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Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.
As construction and manufacturing jobs crumble, many have dubbed this downturn a “mancession.” It’s even prompted some to declare that we are facing the “end of men.” But women shouldn’t celebrate their economic victory just yet. It’s true that men have lost more jobs than women — according to Newsweek, they’ve made up for two thirds of the 11 million jobs lost since it all began. But are women getting left out of President Obama’s job programs and stimulus spending? They hold only 12% of the total US engineering jobs and 25% of manufacturing and construction jobs. Yet a study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half of the projected new “green” jobs being created by stimulus programs will be in heavily male-dominated areas such as engineering, consulting, manufacturing, construction and forestry. Infrastructure spending, such as Obama’s recent proposal, will also be funneled toward construction and manufacturing work, where few women find employment. These programs are putting people back to work and rebuilding our physical infrastructure, creating jobs that are sorely needed. But will women be an unintended casualty?
While men felt the brunt of the initial bubble burst, traditionally female-heavy industries such as nursing and education are now getting slashed in the wake of falling state revenues, points out Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and Chair of the Department of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Barbara. High unemployment has hit states’ tax bases and tapped them out for benefits, so they’re looking to save anywhere they can. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has estimated that these budget cuts imperil 100,000 to 300,000 public school jobs. Hospitals have had to shut their doors in the face of mounting debt loads. Women are highly concentrated in these suffering industries. As of 2009, 2.6 million women worked as registered nurses and 2.3 million as elementary and middle school teachers, making up for 82% of all teachers, according to the Department of Labor. And while some of the stimulus money went to propping up Medicaid programs and schools, indirectly saving women’s jobs, it never created new ones, Boris adds.
And just because men find themselves without jobs, it doesn’t mean women are making strides, Mary Gatta, Director of Gender and Workforce Policy at the Center for Women at Rutgers, points out. Women started out at a disadvantage long before the recession. They often work lower wage jobs, support their families and — more and more often — relatives, and experience a wage gap compared to male peers across all industries. And Jennifer Klein, professor of history at Yale University, adds that women often work in “precarious” jobs with irregular hours and low benefits. Women’s unemployment is “incredibly significant right now,” she says, not just because so many are heads of household — over 20% in 2000 and trending upwards — but because these days two working parents are necessary to keep most families financially afloat.
Unfortunately, there is historical precedent here. FDR’s groundbreaking public work programs, such as the CCC and CWA, had dismal numbers on including women. Only 8,500 women were employed in the CCC, compared to about 3 million men. The WPA was slightly better (after advocates like Eleanor Roosevelt pushed hard for inclusion), employing 460,000 women at its peak in 1936, but still put women to work on projects specifically for them: sewing, nursing, housekeeping, etc. These tended to be lower-skilled and lower-wage jobs than construction work. Public policy was shaped this way because, just as in this recession, people thought that women weren’t suffering from unemployment as much as men, Klein explains. But she points out that “women were in the workforce and certainly unemployed during the Depression… It was just a question of whose unemployment was prioritized.” It is estimated that more than 2 million women were unemployed at the start of 1933. There was also a pervasive social stereotype that cast men as the sole breadwinners and women as dependents, even if that “didn’t necessarily correspond to reality and for millions of families,” says Klein.
Beyond false social assumptions, there are political reasons that led both FDR and Obama to focus spending on construction jobs. Linda Gordon, professor of history at NYU, points out that such jobs have visible results, which were an imperative for both presidents as they faced strong opposition to their programs. Just take a drive up the Hudson River Parkway in New York, Gordon suggests, and you will soon see beautiful bridge after beautiful bridge thanks to the New Deal. These projects also have a multiplier effect, as they don’t just employ bridge builders, but also steel workers who make the raw materials. In women-heavy industries, which Gordon calls the “caring professions” and the “educational professions,” it’s hard to quantify the beneficial effects. No one can agree on what makes a “good” teacher — see the fracas over a recent attempt by the LA Times — but it’s pretty easy to tell how much a bridge costs and whether it works. How much is a well-educated child worth? How do you quantify a comfortable old age? How much should we pay for librarians who bring literacy to their communities?
But there are indeed multiplier effects in investing in woman-heavy industries, whether or not they are as easy to quantify. While few doubt that America’s infrastructure is badly in need of repair and that we’re being outmatched in green innovation, we also have to invest in what Gordon calls the “human infrastructure.” Instead of nonprofit groups like Teach for America throwing college grads into classrooms, the government can invest in making that person a teacher’s assistant, simultaneously training a new teacher while easing another’s workload. Less-skilled workers can be employed in libraries to take some work off of the higher-skilled librarians, who can focus on archival tasks. There is a tremendous need for elder care in this country as the population ages and more families support older relatives. But care facilities are often understaffed and the staff is underpaid, leading to poor care, she adds. And meanwhile these jobs — health care workers, child caretakers, even waitresses — are “here to stay,” because they’re hard to outsource, says Gatta. Investing in these jobs keeps the money in our own economy.
It’s also important that government spending on jobs programs doesn’t perpetuate the segregation of the labor market. The New Deal assumed that women couldn’t or wouldn’t work in construction. But women are perfectly capable of participating in the green economy, says Amy Norquist, President and CEO of green roofing company Greensulate. “I think the barriers are more related to re-training oneself to address the needs of a new kind of industry,” she says. Stephanie Hass, Fund Development Associate at STRIVE, a job training organization that has a program for women in green construction, agrees. “When you say construction, [women] imagine themselves on a site and lifting heavy stuff, but I think there’s a lot of different opportunities.” The same was true during the 1930s, Gordon says. During World War II, when factory jobs were heavily staffed by women, “women loved these jobs.” At the end of the war, when the jobs were being handed back to the returning men, around 80% of women said they would keep their factory job if they could. The CCC was overwhelmed with applications from women. “It certainly is not true that women don’t like to work outdoors,” Gordon says. But in order for women to have equal access to those jobs, they need access to training and education programs. That requires outreach to women to let them know what’s available. “I think women can, should and will play a big part in this — especially in finding ways to innovate,” Norquist says.
At the same time, none of this should come at the expense of the jobs women already hold, warns Boris. We need to make sure more jobs are created in women-heavy industries and ensure that the jobs they already hold are livable. Women are heavily concentrated in jobs with low pay, with 1.7 million working as nursing home aides, 1.3 million as maids and housekeepers, and 1.2 million as child care workers, according to DOL. Meanwhile, the quality of these workers’ jobs is being degraded by an industry speed-up, Gordon points out. Classrooms are packed with more and more students. Nurses handle more patients while their hours and pay stay the same. These service and care jobs need to be improved so that they have livable wages and benefits, as well as access to career ladders, Gatta says. They should be revalued by making sure they pay a living wage, fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and be allowed to unionize, Boris says. Women also need access to child care so that they can pursue these careers. These jobs should be revalued — for, after all, “The world can’t work without them!” Boris adds.
So where does this leave us? While the first wave of layoffs may have been dumped on men’s shoulders, perhaps the “mancession” has ended — because now we’re all affected. The stimulus projects and green collar jobs need to continue. But we can — and must — open up our policies to make sure they cover us all.
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Those who make their living celebrating the lives of the rich were clearly delighted last month by the charity pledge from Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, since it showed what great guys billionaires really are.
So it wasn’t surprising that Robert Frank, chronicler of the rich for the Wall Street Journal, took offense this week when we wrote a piece debunking the virtues of philanthropy.
Our piece was actually an excerpt from our new book, The Trouble with Billionaires, and philanthropy is just one of our targets.
But it’s an important one, partly because the charitable givings of the rich help soften their image and convince the public that the rise of a new ultra-wealthy super class may actually be a good thing, since we badly need them to fund our universities and other public institutions.
Attacking The Trouble with Billionaires in his daily blog, Frank argued that good education costs money and “the wealthy are among the few that can supply that right now. Would universities be better off if the wealthy spent their money only on yachts and planes rather than global-studies programs?”
But why are yachts and planes the only alternative?
How about taxes?
Our point is that if the wealthy paid taxes at the rate they used to pay only a few decades ago — in the prosperous early postwar years before the onset of the Reagan revolution — public institutions and programs could be properly funded and wouldn’t be so dependent on the largesse of the spectacularly rich.
There’s obviously a huge difference between funding that comes through the private charity — the favored method of the well-to-do — and funding that comes through the tax system.
Private charity leaves the wealthy in control, allowing them to determine where the money will go, which causes will get funded and which won’t.
The wealthy are notoriously uninterested in financing community centers and recreation facilities in poorer parts of town.
Instead they show a penchant for funding institutions and facilities where they’ll win the attention and admiration of their peers — with their names on glittering opera houses, concert halls, and buildings at elite universities and private hospitals.
And of course they’re extremely generous with private think tanks, particularly ones that promote the interests of the financial elite and provide those interests with an air of academic legitimacy.
Indeed, philanthropy provides the rich with some significant benefits. The benefits to the public are less clear, once the lost tax revenues are factored in.
In our excerpt that offended Frank, we highlighted the case of the University of Toronto, which has recently received a $35 million dollar donation from Peter Munk, owner of Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold mining company, to establish a new school of global affairs within the university.
Under the deal struck between Munk and the U of T, Munk will have considerable influence over the new global affairs school, since the school’s director will have to report to him annually and final payment will be withheld until after Munk has had a number of years to assess his satisfaction with the school. (It seems unlikely then that the university would appoint professors whose research might touch on the negative impacts of multinational corporations.)
Munk also stipulated that a right-leaning think tank (with an interest in bringing Canada more into line with U.S. defense priorities) be located within his global affairs school, giving this little-known organization the prestige of being associated with the University of Toronto.
And Munk is getting all this influence and prestige for a very good price. He enjoyed fawning front-page coverage in Canada’s national newspaper when he made his $35 million donation last spring. But, once the tax deductions are factored in, his donation will only $19 million (paid out over a number of years) and could be a lot less than $19 million, if his donation is in the form of publicly-traded shares, as most donations are.
(The tax reductions for philanthropy are equally generous in the United States.)
Meanwhile, most of the cost of establishing Munk’s new school will actually be borne by Canadian taxpayers, who will kick in $66 million, as well as paying for the school’s ongoing operating costs. As a result, Munk’s contribution will be much less than one-fifth of the total cost. The school however will be named after him in perpetuity, so that the thousands of people who daily pass by the handsome building on Toronto’s swanky Bloor Street will be reminded of Munk’s generosity and commitment to global understanding.
Thus, for $19 million (possibly a lot less), Munk — whose company has come under attack from environmental and indigenous groups in developing countries — has bought himself an impressive personal legacy at Canada’s leading university. He’s also getting to direct some $66 million in public money (with much more to follow) towards a global affairs school that he will ultimately shape.
Frank is right that “Good educations cost money.” And if the wealthy were made to pay a larger share of the tax burden, universities could afford to provide them, without having to go cap in hand to billionaires.
In fairness to Gates and Buffett, both billionaires have also supported higher taxes for the rich. Best if they’d stick with that.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I can’t get married right now in California. That’s a unfortunate fact. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think about it until it becomes a reality. Problem is, I don’t know the first thing about how to have a wedding – just how to go to them, eat cake, watch old women get drunk ‘n horny, and watch young women get drunk ‘n sad. But weddings have always seemed slightly terrifying. So to get a clearer idea, I asked infoMania’s Erin Gibson to take me to a wedding expo and show me everything I need to know. And also everything no one should ever know ever.
Watch infoMania on Current TV, Thursdays at 10pm.

