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What's arresting about all this high-end domicile candy is where it's located. A few minutes' walk away, on Auburn Avenue, is the modest home where Martin Luther King Jr. was born; another block and you're at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King and his father preached. This is a nationally iconic black neighborhood, a fount of African-American culture and creativity through the middle third of the 20th century, but more recently an unsettling symbol of inner-city decay. You can still find small houses in need of repair, older black men hanging out on front porches, the occasional homeless addict wandering the streets. Yet they share space now with cafes, clothing galleries, expensively renovated homes and factories converted into upscale lofts. Almost any day of the week, one finds young white couples pushing baby strollers or checking out the progress of the new Japanese restaurant that's going in.
The Old Fourth Ward is changing at a stunning clip. It has not thrown aside its past, and it is home to plenty of African-American professionals and executives, but it also is filling up with white suburbanites who are tired of two-hour daily commutes and who like the idea of living next to downtown. Nor is the Old Fourth alone as a symbol of what seems to be Atlanta's almost day-by-day transformation. White newcomers are picking up houses and condos in Cabbagetown and Midtown, in Edgewood, Kirkwood and Castleberry Hill, up at the new Atlantic Station project and downtown in mixed-income developments that have replaced some of the most legendarily dysfunctional public housing in America. "It has become classy," says local political consultant Angelo Fuster, "to live in the city."
There is really only one way to put it: Atlanta is becoming whiter, and at a pace that outstrips the rest of the nation. The white share of the city's population, says Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, grew faster between 2000 and 2006 than that of any other U.S. city. It increased from 31 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2006, a numeric gain of 26,000, more than double the increase between 1990 and 2000. The trend seems to be gathering strength with each passing year. Only Washington, D.C., saw a comparable increase in white population share during those years, although several other big cities are starting to see it now.
This development is occurring at the same time that race and ethnicity are driving changes every bit as fundamental in Atlanta's suburbs. For if the city itself is growing whiter, the Atlanta region is growing less white. The Atlanta Regional Commission reports that in 2000, the white, non-Hispanic population of the 20-county Atlanta metro region formed 60 percent of the total population; by 2006, that had shrunk to 54 percent, not so much because whites were leaving -- although four counties did see absolute declines in white numbers -- but because of the arrival in the suburbs of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Africans and Caribbeans. Of the 10 counties in the nation with the largest declines in white percentage of the population from 2000 to 2006, six are in the suburbs of Atlanta.
Color and Power
The results of this are profound in many different ways, not least of them political. Atlanta residents are getting used to the idea that after more than three decades of African-American leadership, they may have a white mayor again before too long. "I don't know that a white candidate will be elected the next mayor," says Jay Bookman, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "but a white person would be viable now. Race is disappearing as a qualifier." It's not that it has become unimportant, Bookman and others argue, but that the significance of race has changed. In Atlanta now, a citywide politician, black or white, can win only by talking to the electorate in all its current diversity. Winning requires the building of coalitions based on issues other than race.In the suburbs as well, rapid changes in demographics are rendering pat assumptions about politics outdated. In Clayton County, where a working-class white population has given way to a large African-American majority over the past 15 years, suburbs that were lily-white and economically stable, if not especially affluent, are struggling with the effects of growing poverty and the replacement of a longstanding political structure by a new, less experienced one. Gwinnett County, once a white Republican bastion, captured fully a quarter of the metro area's non-white growth from 2000-06; there, a political structure that has only begun to reflect the population changes is being pressed to meet the quality-of-life demands of its new constituencies. Throughout the suburbs, a culture that was built on a single model -- cars and sprawl -- is caught between an exploding population that can't afford to sustain it and a state political leadership that resists making the investments needed to change it. The political consequences are certain to be far-reaching.
