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As predictable as the sun coming up every morning, you knew this would happen. Last year, Groupon was the darling, the fastest growing company ever, according to the Forbes cover story about. Now its IPO is on hold and the pundits are questioning not only the viability and sustainability of its business model but the whole daily deal market. No barriers to entry, no path to profitability, a passing fad, blah, blah, blah.
We’ve seen this pattern repeated over and over in a multitude of industries: the cool new thing erupts on to the scene and two things

I’m writing this on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, where my wife Shelly and I are visiting our 29-year-old daughter, Blake.
Shortly after she arrived in Hawaii almost 11 years ago, she started surfing. She now surfs waves as big as 20 feet, and she has progressed to the level where there are some real risks in what she is doing.
If surfing big waves wasn’t enough, earlier this year she told us that she had started skydiving. She fell in love with jumping out of airplanes and in no time had completed her 100th jump.
Hanging out at the “Drop Zone”
Earlier today, Blake took Shelly and me to the “Drop Zone,” where she

Franz Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he went walking daily. She was crying. She had lost her doll and was desolate.
Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot. Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met.
“Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the

This week a Denver court will determine whether Colorado’s Secretary of State Scott Gessler can keep eligible, registered voters in Denver from participating in the city’s November 1 election. Gessler ordered the Denver Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson to stop mailing ballots (it’s an all-mail election) to registered voters because they did not vote in the 2010 general election. Most of the 55,000 voters affected are Latinos and African-Americans.
Johnson refused to obey, saying, “This is a fundamental issue of fairness and keeping voting accessible to as many eligible voters as possible.” According to the Colorado Independent, “If Gessler wins –it could begin a vicious circle of registered voters becoming “inactive,” no longer receiving mail ballots, and disengaging from the electoral process.”
The Wall Street Journal noted on Monday, “The clash comes at a time of intense, often sharply partisan, national debate about whether it has become too easy to vote.” Too easy to vote? At the Voter Participation Center (VPC), we argue voting is way too hard, complicated and chaotic -and that keeps voters away from the

I was in a New Haven bookstore a few years back, browsing through the new bestsellers when I came across Glenn Kurtz’s “Practicing”. One glance at the table of contents and I was hooked; the book promised- and delivered — a meditation on the technicality, psychology and emotionality of the adventure that is developing a beloved craft. Delivered with candor and intelligence, I came away with new insights into the creative process as well as admiration for the author.
That author has since become a friend, one who brings as much passion for contributing to the community as to his

When you hear Democrats talk about education, they may call it “the civil rights issue of our time,” they could tout efforts to “improve education in a state that desperately needed it” and they likely will make the point that “it is unconscionable that the average salary of a lawyer is $79,000 a year and the average salary of a teacher is $39,000 a year.”
But you won’t find those quotes on whitehouse.gov or democrats.org. They were from the finalists for the Republican nomination in 2008: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. If you’ve watched any of this year’s Republican debates, you know how far the rhetoric and policy has moved from a bipartisan consensus that investing in our children’s education is an issue of American competitiveness and moral urgency.
In fact, the discussion of education in the last three Republican debates was effectively limited to which candidate would do more to cut education funding, eliminate quality standards for schools and in some cases, undermine the entire public school

There’s a hole in the bucket.
You probably know a Colorado kid. You may even be one. In Colorado we have around 800,000 in the public schools. We’ll spend about $5.2b this year to teach these kids reading, writing, arithmetic and some of the tools they’ll need to operate the society we’ll start handing them when they graduate.
About 60 percent of that money comes from the state’s general fund — basically the 4.63 percent income tax and 2.9 percent state sales tax you

Happy Monday everyone, here’s my Top 5 for October 3, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
Milwaukee is the only baseball playoff team leading its series 2-0 (over Arizona.) St. Louis and Philly are now tied one game apiece.
Today’s Schedule: Texas at Tampa Bay (series tied at 1) 5:07p Eastern, TBS.
Yankees @ Detroit (series tied at 1) 8:37p, TBS.
Roar Lion Roar. The Detroit Lions are 4-0 after a stirring comeback against the

My brothers:
I’ve wanted to write this open letter to all of you for a long time. That is because I am not only a huge admirer of what you do as sportsmen but also because I care, and I am deeply concerned about the state of Black male athletes in America today. You see, like many of you, I grew up with a single mother and an absent father in an impoverished ghetto environment with sports as one of the few outlets for my hopes and dreams, and my anger and frustrations, too. I played baseball, Little League through high school, and I also ran track all four

