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We go to college to get entree into the world. We expect the promise that college gives us, along with the diploma we’re paying for. But this can be an elusive fantasy. In fact, most students are just standing in line for a

People wondered if Piers Morgan was going to make Oprah cry last Monday night. But the real question is whether Barack Obama will bring tears to the eyes of John Boehner during Tuesday’s SOTU.
SOTU, of course, is shorthand for State of the Union message, but this year it could just as well mean Starting Over, Talking Unity. Because that is what President Obama might want to consider doing with his historic Constitutional opportunity. Set out a new direction for America that is driven by a renewed spirit of possibility and purpose.
The lead-up to this year’s speech is evidence that the more things change, the more they sometimes don’t stay the

In the angry responses to my recent blog post, “Libertarianism, the new Anti-Americanism,” one argument came up again and again:
“The problems with free trade that we see today are not the result of true free trade; they are the result of the bastardized version inflicted on us by treaties like NAFTA and the proposed Korea free trade agreement, and if only we had true, authentic free trade, all these problems would go away.”
This is an attractive position for libertarians and other free-market true believers, because it enables them to simultaneously complain about the obvious trade problems we do have while preserving their faith in the ultimate supremacy of free markets. It reminds me of how Trotskyite communists used to be some of the toughest critics of Stalin while remaining convinced that real communism was the answer.
While there certainly are plenty of treaty-specific problems that have nothing to do with free trade per se — like allowing foreign judges to overrule our democratically-made laws — there is no way one can lay all the problems free trade causes at the door of imperfect implementation. That is to say, free trade on its own, in the purest possible form, would still be a disaster for this country.
Witness the fact that, despite NAFTA and all the other legal impedimenta, America’s trade (on the import side) basically is

We all accept the validity of the unconscious mind. Unlike other concepts, however, we accept it on belief alone since, by definition, it’s outside of awareness.
But there’s a form of mental activity that falls between conscious and unconscious processing that offers a glimpse of how the unconscious works. Let’s call it auditory peripheral

Brands are not just for big corporations. In fact, a personal brand will serve as an important key to your success. A personal brand will help clearly and consistently define, express, and communicate who you are.
Personal branding is far more than just what you do or what your web site and business cards look

Having lived in and around Aspen for the past 18 years, I have a bit of an odd confession to make: I’ve never tried cocaine, and I’ve pretty much never had any desire to. I’d see Aspen’s cocaine folk getting up at noon after three hours of sleep, looking like hell, or still hanging out in dive bars at the age of 62, and I’d have to admit that cocaine looked glamorous, but somehow I managed to resist the urge.
Likewise, I’ve never tried heroin, because it’s heroin. I don’t even understand how someone does heroin for the first time. How do you let someone you probably just met in an alley or a motel room, who most likely isn’t a doctor, convince you to inject yourself with a brown substance you don’t know the origin of? I’d sooner inject myself with ketchup.
And all I know about snorting heroin, which apparently goes on, is what I saw in the movie “Pulp Fiction.” As you may recall, Uma Thurman snorts some of John Travolta’s heroin, believing it’s cocaine, and SHE DIES,

After a couple of years of not talking about high end renovations, Americans are once again talking about it. A lot. And how can it really be avoided? The advances in technology and availability of apps for just about everything make so many luxurious add-ons in the home more accessible. Nowadays, anyone with an iPhone or an iPad can have a full blown “smart home” tricked out with up to the minute technology previously only available to homeowners you might see on MTV’s show

Next week, President Obama will report to Congress and the American people on the condition of our nation and his policy proposals for the coming year. In an era of deficit reduction, systemic transformation of health care in this country and increasing global competition, it is our sincere hope that President Obama will outline a plan that fosters medical innovation to help bolster the economy, control health care costs and improve Americans’ health and productivity.
We should all take pride in the fact that the United States leads the world in researching and developing new medicines. This is only possible because of the hard work that bio-pharmaceutical research companies do every day, in collaboration with academic researchers and other public and private sector partners. But what is often unrecognized is the fact that in doing such work, our industry has helped create millions of

