So where does all of this extra salt come from? According to Heart Healthy Magazine, “Roughly 10 percent of the salt in our diet comes from the salt we add ourselves (the salt we season with while cooking or sprinkle at the table) and 10 percent is naturally occurring. The vast majority of salt—amounting to about 80 percent of daily intake—comes from processed foods. Salt is added to processed foods to achieve a (very salty) taste profile. In many situations adding salt is what makes cheap, un-tasty food palatable. Salt also is added for stability and preservation reasons. But the amount of salt added is clearly above and beyond what’s required for the safety and function of the food supply. The simple math leads to the conclusion that going easy with the salt shaker is hardly going to put a dent in the unhealthy amount of salt in the typical American diet. It’s also hard to trust our taste buds when salt is involved. Some foods taste quite salty because the salt is on the surface, while other sodium-saturated dishes don’t taste salty at all because other flavors and textures (namely, lots of fat and sugars) cover up the salt.”

You can add great flavor to any of your dishes without salt. Here are just a few suggestions and alternatives to your meals. Getting active is another great way to keep your heart strong. Grab some friends and head to the park. Not only is this a great way to get your heart pumping (safely and within your limits), but you can also catch up on the latest gossip, a great stress reliever! President Obama has proclaimed February as American Heart Month. February 5, 2010 was National Wear Red Day, I hope you all wore red to show your support. But wearing red to show your support is not limited to one day a year. Wear red and share your ideas and tips with everyone, everywhere.

2.Get up and do something! Go for a walk and check out your neighborhood, window shop at the mall, take your dog for a jog at the park or join a gym and take advantage of their exercise classes. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you do, just get active. Get your heart pumping for at least 45 minutes each day.

3.Everyone needs time to wind down, especially after a stressful day. Find a hobby! Try learning to play a new instrument, cooking an unfamiliar dish, knitting, bird watching…etc. The possibilities are endless!

4.Laugh and smile! Laughing increases the levels of endorphins in your body making you less stressed and with a healthier immune system. Pop in a funny movie that will get you laughing in no time. Studies have shown that with just 15 minutes of laughter (even fake laughter) will burn 10 to 40 calories, depending on weight. Ever heard of laughter yoga? Pretty interesting.

5.Be positive. Living your life with the, “Why me?” attitude will only weigh you down. Life is a beautiful and precious thing. Don’t sweat the small stuff! Instead of questioning yourself and your self worth, question what you can do to make it better? There is always room for improvement.

6.Cut out the toxins – smoking, drugs and excessive alcohol consumption.

7.Adopt a pet! I can’t think of another way to get active. Pets are wonderful and loyal companions and they will show you unconditional love 24/7. Plus, you will always have an excuse to get out of the house to take them for walk. It’s a win-win situation!

8.Avoid these 5 ingredients as much as possible.

9.Track your ticker! 8.6 million women die from heart disease each year, worldwide. Get your blood pressure checked regularly and follow a heart healthy diet. Just by reducing your sodium intake and exercising everyday, you are on your way to a healthier heart.

10.Get those ZzzZzz! Try to sleep 6-8 hours every night. Everyone is busy, but your body needs time to recharge. By getting the recommended hours of sleep you will feel refreshed and energized in the morning. This will set your mood for the whole day.

“Austin, Texas, Dec. 20, 2000: “Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.” (Source: Treehugger)

Washington, D.C. March 13, 2001: “There are some monuments where the land is so widespread, they just encompass as much as possible. And the integral part of the–the precious part, so to speak–I guess all land is precious, but the part that the people uniformly would not want to spoil, will not be despoiled. But there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment.” (Source: Slate)

Washington, D.C., January 6, 2009: “The new steps I’ve announced today are the capstone of an eight-year commitment to strong environmental protection and conservation.” Check out this interesting graphic from the Natural Resources Defense Council illustrating the last eight years in environmental policy…