Rights, Business and Traffic
The reasons why Atlanta has moved further than other cities in demographic change have to do with two precedent-setting successes and one signal failure. The first success was the civil rights movement, which in Atlanta produced such giants as King, Andrew Young, Julian Bond, current U.S. Representative John Lewis, and the late Maynard Jackson -- the city's first black mayor -- but also pushed the white corporate and political leadership to see that its self-interest lay in breaking down barriers to black advancement. Without that pressure, it's doubtful that Hartsfield (now Hartsfield-Jackson) International Airport -- which was built in African-American neighborhoods, and which drove the region's economic expansion throughout the 1970s and '80s -- could have become what it is. "The civil rights era was a valve that managed all the repression and opened it up and spread it out so it was no longer as volatile," says Sam Zamarripa, a former state senator who now runs a private equity firm in Atlanta. "The environment became very constructive for companies and for an economic boom. The civil-rights-era guys made economic expansion plausible, acceptable and workable."Indeed, Atlanta developed one of the country's strongest regional economies, underpinned these days by information technology and telecommunications, warehousing, transportation, health sciences, its prominent universities -- Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Emory, Morehouse, Spelman -- and the jobs in construction and services that come with growth. That is why the region expanded by more than a million people between 2000 and 2007. "Even now," says Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, "the economy is less bad here than in most other places, and so it's still attracting a good number of people."
The other success was the effort by the Atlanta Housing Authority, starting before the 1996 Summer Olympics, to embrace a strategy of replacing public housing projects with mixed-income developments. Overall, the AHA has torn down 15 projects, affecting both the people who'd been living there and the neighborhoods surrounding them. The "deconcentration" of public housing seems not only to have shifted public-housing residents around the city and the region but their former neighbors as well; families that once lived in these neighborhoods have been forced to look for housing where it's cheapest, which these days is in the suburban counties south of the city.
The negative force that has been creating demographic change is traffic. Atlanta's traffic congestion problem is one of the most intractable in America; the city recently led Forbes magazine's list of worst cities for commuters. This dysfunctional mess has many roots, from the refusal of Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties in the 1970s to accept MARTA, the regional transit system; to the state's preference for funding roads over transit; to a sprawling development pattern in which most of the jobs are downtown or north of the city and most of the people who hold those jobs have to drive into the city or through it to get to work. The state still isn't providing much help; in this year's legislative session, lawmakers failed to pass a proposal that would have allowed metro Atlanta jurisdictions to add a penny to the regional sales tax to fund transit.
So Atlanta came earlier to a trend that other sprawled-out metropolitan areas, beset by soaring gasoline prices, are eventually going to see: Commuting distance has become inversely proportional to class, with those who can afford to do so moving closer to job centers, especially in the city. Indeed, you can't drive around Atlanta without coming across a new condo or apartment development, even in recently destitute neighborhoods that just a couple of years ago you'd have sworn would never again see a bulldozer or a hard hat. "Even Deep South Atlanta, which has been a backwater in terms of development, is seeing young black entrepreneurs who are not heavily capitalized looking for opportunities to go more upscale," says state Senator Nan Orrock, a white Democrat who represents some of the city's fastest-changing neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the outer suburbs now have a lot of cleared land sitting vacant. A recent study by a local real estate research firm found that developers in the northern half of the region have a five-year backlog of lots cleared and ready for building; in the southern half of the region, the backlog is seven years. Why? "Buying a house way out there is like buying a Hummer now in terms of what's it's going to cost you for gasoline," columnist Jay Bookman argues. "In January of 2007, when gas was $2.17 per gallon, metro Atlanta spent $14 million a day on gasoline. At $4, it's $26 million every day. That is an economic driver that will transform the region."
