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Warning: Don’t buy into pre-programmed sales.
If you’re bargain hunting in the days after Xmas we have an important tip for you: be wary. This is the time of year we’re most proud of our shopping prowess and the one thing we never do is buy merchandise that was bought to be put on sale.
We offer the following advice in our book, Bitches on a Budget:
There’s a difference between seasonal clearance and goods bought to be sold on promotion. When the latter happens, a big slug of goods are bought, marked high, put on the floor to establish a ‘regular’ price (usually for 4-6 weeks, but this depends on laws state to state). Later they’re marked down to trick all you budget-minded b*tches into thinking you’re getting a bargain.
Be suspicious. If there’s a whole lot of one item on the floor, marked at, say, 20% off regular price, chances are it was jacked up and you’re not getting a bargain. Be wary of circulars and catalogs ‘promoting’ items–think about it, you’re smart, they bought and planned to promote these goods at ‘sale’ prices months in advance.
Just say no.
That said, this is our favorite time of year for finding great bargains and filling up on fabulous keeper items that are normally out of our price reach. We just scored two items we’d been lusting over all season at our favorite luxury goods retailer (think purple dinosaur), both were marked down by more than 60%. We’re now proud owners of a fabulous little black sweater completely covered in nickel nail heads and a pair of luscious hand crafted leather boots.
If only this blizzard would give us a break, we’d be heading out for more…
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Wishing you all a Very Happy Merry. And no, I’m not falling into that trap. You go out and dance to the beat of whichever winter festival you want to celebrate. Christmas. Hanukah, Kwanza, Saturnalia, Solstice, noon Tuesday, 420, a December date equal to the square root of the number 625. Whatever. And good on ya. As we say in politically correct San Francisco, “May the corpulent bearded one in the scarlet suit smile upon your chosen shrubbery.”
Now, inevitably some people are going to find their stockings aren’t quite stuffed with the egregious booty they were expecting or most importantly, believe they deserve. So I’m here to help the under- gifted achieve a certain amount of cathartic closure. As the great philosopher Rodney King once almost said: “can’t we all wear a thong?” So, to insure that certain traditions don’t get washed right out into the ocean like a picnic table on a Malibu hillside, let me offer up my annual scathingly incisive yet curiously refreshing:
WILL DUR$T’$ 2010 XMA$ WI$H LI$T.
For Mel Gibson: A muzzle. Permanent. Steel. Welded with titanium rivets.
For the Economists who insist the recession ended in June of 09. An opportunity to collect 99 weeks of unemployment insurance.
For Charlie Sheen. A date with Lindsay Lohan. Matching ankle bracelets at Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab.
For WikiLeaks Founder Julian Asange: A slip of paper naming whoever leaked details of his sexual assault charges tucked into a dictionary in the fold of the page with the “irony” entry.
For Betty White. 30 more years.
For Ireland. Far fewer reasons to drown their troubles.
For Juan Williams. A prayer rug for his Fox News cubicle.
For the American public. A case of antacid to get through the next two years watching the heartless pummel the spineless cheered on by the clueless.
For Conan O’Brien. Half the on- air excitement he inspired off- air.
For Barack Obama. An electron telescope to focus on jobs. American jobs. Democratic jobs. Obama Administration jobs. His job.
For Mrs. Clarence Thomas. A six pack of Coke.
For Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. A used set of Spanish language cassette tapes.
For the Cast of Jersey Shore. Watches that only measure increments of 15 minutes.
For the Texas Board of Education. A railroad car stuffed full of historical blinders.
For Bill Clinton. A Presidential appointment to the position of Secretary of Secretaries.
For Toyota. A new corporate motto. Because after 4 recalls involving acceleration problems, “Moving Forward” might be a bit too apropos.
For Katy Perry. A bigger bra.
For the Tea Party. Kissable wallets. Because its time to put their money where their mouth is.
For Willie Nelson. A THC patch.
For the TSA. Extensive training to perfect the impromptu prostate exam.
For John Boehner. A deal with Fruit of the Loom to market a line of “Mister Speaker” monogrammed handkerchiefs. And hand towels.
For former BP CEO, Tony Hayward. Now that he has his life back, a reason to live it.
For Medical Science to Study. Dick Cheney’s heart, Joe Biden’s mouth and Rod Blagojevich’s brain.
For New Gingrich, Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican field taking sidelong glances at 2012. Something on Sarah.
San Francisco based political comic, Will Durst, writes sometimes, this being a conventional example.
Catch Durst in stand- up mode at The Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XVIII. Dec. 26- Jan. 1. 6 comics. 7 cities. 8 shows. 2,437 laughs. willdurst.com or 415.820.9628. Facebook. Twitter. Blah- blah.

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I was struck several days ago to hear Arizona’s Senator Jon Kyl claim that the Democrats’ insistence on considering the new START nuclear inspection treaty in the short time before Christmas somehow defiled the holiday.
Perhaps, I thought, Senator Kyl forgot for a moment that Christmas celebrates the birth of the “Prince of Peace” — that the Christmas story is about “Peace on Earth, good will to men.” Could there be a better way to celebrate Christmas than to approve a peace accord that would reduce the risk of nuclear war?
Of course, this particular episode is actually emblematic of the fundamental disconnect between the values held by Senator Kyl and many of his radical conservative colleagues, and the progressive values that have served as the very definition of human morality, freedom and progress.
When you think of the heroes and heroines of American — and world — history you think of the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Cesar Chavez, Robert Kennedy, Mohandas Gandhi and Franklin Roosevelt.
They are people who expanded the realm of human freedom for everyone. They stood up for everyday people — not the rich and powerful — of their times. They are the people who ended wars, not those who began them. They are the people who created mechanisms that help us avoid violence; who enhanced the ability of every child — no matter her background or income — to live a fulfilling life; who stood up against ignorance and oppression and greed; who understood that we’re all in this together — not all in this alone.
Most of all, they were people who believed that what is important in life is what you can do for other people — not simply what you can do for yourself.
The progressive values that have always truly defined human progress are about hope, not fear; unity not division. They are about mutual respect and loving your neighbor as yourself. They are the values that are celebrated in this holiday season.
Let’s be clear: “Greed is good” is not being celebrated at Christmas. The values of Ebenezer Scrooge do not define the Christmas spirit — past, present or future. More tax breaks for the top one percent is not the moral of A Christmas Carol.
The right often characterizes progressive values as “soft,” “utopian” and “nave.” But the hard fact is that progressive values have not only defined human progress in the past, they must prevail if human beings are to survive and prosper in the world of the future. Far from being “pie in the sky,” “utopian” or “soft-headed,” progressive values are the most precious, adaptive possessions of humanity — and they have provided the moral foundation for the unfolding story of American democracy.
The future of our society and our planet depends on our ability to create a world that reflects those values. And the growing power of our technology — our new ability to destroy human civilization, or alter our climate — means that we don’t have forever to get ourselves on the right track.
A few years ago a planetary scientist named David Grinspoon wrote a book called Lonely Planets that explores the question of extraterrestrial life — both basic biological life and intelligent sentient life.
Toward the end of his book, Grinspoon speculates on the chances of survival for intelligent life in the universe. He argues that every civilization of intelligent creatures must pass through a gauntlet that tests whether the values and political structures of the society are capable of keeping pace with the exponentially increasing power of the society’s technology. If its values and political structures can keep pace with technological change, the society may pass into a phase of enormous freedom and possibility. If it does not, the power of its own technology will destroy it. Perhaps, he postulates, civilizations are like seahorses. Many are born, but only a few survive.
For the first time, a little more than half a century ago, human society entered that gauntlet. The autocatalytic nature of technological growth reached a point of takeoff that for the first time gave us the power to destroy ourselves and all life on our tiny, fragile planet. From that moment on, the race began.
The next several generations of humans will decide how that race turns out. They won’t simply observe it, or describe it; they will decide it. Whatever the future holds will be a result of human decision for which we are all responsible.
We will decide if we pass through that gauntlet or — like our cousins the Neanderthals — become evolutionary dead ends. We will decide if humanity passes into a new era of possibility and freedom — or the human story simply ends.
Progressive values are humanity’s most precious possession. We must nurture them, fight for them, stand proudly for them, and celebrate them now during the holidays — and in all the battles we face in the coming year.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com

