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This week, Russia was chosen to host the 2018 Soccer World Cup. Small news in the USA, but massive for the rest of us across the world! As an Englishman it was disappointing that the tournament is not coming to England, as I had hoped.
But if it was not to be for us, then I was glad at least that the Russians won it. Some of my happiest (and hardest) traveling memories go back to the three winter months I spent in the Far East and Siberia. I will never forget my first day in Russia and my first impressions of an old Soviet town. Magadan is a small port town on the Sea of Okhotsk. It is one of the most remote places I have ever found myself in.
Magadan was similar to all the Soviet towns I would see from the Pacific to the Black Sea. Peeling paint blistered on rows of dreary, identical apartment blocks, five or six storeys high. Tears of rust streaked the walls. Metal security doors, their locks broken, slammed and clanged hollow through unlit, unswept passages. Fading murals on the sides of buildings showed sturdy men straining hearty muscles, grafting nobly for the shared benefit of the mighty, indestructible Motherland before it all fell apart. Battered cars, imported cheap from Japan, crashed through puddles, and rubbish lay in piles on street corners. Each block of flats had its own little shop on the ground floor smelling of dust and sausage, the fullest shelf being the one loaded with cheap vodka and strong beer. Parks lined with trees featured a statue of Lenin in his overcoat, holding his cap in his hand and gazing thoughtfully towards his brave new dawn.
Lada cars and little buses swerved round the potholes. Small kiosks sold individual cigarettes and trashy newspapers. Department stores tried to mask their dearth of stock by carefully spacing items across the shelves. In the markets babushkas, old women wrapped in layers of cardigans, sat stoic and quiet, stout legs splayed from calf-length floral skirts, with their meager home-grown produce on the pavement before them. Small piles of vegetables on upturned wooden crates, buckets of berries, jars of jam, a few eggs. For them there was no hope of a relaxing old age.
Yet children played and laughed in Magadan as they do everywhere in the world. And as the days passed I did come across some bright spots of hope, like new blades of green grass growing through the ruins: fragile and tentative, but hopeful. A new Russia. There was a growing middle class in the town, still too poor to leave, though some families did have photos albums reminding of a much-cherished foreign holiday. There were some nice apartments too, hidden inside the grubbiness of the uniform tower blocks and made comfortable with Western electronics and full bookshelves. There were also a few shops in Magadan different from the basic market stalls or the old-style Soviet department stores that sold everything but stocked nothing. There were fishing and hunting shops with pictures of fun summertime fishing trips framed on the walls, and a new Nike and Adidas shop whose bright-lit goods seemed utterly out of place. A huge poster of David Beckham on the wall of one of the shops bore the slogan, in Russian, “Impossible is Nothing”.
This week Russia won the right to host the first ever World Cup in Eastern Europe. The times they are a-changing. Impossible is Nothing.
And my English disappointment is easily tempered by thoughts of how happy everyone will be in Magadan. They may be thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away from Moscow, but their country will be hosting the World Cup and there will be smiles on the Sea of Okhotsk this week.
Photos by www.AlastairHumphreys.com, on Flickr.

This Blogger’s Books from
Moods of Future Joys
by Alastair Humphreys
Ten Lessons from the Road
by Alastair Humphreys

