890s on has been that Jews need a state to serve as a refuge in a world in which anti-Semitism is a force of nature. That thought never gained much traction before the Nazis took power in Germany, and even then it was resisted by secular Jews committed to universalist ideologies and also, for theological and philosophical reasons, by Orthodox and Reform Jews. In time, universalist ideologies faded and Zionism hijacked Judaism. Meanwhile, as Jewish assimilation has proceeded at full throttle in the United States and other Western countries and with anti-Semitism no longer much of a concern, Israeli nationalism has all but monopolized Jewish identity politics.
Because the Jewish religion, shorn of its Zionist shell, is a non-starter for most Jews today, and because inter-marriage is so prevalent, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a sense of Jewish identity on either religious or ethnic grounds. That leaves only Israel. But, as Israeli society sheds its historical ties to secularism and socialism, Israel has become hard to love or even to admire. No wonder that so few diaspora Jews would even think of living in the Promised Land or that so many Israelis live abroad.
There is, of course, still the memory of the Nazi Judeocide, and Zionists exploit it for all it’s worth. But as time passes, that memory becomes less serviceable; and not all the Holocaust museums in the world can maintain its effectiveness. The Zionist movement succeeded in appropriating moral capital from the devastation Nazi Germany wreaked upon European Jewry, but it has spent that capital recklessly, and there is not much of it left.
Enter Iran’s bomb. If that existential threat did not exist, it would have to be invented, as indeed it has been. The Palestinians’ demographic bomb does not have to be invented. But its specter is hardly scary enough to do the job on its own.
In the end, it probably will become clear to almost everyone, in Israel and out, that the Zionist idea is unworkable. Then, despite itself, Israel will either become a normal state — a state of its citizens, with a large Jewish population — or, more likely, most of its Jews will depart for places many of them would rather live anyway. But these welcome changes won’t happen without a fight, and without imperiling the world.
Therefore, as Israel again talks peace while blocking a peaceful settlement, count on it continuing, without dissimulation, to agitate for war with Iran. Within the higher echelons of the American government, only the military understands how unwise it would be to let Israel have its way. But we cannot count on them. It is therefore urgent to mobilize to the point where cowed and corrupt Democrats and Republicans cannot fail to take notice. Israel must be forced to make peace, whatever the implications for its ethnocratic character; and Israeli paranoia about Iran must be quashed. If not, it will be Israel itself that poses the ultimate existential threat – not just to itself, but to us all.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Last month, after a quick, quiet, morning vote approving approximately $600 million in border security funding, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office issued a statement calling for “comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, cracks down on unscrupulous employers, and requires those here illegally to get right with the law, learn English, pay taxes, pass criminal background checks, and go to”the back of the line.”
A week or so later, Congressman Ral M. Grijalva (D-AZ)echoed Senator Reid:
Thus, what was once a “path to citizenship” for unauthorized immigrants living in the United States became, for a time, “earned citizenship.” Now, it seems the language of legalization has again shifted to a “back of the line” citizenship.
So, what is”back of the line” citizenship? No one I talk to seems to know (or at least, is willing to discuss) anything specific about the changing terms of extending citizenship to the estimated 12-14 million unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States. However, the legalization side of comprehensive immigration reform indicates that legislative decisions may be underway regarding what “the line” fordocumentos might look like.
There is very little doubt that some form of citizenship program will be extended to the estimated 12-14 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States. However, some things to keep in mind:
The Pew Hispanic Centerestimates that “About three-quarters (76%) of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants are Hispanic. The majority of undocumented immigrants (59%) are from Mexico.”
The Pew Hispanic Center alsoestimates that “a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents — 73% — were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.” According to Pew’sanalysis of the most-recent Census data, “An estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were the offspring of unauthorized immigrants.”
