10 women making positive strides worldwide.

It is clear that the more power women have, the more positive change we will see on a global level.

They’re out there competing for dollars and attention and making a big difference.

As the troops prepare to come back home we face the daunting task of absorbing their return. Housing, health care, jobs and schooling – not to mention how to treat PTSD which we now know plagues scads of combat units when settling into civilian life. It brings to mind non profits – the other army of good soldiers – with countless missions. The staffer and volunteers running these organizations deal with these hard  issues and so much more in aiding people daily while often relying on deeper souls than pockets.

Finding the green in print publications.

You’d be surprised by which magazines use recycled paper these days. While it’s expected from from publications like Plenty and Ode (and many on our list below), there are plenty of others using recycled content in addition to publishing articles on conscious and environmental topics. Here are nine magazines worth plunking down cash for in the age of online media. 

A look at 10 powerful men who have grown to become better people who in turn, better our lives.

We continue to seek leaders among movers and shakers capable of making a difference. Who is out there, we ask, in these bleak times to govern, protect and prosper? Here is a look at some men who have proven able to rise to challenging tasks, become better people with stances of substance, and capable of changing our world in a myriad number of positive ways.

What came first, the depressing women’s book clubs or the morbid books?

Remember the trances and travels afforded by pleasure reading? You couldn’t wait to lose yourself in the next chapter of that murder mystery, royal court espionage or love tryst – you were a voracious reader who deeply mourned the loss of your new character friends once the final page was devoured and downloaded into your fiber.

But somehow, that pleasure has become elusive to the women’s book group, the reading less an armchair cruise than an academic grind. The inevitable prerequisite …

 Why must everything come in packaging that’s seemingly ready-made for nuclear meltdown?

The clamshell isn’t finished, but perhaps it has met its match in the flesh-eating Pyranna, a wrap rage coping tool with teeth to cut ridiculously over-packaged goods. Evidently, manufacturers are more focused on anti-theft and cost saving plastic than consumer convenience. We are especially reminded of the wasteful abundance when seeing the hordes of back-to-school shoppers lining up at Office Depot with carts of protractors and mechanical pencils housed in impossible chambers of reconstituted petroleum – which includes …

In two words? Canada executes.

Having just returned from extraordinary Vancouver, I can appreciate how its greenness extends beyond the pristine meadows of Stanley Park to thrive in the souls of its dwellers who witness their slightly higher taxes at work in the form of a well-maintained, pothole-free environs. It’s not just bells and Whistler. It’s beauty that exists down deep, even in the success of enacted laws that put the U.S. and its stagnating bipartisan representatives to shame.

No wonder Vancouver’s goal of being the greenest city in the world by 2020 …

A celebration of men’s urban street wear.

Fashion for the urban man’s newfangled eclecticism is defined by shortcut tailoring of preppy classics paired with offbeat hats, bespoke and on-trend sneakers, designer shades and the accessory fixture that has witnessed high speed travel from Paris this summer – the essential neck wrap.