Ode Magazine

Being the change I wished to see

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:55:51 EST

By: dderella

In May 2009 my six-figure real estate job came to end, and I knew I had to embrace the change like so many others. My husband and I had been sitting on a trademark intellectual property for several years. We wondered, "if not now, then when?"

I believe that all changes happens for the greater good of the soul.

We decided to fully commit to developing Be the Light, Be the One™, a social brand and online presence that educates, inspires and supports personal health and global transformation. We strive to create new possibilities for ecological sustainability, social justice and a healthier world.

What we think, feel and consume affects the whole…individually and globally.

Our purposeful products are carefully selected to embrace oneness: the idea that all life is connected, evolving and sacred. They also bridge the worlds of science and spirit and help us discover key insights to essential questions like, “How do we show up in my life?,” “How are we making a positive impact?,” and “What are the tools and resources available to us along the path?”

Our online emporium offers tools and resources for conscious change. Our hope is to be a source of reflection and inspiration as we build community, support meaningful connections and create new possibilities for ourselves and the world.

Essential questions for loving relationships

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:51:13 EST

By: lexsisney

Have you ever noticed how the work week tends to build up a dust of separation and isolation between you and your significant other? You’re doing your thing. Your partner is doing their thing. You’re both busy, doing your best to juggle the demands of work, home, family, kids, money, carpools, workouts, homework, meals, cleaning…basically managing the constant demands of modern living. You already know from experience that it’s so easy to fall into the trap of living together and “missing” each other at the same time. If you’re not careful, this dust of separation and isolation can build up over time into lasting soot that discolors your relationship. The result is a loss of intimacy, love and connection.

Happy couples make a commitment to regularly wash away the dust and renew their closeness, affection and bond. How do they do it? One way is a weekly ritual practiced by couples across the land: Date Night. Dinner and a movie. A walk in the park. Drinks at the club. A romantic night in. You name it. Couples engage in dates of all kinds as a way to spend time together, reconnect and hopefully enjoy each other’s company. But let’s be honest…some dates are better than others.

What makes a date good or bad? If you think about it, it’s not the activity of the date it’s the intimacy and connection inspired during the date that is all-important. If you’ve ever gone to a five-star restaurant only to get in a terrible fight with your lover, you know exactly what I mean. Similarly, if the intimacy, love and connection are strong, you can have a great date at the local burger joint. It’s not the activity. It’s the intimacy.

In a long-term relationship, getting to this place during a date can sometimes be difficult. This is because it’s not just you and your partner on the date. Each of you also brings a week’s worth (and sometimes more) of accumulated dirt to the evening. Stressors from work and family, hurts and wrongs felt during the week, unspoken needs that aren’t being met, hopes and fears around money, relationships and self. How can you wash these away and enjoy true connection with your partner? Like a lot of other important things in life, it gets a lot easier when you know what questions to ask.

Below are eight questions you and your partner can ask each other on date night that can help rebuild love, intimacy, connection and trust in a matter of minutes. Some of the questions take courage to ask at first. It’s ok. Be courageous. They get easier with practice.

Is there anything I’ve been making you wrong about?

Is there anything you’ve been making me wrong about?

What needs do you have that aren’t being met?

Is there anything that you’ve been trying to say that I haven’t been hearing?

What are you happy about in our life?

What do you want to be acknowledged for?

What are you committed to in your life and work this week?

What do you need to let go of in order to make that happen?

When asking the questions, your job is not to judge, critique, or defend. Your job is to listen from a place of openness and sincere interest. If you find yourself feeling angry, hurt, or sad by something your partner said, let it go and listen more. If need be, you can bring it up after your partner has finished answering all eight questions.

When answering questions, your job is to accept full responsibility for your life experience. Use “I” statements such as “I’ve been trying to say that I miss you running your fingers through my hair,” instead of “You never run your fingers through my hair.”

Try these questions out on your next date. You’ll be amazed at the level of love, connection, and intimacy suddenly “found” in your relationship.

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Your personal parenting expert is within you

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:27:59 EST

By: joyfulparent

"Every stage in a child's life is there for a purpose. If we can respect and respond to her needs fully during each stage of her life, she can be done with that stage and move on." —Naomi Aldort

There is a certain show with a certain nanny who is British (or is she?) that makes me very angry to even think about. I have only watched it a few times. I always have to turn it off because I end up yelling at the television! She is so far off base when it comes to having a loving, authentic relationship with your child. I feel sad that some parents buy into her advice. I have such empathy for the children. I also have empathy for the parents because they must be so disconnected from themselves that they are desperate enough to reach out to a woman who doesn’t even have children herself. She has made claims that she has many years of child care experience. It frightens me to think she is deemed an “expert”.

There are so many parenting books out there by “experts”. My belief is all parents are experts, but only if they are tuned in to their own truth. It is sad to me that parents have been told for years to listen to experts outside themselves. How can somebody else know what is best for *my* child? The fact is, so many parents do not trust themselves to know what is best for their own children. I believe all parents want what is best for their children, and many now believe that listening to the so-called “experts” means they are following the rules of being a good parent. I believe it is similar to school experiences. We are trained to go along with what we are told to do; we are made to feel inadequate if we don’t follow the herd. Parents that do not follow the “rules” may get funny looks from other parents, and will most definitely get the advice to read a certain book that will help, or a suggestion on what is the best way to handle the situation.

For those of us who were wounded in childhood, it is sometimes difficult to trust ourselves as being the expert on what is best for our children and our families. It can feel scary to follow your heart when it may be different than what others around you are doing with their own children. It may feel scary to stand out from what is deemed “normal parenting”. Using our own childhood wounds as a starting point to find empowerment may not always feel easy. It is normal to question ourselves as parents all along the journey. However, once I got a taste of what it feels like to trust myself enough to know how to trust my kids, I was on the path to listening to the parenting expert within me. The main reason that many parents are afraid to listen to their inner parenting guide is because they have disconnected from their own inner child. I know my inner child was completely blocked out of my life until I gave birth to my children.

Something stirred deep within me after they were born. I feel grateful that I decided to breastfeed them because I think that connection helped my inner child speak up to say, “hey, there is something so much deeper here than just feeding your babies.” Connecting with them on such a deep level made me question all of the typical parenting advice and information. As they grew, I grew too. I started wondering why so many parenting “experts” were telling me things that didn’t go along with what my inner guidance system was telling me. I questioned why I should go along with something that did not feel right to me instinctually. I wondered why so many parents had trouble with their child not sleeping, why tantrums were so common, why children were “out of control”, if these “experts” were so right. Why were there still so many parenting “problems”? The answer is because parents were listening to the wrong “expert”.

Soon I found people that told me to listen to my heart, listen to my child, and trust the process; trust my child to teach me what he needs. This was all the validation I needed! Finally I found information that matched up with what my heart was telling me. From that point on, the only “experts” I needed was my own inner parent, and of course, my children. I want to encourage all parents to question everything they have been taught about how to parent their children. Listen to your heart, listen to your child. Stay connected to your inner guide so that you can stay connected to your children. We have all of the parenting information we need right inside of us. We may need some validation every once in awhile, but if we stay present with our ourselves, we can be with our children in the way that they expect us to be. Trusting our children never ends. But, don’t take my advice, I’m no expert, except with myself and my kids.

I write about personal growth and healing here, www.benurtured.com/. I hope you will stop by to visit. If you would like to read more about authentic parenting, you can start here www.naturalchild.org or www.naomialdort.com/.

Wanting peace

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:49:54 EST

By: PeaceCorso

Many years ago, when I first began the study of meaning, I struggled deeply with prosperity issues. You have to understand how I learned about money.

When I was 28, I walked into my apartment one night in tears. My dear, blessed roommate asked me what was wrong. I wailed, “I bounced a check.” She asked me if I’d balanced my checkbook. My tears stopped momentarily and I asked, “What’s that?”

“Haven’t you ever turned your bank statement over?” Her eyes were about to fall out of her head.

I didn’t know there was anything on the back of a bank statement. A tragedy of errors, I ended up in hysterical laughter as my dear friend Susan taught me how to balance my checkbook.

I explained, “Susan,” I hiccoughed, “my mother had four checkbooks. Whenever she screwed one up badly enough, she stopped using it for a few months till she got the ‘real’ balance from the bank!”

Well, soon after that, I ran across the 23rd Psalm—bear with me, it is relevant. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I’d been confused by these words for years. I thought, for a long time, that it meant: I shall not desire … things. Wrong! Way wrong.

I remember the day I realized that those seminal words mean, I shall not lack. Really, I cannot lack. I skipped the streets of Manhattan that day.

Want can mean lack.

Satya Sai Baba’s words made me grin. He says, “People say ‘I want peace.’ If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with peace.”

I want peace can equal I lack peace.

Prescription:

Remove I. Remove lack.

Hang out with the remaining peace.

Aaaah.

For spiritual nourishment, visit www.susancorso.com.

The Underground Railroad to Success

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:16:00 EST

By: leaho

Investing In Women (IIW) has awarded a $500 “stimulus package” to a female-owned business, The Underground Railroad To Success (URS). URS was started by Tanisha Cunningham in 2009 and helps foster care children prepare for adult life. Growing up in foster care herself, Cunningham saw the need for additional support, especially when children are no longer eligible for state run services. Soon after her foster care ended she began a career in child welfare, “I wanted to stay there because my passion had always been to give back, because I knew the struggles of living in foster care, and the fear of leaving unprepared, not having a place to go or having the skills to obtain a job.”

The goal of URS is to teach foster children, especially those who are aging out, how to live independently as adults while becoming an integral part of society. “Aging out” is the term used for children who go into foster care, but are never returned to their families of origin or adopted by others. They stay in the system until they turn 18 or graduate from high school. For the most part, they are left to fend for themselves as best they can. Cunningham notes that, "If the next generation is responsible for shaping our future, then we need to make sure that they are trained to do. Children in foster care are no exception to this rule."

The grant from IIW will give the non-profit a chance to market their business and spread the positive effects of their efforts.

Listening with your eyes

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:27:15 EST

By: Chintana

Meditation is a process of listening and purification. In quietude, we connect to deep moments of calmness, stillness and openess. We come in contact with a soft power that can be used for self healing and realization that can transform pain into progress.

There are many ways to meditate. I regularly practice sitting, walking and writing meditation. Often times, my writing practice will begin with an exercise in detailing. I simply list what sits in front of me which becomes a process of listening with my eyes. Then, I pick an item off the list and conduct a ten minute timed writing practice. I let the pen flow without crossing out. I allow raw thoughts to surface and don't worry about editing. This form of writing practice separates the editor from the creator.

After the timed writing session is over, I read the words that surface from the steady connection of nose, heart, head and hand. I end by sitting in meditation for ten minutes; recalling any phrases that might carry deeper meaning in my self reflection. This usually leads to subtle yet striking insights for my daily life.

I approach this process over and over again without growing tired. I have come to learn that it is a simple yet profound way to study oneself and to listen to what the inner and outer world has to convey.

I learned to conduct writing practice from Natalie Goldberg and have recently started a blog to share my experiences: www.ilikezen.com

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Impermanence

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:05:50 EST

By: KeriDouglas

How does one begin to understand the notion of impermanence? Perhaps the fall leaves, the death of a loved one, the sun rise in the morning…or words of wise spiritual teachers?

In the last weeks, the word "impermanence" has been used by three very different people. Rabbi Steinlauf used the word ‘impermanence’ when he welcomed everyone into the Sukkha tent built to represent the temporary nature of life and still being willing to live life fully. A week later in the very same spot stood the Dalai Lama who wished to learn how the Jewish community thrived in exile despite hardships and atrocities. Then an art gallery opening presented Eleanor Kotlarik Wang, whose collection of paintings titled “Impermanence” captured the faded cave paintings of Buddhists images in western China, the very end of the Silk Road.

