April 2009 Archives

The swine flu epidemic has brought renewed discussion to immigration, border security, school nurses and child care. On Wednesday President Obama said:

If the situation becomes more serious and we have to take more extensive steps, then parents should also think about contingencies if schools in their areas do temporarily shut down, figuring out and planning what their child care situation would be.

A friend of mine tweeted that quote with this reply: "Obama, I would have child care figured out if I had $$. problem solved. Can you help?"

No working outside the home mother I know does not think of child care 24/7. No matter how wonderful a sick day policy you may have, like me, or how non existent you may have to deal with, parents, especially mothers, think about "What would happen if..." constantly.

I freely admit that there are days when my daughter says she's feeling a bit icky and I first think of I can "afford" to take the day off. Since I have paid sick days, I think afford as in, "Do I have a meeting that I can't miss? A grant due?" I know far too many moms who have to think, "Can I pay my rent if I miss today? Will I get fired?"

The president has said that there will be money available for combating the swine flu, but he means for distributing flu fighting medicine. I suggest that he look into FEMAs account and start ear-marking money to pay parents to stay home. I suggest he look into his Presidential power bag to strongly suggest that employers put a moratorium on firing employees who call in sick.

During his 100 day press conference President Obama refined his message to, "And if more schools are forced to close, we've recommended that both parents and businesses think about contingency plans if their children do have to stay home."

I could sense he meant some of what I just said. I want to thank whomever kicked him after his cold statement about parents earlier in the day.

[Image: Columbiana County Job & Family Services]

[Shortly] after midnight on October 7, 1998 ... Matthew Shepard was led by [t]wo men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson ... to a remote area east of Laramie where they demonstrated unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tied to a split-rail fence where he was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later he was found by a cyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow.

Matthew died on October 12 at 12:53 am at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. [link]

Matthew's death shocked me into the LGBT rights arena. It wasn't that I was homophobic before, but rather it wasn't something I thought about. I'm fairly certain I wasn't alone. Almost eleven years later we are poised to see a federal hate crimes bill signed into law.

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed the House on Wednesday.

[The bill] was reintroduced in the US Senate ... by a bi-partisan coalition. The bill would amend existing federal hate crimes laws to include crimes where the victims were targeted on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, and disability. It also would eliminate a requirement that the victim was engaged in one of several "federally protected activities" at the time of the crime in order to be protected by these laws. [link]

President Obama says he wants to sign the bill into law:

"This week, the House of Representatives is expected to consider H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance - legislation that will enhance civil rights protections, while also protecting our freedom of speech and association. I also urge the Senate to work with my Administration to finalize this bill and to take swift action," he said.

So why are some LGBT rights advocates not satisfied? Because this is the first affirmative move that the POTUS has completed since the election to get hate crimes passed. Is Obama jumping on a moving train that is destined to land on his desk and he wants to look like a leader on this issue? Was he too busy with the million+ other things to make a statement?

Either way, it looks like the bill will become law if it can get through the Senate. Luckily it did get through the House and past Rep. Foxx's belief that the entire hate crime murder was a hoax.

Oh and just so you know, the bill isn't just a LGBT thing. It covers women and those with disabilities too. I don't believe it will make any of us any more safe, but it will put pressure on local officials to take hate crimes seriously or else the Feds can come in and do something.

Senator Barbara Boxer was on the Joe Scarborough radio show on Wednesday morning talking about newly-minted Senate Democrat Arlen Spector, whose switch was wonderfully chronicled by my colleague David Alm. "We're excited to get Arlen Spector in our tent ... I predict he will be a really strong voice on health care," Boxer noted. Spector, who has had a recurring battle with Hodgkins disease, recently secured a 34 percent increase in the National Institutes of Health's budget -- to $39 billion from $29 billion, voting with the Senate Democrats. Now, without the shackles of the Republican party, Spector will be a key to Obama's health care plan largely intact.

The conversation on the radio show veered to Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the few remaining moderate members in the House from the Northeast, which is rapidly becoming a graveyard of Republican ambitions. "I've never seen her so upset," said Boxer of Senator Snowe upon hearing the news of the party switch. As the Republican party veers further to the right, senators like Snowe and her fellow moderates Susan Collins and George Voinovich of Ohio (who is retiring in 2010) are feeling less and less welcome. "I've asked [Olympia Snowe]) a million times to become a Democrat," said Senator Boxer. "But she really believes in the principles [of the Republican party]."

Spector's switch was not without the usual political calculations. In Pennsylvania, 130,000 Republicans switched parties before the primary elections last year to vote for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in a nail-biting race for the Oval Office. As the Republican party tilts rightward, many of those voters will not be coming back to the GOP. Also, it is widely believed that Vice President Joe Biden, an old friend of the former Pennsylvania Republican, has been actively courting Spector to switch parties for years. Those factors, plus a stiff primary challenge in 2010, were enough to push Spector over to the other side of the aisle where he will have the support of the president and vice president.

[Image Dreamstime]

This month the Invisible Children initiative hosted their second nationwide "Displace Me" event where thousands gathered in 15 cities across the country to experience for one night what it is like to be displaced. Participants voluntarily displaced themselves for the displaced in northern Uganda. Pete Wentz of Grammy-nominated pop-punk band Fall Out Boy has been particularly supportive of the cause. The initiative's goal is the rescue of Joseph Kony's child soldiers. Thus far, Invisible Children's lobbying in DC and the Displace Me campaign have resulted in the appointment of a US senior level diplomat to the Juba peace talks and raising over $17 million in reconstruction funds for Uganda. Donations can be made here.

There seems to be no bottom to what passes for news today. In a recent Fox News segment, Sean Hannity said he'd allow himself to be waterboarded -- a signature tactic of the Bush administration to coerce suspected terrorists into talking and a symbol of the ethical gulf that separates that administration with President Obama's -- for charity.

Keith Olberman, of MSNBC, met Hannity's offer with a direct challenge: he'll pay $1,000 for every second that Hannity lasts.

Both Hannity and Holberman are far too dramatic for my tastes when it comes to getting the news, and as usual, both are merely preaching to their respective choirs. But I guess it makes for good TV, right? (Reason #421 I don't have one.)

Here are the arch rivals doing what they do best: driving the wedge between the Right and Left wings even further with a heavy dose of political pathos.

