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The chairman of the U.S. Bishops' Pro-life Secretariat has written today to all members of the House of Representatives urging them to support and co-sponsor H.R. 5939 by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).
Smith's bill actually goes farther than simply fixing the abortion provisions of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act". It permanently codifies the provisions of the Hyde Amendment for all federal government agencies and programs and ensures conscience protection as well. Current abortion funding restrictions are piecemeal, require annual re-authorization and have been subject to various interpretation by unelected officials and courts, the cardinal explains.
Cardinal DiNardo makes the excellent point, that a single statutory ban on federal funding of abortion would allow debate on important issues like health care and annual appropriations bills to be on the merits of the bills themselves, "instead of being endangered because ideologues favoring abortion want to use them to reverse or weaken longstanding federal policy on abortion funding."
The full text of Cardinal DiNardo's letter is below:
August 20, 2010
Dear Representative:
The "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 5939) was introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) at the end of July, and already has 166 co-sponsors including 20 Democratic members. I am writing to urge you to support and co-sponsor this important legislation if you have not yet done so.
H.R. 5939 will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 35 years: The federal government should not use taxpayers' money to support and promote elective abortion. Even public officials who take a "pro-choice" stand on abortion, and courts that have insisted on the validity of a constitutional "right" to abortion, have agreed that the government can validly use its funding power to encourage childbirth over abortion.
So secure is this agreement, in fact, that some in the past have simply assumed that it is already fully implemented at all levels of the federal government. For example, some wrongly argued during the recent debate on health care reform that there was no need for restrictions on abortion funding in the new health legislation, because this matter had already been settled by the Hyde amendment. However, the Hyde amendment is only a rider to the annual Labor/HHS appropriations bill; and while it has been maintained essentially intact by Congress over the last 35 years, it only governs funds appropriated under that particular act.
In reality, federal funds are prevented now from funding abortion by riders to various annual appropriations bills as well as by provisions incorporated into specific authorizing legislation for the Department of Defense, Children's Health Insurance Program, foreign assistance, and so on. On various occasions a gap or loophole has been discovered that does not seem to be addressed by this patchwork of provisions – as when unelected officials in past years were construing the Indian Health Service or the Medicare trust fund to allow funding of elective abortions, and Congress had to act to correct this grave situation. While Congress's policy has been remarkably consistent for decades, implementation of that policy in practice has been piecemeal and sometimes sadly inadequate.
The absence of a government-wide law against federal funding of abortion has led most recently to the passage of major health care reform legislation that contains at least three different policies on federal funding of abortion – none of which is consistent with the Hyde amendment (now Sec. 508 of the Labor/HHS appropriations bill for the current fiscal year) or with similar longstanding provisions that govern all other health programs. For example, one provision of the final Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act technically complies with the first sentence of Hyde (against direct and traceable funding of abortion procedures themselves), but violates Hyde's second sentence (against funding health plans that cover abortions) – and then violates the spirit of the entire amendment, by directly forcing conscientiously opposed citizens in many plans to fund other people's abortions through their health premiums (sec. 1303). Another provision appropriates its own new funds outside the bounds of the Hyde amendment and allows those funds to be used for abortions or not, depending on a decision by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (sec. 1101). Yet another provision leaves out any reference to Hyde, and allows its new funding for community health centers to be governed by the underlying mandates in the authorizing legislation for these centers – mandates that in other health programs have been interpreted by the federal courts to require federal funding of abortion (Sec. 10503). These disparate policies are not compatible with the Hyde amendment, or even with one another. This is one reason why passage of a bill like H.R. 5939 is overdue.
The Catholic bishops of the United States strongly support legislation to correct these and other abortion-related problems in health care reform (H.R. 5111/S. 3723). But by implementing the policy of the Hyde amendment throughout the federal government once and for all, H.R. 5939 would prevent such problems and confusions in future legislation as well. Federal health legislation could be debated and supported in terms of its ability to promote the goal of universal health care, instead of being mired in debates about one lethal procedure that most Americans know is not truly "health care" at all. Annual appropriations bills could be discussed in terms of how their funding priorities best serve the common good, instead of being endangered because ideologues favoring abortion want to use them to reverse or weaken longstanding federal policy on abortion funding.
H.R. 5939 would also codify the Hyde/Weldon amendment that has been part of the section containing the Hyde amendment in annual Labor/HHS appropriations bills since 2004. Hyde/Weldon has ensured that federal agencies, and state and local governments receiving federal funds, do not discriminate against health care providers because they do not perform or provide abortions. It is long overdue for this policy, as well, to be given a more secure legislative status. No hospital, doctor or nurse should be forced to stop providing much-needed legitimate health care because they cannot in conscience participate in destroying a developing human life.
In short, I urge you to co-sponsor the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act and help ensure its enactment.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo
Archbishop of Galveston/Houston
Chairman, Committee on Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops


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MADISON, Wis. - Feb 25, 2010 - Whooping cough is becoming more common in infants - and a big part of the solution is for women to get a booster vaccination before they become pregnant or right after they give birth.
Also known as pertussis, whooping cough is a contagious bacterial disease of the upper respiratory system. It can lead to uncontrollable coughing and breathing difficulties and can cause permanent disability and even death in infants.
Dr. Jim Conway, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, says that, until they can be vaccinated, infants are totally dependent on the antibodies they get from their mother during pregnancy.
"The baby's primary protection for the first couple of months of life is what they get from mom," Conway says. "So, it is important for moms to get vaccinated, so they can give some immunity to the baby."
But Conway says this rule doesn't apply only to the mother.
"Anyone who has contact with infants should also receive the vaccination so that they don't expose the infant," he says. "The mother is one part of it, and should receive vaccine either before pregnancy or immediately after delivering. In addition, all family members should get it."
Dr. Greg DeMuri, also an infectious-disease specialist and associate professor at UW, says there have been greater efforts to get new moms immunized.
"Many women who have given birth have not had a pertussis booster since kindergarten," he says. "Some hospitals are implementing vaccination programs on their labor and delivery units."
The booster vaccine not only protects against whooping cough, but also against tetanus and diphtheria. Infants get their first immunizations in three doses, beginning at two months of age. After that first series, children should receive shots between 15 and 18 months; four to six years; and when they reach age 11 or 12.
Immunizations don't end at childhood, and adults should check with their physicians during routine visits and annual physicals to see if they are due for booster shots to guard against tetanus, an infection often connected to puncture wounds from rusty nails, fish hooks, or open wounds infected by dirt. If left untreated, tetanus may cause muscle contractions and other complications requiring hospitalization.
"Tetanus is a soil microbe, so as long as there is soil, there will be tetanus, and people will be at risk of tetanus contaminating a wound," says DeMuri. "It's completely preventable by vaccination. Adolescents and adults should receive regular boosters every 10 years."
Conway says about 30 to 40 cases are diagnosed annually, and most of them are in the western part of the country and involve people over 40 years old.
"They stop paying attention to their health, think they are super human and don't need the vaccine," he says. "Also, it's not routine practice to administer these vaccines in other countries, and some immigrants may not be protected. Older adults who get tetanus usually survive, but it's an unpleasant condition in which all of your muscles are spasmodic."
Conway says people who get puncture wounds or infected lacerations should get a shot as soon as possible if they are not sure of their vaccination history. However, a product called tetanus immunoglobulin can be given to patients who wait too long and put themselves at greater risk.
"If someone stepped on a nail three or four days ago, and they haven't had a tetanus booster for more than 10 years, tetanus immunoglobulin can provide instant immunity and the antibodies needed to fight off tetanus," he says.

