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Traditionally, each of us handles the end of year holidays in different ways, and it’s always with less time and more money spent. Completing yet another year of economic uncertainty and, for many, hard times, is bringing even more stress than usual. Most of my AppleOne staffing offices tell me that, although many of the people we are working with in their job searches do share bleak stories of fear, being alone and being broke… many also say that they are living vicariously on the hustle and bustle of the malls and the festive store windows. Some are turning their radio dials to the All Holiday music stations and are stocking up on table games, versus the more expensive computer game cards. Many are enjoying the festive environments of our offices and investing more time in their computer skills enhancements, while others are requesting to retake tests in order to score higher and put their best foot forward in the new year. For many, it’s working, literally!
What I recommend is, whether you thrive on the hustle and bustle and plan to spend money and time on shopping, or whether you just want to hide away ’til 2011 is upon us, step back and ask yourself this question: Will I allow my work (or search for it), added to the holidays, to equal stress for me? Or, will I take several deep breaths and manage the stress of this season, dividing out time to evaluate my work plan, and then enjoy the holiday within that perspective?
Remember that companies across the country have already made their big cuts in jobs, healthcare, bonuses and holiday parties. While employment won’t jump quickly, there is little room left for many of these companies to lay off more people, so your work plan should certainly be in gear now. However, make the holiday about more than work for you. If you are blessed with family and friends near, accept the joy of their presence and make it clear to everyone what your gifting situation is. You’ll be surprised by how happy many will be as they are facing the same consideration.
My family has decided to give the gift of our service to each other, with coupons for babysitting, grocery shopping (inserting coupons in the homemade gift cards) and other chores. We are also recycling….That sweater that Aunt Trish loved! me in last month….It’s been cleaned and boxed with my rhinestone star pin. She’s gonna love it! Do the same with your close ones. This is especially great for the females who enjoy swapping goods! It can work for the males in your family, too. Recycle those tools, sports goods, etc. They’ll look as good as new in sparkly gift wrapping and presented with your sincere, and non stressed, smile!!!
If you are alone, witnessing the festivities of others can have an opposite effect on you, and cause emotional strain. Instead of staying in your own sadness, step forward and bring joy to others. Volunteer at food banks, schools and pre-schools and religious outreach programs (all of which are on reduced budgets, just like you). Homeless shelters will enjoy the old things you’re holding on to, even more than you would enjoy the new thing that you won’t be buying yourself! They don’t even want you to wrap it! Over my life and career, I have learned that giving forward is the very best way to combat emotional lows and holiday blues.
My encouragement to you is my Five Point Plan to stay on top of your fun and work during the holidays.
1. Keep your perspective. You get the most results from where you apply your attention. Schedule your time carefully so things get done, and commit to simplicity. Too much multi-tasking can end up costing you money and time, rather than getting things accomplished. If you need to online shop or take care of personal matters during work hours, eat lunch at your desk and do it on your own time. Leave the office chats and holiday parties earlier and use the time wisely.
2. Leave personal stress out of the workspace and leave workspace stress out of your personal space. If you are overwhelmed with family obligations and tensions at home, leave them there. Remember that your co-workers have their own stresses, and encourage their treatment of you by the example you set.
3. Make lists… simple ones with timelines, and dollar signs where appropriate, and stick to them! Put your smallest, and/or easiest, tasks at the top so they can be checked off quickly. Don’t keep adding. Setting limits now will ensure you won’t be left catching up after the holiday season is spent!
4. Let yourself shine! At work, go the extra mile to help out during a time when many slack off. This is the perfect time to show your boss that you can shine under pressure, as many employers have their own exacerbated stress levels with worry about their company’s future. Gift them your full support and dedication. It will bring joy and return to you both.
5. Make the holiday a family affair. Don’t be afraid to delegate. Rely on family, friends and even neighbors to help you shoulder some of the responsibility. It may seem easier to do it yourself, but you’ll be surprised at how happy people are when they know that you appreciate their help. Let the kiddies in on it, too! Even if no one can do it as well as you, a little less perfection can bring a lot more enjoyment.
Know this: The sum of how much you enjoy this holiday season depends upon how you add up the situations you face, and how you divide the work involved to make this a joyous season. 2010 is almost gone, so don’t lose yourself to it. After all, the true meaning of ‘Holidays’ is “Holy Days”. However you celebrate, plan to bring and receive as much joy as you can. Love your family and friends as best you can, and remember that no matter what you don’t have this holiday, there are so many people with so much less. The love you already have is the most valuable gift you will ever receive.
Happy Holidays and God bless! Janice

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Much has been discussed about the effect that the proposed tax-cut compromise between President Obama and Congressional Republicans would have on long-term debt and much has been discussed about how many jobs the proposed agreement would generate and when. Overall, although it would reduce the money withheld from an average American’s paycheck in 2011, it ultimately would increase the burden shifted onto that average American’s back for funding our government. Probably the greatest damaging effect, though, would result from the 2 percent reduction in payroll tax, an ingredient injected late in the negotiations last week.
The provision puts in jeopardy the long-term survival of Social Security – a centerpiece program that has been popular, efficient, and effective for 75 years. Sixty-four percent of seniors – nearly 22 million Americans – depend on Social Security for most of their livelihood. In 1935 most seniors lived below the poverty line, a fact hard to believe since Social Security has changed that. Also 16 million others – not in their retirement years – surviving spouses and children and people with disabilities depend on Social Security.
Since its inception in 1935, Social Security has provided a guaranteed benefit to hundreds of millions of retired and disabled workers and their families. For seniors, Social Security has provided financial security, independence, and dignity in their retirement years. Millions of Americans have paid into the Social Security system over a lifetime of work. Social Security is a promise between the Federal government and American citizens that has withstood partisan fights on Capitol Hill in recessions and in periods of economic growth. Also, since its inception Social Security has had its enemies who think that individuals, not the federal government, should manage their own funds to provide for their families in their non-wage earning years. The enemies have sought any excuse to undo it – and still do. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Frances Perkins, and other founders of Social Security succeeded in making the program not just an income redistribution program that puts a financial floor under working people, but also a program of wage insurance accounts for which individual workers feel ownership.
The negotiated tax cut agreement would include a reduction in an employee’s contribution to Social Security from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent of salary. This could have a beneficial stimulative economic effect. However, it also puts Social Security squarely in the middle of the debate over Bush tax rates for higher incomes and middle incomes, business expensing tax deductions, and the Alternative Minimum Tax. The White House says that the long term solvency of Social Security will not be affected because it will replace from the general treasury fund the $112 billion of revenue lost by the 2 percent tax reduction. But that is just the problem. In Social Security’s history such a commingling of payroll taxes and money from the Treasury is unprecedented.
Social Security is not just another government program like the Park Service or the National Endowment of the Arts, with money given to it some years and taken from it other years, and it is not just a mechanism for stimulating the economy some years or balancing the budget other years. If it were, Social Security would not be long for this world.
Here’s a way to handle the problem. Keep the mechanism of Social Security intact. Make any changes within the system of Social Security. If the President wants to reduce revenue to Social Security, even a 2 percent reduction for a year or two, then he can make up the lost revenue for those years be raising the cap on wages taxed for Social Security.
Right now, Social Security payroll taxes are capped at the first $107,000 of income, so that a high school principal making just over six figures and a Fortune 500 CEO making more than $1 million pay the same amount of money into Social Security each year: $6,622. By lifting this cap to the appropriate level in concert with this payroll tax holiday, Congress can preserve and protect Social Security.
Social Security should not be used as a rainy-day fund because some in Washington cling to a series of failed polices that will not create jobs. Congress must ensure that Americans’ Social Security benefits are protected. It is much too important to lose.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