New Delhi, India, Mar. 2, 2006 “Obviously, nu-que-lar power is, uh, a renewable source of energy, and the less demand there is for non-renewable sources of energy, like fossil fuels, the better it off it is for the American people.” Well, he got the second part right, but nuclear energy produced from uranium is, uh, not renewable as far as we know… (Source: Treehugger)

Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005: “We’re spending money on clean coal technology. Do you realize we’ve got 250 million years of coal?” (Source: Slate)

Michigan, September 2000, explaining his energy policies: “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” (Source: AP)

A Freudian slip made while addressing Australian Prime Minister John Howard at the APEC Summit, Sept. 7, 2007: “Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit.”

And a bonus: “[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system.”

While we’re talking about W, let’s give him a little help to pack up his junk at the Whitehouse. He needs to clear out for Obama. Click here: Help Bush Pack

The innovative Fellowes SB-87CS with Safe Sense Technology features an active sensor that stops shredding immediately when paper entry is touched. Designed for frequent shredding needs, the Fellowes Powershred SB-87CS delivers a high level of performance that’s ideal for small business or home office use. This heavy-duty personal shredder reduces documents to higher security confetti particles, and shreds up to 15 sheets per pass, 50-100 times per day, for a total daily capacity as high as 1,500 sheets. Equipped with a 9-inch wide front feed paper entry, the SB-87CS easily accepts standard letter or legal-size documents. SB87CS shreds CDs in a designated safety slot and the durable steel cutters also accept credit cards, staples and small paper clips. Electronic auto start/stop ensures quick & easy automatic shredder operation. Shredder automatically shuts off and alerts operator when a jam occurs, door is ajar or 7-gallon pullout wastebasket is full. Sheet capacity gauge helps prevent paper jams. Door offers convenient holder for oil, manual and shredder bags. Cabinet-style stand includes casters for portable ease.

Note: You can also throw this into your kitty’s litter box for extra absorption.

Get your Fellowes Powershred Sheet Confetti Cut Shredder now

Read the full article at alternet

Listen to samples of this CD now

For example, you hang out with, lets call this friend Patrisha, and while she is smart and fun and everything, there have been just too many instances where she just pisses you off. This happens over and over during the course of your friendship. She upsets you because she does selfish things that just caters to her own needs. Say, you’re out at a park with her and you both meet some very sweet, cute guys. For some bizarre reason, she dominates the conversation always and she makes sure you don’t get to spend more time with the guy you’re interested in, and who’s trying to get to know you better. She basically sabotages your opportunity to explore this new friendship with him because…who knows why.

She is, in fact, not interested in him; she simply doesn’t want you to see him.

Say also, for instance, that she meets some people who have the same interests as you do. She talks incessantly about them and when you ask if you can contact them because they seem to be in “your world,” she ignores you and avoids subjects where you will get to have contact with them.

Each time she does something that upsets you, you fluff it off and try to forget about it, but without a doubt, it happens again and again. You want to like her but she makes it so difficult to feel positive about her.

Yes. We’ve all met people like this. They are simply SELFISH opportunists. I’m not going to get into why that type of person is the way they are; that is futile.

The question is: why do you want to hang out with this kind of person?

The ole cliche goes, “Life’s too short….” right? I agree. It is. While some people will find forgiveness in their hearts over and over again, I tend to prefer to walk away from that situation. That is perfectly OK to do. Really. Otherwise, it causes unnecessary hurt and stress. Why would you continually subject yourself to this destructive element in your life. It’s not worth it. It will only manifest in illness. Just walk away and learn from the situation.

You should surround yourself with loving, TRUE friends. You deserve to be around good people so don’t feel badly if you must say goodbye to this “friend.” Life IS too short to waste on serial selfish people.

“Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California signed a bill banning trans fats in restaurant food, making California the first U.S. state to ban the use of the cooking oils linked to artery-clogging cholesterol.

The new law, modeled after a ban implemented in New York City, prohibits the use of partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats, by the state’s 87,000 restaurants beginning in 2010 and in all baked goods sold in the state starting in 2011.

