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Considering I've got two weeks of down-time on tap for Lamu, it seems odd that I'd feel a need to take a break in Watamu. But here I am: lulled by the surf and the ocean breezes, shuffling around in board shorts, my linen shirt unbuttoned down to my navel. The routine I've slouched into is a cozy one. A light breakfast of Nescafe and chapati, the morning paper, a few smiles and "Buongiornos" for the pretty waitress at the Italian café. In the afternoon I sit on the beach and shoo away the guys selling hand-painted greeting cards and little carved hippos. At night I treat myself to wood-oven pizzas at a swank hotel just down the road. The owner – a dignified, snow-haired guy in a sweater vest – circles between the tables and makes small-talk with the guests. When a party leaves there's a chorus of "Buon viaggis!" and "Buona seras!" and "Arrivadercis!" A few old men in orange pants gather with espressos in the lounge, where Italian football plays on a flickering, staticky screen.
Though I've passed a pleasant few days around town, I'm starting to feel hemmed in by the beach boys and souvenir stalls and hard-selling Samburu. I'd met a few of these young morans on my first day in town. They'd been happy to hear about my time in Maralal, and my stumbling attempts at the Samburu tongue. Each morning I'd smile and say "Soba" – the Samburu greeting – and politely rebuff the necklaces and bright, beaded bracelets they sold from a red blanket on the side of the road. Around town I would spot the morans from a distance – tall, lean, and upright, handsomely decked out in hoops and chains, loping with that peculiar bouncing stride of the Samburu and Masai warriors.
One day they take me back to their house, a crumbling, coral-walled building down the town's back alleys. There are puddles on the floor and holes in the ceiling, and young Masai and Samburu guys loafing around outside. They'd set some mattresses out on the front porch: after part of the roof caved in a few months ago, some of the guys were forced to sleep under the eaves. We sit on the lawn and play bhao – an ancient African board game – while the sun moves behind the clouds. Someone brings me a primary school notebook – a little blue pad with a cartoon rabbit on the cover. Written inside is a list of names and figures:
Emma 1500
Charlie 1000
Scott 2000
The morans inch closer as a smooth-talking Masai makes his pitch. "We do not have the money, we do not have the power," he says, gesturing to the dilapidated house over his shoulder. "But if someone did have the power…" He arches his eyebrows and looks suggestively at the notebook in my hands. I'm in a strange moral bind. That there's genuine need here is apparent; I can see the first fat raindrops falling through the roof, the frayed hammock swinging limply from a couple of precarious bolts in the ceiling.
But the suddenness of the pitch has left me flustered – flustered and, oddly, betrayed. I recoil with that sharp, reflexive stubbornness so common to Westerners in the developing world; if pressed, I would've invoked some high-minded talk about "principle." I wanted to be looked at as a friend, or something approaching it – not just another white guy with money. The broad, gray landscape between those two extreme poles is, after all these months, still a region I've struggled to chart on my moral map. I bury my hands in my pockets and say something non-committal; I'm almost as disappointed in myself as they are.
I'm starting to feel the grind of all these casual friendships I've picked up around town. Just making it to the supermarket or the Internet café is a marathon of handshakes and well-wishes. There are inquiries about my health and the quality of my sleep; men who have never so much as seen her picture ask if my mother's doing well. It's sweet and endearing and more than a little bit creepy. By day four, after a baroque monologue from a local shopkeeper on the perils of a stiff mattress, I decide it's time to take a break from my break, heading to nearby Gede for an afternoon at its ruins.
After more than five months in the Middle East, surrounded by pyramids and coliseums and mosques trapped beneath centuries of smog and dust, I've set the ancient-ruins bar awfully high. And on the most basic level, Gede's crumbled palaces and low coral walls are a disappointment. But there's something to be said for an afternoon stroll through the forest, with giant, predatory spiders spinning their webs between the trees, and curious monkeys scrambling over the remains of mosques and ramparts. No one asks about my mother, no one wants to sell me a necklace. Stumbling through the heat, my shirt sticking to my chest, it's the first time I've felt blissfully content here in Watamu.
I'm all smiles as I crowd into a matatu heading for town. We pass the Gede Primary School ("School Motto: Knowledge is Light"), a series of low, brightly painted concrete buildings. Beneath the motto are written cautionary slogans: "Abstain from sex," "Say no to bad touch," "Don't accept favours." On the wall is a colorful mural of hard-working Kenyans laboring in the fields: balancing baskets on their heads, waving off favours, and abstaining from sex at every turn. Back in Watamu I say a few goodbyes and hustle my bags into the nearest matatu. Two hours later I'm checked into my hotel in Malindi, overlooking a green-domed mosque that will, I'm sure, rattle with prayer in the pre-dawn hours.
I've left Watamu on a high note, and that's left me direly unprepared for the grim reality of the resort town that is Malindi. Long a favorite of Italian holiday-makers peddling its all-inclusives, the place manages to make a casual afternoon stroll feel as pleasant as a walk over hot coals. I'm accosted in front of the hotel and outside the Internet café, on the streets around Uhuru Park and on the busy tourist drag of Lamu Road. Men selling water colors ("Elephant At Dusk (with Acacias)," "Woman Carries Basket on Head," etc.); women hawking big, bulky necklaces strung from stones the size of Easter Island heads. Desperate for earnest human contact, turned off by the constant sales pitches and Sudanese refugee rackets, I'm turning into a total dick during my brief time here. I've found refuge in an Italian restaurant down the street from my hotel – a recurring theme here on the coast, it seems – and I pass my nights quietly mulling over thin-crust pizza and cold Tuskers, wondering what crippling inertia is keeping me from boarding the first bus to Lamu.
One night, watching English football on a tiny TV screen at a local bar, I feel a warm, familiar hand squeezing my shoulder. It's Basilio, the sports agent I met at a soccer match in Nairobi. He slaps his head at this improbable meeting, and we quickly fall into conversation. We spend the next hour catching up on Kenyan politics and dissecting the play of Manchester United on the stamp-sized screen. In another strange coincidence, we happen to be staying in the same hotel, and for the next few days we'll meet over breakfast, groggily waking up to our coffee and disparaging the headlines on CNN International. Basilio proves to be Malindi's saving grace, and apart from some fine pizza and cappuccino, he's about the only reason I wouldn't want to see this town wiped off the map altogether. We say our goodbyes and make promises to keep in touch, and as my bus sputters and put-puts down the bumpy road to Lamu, it's all I can do to give Malindi a half-hearted "Arrivaderci!" and not wish all sorts of ill will upon it.


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Along with Eero Aarnio's Bubble Chair and Verner Panton's graphic textile patterns, The Nesso Table Lamp by Artemide remains a quintessential symbol of the 1960′s, a glossy, playful reminder of an era when industrial style was as a lot a component of the counter-cultural movement as go-go boots and peace symbols. But, unlike most factors that arrive with expiration dates, the Nesso Table Lamp's irresistible, monochromatic form remains as beguiling today as it did in 1965, the year Giancarlo Mattioli's, sensuous, mushroom-shaped table lamp won a competitors sponsored by two venerable names in Italian design: lighting manufacturer Artemide and Domus, the style and architecture magazine founded by Gio Ponti.
Nesso's instantly iconic shape—beautifully contoured, dimpled lampshade (said to be inspired by a woman's navel) and gently flared base—was as dramatic as it was basic, its single-color molded resin profile lending it the kind of visual elegance and sculptural panache destined to be noticed by museums and shoppers alike. Emblematic of a decade that thumbed its nose at tradition, it's tiny wonder that Nesso's arrival ignited the imagination: it was like absolutely nothing that had been seen just before. The higher wonder, in fact, is that almost half a century later, it remains like nothing we've observed considering that.
Now, by way of March 22, the Nesso Table Lamp, along with all Artemide lighting, is on sale at a 15% reduction. Shop here.
Photo credit
Photo credit
Pictures: Artemide Dwell Design Sponge


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"Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them."
— Salvador Dalí
You've done it! You've made a beautiful error. (Salvador would certainly approve.) It's OK. I recently redesigned my site, and some pages have been moved. Some are gone. Such is life.
Now that you're here, maybe you'd like to …
• Subscribe to my weekly newsletter.
• Buy my remarkable book that will help you become a smarter consumer.
• Read all about me and my own beautiful mistakes.
Not enough? Keep clicking around, and you'll stumble upon this page again before long.
Remember, it's a good thing!


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You may have heard about the distinct lack of women's voices at last week's House committee hearing on the contraception mandate, in particular the case of one woman who was denied an opportunity to testify. That woman, Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, got a second chance to speak at a Democrating committee hearing yesterday and was finally able to share her story (H/T Faith in Public Life for the news).
