MODERN MEDITATION
DELIVERY ROOM DADS
THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE
DEBT CEILING DENIERS
OCTOBER 20, 2013
LOST GENERATION
THE JOBLESS YOUNG ARE NOW A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC
BY PETER S. GOODMAN, CHRIS KIRKHAM AND STANISLAS KRALAND
ON THE COVER: JACK ESTEN/PICTURE POST/GETTY IMAGES; PLANET NEWS ARCHIVE/SSPL/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES; WENDY GEORGE THIS PAGE FROM TOP: AP PHOTO/ALESSANDRA TARANTINO; MIODRAG GAJIC/GETTY IMAGES
10.20.13 #71 CONTENTS
Enter POINTERS: Shutdown, Thumbs Down, plus Is Nothing Private? JASON LINKINS: Looking Forward in Angst DATA: The Year in Mass Shootings Q&A: Michael Ian Black HEADLINES MOVING IMAGE
Voices MICHAEL V. KAPLEN AND SHANA DE CARO: Players and Public Lose in the NFL’s Concussion Crisis
‘CRUSHED BY THE PRESENT’ Unemployment paralyzes youth around the world. BY PETER S. GOODMAN, CHRIS KIRKHAM & STANISLAS KRALAND
PAUL POLMAN: Where Our Moral Compass Meets the Bottom Line QUOTED
Exit LIFESTYLE: Do Dads Really Need to Be in the Delivery Room? THE THIRD METRIC: This is Your Body on Exercise TASTE TEST: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Game-Day Snacks DOG EARS TFU
MODERN MEDITATION Don’t have an hour? Sixty seconds will do. BY CATHERINE PEARSON
FROM THE EDITOR: The Jobless Generation ON THE COVER: Photo Illustration
for Huffington by Troy Dunham
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
ART STREIBER
The Jobless Generation I N THIS WEEK’S issue, we look at youth unemployment on an international scale, putting the spotlight on a problem that threatens economic growth and social stability in dozens of countries. In France, close to one in four people under 25 is unemployed. In Spain, 56 percent of those under 25 are jobless, while in Italy some 40 percent of workers under 30 are unemployed. Last year,
the youth unemployment rate in Egypt hit 39 percent. Meanwhile, in America, the unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds sits at about 13 percent, nearly double the overall unemployment rate. To put flesh and blood on these statistics, Peter Goodman, Chris Kirkham and Stanislas Kraland spoke with young adults in nations all over the world, focusing on those who graduated from college but have been unable to secure employment since.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
In Spain, we meet 24-year-old Ester Martinez, who chooses to downplay her considerable education — a nursing degree, a master’s degree and a doctorate she’s currently pursuing — as she applies for work in retail shops and supermarkets. And then there’s Spanish worker Thomas Palot, who expected to find work as a computer technician after completing his studies, but has only been able to find occasional temp work — distributing flyers, lifting boxes, and other odd jobs. “I’m laughing, but I should be crying,” says Luciana Di Virgilio, a 27-year-old Italian industrial designer. “In our trade journals, it’s common to read the phrase ‘young designer.’ And then you see they’re writing about nearly 50-year-old men and women.” Elsewhere in the issue, Catherine Pearson looks at the ways women are making the time to incorporate meditation into their busy lives. Twenty-three-year-old freelance writer and mother Jill Amodio used to believe she needed to set aside a large chunk of time for meditation, an unattainable goal that made her
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think of meditation as just another thing she was failing at. Then she realized that even a few minutes of meditation each day could leave her feeling recharged. “What is the purpose of this meditation?” Amodio later asked herself. “It’s not to get an hour in.
I’m laughing, but I should be crying … it’s common to read the phrase ‘young designer.’ And then you see they’re writing about nearly 50-year-old men and women.” It’s to get relaxed, and to re-center myself.” Now, she fits it naturally into her schedule, rather than seeing it as an added source of stress. Finally, as part of our ongoing focus on the Third Metric, we look at what your body looks like when it’s high on exercise.
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POINTERS
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“A LOT OF WORK AHEAD” After a long 16 days, the Senate and House voted on a deal to end the government shutdown and avoid a federal default. It will keep the government open until Jan. 15 and extend the debt ceiling through Feb. 7. President Obama signed the legislation early Thursday. “There is a lot of work ahead of us, including our need to earn back the trust of the American people that has been lost over the last few weeks,” he said. The bill includes an agreement that the Senate and House would create, for the first time in years, a budget conference committee. It also includes back pay for federal workers who were furloughed during the shutdown.
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POINTERS
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SENATOR BOOKER 2 Democrat Cory Booker beat Republican
Steve Lonegan in a special election for New Jersey senator Wednesday. Booker, now the Newark mayor, will fill the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat. “This is a chance for us to send a message about the shutdown, about the gridlock, about all those forces that my opponent represents — the tea party — that says we shouldn’t compromise, we shouldn’t work together,” Booker said.
MORE THAN 100 DEAD
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A 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit the Philippines on Tuesday morning killed more than 100 people, with injuries nearing 300. The quake damaged roads and bridges and caused the collapse of many buildings and historic churches. It hit during a national holiday, the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, and schools and offices were closed — potentially saving more lives from being lost.
IS NOTHING PRIVATE?
The Washington Post reported this week that the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from private email and instant messaging accounts of people across the globe to find information about criminals. The paper wrote that former government contractor Edward Snowden and senior intelligence officials had provided the information. A spokesman for the office that oversees the NSA told the Post that the agency “is “not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.”
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POINTERS
THE MAYOR PLEADS GUILTY
Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner pleaded guilty Tuesday to false imprisonment and battery charges involving three women. He resigned in August, saying he was the victim of a “lynch mob,” after at least 17 women accused him of sexual harassment. He had served only nine months of a four-year term. He will be sentenced on Dec. 9.
WE CAN’T WAIT!
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The comedic duo Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host not only the 2014 Golden Globes, but the 2015 awards ceremony as well, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Tuesday. “They have always been our first choice as hosts and we’re delighted they are back for the next two years,” the association’s president said in a press release. Fey and Poehler made their hosting debut at this year’s show, which was the most watched Globes telecast in six years.
THAT’S VIRAL CAPTAIN MIKE OF THE GOOD SHIP NETFLIX SHOULD BE YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE HERO
A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories. HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES
THE SLEAZIEST THINGS CONGRESS HAS DONE DURING THE SHUTDOWN
HOW MALALA MADE JON STEWART’S JAW DROP
IT’S OFFICIAL, EUROPEANS ARE JUST BETTER AT LIFE
7 THINGS TO LOOK AT WHEN YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT YOUR BODY
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
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LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST
JASON LINKINS
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THE SURREAL LOGIC OF THE DEBT CEILING DENIERS VER AT SLATE, Dave Weigel profiles the strangest subset of the debt ceiling hostage-taker caucus — the members of the House GOP who seem to genuinely believe that breach-
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ing the debt ceiling would be no big deal, and that everyone warning of dire economic consequences is either wrong or weaving elaborate conspiracies. In general, the people Weigel profiles fit into a specific camp — one that believes that the Treasury has more leeway to prioritize payments than they
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) told ‘CBS: This Morning’ that failing to raise the debt ceiling will not cause the U.S. to default.
Enter are letting on, and that by carefully making choices, the government can keep paying bills for a long time after the debt ceiling is breached. Per Weigel: The theory goes like this. Several times, Republicans have passed (or endorsed) the Full Faith and Credit Act to assure investors that the country won’t default. Just like Obama should be moving around money to keep the parks open, he should be telling investors that he can use incoming revenue to avert a default by paying debt service, entitlements, and the military. Anything less, according to frequent Full Faith and Credit Act sponsor Sen. Pat Toomey, is a “scare tactic.” House Republicans who voted for that act insist that the president’s going to be able to finance the debt and keep old people alive—unless he’s so vindictive that he doesn’t want to. “Social Security benefits are funded by mandatory spending,” explained Texas Rep. Bill Flores to a reporter in his district. “They go out come heck or high water. The only way Social Security payments could be
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I would definitely love to play poker against some of these people, you know, if they weren’t playing games with the global economy.” withheld is if two things happen. One is the president decides to withhold them, or two, he takes the staff away that generates those payments or checks that go out the door.” But as Brad Plumer notes, the Treasury’s view is that it cannot prioritize payments in this fashion, primarily because the Treasury processes payments with computer systems that are programmed to “make each payment in the order it comes due.” Under this view, if Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling, the U.S. government will only have money to cover about 65 percent of its bills. Some payments will simply fail to clear. Perhaps a payment to a defense contractor comes up short. Maybe a Social Security check bounces. Maybe an interest payment to bondholders fails. That last possibility is the most worrisome. If the U.S. government misses a pay-
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WILLIAM B. PLOWMAN/NBC/NBC NEWSWIRE
ment to bondholders, the consequences could be severe. “A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic,” warns Treasury. “Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.” That leads us to a second camp of debt ceiling deniers: the ones that truly believe that all this talk of default is just not true, prioritization or no, and that nothing is at stake with regards to the global economy. This camp includes people like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who told “CBS This Morning,” “I would dispel the rumor that is going around that you hear on every newscast that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling we will default on our debt. We won’t.” There’s also Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who says, “Will the U.S. default on its debt? ... The answer is of course not.” And Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Texas)
This is some extreme cognitive dissonance here. The debt ceiling has not, actually, been historically used as a leverage point to rein in the executive branch.” (R-Fla.) truly exists in a world of his own. He won’t vote to raise the debt ceiling, because, as the Washington Post reports, he thinks “’it would bring stability to the world markets,’ since they would be assured that the United States had moved decisively to curb its debt.” But what makes all of this truly surreal isn’t just the fact that some of these people believe that there are no consequences to a debt ceiling breach. It’s that all of these people are supposed to be
When questioned on the possibility of U.S. default, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) echoes Coburn: “...of course not.”