Conflict and Consensus
As with everything related to race, class and culture, the re-integration of Atlanta has had its rough patches. In the late 1990s, for instance, as the eastern-edge neighborhood of Kirkwood began to gentrify, a gay white couple that had won a lawsuit against black neighbors who allegedly ran a crack house got a death threat attached to a rock thrown through their car window; the next month, a local black minister urged Kirkwood residents to unite to "Save our neighborhood," as his flier read. "If you are concerned about the 'white takeover' of Kirkwood, come meetÉto discuss how we can put an end to the homosexual takeover of our community."These days, the tensions aren't quite as dramatic, but they can be keenly felt. In the Old Fourth Ward, for instance, a group of white friends from the suburbs bought up a corner house and those next to it, built a swimming pool on their adjoining lots, and then fenced the whole thing off -- making it clear to a neighborhood long accustomed to the casual intimacies of close-knit living that they wanted nothing to do with it. "What I've seen is a lot of wanting to be exclusive," says Joan Garner, who runs the Historic District Development Corp., an early mover in the Old Fourth Ward's rejuvenation. "They want 'my private piece of the pie' in a place where that is not the culture." These differences, of course, are exacerbated in neighborhoods where longtime residents are worried that the forces of progress -- especially higher property tax bills -- will eventually force them out of their homes or change the neighborhood in ways that make them uncomfortable.
"Old-timers are hopeful about what change means, because for the first time they've got a grocery store within walking distance and don't have to take a bus five miles to get food," says state Representative Stacey Abrams, a young African-American Democrat who represents a racially mixed -- and gentrifying -- district that includes Kirkwood. "On the other hand, when white folks come and start talking about how bad things are and how we have to fix them, it seems patronizing."
But if disagreements are inevitable when you bring together whites and blacks, old-timers and newcomers, poor and prosperous, suburbanite and urbanite, what is just as striking is an emerging Atlanta in which those distinctions are being set aside in favor of addressing basic concerns about quality of life. After a period of racial division, for instance, the Kirkwood homeowners' association has coalesced around the issues of public safety and improving the neighborhood's public schools. In the Old Fourth Ward, a master-planning process has brought together hundreds of residents to talk about the neighborhood's future. "We've had a couple hundred people to come out to each one of the planning meetings: young folks, old folks, black, white, gay, straight, and they sit next to each other and don't know how much they have in common," says Kwanza Hall, who represents the area on the city council. "So I say, 'John and Lisa, you got to meet!' and they say, 'Why?' and I say, 'The same kind of development you want to do on your property, she wants to do on hers.' And the next day, you see them together at a bar."
Another prime example is in Castleberry Hill, a loft district south of the downtown Georgia Dome that has emerged as the new center of the city's nightlife -- first to the delight, more recently to the dismay of its mix of white and black residents, who have grown tired of cars and noise at all hours, and the parking troubles and trash pileups that go along with living in a hip neighborhood. "It's an example of a bunch of folks, both white and black, one group likes to hang out in one way, the other in another way," says Ceasar Mitchell, an African-American city councilman who is considering a run for mayor. "But at the end of the day, those two groups come together over an incursion of what they see as too much nightlife." Indeed, he says, the process of rubbing elbows as neighbors has begun to defuse the tensions that differences of color, age and sexual preference introduced. "We still struggle with the issue of race in this community," he says, "but before you jump the gun and say something is racism or homophobia, let's deal with all the other issues in our face -- like the perception of too much nightlife -- and when you do, you sometimes find out that all the issues of race are either non-existent, or they go away."
None of this is to say that Atlantans all resonate to the same concerns now, or think about them in the same way. But it does mean that no candidate can succeed citywide by appealing only to low-income residents' fear of displacement or upper-income residents' concerns about the business environment. He or she has to be able to talk about both, to both races.
You can see this in the early manuevering to succeed Mayor Shirley Franklin, the popular two-term incumbent who will be term-limited out of office next year. Hardly anyone predicts at this point that a white candidate will win, but the contest may include some serious white contenders. That has not been the case since Atlanta's last white mayor, Sam Massell, left office in the early 1970s.
Currently, the two leading candidates to replace Franklin are both African-American: the president of the city council, Lisa Borders, a former executive with the development giant Cousins Properties; and Kasim Reed, a state senator who ran Franklin's 2001 mayoral campaign. Both move easily among different constituencies; in the local vernacular, they can talk business development with the white elite in Buckhead and economic security and physical safety in the low-income black enclave of Bankhead. "You can't look at a black candidate and think that candidate is going to vote on this party line, or at a white candidate and know with certainty how he or she is going to vote," says Stacey Abrams. "The traditional metrics people use, like race or gender, are breaking down."
