Margot's News & Views

Life as a Conscious Practice

Margot B News — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:09:27 +0000

‘Everything is practice.’ ~Pele

Post written by Leo Babauta.

When we learn a martial art, or ballet, or gymnastics, or soccer … we consciously practice movements in a deliberate way, repeatedly. By conscious, repeated practice, we become good at those movements.

Our entire lives are like this, but we’re often less conscious of the practice.

Each day, we repeat movements, thought patterns, ways of interacting with others … and in this repeated practice, we are becoming (or have already become) good at these things. If you constantly check Facebook or Twitter, that is practice, and you are forming that habit, though it’s usually not with too much awareness.

When you smoke, or eat junk food, or speak rudely to others, or put yourself down internally, this is something you are practicing to be good at. You may already be good at these things.

What if, instead, we practiced consciously, deliberately, and became good at the things we really want to be good at?

What if you first, above all skills, learned to be more aware of what you are practicing? What if constant conscious action is the skill you became good at?

If you could learn to take conscious action, you could learn to practice other things you want to be good at, rather than the ones you don’t.

What Are You Practicing?

Ask yourself these things throughout the day, to practice conscious action:

Do I want to practice rushing through my morning, or can I wake a little earlier and simplify my morning routine so that I practice a slow, enjoyable morning ritual?
Do I want to practice checking my inboxes when I first get to my computer, or can I do something better?
Do I want to practice leaving dirty dishes out, or can I practice washing my bowl when I’m done with it?
Do I want to practice leaving clothes strewn about, or papers lying on the counter, or can I take a few seconds to put them where they belong?
Do I want to speak angrily to my kids or spouse, or can I speak to them with kindness and compassion?
Do I want to practice complaining and self-pity, or can I practice gratitude?
Do I want to practice rushing and being busy, or can I practice simplifying and going slowly?
Do I want to practice eating fried foods, sugary foods, salty junk food snacks, fast foods … or can I practice eating whole foods, vegetables and fruits, nuts and beans and seeds?
Do I want to practice surfing time-wasting sites, or can I practice clearing away distractions and creating?
Do I want to practice watching mindless entertainment, or can I practice moving my body and exerting myself in activity?
Do I want to practice smoking, or can I learn a healthier way to deal with stress?
Do I want to practice shopping, or can I practice giving?

These are only examples … your life will show you what you’ve been practicing, and you can decide what you might rather practice instead. Or you might be completely happy with what you’ve been practicing.

Some ideas for creative practice from Ali Edwards.

How to Practice

The first step is always awareness. When you are conscious of what you are doing, you can decide whether this is an action or thought pattern you want to practice, or if there’s an alternative you’d rather be good at.

As you go through your day, practice this awareness. It’s the first skill, and it’s the most important one. Be aware, without feeling guilty or angry at yourself, of what you’re doing and thinking. You will forget to to this, but remind yourself. You might wear a rubber band around your wrist, or carry a talisman, or make tally marks on a slip of paper each time you remember.

As you get good at conscious action, start to practice those actions and thought patterns you want to be good at. Start to notice the ones you’d really rather not be good at, and see if you can deliberately practice other actions and thought patterns.

As you consciously, deliberately repeat these things, you’ll get better at them. It takes a lot of repetition to get good at a skill, but you’ve got time.

Important Conclusions

You won’t be able to change all your habits at once, and I’m not implying that you should try. The habit you’re really changing is consciousness, and practice. Other habits will be difficult to change, especially if you’re trying to change all of them, but it’s OK if you mess up. Give yourself permission to make mistakes without guilt, and instead just deliberately practice again, and again.

If something is too hard, and you can’t get it right no matter how many times you practice, you can try it in smaller steps. If you can’t quit smoking, try not smoking once, and instead relieving stress through walking or doing some pushups or meditation or self-massage. If you can’t quit junk food, just replace one snack with a fruit, or add a tasty veggie to your dinner.

I’d like to emphasize that this isn’t about perfection. There is no perfect way of life, and you don’t need to strive to be perfect every moment of the day. I believe you’re already perfect. This is just about conscious action, which is a useful skill to have.

Remember that we become good at what we repeatedly do, and what we do repeatedly can be done consciously. It’s when we’re conscious that we are truly alive.

‘If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.’ ~Dalai Lama

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Honeybee problem nearing a ‘critical point’

Margot B News — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:55:16 +0000

guardian.co.uk,

Unusual honeybee die-offs have become so severe that some US beekeepers will qualify for disaster relief funds

Claire Thompson for Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network

The state of honeybees is ‘inching… toward a critical tipping point’, says beekeeper Steve Ellis. Photograph: Will Sanders

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 January 2012 15.25 GMT

The state of honeybees is ‘inching… toward a critical tipping point’, says beekeeper Steve Ellis. Photograph: Will Sanders

Anyone who’s been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by placing the more than 70 crops they pollinate — from almonds to apples to blueberries — in peril.

Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

“We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point,” said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he’ll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD — a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind — bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.

“In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in what’s going on,” said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are
used to treat seeds, so that they’re absorbed by the plant’s vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today’s genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don’t like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen
as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, “The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from.” These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees’ habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops’ production — a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that “we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry.” In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for example, he knows that “if I spray, I’m going to kill all the beneficial insects.” But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg’s awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser — who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.

Beekeepers have already teamed up with groups representing the almond and blueberry industries — both of which depend on honey bee pollination — to tackle the need for education among farmers. “A lot of [farm groups] are recognizing that we need more resources devoted to pollinator protection,” Ellis said. “We need that same level of commitment on a national basis, from our USDA and EPA and the agricultural chemical industry.”

Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists’ clear warnings about the chemicals’ effects on bees and other pollinators. That doesn’t bode well for the chances of getting neonics off the market now, even in light of the Purdue study’s findings.

“The agency has, in most cases, sided with pesticide manufacturers and worked to fast-track the approval of new products, and failed in cases when there’s clear evidence of harm to take those products off the market,” Towers
said.

Since this is an election year — a time when no one wants to make Big Ag (and its money) mad — beekeepers may have to suffer another season of losses before there’s any hope of action on the EPA’s part. But when one out of every three bites of food on Americans’ plates results directly from honey bee pollination, there’s no question that the fate of these insects will determine
our own as eaters.

Ellis, for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee crisis could be a catalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. “If we can protect that pollinator base, it’s going to have ripple effects … for wildlife, for human health,” he said. “It will bring up subjects that need to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water — all the connected subjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture.”

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Supply Chain Breakdowns In The News & Last Minute Christmas

Margot B News — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:31:41 +0000

by David Morris on December 15, 2011

Welcome to this week’s Urban Survival Newsletter.

With the threat of yet another Government shut down over spending playing out like a Kabuki dance in Washington, I thought you’d find this ‘serious spoof’ informative… As you watch it, know that it’s not real, but it could be all too soon:
http://www.surviveinplace.com/a/spoofspeech

This week’s issue is going to be a quick but important one. The last week has given us a few major examples of why it’s so vital for every family in America to take practical steps to prepare themselves for breakdowns in supply chains.

-On Monday, Verizon sent emergency text messages to customers, telling them to “take shelter now” in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties in New Jersey. The message said it was from the US Government. (Actually, U.S. Govern) It was an accident. It was supposed to be a test, but evidently somebody forgot to include that minor detail. Call me cyincal, but it seems like this system could easily be hacked and manipulated…kind of like the nationwide coordinated Emergency Broadcast System.

-Also on Monday, Occupy protestors shut down operations at ports in Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon, and Longview, Washington. I’m sure this hurt some big evil corporation in some way, but the biggest things that it did was take money out of dock workers paychecks at Christmas time and highlighted this weakness in our infrastructure. I hope they’re proud of themselves.

Similar to what Todd Gitlin, a sociologist at Columbia University has said, it appears as if we’re on a course where Occupy protests will become more targeted, more militant, and more disruptive.

-On Tuesday, a rumor was spread that Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz, causing oil to spike as much as 3.6% before the rumor was dispelled. Roughly 1/3 of the world’s oil supply goes through the Strait of Hormuz and alternate routes are considerably more expensive.

One of the interesting things about this is that the rumor started because Parviz Sarvari, a member of Iran’s Parliament who is on Iran’s National Security Committee said, “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.”

So, the good news is that the Strait wasn’t actually closed, but the bad news is that Iran wants to practice how to close it and isn’t opposed to instability in the region.

-And, a couple of weeks ago, one of the big news stories in Texas was that new government regulations are causing so much power generation capacity to be taken offline that Texans should EXPECT rolling blackouts starting in 2012 and going through at least 2017. With the current mass business/manufacturing/job migration to Texas, it’s looking like there’s no cheap and easy way out of this mess.

-Add to that the National Defense Authorization Act that allows for the indefinite detention of US Citizens (even in the US) based on whatever set of criteria the current administration hands down, and we really are living in bizarre times. On one hand, we’re telling other countries that they need to immediately cease indefinite detentions without evidence or trial and we’re passing legislation that allows it here.

What’s all this mean?

One of the big lessons in these seemingly disparate stories is how vulnerable our way of life is from almost every direction.

