by Stephen Carter-Novotni
11.17.2008
Monday Wellness Roundup
Personal Health
- NYT: Medical tourism expands in South Korea.
- WSJ Health Blog: Investigating shady ties between colleges and health insurers.
- Cincinnati Enquirer: Health events this week.
by Rebecca Carter-Novotni
10.30.2008
It Takes a Village (or at Least a Good Online Community)
It's rare to see modern folks coexisting in a supportive community, giving and gaining from a well-connected group of people with whom they share common values or goals. My family and I are fortunate to have such a rare and nurturing support network through our neighborhood church community.
For many Americans, however, meeting the needs of the immediate family is hard enough, so connecting with a larger community seems overwhelming or perhaps even a luxury.
by Stephen Carter-Novotni
11.12.2008
Mid Week Wellness News
Cincinnati Enquirer: The Little Miami Scenic Trail needs $60k in bridge resurfacing to make it safer and prevent bike skids. Signs urging cyclists to walk across would be a lot cheaper. Is anyone reading this blog a part of the decision making process on this?
Queen City Bike: Public discussion--Future of Transit in Greater Cincinnati 5:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 20 at First Unitarian Church, 536 Linton St., Avondale, 513-281-1564.
AP: It's not just baby fat. Obese kids have the arteries of 45-year-olds.
Reuters: Robot pill recreates Fantastic Voyage, targets sites in the body to deposit drugs.
by Stephen Carter-Novotni
10.08.2008
Parenting: Lowering SIDS risk, Ohioans' Medical Records and more
• Park Vine is hosting a discussion and workshop on cloth diapers with cloth diaper authority Elizabeth Whitton. Free. 10 a.m. Oct. 18 at Park Vine, 1109 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-721-7275. RSVPs requested before Oct. 11.
by Stephen Carter-Novotni
11.03.2008
Monday Wellness Roundup
Health Issues
* Wall Street Journal: Is a Candidate's DNA the next campaign issue?
* Cincinnati Enquirer: Moderate portion sizes for a better diet
* New York Times: Everything you know about stretching is wrong
Rehab for your Wallet
* The Simple Dollar: Frugal tips including buying used furniture from hotels and making your own gift baskets at Christmas.
* Buxr: Free tall coffee on Election Day at Starbucks
Green Life
* Live Green Cincinnati: New language for the green revolution
by
12.16.2010
Help Feed Kids through Public Radio
With the unemployment rate at near-record highs, about 70 percent of Cincinnati Public School students either receive free or reduced-cost lunches, indicating the dire need of local families. To help ensure as many children as possible have enough food to eat when not at school, Cincinnati Public Radio has partnered with two organizations to make donations go farther.
Every pledge made Friday to WVXU (91.7 FM) or WGUC (90.9 FM) will feed four Cincinnati children through Childhood Food Solutions and Green B.E.A.N. Delivery.
by
04.09.2010
Free Cardiac Screenings Offered
With so many people laid off or fired these days, one of the worse consequences is some have lost their health insurance. As a result, they are foregoing routine medical care and testing they might otherwise receive to warn of potential problems.
When the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners & Nurse Midwives holds its annual convention later this month in Covington, participants will offer free advanced cardiac risk assessment screenings to the public.
When the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners & Nurse Midwives holds its annual convention later this month in Covington, participants will offer free advanced cardiac risk assessment screenings to the public.
by Stephen Carter-Novotni
11.10.2008
Monday Wellness Roundup
Health Issues
* Walmart Watch: Lead face paint for kids sold at Walmart, the bottomless pit of shocking corporate behavior.
* NKY.com: Common knowledge confirmed--there's a genetic predisposition to lung cancer. But it's smoking that's still the top cause.
* Gyminee: Social networking, accountability and support for your fitness plan.
by Bart Campolo
10.20.2009
BART CAMPOLO is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks and writes about grace, faith, loving relationships and social justice. He's leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship.
Bart Campolo on Fear and Bitterness
It is Sunday night,
and I am suddenly awake at the crack of too-close gunfire. I creep to
the window without turning on the light, more curious than afraid until
I remember I don’t know if my daughter and her friends are home
from their movie. Looking out, I see three men spread out in the
backyard we share with our neighbors, one moving slowly past the patio
furniture where we had a child's birthday party that afternoon, the
other two crouched by the trampoline my son and his football buddies
slept out on last week. Strangers in our space, clearly visible in the
moonlight, probably carrying guns.
My wife, Marty hands me a
phone and the 911 operator keeps asking how many, what color, how old,
how many shots, until I hiss at her to hurry up and send a car because
they're still out there, calling back and forth to each other, pointing
at the apartments on the other side of our back fence. They move into
the side yard, where they regroup for a moment, and then they walk out
our gate and down our front steps, cross the sidewalk past three women
they seem to know, and get into a gray, late-model sedan parked behind
our minivan, where my daughter was supposed to have parked. God, don't let
her come home now, I think, as I keep narrating to the 911 lady, both
of us knowing the information doesn't really matter. The police always come too
late. Sure enough, the gray car slowly pulls away, coming to a
maddeningly full and legal stop before turning the corner and blending
back into the city night. The three
women’s loud voices trail off in the other direction. It is quiet
again. I am not afraid anymore. I am furious.
Those lousy ghetto bastards—my exact words at 2 a.m.—brought their ignorant violence into our
yard on purpose. They weren't running away from anything. They had a
plan. They brought an audience. I don't know their names, of course,
but I know them just the same, because once they get that careless,
they are all the same. Before I can stop myself, I hope aloud that they
drive themselves off a bridge before they make any more babies. Across
the room, Marty wonders aloud what happened to the kind and hopeful man
who brought her to this place four years
ago, in the name of Love. Finally, we turn on the light and call our daughter. Until she gets home, there is no use trying to sleep.
Hours later, everyone else is
safe in bed, but I am in the bathroom, sitting, thinking, wishing I
could pray. Beside the tub, Marty has left a book of poems. Reading
them, I gradually forget who and where I am. And then I find this:
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn,
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
To buy me, and snaps the purse shut,
when death comes
like the measle-pox
When death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
And I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
And each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don't want to wonder
And suddenly, just as suddenly as those gunshots awakened me, I too don’t want to end up simply having visited this world, or even this neighborhood. I don’t want to end up angry or bitter. No, I
want to believe in my heart that each life, and each name, and each
body is indeed something precious, both to God and to me. I want to
remarry amazement.
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I sit alone for a long time, silently thankful for Mary Oliver,
the poet, and for Marty Campolo, my conscience in many ways, and for
Grace herself, who gives us all our second chances, and then I go back
to bed. Tomorrow is Monday, and we in the fellowship will be eating our supper together.
I wrote this
up the day after it happened, early in the summer. Honestly, two days
after that, life on Hemlock Street went back to normal, which is to
say, life for us and our friends here went back to being pretty
terrific. We might be more fearful if such thugs came that close again,
or if they were aiming at us, but they haven’t, and they aren’t, so
we’re not. If you really want to scare us these days, forget bullets
and focus on that force of evil which truly threatens to destroy the
good life we share here in Walnut Hills: Bedbugs. Think I’m kidding?
Read next month’s letter.
by Stephen Carter-Novotni
05.13.2009
Free Breakfast for Cyclists Thursday-Friday
This is "Bike to Work Week," the happiest time of year (next to Halloween of course) in my book. If you're on two wheels this week and the weather turns dry, you're in luck.
