The Most Beautiful Girl? Androgynous Male Model Sweeps Fashion Week Buzz

New York's Fashion Weeks is all the rave to women who follow trends and celebrate the beauty of clothing and fashion. This year the Fashion Week runway was taken by storm by an androgynous supermodel by the name of Andrej Pejic. Andrej is a 20-year-old Australian male model who was reported to have been discovered by a modeling agent while working at McDonald's when he was 17.




Andrej's long silky blonde hair, thin frame and feminine facial features allows him to command the catwalk in both men and women's fashions, defying the notion that one of the few female dominated career fields could ever be overtaken by a man. This young man has already made history by being ranked in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in The World list for 2011 and has modeled for Gaultier and Marc Jacobs.





He's beautiful, there's no mistaking it. The blend of masculine and feminine energy and beauty captivates me and intrigues me. If his look becomes more acceptable and celebrated in society, we may see the beginning of a transformation to a less gender based society. I'm all for it.

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Walmart Launches Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative

Effort Includes Goal to Source $20 Billion from Women-Owned Businesses in the U.S.

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Sept. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Walmart President and CEO Mike Duke today launched a major initiative that will use the company's global size and scale to help empower women across its supply chain. Working over the past year with leaders from government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), philanthropic groups and academia, Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative has established five goals. By the end of 2016, we aim to:

1. Increase sourcing from women-owned businesses. Over the next five years, the company will source $20 billion from women-owned businesses in the U.S. and double sourcing from women suppliers internationally.
2. Empower women on farms and in factories through training, market access and career opportunities. New programs will help 60,000 women working in factories that supply products to Walmart and other retailers develop the skills they need to become more active decision-makers in their jobs and for their families. The initiative will also help women farm workers participate more fully in the agriculture supply chain.
3. Empower women through job training and education. Successful retail training programs will be scaled to help 200,000 women internationally. In the U.S., Walmart will help 200,000 women from low-income households gain job skills and access higher education.
4. Increase gender diversity among major suppliers. The company will work with major professional service firms and merchandise suppliers with over $1 billion in sales to increase women and minority representation on Walmart accounts.
5. Make significant philanthropic giving toward women's economic empowerment. The company will support these programs with more than $100 million in grants that drive progress against key goals. Funding will come from the Walmart Foundation and donations directly from Walmart's international businesses.

"Helping more women live better is a defining issue for our business and our world," said Duke. "We're stepping up our efforts to help educate, source from and open markets for women around the world. We want women to view us as a retailer that is relevant to them and cares about them. We want them to be leading suppliers, managers and loyal customers."

Walmart is putting to work the same model for making a difference that it has used to take on big issues like hunger, healthy foods and sustainability. In doing so, it will partner with an array of leaders in this area, including CARE, Vital Voices, CountMeIn, WBENC and WeConnect International.

"Walmart's global women's initiative has the potential to be a game-changer for women and for economic growth," said Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues. "By tapping its core competencies as a global retailer, Walmart will empower more women to access markets and develop careers in the global supply chain, transforming their lives and the lives of their families."

"This effort recognizes the untapped power of women around the world and CARE is honored to partner with Walmart on this groundbreaking initiative," said Helene Gayle, president and CEO, CARE. "Together we can sustainably and dramatically improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of women – factory workers and farmers among them. Together we will see these women change the lives of their families and communities for the better. We congratulate Walmart for taking this bold step forward."

The company has also established country-specific goals and commitments in markets where it operates. For example, over the next five years:

• Walmart China is helping women farmers make their agricultural operations more sustainable and productive through its direct farm program.
• Walmart India is providing retail skills training and career development to women through its Bharti Walmart Training Center.
• Walmart Brazil is hiring women construction workers to help build its new stores and provide job opportunities for women in Sao Paulo.
• Walmart Global Sourcing is launching a program to improve the lives of women factory workers in Bangladesh, India and other key sourcing markets.
• Walmart in Central America is helping female suppliers grow their business through programs like Una Mano para Crecer (A Hand to Grow).

Leslie Dach, Walmart's executive vice president of Corporate Affairs, discussed the company's approach to women's economic empowerment.

"We do not believe that a company has to choose between being a successful business and a responsible one," he said. "We have a model for making a difference that works. When we combine the Walmart model with women's empowerment, we have an incredible opportunity to make a difference on the big challenges facing our world."

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Reiki Healing: What Is Reiki?

By Marlene Shiple, PhD.

Reiki is a spiritual practice of natural healing. It utilizes Universal life force energy to potentiate healing and balance within and around the person receiving treatment.

How Does Reiki Work?: Our bodies have Ki or Qi or Chi - the Universal life force - flowing through them. Our vital energy keeps us psychically, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually in alignment within and without our self. In order for one to be in a healthy state of being, Ki/Chi/Qi has to flow freely in the body and emanate outwards.