subset: commoncrawl


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For perhaps the first time ever in England, undergraduates at a formal debate supported the views of popular climate change sceptics and voted in favour of maintaining the status quo. Whilst on the surface this is quite alarming given the traditionally progressive influence that students have, it is perhaps less surprising if we consider the wider context of the recent Oxford Union Society debate.
The schismatic choice offered by the Union was reflected in the motion: 'This House would put economic growth before combating climate change'. Some would call this a false choice as both are arguably important - although not for the notable global warming sceptics who stood firmly in support of preserving growth and not the climate: Viscount Monkton, Lords Lawson and Leach, and James Delingpole.
In a sense they were right - it's not a false choice; governments will never solve the climate crisis unless they rethink their obsession with economic growth. But my opponents didn't agree with this perspective. Their reaction to my address was summarised by Delingpole in his Telegraph blog the following day, where I was branded a communist - a sentiment liberally applied during the debate to any other 'greens' who might express a concern for the environment. His views represent a common and defensive overreaction to the simple fact that endless economic growth on a planet with finite resources is unsustainable, and to the suggestion that we need to reconsider the role of growth as a panacea to all the world's problems, particularly climate change.
Whilst a charmingly unbalanced Monkton entertained The House with his soliloquies and mathematical formulae, it became clear to me that the debate over anthropogenic climate change is a red herring - the science alone is conclusive enough. Of greater concern was how the sceptics dismissed the view that growth is unsustainable by justifying its pursuit for the sake of ending world poverty. The real challenge for those who take a more holistic view on the converging crises of climate change, global poverty and inequality is how to confront the dogmatic belief that humanity's prosperity is entirely dependent on the growth of GDP.
As pointed out by an enthusiastic interjection during the debate, even parties on the left of the political spectrum are guided by the assumption that the economy must always grow. But the snares of this belief have long been identified by progressive economists, and even a cursory analysis of economic growth reveals its dangerous shortcomings: growth pursued at all costs is ecologically unsustainable, socially unjust, and often unnecessary.
The 'limits to growth' argument is well documented, and surely even the most scientific of climate change deniers couldn't disagree that nature's resources are in short supply. Our economic activity is dependent upon the ecological limits of the planet - limits that we have already pushed far beyond. We are currently consuming resources 40 percent faster than nature can either replenish them or reabsorb the pollution and waste that our economic activity generates.
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The notion that improvements in efficiency from technological advances can deliver us from this ecological destruction has also been discredited. The Sustainable Development Commission (UK) clearly detailed how, if we want to tackle climate change by decarbonising a growth-based economy, the carbon intensity of every single dollar in 2050 will have to be 130 times less than it is today. This scenario assumes a moderate growth in total population, and a global economy that would be (at a conservative estimate) 15 times bigger than it is today. Efficiencies of this magnitude are the stuff of science fiction, and only possible if a superhuman being soon reveals an unknown technology that can transform our life beyond all recognition.
But what about ending poverty? Climate change deniers pursue growth, it seems, for altruistic reasons - to secure a prosperous future for the 3 billion people who continue to live on less than $2.50 a day (an aggregate number that has actually increased since the World Bank's global poverty figures began in 1981). The fact that decades of economic growth has not made a significant dent in global poverty is enough evidence that the proceeds of growth are not sufficiently 'trickling down'. In fact, any trickle there may have been is rapidly drying up despite any increases in the size of the economic pie; in the 1980's, 2.2 percent of global growth went to the poor, compared to only 0.6 percent in the 1990's.
The consequence of this skewed distribution of growth is, unsurprisingly, that the world is increasingly unequal, with the richest ten percent having accumulated 3,000 times more wealth than the poorest ten percent. The benefits of growth have been increasingly concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of big corporations, as well as 500 well-placed billionaires who have seen their fortunes soar in spite of the global financial crisis.
The 'rising tide' has failed to lift all boats, and is now promising to be environmentally disastrous. A more sustainable and just economy could still include economic growth, but - in the face of resource depletion, peak oil and environmental pollution - that growth can no longer afford to neglect the ecological limits of the planet. And in the face of unprecedented levels of global hunger and poverty, is it really an assertion of 'communism' or simply common sense to state that growth must be rooted more locally, allowing communities to drive the creation of economic activity and benefit most from its rewards?
The options available to policy-makers to achieve this transformation are plentiful; what is missing, as always, is the necessary political will. Perhaps the biggest barrier to sustainable development is the sheer stubbornness of many within the political establishment to consider an alternative to GDP growth, and the reluctance of those who benefit most from the status quo to open their minds to simple reason.


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Automotive Advertising Experts invites automotive advertising agencies to share best practices for their auto dealer / vendor clients. Philip Zelinger, the President of Ad Agency Online, LLC and the host of an automotive advertising resource portal -- http://AdAgencyOnline.Net -- hosts the show with invited guests to discuss cutting edge automotive advertising applications.
In today's show Philip will be reviewing a vendor partner and a preferred automotive advertising vendor on AdAgencyOnline.Net - DrivingLoyalty.com. Philip will be joined by Scott Davis, the founder of DrivingLoyalty.com with his executive team consising of Sheila Mixdorf, Brad Nichols and Cutis Degroote standing by to answer any questions presented by the online audience of automotive advertising decision makers in an open live problem / solution forum.
DrivingLoyalty.com is a group of car people focused on developing specialized software solutions to accelerate the sales cycle and enhance the customer experience. Their proprietary customer centric data base solutions build relationships and customer loyalty vs. merely sales and today's show promises to show how!
Automotive advertising vendors partnered with DrivingLoyalty.com through Ad Agency Online include http://IntellaCar.Com and their mobile sales presentation platform, SiSTeR Technologies, AIS Rebates, Advanta-STAR and others listed on AdAgencyOnline.Net as preferred automotive advertising vendors..
Automotive advertising agencies value the best practices featured on Automotive Advertising Experts presented by the people who developed them in an open forum designed to listen and learn from the participating online audience so they can presume to continue to teach. To quote Philip Zelinger on that point , "What are friends and AdAgencyOnline.Net for!"


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Welcome to Sarah Forsyth London (Safor) - The place to buy leather & exotic skin designer handbags in the UK
This is the website of Safor Limited, trading as Sarah Forsyth London, the UK producer and retailer of exquisite designer handbags and leathergoods. We manufacture and sell high quality ladies' clutch bags, evening bags, day bags, wallets, purses... plus protective covers for Kindles and iPads. Materials include leather/lambskin and suede, plus exotic animal skins, in bright colours. Our exotic skins include python, cobra, watersnake, lizard and stingray, and all are sustainably farmed and ethically sourced through CITES.
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I had always heard that parenting strategies differed between your first child and any subsequent children, but I never knew how true it was until our second came along! Our first child is now 8 and my parenting strategy with him can be summed up neatly into one word: overprotective. I washed his bottles/sippy cups separately from other dishes in the dishwasher and his clothing separately in the washing machine until he was well over a year old - with my daughter I only did that for the first few months. Whereas he wasn't allowed to climb on to the sofa by himself or go anywhere near the stairs, my daughter is a little monkey who will climb anything and everything and loves spending hours at a time climbing up the stairs and sliding down on her bottom (with either Daddy or me right behind her of course, just in case!)
I think several factors contribute to these vast differences in the way we parent her compared to the way we parented him. The main one being the differences in their personalities. Our son was a shy, quiet child and was more interested in playing with shape sorters and puzzles than tumbling and climbing. He loved to sit and read books or just cuddle. Our daughter on the other hand is more rough-and-tumble and prefers a more hands-on approach to her exploration of the world around her.
Another factor that helps to explain the change between our parenting styles 8 years ago and now is our age. My husband and I were 19 and 20 when our son was born. At that young age, we were nervous and unprepared and therefore highly overprotective with him. Now that we're older (and wiser), we are comfortable with giving our daughter a little more "breathing room" to grow and explore, while still keeping a watchful eye and arms ready to rescue her when she gets a little too adventurous!
Also, from our own experience and talking with friends who also have more than one child, the common theme seems to be that second children are more energetic and adventurous because they have an older sibling to try to keep up with. That definitely holds true in our house! So for those of you expecting or contemplating adding a second child (or more) to your family, my advice is to remember that you will more than likely have to change up your parenting style a bit and remain flexible, and not to worry if you find yourself doing things completely differently than with your first. It's definitely an adjustment, but so worth it – change can be a great thing!
About the Blogger:
Hi! I'm Beth Ann and I live in Central PA. My husband and I have been together for 10 years and have an 8 year old son and an 18 month old daughter who both love BabyLegs. I'm a stay-at-home mom and also do part-time work from home as a legal transcriptionist. I enjoy working on my photography hobby, remodeling our house, going to sporting events, pretty much anything that involves spending time with my family!
*Image from Living Mi Vida Loca


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Recall #1Date: 05/16/2002
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Baez bashes police in new book, questions Casey's mental health
WESH 2 obtains excerpts from upcoming book
Jose Baez bashes the police and questions Casey Anthony's mental health in his new book.
The book is expected to be released in July, but WESH 2 has already obtained two excerpts from it.
In the book, Baez makes several statements about Anthony's mental state. He touches on her intricate web of lies and says her false story-telling was the sign of a mental health issue, not guilt.
Baez also accuses the orange County Sheriff's Office on being too quick with an arrest.
"If they had just let her remain free, they could have watched her and gotten a better idea of the extent of her involvement of Caylee's disappearance," Baez writes. "She immediately got herself a lawyer (yours truly), which meant they had no more access to her. I'd have to say that was a really stupid move on their part."
Stay with WESH for more on the book release.


