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Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day, a day to focus on women’s social and economic progress. In honor of this day, Planned Parenthood Global has launched a new animated video and online petition called Health Has No Borders, making the case for robust investments in women’s health around the world.
In our country and globally, women’s health and rights have greatly advanced in the past century. Yet huge disparities

Nothing brings out the hypocrisy of America’s political class like the high-profile blunder of one of its celebrity members. Consider, for example, Rush Limbaugh’s recent Tourette’s moment, in which he defamed a law school student and woman’s activist as a “slut” and “prostitute” because she favors contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans.
Democrats in Congress, attacking the conservative talk show host, claim to be outraged, shocked and offended. But, like Claude Rains in the movie Casablanca (“I’m shocked! Shocked to find gambling going on here!”), they are actually delighted! delighted! at Limbaugh’s failure of self-censorship, and not remotely surprised by the sentiments so revealed. For liberals in Washington, Limbaugh’s gaffe is like a warm, sunny day in

The number of domestic hate and extremist groups in the United States grew to record levels in 2011, led by a surge in anti-government radicalism, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a prominent civil rights organization based in Montgomery, AL. In 2011 there were 1,018 “hate groups” nationally, representing a slight increase from the previous record, one year earlier in 2010, when there were 1,002 hate groups tallied.
The 2011 figures are the eleventh consecutive annual increase and the highest number since the SPLC began enumerating hate group totals in the 1980s. In 2000 there were just 602 of these groups

“Every age has its happiness and troubles,” famous French uber-centenarian Jeanne Calment once said. And every age, quite literally, looks at happiness and troubles in different ways. For that nugget of wisdom, we can tip our hats to Derek Isaacowitz.
In the early 90s, Isaacowitz worked as a research assistant to Laura Carstensen while pursuing undergraduate studies at Stanford

The actress Julianne Moore recently sounded off about celebrity magazines. “They encourage young women and some middle-aged women to be interested in somebody else’s narrative rather than their own,” she told Moremagazine. “I don’t want my daughter or her friends to be interested in Jessica Simpson. I want them to be interested in what’s happening in their own lives.” The message goes way beyond pop culture.
When I think about my own daughter and all the other “young women” who are the theme of this International Women’s Day, I realize that I want to take Moore’s message a step further: There are situations when resistance takes more than choosing to ignore a magazine story and more than the actions of any one

Capital is no longer the decisive factor of production in today’s global economy: A business or an economy’s competitive advantage is increasingly determined by innovative ideas or immaterial services, and is less dependent on tangible assets. We are rapidly moving from capitalism to “talentism.” In such a world, gender parity can no longer be treated as a “nice to have”. Women make up one-half of the potential human capital available in any economy and are increasingly equally educated or more educated than men in many developed and emerging economies.
There is strong evidence to show that, at the macro level, countries that invest in girls and integrate women into the workforce tend to be more

When I want to explain why empowering girls and women is critical to fighting poverty, I often tell a person’s story. It’s easier to relate to a personal story than to global data telling us that the majority of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day are women and girls. We are often told to never treat a person like a statistic.
But what if conventional wisdom is wrong? What if quantifying results can help us reach our goals?
Rina Begum is a real person — but she’s also a statistic. When CARE met her, Rina and other women in her remote village in Bangladesh lived under virtual house

Before dawn on Feb. 4, some 1000 women lined up at a small clinic in Zambia to be screened for cervical and breast cancer. It was International Cancer Day and these women received a simple medical test for cervical cancer that required just a drop of vinegar and costs pennies — but could save their lives. By the end of the day, 40 women were referred for additional screening and diagnosis.
Without that drop of vinegar and the health workers to determine the reaction to it, what would have happened to these women and their families?
As a medical student in Africa in the 1970s, I would have encountered many of these women as they were rushed, pale and perhaps in shock, into the emergency room with profuse vaginal

It is time for actors to take an active role in one of the most reprehensible forms of prejudice in our time — the discrimination against disabled people who are or who want to become actors. Hollywood studios and television production companies have failed to increase the number of disabled actors in film and other media. What is next?
The facts are that there are about 600 repeating characters in prime-time television, but only six characters are disabled; only one disabled actor plays any of those roles — even though disabled people make up almost 20 percent of the population. In most films, there will be no disabled actors, and when there is a disabled character, it almost always will be played by a non-disabled

