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The Fever (Hardcover)
How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
Sarah Crichton Books, 9780374230012, 320pp.
Publication Date: July 6, 2010
In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names—and opened their pocketbooks—in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren't we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we've known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we've invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria's jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.
About the Author
Praise For The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years…
"The Fever is a vivid and compelling history with a message that's entirely relevant today." —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change
"I didn't just read The Fever—I inhaled it. It's a fascinating book, elegantly written and superbly well researched: a poignant and important reminder of malaria's relentless human toll." —Nina Munk, author of Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner
"A thrilling detective story, spanning centuries, about our erratic pursuit of a villain still at large and still a threat to mankind. The Fever is rich in colorful detail and engagingly told. An astonishing array of characters has joined the fray, and you can only be amazed at the deviousness and skill of the archenemy." —Malcolm Molyneux, Professor, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
"Extremely well-researched, The Fever provides a highly gripping account of one of mankind's worst diseases. Highly recommended." —Bart Knols, malariologist and managing director, MalariaWorld.org


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Appartamento in villa id. 64383
Swimming Pool, Parking, Internet, Golf, Television, Satellite TV, Washing machine, Tennis Court
Località Torricelle
The villa is in a little park which offers a condominial swimming pool where you can have a view of the wonderful sea and of the Calabrian hills. The park is in Diamante where you will admire old and new murales and enjoy the typical Chili Pepper Festival on September. This little town is by the Tirreno sea and its beach and the Cirella island form a sea park called Riviera dei Cedri. In Diamante there are a lot of bars, restaurants and nightspots. You can even play some sport in the public park or play tennis at the sports centre. There are some shore equipped for water sports, a golf course and two stables. In Calabria there are also spectacular and wild mountains as the Pollino where you can go rafting, with three levels of difficulty, or the Sila Grande and the Sila Piccola. Directions: by train: Diamante station; by car: A3 and SS18; by plane: Lamezia Terme airport (110 km)

subset: commoncrawl


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Let's Play Make Believe
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
As an atheist I'd go to hell. Hell would consist of Mormon primary school classes until the end of time. <.<
Leonard Nimoy
Live long and prosper.
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
I can really only go by what I know/have been told about the bible, so I assume I'd go to hell. I also would assume everyones hell would be their own personal torture. For me that would be an eternity of digging up a crappy harvest of potatoes. (You know how when the plant looks really good, dies off when it should, then you dig it up and there's two or three tiny little potatoes stuck to the roots? Ya, that's my own personal hell.)
So many cats, so few good recipes.
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
I guess I would go to hell too. And there I would see, like, 90% or more of the human population that died before me, so I guess what it would be like is really crowded.
27-09-2010, 08:16 PM (This post was last modified: 27-09-2010 08:42 PM by No J..)
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
I would go to hell, along with ALL CHRISTIANS. Why all christians? Examine the eight ways that Jesus told various people about what they need to do to go to heaven. If the bible is all true, then it becomes clear that no one can go to heaven. Many of these ways contradict other ways to the degree that it is impossible to be both. How do you honor you father and mother when you have to hate everyone, including yourself? How can you be like a child and more righteous that the pharasis at the same time? Impossible. You must give up all your possessions and follow Jesus. Right. I have yet to meet or hear of anyone who has done that. And what the hell does 'born again' mean, you have to be stuffed back into your mother's womb and pop out again? Oh, I took it out of context. Really. I guess Jesus just makes up new meanings for words to impress or confuse others. You have to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus. Right. You mean to tell me that 2,000 years later there will be any left? Oh, I took that out of context, too. Right. See you in hell.
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
1) I would go to Columbus, Ohio; and
2) it would be far worse than an eternity with your flesh on fire. Far, far worse.
Columbus .... shudder.....
Shackle their minds when they're bent on the cross
When ignorance reigns, life is lost
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
(27-09-2010 04:46 PM)BarleyMcFlexo Wrote: My question is...let's just say that there is a God, and eternal life (in either heaven or hell), and you die as an atheist:
I'll bite. Maybe because I'm so new an atheist I can still remember the mindset well enough to answer.
If there is a god, I would be quite interested to know which god he/she/it is. The probability of him/her/it being your god is only one in several thousand, so I guess I'd want to get to know what he/she/it is all about. Then I'd have lots of questions for he/she/it.
Just out of curiosity, if we substitute any other group for "atheist" would the question change for you? If you died a Muslim, if you died a Buddhist, if you died a Hindu, if you died a Mormon, how would you answer? Would god have mercy on your ignorance or is it only atheists who deserve no mercy?
Since I was previously eastern orthodox christian, I suppose my idea of heaven would have been different from yours even as a christian. Even then I would be surprised if the heaven or hell you speak of would be your heaven or hell. (Especially since the orthodox view of heaven or hell is much, much older than yours.)
I believe sincerely that if there is a heaven, I would go there. I see absolutely no reason why I would not. I live a principled life, I am honest and hard-working, loving, kind and open-minded. I am charitable and giving. I am open to belief if there were evidence for it. My lack of belief doesn't even seem to rule me out if the god I meet there happens to be christian:
"... and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done." Rev. 20:12
I like you, Barley, and I wish there were more like you around.
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
Let's do a switch, Barley. Suppose there is no god:
1) Where do your morals come from?
2) Would you feel lied to by the people who convinced you that there was a god?
28-09-2010, 12:55 AM (This post was last modified: 28-09-2010 01:04 AM by ebilekittae.)
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
Depending on how lenient the god is, I might go to hell. I've been more than selfish, hurtful, and deceitful at times, and "manipulative" would be a nice one-word summation. But I'm good at it (there's pride--add that to the list), so people often don't see me as an offender.
So, based on personal motivation, I'm not a great person. Not a terrible person either, but needless to say far from perfect. So, depending on what the god views as being worthy for eternal punishment, I guess I could see it either way.
Heaven... I would like to imagine it as a "new earth", as I was taught before. An Earth where the god actively intervenes to make the world not so terrible a place, with love and acceptance in abundance.
My version of hell (completely off the top of my head) would be a place of punishment, but by no means as terrible as what most middle-eastern religions prescribe. Something like a prison, I suppose, separated from the ones they love, and made repentant and guilty (which would be no problem for the god to do). Once they reached that state, they could be redeemed and reunited with their loved ones in the "heaven".
Something like that, I guess. I haven't really put too much thought into it.
"It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right." -Kathryn Schulz
I am 100% certain that I am wrong about something I am certain about right now. Because even if everything I stand for turns out to be completely true, I was still wrong about being wrong.
RE: Let's Play Make Believe
Assuming there is a "god", your question fails to clarify just what sort of god this deity is. If the hypothetical god is the one of the bible, then it's clear that I would go straight to hell (for me, that would be Los Angeles) and I'd be subjected to boring weather, smog, earthquakes, fires, landslides, traffic jams, and self-centered movie / TV stars for all of eternity. In other words, eternal torment.
If this deity is something other than the one described in the bible, then ... who knows.
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UTEP Miners Football Tickets
The UTEP Miners are an NCAA football team from the University of Texas at El Paso. Founded in 1914, they have won two conference titles and gone to play 13 post season bowl games. The team plays in the West Division of Conference USA.
The Miners team colors are orange and blue. Their home field is Sun Bowl Stadium.


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Dear Dr. Johnson: Can you tell me exactly what causes hemorrhoids?
There are many theories but no universal agreement about the exact cause or causes of hemorrhoids in any given person. Clearly, increased pressure in the veins of the anal region can contribute to this condition (such as in the case of pregnant women who develop hemorrhoids from the pressure exerted by the fetus).


text: Heat cream and butter until simmering point. Pour over broken chocolate in bowl and combine thoroughly until chocolate melted. Stir in brandy. Chill for 4 hours. Shape into balls and roll in dark drinking chocolate. Please note: this recipe has been created and uploaded by a member of the Tesco Real Food online community. Tesco does not test customer recipes so cannot accept responsibility for the content, validate the results or answer queries regarding them.


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Bedding & Pillows:
Nordstrom at Home "Chloe" duvet cover in white
DKNY hot pink pillows
Kate Spade "Hello" pillow
Greek key pillows by Jill Sorensen, similar here
Leopard pillow by Society Social, similar here
Gold dot pillow by Caitlin Wilson Designs, similar here
Other decor:
Wallflower wall art
Fringe Studio "Best Day Ever" coffee mug
Monogrammed gold jewelry dish
Loloi zebra stripe rug
Sunburst mirror, Home Depot
Mirrored nightstands and lingerie chest, One Kings Lane
Tufted headboard and bed, Joss and Main
Lilac vanity, PB Teen
Design Classics crystal chrome table lamps, Amazon
What I'm wearing:
Free People drape top
Current Elliot distressed jeans
J.Crew tortoise earrings
MAC lipstick in "impassioned"
Let's get started by talking about the bedding... bedding is important because it "anchors" the room, and you will build your color palette around it. I knew I wanted white bedding so that I could easily switch out the pillows when I wanted to change up the look of the room... I love this Chloe duvet cover by Nordstrom at Home - the flower pattern is GORGEOUS in person, and you also don't have to worry about wrinkles! For pillows, I love pattern mixing. Nordstrom has a huge selection of pillows, but I went with hot pink shams, a little leopard, some gold dots, and my favorite pillow of all, the "Hello" pillow by Kate Spade.
For the rest of the furniture, I went with white and mirrored pieces (again, neutrals). One thing worth pointing out - the wallflower wall art above my bed is really inexpensive (only $30) and makes a huge difference in the appearance of a room. Plus they are really easy to adhere to the wall - there's a small sticker on the back of each one, so you don't need any additional tools to hang them up. Nordstrom also has some really great wall art & mirrors - and they offer free shipping!
SO that's it, y'all! If you have any questions, let me know in the comments. Also - if you like my apartment posts, let me know so that I can work on some more!


