Last night I made my usual trek from Findlay, Ohio, where I teach seminarians and undergrad religious studies majors, to Perrysburg, about 35 minutes north. I moved with my wife to Perrysburg just under a year ago, a picturesque Midwestern town with parades for just about every occasion, no shortage of American flags, and a proud history of being the only other city platted by the U.S. government (Washington D.C. being the other, of course).

I'll be honest. Small-town living has been a bit of a re-adjustment for us. While both my wife and I were raised in the area, we left for the city life of Chicago more than 17 years ago and later spent several years in Philadelphia. It came as a shock when, during one of the worst economies in U.S. history, the school with the most immediate faculty opening after my doctoral graduation was smack in the middle of Ohio. I had fond memories of my childhood here, but I'd lived in big cities all of my adult life. In Philadelphia, almost all of the 11 neighbors in our apartment building were from other countries or ethnicities. We grew accustomed to the potent cacophony of scents that filled our hallway at dinnertime. Not so in Perrysburg.

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Things had been not great for a while when I started thinking about leaving him. We weren't fighting, we weren't at each others' throats, we both just seemed to be getting casual with our marriage. So it didn't surprise me that when I said "I'm just not happy with this relationship", his response was "Ohh, that's too bad", followed by another few moments of eating in silence before changing the subject. It made a weird sort of sense that when I asked for space, I was able to move onto the futon in our living room without a single protest from him about how he wanted to sleep in the same bed with me. My vocalization of unhappiness, like a lot of things in our relationship on both sides, passed without much fanfare.

Our decision to marry wasn't completely insane. Before I started realizing that marriage- no, that love meant feeling passionately about someone, and that never fighting with a spouse was not something to brag about, we had gotten along just fine. We were good friends, we supported each other, we had similar values- all the good stuff. What was lacking was any interest in each other's thoughts, hopes, fears, or dreams, and I didn't realize how big of a deal that was until well after we were married.

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Tomorrow is Thanksgiving -- a holiday grounded in the principles of celebration and gratitude.  Here's one holiday that does not smack of commercialism, and it is instead a time for families and friends to assemble around the dinner table, to talk, and to feast. In the broadest sense, so many of us do indeed have much to be grateful for, including the bounty of American agriculture, and tomorrow is a day to reflect on that good fortune.

It is also a holiday built around the consumption of turkeys.  Sadly, the domesticated birds sold from factory farms look like a caricature of the wild birds from which they descend.  Today's industrially produced birds have been selectively bred for enormous body mass and, as a consequence, many of them cannot stand or walk after only a few months of life. They have so much breast meat that they are even incapable of copulation -- reproduction now occurs only through artificial insemination.  They are not healthy animals, and they suffer chronic pain.  Some of them die from heart attacks -- suggesting that something is deeply wrong in their physical make-up when baby and juvenile animals perish from maladies we associate with old age.

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Two-thirds of our country is overweight or obese. The current generation is predicted to have a shorter life span than their parents for the first time in recorded history, by up to 10 years. And the greatest killer in our country, the greatest single threat to our lives is not terrorism, but poor health. The situation is totally out of hand. We all know that we have to do something, and it's not like we aren't trying. Last year alone we spent $60 billion trying to lose weight and get healthy only to watch our health and the health of our nation continue to plummet. So, is all hope lost? Not at all! Because, while the problem couldn't be more serious, the solution just might be a game ... literally.

I recently watched a video of a subway station in Stockholm, Sweden. It was noticed that when given the option between stairs and an escalator to get out of the subway the overwhelming majority took the escalator. And trust me, that isn't only happening in Sweden. But why is this the case? It's not like people don't know how to use the stairs, and it's not that people are necessarily opposed to getting a little exercise. Is it because it's easier, or is because we have simply gotten into the habit of taking the escalator?

