Cancer Survivor: To Fight Is to Live

Cancer is really great material to work with. The comedienne Tig Notaro discovered this after making cancer part of her routine. (Opening line, “Hello, I have cancer. How are you?”) Dozens of people in my profession—which always had way too many smokers—wrote themselves into the grave, some quite elegantly. After my own cancer diagnosis, I swore I wasn’t going to write myself into the grave if the chemo and the surgery didn’t stop the disease. Nor was I going turn my disease into magazine fodder.

Then, not long after I returned to work, a cancer story popped up that was directly related to my treatment, and the managing editor asked me if I was interested. I hesitated. How many pages, I inquired. Four. “I’m in.” As a journalist, you have to work with what the news gives you–and take all the space you can get.

So I began to write about cancer, especially cancer research, occasionally revealing details of my own illness. I thought it would serve the reader. I took part in a drug study and urged other cancer patients to at least explore the trials available to them. Being a lab rat, it turns out, you get a little extra attention, too. And having been a customer gives you a certain amount of journalistic leverage with the scientists and physicians you are covering. They may know the biology of the disease (or some of it, cancer is monstrously complicated); but I lived it. I occasionally hear from readers seeking advice on treatment options, or about the surgery (horrible), about the hospitals where I was treated. I try to help them as best I can.

Lisa Bonchek Adams has also been sharing her case information, in more than 160,000 tweets that this Connecticut mother of three has posted since she started down cancer’s path seven years ago. Adams has taken part in a drug trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City, in an effort to treat her breast cancer that had advanced to stage IV and spread to other organs. She’s in desperate shape, hanging in and blogging hard.  “I gather up my pump cords, release myself from the wall’s grip. I walk, counter-clockwise around the nurse’s station with a vengeance, trying to push the pain and discomfort away,” she posted recently. I recognize that  pain; and that walk.  If you are walking you are not dying; I think I set the record for laps around the floor of the hospital, where I was treated.

Her relentless tweeting recently got the attention of Emma and Bill Keller—he’s the former New York Times editor turned columnist; she writes for the UK’s Guardian—who each tried to address some touchy issues with what critics thought were lead fingers. Mr. Keller suggested that his father-in-law’s quiet, no-heroic-measures taken death from cancer might have something to offer to U.S. healthcare providers, given the enormous cost of end-of-life care. Every battle can’t be fought to the last soldier, Mr. Keller suggested, and Adams’ daily battle briefs were raising false hopes about the benefits of experimental drugs. As for Adams herself, he wondered whether her blog was more about her than a public service to cancer patients. “Social media have become a kind of self-medication,” he wrote, bloodlessly. Mrs. Keller explored the idea that Adams was oversharing: “Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies, one step further than funeral selfies?”

Go ahead and just die already, was the takeaway, unfairly or not. The outrage within the cancer and journalism communities was such that the Guardian pulled the plug on Mrs. Keller’s story .

Having once experienced stage IV cancer, I understand Adams’ desire to fight it with every drug that Memorial can throw at her. If they had told me to drink mercury I would have asked for a double—and keep in mind that in many drug trials that is essentially what’s going on: You get dosed with poison while the clinicians try to guess whether the poison will kill you or the cancer first. But patients are fully informed. No one—especially not doctors—administers under the delusion that these are miracle drugs. Cancer treatment is still a three yards and a cloud of dust offense. The gains are small but they keep coming, which is why the trials need to be ongoing. And compared with the trials of decades past (read Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies for the horrifying accounts) the drug protocols are at least humane.

I also understand Adams’ desire, if not her need, to share her world with the blogosphere. It’s the literary equivalent of pacing the hallways. Or affirming that you are still here.  My approach took a different format. I worked out like a maniac and continued to play basketball and soccer until the day before my surgery. Every dribble seemed like I was adding a day to my life. It was all completely irrational but you do what you can to stay sane.

Adams posts are completely rational, and some are completely compelling. Whether hers is a hopeless case at this point isn’t for the Kellers to decide, or even debate for that matter. If you are not interested in Lisa Adams’ radiation treatments, or anyone else’s, by all means go back to your cat photos if that’s what you like. It’s a big web. But people like Adams are going to become more numerous because cancer has outlasted other diseases to become our top killer. Cancer will kill more than 500,000 people this year, even as the funding for the National Cancer Institutes got cut in last year’s political knife fight.  Adams will remind us, until her last breath it seems, that this is a war we are still losing.

10 Small Things That Will Expand Your Consciousness In Big Ways

Did you know “ignorance is bliss” is actually a misquote? The entirety of the line is: “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

Unawareness is a major player on the team of ‘shit that causes us to suffer.’ Freedom is in realizing that we are not what we think or feel, but we are what observes the thoughts and feelings.

“Expand your consciousness” is just a fancy schmancy way of saying: be more aware of what you do, what you experience, how you react, and what that reaction means to show you. It doesn’t mean to feel less or do less or be different; just to be more aware, more conscious.

It’s a means to pave a path to be freer, less confined by the problems you create for yourself because you were conditioned to.

1. Listen to binaural beats if you find meditating on your own difficult. They’re just different frequencies that play and shift your brain waves (sounds scary, but will mellow you out to a meditative state.) You can download apps or songs or just listen to them on YouTube.

2. Don’t be afraid of feeling: no feeling will last, but it will return until you take what you need to learn from it. Fighting the feeling gives it the power because it brings the issue to your awareness and puts tons of ‘fight or flight survival’ energy toward it unnecessarily. You suppress it and give it all your power by doing so. You have to relearn what it means to appreciate every experience, and focus on the fact that whatever it offers in that moment is something to be conscious of and present for.

3. Your personal growth is not a means to an end. If you only want to become a better person to get a partner or to prove someone wrong or to make more money or feel perpetually and forevermore “happy,” or to appease your “God” or because it’s the “good and right thing to do,” you’re always going to be stuck on evolving toward what your partner would want, what the job requires, what allows you to avoid experiences so to not experience pain, what your particular religion of choice says is right, what you were conditioned to believe “good” is. You have to let go of framing your idea of what should be, it’s the only way to genuinely accept what is.

4. Identify the meaningless things to which you’ve assigned meaning. If you think happiness is in getting a certain thing, you’re never going to find it so long as it’s external. If you’re attached or controlling about your clothing, your hair, your home, your relationship, etc. understand that you’ve assigned a deeper, personal projection onto that thing as some reflection of who you think you are and how you think you’re doing. Rather than allowing things to reflect yourself to you, you try to control them so as to not have to see yourself clearly.

5. Grow your “little voice” into a big one by trusting in what it says, just once. If something tells you to take an umbrella with you in the morning and then you realize that it did indeed rain that afternoon, you’ll be so in awe of how powerful your subconscious is you’ll immediately start to grow it into a powerful, resounding, deep and underlying knowing as opposed to a little voice you oppress.

6. Travel to see and study how other people live. If that’s not practical, look it up online. Watch documentaries. Read. Ask a friend who’s been somewhere you haven’t. I’m not talking about what it’s like to see the leaning tower of Pisa, I’m talking about what beauty standards look like around the world, what people value. What their history books looked like in elementary school (we don’t all learn the same story.) Once you realize that there isn’t only one standard of success, fortune, happiness, beauty, wealth, whatever it may be, you will realize that the one you were holding yourself to was just made up in your mind.