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The recent spate of resignations by heads of school districts in Chicago, Washington and New York City who advocate the so-called business model of school reform has predictably been followed by new appointees as ill-prepared for the challenge of improving student performance as their predecessors.
The common theme in the message of these departing chancellors and the politicians who appointed them is that controversy equals success, with little or no evidence to support the rhetoric, an increasingly disturbing trend among policy elites who are joined at the hip by their neo-liberal proclivities for privatizing public services and empowering corporate domination of policy making.
In New York, for example, Joel Klein, an anti-trust lawyer who had been appointed by Mayor Bloomberg, was replaced by Cathleen P. Black, herself a media executive like Mayor Bloomberg, with no experience as a public school educator.
As with the postmortem on Michelle Rhee’s departure from Washington, the departing New York chancellor was praised by his political benefactor for “stirring things up. That was his job,” the Mayor crowed, “and the great beneficiaries of that stirring were our children.”
Apparently the experience was less stirring for parent groups in New York, such as Class Size Matters, whose leader Leoni Haimson contended, “He’s leaving us with a legacy of classroom overcrowding, communities fighting over co-located schools, kindergarten waiting lists, unreliable school grades based on bad data, and our children starved of art, music and science — all replaced with test prep.”
Klein had “been a political load a while,” opined a source in the Bloomberg administration speaking on condition of anonymity, but echoing a complaint made about Ms. Rhee, whose contentiousness was widely cited as a contributing factor in Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty’s defeat.
Even the test prep proved problematic in New York, as the once-flaunted improvement in test scores proved a ruse when it was revealed they had been inflated. Corrections brought them back to the level where they were when the chancellor took office eight years ago.
Championing Phony Mantras
The mindless reiteration of the corporate-driven message on school reform is reminiscent of the free-trade mantra that corporations and policy elites routinely promote. Globalization, they claim, will prove a boon to workers when in fact it continues to result in the exporting of good-paying jobs while Wall Street profits wildly from cheaper foreign labor. In similar fashion, the push for privatizing public schools is pitched as a boon to our children, to which one can only ask, “Which children?” since the “preferred” option of charter schools is as selective as it is detrimental to the viability of our public schools.
Indeed, the policy elites seem bent on educating an elite population of students whose parents have the wherewithal to seek private alternatives, ipso facto evidence that their children already enjoy the preeminent source of improved performance that many children lack — engaged and caring parents.
The penchant of these elites to champion controversy over demonstrable achievement offers evidence that they’ve concluded the cost of hiring teaching teams and investing in reduced class sizes, let alone financing programs for children with special needs, has become politically unpalatable.
Or is possible that the architects of this brave new world of “school reform” aren’t really concerned with nurturing “good citizens and the next great minds,” but rather with creating a system of “natural selection” in which precious few will be well educated while the great majority of children are left to become numb workers devoid of caring for others and therefore unaware that they will always remain a permanent underclass?
Wanting in experience, the business model reformers are at best blind to the need for educating the whole child. They either cannot see, or dismiss, the hands-on grasp of math that learning music provides; or the value that learning art has for giving children an avenue of expression or an understanding of the importance form has in shaping our capacity for organized thought.
More than their inexperience, the business reformers are limited by their preoccupation with serving the interests of — surprise, surprise — business, a self-interested priority that reduces children to little more than cogs in the nation’s economic machinery.
As McMaster University Professor Henry Giroux, author of Youth in a Suspect Society, wrote recently: “There is a larger script here that points to the increasing power of corporate leaders and a business elite to eviscerate from public schooling any vestige of public values, democratic modes of governance, teacher autonomy, critical thinking and a vision of schooling as a space in which to teach students to be critical thinkers and engaged citizens.”
The danger, of course, in the rush to privatize education is not only that educating students holistically is being sacrificed on the altar of management efficiency, but also that the business world’s love of cheap labor is inducing decisions that devalue the importance of educating thinking citizens.
Children are not commodities to be valued by market principles, nor do classrooms lend themselves to the rigidities of standardized preparation for tests. They are dynamic environments, each of them as individual in character as the students in them. And teaching is an art form, not a set of quantifiable measures on a checklist.
Instead of recommending how we can overcome the challenges induced by pop culture and the perversions of contemporary media to educate the whole child, today’s would-be reformers are insisting that education fit a business model that is as ill-suited to the task at hand as the agrarian model once was to the industrial age.
Unless their approach is resisted, we will soon find ourselves with a two-tier education system in which a small percentage of our children will have the benefit of quality learning and the rest will be left to muddle through beleaguered and underfunded public schools. There can be no shorter route to the demise of our democracy.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Pop star Christina Aguilera recently filed for divorce from her husband, Jordan Bratman. But, luckily, she has tremendous emotional support. “It’s impossible to redefine yourself and your life overnight. Thankfully, I have my mom and a small group of close friends who are there for me 24/7 and whom I can trust and depend on,” Aguilera said in a Redbook interview.”On days when it feels impossible to even get out of bed, much less function as a mother, their support and encouragement have kept me moving,” she added. Not all of us are so fortunate to have family and friends shepherd us through the ordeal of a divorce.
In studies of life’s most stressful events, being divorced is the number two life stressor, following right behind number one, being widowed. Both can plunge you into severe depression and health problems. If you fall into either of these categories, you absolutely need support.
Women who hadn’t gotten over a relationship by 16 weeks after the breakup had decreased activity in brain regions associated with emotion, motivation and attention. This is a physical change in the brain. That’s why it is so hard to concentrate on anything — so hard to get up and go. Do not let yourself go this length of time without intervention.
But what if you do not have a devoted circle of people to help you through the hard passage? Here are five clinically proven tips that can help you cope with the break-up even without strong social support:
1. Meditation/relaxation/journaling. Johns Hopkins researchers recommend practicing relaxation techniques to get rid of heartache. These include meditation, deep breathing or journaling out your feelings. These three practices have been shown to create oases of peace and acceptance.
2. Sleep. Sleep is very important in helping to elevate mood. When you’re depressed, however, sleep may be hard to come by. This is another reason to consider starting a regular relaxation or meditation program — these have been shown to help people sleep better. You can also try a warm bath with lavender oil and/or cutting off stimulating activities like checking email, texting, watching TV or surfing the web a few hours before bedtime.
3. Exercise. Exercise releases opioids, the all-natural painkillers in your biochemistry. Plus, hitting the gym regularly can help you feel better physically and mentally and release feel-good endorphins. To start, just try ten minutes of walking, stretching, or any kind of physical exercise and see what happens. Those ten minutes can carry you forward in every way!
4. Imaginary conversations with your Ex. Clinical studies show that people who have imaginary conversations with their partners which help them to say goodbye have more relief from grief than those who don’t. So sit down opposite an empty chair, imagine your ex sitting there and start getting things off your chest. Finish up by describing how brave you are to be processing all these things. Then bid him or her good-bye.
5. Therapy. Consider starting in therapy or counseling. This can be a rich time of self-discovery. And sharing with a trusted, compassionate and interested person also releases opioids in the brain. So your pain will lessen.
Even though it doesn’t feel possible right now, divorce is a crucible that can help shape you to become your best self. If you are going through a break-up, practicing these five tips will help you process and work through your feelings and move forward to a new you.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Past the ethics of “To publish or not to publish?” there’s a second major journalistic issue in the WikiLeaks scandal — that’s the tide of irresponsible reporting on the WikiLeaks and US government response. Eager to find fault with the United States, commentators have leaped to turn government condemnation of the leaks and moves to discourage their promulgation into something sinister, either purposefully neglecting or casually glossing over critical details. The alarmist claim that the U.S. government is attempting to silence WikiLeaks and undermine freedom of expression is uninformed, irresponsible, and dangerous.
It is important to recognize and separate the different agencies and actors that comprise U.S. government. Any combination of “U.S. government” plus verb implies unitary executive action on the part of the Obama administration. Instead, we see the balance of powers in action. The Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and the Department of Justice have been the main actors, while the White House has been vocal in condemning the actions of WikiLeaks. Along these lines, the leaked cables don’t represent the views of America writ large or of the State Department as a whole; these are the communications of individual diplomats.
Government actors have established clear lines of communication to media and the public and have announced their intentions and actions at each step since the WikiLeaks scandal broke. There’s no evidence of illegal or conspiratorial activity on the part of any arm of the U.S. government with respect to WikiLeaks.
In fact, it was WikiLeaks that likely broke U.S. law in the sourcing, retention, and publication of the leaked cables. As a Danish friend asked here in Hong Kong earlier, puzzled by the response, “What did people expect? Of course the U.S. government will oppose the leaks — we are talking about classified information. It would be a joke if they didn’t.” Exactly.
The knowing “unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense” that might harm the United States and its publication is illegal under U.S. law. There is nothing unexpected or outrageous in actions by the American government to honor and enforce U.S. law.
American companies chose to stop facilitating the publication of WikiLeaks after the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee inquired with Amazon regarding its relationship to WikiLeaks — and said as much publicly. After Amazon terminated its relationship with WikiLeaks, it cited a violation of their terms of service. The relevant clause is likely that giving Amazon the right to boot anyone using the server “for any illegal purpose or in a way that violates the law.” Amazon’s refusal to continue to host WikiLeaks was not a First Amendment issue. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to internet freedom, agrees on this point.
Critics and reporters have insinuated or claimed that the U.S. government forcibly booted WikiLeaks from Amazon’s servers and is attempting to repress freedom of speech. In reality, the United States is acting to enforce long-standing laws and regain public confidence. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has addressed the cables publicly, and the U.S. Department of Justice has announced that it will evaluate the basis for legal action against WikiLeaks and its founder in the United States. The site remains up on a Swedish server, licensed in Iceland, out of reach of U.S. law — and the US has indicated no intention to attempt to shut it down.
While the leaked cables may have precipitated setbacks for the United States, ultimately it could be the frenzy of false claims about the U.S. government and its response that most impedes the US abroad. In many parts of the world, with some details omitted and others lost in translation, what will reach individuals and communities may be only the insinuation of oppression, which evokes vivid, harsh realities — the tactics of authoritarian regimes denying free speech and expression. It is not simply wrong but offensive and injurious to in any way associate the U.S. response to WikiLeaks with the actions of regimes guilty of true violations of rights of free speech and expression.
As an American who would like to be part of rehabilitating the U.S. image abroad, I am disheartened to see journalists and activists leveling serious accusations of anti-democratic action against the U.S. government carelessly. The public image of the U.S. is fragile; efforts to rebuild its reputation are ongoing. The way that the American government has handled the WikiLeaks scandal is something to be proud of as a demonstration of the health of our laws and democracy — not something to attack.

This Blogger’s Books from
40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation
by James Carville
Third Term: Why George W. Bush (Hearts) John McCain
by Paul Begala

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, but I know that many people, especially from my home state of Louisiana, are struggling to make ends meet as they continue dealing with the fallout of our nation’s worst oil disaster. Even though the oil stopped gushing in late July, Gulf waters are still polluted, and many residents are fighting to rebuild small businesses that depend on a healthy and thriving ecosystem. Few Americans are aware that the BP disaster still threatens to snuff-out century-old family traditions and a beautiful way of life along the Gulf Coast.
I recently found out that a group that inspires me, NRDC, teamed up with StoryCorps and Bridge the Gulf to produce amazing stories from Gulf residents affected by the BP oil disaster. Their goal was to make sure that the struggles and perseverance of people living through this disaster weren’t forgotten.
Darla and Todd Rooks, for instance, have made a good living and raised a family shrimping and fishing out of Port Sulphur, Louisiana. But as a result of the BP oil disaster, they sent most of their family to live in another town, away from the polluted water and seafood they don’t consider safe to eat. They’ve given up their home and moved onto their tiny boat because they can no longer afford a lease.
Stories like these drive home the reality that the BP disaster has hijacked people’s lives, and it will take a long, long time before many folks are back on their feet. NRDC made an early commitment to bring the voices of Gulf residents into the national conversation while BP tried to gloss over their struggles and keep them out of the press. But we know that Gulf residents have a story to tell, and candid personal accounts of living with the disaster will burst the bubble of the oil giant’s $100 million ad campaign.
It’s hard to believe that BP could ever “make it right” when you hear people like Darla and Todd discuss what the oil disaster has done to their lives and the lives of their friends and family. The least we can do to lend a hand is call on our leaders in Washington to pass legislation that reforms offshore oil and gas drilling, and protects and restores our nation’s oceans. Another way you can help is get involved with organizations working in the Gulf to restore it’s fragile ecosystem. I’m ecstatic to be able to become more active now with my new foundation, the IS Foundation, which seeks to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures.
If you liked Darla and Todd’s interview, there are more like it here. NRDC will keep rolling out new audio interviews and photo slideshows in the weeks to come. Stay tuned–this is the raw story of what life is like in the Gulf, and these are the real people affected by our addiction to oil. They’re a tragic example of why we must break that addiction.
People in the Gulf have survived many challenges and catastrophes, including natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Gustav, but this disaster was an act of man, not of God, and it’s our job to make sure something like it never happens again–here or in the Great Lakes where a million gallons of Canadian tar sands oil was recently dumped or in the Arctic where it’s even harder to clean up a spill. We can’t turn a blind eye and say there is nothing we can do–because in this case we’re the only people who really can do something.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