Enter trying to use the debt ceiling as leverage against the White House and Congressional Democrats. And they are simultaneously waving that leverage away, saying either that Treasury can keep most of its normal operations going, or that the default apocalypse that economists warn is on the horizon is imaginary. Consider these two Ted Cruz statements, alongside one another: 1. “Will the U.S. default on its debt? ... The answer is of course not.” 2. “The debt ceiling historically has been among the best leverage that Congress has to rein in the executive.” This is some extreme cognitive dissonance here. The debt ceiling has not, actually, been historically used as a leverage point to rein in the executive branch. (The debt ceiling needs to be occasionally raised because of bills and allocations passed by the legislature.) But even if that were true, one might be given to wonder, what good is using the debt ceiling as a leverage point if the U.S. isn’t going to default on it’s debt? The threat of default is the leverage. It’s very strange. I don’t think it’s lost on any of these Republicans that the whole plan here is to hold
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But what makes all of this truly surreal isn’t just the fact that some of these people believe that there are no consequences to a debt ceiling breach. It’s that all of these people are supposed to be trying to use the debt ceiling as leverage against the White House and Congressional Democrats.” the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for a series of demands. And they are making no offer in return — raising the debt ceiling is what’s supposed to be the concession. But then they are simultaneously putting out a message that breaching the debt ceiling would not be a big deal. What force, then, is supposed to compel the Democrats to come to the table? This is not how hostage-taking works. There is supposed to be the threat of a consequence. It’s supposed to be, “Pay my ransom or the hostage dies.” It’s not, “Pay my ransom or else everything will be perfectly fine, hey, don’t even worry about it.” I would definitely love to play poker against some of these people, you know, if they weren’t playing games with the global economy.
Q&A
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Michael Ian Black on the Lack of Jazz Hands in Politics “Is that totally the reason we’re having dysfunction in Washington? I can’t say that. But I certainly think it’s 80 to 90 percent of it.”
Above: Black recently released his memoir. Below: Performing stand-up during the Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas, Spring 2013.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW, VISIT HUFFPOST LIVE
DATA
HUFFINGTON 10.20.13 NOTE: DATA COLLECTED FROM VARIOUS DATABASES AND NEWS REPORTS AND MAY BE INCOMPLETE.
The Year in Mass Shootings
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When 13 people died in a shooting rampage at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., last month, the story made front page news. Many of the mass shootings that have happened since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., last December didn’t. The FBI’s definition of mass murder is the slaying of four or more people. There have been at least 16 such tragedies this year where the victims were gunned down, but shootings related to drug or gang violence often get less attention than those perpetrated by a crazed gunman. HuffPost combed through a variety of news sources, including Reddit’s community-generated database of mass shootings, and came up with this graphic, which may be incomplete. — Katy Hall
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SOURCES: NBC, THINK PROGRESS, MOTHER JONES, ASSOCIATED PRESS, BUSINESS INSDER, NEWSOK, CNN, THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE, GALLUP. JAZ1111/STOCK.XCHNG (GUN).
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AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN (BACK IN BUSINESS); JOSHUA ROBERTS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (K.O.); CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES (DEFER OR DEFAULT?); SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (GOP POLL NIGHTMARE)
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The Week That Was TAP IMAGE TO ENLARGE, TAP EACH DATE FOR FULL ARTICLE ON THE HUFFINGTON POST
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HUFFINGTON 10.20.13 Arafat, Saudi Arabia 10.14.2013
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Carts carry fruits through a crowd of Muslim Hajj pilgrims performing noon prayers at the Namira mosque near Mount Arafat.
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Kajiado District, Kenya 10.07.2013 Elephants in sunset at Amboseli National Park in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Starting October 7th, the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments started a joint aerial count of the elephants and other large mammals in the shared ecosystem of the Ambroseli-West Kilmanjaro and Natron-Magadi landscape. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Yuyao, China 10.09.2013 A man pulls his three-month-old baby in a bathtub through the flooded streets of Yuyao following the aftermath of typhoon Fitow. At least 10 people were killed and five missing when the typhoon made landfall in Fujian province. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Tiskilwa, Illinois 10.10.2013 A combine harvests soybeans in a field in Illinois. Soybean futures dropped to their lowest this month on signs of increasing supplies in the U.S., the world’s biggest producer of soybeans. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Pickering, United Kingdom 10.12.2013 A World War II re-enactor walks through the town of Pickering dressed in his period uniform. The re-enactment was part of Wartime Weekend. The events included two re-enactments, living history groups and enthusiasts dressed as British, German and American troops as well as 1940s civilians. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Berlin, Germany 10.14.2013 A man walks through the hedges in front of the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Munich, Germany 10.06.2013 Men and women in traditional Bavarian costumes fire muzzles in front of the ‘Bavaria’ status in Munich. The salute included members of various regional shooting clubs and signals the last day of the famous ‘Oktoberfest’ beer festival. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Gazipur, Bangladesh 10.09.2013 A Bangladeshi firefighter stands inside a damaged garment factory outside of Dhaka. The fire killed nearly a dozen people six months after a different Bangladeshi factory collapsed killing 1,100, further exposing the harsh and unsafe conditions in the world’s third largest industry. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Amritsar, India 10.08.2013 A Sikh man performs a fire-based martial art skill during a religious procession on the eve of the birth anniversary of Guru Ram Das in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. Ram Das was the fourth of the 10 gurus of Sikhism. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Berlin, Germany 10.09.2013 “Waechter der Zeit”, Guardians of the Time, stands in front of the Berlin cathedral. The art installation is part of the Berlin festival of lights, which illuminates numerous buildings in the city through October 20th. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Cairo, Egypt 10.06.2013 An Egyptian boy in an army costume poses with army soldiers atop of an armored vehicle in front of Tahrir Square. Meanwhile Egyptian jetfighters fly over Cairo to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Egypt’s last war with Israel. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Jerusalem, Israel 10.07.2013 Ultra-Orthodox Jews watch the funeral procession of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The 93-year-old Rabbi was a religious scholar and spiritual leader of Israel’s Sephardic Jews. During his lifetime he transformed his downtrodden community of immigrants from North Africa and Arab nations into a powerful force in Israeli politics. Tap here for a more extensive look at the week on The Huffington Post. PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Players and Public Lose in the NFL’s Concussion Crisis IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT documentary League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis, we felt it was important to revisit the statements NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made the other week to Fox Sports broadcaster John Lynch concerning the proposed settlement of the players’ class action lawsuit. Those statements and the NFL’s longstanding unequivocal rejection of any relationship between concussions and brain trauma are an outrage and disrespectful to all those players whose lives have been devastated. Goddell’s disingenuous portrayal of the league’s concern about the health and safety of the players is incredible at best. His assertion that the league has been forthcoming with medical information as it has become avail-
able, defies credulity. Goodell’s unbelievable contention that the league has acted in good faith and has not misled the players flies in the face of reality. Over the years, the NFL has staunchly refused to acknowledge the accumulating body of impartial, documented, medi-
Goodell speaks during the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft in New York City in April.
Voices cal evidence underscoring the risk of permanent brain damage from repeated blows to the head. For over 40 years, many prestigious and well-recognized medical groups have steadfastly maintained that concussions are brain injuries. The NFL, however, sought to hide behind the veil of inaccurate statements made by its own Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Safety Committee, which was formed in 1994. Chaired by an unqualified leader, it promulgated reports deliberately designed to mislead the players and the public. Twenty-five years later, during Congressional hearings, the Committee and league representatives continued to deny the connection between football and brain trauma. The conspiracy between the league and its physicians is tantamount to a pattern of civil racketeering, intended to deprive injured players disability benefits, medical care, and rehabilitation treatment. Thus, Goodell’s pronouncement that if the litigation were to proceed it would reveal nothing contradictory to the NFL’s position is directly inconsistent with its prior and long-standing position that there is no connection between
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football and brain damage. In deflecting a question about whether this was a victory for the league, Commissioner Goodell claimed the settlement was good for the players. He was insistent that “no presumption of guilt” can be implied, despite the mounting numbers of brain-damaged players. The cloak of secrecy surrounding this settlement ensures that no one will ever know what the league
Over the years, the NFL has staunchly refused to acknowledge the accumulating body of impartial, documented, medical evidence underscoring the risk of permanent brain damage from repeated blows to the head.” knew or for how long. This was indeed a major victory for the league, but a travesty for the players. Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity to provide meaningful protection and redress for past, present, and future players. The devil is in the details, which remain secret. If it is such a benefit to the players wouldn’t it also be valuable to reveal those terms?