While I find no current estimates regarding the professional skill sets of unauthorized immigrants, it seems reasonable to assume that a large majority of unauthorized immigrants — particularly those from Latin America — are unskilled laborers.
In short, the unauthorized immigrants currently living in the Unites States are overwhelmingly Latin American, are probably Spanish-speaking (or even, do not necessarily speak English), are often parents of U.S. citizens, and are difficult to employ legally in this brutal economic clime for unskilled laborers. This last point may be the key to understanding the shifting political language toward a”back of the line” citizenship.
In May, a report issued by the House Joint Economic Council (JEC)found that:
“Latinos are… over-represented in two other sectors that were hit hard during this recession: the manufacturing sector and the leisure and hospitality sector. Manufacturing employment fell by 16% and employment in the leisure and hospitality sector fell by 4% from December 2007 to December 2009. In 2007, 11.6% of the Hispanic workforce was employed in the manufacturing sector compared to 11.2% of the overall population, and 11.8% of the Hispanic workforce was employed in leisure and hospitality sector compared to 8.5% of the overall population.”
“In 2007, Latinos were under-represented in the only sector that expanded during the recession, the education and health services sector. In 2007, 21% of the labor force was employed in the education and health services sector compared to 14.4% of the Latino workforce.”
The JEC report did not discuss immigration status. However, again, it is reasonable to assume unauthorized immigrants (like Latinos, generally) are overrepresented in the shrunken unskilled labor pool; and underrepresented in the expanded education and health services sector. In other words, like Latinos, generally, unauthorized immigrants now tend to be employable in all the wrong places and at the wrong time.
So, how does all of this relate to”back of the line” citizenship?
A responsible path to citizenship (or whatever you want to call it) is one that takes into the account the effects an infusion of 12-14 million largely unskilled workers (including, potentially, many non-English-speakers) will have on overall U.S. employment economy. As it stands, “illegals steal jobs from Americans” because unauthorized immigrants tend to be more-willing to work for lower wages and fewer (if any) benefits than their documented, citizen counterparts. This is especially in the unskilled employment economy.
With the job market for unskilled workers contracting — particularly in the construction, hospitality, and manufacturing sectors where Latinos are overrepresented but nevertheless represent far less than a majority of workers –where can the economy employ 12-14 million new, largely unskilled citizens? Can the economy currently employ 12-14 million new, largely unskilled citizens, at all? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no, the U.S. economy cannot current employ unauthorized immigrants as citizens. Citizens are compensated at or above a guaranteed, minimum wage; protected by employment and workplace safety standards, etc. In short, citizens are more expensive than illegals.
That said, while I have yet to find anyone to confirm that this is the case (no one wants to talk path to citizenship this election season), my thought is that the term “back of the line” citizenship serves a twofold purpose:
A political term: To go to the back of the line hearkens a punishment for children who misbehave, who break the rules. As a term, “back of the line” also carries with it denigrating racial undertones rooted in America’s past. In terms of political messaging, the term “back of the line” works to assure a frustrated non-Latino electorate that unauthorized immigrant criminals will be punished and that they will remain second-class residents until the needs of a more-deserving (or at least, more legitimate) “front of the line” immigrant group has been satisfied.
A policy clue: “Back of the line” implies a waiting period during which the rest of “the line” is processed through the complex, draconian, “broken” immigration system the comprehensive immigration reform bill is (in theory) supposed to overhaul. How will “the line” be formed? What criteria will be used to determine who is at the front and who must wait? As it stands, is likely that these questions will go unanswered at least until after the midterm elections in November. Nevertheless, employment economics will likely be an essential feature of policy discussions about legalizing the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States. While preference may be given to the parents of citizen children, and English-language fluency will likely be non-negotiable prerequisite, expect skilled laborers to receive a preferential hat-tip in the naturalization process. Unskilled and unauthorized immigrants, on the other hand, may necessarily face an indefinite wait at the “back of the line” for an economic recovery that can sustain their legal entry into an U.S. unskilled labor economy that remains as stagnant as it is brutally unsentimental.

