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One of my favorite things about Amazon.com is the easy and vast availability of inexpensive used CDs. I’ve picked up treasures recorded by musicians from my formative years in the late 1960s and 1970s, Bollywood soundtracks, jazz classics and hard-to-find recordings by the late singer-songwriters Laura Nyro and Jackson Browne. I’ve also found rare recordings by singer-songwriters who’ve written hits for famous singers. Those are among my favorites. Many of the artists I’m drawn to have penned hits for stars but are often little known to the wider public. The best example I can think of is Nashville-based singer-songwriter Tom Kimmel. I recently bought a live CD of Kimmel’s tunes, Bones, from Amazon. It’s a profoundly exquisite CD, and it costs me all of $1.99. The shipping cost more than the CD. Yes, it was cheap, but Kimmel’s music is golden.

Kimmel’s CD features “The Blue Train,” one of Kimmel’s songs made famous by the vintage folk-rock singer Linda Ronstadt. Other stand out songs are “Hearts are Bound to be Broken,” a tender song about the inevitability of getting hurt in love matters and “Fatherless Son,” a totally heartbreaking portrait of of young man who’s been treated badly and resorts to violence himself. Bones, which was recorded live at Nashville’s world-famous Bluebird Cafe in 2001, is a quiet masterpiece. Since it was recorded live, one can’t ever criticize it for being over-produced. But the acoustics are perfect and the tone is completely authentic. It’s the kind of from-the-heart artistry we used to hear in the early 1970s when Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were still putting out simply-produced and heartfelt classics that weren’t clutter with too many electric guitars or excessive overdubbing.

In Middle Tennessee, hospitals are reaching out to women with high-risk pregnancies and their newborn infants by investing millions in advanced neonatal services. Baptist Hospital’s newly-renovated $9.6 million Seaman neonatal intensive care unit opened in March February 2009. About a month later,  The Women’s Hospital at Centennial Medical Center completed the final phase of a $15.5 million expansion of its neonatal intensive care unit, expanding from 40 to 60 beds. And, there’s more to come from another one of Nashville’s major hospitals. In 2008, Vanderbilt University announced plans for a $203 million 340,000-square-foot addition to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital. When completed in 2013, the hospital with include 36 neonatal intensive beds.

The need for advanced neonatal services has increased dramatically. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the rate of premature births has spiked about 36 percent nationally since the early 1980s. Why is this?

One reason is that technology makes it possible for babies that wouldn’t have lived 20 years ago to have a fighting chance at survival. Not only are women having babies later in life, there is also a higher rate of diseases such as diabetes. And, hospitals and physicians are equipped to treat these patients at a higher level than they ever have before.

Primary care, the branch of medicine that focuses on treating patients with a broad spectrum conditions, is in a crisis. Only 2 percent of today’s medical students want to go into primary care internal medicine. Industry experts warn of a shortage of primary care doctors that will shock the nation’s health care system in coming years. Meharry, Medical College a 132-year-old historically black school in Nashville, is trying to do something about it. Over 50 percent of the school’s physicians-in-training are preparing to practice primary care. According to one industry group, the nation needs 60,000 more primary care physicians for every American to have access to health care.

One of the reasons for the erosion of primary care is the pay scale. The starting salary range for a primary care doctor is $80,000 to $125,000, a wage that maxes out around $300,000. Compare that to the starting salary for a specialist in urology. They start at about $250,000, with eventual earning power of about $620,000. An orthopedic surgeon specializing in hip and joint replacement can reel in more than $1 million a year. Meharry emphasizes the meaningful relationships developed in a primary care practice, focusing on the passion of helping people. It’s an uphill battle, but one the school believes in is worth fighting for. Only 2 percent of today’s medical students want to go into primary care internal medicine, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 56 million Americans do not have a relationship with a primary care physician.

The world is full of winners and losers. Many of us identify with the losers, without even realizing it. Self-help authors, life coaches and psychologists often suggest we make a conscious choice to connect to the life’s winners. You may think that you have more in common with the winners, but you could be fooling yourself. If your favorite old TV show is “I Love Lucy” or “The Honeymooners,” you probably have a healthy connection to your inner-loser. And why not? What’s not to fall in love with about ordinary people who bumble along through life making the best of it, and probably doing silly and lovable things in the process?

But for the purpose of raising your self esteem, try pretending you have something in common with Albert Einstein, Barack Obama and Meryl Streep. If you’re trying to learn a new skill think Tiger Woods or Peyton Manning. If you want to advance in your career think Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Think of someone you’d never compare yourself to in a million years, and decide you’re have the same spark of genius for one day - just one day. Take the advice of 12-step programs, which are very successful in healing addictions, and “act as if” you are a winner. Believe you are the person who wins the Powerball or gets promoted to the top. Pretend you a lucky in life and destined to be successful.

There are many world traditions that have stories and myths that include “the wild man” and even some that depict the “wild woman.” One example, The Tibetan Yeti, is a huge, fearsome creature made of snow and ice. In Native American folklore the creature is known as Big Foot or Sasquatch. This archetypal; wild man is respected as a supernatural spiritual being. In European folklore there’s a wild man who lives in the forest. He’s typically hairy and is sometimes depicted with horns and gigantic teeth. In Celtic mythology the wild man is represented by the “Green Man.” The women have their say in the world of the wild, too. In Swiss folklore there was a wild woman known as Fange. In Germanic folklore her name was lamia or holzmoia. In Greco-Roman time she was Maia.