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The inspiring digital imagery is segment of How to Choose Triathlon Bikes document which is sorted within Bikes, Triathlon, Triathlon and made public at November 21, 2015 2:30:39 am by Sport Reviewer
How to Choose Triathlon Bikes: Trek Triathlon Bikes for Sale
If you do any serious biking then you are aware that there are different kinds of bikes. There are street bikes, mountain bikes, triathlon bikes, etc. If you are looking to start training for a triathlon then you probably have some questions about which one to get. You can use these tips to learn how to choose triathlon bikes.
Look at the Seat Tube
The seat tube is the tube that your seat post goes into. You want to find one that is more upright than one you would find on a regular bike. This positions your body more forward and allows you to become more aerodynamic.
What is the Frame Made of?
There are many different materials that triathlon bikes are made of. They include aluminum, steel, carbon fiber, titanium, and beam.
- Aluminum is very lightweight. But, it does shake the rider up more.
- Steel is heavier (not by much) but can be much stronger and more comfortable for long rides.
- Titanium offers benefits that are a mix of the first two. It is lighter than steel but offers a comfortable ride much like steel does.
- Beam is a newer composite material. It is aluminum under either an aluminum or carbon fiber beam. This composite provides the added benefit of reducing shock from the road.
If you are training for a triathlon then you are going to spend a large amount of time on your bike. That is why it is important to learn how to choose triathlon bikes.
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On Monday we posted Lt. Tom Cotton's letter to the editor of the New York Times on the blowing of the terrorist finance tracking program. The letter generated inquiries from ABC News, Jeff Jacoby and many readers. It also attracted substantial attention around the Internet. Some readers wrote questioning the authenticity of the letter. One message from George Spence went so far as to accuse us of inventing Lt. Cotton:
I suspect that Lt. Cotton is a fictional character you employed to lend your views about the advisability, propriety, and legality of the NYT reporting on the government's financial surveillance program more moral and patriotic weight.
I'm currently in a running debate on a listserv I subscribe to on that very issue, and am quite willing to risk being publicly proven wrong to the great delight of my detractors. If Lt. Cotton does indeed exist, please reply with independently and objectively verifiable evidence to that effect. If you ignore me, chide me, or provide self-serving "proof," that'll be enough to confirm my suspicion, but I doubt it'll make any difference to the true believers in the choir box. I eagerly await your reply.
Although Lt. Cotton has declined to respond to media inquiries, we have verified his identity and the authenticity of his message. Coincidentally, Lt. Cotton and I have several mutual friends. As we corresponded on the morning of June 26, Lt. Cotton mentioned them.
Lt. Cotton is a graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School. In 1997 Lt. Cotton was a Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. After graduating from law school in 2002, Lt. Cotton undertook the practice of law in Washington, D.C. A few years later he sought to join the Army infantry.
The Army naturally sought to turn Lt. Cotton's professional training to use in law or administration. In January 2005, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn wrote a glowing letter to the Army supporting Lt. Cotton's requested assignment to the infantry, stating that "he hopes to be sent where there are enemies to fight." Arnn added: "If you send him to fight I will pray for him, that he may be preserved to do all that he is able. That is very much."
We understand that next week Lt. Cotton's letter will be entered into the Congressional Record.


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Paco De Lucia Receives Heartfelt Funeral in Spain
Hundreds of people gathered in the rain to mourn the death of virtuoso guitarist Paco de Lucia before a funeral Saturday in his hometown of Algeciras at the heart of flamenco music country in Spain's deep south.
As De Lucia's body arrived at the town hall from Madrid early in the morning, mourners threw red roses over his hearse, called out his name and applauded.
He had been flown from Cancun, Mexico, where the 66-year-old died of a heart attack Wednesday while on vacation at a beachside holiday home he owned at Playa del Carmen just south of the Caribbean coast resort.
"I'm speechless. His death is such a great loss, and it caught us all by surprise," said 57-year-old painter and decorator Jose Maria Garcia, also a native of the Mediterranean port town of Algeciras.
No Spanish guitarist has been held in higher esteem by Spaniards since the death of classically-trained Andres Segovia (1893-1987), Garcia said.
De Lucia was one of Spain's greatest musical innovators, winning the admiration of fellow artists and fans alike.
More on Paco de Lucia:
Renowned British guitarist John McLaughlin said that to have worked and played music with De Lucia was one of the greatest blessings in his life.
"In the place where he lived in my heart, there is now an emptiness that will stay with me till I join him," McLaughlin told The Associated Press.
Early on in his career, he adopted a radically different playing technique by crossing his legs and placing the guitar on his right thigh, something that neither his flamenco mentors - Nino Ricardo and Sabicas - nor classical players like Segovia, had done previously.
This enabled De Lucia to hold the guitar almost horizontally and allowed easier access to the fret-board where his fingers could reach chords previously considered too tough to play.
In Andalusian towns like Algeciras - where a bronze statue commemorates the player and his hallmark playing position - De Lucia is best remembered for his work with singer Jose Monge Cruz, whose stage name was Camaron de la Isla.
As a duo, De Lucia and Camaron elevated flamenco music from its roots in small venues and even hillside caves and took it to some of the world's most famous concert halls. With De Lucia as studio producer, they also left a rich legacy of some of flamenco's most thrilling recorded music.
De Lucia's repertoire also included classical music, and his renditions of compositions by Manuel de Falla and Joaquin Rodrigo won praise.
While on one of his world tours, De Lucia became fascinated by the cajon - a box-like percussion instrument used in Peruvian criollo (or creole) coastal music. Today the cajon is as much an integral part of flamenco as is the guitar or staccato hand-clap.
Nowhere was the versatility or technical prowess of De Lucia's style better showcased than in the jazz trios and sextets that he formed with guitarists like McLaughlin, Larry Coryell or Al Di Meola, pianist Chick Corea and jazz fusion percussionist Rubem Dantas.
"What I admire most is his total humility in the face of huge success and his human warmth," Garcia said.
Spain began its formal mourning of De Lucia - who took his stage name from his mother's first name, literally meaning "Paco, Lucia's son" - on Friday at Madrid's National Auditorium music center, where royalty mingled with grieving music fans to pay their last respects before De Lucia's casket and offer condolences to his family.
De Lucia's coffin was visited throughout the night by a stream of people in Algeciras' town hall before being taken just past noon to church where Pepe de Lucia, the guitarist's brother, sang a heart-rending flamenco tribute at a funeral Mass.
Copyright 2014, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Lace Front Wig Photo Gallery: Photo gallery of past styles
Rule #1 about the photo gallery: Please do not call or email and ask if or when we may offer these styles for custom or stock orders. If we get too many inquiries, we'll have to take it down. We thought it would be fun to provide this photo gallery because so many women want to see other styles and color combinations.
For those who have ordered wigs before, it's not an exact science and sometimes certain styles are difficult to reproduce. At this time, the wigs you see here are not offered as custom wigs or stock wigs, but may be in the future (keep checking back, join the mailing list). As we become confident in our ability to consistently recreate each style, color or texture, we will make it available for ordering. Right now, this photo gallery is pure eye candy :)


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President Obama has said, "The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation." San Diego is a city at the forefront of innovation, given the significant presence of the biopharmaceutical sector. This industry is the most innovative in the world and accounts for 20 percent of all U.S. business-funded research and development. The more than 300 innovative medicines approved over the past decade are helping patients live longer, healthier lives, and are helping to control other health care costs.
However, the Obama administration appears intent on upending this success. The president has repeatedly proposed bureaucratic price controls for the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. This fix-what-isn't-broken proposal ignores Part D's proven record of providing affordable prescription drug coverage to over 30 million Americans, and about 3.1 million Californians, costing 45 percent less than originally projected for 2004-2013 and receiving extremely high satisfaction ratings from seniors.
President Obama's plan would threaten high-quality jobs and undermine innovation at a time when, according to president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, "Despite major breakthroughs for some diseases, many of the most common human diseases are not effectively treated by existing therapies."
This would create serious repercussions for San Diego – home to companies like Celgene and Johnson & Johnson. The city also ranks first in the nation in terms of the concentration of its life sciences employment. The president's Part D scheme could potentially lead to the loss of 130,000 to 260,000 good-paying, highly skilled jobs across the U.S. biopharmaceutical sector, including San Diego. The president's plan could not come at a worse time for the San Diego area and California, given the unemployment rates – 8.1 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively – well above the national average of 7.6 percent.
The biopharmaceutical sector directly accounts for approximately 650,000 jobs nationwide. The average compensation per worker in the sector is over $100,000 per year, more than twice the U.S. private sector average wage. The industry invests more per employee on R&D than any other sector. According to the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, each job in the biopharmaceutical sector supports nearly five additional jobs throughout the economy – a significant "multiplier" effect. The president has even acknowledged that "innovations ripple through the economy, creating jobs for workers installing broadband networks, manufacturing biopharmaceuticals and building advanced infrastructure." The positive effects of the biopharmaceutical sector can also be seen in other areas. Each year in California, biopharmaceutical companies pay $3 billion in taxes that benefit local and state governments. Additionally, California's biopharmaceutical industry generated $6 billion in exports in 2012.
Currently, by increasing access to medicines, Part D is helping improve beneficiaries' health and reduce Medicare spending on other more expensive medical services. The implementation of Part D was associated with a $1,200 average reduction in nondrug medical spending for Medicare beneficiaries with limited prior drug coverage in each of the first two years of the program, according to a study in the Journal of American Medical Association.
These savings, coupled with the fact that 11 million seniors gained comprehensive prescription drug coverage with the implementation of Part D, imply an overall savings of $13.4 billion on other Medicare services in 2007, the first full year of the program. In California alone, about 62 percent of Medicare beneficiaries were covered by Part D in 2012. This is thanks to the 32 stand-alone Part D plans that are available in California in 2013, six of which have a zero dollar premium.
Additionally, the president's Part D proposal does not account for CBO's recent scoring change, which for the first time finds that increased use of prescription medicines leads to offsetting reductions in Medicare spending for other medical services, such as hospitalizations.
It defies logic that the Obama administration continues to push this misguided idea. Why change the rare government program that has exceeded expectations while keeping spending in check? This policy change could threaten hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the innovation economy and stifle the development of potentially life-transforming new medicines that will improve the health of seniors and disabled individuals and help offset other health care costs.
There's no question that we need to get our fiscal house in order. But undermining biopharmaceutical research and Part D – beacons of American innovation that help to achieve health care savings – is costly and counterproductive.
Castellani, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), was in San Diego last week for PhRMA's annual meeting.