The subject of Iran currently sits quite prominently at the forefront of foreign policy discussions. 80% of all media coverage of Iran today focuses on the covert nuclear program. The remaining 20% focuses on provocative words and actions of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His actions might make for good television, and Iran’s nuclear program might make for the stuff of brinksmanship, but the present discussion about Iran fails to focus on the root of the country’s plaguing problem: the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In late January, I submitted a report to the United Nations Security Council detailing the crimes against humanity perpetrated on the orders of Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader,

If you’re among the millions of Americans who wants to cut costs and increase your savings, taking a back-to-basics approach to life can offer a number of advantages — among them, saving money.
If you’re looking for ways to slash pet-related expenses, there are smart and not-so-smart strategies available to accomplish your goal.
I encourage you to choose wisely, not only for the well-being of your pet, but also to avoid unseen but potentially costly problems in the future.
DON’T Skimp on Routine Vet Visits
Skipping routine veterinarian exams — I recommend two per year — to save some money in the short-term could backfire down the road.
Your pet needs regular at-home wellness exams and a minimum of one visit to his vet annually so you can stay on top of his current and future health challenges.
It’s much safer and less costly to keep your pet well than it is to try to reverse or manage a serious illness that has taken hold while no one was paying attention.
Not only does a sick pet impact the bottom line, more importantly, your animal’s quality of life suffers.
DO Feed a Nutritious Diet
If you feed your dog or cat a commercial pet food, it’s a really bad idea to buy a lesser quality brand to save a few pennies.
My recommendation is always to feed balanced, species-appropriate meals prepared by you, preferably with at least some raw food components.
Preparing your pet’s food at home means a significant investment of time; however, it’s really the only way to feed your dog or cat nutritiously without breaking the bank.
The good news is with a little careful planning, you can buy meats and vegetables on sale in bulk and prepare your pet’s meals days, weeks, or even months in advance.
Even better news? You can control the quality of every morsel of food your pet eats and make a dramatic positive difference in her overall health by feeding her food you prepare in your own kitchen.
If you have pet-loving neighbors, friends or relatives with goals similar to yours, consider joining together to share expenses, meal prep duties, and even freezer space!
DON’T Overfeed
Feeding your pet well means serving nutritious, species-appropriate meals — meals prepared in the right portions for his size, age and activity level.
Figure out how many calories your dog or cat should consume each day and practice portion control to insure Fluffy or Fido isn’t on the road to obesity.
Not only do overweight companion animals have a lesser quality of life than their fit and trim counterparts, they also often suffer a long list of obesity-related disorders that can be very costly to manage or resolve.
DO Exercise Your Pet
Since we’re talking about cutting expenses, you may not see the direct relationship between making sure your dog or cat is adequately exercised and saving money.
The connection is this: The more physically and mentally fit your pet is, the less it will cost you to maintain his health.
As is the case with humans, a well-exercised cat or dog is simply much healthier than his couch potato counterparts.
And dogs, in particular, need the mental stimulation exercise provides so they don’t become bored and destructive around your house or yard. In a tough economy, the last thing you need to spend money on is expensive replacement furniture or carpet.
Your pet is built for physical activity, and if he doesn’t get enough of it, his health and your bank account can end up the worse for wear.
Companion animals are natural

We are all quite certain that we have a self. When you say “I like chocolate” or “I vote progressive,” no one asks what you mean by “I.” That task was left for centuries to philosophers and theologians. “Know thyself” is an axiom worth heeding, but what is there to know? If one camp of modern science has its way, the answer is “nothing.” The self, we are told, is an illusion created by the complexity of brain functions. As thousands of inputs bombard each other every second, forming an almost infinite tangle of neural messages, a ghost was created whose name is “I.”
Thus, in one stroke the problem that has intrigued humanity’s greatest minds — “Who am I?” — is reduced to a mirage or fairy

Did you ever have a really good friendship where everything was just rolling along until one day you hit an impasse that you couldn’t seem to get past? I’ve been hearing a lot of stories like this lately and have had my fair share as well. So let’s take a look at what could be happening and the options for resolution.
Many of us suffer from the faulty assumption that others — particularly those we befriend — are “just like me.” We think that because things go smoothly between us they must therefore think like us, process their emotions like us, and share our most cherished beliefs and values. Not so! And therein lies one of the biggest challenges in friendships. Coming to terms with the “otherness” of your friend — especially those parts you find undesirable — can be the hardest, yet most rewarding part and the source of some of life’s greatest lessons.
I’ve learned that when a big problem surfaces in a friendship, I need to raise my consciousness above the level of “I said, they said” where I am blaming and judging one of us — usually the other person because that’s the territory of the