At first glimpse, the series seems as though of collection of abstract impressionistic illustrations. However, trying to understand, walking up close, standing to the left side and then walking away and looking back from the right side, the realization hit.

Eleanor Wang states, “Impermanence. The Buddha images are an attempt to explore the notion of existence – to see for a moment an object or life force that appears solid and real, yet is in a stage of change and decay from the moment of its creation. This religious and philosophical component of many of the oriental religions initially confused my more western sensibility which tries solidifying experiences and memories. This more fluid approach to the understanding of life is one of the more mysterious responses to my time in China.”

There is no code to understand the symbols, colors or images. Understanding is just there. As truth is self evident, so is understanding. The concept of impermanence and the contradictory nature is brilliantly captured by Eleanor who engages the viewer into a conversation about “what do you really see?” She explained that just as some of the cave sculptures and paintings in western China are illusions of what they once were and some still as brilliant in color as if they were painted just yesterday. This contradiction of present yet past is this delicate notion of impermanence.

East meets West: Before the fall of the Berlin wall

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:35:04 EST

By: Chintana

It’s the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

I was eleven years old on November 9, 1989 and was living in an egg colored split-level home with burgundy trimmed windows out in rural Georgia.

My only memory of the event was how my father smirked and said, “the communists are dying” as he sat in a ribbed tank and navy blue jogging pants watching the world change through the frame of a large wooden TV set. He was listening and watching the news so intensely that I couldn’t tell what was feeding the channel: him or the pair of wire rabbit ears resting on top of the television. Sitting upright in his armchair, my father, a refugee of communist Laos, felt fully vindicated in that moment.

I was 26 years old when I thought about the Berlin wall again. In doing research on the Coca-Cola brand, I once read that when the Berlin wall crumbled, the world’s leading soda company made a strategic decision to be present at that historic moment. Freedom fizzed as East and West Berlin reunited and people rejoiced over a bottle of Coke. After the fall of the Berlin wall, Coca-Cola began building plants in eastern Europe.

In 2006, the Coca-Cola launched a global campaign entitled, “The Coke Side of Life.” The core message was to drink a Coke and be happy; choosing the Coke side of life was an act to become positive, spontaneous and colorful in any given moment in life.

The first taste of freedom for my family came in October of 1980 when I was a wide-eyed two year old baby. After seven months in the Nong Khai refugee camp, we left Thailand and flew to the Philippines. We landed in Manila and loaded onto a bus that snaked around mountainous roads for many hours before arriving at yet another refugee camp. The bus was full of Lao families looking out the windows. Some of us suffered from motion sickness while others had stomach aches from eating canned Spam. But all of us were shocked by the scenery beyond the bus.

The moment the bus stopped, the buzz was all about the ocean. My siblings were among many youngsters who jumped out and raced down the jungled beach path to the watery vastness. Elders who were too tired to make the hike shouted for them to put it in a bottle and bring it back.

My brother, John, told me how it felt that day.

“It tasted like all of our tears. The water was cold against my skin. I finally knew how freedom felt,” he said. “I stood there and water was all around me. People were happy and splashing each other. Our lives smelled differently at that moment.”

Wet with mixed emotions of scary happiness, John walked back up the path with an armload of Coca-Cola bottles. Each one was capped with ten ounces of ocean water for the elders. Older aunts, uncles, grandpas and grandmas curiously uncapped the world and choked on their first sips of salty sea water.

The Filipino camp provided cultural orientation for us. ESL courses were taught to everyone. We lived in buildings that were from a former U.S. military base in Morong Baataan. Along with the ocean, we saw many other things for the first time: carpet, toilets, bath tubs, showers, stoves, canned food and light sockets. With the first steps onto carpet, people often fell to their knees and softly petted the surface with their hands. It was curious to them. They couldn’t understand what animal fur it was made from.

It was a convergence of East meets West. Communism would come crumbling down with the Berlin wall nine years later. With Coca-Cola bottles of ocean water, we had uncapped another world of possibilities.

I sit tonight reflecting on the importance of history… both political and personal.

My heart swells. I am grateful for all beings alive and dead who are responsible for my present moment. I realize deeply the concept of interbeing tonight. I would be nowhere without the direct and indirect actions of others. Living is a communal act in this manner…our present is only a moment brought forth by the doings of our past and the intentions of our future. In this moment, we are enacting the power of life and lineage.

Palm oil industry bans ad

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:20:59 EST

By: Toast

An advertisement for Malaysian palm oil has been banned in the UK, dealing a major blow to the credibility of Malaysia’s palm oil industry. Members of the hunter-gatherer Penan tribe in Borneo have welcomed the ban, saying, "Oil palm plantations have not benefited us at all; they have only robbed us of our resources and land."

The Penan live in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, and are fighting to stop the forests they rely on being cut down to make way for oil palm plantations. Survival International is calling on the Malaysian government to halt plantations and logging on their land without their consent.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned the magazine advertisement, placed by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. The ad claimed that Malaysian palm oil was "sustainable" and contributed to "the alleviation of poverty, especially amongst rural populations."

The advertising regulator ruled that these and other claims made in the advert were misleading and could not be substantiated.

Members of the Penan tribe who have already lost much of their land to oil palm plantations said today:

"Our people welcome the ban on the magazine advert by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. How come the advert claimed that palm oil helps alleviate poverty, when from the very beginning oil palm plantations have destroyed our source of livelihood and made us much poorer? A lot of people are hungry every day because our forest has been destroyed."

Oil palm plantations and logging are destroying the forests the Penan hunt and gather in, and polluting the rivers they fish in. Without their forests they have difficulty finding enough food.

Survival International's director Stephen Corry said today, "Claims that Malaysian palm oil is green and people-friendly will not wash, especially with the Penan. The industry’s expansion onto their land is a disaster."

Palm oil is used in many everyday grocery products, and is increasingly being used for biofuel.

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Peacing words

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:31:58 EST

By: PeaceCorso

I saw this chant in a column by Queen Mama Donna Henes, urban shaman and dear friend to me. The words say it all. When you have time, give yourself a gift, and speak them aloud. Let their resonance soothe your soul.

Chant for Peace.
Chant for Peace.
For Peace on Earth.
For Peace on Earth.
Chant for Peace.
Chant for Earth.
For Peace on Earth.
For Peace of Mind.
Chant for Peace.
There’s a Chance for Peace.
A Chance for a Change.
For a Change for Peace.
For a Change for Earth.
Chant for Earth.
Chant for Peace.
Chant for Us.
Chant for Peace.
There’s a Chance for Peace.
Still a Chance for Peace.
Still a Chance for Earth.
Still a Chance.
Still.

These are peacing words.

For spiritual nourishment, visit www.susancorso.com.

Real family values

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:00:21 EST

How suppressed emotions cut us off from loved ones and ourselves.

Photograph: David Servan-Schreiber

Tom had a successful career... in the mafia. He'd been a millionaire, able to have any woman he wanted, and rubbed shoulders with influential people. Yet when he came to see me after a lifetime of alcohol, drugs and crime, he was like a lost child who needed direction. To "succeed" in his world, he'd had to learn to block his emotions, and didn't know who he was any more.

Tom told me about the time he was a new recruit and he'd agreed, for a substantial sum, to cut his best friend's ear off because his friend owed money to the Mafia. As he used all his weight to pin his friend down, Tom repeated mechanically, "It's nothing personal, Jimmy. It's just business." Back home, he collapsed into bed and stayed there for two days. When he recovered, he swore to himself he'd never let himself get emotional like that again. He never did cry after that, and moved rapidly through the ranks of "the family." But after years of that type of life, he couldn't sleep at night unless he'd had a few drinks, and his only real pleasure came from prostitutes or cocaine, or both.

At 55, broke and alone, Tom started to recognize the Faustian pact that dominated his life. Having cut off his emotions to block out the pain he inflicted on others, he was no longer able to experience the kind of wholesome pleasures essential to growth. After a few months of trying to listen to what his heart was telling him, Tom finally rediscovered his lust for life. He described the warmth of a child's smile, something he'd never noticed before, and the tears he shed when a young woman whom he'd protected from the Mafia said to him: "Tom, no man has ever done what you just did for me. I'll never forget that." Said Tom: "It's better than winning a hundred grand at poker."

How many of us have fallen into the same trap as Tom, without realizing it? A manager who no longer cares about the devastating effect of losing a job, who tells himself that the severance package is more than reasonable compensation. A doctor who bows to pressure from the family and forces an old lady into a retirement home, even though he knows that staying in her own home is the most important thing left in her life.

How many of us are suppressing the emotions that make us human? It may have helped us climb the corporate ladder, gain status at work or among our friends, but it has also cut us off from the consequences of our actions. Nowadays we're discovering how our behavior toward those close to us, whether colleagues or family members, often leads us to cut ourselves off from our feelings. Yes, it's only through contact with our emotions that we can become whole and fulfilled. That's the lesson I learned from Tom, and I try to apply it every day of my life.

David Servan-Schreiber is a French psychiatry professor and the author of Healing without Freud or Prozac and Anticancer .

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Tales of the credit crunch

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:04:35 EST

Filmmaker Johan Kramer finds inspiration in the financial crisis.

Photograph: Wouter Westendorp

A Japanese woman walks two dogs along a winding path in a well-groomed park. The dogs sniff around the bushes as the woman walks patiently behind, plastic bags in hand, ready to clean up after them. This scene is from The Crisis and Us, the new film from Dutch film director Johan Kramer (photo), who previously gained international acclaim with The Other Final, about a soccer match between Bhutan and Montserrat, the two lowest-ranked teams at the time, and Sing for Darfur, about the tragedy in Sudan. If you saw only the images—shot in black and white using eight-millimeter film with grainy and nostalgic qualities that create a nearly dreamlike intimacy—you'd wonder what was happening. Who is the woman in the park? How long has she had the dogs? What are their names?

The stories, written by Kramer, answer all those questions, which had moved Kramer more than a year ago to launch an experiment in which he filmed everyday situations that struck a chord and were inspired by chance: people on the street, encounters in the park, the view of an office building from a hotel room.

On Monday, September 15th, 2008—which the media dubbed "Black Monday"—the American banking giant Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and the global financial crisis became a reality. Kramer knew right away that this would be the topic of his next film: the crisis that would affect the everyday affairs of ordinary people across the globe. The result is a lovely film comprising 38 portraits of people from all over the world. Combined, these stories create an image of what the crisis is doing to us. Using voice-overs by the fantastic David Saire, a British actor, and the music of Tom Holkenborg, aka. Junkie XL, a Dutch performer who rose to world fame as a remixer, Kramer calls the result "a film that is really for your ears."

According to him, the stories show the ways you can look at the crisis. "It's not difficult to make a very gloomy, pessimistic film about this experience," Kramer says. "But I'm curious what we can learn from it. I think it forces us to take a different path, which is why there's also a lot of optimism in this film."

The stories, often based on newspaper reports, make the audience chuckle, thanks to the hilarious situations Kramer describes—like the woman walking her dogs in the park. She's married to a Japanese banker who consistently overworks himself and is afraid he'll lose his job due to the crisis. His wife's desire for a child is continually put off because he works 16-hour days. She wants a divorce and, in an act of revenge, gets two dogs she calls Kiniu and Kiki. These two words, spoken in succession, mean "financial crisis," which drives her husband crazy. Thanks to the dogs, which symbolize her longing for a child, she's ultimately able to divorce. So the story goes: Kramer's story.

Things to do in Iceland during the slump

Bubbles, but not the financial kind

Dieter, the sausage astronaut

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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A good kind of group think builds sustainable small businesses

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:35:03 EST

Ernesto Sirolli taps into the collective genius of communities.

Sirolli says the businesses he’s helped build have an 80 percent success rate.