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Kule is a CSS framework, working for reducing duplicate CSS design during development.The whole Library contain 8 CSS files, include the major named kule.css and the others are kule-addons.css, kule-grid.css, kule-responsive.css, kule-jquery-ui.css, kule-jquery-plugins.css, kule-iconfonts.css, kule-hack.css. Kule include module, color management. when create new component, you could style component by way of kule module and color management to make more complex style. There are tow parts , CI and event , contain in color.
Take Kule css files to your project folder and link it. EX:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="yourpath/kule.css" />.
is a web designer/developer from Taipei Taiwan.


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Retailer opening times may vary, please see details on individual retailer pages.
With over 40 stores and cafes, Woolshops Shopping Centre in Halifax has a fantastic fashion, caf├® culture and local independent business offering. Woolshops is located just a short walk from Halifax railway station, bus station, and has direct access car parking for over 300 vehicles.
We use cookies to improve our website and your experience when using it. Cookies used for the essential operation of this site have already been set. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, see our privacy policy.


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Saxophonist ushers in Santa at NYC Parade
For years, the Engle family would get up early on Thanksgiving Day, pop cinnamon rolls in the oven and enjoy them as they watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television.
This year, an absence will be felt at the Engle household. Wapakoneta High School 2011 graduate Justin Engle will not be making the trip home from Oxford where he is a student at Miami University.
This year, the 19-year-old Miami Uni-
versity Marching Band member will be playing the tenor saxophone and actually marching in the holiday parade in New York City, as he and his band mates usher in Santa Claus.
"This has been a dream of mine for a long time," Engle said, noting the years spending time with his family watching the parade on television. "The fact that it is actually here is kind of overwhelming and I am not really sure what to think about it."
The Miami University Marching Band was one of 10 bands throughout the nation to be tabbed to participate in the 85th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The 257-member band is slated to play "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," as it leads Santa Claus' float along the two-mile route.
"For generations the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been one of the most iconic events and a magical start of the holiday season," Miami University Marching Band Director Stephen Lytle said. "We are extremely proud and honored to return to New York not only to be in the parade, but to once again usher in Santa Claus.
"The band is working very hard not only to represent Miami on a national stage but to keep up our support of Miami athletics and the Oxford community," he said.
This is the second time Miami has appeared in the parade, with the first coming in 2003.
"We are thrilled Miami University Marching Band will be joining the Macy's Parade family," Wesley Whatley, associate creative director of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, told Miami University for a news release. "They have shown us that they know how to please a crowd and create excitement. We are sure that they will be a hit with millions of parade spectators."
The band is set to join a line-up of performers, Macy's employees, floats and helium-filled balloons for the parade scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Thursday and to be aired on NBC. During its Thanksgiving Day performance, the band also will alternate between the Miami University fight song, "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix and "Ain't Nothing Wrong with That" by Robert Maynard, a news release from the university said.
The band left the university on Tuesday and is expected to return to Oxford on Saturday.
More than 150 bands submitted applications to be involved in the parade, but the Miami University Marching Band proved to be superior in their musical ability, marching technique and performance skills.
The band received its invitation in early 2010 and learned in October they would be the "Santa band." The band, along with more than 8,000 parade participants, will play in front of an estimated 3.5 million spectators along the parade route through Manhattan and more than 50 million viewers.
Engle visited Miami University during a tour his junior year of high school and even then he knew he wanted to be a member of a college marching band. But he said he wasn't completely sure of his decision until he sat and talked with Lytle.
Engle shared his discussions with Lytle regarding the band convinced him to consider and ultimately select Miami University to pursue his degree in middle childhood education, specializing in science and social studies.
"He said the program is a great program," Engle said. "Then I mentioned I played tenor saxophone and he said, 'That's great because we never really have tenor saxophone.' So since then I pretty much had it in my head I was going to march here."
Engle, who plays the tenor saxophone for the Miami University Marching Band, is also proficient at playing many instruments.
He also plays bassoon, bass guitar and baritone saxophone, but he started with the clarinet in the fifth grade.
"I always wanted to play bassoon as long as I can remember so I switched to bassoon in the seventh grade, but the problem came with marching band," Engle said. "You can't march with a bassoon, so I had to switch back to clarinet.
"During my junior year, a friend of mine, who plays tenor saxophone, convinced me to play that instead of clarinet," he said of his friend, Abbi White-Smallwood.
The change in instruments may have opened the door to being on TV as opposed to watching it this year.
The son of Ellen and Michael Engle said he learned of the invitation extended to Miami University by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade during a visit in May 2010.
"I told my parents and they were pretty surprised and shocked, but I don't think it really sank in for any of us until this year," Engle said. "Once band camp rolled around, we thought, 'Holy Cow, we are going to the Macy's Parade this year.' "
And this year, his parents and his younger sister, Erin, 14, may have to forgive him for not making it home Thursday to share cinnamon rolls in front of the television to watch the parade — but it doesn't mean they won't look forward to seeing him.
He will actually be a there in person.


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ESCP Europe prides itself on offering our students an education that moves far beyond the traditional lecture hall set-up, and nothing embodies this better than the simulation run in our Trading Room.
The first of its kind at any business school in the London area, this active-learning facility is exclusive to the London campus.
Trading Room workshops are an integral part of all programmes hosted at the School, from undergraduate and postgraduate Masters, right through to our European Executive MBA. In addition to this, we host regular extra-curricular sessions with external partners and offer use of the facilities to visiting study groups. All of these activities combined allow more than 300 students each year the opportunity to experience first-hand the dynamics of the financial market.
The City of London is one of the world's major financial centres; our Trading Room means ESCP Europe can bring the City to our students in a realistic and engaging fashion that stays with them far beyond their time with us.
If you would like to book a session in the Trading Room for non-ESCP Europe students, please contact Francesco Morrone.
To find out more about what the facility offers in an academic sense, please contact Terence Tse, an Associate Professor of Finance here at the London campus.
"Because I have never studied economics or finance before, this trading floor simulation was completely new to me. I feel like I've learned so much more than I would have in a normal lecture because the learning process went through experimentation and adaptation processes according to the results we got. It also seemed realistic and gave me a taste of what it would actually be like to be a trader. Maybe I won't dismiss this career so quickly after all..."
"I think the most interesting aspect of using the Trading Room is the realism. Because we are not alone in the room, we feel the competition and the tension, which makes us concentrate even more on what we are doing. We are completely focused and able to learn so much faster because of it."
"The simulation was really useful because it allowed us to experience complex market dynamics in a simplified scenario."
"It's really interesting to be in 'competition' with twenty other students. You know that any decision you make will have an effect on the market and other traders."
"It's a great way to get an insight into how the financial market actually works. Learning by doing made the class really interesting. It also showed how exciting it is to be a trader!"


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Sponsored By
Franklin Regional HS Band To March In Macy's Thanksgiving Day ParadeA high school marching band from southwestern Pennsylvania is getting a big holiday season honor.
Complete Holiday Recipe Guide: Appetizers, Desserts & MoreFor your complete holiday recipe guide, consider items that would work for all the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day.
Police: Woman Killed Thanksgiving Dinner Guest For Smoking Crack, Not Offering Her AnyA Minneapolis woman is accused of killing a man at Thanksgiving because he wouldn't share his crack pipe with her.
Thousands Spend Black Friday Packing Meals For Families In NeedThousands of people filled the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on Friday to pack meals for local families in need.
Black Friday Shopping A Yearly Tradition For Local FamiliesFor Neill Brady and his bunch, getting up to go Black Friday shopping has become a tradition.
What NHL Teams Are Thankful ForIt's that time of the year when we reflect on what we're thankful for. We guessed what some NHL teams would say if asked that question.
Food Pantry Provides Thanksgiving Meals After Robbery, Seeking DonationsA food pantry in Beaver County is seeking donations after police say a suspect broke in and stole hundreds of dollars worth of food.
What Each MLB Team Is Thankful ForIt's that time of the year when we reflect on what we're thankful for in our lives. We tried to guess what each MLB team would say if asked that question.
What Each NFL Team Is Thankful ForIt's that time of the year when we reflect on what we're thankful for. We guessed what each NFL team would say if asked that question.
What Each NBA Team Is Thankful ForWith Thanksgiving in mind, we take a shot at coming up with one thing each NBA franchise should be thankful for at the moment.
'Always Give': Restaurant Owner Makes It Her Mission To Feed The Homeless On ThanksgivingMs. Jean, of Jean's Southern Cuisine in Wilkinsburg, opens her restaurant doors every year at Thanksgiving to those less fortunate.
Kidsburgh: Family-Friendly Ways To Volunteer This ThanksgivingThanksgiving is a perfect time to teach kids about giving back.


