September 2009 Archives

Not since the 1960s has an American politician elicited such divisive, fear-mongering hate as President Obama. Right wing zealots have practically turned bashing him on the national stage into a sport, where they earn points for outlandish claims that we might be able to laugh off if they weren't taken so seriously by millions of Americans.

This week, AlterNet sent out a little quiz as part of a fundraiser -- like NPR, the site is funded by its audience -- featuring quotes from famous and influential men and their names. Here's one: "We need segregated buses... In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yah, right on, right on, right on, right on."

The idea was to match the name with the quote, which was fun to attempt -- the quote above was from Mr. Limbaugh -- but what struck me most was the effect the quotes had when I read them first without attribution. When this kind of vitriol doesn't have a human face -- even Rush Limbaugh's -- to soften its blow, the viciousness is all the more apparent.

And this made me wonder: do even the most ardent supporters of Beck, Limbaugh, Savage and the rest fail to see the absolute danger in what their right wing idols are saying on a daily basis, precisely because those idols are human beings? In other words, does their charm, their celebrity, or simply their human voice, only mask what should be clear as a June day?

[Image: Glenn Beck]

My friends and I talk a lot about wasting time. (Hey, we're writers.) YouTube, Twitter, Facebook--we cover all the usual suspects. Lately a few of us have been squandering precious minutes on a site called FreeRice, which sends 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program for every trivia question you answer.

FreeRice admits that 10 grains aren't much, but they say that with the numbers of people who use the site, it adds up to a significant donation. Since I, too, love to waste time, I decided to run the numbers and see if this is true.

The consensus seems to be that there are about 49 grains of rice in a gram. The UN World Food Program gives 400 grams of rice per person per day, which means it takes 19,600 grains to feed one person for one day. At 10 grains per question, you'd would have to answer 1,960 questions to feed one person for one day.

OK. One person can't do much with this engine. How well do all the users of FreeRice do together? The site says that 43,942,622,700 grains were generated in 2008. That means that, through FreeRice, 2,241,970 people were fed for one day, or 6270 people were fed for one year.

Feeding 6270 people for one year is laudable. But it took 4,394,262,270 trivia questions to get there! That's literally millions of hours. There has to be a better way.

I've got nothing against FreeRice. If you want to clear your head by answering trivia questions, it's as good a place as any to do so. If it's just what you do when you're bored at work, it's not harming anyone, but in terms of making change in the world, your impact is going to be pretty minimal.

According to the World Food Program web site, just $.25 can provide a meal for someone who needs it. So go, donate a couple of bucks, and then answer your trivia questions. Because it is one thing to waste your time--don't waste the time of those who need our help.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

You're a 23-year-old father with three young children and a wife. You live in a small ranch-style house in the kind of town where no one locks their doors. One night while your wife is out a fire rages through your house and you try to save your daughters, but the fire is too hot in their room to get inside. You dash out to the front porch and scream for help. A neighbor calls the fire department, and soon your house is swarming with firemen and police. Your children are dead, your house is a charred ruin, and then the real trouble begins.

Fire investigators determine the cause to be arson, and a prosecuting attorney paints you as a disillusioned father who couldn't cope with having kids because they interfered with your hobbies: drinking beer and throwing darts. The jury convicts you, and the judge sentences you to death.

For the next 12 years you wait on death row, maintaining your innocence and hoping for clemency that never comes. Then, after you receive the lethal injections, the fire is revisited by people who know far more about fires than the "experts" who sealed your fate. And they say you are innocent.

This is the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death in 2004 for the murder of his own children. Now, five years later, an investigation launched by Willingham's volunteer prison penpal has uncovered significant evidence exonerating him. Texas officials are looking into the allegations of misconduct on the part of the forensic scientists whose evidence convicted Willingham. As David Grann, the New Yorker writer who covered the story, put it: "There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the 'execution of a legally and factually innocent person.'"

How could this happen? Faulty evidence, shoddy investigations, blood-thirsty prosecutions, the need to blame. And we'll never know how many executions are unwarranted because it's rare for anyone to revisit a case like Willingham's, though it certainly happens.

This could be the best argument for abolishing capital punishment altogether. Crimes can be very messy affairs, and sometimes innocence is not so easily proved. But isn't killing people also just a little barbaric? In recent history, dozens of countries have outlawed the death penalty. To name four: Austria (1950), France (1981), South Africa (1995) and Argentina (2008). Over the past few hundred years, a total of 139 countries have abolished capital punishment in law and practice, according to Amnesty International, and those that still have the death penalty are predominantly third-world nations.

Here in the United States, 35 out of 50 states allow capital punishment, and the statistics [PDF] paint a grim picture: the poor are far more likely to be executed than those who can afford adequate representation, and Texas accounts for more than a third of all executions in the US, according to the Texas Defender Service.

The comedian Lee Camp, whose work we've featured on this blog before, offers this take on the Willingham case. Not that the case is funny, but if we can laugh at the absurdity of cases like it, maybe we can imagine some alternatives.

[Image: "Old Sparky" of Sing Sing Prison, from Wikimedia Commons]

I've donated blood several times, and each time I fly through the Q&A portion of the procedure without much thought. Maybe that's because I've been able to answer "No" to each of the questions, so I haven't stopped to think about the implications of the restrictions and guidelines for blood donation.

Here's one of the questions: "Have you had sex with another man, even once, since 1977?"

If I were to answer yes, I would be barred from giving blood. The logic is that gay men are at an increased risk of carrying HIV, so better safe than sorry. Of course, all the blood is screened anyway, and straight people have been known to carry the virus that causes AIDS -- and other blood-borne diseases -- but never mind all that. Since 1985, when the ban went into effect, gay men have been categorically denied the chance to donate something that we are in a constant need of. (Intravenous drug users, those who have spent extensive time in certain countries, and anyone who has been paid to have sex are also barred from giving blood.)

Many of the gay men at the restaurant where I work part time were dismayed to learn that they couldn't participate in an upcoming team blood drive. These men are active, health-conscious and disease-free. Most of them are in committed relationships. And they're civic-minded, too. When given an opportunity to help their community, they take it. Only this time, they were rejected -- some after they'd signed up.

They could, of course, just lie about their sexuality, as many do. But while that would allow them to donate blood, it would do nothing to overturn this fearsome and outdated ban.

Activists in the United States have been working to overturn the ban since the 1990s. But there are signs of hope. Canada began researching the implications of lifting their ban on gay donors a few years ago. Just yesterday, the Canadian AIDS Society signed on to a constitutional challenge to the restriction. If you'd like to support changing this ban, you can start by signing this petition.

