When each of us was in third grade, we learned the legend of John Chapman, a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed. We were taught of his beneficence, and we marveled over the Disney-esque pen and ink drawings of him wandering barefoot through the woods, tin pot on his head, followed by an assortment of happy woodland creatures. He was the pioneer saint, there to spread the healthy goodness of apples across the frontier in advance of the great westward expansion.

What Mrs. Klein, my third grade teacher failed to tell me (likely yours failed to mention this as well), is that Chapman's intentions were not entirely magnanimous, and the fruits of his labors were not meant for children. When he set out from Massachusetts in 1797 towards Pennsylvania, Ohio, and eventually Fort Wayne, Indiana, pioneers could lay claim to land simply by having planted a crop there. His savvy as a land speculator and as a nurseryman selling seedlings to the region's new arrivals made him quite a wealthy man. And those apples were not meant for keeping the doctor away or giving to prairie schoolmarms. Apples grown from seeds (as opposed to grafts) were, as HD Thoreau once wrote "sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream." No, these apples were meant for cider, and not the soft sweet stuff either.

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The name of the game for the Obama administration comes down to three words: the House of Representatives, not Congress, just the House. If the GOP takes it back it will spell disaster for the Obama Administration. A GOP run House will stall, dodge, and effectively stymie any and every spending initiative and bill that President Obama proposes. The GOP then will turn around and paint the administration as hostile, confrontational, ineffectual, and a promoter of gridlock.

GOP leaders have concocted a masterful strategy to grab the House. The ploy is this. Appear statesmanlike, pragmatic and thoughtful. This means downplay the GOP's stock inflammatory, wedge issues of abortion, and gay marriage. At the same time, avoid capitalizing on fringe, controversial and impassioned issues such as the looming battle over the Ground Zero Mosque, Obama's birth certificate, and his religion, scotch any talk of repealing the 14th Amendment, and do not openly renew the battle over the health care reform law. Relentlessly play to the two major fears and concerns of Americans. They are the economy and government spending. In the process, stress openness and flexibility. This makes it appear that the GOP is prepared to take the political and principled high ground and shed the image of itself and Congress as a deal-making, clubby, disconnected, alien presence that a majority of Americans now hold in contempt.

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Many people recently were openly puzzled, annoyed, confused, inspired and generally curious about what Prince meant when he said "The Internet's completely over". That sound-bite was part of an interview given to Peter Willis (from the Mirror.co.uk) and here's the quote in its entirety: "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it. The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

Now the media pundits focused on Prince's stand against the lack of control artists have over their material. The techno experts were calling Prince some type of technology Luddite who has not yet learned how to warm himself by the glow of the techno light. And finally, the music entertainment crowd simply was amazed at the irony of the whole sketch; "Every website covered his new album which is delivered via the Internet." This crowd perceived this as a marketing stunt - incredibly clever or diabolical depending on your perspective on the artist.

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Ananthan Thangavel of Lakshmi Capital is long silver futures and call options for his clients- and will add to his silver positions on any pullback. He knows there are huge short positions in silver; CFTC records show that 44.1% of the gross short position in silver is held by the 4 largest traders. And he reports in a comment on the silver market on Lakshmi's website ("A Twist on the Silver Market") that "Some traders I have spoken with are targeting the 40-50 level within 4 months." A chart of silver prices shows that silver in recent weeks has outshone the rise in gold prices by jumping 50% from around $18 to nearly $30 and then backed off to $27.16 today. This extraordinary increase in the price of silver suggests that short covering might explain part of the gain.

Nevertheless, bullishness on silver is also based on the feeling that "the world's silver supply and mining production is not enough to satisfy the increasing industrial demand as well as vastly increasing investment demand, Thangavel wrote me in an email Nov. 10. Only 116.1 million ounces of silver out of 2009 production of 709 million ounces were available to satisfy investment demand. "This huge shortfall indicates that the outstanding short position cannot be solely on behalf of producers, because there is a far larger outstanding position that could possibly be hoped to be mined this year, " Thanagvel wrote today.

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Last week, the entire brain-enabled world was dumbfounded when the Anti-Defamation League, breaking with its stated traditions of being against defamation, came out against the Cordoba Center, also known as the so-called "Ground Zero mosque." In a statement, the ADL made its position clear: "freedom of religion" is "a cornerstone of the American democracy," that definitely included the rights of Muslims "to build community centers and houses of worship," that "appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion" -- including those of Cordoba House opponents -- were to be "condemn[ed]" and "categorically reject[ed]," but just this once, the ADL is willing to avert its gaze and allow the policies favored by a tiny rump of bigots to be instituted.

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not right.

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This month, the State University of New York, one of the nation's strongest charter school authorizers, gave my organization, Democracy Prep Public Schools, final approval to restructure an existing charter school that was going to be closed for poor performance. It's a groundbreaking new approach to holding charter schools rigorously accountable for their students' academic performance and growth. The trade of autonomy for accountability, which is the hallmark of public charter schools, only works if low-performing schools are held responsible. What makes this decision so innovative is that it will allow this school to become a proof-point for what is possible in education reform without the usual disruption of a traditional school closure, in which parents are often forced to enroll their children in other under-performing schools in their neighborhoods. What's more, the initiative has the potential to turn on their ear the commonly held beliefs about what makes schools great.

On paper, Harlem Day Charter School should be a resounding success. With a mix of public dollars and private philanthropy, it spends more per pupil -- about $20,000 -- than most suburban schools. Class size is small -- with fewer than 20 students in a typical class. Teachers and families are generally happy, according to recent surveys, and the school facility is safe, clean and bright.