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My Depression Was the Worst It Has Ever Been During My Pregnancy
What is a time of joy for many women was my darkest hour.
The first time I took antidepressants, it was 2007. I perked up a bit on the Zoloft, lost a little weight and flitted around feeling what it was like to have that soft ego blunt that comes with the right psychotropic cocktail. It was almost like having a little buzz on, which I was prepared for because the psychiatrist said that if I liked feeling a little drunk because my critic-brain shut off -- which I told her I did -- then the effect could almost be similar.
A friend of mine who had similar depression and anxiety had prepared me for this years ago. She said not to be so afraid of antidepressants because really all they did was "take the edge off."
Still, I was terrified to let any drug dare interact with my rare singular special sunflower talents and personality -- even if I was miserable a lot of the time.
But the sadness got a little socially awkward at a certain point.
I cried and cried on doctor's table after doctor's table. Phone numbers were slipped to me by many, urging me to see this or that psychiatrist who was just so great. Really! She can help you.
She can help people like you.
Ugh, is there anything more brandishing tarnishing stigmatizing?
Years before, around 2004, when I was getting divorced, I appeared such a mess that my primary care physician practically shoved some sample Lexapro down my throat, but when I did finally comply and get the prescription he gave me filled later that day, I read all about the interactions and warnings and terrifying Internet things online, and proceeded to flush all the pills down the toilet.
You won't get me, Big Pharma! I thought proudly.
I've always been both scared and wary of psychotropic drugs. Not because I don't think they can do a lot of good for a lot of people -- including me, especially me -- but because I do think that we are over-medicated as a society and I do think that the pharmaceutical industry is about as corrupt as they come in pushing pills where side effects are shrugged off by groovy "it's very rare, no worries" doctors.
Sure, it's rare. Sure, I'm probably not going to be one of those nightmare cases where the person detoxes off of Paxil and then suddenly finds that she can't stop sticking out her tongue like a lizard uncontrollably (boy, if you had social anxiety before, huh?). But all the same, it was not a decision that I took lightly. Or wanted to face at all.
To me, rattling pill bottles sounds a little too much like home.
See, I grew up around a lot of psychotropic drugs. My mom has depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, and I've watched since I was a young age all the different effects various drugs have had on her. I've watched her as she lay in bed for hours on end, and I've resolved to myself I never wanted to lay in bed for hours on end.
She will die inside when I read this aloud to her to make sure it is OK to publish this before I do, but we've had a back and forth tug-of-war about me writing about her OCD before, and as long as I do not sensationalize it, she usually consents ("Mandy," she has said in the past, "when I would obsessively wash my hands I did not do it until the skin bled. That's just you trying to make it more exciting.")
All I knew is that I never wanted to be a zombie. Not that my mom was a zombie. Really. She's not. ("Oh sure, adding the 'Really, she's not,' is going to make a big difference in what people think, Mandy," my mom says when I read those particular qualifiers aloud to her. At this point, the two of us starting cracking up into hysterics at the absurdity horror insanity of it all. My mom adds rather soberly in between all of our laughter-to-the-point-of-tears: "I do think this is really healthy for you to write this, Mandy." I agree.)
So my mom, when it comes right down to it, is someone who has been pretty medicated most of the years that I have known her.
Sometimes that has felt scary because I didn't feel like I could reach her. When I was younger, even before I had a real handle on the whole MD-prescribed drugs, I remember finding marijuana in the fridge and sobbing uncontrollably because of the programming of my D.A.R.E. classes afraid that she would be carted away by the police -- forever, but she did eventually stop that.
Still, it wasn't before a certain level of shock and crazy was always acceptable in my household and from her in particular. "What are you going to do? What are you going to do before the parent-teacher conference?" I remember asking annoyingly when I was in middle school as I've always been pretty annoying and insatiable (I was listening to someone who would. not. stop. with the questions on the subway the other day and thought: Jesus, I'm exhausting.)
My mom told little middle-school me, "I'm going to smoke a joint and then masturbate."
Oh, Christ. That shut me up.
I was always so mortified to be alive in this world with truths like that. My mom, my parents: Pushers of the boundaries, always. "I raised you to feel like you were always part of one big encounter group," my mom told me years later. It all made horrifying, exhilarating, boundary-less sense.
Of course, I love my childhood, my mom, blah blah blah, be sure to take care of your parents' feelings, Mandy.
But it was not always the easiest in terms of feeling like I was operating in the land of the sane and the dependable.
My mom's drugs sometimes just felt like they exacerbated this. Not the marijuana, which was out of the picture pretty soon once I was into high school -- and then by this time they found me smoking a joint and said I couldn't go to college and then I coined the term "hippie-crite" -- but the other drugs. The legal ones. The Prozac-BuSpar-Trazodone-everything-whatever-OCD-pharmaceutical mix. It was always in progress. It was always there. She was always being experimented on like a lab animal.
I don't know which I thought came first: the depression or the pharmaceuticals, but I knew that to acknowledge that this was an area that I too struggled with was to put me squarely in the same camp with an area that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.
Please, God, I wanted to be normal.
Did I mention my parents had a personalized license plate on their red Honda that read: "Why be normal?" Yes. Yes, they did.
The defining moment that solidified my hatred of pharmaceutical drugs was when I was about in the 4th grade. I had this surgery called "sternum excavatum," where they adjust a concave chest, and I remember being terrified out of my mind, crying out to my mother, and she was too zonked out on whatever meds she was on to even hear me. God, I resented her medication.
By the time I crawled into the psychiatrist's office and finally was convinced to give them a try, I felt so hopeless I would have tried heroin. Granted, a big part of the reason was that I really needed a good talk therapist to help me sort out the traumatic events of the past few years -- my parents' divorce, my divorce, my parents' subsequent remarriage to each other, moving to a new city, starting a new job -- and the binge drinking and eating I did as a substitute wasn't quite as effective as you'd think it'd be.
"You shouldn't take medication if you have your own stigma against it," the psychiatrist advised. The reverse psychology worked. I didn't say it, but I remember thinking, "Oh just give me the damn drugs already."
I liked what Zoloft did. I like what it has done. If anything, it has shown me that I don't have to be so wrapped up in my head, in the obsessive thinking and perfectionism that can be debilitating. I saw that I could maybe just be. Just, you know, relax. Sure, I blacked out when I drank with it, but when I got sober in 2010, that wasn't a factor. And then I got off them again. And then I got on them again. It was confusing because I really didn't want to be in my job anymore at that point, and I think in a way, the Zoloft helped cushion against my rage and frustration (which, yes, were absolutely and totally first-world problems -- how lucky I was to have a job, I do realize).
Since that first dose in 2007, in the six years that have followed I've gone off antidepressants a few times. The last time was after I left The Post in 2012, and I knew that I would be on COBRA for a while so I thought: Why not give it a shot?
I ended up getting back on Zoloft when I found myself weeping uncontrollably in a Starbucks. Yes, my life was nuts then -- I had moved from New York to LA to San Diego and everything was topsy turvy, but it was a good Band-Aid at the time, especially when I couldn't afford talk therapy.
I remained on them when I started xoJane, and a year ago, I was having a really hard time in my life when I had to find a new apartment, my love life (and friend life, honestly) was fairly crap and I found myself staying in bed, sleeping in my coat, and occasionally venturing into the city to go to an AA meeting so that I could hopefully have some human contact in the form of a hug. The psychiatrist I was seeing told me it sounds like I was in the throes of a major depressive episode and to see if increasing my dosage would help.
It did. She added Wellbutrin and increased the Zoloft.
But the past year, I've felt run-down physically. My psychiatrist just switched me to Prozac and Wellbutrin, but I don't know, it all feels the same: tired and run-down. I need to figure something else out.
Whenever I see my acupuncturist (who saved my health -- she was the only person to get my period back after I had stress-induced amenorrhea for six months in 2005 following my divorce), she always tells me when she sees me that my liver is my main issue, and obviously, I know that antidepressants are very hard on your liver. It's always a trade-off with these things.
She hasn't advised me to get off anti-depressants as she is also a realist. But I want to see how it plays out -- now that I'm ensconced again in talk therapy that I can feel is helping.
I want to see if some of the energy I desire will be found if I taper off the antidepressants again. Because, honestly, that will make me very happy.
But, to be clear, I also know: It's not worth having a small measure of more energy or a cushier liver if overall my mood crashes and I'm so depressed I don't think I can function.
If that's the case, I will go back on -- and perhaps seek out an option that is not as hard on the liver.
Now, full disclosure: I hesitated even writing this because whenever you give the public personal details about your life, you risk having to deal with comments or blame being assigned to the personal details you have provided. "You're being kind of a bitch. Do you think it's because you're not taking antidepressants anymore?" "Calm down, calm down. Take a pill." "I think you were better at writing/comedy/friendship/work/editing/interviewing/dating/being a daughter when you were taking Zoloft."
But the positive change I'm seeing in my life overall -- something that has been on an uptick swing fairly consistently over the years in my 30s -- is just caring less about everyone and everything. As in: It's easier to not care if I do get that kind of flack from anyone.
Of course, I'm a human being, and I want to be liked and loved, but that severe inner-worth-contingency-depending-on-value-accorded-from-others seems to lessen every day. Part of it is age, part of it is having spun around the block a bit professionally and personally, and a big part of it is recognizing how the only pleasure that I'm guaranteed in life is that of my own making and choosing. No one is going to choose or pick or save me -- ever. It's always up to me, just as my health is up to me.
Now that I'm back in talk therapy, I can feel the weight lifted off of me as tears come out as I talk about grief and frustration and anger. I feel more of a lightness about my life in general. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's sad. Sometimes it's blissful. Sometimes it's happy. But I feel connected and alive and in perspective.
Let me be clear: I am a fan of antidepressants. Of "better living through pharmaceuticals" as is the snappy way to say it. In fact, I always point to Sarah Silverman's line about Zoloft when she compares her depression to someone who has, say, diabetes. You would never ask a person with diabetes when or if they were going to get off their diabetes medication. It is just accepted. It is a condition with which the medication helps. End of story.
But I think that antidepressants are an incredibly personal area. I think medicine is not at all black and white, and I'm a big believer in embracing Western medicine wholeheartedly -- while also embracing the National Institutes of Health-supported methodologies of the East (like Chinese herbology and acupuncture).
I think psychotropic drugs are like anything: Intelligent when used wisely. But I also think that it's important to constantly assess and monitor what seems to be working for you -- and experiment with how you might be able to tune up your life better.
That's my philosophy with a lot of things in life, actually. Don't be so quick to fully accept or reject anything. God and spirituality? I'm open and a believer, but I'm also not a lemming and always maintain a highly critical eye. Science? It is what I trust more than anything, but I also recognize that it is conducted by good old fallible mankind. Terrible, terrible things have been done to humans and humanity in the name of both science and religion.
And, in terms of monitoring myself and my mental health, I also don't fully trust anyone or anything -- especially just relying on my own opinion. I think it is very important to have people around you who will be brutally honest with you. Not co-workers, not fake-friends, not acquaintances, but people who know you and love you whether you have $2 in your pocket or $2 million. People who I try to extend the same courtesy to in return.
It is that circle of people, along with the medical professionals I trust, who can help me maneuver these tricky waters, no one else. And I feel good about doing so with their love by my side.
"By the way," my mom interrupts me as I read her the entirety of this piece. "I have the ending to your story."
"What's that?" I ask her.
"Well, it turns out: I actually haven't taken anything for a while either, because the pharmacy was out of the medicine I had been taking that my very young psychiatrist resident prescribed me -- you know, he's so young I call him 'Dr. Littleboy' -- and that was Wellbutrin that I was on last. So I just said, screw it, and I stopped taking it. So far, so good."
"Mom, you know, I have some Wellbutrin left over," I tell her. "Do you want me to send it to you?
My mom laughs again, which gets me laughing, and it's hard for the two of us to stop.
"No, Mandy!" she says. "What kind of a dope-ring family is this?"
No one makes me laugh like her -- and, down to every last detail of my childhood, I really am so proud she is my mother.
Now: Let the tapering begin.
Find Mandy long-form at http://tinyurl.com/stadtmiller.


