Editor’s Note

You gotta love green. Even if you are in the camp that doesn’t buy that the polar ice caps are disappearing at an alarming rate or that the rainforest is on the verge of extinction, you have to admit that the goals and practices of the green movement just make sense – like the doctor’s oath – first, do no harm.

Living Well
Save on Health Care Without Skimping on Health

By Mary Beth King, Medica

They’re calling it the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and you are probably feeling the pinch in one way or another. Perhaps you own stocks that have lost much of their value. Or maybe your retirement savings, which you thought would last for many years, are already beginning to dry up.

The Healthy Table
Vitamin D - The “In” Vitamin

By Pat Sinclair

One of the key goals of the green living movement is to reduce pollution and the obvious damage it is doing to our environment. One lesser known effect of air pollution is decrease in sunshine, which results in our bodies not being able to manufacture vitamin D.

Seasoned Living
Spring is Best Time to Honor Mother Earth

by Mary Rose Remington

One of the challenges I face in writing a seasonal column is having deadlines several weeks prior to the release of the paper. Let me say it more vividly: it’s difficult to write about spring when we just got dumped with eight inches of snow! And yet I trust by the time my words make it through the editing process and onto paper, the snow will have melted, the birds will be serenading us with their sweet, musical songs, and we might have even gone coatless today.

As Barry “Zees” It!
Thinking Green

by Barry Zevan

Green. The word used to conjure thoughts like, “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green,” courtesy of Kermit, The Frog, or, perhaps, Jim Lowe’s popular song of the late 1950s, “The Green Door.” It also used to be slang to describe U.S. currency, as in “greenbacks.” Green identified (and still does) a young, raw

Community Voices
Bartering Services Growing in Twin Cities

by harvey meyer

Bartering? I thought that was something people did in the old days. You know, like, “I’ll trade you this sack of potatoes if you help me put up a fence.” Or something like that.

Earth Talk
Old vs. New

Dear EarthTalk: Is it better to drive an older, well-maintained car that gets about 25 miles per gallon, or to buy a new car that gets about 35 miles per gallon?

   – Edward Peabody, via e-mail