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I’m a former banker, a one percenter, and I’m mad as hell too.
Let’s be clear. The Occupy movement is not a product of frustration, as President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and now Eric Cantor have suggested. Frustration is passive; anger is

No wonder Police Commissioner Ray Kelly refuses to release his public schedule. He might have to answer questions about why wealthy and powerful people are meeting with him.
Just last week, for example, one of the world’s richest men had a secret confab with Kelly at One Police Plaza: George Soros.
Escorted by a retired NYPD cop, driving a wine-colored Mercedes, the left-leaning billionaire was whisked in and out police headquarters with no one being the wiser.
A Soros official confirmed to NYPD Confidential that this meeting took place. Typically, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to an email asking about it.
Soros appeared at Police Plaza amid news reports in rightwing media that his Open Society Institute, which promotes democratic governance, human rights and social reform, has been funding the Occupy Wall Street movement — something Soros’ spokesman has

The young fashion designer Chris Benz recently had a cameo on the hit show Gossip Girl. It was only apt that he guest starred in the series because his designs are the kind of clothes that attract the Blair Waldorfs and Serena van der Woodsens of the world — “reckless preppy” party girls who ooze unique personal style.
Chris Benz is a genius at mixing unlikely color combinations and prints. His spring 2012 collection is filled with dresses and separates in the most delicious shades and exuberant flower prints.
He was born and raised in Seattle and he moved to New York to study at

I go down to Zuccotti Park everyday to hang out with the young people there. Every so often when I’m not in the park, I read in the newspaper or see on TV that I’m part of the one percent and why I shouldn’t be there.
I have never felt uncomfortable when I am there amongst the people, who I view as my peers, so the noise of the few detractors doesn’t bother me. There are some there who want to change the country completely, but almost all of the people simply want to create an equal playing field for a fairer democratic process in this country.
I have learned that all of the people in the park or those who have participated in the demonstrations and marches want the legal bribery of our politicians to come to an immediate end.
There is no one who knows this better than Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has never taken a nickle from any lobbyist, corporation or special interest to get elected or to influence his policies. Once in awhile, I hear someone say something negative about the Mayor, so I felt the need to write this short piece to him.
Mayor Bloomberg, no matter what some protestors might say, you are not the

With so many people out of work and struggling to make ends meet, there’s little money left to have any fun — let alone pay for the elaborate wedding of your dreams, right? Not so fast! You can have the wedding of your dreams if you are willing to get creative. And you don’t need to DIY (Do-It-Yourself) every single piece of dcor. Here are some insider tricks of the trade to help you reduce costs while still having your dream wedding.
1. Offer your vendors cash up front in exchange for a

When three-year-old Groupon filed to go public in June, market commentators dialed the outrage meter up to 10.
Flashpoints: an aggressive business model, creative accounting, and a track record of cashing out early investors — to the tune of $1 billion. Further irritants: public puffery from the Chairman and the CEO during the so-called quiet period and August and September resignations of two senior team members — PR Chief Brad Williams and COO Margo Georgiadis — only months after they joined the Company.
In late September, Groupon re-filed its registration statement. Thanks to SEC oversight, the numbers had been scrubbed. Management and early investors scrapped their plans to sell

At the end of September, I helped organize a conference at Harvard about the idea of calling a(n Article V) constitutional convention. The event was co-hosted by the Tea Party Patriots. And although that organization has not endorsed a convention, there are many conservatives and libertarians who do support such a call. The conference was designed to explore the possibility, and to demonstrate that people from the Left (my friends) and that people from the Right (the Tea Party Patriots, and some of my friends) could discuss these issues like decent souls do.
At the opening session, Tea Party Patriot co-founder Mark Meckler gave by far the most impressive speech of the

I grew up in New York City, a fact I was never really aware of until I moved to Portland, Oregon over the summer. The move struck me with a kind of culture shock I never expected — though, to be completely honest, much of it was probably the fault of the weather. As with anything, I adapted, assimilated, and grew into being away from home. It was on September 11, however, that I was reminded that I was no longer in New York.
Everyone has their story, the progression of memories triggered by the date, or a set of words, or that question used for tragedy after tragedy: “Do you remember where you were?”
I was in third grade.
I remember the silence before the announcement, knowing that there had to be some strange reason that the entire school was assembled in the auditorium all at once.
I remember the silence after, when the principal told us that a plane had crashed into the twin towers; a stunned silence, a silence of characterized by the sheer absence of

