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There is a magical feeling when you step onto the blue floor of the United States Senate. You are quickly overcome by how small it is. You feel like you are part of history. When the Senate gavels into session and you see Senator Carl Levin argue with Senator John McCain, you have experiences that you will never

As a condition of its massive merger with NBC, the federal government is requiring Comcast to make affordable Internet connections available to 2.5 million low-income households for the next two years.
In promoting the program, Comcast’s Executive VP David Cohen, has made some unexpected admissions:
It was only after the federal government mandated a low-cost option for disadvantaged households that Comcast realized everyone could benefit from access to the Internet. Sadly for Comcast, it has done a poor job of reaching those disadvantaged communities, by its own admission:
This is why so many communities are building their own next-generation networks – they know that these networks are essential for economic development and ensuring everyone has “access to a quality education, quality health care and vocational opportunities.” And they know that neither Comcast nor the federal government are going to make the necessary investments. They need a solution for the next 20 years, not just the next 2.
Comcast has a de facto monopoly in many

“May you live in interesting times” goes a Chinese saying that usually has negative connotations. The emerging UAE political scene is nothing if not interesting, though.
I will attempt to shed some light on this emerging political scene by highlighting a number of “champions” who have both expressed their willingness to run as candidates for the upcoming Federal National Council elections and have a record of association with a specific cause that may be translated into active support for them in the parliament. I have identified four possible blocs: religionist, ultra-nationalist, business and liberal.
On the Islamic leaning side of this square is Sami Gargash, the CEO of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Housing Establishment since March 2009. A lecturer whose interests span Islamic art, designing as well as crafting jewelery, Gargash previously was Deputy Director General of the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in

On the Beauty Brains, we’ve fielded countless questions about whether so-called “natural” and “organic” beauty products are better for hair and skin. But we’ve never been asked what is, in our opinion, a far more important question: how can you tell if your beauty products are made sustainably? The answer to that question must include some assurance that claims of sustainability are not just a form of greenwashing. Is there substance behind the sustainability claims of the beauty business?
Aligned definitions
At first glance, sustainability seems just as confusing as other green claims. Everyone seems to have their own

Only a week has passed the debt ceiling deal was finally signed, and we’ve already seen USAAA become US of AA plus, followed by the return of the worst global market turmoil since the financial chaos of fall 2008. Major U.S. indicies fell between 5 and 7 percent on Monday , a lead Financial Times opinion piece called avoiding a new recession “mission impossible,” and governments have already spent all the public money they can find on bailouts and the general stabilization of dubious valuations. As things go from bad to worse, is there anything in the

Will Apple’s iPad 2 change the way we watch a book or appreciate nature?
(photo courtesy of Susan Leslie)
“If you asked a parent they might call it intuitive.
If you asked a musician they might call it inspiring.
To a doctor it’s groundbreaking.
To a CEO it’s powerful.
To a teacher it’s the future.
If you asked a child, she might call it magic.”
…And if you asked the producers of the Apple iPad 2 new global advertising campaign, they’d probably tell you they’re just getting started…
So I asked Dr. Cornelia Hoogland (Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario), author of “The Land inside Coyote: Reconceptualizing human relationships to place through drama” and Woods Wolf Girl (her 6th book of poetry), and the founder and artistic director of Poetry London, this question:
Do you believe we need to change the way the arts are handled in academic curricula given the dramatic changes in technology in today’s world? If so, how do you believe this should be addressed?
Coyote has some thinking to do. In this story, Coyote goes down to the creek and then into the water. He sinks into the mud and sits there until he has an

A rolling stone gathers no moss — except, of course, for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who are looking a little green around the gills these days. But a standing house gathers moss — and it takes a lot of green to get it off.
That’s why I recently shelled out $300 for a power washer.
I was prompted to make the purchase when a guy who does power washing on the side (as well as, presumably, in the front and back) offered to do the house for $400.
My wife, Sue, who is always thinking (of stuff for me to do), said we could save money if we bought a power washer and did the house ourselves. Or, more specifically, myself.
After God made Sue, He broke the mold. Now it was up to me to get rid of the mold with a new power washer.
I went to a large home-improvement store and spoke with a very nice, knowledgeable and helpful sales associate named Frank, who knew that when it came to power washing, I was wet behind the ears.
“The proper attire for power washing is a bathing suit and goggles, but if you want an undersea effect, you can use a snorkel,” Frank said after I chose a machine approximately the size of a Subaru, which was no coincidence because it has a Subaru engine.
Before I loaded the power washer into my car, which is not a Subaru, I got quite an education from Frank, a college business professor who has worked in landscaping and construction.
“I wear many hats, but not when I power-wash my house,” said Frank, who added: “You’re the first guy I have ever met who admitted that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
According to Frank, guys think they know everything about home improvement, even when they don’t, which is most of the