text:
Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water
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National Geographic: The Green Guide
From childhood, we're told to drink at least eight glasses of water each day. Unfortunately more and more Americans drink those eight glasses out of plastic bottles—a convenience that stuffs landfills, clogs waterways and guzzles valuable fossil fuels.
Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it is, in fact, no safer or cleaner.
Water aside, the plastic used in both single-use and reusable bottles can pose more of a contamination threat than the water. A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are reused, which they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disrupter.
While single-use water bottles should never be used more than once, some reusable water bottles simply shouldn't be used. The debate continues over the safety of bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical known to leach out of the #7 polycarbonate plastic used to make a variety of products.
Yale University – e360 digest
06.20.08: Extreme Weather Events
Will Plague U.S. in Future, Report Says
A government report, synthesizing more than 100 academic papers, forecasts that as the world warms, the United States will be subject to prolonged droughts, heat waves and more frequent downpours like the recent ones that have left much of the Midwest under water. Issued by the U.S. Climate Science Program, the report forecasts that by mid-century, heat waves that now occur once every 20 years will take place once every three years. Extremely heavy rain storms that now occur once every two decades will occur once every five years, causing major flooding in different regions, according to the report. It also said that the southwestern United States will likely experience more droughts. The full report is available here.
Yale University – e360 digest
06.24.08: Hansen Urges Drastic Action
and Says Energy CEOs Guilty of "High Crimes"
NASA climate scientist James Hansen has told a House committee that the United States must lead the world in swiftly passing "transformative" climate change legislation or face disastrous environmental consequences this century, including a probable sea level rise of at least two meters and mass extinctions. Speaking exactly 20 years after first warning the U.S. Congress of the dangers of global warming, Hansen — director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences — also said that the heads of oil and coal companies who spread doubt about global warming and resist efforts to move to a carbon-free economy "should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature." Hansen called on Congress to approve sweeping climate change legislation in the next year that would include a tax on carbon and would phase out coal-burning power plants by 2025, unless they employ carbon sequestration technology.
Climate Change Forces Plants Higher: Study
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Rain clouds shroud a forest near the western Austrian city of Dornbirn, June 12, 2007. Rising temperatures have forced many plants to creep to higher elevations to survive, researchers reported on Thursday. REUTERS/Miro Kuzmanovic
By Michael Kahn
LONDON, June 27, 2008 (Reuters) — Rising temperatures have forced many plants to creep to higher elevations to survive, researchers reported on Thursday.
More than two-thirds of the plants studied along six West European mountain ranges climbed an average of 29 meters in altitude in each decade since 1905 to better conditions on higher ground, the researchers reported in the journal Science.
"This is the first time it is shown that climate change has applied a significant effect on a large set of forest plant species," said Jonathan Lenoir, a forest ecologist at AgroParisTech in France, who led the study.
"It helps us understand how ecosystems respond to temperature changes."
Earlier this week, U.S. researchers warned warming temperatures could turn many of California's native plants into "plant refugees" looking for more suitable habitats.
They concluded that a warming climate and rainfall changes would force many of the U.S. state's native plants to range north or to higher elevations or possibly even go extinct in the next 100 years.
The French team's findings suggest plants at high altitudes face the same or greater impacts from rising temperatures, Lenoir said in a telephone interview.
"Plant species move where it is optimal for them to grow," Lenoir said. "If you change these optimal conditions, species will move to recover the same conditions."
Using database on plant species found at specific locations and elevations stretching back to 1905, the researchers showed many plants have steadily crept higher to conditions best suited for survival and growth.
Plants move higher by dispersing their seeds in the wind, which blows them to higher elevations and cooler temperatures similar to their former location, Lenoir said.
The researchers tracked 171 forest plant species during two periods — between 1905 and 1985, and from 1986 to 2005 — along the entire elevation range from sea level to 2,600 meters.
They found that two-thirds of the plants responded to warming temperatures over that time by shifting to higher altitudes.
Plants at higher altitudes also appear most sensitive to warmer conditions because slight temperature changes at higher altitudes have a bigger impact, he added.
The Power and Importance of Water
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Water Scarcity: The Real Food Crisis
In the discussion of the global food emergency, one underlying factor is barely mentioned: The world is running out of water. A British science writer, who authored a major book on water resources, here explores the nexus between water over consumption and current food shortages.
by fred pearce
After decades in the doldrums, food prices have been soaring this year, causing more misery for the world's poor than any credit crunch. The geopolitical shockwaves have spread round the world, with food riots in Haiti, strikes over rice shortages in Bangladesh, tortilla wars in Mexico, and protests over bread prices in Egypt.
The immediate cause is declining grain stocks, which have encouraged speculators, hoarders, and panic-buyers. But what are the underlying trends that have sown the seeds for this perfect food storm?
Biofuels are part of it, clearly. A quarter of U.S. corn is now converted to ethanol, powering vehicles rather than filling stomachs or fattening livestock. And the rising oil prices that encouraged the biofuels boom are also raising food prices by making fertilizer, pesticides, and transport more expensive.
But there is something else going on that has hardly been mentioned, and that some believe is the great slow-burning, and hopelessly underreported, resource crisis of the 21st century: water.
Climate change, overconsumption and the alarmingly inefficient use of this most basic raw material are all to blame. I wrote a book three years ago titled When The Rivers Run Dry. It probed why the Yellow River in China, the Rio Grande and Colorado in the United States, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus in Pakistan, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and many others are all running on empty. The confident blue lines in a million atlases simply do not tell the truth about rivers sucked dry, for the most part, to irrigate food crops.
We are using these rivers to death. And we are also pumping out underground water reserves almost everywhere in the world. With two-thirds of the water abstracted from nature going to irrigate crops — a figure that rises above 90 percent in many arid countries — water shortages equal food shortages.
Consider the two underlying causes of the current crisis over world food prices: falling supplies from some of the major agricultural regions that supply world markets, and rising demand in booming economies like China and India.
Why falling supplies? Farm yields per hectare have been stagnating in many countries for a while now. The green revolution that caused yields to soar 20 years ago may be faltering. But the immediate trigger, according to most analysts, has been droughts, particularly in Australia, one of the world's largest grain exporters, but also in some other major suppliers, like Ukraine. Australia's wheat exports were 60 percent down last year; its rice exports were 90 percent down.
Why rising demand? China has received most of the blame here — its growing wealth is certainly raising demand, especially as richer citizens eat more meat. But China traditionally has always fed itself — what's different now is that the world's most populous country is no longer able to produce all its own food.
A few years ago, the American agronomist and environmentalist Lester Brown wrote a book called Who Will Feed China?: Wake Up Call for a Small Planet. It predicted just this. China can no longer feed itself largely because demand is rising sharply at a time when every last drop of water in the north of the country, its major breadbasket, is already taken. The Yellow River, which drains most of the region, now rarely reaches the sea, except for the short monsoon season.
Fred Pearce
China's once-great Yellow River often no longer reaches the sea, as much of it is drawn off for power and agriculture.
Some press reports have recently suggested that China is being sucked dry to provide water for the Beijing Olympics. Would that it were so simple. The Olympics will require only trivial amounts of water. China's water shortages are deep-seated, escalating, and tied to agriculture. Even hugely expensive plans to bring water from the wetter south to the arid north will only provide marginal relief.
The same is true of India, the world's second most populous country. Forty years ago, India was a basket case. Millions died in famines. The green revolution then turned India into a food exporter. Its neighbor Bangladesh came to rely on India for rice. But Indian food production has stagnated recently, even as demand from richer residents has soared. And the main reason is water.
Fred Pearce
Even this elaborate hand-dug well in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is dry, a result of over-pumping the underground aquifers.
With river water fully used, Indian farmers have been trying to increase supplies by tapping underground reserves. In the last 15 years, they have bought a staggering 20 million Yamaha pumps to suck water from beneath their fields. Tushaar Shah, director of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater research station in Gujarat, estimates those farmers are pumping annually to the surface 100 cubic kilometers more water than the monsoon rains replace. Water tables are plunging, and in many places water supplies are giving out.
"We are living hand-to-mouth," says D.P. Singh, president of the All India Grain Exporters Association, who blames water shortages for faltering grain production. Last year India began to import rice, notably from Australia. This year, it stopped supplying its densely populated neighbor Bangladesh, triggering a crisis there too.
Fred Pearce
Underground water is pumped for irrigation in Bengal, India, a practice that is increasing as surface water dries up.
More and more countries are up against the limits of food production because they are up against the limits of water supply. Most of the Middle East reached this point years ago. In Egypt, where bread riots occurred this spring, the Nile River no longer reaches the sea because all its water is taken for irrigation.
A map of world food trade increasingly looks like a map of the water haves and have-nots, because in recent years the global food trade has become almost a proxy trade in water — or rather, the water needed to grow food. "Virtual water," some economists call it. The trade has kept the hungry in dry lands fed. But now that system is breaking down, because there are too many buyers and not enough sellers.
According to estimates by UNESCO's hydrology institute, the world's largest net supplier of virtual water until recently was Australia. It exported a staggering 70 cubic kilometers of water a year in the form of crops, mainly food. With the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's main farming zone, virtually dry for the past two years, that figure has been cut in half.
The largest gross exporter of virtual water is the United States, but its exports have also slumped as corn is diverted to domestic biofuels, and because of continuing drought in the American West.
The current water shortages should not mark an absolute limit to food production around the world. But it should do three things. It should encourage a rethinking of biofuels, which are themselves major water guzzlers. It should prompt an expanding trade in food exported from countries that remain in water surplus, such as Brazil. And it should trigger much greater efforts everywhere to use water more efficiently.
On a trip to Australia in the midst of the 2006 drought, I was staggered to see that farmers even in the most arid areas still irrigate their fields mostly by flooding them. Until the water runs out, that is. Few have adopted much more efficient drip irrigation systems, where water is delivered down pipes and discharged close to roots. And, while many farmers are expert at collecting any rain that falls on their land, they sometimes allow half of that water to evaporate from the surfaces of their farm reservoirs.
For too long, we have seen water as a cheap and unlimited resource. Those days are coming to an end — not just in dry places, but everywhere. For if the current world food crisis shows anything, it is that in an era of global trade in "virtual water," local water shortages can reverberate throughout the world — creating higher food prices and food shortages everywhere.
Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He is environment consultant for New Scientist magazine and author of recent books When The Rivers Run Dry and With Speed and Violence (Beacon Press). His next, Confessions of an Eco Sinner, is published in the fall. Fred has traveled to 64 countries reporting on environmental and development issues in the past two decades. He is also a regular public speaker and has presented on his books in all six populated continents in the past year. Next stop, he says: Antarctica.
Harnessing the Beauty and Power of Water
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Four Waterfalls For New York From A Danish Master
Mr. Elliasson's waterfall installation was tested for the first time in pre-dawn light on Tuesday, June 24th, two days before the official launch of the exhibit.
Photo: Vincent Laforet for The New York Times
The artist Olafur Eliasson's much-publicized initiative cost $15 million. It will appear from June 26 to Oct. 13 and run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
City officials and the Public Art Fund say that no city money is being used to pay for the waterfalls, with all of the funds coming from foundations, corporations and private supporters.
Photo: Bernstein Photography/ Courtesy Public Art Fund
By Carol Vogel, June 24, 2008, The New York Times – On an unusually cold and rainy spring afternoon, Olafur Eliasson was huddled under a large umbrella in Lower Manhattan gazing down the East River toward Governors Island.
"You could be in Sweden or Denmark," he said of the gray, even light. "Fog makes everything more explicit. See how Governors Island fades in the rain?"
It seemed fitting that Mr. Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist who is world-famous for creating his own weather systems, was enveloped in a misty landscape that could well have been of his own making.
He had traveled straight from the airport to Pier 35 on the East River after flying in from his home and studio in Berlin. He has been a familiar presence at the site for the last several months, having visited every two weeks to check on the progress of his "New York City Waterfalls."
His much-publicized $15 million initiative is to create four waterfalls ranging from 90 to 120 feet in height that will appear from June 26 to Oct. 13 and run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. In addition to the waterfall at Pier 35, just north of the Manhattan Bridge, there will be one in Brooklyn at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, another between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and a fourth on the north shore of Governors Island.
Organized by the nonprofit Public Art Fund and the city of New York, it is being billed as the city's biggest public art project since "The Gates," the $20 million effort by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude in which 7,500 gates festooned with saffron-colored fabric panels were positioned along Central Park's pathways for 16 days in 2005.
It is also Mr. Eliasson's first public art project in New York. When he proposed the idea to the Public Art Fund, Susan K. Freedman, the organization's president, decided that such an undertaking could be accomplished only with the city's heft behind it. "It was too ambitious," she said. "This has been two intense years of getting permits and making sure it was environmentally safe."
Altogether, at least 108 people have been involved, including engineers, scientists, divers, scientists, riggers and environmentalists.
As has often been the case with arts projects, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's office was eager to be involved. "The mayor is always looking for new ways to showcase New York," said First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris. She added that several city and state agencies also played a role. "There's never been a manual for how to put waterfalls in the East River," she explained.
Ms. Harris said she hoped this multiborough project would attract visitors, just as "The Gates" generated an estimated $254 million in economic activity for the city. Hotels are offering special waterfall packages. Tourist agencies are planning bicycle and boat tours. The Circle Line Downtown will be running special waterfall excursions, too, some of them free, with an audio introduction by Mr. Eliasson.
City officials and the Public Art Fund say that no city money is being used to pay for the waterfalls, with all of the funds coming from foundations, corporations and private supporters.