Trans fats, found in processed and fried food, candies and cookies, are vegetable oils that are treated with hydrogen to extend the shelf life of products. The oils have been linked to LDL cholesterol that clogs the arteries. New York began a ban on trans fats in all restaurants in December 2006.

“Consuming trans fat is linked to coronary heart disease, and today we are taking a strong step toward creating a healthier future for California,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

Diets high in trans fats increase the risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, according the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Web site.

Restaurant companies including McDonald’s and KFC already use cooking oils in the U.S. that are free of trans fats.”

When she was a child, people thought Lorna was retarded because she did not seem to be focussing on the world around her. Lorna remembers seeing not just the world around her but seeing equally vividly angels and spirits. For many years she assumed everyone saw the same.

As Lorna tells the story of her life, growing up in a poor family, later working in Dublin, marrying and experiencing family tragedy, the reader meets, as she did, the creatures from the spirit worlds who also inhabit our own – mostly angels of an astonishing beauty and variety – including the prophet Elijah and an Archangel- but also the spirits of people who have died.

Today, it is not only the sick and troubled who come to visit Lorna, looking for healing and consolation, but theologians of different faiths and the head of a religious order in Rome are asking her for guidance too.

This remarkable document is the testimony of a woman who sees things at the far end of the spectrum, beyond the range of our everyday experience.

More about Angels in my Hair

PALENQUE, Mexico (AP) — North American Indians assembled in the shadow of ancient Mayan pyramids Monday discussed how their tradition wisdom could help save the planet, and were told that even indigenous cultures have struggled with environmental abuse.
More than 200 leaders from 71 American Indian nations in Mexico, the United States and Canada came together in this Mexican jungle to find indigenous solutions to pollution and ecological problems threatening the planet.
“Our Mother Earth is being polluted at an alarming rate, and our elders say that she is dying,” said Raymond Sensmeier, a Tlingit leader from Yakutat, Alaska. “The way the weather is around the world … a cleansing is needed.”
The conference began with a pre-dawn ceremony that included fire, copal incense, chants in Lacandon Maya and blasts from a conch shell.
Speakers reminded attendees that even Indian cultures have battled with environmental abuse and pointed to theories that deforestation contributed to the collapse of the Maya who built the temples at Palenque.
“As we stand here, very near Palenque, I am mindful that some scholars have suggested that environmental stressors contributed to the decline of the Mayan civilization,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Elin Miller. “The planet-wide stress on the environment today means that collaborative efforts … are not just good things. They may well be essential for our survival.”
But, as Bill Erasmus, a representative of the indigenous people of Canada’s Northwest Territories noted, “part of our role is to wake up the world. It is very obvious to us all that the climate is changing.”
Mexico’s environment secretary, Juan Elvira Quesada, said the gathering is meant “to present the teachings of the original peoples of North America.”
“In this way, the indigenous communities can become the natural guides to restoring balance and harmony in the world,” he said.
The lessons they have to teach are simple – based on reviving Indian notions about ownership, use, compensation and respect.
“I sometimes talk to scientists,” said Sensmeier, “and they compartmentalize things, put things in boxes and disconnect them, and doing so promotes disharmony and imbalance.”

“A 101-year-old man has his sights on the London Marathon in a bid to become the world’s oldest competitive runner.
Working plumber Buster Martin ran Sunday’s Roding Valley half marathon in Essex in five hours 13 minutes, and is now focusing on London’s 26-mile event.

On finishing the run, the first words of the ex-member of rock band The Zimmers were: “Where’s my beer?”

Mr Martin, who has 17 children, started work at Pimlico Plumbers in London three years ago because he was bored.

He drank a tankard of ale before signing autographs and chatting to fans near the finish line of the Essex race.

‘A revelation’

Charlie Mullins, managing director of Pimlico Plumbers, said he was “amazed” when Mr Martin appeared at work on Monday morning after his exertions.

