I've been working in the field of Internet safety for 17 years, and the deeper I get into it, the more I realize that Internet safety for kids and teens isn't about the Internet or really even about safety. Read More... More on Bullying
This post is dedicated to my best friend, who is fighting for his life against brain cancer. Sean Holton is the most talented writer and journalist I've ever known. His blog on his struggle is must reading, and after well over a year of survival he is still at war. Here I cross post a piece he wrote on our time together, which seems mostly true although I could not swear to it in federal court.
Sean Holton (Same Time Tomrrow): Be careful what you mock in your youth, because what goes around comes around and the target of your mockery will often get the last laugh. A long time ago, my target was something called The Mask, and now it is finally getting its revenge.
How was the season finale? On the anti-climactic side, actually, and not nearly as good as the penultimate episode, one of the show's best. But it did set up an intriguing beginning to the show's ninth season in the fall. Read More... More on Mad Men
It may come as a surprise to many that despite its peaceful and somewhat progressive image in the West, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition does not know full ordination for women. Read More... More on Buddhism
Brazil's biofuel drama is a reminder that solutions packaged in green wrappers fail to scale with billions facing starvation in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Read More... More on Argentina
May 14, 2011 in Port-au-Prince felt like January 20, 2009 in Washington DC: a new president producing unexpected smiles, and tears, too -- and in devastated Haiti, a sense of new life. Read More...
I was a bit surprised when, as I was driving in the car with my sister, Bonnie, she said she didn't know the name of one of my dearest friends. This constant companion had been virtually everywhere with me. Read More... More on Android
The suit follows an extensive effort by the environmental groups to seek information about contacts between Clinton and Paul Elliott, a lobbyist for TransCanada Pipelines and the national deputy director of Clinton's presidential run. Read More... More on Hillary Clinton
Many sex education techniques are, at best, moderately successful, say youth. Different content is needed to engage young people in their own sexual health, and in more forms. Read More... More on Parenting
The Republican Party has now made supporting the Ryan budget its acid test for 2012. By forcing the issue in such a major way with Gingrich, the message to the rest of the Republican candidates is loud and clear: "Support the Ryan plan -- or else." Read More... More on Elections 2012
As the founder of a Goat Farm, I had plenty of sweet succulent goat meat in my freezer. Why, it occurred to me, couldn't I substitute goat meat for beef in Julia's famous Boeuf Bourguignonne dish? Read More...
The hawks of the military-industrial complex who are hyping the Chinese threat to justify record military budgets are fighting the wrong war, to the detriment of our security. Read More... More on Obama Administration
We seem to be witnessing a major split between military leaders (Gen. Richards) and NATO political leaders. Gen. Richards wants "to tighten the vise." NATO seems to have no intention of tightening the vise, so the game goes on. Read More...
In early films, we Indians were depicted as nothing more than bronze, half-clothed savages, sporting stereotypical double braids, screaming as we got shot off horses. Hollywood's portrayals are responsible for the shallow perception most folks have of our people. Read More... More on The Oscars
As you can imagine, a Campari event at a burlesque club with its red hued lighting coupled with the seductively red and divinely delicious cocktails had us swooning all night. Read More... More on Padma Lakshmi
The week's news about the sexual conduct of politically powerful men gives me a queasy feeling of déjà vu. Eight years ago I was dragged into an investigation of allegations that Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed women. Read More... More on Arnold Schwarzenegger
The looming budget cuts remind me of the old Prop 13 days. The state of California is getting ready to cut the civil rights of the disabled and no one seems to notice. Read More... More on Budget Cuts
The prevailing myth encompassing death is that the final moment somehow outweighs all others, as if that blink between alive and dead defines the life just lived. Read More... More on Death & Dying
I'm sure the GOP and "Tea Party" faithful have their own list of deal breakers. But the way things are going these days -- 17 months before the next presidential election -- those on the political right are quickly running out of viable contenders. Read More... More on GOP
With IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn under arrest for sexual assault, many have predicted the Euro's demise. After all, DSK is a founding father of the common currency and the architect of bailouts that have propped up the euro zone. Read More... More on Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Next year people will claim the class of 2012 is the future, but how can we possibly predict the future? Well, if we are making it, it's pretty simple. So I say to you 2012, get out. This is our future. Bill Clinton said so. Read More...
The week's news about the sexual conduct of politically powerful men gives me a queasy feeling of déjà vu.