To recap, during last week's hearing Bishop William Lori based his testimony on a hypothetical comparison of a kosher deli being asked to serve pork (which, like nearly all other hypothetical comparisons that people have used to argue against the mandate, in no way reflects the realities of human reproduction). When asked about women who use birth control pills for reasons unrelated to preventing pregnancy, Lori said the church deserves credit for understanding the difference and only has a moral opposition to artificial birth control, not to other medical uses of the pill.
In other words, despite all the complaints you're hearing from church leaders on how being mandated to provide contraception coverage is a violation of their conscience, they actually are willing to provide contraception coverage to employees. The only caveat is that they want to be able to determine when said coverage is and is not morally acceptable. The burden of proof is therefore on the employee, before they can receive coverage, to show that they're prescription meets the moral criteria of their employer.
Got all that? Now take a few minutes to watch the video of Sandra Fluke's testimony. She doesn't talk about what it might be like for a Catholic who really wants a ham sandwich to wander into a kosher deli, but what it was like for a real human being, a student at a Catholic university, to have to prove that her prescription for contraception wasn't going to be used to prevent pregnancy. And despite having a doctor's note, that student was denied coverage. And since she couldn't afford the prescription on her own, she suffered a painful illness and surgery, which may in the future prevent her from being able to conceive a child.
The church may argue that this case was an exception, and that most women wouldn't be denied coverage for what their employer may deem a legitimate use of contraception. But for a church that values the dignity of the human person as one of its primary beliefs, is this type of policy really honoring the dignity of women?
It is one thing for the church to say it wants to deny non-Catholic employees coverage of something the church deems immoral. But that also means putting an excessive burden on employees who may be faithful Catholics, who choose to work for a religious institution (and as a result, may be making less money than they would elsewhere), and who simply need a medication prescribed by their doctor for health reasons. And as Fluke's example shows, it endangers the health of women and may even result in a woman being unable to have children, a serious concern for a church that so highly values the creation of human life.
Maybe there's a way to ensure that employees can get valid prescriptions without violating their dignity or the church's position on contraception. Or maybe we can just accept the mandate and trust those employees who have chosen to work for a Catholic institution and to further its mission to follow their own conscience.
Related reading:
On the contraception mandate: Can the bishops speak credibly about a women's health issue?


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Sugar Rush: Mille-Feuille at Pâtisserie Rhubarbe, Montreal
Preciously Parisian, dainty and delicate: that's the best way I can describe Montreal's Pâtisserie Rhubarbe. The description is apt for both the feel of this neighborhood bakery, which has seating for about a dozen people, and the baked goods you'll find for sale.
There are two small showcases of treats. Amidst gorgeous religieuses marron, stunning petite cheesecakes topped with grapefruit, and cute jars of panna cotta and pot chocolat, the 1000 Feuilles ($4.50) tempted me most.
Rhubarbe's mille-feuille is traditional, featuring three layers of puff pastry filled with two layers of cream and topped with a dusting of confectioner's sugar. In my mille-feuille, the first layer of cream was caramel, while the second was vanilla Chantilly cream, with specks of tell-tale vanilla bean.
A mille-feuille may look delicate to the eye, but it's not the daintiest thing to eat. Each fork-piercing causes shards to fly, followed by a quick snowfall of sugar. You'll want to retrieve those shards, as the pastry is wonderfully fresh and flaky. Meanwhile, the cream is light and luxurious, a nice counterpoint to the buttery dough without being too sweet. The contrasting textures, crispy and cloud-like, are what make a mille-feuille a fun dessert—and Rhubarbe gets it just right.
Before leaving, you might want to return to the counter to get macarons, cookies, and little loaves of bread (I saw pistachio, chocolate, and zucchini when I visited) to go. And don't forget to check out the jams, jellies, and preserves on the shelves. This gives you the chance to take home a piece of Montreal's Paris.
Pâtisserie Rhubarbe
5091 Rue de Lanaudière, Montreal, QC H2J 3P9, Canada (map) (514) 903-3395; patisserierhubarbe.com
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Hobby Lobby Moves Forward in Seeking Mandate Reprieve
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted en banc consideration of Hobby Lobby's appeal and reversed a lower district court's ruling from last December.
DENVER — A federal appeals court has paved the way for arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby to pursue an injunction that would block devastating fines while it continues its lawsuit against the federal contraception mandate.
"Today marks a milestone in Hobby Lobby's fight for religious liberty," said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is defending Hobby Lobby, in a June 27 press release.
"This is a tremendous victory not only for the Green family and for their business, but also for many other religious business owners who should not have to forfeit their faith to make a living."
Since founding Hobby Lobby in an Oklahoma City garage in 1972, the Green family has seen its company grow to include more than 500 stores in 40-plus states.
The family is among more than 200 plaintiffs — including for-profit businesses, nonprofit charities, individuals and states — that have filed lawsuits challenging the federal contraception mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The mandate requires employers to cover health-insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that could cause early abortions, even if the provision of these products violates the employer's deeply held religious beliefs.
Hobby Lobby's owners do not object to the provision of contraceptives, which they already cover in their plan. However, they have deep religious objections to the "morning after" and "week after" pills that are also included in the required coverage and may cause early abortions by destroying the life of an already created human embryo.
"It is by God's grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured," said David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby, about his case. "Therefore, we seek to honor God by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles."
The federal government has contended that the owners of "secular, for-profit" companies cannot exercise freedom of religion in their business decisions.
However, the Greens argue that their religion teaches that faith must affect all areas of life, influencing the charitable donations they make, the higher-than-average minimum wages they provide and their decision to close all stores on Sundays so that employees can rest and worship with their families.
Courts on several different levels initially denied Hobby Lobby's request for a temporary injunction to block the mandate from taking effect while the company's lawsuit works its way through the court system. Without an injunction, the company would soon face up to $1.3 million per day in fines for violating the mandate.
However, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals then granted en banc consideration of Hobby Lobby's appeal and reversed a lower district court's ruling from last December.
The appeals court is sending the case back to the district court to hear more arguments and reconsider whether to grant the injunction being sought by Hobby Lobby. In doing so, it made the case that the company and its owners had "established a likelihood of success" in arguing that the mandate "substantially burdened" their religious freedom and would cause "irreparable harm."
Duncan described the decision as a victory and said, "The Greens will continue to make their case on appeal: that this unconstitutional mandate infringes their right to earn a living while remaining true to their faith."


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A wise woman once said that a great shampoo is the foundation of great hair. Take her sage advice seriously, and stock up on this apothecary line's zesty formula. Originally a hotel exclusive, C.O. Bigelow released it to the public after countless fans called to sing its praises. Infused with refreshing lavender and peppermint scents, it leaves hair shiny and clean every time you lather up.
I wish I'd read the other reviews first because I was also surprised by how small the bottle is for the price. The fragrance is definitely lovely and refreshing, which is a major plus. I don't think it makes my hair feel any better than much cheaper brands, though.3
I ordered this because I love lavender. When I received it I was surprised how small it was, so I referred back to the website and realized they are 8 oz bottles, which is about a third of the normal size of a shampoo/conditioner bottle. Next time I will pay more attention to the size. Anyway, I used it once and I wasn't very impressed. Both the shampoo and conditioner feel really cheap, like hotel products. Then I read the reviews and it actually is a hotel product! I have fine straight hair and I found the shampoo to be really harsh/stripping and the conditioner was way to light. The only thing this product has going for it is the smell. I gave it to my husband and he liked it, but he doesn't have barely any hair.2


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Manchester Travel Kit
Useful Information to Help You Start Your Trip to Manchester
Our Manchester Travel Kit lays out the essential information you need to help planning your trip to one of the most popular destinations in the UK. No matter how frequently you travel, some questions will always need answers: What's the weather like? How can I get from the airport to my hotel? What currency and type of plug do I need? We have all these answers plus other basic info about the best time to go, getting there, getting around, and a few useful travel tips.
It's all compiled in this Manchester Travel Kit. After reading this short and easy-to-read guide, you will be a little more prepared to start your trip in Manchester.
Best time to travel to Manchester (weather-wise)
- Manchester has a temperate climate, with average temperatures ranging from 1ºC in winter to 20ºC in summer.
- Most rainfall occurs from October to January, yet downpours can happen anytime, even during the driest months of the year.
- The sunniest time of the year is from May to September.
- Occasional snowfall can happen from November to February.
- Summer, from June to August, is peak tourist season, hotel and flight prices rise accordingly.
- May and September are pleasant times to visit, the weather is pleasing and hotel and flight prices are more affordable than during summer.
Manchester basics
- Languages: Primary: English
- Plug type: G
- Electricity: 220-240 V
- Currency: Pound sterling (£)
- International dialling code: +44 161
- Emergency telephone number: 999 or 112
Getting into the city
Manchester Airport
Manchester Airport sits 14 km south of the city centre. It hosts 3 terminals and is one of the busiest airports in the UK. There are several transfer options to reach central Manchester:
- A taxi takes around 30 minutes and costs £30. Taxi ranks can be found near the exit of each terminal.
