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THE CIRCUS HAS COME TO TOWN from Georgia Jones First of all, if you are looking for an analysis of Republican candidates or issues, you might want to look elsewhere except as what effects one party in this country ails them all (or both as we like to say). My interest is in the Democratic Party and I must admit that I hesitated to write this article. There are several reasons for that and let's put them to rest right now. I hesitated because of the confrontational nature of politics in America. It is an attitude that we consider essential for our process: A test of metal for a potential leader of one of the world's biggest bully nations. Even backing off from the Bush fostered chip on the shoulder and Big Stick of the last two terms will take strength and determination, so there is more than a little reality to this particular test. There is also no doubting that it is a destructive test, that it divides the American people more than any other ritual of any other industrialized society…And that it is fed into frenzy state by the profit motives of the media who report on and, all too often and more and more, shape the confrontation. I hesitate because there is so much to say and so many emotions at work in this particular election that to try and say it coherently is difficult. I hesitate because of essential problems with the campaign definition of "the Presidency." Take this last: Every one of the candidates has been lying to us, no matter how truthful they believe themselves to be. And we as voters have willingly stepped into the rabbit-hole world the entire conversation represents. Does anyone, especially a candidate with enough experience to become president, believe that a president who is not acting illegally can make direct changes to government? If you are believing the My plan calls for-rhetoric, please take another look at the Constitution. At best, a president can guide public opinion and work with or pressure Congress to action. Other than the veto, the president has absolutely no direct say in legislation. This is only slightly less true in international relations, but that slight difference makes that one an important question to be asking any would-be President of the United States. As far as domestic issues, philosophy should matter in electability more than a plan of action or mathematical calculations that will be reshaped and reformulated by Congress and reality. The confrontational nature of our politics is extreme but well seasoned with a large dose of schizophrenia. Election time is one of the few times when neighbor or family member feels safely justified in shouting at each other. The media has shaped the contest into a sporting event, after all CNN is calling it "Election Bowl" at the moment, so why not vent a little of that media induced frenzy on our friends and neighbors? At the same time we feel free to shout, we condemn sporadically and with no logical pattern to our indignation so-called negative campaigning. We make demands on our candidates that can only be met with split personalities and then layer on the demand of "consistency," all the while ignoring the very real inconsistencies in our own definition of our opinions. Take for instance an example of this last: Obama is running as the candidate of change, yet what has he changed? What does he really plan to change? This is a male candidate who was carried into the last Democratic convention on the shoulders of a Party leadership who knew full-well that a woman would be on the ballot in the next presidential election. They held him up, waved him around, and propelled him to full frontal politics. Consider what other credentials than being a young black man could have been shoved at Americans without every liberal in the United States crying foul (which translates to "Oh, my good the male chauvinists are at it again!") Obama is a created candidate, shaped by the very system he claims to be free from. The youth vote, which is propelling Obama now, is centered on the young and idealistic who do not, as yet, recognize the heavy hand of Party Politics moving the players around, and by the youth of girls who have not, as yet, realized that discrimination will come to them as well, even if they don't notice it until they are forty. Youthful idealism is a wonderful thing but in the United States it can be very dangerous when it is practiced without the constraints of a good education in political science and the present state of oppression. Which brings me to the field of our Democratic Party choices. Early on we considered and dismissed some candidates who had real ideas to offer. We exchanged these low-key candidates and their tedious requirement that we think about issues, for the three we have been following: Well polished, well funded, well spoken birds of a feather. They are all acceptable, in the way we have come to accept our leaders. None of them would be UNacceptable as a candidate or as a president. It is rare to find a field of candidates who are so basically interchangeable, but here we are. So we had three and were asked to vote for Edwards as a hard working repeat candidate who truly deserved the prize if only because of his charm and tenaciousness. Edwards has realized that he was out-minoritied from every angle and stepped aside. So, now our choices are to vote for Barack or Hillary. Barack Obama purports to foster change but is comfortably inspiring in that relaxed way of candidates who know they are holding the trump card in America. He is proving to knee-jerk liberals that we are all the same under the skin and that is something they have wanted to demonstrate through their votes for so many years. Of course, the trump card is, as always, a penis. Then there is Hillary, flawed Hillary, who had to feed her family and fund her husband's aspirations, raise her child and see her husband successful before she could begin her own work. That has left some wrinkles, a lot of scars, and a determined nature we are really put off by…We hoped for that relaxed, sure of himself inspiration in our symbolic candidate; didn't we? That is the field; the ball is in play; and our media and vitriol pumps are primed, so let me get to the down and dirty of what is going on here. —Politics does nothing if not invite mixed metaphors, but I am going to shift here and try to stay with the metaphor in my title to make my points.   THE CIRCUS John Edwards was carefully analyzed and held to the glare of opinions about his strength. Too much determination and he was a bully, too little and that Southern drawl painted him weak. His place in the big tent was balancing the tightrope. Hillary Clinton walks the same tightrope, but she doubles on bareback, circling the rings as she does tricks, trying not to be thrown by her own momentum. Every nuance is judged against the unspoken standard of too many or too few of those nasty hormones we are told to avoid in politics in America. Barack Obama is the only one of the three who is not only safe from the tightrope—being that relaxed candidate has its benefits—but he is the only one who is allowed to bring in his own acts.   The Juggler Obama first called upon the great juggling act of ultimate media support and female enthusiasm, Oprah. She was paraded around the ring a few times, tossed a couple of power brokered smiles in the air, deftly caught his bouquets of shared goals and complicity, and moved off to huge applause and some serious questions about the role of media wielding opinion makers in King-Making-America. Now he is bringing in the clowns.   The Clowns I have watched the parade of Kennedy's that have marched back and forth in Obama's three rings over the past few days and tried hard to find a feminist among them. My own political history includes a strong nostalgia for the Kennedy memories, those of JFK and, even more so, Bobby. Let's face it, though, I am not stupid and I have not failed to miss the point about Kennedy attitudes toward woman. If you have, you might want to take a look at their less than illustrious history in this area. OK, Bill Clinton was as much of a philanderer as many (though not all) of the Kennedy boys. Still, we see Bill standing up in public to support his wife and, apparently, forgoing the comforts of a mistress to do it. You gotta prefer that man to the clowns of the Kennedy clan even if you wouldn't want him in your bed.   Meanwhile behind the Makeup and in the Lions Den While Obama preens and bows, enjoys the fruits of liberal guilt and power brokering, old-line politics sung to the tune of a new age, we find Hillary going from microphone to microphone trying not to play the gender card while being unable to ignore it and stay even semi-sane. She has Bill, who no matter whether you like him or not is willing to take off the gloves for her—no matter how independent you are, you have to love that—and points to make, even though I will tell you they are probably irrelevant outside of the election itself. Behind the makeup we have a woman who is our last best chance for a woman president in this country for at least twenty years. That is how long it will take for another woman to feed her family and fund her husband's aspirations, raise her child and see her husband successful before she can begin her own work. Granted, she is flawed, imperfect and all too human. But she made it there. And we have a man who is also flawed, though we know too little of him to be able to catalogue his shortcomings in detail, yet. He is young and will still be a viable candidate in four to eight years when we know him better because he will have done and lived more. One of his flaws is undoubtedly ambition, proven as he chose to jump in head to head with this moment in the history of women, claiming all the while that he is principled and expecting to be voted into power. Behind the screens where all of the secret transformations that make the circus magic happen, we have women, who have always been divided not by who we are but by how we have been socialized. Men do not hesitate to vote their choice just because he is flawed. Women do. Men do not hesitate to vote for their narrow view of their best interests. Women do. It is women who find ourselves divided over who we should be. Men got that one down a few million years ago. It is women who will decide this election together or separately. Find out about Nancy Pelosi in this month's Exceptional Women and listen to political commentary every week with Don Williams on Op-Ed.

