December 2008 Archives

Today is New Year's Eve, and unless you live in a city full of recovering alcoholics, teetotalers or Mormons, you're probably finalizing your plans for where, exactly, you'll settle in for a night of hard drinking.

Or maybe not. Perhaps you're past that, having realized long ago that getting smashed isn't worth the entire day you lose as a result. Perhaps you'll have a glass of Champagne at midnight and turn in, or do what I did a few years ago and turn in hours before midnight even strikes. (I have to admit it was pretty cool going to sleep and then waking up to a new year.)

Regardless of what you're doing tonight, most people will fit the first description. But here's a fact, albeit a tautological one: Being out and drunk on New Year's is only fun if you're drunk.

The reality is far less festive. Last year, I took a subway home at 1am and felt like I was in the worst nightclub on Earth. It was packed, it reeked of alcohol, and it was very well-lit. Drunk people were straddling their dates and making out on the seats. Vomit -- or something like it -- made its migratory way across the filthy floor of the train car, to which most people paid no mind at all. Remember, they were drunk.

Incidentally, a 13-year study by Columbia University found that nearly half of all subway deaths occur because of booze. It seems that liquid courage does not translate to real invincibility.

But back to last year's horrific trip home. I was sober, and I decided then that I hope to never again be in Midtown Manhattan on New Year's Eve. Tonight I will stay home, in Brooklyn, and plan to go for a 10-mile run first-thing tomorrow morning -- before 8am.

So, here's my question: Am I just an old, doddering man at 33, or does the tradition of drinking oneself stupid with millions of other people on a cold, January morning strike anyone else as just a little silly?

Or better yet, how about we work on a list of alternatives for ringing in the New Year.

I'll start it off: A 4-mile race in Central Park, the annual Emerald Nuts Midnight Run.

I realize I'm one of the few people this would appeal to, so if anyone else has some ideas, I'm all ears.

[Image: Fabolu for Wikimedia Commons]

As girls around the world play with their presents, most of them will surely have princess paraphernalia to play with and dream of Prince Charming to take them away to a castle far far away. Instead of popping those dreams, why not point out that princesses have real work to do and it's not just looking pretty?

Rania Al-Yassin became Princess Rania and then Queen Rania of Jordon and has consistently used her platform to help progress women and girls rights around the world and to breakdown stereotypes of Muslims. In November of 2008, Queen Rania became the first person to win the YouTube Visionary award:

The Queen serves as an inspiration and an example to all who are trying to find a way to make positive differences in this world with nothing more than a desire to fulfill a mission, a message -- and a camera.

Her acceptance video showcases her humor, but I prefer her video on what Arab women are up to:

Now that's using YouTube for much more than watching hamsters eating or dancing. If you could use YouTube in this manner, what topic would you tackle?

Just days before Christmas a pond wall broke away and allowed between 1.7 - 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash to flood an area 40 miles west of Knoxville, TN.

The TVA coal ash disaster will be the first big test for President-elect Obama's science and environmental teams. Even though we all know that there is much more than just hydrogen and oxygen in our water, the thought of known toxins being in our water, even at "acceptable" levels, is disturbing.

The Obama campaign and now administration has stood fast to the idea of "clean coal" as one way to greening our country's energy system. After this sludge, it may be hard to convince people that coal can be anything but dirty. While some people might have missed the news, you can't miss the "This is Reality" TV spots.

While science is about facts (welcome back facts, you had an eight year vacation!) public opinion does not always follow those facts. Issues like pollution, especially how clean our drinking water is will be filled with emotions. If the science does support "clean coal" technology as a path we should follow, it will take a well-crafted campaign to convince many of us of this fact.

There are many serious conflicts on the African continent that the incoming Obama administration will have to deal with, most notably in Zimbabwe, Somalia, the Congo and, of course, the Darfur crisis. Incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has done well on report cards by human rights groups on Darfur. Obama, likewise, has averaged an "A." But the that was when both Obama and Clinton were legislators in the Senate -- two votes out of 100. Now, as executives, both have the ability to maneuver the engine of American power to act; both now have no maneuvering room on the subject of genocide. Special envoys, in administrations prior, have been appointed to the many troubled regions in the past twenty years or so and their record, collectively, has thus far been dubious, especially on the issue of genocide.

As the incoming Obama foreign policy team begins to think in earnest about how to deal with some of the most pressing conflicts around the world, it should probably rethink the role of "special envoys" entirely. At a December 16 meeting of the Heritage Foundation featuring Andrew Natsios, a former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bush Administration's special envoy to Sudan and Walter Kansteiner, a former assistant secretary for African affairs at the U.S. Department of State both speakers agreed that special envoys don't work. History will clearly judge the lack of response to the genocide in Darfur by the Bush administration, but both speakers' point on special envoys should be taken seriously by the incoming Obama administration which, no doubt, will have Africa higher on their radars than either the Bush or previous Clinton administrations.

Will the new Obama foreign policy team signal real change on U.S. response to genocide? Natsios argued that special envoys don't work because, in reporting directly to the president, they are competing with various bureaucracy heads for face-time. Natsios argues that for an effective response to a trouble spot in a region not directly affecting American security, a deputy assistant secretary of state -- for that specific conflict, i.e., Congo -- should be given an ambassadorial rank. That position (a "DAS" in foreign policy parlance), just below an assistant secretary of state in rank, would be far more effective than a special envoy. It would be a sea change if the era of a special envoy ornamenting an administration but doing little with regards to actual change should come to an end.

[Image: Nebraska Department of Education]

Let's face it: we're all a little vain. We want to look our best, and in our culture, that means looking young and vital for as long as we can. But not in the Botoxed, nipped and tucked, plasticized way that's forever embalmed a few celebrity fossils whom I won't name. Since real youth is natural, shouldn't we be able to sustain it naturally?

Yes, and the holiday season is a great time to start. Not only because of New Year's resolutions, which most people never keep anyway, but, ironically, because of all the food -- both savory and sweet -- we tend to consume. (It may be a little late for this advice this year, but you can always keep it in mind for 2009.)

Dr. Eric Braverman, for his column on the Huffington Post, suggests a simple antidote: use a lot of herbs and spices in all those roasts, turkeys, glazed cookies, and cakes. Below is Dr. Braverman's annotated list of 20 household ingredients that are commonly used during these latter days of the year.

Never before has my father's method of making pumpkin pie -- dump in as much cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves as you want -- been more vindicated.

• rosemary and basil for their anti-inflammatory power
• cumin and sage for their dementia-fighting power
• cayenne and cinnamon for their obesity-fighting power
• coriander and cinnamon for their sugar regulating powers
• lemon grass, nutmeg, bay leaves and saffron for their calming effects on your mood
• turmeric for its cancer fighting power
• oregano for its fungus-beating power
• garlic, mustard seed and chicory for their heart-pumping power
• basil and thyme for their skin-saving power
• turmeric, basil, cinnamon, thyme, saffron, and ginger for their immune-boosting power
• coriander, rosemary, cayenne, allspice and black pepper for their depression-busting power

[Image: Fagles for Wikimedia Commons]

From all of us at Kenneth Cole Productions, here's wishing you a Happy Holidays!