7. Question your intentions. We tend to evaluate our actions based on how we understand other people will perceive them. So if we do something that looks good, even though it’s rooted in something malicious, we’ll convince ourselves that it is, indeed, good.

8. Start to analyze what you do (and how humanity at large behaves) through the Bicameral Model of the mind. Level one is when obedience is most important. Two is when being ‘right’ is most important. Three is when producing results is most important (growth, art, evolution, understanding, etc.) and you are in control of your thoughts and feelings, which is how you’re able to do so.

9. Find humility in realizing how human you are. There is something so incredibly endearing about being honest about your humanity. It’s the way people bond. The kind of honesty that matters isn’t the kind that’s easy to confess. But you have to realize that the only reason it would ever not be easy is because we are the only animals who don’t want to be animals. We think there’s something wrong with being flawed and imperfect, so we try to cover it up and fix everything to be accepted until eventually we realize that the most genuine love and acceptance comes from being honest about being not okay. (People mostly can see through things like that anyway, don’t be so naive.)

10. Act with love (or rather, realize how often you don’t.) Differentiate soul and ego. One is your essential nature, the other is your identification with the “I.” It’s the brain’s understanding of who and what you are versus the essential nature that doesn’t require definition to exist. The ego will act out of jealousy and survival and desire to be superior; the soul will act out of love and understanding and compassion. There’s a difference between your inner and outer self. Becoming aware of the root of your thoughts and intentions is the first step in understanding it.

Copenhagen Zoo kills 4 lions, weeks after shooting giraffe

A Danish zoo that made international headlines last month when it killed a healthy giraffe is once again in the news after it killed four lions to make way for a new male.

The lions were killed Monday, said Tobias Stenbaek Bro, a spokesman for the Copenhagen Zoo.

Two of those were young lions that were not old enough to survive by themselves and would have been killed by the new male lion if it had the chance, Bro told CNN. He said the zoo had tried to place them elsewhere, "but unfortunately there wasn't any interest."

The other two are the youngsters' parents, described by the Copenhagen Zoo as a "very old" breeding pair.

The new male lion was brought from Givskud Zoo, also in Denmark, to form a breeding group with the Copenhagen Zoo's two 18-month-old females, born on site in 2012.

The zoo had to put down the old lions and their young offspring "because of the natural structure and behavior" of the lion pride, the Copenhagen Zoo said in a prepared statement.

The newcomer is about 3 years old, large for his age and healthy, the zoo said. After he's had a few days to adjust to his new surroundings, visitors will be able to see him.

"He is a beautiful young male and I am certain he will be an impressive ambassador for his species," zoo chief Steffen Straede is quoted as saying.

He said the three young lions would "be the foundation of the zoo's next lion era."

Public anger

The decision by the Copenhagen Zoo to shoot dead its giraffe, named Marius, in February to prevent inbreeding sparked widespread outrage.

The killing of four healthy lions has prompted further dismay.

Some questioned why the lions weren't sent elsewhere if the Copenhagen Zoo no longer had space.

"Why are people visiting this abhorrent animal slaughter house," said a message posted on a Facebook page that calls for the closure of the zoo.

The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria -- a body governing 345 institutions -- said that the Copenhagen Zoo had not broken its codes of conduct and that it "has been consistent in its approach to animal population management, and high standards of animal welfare."

The zoo supports natural cycles of reproduction and cub rearing, it said, and its lions are not part of a breeding program.

"While EAZA regrets the death of the animals in question, we recognize the right of Copenhagen Zoo to humanely cull them in line with their policies," it added.

Such culling is not uncommon, although large animals are less likely to meet that fate.

European Association of Zoos and Aquaria spokesman David Williams-Mitchell told CNN that across the European zoos governed by the body, about 3,000 to 5,000 animals are killed each year under programs to manage zoo populations.

This includes "everything from tadpoles and insects up to charismatic megafauna like giraffes and lions," he said, adding that it represents only 0.06% of the zoos' overall animal population.

Exact figures are hard to come by, but a few hundred of those killed by the zoos each year would be large animals, he said.

Williams-Mitchell added that members of the public and animal rights groups tend to object only when zoos kill "cute, storybook animals," rather than rodents or tadpoles.

Giraffe backlash

Marius the giraffe was shot by a veterinarian and dismembered in front of an audience that included children, before being fed to the zoo's lions, tigers and leopards.

Addressing criticism after that killing, Bengt Holst, the zoo's scientific director, told CNN the decision was made for the greater good of the giraffe population.

"Our giraffes are part of an international breeding program, which has a purpose of ensuring a sound and healthy population of giraffes," he said.

But the explanation did little to appease public anger.

The backlash prompted another zoo in Denmark to reverse course. Jyllands Park Zoo had said it was considering culling one of its male giraffes if a female was brought in to breed. But it backtracked.

Scrap metal find turns out to be $33 million Faberge golden egg

A $14,000 jumble sale find turned into millions of dollars for a man who'd been thwarted in his attempts to turn a quick profit by selling the tiny ornament to scrap metal dealers.

The man, who hails from the Midwest but wishes to remain anonymous, had been left financially stretched after he apparently overestimated what the tiny golden egg would be worth once melted down. He'd been hoping to make $500.

In a fit of desperation one night last year, he typed "egg" and the name engraved on the clock it contained -- "Vacheron Constantin" -- into Google.

His search brought up a 2011 article in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper describing a "frantic search" for the object: the Third Imperial Easter Egg, made by Faberge for the Russian royal family and estimated to be worth 20 million pounds ($33 million).

Far from being a financial millstone around the scrap metal trader's neck, it appeared the golden egg might live up to its fairy-tale namesake and avoid the furnace with just a few scratches -- to assess its gold content -- to show for it.

The man contacted Faberge expert Kieran McCarthy and flew to London to visit McCarthy's workplace: Wartski jewelers in Mayfair, where the egg will be displayed to the public for only the second time, from April 14 to 17.

'Holy Grail of art and antiques'

McCarthy said he had no warning about the visit.

"A gentleman had walked in wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and trainers. His mouth was just dry with fear," McCarthy said, to the extent that he could barely speak. "He handed me a portfolio of photographs, and there was the egg, the Holy Grail of art and antiques."

Though he had not handled the egg itself, McCarthy said, he was "buzzing from top to toe." He flew to the man's home to see the object in person and confirmed that it was indeed the Third Imperial Egg.

The finder "just can't believe his luck," McCarthy said. "It's almost an affirmation of his existence that this happened to him."

11 intriguing things owned by wealthy Russians

Intrinsic value

McCarthy said the man had overestimated the value of the egg's materials -- which were worth about what he'd paid for it -- but underestimated its value as a work of art.

"He didn't look upon a work of art at all. He saw that it was pretty and it was nice, but he was buying on intrinsic value. He bought and sold. ... This was quite a considerable outlay for him," he said. "The essence of Faberge's work is craftsmanship. It's the beauty of design and the conceiving of that object."

Pre-revolutionary Russia had seen "this last gasp of imperial patronage colliding with craftsmanship," he said, as the tsar and tsarina had everything they wanted.