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NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – Tedious observations about the severe winter weather are expected to dominate the conversations of uninteresting people for the next 24 to 48 hours, boredom experts warned today.
With blizzard conditions blanketing the Northeast, a powerful front of mind-numbing weather-related banter is expected to pound the Eastern Seaboard from Sunday into Monday, with statements of the obvious stretching from the Carolinas to New England.
“Blizzards like this are when boring people really come alive, unfortunately,” said Dr. Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota’s Meteorology Institute. “I would advise everyone to stay inside and avoid all contact with dull individuals unless it’s an absolute emergency.”
Tracy Klugian, 57, a prominent bore from Cincinnati, Ohio, said that she planned to take a break from her scrapbooking hobby to post Facebook updates about the weather on an hourly basis.
“I live for days like this,” said Ms. Klugian. “I’ve already said ‘so much for global warming’ ten times today.”
Ms. Klugian said she was spending the afternoon calling friends and relatives “to ask if it’s cold enough for them.”
“I sure have a lot to say about this snow and everything,” she said. “I can’t wait until somebody picks up.” More here.
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“A politician is concerned with the next election. A statesman is concerned with the next generation.” -Gerald Ford
President Obama’s recent embrace of a tax cut extension deal with Republicans may have done little to enhance his public standing in the short term. Initial polls suggested that Republicans did not approve of him any more and liberal Democrats liked him less. It’s interesting then that, speaking of his reasoning after signing the measure, he used essentially the same words – perhaps unaware that he was doing so – as Gerald Ford. Ford was out of office, reflecting on his presidency – and no doubt his pardon of Richard Nixon – in preparation for his autobiography, A Time to Heal. President Obama may have been more troubled had he known he was channeling Ford, given that the latter lost the presidency for his statesman-like act.
It’s the bane of public servants that Americans want statesmen and stateswomen – people with the courage to do the right thing for the country despite the personal consequences – but almost routinely punish them for doing just that. Lincoln was shot after asking for mercy for the defeated South. Wilson was vilified when seeking a way to prevent another World War. Truman was castigated for sacking World War II and Korean War hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur when the latter brazenly disobeyed his Commander-in-Chief. George H.W. Bush was trashed by his own party for allowing a tax increase and thus cooperating with Democrats.
Intuitively, we know we need leaders unafraid to risk themselves for our future benefit. Indeed, we often vocally condemn them for not doing so – until they take action, that is. We often see this given some time – though rarely do we appreciate it in the moment. Truman is now ranked as one of the best presidents and Ford was not only forgiven by most but was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 for helping the nation get past Watergate. Truman once quipped that: “A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.” He may have been optimistic.
In our private lives, we routinely admire our parents and others who sacrificed some of what they could have been, done and spent to invest in us. We expect them to do so. We regularly sacrifice for our own children for just the same reasons. We take a long-term view, judge our actions against a moral horizon that looks 5, 10, even 20 or more years into the future. We consider the future state of those we care deeply about. Yet in the public realm, we are prone to disparage leaders who attend to the future of the state.
The reasons are legion – distrust of government; fear of power; concern about our economic needs and prospects; emotions driven by political attacks, ads, and the media; anger at taxes; and just plain selfishness that we can’t have what we want. Such reasons explain; they do not excuse.
This is not an easy problem to solve. By their nature, the acts of statesmen and stateswomen are sometimes invisible and more often uncertain as to their outcome when taken – we can’t always know if these actions will help us in the long term – until the long term comes. But we can tell when leaders seem to be putting our needs above their own short-term advantage. We need to do better at recognizing this – and cut them some slack (if not giving them a bit of admiration) when they do. If we expect more of our leaders to be statesmen, we should not make them have to wait until they die to be recognized for it.

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If you know Intimate Opera of Pasadena, it is probably from its earlier iteration as a kind of singers’ collective that for a decade or more presented excerpts of operas at a bookstore-cum-caf in Pasadena’s Old Town district. In this capacity they had proclaimed themselves as unique in Southern California.
In their latest outing, however, they are seeking to change the game by mounting their first full production, Gian Carlo Menotti’s 1951 television opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, five performances of which were given at the venerable but underutilized Pasadena Playhouse, December 16-19. I caught the opening night of the grander, less intimate future-to-be.
The challenge facing the company is similar to that of child actress Shirley Temple when she reached the awkward teen years; she had to become a starlet after having been a star. Intimate Opera’s first production was mostly successful, despite some wrinkles here and there. The company has made a big step forward, but one that will subject it to comparisons with larger, more seasoned opera companies.
Amahl is probably as good a choice as any for a first production. It is short, accessible, easily staged, vocally undemanding, and has a built-in appeal for the holiday season. Whether the work itself is worthy of a continuing life is a matter of individual taste. Its central character, the crippled Amahl, is just a little too reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ Tiny Tim, and the story’s dnouement has the kind of simplicity that wants to be called simple truth.
The production was handsome in a traditional way. John Iacovelli’s pictorial unit set delineates the interior of a mother and child’s humble home somewhere in the path of the Magi’s route to meet and greet a baby of reputed metaphysical promise. Kate Bergh’s costumes were appropriately drab for the home’s occupants and their neighbors and extravagantly opulent for the three Magi who arrive unexpectedly, seeking a night’s shelter.
An added bonus for the production was the Playhouse’s rococo interior, which became a natural extension of the fairy-tale atmosphere suggested by the Magi’s colorful gowns, particularly in the sensitive lighting of Jared A. Sayeg. (Think of the jewel-box theater in Ingmar Bergman’s Magic Flute.)
Just as important, the hall’s fine acoustics easily projected the musical contributions of the slender orchestra led by Jeffrey Bernstein, offering the singers a lovely pillow of lyricism to decorate. Conny Mathot’s choreography was well executed by dancer Stephanie Hullar and her male counterparts.
(Nice as it is, the theater was too cold on opening night, and there needs to be a closer collaboration between the Playhouse’s staff and the IOP for smooth operations and audience comfort.)
Stephanie Vlahos’ staging was efficient and the performances she elicited effective, particularly from old pros at the LA Opera like Greg Fedderly, Cedric Berry, and Robin Buck, who traded in their usual comprimario assignments at LAO for the more prominent Magi roles here. Fedderly’s hard-of-hearing Kaspar in particular gave him the opportunity, fully seized upon, for droll comic touches.
The Amahl of Caleb Glickman was clear-voiced and likable, if not yet particularly memorable on opening night. LA Opera regular and native Angelino Suzanna Guzmn handled her transformation from a scolding to a desperate mother sensitively. Menotti’s protracted haggle between mother and son over his reporting on the arrival of the mysterious visitors remains as tedious as in other productions of memory.
The variable articulation of the singers made the vocal dialogue, in simple English, difficult to understand, as from Guzmn’s otherwise beautiful and darkly produced mezzo. Even in an opera as straightforward as this, supertitles are advisable. They will become more necessary when IOP produces Madame Butterfly next spring and Rigoletto the year after.
Taking on Amahl in a community setting with no competition from another opera company is a safer risk than the likes of Puccini and Verdi operas, which are regularly produced at grander houses nearby. IOP will of necessity be competing with those larger houses. One of the ways to differentiate itself is to cultivate a loyal, local following.
In that regard, and given the obvious attraction of Amahl for children during the holiday season, it was concerning to see the already smallish Playhouse half empty on opening night, its seats mostly occupied by senior citizens. Where were the children? This was a lost opportunity in marketing. The viability of a producing opera company involves more than just putting on a show. If seats are not sold they should be given away, if for no other reasons than to generate goodwill and cultivate tomorrow’s audiences.
Bookending the opera proper had been a prologue and postlude by actor Malcolm McDowell. He opened with a stentorian reading of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales in the period costume and drawing room of an early twentieth century Welsh gentleman. McDowell returned silently to the stage after the opera’s conclusion to peer out of the same window where his earlier reading had helped conjure the tale. The play-within-a-play conceit worked well enough.
All in all, it was a good start on a long journey of reinvention for Intimate Opera of Pasadena. We wish them well. As Tiny Tim might have said, “May God bless them, everyone.”
Above photo: Jared A. Sayeg
Rodney Punt can be reached at Rodney@artspacifica.net