Follow Bryan Safi on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/bryansafi

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Google the word ‘mindful’ and you’ll find about 24,900,000 entries. Google the word ‘mindfulness’ and there are around 13,600,000 entries. Ever wonder how these ancient, distant, and diverse Asian practices known as mindfulness have made their way into our living rooms today? Quite simply it is thanks to some noteworthy people who clocked hours, days, weeks, and years on a meditation cushion. They saw something important and then they showed it to us.
In the United States we have had the benefit of extraordinary Eastern teachers coming west to teach us their native practices. But without a doubt, those who have had the greatest impact translating classical Eastern practices for Westerners, without dumbing them down, have been our own Western teachers. Many of them are Americans who were drawn to Asia fresh out of college in search of meaning and who came home to share what they learned with the rest of us.
From the Theravada tradition Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg have had a remarkable impact through their organizations the Insight Meditation Society and the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Around the same time that Jack, Sharon and Joseph were studying in Asia, Alan Wallace with the Santa Barbara Institute, Ken McLeod with Unfettered Mind, and Robert Thurman from Columbia University were sitting formidable three year retreats with Tibetan teachers to learn Tibetan practice from the inside-out. In the 1960s, Yvonne Rand stayed closer to home, in Northern California, where she was a disciple of Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi who lived here at the time. Other American teachers followed similar paths at a similar time, but these are the ones who have most influenced me. They are just a few of the dedicated American teachers who have translated classical practice to make it more accessible in the West and more obviously relevant to our modern, everyday lives.
But for those of us who teach secular mindfulness practice there is one teacher who has influenced absolutely everyone. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Touched by the same practices and many of the same Adepts as the American Buddhist teachers, Jon approached the translation issue via a different route. He developed a secular adaptation of classical Buddhist mindfulness practice popularly known as MBSR and integrated it into the medical establishment. Or some might say he infiltrated the medical establishment using MBSR.
Around thirty years ago, while a scientist working at the University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn used the practice of mindful awareness to develop a “mindfulness-based” stress-reduction program for adults. In broad terms, he taught adults to hold off for a short while from reacting to or even analyzing a stressful situation in order to pay attention in a particular way. And it worked. This learned skill allowed those who practiced MBSR to better control their reactive emotions, and therefore respond, when they were ready, in a more thoughtful, calm, reasonable way. Here’s what the UMASS website has to say about its Stress Reduction Clinic, the oldest and largest academic medical center-based stress reduction program in the world:
On October 6 here in Los Angeles, Dr. Kabat-Zinn will kick-off National Breast Cancer Awareness month with a public talk at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The organizers – Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure and The Lynn Lectures – have priced this talk so that it is affordable to everyone. With tickets ranging from $10-$100 those of us in and around LA will have the opportunity to hear Jon Kabat-Zinn speak from his direct, personal experience about the healing power of mindfulness in a talk entitled “Letting Everything Become Your Teacher.”
All proceeds from this event will benefit the Los Angeles affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure to fight breast cancer.

Follow Susan Kaiser Greenland on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/sKAISERg