"Their daily lives were lived at such a height of luxury that you couldn't really excite them with anything of intrinsic value. It was always about the craftsmanship. This is what that object is about, this craftsmanship and demonstration of skill. If you're not looking for it, you won't see it," McCarthy said.

"It's a very delicate and small object, and people never anticipate that Faberge eggs can be that size," he said, instead imagining them to be "the size of the Empire State Building, with diamonds the size of footballs."

But the eggs were a celebration of Easter and love tokens, "so in a way, they are quite modest."

Missing eggs

The finder was far removed from the art and antiques world and so had not recognized the object's true value. After reading the article, he could hardly believe what he was in possession of, McCarthy said.

"He was just getting frantic. He couldn't sleep; he couldn't eat; he couldn't think about anything else."

Until the 1916 overthrow of the tsar, Carl Faberge's jewelery workshop made 50 Easter eggs for the family, each taking a year or more to craft. According to Faberge, designs were produced in the greatest secrecy, "the only prerequisite being that they contained a surprise."

The egg on the brink of being melted down for scrap in the U.S. had been the third made: Tsar Alexander III's 1887 Easter gift to his wife, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna.

The 8.2-centimeter (3.2-inch) egg is on an elaborate gold stand supported by lion paw feet. Three sapphires suspend golden garlands around it, and a diamond acts an opening mechanism to reveal the Vacheron Constantin watch inside.

The egg was thought to have been lost after the Soviets listed it for sale in 1922 as part of a policy of turning "treasures into tractors," but in 2011, Faberge researchers recognized it in a 1964 auction catalog, reviving hopes it had survived and prompting the Telegraph article.

After the revolution, 42 of the imperial eggs made their way into private collections and museums. Eight, including the Third Imperial Egg, were thought to have been lost. Two others are thought to have survived, though their locations remain a mystery.

The other five were almost certainly destroyed, McCarthy said, with no reference to them after the Revolution.

The Third Imperial Egg has been purchased by a private collector who has allowed the public to glimpse it at Wartski before it disappears from general view again.

Ash Wednesday 2014: History, Dates, Traditions Of Lent's First Day Of Fasting

Ash Wednesday is observed on March 5, in 2014. The Christian holy day marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day season of fasting that is considered preparation for Holy Week and the celebration of Easter.

Although there is no Biblical reference to Ash Wednesday or Lent, scholars of Christianity date the tradition of a 40-day fasting period back to 325 A.D.

Lent mirrors Jesus’ own 40-day period of fasting, described in the book of Matthew. Observers have ash placed on their foreheads in the shape of the cross as the words from Genesis 3:19 are spoken: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Fasting requirements for Catholics are outlined by the Code of Canon Law, and include eating no meat on the Fridays during Lent, as well as fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. (Fasting in this case refers to eating just one full meal a day.)

Many Christians will make personal vows of abstinence during Lent, which could include anything from refraining from eating candy, meat, vowing not to gossip, or being less selfish. Others will make a vow to do more for others including volunteering and working for social justice. All are expected to spend more time in prayer and reflection as Lent is considered by many to be an opportunity for spiritual transformation.

Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not...Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now... Lent is a summons to live anew...Lent is the time to let life in again, to rebuild the worlds we've allowed to go sterile, to "fast and weep and mourn" for the goods we've foregone. If our own lives are not to die from lack of nourishment, we must sacrifice the pride or the sloth or the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again. Then, as Joel (2:12-18) promises, God will have pity on us and pour into our hearts the life we know down deep that we are lacking.

How to Solve Obamacare’s Youth Enrollment Problem

When the first Obamacare enrollment numbers were released, there was nervousness that only 24% of those signing up were in the important 18 to 34 age category. Those who initially signed up through the Affordable Care Act tended to be older and potentially less healthy, and that kind of population didn’t bode well for premiums—or the law’s economic viability. So the question at hand was this: How do we get more young people to enroll?

Currently Obamacare uses financial penalties to get people to sign up. The result is either resentment or just plain avoidance. Young people in particular are upset because they know they’re paying for their elders. But a new quantitative science, called social physics, shows us that the key isn’t just to make it in their economic self-interest, but to make doing so benefit their own circle of people.

Social physics is a new quantitative science that not only describes how networks of people behave, but also accurately predicts patterns of human behavior and influences those patterns. It harnesses big data to radically change our ideas about why people decide to change their behavior, and how new ideas reach them and move them.

For instance, in one community experiment, my MIT research group offered people financial rewards for healthier behavior. The result was a small improvement, but one that disappeared as soon as the experiment ended. However, in a second community, we gave people rewards only when their neighbors or members of their workgroup improved. The improvement was up to eight times greater, and, perhaps just as important, the pattern of healthier behavior continued even after the experiment’s money ran out.

What explains the difference? Social network incentives raise community awareness and create social pressure to work together. Individual incentives are just that: They engage only the individual and miss the power of community engagement. When people interact in small groups, the ability to punish or reward peers is effective at promoting trusted cooperative behavior.

The social physics approach to getting everyone to cooperate focuses on changing the connections between people rather than getting individual people to change their behavior. Social network incentives act by generating social pressure around the problem of finding cooperative behaviors; people experiment with new behaviors to find ones that are better. The social pressure generated is a function of the cost of the behavioral mismatch between the behavior of the individuals, the value of the relationship, and the amount of interaction. All this means that the most effective network incentives should be focused on the people who have the strongest social ties and the most interaction with others.

You can also use social physics in online environments. For instance, with colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, we encouraged  buddy groups within a digital social network around energy use: When someone saved energy, then gift points were given to his or her buddies. This social network incentive caused electricity consumption to drop by 17%, twice that seen in earlier energy conservation campaigns and more than four times more effective than the typical energy reduction campaign. Just as in the health experiment, behavior change was most effective when it leveraged the strength of the surrounding social ties.

So how can the Obama administration use social physics to increase outreach to young people ahead of National Youth Enrollment Day on Feb. 15?

The simplest example would be to offer discounts to young people in workgroups or in the local neighborhood—but only if everyone signs up. If you offered each person $5 a month if everyone were to sign up, it would be a real topic of conversation among young people. If you offered $50 up front, it would be something they would have to do, because otherwise they would be ostracized by their peers—even though $50 is less than $5 per month. Using social physics, rather than economics, could drive young people to sign up in droves.

How To Avoid Cabin Fever During This Endless Winter

It’s President’s Day, and thanks to the polar vortex you’ve probably been cooped up inside your house for days or maybe even a full week as the snow continues to fall. And the weather is taking a toll. Many are complaining of cabin fever or worse — snow rage.

Cabin fever isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis, but it does exist, says Josh Klapow, a clinical psychologist with a PhD at the school of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Basically, it’s your mind’s way of telling you that the environment you are in is less than optimal for normal functioning,” he says. “It’s when you’re in a space of restricted freedom for a period of time that you can no longer tolerate.”

Before you get full on “snow rage” — a term the media has coined for the extreme angst people are feeling about the weather — and pull a shotgun on a snow plow driver, here’s how you can recognize when you’re getting too stir crazy and how you can cope.

