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You would think that, after World War II, Europe had seen all of the genocide it could stomach for a century or so. But, no, here came the Serbs in the early 1990s, with their ethnic cleansing and wholesale butchery and rape of the Bosniak and Muslim population.
There have been very few films that truly dealt with the subject, at least that have been released in the United States. Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain (1994), Michael Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) and Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land (2001) are among the best – and this year’s The Whistleblower. There have been several about the uncomfortable aftermath of Serbian brutality and cruelty, but the history itself remains almost an afterthought.
Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey takes a tough look at the effects of that war as it was

How do you find happiness? A first step in tackling this question is to understand what happiness means. But herein lies the problem. Our understanding of what happiness is (and how to get it) is often misaligned with what really drives happiness.
Money, a successful career, a house with a white picket fence in the best neighborhood in town: these are things we consider the hallmarks of

The foods we eat have a huge impact on our emotional well-being. Some foods can give you a sharper, more energized, happier brain, while others tank your mood and your health. Because, let’s face it, most of our food is not brain food. And, quite frankly, a lot of times the food we eat isn’t really food at all, but a poor excuse for sustenance created in a factory on the other side of the

Several Christmases ago I noticed something interesting about one of my daughters; she deviated from a gift opening ritual — one or two gifts at a time — that she had methodically maintained for years. Typically, she would play with each newly-opened toy for several hours, then return to open another only after fully enjoying the previous toy. But this year, after my wife and I happily had purchased nearly everything that she carefully wrote on her list to Santa, she, overjoyed, opened the first gift, then a second. A huge smile lit up her face and her eyes twinkled, and then, uncharacteristically, she reached for a third gift, ripped it open

(Photo courtesy of Shutterstock)
John Steinbeck’s famous quote, “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it,” never rings truer than at the holidays. With Thanksgiving travel in 2011 reported at a 4 percent increase over last year, holiday travelers are looking at a potentially jammed-up December, made even more challenging by luggage fees and higher fuel prices. It’s time to toss all excess baggage aside — along with all expectations of arriving on time, hairs in place, with your welcome committee waiting at the designated

By Michael Hudson, iWatch NewsIn the case of the salesman who wouldn’t sell, the two sides have starkly different tales to tell.Greg Saffer says conscience and common sense prevented him from pushing the product his bosses wanted him to sell – “Option ARM” home loans that, he says, put homeowners at risk.”I’m not going to steer people into a loan program that might not be good for them just because it’s more profitable for the company,” he says.JP Morgan Chase Bank counters that Saffer didn’t sell because he didn’t have the chops to close deals.”Rather than a paragon of virtue, Saffer was simply a guy who could not sell loans in an increasingly tough market,” the bank’s lawyers say in legal papers.JP Morgan is matched against Saffer because it bought Saffer’s ex-employer, Seattle-based Washington Mutual Bank, in September 2008, after regulators seized WaMu in what was the largest bank failure in U.S. history.Saffer charged in a lawsuit filed in 2009 in Los Angeles Superior Court that he was forced out of his job for refusing to take part in “fraudulent schemes.” In testimony in the lawsuit and in documents in arbitration proceedings, he claims WaMu retaliated against him because he refused to push “toxic” Option ARMs and mislead borrowers about how the loans worked and how much they would cost.A judge ordered the case into arbitration last year. It could be months before an arbitrator rules on whether Saffer’s claims are valid.Saffer’s case is notable because, as a salesman, his job description was different from most of the ex-employees who’ve made whistleblower claims against mortgage lenders. Many were fraud investigators or loan underwriters who claim they were punished for uncovering fraud by sales reps and sales executives.Saffer’s legal claims paint him as one of what may have been a distinct minority among the mortgage industry’s sales corps during the nation’s home-loan frenzy – a salesman who said no to the dirty tactics that became pervasive during the

Do men think about sex every seven seconds? What about women? Are you an erotophile or an erotophobe? These are a few questions implicitly raised in a research study that generated some recent buzz and got me thinking about the curiosities of research. Published in the Journal for Sex Research, it’s called: “Sex on the Brain? An examination of Frequency of Sexual Cognitions as a Function of Gender, Erotophilia and Social Desirability,” by Terri D. Fisher, Zachary T. Moore and Mary-Joe