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Like a tsunami, we are besieged by a flood of absurdity. No matter where we turn we see not only the improbable, but the downright ridiculous, the absurd. “Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.” So said the 18th century Irish writer and doctor, Oliver Goldsmith. Look around. The most casual of glances shows these would-be champions as thick as ants on a summer picnic. They are everywhere. No need to imagine it. And everywhere they are you ask yourself: Can it get any worse, any more absurd and silly?
Movie stars are dragged away to jail for using drugs and alcohol. To what purpose? For themselves, nothing more harmless than a greater sense of personal happiness. And for us? For society? The social absurdity that is our needless obsession to enforce foolish rules as if they were sound.
Elsewhere, in the farthest reaches of the nation, an Eastern-elite, Yale trained lawyer and West Point graduate shows himself off on TV with a rugged outdoorsy three day growth of facial hair and a countrified, wilderness look. He’s running for public office saying that unemployment insurance benefits – the money feeding millions of hungry Americans – are unconstitutional. That’s what he’s running against, as if he’d never learned, along with every other law student in America, that the case was settled by the Supreme Court already (and not to his liking) a long time ago. In 1937. Joe Miller of Alaska, a Tea Party champion of the absurd.
You’ve probably seen the FOX NEWS babes; puffed up lips soaked with collagen or whatever they put into them these days; bras nipped so tightly their breasts push upward and together as if reaching out for you through the camera. Is there a plain looking woman with on-screen duties to be found there? I saw four of them – champions all – soundly, roundly and unanimously scratching away at pop star Katy Perry and the dress she wore to sing a duet with a Muppet character on Sesame Street. High minded matters, and these high-breasted FOXy ladies – the HOOTERS girls of cable news – were complaining about… Katy Perry’s breasts. Did she have to show she had them – two of them to be exact – on children’s TV? Frankly, Katy Perry wouldn’t get a call-back at a FOX NEWS audition, not with the average sized breasts and rather normal cleavage she showed on PBS. But then, you expect FOX NEWS to be champions of the absurd.
Maybe you’ve also seen one of the apparently dozens of Christine O’Donnell “crazy clips” making the rounds on TV video these days – the one where she says, yes indeed she would stop all premarital and extramarital sex in America (including masturbation), and as proof it can be done she offers up her own self as evidence. “I’m a woman in her thirties” O’Donnell proudly proclaims in an interview from only a few years ago, “and I’m chaste.” Never been touched – you know where – by a man, a woman or even by herself. And cute too, which makes it all the more absurd. I hope she makes to the Senate where she’ll actually stand out less. Perhaps her stubble-cheeked Alaskan Yalie, Tea Party colleague will join her there. They’ll certainly feel at home in that chamber of champions.
As art imitates life (or is it life that imitates art?), the absurd is hardly limited to affairs of a civic nature. All sportsmen, in the generic sense to include women as well, watched Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees engage in the absurd as he faked being hit by a pitch – which actually struck the knob on the handle of his bat – and as the super slow motion replays repeated over and over on television, the modern-day Pride of the Yankees writhed in fake pain, took fake comfort from a not-fake trainer and finally faked his way to first base. All across the country fans, fellow players, former managers and sportswriters saluted Jeter’s unsportsmanlike behavior. More champs of the absurd.
In another generation Fred Allen once remarked that TV was the sincerest form of imitation. So it was this week on what is still called “the small screen” despite today’s huge flat screen HD sets, we got to see yet another fictional black President being bamboozled by his military advisors and generally stumbling about as Leader of The Free World without a clue – this time about what “The Event” is, or was, or will be. On this absurdity you and I are the champions since millions will continue tuning in hoping he finds his way, or perhaps hoping he doesn’t. Maybe he’s a Socialist. Maybe he wasn’t even born here. Maybe that’s “The Event.” Absurd or not, it’s not HBO; it’s only television.
And we’ve also learned of the continuing absurdity at the highest levels of real life. The real President of the United States, the one who made the most absurd of all promises – Change We Can Believe In – has apparently been conducting a Nixonian-style secret war in Pakistan using foreign mercenaries as troops under the control and supervision of the Central Intelligence Agency. That constitutional absurdity breaks all the rules usually governing the ridiculous. A self-proclaimed peace President fighting a secret war. Think about it. Could a woman in the Senate who’s “dabbled in witchcraft” and never ever had sex of any kind be any more… absurd?
Of course, these are only my thoughts, my opinions. The great American writer, Ambrose Bierce, defined the word – Absurd – this way: “A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.” Do you find that absurd? I don’t.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been exploring the nature of book giveaways, particularly in conjunction with my project on Facebook (“I bet we can make these books bestsellers,” which is currently promoting two great books by Shawn Klomparens — Jessica Z. and Two Years, No Rain). One of the authors I’ve noticed doing a lot of giveaways on was bestselling author Emily Giffin (The Heart of the Matter). She was kind enough to answer my questions on giveaways and even a question on Franzenfreude.
1.) I’ve noticed that you are quite active on Facebook, and that you’ve been doing a series of giveaways connected both to the release of Heart of the Matter and the movie for Something Borrowed. Can you please describe the types of giveaways that you’ve done recently.
Yes, I have been doing a lot of giveaways on Facebook. My favorite type is to ask a trivia question from one of my books and whoever gets the answer first wins a signed copy of the book. Once I asked for a character’s SAT score, other times full names of minor characters. Probably the most obscure question so far dealt with a character in Something Borrowed who is from Montana but references his hometown Shoney’s — a chain that does not exist in his home state. I was sure that I could stump everyone, but a very discerning reader got the answer within an hour! I’ve also had readers take photos with my books in interesting places and send them in. I got a wonderful response — my novels on beautiful beaches, the cockpit of an airplane, and in front of the Egyptian pyramids. I had such a hard time deciding on my favorite and ended up awarding a seven-way tie!
2.) How do you come up with your giveaway ideas? Is this something you do on your own or is it at your publisher or publicist’s suggestion?
My publisher supports such interaction but so far it has been my idea and initiative. (Although my publicist did help coordinate one large contest). Facebook allows me to connect with my readers in such a satisfying and immediate way — which has really changed my career from the early days when the only interaction came from emails and book signings. It really feels as if we’re in a great big book club together. For that reason, I try to recommend other books as well as my own. People are always looking for a new favorite author or book — and there can never be too much reading in the world!
3.) What is your general philosophy about giveaways? What are you trying to achieve when you do them? How do you measure whether a giveaway has been successful?
I’m sure the contests generate buzz and interest in my books, but I’m really not trying to achieve anything other than to make my readers happy and have a little fun myself. A giveaway feels successful if there are a lot of comments in a thread and people seem to be enjoying themselves. I also love giving away my logo and movie buttons and signed bookplates to anyone who sends in a SASE. I know how much it has meant to me to connect with my favorite authors over the years (at book signings, etc) so it’s nice to be able to be on the other end of things.
4.) Do you think giveaways generate book sales?
It’s very hard to measure what sort of impact these contests have, but I have the sense that I’m rewarding my already loyal readers (who have already read the books) rather than cultivating new sales. Then again, word of mouth is a powerful thing so if these “friends” share my page with their friends, it could make a difference over time.
5.) What is the giveaway that you would consider the most successful?
I like tying trivia questions into Facebook friends added. When I add 1k new friends, I run a contest. The photo contest I described above is my favorite so far.
6.) Do you find that being involved in giveaways takes a lot of time? Is this true for all social media?
I think giveaways are much less time intensive than blogging — and really don’t take up that much time. (Although my assistant who prepares the mailings and goes to the post office might have a different opinion!) Honestly the bigger drawback is the cost of shipping, which really can add up some weeks when I’m sending out a lot of books to auctions, charities, and contest winners. But it’s worth it to me to be involved with my readers. I am so grateful to them and very overwhelmed by all the generous comments on my wall and in emails.
7.) Do you find your involvement in social media takes time away from writing
It certainly takes time away from everything, including writing. But I consider it a form of relaxing. Talking on the phone to friends, or reading magazines, or watching TV takes time away from writing, too, but we don’t eliminate all of these pastimes in the name of efficiency. I enjoy the interaction. Of course it can be a great way to procrastinate, but in those moments, I just try to log off of Facebook, along with my email and phone.
8.) I’ve noticed that it’s predominantly women authors who seem to be doing these types of giveaways. Would you agree with that? If so, why do you think that is?
I hadn’t noticed, but it makes sense, for the same reason women are more likely to chat with friends on the phone. Men meet up to golf or have a beer; they don’t generally exchange pictures and ditties on Facebook! … That said, I do have some very loyal male followers, and I love when guys chime in on my page. They typically add a very interesting perspective and get a lot of attention from the rest of us. I’ve had a few send great photos too — including one of a guy hiding my pink book behind a Tom Clancy jacket. As I told Ryan Seacrest, if he’s not man enough to read a pastel book…
9.) Do you have any thoughts on the whole Weiner/Picoult/Franzen debate? Have you found that your books have been ignored by more “literary” book reviewers?
I admire Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult for their honesty and candor and understand where they are coming from. In addition, I’m not going to pretend that it wouldn’t be a thrill to be reviewed by the Times in something other than a few sentence summer round-up. But to me, it has always been about connecting with the reader. If readers love what I’m doing and feel satisfied, I am happy. Beyond that, I just try to stay focused on writing the best book I can — after all, others’ perceptions of your work is often out of your control so I try to direct my energies toward things I can affect.

Follow Catherine McKenzie on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/cemckenzie1

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I recently attended a wedding in Rhinebeck NY and to my surprise, I ended up sleeping with a celebrity. Let me tell you how it all went down. Over the last few years I have heard a lot of chatter about Rhinebeck and about how great it is. Fans of the Hudson Valley are evangelical in their praise (always making sure to also mention that they “discovered” it), still, I didn’t really have a good sense of the place. Was it burnt out bankers? Commuting Brooklyn hipsters? Now I finally had a chance to see it for myself and I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. My host for the weekend was Charlie Wessler, a talented film producer, who is a long time collaborator of the Farrelly brothers. Charlie is what you would call an animal lover. His farm in the Hudson Valley is a menagerie of the wild kingdom … sort of like Noah’s Arc docked on his pond and released all the animals. Alpacas, Ostriches, miniature donkeys, goats, chickens and so on.
Charlie’s farm is so animal friendly that two wild turkey’s passing through decided to move in permanently. As it happens, the two are both males. This means that despite their constant posturing to attract the opposite sex, they don’t seem to realize they are courting a non-existent female because while the farm has an abundance of food and protection from predators it also is decidedly lacking in female turkeys….
While we on the subject of birds — a word about ostriches. First off, they are huge. I mean like 6’7″ and have to be the most bizarre looking animals I have ever seen — like some sort of alien hybrid experiment. They are part bird, have strange three-toed dinosaur claws for feet, a neck that is articulated and moves like a snake and a gait like … well an … ostrich. They make an array of noises … none of them pleasant…. from guttural clicks to Cobra-like hisses, and declaratory brays. Then, just in case you think they are friendly, their pen is adorned with signs that warn you to stay back because “Ostriches kick.” Some wander around the yard like they are on some really groovy meds while the females spend most of the day sitting on their eggs. The alpha male is mean as hell. He likes to perform a war dance that brings to mind the self flagellation performed by the albino monk in the Da Vinci Code — he crouches down, growls and then proceeds to beat his body like a warrior thudding his chest, except instead of his fist (yeah…I know they don’t have them) he uses his head … clearly this is not a species of great thinkers….
But the most esteemed guest was the star of one of Charlie’s films, a Border Terrier named Gort that was one of the dogs that played Puffy in There’s Something About Mary….as you can see here.
Gort has a pretty nice set-up being the only animal allowed inside the house. He has a doggy door that lets him come and go as he pleases and likes to patrol the wide-open spaces of the farm, although I notice he doesn’t get too close the Ostrich pen. Gort is getting up there in years and he is now a stately 14 year-old sporting a beard flecked with gray. Although he doesn’t run like he used to, he is still an avid licker. Despite the brawler he played on the Big Screen he has a remarkably sweet disposition that makes me think he isn’t much of a guard dog (but I get the feeling the Ostriches handle security). Gort and I hit it off right away and he is one of the few celebrities that is thankfully unaffected by his fame. In fact, we got on so well that the very first night on the farm he ending up sleeping at the end of my bed … Yep … it was pretty cool.
Aside from the animals, Charlie built his own man-made pond. When it came time to take a dip, Charlie led a group of us down to the water while he and I made small talk. He assured me the water was clean enough to drink despite its murky appearance, to which I jokingly remarked it looked like a great home for snakes. “Oh yes” he answered, “but they don’t bother you.” Apparently blood drained from my face because he asked me if I was OK.
What can I say? I guess just like Indiana Jones, I don’t like snakes. I watched a procession of people — women, children, heck, even a Labrador launch themselves into the water after Charlie dove in. At that point I figured I had to go for it. I reassured myself with the thought that there were plenty of tempting targets besides me for the snakes to pursue … after all … to survive a bear attack, you don’t need to be faster then a bear, just faster than the slowest person in your group….
Unseen snakes and all it was a pretty special weekend. And just like a character in a children’s book who visits a magical kingdom, I can’t wait to go back and visit all my furry and human friends … well .. .except maybe that mean Ostrich.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

SoulCycle Master Instructor Janet Fitzgerald picked the following 10 songs to workout to for this month’s SoulCycle playlist. Some are classics, some are current hits, but all are great to keep you moving while you exercise:
1 .Empire State of Mind – Glee Cast
2. Only Girl (In The World) – Rihanna
3. Check it Out- will.i.am & Nicki Minaj
4. When They Come for Me – Linkin Park
5. Hot Like Sauce – Pretty Lights
6. Radioactive – Kings of Leon
7. Run This Town / Posthumus Zone (Medley) – Jay-Z, Rihanna & E.S. Posthumus
8. Boogie Body – Asphalt Jungle
9. Cinderella Man – Eminem
10. Under Pressure – Queen & David Bowie