Photograph: Sirolli Institute

If you happen to ride your bicycle to Ernesto Sirolli's Sacramento, California, residence, as I did, your effort won't go unrewarded. When he opens the garage door, you'll be treated to a glimpse of his prized possession, a white 1951 Morgan Roadster. The Morgan Company, he'll quickly and enthusiastically tell you, is a family-owned business in England founded by H.F.S. Morgan that this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. "They have completely flown in the face of conventional business wisdom!" says Sirolli. "Their cars are all hand-made! Look, the body is made out of wood. And there is a seven-year waiting list for a new one!" It's clear that beyond the typical automobile fetishism, Sirolli is enthralled that a company of that kind could continue to stay small and produce beautiful objects into the 21st century.

It's a great introduction to the lifework of Sirolli himself, who over the last 23 years has helped communities around the world grow small businesses from the ground up. By his reckoning, he and his disciples have aided in the start up, expansion or survival of 30,000 businesses on four continents. At a time when businesses around the world are being rocked by the global economic implosion, Sirolli's methods could help struggling entrepreneurs not just survive but thrive. More than bolstering bottom lines, the Sirolli Institute helps communities help themselves, reinventing local networks and building the social capital that's the foundation of true prosperity. Sirolli fires himself up an espresso on the stove, then we move to his Japanese rock garden living room so he can explain how he accomplishes this.

"Enterprise facilitation" is the name Sirolli has given to what his Institute does. If that phrase makes your eyes glaze over instantly, you're not alone. The modern corporate vagueness, and the little trademark bubble that follows it in print, can be a bit off-putting at first. But in person, Sirolli is skilled enough as a pitchman to get the message across. With his dark, wavy hair and moustache, Sirolli could be the Italian Tom Selleck, although his robust accent and barely controlled enthusiasm have me thinking "Borat" more often than I'd like.

Before he explains his methodology, Sirolli insists I understand the idea at its core: A successful business requires three essential components—product, marketing and financial management—and no single human being is capable of delivering all three with equal passion and competence. "The death of the entrepreneur is solitude," he says. "If you're alone in business, you'll die." This isn't some casual observation, but the core of his faith, what he has come to call "the trinity of management."

On the face of it, this idea doesn't strike one as particularly radical, but it goes against what Sirolli considers a pernicious but enduring myth: To start a successful business, you must be able to handle all three aspects yourself. Not one to shy away from absolutes, Sirolli lets me have it: "Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Bill Gates: None of the greatest companies in America was started by one person! I've done the research. Not even one! It's always two, three, four people."

The other distinguishing principle that guides Sirolli's methodology and permeates every aspect of the enterprise is this: One should never go where one is uninvited. To explain this, he takes me on a tour of his early years as an aid worker in Africa, a part of his story recounted in his 1999 book Ripples from the Zambezi: Passion, Entrepreneurship, and the Rebirth of Local Economies. Sirolli worked for six years with Italian aid agencies in Zambia, Kenya and the Ivory Coast, the results of which, in typically superlative fashion, he qualifies as "disastrous," adding, "We always did it from the top down and it never worked. We had zero respect for people. Everything we touched we killed." In the midst of this rolling disaster, Sirolli got a copy of the 1973 alternative-economy classic by E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful. There he encountered a few sentences that changed his lifework forever. Sirolli's paraphrase: "‘If people don't wish to be helped, leave them alone.' This should be the first principle of aid."

Sirolli taught Rob Miles, who runs a canoeing/camping company in rural Oregon, that he didn’t have to do everything himself.

Photograph: Imperial River Company

A few years later, in 1985, Sirolli was a grad student in psychology at Murdoch University in Australia. He was seeking a subject for his doctoral project, on the intersection of psychology and entrepreneurship. One of his advisers invited him to try an experiment in Esperance, an isolated and depressed fishing town on the country's West Coast. Sirolli dropped himself into the community, offering merely to help anyone interested in starting a business. After days of inquiring, he managed to find an unemployed fisherman with a dream of opening a fish smokery. Sirolli helped him gather a team and guided him through the million hurdles it took to get up and running. As word got out in the small community, people started coming to Sirolli with their dreams. From Esperance, the news spread to other rural outposts in Australia, before jumping continents to North America and the U.K., and a chain of launches that still carry him today.

Over the years, what started out as a social experiment has coalesced into a methodology, and this is what the Sirolli Institute offers to interested communities around the globe. The story usually unfolds thusly: A town or a county invites the Sirolli Institute to help. The Sirolli people have its leaders put together a council of 20 to 50 volunteers that meets monthly for a specified amount of time. The council hires and lines up funding for an enterprise facilitator, a paid professional with business experience and the right personality, who'll be trained by Team Sirolli and released back into the community.

From there, it's the job of the enterprise facilitator to wait to be approached by clients, to make sure he has the three parts of the trinity in place. If not, she begins the search in the immediate community with the council, and expands the circle until she finds them. Then it's the enterprise facilitator's job to do anything and everything to make the client's dream come true. Anything, Sirolli says, with a few conspicuous exceptions. "Two reasons you get fired. No. 1: You get fired if you initiate anything; if it is your idea, you get fired, because you only work in response. And No. 2: You get fired if you motivate anybody; if we catch you convincing somebody that they should be doing something in business, we will fire you!"

Sirolli clearly enjoys stating this so baldly, but beneath the laughter he's dead serious. Facilitators are trained to hold back, to work only with those who already have the drive to succeed. "You do not chase clients," he tells them. "You don't put ads in papers. All introductions are through word of mouth." Sirolli's dream is that this new type of public service will become a more widespread and recognizable institution. "The enterprise facilitator becomes this kind of strange new professional who is strange for the first year. But after two or three years in the community, there is this concept that there is this person who can help you."

As for marketing his own services to an unknowing world, Sirolli has tried to walk the talk, which explains in part why his Institute flies for the most part well below the radar. "We don't advertise," he explains. "We can only do something good and wait for people to invite us. Can we educate people about what we do? Yes. The only way we get work is to go to conferences and speak but it's very, very, very, very slow. We are the opposite of Anthony Robbins," a reference to the ubiquitous motivational speaker. Besides that, Sirolli knows that when you work with rural, economically disenfranchised communities, you don't exactly find yourself in the world's major media hubs. But gradually, the mainstream is drifting toward Sirolli's way of thinking. In 2005, he was invited to address the National Conference of Economic Development in Washington, D.C.

Over the course of a couple of decades, the number of communities Sirolli has worked with has grown to about 300 around the globe—in Kansas, South Dakota, Texas and Oregon in the U.S.; in Lancashire in Britain; in three rural counties in Scotland; all around the western rim of Australia; and, coming full circle, a new project in Katanga, in eastern Congo. Of course, the figures wouldn't mean much if those businesses failed at the usual rate—80 percent within the first five years is the oft-repeated statistic. Sirolli is particularly proud of the survival rate of businesses that implement his methods, claiming a success rate of 80 percent of the businesses that he directly or indirectly helped guide.

Rob Miles runs the Imperial River Company, a paddling and lodging provider on the Deschutes River in rural Oregon. He'd been struggling for years before he attended a three-day seminar Sirolli and his people ran in a small town on the other side of the state. "I had always been told that no one can do it as good as you can," Miles recalls. "‘You're the owner. You have to be the best at it. You have to be the best at marketing. No one can manage the finances as good as you. It's your money.' The entrepreneurial myth was pounded into my head. Learning that that's not true, that it's an incredible lie, was huge to me."

Thanks to support from the Sirolli Institute, Elaine Aragon has made her hairdressing salon/gym/athletic jacket outlet in rural Texas work.

Photograph: Laura Hardin

Miles went home and fired himself as marketing director and hired someone who, unlike him, didn't hate every minute of it. He credits this move with helping him endure the economic implosion that has ravaged so many businesses around him. "In this down economy that we're in, my 2008 year ended up $3,000 ahead of 2007. A zero growth year, in this recession, I would say is fantastic." Miles has gone on to join the five-county council that meets once a month with the regional enterprise facilitator to brainstorm solutions for would-be business owners like himself. "That's the beauty of the collective genius," he says. "Building capacity at a grassroots level by tapping into the resource that is already there. It's not bringing in a factory and creating 1,500 new jobs. It's finding the person who has the passion to do something and helping them find the other people they need to know in order to make that passion a reality."

Elaine Aragon has put together the kind of category-defying business you wouldn't find in Soho, say, or on Melrose Avenue. Under one roof she's got a hairdresser, massage therapist, gym, tanning salon, local high school athletic jacket outlet and candy store. "We kind of do everything," she says. But located as it is in the rural town of Littlefield, in northwest Texas, JoJo's Attic serves as much as a cultural hub as a money-making venture.

Aragon had worked in somebody else's business for 19 years, but nothing she learned in that time prepared her for putting together her own business plan. Through word of mouth, she heard about a local Sirolli-trained facilitator, who helped her figure out all the ducks she needed to line up—from projected income and overhead down to the logo and the lettering on the door—to get her bank loan. "Every time we would meet, I would have to do my ‘homework,'" she says. "They don't do it for you. [The enterprise facilitator] doesn't sit there and babysit you. You have to have the desire to do it. But I'd still be spinning my wheels without her." This September, it will be two years since JoJo's Attic opened. Within the first year, Aragon was able to double her revenue and keep that money in the community.

The Sirolli Institute is an institution of the mind; there's no campus and no headquarters, which explains in part how Sirolli can get away with living in Sacramento. For seven years he operated out of Minneapolis, enduring the soul-crushing Midwestern winters. Returning from a lecture in California's State Capitol one January, he told his wife of the roses he saw blooming there—in January. She wept. They moved here with their teenaged daughter in 2002 and have been able to run the non-profit out of their house, with a marketer in Alberta, Canada, and hundreds of facilitators around the globe. Now they're moving the curriculum online so they can train people with video modules and video conferencing, saving the environment and the airfare in the process.

Before I climb back on my bicycle, I make sure I ask Sirolli about the global economic crunch, and the relevance of his programs. He can't suppress a chuckle of well-earned relief. "All the communities and all the people we have worked with have always been in terrible economic shape. We've been dealing with this forever. We are specialists!" As I ride back to the train, I wonder if somewhere out there, in a garage in South Dakota or western Australia, there's this century's H.F.S. Morgan, developing a car that runs on sunlight. If you happen to run into him, hook him up with Ernesto Sirolli, will you?

Larry Gallagher has been employing the preposterous scheme of using freelance writing to support his songwriting habit.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Open Medicine provides medical knowledge to the public

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:31:13 EST

Palepu believes medical publishing should be free from corporate influence.

Photograph: Eugene Lin

Anita Palepu was an associate editor at the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2006 when the publisher fired two editors in a conflict over editorial independence. Angry at what she felt was a move to allow advertisers to dictate what appeared in the journal, Palepu and some other colleagues resigned. But she says cheerfully, "Instead of being outraged, I'm doing something about it." Within a year, Palepu became co-founder and co-editor of Open Medicine, a free, independent online quarterly that offers peer-reviewed science and analysis. In the first issue, the editors stated that "medical knowledge should be public and free from undeclared influence."

Palepu, a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, emphasizes that renowned medical journals "such as The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine derive substantial income from pharmaceutical advertisers." She's concerned this may cause physicians to make decisions based on brand recognition rather than on scientific rigor. Moreover, she adds, "these advertisers may sponsor a trial, pay for publication and then purchase tens of thousands of copies to distribute among medical professionals." That doesn't necessarily mean the science is invalid, she acknowledges, but she does wonder about the "competing interests." With Open Medicine, that's never a question since it doesn't take advertisements. Palepu says the initiative runs on the "labor of love" of many academics, mainly from Canada, plus donations from medical schools and individuals.

Recently, the journal started an experiment in collaborative publishing. One of its articles is set up as a wiki so registered users can edit and add material. Palepu believes it's too early to draw any conclusions, but stresses that "we're very careful, and we're only learning how to execute a wiki in a medical context." Meanwhile, in July, the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced its collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation to improve the online availability of medical information. Palepu considers her editors part of a broader movement advocating a free culture with open access, something mostly visible in free downloads of music and books. "Medicine is a very traditional profession, so some will think we're quite radical," Palepu says, "but for others it's completely normal what we do."

