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Judge’s Ruling Clears Way For Class Action Litigation
By Al Norman
OAKLAND, CA. It must have seemed like a great plot line at the time.
On May 19, 2005, Wal-Mart and Netflix put out a press release announcing that the companies’ two online retail sites would “promote each other’s core business.” The deal was described as a “joint promotional agreement” which would allow each company to benefit from each other’s “complimentary expertise.”
The agreement was a non-compete deal which divided up the DVD market by drawing a bright line separating DVD rentals from sales, based on the companies’ strengths. Netflix would promote Wal-Mart’s sale of DVD movies, and Wal-Mart would promote Netflix’s DVD rental business. Neither company would intrude onto the other’s territory. According to their joint press release, the two companies agreed “to market one another’s key movie business at their respective websites.”
Wal-Mart agreed to stop its DVD rental service—which it did in June of 2005—and its rental customers would “be offered the option to become Netflix subscribers at their current Wal-Mart rate for one year from the date they sign up.” Wal-Mart also agreed to use its website, walmart.com, to promote and refer customers who wanted to rent DVDs to Netflix. To this day, walmart.com/movies does not rent DVDs.
In return, Netflix, which claims to have more than 16 million members, agreed to promote Wal-Mart’s online movie sales, including a pre-order price guarantee, which Netflix allowed to be accessed from its website, and promoted through mailers sent to Netflix subscribers. The pre-order price guarantee ensured customers the “lowest available price on pre-order movies,” according to the companies’ joint statement.
In response to this “agreement” between two of its rivals, Blockbuster advertised a special offer to Wal-Mart and Netflix DVD subscribers: if a Wal-Mart or a Netflix subscriber switched to Blockbuster’s online DVD rental service, the subscriber got two months of free service, a free DVD of their choice, and a freeze of their subscription rate for a year.
“We’ve experienced tremendous growth in our online movie sales,” said Wal-Mart’s chief marketing officer for the retailer’s website, “and are committed to enhancing our focus in this business at Walmart.com. We’re equally excited to team with Netflix, the pioneer of online movie rentals, which not only distinguishes both of our core online competencies, but offers a complementary solution of value, service, and convenience to customers.”
Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, added: “This agreement bolsters both Netflix’s leadership in DVD movie rentals and Wal-Mart’s strong movie sales business, while providing customers even more choices and convenience. Both companies will continue to expand their respective leads in providing the best in movie entertainment to millions of online customers.”
But for DVD rental subscribers, it was not apparent how this deal translated into “more choices and convenience.” Instead, it looked like a choice made for the convenience and profit of the retailers—not for consumers. The deal ended major competition in DVD sales and rentals. Netflix told its investors that it believed the agreement “would not materially impact the company’s current subscriber growth or financial performance.”
Netflix boasted that teaming up with Walmart.com would bolster the company’s competitive position, because the popularity of Walmart.com and the Web site’s traffic “offer an opportunity for increased awareness and referrals to the Netflix service.”
This week, the Netflix/Wal-Mart DVD deal was back in the headlines—but with a negative spin. A U.S. District Court Judge in Oakland, California ruled that a Netflix subscribers’ lawsuit brought in 2009 challenging the DVD agreement as monopolizing the market could proceed as a class action lawsuit. In an order dated Dec. 23rd, Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that the plaintiffs were “united by common and overlapping issues of fact and law.”
According to the lawsuit, the alleged conspiracy began when the chief executive of Netflix, met the CEO of Walmart.com for dinner in January 2005 to discuss how to push back competition in the DVD market in the U.S. At that time the Netflix and Wal-Mart website were competitors in online DVD rentals.
The lawsuit charges that Netflix and Wal-Mart colluded to divide the DVD market and reduce competition when they announced their “joint promotional agreement.” The lawsuit claims that this agreement was reached after main rival Blockbuster began challenging Netflix by renting DVDs online. Netflix’s agreement with the Arkansas-based retailer removed Wal-Mart as a rental competitor, and gave Netflix an advantage over Blockbuster by having Wal-Mart directing subscribers to Netflix.
Despite their market agreement with Netflix, Wal-Mart dropped hands with its partner when the lawsuit was filed. The giant retailer—no stranger to class action litigation—decided to settle with the plaintiffs, and reportedly will end up paying out $40 million to erase the claim. A hearing on the Wal-Mart motion will be held in early February. Netflix is not part of that settlement–it was a deal that Wal-Mart cut on its own
The Judge agreed that the Wal-Mart/Netflix alliance kept DVD rental prices higher than they would have been in a fully competitive marketplace. “As a result, millions of Netflix subscribers allegedly paid supracompetitive prices,” the Judge wrote.
At the time of the Wal-Mart/Netflix deal, Blockbuster had approximately 9,100 stores worldwide. That number today has fallen to 7,000 stores. In 5 years, Blockbuster has been forced to shut down 23% of its stores. Blockbuster now tells its shareholders “the Company is no longer just a chain of video stores….Blockbuster now offers convenient access to media entertainment any where and any way consumers want it – whether in stores, by mail, through vending / kiosks or digital download.”
Now that a judge has ruled the plaintiffs can form a class, Netflix may be forced either to appeal the decision, or face years of litigation. A company spokesman told the Associated Press, “The case has no merit and we’re going to continue to defend it.” At least Wal-Mart understands how this movie ends: it has learned to treat class action lawsuits as a loss-leader, settling dozens of them.
Netflix should download Wal-Mart’s script: settle the case, admit no wrong-doing, pay millions to the plaintiffs, and get back to its “core competency.”
Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters, and the author of the book “The Case Against Wal-Mart.” He can be reached at info@sprawl-busters.com

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Since writing “How can you defend Israel?” last month, I’ve been deluged by comments.
Some have been supportive, others harshly critical. The latter warrant closer examination.
The harsh criticism falls into two basic categories.
One is over the top.
It ranges from denying Israel’s very right to nationhood, to ascribing to Israel responsibility for every global malady, to peddling vague, or not so vague, anti-Semitic tropes.
There’s no point in dwelling at length on card-carrying members of these schools of thought. They’re living on another planet.
Israel is a fact. That fact has been confirmed by the UN, which, in 1947, recommended the creation of a Jewish state. The UN admitted Israel to membership in 1949. The combination of ancient and modern links between Israel and the Jewish people is almost unprecedented in history. And Israel has contributed its share, and then some, to advancing humankind.
If there are those on a legitimacy kick, let them examine the credentials of some others in the region, created by Western mapmakers eager to protect their own interests and ensure friendly leaders in power.
Or let them consider the basis for legitimacy of many countries worldwide created by invasion, occupation, and conquest. Israel’s case beats them by a mile.
And if there are people out there who don’t like all Jews, frankly, it’s their problem, not mine. Are there Jewish scoundrels? You bet. Are there Christian, Muslim, atheist, and agnostic scoundrels? No shortage. But are all members of any such community by definition scoundrels? Only if you’re an out-and-out bigot.
The other group of harsh critics assails Israeli policies, but generally tries to stop short of overt anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism. But many of these relentless critics, at the slightest opportunity, robotically repeat claims about Israel that are factually incorrect.
There are a couple of methodological threads that run through their analysis.
The first is called confirmation bias. This is the habit of favoring information that confirms what you believe, whether it’s true or not, and ignoring the rest.
While Israel engages in a full-throttled debate on policies and strategies, rights and wrongs, do Israel’s fiercest critics do the same? Hardly.
Can the chorus of critics admit, for example, that the UN recommended the creation of two states – one Jewish, the other Arab – and that the Jews accepted the proposal, while the Arabs did not and launched a war?
Can they acknowledge that wars inevitably create refugee populations and lead to border adjustments in favor of the (attacked) victors?
Can they recognize that, when the West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands until 1967, there was no move whatsoever toward Palestinian statehood?
Can they explain why Arafat launched a “second intifada” just as Israel and the U.S. were proposing a path-breaking two-state solution?
Or what the Hamas Charter says about the group’s goals?
Or what armed-to-the-teeth Hezbollah thinks of Israel’s right to exist?
Or how nuclear-weapons-aspiring Iran views Israel’s future?
Or why President Abbas rejected Prime Minister Olmert’s two-state plan, when the Palestinian chief negotiator himself admitted it would have given his side the equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank?
Or why Palestinian leaders refuse to recognize the Western Wall or Rachel’s Tomb as Jewish sites, while demanding recognition of Muslim holy sites?
Or why Israel is expected to have an Arab minority, but a state of Palestine is not expected to have any Jewish minority?
Can they admit that, when Arab leaders are prepared to pursue peace with Israel rather than wage war, the results have been treaties, as the experiences of Egypt and Jordan show?
And can they own up to the fact that when it comes to liberal and democratic values in the region, no country comes remotely close to Israel, whatever its flaws, in protecting these rights?
Apropos, how many other countries in the Middle East – or beyond – would have tried and convicted an ex-president? This was the case, just last week, with Moshe Katsav, sending the message that no one is above the law – in a process, it should be noted, presided over by an Israeli Arab justice.
And if the harsh critics can’t acknowledge any of these points, what’s the explanation? Does their antipathy for Israel – and resultant confirmation bias – blind them to anything that might puncture their airtight thinking?
Then there is the other malady. It’s called reverse causality, or switching cause and effect.
Take the case of Gaza.
These critics focus only on Israel’s alleged actions against Gaza, as if they were the cause of the problem. In reality, they are the opposite – the effect.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it gave local residents their first chance in history – I repeat, in history – to govern themselves.
Neighboring Israel had only one concern – security. It wanted to ensure that whatever emerged in Gaza would not endanger Israelis. In fact, the more prosperous, stable, and peaceful Gaza became, the better for everyone. Tragically, Israel’s worst fears were realized. Rather than focus on Gaza’s construction, its leaders – Hamas since 2007 – preferred to contemplate Israel’s destruction. Missiles and mortars came raining down on southern Israel. Israel’s critics, though, were silent. Only when Israel could no longer tolerate the terror did the critics awaken – to focus on Israel’s reaction, not Gaza’s provocative action.
Yet, what would any other nation have done in Israel’s position?
Just imagine terrorists in power in British Columbia – and Washington State’s cities and towns being the regular targets of deadly projectiles. How long would it take for the U.S. to go in and try to put a stop to the terror attacks, and what kind of force would be used?
Or consider the security barrier.
It didn’t exist for nearly 40 years. Then it was built by Israel in response to a wave of deadly attacks originating in the West Bank, with well over 1,000 Israeli fatalities (more than 40,000 Americans in proportional terms). Even so, Israel made clear that such barriers cannot only be erected, but also moved and ultimately dismantled.
Yet the outcry of Israel’s critics began not when Israelis were being killed in pizzerias, at Passover Seders, and on buses, but only when the barrier went up.
Another case of reverse causality – ignoring the cause entirely and focusing only on the effect, as if it were a stand-alone issue disconnected from anything else.
So, again, in answer to the question of my erstwhile British colleague, “How can you defend Israel?” I respond: Proudly.
In doing so, I am defending a liberal, democratic, and peace-seeking nation in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood, where liberalism, democracy, and peace are in woefully short supply.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The human mind is a kind of word and story machine. The mind encodes all experience in words and stories, pictures and images and sensory impressions.
Every single thought you have is a word creation. A projection. Every thought you have is a kind of story. A made-up story about how things are, or even more accurately, how you perceive things to be.
This fascinates me in part because I am a fiction writer and I just love stories and write them all the time. But it also fascinates me because it has everything to do with whether or not we are happy.
This spring, at my University, I will be teaching a brand new interdisciplinary class in Happiness. The class will include readings in philosophy, psychology, narrative theory, neuroscience, as well as a few novels, some poetry and short fiction.
One important thing we will be considering this spring: the notion that the stories we tell ourselves are critically important to how we feel about ourselves, and how healthy we are.
It stands to reason that If we tell ourselves depressing stories, and if we look at the world in a negative light, then chances are that the world around us will be depressing.
But if we flip the switch, and tell ourselves upbeat and positive stories (within reason of course), then we are likely to be happier and have more positive outcomes in our lives. If you doubt this, try reading some of the emerging literature on mindfulness and positive psychology.
In particular, pick up a copy of Martin Seligman’s book, Authentic Happiness, or even better, try reading ex-Harvard professor Tal Ben Shahar’s book, Happier (a very quick read, with exercises to boot.)
Meanwhile, you might want to try this little experiment; it might make you happier, or at least it is likely to give you some important perspective and crucial insight into one or more of the dramas that plague your life.
OK, so start by thinking about somebody you would like to kill.
Or at least, try thinking about somebody who makes you very very angry. Or very very resentful. Or very very sad and unhappy.
Think perhaps about a recent argument that you’ve had with this person. One of those screaming matches. Or, maybe one of those cold shoulder experiences, that bitter feeling when you would rather slit your throat than talk to the person who makes you angry.
Recall a situation, something that happened with this person that made you as angry as you could possibly be. Maybe you will even want to write down this story that lit your fury.
Now try this, if you can. Try to flip the story.
Try, just for a moment, to step into the shoes of THE OTHER PERSON, and try to tell the story from your opponent’s point of view. Try to, if you can, BE that other person who made you so murderously angry. Or be the person you resent. Or the mother or father who makes or made you or sad or whatever.
The important thing is to feel the situation, from the other point of view. Again, if you can do it, try writing it down.
Go over every moment of that last argument, but force yourself to do it in the eyes and ears and shoes and hat of that other person. Make sure to feel every bit of emotion that your antagonist feels. And especially, try to feel WHY that person feels what he or she feels.
If you do it, I promise you that you will not hate the person you hate quite as much as you did. Or at least, you will have a much better perspective. This exercise may give you insight into why they behave or feel toward you the way they do.
This is one of the exercises that we are going to do this upcoming semester in the Happiness class. We are going to “Flip the Script.” We are going to take some of our journal writing, writing in which we detail emotional pain, and we are going to fold it into fiction.
The idea is to get people out of telling the same old stories. The idea is to stop the endless rumination that traps us by creating new stories. The idea is to write fiction that transforms the energy of the pain and makes us moves forward. Ultimately the goal is to move somewhere more peaceful with some personal drama, a drama that holds us back from feelings of happiness.
So, how exactly will we write these fictions that flip the script?
I supervised three students in an independent study this past fall, a kind of test run for the Happiness class. The students started the semester by doing extensive journal exercises. Relying on James Pennebaker’s wonderful text, Opening Up, the students wrote regularly (at least three or four times a week) about situations in their lives that were emotionally troubling. (Pennebaker’s research documents extraordinary improvements in health when students keep journals in this fashion.)
We never discussed the details of these journal entries, as I was careful to keep the independent study from becoming a therapy session. At no point in the semester did the students ever discuss exactly what they were writing.
After a few weeks writing regularly in their journals, the students were asked (and I helped to guide them) to transform one particularly prominent emotional conflict (one that recurred repeatedly) from the journal into a short piece of fiction.
One way to create fiction out of a journal entry is simply to take an emotional conflict and simply turn it into a back and forth dialogue between “characters.” Then you place the dialogue into two characters and set the characters in an important “setting.”
Voila. A story!
The next step is to “Flip the Script,” that is, to take this piece of fiction and change it in some way or another. Sometimes that means bringing in another character, often an older wiser character (one student this semester found herself with a fairy godmother!) Sometimes that means writing from a different point of view, i.e., the point of view of your “persecutor.” Sometimes that means having one of the characters do something that seems completely impossible or outrageously difficult or impossible to do. Something, say, like forgiving somebody something they have done.
The results of these exercises were rather remarkable. My students this fall found themselves exploring very painful life stories but transforming them, re-telling their life tales from another point of view. In one case, a student wrote from her mother’s point of view, and for the first time in her life, she was able to see why her mother had had such a hard time being a “good” mother.
All three of the students found themselves with important insights into their lives. All three students — all of them were upper division psychology majors at the university — reported in their final papers at the end of the semester — that they had found the exercises very helpful in gaining perspective on their most difficult and challenging life issues.
So, maybe you should try this too. It costs nothing but time, and emotional courage. I wish you a Happy New Year, whatever you do!