You probably are getting cabin fever if any of the following are true:

You’re feeling cooped up
You’re having difficulty concentrating on what’s in front of you
You feel lethargic, or simply feel unmotivated to do anything
You are feeling irritated and on edge for no apparent reason
The best way to get yourself out of your slump and in a happier mood is to get moving, find natural sunlight, and do anything that can engage your cognitive activity. The more ambitious snowed-in people can  go for a run around the bloc, start a home improvement project or read a book by window. Those feeling a little less motivated can at least make a snow angel for 10 minutes, sketch out projects they will take on once it’s sunny again, or at least pull up the blinds and play a brain-teasing app like QuizUp. Anything but watching marathons of TV on the couch. Sorry, House of Cards fans, but unless your body and brain are active you are likely to become listless and depressed.

Also, avoid foods that will only make you feel more sluggish or more irritated. “We have a tendency, particularly in this country, of shoving ourselves full of high-carb and high-fat foods when we have nothing else to do. That’s not good because they create lethargy,” says Klapow. “The other thing we do is sit around and drink coffee, which is also bad because that feeds agitation.”

For some, it’s not just a matter of motivating themselves to cheer up but also motivating kids who have been stuck inside during a series of snow days. ”I can say as someone whose kids have been home for the last four days, you get to a point where you’re turning around and being like, ‘Are you still here?’” jokes Klapow.

Though having children home for days at a time during the school week can be tough, solving their cabin fever is even easier than solving yours. “Kids are going display their cabin fever in a more obvious sort of way. They’re going to pick on each other or they’re going to jump up and down,” says Klapow. “But we can tell them to go bundle up and run around outside for 15 minutes, whereas its harder to motivate ourselves to do the same as adults. You can control what they’re eating, even though its harder for us to regulate our own food intake. But helping your kids get energized with games and the right eating habits can help you alleviate your cabin fever too.”

It’s important, he says, to find ways to up our mood before we reach our tipping point. “Snow rage is not a clinical diagnosis,” Klapow says. “But you can think of it as the point where individuals have lost their ability to control their emotions, and the results are actions that are harmful to others — like yelling at a spouse or hitting your neighbor with a snow shovel.”

Let’s hope the snow ends soon so it doesn’t come to that.

Hague Secretary General Applauds Peter Thomas Senese & I CARE Foundation's Effort To Stop Child Abduction This Christmas

During the Christmas holiday season, international parental child abduction around the world dramatically increases as would-be abducting parents are implementing their carefully planned out schemes to illegally remove their child from the other parent's life. Sadly, many targeted parents are not aware that these elaborate schemes are underway until it's too late. It is imperative that we do everything that we can to ensure children are protected from abduction because the reality is, that children of abduction, regardless if they are taken by a stranger or a parent, are emotionally, spiritually, and often severely physically abused. Once a child is kidnapped there is no guarantee that they will be coming home. Too many children never come home: they can't. They're gone forever. In order to protect against international child abduction schemes that revolve around the wrongful detention of a child, the I CARE Foundation has created the International Travel Child Consent Form. With an estimated 85% of all international parental abductions dealing with a child being wrongful detained in a foreign country, it is geared at potentially preventing the majority of these types of parental kidnappings. In the short time that this ground-breaking abduction prevention tool has been in use, not only has it made an enormous impact in the world of international child abduction, but it has also been acknowledged by major child abduction prevention stakeholders around the world, including Hague Conference on Private International Law Secretary General Mr. Christophe Bernasconi, who stated:

"I have had the possibility to look at the travel form and must say that I am impressed: this is the most comprehensive document of its kind that I have seen so far and there is little doubt in my mind that this is a most valuable and important effort to prevent child abduction. I applaud your efforts and wish to congratulate you and your team . . . It is really impressive to see how quickly your international travel child consent form has started to yield practical results and how well you monitor its operation - this really is remarkable."

Peter Thomas Senese, the I CARE Foundation's Executive Director, reports on the success of the Travel Consent Form thus far:

To the best of our knowledge, since the creation of the I CARE Foundation's International Travel Child Consent Form, all children traveling abroad from Hague Convention signatory countries who were expected to return to their country of original jurisdiction have come home. There have actually been several cases where one parent initially refused to sign the International Travel Child Consent Form, and in each of those cases, the overseeing judge would not permit travel. At that point additional measures were put into place in order to prevent a future parental abduction.

It is critical for all parents who are allowing a child to travel abroad to understand is that there are numerous traps and schemes that a would-be abductor will use in order to legally keep a child abroad. Most of these schemes revolve around Articles 12 and 13 of the Hague Convention of the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Defending against these potential strategies is critical. It is the thrust of the I CARE Foundation's International Travel Child Consent Form. And with tens of thousands of children around the world targeted for international parental abduction each year, our travel consent form may be the most effective tool that could help prevent abduction or help return a child to their country of original jurisdiction under the spirit of Article 2 of the Hague Convention.

For those parents that are allowing or are required to allow a child to travel to a foreign country need to strongly consider having the other parent sign the International Travel Child Consent Form. Should that parent not be willing to, this is a very serious warning sign that they may be planning an abduction. Another critical part of protecting children from international abduction... and this is so important... is being aware of the WARNING SIGNS of international parental child abduction... something as simple as a little education. The other vital piece of information is knowing what to do if an international parental child abduction is in progress. The truth is, all parents should be aware of the these things, but If you should happen to be a parent in a high-conflict relationship, especially if your partner has ties abroad, you would be considered in a category of extreme risk. Today we live in a world that embraces the idea of global citizenship, we have individuals from different countries that travel abroad. These individuals may eventually meet someone and enter into a relationship resulting in a child. So, things go well for a while and then the relationship starts to develop problems that may lead to a separation or divorce. In multi-cultural relationships, when this happens, it is not uncommon for the non-national individual to want to take the child and permanently relocate back to their country of origin. Knowing that the other parent is not going to allow this to happen, the parent that is wanting to leave often creates an elaborate scheme and illegally removes the child from the country, despite court orders or the other parent's wishes. At risk parents... those parents that are involved in child custody disputes, separation or divorce must be proactive in protecting their children. Often, parents that are involved in international child custody disputes and who may be targeted for abduction think that their child is best protected from abduction when there is a court agreement in place for the child to return if the other parent is granted travel. The truth is that unless there is an International Travel Child Consent Form that has immediate ramifications attached to it, the parent and child targeted for abduction are at serious risk.

Secretary General Christophe Bernasconi: How You Can Prevent International Abduction

While the winter holiday season is often one which presents many opportunities for festive family celebrations, it is also a period in which sadly more parental child abductions occur. As a result, it is more important than ever to take steps to prevent the wrongful removal of children so that abductions which are covered by the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction do not occur in the first place. Prevention can be achieved in several ways. For example, when one parent intends to travel with his or her child without the other parent, the other parents consent to the travel should first be obtained. One of the ways a parent can demonstrate that they have the approval of the other non-travelling parent is by having him or her sign a clear, comprehensive travel consent form which includes a statement that the non-travelling parent agrees to the travel but also that the child is to return to his/her place of habitual residence on or before a specific date. A model travel consent form for this purpose has recently been developed by the I CARE Foundation and is, I understand, already widely used by parents in various jurisdictions. Use of the I CARE Foundation's comprehensive Hague-centric travel form that addresses key aspects of the Hague Child Abduction Convention pertaining to a child's international travel are central to protecting against a child's wrongful retention abroad. The I CARE Foundation's International Travel Child Consent form and similar comprehensive models deserve further encouragement so as to prevent child abduction and perhaps even limit instances of child trafficking in general. The Hague Conference on Private International Law, the Secretariat for the Hague Child Abduction Convention, wishes the I CARE Foundation and its constituents a happy holiday season and hopes that precautions such as the one described above are able to prevent unnecessary anxiety and trauma for parents and children who are affected by holiday travel plans. With Best Wishes, Christophe Bernasconi, Secretary General The Hague Conference on Private International Law

A recent press release regarding the International Travel Child Consent Form not only shares the support from Secretary General Bernasconi but also other top lawyers and judges from around the world. You can view this release HERE.