Follow Pablo Manriquez on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/mnrqz

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Another election cycle, another spiraling narrative about the persistently fickle youth vote, another misleading piece that mischaracterizes an entire generation before a single poll opens. We’re not as shallow as the now infamous New York Times piece on the youth vote would allow you to believe were are.
We’re nuanced. Poll after poll indicates that the vast majority of us aren’t overtly partisan — yet we care about issues and in that department, we’re progressive. The Pew poll referenced in the times shows barely any statistical change in party affiliation. Moreover, the very same poll shows that regardless of party affiliation young people are strongly progressive on the issues. From the poll:
So that’s that. There’s certainly reason to be cynical. Our political process is broken and ridiculous. Only in Congress could a majority of votes …not really count as a majority. We’re weary. There are reasons to believe that our votes mattered in not only 2008 but in the years before it (after all, youth turnout has been increasing since 2000). Yet those reasons are often overshadowed by, say, the insincerity of politicians who claim to be standing up “for future generations” only to then vote against unemployment benefits for a generation facing 20% unemployment.
Yet, therein lies the beauty of midterm elections. Members of Congress may have the power to vote for or against legislation, but we have the power to vote for or against every one of them.
That mentality may not translate into political allegiances — but that actually says more about the candidates than it does about young voters. What this article would suggest is that candidates, from both parties, would be wise to fight for our votes. The youth vote is always up for grabs, and contrary to what the New York Times might suggest, the youth vote isn’t synonymous with “the college vote.” We’re not a monolith. We’re a diverse generation that comes from different backgrounds, armed with different stories, still united in a shared belief that the issues matter.
What is true is that midterm elections often see a decrease in turnout from every demographic. What is true is that it’s harder to turn out voters in an off year, and that it’s hard to draw a correlation between those issues and the midterm elections. What is true is that youth organizations are acting accordingly — finding new and creative ways to reach a wider audience and to go around.
It is the recognition of how challenging this cycle is that’s inspired over 30 youth organizations and media partners to create http://www.voteagain2010.com
The media may continue to dismiss us as a legitimate voting cohort. Reporters may continue to insist that we’re unreliable, fickle and superficial.
Well, I think they’re wrong. I think we’re powerful.
Fundamentally, while members of Congress may have the power to vote for or against legislation — we have the power to vote for or against every one of them.
Why wouldn’t we vote again?

Follow Sara Haile-Mariam on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Sarahailemariam

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The ink of Governor Paterson’s signature is barely dry on New York’s Palliative Care Information Act (PCIA), drafted and sponsored by Compassion & Choices and its New York affiliate, yet evidence mounts daily for its vast and dramatic impact on end-of-life care. I predict this bill will shift decision-making authority radically from physicians to patients, and dwarf the impact of the Oregon and Washington Death with Dignity bills that, themselves, sent tremors through Medicine over the last thirteen years.
The PCIA merely instructs physician to discuss prognosis with seriously ill patients and ask if they would like information on hospice, palliative care and appropriate end-of-life options. But this simple requirement runs counter to an endemic medical culture that keeps prognoses secret and imposes painful, intensive technology on uninformed, dying patients.
Evidence of woefully uninformed patients has been clear for years. In 2002 researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine that even if patients with cancer requested survival estimates, physicians would provide a frank estimate only 37% of the time. These authors reported “In general, we found that the propensity to avoid frank disclosure was relatively homogeneously distributed among patients and physicians. That is, most types of physicians tend to avoid frank disclosure for most types of patients with cancer.” In 2008 only 16% of oncologists told researchers they would discuss a terminal prognosis, even “if my patients ask about it.”
The Palliative Care Information Act changes all that. The duty to offer information arises when the physician perceives a patient is likely to die within six months, with or without disease-focused treatment. Having an affirmative duty will force the analysis of prognosis, and prompt the conversation 83% of patients say they want.
I would remind anyone squeamish about state lawmakers telling doctors how to practice medicine that the Medical establishment is notoriously protective of its prerogatives of secrecy and dominance in the doctor-patient relationship. Organized Medicine does not willingly assign decision-making power to mere patients. We would not have the doctrine of informed consent were it not for courts asserting the right for patients to understand alternatives and risks prior to consenting to surgery and other procedures. The 1972 D.C. Appellate case Canterbury v. Spence, first set forth the duty to inform. We would have no standards for the scope of pre-consent information, were it not for state legislatures codifying informed consent requirements throughout the nation.
The Medical Society of New York apparently sensed a threat in the PCIA and vehemently opposed it. In an embarrassingly revealing letter to colleagues, Society president Leah McCormack deplores the destructive impact palliative care information will have on “a patient’s spirit.” Dr. McCormack asserts, “Mandating physicians to offer terminally ill patients information about end-of-life care options may undermine patients’ beliefs and convictions that they can prevail against the disease and could undercut their confidence in the course of treatment and in their physician.”
Recall the conversation Dr. McCormack rejects occurs only after the physician determines the patient will die within six months, regardless of choice of therapy. So it seems her preference would be to withhold prognostic information, raise false hope for cure and entice patients by promoting “confidence” in therapies of ever-diminishing benefit. All the while she would withhold information about palliative therapies shown to prolong life by an average of three months in lung cancer patients. And she would do this in the service of the patient’s ‘spirit’ — or rather, in the service of her particular beliefs about the patient’s spirit.
A physician presuming to know the needs of my spirit, and acting on that presumption, is a scary prospect. I think it would scare most patients, dying or not. And as if to underscore the legitimacy of this fear, last month’s Journal of General Internal Medicine includes a study entitled “How Well Do Doctors Know Their Patients?” Centering on health beliefs, it reveals doctors to be generally clueless about their patients’ beliefs and values. A sample of 29 physicians and 207 patients from 10 clinics demonstrates physicians’ perceptions of their patients’ beliefs are usually wrong, because physicians assume their patients’ beliefs align with their own.
All this research underscores the finding published three years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine that 40 million Americans receive care from physicians who don’t believe they are obligated to disclose information about medically available treatments they consider objectionable. One hundred million have doctors who feel no obligation to refer them to another provider for such treatments. Total sedation at the end of life emerged as one such treatment likely to be kept secret from patients. Compassion & Choices’ pursuit of laws protecting patients from such “doctors of conscience” began with that study.
This modest Palliative Care Information Act certainly has its work cut out for it. The habits, culture, presumptions and prerogatives of a powerful profession conspire to keep dying patients uninformed, even as they endure needless suffering from a futile, aggressive and brutal battle against mortality. As it happens, New York is exactly the place to start. Graduate medical education is big business in New York, where giant teaching hospitals establish medical practice patterns of a lifetime. At least one in six American physicians receives their training there. Now that training will include the duty to start a conversation about realistic prognosis, palliative care and end-of-life decisions. This gives me hope.

