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I have a confession: I’m 32 years old and I read a young adult novel about werewolves.
I’m not afraid to admit this, because Andrea Cremer writes with an accomplished and intelligent voice that won’t give adult readers headaches. Cremer’s Nightshade is a smart blend of romance, action, philosophy, and pagan witchcraft. And, yes, high-schoolers shape-shifting into wolves.
Instead of tip-toeing around tough issues, she tackles them head-on. “I know how to talk to students,” Cremer, who teaches “at a very nice liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota,” blogged. “I have a Ph.D. in history and I understand the ways in which violence, religion, and sexuality have shaped societies… These subjects shouldn’t be avoided or hidden. They need to be discussed.”
Cremer recently spoke with me about Nightshade, which debuted on The New York Times Bestseller list in October.
***
Huffington Post: Ren, Nightshade’s resident bad boy, obviously cares for his fiance Calla (the series’ heroine). This makes it hard to dislike him, even as he takes full advantage of the sexual double standard and fools around with other girls on the side.
Andrea Cremer: Ren has issues, serious issues that will be revealed in the coming books of the series. I agree that he’s likable, and incredibly desirable, but I do think the fact that Ren has so many fans bespeaks to a tendency that the bad boy can be redeemed or changed whereas a fallen woman is always fallen.
HP: What does it say about us as a society that we’re so eager to forgive the bad boy for his sins (i.e. he’s just being a “player”), but would be quick to disown a woman who exhibited the same behavior?
AC: It’s the 21st century and young women are still very much in the shadow of a Madonna/whore complex. That double standard was something I wanted to bring out starkly in the series because I find it so deeply troubling. A young woman’s sexual awakening shouldn’t be something she is ashamed of or punished for. It still appears to be the case that when it comes to sex a large swath of the population believes “boys will be boys” but girls have to be “responsible” – which boils down to girls carrying the social and physical burden of sex and its consequences without being given any space in which to understand their sexuality in a positive and accepting away.
HP: The werewolf regime that Calla and her friends serve under is fairly totalitarian, which might be a foreign concept (literally and figuratively) to modern day American teenagers. Did you have any concern that young adults in the US wouldn’t be able to identify with the characters’ struggles?
AC: I wasn’t worried about young adults being able to relate to oppression – it’s simply a matter of scale. At age 14 you can feel utterly oppressed by a curfew or limited phone time. It may seem flip to compare that to a totalitarian regime but I think, particularly for teens. it’s easy to understand what it would be like, and how unfair it would feel, to have your choices limited. Our mantra in American culture (whether it’s true or not) is that the benefit of living here is the freedom to be or do whatever your dream is. The thought that the pursuit of happiness could be removed is very frightening and something that resonates no matter what your understanding of historical totalitarianism is.
HP: Not only does Thomas Hobbes’s philosophical ideas influence Nightshade, but Hobbes himself actually plays a role in the back story. Why Hobbes?
AC: My research [as a professor] focuses on the intersection of violence, gender/sexuality, and religion in the early modern period. I’ve always been drawn to competing Enlightenment philosophies about the state of nature. Hobbes offered a rather dark path into a plot that debates fate versus free will as his idea of a “war of all against all” posits that humans are inherently violent and societal order only results from coercion.
HP: I can’t think of a single book or television series whose ending has universally pleased all of its fans. Harry Potter, Twilight, LOST, Seinfeld, or The Sopranos–there’s always some amount of grumbling. Is this something you’re conscious of while writing the finale to your trilogy?
AC: I do think that, as an author, you have to let go of the hope that the ending will please everyone. It’s impossible to please everyone. I knew how the trilogy would end when I started writing it. For me it was the only way it could end. I hope that most readers will find that the conclusion resonates with them.
HP: And if it doesn’t?
AC: If it doesn’t, I hope they don’t chase me down with pitchforks and torches!
***
Wolfsbane, the second book in the Nightshade trilogy, will be released next July.
Thomas Hobbes Image: Public Domain.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Introduction
Thus the question of Godard’s anti-semitism has come up again, on the occasion of an “Honorary Award,” this Saturday, November 13th in Los Angeles, for the entirety of his work.
To begin with, I should say that I do not like this climate of Inquisition that pervades the intellectual and artistic world, both in Europe and in the United States. And I would have preferred not to be compelled to enter, at all, into a battle that seems to concern, as is often the case, the disqualification of works based upon the small-minded expressions, even the alleged outrages, of their author. But since the debate has been launched, since it is apparently making the front page of major American dailies and since we live in a world where soon it may be impossible to pronounce the name of the director of “A Bout de souffl” ["Breathless"] without adding this question which is, obviously, a dreadful one: “Is Godard anti-semitic?”, I have decided to present my account of the matter here.
Not that this account has, in and of itself, any particular authority. But it is characterized by two things I implore those who, starting tomorrow, will protest against the attribution of this award and against the honor thus accorded the controversial filmmaker to consider. It is the testimony of a man of whom the least one can say is that he has never compromised, not with public opinion but with the crime of anti-semitism; that he has never, no never, found excuses or attenuating circumstances for it, and that he has never hesitated, moreover, to recognize its face behind all of its masks and assumed names. And it is, most of all, the account of a writer that the happenstance of life has led to encounter Jean-Luc Godard four times in the last 25 years. In every instance, the occasion was a film project that dealt, precisely, with this question of ways, modern or not, of being Jewish. And the man in question, myself, quite naturally possesses both a singular experience and, inevitably, original elements of reflection concerning the very object of the present quarrel.
A year ago, when Antoine de Baecque’s biography came out, I brought up episodes little known to Godard’s biographers, in particular to de Baecque. I did so in a detailed text that was published in Le Point, and then here, in the Huffington Post, on April 8th, 2010, and which was initially inspired by a phrase Godard’s other biographer, the American Joseph Brody, attributed to me which I sensed was becoming Exhibit #1 in the indictment of what would become the “Godard trial”. Had I ever really said that Jean-Luc Godard was “an antisemite trying to cure himself?” If so, on what occasion? In what context? And what does one do when a little phrase you uttered, a word, perhaps just dinner table pleasantries or a joke, turns out to support the most serious accusation there could be? One offers his true feelings. One presents his innermost conviction, carefully weighing his words. That is, thus, what I did in this text, the conclusion of which was that Godard’s rapport with the Jewish fact was, certainly, complex, contradictory, and ambiguous; that his support in the early 70s of the most extremist Palestinian points of view was obviously a problem; and that there are, in such private conversations recounted by the writer and film maker Alain Fleischer since then, some disturbing elements. But to use that to peremptorily declare that “Godard is anti-semitic” is not only to take the risk of calling a life’s work before a tribunal where, I repeat, it has no place but also, concerning the point that is a problem, the name to give Godard’s politics — or not — in short, concerning the corpus delicti, it amounts to jumping to conclusions, playing with words one should only use with the greatest of scruple and, in the final analysis, straying completely off the path.
There remained the documents. There remained the “packet of notes and documents” I said, in the text of April 8th, I had “kept over the years”, attesting to these moments of my life and of Jean-Luc Godard’s (and, where some were concerned, that of Claude Lanzmann as well) that were also the foundation of my analysis and of what I had to say. I limited myself, then, to indicating their existence but did not feel that actually making them public served any purpose. And I did so without much regret because, each of the four times, it was a question of films abandoned that I was not sure (and, moreover, am still not sure) it would have been worthwhile to drag out of the limbo where we had decided, among one another, to let them stay.
Today, I see things differently. Before the developing importance of this affair, before the accumulation of hearsay, opinions, or quotes taken out of context and consequently turned crazy with which men and women I often know and respect make do, before — why not say so too? — the invitation I sense, here and there (recently again, from de Baecque, in Rue 89), to stop using half-words and, in order to “definitively exonerate Godard” (or not), to publish the letters, notes, and preparatory documents of these film projects, thus producing the evidence of a case that, up until now, I have said too little or not enough about, I take on the responsibility, yes, after all, of offering all.

Here they are then, these snippets, drafts, these words. Here are these useless, dusty, forgotten letters that were no longer for me and, I imagine, for Godard, any more than the sad memory of endeavors we undertook with enthusiasm but that turned out to be still-born — and that will, here, for an instant, come to life again and contribute, I hope, to an effort at clarification that must be put off no longer. Each one can form his own open from there on. It is up to everyone to judge, but as I did myself — with the evidence henceforth at hand, and with probity. Read.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Fraudster Bernard Madoff's belongings sold at auction

Newly re-elected Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 back in April of 2010. The law essentially obligates Arizona police officers to stop and ask for US citizenship documentation from anyone who looks Latino, thereby making the assumption that appearing Mexican makes a person a potential illegal immigrant.
A lot of people called that racial profiling.
But in the video below, some people came to a different conclusion. If all Latinos could be illegal immigrants, than all Caucasian, blond women could be the Governor of Arizona.
Profile the Governor from Profile the Governor on Vimeo.

