The Blog

Lee Schneider: Money and Power and Swimming with Sharks

2009-07-10T20:32:53Z

This month I'm conducting an experiment in not striving. I'm nine days in. It's going pretty badly. Pushing, grasping, wanting and hoping are kind of like getting up in the morning: I strive, therefore I am. Some sharks are like that -- they can't stop swimming because then they stop breathing. Let me try taking a breath while staying motionless in the water. How's that feel? Terrible, can I start striving now?

Being meditative and reflective, accepting where you are and preparing to receive abundance are all really easy things to do. You can start by sitting cross-legged on a soft surface and staring into the sun until your eyeballs explode. No, that's not what's supposed to happen. But that's what it feels like for me. I've never been good at meditative postures. I like running -- did a 10K last weekend. After a couple miles I reach a humming-along-with-the-universe state that feels about right. Afterward I find my decision making clearer, I treat other people better and go easier on myself. I get just as much stuff done but with less effort. Is that what not striving is like? That might be worth striving for.

One path to not striving might be found in one's relationship to power. As our friend Lotta said in her recent newsletter, "Power comes to us when we stop reaching for it. It's actually always with us, but it's our striving that gets in the way." Striving doesn't give us power. It can, in fact, take it away. The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist, works this idea through, bringing in some thoughts on money.

"Each of us experiences a lifelong tug-of-war between our money interests and the calling of our soul. When we're in the domain of soul, we act with integrity. We are thoughtful and generous, allowing, courageous, and committed. We recognize the value of love and friendship. We admire a small thing well done."

Things change, she writes, when we enter the domain of money, and then, "It is as if we are suddenly transported to a different playing field where all the rules have changed. In the grip of money, those wonderful qualities of soul seem to be less available. We become smaller. We scramble or race to 'get what's ours.' We often grow selfish, greedy, petty, fearful, or controlling, or sometimes confused, conflicted or guilty."

Ok, let's get real. The world is pretty greedy, petty, fearful and confused already, right? Does this mean I have to quit show business and work in a granola factory?

There will always be friends (I'm talking to you, East Coast) who will say "Who cares whether you cash your paycheck with integrity? Take the money and run." Well, I'm thinking there's more. I'm thinking Lance Armstrong, who came out of retirement to ride the Tour de France after winning seven times. He has a slim chance of winning eight times but he showed up anyway. "I feel good, I feel strong," he said, as quoted by the AP. Showing up, feeling good, feeling strong, accepting where he is. There's something to that.

What if you can do a job that fires you up, and therefore you can do it better, get paid more for it and stop and breathe at the same time? I can give that a go without striving for another 22 days at least.

Helene Pavlov: How MRI is Being Used to Identify Early Signs of Osteoarthritis

2009-07-10T20:10:24Z

Over the years the Radiologists at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) have been conducting research on the early detection of osteoarthritis using MRI. Dr. Hollis Potter, Chief, Division of MRI in the Department of Radiology and Imaging, has researched and worked with her colleagues on imaging degenerative changes in cartilage, an early predictor of osteoarthritis. Dr. Potter's research allows for much earlier detection of degenerative changes in a joint compared to traditional MRI techniques or conventional X-Rays.

"Articular cartilage has little to no inherent capacity to self-repair. Once damaged and bone is exposed, treatment alternatives are limited to surgical techniques, ranging from simple removal of damaged cartilage to implantation of tissue engineered constructs," said Dr. Hollis Potter.

"This new technique acts essentially as a 'non-invasive microscope' and may ultimately obviate the need for biopsy or surgery to repair the cartilage. This alone has major implications ranging from delaying the progression of the disease to driving down the economic costs associated with osteoarthritis."

Osteoarthritis is a major health and economic concern, with costs in the United States of at least $15.5 billion per year. Worldwide, osteoarthritis has a greater impact on the burden of ill health than diabetes, asthma or HIV. Up to fifty percent of all disability in older adults can be attributed to arthritis.

Deirdre Imus: There is No Such Thing as Junk Food...There's Just Junk! Let's Get It Out of Our Schools

2009-07-10T18:33:25Z

It's lunchtime at your child's school. Do you know what's on the menu?

You may have heard the expression, "there is no such thing as junk food...there is just junk." But are you aware just how much "junk" is being sold at school?

Over the past 20 years, at the same time physical education classes are being reduced or eliminated altogether leaving children with limited physical activities, our schools have been invaded by junk and soft drink vending machines. These machines, along with lunchroom snack lines offering pizza, french fries and fattening desert cakes, serve as intoxicating competition to healthier alternatives available in your child's cafeteria.

Because a nutritious diet is essential to maintaining good health, I often talk about how we need to make sure our children are provided the healthiest foods possible, but not as an option. It's a lifestyle I practice as well as teach.

For more than 10 years, only fresh, organic whole foods have been served at the Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer. Even though the kids are accustomed to eating fast food meals at home, while at the ranch, I found children really enjoy harvesting the fresh fruits and vegetables from our greenhouse and learning just how good tasting healthy foods can be.

It's unacceptable for these children, especially since they are battling cancer and other illnesses, to have to go back to school and their communities and eat the very junk that may have made them sick in the first place.

When Michele Obama planted her White House garden she did more then provide curious reporters a photo opportunity of our new First Lady, she illustrated the mindset of many young mothers who are truly concerned about the junk dependency that has come to dominate the diets of America's children.

Concerns about the rise of childhood chronic illnesses have intensified in recent years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the increase of these childhood diseases is related, in part, to poor nutrition.

Studies have also shown "animal fat is implicated in many of the chronic degenerative diseases that afflict industrial and newly industrialized societies, particularly cardiovascular disease and some cancers."

With childhood obesity rates skyrocketing, doubling in young children and tripling among teenagers in just twenty years, the need to change the way we teach our children good eating habits is becoming an important aspect of preventing disease and an crucial factor in managing health care costs.

Clearly, parents need to take control over what their children eat. As experts continue to acknowledge the health benefits derived from plant-based diets, replacing sugary fat and carbohydrate saturated snack foods with organic fruits and vegetables and healthy meals is a parental responsibility more and more mothers are embracing.

Schools share this responsibility as well.

Like parents, our schools are in a unique position to introduce, model and emphasize the value of healthy eating habits. In the structured school environment, where children spend most of their day, impressionable students, at an early age, can be taught good nutritional habits that could have a profound influence on their over-all well being and benefit them throughout their lives.

Unfortunately, our school systems have not set the kind of example one would expect and have actually undermined parent's efforts to provide their children healthier meals. Instead of setting high standards and leading by example, our schools have become junk food "enablers" and have contributed in the creation of a "Junk Generation."

Talk about sending a mixed message.... teaching children about eating healthy foods in the classroom only to send them into a hallway lined with junk filled vending machines leading to a cafeteria line offering even more junk.