Follow Claudia Ricci on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

By Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels
Note: This article appears in the Sunday, January 2, 2011 edition of the Sacramento Bee.
LOS ANGELES — California has long been the bellwether for the United States as a whole. Indeed, as the world’s eighth-largest economy that is home to Hollywood and Google, this outpost of creativity and innovation has continent-size influence with a cultural resonance that looms large in the global imagination.
Unfortunately, of late, California’s role as a bellwether has taken on a decidedly negative cast. Where once Californians dreamed of building a society that matched the magnificence of the state’s landscape, in recent years we’ve settled instead for mountains of debt, disappearing jobs, D+ schools, greater public spending for prisons than higher education, and an outdated, crumbling infrastructure that emerging economies like China put to shame.
Every college freshman, entrepreneur, homeowner, new immigrant or retiree in California has shared the sinking feeling that the future the state was once so famously ahead of is passing them by. Facing daunting deficits after years of political gridlock, California has come in the minds of many to epitomize the crisis of democratic governance spreading across the West from Athens to Washington.
But, true to form as the land where second acts are possible, California seems to have reached the tipping point and is coming back. Once again it is ahead of the curve of the rest of the country.
Despite a recall election and the concerted efforts of political leaders in recent years, Californians have come to realize that the real challenge is not so much replacing elected officials as fixing a system that is itself broken. As a result of this experience, the public is prepared to finally embrace the path of reform.
In the past two years, Californians have voted for open primaries, redistricting by citizen commission and for a simple majority vote on budgets – all with the aim of ending partisan paralysis in the Legislature. And, by a huge margin, they voted for a clean energy future less dependent on foreign oil by protecting California’s landmark climate change law from being overturned by Proposition 23. Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a fan of giving up the two-thirds vote to approve budgets, these other accomplishments will be the enduring legacy of his leadership.
And this is only the beginning. Groups like the Public Policy Institute of California, California Forward and the foundations that support them have plowed the hard ground seeking bipartisan consensus on a range of reforms. That groundbreaking work is now gaining traction as others are joining in and creating a critical mass.
Recently, we added a new set of voices to this growing movement by establishing the Think Long Committee for California, a high-powered group of eminent citizens with broad experience in public affairs, labor and business. It is financed with an initial $20 million. We are working closely with PPIC and California Forward.
The nonpartisan committee ranges from two former U.S. secretaries of state, George P. Shultz and Condoleezza Rice, to Clinton economic adviser Laura Tyson; from Eric Schmidt of Google to former Yahoo and Warner Bros. chief Terry Semel; from former Assembly speakers Bob Hertzberg and Willie Brown to former state Treasurer Matt Fong, former UC Regents chair Gerry Parsky, philanthropist Eli Broad, labor leader Maria Elena Durazo and California Community Foundations head Antonia Hernandez. At the first meeting at Google headquarters in October, Schwarzenegger shared the table with Gray Davis, the governor he ousted in the 2003 recall.
The group is advised by two of the most respected minds in Sacramento, Mike Genest and Tim Gage, both former state finance directors.
The aim of the committee, as one participant at the Google meeting put it using a computer metaphor, is to “reboot” California through a series of integrated structural reforms that will help bring the state back to governability.
Onto this fertile terrain now arrives Gov.-elect Jerry Brown with his characteristic attribute of penetrating the facts and telling it like it is. He has pledged to “open up the hood and look at the good, bad and ugly” of a dysfunctional system that has evolved over the decades to lock in spending and lock out revenue, battered further by the worst recession since the Great Depression. He has promised to bluntly ask the people of California what kind of government they want, and what they are willing to pay for, or not.
The bad news is that Brown will find a lot of bad and ugly under the hood, as the state legislative analyst has already warned, with a projected $28 billion deficit next year and more shortfalls to come. The good news is that, once the gruesome realities sink in to the public, Brown has plenty of allies willing to work with him on proposals to straighten out the mess as we go forward.
It is also encouraging that, on a recent visit to Sacramento, we found a fresh mood of cooperation in the air in our conversations with numerous people ranging from Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway to Angie Wei of the state labor federation.
Everybody wants to “get to yes” instead of “no” by finding ways to pragmatically work together.
Though the Think Long Committee’s agenda remains open and evolving, and it will not decide on final recommendations until our series of task force meetings are completed in the early summer, here are some of the ideas being contemplated:
1. The best government – one that is responsive and accountable – is the government that is closest to its citizens. To that end, realignment of state and local revenue and responsibilities is key to renovating a system that has become over-centralized in the years since Proposition 13. This is a high priority of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento. It was also a key plank of Brown’s campaign platform.
2. With this realignment, and bearing fairness and long-term infrastructure needs in mind, the state should then simplify, broaden and flatten the tax structure in order to tame the revenue volatility of the current system. Economists agree that the most stable tax regime is one that has the broadest base with the lowest rates.
3. The counterpart of revamping the tax system is budget reform that keeps spending within fiscal constraints, including a rainy day fund, pay-go, long-term and performance-based budgeting, sunset laws and curbing mandates on spending not appropriated in a given budget cycle. Too often, bad practices have been followed in good years, depleting any reserve for the next downturn. And, clearly, pension reform is a major issue.
4. Modification of term limits to enhance the accountability, decisiveness and quality of the Legislature. Some on the committee have even proposed a nonpartisan unicameral legislature as a logical step after open primaries and redistricting.
5. Initiative reform that will curb budgeting by the ballot box and make this avenue of public recourse part of building a governing consensus instead of a tool of conflict and an alternative to the Legislature.
6. While being careful to protect our environment, streamlining regulation in order to promote a better business climate and stimulate new job creation.
7. Integrating the long-range perspective into governance though establishing a “Long Term California Strategy Council” that will focus on making California globally competitive, bolstering excellence in education – including a revolving fund for higher education – and building the smart infrastructure of the future.
Change along these lines would shift California toward a modern system of governance that has the capacity for decisive action, would reflect the complexity and diversity of its population and economy, and would be more suited to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century than the one inherited from the time of ranches and railroad barons.
Above all, that new system of governance must be imbued with a public-interest political culture that replaces the rancor of polarization with the nonpartisan spirit of pragmatism and long-range perspective associated with the great builders of the state in the 1950s and 1960s – Earl Warren and Pat Brown – who laid the foundations in the post-World War II era for the prosperity and quality of life that California enjoyed for decades.
If Californians embrace such an approach, we could have a fiscally sound government that can weather the ups and downs of the business cycle and foster the high-wage jobs linked to California’s cutting-edge industries from biotech to information technology to clean energy. Upward mobility could be ensured through excellent schools with affordable higher education, accessible to all Californians, that can provide the innovative and highly skilled workers who are key to building competitive new industries. Environmentally friendly, livable cities that use energy and water smartly could be a model for the world.
Despite its current travails, California is rightly known for its entrepreneurial energy and can-do creativity. If that can be turned toward the task of good governance, all Californians will be empowered to get back to the future with the government we all want and deserve.
(C) SACRAMENTO BEE.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