This Blogger’s Books from
50 Relatives Worse Than Yours
by Justin Racz, Alec Brownstein
50 Days Worse Than Yours
by Justin Racz, Alec Brownstein

Follow Alec Brownstein on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/jusfonzin

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Washington, DC – In an apparent effort to reach an agreement with his Republican opponents, President Obama today expressed his willingness to reconsider his claims of American birth. Speaking from the Oval Office, he said:
According to a press release from the White House, the commission will be co-chaired by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson and Karl Rove, former advisor to President George W. Bush. In a joint statement issued after the President’s remarks, Mr. Nelson and Mr. Rove said, “We are committed to putting partisan differences aside, and objectively determining exactly which Muslim nation the President was born in.”
In a surprising nod to Jon Stewart, Mr. Obama credited his softening on this issue to the “Rally for Sanity” recently organized by the Comedy Central TV host. As the President put it, “Jon helped me realize just how immoderate my approach to moderation has been. This is clearly the reason why so many of those young people who voted for me in 2008 decided to stay home in this last election. By militantly insisting that I was a native-born American, I was being just as inflexible and rancorous as my opponents. There’s no reason my administration can’t move more to the center here. So, I promise to listen to them on this matter. And, whatever the commission decides, I will direct the appropriate authorities to adjust my birth certificate accordingly.”
This latest move to meet the Republicans half way comes within days of the President finally relenting on demands by GOP leaders that he issue an executive order privatizing the Social Security Administration. Funds for that former government agency will now be managed a consortium of Las Vegas hotel-casinos. Responding to concerns of worried retirees, Mario Buttafuoco, spokesman for the consortium, said last week, “Hey, no problem. As we say in our business, the house always wins.” Passionate advocate for the plan, Republican House Speaker John Boehner, told reporters the next day, “That’s our new motto, as well.”

This Blogger’s Books from
The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity
by Stephen J. Ducat

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

No one can believe David Amram is now 80. Yes, you can do the math. But, to see him cavorting about the ample stage in front of a packed Symphony Space on Thursday for his birthday celebration was surely to see a man in mid-life: Hence the title, “The First 80 Years.”
In typical Amram style, performances of this quintessential American composer and ethnomusicologist’s “greatest hits” were not self-reflexive, but rather homages to the greats he performed with, learned from, those who inspired him: Odetta, Joe Papp, Woody Guthrie, Frank McCourt, Max Roach, Dizzy, and Kerouac. In memory of Floyd Red Crow Westerman, he played with Tokasin Ghosthorse on Lakota Courting Flutes. The Queens College Orchestra conducted by Maurice Peress played “This Land is Your Land,” and I could feel his Whitmanesque expansive juxtapositions. Similarly his “Home on the Range” was bebop Americana.
Perhaps my favorite part of the evening was the medley of his music for movies: “Splendor in the Grass,” the original “Manchurian Candidate” where John Frankenheimer just directed him, Take it where it takes you. And of course, “Pull My Daisy,” Working with Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie and also a version created for a documentary I worked on in the 1980′s, “The Beat Generation: An American Dream.” Scatting his signature “senior” spontaneous bop, he sounds good, a hip guy in a suit with pipes and pennywhistles hanging off his neck making it up as it suits him. The actor John Ventimiglia brought this sequence home with his reading of the last paragraph of Kerouac’s “On the Road:” And don’t you know that god is Pooh Bear.
Surrounded by family, his kids, Adira, Alana, Adam, his ex wife Laura Lee, and many fans and friends including Jacques D’Amboise, Barbara Kopple, Ira Gittler, Malachy McCourt, Ray Mantilla and John McEwan of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, David Amram hosted the evening without sentimentality, without excess, eschewing the typical testimonials for such a grand occasion. After all, we’ve got the next 80 to anticipate and cherish.
This post also appears on Gossip Central.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Burma’s imprisoned political hero Aung San Suu Kyi has been freed by the military government and given an amnesty.
Thousands of supporters watched as Suu Kyi appeared on the balcony of her aging lakeside villa to address them at dusk in Rangoon. Their shouting drowned her out.
The official Burma state radio and television quoted Police Chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi as saying said she had been given an amnesty “without grudge,” according to Xinhua, the Chinese news agency.
Just seeing their leader, who normally could only meet with one or two people at a time cleared by military authorities, was a joyful event. The exile-based Irrawaddy Website scrolled a headline saying: Aung San Suu Kyi Freed At Last.
Although coverage of the release was limited by the military regime which calls the nation Myanmar, supporters could be heard cheering Suu Kyi. She spoke some words that could not be heard except by those close up because the fragile, 65-year-old leader had no megaphone let alone a public address system. She promised to talk more about her release on Sunday.
It was unclear how much freedom of movement and speech she would have. Restrictions on her National League for Democacy forced it to disband. The party won an overwhelmingly victory in elections in 1990, but has been under some form of arrest for at least 15 of the past 21 years.
Pundits immediately began engaging in banter on how much force Suu Kyi would have and whether the “political landscape” had changed so much her influence might be minimized.
Based on her history it was clear she would push her campaign for democracy to the limit and even beyond. She has had no outlet other than meditation.
Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, somewhat of a pint-sized troublemaker himself and a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has marveled at her courage in taking on a brutal dictatorship. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
As usual the government initially released no information, and with previous release promises not kept, the crowd started to become angry overnight Friday. When barricades were removed the following evening, cries of joy were heard over international radio broadcasts.
The military and political rivals have made her life seem like a victim of Stalin’s labor camps but in isolation. It made many democracy supporters disappear around the world, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. Then there were those too important to kill.
Her father, Aung San, was the founder of modern Burma, but he was assassinated in 1947 by political rivals two years after she was born. Suu Kyi had moved to Britain to study but returned to attend to her dying mother in 1988 and was present when riots broke out.
Democracy supporters immediately drafted her to lead their campaign.
Although news reports talk of her living in a lakeside village the BBC reported that it was a dilapidated structure overgrown with vines, and so damp that the piano she had loved to play had become warped. She had few visitors, and could listen to the radio and get a couple of magazines a week, she was not allowed to see her family often.
When her husband, Oxford-based Asian scholar Michael Aris, was dying in Britain he was not allowed to come to Burma to see her. Suu Kyi declined an offer to visit him because she feared she would not be allowed to return.
Outside Burma political leaders like French President Sarkozy and organizations like Amnesty International called on Burma military leaders to guarantee her security. Some of her party members were killed in 2003 when thugs attacked her motorcade. Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty said the release of Suu Kyi was welcome but the government should release more than 2,200 political prisoners it also holds.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

While it should have been impossible for something like the Holocaust to take place, it did. Now that we have this history we must deal with it as best we can. Events such as this simply overpower the present. For this reason, perhaps, there exist physical places to anchor those memories, so they can be put somewhere.
So how do you spatialize memory in a meaningful way that also animates and informs the surrounding metropolis? As an architect, how do you materialize the horror, the madness, and the dehumanization? You can’t simply re-create a concentration camp. As Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times so aptly put it, “The architect’s nearly impossible job is to mark murder on a mass scale.” So what does a museum devoted to the memory of murder look like? Descending down into Hagy Belzberg’s new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust may provide some clues.
Rather than embodying violence and confinement as Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, Mr. Belzberg chose to emphasize the hope of release. While Libeskind took inspiration in part from intellectual sources like Arnold Schoenberg’s unfinished opera, Moses und Aron, and Walter Benjamin’s One Way Street. Mr. Belzberg drew from the everyday experiences of Pan Pacific Park, where the museum is sited off to one edge. The normalcy of the park is where the journey through this “green”, LEED Gold museum begins and ends.
As Mr. Belzberg’s brief for the project describes, the dichotomous relationship between the building’s content and the peaceful landscape mimics the proximity “German forest revelers enjoying public parks were to sites of horrific and inhumane acts being carried out in the 1930′s and 40′s.” This is one reason Pan Pacific Park is such a surprising yet appropriate location for the museum.
The form of the building was designed to interplay with the park setting and modulate the experience of the outside from within. Wedged into the earth like a berm, it seems to have been carved out rather than built in. Moreover, its placement allows the life of the park to carry on.
In keeping with this, the building’s green roof, designed by Karla Dakin and Lisa Benjamin, seems to flow from the park’s grounds. It’s responsible, low-water mix of plants includes Blue Grama and Esparto Grass, Pine Muhly, Red Carpet Stonecrop, and Star of Bethlehem, a type of Hyacinth. When these reach their projected height of thirty-six inches, the building will become even more integrated with the landscape.
The curved shapes of the building’s structure immediately bring to mind Zaha Hadid’s aesthetic. But here such futuristic-looking contours make sense because they embody the continuation of the park’s layered geology. These computer-generated forms were physically achieved by employing shotcrete, a form of concrete that is pneumatically projected into shaped reinforcement–a method commonly used to make swimming pools.
The museum’s design also derives from Mr. Belzberg’s desire to transition patrons from the light, airy normalcy of the park down into a sequential experience that becomes ever darker and which follows the progression of genocide. As Mr. Belzberg explained to me, wherever you are in the interior there is a glimmer of hope for exodus. You never lose sight of the sun even as you progress into darker and darker areas. Patrons depart their daily world as they descend down the long ramp to the mostly underground structure. Like the Holocaust itself, the building thus represents the interruption of everyday experience.
As one walks down into this porous “cave”, the green roof gradually recedes and gives way to the entry lobby. Unlike the experience of Holocaust victims, though, we in the present immediately know how this journey is going to end. The exit is just in front of you, looking out at the original Holocaust Memorial that the building frames and accents.
The subtle passage through light becomes somewhat abstracted by all the displays and technology on the interior. There are fluidly interactive touch-screen monitors throughout. The first one encountered is a giant table, designed for community engagement. Further inside, individual touch-screens make the experience more personal. People become divided as prisoners were in the camps.
While the displays are necessary to communicate content, their obvious presence at times obscures the building’s gentle orchestration of light, space, and its connection to the outside. One wonders if the architecture would not be more powerful without all of this. Here, then, is the difficulty of reconciling such content with architecture. Sometimes less is more, but with the Holocaust there is just so much to show that such austere minimalism would be inappropriate. After all, the point of the building is to bring the horror that took place out into the everyday world. When I asked one Holocaust survivor what he thought of the architecture, he just smiled and said he was glad this place was here.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