Follow Barbara Coombs Lee on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/@compandchoices

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Going to the candidates
debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at it, you lose
Mrs. Robinson – lyrics
by Paul Simon
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? There was your paisano, Tom Tancredo, having fun and swinging
effortlessly on Thursday afternoon at the opposition in the first Governor’s
race debate. Neither John Hickenlooper nor Dan Maes seemed to
be enjoying the experience.
Who could blame them?
Dan Maes is taking fire from all directions. The Mayor of Denver
is the Democratic nominee in a year when the D might as well
stand for Disaster. Everybody keeps telling Hick he is lucky,
but he knew yesterday that there was an eight hundred pound gorilla
out there (there was talk of such
gorillas during
the debate).
Her name is Jane Norton and
she is attractive, rested and ready to ride to the Republican rescue.
Read all about it at Red
State blog.
For the first time yesterday, I heard a little wiggle room out of Dan
Maes. The Republican nominee acknowledged that he had to listen when
people of the high caliber of Hank Brown give you the word.
I was sitting in the KBDI viewing
room watching the debate and Karen Maes’ reaction to it. I felt
sorry for Mrs. Maes. What an ordeal this has to be for the Maes’
family. Karen
Maes appears resolute
about the race, and the one thing we know for sure about Dan Maes is
that he has to go home at night and be with his wife, not Hank Brown
or John Andrews.
Here are the debate highlights. Jim Benneman and Eric
Sondermann were
excellent, well prepared, moderators. Dan Maes was physically
wedged between the Hick and the Tanc. Tanc told Maes that he possessed
character and credibility problems, but Tom still touched Dan’s arm
empathetically a couple times during the debate. Dan Maes did
well articulating his positions, especially under the circumstances.
Hick was mostly his usual self-effacing,
energetic, charming self; and managed to integrate major parts of his
stump speech. The trouble came when the Mayor addressed the troublesome
charity disclosure (Chinook Fund) issue. Hick explained that charities
were private, like book lists. This is the Denver Mayor with the accomplished
author wife that
founded One
Book – One Denver
and the Chinook
Fund. (Wait
till you see the help that Jim Benneman might have given the
Mayor with The Help as an answer to an amazingly well timed next
question about the book at the candidate’s current bedside.)
John Hickenlooper knows that he is
beatable in November.
He will need lots of the help to win. So far, the GOP has been
helping plenty.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The mysterious ninety percent of our brains that we don’t use is not used because it is useless, a scientific panel announced this week. Said project leader Dr. Antoine Abalone of the panel’s findings: “After two years of round the clock scientific investigation, we have determined that we only use ten percent of our brain because the rest of it is a pile of junk. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s definitely just a functionless heap of gray matter. I suppose one could postulate all sorts of theoretical adaptive purposes for so much worthless cranial filler — one might, for example, have a slightly better chance of surviving a brain-eating zombie attack where the essential elements represent only ten rather than a hundred percent of the total brain mass. Whatever the explanation, we can all stop fantasizing about becoming a race of telepathic super beings — we’re at capacity now, folks. Oh, there was a tiny flicker of activity in the unused portion when our test subjects were engaged in light summer reading, but otherwise squat. Not exactly a champagne moment.”