I want to write about the Occupy Wall Street protests for my first Huffington Post blog. After all, it’s an exciting movement that is happening right now and our country has been in desperate need of this type of large-scale political activism for a long time. However, despite following the protests in the news, I still find myself confused.
Protesters seem to be concerned with everything from corporate greed, to Obama, to capitalism, to the costs of

It’s hard to believe that nearly four years into the worst Recession since the Second World War, while mired in a jobless recovery of unprecedented length and magnitude, we continue to hear that manufacturing jobs don’t matter.
Take, for example, the recent uninformed (and insensitive) remark of Steven Rattner, the President’s former co-auto advisor, that “restoring lost manufacturing jobs” is nothing more than “pervasive, politically attractive happy talk” (see “Let’s Admit It: Globalization Has Losers” by Steven Rattner, New York Times, 10-15-11). He went on to say – ironically given his prior administration position – that America’s “greatest strength…lies in service industries with high intellectual content, like education, entertainment, digital media, and financial services.”
The reality is that anyone rightly concerned about the current almost unprecedented real unemployment rate of more than 18% must first focus on resuscitating our depleted manufacturing sector.
It’s a recipe for economic disaster for an economy as large, complex and geographically far-flung as ours to have less than 20-25% of its workers in manufacturing and for the sector to not be contributing a similar percentage of

Recent United States military triumphs in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and against suspected international terrorists anywhere on the planet have evoked hallelujahs by politicians, the media, and the American people. Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Anwar al-Awlaki are dead. Libya is no longer tyrannized by Gaddafi. Iraq has been emancipated from Saddam’s

One pair of jeans is the equivalent of 2,000 gallons of water. One glass of beer is the equivalent of 20 gallons of water. One steak is the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of water. If those statistics don’t put things into perspective for us, I don’t know what

Paul Simon’s superb concert at the Universal Amphitheater last week — shortly after his 70th birthday — was a powerful reminder of the brilliant music he has produced for five decades. The tracks he played from his most recent album, “So Beautiful or So What,” were excellent. But it was Simon’s performances of “Sounds of Silence” and other vintage material that prompted note-for-note reprises of the original recordings of those songs to emerge full-blown from the recesses of my teenage mind.
I’m hardly alone in being able to recall the music of my youth in such vivid detail. Science now confirms what experience has long dictated: Listening obsessively to pop hits at around age 14 imbeds deep emotions that can be instrumental in forging our very

I was into my 30s before I began to tell the truth. I hadn’t exactly been lying in the three previous decades; but what I had been doing was, at best, dissembling, and at worst, well, let’s say I was avoiding the truth. And all the while I had no real idea I was doing it.
I come from a family of liars. We didn’t know or tell the truth about my mother’s illness, which still to this day has never been properly diagnosed but must have been some form of bipolar disease; we didn’t talk about her drinking

Dearest Occupiers,
Thank you for taking a break from tie-dying and your drum circles to read this letter. I know your organic agave-sweetened ginger tea (LOL) may be getting cold, so I’ll keep this short.
You’re crazy and weird and we don’t like you. Plus you look like you smell.
America is not perfect, but we are lucky enough to live in a democracy and it would behoove you to show a little bit of gratitude. Instead you are filling our parks and streets with plastic tarps and unattractive shanty towns and for what? Because you’re angry about student loans? Because you can’t find a job? Would you rather live in Cuba?
Being American is about sacrifice and hard

Dr. Philip Kramer, the director of The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean program, first fell in love with the region from under the sea. Originally from South Carolina and trained as a biologist and marine geologist, he has completed more than 2,500 dives all across the Caribbean, witnessing the incredible biodiversity found in an area comprised of some 7,000 islands, cays and reefs.
“I still don’t really have a favorite island,” he says. “As a geologist, I’ve always approached the region as a whole.”
Approaching the Caribbean as a whole is also central to The Nature Conservancy’s efforts to protecting its diverse ecosystems for future