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It was almost 200 years ago, after a day and night of relentless attack by the British in Baltimore, that the flag of the United States of America stood against the morning sky and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words to the "The Star-Spangled Banner." I recently saw two widely varied interpretations of our national anthem. One was a beautifully arranged choral production by The Baltimore Choral Arts Chamber Chorus which included the not-often heard second stanza. The second was a uniquely choreographed dance production by Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble that -- through the dance steps of Americans from many ethnic backgrounds and many time periods -- illustrated the origins and history of our nation. I viewed all of this while having the privilege of gathering with 1,000 arts leaders from across the United States at the Americans for the Arts 50th Anniversary Half-Century Summit held in Baltimore.

We heard stories of spectacular public art projects in San Jose, CA; successful business and arts collaborations in Philadelphia; key arts efforts in the struggle for greener communities in places like Seattle; and ideas for how the arts have helped inform and inspire our military leaders ever since that night in 1814 when a poem, a song, and a piece of visual art -- a flag -- melded into one statement as our national anthem.

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With the start of the U.S. Open at Congressional only five weeks away, questions about Tiger's physical health and his overall state of mind escalate. And questions about whether he'll ever regain his championship form continue.

Tiger withdrew from the Players Championship Thursday after shooting a 'six over par' 42 on the front nine. He was wincing in pain on a few holes and said afterwards that he was having trouble walking. Tiger 'in pain' and Tiger 'limping' is becoming more usual than not. Golf fans could see and feel how much pain Tiger was in when he won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in 2008. He looked like an injured warrior, wincing in pain on every tee shot and on many of his shots from the fairway. Immediately after that win, he had reconstructive surgery on his left anterior cruciate ligament. He was also playing with a broken bone in his left leg! Not sure if he knew that, but nobody else did! He was noticeably limping in Sunday's final round at this year's Masters. He later said he injured himself in the third round of the Masters, hitting a shot out of the pine straw. He still finished tied for fourth, grabbing a share of the lead for a brief period and managed to shoot a 67 in that final round.

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The debate over Republicans' insistence on continued tax breaks for the superrich and the corporations they run should come to a screeching halt with the report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal headlined "Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad." Those tax breaks over the past decade, leaving some corporations such as General Electric to pay no taxes at all, were supposed to lead to job creation, but just the opposite has occurred. As the WSJ put it, the multinational companies "cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show."

General Electric, which was bailed out by taxpayers and which stored so much of its profit abroad that it paid no taxes for the past two years, was forced to tighten up, but while cutting its foreign workforce by 1,000 it cut a far more severe 28,000 in the United States. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, recently appointed by President Barack Obama as his chief outside economic adviser, admits that this does not involve poorly paid work that Americans don't want, but instead prime jobs: "We've globalized around markets, not cheap labor. The era of globalization around cheap labor is over. Today we go to China, we go to India, because that's where the customers are."

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Located in the posh neighborhood of Holmby Hills, this seven bedroom, eleven bathroom mansion's price tag has been reduced from $26.5 million to $23.95 million after just two months on the market. The home was designed in 1936 by the renowned Paul Williams, the first African-American architect ever to be recognized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Williams designed other sought-after homes in LA as well, such as a mid-century mansion recently listed in Beverly Hills and producer Michael LaFetra's multi-million dollar Bel Air pad. Since being built, the home has since been renovated by world-renowned interior designer Craig Wright, who is considered by Forbes Magazine to be one of the "Best Interior Designers of the West Coast."

The home sits on over an acre of land that features a championship tennis court, pool, and detached, two story cabana and kitchenette. The 11,329 square foot mansion, which has been featured in Architectural Digest, includes a library, music and family room, formal dining room, wine cellar, and four family suites in addition to the master suite.

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In 1990, a scientist at the Medical College of Wisconsin named Daniel Rudman published a study that gave birth to the modern anti-aging movement. Rudman's paper, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 12 men who were given injections of human growth hormone (HGH) lost 14 percent of their body fat and increased their lean body mass -- including muscle -- by 9 percent. HGH, which is mostly used to help short children grow, became the go-to drug for perfectly healthy, aging people who were in search of the fountain of youth.

