t started with a picture I saw in the local paper about making crackers from scratch. I saved it, but then never found it again. But I kept thinking...how do you make crackers? And how would they taste different? So I decided to experiment. It was right before we were having lentil soup for dinner, and I was out of bread, and I had nothing to lose, so I thought "Oh, what the heck." I did a quick search online and was disturbed by the complexity of the recipes I found there. One said don't mix too hard. Another said mix for 7 minutes. Some used milk and eggs, and others said let it sit for hours before you bake. Some said cook on low heat for a long time, and others said cook for a short time on high heat. Well, you know me...I wanted the quickest, easiest, no-fuss option, so I pulled the essence out of the recipes I saw and came up with this simple recipe.

How good were they? Well, after a few Uncle Cracker jokes, there were shocked, respectful, and delighted comments, filled with awe. Lucia asked for them repeatedly for snacks. Eve asked me to make them all the time. Maya came home the next day from New York and, as my pickiest eater, reluctantly and suspiciously tried one. First she asked for the recipe to make for her smug married dinner parties in the city. Then, she found the last cracker, which Lucia had left sitting out after taking a few bites (and which was probably licked by the cat a few times)...and she ate that! The whole batch lasted exactly 24 hours.

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After our great jaunt to Imanta in Mexico, it was a short hop to Los Angeles (plane and packing tips for little ones to follow in another post). Before we had a baby my husband and I mostly used to stay in Hollywood but nowadays we prefer Santa Monica for all of the beachside entertainment and people watching, not to mention its proximity to Venice, where most of close friends in town live.

We set up camp at the Shangri-la hotel, an Art Deco landmark on Ocean and Arizona that we fell in love with last year for its location, friendly service and boutique, without being too slick, feel. (I am not its only fan; check out this review in The New York Times). This year they had opened Suite 700, a rooftop bar (half enclosed and half outdoors with great views over the city) and gas fire pits to keep you warm on the wraparound terrace. It was the perfect spot for an impromptu get together and was baby-friendly enough for Jacopo to hang out for a while (with French fries and pretty girls as the main distraction) before he headed off to our room with the great babysitter my friend Sarah Robarts set me up with. One of the keys of traveling with an infant is to ask your local friends for childcare recommendations in their town well in advance. It is always nice to know they work for a family you know and often are more reasonable than the services hotels set up.

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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

During the State of the Union address earlier this week, President Barack Obama spoke at length about clean energy, with nary a mention of climate change. This is the new environment in which America's energy policy is being made.

Just two years ago, Democrats were rallying to combat climate change, one of the most worrying challenges the country faces. But now, Obama has apparently given up his plan to openly fight climate change during his presidency. It's hard to imagine how, even in a second term, he would choose to re-fight the lost battle to create a cap-and-trade system.

The Obama Administration has instead resorted to a sort of insurgent strategy. Instead of waging an all-out battle against energy interests, the U.S. government will try to chip away at the edges of the industry's power and rally citizens' allegiances to a new flag, that of "clean energy."

Climate bill's absence is smothering clean energy

Since Washington hasn't succeeded at tackling climate change head on, Obama's new strategy is to attack the problem obliquely by promoting innovation in clean energy and setting goals for the use of technologies like electric cars. But can clean energy efforts and innovations thrive in the absence of a wholesale climate policy? When a climate bill was still a possibility, clean energy entrepreneurs were promising substantial investments in the sector, if only Congress could give them a framework. And as Monica Potts explains at The American Prospect, in the absence of a climate bill, clean energy has flagged:

What's been problematic about the president's approach up to now is that, despite his efforts to pump funding into the clean-energy sector, as he did with about $90 billion of the stimulus, renewable energy hasn't taken off. Obama had a line in his speech that summed up why this is so: "Now, clean-energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean-energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling."

Short on influence

It's possible that clean energy investors will take the President's new promise as incentive enough to push forward. But, they will also have to consider the influence of the newly empowered Republicans. Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard isn't convinced that the president's new tactic will stick:

"There are plenty of people--and most of them happen to be Republicans--who don't think that policies to support clean energy are worthwhile and who will oppose any attempt to move away from them," she wrote. "Meanwhile, this latest iteration of the Obama climate and energy plan includes few of the driving forces that would actually make renewables cost-competitive in the near future and allow renewables to compete (the big one being, of course, a price on carbon pollution)."

When "clean" energy includes coal

Another weak point in the President's new strategy is his reliance on the vague idea of clean energy, which becomes dirtier the more it is used. As Sheppard writes, "Environmental groups weren't all that excited about the inclusion of "clean coal" and nuclear in that mix, but that's pretty broadly expected as the price one must pay to draw broader support for a clean energy standard."

Another key source of clean energy is natural gas. In Washington, it's become a given that natural gas, which releases less carbon when burned than coal or oil, will help the country transition away from its high-carbon diet and be phased out as energy sources like solar and wind become more viable. (The natural gas industry, of course, doesn't see its role as transitional. It's playing for keeps.)

And while some places are rightly celebrating the freedom that natural gas gives them from coal--as Care2's Beth Buczynski reports, Penn State is investing $35 million to convert its coal-fired power plant to natural gas over the next three years--other places are bearing the environmental toll of this new, clean fuel. In North Carolina, for instance, hydrofracking, the controversial technique that natural gas companies have been using to extract the gas from shale, is not even legal, but already environmental groups are having to fight efforts from energy companies to buy up potentially gas-rich properties, Public News Service reports.

A poverty of political capital

The president's new strategy on clean energy will surely succeed at turning current energy economy slowly towards a new path. In the absence of any overarching strategy to fix the country's energy problems, it's going to have to be good enough. But ultimately, this sort of tactic, born out of a poverty of political capital, cannot move fast enough to keep energy companies from scouring the earth for more profits doing what they've been doing.

That means that there will be more scenes like the one in Kern County, California, where companies are dredging up the last resources of oils from the tar sands. In Orion Magazine, Jeremy Miller writes:

The land also reveals the Frankensteinian scars and machinery necessary to keep up that level of production. Gas flares glow on hillsides. Nodding donkeys lever over thousands of wells, some of which are spaced fewer than a hundred feet apart. Between the wells and imposing cogeneration power plants--which supply energy and steam to the senescent fields--run wild tangles of pipe. These are the conduits of an elaborate industrial life-support system, breathing in steam and carrying away oil.

Will the president's new strategy prevent the creation of more landscapes like this one? It seems overly optimistic to hope so.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

Arizona lawmakers are expected to introduce an "anchor baby" bill today that would deny birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Modeled after birthright citizenship legislation unveiled by the nativist coalition State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) earlier this month, the measure is, unabashedly, part of a larger effort on the part of SLLI to challenge existing citizenship law in the United States.

Lawmakers from Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have likewise committed to introducing citizenship bills at the state level, while legislators from Nebraska, Indiana, Colorado, Texas and others are determined to implement similarly controversial Arizona-style enforcement measures in their states.

In recent years, communities that implemented harsh anti-immigrant laws have experienced a number of economic and social repercussions which lawmakers continue to overlook in their determination to tighten enforcement. But as nativist policies bleed public coffers and anti-immigrant political speech incites new strains of ethnic violence, the stark consequences of such extremism are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Devastating local economies

The legal costs of defending constitutionally questionable laws like SB 1070 ought to be obvious. Arizona, which has the rare luxury of drawing from a $3.6 million donor-endowed legal defense fund, spent upwards of $500,000 defending 1070 from legal challenges last year, and could, in the long-term, spend as much $10 million, according to New America Media's Valeria Fernández.

