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Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82

2008-05-13T16:12:29Z

Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American artist who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century, died Monday night. He was 82.

Mr. Rauschenberg's work gave new meaning to sculpture. "Canyon," for instance, consisted of a stuffed bald eagle attached to a canvas. "Monogram" was a stuffed Angora goat girdled by a tire atop a painted panel. "Bed" entailed a quilt, sheet and pillow, slathered with paint, as if soaked in blood, framed on the wall. They all became icons of postwar modernism.

A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked.

Marijuana May Up Heart Attack, Stroke Risk: Study

2008-05-13T16:06:15Z

Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person's risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday.

Dr. Jean Lud Cadet of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, said the findings point to another example of long-term harm from marijuana. But marijuana activists expressed doubt about the findings.

Cadet said a lot of previous research has focused on the effects of marijuana on the brain. His team looked elsewhere in the body, measuring blood protein levels in 18 long-term, heavy marijuana users and 24 other people who did not use the drug.

Cannes Film Festival Opens With Spielberg, Eastwood And Woody Allen

2008-05-13T16:03:53Z

CANNES, France — Rounding up a lot of the usual suspects, the Cannes Film Festival presents a lineup from an illustrious if somewhat predictable gang of regulars, including Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Woody Allen, Atom Egoyan and Wim Wenders.

Then there's Steven Spielberg _ who's not quite a newcomer, since he's been at Cannes before. But the festival's centerpiece, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," marks the director's first trip back since the 1980s, when he showed "The Color Purple" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" here.

The new "Indiana Jones" flick opens worldwide May 22, four days after its Cannes premiere, giving the movie a similar global rollout that preceded blockbuster "E.T."

"That's our benchmark. This is the same kind of movie in that (Cannes is) kind of the perfect launching pad, because we can bring the whole world there," said Frank Marshall, producer on the "Indiana Jones" movies. "It's perfectly timed for our release worldwide."

In its 61st year, the world's most-prestigious film festival sometimes catches heat for including too many glossy Hollywood productions, such as past opening-night film "The Da Vinci Code" or action spectacles such as "Matrix Reloaded" and "X-Men: The Last Stand."

While this year's festival, which opens Wednesday, also includes the cute and cuddly animated comedy "Kung Fu Panda," featuring the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman, the rest of the schedule is mostly serious cinema, much of it from past Cannes luminaries.

Eastwood returns with "Changeling," a child-abduction drama starring Jolie, while Soderbergh is showing "Che," his two-part epic on revolutionary Che Guevara, featuring Benicio Del Toro. Wenders offers "Palermo Shooting," a thriller about a photographer pursued by a mysterious gunman, and Egoyan presents "Adoration," centered on a youth who reinvents himself in cyberspace.

Also back are Belgian siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, whose stark drama "L'Enfant" won the Palme d'Or, the top honor at Cannes, two years ago. This time, the Dardennes present "Lorna's Silence," the tale of an Albanian woman caught up in an elaborate underworld crime plot in Belgium.

With international press mobbing the French Riviera resort, there is no better spotlight than Cannes for a film to gain global attention, said Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is premiering Allen's romantic drama "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" with Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz.

"Cannes is a grand stage," said Weinstein, whose past top prize winners at the festival include "Pulp Fiction," "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Soderbergh's "sex, lies and videotape." "You have the Oscars, which are American-centric, and the world-centric place is Cannes. It's the most far-reaching, important festival in the world and creates a worldwide image for films you're launching there."

Among other Cannes highlights: James Gray's romance "Two Lovers," with Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Isabella Rossellini; James Toback's "Tyson," a documentary on the rise and fall of heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson; and "Synecdoche, New York," the directing debut of "Being John Malkovich" screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.

Then there's the parties, fashion and stargazing. With a red carpet that swoops up the broad stairs of the Palais, the festival's headquarters along the Mediterranean, Cannes puts celebrities under a glamor microscope like no other.

"It's a carnival, it's a spectacle. It's fun," said David Koepp, who wrote "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and came to Cannes twice previously as a young assistant to a film sales agent. "There's a lot of crazy people. What you get to see at Cannes is all the crazy, rich foreigners who want to get into Hollywood, having parties on their yachts."

The festival presents two major premieres most nights during its 12-day run, with stars preening and posing in front of an endless throng of shouting, gesticulating photographers.