On FOX News last Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Vice President Cheney a simple, straightforward question, and got an answer that must have surprised even him and the whole FOX team.

"What was the highest moment of the last eight years?" Wallace asked.

Cheney pondered the question for a few moments, and apparently drew a blank, so he reconfigured the question altogether.

"I think the most important, the most compelling, was 9/11 itself, and what that entailed and what we had to deal with," he said.

Wallace, to his credit, quickly saved Cheney from looking like a complete monster by putting a few redeeming words in the VP's mouth: "And I assume that's also your lowest moment," he said.

"Sure, yeah," replied Cheney.

(It should be noted that in its transcript of the interview, FOX changed the wording of Wallace's follow up to "Can I add, sir, that it was also your lowest moment?" perhaps to make Wallace appear less presumptuous and more respectful to Cheney.)

Cheney's answer is remarkable not because he described 9/11 as compelling and important, but because he couldn't think of anything positive to say when asked for the "highest moment," and his mind jumped immediately to one of the darkest, most wounding events this country has ever experienced. Is it a glimpse into the darkness of Cheney's mind itself? It would certainly seem so.

When people refer to "Professor Chomsky" they're usually talking about the linguist-cum-political activist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky.

But his wife, Carol, who died on Friday at age 78, was no small potato in the academic world herself. A professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education from 1972 until her retirement in 1997, Professor Chomsky was more of a pragmatist than her highly theoretical husband. She did pioneering research on how children develop a tacit understanding of the meaning in complex sentences, and their ability to extract that meaning from increasingly complicated syntaxes as they grow older.

The theory is similar to her husband's theory of "deep structure" -- the notion that all language contains a basic, "deep" structure that allows a child to discern the same essential message in sentences that say the same thing, but are constructed differently. Carol Chomsky further posited that children continue to develop their relationship with language far beyond the age of five, the age that previous linguists said a child's syntactical understanding is complete.

Professor Chomsky's later research focused on children's reading comprehension and ability. In the late 1970s, she developed a technique that we still use today for helping struggling readers improve their reading fluency. Students would silently read a passage while a tape recording of the passage played along, repeating the process until they could read the text fluently and on their own.

But perhaps the most striking thing about Professor Carol Chomsky's career is that it probably would have never happened had it not been for the Vietnam War and her husband's activism against it. As a couple (they'd known each other since childhood, and married while still in college), they decided their path together. When Noam began speaking out against Vietnam, they figured he might wind up in jail and she would have to be the breadwinner. So she returned to school and finished her own PhD in linguistics, at Harvard, in 1968.

This, of course, was on the cusp of the feminist movement, and there was little precedent for wives with children returning to school and earning doctoral degrees. That she not only received the degree, but went on to make some major contributions to the fields of psychology, education and linguistics proves that she made the right choice, no matter the reason.

Children often define themselves by math and science: those who jibe with it, and those who don't. As a kid, I fell into the latter camp. I thought of myself as an artistic type, and in high school, I took pride in my ability to pass math and science courses by writing solid essays on scientific principles. When it came to the experiments and problems themselves, I relied on my much more science-savvy lab partners.

As I got older, my interest in math and science remained in the realm of theory. I grew to love the ideas, but I was still terrified of anything too hands-on. When I was in college, I took a course on Kurt Gödel's "incompleteness theorem" -- a 77-year-old proof establishing the necessary incompleteness of any formal system -- which could be used to fulfill either a math or humanities distribution. Thus the class had two camps: math majors squeezing in their one humanities course, and people like me, trying to satisfy the math requirement.

President-elect Obama seems determined to close that divide, or at least bridge it with his new science team. Most news on the team, which was announced this weekend, has focused on how they will work to help disease, the environment and slow global warming. But read between the lines, and you'll notice a deeper, systemic intention as well. He emphasizes the highest purpose of science: "The search for knowledge, truth, and a greater understanding of the world around us."

In other words, it all comes down to education.

When I first spoke to my freshman year college roommate, Paul, a kid from a small town in southern Minnesota, he told me he intended to go for pre-law. On the phone, Paul had a thick Minnesota accent, and said he was raised on a farm. I was looking forward to meeting this rural, salt-of-the-earth chap, and expected a young man with determination and pluck.

Paul turned out to be a 220-pound, 5' 6" Asian man (adopted) who drove a gargantuan Dodge pick-up truck. And it turned out he said pre-law because he wanted to be a cop, and to him that made sense. I don't think he knew what pre-law meant, or what a lawyer even does.

Within days he'd turned our shared living space into a small home theater. Paul, who soon became known as "Woody" for his knack at assembling futons, proceeded to spend the fall semester on one of those futons in front of his 36" television, eating potato chips and watching the TV show "Cops." This is when I realized the origin of his professional aspirations.

"Oh, man, that'd be the life," he'd muse as he watched the show. "Going into a room, bullets flying everywhere, not knowin' if you'll come out alive..."

And he was serious. Woody wanted to be a cop because he loved to watch "Cops." He thought it would be an exciting, action-filled life. One with daily opportunities to be a hero, or at least powerful.

By the end of the fall term, he was on academic probation, and by the end of our freshman year, he was asked to eat chips and watch TV elsewhere.

I don't know what became of Woody, but he was the first person I'd ever met who had overtly based his dreams on a sensationalistic TV show that glamorized the legally armed, ready-to-fire-if-necessary life. And it backfired.

The US Army, meanwhile, has opened an "educational" facility north of Philadelphia where kids as young as 13 can shoot (virtual) guns, kill (virtual) people, and generally experience all the action of being a real-life soldier.

The Army Experience bills itself as a "state-of-the-art educational facility that uses interactive simulations and online learning programs to educate visitors about the many careers, training and educational opportunities available in the Army."

But as Penny Coleman, of AlterNet writes, "Nonsense. The only thing they're teaching here is how to blow shit up. If it's state-of-the-art anything, it's state-of-the-art adolescent boys' wet dreams."

The 14,000 square-foot, $12 million facility, located in Franklin Hills Mall (a shopping mall!), the Army Experience offers Xbox 360 pods, individual gaming stations, an AH-64 Apache, a Black Hawk helicopter, and a Humvee (simulators) -- all free of charge.

According to the facility's staff, the Experience is meant to offer young people the chance to learn all aspects of life in the army. But how many 13-year-olds do you think are using the "Career Navigator" function on the touch-screen monitors, which describes the many jobs one can train for in the US military? Unless their parents are making them, probably none. They're bee-lining for the totally awesome toys that look, feel and function as anything but.

Yes, the Army needs to recruit cadets. We can't have a functioning society without a military -- at least not yet. But I wonder: isn't this tactic just a little bit manipulative?

Back in 1993, Woody couldn't discern the fiction of his favorite show from the reality of being a cop. And that was just TV. What of the kids raised on fantasy parks like this?

[Image: Carrie McLeroy (SMC - Army News Service)]

My third favorite season of all (behind baseball and summer) is here! Baking season. Yes, I was inspired to write about baking season by my fellow AWEARNESS blogger Robert.

