Video of the Day

Because sometimes we forget what a real performer looks like.

Fixing the Economy? It's Women's Work.

While the pinstripe crowd fixates on troubled assets, a stalled stimulus and mortgage remedies, it turns out that a more sure-fire financial fix is within our grasp -- and has been for years.

New research says a healthy dose of estrogen may be the key not only to our fiscal recovery, but also to economic strength worldwide.

The sexy new discussion in policy circles around the world, thanks to the recession, is whether a significant shift of power from men to women is underway -- or whether it should be.

Accounting giant Ernst & Young pulled out charts and graphs at a recent power lunch in Washington with female lawmakers to argue a provocative bottom line: Companies with more women in senior management roles make more money.

Economists at Davos this year speculated that the presence of more women on Wall Street might have averted the downturn. Adding to this debate is the fact that the laid-off victims of this recession are overwhelmingly men.

The numbers make a compelling case.

The studies Ernst & Young rounded up show that women can make the difference between economic success and failure in the developing world, between good and bad decision-making in the industrialized world, and between profit and loss in the corporate world.

Their conclusion: American companies would do well with more senior women. And it's not only one study, but at least half a dozen.

Fear envelops a refuge of immigrants in Maine

PORTLAND, Maine - They are refugees from one of the world’s poorest countries, Sudanese immigrants who flocked to Portland to escape a devastating civil war and settle in a state with a reputation for tolerance and a peaceful way of life.

Now, many Sudanese leaders say, their community is living in fear.

Since September, two young Sudanese men have been shot and killed, one by Portland police. A third man died from his injuries in November 2007 that Sudanese activists say followed a vicious beating.

The recent killings intensified frictions that had already been on the rise as the city’s African immigrant population has grown. Recently, shots have been fired into a Sudanese home, and confrontations between Sudanese youths and police have escalated. Sudanese leaders are questioning whether police are investigating the violence aggressively enough.

No arrests have been made in the deaths.

“We are scared,’’ said Edward Laboke, 45, a spokesman for the Sudanese community. “Whether we are being targeted or are the victims of random criminal activity, we don’t know.’’

Salmon Cakes

From the Institute for Integrative Nutrition:

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:

4 ounces cooked salmon

6 rice crackers

1/2 onion, minced

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Dash of black pepper

Dash of coriander

1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

1) Break salmon into small pieces with fork.

2) Place rice crackers in a zip-lock bag and with a rolling pin make rice crackers into crumbs.

3) In a large bowl combine salmon, crackers, onion, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper and coriander.

4) Make 4 patties and refrigerate for 1 hour.

5) In a skillet, heat olive oil on high heat.

6) Fry both sides of each patty for 3-4 minutes.

From picking up after pets...

...to avoiding aerosols to choosing a commercial car wash, see 25 easy ways you can help save the ocean.

Reducing your carbon footprint, conserving water, eating organic food, being vegetarian, and buying nontoxic products can help lessen global warming, which is causing water temperatures to rise, upsetting the oceans’ delicate balance.

Ready to try Indian cuisine? I am

The reason I'm inspired to try it: My friend's mother, Madhu Gadia, who has instructional how-to videos on her Web site, madhugadia.com. The site complements her healthful and easy cookbook, "New Indian Home Cooking," which looks really good and has been added to my Amazon list.

Check out one of her simple-to-follow videos for Chicken Curry here!





Click here for a list of Indian grocers in the Greater Boston area. Turns out there's about half a dozen in Somerville alone -- convenient for me and anyone else in the area.

On tiles, a story of gentrification

Project chronicles Davis Square over 30 years

It’s been about 30 years since schoolchildren in Somerville created the artwork for a series of tiles - crudely drawn sailboats, rail cars, and clowns - that now adorn the Davis Square T station’s brick entrance wall.

Many commuters walk by without a pause. But a group of community arts organizers believes these 249 tiles tell the story of a neighborhood that has changed as much as any in Greater Boston in the 25 years since Davis Square got its own subway stop along the MBTA’s Red Line.

In April, members of the Davis Square Tiles Project began an effort to track down the people - now probably between 35 and 45 years old - who created the artwork to find out how their lives have changed and how they view the changes in their old neighborhood.

They want to tell the collective story of the community’s gentrification, with all the complexity and individuality that it entails, and start another conversation about the changes that may come when the Green Line extends into new neighborhoods in Somerville, and Medford over the next five years.

The work in progress, posted on www.davissquaretilesproject.com, is something like a reverse time capsule - coupling the ageless artwork of children with the words, insights, and in some cases photographs of the adults they grew into.

MWDN: Police searching for Framingham hit-and-run suspect

Just more evidence that Boston has far to go before catching up with bike-friendly states and countries:

An unidentified woman left an injured Framingham bicyclist laying on the
ground Tuesday after she struck him with her car, police said.
The woman
initially stopped after the 1:11 p.m. accident on Kendall Avenue, but quickly
drove off toward Sherborn, police spokesman Lt. Paul Shastany said.
Officers
first went to Kendall Avenue in response to a report of an accident, finding the
victim, a 62-year-old man whom they did not identify, laying on the ground
bleeding from several cuts on his head.
Witnesses said the man was riding his
bike across the street when a black Nissan, possibly a newer model Altima, hit
him.
"The witnesses said the driver stopped the car and spoke to a witness,
and then drove off," Shastany said.
The woman drove to Sherborn, and
Framingham Police alerted the Sherborn Police to be on the lookout for the car.
Neither department found the car as of last night, the lieutenant said.
The
victim was taken to MetroWest Medical Center's Framingham campus to be treated
for his injuries, which were not considered serious.
Police described the
driver as a woman in her 20s, with long, dark blonde hair.
Anyone with
information about the crash or the identity of the driver are asked to call
Framingham Police at 508-872-1212.

