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While Washington fusses and grandstands about health care reform, we as individuals can vote with our actions and dollars. In America’s free market economy, our collective choices will significantly impact the nation’s health care system.
Here are five actions each of us can take today, thanks to new benefits made available by the landmark Affordable Care Act.
1.Pick up the phone and schedule a free annual exam, and routine preventive tests for your age group (such as mammograms and colonoscopies). Under the ACA, preventive care is now free of charge or soon will be, without co-pays or

Because of the unprecedented manner that America was fast tracked from fledgling upstart to world power, there is a tendency to forget we still cling to aspects of innocence that belie our world power status.
In addition to events such as the JFK assassination, Oklahoma City and 9/11 tragedies, we must also add last week’s shooting in Tucson, AZ, to the glossary of transformative moments that robbed more of our innocence.
A deranged young man shot 20 people, six fatally, during Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ constituent meeting, who at the time of this writing is fighting for her life in a Tucson hospital.
Senseless violence always leaves more questions than it readily provides answers. But in our profoundly American tradition, such frustrating realities do not prohibit us from seeking to prematurely fill in the

A year after the devastating earthquake in Haiti last January, the situation on the ground remains grim: more than a million people are still living in tents, less than 5 percent of the rubble has been cleared from Port-au-Prince, and now a cholera epidemic, which has already taken thousands of lives, is raging across the country. Despite pledges to “build back better,” international efforts in Haiti are struggling just to provide relief. The window for transformative change is closing. Donor fatigue is setting in, and new commitments are slowing to a

LAS VEGAS — The iPad App for the New York Times has had 1.5 million downloads since it launched in April, says Ray Pearce, who heads circulation for the newspaper. We interviewed him at CES last week. This number puts it ahead of weekly circulation for The Times which is about 950,000. Sunday is 1.3 million.While only some who download the App read the paper on their iPad, surely far fewer than those who read the print edition, the number of downloads represents a major move to digital consumption as a “deep reading” experience says

Confession: I buy almost all of my lingerie at TJ Maxx and Marshalls.
Over time, I’ve amassed a decent collection of brand-name lingerie at rock-bottom prices.
But if I’m honest, I’ve always dreamed of having a drawer full of La Perla and Agent Provocateur underthings — bras and panties that cost far more than I’m accustomed to paying, like this lovely $230 La Perla bra.
I always imagined that this kind of lingerie costs so much because it feels like pure luxury against your skin — or better yet, nothing at all.
I didn’t think I’d be able to justify the price tag of La Perla any time soon — but then Gilt Groupe, the invitation-only flash sale site (you can get an invitation here if you want to check it out), had a La Perla sale. With credit I had stored up, I bought myself a bra and and panty set. Total price at deep discount: $150.
When the bra and panties arrived, I eagerly ripped them from their packaging, only to find that they felt… ordinary.
I honestly couldn’t tell the difference in the quality of fabric between La Perla and any other decent brand I’ve found at TJ Maxx or Marshalls.
And that was pretty damn disappointing.
I figured the difference, though, would be obvious when I put them on.
The bra fit very well, which was a nice surprise (it’s always tricky ordering a bra from a new brand when you haven’t had an opportunity to try it on), but again, it didn’t feel any more special on than any other bra I own.
Even worse, it had a scratchy tag right in the middle of my

Last week, I received yet another vitriolic e-mail chiding me for speaking and writing about global warming when northeastern United States was under feet of snow in addition to unseasonably cold temperatures. So how can a warming world, especially in the mid latitudes, be experiencing such intense periods of deep-freezes?
Perhaps it may best be summed up by a quote from Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator: “Whatever is going to happen in the rest of the world happens first, and to the greatest extent, in the Arctic.”
On MSNBCs Countdown in late December of 2010, I used the analogy of the Arctic being likened to the freezer on a kitchen refrigerator. If the door of the freezer is left open, cold air spills out, and at the same time the refrigerator motor warms up as cold air pours into the house.
In many ways that’s exactly what’s happening, now bringing governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee to declare emergencies and cancel schools and college classes as sleet, ice and at least several inches of snow, in some places as much as 9 inches of snow, blanket the southeast of the