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The Lynn Andrews Center for Sacred Arts and Training: A "Mystery School," by Lynn Andrews   A yellow moon had risen over the hills. Somewhere the coyotes were singing their mournful song. I was sitting before an open fire with an old Indian woman, her face creased like that of an apple doll. Her cheekbones were high; her braids fell well below her shoulders. "Your life is a path," she said to me, her thick accent at first difficult to understand. "Knowingly or unknowingly you have been on a vision quest. It is good to have a vision, a dream." There was something compelling about her. Her personality seemed to change from moment to moment. Although she had difficulty expressing the simplest thoughts in English, she was as erudite as anyone I have ever known, and she had great dignity. "Woman is the ultimate," she said. "Mother Earth belongs to woman, not man. She carries the void." These were her words to me before I became her apprentice. She is a heyoka medicine woman from the far North, a shaman woman, and I was destined to follow in her path. The term "shaman" comes from the Tungusic language of Siberia and is used to denote those who know how to use energy to heal, who know how to divine the unseen energies of the universe toward a higher purpose in life. Over the past century, "shaman" has become widely used to describe medicine people from native cultures across the globe, the inheritors of an ancient knowledge of how energy moves in the universe and how to use that energy to heal their world. From my first encounter with this elegant, beautiful woman with the apple doll face, I was blessed with the great honor of becoming her apprentice and, through her, to become apprentice to, and now a member of, a group of forty-four shaman women, many of them elders, from three different continents and twice as many countries. I am told that before he died, Carl Jung turned to his followers and said, "I no longer believe. I know." These are women who know, and in their knowing I have found a greater clarity in life than I had ever believed possible, a certainty grounded in bedrock, born of the ancient knowledge and wisdom carried by my teachers which has stood the test of time and remains as vibrant and true in our modern world as it was long, long ago. They are shaman women from different native cultures, yet they do not follow the traditional ways. Theirs is a spirituality and a wisdom that is founded upon the "firstness" of women, tools for healing and enlightened living which grow out of the very rhythms of life, itself, as they have been practiced and handed down from mother to daughter, shaman to apprentice for many thousands of years. When I wrote Medicine Woman, my first book of our work together, I had no thought of being published. I wrote it as a gift to my teachers. They asked me to publish it, which I did. And then they asked me to write many other books on the work we have done together because they felt that we are living at a time of greater chaos and uncertainty than ever before in human history and they believed it was time for people to see and hear the teachings which they carry. Almost without my realizing it, because I was immersed in the worlds of my teachers, my books became popular all over the world, and I began traveling and lecturing internationally. There were even people who moved to the Los Angeles area so they could work with me. It became very clear to me that so many more people wanted these teachings than I could possibly accommodate in the way I had been doing it. So I sat in council with my teachers and we decided that I should start a school, the Lynn Andrews Center for Sacred Arts and Training. We call it the "Mystery School" because it draws from and teaches people how to access the sacred mysteries of the universe to heal their lives and find harmony, bliss and self-empowerment amid the chaos and confusion of today's world. This is the world of the shaman, one who knows how to choreograph the power and beauty of the natural world toward a better way of living. It is a four-year "school without walls," with a written curriculum and mentors who have already gone through the training. Students are placed into study groups, and throughout the year they work with their mentors and with one another through the marvels of telephone and internet. There are two live trainings each year where we all come together in circle, roll up our sleeves and really go to work, enabling all of my students to work directly with me. I created a "school without walls" for two reasons: First, so that anyone, anywhere in the world, could do this work without having to uproot and move to a campus, which would exclude so many. Secondly, I wanted to create a learning environment where people could learn to create the shaman within themselves by finding the truth of their own experience … and not try to be their teacher. Oftentimes when you go to a school, you revere the teachers and you want to be like them. And then you give your power away. Experiential learning is, I think, the way true learning and healing occur, when you learn from your own life's experiences. One of my students, a public health nurse and graduate school professor, talks about how the Mystery School helped her to handle her mother's dying and death with dignity, knowing how to help both her mother and herself. Another talks about