How can we expect our children to resist this kind of daily temptation of sugary sodas and snacks? And why should they, if schools are in essence saying "this junk is OK? "

The struggle to provide and interest students in healthier school meals has been fought by nutritionists and children's health groups for years but often overshadowed by other competing "priorities" and as always, special interests.

In a 2001 Washington Post article, US Schools Hooked on Junk Food Proceeds, David Nakamura investigated just how addicted school administrators have become on the junk revenues creating "a system that gives schools a financial interest in selling them [children] more snacks."

"The explosion of vending machines in public schools is a relatively new phenomenon. As recently as a decade ago, such machines were uncommon on campus. But as principals and PTAs began to recognize the potential payoff of vending revenue during a time of increasingly tight school budgets, the number grew quickly."
In a bit of irony, that same year, Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher identified schools as one target when he issued a Call To Action To Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity.

Schools are identified as a key setting for public health strategies to prevent and decrease the prevalence of overweight and obesity. Most children spend a large portion of time in school. Schools provide many opportunities to engage children in healthy eating and physical activity and to reinforce healthy diet and physical activity messages. Public health approaches in schools should extend beyond health and physical education to include school policy, the school physical and social environment, and links between schools and families and communities. Schools and communities that are interested in reducing overweight among the young people they serve can consider options listed below. Decisions about which options to select should be made at the local level.

A few years later, in response to a request from Congress, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report that examined whether school lunch programs were "meeting nutritional standards, encouraging healthy eating" and "what barriers schools faced" in providing nutritious food. The GAO Report echoed many of the points raised in the Washington Post article.

Schools are moving toward meeting school lunch nutrition requirements, but more improvements are needed...Students may need more exposure to nutrition education to effect positive changes in their behavior, and most students have \access to foods of little nutritional value, such as soft drinks and candy, at school.

...barriers to providing nutritious meals and encouraging healthy eating included budget pressures and competing time demands. Regarding providing nutritious food, officials said when they introduce healthier foods, they take the risk that students will buy fewer school lunches resulting in loss of needed revenue. Regarding encouraging healthy eating, officials said the focus on meeting state academic standards limited time to teach nutrition. Also, schools paid for special activities or other items not covered in the school's budget with profits from vending machines and snack bar sales.

The Report also noted how little time is actually invested in nutrition education.

The median amount of time spent on nutrition education as part of schools' health education classes was 5 hours during the elementary years, 5 hours during the high school years, and 4 hours during the middle school years.

In a follow up request from several members of Congress, the GAO was asked to further investigate "how prevalent is the sale of "competitive," otherwise known as junk foods, in schools across the country?"

Nearly 9 out of 10 schools sold competitive foods to students in school year 2003-2004, and the availability of competitive foods sold in middle schools and through a la carte lines has increased over the last 5 years.

The Report found 99% of high schools, 97% of middle schools and 83% of elementary schools offered junk as an option to their students and that "generating revenue" was a weighty factor in the schools decisions to offer junk to their students.

Many schools, particularly high schools and middle schools, generated substantial revenues through competitive food sales in 2003-2004. Specifically, the nearly 30 percent of high schools generating the most revenue from these sales raised more than $125,000 per school.

Ah yes...there's that financial incentive again.

"Parents should know that our schools are now one of the largest sources of unhealthy food for their kids"... "Why would we allow schools to sort of poison our kids with junk food?" said Senator Tom Harkin, who requested the GAO investigation.

Why indeed Senator?

Government officials and medical professionals repeatedly tell us, and Congress, that childhood obesity, and the diseases and health care costs that go with it, are linked with poor nutrition. And yet our taxpayer funded schools are permitted to serve up the very foods that kids should be avoiding. How insane is this?

The federal government needs to take responsibility for its own contribution to the educational system's junk food dilemma.

Instead of maintaining the highest standards, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) definition of "foods of minimal nutritional value" hasn't been reviewed since 1979 and only bars the sale of these foods during designated meal times. Included on the list of "foods of minimal nutritional value" is soda water.

Does it make sense to ban the sale of soda during lunch only to make it available to students any other time during the day?

According to national school nutrition standards, candy bars, cookies, donuts and french fries aren't even considered junk food and nutritionally acceptable. The USDA does provide guidelines on "healthier" meals, but this is provided as a resource to schools and is not a law.

The movement to pressure schools to restrict the sale of junk began picking up momentum again in March 2006 after Danica Kirka (AP) reported on a study published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity. The authors predicted that approximately half of the children living in North America will be overweight or obese by 2010, resulting in "profound impacts on everything from public health care to economies."

A few months later the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer advocacy group that has been urging Congress to set new nutritional standards, issued a School Foods Report Card giving most states school systems a "failing grade" when it came to controlling junk food sold to students.

"Although some local school districts have school foods policies that are far better than the state standards, far too many states allow way too much junk food in schools," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. "With junk food tempting kids at nearly every other public place in America, schools should be one place where parents don't have to worry about what their kids are eating. States should continue to enact stronger nutrition policies, but since the school lunch program is, after all, a federal program, Congress should take action to ensure that all school foods are healthy."

The CSPI report was followed by a 2007 Institute of Medicine report that once again recommended new dietary guidelines and encouraged schools to stop selling junk food.

It is difficult to understand why so many reports and recommendations did not produce any policy changes. For the past eight years, calls to reform nutritional standards and ban junk food from our schools continued to go unanswered. Perhaps President Bush's selection of Roderick Paige to be the first Secretary of Education might provide some insight. According to the previously mentioned Washington Post article, "Paige help land a $5 million contract with Coca-Cola" when he was in charge of Houston's school system.

And while some progress is being made as more schools are beginning to offer vegetarian meal options, the changes have been voluntary and are primarily found at the high school level. Two-thirds of states continue to have inadequate guidelines or no policies relating to school nutrition.

With a new administration, and a First Lady who is making healthy diets and child nutrition a priority, children's health advocates are hopeful that President Obama and the Congress will finally steer our schools in the right direction.

And while some people feel President Obama is taking on too many issues, he wasted no time in showing his support for improving child nutrition and the quality of school meals.

One month after taking office, President Obama "proposed a $1 billion a year increase in funding for US child nutrition programs."