[Image: Charles Haymond from Wikimedia Commons]

I'm not usually an art person. It's not that I don't like art -- it's that I don't usually get it. But last week I went to the last day of Rickie Solinger's Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States: A Traveling Public Art Exhibition. Almost immediately I was in tears.

The first piece I stood in front of was a list of rules that incarcerated women must adhere to during visitation or else their visitation rights will be revoked. It was breathtaking to see all the rules etched into glass in black and white. It was overwhelming. And I knew this is why I waited until the last minute to see the exhibit. If I had gone earlier, I might have found myself obsessing over the pieces day after day.

My theory on incarceration is simple: The incarceration itself is the punishment. Lack of health care, rape and the destruction of your family are not just punishments for breaking the law. The lack of freedom to move is punishment. Removal from society is punishment.

I read the words of women who had failed themselves and their children, but have learned their lesson. I saw the art of women who were betrayed by the men in their lives, men who had tricked them into driving the car that day. All the incidents I learned about in the exhibit are ones where the women will eventually "repay" their debt to society and be released.

But what will they be released to? With $200 in their pocket and dropped off on Skid Row with pimps waiting, what will they do next? With their children broken by the system before they are even in high school? This is what the art screamed at me.

One piece had this quote on it: "Misty Rojo believes you don't pity imprisoned women; instead, you question your own knowledge and belief in the society that has failed them and the system that has victimized them."

And that's exactly what I was doing as I walked out of the exhibit space.

This silent march took place in Dublin on June 10th, 2009. It was intended to demonstrate solidarity with victims of child abuse in church-run institutions in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century. At that time as many as 150,000 orphans, children and youths from dysfunctional families were taken into these institutions.

The children were forced to work and suffered verbal, physical, emotional and sometimes also sexual abuse. For many of these young persons it had a devastating impact on their entire life. A small part of what happened at that time can be seen in the "The Magdalene Sisters," a movie directed by Peter Mullan.

In 2000 the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was established to investigate and hear evidence about what happened to these children, and to make recommendations about dealing with the effects of the abuse.

In 2009, the commission's report revealed the devastating truth that had been hidden deep inside Irish society. Most Irish knew about the abuse, but it took a few decades for anyone to speak out openly about the details. The scandal of the abuse was described by a few campaigners as Ireland's mini-holocaust. The Christian Brothers Order, which ran many of the institutions, denies all accusations.

During the march, demonstrators expressed their anger and disappointment about how they were treated by the government. Many of them held ration books and other proofs of their presence in institutions. Others left tiny children's shoes at the Irish Parliament building to mark the loss of innocence of the victims.

On Tuesday, the FDA ban on flavored cigarettes went into effect, a much-anticipated bill that was signed into law this summer. The ban is intended to curb smoking among America's youth, who some believe are lured into the deadly habit by the sweet smells of fruit- and spice-flavored cigarettes. Good job, FDA, though even I can't help feeling nostalgic for my own youth, in the 1980s, when I'd shoe-gaze at the local dance club to the Cure's "Fascination Street" with a clove cigarette dangling from my lips.

As my own story attests, flavored cigarettes appeal to kids because they're delicious and go down easy. Cloves are particularly insidious: They contain a natural painkiller that makes them easy to inhale, but the same chemical that numbs the throat can also cause bleeding, seizures and organ failure.

However, before we don our party hats and applaud Congress for giving the FDA the power to prevent kids from discovering cigarettes -- if that's even possible -- let's take a minute to consider what wasn't banned: menthols.

According to the Federal Trade Commission [PDF], menthol cigarettes account for about 27% of the American $82 billion cigarette industry, a far greater share than any other flavored tobacco product. And who smokes them? African-Americans, mostly. In fact, about 75% of black smokers favor mentholated brands. They start young: 79% of black high school students [PDF] who smoke choose menthols.

What does it say when the government takes a stand against flavored tobacco, ostensibly to discourage people from smoking, but fails to include one of the biggest culprits?

Objections to this exception in the tobacco bill date back to when it was introduced, in May of 2008. Seven former U.S. secretaries of Health and Human Services voiced concerns. The New York Times published an article describing menthols as "politically off-limits," simply too much of a cash cow to ban, especially since lobbyists for Philip Morris USA were a major force in getting the legislation passed. The Times quoted several officials involved in the bill who said it would have gone nowhere, had menthols been included.

The FDA, cigarette companies and even the Senate like to appear concerned with Americans' well-being, but only if it can be done on the cheap -- otherwise it's all smoke and mirrors. I wouldn't say the new legislation is racist, just greedy, but the fact is that the losers in this scenario are mostly of the same race. If someone proposed a bill that might actually help people but would cost billions of dollars in lost revenue, it would die faster than you can say, "Got a light?"

[Image: Mattes from Wikimedia Commons]

Last Friday I sat down to watch the National Council of La Raza's annual ALMA awards ceremony. ("Alma" is Spanish for "spirit.") The awards are intended to be a "tribute to the spirit of pioneering Latinos in television, music, and sports."

The ALMAs have grown up quite a bit. Now they're a glitzy highly-produced show, but I remember when they were hard to even see because they were shown at awkward times. I swear once I saw them on a Saturday at 3 pm. Friday night is a good time to have an awards show. It's not Sunday night like the Emmys and the Oscars, but it is primetime.

It was a great show. The mile-long lists of nominees for each award reminded me how many Latinas and Latinos are on our screens -- some in Latino roles, others in roles that happen to be played by Latinos. It was an opportunity for my husband and myself to debate what it means to be Latino, how we measure positive portrayals and to be amazed at how far we have come from the era of brown-faced Caucasian actors with bad accents.

However, one thing left me a bit stunned: Joaquin Phoenix was nominated for Special Achievement in Film [PDF link].

Huh? In high school I was obsessed with Joaquin's late brother, River, so I know the Phoenix family history quite well. As missionaries, they moved around a lot in Latin America. Joaquin was born in Puerto Rico and lived there for the first four years of his life. However, nothing that I've seen has made me believe that he has embraced the label of "Latino."

Does one become Latino merely by being born in a Latin American country? This question was brought up during the 2008 Presidential election when it was revealed that Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico. If Romney and Phoenix don't identify as Latino, is it proper for anyone to do it for them? I think not.

The ALMAs have so many achievements and individuals to celebrate. We don't need to create Latinos to honor.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

Who is the real victim in the debate over health insurance and a public option? The billionaire healthcare executives, of course. Or so this PSA spoof, starring Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Masi Oka and others, would have us believe. It was produced by MoveOn.org. Brilliant.