Uncertain Suburbia
If it is unsettling to some to see the neighborhood where Martin Luther King Jr. preached becoming whiter and wealthier, it's equally disorienting for others to drive through many of Atlanta's suburbs. In Clayton County, the faces you see on political billboards or smiling out from Realtors' signs along Tara Boulevard -- the fictional "Gone with the Wind" plantation was set in this county -- are black. Along Buford Highway in northern DeKalb County and on into Gwinnett County, the strip shopping centers for mile after mile feature signs in Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean. At the DeKalb Farmers' Market, where many in the Atlanta metropolitan region come to shop for food, it feels as though much of Africa, Asia and Latin America is jostling to order halal goat meat, scoop up forearm-sized yautia root, or test a rainbow of Mexican hot peppers for freshness.This breathtaking diversification of the Atlanta suburbs is too new to have produced the same political dynamic as in the city itself. Black political power is still fresh in Clayton and DeKalb counties; it's unlikely that a white candidate could win right now in DeKalb, and it's inconceivable in Clayton. Similarly, it's going to be some time before a Mexican-American becomes Gwinnett County executive or an African-American wins that role in Cobb County -- although Gwinnett does have two Latino state legislators, one a Democrat and the other a Republican.
Yet if race and ethnicity remain important lenses through which voters and elected officials in the suburbs view politics, these places are evolving so quickly that skin color and background are becoming less useful as political markers. In Clayton County, for instance, an inexperienced school board has so badly micro-managed the system that the county's schools are threatened with losing their accreditation, leading middle-class families of all colors to leave the county. Inevitably, sheer competence has replaced race as the salient issue over which enraged white and black parents call for school-board members to resign.
Meanwhile, in once-staid Gwinnett, the emergence of a substantial non-white and less affluent population has led to a marked shift in county leaders' attitudes. "The folks that were here for generations were a little bit ruffled by the growth of outsiders moving in," says Emory Morsberger, one of the county's leading developers. "That's why Gwinnett County didn't support MARTA coming in -- they wanted to be isolated. But the racial thing I think is now pretty well done. People aren't as worried about different races and religions being in their area, and are much more willing to work together with whoever is willing to work to make progress."
So it is that the county's voters now appear ready to join MARTA and an electorate that was once solidly Republican is shifting -- not so much because of its racial and ethnic makeup but because the GOP-run legislature has made little progress in addressing its concerns. "Suburban Republican legislators whose constituents desperately need solutions, but whose party ideology is 'no taxation,' they're trapped," says Jay Bookman. "If they can't find a way to fund more transportation options, they're going to accelerate the transition to the Democratic Party."
If any one thing is clear, it's that the politics of metropolitan Atlanta has entered an extraordinarily fluid phase, in which this year's given can turn into next year's outdated assumption. Some 500 people a day are moving to the metro Atlanta region. The city itself will continue to gentrify as wealthier people settle there and poorer ones are forced to the suburbs. The suburbs will continue to diversify in pretty much every way imaginable. Sam Zamarripa, the former state senator, says it calls to mind a video art installation he saw recently, one that showed a group of black kids playing basketball, while on the same court Hispanic kids played soccer. "That's what's going on here," he says. "There are multiple games being played on the same stage, with different rules, different winners and losers, different ways of scoring and different uniforms." How it will all end up is anyone's guess.


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How technology could help predict terrorist attacks
So is it possible to turn technology around and use it to not only catch terrorists but predict and potentially stop terror attacks before they happen?
One thing we can do is use technology to search for patterns in the activity and language of terrorists and their supporters online. If we can spot trends that typically occur in the run up to an attack, it may be possible to automatically identify when future acts of violence are being planned. In a new study, researchers from Harvard University attempted to do just this. They used computer simulations to show how unofficial groups of online Islamic State (IS) supporters spread and grow through social networking sites and how this relates to the timing of violent attacks.