text:
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text:
Explore Chelsea locales by selecting images below.
Nocturne: Cremorne Gardens, No. 3
Rag-shop, Milman's Row
Old-clothes Shop, No. 1
Old-clothes Shop, No. 2
The Fish-shop, Busy Chelsea
Chelsea Shops
Maunder's Fish Shop
Dante G. Rossetti's House
Chelsea Physic Garden
W. Edward Gray, The "White House"
King's Road
King's Road, Chelsea
Cheyne Walk Looking East from Cheyne Row
Cheyne Walk
Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Greater London
Chelsea Reach by Boatyard
Old Battersea Bridge
Old Battersea Bridge, London
Justice Walk, Chelsea
Harmony in Brown and Gold: Old Chelsea Church
Royal Hospital Chelsea
Little Steps, Chelsea
Jubilee Place, Chelsea
Bird-cages, Chelsea
Wood's Fruit-shop
Home |
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text:
Neil_Boekend wrote:KarMann wrote:Hey! Spoiler tags exist for a reason, dagnabbit! I've just started Series 2.
I am sorry. I didn't feel it was a true spoiler, but I should have anticipated a different opinion.
Nonetheless: I edited my post, although I can not edit your memory for you.
Could you edit your post please, so that the traces of my misdeed will not damage other people's enjoyment?
Naw, it's not bad, for me at least; I generally don't mind spoilers much to begin with, and you didn't really give away anything other than that there exist overflow camps, like what role they might serve in what context. So, I exaggerated my reaction a bit. But yes, I'll spoiler my own now, for the sake of others.
Added: Would be nice if spoiler tags could take a label telling what they spoil, kind of like quotes can be attributed to their authors. Maybe I'll run that past the phpBB people.


text:
In an unprecedented move, DefenceMinister A K Antony has granted one-time special sanction to the IAF to grant commission to a flying cadet from Manipur paralysed below the waist due to injuries in an air crash.
The Defence Minister granted the one-time sanction to the IAF two days back on humanitarian grounds for giving commission to Flight Cadet R K Herojit Singh, defence sources said here.
The special plea was moved to the Defence Minister's office by Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne for the retention in service and commissioning of the Flight Cadet, who met with a flying accident during his training at Hakimpet, IAF officials said.
After the sanction, Herojit will undergo a further six months of training in Accounts Branch at Air Force Academy, Dundigal, Hyderabad from January, 2013, they said.
The case is special because Flight Cadet Herojit did not meet the medical norms for commissioning due to an injury which occurred during his flying training, prior to his course completion and subsequent commission into the IAF, they said.
He sustained spinal cord injuries, which left him paralysed from the waist down (paraplegia). Herojit is currently hospitalised at Military Hospital Kirkee. While he moves with the help of a wheel chair, his intellectual and motor capabilities are fully intact, officials said.
A budding flying trainee, Herojit has a meritorious record with exceptional performance in all fields during service training of four years in NDA and Airforce Academy. He was also adjudged as 'The Most Accomplished Flight Cadet', they said.
Notwithstanding the incident, Herojit still wants to serve the armed forces. He hails from a large middle class family in Manipur.