Monday morning, over a million New Yorkers were greeted with a scary-but-true headline in a fake edition of the New York Post. I shared the story of how the prank unfolded across the city, the effort staffed by volunteers who, like me, got up well before dawn to hit the major media offices and transportation hubs of New York as the morning rush hour began.

As I was handing out my stack of papers outside subway entrances in Carroll Gardens and downtown Brooklyn, I did some amateur sociology. Some people took the paper eagerly -- "Oh, free Post! -- while others, already toting the Times or the Wall Street Journal, waved the paper aside like it was a mosquito. Some people flat-out ignored me, while others said "Thanks but no thanks."

I experimented with different "selling" strategies: "Free Post, special edition!" worked reasonably well, while "Would you like a free paper?" didn't. I got a number of laughs with my deadpan "We're all going to die. Read all about it." And to those who seemed "too good" for the Post, I expressed solidarity: "Sure, it's a crappy newspaper, but this one's worth reading."

I handed out 170 papers in about 45 minutes -- longer than I'd expected it to take. But all the while, I kept wishing I could see the people's reactions as they read the fake paper.

Et voila! This video, from the Yes Men themselves, shows New Yorkers reacting to the paper in real time. Many of them don't realize it's a hoax, and one man who works for the real New York Post shows his true colors in his admonishment of the stunt -- as well as the president of the United States, liberals and even a random passerby on a bike.

"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men on Vimeo.

Many musicians and celebrities do good in their lifetime--but, years after they stopped making music, the Beatles are still supporting the causes they believe in. The auction last week of a special Beatles customized Xbox 360 console raised $17,300 for Doctors Without Borders (aka Medécins Sans Frontières). Created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971, Doctors Without Borders provides aid in nearly 60 countries, including southern Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Thailand. According to the press release, "Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison personally selected the charity as the beneficiary of these proceeds."

The Beatles have always been a socially aware group. Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda were ardent vegetarians. John Lennon was, along with Yoko Ono, a staunch peace activist. Ringo Starr was a supporter of the Lotus Foundation, whose objectives involve family assistance and child welfare, women's issues, animal protection, as well as addiction recovery and education. The late George Harrison was active for decades with UNICEF. And now, in 2009, they are helping Doctors Without Borders continue its good work.

[Image:XBox]

I was a combat correspondent with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan. I took this when I was with some British troops--Lima Company, 42 Commando, British Royal Marines--moving forward to a suspected Taliban checkpoint on December 23, 2008. Operation Sond Chara took place in Nadi-Ali, Helmand Province, nicknamed "The Triangle of Death."

For more of my Afghanistan memories, you can read my blog.

Chris Rock may have said "There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments," but his wife, Malaak Compton-Rock, clearly also feels the need to help others. Compton-Rock is the author of the upcoming book, "If It Takes a Village, Build One", and she runs The Angelrock Project, a non-profit that promotes volunteerism in order to support educational initiatives for orphans and vulnerable children. Last month, their second annual Journey for Change Bushwick car wash raised over $1300. That money will be used to fund a scholarship for Nobubele, an 8-year old orphan in Diesploot, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Malaak says that her "main goal is to inspire people to give back to society in a multitude of cool and exciting ways," and she is certainly living up to that. Like many other charities, Angelrock has been hit hard by the recession and they are currently on the lookout for fundraising ideas (have some?).

You can follow the ARProject on Twitter.

[Image: AngelRockProject]

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie brought her considerable star power with her when she visited the Dabaab Refugee Camps in order to bring attention to the crisis and overcrowding there. The Dadaab complex, in Kenya 90 kilometres from the Somali border, is overflowing with refugees. According to the AP, there are 280,000 people in an encampment meant to hold 90,000.

The camps are home to Somalians fleeing the decades-long violence there, as well as a newly growing population of Kenyans who are suffering the effects of massive flooding there. The situation in the Dadaab has been described as a "human tragedy of unthinkable proportions."

You can contribute to the fund for the camps here.

Last week, Caster Semenya's gender tests revealed that she has both male and female sex organs. This means that Semenya is intersex.

Reacting to the findings, Lord Coe, a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (and a world-record-setting runner and former Olympian), wants a rule change in order to "eliminate competitive advantages." He's also concerned, he says, about protecting athletes like Semenya from "the risk of entering a championship and having this exploding all around them," as well as the other young women in sports: "We have to maintain confidence for girls to come into the sport and to think that they are competing on a level playing field."

Does Lord Coe suggest that we do gender testing at high school in order to protect the sport and athlete? My friends & I started running track in fifth grade--how about then? From what I have been able to piece together from news pieces, Caster grew up as a girl. Can you imagine the shock if at age 10 you were forced to take a gender test only to realize that you are not who you think you are? All to run around a track.

This is the problem with our binary gender system and insistence that people fit into what we think is proper for that system. Who are we to say who is or isn't a woman or a girl? Yes, we can have people take tests and see what chromosomes they have inside, but it tells us nothing about who they really are.

What does it mean to be a woman/girl? Is it all about chromosomes and/or plumbing? How can a family properly raise an intersex child in this world that wants everyone to be one thing or the other, nothing in between? For this family, it means allowing your child, no matter how young, to express their gender the way they want.

Currently rumors are flying that Caster is on suicide watch. I hope that she is seeking out a professional to talk all of this out with. An entire world is looking at her and many are judging. I hope she also knows that she has supporters who wish her well.

If something good is to come of this circus I hope it is that we all educate ourselves on gender variant people and how those of us who are intersexual or cisgendered need to be able to their own choices--and to run, if that is what they choose to do.

[Image: Mikhaela B. Reid]

One of the enduring myths about health care reform is that of the death panel (Thanks Sarah! You too, Betsy!). The idea that the government might set up panels of non-medical or even medical experts to decide who lives and who doesn't scares people. Little do they know it's already happening--and that we pay for those panels through our insurance premiums.

It happened to Crystal Lee Sutton, the woman whose real life inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae.

Sutton died of cancer last week. While she was fighting the illness she battled with her health insurance company, which delayed her treatment. In 2008 The Burlington Times News reported the story:

She went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn't cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said. "How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."

That wasn't a government "death panel." That was an insurance company. It could happen to any one of us.

Yesterday Senate Finance Committee Chairman Senator Max Baucus finally revealed his compromise health care bill, which, while it has some problems, does say that insurance companies can't drop you due to pre-existing conditions or after you become sick. But it doesn't address the problem that may have cost Crystal months or years of her life--the fact that unknown executives at insurance companies are making decisions about our medical care.

First we had Sen. Kennedy die during this debate, now we have "Norma Rae". How many more icons whose dying wish is for health care reform must we lose before we finally say ENOUGH? Let's pass health care reform that allows for everyone to be covered and puts medical decisions back in the hands of the people who are treating us, not just reading our file.