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I hope I will not be thought of as a coarse Philistine for not praising this film. I confess that I am not a devotee of the ballet; indeed, I have attended only a few performances. I once appeared on stage reading the narration of Peter and the Wolf, which I enjoyed a lot, and I also loved the movie The Red Shoes. However, I would have preferred if Black Swan had included more dancing or more Freud, but there wasn’t enough of either to engulf the senses. For my full review, click below.
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I remember being genuinely shocked at the success of Meet the Fockers back in Christmas 2004. It had been well over four years since the original and, box office aside, it wasn’t a film that cried out for a sequel. I figured that no one cared, that it had been too long since the original, and that the sequel would do token business but no more. For the second time in 2004, I was dead-wrong. Twice that year, sequels that didn’t have all that much pre-release buzz around them exploded out of the gate and kept going for the next few months. The other was Shrek 2, which opened out of nowhere on the pre-Memorial Day weekend to $108 million over three days and $128 million over five, to end up winning the year with an astonishing $441 million. Meet the Fockers grossed $46 million over the three-day portion of Christmas 2004 and a stunning $70 million in its five-day opening weekend. The film kept on rolling, ending up with $279 million domestic and $516 million worldwide. That makes Meet the Fockers the second-biggest live-action comedy in US history (behind Home Alone with $281 million) and the world’s highest-grossing live-action comedy ever. So when I say that there wasn’t all that much buzz for Little Fockers, that really didn’t mean much in theory. Except this time, when it did.
Little Fockers was indeed the number one movie over the long Christmas weekend. The would-be finale of the Fockers trilogy (“This Christmas… the journey ends.”) pulled in $34 million over the Fri-Sun portion and $48.3 million over the five-day opening weekend. Amusingly enough, the critically-hammered comedy sequel did a majority of its business over the last two days of release, where it grossed $14.6 million on Christmas Day and just under that today. Going into Christmas Day, the film had grossed just $19 million in three days. The big business over the last two days turns this from a genuine flop into a question of whether moviegoers just waited until it was convenient to see the film. I’ve often warned about opening films on Wednesday that aren’t uber-anticipated, as most moviegoers don’t need to rush out on a weekday to see a given picture. We’ll know more as the film plays over the last week of the year. But for now, the film is indeed a disappointment.
The film pulled in 32% less over the five-day weekend than Meet the Fockers did ($46m 3-day/$70m 5-day) on the same weekend back in 2004. The picture cost $100 million and reeked of post-production chaos, with reshoots and test screenings galore, plus Dustin Hoffman being brought back in at the last minute to ‘save the picture’. The trailers weren’t the least bit funny, with clips from the first two films, Viagra jokes and replays of the first film’s gimmicks from all the way back in 2000 that made the film feel that much more desperate and lazy. Little Fockers scored a meager ‘B-’ from Cinemascore, meaning that the film was indeed as unfunny as it looked and that the picture will likely die immediately after the holiday season. $100 million is likely but no longer a certainty. This appears another clear-cut case of a franchise being extended one film too many. It appears that we can add the Fockers epic to the surprisingly long list of franchises that left us this year.
Second place went to the critical winner of the weekend, the Coen brothers’ remake/adaptation of True Grit. The critically-acclaimed Jeff Bridges/Matt Damon/Hailee Steinfeld western scored a dynamite $25.6 million over three days and $36.8 million over five days. This is the biggest opening weekend ever for a traditional western, far eclipsing the normal $14-$17 million openings for westerns like 3:10 to Yuma, Open Range, Unforgiven, and Maverick. This is also easily the biggest Coen brothers opening weekend ever, surpassing the $19 million opening of Burn After Reading. It’s already $1 million away from the $39 million total gross of Intolerable Cruelty (their fourth-biggest hit) and should surpass Burn After Reading’s $60 million gross by the end of next weekend and the $74 million gross of No Country For Old Men a week or two after that.
$100 million is a strong likelihood for the $38 million-budgeted western, especially with the film appearing on many a best-of-2010 list (not mine, but that’s another story). The film scored a B+ from Cinemascore, with an A- from the under-25 crowd. It played 65% male and 70% over 30. This is a huge win for everyone (the Coens, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, surefire Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld). Jeff Bridges just scored his second and third biggest opening weekends ever over the last two weeks, and if True Grit can out-gross Seabiscuit ($120 million), then Bridges will have his second and third-highest grossing films ever in a five day span. While we may bemoan the famously idiosyncratic filmmakers tackling a somewhat generic genre piece, it’s a rock-solid piece of big studio entertainment and pays for at least a couple more personal projects like A Serious Man.
Third place went to that other Jeff Bridges would-be blockbuster, Tron: Legacy. The film did use the Christmas weekend to avoid complete collapse, but it is not a very happy longterm picture. The um… critically-divisive sci-fi picture dropped 55% over the three-day weekend, grossing $20 million in its second frame. That gives the film $88 million after ten days. The comparison I’ve been using for the last week has been King Kong, which opened a little softer than expected but held on over the holiday to eventually cross $200 million. Tron: Legacy grossed about $1 million less on its second weekend and currently sits $20 million behind Peter Jackson’s pet project. I bent over backwards to be fair last weekend, not wanting my distaste for the film to color my perceptions of its opening weekend. But the holiday legs are not strong enough to get this $200-300 million picture to profitability without uber-strong overseas numbers, which so far have not been coming (worldwide total is $111 million so far). While it’s not a major financial disaster yet, numbers like this will not get a sequel greenlit.
The only other major opener was the Jack Black comedy Gulliver’s Travels, which opened on Saturday. Its two-day total was just $7.2 million, bringing a fitting end to a year when studios looked at Avatar’s success and screamed ‘Everything must be in 3D!’. As I’ve said countless times, it’s the movie, stupid. And Gulliver’s Travels looked awful, with nary a single laugh in the marketing materials and horrible reviews to match. Black still has the Kung Fu Panda franchise to rely on (the second picture opens next May), but his career as a live-action leading man is pretty much finished. The psychological horror film Black Swan finally expanded to true wide release over the weekend, grossing $6.6 million on 1400 screens. It’s not a massively successful expansion per-se, but the ballet thriller and surefire Oscar contender has already grossed $29 million with the entire awards season still to go. Also likely to figure into the Oscar race is The Fighter, which grossed another $8.5 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. Again, it’s not an earth-shattering hold (-30%), but the $25 million boxing drama has already amassed $27 million.
The King’s Speech finally debuted in somewhat wide release on Christmas Day, as the theoretical Oscar front-runner finally braved the actual paying audience, as opposed to wracking up big per-screen averages on under 50 screens week after week. The Colin Firth period piece grossed a solid $4.5 million on 700 screens, bringing its cum to $8.4 million. The film is sure to get showered with Oscar nominations, so this should be a long and leggy run for the $15 million drama. There were a few limited debuts this holiday season as well. Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere debuted with $20,000 per each of its seven screens. The Illusionist, otherwise known as the cartoon that might steal Toy Story 3′s Best Animated Film Oscar, opened with $50,000 on three screens. The Gwyneth Paltrow melodrama Country Strong debuted with just $17,300 on two screens. The film smelled like a cash-in on Jeff Bridges’s Crazy Heart, and the unintentionally funny preview literally played like a satire of Oscar-bait trailers.
For more, including holdover box office and a peek at the final weekend of the year, read the rest of this article at Mendelson’s Memos.

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The television commercials and movie trailers for this film were superb, and I always see movies in which Johnny Depp appears. I truly admire him as an actor, although I disagree with his politics. Someday I’ll resolve how much I have to disagree with an artist before I stop going to see his/her artistic endeavors, but that’s for another day.
Take it from me. This movie is all hype and no substance. I saw it on opening night, and the theater was only two-thirds full. It always amazes me how sophisticated New York audiences are. They won’t be conned into paying to see an advertised blockbuster that appears to have a ludicrous script. For my full review, click below.
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What is the difference between lemons and lemonade? Water and sugar: sweetness. For many Americans, life has been nothing but lemons for a long, long time. The United States has experienced quite a sour decade, and the sting in the back of the throat lingers on and on. The 90s saw a balanced budget, the rise of the Internet, secretaries cashing in multi-million-dollar stock options, and a time of peace. By contrast, the past 10 years were dominated by Bush politics, 9/11, unrelenting wars and a crippling recession that seems never-ending.
Are you looking ahead to the next decade with a bag of lemons in your hands? Millions are out of work, small towns are filled with empty store fronts, most of our retirement accounts are trashed, and our government cannot pass simple legislation without taking it to the Supreme Court. The United States needs to create a new lemonade stand to sell to the world — and fast. Our nation was able to rise out of the depression by focusing on our ingenuity, inventive gifts, infrastructure and faith.
When life deals you lemons, it is easy to become a “sourpuss” and retreat. Yet, there are those who seem to have bags of sugar in their back pockets, and can whip a batch of lemonade out of a pile or rocks for the world to share. These people are rare gifts. I believe Arianna Huffington is one of these people. I believe our President is one, too.
Linda Joy is another. Feeling depressed? Spend about five minutes with this woman, and she will teach you how to make not only the best lemonade, but inspire the creation of an entire franchise of lemonade stands. Joy is the publisher of Inspired Living Publishing, and author of “A Juicy Joyful Life: Inspiration from Women Who Found the Sweetness in Everyday Life,” a collection of stories from everyday folks from Main Street who managed to take adversity and transform it into a gift.
Joy had her share of lemons this year, and had every reason to run under the covers and hide her head. In 2010 her family experienced two tragic deaths, it was no longer feasible to continue her longstanding print magazine, and her husband totaled his truck in a car accident last week before our scheduled interview.
Yet Joy cheerfully tracked me down two days later, said her hubby was OK, and she has to look forward because she is “in the inspiration business.” She walks her talk like few I have ever met. This former Entrepreneur of the Year for the state of Massachusetts is no stranger to change. In this same year, Joy reinvented an online magazine called Aspire, started Inspired Living Publishing to offer writers a chance to be published for free, put out her first book, and brought it to bestseller status on Amazon — in less than nine months, it was the “#1 hot new release” in self-esteem and in spirituality.
“Hey, I’m a former welfare mom who dropped out of high school,” said Joy dryly. “Your past does not define you! We can all live a life of joy no matter what comes at you if we release the past, labels and constant negative self talk.”
Joy feels passionately that everyone has an important story to tell and is collecting essays for her second book, due out this fall. Stories of overcoming adversity are her specialty – from those who would have never dreamed of seeing their words in print. “We never know how one person’s story will impact another,” said Joy. “It is what keeps me going.”
One of my favorite stories in the book was written by Sue Landis, who had a very successful life as a career business woman in London and decided to take a 180-degree turn in her mid-thirties. Always dreaming of becoming a professional athlete, she explored various options and decided to become a professional polo player — even though she had never played the game! In one short year, she not only mastered the sport but assembled a top-notch team that won a national championship.
How have you been longing to create a juicy, joyful life? In preparation for the New Year, use this time to open up the cedar trunk of dreams; shake a few out and try them on. Go on — no one will know! What is your heart’s desire? What have you always wanted to create, become, achieve? How does it feel to take a single baby step in the shoes of dreams? Do you still believe in miracles, in magic — in Santa? When we lose our ability to give ourselves an outrageously tantalizing vision, life becomes dull, stressful and frustrating.
I asked Joy how for recommendations on how to get our cranky, depressed selves into some of this inspirational frame of mind for the coming New Year. Below is her visualization exercise just for the HuffPost community. Come on, let’s do this together: make space to talk to your inner wisdom.
First find a quiet place, and light an intention candle. Ask your deepest self, “When I look at 2010 as a successful year, what made is successful?”
After that, follow up with, “When I look at the parts of 2010 that were not as successful, what would I have changed?” Notice your reaction to both questions. The assumption began that 2010 was a successful year — did it change your retrieval process?
Now, look forward into 2011. Ask yourself the following question: “If I could envision the year I’d like to create, what is the first thing that comes to mind?”
Be sure to pay attention to the very first flicker of an image or voice that arrives in your consciousness, as that is usually a divining rod to the soul, and the answer to follow. Maybe it is an unexpected answer, like more time with the spouse, or learning how to dance.
Once this image has come to mind, thank yourself for the recognition. So often our lives are filled with the “woulds” and “shoulds” of life, so the inner voices of destiny rarely are given the microphone and center stage. Acknowledge whatever vision has come to mind, and let it make you smile!
The final step is about Intention. Ask yourself, “What are two steps that I will commit to take around this thought in the month of January?”
Again, nothing radical; just two simple steps. Close the visualization with words of gratitude for this burgeoning intention, and blow out your candle. That’s it!
Everyone needs a lemonade maker in their life. Do you have one? Who inspires you to reach higher, live outrageously and shake you out of your recession depression? Be sure to send them words of gratitude, and make this week a juicy one as we close the decade together. Tell me your dreams for 2011 in comment in the box below.
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If you would ilke a notice to find these weekly posts, please click on “Become a Fan” at the top of the page.
I look forward to sharing the launch of my new company, Gather Central, on Jan. 1, and offering my “Virtual Cafe” of engaging community conversations with many authors and experts I have had the privilege to meet over the years. No boring lectures here! Expect to receive gifts, share powerful experiences with others around the world and get involved. Your voice matters, and we want to hear your story!