Yet the think-tank Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)--a major supporter of anti-immigrant laws like SB 1070 and birthright citizenship bills--obstinately underplays the financial fall-out of such measures. Ira Mehlman, a national spokesperson for FAIR, reportedly told New America Media that "the costs of litigations pale in comparison to the cost of communities providing healthcare, education and welfare for undocumented immigrants and their citizen children."

Considerable evidence suggests otherwise. The Brookings Institution, the Udall Center for Public Policy and former President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors have all concluded that immigrants contribute much more to their local economies (through taxes and spending) than they take out through social services (about $800,000 more).

Now, a new report by Southern Poverty Law Center (which, incidentally, has listed FAIR as a hate group since 2007) argues that anti-immigrant laws--not immigrants--have a greater track record of depressing local economies. Gebe Martinez at Campus Progress sums up what happened to five communities "that threw anti-immigration statutes onto their books without fully considering their impact." He writes:

• Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the leader of the court fights for local immigration enforcement, is in the tank for at least $2.8 million with some estimates totaling $5 million as it defends its ordinance all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Riverside, New Jersey suffered a local economic downturn before the city rescinded its anti-immigrant ordinance and welcomed the return of immigrants.
• Farmers Branch, Texas, has spent nearly $4 million in legal fees and is expected to spend at least $5 million to defend its anti-immigration statute with no end in sight.
• Prince William County, Virginia dramatically scaled back a tough immigration statute after realizing the original version would cost millions to enforce and defend in court.
• Fremont, Nebraska, increased the city's property tax to help pay the legal fees for its anti-immigration ordinance which it intends to defend.A

A spate of state-level birthright citizenship bills stands to be similarly costly, as the admitted goal of their sponsors is to force numerous court cases that challenge the conventional applications of the 14th amendment--legislation through litigation. But there are other expenses as well. If such legislation were to pass, government agencies would bear the incredibly costly burden of making citizenship determinations for every child born in the United States--a logistical nightmare that neither federal nor state governments are prepared to undertake.

Fueling ethnic violence

As economically devastating as these divisive measures can be, their social impact on communities is often even greater. Politicians bent on enacting anti-immigrant legislation frequently rely on hateful speech and pejorative language to foment public discontent and, in so doing, build citizen support for their measures--with tragic consequences.

Colorlines.com has repeatedly reported on the correlation between bigoted political speech, anti-immigrant legislation, and ethnic violence. Now, Mónica Novoa reports that a new study from the University of Maryland corroborates the connection. Charting the use of anti-immigrant slurs in newspapers and wire services over the last three decades, the study revealed that "a spike in usage of the dehumanizing slurs usually coincided with contentious immigration policy proposals."

The correlation persists despite the fact that more than 15 years ago, four professional journalism associations--National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Black Journalists--advised their members to stop using the phrase "illegal alien" on the grounds that is is "pejorative," "grammatically incorrect and crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed."

While incendiary rhetoric may be an effective way of garnering political support for controversial measures, it all too often fuels violence. Going back to New America Media, Fernández notes that this destructive cycle frequently makes for tragic consequences, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by members the Minuteman Project, an armed, volunteer border patrol organization. The Latino advocacy organization Cuentame, in partnership with Brave New Films, similarly emphasizes the link between hate speech and increasing incidents of hate crimes against Latinos:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cFuYJwW1s[/youtube]

Anti-birthright citizenship bills would effectively create an underclass of mostly Hispanic non-citizens. It's an almost certain catalyst for rampant and systemic anti-immigrant discrimination and ethnic violence. As the anti-immigrant lawmakers from Arizona and elsewhere make good on their promises to push a new, more fervent, onslaught of anti-immigrant legislation in 2011, expect the financial and social costs of such extremism to rise further still.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse<. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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The core feature of Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget is that it delivers cuts in a framework of austerity, rather than development within short-term constraints. It continues the Hooverite smothering of California society that was Arnold Schwarzenegger's main achievement. The backlash has been relatively muted because some supporters' hope that Brown's massive cuts to key sectors like health and higher education is just reverse psychology - that it will scare people, even in the midst of still-accelerating foreclosures and unemployment far higher than the national average, to vote to raise taxes on themselves. Whether or not Brown's cuts are sincere doesn't actually matter: either way, they are disastrous fiscal and political strategy, for they hurt society, the economy, and Democrats at the same time. Austerity, whether for budget balancing or for promoting a backlash, never works to advance the only successful agenda the Democrats ever had in the 20th century -- development for the whole society rooted in a vision of government as a creative power.

Brown is one of the original Austerity Democrats of the 1970s, coined the term "the age of limits" as a progressive mantra, and was more conservative with state spending than Ronald Reagan had been. He was a New Democrat before Bill Clinton, and his post-McGovern generation inadvertently helped pass tax revolt legislation like Proposition 13 by no longer telling voters about the enormous benefits of public infrastructure and cheap, efficient, public goods that they got by paying taxes. Since 1978, every prospect of government-led social progress has been readily misframed as a probably unaffordable budgetary cost of dubious efficiency, and Democrats have largely accepted this premise. Brown's first budget proposal continued this tradition, rather than expressing the desire to rebuild for which so many had hoped.

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Packers over Bears: As (I) expected. Two good halves of football were played Sunday. Unfortunately, they weren't by the same team. The Packers looked unstoppable for the first half. And then Jay Cutler went down, Todd Collins played like, well, Todd Collins, and they handed the game over to rookie Caleb Henie, who had never taken an NFL snap. "OK, kid, here's the situation. It's f-ing freezing. We're in the NFC Championship game, down by 14 points to a division rival. The fans are out of it - we think they may actually have been cryogenically frozen by the stadium conditions at this point - our starting QB is hurt and our backup QB is a mess. Good luck!" Surprisingly, the kid did pretty well - better than Jay Cutler was doing, at any rate. How hurt was he? I can't say, but it was the NFC Championship game. Moving on, Matt Forte had a good game. And the Bears D came alive in the second half. But with a rookie under center, it just wasn't enough. And the Pack are going to Texas. Think they can win it all? Well, not if they play like they did in the second half yesterday.

Steelers over Jets: As (I also) expected. The thing is, if the Jets' receivers could catch a ball or the Jets' defense could've tackled ANYONE, this game could have gone completely differently. It's a different kind of football than Eagles fans are used to - actually, that's the case with both teams here - with a QB managing the game with a strong defense and a strong ground attack, when his main job is to not make any big mistakes. And Mark Sanchez can totally handle that. And the Jets have gone to the AFC Championship game - and lost - both of his first two years in the league. That's something that's quite familiar to Eagles fans. Sigh. Reading Gang Green Nation sounds really familiar - lots of looking on the bright side, lots of "we had a great season," lots of "we're contenders," lots of "other teams fear us now," etc. That's familiar to Eagles fans, too. Whatever. Show me the Lombardis. Oh yeah - that would be the Steelers all over. Sigh again.

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by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address. A major theme of the speech will be jobs and the economy. Let's hope the president spares a few minutes for Wall Street reforms that might prevent a repeat of the economic collapse that we're slowly starting to recover from.

As Kai Wright points out in ColorLines, the State of the Union is the unofficial kickoff of the 2012 election season:

The still churning foreclosures and mounding debt in black and brown neighborhoods don't suggest a stabilized economy anywhere except Wall Street, but let's set that familiar fight to the side for now. The point is that whether we're talking about creating jobs or seating district court judges, the time for making policy is gone. Starting tomorrow night, it's all talk until we vote next.

Amy Dean of Working In These Times shares Wright's skepticism. With the Republicans in control of the House and the Democrats hanging on to the Senate, we're looking at a legislative stalemate until the next election. Dean argues that activists should use this lull in the action to refocus their organizing at the grassroots level.

