The recession is hurting U.S. cities at "radically varying levels," which will lead to an uneven economic recovery, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. "This is not one national recession. It's felt barely at all in some parts of the country, and it's felt deeply and significantly in others," said the Brookings Institution's Alan Berube, co-author of the report, in an interview with the Huffington Post. "For the next several months we'll have to pay attention to several places that look like they're not poised to recover anytime soon."

Psychologist Richard Weissbourd contends that parents who are obsessed with their children's happiness are ignoring other important values — like goodness, empathy, appreciation and caring — that are necessary to a well-rounded personality. Weissbourd is the author of The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development. A lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Kennedy School of Government, Weissbourd has founded several interventions for at-risk children, including ReadBoston, WriteBoston and Project ASPIRE.

After a decade of earnest immersion in parenting, though, the times are ripe for a change. The first sign was the wave of confessionals — from anonymous Web sites like truumomconfessions​.com (where mothers admit to transgressions like feigning stomach cramps to steal quiet time hiding in the bathroom) to bylined blogs like the wildly popular dooce.com (where Heather B. Armstrong chronicled her postpartum depression and continues to write about her struggles as the mother of a charming but somewhat high-strung 5-year-old) to memoirs like Ayelet Waldman’s (in which she cops to such “sins” as using disposable diapers and loving her husband more than her children). But in the past few months, a second wave has taken hold — writers are moving past merely venting and are trying to gather the like-minded into a new movement. Carl Honoré is one. He calls it “slow parenting” — no more rushing around physically and metaphorically, no more racing kids from soccer to Suzuki. Lenore Skenazy is an

Bush’s Backward Sprint To The Finish

In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of "midnight regulations" — de facto laws issued by the executive branch — designed to lock in Bush's legacy. Under the last- minute rules, which can be extremely difficult to overturn, loaded firearms would be allowed in national parks, uranium mining would be permitted near the Grand Canyon and many injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in state courts. Other rules would gut the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of wild lands to mining, restrict access to birth control and put local cops to work spying for the federal government.

There was a time when red meat was a luxury for ordinary Americans, or was at least something special: cooking a roast for Sunday dinner, ordering a steak at a restaurant. Not anymore. Meat consumption has more than doubled in the United States in the last 50 years.

Looking for another reason why growing some of your own food makes sense? Here's one you might not have considered: nutritional content. While the washed and waxed produce at your local grocery store might look chock full of vitamins and minerals, a recent report in the Journal of HortScience finds otherwise. These findings follow on the heels of others that suggest that supplementing your store-bought veggies with store-bought vitamins and minerals might not be the solution either. When in doubt, grow your own and, if you can't do that, buy from farmers who are taking good care of their soil.

vinyl shower curtains are evil

“Dung beetles are the most beneficial insects we have in our industry,” says Walt Davis, a Bennington, OK, rancher who's identified 11 species of dung beetles on his ranch. “They're a tremendous boost to soil productivity and they darn-well deserve our attention.”

Dung beetles feed on manure, use it to provide housing and food for their young, and improve nutrient cycling, soil structure, and forage growth in the meantime. This publication describes dung beetles and their benefits to pastures, and offers management information. It also offers information about building a dung beetle "farm."