Follow Kari Henley on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/karihenley

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

A patriot other than Tom Brady was making news last week. Dec. 18 marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s great poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” and both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times weighed in on Revere’s place, and the poem’s place, in history.
John J. Miller, in the Journal, relates how Longfellow’s poem transformed Revere from a footnote in history to a hero of the American Revolution. You surely remember the poem’s opening lines, its rhythms like a horse’s hoof beats:
Listen, my, children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
And the line “One, if by land, and two, if by sea” is burned into the American consciousness.
Well, as is often the case with historical literature, it turns out that Longfellow sacrificed historical accuracy for effect. The Journal interviewed David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University, who lambasted Longfellow as “grossly, systematically, and deliberately inaccurate.” And he’s right. In reality, Revere didn’t succeed in sounding much alarm. He was rowed across the Charles River by two other (apparently more hard-working) men, failed to see a signal lantern, and was promptly apprehended by a British patrol.
Revere went on to fight for American independence, but he was accused of cowardice by an American general named Peleg Wadsworth, the maternal grandfather, if you can believe it, of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. As the Journal points out, Peleg surely would not have been pleased with his grandson’s rewriting of history.
Also on Dec. 18, Jill Lepore wrote a terrific op-ed piece on “Paul Revere’s Ride” for The New York Times, shining light on some forgotten history behind the poem. Lepore notes that Longfellow was a passionate abolitionist. Longfellow went so far as to publish a book entitled “Poems on Slavery,” and used proceeds from his poetry to buy freedom for slaves. Lepore argues that “Paul Revere’s Ride,” written on the brink of secession and civil war, is more a call to arms against contemporary injustices than an attempt to commemorate a historic moment. When it appeared in The Atlantic, it was read as a rallying cry for the Union. Note how the poem ends with a call to action.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, —
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
The British weren’t coming in 1861, but war certainly was. And Longfellow, it appears, was anxious to fight it.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Are you stuck with the unwelcome task of shoveling snow? I’ve got your back! Snow is pretty heavy, especially the really wet stuff. If you haven’t been hitting the gym regularly or training for snow shoveling as your sport of choice, you may be waking up with some aches and pains.
Here are a few tips to dig yourself out a little more safely.
1. Avoid holding your breath
Optimize the function of your respiratory system and utilize the more efficient aerobic mechanism for supplying your muscles with energy. In addition, you may get lightheaded or feel a headache coming on if you hold your breath.
2. Bend from your hips and knees, NOT your back
Just as when you do a squat, ski, or even sit back into a chair, lean your upper body forward from your hips and knees while you balance your weight over your feet by leading and reaching back with your butt. Practice by doing squats to a chair without allowing your rear end to touch the chair.
3. Maintain a neutral spine
That means neither bending nor arching away from your midrange comfort zone. For some, neutral is a flattened low back, for others a very mild arch, but it is never the rounded back you will see when you observe some people shoveling.
To maintain neutral you will have to engage your abdominal and low back muscles, working the low back extensors most as you bend, to stabilize your low back and keep it from rounding. Emphasize (contract) your abdominals as you reach and rise. The heavier the load you are shoveling, the harder your muscles should work to keep your spine in neutral.
4. Avoid reaching too far
Shovel the snow close to you – the more outstretched your arms are when you lift, the heavier the snow effectively becomes, placing a greater strain on your low back. To understand this better, imagine playing on a see-saw when you were a kid. The farther you sat from the center axis, the “heavier” you became and you could keep your friend on the other end up in the air at will!
5. Lift from your legs
Just as when you lift a heavy box from the floor, rise from your knees and hips to avoid overdoing the effort on your arms and back.
6.Consider wearing an abdominal belt
Some studies have shown that wearing a belt for heavy lifting activities raises intra-muscular pressure of the back muscles (erector spinae) and in doing so helps to stabilize the low back (lumbar spine) during lifting exertions.
7. Pivot to avoid excess twisting of your trunk
Just as with a golf swing, allow your hips to move with your shoulders so that you require less rotation of your spine. For example, a right-handed golfer pivots over his right foot during his swing and follow-through while his left foot remains firmly in contact with the ground. When you are moving the snow from here to there, pivot over your back foot while turning your trunk toward the opposite side.
8. If the snowfall was a big one, lift and move it in layers to limit the weight
You don’t have to dig all the way down to the sidewalk with each maneuver.
9. Take rest breaks and be sure to stay hydrated
You may not realize how much you are actually exerting when you shovel snow. Drink before you get thirsty to avoid dehydration and rest to stay strong and refreshed.
10. Buy a snowblower, hire the kid next door, or move to California!
11. A final caution
Delegate the shoveling if you have a cardiac history, a significant history of low back problems, or are suffering from a shoulder or knee injury.
Follow Abby’s fitness/wellness tips on Twitter @abcsims & read more about her work at www.RecoveryPT.com.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When the west wind blows hard across the prairies, its power can be seen in swirling leaves and bending trees.
Here in Illinois, we’re harnessing more of that power every day, with 25 wind farms – from one-turbine to utility-scale projects – capturing the energy of the wind and converting it into electricity.
But we are facing a major obstacle in our push to build more and better wind farms and create clean energy jobs in Illinois and across the country. Because while we have the technology to generate a large proportion of America’s electricity from wind power and solar energy, we don’t yet have the infrastructure to store it or transmit it. That’s an enormous problem – and one that can undermine our country’s progress toward energy security, carbon reduction and job creation.
Here in America, we already have vast resources for “grow-your-own” renewable energy. The potential of land-based wind power is estimated at more than 8,000 gigawatts, and solar cells could generate far more. (To put those numbers in perspective, ComEd’s all-time record demand for northern Illinois was just over 23 gigawatts, set on Aug. 3, 2006.)
But all that potential energy generation does us little good if we can’t save that electricity for use at the times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, and if we can’t send it from the rural areas where it’s created to the cities where it’s needed the most. And that will require major investment in the electric grid – the outdated, barely adequate system that moves electric power from generating stations to consumers nationwide.
As the director of the Argonne National Laboratory, I understand the great fiscal challenges facing our government. But I also know that a substantial American investment in clean energy generation, storage and transmission today could yield enormous returns for generations to come.
Recently, the American Physical Society – the nation’s leading physics association – tackled this critical issue in a new report from its Panel on Public Affairs, Integrating Renewable Electricity on the Grid. The report from the panel, which is co-chaired by George Crabtree, a Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow at Argonne, makes some fundamental recommendations:
The United States must develop an overall strategy for energy storage at every level – from car batteries to the national grid.
We must create new, more powerful technology for long-distance transmission of renewable electricity, to balance rural supply and urban demand, and to integrate wind- and solar-generated electricity into the grid.
The APS also recommends a thorough review of the technological potential for a range of battery chemistries and a significant increase in R&D in basic electrochemistry. Achieving these goals would be great news, for our nation and for Illinois.
At Argonne, we have been working for decades to build new electrical energy storage systems and improve our nation’s energy security. As a Department of Energy laboratory, we are committed to keeping the United States in the forefront of energy storage technology. Our lithium-ion battery technology powers electric cars, and our advanced materials research promises to create new electrochemical storage systems to light, heat and cool large buildings, industrial sites and even small cities.
With adequate resources, Argonne and other laboratories like ours could speed the pace of innovation and help to bring America’s electric grid into the 21st century. Working in collaboration with universities and private industry, we can assemble “dream teams” that can keep our country in the forefront of energy technology.
Right now, America’s aging power grid resembles the patchwork of narrow, winding, badly maintained highways of the 1920s and 1930s. Without the vision – and substantial public investment – that led to the nationwide Interstate Highway System, it would have been impossible for trucks to move large quantities of goods swiftly, safely and affordably to American cities and towns from coast to coast.
Today, we need to make the same kind of long-term, strategic investment in our power grid, making it possible to capture and store wind- and solar-generated energy and transmit it quickly and efficiently to businesses, manufacturers, and consumers nationwide.
The stakes are huge, for our nation and for Illinois. According to a new study by the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago, there are more than 100 Illinois companies – with a total of 15,000 employees – working in the wind power supply chain. The study estimates that every megawatt of power developed creates 17 new manufacturing jobs.
President Eisenhower’s investment in the Interstate Highway System, which created a 20th century infrastructure for 20th century transportation, has yielded extraordinary dividends for our country and our economy. It’s time to build a 21st century electricity grid to transmit and store the clean, renewable power America needs to remain competitive in this century.