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Hide AdThis follows research into how messages on Twitter can be classified to predict whether someone will support or oppose IS. Other researchershave used data-mining techniques on social media data to try to work out when supporters "begin to adopt pro-IS behaviour".
And others have used text analysis software to show that language patterns used by certain extremist groups differ in the months leading up to a violent attack. For example, the language may show less cognitive complexity – a more simplistic way of viewing the word – if it uses less complex structures, with more short words or sentences.
My own research with Paul J Taylor and Paul Rayson at Lancaster University has used linguistic software to detect patterns in the language used by various Islamic extremist groups and narrow down potential clues in a message. Using the method of collocation, which measures the strength of association between words or between a word and a concept, we showed you could automatically establish whether extremists' messages were portraying people or places positively or negatively. For example, some personal names were significantly associated with the negative term "agentry" (referring to people acting as enemy agents), while others were significantly associated with the positive term "heroic".
This method could indicate potential terrorist targets by highlighting people or places to which violence or contempt is felt. For example, we might find that the terms "target", "targeting", "attack" or "kill" were strongly associated with the name of a particular place, person, or organisation. We could then look at the context of where and how these words were used in the text to work out if they suggested that person, place, or organisation may be in danger.
Other technologies
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Hide AdHowever, the limitation of this sort of approach is that it excludes attacks that may have happened without this kind of online build up. Each of these studies focuses only on a small aspect of the wider ecosystem of terrorism. So unless we can show that these patterns occur in all types of terror-related situations, we have to be careful not to exaggerate their importance and remember that other factors including political and personal situations can drive acts of violence.
Terrorists' online communications are only part of the picture. We also have ways of studying terrorists' offline communicative behaviours by measuring levels of stress or anxiety, or detecting patterns associated with deceit. For example, we can use sensors, infrared scanners and brain imaging technologies such as fMRI to monitor changes in the body or track people's face, body or eye movements. Some argue that if we deployed this kind of technology in airport security, it might alert us to those intending to carry out an attack.
In 2002, researchers at Honeywell Laboratories in the US showed how thermal imaging technology could identify a heat pattern that occurs around the eyes when people try to deceive someone. They suggested this technique could be used to rapidly screen air travellers during pre-flight interviews "without the need for skilled staff".
Human factor
But such a system wouldn't be foolproof. There are a number of reasonswhy an individual may be anxious at an airport, which may have nothing to do with attempts to deceive airline staff. Perhaps they have a fear of flying. These technologies are not 100% accurate. They tend to be tested in lab-based environments and trained on fake attempts to deceive rather than in real-life situations.
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Hide AdSome argue that technology does not have three vital qualities that humans possess: experience, values and judgement. This means that machines may miss something that only a human could detect.
So while technology offers exciting possibilities for tracking terrorist communications and predicting attacks, it isn't a replacement for human judgement and should be used with caution.
Author Sheryl Prentice is a post-doctoral researcher in linguistics, Lancaster University.
This article was original published on theconversation.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Dental coding updates can be a major source of confusion and frustration for dental practices. These updates can affect the codes that you use to
Tag: #remotedentalbillingteam
5 Secrets to Claim Submissions
Submitting dental claims correctly is essential for the financial success of your practice. Properly submitted claims can help to ensure that you get paid promptly


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ELEVENTY - By LORO PIANA 100% Pure "CASHMERE DOUBLE" Coat - 38R (48 EU)
Product Description |
EDITORIAL NOTESAn Italian brand of prestige and stylistic excellence, Eleventy was born in Milan from the simple and intuitive desire to promote smart luxury fashion. A contemporary version for a fast and casual generation that needs versatile styles to adapt to needs but demands high-class design. A true intimate and conceptual connection with oneself expressed through garments with a minimal and casual charm that also manage to maintain an allure of unmistakable elegance in the sporty line. ITEM DETAILS
Retail: $4,995 Condition: New with tags Fabric: 100% CASHMERE SKU: B70CAPB03_TES0B088_11_48 MeasurementsSleeve (shoulder seem to cuff): 26" Jacket Length (under collar down): 41.75" Shoulder: 18.5" |


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Under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance of the UAE and President of Zayed University
Under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance of the UAE and President of Zayed University
The global population is expected to increase to 9.7 billion in 2050 and there are concerns about the capacity of agriculture to produce enough food for the growing population. By some estimates, food production will need to go up by about 60 percent either through increase in crop yields per unit area or expansion in the arable land by 2050 to meet the demand (World Population Prospects-the 2008 Revision, UN, 2009). Furthermore, several regions already suffering from malnutrition, water scarcity and soil degradation have been forecast to have a large population growth which raises serious concerns about whether traditional agricultural methods and crops species will have the capacity to sustain global food production targets.