text:
Drug information provided by: IBM Micromedex
Mometasone and formoterol is a combination of two medicines that are used to treat asthma and improve lung function. It is used when a patient's asthma has not been controlled sufficiently on other asthma medicines, or when a patient's condition is so severe that more than one medicine is needed every day. This medicine will not relieve an asthma attack that has already started.
Mometasone belongs to the family of medicines known as corticosteroids (cortisone-like medicines). It works by preventing inflammation (swelling) in the lungs that causes an asthma attack.
Formoterol belongs to the family of medicines known as adrenergic bronchodilators. Adrenergic bronchodilators are medicines that are breathed in through the mouth to open up the bronchial tubes (air passages) in the lungs. They relieve cough, shortness of breath, and troubled breathing by increasing the flow of air through the bronchial tubes.
This medicine is available only with your doctor's prescription.
This product is available in the following dosage forms:
In deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make. For this medicine, the following should be considered:
Tell your doctor if you have ever had any unusual or allergic reaction to this medicine or any other medicines. Also tell your health care professional if you have any other types of allergies, such as to foods, dyes, preservatives, or animals. For non-prescription products, read the label or package ingredients carefully.
Appropriate studies performed to date have not demonstrated pediatric-specific problems that would limit the usefulness of mometasone and formoterol combination in children. However, safety and efficacy have not been established in children younger than 12 years of age.
Appropriate studies performed to date have not demonstrated geriatric-specific problems that would limit the usefulness of mometasone and formoterol combination in the elderly. However, elderly patients with heart problems may require special caution when receiving mometasone and formoterol combination.
There are no adequate studies in women for determining infant risk when using this medication during breastfeeding. Weigh the potential benefits against the potential risks before taking this medication while breastfeeding.
Although certain medicines should not be used together at all, in other cases two different medicines may be used together even if an interaction might occur. In these cases, your doctor may want to change the dose, or other precautions may be necessary. When you are taking this medicine, it is especially important that your healthcare professional know if you are taking any of the medicines listed below. The following interactions have been selected on the basis of their potential significance and are not necessarily all-inclusive.
Using this medicine with any of the following medicines is not recommended. Your doctor may decide not to treat you with this medication or change some of the other medicines you take.
Using this medicine with any of the following medicines is usually not recommended, but may be required in some cases. If both medicines are prescribed together, your doctor may change the dose or how often you use one or both of the medicines.
Using this medicine with any of the following medicines may cause an increased risk of certain side effects, but using both drugs may be the best treatment for you. If both medicines are prescribed together, your doctor may change the dose or how often you use one or both of the medicines.
Certain medicines should not be used at or around the time of eating food or eating certain types of food since interactions may occur. Using alcohol or tobacco with certain medicines may also cause interactions to occur. Discuss with your healthcare professional the use of your medicine with food, alcohol, or tobacco.
The presence of other medical problems may affect the use of this medicine. Make sure you tell your doctor if you have any other medical problems, especially:
This medicine is used with a special inhaler and usually comes with patient directions or a Medication Guide. Read the directions carefully before using this medicine. If you do not understand the directions or you are not sure how to use the inhaler, ask your doctor or pharmacist to show you what to do.
Use this medicine only as directed. Do not use more of it and do not use it more often than your doctor ordered. Also, do not stop taking this medicine without telling your doctor. To do so may increase the chance of side effects.
When you use the inhaler for the first time, or if you have not used it for 5 days or longer, it may not deliver the right amount of medicine with the first puff. Therefore, before using the inhaler, prime it by spraying the medicine four times into the air away from the face, and shaking it well before each spray.
How to use this medicine:
The dose of this medicine will be different for different patients. Follow your doctor's orders or the directions on the label. The following information includes only the average doses of this medicine. If your dose is different, do not change it unless your doctor tells you to do so.
The amount of medicine that you take depends on the strength of the medicine. Also, the number of doses you take each day, the time allowed between doses, and the length of time you take the medicine depend on the medical problem for which you are using the medicine.
If you miss a dose of this medicine, skip the missed dose and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses.
Keep out of the reach of children.
Do not keep outdated medicine or medicine no longer needed.
Ask your healthcare professional how you should dispose of any medicine you do not use.
Store the canister at room temperature, away from heat and direct light. Do not freeze. Do not keep this medicine inside a car where it could be exposed to extreme heat or cold. Do not poke holes in the canister or throw it into a fire, even if the canister is empty.
When you store the inhaler, make sure to always place the mouthpiece down.
It is very important that your doctor check the progress of you or your child at regular visits, to make sure that this medicine is working properly and to check for any unwanted effects that may be caused by this medicine. You may need to have your eyes checked at regular visits. Be sure to keep all appointments.
Although this medicine decreases the number of asthma episodes, it may increase the chances of a severe asthma episode when they do occur. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about any questions or concerns that you have.
You or your child should not use this medicine if your asthma attack has already started or if you already have a severe asthma attack. Your doctor may prescribe another medicine (eg, a short-acting inhaler) for you to use in case of an acute asthma attack. Call your doctor immediately for instructions.
Do not use any other asthma medicine or medicine for breathing problems without talking to your doctor. This medicine should not be used with arformoterol (Brovana®), budesonide/formoterol (Symbicort®), formoterol (Foradil®, Perforomist®), or salmeterol (Serevent®) inhalers.
Talk to your doctor or get medical care right away if:
Your doctor may want you to carry a medical identification card stating that you or your child are using this medicine and that you may need additional medicine during times of emergency, a severe asthma attack or other illness, or unusual stress.
You may get infections more easily while using this medicine. Tell your doctor right away if you or your child have been exposed to someone with chickenpox or measles.
This medicine may cause fungus infection of the mouth or throat (thrush). Tell your doctor right away if you have white patches in the mouth or throat, or pain when eating or swallowing.
Using too much of this medicine or using it for a long time may increase your risk of having adrenal gland problems. Talk to your doctor if you or your child have more than one of these symptoms while you are using this medicine: darkening of the skin, diarrhea, dizziness, fainting, loss of appetite, mental depression, nausea, skin rash, unusual tiredness or weakness, or vomiting.
This medicine may decrease bone mineral density when used for a long time. A low bone mineral density can cause weak bones or osteoporosis. If you have any questions about this, ask your doctor.
This medicine may cause children to grow more slowly than usual. Talk to your child's doctor if you have any concerns.
Do not take other medicines unless they have been discussed with your doctor. This includes prescription or nonprescription (over-the-counter [OTC]) medicines and herbal or vitamin supplements.
Along with its needed effects, a medicine may cause some unwanted effects. Although not all of these side effects may occur, if they do occur they may need medical attention.
Check with your doctor immediately if any of the following side effects occur:
Some side effects may occur that usually do not need medical attention. These side effects may go away during treatment as your body adjusts to the medicine. Also, your health care professional may be able to tell you about ways to prevent or reduce some of these side effects. Check with your health care professional if any of the following side effects continue or are bothersome or if you have any questions about them:
Other side effects not listed may also occur in some patients. If you notice any other effects, check with your healthcare professional.
Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
Portions of this document last updated: Aug. 01, 2019
Original article: https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/mometasone-and-formoterol-inhalation-route/description/drg-20074336
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text:
This is a story of renewal, perfect for the Spring.
This tree you see endowed with so many glorious orange orbs was, not so long ago, a barren and unhappy thing. She was planted in the area of my yard most welcoming to citrus. By that I mean it was hot, sunny most of the day, and protected from the wind. It was also right inside the front gate, so every day, many times, I would walk by my little growing mandarin orange tree and mentally entreat her to "please grow." I put her on the drip system, I gave her citrus food, good earth, and I infused her with doses of iron and fish emulsion. You know, I paid attention to her. And she responded. Grew into a fine-looking specimen. But she never, ever set any fruit. Year after year, strong green growth, zero fruit.
The value in a fruit tree is … um … fruit. Without fruit, it's just a nice shrub, and in my little patch of warm, sunny yard, if a fruit tree was simply going to be a tree, then she had to make room for someone else who would provide. But she was a healthy tree, and I'm a pushover when it comes to ending the life of a sturdy grower. So we banished her to the backyard, in an afternoon-only sunny spot where the earth hadn't been amended with all manner of lovely soil but rather had a clay-like consistency. We gave her a nice hole twice as wide as deep, put her on the drip, and said a prayer.
She proceeded to drop each and every leaf, as if she was hot and needed to expose her branches to the fresh air. Or she didn't care anymore. In the short order of two weeks, she went from a green, robust citrus bush to a craggy looking old lady. The move killed her spirit. Feeling like I had failed her, I took some consolation in knowing that I hadn't simply ripped her out by the roots and dumped her unceremoniously into the compost pile. We had at least given her a second chance.
But when, after a rain fall, I took a walk out the back door towards the compost pile, I noticed that my naked mandarin orange tree was adorned with delicate white flower buds. Somehow, after jettisoning every bit of exterior life, this cagey tree was going through a re-birth. And not just a few fruits on the maiden voyage. Oh no, she was covered in flowers that I knew, weather and wind and birds willing, would turn someday into precious fruit.
So you see. Sometimes we just need to find the right patch of dirt for us to fully flower. And it might not be the patch of dirt everyone thinks is perfect for our growth. Yet if it feeds us, then all is right with the world.


text:
So I inked that mutha.
Then, being an unfamed American, I drew up a picture of famed American comic book character Captain America and issued a challenge to Simon to ink up my pencil sketch.
Here's Simon's inks. He altered the good captain's dialogue 'cause he's jealous that we had to save his arse in Dubya Dubya Two. Woo! 'Merica!


text: A reading by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub from his fourth book of poems, Prayers of a Heretic, which explores the act of heresy and the condition of displacement refracted through the language of poetry and prayer. The title character has left the Orthodox Jewish world of his youth but remains engaged with his heritage and, in particular, the practice of prayer, albeit of a less traditional kind. Many of the poems in the collection celebrate reading, books and libraries as avenues for refuge and personal reconfiguration. Speaker Biography: Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is the author of four volumes of poetry.


text:
I'd like to hook up temperature sensors in my house to remotely monitor pipes during winter. Ideally, I'd like the sensors to upload information via wireless, e.g. in the form of a Tweet or an email.
Does anyone have any experience in this or pointers about how to get started?
I am considering using a Raspberry Pi as the control unit, but haven't made any decisions beyond that. Really just seeking any better informed opinions out there.


text:
London Leather Money Clip Card Case
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- An Italian-made card case in London leather detailed with a polished Equestrian Knight motif and a neat money clip to keep notes in easy reach.
- 11 x 7.5cm/4.3 x 3in
- Outer: 100% calf leather
- Lining: 97% polyester, 3% polyurethane
- Three card slots
- Two slip pockets
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- Made in Italy
Item 80059891