Now, one of Rudman's closest friends is throwing cold water on the theory that HGH should be embraced as an anti-aging elixir. St. Louis University professor, John E. Morley, co-published a study in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that inhibiting the body's production of growth hormone -- rather than increasing it -- extends life. "Large numbers of people are taking growth hormone to rejuvenate themselves," says Morley, director of the divisions of geriatric medicine and endocrinology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. "Our take-home message is that no one should take growth hormones."

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State laws across the country now impose a "no fault" rule on divorces -- which means that financial and property disputes are resolved without regard to the allegations of fault between the spouses. While legislators and lawyers strongly support this approach, many divorcing couples have a great deal of trouble reaching this plateau of enlightened rationality. For some it is simply a desire to punish a partner that he or she perceives as the cause of the divorce; for others there appears to be a direct connection between the partner's precipitating behavior and the very real costs of the break-up.

While historically the notions of fault included a wide range of bad behavior (abuse, neglect, or excessive drinking, for example), most spouses these days focus on infidelity as the ultimate "fault" leading to a divorce. A recent study of the sexual lives of gay male couples, however, suggests that gay couples have found new ways of reducing the damaging consequences of an extra-marital affair. The study showed that nearly half the male couples they interviewed had found a way to "negotiate" an open relationship, with clear guidelines and open communication between the partners. The researchers concluded that open negotiation over issues of monogamy can reduce the negative consequences of an affair -- in many instances, allowing the couple to maintain their long-term relationship.

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I was standing in line at Starbucks when I felt it. That familiar vibration that alerts me that a new e-mail has arrived on my iPhone. Without thinking, I reached into my front, left trouser pocket to retrieve it. Only problem was, there was no phone there -- I had left it on my desk back at the office. It was the first of several phantom phone sensations that I've experienced over the past few months. And it got me thinking about how much my digital devices have become a part of me. So much so that I still feel their presence, even when they are not there -- like the pain that people who've lost a limb report, even though the arm or leg is no longer there.

Are these sensations heralding the first psychosomatic signs of the Singularity, when man and machines become one? Have I become so connected, so continuously, that my devices have become mere extensions of my own body? Have I allowed the technology to get under my skin, as it were, much like the promise (or threat) of brain implants, which will be appearing in an occipital lobe near you, very soon?

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Whitney Thompson has had big success since being the first-ever plus-size winner of "America's Next Top Model" during cycle 10. But that doesn't mean she's a big fan of the business, or of the fashion industry. ("There is no soul in modeling," she told me in an interview on Friday. And: "I applaud Vogue for having a shape issue, but screw Vogue for not having shapes in every issue.")

In fact, Thompson spends most of her time these days speaking to college-aged girls about healthy body image (see her bare all in ads for Love Your Body Day, October 23, 2010). She's even a spokesperson for the National Eating Disorders Association, whose annual conference (held this year in Brooklyn, NY) just finished up Monday. That's how I met up with her -- through my work with young women and binge eating at HealthyGirl.org. I sat down with her a couple of days ago to talk about fashion, sample sizes, body image, eating disorders and her days in a model apartment with chain smoking, Master-Cleansing 16-year-olds. The highlights are here:

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I'm a big fan of plastic surgery. Without it, I think I might feel like a freak. While Voltaire made excellent mileage out of a woman with one buttock, I don't think it would be much fun to be her, or, as I would be without plastic surgery, a woman with just one breast. You could, I suppose, stuff your bra with something round and squashy, but I prefer not to. I prefer to put on a bikini and look relatively normal. I think most of us prefer to look relatively normal.

