We must participate, in any way, large or small, in the Occupy Wall Street movement because our democracy and our freedom depend on it. The OWS movement is about re-claiming our political power. It is about asserting our best interests as people and as a society. It is about creating a separation of Corporation and [...]

December 10th will be the 60th anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The time is now to renew our commitment to political, social, economic, civil, and cultural human rights.

See the video by Amnesty International below.

We have a budding singer songwriter…

Rainbow

To The Women I Love Who Love Weight Watchers

I have to begin with a disclaimer, which is that I have never been to Weight Watchers. However, many of my friends do or have. Most women and girls are obsessed with weight and size. And as a woman, I can speak from experience about the struggle women have to develop self-worth, self-esteem and self-love in a misogynist society. The racist American standard of beauty for women includes an unrealistic and unhealthy, ideal of thin. This cultural drive to diminish the very existence of women is difficult to ignore.

Not all foods are created equal. Some foods are grown with more pesticides than others. Some foods absorb pesticides more readily than others. Most of us want to minimize our exposure and our family’s exposure to chemical pesticides. Buying organic produce whenever possible also protects the safety of farm workers from toxic exposure, and protects against the contamination of topsoil, ground water and the environment in general.

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Congratulations on becoming the next leader of the free world. You have inspired hope in so many, including myself. Thank you.

In your acceptance speech, you asked us to “summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.” I know that you are being asked to do a lot of things, to be a miracle worker. We all need to work hard with you to see the change we are so desperately hoping for.

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history.

Dear President Barack Obama,

Thank you thank you thank you! And congratulations on your massive and historic victory. You are the hope for our future.

Luna had an appointment today with her pediatric ophthalmologist, who also specializes in neurology and oncology. We had to postpone our last appointment with him, because the hospital bumped us off the schedule for Luna’s last MRI, and then we had to wait several weeks to reschedule both appointments. The new eye exam had to be in Los Gatos, which is even farther away than Stanford.

I never expected to be a perfect parent. However, I do know some things about holistic health and natural living, and I did expect to have a handle on raising healthy children. I had wonderful pregnancies and two fantastic home births, under the care of exceptional midwives. I didn’t use drugs, prenatal testing, monitors or medical interventions of any kind. I’ve tried to raise my daughters in the healthiest way I know, without interference from the medical establishment.

I just read this great article by Deepak Chopra called Obama and the Palin Effect. I include it below in its entirety.

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Obama and the Palin Effect
by Deepak Chopra

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing.

As a devoted yoga student and teacher for the past 16 years, I have alternately renewed and cancelled my subscription to Yogal Journal many times. While I find plenty of worthwhile articles, that inform and inspire me, I am soured by the amount of advertising on your pages. The ratio of content to advertisements is less than 1:1.