Honestly, I can bake anytime of the year and do, but as soon as Thanksgiving flies by I feel the need to bake all day long until the New Year! As a kid my fondest memories of this season are of my mom, my two younger sisters & me baking dozens and dozens of cookies for friends and ourselves over the course of a weekend. Double and triple batches of sugar cookies, press cookies, and those peanut butter cookies with a Hersey kiss on top. Mmm... One year my younger sister made a new cookie -- the chocolate covered cherry chocolate cookie -- and I took them to school to share. Oh, boy was I in trouble! I still owe her a batch.

I use the recipe my mom used, which she got in a cookbook when she was maybe 7, for the sugar cookies. This week I made mini red velvet cupcakes for a work event. My new favorite part of the season is the Food Network's 12 Days of Cookies. Oh...my...gawd...12 days of new cookie recipes. I always save the recipes, but somehow the old standards always elbow their way to the front of my to-bake-pile.

If you have a favorite recipe, please share it with us! Especially if you have a link to it. I need to block out a day soon to bake like a madwoman. I just hope my little hand mixer can handle the work.

[Image: Food Network]

I watched them put Mr. Monroe in an ambulance and James climbed in beside him. This is significant because Mr. Monroe and James are homeless and there is nobody else watching. Mr. Monroe walked the streets at the feet of buildings where studios are no less than $2,000/month and condominiums are no less than a million to buy. He died looking up at the scaffolding that was helping to build a better quality of life. I watched the red and blue lights flashing, holding my Subway sandwich, wishing that I had given him another one and maybe Mr. Monroe would have made it; but I knew it wasn't poverty that drove him here but instead the death of his wife -- he had lost his best friend. He couldn't go home because he hated to see her clothes.  He lost his job in Long Island while trying to cope, and slowly he was losing his hope until one Monday night at 12:30am his cane gave way and he closed his eyes so that he could see her all the time. I ran to Duane Reade to get a card for James. I quickly scribbled peace-filled scripture and sprinted back out into the street. The ambulance was gone and so were James and Mr. Monroe. This card is in my pocket and will be there until I can deliver it. 



On November 22, 2008, 150 students from Columbia, NYU, Baruch, Stuyvescent and more, all involved in the New York City Urban Project, gathered to bring kindness to the darkest corners of Manhattan -- the nooks at Port Authority, the benches at Grand Central, passages at 168th, chairs at Union square and all avenues and cross-streets in between. Not only to bring more than 500 meals but also food for the spirit. Jesus said in Luke 4, "Man shall not live by bread alone," and it is true that we are in need of so much more than a good appetizer and an entree. Humanity longs to be noticed and known to be significant and it's a reality that we are known by our Creator but true joy exists in relationship -- friends, family, romantic. 



We may not drop a dollar in James' cup on 93rd or give a quarter to Thelma looking up at the board at the Long Island Railroad with no train to catch; but the least that we can do is notice them so that they don't die alone. A "hello" or a bagel can go a long way with the Lazarus that is sitting at all of our gates. The question is not our a lack of opportunity but our willingness to take it and reinforce the humanity of those who need to have their dreams freed again.

It's a topic you will encounter in Philosophy 101 - The tough case. Sure you can have your beliefs, but what happens when you have to put them to the test?

The death penalty is the biggest moral test for me. I have opposed the death penalty for as long as I can remember. I spent my high school years putting up Amnesty International posters and explaining to classmates why I support abortion rights but not the death penalty. Three recent cases put my beliefs to the test:

1. Three men were killed for throwing acid on girls in India (warning: graphic photo)


2. An Iranian stalker to be blinded for blinding woman


3. Brian G. Nichols escaped the death penalty despite being found guilty of murder spree

What do we do with men so fraught with hatred for women that they toss acid in their faces? For years nothing has happened to them, it was tradition, the women lived, on and on the excuses went. So now we have them being shot or blinded themselves? Is this justice?

And lastly we have Georgia, which wants to make it easier to use the death penalty:

"Unfortunately, you have people who say they're willing to consider the death penalty, but when they get on a jury, it becomes clear that they're actually death penalty opponents," said Representative Barry A. Fleming, a Harlem Republican who twice sponsored efforts to revoke the unanimity requirement.

While there must be people who lie to get on juries to do just as Fleming is claiming, I also believe that there are people who firmly believe in the death penalty and then go through the trial, find the defendant guilty, but also a human being. Perhaps it is harder than one believes to sentence someone to death no matter how horrible the crime.

In all my years of being anti-death penalty people always give me a hypothetical -- what if someone raped and murdered someone I love? Now that I'm a mom, I do give this great thought more than I care to discuss. But in the end, it's a hypothetical... I'll never know what I'd really think until I'm in a situation of passing judgment.

[Image: Kimberly Smith/New York Times]

On April 27, 2007 Estonians, in retaliation for removing a bronze statue of a World War II-era Soviet soldier, faced data floods from digital intruders allegedly from Russia. On that day national security situations, as we previously knew them, had reached a tipping point. Cyberattack, and the issue of cyber protection, is now on our radar at the presidential level. Add Newsweek's startling post-election report that both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity" -- Russia? China? -- has brought bipartisan attention to the gap in policy thinking about all things cyber at the cabinet level. "It would be very difficult to find people on the other side of the aisle to oppose this," TechRepublican blogger David Kralik, director of Internet strategy American Solutions for Winning the Future, told Fox News.

Enter: Technology Czar. The news that Obama may appoint a technology czar is one sign that the times are changing politically. On Change.gov, President-elect Obama's website promises to "appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure the safety of our networks and lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices."

Silicon Alley veteran Andrew Rasiej, who unsuccessfully ran for Public Advocate in 2005 (full disclosure: Rasiej advertised his campaign on my website) and Micah L. Sifry have written a thoughtful essay on Politico last week about the mandates that the nation's first CTO should follow. Among the names being bandied about the beltway for this position are Bill Gates, former vice president and Current TV founder Al Gore, Julius Genachowski (who helped draft Obama's tech platform), former FCC chairman and information industry advisor Reed Hundt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy, Google Vice President and so-called "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Rasiej himself, who has publicly said that he does not think he would be qualified for such a position, that it should go to someone with more of an IT background. Larry Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons and newly-minted Harvard faculty member, has also been mentioned but has said that he is not interested in the position.

Who do you think would make a good cyber czar?

[Image:Dow]

The next time you're at a nice Italian restaurant and the waiter asks if you'd like fresh grated parmigiano, thank the Italian government. In a move strikingly reminiscent of a another situation closer to home, the Italian government is attempting to rescue an industry that makes one of that country's most beloved products.

Faced with production costs that far outweigh retail costs, parmigiano makers in northern Italy, surrounding the small city of Parma, are struggling to keep up with the demand from restaurateurs, grocers and pretty much every other red-blooded Italian from the Alps on down to Sicily for affordable cheese -- to say nothing of the international market, which accounts for almost a quarter of overall parmigiano sales.