If President Obama and the Democrats surrender to the forces of the Mega-Rich on the tax cut for the top two percent, they will demonstrate that they have no sense of purpose whatsoever.
The reason given for moving towards a “compromise” is that there aren’t enough Democrats in the Senate who oppose the giveaway to the rich.
The solution is clear: Separate and pass the middle-class extension in the House and send it to the Senate. How can any Democrat oppose an extension of tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans?
Then there can be a separate vote on the extension of the Bush cuts for the rich, which even a minority of Democrats in the Senate could block.
If Democrats do not have enough backbone to stop an utterly foolish policy that is opposed by about 70 percent of the American public, what is the party’s reason for existence?
No retreat! No Surrender! De-couple the tax cut extensions and do what’s right for the people and the economy.

This Blogger’s Books from
The Great Depression: America 1929-1941
by Robert S. McElvaine
Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America
by Robert S. McElvaine

Follow Robert S. McElvaine on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/@BobMcElvaine

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Welcome to a Huffington Post exclusive: a serial blog-vlog about surviving separation which will arrive in 12 segments over the coming weeks.
The goals are straight-forward:
Offer hope (and humor) to men who are disconsolate after a relationship has hit the rocks
Offer a resource to women who care about such men.
I wrote For Men Who Have Everything, Including a Broken Heart because I would have liked a book like this when my first marriage nose-dived.
Millions upon millions of men have had their hearts broken and now live apart from former lovers/partners/spouses. Such separation is not only heart-rending, it is downright disorienting.
For most of us guys, it is one of life’s biggest challenges. Men often play the stoic, but most of us feel desperate when our relationships disintegrate. For some men it can lead to alcoholism, addiction, even homelessness and suicide. My serial is designed to be a man’s best friend in such circumstances.
I wrote each section as truthfully as I could — about what I learned during my first years of separation. There are no rules, only lessons. And a fair amount of humor. It is a favorite coping mechanism of mine.
I offer it in a spirit of brotherhood and with a strong faith that once our broken hearts mend, we have the capacity to be more compassionate, wiser, more resilient and stronger than we were before.
***
Once there was a man who had everything.
He had a loving spouse, two children, a house, and a good job.
He was a husband. He was a father. He was a provider.
He had a sense of purpose, a sense of pride, even a sense of humor.
Life was hard sometimes, but it didn’t matter because he had everything and, everything considered, that was a lot.
Then, after years together, he and his wife grew distant. The relationship broke in two. So did his heart.
His wife was no longer loving, he no longer saw his children every day, he no longer lived in his house and his job no longer earned enough money.
The man saw black. Life seemed empty. He felt sadness sink into the marrow of his bones and stretch from the hairs on his head to the calluses on his toes.
That man was me.
What to Expect
This is a blog of experience, not expertise.
It’s what I’ve learned, not what you should do.
If you’ve separated, you may be in pain. You may feel alone. You may feel like a failure. The last thing I needed when I separated was verbal diarrhea. So this blog-vlog is brief, brisk and blunt.
I’ve tried to capture the truth I’ve found since I separated from my wife. I offer it in the hope that other men will find it useful as they find their own ways of coping and growing.
To me, there is nothing worse than loneliness. So, first, a thought for those of us who are suffering right now. Remember, no matter how down you feel, there are millions of men around the world who are in a similar situation. You are not alone. And there is hope, you just have to find it.
When I separated from my wife, I felt relieved at the start. But as the first few days passed, the relief turned to worry and the worry to a powerful sense of loss.
I was a man who prided himself on keeping his cool and maintaining an emotional balance. But more and more, I began to feel like a rudderless boat on a very stormy sea.
My family was no longer together.
I felt I had lost much of the meaning of my life.
I felt ashamed.
I also felt like giving up.
It all seemed impossibly hard. And I had no game plan, no strategy for mounting a recovery. It felt like the biggest defeat of my life, and turning my back on the whole thing seemed a very tempting option.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I fell back on the oldest instinct I have: trying.
Each morning I summoned my strength and focused my energy, not to achieve some lofty goal, but just to keep going.
Not exactly a plan of genius. But it worked.
Here’s why: Every time I tried instead of giving up, it was like a statement of faith in myself: a statement that I mattered, that my life mattered, and that I believed that one day, I would recover my balance, my prowess, my joy. Trying was my way of saying: I am strong enough to cope with this.
And 14 years later, I can report that I was strong enough. And I have coped.
It was the toughest challenge I ever faced.
But I met it with the simplest of philosophies.
So if you’re hurting, I say to you: Don’t give up. Life changes. And courage now will reap huge benefits later on.
Keep trying.
There’s more vlogging and blogging and to come. I promise it will be personal and positive. Watch the Divorce vertical for the next installment of For Men Who Have Everything, Including a Broken Heart. Or simply sign up for email alerts and each time a new segment is posted, you’ll be informed. Thanks.

This Blogger’s Books from
Silver Tongue
by Steven Crandell
Silver Tongue: Secrets of Mr. Santa Barbara

Follow Steven Crandell on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/stevencrandell

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Debbie Dimoff is what Malcolm Gladwell calls a “connector” — she knows absolutely everyone and is a genius at bringing people together. She also spans the territory between my last book and the one that’s coming out in January — she’s a “New Radical” who is becoming what I call “ripe.” I asked her to answer four questions designed to discover how she continues to create her brilliant career.
What are you doing?
I’m juggling as many exciting projects and adventures as I can handle and some that I can’t handle just to keep me on my toes.
My portfolio includes corporate life: I work as a management consultant with PwC, leading the development of a Canadian social media consulting practice. As HuffPost readers know, social media applications like Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, and hundreds of other sites are revolutionizing the way people engage with each other and with brands. We use social media to help clients transform their interactions with customers and employees. I love figuring out what people can do with technology to make life better, more convenient, and more inspiring.
My other adventures include being on the board of Social and Enterprise Development Innovations. SEDI helps low-income Canadians become self-sufficient through financial literacy, saving and asset building, and entrepreneurship. Earlier this year, we launched the TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund, to help fund community groups across Canada that offer financial literacy training.
I also work with the Toronto City Summit Alliance, a coalition of civic leaders working on a range of initiatives such as expanding affordable housing and greening the Toronto region. The Alliance is preparing for a major summit in 2011 where leaders will come together to plan action on key issues. As you might have guessed, I’m developing a social media plan for the summit — from a way for leaders and supporters to connect beforehand to how to reach out and engage the wider community during the summit itself. [J.M. note: I've written about the Alliance before.]
And, in my spare time, I’m industry advisor to Cogniciti a new joint venture between MaRS, Canada’s premier innovation centre, and Baycrest Hospital, one of the world’s leading cognitive science institutes. Cogniciti commercializes programs to support brain fitness. Translation? Using science to help us sharpen our mental edge.
How did you get the gig?
I got these gigs the same way I always do.
One, I love talking to strangers (read: networking). Building strong relationships with a diverse group of fascinating people leads to new introductions which, in turn, leads to new adventures. For instance, I was referred to the PwC partners through a colleague and we had some conversations about which new innovation would transform the customer experience — social media, of course! And that conversation led to the work I’m doing now.
Two, I love learning and playing different roles — and finding ways to combine my skills and experiences in new configurations.
Three, I’ve always trusted that the next leg of my work journey would be better than the one before; that life would get progressively better as I grew older. I had some phenomenal role models. When I was a little girl, my family lived beside a formidable woman who, among other things, canoed across Upper New York State on her own in the 1920s — young women just didn’t do that sort of thing back then! And, later in life, she became a well-loved English teacher. Another remarkable 80-something woman introduced me to the Internet in 1995. One of the first female deans at a university, she thought that this academic communication network would change the world.
What’s the best part of your job?
I get to dream and do — from coming up with new perspectives about how people can and do use social technologies, to actually working with clients to test concepts and make them real. It takes courage to try new technologies that connect millions of people in an instant, so I have great admiration for those that take the plunge.
What would you tell emerging New Radicals?
I’m going to be corny and say choose your own path. Remember that you own the starring role in the movie of your life, so go ahead and grab the limelight. Get clear on your strengths and what makes your eyes twinkle, then set your goals, tell your story, connect with people, and you will make the best things happen. And don’t forget that you’re a role model to someone else — pay it forward, please.
[You can reach Debbie Dimoff at ddimoff@sympatico.ca.]
***
Ripe, riper, ripest. Will everyone over 60 please stand up and cheer? The Purpose Prize Winners were announced this week, and what a fine and inspiring group of human beings they are! The Purpose Prize honours people over 60 who are working to improve their communities and our world. (Heck, everyone under 60 can join in, too!) And let’s all celebrate the Nov. 13 release of Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. After seven and a half years of house arrest, she was greeted at the gate of her compound by thousands of jubilant supporters.
Julia Moulden is an author, speaker, and columnist. Read her HuffPost archive, including more about the New Radicals and the first columns about “RIPE.”

