Men grow mustaches to raise male cancer awareness

December 4, 2010 – 6:23 pm

CLEVELAND — The scraggly patch of blond hair on Zak MacDonald’s upper lip is a source of mockery among his co-workers in his testosterone-laden office, where the art of growing a mustache has become a full-blown competition.

Scanning the cubicles, there are several handlebars and respectably bushy mustaches. The most prominent even rival the collage of famous ‘staches displayed on the wall, including Tom Selleck’s iconic facial hair. Much to his chagrin, though, MacDonald’s is not among them.

“As you can tell, we’re 22 days in and there’s not a whole lot happening up in the ‘stache area,” he admitted, rubbing a hand over his lip. “

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Tags: Grow, Grow Mustaches

Horses help heroes in healing: WTU Soldiers participate

December 4, 2010 – 11:52 am

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — For decades, horses have charged into battle carrying cavalrymen, pulling artillerymen’s caissons and serving as vehicles for mounted military police. Today, horses are helping wounded warriors by guiding them along the road to resiliency.

Through Heroes & Horses, an equine-assisted psychotherapy program, Soldiers with Fort Jackson’s Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) are capitalizing on the keen senses of horses to help them better understand themselves and to heal. Continue reading…

Tags: Horses, Horses Help

Vets Compare VA Hospitals Online; Government Doctors May Face Pay Freeze

November 29, 2010 – 11:23 pm

Government Health IT: The Veterans Affairs Department’s Hospital Compare website, www.hospitalcompare.va.gov, is “providing online tools so veterans can compare how well the VA’s 153 hospitals perform, with the ultimate goal of spurring further improvements at those facilities.” Veterans and their families can go online to compare the “relative strengths” and weaknesses of VA hospitals, ranked by color codes. The rankings take into account the quality of acute care, patient safety, and intensive care provided by each of the hospitals. Another online interface called Aspire “documents the quality and patient safety goals in specific measures,” such as the percentage of veterans who are successfully lowering their high blood pressure, “as well as VA’s progress in performing them from local to national levels” (Mosquera, 11/29). < Continue reading…

Tags: Government, Online Government

3 Keys to Being Yourself

November 27, 2010 – 9:51 pm

In the article Top 5 Changes Meditation Demands from You, number 5 was becoming a rebel and I suspect that if you try to just be yourself and follow the suggestions in this article on how to do that, some rebellion against the norm, against society will be inevitable.  It is quite possible that you will end up rocking the boat a little.

First off, it should be quite alarming that it has become so hard to just be who you are.  I mean, that should require nothing, because you are already who you are.  But unfortunately we have been so contaminated and are so lost in the borrowed mind of ego-centric obsession, that we can no longer simply be ourselves.

We are suffering a lot by taking this road of endless self gratification, but unfortunately we are now so immersed in this pattern of thinking, that it has become difficult to change directions.  The orientation required is, of course, to just be and forget about becoming, but our attachments and material desires keep us forever occupied, deluded and in constant seeking.

In the end, we have sacrificed our peace and our natural selves, for a few fleeting pleasures and mountains of useless stuff, but thankfully we have the guidance of great masters who can point us back to the road to serenity, harmony and ourselves.

The following quote on just being yourself, different and original, is a great source of wisdom and inspiration.  It comes from the Tao Te Ching and the teaching of Master Lao-tzu.

Book: Tao Te Ching 

Author: Stephen Mitchell

Chapter 20