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass

It’s been a long time coming. After any number of heavy-handed approaches to online identity management, the federal government looks like it is trying a more enlightened approach. Last week the White House announced that the Commerce Department will be in charge of developing identity systems for the internet. This is not an easy nut to crack — but assigning Commerce, and its technical sidekick, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), is definitely a move in the right

The announcement of a new novel by John Lescroart is a cause for celebration. Each and every one of his novels is a study in the power of the written word and the magic a truly engrossing story can weave. Most of his novels center around a lawyer in San Francisco by the name of Dismas Hardy. Usually Abe Glitsky, Dismas’ best friend and the San Francisco Chief of Police, is also

As the Spring semester begins, many college seniors across the country are preparing to apply for Teach for America, though a fortunate few have already been selected for the upcoming 2012 TFA corps. Teach for America selects high-performing college seniors and then places them in low-income schools to “help ensure educational opportunity for all.”
If you were to read TFA’s polished public relations and website literature, you would think that the organization is tantamount to a modern day civil rights movement, helping fight poverty through educational opportunities.
The reality, however, is quite different. Teach for America — or as it is pejoratively known “Teach for Awhile” — has mixed impact at best, according to studies which have evaluated it.
On the TFA website, there are links and summaries of a litany of studies that prove just how successful TFA has been. This limited set of studies unsurprisingly leaves out the largest study on TFA to date, a six-year Stanford study including 4,400 teachers and 132,000

After he married in the early 1960s, his first wife – the actress June Blair – also became his TV wife.
Nelson also had roles in the films Peyton Place, The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker, The Big Circus and The Big Show.
He later moved into mainly directing TV advertisments with his last film appearance in the 1990 Johnny Depp film, Cry Baby.
In 1996, he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his services to the motion picture industry.
Nelson is survived by his wife, Yvonne, four sons and a daughter, and seven

I’m going to say what a blogger can and a politician can’t. Guns suck. Guns are bad. I hate

The Huffington Post recently named the growth of workplace flexibility at Fortune 500 companies as one of the top stories of the last decade. That’s no surprise if you look at corporate data. A recent survey of CEOs found that the #1 investment challenge facing business in the next decade is “obtaining human capital and optimizing human capital investments,” and that the #1 driver for attracting and keeping this talent is “providing flexibility to balance life and work.”
Firms of all sizes now promote creative options like telecommuting, paid leave and career breaks. It seems every day we read about a new company or industry that embraces workplace

Well, it’s that time of the year again. Like clockwork, forecasts for wine trends come about as surely as Thanksgiving Day wine recommendations and grilling guides for Father’s Day. Maybe I’m jaded, or just too opinionated, but these “forecasts” — besides being frighteningly repetitive from year to year — seem to be simply self-serving and painfully narrow-minded. As with everything, there are exceptions, but I can’t help but be struck by the agenda-driven nature of so many of these prognostications.
Just from this year’s crop we have the following gems:
Chardonnay is dead, there are no new Chardonnay drinkers.
Pinot Noir is poised for a collapse.
Consumers have lost interest in French and Italian wines.
Bordeaux is

The former Haitian ruler Jean Claude Duvalier once said, “It is the destiny of the people of Haiti to suffer.”
That was one of the things I read among my notes as we traveled down to Haiti on the night of Jan. 12, 2010. The quote sounded fatalistic and unfair. How can an entire population be destined to suffer?
But the more you learn about Haiti, the more you realize the situation most Haitians are born into is a cruel semblance of life in the Western

It’s easy to find someone to wish you a Happy New Year. Strangers do it. Even people who don’t like you do it. It’s far more rare is to find someone who will tell you how to achieve it.
I am that rare

It’s easy to be cynical about industry, government and innovation, but it was impossible to be pessimistic in Las Vegas last week at International CES.
Innovation took center stage and wowed the world last week with more than 140,000 innovators participating in the world’s largest tech gathering.
As the person heading the association producing CES, I had a front row seat to judge the state of innovation. I am exhilarated! The apps, services, content and products will boost the economy, create jobs, and make us safer, connected, entertained, educated and informed. With some 20,000 products introduced by 2,700 companies, CES innovations captured the world’s attention.
Exciting announcements filled each day of the week. For me, though, Friday was the