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Vitamin Angels combats malnutrition with nutritional supplements

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:40:12 EST

How giving every child basic nutrition may provide a starting point for tackling Africa's other challenges.

At Alupe Hospital in Busia, Kenya, pregnant women take supplements to increase their chances of having healthy babies.

Photograph: Matt Dayka

Touching down in Eldoret, a rural town about 185 miles (300 kilometers) from Nairobi near the Ugandan border in western Kenya, everything seemed calm and peaceful. The countryside is lush; indeed, most of the residents are farmers, growing wheat, coffee and tea as well as rearing dairy cattle. Suddenly, there was a commotion outside the airport and a loud, rhythmic chanting started. It turned out to be for Selina Kosgei, the runner from Eldoret who recently won the Boston Marathon. She'd just returned home and was greeted by a throng of supporters.

Kosgei is one of the few things the people of Eldoret have to celebrate. In January of last year, violence erupted in Eldoret and throughout Kenya after disputed elections. In Eldoret alone, hundreds of people were killed in tribal skirmishes, while thousands of others were displaced. Howard Schiffer had come to Eldoret to fight another killer: malnutrition. As founder and president of the non-profit Vitamin Angels, Schiffer has so far helped distribute 400 million nutritional supplements to needy children in more than 40 countries. Schiffer and other Vitamin Angels staff members had traveled to this remote Kenyan town to launch Thrive to Five, a program that provides daily doses of essential supplements to local people, especially children. "Essential nutrients save lives," says Schiffer, a tall, bespectacled man who has been involved with nutrition for more than 30 years. "It is measurable, it is scalable and we don't need to spend a penny on research or 10 years trying to find the cure. We only need to make the decision that these children are worth it."

Schiffer's philosophy, and the guiding principle behind Vitamin Angels, is that vitamins and other nutritional supplements are crucial to the health of young children and pregnant and lactating mothers. Supplements containing selected vitamins and nutrients—particularly vitamin A, iron, iodine, folate and zinc—mitigate the effects of undernutrition and malnutrition, Schiffer says, and dramatically reduce the likelihood of low-birth-weight babies. Low birth weight is a key indicator of chronic malnutrition, and low-birth-weight infants are at greater risk of dying from simple infections and common childhood illnesses. According to the British medical journal The Lancet, chronic malnutrition is responsible for a third of all maternal and child deaths every year.

Schiffer's approach to the problem is backed by the World Bank, which argued in a 2006 report: "Investments in micronutrients have greater returns than those in trade liberalization, malaria, water or sanitation. No other technology offers as large an opportunity to improve lives at such a low cost and in such a short time." An example of how effective supplements can be, Schiffer says, is that two vitamin A capsules given to a child every year increase survival rates by 23 percent. Schiffer hopes the Thrive to Five program will help children under 5 not just survive but thrive, both physically and cognitively.

And Kenyan kids need all the help they can get. Infant and maternal mortality rates in Kenya are among the highest in the world. Of the country's 37 million inhabitants, some 58 percent live on less than $1 a day. Tourists wonder at Kenya's spectacular wildlife and stunning beaches, but most Kenyans are subsistence farmers with no running water, electricity, reliable transport or proper food. Diseases that are all but eradicated in the West—spina bifida, malaria, TB—kill about 2 million Kenyans a year altogether. About 300 people, predominantly children and adults under 35, die of AIDS every day. In the past 20 years, life expectancy has dropped from 54 to 47.

Vitamin Angels founder Howard Schiffer in Alupe Hospital’s maternity ward.

Photograph: Matt Dayka

Schiffer started his career as a midwife, becoming involved in childbirth education, maternal health and the homebirth movement. That led him into the natural products industry. But after 14 years and a fair amount of commercial success, "I was honestly bored," he says. "I kept thinking, There has got to be something else I could do with all of these connections." He launched Vitamin Angels in 1994.

Vitamin Angels' standard operating procedure is to "find organizations within a country that are doing good and help them do better," says Schiffer. Vitamin Angels piggybacks on other educational or maternal and child health projects in a given country and adds a nutritional component. Vitamin Angels staff members then work with the partner organizations to distribute the vitamins. This keeps costs low and logistics efficient. The cost for vitamin A supplements, including everything from transport to education to administration, is 25 cents a child per year.

At Alupe Hospital in the Teso North district of western Kenya, where Vitamin Angels is also active, emaciated pregnant women cram into a tiny maternity ward. A single nurse tends to them. Mary Goretti Amoit, a 19-year-old primary school dropout, is among the patients. Pregnant with her first baby, she's being treated for chronic malnutrition. Her husband is a casual laborer who hardly earns enough for medical care. "At home, we don't have enough money to get the kind of food a pregnant mother is required to eat," Amoit says. "We just survive."

Most of the inhabitants of this hilly, semi-arid and sparsely populated region are nomads. They move from place to place tending their cattle, goats and sheep, always in search of water. Poverty is widespread. Most girls marry in their early teens. Very few, if any, make it to secondary school.

Lydia Anyokort, 15, has just had her first child, a boy delivered by Caesarian section. Caesarians are common here; malnutrition can make it difficult to carry a baby to term. "I was in school and had to drop out when I realized I was pregnant," Lydia says. Lydia's 40-year-old mother, who has 10 other children, sits by her bedside. "It means I have to take care of her little son, then send her back to school," she adds. "We live by the grace of God. We can't afford a decent meal. That's why we always appreciate the vitamin supplements."

Vitamin Angels serves some 10 million needy children and mothers worldwide. Next year, Schiffer wants to reach 15 million or more. "I want to get past vitamin deficiency diseases and start reaching women pre-conception, so the day children are born they have the opportunity to reach their full intellectual and structural capacity," he says. "We don't get to choose when a disaster will strike but we always get to choose how we will respond. We have it within our sights to see extreme poverty, malaria, TB, vitamin A deficiency and chronic malnutrition eliminated."

Kenya, and Africa as a whole, has a lot of problems. Schiffer is trying to fix just this one—malnutrition—in the hope that this will provide a starting point for tackling the continent's other challenges. If Schiffer could write a global constitution for children, he says, it would start with, "Every child has a right to basic nutrition." Thanks in part to Vitamin Angels, that truth is starting to become self-evident.

Reuben Kyama is a journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Two-wheel wonders: The bicycle enjoys a renaissance

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:37:32 EST

No other form of travel can quite beat the joys of cycling.

A cyclist heads out early from Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, Montana.
Photograph: Wessel Kok

In western Montana in August, crickets leap from heat-radiating roadways, bounding up from the pavement and brushing your legs. In Indonesia, boys will race you through their villages. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina in July, the scent of skunk hovers in the air. If you're blasting downhill, the potent perfume lasts but a second. But pedaling uphill at, say, four miles an hour, the smell lingers in your nostrils.

I've traveled by foot, car, plane, train, boat and on horseback, but nothing comes close to connecting me to places and people the way bicycling does. Whether I'm alone, with friends, on organized vacation tours, with charity events or with bicycle club outings, biking is usually how I want to spend my free time. I've cycled most of the eastern U.S., some western states, several European countries, Indonesia and Argentina. That still leaves a lot of territory. I've ridden on paved bike trails, gravel roads, city thoroughfares, cobblestone streets (not advised) and even an interstate highway (yes, it was legal). Every outing is an adventure, whether it's a three-hour ride near my home or a two-week cycling and camping tour.

If you don't ride much, or at all, you might mistake me for hard core. But it's all relative. Plenty of men and woman have logged many more miles and back-to-back days than I have. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 10. I was afraid to cycle on roads with cars until I was in my 30s, when I finally learned how to switch gears on my 21-gear hybrid. Yes, I can fix a flat tire, but only by reading the directions, and it takes me forever.

One of the wondrous things about cycling is that it's a great equalizer. You can be on a junkyard beater, a three-wheeler with a granny seat or a high-performance racing bike and you're still cycling. You're still going places, seeing the smallest of sights, smelling the faintest of smells, hearing the most distant of sounds. I'm not knocking road trips by car; I love those, too. But from my car, I'm often thinking, I wish I were on two wheels, outside.

As recently as the 1980s, cycling in the U.S. was viewed as mostly for kids living on cul-de-sacs. The advent of group rides, especially charity rides, changed that in the 1990s. Almost every year, I set aside time to take large and small rides, starting with vacation tour outfitters that do everything for you. One friend, Alice, opened my eyes to the world of bike touring, wherein you carry your overnight gear on the bike. In her case, it means camping and even cooking, though some more luxury-inclined cyclists stay in hotels and eat out. I've since done it Alice's way several times, sometimes with children along. On one of Alice's "family tours" with friends, we had a show-stopping "quad," or bicycle for four, in our group. While Alice and many of her bike buddies have completed a "Trans-Am"—a ride across the country—my longest tour was 12 days. That's enough for me, for now.

Two enthusiasts of RAGBRAI, an annual week-long bicycle tour across Iowa.
Photograph: Wessel Kok

Touring does take some training. But the reward, and it's major, is a fully self-contained outing, which lets you soak up everything the universe offers and think only about routes, weather, food, water and shelter. That's about as "sustainable" as travel can get. I met my lifetime cycling partner in 2003: my husband. As soon as I learned he was Dutch, we were talking bicycling. Every Dutch person has, and rides, a bicycle at some point, often for life. Our most spectacular bike trip so far was last's year tour around Lofoten, above the Arctic Circle in Norway.

In 2005, I blissfully joined the world's oldest and largest organized bicycle tour: the week-long Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI, pronounced "RAG-bry"), started by two columnists at the Des Moines Register in 1973 who've proved Iowa isn't all flat. While organizers offer 8,500 official slots, anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 more cyclists jump onto the tour unofficially. Sixty percent of people on RAGBRAI come from beyond Iowa, representing all 50 U.S. states and close to 20 countries. The event is a bit of a zoo, but the fellowship and revelry among folks on two wheels (or one, or three) and the local townspeople who host them is magical and moving. And there's never a lack of bathroom facilities. A pit stop is but a cornfield away.

Diane Daniel is a globe-trotting writer who aims to preserve community and the environment. bydianedaniel.com

Fancy a spin?

Check out these cycling groups.

Commercial bicycle tour operators are plentiful. I've used several, and was pleased with them all. But compared with self-supported or no-frills trips, they're pricey and less environmentally friendly. They typically include more food than an average human can eat, non-green lodging and the use of support vehicles, which often traverse the route several times. My favorite bicycling groups:

Adventure Cycling Association

adventurecycling.org

Founded in 1974 as Bikecentennial, a ride across the country in honor of the nation's 200th birthday, Adventure Cycling is America's leading touring association. It publishes a series of route maps and organizes many trips a year, including some with luggage support and lodging.

The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa

ragbrai.com

Everything you want to know about RAGBRAI, the oldest and largest touring bicycle ride in the world (in Iowa) is here. RAGBRAI also has inspired dozens of states to start their own bike tours.

International Bicycle Fund

ibike.org

Based in Seattle, Washington, the International Bicycle Fund covers many topics, including rural mobility, urban planning, safety education, energy conservation and responsible tourism. For travelers, it offers affordable and fascinating "cultural immersion" bike tours in the Americas, Asia and Africa.

European Cyclists' Federation

ecf.com

Founded in 1983, the ECF represents 60 member organizations in 37 countries to promote and encourage cycling and cycling tourism in Europe and beyond. Its website contains links to bike routes throughout the Continent.

Sustrans

sustrans.org.uk

Sustrans, formed in 1977, is the U.K.'s leading sustainable transport non-profit, working to promote transportation that benefits people's health and the environment. It started the National Cycle Network, an ever-growing network of bicycle routes throughout the U.K.