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Tonight I had the privilege of attending the opening of the Taste of Beverly Hills, presented by Food & Wine magazine. This four day food festival kicked off with a star studded evening, some great music and even great people watching. Since it’s Beverly Hills, the people watching is pretty amazing with lots of designer clothing, Chanel handbags, Louis Vuitton and all manner of luxury cars from Bentley’s to Rolls-Royces rolling into Beverly Hilton for this celebration of Epicurean delights. But the real star of the night was, as it should be, the food and wine. The event is held outdoors under the stars above the old Robinson-May department store parking lot across from the Beverly Hilton. The festival consists of individual booths with some of Los Angeles, and even the world’s, best restaurants serving unlimited “tastes’ of their best dishes. I think even the judges from Top Chef would be in awe of the offerings. I wondered around quite happily for several hours tasting different delights without even noticing the presence of the Kardashians or some of the other celebrities present. Even the great musical performance by Grammy nominee Natasha Bedingfield couldn’t distract the crowd because everyone was focused on the delicious bites and wonderful wines.
The price to attend the festival is about $150.00 per ticket. But you can find discount codes on the event’s Twitter feeds and Facebook Group to help defray the cost. The best deal is the” 2 for 1″ deals that you can find via the Twitter contests (follow @TasteofBH) and the Facebook group. The” 2 for 1″ deal brings you average ticket price down to about $75.00 which is a great bargain on the unlimited food and delicious wine offered. I only tried one thing that I really couldn’t stomach and that was the foie grae on a crispy wafer. It was way too salty. Avoid that dish. Following are the dishes and wines that I recommend you try.
Pictured: Chicken Meatballs in Chantrelle Mushroom Cream Sauce from La Bottega Beverly Hills. (photo: M. Hall)
Food
9021PHO This reasonably priced Vietnamese restaurant is serving up Pho Bo spicy noodle soup with beef and their delicious spring rolls. I had no idea that there was such great Vietnamese in Beverly Hills. On their menu in the restaurant everything is under $20.00.
Cabbage Patch–I have never heard of Cabbage Patch but I was intrigued by the choice of serving a Turkey meatball with Slaw. The Slaw is rather exotic with cilantro, peanuts and honey mustard dressing, but it is a winner, even along side the Italian flavored meatball.
Coupa Caf– This restaurant serves Venezuelan cuisine. For the Taste of Beverly Hills they are serving a trio of different appetizers including a spicy empanada.
Crustacean– This celebrity haunt is serving there special Garlic Noodles. They are delicious as always, although maybe just a tad dryer than they are in the restaurant where they are served with some sauce on the side.
Darioush– This restaurant is only serving one dish, but it’s an exquisite, and unusual Aubergine with Tomato Puree. This is a must try. Many diners thought it was a fig, but it was clearly listed on the menu as a Aubergine (Eggplant.)
Taste of Persia by Farhang Foundation– This may be the most fun exhibit at the festival. Beyond delicious bit of Iranian cuisine like lamb on pita with cucumber yogurt dip there are exhibits of music, cookbooks, and dancers in beautiful costumes.
Greenleaf Gourmet– This Century City restaurant is serving up a delicious and very fresh green salad with pears, dried fruit and Gorgonzola cheese.
Il Cielo– You must try this unusual taste sensation of rolled Pappardelle pasta drizzled with Truffle sauce. To die for. A must try…you will want at least two. Il Cielo is probably the most romantic restaurant in Beverly Hills, and it is a bit pricey. So it’s wonderful to be able to nimble from their menu without paying major bucks.
La Bottega– This family owned Italian is serving three different kinds of meatballs and they are all absolutely delicious. Owners and brothers, Mario and Salvatore Marino were working their booth and personally serving Chicken meatballs in Chanterelle Mushroom cream sauce, Veal meatballs in a cream sauce and traditional Beef meatballs in Marina (red sauce.) If you go to the Taste of Beverly Hills, be sure to try these. On Monday nights the restaurant offers specials on their meatballs with prices under $10.00. That is a pricing feat for Beverly Hills. And the food is really, really good.
Lawry’s – Lawry’s on La Cienga is an LA institutional serving fresh carved Roast Beef. At the Taste of Beverly Hills, Lawry’s is service their speciality carved Roast Beef on a bun, served with fresh creamed corn. The serving is just as good as what they offer in the restaurant.
Luxe– This restaurant offered tastes of delicious Ceviche and a special Trout Pate. Be sure to try both. I’ve never stopped into the Luxe for lunch or dinner, but now I realize that I have been missing out. I will have to stop in. This is the restaurant within the hotel on Rodeo, and the food is really good!
The Grill on the Alley– The Grill was serving a show stopper dish of slow-cooked short ribs with mashed potatoes
The Peninsula Beverly Hills, the hotel restaurant is serving a delicious trio of Salmon Blinis, Sashimi Tuna and a chilled soup.
Pictured: The Troute Pate from the Luxe Hotel. It’s really amazing. (photo: M. Hall)
Wine and Beverages:
Layer Cake– Try their incredible Shiraz which retails for a mere $14.99 (US). The winery’s motto is one I love, “Luxury Everyone Can Afford.” Layer Cake Shiraz shows you that a wine can be inexpensive and robust. Their Primitivo is also a winner.
Frank Family Wine– Zinfandel is blended with Cabernet France. It is so rich and flavorful. A must try.
Pictured: The taste is luxurious but the price is not, Layer Cake wine. (photo: M. Hall)
Bottom line, if you are looking for some terrific food and wine over this Labor Day weekend, then do get a ticket to Taste of Beverly Hills. Just use a discount code from one of their social media communities to get the best price. Over the next few days the Taste of Beverly Hills will offer a BBQ tastings, Brunch Tastings,on-site cooking and cocktail “mixology”. Tastings are “unlimited” so go hungry. You will want to keep tasting long after your stomach is full. It’s just that good.