Bureaucratic inefficiency, socialists bent on overthrow, extremists half way around the globe, and power hungry politicians are all factors that could completely disrupt our (relatively) cheap supply of food, water, fuel, & ability to heat our homes overnight.

These aren’t crazy conspiracies cooked up by people with too much time on their hands—they’re events that are unfolding in real time as we speak that are being covered by the entire political spectrum in every form of media.

Oftentimes, it seems like we’ve got so many threats that are so huge in nature that there’s nothing that we can do. Truth be told, there’s not much that an individual person can do about what Iran does, what businesses Occupy disrupts, what regulations create energy shortages, or about most major threats.

What you can do is continually make forward process at protecting you and your family from disruptions in the systems that you depend on on a daily basis.

This takes several forms…from psychological and spiritual preparedness to physical preparedness and learning new skills. In some cases, it means stocking up, in other cases it means finding alternative ways of doing things—maybe ways that aren’t as dependent on technology.

John Giduck shares an anecdote in his book, “Terror At Beslan” that is very applicable to people concerned about preparedness. This isn’t the exact story that he shares, but the theme is the same and I think enough of John and his book to mention him along with it.

During the space race between the USSR and the United States, people involved in the space program realized that writing pens don’t work in zero gravity. The US, being a technologically minded country, spent millions of dollars on research and development creating the “space pen” that would write in zero gravity, upside down, and I believe, under water. It became a model of US ingenuity and resourcefulness and it IS a really neat pen.

The Soviets decided to use a pencil. It also wrote in zero gravity and upside down. And the R&D and production costs were much less expensive.

The exact story, unfortunately, is an urban legend. Both US and USSR space programs initially used pencils and both eventually used the Fischer space pen,but the core message is accurate. The Soviet Union has had a history of finding simple solutions to problems out of necessity and the US has a history of developing mind numbingly complicated solutions to simple problems.

Since the end of WWII, we as a society have become increasingly dependent on Fischer space pen solutions and have forgotten about having pencils as an option.

As we’re approaching Christmas and the new year, I want to encourage you to thoroughly enjoy all of the Fischer space pens in your life—fully automatic furnaces, cars that always (or at least usually) start, faucets and switches that always work, gas pumps that always pump gas, store shelves that are never empty, high quality coffee shops on every corner, wide varieties of semi-fresh food in grocery stores, and more. Enjoy these things. Take advantage of them. These things have never been available the way they are right now in all of recorded time, are only available to a relatively limited number of people in the world, and may not always be available the way they are now.

At the same time, don’t forget to practice using pencils. Know how to build a fire, regardless of whether you’ve got a blowtorch, flares, a lighter, matches, wiz-bang fire making tools, or 2 sticks. Know multiple methods of purifying water. Know how to defend yourself, whether you’re fully armed and ready or in the shower with shampoo in your hair. Know how to identify threats and spot danger. Know the fundamentals of first aid, CPR, and trauma care. Practice bartering, dickering, and negotiating. Almost everyone else in the world thinks these are acceptable practices, and these skills have only fallen widely out of favor in the US since WWII.

The combination of enjoying “Fischer Space Pens” and knowing how to use “pencils” will, in a sense, give you the best of both worlds while times are good. For some, it will lead to a complete change in lifestyle, but for most it will simply lead to more stability…both now and in a survival situation.

Last minute Christmas thoughts

The other day, after making a purchase, the lady who was helping me said, “Happy Holidays!” I was in a particularly obnoxious mood and replied, “Thank you! I don’t celebrate ‘Holidays,’ but I wish you a Merry Christmas!” The lady who was helping me and the lady next to her broke out into two of the biggest grins that I’ve seen in quite awhile and said “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

If you’re still looking for last minute Christmas gifts, one that you should consider is a deck of Urban Survival Playing Cards from UrbanSurvivalPlayingCards.com. (scroll down for bulk pricing) They were featured on Glenn Beck’s 2010 My Favorite Things Christmas special as a must-have gift to buy for the people you love. While we can’t guarantee the performance of the US Postal Service, it looks like orders placed by the end of the business day on the 16th should get to CONUS addresses before Christmas.

In addition to being a deck of playing cards that you can use for entertainment, they also include 52 survival tips, tricks, and tactics that people are likely to forget in high stress survival situations. I released these 2 Christmases ago and they’ve been a hit since then.

Until next week, God bless and stay safe! If you’re traveling next Friday, have a Merry Christmas as well. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, have a happy Hanukkah, a fabulous Festivus, spectacular solstice, or whatever you celebrate this time of year.