Dutch National Cycling Platform

fietsplatform.nl/english

The good news is that the Stichting Landelijk Fietsplatform manages a signposted network of cycling routes (many on dedicated paths) throughout the Netherlands, arguably the world's most bike-friendly country. The bad news for most of us is that the dozens of touring maps it publishes are in Dutch.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Time banks thrive in the midst of the recession

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:49:09 EST

Autumn Rooney (left) and Lisa Gerstein take the saying “time is money” literally.
Photograph: Kevin Scanlon

Even in the midst of the recession, Portland, Maine, has a bank that's generating an unusual amount of wealth. It's a time bank called Hour Exchange Portland (HEP) and the wealth is an alternative currency called "time dollars." Spend an hour doing something for somebody else; deposit an hour into your time bank account as a time dollar. You now have one time dollar to spend on having someone do something for you. It's a simple idea that can help neighbors weather the recession while building stronger communities.

Time banks often have websites that list which services are offered and which are needed, like computer help, meals and pet-sitting. Members go online to arrange exchanges. Each bank is unique, reflecting the talents and skills of its members. HEP has more than 700 members, including a "muffin lady," a graphic artist and a physical therapist, and provides more than 1,600 services. Membership is exploding, according to several time bank programs, because the recession increases the number of under- and unemployed people who have more time on their hands and less money to purchase goods and services.

Autumn Rooney started a time bank as an experiment in March of last year in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Twenty or so friends tried it out for the first few months, doing odd jobs for one another: A lawyer helped a photographer with copyright issues; a tailor fitted a wedding dress. But after a story about the group appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Rooney was flooded with applicants. Now she runs the Echo Park Time Bank full time, and has helped two nearby neighborhood groups get started.

"The goal is to get people to trust each other and to think differently about value," Rooney says. "Our current money system encourages competition, hoarding and scarcity. Time banking is different. We'll never run out of time dollars, as long as there are people."

According to Edgar Cahn, founder and CEO of TimeBanks USA, the practice is growing around the globe. Twenty-two countries host time banks, including the Dominican Republic, Israel and Japan; the U.S. has 200 programs and the U.K. has 110. Time banks can be grafted onto non-profit groups, churches or businesses, and each program has its own twists. London recently started a time bank program called Tutor Commuter that matches individuals with others who take the same bus or train so these folks can pick up a new skill like, say, speaking another language.

Portland, Maine, has many seniors wanting to remain at home, so nearly 30 percent of the HEP exchanges are health-related, says Lesley Jones, HEP's regional manager. Members also patronize other members' businesses, which helps them survive and grow despite the recession. "We are part of a vibrant community that supports its members and the Portland we love," says Jones.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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The Tao of arugula

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:33:59 EST

How to get maximum flavor with minimum effort.

Photograph: Elbrich Fennema

To achieve a harmonious life, the Taoists propagated a curious recommendation: wu wei, or do by not doing. In our action-oriented society, not doing something is underappreciated. Of course, not doing isn't the same as doing nothing. Wu wei is the art of taking the right action at the right moment to allow what is to be, in all its glory. For the modern cook, however, it isn't easy to prepare a satisfying meal from ingredients that are watery, unripe and tasteless because they're shipped from afar or come from a can or the freezer.

Thankfully, there's arugula, which allows us to experience the wu wei principle immediately. It's as simple as cutting it and putting it into your mouth. If you'd like to glean more lessons from arugula, grow it yourself in a pot or in your garden. Once the plant has formed rosettes, snip off the top, leaving a height of one inch (three centimeters); it'll grow back. Those spicy leaves are good with just about anything. Sprinkle them over your salad, soup, pasta or stir-fry dish. If you've missed the right moment to act, not to worry. The little flowers are also edible. And if you missed your opportunity to harvest the flowers, allow the plant to form seeds and try again. Where else would you find such a friendly teacher who gives you so many second chances?

Elbrich Fennema is a Dutch writer with a passion for cooking.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Armstrong's TED wish: A reminder of the golden rule

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:53:17 EST

Karen Armstrong hopes to promote tolerance through compassion.

Armstrong launched her call for compassion in a 2008 TED speech.
Photograph: Andrew Heavens/TED2008

In all her studies of religion, Karen Armstrong says one idea kept coming up again and again: "Compassion was the major test of any true spirituality and the chief means by which human beings come into contact with God or Nirvana or Brahman. And yet you rarely hear people talking about compassion." In fact, with the rise of fundamentalist strains of all the major world religions, Armstrong says religious leaders are failing to challenge the views of the intolerant and promote the compassionate message of their faiths. Now she's doing something about it.

As the winner of the 2008 TED prize, she has received $100,000 to make her wish come true: to create a Charter for Compassion, a document that will promote tolerance, and serve as an antidote to fundamentalist interpretations of religion. Through a dedicated website, TED helped Armstrong gather input from thousands of people around the world. Now 18 religious leaders are crafting the final wording of the Charter. "The idea is to change the conversation so people feel empowered to demand compassionate speaking from their priests, monks and rabbis," she says.

The Charter will launch on November 12th and will be signed by religious leaders, such as the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Thirty partner organizations, including the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the World Council of Religious Leaders, are planning hundreds of events and Armstrong hopes this will be the start of a movement that spreads to houses of worship, schools and other organizations. She wants people to realize that compassion isn't just a sentiment. "It means to give people practical support and loyalty, to look out for their best interests."

In a world divided along multiple fault lines—religion among them—inspiring tolerance isn't just a nice idea, says Armstrong; it's vital to our survival. "Our task is to create a global community where people of all beliefs and races can live together in peace," she says. "If we fail to achieve this, we will have failed the task of our time and it is unlikely we will have a viable world to hand on to our children."

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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The reason of faith

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:42:20 EST

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong on how we lost the knack for religion—and why we need to get it back.

Religion isn’t easy, Armstrong says: “You have to practice quite hard, like you do with any art form.”
Photograph: Geraint Lewis

Modern science knows how to fix a hole in the heart. It can diagnose a hole in the ozone layer and prove the existence of black holes at the edge of the universe.

But when it comes to explaining what's often described as the "God-shaped hole" in our lives, neither quantum physicists nor geneticists nor neuropsychologists appear to quite have the measure of it.

If anything, the rate of scientific advance in recent decades has only served to polarize religious debate. At one extreme is a resurgent atheism—epitomized by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who've both written best-selling books denouncing religious belief—which trusts that this hole, like every hole, will be filled in time by knowledge. At the other extreme is religious fundamentalism—epitomized by political spats over headscarves and creationism—which believes this hole is brimful of scriptural truth. For most of us in between, the hole in the soul gnaws away at our subconscious, like a hunger. And all of us, believers and non-believers alike, rush to fill the void with words.

One way or another, according to Karen Armstrong, "We talk far too much about God these days." Which might sound a bit rich coming from the English author of almost 20 books on religion as well as two memoirs about her becoming—and then unbecoming—a Catholic nun, who has been decked with religious prizes and who regularly lectures the high and mighty of church and state around the world. What's more, according to her new book The Case for God, the things we say when we do talk about religious faith are often "facile," "stupid" or "primitive." Ammunition, perhaps, for Armstrong's critics, of whom she has had her share, ever since her breakthrough book, A History of God, in 1993.

In that and the books that followed, Armstrong has traced the tangled roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, liberally reinterpreted the lives of Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus, and dived headlong into the maelstrom of theological debate around fundamentalism, both before and after 9/11. Some have criticized her idealistic interpretation of the Koran; religious academics berate her for shortcomings of scholarly rigor; atheists dismiss her for refusing to engage in debate on their terms.

Yet Armstrong's consistently eloquent arguments for compassion and commonality as an antidote to Islamophobia and the "clash of civilizations" have struck a chord, particularly in the U.S., where she has addressed both houses of Congress. She's also increasingly in demand on the lecture circuit in countries like Pakistan and Egypt, and is to be found on book stalls in 40 languages around the world. Drawing together the main threads of her previous research, The Case for God is Armstrong's most concise and practical-minded book yet: a historical survey of how rather than what we believe, where we lost the "knack" of religion and what we need to do to get it back.

Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi, India
Photograph: Jim Zuckerman/Corbis

"A lot of the arguments about religion going on at the moment spring from a rather inept understanding of religious truth," says Armstrong, settling into her theme and a winged easy chair in her early-Georgian home in north London. The furnishings and decoration suggest Jane Austen may have just stepped out of the room. Like Austen, and in a polished English accent, Armstrong is sharp-witted, quick to ridicule nonsense, and a good storyteller. "Our notion changed during the early modern period when we became convinced that the only path to any kind of truth was reason. That works beautifully for science but doesn't work so well for the humanities. Religion is really an art form and a struggle to find value and meaning amid the ghastly tragedy of human life."

Armstrong's The Case for God begins with the cave paintings of Lascaux in the French Dordogne, made some 17,000 years ago—seemingly religious art works in which the hunter assuages his unease at killing his prey through shamanic rituals in honor of the Animal Master. Such myths were born because, Armstrong writes, "As meaning-seeking creatures, men and women fall very easily into despair. They have created religions and works of art to help them find value in their lives, despite all the dispiriting evidence to the contrary."

From that point on, the religious impulse took the form of creation myths like Tao and Brahman from the East, on through the gods of ancient Greece and eventually the emergence of the world's three main monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—and their founding scriptures. But none of them, says Armstrong, were meant to be taken literally. "The cosmology of the ancient world was telling you about the nature of life here and now. Genesis is not about the origins of life. There were many other creation stories current in Israel at that time and no one was required to believe in that one."

Reason, science and logic—what the Greeks called "logos"—were also evolving as ways of understanding the world, but always in concert, not competition, with the stories—the mythos—they relied on to deal with the mysteries of the human psyche. Pythagoras, for example, a founding father of mathematics and astronomy, sought the geometric truth of the universe from within a religious community dedicated to Apollo and the Muses. He also called himself a philosopher and expected his students to lead an ascetic and monastic kind of life, undergoing rites of purification and silence "in a search," Armstrong writes, "for transcendence and a dedicated, practical lifestyle."

In conversation, Armstrong spins the threads of her research with agile, unhesitating precision, leaping across centuries of scripture, philosophy and theology. She dissects the writings of Denys the Areopagite, the pseudonymous 5th-to-6th-century Christian theologian; explains the roots of Greek words like pistis (faith); pauses to unpick the purpose of Socratic dialogue or the classical atheism of Ludwig Feuerbach, the 19th-century German philosopher and proto-Marxist.

But through all the twists and turns, the notion of transcendence is the one she returns to time and again as the beating heart of all pre-modern theology. "The idea was that when we spoke about God we were speaking of something that lies beyond words," says Armstrong. "People like Thomas Aquinas would say we can't talk about God as a creator because we can only have in our heads the idea of a human creator and that can't apply to God. We can't even say that God exists because our notion of existence is too limited to apply to God. People were instructed to think about this in those terms."

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France
Photograph: Pascal Deloche/Godong/Corbis

In Armstrong's scheme of things, it was with the dawning of the Age of Reason that the problems started. As philosophers and mathematicians both, Descartes and then Newton well understood that science and religion—logos and mythos—were discrete realms in the search for universal truth. But when the foundation for modern science was laid, the conceptual nature of truth itself began to blur.

"Newton and Descartes started to try and prove that God existed in the same way as they would try and prove something in the laboratory or with their mathematics," says Armstrong. "And when you try and mix science and religion you get bad science and bad religion. The two are doing two different things. ... Science can give you a diagnosis of cancer. It can even cure your disease, but it cannot touch your grief and disappointment, nor can it help you to die well."

Newton seeded not only the idea that God was reducible, says Armstrong, but also that understanding religion would be easy. So easy that by 1900, the German mathematician David Hilbert could confidently assert that precisely 23 problems remained to be solved in order to complete the Newtonian view of the universe. More than a century later, few of us can even comprehend those problems, let alone calculate the answers or grasp the significance of all the things we've learned since. Worse, as our theories about the universe grow ever more abstract, a sense of bewilderment is replacing the sense of transcendence. "It's not easy to talk about transcendence, just as it's not easy to play or listen to a late Beethoven quartet," says Armstrong. "You have to practice quite hard, like you do with any art form. Religion is hard work."