Wall Street destroyed $8 for every $1 it earned

In AlterNet, Les Leopold asks why bankers are earning such huge bonuses while the financial system is in disarray. According to standard economic theory, your compensation reflects the value of your work. Yet, according to Leopold's back-of-the-envelope calculations, the financial sector has destroyed $8 worth of wealth for every dollar it earned over the last 5 years. His estimate includes the wealth-destroying impact of the subprime mortgage crisis and other epic Wall Street blunders.

The free market might not be as generous with bankers as the current system of government bailouts. If financial firms were allowed to fail, Leopold notes, bankers who drove their own firms out of business wouldn't get paid. However, under the current "too big to fail" rules bad decisions lead to taxpayer rescues, not unemployment. So, the bonus checks keep rolling in.

Social Security switcheroo

James Ridgeway of Mother Jones predicts that Obama is gearing up to cut Social Security:

Having "retooled'' his Presidency for a more open accommodation of the center right, Obama will soon be overseeing the battle to launch a dismantling of the Social Security system. [...] Without entirely destroying the popular program, he will support cuts that go beyond anything that should rightly happen during a Democratic administration.

Ironically, Ridgeway notes, our current Democratic president is to the right of many of yesterdays conservative Republicans. The legendary arch conservative Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-OH) was a staunch defender of Social Security. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower spearheaded the largest expansion of Social Security in the largest expansion of benefits in the history of the program.

Michelle Obama and Wal-Mart

Michelle Obama has enlisted the world's largest corporation (and largest grocer) in her Let's Move! campaign against childhood obesity. George Warner of Campus Progress takes a closer look at the skewed economics behind the "Nutrition Charter" signed by Wal-Mart last week. Amongst other things, Wal-Mart pledged to cut added sugar in its products by 10% by 2015; make healthy food more affordable; and develop a "nutrition seal" to alert shoppers to ostensibly healthier foods.

Yet, Warner notes that Wal-Mart is contributing to ill-health by employing a massive workforce at less than a living wage. Even if Wal-Mart follows through on its relatively modest pledges to promote healthy eating, it continues to put its own workforce at risk of ill health simply by paying them poverty-level wages. Studies show that for every job a new Wal-Mart store creates, it destroys three existing jobs, which paid an average of 18% more.

Poverty is one of the strongest predictors of obesity and poor diet.

Beck vs. Piven, Round 2

Last week, the Audit covered a bizarre right wing trend of demonizing 78-year-old CUNY political science prof Frances Fox Piven for an article she wrote in 1966. Glenn Beck and other leading lights of the right claim that Piven's 45-year-old article is being used right now by liberal elites in their sinister plot to violently overthrow capitalism.

Piven is receiving death threats by email; and death threats are popping up on Glenn Beck's website, including: "Snap her little chicken neck. This pinko filth needs a long dirt nap."; "Somebody tell Frances I have 5,000 rounds ready.", and "We should blow up Piven's office and home."

In actuality, Piven's article argued that everyone who was eligible for welfare should sign up for benefits in order to expose the structural flaws in the system. Say what you will about the plan, it was non-violent. It involved a lot of paperwork. Far from overthrowing the federal government, Piven sought to usher in a federal guaranteed federal income as an alternative to the patchwork of state and local welfare agencies doling out benefits.

Matthew Rothschild reports in the Progressive that the Center for Constitutional Rights has sent a letter to Roger Ailes of Fox News asking him to reign in the anti-Piven demagoguery.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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Wall Street's takeover of the Obama administration is now complete. The mega-banks and their corporate allies control every economic policy position of consequence. Mr. Obama has moved rapidly since the November debacle to install business people where it counts most. Mr.William Daley from JP Morgan Chase as White House Chief of Staff. Mr. Gene Sperling from the Goldman Sachs payroll to be director of the National Economic Council. Eileen Rominger from Goldman Sachs named director of the SEC's Investment Management division. Even the National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon, was executive vice president for law and policy at the disgraced Fannie Mae after serving as a corporate lobbyist with O'Melveny & Roberts. The keystone of the business friendly team was put in place on Friday. General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt will serve as chair of the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. That is the spot, under a different council name, previously held by Paul Volcker. Both he and his post now will be airbrushed out of Obama administration history to align the past with the inglorious future.

Mr. Obama last week obediently recited the Chamber of Commerce's liturgy about governmental regulation being the cause of what ails the American economy in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. This public oath of allegiance signaled his now admitted complicity with those who supposedly had been his opponents. The one example of alleged bad regulation he cites in the WSJ op-ed is something about saccharin and the environment. The prospect of our corporate moguls being released from the bonds of saccharin regulation doubtless has China's President Hu and his colleagues quaking in their well-tailored suits.

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ProPublica's Marian Wang reports:

While this week's indictment involving a grisly abortion mill in Philadelphia has shocked many [1], the grand jury's nearly 300-page report also contains a surprising and little-noted revelation: In the mid-1990s, the administration of Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, ended regular inspections of abortion clinics--a policy that continued until just last year. 

According to the grand jury report [2][PDF] released this week by Philadelphia prosecutors, Pennsylvania health officials deliberately chose not to enforce laws to ensure that abortion clinics provide the same level of care as other medical service providers.

The District Attorney's office this week charged an abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, with murder and infanticide. Nine other workers at the abortion clinic, the Women's Medical Society, also face charges. According to the prosecutors, Gosnell and his associates not only broke state law by performing abortions after 24 weeks--they also killed live babies by stabbing them with scissors and cutting their spinal cords. Law enforcement officials found blood-stained furniture, unsterilized instruments and fetal remains scattered about the clinic. At least one woman, a refugee from Nepal, had died under Gosnell's care after being given repeated injections of a dangerous sedative. Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions from treating and sometimes maiming his patients, who were mostly low-income, minority women [3].

But perhaps most frightening of all? The atrocities were discovered by accident [4], as the Philadelphia Inquirer points out. Warnings--from patients and their attorneys, a doctor at a Philadelphia hospital, women's health groups, pro-choice groups, and even an employee of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health--failed to prompt state and local authorities to investigate or take action against the clinic.

The grand jury report said that one look at the place would have detected the problems, but the Pennsylvania Department of Health hadn't inspected the place since 1993. Here's the grand jury report, in surprisingly strong language:

The Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be "putting a barrier up to women" seeking abortions.

"Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety," the report states. "Without regular inspections, providers like Gosnell continue to operate; unlawful and dangerous third-trimester abortions go undetected; and many women, especially poor women, suffer."

According to the report, the policy change occurred after 1993 when attorneys under the administration of then-governor Tom Ridge "interpreted the same regulations that had permitted annual inspections for years to no longer authorize those inspections." Thereafter, only inspections triggered by complaints were authorized. The report noted that Department of Public Health officials reinstituted regular inspections of abortion clinics in February 2010. Ed Rendell, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose second term as governor ended last week, released a statement saying he was "flabbergasted [5]" when he learned of the department's lax scrutiny of abortion clinics and immediately ordered increased inspections, the Associated Press reported.

Still, the earlier policy had its defenders. According to the grand jury report, when the Department of Health's chief lawyer was asked about it, she responded, "People die."

Given that between 30,000 to 40,000 abortions [6] are performed each year Pennsylvania, it's unclear how many women have been put at risk in the almost two decades that regulators suspended regular inspections of abortion clinics in Pennsylvania. The grand jury report does note that many organizations perform safe abortion procedures and have high standards of care, but that's "no thanks to the Pennsylvania Department of Health."

The state's Department of Health did not comment on the matter but said it would forward our request on to the governor's press office. We've also left a message with Tom Ridge's spokeswoman. We'll update if they respond.