- The airport shuttle bus takes around 25 minutes and costs £5. The buses depart from Manchester Airport Train Station, which is easy to reach from each terminal.
- The 24/7 Skyline bus takes around 50 minutes and costs £3. The buses depart from Manchester Airport Train Station.
- A train takes around 30 minutes and costs £5.
- The Metrolink tram takes around 25 minutes and costs £5. The tram stop can be found in the Manchester Airport Train Station.
- Car rental agencies can be found in the Car Rental Village, which can be reached by bus for free from each terminal.
Manchester Piccadilly Train Station
Besides the Airport Train Station which also serves cities such as Newcastle, Blackpool and Edinburgh, Manchester hosts 4 main train stations: Piccadilly, Victoria, Oxford Road and Deansgate. Manchester Piccadilly is the primary train station. It sits in the Central Business District of Manchester. From here, you can get to your hotel by taxi, bus or Metrolink tram.
Getting around Manchester
Travel tips
Manchester is a rather compact city; its centre is easily walkable – it roughly takes 20 minutes from one side to the other on foot. All public transport in Manchester is managed by the TFGM (Transport for Greater Manchester). The company operates bus, train and tram networks. A choice of single tickets, day and week passes are available to travel around Manchester.
- The cheapest single ticket for a bus or tram ride costs £1.50
- A 1-day System One Card for the use of any bus and tram costs £5
Travelling by bus
- The Manchester bus network covers the entire city; it's one of the most extensive in the UK.
- Metroshuttle is a free bus service that features 3 routes in the city centre. Buses depart from and return to Piccadilly Train Station.
- The Manchester Magic Bus is known as one of the most affordable bus services in Manchester.
Foto: Quackdave (CC BY-SA 4.0) retusjert
Metrolink Tram
- The Metrolink tram networks links the city centre to neighbouring towns and to the airport via 7 lines.
- Using the tram is considered the most convenient and fastest option to get to downtown Manchester when you stay on the outskirts of the city.
Foto: Tom Page (CC BY-SA 2.0) retusjert
Manchester by taxi
- Several taxi companies – including iconic black cabs – operate in Manchester.
- There's a starting fare of around £2, then £1.50 for each kilometre and £0.33 per minute of waiting time (red light, traffic jam).
- Most cabs accept payment of the fare by credit card.
- Gett, Uber, Hailo and StreetCars are just a few of the taxi apps you can use in Manchester.
- Many taxicab stands are at hand all around the city centre.
Cycling with Mobike
Mobike is the name of Manchester's bike-hiring system. You just need to download the Mobike App, pay a deposit of £49, then hire the bicycle at one of the bike parking locations around the city. The price for using a bike is 50p per 30 minutes.
Foto: Duncan Hull (CC BY 2.0) retusjert
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Photo provided by Ultimatebet.com
Childhood and career
Annie lived with her two siblings Howard (poker pro Howard Lederer) and Katy on the campus of Saint Paul's Prep School where their father taught English. Annie grew up in a very academic environment living on the school grounds. Annie's father Dr. Richard Lederer, is a well-known American author and linguist. Her mother Deedy was also a teacher.
Annie's parents instilled in her a love for games of chance and Annie grew up playing all sorts of card games. Those very games were the glue that held the family together and helped them spend the little spare time they had together as a family.
After finishing high school, Annie attended Columbia University where she completed a double major in English and psychology. She then started graduate school in cognitive psychology, specializing in psycholinguistics. Annie was able to start her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania on a National Science Foundation Fellowship, which is a program offered by the government of the United States that supports graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. Shortly before defending her PhD thesis though, Annie left the program and moved to Columbus, Montana with her husband Ben Duke leaving her academic career behind.
Wedding and first steps into the poker scene
Annie had planned to follow in her father's footsteps, as an author and a teacher, but it seems that life had something else in store for her. Her long- time friend and fellow student Ben Duke, who had always been there for her, moved to Montana yet despite the distance their friendship stayed strong. On September 13th, 1991, on her 26th birthday, Annie called her buddy Ben and said, "Hey, let's get married." Shortly after, the two got married, without ever having dated. So Annie moved to Columbus, Montana to be with her husband, leaving back her old life and a half- finished dissertation.
Annie and Ben had very little money so Annie began to play poker in the local poker rooms to pay for the mortgage on their house. She confided in her brother Howard, who was already a successful poker player at the time, about her financial troubles and he sent her money so that she could play higher stakes games. Annie's game constantly improved and she was able to work her way up at the Casino in Billings, Montana. In her first month at the poker tables Annie won approximately $ 3,000, at the time a nice amount of money but nothing compared to the money she is making now. Nevertheless, in those hard times every cent helped and boosted her self-confidence.
Despite her exceptional poker talent, playing at the casinos of Montana was far from easy. She was a woman in a man's world – a rarity and an outsider at the same time – and all that before turning 30! It was not easy for her, as a young, attractive lady to play poker in the smoky, run- down backrooms against cowboys and ranchers twice her age. Yet Annie did not let this bother her and soon figured out how she could use the men's sexist disposition to her advantage. She discovered that there were only two main reasons to why the men acted the way they did: either they were attracted to her or they were just chauvinistic, plain and simple.
Conquering Las Vegas
Annie visited her brother Howard in Las Vegas on a regular basis where she got her first taste of the professional poker scene. Howard recognized the potential of his sister early on, encouraged her to play poker and helped her improve her game. Howard even registered his sister for a ladies tournament at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and paid the buy in of $ 1,000. When Howard confronted her and told her that she was taking part in a tournament the next day, being the nervous person she is, Annie's first reaction was run to the toilette and throw up. Sitting at the poker table though, her tension disappeared and she enjoyed the game. Although Annie did not place within the cash ranks at this first tournament, considering that she had only been playing for a short while, she did very well.
Yet again It was Howard Lederer who encouraged her to take part in the "real" WSOP in Las Vegas. So in 1994, she participated in the WSOP for the first time and placed fourteenth (in Limit Texas Hold'em), even outperforming her brother. At her next WSOP tournament, also limit Hold'em, Annie placed 5th winning $ 26,000 in prize money. At the no- limit Hold'em Main Event she placed 26th and earned a nice sum of $ 17,000. Enchanted by the poker scene and her success, Annie decided to move to Las Vegas with her husband, to be able to play poker full- time.
Within the next ten years, Annie participated in countless World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments, World Poker Tour (WPT) games, and other important events, playing at numerous final tables. She captured the attention of the public in 2000, when she played at the WSOP Main Event eight months pregnant, yet still managed to place 10th. She was only one spot away from making the final table when she was eliminated. This legendary performance and the explosion of poker's popularity, along with all the coverage by the media made Annie somewhat of a celebrity. She was lovingly named Annie Legend and The Duchess of Poker by the media due to her success and the nicknames stuck.
Annie is also a virtual poker star and a very active online poker player. She is a team-member at UltimateBet and a spokesperson for the online poker room, where you can find her playing games and chatting. With such a large family, it is not easy for Annie to travel from tournament to tournament, which is why online poker is an ideal alternative to brick- and- mortar casino poker games. In an interview Annie states that she almost exclusively plays online poker.
The "Dutchess of Poker" in top form
2004 was a very successful year for Annie. She won the "Five- Star World Poker Classic" of the WPT Championship Season 2 in no- limit Hold'em, winning about $ 160,000. One month later, Annie won her first gold WSOP Bracelet in limit Omaha Hi Lo, whereby she won approximately $ 140,000. That same year Annie won the WSOP Tournament of Champions, a no- limit Texas Hold'em invitational freeroll where only the best of the best go up against each other. Annie knocked out poker legends such as Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Greg Raymer, Daniel Negreanu and her brother Howard Lederer and ended up facing "Poker Brat" Phil Hellmuth in the heads- up phase.
The winner was to get an unbelievable $ 2 million dollars and the atmosphere was hence very tense. Annie showed everyone who was wearing the pants at the poker table and eliminated Phil Hellmuth— winning the $ 2,000,000. Phil Hellmuth, who is known for his emotional outbursts at the table, congratulated Annie but was not able to keep his disappointment in for long, ranting only after leaving the table. The media of course, was all over it, and for several minutes of the coverage, all you could hear were the "beeps", that censored the obscenities coming from Hellmuth's mouth. Phil Hellmuth did not have anything against Annie personally of course, on the contrary, he even stated once that Annie is "the best all- around woman poker player in the world today". This was her breakthrough and the media all but fought for the attention of "The Duchess of Poker"; Annie even made an appearance on the "The Late Show with David Letterman" and on "Good Morning America".
The year 2004 was not just full of good tidings for Annie though. It was that same year that Annie and Ben divorced and Annie soon moved to Los Angeles to ensure that her children would grow up in a more family- orientated environment.