The spot where Mr. Eliasson paused on that recent rainy day, an esplanade frequented by joggers and dog walkers as well as tourists visiting Lower Manhattan, holds a particular fascination for him. "From here you can see all four sites at once," he said.
An intense man with a small frame and rumpled brown hair, the artist, 41, in flawless English, tried to explain the mechanics of his project. All that was visible that afternoon were several steel scaffolding constructions on the shoreline by Pier 35, floating black devices to prevent boats and fish from interfering with underwater filters.
A cage beneath the river's surface pumps water through a pipe running upward along the scaffolding, shooting it through a trough at the top and then down the other side to frothy effect.
Mr. Eliasson said he purposely left the scaffolding highly visible. "Scaffolding is not an unfamiliar structure in New York," he said. "You see it on every construction site in the city. I want people to know that this is both a natural phenomenon and a cultural one."
He said he designed the scaffolding to match the scale of the surrounding buildings so it would blend into the urban landscape. Once the waterfalls are turned on, their sound will meld with the other sounds of the city.
Mr. Eliasson is an old hand at creating ephemeral atmospheres. Perhaps his best known is "The Weather Project," an installation in 2003 inside the cavernous Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. That consisted of a giant sun created from hundreds of light bulbs placed at the top of one wall, a mirrored ceiling and a mist machine. Over six months, it attracted more than two million visitors.
Given that much of New York City is surrounded by water, the idea of creating waterfalls seemed obvious to Mr. Eliasson, who suggests that New Yorkers are not as strongly connected to their waterfronts as urban Europeans are.
Throughout history, he said, New Yorkers "have always taken water for granted." He added: "Now people can engage in something as epic as a waterfall, see the wind and feel its gravity. You realize that the East River is not just static."
These are not Mr. Eliasson's first waterfalls. In 2005, for instance, he fashioned a 20-foot-tall waterfall in a small garden on the campus of Dundee University in Scotland. At the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens, he created a reverse waterfall in 1998, devising pumps and a basin that sent the water traveling uphill. That project is on view through June 30 as part of "Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson," a midcareer retrospective and two-part exhibition at P.S. 1 and the Museum of Modern Art.
Artists throughout history have found romance in waterfalls, of course. In the United States, Hudson River School painters like Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church and Asher B. Durand all included them in their landscapes.
"Viewers will be seeing something they know from a picture, but now they will be experiencing them as a physical thing," Mr. Eliasson said.
Unlike the much-trumpeted opening of "The Gates," the artist said, he expects no official celebratory fanfare when the waterfalls are finally up and running.
"It's important to be very straightforward and not to overamplify or overmystify things," Mr. Eliasson said. "The waterfalls will just be turned on in the morning, and that's it."
"New York City Waterfalls" will run between June 26 and Oct. 13 at Pier 35; at the eastern foot of the Brooklyn Bridge; between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade; and on the north shore of Governors Island.
On this day, June 26, in 1721……
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With the support of Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, Zabdiel Boylston began the first smallpox vaccinations in the American colonies.
Born March 9, 1676, Muddy River Hamlet [now Brookline], Mass. [U.S.]
died March 1, 1766, Brookline, he was the physician who introduced smallpox inoculation into the American colonies. Inoculation consisted of collecting a small quantity of pustular material from a smallpox victim and introducing it into the arm of one who had not had the disease. The result was usually a mild case that conferred lifelong protection.
During the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721, Boylston was urged to begin inoculations of the virus by the minister, Cotton Mather, who had heard reports from Europe of their use in Turkey. Boylston responded enthusiastically, beginning with his own family and eventually inoculating about 250 people. The practice was so bitterly opposed by other physicians, the clergy, and much of the populace that Boylston's life was threatened and he was forced to perform his work in great secrecy.
Of those inoculated by Boylston, only six died of smallpox—a much lower mortality rate than expected during an epidemic. Boylston traveled to London in 1724 and was elected to the Royal Society in 1726. His account of the Boston epidemic is a model of clarity.
Harvesting Rainwater Project
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The Beauty and Power of Water
City partners with University and local developers to explore alternative water supply
The City of Guelph has partnered with the University of Guelph School of Engineering, Reid's Heritage Group, Evolve Builders Group Inc, the Ontario Centres of Excellence and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to study the feasibility and design of rainwater harvesting systems.
Project partners explain the study seeks to "build capacity" for large-scale rainwater harvesting systems in Guelph and across Canada, which means to identify and overcome barriers to adopting this technology and facilitating the transfer of information among researchers, home builders, policy makers and the public. Though rainwater harvesting has been studied elsewhere, the Guelph project is among the first to involve so many key stakeholders.
"This project aims to make large-scale rainwater harvesting a viable, alternative water source in Ontario and across Canada," says University of Guelph engineering professor and project lead, Khosrow Farahbakhsh. "This is a truly collaborative effort that involves academics, municipalities, policy makers, developers, the public, and providers of the technology to work together to overcome barriers."
"The City is pleased to be involved in such an important project that uses the expertise of the university and other partners and will have widespread implications on water management," says Mayor Farbridge. "Water management is a key focus in Guelph and we must look at creative ways to make the best use of our local resources."
The Guelph project began in December 2005 and includes the installation and monitoring of several rainwater harvesting systems in Guelph and surrounding communities, as well as a water quality testing program for these sites. The start of another crucial phase of the project took place today when Reid's Heritage Group broke ground on its first home to feature a residential rainwater harvesting system. The house will be built on Goodwin Drive in Westminster Woods.
The residential rainwater harvesting system was designed by two graduate students from the University of Guelph School of Engineering, in collaboration with a local supplier of rainwater harvesting technology. Rainwater that lands on the home's fibreglass roof will be collected in roof gutters and downspouts and diverted to a filtration device before it is carried to a 6,500 litre underground cistern. The stored water will be pressurized and piped into the home to supply water to three toilets, the washing machine, and the dishwasher. The collected rainwater will also supply water to an underground irrigation system. This would account for over 50% of water consumption in a typical home. The home will be unique in that it will feature a dedicated hot water system to provide rainwater for the washing machine and the dishwasher.
"While rainwater harvesting is a long-standing concept, it has new value in today's environmentally sound building industry," says Andy Oding, Product Development Manager at Reid's Heritage Group. "The goal of this project is to identify both the cost and natural resource savings that can be realized by applying a safe, economical system in a community scale project."
Once completed, the Westminster Woods home will serve as a show home and will allow university researchers to monitor the rainwater harvesting system's performance and water quality. The house will offer residents a chance to learn about rainwater harvesting in the home, and potential home buyers will get to experience what it would be like to have a built-in rainwater harvesting system.
With the construction of Reid's Heritage Group's home underway the next steps in the project include collaboration on the construction of additional demonstration sites, an expanded water quality monitoring program, the development of design tools for end-users, and ongoing policy and economic analysis.
The home is also one of Canada's first LEED–H (Gold) registered projects. Alternative energy sources, advanced building techniques, and sustainable materials will be showcased throughout the home alongside the rainwater harvesting system.
Rainwater harvesting is gaining popularity in Ontario as it provides an alternative water source and can help reduce peak water demands on the municipal system. The Guelph project partners are working to bring rainwater harvesting into the mainstream so that the benefits can be realized in Guelph and across the country.
Japanese Company Invents Water Fueled Car
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June 2008 – TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – Tired of petrol prices rising daily at the pump? A Japanese company has invented an electric-powered, and environmentally friendly, car that it says runs solely on water.
Genepax unveiled the car in the western city of Osaka on Thursday, saying that a liter (2.1 pints) of any kind of water—rain, river or sea—was all you needed to get the engine going for about an hour at a speed of 80 km (50 miles).
'The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time,' Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa told local broadcaster TV Tokyo.
'It does not require you to build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries, which is usually the case for most electric cars,' he added.
Once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power, TV Tokyo said.
Whether the car makes it into showrooms remains to be seen. Genepax said it had just applied for a patent and is hoping to collaborate with Japanese auto manufacturers in the future.
Most big automakers, meanwhile, are working on fuel-cell cars that run on hydrogen and emit—not consume—water.
(Writing by Chika Osaka; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Chang-Ran Kim)
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4. Target Newsletter® – One Click Clinical Trial Information
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For more information about Target Health or any of our software tools for clinical research, please contact Dr. Jules T. Mitchel or Ms. Joyce Hays.
The Beauty and Power of Water
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Big Apple 'Waterfalls' Installed in East River of Manhattan
This Thursday, June 26, 2008, four mammoth waterfalls will spring into existence, freestanding cataracts roaring down into the East River and New York Harbor in a multimillion-dollar engineering feat designed by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.
"Here in New York, water is everywhere. We take the water for granted," Eliasson said in an interview. "I want to suggest – now, it's not about the land, now it's about what's between the land."
"The New York City Waterfalls" is the city's largest public art project since 2005, when artists Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, adorned 23 miles of Central Park's paths with thousands of saffron drapes. The artificial cascades will be up through Oct. 13.
Eliasson, 41, creates indoor weather systems that incorporate elements like temperature, moisture, aroma and light. He's best known for his 2003 tour de force, "The Weather Project," which drew about 2 million people to London's Tate Modern to see a glowing sun "rise" in a gallery – an effect he created by using a mist machine, mirrors and hundreds of light bulbs.
For this project, since there are no cliffs for water to pour over, metal scaffolds provide the framework for each waterfall. A system of pumps carries water up to a trough, where it will be released in a frothy cascade – about 35,000 gallons every minute for all four falls.
The falls will be turned on every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and illuminated after sunset.
They will roar off Governors Island in the harbor and into the East River at the Brooklyn base of the Brooklyn Bridge, Pier 35 near the Manhattan Bridge and off the Brooklyn Promenade. The highest will stand 120 feet tall, or almost the height of the Statue of Liberty, minus its pedestal.
They will be visible from the Brooklyn and Manhattan waterfronts and from the pedestrian and bike lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge.
"My work is … about the relationship between the waterfalls, the journey around this part of town and the spectator," Eliasson said. "I want people to see something which is personal. I want them to see themselves, essentially. I'm not offended when people say 'This is not art.'"
"Waterfalls," which overlaps with the last days of a retrospective of Eliasson's work at New York's Museum of Modern Art, is expected to generate at least $55 million in economic activity for the city.
"The project promises to make a big splash in our local economy by attracting thousands of sightseers to town, who will then spend money in our restaurants, hotels and stores," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Hotels are advertising special packages and tourist agencies are offering bicycle and boat excursions.
More than 5 million people saw "Gates," including about 1.5 million out-of-town visitors, pumping about $254 million into the economy.
The $15.5 million cost of "Waterfalls" was raised by the Public Art Fund, a private not-for-profit organization. Individuals, foundations and corporations – including Bloomberg's own media company, Bloomberg LP – donated $13.5 million, and a state agency picked up the rest of the tab.
It's not the first time Eliasson has experimented with water. In his 1993 "Beauty," he produced a rainbow in a Danish gallery by projecting light across a fine mist of water. And for a work called "Green River" in 2000, he poured nontoxic green dye into a river in Stockholm.
Children were included in the planning plans for "Waterfalls." The Public Art Fund collaborated with the city's Department of Education to assemble study guides for teachers taking their classes to see the displays.
"Children tend to see things very different than grown-ups," Eliasson said, explaining that while adults might see a static landscape in a waterfall, a child may see it as vital and changing.
Regardless of age, Eliasson said the goal of his project was to take spectators beyond the two-dimensional postcard image of the New York skyline.
"New York is sort of the icon of the modern city. … It's a city everybody has a view on," he said. "There's something quite challenging about trying to, let's say, shake the image that people have of this city."
Why Can't Humans Be More Human Than Chimps?
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Study: Chimps Calm Each Other With Hugs, Kisses
June 16, 2008, Forbes.com – For most folks, a nice hug and some sympathy can help a bit after we get pushed around. Turns out, chimpanzees use hugs and kisses the same way. And it works. Researchers studying people's closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation.
"Consolation usually took the form of a kiss or embrace," said Dr. Orlaith N. Fraser of the Research Center in Evolutionary Anthropology and Paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.
"This is particularly interesting," she said, because this behavior is rarely seen other than after a conflict.
"If a kiss was used, the consoler would press his or her open mouth against the recipient's body, usually on the top of the head or their back. An embrace consisted of the consoler wrapping one or both arms around the recipient."
The result was a reduction of stress behavior such as scratching or self-grooming by the victim of aggression, Fraser and colleagues report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Frans de Waal of the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta said the study is important because it shows the relationship between consolation and stress reduction. Previous researchers have claimed that consolation had no effect on stress, said de Waal, who was not part of Fraser's research team.
"This study removes doubt that consolation really does what the term suggests: provide relief to distressed parties after conflict. The evidence is compelling and makes it likely that consolation behavior is an expression of empathy," de Waal said.
De Waal suggested that this evidence of empathy in apes is "perhaps equivalent to what in human children is called 'sympathetic concern.'"
That behavior in children includes touching and hugging of distressed family members and "is in fact identical to that of apes, and so the comparison is not far-fetched," he said.
While chimps show this empathy, monkeys do not, he added.
There is also suggestive evidence of such behavior in large-brained birds and dogs, said Fraser, but it has not yet been shown that it reduces stress levels in those animals.
Previous research on conflict among chimps concentrated on cases where there is reconciliation between victim and aggressor, with little attention to intervention by a third party.
Fraser and colleagues studied a group of chimps at the Chester Zoo in England from January 2005 to September 2006, recording instances of aggression such as a bite, hit, rush, trample, chase or threat.
The results show that "chimpanzees calm distressed recipients of aggression by consoling them with a friendly gesture," Fraser said.
Consolation was most likely to occur between chimpanzees who already had valuable relationships, she added.
The research was supported by the Leakey Trust.