how, after years of abused child therapy from a truly horrific childhood, the sacred art that we create finally helped her to move all of the pieces into place, actually healing the wounds of child abuse that she had been able, heretofore, to understand but not to reconcile. You can't teach someone about his or her life or self by standing at a podium and lecturing. You teach them by holding up mirrors into which they can look to discover their own personal truths. So I created my curriculum in a way that would show students how to look at the experiences of their own lives - whatever those circumstances are, good and bad, alike, the painful as well as the glorious - against the backdrop of sacredness, beauty, art, music and literature, the aspects of life that we so desperately need in order to understand our own truth and beauty, and our history in this world. In my Mystery School, we start out first, last and always with the concept of your own beauty within. This way of experiential learning was also the way I worked with my teachers. From the very beginning, I would go and be with them for short periods of time. They would put me into extreme situations - some terrifying - where I was forced to confront and grow beyond my deepest fears and the darkest side of my nature, or perish, for this is when we are most fully alive and willing to learn, when our very lives depend on our ability to go beyond our self-imposed limitations and find the strength and the truth that we each carry in our own shaman center, if only we knew how to access it. They would help me to look into the mirrors these experiences created to discover my shortcomings and vulnerabilities as well as my own innate strengths. They would instruct me on various teachings, visualizations, acts of creativity and ceremonies which people had used for many millenniums, before the onslaught of our "modern" world threatened to wipe them out, to overcome the shortcomings in the physical world that humans have always had and live in this world from a place of knowing, strength, harmony and oneness with Great Spirit and all of life. Then they would quite literally "kick me out," throw me back onto my own resources by sending me home where I would study and reflect on the work we had done together until it become part of my healing, my consciousness, my higher awareness of life … or go my own separate way, which is inconceivable to me. After completing these four years of study, my students are certified as spiritual healers, eligible to be ordained as ministers licensed to practice in most states and countries. Many of them incorporate what they have learned into their professional lives as healers. The Coordinator of my Mystery School is herself a medical doctor who says that, "These teachings transformed my life through self-healing, self-discovery and self-empowerment as I found my personal connection to God, reclaimed my spiritual heritage and discovered the 'magical' in life. In turn, I became a better physician because the shamanic perspective enables me to communicate with people in a holistic and healing way." Others use what they have learned to forge new paths for themselves that are in alignment with their own spirituality and personal truth. One of my fire marshals during the Sacred Fire Ceremony at my annual Spring gathering loves to tell people, "I entered Lynn's School as an environmental consultant to corporations and government agencies, who was exploring a spiritual life. Little did I know the transformation about to take place as I received and incorporated the sacred teachings into my life. Today, I am a career coach, helping my clients create a fulfilling life. I write a weekly newspaper column, blog and e-zine, give workshops and have written a book on leadership. Need I say more?" Graduates are also eligible to pursue a B.A., Master's or Ph.D. degree in a related field through the University of Natural Medicine in Santa Fe, NM. And, because so many people didn't really want to leave the school after these four years, we created a graduate school of kindred spirits, an extraordinary circle of graduates who have chosen to remain part of a circle of friendship and kinship that they have never encountered anywhere else in their lives. I, as a teacher, as a visionary, want to drag you into the poet's world, the world of shamanism, the world of heightened awareness. I want you to feel deeply and forget about living on automatic pilot. I want you to hear the wild cries within your soul, to look for the magic of wilderness places and share your dreams like coyotes at sunset. I want to empower you to lead your life with care and integrity, without hiding the very special person you are. Agnes Whistling Elk said to me many years ago, "Everything comes from nothing. Our universe is magnificent in its manifestations of power, but when you go to the center, when you go to the beginning of things, you move, not out into the world for your instruction, but to the interior world, the universe that lives within. It is from the essence of that universe that all life is born." This is the magnificent world of the shaman, the universe within, and I want to empower you to live your one life as one who knows how.      Lynn Andrews is the author of Medicine Woman and      Writing Spirit and was a guest with Dr. Doris Jeanette      on Live at the Edge.      Find out more at www.lynnandrews.com   Hear Lynn Andrews