Karen Allen, who reprises her "Raiders of the Lost Ark" role in a reunion with Spielberg, executive producer George Lucas and "Indiana Jones" star Harrison Ford, recalled her first trip to Cannes.

"It was one of the most surreal moments of my life, standing at the bottom of those stairs at the Palais," Allen said. "So many flashbulbs are going off, you're blind."

The new "Indiana Jones" movie has been kept under tight wraps, with Spielberg and his collaborators playing coy on key plot points.

This much is known: The story is set in 1957, 19 years after the action of 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and archaeologist-adventurer Indy is battling Cate Blanchett's Soviet operative over ancient crystal skulls that may possess immeasurable power.

However the movie turns out, fans are happy at the return of Allen as Indy's old flame Marion Ravenwood, whose stormy relationship with Jones promises to pick up where it left off more than two decades ago.

"It's just like `Raiders of the Lost Ark,'" Lucas said. "It's like you just said, `We'll wait 20 years, and we'll do the reunion movie.'"

Carol Felsenthal: Myanmar (and China) Need the Odd Couple

2008-05-13T15:46:59Z

When the tsunami hit parts of Asia and Africa in December 2004, President George W. Bush asked his predecessors, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, to travel to the stricken region and bring relief and hope to the victims.

The tsunami, a giant tidal wave in the Indian Ocean, would claim 271,000 lives and leave 1,000,000 homeless. The "odd couple," as former first lady Barbara Bush dubbed the ex-presidents, cemented their unlikely friendship and raised a record-breaking $1.2 billion in relief funds.

Wouldn't it be something if this current natural disaster in Myanmar which has left an estimated 1.9 million Burmese villagers injured, homeless and exposed to disease and starvation, could bring together 41 and 42 in another heroic effort? They could add to their itinerary China where, several days later, nearly 10,000 people died and tens of thousands more, including children and students, were injured as a terrifyingly strong tremors shook buildings and flattened schools and factories across four provinces.

The cyclone and the earthquake struck just at the time that Bill Clinton is facing his own crisis, looking downhearted and angry as conventional wisdom casts him as hurting rather helping his wife's tireless, desperate effort to capture the nomination.

Would George W. (43) ask his father and his immediate predecessor to repeat their tsunami tour? Would 43 allow Hillary's standard stump line -- "It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush" -- stand in his way? Would he remember Hillary's promise to send 42 and 41 abroad as envoys to fix the relationships with foreign leaders that, Hillary charged, 43 had ruined. (It took just minutes for 41's spokesman to respond, nothing doing; the former President Bush said, explaining that he is proud of his son's accomplishments in the foreign policy arena.)

When the former presidents responded so effectively to the tsunami, they were greeted with banquets and banners and groups of children smiling through their terror. The natural disaster in Myanmar is much more difficult. The generals in the ruling junta have been turning away doctors and disaster experts; barring foreigners from this closed, despotic society; willing increasingly to accept relief supplies but insisting on administering the supplies themselves. The New York Times reported that U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon was telephoning the junta's senior general, but that Than Shwe was not returning the U.N. head's calls.

Would that general return Bill Clinton's calls? Clinton's status may have suffered at home -- he made so many mistakes in his campaign for Hillary that television producers were calling me to ask if he was suffering from early-onset dementia; I said no, he's just, as usual, sleep deprived -- but not abroad.

Bill Clinton, as I show in my book on his post presidency, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House, has time and again picked himself up from the depths of despair and reinvented himself. Post presidency, he did just that following the scandals surrounding the pardons he issued on his way out of the White House. He'll have to do it again soon, and will. It will be a heartwarming chapter when the account of Bill's next four years is written. If Hillary loses the nomination to Obama, Bill Clinton will spend time plotting for Hillary to run again in 2012. But the super-energetic Bill Clinton can juggle several balls at once and one of those balls could be rushing to the scenes of real devastation where he can make a huge difference.

People will quickly remember why, in the time before Hillary's hamhanded campaign, he was called the most popular man in the world and the rock star ex-president.

Rep. Tom Allen: Obama Needs Bigger Dem Majorities In Congress

2008-05-13T15:45:04Z

One of Barack Obama's recent high profile endorsers has two pieces of advice for the Illinois Democrat: don't nudge Hillary Clinton out of the primary before she's ready, and pray for big Democratic congressional majorities in the fall election.