There are some links between the Judeo-Christian character of Satan and the wild man archetype. In Greco-Roman history this character was often characterized as a satyr, a creature of the woods and mountains with a upper body of a man and the horns and hindquarters of a goat. Satyrs represented the carnal instincts of man, with many elements of the wild man archetype. The fertility god Pan was the head honcho of the satyrs. Eventually, as Christianity infiltrated the Roman world, Pan became an association with the devil.

As a small business owner you want to be more than a task master - you want to let your employees know that you value their personal growth. Sound too soft, not productive enough? Well, it’s not. Professionals, who mature in all aspects of their life, consistently increase their productivity, creativity and effectiveness. They often become leaders with in an organization. They are also a lot more fun to be around. Show interest in your employee’s personal lives, and you will see many of them grow and mature as complete individuals, not just as workers slaving away in a cubicle.

One good way to encourage personal growth is to set a good example of it. If you are going on a personal retreat or have a fulfilling hobby that adds to the quality of your life, let your employees know about it. If you are active in church, volunteer work or love to paint landscapes in your spare time, share some details with your employees. You might consider creating a little library of motivational articles and books in the workplace. If you have a company retreat, don’t make it all about business. Spend fifteen to twenty minutes in the beginning with exercises that encourage employees to share details about their personal lives.

In 2005 I witnessed the creation of a traditional Tibetan sand mandala by a group of Tibetan monks who were visiting the Watkins College of Art & Design in Nashville, TN. The event left a strong impression. Initially, the ceremony was a lesson to me in the impermanence of beauty. It was also a lesson in detachment. The monks spent several hours making the intricately-designed mandala with sand of vibrant colors. The creation was one of the most beautiful and intriguing works of craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. When they were finished, the monks destroyed the mandala and handed out what was left in small sandwich bags to spectators. All the colors blended to make what was once a rainbow of complicated designs to nondescript gray sand. Then, with one of the monks leading the way, we walked out to a pond and emptied our bags of gray sand into the water.

There’s no denying that there was a spiritual lesson here. We can’t become too attached to beauty, to possessions. Like us, their physical form will eventually become dust. Recently, I found out more intriguing facts about the ceremony. The mandala, called the kakachakra by Tibetans, is supposed to represent the wheel of time. It is a flat representation of all the cycles of the universe. Before making these mandalas, the monks pray to their goddess of creation. What’s interesting to me is that the sand mandala is still speaking to me after four years. I’m definitely ready to witness another ceremony.

The great American sculptor Alexander Calder became enamored with the circus, and it had a profound effect on his work. As a young artist in New York City, Calder worked for the National Post Gazette. One of his assignments was to produce sketches of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. This assignment launched his lifelong artistic love affair with the circus. He would return to whimsical circus themes or abstractions throughout his 50-plus year career.

The first expression of Calder’s passion for the circus was seen in his creation entitled Cirque Calder. This piece, a rendering of a miniature circus, is now a part of the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum in New York City. The entire piece is made from a delightful array of found objects including wire, string, rubber, wood and cloth. Calder rigged the figures in this whimsical piece to perform various functions of circus performers, from a sword eater to a lion tamer to a contortionist. Calder created Cirque Calder after moving from New York to Paris, France in 1926. He set up a studio in the Montparnasse Quarter of the city and began to mingle with other famous artists from the era. Even among the artists he associated with, Calder had ideas that were supremely individualist and whimsical. For example, he designed his miniature circus to fit inside a suitcase. It eventually took up five suitcases. This made the pieces portable and allowed him to “perform” with his small, circus-themed masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic.

Alexander Calder was arguably the most renowned American sculptor of the 20^th century. Calder is best known for his colorful geometric sculptures and mobiles. The playful sculptor produced miniature pieces and huge public installations, the largest of which is 67 feet high. A sense of balance and harmony amidst discord permeates his work.

In many ways Calder represents the resilience of America in the 20^th century. It was an era of chaos and wonder, with increased industrialization, several major wars, huge scientific advances and even the threat of nuclear annihilation. Calder’s oddly-shaped geometric forms could seem disparate and disjointed, but he arranges them with a sense of balance and harmony. I believe the message here, whether it’s was conscious or unconscious, is that the universe - and even society at large - will always find an inherent balance no matter how turbulent the world seems.

Although he was born into a family of artists, Calder’s ascent to the throne of artistic greatness wasn’t conventional. Fearing he wouldn’t be able to make a living as an artist, his sculptor father, Alexander Milne Calder and portrait painter mother, Nanette Lederer Calder, discouraged a career in the arts. Calder studied engineering instead. He was unable to resist the lure of art, but not before working several other jobs including hydraulics engineer, draftsman, fireman on a passenger ship and timekeeper in a logging camp. In the mid-1920s, he left it all behind and moved to New York City to pursue the uncertain life of a real artist.

Zappos.com has impressed the heck out of me. Huge selection, great prices, and fanatical service! I heard a story about them recently, and I can totally beieve it. A woman had bought a pair of shoes for her husband, and then suddenly he passed away. The woman received the shoes the day before the memorial service, and called Zappos to see if they could be returned. The answer, of course, was yes. But the story doesn’t end there. When the woman arrived at the funeral home and entered the chapel, she saw all the lovely flowers people had given. Among them was a particularly lovely and large arrangement, and the woman inquired as to who had brought them.

“Well, that’s the thing,” replied the funeral home director. “They arrived this afternoon, and the note simply said, “so sorry for your loss” and was signed by someone named Zappos or something.

I don’t care who you are, THAT’s a company who cares about its customers!