Many are instead buying Grana Padano, which resembles parmigiano but is much cheaper to produce. As a result, small-batch parmigiano producers are losing money and may have to shut down. The result? Nothing short of a national identity crisis.

So the government has bought 100,000 wheels of parm, each weighing in at 77 pounds. The government also bought 100,000 wheels of Grana Padano, bringing the total cost of the bailout to $65 million, reports NPR. (The WSJ says $50 million, but who's counting?)

With all that cheese, the Italian government could really clean up and save the industry at the same time. Instead, it's all going to charity.

Here's a short video from the Wall Street Journal on the attempt to rescue what just might be my favorite cheese:

[Image: Jon Sullivan for Wikimedia Commons]

Everyone in their mid-30s knows who Adam Walsh was if they grew up in the USA. He was our generation's boogie man of sorts.

On July 27, 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh and his mother Revé went to a department store about a mile away from their home to shop for lamps. When they entered the store Adam saw several children playing video games on a television monitor and asked if he could stay to play. His mother let him stay and went to the lamp department, which was about 75 feet away. Because the lamp she wanted was not in stock she returned rather quickly, less than 10 minutes later, but couldn't find Adam. After looking for Adam on her own for two hours, someone finally called the local police department. By the end of that week thousands of fliers with Adam's photograph were distributed through the local area. Sixteen days after Adam disappeared from the store his body was found and identified. [source]

It took 27 years for Adam's case to be closed. On Tuesday police in Hollywood, Florida announced that they were confident that a serial murderer who died over a decade ago had indeed killed Adam Walsh.

Adam's death changed this country forever and, as the cliché goes, "for the better." Two years after Adam was kidnapped and murdered, a TV movie was made and my mom made me watch it. Many of my friends were also told to watch the movie. It was our parents way of telling us to stay close by when we were shopping, that evil was lurking in the department store, and announced that for an entire country we had a new way of dealing with missing children. I can still hear JoBeth Williams scream when I take my 5-year-old daughter to the mall on my own.

In 1984 the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children opened its doors. It is hard to remember a time when we didn't have missing child alerts on the news, on milk cartons, or in our neighborhood fliers, much less a national database of missing children. More than 121,000 children [PDF] have been recovered since 1984. NCMEC is now in charge of the Amber Alert system.

In 1988 Adam's dad, John Walsh, took the airwaves with his own TV show about missing children and people wanted in connection to other crimes. "America's Most Wanted" was born. AMW marked its first capture just four days after the first show aired, as the FBI announced the arrest of one of its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, David James Roberts, in New York, as a direct result of viewer tips. The quickest capture took a mere 29 minutes after a segment aired.

John Walsh also is a contributor to the AWEARNESS Book.

With the closing of the Adam Walsh case, his family can now be left in peace. No more questions if the murderer is still out there lurking behind the next corner. I've always been in awe of John Walsh and how his anger and pain has propelled him to do so much good in this world. It's comforting to know he is out there fighting like that. It's almost like we have our own superhero who is always on the case.

I've spent the last month traveling on a book tour to promote, Awearness: Inspiring Stories about How to Make a Difference, sharing its core message of service and volunteerism. When we started the project over a year ago, we knew it was an important message to share and that it was certainly relevant, but we had no idea of its prescience for this holiday season.  Times are tough for everyone and the economic repercussions are possibly being felt the hardest by those who can afford it least, philanthropies.

The holidays are always a time of reflection and celebration, a time to spend with family and friends. Usually, we share our gratitude through the giving of gifts, and although this is not a bad thing, it's hard sometimes not to get caught up in the commercialization of the season (my company being a beneficiary of such). But this year, many will be challenged to express their feelings for others in non-material ways.

Though this may seem tougher than finding a good parking spot at the mall right now, it is not as hard as it seems.  Since I have been on my "Awearness" Book tour, I continue to meet more individuals and hear more stories as to how one can give, in more substantive ways, without spending money they may not have.

Although buying gifts for friends and family is always appreciated, there are many creative ways to donate your time, creativity, or a myriad of other resources. Volunteer yourself, or better yet, set up some time to volunteer with your loved ones. I guarantee next year, you will remember what you got each other last year. This is also a great way for families to spend time together. Of course, if it is easier and possible you could also write a check in a friends name to your or their favorite cause. The best part is presents of this sort guarantee no re-gifting or returning for the right size!

At last count, there were over 1.1 million charities in the US alone.  Finding one that suits you may seem as daunting as cooking a holiday meal for ten in a studio apartment. Goods news, part of the rollout of Awearness included a partnership with Volunteer Match, a service dedicated to helping people find the right volunteer fit in their area. Within three clicks, you can have a variety of volunteer choices. Go to www.awearness.com and click on "volunteer now," simply enter your zip code and interests area and wide range of opportunities will populate for your area.

For instance, if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, zip code 20500, you have 1,199 volunteer opportunities from which to choose. My new friend and the inspirational leader, Reverend Cecil Williams from Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, zip code 94102, has 1,437 choices. Our friends at Sundance in Park City, Utah with a small population of 31,000 people have 136 volunteer opportunities. And my colleagues at Kenneth Cole Productions have 1,694... I think you get the gist.

For even more opportunities and inspiration pick up the book Awearness. Not only is it a great gift idea, but it is also full of tips, resources and heroic stories from everyday people and celebrities alike who have chosen to make a difference in this world. And just to let you know this is not just a shameless plug for the book, all proceeds from its sale are going to the AWEARNESS Fund - a not-for-profit entity that supports, encourages and empowers acts of service, volunteerism and social change. So, by just buying the book you are already giving back. In tough economic times like these it is important for us all to be resourceful and giving the gift or your time is certainly a great way to save money and feel great doing it.

Happy Holidays.

At midcentury, Dr. Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, both of the intellectually rigorous University of Chicago, spearheaded a visionary campaign to codify "The Great Books of Western Civilization." Alex Beam's new book A Great Idea at the Time chronicles that idealistic and hugely American project. What are the Great Books of Western Civilization? They are the 443 "exemplary works" -- originally an even 100 -- that are, from the perspective of the West, books that have proved most influential on future generations. The North African Bishop and proto-psychologist St. Augustine sits, among the Great Authors, side by side on the bookshelf with Charles Darwin, whose theory of natural selection is one of the cornerstones of modern biology. Plato, Virginia Woolf, Galileo, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Hobbes, the Church Fathers of the Bible, John Maynard Keynes, Marx and Adam Smith are among the other Great Authors, whose mistakes and insights from which we could all -- citizens of the West and citizens of the East alike -- learn.

Once upon a time, before college majors and specialization catering to the lowering attention spans of the American student, upperclassmen -- in America and abroad -- studied a wide array of authors in their original texts outside of their particular disciplines. John Stuart Mill, another Great Author, in his inaugural address in 1867 upon being installed as the rector of St. Andrews University, argued, "Universities are not places of professional education; they are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make skillful lawyers or physicians or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings."