Just last month, President Obama again called on Congress to pass the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act. The following day, while working with students at a Washington D.C. elementary school, Mrs. Obama spoke about the importance of healthy school meals. In her remarks, the First Lady made several points worth repeating:

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high-blood pressure are all diet-related health issues that cost this country more than $120 billion each year. That's a lot of money. While the dollar figure is shocking in and of itself, the effect on our children's health is even more profound. Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime. In Hispanic and African American communities, those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate. Those numbers are unacceptable.
And for the first time in the history of our nation, a nation that is one of the wealthiest on the planet, medical experts have warned that our younger generation may be on track to have a shorter life span than their parents as a direct result of the obesity epidemic. Again, that is just unacceptable.
So how did we get here? How did we get in this position where we have become such an unhealthy nation, and our children are at risk? And the fact is there are a lot of factors, but some of the more simple ones are that too many kids are consuming high-calorie food with low nutritional value, and they're not getting enough exercise. It's plain and simple: They're not eating right and they're not moving their bodies at all.
But unfortunately, for too many families, limited access to healthy fruits and vegetables is often a barrier to a healthier diet. In so many of our communities, particularly in poorer and more isolated communities, fresh, healthy food is simply out of reach. With few grocery stores in their neighborhoods, residents are forced to rely on convenience stores, fast food restaurants, liquor stores, drug stores and even gas stations for their groceries.
But government also has a role to play in this, as well. For so many kids, subsidized breakfasts and lunches are their primary meals of the day. It's what they count on. It's where they get most of their nutrition.
And the USDA's National School Lunch Program serves approximately 30 million meals each year to low-income children. And because these meals are the main source of consistent nourishment for these kids, we need to make sure we offer them the healthiest meals possible.
So to make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools. We're approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs. In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids.

Selling junk in schools sends a negative and conflicting message about how important good nutrition is for an over-all healthier life. Kids who want salty, transfatty filled snacks or a sugar packed drink or treat will find a way to get them. But our schools should not make it easy for them and certainly should not be encouraging bad eating habits in order to raise additional revenue.

Schools should be teaching the value of making healthy food choices and then lead by example in the lunchroom.

The choice to eat nutritious foods is difficult for young people who don't fully understand the unintended and often profound consequences of a junk diet.

In a school environment, healthy, nutritious foods should not be an option...they should be the only option.

Additional Resources:
USDA's Food and Nutrition Service - National School LunchProgram Fact Sheet

The USDA's index page of School Meals information

Center for Science in the Publics Interest

School Nutrition Association

Kerry Washington: You Can Nominate a Woman of Worth

2009-07-10T18:16:09Z

Recently, at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering & Service, Arianna and I both addressed the amazing crowd of 4,500 people who assembled to share, learn and celebrate the volunteering spirit that is growing in our country.

The theme of this year's conference,"Civic. Energy. Generation," speaks to a new era of responsible citizenship. Throughout my life, many people have taught and reminded me about the power of volunteering and I now dedicate my time to organizations that utilize the power of art and performance, groups like V-day, Americans for the Arts, The People Speak, and The Creative Coalition. And as one of the spokespersons for L'Oreal Paris, I am also active with their charitable programs, including a special initiative called Women of Worth.

The Women of Worth program is L'Oreal's annual grassroots initiative that recognizes and supports incredible women from all across the country who are organizing, volunteering and making a difference in their communities. I was at this year's Conference on Volunteering & Service to recognize one of last year's Women of Worth honorees -- Cindy Kerr who founded ConKerr Cancer, a not-for-profit organization that gives children fighting cancer hand-made, personalized pillowcases to brighten their hospital rooms. Cindy began designing pillowcases as a way to cheer up her son Ryan as he fought cancer, a fight he ultimately lost last year. But Cindy has continued to find inspiration from Ryan and 90,000 pillowcases later, she gives back to countless other children by gifting pillowcases to others who are courageously fighting their own battles. Her work is a moving example to me and to other artists of how we can use the arts and fine craftsmanship to create more kindness and hope in the world.

I am inspired by Cindy's story, and by all the women out there making a difference in the lives of others. As the deadline for nominating honorees approaches (July 23, 2009), I wanted to help get the word out. You can help determine this year's honorees by nominating someone whose volunteerism is an inspiration to you at www.womenofworth.com.

As First Lady Michelle Obama said at the Conference, we all need to be "ready to answer the call to serve". I encourage everyone to find your call to action and go to www.serve.gov to find an activity that best suits you. And if you believe, as I do, in the power of art to inspire and lift both our spirits and our communities, use the keyword 'ART'.

Sara Davidson: Addicted to Love? Three Ways to Tell

2009-07-10T17:38:05Z

Part 13 of a serial, "Sex Love Enlightenment." Previously: I tell Billy not to contact me again. I feel relieved, elated, but then comes the crash. Click here for past installments.

When I moved to Venice, CA, in the 70s, the first thing I did was plant a garden: tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and, in a corner by the 7 foot fence, I threw some marijuana seeds. I wasn't a big smoker but liked a toke now and then. The vegetables did not do well in the sandy beach soil, but the pot grew like Jack's beanstalk.

I was writing my first book, Loose Change, and late one night, when the neighborhood was silent, I sat at my desk, struggling to make the story come alive. I was startled by a sudden banging and thumping of footsteps around the side of the house. I ran to the front door and yelled, "Who's there?!"

"Police." Two policemen with guns drawn were shining a high-powered flashlight at my eyes. They asked if I'd reported a burglary. I hadn't. They said a call had come from 85 Windward.

"This is 58, you're in the wrong place," I said, wanting them to leave quickly. I glanced to the left. The police swung their flashlight to the left and there, in a pool of chalky light, stood the pot plants, five feet tall.

They handcuffed me and drove me to the Women's House of Detention, where I was strip-searched and locked in a cell with prostitutes. In California at that time, possession of pot was a misdemeanor but cultivation was a felony. At 4 a.m., they let me use a payphone to call my father, who called a bail bondsman and at 6 a.m., utterly shaken, I was released.

I had to go to court but, because it was a first offense, I was given "diversion" - placed in a rehab program instead of being tried. I had to attend group therapy twice a week for 2 months at the Venice Drug Coalition.

There were 9 people in my group and I was the only one not there to kick a serious habit. May, an obese black woman wearing a flowered dress and slippers, spoke in a groggy voice. She was addicted to speed, took 20 Dexedrine a day, had been hospitalized and given shock treatment and still, despite the Dexedrine, she slept all day.

The man next to May had stolen a TV from his grandmother so he could "get down," then fallen asleep with a cigarette in his mouth and burned down half the house, killing his cousin.

The leader of the group turned to me. "What's with you, baby? You gotta contribute here, not just listen."

What could I say? I grew some plants? I'm having writer's block? I wake up with fear and trembling because I'm stuck on chapter 2?

The leader asked me to bring a chapter and read it aloud next time, but when I did, half the group nodded off.

As weeks passed, though, I became more involved with these people and their stories and they with me. I began to talk about my relationships with men, and nobody went to sleep. In fact, they vied to give me advice.

I told them I'd fallen in love with a man who was married, someone I'd known for many years. I'd promised myself I would never get involved with a married guy, but once we'd slept together, I had trouble stopping. I told the group, "I keep thinking: Being with this person makes me happy. How could something that makes me feel so good... be bad?"

The man who'd burned down his house and killed his cousin stared at me. "That's what I used to say... about heroin."

* * *

At the time, I thought it was a funny story and repeated it to friends. "Is that what happens? If I keep sleeping with this guy, I'll end up strung out in the gutter?" But 30 years later, the analogy seems dead-on.