What Happens in a Reiki Session?: In a Reiki treatment, a Reiki Practitioner uses his hands to send and transmit the Universal life force to those people, places, and things in need of Energy Balancing and Alignment. This allows those people, places, and things to either regain or maintain a healthy state. It is similar to other healing practices, such as the laying of hands or Pranic healing, both of which use the hands and Life force energy for healing.

How Is Reiki Transmitted?: The Reiki practitioner does this by placing their hands either directly on or above the person receiving the healing session. This is done to facilitate the transfer of the healing universal energy from the Reiki practitioner to the one receiving the treatment. Reiki stimulates the receiver's own healing energy. The receiver's body uses the Universal life force to accomplish self-healing.

How Does Reiki Help when Ki Is Low?: Reiki can also be used effectively when a person's Ki/Chi/Qi is low. A low level of Ki/Chi/Qi can result in a condition of stress, tension and illness - mentally, physically, and spiritually. When Ki/Chi/Qi is balanced and flows in a high optimum level, a person will be in a healthy, happy balanced state. This means one is healthy and happy physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. This health and happiness is Reiki's purpose.

Is Reiki an Alternative Medical Practice?: Reiki is considered both an alternative medical practice and a spiritual healing practice. Through the practitioner's hands, both healing energy and vibrations are passed to the recipient; this facilitates balance and harmony in that person.

Does Reiki Treat More Than the Body?: This healing energy removes any negative energy or blockages that would otherwise impede the healthy flow of Ki/Chi/Qi both internally and externally in the person receiving the Reiki treatment. When Reiki is given to a person, it treats the person's bio field (aura) - as well as the physical body - to return the person to a state of balance both inwards and outwards.

Is One Session Enough?: When the receiver of a Reiki session is in a relaxed state, the mind and body allow the healing energy in to be realigned. The person is then returned to a healthy, balanced state. Some people who undergo Reiki treatments notice a change after one session; others may need a series to feel a change in their state of being - mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally.

I urge you to use this information and to seek out a Reiki practitioner for yourself... to help you attain -- and maintain -- optimum health!

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Grants Improve Health Care Access for Uninsured Floridians

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Foundation (BCBSF Foundation), the philanthropic affiliate of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF), recently approved grants to Florida health nonprofits to help improve access to health care for Floridians in need.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050112/NEW019LOGO)

"During our first decade, more than one million people have accessed health care services through nonprofit health care programs supported by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Foundation," saidSusan Towler, vice president, BCBSF Foundation. "It is our goal to improve the health and well-being of Floridians and their communities. These most recent grants have great potential to make health care available to thousands of people who are most in need."

Grant recipients, totals and program areas funded are:

• Community Health Services of Marion County (Heart of Florida Health Center) -- $100,000(one year) -- to launch a dental program in a predominantly rural county in Central Florida. The program will offer a full complement of preventative and restorative care for children under 18 and limited emergency services for adult patients.
• Comprehensive Community Care Network (FoundCare) -- $100,000 (one year) -- to expand access to primary care and diagnostic services, as well as serve uninsured patients in a Palm Beach County health center.
• Florida's Vision Quest -- $68,000 (one year) -- to provide disadvantaged high school students with free vision screening and, if needed, a comprehensive vision exam and corrective eyeglasses. Program will benefit students attending Oak Ridge High School in Orange County.
• Good Samaritan Health Centers -- $96,000 (three years) -- to increase access to dental care for uninsured, low-income adult residents in St. Johns County. Good Samaritan's Wildflower Clinic Dental Program is the only program of its kind in the county.
• Kids in Distress -- $90,000 (two years) -- to provide dental services to uninsured children at the KID Dental Clinic, a collaborative effort with Nova Southeastern University (NSU) College of Dental Medicine.
• PanCare of Florida -- $100,000 (two years) -- to initiate primary care services on the tribal grounds of the Muskogee Nation of Florida (MNFL), where 53 percent of its residents live at or below the Federal Poverty Level. Grant will be used to set up, staff and equip a clinic.
• Vision is Priceless Council -- $81,000 (two years) -- to provide free vision screenings and follow-up care for uninsured adults and children at risk for eye disease in Duval County.
• Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, Martin County -- $100,000 (two years) -- to treat an increase in patients seeking mental health services. Currently, nearly 800 of the clinic's 1,200 patients are requesting mental health care.
• WomanKind, Monroe County -- $66,000 (two years) -- to increase access to primary and gynecological care for low-income, uninsured women in the lower Florida Keys. Grant fund will allow the clinic to increase its hours and serve more patients.
• Women's Center of Jacksonville -- $99,000 (two years) -- to increase the services of the Mental Health Counseling Department, providing individuals, couples and families with counseling, including survivors of abuse.
  

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Taking Your First Step Toward Your Goal

You are well aware of the life you believe you should have. You have been cradling your dreams in your mind for many years. The only reason your current circumstances do not reflect your dreams is the fact that you are paralyzed by the fear of failure.

Taking your first step toward your goal may feel like you are about to take a step off a cliff. Be at peace, once you take that first step, you will find that you can soar above the clouds.