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"Oh my God, I am so full!" It's a refrain that will be heard countless times around the country today as we sit around tables with friends and family. Sure, Thanksgiving is about being grateful, and it's about the harvest, and the history of our nation. But really, it's about the food. (Even Google's doodles are just pictures of victuals with links to Ina Garten recipes this year!) In American culture--as in so many others--it's natural and normal to celebrate with edibles. Food is homey, comforting, delicious, and fun. Unless you're one of the estimated 10 million Americans fighting an eating disorder, that is. Then food, and this whole holiday, can be scary, disturbing, and painful.

"We start prepping people [we treat for eating disorders] for Thanksgiving about a month ahead of time," says Cynthia M. Bulik, Ph.D., director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program and author of Crave: Why You Binge Eat and How to Stop. "Being around so much food is like someone with acrophobia leaning off the Empire State Building. It is being surrounded by your biggest fear for an entire day. For someone with anorexia it's the fear of being expected to eat and enjoy it. For someone with bulimia or binge eating disorder it is being able to control urges to binge or purge when you're completely surrounded by trigggers."

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With a minimum of Neil LaBute's provocative, poetic potty mouth, his new play, "The Break of Noon," opens with the sole survivor of an office massacre wrapped in a blanket, his ankle sheathed in a blood soaked cloth. Going over the gory details, this man-aptly named John Smith-- is stunned at how the gunman made a special point of slitting the throat of one victim as she played dead -- somehow, miraculously, missing killing him. Having seen The Light, Smith concludes that god has saved him for a purpose, and now he must spread His Word.

Under any circumstances, delivering this monologue would prove a challenge, but David Duchovny on the opening night of his theater debut of this world premiere of this MCC production at the Lucille Lortel Theater, had a bad cold. Nevertheless, the X-Files/ Californication actor, performed with the conviction of a cad turned evangelical. Under the fine direction of Jo Bonney, he embellishes his horror tale turned heavenward in ensuing scenes, going one-on-one with his ex-wife, her cousin who is his ex-girlfriend, his lawyer, a detective, a talk show host, and a naughty nurse-clad call girl whose mother was among the murdered. The ensemble, featuring Amanda Peet, John Earl Jelks, and Tracee Chimo, all in double roles, is superb. Chimo in particular as a bubble-headed television personality and er, prostitute giving head is hilarious.

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In some circles it has become politically acceptable to state that poverty cannot be eradicated in our lifetime: that the means are not available, that there is a lack of political will, or even that those who "can't keep up" need to assume more responsibility for their own lives. Others are politically correct enough not to say any of this aloud, yet their actions (or lack thereof) expose them. Even the Millennium Development Goals call only for a halving of the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. In other words, the international community will consider itself successful if by 2015 "only" about 500 million people are left starving in the world (a target we do not look set to meet).

I would ask those who do not believe we can eradicate hunger to travel to the developing world - better yet, to travel to the slums of their own countries - and meet some of the close to one billion people who currently go hungry every day. Meet these people so that numbers become faces and faces receive names. After bearing witness to the suffering and even the deaths of these people, they might then find the means to make poverty history. It can be done; there is still enough food on this planet to feed all of us, it is how this food is allocated that needs changing.

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Tonight, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett will deliver remarks to the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, DC. While the Human Rights Campaign does not speak for or represent the gay military community, Jarrett will no doubt deliver assurances to the gathered crowd that President Obama and his staff strongly support the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) - the outdated law that continues to make the lives of many gay troops a living nightmare. After her remarks, the crowd of 3,000 will no doubt reward Jarrett will thunderous applause and administration officials will once again think that it has appeased those who have been hounding the administration for its failures and inaction on DADT this year. And the administration will once again be wrong.

Servicemembers United, the nation's largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, has thrown down the gauntlet with this latest attempt at appeasement. The days when grand gestures made at black-tie galas with no meaningful follow through are over. The days of appeasement speeches in front of the least-critical organizational voice in town are gone. Those who are actually serving under the cloud of DADT each and every day, and those who have actually been harmed in very real ways by this discriminatory law, want to be heard by this administration. And they want to be heard now.

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Environmentalists and animal rights activists around the world have been sitting on pins and needles this past week as the annual dolphin hunt that claims more than 20,000 innocent cetacean lives every year kicked off in the coastal village of Taiji, Japan on September 1st. No one is more familiar with the on-going battle to end these senseless slaughters better than Ric O'Barry. The 70-year-old former Flipper trainer turned dolphin activist and star of the recent Academy Award-winning film, The Cove, has been at the forefront of the struggle to put an end to this brutal atrocity for over four decades. Per usual, he is back on the ground campaigning with his team from Save Japan Dolphins, a long standing initiative of Earth Island Institute. However due to escalated threats of violence by right wing extremists groups, this year he finds himself rallying media support in Tokyo, rather than staking out the "little town with a big secret" that has long been the singular focus of his personal mission and life's work.

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In Third World America, her forthcoming book about the gradual demise of the United States as an industrial, political, and economic leader, Arianna Huffington profiles middle-class American families struggling to recover from the recession. In this excerpt, Arianna writes about Lesa Deason Crowe, an Oklahoma City mother, military wife, and small business owner who almost lost her advertising firm to the recession, but has begun to bounce back with the support of other local women.

Lesa Deason Crowe, a small business owner who lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, saw the financial crisis nearly destroy her twelve-person advertising firm. "It started in the news," she recalled. "Every night, there would be another story about the recession, depression. This was in fall 2008. Clients started to get jittery and began to proactively get ready for 'disaster.' Part of that planning was to get rid of all the 'fat' in their budgets, which in my case meant cutting all advertising, marketing, and public relations work. My lowest point was when three clients quit in one day. I walked in, prepared for a typical monthly meeting, and the next thing I knew I was fired on the spot. Three in a row. Our two largest clients and our fifth largest. Gone."

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