As the French agonize over whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn's star power quashed past allegations, I can respond cynically: Yes, that probably happened. But we should not automatically assume that timelier reporting about Strauss-Kahn's sexually aggressive behavior (including an alleged violent incident in 2002) would have slowed the 62-year old Socialist's march towards the French presidency.
I speak from experience.
Eight years ago I was dragged scowling and complaining into an investigation of allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger -- the leading candidate for governor of California -- had sexually harassed and molested women, including those who worked on his movies.
A team of reporters for The Los Angeles Times, where I then worked, had been pursuing the story for weeks and were about to publish a first piece. With the election days away, I was pulled in. At the time I was deep into an investigative project about a troubled Los Angeles hospital that had a history of harming or even killing its patients. Digging into The Terminator's salacious back story seemed a tawdry detour.
But the orders came from on high. They needed someone adept at persuading reluctant sources to share traumatic or humiliating experiences. So out I went crisscrossing Southern California in search of women groped by the Republican candidate for governor. Some declined to speak. Others brusquely said nothing had ever happened.
But several reluctantly began to describe behavior that appeared to cross every imaginable line. As I interviewed these women, I came to believe in the importance of the story. They were strong, professional, independent people, women like me: competent and assertive.
Their experiences with Schwarzenegger were double humiliations. First they suffered through the acts themselves: demeaning - often public - groping, unwanted, invasive kisses, crude, belittling comments.
Far worse, they felt forced by circumstance to let Schwarzenegger behave badly -- like an over-indulged toddler, as one woman put it. A complaint against the bigger-than-life moneymaker could tank their careers. Not a single woman felt anyone would have taken their side or chastised the star.
The abuse of power -- and the judgments underlying it -- were relevant facts for Californians preparing to cast a historic vote. (As was Hollywood's repeated willingness to look the other way, but that is another story).
So in urging women to go public with their accounts, I was arguing something I truly believed, which was that their stories would be of use to voters.
I went to the door of a woman in Orange County who supposedly had conceived a child with Schwarzenegger. She became teary-eyed the moment I identified myself as a reporter, repeatedly and emphatically denying that Schwarzenegger had fathered her son. Soon after, a British tabloid published her name and said she had a "love child" with the actor. We were never able to confirm this. (The 2003 story resurfaced this week when Schwarzenegger admitted he had fathered a child with a member of his household staff more than 10 years ago. The LA Times, which broke the story, described the mother as a staff member who recently retired. This does not appear to be the woman I interviewed, a former flight attendant on a charter plane.)
Ultimately, several women agreed to recount their experiences with Schwarzenegger, courageously diving into the maw of a nasty political campaign.
Three days before the election, Linnea Harwell, who had become the manager of an Atlanta art museum, described how Schwarzenegger regularly stripped naked in front of her on the 1988 Santa Fe, N.M. set of the movie "Twins."
Once, Harwell recalled, he pulled her down on a bed while he was wearing only underwear and let her go only when someone called her on her walkie talkie. "He was laughing like it was all a big joke," she said then. "Well it wasn't. It was scary."
Unless his wife, Maria Shriver, was on the set, Harwell said, Schwarzenegger made rude comments without caring who heard. She recalled wondering "Why does he think he could get away with it? But he could."
Carla Baron, a stand-in on the same movie set, said the actor and his buddy had sandwiched her between them, then forced his tongue down her throat. Another woman haltingly told me how Schwarzenegger pinned her against him and spanked her.
Schwarzenegger denied that the alleged events on the "Twins" set had occurred, but issued a general apology. "I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful," he said. His wife stood by him.
Election Day arrived and Schwarzenegger was elected by a wide margin. The Los Angeles Times was castigated for smearing Schwarzenegger close to the election. Ten thousand readers cancelled their subscriptions. I received a string of vicious calls and emails. The women were branded as liars desperate for a share of fame.
One of the women called me in tears. I'd cajoled her into revealing her humiliations -- and here was yet another. The voters, like Hollywood, ignored the star's troubling behavior. I was devastated and angry too -- and guilty for wasting their courage.
If the press had simply investigated and reported on the past allegations against Strauss-Kahn, would it have mattered?
Or did it take an arrest to change the course of French politics?
It seems almost obligatory that I should open with a few words on Ingrid Chavez's collaborations with ultra-famous rockers Prince and Lenny Kravitz. But if you are only familiar with those facets of Ingrid's career, you are missing out. Read More... More on Music
Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are consistently plagued by higher unemployment rates than the civilian community. Ted Daywalt, a retired Navy Captain (O-6), and chief executive officer of VetJobs.com, explains why the dichotomy exists.
