Did you know that one in four Americans living with HIV are women?  It's true.  HIV/AIDS is affecting more and more women, specifically African American women.  It's actually become the leading cause of death in African American women between the ages of 25-34. Women and HIV/AIDS...

Ma Li has only one arm. Zhai Xiaowei has one leg. And below is a video of them dancing. They dance into the holes in people's lives. In the wordlessness of their dance, libraries of the soul open and volumes of unutterable wisdom fly off the shelves. A knowing comes forward. We all know this. We recognize the feeling of brokenness. We know what we do not have, will never have. We know that all the pieces in the world are not whole, not complete. We know that we needed, and that we need.

I practice gratitude and offer up to the heavens a silent "thank you" when small ordinary miracles appear. But gratitude in the face of the obvious is easy. How do you find the silver lining in the maddening, seemingly nothing but frustrating moments? Going complaint-free is a good start but moving past merely not complaining and into a space where I am actively appreciative of the hard is harder.

For almost 15 years, Rody Alvarado Peña fought to stay in the United States. She fled here seeking asylum after suffering from horrific abuse at the hands of her husband. To save her life, she had to leave her two children with her parents. Her hope was that once she established herself in the US, they could join her. Instead, she found herself caught in a legal debate over whether domestic violence is a legitimate claim for asylum seekers. On October 30, 2009, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration recommended that Ms. Alvarado be granted asylum.

Some phrases just express the right sentiment at the right time. Even if they’ve gone out of style and are not understood by folks not of your place and time. I propose bringing back two of my favorite phrases from my teenage and young adult years: Dig it and Right on! Right on is so righteous that we used to say it twice, “Right on, right on.” It was an affirmation of whatever someone else said. A friend might say, “Let’s go get something to eat.”

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whether selective colleges have been discriminating against women applicants by admitting less-qualified men in an attempt to maintain a gender balance on campus.  According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, The investigation is being undertaken at the request of commissioner and law professor Gail Heriot, an opponent of affirmative action.

For those of you who have ever wondered, would Darwin take Xanax? - and I know that you're out there - there's finally an answer: no, because depression is a sign of strong evolutionary adaptation. Or something. Maybe.According to a report discussed this week in Newsweek, depression may be an "adaptation" in human beings - and, oddly, rats - that provides for selection of stronger, fitter humans:

I'm a big walker. Because of where we live, I can walk to the grocery store, drug store, post office, gym, library, doctor's office, and the BART, which will take me into San Francisco, where I can walk some more.Consequently, I was pretty excited when the Alliance for Biking and Walking asked me to spread the word about their People Powered Movement Photo Contest.

It's a Saturday Night Live skit waiting to happen, right? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets: A service that promises to care for your pet after you have ascended to heaven to join The Almighty. Like the company's co-founder, Bart Centre, I laughed at first. Surely, this can't be for real. But after speaking with Bart, and a few close friends who believe in the Rapture, I stopped laughing and started thinking.

So many people are afraid of failure that they fail to start. We look to paragons of success around us and never see the series of failures that happened along their path. For some reason we think we need to be immune from failure if we are to amount to anything in our careers, our businesses, our lives. Yet the very opposite is true. it is not failure but what we learn from failure that is the key to success.

Each week, we're sharing our favorite links from our friends at Planet Green and TreeHugger. Enjoy! Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? Paris Hilton builds a $325 mansion...for her dogs. Here's a cheat sheet—complete with pictures!—of the world's healthiest, sustainably harvested seafood.

I hear people bemoaning the high cost of "going green." And while organic food does cost more than its chemical-laden counterpart, I'm here to tell you that it's easier to spend more for healthy food when you save money in other ways. We can skip many of the green cleaners, deodorizers, and personal care products, most of which are fairly expensive. Why? Because baking soda is our friend. What's so great about baking soda?