A recent article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets,” (Feb. 16, 2012) describes research, spearheaded by Ann Graybiel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on the development of habits. Graybiel has been conducting research for more than 10 years with wired rats, T-shaped mazes, and chocolate. She discovered that habitual action begins with a cue, which leads to a routine, which then ends in a

Leave it to radio personality Rush Limbaugh to turn a serious policy issue into a personal attack. But the moral character of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke doesn’t matter (except, presumably, to her). What should worry the rest of us is her apparent belief that we all are obligated to make sure that she can have sex for free.
Law school is typically a time of financial stringency. I know, since I also attended law school (though many years

“Dennis will be back, you can count on it; he’s on the right side of things.” I recall those words from a printer in Cleveland who had rented Dennis Kucinich a room in the back of her plant when that city’s former “boy mayor” was living in suddenly reduced circumstances. He was as sanguine then as he was Tuesday night when I spoke with him by phone about his gerrymandered eviction from the U.S. House of Representatives. Although he had just lost the position he has held for eight terms, by the end of our conversation he was optimistic and promised to continue the fight: “I am not about to abandon what I stand for.”
Most of the newly drawn district was made up of the Toledo home base of the fellow Democrat who defeated Kucinich in Tuesday’s primary,

Source:Associated Press
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SAN ANTONIO — Manu Ginobili and Carmelo Anthony both missed two weeks. Cruising to wins like this is what the San Antonio Spurs pictured when their scoring star came back.The sinking New York Knicks, meanwhile, are in a nightmare since theirs returned.Tony Parker scored 32 points and the Spurs dealt New York a third consecutive loss, 118-105 on Wednesday night, that only exacerbated the mounting frustrations of the Knicks. Fading rapidly is the feel-good glow of Linsanity: New York has lost six of nine and has only stumbled since Jeremy Lin and Anthony were reunited just before the All-Star game.
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Like the Knicks, the Spurs are finally back at full strength with Ginobili, who played his second game after missing two weeks with a strained stomach muscle. Ginobili and Tim Duncan scored 17 points apiece, while San Antonio is doing a far better job than New York of blending its pieces back together.”We were more into this game. We knew that we needed it,” Ginobili said. “We lost two out of three at home, and this game was an important one. We didn’t want to let it get away.”Anthony led New York with 27 points. He was sharper than a listless, six-point game in Dallas a night earlier but had no answers afterward on what’s not working.”I don’t know. I really can’t answer that,” Anthony said. “I really can’t put a finger on it.”Amare Stoudemire, who had 18 points and 11 rebounds, took a different view after a game in which New York trailed by as much as 24 in the second half.”(The Spurs) don’t have nearly enough talent to compete with us,” Stoudemire said. “Our personnel, our talent is off the charts.”It hardly looks that way lately. The Knicks are three games below .500 and bear little resemblance to their Lin-inspired resurgence before the All-Star break, and booting Landry Fields from the starting lineup before the game didn’t help much.New York played without center Tyson Chandler, who sat out with a strained hamstring.Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said relegating Fields to the bench wasn’t a demotion but simply a stab at trying to find combinations that work. The change came a night after the Knicks trailed by as many as 19 at Dallas, where Anthony afterward admitted having trouble finding his new role in the offense.Lin came out of nowhere last month and delivered the Knicks the playmaking point guard they craved. But New York’s transition has been anything but seamless since Anthony returned Feb. 20 after missing seven games, mostly because of a groin injury.The Knicks are 2-5 with Anthony back in the lineup. D’Antoni said before the game that Anthony needs to be New York’s leading scorer and said he understood the frustration of his star.”You have to work through. But there’s no reason why it can’t co-exist,” D’Antoni said. “There’s no reason why everybody shouldn’t do well. We just got to find the right balance of everybody getting into their spots.”Anthony had as many field goals in the first 6 minutes Wednesday night — two 3-pointers — than he did in Dallas. He was 12 of 24 from the floor. Lin shot 7 of 15 and had four assists. Stoudemire had 18 points and 11 rebounds.Gary Neal scored 12 points and found his way back into the starting lineup as the Spurs ease Ginobili back into playing shape. Ginobil played 25 minutes, shooting 7 of 10 from the floor and adding six assists.DeJuan Blair, Kawhi Leonard and Tiago Splitter added 10 points apiece for the Spurs. It was a convincing win for San Antonio, which had lost two of its last three at home after returning from the winningest nine-game road trip in NBA history, when the Spurs went 8-1 and quietly climbed to second in the West.”We spent a lot of energy on the road when we went 8-1,” Parker said. “So we want to take care of home court and we did that.”Spurs coach Gregg Popovich didn’t stick around to see the end, getting ejected at the end of the third quarter following a heated exchange with officials over foul calls.A scary moment came in the second quarter when Spurs point guard T.J. Ford lay on the floor for more than three minutes. The Spurs said the veteran received a stinger after getting elbowed in his back, and Ford appeared wobbly while being helped off the court and back into the tunnel. He didn’t return to the game.Ford missed the entire 2004-05 season because of a spinal cord injury, and the Spurs took the unusual step of noting that Ford was “neurologically intact” on a midgame injury report. It was not immediately clear how much time the Spurs might be without their backup point guard, who has played in just 14 games all season because of other injuries.Game notes Knicks F Jared Jeffries (sore foot) didn’t play and is also expected to miss Friday’s game against Milwaukee. … Don’t expect the Spurs to make any surprise trades before the March 15 deadline. Popovich joked before Wednesday’s game that he’ll just let the phone ring his office on the eve of the deadline. “We’re not doing anything anyway,” Popovich imagined telling his staff. “Don’t answer it.”