My children have been at their father’s for the past week and don’t come home until Sunday. This is unusual in itself, because he hasn’t had them for longer than a week for the past 2 years. Why am I telling you this?
I am so lonely and bored! My dog is at the trainers…my kids are at their fathers…my new husband is traveling. What fills my weeks when the kids are home seems to have disappeared. I wander around the house thinking of what I can organize, clean, utilize, materialize, deodorize and then wander back to the computer. I have cleaned out and up every nook and cranny of this house. I have organized and reorganized. I still have until Sunday to keep busy.
This is the double edged sword that most divorced parents are afraid to talk about, especially the primary caregiver. Carrying the majority of the load of raising your children is exhausting. There are times you want to pull out your hair, or get a Brazilian bikini wax instead of hearing, “Mommy can I…” one more time.
Let’s be honest, sometimes you can’t wait for the kids to go to the other parent so you can have some peace and quiet for a change. It isn’t the same for a two parent household. Even though they have the kids full time all the time, there is usually a second set of hands to put the straw in the juice box while turning on the shower and helping with homework all the while making dinner.
And, when you finally do have that peace and quiet, what happens? You are lonely. Remember when you were young and your parents farmed you out every summer to camp? I used to think my parents would run around the house naked and have sex on every conceivable surface while partying all night long. How wrong I was. They probably went about their everyday lives and organized in the peace and quiet. Are married parents as lonely when they send their kids away as divorced parents are when their kids have to go for visitation?
For all the married parents out there….being without your kids is the pits. Enjoy the dirty dishes, the spills and messes and the clean ups. Enjoy the arguing, the fighting and the he said/she said or he touched me’s. Enjoy the blaring of the TV, computer and video games. Enjoy the Mommy Mommy Mommy. Enjoy it all, because when they are gone, the silence that you long for can be stifling.

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Over the last two years, food producers large and small, consumer and public health groups, and Congressional leaders have come together to support legislation that would bring the most significant update to food safety laws in seven decades. To the chagrin of everyone who worked hard to get S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (and the Tester/Hagen Amendment), passed out of the Senate Monday, the bill is now facing a significant uphill battle.
The future of S. 510, which received broad bipartisan support (73 yeas 25 nays), is now in jeopardy due to a provision in the bill that would allow the FDA to impose fees on importers, and on companies whose food is recalled because of contamination. It now appears that S. 510 must be reconsidered in the Senate so it can be brought into compliance with Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, which says all revenue-raising measures must originate in the House. However, finding floor time for the bill is looking less and less attainable since Senate Republican leaders are saying their caucus won’t vote on any bills until Bush Era tax cuts are extending to the uber-rich. This means that the passage of S. 510 may not happen before the lame duck session ends.
Further lampooning the legislation is Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) threat to filibuster a vote if the bill returns to the Senate floor. A staunch opponent of the bill, one can recall Sen. Coburn’s speech on the Senate floor two weeks ago when he argued that lawyers (myself included) are all the food safety regulation Americans will ever need.
Now is not the time to let politics get in the way of a piece of legislation that was unanimously voted (Yes, Sen. Coburn too) out of the Senate H.E.L.P. committee over a year ago. Those of us who have followed this historic Act from the time it was introduced to the moments just last week when we quivered in anticipation watching Senate cloture votes on C-SPAN understand that the current version of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act qualifies as a real piece of bi-partisan legislation that addresses a tangible and important national problem.
You may ask, “What’s the rush? Can’t we just wait it out?”
Not a chance. 2010 is almost over and realistically 2011 is shaping up to be the most politically contentious year since Obama took office. For any legislation that means more roadblocks and more politics. Translation, “Anyone who believes this bill will pass if it is introduced during the next Congressional session is in ‘La-La Land’.”
The bottom line, though, is this bill is a work of compromise and it is on the precipice of failure because of abhorrent politicking by Mitch McConnell and Co. This bill was passed and all were satisfied and ready to move until a technical flaw was noticed (a flaw not seen by Senate Republicans and Democrats alike over the last year of debate). Now is the time for our Senate and House leaders to do what they need to and finish what they started. Let’s fix the flaw and do it now.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

One of my chief intellectual interests, along with happiness, is a subject that I call “symbols beyond words.” And on that mysterious subject, no one is more fascinating than Car Jung.
So I recently read the very interesting collection, “C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters.” In 1960, Jung was interviewed by journalist Gordon Young, who asked, “What do you consider to be more or less basic factors making for happiness in the human mind?” Jung answered:
Jung also added, “All factors which are generally assumed to make for happiness can, under certain circumstances, produce the contrary. No matter how ideal your situation may be, it does not necessarily guarantee happiness.”
I did disagree strongly with Jung on one point, when he said, “The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it.” I know, Carl Jung vs. Gretchen Rubin! But though many great minds, such as John Stuart Mill, make the same point as Jung, I don’t agree.
I find that the more mindful I am about happiness, the happier I become. Take the five factors Jung outlined above: by deliberately seeking to strengthen those elements of my life, I make myself happier.
What do you think? Do you agree with the five factors? And do you find that mindfully pursuing happiness makes you happier, or less happy?
***
I love looking at book jackets and, in particular, comparing the different covers for the same book. (I get a big kick out my gallery of foreign covers for “The Happiness Project” for that reason.) I eagerly clicked through this collection of different covers for Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” Fascinating.
The holidays are here! If you’re giving “The Happiness Project” as a gift, I’m happy to mail you a signed, personalized bookplate for the recipient. Or for you, of course! Just e-mail me at grubin@gretchenrubin.com; be sure to include your mailing address, because this is an actual thing that I’ll mail to you. Feel free to ask for as many as you’d like. (They’re free.)

This Blogger’s Books from
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
by Gretchen Rubin
Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life
by Gretchen Rubin

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A remarkable thing happened earlier this week on New York City’s Upper East Side. An organization, the 92Y, offered a full refund to patrons who attended an event with celebrated comedian Steve Martin. How did this happen? Why did this happen?
Let us face facts.
The 92Y advertised Steve Martin in conversation with Deborah Solomon on Nov. 29, 2010. It sold out, with tickets selling for $50, plus an additional mixer for $12 that Martin himself wasn’t even attending. The description mentions that he has a new novel, “An Object of Beauty,” but also mentions his other credits in writing and performing for film, TV and stand-up comedy. Other cities also were selling tickets for $10 for fans of Martin to watch a simulcast and submit questions to him. The BSC Mainstage in Pittsfield, Mass., promised an “interactive experience, as audience members will have the chance, during the live event, to submit questions to the speaker via email.”
So, obviously, you’re expecting an hour completely devoted to art, right? I’m sure there are some Steve Martin fans who would spend $50 just to be near him for an hour, even if he didn’t utter a single word.
But that’s not how this was billed. Billed as an interactive conversation with Martin, I’m certain that everyone who paid money for this expected to learn more about the man they adore. Mediaite’s Panel Nerds noted that even after someone from the 92Y admonished Solomon to ask more interesting questions, “this discussion went on too long for many audience members who wished to hear more about the Martin they knew already. In this way, Solomon was too rigid, twice “catching” Martin talking about himself, instead of about the book, and quickly turning her – and in turn his – attention back to the novel.”
Defensively, Steve Martin wrote on Twitter last night: “So the 92nd St. Y has determined that the course of its interviews should be dictated in real time by its audience’s emails. Artists beware.”
He misses the point. For one thing, his conversation was sold to fans in other cities as an interview that would include their emails! Maybe they didn’t tell him that, and if so, that’s on them. But it’s not his fault that the interview bored people. It’s the fault of the person interviewing him. Deborah Solomon, who famously or infamously sometimes enjoys distorting interviews to make her subjects in the New York Times Magazine look bad (see what she did to Seth MacFarlane in 2009, for example), includes a note each week that her interviews are condensed and edited. When performing live, it’s deliciously ironic that the people who employed her asked her to condense and edit! Solomon told her colleagues at the NYT that she thought it seemed most timely and interesting to talk to Martin about art and his new novel about art. Well, that’s nice. But when you’re interviewing someone in front of a live audience who has paid money to watch the interview, perhaps for more than one second, you should consider the live audience and what they might find interesting.
That’s not to say you cannot still ask him about the novel and about his artistic interests. You just need to ask him questions that will provoke answers that everyone will enjoy.
It’s not that difficult, if you’re a professional journalist!
Just ask Lawrence Grobel. Who is he? He’s a guy who profiled Steve Martin in the October issue of American Airlines’ American Way magazine. And Martin Tweeted a link to this article yesterday, too. And this is how Grobel, who describes himself as a longtime friend of Martin’s, helps introduce his piece:
Steve Martin is not always on. Fine. Great, even. The profile is still enlightening and amusing. Do you know why? Because Grobel had the good sense to play to his audience.
I think back to when I was a reporter at the Boston Herald, and had the chance to sit down face-to-face with Will Ferrell as he did press for Talladega Nights. Ferrell couldn’t have been nicer or more enjoyable as we talked about the movie and his past experiences in comedy. But the Boston Globe, who met with Ferrell in the same hour, decided to call him out for not being funny on command. Why? Because he couldn’t respond to unasked questions.
This reminds me of that, because the main reason the 92Y felt a need to refund audience members, and why the audience was unhappy in the first place, was because they felt they’d been misled.
They had a comedy idol in front of them, and they were disappointed. I don’t blame Steve Martin for this. I don’t blame the 92Y for this. I blame Deborah Solomon for this. She had the ability to ask this comedy legend questions about his life and his pursuits, including the new novel about the art world, in a way that made people feel as though they were getting their money’s worth. And she didn’t do that. Instead, she chose to ask questions that interested her. For once, she learned that her magazine tagline — “INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED” — should apply equally to her.
This article originally appeared in The Comic’s Comic.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