When I logged on to Twitter Saturday morning, I was shocked to see that Twitter was featuring “#NoHomo” on its Trending Topics list in — of all places — New York, a city that prides itself on its tolerance.
I sent a tweet to @Twitter and @Jack Dorsey, suggesting that they remove the offensive expression from the Trending list, but received no response. I retweeted that request later in the day and even filed a report with Twitter’s feedback system, but I got no response and, unfortunately, #NoHomo stayed put.
Twitter’s Trending Topics are constantly updating lists that allow users to see the most popular topics or phrases being used on Twitter in real time in cities all around the world. Most Trending Topics reflect breaking news stories, such as earthquakes and international crises, or online conversations about live sports & entertainment events. The lists are a valuable feature and any kind of tinkering with the algorithm that determines what’s trending can affect that

Reports indicate that the Obama Administration may be considering new gun control proposals to limit the size of magazines or to strengthen background checks on gun purchasers. One thing you can bet on is that the National Rifle Association will oppose any such measures.
Yet it wasn’t always this way. Indeed, the NRA used to draft and promote restrictive gun control laws.
In researching my book, Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, I discovered that the NRA used to be far more open-minded on gun control–and, amazingly, paid almost no attention whatsoever to the Second

Since “climategate” first broke the news two years ago, American efforts to enact effective climate policy at the federal level have been significantly undermined by a confluence of events — from the emergence of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives in the 112th US Congress, to the increasingly emboldened and elected Tea Party movement and the 2012 US Presidential candidacy — all of which have perpetuated a political perspective that not only denies anthropogenic global warming, its prevalence and potential impacts, but also aims to eviscerate environmental policies and the agencies that regulate them.
In 2009, immediately pre-climategate, while aggressive emissions-reducing cap-and-trade legislation was never politically palpable (e.g. a watered-down American Clean Energy and Security Act passed the US House but not the US Senate), the email scandal heralded a watershed moment for Republicans who wanted to further sow doubt in the American public’s mind. The ground was fertile: Americans tended to view science as uncertain and open to debate and scrutiny, and American media tended to represent both perspectives of a news story, intimating an equality between climate scientists and climate skeptics vis-a-vis evidence and

Arianna and and Rita Wilson, the Editor-At-Large of the newly launched ‘HuffPost 50′ stopped by the ‘Morning Joe’ studio to talk about the new site.
Arianna explained the inspiration for the project: “What gave me the idea was when Rita, at the age of 49, did ‘Chicago’ on Broadway. It had been a lifelong dream and finally she did it — dancing, singing on Broadway. So the whole essence of that site and the reason why I wanted Rita to be the Editor-At-Large is that it’s never too late to follow your dreams and celebrate aging.”
Talking about her turn in the hit musical, Rita added: “It terrified me, but it was a great experience because it actually told me, if you do what you want to do, no matter what time you do it, if you challenge yourself and scare yourself, you’re going to grow from the process and get something out of it.”
Wilson also discussed the benefits of turning 50: “You know who you

Last week I was informed that my son and his high school peers will be put in detention if they do not have their student IDs with them on campus.
I was shocked. Detention? Just for forgetting an ID? What kind of a police state are we becoming? And what kind of a world are we preparing kids for?
Apparently for the world that is already here.
In Alabama and in Arizona any person who “looks like an illegal alien” is taking great care these days never to leave home without their I.D.
Some may ask, what’s the big deal, it’s just an I.D.? We’ve long been trained to carry our licenses when we drive a car or use a credit card or travel on a

Few performers could match Bea Arthur when it came to the art of the slow burn. Jack Benny could roll his eyes, inspect his fingernails, and shift his posture, but Arthur would stand rigidly onstage, glowering at one of her colleagues until the precise moment to strike had arrived. Chita Rivera, who appeared with Bea Arthur back in 1955 in The Shoestring Revue, recalls that “Her silences often said so much more than someone with a huge monologue. She would allow you to imagine what she was thinking — and that was really funny!”
My favorite memory of Bea Arthur doing a slow burn comes from Act II of 1966′s hit musical Mame, in which she played Vera Charles opposite Angela Lansbury’s Tony award-winning portrayal of Auntie

I found myself saying words the other day that shocked me. “I’m not seeking right now” were in response to a friend’s questioning me about my interest (or lack thereof) in meeting her friend, a South American shaman who guides people in self-investigation.
That line, “I’m not seeking right now” came up from an unconscious orientation of complacency. I had recently turned my outward attention to the plight of gender equality in the developing world, to girls and women who suffer physical and mental abuse and even death because they are

#OccupyWallStreet has been drawing complaints that it doesn’t have a demand and a goal. But I say that is precisely its significance.
#OccupyWallStreet is a hashtag revolt. As I learned with my own little #FuckYouWashington uprising, a hashtag has no owner, no heirarchy, no canon or