When my 91-year-old father lay dying in a Veterans Administration hospital on the other side of the continent, no one told me that I “should go,” that I “had to go,” or even that wanting to go was a reasonable idea. “My God,” my beloved maternal aunt reminded me, “You don’t owe the old bastard a thing. If I had a nickel for every time you told me what a rotten father he was…”
“I don’t understand why you want to be so nice to him when he was so mean to us,” said my sister. “And I’ve hired a super-competent social worker to make sure all his needs are met, and that he’s

Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets it wrong.
Was the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which he did so much to encourage, a “wise choice”? Friedman hides behind one of his trademark ambiguities: “My answer is twofold: ‘No’ and ‘Maybe, sort of, we’ll see.’ I say ‘no’ because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.”
Aside from the stunning amorality of assessing the cost of war from the standpoint of the royal “we,” Friedman seems wildly optimistic about what the invasion has wrought. On a day when Iraq’s prime minister, a Shiite, demanded that the leader of the Kurds arrest the Sunni vice president, Friedman celebrated the unity of the three groups as “the most important product of the Iraq war.” He blamed the failure of the

What happens after all the outrage?
In many ways the rapid spread of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements is a healthy sign that people are not mere spectators in the public square. Instead, they are stepping forward to express what matters most to them.
But outrage alone will never be enough to create the kind of society people want. It will not, by itself, create more jobs, improve health care, or make us safer. Nor does it build trust across fault lines in

It’s been a long and winding road, but after countless tears, tantrums and dramatic eliminations, we’ve reached the final performance show of “The X Factor.” Our top three contestants sang for a 5 million-dollar recording contract and the hearts of the American public — or approximately 12 million of them, anyway.
Best of all, midway through the episode, I realized that I don’t actually care who wins; not because the performers are mundane or because everyone I was rooting for has already been eliminated, but because all three finalists seem to be genuinely gracious, humble and — most importantly — talented individuals. They each deserve the life-changing opportunity one of them is about to receive. If winning were based on technical ability and vocal range alone, Melanie Amaro would have been crowned the champion weeks ago; but Chris Rene’s presence in the top three is proof that carrying a tune isn’t

“We are at a very early stage in imagining the future of the book.” — David “Skip” Prichard
The publisher delivers a single file. With that file, Ingram Content Group will deliver the content globally in a variety of ways, whether as a printed book or as a digital file which will ultimately create books for every digital platform around the world. They have the industry’s largest active book inventory (access to 7.5 million titles) and the markets they serve include bookstores, libraries, schools, and specialty retailers.
What do the book makers believe about the future of reading? I had the pleasure of speaking with the charismatic President and CEO of Ingram Content Group, David “Skip” Prichard.
How do you see the growth prospects for books in all forms over the next five to ten years?
I’m bullish on the growth prospects for books. First, the demographics are

In January, owners of the Boxee Box can expand their viewing to include local HD broadcast channels with the purchase of a $49 dollar USB dongle which connects to the Box. The dongle is called Boxee Live TV.
It is a TV receiver for HD broadcast channels.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com

Growing up in Southern New Jersey — a child of the first TV generation, I was assaulted by glamorous tales and images of Los Angeles, San Francisco and the warm, promising, sun-drenched promise-land of the American Southwest.
Earliest life for me in rapidly declining Camden NJ was far less than what I saw on The Beverly Hillbillies, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, or even The Waltons. My father worked hard. Mother worked outside the house maintaining the home, her sanity and the family’s stability while helping Dad drag the American dream to our doorstep.
Eventually we moved one town east to follow our middle class

For nearly 20 years on television, I have interviewed political candidates, only to observe them, for whatever reason, rarely deliver on a long list of campaign promises. Watching new Governor Andrew Cuomo has been different, and dare I say refreshing. Cuomo is up-ending the dysfunction in Albany, and along the way has only fueled speculation that he could be one of the leading Democrats for the White House in 2016.
Americans have short memories. However, juxtapose that with what Cuomo has done in year