It’s two years into the first term of a young Democratic president, one whose election brought a sense of hope to the White House after two terms of a polarizing Republican presidency, but who now faces declining approval ratings and the loss of Congressional seats for his Party.
The year is 1978. America is in the middle of Jimmy Carter’s first and only term as president when Bruce Springsteen releases his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town.
It’s been three long years since his breakthrough third album, Born to Run, delivered on the “future of rock ‘n’ roll” promise once prophesied for him. While the nation celebrates its independence in 1976, a lawsuit with former manager Mike Appel prevents Springsteen from entering the studio. Magazines have started to publish “What ever happened to?” pieces about him. But 1978 will be summer of cultural comebacks. The Rolling Stones and The Who revitalize their careers with Some Girls and Who Are You. Jaws 2 hits screens with the most memorable tag line of all time: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water….” Born to Run came out two months after the original Jaws and became the subject of a media blitz that included simultaneous Time and Newsweek cover stories. This time, Springsteen seeks to circumvent the media monster and only reluctantly concedes to any promotional efforts surrounding the album.
It’s a risky move. While Springsteen is at his farm house in Holmdel, New Jersey, writing songs for the new album, the musical landscape is changing. Elvis, the nominal King of Rock and Roll, is dead. Time and Newsweek now both do features on the emerging punk and new wave movements. In the painstaking months that Springsteen and the band spend in the studio, recording as many as 70 or even 90 tracks from varying accounts, music fans see the release of seminal punk albums Rocket to Russia, Never Mind the Bullocks, and Easter, the U.S. releases of Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True and This Year’s Model, and Warren Zevon’s sardonic classic Excitable Boy. Other pop acts threaten to out-Springsteen Springsteen: Bob Seger scores a Top 5 hit with “Night Moves.” Billy Joel, a Long Island lounge-singer version of Bruce from the same Columbia label, reaches his career peak with The Stranger. A blusterous act known as Meat Loaf releases the worldwide smash Bat Out of Hell aided by Springsteen camp members Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, and Jimmy Iovine. Meanwhile, the anti-rock movie Saturday Night Fever pushes sister disco into the mainstream. Springsteen’s brand of Crystals-infused retro-rock feels like yesterday’s news.
His follow-up record is almost released in 1977 under the title Badlands, lifted from the name of Terrence Malick’s bleak 1973 anithero film loosely based on the life of serial killer Charley Starkweather. (It is a season of serial killers: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, The Hillside Stranger, and the Son of Sam all make headlines in 1977-78.) But Springsteen opts against it. He struggles with song selection and sequence, and then over the album’s mix, which Chuck Plotkin is called in to fix.
Finally, Darkness on the Edge of Town is released in June 1978. The ten-song, five-a-side sequence show a different Bruce altogether. The songs are more concise, eight less than five minutes in length, none reaching seven minutes. Springsteen has moved past the winding Broadway-by-the-backstreets narratives toward a more conventional verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus structure. Phil Spector’s wallpaper has been torn down, replaced by the systolic and systolic beats of Max Weinberg’s drums. Unlike the ivory-conceived narratives of “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland,” the Darkness tracks are guitar driven, something that is immediately noticeable on the hard-driving opener “Badlands” and becomes unavoidable on the furious six-string attack that opens the next track, “Adam Raised a Cain.” For this song, Springsteen’s instructions to Plotkin–to create the mood of a cinematic scene change that goes from two lovers having a picnic to the shot of a dead body–cut a murderous swath through the heart of the record. By the time we get to the solo on “Candy’s Room,” we see a singer stepping up as a Seventies guitar hero.
His lyrics have changed, too. Inspired by Hank Williams and John Ford and the malaise of the working class, Springsteen has turned his gaze to the American heartland. Having shed his local cult label, he now seeks a wider relevance and looked to speak to the life of Small Town, U.S.A. The settings of his songs stretch as far south as Louisiana small towns and as far west as the Utah desert. Gone are the colorful names from the first three albums, giving way to anonymous Everymen. And the narrative mode is shifting, as well: Springsteen begins to write in the second-person, dispensing populist observations to the proverbial “you” like a rock-and-roll Woody Guthrie singing of the working life, of dreams unfulfilled, of the prices to be paid.
Album no. 4 is more populist, but not necessarily more popular. Darkness peaks at #5 on the Billboard chart. The first single, “Prove It All Night,” barely breaks registers on American Top 40, and the second, “Badlands,” peters out just below Casey Kasem range. But the record provides the muscle behind a memorable tour. When Born to Run broke back in ’75, Springsteen and the E Street Band were still playing the college-and-club circuit. Now with two hits records to his name, Bruce and the band bring their gaslit anthems to civic centers and arenas across the country. Radio listeners tune into live broadcasts of marathon shows–often three hours plus an intermission–at the Roxy in LA in July, Cleveland’s Agora Ballroom in August, the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ, and Fox Theatre in Atlanta in September, San Francisco’s Winterland in December. Springsteen is at the height of his performative powers, a musician confirming his place in the popular culture, a driver taking the nation for a ride.
***
It’s 2010. We’re mid-way through Obama’s first term, and he’s having a tough time of his own. Springsteen has released The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, a six-disc CD/DVD box set documenting the Year Springsteen Changed.
I had missed it all at the time. I was too young in 1978, and I lacked an older sibling to introduce me cool albums. I didn’t even get KISS. The only pop album I remember liking at the time was Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk from the sci-fi disco band Meco.
But I do remember the gas lines and the energy crisis and the co-op dwelling hippies from the local state college campus coming to our class and getting us to sign petitions against nuclear energy. (Fears of a China syndrome obscured those of diminishing fossil fuels.) Alternative energy sources were much on the mind of Americans during the 1970s. The previous April, President Carter had delivered a televised speech about the on-going crisis:
Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the “moral equivalent of war” — except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.
I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter.
Fittingly, Springsteen remembers his fourth album as his “samurai” record, stripped to the frame and ready to rumble,” as he writes in the liner notes to The Promise. “Power, directness, and austerity were my goals.”
No song on the new set embodies this sense more than “The Promise,” in which Springsteen tears down his own mythology. Wistfully name-checking Born to Run’s “Thunder Road” and its Wild Ones kiss off (“It’s a town full of losers/And I’m pulling out of here to win”) the singer looks back in disillusion: “I followed that dream just like those guys do up on the screen…we were gonna take it all and throw it all away.” Strapped for cash, he even has to sell the Dodge Challenger he built–the ultimate self-defeating statement in Springsteen’s fuel-injected body of work. On Born to Run, he sang of romantic fatalism, of dying on the streets at night in an everlasting kiss. Three years later, he sang wearily and less romantically of that nameless something in the night, of “somethin’ dying on the highway tonight.”
Yet with all the talk of this being the beginning of a darker phase in Springsteen’s work, a slew of songs on The Promise show a brighter side: the Brill Building sunlight sheen of “Gotta Get That Feeling” and “Someday (We’ll Be Together)”; the simmering soul of “The Broken Hearted” and “One Way Street”; the enjoy-the-hurt bar rockers “Ain’t Good Enough” and “It’s a Shame”; the would-be Elvis hit “Fire” and soon-to-be hits “Because the Night” (for Patti Smith) and “Talk to Me” (for Southside Johnny); the Buddy Holly bounce of “Outside Looking In”; the pop-perfect “Rendezvous.” Some songs are noticeably retrofitted from the original sessions and share common ground with Working on a Dream, as does one new/old track, “Save My Love,” recorded anew in 2010.
The introspective gem “City of Night” depicts a john’s taxi ride into Leiber and Stoller territory (“12th and Vine”) to street walker with the stillness of an Edward Hopper study. “Come On (Let’s Go Tonight)” speaks more of restlessness than the blue-collar despair of its later incarnation, “Factory,” a track on Darkness that might have been even more suited to the misappropriated Reagan-era blockbuster Born in the U.S.A. Even the obsessive “The Way,” hidden stalker-like at the end of the second disc, speaks to the prevailing theme among the newly released songs that is largely absent from Darkness: that of love and sex, lost and found. In his vinyl fanfare for the common man, in which even “Candy’s Room” seems to be more about loneliness than lust, such notions are a luxury to those beaten down by the working life.
While The Promise enlightens the focus of Darkness by showing what Springsteen chose not to include on his fourth album, it also frustrates in what was still left unreleased. Bootleg packages from the 1977-78 sessions include two out-of-control rockers, “Breakout” and “Don’t Say No,” that show Springsteen at his most frantic, surpassing the best high-energy moments of The River, his roller-rink-flavored double album from 1980. “I’m Goin’ Back” was a harmonica-heavy romp that sounds like Bo Diddley via The Rolling Stones. “Janey Needs a Shooter,” a quirky sex ballad, resurfaced in 1978 from a murky demo tape pre-Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and lent its chorus to Warren Zevon’s rewrite two years later.
The most surprising omission, and my nomination to assume the title of best unreleased Springsteen song, is “Preacher’s Daughter,” a slow, seething track with a subdued Diddley pulse. (Some lines of the song can be heard in Springsteen’s reworked version of “Mona” on the Houston ’78 Bootleg: House Cut DVD.) Its lyrical landscape seems straight out of Hank Williams territory, haunted by the echoes of “Jungleland”:
I got a date with the preacher’s daughter
She give me life she bring me water
Every Sunday I watch her work
Pretty little self in a pretty little church
Daddy gives her a nod she takes collection
Daddy gives her a nod she kneels by her side
Well I’d sell my soul for just one touch
The Lord would too if he loved her half as much.
Well I got a date with the preacher’s daughter
Her Daddy say that the boy’s no good
Just want to raise some coons out through the back woods
Well baby better believe what your Daddy say
Just wanna ramrod baby my life away.
It’s a long walk to heaven and a road filled with sin
And they better open up the freeway to let me in.
‘Cuz I got a date with the preacher’s daughter
Well now I don’t care what the preacher say
Well now I don’t care what the preacher do
I don’t care what the preacher like
I don’t care what the preacher think
Leads me to water but won’t let me drink.
He leads me to water but won’t let me drink.
And now out on this little road on Saturday night
Two boys fighting in a halo of light
Car door flung open and a radio loud
And everybody shouting and running around.
Two guys bloody and one I don’t know
And all little girls shouting “Go Billy go”
Well just as I got the preacher’s daughter ready for a light
And missed a VH fire and something ain’t right
And like a she-devil howlin’ from the gates of hell
Goddam here come the preacher in his Coupe De Ville
Burnin’ up the backroad kicking in the dirt
And oh baby preacher thinks he is in church
Well now your lips they shine in the willow mist
And I swear I’d take you down the aisle for just one kiss
I got a date with the preacher’s daughter
(Courtesy SpringsteenLyrics.com)
Considering the Darkness outtakes already released on the 1998 Tracks box set–”Frankie,” “Don’t Look Back,” “Hearts of Stone,” “Give That Girl a Kiss,” “Iceman,” and “I Wanna Be With You”–along with the several River tracks that date from the Darkness sessions, and one can imagine a mammoth “Badlands” box set rivaling the complete “Basement Tape” bootlegs that document the 100+ recordings Bob Dylan, post-motorcycle accident, laid down with the Hawks in the Catskill mountains in 1967.
Springsteen’s post-lawsuit record remains a signature recording in his career, the first album in a populist phrase that began with the oft-overlooked Born to Run track “Night” and continued on the records that completed his transition from turnpike hoodrat to heartland hero: The River, Nebraska (with a title song that was, like Badham’s film, inspired by the Starkweather story), and Born in the U.S.A. In these albums and beyond, he would remain committed to exploring the territory laid out in Darkness–the dynamic tension between the defeat of “The Promise” and the reassertion of faith in “The Promised Land.”
Springsteen’s comeback album also captured a changing mood in America. Amid the decade’s second major energy crisis in July 1979, Carter would speak of the nation’s creeping malaise in his “Crisis of Confidence” address:
I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.
I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation.
The Reagan Era was around the bend. Morning in America. Trouble in the heartland.
***
For the highlight of The Promise box set, check out the three-hour concert on the Houston ’78 DVD, an amazing document of a rocker in his prime.

Follow Rob Kirkpatrick on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/wrappedupinboox

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

“Change Begins Within,” a benefit event featuring David Lynch, Clint Eastwood, Russell Brand, Katy Perry, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Candy Crowley, takes place tonight, Dec. 13 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. You can watch it LIVE beginning at 9 p.m. EST.
We know David Lynch for his award-winning films — “Mulholland Drive” was recently voted movie of the decade by the LA Film Critics Association. Seems like every night there’s a “Twin Peaks” party going on somewhere. Lynch is also known as an artist, musician, philanthropist and proponent of meditation. He has been meditating twice a day for 37 years. His interests in meditation have led him to India and the Far East, as well as university EEG labs where brain researchers are exploring meditation’s effects on the brain.
I caught up with him amid his preparations for the David Lynch Foundation’s upcoming benefit, happening tonight, to provide meditation training to 10,000 veterans with PTSD.
What got you interested in meditation?
I heard a phrase, “True happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within.” This phrase had a ring of truth to it for me, but the phrase didn’t tell me where the within was, nor did it tell me how to get there. So it was a very frustrating phrase. I wasn’t interested in meditation for a long time because I thought it was a fad and a waste of time. But then one day it suddenly occurred to me that maybe meditation was a way to go within and find that happiness.
I found there are many forms of meditation in the world. I started reading and asking questions. Nothing I came across felt right to me. My sister called one day, out of the blue, and told me she had started Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I liked what she told me in relation to what I had found out about other forms of meditation. But more importantly, I heard a change in her voice. I heard more happiness and more self-assuredness. Putting it all together, I said, “This seems like the real thing,” and I started on Jul. 1, 1973 and have been meditating twice a day ever since.
Do you use meditation mainly as a stress-buster or for creative purposes?
I use it for both. Transcendental Meditation is like a key that opens the door to the big treasury within every human being. The treasury is unbounded, fullness of consciousness found at the base of all matter and mind. This consciousness has qualities. It is unbounded intelligence, creativity, happiness, love, energy and peace. When a person truly transcends and experiences this deepest level of life, this ocean of consciousness, this treasury, some gets infused, enlivened, and a person’s consciousness begins to expand. Every human being has consciousness, but not every human being has the same amount. The potential for the individual is infinite consciousness — enlightenment.
So when you begin to expand your consciousness, you’re expanding all those positive qualities. And the side effect is that negativity starts to lift away. Things like stress, tension, anxieties, sorrow, depression, hate, anger, rage, need for revenge, fears, all start to lift away. This gives a great feeling of freedom when the heavy weight of negativity begins to fade. Growing in energy, happiness and creativity feeds the work. Ideas flow more freely. You get a happiness in the doing and you get more and more energy to do the work. And the heavy weight of negativity lifting doesn’t cramp the conduit of the flow of ideas or the enjoyment of the doing. All the things that stress us are still in the world, but because of this positive growing, it’s like a very happy flack jacket, making all the negative things less and less powerful and not able to hurt us as badly.
When a person transcends, they call it a holistic experience, so really all avenues of life improve. With brain research now, they can see on the EEG machine that when a person transcends — meaning, experiences the big treasury, that ocean of consciousness within — it is the only experience that lights the full brain on the EEG machine. They call it total brain coherence. Any other things we do only utilize a small part of the brain. Singing, one small part, physics another small part, painting another small part. But transcending utilizes the full brain, which tells us something about this beautiful field within. That coherence gets more and more permanent as you continue meditating and leads to higher states of consciousness and ultimately to the full potential of the human being — enlightenment. It’s every human being’s birthright to enjoy enlightenment.
Why have you, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and George Lucas teamed up to help veterans learn this meditation?
I can’t speak for the others, but I know that Transcendental Meditation is a super stress-buster. Stress is hitting people now at a younger and younger age, and traumatic stress is certainly hitting the soldiers. Eighteen soldiers commit suicide every day, and they say over 30 percent of the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Legal drugs, illegal drugs and alcohol can mask the problems to a degree, but Transcendental Meditation will dissolve that traumatic stress from the ground floor up, and the soldiers will have their lives back again. All they have to do is learn this technique and stay regular in the practice. I really believe it will save them, their families and their friendships.
Why this meditation?
Some people say that their meditation is jogging; some people say it’s lying in the sun at the beach; some people say their meditation is being aware of their breathing. These things are not meditation. It’s just like the bank vault door. If you want to get into the treasury, you need a key. Transcendental Meditation is a mental technique, an ancient form of meditation brought back by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for this time. It will truly open the door to that deepest level of life, and you will be able to experience that. It is a sublime experience. It is blissful. That deepest level of life is what does everything for the human being.
This is the experience that is missing from life today. We can’t wish ourselves there, we can’t imagine ourselves there, take advantage of this technique and have that experience every day and watch your life get better and better and better. You don’t even have to believe it will work, and it will still work.
WATCH David Lynch speak about consciousness and creativity:

Follow Jeanne Ball on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/jeanneball

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

No time to page through thousands of eBay listings? Then just sneak a peek at my weekly eBay roundup of top vintage clothing finds.
This eclectic mix of designer and non-designer vintage clothing and accessories caught my discerning eye because of their uniqueness, contemporary feel or highly collectible nature.
As always, buyer beware! Be sure to read the listings closely and contact the sellers with any questions.
This week’s finds include pieces by Gucci, Christian Dior and Lanvin. Be sure to check out the two Whiting and Davis finds including a rare Charlie Chaplin mesh bag and an interesting cameo cuff bracelet.
Which item is your favorite? Leave a comment below and let me know.
GET READY, GET SET, BID!!!
Weekly eBay Roundup of Vintage Clothing Finds
1 of 24
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Girlie Gift Guide: The Naturalist
Fabulous Handmade Holiday Gifts
Last Look: Style News You Might Have Missed (PHOTOS, POLL)
Vogue’s Earliest Covers (PHOTOS)
Stubbs & Wootton Graffitis Store, Takes Prep to Street
How Bryanboy, Fashion Blogger, Makes Over $100,000 A Year
More information on all this week’s finds at Zuburbia. Keep clicking for this week’s vintage clothing finds.
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Follow Mary Kincaid on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

After an alleged rape at a Tufts University fraternity house was reported Halloween weekend, Tufts police e-mailed students within two days and posted fliers. The campus alert did not include details such as the fraternity’s name, which police gave the student newspaper three weeks later.
Across the country, many universities like Tufts use an array of electronic tools to quickly inform students of public safety threats. Boston University police use Twitter, while Harvard and MIT post a crime blotter on their web sites. Others text students or send e-bulletins for serious threats such as assaults or armed robbery.
Yet for a college student in Massachusetts seeking to find out more about an on-campus crime — or a neighbor who lives close to one of Boston’s sprawling universities — gaining access to campus police reports is a crap shoot. Walk down Columbus Avenue to the Northeastern police and you may be told to set up an appointment to review the daily log. Ditto at UMass Boston. And campus police often hand-pick which incident reports student journalists can view and release filtered details about serious crimes.
Each private college or university in the Bay State sets its own policy on providing crime reports to the public. And there’s the rub, according to campus safety advocates. Whether you attend a public or private college, campus police at either are sworn in as special State Police officers. Publicly-funded universities like UMass are supposed to provide full disclosure of police reports in compliance with state public records law, and advocates want the privates to do the same.
Massachusetts is on the leading wave in a campaign to open up the private universities — only Connecticut and Georgia so far require them to provide campus incident reports. “Major universities with sworn police are investigating serious crimes but not turning over information,” said S. Daniel Carter, public policy director at Security On Campus, Inc., a national advocacy group. “As far as we know, there are no states that specifically make private universities with state sworn police officers disclose reports. It is sort of the last frontier in the campus public records battles.”
Supporters of a campus crime information bill that’s languished in the Massachusetts Legislature say it would improve public safety with more transparency and accountability. The bill coincides with the recent 20th anniversary of the Clery Act, the federal law requiring colleges to make public crime reports and yearly crime statistics. The law is named after Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman who was raped and murdered while sleeping in her dorm room in 1986. Her parents formed a non-profit dedicated to making campuses safer after learning that students were not told about the 38 violent crimes that occurred on the Lehigh campus during the three years prior to Jeanne’s murder.
“I don’t believe there is any rationale reason for the exact same crime being a public record at the Medford police and a private record at Tufts,” said Rep. Carl Sciortino, D-Medford, a bill sponsor whose district includes most of Tufts, where the campus borders “blur” with local neighborhoods.
“We’ve singled out the private university police departments for non-disclosure, and I think that’s a mistake. Clearly disclosure works at all levels.”
The measure is opposed by Harvard University and other colleges represented by the Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts. AICUM says there would be no public safety benefit since universities already provide “vast amounts of information” in their daily logs. AICUM President Richard Doherty also warned legislators the bill would have a chilling effect on the willingness of students and friends to share sensitive information with campus police.
He gave as an example a “well-being check” by police after receiving a call from a parent concerned about not hearing from a student. “In this You Tube and Facebook era, disclosing such information for public consumption unnecessarily exposes a student to unwanted harassment and scorn,” Doherty said.
Proponents say those concerns are exaggerated. They point to well-established privacy protections in public records statutes covering medical information, names of sexual assault victims and details of ongoing investigations. “We’re not going after note-taking by campus police, we’re looking at law enforcement stuff, crime,” said John Doherty, a longtime advocate for public disclosure of campus incidents. “If UMass police take notes on students for some discipline problem, the bill does not look at that. That’s what they sort of continue to make up and state, their concern that all interactions between campus police and students would be jeopardized.”
John Doherty is a founding member of Security On Campus, Inc., the non-profit started by Jeanne Clery’s parents, Howard and Connie Clery (he is also Howard Clery’s second cousin). The Clerys, along with Doherty and editors of the Harvard Crimson, led the fight 20 years ago requiring Bay State universities to open up basic crime data, which Harvard and AICUM fought. Massachusetts’ Campus Daily Crime Law, which passed in 1991, became the model for federal Clery Act amendments mandating campus police everywhere to share their police logs. Still, current Massachusetts law exempts the private colleges from releasing more detailed incident reports not covered by the Clery Act. “This fight is mainly about the campus police report,” Doherty said. “All we’re asking is those private schools be treated the same as publics.”
The proposal is backed by Secretary of State William Galvin, a Boston College neighbor who has objected to the expansion of dorms near his home. “Tragic events have illustrated the significant impact public safety incidents on campuses can have on these neighboring communities,” he wrote in 2009. Galvin calls it contradictory for campus police at private colleges — who enjoy the same status as public college police — to withhold crime records occurring “in educational institution communities.”
“I think they should have the same rules that we follow,” agreed Stan Stewart, Acting Police Chief at UMass Boston. “We’re a public institution. Everything that happens here has to go into our log.”
At Northeastern, a campus that continues to spread into the South End and Roxbury, the university warns students of serious crimes by cell phone, email and text messaging, and gives regular reports on crime trends and prevention on its web-based SafeNet. A weekly crime log is also published in the student newspaper. Yet the information flow is tightly controlled by NU police and its communication staff.