Voices The gross settlement proceeds will not provide meaningful financial compensation to the vast majority of players who have suffered and will continue to suffer the lifelong consequences of brain trauma. The settlement excludes players who died from their brain injuries before 2006 and only provides compensation to players diagnosed with “severe cognitive impairment.” A “mild” brain injury is only mild if it is someone else’s brain, and those players are also excluded from this settlement. The settlement does not provide lifelong reimbursement of medical or rehabilitation care. Are the settlement proceeds intended to compensate players for their cognitive, emotional and behavioral deficits that will plague them for the remainder of their lives, or for necessary medical treatment? The brains of these players will not spontaneously and miraculously recover. Further, to be effective, the recently enacted safety rules must be enforced by significant penalties not only on players who violate the rules, but more significantly on teams and coaches who implicitly condone barbaric behavior. If real reform is sought, guaranteed contracts
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that provide financial compensation for injured players would help to eliminate the stigma and economic disincentive of admitting concussion symptoms. Likewise, the paltry $10 million dollars allocated to brain injury research is not calculated to pro-
Goodell’s unbelievable contention that the league has acted in good faith and has not misled the players flies in the face of reality.” duce meaningful results. We are in complete agreement, however, with Commissioner Goodell’s declaration that, “I don’t think we can ever do enough for our players.” Certainly the league hasn’t so far. The proposed settlement fails to provide meaningful justice for these players who have sacrificed their brains for the profits of the league. Michael V. Kaplen and Shana De Caro are partners in the New York law firm, De Caro & Kaplen, LLP which concentrates their legal practice on representing victims of brain trauma.
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PAUL POLMAN
Where Our Moral Compass Meets the Bottom Line
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T WAS WINSTON CHURCHILL who famously said that “democracy was the worst form of government apart from all the others that had been tried.” Much the same can be said for capitalism, particularly the form of capitalism that has been practiced over the past 20 years. ¶ This form of capitalism certainly has some strong points. Over the past 50 years or so capitalism has been directly responsible for lifting nearly half a billion people out of poverty, for revolutionizing health and medical care and for the creation of digital technologies that are transforming the lives of people everywhere. ¶ But modern capitalism has also resulted in huge extremes of wealth, significant debt at both individual and government levels, creation of financial instruments that have no social value at all and the unsustainable use of scarce physical and natural resources.
Occupy Wall Street protesters demonstrate at Zuccotti Park on the movement’s second anniversary on September 17, 2013.
Voices However, the alternatives to capitalism have all been tried and all been found wanting — some, like communism, catastrophically so. So capitalism, with all its faults, is the only game in town. The task confronting the present generation of leaders is to improve on it, to build on its strengths and eradicate its weaknesses. The challenge is to hold on to the energy, enterprise and creativity that characterize capitalism at its best, while doing away with its destructive elements. If too many people feel excluded from the system and cannot access its benefits, they will ultimately rebel against it. It was sentiments like this that motivated the understandable but incoherent anger of global movements like the Arab Spring, Madrid’s Los Indignados and Occupy Wall Street. Unfortunately the Ginni index of wealth disparity is in many places still increasing, with China now exceeding the US. I believe that the financial crisis of 2008/9 exposed more a lack of ethics and morality — especially by the financial sector — rather than a problem of regulation or criminality. There were, of course, regulatory lessons to be learned, but at heart there was a collective
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loss of our moral compass. Too many put self-interest ahead of the interest of the greater good. It became all about “having more,” instead of “living more.” Addressing the weaknesses of capitalism will require us, above all, to do two things: first, to take a long term perspective; and second, to re-set the priorities of business. The short-termism characterizing modern business has been
Capitalism, with all its faults, is the only game in town. The task confronting the present generation of leaders is to improve on it, to build on its strengths and eradicate its weaknesses.” described by McKinsey’s Dominic Barton as “quarterly capitalism,” and by Roger Martin as “expectation management” in his book, Fixing The Game. This is the treadmill on which the leaders of many public companies find themselves. The requirement to report back to investors every ninety days distorts behavior and priorities. It is absurd for complex multi-national companies
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Voices to have to invest huge amounts of time preparing detailed income and margin statements every quarter. No other aspect of business is run on such short time horizons — certainly not R&D, capital investment programs, buying contracts, even advertising. So why should financial reporting? Likewise for the giving of constant guidance and then managing toward these expectations versus management of the business. The priorities of business also need to be challenged. Since the 1980s we have all been worshiping at the altar of shareholder value. This is a doctrine that says that the principal purpose of business is to maximize returns to its investors. At Unilever we have challenged both these precepts. We have abandoned quarterly reporting as well as guidance. We have also made it clear that our paramount goals are to satisfy the demands of consumers and customers and to serve the needs of the communities where we operate. I am convinced that if we do these things well we will deliver excellent returns to our shareholders. And so far we have not been disappointed, as we have performed
PAUL POLMAN
strongly despite a challenging economic environment. The great challenge of the 21st century is to provide good standards of living for 7 billion people without depleting the earth’s resources or running up massive levels of public debt. To achieve this, government and business alike will need to find new models of growth that are in both environmental and economic balance. It requires new levels of leadership as well. As global temperatures continue to rise and natural resources deplete, business has to decide what role it wants to play. Does it sit on the sidelines waiting for governments to take action or does it get on the pitch
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in October 2013.
Voices and start addressing these issues? If we continue to consume key inputs like water, food, land and energy without thought as to their long-term sustainability, then none of us will prosper. If business is to regain the trust of society, it must start to tackle the big social and environmental issues that confront humanity, especially at a time when governments seem increasingly to be caught in shorter and shorter election cycles and have a hard time internalizing the global challenges in an increasingly interdependent world. As I have said many times, “business can not be a mere bystander in the system that gives it life.” The environmentalist Paul Hawken believes that if there is any deficit we are facing right now, it’s a deficit of meaning. Many are talking about the need for a GDP+. A broader measure of success than just simply wealth creation. Stepping up to the plate is not only the right thing for business to do from a moral perspective, but it is also in our economic self-interest. As CK Prahalad and others have argued, there are enormous growth and margin opportunities in what people now call “sustain-
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ability.” For Unilever, these are to be found in addressing the needs of billions of people for clean drinking water, basic hygiene and sanitation, nutritious food and sourcing all of our agricultural raw materials sustainably. Unilever’s future success depends upon us being able to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint while at the same time increasing our posi-
When people talk about new forms of capitalism, this is what I have in mind: companies that show, in all transparency, that they are contributing to society, now and for many generations to come.” tive social impacts. These are the central objectives of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which we launched in 2010. When people talk about new forms of capitalism, this is what I have in mind: companies that show, in all transparency, that they are contributing to society, now and for many generations to come. Not taking from it.
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Voices
It is nothing less than a new business model. One that focuses on the long term. One that sees business as part of society, not separate from it. One where companies seek to address the big social and environmental issues that threaten social stability. One where the needs of citizens and communities carry the same weight as the demands of shareholders. This is why we have put the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan at the heart of our strategy. Our growth rates are increasing as we
PAUL POLMAN
put the USLP in action. Innovation rates are accelerating, new growth opportunities are appearing (like Pure-it) and costs are decreasing as we reduce our resource dependency. Our corporate brand is flourishing, with Unilever becoming the preferred employer in many of the markets we operate. But if we achieve our sustainability goals and no one else follows, we will have failed. We recognize that to be successful we have to work in partnership with others: with governments, with customers, competitors, suppliers and,very importantly, NGOs. The Rio+20 summit, dubbed by many as a failure, saw some prom-
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Lawmakers during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Brazil.
Voices ising signs of how business can work better in future with both governments and civil society. Over 1800 businesses were present, resulting in about 200 concrete proposals. The Natural Capital Declaration was one such example — a commitment by more than 30 companies to put a value on externalities like water, carbon and biodiversity — and we are now taking a lead in the global discussions on Integrated reporting. So was our work on Food Security,which follows the work done for the G20 — an issue that is more important than ever given the recent extreme weather patterns in many parts of the world. Another was the announcement by the US government to form a public-private partnership with over 400 companies to eliminate illegal deforestation from their supply chains. This latter partnership puts one of the most powerful industrial coalitions ever built alongside the world’s most powerful government. This is the kind of scale at which we will have to work if we are to successfully tackle issues like deforestation a phenomenon that accounts for 17 percent of all greenhouse gases; that’s more than the entire
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transportation sector. We will need many more such initiatives if we are to meet the triple challenges of food, water and accelerating climate change that are hurtling toward us. Success will require courageous leadership. We will need companies that are prepared to march in the vanguard and pioneer new ways of working and build new business models. By
If business is to regain the trust of society, it must start to tackle the big social and environmental issues that confront humanity.” doing so they will rebuild trust in business and, I am sure, grow profitably. The B-team, a group of leading business people, has come together to help accelerate this process for maximum impact. Your contributions toward this goal are more important than ever. Small actions, big difference. Yes, we all have a role to play. Paul Polman is the CEO of Unilever
CLOCKWISE FROMTOP LEFT: JASON MERRITT/GETTY IMAGES; ROSEMARIE GEARHART/GETTY IMAGES; ANDREW H. WALKER/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; 39_STEPS/FLICKR
Voices
QUOTED
“ I think defining yourself as 100% anything is kind of near-sighted and close-minded.”
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“ Babies also often smell of poo, which from a dog’s point of view is like being a fascinating conversationalist.”
— HuffPost commenter Hally
on “This Dog Totally, Completely, Utterly Adores His Owners’ Newborn Baby”
— Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson
to Out magazine, on why he doesn’t rule out gay attraction
“Wrecking Ball an iconic video? I don’t think so.” — HuffPost commenter liberalwithteeth
on “Sinead O’Connor, Miley Cyrus Doesn’t Need Your Concern”
“ Nudity is offensive yet wielding guns that kill people is legal. Some people need to get some perspective.”