Sometimes the most difficult problems have the simplest solution. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization announced that it has mobilized five billion dollars for a campaign to distribute 700 million bed nets in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015. The insecticide-treated bed nets--which cost only $10--fight the spread of malaria, a disease that killed nearly 881,000 people in 2006. There are an estimated 250 million cases annually worldwide. The nets are effective because African malaria mosquitoes generally bite early in the morning or late at night, between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.

Individual countries are setting up their own programs as well. Nigeria's National Malaria Control Program's bed net program hopes to reduce that nation's malarial deaths by a half.

If you'd like to donate to help save lives with these nets, visit Nothing But Nets.

President Obama was elected largely due to his commitment to post-party politics and his vision of an America defined by reasoned debate and cooperation, not back-biting and competition. At this time last year, his idealism inspired millions of people to imagine a bright new future for America. What's more, it seemed within reach.

But now, nearly 12 months after the election, partisan politics are the order of the day. Obama-baiter Glenn Beck's popularity is at an all-time high, despite the advertising exodus his antics have inspired. The health care debate has fractured the House of Representatives to the point where everyone's more confused than informed. Joe Wilson heckled the President of the United States and and became a hero to many.

Liberals have been creating their own form of reactionary activism in order to pit themselves against their conservative counterparts: Keith Olbermann issued a "Fox-twa" against some of the biggest names at FOX News. Others are calling for the resignation of Lou Dobbs.

If this is post-party politics... Wait a minute. This isn't post-party anything. And why should it be? In this article from Politico.com, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei suggest that there's no incentive to be bipartisan once you're elected. It might sound good during a campaign, but elected officials will get a lot more support for trumpeting one side of an issue than they will for engaging in a reasonable discussion.

So the question is, what are we going to do about it? How can we make this a country where we listen to one another instead of screaming? This question isn't just for Capitol Hill. A post-party future, or even a bipartisan one, relies on each of us and our willingness to engage with those who hold different opinions than ours. It depends on how open we are to discussing issues without getting mad, and how patient we are in parsing out some very complicated arguments -- many of which we'll have knee-jerk reactions to and want to reject or support without thought.

I'm curious to know what sorts of discussions AWEARNESS readers have had with someone with whom they disagree. The topics could be big or small, national or local. Whatever they are, let's forget about Washington for a moment and see how bipartisan we are.

[Image: Wisconsin Historical Society]

Mayor Mike Bloomberg may be the greatest anti-smoking advocate this city -- or any -- has ever seen. He outlawed smoking from all public buildings in 2003, and is now attempting to ban the deadly habit from city parks as well.

There's some speculation that he'll buckle if he meets enough opposition, but only because he's running for re-election this year. There's already plenty of whining that the proposal is "paternal" -- the Daily News began its headline for the story with an obvious bias: "NYC = Nanny State?"

The law, if passed, would be part of the "Take Care New York 2012" initiative, a 10-part plan to improve city residents' health in the key areas of diet, exercise, smoking, drugs and alcohol abuse, and the spread of STDs.

It's an ambitious goal, but not impossible. And that's really saying something about this city's willingness to adapt. Imagine going back to 1974, in some dingy bar in Alphabet City, and telling Lou Reed that he'd have to put out that Marlboro or go outside. When smoking in public buildings was outlawed six years ago, a lot of people thought the ban would never stick. But not only did it work, it has been a huge success.

Let's hope Bloomberg doesn't bend to the pressure from New Yorkers who demand the right to pollute the air, not to mention their own bodies. As anyone who's ever been out for a run around Central Park can tell you, there's nothing more offensive than running right into a thick cloud of recently exhaled carcinogens.

[Image: Roy Smith from Wikimedia Commons]

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck and a few thousand of his 9-12 followers converged on Washington D.C. this weekend. Their "Tea Party Express" was conceived in order to protest President Obama's health care proposals and attempt to return America to the glory day of September 12th, 2001, which they recall as a time when hardcore patriots united under the good ol' red-white-and-blue against a common enemy. Beck claims his vision of Independence Day meets Norman Rockwell is transcending party lines. In reality, it's only making them thicker, blacker, and more divisive than ever.

To view other startling photos of the march, check out Adele Stan's gallery at AlterNet.org.

Check back on Awearness later today--we'll have an exclusive report from someone who was at the march.

[Image: AlterNet.org]

By now you have probably seen the video of Serena Williams losing her cool at the US Open this weekend. I agree that Serena's outburst was uncalled for and unprofessional, and I think that a fine was necessary. But I also think we need to take a big step back and look at this from Serena's point of view. Given the racism that Serena has encountered on the WTA tour, her outburst might begin to make more sense.

Serena addressed tennis's racial history and her own experiences in her memoir, On the Line. Her body has been subject to extraordinary criticism for not conforming to a white standard of attractiveness. Earlier this year, the WTA forced Serena and Venus to promote Indian Wells, a tournament they have been boycotting since 2001 because of the intense racism they encountered there.

We must deal with the fact that years of racism have built up around Serena's game. For her and her fans to view what happened at the U.S. Open through that lens is not irrational. Consider how you might react if for your entire career you were told you were doing things wrong and didn't deserve rewards based on your race/ethnicity. I think I'd be on edge too.

So yes, fine Serena the $10,000. But the the WTA must also address the race question on its courts and in its stands if it wants to truly move on from this incident.

Some say that it is the trials and tribulations of life that make us grow stronger. I believe this to be true, and my life experiences have taught me that difficult situations can be catalysts for change. The first time this dawned on me was when I was in my sophomore year in college, and the provision of my family's basic needs became threatened. Financial difficulties made even our basic needs unaffordable, and I found myself too preoccupied with finances to focus on my education. However, difficult situations become opportunities for growth and this experience pushed me to take control of my destiny, which eventually led me into the field of business and leadership. Nearly a decade later, I found myself at an intersection, pulled between my job as an investment banker that promised financial security and an opportunity to lead Community Lab, an innovative, meaningful nonprofit that had yet to raise money to pay a salary.

I became involved with a team of volunteers who were working with a scientist named Prabhjot Dhadialla at Columbia University's Earth Institute and who were passionate about economic development work. They were developing a health worker program that would strengthen the health systems in several villages in Africa by empowering community members to deliver medical services to millions in need. I was inspired by how organically this team had formed, and while at that time there was no official organization surrounding their work, their unique approach to using crowd-sourcing to parse work to volunteer teams attracted me. While volunteering with this team, the need to formalize this approach became evident and I was presented with the opportunity to become the CEO in order to structure this initiative into an official nonprofit organization, which became Community Lab. Captured by the opportunity to transform the sustainable development space with this innovative approach, I made the decision to leave my career in finance for the nonprofit world.