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It's February, as if you didn't know that. It is also a month that has a nasty habit of reminding us that it's still winter, and in most parts of the country it's cold. Very, very cold. In Australia it's still summer, lucky ducks! Most of you know that I live in Florida, so 'winter' is more of a concept rather than a real season, but we do get un-summerlike weather, we even get the occasional 'cold' spell. It's all relative. To us, anything below 65F is freezing. But, joking aside, I do remember what it's like to experience a real winter...I lived in the 'Snow Capital of the US,' home of my alma mata, Buffalo, NY, for eleven long years. I know from cold. What prompted me to write this month's column is the fact that I am headed to Ontario, Canada, this week. Just for a few days to visit with my uncle, but it brought home to me the fact that being in a cold climate requires a certain skill set: We not only have to know how to dress, but also how to eat. We need to know how to boost our immune systems, so as not to fall victim to an incessant round of upper respiratory tract infections, and other opportunistic nasties that occur when we are shut in day after day, week after week, with insensitive people who have absolutely no consideration of others and insist on going to work/school/play when they are horribly, infectiously sick. Shame on them! To you thoughtless individuals: The world WILL continue to turn if you stay home until you are well. Humanity will, in fact, be much better off if you do. You will not get the sack. The Stock Market will survive, and so will you. We want to survive too, so think of us instead of yourself for a change!!! Lying awake, the night I found out that I was heading to the Frozen North, unable to sleep because I knew I was going, I was mentally running through my closet full of summery, lightweight Florida clothes, in a desperate attempt to identify items that would serve me on this trip and came up almost empty! Fortunately, I do possess a few fall-type things brought from New York a couple of lifetimes ago, and during a 2-day cold snap in December I went to a clothes swap and managed to get a couple of warm sweaters, but otherwise I am scrabbling. It got me thinking. Almost everyone knows that when it's freezing cold outside you need to wear layers. Lots and lots of them. However, you try explaining that to a teenager, who thinks that, just because it's minus 56F with wind-chill, they will not catch their death of cold if they wear a skimpy little t-shirt and low-rise jeans, exposing an expanse of bare flesh around their midriff, and topping it off with a tiny little jacket that will not cover much of anything and throwing a spaghetti-thin scarf around their necks. They think that there is something wrong with us. Arguments ensue as a rule, but parents usually win (that's our job), and offspring are sent out into the snow looking like Yeti. As grownups, we don't care if we look like Yeti, but to teenagers they think that life as we know it will cease. If your child does not go out into the ice and snow looking like a Yeti you are failing at your job, and you need to learn to be more assertive. Keeping your child (children) warm, when they have to go out, is essential to their health, and ultimately to yours, so dig in your heels and insist that they dress appropriately for the season. We were just like them once upon a time, but we had parents that humiliated us too....and lived to tell the tale! TIP: If your child refuses to wear the warm clothes that you bought for him/her, suggest that you go shopping together to find something that you can both live with. If money is tight, try going to a consignment store, or second-hand clothing shop (not Goodwill - that's our little clothing secret), which you can pass off as being very trendy...as in 'retro.' For those who do not spend much time in cold climates, and know little or nothing of how to dress accordingly, here is a way to combat both the cold, and over-active indoor heating: Although not terribly sexy, thermal underwear is a must for anyone having to spend much time outside. Cotton, silk, and other natural fibers, like bamboo, are better next to your skin than common synthetics; long or short-sleeved will work, and t-shirts are great. Synthetic fabrics designed to wick moisture away from the skin are an excellent alternative. Next, layer a natural fiber shirt or lightweight wool-blend or cotton sweater, and then either a jacket, cardigan, or heavier sweater. Finally, comes the heavy artillery: The long wool, down, or synthetic fur coat; failing that the parka, thick wool jacket, or sheepskin. Leather is useless! Fur is politically incorrect. Then you have to remember to cover your extremities: A thick but soft wool, cashmere, or other heavy scarf, wrapped securely around your neck and covering all exposed bits, is essential, as is a hat. The latter should cover your ears and as much of your forehead as possible, and if you can get one that protects the back of your neck too then even better. A wool, or other heavy fabric hat, especially if lined with artificial fur, will be a great way to prevent heat loss from the head, which can be an issue if you are exerting yourself, e.g. running to catch the train, or shoveling snow! Gloves are essential. TIP: If it's really, bitterly cold, mittens are better than gloves. Leather, unless properly lined, will not be of any use. There are little warming pads that you can get to put inside your gloves, and even your feet. Socks are pivotal, and preferably 2 pairs of them. One thin, one thick, and made of natural fibers - wool is wonderful. It means that you should have bigger boots so that your feet will fit comfortably, with a little room to spare (air-circulation helps to keep feet warm), waterproof if possible, but you can take shoes with you for whenever you will be indoors. Anyone who lives in a cold climate will tell you, if your