While it is magnificent that authors like Ralph Ellison and Marie Curie are accorded the intellectual seriousness that they would have not enjoyed in previous generations, one wonders if the growing focus on ethnicity and gender in academia has subtracted from -- and is there a correlation? -- the validity of authors whose privileged racial status afforded them the luxury to deal in philosophical absolutes, like the concepts of Love and Beauty and Good and Evil. The late Alan Bloom, a proponent of The Great Books, argued that much of the antagonisms of gender and race based educational models and the classical liberal arts model has to do with the culture wars of the 1960s. Can The Invisible Man and The Brothers Karamazov coexist on the same bookshelf?

Aspects of The Great Books Program are still available, in some form or other, at schools like the University of Notre Dame, Pepperdine University and Columbia. But in its purest form the Great Books curriculum -- of primary source texts, involving philosophical ideas, argued over Socratically -- is studied pretty much only at places like St. John's College, Thomas Aquinas College, and Shimer College in Illinois. From The New York Times Review of Books' reading of Beam's A Great Idea at the Time:

What happened to the Great Books? New media such as fast-paced television and bursts of information on the Web trump trudging through hard original texts. Social media and user-generated content are at odds with putting our trust in the judgment of even a Hutchins or Adler.

Still, a recent check of the Strand bookstore in New York City turned up several used sets of the Great Books for sale. Asked if they were popular, a young woman behind the cash register told me, "They're a very popular holiday item. I really don't know for whom." Maybe, as the advertisements said, for the next vice president or chairman of the board.

Incidentally, St. Johns College has a graduate program in The Great Books of the Eastern World, including the Analects of Confucius and the Upanishads. It has always been a dream of mine one day to read and help classify some of The Great Books of Africa presently being rescued by archaeologists from the ancient library at Timbuktu. Truly Great Books, while specific to locations and time periods, speak to our humanity and thus belong to us all.

[Image: BayArea]

When Barack Obama moves his family into the White House next year it will be a collision for the history books.

The first child born at the White House was the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. The second child born there was his property _ the African-American baby of Jefferson's two slaves. [source]

During the campaign much was made of the president-elect not being "of slave" blood — in other words, he wasn't black enough for some. Yet I have not seen anyone say that of our future First Lady and by extension the girls. Thus the convergence of our first black (biracial) President and our country's long history of slavery is one that must be paid attention. This AP article on the history of slaves and free Black men working at the White House is moving. "89-year-old William Bowen Jr., a second-generation White House butler who worked for Presidents Dwight Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush..." is considering coming out of retirement to work for the Obama family.

I've stood outside the White House many times and have even been on the tour during the Clinton administration. When I think of the White House I have pride in our democracy despite its flaws. I rarely reflect on the fact that the heart of our democracy was built by slaves, by human beings deprived of their freedom, of their ability to participate in democracy. This isn't about guilt, but about the fact that we still have tangible remnants of slavery and we shouldn't act as if they don't exist. What this means is that we need to acknowledge that we can be anti-racist, yet still see each others different hues and backgrounds. We listen to the whispers from the ghosts around us who prod us to not repeat their mistakes.

The Obama administration ushers in a new phase of American politics in more ways than we can imagine.

[Image: Daniel Schwen for Wikimedia Commons]

At a news conference during a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday, President George W. Bush showed incredible reflexes in dodging shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist.

In the middle of the news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," and threw one of his shoes at the president's head. As he threw his other shoe, Zaidi said, "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq." He was tackled and dragged out of the room right after his second throw. Bush managed to duck both shoes -- especially surprising on the first one, considering how quickly it came flying at his head.

While chucking something at someone's head is a pretty clear message in any culture, hitting someone or throwing a shoe at them is a serious insult in Middle Eastern cultures, dating as far back as the Old Testament. According to Middle East expert Benjamin MacQueen of Melbourne University,

In more strictly cultural terms, the shoe is representative of the foot, the lowest part of the human body. It is a sign of respect in Arab culture (and, many other cultures) that one does not show the sole of one's foot or shoe to another. To do so can be taken as a sign that you consider that person of being beneath you. This is analogous to the practice in many cultures of leaving your shoes outside before entering a home or religious/sacred place.

The insult of the shoe can also be seen through some rather creative forms of verbal insult. For instance, whether at a football game, driving through the streets of Beirut or Cairo, or in the rather entertaining television debates on regional satellite TV, using phrases such as inta kundara (you are a shoe) or ibn al-kundara (son of a shoe) sit at the high end of insults, and are not to be taken lightly (i.e. don't say it unless you really mean it, and are ready for a reaction).

You may recall images of Iraqis beating fallen statues of Saddam Hussein with their shoes during the second Gulf War. Interesting to now see the same insult hurled -- literally -- at the great "liberator."

The BBC has another video that includes multiple angles and part of the press conference post-incident. And here's a blog post by the only American journalist present, Modesto Bee reporter Adam Ashton.

While working at Kenneth Cole, free accessories or clothes often present themselves. A couple days ago I was tossed a pair of black leather, current season, cashmere lined, men's gloves, which retail at $80. Although these gloves would be an upgrade, the gloves I have already make my hands look and feel pretty good when yanking old man winter's beard. So instead of seizing the pair of smooth leather gloves, I created a mini-auction to showcase them alongside cute mugs fellow Hunger Action members are selling today as Christmas presents. Considering the auction would raise money for a local soup kitchen/pantry, I don't think it should be that hard to sell the gloves for their retail price.

For a broader relevance, tune into what clothes in your closet you wear and what items you avoid and take action accordingly. Maybe that coat drive is coming up, or down to the consignment shop you might run. The worst thing you can do is pity some of your clothes so much as to force yourself to wear something you would rather not. Something you pity, someone else might adore. Leaving clothes hanging creates injustice, not just because you never called to say you weren't coming, but because the clothes are barred from doing good for another or looking good on another.

New research at the University of California at Berkeley suggests that there are major physical differences between the brains of rich and poor children. Poor children, the scientists report, often have the prefrontal cortex of an adult who's suffered a stroke.

The study was conducted using EEG scans, and the results corroborate what previous studies have shown regarding the relationship between socio-economics and cognitive ability. But according to Mark Kishiyama, co-author of the new study, "those studies were only indirect measures of brain function and could not disentangle the effects of intelligence, language proficiency and other factors that tend to be associated with low socioeconomic status," he says in the study's press release. "[Ours] is the first with direct measure of brain activity where there is no issue of task complexity."

Co-author W. Thomas Boyce, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of public health, is not surprised by the results. "We know kids growing up in resource-poor environments have more trouble with the kinds of behavioral control that the prefrontal cortex is involved in regulating," he says in the release. "But the fact that we see functional differences in prefrontal cortex response in lower socioeconomic status kids is definitive."

The children in the study were not affected by drugs or alcohol while in the womb.

The scientists suggest that growing up in households without books, where conversation takes a backseat to watching television, and a lack of cultural awareness through visits to museums and other educational institutions all contribute to the poor development of the prefrontal cortex. By the time children are just four years old, the researchers say, those from well-off backgrounds have 30 million more words at their disposal than poorer children.