The past few years have seen some seismic shifts in the political landscape, particularly with the GOP. As the Bush Administration became more and more extreme, and hardcore ideologues like Sarah Palin and Bill O'Reilly came to typify the Republican Party, a lot of moderates began shifting towards the center, i.e. to the left of what their party has become.

The latest proof of this came today, when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched his affiliation to Democrat. Even Fox News acknowledges the significance of Specter's move: "Today's move by Senator Specter to the Democratic Party points to the further narrowing of the Republican Party to an ideological, 'just say no' conservative band that appears to be out of touch with the mainstream of the country," writes Lanny Davis.

Specter will hold the 59th Democratic Seat, and if Al Franken of Minnesota ever wins the longwinded recount with Norm Coleman, as he doubtless will, the Democrats will hold a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Specter's move also signifies a growing disillusionment among Northeast Republicans towards their party, which has become ever-more weary of big cities in recent years. Sarah Palin, who hails from a town with fewer than 10,000 residents, repeatedly referred to small town America as the "real America" during her campaign with John McCain, another "main street" kind of pol.

Even Colin Powell anticipated this months ago, when he pleaded with the Republican Party to "stop shouting," and admonished people like Palin for suggesting that people like Powell, who grew up in New York City, is less American than someone from Akron, Ohio.

Add the religious fundamentalism that George W. Bush helped make synonymous with "Republican" and you can see why discerning, intelligent people like Specter would want to disassociate themselves with the GOP.

The only question is, what's next?

[Image: MapWatch]

This June, a little indie film will hit select theaters across the country, but thanks to Facebook, the audience might not be as big as the filmmakers hope. Or maybe it will be even bigger.

And Then Came Lola, a "sexy, lesbian romp, loosely inspired by the art-house classic Run Lola Run" tells the story of a girl who's on the cusp of success in her work and love lives, but could lose it all if she doesn't make an important meeting on time. Pretty innocuous, right?

Not according to Facebook, which rejected an ad for the film based on the social networking site's advertising guidelines:

The image of this ad is either irrelevant or inappropriate. Per sections 3 and 8 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, the image on your ad should be relevant and appropriate to the item being advertised. Make sure your image is directly relevant to what you are advertising. Images that are overly explicit, provocative, or that reveal too much skin are not allowed. Images that may either degrade or idealize any health condition or body type are also not allowed. If you choose to submit this ad again, please use an appropriate image that adheres to all of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines.

Judging from the trailer alone, And Then Came Lola, quite frankly, doesn't look like that big of a deal. But this controversy, which the movie's creators are tracking on a blog they created, is doing a great job of publicizing it. Simply because Facebook wouldn't run the image above, that very image is now ricocheting around the world wide blogosphere. Thanks, Facebook?

For a continent that often seems so divided, last week offered a welcome glimpse into a possibility of an African unity sometime in the future. Last week, California's First Lady Maria Shriver welcomed 17 African first ladies to the Leadership for Health Summit. The Treat Every Child as Your Own" campaign presented the first ladies in a unified effort to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa as well as end the virus' continued stigma throughout the continent. An ambitious agenda, to be sure. Sponsorships and star-studded receptions offering face time with the first ladies helped raise millions for the cause.

Fifteen first ladies from African nations attended the summit, including Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon (pictured), Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Swaziland and Zambia attended the two-day meeting last Monday in Los Angeles. "We belong to a new and different generation," Jeanette Kagame, wife of the Rwandan president Paul Kagame, told The Washington Post. "We are all mothers at the end of the day. Most of our countries have embarked on expensive development projects and we would hate to see that progress stalled. The cost in lives has been too high."

[Image: Saharan Vibe]

Communal living is often associated with rolling, green landscapes, where like-minded folks relocate en masse to form artists' and women's colonies in places like Vermont and Maine. One group of aging lesbians has even carved out a nice little retirement community for themselves in rural Alabama, of all places.

But communes have a place in urban American history, too. On Tuesday night at 10pm, PBS will air a documentary about a collective in the Bronx during the 1920s. Living in the Coops tells the story of Jewish immigrants who banded together in the mid-1920s to create the Communists Colony -- "The Coops" as they became known. Directed by Michael Goldman, the film depicts how a bunch of essentially apolitical people were able to create a successful project through ingenuity and dedication to their collective good.

In the process, the experiment became a political statement, and the people who lived there became a living testament to the power of working together as a community. And though the film's subject is nearly a century old, with all the talk recent talk of immigration and disenfranchisement, its message couldn't be more timely.

I lived in a co-op on the Lower East Side for three years, and I was always struck by the sense of oneness that pervaded its vast matrix of buildings that stretched from the East River to Chinatown along Grand Street. Neighbors told me stories of their parents buying their apartments 40 years earlier for just a few thousand dollars, raising their kids in those apartments, and then giving those apartments to their kids in which to raise their own families.

In 2001, the co-op board went market rate, and the next thing you knew, financiers and lawyers were buying two-bedrooms for $1 million+. The sense of community was fading rapidly, and I can only imagine that now, seven years since I moved out, that it's almost gone.

Sadly, I don't have a television to watch the documentary on. Looks like I'll have to wait for it on Netflix. But if you are able to watch this film, please drop a comment to let us know what you think.

It's been said that the only roles offered to Latina/o are the maid, the hooker or the latin lover. Lupe Ontiveros hopes to really change that.

According to Ontiveros, she's played a maid 150 times. Add in the fact that she's pushing 70 and there appears to be little range left for a Latina to play.

But she wants to play a lesbian.

"I long to play a judge. I long to play a lesbian woman. I long to play a councilman, someone with some chutzpah."

Ontiveros certainly has chutzpah, and I hope to see it on a screen near me. And soon.

[Image: IMDb]

If the news were really like this, I might actually watch it. The Gregory Brothers give current events a smooth groove in this little number on gay marriage, drugs and Somali pirates. And who knew that Katie Couric can rival Beyonce?

It's Not Easy Being Green

This second season of episodes follows Britain's favorite do-it-yourself green engineer as he assists others in achieving an eco-friendly lifestyle.

Outrageous Wasters

Green consciousness meets reality TV in this entertaining and educational British series in which a flagrantly energy-guzzling family is challenged to shape up and change their wasteful habits.

The premier episode of "Outrageous Wasters" airs on the Sundance Channel Tuesday, April 28 at noon and Wednesday, April 29 at 6am.