Operations are, however, horrible. They're painful and unpleasant. The body isn't designed to be whacked with great doses of anaesthetic, and then sliced and diced and stitched. It does its best to deal with it, but it takes its toll. I've had four operations in the past seven years, and I'm extremely grateful for anaesthetics that work and surgeons who know what they're doing. I wouldn't be alive without them. I'm extremely grateful, too, for the plastic surgeon who chopped off half my stomach (though all my friends were offering theirs) and put it in the space just vacated by a breast. But I can't begin to understand how anyone with healthy breasts, or buttocks, or thighs, can take them anywhere near a surgeon's knife for reasons other than medical necessity.

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Made in America seems to be all the rage in the Capitol right now. Rahm Emanuel promised us that we'd be hearing a lot more from the White House about this over the next few weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi previewed the House Democrats' "Make it in America" plan to the President a few days ago. It's perhaps the only issue on which liberals and Tea Party supporters agree. Jeep has launched an ad campaign (which, by the way, looks a lot like a video we premiered in 2007) to link the idea with its new Grand Cherokee. So, what exactly is Made in America?

More on that later. But now, it's important for you to know what BP didn't make in America: the blow-out preventer on its failed rig. When the blow-out preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig needed to be modified, it was sent to China. According to the UK's Guardian newspaper:

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Many of us enjoyed a three-day Memorial weekend full of family barbecues, trips to the beach or lake, and the official kickoff to summer. Hopefully, during all that fun, we also remember the reason for the day off work: to honor those soldiers that made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country and the American way of life. Let us recommit ourselves as individual citizens to serve our country in small and big ways, and support our veterans and military families. To find immediate ways that you can serve in your community, visit Serve.gov or MissionServe.

Unfortunately after 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am afraid the general population feels removed from the personal and civic sacrifices made by our service members, veterans, and military families. As a country we are falling short and can do better. Recently the White House launched JoiningForces.gov, led by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, to create a national dialogue about how to address the issues facing our military families. AmeriCorps can be an important part of this conversation as we look for cost-effective and powerful ways to better serve America's military community.

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You’d have to be crazy to hook up with an abuser, right? That’s what I thought, but after working on our relationship violence story for six months, I was shocked by how smart and cool the women who get fooled are. The thing is, these guys are super charmers, pulling off Oscar-worthy performances of Mr. Dream Dude -- at least while they’re wooing you. And then, when they’ve got you madly in love with them, ka-bang, their violent true colors start showing.

The good news: there are definite danger sings a guy is an abuser before he ever raises a fist -- and they start with you just having a funny feeling in your pit of your stomach. Because possessiveness and control are major red flags, Cindy Southworth, a VP at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, suggests this little test: “Break a date at the beginning when he’s all hot and heavy, and tell him your girlfriend needs you. If he says, ‘I’m disappointed but I understand,’ great. But if it’s, ‘I can’t bear to be apart,’ or he makes you feel guilty, puts your friend down, or gets angry, these are not good signs!”

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"Sometimes They Come Back" is the name of an old Stephen King short story in which some dead greasers become ghost-zombie killers who return to this earthly plane to finish murdering a schoolteacher. Scary stuff! Almost as scary as what happens in Washington, D.C., where the "sometimes they come back" scenario applies to lobbyists who come shambling back as congressional staffers after serving powerful interests. What do they do when they come back? Mainly they keep serving their former paymasters, thanks for asking!

The story of the backside arc of the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street is told well and in great detail in a story in today's Washington Post by R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen, titled, "Lobbyists flock to Capitol Hill jobs." I know, I know: the conventional wisdom is that our legislative branch mainly produces the lobbyists of the future, and that those top-dollar rewards are the main reason that anyone goes into public service in the first place. But sometimes lobbyists return to the Hill, to continue their private-sector advocacy by saying to legislators, "Here, let me just write that energy bill for you, the way my old boss, who purchased this seat for you, wants it to be written."

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Some anniversaries provide an occasion for celebration, others a time for reflection, still others a time for action. This June will mark forty years since President Nixon declared a "war on drugs," identifying drug abuse as "public enemy No. 1." As far as I know, no celebrations are planned. What's needed, indeed essential, are reflection -- and action.