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30 May 2012
MOONRISE KINGDOM (Dir. Wes Anderson, 2012, US) - Welcome to WesWorld
Everyone wants to work with Wes Anderson!
I don't like critical euphemisms such as 'return to form' because it implies certain filmmakers like Wes Anderson lost their directorial mojo when in fact form really is what critics enjoy doing – pinning down a filmmaker for their distinctive traits or film school inspired mannerisms. So in many ways Moonrise Kingdom is a continuation of aesthetic, thematic and narrative preoccupations – deviations or departures along the way such as Fantastic Mr. Fox are a necessary part of the evolutionary creative process. The world of Wes Anderson is ordered, pristine and meticulously compartmentalised to create a sense of compositional harmony within the precise framing. His mise en scene is impeccably cinematic in the imaginative use of costumes, colours, props and lighting – his approach is much simpler than it appears on screen. Even less extravagant or stylistically exuberant is the camera placement which sees characters regularly moving in and out of the frame and director Anderson rather opts for the camera to literally seek out the characters who usually make their own close ups. The effect of course is reminiscent of the films of Buster Keaton in which all elements become theatrically staged and perhaps at times a little too mechanical for us to sympathise with the dilemmas faced by the characters. Another observation about Wes Anderson and his fellow contemporaries such as Sofia Coppola is not just their connection to the American new wave of the 1970s or the Nouvelle vague but to the counter culture movement of the 1960s. Strangely enough many of Anderson's films have little, if any, kind of a link with the wider context – much of the narrative action unfolds in a reality which is somewhat disconnected from real politics. Moonrise Kingdom is set in 1965, a time in which America was a turbulent place, but this is Wes world so everything is filtered through a childlike innocence that fetishes 1960s cultural iconography. Retro fetishism can be distracting but it is such idiosyncratic details that give Anderson's films such a whimsical and affectionate vibe. The narrative of Moonrise Kingdom is that of a melodrama in which teen angst/romance is juxtaposed to family. The plot involves two twelve year olds who fall in love and decide to run away, creating a mini panic on the island. A search headed by the local law enforcement and a troop of boy scouts leads to the revelation that the boy at the centre of the action is in fact an orphan with serious emotional problems. An aspect of the film that intrigued me the most was the mirroring device that sees the two children acting out the repressed romance between two of the adults. In this sense the narrative goes in reverse and the ending in which the two children seem to be acting out the parent's childhood romance is beautifully judged as is the use of Benjamin Britten on the soundtrack. Overall, it's the design that remains with you more than everything else, a design that can only come from the mind of Wes Anderson. On a final point; a great ensemble cast can also be a helpful thing to any filmmaker.
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Cats on average live into their teens, with a life expectancy between 13 and 18 being typical for most breeds, barring other variables. Among these variables are whether the cat is kept indoors, and whether it is neutered. Certain breeds are more prone to genetic illness.Continue Reading
For example, the Manx, a tailless breed, has a life expectancy between 8 and 14 years, due in part to genetic spinal abnormalities. Japanese Bobtails, a superficially similar breed, have life expectancies between 15 and 18 years because they do not carry the genes for spina bifida that Manx cats do. Cats with intact reproductive organs have significantly shorter lifespans. Although outdoor cats are more likely to face risks from cars and aggressive people or animals, neutered stray cats have a comparable lifespan to pet cats.Learn more about Cats