This Blogger’s Books from
We Are the New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World
by Julia Moulden

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It was about this far into his first term, back in late 1994 and early 1995, when President Bill Clinton truly fell under the spell of malevolent strategist Dick Morris. Stung by the heavy losses brought on by the “Republican Revolution” in the 1994 midterms, Clinton began to believe that his only route to reelection was to tack to the right and steal some of the conservatives’ thunder on issues like welfare reform and federal deficits.
Morris, who was only forced out of the White House after a sex scandal and who has since exposed his true political stripes as a Fox News commentator, thought triangulation both a brilliant political strategy and a generator of fine public policy. The remaining liberals in the Clinton administration disagreed. As the Economist notes, George Stephanopoulos incisively labeled it “a fancy word for betrayal.”
Not yet two weeks after the 2010 midterms, and just two years after Obama’s campaign of “hope” and “change,” there are troubling signs that the current president might be tempted to follow the same path as Clinton.
Obama’s first move after the midterms, already much criticized by progressives, was to express his willingness to cave on Bush tax cuts for the rich. This one felt to me more like a gutless compromise than a calculated shift to the right. And, on the hopeful side, the White House is now backpedaling, indicating that the story was overblown and Obama’s pre-midterms position hasn’t changed.
There’s no detectable silver lining, however, to the president’s drive to push forward the Bush-negotiated, NAFTA-style trade agreement with Korea. While it appears the deal has stalled for the time being, the denunciations of the neoliberal “free trade” program that Obama once used to attack rival candidate Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries are now long gone.
Given the composition of the administration’s economics team, this flip-flop is not surprising. There were signs of it already back in 2008, when Obama quickly tried to moderate his earlier stances during the general election campaign.
Nevertheless the maneuver is a sad one. While triangulation arguably worked for Clinton (he was reelected at any rate), rightward moves promise few benefits for Obama. A too-small stimulus meant that unemployment remained higher and anger about the economy greater than might otherwise have been the case going into the midterms. It also produced an uninspired Democratic base, resulting in a low-turnout election that favored Republicans.
Likewise, the trade deals on deck with Korea, Colombia, and Panama are bad not only because they seek to expand a flawed economic model, but also because “free trade” is a political loser. The Democratic base is firmly in the “fair trade” camp, disenchanted with neoliberal policies, and an anti-NAFTA message also resonates with the wider electorate. As Public Citizen has documented, “House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade.”
Global Trade Watch Research Director Todd Tucker has gone so far as to call compromising with the Republicans on pending trade deals a “political death wish” for a president who will soon be seeking reelection.
After Obama’s first year in office, I gave the administration a “B” on trade policy, on the grounds that no news is good news. As long as unfinished “free trade” deals remained bogged down in negotiations and are not an administration priority, I am willing to judge the situation as no harm, no foul. But it’s a different story if the White House starts investing any real political capital in advancing these deals.
Even worse would be if Obama keeps his backbone as well hidden from public view as it has been since the midterms and turns to triangulation, imagining that moving right on trade would be politically beneficial.
Cross-posted from the “Arguing the World” blog at Dissent magazine.

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I have a friend who is divorced. Actually, I have many friends who are divorced, but this particular friend’s situation is unique in a few ways. My friend, let’s call him Cal, is a famous journalist and writer. His work in the world of media has resulted, literally, in some of the most seminal changes in American history. His books have flourished since his earlier work in newspapers. He is a much sought after speaker and, from my perspective, one of the most insightful observers of political affairs at home, and around the world, that can be found today.
Now, make no mistake. This is a man who readily acknowledges making a mess of his marriage and the pain caused to others. He is happily remarried. His ex-wife is happily remarried. Their children are grown. She has enjoyed a phenomenal career. This couple divorced… thirty years ago. You would think that, by now, everyone had made peace and moved on. However, one thing continues to bubble up, with predictable regularity, in my friend’s case. Cal’s ex-wife seems to have a condition that, sadly, you often see in high conflict divorces. She simply can not shut up about her anger, her betrayal, her unresolved feelings, and her bottomless contempt for her ex, who has been a devoted and great father to their two wonderful children.
Thirty years have passed and this woman, we’ll call her Dora, seems incapable of one of the most essential components of a “successful” divorce, and that is forgetting.
I had a tough divorce. I had a life-shortening custody battle. I wrote a book about the iniquities of family law, particularly in California. And, over the past ten years, I have become a big fan of forgetting. Not only forgiving, but forgetting. Another friend of mine, who has gone through some difficult personal issues with one of his children, mentioned to me recently that we live in an age where is no such thing as forgetting. The internet killed it. But I disagree. I once heard somewhere, “The public has an insatiable appetite for gossip and a memory for none.” That is, of course, unless someone is there to remind them, ad nauseum.
It may be too late for Dora, who, if they gave prizes for bashing your ex, would have won the Pulitzer, Nobel and screenwriting Oscar by now. Otherwise, I want to recommend forgetting to anyone else who feels the insatiable need to pick up a pen, or a phone, and attack someone, directly or indirectly, who is now, essentially, just a part of your past. And, maybe, a part that helped to get you where you are today.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The word “narcissist” has become a popular choice to describe all sorts of perceived personality flaws, and many times it is used incorrectly. A person may have narcissistic tendencies but not the full-blown disorder. There is a narrow border between a conceited, boastful individual and one who has a true narcissistic condition. Plastic surgeons have an inordinate amount of contact with patients with this disorder because of what we do. The nature of cosmetic surgery deals with the process of altering one’s appearance in an effort to look better. Patients with narcissistic personality disorder are drawn to our offices not so much to improve their looks, but more importantly to garner attention from others.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with this disorder believe that they are superior to others and have little regard for other people’s feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts of his time coined the phrase “narcissist” after the character in Greek mythology, Narcissus. He was the pathologically self-absorbed young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Freud believed that we all have some degree of “healthy narcissism” within our personality to garner self-esteem. Freud suspected that the personality disorder was simply a magnified extreme manifestation of this healthy narcissism. A highly confident individual with strong self-esteem is not a narcissist, but the line drawn between that person and a narcissist can be quite narrow.
My perception of Freud’s “healthy narcissism” is what I call “healthy vanity.” A person with healthy vanity has a high-level of self-assurance and a solid comfort with himself or herself. You try to look and feel your best because of pride and self-esteem. Healthy vanity allows you to be able to see and work with your good and bad points to the best of your ability. It means having a realistic and healthy view of yourself (good and bad!) and others around you. Healthy vanity means that you don’t value yourself more than you value others! A person with healthy vanity may spy their reflection in a mirror while passing by and comment, “Hey, I look pretty darn good today!” A narcissist will look in the mirror and say, “I don’t know what I would do if I weren’t so good-looking!” Healthy vanity is a positive and healthy trait.
My mother had a large dose of healthy vanity. She lived well into her 90s and never missed her weekly trip to the hairdresser, because she always wanted to look her best. She conceded that she was getting on in years, but that time spent each week on herself made her feel better and, more importantly, more confident. Self-esteem should not have an age barrier!
A narcissist, on the other hand, is someone obsessed with looks, status or anything that can be lorded over others who are less fortunate. They often monopolize conversations, have a sense of entitlement, and can become angry and controlling if they perceive that they are not getting what they want or deserve. They have to have the best of everything, the most expensive car, and socialize in perceived elite circles. They can be perfectionists to a fault, and expect constant praise and admiration. Narcissists are often notoriously unable to understand that their inflated views of themselves verge on the pathological.
Our super competitive society feeds this disorder. Many patients diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder are first seen by plastic surgeons. A study performed in 1999 examining 133 patients requesting cosmetic surgery of the face revealed that 25 percent of these patients had extreme narcissistic tendencies!
It is for this reason that plastic surgeons must carefully evaluate each patient and rule out this disorder before operating on them. Pointed questions during the initial interview with a new patient can be instrumental in determining whether the patient is a realistic candidate with realistic expectations for cosmetic surgery or one with extreme narcissistic tendencies who will never be satisfied with the operation, no matter how successful. It is so important to understand exactly each prospective patient’s motives and expectations for surgery. Patients who mention extremes with regard to their reason for requesting surgery raise a red flag. One example is the petite and attractive young lady who presents for breast augmentation and desires DDD sized implants so that she will turn heads when she walks into a room. She already has a fine figure but just wants to do something to be noticed, not for her, but for an external quality. Or the chap who has a small bump on his nose and just wants 1.4 mm removed (no more, no less!) and expects a guarantee of perfection with the postoperative result.
Cosmetic surgery is not the treatment for people with severe narcissistic tendencies, and they must be referred to qualified mental health professionals to deal with the abnormality. Narcissism is a psychological issue that should be addressed. It is, at the very least, a serious personality flaw, or, in worst cases, a recognized psychological disorder. Its antisocial aspects can have an extremely negative effect on a sufferer’s daily life, personal relationships, and performance at work.