Carbon Cops
"Carbon Cops" is an Australian documentary that follows a pair of scientists passionate about the environment who meet with six contemporary families and suggest simple changes inlifestyle that can markedly cut energy consumption. 


Catch episode two of "Carbon Cops" on the Sundance Channel Tuesday, April 28 at 9:30pm, Wednesday, April 29 at 3:15am and 12:30pm, or Thursday, April 30 at 6:30am.

Addicted To Plastic

Filmmaker Ian Connacher conducts an international odyssey revealing the disturbing long-term effects of the most ubiquitous and versatile material ever invented. From water bottles and Styrofoam cups to toothbrushes and garbage bags, in less than a century the pervasive presence ofplastics has marked every ecosystem and all aspects of human activity.

Watch Addicted To Plastic on the Sundance Channel Tuesday, April 28 at 10pm or Wednesday, April 29 at 3:45am.

I can remember a lot of times when I was volunteered to do something. But as I've tried to recall examples of my own volunteer work, almost nothing comes to mind.

Of course, I'm being a bit too literal by not including the two years that I spent in an AmeriCorps program in Columbus, Ohio.

The program that I participated in was called Children of the Future. Teams of three or four local artists were assigned to community centers in low-income neighborhoods around the city. Each weekday throughout the year, we offered an arts-oriented afterschool program for children ages 5 to 12.

Children of the Future was not simply about giving kids markers and paint to occupy themselves. From its inception, the program had been developed to teach youth how to choose positive outcomes amid the challenges of family instability, youth gangs, drugs and violent crime in their homes or communities.

Artmaking, as one of our supervisors often said, was simply the hook that would bring kids in so that we could engage them in discussion, storytelling or other activities that addressed topics like nonviolence, conflict resolution, handling emotions and positive self-expression.

For example, kids made captioned self-portraits that touched on their relationships with siblings and friends. They created short plays with themes of forgiveness or perserverance. We worked together to create story quilts, photo essays, fantasy murals and dances that were displayed or performed at venues across the city. The children also had the opportunity to visit performing arts centers and galleries, participate in the Columbus Arts Festival, and even attend summer workshops at local colleges.

I had never worked with kids before I joined Children of the Future. I applied for a spot in the program because I wanted to share my skills in photography and I thought I'd be teaching my own class. I ended up learning whole new skills, developing new relationships, and adapting to the responsibilities of a guardian, role model and teacher. I also found that there were behaviors and habits that I needed to improve or release (just as the kids were encouraged to do) in order to become more genuine and self-confident.

My service ended in 2001, and I went on to work with young people across the country and around the world. Most of those experiences haven't compared to Children of the Future, though. Getting that $0.75/hour stipend was worth it because the investments of time, creativity and connection still reap dividends.

Skype has been riding a wave of praise by allowing students abroad to keep in touch with parents and just being a fun tool for organizing. But a recent bill has passed the Illinois State Senate that asks for Skype-like tools to keep children in touch with incarcerated parents. At first glance it sounds like a good thing, especially when you consider that many prisons are in rural communities and those incarcerated are from urban areas.

But laws like this are being passed that are broader and include non-custodial parents. Still a good idea?

Some women's right advocates don't like this idea at all. Their gripe? Apparently (and I couldn't get someone to be quoted nor could I find a good website) judges are telling women who get sole custody to buy a computer and equipment to allow for virtual visitation. What's not to like about that? Advocates claim that judges are not taking into account past abuse allegations and how peering into a woman's home is giving an abuser power.

On the other hand, noncustodial parents are also women. Rebekah Spicuglia, who lives on the East Coast, uses Skype to keep in contact with her son who lives on the West Coast.

But I can testify that it makes a huge difference to my son when he can see me on the screen. He loves to see me, he introduces me to his friends, they make funny faces, we IM funny emoticons to each other... He loves it!

Circling back to the intent of the Illinois bill, I should point out that "[a]bout 82.5% of women incarcerated in Illinois are mothers. Nationwide, women under correctional supervision are mothers of an estimated 1.3 million minor children."

Education may not be sexy, but it's possibly the most important piece of the civic puzzle. Without proper education, entire cities break down. Children who could be anything grow up to be nothing. Parents who want the best for their kids, but can't educate them on their own, have to watch as the schools in their communities fail to teach even basic reading and writing skills. Entire populations lose, and we all pay the price.

But if the Internet can transform business, the music industry and virtually every other aspect of our lives, why not urban education? It can, according to LinkEducation, a non-profit that began with the idea that, as its website states, "there has to be a faster and more accurate way to find education resources in your own community than filtering through pages and pages of google results."

LinkEducation aggregates the thousands of educational opportunities available for free or at low-cost in New York City (the organization will be adding new cities as it grows). Last year, the organization collaborated with education leaders, teachers, and parents to build what is now LinkEducation.org, launched in January 2008.

LinkEducation is putting the web to great use, but as any business leader or musician will tell you, the Internet only goes so far, and the value of a real handshake and face-to-face conversation cannot be overestimated. Just ask that most famous of New Media opportunists, Barack Obama.

Tomorrow, April 25 the non-profit will welcome the communities it serves to the Harlem Armory, at One West 142nd Street, for its Spring Education Expo. Free and open to the public, the Expo will bring together 60 organizations and hundreds of guests to discuss the numerous opportunities that exist throughout New York City.

The Expo will run from 11am to 3pm.

[Image: LinkEducation.org]

I admit that I once pumped in a public restroom. It was the only private place I could find while attending a one-day conference. Ironically it was a PAC meeting where I got to "grill," as my husband likes to tell it, a certain Senatorial candidate who is now the President. So almost six years later, I'm way past breastfeeding my daughter and the one-time candidate has promised to do more for working families, which includes working mothers of newborns.

What one fairly inexpensive thing could his administration do for us working moms?

Lactation rooms.

I was lucky that during most of the time I was breastfeeding and working, I had a private office. I'd close my door and pump, pump away! I was also lucky that we have an office refrigerator. Don't worry folks, I clearly labeled my bottles! Please, there was no way one drop of milk was going to waste. But most women don't have either of those things.

The acting-Surgeon General (yeah, I didn't know we had one either!) released a memo [PDF] on breastfeeding and refers to a US Department of Health & Human Services toolkit, The Business Case for Breastfeeding.