In the 70s, there was no concept of an addiction to love and sex. If you'd told me I was an addict, I would have laughed, because I was sure I did not have an addictive personality. I never smoked cigarettes or got hooked on alcohol or pills. Chocolate, maybe, but didn't everyone love chocolate?

The identification and treatment of love addiction did not begin until the 80's, spurred by the publication of "Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous" by the Augustine Fellowship staff. Sex and love addiction are different syndromes but related. For men, it's usually a compulsion to cheat and sleep with lots of women. (Think Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Sanford) For women, it tends to be an obsession with one man. (Why are we not surprised?) What's true for both men and women is that we can't stop ourselves, even when we know our behavior could destroy a marriage or our sanity or the chance to lead a country. And this goes back to the earliest civilizations. Antony lost Rome because he couldn't keep away from Cleopatra.

The most helpful book I've found on the love syndrome is by Howard Halpern, "How to Break Your Addiction to a Person." Halpern calls the problem "attachment hunger," and lists three symptoms:

1. The compulsive quality -- you're driven to merge with a specific person, even when you know it's not healthy.
2. You feel panic at the thought of losing the person. Keeping or losing the relationship feels like a matter of life and death.
3. When the relationship ends, you have withdrawal symptoms, which include depression and intense physical pain, especially in the chest and stomach. "A person who has just ended an addictive relationship may suffer greater agony," Halpern writes, than heroin addicts when they go cold turkey.

Another sign is that you only feel fully alive when you're with a partner, and you're incomplete without one. Your identity, your worth, your very survival depend on keeping that partner.

Halpern and others who've worked in the field say the roots of addiction are in infancy: not receiving the love and acceptance you needed. As a result, you never develop the ability to love yourself. You're constantly seeking to merge with another to feel whole and safe. And because the problem began before you had words, it operates at the most primitive level, unconsciously.

Not getting the love you needed as a baby seems to be the source of most problems, and when I hear that, it's just words. But as I read Halpern's book and others, I would feel physical pain, my chest constricting, because the descriptions of attachment hunger hit home. Hard.

I've had wonderful and nurturing relationships, I've been married and raised a family, but since I've been single again, I find the hunger and pain are coming up in extremis - stronger than they did when I was younger.

The pain is increasing, I suspect, because the attachment hunger needs to be released. I can't live with it anymore. The books I read were great at defining the problem, but their prescriptions for ending it didn't help. I resolved to do what I'd done when I was suffering from heel pain that wouldn't go away: Everything. Therapy, body work, 12-step meetings, reading, journaling, prayer, meditation retreats. I was determined to do -- or not do -- whatever it took to reach the state where I could savor life to the fullest, whether I have a partner or not.

But before I arrived at this determination, I had to play out my fiery attraction to Billy. I had to hit bottom.

TO BE CONTINUED

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Maria Rodale: Ruthless Gardening: A Must!

2009-07-10T17:04:24Z

Every summer around this time the same thing happens. I head out to the garden after a busy work week (or three), and take a look at my vegetable garden and go, "Oh *%$!" Once again, I have let sentimental, kind-hearted generosity screw up my patch.

It starts simply enough, with the idea that I'll let that kale that came back from last winter go to seed and replant itself. Or look! There are baby tomato plants I didn't plant -- they're so cute! I think I'll keep them! Or worse, my husband thinks that the mystery dehybridized squash seed that sprouted is worth watching to see what comes out of it, and before you know it, there are scratchy, prickly tentacles climbing all over everything -- including the lawn -- like some creature from outer space. Suddenly, my expensive transplants shipped in from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa are struggling for their very survival, I can't tell the heirloom tomatoes from the weed tomatoes, and I've lost all track of half the things I planted.

And I am reminded: Ruthlessness is required to be a really good gardener -- ruthless weeding, ruthless protection of the desired plants, and ruthless vigilance against pests, even if the pests would be perfectly good plants in other situations. Without discipline and tough decision-making, gardens turn into crazy jungles where the plants are so busy fighting for their space and survival they forget to make vegetables.

It's a tough lesson I relearn every year, but an important one. If we don't say no, or protect our spaces, before you know it our lives and gardens are out of control and nobody gets anything good to eat.

So here is what I am doing this weekend: I'm putting on my cowboy hat, slinging my weeding knife in its holster, and leaving the gloves off. I'm bringing in the big smart cart, and I'm prepared to fill it, even if I have to fill it again and again and again. And honey, that plant that you thought was eggplant? It's a frickin' weed, and I'm pulling all of them. (I never would have planted 40 eggplants!)

It's a cruel, tough job, but somebody has to do it -- and that would be me.

For more from Maria Rodale, go to http://www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com.

Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent: Has Feminism Gone Too Far - Or Not Far Enough?

2009-07-10T16:42:38Z

A recent study out of the University of Pennsylvania claims to prove that women are less happy now than they were before feminism, the idea being that all of the equality and choices that our mothers and grandmothers fought for have made us less satisfied than even they were. Well, this is entirely possible. So many of us work our butts off around the clock to bring home the bacon and then cook it up while simultaneously doing the laundry, paying the bills, taking care of the kids and planning our financial futures. And many of us do all of this while constantly beating ourselves up for not looking as young and perfect as the enhanced celebrities whose only job it is to look good. No wonder we're unhappy, but does that mean feminism itself is to blame?

Now let us be clear; we are feminists. We believe in equal rights, equal pay and that a woman can do any job (except maybe Hulk Hogan's) as well as a man. But we admit that we sometimes have fantasy sequences about simpler times when women had one job: to take care of the house, her husband and her children. The problem is that back in the day women were forced into that job with no other options and now it seems that women are forced to do this and approximately twenty-five jobs in addition to that one if you include the hours we spend at work, battling insurance companies, making sure we understand our investments, juggling the bills and the budget, negotiating credit card interest rates, keeping toilet paper in the bathrooms and the dust off the furniture and trading plastic water bottles for the supposedly non-cancer causing aluminum.

Is it feminism's fault or should we blame the economy and society we live in, where both partners need to work in order to make ends meet (unless you're a so-called Real Housewife)? Unfortunately, we have a feeling that they're connected. Women wanted to be able to have it all and we sure got it. We have it all and we have to do it all, and as we've fought for more power and control over our lives, our men seem to have more and more time to play video games and drink beer. They have equal rights, but they're not expected to cook dinner, bathe the kids and do the laundry when they get home from a hard day's work, so how in the world is that equal? (Yes, we know there are exceptions.) So has feminism gone too far or has it not gone far enough? We think it's the latter. If women are going to have to earn just as much money as their husbands, then they should also be splitting the at-home responsibilities down the middle. That is true equality.