Nature is hard to come by for the city-dwellers of the world. Our experiences with trees and fresh air tend to be limited to weekend getaways or afternoons in the park. But new research suggests that we'd be wise to spend a lot more time in the elements, and not just for our physical health.

According to a series of studies from the University of Rochester, time in nature actually makes us nicer. And it doesn't need to be full-on immersion, either: even indoor plants or just pictures of nature can improve a person's temperament and make them more selfless.

So what to do when an elderly apartment dweller, who for the past 40 years has maintained a veritable forest on his SoHo rooftop, is told that he must dismantle the garden by the end of the month? That's what is happening to Michael Goldstein, a 71-year-old whose lease on a 2,500 square-foot rooftop on Mercer and Broome streets in New York City is about to be terminated by the company that recently bought his building.

It is a sad state of affairs when New Yorkers are denied their rooftops, for many a necessary reprieve from the concrete jungle below. And it's especially ironic now, with the green building tax credit that was passed last year, and warmly received initiatives like Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot vegetable garden in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and other rooftop gardens.

I have my own reasons for cherishing urban greenery -- I'll never forget a sign at a wilderness field station in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, where I spent the summer after my junior year of college. It read: "This is a Place Where You Can Iron Out the Wrinkles in Your Soul."

I was there on a whim, just trying to complete my natural science credit so I could graduate on time. As a humanities student, I figured that an intensive, month-long immersion course would be the best way to overcome my fear of science and actually finish the class.

It was, and I learned a lot about local ecosystems. But it was also a place where I ironed out some wrinkles in my soul, and emerged a much fuller person than I was before. I have no doubt that the experience -- along with a childhood spent camping and hiking in the woods -- led to my need to always have some nature in my life. I'm happy to currently live near a park, which I run in daily.

I have long coveted the rooftop gardens I see from the street as I walk around the city. Not many of us can afford the $1700 a month and multiple hours per day that Goldstein spends on his roof. But my jealousy is neither bitter nor demanding: If someone's lucky enough to have such a space, I say let them have it. And I'll wager most of us feel the same way.

[Image: New York Times]

Day Five - Travel from Uganda Back to Kenya

Six hours of driving to the airport in Entebbe from Rhira, followed by a one hour flight, and then a three and a half hour ride from the airport (which should have taken 30 minutes). Traffic in Nairobi is horrible. As we were stuck literally for two hours on one small stretch of road leading out of Kenya, locals trying to sell soccer balls, maps, inflatable chairs and more swarmed all the cars stuck on this road. But then three little kids approached our car selling packets of peanuts; they were the sweetest looking Kenyan boys. One was so little that his head could not reach the window, just his little fist holding his peanut bags. It is these moments that tug at your heart, and you cannot help but break down all cultural barriers and empathize completely. We ended up giving them money and not taking the peanuts.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, equality issues and awareness are important to me. I always try to attend pride parades to show my support. This is an image from Manchester Pride 09, the annual festival celebrating LGBT life in Manchester, England. To get this image of the parade, I spent 3 uncomfortable hours balancing on a fence at the side of the street. I had to take all of the individual shots that made up the panorama very quickly as the parade only stopped briefly and the crowd was moving around, too. I am really pleased with the finished result.

I've been lucky in my life and only experienced some minor bullying for being gay at work when I was younger. I do know other people who have suffered much more, people who have been victims of violent homophobic attacks. I hope people can enjoy this image and also have their awareness raised.

Thirty miles southwest of Nashville is a nonprofit sanctuary for elephants who have lived hard lives among people. The 2,700-acres in rural Tennessee has a no visitors allowed policy (but you can "visit" online here). "In order to accommodate the public, you would have to take away from the elephants," Carol Buckley, co-founder of the Elephant Sanctuary told CNN. "People have their own emotions, that energy," Buckley said. "If you feel fear and they get close, they're going to get hit with your energy." While it is not subtropical Africa or Asia, it is better than performing in a circus or living in the back of a truck at a tire store.

Last week, MSNBC's liberal commentator Keith Olbermann announced that he would expand his crusade to find as much "dirt" as possible on his rival, Glenn Beck at FOX News, to his television audience. Then he (allegedly) changed his mind. Some are speculating that MSNBC forced the move -- a likely explanation, considering how vehement Olbermann was before the sudden about-face. Prior to the retraction, Olbermann wrote in an email blast:

I don't know why I've got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.

No, even now, I refuse to go all caps.

No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn't count. Nor does sending me links to specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you're-innocent made-up rumors.

And from Olbermann's diary via the DailyKos:

Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes' power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony "truce" push).

This becomes necessary after this in order to prove various cliches about goose and gander, and to remind everybody to walk softly and carry a big popsicle, and most particularly to save this nation from the Oligarhy of The Stupid.

Where do you stand?

[Image: Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck from the Daily Beast]

Last night, during the President's speech on health care, Representative Joe Wilson hollered out "You lie!" while Obama was speaking. News outlets have titled this a new low in public discourse around the future of our health care system, but I believe it heralds the end of constructive debate and dialogue.

Politics have always been a contentious business and those who are motivated to be involved in our political system have always been passionate about their beliefs. However, the entire point of having a two (or more) party system in place is for people with differing viewpoints to have their side heard. But what is happening now is a polarization of political ideology, where people actively shut out things they do not want to hear. This not only impedes democracy - which is based upon the active exchange of ideas - but also betrays the faith of the public that our elected officials have the mental fortitude to wrestle with tough problems.

There was much to discuss last night in Obama's speech, and I found this passage particularly interesting:

"That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements. But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part."

Unfortunately, it is unlikely this will be discussed at length, as many elected officials seem to value childish retorts over political action.

Image: United States Federal Government via Wikipedia

The Deal with Disability is a new blog on the scene and is a much watch:

Hey, I'm Eva. I'm 26 and a recent college graduate. I like to write, to take Digital photographs, and just chill. But this blog is not about what I like. This blog is about how people treat me. You see, I am physically disabled. Actually "severely" physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which for me means I can't walk, speak, or use muscles in traditional ways. I use a power wheelchair to get around and spell out what I want to say on a letterboard.

This blog will be videos of people treating me bizarrely. My video camera is mounted to my wheelchair (very discreetly) and I basically just press record whenever I go out and then edit the good stuff for you! I will then write my comments on the event, which is usually what was playing in my inner monologue while these insensitive people were talking.