feet are cold, the rest of you will feel cold too! OK, so that's the clothing taken care of, now we should consider how to eat properly in the cold, winter months. Have you noticed that you feel hungrier when the mercury takes a dive? It's because a drop in body temperature stimulates the appetite, and also we burn more calories when cold, and must thus replenish with nourishing, warming foods more often than when it's warm outside. First and foremost, being shut indoors for days on end deprives our bodies of essential elements, such as vitamin D, which comes from our exposure to sunshine. Thus, it might be necessary to talk with your health care professional about taking a vitamin D supplement, particularly if you live in the more northerly latitudes. In addition, with the prevalence of colds and flu at this time of year, and the lack of summer-fresh fruits and vegetables, taking a higher dose of vitamin C would also be a good idea; especially the buffered variety, which significantly reduces the risk of gastro-intestinal irritation and tooth decay from the regular ascorbic/citric acid. Ester-C is excellent. The shorter days, and cold, combine to reduce serotonin levels, which can affect our mood and quality of sleep, and can be behind our need to eat high carbohydrate comfort foods. But, instead of reaching for the cakes, pastas and other floury/sugary goodies, substitute with whole grains (breads, pastas, muffins, cereals, etc), and the vitamin A-rich vegetables, such as yams/sweet potatoes, pumpkin and smaller squash, e.g. acorn and butternut. Instead of having cereal with cold milk for breakfast on a chilly, winter's morning, have oatmeal made from scratch; use steel cut oats, oat bran, oat meal, flax meal. Add some raisins, nuts (pecans, almonds, walnuts), and seeds (sunflower, sesame and pumpkin) for a really healthy dish. Boil everythihng for just as long as it takes for the oats to be chewy, not pappy! I also add some organic apple and banana, to add some freshness. Use your imagination. If you want to sweeten it a little, drizzle on some honey, or sprinkle a little pure cane sugar. Top with some kefir (cultured milk) or a dollop of plain yogurt, for essential probiotics (the "good" bacteria), which help to digest the heavier foods. Thick and hearty soups and stews, made with lots of root vegetables and using lentils, split peas or other dried beans, are wonderfully warming, not to mention very healthy and nutritious. Split pea and ham, and turkey and lentil soups are just two great examples. A spicy chili, served with some whole grain garlic bread is manna from Heaven, any night. And, one of my favorite winter foods is baked veggies: Toss large chunks of parsnip, carrot, sweet potato, rutabaga, squash, and halved Brussels sprouts in a little extra virgin olive oil, with a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste, then bake in a 375F oven for an hour (or so), until tender and slightly browned. Serve as is, or as an accompaniment to any meat or fish. TIP: Instead of having to soak and then cook legumes for hours for soups and stews, you can always buy cans of already prepared beans (split peas and lentils cook reasonably quickly anyway), and add to the pot half way through cooking. There is nothing wrong with using frozen fruits and vegetables in the winter months, and I always have lima beans and peas, blueberries, raspberries and mango chunks, for example, in my freezer. Lima beans, gently simmered in butter with chopped onion are a sublime vegetable. Smoothies, with the fruits, kefir and seeds are uplifting in any season. Hot chocolate, made with a good-quality unsweetened cocoa (such as Ghirardelli), cannot be beaten. For a little spicy twist, to 2 teaspoons of cocoa I add a little cinnamon and ground chili, plus a teaspoonful of demerara or turbinado sugar, mix it all with the help of some half and half, and then I add boiling water. It's delicious. For us grownups, gluwein (or a good Swedish glogg) is a warm and yummy treat. Common to the ski lodges that line the European slopes, gluwein (or glogg) is usually a combination of red wine heated with sugar, oranges, lemons, cinnamon sticks, cloves and often with the addition of brandy, or other heavy-hitting liquor (see the links below for a great recipe). It will warm the cockles of your heart, and your hands, feet, legs, arms, tummy....... If you are reading this, you have a computer. If I were you, I would do a search on a site that has lots of recipes, such as Epicurious.com, or check out Martha Stewart (if you can find her recipe for Chocolate Pudding Cake you will NOT regret it, I promise), who has fabulous comfort food recipes that can be healthy too. I have included the links below. Before signing off for this month, I just want to mention something that could help to prevent catching a bug this winter: Viruses and bacteria love it when our mucus membranes (eyes, noses, mouths) are nice and dry from spending 24 hours a day, for months on end, in the arid conditions caused by central heating. Thus, to combat this, using a preservative-free saline nasal spray, and artificial tears, a few times every day, plus drinking plenty of water or decaffeinated herbal teas (coffee and sodas will actually dry you out more), will help enormously. Using a humidifier will also go a long way to keeping your home/office germ free. Hopefully, you have picked up a tip or two to keep you warm, healthy and happy this winter. I have not given you many links this time, because most of the information has been from my years of experience. If you have some additional tips, please let me have them and we can put them up on the new website: OverThe GardenFence.com, where I will be up and running shortly. Until next time, I wish you abundance in everything........... Useful little piece on heat loss and hypothermia A very creative recipe for glogg The wonderful site with recipes from such great magazines such as Gourmet Martha Stewart is a genius! Tina Steele