— HuffPost commenter GFKennedy
on “American Family Association Renews Efforts To Censor ‘Obscene’ Sexting Statue In Kansas”
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QUOTED
Nothing ends a government shutdown quicker than a group of red states being hit with a natural disaster.
— HuffPost commenter labman
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“ I believe that it is going to be overwhelmingly negative for me and the people I care about.”
— WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
on the upcoming film tracking his rise, The Fifth Estate
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AP PHOTO/JAY REEVES; OLI SCARFF/GETTY IMAGES; TIM BOYLE/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES; ABC/RANDY HOLMES
on “Tropical Storm Karen Forms South Of U.S., Threatens Gulf Coast”
“ People don’t stand up and protect their dreams. People are too scared of getting spoofed.”
— Kanye West
on Jimmy Kimmel Live
“ Do you think this is fair that I have to be making $8.25 when I’ve been working at McDonald’s for 10 years?”
— McDonald’s employee Nancy Salgado,
during a speech by McDonald’s USA President Jeff Stratton
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10.20.13 #71 FEATURES
LOST GENERATION WHENEVER, WHEREVER
LOSTGENERATION THE JOBLESS YOUNG ARE NOW A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC
PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
BY PETER S. GOODMAN, CHRIS KIRKHAM AND STANISLAS KRALAND
PREVIOUS PAGE: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; WENDY GEORGE
IN THE FRENCH CITY OF MONTPELLIER, THOMAS PALOT FRETS THAT HIS FUTURE NOW SEEMS TAINTED. HE IS ONLY 25 YEARS OLD AND RECENTLY EMBARKED ON A CAREER AS COMPUTER TECHNICIAN. BUT FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS, HE HAS BEEN UNEMPLOYED. Palot has a diploma from an advanced vocational school, a credential that might have once inoculated him from this fate. Today that degree merely places him amid the teeming ranks of a so-called Lost Generation: He is one of millions of young people worldwide who have emerged from college with diplomas only to fall into joblessness and its attendant hardships — financial trouble, despair and a nebulous sense of having lost their way. “To grow as a person, you have to have a job,” Palot tells Le Huffington Post, speaking as if this were self-evident. “Before, I talked about my work with the people close to me, and now I have nothing to talk about.” In many countries, youth employment is understood as a pressing domestic issue. But the
proper lens is global: From Europe to North America to the Middle East, unemployment among young people has swelled into a veritable epidemic, one that threatens economic growth and social stability in dozens of countries for decades to come. Worldwide, some 75 million workers under age 25 were jobless last year, according to the International Labour Office, an increase of more than 4 million compared to 2007. The crisis is altering family dynamics, as parents find themselves caring for grown children and as unemployed young people defer starting their own families. It is reinforcing austerity, as governments struggle to finance unemployment benefits and large numbers of would-be young consumers find themselves hunkering down in joblessness. Above all, it is assailing the psyches of young people who have been told that education is the
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pathway to a more prosperous life only to find that their degrees are no antidote to a bleak job market. “Youth unemployment is dramatic,” according to José María Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain, who spoke at a recent conference in New York. Fiftysix percent of would-be Spanish workers under 25 are jobless. “It’s jeopardizing the opportunities for future prosperity and growth.” The profound shortage of working opportunities for young people around the globe is largely the result of the synchronized financial crisis that emerged in the United States and then spread to Europe, generating economic strains on virtually every shore. Youth unem-
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ployment now holds the potential to exacerbate deep-seated social and political tensions while yielding new conflicts in an age of scarcity. The Huffington Post has deployed its global resources in an effort to capture the scope of this crisis and its many permutations, forging a collective report drawn from newsrooms at international editions in seven countries. This story is intended as the beginning of a sustained conversation about the consequences of youth unemployment, examining the pitfalls and also possible ways out. Future stories will spotlight programs that may yield improvements, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit that is emerging as young people confront pressure to make their own opportunities. This report focuses on an affected group of particular importance:
Youth unemployment was the #1 campaign issue of President Francois Hollande when he defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in May of 2012.
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“TO GROW AS A PERSON, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A JOB. BEFORE, I TALKED ABOUT MY WORK WITH THE PEOPLE CLOSE TO ME, AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.” those who managed to graduate from college yet still find themselves jobless. The costs of this disappointment are crushing for the young graduates themselves, particularly those bearing student loan debt. But it’s society that bears the full costs: From the United States to Spain, experts warn that the side-lining of millions of would-be consumers is placing a substantial drag on economic growth, diminishing prosperity for all. In the United States, in the Pacific Northwest city of Portland, Oregon, 23-year-old Brette Jackson grapples with downgraded expectations. She and her parents accepted $50,000 in debt as the price of a program that gained her a degree in fashion design. It was supposed be the launchpad of a rewarding career. Instead, she’s subsisting on her latest part-time job — manning a supermarket deli counter — while relying on government-furnished food stamps. “I don’t think the economy is
going to be able to continue to function as it has been, with this becoming the norm,” she tells The Huffington Post. “It used to be that college graduates were the ones who were buying new cars and new homes, taking out mortgages. Now it’s completely reversed itself, and we can’t afford to do those things any more.” Six years have passed since Italy’s then-Minister of Economy Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa provoked a controversy by speaking of the “bamboccioni,” or “big babies,” affixing a label to the many young Italians forced to remain at home with their parents. Today, some 40 percent of Italian workers under 30 are unemployed, according to recent data, a level roughly double that of five years ago. “I’m laughing, but I should be crying,” says Luciana Di Virgilio, a 27-year-old Italian industrial designer. “In our trade journals, it’s common to read the phrase ‘young designer.’ And then you see they’re writing about nearly 50-year-old men and women. Here you’re still considered young at 30, whereas in
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the rest of Europe 23- and 24-yearolds are already independent, and often in positions of responsibility.” In Almeria, a city on the Spanish Mediterranean, 21-year-old Marta Mullor struggles to accept that she still lives with her parents, even after completing her college degree in translation and interpretation. Since graduating in June, she has applied for some 75 jobs per week, she says, while receiving a disheartening number of responses: zero. “Last year I would never have imagined that I would still be living at my parents’ place,” she tells El Huffington Post. “I thought something would come my way.” Nearly 27 percent of unemployed Spaniards have college degrees, according to Spain’s General Workers Union. With so many graduates out of work, a degree can sometimes seem a liability, a marker that identifies a job applicant as ill-suited for whatever modest position may be available. Many well-educated young Spaniards now maintain two résumés: one that details their full background, for jobs related to their studies, and another that omits a degree or two, so as not to overwhelm potential employers seeking to fill a lower-level job.
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In Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, the presence of a large number of young people unable to find jobs that match their training adds fuel to long-standing ethnic and religious conflicts while sowing political discord. The youth unemployment rate hit 39 percent in Egypt last year, as the country grappled with the fallout from the Arab Spring. In France, nearly one in four would-be workers under 25 is now officially unemployed, according to the latest government figures. In Great Britain, some 960,000 people in the same age group are unemployed, or about one of every five. Overall, some 26 million Europeans aged 16 to 24 are today searching for a job, according to recent government estimates. The problem has even become a spiritual issue: Pope Francis recently declared that youth unemployment amounts to “one of the most serious evils that afflicts the world these days,” putting it alongside “the loneliness of the old.” “The young need work and hope but have neither one nor the other, and the problem is they don’t even look for them any more,” Pope Francis said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. “They have been crushed by the present. You tell me: Can you live crushed under the weight of
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HUFFINGTON 10.20.13
the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.”
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‘HOW AM I GOING TO GET EXPERIENCE?’ In the Spanish city of Cáceres, 24-year-old Ester Martinez has grown accustomed to looking for whatever jobs are available, never mind her chosen career path. She applies at retail shops and supermarkets, where she touts her tech savvy and her language skills. She speaks English, French and passable Italian. What she pointedly does not mention — not on her résumé, and certainly not in job interviews — is her considerable education. She steers around the fact that she’s working on her doctorate and already has a master’s degree in addition to her nursing degree. She knows these details may distinguish her as another over-educated young Spaniard ill-suited for a bleak job market. Overall, some 2.5 million Spanish workers are employed in sectors other than those for which
they studied, according to the General Workers Union. And this dynamic only appears to reinforce itself: As recent graduates take whatever jobs they can find, they have no way of amassing experience in their chosen fields. Alberto Peza, a 26-year-old resident of Valencia trained in workplace safety, now sells sporting goods part-time, earning about 350 euros (or $472) a month. He feels impotent. He feels stuck. “How am I going to get experience if no one will give me a chance to show my skills and pursue my goals?” he asks. Some are now creating their own work experience. After five months of searching for a job on the strength of his art history degree, 24-year-old Antonio Jimenez
According to Former President of Spain Jose Maria Aznar, youth unemployment is, “jeopardizing the opportunities for future prosperity and growth.”