But right now, our plates are overflowing and many of our lives are out of balance. So what can we do about it? Until we get longer maternity leaves and real equality, we think that women need to do everything they can to find the balance between work and play in their own lives. Our third book, How to Live Like a Hot Chick, will address this very topic and teach women how to hold onto their femininity and find serenity in the midst of an overwhelming lifestyle. We are in control of our lives and we need to stop pressuring ourselves to do it all perfectly while looking like a supermodel or thinking that we should be as productive as Madonna or Angelina Jolie but minus their millions of dollars and help that money provides. We have fought to have the right to do anything in the world, but that doesn't mean that we have to do everything in the world, and we are so excited to help women find a balance that makes them feel happy, confident, sexy and alive again. If the state of feminism is making us miserable, then let's fight harder to take it further until we have more options than obligations and a true equality that brings us peace and happiness.

John Graham: The Health Care We Deserve

2009-07-10T15:58:36Z

The givens: our country over decades has jerry-built a health care "system" that is unfair and inefficient. We pay far more for far less care than any other industrialized nation. And we have forty million people uninsured for whom a major illness can mean mortgaging a home, not sending a kid to college, or worse.

Now the country is finally beginning to address health care reform in a meaningful way, in what could well be the most important domestic policy debate since the New Deal.

Key elements in this debate are competition, costs -- and courage.

Competition. A huge point of contention is defining what additional role, if any, government should play in health care. As we see, this argument quickly descends from policy to ideology, which is why it is so difficult.

Many Americans favor a "single-payer" national health care system run by the Federal government -- a huge shift from the current system managed by private insurance companies whose primary goal is to turn a profit. Statistics show that the single-payer systems used by most other industrialized countries are more equitable and efficient than the hodge-podge we now have here.

But single-payer is not on the table in 2009, shelved by strategists in the White House and in Congress who fear the power of the health insurance lobbies to scuttle any reforms that contain it. Single-payer could put health insurance companies out of business and they will fight to keep that from happening.

There's a compromise afloat -- the so-called "government option" in which a government-run health care plan would be just one option for consumers, competing with private plans to enroll members. The plan or plans that worked best for lowest costs would gain customers, forcing others to either improve or leave the market. Sounds like classic capitalism, right?

But even this thoroughly sensible idea is in under attack because the insurance companies are afraid that they would lose such a competition, forcing them to either better meet peoples' needs -- or lose business. They are already arguing that the playing field would be tilted against them. Unlike the government, for example, health insurance companies find it difficult to pressure themselves to use their leverage to contain costs -- because those costs add to their own profits. They also argue that they have expenses that the government doesn't -- like the billions they spend on advertising and inflated CEO salaries.

The arguments against a government option would collapse of their own weight were it not for the support of lawmakers eating at the trough filled by the health insurance lobby. As President Obama put it last week to Republican lawmakers:
"Why is it that the government, which private insurers say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical...they should be able to compete."

Cost-containment. Three of the best new ideas:

Focus more attention and dollars on prevention, which costs far less than treatment, especially treatment in ERs.

Put more attention and dollars on expanding primary care, which is a low-cost way to keep people healthy and reduce the number of higher-cost interventions.

Create a national electronic database of medical records, which would drastically cut administrative costs while reducing medical accidents.

But that's the "easy" stuff. There can be no serious effort to cut health care costs in this country until we as a people accept that we can't have it all. We can't have an MRI machine in every clinic and we can't provide unlimited options for treatment and at the same time complain that our health care costs are too high.

Medicare paid for expensive exploratory surgery for my dying 94-year old mother that, even had it succeeded, would have given her only a few more months. Her case is hardly unique. Studies show that, overall, adding expensive high-tech options does little or nothing to improve health care outcomes.

But do I want a government bureaucrat telling me whether or not I can have a certain medical procedure? No, I do not, but even more I don't want an accountant in an insurance company making that decision. I want a doctor helping me and my family choose options. And if those options are limited, at least I want them limited by some sensible parameters created by experts who have no economic stake in the outcome.

Means testing is another difficult cost-containment option. My mother left an estate of $250,000. Her final illness cost $35,000, yet her estate paid not a dime of it. In my view, Medicare should have taken all or part of that $35,000 from her estate.

Courage. No health care reform will succeed until the White House and the Congress are finally willing to stand up to the health care lobby. The shameful hold on Congress by that industry must end; the names of legislators beholden to it must be widely publicized, so voters can assess who's listening to the money, not the needs of the people.

Government must use its enormous bargaining power to lower the costs of the health care it pays for, such as Medicare and Medicaid. It was outrageous for Congress in 2003 to forbid Medicare from negotiating lower drug costs with pharmaceutical companies.

But our leaders need our support if we expect them to make tough decisions like these. There won't be meaningful health care reform if citizens remain frightened, insular and uninformed. All of us need to:

Accept that health care reform must happen, even though it may mean changes we think might be risky or that reduce treatment options the nation can no longer afford.

Accept that covering all Americans is going to cost a lot of money upfront; many of the best cost-containment measures may take years to implement.

Wake up. Giving for-profit companies the primary power to manage our national health care pleases libertarian and rightwing ideologues, but it's not a policy that can ever lead to efficient and equitable outcomes. If for-profit companies are to continue to play a role, it must be tightly regulated, as it is now in the popular plan enjoyed by Federal employees.

Be prepared to stand up to Harry and Louise. The more capable we are of making informed decisions, the less vulnerable we are to the simplistic scare tactics sure to be thrown at us by the protectors of this woeful status quo.

We deserve better than what we have.
We deserve better than what the health care industry is willing to give us.
We deserve better than a weak compromise from Congress described as victory.

We will have to fight for it.

Jason Mannino: Career Lessons From My Recruiting Desk Part II: Interviewing in 2009

2009-07-10T15:14:01Z

What are your greatest strengths? I am always a little surprised when I still hear people say that interview questions like this one are still the most popular. One dimensional questions like this are not the most popular among sophisticated, well trained Hiring Managers and Recruiting professionals.

In old fashioned interviews you will indeed be asked questions like, "What are your strengths?" However, more and more companies have begun to employee behavioral interviewing. Behavioral interviewing is a relatively recent interviewing technique. It was developed by industrial psychologists in the 1970's. It is based on the premise that past behavior is an accurate predictor of future behavior in a job environment. Statistics show that behavioral interviewing is five times more accurate than the traditional interview style for choosing the right candidates. As a result more and more companies looking to save money by making the "right" hires are integrating this technique into their recruiting practices.

Behavioral interviewing is a technique that digs much more deeply into a candidates experience by inviting candidates to share from real work or life behavior. In a traditional job-interview, you can usually get away with telling the interviewer what he or she wants to hear, even if you are stretching the truth. However, it's much more difficult to give responses that are untrue in a behavioral interview. In a behavioral interview the interviewer can drill down to get the specifics. For instance, they may ask follow up questions that include, "What were you thinking at that point?" or "What made you decide to choose that specific action as opposed to another choice?" If the truth is being stretched there is a good chance your response won't hold up among this deeper questioning. Candidates who thoroughly tell the interviewer about particular situations that relate to each question will be far more effective and successful than those who remain general.

Your responses to behavioral interview questions will take the S-T-A-R approach.

