American Expats Search Results

News: Mitakuye Oyasin

This expression, mitakuye oyasin, comes from the language of the Lakota Sioux, a tribe among the Native Americans. It means "We are all related." It's uttered upon crossing the threshold into the Sweat Lodge, the small, low structure used by the Sioux for their sacred purification ritual, the Sweat. In Seido Karate we have a saying we utter upon entering the dojo and upon greeting others: Osu! Osu is an abbreviation of the expression Oshi shinobu osu, which means "maintain patience."

News: The Five "S" Process

When I trained at Honbu I used to keep one of the towels reserved for cleaning the floor at the end of class close by me so that I could sop up the sweat that gathered in puddles on the floor beneath me during wazapractice. During one such class, I took advantage of a momentary break in the training to clean my space with the towel. When I was finished I lightly tossed it toward a support pillar on the main floor of the dojo for later use. “Don’t throw!” Kaicho yelled. “Place down on floor.” ...

How To: Keep Stroke Patients Active at Home w/ Wii Fit

My father recently suffered a stroke. Now in Neuro Rehab at Cedars Sinai, he is enduring daily physical therapy, recreational therapy and occupational therapy sessions to help improve his balance, mobility and fine motor skills. I was initially worried about how I could incorporate his current PT regime in his daily life after he's discharged. That was until I saw the devices he used in the PT gym. Despite their "medical device" designations, the high tech stuff is remarkably similar to what ...

News: Winning with 2-Letter Words

When your opponent throws down "AA", you tell them no abbreviations, but alas... it's not. They build "ZA" on the board for 64 points, and you say it's slang, but it's in the dictionary. Next is "EF", and you let them know that spelling out letters is not allowed and ridiculous... but it's totally legit.

How To: Hack Your Morning Pancakes for a Less Sticky & More Delicious Breakfast

Over 56 million Americans decided to skip breakfast this morning. That's 18 percent of the population. You're probably sick of hearing that the first meal of the day is the most important, but it's true—studies have shown that those who skip it consume more calories and fewer essential nutrients than regular breakfast eaters. Regardless of nutrition, who can pass up devouring a batch of warm, fluffy buttermilk pancakes drizzled in sweet maple syrup? And why, you ask, is there a giant hole in ...

News: 1,000,000 Spiders Weave Rare Silk

A rare textile woven from the silk of more than one million spiders is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The incredible textile measures 11 by four feet, and is the largest piece of spider-woven textile in the world.

News: Feel your boobies

We encourage everyone (especially breast owners) to please watch. Intently. The UK's Channel 4's fantastic program Embarrassing Bodies is serving up lifesaving health advice. This segment does not sacrifice any details (nipple shots, etc.) to accommodate conventional prudes or censorship. We do not intend to either.

How To: Do the Head Ladies Chain Across square dance step

Square dancing, a fun American pastime! Learn square dance steps with this instructional animation. Fun fact about square dancing: 19 U.S. States deem it their official dance. Square dance is a folk dance with roots in Europe, eventually spreading to the states & becoming more of an iconic dance there. Square dancing consists of 4 couples arranged in a square formation. This square dance lesson is clear and to the point. Search "square dance instructional animation" on Wonderhowto for more sq...

How To: Enjoy travelling in Managua, Nicaragua

Want to see a huge monument of Sandino? Make your way to Managua, Nicaragua's proud capital and learn the insider travel information on this unique Central American nation. Allow an InterContinental Concierge member to lead you on a special tour of Managua, Nicaragua. I've been there, Managua is awesome. Enjoy travelling in Managua, Nicaragua.

How To: Diagnose sciatica

40 million Americans suffer from sciatica pains,but the condition is often not diagnosed correctly. A new imaging technique uses a specially tuned MRI scan to image nerves and highlight them deep inside tissues. Called Magnetic Resonance Neurography,the new technique promises to diagnose conditions such as sciatica-in which a compressed nerve in the buttock causes persistent lower-back and leg pai Diagnose sciatica.