"Half of the lesson of the past year is that a president [can easily obstruct the will of Congress]," Rep. Tom Allen, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, told The Huffington Post. "The other half of the lesson is that in the U.S. Senate, 51-49 doesn't cut it. You can't make the Senate work when it is narrowly divided. Fifty-seven or 58 Democrats give Obama a working majority, something he could effectively use to address some the challenges we face, challenges that are much worse than when president Bush took office."

Allen, who announced his support for Obama on Monday, said that if the Democratic frontrunner wanted a "working majority" as president, it would require somewhere between five to seven additional Democratic Senators in office. Such a gain borders on the very optimistic even in this a favorably Democratic year. According to the Cook Political report, there are five Republican Senate seats vulnerable to Democratic takeover, and an additional two that could be won by a Democrat but are leaning towards the GOP.

But before entertaining congressional margins, Allen cautions that Obama first must work to bring the party together. And while Democratic unity does not necessitate choosing Clinton as the vice president -- though Allen did note that the former first lady is "obviously qualified" and should be "among those considered" -- it did require a smooth landing in what has been a somewhat turbulent primary campaign. That meant, at least by Allen's terms, no premature pushing of Clinton to leave the race, and, in exchange, no negative campaigning by the New York Democrat.

"It sounds," said Allen, "like she is certainly striking a different tone from what I hear her saying today compared to before North Carolina. And that is helpful by itself. That is part of what we need if we are going to reconcile these two camps in a responsible way."

Ending the primary battle aside, Allen saw (and explained away) other political tripwires in Obama's path. Concerning Obama's potential fundraising dilemma -- he could opt into the public financing system for the general election and earn credits among government reform groups or forgo the funding to allow for a serious financial advantage over John McCain -- Allen, a proponent of public funding, argued that the Senator had already successfully maneuvered a middle ground.

"I do believe that he has transformed presidential fundraising by relying so much on relatively small donors," Allen said. "We don't have all that many healthy developments in the world of political finance, but that is a healthy development. And I think there is a very good argument -- he has a choice now and he should consider what works best for him. And certainly, the fact that he's relying on so many smaller donors is a wonderful, remarkable breakthrough when it comes to fundraising."

As for the argument, made most recently by the Clinton campaign, that the Illinois Democrat would not prove as great a help to down-ticket Democrats in toss-up districts, Allen noted that both time and energy are on Obama's side.

"The two of them would play differently in different parts of the country," he said. "Remember, we have till November. If a week is a lifetime in politics, then five and a half months is an eternity. I believe Barack Obama filled the theme and context of change better than anyone I've seen in a very long time. There are very similar parallels to what Bill Clinton did in 1992... and as the candidate who certainly in Maine and across the country was able to draw independents and many Republicans, that is a very powerful position to run from."

Indeed, Obama's support in Maine, where he won the Democratic caucus by some 4,000 votes, could be a significant boost to Allen's own electoral hopes.

"[Obama] and I share important priorities," said Allen. "We want to achieve universal health care, we want to reign in these gas prices that are going through the roof, we have to have a climate change policy that makes us freer of foreign oil, we have to bring our troops home from Iraq and help the middle class business community. It is not change that we can pry together in a night. The Senate races and this presidential race will be fought along many of the same lines and have the same implications."

Faridoon David Baqi: The Waking Beast

2008-05-13T15:31:01Z

It was in the middle of rush hour traffic in Los Angeles today that I had an insight. I saw a guy signal in the right lane and I saw a guy in the left lane slow down to let the other guy in. I was floored. Discombobulated. I had to pull over. I checked the GPS in my car and there was no mistake, I was still in Los Angeles. I hadn't mysteriously been transported to another world. Canada, maybe. I couldn't for the life of me understand it.

Then it hit me. We must be at world's end. I quickly rushed home and turned on the news. My suspicions were confirmed. There was no doubt in my mind. Think about it. Times have always been turbulent, I admit, but I feel that we are in the eye of our historical storm. For starters, there is a woman vying for the presidency of America opposite a black man, both with a serious shot at the job! Now this is conceivable, possible, even probable if we lived in, say, France or Switzerland or even Pakistan. But America? There has to be a mistake.

I flipped the channels. There's a tragic enormous quake that just rocked China and is killing thousands of people. This only days after a cyclone named after a flower wreaks devastation on Myanmar.