To obtain crime reports, student journalists meet with the associate director of public safety, James Ferrier, who reads a selection of incidents. “They are digitalized so he reads the basic information from the computer and we do not see the actual report,” said Jenna Duncan, editor of the Huntington News. “Basically, he reads off most incidents on campus to a reporter who has weekly appointments set up with him, however, assault, rape and more serious incidents are not given to us. I’ve talked to Jim about it before and his logic is to protect privacy, and these sorts of incidents are not common.”
Another NU student, Taylor Dobbs, a transfer from UVM, said he feels safe on campus all the time. “I have yet to feel threatened at all and I walk around campus at all hours of the night throughout the week,” he said. Still, Dobbs suggested campus crime reporting might be more transparent if the NUPD had a website that they posted incidents on.
Neither Ferrier nor university spokeswoman Renata Nyul responded to requests for an interview about NU’s crime reporting procedures. During a stop one recent Monday morning to the NU police, a journalist was told the public police log was unavailable and to make an appointment with Ferrier after contacting the university’s communications office. Later that day, Nyul called it “a misunderstanding” and said the public log would be available next time.
Even at UMass Boston, the daily police log was withheld at first from a visitor. “I can’t give it to you. It’s against our policy,” Lt. Patricia McBride said. She said she was concerned about disclosing possible confidential information such as criminal records and birth dates, and suggested to try the police chief.
Contacted later, UMB’s Chief Stewart acknowledged the daily log including names and birth dates of arrested suspects is publicly accessible. He said that information is always provided to UMass student journalists once a week, and “this seems to be the first year they are using it” for publication.
Officials at Northeastern are not alone in their reluctance to discuss public access to campus crime reports. Campus police chiefs and others at MIT, BU and BC declined to answer questions by e-mail or telephone.
After a stabbing last fall of a Boston College senior on campus, some BC students complained of being kept in the dark by official school channels. While students learned about the early morning fracas on Facebook and the media clamored for news before a parents weekend football game against Virginia Tech, the college failed to send students an emergency alert. “It was a cover-up, an attempt to hide the truth,” one student, John Kinzer, blogged on the school newspaper’s site.
BC spokesman Jack Dunn declined to address the university’s response to the Sept. 25 stabbing incident. Jeremiah Hegarty, the student who was stabbed in the abdomen, underwent surgery and later returned to school. The campus newspaper BC Observer criticized the university in an editorial, saying while violent assaults on campus are rare, “they are serious enough to warrant a school-wide notification,” especially when a suspect remained at large afterwards. “If simple disagreements can escalate that quickly in the Mods (the dorm area where the attack occurred), students should be aware of the danger by being informed of past incidents.” Observer editor Jesse Naiman said the editorial speaks for itself.
An unwillingness to disclose crime reports is not limited to colleges in Boston. In 2008 the Student Press Law Center checked Framingham State College and Merrimack College in its survey of all 50 states. Framingham State officials took 14 days to provide a daily crime log and almost three weeks to turn over a redacted incident report. Merrimack College police provided a log in two days but after two weeks withheld an incident report, the center found.
The issue occasionally becomes national news when a university tries to cover up a rape. Recently Marshal University police in West Virginia were criticized for apparently keeping two sets of police logs — one for federal records, and another for student journalists — the second of which contained no mention of an alleged gang rape that took place in September in a freshman dorm, The Charleston Gazette reported. “It’s certainly an issue that’s recurring in states across the country,” Carter said.
The Massachusetts bill stalled in the House before the election but recently was under further review. Wayne Weikel, chief of staff for Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Murphy, D-Burlington, said the committee was still gathering information. The Clerys made a personal appeal for Murphy’s support, as he attended Villanova in 1986 when Jeanne Clery’s funeral was held on that campus. Murphy did not respond to requests to speak about the Clery’s appeal or state his position on the crime information bill.
Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, Inc., urged lawmakers to “see which way the wind is blowing when it comes to disclosure and campus community safety. This is really about Massachusetts continuing to take the lead when it comes down to education,” he said. “You can’t have a good learning environment without being a safe one.”
No arrest has been made in connection with the alleged rape at Tufts’ Sigma Nu fraternity on Oct. 29, which is being investigated by both campus and Medford police, according to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office. Tufts spokeswoman Kim Thurler confirmed details of when students were alerted, but neither the university nor Medford police commented on when Tufts police reported the incident to Medford or Somerville. The fraternity is actually located in Somerville.
Sciortino, the local state representative, hopes the crime bill will improve information sharing among police departments. He pointed to an apparent communication gap during a rash of sexual assaults near Tufts in 2007 as an example.
During one month that spring, five women including two Tufts students were sexually assaulted near or on the fringe of its Medford-Somerville campus. Students and other residents of the Hillside area lived in fear of a serial sexual assaulter. The first incident was reported to Tufts police after a student was forced to the ground by a man who pretended to need directions. Medford police made an arrest five weeks later after receiving a tip, and officials credited a task force of Tufts, Medford and Somerville police for their coordination. However, the task force did not form until after the fourth and most serious attack — three weeks after the first — when a woman was threatened with a knife and sexually assaulted twice, according to past media reports, including a chronology in the student-reported Tufts Daily.
Nicolas Chacon, then 19, later pled guilty to aggravated rape, kidnapping and other charges and is serving a 15-year sentence in state prison. Sciortino, who has questions about the timeline and disclosure, planned to review the case with police.
“My question about it back then was were there repeated incidents that the Tufts police were aware of that local police were not — and I don’t know the answer to that — and what triggers the university police to notify the community police about something?” Sciortino said. “What is the threshold by which they share information? I think that question is partially addressed by having public disclosure at the outset.”
Ken Brack is a freelance writer based south of Boston.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The Food Safety Bill S510 has bounced around so much that people have had trouble keeping up with its current status. But the real question about the bill is not where it is now — (in the Senate attached to an appropriations bill) but why certain groups hail it while others abhor it.
On the one hand, the bill’s supporters argue that the bill is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reign in the food giants, while on the other side, people fear that their gardens and seeds will be outlawed, and their raw food suppliers raided and shut down by Homeland Security. Grist reported that a recent FDA pathogen hunting raid on cheese producers came up empty handed.
On the pro-bill side, House Democrats, and a whole host of organizations, like Consumer’s Union, General Mills, Kraft Foods and others, have lined up in favor of it. To urge passage of the Tester Amendment, which holds the hope of exempting very small growers and producers, even writers, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser gave the bill their tepid last minute support. For more detail on that, read my earlier blog here.
Meanwhile, the bill’s opponents critique its across-the-board application of costly bureaucratic reporting procedures (backed by new criminal enforcement provisions) which were designed to nudge huge agribusinesses (that cause most of the existing safety hazards) into compliance. Groups such as the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance argue that adhering to these procedures will wipe out the burgeoning small industry of organic and sustainable food growers — thus removing the safe food upon which many health-conscious people rely. The Tester Amendment shelters those who gross less than $500,000 a year — but many medium sized suppliers are omitted from that exemption.
In its underlying presumptions and philosophy, I contend that the bill mirrors the different emphases of conventional and integrative medicine. While conventional medicine’s strength is offering powerful treatments after disease manifests, the integrative approach aims to build health, and thereby prevent disease before it happens by addressing the causes of disease. In the same way, organic growing practices emphasize the health of the soil, plant, and food, while agribusiness relies upon heavy pesticide use, radiation, and other harsher interventions to kill germs in food grown in assembly line fashion. While the industrial food supply is a reality, the debate over the bill stems from a fundamental disagreement about whether industrial values and methods should predominate in determining safety. Forbes’ Gregory Conko is among those who question that the bill will be effective in producing safer food. He writes that,
“More frequent inspections may seem superficially appealing because current law only requires facilities to be inspected at least once every 10 years. But the new law would merely require inspections for most facilities every five years, and once every three years for identified “high-risk” facilities.
Doubling the rate of inspections of the tens of thousands of food production facilities in the U.S. would account for most of the bill’s $1.4 billion four-year cost. But does anyone really believe that a single inspection every three to five years would do much to catch unsafe producers? Even if they occurred more often, the usefulness of inspections is limited by a practical inability to detect microbial pathogens (visually).”
“The bigger the supplier, the proportionately fewer the inspections, according to the way the FDA inspects now and will continue to inspect,” says James Turner of Citizens for Health.
As interpretations over the dense and evolving legal language of the bill baffle easy answers, one thing is clear, much of the language is vague, leaving key decisions to the discretion of the FDA Secretary. While people can rest assured that the bill contains no current language that outlaws home gardens, certain provisions leave open how the bill could be interpreted to apply to dietary supplements, organics and other mainstays of integrative health, says Turner.
Further, the integrative health community has had past experience with how the FDA operates, as drugs like Avandia remained on the market for years despite troubling safety records. So apart from the bill’s wording, a cause for concern is the latitude of interpretation by those enforcing the bill. The FDA Food Czar, Michael Taylor, comes from Monsanto and played a role in instituting rGBH, a hormone used in conventional milk.
Should the bill pass, the integrative health, raw food, and other interested communities that have failed to take action to defeat this bill, may be forced to face up to the relationship between nutritional and health advice, and activist health oriented social policy. I’m nearing completion on a book about this, and I encourage anyone interested in this type of insight to sign up for action ezines at www.healthjournalistblog.com
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MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) — In a move that took many political observers by surprise, the Democratic National Committee decided today to move its 2012 nominating convention to the Minneapolis Metrodome.
Insiders questioned the wisdom of choosing a venue which collapsed over the weekend, but Obama political adviser David Axelrod told reporters, “Quite frankly, we can’t think of a more appropriate site.”
Giving reporters a tour of the Metrodome facility, Mr. Axelrod said, “The Metrodome has taken a lot of hard knocks in the press, just like the Democrats have. But you can’t believe everything that you read. We’re a lot stronger and a lot tougher than you might -”
Mid-sentence, Mr. Axelrod was felled by a chunk of the Metrodome’s ceiling and rushed to the Mayo Clinic.
Resting comfortably, Mr. Axelrod said he still thought the Metrodome was an appropriate venue for the Democrats, but added, “We’re also looking into some Carnival Cruise ships.”
In other political news, Christine O’Donnell said she was so excited by the news that the national health care plan was found unconstitutional, “it makes me almost want to read the Constitution.” More here.
The Los Angeles Times says Andy Borowitz has “one of the funniest Twitter feeds around.” Follow Andy on Twitter here.

This Blogger’s Books from
The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers
by Andy Borowitz
The Republican Playbook
by Andy Borowitz

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There hasn’t been a time in professional sports where the roles of many athletes have been so diverse and often confusing regarding the image they are to portray to the public. This past Sunday’s games were a great example of those roles and the blurred definitions they’ve taken on as a result. Our sports figures are required to wear many hats but each hat is to be worn at staunchly different times. On the field, their role is often defined as gladiators or warriors with the heart of lions that take to the field eliminating everything in their path for 60 minutes. Before and after the games they are to conduct and carry themselves as business men with the elegance and poise of well mannered gentlemen groomed for success. And then there’s the element of side show act which comes into play sometimes before, during and after games as they attempt to entertain their fans and the world that has placed a magnifying glass over them. All of these roles have their place in the lives of those with their level of success, but what happens when these roles don’t appeal to the public and conflict with the will of the people at the wrong time?
Such was the case Sunday night in the football game featuring the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. Two teams heading in completely different directions faced off for a night of divisional football putting rival teams against each other. The game ended up being what many expected it to be, hard fought and contested. For Dallas they challenged a soaring Eagles team on their way to capturing another NFC East Division title, that took every minute to decide, as the Cowboys battled until the end, orchestrating an impressive comeback narrowing the lead to three, but proved futile as the Eagles went on to take the win. But the turning point in the game came midway through the third quarter as Eagles WR DeSean Jackson, after scampering for a 91 yard touchdown catch, upon entering the end zone outstretched his arms falling backwards as he crossed the goal line. Showmanship is never professional, but it sure is entertaining for Eagles fans or the fan of any team on the right side of the show…isn’t it? The play handed Jackson an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and some harsh words from the Cowboys players after the game.
Disrespectful is the exact word that comes to mind along with completely unprofessional and classless. Entertaining fans is entirely acceptable, but demeaning another team on their home field is unnecessary and shows a lack of respect for the other players on the field.
Politics is an art form as much as it is the practice of our governmental system, and it takes savvy and care to execute it correctly; something Mr. Jackson hasn’t been able to master over the course of his career. It is the job of wide receivers to make big plays and score touchdowns that are entertaining and satisfactory to the fans that enjoy the sport. However, it is also politically incorrect and unprofessional to throw those successes in the face of your opponent no matter how self gratifying it may seem at the moment.
So the question here is; was DeSean Jackson wrong for his actions or was he just acting out his roles as a professional athlete?
Unsportsmanlike conduct is a familiar term we often hear in football, so when a sign of true sportsmanship is shown one would imagine the gesture, whatever it may be, would be well received and appreciated…right? At the end of Sunday night’s game, Cowboys RB Tashard Choice, went over to Eagles QB Michael Vick asking him for his autograph, an act that sent fans in Dallas through the roof. So much so that Choice was compelled to tweet an apology in an effort to clear things up.
Bad timing…maybe? Wrong…NO! Why should players have to hide behind the walls of the locker room or tunnel to show they actually don’t hate the other guys on the field? And more importantly isn’t this the very practice we applaud after high school level sports? Where after the game both teams meet up at the 50 yard line and shake hands before heading to the locker room. Not to mention the barrage of sports headlines LeBron James received after losing to the Orlando Magic during the 2008-2009 NBA Finals, where he refused to shake the hands of any Magic players or speak at the post-game press conference. Confusion…much.
In the end it’s all sportsmanship or a lack thereof. Choice wanted an autograph from Michael Vick, who happened to be the guy who just finished beating his team, but would also still be the same Michael Vick aka “the big brother” of his two-year old nephew who adores him. As the ultimate sign of professionalism and class, Choice forgot about the cameras and put the last 60 minutes behind him to show love to a player that he’s actually friends with. Many players stood up in defense of Choice including teammate, RB Marion Barber, who was out of last night’s game due to injury.
“Aye Shard It’s 4 YA Nephew Man….Don’t Even Trip….Ain’t Nuttin Wrong Wit It….Yadig” Barber tweeted.
And the always vocal Chad Ochocinco also weighed in on the situation. “They making a big deal about another player asking for Vick autograph, I want his autograph and the skills he has to shh and a jersey”. He then added: “Matter of fact I’d steal Vick uniform and have that shh in my basement on a mannequin screaming throw me the ball, like a wax figure, lmao”.
So the question here is, what’s wrong with Tashard Choice’s decision of getting Michael Vick’s autograph after the game?
Knowing when to put on and take off the professional hat in sports is clearly something many athletes haven’t quite figured out, however the examples from Sunday nights game show both the leaps and bounds many players have taken in the right direction as well as just how far many have to travel in order to catch up.