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This discussion of whether to get rid of the Bush tax cuts for the rich has been a learning experience. I have been listening on the radio and reading the comments at blogs. The main thing I am concluding is that people just do not understand how tax brackets work.
When people talk about raising taxes on people “who make more than” a certain income they really mean that they are going to raise it ONLY on the income that comes in after a certain income is received, not on the person’t entire income.
Here is what I mean. Suppose they say they are going to raise taxes on incomes above $250K. People seem to think that this means if you earn $250K plus a dollar, that you owe an additional tax on the entire $250K. This is not correct. I actually hear stories about people who give away money, and do other things to avoid going “into a higher bracket” because they think they have to pay additional taxes on their entire earnings.
Here is how it really works. What happens is that the first $250K is taxed just like it has been, but anything that is made over $250K — and only the amount over $250K — is then taxed at the higher rate. The tax on the amount below $250K is not changed.
Example: Suppose the tax increase is 5% on income over $250K. This means that a person who reports income of $250K plus one dollar will be taxed an additional 5 cents. FIVE CENTS!
Yes, that’s right, if it is 5% they are talking about then it means a 5 cent tax increase on people who make $250,001.
Let me repeat that. If you make $250,001, and they raise taxes 5% on people who make over $250K, then you will have to pay 5 cents more. Five cents. F.I.V.E. C.E.N.T.S. That is what people are so upset about. 5 cents.
If it is 5% a person making $260K might pay an additional $500. That’s right, the proposed tax increase is approx. $42 a month on people making $260K, about $21,600 a month. Forty-four dollars out of twenty-one thousand. THIS is what all the right-wingers are screaming about. THIS is what all the Ayn Rand cultists are threatening to stop working over. THAT is how tax brackets work.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Recently, Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times interviewed several food-quality activists, including me, about a Sept. 14 petition by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to “corn sugar.”
Her question: What new name would you suggest?
I thought all of the responses had merit – for example, writer Michael Pollan offered “enzymatically altered corn glucose” which has an appropriately frankenfoodish ring about it – but my vote was to disallow any change. My reasoning: the name as it stands is accurate, and the industry should not be allowed to circumvent the well-earned distrust HFCS has engendered. (Putting aside my concern that HFCS may be metabolically worse than table sugar – I think the research behind that notion is debatable – my main worry is that the syrup’s cheapness, due to corn subsidies, allows manufacturers to sweeten a huge percentage of the American food supply. I believe that’s been a significant contributor to the obesity-diabetes epidemic.)
Now, several days after the petition to the FDA, what remains striking to me about this whole episode is how public, how incredibly visible, this attempted subterfuge has become. The CRA clearly hoped to do this quietly – as it might have in, say, 1994, when the story might have garnered only a few inches of type buried deep in the Times’ gray pages.
Instead, in the web age, the name-change petition quickly became an appropriately sticky public relations mess. After just nine days, a Google search for the twin terms “high-fructose corn syrup” and “corn sugar” garnered 143,000 results, and asking social media posters for their own alternate names became a raging meme. I happily joined in, posing the challenge on my Facebook page and Digg profile. Hundreds volunteered tags including “liquid suffering,” “cellulite syrup,” and several that can’t be published in a family website, despite my instruction to avoid profanity.
It’s too soon to predict the outcome of this net-centric protest, but even in the worst case scenario – the term “corn sugar” replaces all instances of HFCS in commercial parlance – it’s clear that the CRA’s Orwellian plan has been at least partially turned back. Far fewer people will see the term on a label and be reassured by this short, relatively innocuous name. But I think it’s more likely that the process has been significantly derailed, and “corn sugar” will never gain much legal traction. One can hope.
To be clear, I worry as much about the impact of the Internet as anyone else. I worry about shortening attention spans, the physical cost of sedentary “surfing” and the potential for coarsening discourse as millions of web pages compete for attention by appealing to our base instincts.
But sunlight, it has been said, is the best disinfectant. The web’s ability to dredge duplicitous schemes from the corporate-governmental shadows into the noonday glare is a great advance, one with implications that reach far beyond food policy. Any problem – including, ironically, the problems caused by the web itself – is better dispatched in an open forum, and the web is quickly becoming the most open forum the world has ever known. That is sweetness we can celebrate.
More information on HFCS from my website: Too Sweet too Eat?
Andrew Weil, M.D., is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the editorial director of www.DrWeil.com. Become a fan on Facebook, follow Dr. Weil on Twitter, and check out his Daily Health Tips Blog.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Satirist Stephen Colbert, who plays a conservative pundit on the US's Comedy Central television channel, has testified before a US Congressional committee in support of illegal immigrant farm workers. The BBC's Paul Adams asks what he was up to.
Stephen Colbert is hardly the first entertainer to appear before a Congressional committee.
Kevin Costner, Sheryl Crow, Dennis Quaid, Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn. The list goes on.
But they all appeared as themselves. Mr Colbert did… and didn't.
For much of the time, the Comedy Central star uttered the stridently patriotic simplicities of his on-screen persona, the host of the nightly Colbert Report.
His popular satirical show is specifically designed as a kind of counter-intuitive response to the likes of real life US conservative Fox News pundits Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.
Perhaps not since Sesame Street's Elmo took his plea for more music in school to an education panel in 2002 has a fictional character testified before Congress.
It was certainly surreal. But what was Mr Colbert up to?
Judging by the bemusement, stifled laughter and occasional irritation of the committee members, it was not always easy to tell.
One senior member asked Mr Colbert if, having entered his prepared remarks for the record, he shouldn't simply leave. Another asked the satirist's conservative alter ego if he endorsed the Republican party's “Pledge to America” election manifesto, unveiled on Thursday.
“I endorse all Republican policies, without question,” a poker-faced Mr Colbert affirmed.
Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee rashly tried to get the mischievous Mr Colbert to endorse the cause of comprehensive immigration reform, a professed priority for many Democrats and President Barack Obama.
“I think there are way too many undocumented Mexican workers here in the US,” Mr Colbert shot back.
“It is time to roll up our sleeves and face this issue, mano a… whatever the Spanish word for mano is.”
But the comedian's final statement, in which he spoke of migrant workers as people who “suffer and have no rights”, clearly came straight from the real Mr Colbert's liberal heart.
With less than six weeks to go before the US mid-term Congressional elections, here was an influential media celebrity entering the political fray on a hot-button issue.
In a month's time, Mr Colbert will take his comedy, and perhaps his political views, onto what he and fellow Comedy Central satirist Jon Stewart hope will be a bigger stage than a House committee.
Their “competing” rallies in Washington on 30 October (Mr Colbert's to “March to Keep Fear Alive” and Mr Stewart's “Rally to Restore Sanity”) represent a riposte to Mr Beck's “Restoring Honour” rally in front of the Lincoln memorial last month.
While its precise purpose remains unclear, the timing, a few days before the mid-terms, suggests a political agenda of sorts.
Perhaps even the two stars have yet to figure it out.
It is certainly a bit of a gamble. Anything less than tens of thousands of participants will seem like a damp squib after Mr Beck's huge August rally and could serve to add to the sense of impending defeat already hanging heavy around the Democrats ahead of election day.
Or am I reading too much into the whole thing?

Source:BBC

Share this page Freed hiker Sarah Shourd meets Ahmadinejad at UN A US hiker freed after more than a year in prison in Iran has met the Iranian president at the UN in New York.
Sarah Shourd said she pleaded with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release her two friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who are still imprisoned.
The three were captured by Iranian border guards in the country's north in July 2009 and accused of spying.
While in prison, Ms Shourd had prayed for a chance to meet the president, she told ABC News.
Ms Shourd, 32, was released on 14 September and returned to the US last week.
“I just want to thank Mr Ahmadinejad for this gesture of allowing my mother and I to meet with him and for the mothers of Shane and Josh,” she told ABC. “It was a very gracious gesture and a good meeting.”
Ms Shourd and the other two hikers have always maintained that they accidentally crossed over the border into Iran from Iraq while hiking in the mountains of Kurdistan.