Most works of contemporary art that you find in galleries and museums are finished by the time they’re on view; in the case of performance art that unfolds in real time, a “work of art” isn’t really an object but an experience or an interaction. This summer, the Philadelphia Art Alliance has invited a group of artists called the Miss Rockaway Armada to create something that is part performance, part salvage operation and part sleight of hand. It demonstrates that the processes of designing and building something can tell a story. And what’s their story? Well, the name “Armada” isn’t a metaphor: they really do take their sculptures out on the water, and they really do

Childhood is a vulnerable time for many children and abuse comes in many forms. I was a victim of what I call “benign neglect. I lived alone with a mother who was distant and sometimes cruel. I know today that she suffered from depression but as a child all I knew was

Bitflx co-founders Sebastian Andreatta and Gary Geschwind at the cafe where they met (photo by Larry Magid)
Technology makes it possible for us to be in touch with people all around the world, but we live locally. We can get our news from BBC or Al-Jazeera and listen to radio stations from any continent. But when we want traffic information while driving, we turn to local radio stations, and it’s our local newspapers (or their websites) that keep us up to date with what’s happening in our community.
The same is true with our offline lives. Our coffee beans may come from Columbia or Ethiopia, but when we want to buy a steaming hot cup of the brew, we visit a local coffee shop.
One of those coffee shops is the Palo Alto Cafe in Silicon Valley, where I occasionally stop by for a cappuccino and conversation with a group of neighbors who show up most

Yesterday we lost a true giant, a green pioneer, dear friend, and mentor to so many: Ray Anderson.
I first met Ray in 1995, when he gave a speech at a greening of Habitat for Humanity event Global Green organized in Atlanta. Bill Browning, a good friend and colleague who was helping with the meeting, told me, “You have to meet Ray Anderson. He’s doing some amazing things.”
Bill was right. With the help of President Mikhail Gorbachev In 1996, Global Green USA honored Ray — we bestowed our inaugural corporate environmental leadership award upon

With all the sturm und drang in recent weeks over raising the debt ceiling — and with the mediocre agreement now reached between the administration and Congress which irresponsibly only cuts without responsibly raising any new revenues — it’s more than clear that we’ve lost sight of the greatest economic challenge now facing our country, which is the legions of unemployed workers.
With all deference to Shakespeare, “frailty” is not “woman” as Hamlet pronounced. Rather, “frailty” is the 29.1 million real unemployed workers in this country and their fragile — and, for millions of them, almost hopeless — prospects for gainful re-employment. A frailty that has been wrought by thirty years of unfair “trickle down” economics, a dozen years of unrestrained greed by our major financial institutions, and the political evolution of the most anti-jobs, anti-manufacturing, unfair trade economic construct imaginable.
It’s one thing to have put our workers in this tragic

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.
– Byron Katie
A nudge is a gentle push or light prod. Sitting idle waiting for something to happen will probably evoke a nudge. Perhaps you are concerned that you will move in the wrong direction or garner from the Universe what you do not

It is fascinating when musicians use songs to communicate religious ideas. Audiences may or may not pay attention but there are many examples of the attempt. Consider, for instance, George Harrison’s posthumous Brainwashed (2002), a welcome gift to fans still grieving the loss of the silent Beatle who died Nov. 29,

By Michael Hudson and Aaron Mehta, iWatch News 6:00 am, August 9, 2011In April 2002, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes won legislative approval for a law to hold Wall Street accountable for bankrolling predatory lending. After the Democrat lost reelection that fall to Republican Sonny Perdue, the finance industry launched an all-out assault on the provisions of the law that held mortgage investors liable if they bought fraud-tainted home loans. One of the defining moments in the legislative fight came when Standard & Poor’s, the giant debt rating company, announced it would no longer rate securities that might be backed by loans covered by the Georgia law, raising the specter that investors would cut off the flow of money into the state’s mortgage market and cripple its ability to provide credit to

Since the embarrassment is long gone, let me tell you something about myself …
As an adult, I never read a book for pleasure until the summer before my senior year of college. Resting shirtless on the roof of my house, I starting reading “The Scientist” by John Lilly… and kept on reading — hours passed, unbeknownst to me, and melting asphalt and tar fused to my torso.
When you’re 18 years old, on the cusp of autonomy, it’s an interesting experience to have a roommate enter the shower to wash your naked