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I had never been one to call myself a "spiritual" person. In fact, I didn't even see spirituality as something attainable for someone like me. In my mind, that was a word used to describe shamans, gurus and priests -- none of whom I identified with. I was of the fast-moving, career-driven, shoebox-dwelling, all-black-wearing city folk tribe -- like most people in Manhattan. For the past several years, I had lived what must have looked like quite a glamorous life. I bounced back and forth between homes in Manhattan and South Beach and frequented all the hot spots in town with my collection of suitors to wine and dine me. I was routinely invited on tropical island getaways to jet off and forget my cares for the weekend. This began in my early 20s, when a modeling contract had transported me from the purity and simplicity of Oregon to the concrete land of opportunity and chaos that is New York. Within a week of my big city arrival, the velvet ropes parted and I was on the arm of a promoter. He was paid to adorn the chicest venues with lovely little model ornaments, like myself. I met a new circle of friends, and I commenced with my fast-paced lifestyle.

It took me a few years to completely burn out. I was ill-equipped to handle this new life with any sort of balance. Anxiety and major emotional ups and downs were common for me. I put myself on a starvation to squeeze into sample sizes. When that finally put me in the hospital, I had a wake-up call from my body, slowed down a little and was advised to take classes in holistic health. My teachers preached that not only proper nutrition, but also a spiritual practice were necessary for a healthy life. I absorbed the nutritional information on my quest for greater health and well being, but I couldn't imagine what spiritual practice would ring true for me. Church bored me, the Deepak Chopra book collected dust on my shelf and my one vain attempt at meditation proved futile -- all I could think about while trying to clear my mind and find inner peace was how much my ankles hurt as I sat cross legged on the hard, wooden floor. As a final attempt at enlightenment, I decided to give yoga a try. I enjoyed the effects it had on my physical body, but I didn't feel I gained the same mental calmness from the om'ing and chanting that my Lululemon-clad cohorts did. Was I doing something wrong? I was too embarrassed to ask and felt hopeless, so I gave up on my search. Spirituality was clearly for a crowd separate from myself.

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The zorrilla (Ictonyx striatus), or Striped Polecat, is considered the smelliest animal on earth. A member of the weasel family, The Columbia Encyclopedia reports that the zorrilla closely resembles the North American skunk... but may be even smellier. The zorrilla secretes a pungent fluid from its anal glands when it must defend itself from predators. A nocturnal animal, it lives in rocky crevaces and feeds on small reptiles and rodents. It's scent deters many animals. Perhaps this is who Phoebe from "Friends" should have been singing about in "Smelly Cat." The zorrilla is also often referred to as a striped weasel.

Check out some videos and images of different polecat species below.

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While I am sorry for the repression and the people who have died in Tunisia, I am excited at the unexpected overthrow of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali by its own people.

I have visited the country a few times as well as many other Arab/Muslim countries (Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Palestinian territories). Most Muslim nations have rulers for life and it's nice to see that for once, a corrupt dictator who has been in power since 1987 was thrown out, not by U.S. military intervention but by popular rebellion. And as this article explains it took American diplomats and Wikileaks efforts to reveal what many Tunisians suspected and that is the extent of the government's corruption and abuse to ignite the overthrow. Now the paradox here is obvious. The U.S. spends hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of human lives are lost in a bloody military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq with very little success in establishing grassroots change. And instead, U.S. diplomats telling a detailed story about corruption in Tunisia and a group of determined journalists at Wikileaks and Bradley Manning accomplished what a decade of military intervention in the Middle East could not: a popular uprising against corruption and dictatorship. Yes, the realities of Afghanistan, Iraq and Tunisia are different, but as this New York Times article explains, many in the Arab/Muslim world are watching Tunisia and wondering how long will they put up with their own "Ben Alis". Especially in nearby Egypt.

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A great deal has been written about the struggles to resolve China’s overwhelming environmental problems, but I have seen no better or more visceral portrayal of these issues than The Warriors of Qiugang, a short documentary film by Academy Award-winners Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon that is being broadcast in full at the Yale e360 website beginning today.  The film, shot over four years mostly in a village near the Huai River in eastern Anhui Province, captures a series of indelible scenes of the efforts of one village to stop pollution from local chemical factories that blackened rivers, killed fish, and sickened the local populace.  The film portrays the deep complexities and challenges of obtaining justice and halting environmental degradation in rural China, but ultimately ends on a note of hope when the villagers succeed in having the main local polluter moved away to a nearby industrial park.  The victory does not make up for the polluted farmland and illness caused, but it is a victory nonetheless.  Moreover, it provides a glimpse at one of the paths that China has begun to take to turn its environmental crisis around:  with local villagers willing to stand forward, the collaboration of local and Beijing-based environmental activists, journalists shining a light on local malfeasance, and a central Ministry of Environmental Protection beginning to utilize a range of new enforcement tools to put pressure on local polluters. 

Over the last six years, we have worked with environmental lawyers, environmental groups, journalists, and government officials in China on ways to strengthen enforcement of environmental law, and the elements of the Qiugang story are familiar ones.  A few observations: 

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

The Republicans won control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate in the midterm election on nebulous promises to slash spending and reduce the size of the federal government. House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to reduce spending to 2008 levels, as per the GOP's campaign manifesto, known as the "Pledge to America."

But as Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones, while the Pledge calls for a 21.7% reduction in spending on non-security discretionary programs, it doesn't commit to any specific cuts. Medicare and Social Security are safe from this round of cuts because they are not discretionary.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities tried to give a glimpse of what the federal government might look like if all eligible agencies took a 21.7% budget cut across the board. As Kroll notes, it's more likely that some programs will be spared, some trimmed, and some eliminated entirely.

However, the CBPP's analysis gives a stark picture of the magnitude of the proposed cuts, Kroll writes:

What it found was grim, with middle class Americans set to lose the most.

K-12 education funding, the CBPP found, would drop by $8.7 billion, and food stamps for at-risk pregnant women, infants, and young children would lose $1.6 billion in funding. State- and local-run housing programs would lose $6.9 billion, and children and family social services would lose nearly $2.2 billion.

Already pinched state budgets would take massive hits as well, losing out on $31.6 billion in federal funding.

Cuts to state budgets mean even deeper cuts to education and social services that benefit working families. Starving the states is also a strategy to force state governments to default on their pension obligations to unionized public sector workers.

But the magnitude of these cuts might be giving the GOP cold feet. In January, Speaker Boehner told Brian Williams at NBC that he couldn't name a single program that he planned to cut.

Inequality is personal

Paul Buchheit points out on AlterNet that if middle- and upper middle-class families had the same share of the economic pie that they did in the 1980s, they would be making $12,500 more per year. In other words, the economy has become vastly more productive over the last 30 years, but the extra wealth has become overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the very richest Americans at the expense of working families.

U.S. GDP quintupled since the 1980s, but most of the extra wealth has gone to the top 1% of earners. Nobody begrudges entrepreneurs a healthy return on their capital, but what about the 99% of earners who provided the labor. Where's the return on their investment?

With looming government spending cuts to domestic programs, the middle- and upper-middle classes will face an even bigger hit to their real standard of living. Local and state governments are cutting back on services while hiking taxes and fees.

The richest 1% won't feel these cuts as acutely as middle class families. If you have your own private swimming pool, you may not notice that the public pool is closed because the city can't afford lifeguards. If you send your kids to private universities, you won't be biting your nails over potential tuition hikes at public universities.

MLK's legacy

The nation honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday. Roger Bybee of Working In These Times points out that, while King is remembered as a civil rights leader, he was also deeply committed to economic justice for all Americans. The politicians who praised King's legacy on Monday should remember that Dr. King's last great crusade was on behalf of sanitation workers in Memphis, public employees struggling for a decent standard of living.