David Morris

I’ll Sign It, …

Margot B News — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:05:16 +0000

I’ll Sign It, Wrap It & Climb Down Your Chimney — IF You Order My Book as a Christmas Gift …an offer from Michael Moore

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Friends,

Right now, your conservative brother-in-law, your HR person at work, your next door neighbor who just found Jesus, are all wondering — “Who will give me Michael Moore’s book for Christmas?” They can’t be seen going into a bookstore and walking out with an object that has me on the cover (even if it is the adorable 13-month-old version of me on a scooter). They can’t order it from Amazon because then they’ll be on a list somewhere that is probably controlled by George Soros, or worse, George Clooney. Yet, they want to find out about me, they want to read a good story, and they want to know — can I be like Mike and still spend my weekends at gun shows?

How badly do I want you to give HERE COMES TROUBLE as a Christmas gift to your friends, your family, or the person you’ve been on the phone with for the past hour at Blue Cross? How ’bout if I told you that I so want you to give this book to everyone in your life, the naughty and the nice, that I will personally gift-wrap the books for you, personally sign each and every one of them, and then have an associate at one of our fine overpriced for-profit shipping companies hand deliver it to you (or those you’re giving it to) before Rudolph even leaves the barn before Christmas?

“But Mike,” you say, “surely you have something else to do during this holiday season, like help Donald Trump get ready for his Republican Presidential debate, or perhaps help Newt corral a bunch of 12-year-old poor kids to clean the toilets of the RNC?”

Yes, those are on my list, but what I really want is for you share this book — “the best damn thing he’s ever written!” according to Pope Benedict XVI. The Crown Prince of Brunei called it, “the best damn way to identify future troublemakers,” and the New York Times said “it belongs on the same [damn] shelf as books about or written by Rachel Carson and Thomas Paine!” It’s a book for those who would love a good read or would simply like to know the real Me. Not the Fox News version of me. This book is nonfiction and It’s all here, revealed for the first time, a rock-em sock-em account of a boy who mysteriously crossed paths in his youth with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon and a whole cast of characters and events that defined the second half of the 20th century. Nothing is held back, no sacred cows are spared, but most of all, you and your loved ones will get to read 24 short stories from a very strange, funny and profound life.

So, if you will order my book, right now, online, from one of my favorite local northern Michigan bookstores (it’s just one click right here), they will send a signed copy from the final batch of first printing/first editions of HERE COMES TROUBLE to whomever you want it to go to for Christmas — and I will guarantee its gift-wrapped arrival before Christmas! If you do this you will be helping me help the local economy in Michigan, and you will also be helping my nonprofit arthouse theater in Traverse City, Michigan, because five dollars from each of these books will go to support the theater. And the bookstores will charge nothing extra for the autographed copy. Oh, and I won’t charge for the gift-wrapping (just make sure to state in the comments box on the site that you want the books gift-wrapped).

If you order copies of HERE COMES TROUBLE as Christmas presents (or if you just want to read it yourself!), well, it’ll mean the world to me. I don’t see any $$ personally from these sales; what I get is the pleasure of knowing I’ve helped out the local economy of the Michigan town I live in — and the joy of having shared with you a book that means a lot to me.

So, here’s the deal: Christmas is only two weeks away! Hanukkah, only 11 days! And we only have a few hundred first printings left! So PLEASE order RIGHT NOW. Click here and order as many as you want and we will send them to anywhere in the U.S. in time for Christmas. But the deadline is now, so don’t move on to your next email until you take a second to send HERE COMES TROUBLE to your favorite troublemakers! Do it now — after Sunday it will be too late.

Thanks again and enjoy this holiday season…

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

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Native American Blankets Made With Dog Hair

Margot B News — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:15:27 +0000

by Traci Watson November 2011, 5:00 PM |

Fido fleece. A painting from the 1840s or ‘50s shows a Salish woolly dog, bred by the Coast Salish tribes for its fleece, and a Salish woman weaving a dog-fur textile. New analysis shows that this Coast Salish blanket (inset) is made partly of dog hair.

Credit: “A Woman Weaving a Blanket” by Paul Kane, courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum; (inset) NMNH

To Native Americans known as the Coast Salish, the hair of the dog isn’t a dubious hangover cure—it’s a key ingredient in the large, beautiful blankets woven by their ancestors more than a century ago. A molecular analysis of some of these venerable textiles now confirms they are made partly of yarn spun from the fur of an unusual canine, verifying oral accounts handed down through the Pacific Northwest tribe over generations.

The Coast Salish live in northern Washington and southern British Columbia, and according to tribal lore, their ancestors raised a strange breed of canine. The Salish woolly dog was bred, the story goes, specifically for its fleecy undercoat and long outer hairs, which were woven into the famous Salish blankets. Salish oral tradition about the canine is corroborated by historical accounts, such as the journal of 18th century explorer George Vancouver, who wrote that the Salish dogs had coats that were “a mixture of a coarse kind of wool, with very fine, long hair, capable of being spun into yarn.”