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White papers
Empowering the CIO: Enabling smarter decisions with Application Portfolio Management
This paper explains the business case for application portfolio management. It describes a number of scenarios for implementing APM and illustrates how the technique can help organizations optimize their IT investments.
Last updated: 15 Feb 2012
Author: Per Kroll, Chief Solution Architect–Application Portfolio Management, IBM Rational


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I really want to love the Prius.
On paper, it satisfies many of the things I ideally want out of a car. It's safe. It's fuel efficient. It's a little bit quirky.
So when Toyota unveiled another model in the new Prius family of cars Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, I rushed over to see if this one would make me happy. I asked for a peek inside -- the doors were kept locked for many reporters -- hoping I would finally fall in love.
I didn't.
Every time I drive a Prius, I feel let down. The interior, made out of ultra-lightweight materials to help it squeeze out more miles per gallon, feels cheap.
The numbers on the gauges are huge. It's safe, but almost geriatrically safe. The car emits loud beeps inside when in reverse. My husband's great aunt Winnie had a similar beeping system set up on her Cadillac when she turned 80 and wanted the world to know she was coming.
When I first drove a Prius, back in 2002, the car felt high-tech and kind of awesome. You could configure the display to show you every time you were recharging the battery -- pretty much every time you hit the brakes. At the time, Toyota was leading the industry in interior design, so it felt modern.
Some of those features still exist. But now, after competitors have spent millions improving their car interiors, the Prius feels dated. It is almost like getting into the DeLorean from the 1980s movie "Back To The Future," something that was cool once, but isn't now.
There are many better alternatives: Toyota's own Camry hybrid, for example, feels nicer inside. And the Ford Fusion hybrid is even nicer, with a pretty leaf pattern that lights up on the dashboard when you drive as fuel efficiently as possible.
There are about 30 different vehicles on the market with some sort of hybrid option. Other hybrids offer a balance of creature comforts rather than purely focusing on fuel efficiency as the Prius does. The end result makes the Prius feel a little off, the way organic shampoo smells a little too herbal or boxes of healthy cereal look unappetizing.
Still, people just keep buying them. Seventy percent of all hybrid sales are Prius models.
The name Prius has become almost synonymous with hybrid. When many consumers say they want a Prius, they mean they want a car that alternates between gas power and battery power.
"Initially, it was the environmentalists -- the tree huggers -- who embraced the Prius," said Don Esmond, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales. "Now, it's mainstream."
Esmond and I are standing next to a light-blue Prius C that the company unveiled just a few hours earlier. The C is the third in the Prius family, a pint-sized cheaper version that should go for about $19,000.
Although the car the automaker presented at the Detroit auto show is not quite ready for prime time, it is very close to what will go on sale later this quarter. The seats are made of a lightweight foam and covered in a vinyl-like material, which feels like plastic. The car looks nice outside, not quite as bubble-shaped as previous Prius models, but it doesn't scream high tech.
Esmond rebuffed the idea that the Prius interior is worse than its competitors'.
"I'd like to know how many they've sold," he said. Toyota has sold more than 200,000 Priuses in the past 10 years, dwarfing its competition.
The company is capitalizing on its loyal Prius following by rolling out a line of Prius-branded vehicles, dropping the Toyota name from the cars.
Prius buyers had complained that the car was too small, so last year the company began selling a bigger one, the Prius V. They've also complained that the car is too expensive, so the Prius C (which stands for city) is meant to address that concern.
The next step will be a Prius plug-in hybrid. Plugging in the car to recharge the battery will give it an extra boost, letting it go farther on one tank of gas. The company estimates the plug-in will get about 89 mpg.
And that is one of the draws of the Prius. It gets phenomenal mileage. The Prius hatchback gets 50 mpg. To get better fuel economy, you have to opt for an electric car -- one that will only go 70 miles or so before needing a recharge -- or go for the Chevy Volt, which is about $10,000 more than the entry-level Prius.
I get why people keep buying them. Nothing screams, "I care about the environment" more than driving a Prius.
Mark Reuss, General Motors' president of North American sales, service and marketing, says there's not much the industry can do to steal the Prius halo away from the brand.
"There's no slick marketing campaign to do that," he said. "You just pound it with the products that you bring out."
And hope that customers start shopping some of the competition.