On December 31, precisely at midnight, a waterfall poured from every balcony of my Yugoslav-style building. Cubans keep the tradition of throwing a bucket of water at year’s end to clean all the bad brought by previous months and to spiritually “clean” the January about to begin. This year there were infinite reasons to throw water — that precious liquid that prepares us to face everything to come — from the windows, balconies and roofs. So my husband and I found the biggest container we could and together, from our 14th floor balcony, threw its contents into the void, thinking about everything we want to leave behind. The first sun of 2011 reflected brilliantly from the puddles in the street, formed not by rain but by our desires.
Few confess aloud the full list of hopes they harbor for the next twelve months, but it’s easy to guess that an important point on every list is the need for political changes on this Island. Each defines it in his or her own way. “This has to end now,” some say. “May Raul’s reforms succeed in improving our lives,” say others. Or, “May 2011 be the year that so many of us have been waiting for,” is the cryptic declaration of some who lost patience and faith long ago.
Curiously, the word “revolution” is absent from these popular predictions, as the vast majority of citizens no longer consider it a dynamic entity, alive, in transformation. When they refer to the prevailing model in the country they do so as if it were an immovable structure, as if it were the most confining straitjacket, rigid and unlikely to adapt to the new demands of the 21st century.
All those ideals of renewal brought down from the mountains by young bearded men have given way to a government where power is concentrated in figures in their seventies and eighties, deeply suspicious of innovation. Nonetheless, in official pronouncements January 1st continues to be spoken of as the birthday of a living creature, when in fact it is the anniversary of something that died long ago. The Revolution has been buried by stagnation. The social project lies deep within the earth and the question on everyone’s mind is what date should we carve on its tombstone.
For thousands of my compatriots the Revolution died in 1968 when Fidel Castro himself applauded the entry of Soviet tanks into Prague. The fierce bear hug that engulfed us, the omnipresence of the Kremlin, the thousands of barrels of oil it sent Cuba each year, its massive subsidies and its geopolitical demands, ultimately drowned any semblance of spontaneity.
The so-called Five Grey Years (1971-1975) turned out the lights on culture, as Socialist Realism clipped the wings of our creativity and reduced us to triumphalist stories whose protagonist was always the never-realized “New Man.”
For my parents, the Revolution ended in the first months of 1989 with the criminal trial of General Arnaldo Ochoa, charged with drug trafficking. The subsequent executions, of him and others, and the purges in the Ministry of Interior, clarified for many that the anxiety to maintain power took precedence over all ideals, Marxist manuals, scientific communism and everything we had been taught in school.
For my generation, the requiem of the Revolution was confirmed some years later, with the punches and stones thrown on the streets of Havana in August 1994. When, in response, Fidel ordered the coast guard to stop patrolling the shore and to “let the scum that wants to leave, leave,” Cubans climbed aboard rickety rafts all along the coastline.
For many, their departure destroyed the remaining illusions of those who thought the Revolution was a social project “of the poor, the meek, and the humble.” It was precisely the poorest Cubans, in those days of despair, who risked the sharks and the overcrowding at Guantanamo Naval Base, where they were taken by the American forces who plucked them from the waters to wait for planes to complete their escape to the north. The thirty thousand who set sail in a single month took with them the last shred of believability of our authorities’ insistence that the government represented all Cubans.
Now we are left with too-often stated reminders of an idealized past: “What could have been and wasn’t,” people say. Meanwhile, reality negates every word spoken from the dais, leaving the black market the only option for survival as apathy casts its corrosive acid over attempts to ideologically motivate us.
It is the long funeral that never gets to the end, where the family of the departed can’t bear to shovel the sod over the coffin. Somehow, a few of them can’t shake the belief that the deceased Revolution can rise up from its shroud, reinvent itself, shake off the wrinkles and chronic diseases.
The rest of us attend the funeral, asking the poignant question, “What went wrong? At what instant did the Revolution become a cadaver?” Deciphering this question may be of vital importance to our national future. We already know many of the chronic diseases that played a part in its death: personal ambition, bureaucracy, red tape, selling out to a foreign power, and copying a model that only looks good in a text book.
What we don’t know is if it was the push we ourselves gave it, if it was our hands, our minds, which finally choked the creature they tried to create. Or if the genetics of the process were based on the chromosomes of failure from the start.
A version of this post originally appeared in Peru’s El Comercio newspaper.
Yoani’s blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.

Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In October 1938 a boy named Donald T., age five years one month, arrived at the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children in Baltimore. The Home, established in 1912 as the first full-time children’s clinic in America, was a 5-story building on the grounds of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Donald had been born at full term, weighed nearly 7 pounds, was breast-fed, and had an uneventful infancy. He walked at 13 months. At the age of 1 year he apparently could hum and sing tunes accurately. His parents said that at 2 years of age Donald had an unusual memory for names and faces, and that he easily learned short poems.
None of this was unusual, but when Donald was examined three years later at the Harriet Lane Home he was apparently far from an ordinary child. At age five years and one month, he had a marked limitation of spontaneous activity. He wandered about smiling, making stereotyped movements with his fingers, shook his head from side to side, whispered or hummed the same three-note tune over and over again. He arranged beads, sticks, or blocks in groups of different colors, then squealed and jumped up and down whenever he finished one of the arrangements. Apart from these activities, he showed no initiative and he required constant instruction by his mother for ordinary behavior. Most of his actions were repetitions carried out in exactly the same way they had been originally performed. If he spun a block, he would always start with the same face uppermost. There were verbal rituals that occurred all day, rituals that involved his mother, and if she failed to perform her part he squealed and cried and strained every muscle in his neck until she complied. He used personal pronouns inappropriately, talking about himself as if he were a third person. A day with Donald was a day of chaos for his parents.
During the next four years, Donald was examined repeatedly during visits to the Harriet Lane Home. He was soon to be one of the most famous cases in child psychiatry in America, one of the first cases reported by the child psychiatrist Leo Kanner in 1943. Kanner’s research paper essentially established the diagnostic category of “infantile autism”–a revision of ideas about childhood schizophrenia.
Throughout this period, the diagnosis and treatment of autism was essentially controlled by Freudian psychology and psychiatry. This continued into the 1950s, when the Bruno Bettelheim fiasco resulted in the condemnation of many thousands of women as “refrigerator” mothers.
The 1950s also saw the treatment and understanding of psychosis revolutionized by the introduction of antipsychotic drugs. In neurosurgery, observations of the responses of the frontal lobe cortex to stimulation in conscious patients dramatically changed many ideas about brain functions. Revolutionary new surgical techniques involving split brains and hemispherectomy forced revision of ideas about how the various parts of the brain worked together.
So what have we learned since the 1950s? A half-century has passed, a long time in modern science, but autism truly remains a riddle–an agony for parents, a tragedy for autistic children, a puzzle for neuroscience.
The puzzle–and the lack of progress–is exemplified by the following modern case:
Michael W. is thirteen years old, and everyone agrees he’s a case of classical autism–but with a common variation. He has impairments in multisensory perception: when he hears, his vision shuts down, and vice versa. He shows many of the symptoms typical of so-called low-functioning cases, including stereotyped movements, repetitive behaviors, inability to produce readily intelligible speech, lack of eye contact, and hypersensitivity to touch and pain. And yet he can indeed communicate using a keyboard, a letter board, or even handwriting. His IQ scores are a contradiction: he has a verbal IQ of 126, way above average, but a performance IQ of only 79, way below average. So the label “low-functioning” is not really appropriate.
To clinicians, Michael appears similar in many ways to the cases of autism first described in 1943 by Leo Kanner. Michael makes almost no eye contact with anyone, and he pays more attention to objects than to people. To most people, he responds by sniffing. He’s impulsive and obsessive, and he often has an inability to suppress aggressive behavior. All of this is typical for low-functioning individuals with autism. He also shows an absence of perceived danger, so that he might, for example, run out into traffic in a street. He’s a boy with an above average verbal IQ who cannot be left alone for any length of time without the risk of endangering himself.
Such is autism at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Autism is still with us, still an extremely serious problem for both children and adults–and still a puzzle to be solved by science.
Some sources about autism past and present:
Agin, D. (2011). Autism: Aspects of a Medical Riddle. Spectrum Focus (Amazon Kindle Ebook).
Feinstein, A. (2010). A History of Autism: Conversations with the Pioneers. Wiley-Blackwell.
Miller, B. L.; Cummings, J. L. (2007). The Human Frontal Lobes: Functions and Disorders. 2nd Edition. Guilford Press.
Offit, P. A. (2008). Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Columbia University Press.
Waltz, M. (2010). Autism: A Social and Medical History. Palgrave Macmillan.

This Blogger’s Books from
More Than Genes: What Science Can Tell Us About Toxic Chemicals, Development, and the Risk to Our Children
by Dan Agin
Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us
by Dan Agin