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Joseph Stiglitz is a brilliant economist — arguably the best of his generation. He is also a brave soul. For years he warned about the dangers of hot money ricocheting around the world. And he took a stand in support of the Asian model in the late ’90s in opposition to the powerful Washington Consensus, jousting with his own employer at the World Bank. But as the after-effects of our own financial crisis unfold, Stiglitz has opted to delve more deeply into the political half of the old concept of the political economy. And like many economists, left and right, he does his economic half — his economic brilliance — no good service for indulging.
This weekend, Stiglitz published a review of former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s new memoir-cum-policy tract, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization in both the Financial Times and Slate. Stiglitz likes and admires Brown, and there’s a rough correspondence between Stiglitz’s left-progressivism and Brown’s Labour credentials. Brown, he says, unlike many “other people,” particularly those “who were responsible for the creation of the crisis,” instantly recognized the significance of it all. “As soon as Northern Rock began to teeter, he realized there were deep structural problems with the financial sector and he tried to act on what he saw. He grasped immediately that the problem was not just one of liquidity but of a weakness in the financial sector built on years of mismanagement, lax regulation and reckless speculation. He also saw early on that unless a government recapitalisation was accompanied by requirements that banks continue lending to businesses, the crisis in the financial sector would spread to the broader economy.”
Now it’s a little hard to tell whether Stiglitz knows all this because it’s in the book or from conversations with Brown. In either case, Stiglitz displays no skepticism about Brown’s sudden, and startling, epiphany — or indeed that he was somehow far more advanced than others in power. In fact, Northern Rock was the U.K.’s Bear Stearns Cos. Both were runs (one by depositors, the other by counterparties and lenders) that forced the hands of policymakers to engage in a bailout. And once those moves were made, both countries found themselves spiraling down into deeper crisis. The U.S. ended up nationalizing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and injecting money into the largest banks; the U.K. essentially nationalized its largest banks, with the exception of Barclays. Both countries remain mired in post-crisis malaise, with incomplete recoveries and demands to reduce deficits. The U.K., now under a coalition government led by Tory David Cameron, is involved in a fierce cost-cutting campaign that is sparking widespread social tensions. The U.S. may be marginally better off only because of its entrenched advantages – its size and status as home of the world’s reserve currency — and perhaps because the Obama administration has avoided severe austerity measures.
So where does Brown fit into all this? First, Brown served as chancellor of the exchequer (and heir apparent) under Tony Blair beginning in 1997; he became prime minister when Blair resigned in 2007, just as the crisis was beginning. Stiglitz manages to ignore the fact that Brown presided for a full decade over the very mismanagement and structural flaws he so quickly identified when it blew up. This makes Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke look like latecomers to the party. Stiglitz manages to spread the blame around to the usual suspects; one of the pleasures of reading this is wondering when he’ll get to Brown’s own complicity. And finally he does.
“Brown also shares the disappointment that more wasn’t done in the aftermath of the east Asian economic crisis in 1998. To him, that episode showed how interconnected the global economy was. He expresses disappointment with the Financial Stability Board. But he doesn’t reveal who was on the other side of the battles — one can only guess that it might have been some of the same people who had fought in the U.S. against derivatives regulation.”
Notice the recurrence of “disappointment” in others. See how easily Stiglitz slides from Brown to others. And what’s that “one can only guess”? So Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan — two of three gone from office by 2001, while Brown continued to preside — were responsible not only for beating up Brooksley Born on derivatives, but for somehow battling Brown to silence over issues that included the size of London’s financial center, the leveraging up of U.K. banks, deregulation and the overheating of real estate. You can blame the Committee to Save the World for a lot of stuff, but you can’t blame them for what occurred after George W. Bush took office. Maybe that’s why Brown doesn’t single them out. Stiglitz, however, is eager to give Brown a pass. “He doesn’t dwell, however, on the mistakes of the past,” he writes of Brown, “either those that led to the crisis or the more recent one [presumably post-crisis economic responses]. What he tries to do is learn the lessons — as different as they may be from the conventional wisdom that prevailed before the crisis.” Ah, the old conventional wisdom.
Perhaps Brown realizes what Stiglitz chooses to forget: The blame game is a kind of contagion; few are immune. It’s one thing for Brown to ritually blame Margaret Thatcher for everything — “We needed to overturn 30 years of policymaking,” he declares, 10 of which occurred under Labour — but anything closer than the ’90s poses a threat to his own reputation. After all, the Clinton New Democrats, including Summers and Rubin (who were Stiglitz’s great antagonists in the Asia crisis debates) and Tony Blair’s New Labour generally shared a centrist governing philosophy that gave a large role to finance as the engine. What was not to like? Labour continued to win elections, and the U.K. seemed to prosper, particularly the City. Let’s face it: Brown missed the bubble just like everyone else.
Brown today is a sad figure — a man who waited all those years for ultimate power, only to get it just as everything was collapsing around him. That sadness, of course, is diluted by the fact that he had oversight over the very economy that swept him under — unlike Obama who inherited the mess. Brown did act with dispatch and focus, and he was a voice calling for harmonization of policies around the globe, culminating in the London G-20 meeting in 2009, perhaps his finest moment. As for his bank nationalization policies, it’s a little hard to discern whether they were clearly superior to steps taken in the U.S. Stiglitz certainly believes they were, though he offers no evidence. “The U.S. strategy of letting the banks continue with the same practices, including credit card abuses, was doomed economically and politically,” Stiglitz writes. The British public obviously did not agree.
Making these kinds of glib national comparisons is fraught with difficulties. The crisis, alas, still has a way to go before it’s firmly placed in history. Comparing Brown to Rubin, Bush, Paulson or Obama involves far more than simply resorting to the conflicts and the clash of ideas and politics from over a decade ago. It involves issues that are far more nuanced and ambiguous than economic doctrines, whether left or right. And indeed, we may never know for certain whether Brown was the great and magnanimous hero of Stiglitz’s telling or a figure brought low by forces he failed to foresee.
Robert Teitelman is editor in chief of The Deal

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Confessions of a Writing Center Tutor
I have one of the best jobs at the university. I teach large classes with students from every discipline and I work at university writing centers, where I help students with their papers one-on-one. Both parts of the job are fabulous for many reasons, but at the writing center I also experience something unique: I get to meet and help students from every discipline, read interesting work, learn about new topics, see students improve their writing skills and learn to revise their own papers with increasing independence. It is truly stunning to encounter such a broad cross section of the student population in this manner. Also greatly rewarding over the years, teaching at a range of institutions, both large research and small private liberal arts universities, has been the chance to read so much different work at different levels. I have witnessed the written evidence of the wonderful dialogue students enjoy with their professors. On a daily basis I see the whole process from the writing prompt, to the outline, notes, drafts and revisions, which often come back with thoughtful commentary by professors, explaining to students what they need to do to revise and write a better paper, a better argument, a better research article.
The only depressing part of my job is that I also see some papers with sparse, hurried, not always helpful comments and a grade with very little explanation or elaboration on how this choice was made. Sometimes there are no comments at all. Just a grade, and silence.
What to do about such papers? They exist everywhere. I’ve seen them at every institution. I hear about them from students who read my blog and write to me. Tonight I saw the final paper and final grade of my nephew who is a freshman at a big public university in another state. C. No comments. No explanation. Having witnessed him sweat over every draft, learn by trial and error and revision, how to write a college paper with proper structure, language and citation, I was impressed to see how far he’d come. Usually this is the best part of my job. I watch students develop their own skills and voices.
But what if the professor doesn’t notice the progress? Why does the professor not notice? How can a professor not notice? Was the improvement somehow not great enough? Whatever the reason for the lack of comments, the student will find it impossible to understand the professor’s judgment on the paper unless the professor explains the grade with thoughtful comments. A letter grade alone says very little.
Surely no miracles happen in a single semester. Students remain in a state of continuous development throughout their college careers. Sometimes new topics are so challenging that this development seems to screech to a halt or go backwards for a bit. But generally, if students work hard, listen and understand helpful criticism, they improve. Improvement might not translate into an A for the semester, but it should register somewhere, most of all in the professor’s comments.
Maybe your professor was rushed? Maybe he or she has a number of large courses and stacks of papers to mark? Maybe he or she is rushing off to a conference somewhere or to meet a deadline on a research publication? Or maybe he or she is one of those “freeway fliers,” an adjunct professor, who teaches at several different places just to make ends meet? Whatever the cause — class size, research, poor working conditions — you are still entitled to detailed and thoughtful comments on your paper. Don’t settle for some quasi-legal looking rubric either. You have a right to an explanation of the grade and to guidance as to how to do better.
Get your professor to explain where your work fits on the grading rubric and exactly how your writing needs improvement. You should ask for specific points and explanations. All such explanations may not translate into a better grade for you but at least you’ll know why you got the grade you did. The more you insist on your right for an explanation, the more professors are held accountable for their grading, the greater the potential for professors and students to collaborate effectively and to promote student learning — which after all should be the main target for colleges and universities.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Any evaluation of Turkey and Israel’s national strategic objectives reveals that the perceived policy incompatibility between the two countries is embedded not as much in their objectives of regional peace and stability, as in their assessment of three other geostrategic factors: a) the role and the objectives of other regional players, such as Iran, b) the terms under which peace and regional stability can be secured, and c) the manner in which Turkey and Israel seek to ensure their national interests and remain unchallenged by other states in the area. To better understand the Turkish and Israeli perspectives we must first to look into their national mindsets.
Turkey’s rise and its national mindset:
Turkey’s rise to prominence, especially in the past decade, is impressive by any account. Ankara determined to free itself from the shackles of the past and pursue domestic and foreign policy initiatives consistent with the size of its population, geostrategic location, Western orientation, and potential for development. One of the first factors behind Turkey’s recent boisterous behavior is its rising position in the global arena in the post-9/11 world. Turkey has benefited greatly from its status as a member of NATO, with the largest standing military and one of the 20 largest global economies. In a relatively short period of time, Turkey has significantly expanded its trade with neighboring states. Moreover, Turkey’s location as a border country to Europe, Iraq and Iran, and its status as the only other major democracy in the region besides Israel, have allowed it to pursue an ambitious and independent foreign policy with considerable success.
Since 2002, Turkey has resolved to carve its own sphere of influence, even at the risk of defying the United States, which explains Turkey’s refusal to transport American troops and supplies destined for Iraq at the beginning of the war in 2003, its cozying up to non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah and its public condemnation of Israel’s incursion into Gaza. Moreover, Turkey opposed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution imposing a fourth set of sanctions against Iran, while aggressively pursuing political and trade relations with Tehran.
The voice of the ruling AKP government has resonated particularly well on the Arab street, a factor which plays into a new brand of Turkish populism and a new national objective–that of leader of the Sunni Arab world. The “Zero Problems with Neighbors” Policy, a visionary doctrine developed by Turkey’s current Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, has been systematically implemented with vigor and considerable skill. Ankara has converted enemies into friends such as Syria, settled its differences with Iraq, and forged a closer alliance with Lebanon. Moreover, Turkey has reached out to the majority of Arab states, as well as the Balkans and Caucuses-all while trying to enhance its E.U. membership prospects.
Such ambitious foreign policy initiatives were bound to have some setbacks. Ankara has failed to settle a century-old conflict with Armenia, found no solution to the situation in Cyprus, failed to realistically address the Kurdish issue and strained its relations with its critical ally, the United States. Many Israelis believe that none of these shortcomings, however, have been more pronounced than the deterioration of Turkey’s relations with Israel. The doctrine of “Zero Problems with Neighbors” was forsaken in the case of Israel, with whom Turkey has had an important strategic relationship over a period of more than six decades.
Israel’s national mindset and how it views itself:
Israel too has gone through significant developments, though national security has remained central in its strategic calculations. Israel has achieved a near miracle in its six decades of existence, as it has become one of the most developed nations in the world with a growing economy, unsurpassed technological advancement and entrepreneurial spirit. Its reputation as a leader in the high-tech sector has led many to call Israel the “Silicon Valley of the Middle East.” Moreover, Israel’s perceived invincibility stems from its military power, which is among the strongest and most expertly trained in the world. Israel reportedly possesses the fourth largest stockpile of nuclear weapons estimated to be between 150-200 warheads.
Turkey, a predominantly Muslim state, was an extremely important ally for Israel, with the Israel-Turkey relationship considered by Israelis to be second in importance only to its ties with the United States. This explains why Israelis felt so deeply troubled with the turn of events with Turkey, which, from the Israeli perspective, has unabashedly embraced Israel’s mortal enemies, especially Iran and its surrogates, Hamas and Hezbollah. From the Israeli perspective, the country’s experience with the Arab states, and especially Hamas, is far more complex than Ankara is willing to recognize. They argue that the withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza, and the subsequent rocket attacks and wars that followed, prove that the concept of land-for-peace is no longer valid. With this mindset, Israel has become extraordinarily sensitive about its relations to the outside world, specifically with countries such as Turkey, whom Israel could count on in the past as a reliable ally. More importantly, Israelis are growing increasingly convinced that Turkey has made a calculated strategic shift to gain influence in the region at Israel’s expense. They argue that Turkey may have given up on E.U. membership in favor of casting its lot with the East to become a dominant regional power, while viewing Israel as an impediment to its regional ambitions. Israel insists that Turkey must come to grips with the real threat to the region emanating from Iran and that the recent improvement in Ankara-Tehran relations will be short-lived.
Turkey and Israel-A mutuality of misperceptions:
Perhaps taken by their formidable successes, Israel and Turkey have failed to live up to the responsibility of their strategic alliance, which covers by its very nature the entire Middle East. As such, it is not enough to have trade relations and military cooperation without a genuine understanding of each other’s national concerns and aspirations.
From the Turkish perspective, Israel hardly reached out to Ankara in a comprehensive way on Iran, not in just intelligence sharing, but also in taking into account that Turkey has a vested interest in engagement-especially in oil import-rather than confrontation with its Iranian neighbor. While proclaiming its strategic alliance with Turkey, Israel made little effort to allay Turkish concerns about the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process and paid little heed to Ankara’s desire to play a constructive role to advance regional stability. Israel also insulted Ankara when the Turkish Ambassador to Israel was summoned to explain a Turkish TV series depicting Israeli soldiers as killers of Palestinian children. The Ambassador was intentionally seated on a lower sofa than his Israeli host, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, for TV audiences to witness while only the Israeli flag was displayed on the table-an episode which was deeply humiliating for Ankara. Furthermore, Turkey feels that Israel has deliberately misled it, especially in regard to the Israeli-Syrian negotiations under Turkish mediation, by failing to share with Turkey the plans to launch Operation Cast Lead. The flotilla incident, in which eight Turks and one American citizen were killed, was reckless and failed to consider Turkish sensitivity or genuine humanitarian concerns.
Conversely, the Israelis feel that Turkey’s closeness to Iran represents a major point of departure as Turkey has placed itself in the column of Israel’s enemies. Israelis are convinced that Turkey made Israel the target of its verbal attacks, especially by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose political onslaughts were designed to arouse Turkey’s popularity in the Arab street. In particular, Israel became extraordinarily alarmed when it was revealed that Turkey’s National Security Council amended Turkey’s policy paper outlining foreign and domestic policy for the next five years to define Israel as a central threat to Turkey, while the paper ironically removed Iran, Russia, Syria and Iraq as threats. Israeli officials insist that Israel’s Operation Cast Lead and the flotilla incident provide only excuses for-and are not the real causes behind-the deteriorating relationship. The Israelis argue that one needs to go no further than to read Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu’s book Strategic Depth, in which he lays out Turkey’s indispensability as a regional and global player. As the Israelis see it, Turkey has abandoned the healthy dose of moral equivalence needed to balance the execution of such a divergent and ambitious foreign policy.
The suggestion that Turkey made a strategic shift to the East at Israel’s expense is not a likely scenario because Ankara knows that without Israel’s full cooperation, regional peace and stability will remain elusive at best. Moreover, Turkey needs not abandon its bilateral relations with Israel to become a leading regional player. In fact, the opposite is true. The Arab states have long since come around to accept Israel’s reality, they understand that Arab-Israeli peace is the only real option and Turkey can play a significant role in advancing it, which can only further enhance its regional leadership.
Turkey and Israel have made many mistakes and assumed a zero-sum posture that will serve neither side’s national interests. To get out from the corners in which they have painted themselves, both countries must clearly demonstrate that their professed desire to restore friendly relations is translated into action while providing a mutually face-saving way out. Mr. Erdogan will not be able to fully retreat from his demands that Israel apologize for the flotilla incident and offer compensation for the bereaved families. If he did, he would be subject to intense criticism and ridicule by the opposition parties in the Turkish national election next year. That said, he is in a position to exhibit leadership by settling for what Israel can deliver. Similarly, Mr. Netanyahu cannot issue an unqualified apology, not only because this would be tantamount to an admission of guilt, but also because he too is under political pressure to show resolve in the face of the perceived changing dynamic of Israeli-Turkish relations.
To move forward, both sides must agree to deal constructively with the UN panel of inquiry into the flotilla incident by providing all the necessary information and avoid, under any circumstances, acrimonious charges and counter-charges once the finding is made public. In the interim, Turkey and Israel must commit themselves to initiate a constructive dialogue to reduce tension through a combination of private and official channels, albeit quietly. To begin the process of reconciliation, Israel should agree to pay compensation as a humanitarian gesture to the families of those who were killed on the Mavi Marmara and apologize only for operational mistakes. This would likely satisfy the Turkish demand without an admission of wrong-doing and it could also go a long way toward ameliorating the tense relations between the two countries. Turkey, in return, should allow its officials in major Western capitals to talk informally to their Israeli counterparts. Such dialogues held in a calm atmosphere will have a marked impact on removing the growing misperception about each others intentions.
Israel needs to be disabused of the notion that the Islamist tendency’ of the AK Party is the only driving force behind Turkey’s policy and Turkey needs to understand that Israel has serious and legitimate security concerns that cannot be dismissed. In addition, since the United States is an ally of both Israel and Turkey and has a vested interest in improved relations between them, an active role by the Obama administration to discuss their differences could be extremely beneficial. Turkey and Israel can readily justify their willingness to American mediation because; a) their close alliances with the US and b) doing so could improve their respective bilateral relations with the US which have been strained-albeit for different reasons-in the past several months.
Ankara and Jerusalem must realize that their bilateral relations in the past were dictated by the geostrategic conditions in the Middle East, which have not fundamentally changed despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The emergence of Iran as a regional power potentially equipped with nuclear weapons is a threat not only to Israel, but to Turkey’s long-term strategic interests as well. It would be an illusion for either Turkey or Israel to think that they can reach their national objectives of peace and continued prosperity without the help and full cooperation of the other.
*A version of this article was published in the Jerusalem Post on December 3rd, and can be accessed at http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=197645