And as with great art, the realization that God defies understanding can be a source of the profoundest joy. For Einstein that sense of the existence of something impenetrable was, as he wrote in a 1930 essay, "the sower of all true art and science" and "the centre of all true religiousness." Armstrong herself calls this experience "the stunned appreciation of an otherness"—a state she says she can occasionally glimpse in the long, silent and solitary hours of study that fuel her writing.

In her studies, Armstrong, at 64, now finds what countless hours of obligatory prayer as an unhappy Catholic nun in her teenage years had flatly failed to bring into focus. Suffering a lost vocation and physically frail, she considered her eventual departure from the convent in 1969 as a relief of sorts. But coming to terms with the world outside and the God she'd left behind triggered a profound spiritual trauma. After a diagnosis of epilepsy and disastrous spells teaching at a university, Armstrong's convalescence proper began in 1981—it's still underway, she says—when she poured her pain into a memoir of her convent days, Through the Narrow Gate. A second volume Beginning the World related her adjustment to the outside world, but Armstrong later recanted it because of the false heartiness she'd adopted to satisfy both her publisher and her own delusion of contentment.

In fact, Armstrong's adjustment wasn't going well, and a brief spell as an erudite but pungently skeptical presenter of religious TV programs in the U.K.—egged on by the producers, she claims, to say ever more outrageous things—did little to help matters. But in the course of that work, Armstrong found herself drawn back to the theological texts underpinning the monotheistic religions and to what they really mean. To do that, says Armstrong, "I had to put my clever, post-Enlightenment, Oxford-educated, aggressively logos self on the back burner, and enter into the mind of someone like Muhammad, who believed he'd been touched by God. Because if I didn't sympathetically and compassionately feel with him, I would miss the essence of it and just write another clever riposte."

A report by the Pew Forum, a U.S. research body on religion and public life, recently painted a startling picture of religious faith in America. About half the population appears to have changed religious affiliation at least once, while the number of believers unaffiliated with any particular faith is rising faster than those of any of religion. Yet more than half of those who grow up unaffiliated later choose to join one. Of the reasons people give for this restlessness, far more cite disenchantment with their religious institutions than a loss of faith per se.

Across Europe, in contrast, while many still identify with a religious denomination, Pew's Global Attitudes Project report last year showed that only a fraction value religion as "very important" in their lives, compared to America, where 55 percent consider it so. In secular-minded France, only 10 percent take that view. Even in traditionally Catholic Spain, the figure is only 19 percent. Among young Europeans, religion's importance appears to be still on the wane. That's somewhat true in America, although 49 percent of adults under 40 value it like their parents and grandparents do, while in places like Egypt (69 percent), Turkey (88 percent) and Pakistan (95 percent), many more young people are keeping the faith.

That longing for spiritual uplift and communion, along with the sense of being let down, have no doubt driven the popularity of New Age beliefs in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent decades. It may also have contributed to the rise in eco-consciousness and the emergence of a "Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability" (LOHAS) demographic, said to include some 40 million people in the U.S., socially responsible green consumers interested in spiritually tinged practices like alternative medicine and personal development.

Armstrong for one isn't surprised at these shifts. "We—the British and the northern Europeans—are beginning to look endearingly old-fashioned in our secularism. The rest of the world is becoming more religious." But while God-centered religion may not own the copyright on transcendence, she warns, "None of it is of any value unless you translate it into practical compassionate action for others. In Buddhism, yoga is properly about the dismantling of egotism; if you just do these things to lose weight or to get a warm glow, that's not religion."

For Armstrong, it's compassion that's the defining virtue of religion, the Golden Rule articulated by Confucius two and a half millennia ago as "Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you." Practicing compassion is, she says, a form of "ethical artistry" that requires the dethroning of ego—a virtue, Armstrong believes, that's alive and well for the majority of the faithful in all religions, but one often singularly lacking in the higher echelons of the various faiths she addresses.

Last year, that message earned Armstrong a prize from the TED Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering big ideas, allowing Armstrong to promote a Charter for Compassion that aims to get religious leaders to commit to a program of compassionate principles (see sidebar). For some religious commentators, like the U.S. rabbi Brad Hirschfield, the Charter amounts to little more than "a ‘Kumbaya' moment" for "a world filled with hate-driven faith." Armstrong disagrees, believing the abundant supply of compassion among religious communities the world over will win out. She does have a poor opinion of religious committees though, and admits she was nervous before the first meeting of the high-profile, multifaith, multinational body convened to draw up the Charter. Until, that is, the first speaker got up and said, "We must include a sentence saying that we, that religious people, have failed." Everyone agreed, nodding, says Armstrong with a grin. "As soon as I heard that, I thought, ‘We're going to be all right.'"

Michael Brunton is a writer living in London who agrees with Voltaire on the necessity of god and gardening.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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The cowboy couture of Kenya

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:31:21 EST

The cowboy shirts created by Kimani (left) and Sullivan are made from secondhand clothing.
Photograph: Hilary Cole

In 2007, Bartholomew Sullivan's cream-colored Stetson cowboy shirt was beginning to fade. The Vancouver native had recently arrived in Kenya to help create a lunch program for a charity called Hands Up For Africa. Sullivan's friend and co-worker—activist Andrew Kimani—was familiar with Nairobi's secondhand fabric shops and local tailors. So the two decided to start a clothing company. Kilakitu Clothing specializes in "one-of-a-kind cowboy shirts made from secondhand clothing." Kilakitu's re-used, recycled and remixed fabrics tell a distinctly global story—and so does Bartholomew Sullivan.

How much is Kilakitu involved in the local community?

"Kilakitu was born out of a lunch feeding program that we continue to support when we can. We're also looking into partnering with a local NGO to set up a tailoring school partnership that enables women to learn and study for a year."

How is it to combine a "western" look with more local sensibilities?

"The tailors have fun within the constraints of the western cowboy shirt form. They take their creative liberties with color combinations and assembling the patterns in certain ways on the shirts. Everything we get is from secondhand clothing markets, so you get some really interesting stuff."

What do Africans know about cowboys?

"For Africans, the cowboy image and lifestyle relate to another part of the cowboy ethic: roaming the land and looking for work as hired help. A large rural outback is very much a part of life here in Africa. You see Kenyan politicians wearing big cowboy hats and shirts, and you will find musicians like [regional entertainer] Mike Rua singing Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks and other cowboy cover tunes. The names behind the shirts [such as Upepo, Hakuna and Nyayo] are our way of bringing attention to the fact that each shirt is one of a kind, and they also allow us to tell the story of Kenya. In little ways, through the names of the shirts, we get to tell the real story about Africa—one shirt at a time."

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Teaching emotional intelligence

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:31:06 EST

Roots of Empathy, Mary Gordon, The Experiment

After she became a kindergarten teacher 40 years ago, Mary Gordon learned there was only so much she could do in school. She started working with families caught in cycles of abuse and domestic violence, which taught her that children need to develop empathy to become good citizens and loving parents. So in 1996, Gordon founded Roots of Empathy, a Toronto-based program that aims to teach elementary school students an understanding of themselves and their peers. How? By bringing an infant and parent into the classroom once a month for half an hour and having trained instructors coach students to observe the babies, identify their feelings and investigate their own. This way, as Gordon writes in Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child, youngsters “learn how an understanding of temperament and gaining insights into their own emotions and those of others lead to empathy and build rich human relationships."

In this engaging book, Gordon describes how her program—which has expanded to other countries, including the U.S.—has helped reduce incidences of aggression and bullying. Through anecdotes, Gordon shows that the students sing out loud when the baby enters the classroom, ask questions, discuss the baby's behavior and celebrate milestones like the first tooth. This “emotional literacy" allows Roots of Empathy to educate, as Gordon puts it, “both the mind and the heart."

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Simplifying supplements

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:30:41 EST

A user’s guide to vitamins and minerals, from calcium to omega-3s.

“The consequence of not getting enough [micronutrients] is that your body cuts back on certain functions that affect long-term health. … When you’re short of micronutrients, there’s a lot of hidden damage going on” —Nutrition researcher Bruce Ames, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute
Photograph: Jim Block

Natto, a brown, gluey mass of fermented soybeans that emits an ammoniac stench, is served oozing over a bed of rice. In some regions of Japan, natto is a breakfast staple. To most non-Japanese, however, it's an acquired taste at best. Yet the dish is more than a culinary curiosity. It may be a key to understanding the importance of vitamins and minerals to health.

Natto is rich in micronutrients, especially vitamin K, which means regular natto eaters take in more vitamin K than most other people. The fact that natto isn't, shall we say, universally savored has allowed nutrition researchers to conduct population studies in Japan showing that natto aficionados have lower incidences of heart disease and bone fractures. Bruce Ames and Joyce McCann, nutrition researchers at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, have reviewed research into natto, along with a body of other evidence. They conclude that vitamin K, which has so far only been known to support blood coagulation, could be important for heart health and bones as well.

This vitamin K analysis supports Ames' overall theory that shortfalls of essential micronutrients—minerals, vitamins, fatty acids and other biochemicals—may lead to many of the chronic diseases that afflict us as we age. While emphasizing that healthy eating is key, Ames, along with many other experts in mainstream as well as alternative medicine, argues that nutritional supplements can play a valuable role in health as well.

The modern diet is "energy rich and nutrient poor," Ames says. On average we eat too much processed flour and sugar, poor-quality fats and meats and not enough fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and whole grains, which have more nutrients per calorie. "If people fill themselves with sugary soft drinks they're going to be full, yet they're starving for micronutrients," says Ames.

Ames and McCann aren't alone in finding a link between chronic disease and lack of micronutrients. It's well established that poor dietary patterns increase the risk of many illnesses. A lot of people turn to supplements in the belief that it will lessen the risk. This has contributed to a dramatic expansion in the supplement industry over the past several decades. At least 50 percent of Americans take a supplement, and 35 percent take a multivitamin. Some $4.2 billion was spent on multivitamins alone in 2005, according to the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade organization representing the industry.

Ames says nutrient shortfalls in modern diets are now so widespread, and the increased risk of major chronic disease so likely, that we can't afford to wait for definitive scientific proof of the role of supplements or for our habits at the table to improve. If you aren't sure you're eating a perfect diet (and who among us is certain we eat five to nine servings of fresh produce each day?), supplements can even the score. "My feeling is you try to eat a good balanced diet, cut out sugary soft drinks and empty calories, but take a multivitamin as insurance," says Ames.

Most of us already know we need to eat well to stay healthy. Still, when it comes to diet, a lot of us just aren't able to put our knowledge where our mouths are. "We are inundated with appealing advertisements for fast foods, highly sweetened beverages that provide empty calories, and fad diets," physician and alternative medicine expert Andrew Weil wrote in an e-mail interview. "Compounding the media message to ‘eat more of everything' is the plethora of highly processed and refined foods on the market, easy access to rapidly digestible carbohydrates, busy schedules that preclude cooking at home, and frequent travel."

“Supplements are not substitutes. You can’t eat a terrible diet and take supplements and think you are okay” —Jeffrey Blumberg, nutrition scientist, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Photograph: TK

Studies have repeatedly shown that the typical Western diet corresponds to higher risks of heart disease, cancer and other chronic conditions, such as diabetes. Ames has a theory about how the diet-disease connection may work. "There are about 40 micronutrients you need to run your metabolism," says Ames. "If you don't get any one of them, you die. What we're learning is the consequence of not getting enough is that your body cuts back on certain functions that affect long-term health. … When you're short of micronutrients, there's a lot of hidden damage going on."