What do a heart attack, parent dying, turning 50 (or 60), job loss and a major car accident have in common?
They are all what I call, “pivotal events.” Though life-altering in their own right, these events sometimes have a domino effect in that they can lead people to make other life-changing decisions — divorce being one of the most common.
In over half of the cases I see, it is these types of events that my clients cite as what led to the divorce. Here’s why:
Pivotal events often cause people to reflect on the past: After a pivotal event, someone questioning their marriage will reflect on choices they’ve previously made and may:
1) wonder if their reasons to get married were pure: (i.e. did they get married just to please their family or because they truly wanted to?)
2) wonder why they have stayed married (out of love or fear?)
3) question whether they ever really loved their spouse
4) feel doubt that they took the right path and may find themselves wishing they had stayed single, married someone else or divorced years earlier.
Pivotal events also cause people to reflect on the present: These people scrutinize themselves, their current job, spouse, home and friends.
Because the pivotal event often jolts people out of unconsciousness, they often become more honest about what’s working and what’s not working in the marriage. As a result of seeing things more clearly, continuing to live with a troubled or unfulfilling relationship that is unchangeable is what often leads people to file for dissolution.
One couple whose pivotal event occurred when their last child went off to college realized that, without their daughters to raise, they virtually had nothing in common. There was a faint memory of love for each other but they had grown so far apart that there was no glue holding them together any longer.
Pivotal events cause people to reflect on the future: Turning a particular age or having someone close to you die puts you face to face with your own mortality.
Questions arise such as, “If I only had one year to live, what would I do differently starting today?” and, “Is this the person I want to grow old and spend the rest of my life with?”
Recently, a man contacted me distraught after his wife of 22 years told him she no longer wanted to stay married to him. She had just received her last dose of chemotherapy for breast cancer and suspected that her cancer was probably a result of a backlog of toxins in her system from years of squelching her truth.
She realized she had been unconsciously going along with societal norms of becoming a wife and mother. If she had chosen a life of her own free will, her life would have looked quite different.
She did not regret having her kids but now that they were grown, she felt she could make decisions based on what she truly desired.
* In some cases, pivotal events simply clear the way for the divorce to occur.
One woman told me that the green light to leave her husband came after her father died and she received an inheritance. Having her own financial resources freed her from having to stay in her loveless marriage any longer.
The husband of a couple I work with lost his job which meant he no longer had to be “tied down” to the big house payment, live in an area of the country he hated and stay in his flagging marriage. If he had not been laid off, the choice to leave would never have occurred to him.
Proceed with Caution
The down side of pivotal events is that they can create avalanches if too much change occurs at once. This may take care of your need in the short term but it makes life harder on you and on everyone around you in the long term. Here are some things to consider before making big changes to your life:
1) Make no major decisions for 90 days after the pivotal event: Ideally, there should be no urgency in divorce (unless there is some type of abuse or danger of harm).
If the decision is truly the right decision now, it will be the right decision in three months. It’s best to assess your choices from a more grounded place than in reaction to a major event.
2) Understand the impact on others: In addition to those around you being impacted by the pivotal event, they will likely be affected by your decision to leave the marriage as well. When making this serious decision, take this into account and do what you can to mitigate any damage the split may cause.
3) Seek outside opinion before acting: Whether it’s a trusted friend, or a paid professional, invariably, better decisions are made when you have a sounding board or support/guide. The more objective, the better.

This Blogger’s Books from
Contemplating Divorce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go
by Susan Pease Gadoua
Stronger Day By Day: Reflections for Healing and Rebuilding After Divorce
by Susan Pease Gadoua

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Earlier this week we learned from Wikileaks that the Bush Administration tried to stop Germany from investigating the CIA’s alleged torture of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who’d been mistaken for an al Qaeda terrorist and imprisoned in Afghanistan. I observed that the Obama Administration would have been hard-pressed to take a different position, given that it’s refused to investigate (or allow others to sue over) those claims itself.
Now, David Corn in Mother Jones has documented that the Obama administration has, in fact, done just what I thought it would: it’s continued the Bush policy of interfering in other countries’ attempts to apply the rule of law.
As the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday, a series of cables reveal that U.S. officials pressured Spain’s chief prosecutor to get the courts to drop the potential criminal investigations of senior U.S. officials for their roles in the torture of detainees in U.S. custody. U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former vice presidential chief of staff David Addington, former Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Baybee, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and former DOD General Counsel William Haynes were all named as potential targets.
As El Pais put it (translation by Scott Horton at Harper’s):
But those “powerful resources” did not end with the Bush administration. As Corn points out: “A ‘confidential’ April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department–one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks–details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.”
The US Embassy started tracking the case as soon a Spanish human rights group requested the investigation in March 2009. But after Republican Senators Judd Gregg and Mel Martinez got involved, the Obama administration’s charg d’affaires at the US embassy in Spain became more active as well. According to the cable, the Americans “underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the US and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship” between Spain and the United States. As Corn recounts: “Here was a former head of the GOP and a representative of a new Democratic administration (headed by a president who had decried the Bush-Cheney administration’s use of torture) jointly applying pressure on Spain to kill the investigation of the former Bush officials.”
As I noted in my earlier post on the El-Masri case, it’s not all that surprising that the U.S. government wouldn’t want its own senior officials prosecuted in another country. But for the Obama administration to play such an active role in thwarting the ordinary course of an ally’s judicial system which was investigating crimes that President Obama had himself decried is pretty disturbing.
Horton put it this way yesterday: “These cables show that the U.S. embassy in Madrid had far exceeded [its] mandate . . . and was actually successfully steering the course of criminal investigations, the selection of judges, and the conduct of prosecutors.” In Spain, the “disclosure has created deep concern about the independence of judges in Spain and the manipulation of the entire criminal justice system by a foreign power.”
The way the Obama administration is wielding its power to thwart the rule of law abroad ought to create deep concern in the United States as well.