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What do Richard Nixon, Liu Xiaobo and Julian Assange have in common?
As lawyers for WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Assange began preparing for a possible indictment by US authorities, two recent, unrelated but highly relevant news items caught my attention. The first involves the gift that keeps on giving in this and apparently every holiday season — Richard Nixon.
Although it’s been nearly four decades since he left the Oval Office in disgrace, Nixon’s attitudes and actions, and the lessons we can draw from them, are as timely as ever — particularly so considering the controversy over Assange and his role in the release of secret cables revealing the attitudes and actions of more current American leaders such as Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
The latest evidence of America’s closed-door political chicanery came with the release by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum of yet another trove of audiotapes of the ever-voluble former president. This time Tricky Dick can be heard chatting in the Oval Office with top aides and his personal secretary — all the while making a range of disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans -0 some sixteen months before he was forced to resign as president.
For example, Nixon, who claimed not to be prejudiced, told senior adviser Charles Colson on February 13, 1973, that “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.” The president’s negative attitudes toward Jews extended even to such close colleagues as his National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger, but his rampant bigotry did not end with his Jewish brethren.
“All people have certain traits,” Nixon opined. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.” He continued: “The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but…”
Nixon also revealed deep doubts about the abilities of African-Americans. He thought it would take centuries of miscegenation to integrate them fully into American society. He strongly disagreed with his Secretary of State William Rogers, who felt instead that “They are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.”
“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” Nixon remarked. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred.”
As with many of the previously secret cables from WikiLeaks, the long-secret Oval Office tapes don’t simply reinforce what we already know about our national leaders and what they are like when they think we aren’t listening. They also reveal valuable, detailed behind-the-scenes information about their values, veracity, geopolitical views, decision-making processes and the like. Take the subject of human rights as one example — neither Nixon nor Kissinger seemed terribly concerned over the Soviet Union’s treatment of its Jewish citizens: “If they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern,” Kissinger can be heard saying on the tapes. “Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
“I know,” Nixon responds. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.”
Just as the latest batch of Nixon tapes was released, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, in absentia, to the imprisoned Chinese writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo. Liu is now serving an 11-year sentence for the heinous crime of “incitement to the overthrow of the state power and socialist system and the people’s democratic dictatorship.” For only the second time in history, no relative or representative of the winner was present at the ceremony to accept the award or the $1.5 million check it comes with. So no one was able to speak out on Liu’s behalf — although he did somehow manage to send word that he would dedicate the award to the “lost souls” massacred in 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
The Nobel Peace Prize, of course, is used as much to send a politically charged message as it is ostensibly to foster peace. Last year’s surprising choice of Barack Obama, thought by many to be what The New York Times terms a “thinly veiled rebuke to the politics of former President George W. Bush,” came as the current US president prepared to escalate the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. And let’s not forget that previous Peace Prize recipients include not only the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but also those of the aforementioned Dr. Kissinger. Nobel officials said this year’s prize should be seen as similar to that given Dr. King while he was fighting for civil rights in America in 1964 — a selection that helped create change. They optimistically hope this year’s choice of Liu will have a similar effect on China.
Perhaps over time… But at the moment, Chinese authorities are doing everything they can simply to make Liu invisible and voiceless. Nevertheless, a statement by Liu, read aloud at the ceremony by actor and activist Liv Ullmann, proved they have yet to succeed. “Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth,” Liu’s statement noted in part.
Let’s try to remember that this week when trying to contemplate the fate of Julian Assange, who according to news reports may soon be prosecuted under the provisions of the 1917 Espionage Act (which was used unsuccessfully to try to stop The New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers in the Nixon era) for the release of confidential diplomatic documents by WikiLeaks.
Assange’s attorney told ABC News that she did not believe the Espionage Act applied to him, and added: “In any event he’s entitled to first amendment protection as publisher of Wikileaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organisations in the US.”
But US Attorney General Eric Holder disagrees, saying it was Assange and Wikileaks who had instead put the United States at risk. “The lives of people who work for the American people has been put at risk,” Holder says. “The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that are, I believe, arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way.”
I’m every bit as much in favor of accountability and constitutionality as Attorney General Holder is — it’s just that we have different people we want to hold to account, and differing views of the Constitution. As prominent supporters of Assange noted in a letter calling for his release, the WikiLeaks actions have actually “assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues”.
Imagine if Julian Assange and WikiLeaks had been in existence during Watergate… He might have succeeded in “revealing the real views” of our government over a range of issues at that time. We might have found out what was really going on in Nixon’s mind and heart decades earlier — and we might even have been able to do something about it.
Instead, as per a recent Supreme Court decision, we have now begun to criminalize not only Julian Assange and WikiLeaks — but nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy as well if it is deemed to be “coordinated with” or “under the direction of” a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as “terrorist.”
Where will the prosecution and persecution of Julian Assange end — and what will it mean for the rest of us? Last year’s winner, Barack Obama. would do well to rein in his Attorney General and Justice Department — and to remember the words of this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize: “Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth.”

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

“I think there is serious competition between China and the US, but there is no danger of military clashes between the two countries,” he said.
He argues having two strong countries in competition in Asia is more likely to promote mutual respect and maintain peace and stability rather than reduce it.
“Look at the situation between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War – no matter what happened the two troops never shot at each other, so I have great confidence in the relationship between China and the US.”
He also argues China is doing nothing wrong – its economy is growing and it is increasing its military accordingly – it is perhaps other countries' reaction which is sparking trouble.
China's own aircraft carriers are on order, if some years away, but it also has a significant missile presence along its coast and the tools to counter the vast US military.
In truth, China's economic growth is welcomed by its Asian neighbours as they gain from its wealth, but at the same time the perceived increase in aggression over things such as territorial disputes has made nearby countries nervous.
It suits them to hedge their bets, working more and more with the growing regional power, while at the same time maintaining a strong relationship with the US – given America's commitment to defence of key allies in the region.
The USS George Washington itself is like a floating city, with 5,500 men and women living on board, 60 aircraft and two nuclear reactors which could allow it to stay at sea for 25 years without coming ashore.
And the experience of being catapulted off the deck at full speed for the return flight to Okinawa was even more of an adrenalin, G-force-filled rush than the landing.
For a display of strength and power – with aircraft flyovers and breaching submarines – the point was made to the 20 or so mostly Japanese journalists.
But China is only growing stronger – this will be one of the most important regions of the world for diplomacy and peace-building in the century's second decade.