Recent research shows the woolly dog probably resembled a current breed called the Spitz, a thick-coated, curly-tailed dog native to Finland. By 1900, however, the Salish woolly dog had vanished. Today the only known physical evidence of it is a single pelt—rediscovered in 2004 in a drawer at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.—of a woolly dog named “Mutton,” the pet of a 19th century ethnographer who studied the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

Despite the tribal lore and other ample evidence, some have dismissed the claim that Salish blankets contain canine hair as just a shaggy-dog story. A survey of more than 100 items woven by the Salish found no dog hair, according to a seminal 1980 book on Salish textiles. And a 2006 DNA analysis that analyzed a small sample of textiles was inconclusive.

The new work, published in the December issue of Antiquity, sheds light on why past studies could have missed dog hair. Using mass spectrometry, a molecular technique for revealing the components of complex mixtures, biochemist Caroline Solazzo of the University of York in the United Kingdom and colleagues analyzed nine blankets woven in the 19th or early 20th centuries by the Coast Salish. They found protein fragments, or peptides, matching peptides from the hair of sheep and mountain goats, as expected. But some of the peptides in five of the nine blankets matched ones from the pelt of Mutton, indicating that the blanket peptides comes from dog hair. Only the older blankets—those woven in the first half of the 19th century—contained dog yarn, and none of them was pure dog. (The earlier DNA analysis had looked at only more recent blankets, which the new analysis showed did not have dog hair.) In most cases, the weavers had combined dog fiber with the highly prized fiber from mountain goats to make a mixed yarn.

Canine hair was easier to come by than mountain goat hair, which could be obtained only by trading with nearby tribes with access to goats, the researchers say. “Dog hair was probably used for less important blankets, blankets with less value, and for common usage, [not] ceremonial usage,” Solazzo says. She and her colleagues found, for example, two very plain ceremonial blankets that contained only goat hair. The weaver might have avoided dog hair because the blankets’ stark design shows off all their fibers rather than concealing some of them.

Klaus Hollemeyer, a researcher at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, who developed the mass spectrometry technique used by Solazzo’s team, believes the new work is definitive. The protein analysis is “well done and documented,” he writes via e-mail.

The new study also helps erase doubts about the accuracy of the Salish oral tradition, says textile conservator Susan Heald of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, and a co-author of the new study. “It’s been close to 10 years since Coast Salish community curator Marilyn Jones asked me if I could find out if dog hair was used in any of the Coast Salish blankets” displayed in a particular museum exhibit, Heald writes via e-mail. “I’m pleased that we can finally tell Marilyn that we did find dog hair in the older blankets, corroborating the oral history.”

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8 Habits of Highly Productive People

Margot B News — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:08:14 +0000

By Alexandra Gekas

While your co-workers start every day enjoying a cup of coffee together in the break room, you’re barely able to find time to call your doctor. While they’re taking lunches, you’re rushing through another meal at your desk. Sound familiar? Here’s the good news: This apparent discrepancy may not mean you’ve got a bigger workload or that you’re a harder worker. Instead, it may mean that they’ve mastered certain time-saving skills and habits that you haven’t-until now. From prioritizing your workload to learning which projects don’t need to be perfect, read on to discover eight workplace habits that’ll boost your productivity and lower your stress levels

1. They make it a point to take breaks.
Americans seem to think that constantly working is synonymous with being productive, but unless your brain is functioning at its maximum level, you may not be getting as much work done as you think. “[Taking breaks] is like hitting the reset button. It helps you empty out your ‘brain cache’ so you have room to refill it,” says Christine Hohlbaum, author of The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World. First and foremost, she recommends taking lunch every day-and leaving your desk to do it. “When you have a ‘working lunch,’ it’s just not very efficient. At some point you’re going to lose attention,” she says. Ultimately, eating while you work will cause you to suffer on two fronts: you won’t be able to pay attention to your food-a surefire way to overeat-and you won’t be giving your work the proper attention it deserves. In addition to a “real” lunch break, Hohlbaum suggests allotting time for other breaks as well. She recommends taking five minutes in the morning, before starting work, and at least a 10- to 15-minute break in the afternoon. Whether you take a short walk, read a book or stare out of the window with a cup of tea, it’ll help you recharge and improve your overall productivity. “It’s really important to take time off because otherwise your brain will reach a saturation point,” Hohlbaum says, explaining that when this happens, it becomes hard to focus on even the simplest task. “At that point, you need to push away from your computer and take a break.”

