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Mets burned by Ellis' two homers, shaky bullpen
NEW YORK -- The Mets' rotation may not be in trouble, but their bullpen certainly seems to be.
Those were the takeaways from Tuesday's 7-2 Mets loss to the Dodgers, in which Los Angeles second baseman Mark Ellis played a heavy role. Ellis knocked starting pitcher Jon Niese out of the game with a comebacker to the mound, then smacked two homers in what became a late rout at Citi Field.View Full Game Coverage
NEW YORK -- The Mets' rotation may not be in trouble, but their bullpen certainly seems to be.
Those were the takeaways from Tuesday's 7-2 Mets loss to the Dodgers, in which Los Angeles second baseman Mark Ellis played a heavy role. Ellis knocked starting pitcher Jon Niese out of the game with a comebacker to the mound, then smacked two homers in what became a late rout at Citi Field.View Full Game Coverage
Niese sustained nothing more than a bruise, and he expects to make his next start. But asked to contribute yet another heavy workload, the bullpen once again struggled, increasing its ERA to a league-worst 5.52.
"That hasn't helped," manager Terry Collins said of the frequency with which he has had to turn to his relief corps. "That's certainly a factor. When you keep your bullpen rested is when they stay the sharpest."
Normally, Niese's starts are occasions to give the bullpen some rest. But facing Niese with one out in the third inning, Ellis hit a sharp comebacker off the pitcher's right leg, forcing him out of the game. X-rays were negative, revealing only a bruise, though that did not help the Mets in the moment.
Instead, Collins needed to figure out "how we're going to get seven innings of relief pitching." He's still figuring. Four innings after Niese's injury, Ellis launched a decisive three-run homer -- his second of the night -- off reliever Brandon Lyon, giving the Dodgers the lead for good.
That blast spoiled the early efforts of New York's offense, which forced perennial Cy Young Award candidate Clayton Kershaw to throw 111 pitches over five lackluster innings. Kershaw breezed through 2 2/3 quick innings without allowing a baserunner, running up a two-strike count to pitcher Robert Carson with two outs in the third. But in his first big league plate appearance, Carson worked a seven-pitch walk to extend the inning.
"I have no idea [how I did that]," Carson said, laughing. "When I got to first base, Adrian Gonzalez said, 'Hey, hold your head up because getting a walk off him is like a hit.'"
"I was pretty terrible," Kershaw said. "Awful. A two-out walk to the freaking pitcher. ... The team won in spite of me instead of because of me. I just did everything wrong."
The next batter, Ruben Tejada, also walked, setting the stage for Daniel Murphy and David Wright to come through with consecutive RBI singles. Kershaw left after five, earning a no-decision.
Laboring on the mound prior to his injury, Niese walked the bases loaded in the second inning, but he used a Kershaw double play to hold the Dodgers to one run. Still, he needed 54 pitches to record seven outs, allowing six baserunners.
"Obviously, it wasn't my best stuff," Niese said. "In the second inning, I was trying to be way too perfect instead of just being aggressive and pounding the zone. I was trying to make too good of pitches and fell behind guys and obviously walked three guys. It's something I'm going to try to get better at."
The early damage might have been worse had Carson not entered and -- thanks in part to a leaping grab at shortstop by Tejada, robbing Jerry Hairston of an RBI hit -- fired 2 1/3 innings of one-run ball. Carson departed after serving up Ellis' first homer, a solo shot with two outs in the fifth.
"I hate seeing Niese [injured]," Carson said. "But you see that, you have to get ready. You can't really do anything about it. I just wanted to go out there and try to keep doing what he was doing with the hitters -- attack them and get some ground balls and get some outs."
Carson did, and Scott Atchison did, but the rest of New York's bullpen did not. The Dodgers put the game away in the eighth inning, greeting reliever Josh Edgin with two singles and two doubles in a five-batter span. Allowing two of those baserunners to score, Edgin has now given up more runs (nine) than he has recorded outs (eight) dating back to April 16.
Edgin's problems may not necessarily be isolated. Despite flashes of brilliance, Mets relievers have struggled as a group. Every reliever has taken his turn as the culprit, even if some have done so more often than others.
But Collins was most befuddled by Edgin's inconsistency, indicating that it may be a function of overuse.
"I've been there before where I've seen that," the manager said. "I'm a little bit concerned that might be what we're facing."
Anthony DiComo is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @AnthonyDicomo.


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subset: commoncrawl


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US official: Snowden leaks lead to Pentagon change
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. military intelligence official said Tuesday that the Pentagon will have to make costly changes to programs and personnel because of leaks by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.
Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told the House Intelligence Committee that his agency has to assume that Snowden took every document he accessed, and that much of it concerned Pentagon programs.
"We assume the worst case in how we are reviewing all of the Defense Department's actions... events, exercises around the world," said Flynn, whose agency produced a classified report assessing the fallout of the Snowden leaks. He said he believes there will likely have to be changes in all branches of the U.S. military because investigators have to assume the information is compromised.
"What he potentially made off with ... transcends" the NSA's telephone and Internet collection programs, said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, speaking before the committee's annual threat assessment hearing. "Less than 10 percent has to do with domestic surveillance programs," he said.
Clapper has called on Snowden and anyone who is helping him to return the remaining documents that have not yet been published.
Documents released over the past year by Snowden have revealed that the NSA sweeps up millions of Americans' phone and Internet records. Revelations about the NSA's spy programs were first published in the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers in June, based on some of the thousands of documents Snowden handed over to Barton Gellman of the Post, Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, a U.S. filmmaker.
The subsequent controversy has led President Barack Obama to ask agencies and Congress to consider some reforms.
Officials have said Snowden downloaded some 1.7 million documents. U.S. intelligence officials have said some of those documents include the identities of undercover operatives. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
In describing the effect of Snowden's leaks, Clapper appeared to carefully retreat from his contention last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the disclosures were "the most massive and most damaging theft of intelligence information in our history." Some historians and researchers reacted to that comment by questioning whether the Snowden leaks were more damaging than Soviet spy rings that stole U.S. atomic bomb designs in the 1940s and funneled critical communications data and lethally exposed American informants in Russia in the 1980s and 1990s.
Instead, in his opening statement Tuesday, Clapper told the House panel that Snowden's leaks were "potentially the most massive and most damaging theft of intelligence information in our history."
House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, said the information Snowden accessed includes countermeasures the U.S. military uses to avoid the devastating improvised explosive devices used against troops in Afghanistan, and increasingly beyond traditional war zones, aimed at U.S. and Western officials in places like Libya.
He also tried to draw out Clapper and Flynn on whether they believed Snowden was somehow working with or being exploited by the Russian intelligence services.
When Flynn said "I don't have any information to that effect," that drew a sharp "Excuse me?" from Rogers, who had discussed the same subject with the two officials in a classified session the day before.
Flynn rephrased his reply, saying, "Yes, there is a possibility that he is under that influence."
Clapper said there was no proof, but added that, "it's beyond belief to me that they wouldn't be taking advantage of the ... opportunity both to exploit and to control Snowden."
After the hearing, Rogers said, "I can tell you from a whole series of classified meetings, the folks who do this for a living believe he is under the influence of the Russians." He also said he believes that if Snowden carried any of the material with him or accesses it in any way, the Russians will crack the code and breach the information — an opinion echoed by senior House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff of California.
"Snowden has to know that if he took that classified information into Russia, there has to be a good chance the Russians will get hold of it," Schiff said in an interview after the hearing.
Snowden told The New York Times that he left all of the documents with journalists in Hong Kong before traveling to Russia, where he has temporary asylum.
Snowden has denied working with the Russian government or any foreign intelligence agency. Snowden's legal representatives could not be reached for immediate comment.
Rogers also said an individual with access to the Snowden documents was attempting to sell them for personal profit, but he would not identify who that was. He asked FBI Director James Comey, also at the hearing, whether such a person could be prosecuted for selling stolen goods, but Comey demurred, saying if the individual in question was a journalist he or she might be protected by the Constitution's rights to free speech.
Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter: http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier


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Sunday October 20, 2019; 11:12 am EDT
Dear Bay Weekly:
Your Home and Garden Guide [March 31] was a great edition, practical and perfect this time of year. I've been gardening since I was knee high and my father gave me my first square-foot plot for radishes I have some good-old Italian-American bean varieties that came with my family from Italy. Now I want to try the purple Gita bean the Bay Garden wrote about, if he can tell me where to find them.
Editor's note: We'll reveal Dr. Frank Gouin's source in his Earth Day column next week.