It's hard to believe that Americans have spent roughly a trillion dollars (give or take a few hundred million) on this forty-year war. Hard to believe that tens of millions have been arrested, and many millions locked up in jails and prisons, for committing nonviolent acts that were not even crimes a century ago. Hard to believe that the number of people incarcerated on drug charges increased more than ten times even as the country's population grew by only half. Hard to believe that millions of Americans have been deprived of the right to vote not because they killed a fellow citizen or betrayed their country but simply because they bought, sold, produced or simply possessed a psychoactive plant or chemical. And hard to believe that hundreds of thousands of Americans have been allowed to die -- of overdoses, AIDS, hepatitis and other diseases -- because the drug war blocked and even prohibited treating addiction to certain drugs as a health problem rather than a criminal one.

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Friends following the revolt on the Nile on their television screens in the U.S. are asking: "Are you leaving?" Planeloads of American expats, trapped tourists and other assorted foreigners are being evacuated. But the departures should not leave a false impression. Living conditions in Cairo and the risks to foreigners are not quite as bad as they may appear in the media. The streets could get ugly again but only if the Egyptian regime decides to use lethal force to snuff out the peaceful protests -- unfortunately, the violent, pro-regime gangs unleashed on protesters in Alexandria and Cairo Wednesday may be a sign of worse to come. As a longtime resident of Cairo, I have no hesitation whatsoever about staying put.

As the "million-man-march" was underway in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, I took a taxi with some Egyptian friends for a six-hour ride up and down the Nile and back. I traveled from the affluent southern suburb of Maadi where I live to the densely populated working class northern district of Shubra and home again. We were stopped at more than 50 checkpoints set up by citizens wielding sticks, knives and in some cases firearms. At each one we had to hand over our IDs, including my Navy American passport. Nobody complained about my nationality. A dozen times I was told, "Welcome to Egypt!"

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As a raft of newly-elected governors take office across the country, the one I'm most excited about is Florida's Rick Scott, who's getting sworn in at this very moment. Scott rode the Tea Party wave past the Republican establishment pick, Bill McCollum, and went on to post a tight victory over Democratic nominee Alex Sink. Of course, prior to his electoral success, Scott was best known as a record-setting fraudster whose bilking of Medicare reached cartoon-villain proportions: under his stewardship Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and was forced to pay a $2 billion fraud settlement, the largest in the history of the United States.

Now, he'll be taking over for Charlie Crist, running a state best known for passels of shambling old people, swamps riven with non-native species of python, and the statewide inability to pass a law banning sex with animals, including, perhaps, the aforementioned pythons. And if there ever was a man conditioned to rule over what Matt Taibbi refers to as "Griftopia," it's Scott, whose overall shadiness is well-established in advance of his taking an oath of office.

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When President Barack Obama first fixed on what he wanted to see happen to the Bush tax cuts, he imagined that they should be extended for all Americans earning under $250,000, and ended for everyone earning above that amount. After the election, with Congress facing a more hostile and emboldened GOP Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) imagined a compromise, where the extend-or-end line was pushed to Americans earning $1,000,000. The Congress is not going to pass either plan, so now, Obama and Schumer are at odds. At least, according to two simultaneous stories in the Washington Post and Politico.

By the way! You can make a pretty safe bet that this Obama vs. Schumer angle was spoon-fed directly to the two papers by Schumer's office, because this story is not interesting enough for anyone to actually chase down, and Schumer's plan has basically been a non-starter for weeks. But both papers have a hunger right now for anything having to do with intra-party squabbles -- from either party, really. So Schumer baits the hook with a conflict that no one had heretofore been discussing.

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It is probably one of the most significant medical breakthroughs of this past decade. A vaccine to prevent cancer! We now better understand the link between cancers and viruses and how some viruses such as the human papillomavirus (HPV) can change cells and cause them to become cancerous. In essence we have identified a communicable form of cancer.