Source:BBC

This summer’s special income/tax issue of the Icelandic business magazine Frjls Verzlun is at once a bottomless source of nauseating news and a testament to the pervasive incompetence and disgraceful cowardice of Iceland’s political class. The magazine reveals that the con artists who bankrupted the nation were in 2009 – the year following the collapse brought about by their spectacular ineptitude, greed, and grandiosity – pulling in salaries like 2007 had never ended. The former CEO of Glitnir bank, Lrus Welding, received in 2009 over $3000 per day – per day (which is a considerably higher amount than many public employees make per month after decades of work) for… for what? The magazine lists him as Glitnir’s CEO.” Welding is in familiar company; most all of his bank buddies co-populate the obscene-salary list with him.
After they’ve squandered the nation’s wealth, devastated its institutions, and ruined its reputation for generations, it is truly revolting to see these insolent harebrains still making millions and that while the Icelandic public may for years – even decades – have to continue delivering first aid to their bruised and bleeding handiwork.
Why these incompetents are still receiving obscene payments from the state-rescued banks is absolutely mind-boggling. They’re hardly being rewarded for primo performance on the job. Is it so much more difficult for the politicians to tell their buddies at the banks – as they have the labor movement – that contracts cannot be kept because there is “no money”? How about simply telling them that, considering their rotten job performance, their employment contracts are null and void ipso facto? How about demanding that they return the “bonuses” they paid themselves for their fine feats? How about slapping them with a few executive penalties, for countless violations of Icelandic law? The counting house lords at least have cash – which is more than can be said about their victims – to pay them.
According to FV, eight managers of the banks’ marketing departments receive monthly salaries of over a million krnas, which is remarkable generosity for an industry that is considered way overbloated in addition to having bankrupted a whole country. Equally astounding is the fact that most of these people have worked at the banks for years! I wonder if these employees are the same ones responsible for the rapacious marketing” discussed in the Black Report: Countless examples exist of how people were manipulated into doing business…In some cases these are seniors who seem to have been deceived and defrauded and feel they have been humiliated in their twilight years.” And regarding the marketing of the money market accounts: …The Report seriously criticizes many of their [the accounts'] aspects..marketing to the public.” It was difficult for individuals to realize the increased investment risk since the information from the banks was at best deceptive…When then the banks are all promoting the same deceptions, it is even more difficult for people to get correct/reliable information.”
How wonderful to know that the people behind these kinds of marketing efforts” are still sitting pretty in the banks that Icelandic taxpayers rescued with their blood money. I wonder if Steingrimur knows about this. Last February he said he believed that salaries of the banks’ resolution committee members were completely at odds with the current reality, what workers in general have to live with…I believe it is right and [the administration's] obligation to look at this and consider if the government can somehow, via the FME and the ministries of finance and business, or the state in its position as a creditor, can ensure that society’s salary decisions in general are in line with today’s reality, not the past.”
I’m still waiting for the administration to take action. But I’m not holding my breath. This administration was elected to clean up after and in the banks. For the former task they’ve made the public pay, and at the latter, they’ve utterly failed; the administration promptly returned the taxpayer-bailed out banks into the private hands of god-knows-who, without demanding that any changes be made in their infrastructure or operations.
When it comes to taking on Iceland’s failed financial sector and its criminal class, this administration is no different from its right wing colleagues. However, while Icelandic voters can be forgiven for being frustrated over that fact, it is truly mind-boggling that over a third of them believes that the only solution to the country’s nightmarish mess is to replace the politicians currently in charge with the ones who created it.

Follow Iris Erlingsdottir on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/elluskott

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This summer’s special income/tax issue of the Icelandic business magazine Frjls Verzlun is at once a bottomless source of nauseating news and a testament to the pervasive incompetence and disgraceful cowardice of Iceland’s political class. The magazine reveals that the con artists who bankrupted the nation were in 2009 – the year following the collapse brought about by their spectacular ineptitude, greed, and grandiosity – pulling in salaries like 2007 had never ended. The former CEO of Glitnir bank, Lrus Welding, received in 2009 over $3000 per day – per day (which is a considerably higher amount than many public employees make per month after decades of work) for… for what? The magazine lists him as Glitnir’s CEO.” Welding is in familiar company; most all of his bank buddies co-populate the obscene-salary list with him.
After they’ve squandered the nation’s wealth, devastated its institutions, and ruined its reputation for generations, it is truly revolting to see these insolent harebrains still making millions and that while the Icelandic public may for years – even decades – have to continue delivering first aid to their bruised and bleeding handiwork.
Why these incompetents are still receiving obscene payments from the state-rescued banks is absolutely mind-boggling. They’re hardly being rewarded for primo performance on the job. Is it so much more difficult for the politicians to tell their buddies at the banks – as they have the labor movement – that contracts cannot be kept because there is “no money”? How about simply telling them that, considering their rotten job performance, their employment contracts are null and void ipso facto? How about demanding that they return the “bonuses” they paid themselves for their fine feats? How about slapping them with a few executive penalties, for countless violations of Icelandic law? The counting house lords at least have cash – which is more than can be said about their victims – to pay them.
According to FV, eight managers of the banks’ marketing departments receive monthly salaries of over a million krnas, which is remarkable generosity for an industry that is considered way overbloated in addition to having bankrupted a whole country. Equally astounding is the fact that most of these people have worked at the banks for years! I wonder if these employees are the same ones responsible for the rapacious marketing” discussed in the Black Report: Countless examples exist of how people were manipulated into doing business…In some cases these are seniors who seem to have been deceived and defrauded and feel they have been humiliated in their twilight years.” And regarding the marketing of the money market accounts: …The Report seriously criticizes many of their [the accounts'] aspects..marketing to the public.” It was difficult for individuals to realize the increased investment risk since the information from the banks was at best deceptive…When then the banks are all promoting the same deceptions, it is even more difficult for people to get correct/reliable information.”
How wonderful to know that the people behind these kinds of marketing efforts” are still sitting pretty in the banks that Icelandic taxpayers rescued with their blood money. I wonder if Steingrimur knows about this. Last February he said he believed that salaries of the banks’ resolution committee members were completely at odds with the current reality, what workers in general have to live with…I believe it is right and [the administration's] obligation to look at this and consider if the government can somehow, via the FME and the ministries of finance and business, or the state in its position as a creditor, can ensure that society’s salary decisions in general are in line with today’s reality, not the past.”
I’m still waiting for the administration to take action. But I’m not holding my breath. This administration was elected to clean up after and in the banks. For the former task they’ve made the public pay, and at the latter, they’ve utterly failed; the administration promptly returned the taxpayer-bailed out banks into the private hands of god-knows-who, without demanding that any changes be made in their infrastructure or operations.
When it comes to taking on Iceland’s failed financial sector and its criminal class, this administration is no different from its right wing colleagues. However, while Icelandic voters can be forgiven for being frustrated over that fact, it is truly mind-boggling that over a third of them believes that the only solution to the country’s nightmarish mess is to replace the politicians currently in charge with the ones who created it.

Follow Iris Erlingsdottir on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/elluskott