Follow Daphne Eviatar on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/deviatar

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

My southern roots have taught me that when someone does something for which you are grateful, you write a thank-you note.
We’ve been talking for months about the urgent need for a robust child nutrition bill and today, the Feeding America network gets to celebrate the passage of the long-awaited Healthy, Hunger-Free Families Act. The legislation will increase access to federal food programs for millions of children and improve the nutritional quality of the meals they serve. And for that, we have many, many people to thank.
So thank you, Senate Agriculture Chairman Blanche Lincoln and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller. Thank you for your tireless efforts to get the child nutrition bill passed. You are true champions for hungry children and invaluable partners in our fight to end hunger.
Also instrumental to the process are Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama. We thank you and and all Members on both sides of the House and Senate who supported the passage of this remarkable child nutrition bill.
As always, Feeding America benefits from voices of thousands of supporters and advocates who help us raise awareness of the issue hunger every day. In recent months, your support has helped us get the word out to urge Congress to ensure better nutrition for children. Every phone call, every email, every conversation made a difference.
We our very grateful to our many partners in the anti-hunger and nutrition community who worked tirelessly with us throughout this process. The support for this bill went beyond the traditional hunger and nutrition community, and the efforts of education, public healthy, industry, and labor groups were key to the bill’s success.
Finally, thank you to the Feeding America public policy and government relations staff and to every person throughout our network who pushed and pulled and prodded to build public support behind this much-needed bill.
On behalf of the 14 million hungry children served by our network of food banks and the millions more who will now have access more healthy meals, thank you all so very much.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A man has been killed after being hit with a bolt from a crossbow in Toronto, Canadian officials say.
The victim, estimated to be in his 30s or 40s, was shot in the back outside a library in the city's east end. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police later arrested a man who was reportedly seen running with a crossbow and trying to escape in a van.
The motive for the attack – which happened at about 1630 local time (2130 GMT) – was not immediately clear.
Officials say there were many witnesses who could help in the ongoing investigation.

Source:BBC

Speaking at the penalty phase for Doug the organ-donor administrator were former victims of alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, leukemia, obstructive uropathy, valvular stenosis and a once blind girl who invented a digital movie camera that made people look ten pounds thinner.
On a porch showing signs of dry rot, Doug’s ex-wife inadvertently said, “Your son’s in better places.”

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The story of how George Clooney got my sloppy seconds starts with a faceless couple having sex in a real estate open house.
Four years ago, while a big Broadway agent in New York named Chris was getting his shoes shined, he passed the time reading a GQ article about the hot phenomenon of “house humping.” Remember, the real estate bubble was at its peak, and such a trend would arguably be the prick that burst it (or in TV sitcom terms, when real estate jumped the shark). But that agent was no dummy. He went back to his office, Googled “house humping” and saw a connection to a movie I’d just made: a real estate musical called Open House that the Weinstein Company had just released. It turns out the GQ story — and indeed the whole “trend” of house humping — were the fruits of a viral stealth campaign I’d unleashed to promote the film.
By sheer coincidence, I called Chris that same day and he was eager to talk. There was chatter at the Weinsteins about turning my film into a play, and I was looking for a good playwright to adapt it. But while I had him on the phone, I also asked him if he had any plays that would make good film adaptations. Yes! He had stacks of them.
I came to New York and literally stuffed them into my carry-on bag for the flight back to LA. As The New York Times recently noted, a lot of New York playwrights become TV writers. Why? Because there’s good steady money in it for the playwrights (and their agents). What’s been Broadway’s loss has led to a golden age for TV. But unless a play wins a Tony or a Pulitzer, chances are it won’t get made into a feature film, and even if it does, it’s not a huge payday for the amount of time it takes to develop. So until a guy like me walks along, no one seems to bother.
Out of all the plays I read, though, only two struck me as good candidates for a film adaptation. The first one I considered was “Farragut North” by Beau Willamon. It’s about a young campaign aide working for an idealistic candidate in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. It’s smartly written and for so many reasons was a perfect fit for me to direct, not least of which is because I had been a speechwriter for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin just before he launched his presidential campaign in 1992. Beau himself had worked for Howard Dean, and his play captured the right tones, drama and locations of an Iowa campaign very well. My only concern was that while it worked as a play, as a movie it would feel a little too much like one of the flashback episodes from The West Wing where Sam Seaborn goes to work on Jed Bartlett’s campaign. I couldn’t help but wonder if indeed it was, in a sense, designed to get Willamon some TV work. And I say that as a genuine compliment: There’s not a lot of writers who can do what Aaron Sorkin can do, and do it well.
The other play that I gravitated towards was “Between Us” by Joe Hortua — which had been given to me by a different agent. It was a dark comedy exploring the bittersweet friendships between two couples who meet as old friends and discover their lives are tarnished by money, success, sex and children. It had gotten great reviews when it premiered Off-Broadway in 2004 at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York, and the characters struck a very personal chord with me, given where my own life was at the time. More important, I had some interesting ideas for how to adapt it cinematically — sort of a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with the tone and scope of Sideways. I met with Hortua, he liked where I was going with it, and we happily collaborated on the adaptation. I helped introduce Joe (the playwright) to Chris (the agent), who wound up negotiating our deal — shined shoes and all. After a few false starts interrupted by the economic downturn (Remember the prick that burst the housing bubble? Could have been me.) and my own foray into political writing (as co-author of a critically-acclaimed novel) — we’re now poised to start shooting in March. Of course, we’re doing it on a micro-budget level, raising our money in part through crowdsourcing on Kickstarter.
As for “Farragut North”? After I passed on it, the play was produced the next year at the Off-Broadway Atlantic Theatre Company before moving to LA’s Geffen theatre, where it starred Chris Pine and Chris Noth. Somewhere along the way, Leonardo DiCaprio jumped on as a producer, with George Clooney set to direct. Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star, and the title’s been changed to The Ides of March. They start shooting in February with Sony is releasing the film (and no, I don’t think they had to raise their budget through Kickstarter). Clooney’s a fine director, and I have no doubt the movie will be very good: Look for it at next year’s Oscars.
So in the end, I suppose all’s well. Clooney and I both get our movies made, both playwrights get their films adapted, and the agent still has shiny shoes. See, Hollywood does have happy endings!

This Blogger’s Books from
I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man’s (Wildly Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans
by Martin Eisenstadt
Open House

Follow Dan Mirvish on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/DanMirvish

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport.
The ‘GNR’ is also now available on your cell phone via Stitcher Radio’s mobile app!.
IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Happy birthday, EPA! Now die! (Same to you, FDA!); Huge food safety overhaul passes in the Senate (maybe); Updates from the international climate summit in Cancun …PLUS: USA’s ‘Sputnik Moment’ — Losing the race for clean energy … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Oil spill panel chief ‘mystified’ by GOP block on subpoena power, mulls broader drilling regulations; US lab develops grid controls to handle renewable energy; Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue; Homeland Security panel on at-risk chemical plants stacked with insiders; Divers find more oil on Gulf sea floor; U.S. Rescinds Expansion of Offshore Drilling; Coal: EPA withholds study on Spruce Mine alternatives; Appeals court halts U.S.-sanctioned killing of sea lions … PLUS: Breaking away from coal: Utilities increasingly turn to natural gas, away from coal …
‘Green News Report’ is heard on many fine radio stations around the country. For additional info on stories we covered today, plus today’s ‘Green News Extra’, please click right here…