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Source:Associated Press
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MILWAUKEE — Derrick Rose faked like he was going to drive to the basket again, creating just enough of a cushion on defender Brandon Jennings. Then he slid to his left in a split second, drilling a winning shot at the buzzer.The reigning league MVP sure knows how to thrill a stadium filled with Bulls fans — even when he isn’t playing at home.Rose’s off-balance shot just inside the 3-point line capped a 30-point night that powered the Chicago Bulls to a 106-104 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday.
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“It was like a kid, all the things that you dream about,” Rose said. “It felt good. You’re on the road, going against a team that’s giving you their all and you hit a nice shot like that.”Rose was mobbed by his teammates near halfcourt as a predominantly pro-Bulls crowd roared in approval, bursting out in chants of “M-V-P!”Joakim Noah added 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls, who have won eight straight.”It was like a movie,” Noah said. “Hit the shot, no time left on the clock, you hear the horn, the ball goes through the net. It must be an unbelievable feeling to hit a shot like that.”Jennings noted that Rose wasn’t having a particularly good night shooting from outside, so the Bucks were expecting him to drive.”I tried to make him take as difficult a shot as he could,” Jennings said. “I was playing him to go to the basket, of course. He hit a step-back jump shot with a hand in his face. Hey, man, you go ahead and take that one.”Bucks coach Scott Skiles said Rose made an incredibly tough shot look easy.”What a luxury to have, you don’t even need to run a play,” Skiles said. “You can just bring it in, throw it to a guy and he can get whatever shot he wants.”Ersan Ilyasova had a career-high 32 points and Drew Gooden added a season-high 27 for the Bucks, who were coming off a home win over Philadelphia on Monday.The Bulls held Jennings to 11 points on 4 for 18 shooting. Jennings had scored 27-plus points in his previous three games coming into Wednesday.With the Bulls often double-teaming Jennings on defense, especially early, Gooden was left open for several outside shots — and he cashed in, scoring 16 first-half points to keep the Bucks in the game.”I mean, it was a little difficult,” Jennings said. “But like I said, Drew was hitting shots, Ersan was playing big for us.”Once again, the Bradley Center was taken over by Bulls fans — although Chicago’s home-away-from-home-court advantage wasn’t quite as pronounced as it was in the Bulls’ Feb. 4 victory at Milwaukee, a Saturday night game that drew a huge crowd comprised mostly of Bulls fans.Still, the Bucks received a jarring greeting when they took the floor before Wednesday’s game — mostly boos — and the crowd was decidedly pro-Bulls most of the game. When Milwaukee’s Mike Dunleavy Jr. missed badly in the second quarter, he was subjected to “Airball!” chants.It left the Bucks in the odd position of having to talk about tuning out the crowd at home.”It hurts a lot that we lost this one, just the fact that we played so hard for 48 minutes,” Jennings said. “Guys were down there battling. We didn’t let the crowd get to us at all.”The crowd apparently did get his attention before the game.”I told the guys before the game, ‘We’re just going to tune that out and play basketball,’ ” Jennings said.The Bulls have won all four meetings with the Bucks this season.With the Bulls up by two, Rose lost the ball out of bounds and officials initially ruled it went off a Bucks player. After a replay review, the call was reversed and the ball went to the Bucks with 55.2 seconds left.Milwaukee’s Beno Udrih then drove for a layup, tying the game with 42.9 seconds left.Rose drove on Jennings, then tried to hit a turnaround jumper — and drew a foul on Jennings and hit both shots for a 104-102 lead with 32.5 left.Ilyasova scored inside, tying the game again with 24 seconds left and setting the stage for Rose’s last-second shot.”It was a great play by him,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He took the clock down, he didn’t leave any time because it was one of those games where whoever had the ball, you thought they were going to score next.”Game notes The Bulls were without guards Richard Hamilton and C.J. Watson because of injuries. Hamilton has a right shoulder injury, while Watson has a left ankle sprain. … The Bucks were without defensive ace Luc Richard Mbah a Moute because of a right knee injury, and Udrih played despite left knee soreness. Stephen Jackson continues to sit out with hamstring soreness, and no timeline has been established for his return.
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I went to a shopping mall yesterday. I grew up on Long Island, so malls (pronounced mawls) are in my blood. To my surprise, the mannequins in the store windows were dressed in neon colors and Flashdance-style silhouettes. If Tiffany were singing “I Think We’re Alone Now” near the food court, I would have thought I had been transported back to the