News: News Clips - June 6

Collapse At Hand Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and quantitative easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits? Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy.

CISPA: What You Need to Know

Though under a lot of the average consumer's radar, the CISPA is now making rounds again with a coalition of advocacy rights groups. The act, known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, forces companies to ignore existing privacy laws and share information with the Federal Government. This short article will bring you up to date on this bill. The CISPA is another bill 'designed' to help prevent thefts and prevent them in cyberspace. But again, like all the previous bill before...

News: Curbing our Hubris

"The suspect is based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He has been identified as a staff sergeant in the Stryker brigade who was taking part in a village stability operation in Afghanistan. He is a 38-year-old married father of two on his first deployment to Afghanistan after three previous deployments in Iraq.", reads an article from MSNBC.

News: No Transparency, No Trust

Earlier in the week, Obama’s attorney general stated something that is quite alarming. “In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out, and we will not,” Eric Holder said during a speech at Northwestern University’s law school in Chicago. It's a very ambiguous statement. Why do people talk like this? Why can't they just talk straight to the point? Well, most of the time it's to hide something. Take a look at this video: What do you think of that! Th...

How To: Grow Cold, Hardy Running Bamboo

Bamboo is easy to grow, but there are a few things you should know before starting. There are hundreds of species of bamboo and they can be roughly divided into either running or clumping bamboos. Almost all cold hardy bamboos are runners and almost all tropical bamboos are clumpers. Running bamboos send out root like rhizomes underground and can spread many feet each year. Clumping bamboos slowly expand and stay in a tight clump with canes close together. We grow dozens of cold hardy bamboo ...

News: Will Kidult Wage a Graffiti Civil War?

MOCA's Art in The Street gallery was one of the first large scale street art related museum shows ever. It's not a point of debate whether this did or did not bring street art to a much wider audience, it most certainly did. It united the old graffiti artist of the seventies with the new street artists of the last twenty years. It was a big night with many famous artists attending the opening, including but certainly not limited to, L.A. native Shepard Fairey and the ever exciting Mr. Brainwa...

Passing By: House Café on Beverly

House Café offers traditional American food with a heavy Mexican influence. The restaurant is located near Crescent Heights and Beverly Blvd, sandwiched between The Grove and The Beverly Hills Mall. We’ve (wife and I) visited this restaurant several times, here are our impressions of our most recent visit.

News: Australian Government Finally Comes Around on Video Games—Well, at Least a Little

The Australian government has a dysfunctional history with video games. Any regular Yahtzee Croshaw follower can attest to that. The Parliament has established a series of unfortuante regulations that make games both highly taxed and overregulated in price. Bringing any goods all the way to an island in the bottom of the world is expensive to begin with, and new games in Australia can tip the scales at $80 or more.

Bethesda vs. Notch: Does 'Scrolls' Infringe Upon 'The Elder Scrolls'?

Minecraft might still be in development, but that doesn't mean a creative guy like Notch doesn't have time for other projects. A few months ago he and his company Mojang announced their second game, a digital collectible trading card affair called Scrolls. A simple title (perhaps too generic if anything), but it's not the name of an extant game, and it's appropriate given the visual style and card-based gameplay of the game itself.

How To: Get Rid of Promoted Tweets in Your Twitter Timeline

More than a year ago, Twitter rolled out the first phase of its Promoted Tweets ad service, which consisted of selected tweets from advertising partners like Best Buy and Sony Pictures receiving "promoted" exposure in the search results pages on Twitter and in the trends lists. These ads were clearly labeled as such, so it was never any real bother to Twitter users.

News: Video Games Deemed Art AND Protected Free Speech!

It's been a great year for video games, kind of. Sure, the AAA release lineup has been a trainwreck and hacking has been a bigger problem than ever. But two things have happened involving the federal government that have made video games more legitimate in the United States than ever before. The Supreme Court ruling establishing that video games were the equivalent of movies and books, not porn, was the more significant decision. But in May, the National Endowment for the Arts made another si...