This Blogger’s Books from
The Beauty Quotient Formula: How to Find Your Own Beauty Quotient to Look Your Best – No Matter What Your Age
by Robert Tornambe M.D. F.A.C.S

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

My husband is an excellent home cook, so we happily eat many quiet dinners in our house: chicken, white bean and escarole soup; linguine with clams and a busy salad; lemongrass chicken and vegetables over rice; whitefish baked with tomatoes and olives; etc. Just the two of us. Afterward, we may cozy up and watch a little TV together: “30 Rock,” Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” on Food Network (my husband insists on this one; I tolerate it), Major League Baseball (in season), and pretty much anything on HGTV. I’m on the couch; he’s on the comfortable chair with his feet up on the ottoman. The cat lies somewhere in between. There’s no need for idle chit-chat. It’s a domestic scene that’s beyond peaceful and harmonious.
Oh, did I mention we’re both on our laptops the entire time?
Don’t worry, this behavior is perfectly harmless. We’re just catching up on a little work, or sending a few e-mails, or comparing airfares, or browsing real estate listings, or reviewing clips from last night’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (often without headphones; how annoying is that?). We’re multitasking, people! This is actually a productive use of our evening hours. Besides, we’re just watching TV together. We’re not even really watching it; it’s just on. Isn’t the point that we’re together in the same room? No big deal. It’s not like we’re on a date.
This week on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” reporter Jennifer Ludden tackled this very same relationship vs. technology issue (And iPhone Makes Three: Marriage in the Digital Age), which is what got me thinking about it on the way to work. Turns out, it is kind of a big deal. And no, it’s certainly not like being on a date.
Apparently, marriage counselors in the U.S. are hearing more and more couples complain that their significant other (both men and women) is more distracted, distant, or completely uncommunicative thanks to those glowing hand-held devices. (Ludden’s piece covers iPhones and BlackBerries, as well as laptops.) One of the couples Ludden interviewed for her story reminds me of my husband and me: dinner, TV, laptops, repeat. Another couple may be even further gone: they romantically lie together in bed side-by-side — each playing Scrabble on his or her respective cell phone. Awwww.
I’m equally guilty of functioning in this bizarre way (if you can call it functioning). It’s all I can do not to open my laptop as soon as I arrive home from work (where all I do all day is stare at a laptop), and shut it down (okay, “sleep” mode) while we’re eating dinner. I blame this obsessive behavior on two things:
My history of doing homework in front of the TV during grade school and high school. (I found the homework easy, and the TV a good-natured companion.)
When I was growing up, my father always insisted that our family eat our Sunday roast dinner around the table with “60 Minutes” (or a late-running NFL game) on in the background (and the TV turned toward the table, of course). This was more than fine with my siblings and me. My mother, however, wasn’t as jazzed about this tradition.
In her NPR story, Ludden makes the point that technology isn’t responsible for relationship struggles or the dissolution of marriages; it’s merely another vehicle by which couples can easily disconnect from each other (just like many other vehicles including, but not limited to, TV, radio, phone calls, sporting events, nosy neighbors, book clubs, etc.).
There are times after dinner when my husband retires to our small den to work on his laptop or mess around with his iPad. It’s during that time that I’ll often receive an e-mail. (Yes, I’m on my laptop. What else would I be doing?) But it’s probably just spam.
“Hi there!” it might read. Or, “Whatcha doin’?” Or maybe, “Look at this camp in Maine that’s for sale.” (We can’t afford to buy a camp in Maine, but that’s beside the point.) Or perhaps, “In 15 minutes I’m going to come out there and have a piece of apple pie.” Cute. The only potential problem? These e-mails are not spam. They’re from my husband, who is sitting in the den, a mere 25 feet away from me.
So I’m going to talk to him about this whole relationship/technology issue face-to-face when he comes out for his slice of homemade pie. Just as soon as I finish writing this post.
This post originally appeared on Blisstree.com.

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“Much grousing about the expense of President Obama’s India trip. This is silly and vindictive.”
–Charles Krauthammer
–Image from
An amusing episode from my first Foreign Service posting — in London, where, doubtless by computer error, given the ordinariness of my name, I was assigned in the early 1980s as a USIA officer — took place in the US Embassy cafeteria, where Secret Service agents assigned to cover a high-ranking official visit were having their midday meal.
For lunch at a nearby table, I joined a local employee, a lady of a certain age and considerable cultivation. Politely not pointing to the agents themselves, she confided to me sotto voce: “These poor young American boys — They all have hearing problems!” She was of course referring to the agents’ earphones.
This remark sprung to my mind as I read an article in the Daily Mail regarding the presidential visit to Southeast Asia: Leave it to the snarky Brit press to ridicule what it considers the overkill of preparations for POTUS visits overseas (POTUS — a term which vaguely reminds me of yet another Roman official, Pontius Pilate — is an acronym used to describe our Chief Executive, often by the staffers that organize his schedule). But, given the imperial nature of overseas visits by the leader of the democratic world, it is not surprising that there were rumors in India that his presence there was costing the U.S. $200 million a day.
I. The Visit
Let me now get it off my chest: during my twenty-plus-years Foreign Service career, perhaps the most wasteful use of taxpayer’s money I witnessed was the “facilitation” of high-level White House visits.
–Pre-advance and advance. Advance and pre-advance “teams” from Washington descend upon the “post” weeks in advance to “prepare” for the visit — all kinds of people from the White House, the Secret Service, from civil-service entities at the State Department, you name the agency/entity. Accommodations — at great cost to the USG — must be found for these multitudes by the administrative section of the embassy. Most of these well-intentioned individuals, political appointees and government employees, could have landed on planet Mars: they don’t speak the local language, know little of the local culture, and seldom know how to deal tactfully with local officials. Their “my way or the highway” attitude toward the “natives” (they know they won’t have to deal with them for long) is often offensive to their hosts. In their off-duty hours, the loud behavior and lack of discretion of these TDYers (Temporary Service) in local venues does not contribute to improving America’s overseas image. –Countdown. For a presidential visit, an embassy is mobilized — literally mobilized, God knows at what enormous expense — for weeks in advance before the actual visit of the president, which lasts no more than a few days at most. Embassy staff basically have to drop what they are doing — supposedly advancing American interests abroad carefully and methodically — to prepare for the visit, following the orders, often contradictory, of the invading DC hordes. At a daily (and time-devouring) “countdown meeting,” which just about everybody at the mission is required to attend, instructions are given and repeated over and over, and over again. Every logistical aspect of the visit is gone through in mind-numbing detail to assure that all will run like clockwork. But this exhaustive preparation is so excessive that it often is counterproductive and in fact results in considerable confusion and disorganization (See, as an example, the recent White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confrontation with Indian functionaries.)
–Site Officer. A frequent assignment given to FSOs (Foreign Service officers), no matter their seniority, is to be a “site officer,” which basically means being (under the watchful eyes of the visiting “specialists”) at a site, i.e., where the president will appear: a school; a parliament; a grave. The “site officer” is expected to go to the site, over, over, and over again, days and days before the actual event, even if it (the site) is already “covered” by (a) the local police (b) the Secret Service itself. The only site I was never obliged to cover was a toilet. But of course I was ready to do it, in the service of my country. Having said this, some FSOs actually do enjoy being site officers during an official visit, in the hope that their impeccable performance in front of a grave Will Be Noticed By Washington (WBNBW; my acronym).
–Press Center. Public Diplomacy (PD) FSOs are assigned to “man” the Press Center especially set up for the visit, usually at a major hotel (an operation of enormous cost to the taxpayer). PD officers — supposedly paid to represent their country abroad, not to oblige stateside media reps — are essentially placed there to keep the accompanying American press “happy” (Example: Major US media reporter to diplomat: I need a press release right now. Answer from diplomat: Here it is, Sir (never forget the sir), right away). Last on the minds of the Washington White House team that oversees the Press Center is what the local media think (true, there is also a low-profile Press Center for local media). It’s mostly about how the major US networks will be accommodated to report on the visit — so that the White House will get favorable USA media coverage.
–Control Room. Oh, I shouldn’t forget about the “control” room, again set up at an expensive hotel, where FSOs are assigned to help manage the visit by engaging in crucial diplomatic activities such as photocopying, answering the phone, smiling at White House aides, and looking at CNN for lack of anything better to do.
–Dead time. Dead time, doing nothing while waiting for nothing to do, is an essential element for Embassy staff engaged in a presidential visit. You learn to live with it, but it does not contribute to your intellectual development. Note: To eager young persons intent a Foreign Service career, please remember that much of your work as a diplomat will consist of waiting at an airport for a high-level visitor to make sure he/she gets treated properly by customs officials and gets to his/her hotel without difficulty. On dead time, see my piece in the Washington Post regarding the Baghdad embassy.
–Finally, Picking up the Damage. I suppose when the circus atmosphere of a POTUS visit is finally over, the best an FSO concerned about in-country public opinion can do is to take out local officials involved in the visit to lunch, and thank them for all their patience and cooperation, explaining, as best he can, the American character, which, to cite the Daily Mail article mentioned above, is (arguably) “to ensure that nothing is left to chance,” including, of course, errors on the part of the US government.
Image from
II. Modest Suggestions, from a Public Diplomacy Perspective
I don’t want to get too “negative,” so here are a few modest suggestions:
1. Before a presidential/high-level Washington visit, send an experienced senior person(s) representing USG entities to work with officials of the host government, advised by Embassy senior management (sure, it’s already being done, but with insufficient embassy input).
2. Reduce the number of WH/Secret Service/other agencies personnel sent overseas at enormous expense for a high-level visit, thereby stopping the high expense of taxpayers’ money on their per diem/overtime. True, additional staff may be needed, especially in sensitive technical matters, for a presidential visit, but right now there is an overload of Washington support staff telling everybody what to do (when they don’t quite know what it is they should do).
3. Make it possible for an Embassy to operate normally even during official high-level visits. It can be done, if intelligently planned.
4. Most important, cooperate more fruitfully — and tactfully — with local officials in security/logistical matters by treating them with attention and respect. At all times, keep the local media/public opinion in mind. Give them access to the events of the visit, not only limiting them to the American press. After all, a high-level visit is meant to have an impact on foreign public opinion, not just on US news.
Of course, this “advice” has been given for years by persons far wiser than your blogger. Little is new under the sun, but I guess there’s nothing wrong with a little repetition.
But, most important, at a time when the government is supposedly trying to save money, presidential overseas visits are definitely a place to start.
***
Thanks JS for the title