1. S or T - Describe the situation or task
2. A - Describe the action you took in the context of the situation or task
3. R- What was the result of your action.

A typical behavioral interviewing question might be: "Tell me about a time when you overcame a crisis, solved a problem, dealt with failure, had to manage someone's performance, etc."

Tips to prepare for behavioral interviewing:

1. Company research
So that you have a deep understanding of what skills you need to showcase during the interview be sure to do your company research and take the time to ensure your understanding of the position you are being considered for.

2. Accomplishments
Whether you are actively interviewing or happily employed always keep an ongoing journal of all of your great accomplishments. Also, include details regarding your accomplishments in alignment with the behavioral interview "S-T-A-R" structure. By doing this you are prepared at a moment's notice to present information about yourself in this format.

3. Stories
Prepare for interviews as if you are crafting a twenty to thirty minute presentation about yourself including a series of short thirty second to one minute stories. This gives you an opportunity to present yourself as the expert and the solution to a company's problems. Story topics might include illustrations about how you functioned as an effective team player, how you handled difficult situations on projects or with employees ,how you overcame a challenging sales presentation. It is quite likely that an interviewer will want to explore your behavior under stress by asking about how you overcame seemingly negative situations. Therefore, be sure that your stories include difficulties and challenges you overcame.

4. Solutions
In my last "Lessons From My Recruiting Desk" I encouraged you to present yourself as a solution to problems. Behavioral interviewing also gives you an opportunity to showcase yourself as a solution by choosing to illustrate professionally challenging situations that you managed with aplomb.

With this depthful preparation you are well on your way to interviewing confidently and gracefully. However, I have also seen candidates so well prepared that they flood their interviewers with too much information too soon. Think of an interview like a dance. When you dance you take one step at a time allowing your partner to step in sync. Take one step at a time in an interview by allowing your interviewer to ask their questions. Answer with targeted information that sufficiently addresses the specific question. On the flip side some of my most frustrating memories as a recruiter are from when I had to make significant effort to pull information from candidates who were ill-prepared and not providing sufficient information. My suggestion? Find a balance and run with it and you will give a memorable, impressive interview!

*** In an ever-changing world Jason's coaching empowers you to start living life on your terms, creating a career and life based on personal integrity and authenticity! Learn more at www.jmannino.com and request a free copy of Jason's career coaching e-book: Swinging Through the Unemployment Jungle by e-mailing info@jmannino.com

Eli Davidson: Michael Jackson: Your Man In Your Mirror

2009-07-10T15:07:02Z

The thumping, glittery brilliance of Michael Jackson made him an icon. I watched fans carry homemade portraits of him (much like the gilded icons of Jesus carried in Greek Orthodox Churches) to mourn his passing." Seeing the astonishing outpouring of grief and celebration shows us that he was the dictionary definition of the word icon: "a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something." Jackson had all the things that have been highly prized in our culture: fame, fortune, and talent. Yet, it was very obvious that all of those outer trappings didn't bring him contentment. It is easy to look at Jackson's life and gawk at his excesses. He entertained us rather than living a life that was based on the deeper longing of his heart and soul. We have projected our inner genius and inner freak on this deceased entertainer. Merely seeing him as a symbol bypasses the internal learning we can gain from his life. However, his life offers an opportunity for looking had how he was and "the man in the mirror" for our own longings.

You Can Never Get Enough Of What You Don't Really Want
As a symbol of American consumer spending, Jackson died in debt. According to The Wall Street Journal, Michael died about $500 million in debt. (Americans carry $2.56 trillion in consumer debt, up 22 percent since 2000 alone, according to the Federal Reserve Board.)

I am still scratching my head about Jackson's finances. How could a person amass that much debt? Then I remember watching a BBC special about Jackson back in 2003. Jackson was filmed spending $6 million on a shopping excursion in Las Vegas. He gathered up antiques the way you or I toss carrots in a grocery cart. Like many Americans, Jackson used compulsive shopping as a way to dull the pain of open wounds from his childhood. As I reflect on my Inner MIchael, I see my own longing for acceptance. I certainly have used buying a new pair of shoes or several pair if they were on sale to calm my jangled nerves. How can I offer the kindness instead of criticism to those parts of myself I find ugly and unacceptable? What about you?

Plastic Please
There are stories about Jackson feeling so ugly as a child that he wanted to wear a mask on stage, and numerous accounts of his father taunting him and calling him "Fat Nose." In her wonderful post, Judith Rich exposed Michael Jackson's pain: "Michael Jackson: It Hurts To Be Me." Like the rest of us, he used a complex array of destructive behaviors to dull his inner aching. As a symbol of Americans' distaste for their appearances, he expressed his internal pain through war with his body. (Researcher J.J. Brumberg found that 53% of 13-year-old girls were dissatisfied with their appearance. That figure jumps to 73% for 17-year-olds. Instead of dealing with his internal demons, he focused on fixing his outsides.

Jackson had the funds to 'fix his face.' Here is Michael's face morphing. Reports say that he had so many nose jobs that his surgeons dared not risk another one. His surgeon stated that he began to fake surgeries, persuading Jackson that they had done further surgery when they had not. This need to fix his outsides was a call for the longing to heal his insides.
Like most Americans, Jackson was under the persistent pressure to perform. I see my own crazy schedule and realize that I often put my work before my own nurturing. What about you? Michael Jackson had stadiums of adoring fans screaming his name. It appears that external adoration couldn't heal the desperate pain he felt inside. As I look at myself, I see that I have judged a sudden eruption of fat around my stomach. Since it is bikini season, I am constantly aware of this unwelcome addition to my body. Could I accept myself more? How about you?

Man in The Mirror
For all his fame and wealth, he didn't get a chance to live the life he wanted. He was a shy and very sensitive person. The loudness and brashness of his job must have been very tough on those tender nerves. I believe that many of us are using him to mourn not getting to live the life we wanted. Each of us has a Michael Jackson inside. Each of us is both brilliant and wounded. If you dive deep enough into those areas of freaky-crazy-darkness you will find that at their core they are an expression of love as well. In my practice, I am continually in awe of the human spirit and what it can create. There is incredible preciousness inside each of us. We get so distracted by the tornado of circumstances in our lives that we forget to focus on that gleaming beauty inside. Tina Brown brought up a super point in an interview on NPR on Tuesday. She spoke about how Michael Jackson's death liberated him from the sleaze and allows us to celebrate his soaring talent. That comment brought me back to the symbolism of the icon. How can I rise above my limitations ? How can I more clearly live my life as a demonstration of the shining preciousness of my core? Can you claim more of the deep value inside?

How To Make An Icon
Several years ago, I made a sort of icon. It was a watercolor figure that depicted God sharing energy through me. Seeing that image above my desk helped me to reconnect with my 'mission' during the very long hours of finishing my book. In Eastern Orthodox Churches icons are carried to aid worshipers in their devotion. What if you could create an Icon to express the blazing majesty of your Soul and its contribution here? Yes, I know that some of you will rake me over the coals as "woo woo" and cheesy. That's okay. If you actually give this exercise a whirl you will watch your inner life transform.