Although worksite support for breastfeeding has improved, much more can be done to ensure that employers understand how and why support for their breastfeeding employees is profitable, important, and feasible.

Speaking of windmills... China, as we're reminded nearly every day, is a force to be reckoned with. Its ascent in economics, politics and manufacturing has rapidly made China a world power. But with all that growth come serious environmental hazards. Because of that growth, the Chinese require a tremendous amount of energy, and have relied heavily on coal to produce it.

Coal begets dirty air, dirty air begets health problems, and health problems result in lower productivity. For a country where productivity is paramount, this poses a threat to the position China's taken on the world stage. Their answer? Wind. Here's Christian Parenti, contributing editor at The Nation, on the issue.

Volunteering is, in my opinion, so much more personally rewarding than writing a personal check to a charity. Checks are good, don't get me wrong. But the one-on-one interaction of volunteering is therapeutically humbling. My first experience as a volunteer was my most memorable experience. At 19, I thought I knew everything. After getting kicked out after my first year at Marlboro College -- too much partying -- I attended, as a last academic resort, a semester at Magdalen College, a tiny, conservative, unaccredited Roman Catholic college then located in Bedford, New Hampshire. It was a liberal arts school that regarded the "soul" of each student as a part of its educational responsibility. I was learning about humility.

On a cold New Hampshire night, after chores -- yes, we had chores -- students were driven to a retirement home on the New Hampshire border to entertain the residents. I had no skills; I was shy; in short, I voiced my objection to my resident advisor. "Just listen," he said, leaving me no choice. We were paired off with residents, and I drew an interesting lady named Ora. "It means 'Pray,'" she told me as she clasped my hand. From that moment until I left, we held hands.

Nineteen-year-olds, generally, are not particularly keen to give up their free Friday nights to hang out with the elderly. But Ora, no question about it, was interesting. And although I really didn't know any card games -- card games are quite popular at retirement communities, I have since learned -- I listened. She spoke. She was more interested in being listened to than playing Monopoly. And I held her hand. Holding hands was important to Ora. I forgot about being shy. It also broke down the boundaries of a tired African-American 19-year-old student and an old New Hampshire woman with stories to tell well into her eighth decade. Ora told me stories about growing up in New Hampshire at the turn of the 20th century. Her eyes shone like I will never forget.

Many times I've thought to myself, what if? What if we spoke like every word mattered, wrote like the world was reading, and lived like each moment just might create life for someone who is here or is to come.

For the last seven years, poet, writer and activist Tara Bracco has been bringing together a diverse dynamic group to highlight issues of injustice through the power of spoken word and I've had the pleasure of being a part of that group. Packed crowds at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Ars Nova Theater and now the Bowery Poetry Club have heard passionate and powerful performances about equal wages, preserving the environment, healthcare and more; and this year promises to be no different as the best poets in the city raise their voices to focus on the world water crisis.

On Saturday, April 25th, Poetic People Power will present its 7th annual show titled "Tapped Out: Words About The Water Crisis." Poets will premiere new works about the privatization of water, the dangers facing freshwater, and its growing scarcity. Join us as NYC's politically engaged artists advocate for the right to water for all people.

The show will feature poets Tara Bracco, Erica R. DeLaRosa, Andy Emeritz, Frantz Jerome, Angela Kariotis, Dot Portella and me, Jonathan Walton. This one-night only event will take place at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City at 7pm. Admission is $10. For more information, please visit poeticpeoplepower.com .

When images depicting President Obama and the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, clasping hands in a moment of friendly conversation ricocheted around the world last week, my first thought was of Saddam Hussein.

If you'll recall, it wasn't long ago that a photo showing Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein caused a spate of national hysteria. Here's a video of the event, which shows Hussein shaking everyone else's hand, too. Wasn't Rumsfeld simply being diplomatic?

Like the Rumsfeld/Hussein moment, the Obama/Chavez moment cannot be fully captured in a snapshot. This video from a Venezuelan news station, which surfaced Tuesday, provides the context lacking in the now-famous photo of that amicable shake: Chavez appears more eager to speak to Obama than vice-versa, and Obama looks decidedly serious. No pals these.

Today, April 22, is Earth Day. In the United States and around the world, millions of people will be celebrating in ways great and small -- and we want to know what you are doing. Tell us in the comments or share with us on Twitter the ways in which you're helping save the environment.

The smallest state in the world is at the forefront of solar energy. Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 World Day of Peace message warned of "the increasingly serious problem of energy supplies" that threatened the planet's resources. His predecessor Pope John Paul's 1990 peace message spoke of respect for God's creation. So, last year, roof tiles on the Paul VI auditorium were replaced by 2,700 solar panels donated by SolarWorld AG. "If the Three Wise Men from the East came to Bethlehem today they would in all probability bring a solar cell in addition to gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is the symbol for the preservation of creation and for the energy supply of the future," said Frank Asbeck, the CEO of SolarWorld AG, in Bonn, at the time.

This year the Vatican is taking greening to the next level. "Now is the time to strike," Vatican City's governor Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo told Bloomberg. "One should take advantage of the crisis to try and develop these renewable-energy sources to the maximum, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards." In that spirit, the the Roman Catholic city-state intends to build the largest solar plant in Europe. The plant will cost $660 million on 740 acres in the tiny Italian city state. The 100 megawatts generated by the station will supply about 40,000 households, which is about 40 times the energy needs of the state.

[Image: Conservation.Catholic]

"Eco Trip" follows everyday products' life cycles from production to disposal, revealing the environmental, social and health effects along the way. Through analyzing various items' spectrums of impact, Eco Trip's host, eco-adventurer David de Rothschild, inspires and educates viewers on what they can do to live a greener life.

Episodes scrutinize the following products: chocolate, cotton t-shirts, gold rings, paper napkins, light bulbs, bottled water, cellphones and salmon. Meet the host of the show below, but you can findclips of the show here.

The premier episode airs Tuesday, April 21 at 9pm on the Sundance Channel. Check the schedule for future airings.

I don't remember volunteering being a part of what my family taught me. Yes, my mom was room mother, but that didn't seem to count. Of course now that I'm a mom of a school-aged kid and working full-time, oh it is so much fun to volunteer in the classroom!

But my volunteering started in fourth grade. My elementary school had this neat program where those of us with great grades and the willingness could volunteer to help "tutor" the preschoolers. I'd spend 30 minutes every week helping preschoolers understand the difference between under and over. Sometimes my eagerness meant I got there for snack. Rewards!