He said: “I was amazed and delighted, he turned up on time and set to work polishing the vans. He’s a revelation.”

Mr Martin’s trainer is marathon enthusiast Harmander Singh, who helped Fauja Singh, 96, break the London marathon record for the over-90s.

Buster, who lives in London, made headlines last year when …”

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“Most Utah consumers want to know what’s in their food and how it is produced. Some prefer vegetables and fruit that are grown without pesticides, and milk and meat that are produced with no growth hormones.
Food grown under those conditions and other federally mandated standards can be labeled “certified organic.” with a description of the required production standards.
That’s not to say non-organic food is unsafe or inferior. The two are simply produced differently, and consumers have a fundamental right to make a choice. To do that, they have to have the information contained on food labels. But a Utah House member who is also a non-organic dairy farmer wants to restrict labeling for organic foods, keeping important information out of the hands of consumers.
Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-Ogden, says that labeling milk as having been produced without the use of the bovine growth hormone rBST is “misleading” and implies that non-organic products are not as safe as those labeled organic.
That’s bunk. And self-serving bunk at that.
Gibson and others, including Monsanto, the company that produces rBST and makes a lot of money selling it to farmers, are proposing a Utah Agriculture Department rule change. The new rule would prohibit milk being labeled “rBST-free” or any food labels or ads that make any claim, true or otherwise, that can’t be proven by an “analytical test.”
That’s bunk, too.
The label “Made in Utah” would be prohibited, since such a claim cannot be verified by an analytical test. A sentence on a soup can reading “just the right herbs and spices in a flavorful broth” would have to be verified by an analytical test.
The rule would allow milk to be labeled…”

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James is passionate about eco homes and deeply proud of the cottage, which huddles by a loch near Dumfries. His kitchen is made from a cedar that blew over in a Glasgow park. His sink came from a skip. To one side is a Moroccan marbled shower room, to the other are sofas and a log-burning stove. He sleeps in a galleried bedroom. A compost loo and rainwater filtration system complete the picture.

The total cost:…”

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Will a TV show be canceled because it features an attorney who successfully argues that a mercury-containing flu vaccine caused autism in one kid?

On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics will release the contents of a foreboding letter sent last week to ABC/Disney executives, demanding they cancel the January 31 premiere of a new legal drama series, Eli Stone, because it features a family attorney who successfully argues in court that a mercury-containing flu vaccine caused autism in one child.

The letter, signed by AAP President Renee Jenkins, borders on near-hysteria over a fictional television entertainment. It ominously warns that ABC “will bear responsibility for the needless suffering and potential deaths of children from parents’ decisions not to immunize based on the content of the episode.”

Dr. Jenkins calls on ABC to cancel the episode but, anticipating a refusal, urges executives to run a disclaimer that “no scientific link exists between vaccines and autism,” if the offending network “persists” in airing the show.

I share the AAP’s concern that parents should not be driven away from protecting their children from dangerous, even deadly diseases. But parents are far too smart to base such an important decision as immunization on the “content of the episode” of a single drama on broadcast television.

In fact, if I were Dr. Jenkins, I would be far more concerned about real news happening in the real world — events that not only suggest the possibility of some sort of link between mercury, vaccines and autism, but might alarm parents more than any fictional account written for ratings-grabbing mass entertainment.

If I were Dr. Jenkins, instead of fretting over a fake family engaged in a mock trial held in a make-believe court on some LA soundstage, I would be up at night wondering why the Federal Government recently conceded a real vaccine-autism lawsuit in a real court and will soon pay a real (taxpayer-funded) settlement to a real American family and a very real child with autism….

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1. Be present – I don’t just mean be there in attendance, I mean make yourself fully present in a mindful way. A “present” state of mind will mean that you are focused on the now. You are committed to the present moment and that means that when you’re interacting with people, you are more absorbed in what they are saying right now. You need to be present to be a good manager or employee. You give meaning and purpose to those around you. In business, if you are “present” you will usually get what you need. If you aren’t present, you miss your task or you miss what someone is saying – and those things could be very important.

