After reading an article in Marketplace.Org about toxic rice harvested in one of China’s “cancer villages” I made a disconcerting discovery.  The US imports 7% of its rice from a number of countries, one of which happens to be China.  Could there possibly be any connection here?

This particular story started in the 1990s in rural, southern China when a hill of yellow and green, foul-smelling chemical waste from a neighboring factory began to rise beside Farmer Wu Shuliang’s rice paddy. By 2012 the hill contained approximately 300 million (yes, 300 million) pounds of chemical sludge — byproducts of chemicals used in the tanning industry. Whenever it rained, the river and Wu’s rice fields turned bright yellow. His two children bathed in that river, drank from a well with thick yellow sludge at the bottom and the oldest son, Wenyong, worked in the family paddies from an early age.

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As more and more people opt for green burial, coffins made of willow, bamboo and even seagrass have hit the funeral market. Unlike massive, heavily encrusted metal caskets designed to impress, the new willow caskets are less expensive, biodegradable and far kinder to the planet. A UK casket maker estimates that the new lightweight green coffins currently comprise 10 to 15% of total sales compared to only 1% of sales ten years ago. With a far stronger presence in England, the willow coffin trend in the US is still fairly new.

 The US is also behind the UK when it comes to Eco-friendly burial grounds. One of these sites, Hinton Park in Dorset, where over 6000 people are buried, is described by The Economist as a pretty spot for picnics. “Patches of bluebells spread out under trees; streams and pathways wind through the woodland.”

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Marching along eastside avenues and blooming up and down side streets, spring tulips have blossomed in their radiant, annual show.

When I first moved to New York years ago, I don’t remember particularly noticing the flowers. But every year since then, more and more tulips have popped on more and more streets in ever widening varieties and colors. In honor of their fresh, cheering appearance signaling the end of a winter that seemed endless, I’ve taken a break from practicalities this week with a few uptown tulip snaps.

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Bathing suit time is thundering up the road. After a year comfortably concealed under roomy, forgiving, cold weather duds, is your body ready? If not and you’re considering purchasing a weight-loss product that claims dramatic results in a remarkably short time, you might want to take a look at a recent survey by the Federal Trade Commission. According to this report, in 2011 more than 5.1 million consumers purchased weight-loss products including skin patches, creams, wraps, earrings, appetite- suppressing eyeglasses, dietary supplements and non-prescription drugs that promised buyers they could easily lose excess poundage without diet or exercise.  These claims turned out to be dust in the wind for 2.1 percent of Americans. If you do the math and multiply that number by the pricey (sometimes-exorbitant) cost of those products, a lot of big bucks are also being thrown to the wind.

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This theft happened years ago. It was not the first time I stole something, but it was the first time I misappropriated something from a client (let’s call her BJ), a person with whom I had a long, pleasant and fruitful relationship.

Every season BJ’s PR agency conducted a New York show where all the latest fashion trends in footwear were presented to industry insiders. I was hired to draw all these hot fashion shoes. I drew them beforehand on a long roll of acetate, which was then placed backstage on a projector. There, unseen by the audience, someone would slap various colored magic markers in my hand as I speedily added finishing touches to the drawings while a projectionist rolled the acetate along accompanying BJ’s commentary. All the audience could see was BJ speaking in front of a large screen with shoe drawings taking form as if by magic. Backstage we had to rehearse the presentation repeatedly to get the overall timing correct.

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Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden Pond”, a celebration of solitude, simplicity and self-sufficiency, has inspired and instructed us since it was written in 1854. Thoreau’s ideas and insights about life, formulated while living alone with nature at Walden Park for two years, resonate to this day. On defining success, he said:

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”

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If the vision of Soylent’s founder is shared by the world, we will soon happily drink a glass of his company’s powdered nutrients whisked into water for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And why would we willingly chug down glasses of  colorless, tasteless slush three times a day instead of enjoying plates of colorful, flavor-packed, satisfying foods? According to Rob Rhinehart, Soylent’s CEO, many people are way too busy these days to bother with mundane tasks like food shopping, cooking, eating and cleaning up. These people prefer to spend time on more enjoyable activities. And they are willing to pay for that freedom, having already shelled out over $500,000 to Soylent by ordering weekly and monthly supplies of the product. Composed of at least 14 dry ingredients including carbs, proteins, essential vitamins and minerals and packaged into single meals, the orders are projected to start shipping in August.

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Photo Credit: Sun Designs

Are you one of the 67 million Americans walking around with high blood pressure? Known as “the silent killer” hypertension is a stealthy stalker that can lead to stroke, heart attack and, further down the line, kidney failure. Typically it has neither warning signs nor symptoms. Many, who aren’t regularly checked don’t even know they have it. And of those who DO know, 47% have not gotten it under control, often because they have stopped taking medications with undesirable side effects.

Another way to attack the problem is to eat foods that are delicious, healthy and proven to be as effective as medication in bringing down blood pressure. They’re part of the Mayo Clinic’s Dash Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). Here are five of those foods that are particularly rich in nutrients that can literally bring down the numbers of high blood pressure.

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I was thinking about past Fourth of July holidays when I remembered getting off a long ago train and finding the streets of Paris alive with parties and parades and dancing in the streets. Celebrated on the 14th, shortly after our own Independence Day, it turned out to be Bastille Day. And what a jubilant celebration it was with wine everywhere and neighbors toasting each other and their illustrious compatriots who had stormed the hated Bastille and set their country on the path to liberation.

That night we lay in bed watching dazzling Parisian fireworks light up the sky outside our window. One of my best Paris memories.

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The man was part of the army of summer tourists visiting New York City. Which Madison Avenue bus, he wanted to know in a thick accent I couldn’t quite identify, would take him up to 82nd Street. Visiting the Metropolitan Museum I asked? Yes, he and his wife and two teenage children smiled and replied.  After we piled aboard an M3, I kept an eye on them to be sure they got off at 79th Street and walked the few blocks northwest to get to the museum’s front door. But it was only after they left the bus, all of them giving me a friendly wave goodbye, I realized I hadn’t given them the most important information of all.  Information that could have saved that family one hundred dollars. The sign posted near each museum cashier says “$25.00” entrance fee in large letters and it’s easy to miss the MUCH smaller nearby word that says “Suggested” entrance fee. And according to information given by a former Met employee in a complaint filed by 2 New Yorkers against the Museum, most tourists DO miss the “suggested” part. They end up paying the full $25.00 fee instead of what they wish or can afford.

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