Beck sets sights on 78-year-old CUNY prof

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Frances Fox Piven, a 78-year-old distinguished professor of political science at the City University of New York, who may be the first person to inadvertently spark prime time conspiracy theory in the pages of a Media Consortium outlet. Right wing talk host Glenn Beck has identified Piven as the co-author of a violent blueprint to crash capitalism itself.

As Piven explains to Goodman, the bile stems from the suggestion made by her and her co-author Richard Cloward in a 1966 article in The Nation that social activists should help poor people access the benefits they were already legally entitled to. At that time, Piven recalls, the welfare system denied benefits to more than half of its eligible recipients. She and Cloward believed that the poor would become a more politically powerful and visible part of society if society suddenly had to make good on its promises of aid.

In July, Richard Kim of The Nation explained how an obscure 40-year-old article was recast as the "Rosetta Stone" of lefty politics, the blueprint to usher in an economic crisis which the left could exploit to bring about socialism.

Since Beck seized on Piven's work and labeled her a violent revolutionary, she has been the target of death threats by commenters on Beck's website. Political operatives posing as students came to her home to interview her. The interview later showed up on Andrew Breitbart's conservative website.

Piven seems both concerned and bemused that her brief for reforming the welfare system of the 1960s has been labeled as a blueprint for destroying the capitalist system.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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I'm revealing the big secret that the locals have begged me not to divulge: Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas is one of the most magical places in the United States. People visit, and they never leave. In fact, I intended to pass through the city for a three day stop during my current road trip, and over five weeks later, I am still here. I embarked on this cross-country road trip over three months ago with my dog Yoda in order to reclaim my life from the corporate grind. 15 years in the rat race had just about destroyed me and I found myself no longer liking the woman I had become. All too often we get lost in the non-stop stress of our lives and forget to take care of ourselves. That is what my road trip is about: nurturing myself by letting the road teach me the lessons I need to learn in order to live the life I'm meant to live. Over the years I've found my favorite way to nurture myself is to soak in natural mineral springs. Many tout the many medicinal benefits to be obtained by soaking in natural thermal waters. However for me, taking the waters means a temporary physical and mental respite from my lifelong unhealthy practice of carrying the world on my shoulders. Trust me, as a result I have some wicked tight trapezius muscles! In the spirit of a bit of self love, my road trip has taken me to several hot springs, including some outside of Boise, Idaho, others in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, and now to Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.

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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

The National Oil Spill Commission released its report on last year's BP oil spill this week. The report laid out the blame for the spill, tagging each of the three companies working on the Deepwater Horizon at the time, Halliburton, Transocean and BP, and also offered prescriptions for avoiding similar disasters in the future.

As Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard notes, it's unlikely the recommendations will impact policy going forward.

"I think the recommendations are pretty tepid given the severity of the crisis," Jackie Savitz, director of pollution campaigns at the advocacy group Oceana, told Sheppard. "Even the small things they're suggesting, I think it's going to be hard to convince Congress to make those changes."

No transparency for you!

Last summer, after the spill, the Obama administration tried hard to look like it was pushing back against the oil industry, even though just weeks before the spill, the president had promised to open new areas of the East Coast to offshore drilling.

This week brought new evidence that, despite some posturing to the contrary, the administration is not exactly unfriendly to the energy industry. One of the key decisions the administration faces about the country's energy future is whether to support the Keystone XL, a pipeline that would pump oil from tar sands in Canada down to Texas refineries. And one of the key lobbyists for TransCanada, the company intending to build the pipeline, is a former staffer for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, filed a Freedom of Information requesting correspondence between the lobbyist, Paul Elliott, and his former boss, but the State Department denied the request.

"We do not believe that the State Department has legitimate legal grounds to deny our FOIA request, and assert that the agency is ignoring its own written guidance regarding FOIA requests and the release of public information," said Marcie Keever, the group's legal director, The Michigan Messenger's Ed Brayton reports. "This is the type of delay tactic we would have expected from the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, which has touted its efforts to usher in a new era of transparency in government, including elevated standards in dealing with lobbyists."

Tar sands' black mark

What are the consequences if the government approves the pipeline? As Care2's Beth Buczynski writes, "Communities along the Keystone XL pipeline's proposed path would face increased risk of spills, and, at the pipeline's end, the health of those living near Texas refineries would suffer, as tar sands oil spews higher levels of dangerous pollutants into the air when processed."

What's more, the tar sands extraction process has already brought environmental devastation to the areas like Alberta, Canada, where tar sands mining occurs. Earth Island Journal's Jason Mark recently visited the Oil Sands Discovery Centre in Ft. McMurray, Alberta, which he calls "impressively forthright" in its discussion of the environmental issues brought on by oil sands. (The museum is run by Alberta's provincial government.) Mark reports:

The section on habitat fragmentation was especially good. As one panel put it, "Increasingly, Alberta's remaining forested areas resemble islands of trees in a larger network of cut lines, well sites, mine, pipeline corridors, plant sites, and human settlements. ... Forest disturbances can also encourage increased predation and put some plants and animals at risk."

Not renewable, just new

The museum that Mark visited also made clear that extracting and refining oil from tar sands is a labor-intensive practice. He writes:

Mining, we learn, is just the start. Then the tar has to be "upgraded" into synthetic petroleum via a process that involves "conditioning," "separation" into a bitumen froth, then "deaeration" to take out gases, and finally injection into a dual-system centrifuge that removes the last of the solids. Next comes distillation, thermal conversion, catalytic conversion, and hydrotreating. At that point the recombined petroleum is ready to be refined into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. It all felt like a flashback to high school chemistry.

Why bother with this at all? In short, because with easily accessible sources of oil largely tapped out, techniques like tar sands mining and deepwater drilling are the only fonts of oil available. This problem is going to get worse, as The Nation is explaining over the next few weeks in its video series on peak oil.

Energy and the economy

Traditional ideas about energy dictate that even as the world uses up limited resources like oil, technology will create access to new sources, find ways to use limited resources more efficiently, or find ways to consume new sources of energy. These advances will head off any problems with consumption rates. The peak oil theory, on the contrary, argues that it is possible to use up a resource like oil, that there's a peak in supply.

Once the peak has been passed, the consequences, particularly the economic consequences, become dire, as Richard Heinberg, senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute explains. "If the amount of energy we can use is declining, we may be seeing the end of economic growth as we define it right now," he told The Nation. Watch more below:

Light green

Part of the problem is that the energy resources that could replace fossil fuels like oil--wind and solar energy, for instance--likely won't be in place before the oil wells run dry. And as Monica Potts reports at The American Prospect, our new green economy is getting off to a slow start.

Although the administration has talked incessantly about supporting green jobs, Potts writes that the federal government hasn't even finalized what count as a "green job" yet. The working definition, which is currently under review, asserts that green jobs are in industries that "benefit the environment or conserve national resources" or entails work to green a company's "production process." But what does that actually mean?

"That definition was rightly criticized as overly broad," Potts writes. She continues:

While nearly everyone would include installing solar panels as a green job, what about an architect who designs a green house? (Under the proposed definition, both would count.) ... Another problem comes in weighing green purposes against green execution: We could count, for example, public-transit train operators as green workers. But how do we break down transportation as an industry more broadly? Most would probably agree that truckers who drive tractor-trailers running on diesel fuel wouldn't count as green workers even if they're transporting wind-turbine parts. And many of the jobs we would count as green already exist.