text:
Detroit's 36th District Court
The first time I went to Detroit's 36th District Court, I didn't know the drill. Most people don't know the drill the first time they go. A lawyer I'd met agreed to accompany me. He went in the side door, reserved for attorneys and court staff. I joined the long line at the main entrance, waiting to pass through the metal detectors and have my bag scanned. No cell phones, the guard told me. Put it in your car. I waved the lawyer back outside. He was due in court, and his car was blocks away. Give me the phone, he said. I'll bring it in. I returned to the line. You can't bring in that hair clip, the guard told me. Just throw it out, I said. I scooped my bag off the belt and joined the lawyer, who was standing where the entryway carpet meets the linoleum, near a line of people snaking through a rope maze, waiting to pay tickets. I was intimidated and upset, and I'd been at the 36th less than five minutes.
The lawyer and I rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, where he walked me to room 421. Room 421 is where people who are facing eviction, foreclosure, and other real-estate matters find out what courtroom to go to. They wait for their name to be called, and since there are a lot of cases, the wait can be long. Squeezed into the back corner was a small plastic table with four plastic chairs where children can play. On the wall, a sign, in large capital letters, admonished that NO STANDING is allowed. The six rows of black pleather chairs were all taken. Outside in the hallway, people sat on benches and the floor.
The 36th District Court occupies the Madison Center Building, which was built in the early 1980s in an architectural style that might be called Federal brutalist. A massive cement box that takes up a city block, it is 6 stories high and contains 32 courtrooms. All the floors look the same. No signs tell you where to go or how to figure out where to go. The hallways are long and have dirty beige walls, the only light coming from the smudged windows at either end. I escaped room 421, went into the bathroom, shut myself into one of the two cubicles with a lock, which barely held the beaten metal door closed, and took some deep breaths. I splashed some water on my face and realized there were no paper towels, just a hand dryer that barely functioned. I felt overdressed in a button-down shirt, and out of place, and I was.
The 31 judges elected to the bench at the 36th handle more than half a million cases a year, in a city with a population of about 700,000 people. They hear the most basic criminal and civil cases for Wayne County: traffic violations, misdemeanors, landlord-tenant issues, land-contract suits, and small claims. It's one of the busiest courts in the country, and as the court's website notes, it's where most citizens of Detroit meet the justice system for the first time. The website also says the 36th is called the People's Court. I've never heard anyone call it that. I've never heard anyone say anything good about the place. Everyone I've ever talked to in Detroit hates going to the 36th District. People laugh when I say I go there voluntarily. It baffles them.
I had come to observe the civil side. At the time of my first visit, in the summer of 2009, one out of every nine housing units in Detroit was in foreclosure, and the unemployment rate was more than 18 percent. The numbers were so huge that they lent themselves to broad generalizations and sweeping statements that eclipsed the people whose lives and neighborhoods had been turned upside down. It's one thing to think about foreclosures or evictions in the abstract. It's something altogether different to see one person lose her one home and then to see it over and over and over.
Detroit's municipal meltdown may be extreme, but the lopsided justice of the 36th is the national norm. We have an adversarial system of justice in America, yet in the nation's civil courts, we are one adversary short.In almost every case I witnessed in the four years I attended the 36th, the defendant stood alone in front of the judge. In a criminal case, if you can't afford an attorney, the courts are required to provide you with one. In civil cases, litigants who can't pay for a lawyer are on their own. In theory, they can turn to a legal-aid office, but those groups have never been able to keep up with demand. There are 134 federally funded legal-services groups around the country, and they turn away approximately one person for every one they can help.
"The current system is nonfunctional for all its participants. It's not functioning for courts, for litigants, for the profession, for legal aid," says Richard Zorza, a lawyer who for many years coordinated the Self Represented Litigation Network. "The system is built on the assumption that everyone has a lawyer and then fails to give it to them. It's completely illogical."
I have a clear memory of one case from three or four years ago, which involved a woman who had been robbed and beaten in the middle of the day in a parking lot outside a grocery store on Woodward Avenue, Detroit's main thoroughfare. She had lost her job while she was in the hospital and fell behind on the rent. The landlord was just someone who owned another house or two besides his own, not a big real-estate company that could float someone for a while, not that it would be inclined to. Neither had a lawyer. She wound up being evicted. The woman stands out in my mind because she had such a cascade of problems. It's rotten luck to have your whole life unraveled by a trip to the grocery store one summer afternoon. Sob stories are common at the 36th District, although I've only ever seen one person weep.
Like a casino, courtrooms at the 36th have no windows and no visible clocks, so it's easy to lose track of time. When waiting for a case to start, no one is allowed to talk. The only sound in a courtroom is the hum of the ventilation system. It feels as if everyone in the room is holding their breath.
Sketching the Court
Illustrator Victor Juhasz shares his story of visiting Detroit's 36th District Court on assignment for the Prospect. The captions are adapted from a longer piece he wrote on the trip over at his website.Read the original here.
The woman sitting in front of me in courtroom 333 was jiggling her foot, which was causing her loose bun and gold earrings to shake. She was still wearing her brown-and-black herringbone coat. Litigants are uneasy in the courthouse, plaintiffs and defendants alike. They fidget. They keep their coats on. They clutch their sheaves of paper—rent receipts and summonses, leases and bills. You can always tell the lawyers, because they claim the front row, take off their jackets, lay out their files. It's not just their ease with the language and the process that sets them apart. They dominate the space.
Room 333 has an industrial pink color scheme: pinkish-brown linoleum, pinkish-brown carpet. Mirroring all the courtrooms at the 36th, its walls angle toward the judge, narrowing to a point behind the dais. Judge Donna Robinson Milhouse, like most of the court's judges, and most of the litigants, is African American. She has close-cropped hair and a penchant for bold earrings, one of the few opportunities for self-expression above a robe.
Kristen Buchanan stood before Judge Milhouse without an attorney, as did her landlord, James Carter. Heavy-set, with light brown skin, Buchanan was in her mid-twenties. She had been in court before, she reminded the judge, when she was late on the rent and pregnant. The judge had referred her to some agencies for help, she said, but she was still behind, and Carter wanted her out of her apartment.
"I pick up my Section 8 voucher on Friday," Buchanan said, her voice cracking. "I just need a little more time." Milhouse asked Carter if he could be flexible on the move-out date, as she usually does. He shook his head, as landlords usually do. Many landlords in Detroit are individuals with rental property, and they have mortgages and taxes and water bills to pay, and they can't pay them without the rent. Buchanan's rent was $400 a month.
By statute, Buchanan had ten days to move, which gave her until the 28th of January. Milhouse suggested she take the new paperwork back to the agencies and show them that they need to act a little more speedily.
"I took the judgment to the agency, and they're like, 'You and about ten other people,'" Buchanan said.
"You will not be thrown out on the 28th. That's all I can tell you," Milhouse said. What she didn't say is that on the 29th, Carter could file for eviction, and things could move quickly after that.
Like Buchanan, most of the people facing eviction at the 36th have a big strike against them: They haven't paid their rent. The debts are usually small—$400 back rent here, $1,000 there. They're so small that it's sometimes hard to fathom the tiny distance between crisis and stability. But if you can't come up with it, $400 might as well be $400,000. You're on the street either way.
Charlene Snow is an attorney who spends a lot of time at the 36th District, mostly fighting evictions. She says people representing themselves have three challenges. First, they don't understand their rights. Second, "if they understand them, they don't bring the proper documents into court to prove what they're trying to say." And, third, when they try to explain their situation, "they're nervous, they're not real articulate, they ramble and get the judge aggravated."
A lawyer can bring up issues that tenants don't think to raise or don't know how to raise. A lack of heat, electricity, or running water—these are all valid reasons to withhold rent. They can also affect an eviction order, either stopping it or lowering the amount owed. Even if there are no maintenance problems, a lawyer can press for a solution that doesn't result in a judgment against the defendant, which can render a person ineligible for subsidized housing or Section 8 vouchers down the line. I once saw Snow representing a client in an eviction case, and while the young woman did have to move, Snow made sure the agreement was a voluntary termination of tenancy rather than a nonpayment of rent, the kind of maneuver that can keep options open.
If court hasn't started yet, Snow blasts through the courtroom doors and out into the hallway, barking out the names of her clients, propelling them onto a bench for some last-minute strategy. Her short black hair swings as she marches ahead of them, not looking back to make sure they're following, already pulling files from the stack under her arm. That stack will have been plucked early that morning from the dozens in her crowded office at the United Community Housing Coalition, one of the few groups in Detroit that provides free counsel to people facing eviction and other problems in the civil courts.
Snow is one of three lawyers at the coalition. She often finds ways to squeeze some general legal advice into her arguments. When she's in front of the judge, she'll explain, loudly and in great detail, why the maintenance problems in her client's apartment entitled her to a reduction in rent or why the tenant in a foreclosed house is allowed 90 days to move out, just in case someone else in the courtroom might pick up what she's saying. With so many clients of her own, that's often the best she can do.
Sometimes she does more. The day I met Snow, an older black man in a suit sat in the courtroom I had been visiting. Things were winding down, and I was talking in the hallway to Debra Miller, a local tenant activist. She'd been in the courtroom to provide moral support for a friend who was about to get evicted. I'm the bedbug lady, she told me. She'd been raising hell about the bedbugs in Section 8 housing, she said, and there was this great lawyer who'd been helping her. She's here. You should talk to her. Miller waylaid Snow and demanded that she talk to me but first demanded that she go talk to the man in the suit, who had been waiting all morning for his case to be called. It was coming up on 11:30, and court was close to adjourning. Snow stuck her head in and then came back into the hallway. That guy in the suit? Isn't he a lawyer? I had made the same assumption. Defendants almost never wear suits. No, he's a tenant, the bedbug lady said. He's here on an eviction case. Huh, Snow said and went in to talk to him to see what she could work out.
Snow says that some of the security guards or court clerks will call her office if they see an old lady or someone clearly out of it getting trampled by an opposing attorney. They ask, Snow says, if we have anyone in the building who can swing by the courtroom to see if they can help out. She's grateful that the guards and clerks call but also annoyed, because none of the lawyers has any minutes to spare and because it's not really justice if you only get a lawyer because you remind a security guard of his grandma. Unsympathetic cases deserve lawyers too, Snow says.
Waiting is how people spend most of their time at the court. Waiting for paperwork to be sent up, for files to be found, for attorneys to appear. Last year, business in a handful of courtrooms was delayed because several stenographers, who hadn't been paid in weeks, stopped showing up. The judges had to wait for a stenographer to finish in another court. The court couldn't even adjourn, because no one could make a record of the adjournment.
When I first started coming to the 36th, I would sit in a courtroom through hours of traffic tickets because I didn't want to disrupt the proceedings by leaving. Now, I just leave. The whole experience of court feels like one giant disruption, and no one looks twice if you add a little to the chaos. No one looks at you at all.
The 36th has the same taut feeling I've experienced in prisons or welfare offices: a mix of boredom, anxiety, anger, power, powerlessness, and indifference. It's as if all the exhalations and sighs of all the litigants who have passed through the building are trapped in the cinderblock halls.
The ban on cell phones is one of the most persistent gripes about the court, which is saying something. What you can't bring in is a camera, but since most phones have cameras, you're functionally prohibited from bringing in a phone. This leads to regular drama at the metal detectors in the entrance and a side hustle for the candy vendor outside the court, who will stash a phone in his cart for a $5 fee.
Of course, you can just sneak in your phone. One morning last summer, the woman next to me pulled her iPhone out of her cleavage while we waited in the hallway for the judge to start the session. I asked if they had changed the rules, and she said no. "But I have to call for a ride after," she said, shrugging. She'd just gotten back to court after rushing home to change her clothes, because earlier that morning a judge had sent someone home for wearing too short a skirt.
Every courtroom door has a long list of prohibited attire. No shorts. No jogging suits, biker pants, muscle shirts, overalls, or Levis. No sandals, thongs, or flip-flops. No "outer garments made of spandex/lycra material," a prohibition that presumably allows for stretchy underwear. No "see-through clothing of any kind." There is no information on what to expect in the proceeding or where to get help if you're confused. There's just information on what not to wear.
During the summer, people often show up dressed in flip-flops and spandex or in sleeveless shirts and jeans. Which suggests a population not accustomed to the formalities and expectations of the system. The judges at the 36th District know this, of course. You see a lot of sandals and a fair bit of Lycra, and judges generally let it slide.
It's a very fine line that we walk in being impartial," says Kenneth King, who until recently was chief judge at the 36th District. "Because you don't want to find yourself representing the defendant. But I want to also make sure that justice is done, that no one is taken advantage of just because they don't have legal counsel." Judges can explain procedure to litigants—that landlords have to come back to file for eviction after getting a judgment or that withheld rent must go into escrow. What judges can't do is give legal advice from the bench, no matter how perplexed someone might be.
Many people at the 36th ask court staff for legal help. But the clerks and the tellers are also prohibited from giving advice, which they make clear, emphatically and frequently. Above the teller windows on the first floor, where people come to file forms and pay fees, signs announce that "court employees cannot give legal advice or prepare documents." In room 421, the notice is capitalized and underlined. This isn't because the staffers are jerks. It's because giving advice would constitute unauthorized practice of the law, which is illegal. They can provide legal definitions but not legal interpretation—another fine line, at least to bewildered people who pepper staff with questions they're not authorized to answer.
Judge Katherine Hansen has been on the bench at the 36th since 2004 and often finds herself explaining basic steps. She warns people that they may receive something in the mail about their case. "If you do," she tells them, "read it carefully." If you don't respond, she warns, there may be consequences. If you answer, she says, tell the truth, in writing.