One of the largest hurdles and growing pains a couple will experience is learning how to communicate during times of distress and anger. Sometimes a fight can get so bad that you are left doubting the relationship and your partner himself. He accuses you of being overly sensitive; you accuse him of not listening or being attentive to your needs. After a grueling tirade of who’s right or wrong, sooner or later both of you are in a downward spiral where ego has completely taken over, and rationality and sympathy are out the window.
But before you blame your other half for his communication deficiencies or conclude that the relationship is unsalvageable, try to understand that learning how to argue is a work in progress and can take a few years to find a balance and flow.
Learning how to communicate with your partner and how to argue maturely is something that requires time, effort and

Last week, the Afghanistan Study Group, a bipartisan effort to develop alternatives to the Obama administration’s current Af-Pak strategy co-founded by The New America Foundation’s Steve Clemons and Richard Vague, released the following poll of conservative attitudes towards the war in Afghanistan, specifically its financial cost.
Adding a voice to these findings, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform has become one of the most influential conservatives calling for a serious conversation and cost-benefit analysis of the war. Though he has yet to call for outright withdrawal, Norquist has made it clear that in his opinion, the war in Afghanistan “has been more expensive than not. And it has made America weaker than otherwise.” Norquist’s views, and his alignment with several center-left thinkers on Af-Pak issues, have sparked their fair share of criticism from the right. In a recent blog post for Commentary Magazine, Council on Foreign Relations fellow and American militarism advocate Max Boot goes as far as to call Norquist’s efforts “laughable” and “a line of argument, which if followed to its natural conclusion, should also have led us to pull out of World War II while Hitler or Tojo were still in power or to end the Civil War while Jefferson Davis still ruled the South.”
Boot’s comments aside, the push by Norquist and other fiscal conservatives to highlight the fiscal costs of the war in Afghanistan raises important questions about the metric by which American security and military operations have been measured in the post-9/11

By federal order, hundreds of Alaska halibut charter businesses will be forced to close their doors Feb. 1. Most of them are small, mom-and-pop operations.
Exactly how many will fall victim to a U.S. Department of Commerce decision to impose limited entry on halibut charters, no one can

During Hu Jintao’s visit, he penned a joint statement with President Obama in which — for the first time — he voiced concern about North Korea’s new uranium enrichment. Many in the U.S. and South Korea are hailing this as support for their position, but they should know better. Despite tactical moves to smooth Hu Jintao’s visit, little about China’s North Korea policy has changed over the last few weeks nor is it likely to anytime soon.
In the past, a less strident Beijing’s willingness to calibrate its responses to North Korean provocations was key to the West’s strategy to moderate Pyongyang’s

Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.
Today, President Obama welcomes Jeffrey Immelt to his White House inner circle as chair of a newly created jobs council after saying good-bye to economic adviser and Wall Street critic Paul Volcker, who is leaving after a two-year term. Is this good news for workers…or corporate executives? Our economic brains at the Roosevelt Institute weigh in.
“Volcker out and Immelt in, because the administration now wants to emphasize ‘recovery’ and ‘jobs’ instead of ‘crisis stabilization’? Since when did any stabilization not include jobs as a top priority? What we actually have here is the disappearance from the scene of the best known and most visible critic of the excesses of the financial sector and his replacement by the sitting CEO of a company that is heavily dependent on government aid of all sorts, including diplomatic assistance to invest more in China. This is not about jobs, but political money — the White House knows that after Citizens United, it will need to raise about a billion dollars — that’s right, a billion — for its reelection campaign. That’s the context in which this and its other recent appointments need to be judged.” ~Thomas Ferguson, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and Professor of Political Science at U Mass, Boston
“President Obama seems to be putting all efforts into cultivating the confidence of the corporate