It doesn't exactly inspire confidence that the country is moving swiftly toward a bright green future.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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I met Governor Brown in the 1970s, around the time he banned the short-handled hoe, the tool that crippled California farm workers by forcing them to toil long hours stooped in the field. During this period in California history, we witnessed Governor Brown, In the words of the California Teachers Association, serve California's residents through the "creation of 1.9 Million jobs, cleaner air quality in the state, creation of the California Conservation Corp, and oh yes, balance the state budget and manage to create a surplus doing it." While discussing with a Los Angeles busines woman the possibility of the State eliminating services because it lacks money, she reminded me the Governor must not only work with the Legislature and oversee the administration of state departments, but must do so with a consciousness of the human factor, the lives of the millions of Californians who are fighting to do the best they can to provide homes, food and clothing for their families, and once in a while have a few dollars to go to the movies, a ball game or afford gas to visit grandparents or brothers and sisters. A curtain of pessimism threatens to fall across the State; California does not have the money so the state cannot pay to educate our children or provide police and fire protection. If California does not have money obtained through taxation, it cannot provide services we need. You cannot spend money you don't have. California could continue to pay its bills by borrowing, leaving the debt to our children and grandchildren. Unlike the federal government, California cannot print money. However, given his history, Governor Brown will overcome the doom and gloom of the pessimists, and with the people's help, enable Californians to continue the life we experienced when Jerry Brown was governor during the 1970's and 80's.

In the 1970's, over vociferous opposition, Governor Brown showed a commitment to improve the lives of all people; he encouraged development of car pool lanes, recycling of trash, protection of the air we breathe, and enabled more than 100,000 unemployed youth escape the desperate city streets and develop their strengths working with the Conservation Corps to protect and improve our environment. Through his honesty and straight-forward approach Governor Brown solved problems through novel and untried ventures; he incurred union criticism when he limited pay increases to government employees; he overcame a seemingly insurmountable labor problem when, after a summer of turmoil in California fields, the arrest of thousands and the killing of several farm workers, he brought together unions and the agribusiness industry and obtained peace in the fields through enactment of a law enabling farm workers to join together and negotiate with their employers, a law that existed nowhere else in the United States, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

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Something I learned early on in this industry is that publishing, like any other industry, is full of scams. Not everyone is unethical; however, there are a certain number of people who prey on someone's desire for success by offering them pie-in-the-sky promises they can never fulfill. In our series on smart self-publishing, we're going to look at a few different industry segments, starting first with publishers and finding the right one for you.

These days, there are more choices than ever to get published. Because of this, the options and opportunities within each can seen a bit overwhelming. Here are some quick tips:

1. Research, research, research: As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of choices. Take your time and do your research. If a publisher is unethical or has a bad reputation, you'll find this pretty easily online. Some great sites for finding unethical publishers and other industry providers are: Writer Beware, Predators & Editors and Absolute Write.
2. Ask other authors: If your research hasn't turned up anything consistent, it might be that the publisher (like any vendor) has had a couple of bad experiences, but that doesn't always make them a bad publisher. I recommend that you look at the store page on their website and Google some of the authors listed. If you email these authors through their own personal web pages, asking them about their experience with the publisher, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised at how helpful they are. Publishing, unlike some other markets, is a very helpful industry. You can even ask some professionals you admire if you're unsure. Most of us are always eager to help!
3. Check your contract: There are a variety of reasons for an author to self-publish, one of them is being able to keep their rights and creative license. Regardless of the publisher, you should be able to keep all rights. If they keep any rights for any length of time, move on to a company that will allow you to keep all of your rights. This includes: movie, audio, foreign, and electronic.
4. Promises, promises: Don't believe the hype. Yes, we are all selling services but there is only so much that a publisher can promise you. They can promise you a finished book. Beyond that it's a lot of hard work and a little luck.
5. The truth about returns: Many of the print-on-demand/self-publishers offer you a returns program. I haven't found this to be very helpful. It costs the author to get in and then the bookstores have to participate, and few of them do. If you're not sure, ask your local Barnes & Noble if they accept returns from this publisher, their answer will tell you whether a returns program is a good investment of your money.
6. Book sales: Much like point #4, no one can promise you book sales, least of all the publisher. So be wary of any publisher who is promising you sales or a guarantee of book sales of any kind.
7. Cost to publish: In most cases, it should cost you less than $2,000 to publish your book. This will include the cover design, interior design, ISBN, bar code, ebook (in many cases) and anything else that needs to happen to turn this into a book. Like anything else, get this in writing.
8. Author discounts: The first 90 days of your book you will be your own best customer. This is why you want to be sure and get a good author discount on your book purchases. You'll use the books you buy to promote the book, by sending it to media, book reviewers, etc.
9. Author royalties: Author royalties vary greatly from publisher to publisher but don't be swayed by higher royalties because the calculation might be a bit tricky. Let me explain. Most publishers will give you royalty based on the cost of the book. So, on a $10 book you'd get 20%. I've seen some publishers who will offer upwards of 80% royalty to authors to lure them in, but when you do the math on this it really comes out the same. Many times a higher royalty rate is calculated on the cost of the book wholesale, so let's say your $10 book is now $5, plus they might deduct their own expenses from this cost, bringing it even lower. So while the 80% royalty looks great on paper, the math is sometimes even lower than a 20% rate depending on how much they discount the book.
10. Customer experience: Before you put pen to paper and sign that contract, make sure that their customer experience matches your expectations. Now while I disagree that a publisher should respond immediately, they should respond to emails within 24 and sometimes 48 hours depending on when you send the message. I would call them and ask them some questions about their services, their packages, and their end-user experience. You are going to have a lot of questions, be sure that someone will be there to help you answer them.
11. Be realistic: Remember that regardless of how good any publisher is, they might not be able to be all things to all authors. Meaning that for certain things, you may have to get your answers elsewhere. If you aren't sure what they will and won't help you with, ask them.
12. Timing: Make sure you are clear on their timing as well as yours. You don't want a book that's going to be sitting in the cue for a long time while it's waiting to see the light of day. Get the timing in writing, or at least a general estimate.
13. Book covers: I saved the best for last here, or rather the most important piece of this. The book cover is so significantly important that the NY publishers often spend weeks researching the perfect cover for the perfect market. To know if the publisher you are considering is good at book design: look at the other books on their website. If the covers there don't impress you, move on. If you're not sure what to look for in a good cover designer, spend the time and money and hire someone (a book marketing professional) who can look at the covers for you and tell you if they are quality. Also, if you find a publisher you love but their covers aren't the best, you can always hire an outside designer to do the book cover design.

Keep in mind that most publishers are out there to do good work. We love the ones who do good work and help authors attain their dream. As you migrate through your choices, remember to not be swayed by flashy ad copy or high-end promises. Go with a solid, reputable publisher and you'll be on your way to a successful career.

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For months, black Republican honchos have been peddling the fantasy that they will make history come November. The history they fantasize about is electing a record number of black Republicans to Congress. At last count, fourteen black Republicans bagged their party's nomination to face Democrats. It's been more than a decade since two black Republicans J.C. Watts and Gary Franks served in Congress at the same time. Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell gushed at the thought that this could be topped, "This will be the most successful election cycle for African-American Republicans in at least 20 years." Blackwell projects that at least three black GOP candidates have a better than even chance of winning victory. And if things go really well Blackwell thinks the number of black GOP election winners could hit five. That's more fantasy.

Blacks in the past have groused at and bashed the Democrats. But they still overwhelmingly vote for them. The off the chart vote blacks gave President Obama is repeatedly cited even by black Republican hopefuls as an aberration in that blacks turned the election into a holy crusade to get one of their own in the White House. That's wrong on two counts. Obama was more than just the fulfillment of a civil rights dream. He had a solid program for change that frontally challenged and promise of reversing the social and economic damage, race baiting, and neglect that characterized three decades of Republican rule in the White House and the sledgehammer attacks on or malign neglect of civil rights leaders and concerns when Republicans were out of the White House.

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There is certainly a great deal of good will that is generated from cause marketing, as well as dollars and attention. Even those which seem at first to be a stretch -- the pink of the NFL for October for example -- makes great sense when one realizes the depth and scope of the way cancer of any form impacts millions of lives, and the attention that can be brought to the disease, or any cause, through the power of sport.

