Wishing you all a world of possibilities and adventure in 2009!
Monthly Archive for December, 2008
photo by araswami
I am a notoriously bad pancake maker and have long resigned myself to restaurant pancakes. Not any more.
These are the best pancakes ever, and I wanted to share the recipe (from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2007). I used unsweetened coconut flakes in mine.
Overall, Cooking Light puts together an amazing cookbook of their previous year’s magazine recipes. Some of my favorite recipes hail from their publications.
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp flaked sweetened coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 (13.5 oz can) light coconut milk
1 tbsp butter
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, and next 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine coconut milk, butter, and egg, stir well. Add coconut milk mix to flour mix, stirring until smooth.
2. Pour about 1/4 c batter per pancake onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet. Cook 3 minutes or until tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Carefully turn pancakes over, cook 2 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned.
Yield 4 svgs, 3 pancakes each
300 calories/29% from fat; 9.7g fat, 7.6g protein, 46.6 g carb, 1.4g fiber, 60mg chol, 521 mg sodium, 14mg calcium
photo by gep
It’s the end of December, and blogs are brimming with all sorts of end-of-year reviews.
Taking the lead from Elysa over at GenPink, I’m posting links to my favorite posts of 2008.
Professional:
McKinsey’s Model Centered Leadership for women — key traits and behaviors to get ahead professionally
The Personal and Professional Benefits of Philanthropy
When is enough enough? Enhancing mental agility (when is taking brain-enhancing drugs for non-medical reasons OK?)
The marketing machine: non-fiction books (thinks to think about when marketing a NF book)
Personal:
Favorite Reads of 2008 — trying to hit 50 books before the 31st, realistically, it’ll be more like 45.
A Guide to Life Coach Selection
Making grad school more affordable
Defining Gen Y (my response to a query about what events have shaped the Gen Y collective)
Politics:
Little room for “just war” when diplomacy and police work trump bombing (The US seems to be the only developed nations that hasn’t caught on to the fact that exercising soft power and creating open dialogues is more effective than dropping bombs)
What story is mainstream media creating? (why we should be thinking about the motives of the media in their reporting)
Foreign correspondents fading away (are we ready for foreign reporting that reflects indigenous, not American perspectives)
Why I’m Voting Obama, part deux
Video-of-the day shorts from around the web
A Short Love Story in Stop Motion (a sweet animated romance)
Wassup! — covers 8 years of G.W. Bush in minutes
Intentionally disturbing commercial: STD awareness (a PSA that got my attention)
Since I’m constantly adding new bloggers to my Google Reader, as well as meeting them on Twitter, it would be great to hear from some of them (Tim, Sally, Allison, Andy, Jen, Andrew, Monica, Amanda and you too! What are your best posts of 2008?
photo by ajawin
A friend is one to whom one can pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keeping what is worth keeping, and, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
-Arab proverb
Thought leaders and activists around the world seek to put an end to global poverty in the next decade. Will you step up and get involved in your own backyard?
Child poverty is nothing new in the United States. Almost 1 in 5 children live in poverty here in the United States. As is typical with disadvantage in this country, a shortage of funds is much more prevalent among minority groups.
So it seems particularly callous that the United States was the only member of the UN to vote against a “the right to food,” while the 184 other member nations voted in favor of the inclusion of such a right.
Past versions had the Assembly recognize the millions of undernourished people worldwide, which was repeated again in this year’s text. But, the present text also recognized the large numbers pushed into that situation because of the world food crisis.
Acknowledging the right to food would be particularly damning to the United States, since we have the highest child poverty rates in the developed world. If there’s a commodity big business can profit from, the Bush administration has little interest in making sure its least protected citizens get their fare share.
Graph via Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress
It seems the larger the company, the more likely the holiday baking contest.
Next year, making basic cupcakes, but wow with the presentation.
Bakerella provides detailed instructions on how to create a snowglobe cupcake scene featuring the ever popular seasonal polar bear and coke bottle combo.
It’s absolutely ingenious, creative, and festive!
Interesting news items that don’t inspire a full post.
The health benefits of 20 herbs you should be adding to your food.
HIV attacks healthy tissue, not open wounds and sores on skin, changing the understanding of person-to-person transmission
Crying isn’t cathartic for everyone — life coaches take note!
Whites shooting blacks with impunity in days following Hurricaine Katrina (long The Nation feature, worth a read); police finally decide it might be worth investigating — go figure.
After beating up a 12-year old black girl, putting her in the hospital (and insisiting she was a prostitute because she wore tight shorts), police arrest her for defending herself from the officers
State Department recommends not renewing Blackwater (aka the private mercenary force that operates above the law in Iraq) contracts
Throughout the United States “Good Samaritan” laws are in place to provide legal protection for everyday citizens that choose to help someone that has fallen ill or is injured in an accident, whether roadside or at the office or any other place you could imagine someone needing immediate care. Under these laws you can’t be sued or arrested for “assisting,” as long as you’re acting within reason.
For almost a decade now, I’ve been CPR certified. During my last CPR certification renewal, I also completed a First Aid course that is good for 3 years. As someone who teaches in a gym, I’d like to be ready, just in case. I’m happy to report that it’s training I’ve never had to use.
But a California Supreme Court decision makes me reconsider my Girl Scout-esque preparedness.
A woman pulled her co-worker from a vehicle after a car accident on Halloween 2004. As a result of her injuries, the co-worker was left paraplegic. The woman is being sued for damages for her contribution to the injuries inflicted.
The woman and her lawyer fought the lawsuit arguing her Good Samaritan status.
The Supreme Court has sided for the injured party in a decision that could discourage people from helping those in crisis situations. Essentially, only the medical actions taken are protected under California law. So while you’re OK if you perform CPR or the Heimlich maneuver* or apply a tourniquet to gushing wound (knowing help is hours away), if you pull a person out of the middle of the road to administer that care, you can get sued for any damages caused by that act.
From a dissenting judge:
“One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim,” [Judge Marvin R.] Baxter wrote. “Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode.”
Instructors in the courses I’ve taken have always reminded students to follow several rules
- You never move the body when a neck injury is suspected; always suspect a neck injury.
- If the options are a) possibility of a dead body or b) move the injured body to prevent it from being a dead body, you’re better off alive than dead
Because of this legal finding, it appears I’m actually unable to help anyone unless they’ve fallen or landed out of danger and in a bodily position that doesn’t require much shifting before applying my first aid training. Moving a body won’t necessarily be protected as medical care, so I’d be risking civil liability.
Hopefully, the California State Legislature will redefine Good Samaritanism to include all non-medical action required to save a life. Otherwise, it seems that the only crisis safe to handle is applying adhesive bandages to paper cuts.
* The American Red Cross no longer refers to choking victim rescue as the Heimlich maneuver, but as “abdominal thrusts.” I’m told the Heimlich family wanted royalties for use of the name. Seriously.
photo by akeg
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