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Throughout the country, most children are starting a new academic year. Teachers are sending out lists of required readings, and parents are beginning to shop for books. In some cases, classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird may be missing from the curriculum or are unavailable at the school library due to challenges by parents or administrators.
A challenge is a formal, written complaint requesting a book be removed from library shelves or banned from the school curriculum. Since 1990, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 11,000 book challenges, including 460 in 2009. About three out of four of all challenges target material in schools or school libraries, and one in four target material in public libraries. The Office for Intellectual Freedom estimates that less than one-quarter of challenges are reported and recorded.
Unfortunately, losing the right to choose reading materials for ourselves and our families is a reality in the United States. Despite community outrage, a school board in Stockton, Mo., banned Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award-winning novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The book was removed from the Stockton High School library due to the board’s views on offensive language and sexual content.
Public libraries are also under fire. After a small group in New Jersey was successful in convincing a Mount Holly, N.J. high school library to remove Revolutionary Voices, by Amy Sonnie, neighboring Burlington County Public Library followed suit. The removals were fueled by the group’s views on obscenity and pornography.
Danger does not arise from viewpoints other than our own; the danger lies in allowing others to decide for us and our communities which reading materials are appropriate!
It is thanks to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents and students that most challenges are unsuccessful and books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Slaughterhouse Five and the Harry Potter series remain available. In West Bend, Wis. a citizens’ group pushed to have more than 50 titles removed from the West Bend Community Memorial Public Library that they felt were obscene or pornographic. The community pushed back, and the titles remain on the library’s shelves to this day.
Book challenges are not simply an expression of a point of view; they are also an attempt to remove materials from public use, thereby restricting the access of others. Even if the motivation to ban or challenge a book is well intentioned, the outcome is detrimental. Censorship denies our freedom as individuals to choose and think for ourselves. For children, decisions about what books to read should be made by the people who know them best — their parents or guardians.
In support of the right to choose books freely for ourselves, the American Library Association is sponsoring Banned Books Week (Sept. 25 – Oct. 2, 2010), an annual celebration of our right to access books without censorship. This year’s observance is themed “think for yourself and let others do the same” and commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society — the freedom to read — and encourages us to respect others’ freedom to choose.
Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week has reminded us that while not every book is intended for every reader, each of us has the right to choose for ourselves what to read, listen to or view. Thousands of libraries and bookstores across the country will celebrate the freedom to read by participating in special events, exhibits and read-outs that showcase books that have been banned or threatened.
The American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores sponsor Banned Books Week. The Library of Congress Center for the Book endorses the observance.
American libraries are the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere. Because libraries provide free access to a world of information, they bring opportunity to all people. Now, more than ever, let freedom read @ your library! Open your mind to an old favorite or a new banned book this week.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Kinda sorry I’m going to see Legend of the Guardians in IMAX 3D this weekend, and not Gaspar No’s new film, Enter the Void. This is the movie that could benefit from the full, immersive, 3D treatment: a swirling, gliding, electric voyage into life and death, with sex, drugs, and a dynamically surreal Tokyo thrown in for good measure.
That all this is conveyed through the viewpoint of a mere blip on the universe’s map — a low-level drug dealer, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), who comes a-cropper of a botched drug bust and ends up on the wrong end of a cop’s gun — lends what follows no little ironic impact. As he lays bleeding on a lavatory floor, the camera takes the vantage point of Oscar’s soul as it rises, experiencing the transition to the next world in a manner that closely resembles The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In a sinuous, seamless camera track, we see Oscar’s life — particularly the bond he has with sister (Paz de la Huerta) — played out as grand, psychedelic pageant. The experience is mesmerizing and surprisingly poignant — certainly one of the most intense and seductive experiences I’ve had this year.
Click on the player to hear my interview with Gaspar No.
This Episode is Brought to You byMCCAIN’S”It’s All Good”
More MMP on HuffPost:
Sean Baker on Prince of Broadway
David Michod on Animal Kingdom
Samuel Maoz on Lebanon
Check out the Mighty Movie Podcast homepage.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The 6th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to representation when accused of a criminal offense. While Supreme Court decisions have clarified this to mean “effective” representation, the system has often failed to live up to this standard. With the majority of criminal defendants turning to the indigent defense system, why are we starving it of funding and compromising this important right? Under the preface of being “tough on crime” we have continued to pour money into the prison systems, building more and more institutions while spending less and less to help people defend themselves against the criminal accusations that threaten to send them there.
The public defense system is unique. Although the federal government mandates quality representation be provided to people who cannot afford their own attorney, they provide no real oversight or funding into the state, city, and county governments tasked with providing these defenders. While a set of standards known as the Guidelines for Legal Defense Systems in the United States was issued by the United States Justice Department in 1976, these standards have been implemented half heartedly in some instances and not at all in others.
Currently, it’s estimated that more than 75% of criminal cases use the public defense system. This means only one-quarter of Americans accused of a crime can afford, or care to hire a private defense attorney. Of these citizens using the public defense systems, racial minorities constitute the vast majority. With 25.3% of the Hispanic population and 25.8% of the African American population living in poverty, it stands to reason these groups would get the most use out of a defense system designed to represent the poor.
We can point to a variety of reasons why these population groups are represented disproportionately within the criminal justice system, many if not most of them deeply rooted in institutional racism. But the failures of public defense is seldom examined as a significant contributing factor. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports 69% of white males within state prison systems made use of the public defense system while 73% of Hispanic and 77% of African American men did. So while this makes it clear that those below the poverty line, forced to use the indigent defense system, are more likely to be serving time than those who are living more comfortably, it also shows how a broken public defense system can only serve to further widen the racial disparities of the entire criminal justice system.
Each state has a slightly unique indigent defense system. Most are ran at the state level though some states have separate systems from county to county. The notoriously broken indigent defense system in Michigan, for example, is one of the seven states that has no state funded public defense system at the trial level. Defendants here, as in many other jurisdictions across the country, are at the mercy of the county in which they have been charged, lucky to get an attorney that isn’t too overworked to give their case the time it needs.
From not being informed of their eligibility for a public defender, to being forced to go through some stages of the process without an attorney at all, many of those accused feel pressured into accepting plea agreements by prosecutors that lead them to believe the plea is their best option. And yes, some even accept those plea agreements despite being completely innocent of the charges they face. With little knowledge of the legal system and the frightening potential prospect of prison time, the promise of probation in exchange for a guilty plea can be all too tempting.
Even those who have the guidance of indigent defense from the beginning are far less likely to go to trial (resolving the case with a plea bargain) than those who have the benefit of a private attorney. If you’ve had any contact within the criminal courts, you know it’s not unheard of for a defendant to meet their publicly appointed attorney, summarize the case for them, answer a few questions, and accept a plea deal all within a matter of minutes. Does this mean the public defense attorneys aren’t qualified or don’t care? Not necessarily.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 15 of 19 state public defender systems were over the nationally recognized workload standards in their Census of State Public Defender Programs, 2007, released just this month. In Rhode Island, the state with the highest number of cases per public defense attorney, the rate was 42% above the recommended level with each lawyer carrying a caseload of 391. This, the BJS admits, is a “conservative estimate” as it does not include cases received before the 2007 reporting year. Surely, no one attorney handling 391 cases per year can offer each defendant on their caseload the time necessary to effectively and adequately represent them.
Another side of the indigent defense system lies in contract attorneys. Most states use both a public defender option and supplement this by contracting with private attorneys. Just how a private attorney gets their cases from the courts, again, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In California, about half of the counties use contract services. Recently, some of these counties have come under fire for awarding contracts to firms who can offer the greatest number of cases at the lowest rate. This sort of discounting is likely to benefit no one but the firms themselves and the bottom-line of the county.
Like so much of the criminal justice system, indigent defense has been reduced to little more than a cog in the wheel that sends hundreds of thousands to prison and millions under the watchful eye of community corrections. Many of us, not immediately impacted by the public defense system, assume that the Constitutional right to effective counsel is respected and upheld in the courts of our nation. We trust that if accused of a crime, we will be appointed an attorney to act as an advocate on our behalf. Instead, defendants who are often overwhelmed and confused by the complex legal system, have no choice but to put their trust in overworked and under-regulated lawyers who may or may not do their case any good.
It seems under the current disjointed system, equal protection under the law and due process are only accessible to those who can afford a private attorney or for those who are lucky to be facing charges in a jurisdiction that has managed to maintain a level of order within their public defense system. We can only hope that the recent hints toward more progressive justice by lawmakers at the state and federal levels will include in-depth analysis of the broken indigent defense system and perhaps an eventual move towards reform.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A judge in California has suspended criminal proceedings against the man accused of kidnapping and raping Jaycee Dugard over an 18-year period.
Judge Douglas Phimister in El Dorado County made the decision at a pre-trial hearing for Phillip Garrido.
The judge said he had concerns about Mr Garrido's mental competency to stand trial on 29 charges over the 1991 kidnapping of Ms Dugard.
Mr Garrido's wife, Nancy, still faces kidnapping and rape charges.
The couple are accused of holding Ms Dugard captive for 18 years in the back yard of their home in Antioch, California.
They were arrested in August 2009.
Officials say Ms Dugard bore two daughters to Mr Garrido while being held captive.

Source:BBC

United Nations — President Ahmadinejad is a better speaker and can even be charming when he speaks at small gatherings. But the Iranian president’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday was quite different from those he’d made at private dinners and gatherings throughout much of this week. On Wednesday, Mr. Ahmadinejad told attendees at a small reception organized by a think-tank in New York emphasized that Iran may soon come back to the negotiation table, and reiterated that he is the primary decision-maker on Iran’s nuclear program.
“Dialogue started (between Iran and the US) and then discontinued in Iraq. If those kinds of talks could be continued, many, many matters would be solved. The US government disconnected the talk,” he said Wednesday to a small group of American intellectuals and scholars at the think-tank.
Mr. Ahmadinejad was widely expected to deliver another one of his controversial speeches to the General Assembly on Thursday, and as expected, his words were not much different from his other public talks. His claim about the possibility of US involvement in the September 11th attacks was one he had previously made. What was new this time around was his theory that the US could have played a role in the terrorist attacks on its own soil just “to protect Zionism.”
But the Iranian president’s public speeches during his visit to the UN for the 65th session of the General Assembly were quite different from those speeches he delivered at private gatherings, such as the reception at the think-tank on Wednesday. Such “duplicitous” behavior on the part of President Ahmadinejad is confusing for those seeking to understand what exactly he is trying to accomplish by making such public statements that are so vastly different from those he makes behind the scenes at private gatherings.
In public, President Ahmadinejad appears to become a different person when asked to express his opinion about US-Iran relations and the nuclear issue. After six years in power, journalists have come to learn that they can’t directly get any information out of him at a press conference or interview. Playing with words and avoiding direct answers have become a part of the Iranian president’s personality. But with a different, smaller audience, Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to adopt a different approach.
From what we learned during his one week stay in New York City, Iran’s president is interested in having a dialogue with the European Union and the US over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. That Mr. Ahmadinejad is confident enough to discuss many matters that not too long ago were exclusively discussed and reviewed by those in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s club is surprising. But when asked at the reception on Wednesday whether decisions on Iran’s nuclear program were made by others or by the president, he replied that though there are “experts” who advise on nuclear policy, the decision-making process is clear and: “I have said over and over that I am responsible for nuclear policy,” he said.
President Ahmadinejad’s public speeches are the kinds of speeches expected by the supreme leader back in Tehran, who can only access knowledge about the world though the television screen and from what his close aids tell him. Ayatollah Khamenei can trace the president’s actions when Mr. Ahmadinejad addresses the General Assembly or speaks at a public event, and appears on important television shows such as Larry King and Charlie Rose. Making the supreme leader and his circle happy serves Mr. Ahmadinejad’s interests more than if he publicly deviates from the leadership’s stance and states what he really wants.
But by giving a speech that started a new controversy over the September 11th terrorist attacks one day before his departure instead of leaving the General Assembly with a message of love and peace message from all Iranians, Mr. Ahmadinejad wasted a valuable opportunity.
One Iranian official who asked to remain anonymous said the Iranian president didn’t attend the US speeches because they attended them last year and the US president didn’t reciprocate by staying in the room during the Iranian president’s speech. “It is an insult if we did that again, and then saw that President Obama didn’t show up at our president’s speech in the afternoon,” said the source.
As it stands, it is very unclear to what degree and to what extent President Obama and President Ahmadinejad may one day meet.
During his one week stay in New York, Mr. Ahmadinejad made himself so available and accessible to American media and different American groups, and used any available opportunity to try and alter the harsh picture that so many Americans and much of the international community has of him and his government’s brutal crackdown against the Iranian public. Accepting many visitors from all strata of American society, from peace activists to intellectuals and academic figures, made clear his intention that the time for renewed US-Iran talks may be very soon. Even President Barack Obama appeared to have a conciliatory tone towards Iran in his speech to the General Assembly earlier Thursday before Ahmadinejad took to the podium.
For now, Iran’s president will have succeeded in leaving New York with the memory of his last General Assembly speech– a souvenir from the Big Apple that the supreme leader will undoubtedly enjoy.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