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Welcome to the ongoing dialogue about living our best lives after 50. Please join me and other Huffington Post readers in discussing the issues that are important to us.
Happy New Year! If you’re like most of us, by now you’ve written your New Year’s resolutions, which could include anything from losing weight to changing jobs, finding a mate, saving more, spending less or finding a few extra minutes every day for yourself.
Before you even think about embarking on any of them, consider this fundamental truth: you can’t move forward if you’re stuck where you are.
By the time we hit 50, most of us have developed some kind of management system for our lives. We had to. How else could we balance school, work, play dates, doctor appointments, walking the dog, making dinner, shopping for groceries, washing laundry, paying bills and working out and still find time for family and friends? If we didn’t have some kind of organizational skills, nothing would ever get done.
As organized as I was, though, when I turned 50 I was overwhelmed by the stuff that had accumulated over the years, and I realized that it wasn’t just physical clutter but mental clutter, as well. I looked around at everything and started to feel paralyzed, and stuck. The more clutter there was, the more stuck I felt, and it was stopping me from moving forward.
That’s when I heard Julie Morgenstern on the radio. Julie is a New York Times bestselling author, an internationally known organization consultant and time-management expert, and a frequent guest on The Oprah Show.
On the radio that day, Julie was talking about life transitions, feeling stuck, managing change, and decluttering your life to make room for your future. She said that you shouldn’t even try organizing anything until you have gone through a process called “shedding.” Organizing is great and useful, she said, but to assume you can just tidy up what you have without thinking about why you have it and what you really want is setting yourself up for failure. It just won’t work.
I met with Julie to learn how to shed my stuff and to interview her for my book, “The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money and More.” Her advice was, for me, life-changing. Here’s some of what Julie taught me, which I would like to share with you, to help you get your New Year off to a fantastic start.
Forget the Sock Drawer — Do You Want to Transform Your Life?
We’ve spent decades being organized: managing our households, families, and lives. What we need to do now is much bigger. Julie described it in terms of our life cycle: Starting in our twenties, we go through a period of acquisition: property, people, experiences, marriage, children and other relationships. As we age, we organize and integrate everything we acquire. By the time we reach 50, we need to step back and evaluate our acquisitions, and to focus on where we are now, and where we want to go. It’s very easy to lose yourself, especially at this age when there are so many potential changes looming: kids growing up and moving out, parents aging and possibly moving in, changes in jobs, retiring, downsizing. We can confront these life events, seize the moment of transition, and push ourselves out of the clutter, or we can get stuck in the mire.
How Can We Get Ready for the Rest of Our Lives?
Julie gave me a straightforward process to objectively evaluate where we are in our lives, and decide where we want to be next. There are several steps:
1) Acknowledge that change is happening. Our fifties can be rife with events that can affect how well we prepare of the rest of our lives. Understanding and managing these events can make the difference between having rewarding and meaningful lives as we move forward, or not. Some of the more common life-altering experiences that can happen after 50 include:
Your “I’m really 50?” moment: When Julie entered her fifties, she had a profound and cathartic experience. She realized that she was past the mid-point, and her life wasn’t going to go on forever. The experience was deep and powerful and brought out many different feelings. Julie decided that this was also the time in her life to explore the new and potentially wonderful opportunities that were ahead.
Your children are leaving home: If your life has been organized around your family, you might feel lost when your children become independent and less in need of your involvement, and then even more so when they eventually move out of your home. This can be a hard transition for many people over 50, especially women. Some welcome this new phase of life, but others seek to fill the void, often with more stuff.
You’ve focused on your work, and now you’re going through a change, whether you want to or not: Perhaps you’ve been laid off due to downsizing. Or maybe you’re changing jobs, going back to work, or doing something completely different. Perhaps you’re happily planning your retirement but are aware that your life will change significantly once you do. Anytime you change roles, your identity can feel threatened, which can disrupt your view of yourself.
Your marriage is ending, or you’re starting a new one: If you’ve been married for many years, or even a few, a shift in this area of your life has profound implications. Even if it is something you wanted, it still can create big changes in your life and sense of self, as does starting a new life with a new person.
Your spouse or another family member becomes ill or disabled, or passes on: Illness and death are natural occurrences in life, especially as we get older, but we are never fully prepared. If a spouse dies, your life is irrevocably changed on many levels, and this kind of change can stop you from creating your new life. Caring for an ill spouse or parent can also affect your ability to open up the next chapter in your life.
2) Create a personal theme that defines what your life will be. A personal theme is a guide that states what you are reaching for and moving toward. It lets you focus on the bigger picture. Ask yourself what you want your life to look like over the next few years, and you’ll come up with a vision for your future, which will be your personal theme. Once you have your theme, you can work on getting rid of everything in your life that doesn’t fit the theme, and you will be prepared to let go of the clutter. After meeting with Julie, my personal theme became to “simplify my life” because I was feeling overwhelmed. I wanted to simplify every aspect of my life: hair, health, makeup, home, food, finances, work, everything. That theme continues to drive me forward in everything I do and is a big part of the reason why I wrote my book. Adopting this theme made it much easier for me to get rid of things that no longer fit in my life.
3) Identify the different kinds of clutter that exist in your life. Clutter can take many different forms, but all of it can make you feel weighed down and stuck. Clutter is anything that is obsolete, time-consuming and de-energizing. If you can call it clutter, then chances are good that it doesn’t belong in your life anymore. The four main types of clutter are:
Objects: It could be the boxes that you haven’t opened since you moved five years ago, the jewelry you no longer wear, the old business cards in your handbag, or the stacks of magazines and books that you will never look at again. If seeing them brings you down, most likely it should go.
Obligations: Obsolete roles and responsibilities can be the hardest to get rid of because they often involve other people — like boards, committees and clubs. You need to be sensitive to others when shedding, but you can’t let other people’s needs dictate your decision.
Habits: If you are a perfectionist, a chronic procrastinator or a workaholic, you are doing yourself a great disservice. These habits waste time and energy and are stressful and draining. People who have these habits often waste additional time by beating themselves up about having them. Once we’re over 50, we don’t need to be perfectionists or workaholics anymore. We’ve proven ourselves. We no longer need to be defined by what we do. Instead, try to focus more on who we are as people. It’s enough to be engaging, interesting and involved.
People: People can be just as de-energizing and draining as piles of newspapers and magazines. If there’s someone in your life who drags you down whenever you see her, whines and complains about life, only talks about herself and never asks how you are doing, maybe it’s time to reconsider the relationship. It’s not easy to completely remove people from your life, so perhaps you can think about redefining the relationship. You want to be kind, but you must also be honest with yourself about which relationships nourish you, and which deplete you. If releasing someone completely isn’t an option, then figure out ways to limit the amount of time you spend together.
4) Get ready to shed your stuff. Once you’ve gone through those steps, you will have a clear idea of where you are, where you want to be, and what is holding you back. Then you will be ready to shed your stuff. The process of shedding, as Julie calls it, has a few steps, which provides a framework for managing change and helps us get rid of clutter that makes us feel stuck.
Find the treasures and keep them. A treasure is a useful object, activity, skill, habit or person that fits in with your personal theme. You may hold on to only about 20 percent of what you have when you go through the process, and that’s why they are called treasures.
Give the stuff you don’t want the old heave-ho. Once you’ve gone through the process of choosing what stays, you have to get rid of the rest. Say goodbye and let it go. Decide what you will give away, sell, recycle or donate, then get it out of your space. Don’t let bags of stuff sit in the hallway or closet. If stuff is physically around, then you haven’t been successful in getting rid of it.
Move forward. You’ve created a theme, you’ve gotten rid of those things that no longer fit in your life, kept those that do, and you’re ready to move forward. You can now use your space, time and energy for people, activities, objects, and experiences that will move you closer to your vision and your personal theme.
This Is a Continual Process and a Way of Life
When you organize a space — your hall closet, for example — there’s a starting point and an ending point. When you go through a shedding process, there is often no obvious ending point. How do you know when the transition is complete? If you no longer feel stuck, you can safely say that you’ve done it. Don’t be afraid of setbacks. When you’re in your fifties, it’s very tempting to shrink back into your familiar clutter. So many things can happen all at once — aging parents, illness, divorce, job setbacks or changes, new opportunities — it’s easy to get overwhelmed all over again. Focus on how far you’ve come, and always keep your eye on your theme. If you find yourself slipping back into some of your old habits, or if piles of clutter start building up, just do it all over again.
What Do You Do with All the Stuff You’ve Decluttered out of Your Life?
Something that is stagnant in your life might be a treasure for someone else. Almost anything can be sold on eBay, or you can have a garage sale. Perhaps you’ll consider donating your clothes, books, furniture and other household goods to charities such as the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries. (Check out “The Best of Everything After 50″ for more ideas on getting rid of your clutter in a positive way.)
So, about those New Year’s Resolutions…
Once you have a clear picture of what your future will be and you systematically get rid of the clutter that’s keeping you from getting there, you’ll be ready for just about anything.
Lose the clutter, find your life.
***
Staying connected is a powerful tool! Friend me on on Facebook, and tweet me on Twitter (BGrufferman). For more ideas on living your best life after 50, go to www.bestofeverythingafter50.com.
Please tune into the Real Women On Health blog talk radio show on Wednesday, Jan. 5 at 12:30 p.m. EST, where I’ll be talking about achieving your health and fitness goals in 2011. For more information, click here.

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

This past year was an amazing one for the science of diet and nutrition. It’s a little difficult for me to keep up with sometimes and I know that it’s a challenge for people to know what the big picture is and how to apply it to your day to day life.
I want to recap some of what I believe are fascinating research articles published in the past year. I have chosen these because they are studies that can have a real world effect on one’s health and longevity.
These are five of the best articles but also five things that you can easily change to make your own life healthier.
1. Red meat:
A study(1) published in the journal Circulation took a look at the connection between red meat and processed meats and their relationship to heart disease and diabetes. They found that the issue is processed meat and not really eating red meat in general.
Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Health, researchers reviewed the data from 20 studies of red and processed meat consumption that included evaluation of a link to heart disease and diabetes. Their findings are particularly striking:
1. Those who ate 1 serving of red meat per day were at no greater risk of heart disease than those who ate less than 1 serving per week. The same was true of the risk of diabetes.
2. However, each serving of processed meat (bacon, salami, hot dogs, etc.) eaten per day led to a 42 percent increase in risk of heart disease and a 19 percent increase in risk of diabetes.
3. Each serving per day of meat, both processed and unprocessed, tended to show a higher risk of heart disease, but these findings were strongly skewed by two studies. If those two studies were excluded, the risk fell to near normal.
The message: Eat red meat in moderation but avoid processed meats.

http://www.drgourmet.com/bites/2010/051910.shtml

2. Portion Control:
I love Brian Wansink’s work and his team look at the portion sizes of the Joy of Cooking over the last 79 years.(2) That’s right, they got bigger!
The team analyzed the serving sizes for 18 recipes across seven editions to see if the portion sizes (and thus the number of calories in each portion) had changed over time. Unsurprisingly, they did increase for 14 of the 18 recipes. As it happens, simple portion size was not the only cause of higher calories in a recipe — often the recipe’s ingredients were changed from a lower-calorie ingredient to a higher-calorie ingredient.
Between the 1936 edition and the 2006 edition, the average number of servings in a recipe decreased by a little over 1 serving per recipe, and the average number of calories in a serving increased by over 60 percent.
What’s especially interesting is Dr. Wansink’s team notes that the average serving sizes increased by about 33 percent since 1996.
The message: Take some time this year to learn about and reduce your portion sizes.

http://www.drgourmet.com/bites/2010/020310.shtml

3. Stocking Your Cupboards:
Researchers at Rutgers University wondered if there was a difference in what foods were actually in the home between those families with overweight members and those families who were all of normal weight.
One hundred mothers with at least one child 12 years of age or younger were recruited to participate in the study. While all homes tended to keep the same amounts of nutrients on hand, but the differences were in what forms of foods those nutrients were in.
For example, those homes with overweight parents tended to have their carbohydrates in the form of frozen potatoes (like tater tots or french fries) or frozen vegetables with an included sauce (like broccoli with cheese sauce or brussels sprouts with butter sauce). Fresh and frozen meats also supplied much of the protein, total fat and saturated fats than in normal-weight households.
The Message: This is the single most important thing that I believe you can do to eat healthier. If you have healthy ingredients on hand, that’s what you will eat.

http://www.drgourmet.com/bites/2009/052009.shtml

4. Snack on Nuts:
We’ve known for a long that nuts are great for you but recently a team of researchers pooled the results of 25 different studies on nuts and cholesterol to see if the type of nut made a difference in the cholesterol-lowering effects of eating nuts.(3)
The studies reviewed came from seven countries and included over 580 men and women. Each study included information on Body Mass Index, cholesterol scores both before and at the close of the study, and excluded people who were taking cholesterol medication. The types of nuts studies varied and included walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts.
After analyzing the correlation between the amount of nuts each participant ate on a daily basis over the course of each study and their cholesterol scores, the researchers found that those diets that included nuts helped reduce total cholesterol, LDL (bad cholesterol), the ratio of LDL to HDL (good) cholesterol, and the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol (all improved scores).
The Message: Put down the potato chips and crackers and snack on nuts instead!

http://www.drgourmet.com/bites/2010/051210.shtml

5. Don’t Drink Soda:
It’s pretty amazing how little soda it takes to cause diabetes and health problems.
Research reported in Diabetes Care5 grouped together 11 prospective studies that included over 310,000 people.
The researchers standardized the serving size of the sugar-sweetened beverage consumption measured in each of the eleven studies. Then they stratified the various levels of intake into groups: from none or less than 1 serving per month up to more than 1 serving per day. The amount of soft drinks drunk by individuals who developed type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome was then compared to the amount drunk by those who did not develop type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome.
The scientists found that even when they took into account other variables such as Body Mass Index or individual caloric intake, those who drank at least one 12-ounce serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage per day were 20 percent more likely to develop metabolic syndrome and 26 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who drank less than 1 serving per month.
The Message: Drinking soda is very, very bad for you!
http://www.drgourmet.com/bites/2010/111010.shtml
These are give simple changes to your diet that you can easily accomplish this year and that will have a tremendous impact on your health in 2011 and for many years to come. Happy new year!
Eat well, eat healthy, enjoy life!
Timothy S. Harlan, M.D.
Dr. Gourmet
DrGourmet.com
1. Circulation 2010;121:2271-2283
2. The Annals of Internal Medicine (2009;150(4):291)
3. Appetite 52 (2009) 479-484).
4. Arch Intern Med 2010;170(9):821-827).
5. Diabetes Care (2010; 33: 2477-2483)

Follow Tim Harlan, M.D. on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/DrGourmet

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Why is someone else’s dream so tedious and one’s own so gripping? Because our own dreams are vividly real to us, of course. The other person’s is a fiction. In this distinction is a great spiritual lesson for the New Year.
Remember the biblical Joseph who told his brother’s his dreams? He imagined that they bowed down to him, and in his second dream, that not only his brothers (disguised as stars) but his parents (as the sun and moon) bowed down to him, which sets a new standard of youthful grandiosity. As a result – and because of his father’s favoritism – his brothers hated him. In the end they threw him in a pit and he was sold into slavery.
In Egypt Joseph wound up in prison. Among the prisoners were Pharaoh’s baker and cupbearer. By interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh’s servants, Joseph eventually makes his way to the court, where he interprets Pharaoh’s dreams as well. As a result of his insight, Joseph becomes second only to Pharaoh in the land. So dreams got him into trouble and dreams got him out of trouble. But did you notice the difference?
Rabbi Isaac Bernstein pointed out — Joseph got into trouble when he listened only to his own dreams. He succeeded when he learned to listen to the dreams of others.
The New Year is distinguished by dreams. Not only the dreams of the night, where our day thoughts and moods and secrets bloom in images, but the dreams of the day. As a Rabbi I am privileged to hear the dreams of others. I know each time I listen that I am enlarged by taking in another vision, another hope, one more aspiration of a seeking soul. The Zohar, the central text of Jewish mysticism, teaches that we are all “children from the chamber of yearnings.” I hope this year we listen not only to ourselves – to the echo chamber of our own dreams – but to others.
After all, it worked for Joseph.

