Today is the big V Day. Maybe you’re selecting flowers that benefit a charity. Maybe you’re still researching fair trade chocolates for cacao content and worker conditions. Maybe you’ve torn up the sixteenth draft of the sonnet you’ve written your sweetie. If you’re still stumped (or even if you’re all set), there’s one thing you can [...]

Under the guise of mass production to feed the world’s hungry, Big Agra has artificially and genetically altered staple crops like corn and soybeans. And while this seems to be a noble cause, the introduction of genetically modified organisms or GMOs into our food supply may have far-reaching negative consequences.

With such a high percentage of foods containing GMOs in some way, shape or form, you may be asking yourself how you can possibly avoid what I’ll call the GMO Bad Nasties. And with over 70% of the food in grocery stores today containing some sort of GMO, admittedly this is a tough one. Luckily, there is a way. One of the best ways to avoid GMOs is to go organic.

Stay-at-home dads. When most of us hear the term, we’re likely to think of comical media portrayals of a bumbling, clueless man who happens to fall into full-time parenting by accident. Think of movies like “Mr. Mom,” or “Daddy Day Care.” Stay-at-home dads are the punchline of the joke. But that is starting to change, [...]

Sarah Palin’s “mama grizzlies” video fans the flames of fear that already fuel the over-parenting trend in this country. In an apparent effort to reach out to middle of-the-road women, Palin’s PAC video launches a vague attack on the “fundamental transformation of this country,” embedded with a challenge for moms to take action toward preserving [...]

This past May I undertook what many people considered an unusual project: I starved myself for seven days. Inspired by the actions of Kenda Swartz Pepper, I did a World Hunger Souljourn of my own; mimicking the diet of the world’s 1.02 billion chronically hungry people while researching and exploring the causes of, and the [...]

Suzanne Doyle is a bereavement specialist, skilled in grief and loss work with children, adolescents and adults; and has been for four and a half years. Working at one of the largest hospices in the St. Louis metropolitan area, BJC Hospice, Doyle may work with up to 1,500 patients and their families in one year. [...]

Children tend to look forward to summer for several reasons: no school, summer vacations, and, of course, playing outside. However, that innocent trip to the playground may end in second or third degree burns. Playground equipment, including slides and the rubber mats used to prevent kids from being injured in case they fall, can burn [...]

The bad economy is hitting all parts of the country hard and in many different ways. One example concerns public schools and the moneys allocated to them. In Miami, Florida, the county’s school budget is based on a combination of state funding and local property taxes. When property values in Miami-Dade County began to decline three years ago, [...]

While at the beach this summer, make sure to indulge on the liberal agenda While surfing the web at 4 a.m., I came across a FOXNews article about a study that found an overbearing and intolerable liberal bias found in this summer’s college reading assignments. I found the ideas communicated in the article and in [...]

Have you ever heard someone call another person a “retard”?  Maybe this person was developmentally disabled or perhaps just did something stupid.  I’ve heard this term used as an insult many times and it makes me cringe every time it comes out of someone’s mouth.

The movie Babies has been lauded for its ‘cuteness factor.’ Audiences tuning in–or out– for this reason may miss two key messages of the film: the unnecessary push to over-parent promulgated by Western culture, and the universality of human experience. Director Thomas Balmés chronicles the development of four babies around the globe, enticing viewers to coo, [...]

Comic artists are the coal miners of the industry: working insanely long hours and creating the raw material that the rest of the industry is built on, but not always sharing an equal part in the wealth it produces.

  Father’s Day is a holiday that celebrates the bond between child and parent. For most of us, that bond is considered to be sacrosanct, and even if a mother and father separate, no one expects one of them to give up their rights and responsibilities to their child. That’s not the case in every [...]

When Jordan Burnham was 18-years old, he attempted suicide by jumping out of the ninth-floor window of a building.   Jordan miraculously survived, and instead of keeping his past a secret, he courageously speaks to groups about what happened through ActiveMinds.org.  When I was reading about his efforts, I wondered how many people would hide their [...]

The article on Female Genital Mutilation, by Victoria Belle-Miller, reminded me of the book Engaging Cultural Differences – The Multicultural Challenge in Liberal Democracies. Richard A. Shweder‘s chapter,  “What about Female Genital Mutilation? And why Understanding culture matters in the first place”  prompted readers to contemplate how certain cultural practices, as female genital mutilation,  are deemed inhumane.

After consummating their marriage, the parents of one of my oldest friends discovered in family charts that they are in fact 23rd cousins, twice removed. They remain happily married to this day. While twenty-three degrees of separation seems like a big enough number to continue sleeping soundly in a joint bed, the cultural acceptance of [...]

  On March 8, 2010, Amnesty International released its report on maternal health in the United States called “Deadly Delivery.” The report demonstrated the rates of preventable maternal death and called for action to solve these issues. The report also received media attention upon its release from news outlets such as CNN, the Guardian, Time Magazine [...]