Follow Eric D. Isaacs on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/argonne

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The most ringing phrase in all of American history is Thomas Jefferson’s bold statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Translating that aspiration into law has been a challenge. At the time the Constitution was adopted, most Americans did not have equal rights under the law. But over the course of 220 years, we have struggled, in fits and starts, to make that aspiration a reality.
America’s most profound achievement in this quest was of course the abolition of African slavery, which was attained only after a bitter and bloody Civil War that cost the lives of more than 600,000 Americans. Another fundamental milestone was the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which for the first time guaranteed women the right to vote.
But despite these and other achievements, at the end of World War II the United States was still basically a white, male, Protestant society. Every president in American history had been a white male Protestant. Every justice of the Supreme Court had been a white male. The United States Senate in 1945 was made up of 98 white males. Only one woman (Frances Perkins) and no African-American, Hispanic-American or Asian-American had ever served in a president’s cabinet.
In 1945, racial segregation was rampant, women were once again (after the War) relegated to the kitchen, Jews often felt the need to change their names (an early version of don’t ask, don’t tell) in an effort to avoid religious discrimination, Japanese-Americans were struggling to put their devastated lives back together after finally being released from American internment camps, and gays were buried so deep in the closet that most people were certain they had never met one.
In the sixty-five years since the end of World War II, however, we have made significant strides. Here is an illustrative timeline of our progress:
1948: President Harry Truman orders the desegregation of the armed forces.
1954: The Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation is “inherently” unequal and therefore unconstitutional.
1959: Hiram Fong is elected as the nation’s first Asian-American senator.
1960: John F. Kennedy is elected as the nation’s first Catholic president.
1964: Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, religion or gender.
1966: Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert Weaver as the nation’s first African-American cabinet secretary.
1967: The Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia that laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional.
1967: Lyndon Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall as the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court justice.
1968: Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibits racial and religious discrimination in housing.
1970: The Supreme Court holds for the first time that a law that discriminating against women violates the Equal Protection Clause.
1973: Richard Nixon appoints Henry Kissinger as the nation’s first Jewish secretary of state.
1981: Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O’Connor as the nation’s first woman Supreme Court justice.
1982: Gerry Studds is elected the nation’s first openly-gay member of Congress.
1984: The Democrats nominate Geraldine Ferraro as the nation’s first woman vice-presidential candidate of a major political party.
1988: George H.W. Bush appoints Lauro F. Cavazos as the nation’s first Hispanic-American cabinet member.
1990: Congress enacts the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.
1993: The Hawaii Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
1997: Bill Clinton appoints Madeline Albright as the nation’s first woman secretary of state.
2000: Bill Clinton appoints Norman Mineta as the nation’s first Asian-American cabinet member.
2000: The Democrats nominate Joseph Lieberman as the nation’s first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major political party.
2001: George W. Bush appoints Colin Powell as the nation’s first African-American secretary of state.
2003: The Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that the government cannot constitutionally punish gays and lesbians for engaging in same-sex sex.
2007: Keith Ellison is elected as the nation’s first Muslim member of Congress.
2008: Barack Obama is elected as the nation’s first African-American president.
2009: Barack Obama appoints Sonia Sotomayor as the nation’s first Hispanic-American Supreme Court justice.
2010: Congress enacts legislation allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces.
This is an admirable record of progress, and we should be proud as a nation of how far we have come. This is not to say, however, that there have not been setbacks. The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment and the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act are notable examples. But despite the regressive forces of intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry, Americans have a way of returning to what Lincoln described as “the better angels of our nature.”
None of this comes easy. Almost every step forward has been the result of a small but determined group of far-sighted Americans who see injustice when others do not, and who then work tirelessly and often courageously to help others see the light. If we do not lose heart and continue to push forward despite the forces of “tradition,” fear and prejudice, then we may someday see a woman president, an openly-gay Supreme Court justice, and a Muslim secretary of state. This is, after all, America’s promise.

This Blogger’s Books from
War and Liberty: An American Dilemma: 1790 to the Present
by Geoffrey R. Stone
Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism
by Geoffrey R. Stone

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

This is an on-going dialogue about living your best life after 50. Please join me, and other Huffington Post readers, in discussing and debating the issues that are important to us.
Right this very second, in my head I’m screaming at the top of my lungs: “Put down the newspapers! Turn off the computer! Switch off the TV and radio! Stick your fingers in your ears and sing as loudly as you can to drown out the noise!”
Why? This week, the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, came out with its latest study about baby boomers. I have never been too anxious about aging — until I scanned the report.
While reading it, I felt my shoulders sinking lower and lower, my head started to ache and my heart seemed to grow heavier by the second. This visceral reaction wasn’t because I was buying into what they were reporting. Far from it. It was because I knew that the media would have a full-blown field day with the findings, and the only thing that people, especially those over 50, would get from it would be that we are depressed, anxious, in a funk, glum and gloomy.
Right on cue, news outlets reported the findings of the study, and each one I read or heard made sure to play up the gloom and doom aspects of the findings.
After reading the study, though, I was encouraged:
61 percent of Boomers say that they feel younger than their actual age.
Most are generally accepting and tolerant of social change.
Over 50 percent of Boomers use social networks, which is a more rapid rate of growth than for younger generations.
75 percent follow the news most or all of the time.
43 percent say they are strong members of their religion.
This doesn’t sound like a group of people who are ready to throw in the towel just yet.
What did cause me to get a little anxious, though, was this: according to the study, “Fully 80% say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country today.” This feeling of “being out of control” might be one of the reasons why so many people who participated in the survey came across as glum. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
What happened to the generation of activists who changed the status quo, helped shape the world and fought for the rights of women and minorities? If we’re not happy about the way things are, then we need to dig deep down and find that anger and sense of injustice and do something about it. Get involved. Vote. Rediscover the activist in yourself. If you see a problem, be part of the solution. We were the leaders of change for decades. We can lead again.
There certainly are enough of us to have a huge impact. And, it’s growing. Every seven seconds, someone in this country turns 50.
According to the Pew Research survey, “The 79 million member Baby Boomer generation accounts for 26% of the total U.S. population. By force of numbers alone, they almost certainly will redefine old age in America, just as they’ve made their mark on teen culture, young adult life, and middle age.”
It should be noted that of the 79 million, only 1,500 were consulted for this study. A good sample size, yes, but, as with all studies, we need to analyze the findings with a grain of salt.
We are a huge and very powerful political, social and economic force. We are also aware of the economic realities and how they specifically affect us, including the fallout from the recession, and the job market, and all of this could absolutely cause one to be anxious and lose hope. But it could also make you take action. It’s a choice.
In this youth-centric world in which we live, it is often hard not to feel as though we’ve lost control. Far too often, society tells us that we should move over and be invisible because we don’t have anything left to offer. Ignore it. Every day, I meet men and women on Facebook, and when I lecture, who are reinventing themselves, starting new careers, running marathons, taking up new hobbies, volunteering, creating new ways to earn money, staying engaged and connected. Right here on The Huffington Post there are wonderful, inspiring articles about people over 50 who are aging gracefully and with spirit. These people are not glum, gloomy or anxious. Concerned? Yes, but they continue to help shape our world in some very meaningful and important ways.
When I turned 50 a few years ago (I’m celebrating my 54th birthday this week), I was confused about aging, because I wasn’t ready for it. It sneaked up on me so quickly that I was ready to do anything to hold onto my youth. Instead of running away from it, or trying to pretend to be, or look, younger, I made a life-changing decision: I embraced my age and decided to be the best I could be, at whatever age I was. That meant getting and staying fit, engaged, connected and enthusiastic about the world in which I live.
To help me with the many changes in my life after I turned 50, I researched and wrote “The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money and More,” a resource book for all of us. The information I gathered from some of the world’s leading experts continues to guide me and keep me focused on my present, and my future.
Singer Melissa Etheridge says, in “Daring to Be Ourselves,” We are getting older, and we are getting wiser, and we are getting freer. And when you get the wisdom and the truth, then you get the freedom and you get power, and then look out. Look out.”
My message is simple: Do not let this new research shape your view of aging, of yourself, your life, your opportunities, and what is ahead. We are the biggest generation in history, with a big responsibility: to show future generations how to age with grace, dignity and courage. This could be our legacy, and our gift.
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Staying connected is a powerful tool: Join me on Facebook, and connect with me on Twitter!