By Lisa Dazols
When my partner Jenni and I left San Francisco to travel around the world for one year with a mission to tell the stories of LGBTI people, we knew this would be the ultimate test of our relationship. Now engaged, we know that traveling together has only made us stronger.
But the truth is that we fought a ton right before leaving and during our initial months of traveling. It was a big adjustment to shift from our independent daily routines to spending 24/7

The factional infighting in the Republican Party certainly shows no signs of abating. That’s the only clear message the party’s electorate sent last night, on what was supposed to be the biggest primary night of the year. This fight began a few years back, when the ultra-purists in the party (the radical wing) began calling their faction the “Tea Party,” and then began making lots of noise out in the street. After the 2010 elections, Tea Partiers gained an actual foothold in the House of Representatives and have flummoxed John Boehner ever

Congressional “Listening Tour” ignites a healthy, sustainable, youth-led foster care reform movement.
In the years that I have spent chronicling the national movement to improve foster care, I have borne witness to the quiet, consistent progress achieved by a constellation of policy makers, foster youth, practitioners, academics, and advocates fully dedicated to bettering the lives of vulnerable children.
This Child First movement has been punctuated by surges in activity and has scored consistent legislative victories. However, over the span of the past two weeks, from my unique vantage point, I have seen two telling signs that this broad effort is growing and, more importantly, developing the infrastructure for a sustained, youth-driven political movement.
The Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth
It is 10 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning in Los Angeles, not exactly prime time to pack a large auditorium with 350 or more politically charged

I didn’t expect much from the MTV special Demi Lovato: Stay Strong, figuring it would be a lot of spin about the former Disney star’s rehab stint — a generic, PR-laced message of salvation with no real details about what the 19-year-old is truly like.
I’m happy to be proven wrong. For a star with a primarily tween and teen audience, the show is shockingly raw. Cameras followed Lovato as she toured, post-rehab, to promote her album Unbroken last year, and she speaks openly about her struggles with bulimia and cutting. In one awkward scene she allows cameras to follow her home for her first Thanksgiving after treatment, an environment loaded with triggers for anyone with food

As the executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, my work is all about LGBT cancer survivors and those at risk. In the vast, multi-million dollar world of pink and teal ribbons, cancer organizations and foundations, we are nearly alone in this focus. I often interact with these mainstream groups, and when I do, I bring up the underserved and invisible LGBT community. “Oh, don’t worry,” they always say in that reassuring