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Orchestra, chorus warms campus with Messiah Sing
Hundreds crowd Shapiro atrium for annual holiday tradition
Hundreds of students, faculty and staff crowded the Shapiro Campus Center on a snowy Tuesday for the Messiah Sing, a beloved annual holiday tradition.
Crowds flowed out of the atrium and onto the stairs and balconies to hear the Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra, led by Neal Hampton, and Brandeis University Chorus, led by James Olesen, perform George Frideric Handel's oratorio, "Messiah," with soloists Nancy Armstrong, Jason McStoots and Mary Gerbi. The community was also invited to join in the sing-along.
Return to the BrandeisNOW homepage


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Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi is home of the Fox Cities' finest sushi, Hibachi, and Japanese cuisine! Serving freshly made sushi rolls, choice salmon and shrimp, and featuring delightful appetizers along with full fare Hibachi grilling - Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi provides incredible values for both lunch and dinner guests. Our extensive full bar with great "Happy Hour" specials is guaranteed to satisfy that pre-dinner craving!
Conveniently located near shopping, lodging, and adjacent to the Fox River Mall, Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & sushi serves fresh, flavorful sushi. The Fox Valley has deemed Osaka's sushi "simply to die for!" Handcrafted to perfection by Osaka's sushi chef extraordinaire and made with the freshest ingredients - the unique flavor of the sushi roll reaches a new peak of ecstasy at Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi! People all around the Appleton, Oshkosh, and Green Bay areas have made Osaka their sushi & Hibachi choice. Come see why and enjoy the open, relaxing atmosphere of our restaurant. Featuring 14 Teppan grills, a full sushi bar, and premium-dining service - Osaka's "The Taste You'll Return For!"
Gluten free entrees, vegan options, and fresh sushi. Take a look at our lunch and dinner menus for your next meal!
read more
Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & SushiKim Wong
4421 W. WisconsinAppleton, WI 54913Ph: 920-733-7685Fax: 920-733-7661
Copyright 2012, osaka


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Leafy McBark necesitaba un nuevo diseño de banner publicitario y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 31 diseños de 20 diseñadores freelance.
We are looking to come up with a selection of new web banners to promote the World Tree Appeal that will appeal to different businesses and customers. Our existing banner is not suitable for all websites that we would like to put it on. The Mr Leafy character can be used but feel that he would be too cartoon like for some websites.
Web banners are to be made available to website publishersthat make tree planting offers to visitors. The main offer is that for every tree purchased through the banneranother is planted for free; buy one get one free.
The website publishers derive two benefits:
The first is that by displaying the banner their own green credentialsare enhanced. Consumers respond tocompanies being seen to be doing something positive for the environment.
The second benefit is that the publisher derives a revenueshare of the tree sales made from the site. World Tree Appeal funds the planting of the matched tree/s.
Here is the link to the page that displays the existing banner.
Here is the banner page to download (pdf)
Her is the Mr Leafy Logo to downlaod (png)
1) A selection of banners that do not feature our Mr Leafy Logo as we feel this is too cartoon like for some websites.
2) Banners must look clean and professional for large corporate sites that they will be on.
3) Generate click throughs to the World Tree Appeal landing page.
4) We would like our Mr Leafy logo used in some butnot all of the banners
Key Objectives
1) Clean, clear designs that will encourage themaximum number of impressions/clicks
2) Different banners for different websites minimumof 3 alternatives.
3) Banners must convey the message that:- By clicking more trees get planted.
4) Banners must be kept to the following pixelsizes:
329x 72
125 x 125
120 x 240
120x 90
-One design that fits all, must have the choice of different designs.
-Just designs that feature our current Mr Leafy Character.


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EPPING — Robert Eggers is holding open auditions for a short film, Brothers, on Sunday April 7. He looking for someone to lay Jake, a tough, rural boy 13/14 years old.
Eggers, who will direct Brothers, is a Sundance Institute Cinereach Film Fellow. The film is produced by Jodi Redmond (Fray) and Parts & Labor (Beginners, Christopher Plummer, Ewan McGregor; The Loneliest Planet, Gael Garcia Bernal). The film shoots for three days in late April around the Epping area.
Tom and Jake live on a ramshackle farm with their grandmother. Tom loves his older brother, but Jake has a dark side. After the boys find a strange object in the woods their innocent roughhousing escalates to tragedy.
No acting or film experience is necessary. No need to prepare anything. Audition materials will be provided. A parent or guardian must accompany their child to the audition. Auditions will be held 10am-2pm on Sunday April 7. To schedule an audition please email: email@example.com


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Lawns as we know them today began as grazing pastures in Europe during the Middle Ages. By the 1600s, the "English" lawn had became a status symbol for aristocrats.
It wasn't until the early 1800s that turf lawns started gaining popularity in America, according to About.com. After World War II, lawns took root across the country as integral parts of the suburban landscape. The postwar creation of chemical fertilizers and weed killers helped Americans pursue the perfect lawn.
According to a study sponsored by NASA, by 2005 lawns were estimated to cover about 40.4 million acres of land in the United States (including 2.7 million acres in California) — making grass the nation's largest irrigated crop.
Fortunately for those wanting to break with the 200-year-old lawn tradition, there are many beautiful, water-wise, low-maintenance alternatives to the turf grasses we have traditionally grown in the Bay Area.
California meadow sedge (Carex pansa). It is a fast-growing variety with dark green foliage that tops out at 4 to 6 inches if left unmowed. It does best in full sun to part shade.
California blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis). This plant is a perennial grass that grows about 6 to 12 inches tall. Green-gray in color, it does best in sunny locations.
Texas sedge (Carex texensis). A great option for shade, this plant produces attractive 5-inch-tall by 1-foot-wide clumps of narrow, wispy evergreen foliage. It can be mowed if desired.
Idaho fescue/blue bunchgrass (Festuca idahoensis). Suitable for sun or shade, this plant produces dense, hairy spikes that provide food for wildlife.
Red fescue (Fescue rubra). This variety is a deep-green, slow-growing option that thrives in dry, shady areas.
Western fescue (Festuca occidentalis). A shade-loving variety, this plant creates airy tufts of wide, dark green leaves that grow to about 1 foot in height. It produces 3-foot-tall gold stalks in spring and summer.
Eco-lawns can be planted from seed. They usually involve a mixture of native and non-native grasses, herbs and flowers. The exact mix varies depending on supplier and planting conditions. Generally, eco-lawns grow just one-quarter as rapidly as turf lawns, so less mowing is necessary. Their long root systems mean they need very little irrigation once established, and no fertilizer. Bags of seeds can be purchased from a variety of vendors; some offer native California sod mixes.
These mixtures of native and non-native grasses, herbs and flowers can be planted from seed. The retail mixes vary, and you can create a custom look by choosing the colors, textures, sizes and shapes that appeal to you.
Try a variety of clumping or bunching perennial grasses such as California fescue (Festuca californica), purple needlegrass (Stipa pulchra) and/or blue-eyed grass (members of the Sisyrinchium genus) with a mix of perennial wildflowers such as Douglas iris (Iris douglasiana), Western hound's tongue (Cynglossum grande), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) and sky lupines (Lupinus nanus). This blend includes both cool-season and warm-season wildflowers that add year-round interest and provide habitats for insects, pollinators, birds and lizards.
For sunny areas, popular options include creeping thyme, chamomile, yarrow and golden or variegated oregano. Sea pink (Armeria maritima) grows to about 12 inches in height, forming low mounds of thick foliage that produce spikes of dark, rose-red to white flowers, which make for an unusual and showy lawn alternative. For shady spots, try yerba buena and/or sweet woodruff.
Salvia "Bee's Bliss" works well in sunny areas, requiring little water once established. It sports spikes of gorgeous purple blooms that attract hummingbirds and native bees. Many varieties of manzanita make great ground covers. 'Emerald Carpet' is a favorite with landscapers for its extremely dense, dark-green, glossy foliage and bright-white blooms. 'Point Reyes' manzanita is highly drought-tolerant, offering pale pink flowers and leaves that have a leathery look.
"Pigeon Point" coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) is a low-growing (1 inch tall by 12 inches wide), dark-green ground cover that does well in nearly all areas.
California wood strawberry (Fragaria californica) is an excellent option for shady areas. It not only provides attractive white flowers and edible fruit, but it is fragrant as well.
You also can choose from a variety of native plants and flowers, edible annuals and perennials and/or specimen trees and shrubs when replacing a lawn.
Rebecca Jepsen is a Santa Clara County Master Gardener; Master Gardener Agi Kehoe contributed to this article. The program is a UC Cooperative Extension volunteer organization dedicated to providing research-based gardening information to home gardeners. Watch for a July article on how to remove your old lawn.