This Blogger’s Books from
The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money, and More
by Barbara Hannah Grufferman

Follow Barbara Hannah Grufferman on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/BGrufferman

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.
–Author unknown
Like 44 percent of the population, I will make New Year’s resolutions this year, and I’m starting to think about them already. As we celebrate Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas — holidays all accompanied by special foods and big meals, often with more cheese and sweets than I ingest in January through October combined — I know that one of my resolutions is going to be to get back into a regular exercise regimen.
I know you already know that you should exercise. But I also know that I should exercise, and I often don’t. Whenever I need some additional motivation to get off the couch and into a pair of sweatpants (and then out the door once I’m in those cozy sweatpants), I think about the research behind the benefits of exercise — for our health, for our happiness and, yes, for our children.
Of course exercise keeps us physically healthy, and this alone makes it worthy of our time. But my main interest in exercise lies not in its benefits for my heart or waistline. Instead, I’m after its benefits for my mind and mood. For example:
Research shows that by exercising, older people cut their risk for general dementia in half, and their risk for Alzheimer’s by 60 percent.
Exercise is one of the best ways we know of to cope with the pressures and anxieties of modern life; it slows the physical and mental toll that stress can take on our bodies.
Happiness expert Sonja Lybermirsky says exercise “may very well be the most effective instant happiness booster of all activities.”
A Duke University study found exercise to be generally as effective as drugs for treating depression.
Even if you aren’t depressed or stressed, exercise is a happiness must-have.
Exercise Isn’t Just for Adults
This year, I’m also going to encourage my kids to make exercise goals. I’ve always thought of my daughters as the smart, artsy types — kids who’d rather stay in and read or paint than, say, play volleyball.
But I of all people should know that pigeonholing my kids out of being athletic could be damaging to them for several reasons. (I believe I’ve referred to them recently as “clover-pickers” on the athletic field because they don’t seem to try very hard — yikes.)
In truth, my kids love to be active physically. They could scramble around the local park for hours, they love their scooters, play a mean game of four-square, and they genuinely look forward to P.E. (obviously, their teacher is doing something different from the P.E. teachers of my childhood). So why don’t I see them as athletes?
The fact is that athletics and intellectual prowess — and even creativity — go hand and hand. Evidence from the research world is in:
Increasing kids’ physical activity has positive influences on their concentration, memory and classroom behavior.
Having kids move around — not even breaking a sweat — can enhance their intelligence, creativity, concentration and their planning skills.
And here is the kicker: Increased exercise (and resulting higher levels of aerobic fitness) seems to increase kids’ academic performance, standardized test scores and even grades.
Here’s how it works. Exercise affects the brain by building neural connections in the parts of the brain responsible for memory and “executive function,” the brain regions that help kids plan and direct their action. They need this in school to control their impulses, organize their homework, and then, of course, to get their work done.
Truly, I had no idea that there was such a strong relationship between a person’s physical fitness and their I.Q. Why in the world do we assume jocks are dumb? This college admissions myth has trickled down to our elementary and high school kids, and it isn’t doing them any favors.
Making It Happen
How much exercise do kids need? Less than you’d think. They appear to benefit from even small bursts of physical activity. On the one hand, overweight kids in one study needed at least 40 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week to see improvements in their ability to plan (which requires improved executive function). On the other hand, studies show cognitive benefits from just 10 minutes of jumping around and clapping.
And for me, the cheese-and-chocolate-eating parent? Again, I don’t need to do much exercise to reap the brain and mood benefits. I’ll be adding a daily 20- to 30-minute walk to my lunchtime routine and calling it a day. Of course, I would benefit even more from a weekly strength-training regime, but I believe deeply in starting small. I’d rather make slow but long-lasting progress than have an ambitious failure.
To really boost my mood, I’ll take my walk outside where there are a lot of trees, because research shows that green exercise–”activity in the presence of nature”–packs the biggest punch to our self-esteem and mental health. If I’m really needing a happiness picker-upper, I’ll get myself to the waterfront, because the same study shows that the presence of water generates the largest effects.
I find my daily walks to be more restful than the strenuous running or biking I thought I needed to call an activity “exercise.” An overwhelming amount of evidence shows we need rest more than we need more activities and busyness and lessons. And sometimes that break in the action is actually… physical activity!
The same is true for our kids. More schoolwork, more studying: Here is a case where more is not better. Even when increasing kids’ physical activity means that they spend less time in the classroom, their intelligence and school performance improves. All this goes to show that we need to just send our kids outside to play more often — and that we should go with them!
***
References:
Ayan, Steve, “Smart Jocks: When kids exercise, they boost brainpower as well as brawn,”
Scientific American Mind, September/October 2010, pp. 43-47.
Barton, Jo and Jules Pretty, 2010, “What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 3947-3955.
Blumenthal, James, Michael Babyak, Murali Doraiswamy, Lana Watkins, Benson Hoffman, Krista Barbour, Steve Herman, Edward Craighead, Alisha Brosse, Robert Waugh, Alan Hinderliter, Andrew Sherwood, 2007. “Exercise and Pharmacotherapy in the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder,” Psychosomatic Medicine; 69:587-596.
Chaddock, Laura, Kirk I. Erickson, Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, Matt VanPatter, Michelle W. Voss, Matthew B. Pontifex, Lauren B. Raine, Charles H. Hillman, Arthur F. Kramer, 2010, “Basal Ganglia Volume Is Associated with Aerobic Fitness in Preadolescent Children,” Dev Neurosci;32:249-256.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja, 2008. The How of Happiness (Penguin: New York).
Medina, John, 2009. Brain Rules (Seattle: Pear Press).
Tomporowski, Phillip D., Catherine L. Davis, Patricia H. Miller, and Jack A. Naglieri, 2008, “Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement,” Educ Psychol Rev. June 1; 20(2): 111-131.
Franois Trudeau and Roy J Shephard, 2008, “Physical education, school physical activity, school sports and academic performance,” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 5:10.
***
Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.
Become a fan of “Raising Happiness” on Facebook, sign up for the “Raising Happiness” class, listen to the “Happiness Matters” podcast and get the “Raising Happiness” newsletter.
2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Follow Christine Carter, PhD on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/raisinghappines

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

It’s that time of year when we reflect on the past and plan for the future, and that means resolving to change those habits or circumstances that we’ve been unhappy with. For many of us, it also means making the same resolutions we’ve made — and haven’t fulfilled — year after year. Even though we all desire, or even need, to make changes in our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, many of us are resistant to letting go of old habits. When we make New Year’s resolutions we often have unrealistic ideas of how to overcome and stop these resistances from sabotaging our resolve to change. Then, once again, we find ourselves frustrated and unable to move forward. Instead of fighting and struggling with resistance, learn to embrace and work with it so that you can finally break its hold on you. Here are a couple of steps to help you achieve success in 2011 with your resolutions, from my book “Wise Mind, Open Mind”:
Step One: Acknowledge and Understand Your Resistance
The first step in embracing your resistance is to identify what it is and whther you have any hidden ones. I give readers different exercises to help them with this. Once you have acknowledged them, the metaphor I like to use is to “mulch your resistances” as opposed to overcoming them. There is an ancient Buddhist story of two farmers living next to each other. One farmer takes all of his horse manure and keeps throwing it over the fence into the other farmer’s yard. About six months later, he notices that the other farmer’s tomatoes are gigantic, his pumpkins are huge, his corn is green and his front yard is filled with tall grass. I don’t believe that we can ever get rid of certain resistances or emotions, so instead it is important to work with mulching them.
Step Two: Learn the Payoffs to Your Resistance
The next step is to understand the payoffs of resistance, as these are what are holding you back from moving forward. Here are five basic ones:
By resisting change, we can avoid the unknown. What’s familiar may not be terribly comfortable, but sometimes it seems that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. We fear that venturing into the unknown will cause us to discover painful secrets about the world and ourselves that have been hidden from us.
We can avoid being judged as “strange.” When parents are frightened by their child’s differentness, labeling him as “strange,” they’ll usually try to stifle his creativity. The child, sensing their disapproval and fearing abandonment, can shut down his creative flow and then either tries to conform to his parents’ expectations or acts out, claiming not to care what anyone thinks of him.
Another payoff is that we can avoid failure. When we fear failure, we tend to overestimate the risk we’re taking and imagine the worst possible scenario — the emotional equivalent of our parents deserting us as children.
We can avoid success. Strange though it may seem, a fear of success can cause as much resistance to change as a fear of failure can. While you may consciously long for a promotion or hope that your romantic relationship will result in marriage, unconsciously you may be afraid of what will happen if these changes occur.
Finally, we can avoid feeling guilty. If we take a risk and make a change, we may feel guilty because we’re contradicting what others think we should or shouldn’t be doing with our lives.
This New Year is a time of rebirth following so many months of pain and difficulty during these harsh economic times. This is the year that we can rise from the ashes of our pain and turn them into healthy, vibrant, creative mulch, and for people to reinvent themselves by transforming their breakdowns into breakthroughs. But making real outer change begins first with an internal journey, and mindfulness is a powerful tool to help you navigate the inner recesses of your mind and psyche.
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This Blogger’s Books from
Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose & Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss & Change
by Ronald A. Alexander