This Blogger’s Books from
Why Faith Matters
by David J. Wolpe
Teaching Your Children About God: A Modern Jewish Approach
by David J. Wolpe

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

At last, we’re down to the probable grand finale. I’d love to toss in a couple more essays (best trailers/posters, the year in review, etc), but that depends on whether or not my daughter takes a nap on any given afternoon. But should this be the final major entry of 2010, so be it. Below is a list of fourteen of my favorite pictures that were released in theaters or DVD in 2010, plus a final nod to my favorite film of 2010 (no surprise if you’ve been reading me with any regularity). They are not necessarily ‘the best’, as there are plenty of allegedly great films that I missed (likely contenders: Inside Job, Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, Tiny Furniture), but they are all pretty great. As usual, the first fourteen are in alphabetical order.
127 Hours
First and foremost, that ‘incident’ that occurs at the third act isn’t nearly as hard to watch as you’ve heard. If you’re staying away out of fear, buck it up, because James Franco’s grandmother thinks you’re a ‘p***y’. Danny Boyle’s dazzlingly compelling and sharply edited character study about a young climber trapped in a cave is about so much more than its climax. It’s a shockingly unsentimental yet genuinely moving look at the choice that we all have to make to truly live. James Franco, Hollywood’s most versatile entertainer (he’s the equivalent of that kid in high school who wanted to be on every page of the yearbook), gives the performance of his career. And you know what? If you want to close your eyes and ears at the end, I won’t hold it against you. The movie works whether you keep your eyes open or not.
Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky’s dazzling creepy and intense psychological horror picture works for two very specific reasons. First of all, we have Natalie Portman’s astonishingly physical and emotional tour de force, which is worthy of every plaudit and award she has and will win. Second of all, the characters are not drawn in broad strokes. Mila Kunis’s Lily is far from a stereotypical ‘bad girl’ rival, as she genuinely appears to be interested more in befriending Nina than competing with her. Vincent Cassel’s seemingly draconian ballet director may come off like a cad, but we have no reason beyond our preconceptions to believe that he’s lecherous, and all evidence points to a man who will do whatever it takes to get the performance he requires from his dancers. And even Barbara Hershey’s seemingly conventional overbearing stage mom gets moments of empathy and depth. For a film that sells itself as a visually-stylized thriller, the characters are surprisingly three-dimensional.
Easy A
I happen to consider Mean Girls the best teen-girl comedy ever made. So when I say that Easy A is the best comedy about teen girls since Mean Girls, that’s high praise. Emma Stone becomes a mega-star in this deliciously well-written and sharply acted take on The Scarlet Letter. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson (two actors who got their big break on Murder One) shine as arguably the world’s coolest screen parents, but the film is unafraid to subtly question their ‘my kids are my friends’ parenting style. Thomas Hayden Church, Lisa Kudrow, and Malcolm McDowell round out the type-flight adult cast. And Amanda Bynes gives one of her best performances as the leader of the school’s unofficial God squad. But it’s Stone’s movie through-and-through. While the film basically highlights how little we’ve progressed in regards to how we treat sexually active young women, the picture goes deeper and becomes a passionate and timely plea for privacy and tolerance in an age where the generation of kids have willingly chosen to become their own high-tech Big Brother.
Going the Distance
I missed this one in theaters, and shame on me for that. This is easily the best romantic comedy of the year, and a near-perfect example of the much-derided genre. Writer Geoff LaTulippe and director Nanette Burstein seemingly have a checklist of romantic comedy clichs to avoid, and steer around every single one of them. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long both shine as two professional adults trying to do the ‘long distance relationship’ thing, with mixed results. The devil is in the details. First and foremost, the main couple is so likable that we actually want to see them end up together. The dialogue is incredibly smart and funny without being obnoxiously clever. The film openly deals with the real economic world as it is now, and is far from idealistic when dealing with the reality of both young love and keeping romance alive after kids. More than a great romantic comedy, it’s just a great movie period.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I
This is easily the best in the long-running series, and the first picture in the constantly good franchise that achieves true greatness. Plunging into despair and cynicism on a level most adult dramas wouldn’t dare, the penultimate chapter of ‘the boy who lived’ is a dark, violent, and overwhelmingly sad adventure story, where the quest to destroy evil is not a Campellian hero’s journey, but perhaps merely delaying the inevitable defeat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione basically carry the film on their burdened shoulders and they are quite up to the challenge. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Gint, and especially Emma Watson deliver heartbreaking performances that in a different genre might have netted them year-end awards. As we round the final curve, Harry Potter finally earns his place among the great fantasy franchises of our time.
How to Train Your Dragon
In a different year, this would have arguably been the top cartoon. But coming in second-place is no shame when your movie is this bloody good. This Dreamworks animated fable tells a simple tale of a young man befriending a baby dragon in a society where dragons and humans are sworn enemies. The vocal cast (Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, etc) shines, with Gerald Butler giving the best performance of his career as a loving but conflicted father. This was the one film that was worth every penny of that IMAX 3D ticket, as it told its thoughtful and moving geopolitical parable in high visual style. This is a beautiful movie, inside and out.
The Karate Kid
This was easily the year’s happiest surprise. The much ridiculed remake of the 1984 classic got the last laugh, as the picture was a moving and compelling character drama on its own merits. Jaden Smith has obvious charisma, but also genuine instincts on when to turn off the charm. Jackie Chan delivers the performance of his career, which in a less crowded year would have netted his first Oscar nomination. The film works by refusing to coast on the coattails of its predecessor, and by refusing to condescend to its young audience. It’s an intelligent and thoughtful motion picture, and stands by the original with pride. This was actually the year’s biggest hit that didn’t play in 3D or IMAX. Perhaps that’s because it was one of the summer’s few big movies that made quality its highest priority.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
This was the one movie that I missed in theaters that I instantly regretted. I can only imagine how beautiful this must have looked in IMAX 3D. The plot is basically a mishmash of Lord of the Rings and The Dark Crystal, but it’s told with a genuine cynicism toward the whole ‘hero warrior myth’. In this film, war is tragic and ugly, with no winners and only survivors. But the reason it makes the list is that Zack Snyder’s adventure story is the most beautiful movie released this year, bar none. Every image is frame-worthy. Every scene is astonishingly detailed and lifelike. I liked watching this picture, but how I loved looking at it.
Let Me In
This was the year’s best horror film, and it gives American remakes of foreign horror films a good name. Whether or not this Matt Reeves picture is better than the original Let the Right One In is frankly irrelevant. Both are richly atmospheric and strikingly acted mood pieces. Reeves makes enough token changes to make the film his own, often replacing the clinical detachment of the original with a tighter and more character-centric look. Chloe Moretz gives an Oscar-worthy turn, and Elias Koteas again proves that he’s arguably the industry’s most valuable character actor.
Mega Piranha
Yes, that’s right Mega Piranha. This is one of the few SyFy monster movies that actually delivers what it promises. You want giant piranha crashing into buildings, eating whole houses, causing massive explosions, and generally killing the hell out of everything in sight? Well, early and often folks, early and often. You get the requisite carnage, plus the goofy kick of Paul Logan doing his best Jason Bourne/Horatio Caine/Jack Bauer impression amidst the carnage. Like Chris Klein in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Logan gives a heroic performance every bit as awesome as the ones you delivered when you played in your backyard as a youngster. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Logan kick-box a piranha. Edited like a cheap episode of 24, and featuring straight-but-goofy turns by 80s pop-star Tiffany and Barry Williams, this craptastic delight delivers in a way that Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus could only dream of. God I loved this stupid, wonderful piece of pure fun.
Mother
Joon-ho Bong’s follow-up to The Host applies that same weirdly inappropriate humor to a genuinely gripping thriller that would truly make Hitchcock proud. Hye-ja Kim delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as an overbearing mother of a developmentally-disabled adult child. After her son is arrested and charged with the murder of a schoolgirl, she sets out to clear her son’s name. That’s all you need to know. But this one is a doozy, plain and simple.
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
I was hopelessly behind on seeing documentary films this year. But while Inside Job may have made the cut, one cannot deny the astonishing wealth of information found on this retrospective documentary of the original eight Nightmare on Elm Street series. The feature itself is four hours long, with a second disc containing another four hours. And every single bit of it is worth seeing. With interviews with probably 90% of the relevant talent and a refreshing honesty regarding the uneven franchise, there isn’t an ounce of fat to be found on any of the eight hours of interviews and documentary footage. If this project came about because of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, then it was all worth it.
Unstoppable
This Tony Scott yarn, easily his best since Enemy of the State, is a perfect example of the kind of movie that they just don’t make enough of anymore. This lean and mean little thriller concerns two over-their-head train operators (Denzel Washington and Chris Pine) attempting to stop a runaway train filled with explosively toxic chemicals that is heading into populated areas. With smart characters who ask the same questions we would, just enough character development to make us care, and just enough class commentary to make it socially relevant, this terrific action picture was one of the most enjoyable theater going experiences I had last year. That it got made means that Hollywood can deliver on the basics. That it rebounded after a soft box office opening due to word of mouth means that there is still an audience for this kind of old-fashioned thrill-ride.
Winter’s Bone
Arguably the best live-action picture of the year, this tense and moving thriller contains two of the best performances of the year. Jennifer Lawrence deservedly got the lion’s share of the media, but John Hawkes delivers a career-best turn as well. The plot is simple and stark: a young woman must track down her criminal father after he puts up the house as collateral and then apparently jumps bail. But the film presents a look at the devastatingly poor backwoods communities and how meth did just as much damage there as much as 1980s explosion of crack/cocaine in the inner-cities. The film never glamorizes nor lingers on the obvious hardships, and it is refreshingly unsentimental. Most importantly, Winter’s Bone never tries to be about every person living in Ozark Mountain or similar areas of America, but instead is about a single young girl who finds herself surrounded by family, but rendered completely alone by her inability to count on anyone other than herself.
And now, the best film of 2010. It was an easy call:
Toy Story 3
I’ve written quite a bit about this one, so I’ll try to avoid repetition. But the film is the most enjoyable, funniest, most exciting, and most moving cinematic experience of the year, bar none. It is perhaps the finest ‘part 3′ ever, and closes out perhaps the finest trilogy in film history with a climax that perhaps tops the two prior masterpieces. If it were a live-action film, it would be the front-runner at the Oscars. No film was more haunting and no film was more powerful. Tom Hanks caps off his finest character with his best performance in years. Pixar caps off their crown jewel series with perhaps their best film to date (to argue whether it’s better than Up, The Incredibles, or the prior Toy Story films is kinda silly). I presume most of you have already seen this film and have decided what it meant for you. So I’ll simply say that Toy Story 3 is my favorite film of 2010, and it darn-well is probably the best film of 2010 to boot.
And that’s a wrap for this year, folks. Feel free to share your thoughts and check out the rest of the year-end wrap up. For more, read the various year-end wrap-ups for 2009, 2008, and 2006.
Scott Mendelson

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If there was any director that deserved a retrospective it is Italy’s Bernardo Bertolucci. And if any film in his canon should be celebrated it should be The Conformist. His 1970 film tackled big questions in deeply personal ways and did with a range of deep emotions. But then he deserves the attention as well for his gorgeous The Last Emperor, his epic 1900 and his spiritually enlightening Little Buddha.
At 21, Bertolucci debuted his first film, The Grim Reaper, at 1962′s Venice Film Festiva. Since then, the now 70-year-old auteur has earned nearly every award or accolade a filmmaker aspires to. While he has experimented with form and content, he consistently has enjoyed mainstream audiences worldwide. By viewing this career-spanning series one can appreciate this balance he has struck.
Running from mid-December, 2010 to January 12th, 2011, the series highlights several of his greatest films including The Sheltering Sky and Last Tango in Paris and in particular, The Conformist, which kicked off the series and can still be on January 2nd, 2011, at 5 pm in MoMa’s Titus 1 Theater.
Q: What was your initial reaction when you were approached about this retrospective? Did you think it was the right time?
BB: Because the Museum of Modern Art is kind of mythic [to me], I felt it was extraordinary. I felt so honored and gratified. When I see these things that’s all about my life, there is this question inside that comes [forward], “Am I an impostor? Isn’t it dangerous to show all of yourself in the same moment?”

Q: Is there one film in the retrospective that you’re especially excited about that audiences will either rediscover or experience for the first time?