Check out 8 ways to get ahead at work.

2. They start their day off on the right foot.
According to a recent study at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, if an employee is in a bad mood when they arrive at work-whether because of familial problems or a stressful commute-it can decrease their productivity by as much as 10% that day. So unless you come in to the office every day in a great mood (and who does?), start your day with 5 to 10 minutes of time dedicated to decompressing. “Create a ritual. Maybe it’s meeting in the coffee break room or going around the office to greet everyone. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you foster a sense of connection [with your coworkers],” Says Holhbaum. “Swinging by to say ‘hi’ to your colleagues when you walk in gives you a sense of focus. When you feel you’re part of a bigger effort, you feel more connected to why you’re there and that can make all the difference in the world.” Re-focusing your mind at the beginning of the day will also create a sense of calm, helping you to disregard outside stressors and zero in on your daily tasks. “If we’re actually able to start the day centered, then we’ll have a longer tolerance period before we get off track,” Holhbaum says.

3. They make mindful food choices.
You are what you eat, and eating a heavy mid-day meal will often make you feel lethargic for the rest of the afternoon. “Consider what you’re eating at lunch. If you’re having that post-pasta slump at 2 p.m., and need java or cookies to pep back up, maybe you should try a salad or something a bit lighter so you won’t lag,” suggests Hohlbaum. The key is keeping your blood sugar levels steady throughout the day, according to Kari Kooi, RD, corporate wellness dietician at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, who recommends three light meals and two snacks at regular intervals. “Heavy meals can make you feel sluggish because they require more energy to digest,” Kooi says. “[A quality lunch] will consist of a fiber-rich carbohydrate, like water-rich veggies, and a lean protein, like chicken or fish,” she says. And what does Kooi suggest you avoid? “A highly processed meal, like some of the frozen meals in the grocery store, will not give you the sustainable energy you need. The less processed the better when it comes to keeping your energy levels up.” When you hit that midday slump, Kooi suggests going for proteins like mixed nuts and fruit instead of the usual energy-zapping pretzels, cookies or candy, which cause your blood sugar levels to spike and then drop and may even make you hungrier, according to Kooi.

Discover 7 foods that boost every type of bad mood.

4. They keep a flexible to-do list.
Making a daily list of to-dos is a great way to stay on top of your work. However, there is one pitfall-it can make you inflexible. “A lot of people feel their day’s been wrecked if they have to change their plan, but the most effective people understand that’s part of the job,” says Vicki Milazzo, author of Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman. “I always start my day with a plan, but by 9 a.m. I’ve busted that plan.” However, according to Paula Rizzo, a master list-maker and founder of ListProducer.com, it’s important to keep some form of a to-do list, no matter how much your day changes. For example, Rizzo begins her days with a master list, which she continually updates throughout the course of the day to note the items that haven’t been done or to add tasks as they crop up. Before leaving work, Rizzo will make a fresh list for the next day. The key, she says, is referencing the changing list throughout the day to keep herself on course. “Just putting a little extra work into it will keep you on track.”

5. They use technology with intent.
In today’s 24/7 all-access world, it’s hard to get a handle on technology use. While it’s impossible to avoid it altogether, you can be disciplined about how much time you spend perusing the Web. Set aside a specific time, say 15 minutes after lunch, to scroll through your social networking sites or other favorite websites-and stick to it. Or try something like Google Chrome’s website blocker, which allows you to set restrictions to your online time by either totally blocking your favorite websites or just restricting the timeframes within which you are allowed to check them. In addition to surfing the Internet, it’s important to watch your email habits. Whether you give yourself 15 to 30 minutes at a set time each day to check your personal email, or you allow yourself brief intervals between tasks, Holhbaum says the key is to be very mindful of the time you’re spending checking your non-work inbox. “Have a very clear distinction between what’s personal and what’s work. If that’s a part of your ‘OK I need to zone out for a little bit’ time, that’s fine. But you need to be clear and be mindful of what you’re doing.” Even work-related emails can become a distraction if not properly managed. Ask yourself if email is the best method of communication, or if you’re better off calling the person. “Sending 100 emails isn’t [always] going to be the most productive thing. And as we know, emails beget emails. They’re like little rabbits,” Hohlbaum jokes. “If it’s a one-way communication, for example forwarding an airplane itinerary, you don’t need to have any answer [so email works]. But if you want detail or you know the person won’t respond right away by email, pick up the phone,” she says.

Learn 15 keyboard shortcuts you probably don’t know.