Major cereal crops like wheat, rice, barley and corn are progressively failing to withstand increasing salinity and scarce water resources in marginal environments that are most vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify alternative solutions to sustaining, and, possibly, increasing agricultural productivity in areas where growing traditional crops has become difficult and sometimes uneconomical. Hence, quinoa can play an important role in eradicating hunger, malnutrition and poverty; furthermore, quinoa has an important nutritional value – the seeds are rich in essential amino acids and vitamins. Due to its adaptability to harsh environments including poor saline soils with annual rainfall as little as 200 mm, quinoa could play a major role as an alternative staple crop in marginal environments. Realizing this potential, the United Nations General Assembly declared the year 2013 the "International Year of Quinoa". The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations specifically served as the Secretariat of the International Year of Quinoa. Since then, FAO has conducted activities around the world and particularly in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. In the NENA, FAO has implemented a project in eight countries with positive outcomes that have indeed shown quinoa as a potential alternative and profitable crop for the region. Recognizing quinoa's potential for marginal environments, the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) has been leading a global quinoa program since 2007 in collaboration with national, regional and international research, government and donor organizations in the NENA region as well as Central Asia.
Despite the growing global recognition of quinoa's potential, and positive research outcomes in pilot studies, there are still many constraints and issues to be addressed before quinoa becomes a crop of choice in marginal areas where other major crops have so far been dominant but are now failing due to climate change and degradation in the quality of soil and water resources.
Key challenges are:
Recognizing the need to better understand and resolve these challenges and to fully exploit the potential of quinoa, the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed University, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), with the technical contribution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will convene the international conference "Quinoa for Future Food and Nutrition Security in Marginal Environments" in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on December 6-8, 2016. This conference will provide a unique platform for discussions on ecological, economic and social aspects related to introducing quinoa for sustainable agricultural production in marginal environments.
The conference will:


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Single Moms: Turn to Your Heavenly Father
- Whitney Hopler Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer
- Updated Mar 26, 2015
Editor's Note: The following is a report on the practical applications of Theresa Whitehurst's book, God Loves Single Moms: Practical Help for Finding Confidence, Strength, and Hope, (Revell, 2010).
Life as a single mom can often be hectic, and the constant stream of responsibilities you have to handle without a spouse's help can distract you from your own needs while you're busy focusing on your kids' needs. But you're not just a parent; you're also a child whose heavenly Father wants you to pay attention to the girl inside your soul. The happier you are as God's child, the better you can serve as your kids' mom.
Here's how you can rely on God's help to nurture the girl within you so you can be the best mom possible for your kids:
Recognize that God is on your side. As a single mom, you shouldn't feel ashamed or worry that God is somehow disappointed in you. Realize that God loves you just as much as He would if you were married. Trust God's promise that He treasures you and stands ready to help you with the challenges you're facing.
Choose thriving over surviving. Don't settle for less than the best that God wants for you in life. Whenever you face important decisions, shift your focus from merely surviving to thriving. Aim to do more than just handle problems successfully; decide to follow your dreams and enjoy fulfilling God's purposes for your life. If you plan for the best for your kids and yourself, your attitude will help you experience the best. Give your doubts and fears to God and ask Him to replace them with fresh faith and confidence.