BB: I don’t see my movies. When you ask me about one of my movies, it just goes in my memory because sometimes I confuse one for another one. I think all movies are like sequences of the body of my work — there isn’t really one movie..

Q: Why don’t you see your movies?

BB: It’s healthier and safer to keep a bit of distance. I’m afraid to be disappointed.

Q: Where did you find inspiration for your films? You cover so many subjects.

BB: Every time is a different way, a different story, a different love story. Sometimes it’s a book I read, sometimes it’s a story I heard. With 1900, I wanted to do a poem about where I was born — [the family, the farmers, and the land owners]. This universe was very present in my childhood.
Sometime after I shot The Conformist an old friend of mine in New York asked me, “Why don’t you write a movie for me?” So in one morning I wrote two pages and gave him those pages. It was called One Day and One Night and One Day and One Night, about a man and a woman meeting and discovering that they both need a strong physical communication; they don’t talk about anything else. So it was an idea really about communicating.
The Conformist came from a book by Alberto Moravia. I made The Dreamers because I really wanted to go back after I heard so much nonsense about ’68. I wanted to go back to what for me was ’68, when young people thought that they could change the world. There isn’t really a single way that repeats itself.
Q: Your films triangulate between the spiritual, the sexual and the political with different levels of emphasis particular to the film; but where do you find the relationship in the triangle?
BB: Life is like that: spiritual, physical, political. Because I’m not sure what the movie will look like when I’m doing it, I don’t know. Sometimes I think that I [only] really understand my movies after I make them. I very often go on instinct. The Dreamers comes from a book by Gilbert Adair called The Holy Innocents. He was so precise about ’68 that, because I had this need to go back, I decided to make a movie out of it.
I find new actors [and] new people for my movies — which is exciting. Eva [Green] had never done anything before The Dreamers, except, maybe, once on stage. Because Louis [Garrel's] father is a very good film French film director, I was very familiar [with him].
And Michael [Pitt]… When I came here in 2002 looking for an American kid, I finally found two, and then they withdrew because they were afraid of something that, in this country, is called, “frontal nudity.” So this blond guy was in the casting director’s office, and he said, “You will choose me” with a smile that was so irritating. In the end I took him. Michael’s working. He has worked with Martin Scorsese.

Q: He’s a very singular guy.

BB: He’s just a street boy. He told me that he ran away from school when he was 15, and came to New York from New Jersey. I can’t imagine what a 15, 16-year-old can do in New York alone.

Q: You’ve several films where you go from the Italian experience to Asia, and you seem to have had a fascination with Asian culture and even Buddhism. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you were going through at the time and what led you to explore that?

BB: There were three movies together. One was The Last Emperor, shot in China, then The Sheltering Sky made in the Sahara desert, then Little Buddha, done in India. In the beginning, when I went to China [for] the first time it was really like going away from a country I didn’t like much. There was a feeling of corruption.
Somebody gave me that book, which is the so-called autobiography of the last emperor, and I was fascinated by the story of a man who goes from being king of the world to becoming one of the minions of Mao. His itinerary was extraordinary, and also because it was talking about ancient times, because his youth in the Forbidden City is like 500 years ago. And then he has to accept the reality. So that was displacement.
Then [screenwriter/director] Mark Peploe gave me something to read, The Sheltering Sky, and it was the story of this couple unable to exchange, going so far, unable to communicate. I was very fascinated because it was far away from my country.
Little Buddha was because I read about a little boy who was considered the incarnation of an old Lama. And also entering into Buddhism was like entering the universe. All these young monks, young lamas, are leaving these monasteries and they are as smart and sophisticated as some of the intellectuals you can meet in New York. Fascinating.
I’m very fascinated by different cultures, [especially when] they are different from my culture. That is the opposite of what many people today are feeling. Some people are so afraid of the difference, and in fact The Conformist is about that — a man who feels his homosexuality without really knowing it. We discover at the end of the film that he thinks he has killed somebody he didn’t kill, and that he is affected by the feeling of being abused, etcetera.

Q: Did you get to meet the Dalai Lama?

BB: Oh yeah. Before even starting to write, I went to see him. He was actually with the government in exile in a hotel in Vienna, and I thought about the Dalai Lama and Freud; strange connection. I [told] him I would like to do a movie explaining Buddhism to the children because in the West we have such a confused idea about Buddhism. He laughed — and he often does — and said, “That’s good.” Then I said, “Can I call it Little Buddha because it’s like Buddhism explained to children?” And he said, “Yes… You know, we all have a little Buddha inside.”
Then I saw him again. He was traveling a lot and came to the premiere of Little Buddha in Paris — can you believe that? It was a huge screen in Paris and he sat next to me. Before he when made a little speech, he said, “I’ve seen many movies because I have television in hotel rooms but this is the first time I’ve stepped into a movie theater. ” Then he sat next to me and the movie started and he took my hand and he said, “It’s so big.”
He recognized some old lamas that I found, and was recognizing these other people. He’s retired — I don’t know if he’s really gone — it was in the press recently. He told me that in ’93, “In 20 years I will retire, I will become a single monk, and finally live the life of a single monk.”

Q: Do you have a movie that stands out that was the hardest to make or the most challenging in terms of location, actors or subjects?

BB: When you are in the courtyard of the Supreme Army in the Forbidden City with 2,000 extras in costume… I remember the evening before shooting that scene, I passed by with a car and in the courtyard there [were] soldiers all from the People’s Revolution Army. I remember they were all sitting there like 10, 15 chairs under the sky, and barbers [were] all cutting the hair, and they were cutting fast. And I saw this mountain of hair and it gave me some anxiety. With actors I don’t remember having.

Q: You once said something about Marlon Brando being like, “a monster as an actor and a darling as a human being.” You also talked about excavating his emotions.

BB: I was thinking that it was like a dialogue where he was really answering my questions in a way. When at the end of the movie, when he saw it, I discovered that he realized what we were doing, that he was delivering so much of his own experience. And he was very upset with me, and I told him, “Listen, you are a grownup. Older than me. Didn’t you realize what you were doing?” And he didn’t talk to me for years.

Q: It was like 15 years.

BB: Something like that. I called him one day in ’93, I think, I was in LA and my wife was shooting a movie. First of all, he answered the phone, and he was talking to me like we had seen each other a day earlier. He said, “Come here.” I said, “When?” He said, “Now.” So I remember driving on Mulholland Drive to his home and thinking I think I won’t make it, I think I will crash before [I get there]. I was so emotional.

Q: Having started so young as a filmmaker, are you amazed that you continue to make movies? Sometimes people start at 21 and don’t know that they’re even going to have as a career by the time they’re 30.

BB: How could I? You live day by day. You can’t build your life.

Q: There’s some aspect of ambition in your life — filmmakers have to be ambitious to shape the vision of a film.

BB: Oh yeah.

Q: Artistic ambition.

BB: When I was 21 shooting a movie was I thinking of the Oscars? No, I wasn’t. I remember very well my first movie, ’62, I’m producing the movie in the London Film Festival, and Jean-Paul Sartre had just received the Nobel for Literature and refused it. And I hear my voice saying, “If one day I should receive the Oscar I would refuse it.” Contradiction.

Q: Did you ever think, “Oh I’m just going to go back to writing poetry?”

BB: If only… Sometimes I think so, but I would be pathetic because finally I found something I know how to do. I feel excited about cinema, especially because it’s changing. It is technically changing — there’s a new universe from digital [technology]. Also, I am in love with the idea of doing a movie in 3D. I think 3D would be great [for] the story I want to do, in a realistic, normal story, using 3D on the emotions in a kind of intimate story.

Q: What filmmakers are you following now? What have become your favorite films of the past five years or so?

BB: I very much like David Lynch films. He seems not to be working at the moment.

Q: How about someone like Darren Aronofsky?

BB: I like the intensity. He married an actress that, in fact, I discovered for the first time, Rachel Weisz, and she was in Stealing Beauty.

Q: You certainly brought out things in Eva Green that I don’t think have been shown. She was amazing in The Dreamers.

BB: Yes, but she’s very cautious about what she does. She’s mysterious. The most important thing is for somebody [to be] mysterious; to be somebody with the mystery of intelligence.

Q: Is it possible today for filmmakers to experiment artistically and be successful?

BB: It is a bit like that always. I like to try things which are new. You think that you have done something new, and then find out that nothing is new. When I see something experimental, I rarely ever get pleasure because experimental doesn’t mean automatically beautiful or achieved. But when the two things happen together — when somebody’s really inspired, and they find a new way of expression, a new language, a new way of talking, I feel excited. I’m ready to go to very young directors because they have new ideas about how to speak and how to speak to the people.
The Conformist was maybe the beginning of my [diary] with the [audience] because I didn’t have the need to communicate. I said it before but it’s true. Going from knowing cinema as a form of monologue, to [experience] cinema as a form of dialogue, I found out it is important to feel the feedback from an audience, like when I went to Lincoln Center for the first show of Last Tango in Paris. The dark sound of when you stand up and [push] the seat back, there were all these people standing up and leaving the theater [as well].

Q: No one was booing or shouting during the screening?

BB: Yeah, there was also somebody booing, but somebody also defending.
Q: Does it make you look back and think about how you would have done things differently?

BB: I’m trying to look ahead because my past is so full of different adventures. I think of The Conformist, Dominique and Stefania, and then I think of being in the Forbidden City with these extras in front of a little boy. And I was telling the little boy to look at them and he was looking and he’d say, “My mother and my father do it all the time.” That was his reaction, more or less. So I like this displacement, I like the kind of little vertigo.
Q: Besides the fact that Dominique Sanda’s in it, which is a great highlight, The Conformist also took so many new approaches and had lots of sexually controversial aspects to it. When you look back on it now, do you find it odd that you broke so many boundaries or rules and probably weren’t even thinking about it in those terms?

BB: I wasn’t really thinking. Last Tango in Paris was a big scandal, and I couldn’t understand it. In Italy I’ve been condemned to two months of prison. Times were so different. Sometimes you are in sync with the times, sometimes you are in advance, sometimes you are late. These aspects were obviously very important for me. When you’re quite young, the temptation of transgression was something very much in my movies.

Q: Are you surprised how times don’t seem to have changed in America?
BB: Everything seems very, very similar. I was just depressed; I watched a murder on TV. Big guy in a school shoots. Before that he has a red spray can and on the will he makes a circle in a V, exactly like the logo in the movie [V For Vendetta]. In this country I’ve seen extraordinarily strong things.
[Once] in New York I saw a live program — a man who robbed a bank and held hostages, and then he was closed between the bank door and another door (a glass door) — and he had no way to escape. And the TV [crew] was filming him, and then he put the gun there and the camera goes closer and closer and closer. Finally, when he felt it was close enough, he shot himself. And that was kind of an [extreme] example of live television.

Q: We have a double standard with our tolerance for sex and our tolerance for violence. We have so much tolerance for violence, but if it’s sex, like Last Tango it makes people uncomfortable.

BB: It’s a bit like that in other countries too. But in Italy, when I said I was sentenced for Last Tango in Paris, it was a feeling like it was a gesture of honor — like I bring you the head of Last Tango in Paris to the Vatican, to the moralist part of the church.
Q: The Conformist has that erotic scene with Dominique Sanda and the other actress, and you have that well framed — then when you show the violence, you pull back and you have it in the distance. It’s so different from the American approach to violence. You took the very opposite.

BB: I should see it again.

Q: It’s one of the benchmark movies of all time. I saw it 25 years ago, and again more recently.