NY Times: Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice

As a freshman at Ohio State University, and the only black student on his floor, Sam Boakye was determined to get good grades — in part to make sure his white roommate had no basis for negative racial views.
“If you’re surrounded by whites, you have something to prove,” said Mr. Boakye, now a rising senior who was born in Ghana. “You’re pushed to do better, to challenge the stereotype that black people are not that smart.”

Several recent studies, at Ohio State and elsewhere, have found that having a roommate of a different race can reduce prejudice, diversify friendships and even boost black students’ academic performance.

But, the research found, such relationships are more stressful and more likely to break up than same-race pairings.

As universities have grown more diverse, and interracial roommate assignments are more common, social scientists have looked to them as natural field experiments that can provide insights on race relations.

NY Times: What to do about leftovers?

We think of leftovers with special frequency during a recession because they represent our efforts to be economical. Frugality may be a virtue, but there is no denying that when it comes to leftovers, people get a little nutty.

Just ask Diana Abu-Jaber, a novelist who once wrote a memoir told through food, “The Language of Baklava.”

At a party she held at her house in Portland, Ore., in 2001 to celebrate her marriage, two of her neighbors brought her a gift: a Mason jar with a jaunty red bow on it.

“It seemed to contain chunks of some sort of appalling turgid brownish oozing cake,” Ms. Abu-Jaber said. It came with a note of explanation that read: “This half loaf of zucchini chocolate bread was a (failed) experiment. But maybe you will like it. Happy marriage!”

“To this day, we marvel at whatever might have possessed them to pass that on to us,” Ms. Abu-Jaber said.

Annabelle Gurwitch, a host of the eco-living show “Wa$ted” on the cable network Planet Green, got a call from a neighbor in early May asking for the rest of the Irish cheese from Costco that the neighbor had left at the Gurwitches’ house in Los Angeles four nights earlier. So the next morning Ms. Gurwitch’s husband drove to the neighbor’s house, dutifully returning custody of the eight ounces of cheese.

“I did feel odd giving it back,” Ms. Gurwitch said. “I felt like it was ours now.” But revenge was soon hers: a week later, dining at the cheese-revoking neighbor’s house, Ms. Gurwitch absconded with a loaf of bread that she hadn’t even brought.

In some instances, the inherent virtuousness of dispensing the world’s uneaten foods seems to fuel, if not provide rationalization for, some odd behavior.

Is Bicycling Bad for Your Bones?

Seems to strengthen the argument that it's critical to take calcium when you're cycling heavily:

In 2006, Aaron Smathers, then 29, was a graduate student in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at the University of Oklahoma, gathering data for a study of brittle bones in cyclists. One of his subjects was himself, since he’s been a bike racer for years. A recent scan had revealed that his bones were less dense than usual for a man his age.

Not long after those results came in, he crashed during a race, snapping his collarbone. Six weeks later, in his first post-injury race, he was engulfed by a multi-rider pile-up, crashed again, and re-broke his collarbone.

Worse, he fractured his hip so badly that the ball of the ball-and-socket joint broke off.

“Later I thought, well, this reinforces my study,” he says.

Is cycling bad for the bones? A number of intriguing studies published in the past 18 months, including Smathers’, have raised that possibility — an issue that has special resonance now, with this weekend’s start of the 2009 Tour de France. Certainly, the toll of broken bones among top-level racers is high.

Of course, slamming into the pavement at 40 miles per hour can be expected to break anyone’s bones. But Smathers’ research suggests that other factors may be at work as well.

“If you have low bone mineral mass, you can wind up with a much more serious break from a crash” than if your bones are thicker, he points out.

In his study, the bone density of 32 male, competitive bike riders, most in their late 20s and early 30s, was compared to that of age-matched controls, men who were active but not competitive athletes.

Bone scans showed that almost all of the cyclists had significantly less bone density in the spine than the control group.

A Culprit in Infertility, Overlooked Yet Treatable

For more than four years, Joann Citrone of West Deptford, N.J., went through round after round of expensive infertility treatments. But it wasn’t until two years after she and her husband adopted their second child from South Korea that she was finally given a correct diagnosis.

She suffered from a common yet often overlooked condition that can lead to infertility and a host of perplexing symptoms — yet is easily treated when it is properly diagnosed.

The condition is nonclassical congenital adrenal hyperplasia, or C.A.H. — a hormone deficiency that leads to excess production of androgens. In women it can interfere with ovulation; in men it can cause low sperm count. In addition, it can lead to short stature, body odor, acne, irregular menstruation and the excessive hair growth called hirsutism. (Ms. Citrone, now 38, had some of these symptoms, too.)

“The treatment is so cheap and easy,” said Dr. Maria New, a professor of pediatrics and human genetics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine who is considered the leading authority on C.A.H.

China's elderly will overwhelm the nation

LA Times: The one-child rule imposed 30 years ago has created too few young people to support the quickly expanding aging population.

By the middle of this century, fully a third of China's population will be age 60 or older, compared with 26% in the United States.

China's projected 438 million senior citizens will outnumber the entire U.S. population.

With fewer workers to support an aging society in need of care, China faces the same demographic squeeze confronting Western nations.

The difference: China's family-tinkering policy has accelerated a shift that the country is ill-prepared to manage and finance.