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Sponsored by the Office of Chinese Language International Council (Hanban or 汉办 ), the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University was established in August 2008. Hanban is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization in China. The Confucius Institute helps to better prepare CSU students, Northeast Ohio K-12 school students, and members of the community at large in terms of learning Chinese language and developing an understanding of China's arts and culture. It also serves as a bridge to connect Cleveland State University and local business community to related Chinese institutions for academic and business cooperation.
CSU's academic partner to further the CI's mission is the Capital University of Economics and Business (CUEB or 首都经贸大学), based in Beijing, China. The partnership between the CI, CUEB, and CSU exists to strengthen educational and cultural cooperation between China and the United States. CUEB provides trained personnel to assist the Confucius Institute at CSU achieve its core mission.
By the supports from CSU, sponsor and donors, the Confucius Institute at CSU makes resources and services available to the public and promotes cross-cultural interactions and communication throughout the state of Ohio. Through Chinese language and cultural courses, conferences, and cultural events, the Confucius Institute at CSU provides a variety of opportunities for CSU students, Northeast Ohio K-12 school students, and local residents to learn the Chinese language and experience the Chinese culture both abroad and around the Cleveland area.


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Cod is naturally very low in fat. Wrap the fish in foil to keep it moist and eliminate the need for large amounts of fat.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray 4 squares of foil with cooking spray.
Place 1 cod fillet on each of the foil squares. Cut 1 lemon in half. Squeeze the juice from the lemon half over the fish. Cut the other half of lemon into slices, place over the fish and seal the foil.
Place in the oven and bake until the fish is opaque throughout when tested with the tip of a knife, about 20 minutes.
While the fish is cooking, remove the peel from the second lemon. Take care to cut only the peel and not the pith. Slice the peel into 1/4-inch-wide strips. Set aside.
In a small bowl, add the chicken bouillon granules and the hot tap water. Stir until the granules dissolve. Set aside.
In another small bowl, mix the butter and flour together. Transfer to a heavy saucepan. Stir over moderate heat until the butter-flour mixture melts. Add the bouillon to the butter mixture and continue to stir until thickened. Add the capers and remove from the heat. Serve over the fish and garnish with the lemon peel.
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A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.


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'Macro pictures are good on the Samsung PL210.'
'To ensure pictures are sharp, the camera has Dual Image Stabilisation - both optical and digital. '
'Some of the Smart settings are disappointing.'
'Wide range of features including smart filters. '
Image quality holds up pretty well so long as the light is plentiful and even, although beyond this the GH700 can struggle
'somewhat expensive'
'well-made overall'
Affordable long zoom in an compact package
Good image quality
ReviewGist helps you find the best products to buy by making sense of online reviews.
We are currently aggregating 376,500 reviews
covering over 29,474 products.
© 2019 ReviewGist.com. All Rights Reserved.