"Many human resource managers and hiring managers have no idea what a military person brings to the job," he e-mailed me. He says that recruiters do not understand the skills perfected in the armed forces because military service has declined from one in ten Americans in 1970 to one in 270 today. He blames the end of the draft.
"Too many employers think all the OEF/OIF veterans have PTSD," he wrote, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from participation in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Between June 1-5, some 25,000 people are expected in the various venues in the town of North Hempstead to experience an extraordinary program of some 40 films including premieres. Read More...
The arrest of the IMF head on assault charges brings to light some very interesting issues. First, the maid was apparently black, and just yesterday a psychologist from the London School of Economics said black women were not attractive. Read More... More on IMF
Why do we hate newspapers? Because they are right wing (Rupert Murdoch) or because they are left wing (most of the major metros on the East Coast according to Murdoch)? No it's because they aspire to keep us, as a society, honest. Read More...
I propose we forget the one-size-fits-all category of "sex offender." Let's give those who have gone on to live law abiding lives for a set number of years the hope -- the goal -- of getting their names expunged. Read More...
I was shocked to find out that Rick Santorum just might be embracing the Spreading Santorum image. Don't believe me. Take a listen to Santorum's new radio ad. Read More... More on Rick Santorum
Some of the best times I've spent in Colorado have been in the backcountry with my mom and siblings, and more recently, with my own kids. That is why I'm concerned to see today's kids spending more time browsing the Internet than exploring nature. Read More... More on Nature
May welcomes artist Matthew Palladino to the New York gallery circuit. The opening of his solo show at Fredericks and Freiser gallery in Chelsea now gives New Yorkers the opportunity to view Palladino's art in all its eerie splendor. Read More...
Perhaps the biggest disaster is the inability of the Arab world to see the Jewish state as anything but a cursed presence. Call me a cynic, but I don't think peace has a chance when Arabs still see the birth of Israel as a Nakba. Read More...
Buck, the movie, has been circulating the festivals, touted as a crowd pleaser for its depiction of Buck and his unusual way with horses. But what gets you when Buck shakes your hand is the intensity of his gaze. Read More... More on Film
Sigh, this episode is depressing. I want to watch rich pregnant women with narcissistic demands, not marital woes. Give me someone who wants to fit her baby boy with a toupee because she hates baldness. Read More...
Before investigators wrap up the Flight 32 investigation, they should be sure it isn't written up as a near-disaster, successfully completed by a crew of heroes and an exceptional plane. Read More...
The closest thing to a bubble in tech these days may be the rush to declare it a bubble in the media. Even if it turns out to be the case, it would be more luck than prescience. Read More... More on Internet
"Disrupt" will start this weekend with a "Hackathon" involving some 700 participants. In addition to tech luminaries, there will be celebrities including Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Rose. Read More...
In speaking multiple languages, you could potentially have "multiple personalities" in the sack, exponentially increasing the passion potential in your boudoir as you keep things fresh and exciting in Swedish, German, Spanish, Italian... Read More... More on Sex
There is one area where going green is going gangbusters, but it involves a much larger investment than say two extra quarters for some eco-friendly counter wipes. After all this time, we have an answer. Yes, hybrid cars are here to stay. Read More...
Today, I launched my initiative to encourage kids to get outdoors by introducing a resolution to honor the inaugural National Kids to Parks Day on Saturday, May 21. This resolution officially begins my comprehensive summer campaign to get kids out to the parks throughout the state of Colorado and across the country.
I want to thank those of you who responded to my April 27 newsletter by submitting ideas to help shape my initiative to get kids more involved in our national parks. It should not come as a surprise that many Coloradans have already put their fingers on the problem and are working to find solutions. I was inspired by the diversity of ideas and the variety of programs that already exist in Colorado to get kids outdoors.