6. They balance their workload.
Different tasks require different levels of concentration, which you can use to your advantage. Start by identifying-and placing-the tasks you have into two categories: weeds and intensive work. Weeds are small, manageable things such as handling email, phone calls and minor organizational tasks. Intensive work is anything that requires an extended period of concentration, such as management tasks, preparing presentations, writing or editing. “Miscellaneous routine tasks are like weeds in your garden; we all have them, and no matter how often we try to get rid of them, they never go away,” says Milazzo. “Yet they do have to be handled, and pulling a few weeds can provide a restorative break from more intensive work.” Milazzo recommends splitting up long sessions of intensive work with regular 15- to 30-minute intervals of weed pulling. This way, you’ll accomplish a variety of tasks while not burning out on one type of work.

7. They put perfectionism in its place.
While turning in perfect work has been encouraged since kindergarten, that attitude can be counterproductive if it’s not managed. It’s important to pick your battles. “Women, by nature, are somewhat perfectionist,” says Milazzo. “So we need to distinguish what requires perfectionism,” she says. Of course you want to put your best foot forward in all situations, but if you’re strapped for time, prioritize. If, for example, you’re writing an informal memo or email to a co-worker, give it a quick look and spell-check it, but resist the urge to re-read it three times over. If, on the other hand, you’re creating a brochure for your company or preparing an important presentation, then that’s the time to put all of your perfectionist tendencies to good use.

8. They know how to say “no.”
It’s easy to get distracted or overwhelmed at work. But one of the secrets of highly productive people is that they learn when and how to say “no.” For starters, say “no” to whiners, complainers and distracting people. One way to do that, according to Rizzo, is by wearing headphones. “That sends the message that you’re busy and it drowns out the noise as well,” she says. When it comes time to say “no” to the boss, tread lightly but firmly. You don’t have to spell out n-o per se; rather, ask her to prioritize what’s most important given what’s on your plate. “When an employee does that, the boss usually comes to their senses and they get it,” Milazzo says. “You don’t want to make your boss the enemy; you want your boss to know you’re there for the company, and that you’re there for them. If they know that, they’re more likely to listen to what you say.”

Photo: © Thinkstock

More Reasons to Indulge in Chocolate

Margot B News — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:59:06 +0000

Not that you need another reason to indulge in chocolate (you probably already know it’s good for your blood pressure), but isn’t it delightful, delicious, and delectable that there is one? Eating chocolate shaves your risk of “cardiometabolic disorders,” a cluster of conditions that nobody wants, including heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. (Taking this vitamin also helps protect you from this nasty threesome.)

Here’s the big surprise: We’re talking all kinds of chocolate, not just the dark types. Even milk chocolate and cups of hot cocoa have benefits.

We’re also not talking slight improvements. Research reveals that consuming a healthy amount of chocolate reduces your risk of heart disease by 37% and stroke by 29% versus eating little or none. (Not coincidentally, it also lowers your bad LDL cholesterol.) In addition, it shrinks your risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 31%. These impressive numbers emerged from an analysis of seven studies involving more than 100,000 people.

What’s in chocolate that makes it so good for you? Loads of potent plant antioxidants called polyphenols, including flavonoids. Yep, the same good-for-you substances found in blueberries, wine, green tea, and olive oil, as well as many fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Among polyphenols’ many powers is the ability to sooth inflammation in your body. Internal hot zones are linked to all kinds of trouble, from memory damage to joint pain and accelerated aging. (Learn more about chocolate as a healthful treat.)

A Little “Dose” Will Do Ya
Like wine, the trick with chocolate is to indulge daily without overindulging. A little goes a long way, because most chocolate contains about 150 calories per ounce, including lots of sugar and fat. Overdo and you could actually increase the health risks you’re trying to prevent. In most of these studies, people had an ounce or two a day. Even smarter: Get your fix in a cozy cup of hot chocolate made with real polyphenol-rich cocoa powder, no-fat milk, and sugar-free sweetener. Bingo! All the benefits, none of the bad stuff.

Eat chocolate, die happy, and live longer. Sweet.

Another surprise: Chocolate may also be good for your brain and even your teeth!

A creamy complexion: That cup of hot cocoa can also do nice things for your skin.

Can’t eat just one? This simple trick may help tame your chocoholic tendencies.

BACK to margotbworldnews.com

It Doesn’t Interest Me

Margot B News — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:35:47 +0000

~ It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain; I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness, and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes, without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.~

—Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Tools Explained

Margot B News — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:56:07 +0000

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light . Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, ‘Oh shit!’

SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle… It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes , trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit. It is especially valuable at being able to find the EXACT location of the thumb or index finger of the other hand.

UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

SON-OF-A-BITCH TOOL: (A personal favorite!) Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling ‘Son of a BITCH!’ at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Hope you found this informative.