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HUFFINGTON 10.20.13
FROM THE UNITED STATES TO SPAIN, EXPERTS WARN THAT THE SIDE-LINING OF MILLIONS OF WOULD-BE CONSUMERS IS PLACING A SUBSTANTIAL DRAG ON ECONOMIC GROWTH. opted to open a bar in his neighborhood in Valladolid. “I had to do something,” he says. That decision made him something of a pioneer: Only 4 percent of unemployed young Spaniards opt to start their own businesses, according to the 2012 Report on Youth in Spain. Jimenez didn’t have a single euro to invest, so his parents helped him out. “Getting financing to start a business in Spain is impossible,” he says. “On top of that, the paperwork you have to do is so overwhelming that you sometimes think of just giving up.” And what do his parents think of this career trajectory — their son’s art history degree as a prerequisite for postgraduate studies in serving cocktails? “That’s life,” says his father, Antonio Jiménez Laso. “I would like to see him work in something more fulfilling, but this is better than be-
ing at home, depressed and bored.” Others are simply giving up on working in Spain. Some disappear from the statistics because they stop actively looking for jobs. Some choose to keep studying, an increasingly difficult alternative for those with limited financial means: Tuitions in Madrid, for example, rose 20 to 30 percent last year. This year, 20,000 students who applied were left without scholarships, according to the Socialist Party, Spain’s main opposition party, and the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities. Large numbers of youth are now emigrating. Since the crisis began, the number of young Spaniards venturing abroad has increased 41 percent, according to the National Institute of Statistics. Germany, France and the United Kingdom continue to be the top destinations for these young workers, but Ecuador is rising in the ranks. The small South American country has offered more than 5,000 jobs to college-edu-
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COURTESY OF BRETTE JACKSON
cated Spaniards this year. Javier Rincón, 27, has spent the last two years in Berlin, working as an analytics and optimization manager. He left Spain because “the conditions were not acceptable,” he said. He has no thought of returning. “Every time I go back, I’m more surprised by the sad state of my country,” he says. “I can see a clear decline in culture, politics, economy.”
MIND-BOGGLING DEBT Brette Jackson never imagined it this way. Three years out from her college graduation, she’s working part-time at a Portland supermarket, keeping herself fed with the help of food stamps.
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Back when she enrolled at the Art Institute of Seattle five years ago — which is to say, back when she and her parents signed off on her $50,000 in loans — this was not among the outcomes described by the admissions counselors. “They gave out a lot of statistics,” Jackson recalls. “‘This many of our students get jobs in their fields, and they’re making X amount of money every year.’ Those numbers are not necessarily accurate.” Since she got her associate’s degree from the for-profit school in the spring of 2010, Jackson has rarely known full-time work that lasted more than a few months. The jobs she’s managed to secure have been well below her expectations — the supermarket job in Portland, a short-term holiday retail position at a Macy’s department store in Seattle and a stint working as a
(From L to R) Laura RupeJackson and her daughters Brette Jackson and Julianna Jackson, with Laura’s brother (far right) and his children.
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“IT USED TO BE THAT COLLEGE GRADUATES WERE THE ONES WHO WERE BUYING NEW CARS AND NEW HOMES, TAKING OUT MORTGAGES. NOW IT’S COMPLETELY REVERSED ITSELF.” seamstress for a temp agency. The Great Recession and its far from vigorous recovery have been especially punishing for young Americans. The unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-old workers is about 13 percent, nearly double the overall unemployment rate, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A college degree is generally considered the way to avoid joblessness, but the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 24 is 8.8 percent, up from 5.7 percent in 2007, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal census and labor data. Young college graduates still fare much better than those with only a high school diploma, but the EPI analysis found that large numbers of young people with college degrees are settling for jobs below their skill levels. Here, another measure comes in
handy — the so-called underemployment rate, which adds to the jobless those who have accepted part-time positions for lack of available full-time work and those who have simply stopped looking. The underemployment rate for college graduates is now 18.3 percent, up from 9.9 percent in 2007. “A large swath of these young, highly educated workers either have a job but cannot attain the hours they need, or want a job but have given up looking for work,” the EPI report found. Jackson hasn’t given up, but she is beginning to worry that her quest is futile. All the while, her mountain of debt constrains not just her future but that of her entire family. Her mother, Laura Rupe-Jackson, is a school bus driver and preschool worker who carries about $35,000 of the total $50,000 debt burden. Jackson’s younger sister, Julianna, is a high school senior. An honors student, she dreams of majoring in astrophysics at a toptier university. For her mother, this
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF MARTA MULLOR; COURTESY OF ALBERTO PEZA; COURTESY OF DAMILOLA ODELOLA; COURTESY OF ESTER MARTINEZ; COURTESY OF LUCIANA DI VIRGILIO; COURTESY OF JAVIER RINCON
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prospect brings excitement and anxiety in equal measure: How can she justify taking on more debt to finance college for another daughter given the first’s experience? “She has the grades and the drive to do great things, which is frustrating for us,” Rupe-Jackson says of Julianna. “We are still just in deferment on the parent loans, and really close to bankruptcy right now. The whole
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idea, it just scares me.” The family has held off on basic house repairs for years, including a roof that needs replacing. When Jackson got in a car accident last year — not her fault, her mother says — they couldn’t afford the insurance deductible needed to replace the totaled vehicle. If only she and her family had asked more questions back when her daughter was deciding to enroll at the art institute. This is the thought that keeps RupeJackson up at night.
Clockwise from top left: Marta Mullor, Alberto Peza, Damilola Odelola, Ester Martinez, Luciana Di Virgilio and Javier Rincon.
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Jackson had taken her time to decide where to go to college, contemplating what sort of program would make best use of her skills. In high school, she had sometimes made costumes for her friends — usually Japanese anime characters. So her mother suggested she look into art school. The Art Institute in Seattle is part of a chain of 50 for-profit institutions across the nation. Looking back now, Jackson and her mother are both struck by how the admissions interview for the school felt more like a marketing a pitch. She was basically let in on the spot, they recall. “It was ‘OK, here’s the student loan package. We need to hurry up and get you enrolled,’” Rupe-Jackson says. “For my daughter, it was, ‘Oh yay, I want to go to school, and I can start right away.’ But it just didn’t seem right to me when I thought about it afterward.” When Jackson showed up at her graduation gala, she got the first sense that things were less than advertised. The gala had been billed as an industry event where she would present her portfolio to dozens of potential employers. “No one from the fashion industry showed up to our show,”
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she recalls. “I didn’t hand out any résumés.” Over the following months, the career services office sent sporadic job listings her way, but many were for unpaid internships. Others were listings she could have found by herself online, she says. Desperate for income, she worked shifts at Macy’s during the 2010 holiday season, but was laid off after the rush. She applied to other department stores, hoping that more retail experience would put her on a path for fashion-design gigs. But many of those employers sought more retail experience. After being out of work for almost a year, she landed another temporary retail job at a See’s Candies store in the Portland area for the 2011 holiday season. When that job ended, she got in touch with a temp agency that needed seamstresses to repair and sew labels on lab coats. Hired on, she hoped she was finally on her way to something stable. But late last year she was laid off again — after she trained a new batch of temp workers to do her old job. By then, she had moved into her own apartment. “I was frantic to get a new job,” she says. “I had bills to pay.” So she took whatever she could get. She took the job at the super-
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HUFFINGTON 10.20.13
SINCE GRADUATING IN JUNE, SHE HAS APPLIED FOR SOME 75 JOBS PER WEEK, SHE SAYS, WHILE RECEIVING A DISHEARTENING NUMBER OF RESPONSES: ZERO. market. She now works between 20 and 40 hours a week. With food stamps and paychecks, she gets by, but she can’t look ahead. So many of her friends face the same predicament, she says. They’ve all begun to question the basic premise that a college degree is the gateway to a middle-class life. “For a lot of my peers, it’s just become the norm,” she says. “You have this mind-boggling amount of debt, not really knowing how or when you’re going to pay it off. You just anticipate that it’s this debt you’re going to have for the rest of your life.”
NO LIFE PLAN Across a continent and an ocean, Thomas Palot sums up his own reality using similar words. “I get by,” he says. “I have no choice.” What once seemed a reasonable aspiration now seems like a moon shot: He wants a job as a computer technician, one that matches his qualifications and pays per-
haps as much as 1,500 euros after taxes each month. Back when he was nearing the end of his studies, “I never imagined it would be so hard,” he says. “But when I saw the economic situation deteriorate, I immediately understood it was going to be difficult.” To make ends meet, Palot takes assignments from temporary employment agencies. One day, he distributes flyers. The next, he lifts boxes. He lives on 580 euros per month, 300 of which goes to pay his rent. As in much of the developed world, in France a degree is supposed to provide some insurance against hard times. To a considerable extent, it has. The unemployment rate among French workers under 25 is just below 25 percent, according to the government; among young workers with Palot’s credentials — a high school baccalaureate diploma plus two years of further study — about 10 percent are unemployed. But those figures come as no consolation to those struggling to find work. Despite his degree, and
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despite a host of government programs aimed at attacking youth unemployment — it was the No. 1 priority of presidential candidate François Hollande during his successful 2012 campaign — Palot remains on the outside. “I hear every day about young people, training plans,” he says. “But I don’t see anything behind it.” He misses not only the stability and ease of a regular job, but also the activity and social interaction. What’s hardest is the void that defines his life, he says. With his friends, he avoids the topic of his job search. So, too, with his parents. “They pressure me — that’s normal,” he says. “They made sacrifices so that I could have everything when I was a child.”