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It was in the year leading up to her 50th birthday that Gail "took stock" of her life and decided it was time. There was plenty to admire at her half-century mark. She and the man she had lived with for 12 years shared a comfortable home together. She had worked her way up to senior executive at one of the world's largest accounting firms. She was fit, a long-distance cyclist, as lean and strong as any woman half her age. She was an accomplished musician. She was well-read, trilingual, witty, articulate and pleasant, always pleasant. Not even her dear brother saw through the camouflage hiding the war within.
She pictures the enemy: a miniature, scowling version of herself – "the editor" – glued to her shoulder, delivering a relentless critique of every word that falls from her mouth, whether she is in an elevator with colleagues or chatting with a friend. It makes her rehearse and replay conversations. It makes her afraid of small talk and suspicious of silence. Three times she has turned down partnership offers at her Bay Street firm – too frightened of the social demands, the corporate functions, client lunches, cocktail parties, even the phone calls.
"There's a five-second lag and then it starts. … 'Oh, Gail, that was stupid. … Oh, that was inappropriate! … Why did you say that?' " It's like a radio that's always on, she says, sometimes with the volume turned up. "You feel sick to your stomach, never able to relax."
The calm face she presents to the world is a fake, she says, born long ago, perhaps back when she was a lonely child of 6 or 7, her nose buried in the pages of Enid Blyton, and it arrived on the heels of a single thought: "If you really knew me, you wouldn't like me … at all."
Gail calls it her "imposter syndrome." The experts call it an anxiety disorder, a social phobia based on the extreme fear of making a bad impression. The effects can be so profound that the heart races, blood pressure soars, breathing becomes laboured and limbs tingle. Full-blown panic can set in like a heart attack. Gail had never sought treatment or taken medication for it. She believed she was alone with her demons. She was wrong.
Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness. They strike as many as one in eight Canadians over the course of a lifetime, compared with one in 12 for major depression and one in 100 for schizophrenia.
Social anxiety, the extreme fear of negative evaluation, is the most prevalent form of the disorder. Up to 13 per cent of the population suffers from it, says psychiatrist Neil Rector, head of the anxiety disorders program at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
Yet social anxiety remains one of the least understood psychiatric conditions and, arguably, the most often ignored.
Shyness is, after all, a natural human characteristic and anxiety, the emotional trigger of the fight-or-flight response, an evolutionary necessity that has ensured survival of the species. Skeptics can see it as little more than chronic stage fright, an inconvenient reaction to contemporary society's high-performance demands.
"There is a tendency to dismiss anxiety disorders because everyone feels shy, everyone feels anxiety at one time or another," says Dr. Rector, also an associate professor at the University of Toronto. But people with social anxiety disorder feel it more frequently and more severely, he says. "It is debilitating and seriously inhibits the quality of life."
Dread of social scrutiny may not be as apparent as the depression that prevents a woman from leaving her bed, or the mutterings of a man with schizophrenia wandering down a city street. Yet the personal costs can be equally catastrophic.
In the worst cases, those afflicted hate to leave the house. They avoid eye contact, shaking hands, riding a bus or returning an item to the store. A smile unreturned can spark a panic attack. They miss opportunities for friendship, love, family and that most precious of gifts – peace of mind.
Untreated, many go on to substance abuse. Half become depressed. Only in 1980 were anxiety disorders removed as "neuroses" and given their own category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III, the North American clinicians' guide to mental conditions. At first, doctors had narrowly defined social anxiety as the fear of social performance. But they eventually expanded it to include the marked distress brought on by everyday social interactions.
By the late nineties, the pharmaceutical industry was backing a public-awareness campaign that summed up the syndrome with a clever slogan – "Imagine being allergic to people."
Gail certainly could. She likens her fears of social interaction to "hey" fever. "It's like having an off-the scale reaction to pollen. … You get that cotton mouth, sweaty palms, my ears ring, it's a really radical reaction."
Still, most sufferers are too doubtful of their diagnosis to seek help.
"They've all suffered the stigma, thinking their disorder won't be taken seriously," Dr. Rector says. People usually battle social anxiety for 15 to 25 years before receiving treatment. For Gail, it took more than four decades.
Last year, a few months after her milestone birthday, a psychiatrist at CAMH added her name to the waiting list of a 12-week program of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
She was finally ready.
The first assignment
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health sits on a busy corner in west Toronto, a grey concrete block built in the 1960s. Outside its entrance, loose knots of tired-looking men and women mill around in jeans and rumpled jackets, smoking cigarettes, oblivious to the steady stream of people flowing in and out.
On a May afternoon, Gail arrived in heels, perfectly coiffed, a briefcase swaying at her side. She had told everyone at the office that she had appointments that would keep her away for a couple of hours on Mondays. Telling the truth was out of the question. "Gossip fodder," she calls it.
She rode the elevator to the sixth floor and stepped into the dim corridor that leads to group-therapy Room 618. (The hallway itself is a gauntlet for the anxious – signs posted to the doors along the way warn of "biohazardous materials," "radiation" and "restricted access.") Room 618, down at the end, is a tight, stuffy rectangle, with windows along two walls, a flip chart, and a board room table. Eleven patients were already there: six men, five women, aged mid-20s to 50s (names of all group members have been changed). Gail picked a seat at the far end, beside Sam, a young nurse with a shaved head and burly build that might suggest he was fearless.
It was session No. 2. Introductions had been made the previous week, confessions too, about their sweating and blushing and bouts of heavy breathing. But they said not a word to each other as they waited for Lance Hawley to reveal the agenda.
Dr. Hawley, a 34-year-old CAMH psychologist with a dry wit and a Johnny Cash ward-robe, had told them on their first day that they had taken a major step toward surmounting their fears by being there. CBT, particularly in group sessions, is the most effective treatment known for social anxiety, he had explained.
It wouldn't erase their fears, he said, but it would school them to understand, confront and overcome them. And, as with any class, there would be homework – they would be required to record and analyze their thought patterns, learn to counter them, and arrange "exposures" to the situations that make them anxious.
Eventually, they would be asked to do the unthinkable and deliberately draw negative attention to themselves – bump into a door, mispronounce words, spill a drink – in order to realize "the world doesn't end."
"We've had people wet their armpits to make it look like they've been sweating profusely, or tuck toilet paper into their pants and walk around the office," Dr. Hawley says.
For now, he and his assistant, Keegan Barker, a PhD student training at CAMH, began with the basics, describing their anxiety as a predictable cycle unleashed by social "triggers," and asking the group to share theirs.
Sam said an invitation, or even the possibility of an invitation to a social event, was enough to set him off. Another man mentioned trips to the gym, where he has to face "other guys who are bigger." For Gail, it's any "unstructured" conversation.
Her assistant recently took her to lunch, she said. "I mean that's a nice thing, right?" But the hour of small talk, she said, seemed to suck the moisture from her mouth and make her palms sweat.
Dr. Hawley explained the situations they cited "trigger" a flood of negative thoughts about their ability to cope with the interactions ahead. He described it as a chain reaction: The trigger fires up negative thoughts, which provoke physical symptoms that worsen as people become hyper-aware of their quickened breathing or pounding heartbeat.
"Do you see," he said, "it's the thought process that kicks the anxiety into high gear?
"The physical symptoms you experience are the same feelings that arise when someone is coming at you with a knife. Adrenalin hits your body and that's what allows you to flee."
When they can't flee, they find other ways, "safety behaviours" to limit the interaction, he said.
Betty, a middle-aged woman fond of twisting her long beads, said she eats her lunch in hiding instead of joining co-workers in the cafeteria, and copes better in winter when she can disappear into her coat. Sam simply declines invitations. Miran, a young woman with a ponytail, said she prepares lists of conversation topics for the dinners she attends with her husband's clients.
Gail relies on voice mail. When the number of a person who makes her particularly anxious pops up on her call display, she just doesn't pick up. Neither does she accept repeated invitations to give lectures on her area of expertise. She claims to have a condition that makes speaking difficult. "Well I can't say I want to stick my head in a toilet."
Dr. Hawley said that for that week's assignment they would have to compile a list of 10 situations that trigger their fears. He told them to rank each one according to a scale known as "subjective units of distress," or SUDs – with zero as totally relaxed and 100 as the highest level of distress ever experienced.
Up at the flip chart, marker in hand, Ms. Barker began jotting down a sample list with class input. Betty said riding the transit system at rush hour would be 70 SUDs, higher if she had to sit facing another passenger.
Tony, a beefy brunette in his mid-20s, said after-hours calls from the demanding clients at the luxury-car dealership where he works would rank at least 90. Gail gave the same score to speaking with a superior for 10 minutes.
Their first "exposures" to these sorts of situations – without fleeing or resorting to safety behaviours – would begin the following week, Dr. Hawley said. "This way you learn the consequences you fear do not come true. … The more you do it, and the longer you do it, and the frequency at which you do it, the better you will get at getting through it.
"What do you think?"
"I'm getting a headache," Gail said.
Work-related triggers
Nine days after the session, Gail sat in an elegant cream outfit, sipping cranberry juice at Hy's Steakhouse, a lounge of dark wood and wing-backed chairs popular with the Bay Street suits. She wasn't there for happy hour. Gail had agreed to meet to share the story of her hidden, troubled life and the list of triggers she had worked on over the May long weekend.
"Just reading my list makes me anxious," she said.
Gail hadn't set her sights on landing here, in "the towers" of Toronto's financial district. She worked in a bank after high school, then graduated from university with a degree in anthropology and linguistics. Fluent in French and Spanish, she ended up working on trade issues with a Latin American consulate in Toronto. In 1992, after the consulate relocated to Miami, an accounting firm hired her as a manager in its tax-advisory department. It was a workplace transition that pushed her anxiety to new levels.
After "working with Latinos, who did the merengue for colleagues' birthday parties and kept crates of rum in the office," she suffered cubicle-culture shock in her new office – where priorities were set by colour-coded Post-it notes (pink means now, yellow means soon, green, whenever). There were even rules about plant height based on corporate hierarchy, she said (partners were entitled to the tallest vegetation).
"I felt really, really awful during that time, like a complete fraud, in a very demanding environment."
She excelled all the same. In 1999, an even larger international accounting firm recruited her to a senior manage- ment position. But she still hadn't learned to manage her anxiety, and can't imagine accepting the repeated offers to become a partner.
"Being partner means networking, getting new business from clients, you have to take them to lunch, ball games, golf. I can't do that," she says.