Therefore, it should come as a surprise that an issue that continues to rise to crisis proportions amongst young people -- bullying -- still really has not been embraced by a team or large group of athletes or a property. Maybe because elite athletes accept some form of intimidation as part of the game, and that they have been able to overcome and succeed by taking on that intimidation, mental, physical or emotional, that there is a disconnect. Maybe it's because at some level bullying is part of athletic success. However, that is all the more reason for athletics and athletic marketing to find ways to effectively and publicly address a bullying issue with the highest of stars in sport, and use them as role models to show that bullying is not acceptable to those with whom they can influence. Bullying is not as tangible as a disease on any level, and addressing it cannot see the same physical results as one will see with a campaign to fight childhood obesity like "Let's Move" is doing with First Lady Michelle Obama and her team. However, it is an embraceable cause, and one which can actually lead to exposing the value of sport to an audience that may not have accepted or enjoyed sports as a whole because those people were not good enough to play. Embracing an anti-bullying platform would go a long way in a new area for cause marketing, and could help heal some very public and very silent wounds for millions of young people effected by it every day.

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Anyone who takes seriously the threat of climate change might wonder why we are having trouble adopting solutions. Why is concern about it broad (though it goes up and down with the vagaries of weather and politics) but thin? Majorities consistently think climate change is real and we ought to do something, but only thin minorities say they are actual doing something themselves, or would accept changes that might cost them anything. Given the profound harms climate change is sure to cause, why aren't we more worried?

The usual explanations include poor communication by scientists or environmentalists or the news media, purposeful obfuscation by selfish economic interests, or the way the issue has been polarized politically. May I suggest that the problem is much deeper. It's a matter of how the human animal has learned to detect and respond to risk. Our risk perception system hasn't evolved to cope with the complex long-term threats involved in the unsustainable way we're living on the planet. It evolved to deal with simpler dangers, like wolves and bad guys with clubs and the dark. We may understand the modern risk choices we face intellectually, but the human response to risk is not just about the facts. It's a mix of facts and feelings, reason and gut reaction, and the huge threats posed by climate change and deforestation and all the other manifestations of our unsustainable ways just don't ring the emotional alarm bells of a system that evolved to deal with simpler, more immediate dangers. Moving forward on climate chance is a psychological challenge as much as it is technical or economic.

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I recently read a wonderful novel by a Turkish author, Elif Shafak, called The Forty Rules of Love. It's a powerful book, but one of the lines that struck me most was "Cleaning is praying. Praying is cleaning." Why? Well, to me, the feeling of being in a totally clean place is so peaceful and freeing, I feel there is nothing between me and God--it's a sort of heaven on earth. When things are messy and dirty, I feel a heaviness that feels like depression, and like I am in a hole I can't get out of...kind of like hell on earth. Most women, and a few good men, know that keeping something clean is temporary at best. The perfectly cleaned kitchen is marred by the first meal. A lovely cleaned living room is, for some reason, a favorite place for pets to vomit (don't get me started about the white chair in my office!!) So cleanliness is never permanent; it's a process...and the process of cleaning is, to me, a lot like praying.

Which doesn't mean I like it! I am, in fact, an angry cleaner. I get very frustrated when people around me don't pick up after themselves, or have the same standards of cleanliness as I do. I am one of those people who notices when things aren't organized and in the right place. And in the process of cleaning, and cleaning out, I face all my own faults and weaknesses. I buy too many tablets and never use them. I buy too much food and don't eat it. I buy too many toys and cheap crap for the kids, and then don't make them pick them up. And there is always too much damn plastic in the house! But the closer I get to a clean and organized space, and the more I unload my junk, the happier and lighter I feel.

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Majestic Mills, the company that owns Nicole Richie's Winter Kate clothing label is suing well-known Los Angeles boutique Kitson, the New York Daily News reports. Majestic Mills claims Kitson has $230,000-worth of clothes but hasn't paid Richie for them. Kitson director of operations Dean Khial admitted to the Daily News that the store did spend $250,000 on Winter Kate items but says that they've been trying to send $200,000 back. A Kitson rep was quick to point out that Richie has nothing to do with the lawsuit. But another rep told Toofab.com, "They not only failed to provide the launch and personal appearance by Nicole Richie, they shipped inferior goods, wrong sizes and the shipments were late."

Khial also talked to WWD, saying, "We are very cautious with celebrity lines since we have learned from the mistakes of celebrity lines past such as Victoria Beckham's dVb and Lauren Conrad's Lauren Conrad Collection. Not every movie will be a blockbuster--even if it looks great on paper, it takes hard work and great retail partnerships to make these celebrity clothing lines blockbusters." He also said that Kitson would countersue Winter Kate for breach of contract.

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Every year, beginning a day or so after Christmas, and ending New Year's morning, I lead a retreat at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, MA, called the "New Years Spiritual Renewal Retreat." It's wonderful to be able to get away and do a retreat like this in a yoga resort and educational center like Kripalu, but how can we initiate spiritual renewal wherever we are, and sustain it throughout the year? What are the "spiritual" approaches to change that go deeper -- and are far more successful -- than the mere making of resolutions? In a five-day retreat I cover a number of approaches, and would take a book to share them, but most important is the practice of meditation. I call meditation the "laboratory of life," that indispensable period we take out of our day, not to "self improve," but rather to uncover our underlying divinity. During times of transition, such as the approach of the New Year, many people especially focus on their identity, how to become a new and improved version themselves, and in this retreat I try to show how meditation can deliver a deeper transformation than what we normally think of as self-improvement.

Most of us live in a piece of territory called "me" -- a personality who seems to live inside the boundaries of its skin, separate from all that surrounds it. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says that when the sense of an "other" arises, fear (of suffering) arises. This separate personality thus involves itself in a constant strategy of minimizing any potential discomfort or pain, and maximizing its pleasure. It hopes for a happier future filled with good things and experiences.

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We are now in the 10th year of the first decade of the 'war on terror.' So the inevitable anniversary assessments are beginning to appear. Iraq reappraisals specifically are back in vogue. They favor the drawing of balance sheets. Most will be skewed in an alchemic attempt to put the face of success on an unmitigated disaster. Even a more tempered approach at calculating cost/benefits, though, leaves something missing -- something of paramount importance. It is the effects on Iraqis themselves. Not Iraqis in the abstract, not as figures in a statistical tabulation of sects. Rather, as flesh and blood and feeling persons. Frankly, most of the discourse about Iraq from day one has had a disengaged quality to it. That is the norm for dominant powers on the world stage, and for the seminar strategist. That was not always the norm by which Americans referenced war and violence abroad in the 20th century when we truly believed in our proclaimed ideals.

To illuminate the point, here are some too readily slighted facts. 100,000 - 150,000 Iraqis are dead as the consequence of our invasion and occupation. That is the conservative estimate. Untold thousands are maimed and orphaned. 2 million are uprooted refugees in neighboring lands. Another 2 million are displaced persons internally. The availability of potable water and electricity is somewhat less than it was in February 2003. The comparable numbers for the United States would be 1.1 - 1.6 million dead; an equal number infirmed; 22 million refugees eking out a precarious existence in Mexico and Canada; 22 million displaced persons within the country. We did not do all the killing and maiming; we did most of the destruction of infrastructure. To all these tragedies we are accessories before and during the fact.