New York — Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, the new head of the United Nations climate process, began her remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative by stating a simple — and once stated, obvious –0 truth. “We will not solve the climate crisis with a big bang agreement.” The world, Figueres said, is not going to come together in a single grand bargain that will
commit nations to the full range of needed emissions reductions in any one meeting — not this year in Cancun, not next year. The problem is going to be solved piecemeal, step by step, and the challenge, she said, is ensure that this “progressive process” meets the urgency of the problem. Figueres pointed out that the world will spend 26 trillion dollars on new energy investments in the next few decades. What matters is whether that investment is carbon based or clean.
Jonathan Pershing, the chief climate negotiator for the Obama Administration, made the same point at a second forum — that the era of the massive, top-down climate agreement had ended with Copenhagen. What’s not clear, though, is whether the United States knows how to play in this new context.
Pershing repeated traditional American concerns about ensuring that countries like China verify their commitments — even though we haven’t really made any of our own. One U.S. investor in Asia told me that the reaction of his Chinese friends to this position was amusement. Acutely aware that China is now making much larger investments in clean energy than the U.S. for selfish economic reasons, Chinese leaders chuckle when the U.S. says “If you won’t verify that you are competing with us, we won’t try to compete with you.”
That’s not a very good way to win a race. And this is going to be a long race: a marathon, not a sprint. That’s really the most important lesson of the failure of both Copenhagen and the comprehensive U.S. Climate bill. Pricing carbon will indeed be the final nail in the coffin of our dependence on coal and oil. In our chess game against big carbon, carbon pricing is the move that leads to checkmate. Those who lead coal and oil are not fools. But unless you are playing a “fool” you do not get to checkmate while your opponent has almost all of his pieces on the board. You have to
knock off most of his bishops, knights and rooks, but here in the U.S., coal and oil still rule the roost, our reliance on them intact. That dependence is their power piece.
Interestingly there are 19 states which get more than two thirds of their electricity from coal. Three more are among the top five coal producers. Twenty two states, then, are currently part of the coal bloc. Twenty two states –each with two Senators — is, ironically 42 votes. Enough to guarantee that no climate bill which is committed to moving beyond coal could pass this Congress.
We’ll need to greatly reduce our reliance on coal fired electricity, and increase the economic importance and political clout of low carbon and renewable energy, before a meaningful price will be put on carbon from electricity. But we don’t need to despair. We’re well-positioned to win this chess game, and to start making major progress today.
Perhaps we can’t pass a meaningful price on coal’s carbon, but we can make the coal industry clean up its mercury, its sulfur, its nitrogen, its soot. Those pollutants have been regulated by the Clean Air Act for decades. Old power plants were grandfathered, but this exemption has now been thrown out by the courts. More than three quarters of our coal generation fleet is more than 30 years old, ready to be scrapped. Unless utilities get away with irrationally investing huge amounts of money in scrubbers and other control equipment for these clunkers, they will be retired, and even coal-dependent utility executives admit that many of today’s coal plants will be gone before 2020.
Oil’s policy vulnerability is not so much the pollution it causes. It’s about how most oil comes from places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and the economic and foreign policy threat that our dependence on imports creates. But Big Oil also has powerful pieces on the chess board. We’ve got to knock them off one move at a time. We won’t put a price on the carbon in gasoline until Americans know that they have practical, available alternatives to gas-powered cars and trucks.
We ought to be able to get rid of many of the tax giveaways that fatten oil’s power and profits, We ought to be able to hold companies like BP responsible when they kill their workers and poison their neighbors. If you want to drill in deep water, you at least ought to be liable for any damages you cause — not just the piddling first $75 million.
As Figueres said, the danger with a chess game you must win one move at a time is that it can take more time than we have. We need to focus on how fast we are moving, not what we think the final moves look like. We need to play smartly, but also aggressively and quickly — and above all we can’t afford to make another run at a quick Fool’s Mate. It’s not on the board.

Follow Carl Pope on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I’ve always liked road trips. Add a camera and an interesting companion and a highway ramble often turns into a film that’s part diary, part travel documentary. When I lived in Woodstock in my 20s, a boyfriend and I made a film of every bridge over the Hudson River. Or tried to. Unfortunately, the relationship only made it as far as Bear Mountain, where the bridge dates back to 1924.
My 87-year old mother, Madaleine (or Mado as we call her) came out to LA from NY to visit last November 30 and had a stroke on Dec. 1. It wasn’t a big stroke — in fact, the doctors said if it hadn’t been smack in her speech center we may never had known she had one. But it was in her speech center and, though it had no lasting physical effects, her speech was reduced to gibberish.
Though no one could link the stroke to her flight out here, she remains afraid to fly, so I began to romanticize a trip across country to take her home to visit. We’d stop in Marfa, New Orleans and mosey up the east coast.
The distance was daunting and the trip quite possibly a pipe dream. Could I actually spend a week with my mother — who has now regained about 60% of her speech — in a car?
For a trial run, we recently took a shorter drive to the Bay Area. We stayed in some cool hotels. Ate some good food. And we had a lot of fun.
Day One
From LA to Palo Alto
We took I-5 and didn’t stop until we got to Harris Ranch around lunchtime. The place was a madhouse, as usual, as it is the only decent roadside place to stop halfway between LA and SF. We managed to find a handicapped parking place right in front, but the walk to the dining room was long for a fragile old gal who refuses to use a walker, and it’s equally long in the opposite direction to the ladies room. After putting up with a short wait, a rude hostess and a harried server, I had a terrific bowl of gazpacho (really!) and we shared a decent turkey wrap.
The scenery changed from depressing feedlots to verdant hills as we left the highway heading toward the ocean. The Four Seasons Silicon Valley was really easy to find as it literally overlooks the freeway in East Palo Alto! Thank goodness for double pane windows.
The hotel is very corporate, situated in a business park, but it has a terrific little spa, great beds and – best of all – top notch Four Seasons service. (What a training program that company has!) Room service for Mom was a delicious antipasto that arrived in 15 minutes flat from Quattro, the hotel’s terrific Italian restaurant. Mom dined in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, which had, in addition to the freeway view, a vista of the bay.
Meanwhile I headed to the spa and had a steam and a massage. Everyone connected to the hotel was super friendly and upbeat, and each time I retrieved my car from the valet, there was an ice-cold bottle of water in it.
Day Two
Palo Alto to Menlo Park
I dropped Mado off at her sister, Sonja, and brother-in-law, Ivan’s home in Mountainview and then checked us into the brand new Rosewood Sand Hill in Menlo Park.
More resort than hotel, the Sand Hill is spread over the hillside, which might have been very inconvenient for someone elderly had the staff not been at our service with a golf cart every time we made a move. We stayed in a one-bedroom villa with a garden view, which had one and a half baths and a dressing room the size of a NYC apartment.
That afternoon, Mado sat by the pool and watched the kids cavort and splash, while I — surprise! — headed for the spa. I asked one of the pool men to keep an eye on Mom and when she was ready to return to her room, he escorted her.
That evening Sonja and Ivan came to dinner at Madera, the hotel’s lively — and lovely — restaurant. (Apparently the lounge is the place for young valley movers and shakers to wheel and deal.)
With an emphasis on sustainably harvested seafood and meat, and seasonal produce from local farms, the food was amazing. Standouts included the oysters, stuffed quail, a perfectly cooked rib eye, rack of local lamb, the risotto and a to-die-for polenta with gran padrana cheese. All I remember about desert was that we had several.
Day Three
Menlo Park to Mill Valley
Drove to Mill Valley to visit Bea, one of my mother friends who is in exactly the same position she is, i.e., she has moved from her home in New York to a senior residence on the West Coast to be near her kids.
Mado (L) and Bea (R)
It was great seeing the two old gals together — I can still remember them both in bikinis on our boats on Long Island when I was a child!
We stayed at the Mill Valley Inn, which is right in the heart of the most picturesque town in Marin. Though we were slightly spoiled at this point — after the Four Seasons and the Sand Hill — the place had its own charm and was ideally located for walking around town.
Our room had a balcony, overlooking the main street and the hills. The hotel offers wine and cheese in the late afternoon and a hearty buffet breakfast with complimentary cappuccino and make-your-own waffles.
We had dinner that evening at Bungalow 44, which a friend had raved about and which is allegedly Geroge Lucas’s home away from home. We were disappointed. The beef vegetable soup was watery and light on the vegetables, and the crab cakes and goat cheese ravioli were unremarkable.
Day Four
Mill Valley to San Luis Obispo
It’s kind of strange that a city like San Francisco does not have a ring road or a freeway that allows you to bypass the city going north or south. So, once again, we traversed the Golden Gate Bridge and the city and encountered the only traffic we had in four days.
The endless drive south was fortunately broken up by a tasty lunch in Paso Robles at Thomas Hill Organics , a bistro and wine bar with food served fresh from the garden. But my mother’s patience was wearing thin and now that we were on our way home she couldn’t wait to be there. So much for my cross-country plans!
The Apple Farm Inn in San Luis Obispo was as filled with knick-knacks as the Four Seasons was streamlined and modern. No wifi here, though there was free plug-in cable for accessing the internet. But the place is spotless, the beds are comfortable and it’s right off the highway. Mom was happy to sit by the pool in the sun until it was time for dinner.
We dined in town at Koberl at Blue, a bistro featuring local wine and country cuisine; each dish here has its suggested Central Coast wine pairing. The place is owned by the chef and his amiable, East Coast wife; they have created a dining spot that is definitely worth a detour. We had an eclectic lite-dining selection that included oysters (we were on a roll!), flatbreads with seasonal toppings and potstickers — everything was excellent.
CONCLUSION
Road trips with elderly parents must provide a high comfort quotient, starting with a well-appointed sedan and, if possible, luxury hotels. No matter how tired my mother was, when we checked into a gorgeous place, she beamed from ear to ear. She appreciated the good service, the smiles from the staff, being called Madam and having someone open doors for her.
At 87, this is what she deserves and I’m glad I was able to provide it during this short trip.
Now, a trip across country is another story entirely and one I’m not sure either of us is up for!

