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A couple of months ago, some friends of mine came over for dinner, so as a special treat, my wife made whoopie pies for dessert. I’m guessing most of you are probably familiar with this sugar-packed delicacy, but for those of you who aren’t, let me try to describe how one makes a whoopie pie.
First, take two soft, oversized chocolate discs that lie somewhere between cookies and brownies, and then make a sandwich out of them by filling the space in between with a generous portion of some white, slightly vanilla-flavored, cream-type substance, such as one might find in a Twinkie or a tub of cottage cheese that’s been sitting in the fridge for a couple of years. If the whole concoction comes in at less than 1,000 calories, throw it out and make a bigger one.
Needless to say, my wife’s whoopie pies were delicious, for the first few bites anyway. The last 300 calories or so were a little tough to scarf down — not because they tasted bad, mind you, but because the white cream was starting to come out of my ears — but, being the good husband and committed glutton that I am, I managed to finish mine.
I had some doubts about whoopie pies, though, after dinner was over and our guests had made their

During the past few weeks, the play of American politics has been particularly disturbing. Consider the willful ignorance of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, trying to convince his supporters that President Obama is “not one of us.” To that end, he suggested that President Obama’s worldview was shaped by his childhood in Kenya — or maybe it was, Indonesia — and by radical movements like the Kenyan Mau-Mau revolt. Huckabee, a potential Republican candidate for president, went on to say that President Obama’s father and grandfather molded his “foreign” ideas about how the world works. It doesn’t matter that President Obama hardly knew his father or his paternal grandfather, or that the Mau-Mau rebellion took place far from the Obama homestead in Kenya, a country President Obama first visited when he was 26 years

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was convicted yesterday of two felony counts. DeChristopher was on trial for bidding on more than 22,000 acres of public land that he could not pay for: his two crimes are making false representations to the government and interfering with the land auction. DeChristopher made the $1.79 million bid in order to “do something to try to resist the climate crisis,” he told Tina Gerhardt, in an interview published by AlterNet. But, as Kate Sheppard explains at Mother Jones, the judge threw out “the defense that his actions were necessary to prevent environmental damage on this land and, more broadly, the exacerbataion of climate change.” “They’re hoping to make an example out of me.” DeChristoper now faces the possibility of a $75,000 fine and 10 years in

Kings of Pastry, now out on DVD, follows sixteen of France’s top pastry chefs through the most grueling cooking contest yet devised, the “Meilleur Ouvrier de France” competition, known among kitchen royalty as the MOF. Towering sculptures made only of sugar and chocolate shatter along with a few dreams. It’s a surprisingly tense film considering it’s about crme puffs and one that leaves viewers salivating. But for some lucky audiences, local pastry chefs turned the theater experience into a

This week’s New York Times Sunday magazine features a story about Lori Berenson, an American citizen who was arrested in Peru in 1995 on terrorism charges. It rambles on for some 8300 words describing in great detail her personal life and how she has been living since her release from prison last year. While evoking sympathy for Berenson, the article misses an opportunity to encourage some much-needed national introspection. The country would have been far better served by a serious discussion of terrorism rather than a puff piece that barely mentions why Berenson wound up in a Peruvian prison.
For instance, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who has maintained for years that Berenson was completely innocent, is quoted as saying she remained in jail so long because the

Nobody goes to Vail, Colorado to eat. Of this I am certain. People go to Vail to whiz down the side of a mountain on a pair of fiberglass sticks. But eat they must, and dining is where the world-renowned ski resort starts to fall short.
I can’t say that I’ve sampled every restaurant in the Vail Valley, but I’ve supped at many of the local favorites, as recommended to me by friends, concierges, Yelp, and locals who I’ve chatted up on the ski