There are three videos of encounters that Eva wants us to watch and learn from. The one at the Starbucks is the hardest for me to watch and learn from because, well, I think I would have acted the same way:

Eva thinks that the tone of voice wasn't apt for an adult woman, but I heard it as someone who knows she needs to be friendly, but is scared of looking like a fool. That would so be me. I thought it sounded more nervous than condescending. I often work in a building that has a high population of people with a range of abilities in and out of wheelchairs. I say "hi", hold elevators and all the things I would do for anyone. But my own social awkwardness is heightened when dealing with people of different abilities. Am I being condescending? Am I being rude? Am I staring? I am on alert to not be offensive, and I sometimes suspect that I just might be. Hopefully there will also be videos of people treating Eva the way she wants to be treated and we can all learn from that.

So welcome Eva to the blogosphere! And I can't wait for your next video.

Labor Day, which began in New York City in 1882, has for the past 127 years been a time to celebrate hard work and enjoy a day's reprieve from all the toil. As the US Department of Labor's website puts it: "Labor Day is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers." It is a tribute to the "contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."

But let's take a look at our current well-being: The official unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent last month, the highest since 1983, up 0.3 percent from earlier this summer. More than a quarter of teenagers who want to work can't find jobs, according to reports last week, the highest unemployment rate among teens since the government began tracking such data in 1948. And neither of those numbers accounts for the millions of Americans who've simply given up looking for jobs, often out of frustration and despair.

For them and all the other people for whom Labor Day isn't a day off, but just another day of counting pennies and wondering what next week, next month, next year might bring -- if they can survive that long -- Monday was anything but a holiday.

I spent my Labor Day as one of the privileged: I took a nice, long run in the park, shopped for some food, and went to a friend's barbecue. All the while I felt a mix of pleasure and pain, both for the unemployed and for the memory of my own periods of strife.

When you're out of work, the world seems to be swirling around you at a dizzying speed. You feel disoriented and disenfranchised, like the kid at a middle school dance with an enormous pimple on his forehead that no one wants to talk to. It's a desperate, all-consuming state, one that you hope every day will end, and every day that it doesn't feels longer than the last.

But sometimes it's those periods of poverty and fear that can be the most instructive: you learn to budget, to find joy in free and inexpensive activities, and to generally remember something that many of us forget as we grow up, get jobs, and acquire things: life is not about material gain.

Yes, we need things, and we need money to buy those things. But It's amazing how well one can survive on very little. And as I always reminded myself during periods of poverty: I may be cash poor, but I have great wealth in areas that matter more. I love to read, talk to good friends, go running, and simply walk around town.

Those (free) activities allowed me to survive below the poverty line for almost four years without ever feeling destitute. If you ask me, that's something to celebrate, and not just on Labor Day.

[Image: Anninreallife.com]

I have often written about organic versus conventional food, but a problem for many people is having access to any kind of fresh produce.

As an example, my grandparents lived in a somewhat rural, unincorporated township west of Dayton, Ohio. In all the time that I can remember going to visit, there have only been two stores within a five-mile radius.

The closest one, about half a mile away, is really just a large convenience store. The second, situated a couple of miles to the east, was a full-service grocery. But it closed about a year ago.

So my sister and niece, who now live in my grandparents' house, have to travel at least 15 minutes by car to get to the nearest grocery. Mind you, not a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe's or some kind of specialty store: just a regular grocery.

People who don't have cars, or who rely on city buses... I don't know how often they make that kind of trip... or if they just rely on the convenience store that I mentioned at the start. Either way, those are the only options for this low- to middle-income community.

This is the challenge of living in a food desert, the consequences of which go beyond lack of convenience. Residents of communities that have limited access to fresh food are often reliant on fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, which have few if any fruits and vegetables but lots of processed items.

Here in Chicago, studies and advocacy in regard to food deserts have been spearheaded by the Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group. In a 2006 report, the group identified three major food deserts in the city that left more than 600,000 without easy access to a grocery store. The group's findings were recently updated to show slight improvements on Chicago's south side, which is predominantly inhabited by lower income Black and Latino residents.

Plans in action in Chicago and other cities include lobbying corporations to open groceries in historically redlined neighborhoods; developing local food and urban agriculture systems; and conducting more research to guide city planning and public health initiatives.

This September is National Food Desert Awareness Month, so it will be worthwhile to find out what the food access and food security situation is where you live, and how you can help to improve it.

Image: oceandesetoiles

Some books are so easily adapted to the silver screen that it's almost as if they were written for that purpose. But most are best on left the page, where they can take flight in the imagination of each person who reads them. That individual connection to a book is what makes literature so powerful. It offers a personal engagement with something universal: our humanity.

For me, one author who achieves this in each of his works is J.M. Coetzee, the famously reclusive South African of Dutch ancestry who now lives in Australia. His books have a quiet, contemplative nature. Plain language delivers stories of such depth as to put you in direct contact with the human condition itself.

So it was with some concern that I read about an adaptation of Coetzee's controversial, critically acclaimed 1999 novel Disgrace, which takes an unsparing look at racial tensions in post-apartheid South Africa. It's a raw book that neither judges nor takes sides. It doesn't propose any easy solutions, or even suggest that a solution exists. It reveals the reality of South Africa today, and in so doing, some deep-seated truths about us all.

It's hard to adapt that kind of genius to film. Great films do exist, of course, and cinema demands its own sort of genius. But the novel form, at which Coetzee so elegantly excels, seems ideally situated. Can it be rendered in 2-D?

The film, which stars John Malkovich and Jessica Haines, opens in New York this Friday.

September is national yoga month as designated by the Department of Health & Human Services. Thousands of yoga studios across the country are offering free yoga classes and events to raise awareness about the benefits of this ancient meditative technique. Yogamonth.org -- a national, nonprofit awareness campaign to promote the health benefits of yoga -- is on Twitter and Facebook. Namaste!

Howard Stern has always been the ultimate free speech libertarian. His move to satellite radio, while shocking, seemed inevitable after the Republican Congress and the FCC started clamping down on "radio indecency" at the turn of the millennium. Viacom's CEO Sumner Redstone, who was Howard's boss when he was on terrestrial radio, didn't stand up for him (in fact he voted for Bush in 2004) and that was the dealbreaker.

Fast forward to today. Howard Stern has gained a fortune -- half a billion dollars, by some estimates -- but lost influence and listeners. Terrestrial radio is in even worse shape. The Great Recession has deeply hurt the whole radio industry which as the medium is dependent in part on auto ads, and Detroit, to put it mildly, is in peril (although that may be changing).