HPV is often a sexually transmitted disease, which according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is very common and it infects about 6 million people a year. It's estimated that 50 percent of sexually active men and women have been exposed at some point in their lives. There are hundreds of strains of HPV; about 30 to 40 of the strains are sexually transmitted. In the majority of the infections our body's immune system takes care of it without any treatment. However some of these sexually transmitted infections can cause cervical cancer. It's the high-risk strains the virus that remain in the body and cause a long-term infections. It then invades the cells of the cervix causing changes in the cellular structure and DNA to become pre-cancerous lesions as well as cause genital warts. If these infections aren't detected and treated they can go on to eventually become an invasive cervical cancer.

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Sitting in a restaurant in Kabul, I was introduced to an American journalist. As usual, the first thing I asked him was whether it was his first time in this part of the world. Unsurprisingly, his answer was very derogatory. "No, I have been to a couple Badistans before," he answered, referring to the countries whose names ending with -istan. Unfortunately the western media has given such a bad image of Afghanistan and other Badistans that it is difficult for most of the westerners to imagine that there is a good Afghan or Badistani in this world. If Westerners always consider us evil how can they expect us to respect them? There is an old saying among Afghans: "You pay respect, you get respect."

If today, Afghans or Pakistanis or any other Badistanis are fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists it is because the West wanted them to be that way so that they can be easily used against the communist forces during the occupation of Afghanistan by Soviets. I can't find the right words to explain my feelings when I read comments of the readership of some of the American newspapers. You call us cockroaches, crooks, savage, uncivilized, and so on. But have you ever asked yourself what caused the Badistanis to be bad and savage, or why we are uncivilized?

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President Obama's plan to reign in excessive compensation paid to the nation's bankers has focused attention on how this country's financial elite have unfairly enriched themselves at the expense of their shareholders. The bankers received huge bonuses even though their companies' stock had fallen dramatically. But it isn't only our nation's bankers who are receiving huge paychecks for subpar results. The nation's class action plaintiffs' lawyers regularly receive huge bonuses for winning less than stellar results for their clients - "enriching" class members with coupons they don't want, extended warranties they will never use, and, in the case of securities class actions, mere pennies in recoveries for each dollar of damage that their clients are alleged to have suffered.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, don't expect a public outcry over this problem. The practices of the class action lawyers are cleverly disguised so that few people know about this problem. Class action settlement notices, written in legalese, are for the most part treated like junk mail and thrown in the garbage. But if there is to be increased oversight of executive pay at the nation's banks, shouldn't there be increased scrutiny of the exorbitant attorneys fees being collected by the nation's class action plaintiff's lawyers. The pay scale of these lawyers is insulting to hardworking Americans, particularly during these times of economic dislocation, and needs reform.

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Last week I visited the beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, and I must say if you haven't yet visited this picturesque and historic city, you should put it on your list of places to go. Located close to the Atlantic Ocean on a peninsula facing the Charleston Bay, it boasts magnificent homes, many of which pre-date the American Revolution. For Civil War buffs, it has Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the war were fired. For those who love food and wine, the city has many fine restaurants to choose from, and many of its kitchens are manned by James Beard Award winners. Its hospitality is unmatched and the pride in its city shines through in many details.

While visiting "The Holy City," something occurred that inspired this piece. I was at one of the best hotels in the city having a cocktail at the bar when the bartender made "last call." That was fine, but once she made the drinks for various customers, myself included, the lights came up quickly and the bar atmosphere suddenly became unwelcome. She could not have been nicer up to that point, but it would have been more appropriate for her to have allowed a proper amount of time for us to enjoy our cocktails. It felt like we all were being given the "bum's rush."