But the Berkeley team is also quick to point out that none of this means a poor child cannot have as much cognitive ability as a rich child, or that all poor children grow up in homes without intellectual stimulation. Such homes, however, are the exception, and not the rule. Moreover, they say having an under-developed prefrontal cortex is not "a life sentence," and through proper training both physiological and behavioral changes can be made.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

This often happens when a new president is elected. We get a new guy in the White House and he needs to fill his Cabinet. Who gets selected? Other elected officials. So far the most interesting races that have come from appointments come from Obama, Emanuel and Clinton's ascensions.

First "Rahmbo" or Rep. Emanuel who represents Illinois' 5th district in Chicago. An open seat in Chicago is like having a winning ticket for the lottery. The trick is actually getting that winning ticket. A glut of candidates have stepped forward and include "at least six aldermen." The line for this seat is almost as long as the line for free turkeys on Thanksgiving. Once the election is set, it'll be fast and furious. If you're not in Chicago, grab some popcorn and follow along online. It should be a good show.

Next up is the Senate seat that Hillary Clinton currently holds. The PACs for Feminist Majority and NOW have endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney. OK yes, technically this isn't an election where voters will line up and cast ballots, but it's a campaign to say the least. Also throwing her hat in the ring is Caroline Kennedy. She's being endorsed by the Kennedy clan, including her ailing uncle Senator Ted Kennedy, who joined her in endorsing President-elect Obama's campaign very early. Will experience or dynasty win this campaign? Stay tuned!

And the now biggest race and most, um, interesting is the race for the open seat left by Obama. *sigh*

Monday we had a five-person campaign, including the Illinois attorney general, two US Representatives, Obama's mentor and a former Iraq War vet. Tuesday US District Attorney Fitzgerald blew all of that to bits with his arrest of Illinois' governor. We honestly do not know what is going to happen to this seat and it is a shame for Illinois. So one of the following will happen:

• Blago will try to name someone to the seat, but the US Senate has already told him that whomever he appoints won't be seated;
• Blago could step aside (stays governor, no powers) or down and allow Lt. Gov. Quinn to name a new Senator;
• Blago does the above and Illinois General Assembly passes a bill that calls for a special election to pick the next Senator;
• Blago is impeached and then there is a special election.

As a taxpayer I am hoping that the governor will spare us, resign and Lt. Gov. Quinn will name a new senator. A special election could cost Illinois up to $31 million. The GOP, who were a beaten bloody pulp until Tuesday, are licking their chops at the thought that they might be able to snatch up this Democratic seat.

Careful readers will notice that in one post, there is a possibility for two special elections in Illinois. What are the odds that they won't happen on the same day?

Ah, politics... how does CSPAN make you look so boring?

[Image: Fox News]

"Mercy" -- which is an important part of Islam -- is also an ad campaign in Saudi Arabia. The ads argue with arresting imagery for the better treatment of Saudi Arabia's ubiquitous domestic workers and were created by Fullstop, an advertising agency in the birthplace of Islam. The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) and the MBC-owned Al Arabiyya TV are running three television ads. Above is an image that has run in Saudi Arabian newspapers.

The reason for the ads is, in part, the Human Rights Watch report in July "As If I Am Not Human." The scathing 133 page report on the second class citizenship status was based on 142 interviews and caused the kingdom's great embarrassment. Saudi households employ roughly 1.5 million domestic workers, primarily from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Nepal.

[Image: CSMonitor]

Last week, I was bereft. I hadn't slept well two nights in a row, and after the second, I needed help. I even wrote a post about it, pleading for advice on how to treat insomnia.

Just a few days later, Miller-McCune published a piece that may have helped me devise a way to rest, but it might have kept me awake, too. Sleep, the article states, may be a lot more important than we realize.

While scientists don't know exactly why we need sleep, they're getting closer to understanding what sleep does, and even more importantly, the damage that a lack of sleep can cause. Even a single night of lost sleep can cause the body to turn on healthy tissue, which can lead to cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, arthritis, diabetes and some autoimmune disorders. It doesn't help that 10-15 percent of the population suffers from chronic insomnia, according to the American Insomnia Association.

Of specific concern to me is the effect sleep apparently has on our ability to think of words. Sleep deprivation dampens activity in the prefrontal cortex, which compromises our verbal fluency. (This may be why my insomnia post was so short.)

Fortunately, Miller-McCune's mission is to first describe scientific research, and then offer practical solutions that might be applied to the problem. In the case of insomnia, the article's author, Michael Haederle, suggests taking a warm bath a few hours before bed. This, he writes, dissipates heat and normalizes your core temperature. Bright lights in the evening and morning hours can also be used to reset your body clock, making it easier to maintain routine bed times, another key to fighting insomnia and insufficient shut-eye.

I'm glad I read this article now and not last week. The fear of developing cancer from lying awake all night would no doubt have precluded the few hours of rest I eventually got. But at least I'll have a few more ideas of what to do if the sleep fairy once again forgets my address.

[Image: Heinz Albers from Wikimedia Commons, also available on photographer's website at heinzalbers.org]

Sixty years ago today, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed into law by members of the United Nations, thanks to the work of Eleanor Roosevelt, who served as the chairman of its drafting and supported the idea of making it a declaration instead of a treaty. Mrs. Roosevelt believed if it were a declaration, it would have the same impact worldwide that the Declaration of Independence has had on the United States.

Comprised of 30 articles guaranteeing each and every human being the rights we often take for granted in the United States, the UDHR revolutionized life for millions of people around the world. In dozens of countries, no longer were genital mutilation, torture, or unwarranted arrest tolerated. It allowed citizens of UN nations to marry and have families, own property, and seek asylum in other countries from persecution. It guaranteed freedom of speech and opinion, and the right to engage in public life. It stated that everyone should have access to education, employment, and unions to protect their interests.

Sixty years later, we have seen remarkable strides around the world, even if our own country has taken a few steps backward in the past eight years. But without the UDHR, we would doubtless be living in a much uglier world than we are now.

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge.

[Image: Eleanor Roosevelt at the UN with the UDHR, 1948]

Here is video of Kenneth's appearance on MSNBC's morning show, "Morning Joe," this morning.

Kenneth talked with Joe Scarborough and the rest of the "Morning Joe" team about the new AWEARNESS book and its advice on enacting meaningful social change.

Let me throw out a few names: Enron, Lehman Brothers, the Vietnam War, Richard M. Nixon, Oliver North, Arthur Anderson.

What do they have in common? Each conjures a negative association. Corporate corruption, political disgrace, massive chaos that could have been averted. And, to be fair, intelligence. Behind Enron, Lehman and Vietnam were brilliant minds. Nixon and North were no dummies. Yet the lingering effect of mentioning those names is regret and sometimes shame.

Frank Rich, the op/ed columnist for the New York Times, takes on this topic in a piece titled "The Brightest are Not Always the Best," arguing that Obama's staff has not been sufficiently tested by experience or tough questions from the media. He reminds us that even the expression "the best and the brightest" was coined by author David Halberstam, who used it as the title of a book on the "hubristic JFK team that would ultimately mire America in Vietnam." In other words, he meant it to be ironic.