The World Health Organization has stated that diet is second only to smoking as a preventable cause of cancer. Indeed, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), American Heart Association and American Cancer Society have made dietary recommendations a central part of their disease-prevention messages, suggesting we eat more fruit and vegetables, replace refined carbs with whole grains and cut down on junk food. Yet according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys, only 11 percent of Americans meet the USDA's guidelines for eating five to nine servings of fresh fruit and vegetables daily. The nutrient shortfalls are dramatic. According to data gathered from 1999 to 2002 and compiled by the CDC, 93 percent of Americans don't get enough vitamin E, 56 percent don't get enough magnesium, 31 percent don't get enough vitamin C and 12 percent don't get enough zinc. Another CDC survey indicated many people are low on vitamin K, calcium and potassium, and many seniors lack B vitamins.

The first step to fixing nutrient shortfalls is to improve diet, says Yale University nutrition researcher David Katz. The 40 or so isolated micronutrients that scientists study—and supplement companies pack into capsules—are only a fraction of the array of organic compounds found in food. Indeed, many vitamins are not a single "vitamin" but a family of compounds. And our bodies need these complementary nutrients to make use of these vitamins. When you get your vitamin C in a piece of fruit, for example, it comes with a lot of other ingredients—fiber, antioxidants and trace minerals—that might help you more consumed together than if you down vitamin C alone in a supplement. "It may be that the active ingredient in broccoli is broccoli," says Katz. "People who don't want to eat broccoli and take a vitamin instead will probably be disappointed. If you want the benefits of nutrients in foods, you need to eat foods rich in nutrients."

The trouble, argues Lynne McTaggart, editor of the monthly U.K. health journal What Doctors Don't Tell You, is that even if you do eat your broccoli, you may not be getting what you need. "Food isn't as nutritious as it once was," she says, pointing to research that shows a decrease in nutrient levels in produce compared with what was harvested a few decades ago. In 2007, Brian Halweil, a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, reviewed several projects that examined nutrient levels in produce. In a report published by the Organic Center of Boulder, Colorado, he concluded that breeding for high yields has diluted the nutritional quality of the plants we eat. According to data collected by government agencies in the U.S. and U.K., modern harvests are lower in many nutrients than those in the 1940s and 1950s, including magnesium, iron, potassium, calcium, riboflavin and vitamin C.

Halweil also highlighted research suggesting that conventional produce grown in poor soils and bathed in synthetic fertilizers may have lower levels of nutrients than that grown with organic techniques. But even organic food has come in for criticism; a report commissioned by the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) found no substantial difference in nutritional content between organic and conventional food, a finding strongly contested by the Organic Center, the U.K. Soil Association and others.

Still, to many nutrition experts, supplements make a lot of sense. "Even people who consistently eat well can benefit from supplementation," says Weil. "Optimal intakes of key nutrients, in amounts sufficient to enhance health beyond the prevention of deficiency states, can be difficult to obtain through diet alone."

Vitamins were first discovered in the early 20th century when researchers observed that certain diseases correlate to dietary patterns. After the widespread adoption of milled rice throughout Asia, for example, there was a sharp increase in beriberi, a debilitating disease of the nervous system. Researchers eventually determined that this was caused by a deficiency of an organic compound, thiamin (vitamin B1), which disappeared from Asian diets along with the rice husks. Thiamin is now used to prevent the disease.

In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists discovered links between scurvy and vitamin C, blindness and vitamin A, and rickets and vitamin D. Though these deficiency diseases have been virtually eliminated in the West, through fortification and greater access to a wide variety of nourishing foods, many people in the developing world still suffer from them.

While most Americans don't suffer from overt deficiencies, Ames argues many of us may be suffering from less obvious shortfalls that contribute to disease. Nevertheless, research into vitamins and other micronutrients produces conflicting results. In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a paper recommending that everyone take multivitamins. But earlier this year, a study of 162,000 post-menopausal women at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, found no reduction of mortality from cancer or other causes among women who'd taken combined multivitamin and mineral supplements for eight years. "One study will show benefit and then another will come out and show no benefit," says nutritionist and author of What to Eat Marion Nestle. "What that shows me is that whatever is going on is so trivial that you can't design a study big enough to show effect."

Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute scientist McCann argues that the real problem with long-term studies like this is that they're inherently flawed. Since long-term health is what's at stake, a good study would need to track people for many years and have some way of controlling exactly what they ate, whether they consistently took the pills (or as controls, didn't take them) and all the other lifestyle factors that could color the results. "To directly demonstrate that experimentally is almost impossible," McCann says.

McTaggart argues that many of the studies demonstrating the effectiveness of supplements don't get the attention they deserve because the medical community has a bias against nutritional healing. The assumption among medical scientists, McTaggart says, is that "the body is a machine that gets broken and there's only one way to fix it—with chemicals or surgery." In contrast, nutritional healing treats the body as a dynamic organism that can be affected by its environment in subtle ways, including through deficiencies in diet. "There are many diseases that could be a long-term consequence of being deficient in one or more nutrients," argues McTaggart. "There's a lot of evidence that vitamins and minerals protect against illness."

Jeffrey Blumberg, a nutrition scientist at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston, Massachusetts, points out that certain benefits of supplements have been verified. Vitamins A, C and E can help protect against age-related macular degeneration, an eye condition that can lead to blindness, and vitamin E boosts immune response. A combination of vitamin E and selenium looks promising for fending off cancer, he says, and several studies support a potential cancer prevention benefit from vitamin D and calcium. There's also good research linking omega-3 supplements to reduced risk of heart attack. "About 60 years ago, we started fortifying some staples like milk because it was clear that people were not meeting the requirements," says Blumberg. "We put iodine in salt and now we're putting folic acid in refined flour. If we fortify the diet, taking supplements is not any different."

But which supplements should we choose? How many should we take? And in what form should we take them? It's easy to be confused by the choices in the supermarket and the claims on the labels. But leading scientists in the field of nutrition and supplements agree on a few basics, outlined below, that are generally helpful for healthy adults. If you're not sure what's good for you, or if you seek nutritional support for a specific condition, see a qualified nutritionist or naturopathic doctor. The key to choosing supplements is to analyze your own dietary patterns, says Yale's David Katz. "Look at your diet and figure out what nutrient you might be deficient in. Make the supplements match the likely pattern of gaps in your diet."

Multivitamins

Since it's hard to determine which nutrients you might be missing, taking a multivitamin supplement is a good choice for many, says Blumberg. "Only about 3 percent of Americans follow the dietary guidelines. I think it's a prudent thing for everyone to take a multivitamin-mineral supplement."

Blumberg, like many others, recommends choosing a multivitamin containing moderate dosages of nutrients, between 100 and 200 percent of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Dietary Reference Intake levels. Avoid pills that have high amounts of single nutrients. Irwin Rosenberg, a Tufts University scientist who helped set these levels, cautions against taking too much of vitamins A and D, which can accumulate in the body and become toxic, leading to liver damage. He also says to watch out for excessive minerals, many of which can be harmful in high doses.

In addition, says Victoria Maizes, director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, avoid any supplement that contains pre-formed vitamin A, which appears only in food from animal sources and can be harmful in high doses. Read labels carefully, she says, and choose a pill that contains mixed carotenoids, compounds found in colorful fruits and vegetables that are formed into vitamin A in the body. Carotenoids have additional antioxidant effects and no risk of toxicity. Also, check what type of vitamin E is in the pill; the best is natural mixed tocopherols, which are absorbed more efficiently. Finally, it's a good idea to choose a pill designed for your gender and age, as nutrient needs vary. Women of childbearing age, for example, need to make sure they're getting enough iron, so multivitamins for women typically have more iron. Older people have different requirements as well, and in general need more vitamin D and vitamin B12.

Calcium, vitamin D and magnesium

Since calcium, which helps protect bones, is a bulky molecule, most multivitamins don't have more than about 10 percent of the daily requirement, says Blumberg, so an additional pill is a good idea. Your body can't fully assimilate calcium without vitamin D and magnesium, so if you decide to take a supplement, choose one that includes all three.

Bone health is affected by protein-rich foods and excessive sweets, which disrupt the acid/alkaline balance in our bodies. "The body doesn't want blood to be acidic," says Amy Lanou, a nutrition scientist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and author of Building Bone Vitality, "so it pulls calcium compounds from bones to neutralize acidity." This contributes to the high rate of bone fractures and osteoporosis among the elderly. To protect your bones, Lanou recommends eating more alkalinizing foods—beans, whole grains and vegetables.

Taking vitamin D alone, or with calcium, may decrease the risk of some cancers, yet many of us don't get enough vitamin D. The vitamin doesn't appear in most foods; the primary way we get it is through our skin when it's exposed to sunlight. The trouble is, many of us don't go out in the sun enough. Yale nutrition researcher Katz says most people with darker skin living in northern hemispheres are deficient. To ensure enough vitamin D, many experts now recommend about 20 minutes a day of sun, without sunblock, or a supplement.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Essential fatty acids found in vegetable and animal fats are important building blocks for cells and regulate many of the body's functions. Evidence is mounting that the typical modern diet, which is high in animal fats and vegetable oils, overemphasizes omega-6 fatty acids, which can cause inflammation. They also deliver too few of the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids found in green plants, certain nuts and seeds, fatty fish and fats from animals that graze on grass.

To combat this problem, experts recommend increasing omega-3 intake with a fish oil supplement. David Servan-Schreiber, a physician and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as well as author of Anticancer: A New Way of Life, says having the right balance of essential fatty acids can reduce the body's inflammatory response and protect against illness. "All the chronic degenerative diseases stem from a high level of inflammation in the body," he says.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that most Americans get about 10 times more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s; other estimates suggest that number may be as high as 25 times more. The NIH has determined that adequate consumption of omega-3s can protect against heart disease, and the American Heart Association recommends the supplement for heart disease patients. Other research suggests omega-3s may also protect against cancer, bone disease and mood disorders, including depression, and support brain health as we age. Research by Oxford University physiologist Bernard Gesch even points to a decrease in the incidence of violence and aggression among prisoners who took a daily supplement of vitamins, minerals and omega-3s, compared with a control group that only received placebos.

One reason many of us may have an omega imbalance is that the meat, dairy and eggs we typically consume are from animals raised on corn and soy. Corn and soy are high in omega-6 fatty acids, while grass is rich in omega-3s. Most packaged sweets and snacks contain soy oil high in omega-6s. To get a better omega balance, choose grass-fed sources for animal products and eat fewer packaged snacks, fried foods and cheap vegetable oils, such as salad dressings made with corn or soy oil. And eat more fish, beans, tofu, flax seeds and walnuts.

Yale nutrition researcher Katz recommends taking supplements made from dehydrated whole fruits and vegetables. Whole foods supplements contain more of what you'd find in the plant, so they're more likely to deliver the best antioxidant benefit, since isolated compounds tend to have fewer antioxidants than whole foods. Experts suggest avoiding ingredients such as dyes, synthetic sweeteners, flavorings and preservatives.

Another point to consider, particularly regarding multivitamins, is whether you have the discipline to take more than one pill a day. One-a-day pills usually contain isolated nutrients. Some supplements are formulated with extra food-based ingredients and these need to be taken several times a day to get the suggested amount of nutrients. But they may also have added benefits. "The food-grown stuff is closer to food and lower in potency and is very well absorbed," says Don Summerfield, co-founder of Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacies, a chain of natural medicine stores based in Boulder, Colorado.

Supplements can come in either tablet or capsule form or as a liquid. There's no real difference, according to Katz, unless the tablet is poorly formulated and doesn't break down well in the digestive tract. To avoid that, choose a high-quality supplement from a company that follows federal Current Good Manufacturing Practices or has a seal from United States Pharmacopeia, NSF International or ConsumerLab. If you're not sure about quality, ConsumerLab independently tests supplements to verify that they contain the alleged ingredients and are free of toxins.