Visit MyHealthNavigator.com

Listen to Tina on "Being Well" at LadybugLive and...
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Every Little Bit Helps

We want to help others, but sometimes time and funds are short. In this situation, we can do good with just a few computer clicks. An old friend that I have frequently visited is The Hunger Site. Every time you click on the button on the home page, you give free food to combat world hunger. Other pages have buttons to click to support breast cancer, literacy, Rainforest and other great causes. Besides clicking on these causes, you have the opportunity to purchase unique items, where a portion of the purchase price is donated. Vote4cause has an intriguing approach. On their website, you can vote for various charities, and the one with the most votes gets a donation of their advertisement revenue. When I checked it out, the cause with the most votes was "The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee". That would be good, but number 8 was "The Fistula Foundation", a cause close to my heart, so that is the one I voted for. Voters can also add their own causes, the only requirement is that it be a U. S. accredited charitable organization. Integrating helpful clicks with actually getting some work done is the approach of Ripple. Use their search engine, and every search you do provides a charitable donation. It uses the Google engine, so search results are the same as regular Google searches. Finally, with my work almost done, I checked out Free Rice, and won 1700 grains of rice to make a contribution to alleviating world hunger as well as build my vocabulary. It is probably one of the few places where knowing that "sedulous" means "diligent" comes in handy. It's a fun vocabulary game in a good cause. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can do a little bit of good on any of these sites. And every little bit helps!