2. Give full attention to your activities – This is also a state of mindfulness. Concentrating on tasks gives meaning to that task. It helps you get your task done in an efficient way because you are focused on it, even on the smallest task – This activity requires very focused attention and when you are mindful of your concentration to your work, you cannot be more efficient with your task. This ends up with the best work you can offer.

3. Make sure your state of mind is optimal before entering a meeting – This point is very important. How can you assess your state of mind? Before your meeting, go to a quiet place so you can determine your state of mind. You need to be aware of what is happening and how you feel; you need to be in a state of mind where your emotions are calm and positive. You should be in a positive state but if you’re not, try to divert your negative feelings and thoughts aside by focusing your thoughts on happy, wonderful things. Words are powerful, so say to yourself, “I am calm, positive and will have an efficient, productive meeting.”

4. Be aware of your relationships with colleagues – Say, for instance, you are a manager and you don’t get along with your employee. Figure out why, and try to change it to a more positive relationship. Once you can see possibilities of problematic issues between the two of you, you can go from there. If you are mindful, you will realize the weaknesses, the conflicts and the differences in personalities. These things shouldn’t prevent you from having a decent relationship. When you are mindful and fully aware of all aspects involved in employee/manager relationships, you can work it out so that you have the relationship that is necessary to have an efficient and happy office environment. Listen to your colleagues and employees and be in the present. Give them value and value what they have to offer. Try to understand where they’re coming from. The results of this behavior will astound you.

5. Laugh – Try not to take yourself so seriously. Have fun when you can. While laughing and goofing around may not be appropriate for some circumstances, at the right moments, it’s the best thing an office can have for morale.

6. Know Yourself – Knowing yourself helps you to make the right choices about how you respond to people and situations.

All know the Way, but few actually walk it.

If you don’t find a teacher soon, you’ll live this life in vain. It’s true, you have the buddha-nature. But without the help of a teacher you’ll never know it. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help.

If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn’t need a teacher. Such a person has a natural awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you’re so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you’ll understand.

About Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma was born in Kanchi in the Southern Indian kingdom of Pallava around year 440. At the instruction of Prajnatara he travelled to China by ship and arrived around 475. He is associated with the Shaolin temple, and is honored as the founder of kung fu. He is also credited with bringing tea to China. He is said to have cut off his eyelids to stay awake in meditiation, and so is usually depicted with bulging eyes. He is also credited with bringing Zen to China, even though he had few disciples in his lifetime.

From Slacker Manager:

“It’s that time of year again when most companies have holiday parties, which means most managers have to make an appearance and show their best side, at least for a few minutes. Being an office holiday party veteran, and having not always been as savvy about things as I am now, I thought I’d share my tips for surviving the holiday party. Share your favorite tips, or horror stories, in the comments section.

1. Moderation is the key – Don’t eat too much, don’t drink too much, and for heaven’s sake, don’t dance too much. Just be moderate and have a little bit of everything. Pukers are losers, so keep the amount of everything you do in moderation. If you’re even a little sick, be especially careful. A few year’s back I went to a holiday party and was sick, had a few too many appetizers, and wretched my guts out for over an hour. Oddly, I haven’t been invited to join that group for another event. I wonder why. NOT!
2. Fred Flintstone Can Dance at a Christmas Party! Smile at everyone – Nobody likes an office grump especially not at the holiday party. Take some time and smile and folks and folks will smile at you.
3. Give thanks – Think about your interactions over the past year with the person you’re standing next to. Did you work with them? Did they help you out? Did they win an associate of the month award? Anything specific is great, but even a nice “Thanks for all your help this year” goes a long way to building a great relationship for next year. Every year I make time to find the folks that help my team and me the most and to remind folks how much I appreciate their help…”

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