Supplies: A large blank piece of paper or two, your favorite art supplies, and a few minutes of private time.

1. Center Yourself.
Take in a deep breath. Let it out. Now, breathe in the good. Exhale the lousy. Do these three times as you begin to feel more centered.

2. Ask for the Greatest Good.
Take a moment and connect with your authentic nature. The best way to create more of what you want is to begin the process in a state of unity with your source. When you remember your spiritual nature, it is good to remember that you are interconnected with all those that inhabit our earth. It is for the highest good of all concerned.

3. Set Your Intention.
Set your intention to empower yourself. What would it feel like to live from your authentic goodness? Wouldn't your world be a better place? You bet!

4. Write It Down.
Now it's time to put it on paper! Write: "I, [your name], claim and manifest my good. Everyday I enjoy more health, wealth, happiness, and love." It's your life. Make your Icon just the way you want it. Use all the color and glitter you like! If you are a visual person, you might use colors and images instead of words.

5. Use Your Natural Resources.
What are a few of the positive qualities at your core? What are your strengths? Add three of these positive qualities or strengths to your Icon. For instance: "Inside me I use love in every way I can, I laugh more often, use my creativity, and speak my truth with kindness." Go for it!

6. Post It.
Post your Icon with pride. The very best place to put it is where you see will it just before falling asleep at night. That helps your unconscious to absorb the images.

7. Thank Yourself.
Thank yourself for making the positive choice to honor your essence.

You can receive notice of my blogs every Friday by checking Become a Fan at the top. Ask Eli a question at info@elidavidson.com or go to www.elidavidson.com today.

Vicki Iovine: Girlfriends' Guide To Global Warming: How Having Teenagers Makes Me An Expert On Developing Countries

2009-07-10T13:25:09Z

It's no coincidence that I waited till the Huffington Post moved all the environmental stuff out of the Living section before I began posting for it. Call me anything, but never call me "earnest," please. My ecological philosophy goes something like this: Don't be a pig and clean up your mess to your best ability. Enough said. Reading about carbon footprints just makes me feel guilty and insignificant, particularly now that the G8 meeting is coming to an end in Italy. I may be squinting at under-lit labels in my pantry because I'm using CFL's and I may be driving a hybrid, but what difference does that make when India and China haven't even gone through puberty, let alone been invited to the dance. The developed countries have all agreed to a "goal" to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees, but the hormonal and exceedingly populated developing countries have been trying to act invisible during this part of the summit.

Who can blame them? They haven't had their Bruce Springsteen moments yet.

They feel born to run and are just itching for affordable cars so that Wendy can wrap her legs 'round these velvet rims. We developed (and I use this term loosely) folks orgiastically indulged in the freedom and sex appeal of cars and now that we're middle-aged and no longer capable of rising to those emotions, we can't understand why everyone doesn't embrace moderation. As the mother of four kids, ages Learner's Permit to Legal Alcohol Limit, I get the rising titans' reluctance to restrict their appetites for the stuff all teenagers want. I don't believe that there is a single hybrid in the senior parking lot of my kids' high school that isn't either a pretend fuel economizer (like a Lexus GS450h or the hybrid Tahoe) or their mother's. Left to their own devices, youths choose fast and big every time. Even if it required a coal-burning engine and a gas mask, teens and China would drive if they could.

I've been raising teenagers for about seven years now, without a break, and what's most appalling about it is the realization that our barbarism is still so firmly coded in our DNA. Ask any survivor of parenting this age group and they will tell you; the most you can pray to do during this time is keep them from dying. Forget imparting values, religion, decency and character during this time. That's why most major religions consider their important work done by the time a child is thirteen--after that, it's helter skelter until they are finally humbled by having children of their own.

Maturity isn't acquired in life--it is beaten into us. And my question is: Who is going to beat these nuclear-armed and increasingly rich adolescent countries into such old-fogey behaviors like delayed gratification and working for the mutual good? It's not their fault that all the fun stuff we Americans and Western Europeans have been flaunting for decades only becomes available to developing countries now that we've seen the ice caps melting and have fought several wars over oil dependence. They want to play, too. In fact, we've been creating this insatiable hunger in them with our goods, movies, music and tobacco commercials. Now we have to go and tell them that it all causes cancer, at the very least? What a buzz kill.

With teenagers, parents can hide the car keys or take away the credit cards, but India and China are making their own keys and cars now and we turn to them, hat in hand for credit. I'm sure it's much like what Miley Cyrus's parents experience. And we certainly can't win with corporal punishment because they, like my own teens, are bigger and have more energy than we do.

All we can hope is that they quickly get hooked on the cult of celebrity because once they start worshipping their own Speidis, vapidity will cast the same opiate fog over them that they have on our kids. Until then, we should do what parents of teens do everywhere, wring our hands and pray that this, too, shall pass.

Dr. Daniel Palestrant: The Biggest Risk To US Physicians: The AMA

2009-07-10T13:09:26Z

On June 15th, 2009, President Barack Obama traveled to Chicago to deliver a speech to share his vision for reinventing health care. It was an impressive oration and an important step in the journey towards comprehensive health care reform. Too bad the US physician community was a no show, for although he received several rounds of applause and a standing ovation, his audience, the American Medical Association (AMA) has long since lost it's role as the voice of US physicians.

We stand on the verge of a trillion dollar health care reform effort - the largest in our country's history - and yet input from practicing physicians has been scarce if not entirely absent. The importance of dedicated, practicing physicians having a voice in this debate is critical to the future of our nation's health care. Seeing the increasing divergence between the perception that the AMA seeks to perpetuate among the general public and an increasingly angered physician population, Sermo polled the 100,000 US physicians in our community as to what they thought of the AMA. Within five days, over 4,100 US physicians voted on the poll and discussed it in over 700 comments. The results were nothing short of stunning - 89% of those physicians say, "the AMA does not speak for me" (See full survey results).

The following is a posting I presented along with the poll to the Sermo physician community on July 1st, 2009. This will be the first of a series of blog posts representing the Sermo physician community's view points on key issues facing healthcare and the reform process currently under way in our country.

First posted to the Sermo physician community on July 01, 2009:

From the Founder: The Biggest Risk to US Physicians: The AMA

As physicians, our first step in the health care debate needs to be clearing the air about who speaks for us on what topics. Today, I am joining the increasing waves of physicians who believe that the AMA no longer speaks for us. As the founder and CEO of Sermo, this is a considerable change of heart, given the high hopes that I had when we first partnered with the AMA over two years ago. The sad fact is that the AMA membership has now shrunk to the point where the organization should no longer claim that it represents physicians in this country.

