Blog Posts by Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff

Be careful with that! Photo: Getty Images.Diamonds? A girl’s best friend? Yeah. Tell that to Miriam, an 80-year-old Tampa woman so mortified by her recent run-in with the gemstone she would not even disclose her last name or show her face on camera in a local TV news story about her fate.

Turns out the woman swallowed a 1.03-carat diamond worth $5,000 at a fund-raising event for the Tampa Woman’s Club, which sold 400 glasses of champagne at $20 a pop. While most contained a faux diamond, one lucky flute contained a real one—which Miriam promptly, accidently swallowed, to her great embarrassment. But she assumed it was a fake one, and didn’t tell a soul.

“The small sip I took, I swallowed it, and I thought, Oh well, they will find it at the end,” she told ABC News. But when no one announced that they’d found the real diamond, Miriam had to confess.

As luck had it, she just so happened to have a routine colonoscopy scheduled for the following morning, and had the intact diamond mined by her doc.

“As soon as we saw it, we knew it

Read More »from Diamond Swallowing: It's a Problem

The story appears in the latest New York Times Magazine. (Image courtesy of The New York Times Magazine.)Are mammograms useless? That’s just one of the turn-your-world-upside-down questions raised in a provocative and personal New York Times Magazine piece about the fight against breast cancer, published online Thursday and set to hit newsstands this weekend.

More on Shine: Strangers Donate to Dream Wedding for Bride with Cancer

In “Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer,” Peggy Orenstein—thoughtful writer and translator of marketing strategies, known for her takedown of princess culture in 2011’s “Cinderella Ate My Daughter”—turns her analytic eye on pink-ribbon mania, the possible over-diagnosis of breast cancer, and yes, the idea that the sacred mammogram may be barely making a dent in the fight against the disease.

Orenstein, herself a breast-cancer survivor, begins by pointing to a recent three-decade study. It found that, while mammography does reduce, by a slight margin, the number of women who develop late-stage cancer, it is is far more likely to result in overdiagnosis and

Read More »from Do mammograms really work? Mixed messages on screening for breast cancer

The mean-girl sorority rant read round the world has taken a somewhat predictable turn, with Delta Gamma sister Rebecca Martinson “resigning” from her sorority Wednesday because of her profanity-laced, media-frenzy inducing email.

More on Shine: Surprising Celebrities Who Were In a Sorority in College

“Delta Gamma has accepted the resignation of one of its members whose email relating to a social event has been widely distributed and publicized through social media and traditional media channels. The tone and content of the email was highly inappropriate and unacceptable by any standard,” read Wednesday’s announcement on the University of Maryland sorority’s Facebook page. “All reasonable people can agree, this is an email that should never have been sent.” Further, Delta Gamma now considers the matter “closed.”

More on Yahoo!: Viral University of Maryland Delta Gamma Email Spoofed, Studied

Dream on, sisters. Since Gawker first shared the email a week ago, Martinson’s f-bomb-,

Read More »from Sorority Girl Email Writer 'Resigns' from Delta Gamma

Maid costumes are the new in-flight look. Photo: Facebook/Spring AirlinesFlying these days is a total drag. But there’s at least one airline out there trying to turn that notion on its head: Shanghai-based Spring Airlines, known for its budget rates, is aiming to make flying fun again with a dash of old-school, in-flight sexism, as it’s unveiled plans to dress its female flight attendants up like maids, and their male counterparts as butlers. So far, reviews have been mixed.

“The airline should respect their crew members because flight attendants are still quite different from maids and butlers,” one blogger wrote, according to Shanghai Daily. Other critics, said the article, said that Spring should instead focus on making sure flights were on time, offering cheaper tickets and improving services, rather than relying on this “excessive way” of gaining public attention. Some even worried that the costumes, with their high heels and short skirts, could pose a safety risk.

Supporters thought a flight with themed costumes could be fun, and that it was reminiscent

Read More »from Spring Airlines' Flight Attendants Wear Sexy Maid Uniforms. Just Because.