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Dog Wormers - Buy Online
Dog Wormers - Buy Online
Dog Wormers - Buy Online products have an average rating of 4.8 / 5.0 from 679 reviews
Dog Worming Treatments
Regular worming treatments are essential not just for the healthy of your dog, but also for other pets and human family members too. Adult dogs need to be wormed at least every three months, while puppies who are more susceptible need to be wormed more frequently. When worming your dog, make sure to use a broad spectrum allwormer product that is effective against hookworm, roundworm, whipworm and tapeworm like Drontal, Cazitel or Milbemax. For more information check out our handy article, How Often Should I Worm My Dog?


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Sign up for Osmosis SAT and ACT Prep in Two Easy Steps
Step 1. Create a free Osmosis account at www.osmosis.org/login (use Facebook/Google login for easiest registration; no need to have a .edu address)
Step 2. E-mail hi [ at] osmosis [dot] org (or click here) specifying your interest in SAT/ACT questions.
Please also fill out the form below to be put on the priority list.
Step 2. E-mail hi [ at] osmosis [dot] org (or click here) specifying your interest in SAT/ACT questions.
Please also fill out the form below to be put on the priority list.
Standing Out on the SAT and ACT:
Perfect Scorers' Uniquely Effective Strategies for Testing and Admissions Success is now for sale. Purchase in paperback and as an eBook for just $9.99.
Osmosis Publishing's book Standing Out is an eagerly anticipated resource to help high school students succeed on the SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, and AP Exams -- and in college admissions.
From perfect scorers Shiv Gaglani and Blake Cecil, author of the extremely popular "Silverturtle's Guide to SAT and Admissions Success," the book foregoes gimmicks and tricks in favor of smart, insightful strategies that can lead to outstanding success. Valuable to any high school student who may strive to achieve his or her potential, the learning-based approach of Standing Out also prepares students uniquely well for the upcoming 2016 changes to the SAT.
What is Osmosis?
Osmosis is an innovative learning platform used by already thousands of students around the globe. Designed by medical students at Johns Hopkins, Osmosis is now developing a version for high school students to ace the SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, and AP Exams. The new k12 app for the SAT and ACT is expected to come out during the Summer of 2014, and Osmosis' book, Standing Out, has recently been published (April 2014).
What Are My Chances? College Admissions Calculator
Download below as free Excel document
For Osmosis k12, Blake has developed a self-chancing calculator to give each applicant to highly selective colleges an idea of the competitiveness of his or her application. In 2009, he began sharing an early version of the tool. Since then, it has been well received by students and parents and received affirmation during multiple years of testing against real results. The tool is frequently evolving based on user feedback and the admissions climate.


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Hi all! I've got a lab of about 50 computers, all of which are the newer 5K iMacs. They're all set up to dual-boot into Windows 10, but nobody boots into the OS X side. The hardware is great, but the resolution is a bit of a problem. I have all the drivers installed and updated to the newest versions, but Windows has a habit of retaining the resolution of the last person who logged in. For instance, if I log in and change the resolution to 800x600, then log out, the next person to log in will have 800x600 until they change it. That leads to a lot of calls to the IT Help Desk complaining about display issues in that classroom.
What I would like is something like a group policy to set the resolution and scaling, so nobody can change it. I know a group policy doesn't exist to natively do that, but I'm sure someone out there has a solution that'll work for this. Anybody have any ideas?


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SOURCE: Comm-Works
February 12, 2014 15:08 ET
MINNEAPOLIS, MN--(Marketwired - February 12, 2014) -
Comm-Works, a top IT integration company, has announced the launch of IP Video & Security or IPVS service offering. With expertise in cabling and infrastructure, assessment, deployment, installation and renowned project management capabilities -- adding IPV&S is a natural progression to becoming a full service solution provider, eliminating the complexity of managing multiple projects and vendors.
IP Video & Security systems lower the vulnerability of shrinkage, increase employee effectiveness, and increase the overall return on investment by providing better capabilities to store, retrieve and analyze data. IPVS solutions ensure that the most common retail issues do not become problematic.
The 2011 National Retail Security Survey, a collaborative effort by the University of Florida and the National Retail Federation, estimated that up to 1.41% of a retailer's profit can disappear due to shrinkage. This equates to a $34.5 billion dollar industry issue. In the US, shoplifters and employees account almost equally for their contributions to shrinkage. The proficiencies of IP video analytics and the value of real-time auditing systems reduces retailer shrinkage. New store models and a move to mobile checkout solutions illustrate the need for updated IPVS solutions to provide adequate visibility through the entire retail space.
"What we're proposing isn't a revolution; it's an 'evolution' to what we already do. By offering project management and deployment expertise with IPVS, Comm-Works provides a complete solution, which sets us apart from our competitors," stated Kevin Searight, director of IPVS for Comm-Works. With constant improvement in the IPVS Industry, it is imperative that businesses build the correct IT infrastructure that will allow for functional and financial benefits in the long term.
By offering a true end-to-end total solution, Comm-Works eliminates the need for the customer to coordinate multiple facets of a project, increasing ROI. As stated by Kevin Searight, "With the ongoing development of IP-based security solutions, the design and deployment are getting more and more complex. Comm-Works' true value lies in the design, implementation and ongoing hosted services that we can deliver to our customers."
About Comm-Works
Since 1995 Comm-Works have been an industry leader offering repeatable, consistent, high-quality, timely IT implementation and project management. Comm-Works is known for providing outstanding levels of project management and 24/7/365 customer service support. With 20,000 + network technicians in over 150 countries, Comm-Works offers Limitless possibilities.
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Sunday 19 August 2018
Flat Floor Hall
Flat Floor Hall (seating 600 approx)
The multifunctional Flat Floor Hall is in constant use by the school community and is a favourite place. Its sprung wooden floor makes it ideal for dance and drama. School assemblies and large community gatherings are held here. With cleverly designed lighting options, it can be a beautiful venue for evening events. Large folding doors give the flexibility to close off or incorporate the foyer according to need. The Flat Floor Hall hosts the School Prize Givings, The Kudos Hamilton Science Excellence awards and the Southwell Gala Ball. Wedding receptions are perfect here.
Flat Floor Hall information:


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Though Mitt Romney adopted a more subdued style during the final debate in Florida, he was readily victorious over an incumbent president with a rather fragile ego who wouldn't know clarity if it hit him over the head. How many times did President Obama utter the phrase, "I was clear…"?
First, the nonverbals. Still shaking from the first debate for which he was grossly criticized for not engaging in eye contact with Romney, Obama overcompensated this time, his eyes blinking continuously as if he were ready to pounce at any moment. This body language not only made the president appear angry and pugnacious, but it also revealed that he was under a great deal of pressure. Romney's recent surge has led to desperation for the Obama campaign. After all, over the past few weeks Romney has had to counter fierce attacks about Big Bird and "binders."
For those who lean toward a narcissistic character, stress causes the fragile ego to crumble. The president demonstrated this when, during the discussion about military spending, he resorted to condescension, attempting to make Romney look ignorant. Such tactics highlight Obama's lack of confidence in his own decisions and cause him to appear far less than presidential.
As for Mitt Romney, it became apparent that he wanted to present himself as a responsible commander-in-chief, not the warmonger the Democrats have made him out to be. Romney accomplished this goal by adopting, and expounding upon, Ronald Reagan's philosophy of peace through strength. In addition, Romney made the essential point that the most significant enemy to our national security is our debt and our failing economy. When Americans aren't working, they're depressed and not hopeful about the future. Psychologically and concretely, an economy in decline undermines our strength. Economic growth is the first best defense. A commander-in-chief who recognizes this is a true leader who knows that we have to move from the internal to the external.
Though his decision to refrain from hammering Obama on the Libya debacle may not have been cathartic for the president's critics, Mitt Romney did deliver some notable challenges to Obama, in particular the latter's unmistakable apology tour which, of course, Obama denied.
Romney's most salient point was that Obama has failed in leadership among other nations because he has not clearly denounced Islamic extremism, favoring instead a philosophy of political correctness that has merely swept critical problems under the foreign policy rug.
Best line by Mitt Romney: "Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations; we have freed other nations from dictators."


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February Theme: Emperors & Fugitives
We're so excited to finally reveal the February theme to you guys and it is... EMPERORS & FUGITIVES!
What if you were an empress of the galaxy on the run, how well would you fare? What if the stakes were really high, would you do what needs to be done? Could you handle the twists and turns? In a world of magic and betrayal, you better be ready...
We have been so excited to reveal this box to you because it features a diverse book that we feel so passionately about - it's become one of our all-time favourite reads ever! This box features SIX awesome items, most of which are exclusive! If you're a fan of Rebel of the Sands, Guardians of the Galaxy (who doesn't love Groot?!), Illuminae and general rebeliousness then you are going to love this box.
The February box will feature a FULL SIZE exclusive candle from Happy Piranha. This is the first time we've ever included a full size candle in our box! It has a 35 hour burn time and it smells amazing. We'll reveal more suppliers over the next couple of weeks through our social media accounts so keep an eye out!
The book featured is an incredibly fast-paced read that will have your blood pumping... Think Arya Stark in space! We seriously loved this book and think you'll love it too - it's so diverse and the characters will forever hold a special place in our heart. If you've never been into space books don't worry - this is the perfect blend of fantasy and space that is not to be missed! The book will also come with a signed bookplate and lots of other goodies.
The February boxes will be available in our online store TOMORROW Saturday 7th of January at 13:00pm British Standard Time for single purchase and subscriptions.
We always have a limited amount of boxes every month, so make sure you grab yours soon! If you have a subscription, you don't have to worry about missing out, you will automatically get the next box.