That started my volunteering career that normally focused on tutoring in math. It's always been enjoyable, even when I ran into students that were just difficult to tutor. I've been told that I do an excellent job at breaking things down, but sometimes you just run into people who don't understand what you are saying. I like to think that I'm just not speaking that person's language and hope that they will find someone who will.

I still volunteer now, mostly on boards of nonprofits spending nights debating issues and strategies. Because I work full-time I haven't committed to a regular volunteer position at my daughter's school, but I'm hoping that next year I will be able to do that. I've gone in to read to the class twice and I love it. I especially love that her classmates recognize me and many of them come up and hug me. Rewards!

To find educational and literacy volunteer opportunities in your area or online, visit the Awearness Volunteer Now page.

[Image: New Jersey City University]

Let me begin with a bit of eco-heresy: I don't ever plan to buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

(collective gasp from the industrialized world)

It's OK, just breathe... breathe. Hear me out.

First, I really don't care for fluorescent lighting. I prefer the warm light of incandescents, not the greenish-yellow or bluish-green light that fluorescent bulbs produce. I also think that fluorescents put out bad (or let's just say unpleasant) vibrations. If pressed for an alternative to incandescents, I'd opt for LED lighting.

My second reason to pass on CFLs is that I believe there are more effective though perhaps, for some, more radical ways to reduce energy consumption.

You've likely heard a hundred times that if each American screwed in a CFL, then one million homes could be powered with the amount of energy saved (if the bulbs last as long as they're supposed to). But what about the energy savings if each American watched one less hour of television, or spent one less hour on the computer or the PlayStation? Or what if people didn't drive for one day each week? How much more energy could be saved then?

No, I don't think that volunteering is punishment, but my first experience volunteering was meant to be just that. I was 11 years old, and my brother and I thought it would be a great idea to plot a midnight "escape" from our house with an elaborate plan consisting of rope, black clothes, a couple of flashlights and several rolls of toilet paper.

We had no agenda (outside of the obligatory goal of TPing some random house), nor any specific reason for sneaking out of the house. As with so many things in life, I think the real point was the pursuit. We spent weeks mapping out our route from our second-floor bedrooms, out onto the roof and down the side of the house to the yard so that we'd wake neither our parents nor our dog. It was a bonding experience to beat the band. Rarely before or since have my brother and I been more tightly knit than that April in 1987 while we planned our ill-fated scheme.

Once outside, we joined up with my brother's hapless friend Gary, for whom this foray into the night would mark the beginning of a downward spiral throughout his teens involving drugs, dropping out of school, felonies, the army and then a dishonorable discharge. I don't know what became of Gary, but I'm not optimistic about him. For my brother and me, though, it scared us straight.

You see, we got arrested less than half a mile from our house. We were spotted hiding in a neighbor's yard, someone called the cops, and an officer appeared with a much more powerful flashlight than ours and wrested us from our hiding place. We were taken downtown (yes, really) in the back of a squad car and held there until our parents came and got us.

Ever read the Old Testament? My dad's reaction was kind of like that. Wrathful. Furious. Avenging.

The next day, once his ire had died down, he and my mother came up with our punishment: we were ordered to spend one hour per day at an in-patient care center for elderly people on their last legs. It was our spring break and the weather was gorgeous. But there we were, consigned to spend those precious days in a musty old hospital for geriatrics.

I took this picture in Gaza City. I was in Gaza with the Italian UNICEF committee. I saw this little girl stand up in front of her house. No tears, just a question in her eyes: Why?

We played among the debris, me with my camera and she with her smile.

While most of Barack Obama's first 100 days in office have been spent on solving - or at least cleaning up - problems created within the past few years, there have been encouraging signs that the Obama team is willing to take an innovative approach to ongoing social problems that have plagued just about every Administration. One interesting move, for example, was the appointment of Sonal Shah, the former head of Global Development at Google.org, as the head of the brand new White House Office of Social Innovation.

What exactly does the Office of Social Innovation do? Well, right now, it appears to be a work in progress, especially since Sonal Shah has not yet been "officially" appointed. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy points out, members of President Obama's transition team proposed creating an Office of Social Innovation to "promote government efforts to help innovative nonprofit groups and social entrepreneurs expand successful approaches to tackling pressing social problems." Sonal Shah will also no doubt be involved in the Social Innovation Funds pilot program that was recently created by the Serve America Act. The funds will provide money for groups that are "developing innovative and effective solutions to national and local challenges.

So, with that in mind, What do you think should be the first projects of the Office of Social Innovation? In the left sidebar of this blog, check out Ideas for a Better World and submit your social innovation ideas for Barack Obama and Sonal Shah.

[image: Sonal Shah]

"A lot of homes have been spoiled by inferior desecrators."

--Frank Lloyd Wright

Michael Reynolds is not one.

For more than 35 years, maverick architect Michael Reynolds has been passionately creating self-sustaining buildings from simple natural materials and the detritus of consumer society: tires, beer cans, glass and plastic bottles. Filmmaker Oliver Hodge profiles a true visionary and his battles to overturn the inflexible zoning and housing laws that endangered his creations.

Put garbage to good use and switch your television over to the Sundance Channel for Garbage Warrior Sunday, April 19 at 9am.

The history of the world is the history of those who control the land. Just ask any Native American, if you can find one. Ask an Israeli, or a Palestinian. Better yet, ask any of the former residents of Starrett City in Brooklyn, or the current residents of Stuyvesant Town or Independence Plaza North in Manhattan. These are all Rent Stabilized Housing Complexes that recently lost protection under existing stabilization laws and whose residents were forced to fight an expensive and grueling battle against not only greedy and well-represented landlords but against corrupt and collusive government agencies.

These types of battles fly largely under the radar because most people are far more interested in the daily ruminations of the octomom or in A-Rod's persistent philandering. But the things that change our way of life the most are often the things that we only notice in retrospect, once they no longer exist. The Housing Wars being fought in New York (and in many other American cities) are arguably just as important as the battles being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. The results will change all of our lives in ways we never dreamed possible. It is class warfare of the highest order. And the winners of these battles will end up deciding what our cities -- and by extension, our country -- will look like for many years to come.