The Would-Be Parent Abductor's Scheme:

As part of a would-be abducting parent's scheme, their lives become filled with deceit. As part of their elaborate plan for abduction, the would-be abducting parent may create a facade of being happily married and committed to their relationship, all while planning on how to get the child abroad. A common scenario might be for the would-be abductor to state that it would be nice if they could travel to their country of origin for what might appear to be a family vacation to visit a sibling or parents over the holidays. When the family arrives in the foreign country, the would-be abducting parent may file false claims of abuse and neglect against the other parent. Once this is done, they notify the other parent that they and the child will not be returning back to the country of original jurisdiction. At this point, the targeted parent is generally forced to return back home without their child where they then need to seek legal assistance. Multiple studies have shown that an unprecedented number of abductions have occurred where one parent took action to deprive the other parent of contact with their child. The majority of abducting parents typically use the child as a tool to cause the targeted parent great pain and suffering. Their intent is simple: to make the other parent suffer as much as possible by depriving that targeted parent with the love and connection to their own child. Nearly every published study on this subject has concluded that an abducting parent has significant, and typically, long-term psychological problems and may in fact be a danger to their child. This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of families. However, we can stop parental abduction. Awareness is the key.

Protecting Children From Abduction: U.S. Rates Of Abduction Decline

In 2011, the I CARE Foundation commenced formal operations with the mission to protect children from abduction. And since that time, there has been a decline in the rate of reported abductions originating from the United States. Certainly we are not alone in our efforts, but there is no question that our outreach efforts have made a incredible impact on the lives of the families that we have voluntarily assisted. It was forecasted that in 2011 there would be a increase of 25% in the abduction growth rate, but in actual fact, reported abductions declined by over 15%. During 2012, the actual reported abduction rate dropped by over 16%. After nearly 30 years of growth in the international parental child abduction rate, to see a decline for two consecutive years is pretty remarkable! It is anticipated that we will see another significant decline in the rates for 2013. Although worldwide abduction rates have not been reported since 2008, this has little to do with the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference, but instead a failure by signatory countries to report their inbound and outbound abduction rate. However, it is believed that the global rate of abduction continues to steadily climb out disturbing rates. With the worldwide launch and utilization of the I CARE Foundation's International Travel Child Consent Form, there is the expectation that the actual global rate of abduction will start to decline. There are two critical programs available to U.S. parent citizens that may aid in the prevention of their U.S. child citizen from being internationally abducted. The Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program (CPIAP) is one of the Department of State's most important tools for preventing international parental child abduction. Parents are able to register their U.S. citizen children under the age of 18 in the Passport Lookout System. If at some point a passport application is submitted for a child that is registered in the CPIAP, the Department of State contacts and alerts the parent(s). This system provides the parent(s) with advance warning of possible plans for international travel with the child. The Charleston Passport Center is responsible for administering the Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program:

U.S. Department of State Passport Services, Charleston Passport Center Attn: Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program 1269 Holland Street, Building D Charleston, SC 29405

E-mail: ChildrensPassports@state.gov Phone: 1-888-407-4747 Fax: 843-746-1827

The Prevent Departure Program (PDP) is another critical tool used in the fight to protect children from international abduction. In the past, American parents at risk of having a child illegally removed from the United States had to deal with the reality that it was extremely difficult to stop an international child abduction if the other parent possessed a right of American citizenship (sole or dual citizenship). Part of the problem is that the United States has limited exit controls and government published information regarding programs that could be utilized to stop international parental child abduction such as the Prevent Departure Program require a suspected international parental child abductor to not have a right of American Citizenship, among a host of other requirements. Today, parents who are at risk of having a child internationally abducted by a parent who possesses citizenship to the United States of America or who has dual citizenship may be able to protect their children from abduction. If you should happen to be an at-risk parent that believes your child's other parent is planning or is in the process of an international parental abduction, please contact the United States Department of State's Office of Children's Issues Abduction Prevention Bureau to discuss potential measures that may be available to you to ensure the individual parent suspected of an international child abduction threat does not illegally depart the United States and remove your child in violation of a court order or in breach of your right of custody. Similarly, be sure to contact the Office of Children's Issues Prevention Bureau to discuss if there are potential prevention techniques unique to your case that may allow the Department of State to work with other federal agencies so to secure your child is not a victim of international parental child abduction. Individuals that are seeking the assistance of the Department of State and the implementation of the Prevent Departure Program should make sure that they have the following information ready to submit to the Office of Children's Issues:

1. Full name, date, place of birth of Potential taking parent.
2. Full name, date, place of birth of Potential left behind parent (and PLBP’s contact info, including a surface address).
3. Passport number and issuing country (if available, and not U.S.) for both parents.
4. Full name of child.
5. Date, place of birth of child.
6. U.S. passport number of child.
7. Passport number and issuing country of any dual national passport of child (if available).
8. Copy of court order with travel restrictions.
9. Full contact details, including a 24/7 phone and email (to email court documents, we do not have after hours fax access), for law enforcement contact.
10. Details of potential travel plans.

To contact the Department of State's Office of Children's Issues Prevention Bureau please contact:

The United States Department of State Office Of Children's Issues Abduction Prevention Bureau CA/OCS/CI SA-17, 9th Floor Washington, DC 20522-1709 Phone: 1-888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444 Email: prevention@state.gov

To contact the I CARE Foundation concerning abduction matters please email us at legal@stopchildabduction.org. Outside of the I CARE Foundation's International Travel Child Consent Form, the United States government and agencies such as the Department of State continue their remarkable work attempting to protect children from international parental child abduction. It is estimated that the Department of State successfully requests placement of 8-10 individuals on the Prevent Departure Program each month while also overseeing an estimated 60 applications for utilization on the Passport Issuance Alert Program. This has played an incredible role in the 15% and 16% decline in international parental child abduction rates during 2011 and 2012 respectively.   If you think about it, that's a lot of innocent lives that are protected... and according to a report from the Department of Justice, children who are kidnapped by a parent face severe physical abuse and are also put at an extreme risk of being murdered. In fact, Dr. Phillip Resnick, the Director of Forensic Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland stated in an article that was published by the Denver Post a few years ago about parental child killing, “Historically, one out of 33 homicides is a parent killing a child younger than 18.” Dr. Resnick, who conducted a study on filicide in 2005 states “Filicide, the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own child, is the third-leading cause of death in American children ages 5 to 14.” Filicide is not a term that we talk about alot, but the reality is, we need to talk about it more. The third leading cause of death in American children. Can you imagine? According to the Denver Post reports, “Researchers estimate 250 to 300 children are murdered by their parents each year in the U.S. Now, filicide occurs everywhere... it is not a phenomenon isolated within American borders. Simply put, parents do kill children! And we can’t put our head in the sand and think this does not exist. The common misconception that parental abductions are considered a family matter has to end. Parental child abduction is a serious crime. The act of abduction leads to ongoing forms of abuse toward a child. When a child is abducted they must be immediately considered to be in great danger! It is that serious!