There's a beautiful lightning storm, bolts dancing, over an erupting volcano in Chile. The last time that monster woke was thousands of years ago.

There's a guy in Texas who has a harem of fourteen-year-old wives and another guy in Europe who fathers seven of his own grandchildren. The governor of Minnesota isn't getting any loving at home and Arnold isn't doing all that bad in California (even though we all know who would have been better).

The drug addict Robert Downey nailed it in Ironman and the mortgage industry has almost singlehandedly destroyed the world. I say "almost" because there were actually two hands at play, and our glorious leader was the other.

Britney Spears is giving parenting advice to her younger 16-year-old pregnant sister and an ex-Nazi is the pope. I went to fill up on gas and fifty dollars barely got me half a tank.

I'm taking a wider look. Forest for the trees. And I don't know what to make of our forest.

Ron Paul Supporters Plot Revolt At GOP Convention

2008-05-13T15:26:48Z

Virtually all the nation's political attention in recent weeks has focused on the compelling state-by-state presidential nomination struggle between two Democrats and the potential for party-splitting strife over there.

But in the meantime, quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September.

James Boyce: Have A Great Day! (18 Veterans Will Kill Themselves Today)

2008-05-13T15:26:30Z

It's Tuesday May 13, 2008 and on this day in history, The Beatles debuted the movie Let It Be in 1970 and back in 1943 German and Italian forces surrendered in Africa but that's nothing compared to what we have for you today.

Right now, it's 7:30 am here in Seattle and 10:30 back in Washington DC where as far as I can tell, not one elected official has thought today about the fact that by now, two or three, maybe more, young American men and women who served their country in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed themselves.

Some may have used a gun and pulled the trigger when they couldn't take the pain or the wait of up to six months that they are told to wait before seeing a mental health specialist. Some may use pills or drive their car into a wall. Some will slit their wrists.

All our brave young and women we as a nation have failed to serve with a hint of the honor and courage that they served us.

I am embarrassed at how little I have done to help them. Here's a few places I found that are trying to help. Places like Veterans For America. Or the PTSD NewsLadder (learn more about what it is and the challenges those suffering face.)

So what else is going on today?

There's a lot of important stuff happening on Capitol Hill today. Here's what I found on the Senate Public Calendar -- well, let's just say today and yesterday won't go down as the busiest day on the hill. 6 hours of work yesterday guys? Solid effort.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
10:00 a.m.: Convene and resume consideration of S.2284, the Flood Insurance bill.

Previous Meeting

Monday, May 12, 2008

The Senate convened at 2:00 p.m. and adjourned at 8:00 p.m. No record votes were taken.

President Bush is, well, not doing much, just talking about his daughter's wedding.

18 men and women a day, that's what we're averaging, some days may be light, maybe today will be a light one. But then again, maybe yesterday was a light one and today the average will be brought back up.

They're killing themselves in Massachusetts and Florida. They're killing themselves in West Virginia where the primary is today. They're killing themselves in Denver where the Democrats will have their convention and in Minneapolis where the Republicans will gather. There are more kids dying here than there are in Iraq. How that can be, I don't completely understand but it's true.

Bob Graham said back in 2002 as he addressed his fellow Senators, if you don't read the classified intelligence report there will be blood on your hands. At 18 a day, let me see, in just under six days, we could cover all the US Senators in blood. Now, I understand that not all of the veterans are from Iraq and Afghanistan but since the Pentagon won't release how many, we have to presume a lot are -- and whether they fought now, or in Vietnam, or Korea or someplace in between, we should be shamed.

The weather looks good out here in Seattle. One of the headlines is about the Smoothie Race heating up in Seattle.

But I suppose somewhere here, there is a young veteran who feels he can't go on. Maybe he's one of the thousands suffering from mental health issues, maybe he can't face going back to Iraq again (some units have been deployed three or even four times now.) Imagine the hell that lets you survive war but not peace.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

A mother gets the news. A spouse hears a noise in another room. A child comes home from school. A dog barks. A neighborhood sits in stunned. A reporter tries to cover the story.

If you have you ever seen a flag taken from a coffin, folded and handed to the family, you know it seems to take a surreal amount of time. Have you ever seen that? Or heard taps play on a cold morning?

Eighteen times?