History is written by the winners. One group's ideology defeats another one and then that group spends decades and centuries asserting its dominance. In the case of the Housing Wars, it's very clear what the sides are. On one side, ruthless, avaricious landlords; one the other, all the rest of us. The wild card in all of this, and the thing that you should take notice of, in particular, is what side the government -- your government, our government -- is on.

Oh, what I wouldn't have given to see one of these last night. It was 9:30pm and I had just returned to Brooklyn from teaching a class in Manhattan, lugging a large and heavy box containing the printer I'd bought that day at Best Buy. I'd been up since 5am and wanted to be home more than anything.

Instead, I waited more than 30 minutes for a bus that should have come three times in the time I was waiting. I let the box I was carrying rest on the sidewalk while I stood there, and twice a shifty-looking man approached and came a little too close to both me and the box, which obviously held something very new and valuable.

After 20 minutes, I was annoyed, and after 25 I started getting angry. When the MTA cuts lines but raises fares, public transit commuters like me are not only inconvenienced more often but charged for it, too. And since most of us have a breaking point -- mine is 33 minutes, apparently -- we're inclined to cave and hail a cab once we've hit it.

So that's what I did. And thus I spent $10 to travel the 1.4 miles the bus would have covered in 12 minutes -- a ride I'd already paid for, I might add, by purchasing a monthly MetroCard.

The cab diver told me that come summer, 50 cents of every fare will also go to the City, along with the 25 percent increase on subway and bus passes. Add this to the frustration of waiting 30 minutes for a subway, only for the conductor to hold you in a tunnel for 10 minutes because of "train traffic in front of us." If no train came for 30 minutes, how can there be train traffic ahead?!

I think I speak for all New Yorkers when I say I understand that sometimes the system breaks down. But all we're asking for is a little explanation when necessary, and when appropriate, an apology.

I understand that the MTA is in a deficit and New York City isn't a cheap town to run. Indeed, these hikes are not entirely the MTA's fault. I'm all for taxes and paying my share for public services, like the MTA. But don't we deserve a little courtesy as customers, too?

[Image: AEMoreira042281 from Wikimedia Commons]

The Forgotten Woman
Widows were often burned as witches in Medieval Europe. Hinduism in India has a similar and likewise phased out tradition. When a woman's husband dies she often either voluntarily burns herself alive or her community coerces her to do so. Her death from the flame would commemorate and emphasize her marriage. This act is called sati. In modern times sati rarely occurs, yet widows in India, as this documentary shows, still endure great hardship.

New Delhi-born photojournalist and filmmaker Dilip Mehta lifts the veil on a seldom-discussed aspect of Indian society in this moving documentary examining the plight of the country's 45 million widows. While many are forced to beg for sustenance or resort to prostitution, two women are working for change by providing shelter and support and raising public awareness.

Watch The Forgotten Woman on the Sundance Channel Wednesday, April 15 at 4:45pm.

Big Ideas for a Small Planet - Sports
I could see environmental problems contributing to the creation of new sports, as they already do. Tree planting, water distilling, underwater island hopping and polar bear-befriending competitions will spurt up everywhere soon enough. But for now, let's pay attention to already existing sports.

This episode visits three people dedicated to keeping the planet safe for athletic pursuits: the creator of racing bikes made from bamboo; a champion skier who is raising awareness about the declining snow pack; and the distributor of skateboards made from bio-friendly materials.

Catch Big Ideas for a Small Planet - "Sports" on the Sundance Channel Thursday, April 16 at 6:30am or Sunday, April 19 at 8:30am.

As a man, I'm grateful for one form of gender bias: the short and swift lines at public restrooms, when there is a line at all. Not that I wish long waits on my female counterparts, of course, but whenever I see the waits they have to endure at movie theaters and sporting events, I think -- as I often do -- thank god I'm not a woman.

But that's about to change. As New York welcomes two brand-spanking-new ballparks for its two major league teams, so too will it welcome more than a thousand additional stalls for the women who visit them.

It's all about "potty parity," which is measured not by the number of toilets but the time it takes to use one, and it comes as not only a relief but also a victory for equal rights and health advocates like the American Restroom Association. (Yes, really.) For them, the disparity between men and women's wait times to use a public restroom is an unacceptable threat to physical and psychic well-being.

Thanks to a 2005 law, all new public places and existing ones that undergo "significant" renovations in New York City must have two women's restrooms for every men's restroom. Ideally, this will help shorten those lines and make it easier to for women to relieve themselves as conveniently as men.

And let's not forget the other benefactors of this new scenario: the men who have to wait around for their wives, girlfriends, daughters and female friends after they've popped in and out of the restroom in less time than it takes to say "urination."

[Image: Kilom691 from Wikimedia Commons]

Last year, Spike Lee released a film that tells a side of the WWII story that's conspicuously absent in other WWII films: the involvement of black soldiers. Miracle at St. Anna takes place in Italy, and while the film is not among Lee's most celebrated, its message was rightly told.

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Paris, the BBC has uncovered documents that reveal how the American and British governments manufactured an all-white liberation. They thought it was important to show French nationals leading the effort, so despite the thousands of colonial Africans who fought on the side of the French, only whites were permitted to march on the city's streets in celebration of reclaiming their city.

The leader of the Free French Forces, Charles de Gaulle, told French allies that he wanted his own countrymen to lead the liberation through Paris, to which the Allied High Command agreed but with one stipulations: de Gaulle's division must not have any black soldiers.

In January of 1944 President Eisenhower's chief of staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith, became complicit in the fabrication, writing in a memo stamped "confidential": "It is more desirable that the division mentioned above consist of white personnel."

But there weren't any 100% white divisions in France at the time, so in order to fill in the gaps, de Gaulle used Spanish, North African and Middle Eastern men as well. And they were selected not because they had been on the front lines along with the French but because they were relatively white-looking.

And to think that WWII was, essentially, a war against prejudice.

[Image: US Government Archives]

Today is April 15th, aka Tax Day.

If you are still working on your 1040 and grumbling about having to pay taxes at all, WallStats has come to your rescue!

Where do the trillions of dollars we pay in taxes go? Sure, the answer's public record, and you can see a copy of Obama's new budget yourself. But unless you're a policy wonk, you won't want to wade through it....The size of each circle represents the size of each agency -- and there are over 500 of them in total, with budget items ranging from the V-22 Osprey to public broadcasting. Spot statistics tell you what the percentage change was, over 2008 -- so that you can tell exactly what President Bush's priorities were in his final federal budget.