One Pill Makes You Larger
One Pill Makes You Small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
- Jefferson Airplane
My first exposure to “White Rabbit” when it was the theme song to a mid 1970′s television movie called “Go Ask Alice.”
The movie about a high school drug abuser was a haunting description of many of my friends. Some of experimented with drugs.
They needed treatment but treatment wasn’t a popular concept then.
I made it through college, graduate school and the rest of my life isolated from the drug culture. I’ve never seen cocaine or harder drugs and wouldn’t know how to find them. Drugs are not a part of my world.
I was

I started reading from the last page, where the graphic humor and the occasional caricature of a famous person appeared. I then turned to the crossword puzzle and when I reached the articles, I started to fear that my reading would soon end. I would have to wait another seven days for the seller to shout its name under our windows, a name with distant connotations in pages smelling of ink. My grandparents sought to curb my enthusiasm, saying that the weekly magazine, which they used to buy at the kiosks, was a shadow of its former self.
Bohemia, the oldest magazine in Cuba and in Latin America, was born in 1908 and now it’s the living

Politicians lose favor for many reasons. Sometimes it’s a buildup of things so overwhelming that even the under-informed get it: Sarah Palin’s increasing perception as a mean-spirited, no-nothing, money-grubbing quitter. Mitt Romney’s almost farcical flip-flopping. Or Newt Gingrich’s hypocrisy, fueled by the discovery of his own affair with a younger staffer while he was constantly chastising President Clinton about Monica

Testimony submitted to the Congressional Oversight Panel, “Hearing on the TARP’s Impact on Financial Stability,” Friday, March 4, 2011.
I.

Summary
1) The financial crisis is not over, in the sense that its impact persists and even continues to spread. Employment remains more than 5 percent below its pre-crisis peak, millions of homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, and the negative fiscal consequences – at national, state, and local level – remain profound.
2) To the extent that a full evaluation is possible today, the financial crisis produced a pattern of rapid economic decline and slow employment recovery quite unlike any post-war recession – it looks much more like a mini-depression of the kind the US economy used to experience in the 19th century. In addition, the fiscal costs of the disaster in our banking system so far amount to roughly a 40 percentage point increase in net federal government debt held by the private sector, i.e., roughly a doubling of outstanding

Whenever Jimmy Carter makes a statement, opinions fly.
Yet it wasn’t the former U.S. President’s political views that had a crowd of students and parents gasping during his speech at an Atlanta private school February 17. It was his talk of a horrific creature known as Guinea Worm that elicited dropped jaws from the

In the new film bearing his name, we watch as the protagonist, Rango, journeys from being an aspiring, swashbuckling hero dreaming big in a terrarium to living the real thing in a Wild West town called Dirt, where he has to stand up for a whole community of desert creatures. Rango, just an ordinary creature with a big heart and a big dream, finds it within himself to serve and to lead, and gives life to the old Margaret Mead saying,”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Rango, at its heart, is the story of a servant-leader and community organizer who uses his skills, passion and idealism to speak truth to power and drive positive and important change against great odds.
We are in desperate need of more Rangos.
On February 19, in the early morning hours, the

When couples come to me to create and officiate their wedding ceremony, they often ask that their occasion be “non-spiritual” or “non-religious.” They are happy with a “celebration of love” as a theme. I am too, because I find that love is part of the fabric of any religion or spiritual teaching I have explored.
“Love” is a much easier word to deal with than “God.” Other words — like “peace,” “joy,” “devotion,” “compassion,” “forgiveness” and even “blessing” — are acceptable. Another word that I find fits easily is “light.” There is more to Light than meets the

My daughter is nine and has a scream that will make your ears bleed. She also can run so fast she will become a blur of elbows and knees in three seconds flat. “These are your super powers,” I tell her.
My girl, who has a quick mind, says, “And they are good ones, too.”
Indeed, they

As I set out on my latest speaking tour (I give talks about finding meaning in our work), I’m thinking ahead to what I’ll need to bring. Not just my speech and copies of my new book (“Ripe: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50″), but the food I’ll have to pack, too.
My relationship to food was once relatively straightforward. As a child, it was meat, potatoes, and two vegetables (thanks, mum!). As my palette matured, I tried all kinds of