Follow Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/TheBradBlog

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This week the Environmental Protection Agency celebrates its 40th anniversary and we commend the agency for four decades of tremendous work protecting the air we breathe, water we drink and the health of all Americans.
The EPA was born from enormous environmental tragedy — the burning of the Cuyahoga River, the Santa Barbara oil spill and dangerous levels of pollution throughout the U.S. — yet after forty years the impacts of the agency’s work could not be clearer. The Clean Air and Clear Water Acts have effectively safeguarded public health for decades with the EPA’s strict oversight. EPA regulations have successfully addressed the dangers of acid rain, ozone depletion, DDT, lead and secondhand smoke. The agency has also sought pollution reductions through improvements to the lives of every American. And time after time, the EPA has demonstrated that safeguarding our environment goes hand-in-hand with economic prosperity as all of these actions have spurred innovations that have created countless jobs and saved consumers money.
While much has been accomplished in the EPA’s forty year history, there is still much more work to be done.
As we face the greatest environmental threat in history, global warming, many want to challenge the EPA’s current authority to hold corporate polluters accountable for their contribution to the carbon pollution causing the climate crisis. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the likely incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has said that “we’re not going to let EPA regulate what they’ve been unable to legislate.”
It is paramount that the EPA be allowed to continue to do its job, especially with regards to its authority to regulate greenhouse gases and conventional pollutants. Global warming threatens our economy, our environment and public health and in the absence of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, the ball is now in the EPA’s court. And an election night poll commissioned by LCV showed voters across the country support EPA regulation of carbon pollution to reduce global warming by a 22 point margin.
Progress must continue to be made in order to transition to a clean energy economy that creates jobs and protects the planet from harmful pollution. And to those who believe this is not the EPA’s job, we would encourage them to look back on the agency’s undeniable successes in the past four decades accomplishing many of those same goals.
In the face of great environmental crises the EPA has stepped up to the plate, while averting countless other disasters. After four decades the agency has more than earned our trust and should continue to be trusted to do what it does best: using the best available science to protect the environment and public health, while spurring innovation and holding corporate polluters accountable.
Happy anniversary EPA! We thank you for all your great work and look forward to working with you on the many challenges that lie ahead.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Did you know that only about 20% of Americans own a passport? This number may be on the rise, but it’s only because Americans are now required to show a passport when visiting Mexico, Canada, and parts of the Caribbean. The number of Americans who have traveled overseas, however, has been on the decline since 2006 (Source: OTTI). So while more of us have our passports, Americans are still not traveling abroad. We are still shunning the rest of the world. We have no new love of travel just because we now have passports. So why is it that America turns a blind eye to the rest of the planet and staying home?
I believe there are a few reasons:
First, America is huge. It is a well-known fact that the majority of American families go on vacation in other parts of America. Why? For one, the U.S.A. is not only massive but it also shelters a diverse range of environments. If you’re looking for a beach vacation, go to Florida. If you want the tropics, go to Hawaii. How about the desert? You’ll find it in Arizona. Visit Alaska’s frozen tundra or temperate forests in Washington. This attitude is best summed up by a response I got from a friend in Iowa, who said, “Why would you want to go to Thailand? It’s far away and scary. If you want beaches, just go to Florida.” Americans simply don’t see the need to go anywhere else when they can do it all in their own backyard.
But is geography a valid reason? Not really. If geography played a role in determining where people travel, no one would ever travel. Everything would be too far. Yet New Zealand is in the middle of nowhere and how many more Kiwis do you meet traveling than Americans? How many more Aussies? Tons. These countries are far away from everything. Outside of each other, it’s a 6 hour trip to somewhere and if you go across the Pacific, it’s 15 hours. The world is much farther away from them than it is us. Yet they travel. We don’t. Size doesn’t matter.
It’s not that America’s size makes travel prohibitive, its size is important because people feel there is no reason to leave. We don’t need to travel to “big, scary places” when we have deserts, tropical islands, mountains, endless summer, wilderness, snow, and more. Every landscape can be found within America’s borders. You can have everything you want here. When you feel this way, you aren’t going to travel.
Which brings me to my second point: Fear. I think most Americans are scared of the world and when they see they have everything around here, it only reinforces their perception they don’t need to go overseas. Just take a look at the recent election and you’ll see what I mean. Sharron Angle warns of Sharia Law. The Chinese are to blame for all our problems. Mexicans are stealing our jobs. And the ground zero mosque, which is really a community center, is just a secret way for Al Qaeda to enter the country. Paranoia runs deep in this land. In this post-9/11 world, Americans have been taught that the world is a big, scary place. There are terrorists outside every hotel waiting to kidnap you. People don’t like you because you are American. The world is violent. It’s poor. It’s dirty. It’s savage. Canada and Europe are O.K., but if you go there, they will still be rude to you because you are American. No one likes Americans, right?.
Even before 9/11, the media created an environment of fear. In news, if it bleeds, it leads right? Prior to 9/11, the media played up violence at home and abroad. Pictures of riots in foreign streets, threats against Americans, and general violence were all played up to portray a violent and unsafe world. After, 9/11, it only got worse. Politicians now tell us, “they hate you” in the same way that former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani did during his campaign. It’s US vs. THEM! And the media still perpetuates this idea.
Politicians and media paint the world as a scary place, filled with crime, hate, terrorists. Bill O’Reilly, a man who clearly has never been to Amsterdam, has called that city a cesspool. (Twice!) We are constantly told that there is anti-Americanism in the world — wherever you go, people will dislike you. (This is a fallacy that is rarely disproven in the media). Moreover, America’s hegemony since WW2 has ensured that we have been the dominant force in the world. Despite the rise of China, Brazil, and India, our politicians tell us everything in America is the best (yet we are #38 in health care). Countries will always do what they want. America is the leader. It is the city upon a hill. Yada. Yada. Yada. When you think you are the best, why go to “godforsaken” countries where they hate you for being American, are cesspool, and you might get robbed? Bombarded by this “news” and “facts” for decades, Americans think this myth is reality and don’t want to leave the states. It’s no wonder that when I tell my older friends and relatives I am going to Central America, they still think of the dangerous 80s and tell me to watch out for the Sandinistas.
Finally, I think Americans don’t travel overseas because of cultural ignorance. Americans are ignorant, and when I say this, I mean ignorant that people are simply uninformed about what is going on outside the borders, not that they are dumb. I can’t say I blame them. When you are told the world is scary, why would you want to care about it? Why would you want to go to places where they want to kill you? The result is that Americans don’t put an emphasis on learning about the world. We don’t learn a second language, we don’t enroll in overseas programs, we don’t have a travel culture, we don’t do gap years, and we don’t talk about our world in schools. Our schools teach one foreign language: Spanish, and that is only because we have a large Spanish speaking population in the country. Moreover, as education budgets continue to get slashed, humanity courses are usually the first to be cut from curriculum. This means that people learn very little about world history. In some states, the whole world has to be explained in one year.
The media doesn’t focus on the world except if it relates to something bad and our politicians encourage us to erect walls not break down barriers. Additionally, surveys show that news agencies devoted only 10.3% to foreign coverage in 2008 (source) while oddly, 13% went to some polygamy case in Texas. We barely know anything about geography. Americans are simply not told about the world or clamoring to know about it.
In May, violence broke out in Thailand. I remember seeing it as front-page news in Europe and on CNN International. There was a small hyperlink at the bottom of the page on CNN US and Fox News. Lindsey Lohan was the number one news story that month. Again. We are more concerned with our celebrities than world events. Let’s talk about Kim Kardashian instead of the EU debt crisis or Brazil’s effort to clean up its slums.
The sad irony of all of this is that we created the world we are so afraid of. America’s push for a globalized world brought many players onto the world stage. It helped the Chinese dragon emerge from its cage, it brought India into the game, helped Brazil, and tore down communism. We championed globalization, technology, and freedom around the world. Now that we helped foster that, we don’t know what to do. Now, we look at the world and we’re scared that we no longer understand our place in it. Instead of trying to learn more, we erect barriers, play to xenophobic fears, and bury our head in the sand.
I am hopeful though. The future of the world requires more integration, and it requires more young Americans who — growing up in this post 9/11 environment — are more interested in learning about other countries than shunning then. I think the future will be bright so long as political leaders don’t wall us off completely before then.