I love clickable maps!

First, you can see that in order for the government to pay for every $1 BILLION in federal spending each taxpayer pays in $4, every employer pays in $1 per employee, every corporation pays in $20, $40 MILLION is collected in a variety of taxes and wait, stop drinking....$140 MILLION is borrowed.

You can also click around and see what your favorite or least favorite federal agencies are slated for in the next Obama budget. NASA? 17.614 BILLION, +3%. Pell Grants? 15.671 BILLION, +1%. National Science Foundation? 6.854 BILLION, +13%. I could go on and on, but seriously, you should click on over and have a go at it yourself.

But don't forget, you have until midnight to file your taxes!

Herber and I where walking through the forest. The destination seemed unimportant to the constant rhythm of our conversation. He was excited and planning all things that he would do in the times to come. Glowing and vibrant, his energy was like that of a small child. I had just met him weeks prior at the beginning of my volunteer program with Hampy in Cusco, Peru.

Herber and I took to each other right away. Our first day was spent teaching each other English and Spanish. He is 21 years old and finishing his college education. He is studying art and ceramics at the local university in Cusco. He is extremely talented and enthusiastic about all the places that his art has taken him and will take him in the future. As we continued through the shady path, we talked more and more about his hopes to become a tourist guide through this beautiful region of Peru called Quillabamba. The area is about three hours from Machu Picchu and is the entrance to the Amazon Jungle. Surrounded by mountains and waterfalls, the air is clean and smells like wet earth. Orange and mango trees drip with color. It is an amazing land that thunders in pristine beauty.

Herber continued on with his plans for a tourist walk through the surrounding hills. He seemed to know everyone along the way as we stopped at every street corner to ask about someone's mother or sister or brother. He wants to invite tourist groups out here to hike and stay with the people he knows. They could then trek from there to Machu Picchu. He would be able to open a shop there along the way to sell his art. I kept re-assuring him that the idea was wonderful. I would love to help him when he graduates college. I told him I would design anything that he wanted; identity, website, whatever. He went on to say that he really loved sharing ideas with the volunteers in his community. It gives him even more ideas for all the things that may come in the future. I was really touched by this vibrant comment. I hope that I do help him one day soon.

View footage on YouTube, and more photos of Machu Picchu on flickr. You can learn more about Hampy here.

Peter's Place, a drop-in community center for people ages 55 and over, has served New York City's aging homeless since 1993. Operating out of a church basement in Chelsea, the center provides a warm, convivial environment where men and women who have nowhere else to go can watch TV, surf the Internet, play board games, eat a warm meal and enjoy the company of others seeking the same creature comforts without judgement.

But as of June, Peter's Place will be just another basement in the city's galaxy of hidden rooms, no more inviting than a locked bathroom in a subway station. Another drop-in center, the John Huess House, which serves homeless people with chronic mental illness and operates in the Financial District, will also close down in June, reflecting a shift in how the city serves its homeless population.

In July, the Department of Homeless Services will reduce its drop-in centers' hours from 24 to 13, in part to discourage people from effectively "living" in them. But closing entirely those centers that cater to specific groups, like the elderly or the mentally ill, will leave those groups without the specific care and support they require.

If we have homes for non-homeless elderly, special residences and hospitals for the mentally ill, and all sorts of other group-specific care centers, why should we treat the homeless any differently? Indeed, with their already frail states of body and/or mind, shouldn't we be extra vigilant in making sure they have someplace to go when they're cold, hungry, or just plain lonely?

[Image: Nicole Bengiveno for the New York Times]

On the 7th of March 2009, a few thousand people had gone onto the streets of London to protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The date wasn't picked randomly, it was meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising which had taken place on 10th of March 2009.

Having been to few demonstrations before I was expecting many photographers and journalists from mainstream media to attend. When I got to the place where it was held, the Chinese embassy, I was surprised by how few journalists were actually there. Also, the number of protesters was relatively low when compared to other demonstrations. It seemed to me like the issue of Tibet has slowly lost its importance on the international scene, which is probably due to the rise of the Chinese economy and the increasing dependence of the West on cheap, Chinese goods.

It felt to me that the demonstration and the occupation of Tibet weren't covered enough by the media anymore, and when I was taking this photograph I hoped that it could help highlight the ongoing struggle of Tibetan people to free their country.

The demonstration was also attended by Palden Gyatso. He is a monk who spent 33 years in Chinese prisons and work camps where he and other political prisoners were tortured for their political views. His presence has shown that even after years of oppression one can find the strength to practice what one preaches.

When I first learned that Chicago had reversed the flow of the Chicago River in the late-1800s to flow into other rivers rather than into Lake Michigan, I thought "That's kinda rude!" A new report from the U.S. Geological Survey says that Chicago is being quite rude.

Chicago's waste water, treated at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, flows out of the city, making its way to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. According to the USGS study, Chicago ranks first in discharging water tainted with phosphorous and nitrogen, chemicals that can accumulate through every day items like laundry detergent and lawn fertilizer.

When Chicago's water finally reaches New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, it apparently is contributing to the Dead Zone. The Dead Zone is an area where nothing can live -- it's about the size of New Jersey and it crops up every spring. I like to think about it as an ozone hole for oceans. It grows, it moves, but it is there. The link above is to Science Museum of Minnesota, which has the simplest explanation of the Dead Zone I was able to find.

So what was Chicago's reaction to the report? Don't blame us!

But the [Metropolitan Water Reclamation District] says its discharge of chemicals is within the law, said MWRD spokeswoman Jill Horist.

Of course "within the law" is not the topic of the report. I'm sure that CFC discharges into the atmosphere were within the law before we changed it. As a city that likes to claim to be a green city, you would think that we would take this report and say maybe, "OK, let's see what we can do." Maybe we need to encourage more use of green cleaners and limit fertilizer on lawns. Maybe we'd need a ban like in Spokane, even if some residents there are turning into smugglers to bring in "the good stuff."

As with any scientific report on human activity, it's not a total blame game, but rather a chance for us to look at how we might be able to change. In 2007 scientists thought it might be fertilizer run-off from farms. So the idea that Chicago is at least on par with the many farms in the area is amazing.