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George Steinbrenner is dead at 80 from a heart attack. As a survivor of 4 heart attacks myself and finally a heart transplant, I feel a special kinship for "The Boss" and his family. A figure of controversy, at the very least, I come to praise George not to bury him. My appreciation for Steinbrenner as a sports owner has nothing to do with his personality, his warmth - or lack of same - or any personal qualities he may or may not have exhibited in life. I praise him for two reasons.

First, George Steinbrenner stood taller than all other sports owners (with the possible exception, for a few years, of Ted Turner) in his fidelity to the Cardinal Rule of Team Ownership which is: Do All You Can To Win! Sport is unique among business enterprises. Its goal is not profit alone. It's winning. Unlike any other commercial activity, in sport there is a scoreboard. A definitive, final score is posted daily for each and every contest. In other businesses while many claim to be "winners" only sport can celebrate the real "winner" by pointing to a conclusive victory, a league championship, a national or even a world title. So unlike other businesses, in sport there are no pretenders. You wear the ring, or you don't. Steinbrenner was truly a man of the ring.

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Via Curbed LA: Architect Rob Wellington Quigley's award-winning Beverly Hills work is now on the market. The wood and concrete estate is situated on almost three acres of property within North Beverly Park, the guard-gated community that Sylvester Stallone also calls home. Quigley's compound comprises an astronomical 13,081 square feet of indoor space, part of which is occupied by seven bedrooms and twelve bathrooms. Angular motifs, clean lines, and plentiful wood-framed windows make the building a compelling and refreshing place to call home. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the mansion also has a screening room, three indoor fireplaces, and a 1,000 square-foot gym, sauna, and massage room. The main structure is accompanied by a two-story guest house and a separate pool house with a guest apartment, which is conveniently located by the pool, spa, and basketball court.

While this property has won one merit award from the American Institute of Architects, its architect has received over 60. Quigley has been a leader in sustainable residential and commercial design and has created several LEED-certified buildings.

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Over the last 20 years, a big trend in psychology has been a focus on how the world helps you learn. A hundred years ago the behaviorists (like B. F. Skinner) assumed that everything was learned, from your knowledge of skills like riding a bicycle to your knowledge about how to use language. By the 1950s, though, psychologists assumed that many things like language were so complex that they probably could not be learned completely from scratch. Instead, linguists like Noam Chomsky suggested that a lot of the mechanisms for using language are built into the brain from birth.

More recently, the pendulum of research has begun to swing back toward learning. The idea is that the brain is able to pick up on information about how frequently you encounter things to learn. Jenny Saffran, Richard Aslin and their colleagues have demonstrated that babies learn a lot about the sounds of language that make up words by keeping track of the patterns of sounds that occur in sequence. Tom Landauer and Susan Dumais found that you can learn a lot about what words have similar meanings by using the patterns of words that occur together in the same conversations. Over time, you are much more likely to hear about doctors and nurses being talked about in the same conversation than to hear about doctors and lettuce.

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This is a watershed moment for the American labor movement. Drastically weakened by decades of a corporate offensive against workers in the private sector, the labor movement is now being frontally attacked at its last stronghold: public-sector unions. If the current assault on labor -- now being spearheaded by Governor Scott Walker's push to eliminate the bargaining rights of public-sector workers in Wisconsin -- succeeds, it will leave the United States as the only wealthy democratic country with little more than a shadow of a union movement. In a recent statement, Governor Walker accurately, if somewhat grandiloquently, described the stakes: "This is our moment. This is our time to change the course of history."

Public employees, just 17 percent of union members nationwide in 1973, now comprise half of all union members in the United States. The rise of public-sector unions has coincided -- and partially counter-balanced -- a disastrous decline of private-sector unions, which now represent just 6.9 percent of all workers in the private sector, compared to 24 percent in 1973 and roughly one-third in 1960. In sharp contrast, public-employee unions now represent 36 percent of all public-sector workers -- a figure that goes a long way towards explaining why the right wing has now targeted government workers in an attempt to destroy what is left of the labor movement.

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