BB: I know there are new prints of these movies so I hope that they don’t have too many wrinkles and spider webs.
Q: And now you’re working on a new film.
BB: It’s very exciting because my last movie, The Dreamers, was made seven years ago in 2003.After that I had back problems and started to waste time in absurd back operations. For a few years I thought that my love story with cinema was finished.
A few months ago, I read a novel in Italian by Nicolo Ammaniti. In Italian, the book is called Lo e Te. I felt a big desire to go back to shooting. So I’m very excited to be here confronting these many years of work between 1962 and 2000; [almost] 40 years of work but, [at least I] know that the story isn’t finished…

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There will be many potential reasons for post-holiday torpor, most of them fairly obvious — from saying goodbye to loved ones we won’t see for some time, to loosening belts and paying bills. But if after tallying the obvious you still can’t fully account for your lassitude, somewhat less obvious explanations deserve consideration as well. Two hormones figure prominently among the relevant suspects.
The first is vitamin D.
In general, a nutrient is something we must ingest and metabolize. We usually burn nutrients, or their breakdown products, as fuel; or use them to build a part of ourselves. By and large, nutrients are either fuel, or construction material.
Hormones are neither. If a nutrient is fuel, a hormone determines how much gets tossed on the fire. If a nutrient is construction material, a hormone may be both builder, and architect. Hormones are regulators of body function. They travel through the blood stream, bind to receptors throughout the body, and exert effects far removed in place, time, and character from their origins.
Which brings us back to vitamin D. We have long been preoccupied with vitamin D as a nutrient because of its prominence in the recent history of public health. In the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a massive shift of the workforce — including young children — from farm to factory. Factories in Europe and the U.S. routinely involved work from before dawn to after dusk with an abrupt decline in ambient sun exposure resulting.
At the time, the effects of sunlight on skin were the almost exclusive source of vitamin D, so no sun meant vitamin D deficiency. This manifested as an epidemic of rickets — a stunting condition of impaired bone growth in children. The epidemic ended when the cause was identified, and dairy products were fortified as they still are with vitamin D. We have focused on vitamin D as a nutrient rather than a hormone, and on its specific effects on bone, ever since.
Only recently has that begun to change, as the scientific literature has filled up with studies suggesting other important effects of vitamin D. That there is controversy in this area is indicated by the recent IOM report on vitamin D intake, which many, myself included, think may have erred to the low side. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that vitamin D affects not just bone, but also the immune system, muscle, the cardiovascular system, and the brain.
Whether or not vitamin D directly affects mood — from seasonal affective disorder to depression — is uncertain. Many people are prone to the ‘blues’ during the short, dark days of winter, and prone to low vitamin D levels at the same time. Vitamin D deficiency may be a cause, or both may simply be effects, in turn, of sunlight deficiency. Whatever its role, vitamin D deficiency is common; some studies suggest that well over a third of the U.S. population is affected at any given time.
As research advances to sort out the details, you might as well hedge a bet in your favor. I recommend a vitamin D level near the middle of the normal reference range for the population. When I check my patients here in CT, I find that quite a few have low levels year round, but particularly in winter. If a supplement is needed to approximate the middle of the bell curve, this is one of the few I routinely do encourage. Your doctor can help determine how much you need to reach, and remain, at the target level.
Thyroid hormone is less directly tied in with the sun, but even more directly connected to mood and energy. Its reputation as a master regulator of body functions is well deserved — there is little the body does that is not influenced by the thyroid.
Roughly 5 percent of the U.S. population develops overt hypothyroidism, the risk rising as we age, and higher in women than men. But up to four times as many may experience “sub-clinical hypothyroidism.” In this condition, thyroid hormone levels are actually normal- but the pituitary gland is working overtime to keep them so. The characteristic lab results for this state are an elevated level of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) from the pituitary, and low normal levels of thyroid hormones.
But normal means within the normal range for the population, not necessarily normal for you. While we all tend to fall somewhere in the wide population bell curve, only a narrow range of it really tolls “normal” for any one of us. Somewhere in that curve is the spot our hormones prefer to call home.
Vitamin D, thyroid hormones, and/or TSH, can be technically in the normal range for the population (each laboratory will have its own), but still not quite right for you. If not feeling like you think you should — if tired, or groggy, or apathetic, or blue — confer with your doctor to determine if getting these hormones more at home might be all or part of the solution.
Make your hormones feel more at home, and they are apt to return the favor. There’s no place quite like it.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org

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“I am seeking the fullest expression of myself as a human being on Earth.”
–Oprah Winfrey
Can you even begin to imagine if each and every one of us lived our lives with deep commitment to such a lofty vision? Why don’t we? What do we make more important than manifesting our fullest expression?
It is easy to dismiss Oprah’s success based on her vast fortune and to say, “Well, I could do great things with all that money, too!” But remember, Oprah started out as a poor, black girl in rural Mississippi, born to unwed, teenaged parents. Her early years were spent at her grandmother’s farm with no indoor plumbing or electricity. Then she lived with her mother in Milwaukee, where she was sexually abused by several male relatives and began to act out as a troubled young teen. Next, she lived with her father in Nashville, and his stern discipline gave her the guidance and stability she apparently needed to flourish. She began to excel in school and by 19 had a part-time job as a radio reporter in Nashville. The rest, as they say, is history.
Even if any of us could argue that we have faced bigger challenges than Oprah, the question remains, “What are you doing with your life?” What is your contribution? What kind of relationships do you have with yourself and others? How do you give of yourself?
Each of us is born, we breathe in and out for an unspecified period of time and then we die. That’s life. Each of us has our very own set of challenges, preferences and capabilities. What are yours, and what are you doing with them? Do you use them as excuses for failure or do you leverage them into greater wisdom and success?
As each new year arrives, many of us take stock of where we are in our lives and what changes we want to make. I am always amused to see how packed the gym is for the first few days of January and then how it gets back to normal in a week or two. It seems that the mere fact that it is a new year fails to provide sufficient momentum in most people to make substantive changes in their lives.
Having been raised Catholic, I am familiar with the experience of coming out of the confessional and feeling like I have a clean slate and wanting to keep it that way. Each new year has always had a similar feeling for me of starting anew, having yet another chance to direct myself through the trials and triumphs of life and wanting to lift myself up higher.
I used to work in strategic planning and learned to view the assets of any individual or organization as people, money and time. I now apply this perspective to myself in managing my own life. As I stand on the threshold of a new year, I am me and all that that encompasses. I have the money I have, no more and no less, and I have another allotment of 8,760 hours to do with as I will. The name of the game, as I see it, is to stay conscious of who I am, what I have and where I am going, and to be open to the possibilities that present themselves. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions or go to big New Year’s parties. Most years, I choose to spend New Year’s Eve alone using the vantage point of ending one year and starting a new one to pause and take a good look at my life. My ritual involves the following:
Experience gratitude for the gifts and lessons of the past year. Be grateful for new and existing friends, personal and professional accomplishments, wisdom gained, lessons learned, new skills and abilities and storms weathered.
Acknowledge losses. As life marches on, we lose jobs, friends and family, lovers and partners. For each loss, I like to look at how that job or person enriched my life, how we parted ways — whether by death or discord — and how I am better for having had that experience or person in my life.
Review last year’s intentions and compare them to what transpired over the past year. Notice whether or not the intentions were realistic based on the information known when they were made. What surprises showed up? What was being ignored?
Set clear intentions for what to create, promote or allow in the coming year. Knowing that life will be full of surprises, I like to set clear but flexible goals for the coming year. I frame them more as affirmations of what I choose to claim as my possibilities with a clear intention to do my best to manifest them rather than setting New Year’s resolutions that carry an expectation of not coming true.
As captain of my own little ship on the sea of life, I get to choose my way through the opportunities and challenges that come my way. I do my best to keep on track or to revise my intentions as needed. It’s a living, breathing process, not a rigid goal that must be achieved. I also have an overarching vision or purpose to which I am dedicating my life. This helps to guide my choices and to inform my life each and every day.
How did you celebrate and honor the coming of the new year? What are your rituals?
I wish each and every one of you a happy, healthy and fulfilling new year of 8,760 hours. I hope you will use your allotment well for the highest good of all concerned. And finally, my best wishes to Oprah as she leads OWN, her new television network, which launched yesterday, Jan. 1, 2011, at noon. Her mission is to help unleash the power of human potential by providing mindful, not mindless, television that helps people live their best lives. Thank you, Oprah!
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This Blogger’s Books from
The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day
by Judith Johnson

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Still wondering whether you should read through the WikiLeaks documents to decide for yourself whether they’re a victory for transparency or just high-tech terrorism? That’s so last year. A website called Haikuleaks has already mined thousands of the documents for you and found the moments of pure poetry.
Tetalab’s Fabrice Fourc, who, I assume, is some sort of computer genius, unleashed a “haikufinder” on the WikiLeaks cables. The poem-finding program, described as a “python module,” automatically locates haiku in unstructured English text. Our diplomats, of course, don’t actually write in haiku (though that would be awesome), so the poetry is purely accidental. So far, haikuleaks has spotted 65 of the little buggers in 1,830 cables. A programmer on the haikufinder website explained how it works:
“Each candidate haiku line, and then the entire haiku, has to make it through a few heuristics to filter out constructions that are likely to scan awkwardly (like verb phrases split across lines).”
The results, while not as intriguing as, say, Julian Assange, are pretty entertaining. Many of the haiku describe interesting characters, like this one about a distracted and gluttonous diplomat:
Instead, he gulped three
cans of Coca-Cola while
inhaling his food.
Or this one about international official and cruddy writer:
He has written books,
but most critics understand
that is not his gift.
Or this one, describing an official who may, in fact, be dead?
We have not noted
any tendency to shake,
blink or roll his eyes.
And you have to love someone who keeps it real regarding nepotism:
A Cuban woman
in her thirties confides, “It’s all
about who you know.”
One humor-challenged commenter on the website metafilter.com opined that the haiku are not legitimate, as the haiku-finding program does not scan for references to the seasons or for a startling shift in the last line — both traditional elements of the haiku — and thus dismissed the poetry as “shoehorned doggerel.” He was expecting Shakespeare? Besides, did he not notice that
Parts of the country
are often cut off by snow
and avalanches.
There’s your seasonal reference! Alas, none of the haiku feature “a startling shift” or resonate with one of life’s deep philosophical questions. You know, something like
Julian Assange,
you promote such anarchy.
Why the perfect hair?
I guess we’ll have to write those ourselves. (Feel free to add your own in the comments).

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The word yoga literally means “union.” When you experience everything as oneness in your consciousness, then you are in yoga. To attain that unity within you, there are many steps. Hatha yoga, for example, is one step. Hatha yoga means you start with the body; the body itself has its own attitudes, its own ego, its own nature. For example, you say, “Starting tomorrow, I will get up at five in the morning and go for a walk.” You set the alarm. The alarm rings. You want to get up, but your body says, “Shut up and sleep!” It has its own way. So we start with the body. Hatha yoga is a way of disciplining the body, purifying and preparing it for higher levels of energy.
All of us are alive; all of us are human beings. But all of us do not experience life at the same intensity because our energy levels are not the same. Our pranic energies are not the same. Different people experience life in different levels of intensity. Take, for example, a tree. A tree is just a tree. Most people will not even notice it, but one person will see the tree in great detail, an artist may see every shade of it, and somebody else sees not only the tree but also the divine in it. Everybody sees, but seeing is not the same because the level of intensity with which we experience life is not the same. So we start with the body because that is something that we all know.
The whole process of yoga is to take you from something that you know to the next step — the unknown. If we talk about something that you do not know, either you have to believe it or disbelieve it. Suppose I start talking about God. You either have to believe my God or disbelieve my God, which will only take you into flights of imagination, not into growth. So we talk about the body. This is something that you know — you know you have a body — so we take the body to its peak. Then we talk about the breath and then the mind; that is also something that you know. You can only grow by taking the next step from where you are right now. Realizing where you are right now and taking the next step is growth.
The science of yoga is almost like a physical science. Suppose you mix two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen; you will get water. If a great scientist puts it together, it is water, and even if an idiot puts it together, it is still water. Similarly, in yoga, if you follow specific practices, only a certain result will happen. Whether a great yogi does it or an ignorant person does it, it does not matter. If one does the practices and spiritual disciplines properly, the results will arise.
These yogic systems have been identified for thousands of years, throughout the history of yoga. To start with, you work with the body, then you move to the breath, then the mind, then your inner nature. Many systems have been created that focus on just one step, like the body or the breath. But these are only different aspects of yoga. There is really no such thing as different branches of yoga. It is important that, in a very balanced way, all of these aspects are addressed as one unit. Otherwise, if you work with just the body, it is only preparatory in nature. So there is really no division as such. Yoga is a union of all steps — cultivating the body, breath, mind and the inner nature.
***
Sadhguru developed Isha Yoga as an invigorating process to transform oneself. For over 25 years, Isha Yoga programs have touched and transformed the lives of millions of people around the world. To learn more, please visit Sadhguru’s Huffington Post bio page.