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Yesterday, the President's oil spill commission issued one chapter of its report to be released in total on January 11.  The released chapter, Chapter 4, goes through the commission's recounting of the events leading up to the blowout and its own conclusions about causes.  No new information was revealed in the released chapter, though the commission continues to spread blame, primarily to BP, Transocean, and Halliburton.  It also blamed failures  of the industry and government which are clear to those paying attention.  In pointing out these failures the commission said,

"Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur. The missteps were rooted in systemic failures by industry management (extending beyond BP to contractors that serve many in the industry), and also by failures of government to provide effective regulatory oversight of offshore drilling."

Clearly the commission's full report will go against the Obama administration's decision this last Monday to allow 16 deepwater projects to resume without safety system redesign or environmental review.  Although there are some new safety training and third party certification rules now being required of deepwater operators, there are no required changes in rigs or well control systems, there is no change in liability limits, and the statutory thirty day permit review limit remains in place.

I also continue to disagree with the commission's (and BP's, for that matter) conclusion that Halliburton is one of the primary party's at fault.  Were there communication errors on Halliburton's part? Yes.  Could Halliburton have done a better job alerting BP about its cement lab tests? Certainly.   Could Halliburton be more forthcoming to the various investigative bodies about its tests and own actions?  Absolutely.  However, as I've said before, bad cement does not equal blowout.  Bad cement jobs, especially in deep, hot, high potential wells happen every day, and not due to any particular party's fault.  Bad cement jobs that require remedial work during completion are a simple fact of life. 

The failure here was clearly human, clearly on BP's shoulders as well as its contractor Transocean.  BP's casing design was over-reliant on a good cement job and vigilant well control.  On-site management failures and BP's convoluted management structure were the real causes of the well getting away from them.  Transocean's failed blowout preventer failed to shut-in the well after they lost control. Even with no cement in the well, it must be kept under control with careful well monitoring and redundant procedures.  Assuming the cement job was good, shortcutting the plugging and abandonment procedure, hurrying, and having multiple simultaneous operations blinded the rig crew to what was really going on in the well.  Even with anomalous pressure readings and volume gains in the pits, both BP and Transocean management were distracted by visiting VIPs, a rushed schedule, and a crew change in the middle of the operation.  Overconfidence and complacency born from 7 years of safe operations were also certainly direct causes of this massive failure.

The spill commission's conclusions, though not completely off base, are tainted by politics, lack of industry experience on the panel, and what I believe to be its effort to spread blame, not pinpoint it.  I would imagine that no new information will be forthcoming when its entire report is released next week, so I'm looking forward to the Joint Investigation, managed by the Coast Guard and the BOEMRE, report to be issued in March.  I expect it will be much more objective and thorough, and should provide vital information gained from the forensics testing on the BOP that are yet to be released to the public.

In the meantime, oil continues to wash up on the beaches of Alabama and the wetlands of Louisiana.  Thousands of businesses and workers continue to suffer all around the Gulf coast.  The oil and gas industry continues to ignore its own complicity in this disaster and lobby for status quo.  The MSM continues to ignore the massive economic and ecological damage in the Gulf since they are now focused on the size of Speaker Boehner's new gavel, Lindsay Lohan's most recent probation violation, and whose going to be on the next Dancing with the Stars.



Bob Cavnar, a 30-year veteran of the oil and gas industry, is the author of Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout, recently released by Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

I might have been six years old when I first learned how integral the bumble bee was to the human food chain. The Huffington Post article yesterday about the American bee population plummeting and the disastrous effect this is likely to have on those of us who eat scared the food I had digested up to that moment out of me. Then I remembered someone who eats far more than me and is certainly far more informed on such matters as the calamitous loss of bees and other pollinating insects, not to mention snakes and tigers and penguins and other wildlife that is dying off, according to the new study across three continents by the World Wildlife Fund to which HuffPost referred.

That person is of course Rush Limbaugh, also known as El Rushbo, a pseudonym he reminds us of to his own amusement quite often. El Rushbo goes on about what fools and fakers and worse environmentalists are -- and what hogwash environmental science is. The man once claimed that the BP oil spill was the result of a conspiracy of environmentalists, for God's sake. His fans, who are also tickled to be called ditto-heads, seem to be entertained by this -- just enough, I imagine, for Limbaugh to refer to himself as an entertainer when he suspects his role as a commentator has gotten him into some unsustainable mischief. Should Limbaugh be too embarrassed to do that for himself regarding the environment -- and I predict that moment is coming -- look for El Rushbo to hide behind the stations that carry him. "You take him too seriously, the man's an entertainer," will be some representative suit's mantra. What the hell, that's the way the New York Times and Michael Steele -- how entertaining is that combo? -- have referred to him.

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Since it opened in previews at the end of November, the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has drawn unprecedented attention from the news media, online websites, theater community and public. Though much of this attention has been driven by a concern for the production's safety, its intensity and prominence call to mind a moral panic, motivated less by the production's well-being than by upholding the arts in their present form. Spurred by the immediacy and rising role of new media, a less authoritative old media and a Broadway community unnerved by challenges to its longstanding aesthetic and social order, the attention shows no sign of dying soon.

The spotlight has been unrelenting since the production was conceived nearly nine years ago. As its creative team -- Julie Taymor, Bono, The Edge and Glen Berger -- lost and reestablished funders, worked up a $65m budget, and both intrigued and annoyed a Broadway community dismayed by the effect of an expensive musical about a comic-book hero on the complacent Broadway order, the production garnered unrelenting scrutiny. Attention spiked when early accidents raised the question of whether or not the creative team was taking too many risks and endangering the cast, and Broadway websites, in the best of times energetic trackers of theatrical shows, pummeled the production. When the show's first preview was halted multiple times due to technical malfunction, websites received hundreds of thousands of online hits, late-night television crafted parodies, and media reviewers tackled the show, violating the tacit agreement not to do so until previews -- performances held before critics are invited to visit -- were over. By the time last week's incident unfolded - in which dancer/aerialist Christopher Tierney fell when his harness malfunctioned -- the perfect storm for a moral panic had been set. Within hours the Broadway community weighed in on the morality of pushing performance thrills at the risk of safety. Calls were made to close the show, sue the creative team and put Julie Taymor in jail. Not only did Spider-Man surface as a trending topic on Twitter and a breaking international news item, but it became the target of a potential legislative hearing on safety standards.

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Last week, a number of religious freedom activists, bloggers and organizations were alerted by Sgt. Justin Griffith, a soldier at Fort Bragg, N.C., to a mandatory U.S. Army survey called the "Soldier Fitness Tracker." One of the areas included in this survey, which measures a soldier's fitness in a number of areas, is "spiritual" fitness. According to his survey results, Sgt. Griffith is unfit to serve.

A little background: I've been working with Sgt. Griffith for the past few months on an event he's organizing in response to the Billy Graham Evangelical Association's "Rock The Fort" event, which was held on the parade field at Fort Bragg in September. Although a number of organizations objected to a military installation officially sponsoring this Billy Graham event, which was clearly designed to make converts of soldiers at the post, the event went on as planned. In defense of the event, the post commander issued a statement saying that any other group that wanted to hold a similar event would be given the same approval and support that "Rock The Fort" had been given. I immediately called Mikey Weinstein, my boss at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and said that we needed to take Fort Bragg up on its offer and tell them we want to hold a comparable event for non-theists. Just as we were discussing the feasibility of putting on an event on the same scale as the Billy Graham event, we got an email from Sgt. Griffith, who had had exactly the same idea. And, thus, a beautiful partnership was born. From my very first phone conversation with Sgt. Griffith a few days later, I knew we had a soldier with the brains, guts, and determination to pull this off. Other organizations quickly got on board -- the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United, the Military Association of Athiests and Freethinkers, American Atheists, and the Stiefel Freethought Foundation -- as did a bunch of great entertainers and speakers, including the illustrious Ed Brayton, who has agreed to emcee the event. The event, tentatively scheduled to take place in April, is called Rock Beyond Belief.

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