Here are a few of your ideas:
"The Colorado Division of Wildlife has a wonderful program that takes kids out in the field and teaches them about nature. Get the kids involved in these programs." - kherfurt, Evergreen
"The National Parks Junior Ranger Program is a wonderful, interactive learning experience for kids under 12 years of age. Our sons were so motivated to collect the Junior Ranger badges that we visited 40+ parks, monuments and historic sites." - braveskimom, Grand Junction
"National Parks could start noting which trails are good to take children on, and at what ages. Noting which trails are for kids promotes the idea that kids should be hiking and makes sure kids have fun on hikes and want to come back." - alchemistofmoriar
Some of the best times I've spent in Colorado have been in the backcountry with my mom and siblings, and more recently, with my own kids. That is why I'm concerned to see today's kids spending more time browsing the Internet than exploring nature. Our parks can connect kids not just to our natural resources, but also to past events that have shaped our state and country's culture and history. My campaign to get kids to our parks aims to get them excited about being active and healthy outdoors, while inspiring the next generation of American stewards to enjoy and protect our nation's special places.
Colorado has some of the most spectacular national parks in the country and, with 300 days of sunshine, we have plenty of opportunities to enjoy them. Mark this National Kids to Parks Day by making the pledge to take your kids or a group of kids to a park and I will send you periodic updates throughout the summer on great opportunities to get outdoors.
Nica Trattoria and Il Posto Accanto are warm and happy places with good homemade Italian food and with chef-owners who add to the atmosphere with personalities that are larger than life. Read More...
For those of you who feel betrayed, disappointed, infuriated or traumatized by George Lucas, there's finally a movie for you -- the fascinating, excellent documentary, The People vs. George Lucas. Read More... More on Film
"I need three criteria to make a film," de France said with a full smile. "To like the character, to work with great directors, and to love the story. When Dardenne or Eastwood call you, of course you say yes." Read More...
Sigh. I could tell from last week's promos that this episode was going to be depressing. It's even titled "Couples Therapy," and it's all about people fighting over things only tangentially related to their future offspring. Which isn't anything that hasn't happened before on this show, but gah. I want to watch rich pregnant women with outlandish, narcissistic demands, not marital woes. Give me someone who wants to fit her baby boy with a toupee because she hates baldness. Give me someone who wants a life-sized bronze sculpture made of her 38-week uterus. Give me someone so vain that she wants to bleach her linea negra. I don't care, Pope, just give me someone with superficial problems. I don't want to see real pain. If I wanted to see that I'd be watching 16 and Pregnant, or that horrific Biography series, I Survived (Have you seen that show? It's like MTV True Life: Saw. Someone actually had a knife hammered into her head.)
Anyway.
Rosie's first clients this week are Diana, a southern blond, and Ashley, an Englishman, who live in a two-bedroom on the Upper West Side with their daughter, Khloe (what hath the Kardashians wrought?!?) Diana is convinced that they need to move into a bigger apartment; Ashley wants to stay put. Somehow this debate fills 20 minutes of airtime. Since securing a new residence does not fall under the Pope purview, Rosie hires a real estate agent (I swear, instead of "maternity guru," she should just call herself "expensive yet useless third party." I'm waiting--WAITING--for the episode in which a pregnant homemaker wants to have a water birth but can't because her bathtub drain is clogged, necessitating a Pope-approved plumber). She also brings in an interior decorator who says he can transform Khloe's room to accommodate the new baby while still maintaining each child's individuality. The big suspense is supposed to be who will win out--space-hungry Diana (haha, that just made me picture her floating around in space, eating asteroids like Pac-Man!) or stay-put Ashley, and because I hate spoilers I won't ruin it for you.
The next Osama bin Laden may not be one bearded man hiding in a walled fortress but instead a group of highly skilled, faceless men behind computers. Cyberterrorism, while still largely science fiction, lurks around the corner. Read More... More on Wikileaks
Hilary Duff likes a good challenge. The number of former child and teen stars who manage to sustain success into their twenties, as Duff undeniably has, are few, but even rarer are those who then develop into serious adult actors. Read More... More on North Carolina
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Backers of Alaska's Denali natural gas pipeline project had barely thrown in the economic towel, when some state lawmakers began calling for TransCanada and the administration of Gov. Sean Parnell to prove the controversial state-sanctioned gas line project is economically viable.
At stake with the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act is several hundred million dollars in public money the Legislature agreed to give the project as well as the state's ability to move forward with a larger-sized, in-state gas pipeline.
And the announcement Tuesday morning by the Denali project's backers that they were giving up on building a $35 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline from the North Slope to Alberta, Canada, was also immediately viewed as yet another sign that a decades-long major economic dream for Alaska is once again slipping away.
"Many human resource managers and hiring managers have no idea what a military person brings to the job," he e-mailed me. He says that recruiters do not understand the skills perfected in the armed forces because military service has declined from one in ten Americans in 1970 to one in 270 today. He blames the end of the draft.
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