She told her bosses that she didn't believe her skills would be a good fit for the position and made "a vague reference to family demands."
Besides, she said, partners are terribly stressed – she suspects an epidemic of anxiety and depression in "the towers" due to "the pressure on being able to keep up, work long hours, work weekends, attached to the BlackBerry."
Not that anyone will admit it, she added. "No one will let anyone know about their mental health. … There's nothing to gain and a whole lot to lose.
"If you break your leg, everyone gets sympathy. But not for a broken spirit."
Nearly all the situations Gail listed as her anxiety triggers were work-related. Several were enough to make anyone nervous – giving a presentation, leading a workshop, lunching with an argumentative managing partner.
But others were more surprising – phoning a friend "just to chat," or playing cello within earshot of her partner, the man she has lived with for 12 years. The list ended with her ultimate goal – to attend the garden party given each summer by the president of the University of Toronto. At the moment, she said, even looking at the online pictures from last year's event made her anxious.
Difficult to say no
The third therapy session began with a handout and instructions for group members to evaluate their anxiety and signs of depression over the previous week.
Gail told the group that her irritability and agitation had increased. She blamed her workload, saying it can "get out of control." Dr. Hawley said time management tends to be especially tricky for people with social anxiety because they find it difficult to say no.
Tony said he had managed to do exactly that in an im-promptu "exposure" when a client from the car dealership called him early on a Saturday morning.
"He said, 'Hey, what are you doing?' and I said, 'I'm in bed.' And he said, 'I want you to change my battery.' "
"And what did you say?" Dr. Hawley asked.
"I told him to fuck off," Tony said.
The group was torn between shock and laughter.
"Maybe that was a bit too aggressive?" Dr. Hawley said.
"Yeah," Tony agreed, "but it felt good."
(As Dr. Hawley later explained, anger and anxiety often go together. While anxiety triggers the flight response in some, it provokes a fight response in others. Just that morning a woman from another group had ended up in a fistfight over a parking spot.)
Sam told the group that he had tried an exposure exercise the previous week. He had always had problems attending large social gatherings, but when a friend invited him to a keg party, he felt he "had to bite the bullet."
His anxiety "was shooting through the roof" even before he arrived. He spent the two hours he stayed running from room to room, avoiding conversation.
He told the group that he had failed. The group disagreed.
"You could have gone and hid in the bathroom for two hours," Gail said.
"Look," Miran said, "it's a party – you went to a party!"
That week's information handout included a reading entitled "Big Fears of Small Talk." It described why even trivial exchanges with a neighbour about the weather are key to forging social bonds.
Small talk sows the seeds of all close relationships, it said, and people with social anxiety cannot reshape their lives without it.
Ms. Barker once again passed out forms – this time asking the group to record the details of their upcoming exposures, how long they lasted, how they coped and their anxiety levels before, during and after.
Dr. Hawley suggested they complete five before the next session. "To get over your fear of heights, you can't just go up the CN Tower once," he said. "You need to go up many times."
To help them along, he ended the session by introducing the concept of "mindfulness," a form of meditation. Everybody had to their close eyes and focus solely on the rhythm of their own breathing. They had to think about being "in the moment," he said, instead of holding on to negative thoughts about themselves or what others might be thinking.
In his office later, Dr. Hawley explained that all the interventions are crafted to tear down the negative self-images built up over decades.
"Often they were bullied, or treated badly in childhood, they have a background that suggests it's wrong for you to stand out," he said. "But they have become hyper-vigilant at observing others, watching, rehearsing, reading and finding ways to confirm their negative self-image.
"It's a very designed life."
Roots in childhood
Anxiety disorders begin in childhood, studies show, hitting 50 per cent of sufferers before the age of 10 and 90 per cent before 20. It tends to run in families and scientists have found genes involved in the production of stress hormones may play a role.
Gail has little doubt about the roots of her disorder.
She grew up with her two younger brothers in a farming community in Southwestern Ontario. Her father was a pharmacist and her mother a homemaker. Her parents drove the kids to and from a distant school, leaving no opportunity to socialize with friends after class. They also lived quiet lives, she said.
"My brother recently said, 'You know, I do not remember one person setting foot in that house who wasn't a grandparent or an uncle.' " Gail used to tell her mother about the loneliness she felt and the teasing she faced, but her mother had grown up in the Depression, so poor her siblings had to be parcelled out to relatives. She showed little sympathy.
"I would say, so-and-so called me names, and pulled my hair … and she would say, 'Oh, but her mother is such a nice person.' " It's her mother's dismissive tone that "the editor" hurls at her most often. "My mother would say I had a childhood of luxury ... yet I felt like a reject on every social measure."
Concerned by her lack of friends, a school guidance counsellor sent Gail to see a psychologist when she was 7. The psychologist, she said, told her she had to remember how her actions affect others. She thought she had done something terribly wrong. "It was a very unhappy time."
By the age of 13, she had embarked on her "designed life." Determined to be more like the popular kids, she got a $1.19-an-hour warehouse job with Canadian Tire to buy clothes. More often, she bought food, inviting school kids to McDonald's and always picking up the tab. "I bought friends and from that point on, I always had a job.
"For me, the overriding concern became getting people to like me."
But the social discomfort never left, she said. "You become very good at reading other people and knowing how to emulate them and be accepted by them.
"There's a real price … because you are not true to yourself."
In her late 20s, after devouring shelves of self-help books ("I have always gravitated to the agony section"), she diagnosed herself with social anxiety. She also learned then that she had likely suffered depression since she was 8 or 9. She recalled dark episodes that lasted more than two weeks at a time. "It's just like a heaviness, like all the sadness in the world comes and parks on your body … like having earplugs in your ears, or trying to see through a dirty window."
Rewiring the brain
Evidence is mounting that anxiety disorders, like all mental illnesses, are diseases of the brain.
In new brain-imaging studies, Glenda MacQueen, associate professor of psychiatry at McMaster University in Hamilton and head of its mood-disorders program, has found that people with general and social anxiety who have never received drug or cognitive therapy have a smaller hippocampus compared with healthy control subjects.
The hippocampus, the seahorse-shaped structure best known for its role in memory, is also heavily involved in mood and controlling the body's response to stress. It speaks directly to the amygdala, the tiny brain region that triggers basic emotions such as fear, desire, anger and anxiety. But generally, Dr. MacQueen says, having been neglected in past decades as "neuroses," anxiety disorders and their biological basis have been "quite poorly understood."
Researchers, however, are finding that CBT seems to be the best way to treat social anxiety. Studies have found that cognitive therapy can alter a brain's physical structure. Some researchers suspect that by changing old thought patterns, CBT forces the brain to forge new pathways, firing and wiring different networks of neurons.
Dr. Hawley points out that while drugs may offer immediate relief, patients have a high rate of relapse if they rely on medication alone because they have not learned any new skills to cope.
"There is a bit of a danger that people can be overmedicated with anxiety," he says. "And with CBT, we need to be able to feel anxiety, and to be aware of it and the reactions that cause it, to counter them."
There's no question that CBT is in high demand: Gail waited six months for therapy.
Unlike the queues for cardiac care or cataracts, the waiting list for mental-health services is "the great untalked-about health issue," she says.
With mental illness, without a private health plan, or a family doctor who will refer you to a psychiatrist covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, she said, "the cost is prohibitive – $300 to $400 an hour is the going rate."
To enter the CBT program at CAMH, Gail also had to pass a screening process to confirm the diagnosis.
Those assessments are in part to make sure people "can take responsibility for their care," Dr. Rector says, "Can they come in weekly? ... Do their homework?"
Focus on the positive
Session 4 begins with complaints that five exposures is too much homework for one week. Who could be that social?
But they have made progress all the same. Miran has chatted with five coffee-shop and drugstore cashiers.
Sam has been alone for 15 minutes with a driver taking him to the shop where his car had been repaired and dared to make conversation.
"But he didn't engage, he just grunted, and said, 'Yeah, yeah.'" His anxiety peaked toward panic as he assumed the driver was thinking, "Why is he even talking, saying all this stupid stuff?" But Sam talked himself down, tried "mindfulness" and focused on his breathing. "I got there smiling and that's never happened to me before."
Gail also has successes to report. She has let fewer phone calls track through to voice mail and even forced herself to speak directly with a "dry as dust" colleague who tends to make her anxiety soar. She has also taken her administrative assistant for coffee. "In the beginning, I thought, she's going to think, 'She's up to something, she's going to fire me.'… But we had a pleasant 20 minutes." Back in the office, however, her anxiety "shot up." Dr. Hawley asks if the assistant had said anything to her.
"Well, yes, she thanked me."
Dr. Hawley raises his eyebrows: "Well that's pretty good, isn't it?" The goal, he tells the group, is to focus on positive feedback and realize that anxiety causes "cognitive distortions" – the falsehoods you tell yourself in its grip and the mistake of "thinking you know what the other person is thinking."
Dr. Hawley notes that Sam's driver, for example, might have been distracted by things that had nothing at all to do with him.
Gail understands. How often had she mistaken silence for someone's disapproval – even with her partner, after all these years.
"We all have two lawyers," Dr. Hawley tells them. "A prosecutor that says, 'You suck and you're boring,' and then the defence, that says, 'He's distracted by something else that has nothing to do with you.' " They have to learn how to become their own advocates, Dr. Hawley says, to make the case that they are not being judged as negatively as their internal prosecutors would have them believe. As they continue their exposures, that will be next week's homework, he says, gathering evidence for their defence.
Determined to push on
Over the next six weeks, the group will step up their exposures to the high-anxiety triggers on their lists. They will learn to prevent relapses and meet again a month after the program ends. Dr. Hawley expects many of them will graduate to a life they might never have imagined.
"The research suggests that 75 per cent will report a clinically significant drop in their symptoms."
"This works for me," Gail says. "It's logical, it's structured. I just have to remember to slow down and remember what I've learned."
She knows that it will never completely cure the anxiety that has haunted her for most of her life – she says the exposure-homework "feels like they're asking me to leap tall building in a single bound."
But she is determined to push on. "I'd rather not have the editor on my shoulder, or the cotton mouth, or turn white," she says. "I don't want the physical anxiety or the fear, the fear of what other people are thinking and the negative editorializing."
She turns her head to the imaginary editor perched on her shoulder. "I give you the day off!
"Ah" – she catches herself – "am I making sense?"
Update: Follow up with Gail Andrews