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Thanksgiving is the clusterfuck of wine holidays. Pardon the language, no other word adequately describes the delusion that your carefully chosen wines will ever pair up with their intended dish. Most people usually just grab the closest bottle, destroying your subtle unoaked chardonnay with jalapeo cornbread. And the expensive Pinot you were saving for the main course? Yeah, Uncle Billy has a corkscrew too. That was gone before the salad.
So, forget the idea that there is a perfect wine buying strategy. All the Best Wines For Thanksgiving articles offer conflicting advice, and the idea that everyone in America should be hunting down the same ten bottles is ridiculous. What the holiday does offer the casual wine lover is a good learning opportunity. There’s a wider variety of bottles on your table than most other nights, and with a little attention you’ll come away with at least one wine/food pairing to remember, and one to avoid.
Developing a relationship with a wine store is always one of your best bets. They know the wines and will get to know your preferences. For Thanksgiving, they will usually ask whether you want only U.S. wines or if other countries are acceptable. Be a patriot, or a slave to your palate- – the choice is yours. But since the trend seems to be European now, I asked some American winemakers (many of whom are also organic and biodynamic), and some wine-loving friends, which of their wines they’d be serving and about their own Thanksgiving traditions.
Full-Bodied Ross, Carignanes (Coturri Ros 2009, Carignane Testa Vineyards 2008)
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Tony Coturri of Coturri Winery: For those who love his wines, no holiday meal is complete without a Zinfandel from Coturri. Winemaker Tony Coturri, however, will be reaching for some of his other bottles. “The Coturri Ros 2009 is my first choice. It’s more full bodied than most. It’s got more grip to work with the turkey.” Surely then, a Zinfandel would be his next choice? “I’ll also be serving the Carignane Testa Vineyards 2008. It will match almost any type of dinner people are doing.” And for those of us who want the Zinfandel? “The Coturri Estate Zinfandel 2007 is a better match for something with hot peppers or strong flavors. It needs a little more creativity to go with it.” Coturri’s wines have been featured at the James Beard House Thanksgiving dinners for the past few years.
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A friend recently sent me these words: “We need to surf the energy and conditions in the world in order for us to come into our full potential. We need to be ever more disciplined and willing to focus upon the positive regardless.”
Individuals, and the world as a whole, have never been without conditions of some kind or another. So in a sense, the disorientation many of us are facing now is not new. With whatever conditions we face, we do have a choice. Do you bemoan your lot? Or when life delivers lemons, do you, as the saying goes, make lemonade?
Could it be that those conditions we face serve a purpose? Could that purpose be to know ourselves beyond the conditions, the limits, even the set of beliefs that we may have assumed about the way the world is, and how to play our part in it? Could we upgrade our game?
As a first-year architecture student, my first project was to design a garden pavilion — without any limits. There was no terrain to negotiate, and the pavilion could be any size, shape and of any material we chose. The exercise was given for us to discover how difficult it is to design and create with no given framework. We learned how to value limitations, whether they came from client specification, budget, terrain, climate, detailed use for the construction.
Dr Paul Kaye wrote:
The power of limits — what a great phrase!
In my role as a wedding celebrant, I seek as much information about the couple and their families as I can, to create a ceremony that fits the intention they hold for their marriage partnership, both as individuals and as a couple. Just as a bride will have a dress fitted to the form of her body, so I aim to create a ceremony that fits the personalities and aspirations of the groom and bride.
I positively look for the sensitivities or limitations that will help to define their ceremony. Have they been married before with children to consider? Is there an important grandmother who will be taking a part in the ceremony? In marriages of mixed faith, what words are acceptable or inappropriate? What will make their ceremony special and memorable? With such information, it is much easier to design and officiate a ceremony that is authentic and from the heart.
How are the conditions you are facing actually serving you? How can you stretch your creativity to become more resourceful and engaged with what you have at hand? Do you need to shed some excesses — old stuff in forgotten cupboard corners, projects long since abandoned but not properly discarded, new clothes unworn and hanging on rails — in order to see more clearly?
Creativity thrives not in isolation but in company with others. It thrives with a person who has hobbies and interests that intrigue them. Creativity blesses the open mind.
The act of blessing a person, a situation or an issue can itself help to open the mind. Blessing is an act of love. With loving, we surf our conditions. To wish others happiness, joy and well-being is not limited to church leaders or those given spiritual authority. I have experienced powerful prayer coming from people who would consider themselves ordinary.
The condition I am presently facing is that of witnessing my dear parents becoming more frail, and frankly closer to the ends of their lives, whenever that may be. It is deeply sad for me to see them suffering the confusion and stress of having to lose some of their independence, to allow others to now assist and support them.
How do I surf this condition and focus on the positive regardless? The truth is, I am finding out as I go along. Intellectually, I know our lives are limited by time. We do not know the time limit until it shows up. Fortunately, I have dear friends who are assisting me to understand the process I am going through. Part of that process is staying in touch with the emotions as they touch me, and not trying to place a veneer of mental reasoning over the top of them.
I am learning that is OK to cry and not be in control of how I feel. Letting go of my reality as it has been will make space for a new reality to be born. Accepting the changes happening will enable me to touch more deeply into the spirit of who I am. However much my emotions seem to be dominating me, I do know that I am much more than my feelings or my thoughts. I am being awoken to something greater than I have known before. How do I know this? Because the loss I am viewing is profound for me.
I am being blessed by the loving, prayers and good wishes of caring friends. I do not feel alone. This makes a big difference to me.
Our lives are necessarily limited. If we were to fully know the immensity and magnificence of the total loving spirit in our world, who we truly are, I think we might blow our fuses.
A few years ago, my mother was very ill and emaciated. She lost a lot of weight. I was sleeping in the room next to her. I had a dream in which I saw the huge magnificence of her spirit, so far removed from her frail body. In my mum, so in each of us. We can choose to live closer to that spirit of who we are and rise above our conditions.
WATCH:
If you are feeling stuck in a situation, how do you open yourself to find a way through it? How has your creativity served you in the past? How do you “surf the energy and conditions of the world”? I would love to hear from you.
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This Blogger’s Books from
Superyou
by Anne Naylor
Superlove
by Anne Naylor