But all experts agree good health isn't simply a matter of popping pills. "The basic principle is that supplements are not substitutes," says Tuft University's Blumberg. "You can't eat a terrible diet and take supplements and think you are okay."

"While it is possible to obtain sufficient amounts of important nutrients through a healthy diet, it is nonetheless difficult," concludes Weil. "This is especially true for micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, fiber and the range of unique phytochemicals. Improving your diet will certainly contribute to your health, but getting a consistent level of nutrient intake through diet alone is a challenge, one best met through appropriate supplementation." So, if natto is just not your thing, you can always try a supplement.

Carmel Wroth has sworn to give up junk food, but can still sometimes be found nervously clutching a soft drink.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Rats can save human lives

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:30:21 EST

As a child, Bart Weetjens, from Belgium, bred rodents to sell to pet shops. Now he’s the founder and director of APOPO, an NGO operating from Tanzania that trains rats to detect landmines. APOPO’s team of mine-sleuthing rats is active in Mozambique, and will begin mine-detection operations in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia.

Photograph: Sylvain Piraux

Why shouldn't we use advanced technology to detect landmines?

"Machines require batteries and maintenance, and you end up with a high technological level that won't work in a tropical environment in a low-resource setting. High-tech devices—infrareds, robotics, multi-sensor platforms, ground-penetrating radar—constantly need experts around and are way too expensive. We can provide a detector that is low-tech and maintainable, and create local expertise in low-skilled operators."

But why rats?

"When I realized in the 1990s that landmines form a structural barrier to development, I was looking for an appropriate detector. I found out scientists had researched using gerbils to detect explosives. I'm a big rodent lover and I had rats and mice throughout my youth, so I knew rats are very intelligent creatures and one of the most adaptable species. But I didn't know then that rats can save human lives. At APOPO, we use an approach based on positive behavior reinforcements. Rats are happy performing repetitive tasks—once they know a trick, they like to do it endlessly for food. We socialize them when they are four weeks old. We expose them to all kinds of environments and teach them to trust humans."

Isn't it expensive and slow work to train rats?

"No. We can de-mine for 14 cents a square foot, which is 60 to 70 percent cheaper than with metal detectors. And using machines is extremely slow, as you will get a lot of false indications. A manual de-miner can do up to 60 square yards (50 square meters) in a day, while a rat can do that in 15 minutes. And the logistic advantage is huge. The animals don't require a lot of attention and are easy to transport and train. It's a very useful tool to speed up the detection of mines."

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Video: Watch APOPO's rats at work

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:57:25 EST

Belgian organization APOPO trains sniffer rats to detect explosives such as land mines and diagnose disease. Watch the story of how APOPO was born and see the rats in action.

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Book Excerpt: In search of an “ultimate concern”

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:57:25 EST

How the new atheists fail to understand what religion really means.

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India
Photograph: Doug Pearson/JAI/Corbis

This exclusive excerpt from Karen Armstrong's new book, The Case for God is no longer available online. Click here for more information about this book: The Case for God

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Doctor makes music that crosses cultural divides

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:57:25 EST

Physician and singer Rupa Marya is on a mission to break boundaries musically and nationally.

Rupa Marya gives voice to a “Shared global identity.”
Photograph: Spencer Hansen

Rupa Marya felt a sense of pride mixed with disbelief when she learned last year that the album she had just released was the top seller in the world music category on iTunes. A welcome bit of good news during Rupa & the April Fishes' first European tour, but a little awkward, too. "World music is brown music presented for white people's consumption," Marya says, with a look that makes clear that this is a category with which she has no desire to be associated.

Extraordinary Rendition, the debut album that has continued to sell consistently in America and in some European countries, has been in the iTunes top 100 for more than a year. While the title refers to the transfer of terrorist suspects to countries with less stringent safeguards against human-rights abuses (critics refer to extraordinary rendition as "outsourcing torture"), music reviewers quickly realized this wasn't a typical collection of political protest songs—yet the same reviewers have struggled with the indefinable character of the sound. The music—a lively combination of melancholic French chansons, exuberant Gypsy swing, alternative Latin, dreamy Indian ragas and soothing avant-garde—can't easily be pigeonholed. The instrumentation is also eclectic: trumpet, accordion, cello, upright bass, drums and Marya herself on guitar. Plus, Marya sings her richly imaginative lyrics in French, Spanish, English and Hindi.

But musical boundaries aren't the only thing Marya wants to break through. She's on a mission to declare national borders superfluous, too. This is the topic of a couple of her songs on her second album Este Mundo, due for release in October. But she's doing more than singing about it. Marya is launching an art project this fall to make Latin American migrants to the U.S. aware of their rights to health care. (Marya works part-time in a hospital as a physician.) Earlier this year, she and the band traveled to the Mexican border to perform and draw attention to America's immigration policies, which she believes lead to horrendous personal dramas. "I just can't believe immigration was not an issue in the presidential elections last year," she says. "It feels strange to me that there is not a brighter spotlight on it in this day and age."

Before we step inside her apartment in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, Marya, 34, apologizes that the place looks a bit like a tornado blew through. She's packing the second time this year for a European tour. In her living room, which doubles as a rehearsal space for the band, a painting leans against the wall, portraying a bird with outstretched wings flying over the U.S.-Mexico border. Asked what speaks to her about it, she replies, "It captures a simple gesture of freedom of movement that feels more congruent with life than the rigid boundaries we create. It speaks to me of the borders we create in our own minds."

She herself has been a nomad since birth, thanks to her restless Indian parents. Before she was 12, the family had moved to the foothills of the Himalayas in the north of India, the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence and back to the Bay Area where she was born after her father, an engineer, found a job in Silicon Valley. Since finishing medical school, she has been living in San Francisco, a place she says she feels at home, perhaps because of the cultural diversity that characterizes both her life and that of the city.

We leave the homey chaos for a nearby bistro where—much to the delight of the French waiter—she demonstrates a perfect command of his language. (She later tells me she wants to sing in French and other languages to show that there's a beauty in things that may sound different.) As we slowly nibble away at our cheese plate, Marya describes the daily impact of the border that lies more than 500 miles to the south.

Rupa & The April Fishes traveled to the Mexican border to promote freer immigration policies.
Photograph: Judith Burrows

As a doctor at San Francisco General Hospital, she was often dismayed to see that immigrants, especially those without proper documentation, only go to the doctor when their illness has gotten out of hand. The reason? Fear of deportation. Then one day, one of her patients died of breast cancer. Marya knew it had taken the woman eight months to gather the courage to seek treatment, thinking she had no right to medical care. "Her death sparked a quiet rage and an unstoppable sense of injustice in me," Marya remembers.

Her aim with ¡Catapulta!, the art project she set up in cooperation with local artists and lawyers, is to educate immigrants in her city—through photographs, film, graffiti, dance and circus acts—about their right to health care. "I want to remind immigrants that they're not in a hostile environment," Marya explains. "They came here to work, we appreciate their work and we want to take care of them."

Marya realizes illegal immigrants are violating American law, but she stresses that society directly benefits from their labor. They pick our vegetables and fruit, prepare our meals in restaurants and clean our homes and streets—work that, she argues, many Americans aren't willing to perform for such low pay. "What kind of upset would we see if all undocumented people in the U.S. did not come to work for one week?" Marya wonders. "Our economy is fueled by a large labor force that works without getting compensated well, can't organize in a union and is being denied access to health care. Some people are even afraid to send their children to school. They have no way to speak up for themselves, and this country doesn't offer them protection for their dignity or human rights." She even dares to call it "slave labor."

Marya acknowledges she's inviting a barrage of criticism with her welcoming stance toward illegal immigrants. "Some people are really upset and angry with me for championing the rights of the people who support and sustain the society we live in," she says. "But especially in this land of immigrants, we have a moral calling to do better than that. Until we fix a broken system [that causes such economic disparity around the globe], I would hope for respect."

During her six-day trip along the border, Marya realized once again the lengths to which Mexicans must go to remain under the radar of the border patrol. In Casa del Migrante, a shelter in Tijuana for Latinos sent back during attempts to cross without valid documents, Marya met a 22-year-old man, Roman Tlapa Ortiz, who'd broken his ankle after jumping off a 12-foot wall. He was left behind by a small group of men who'd said they'd stick together until they were safe. "He survived 11 days in the desert on two loaves of bread, walking on his hands and knees, gathering rain water in a plastic bag so he could drink," Marya recounts. "When I heard his voice, I could hear the terror of what he had experienced, being so close to his mortality and realizing he was only doing this to make $12 an hour instead of $12 a day so he could send money back to his family in Veracruz."

The meeting with Tlapa was even more touching, Marya says, because it clarified for her the limitations of her work as a doctor. "When I met him, Roman had still not been seen by a physician." Even now, months later, Marya, recently appointed associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, can't hide her incredulity. "He was three weeks out of his injury and still he was not going to get an x-ray or surgery, even though he clearly needed medical assistance. He will never walk properly again. To me, it was the greatest feeling of impotence as a doctor—to be there and to feel like I have nothing for this patient. It was a very powerful feeling of powerlessness."

For years, she's been ignoring advice to pursue a single career. Marya nods at the thought of it. "What I'm writing about comes from being a doctor," she explains. "It allows me to not see the separation between Jews and Muslims, or between black and white people, and see life at its most bare level—everyone has the same concerns about matters of life and death. If I were only a musician, where would I feel the sense of intellectual and practical satisfaction? When I go to the hospital and make sure my patients have their medications set up, it brings a certain level of satisfaction that I just don't feel as a musician, no matter how great the gig is."

Not all Marya's songs are about breaking down barriers. Inspired by the life stories of her patients, she sings about love, loss, hope and pain—universal themes, sung from an infectious sort of naïveté. It's no coincidence "April Fishes" refers to French slang for idealists so caught up in the beauty of the newly arrived spring that they believe the impossible is possible—a wonderful life motto, she thinks.

Marya often finds herself caught up, too, by whatever fuels her passion. "It wasn't like I wanted to be a border-busting musician visiting shelters for rejected immigrants," she explains. "But what's always driven me were the transitional zones, the space where two things rub against each other and smash up." That's visible in her medical work, which forces her to deal with issues of life and death, and in her musical work, as she mixes the sounds of countless traditions in an attempt to "build bridges between groups to reflect and give voice to a more complex shared global identity," she says. "I think we all need to find the space to carve out our own identities, realize who we believe we are and discover our place in the world—literally."

Read Rupa Marya’s blog posts about the Mexican border tour here.

Issue: Sept/Oct 2009

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Could private investment be the solution to the clean water crisis?

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:57:25 EST

Photographs: istockphoto.com/Deejpilot (water); istockphoto.com/imagedepotpro (money)

A billion people live without access to clean water, 2.5 billion without proper sanitation. Some water advocates believe private investment and management is the solution to this crisis, arguing that the public sector lacks resources, is inept—or both. Adriana Marquisio, president of Uruguay's water workers' union, is determined to prove them wrong. Water and money don't mix, Marquisio insists, and for-profit initiatives leave the poor underserved or priced out of the market and prevent long-term investments from being made. "At its heart, water is a commons that belongs to everyone and to no one," Marquisio says.

She concedes that there's plenty of room for improvement at public utilities. But she's convinced that efficiency must be measured in broader terms than liters per second. An efficient water utility should operate according to new principles, Marquisio says: maximize public involvement through transparent disclosures of water charges and investments, guarantee public health, encourage community management and ensure that the Earth itself receives its necessary share of water. Marquisio points to her country as an example of how these principles can work in practice. The aqua-activist led a successful 2004 referendum to return Uruguay's water utility to public hands; today, 98 percent of Uruguay has access to inexpensive drinking water.

Marquisio is also creating "public-public partnerships," through which utilities in different countries can learn from one another. "The transfer of expertise and technology has meant water for thousands of people," she says. "It's a new style of solidarity, beyond the neo-liberalism in which everyone looks out for their own interests."

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