The enormous media attention around Annie is for the most part due to Annie's poker talent, but also in part because she is a woman. If Annie were a man, she would only be half as famous, critics say. Annie also agrees in part with them, but she is determined to make sure that her poker performance is at the center of attention. After all, poker is one of the few types of sports where woman can compete against men on equal footing. It just so happens that Annie, being a mother of four, highly intelligent, with a friendly image, and a superstar brother, makes a perfect poster girl for female poker players.
In 2005, Annie placed fourth at the WSOP limit Hold'em tournament winning $ 90,000 and in 2007, Annie knocked out stars such as Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Scotty Nguyen and placed third at the pot-limit Omaha and Seven-Card Stud WSOP tournament winning $ 75,210.
Aggressive playing style, girl power and sex-appeal
Annie has an aggressive playing style, yet she understands when she needs to be on defense. She has a very conceptual understanding of the game and is convinced that luck only plays a small, almost irrelevant, role in poker. According to Annie, the player who understands the mathematical concept behind poker wins the game, whereby experience and talent also play a role. Players who have no strategy other than to play aggressively and those who rely solely on their intuition will only win in the short run, whereas the mathematicians and the theorists are the ones who will really be making money in the long run.
Annie names emotional control as one of her biggest strengths. She does not allow previous results to distract her from what she is doing. She concentrates on the present game and is not preoccupied making up her previous losses in the future. She also admits that she is very good at bluffing and that her excellent bet management really forces her opponents to make mistakes. On her journey from an amateur to a professional poker player, Annie has learned most of all, the importance of patience. She folds about 70 to 80 percent of the hands that she is dealt. She was not a very patient person growing up, but in the meantime she has learned how important it is to stay calm.
As already mentioned, Annie has learned to use her looks to her advantage. Male poker players are either chauvinistic or they want to sleep with her; either way they do not pose a threat to her,
"If somebody wants to take you to bed, they don't want to take their money. Because that's probably not gonna be a very good strategy for getting somebody into bed."
The moment Annie realizes that an opponent is sexually attracted to her she starts flirting with him, gives him hope and uses that cold- heartedly against him to win.
Annie does not think much of ladies tournaments. This is because poker is one of the few games with a totally even playing field for both men and women and where it is simply not necessary to separate the men from the women because of their physical differences. It is intellect versus intellect, which is why Annie finds it degrading to have ladies tournaments. When asked though why poker is still a man's game she answers:
"Poker is, at its core, a game with math. Physiologically speaking, men and women's brains are wired differently. So men, in general, tend to have more mathematical aptitude than women do. Women are encouraged to go into liberal arts; men are encouraged to go into math and sciences. Poker also requires an extreme amount of aggression, in order to succeed at it. Women aren't encouraged to be aggressive and competitive. In fact, women that are aggressive and competitive tend to be called really nasty names, while men are praised to be aggressive. When women are gambling, they're perceived as being irresponsible. And they're clearly gambling away the grocery money. "
Profession: Housewife and mother - Side job: Pokerstar
Of course, being a woman raises her status as a poker player a bit, but also the fact that she is a mother of four sets her apart from the rest. To be a good mother and to be able to manage a poker career at the same time is her biggest goal in life. She is doing very well despite getting a divorce; her kids are always her priority and really, her life is not much different from that of any average mother.
Annie has her priorities set straight and no poker game, no matter how lucrative it may be, comes before her children. She has continually proven that this is the case which others, especially her brother, do not understand. Annie often has to decide between family and poker. One time she was faced with the decision of either staying abroad a couple more days to take part in a game with a six figure prize pool or return to Montana in time for her daughter's sixth birthday party. Annie did not hesitate, and despite instructions from her brother to stay, she drove home in time for the party,
"I didn't care what kind of money was at stake… I'm not missing that party. My brother said I could've paid for her college education that weekend. I said 'You know what? When she's 25 and in therapy, she's going to be talking about how I missed her sixth birthday party.'"
Money means very little to Annie and becoming rich was never one of her goals - she wanted to become a professor. Annie started playing poker because the game fascinated her; the fact that there was a lot of money involved was a trivial matter,
"Honestly, if it were matchsticks, I'd still be playing just as hard."
Poker lessons for Ben Affleck
In a way Annie managed to make her dream of becoming a teacher a reality by teaching others the game of poker. Her most famous student was the actor Ben Affleck, who thanks to his amazing teacher, won the 2004 California State Poker Championship. Those who want to get a few poker tips from Annie have to be prepared to splurge: for four hours she charges $20,000! Annie finds that this is a reasonable price,
"People pay way more to go to Harvard law school. With poker skill you'll be making money for many years, therefore I'm actually quite cheap. The reason why I'm willing to do it so cheap is that it's extremely helpful to me. The more that I figure out a way to express to different people the concepts that are in poker, the better off my game is."
Her work with superstar Ben Affleck also helped her own celebrity image of course, but she remains down- to- earth despite her fame. Although a millionaire, she lives in a modest home. From her poker earnings she pays for her bills, finances her children's education and lives in a nice home. Her place of residence, Los Angeles, reveals that her house was not exactly cheap, but she does not think much of expensive accessories, neither does she drive expensive cars or spend a lot on designer clothes.
The hard road to success
The fact that she remained so down- to earth may be because her path to fame and success was not an easy one. Although it seems that intelligence runs in the family, Annie's family life has been anything but ideal. Annie's mother was an alcoholic and the three siblings put a lot of energy into trying to help her get rid of the habit. While Annie and Howard tried to control their mother's addiction by marking the bottle to see how much she drank daily, their younger sister Katy, on the other hand, helped their mother cover up her problem to avoid fights.
Annie's mother was an extremely bright woman who continually amazed her children with her knowledge and her amazing memory, being able to memorize poems and to remember them a decade later. She was even able to solve the challenging crossword puzzles in each Sunday edition of the New York Times in only 20 minutes, a demonstration of her intellect. Unfortunately, she never lived up to her potential. Besides her alcohol problem, Mrs. Lederer had another addiction—one less dangerous but just as pronounced—namely cards. She regularly played Solitaire for hours on end and was so obsessed with the game that she would forget everything around her when playing.
As previously mentioned, card games was what kept the family close; the only thing that created somewhat harmonious family relations. Yet these rather frequent events were not all fun and games. The Lederer family was an extremely competitive household and Annie's father would never let her win. Annie realized early on in life, that winning was everything. If she lost, she would throw the cards across the room and storm away crying. Winning was the only thing that mattered in the Lederer household,
"Our parents didn't much care whether or not we got good grades in school. Winning at games was what mattered" (an excerpt from Katy Lederer's book called "Poker Face: A Girlhood among Gamblers).
Although Richard Lederer was not very pleased with the career paths of his two oldest children in the beginning, he is now very proud of them,
"We are the greatest breeders of poker players in the country. It doesn't surprise me that they are doing what they are doing."
Annie also decided to put her life in the midst of her genius, yet dysfunctional family and her experience as a professional poker player on paper. In 2005, Annie Duke published her autobiography: "Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and won Millions at the World Series of Poker". What sets this book apart from books by other poker stars is that it does not talk exclusively about poker strategy. Annie also talks about her private life in the book the point of which was to show the world that she had to work hard for her success. In 2005, Annie talked about her book in an interview:
"I think that when somebody is successful at what they do, I think a lot of people think that their lives are very different or very easy. I'm not saying that my life isn't relatively easy right now. It is. But, it's not like I just magically got to the place that I was…I just wanted to tell people a story about someone who had a lot of really hard battles to wage. My childhood, in a lot of ways, was extremely unhappy, and then, by the time I was nineteen years old, I wanted to kill myself. Now, as a forty year old, I'm very happy and I don't have moments of depression. But that didn't happen magically. Through my twenties, I had horrible bouts of it and had to really work hard to get where I am now… […] Whether you play poker or not, [I wanted] to let people know that nothing is the end of the world and you can work through anything that happens to you."
Katy Lederer also talks about life as a child growing up in the Lederer household in her book "Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers" where she describes the transformation of her siblings Annie and Howard from "normal" private school kids from New Hampshire to professional gamblers with millions living in Las Vegas. This is not just a book for poker players, but also a piece of skillful literature.
Annie's favorite childhood memory is from when she was four years old and her family moved to Philadelphia for a year where her father taught at an inner city high school while on sabbatical. Every weekend, he would take the children to a different place; Annie's favorite place was the Franklin Museum. In this science museum there was a huge model of a heart. You could walk through it and hear the heart beating and see how it worked. Annie still remembers how fascinated she was by this heart.
So far, she has only gotten to see the positive aspects of fame — which she is able to deal with quite well. Annie, just like many other female players, remembers back in the day when poker players were grouped with prostitutes and drug dealers.
"So, the fact that anybody thinks that what I do is cool is pretty awesome," Annie says, thrilled.