Follow Matt Kepnes on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/nomadicmatt

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

We do not honor a remarkable friendship by proclaiming that it has “all the best qualities of the happiest and most resilient marriages.” We honor it by recognizing that it is its own special thing.
Midway through her New York Times review of Gail Caldwell’s Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, Julie Myerson says this about Caldwell’s friendship with Caroline Knapp:
The review was a rave. Myerson declared herself “intensely moved” by the book. She admired the friendship at the heart of the memoir, calling it an example of “the very best that women can be together.” She also wrote approvingly of the women’s tenderness toward their beloved dogs.
To explain the power of the friendship and the book, Myerson returned again and again to the themes of marriage and romantic love. Here are some more examples:
“Although there was nothing sexual about their friendship, it was in many crucial ways a love affair.”
“But this was to be a romance without a happy ending.”
“While not exactly giving up on relationships with men…”
“When Caldwell eventually manages to buy a house, it’s both amusing and somehow inevitable that Knapp rushes up and hoists her ‘like a sack of grain’ over the threshold.”
By nodding to romance, love affairs, and “the happiest and most resilient marriages,” Myerson intends high praise. What I hear is a misunderstanding of friendship, singlehood, and solo living. Myerson is writing, uncritically, from the perspective of the conventional wisdom of our time. In contemporary American society, there is a hierarchy of valued relationships. Marriage and other romantic relationships are at the top of the heap and friendship is somewhere below. Yet this ranking is not universal or timeless. In other places and at other times, it was friendship that was revered.
It is not just Myerson who is mired in mindless assumptions about relationships. Scholars, too, have been slow to recognize that friendship (including the closest of friendships) is not just marriage without the sex – it is a unique, and uniquely important, relationship. Similarly, living single and living solo (not the same things – many singles live with other people) are not just what people practice as their default positions when they are not married. Increasingly, living single and living solo are positive choices.
Heller McAlpin, in a review for the Washington Post, pointed out something important. Both Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp, McAlpin noted, “were single by choice and by temperament.” They both “worked at home [and] lived alone.”
The story about Knapp carrying Caldwell across the threshold of her new home begins as a wedding clich, but ends very differently. When Gail Caldwell is in her house, it is her home, not anyone else’s. She can be there, reveling in her writing and her solitude and her time with her dog, knowing that no one else will be there unless they are invited. Same for her friend Caroline.
Here’s an excerpt from Let’s Take the Long Way Home that captures how these women experience their lives:
Caroline and Gail’s lives suited them, I believe, not because they were such close approximations to great marriages, but because they were something else entirely. Gail and Caroline are telling us that there is joy is small moments of solitude, and meaningfulness in recounting those moments to a friend.
Most reviewers and readers of Let’s Take the Long Way Home saw the manifestations of the friendship in the time, the interests, and the experiences that the women shared. There were, for instance, the many long walks that they took, filled with intense conversations; the many passions that they pursued – the love of their dogs, their water sports, their writing careers; and the alcoholic demons both had battled and slain. I agree. That’s what friendship looks like. But that’s not what makes it unique. What makes it different (continue reading here).

This Blogger’s Books from
Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
by Bella DePaulo Ph.D.
Single with Attitude: Not Your Typical Take on Health and Happiness, Love and Money, Marriage and Friendship
by Bella DePaulo Ph.D.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

‘Tis the season for low expectations on climate change and other global sustainability challenges. Yet there’s no reason to think our stockings will forever be stuffed with coal.
Enormous worldwide business innovation is taking place to build a clean sustainable economy and it’s just a matter of time before it translates into huge financial rewards and a new business paradigm.
The question is whether that moment arrives quickly enough, and that in turn depends as much on Wall Street’s economic pulleys and levers as government policies. The bad news is that today’s Wall Street is simply too short-sighted, rewarding immediate payoffs over forward thinking that deals with long-term environmental, social and business challenges.
Strong carbon-reducing policies are unlikely to emerge from climate negotiations in Cancun and the new Congress in Washington. Yet many businesses and investors understand they must move now to develop products and services with a low carbon footprint that use fewer resources, whether fossil fuels or water.
In just the past few weeks, some of the nation’s largest utilities, automakers and technology firms have announced bold plans to upgrade their offerings with next-generation technologies for electric cars, a smart grid, energy storage and zero-emission renewable energy.
“A clean energy portfolio, based on sound economics, creates compelling value and provides a clear competitive advantage,” says Exelon CEO John Rowe, who recently unveiled a $5 billion plan to decarbonize the utility’s power supplies with energy efficiency, wind energy and the smart grid while shuttering several coal-fired plants.
Major investors are also greening their portfolios. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System recently announced plans to target $500 million at environmentally-friendly companies. “This strategy will allow us to become more directly involved in positive change by top performers that have improved share value and also done good for the environment,” said CalPERS board president Rob Feckner.
In addition, there is a growing evidence that investors using environmental, social and governance (ESG) analysis in their decision-making outperform traditionally managed funds that often ignore these issues. A new RLP Capital analysis of the eight largest traditional mutual funds and the eight largest ESG funds showed that the ESG funds had significantly higher returns over the last three years. ESG is also gaining traction among investors; just over $3 trillion is now invested in funds using ESG analysis, a 13 percent jump from 2007.
These trends are encouraging, but the stark reality is that sustainable capitalism is still a long way from being embedded in the U.S. and global economy. CalPERS’ $500 million green investment sounds impressive, but it’s still only a tiny fraction of the pension fund’s $200 billion in assets. Exelon can now boast of being the nation’s largest wind energy provider, but its clean energy investments pale in comparison to what Exxon and other oil companies are spending – $200 billion! – extracting oil from highly viscous oil sands in Canada – a process with far-reaching adverse environmental impacts.
So what will it take to put the 21st century economy on a more sustainable path?
Of course, government policies that reward clean technologies and discourage high-polluting ones are a big part of the solution. But ending myopic practices on Wall Street and across the rest of the economy are equally critical.
Our financial markets remain far too biased towards short-term returns and far too blind to less obvious long-term risks like climate change, water scarcity and other resource constraints.The subprime mortgage meltdown and financial collapse was an exceedingly painful reminder of such ‘short-termism’ and the deep, systemic failure of long-term risk accountability economy-wide.
Building a sustainable economy means that many below-the-radar rules and practices for dealing with long-term risks like climate change, oil sands production and water scarcity must dramatically change. Some practices I’d like to change today include:
* Incentive structures for investors and corporate executives that reward short-term performance and quarterly returns, while ignoring climate change and other longer-term business risks that threaten shareholder value.
* U.S. and Canadian accounting rules that allow highly damaging environmental impacts and future cleanup costs from oil sands production to be left off oil company balance sheets.
* Credit rating agency practices that pay scant attention to growing water scarcity risks when rating municipal bonds that water utilities use to finance vast infrastructure projects.
* Mainstream investor policies and practices that routinely ignore climate change risks – regulatory, litigation, physical and competitive, along with major opportunities – as part of their due diligence for evaluating companies.
Until these practices change, the all-too-incremental progress we’ve seen to date in building a clean, more sustainable 21st century economy will not be enough to ensure a safe and prosperous future.
It is essential that all market players – companies, investors, accounting firms, rating agencies, policymakers and more – start acknowledging the colossal long-term risks we face and get to work on comprehensive solutions that will mitigate such global threats.
We can seize a great opportunity now – aggressive energy efficiency measures alone could create up to 750,000 jobs in the U.S. in the next decade – or pay a big price later. Seems like a clear choice, no?

Follow Mindy S. Lubber on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/CeresNews

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Recently, the NY Daily News published a startling article, “Alcohol-related Emergency Room Visits Skyrocket in New York: 74,000 in 2009.” The scariest part? People who end up in the emergency room because of binge drinking are not normally “alcoholics,” declares Health Commissioner Thomas Farley. Alcohol use poses major problems, even for those without diagnosable alcohol dependence or addiction.
Although 25 million Americans meet criteria for substance abuse or dependence, a whopping 68 million are classified as “harmful drinkers” (those who consume five or more drinks in a sitting). The damage done by this group may be less well-publicized than the damage done by those with full-fledged addiction, but binge drinkers still accrue significant costs and cause harm to themselves, their families and their communities.
Who are these harmful drinkers? They are our friends, family members, colleagues and neighbors — those whose alcohol use has a considerable negative impact on their lives, but who may not yet be dependent on alcohol. This group of drinkers frequently misses work or family dinners due to their heavy drinking, yet they are unprepared to recognize their problem because they still have functioning families, lives and jobs.
The costs of their behavior are significant: health care costs for “harmful drinkers” are eight times the national average; costs for their non-drinking family members are five times the national average. In addition, treatment of chronic medical conditions (diabetes, asthma, hypertension, etc.) is often less effective due to alcohol use, which further augments those costs. Finally, if a heavy drinker is 55 years old, like the transit worker mentioned in the NY Daily News article, it is likely they have been drinking heavily since their 20s — accruing these social, work-related and health care costs for over three decades.
“Functional” binge-drinking habits usually emerge in adolescence, within the alcohol-heavy culture of college: 40 percent of college students report being drunk at least once in the past 30 days. According to the “SAMHSA” 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 42 percent of young people between 18 and 25 are engaged in binge drinking — and if you’re not addicted to alcohol by age 21, you’re unlikely to become addicted later on. Nevertheless, harmful drinking doesn’t often end with the onset of adulthood; it is a serious problem with the potential to continue indefinitely and to worsen.
Fortunately, there is hope for the future. Health care reform, new FDA-approved medications and brief, effective psychosocial interventions will alter what we have to offer for the “problem drinker” population — and these methods won’t necessarily require a “you can never drink again” attitude. In the future, the majority of substance abuse treatment and prevention services will be covered by health insurance, which is expected to triple the number of people receiving substance abuse services nationally.
So take a closer look at your own drinking habits, and the habits of those close to you. How much do those weekend parties affect your Monday mornings? What was the real reason behind that missed recital, ball game or parent-teacher conference? If alcohol use has a negative effect on someone’s life, it’s time for that person to make a change. You don’t have to be at the end of your rope in order to get help.
Deni Carise, Ph.D.
Chief Clinical Officer
Phoenix House