Source:BBC

Because of the edu-sphere, I was reunited this summer with a wonderful student from 16 years ago. We reminisced about the music, art, poetry and current affairs discussions that we had shared and how they are being shoved out of the urban classroom as jacking up test scores becomes the sole priority. Jameka sent me a song from John Legend’s “Wake Up.” When I learned that the song was a part of the Waiting for “Superman” craze, the moment was ruined.
Just kidding. A mere political dispute could not tarnish our reunion, or the experience in 2009 of my students and I watching John Legend, Bruce Springsteen and other great artists in the “We Are One” concert for President Obama’s inauguration.
Mr. Legend, yes we can close the achievement gap, but we cannot do so by driving “Yes We Can” and other music from our poor schools. Mr. Legend, if you do not believe that data-DRIVEN reformers are damaging poor children of color by imposing nonstop test prep and narrowing the curriculum, then we should agree to disagree. If you do not believe that accountability hawks like Michelle Rhee chose the “Blame Game” as “the first resort,” then I would urge you to take unannounced visits to high-poverty schools.
You should have seen how it hit the fan when I was caught using Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin” in class. Nobody challenged the quality of the lesson and how it exemplified the literary themes of repetition and perspective. The first verse was from the perspectives of the white cops who “crossed the bloody river” and fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, because “is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet…? This is your life.” The second verse was from the perspective of a black mother counseling her son on racial profiling: “if you are stopped tonight, always be polite, never ever run away, and promise your momma, keep your hands in plain sight.” In the third verse, we were all “baptized in each others’ blood.” Before NCLB, all I had to do to gain permission to teach this lesson was to explain how it was a hook for discussing 4th Amendment issues. After all, it was not as if our kids had never been racially profiled.
But now, teachers are told that “we do not have time” for Springsteen or in-depth discussions. We have to cover the material for the test. When this new curriculum pacing regime was announced, the same phrase was used. The chief academic officer admitted that she and her elementary students had once loved a wonderful unit on dinosaurs, but with NCLB “we have no time for dinosaurs.” Neither do elementary kids in many high-poverty schools have time for recess or P.E. And my Black History and Multiculturalism courses were replaced by test prep classes.
Mr. Legend, if you want to lend your name and energy to the believers in standardized test-driven “reform,” then please hold them accountable. Visit our neighborhood schools and see the damage done to the students who the charters do not want. If you then agree with Michelle Rhee, who dismisses teachers’ concerns about top down micro-managing as “a bunch of bologna,” voice that opinion. But if you see with your own eyes the ways that creativity and joy are the unintended victims of the accountability hawks, then help us speak out.
By the way, Mr. Legend, after my students enjoyed your performance at the “We Are One” concert, I tried to fast forward through Garth Brook’s songs, not thinking that my black and brown kids would complain. I prejudged Brooks because I resented his sanitized version of Country and Western music, but my students demanded that I give him a listen. And guess what? Garth is no Hank Williams, but he did a fine job, and I learned a lesson.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.
Moving from Northern California to Kansas City, Missouri, I wondered if I would find myself surrounded by conservatives. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the people we have gotten to know are in fact not all that different from our friends in the Bay Area — tolerant, reasonable, and moderate with a variety of views. What is strikingly different in the heartland is what we hear when we turn on the radio.
In the Bay Area, when I wanted news I could find NPR most of the time or other versions of mainstream media that distinguish reporting from opinion, present substantive discussions with more than one viewpoint, and try to get the facts right. NPR exists here too, but the hours are limited and the primary alternative is pure ideology.
On Sunday, for example, while running errands, I turned on a random talk show and heard a U.S. Senator from Nebraska railing about how the Democrats were promoting their “liberal” agenda instead of addressing the nation’s employment problems. The right-wing host (“conservative” would be too moderate) complimented him as one of the “good guys.” There was no mention of the fact that most economists believe that the best way to address employment is through further stimulus efforts that this Senator opposes, that tax cuts for the wealthy are among the least effective ways to promote employment, that the Democratic spending measures the Senator denounced include the extension of unemployment benefits, or that no one believes that either the Democratic or Republican proposals before Congress represent the best way to address the employment issue. There was no serious discussion of these issues because there was no serious discussion at all. The conversation largely consisted of epithets such as “liberals” or a later reference to the “homosexual agenda,” which apparently means the desire of gays and lesbians for an end to discrimination. Partisan generalizations were applauded rather than challenged.
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Another day, in a similar effort to find some news, I heard a denunciation of Glenn Beck. I was intrigued. It turned out that I had stumbled on a Christian talk show. This speaker was appalled that Beck, a Mormon, was claiming the mantle of Christian leadership. He explained at some length how fraudulent Beck’s claim to be a Christian was while the talk show host sympathetically encouraged him. Toward the end of his denunciation, the speaker explained that he was a former Mormon who had been unable to live up to Mormon expectations of proper behavior. Only when he found Jesus Christ and a religion that emphasized forgiveness and redemption had he found personal peace. Beck’s problem was apparently that he turned to the wrong religion to strengthen his own fight against alcoholism, threatening the speaker’s conviction that the Christianity he knew had a monopoly on the truth.
Nothing like this exists on the left. Believe me, I’ve tried to find it. I have spent hours driving through stretches of California, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida and Western New York without finding a single liberal voice or more than an occasional centrist one. In another era, I might have found some reference to those advocating experimentation with LSD, counterproductive proposals for rent control, or advocates of unilateral disarmament. Today, when the Republicans try to point to liberal extremists they come up with Al Sharpton, the African American minister who generates publicity by organizing protests against racism, or a fictional version of Barak Obama as a Muslim socialist. Democrats, in contrast, have only to let the camera roll on the influential members of Congress who deny the existence of global warming, embrace creationism, or claim that unemployment benefits in the middle of the recession encourage idleness to find extremists. The problem is that only Rachel Maddow and Comedy Central highlight the absurdities.
Progressives have a right to be disappointed that President Obama has failed to stand up to the partisans in Congress who have tried to hold the country hostage to their efforts to secure tax cuts for the wealthy. The problem they have, however, is that if the president actually did call the Republican’s bluff, a substantial part of the country would only hear that Democrats were raising their taxes to pay for liberal programs. The mainstream media is dead in most of the country, and when propaganda replaces journalism, a good deal of the truth dies with it.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Despite India’s high profile in the recent Cancun climate talks and New Delhi’s declaration of its coal free future last year, the rising energy demands in Asia’s third largest economy have plunged the country into a coal rush–and a humanitarian crisis.
In the last month alone, with coal-fired plants powering an estimated 50% of the nation’s electricity, Coal India–the world’s largest coal producer–flirted with buying up floundering Massey Energy and Peabody Energy mines. Other Indian companies have moved into African and Australian markets.
Not that India’s own coalfields have been spared. India’s Minister for Environment and Forests continues to fend off demands by the coal industry for reduced forest protection restrictions. Earlier this year, human rights organizations charged that over 70,000 children were impressed into labor in some of the nation’s most dangerous “rathole” mines.
No one understands the impacts of coal mining on India better than Jharkhand activist Bulu Imam, Director of the Sanskriti Research Center in Hazaribagh, and coordinator of the Karanpura Campaign, a nearly 25-year-old campaign against open-cast strip coal mines. Imam also serves as the convener of India’s National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.
As the heartland of the coalfields in eastern India, Jharkhand has often been compared to Appalachia for its rich coal deposits–and the devastating repercussions and removal of local tribal or adivasi communities and their native lands by a form of open-cast mining similar to mountaintop removal mining. Photojournalist Robert Wallis made this overview of Jharkhand on the “Dark Side of the Boom” last year. Foreign Policy magazine did a photo essay this fall on the region’s coal wars and conflicts, which have now embroiled Maoist insurgents.
With his region dealing with 30 massive open-cast mines, I recently did an interview with Imam to learn more about the coal rush in India, with a particular focus on Jharkhand. For Imam, the displacement of tribal populations ranks as “a humanitarian disaster of the first order.”
JB: What type of mining is employed in your area?
JB: Are you able to estimate how big of an area has been mined in the last decade?
JB: For an American readership, who are the adivasi communities, and what rights do their have in protecting their land?
BI: The Adivasis are the indigenous first dwellers whose ancestry is traced to a prehistoric level by rockart of the region which is world famous and by the palaeolithic remains of earlier generations that have made the valley famous throughout the world and drawn international attention to it. You may see the I COMOS World Report and threatened Site: www.international.icomos.org/risk/2001/indi2001.htm or www.international.icomos.org/risk/2002/india2002.htm.
The valley is a rich repository of ancestral tribal art connected with the 14 painted rockart sites dated back to the Mesolithic and more recently Chalcolithic eras. Currently an important exhibition on the art is being organized in London at the Brunei Gallery of the School of Oriental and African Studies for two months from April 2011. I will be in London with two tribal artists for two seminars at the Univ. of London being organized by SOAS to coincide with the opening of the exhibition on 13th April 2011.
We have already held about four dozen international exhibitions of the art highlighting the environmental and social displacement concerns which have drawn attention to the mining like nothing else, The village mural paintings are practiced bi-annually by tribal women by decoration of their homes during the harvest in Oct. and called Sohrai which is a painted art done with locally procured ochres and oxides from stones and another art form called Khovar which is made by cutting the earth colours which is called Khovar (same name as the painted shelters in the hill) which is practiced during the marriage season in the Spring months (Feb.-May).
The rockart caves are also called Khovar and represent the marriage room which is a tradition of the art even today. All this has gone to prove that the inhabitance of the valley are an indigenous people since the very earliest times and that they can claim their rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), and under ILO 169.
JB: What is the impact of the mining on local populations, especially for women and children?
BI: The mining impact on local populations, especially women and children is horrendous since the people are living in a state of fear and daily traumatic displacement and have no means of survival as their agricultural lands and forest resources are being destroyed in huge swathes daily which is a matter of great concern for all those in the world interested in protecting the rights of women and the girl child. You may draw your own conclusions from what I have written of what the state of tribal women and children in the valley must be. This is a humanitarian disaster of the first order.
JB: Can you give a general overview of the mining battle ground in the North Karanpura Valley–and across the Jharkhand Valley?
BI: The North Karanpura Valley lies in a deep rift valley over a Jurassic field in the upper part of the Basin of the Damodar river forming a rich coal strata 44 miles in length from east to wes and 22 miles in width from north to south in the Chatra and Hazaribagh districts of North jharkhand, between the ranchi plateau to the south and the hazaribagh plateau to the north. The Karanpura coal-fields were discovered by Mr. D.H. Williams in 1848 while doing the survey. They were originally mapped by T.W.H Hues in 1867 after Dr.Vincent Ball had discover the South Karanpura filed near Tungi south of the Damodar River where today there are vast opencast and underground coal mines (Bachra, Dakra, Rai, Hindigir, etc.).
The North Karanpura Opencast Coalfields project started in 1985 after a man named Allen Roy approached Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi for Opencast coalmine Turnkey technology to be provided by Messrs. White Industries Ltd. of Sydney. The project was located at Piperwar North of the Damodar river in western North Karanpura Valley.
I began my campaign against this mine in Australia against white industries and also challenged the Indian mining company Central Coalfields Ltd. The White Industries interest as a result ended in the mid 1990′s. The Piperwar mine (5sq.km in area, 300 feet depth) displaced 6 villages with approximately 5 villages and a coal washery nearby displaced 2 villages. A railway line which I also fought from the the near by railway station Mc.Gung was brought via a town named Khalari destroying approximately 100 village houses and a dozen sq.km of tribal forests which were not compensated. Railway line has not yet been completed due to village protest.
Shortly thereafter CCL made two more opencast mine of about 5 sq.km each displacing villagers in 8 villages and scattered hamlets and this mining is still continuing towards a heavily built-up tribal area in the forest (See newspaper report of today by Jaideep Degharia). The original plan was to mine the entire North Karanpura Valley (half of which is forest and half rich agricultural land with a population of 203 tribal villages. After the three mines that has been made (the last Ashoka II in progress of strip cutting, four more new mines have been planned by CCL and NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation of India) being as follows, Pakri Barwadi, Keridari, Magadh, Chati-Bariatu.
The total number of mines planned for the valley is over 30 open cast coal mines. Also planned are two Mega Super Thermal Power Plants with new Dams built alongside. This has entailed the damming of the Barki river in the west near Tandwa and the Garhi river in the east near Badam (See map). Several new mines are planned in both areas apart from those mentioned for Pit-Head electricity generation. The 500 sq.km of forest land contains rich archaeological sites and rockart and is the only existing wildlife corridors for tigers and elephants between the Project Tiger Park and Elephant Sanctuar between Palamau to the east and Hazaribagh to the west.
This was subject of my protracted battle with the mining companies and eventually the mining companies were forced to accept mandatory Environmental clearance before entering wildlife corridors. The matter was taken up also when President Clinton came to India in 2000.
The full story is in my book Forests of the Buddha, co-authored with environmental Journalist Phil Carter available from Trafford Publishing. Further, there was a matter of a 480 million dollar World Bank loan for resettlement given to CCL which we had been fighting and after drawn to the American government. Attention was cancelled in June 2000. The story is in this book. At present about 500 sq.km of agricultural land is at a mercy of the mining companies and the villagers are living in a state of fear throughout the valley. This is an example of neo-liberal economics at its worst and I must say that the US links points towards the Washington Consensus.
JB: What government agencies have intervened on behalf of the adivasi communities?
BI: There has been no government agency fighting on behalf of the tribals, and the so called NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) are registered charities working in self interest. A few Christian organizations have joined the fight against the mining in a noble manner to protect the tribal interests and prominent among these may be mentioned the work of Sr.Bina and Sr.Gemma of the Chotanagpur Adivasi Seva Samiti (CASS), and a Jesuit priest named Tony Herbert who started an organization called Prerana which opposed the mining and displacement and interacted widely with local organizations. I have worked in coordination of these two organizations against the Parej open-cast mine once funded by the World Bank for rehabilitation of displaced people which is approximately 100 kms east of the North Karanpura Coalfields Project.
For more information on coal mining in India or to support Iman’s work, visit www.karanpuracampaign.com.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I am hugely critical, and hypocritical, of the way people categorize musicians. It’s not that I’m some omniscient music guru or even fully immersed in the industry; I just hate how everyone (myself included) tries to squish some artist into a premade mold in order to make sense of his or her art — although as humans, it’s really only natural.
I’m immediately turned off by a press release boasting some scruffy-chinned boy in a flannel as the next Bob Dylan and I have to consciously stop myself from rolling my eyes when someone plays me a song with any thumping beat and asks, “Would you consider this house or tech-house?”
Honestly, I don’t give a shit. And neither do most people listening to it on their en-route-to-work playlists or while dancing through a sea of sweaty people at Webster Hall on a Friday night. Everyone just wants good music — the kind that moves you and intrigues you and makes you want more. And if it’s good, that typically means it’s not some square peg we can just plop into a square hole.
Although I know I’m a hater and I try my best not to categorize, there are certain things I can’t help (i.e. blurting, “This sounds like Placebo” the first time I ever heard a Silversun Pickups song). There are also those certain few artists who, no matter how hard my head googles for a comparison, can’t be traced back to anything that’s previously been done.
The interesting phenomenon is that as we create more genres and sub-categories to try to fit these new artists into, we are actually chopping them away until we are so confused and so annoyed that we are left with only two types of music: the good and the bad.
From the time I was just a little peanut in my mom’s belly, my parents played the connector role between my brain, my heart and the good kind of music. I was exposed to everything from the Fleetwood Macs to the Michael Jacksons to the stuff my dad wrote and played on guitar during the lull between school and dinner. I was stretching my feet to piano pedals at the age of four and squeaking horse hair against cello strings for hours a day. I was told that music theory was a necessary subject just like math or history and I was told to make up ditties and write out notes when I had no other assignments to practice.
Although my parents are now divorced, living states away from myself and one another, I can credit them for feeding me the musical nutrients necessary to grow into an appreciator of good music, despite its particular species. Like learning anything at such a young age, music became second nature and I became accustomed to needing as much of it as I could get my hands (ears?) on… the more unique, the more exciting.
It’s a quality that is easily taken for granted and one that so many other people haven’t had the privilege of attaining. For those with similar childhoods, thank your mom and dad, and for those who want to expand their palettes, I challenge you to abandon the categories and ignore what the radio or the songs your friends tell you are hot. Try new genres, or try ignoring genres altogether. Stop putting songs in square holes and start putting them on your iPod to experience rather than categorize.
What I’m listening to now:
Polarsets – “Morning”
I missed the boat on the first single from these guys (“Leave Argentina”) but fell head-over-heels, as I often do for stunning vocals and punchy beats, after hearing “Morning.” The trio, comprised of Rob Howe (vocals/guitar/synths), Mike Smith (bass/synths) and James Rudd (Drums), are completely on point in every aspect of their production. They’ve turned the heads of Paul Oakenfold and Erick Morillo and have shared the stage with Ellie Goulding, De La Soul, Everything Everything and Fenech Soler, showing versatility and support from both the indie and mainstream scenes. The best part about this song is how it was written. According to a post on their Soundcloud page, “the bones of the song were written by Rob in an hour while James and Mike were out getting lunch,” which only reinforces how spontaneous and quick the best ideas can be.
Morning by Polarsets
Hype Jones – “My Mixtape is Better Than Your Mixtape” Vol. 3
This is one of those mixtapes that goes well with anything, kind of like ketchup. Play at work, on the subway, pregaming to go out or cleaning your apartment… I’ve listened to it while doing all of the above and, I’m not sure how, but I haven’t worn it out just yet. Hype is a pretty talented dude on the production front. It’s clear that he knows how to thread songs from one to the next and I have no complaints about the tracklist… and I’m not just saying that because he is a friend of mine. Hope you all enjoy this one. There will be more from the mysterious Hype Jones to come.
MY MIXTAPE IS BETTER THAN YOUR MIXTAPE VOL 3- A Hype Jones Curation by HypeJones