Ups and downs in her poker career
The lowest point in Annie's poker career was right at the end of her fourth pregnancy and right after she had her baby. She was tired, exhausted, and stressed out and as a result played very poor poker. She even admits that she should not have been playing poker during that time. It was a difficult time for her anyways, and then came the online verbal attacks by one of her poker colleagues. She actually quit and decided she did not want to play anymore, but after three months she was back at the poker table.
The climax in Annie's career, according to her, was winning her first Gold Bracelet at the 2004 WSOP. When asked what her proudest non- poker accomplishment is she is quick to reply,
"That's a really easy one. It's seeing how my kids have turned out. I have four children who are all really funny, they all have a great sense of humor, they are all really smart, and my proudest thing is that they are all really loving and respectful."
Another question that reporters like to ask Annie Duke, when they get the chance to interview her, is what it is like for her and her brother Howard to be rivals in the poker scene. Annie and her brother are with two different online poker sites but according to Annie, it does not matter because there is enough room in the industry for both of them.
Away from the poker tables
When Annie is not playing poker she likes to spend time with her children: Maud (*1995), Leo (*1998), Lucy (*2000), and Nell (*2002), as well as with her boyfriend, actor and producer, Joe Reitman (Bandidas, Lady in the Water). Joe is also an enthusiastic poker player and, getting lessons from Annie, won a tournament on Ultimate Bet.com in 2006 and $ 266,000 in prize money.
Annie and Joe were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in a club in Los Angeles and sparks flew immediately. What Joe has to say about Annie is,
"She's the best mom and the smartest woman I ever met. She makes me laugh, and she's beautiful to boot." And Annie's response is, "He's funny, smart, and sweet."
Annie and Joe also complement each other professionally. Annie helped Joe improve his poker skills and he got her to look more deeply into media opportunities available to her. One of these opportunities being Annie's TV show "Annie Duke Takes on the World", which was broadcast in 2006 on GSN (Game Show Network). On the show, four amateurs play against each other for the chance to compete against Annie heads- up. Annie worked as a commentator and gave them tips. Annie's father and his second wife Simone van Egeren, with whom he lives in San Diego, California also get along very well with Joe.
Annie's favorite pastime is going to the movies. Some of her favorite movies include "All That Jazz", "Avalon", and "Real Genius". When it comes to music, Annie likes to listen to the White Stripes, the Violent Femmes, the Arctic Monkeys, and Willie Nelson. She names Jack White, the guitarist from the White Stripes, as her favorite star and the poker players she respects most include her brother Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Ted Forrest. Annie's favorite place is Portland, in Oregon.
If Annie could change anything in the world then she would make sure that people are much nicer to their children. If Annie could change anything in the poker world, then she would make sure that people are much nicer to the dealers.
Annie is, without a doubt, an indispensable addition to the poker scene. Her interesting past, her superstar qualities, and her sex-appeal along with her brilliant game makes this mother of four an unparalleled poker legend working her way up in what used to be a man's world.
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Labor Day has passed, the summer is officially over and the children are happily picking out their new lunchboxes. That means…..
A) You wonder if you should put your white pants away or if there's a really bright sunny day you can get away with wearing them one more time
B) Are lunchboxes environmentally friendly, or should you pack their lunches in recyclable bags, save a tree and avoid seeing Justin Bieber's image every morning
C) You better start thinking about what you'll be cooking for the holidays because they are a little early this year, not as early as they'll be next year, but not as late as they were last year
If you answered all three, then you have way too much time on your hands, but if you answered (C) then you are like so many Jewish cooks this time of year and are scrambling to create the perfect holiday menu. To help you out, or at the very least to distract and entertain you for a few minutes, I've created this quick quiz. Your score matters little, but if it helps crystalize your menu, then my work is done.
1. You are considering making chopped liver for the first time you wonder if you should use chicken fat. You decide to….
A) Buy 3 chickens and render their fat
B) Use canola or olive oil because it's much healthier
C) Purchase a container of chicken fat found usually in the fresh meat section or frozen food section where the frozen chicken & turkey products are sold
If you answered (C) you answered correctly. Here's the skinny on fat.
During the year as I am preparing chicken, I will cut away the excess fat and store it in a Ziploc bag that I keep in the freezer. Eventually I will have enough clippings to make a batch of chicken fat. But an easier solution is to buy chicken fat at the market. Almost every market I checked out carries Empire chicken fat. It truly adds that extra "tam" to chopped liver, and a little in your matzo ball mixture goes a long way. The good news is; it's not bad for you- when eaten in moderation. Because it is a naturally occurring fat it has a nice balance of fats: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Additionally, it has a fair amount of Omega 3 fatty acids. Duck & goose fat are actually a tad healthier, but canola oil- many people's go to oil is often engineered so it is not always the best choice. Olive oil's flavor is too strong and its low smoke point makes it less desirable for frying the onions. For my money- and holiday chopped liver- I vote for chicken fat!
2. You want to make a central meat dish and feel brisket, while traditional has been there and done that so you…
A) Opt for a standing rib roast
B) Buy lamb shanks
C) Consider a breast of veal
D) All of the above
If your answered (D), I applaud you for taking the road less traveled. A standing rib roast is an impressive choice. It presents beautifully and roasts easily. Have your butcher separate the ribs from the meat and then tie them back together, this makes carving the roast easier. Figure 2 people per rib. You might need to mortgage the house, but your guests will be very impressed. Another great choice are lamb shanks. I love any dish you can braise in one pot, leave on the stove or in a slow oven and not worry about over cooking. As for the breast of veal, it's elegant and succulent- a bit fatty and skimpy on the meat to fat ratio, but it works beautifully with stuffing (again getting two things done at once) and it is a yummy departure for the holidays.
3. You want to make a creamy and delicious side, but it needs to be pareve, so that means no butter, no cream, no kidding. You decide to…
A) Bake a potato and steam your veggies
B) Buy an extra challah and serve it as a side dish
C) Try your hand at rich and sumptuous mashed potatoes
Duh, that's an easy one. While baked potato and steamed veggies are a very healthful route, they are boring for the holidays, so I strongly suggest you try a flavor packed mashed potato that can be made ahead and will compliment almost any main course you would want to serve. The trick is to boil your potatoes in chicken or vegetable stock to infuse them with flavor, then mash them with lots of fresh herbs and roasted garlic. You will not miss the cream or butter, nor will your waistline. Try this Creamy Mashed Potato recipel.
4. You want to make 13 desserts and you only have 12 people coming you should
A) Ask your guests with what they might like to finish their meal
B) Make what you are comfortable with and throw in one new recipe just to keep things fresh
C) Keep it simple
If you scratched your head and were a bit perplexed as to the right answer, I can understand why. All the above are good options. I take my guests food habits into consideration. You should know if this is a chocoholic crowd or one that likes to finish with fresh fruit. If your guests are a bit adventurous, dessert is a good time to throw something new in the mix. You can make almost any baked good ahead of time, freeze it and if it doesn't turn out (literally, if it's stuck to the pan and doesn't turn out), you most likely have several other desserts to rely on. But most of all, keep dessert simple. A good meal should be punctuated by a good dessert not ruined by an overly heavy one.
5. Inevitably you have leftovers, you couldn't resist making that brisket or an extra roast chicken. The roast beef leaves you with a few choice slices, you….
A) Invite everyone back for another meal
B) Settle into your food coma and avoid the kitchen
C) Use the leftovers in creative ways
If you answered (A), you should seek medical counseling, if (B) was your answer, you are not alone. But I prefer (C) as the right answer. Leftover brisket can be shredded and added to a meatloaf mix, tomorrow's meatballs or a great chili. Leftover chicken pairs so nicely with tarragon, mayo and green grapes for a light salad and leftover roast beef can be chopped finely and made into a fabulous hash.
I like to call leftovers Bonus Meat, so use them wisely and enjoy the holiday meal again and again.
On a serious note, we welcome the New Year with great anticipation and hope. We look for a year of miracles for ourselves, our family and our global community. We pray for sound leadership, wise choices and the blessing of good health. For me, for the past few years our New Year always begins with our sharing a story from my first book, Recipes Remembered, a Celebration of Survival. We read about a Holocaust survivor who shared their story and recipe with me. We then enjoy their cherished dish that nourished and nurtured their family for generations. This is our way of honoring this remarkable community and preserving food memory. I would encourage you to do the same. The book is available through the Museum of Jewish Heritage who benefits from ALL proceeds. It is also available on line from Amazon and most major booksellers. Recipes Remembered is a perfect example of how to Eat Well-Do Good.
L'Shana Tovah
June Hersh
AKA The Kosher Carnivore


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An important breakthrough in the fight against muscular dystrophies Français
Sep 12, 2012, 09:06 ET
Recent findings by an international collaboration including IRCM researchers hold new implications for the pathogenesis of myotonic dystrophy
MONTREAL, Sept. 12, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - An important breakthrough could help in the fight against myotonic dystrophy. The discovery, recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Cell, results from an international collaboration between researchers at the IRCM, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Southern California and Illumina. Their findings could lead to a better understanding of the causes of this disease.