By:Noah Nelson
Earth: it was fun while it lasted.
Today is the beginning of the final countdown. We’ve got just 366 days — thank you leap year — until a comet strikes the planet, a massive solar flare microwaves the globe, and sentient machine life evolves into the avatar of the Old Gods and does away with the pestilence that is mankind. Alternatively you may believe we’ve actually due for a new Golden Age when the Mayan calendar cycles back around.
If I was a professional skeptic and dedicated materialist, I’d begin to chastise those who hold to the belief that something big is coming down the pipeline a year from now. There would be a flogging of believers so that we could make way for a cool, bloodless rationality and get to the serious business of dealing with the very scary problems we have here in the “real” world, and to stop spreading myths and get down to facts.
But there’s a slight problem with dismissing myth.
The late mythologist Joseph Campbell liked to say that a “myth was a metaphor.” For Campbell, the stories that make up myths contain key psychological insights and moral lessons that shape

I am writing this from beyond the grave, so my apologies in advance for any typos or inconsistencies in tense.
It started out as a rather unremarkable Saturday. I was nursing a mild cold, the TV remote was sluggishly low on batteries, thus I found myself viewing a Kourtney and Kim Take New York marathon. Five-and-a-half hours later, I found myself gasping my last breath as my glass of Sauvignon Blanc rolled to the floor, a la Citizen Kane. I was, quite literally, bored to

Last Friday I threw my back out when I bent over to pick up my tooth.
I think that sentence bears repeating.
I threw my back out when I bent over to pick up my tooth.
No, this piece is not about the horrors of the advancing age or eroding health this event implies. I’ll leave it to others to share tales of how their bodies, despite all dietary and aerobic regiments, are grinding to an inevitable

Isn’t Christmas supposed to be a time of hope and joy? A time when we remember that the impossible is possible? A season for rejoicing that God isn’t content to be some far-off, impersonal being, but cares so much about us that He showed up among us?
Yes, it is all of those things. But Jesus was born into the same world that you and I live in today. Jesus was born to a broke teenage mother. He was born into an occupied nation ruled by

An oft-heard element of political debate is horror at government standard setting and regulations … even if leads to an improved marketplace. Whether seatbelts for cars or speed limits or building standards or …, there is little to no problem finding screaming voices letting us know how this is a fundamental invasion of individual rights and some sort of constitutional violation. This certainly has been the case when it comes to incandescent light bulbs, with a visceral movement promoting the necessity of maintaining inefficient lighting options on the shelf in the name of liberty and freedom for all.
One of those voices: Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).
Consider that name within this scenario:
the Federal government announces that it will purchase a product that will cost the taxpayer three times as much — not over lifecycle but in the first year and year-in, year-out, indefinitely.
Hmmmm

This article originally appeared on TheNation.com.
Last week, Speaker Boehner described the Senate deal for extending middle class tax cuts and unemployment benefits as acceptable. This past Saturday, 89 Senators–including the vast majority of Republican Senators– voted for the bipartisan compromise to extend unemployment benefits and a middle class payroll tax cut for two months.
No sooner did the Tea Party House Republicans begin to fear that this good faith compromise just might succeed than they stepped forward and smashed the deal. Within a few hours, Speaker John Boehner went from saying the Senate compromise was “a good deal” and “a victory” to saying “it’s become clear that what the Senate did pass is going to cause job creators all kinds of problems.”
What happened? The anti-government ideologues

In December, the majority of Americans spend a great deal of time and energy preparing for a holiday that celebrates the birth of a child. Given this focus, this seems like an excellent time of year to ask how America’s children are faring. I’m afraid that three recent trends suggest a somewhat dispiriting answer: children living in poverty are on the rise; childcare subsidies for working families are down; and parents report that they are cutting back on household spending in the face of economic struggles.
A recent briefing from the Council on Contemporary Families reports that 653 counties in the U.S. saw a significant increase in the number of children age 5-17 living in poverty, while only 8 experienced a significant

Holiday season and another new year often accompanies a good deal of soul-searching and taking stock on one’s life. For some this leads to divorce, or contemplation of a divorce. While we would never want to minimize the pain and stress associated with divorce, there are definitely distinct approaches with varying fall-outs and consequences not just to you, but to everyone involved.
The traditional “War of the Roses” scenario is the most

As with the passing of any accomplished author and philosopher, the death of Christopher Hitchens brings to the forefront the ephemeral nature of life. Pausing to reflect honestly upon our own lives is perhaps the most fitting tribute we can offer to someone who was so thoroughly dedicated to the objective truth. These are my musings.
Those hoping for a deathbed conversion were of course sorely disappointed. But the hope that Hitchens would find God was always