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He can’t contemplate having his own children. “For the moment it’s out of the question,” he says. “I have no plan for the future, no life plan; all that counts is stabilizing my situation.” Palot no longer expects much help from his local unemployment office. “I had three different counselors in one year,” he says. “How could we be getting effective support? What’s the logic?” What training exists is systematically denied to him, he says, because of his age: At 25, he’s near the start of what was supposed to be his working life, yet old enough to fall to the bottom of the waiting list for government help. He hasn’t lost hope, he says, and even finds himself giving advice to those in the same predicament: Be patient, keep your hopes up, stay active, work your connec-
Pope Francis recently declared that youth unemployment amounts to “one of the most serious evils that afflicts the world these days.”
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tions and, above all, “get as much support as you can.” Following that prescription is harder than dispensing it. Palot thinks of himself as a hard worker, capable and pragmatic, but two years of going without work is undermining his sense of value. “I feel I’m projecting the image of someone with no willpower, someone who is waiting for something to happen and doesn’t see anything happening,” he says. It’s a state of mind that lends itself to bad habits. “There are times you do nothing,” he says, “because you’re at the end of your rope.”
JUSTIFYING THE RISK For Samantha Ostrov of Halifax, Nova Scotia, finding a job feels like more than a personal requirement. She carries the extra burden of needing to validate her parents’ decision to cash in some of their retirement savings to finance her degree. Yet in the three-plus years since she graduated from University of King’s College with a bachelor’s degree in political science, she’s struggled to secure stable work. Like many young Canadians, she’s battled underemployment, applying
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for jobs that make little use of her education just to make ends meet. “It makes for an awkward job interview when you have to address the discrepancy between your degree and the job you are interviewing for,” Ostrov tells HuffPost Canada via email. “It is unclear when applying for any given job whether you are under or over-qualified, whether your experience or university degrees are relevant.” Her parents paid for her first two years of university, and she then relied on loans to complete her degree. Since graduation, loan payments have become her most stressful expense. “I’ve always understood the reality of a loan, but I never anticipated how the struggle for consistent work would prolong the repayment process,” she says. Ostrov is merely one pixel in the picture of youth employment in Canada, as those between the ages of 15 and 24 continue to fight for jobs that older Canadians are increasingly hanging onto in the face of their own economic uncertainties. Canada’s economy has braved the global recession better than many others. But last year, 14.3 percent of Canadian youth were unemployed, up from 11.2 percent in 2007 and double the current national jobless rate of 7.2 percent, according to Statistics
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“YOU HAVE THIS MIND-BOGGLING AMOUNT OF DEBT, NOT REALLY KNOWING HOW OR WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO PAY IT OFF. YOU JUST ANTICIPATE THAT IT’S THIS DEBT YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” Canada. That amounts to the biggest gap between youth and adult unemployment rates since 1977. More Canadians are enrolled in post-secondary education today than ever before, yet a report this summer from CIBC, one of the country’s biggest banks, warned that youth unemployment is worsened by universities that keep churning out graduates with no job experience. “While more education is positive, increasingly, students are completing their education without any work experience and are more likely to be caught in the no job–no experience, and no experience–no job cycle,” said the study’s author, Benjamin Tal. Once they have a job, youth in Canada must also face the fact that due to seniority and experience differences they are twice as likely
as older counterparts to be laid off. After several periods of unemployment over the past five years — some stretching as long as seven months — Ostrov now works on a casual basis as a ward clerk at a hospital. But she says she plans to follow many of her friends nearly 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) west to Alberta in search of better opportunities. Her dream is to find a career that matches her skills, and combines her passion for politics with written communication. Her parents didn’t go to university, and she hopes to show them that her years in school were valuable. “It’s important to me that I apply my degree in the future,” she says, noting that her parents “took a risk with me that they never took for themselves as young adults.” That risk adds another layer to her worries and her aspirations. “I want to prove that it was worth it,” she says.
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THE RIGHT PUZZLE PIECE Damilola Odelola wants to be a writer, lecturer and educator. She envisions setting up workshops to talk about feminism, African literature, social justice and religion. She sees herself writing plays and poems that change people’s lives. But like hundreds of thousands of young people in Great Britain, Odelola, 21, has been forced to put such aspirations on hold given a chronically weak economy and rising university tuition costs. She is out of work. She was accepted at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and planned to pursue a master’s degree, but she had to defer her entry when fees skyrocketed. Instead, she’s trying to increase her profile through writing, blogging and taking on internships, while looking for a job that can keep her going while still letting her chase her dream. “I’m halfway between applying for anything and being picky,” she says. She fears being stuck in a job out of desperation. But she also fears being left with no job at all. In her borough, Lambeth, the 10 percent unemployment rate is
one of the highest in the capital, and far above the national average of 7.7 percent. Odelola searches online for media and education jobs, and she’s signed on with a recruitment agency. She receives a jobseeker’s allowance while she looks for work through her local Job Centre. It can be a grueling task, applying for job after job with little success, and too often without hearing back. But she strives to stay positive. “I’ve learned to understand that being rejected doesn’t mean I’m a failure, it just means that I wasn’t the right puzzle piece,” she says. “I’m a very hopeful person and I believe that everything happens for a reason, and the reason may not be clear now, but when it is I’ll look back and think, ‘Yeah,
Six years ago Italy’s then Minister of Economy, Tommaso PadoaSchioppa, called unemployed youths “bamboccioni,” or “big babies.”
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“I HAVE NO PLAN FOR THE FUTURE, NO LIFE PLAN; ALL THAT COUNTS IS STABILIZING MY SITUATION.” that needed to happen.’” She tries not to forget the sacrifices her family has made to help her during her unemployment. Her mother has taken time off from work to take her to seminars and financially supported her efforts to become a writer. “We rely on each other, and I am needed at home,” Odelola says. “But she has made it clear that if I need to go somewhere else in order to see the fruit of my aspiration, then she’ll be happy to send me on my way.” Her social life has been dented, but Odelola is grateful to have friends who understand and accommodate her situation. “I don’t really get hassled to come out all the time, unless it’s free,” she says. “And my really close friends will come to see me and bring me edible gifts, which is never a bad thing.” She rejects the “lazy youth” stereotype that has grown along with the ranks of Britain’s young and unemployed. “My generation is very active,”
she says. “We enjoy being busy and doing stuff, we have bred a lot of entrepreneurs and selfstarters. Many of us have begun building our own brands and making a name for ourselves, because nobody else will.” But she worries that youth unemployment is now so established that it has insinuated itself into the basic understanding of British reality. “You have to assume that unemployment and youth are not our government’s priority right now,” she says. “I do understand that it is also a sign of our economic times — we’ve been in like 22 recessions in the last three years, and it’s getting pretty ridiculous now. Nobody knows anything and we’re all just watching our economy crumble.” Peter Goodman and Chris Kirkham reported from New York, and Stanislas Kraland from Paris. With contributions from Rodrigo Carretero in Madrid, Mohamed Omar in Toronto, Charlie Lindlar in London, Flavio Bini in Rome and Jillian Berman in New York.
Meditation for the Modern Woman BY CATHERINE PEARSON
PREVIOUS PAGE: STIGUR KARLSSON/GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF WHITNEY FISCH
Throughout the day, Whitney Fisch takes moments to talk to herself. While washing the dishes or taking a shower, she practices mindfulness, describing how the soap smells and feels, and what the splashing water sounds like. In the grocery store, she talks about the foods she sees and sniffs. “Sometimes, people look at you like you’re a crazy person when you’re like, ‘I’m feeeeeeling this pepper. It’s red. It’s waxy,’” laughed the 33-year-old school counselor, who lives in Miami with her husband and their
1-year-old daughter. But the exercises, which Fisch’s therapist recommended, are beginning to provide relief from the anxiety she has battled for the better part of a decade — staying up nights, fretting: How am I going to
Whitney Fisch says mindfulness helped her deal with her anxiety and connect with her daughter.
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go to work for nine hours and take care of the baby? When am I going to have time to go to the grocery store? Increasingly, through her daily practice of meditation, Fisch is able to exert some control over those thoughts, recognizing them when they arise, and calmly telling them to go away. “It’s not the traditional idea of meditation of, ‘I’m sitting crosslegged on the floor, I clear my mind and I’m saying ‘Om’ for 20 minutes,” Fisch said. “When you work full-time, and you have a kid, you’re like, ‘Seriously? I don’t even have 20 minutes to work out. And I’m supposed to clear my mind?” Women are increasingly asking similar versions of those questions, as the ancient practice of meditation becomes more and more mainstream. The possibility that something so seemingly simple could help slash stress and affect broader markers of health is a tantalizing one, particularly at a time when 68 percent of women in the United States say that managing their stress is very important to them, but only 34 percent feel they’re succeeding. Still, it’s one thing to acknowledge meditation’s benefits, and another to make time for it on a daily basis
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amid the demands of work and family life. And so, more women are asking, how and when exactly this is supposed to happen. “I think a lot of women have no idea where to begin,” admitted Gabrielle Bernstein, author of May Cause Miracles, a guidebook offering small changes women can make day-to-day to promote happiness. “I think with something as
“ When you work full-time, and you have a kid, you’re like, ‘Seriously? I don’t even have 20 minutes to work out. And I’m supposed to clear my mind?’” simple as Googling ‘guided meditation’ you can get yourself there, or Googling ‘how to meditate.’” Indeed, while more formal, group study has benefits, it’s not necessary, echoed Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program. Women can turn to meditation books, tapes, classes, friends — or any combination thereof that they feel connected or drawn to, she said. As more people begin to consider meditation as a way to bring balance and calm to their lives, Salzberg says the most im-
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portant thing is to approach it not as something intimidating and exotic, but as an accessible, flexible practice that can fit into even the busiest life. “People tend to have such a strong tendency to punish themselves, and think, ‘Oh, I’m not doing this right, because I’m not sitting here in bliss every single moment’ ... or ‘I failed at this, because I couldn’t stop any thinking from happening.’ It’s those unrealistic expectations that really thwart us.” One of the strongest arguments for meditation is that it doesn’t need to be time-consuming. Bernstein, for example, believes just 60 seconds of focused stillness a day can produce profound changes in women’s lives — breathing in for five seconds, holding their breath for five seconds, and exhaling for five seconds. Salzberg recommends beginners meditate three times a week for five to 15 minutes, and work up to 20 minutes daily if possible, but she believes that what matters most is consistency. That’s a lesson Jillian Amodio, 23, a prolific freelance writer and stay-at-home mother with a 2-year-old daughter, took some time to learn. At 19, she was
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“ What is the purpose of this meditation? It’s not to get an hour in. It’s to get relaxed, and to re-center myself.” diagnosed with endometriosis — a painful condition that occurs when the tissue that lines a woman’s uterus grows elsewhere in her body. Amodio went so far as to have menopause temporarily induced, which relieved her pain for more than a year before it returned, at which point she began researching “alternative
Jillian Amodio meditates daily after putting her daughter down for her afternoon nap.