I've been using green cleaning products since I started living on my own. It takes a bit more elbow grease to get things clean, but that's a price I'm willing to pay so my home doesn't smell like a chemical plant. Not to mention the effect it could have on those living downstream.

[Image: Phytoplankton Dynamics Laboratory]

These hard times have unfortunately led to an uptick in criminal activity. Bank robberies have increased (as have FBI rewards for capture). All forms of identity thefts are also on the rise nowadays. According to the U.S. Secret Service, credit card skimming is one of the financial industry's fastest-growing crimes. Reports of card skimming operations are all over the news. Oftentimes the thieves attach a false front to the card reader of the ATM, capturing your card number and transmitting it wirelessly to a waiting partner. Another method of choice among the thieves is to hide a tiny camera on the ATM to transmit the numbers. This week Gizmodo brought it closer to home, publishing a harrowing account of finding a card skimming operation at Chase Bank in Manhattan in the East Village:

Sean Seibel was inside a local Chase bank where he inserted his ATM card into one of two side-by-side automatic teller machines. When the machine told him it could not read his card, it took him a bit of jiggling to get his card back. He tried it a couple more times and got the same results. Before trying the other machine, he inspected the slot of the current ATM he was using and realized that it had a false plastic cover attached to the slot. The amazing thing about the cover was that the translucent green plastic matched the card reader slot perfectly, meaning that it was made specifically for Chase ATMs. After snapping a few photos with his iPhone, he alerted the branch manager and explained what happened.

As he was leaving, Seibel remembered reading about card skimmers having small cameras in the proximity in order to read PIN pad activity, so naturally, he went back to the ATM to inspect, which is where he found an extra mirror attached to the vandalized machine that the other ATMs didn't have. Drilled into the mirror was a tiny pinhole with a camera inside, directed at the PIN pad. Seibel alerted the branch manager again and asked Chase why they hadn't inspected the ATM after he had warned them the first time. Chase honestly replied that they hadn't thought of it because they had never encountered that sort of thing before.

Has anything similar ever happened to you? In 2008 European ATM fraud attacks were up 149%. Be sure to carefully check your credit and banking statements. Scrutinize every charge and refute any unauthorized charges within 30-60 days. Call your bank/credit card company immediately if you notice anything fishy.

[Image: Gizmodo]

There are many post-birth rituals around the world concerning placenta. Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey kept the placenta after the birth of their son Levi with plans of planting it in an orchard to fertilize the land "It's going to bear some wonderful fruit," McConaughey told CNN's Sanjay Gupta. Another more direct ritual is Placentophagy, or the ingestion of the placenta. Mammals, including primates, commonly eat their own placentas after birth. And in many traditions, eating iron-rich placenta is considered the perfect tonic to post-partum depression.

Chrissy Schilling just had a baby over the weekend (her first) and with her sister fried up the placenta and cooked it up in pasta and a sandwich. They even put up a photo gallery on Facebook that is getting a lot of buzz. Schilling writes on Momlogic:

"By taking it in again, it was symbolic for me as a way to truly say 'good-bye' to my 9-month pregnancy and "hello" to an exciting (albeit challenging) new chapter in my life. While eating it, I thought a lot about what my pregnancy had demanded of me all those months -- how careful I'd been in my diet, trying to give my body and baby only the best, how I practiced relaxation techniques to encourage a stress-free environment for my baby in her internal world, and how all that careful attention had resulted in this healthy organ and subsequently healthy baby girl.

"Physiologically speaking, the placenta is still so rich in iron and hormones even after it's shed that I knew it'd help me in my immediate recovery from my long labor (24 hours). And it did! My daughter was born at 10:34pm, so it was far too late to eat the placenta that night--I was exhausted as was my sister (the chef). So we froze it and ended up eating it two days later for dinner. The energy levels I had before and after the consumption were immediately noticable to me."

What are your thoughts? Is this a natural act or too eccentric? More photos of the meal here.

[Image: Momlogic]

Not every birth anomaly is sad or tragic. There have been claims of black babies born to white parents (most of which were refuted, of course) and twins of which one is white and the other black (verified). I'm sure there are many others, but I'm too tired to poke around the Internet for them at the moment.

Now we have a three-year-old who's already got the physiology of a champion wrestler: Liam Hoekstra weighs 30 pounds, has almost no body fat and 40 percent more muscle mass than the average toddler, and he has the strength, agility and speed to suggest a prodigious athletic future.

The boy's father, Neil Hoekstra of Roosevelt Park, Michigan, already has dreams of University of Michigan football pennants dancing through his head, while the boy's mother, who suffered a black eye during one of Liam's toddler tantrums, mostly just hopes he'll have a normal life.

Liam's condition, myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, first appeared in beef cattle in the late '90s, with occurrences in humans appearing in the year 2000. Today around 100 children worldwide have the condition, which causes muscle cells to reject the protein myostatin, which results in above-average muscle development, a super-fast metabolism and virtually no body fat.

Just keep him away from the kryptonite.

[Image: Cory Morse for The Chronicle]

There's no avoiding the bad news from the Department of Labor... especially now, as I consider myself an embedded journalist on the front lines of this world wide economic crisis: I was recently laid off from my job.

And this weekend I had to do my mandatory visit to "Unemployment."

In spite of the fact that I had already been pleasantly surprised by the convenience and ease of the online registration, as well as the prompt setting up of direct deposit (or the NYSDL -- branded debit card you can opt for) to receive your benefits, I still viewed this appointment with the same enthusiasm one musters for a root canal or tax audit. I don't know where my preconceptions stemmed from, but I was not looking forward to this!

Once there however, I was so inspired by everyone at Unemployment that I almost wanted to work there!

As you'd expect, business is hopping. The "customer" group was large -- as dense and eclectic as the at Apple Store during the holidays... But everything was very well organized and the staff was very helpful, professional and well informed.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about navigating this storm, but I picked up some very useful insights and information. The NYSDL website is robust and has loads of links; they also provide a printout with many, many additional useful websites, as well as a schedule of free workshops and seminars they offer on everything from resume writing to career changing and interview rehearsal! Other tidbits to drill deeper for: testing and application fees for government jobs are waived for those receiving benefits (it's the US government that is currently doing the most hiring), and possible financial aid for certain training courses and local NYC Workforce 1 Resource Centers -- actual offices set up to help and provide necessary tools.

So three cheers to the NYSDL! Thank you for all your work in the effort to get us all back to work!