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A Stitch in Thyme   In a recent magazine article, I saw an ad from McCormick. It stated that their current spices are all in round containers except for pepper. It went on to describe that if a tin of spices was square, it was over fifteen years old. I have a few tins of square spices. I am not sure where they came from as I have only had my own kitchen for eight years. It is a little like the lost socks in the washer only in reverse. The tins don't look old and the spices still smell pungent even though McCormick warns that the potency is gone after six months and is way gone after fifteen years. I had to laugh a little when I saw the full-page article in several prominent women's magazines. Apparently, there are a lot of households with very old spices if McCormick has to take out frequent, large ads to inform the American public. I know my own mother has a row of the familiar boxes. When I was a child, my mom also made my clothes. Her mom kept her in white garments with smocking. Back then, it was more a situation of economics than style but the sewing was still meticulous and beautiful. While there were a few years in there when double-knit ruled, most of the garments are special and delicately sewn. By the time I reached high school, hand sewing seemed to have gone the way of forced home economic rooms and families in religious communities. It may have been the time constraints or just the advent of Gap and Old Navy. Little girls started wearing jeans more often than dresses and big girls started dressing like inappropriate older girls. In the past ten years, it seems there has been a return to the days of sewing. At the church we attend, smocking has returned. The little girls and little boys wear smocking of characters and sports themes and flowers. The shoes are white and the cardigans match the dress patterns. Hair bows are monogrammed and even the outerwear is well made and coordinated. While it seems normal for the little girls, there is a certain age where the boys in their button-on outfits and white shoes look like they are only lacking a gigantic striped lollipop and a spinning beanie. Sadly, I know the real background of all the beautiful sewing and attention to detail even down to the newborns. These parents buy these outfits from exclusive boutiques where each precious dress can cost well over a hundred dollars. It is not a matter of economics anymore. I admit I am a parent who has bought a few garments but I purchase mine from secondhand stores. Most often, I sew them myself. I am doing my own sewing but again, it is sad because by the time I complete a garment, Emily has almost outgrown it. Joel is beyond the years of the lollipop set but he does have white shoes and bowties. There is a store that I love that caters specifically to people smocking and making "heirloom quality" garments. They are friendly and helpful and offer a mind-boggling amount of information, fabric and notions to make your own smocked dresses and outfits. They also offer pre-made garments ready for smocking just a few storefronts down from In The STOREs with ready-made garments. Sewing these dresses is truly a labor of love. The fabrics are not even the most expensive. The thread and patterns don't even add up to that much. It is the time and love put into each stitch. I have only bought a few dresses and feel sad knowing that the love in the stitches is either from a machine or some numbered sewer in a far-away country. I do my best sewing in the car lane at the school and save my more complicated projects for then. There is creativity in pride in making the colors and patterns match carefully. I feel a bit like a designer as I combine Emily's favorite colors with miniature stitches and little checks. In a few years, I predict we will again return to a time when store-bought dresses without a hint of homemade status will return to the status-seekers. The smocked dresses will be old-fashioned again relegated to the back bargain section of consignment stores. Little girls will refuse to wear dresses. Moms won't even pretend they are sewing these dresses themselves. Everyone knows that they probably didn't make them and in all actuality, the moms probably wouldn't admit it even if they did. The sweet tradition of hand sewing and heirlooms has become yet another causality of the retail industry. These little girls wear outfits that cost more than their parents' own clothing. Personally, I love seeing even the smallest girls dressed in immaculate, smocked dresses even on play dates. The return to tradition, however fake in background it might be, has still clothed a new generation in gingham with rows of stitching. There are still girls dressed like versions of the Bratz dolls but something about these dresses, the bishop collars and the matching sashes, gives a sense of renewal and return to a modesty and love of home. As I think of the magazine article about the spices and their outdated square tins, I wonder if some of these moms have found their own dresses from fifteen or twenty years ago. Do they open up a trunk and find the tissue wrapped dresses as a gift to their own daughters? Do they try to copy the stitches or hire someone to make a new version? Do they run a finger across the rows of smocking and remember their mother or grandmother sewing into the night to make an Easter special with embroidered bunnies? It is all a little bittersweet. I love the rectangular spice tins and am loathe to admit that I am hoarding fifteen year-old powders. I also wish I had more time to make the dresses before Emily gets too big or before she refuses to wear such a thing. I want to fill a trunk with tissue wrapped dresses for her so she can remember a simpler time. It seems as if the smocked dress has indeed lasted as long as McCormick's spices. When Emily opens up the memory box, I hope she feels the same nostalgia about my sewing. Her own daughter may be entering a generation that will wear smocking again after years of silver jumpsuits and space age fabrics made in a far away country. I may even put in my rectangular tin of paprika. I'll have to make one last thing with it though just to test its longevity.

Blog with Linda! ~ Read her thoughts on "My Empty Nest" at www.OverTheGardenFence.com
Linda has joined the lineup of ejoyable programming at LadybugLive.com. Listen to "Shut the Hell Up Girlfriend." And, did you know: Linda Vernona was a Grand Prize Winner of Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest.

We are serializing Flying Lessons for Butterflies by Sheila Whitman. Sheila Whitman is a Professional Counselor and Life Coach, with a private practice in CT. She has done agency counseling with pregnant and postpartum women, and coordinated a residence for women and children in a domestic violence program. Sheila strives to nurture the potential of her clients, and understands that past or current abuse is incredibly detrimental to this goal of self-actualization. The lessons contained in this book invite the reader to challenge old beliefs, and make concrete changes in self-esteem and creative risk taking. Emphasis is on strategies for altering perceptions and behaviors that may have been distorted during childhood, and the development of a healthy integration of mind, body, and soul. The underlying message is that every individual has great value and can eventually soar to discover his or her best self. Sheila completed her B.S. at Temple University and M.S. at Southern CT State University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Connecticut and a Registered Professional Counselor in California.

Information about Sheila Whitman's counseling and life coaching can be found on the web site http://www.counselorlifecoach.com/.

     

Chapter 2
PHYSICAL ABUSE

Lesson 2 - Clarify where the responsibility is

Next month: Lesson 4 - Relationship abuse

The Quest for Happiness

"There are people who have something to say and those who have something to sell. We are interested in the ones with something special to teach the world."

For LadybugLive, TeenTalkNetwork, and MooseMeals to continue growing, we need correspondents and readers. The process is quite simple: submissions are by email. If accepted, a reader calls, either our local or our toll free number as directed in the acceptance email, to record. What will you be recording?

We are looking for: readings of original creative work, comment and commentary, and ideas for regularly appearing programming that can be done within this format. We are not able, as yet, to do direct call in shows, but shows that require listener (delayed) response are OK. All of this, of course, within the same guidelines as everything we do: Of interest to women (no particular restrictions). This format might also be ideal for some of those traditional topics, such as clothing and makeup, with a fresh "twist."

Sr. Executive Salaries...
a Moral Issue?

&

Valentines Day on Wall Street - Looking Back

This month I have two issues on my mind. Before launching into the Moral Issue it is appropriate that we acknowledge Valentines day. Although there are very few events that mark February 14th on Wall Street we can use it as a timeline to measure the vision of the new Fed Chief, "Big Ben" Bernancke.