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Over the past couple of days, I asked literary Twitterers to use the hashtag #WhyIDrink to raise a glass to the publishing stories that drove them up the wall in 2010. From Snooki’s book deal to “write” a novel to James Frey’s fiction “factory,” here are the controversial stories that generated the most votes. Tell us what other publishing stories made you want to tip the bottle this year in the comments!
Snooki Signs Contract to Write a Novel
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Writing Aphorisms: More Wisdom About The Craft For #WriterWednesday (PHOTOS)
10 Most Overrated Things About 2010 (PHOTOS)
New York Times 10 Best Books Of 2010
Kurt Vonnegut Returns to Midland City (PHOTOS)
World Aids Day 2010: 7 Books You’ll Want To Read (PHOTOS)
Best Film Books for 2010
The cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore caused a lot of heartburn in the publishing industry, led by Snooki’s book deal with Simon and Schuster for a novel, A Shore Thing. “Snooki’s book deal. The drink of choice in that case was lighter fluid,” @cbbernard said. The pint-sized TV star admitted to reading only two books–in her entire life. “I’m not sure if this counts, but I ate a bottle of sleeping pills when I heard Snooki was writing a novel,” @DanFriedman81 said. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
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Follow Andrew Shaffer on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/andrewtshaffer

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

For the rest of the country the New York Knicks have been an on-going source of glee.
Since Patrick Ewing’s retirement in 2002, the Knicks have gone from bad, to worse, to at times comically absurd. Led for much of the decade by the Titanic of bad general mangers, Isiah Thomas, the Knicks turned losing into an art form. They’ve traded lottery picks for guy who’ve never sniffed the court — multiple times. They’ve handed muti-million dollar contracts to guys who would’ve been better served participating in a Stromboli eating contests in Bensonhurst. (Jerome James for $30 Million may be the worst contract of my lifetime.) Isiah and his cronies were to NBA management what the Palin family is to the rest of the world. A horrifying display of ineptitude, with a mix of quirkiness, and a splash of star power thrown in for good measure.
When the Knicks whiffed on LeBron this summer, the cries from the New York tabloids intensified. “Without King James this team has no shot.” “At least LeBron will be a free agent again in 2016.”And of course, “there’s always the Yankees.” Thee Knicks did overhaul their roster this summer even though they couldn’t land the “King” or his minions. They added four time all-star big man Amare Stoudemire and spunky point guard Raymond Felton as well as bruising center Ronny Turiaf and rookie forward Landry Fields.
Then the season started and most Knick fans were already thinking ahead to next summer, where the Knicks should be the odds-on favorite to land disgruntled Denver star Carmelo Anthony. After a 3-8 start to the year, gloom set in the World’s Greatest Arena. Then a funny thing happened: The Knicks started winning. Following their game against Denver Sunday afternoon, New York had won 13 of their last 14 games leaving them at a shocking 16-9.
It’s not difficult watching this team to see where their success has come from. Fields, the rookie from Stanford, has been a revelation. He rebounds like a guy eight inches bigger and has added some much needed toughness. The diminutive point guard Felton is a crafty leader who’s capable of taking over the game when he gets hot. But their success can really be attributed to the big free agent prize of the off-season, Stoudemire. The explosive power forward is averaging 26.1 points per game, good for third in the league, as well 9.1 rebound and 1.9 blocks per game
Wizards coach Flip Saunders was glowing in his review of Stoudemire’s early season performance. “Of the players up front in this league, he may be the most dynamic. He gets to rim, can rebound, really this guy can do it all.”
While Stoudemire has gotten most of the individual accolades, winning 13 out of 14 games in the NBA is a team effort. Felton recognized his team’s effort but stressed that they need to stay vigilant moving forward. “We need to treat every game like it’s the best team in the league. We’re in a good groove right now but the only way to keep it going is to stay focused.”
It’s tough to say whether the Knicks will be able to continue this newfound success. Their schedule gets significantly tougher in the next month highlighted by late December home match-ups with Eastern Conference powerhouses Miami and Chicago. For the sake of their great New York fan base, hopefully it continues. As funny as their previous mishaps have been, it’s time for some competence in New York basketball as opposed to the train wreck that we’ve all been subjected to over the past decade.

Follow Thomas Alter on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/Talt1

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

She was every teenage boy’s dream girl. Pretty, smart, a little eccentric. We all fell in love with Boy Meets World’s Topanga, better known as Danielle Fishel. I’m not ashamed, I used to watch the show too and so you can imagine what a treat it was for me to have her on today’s show.
She discussed what it was like growing up in front of all of America, her favorite moments shooting the hit television series, the new DVD release of Season 4 of the show, whether or not she keeps in touch with the cast and so much more.

Follow Jeff Rivera on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/mrjeffrivera

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In a completely expected development, a conservative activist judge made a conservative activist decision, ignoring decades of judicial precedent to declare the main provision of the health reform law — requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance — unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court has long held that our federal government has the authority to enact laws that regulate activities which impact interstate commerce. The health care system is woven into our entire economy. And virtually every American citizen — insured or uninsured — participates in the health care system in some way.
The conservative activist legal attack is to claim the Constitution’s “Commerce Clause” doesn’t apply to “inactivity” — a decision not to buy health insurance.
But two other judges have already ruled — to much less media attention — that such illogic flies in the face of economic reality. Most recently, Judge Norman Moon wrote in upholding the law:
The fact that a man who has a “long history in Republican politics,” and was appointed by President George W. Bush, accepted a conservative attack on long-standing legal precedent by creating a massive legal loophole to prevent our government from acting in the public interest, says nothing about the actual merits of the claim.
However, since there are four conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court — one short of a majority — we cannot be completely sanguine about the prospect for the Court to decimate the legal underpinning of a representative and responsive government.
And we cannot assume that the non-activist judges are completely sealed off from the public discourse. We cannot allow the right-wing to smother the media landscape with its hatchet job on the Constitution. We must speak out in favor of our Constitution, as it was written by the founders, which empowers our government to “regulate,” to act, and to represent the public will.
Originally posted at OurFuture.org.

This Blogger’s Books from
Wait! Don’t Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America
by Bill Scher
Proud To Be Liberal

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/billscher

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com