Follow Mary Hall on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Recessionista

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As Michael Douglas faces Stage 4 Throat Cancer, it’s a startling reminder of the disease’s reality in the world of celebrities who seem so untouchable.
Because it hasn’t moved below his neck, he says his prognosis is good. We certainly hope so and hope that he gains inspiration from other celebrities who have fought cancer and won.
Here are five famous cancer survivors:
Michael C. Hall
1 of 6
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Nadja Benaissa Smiles Throughout HIV Spreading Trial (PHOTOS)
Kim Kardashian’s Revealing TwitPics: Would You Follow Her? (PHOTOS)
Charlize Theron Turns 35: What’s Her Best Movie? (PHOTOS)
Celebrity Weight Loss: Whose Was Most Dramatic? (PHOTOS)
Lindsay Lohan’s Undressed Moments: Which Is Your Favorite? (PHOTOS)
The Dexter actor was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma earlier this year, but is now back at work and cancer-free. Have you seen the preview for next season?
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Best wishes, Michael, may you kick cancer’s ass too.
Which celebrities who have fought cancer have inspired you?
Written by Julie Ryan Evans for CafeMom’s blog, The Stir.
More from The Stir:
5 Celebrity Couples Who Have Awesome Sex
DWTS Contestants Make HOW Much?!
Which Sleazy, Drunk Jersey Shore Costume Do You Want?
25 Hottest Celebrity Druggies