In 15 months Howard Stern's contract at Sirius will be up. The Chattering Classes are watching. David Hinkley of The Daily News has an interesting column speculating on the possibility of Howard leaving the pay-satellite model and doing the show himself online:

"Stern has left the 'relevance' question behind," says (Talkers editor Michael) Harrison. "He's a broadcast legend and a cultural icon. Even his absence is a story. He has nothing to prove. He has total freedom. The only question is what he does with it."

In fact, says Harrison, he could do something almost no one else could do: He could become his own medium.

"He could start his own radio station - on the Internet, with multiple platforms," says Harrison. "He could have total control, total freedom and keep all the money."

Harrison acknowledges few Internet broadcasters make any money, never mind Stern-level money. He says Stern could change that.

"The problem with 'monetizing' the Internet," says Harrison, "is that almost everything there is available somewhere free. Stern would be selling something not available anywhere else - himself.

"And as more and more people get their radio through the Internet, he would become more and more valuable."

Kurt Hanson, editor of the Radio And Internet Newsletter, says a Stern Internet show could work and would have a big audience upside.

"He could do a podcast [show] that people could buy or subscribe to," says Hanson. "Then they could listen any time they wanted. With the new phone technology, it's ridiculously easy.

"Right now about 10% of the country has some device that makes receiving podcasts simple. A year from now, that number will double. If a Stern got into it, that would speed acceptance further."

The theory is gaining buzz online. Whatever happens in 2010 it is unlikely that Howard in this tough economy will get another contract out of Sirius-XM that remotely resembles the extravagantly lucrative one he has now. Stern has also publicly said he would never go back to terrestrial radio. So Howard's options are retirement (which doesn't seem likely), staying on at a lower salary (possible, but Howard doesn't seem like a pay-cut kind of guy) or striking out on the web, which might appeal to his (radio) pioneer libertarian spirit.

Little known fact: Howard Stern and Mel Karmazin -- now XM-Sirius CEO -- almost bought an influential web start-up in the go-go 90s. In an interview with me Josh Harris, founder of Pseudo.com, told an interesting tale: "Howard and Mel (Karmazin) looked at us ... Howard claimed Pseudo's asking price was too high. Mel did not want to invest in the future. We didn't smell right to two seasoned professionals." The timing wasn't right at the height of Web 1.0 for Stern to do a DIY show online. Is that time now?

[Image: EW]

Day Four - Ruhira, Uganda

The day starts at the Ruhira health clinic. We get to this health clinic up the same windy dirt road we took yesterday. At parts of this drive the view is breathtaking looking both ways on top of a ridge into fertile valleys of banana trees and a scattering of dirt huts. The irony is that if this land were in America, it would be prime real estate.

The health clinic consists of two buildings, one for examinations and deliveries and the other for lab tests. The doctor who shows us around is very professional and kind, introducing his staff of midwives and nurses. He is the only doctor at this clinic. To say that supplies are lacking is an understatement. There are a few beds with some old bed nets hanging over them. In the medicine room, there is a limited supply of anti-malaria meds, ARVs (used to treat HIV/AIDS), and other drugs that I don't recognize. The lab room technician is a woman and explains how she runs crucial tests for Malaria, HIV, and other blood diseases. There is no electricity or running water. I think this is as basic a health facility as you can get. Some community health workers are present at the clinic today. They work with local clinics like this one to refer patients to come in when extra care is needed. Dr. Martin, the only surgeon in the area, explained that CHWs alleviate the work of the clinics because they are able to go out into the community and deliver medical care. In essence, CHWs create a mobile health care system for people who may not have access to the clinics.

Next, we ventured out into the village, again to tag along with two community health workers as they make some of their house rounds. At the first house, the woman had six children and the female CHW went over her family planning, birth control options- condoms, pills, etc... She does this with use of her training manual, which has drawings depicting all of these options. After some discussion (in Ugandan) she chooses birth control pills. The CHW pulls out of her FEED Health backpack a pack of pills that will last the woman for three months. This is an amazing exchange on many levels. Firstly, that in the middle of rural Uganda, women are getting birth control, and secondly, that a CHW, a village peer, has been empowered to give this woman the information and care she deserves. With this help, perhaps women will have fewer children in the village, and the children they do have will be better cared for, better educated, and better fed.

At the second house we visit there were two older women, one grandmother and one mother, with five little ones. The kids are all covered in dirt, and sitting side by side in a little bench outside their hut. The amazing thing is that they are all silent and obedient. Perhaps we were such a spectacle to them (as I'm sure we were with white skin, clean clothes, and a camera) that they thought it best to just quietly take in the moment. The Community Health Worker brought out her manual and started talking to the mothers about good hygiene practices. It was all very orderly and official.

In between houses, a gathering of children would inevitably gather into a curious gang of onlookers. One little girl, maybe 4 years old, wearing a green dress was holding her sleeping brother on her back. The boy must have been half her age, and yet she was entrusted to take care of him She shifted and buckled under the weight on her back. One thing I love to do with kids is to take their picture with my digital camera and then show them their images. They love it, and gradually become more comfortable with me until there is practically a laughing mob of kids surrounding me. I used to bring with me on trips a Polaroid camera, which I would use to take pictures and hand out as a keepsake for people I met on my travels. Most of the time this is the only picture they have to keep of themselves. Polaroid has since gone out of business, so film is hard to come by. And kids, once they realize they get to keep the pictures, start grabbing them right as they come out of the camera. Chaos ensues...

Having grown up in Africa as well as the United States affords me a unique perspective on the issue of sex education in the North and South. In the rural areas of many African countries, talk about sex between parents and children is absolutely taboo. It goes against centuries of custom. For good or for ill -- mostly the latter -- generations of African youths have learned about sex on their own. Add poverty and war into the mix and you can see, sadly, how the HIV/AIDS crisis came to bear so brutally on the continent. Governments -- most notably Uganda's now-legendary "ABC Approach" -- have often had to step in in loco parentis as sex educator, preventing the spread of HIV infection, literally protecting the next generation.

America, by contrast, is by and large a sex-positive country. We are comparatively prosperous and educated; women have equal rights. Our attitudes about sex are protected by a Constitution that doesn't excessively limit the behavior of two consenting adults (except, alas, in the matter of gay marriage). So porn, in all its fleshy ubiquity, is really no big deal here in the United States. Still, globalism being what it is has made porn's ubiquity in the West something of a problem in places like Ghana.