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Why is the U.S. still supporting a repressive regime in Honduras? While Secretary of State Clinton continues to insist that democracy is marching forward in Honduras, President Porfirio Lobo’s ongoing coup government has been escalating its violent attacks against peaceful demonstrators, opposition radio stations, and critics. Repression under Lobo has now achieved levels equal to those after Roberto Micheletti took power in the June 28, 2009 coup. Lobo’s reward: dinner at the White House this week.
The details are chilling, and bald. On Wednesday, September 15 — Independence Day, for Hondurans — police and the military brutally broke up an opposition demonstration in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city. First troops broke into the entrance to Radio Uno, the only opposition radio station in the city, lobbed tear gas into its windows, trashed its offices, and very deliberately destroyed a popular statue of deposed former President Manuel Zelaya. Ten minutes into a concert in the Central Park, police suddenly stormed the stage and destroyed the instruments of all three musical groups ready to perform. At the same time, amidst clouds of tear gas and other chemicals, troops turned viciously on the peacefully gathered demonstrators, grabbing people randomly and beating them with batons. Officers beat up teenagers in a high school drum corps; they smashed all the windows and lights of a union-owned pickup truck parked nearby; an elderly man selling lottery tickets died of the tear gas.
Ever since Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo came into office as President of Honduras in January, after a fraudulent election from which opposition candidates withdrew, he’s been testing what he and the nation’s elites can get away with, gradually unleashing more and more violence against the opposition. On August 13 police violently attacked peaceful demonstrators in Choloma with tear gas, brutal beatings with batons, and further beatings while in detention. When teachers marched in the capital, Tegucigalpa, on August 26 and 27, they were met with tear gas, batons, and even live ammunition.
Paramilitary-style assassinations and death threats against trade unionists, campesino activists, and feminists active in the opposition continue unabated, with complete impunity. Last Friday night, September 17, gunmen shot and killed Juana Bustillo, a leader in the social security workers’ union. Nine journalists critical of the government have been killed since Lobo took office. On September 19 in Tegucigalpa, unknown assailants shot at Luis Galdamez, a prominent opposition radio and TV commentator, as he entered his home with his young son. The police wouldn’t even show up for an hour and a half.
Although many in the U.S. press still cast the Honduran opposition as merely supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya, they are united by a far deeper vision that hopes to address the country’s overwhelming poverty and break the lockdown of the oligarchs on its political system and economy. The resistance has so far collected 1,346,876 signatures (out of a country of 7.8 million) calling for a constitutional convention through which to refound Honduran society.
The opposition is also trying hard to stop a wave of economic aggression against its already impoverished working people. It is demanding that Lobo finally declare a new minimum wage, as he has been legally mandated to do for months now. It is also trying to stop a draconian reformation of the country’s basic labor law, that will not only destroy full-time, permanent employment — which in turn, is legally necessary for workers to form unions — but allows employers to pay 30% of what they they owe employees not in actual money but in company scrip — with its value set by the company.
President Lobo persists in cloaking his repressive military-led rule by calling it a “government of national reconciliation.” All the repression, in his fictional world, is just common crime. Yes, common crime, much of it gang-led, is hideously rampant in Honduras. But it flourishes in the ripe climate of mass poverty the Honduran oligarchs foster; and it doesn’t account for the selective assassinations of opposition activists and journalists, over and over. And Lobo, of course, not the gangs, is the one ordering the police to attack demonstrations and countenancing paramilitary assassinations.
The Obama administration supports this chilling regime one hundred percent. Military aid has been fully restored. The International Monetary Fund on September 10 announced an additional $196 million loan to Honduras. Preposterously, just Lobo launched the tear gas on Independence Day in Honduras, Hillary Clinton praised once again its “resumption of democratic and constitutional government.”

Rather than extol Lobo, send him more and more guns and funds, and invite him a gracious dinner with other presidents visiting the United Nations, Obama should cut all ties with the regime and stop pressuring the Organization of American States to re-admit Honduras. The White House should heed a letter currently circulating in Congress, sponsored by Representative Sam Farr, and cut all military aid. And please, no dinners legitimating repressive, fraudulent thugs.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A little more than 10 years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to find a family member — a two-year-old child — huddled in the corner of the living room, making whining noises like an injured cat.
I knew at that moment that something was terribly wrong. I had ventured from a place of sneaking suspicion to confirmation that this family member would be diagnosed with a developmental disorder. As both a parent and a professional, I thought I knew what to expect from the upcoming process. And on a procedural level, I did — I was familiar with the litany of tests and interventions that we would be undergoing with this child. What I didn’t anticipate was what nobody wanted to talk about: how it would affect my marriage.
You see, I didn’t know 10 years ago that the entire family would miss out on so many of the typical experiences of childhood — nor that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, that I would gain over 40 pounds, and that the pressure of everything we were facing would almost bring my marriage to an end.
When someone tells you that a child you love faces the distinct possibility of being developmentally unlike the other members of your family, it’s like heading into battle — except there is no prep time, no boot camps or training programs, no time for second thoughts. Every minute that went by that I was not getting help for this child felt like a year of her life compromised as a result.
But our problems ranged beyond simply finding the right people to help. My husband, who had always been my greatest support system, was functioning in a state of denial. “Don’t be ridiculous — there’s nothing wrong with her,” he’d scoff. Meanwhile, the clinical opinions, each one supporting the initial diagnosis, came rolling in.
What we should have done was to acknowledge our emotional distress, but not allow that distress to ruin us. We should have focused on working together in the present tense without allowing each issue to become an argument about everything else that went or was going wrong. The key in a marriage, especially during a long-term crisis, is to be able to function in the moment. It’s not an absence of feelings; it’s feeling within reason and maintaining rationality — not allowing those inflamed emotions to destroy you.
My husband and I learned this all too well during this difficult time: instead of adapting to our situation, it soon became clear that, while technically together, we were very much apart. Did I try to handle things better? Of course. All too often, however, I was so battle-weary that I would just give up.
Ten years later, looking back on our experiences, I see where things went awry. We fell into the trap that so many couples do: in the face of hardship: we closed ourselves off to the communication habits that, once we identified them, helped us to persevere. I know now that I could have accomplished much in a simple moment: not of action, but rather (uncharacteristically, given the frenetic pace of my life back then) of inaction. That pause would have enabled us to avoid becoming derailed by all of the real-time emotions that ignite conflict in even the most unflappable of couples.
Perhaps my most important realization, however, was that if our marriage wasn’t healthy, it was the child in our care who would experience the ultimate disadvantage. She needed a support system that was wholly devoted to her, not distracted by the miscommunications that are the hallmarks of our daily lives. This child needed us — a cohesive team. I’m thrilled to be able to say that now, 10 years later, she’s both happy and healthy — and so are we.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

My friend Rich came over to my office last week and we had a wonderful and authentic conversation about what’s going on in each of our lives right now. I’m so grateful to have people in my life like Rich whom I can talk to and get real.
Authenticity creates freedom and having people around us we can truly be ourselves with is so important.
Rich and I talked vulnerably about our relationships, our challenges, the things we’re most excited about, and some stuff we’d both like to change about ourselves and our lives.
As we were talking, Rich shared a great email with me he’d recently received about change:
What I CAN Change
You can’t change your entire life, you can only change your next action
You can’t change a relationship with a loved one, you can only change your next interaction
You can’t change your entire job, you can only change your next task
You can’t change your body composition, you can only change your next meal
You can’t change your fitness level, you can only start moving
You can’t de-clutter your entire life, you can only choose to get rid of one thing right now
You can’t eliminate your entire debt, you can only make one payment, or buy one less unnecessary item
You can’t change the past, or control the future, you can only change what you are doing now
You can’t change everything, you can only change one, small thing…and that’s all it takes
Wow — what a great reminder of how life and change truly work.
As I reflected on the power, wisdom and simplicity of this message, I started to realize how often I get impatient and frustrated with myself, especially in certain areas of my life, when I want to change to happen. This email reminded me how important it is to take things step by step, moment by moment.
While I do believe in thinking big, in breakthrough results and in miraculous change, paradoxically, the way life tends to unfold and real change happens is one step at a time. And, when we remember this, we allow ourselves to be in the present moment, reclaim our true power and eliminate a great deal of unnecessary worry, pain and suffering.
As Lao-tzu taught us, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.” Although we all know this and have heard this saying many times, the challenge for many of us is to remember it and live it on a daily basis.
Here are a few things you can do to practice living one step at a time:
Make a list of some of the things you want to change, alter or improve in your life right now. First of all, it’s important to remember that none of these changes will, in and of themselves, make you happy (only you can do that for yourself). That being said, positive change can be a wonderfully exciting and empowering thing for us to engage in and experience. Identifying what you want to change specifically is an essential first step.
With each of these important things you want to change, think of some simple, small steps you can take (today or this week) that will move you in the direction you truly want. If you get stuck with any of them, ask for help. And, if you start to get overwhelmed, take a break and remember to keep things simple. These are what my friend Susan calls “micro-movements.” Don’t let your ego take over and judge them as too small.
Celebrate each step of the way. As you notice yourself making different choices, having new thoughts and taking small, positive steps towards the changes you want, celebrate. And, if you find yourself forgetting, falling back into old patterns, or unable to take some of these simple actions, celebrate yourself for your awareness and honor your desire to change. Either way, celebrating and appreciating yourself is essential to the process.
By remembering what we can actually change and how change truly works, we’re able to create true miracles in our lives — one step at a time!
Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, coach and the bestselling author of “Focus on the Good Stuff” (Wiley) and “Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken” (Wiley). More info – www.Mike-Robbins.com

Follow Mike Robbins on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com