Myotonic dystrophy (DM), also known as Steinert's disease, is the most common form of muscular dystrophies seen in adults. This disorder is characterized by muscle weakness and myotonia (difficulty in relaxing muscles following contraction). It is a multi-system disease, typically involving a wide range of tissues and muscle.
"We studied a specific family of proteins called muscleblind-like proteins (Mbnl), which were first discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster," says Dr. Éric Lécuyer, Director of the RNA Biology research unit at the IRCM. "These RNA-binding proteins are known to play important functions in muscle and eye development, as well as in the pathogenesis of DM in humans."
Because of the extreme heterogeneity of clinical symptoms, DM has been described as one of the most variable and complicated disorders known in medicine. The systems affected, the severity of symptoms, and the age of onset of those symptoms greatly vary between individuals, even within the same family.
"In patients with DM, levels of Mbnl proteins are depleted to different extents in various tissues," explains Dr. Neal A.L. Cody, postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Lécuyer's laboratory. "These alterations in levels and functions of Mbnl proteins are thought to play an important role in causing the disease."
"The global transcriptome analyses conducted in this study yielded several insights into Mbnl function and established genomic resources for future functional, modeling, and clinical studies," add Drs. Christopher B. Burge and Eric T. Wang from MIT, the researchers who headed the study. "This knowledge will be invaluable in reconstructing the order of events that occur during DM pathogenesis, and could lead to the development of diagnostic tools for monitoring disease progression and response to therapy."
According to Muscular Dystrophy Canada, myotonic dystrophy is the most common form of muscle disease, affecting approximately one person in 8,000 worldwide. However, in Quebec's region of Charlevoix / Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the prevalence is exceptionally high, with one person in 500 affected by the disease. There is no cure for myotonic dystrophy at the present time. Treatment is symptomatic, meaning that problems associated with myotonic dystrophy are treated individually.
About the research project
This research project was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Christopher B. Burge and by an NIH training grant and a Muscular Dystrophy Foundation fellowship to Eric T. Wang. Work conducted by Neal A.L. Cody in Dr. Lécuyer's laboratory was funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé.
The article published in Cell, Transcriptome-wide Regulation of Pre-mRNA Splicing and mRNA Localization by Muscleblind Proteins, was prepared by Eric T. Wang, Thomas T. Wang, Daniel J. Treacy, David E. Housman and Christopher B. Burge from the David K. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Neal A.L. Cody and Éric Lécuyer from the IRCM; Sonali Jog, Michela Biancolella and Sita Reddy from the University of Southern California; and Shujun Luo and Gary P. Schroth from Illumina Inc.
For more information on this scientific breakthrough, please refer to the article summary published online by Cell: http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00885-9.
About Dr. Éric Lécuyer
Éric Lécuyer obtained his PhD in molecular biology from the Université de Montréal. He is an Assistant IRCM Research Professor and Director of the RNA Biology research unit. Dr. Lécuyer is assistant professor-researcher in the Department of Biochemistry at the Université de Montréal. He is also adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Experimental Medicine) at McGill University. Dr. Lécuyer is a research scholar from the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé.
About the IRCM
Founded in 1967, the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) (www.ircm.qc.ca) is currently comprised of 37 research units in various fields, namely immunity and viral infections, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, neurobiology and development, systems biology and medicinal chemistry. It also houses three specialized research clinics, eight core facilities and three research platforms with state-of-the-art equipment. The IRCM employs 425 people and is an independent institution affiliated with the Université de Montréal. The IRCM clinic is associated to the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM). The IRCM also maintains a long-standing association with McGill University.
SOURCE: Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal
For further information:
For more information and to schedule an interview with Dr. Lécuyer, please contact:
Julie Langelier
Communications Officer (IRCM)
[email protected]
(514) 987-5555
Lucette Thériault
Communications Director (IRCM)
[email protected]
(514) 987-5535


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3" DTH Hammers
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UNC researcher: Racial disparities in HIV infection rate are 'indictment' of U.S. response to epidemic
UNC's Dr. Adaora A. Adimora and her fellow researchers examine factors responsible for the stark racial disparities in HIV infection in the U.S. and the now concentrated epidemic among African Americans.
Continuing racial disparities in the HIV infection rate are an "indictment" of the U.S. response to the epidemic, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher writes in a newly published article.
Lead author of the article in the November 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine is Adaora A. Adimora, M.D., M.P.H., professor of infectious diseases in the UNC School of Medicine. Co-authors of the article are Victor J. Schoenbach, Ph.D., associate professor in the UNC Gillings School of Public Health, and Michelle A. Floris-Moore, M.D., clinical assistant professor in the School of Medicine.
"Continuing racial disparities in HIV infection more than 2 decades after the identification of the virus and availability of an accurate test are an indictment of the U.S. response to the epidemic," Adimora wrote. "Existing interventions have failed to control the epidemic in African Americans in part because critical features of the socioeconomic context promote behaviors that transmit HIV and increase the risk of HIV infection even among those who do not have high-risk behaviors."
In the article, Adimora and her fellow researchers examine factors responsible for the stark racial disparities in HIV infection in the U.S. and the now concentrated epidemic among African Americans. HIV prevalence among African Americans is ten times greater than the prevalence among whites. This racial disparity in HIV prevalence has persisted in the face of both governmental and private actions, involving many billions of dollars, to combat HIV.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 45 percent of new HIV infections in the U.S. in 2006 occurred among non-Hispanic blacks. Among the 13,184 adolescents and young adults in The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative study, HIV seroprevalence was almost 0.5 percent among blacks – 20 times that of whites.
While individual-level sexual behaviors can contribute to the disparity in HIV prevalence, these observed differences in individual behaviors do not fully explain the marked racial differences in HIV infection prevalence. Even when comparisons are stratified by education, poverty index, marital status, age at first sexual intercourse, lifetime number of sex partners, history of male homosexual activity, illicit drug use, injection drug use, and HSV-2 antibody positivity, HIV prevalence among African Americans exceeds that of whites, typically substantially.
According to the authors, the overall impact of these factors constitutes "structural violence," a social system characterized by inequalities in power and life…of sufficient magnitude to restrict a group of people from realizing their full potential and put them "in harm's way."
"There is a need for research and interventions that are informed by expertise in public health, medicine, basic science, and social sciences – along with expertise in economics, business and finance, education, criminal justice, political science, and other disciplines … Governments should be held accountable for progress or lack thereof in eliminating inequities," Adimora stated.
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Linke turbidity factor
|Last update: April 2020
The Linke turbidity factor (TL, for an air mass equal to 2) is a very convenient approximation to model the atmospheric absorption and scattering of the solar radiation under clear skies. It describes the optical thickness of the atmosphere due to both the absorption by the water vapor and the absorption and scattering by the aerosol particles relative to a dry and clean atmosphere. It summarizes the turbidity of the atmosphere, and hence the attenuation of the direct beam solar radiation. The larger TL, the larger the attenuation of the radiation by the clear sky atmosphere.
Publications, with - keyword "Linke Turbidity factor": WMO 1981; Kasten 1996, Remund et al. 2003, Diabaté et al. 2003, Rigollier et al. 2000, see also Holben et al. 2001.
The TL denotes the transparency of the cloudless atmosphere. If the sky were perfectly dry and clean, TL would be equal to 1. When the sky is deep blue, the TL is just above 1 and still very small. In summer, in Europe, the water vapour is often large and the blue sky is close to white. The TL is larger than 3. In turbid atmosphere, e.g. in polluted cities, the TL is close to 6 - 7.
2003 Tl values
Within the project SoDa (funded by the European Commission, end: 2003), maps of TL were created for each cell of 5 minutes of arc angle (approx. 10 km at mi-latitudes), worldwide. For each month, we combined TL extracted from radiation data and TL extracted from the SRB gridded data from NASA. More in details, the Linke turbidity is based on several global information from satellites like global clear sky radiation (SRB gridded data from NASA), precipitable water vapour (NVAP), aerosol optical depth (pathfinder) and ground information about turbidity from radiation or aerosol measurements (AERONET). Turbidity has been calculated with beam or global radiation measurements at the ground with help of the ESRA (European Solar Radiation Atlas) clear sky radiation model. Satellite and ground information have been fitted together. In order to cope with the large differences in spatial resolution, fusion methods have been applied on these date together with water vapour maps and orography information.
Errors were assessed by cross-checking (LOOV-Leave One Out Validation) which consists in removing one station (out of approx. 220), making calculation for this site (using the elevation database and not the actual elevation) and computing the discrepancy. The bias was found to be 0.01 and the RMSE 0.73 as an annual average with slight deviations from month to month.