If you are tormented by your dreams of success and you have yet to take action to make them come true here are 3 steps to get you going.

1) Decide that you want it. Once you decide that you want what you have been envisioning. If it is truly a desire instead of a fantasy, you will begin to think of ways that your dream can be accomplished. When you want a sandwich you go out and buy the ingredients. Achieving your dreams is a very similar process. When your mouth salivates in anticipation of your dream, when your body hungers for the realization of your purpose, you will automatically follow that desire with action.

2) Minimize the dream. Of course your objective may seem so huge that you can't make it happen alone but if you minimize the dream and break it down into smaller steps, you will see that you can accomplish it with consistent action. Take out a piece of paper and write down your dream. Then write down 5 smaller things you can do to make it come true. You can include research, interviews or even visiting a place or person that reminds you of the dream. If you break your dream down into smaller bricks and tackle them one at a time, you will see that you can build a mansion if you are persistent.

3) Give yourself room to grow. At this moment you may not feel that you are perfectly qualified to sustain your dream and that is quite alright. Every genius that we celebrate had to undergo a period of failure before they had their breakthrough. Genius is developed through consistent trial and error. The true genius gains knowledge through doing things the wrong way. Once they have done things wrong enough times then they have figured out how to do it correctly. This is the only way you will grow. Allow yourself room for failure and fail your way to your success.

Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Get Started!

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EDITORIAL: 10 Years Later: Lessons Learned

By Christina Fermin

Politics & Society Columnist

It has been 10 years since those horrific attacks on September 11, 2001. What have we learned as a nation and a people? Has it changed our culture or our country? If so, how? There seems to be many unanswered questions, such as how did building 7 collapse when it wasn’t hit by a plane, or where were the pieces of plane that hit the pentagon or landed in the field in Pennsylvania? Why all the secrecy in video tapes and witnesses? Where are the answers after thousands died and millions suffered? Don’t we owe the truth to all the victims.

So what have we learned? I say we have learned to be afraid of those who are different. We have learned to be more close minded and suspicious, we have learned to trust those that have always been deemed untrustworthy in the name of “national security.” Has it changed us? Yes it has, we are quick to jump the gun and make threats, we have learned to be suspicious of Muslims and those who not only look different, but hold differing values, beliefs and ideologies. We have left some of the most important decisions in our society to be dealt with by a crooked minority. We fear those who are not like us, (as if we have it all right). It has been 10 years and we have engaged in 3 wars that has cost this country boat loads of money and countless lives both foreign and domestic.

It has been proven time and time again that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, yet nothing has been done, no apologies have been issued and justice has yet to be served. Today the world is not a safer place, the only success we have had, is in creating more terrorists and more people to hate us. Today our economy sags in a depression they keep calling a recession, Wallstreet has bamboozled the American people out of Trillions of dollars and politicians play games to keep the truth hidden and keep the game playing. Good paying jobs barely exist, civil liberties are practically non-existent and if you dare go against the grain you are an immediate target or threat.

Instead of reaching across the table and working together for solutions for mutual gain, we come to the table with a “take it or leave it” approach without ever considering those involved. 10 years in Afghanistan and that country is in worse shape today than it was when we entered in 2001. Now we are in Libya, for what reason? They tell us “democracy.” 10 years later and the world is a radically different place, Rome is crumbling apart, and all that you can do is sit in front of the television and listen to their lies. I reject those lies and refuse to listen to them. They want you to listen to the radio or television, they want you to remember that fear so you remember who “protects” you. As long as you keep that fear they will always have the power.

Who are "they" you may ask They are the movers and the shakers, they are the political clout behind bringing down those who oppose them. They are the ones responsible for the status quo, for hiding technology that can free us from servitude, they are the bloodlines that have controlled Western civilization for thousands of years, they are the ones that pick our President every 4 years as well as our politicians and media stars. They are the ones who allow certain celebrities to become and remain celebrities. They are the ones that have crafted the Great Ponzi Scheme of the 21st Century. The evidence is so damn obvious it’s sickening.

Is your stomach churning yet? Are your eyes wide open? Are you tired of your mundane life in a world that you feel completely out of touch with? Are you numb to life or are you alive with feeling and passion and love? Do you yearn for truth, justice, passion and love? Of course!! You are Human and it is only in your nature to want to feel alive. You have to unplug yourself, center yourself through meditation and open your eyes to what is going on. It is time you decide what your role is to change it. Change is on the horizon, are you going to get with the program and help facilitate the change for the better, or are you going to keep feeding the machine that is crumbling? Do not fear change- a new paradigm shift is on the horizon, lets make this one count.

Love & Peace,

Christina

About the Columnist

With a bachelors degree in political science from Florida Atlantic University, Christina Fermin has always cultivated her love for history, politics, sociology, ancient knowledge and teachings, the outdoors, the ocean and the environment. Christina strives to make our world better by helping us all create a new reality and understanding of all taking place here and now.

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