The cowboy – rugged, stoic and resourceful – will always be a cinematic archetype, though the western has all but disappeared as a commercially popular genre.
For a grittily entertaining and thoughtful example of just how good a western can be, look no further than Mateo Gil’s accomplished Blackthorn, an outlaw tale that is at once exciting and elegiac, elegant and earthy.
Part of that has to do with Gil’s vision, fleshed out by the ravishing Bolivian locations where he filmed. But a good deal also has to do with the central performance – as good as he’s ever been – by Sam Shepard, one of our greatest playwrights who started out (and probably still remains) a cowboy at heart.
It’s giving nothing away to say that James Blackthorn, the character Shepard plays, is in fact the aging Butch Cassidy. It’s 1928, 20 years after Cassidy and his pal, the Sundance Kid, were supposedly killed in a shoot-out with the Bolivian army. In this version written by Miguel Barros, Butch escaped with his life and has been living a quiet life, breeding horses and keeping to himself on a remote Bolivian ranch.
Having received news of the death of Etta Place in San Francisco, he decides to cash in and head back to the

I hope you are all in the mood to try new things, because I am delighted to announce four new additions to the Huffington Post menu today: Huff/Post50, HuffPost High School, HuffPost Gay Voices, and HuffPost Weddings (how’s that for a diverse quartet?).
Let’s start with Huff/Post50, our new site devoted to those of us who are part of the so-called “baby boom” generation born between 1946 and 1964 (the site’s name was the brainchild of Rita Wilson, Huff/Post50′s editor-at-large). There are currently 77 million of us in America (and 116 million aged 50 and over).
Our country has a very schizophrenic relationship with aging. On the one hand, we are a culture that is obsessed with youth and staying young. At the same time, thanks to advances in science, health, and medicine, Boomers are living longer and staying more active than ever before.
Huff/Post50 covers the challenges, complexities, and joys faced by Boomers — everything from the “sandwich” pressures of simultaneously taking care of children and aging parents, to navigating the latest innovations in health and the science of aging, to sex and relationships at 50+ , to the question of reinventing oneself — either out of necessity (sudden unemployment) or a desire to explore new interests and find new meaning in life.

Ever wonder why is it that you keep cycling through the same issues over and over again? On the personal level, you may be repeating familiar relationship challenges, getting stuck in recurring emotional patterns, or even bumping into oh-so-familiar job issues. Nationally, the same tired issues recycle almost daily, whether in the form of racism, recurring financial train wrecks or that theatre of the absurd, also known as politics. The reason? People keep trying to rebuild their lives using the rubble from whatever collapsed rather than choosing new materials instead.
In many respects, the myth of the phoenix bird rising from its own ashes works to sustain the illusion that you can rebuild using ashes and rubble. Last week we asked if you are really awake, consciously thinking and making choices rather than simply reacting emotionally to what happens around

I am by no means a marriage therapist. However, I hear couples complain all the time in my practice. They come in for a snoring test appointment, and within seconds the husband makes a comment such as, “My wife made me come.” Snoring is more common in men than women, but the reverse is also common.
The snoring spouse who feels “dragged” to the doctor’s office is resentful that his or her snoring problem can’t be left

As the 10th anniversary of George’s death approaches, and Living In The Material World, the Martin Scorsese documentary about his life about to be aired, I have been looking back at the last ten years of my own life. Like standing at the window of a moving train, I have watched each year as a fleeting reflection in a foreign landscape. I did not want to be on board but had no choice, nor was I sure if there was even a destination.
In 2001, when it became evident that George was not going to live, a friend said to him, “this will be the most exciting chapter of your life.” The usual dialogue surrounding a terminal illness is so grim that even the best platitudes fall flat; but at that moment, after all the negative medical certainties, those particular words were inspirational. After years of speculation about the moment of death, we knew the spectre of disembodiment was actually

This week marks the beginning of New York’s Advertising Week. The five-day gathering is put together by an industry keen on showing the world that it’s (slightly) more than the cigars, cocktails and witty scripts of Mad Men. Speakers and attendees will attempt, between dizzying networking breaks, to solve the perennial challenge of brands getting customers to like them and buy them.
This takes place as the ad industry battles multiple challenges, including a moribund economy making customers and clients

When I’m asked at parties what I do for a living and I say that I edit The Huffington Post’s Divorce section, invariably my inquisitor gives me a puzzled look, followed by the question, “Have you ever been divorced?” When I say no, he or she looks even more perplexed at the notion of a single thirtysomething woman choosing to spend her days in the minefield of marital dissolution.
And so, I’ve developed a set answer. I say that while I’ve never been divorced, I am a child of divorce, which gives me a point of view on the subject and a certain authority to speak about it. I say that I’m interested in social issues–and I can’t think of one that has more profoundly altered the face of our culture than divorce. I say that I’m fascinated by human relationships in general, and looking at them from every angle, and that, in the end, figuring out why some work and some don’t, and observing how people reinvent themselves and move on afterward, is far more interesting to me than simply focusing on the fairytale.
All of which I