Gerald Bracey: Hillary's Desperation

2008-05-13T15:22:19Z

I sent what follows to the columnists of the Washington Post--Richard Cohen, Harold Meyerson, David Broder, E. J. Dionne, David Ignatius, Eugene Robinson, and Colbert King, George Will, Anne Applebaum and Ruth Marcus (no use fiddling with Gerson and Novak), editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, and the Post Ombudsman on Sunday. So far, no response. Since I sent this, Maureen Dowd did break the color line, slapping Hillary for the comment in her Sunday New York Times column.

I think it amazing and appalling that Hillary's amazing and appalling "hard-working Americans, white Americans" comment has received so little attention in the Post. Indeed, in the MSM generally. The only MSM reactions I've seen were from Eugene Robinson in the Post, Bob Herbert in the NYTimes, and Derrick Jackson in the Boston Globe. All black guys. You white guys on this list were all over the Jeremiah Wright thing--too much, actually, as was most of the MSM. Is that because Wright and Obama are black? And is the neglect of Hillary's Southern Strategy--she actually outdid Nixon with her comment--because she is white? Hmmm.

Agit Pop: White House Rocks: Superdelegates!

2008-05-13T15:21:00Z

Agit Pop http://www.huffingtonpost.com/agit-pop/

MacDonald Chuma: Dear Madonna

2008-05-13T15:14:33Z

Dear Madonna,

We are truly grateful for the attention that you have brought to our country. Through your personal life and care for your son David, your fundraising, and now with your new documentary film, I Am Because We Are, which examines the AIDS crisis in Malawi and the effect it has on our families, you have alerted the world to a crisis in our homeland. Your foundation, Raising Malawi, which uses community-based programs to provide assistance and outreach, has inspired others to lend a hand, as volunteer agencies have begun to receive an unprecedented amount of requests to take part in service projects in the country.

But there is another crisis in our country -- the crisis of poverty -- which exacerbates the AIDS crisis. Because we believe in your interest in Malawi, we are asking you to take a look at the struggles encountered on a daily basis by Malawi workers who simply want to provide a living wage for themselves and a better future for their children.

We represent 13,000 security guards who work for the British-owned multinational G4S, Africa's biggest multinational employer, representing 68% of the security business in Malawi. Our workers -- who guard big corporations, government offices and NGOs -- are paid on the average only $30 USD per month, a quarter of a living wage. Even with the seventeen hour days that most of the guards work, this is not enough to survive.

Many of the G4S workers must walk ninety minutes each way to and from work, live in homes without electricity or running water, and cannot afford to meet their children's school or medical fees. A G4S guard in Malawi would need to work for 7,583 years to obtain the annual pay given to the firm's chief executive, UK-based Nick Buckles, whose latest salary exceeds $2.19 million USD.

Last summer, G4S recognized the Textile, Garment, Leather and Security Services Workers Union in Malawi, and in October, our union and the company started to negotiate an agreement for G4S workers there. But the company offered a wage increase which does not even keep up with the cost of living.

Our workers simply want justice. We believe that G4S, as the largest multinational in Africa, has a responsibility to work with us to achieve this.

Madonna, please join us in shedding light on the plight of these workers who deserve dignity and hope. Join us in the fight to get a living wage and decent working conditions for the parents of Malawi. The best way to end AIDS in Malawi is to give the workers in our country a chance to earn the dignity that a good job should provide.

Jeff Madrick: Does Success Breed Failure? The Rule of Government Neglect

2008-05-13T15:12:22Z

I keep beating this horse, but the current economic situation continues to need serious government attention. Increasingly, we are told the worst is over. If that's true, thank fiscal policy and the alert and intelligent Ben Bernanke for acting quickly.

But the worst may not be over. House prices keep skidding. An analysis of post-war financial crises since World War II suggests that the rise in house prices that preceded this one was significantly greater than the others. That means there's more room to fall. And if house prices fall a lot more, there will be more defaults and foreclosures, and more mortgage debt losses for the financial institutions.

Now, we are told by the New York Times that the Republicans are resisting a package to stem the defaults and perhaps ease the decline in house prices. Their constituency, they think, wonders why the government is bailing out profligate homeowners. They smell political advantage.

They are also falsely encouraged by the current pause in alarm. Maybe the crisis is not that bad after all, they slyly say. As I've said before, I hear that lots now. And as the Democratic House biggie Barney Frank says, it's hard to get the Republicans to do something they don't like, anyway, which is to take government action.