We face a familiar situation today, he writes: a staff of brilliant people is descending on Washington, buying homes, and settling in for the bumpy ride ahead. Rich does not suggest that we're in for another Vietnam, because he believes that with Clinton as secretary of state and Robert Gates as secretary of defense, we'll see caution where once there was a misguided thirst for revenge.

No, Rich is worried about the economic team, namely Lawrence Summers as top economic adviser and Timothy Geithner, a nominee for Treasury secretary. Both are proteges of Robert Rubin, whose former acclaim as Treasury secretary in Bill Clinton's administration has been replaced by derision for his role in Citigroup's current mess. Rubin is a senior adviser and director at that teetering-on-bankruptcy institution now.

Halberstam, in his book, notes that for much of the JFK team, wisdom came after Vietnam, as Errol Morris' documentary Fog of War, which interrogates Robert S. MacNamara, the secretary of defense who led us into that quagmire in the first place, shows. But as the film implies, it was too little too late. The damage had been done, and we're still recovering from that war.

Fortunately, Obama seems to be a quick study. Rich notes that Rubin, who had appeared in a November 7th photo with the president-elect's economic team, has not appeared in any such photos since. And in the end, Obama chose Paul Volcker, an 81-year-old former chairman of the Fed, as the chairman of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Rich writes, "This was a presidential decision that was not only bright but wise."

[Image: Arthur Anderson witnesses at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce House of Representatives (107th Congress) hearing on January 24, 2002]

Kenneth will appear on MSNBC's morning show, "Morning Joe," Tuesday morning at 8:30am EDT, to talk about the new AWEARNESS book with former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough and the rest of the "Morning Joe" team. Tune in or grab the video podcast here!

Putin-era Russia has played the role of aggressor most willingly, most notably against Georgia. Similar to the paranoid Stalin days, there has been internal conflict with government and its agencies as well. Look back to the death of a prominent KGB agent. Putin may have been Time's Man of the Year in 2007 and he may seem as masculine as they get. Sometimes time goes on too long to let masculinity and authoritarian practices get out of hand. In the film Poisoned By Polonium, Putin is a silhouette of Rasputin, but instead of ingesting mass amounts of poison and living to write many fantasy stories about his experiences, he hands it out in goody bags.

"The agonizing death of former Russian security service agent Alexander Litvinenko from radioactive polonium-210 was one of the most bizarre international incidents since the end of the Cold War. In an extraordinary cinematic testament to his friend, Andrei Nekrasov reveals why Litvinenko may have been murdered and paints a dark and disturbing portrait of Putin-era Russia. Featuring interviews with Litvinenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in October 2006."

"Powerful and incendiary .... never less than compelling" -Bloomberg News

Poisened by Polonium airs Monday, Dec. 8, from 7pm to 9pm on the Sundance Channel.

I'll wager that you have a favorite sweater. It's probably not your most expensive, trendiest or even most flattering sweater. And it's most certainly not your newest. But it's your favorite nonetheless.

Now, let's say I threaten to take that sweater away from you. I'm not going to steal it. It will be mine legally, not because you never owned it in the first place, but because in this hypothetical world we're imagining, "ownership" is neither constant nor within our control. (Anyone with a mortgage will surely appreciate this point.) It's in constant flux, and now your favorite sweater is mine. Thanks!

Only I don't like the old rag that much, and feel no particular attachment to it. So I give it back to you, but tell you I'm likely to take it again. You're gripped with anxiety over when this might happen, and what else of yours I'll take at the same time. You start taking different routes to work, putting your clothes in locked trunks beneath your bed, and maybe even move to a new apartment. In short, you're afraid and you start acting irrationally to protect your possessions, and by extension, your sense of self.

This scenario, however hare-brained it may seem, illustrates what Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist, describes as the "endowment effect" and the effect that fear can have on a person's thinking. The "endowment effect" is the tendency we have to value our own possessions more than others value them, and when we fear losing them, Berns suggests that we also lose our ability to conceive of life without them and make rather screwy decisions in order to maintain our status quo.

So what's the point?

Threatened with economic collapse, and all the John Q. Publics out there losing money in their portfolios or, worse, their jobs, America is in the grips of fear. Collectively, we are panicking, and according to Berns, this is the worst reaction to have during a calamitous time for precisely the reasons illustrated by my silly tale about your sweater. Berns suggests that if only we could stop thinking about imminent doom, and turn our attention instead to new pursuits -- or new sweaters -- we'll be able to weather this storm and emerge not only intact, but better.

"Everyone I know is scared," Berns writes. "Workers' fear has generalized to their workplace and everything associated with work and money. We are caught in a spiral in which we are so scared of losing our jobs, or our savings, that fear overtakes our brains. And while fear is a deep-seated and adaptive evolutionary drive for self-preservation, it makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but saving our skin by getting out of the box intact."

"Ultimately, no good can come from this type of decision-making. Fear prompts retreat. It is the antipode to progress. Just when we need new ideas most, everyone is seized up in fear, trying to prevent losing what we have left."

Berns ends his piece on the New York Times yesterday by advising us all to stop thinking life -- or business -- will ever be the way it was, and to move on. Stop dwelling on the scary news about Wall Street, Main Street and Hank Paulson, and start living again. We might be surprised by what we'll accomplish during this "recession."

[Image Credit: Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock from Wikimedia Commons]

Kenneth appeared on "Good Morning America" on Nov. 20 to talk with Diane Sawyer about the new book AWEARNESS, the stories it contains and how important it is to get involved. You can watch the interview here.

Kenneth also appeared on the radio show "Good Morning America Now" on Nov. 23 -- video from that interview can be seen here.

Living in Chicago is like living in an experimental lab. We were one of the first cities to put a camera on a zillion corners and today we took the giant leap forward by privatizing our parking meters. We're also paying students in 20 Chicago Public Schools for getting good grades.

The pro side, which I am on, goes like this: Parents have been rewarding their kids for good grades for years, why deny that to inner city kids who are most likely helping with the family finances already? Rich kids get cars just for turning 16, why can't we give a poor student $50 for an A?

The con-side goes like this: They won't learn to love learningwith bribes . You're bribing them. Why can't all students get paid? Why target just poor (economic and academic) students?

I work with university students and I tell them each day that their job, right now, is to be a student. That's why we call them full-time students. During the four to six years they are on campus their #1 goal should be to get the best grades, an awesome experience, and create that much needed network they will need in the future. I've gone so far as to say there aren't socializing events when my students get together, but rather networking events. The woman next to you in chemistry? She might be on your hiring committee one day.

Because of my job's mission (to keep women in science & engineering majors) I have to talk to them about why they are majoring in biology over engineering or bioengineering over computer science. The top reasons I hear are their parents told them to or they think they can get a good job. And their parents tell them to major in X because of the job market. I get asked over and over, "But what can I really do with a biology degree besides teach or be a doctor?" It's all about the job at the end.