This Blogger’s Books from
Flowers on the Path
by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
Midnights with the Mystic: A Little Guide to Freedom and Bliss
by Cheryl Simone, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Imagine a school with no bells or classes, no principal or school board. It’s not an idea, it’s a large-scale experiment in the upper Midwest.
A column by my friend Joe Nathan reminded me of the pioneering work of the Minnesota-based Edvisions network. Joe reviews a report by Charles Kerchner, a Claremont (California) University professor, “Can Teachers Run their Own Schools?”
“Can teachers run their own schools?” is an interesting question, but it’s actually just one of eight innovations explored in Kerchner’s paper and exhibited by the Edvisions network:
1. Governance: a producers cooperative is not unusual in the upper Midwest, but uncommon in education. Joe points out that doctors, lawyers, journalists and other professionals have options to form professional partnerships. Kerchner notes: “The use of cooperatives is much more widespread than commonly realized, involving as many as 100 million Americans.”
Edvisions schools operate under a charter or contract that provides academic and financial autonomy.
2. Staffing: There are more generalists than specialists at Edvisions schools with a much higher percentage of staff focused on core academic subjects than administrative duties.
3. Coherence: The most under appreciated feature of good schools is coherence–everything works together for teachers and kids. Most networks and districts attempt coherence by dictate. Edvisions schools create coherence though collaboration.
4. Evaluation: Execution is at least as important as coherence to school performance and teacher evaluations are key to execution. Edvisions schools feature peer review. Occasionally teachers are non-renewed. There is almost always a high degree of ownership for outcomes.
5. Pedagogy: Edvisions schools feature a project-based approach that “moves the responsibility for creating projects and keeping on pace to their completion to the student.”
Project-based learning is common but hard to do rigorously. Edvisions encourages standards-based projects with detailed project plans and assessment rubrics.
6. Deeper learning: Kerchner suggests that “Teacher-run schools develop introspective routines that cause both students and adults to inquire deeply into whether and how learning is taking place.”
It’s fair to say that some Edvisions schools don’t produce high test scores; it reflects “a clear belief that the goal of their schools is not to produce higher test scores. Theirs is a broader curriculum in which measured cognitive achievement is subordinated by important student skills in solving problems, in personal discipline, and self-control.”
7. Competency-based: nearly lost in this report is what may be the most innovative thing about Edvisions schools–they are student-centered, “one kid at a time,” schools where students move at their own pace and get more time and help where and when they need it.
8. Democratic schools: Edvisions schools “Rely on strong cultures, a common mission, and relational trust. The idea of unitary democracy, as opposed to interest group democracy or political parties, makes the goals of the cooperative enterprise more important than those of individual positions.”
Kerchner is clear that “The range of test score results among the teacher-run schools is very large, and so is the student population served… The schools appear to have better than average college test results and college-going rates.”
As the digital learning tools improve, networks like Edvisions will be able to add engaging and targeted skill-building playlists to their project-based approach.
America needs more educational experiments like Edvisions–experiments in governance, structure, and learning.

Follow Tom Vander Ark on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/tvanderark

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry cut short a concert in Chicago after collapsing on stage.
He slumped over his keyboard and did not move for a couple of minutes before being helped off stage, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dave Hoekstra wrote.
Concertgoer Steve Handwerker told the Associated Press news agency that Berry fell face first onto his keyboard.
Berry, 84, later re-emerged but told fans he had no strength to continue performing, the Sun-Times reported.
With hits like Johnny B Goode and Roll Over Beethoven, the singer and guitarist is one of the pioneers of rock 'n' roll and influenced artists including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys.

Source:BBC

Don’t look now, but Congress just raised your taxes. How can that be? Didn’t they just approve a bill that will keep Bush-era tax cuts in place, lower the inheritance tax, and lower the Social Security tax for a year?
Call it the “debt tax.” Whenever the federal government enacts a bill that it does not pay for, we go further into debt – in this case $900 billion. When you buy something you can’t afford, you borrow the money and pay interest on what you borrow. The interest the government has to pay on its debt has to come from you, the taxpayer, and thus it acts just like a tax – your tax dollars pay it.
In 1940, the federal government paid $10.3 billion in interest on the debt, $78 for every man, woman and child in America at the time. In 1980, the government paid $111.6 billion in interest, or $491 for every American. Fast-forward to 2010, where the comparative figures were $168.4 billion and $545. Chump change. According to the President’s Budget for 2011, interest on the debt will be $474 billion by 2015, a per capita cost of $1,454. In short, the “debt tax” will increase nearly 300 percent in just five years.
If this sounds like “so what, I don’t actually have to pay more,” think about it another way. If the federal government had no debt in 2015, it could lower your taxes by $1,458. For a family of four, that would amount to a tax bill nearly $6,000 less.
According to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO, in 2020, when net interest on the debt is projected to cost $937 billion, that net interest will be 14 percent of federal spending, nearly as much as we will spend on Defense (15 percent) and Medicare (17%). Oh, and the per capita cost of the interest will by then be $2,789.
In 1985, the entire federal budget was $946 billion. By 2020, based on CBO’s estimates, we’ll pay nearly that just in interest. In short, the “debt tax” in 2020 will equal what the federal budget was in 1985.
One more thing. When you pay the debt tax, you might at least take comfort in the fact that your tax dollars are doing back to good old Uncle Sam, right? Well, only partially. The U.S. government owes nearly a third of its debt to foreign creditors (over $4 trillion). So, roughly 30 cents of each “debt tax” dollar goes to a list of countries that includes China (our biggest creditor by dollar volume), Japan, the U.K, Russia, the oil exporting countries of the Middle East and Brazil. Isn’t it comforting to know that our “debt tax” dollars are financing the growth of our competitors?
On the brighter side of all this, you might think: well, Republicans, Democrats, and the White House finally stopped shouting at each other and agreed on something. They compromised. But how hard is it really to compromise on spending more money? Maybe each bill coming before Congress should have to report what impact it will have on the “debt tax”.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As we look ahead to the promise of 2011, some newspaper’s editorials are looking beyond their local community’s needs and imparting messages that extend to all Americans, near and far. The same themes – austerity, recession, bipartisanship, leadership – show up in several editorials, indicating that the country’s citizens are gearing up for another challenging year. Here, the best advice and solutions that newspaper editorial boards are giving to concerned Americans as they prepare and plan for the coming year:
Toast a fresh start for all…: “Perhaps you can remember when the thought of a brand new year — even the very numeral — was exciting,” says a New York Times editorial. But we’ve adjusted to a “familiar,” somber celebration in recent years. “The coming of the new year reminds us, again, that we live, as we always have, somewhere on a sliding scale between utopia and dystopia.” But it also allows “a chance to start over” filled with “hope and renewal and recommitment.” So while New Year’s Ever is a “night for banishing regrets,” we should then try to “do right by ourselves and one another.”
…Including Obama and Congress…: “In coming weeks, the national government will go through the annual rituals of renewal, including the president’s address to the new Congress,” says a Washington Post editorial. Obama should consider delivering his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, which is uncommon but promotes “polite discourse” among perceived foes. Let’s set a different tone “as we start out on a new year and another daunting decade.”
…And the economy, too: Although we have “some nagging negative indicators” of the U.S. economy “still lurking,” says a Charleston Post and Courier editorial, there are reasons to be hopeful. South Carolina and other states have begun to turn things around a bit, and there are “positive trends” evident “in holiday sales, budding business growth and new jobs.” Perhaps this “truly will be a ‘Happy New Year’ of revived prosperity.’”

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

With the arrival of 2011, we would do well to recognize the future when we see it. For this reason, Arianna’s recent blogs, South American Diary, Chile: More Than Miners Are Being Rescued and It Might Be Time to Rebrand It the South American Dream, are among the more important posts to have appeared on this website. Why? Because they show us what our future will be, if we play our cards right. Her description of the leadership of Chilean President Sebastin Piera and the efforts of Brazil to make fundamental social advances, such as the elimination of poverty, offers a message that we dare not let pass as the old year slides into the new.
What’s happening in Chile and Brazil heralds a new era emerging now on the planet, vividly demonstrating that there is a way to solve the problems we currently face. That path to resolution, and the term for the phenomenon Arianna describes, is dignitarian. In its simplest form, it means acting to protect, enhance, and serve the dignity of all. Not just special interests and lobbyists, banks and financiers, corporations, or political factions; not just friends and family or your network of buddies; and not just the people who voted for you or whom you officially represent. To be dignitarian means to protect the dignity of all. All of the people, all of the time. Regardless of our role in life–whether we’re considered a “somebody” or a “nobody” or something in between–we can all be dignitarians, and now a few countries are showing us how.
Dignity is the principle that explains why, in one moment, a conservative politician might choose a course of action that’s considered politically liberal and, in another, stick to the party line. Or why two opposing political parties can find common goals, such as becoming the first country to eliminate poverty. The deciding factor–whether articulated or not–is dignity. The question to ask is always: Does this decision, this initiative, this approach, serve the dignity of all? This is transpartisan politics at its best. It is also leadership in its purest form.
Chile’s and Brazil’s successful efforts at social transformation, resulting from dignitarian leadership, are harbingers of the future, prime examples of the global emergence of a practical dignitarian vision. We may not see this for awhile in the United States, which, as Arianna noted, seems locked into a vise-grip of right/left political wrangling. For certain, though, it’s becoming more visible globally. Chile and Brazil have been quietly moving in a dignitarian direction for some time now, mostly below the radar. Bangladesh is another example, worth mentioning because of the rapid momentum that is building there to launch a dignity movement.
Thus far, this has occurred in Bangladesh largely through the efforts of one organization, Civic Bangladesh, under the leadership of its founder and executive director Bayezid Dawla. In a few short years Civic Bangladesh, seeking to actualize the principles of Bangladesh’s 1971 constitution (liberty, dignity, and justice), has established chapters of what is called the “Dignity Forum” in every district in the country. These forums are comprised of grass-roots leaders working to operationalize the concept of dignity in every area of endeavor: human rights, children’s protective services, education, agriculture, business, finance, economics, the arts, the environment, workplace conditions and employees’ rights, to name just some of them. Mr. Dawla and Civic Bangladesh have organized local and regional conferences and have secured the interest and support of officials at the highest levels of government, education, law, and other sectors. The upcoming national conference, entitled “Dignity for All: Bangladesh as a Model for the Global Community,” which even the country’s president will attend, is truly historic. Conference sessions will map out strategies to create a dignitarian culture in five different sectors of society: Arts and Culture, Education, Healthcare, Governance, and Media. All signs, at the moment, point to Bangladesh rivaling Chile and Brazil as the first country to actively commit to creating a dignitarian society. Perhaps there are other countries as well, proceeding in similar directions, which haven’t yet caught our attention.
A new world is coming. The future is on its way.
The value of examples like Chile, Brazil, and Bangladesh is that they show the world what is possible. If dignity for all can become a primary value–a value that can be actualized–in one country, or two or three, or more, there is no reason the same can’t occur in many countries, even all of them.
So Arianna’s blog, written shortly before the new year turned, must be noted. It predicts the future by showing us what is emerging now on the planet. It shows us that, as Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy once wrote: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.”
Welcome, Dignitarian World.
Happy New Year.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

New Year’s weekend is the perfect opportunity to clean out our internal hard drives, and begin to bring more balance to our lives (I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need more balance, so will someone please go ahead and create an app for that already?!). How about beginning with a list of three things you thought you would do one day but, realistically, you never will. You can just declare them complete. For example, I always wanted to learn German and be able to read many of my favorite authors in the original. But the truth is, I’m never going to. So I’ve declared learning German complete and crossed it off my list. By deleting things from your mind that you will one day, some day do, you’re freeing up space to devote yourself to projects you are truly committed to. So what are you going to cross off your list to make room for all your New Year’s resolutions as 2011 kicks into gear?

This Blogger’s Books from
Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
by Arianna Huffington

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com