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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Why Just Blogging Is Enough
3 comments:
I agree with you 100%! It's a hobby, I do it for me, not to have 5000 subscribers or 500 comments or make any money. I do, however, get a thrill when TS or FG publish one of my pictures :)ReplyDelete
Loved your rant, and yes, blogging is about sharing what you like:)ReplyDelete
the pasta looks lovely! I'm hosting Presto pasta Nights this week on my blog. It'd be great if you could participate by sending in this lovely recipe!:)
While I recently published a post about why I believe all blogging should be viewed as a business, ironically enough, your position proves most of what I wrote. What I mean by that is that you know, deeply, why you are doing what you are doing. You know what you want out of it and what you don't. It doesn't have to be about money at all! So many more bloggers would benefit from taking a long look at the same issues and making those kinds of decisions for themselves. I applaud your clarity and your boundaries! In fact, I think your blog most likely is so well-received because you are true to yourself when you post.ReplyDelete
Keep up the great work!


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Healers – a display of quality
The Egotistical Priest made an excellent response to a letter from Sephran here. I added a comment from which I'm going to extract the key points and repost here – plus some responses to comments over there. (In other words, go there to get the whole thing, then see what's here for supplemental.)
Damage meters for priests come darn close to being worthless in themselves. See, for Kill Team members quantity IS quality – the more you do the better, though doing it faster (DPS instead of just damage) the better yet. For healers, quantity isn't really quality.
How much healing you do depends solely on how much is needed. And if there is more than one healer, the healer of the tank is hopefully going to be healing a lot more than the healer for the kill team.
In the end, healers have three rough indicators of their quality. Obviously there are deaths – the lower, the better. [edited for clarity]
All else is polish While all else is polish, two are also rough indicators: overheals, and healing assistance.
And the easiest to measure polish is overheals – and while I've already ridiculed the over-reliance on that when HoTs and overlapping heals are ongoing, the truth is the lower the overheal number (or percentage) the better you're managing your heals — the better your quality.
A hard to measure but in my opinion extremely important polish is your assistance of out-of-target heals. This needs an example. Say you're a(the) kill-team healer, and things are REALLY under control. You see the tank down some health, so you cast a heal that way. STOP SIMULATION. If you're working well with the other healer, you didn't cause them to overheal. Now you may have done it by telling them you're helping. You may have an addon that lets you know what they're casting so you cast a small supplemental. Maybe you are experienced enough to know what you'd be casting about now and so what the upcoming heal will be so you automatically throw a small supplemental – maybe that fast flash heal so the tank-team healer has time to get the Healing Wave (Shaman, 3 second base cast time) off.
For what it's worth, you're really only going to figure this out after the battle. Everyone knows if you let someone die – though you'll have to do some digging to determine if they were stupid (casters catching Murmur's melee-range AoE, for example) or if it was not-so-good heals on your part. Damage Meters will give you overheals, but that's about it. SWStats and Recount can be configured to let you know who healed where, while WWS will do that automatically. In all cases you'll need to actually look at logs to decide if out-of-target healing was the cause of an overheal or if they caught and saved someone when the designated healer got behind the curve, with overheals coming at a different time.
In short, there are a lot of tools that will help spot possible problems. But only careful examination of the whole battle will determine the healer's quality and potential for improvement.
And for healers, it's all about quality – quantity just happens.