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In the life of a reader–and by a reader I mean someone who has always read for pleasure–it is doubtful that any books have as much impact, in the end, as the ones we read as children. Though my memories of their plots and characters are foggy, the stunningly illustrated hardcover books by E. Nesbit that graced the shelves in my neighborhood library in Queens–The Enchanted Castle, The Bastables–contributed in some essential way to the person I was to become; and to this day I am heartbroken that soon after my family moved, the library sold these exquisite books for $2 each in their annual booksale in order to make room for more DVDs and books by R.L. Stine. (“No one reads E. Nesbit anymore,” a friend said to me in defense of the library, and that is probably true–how can anyone read E. Nesbit if she has vanished from the libraries?)
The dreamlike memories I have of those foundational, mythically important books resurfaced when I first began A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book. The first 50 or so pages of the book were almost like therapy, transporting me back to the magic I thought had been irretrievably lost with childhood, and to the feelings associated with it–but this time, from an adult perspective, and with an awareness of the dark currents tugging just beneath the surface.
The story opens in a charming setting that evokes E. Nesbit’s books, and for a reason: much of the story revolves around the Edwardian children’s writer Olive Wellwood, a character very much inspired by E. Nesbit herself. The children, for whom the book is literally and ironically and metaphorically titled (that’s A.S. Byatt for you) are running wild in a paradise of a home with generous parents, a forest at their doorstep, and the freedom to imagine and create. We see this bountiful home through the eyes of Phillip, a homeless young pauper that the Wellwoods have taken in, on charitable impulse.
The kindness of the adults at the start of the book, in so readily opening their home to young Phillip and becoming concerned for his welfare, is in keeping with the atmosphere of a children’s book that pervades this novel’s beginning. Here people are kind, the woods are mysterious and inviting, and the end of each day is resolved with a warm bath and dinner with interested, intelligent parents. It seems altogether too innocent and childlike to be a Byatt novel, unless you notice the hints at the beginning that all is not quite as it seems. Even when Phillip is being bathed at the beginning by Olive’s capable sister Violet–who seems to embody the sort of selfless, bustling figure that children often find comforting–there is a subtle tremor of something being “off,” an undercurrent. A puppet show of Cinderella is dark and violent as Grimm’s fairy tale, mutilations and all. Political altercations hint at a threat to the security of Todefright, their fancifully named home, due to the social activism of Humphry Wellwood, Olive’s husband.
But these are truly only hints, and so while it is not entirely surprising when the book veers away from idyllic innocence and full-on into Byatt’s more accustomed territory–erotic secrets, twisted relationships, abuse–it is like a dash of cold water that leaves the reader gasping. There is a real sense of loss, for the reader as well as for the characters who are experiencing it. And there is also a thrill, that perverse thrill of a child listening at the door and hearing too much. We suspected the adults were fallible, that bad things lived in the dark. Now we know it for certain.
The Children’s Book is much more than the story of one family. Focusing on various, interlinking families, the book is an epic of England at the turn of the twentieth century, depicting the intense struggles of that time regarding economic disparities, international politics, and women’s suffrage, and culminating–as of course it must–with the apocalypse of the first World War.
One of the most potent themes of this book–which otherwise has many, many themes–is the dark and even destructive heart of creativity. Most of the artists such as Olive, the author Herbert Methley, and the potter Benedict Fludd, make use of other people, even destroy them, for the sake of their art. Of these, Olive is seemingly the most benign, and the most subtle, yet her actions have the most catastrophic consequences.
Olive writes a continuous story for each of her children, though it’s clear that she does this as much for herself as for them, to feed her addiction to writing stories. In fact, Olive’s only real maternal attachment is to her son Tom, and possibly to the youngest, Harry. Her relationship with Tom is all-encompassing for him, and his story, that of the hero “Tom Underground,” is the one she writes the most passionately.
Tom’s first contact with reality outside his home sends him into an emotional tailspin from which he never recovers. As the fictional “Tom Underground” journeys into dark places, makes discoveries, and conquers his fears, the real Tom retreats from reality, and from anything that might disturb his fragile equilibrium. The fictional Tom is on a quest for his shadow, which was stolen; that shadow is the real Tom, who refuses to be found.
The book is punctuated with stories written by Olive–bright children’s stories which cast dark shadows all along the length of the book, as their import becomes increasingly clear. “Words have their own life,” says a character in one of the stories–a quote characteristic of their luminous, mythic language–and for Olive, the boundary between words and life is particularly indistinct. In each of the stories recounted here, her most suppressed feelings and fears reveal themselves–and each prove to be prophetic in the most devastating of ways.
Olive’s story in this book is one thread in an intricate tapestry of stories, but perhaps the most interesting. The immense multiplicity of facets to this book are both awe-inspiring and a fatal flaw; stripped of much of its detail, some of the truly gem-like moments in the book would shine more brightly. Amid the lush descriptions of art exhibitions, puppet shows, and historical events, the most intriguing image of all might be an imaginary one: Olive’s image of herself walking “across the moor, in the wind, with the closed, calm parcel, containing the obscene things.” I would have happily read a novel that just followed this one woman in her journey across the moors–a woman whose true nature only emerges in her fiction for children, in ways unknown even to herself.

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This is the most recent development in an outrageous story that has been developing over the better part of this year, so, for those who need to be brought up to speed, here’s what’s going on in as small of a nutshell as I can put it:
There’s a fundamentalist ministry operating at the Air Force Academy called Cadets For Christ. This ministry is part of the “shepherding” movement, using cult-like tactics by which the cadets recruited by ministry leaders Don and Anna Warrick are separated from their families and anything else that might interfere with their brainwashing. In the shepherding movement, the female is the “sheep” and the male is the “shepherd,” and a woman’s sole purpose in life is to be a good wife and mother, subordinating herself to her male shepherd.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been contacted by a number of parents of Academy cadets who have fallen prey to the Warricks’ ministry, and one of these families has been brave enough to go public with their story.
Peter and Jean Baas, the parents of 2010 Academy graduate Lauren Baas, are now completely estranged from their daughter. Why? Because the Baas family is Catholic, and therefore, according to the Warricks, unsaved. While at the Academy, Lauren Baas, who entered the Academy with dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot, was prepared for what can only be described as an arranged marriage by the Warricks, and is now engaged to her shepherd. A woman, of course, is destined by God to be a good wife and mother and serve her shepherd, not be an Air Force pilot and serve her country.
Lest anyone think that the “sheep and shepherd” terminology might be an exaggeration, just take a look at Lauren Baas’s “Baa Baa Sisterhood” cookbook.
Part of the Baas family’s going public with their story was to write a “holiday letter” to the Warricks, with an introduction to Air Force Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould, to whom the letter was also sent. I urge everyone to read this letter, which can be found here. Reading the words of one of the families ripped apart by this Air Force Academy sanctioned ministry is the only way to even begin to fathom what the Warricks are doing to the cadets who fall under their influence.
Now, on to the latest development.
Last week, Jean Baas was contacted by the Air Force Academy’s head chaplain, Col. Robert Bruno, who informed her that the Academy had received 35 letters in support of Cadets for Christ, but only nine opposing the ministry. The nine letters opposing the ministry were not solicited, but presumably just sent by people who had read about what Cadets for Christ had done to the Baas family. Most of the 35 in support of the ministry, on the other hand, were solicited by Don Warrick in an Oct. 31 email, which began: “The Wing Chaplain at the Air Force Academy and our Board thought it would be helpful if we had on file at the Chaplain’s office letters from present and past cadets, parents, board members and other friends of Cadets for Christ.”
In a Sept. 28 letter to the Secretary of Defense, which was posted here on Huffington Post and elsewhere, MRFF had included quotes from some of Jean Baas’s emails to MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein, and demanded an investigation of Cadets for Christ. MRFF did not name the Baas family by name in that letter, but began publicly using their name shortly thereafter.
This led Anna Warrick to send the following email to the Cadets for Christ flock sometime in mid-October:
Apparently, by the end of October, the Warricks had realized that the “Mikey Weinstein situation” was not going to go away, and that they were going to need to start stockpiling some ammo, prompting Don Warrick to send out his Oct. 31 solicitation for letters of support, entitled “Want To Do A Favor For Cadets For Christ?,” which went to over a hundred people, about a quarter of them current Academy cadets. The flock was instructed to address their letters to Air Force Academy chaplain Lt. Col. J. Daniel Brantingham. A follow-up email was sent out by Warrick on November 9, thanking those who had already sent their letters to Lt. Col. Brantingham, and asking those who hadn’t already sent theirs to do so.
So, since the Air Force Academy has apparently decided to base its decision on whether or not to take proper action regarding Cadets for Christ on a “vote,” tallied by how many letters of support and how many letters of opposition it receives, I think it only proper for MRFF to solicit letters in the same way that Cadets for Christ is doing.
Therefore, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Baas family thought it would be helpful if we had on file at the Chaplain’s office letters from friends of the United States Constitution, religious freedom, and everyone who feels that the United States Air Force Academy should be encouraging women to aspire to something more than being subservient “sheep” to their male “shepherds,” in opposition of Cadets for Christ.
Emails should be addressed to:
USAFA Head Chaplain Col. Robert Bruno at robert.bruno@usafa.edu, Cadet Wing Chaplain Lt. Col. Dan Brantingham at james.brantingham@usafa.edu, and, just for good measure, USAFA Superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould at mike.gould@usafa.edu

This Blogger’s Books from
Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History Vol. 1
by Chris Rodda