Peter Thomas Senese: His Advocacy And Volunteer Work Helping Children and Families In Crisis

Clearly, protecting children from parental abduction requires an indefatigable commitment to stand unbowed so children and their families may never know the nightmare that is the world of international abduction. Peter Thomas Senese has proven time and again that he is deeply committed to his goal of preventing child abduction. There are numerous sworn testimonial letters from individuals regarding the advocacy and volunteer work that Peter does each and every day. Many of these letters are related to recovering and bringing home children who were abducted or who were targeted for abduction, however there are also several letters that share his deep desire for helping others who may be facing severe medical issues. Ultimately, each one of these sworn letters shares not only a little insight, but also a unique perspective of who Peter Thomas Senese is.

Peter has been a ‘God Send’ to my young son and me. Peter has demonstrated time and time again, not only concern for me and my family, but has been willing to assist us in whatever capacity we have requested or needed of him...

The cornerstone for all his and the renown I CARE Foundation’s work originates from Mr. Senese’s fulfillment of a promise, of which, "Chasing The Cyclone" is a part. Unquestionably, our children are well-served by its publication and the kind, compassionate, and generous assistance of Mr. Senese.

Peter Thomas Senese and The I CARE Foundation provided great assistance to me and my family due to grave risk that my young child would be re-abducted to Turkey by his biological mother, who previously abducted my son under the rules of the Hague Convention. I found Mr. Senese to be extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and committed to assisting targeted children and their families. Peter spent considerable time assisting my legal team protect my son. Under his guidance, I now know my son is safe. Peter asked for nothing other than that one day I help other parents who are targeted for abduction the way I was. He is a true advocate whose activism has helped so many parents and children.

The Impact of Chasing The Cyclone:

Peter Thomas Senese, author of the critically-acclaimed novel 'Chasing The Cyclone,' about a father searching for his internationally abducted son, has had a far-reaching social impact. It is being called both a call-to-arms against the wide-spread epidemic of international child kidnapping, as well referred to as a blue-print on how to either prevent a child from being abducted, or how to reunite with your child. In addition, Chasing The Cyclone has enabled something remarkable: it has helped reunite children with their parents, as Peter Thomas Senese has so generously donated 100% of his author royalties to the I CARE Foundation. To quote Peter Thomas Senese, "The I CARE Foundation is actively trying to reunite other children who have been internationally abducted with their families. I think my readers have a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that when they purchase one of my novels, they are making a measurable difference in the life of a defenseless child - and that is pretty cool." So, in an effort to help us prevent international child abduction, please take a few moments and educate yourself about the WARNING SIGNS of international parental child abduction. It not only protects your children but perhaps other children you might know.... isn't that worth a few minutes of your time? If you would like to learn more about the criminal act and schemes of parental child abduction, or to download a free copy of the International Travel Child Consent Form visit the I CARE Foundation website. If an international parental child abduction is imminent or is in progress, click here. And lastly, to purchase your copy of Chasing The Cyclone, please visit Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Wishing you the best of the holiday season!  

The Dark Side of Cleaning Up International Adoptions: Kids Are Left in Orphanges Longer

Stricter criteria on international adoptions means more kids are left in institutions longer, which could be detrimental to their physical and mental health, says a new study from an adoption group.

Many parents looking to adopt internationally work from what seems like a logical, if romantic, playbook: we want a child, there are poor orphans overseas, so let’s help each other. Everybody wins.

The reality is now very different. Following highly publicized cases in which the adopted children were not actually orphans or willingly given up by their parents, and others in which parents found they could not manage the needs of the child they adopted—remember the woman who sent her son back to Russia?—adoption regulations have tightened considerably. Many countries, such as Russia, have closed off international adoptions altogether. Others, such as China, have restricted adoptions by parents from abroad to kids with special needs.

All of this, and the international treaty most countries signed two decades ago that regulated the process of inter-country adoption, has slowed the pace of international adoptions markedly. About 23,000 newly adopted children were brought into the U.S. in 2004. Fewer than 9,000 were welcomed into American homes last year. Globally, 30,000 fewer children per year are now being taken into new families in another country than were nine years ago. Families who in the past might have waited a year or two for a child, now have to wait many times that.

A new study by the advocacy group Donaldson Adoption Institute (DAI) reveals that the slow-down in international adoptions has had unfortunate side effects, including, primarily, “more children  remaining institutionalized for longer periods, thereby incurring greater psychic and developmental harm and diminishing their prospects of ever moving into a permanent family.” While there has been some rethinking on orphanages, studies are pretty conclusive that institutionalization of very young children can contribute to a range of lifelong effects that are almost impossible to undo, including behavioral, psychological and basic health issues.

The DAI study also found that the kids who were available for adoption now were those who needed more behavioral and developmental help. “Many countries of origin, including the largest ones such as China, are increasingly allowing inter-country adoption primarily or exclusively of children who have special needs,” the study authors write. Since children with special needs who need families are in plentiful in the U.S., this makes international adoption that much less attractive, especially as the cost of international adoption has soared, to north of $50,000. And international agencies often can’t provide parents with much information about the medical issues of their prospective child, so parents are often less equipped to deal with their child when issues arise.

The stringent criteria have also inadvertently spawned a more disturbing practice, called “re-homing,” in which parents whose adoptions aren’t working out are putting the kids up for adoption on the internet.  People simply look for new parents in the same way they might find a new owner for a dog they needed to give away when they moved house. In such unofficial bazaars children are traded with little or no government oversight, bypassing an agreement among states that authorities be notified of any transfer of custody of children between states so potential parents can be evaluated for their ability to raise children.

All of this tips over a domino-line of harm for kids who need parents. Stricter regulations meant to protect them mean they are likely to remain in institutions longer. Because they remain in institutions longer, they’re more likely to have behavioral, social and medical problems when they are adopted. Having problems after they’re adopted means it’s more likely the adoption will be what’s called “disrupted.”  And kids from disrupted adoptions are more likely to have problems in future families. Which feeds back into a disincentive to encourage international adoptions, which means countries are the less likely to loosen up their adoption procedures, continuing the cycle.

Evangelicals Battle Over ‘Biblical’ Immigration

One branch of the evangelical Christian community knows what it wants up next on America’s political agenda: comprehensive immigration reform. Another would prefer what it calls “Biblical immigration.” As Congress turns back to the business of governing ahead of the holidays, the two sides are ramping up their rhetoric–and their lobbying–with dueling interpretations of the gospels’ guidance.

For months, some Christian groups have prayed for immigration reform. For eight days in October, over 100,000 Christian backers of the Evangelical Immigration Table have asked God for guidance on the issue through “Pray4Reform” events. Next week, they plan to visit Washington and press Congressional leaders directly about the issue.