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www.twitter.com/Anne4Joy

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

During his recent visit to India, President Obama made it clear that the United States would not take a pro-active role in mediating the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. That would be a grave oversight from a U.S. national security perspective.
The Muslim-majority Kashmir territory is at the heart of the conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors and has been the cause of three wars since 1948. That antipathy is the reason the powerful Pakistani military views with great alarm the growing Indian influence in neighboring Afghanistan — much in the same way as the U.S. viewed any Soviet influence in neighboring Cuba during the Cold War. The resulting strategic calculus for Pakistani policy-makers is that to avoid Indian encirclement, Pakistan has to stay relevant in any regional discussion on the endgame in Afghanistan.
That is where U.S. national security considerations surface — to stay relevant in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military is holding onto (rather than taking on) its proxies that helped the U.S. defeat the Soviets in the 1980s but mutated over the last two decades into the most serious current threat to American security.
Pakistani decision-makers seem to have realized that the monster of militancy spawned by these proxies has now turned inwards and has to be defeated. Yet they have also rationalized that some of these proxies provide leverage in warding off an equally existentialist threat of India’s deepening footprint in Afghanistan. Not all Pakistanis agree with this Faustian bargain; however, all Pakistanis would agree that as long as the Kashmir issue festers, Pakistan cannot let its guard down. With all parties staying boxed into intractable positions, the militants and Al Qaeda thrive.
It is easy to see how a U.S. mediated resolution of Kashmir sits at the heart of the above dynamic. It will drive a virtuous cycle that removes the primary source of enmity between India and Pakistan. As a result, the Pakistani military will find it near impossible to justify to its people an Afghan “insurance policy” that has propelled the terrifying spread of militancy to Pakistan’s heartland. For the U.S., an improving regional cycle of trust will be far more effective than any threats or inducements for the Pakistani military to take on the militants on its border and degrade a global threat.
With the country no longer locked in perpetual tension with India, the role of civilian institutions in shaping Pakistan’s policy choices will strengthen. According to a Pew Center poll, 70% of Pakistanis desire better relations with India; paradoxically, 53% of them also view India as the country’s greatest threat. A Kashmir settlement directly addresses this dichotomy and the military will end up having to adapt to the wishes of seven out of ten Pakistanis.
For the United States, the benefits of a Kashmir resolution extend well beyond the defeat of Al Qaeda in the region. Pakistan has a young population of 180 million and will become the world’s fourth most populous country by 2040. With peace on both its borders, it will find itself back on its economic growth trajectory of over 6% per year that it experienced for four decades until 1990. That would be good news not just for Pakistan but also for India, the United States and the world.
A short primer on Kashmir — during the partition of India in 1947, all Muslim majority provinces acceded to the newly created Muslim homeland of Pakistan, except for Kashmir where its Hindu ruler, facing an uprising, called in the Indian military. Both countries have sharply differing perspectives on the legitimacy of that accession and the United Nations called for a referendum in Kashmir to settle the issue. That referendum has never taken place and ever since, Kashmir has become an emotive rallying point for the average Pakistani.
While several viable options have been floated in back-channel discussions, India refuses to be drawn into any substantive negotiations under the straw man argument that such discussions would be domestically untenable. The status quo is providing the oxygen to extremist forces to drive the narrative, as tragically seen during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Rather than invoke the weak excuse that it lacks influence over India, the United States needs to provide strong leadership in bringing the sides together especially when its national security is at stake.
The President displayed the right instinct during the 2008 campaign when he called for U.S. involvement in resolving the Kashmir issue. However, in presumed deference to Indian sensitivities, the administration has essentially excluded Kashmir from its regional policy, choosing instead a carrot-and-stick approach towards the Pakistani military. Since it ignores the core issue, that approach will simply not work.
As President Obama correctly highlights the shared interests between the U.S. and India, he needs to make sure that he does not forget about the most significant national interest of the U.S. — its security. For that reason alone, the U.S. needs to discuss Kashmir openly and candidly.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In 2002, my husband died very suddenly. My main concern that day was how to deliver the news to our daughter, then eight. Someone put me in touch with Judith Wallerstein, an expert in child psychology who coached me through what to say. That phone conversation with Wallerstein, and the talk I had with my daughter an hour later, are moments I will never forget.
Eight years later, I came across Wallerstein again, in an entirely different context. In the course of writing a memoir, which touches on my experience as the child of divorce, I read her book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study (Hyperion). Published in 2000, the book became a bestseller and was translated into more than a dozen languages.
Unexpected Legacy reports the findings of the California Children of Divorce Study, which began in 1971, a year after the nation’s first no-fault divorce law was imposed in California. Wallerstein was the principal investigator on the study. I recently sat down with Wallerstein, 88, at her home in Tiburon, California to discuss her book, its own lasting legacy, and her current interests related to divorce and its complexities.
KH: For people who might not know about Unexpected Legacy, can you describe it briefly?
JW: My book was about the long-term effects of divorce on children. There were about 100 of these children, and I got to know them as if they were members of my family. I saw them at the time of the breakup, then 18 months, 10, years, 15 years and 25 years later. At the 25-year mark, the kids in my study ranged in age from 28 to 43. Many are still in touch with me. I’m sort of a tribal elder who was there at the important moments of their lives.
What the book showed is that the effects of divorce really crescendo when the kids are in late adolescence and entering young adulthood. We saw independent young adults who relied on themselves and were moral people. They were angry and compassionate at the same time about their parents. And almost all of them had trouble in their relationships with the opposite sex.
KH: How so?
JW: They were very suspicious of anything lasting, and they expected to be betrayed, and they expected to be betrayed. One young woman said, “If my boyfriend is 20 minutes late, I wonder who he’s with.”
Sometimes it doesn’t show itself so blatantly. This issue of, ‘Can I trust this man?’ or ‘Can I trust this woman?’ is part of every courtship, but there’s more of it in these kids, more doubting that that it’s going to last. That’s a heartbreaking situation.
So for many of them, their twenties were the hardest years of their life, because they all wanted what their parents hadn’t had: love, and a family that would last. And that was my message. Nobody had said that before.
KH: What was the reaction to the book when it came out?
JW: I got a lot of letters and calls saying, ‘Thank God somebody told the truth.’ Then I got the usual critics, who said, I was against divorce. I’m not against divorce. I probably know more about unhappy marriage than anybody in America and I’ve seen a lot of suffering. For some men and women, divorce was the best decision of their life.
KH: How have things changed since the book came out?
JW: There has been a greater recognition that children suffer with divorce, and they need the parents’ attention at the time. There was none of that when I started. And there has been a rise in joint custody, which may or may not be useful to many children but it does reflect greater recognition of the importance of the father, and the greater commitment of father.
KH: What kind of follow-up work have you done in the decade since the book’s
publication?
JW: What I’m writing now is about what happens to women and men after divorce and how little prepared they both are for this next chapter in their lives. People still think of it as a new beginning. They want a new beginning. They want those years back. But there are no completely new beginnings in life, nor is there a way to predict what’s going to happen, especially when you’ve got children. All the attorneys and all the people who do counseling discuss getting through the divorce, but not what’s going to happen in their lives going forward.
KH: If there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen, what do you advise people to do?
JW: Women, especially women today, need to be thinking not just in terms of what they’re getting away from. There are many challenges ahead. You may have less time available with your children with all that you will face. You will still have an important relationship to maintain with the children’s father on behalf of your children. And soon there may be brand new people in your family — the children’s new stepmother, your second husband and perhaps new children, his, hers and yours with lots of new voices, some in harmony, others not.
Women also need to be preparing for the marketplace. The women who had good jobs and good incomes and high level marketable skills did a helluva lot better in preparing for the post-divorce years, especially if their job was with men and women so they had the chance to meet many people and could make a better choice the second time around. You will have a lot on your plate. A lot of it involves recognizing that your relationship with your children is going to be more cut into by the other demands on your time, like a job, building a new successful remarriage, and the social life you’re reconstructing for yourself and for them.
And women need to be prepared for the fact that Prince Charming isn’t standing there waiting for you. Sometimes hopes are fully realized. But sometimes it’s a rocky road.
This is the start of a regular column in this spot. I hope you’ll share your own
stories, questions — and, of course, your viewpoint — via comments or email
(katieh@gmail.com).