2010 was a year of transitions for me. My divorce became final, I sold and moved from a beloved home of thirteen years, bought a fixer-upper, renovated it and moved again finally to the remodeled home. It was a year of tremendous upheavals and closing chapters. I had a film project that I had commissioned that was usurped from me, and I had to go to legal battle over another

I’m always eager to hop on a Hollywood trend. So with the success of Modern Family, The Kids Are All Right winning big at the Golden Globes and celebrity gays and lesbians suddenly all having children, I decided I should try becoming a dad myself.
Job One: Finding another guy to raise a kid with.

read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

Juninto extended a hand and hauled me from the sludge in which I was helplessly sinking as I struggled up the muddy hill from the Cononaco River below. Wearing nothing but rubber boots and a traditional com (a string supporting the genitals), his lips curled in a curious smile, long obsidian hair billowing down a muscular brown back. “Huaponi” he uttered. “Hello.”
We are deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a world away from the slightly less alien world of the country’s more visible indigenous

There will be more shooting rampages, like that which targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson last weekend — as long as it is easier to get a gun than mental health care. Our current epidemic of mass shootings is but a symptom of our nation’s broken health care system. Poor access to medical care jeopardizes an individual’s health. But when the mentally ill or the seriously distressed can’t access care, we are all at risk.
As a psychiatrist, I remember when I once did everything in my power to keep a disturbed patient stable, and society

The next time President Obama chides Hu Jintao over human rights, or a Chinese dissident wins an international peace prize, where will you look for coverage? BBC World News? CNN International? The Chinese government’s news network in English?
Unless you’re curious about its censorship, probably not the latter. But if you are interested and, as Beijing hopes, eager for an alternative to Western coverage of world events, you can now find China’s perspective on international news 24-hours a day in English in parts of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Beijing’s official media arm, Xinhua, expanded its CNC news network in those regions on January 1st. Part of a reported $8.7 billion investment in “external publicity work”, it launched in North America in November and will soon broadcast from a slick new studio in Times Square.
But can it compete? One expert believes that it will in the developing

This is a joint post with Ross Thuotte.
The United Nations recently published the 2011 World Economic Situation and Prospects report, which asserts that Sub-Saharan Africa, and possibly parts of South Asia, are off-track for halving extreme poverty levels by 2015. This must sound alarmingly dire and discouraging for those laboring long and hard to reduce poverty rates in countries within these regions.
But this picture was painted by a highly simplistic brush. Despite doomsday generalizations, almost two-thirds of Sub-Saharan African countries are on-track (or nearly on-track) to halve poverty during the Millennium Development Goals period (1990-2015). A few of them — such as Ghana, Uganda, and Burkina Faso — are on the short-list of the highest-performing

No one questions we are in tough times. More than one in five children is poor; one in four children is at risk of hunger; nearly 8 million children go uninsured; unemployment is unacceptably high; and poverty is rising. Families are struggling, and as they do, so do their children.
Isn’t it time we got back to basics? If we are serious about reducing our long-term deficit and getting America back to productivity, we need to look at the segment of our population that is most key to our future success and economic productivity as a nation — our children.
We hear talk from news pundits and politicians, many calling for spending cuts, and most of those cuts aimed at our most vulnerable populations — children, the homeless, the disabled — groups without powerful and highly-paid lobbyists to walk the halls of Congress on their behalf. Some proposals would mean a reduction of more than 21 percent to children’s

Last week, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin introduced a bill in the state legislature that would require all voters to present a state-issued ID at the polls before receiving their ballot. If it passes, the law would be the most restrictive voter identification bill in the country and would disenfranchise thousands of voters.
What would the bill mean for young people? For starters, it would no longer allow student IDs to serve as a valid form of identification. So unless a student has a Wisconsin driver’s license or a state identification card, they’re out of luck. Moreover, it would directly affect 60,000 students who come to Wisconsin from out-of state, including those who are registered to vote — and may have already voted! — in Wisconsin in previous elections.
Take, for example, a student at UW-Milwaukee from Minnesota who spends 9 months a year (and maybe more) in