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“ People tend to have such a strong tendency to punish themselves, and think, ‘Oh, I’m not doing this right, because I’m not sitting here in bliss every single moment.’” healing” and took up a home yoga and meditation routine, piecing together elements from different videos and DVDs. (HuffPost is not advocating this approach, it is what Amodio tried.) Though she believes the practice has all but eliminated her pain, it took her several months to fight the sense that it was just another thing she was failing at. “I was just concentrating on the idea of, ‘If I’m going to do this right, I need to find an hour in my day, I need to find an hour in my day,’” Amodio said. “Some days, I would sit down and I’d start to do it, and I’d get five minutes in and I’d hear the baby crying on the monitor; some days, I’d sit down and say ‘I’m going to do my hour,’ and I’d think, but I’m so tired, I
just want to sleep.” But something clicked when she took a step back and asked herself, “What is the purpose of this meditation? It’s not to get an hour in. It’s to get relaxed, and to re-center myself.” Now, Amodio meditates daily after putting her daughter down for a late afternoon nap. She sits on a yoga mat or pillow in her living room with the windows thrown open to let in air and light, or with the blinds drawn, to create a sense of cozy calm. Other days, she goes out to the back deck of the Maryland home she shares with her husband. It faces the water, so she can sit and feel the breeze. Catherine Pearson is a senior reporter at The Huffington Post
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Do Dads B Really Need to Be in the Delivery Room? BY CATHERINE PEARSON
EFORE HIS DAUGHTER was born 14 months ago, Nathan Timmel teased his pregnant wife, Lydia Fine, telling her he would not step foot in the delivery room. “I thought, ‘It’ll be like the 1950s. I’ll be hanging out in a bar, not seeing anything gross,’” Timmel, a 43-year-old comedian, joked at the time.
Lydia Fine’s husband Nathan Timmel turned out to be ‘a rockstar’ during the delivery of their child.
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Exit But when Fine’s contractions started three weeks early, her husband was glued to her side, pressing her left leg back while she pushed and even peeking as the baby emerged — something he said he’d never do. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m literally looking at the grossest thing I’ll ever see,’ but I didn’t care,” Timmel said, laughing. “I was watching my child be born.” For Timmel, threatening to stay out of the delivery room turned out to be a bluff, but other dadsto-be say they long for the days when men got to skip the blood and the screaming and just show up when there was a clean, bundled baby to hold. For many American couples, it’s important — and expected — for the man to be fully present throughout the birth. But in some dark corners of the Internet, on blogs and forums, women confess that their squeamish significant others would prefer simply to stay in the waiting room. Are those partners the weak, outmoded black sheep of modern parenthood? Or has society gone too far in expecting all dads to be active participants — through labor, pushing, crowning — while giving them little clear guidance on why, exactly, they’re there?
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Throughout the early 20th century, American women gave birth at home with the help of female relatives, friends and midwives. “Men were completely not related,” said Ziv Eisenberg, a researcher with Yale University’s History Department. As hospital births took over, partners were confined to the waiting room, or “stork club” — because doctors and nurses didn’t want anyone bothering them. Having another person in
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New mom Lydia Fine rests in the hospital with newborn daughter Hillary in August 2012.
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the room also increased the risk of infection, said Eisenberg. It wasn’t until the mid-1960s and early 1970s, with the advent of second-wave feminism and Dr. Robert Bradley’s seminal book Husband-Coached Childbirth, that dads started to get involved. “In the 1930s, if your wife was in labor, it was okay for you to be at Yankee Stadium watching a game,” said Eisenberg. “Now, there’s a cultural expectation that husbands will be in the delivery room.” It might be an expectation, but there’s still relatively little guidance for fathers and partners. The tendency is to think that men should suck it up, because women do all the real work, said Elissa Stein, author of Don’t Just Stand There: How to Be Helpful, Clued-In, Supportive, Engaged,
Has society gone too far in expecting all dads to be active participants — through labor, pushing, crowning — while giving them little clear guidance on why, exactly, they’re there?
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Meaningful and Relevant in the Delivery Room. But, Steinberg said, this tendency is problematic. “The woman is often in pain and scared,” she said. “The partner’s never been through it, either.” While pregnant with her second baby, Stein put together a pamphlet for her husband, Jon, that eventually turned into her book. Her first birth was difficult. As doctors struggled to find the baby’s heartbeat, Jon stood to the side, panicked. Eventually he picked up the camera, hoping to be useful in some way. When Stein later saw the photos, she was horrified: “I was like, ‘OH MY GOD. You did not take that picture!’ But he did — a whole bunch of them, really intimate stuff,” she said. Dads aren’t dolts, Stein added, but
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Lawrence Scheer said witnessing his wife’s c-section was terrifying, but the procedure was successful.
Exit they don’t always know how to be a meaningful part of labor. Research suggests it’s important for partners to get guidance, especially after a difficult birth. When a team from Oxford University interviewed 10 men and one woman whose partners had experienced life-threatening complications during birth, they found that all of them were “deeply affected” by the experience, and at least one even experienced subsequent depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. “We are not suggesting that fathers should be less involved in childbirth, but [we are] calling for a greater awareness of the impact that these births can have on both the mother and the father,” said study researcher Lisa Hinton. Even increasingly routine scenarios can unnerve partners. Lawrence Scheer, 37, who co-founded Magnificent Baby (a clothing company) and who was not involved in the Oxford study, said he was “terrified” when his wife, Marina, was wheeled toward the operating room for a cesarean section seven months ago. “The whole time they’re down there cutting her up, and she’s moving — I could see her being jerked around by the
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cutting and poking and tearing,” he said. “It was pretty traumatic.” The most extreme voice in the “dads in the delivery room” debate is French obstetrician Dr. Michel Odent, who argues that men should not be in the delivery room — period. Odent published a research paper claiming that the presence of fathers, or men in general, during delivery limits a woman’s production of oxytocin,
I thought, ‘Wow, I’m literally looking at the grossest thing I’ll ever see,’ but I didn’t care. I was watching my child be born.” slowing labor and increasing the likelihood of cesarean delivery. But the evidence supporting that claim is scant at best, and most birthing experts disagree. “I think all partners should participate,” said Dr. Chavone Momon-Nelson, an OBGYN with the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “I don’t think you ever regret participating, but I do think you regret missing your child’s birth.” In nearly a decade on the job, Momon-Nelson has
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Exit never dealt with a partner outright refusing to be present during the birth, she said, but she has encountered partners whose apprehension is palpable. “Sometimes they have that glassy look in their eye, especially if it’s someone who gets a little nervous if they see blood,” she said. “I say, ‘If you’re feeling a little nervous, sit down, stay toward the head of the bed, because the overall experience will be there even if you don’t watch.’” Sometimes watching a partner give birth is too much for even the most enthusiastic dad-to-be. When his son, who is now 2 years old, was born, Drew Le, a 34-yearold music professor, was doing fine until the anesthesiologist appeared to administer the epidural. The physician took out the needle and tried to insert it into his wife’s back several times. “By the third poke, I was getting lightheaded,” Le said. “The anesthesiologist turned to me and said, ‘Lie down on the floor and close your eyes.’ So there I am, lying on the cold hospital room floor.” His laboring wife just laughed, he said. After he recovered from his wooziness, Le worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle the
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My adrenaline and excitement and love for my wife and that new, living creature overpowered any squeamishness I might have had.” birth itself, but the process ended up being “so fascinatingly beautiful,” he said. “My adrenaline and excitement and love for my wife and that new, living creature overpowered any squeamishness I might have had.” Several months ago, when his second baby was born, Le took some precautions. When the anesthesiologist came in, he left the room, returning only after the epidural was administered.
Drew Le knew to leave the room during the birth of his second child.