Follow The Stir on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/The_Stir

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Several Wednesday nights ago at my weight loss meeting a new member joined our group. I’ll call her Amy. This was her first time following any diet (yes, first timers do still exist).
An outgoing young woman, Amy was very excited to begin and curious about the journey that lay before her. Many of the other members marveled at her inexperience and began taking her under their wing. Advice ranged from not shopping on an empty stomach to planning out her day every morning. I’m afraid poor Amy got an awful lot of information all at once and, by the time the meeting began, she was slightly overwhelmed. One long-standing member got in a parting tip: “And don’t think of this as a short-term thing. You’ll be doing this for the rest of your life.”
There’s a lot of focus in the diet industry these days about the whole “lifestyle change” thing. I admit it; I’m one of those who truly believe that living your diet, making it a new lifestyle, is definitely the ultimate goal. Lifestyle is, after all, the opposite of yo-yo. I don’t, however, believe that it has to be everyone’s FIRST goal. Let me explain.
There are days when working out and following your diet is not too bad, even enjoyable. (If it’s not, there’s a major problem here.) Then there are days when calling it a struggle is the understatement of the year. Fighting our way through the dessert room of a wedding reception or a rainy afternoon with the kids home from school wanting “SNACKS!” can be very draining and discouraging. To sit and think at that moment, “I’m going to be doing this for the rest of my life” can be enough to drive you to the cookie jar!
Just as our habits took time to entrench themselves in our lives, so new habits take time as well. New choices and habits and a healthier, weight-conscious mindset will take time to become part of us. And that’s OK. Don’t worry about forever. Forever is what happens as you work on making it through one meal at a time.
For those of you who have ever been involved with a twelve step program, their focus is “One Day At A Time.” If you look to the Bible for guidance, God clearly has a twenty-four hour focus. The manna He provided for the Israelites only lasted one day, twenty-four hours, before going bad. “Give us this day our DAILY bread” – implies just enough for today. If you feel like the “forever” focus is too much, you’re absolutely right. It’s overwhelming and discouraging. But YOU CAN work on creating your new lifestyle TODAY. For the next twenty-four hours YOU CAN stick with it, prepare ahead, write out your meals and check them off as you go. YOU CAN accomplish great things in one day that will give you the encouragement, experience and hope to take it one day more. And, honestly, that’s all you need to worry about.
This is the advice I gave to Amy last week: “You don’t have to do this for the rest of your life. You just have to do it today … EVERY day.”
PS THIS is what the Monday Night Chats is all about. If you’re discouraged and are tired of yo-yoing, if you need a jump start, please join us this Monday night at 8pm est. If you’re not a member, it’s free for the first month. We’d love to have you give it a try. 24/100% BABY!

Follow Kim Bensen on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/kimbensen

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As a kid at the Jersey shore, on days of ocean calm, I would float over the occasional ripple with my dad, his hands folded behind his head and his tan, slender, feet parallel and pointing skyward. “Ahh, this is worth a million bucks,” he’d say and now I know he was right about those precious moments.
With my mom, we would swing and sway our way out past the breakers and with hands aimed toward England, we’d recite a duet of “Up and over” each time a curl of the sea made its way to us.
Whenever I braved a swim at the beach alone, though, my memories are all about getting battered and tossed about by the waves and ending up tangled underwater among big people’s ankles.
The period between my carefree summers of childhood and my thirty-something years I call my recurrent-tidal-wave-dream years. (Well, to be honest, I just started calling it that for the purpose of this story.) I had no idea what a tidal wave looked like but in my imaginary it was a slate-colored arc of the sea that rose to great heights, white and foamy at the edges, casting a shadow over all those on the beach. In the recurrent dream, I was always on the beach, where I knew I couldn’t outrun it, but I had to try, and just then I always woke up.
Here’s one more story, or if you’ve had enough and are interested in Riptide Earl, skip this and the following paragraph. When I was in my thirties, I was in East Hampton with my boyfriend, Steve, who then became my husband, father of my three daughters and my ex-husband. Steve is an expert body-surfer, who once saved his Uncle Alvin from a riptide. (The best part of the story comes when, Alvin gasps, “Save yourself!”)
Steve and I went in the ocean and the waves turned out to be bigger than they looked and I couldn’t get past where they were breaking, so Steve held my hand and we had to keep ducking under them. Have I told you how much I fear/hate going under water? We would have exited, but bang, bang, bang, the waves kept coming one after the other, just like my contractions when the obstetrician was angry with me because I was maybe going to switch doctors and also it was Christmas day and he cranked up the Pitocin to get my beloved firstborn, Lizie, out quicker and there was never any break, as I said, just like the waves that day in East Hampton.
Obviously, Steve got me out somehow. Which brings me to Earl. This morning on the radio I heard a report about Earl traveling up the Atlantic coast and the commentator said that there were riptides. And, not only that. He said there was concern because even after the ocean calms down, the riptides can remain for 24 to 48 hours after the hurricane passes. So, please be careful if you venture into the Atlantic this weekend, and if you are my kids, stay close to your dad.
I’d love to hear your ocean memories in the comments below. Also, you may have noticed that I’m a worrywart. You can visit me at www.confessionsofaworrywart.com and, for lighter reading, and news you can use, at www.homegoesstrong.com

Follow Susan Orlins on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/susanorlins

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com