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A January poll of urban voters showed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance that rules in New Delhi is struggling against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and would lose if these voters determined an election at this point.
A survey of urban voters was conducted in 28 cities between January 10 and January 17 and commissioned by TV news channel ABP News. Some 39 per cent of those surveyed favored the NDA while 22 per cent favored UPA. In the 2009 general election, the UPA gained 37 per cent of the total vote compared with about 25 per cent for the NDA. The survey didn't account for the balance but regional parties are expected to gain substantially in the next election. Some 36 per cent of the respondents in the survey said they intended to vote for the BJP, while 18 per cent favored Congress. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a leader of the BJP and expected prime ministerial candidate, was supported as prime minister by 48 per cent of voters polled. Mr. Gandhi came a distant second with 16 per cent. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the choice of only 7 per cent of the voters surveyed. The survey had a sample size of 8,842 eligible voters.
Cities in north India where the survey was conducted included Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra, and Chandigarh, while in the south they included Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Kochi. Kolkata, Jamshedpur, and Guwahati were among the eastern cities covered, while Indore, Mumbai, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, and Aurangabad were among those surveyed in the west.
Apart from the Congress, major parties in the UPA are the Nationalist Congress Party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the National Conference. The NDA comprises chiefly of the BJP, Janata Dal (United), Shiv Sena and Akali Dal.
Narendra Kumar, head of the political science department at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow, said the survey results showed how voters were disillusioned by Congress, which has been tarnished by a series of corruption scandals and criticised for its lack of responsiveness to women's safety issues in the wake of a gangrape on a moving bus in New Delhi December 16. He noted, however, that the survey didn't represent the rural areas or even smaller towns, which make up over 80 per cent of the electorate. "Typically, the rural areas are more pro-Congress than the urban centers which have generally gone for the BJP," he added.
In a bid to bolster its image, the party named Rahul Gandhi as the second in command recently, just below his mother and Party President, Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi's father, Rajiv Gandhi, in addition to his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, all served as Prime Ministers. But Mr. Kumar played down the effect of Mr. Gandhi's elevation and the change in leadership at the BJP. "At this point, I don't see Rahul and Rajnath's appointments having a major impact in the voters' preferences," said Mr. Kumar.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, spokesman for the BJP, claimed the party itself could garner more than 200 seats in Parliament if polls were held today, with the NDA in total crossing 300. A coalition needs 272 seats in the 543-seat lower house to form a Government. Congress party spokesman Rashid Alvi dismissed the survey's findings: "We don't trust it at all as it's a very small sample size if a country which has more than 720 million voters". It is worth noting that the questions were asked before Mr. Gandhi's promotion and emergence as the clear front-runner as prime ministerial candidate for the general elections which must be held before May 2014. And before Nitin Gadkari was unceremoniously dumped as BJP leader andreplaced by Rajnath Singh. The polling also didn't tap rural voters, who make up the majority of the overall electorate. Still, with all these caveats, it is worth noting how far Congress has to climb to win urban voters, according to the results.
Source : India Real Time


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Sustainable Agriculture Rice Art in Italy
In the past, some European countries have banned GM and the bans were challenged under EU law. So the idea of a more reliable right to ban appeared as a good deal to them. But things are not always as they appear.
The European Commission is willing to give countries the right to ban GM crops only if these bans are based on a specific number of reasons. This includes cultural and moral arguments, which EU lawyers say can be challenged by biotech companies in court.
This week, European Parliamentarians were given the chance to strengthen the draft GM ban law and took it. The leading environment committee added a number of important grounds to the law, most importantly the potential environmental impacts of GM crops, which are crucial if national bans are to be legally robust.
Parliamentarians also called for the EU to strengthen safety tests for new GM crops, something already called for by all 27 EU Environment ministers in 2008. This is very important, as national bans alone will never be enough to protect European consumers and the environment against the risks of GM crops.
Furthermore, MEPs(Member of the European Parliament) want to have all EU countries take measures to avoid contamination caused by GM crops. The committee also agreed that if these rules fail, governments should ensure that those responsible for the contamination pay damages. The "polluter pays" principle applied to agriculture. The committee also agreed that biotech companies should finally open up their products to independent research into the environmental and health risks of GM crops. In the past independent research was often hindered by biotech companies unwilling to grant access to the necessary seed material.
Today's vote is a very important step on the way to protect EU consumers and farmers against GM contamination but we are not there yet. On 7 June, all 736 MEPs will vote on the draft law. It then has to be agreed on by all EU governments. While several countries are in favour of positive measures to control harmful GM crops, big countries like Germany and Spain opposed the law. There is still a lot of work to be done before Europe can ban GM crops.
Thank you! This work wouldn't be possible without the million people that signed the petition calling for a moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops. Read more about the delivery of the very first EU citizens initiative!
(Unregistered) reginabee
America take heed anmd let's join Europe! Our rights and our planet are being violated. Take charge, let's do this before it's too late!
13 April, 2011 at 18:53
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(Unregistered) ze
13 April, 2011 at 20:08
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(Unregistered) Samantha Scotter
mobile phone accessories
14 April, 2011 at 6:22
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(Unregistered) matt123
I don't understand why we are so against GM. We have been selectively breeding for 10 thousand years or more and GM gives us a tool to do this faste...
I don't understand why we are so against GM. We have been selectively breeding for 10 thousand years or more and GM gives us a tool to do this faster. It also a technology which will allow us to farm more intensively and yield a higher return per unit of land - this means we can minimise the amount of land we exploit! I am a conservationist and an ecologist, and I consider GM one of the most viable ways for us to minimise out impact on the planet, short of us going back to our hunter-gatherer origins, but we have a population of 6.9 billion, not 1 million!
14 April, 2011 at 18:18
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(Unregistered) nonetheless
matt123 ~~~!!!
Even if you are saying you are a ecologist, I believe you'd better study again about the GMO not by the materials supported by th...
matt123 ~~~!!!
Even if you are saying you are a ecologist, I believe you'd better study again about the GMO not by the materials supported by the multinational giant companies but by the independent NGO such as Greenpeace. You really do not know what GMO really is.
17 April, 2011 at 7:16
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(Unregistered) jmdrag
Hey Matt123,
We are against GMO because of the research - that is the third generation of rodents are sterile when fed GMO foods. Also, t...
Hey Matt123,
We are against GMO because of the research - that is the third generation of rodents are sterile when fed GMO foods. Also, the GMO crops are flooded with pesticides.
If you want to know more details, this is one place you can go to learn more: Mercola.com. There was a good article recently about the effects of GMO crops on the farms in Portugal.
25 April, 2011 at 3:13
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(Unregistered) SD3
Sorry, but as a scientist I must agree with matt123 here. No, I do not work for any company.
The main issue with GM crops, ironically, is...
Sorry, but as a scientist I must agree with matt123 here. No, I do not work for any company.
The main issue with GM crops, ironically, is that when GM crops and 'Organic' crops are grown together there tends to pollinate each other. This disrupts the... 'pedigree'... of the 'Organic' crop and reduces its value.
Of course, if you do something wrong in the Recombination process then you could generate negative side-effects. But trust me, you'd be fired if you didn't pick that up. Not to mention the 5-10+ years minimum controlled testing of any GM crop before it is introduced commercially.
Let's not forget the benefits poorer regions gain from GM crops, many of which are modified to produce additional vitamins, etc... Golden Rice, for example.
Crops can also be modified to be pest-resistant so that you don't need insecticide, etc.
Finally, unless you live really close to a tomato farm or you buy your tomatoes green, it's probably the GM variety. Not that I can see any merit with the infertility thing, but hard luck if it's true.
That's really all I can think of off the top of my head. This isn't my field.
Please feel free to cite any peer-reviewed articles that prove me wrong.
30 April, 2011 at 15:54
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(Unregistered) whoboughtyou?
it would be nice if the pro_gm "scientists"
could name check the organisations they work for
it would be nice if the pro_gm "scientists"
could name check the organisations they work for
funny how some people aren't quite what they seem
17 May, 2011 at 2:46
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(Unregistered) LVM
This topic is a real threat for agriculture, specially the forms how these products are introduced in a country. Here in Peru (1 of the 10th most mega...
This topic is a real threat for agriculture, specially the forms how these products are introduced in a country. Here in Peru (1 of the 10th most megadiverse countries in the world) the government tried to passed through a law for approving the GMO seeds plantation, This law was patroniced by a pro-gmo lobby in the ministry of agriculture. Fortunately voices of protest from different society sectors stopped this meassuare and the parliament have just approved a moratorium of the law for 10 years. However a national debate will start soon and since we are in an infant stage we need support from international organizations for building up a campaing that assures us fair conditions inorder to win from the biotechnology but without affecting our biodiversity and public health. So please any ideas how to start a campaing that help to enrich the national debate will be very useful
10 June, 2011 at 5:33
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(Unregistered) SaveScience
Sorry but greenpeace is really undereducated when it comes to GMO's.
I really am convinced most of the people who are against GMO's think they s...
Sorry but greenpeace is really undereducated when it comes to GMO's.
I really am convinced most of the people who are against GMO's think they shoot like alien genes in seeds that will make them invincible against every other plant, and in the end, the crop will take over the world and the people who ate it will turn into braineating mutants. (Other theories are welcome)
How it really works?
Crop A is resistent to insect X but is vulnerable to wet climate. Crop B is vulnerable to insect X but grows good in a wet climate.
Crop A is resistent because it has a part in his DNA that makes a poison P that scares away insect X. (P not poisoneous to human)
Scientist: hmmm, maybe I can make crop B resistent to virus X by letting it make poison P!
Realisation: They take the specific gene of Crop A and implement it in Crop B.
Result: Crop B grows good in wet climate and because of the modification, it resists plagues of insect X.
-Higher yield, no destruction of crops
-Less pesticides to destroy insect X: better for the environment.
And isn't this in fact just what greenpeace want????
Some modifications are based on increasing or decreasing the expression of a gene. Like making an apple tree to grow more apples or decreasing its water use.
These are all very small modifications.
You see, they dont create a fucking new plant you know. Because when they would modify a plant too much, the systems in the plant will be out of balance and it won't have a chance to grow.
And if you think GMO's are unnatural. Mutation is almost like the same thing. Just that mutation is a random proces but GMO's are mutations that are chosen by humans.
I know my english aint that good and i wanted to say this in other words, but i hope my point was clear.
Many people just don't know what GMO's are so they believe it's bad. But if we like to keep living the way we do now, GMO's offer a solution with a lot of possibilties.
note: The use of sterile hybrids is because they yield more and have a greater fitness. It's less expensive to buy new seeds than stocking their seeds.
24 June, 2011 at 3:25
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The next Liberal leadership contest will be a real race, says party president Mike Crawley.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Crawley said he had already met with six or seven prospective candidates, including former and sitting MPs, discussing the rules for the race.
"They want to know what they are getting into and whether they can be competitive," Crawley said.
The party has established a rules and expense committee that is expected to report in late June or early July on deadlines and spending limits.
The party's board of directors will also decide in early June whether or not interim Liberal leader Bob Rae will be allowed to run, and if so, whether or not he'll need to step down and when he'll have to declare his intentions.
Rae is widely believed to be after the leadership, despite taking the interim position on the condition that he would not use it as a platform to campaign for the permanent top job. Other prospective candidates have expressed concerns that, due to his position, Rae would have an unfair advantage in the race.
The board will also set a date for the race or narrow the window currently set to between March and June 2013.
"The goal of all of this is to create a certain level of certainty so any prospective candidates can, before the summer begins, … have an understanding of what the rules are, what the landscape is and make a decision on whether they'll come forward as a candidate," Crawley said.
On the one-year anniversary of their crushing electoral defeat, the Liberal Party is announcing Wednesday a new effort to connect with Canadians and make the party more relevant, financially sound and electable.
The Grits are creating a new category of support, so-called 'Liberal supporters,' who will be able to vote during next year's leadership race.
Any Canadian who isn't a member of another political party and is interested in the Liberals will be encouraged to sign up. The party will start communicating with their supporters, asking them for feedback and collecting information in order to improve Liberalist, a voter identification database that is weaker than the Conservatives' and NDPs' and could allow the party to engage in targeted campaigns and fundraising drives.
Crawley said the goal is not to get people's information to immediately bombard them with fundraising requests, but to build a relationship of trust and find potential donors down the line.
"The idea is to make this as unintimidating as possible. We're not looking to get every data point on an individual, we are looking to kind of get as many contacts and begin building a relationship. It's like any human relationship," Crawley said.
People don't want to be part of political parties anymore, he added, saying this was an innovative way to bring people who don't want to be members and activists within the party fold.
Many delegates at the Liberal convention in January, where the idea of supporters was first discussed and voted on, raised concerns that their party could be swarmed by political rivals seeking to influence the outcome of a leadership race.
Crawley confirmed the party has no way of verifying whether a Liberal supporter who pledges they have no membership with another party is telling the truth
"We rely on them saying that they are not a member of another political party," he said. But, he added, it is a lot easier to hijack a political party with a few thousand members than to hijack a movement with who knows how many supporters.
Now that the party is in third place, Crawley said, it needs experiment and take risks in order to rebuild. If few Canadians join as Liberal supporters it wont' be the end of the world, he suggested.
"The party's goal is to ensure there is a robust, dynamic, open, competitive, transparent leadership contest with multiple candidates that will both engage Canadians through the supporters category or class but also have a very vigorous debate about ideas and about the direction of the party going forward."
Like Huffington Post Canada's Ottawa Bureau Chief Althia Raj's reporter page on Facebook and follow her onTwitter for all the latest news from Parliament Hill.
Also on HuffPost