Take an inventory of you and your kids' lives. Evaluate the state of various areas of your lives to determine what's going well and what needs improvement. Consider such areas as: you and your kids' physical and emotional health; your relationships with God, each other, your kids' father, and other loved ones; your career; your kids' school performance; your finances; your schedule; your home organization; and the individual dreams and goals of you and each of your kids.
Make positive changes. Study the information you've gained from taking an inventory of you and your kids' lives. Then pray for the wisdom you need to discern what specific changes you should make. List both short-term goals and long-term goals, as well as steps you plan to take to reach those goals, and dates by which you hope to achieve them.
Take good care of your health. Taking good care of yourself will strengthen you so you can take good care of your kids. Pause regularly to consider how well you're feeling spiritually, emotionally, and physically - and if you need something, don't neglect yourself. Set and maintain healthy habits, such as making time regularly for prayer and silent reflection, taking breaks from work for fun and relaxing activities, getting enough sleep and exercise, eating nutritiously, drinking plenty of water, and visiting a doctor for regular checkups. Pay attention to the way you talk to yourself in your mind - your inner dialogue of thoughts - and notice when you're being negative. Ask the Holy Spirit to renew your mind regularly, helping you fill your mind with positive thoughts and replacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy thoughts that reflect God's truth. Whenever you catch yourself tempted to say or do something wrong because you're tired, pause and pray for the strength you need to make the right choice in that moment.
Take good care of your kids' health. Pray for the patience you need to help your kids even when you're tired and distracted. Make time to notice how your kids are feeling every day. If any of them seem depressed, angry, lonely, or anxious, make an appointment with either their pediatrician or a professional counselor to evaluate their health emotionally, mentally, and physically. Constantly encourage your kids to discover more about God's purpose for their lives and the talents He has given them, and give them opportunities to develop and use those talents to contribute to the world around them.
Get the support you need. Don't burn yourself out by trying to do too much on your own. Recognize that your kids would benefit as much as you from having people trustworthy people who care about them invest in their lives. Reach out to people to help you with child care and other practical needs you have, and be sure to offer them some help in return. Make building friendships with others for social enjoyment a high priority, too.
Organize to experience more peace. Ask God to help you organize your time, paperwork, and home so you can eliminate unnecessary stress from your life and enjoy more peace. Pray for the guidance you need to set up a successful system to guide your kids' behavior, complete with age-appropriate rules, consequences, and incentives.
Manage your money wisely. Set a budget that reflects biblical values like giving, saving, and avoiding debt. Keep track of when various bills are due so you can plan an effective schedule for paying them on time, and plan for how you'll afford future goals like taking vacations with your kids, buying new appliances, replacing your car, and paying for your kids' college education.
Build your career. Find a job that pays enough for you to have the income level you need to support your kids well, and once you're earning the amount of money you need, then focus on expanding your career to find the best opportunities to pursue your interests and use your talents professionally.
Renew your confidence. Pray about every problem you face and every concern you have, and expect God to help you. Ask God to give you the confidence you need to believe in yourself as a person and a parent when others criticize you. Thank God regularly for His work in your life, and let the evidence of His ongoing care for you give you fresh confidence every day.
Communicate wisely with your kids' father. Ask God to help you communicate in positive ways with your kids' father so you both can work together as a team to do what's best for your kids.
Adapted from God Loves Single Moms: Practical Help for Finding Confidence, Strength, and Hope, copyright 2010 by Theresa Whitehurst. Published by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Mich., www.revellbooks.com.
Teresa Whitehurst is a clinical psychologist who provides counseling as well as personal and career coaching. She has worked as a psychotherapist for many years in private practice, at Harvard Medical School, and at Kaiser-Permanente. Dr. Whitehurst writes and speaks on parenting and personal development issues and is the author of How Would Jesus Raise Your Child? She is a single mom who has two adult daughters and two grandchildren.