If people think that students in college today are there because they want to expand their mind, explore Shakespeare or have a well-rounded education... Forget about it. Yes, there are still students like that, but the students I get to interact with or eavesdrop on are in college to get a job. MONEY.

They aren't getting this idea from schools that are giving them money for an A. They are getting that idea from parents, TV, friends, nosy Uncle George and well, society in general. And really, it's not a bad thing. We all need money to pay the rent, eat, and all that survival stuff.

That said, I do counsel my students to pick a major that will lead them to a career they will enjoy. You don't major in computer science just because you know the market needs you. You do it because you bask in your geekiness for your love of programming. You don't become a doctor to get rich, because the paperwork will drive you crazy. You figure out what you love and then you figure out how you will make money.

The idea that as children we are learning to learn ends as soon as we (as a I parent and aunt, I've said this many times) learn, by hearing it or by action, that "You need to study hard to get into a good college to get a good job and have a home for your family."

So what do we do? Do we pay these kids for their good grades? Do we rework how our society rewards us so we can learn to learning sake?

The idea that we, the people, can shape the future of our world - to me, that is the most fascinating part about democracy. It is both a privilege and a responsibility.

Polling places, as a consequence, often reflect the special moment: The tension and satisfaction of citizens deciding on their government is palpable.

For Americans living abroad, the living room temporarily turns into a voting booth. By filling out the absentee ballot, we miss out on the collective experience, but we share the solemn feeling of voters throughout the States.

No one I know wants to talk about it, and when it does work its way into conversation, it's usually dismissed with an uncomfortable shrug, a scuffle of the feet, and a pensive glance at the floor. The topic, of course, is whether or not an earnest attempt will be made on President-elect Barack Obama's life.

Frankly, I think we should be talking about it, however difficult it may be to dim the optimism so many Americans have felt since Obama's election. Because if we talk about it, we're on the offensive. If we keep it out in the open as a possibility, and remain aware every day of the not-insignificant number of people out there who would like to see Obama gone, then we might be able to prevent the worst from happening.

Sure, the Secret Service is on constant alert, but they're only part of the equation. As Obama's campaign taught us, change and progress start close to home, in our own communities, workplaces and schools.

Let's not let someone like the people in this video from the American News Project escape our detection. One of us just might be able to stop one of them, or better yet, help them view the world through a less hateful lens.

Root canals are painful. Bill Gates is rich. Fox News is biased.

Duh.

Yet, however much we grow to expect conservative propaganda in the guise of "fair and balanced" journalism, Fox News tops itself time and again.

Take the network's review of Gus Van Sant's gorgeous, compelling new film Milk, a bio-pic on Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to be elected to an official government post when he became a city supervisor of San Francisco in 1978. Fox's take on the film omits what is arguably it's most essential detail: not Harvey Milk's sexual orientation, but his openness about it.

Milk believed that gay rights would only be achieved if all the gay men and women in America came out of the closet and stood up to prejudice with confidence and pride in who they were. He was right, and he died for it.

In this short video, Liberal Viewer analyzes Fox's omission and includes some archival audio recording of Mr. Milk himself on the importance of coming out.

I seriously could not write anything that comes close to the following list of bloggers for World AIDS Day. So grab a cuppa something and cozy on up to your computer screen.

• Can Obama help black America survive this plague?


• On World AIDS Day


• High Hopes Await Obama in HIV/AIDS Fight


• World AIDS Delay or Why We Really Need, and May Even Get, A National U.S. AIDS Strategy


• A global action: take back the tech


• World AIDS Day: 1988 - 2008


• Groundbreaking Radio Ads Launch on World AIDS Day about Condoms in Catholic and Latino Communities


• Latino AIDS cases in Deep South creating a health crisis for southern states

And while all of the above call for more action on stopping HIV/AIDS, you knew that someone would write something that says we're all wrong.

As World AIDS Day is marked today, some experts are growing more outspoken in complaining that AIDS is eating up funding at the expense of more pressing health needs.

They argue that the world has entered a post-AIDS era in which the disease's spread has largely been curbed in much of the world, Africa excepted.

''AIDS is a terrible humanitarian tragedy, but it's just one of many terrible humanitarian tragedies,'' said Jeremy Shiffman, who studies health spending at Syracuse University.

Please leave your favorite link from World AIDS Day in the comments! Thanks.

And not just because the president-elect looks ruggedly handsome in a Santa cap!

The best part of the recent Barack and Michelle conversation with Barbara Walters was the future First Family's affirmation of Santa Claus. [@ 3:55]

BW: Do the girls write letters to Santa?
MO: They do, yes, they do.
BO: This is true.
BW: Well they won't be watching right now, so we all believe in Santa?
MO: We all believe in Santa
BO: We do.
MO: Our kids believe in Santa because as Malia said, "There's no way my mom would buy me all this stuff so there must be a Santa because our parents don't get us anything."

There has been a lot of discussion about how the weeMichelles, Michelle, and even Barack will fare in the White House for four to eight years. What will the spotlight do to them? How will he survive without his Blackberry? On and on... so it is heartwarming to see them still believe in Santa and instill that in the girls. And really, when we think about having two small (Christian-believing) children in the White House, don't we want to picture them sleepless on December 24, 2009 because they are eagerly awaiting the Big Red Guy?

And knowing that the Obamas don't shower their girls with gifts, even on the biggest of gift-giving days because they get enough from loved ones is wonderful. Perhaps we will get the pleasure of watching two young girls grow into two well-grounded and unspoiled young women.

[Image: LenexaJones on Cafepress]

Theories abound over who tipped the scale towards Proposition 8 in California, and one has elicited more debate than most. Blacks have stated an overwhelming opposition to gay marriage, according to a CNN exit poll, and Charles Blow, an Op/Ed columnist for the New York Times, has some pretty strong guesses as to why.

For one, blacks are more likely to attend church than whites, specifically evangelical and other morally conservative churches. This places them more in the company of the Christian Right white voters of Arkansas and the Carolinas than their soon-to-be new president. These black voters may have democratic political and economic views, but socially and morally they're as conservative as Mr. Limbaugh himself. Blow calls them "Afropublicrats."

Also, marriage can be a sore subject for black women, who tend to vote in larger numbers than black men. Blow suggests this is because many of them are single mothers with broken marriages behind them, and they figure, if they're having such a hard time finding a decent man, why should all the good ones be allowed to marry each other?

Finally, because homosexuality is considered highly shameful in many black communities, closeted black men are more likely to hide their homosexual activities from their girlfriends and wives. This phenomenon, known as the "DL," for "down low," has caused an explosion of HIV and AIDS among black women, for whom AIDS is the leading cause of death right now.

Mr. Blow isn't blaming blacks -- he, after all, is black himself. He's simply sharing some valuable insights into why so many blacks hold what often seem like conflicting beliefs.

[Image: Till Krech on Wikimedia Commons]

I took this picture in the Pearl neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. A new and trendy area, Pearl is generally void of any signs of social controversy. This abortion clinic is practically invisible as are many other "uncomfortable truths" that exist in our daily life. As the digital media takes over,  any street dissent  is more and more a Quixotic and lonesome effort.