Libya’s nationwide Internet blackout is entering its second full day. From a technical standpoint, it’s clear that this is a very different strategy than the one used by Egypt in the last days of the Mubarak regime. The ultimate outcome is probably going to be the same. Let’s take a few minutes to compare the two, and think about the implications for future Internet engagements in the Jasmine

What drives the spread of Breast Cancer?
Recent studies from the University of California, San Diego, published in the British Journal, NATURE, have discovered a molecule called RANKL, found in aggressive breast cancer cells that predicts more deadly, lethal and life threatening disease. The findings from these recent studies suggests that drugs that block RANKL may be effective in preventing both the early stages of breast cancer and the advanced progression of the disease. Research has also shown that Curcumin, the active ingredient in the common spice, Turmeric, has properties that also reduce the expression of these deadly molecules within cancer cells and can potentially slow the spread of breast cancer.
Breast Cancer is not one disease. There are actually many breast

When we think about knowledge, we imagine a large number of facts, discoveries or understandings that increases in size with the passage of time. For instance, over the past century medicine has developed antibiotics, vaccinations and a host of technologies that keep us alive and well. Physics now includes black holes, dark matter, quarks and a variety of other unimaginable realities that have expanded our understanding of the universe.
Every category of knowledge continues to systematically increase in size except for one:

My wife and I go to spinning class a couple mornings a week. It’s something we like to do together, and I feel like I benefit from having a regular workout partner. Some days I’m just lazy, or I don’t want to venture out in the pre-dawn cold, but having a supportive partner motivates me. She bolsters my self-discipline when it flags.
Or does she? Is it possible that having a supportive partner might have the opposite and paradoxical effect, actually undermining effort and commitment to health and fitness goals over the long haul? Perhaps we conserve our limited supply of self-control, “outsourcing” our effort when we know that a close friend of partner is in the wings, helping us achieve a goal.
Two psychological scientists have been exploring this novel idea in the

Let me state quite directly: Islamophobia and those who promote it are a greater threat to the United States of America than Anwar al Awlaqi and his rag-tag team of terrorists.
On one level, al Awlaqi, from his cave hide-out in Yemen, can only prey off of alienation where it exists. Adopting the persona of a latter-day Malcolm X (though he seems not to have read the last chapters of the Autobiography or learned the lessons of Malcolm’s ultimate conversion), he appears street-smart, brash, self-assured and assertive — all of the assets needed to attract lost or wounded souls looking for certainty and an outlet for their rage. Like some parasites, al Awlaqi cannot create his own

To Our Brother, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide:
We wish to extend to you our full support for your return to your beloved homeland, Haiti.
As people of faith, we know that the road to democracy and justice is not an easy one. These years of enforced exile have been painful – not only for you and your family, but for the people of Haiti. We join the call from all over the world for this exile to end.
The poor of Haiti, those you have represented with such tenacity and dignity over all these years, continue to demand your presence. We hear their voices and we join their call.
In the strongest terms, we urge the United States government to cease its opposition to your

Women who walk, run, skip, or otherwise value the ability to be mobile–rejoice! Sensible shoes that let you do more than sit pretty on a couch have become the season’s biggest footwear trend, and we’re more than thankful for that. We’re taking full advantage of this little break in sartorial masochism and indulging in wide straps, low heels, wide bases, and cushy soles.

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No time to page through thousands of eBay listings? Then just sneak a peek at my weekly eBay Roundup of Vintage Clothing Finds.
This eclectic mix of designer and non-designer vintage clothing and accessories caught my discerning eye because of their uniqueness, contemporary feel or highly collectible nature.
As always, buyer beware! Be sure to read the listings closely and contact the sellers with any questions.
This week’s finds include pieces by Gucci, Hermes and Ceil Chapman. Be sure to check out the amazing Art Deco flapper dress and the carved Bakelite shamrock bracelet just perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.
Which item is your favorite? Leave a comment below and let me