Time series
|A Web interface has been developed to access these monthly climatological values of Tl - Worlwide. Please click on the Launch button to access the interface
Twelve monthly maps of Linke turbidity factor values were created given by latitude and longitude. Latitude is positive North, longitude is positive eastwards of longitude 0. The data are in gridded, raw format, no header (tiff images), 1 byte per value (unsigned int encoding), 2160 rows and 4320 columns. Cell size is 5' (approx. 10 km at mid-latitude). Upper left corner is 90 N, 180 W. Then, point 90 N, 179.5 W etc. Lower right is 90S, 180 E.
Download images in png format: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
Download images in tiff format (zip compressed) by trimesters: 1st trimester, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
|Two representations for January Tl values. Click to magnify


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Fifth time's the charm? Well, maybe not. The new trailer and poster for Scary Movie 5 have just been released, and it definitely begs the question as to why this franchise is even continuing. It does try to remain current with this new trailer, now lampooning Mama and Evil Dead in addition to the first trailer's parodies of Black Swan, Inception, and Paranormal Activity. The new poster is in a similar vein to previous ones, but is definitely relying heavily on the recent success of Mama and the good word-of-mouth for Evil Dead to draw in an audience. I honestly don't think there was ever a point in continuing this series, especially without Anna Faris or Regina Hall, who made it through the first four movies and were always at least moderately funny. The new cast includes Simon Rex (returning but as a new character), Ashley Tisdale, Heather Locklear, Katt Williams, Sarah Hyland, and cameos from Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.
Hit the jump for the new trailer and poster. Scary Movie 5 opens on April 12.
Check out the new trailer below:


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For better or worse, SOA (service-oriented architecture) continues to be the current industry fad. As SOA continues along the "hype curve" (a term I'm borrowing from Gartner), more and more people are starting to realize that SOA isn't a silver bullet, and that it doesn't actually replace n-tier client/server or object-orientation.
What will most likely happen over the next couple years, is that SOA will fall into the "pit of disillusionment" (part of the hype curve, that I think of as the "pit of despair"), and many people will decide, as a result, that it is totally useless. This will happen, not in small part, because some organizations are investing way too much money into SOA now, when it is overly hyped – and they'll feel betrayed when "reality" sets in.
After a period of disrepute, SOA may then rise to a "plateau of productivity", where it will finally be used to solve the problems it is actually good at solving.
Some technologies don't live through the "despair" part of the process. Sometimes the harsh light of reality is too bright, and the technology can't hold up. Other times, a competing technology or concept hits the top of its hype curve, derailing a previous technology. Over the next very few years, we'll see if SOA holds up to the despair or not.
This is a pattern Gartner has observed for virtually all technologies over many, many years. If you think about any technology introduced over the past 20 years or more, almost all of them have following this pattern: over-hyping, over-reacting-to-reality and finally used-as-a-real-solution.
My colleague and mentor, David Chappell, recently blogged about some of the realities people are discovering as they actually move beyond the hype and try to apply SOA. It turns out, not surprisingly, that achieving real benefits in terms of reuse is much harder than the SOA evangelists would have anyone believe.
I think this is because SOA focuses on only one part of the problem: syntactic coupling. SOA, or at least service-oriented design and programming, is very much centered around rules for addressing and binding to services, and around clear definition of syntactic contracts for the API and message data sent to and from services.
And that's all good! Minimizing coupling at the syntactic level is absolutely critical, and SOA has moved us forward in this space, picking up where EAI (enterprise application integration) left off in the 90's.
Unfortunately, syntactic coupling is the easy part. Semantic coupling is the harder part of the problem, and SOA does little or nothing to address this challenging issue.
Semantic coupling refers to the behavioral dependencies between components or services. There's actual meaning to the interaction between a consumer and a service.
Every service implements some tangible behavior. A consumer calls the service, thus becoming coupled to that service, at both a syntactic and semantic level. At the syntactic level, the consumer must use the address, binding and contract defined by the service – all of which are forms of coupling. But the consumer also expects some specific behavior from the service – which is a form of semantic coupling.
And this is where things get very complex. The broader the expected behavior, the tighter the coupling.
As an example, a service that does something trivial, like adding two numbers, is relatively easy to replace with an equivalent. Such a service can even be enhanced to support other numeric data types with virtually no chance of breaking existing consumers. So the semantic coupling between a consumer and such a service is relatively light.
Another example is credit card verification. Obviously the internal implementation of this behavior is much more complex, but the external expectations of behavior remain very limited. Like adding two numbers, verifying a credit card is a behavior that accepts very little data, and returns a very simple result (yes/no).
Contrast this with many other possible business services, such as shipping an order, or generating manufacturing documentation. In these (quite common) scenarios, the service performs, or is expected to perform, a relatively broad set of behaviors. The result is a whole group of effects and side-effects – all of which should be considered as black-box effects by any caller. But the more a service does, the less "black-box" it can be to its callers, and the tighter the coupling.
And this leaves us in a serious quandary. There's a high cost to calling a service. There's a lot of overhead to creating a message, serializing it into text (XML), routing it through some communications stack onto the wire, getting the electrons across the wire through some protocol (probably TCP) and all the attendant hardware involved, picking it up off the wire on the server, routing it through another communications stack, deserializing the text (XML) back into a meaningful message and finally interpreting the message. Only then can the service actually act on the message to do real work.
Worse, that's only half the story, because most people are creating synchronous request/response services, and so that whole overhead cost must be paid again to get the result back to the caller!
Before going further, let me expand on this "overhead cost" concept to be more precise.
I worked for many years in manufacturing. In that industry there's the concept of cost accounting – people make their living at tracking costs. They divide costs into overhead, setup and run (there are other models, but this one's pretty standard).
To make this somewhat more clear, I'll use the metaphor of baking cookies.
Overhead cost are all the salaried people, the buildings, equipment and so forth. Costs that are paid whether widgets are manufactured or not. When baking cookies, this is the cost of having a kitchen, a stove, electricity, natural gas, and of course the person doing the baking. In most homes these costs exist regardless of whether cookies are baked or not.
Setup costs are applied overhead. They are costs that are required to build a set of widgets, but they are only incurred when widgets are being manufactured. These costs include setting up machines, programming devices, getting organized, printing documents, etc. When baking cookies, this is the cost (in terms of time) of getting out the various ingredients, bowls, spoons and other implements. It is also the cost of cleaning up after the baking is done – all the washing, drying and putting-away-of-implements that follows. These costs are directly applied to the process, but are pretty much the same whether you bake one dozen or ten dozen cookies.
Run costs are those costs that are incurred on a per-widget basis to make a widget. This includes the hourly rate of the workers manning the assembly line, the materials that go into the widget and so forth. When baking cookies, this is the time spent by the baker, the cost of the flour, eggs and other ingredients consumed in the process. Ideally it would include the amount of electricity or natural gas used to run the stove as well. Obviously detailed run costs can be hard to determine in some cases!
When calculating the cost of your cookies, each of these three costs is added together. The run rate is easy, as it is per-cookie by definition. The setup rate is variable – the more cookies you make in a batch the lower the relative setup cost, and the fewer cookies the higher the relative setup cost. Overhead is typically aggregated – the annual overhead cost is known, and is divided by the number of cookies (and other things) made over a year's time. Obviously there's lots of wiggle room in this last number.
For my purposes, in discussing services, the overhead rate isn't all that meaningful. In our industry this is the cost of the IT staff, the servers, the server room, electricity and cooling and so forth.
But the setup rate and run rate become very meaningful when talking about services.
Calling a service, as I noted earlier, incurs a lot of overhead. This overhead is relatively constant: you pay about the same whether you send 1 byte or 1024 bytes to or from the service.
The run rate is the actual work done by the service. Once the message is parsed and available to the service, then the service does real, valuable work. This is the run rate for the service.
In manufacturing it is always important to manage the overhead and setup costs – they are a "pure cost". The run rate cost must also be managed, but it is directly applicable to a product, and so that cost can be factored into the price you charge. Perhaps more importantly, your competitors typically have a comparable run rate (materials and labor cost about the same), but the overhead can vary radically.
To switch industries just a bit, this is why Walmart does so well (and is so feared). They have managed their overhead and setup costs to such a degree that they actually do focus on reducing their run rate (in their case, the per-unit acquisition cost of items).
Coming back to services, we face the same issue. Typically we deal with this using intuition rather than thinking it through, but the core problem is very tangible.
Would you call a service to add two numbers? Of course not! The setup/overhead cost would outweigh the run cost to such a degree that this makes no sense at all.
Would you call a service to ship an order, with all the surrounding activities that implies? This makes much more sense. The setup/overhead cost becomes trivial when compared to the run cost for such a service.
And yet coupling has the opposite effect. Which of those services can be more loosely coupled? The addition service of course, because it performs a very narrow, discrete, composable behavior.
Do you even know what the ship-an-order service might do? Of course not, it is too big and vague. Will it trigger invoicing? Will it contact the customer? Will it print pick lists for inventory? Will it update the customer's sales history?