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
– Lao Tzu
At a time of economic downturn, with corruption on the rise and countries at war, we wondered what could bring greater awareness, kindness and compassion to a world in so much chaos? Could something as subtle and understated as meditation possibly have any affect on business, the environment, conflict or even politics? Can meditation make a big enough change in consciousness to transform the way we see ourselves, each other and our world?
We have both been immersed in meditation since we were young. It is the foundation of our lives and often makes us wonder what life would be like without it when we look around and see the massive confusion and suffering that many people experience. So, for our book, “Be The Change, How Meditation Can Transform You and The World,” we wanted to paint a more varied picture by including many of the cool people who do it, how it affects them and why you should do it too!
Meditation has been the main focus of spiritual practice for thousands of years, but it is only in the last few decades that the general population has begun to realize how valuable it really is, regardless of spiritual or religious

I just don’t get it.
Parents stress more about their babies annoying other airline passengers than whether they are safe on board.
They wouldn’t think of driving anywhere without securely strapping their baby in an appropriate safety seat and spend countless hours considering which safety seat to buy. But on airplanes, you are more likely to see infants and toddlers sitting in a parent’s lap than in a safety seat.
This despite the fact that everyone from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board recommends safety seats for young children. But many parents continue to ignore the advice.
The NTSB has recommended that each passenger — including those under two — be restrained in a separate seat in an appropriate child restraint system during takeoff, landing and

Congressman Luis Gutirrez (D-IL) called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt deportations of immigrants without criminal records who have been detained under Alabama law HB 56 while the courts consider the Department of Justices suit to declare the law unconstitutional. He also asked DHS to begin implementing its new policy of using prosecutorial discretion to consider which deportations to prioritize in the state.
There are people right outside asking if (the regulations) are just a piece of paper, a way of trying to pacify the anxieties of the immigrant community, or whether theyre a real instrument, a real tool of justice. Here in Alabama we can determine if its an empty piece of paper–or if its a piece of paper full of justice for our community, and they won’t deport anyone picked up by the police and turned over to la migra (under HB 56), the congressman told Americas Voice.
He has also sent a letter with the same requests to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton.
Gutirrez came to Alabama to participate in a series of events. His first stop was here in Eufaula, a city an hour and a half from Montgomery, where he spoke at the NAACP Alabama State Conference

By Will Matthews, ACLU
Ahmad Tanveer, a Pakistani New Yorker held in immigration detention at the Monmouth County Correctional Institute in Freehold, N.J., died in anonymity in 2005 despite telling officials of severe chest pain and pleading for hours for medical assistance — pleas that were not responded to until it was too late.
Tanveer’s death was buried and kept out of public view until, four years later, New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein, with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union and documents we obtained from the government through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, told his story for the very first time. Even as the Times reported that story, government officials had trouble confirming that Tanveer had ever existed, much less had been locked up in immigration detention and had died there.
And as it turned out, Tanveer’s story was not unique.
Nine months later, the Times reported how internal government documents obtained through the ACLU’s FOIA litigation and a separate FOIA request filed by the newspaper showed how top government officials, many held over by the Obama administration, intentionally tried to hide the brutal mistreatment of immigration detainees. This mistreatment contributed to the more than 100 in-custody deaths since late

I belong to a group of people who came to America at the expense of all we had. My family left Cuba. We owned a car and a home. We had a good

By Mary Moreno
This is an overdue apology to the three best friends I made at the University of Texas. I’m sorry for all the times I ridiculed you for being Latinas who didn’t speak Spanish.
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while now. Recently, I was finally motivated to do so by a comment on Twitter directed at Voto

Image: Aurelia Fierros
Occupy Los Angeles, the local affiliate of Occupy Wall Street continues to gain momentum, as unionized workers and several immigrant rights groups have formally joined forces with the movement.
About 250 additional activists and immigration advocates, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), are now part of Occupy LA. With this move, starting Wednesday, the Angelino Latino community -totaling 4.7 million in the whole county – has gained representation within the pressure group.
Their demand for social justice includes full rights for immigrants, and to put an end to deportations that have reached a record of 400-thousand people this past year, despite Obama’s campaign promise of immigration overhaul.
The local Occupy movement has been voicing other causes also common to the Hispanic population: high unemployment levels and the real estate bubble that has left thousands without a roof; to mention a

Herman Cain is running for the office of President of the United States. In a match-up between President Obama and Mr. Cain, it would be a glaring matter of intellectual rigor (Obama) verses intellectual rigor mortis (Cain). Watching a debate between Obama and Cain would be like watching a boxing match between Ali and