February 14, 2007 the Stock Market Gets a Valentine’s Day Gift

Fed chief Ben Bernancke said all the right things today and the stock markets loved it. His Valentine’s Day present was that the economic expansion is just where is should be and interest rates will hold. The Dow set a new record and the bond market, which also loves stable interest rates, rose also. His reassuring words may set the stage for sustained growth in the stock market.

February 14, 2008 the Stock Market Today

One year later and the Market has tanked and we are headed for a RECESSION. Uncle Sam is about to open his billfold and give us some spending money. It was ours in the first place and if we take it then next year at tax time we will be obligated to pay it back in some fashion, but it will help Uncle Sam make believe that he has things under control and that we are all pulling together at his urging.

So, we now have the question: are we training the Market to expect to be bailed out much like Pavlov trained dogs? Is this the kind of "Free Market" we want?

Ben and Wall Street have offered some suggestions to help us find love on Valentine's Day. Perhaps these ideas will be more successful than last years efforts by the Fed.

First: Join something -- the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Library, Alliance Franchise, wine clubs, church singles group, whatever sounds fun to you. Go to the next event.

Second: Tell all of your friends and family you are interested in meeting someone. You would not believe how many people have mutual friends, acquaintances or even know family members looking for someone. Do not assume your circle knows you are interested in meeting someone.

Third: Post a profile on an online dating site and start shopping. Or sign up with a dating service that will do the matchmaking for you.

Fourth: Get out. Take your dog to a dog park. Have a drink at the bar before dinner. Walk around your neighborhood. Go to a concert or a club. Attend a lecture or a take a class. Cruz through town in your pickup or vehicle appropriate for your location.

Fifth: Have a singles party. Invite all of your single friends to bring single friends. You can have anything from a dinner party to a reception, as long as there are plenty of opportunities to meet people.

Sixth: Smile. A pleasant face will attract people to you. Nothing makes you more appealing than enjoying life, with or without romance.

The most important thing is to remember that you're never to old!

OK, Lets Take a Look at the Morality of Executive Salaries

Economics is not a moral issue. It doesn't care about anyone's "right" to make money from their creative output. The idea that anyone automatically has a right to make money from their creative output is wrong. Everyone has the right to try to make money out of their creative output, but if the market isn't there, then there's no money to be made.

Executive pay is a moral issue (1) ; it is a shareholder issue, and it is a job-security issue. For workers, it shows that an excessively paid CEO is likely to preside over a weaker company, meaning their jobs are less secure.

Executive pay levels had exploded in the past decade from 22 times average weekly earnings in 1992 to 74 times average weekly earnings today. And in the finance sector the figures are more perverse, CEOs earning 188 times the salary of customer-service staff. However, high Executive salaries do not deliver value for money.

The research finds the often-stated link between high executive pay and company performance does not exist. Against three criteria: return on equity, share price change and change in earnings per share, statistical analysis shows that high executive pay levels actually coincide with a lower bottom line.

Once executive remuneration exceeds 24 times the average wage, the performance of a company begins to deteriorate. For workers, it shows that an excessively paid CEO is likely to rule over a weaker company, meaning employee jobs are less secure.

Last year, the president of the United States, the CEO of the country, was paid $400,000, and a $50,000 allowance for expenses and up to $100,000 for travel.

With responsibilities hardly comparable to the president's, the CEO of Citigroup made nearly $26,000,000 in 2007 (counting all benefits). He may have done better in his job than Bush did in his, but one could reasonably assume not 47 times better. Further, if the average annual wage of non-executive employees of Citigroup was, say, $50,000, the CEO made 520 times their salary. The average CEO makes more money before lunch than the average worker earns all year.

The cumulative effect of this abnormal greed is certainly not pocket change. From 1993 to 2003, the total amount paid to the top five executives of public corporations totaled $351 billion; and that, from 2000 to 2003, the ratio of their combined compensation to corporate net income increased to nearly 10%. That kind of money could have been put to uses far more beneficial to the shareholders and society: dividends, more research yielding helpful products, improved salaries and health insurance for non-executive employees, better corporate efficiency (resulting in lower prices), and so on.

The legal fix for this problem is not working. When salaries of senior executives are approved in advance by "disinterested" directors, judges simply defer to their decisions; the question of corporate waste is ignored. Even the American Law Institute has accepted that position. But the executives and the board may be too close and too mutually dependent, to expect their negotiations to result in a benefit to the corporation and society as a whole.

The fact that we are angered by this greed is a signal that a moral issue is at stake.

Things we could do to change the situation

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(1) A working definition of an issue of moral concern has been shown to be any issue with the potential to help or harm anyone, including yourself. This can further defined as a difference of belief and not a matter of preference. Moral issues are those which involve a specific kind of experience, i.e., a special kind of feeling, and involve a specific kind of situation, i.e., the acts which affect other people.

Field Trips

The Moral Instinct

Outrageous CEO Pay

Happy Holidays,

B.S.