Dane Weller is hoping is late mother's wedding band turns up. Photo: KCTVFollowing the death of his mother earlier this month, a Kansas man is not only dealing with grief, but with anger about the fact that his mom's wedding ring went missing from her finger.

More on Shine: Husband and Wife Die 16 Hours Apart, After 76 Years Together. That's True Love.

“It’s unsettling, to say the least,” Dane Weller told Yahoo! Shine when reached at home in Overland Park, where he now lives with just his father, Don. 

Weller, who had become particularly close with his late mother, Vicki, and moved back in with his parents after a spinal cord injury left him temporarily paralyzed several years ago, had made a promise to her shortly before she died: He would honor her request to make sure his niece, Vicki’s first-born granddaughter Jenni, 34, received the gold wedding band upon her death.

More on Yahoo!: Family Reunited with Stolen 1938 Heirloom Telegram

“That was the last thing she said to me—‘I would like Jenni to have the ring’,” Dane said. “That was the only thing she askedRead More »from Son's Quest to Find Late Mother's Wedding Ring

Anzor Tsarnaev, father of alleged bombers. Photo: Getty ImagesThe parents of alleged Boston bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been called “awful,” “crazy” and “deluded” ever since they’ve begun speaking publicly about their “very nice” sons. But their utter disbelief and denial, according to experts in parent-child dynamics, is far from unexpected. 

More on Shine: Boston Bombing Suspects' Family: What They're Saying

“If you were to see your child and all their deficiencies, it would be very painful,” Renana Brooks, PhD and director of the National Institute for the Study of the American Unconscious, told Yahoo! Shine. “You really can’t see your children as evil. Almost always you have to see them as being framed, unless you decide not to love them anymore.”
 
In other words, she said, “How could you think you raised a monster and not have noticed it?”

More on Yahoo!: Tsarnaev's Condition Improves; Brothers Reportedly Motivated by U.S. Wars

The brothers allegedly were "self-radicalized," and were motivated to kill by U.S. wars, according to

Read More »from Boston Bombers' Parents Defend Their Kids: Can We Blame Them?

Strapless dresses are not allowed at this year's 8th grade dinner dance. Photo: Stephen Vance Photography/Getty Images.A newly instituted ban on strapless dresses at an upcoming eighth-grade dance in Readington, New Jersey—with a promise to turn away girls who don’t obey—has some parents crying foul.

More on Shine: Prom Dress Rules: High Schools Ban Sexy Gowns

“I’m objecting to the fact that government can come in and change the rules without asking parents. That’s an abuse of authority,” parent Charlotte Nijenhuis told the Courier News Monday about the ban, instituted by principal Sharon Moffat at Readington Middle School and backed by superintendent Barbara Sargent.

More on Yahoo!: Father Asks School to Rethink Dress Code After Son Was Told to Remove Marines T-Shirt

While Moffat did not return a call from Shine, Sargent, who would not answer specific questions about the situation, released the following statement:

“The Readington Township School District has a policy regarding dress code which is being universally applied to the school day and school events.  We regret that a small number of families

Read More »from School Dress Code Bans Strapless Dresses for Girls at Dance

Be happy! Photo: Mauro Grigolio/Getty ImagesWho doesn’t want happiness? For most people, the question of how to achieve it is right up there with that of wondering what happens to us when we die. And psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky is on the forefront of helping everyone find some answers, both through tireless research as well as with her books, like “The How of Happiness” (2007) and its just-published follow-up, “The Myths of Happiness.” 

More on Shine: 7 Reasons Photographs Can Boost Your Happiness

Lyubomirsky, based at the University of California, Riverside, believes that everyone has his or her own set happiness level, noted the New York Times in a recent profile of the researcher. And the less happy among us tend to share traits like frequently comparing themselves to others (and finding personal disappointment in others’ successes), rationalizing often, and dwelling on unhappy events. Happy folks, meanwhile, have a greater tendency to store up positive moments in their memory.

More on Yahoo!: Seeking Hope, Balance,

Read More »from How to Be Happy: 8 Ways to Feel Better About Everything