Hansen has pale white skin and auburn hair to her shoulders, a combination that gives her a delicate, almost Victorian air, particularly when her complexion is set off by her black robe. But Hansen, who began her legal career with the United Auto Workers, has a sharp tongue and a brisk manner. The first morning I met her, a tenant with a rent dispute sighed when Hansen asked her to go out into the hallway and talk to the landlord. I heard that, Hansen snapped.
The two women left the courtroom, turned around, and came back in less than a minute. The case involved a convoluted story about unpaid rent in the amount of $500 a month and a $30 late fee, and the landlord spreading rumors, and the tenant's mother being sick, and her brother having a kidney problem. Hansen listened to the two women vent and accuse and loop around to all kinds of digressions, including trips to Africa, a sick daughter weighing 400 pounds, and the regularity of the landlord's church attendance. After which Hansen ruled in favor of the landlord and told the tenant to pay back rent of $1,800 plus $69.50 in court fees within ten days.
There's a way you do everything, the tenant shouted. She started to huff out of the room and turned back to yell. Hansen's patience broke like a storm. I'm one of 31 judges on this bench, she said. Last time I knew, I'm the only one who stops at the beginning and tells people that you have a right—a right, she reiterated—to have an attorney. Frankly, because I believe that a right without an opportunity to access it is meaningless, I gave you the chance to adjourn and go get one. I'm the only one in this building who has a list of where you can get free lawyers, and I hand it out like candy. She had given the two women the opportunity to adjourn at the outset, but the tenant had demanded they settle matters today. That the tenant was unhappy with the outcome, and probably with many other parts of her day, too, was not something under Hansen's purview.
Some of the lawyers I know in Detroit say that a judge can do a bit more—lose a file for a while to give someone a smidge more time to move out, say. But even a sympathetic judge can't erase rent due or plunk money into an empty bank account. Or turn back decades of industrial flight and political corruption and bring back the stability that built the six-lane streets and the solid brick homes and Motown. They're gone, and that's something no one at the 36th District can change.
A few years ago, I saw a man try to fight a debt-collection company that was garnishing his wages. He was an elderly African American, and he came to court wearing a worn uniform from a maintenance company. He didn't have a lawyer. He had managed to file forms contesting the garnishment. In court, he said he had never incurred the debt and, in fact, had no idea what the debt was, so he didn't owe the money. The judge told him that in order to make that argument, he would have had to contest the underlying debt, not the garnishment itself. The judge didn't tell him how to do that, though. She didn't make any effort to get to the truth of the matter, moving forward with the case despite the possibility that the collections agency had the wrong man. While the judge was talking, the defendant kept muttering under his breath. I was in the second row, close enough to hear him, and he was saying, "I'm so lost. I'm so lost."
Debt has become a tradable asset, and investors typically pick up old debts for pennies on the dollar, which are then handed over to collections agencies and their lawyers. It's common for the paper trail to break down as the debt changes hands. Attempts to collect on debts that are expired, discharged, or erroneous are common. "When accounts are transferred to debt collectors, the accompanying information often is so deficient that the collectors seek payment from the wrong consumer or demand the wrong amount from the correct consumer," according to a 2009 report from the Federal Trade Commission. Missing documents can be a major obstacle for consumers trying to fight a collections suit. For people representing themselves, that obstacle is all but insurmountable.
At the 36th District, most people being sued by a debt collector represent themselves. The collections agencies or debt buyers always have lawyers. These lawyers usually handle nothing but collections cases, and they do them day in and day out. I suspect they could do them in their sleep, and some early mornings it seems as if they are. Invariably, the defendants are confused about the debt, asserting that they paid some or all of it or that they have no idea what the debt is for. I saw a tiny African American woman in her early thirties insist she had never received notice of the debt until the collections agency had won a default judgment against her, because she didn't show up in court. The paperwork from the process server, asserting she had been notified of the suit, said he had served a tall black man.
I met Robert Armstrong last winter, when his case was the first of a long day. Tall, with light brown skin and a mustache, in late middle age, he was being sued by Palisades Acquisition, which was seeking an order authorizing the garnishment of his tax return. Armstrong did not have a lawyer. He told the judge that he had bought a $300 prepaid credit card from a company called Centurion maybe five or seven years ago. The card now had a balance of $1,183, but he wasn't sure how. "It's gone up because it's seven or eight years old," the attorney for Palisades told the judge. The original amount owed was $866.93, assessed in 2005, the judge said, consulting some papers in front of her. None of those figures made sense, and no one explained them to Armstrong. He said that the card took $150 in fees off the top, so he only had $150 to spend when he got it. And anyway, he said, he paid off whatever he owed back in the day.
"Really, you're challenging the underlying account, and we're way past that stage," Judge Donna Robinson Milhouse interrupted. She explained that until he paid the original judgment from 2005, Palisades could attempt to collect. The lawyer for Palisades didn't seem to know much about the fees or how the debt swelled, not that anyone was pressing him for details. Palisades is a debt buyer and probably picked up the debt from Centurion.
"We really don't have any interest in collecting money that's not properly owed," the lawyer for Palisades said. He suggested that Armstrong find proof of payment. Of course, if the debt was seven years old, as Armstrong claimed, the chances he had the receipt kicking around were slim. The judge suggested he seek legal counsel and denied his objection. If he receives a state tax refund, she explained, Palisades will be able to take it.
"I don't even know why I came down here," Armstrong told me in the hallway. "It's just a waste of time." He's living on a fixed income, he said. I asked if he thought about getting a lawyer. He couldn't afford to hire someone, he said, and didn't think anyone would help him, and, no, he hadn't heard of legal aid. I mentioned a new self-help center for people without lawyers at the nearby family court. He said he'd check it out. "I don't have anything to lose."
The civil courts are in crisis in Detroit and across the country. There's no other word for it: Civil courts have inadequate funding, not enough lawyers, and far too many litigants. But there should be another word, because "crisis" means a sudden, shocking eruption of disaster. The civil courts are, and have been, in a stagnant state of failure for decades. It's bad in Detroit, but it's bad everywhere.
Which is not to say that Detroit's financial travails aren't having an impact at the 36th District. This spring, Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager to rein in the city's spending, address its $18.5 billion in long-term debt, and negotiate with its many creditors, including retired city workers and big banks.
The 36th District Court, it turned out, was also in financial trouble. A report commissioned by the State Court Administrative Office in April found that the court "appears to be overstaffed and not as efficient as other comparable court systems." People can't pay tickets electronically, the report went on. Many courtrooms lacked even computers for court clerks. The long lines of people waiting to pay tickets or figure out what court to go to are the "antithesis of customer service." The report noted that since the court is near both Comerica Park and Ford Field, it "schedules lightly on 'game days'; due to parking problems for litigants and lawyers" and generally winds down early on Fridays. This is a polite version of what I've observed, which is that court starts late, ends early, and is a ghost town by midafternoon.
Most damning, the court was more than $4.5 million over budget for the year. Chief Judge King had requested $36 million for court operations. When the city council allocated $31 million, he spent the amount he had sought rather than the amount he was given. "Continual financial problems at the District Court are commonplace," the report asserted, adding that in many jurisdictions, over--expenditures are against the law. A special administrator, Judge Michael Talbot, was appointed to cut the court's expenses.
"Courageous leadership" would be required, the report concluded, "to implement the necessary remedies and restructuring that will revamp the Court for a new, more austere normal." In case anyone wasn't clear what that meant, "staff reductions will be unavoidable," and indeed, 80 staffers were laid off in July, including court clerks and probation officers. In July, Chief Judge King was removed from his position, although he remains a judge at the court.
The state court report does not mention, or appear to even consider, the effect of a persistent, grinding economic depression on the people who use the 36th District Court. There is only brief allusion to the hundreds of thousands of people forced to represent themselves at the court, no mention of how their volume affects the efficiency of operations, and no reference to how population loss and job loss and foreclosures and abandoned homes lead not just to city budget shortfalls but to evictions and tax liens and bounced checks and to more court cases that the 36th District can't handle.
In July, less than two months after the report was released, Detroit declared bankruptcy, allowing the city to void its obligations to pensioners and lenders alike. It was the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
One morning a few years back, when I was still new and more sensitive, I was sitting on one of the blond wooden benches that line the halls. My head swimming, I started talking to a young man pacing the linoleum floor. He was being sued by State Farm Insurance, he said. State Farm had paid for his best friend's funeral, after the friend died in a drunk-driving accident. The young man was the one behind the wheel. He had spent time in prison, even though, he said, his friend's mom begged the judge not to take him away too—she'd just lost her son and the two were like brothers from when they were small. Now, he said, the insurance company was suing him to get back the money it had paid for the funeral, something about how it only covered the costs if there was no fault involved. He wasn't quite sure.
I asked him his name, and when he told me, I said, you need to go check in with the clerk. They were calling your name. I think they gave State Farm a default judgment against you. A what, he said? That means State Farm wins the case because you weren't there, I said. He looked panicked. He'd taken the morning off from his construction job, an hour outside of town, he said, and when he got to court the clerk told him to wait in the hall because he was wearing a shirt with the sleeves ripped off, which wasn't appropriate attire. It was his get-up for the job site, he said. He had to go straight to work when he was done. He had no lawyer, no money to pay one, no one to tell him what to wear or how to act, no one in a suit who could sit in the courtroom while he waited outside. Sitting in the hall may have cost him a couple of thousand dollars. He sighed and went back into the courtroom to see what he could sort out. I think about him a lot. He seemed like a gentle kid, caught up in a situation that was of his own making but also made by the momentum of that one bad choice, or bad day, or bit of bad luck. You see a lot of that at the 36th District.
There are no easy answers for the economic problems of Detroit. There are, however, some ways to ease the problems of the civil courts in Detroit and elsewhere.
One strategy is to encourage judges to offer more help to litigants without lawyers. The Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators, two national groups, recently proposed a revision to the model code of judicial conduct, which lays out how judges should behave on the bench. The change encourages judges to "make reasonable efforts" to "facilitate the ability of all litigants, including self-represented litigants, to be fairly heard." This official encouragement might nudge judges who feel squeamish about going too far in supporting people who represent themselves. It might also give comfort to the many judges at the 36th who already come close to the line, if not cross over it.
Another approach is to create resources for people without lawyers, from websites to mobile tools to self-help centers. Many courts across the country have such on-site centers, where people can receive guidance and advice, but the 36th District does not. The court provides free legal help twice a year. When the state built a self-help center in 2012, it was placed at the family court blocks away. Michigan does have a new website aimed at people without lawyers, where guided interviews produce forms they can file in court. The site serviced 200,000 people in its first year, and it works on smartphones. But, of course, this won't help people at the 36th, since their phones are at home or in their cars or with the candy man.
Some states are encouraging lawyers to help clients with just one aspect of a case, rather than handling the whole suit. This is particularly useful in areas like foreclosure law, where a case can drag on for months or years, sucking up either the cash of defendants who can afford a lawyer or the time of legal-aid attorneys. In Michigan, the law covering so-called limited scope representation is ambiguous, and lawyers are loath to take on just one piece of a case. The state's self-help task force is working on clarifying those regulations, says Linda Rexer, executive director of the Michigan State Bar Foundation and co-chair of the task force. Still, the cost of hiring an attorney—often $200 an hour or more—for one slice of a problem is prohibitive for most litigants.
The other idea is to allow non-lawyers to practice law. This is controversial for several reasons. Lawyers, who have spent a lot of time and money becoming licensed, are generally not thrilled about having just anyone enter their profession. Also, they have legitimate concerns about the quality of assistance non-lawyers would provide. Washington last year became the first state to experiment with creating legal technicians, who will be trained to help people file forms and prepare for hearings, although they won't be allowed to represent them in court.
All these reforms, though, only go so far. The big problems in the civil courts will continue to be big, because civil court is where the problems of income inequality and unaffordable housing and low wages and unemployment and poor education play out. The deck is always going to be stacked against the people barely clinging to their homes or their jobs or their bank accounts, even if those people have lawyers.
One day, a year ago, I saw Linda Hamilton defend herself in court. Compact and soft--spoken, she seemed both determined and hesitant to explain her situation. She lived in an apartment, she told the judge, and a social--service agency, POWER Inc., helped pay her rent. The problem was that the agency had accidentally paid the wrong landlord, and Hamilton now faced eviction. The lawyer for her landlord admitted that Hamilton "is blameless in this," but still the rent was due.
Hamilton had difficulty advancing an argument on her own behalf. Judge Milhouse coaxed facts out of both sides, trying to get a handle on who owed what to whom and what, besides eviction, was possible. To figure out where the rent money had gone, Milhouse gave the landlord's lawyer permission for discovery—"that means to try to get information," she explained to Hamilton. In the meantime, Milhouse adjourned the case for three weeks.
Hamilton was thankful for the reprieve, but she wasn't sure what would be different when court reconvened. "I can't afford a lawyer," she told me. Besides, Hamilton said, her apartment was infested with bedbugs, a common problem in Detroit. She was spending money she didn't have on medicine to treat her bites, and moving costs money, too. "I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place right now," she said.
I spoke to her a few weeks after her court date, and she had managed to avoid eviction. Her landlord had cleared matters up with the social-service agency, so she could stay. Things couldn't have gone better. But she was moving out anyway. She had to escape the bedbugs. She told me she wasn't sure where she'd end up.