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan died in New York City, at age 84, on December 25, 2010, with his partner and business associate, Nancy Beffa, by his side.
As the vice-president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, I had the honor of presenting Bud, during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, one of our awards, the Vikelas Plaque, for his contributions to Olympic History. As I said that day in Vancouver, it was I who felt honored to have the opportunity to express my appreciation to a man who inspired me by always emphasizing that for all the hoopla and marketing, sport is really about human beings trying to do their best.
Here is an updated version of the speech I gave that day.
Born in New York City September 18, 1926, Bud Greenspan covered the Olympic Games as a writer, radio broadcaster and filmmaker for more than six decades. His trademark was telling the intimate and often little-known story that is universally understood and appreciated. In the words of IOC President Jacques Rogge, Greenspan is “a master in the art of telling the story of the Olympic Games.”
In 1948, as the 21-year-old Sports Director of New York radio station WHN, Greenspan made his first Olympic “broadcast” from a pay telephone booth at Wembley stadium, the scene of the 1948 London Olympic Games. Four years later Greenspan wrote a story for Reader’s Digest about U.S. weightlifter John Davis, “The Strongest Man in the World”. Greenspan had met Davis at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where Greenspan was a “spear carrier” amongst the extras and Davis, a baritone, was aspiring to become part of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. Greenspan learned that Davis was not just a singer, but also the Olympic gold medal champion from 1948 and was going after his second gold medal in Helsinki in 1952. After his story was published, Greenspan followed Davis to Helsinki, resulting in production of his first film–the climax coming when Davis won his second gold medal.
Greenspan’s most monumental work was The Olympiad Series, which for the first time visually documented the history of the Olympic Games. First broadcast in 1976 as a 10-part series on the Public Broadcasting System in the United States, The Olympiad expanded to 22 one-hour shows and was aired in more than 80 countries around the world.
It took Bud Greenspan ten years; three million feet of rare, historic film; visits to more than 30 countries, and interviews with hundreds of past Olympic athletes to produce The Olympiad.
The Olympiad Series and the 1977 NBC movie-of-the-week film, Wilma, based on the life of sprinter Wilma Rudolph, paved the way for Greenspan’s next 30 years of documenting the Olympic Games. In 1984, despite having lost his beloved wife and partner in film, Cappy Petrash to cancer a year earlier, Greenspan and his company Cappy Productions produced the Official Film of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, a 5-hour documentary titled: 16 Days of Glory-Los Angeles.
After 1984 he produced nine more Official Summer and Winter Olympic films including those for the 1988 Calgary Olympic Winter Games, the 1994 Lillehammer Games, the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, the 1998 Nagano Games and those of Sydney 2000, Salt Lake City 2002, Athens 2004 and Torino 2006.
In addition to Official films, Greenspan produced more than 150 vignettes and retrospective films on the Olympic Games. For the 1996 Centennial, Greenspan was selected by the IOC to produce two films: 100 Years of Olympic Glory, a three-hour film exploring great international stories of the Olympic Games, and America’s Greatest Olympians, a two-hour documentary that chronicled the inspiring stories of U.S. Olympic athletes. Others Olympic-themed films have included: The First Miracle, the story of the 1960 USA Hockey Team, Bud Greenspan Remembers: The 1972 Munich Olympic Games, Bud Greenspan’s Favorite Stories of Winter Olympic Glory and Bud Greenspan’s Favorite Stories of Summer Olympics. When the IOC opened its museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, Greenspan was commissioned to create a 36-monitor Multi-Screen visual and musical tribute to the Olympic Games titled The Spirit of the Olympics that is still on permanent display in the front hall.
Greenspan was also a writer for newspapers and magazines, contributing Olympic stories to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, and Parade Magazine. He also published three Olympic books: Bud Greenspan’s 100 Greatest Moments in Olympic History (1995) ; Frozen In Time: Great Moments at the Winter Games (1997); and An Olympian’s Guide to Winning the Game of Life (1997), a compilation of great quotes from the hundreds of interviews he had conducted during his career. He was also the author of Play it Again, Bud! Sports History’s Most Bizarre Blunders in Instant Replay (1973) and We Wuz Robbed! (1976).
For his films, Greenspan was honored with numerous awards including seven Emmys, the George Foster Peabody Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, the International Fair Play Award, membership in the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and his proudest achievement, “The Olympic Order” that was presented to him in 1985 by former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch for his contribution to furthering the Olympic movement.
Greenspan’s dream was always to inspire future generations through his films. To help fulfill his dream, the United States Olympic Committee in 2007 endowed a scholarship in his honor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Thank you, Bud.

This Blogger’s Books from
Tyrants: The World’s 20 Worst Living Dictators
by David Wallechinsky
People’s Almanac Presents the Twentieth Century: History with the Boring Bits Left Out/Revised and Updated
by David Wallechinsky

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www.twitter.com/ALLGOV

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Eastern US braced for winter storm
A swathe of the US eastern seaboard is braced for an intensifying winter storm that is dumping heavy snow as it sweeps north.
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled and severe weather warnings are in place from Georgia to Vermont as temperatures continue to plummet.
Blizzards dropping up to 1ft (31cm) of snow are expected to hit New York and parts of New England.
South Carolina had its first Christmas snow since records began in 1887.
L/Cpl Bill Rhyne, of South Carolina Highway Patrol, said people were heading warnings to stay off the roads.
Transport officials in Washington DC deployed 200 salting lorries, snow ploughs and other equipment to tackle the expected 6in of snow expected across the Mid-Atlantic region.
Blizzard warnings were in effect for Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts including Boston. Forecasters predicted more than 1ft of snow from midday on Sunday until late afternoon.
Up to 18in of snow was predicted to fall on the New Jersey coast, with wind gusts of more than 40mph (64km/h).
Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina had declared states of emergency by early Sunday.
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell told The Weather Channel that snow driven by strong winds would make travel conditions hazardous.
“We're urging extreme caution in travel. Try to get home early and if you don't have to travel don't go,” he said.
As conditions worsened, Continental Airlines cancelled 250 flights from Newark Liberty International Airport outside New York City on Sunday.
United Airlines also cancelled dozens of Sunday flights from Newark, Philadelphia, New York's LaGuardia and JFK, Boston and other airports.
AirTran and Southwest Airlines also cancelled flights.
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Eight American tourists died and 21 were injured when their bus hit a stationary lorry in southern Egypt, say media and police.
The crash happened early on Sunday as the bus was travelling from Aswan to the ancient temple site of Abu Simbel, Egyptian news agency Mena reported.
The bus driver and a tour guide were also hurt.
The injured were taken to a military hospital where they were treated for fractures and cuts, Mena said.
The accident reportedly happened after a three-coach convoy had set off from Aswan to Abu Simbel.
One of the coaches struck a lorry laden with sand which had broken down and was parked at the side of the road.
Six of the dead were women, reported Mena and a police official.
The bus driver and a tour guide were also injured.
Four tourists were in critical condition, a police official said according to AFP news agency. The injured were taken to a military hospital in Aswan, and some of the wounded, he said, were to be airlifted to a hospital in Cairo that often treats injured tourists.
Passengers inside the other two coaches were unharmed.
Road accidents are common in Egypt due to poor roads and lax enforcement of traffic regulations. An estimated 8,000 people die in car accidents each year in the country.
Did you witness the crash? Send us your accounts using the form below.
In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location unless you state otherwise. But your contact details will never be published. When sending us pictures, video or eyewitness accounts at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

Source:BBC

In true Gemini form, Christopher is as serious as he is lighthearted, always needing to stand out from the crowd visually, but tastefully. On the one hand, he is calm, collected and classic, in his gold, silk Brooks Brothers suspenders, high-waisted khakis and spectacles. On the other hand, he is frenzied and emotional, pushing boundaries in his African multi-colored cap, floral tie used as a bow, and over-sized RetroSuperFuture frames. Keep reading below. This was originally posted on StyleLikeU.com
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Christopher was born in the Bronx and raised in Long Island. He is the designer for I Love Factory, alongside his partner Laurel St. Romain (closet to come). Christopher is also involved in PR and blogging.
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Christopher particularly loves the details that accessories provide, considering them to be self-defining, like the unusual combination of a rosary with an anchor that a friend gave him from Columbia. He sees it as symbolic of the hypocrisy represented by one’s need to fit into organized groups that preach “acceptance,” but lack free thinking. However, it is clear that rigid belief systems don’t affect him or his creative expression, as few men today could wear a wreath on their head with as much poise and confidence as Chris. The Roman reference is very inspiring, and I could see it adding a lot of personal character to a gray flannel suit. Christopher is attracted to wearing hats for their ability to stand out.
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That love, combined with his unusually deep, imaginative relationship with his business partner, Laurel St Romain (closet-to-come), gave birth to their company of one of a kind hats, Ilovefactorybk. One would look sedate in a breton tee, white boat sneakers and navy madras pants, however, Christopher makes it humorous, when he adds the ’50′s straw handbag (that June Cleaver would carry), flip top shades with tortoise chain and a skull necklace. With this outfit, the vintage straw hat combined with paisley is made timeless and modern, as only someone as earnest and visionary as Christopher, can do.
“I spun a globe and wherever my finger landed was where I was going to go. That is what really broke me out of my shell… I wanted it to be a mystery; I wanted to feel alone.” Christopher Garbushian
If you like Christopher, you may also enjoy Mark Hester, James Fils-Aime, and Shane Tison.

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