The millions of undocumented people that live in the U.S., the Evangelical Immigration Table says, should be treated with charity as the book of Matthew says Jesus was. Leaders cite the gospel passage that quotes Christ saying, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

“Evangelicals finally realize that how we treat the stranger, these 11 million undocumented people, is how we treat Christ himself,” said Jim Wallis, the president and founder of Sojourners, a Christian social justice organization.

According to Wallis, and the leadership of the Evangelical Immigration Table, which includes the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Convention of the Southern Baptist Convention, the evangelical community has “never been more united on an issue.”

Yet, not everyone in the evangelical community agrees with Wallis. Others on the Christian right dissent, including one group of Christians who call themselves the Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration.

Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration argue that taking care of home should trump what they consider blind acceptance of foreigners. They have been openly critical of the Senate immigration bill that passed the upper chamber in late June. Kelly Kullberg, the leader of what she says is an “ad hoc movement of citizens” behind Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration, says the Senate bill would grant blanket amnesty.

In June, referencing the Book of Timothy’s guidance on how to treat widows, Kullberg wrote in a letter to Congress that similar guidance should be adhered to when it comes to immigrants.

“While the Bible teaches us to be kind to the sojourner or ‘resident alien,’ it also teaches that kindness to the sojourner ought not to be injustice to local citizens and their unique culture,” Kullberg wrote. Over a thousand evangelical Christians signed the letter.

The Bible, the group says, gives more instructions when it comes to the acceptance of immigrants than just “be kind to strangers.”

“Like Ruth and Rahab, many are to be embraced,” Kullberg wrote. “We also find in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, men who were called to build walls in order to protect, to cultivate the good and to grow a healthy culture.”

In September, Kullberg, on behalf of the Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration, sent another letter to members of the House of Representatives, calling for “biblical balance” when lawmakers consider immigration reform.

A biblical approach to reform, Kullberg says, would mean considering Americans first; securing the borders to keep out criminals, making sure unemployed Americans have access to job opportunities by mandating use of E-verify.

“There is no set view,” says Mark Tooley, the president of the Institute of Religion and Democracy and a signatory of the biblical reform letter. “There are tens of millions of evangelicals and Protestants. There is no consensus on this issue.”

Polling data is mixed on that score. On one hand, data from the right leaning “immigration reduction” organization, Numbers USA, suggests that 46% of Republican evangelicals say they would deport most undocumented immigrants. Another 32% say they would deport some, but “ensure no jobs or assistance for the rest.”

A Pew Research survey from March 2013 shows, on the other hand, that 62% of white evangelical Protestants say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. legally. Forty percent believe they should be able to apply for a path to citizenship, and 35% of those surveyed said those in the U.S. illegally should not be allowed to stay.

“There are people on both sides, Tooley said. “But the people who are speaking up are on the pro-side and those that are skeptical are not represented much at all.”

The skeptics, Galen Carey, the vice president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals says, don’t represent as many people within the evangelical community as more conservative groups are suggesting.

“We have a large number of people enrolled in the ‘Pray for Reform’ effort and it keeps growing,” Carey said.

Wallis says one reason for that is the church’s relationship with immigrants, many of whom are evangelicals themselves. “This is a personal issue,” Wallis said. “The undocumented are our brothers and sisters within the church.”

Viewpoint: Judaism is Too Afraid Of Assimilation

Once again, we’re supposed to be wringing our hands. Every decade, another poll comes out showing that American Jews are more likely to “intermarry” and less likely to support controversial Israeli policies. This statistical one-two punch to Jewish preservationists becomes front page news—”Poll Shows Major Shift in Identity of U.S. Jews”—and Jewish philanthropies get the ammunition they need to press the urgency of the crisis: be more Jewish, or your generation will be to blame for extinguishing the everlasting light.

On one level, such crises work. Every convincing threat to Judaism and Israel leads to a strong bump in fundraising for both. But while it may yield more checks from ardent supporters, to the Jews in danger of further assimilation, such messaging begins to sound more like the desperate plea of an obsolete religion and culture than it is a relevant, compelling path to spiritual inquiry and ethical behavior.

A decade ago, when the last poll like this came out, I wrote a book— Nothing Sacred —arguing not to panic: Judaism was becoming an “open source” religion, and rather than moan at our assimilation, we should instead celebrate the incorporation of Jewish ideals into the culture at large. If we want to promote Judaism and its practices, we might need to transcend our rather primitive misconception of Judaism as a race.

It was Pharaoh who first called the Jews a “people”. The notion of a Jewish bloodline didn’t emerge until the Inquisition as a justification for executing even those Jews who had converted. And it was Hitler (repurposing a bit of Jung) who called the Jews a race.

As I look at history and the Torah, Judaism isn’t really a religion at all, but a path beyond religion. It was developed by the equivalent of recovering cult members, as a way beyond the idolatry and death worship of Ancient Egypt. Instead of “believing” things, a disparate amalgam of tribes (those mythic sons of Jacob), developed a living myth together – as well as a system of law that could be amended as civilization evolved. Everything from the Sabbath to the US Constitution came out of these insights and this continuous process of revision and renewal.

By applying the techniques of the census taker to the Jewish people (a practice actually forbidden in Talmud – we’re not allowed to count ourselves) the would-be protectors of Judaism are practicing a dangerous game with diminishing returns. Amazingly, when I suggested as much after the 1999 poll, I was banned from speaking at events funded by the most centrist of Jewish institutional charities.

Yes, the core tenets of Judaism are radical. They suggest that human beings are responsible for this realm. They insist that our racial labels, and even our nation states, are mere social constructions. The principles of Judiasm are as progressive as the ideas of Buddhism or the Tao —systems of thought that have attracted many of the Jews now being blamed for the current exodus.

All Judaism needs to do is bite its tongue and stop putting this frightened, scarcity-based logic at the forefront of its effort to engage its people. Instead, spend as much time just doing and celebrating whatever Judaism means to you. The rest will follow.

9 Ways to Simplify Your Finances Now

If managing personal financial affairs were easy, we probably wouldn’t graduate nearly 70,000 accountants each year. Budgets, credit cards, insurance, retirement savings and more—it’s a lot to track, and things are getting more complex all the time.

A lot of people are losing the battle. One in three adults who say their finances have taken a turn for the worse also say their finances have grown more complex, according to a survey from Aite Group and Chase Blueprint. Likewise, 43% of those who say their finances have improved also say their finances have grown less complex.

Simple is good. It’s understandable. It’s manageable. It doesn’t eat up a lot of time. It breeds confidence and makes tough decisions easier. “The financial frenzy people experience comes from being disconnected from their personal income,” says Melody Juge, managing director at Life Income Management.