There are nearly 200,000 DNA rape kits sitting — ignored and forgotten — in law enforcement storage areas across this country. Can you think of any other crime where police have definitive evidence and fail to process it?
The evidence had been there all along. It had been sitting on a shelf inside a cold storage facility at the Houston Police Department for 12 years. After a determined detective tracked it down and sent it off to the lab for testing, the state of Texas realized it had a found a serial

By Dori Hartley
They tell me I have very little time left before my sweet and adoring 13-year-old daughter does an about face on me and becomes a venom-spewing mega-bitch on wheels. They — the great mothers of the world — have promised me, in no uncertain terms, that the rejection of my motherly ways will not only be guaranteed but also that the animosity that comes with it will be served piping hot, and peppered with cruelty.
Which leads me to wonder: What could possibly happen that could crush my heart to such a degree that I might someday join the ranks of those who give this warning? Is this my destiny as a parent — to experience the teenage reign of hellfire and rejection? Or, better yet, am I supposed to be shocked, stunned and rip-roaring ready to commit suicide over it?
I mean, what is she going to do? Tell me I’m an ugly old hag, that she hates me and that I need to die? Will there be attempts on my life, contracts out on my head, or is this threat more along the lines of her just ignoring me and occasionally giving me a smug look?
I’ve already been instructed to keep ten paces behind her when walking together in a public place. If I’m caught humming a tune in the supermarket aisle, I’m shushed, silenced and

This week is being touted, in the political world, as a big week in the state of Iowa. There will be a nationally televised Republican presidential candidate debate, and then a few days later the Ames Straw Poll will take place. The straw poll is (as always) being hyped in the media as the “first voting” in the upcoming presidential nominating contest. But the media should pay more attention to what is happening in Wisconsin this week, because rather than some “vote”-buying exercise (that always proves itself to be completely meaningless in the grand scheme of the presidential election process), Wisconsin could prove to be a much better weathervane in terms of predicting which way the political winds will be blowing, come next year.
The less said about the Iowa straw poll the better,

Image via WikipediaNo. It couldn’t be. Hopper?
The generic congressman headshot grinned back indifferently, like they all do. Only looking at the Facebook profile pic of Wisconsin State Senator Randy Hopper, a Republican facing a looming recall election and public divorce, did I recognize that impenetrable

Very frequently, when I ask a new client to describe their nutritional goals, they look at me blankly and state that they want to be thin and stay thin. When I saw a story recently on Time.com entitled “Why Thin Doesn’t Equal Healthy,” I realized that a general assumption is that skinny people are healthier. That assumption is not always true.
According to Time.com, a genetic analysis of more than 75,000 people found that lean people with a specific genetic variant had a greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease despite their lower body

Summer has become intolerable for me. It is just too damn hot and I am miserable, sweaty and cranky most of the time. But when my little pooch, Poppy, starts panting in the heat — her little pink tongue hanging out of her open mouth — I know the dog days of summer have arrived.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, summer is sizzling at its most intense right

In an article entitled — “IT’S NOT U, IT’S ME ” — in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Benoit Denizet-Lewis describes a one-day crash-course called “Healthy Breakups,” held last month in Boston. Sponsored by the Boston Public Health Commission in collaboration with Northeastern University, the conference was intended to help teen participants learn how to break up nicely — as opposed to nastily, angrily, or unthinkingly — when a relationship has run its course. The writer quotes one organizer as saying: “No one talks to young people about this aspect of relationships.”
Why now? With the rapid growth of social media, many adults are concerned about how easy it has become for someone to defriend, or to be defriended, with the click of a key on a computer or smartphone — regardless of the lasting emotional pain it may cause for the person being dumped.
But the truth is that handling a breakup is exceedingly difficult for everyone, irrespective of

Inspired by Charles Warnke’s “You Should Date an Illiterate Girl”
Date a guy who doesn’t read. You’ll find him in a bar, already on his third or fourth smoky glass of amber, staring at you through glassy eyes that say he was hoping someone like you would come along and that you’re up for fun tonight. He’s cute so you let him buy you a drink, maybe a shot or two, and let him tell you about his job, how much money he makes, and how attracted he is to you. You tell him a little about yourself, and take his nods and smiles to mean he’s soaking it all in, understands you just enough to feel a