Ghana, a sexually quite conservative West African country, is having to deal with the recent phenomenon of porn's cultural influence. The world, as Tom Friedman reminds us, is hot, flat and crowded. And the lack of sex education ominously parallels the rise of pirated porn DVDs from the American and Nigerian markets as well as internet cafes where adult video content is free and plentiful. BBC documentarian Tim Samuels has been investigating the globalization of pornography for the series "Hardcore Profits." From Tim's interview with PRI's The World:

In Ghana you see the most extraordinary impact of the mainstream western pornography which is predominantly made in Los Angeles and is predominantly condom free. That pornography somehow makes it way to even the most remote and obscure parts of Ghana in Africa. There are villages which don't even have electricity; where people live in mud huts; where generators get wheeled into the village and mud huts get turned into impromptu pornographic cinemas. And those films from Los Angeles get shown and the impact is chilling. The films, as I said, don't have condoms. People copy what they see and they say to me they've contracted HIV as a direct result of copying the films they've seen ...You know some of the people I met said the only sex education they've ever had is from watching these films ... So when you have young men in their 20s saying to me, well no one ever told me anything. I had no sex education as a kid. And the only education I got was from these videos from Los Angeles without condoms. That's what I saw. That's what I copied. That's how I got HIV.

While the scope of the problem may or may not be exaggerated in this documentary (there is too much second-hand evidence, not enough first), the subject has definitely stirred debate online about the effects of porn on Ghanaian culture. Another argument, perhaps, for more condoms in porn. But the larger argument to be made is about globalization and the responsibilities America bears for being the sole superpower and planetary cultural leader.

[Image: Cleveland.com]

On one hand Chicago Public Schools is telling parents and students that they should stay home or will be sent home if they have a 100-degree temperature in an on-going effort to stem the swine flu.

On the other hand, Chicago Public Schools uses absences, even illness absences, as one way to choose which student is allowed to enter into the top college prep schools in the system:

[Celia Hensey] was a straight-A student who aced the selective enrollment high school entrance exam. She scored in the 90th percentile on her middle school tests and tallied 984 points out of 1,000 on the overall admissions scale.

But Celia did not get in.

Her likely downfall? A nasty flu bug in 7th grade that kept her out of school for five days. In the complex and competitive world of selective enrollment scoring, Celia was docked 10 points for five absences.

The years that students are earning their way into the top high schools are 4th through 7th grade. When my daughter began kindergarten last fall, there were stories about kids not getting into a selective high school due to one sick day.

But now with Swine flu/H1N1 mania going on and schools working on vigilance, the Chicago school system is sending mixed signals. If I were a 6th grader and I felt like I was coming down with something, I'd do whatever it would take to mask it. And that's not a good lesson for students to learn.

For one, it puts their classmates at risk for whatever they have - cold, H1N1, flu. Secondly, it teaches children that work is more valued than their physical well-being.

Even if my daughter wasn't on the path to be that 6th grader pondering if it is worth it to take a day off to rest up against a cold, I'd still be worried that one of the largest school systems in this country is teaching our children that getting into high school is more important than their health.

Let's hope that CPS and all school systems who may use this same formula stop using excused absences to penalize top students.

Image: National Institutes of Health

Flanked by NY Governor David Paterson and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Jay Z recently announced that he hopes to raise $1 million by performing in a concert to benefit the families of rescue workers killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. The charity concert, "Answer the Call," will be held on September 11th at Madison Square Garden. Tickets, which are at a flat rate of $50 each, will go on sale Sept. 8. According to their press release, "since its inception, the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund has distributed over $114 million to the families of New York City police and fire personnel who have lost their lives in the line of duty." All proceeds from ticket and concert merchandise sales will go to the Benefit Fund.

For those who can't attend in person, the concert will also be broadcast live on Fuze TV at 9 PM on September 11.

This is an extraordinary time. Since the economy went into a tailspin last year, our community, in many ways, has remained paralyzed. There is still a pervasive sense that shopping for non-essential consumer goods is indulgent, frivolous and questionably appropriate.

The fact is, consuming is what we do and it is what has made this economy what it is. Consuming is what keeps the economic engine going and continues to allow each of us to provide for our individual needs, and also express ourselves individually.

We are currently unveiling a new advertising campaign: "PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE BAG" to address this stigma, and also advise the reader that: "Your Country Needs You...to shop". And then goes on to advise all that; "100% of sales tax will go to pay down the national debt."

As part of this campaign we are introducing a limited edition eco-friendly tote bag, with the message "Pledge Allegiance to the Bag." The Bags will be available in limited quantities at Kenneth Cole stores and online.

We will also be joining the CFDA's (Council of Fashion Designers of America) Fashion's Nights Out global celebration of fashion on September 10, 2009. We are excited to join with our industry in a coordinated effort to inspire consumers to open their minds to all of the wonderful Fall offerings (as well as their wallets).

Fashion's Night Out gives us the opportunity to help people "do good" while helping themselves "look good," which in turn helps us all "feel good."

During Fashion's Night Out, I will be joined by my good friend Matisyahu, who will be performing songs from his new hit album "Light" at our Rockefeller Center store in New York City. Matis was first featured in our fall 2008 critically acclaimed National Ad campaign: "We All Walk in Different Shoes." and was also featured in my book AWEARNESS: Inspiring Stores About How to Make a Difference.

An orthodox Jewish Reggae rapper, Matisyahu, continues to break boundaries with his embrace of the unconventional fusion of music and religion. Thru his life's example, he continues to challenge people to live life on their terms. Matisyahu is an inspiring icon, whose story we are honored to be able to help tell.

If I told you that supporting Fashion's Night Out, going to your local Kenneth Cole store, and making a purchase could help revive the economy (and let you look good doing it), "WOULD YOU BUY IT?"

This brilliant poster depicting "Diversity of Species in the Rainforest" was created by ORO Verde, a German non-profit dedicated to protecting the world's rainforests and the true diversity they contain. See it larger here.

[Image: No Caption Needed]

Gay marriage was legalized in Vermont almost five months ago, but the law didn't go into effect until Monday at midnight. And Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan, who have been together for 17 years, couldn't wait another minute to join hands in matrimony. So they didn't: the men were married at exactly 12:01 Tuesday morning, at the Moose Meadow Lodge in Waterbury, VT.

Both of Whitehall, NY, Slimback and Sullivan were married by a co-owner of the lodge, Greg Tulson, who is also a Justice of the Peace. Now they are, simply, the Sullivans.

Commemorating the new law, Vermont's beloved purveyors of decadent ice cream, Ben and Jerry's, introduced a new product: Hubby Hubby. In fact, it's an old product -- Chubby Hubby -- but the name is new. As dlisted observed, however, the name leaves lesbians out of the ice cream party: Where's the "Everything But The... Penis" or "Cherry Gayellecia"? Or, simply, "Fish Food"?

In any event, congratulations to the Sullivans, and may you never become chubby hubbies as long as you both shall live.

[Image: Hubby Hubby Ice Cream]