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GRATERFORD - Natalie Marsh knows a thing or two about working together, having been part of a cohesive Perkiomen Valley unit during her high school field hockey career.
She is hopeful to continue that trend in college.
Marsh, a midfielder and All-Area first team selection, signed a national letter of intent Wednesday to accept a scholarship to attend American University in Washington, D.C., and play for the NCAA Division I Eagles.
'I think when I went to visit there was something about the unity within the team that really struck me,' Marsh said. 'I liked how the coaching staff and the girls worked together, and I fell in love with (the campus).'
Under 14th-year coach Steve Jennings (172-84 career), American went 4-1 in the Patriot League and 10-10 overall last season, reaching the Patriot League tournament final before falling to Lafayette, 2-1 in overtime.
Marsh, who scored six goals and had three assists for the Vikings, was named to the Pennsylvania High School Field Hockey Coaches Association Class AAA second team. She had the lone goal for PV in a 2-1 overtime loss to Hatboro-Horsham in the opening round of the District 1-Class AAA playoffs.
After first visiting American in the fall of her junior year, Marsh attended camp there last summer. She also considered schools such as Temple, Columbia and Lafayette before zeroing in on American.
'I definitely think they're going to have a bright future,'Marsh said. 'I just can't wait to be part of the team there.'
Marsh is projected as either a midfield or back for the Eagles.
'One thing coach (Jennings) looks for is versatility on the field; being able to play anywhere,' Marsh said.
The daughter of Todd and Elizabeth Mosteller and John and Janice Marsh, Natalie also plays lacrosse at Perkiomen Valley, where she is a member of the school's Rotary Interact Club, National Honor Society, LinkCrew, and Big Brother/Big Sister organization.
A distinguished honor roll student all four years at Perkiomen Valley, Marsh plays her club field hockey for Xcalibur. She plans to major in health promotion.
'It's definitely going to be a challenge,' she said of playing at the Division I level. 'But at the same time, it's something I'm looking forward to - getting better every day. Playing with girls at that level is only going to make me better.'