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Top: R.I.P. Galaxy Skateland
Bottom: TV movie magic on Higgins Ave.
- So yeah, five years for The Place Where Al Dwells...! Crazy. I'm not even sure if a five year anniversary in the "blogosphere" (ugh) is much of a milestone, but it is what it is. I started this quite clearly on a whim, which you can tell by my first month of posts. God, those are ghastly. Now, this is here blog is less of a bitchfest and more of a portfolio site/bitchfest.
What's changed about me since the start of this motherfucker? Not a whole lot: I'm still black (whew...thank God!), fat, and a lover of fat chicks everywhere. I'm planning on working on the fat thing. I will attempt to walk to work 3 times a week. Yeah, I'm saying that NOW, of course. I guess it's in "writing" now. Fuck.
Another change: I'm far more cynical about the state of the world and life in general. I really don't know what the hell happened this year, but some sort of switch turned on, and now I'm not sure if I'll ever look at things the same way again. Ignorance is bliss. Mortality, life after death, overpopulation, pollution and conservation = my constant thoughts. 32 is way too late in life to start taking drugs, but I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind to start. But then, I wouldn't be able to support my non-illicit/somewhat acceptable habits.
- Pip Skid's EP. My man dropped a recording – The Pip Donahue EP – last week, and it fucking rules hard. While not an official Peanuts & Corn release, diehard fans have been aching for something since Smitty's Growing Pains was put out, so this EP was more than welcome. I was honored to be asked to handle the design for this thing, while Eddie Ayoub provided the badass illustration. Grab the EP from peanutsandcorn.com and check the liner notes here. Me, Pip, Eddie, and Mark Saunders all did hand-drawn covers for the release show (photos of the show...eventually), too. Mine can be found here.
- Other stuff.
- The place is a mess again. I'm workin' on that. In fact, I'm washing clothes.
- I've bought many albums this year, but not many of them have really kicked me in the ass, I must admit.
- Let's just add Travis Millard to my "illustrators I envy" list right now, dammit.
- Here's a cool-ass tour of Jeremy Fish's studio.
- I'm anxious to see this. It's causing a tiny bit of debate. What else is new?
- I'm a little disappointed in Katja Kassin, Katsuni, Isabel Ice and Savannah Stern for getting breast augmentation surgery. Hey, what can I do? That's totally up to them. I just really thought they were dope the way they were. I'm sure if I knew any of them personally, I'd voice my concerns, but begrudgingly support their decisions in the end...because that's what friends do. To a degree. As long as ladies like Dana De Armond, Rebeca Linares, Lexi Bardot and Sunny Lane stay natural, I'll be a happy man. All those names I mentioned? Search Google. I don't feel like linking images for all of them. Just don't do it at work. Heh.
- Time to check on the clothes. Peace.