I would hope it does all these things, but very few of us would be willing to blindly assume it does them. And so we are forced to treat ship-an-order as something other than a black box. At best it is gray, but probably downright clear. We'll require that the service's actual behaviors be documented. And then we'll fill in the gaps for what it does not provide, or doesn't provide in a way we like.
(Or, failing to get adequate documentation, we'll experiment with the service, probing to find its effects and side-effects and limitations. And then we'll fill in the gaps for the bits we don't like. Sadly, this is the more common scenario…)
At this point we (the caller of the service) have become so coupled to the service, that any change to the service will almost certainly require a change to our code. And at this point we've lost the primary goal/benefit of SOA.
Why? How can this be, when we're using all the blessed standards for SOA communication? Maybe we're even using an Enterprise Service Bus, or Biztalk Server or whatever the latest cool technology might be. And yet this coupling occurs!
This is because I am describing semantic coupling. Yes, all the cool, whiz-bang SOA technologies help solve the syntactic coupling issues. But without a solution to the semantic, or behavioral, coupling it really doesn't get us very far…
What's even scarier, is that the vision of the future portrayed by the SOA evangelists is one where we build services (systems) that aggregate other services together to provide higher-level functionality. Like assembling simple blocks into more complex creations, that in turn can be assembled into more complex creations or used as-is.
Except that each level of aggregation creates a service that provides broader behaviors – and by extension tighter coupling to any callers (though the setup vs run costs become more and more favorable at the top level).
To bring this (rather long) post to a close, I want to return to the beginning. SOA is heading down the steep slope into the pit of disillusionment. You can head this off for yourself and your organization by realizing ahead of time, right now, that SOA only addresses syntactic issues. You must address the much harder semantic issues yourself.
And the tools exist. They have for a long time. Good procedural design, use of flow charts, data flow diagrams, control diagrams, state diagrams: these are all very valid tools that can help you manage the semantic coupling. Unfortunately the majority of people with expertise in these tools are nearing retirement (or have retired) – but the tools and techniques are there if you can find some old, dusty books on procedural design. Just remember to include the setup/overhead cost vs run cost in your decisions on whether to make each procedure into a "service".
SOA solves some serious and important issues, but it is overhyped. Fortunately the hype is fading, and so we can look forward (perhaps 18 or 36 months) to a time when we can, with any luck, start focusing on the "next big thing". Maybe, just maybe, that "big thing" will be some new and interesting way of addressing semantic coupling.
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Most of you might be familiar with the Symantec's popular anti-virus software, the Norton 360. I've been using the Norton 360 from the last 3 years and I never had a single virus on my desktop and laptop. Earlier this year, Symantec launched a new product, Norton 360 multi-device. It is nothing but the Norton 360 Premier Edition for PC, Norton Internet Security for Mac and Norton Mobile Security for Android devices packed in a single product. Norton 360 multi-device is also called as Norton 360 Everywhere in some countries. It allows you to protect up to 5 device with a single license.
I have installed the Norton 360 multi-device on my laptop powered by Windows 8, desktop PC with Windows 7 and smartphone running on the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS. Some anti-virus software takes more than 10 minutes to install, but Norton didn't take more than 2 minutes to complete the installation. The UI will be quite familiar to those who have previously used the Norton 360. As soon as you start the program, you will be greeted with a start screen as shown below.
The Norton 360 start screen has 4 sections – security, identity, backup and tuneup.
After installing the software, Norton will scan your computer and check for threats. If it does not detect any virus, spyware or other threats, then the security section will marked as 'protected'. Norton 360 protects your important stuff from viruses, spyware and other threats. It not only detects any possible threats from your computer, but also removes them before they can cause problems for you.
The security section allows you to view details regarding the last time you have scanned your computer. It also checks whether the virus and spyware definitions are up to date. If you have not updated the program from a long time, then there is no need to worry. You can just hit the 'Run LiveUpdate' option and the program will automatically check for update and download it within a few seconds.
Norton 360 not only scan your computer for virus and threats, but it also scans your Facebook wall and check whether the shared links are safe from online threats. The 'Quick Scan' option allows you to examine only key areas of your computer. On the other hand, 'Full System Scan' allows you to examine your entire computer and run a file backup. You can also manage your firewall, create custom internet access for individual programs or block all internet traffic from the security section.
The identity section lets you view whether your computer is protected from online threats. It come with the 'Norton Identity Safe', which is nothing but a password manager similar to LastPass and 1Password. It stores your passwords in a secure, cloud-based vault that can be accessed only by you. However, if you forget the password, then there is no way to recover it. We recommend you to use a password hint which can easily remind you of the master password.
Norton Identity Safe allows you to save passwords to the vault, autofill addresses, credit cards and save notes. It keeps your passwords synchronized across different computers, browsers, and mobile devices. It works with Google Chorme, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer on the windows platform. It is also available for OS X, iOS and Android devices. Norton Identity Safe warns you of unsafe sites in your search results and blocks them immediately.
These days identity thieves use SPAM, malicious Web sites, email messages and instant messages to trick people into divulging sensitive information, such as bank and credit card accounts. Norton's Antiphishing component analyzes the security level of the Web sites that you visit and protects you from visiting unsafe Web sites. Norton phishing protection also blocks navigation to the Web sites that are confirmed to be fraudulent.
Norton 360 offers 2 GB of cloud storage, however the Norton 360 Multi-Device comes with 25 GB of online storage. The Backup section allows you to backup all your important files and folders to other location such as external drives, DVDs, USB flash drives, etc. You will need to create a set by specifying the files you want to backup and the external location. The backups will help you to restore all your important files and folders in case your computer hard drive crashes or if you delete something by accident. To restore your files, just hit the 'Restore Files' option and follow the instructions.
The Tuneup section packs some important tools such as Disk Optimization, File Cleanup, Startup Manager and Diagnostic report. The Disk Optimization defragments your hard disk and free up space, while the File Cleanup deletes the temporary files that are left behind after Internet browsing as well as deletes the unnecessary files that are left in Windows Temporary folders after a program has been installed or updated.
The Diagnostic report lets you view the details of the Norton 360 product version, details of the operating system, date installed, country code, version of Internet Explorer, Windows update setup, latest Windows Hotfix date, the operating system user language, system restore points and much more. The Startup Manager helps you to manage and control your startup programs. You can additional use the 'delay start' option to delay the start of a program when you turn on your computer.
Norton Mobile Security:
Norton Mobile Security is available Android smartphones, tablets, iPhone and iPad. It not only protects your smartphones and tablets from malware and viruses, but also protects all your data if the device is accidentally damaged, lost or stolen. We have installed the Norton Mobile Security on our smartphone running on the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS and iPad 3 with iOS 6. You can easily download the lite version of this app from the Google Play Store and upgrade to the full version by using the same product key provided with Norton 360 Multi-Device.
The anti-Malware checks for malware on your device internal storage as well as on the SD card. You can schedule a daily, weekly or monthly scan to detect malware from time to time. The backup feature helps you to backup all your contacts to your Norton account. If your device is lost or the data is deleted due to the OS upgrade, you can easily restore your contact back to your smartphone. Other important feature is call blocking. You can add contact from your call log, sms log, contacts or directly input a phone number to block all the unwanted calls.
The Anti-theft is the most important feature of the Norton Mobile Security. If your smartphone or tablet is lost or stolen, you can easily lock your device to prevent strangers from using it and access your important files, pictures and videos. The Remote wipe feature lets you erase the information on your missing mobile device, including any data on phone memory cards. Sadly, this feature does not work with iPhone and iPad.
The Sneak Peek feature remotely takes a photo to help identify who has your missing device. However, you will need a device with front-facing camera to access this feature. Other useful feature is the Scream alarm, which activates a scream alarm, so you can quickly find your missing mobile device. Last but not the least is the Remote locate, which locates your lost or stolen Android and iOS device on a map to help you find it easily.
I have been using Norton 360 from the last 3 years and I always recommend my friends to get this product as it have never failed to protect my PC. The Norton 360 Multi-Device takes the basic Norton 360 to the next level. I own a Windows laptop, desktop, Android smartphones and iPad. Previously, I had to purchase a seprate license for multiple devices on multiple platforms. However, Norton 360 multi-device solved this problem and allowed me to use a single product key for 5 different devices on multiple platforms.
Norton 360 comes with 2 GB of online storage, however the Norton 360 multi-device offers 25 GB of storage which is extemely useful if you accidentally lose important data from your computer. The only thing I didn't liked about the Norton Mobile Security for ipad is that the Anti-theft feature is not available for Wi-Fi iPads. You are stuck with just contact backup feature. If you are someone like me who owns multiple devices, then I would definitely recommend you to get the Norton 360 Multi-Device.
Norton 360 Multi-Device for up to 3 device is available for Rs.2999.99, while you can purchase the license for up to 5 device at Rs.4189.99. To order the Norton 360 Multi-Device, head over to this page.