For a while now, I’ve been trying to do my part. I bring my canvas bags to the grocery store and the farmer’s market. I recycle my newspapers and plastics, and lately I’ve been buying a lot more in glass and going to the local food co-op to refill those containers. And while I’m not a purist, I’m a believer in taking as many “small steps” to help the environment as I can. And before Christmas, I made a promise to myself: to erase some of my “foot prints” when it came to the packaging and wrapping. There’s just too…

Pictures of this… leave us with sweet longings for this. We’ve already had snow storms and school closings; we’ve seen the normally long lines at Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts get ever longer. In this time of cold, a warm beverage seems not just right, but necessary. And as researchers are finding, physical warmth may help increase our mental warmth. In an intriguing study, Drs. Lawrence Williams and John Bargh have found that people who are holding warm beverages are more likely to judge others as having “warmer” personalities, as well as being more likely to give to others rather than…

With 30,000 more troops scheduled for deployment for Afghanistan, a mission clearly defined and an exit strategy set before the American people, we forge ahead. And while we could debate the party politics and military merit of the road ahead, it’s the unintended fallout that deserves at least equal time. More and more, we’re hearing about PTSD and how, when our humanity is dismissed and our core values are violated, we are traumatized. It’s a story of violence and conflict, whether it is war or genocide or terrorism, it insidiously inches its way into the human condition and survival is…