Not safe to eat: Three foods to avoid Health

Margot B News — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:02:31 +0000

By Kate Lowenstein, Health.com updated 7:22 AM EST, Wed October 12, 2011

The warm, moist environment necessary for growing sprouts provides the perfect conditions for bacteria to multiply. The warm, moist environment necessary for growing sprouts provides the perfect conditions for bacteria to multiply. STORY HIGHLIGHTS Pasteurization is the only effective way of killing harmful bacteria in milk There have been 30 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness from sprouts Eating raw shellfish from the Gulf of Mexico is particularly dicey (Health.com) — Recent headlines about contaminated foods, from peanut butter and salad to turkey and eggs, are enough to make even the most intrepid eater a little bit paranoid.

But before you commit to a life of vitamins and astronaut ice cream, take comfort in the fact that you’ll likely be OK eating as you always have: “We have a very safe food system,” says Shelley Feist, executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education.

There are only three foods so risky that you should avoid them altogether. Here’s the red-light list: Raw milk Fans of raw milk (meaning milk that hasn’t been pasteurized or homogenized) credit it with having more beneficial bacteria and enzymes than its processed counterpart, but science hasn’t proven any of these claims.

And raw milk can become contaminated in a number of ways: by coming into contact with cow feces or bacteria living on the skin of cows, from an infection of the cow’s udder, or from dirty equipment, among others. The special heating process we know as pasteurization is the only effective way of killing most, if not all, harmful bacteria — which can include listeria, salmonella, and E. coli.

Health.com: 10 types of food that can make you sick According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 86 reported food poisoning outbreaks from raw milk between 1998 and 2008, resulting in 1,676 illnesses, 191 hospitalizations, and two deaths. Raw milk is responsible for nearly three times more hospitalizations than any other foodborne disease outbreak, says Hannah Gould, Ph.D., senior epidemiologist with the CDC’s Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch.

It’s no wonder selling raw milk to consumers is illegal in about half of U.S. states. “We have two people, in California and Pennsylvania, who developed Guillain-Barré syndrome [which can cause paralysis and respiratory failure] after contracting a bacterial infection called campylobacteriosis from drinking raw milk,” says John Sheehan, head of dairy safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“These were healthy, active people who came down with debilitating, lifelong diseases.” Health.com: How to practice food safety in your home kitchen Raw sprouts When sprouts were identified as the culprit in the food poisoning outbreak that killed at least 50 people in Europe this past summer, you probably wondered: What could be so bad about innocent, vegan-friendly sprouts?

But food-safety experts weren’t surprised. According to the CDC, there have been at least 30 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. from raw or lightly cooked sprouts since 1996. All types of sprouts — from the alfalfas you get on a sandwich to the mung bean sprouts garnishing your Thai food — can be dangerous when not thoroughly cooked.

This is largely because of how they’re grown, explains Michelle Smith, Ph.D., senior policy analyst at the FDA: The warm, moist environment necessary for growing sprouts provides the perfect conditions for bacteria (such as salmonella or E. coli) to multiply. Health.com: How can you tell if food poisoning is harmless, or life-threatening?

Ask for restaurant and take-out meals to be sprout-free, since you can’t know how well they’ve been cooked. And if you just can’t live without sprouts, try getting used to giving them a hot bath before you eat them: Research has shown that you can kill salmonella by immersing contaminated sprouts in boiling water for five seconds. Raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico Everyone knows that eating raw shellfish can be dicey (and in fact the CDC advises against it entirely), but bivalves from the Gulf of Mexico take it to a whole new level.

Waters in the Gulf are warmer than those in the Pacific Northwest and other popular oystering spots, making it possible for a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus to thrive. “Oysters are filter feeders, which means they concentrate any contaminants in the water,” explains William E. Keene, Ph.D., a senior epidemiologist at the Oregon Public Health Division.

“A number of toxins can get into an oyster, but none are remotely as bad as Vibrio vulnificus.” Health.com: 10 states where rare and exotic diseases lurk Healthy people who ingest a V. vulnificus–ridden oyster might have vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, but for anyone with a compromised immune system, the bug can infiltrate the bloodstream, causing a severe and life-threatening illness called septicemia, which is fatal in one-third of cases.

And while having a pre-existing medical condition puts you at particular risk, “anyone at all can get horrifically sick,” Keene says. The good news is that several big seafood purchasers, like Legal Sea Foods and Costco, require that Gulf oysters be pasteurized before being served, as does the state of California — so in these places the risk is far lower.

Pasteurized or not, “the simplest tactic here is to avoid raw Gulf oysters altogether,” says Sarah Klein, staff attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. That can go a long way toward keeping you safer. BACK to margotbworldnews.com