text: DiGeorge Syndrome (DGS) Share this page: Overview Symptoms & Diagnosis Treatment & Management DiGeorge syndrome (DGS) is a primary immunodeficiency disease (PIDD) associated with susceptibility to infections due to decreased T cell production and function due to an absent or poorly developed thymus. The thymus is the "school house" where T-cells are educated to fight infection and prevent autoimmunity. DGS is caused by abnormal cell and tissue development during fetal growth. In addition to possible immune system problems, this abnormal development can result in altered facial characteristics, abnormal gland development (parathyroid or thyroid) or heart defects. DGS is a lifelong condition that is typically diagnosed in infancy or early childhood. Children with DGS differ in the organs and tissues affected, as well as in the severity of the disease. The presentation of DGS varies. At one end of the spectrum is "Complete DGS" that is associated with total absence of the thymus and a severe deficiency in T-cells that requires thymic transplantation for survival. "Partial DGS" is associated with low, but not absent T-cell function and often improves during childhood. Still, approximately one-third of affected adults will have mild recurrent infections. Most cases result from a deletion of chromosome 22q11.2 (the DGS chromosome region). A small number of cases of DGS have defects in another chromosome, notably 10p13. Infants with CHARGE syndrome (CHD7 gene) and infants of diabetic mothers also may present with DGS. Keep pace with the latest information and connect with others. Join us on Facebook. Symptoms Certain facial features are often seen with DGS - low set ears, underdeveloped chin, a short philtrum (the vertical groove on the upper lip), a bulbous nose tip, heavy eyelids and/or a small mouth. Nasal-sounding speech can occur when a cleft palate is involved. Short stature, learning difficulties or certain psychiatric disorders are also common. Based on which organs are affected by the syndrome, other symptoms may include: Frequent infections Low calcium levels Heart defects Diagnosis DGS is often diagnosed at birth or in infancy based on clinical observation of multiple symptoms with various organs. A genetic test is used to confirm the diagnosis. As the organs and tissues involved and the severity of the abnormalities vary, treatment plans for DGS must be personalized. For instance, mild T cell problems can often be managed with antibiotics and close follow-up. On the other extreme, cases of DGS in which T cell development is severely affected have been successfully treated with bone marrow or thymus transplant. Severe problems involving the heart or facial features may require corrective surgery. Children with DGS benefit from a multi-specialty approach to treatment, since this disease can be associated with a spectrum of disorders that fall under varying different medical specialties including ENT, immunology, cardiology, genetics and speech therapy. To learn more about PIDDs visit the Immune Deficiency Foundation website. Share this page:


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A day after the broadcast of documentary in which she said she "screwed up," octomom Nadya Suleman will return to court.
Suleman is trying to convince an Orange County judge to dismiss an effort to appoint a guardian to oversee the financial interests of her children. Her attorney, Jeff Czech, is expected to argue that Paul Petersen, president of A Minor Consideration and a cast member of the old TV series "The Donna Reed Show," lacks legal standing in the case.
Petersen, who is represented by Los Angeles civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, wants an independent person appointed guardian because he believes Suleman has a conflict of interest regarding her contract with Eyeworks UK Group Ltd. in connection with a reality show.
The court appearance will come after FOX broadcast a documentary about Suleman's life since she gave birth. In the documentary, Suleman said, "I screwed up my life. I screwed up my kids' lives... What was I thinking?"
A Minor Consideration, which advocates for child actors, won the first round July 27 in Orange County Probate Court.
At the time, Orange County Superior Court Judge Gerald Johnston appointed lawyer Norbert Bunt to serve as guardian over the octuplets' financial affairs. But a state appellate court later stayed the decision, pending today's hearing.
Peterson and Allred say Suleman has exploited her octuplets for financial gain. She has countered that the two are suing just to promote themselves.
In addition to the octuplets she delivered in January, Suleman has six other children, who were also the product of in-vitro fertilization treatment. The 34-year-old Suleman and her 14 children live in La Habra.