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Tuesday night I stayed up late, working on a grad school recommendation for one of my Public Knowledge colleagues. As usual, my Twitter feed was open, and right around midnight, I heard an unusual amount of chirping for that hour. Why? Tech reporters were writing that the FCC had just announced that its December 21st meeting agenda would propose rules for an open Internet, or network neutrality. The Chairman would circulate draft rules and an accompanying explanation, or order, to his colleagues, which would then be voted on in the December meeting.
Yes, the midnight announcement was quite odd, and I was not happy that I was faced with a decision to wake up Public Knowledge’s Communications Director Art Brodsky soon thereafter to send out our press release. But I was also excited — after five long years of fighting for rules of the road that will ensure that the Internet remains the most open and democratic medium of all time, the process for turning those rules into the law of the land had finally begun.
That the circulation of an FCC order to the other commissioners is the beginning, and not the end, of this process, is important to emphasize here. We have a good sense of what is in the order that is now circulating, and while there is a lot of good in it, it still falls appreciably short of the kind of rules that Public Knowledge believes is necessary to preserve an Internet that has proven, in Chairman Genachowski’s own words spoken today, “to be such a powerful engine for innovation, creativity and economic growth.” That is why over the next three weeks, Public Knowledge will be working with the other commissioners (and more specifically, Commissioners Copps and Clyburn, since Commissioners McDowell and Baker have both said today that they will not support ANY rules) strengthen the current draft rules and order to ensure that they will give the FCC the ability to protect consumers and the open Internet.
So what does Public Knowledge want improved? Three things:
1. The rules governing wireless Internet access must be strengthened. Since the FCC’s rules largely follow the never-introduced legislative framework developed by Representative Henry Waxman, we know that the rules for wireline and wireless broadband Internet access are treated differently. Under that framework, wireline Internet access providers are prohibited from “unjustly or unreasonably” discriminating when transmitting traffic. Wireless Internet access providers are only prohibited from blocking “lawful Internet websites” or “lawful applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services,…” This sets up a world with two Internets, one wired and one wireless, which in turn disproportionately affects people of color and America’s poor, who tend to rely more on mobile wireless broadband. The FCC can fix this situation first by prohibiting a broadband access provider from blocking any lawful application, service, content or device and then can provide either a technological (for example, 4G wireless) or time-limited (for example, one year) glide path to full non-discrimination.
2. Cable and telephone companies providing broadband Internet access should be prohibited from evading net neutrality obligations by providing pay-for-play “specialized” services. The Waxman proposal allows broadband Internet access providers to use part of their broadband “pipe” for so-called “specialized services” that would allow a content or service provider to pay for faster speeds and better service. Public Knowledge does not oppose broadband providers engaging in specialized services so long as those services don’t interfere with the growth of, or cannibalize the open broadband Internet. However, the Waxman proposal, adopted by the FCC Chairman, does not provide adequate protections for the open Internet. The FCC can solve this problem by simply defining the term “broadband Internet access service” in a way that is commonly recognized by policymakers and engineers and which deters access providers from gaming the system.
3. Paid Prioritization should be presumptively unreasonable. The Waxman proposal says nothing about whether a broadband access provider can sell “Quality of Service” (QoS) guarantees to application, content and service providers to ensure that their services load faster and/or with less jitter than competitors. By prohibiting only “unjust and unreasonable” discrimination, access providers will surely make the case that so long as they offer QoS to everyone on non-discriminatory prices, terms and conditions, such prioritization is allowed. While the order accompanying the rules has some language expressing the Commission’s concern with paid prioritization, that language should be strengthened to shift the burden on the broadband access provider to demonstrate why such prioritization is necessary and why it is in the public interest.
Public Knowledge’s difficult decision to support the Waxman framework was predicated on the assurances of the Congressman and his staff that the proposal was a floor, and not a ceiling for FCC action if the framework was not enacted into law. Right now, the FCC is at the floor, and the only place to go is up.

Follow Gigi Sohn on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/gigibsohn

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The other day two colleagues happened to be looking at two different sites at the same time.
One was the homepage for Apple. And one was the homepage for the AFL-CIO.
Seeing them side by side made me think about toothpaste.
Every time I meet with a potential advocacy client who doesn’t think that they need marketing help but really does, I usually start by asking about the toothpaste that each person in the room uses.
I ask them how much time they spend thinking about their toothpaste’s branding. I ask them if they can remember the tube. I ask what about that product’s positioning appealed to them.
Then I ask how much time and energy the people in the room have spent on those same things for their organization or on the new campaign they’re considering.
The answers to those questions are actually pretty similar:
On toothpaste, everyone has a favorite brand but can’t exactly say why they buy it.
On their organization, everyone can recite their mission but can’t say exactly why they stand out.
And there in lies the marketing problem they’re facing:
On toothpaste, they buy their brand anyway, week after week after week.
On their organization, they have trouble winning supporters and keeping them engaged.
The difference isn’t hard to see. Just think about how much time the marketing teams at Colgate or Crest spend thinking about your toothpaste. Think about how many creative, smart, talented people are on those teams at each company, all committed to moving the needle in a positive direction in the toothpaste wars.
Colgate and Crest and thousands of other brands focus a dizzying amount of attention, time, energy and creative power on something that people inherently don’t really pay attention to, all in an effort to make it natural to buy their product.
However, well-meaning organizations spend a fraction of time on these same questions focused on issues that people, generally speaking, SHOULD be receptive to, and then wonder why people don’t buy their product.
Why? Because Non-profits and political campaigns are often are put into a trap because of their “goodness” of their message.
It doesn’t really matter if your non-profit is doing good work or if your advocacy campaign has a strong point of view. That’s not how corporate campaigns think, and it’s not how non-profits should be thinking either.
What matters is:
Developing a real– and researched– competitive positioning strategy, supported by campaign-specific messaging and customized visual branding.
Making sure that all marketing verticals– SEO, the website, online advertising, mobile web, social media, etc– are addressed, integrated into one another, and optimized & focused on the specific campaign objective.
Having an engagement pipeline in place to build the relationship or move the new supporter down an engagement path to higher and higher levels of involvement.
These are all basic, fundamental planning details that corporate campaigns regularly put into thousands of products, services and campaigns that are launched every year.
These are also the details that most non-profits skip right over in favor of putting up a Facebook page, a button on the website, and a generic email blast pointing people to a contribution page.
This marketing gap is real and the lack of large advertising budgets actually makes it MORE critical that non-profits start following the same marketing approach that corporate campaigns do.
It’s the holiday season, so maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but in an increasing loud, increasingly crowded, increasingly over-communicated world, we need non-profits and advocacy campaigns to accept the fact that that everyone– corporate, advocacy, political– is playing by the same marketing rules.
I hope that 2011 will be the year that a few smart advocacy campaigns start to grab people’s attention and push progressive issues and causes, instead of having to list to people shouting loudly and wearing silly outfits.
As we all think about our resolutions for next year and the things that we want to do differently, I hope that non-profits consider stopping acting like non-profits, and start embracing the evil, effective reality of corporate marketing.

Follow Matt Dunn on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/mwdunn

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com