Where does that leave a potentially even bigger problem? That is, the re-regulation of finance. Paul Krugman wondered recently whether the impetus for needed regulation is already diminishing. That's what happened in 1997 and 1998 after the Long-Term Capital Management Crisis. A lot of talk and then no action. Wehre was the Clinton Treasury? In today's Times, Andrew Sorkin interviews a major hedge fund operator who is asking for serious regulation. I hope he gets back to him a year from now.

In a piece the forthcoming Challenge Magazine, which I edit, the London School of Economics professor, Robert Wade, makes the case well. The efficient markets theory was put to a serious test in recent years and it failed. The problem areas were exactly where there was no regulation. Competition was not the great regulator, as free market enthusaiss insist it is. Instead of costs rising as markets got riskier, costs of investing fell. Financial markets are susceptible to mob psychology.
The free market prevailed and it failed.

What do we need? Capital requirements, exchanges to trade the new securities, broader oversight? The list is rather long and deep because the neglect under the weight of a purist free market ideology has been severe. But neglect will return if the government succeeds in minimizing the crisis. People will say the markets worked, they adjusted on their own-- and they would be wrong. Call it the rule of government neglect.

This should be a bigger campaign issue than it is. We have an election coming in November and Congressmen should be elected who support serious re-regulation of finance. But with jobs at hedge funds waiting for those leaving government, it may be a losing battle. That's really the vicious circle. The potential regulators and the regulated are one and the same.

In the end it may be up to the next president. The candiates should be talking aboutfinancial re-regulation more.

Obama, McCain Battle Over Vets -- And Why That's A Great Thing

2008-05-13T15:10:51Z

I've been obsessing over John McCain's incoherent opposition to a modernized GI Bill for veterans, so I was especially pleased to see Barack Obama, at a campaign stop in West Virginia, help elevate the issue and hammer McCain for his misguided position. From the speech:

"When our troops go into battle, they serve no faction or party; they represent no race or region. They are simply Americans. They serve and fight and bleed together out of loyalty not just to a place on a map or a certain kind of people, but to a set of ideals that we have been striving for since the first shots rang out at Lexington and Concord - the idea that America could be governed not by men, but by laws; that we could be equal in the eyes of those laws; that we could be free to say what we want and write what want and worship as we please; that we could have the right to pursue our individual dreams but the obligation to help our fellow citizens pursue theirs.

Rita Rudner: CNNNMSNBCCNBC FOXNEWSNETWORK HEADLINENEWS LOCALANDNATIONALNEWS

2008-05-13T15:07:20Z

Grocery Outlet: A New Place To Save

2008-05-13T15:00:55Z

The newest trend in penny-pinching is coming from an unlikely source: The Amish. According to The Canadian Press, Amish-run grocery outlets "are a thriving discount industry tucked away in America's farmlands, sell expired food and medicine dirt-cheap. This shadow economy, run by people who typically shun modern methods of commerce, is drawing a steady stream of non-Amish customers seeking relief from the country's financial ills."

These outlets sell modern-day products at old-school prices, but not without reason.

The narrow aisles spill over with water-damaged taco shells (25 cents per package) and pesto sauce that expired four months ago (five packets for $1). Fresh bags of homemade flavoured gelatin and rolled oats are usually in stock, along with oddities such as light-up Disney princess pens.

There's low-priced facial moisturizer, tubes of old toothpaste, discounted rolls of toilet paper - even expired over-the-counter medicines.

At Triple M Salvage in Middlefield, adventurous customers can buy Hair Regrowth Treatment from Rite Aid that expired more than three years ago. For a buck, they might try a bottle of Dulcolax stool softener that expired last June or year-old caplets of Tylenol Allergy medicine.

The Providence Journal cites rising food prices as a cause:

U.S. food prices rose 4 percent last year, compared with an average 2.5-percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says this year could be worse, with prices rising another 4.5 percent.

Some of the price increases have been eye-popping. Eggs cost 25 percent more in February than they did a year ago, according to the USDA. Milk and other dairy products jumped 13 percent, chicken and other poultry nearly 7 percent.

Looking for other ways to save? You can try the fine art of Dumpster Diving or try these money-saving tips from Huffington Post contributor Galia Gichon.

Got any advice to share? Tell us your tips in the comments below