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THE THIRD METRIC
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This Is Your Body on Exercise
PHOTO: LONDONEYE/GETTY IMAGES, ILLUSTRATIONS: JAN DIEHM
BY SARAH KLEIN
WHETHER YOU DO it to lose weight, to reach a fitness goal or — dare we say it? — just for fun, exercise changes you. There’s the red face and the sweating, the pounding heart and pumping lungs, the boost to your alertness and mood, the previously nonexistent urges to talk about nothing but splits and laps and PBs. But while we all know that staying physically active is essential to a long, healthy, productive life, we don’t often understand exactly what’s happening behind the scenes. We asked the experts to take us through — from head to toe — what happens in the body when we exercise. Neuroscientist Judy Cameron, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Tommy Boone, Ph.D., a board certified exercise physiologist, and Edward Laskowski, M.D., co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center spill the beans on what gets and keeps you moving.
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Game-Day Snacks BY KRISTEN AIKEN
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N THE WORLD of frozen snacks, some score a touchdown and others are sacked harder than Joe Theismann. Now that football season is here, we don’t want you to disappoint your ravenous game-watching friends, so we’re here to help you separate the good from the bad in the world of game-day snacks. Being food editors, we tend to go a little overboard — caramelized onion dip, grilled sliders, fondue pots, all from scratch — but we know what’s really going on in the rest of America. In the land where food snobs don’t prevail, people want convenience. They want things frozen, and they want them microwaved. Well, this one’s for you guys. We rounded up a collection of all-natural, frozen game-time
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snacks that are meant for your microwave. Though it was tempting to include oven-baked snacks like mozzarella sticks and samosas, comparing microwaved and oven-baked food is like entering Honey Boo Boo as a contestant in the Miss Universe pageant. It’s just not fair. You may be wondering what “all-natural” means. It turns out, so is the rest of the world. Though there’s no legal definition of “allnatural,” the term is used in food labeling to imply that it’s minimally processed and doesn’t contain manufactured ingredients. There aren’t too many standards enforcing this label, but hey, we’ll take it. We averaged the votes of our tasters, helping you figure out which brands are worth buying and which brands you should avoid at all costs.
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TRADER JOE’S SPINACH & ARTICHOKE DIP
KIM & SCOTT’S PIZZA-FLAVORED SOFT PRETZELS
RED’S BUFFALO CHICKEN QUESADILLAS
TRADER JOE’S BLACK BEAN TAQUITOS
AMY’S CHEESE PIZZA POCKETS
365 EVERYDAY VALUE MINI CHEESE PIZZAS
TRADER JOE’S CHEESE AND GREEN CHILE TAMALES
SAFFRON ROAD CHICKEN BITES
TRADER JOE’S MINI BEEF TACOS
365 EVERYDAY VALUE BEEF TAQUITOS
SOL CUISINE TOFU RIBS
TRADER JOE’S MEATLESS CORN DOGS PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAMON DAHLEN
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MUSIC
HUFFINGTON 10.20.13
Dog Ears
In which we spotlight music from a diversity of genres and decades, lending an insider’s ear to what deserves to be heard. BY THE EVERLASTING PHIL RAMONE AND DANIELLE EVIN
MARIA CREUZA
CHRIS BELL
DIRTY PROJECTORS
Brazilian singer/percussionist Maria Creuza was born in Esplanada, Bahia, in 1944. Coming into fashion in the ’60s and ’70s, her swinging bossa beat took Japan, France, and her homeland by storm. Collaborations include Antônio Carlos Pinto, Toquinho, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and Dori Caymmi. Accolades include best song interpretation at the 1969 University Festival in Rio and best song runnerup at the II World Festival of Popular Music in Tokyo in 1972. Creuza’s sound has influenced many of today’s pop plenipotentiaries, and she continues to perform in Brazil and Europe. Catch her ever-elegant duet with Vinicius de Moraes, “Canto de Ossanha,” from their 1970 release Vinicius de Moraes.
Songwriter/singer Chris Bell was born in Memphis just before the Elvis invasion. As a tween, he caught the rock-’n’-roll bug, becoming a local-scene stalwart. Bell’s dedication landed him a chair in the Jynx as guitarist. Soon after, he joined Big Star (subject of the 2013 documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me) with Alex Chilton, co-penning most of the band’s hits. Bell exited Big Star in 1972 for a solo career, during which he produced a spectral body of work, only to never see his success realized, as he tragically perished in a car wreck in 1978 at the age of 27. The Flaming Lips and This Mortal Coil have graced his titles. Remember Chris Bell with “I Am the Cosmos,” from his posthumously released collection I Am the Cosmos. Get full album.
Brooklyn-based experimental artrock unit Dirty Projectors, founded in the early aughts, is headed by musical director Dave Longstreth. The ensemble exists as an everevolving carousel of musical muses, and has collaborated with Björk and David Byrne. Current lineup includes Amber Coffman (vocals, guitar), Haley Dekle (vocals), Nat Baldwin (bass), Olga Bell (vocals, keyboards), and Michael Johnson (drums). Dirty Projectors’ ear-magnet way is high on imagination and morphing melodies. With a dozen-plus releases, start with “The Bride,” from their 2009 album Bitte Orca.
TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Brazilian Pop/World ARTIST: Maria Creuza SONG: Canto de Ossanha ALBUM: Vinicius de Moraes
TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Rock ARTIST: Chris Bell SONG: I Am the Cosmos ALBUM: I Am the Cosmos
TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Alternative ARTIST: Dirty Projectors SONG: The Bride ALBUM: Bitte Orca
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MUSIC
BULGARIAN STATE MARK NEIKRUG RADIO & TELEVISION FEMALE VOCAL CHOIR Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir (a.k.a. Bulgarian State Female Vocal Choir) is a transcendent troupe of celestial voices. The sound is nothing less than mystical. Founded in the age of Stalin, the choir’s mission was to elevate the legacy of Bulgarian folk music and its rich Ottoman/ Byzantine imperial heritages. Their first album, the brainchild of producer Marcel Cellier, was released in 1975, at the height of the Cold War. Then in 1989, as communism fell, the ensemble won a Grammy for best folk album. Bulgarian State Female Vocal Choir has even collaborated with English nightingale Kate Bush. The title “Kalimankou Denkou” (The Evening Gathering), from the 1989 album Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares, lives in the upper stratosphere of brilliant. TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Vocal ARTIST: Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir SONG: Kalimankou Denkou (The Evening Gathering) ALBUM: Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares
Classical maestro, pianist, and conductor Marc Neikrug, a fourthgeneration musician, was born in New York City to cellist parents. Neikrug is the only American composer to be commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Los Alamos), and his opera Through Roses is an acclaimed study of the Holocaust. His works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra. Collaborations include Zubin Mehta, Loren Maazel, Jaqueline Du Pre, Lynn Harrell, Chick Corea, and David Zinman. Highlights include three ASCAP awards, a Golden Bear, and the Charlie Rose show. In his 17th season leading the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Neikrug has added a symposium “Music, the Brain, Medicine, and Wellness” and most recently recorded an eightpart CD series based on Native American ritual titled Healing Ceremony, graced by Susan Graham and the New Mexico Symphony, commissioned for the dedication of the University of New Mexico Cancer Center. With over 30 releases to collect, rediscover “Duo for Violin and Piano: Senza Misura,” from the 2007 collection Neikrug, featuring the Hessischer Rundfunk Orchestra and Pinchas Zukerman. TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Classical ARTIST: Marc Neikrug SONG: Due for Violin and Piano: Senza Misura ALBUM: Neikrug
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JACK NITZSCHE Illustrious composer, songwriter, producer, pianist, and arranger Jack Nitzsche was born in Chicago in 1937. Nitzsche began his professional career working as Sonny Bono’s copyist. As protégé of Phil Spector, he was integral to the creation of the legendary “Wall of Sound.” Famous for his work with Neil Young, his credits include The Rolling Stones, The Monkees, and The Ronettes. The soundsmith contributed music to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. In 1975, Nitzsche received an Academy Award nomination for his score of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and won the best-song Oscar for “Up Where We Belong,” from the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman. Nitzsche’s 1963 instrumental hit “The Lonely Surfer” from the Rhino Hi-Five: Jack Nitzsche–EP is a milestone of Top 40 history. TAP HERE TO BUY: iTunes.com GENRE: Rock/Instrumental ARTIST: Jack Nitzsche SONG: The Lonely Surfer ALBUM: Rhino Hi-Five: Jack Nitzsche–EP
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LORI ADAMSKI PEEK/GETTY IMAGES (CAT); DAVID JONES/GETTY IMAGES (OIL DRILLERS); CARL COURT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (GULF COUNTRIES); MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES (COLUMNIST); BACKYARD BRAINS (COCKROACH)
Fat Pets Are a Growing Problem in America
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Oil Drillers Are Getting Unfair Access to National Parks During the Shutdown
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GULF COUNTRIES ACTUALLY WANT TO PERFORM TESTS TO ‘DETECT’ GAYS
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Newspaper Columnist Compares Obamacare to the Fugitive Slave Act
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Cyborg Cockroaches Are Now a Thing
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PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES (BULLFIGHTING); DNY59/GETTY IMAGES (SYRINGE); PAGADESIGN/ GETTY IMAGES (MONEY); MELHI/GETTY IMAGES (OIL); AFP PHOTO/ERIC FEFERBERG (FRENCH MP)
Bullfighting in Spain Will Be Aired After-School in Primetime, When Kids Can See It
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The ‘Most Horrifying Drug in the World’ Is Spreading Fast
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REMEMBER THE 1 PERCENT? THEY HOLD 46 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S WEALTH.
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Cooking Oil Sold in Four Provinces in China Was Made of Gutter Waste
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French MP Makes Clucking Noise at Female Colleague
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