Some things can’t be made simple. Income tax filing comes to mind, at least for some people. So do retirement account distributions. You can’t know how long you’ll live. But other things don’t have to be so difficult. Maybe you can get control of your money with a few simple tricks. Here are nine ways most Americans can simplify their personal finances:

• Get down to one mutual fund You’ll get great asset allocation and solid diversification within asset groups with just one target-date mutual fund. These are the fastest growing corner of the retirement savings world precisely because they are so darned simple. Choose a target-date fund for the year you turn 65 or 70, put all your retirement savings in it and go about the rest of your life knowing you have professional management and an asset allocation that will become more conservative as you age. Of course, there are drawbacks and you’ll have to look out for expenses when you choose. But investing for the long haul has never been simpler.
• Keep two credit cards Dump the rest. You will save a bundle in annual fees and rid yourself of umpteen bills and solicitations. Use one card for monthly spending and the other only when you must carry a balance. Keep cards with the lowest interest rates or annual fees, or those that offer useful rewards.
• Pay bills online Most banks offer an online bill-pay service for no charge. Stamps, envelopes and physical checks are an obsolete expense. You’ll save time too. But best of all, your bank will automatically keep track of what you spend and where you spend it for easy review, which makes budgeting a lot simpler.
• Choose one financial institution Large financial firms offer the same basic range of services and accounts. You can probably get everything you need in one place. Stick with one. You’ll not only get better service as a bigger customer but cut down on monthly statements and get a better picture of your overall finances.
• Automate everything Arrange for direct deposit of your paycheck to eliminate trips to the bank. Arrange for regular payroll or bank account debits to your retirement account—and for automatic increases in the amount as you get pay raises—to keep savings on track. Arrange automatic monthly payments via your online bill pay system to creditors to cover the minimum due and avoid late fees.
• Get overdraft protection Link your checking account to your savings account to avoid the cost and hassle of overdrawing your account.
• Create an emergency fund The goal is to set aside six months of living expenses to guard against unexpected expenses that derail your plans. But don’t let what may seem a large sum deter you. Start with $500, which is enough to cover the cost of most minor household emergencies. Add $100 a month until you reach your goal.
• Pay yourself first You should be saving at least 10% of what you make every month. Write that check first and budget to live off of what’s left.
• Get organized through new technologies Account aggregation through your bank or a service like Mint.com will allow you to view all your accounts in one place, says Linda Sherry, national priorities director at Consumer Action. She also recommends using a password manager like 1password or Dashlane to simplify your online transactions from any device, and setting up a folder in email for increasingly common online account statements.

What Obamacare Means for Corporate Retiree Insurance Coverage

The news that Time Warner and IBM are changing retiree health-insurance benefits has some claiming the moves are proof that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is drastically eroding the employer-based health-insurance system it promised to preserve and increasing costs for retired corporate workers in the process.

In truth, corporate America was already looking for ways to trim health-insurance costs, particularly for retirees, long before Obamacare came along. The benefit decisions announced by IBM and Time Warner have little direct relationship with the health care law and will not, as some have suggested, leave retirees without any insurance.

The changes at IBM relate to supplemental health benefits for retirees who already receive Medicare through the federal government. Rather than administer these additional benefits for company retirees over 65, IBM will direct former employees to a Medicare-specific insurance exchange, or marketplace, and subsidize the cost of this extra coverage. Retirees will have to participate in choosing their supplemental plans, but will ultimately have more options, according to IBM. Time Warner, the parent company of TIME, will give retired employees too young to qualify for Medicare subsidies in order to purchase coverage on their own through private exchanges that are separate from the public insurance exchanges that will open Oct. 1 as part of the ACA.

Nationwide, companies have been making similar changes for many years. According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, in 1988, 66% of companies with 200 or more employees that offered insurance benefits to active employees also offered retiree health benefits. By 2008, two years before the ACA became law, the figure had dropped to 29% and is currently 28%, according to Kaiser. In 2009, a year before the ACA was signed, Xerox eliminated supplemental health benefits for retired workers who qualified for Medicare. The decision drew a lawsuit from retirees, but a federal judge ultimately ruled that the group had no legal claim against the company. “It had nothing to do with Obamacare,” says James Marino, a lawyer for the Association of Retired Xerox Employees, which filed the lawsuit.

Although Obamacare is not directly responsible for corporations cutting back and altering benefits for retirees, the law won’t do much to slow this trend. In fact, it could indirectly increase costs for companies that might, in turn, look to retiree benefits to cut spending. The law sets a minimum floor for what medical care health-insurance plans must cover. Although many corporate health-insurance plans were grandfathered in and exempted from complying with these requirements, the exemption disappears if companies make significant changes to their health-insurance offerings, which is common. Architects of the law say it will reduce the growth of overall U.S. health care spending and costs for individual medical treatments and procedures, which could reduce costs for employers, but it will be years or even decades before this promise can be evaluated on the merits.

And with the law’s public health-insurance exchanges scheduled to launch in just a few weeks, companies can point to them as viable alternatives to company-sponsored retiree coverage. Retirees in their late 50s and early 60s who don’t yet qualify for Medicare and are generally sicker than their younger counterparts currently face some of the highest health-insurance premiums in the individual marketplace. Under the ACA, insurers will no longer be able to charge these people higher rates based on health status, but the law does allow premiums to be set by age. Insurers will be able to charge the oldest enrollees in any given health plan three times as much as the youngest enrollees.

Still, for similarly aged retirees without any subsidies from their former employers — like those who worked independently or for small businesses — the Obamacare exchanges, which will offer public subsidies to low- and middle-income Americans without job-based coverage, could give the first real chance at finding affordable health insurance.

Survey: The 5 Biggest Retirement Saving Mistakes

Saving for retirement shouldn’t be a guessing game. It should begin with your first job and in most cases not stop until you are collecting Social Security. Yet millions of people struggle to do anything at all, and still more make glaring mistakes.

To help you get started and avoid common traps, Four Seasons Financial Education, a financial wellness and education provider, has identified the top five retirement mistakes of employees at its client companies:

• Over-relying on rules of thumb. Simple rules can be instrumental in getting a worker started saving early and putting them on the right path. Saving 10% of everything you make is better than being paralyzed and shooting for eight times final salary — and definitely better than having no goal at all. But rules can get you into trouble, too. The presumed 4% safe withdrawal rate in retirement is anything but perfect, and retirees with a traditional pension have far different savings needs than those without one. Use rules of thumb as a guidepost and to get started. But at some point you need a customized plan.
• Going too conservative at retirement. As you age, you should gradually reduce portfolio risk by tilting more towards bonds. The previous point notwithstanding, a useful rule of thumb is subtracting your age from 110 to arrive at the percentage of stocks you should own. You may feel old at 65 but you may also live another 30 years. You will need stocks for growth if you expect your nest egg to last that long. Asset allocation is among the most important aspects of retirement planning to get right. If you want to keep it simple, consider a target-date mutual fund which adjusts automatically.
• Taking Social Security benefits early. Although changes may occur with the Social Security system it will remain viable for many years and probably be a meaningful part of your retirement income. Your monthly benefit jumps 8% every year you delay filing between ages 62 and 70. For a lot of people, waiting to 70 and living to age 83 is the break-even point, and everything they collect from then on is a bonus.
• Failing to use a retirement calculator The web has many useful online tools and since your retirement may last 30 year or longer you need all the help you can get. Computers are a tremendous aid. Don’t guess. Some of the best tools can be found at CNNMoney, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Schwab and BlackRock.
• Cashing out retirement assets early Financial planners and policymakers have long puzzled over how to prevent leakage from 401(k) accounts as workers quit jobs and fail to roll over all their assets into an IRA or similar account. The temptation is mighty; especially if you have debts you want to retire. But with taxes and penalties this is a costly move. The money you saved over five years might require 10 to replace.