After a 12-year tour of duty in Michigan, my stalwart purple Plymouth Voyager finally succumbed to the road salt and crumbled into what looked like Martian dust. I was about to sign for a solid little Ford sedan with all the sex appeal of pleated khakis when I caught a bright flash of presidential blue out of the corner of my eye. Sitting on the lot like a shiny secondhand Captain America, the car of my dreams — all right, the car of the dreams I could afford — was suddenly a 2009 Jeep Patriot.

Instead of attending a grandchild’s soccer game or a family dinner, many older adults are suffering in hospital beds and rehab facilities. For low-income older adults with chronic or complex medical problems, the health system can be full of gaps and barriers that prevent them from getting the preventive care they need.Doctors are often in short supply in low-income areas. Transportation may not be available for appointments or picking up prescriptions. Education and literacy gaps may make it ha

The first impression of Peter Yarrow is that he has a lot to say and may try to say it all in one long rush, possibly to avoid being asked the perennial and probably dumb question about 'Puff the Magic Dragon.' The second impression is that although he is an enduring folk icon as one third of the much-loved trio Peter, Paul and Mary, he is as passionate, powerful and relevant a force working to improve the planet and the lot of its inhabitants as he has ever been.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Fashion may be one of the most subjective forms of personal expression, a series of choices that function like turn signals, letting those around us know our mood, our point of view, how we want the world to see us. Date night is a particularly peril-fraught endeavor — piles of clothes on the bed, hundreds of outfits rejected. Is this the right vibe for the bar, the bowling alley, a pizza place? Will she think I’m cool in this? Will he think I’m h

It’s a rainy day in Michigan. I’m parked in the mud in a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, a vehicle whose capabilities I currently consider well above my driving ability. I’m on an off-road course at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes Jeep Invasion and my stated purpose for being behind the wheel is to drive JeepWave.com’s camera crew and their equipment around the course to film the event. But also, I just want to try it. It’s my first time off-road – and by off-road, so far, I mean that I drove up the dirt trac

So, I’m sitting in this church in Hamtramck. It’s getting dark outside, and darker inside because there’s no electricity in the church. Nothing flowing between DTE and The International Beginning Ministries Church on Grayling Street. But, amazingly, there is power. In the absence of electricity, there is a palpable sense of possibility. We will have electricity. We will find the money to get the lights turned on. We will fill this building with people.

In 1997, my father received a horrifying diagnosis. A competitive 61-year-old triathlete, he was the picture of health. Except for the golf-ball sized tumor growing rapidly in his brain. The morning after the diagnosis, the tumor was removed, but it was already too late. Despite surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, it spread and eventually claimed his life. At the time of diagnosis with a glioblastoma, we were told he was likely to live about nine months. He lived 14. The current life expectanc

According to the Book of Esther, Haman, Royal Vizier to 6th century BCE Persian King Ahasuerus, plotted to kill Persia's Jews. The Jewish queen Esther thwarted his plans. On Purim, which began at sundown Saturday, Jews celebrate deliverance by wearing costumes, feasting, drinking, having carnivals and reading the Book of Esther. Jewish families often send each other food packages, a tradition that arose to ensure everyone in the community had food for a feast. Twenty-three years ago, the programming and family education staff of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit in Bloomfield Hills decided to make mishloach manot -- Purim packages -- a communal affair. Staff member Debra Rosenberg remembers the first Great Purim Parcel Project. "Six of us sat the entire day on the floor making parcels. I think we made 100 parcels."

“Yeah,” says Freya Gothelf, sounding every bit the 71 inches of teenager, “if you grow up to be 5-foot 11-inches and you’re a 14-year-old, you think about [modeling]. People tell you, ‘Oh, hey, you should be a model.’” Now a four-year veteran of runways and fashion shoots, she’s pushing 20, about which she says, with sort of mock horror, “I don’t want to hear that. In modeling, that’s horrible.” Gothelf is very clear that modeling is for kids. Her earliest modeling memories have more to do wit

When the Assad regime attacked her town, Dr. Rouzana Hares was nine years old. She was readying her backpack to return to school after mid-winter break. “Then the bombardment started, the sirens started, and everything went black,” she said. She spent the next 22 days in a basement before escaping to a nearby Christian village where her father knew someone. They went door to door until they found him. “They opened their door. They shared their food. They shared their clothing, their bed with us for 10 days,” said Hares. The emotions still seem fresh as Hares sits in the library of Muslim Unity Center, 1830 W Square Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills, speaking of how those events stayed with her. Watching broadcasts of tanks rolling into the streets of Syria again in 2011, Hares said “something woke up inside of me and I decided I had to do more.”

First, you hear the siren. Then, you see the flashing lights. Then, you realize it’s a Jeep Wrangler. What? The “Jeep 14” vehicle, as it was named by its creator, Trevor Wilson, was named in honor of Station 14, where Wilson and his father, Michael, are firefighters. Although it’s owned by Wilson, it regularly joins the station’s Engine 14, Grass 14 and Tanker 14 on missions to protect public safety. It’s kind of like a comic book story; an amiable, unassuming, dune-riding 2011 Wrangler JKU tu

Greg Martin was serving as a church youth director when he got a calling of a slightly different kind. In May of 2012, the day after one of many tornadoes pummeled Alabama that year, Martin says “I had this overwhelming sense that I should go do something.” Martin, from Clarkston, texted 100 friends, inviting them to travel to Alabama with him to help. A dozen friends answered the call, Disaster Rel

Britney Spears may want to take notes: How does one appear onstage in a skin-tight red sequined sheath and 16-inch platform pumps singing “Santa, please take me off of your naughty list” to four twenty-something bumping and grinding Santa-suited dancer studs, and still make it look like family entertainment? Apparently, you must be Marie Osmond. Though, arguably, anybody with he

The Journey from Worst to First: 5 CX lessons we learned from the Domino’s turnaround The secret it turns out, is in the sauce. And the dough. And the cheese. But it’s also in the corporate culture, the marketing, the store layout, and the technology. On March 6, at HAP’s first CX Connect event, HAP’s C.A.R.E. Connectors got to taste the results of their improvement efforts with a sampling of Domino’s pizzas. And we got to hear how Domino’s achieved them from Tim McIntyre, Domino’s executive vice president of Communication, Investor Relations and Legislative Affairs.

If you’re anything like us, blisters and burning pain are something you’d like to avoid. So, you might want to read on and find out about the new Shingrix vaccine.Shingles is a disease caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox. The most common symptom is a very painful blistered rash. It usually wraps around one side of the torso but can appear anywhere. And it can last up to four weeks. It isn’t usually life-threatening, but it can be very unpleasant. Sometimes shingles causes a complica

In a campaign to reanimate Woodward Avenue as a thriving retail destination, the Somerset Collection last year teamed with Bedrock Real Estate and Quicken Loans to light up Woodward’s 1200 block. When the lights went on, the group realized that the empty windows along the avenue offered a golden opportunity to bring back the old feeling of strolling down Woodward Avenue at holiday time. This year, volunteers from Bedrock and Quicken cleaned and prepared the windows, expanding into spaces in the