This Blogger’s Books from
A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano
by Katie Hafner
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
by Katie Hafner

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I really can’t recall the last time I crossed paths with a Twinkie. But this week, the Hostess snack cake made from 37 ingredients — including sugar under at least three different names, partially hydrogenated oil (trans fat), and an array of artificial flavorings and colorings — has collided directly into my plans to address another topic, which now must wait until next time. Today, we are stuck chewing on Twinkies.
Or, to be precise, the so-called “Twinkie Diet.”
The storyline is pretty straightforward. An overweight nutrition professor at Kansas State University put himself on a predominantly snack food diet, with Twinkies prominent, for two months. He lost 27 lbs, and lowered his body mass index (BMI) from nearly 29, to just under 25 — from almost obese to normal.
Compounding this ostensible assault on conventional nutrition wisdom were the effects of the diet on the professor’s metabolic profile. His LDL cholesterol and triglycerides went down, while protective HDL cholesterol went up.
The voluminous and often titillating media coverage of this experiment might imply that it challenges what we know, or think we know, about nutrition and weight management. I write to refute that before it causes the body politic, or your body, any direct harm.
The most salient takeaway message from this N-of-1 experiment is a message I routinely deliver already: calories count. If the Twinkie diet results are disquieting for anyone, it’s not those of us who generally espouse mainstream nutrition principles. Rather, it pretty emphatically rebuts claims in such works as Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, which suggests that the role of calories in weight is subordinate to the source of calories.
Calories are a unit of energy, and the relationship between matter and energy figures prominently among the physical laws of the universe. An aggregation of high quality science, and the gaps in that science, provide opportunities for nutritionists to debate and defend some competing theories and perspectives. But the laws of physics are not among them. They are not negotiable.
The Twinkie diet was a dreadful diet. But it was, nonetheless, a diet in the conventional sense, meaning it was calorie-restricted. The professor reduced his calorie intake from a maintenance level of roughly 2,600 kcal per day to less than 1,800 kcal for 10 weeks.
A deficit of roughly 3,500 kcal is required to lose one pound of body fat. A restriction of 800 kcal per day for 70 days represents a calorie deficit of 56,000 kcal. That would be enough to account for a loss of 16 pounds of body fat. It takes smaller calorie deficits to lose other body tissues — such as muscle — and none at all to lose body water, which tends to happen with dieting. Calorie restriction produced the professor’s weight loss, and was not particularly helped — and certainly not hindered — by the fact that these were mostly “bad” calories.
As for the changes seen in the lipid panel, these are likely by-products of weight loss per se. An excess of body fat is associated with increased inflammatory responses, and often, increased levels of insulin. Both inflammation and hormonal imbalances in turn affect cholesterol and other blood lipids. When body fat is lost, these effects are reversed — and improvements in blood lipids are likely.
The mistake is to think this means better health. For one thing, health is a composite of far more than BMI and LDL. For another, its relevant time horizon is far more distant than two months.
Severe illness of all kinds is associated with sudden drops in total cholesterol. Drug addiction, chemotherapy, cholera and advanced HIV are all associated with weight loss. Cancer rather predictably leads to declines in both weight and lipids as it advances. These associations are more than sufficient to show that health cannot be summed up by weight and lipids. An overwhelming body of research shows what dietary patterns do produce lasting good health — all emphasize wholesome, mostly plant foods direct from nature. None emphasizes Ho Hos.
The two-month timeline here is important for another reason. Over the long term, controlling calories means either going hungry, or finding a way to feel full and satisfied on fewer calories. Here’s where the quality of calories certainly does matter. Foods of high nutritional quality include, among their many virtues, the capacity to produce fullness on fewer calories. Eating until full and yet being lean is having your cake and eating it too — but snack cakes will never get you there!
Chewing on implications of the Twinkie diet for health in the context of either science or sense reveals that calorie control for weight loss always was a good idea, and still is; chewing on Twinkies never was, and still isn’t.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org

Follow David Katz, M.D. on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I have had enough of the experts talking about gay suicides when I caught the Dr. Phil show on bullying. The point that grabbed my attention was that Dr. Phil was probably a bully when he was in school. I mean, I wouldn’t exactly call him “friendly” on the show. And anyone that took weight advice from a fat man…. Well you get my point.
I decided it was time to hear from the group going through the gay bullying themselves – other gay teens. I only had to reach out to my Sarah, my “adoptive” niece. Sarah is the daughter of a very good friend from college and came out in her early teens.
I thought – wow – how far have we come since the days of my own scenes from Glee when I was getting thrown into lockers.
Then the suicides happened.
Don’t get me wrong – I like trends just like the other person. However, I like mine to be temporary, and consisting of something I can easily change back. Suicide is not one of those things.
To say its hard growing up gay is an understatement. To explain what it feels like to be different for something you had no control over would take nothing short of forever. When I went to my 20th high school reunion, many of the relationships returned to where they left off – I was that scared kid again waiting for someone to pants me in the hallway. I was on high alert the entire evening. It brought back all of those feelings, and horrible memories of when I wanted to “disappear” from the planet and could not wait for my own death.
The person hurling the insults has no idea how much words can hurt and how much damage is almost permanent. Physical wounds heal easily and within a structured time frame. Emotional ones – well – they live on in a world all their own.
But being pantsed in the hallway is practically intimate compared to what some of today’s kids go through. Imagine having your first kiss – and then its plastered all over the internet for the entire world to “share” in the moment. It’s shame on levels I don’t even want to comprehend.
Yes it does get better. But to simply say those words is not enough. It takes work. Years and years of work to get through the anger and frustration and self esteem crisis.
Before I get on my soapbox a bit too much, I wanted to share with you something straight from my very special own connection to the affected population. The following are words written by Sarah DeRupo, my niece, and a 15 year old bisexual female, living boldly and filled with pride on Long Island.
Take in these words before you listen to Dr. Phil again on this issue. Listen to the mouths of these babes and learn exactly how we can help them before its too late.
I bring you Sarah……
As I was sitting on my couch, watching MSNBC News with my mom, the picture of three young men flashed onto the screen. In less than a week, all three of these boys killed themselves because of their sexual orientation , or perceived sexual orientations. The first was Tyler Clementi, the eighteen-year-old Rutgers University freshman who jumped off of a New York City bridge. An intimate encounter with another man had been recorded by his roommate, and was then plastered on the internet as a “joke.”
Not exactly my idea of a joke.
If someone had posted a video of me kissing a girl (no such video exists, luckily) on Facebook or Twitter, before I came out, I would have been devastated. If teasing and bullying pushed me into a depression after I came out, I can’t imagine being outed by people that I barely knew.
Asher Brown, was only thirteen years old when he killed himself after constant bullying in school. Not only is no action being taken against these bullies, but the school is blaming his parents for not telling school officials, which they did. Seth Walsh, who was the same age, went through a similar experience as Brown.
What scares me the most is that I was their age, only thirteen when I came out. What if the bullying was as bad for me as it was for them. Would I have been driven to that point? It’s never a good thing to linger on the past, but I really can’t help but wonder…
If you haven’t already guessed it, I’m a member of the LGBT community. I identify with the ‘B’ or, in other words, I’m bisexual. Not only that, I’m only fifteen. I’ve noticed how there have been five suicides within the LGBT community in less than two weeks. I’ve also noticed how many celebrities are now trying to prevent LGBT bullying. Even though these celebrities have the power of getting the word out to the masses, I think that it’s about time that a LGBT teen puts in their two cents about the whole subject. Yes, we all need role models, but it’s also important to hear from your peers. That’s where I come in.
Thankfully, I’ve found my own safe social space. I attend a ‘coffee house’ for LGBTQ youth and their straight allies. Not only does this benefit my social life (which is always a priority when you’re my age), but going there helps me realize that I’m not alone. I’ve found friends who can I can connect with on a different level than with my straight friends. This makes me question if these boys had that kind of support. I can only hope that they did. Even though I’m beyond grateful for the support that I’ve found, I’ve only been able to truly find it there. Even though having your own safe social environment is essential to the life of a teenager, separate but equal has never and will never work.
It’s no secret that throughout this nation, LGBT teens are tortured in school. Gay bashing could get a kid expelled, but those that get caught usually get nothing more than a verbal slap on the wrists. Most of the comments made in school hallways fall on deaf ears. Even in my school, gay slurs run rampant, which may be surprising to some since I’m less than forty-five minutes away from New York City. My school’s unofficial motto is, “That’s so gay.” The most used to term in my school is ‘queer.’ After getting in too much trouble for using the dreaded ‘Q-word,’ kids in my school created variations of the word, including ‘quars’ and ‘kors,’ because, of course, no one can figure out what that mean.
As LGBT teens try to flourish in society while discovering themselves, this small-minded world continues to shoot them down. Even though school officials will say that they are trying to keep everyone safe from bullying, the only ones that they protect are themselves and the bullies. This leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of suffering and inequalities.
At least we’re getting prepared for the real world so early in life.
I know we are supposed to prepare them for what lies ahead. But I think we have a responsibility to insure their safety until they are adults.

Follow Thomas DeLorenzo on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/TDeLorenzo

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com