The AMA has drawn its power from the support of the physician community. The waning membership reflects our objection as the AMA has failed us consistently for over 50 years. Make no mistake, the debate within the AMA about how to stop their membership decline is not new. What is new is the lengths to which the AMA appears willing to go to deceive the public on this topic. The AMA routinely claims that their membership is 250,000 practicing physicians. At best, this is 25-40% of practicing US physicians and even that claim is based on some stretching of the truth. The 250,000 total includes a number of non-practicing constituencies, including medical students, residents, and subscribers of the AMA's journals. Paying membership is generally accepted to be far lower. How much lower? Actual numbers are remarkably difficult to come by.

At this critical moment in history, we cannot watch the AMA fail physicians so completely yet again. Nor can we stand by and let false perceptions about who speaks for physicians persist. At the very least, all parties should understand the intrinsic conflicts of interest that are in play, and the AMA should be held accountable to these truths. Better yet, physicians should call for sweeping changes within the AMA. In the best-case scenario, the AMA will shed its relationships with insurers and abandon tactics that take advantage of physicians to generate millions of dollars in revenue. It is an inherent conflict of interest to claim advocacy for physicians while profiting from a reimbursement system that makes it increasingly difficult for physicians to practice medicine.

The flight from the AMA signals that physicians don't believe the AMA is willing to make these changes. The longer that the public and our lawmakers cling to the perception that the AMA represents the voice of US physicians (and the AMA succeeds in perpetuating this), the more imperiled the medical profession will be and with it the broader US healthcare system. It's time to turn to entities like Sermo where physicians are establishing a new voice to collectively discuss the future of our profession.

There can be no healthcare reforms that have any chance of succeeding without buy-in from physicians. As a country, we cannot risk another failed reform effort. As physicians, we cannot risk letting the AMA represent our interests. This is our time to educate the public about which voices truly represent us and our commitment to our patients.

View over 700 comments from the Sermo physician community

Dr. Irene S. Levine: Caution: Frenemies Can Be Bad for Your Health

2009-07-10T02:54:02Z

In my experience, whatever the problem, giving it a name is a first step in solving it. That's why I was pleased that Merriam-Webster included the word "fren-e-my" (plural: fren-e-mies) in the list of 100 new words it announced today that were added to the Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

The term frenemy, seamlessly blending the words fri(end) and enemy, refers to someone who pretends to be a friend but actually is an enemy -- a proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing in the world of friendships. If you think about it, most of us have had a frenemy at one time of another, either at school, at work, or lurking in our neighborhood.

She (or he) is likely to be a friend who is filled with ambivalence and jealousy. She admires you and wants to be close but feels like she can't hold a candle to you because (she thinks) you're smarter, thinner, richer, or more successful. Ostensibly, she is a friend -- but her covert hostility is an attempt to kick you down a notch and put you in your place. For example, she might be the master of the backhanded compliment who says something like, "You have such a pretty face. If you lost twenty pounds, you would really be attractive."

"You know a friend is really a frenemy if she brings out the worst in you and leaves you feeling drained," say Andrea Lavinthal and Jessica Rozler, co-authors of Friend or Frenemy?. "A sure sign you have a frenemy is when that person cancels plans with you, you're relieved instead of disappointed."

While most research on friendship and health has focused on the positive relationship between the two, a frenemy is a potential source of irritation and stress. One study by psychologist Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad found that unpredictable love-hate relationships characterized by ambivalence can lead to elevations in blood pressure. In a previous study, the same researcher found that blood pressure is higher around friends for whom we have mixed feelings than it is when we're around people whom we clearly dislike.

The term frenemy has been around for a while, reportedly coined by a sister of author and journalist Jessica Mitford in 1977, and popularized more than twenty years later on the third season of Sex and the City. But like "staycation, "earmark" and "physiatry" it was never legitimized by an entry in the dictionary. Now that it has been, assess that friendship that has always made you feel queasy and uncomfortable and give it a name. Then you'll realize it's time to let go or to find a way to fix it.

Have a question about female friendships? Send it to The Friendship Doctor.

Irene S. Levine, PhD is a freelance journalist and author. She holds an appointment as a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and her book about female friendships, Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Breakup With Your Best Friend, will be published by Overlook Press in September, 2009. She recently co-authored Schizophrenia for Dummies (Wiley, 2008). She also blogs about female friendships at The Friendship Blog.

Michelle Bart: Voices for Justice: Blog Talk Radio's New Show!

2009-07-09T23:43:54Z

Voices for Justice: a look into the Caylee Anthony case one year later

On our first upcoming show, we will explore the Caylee Anthony autopsy report with a forensic expert and discuss the case that became public knowledge a year ago on July 15, 2008 in Orlando, Florida.

Date / Time: 7/15/2009 3:00 PM (PT)
Call-in Number: (347) 838-8622

Voices for Justice: are you prepared when time matters most?

Are you prepared when time matters most? Join us as Matt Berman, founder/CEO of InstantAmber joins us in answering your calls on keeping the family safe.

Date / Time: 7/29/2009 1:00 PM (PT)
Call-in Number: (347) 838-8622

Vivian Norris de Montaigu: Love is Free

2009-07-09T23:13:00Z

Last summer now seems to have had an air of Great Gatsby-ish endings, and now a bittersweet cooler summer wind blows. The warmth still reaches us, by human means now, not accouterments, and we need one another now more than ever to keep warm. We are indeed all connected, and those butterflies moving their wings in some distant land, touch us with cloudbursts, even destructive storms.

People in the UK are having more sex. Humans in the US are renting more DVDs via Netflix. Children are staying home and hanging out with their parents instead of attending summer camp. And guess what, we might end up happier for it all. Perhaps people are better off without the therapy, botox and stuff. Maybe the marriages that were based on nothing needed to end. Perhaps earning money instead of it somehow miraculously arriving via pyramid swap flip shorting means more and we enjoy more now. I know I am not going to miss the "houses that felt like hotels with no souls" as my daughter used to say.

I keep thinking about that Talking Heads song from two decades ago in which he sings about his beautiful car and his beautiful wife...and know that we always already knew all this. The money and the things are not who we are. Look at people who had it all, and when they are no longer with us, it becomes evident that all that mattered was who they touched, moved, left behind...the human side.

Why can't we bring the human side into all of our relationships in the future, even that one we have with money? If we thought more about how we spend and earn and invest touches others, perhaps we could actually make those changes we need to make in this world. Why keep arguing about global warming when we all know we feel better when we can breathe clean air and eat food which actually tastes like something real? Porn will never satisfy us like true love does, and getting something for nothing means that, in the end, you are still left empty inside.

Not only was there no there there, even those of us who did stop and try to think through how to live a better life, were tempted, and gave in at times. It was so easy, so right there in front of us.

So let's stop the blaming and get on with the making it whole again. Stop the denial and look one another in the eyes and be honest with ourselves and those around us. No one is perfect. But we all have the ability to evolve.

Love is free. And it is all around you. And it is the only thing that lasts. So try it.