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Here are some of the most common questions about wood floors and the services that Flawless Flooring provides.
What areas in Wisconsin do you service?
Our normal service area includes Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha, Ozaukee, Washington and Rock counties. We have happy clients all over Southeastern Wisconsin.
Do you provide a satisfaction guarantee?
Yes, we guarantee our work 100%. We want our customers to love their new or refinished wood floors. In the unlikely event that our work is not satisfactory we will address any concerns promptly.
What are your showroom hours?
Our boutique wood flooring showroom in New Berlin is open Monday-Friday 8:00am - 4:00pm. We do sometimes need everyone out in the field for customer service so please call ahead to confirm.


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Compass Customs
Compass Customs is an independent customs broker for all your customs-related matters. We prepare your customs declarations and take care of all your other customs formalities. Please contact one of our staff members directly for expert advice.+49 2822 9570 0
Compass Customs is member of the Gaston Schul Group
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We can keep your costs down by aligning your customs-related matters with your logistic process. One of our great strengths…
As an independent customs service provider, we are glad to assist you with the import and export of goods. We…

subset: commoncrawl


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Happy 20th F#$@&%* Birthday, Scarleteen!
Scarleteen turns 20 years old today. Twenty.
For two decades, we've delivered our unique and innovative brand of sex education, despite many financial, legal, political and practical barriers and battles. That kind of tenure for anything on the internet is unheard of, let alone for a grassroots, feminist sexual health, sex and healthy relationships initiative and alternative education project for young people, and one that was (and still is) queer, working class and woman-led.
Centering and serving young people, sexuality and relationships like we do, with inspired quality, care and vision, and doing so independently — and for free — for so long is so rare. Very few organizations and resources have consistently delivered all of what we do, as well as we do, and to as many as we have, for this long.
Where do I even get started in educating myself about sex?
I'm a 19-year-old virgin and I don't know enough about sex, period. I went to Catholic and Christian schools with terrible sex-ed classes (I learned the basic biology but virtually nothing about actual sex, condoms, safe sex, or anything like that). I looked at your list of books to read and I've browsed through the questions, but I still don't know where to start....
Sometimes, knowing is the whole battle.
This is a guest post from Dances With Engines as part of the month-long blogathon to help support Scarleteen!
Scarleteen is written for young people of all sexes and genders. That they manage to do so with so much consistency and dependability is amazing to me. As I become more conscious of my own binary and oppositional language (men do this, women do that, and only men and women), I get more impressed with Scarleteen.
When I recommend websites to my daughter, or to friends with growing children, I am always questioning—is the language and mission of this site going to be inclusive? Is anyone going to be left feeling like they don't belong or that someone's wrong with them? I felt like that, growing up. There were so many reasons I wasn't human, wasn't visible.
From Us to You: Some Volunteer Aunties Talk Body Image
I know it's only so much consolation to you right now, but the older I get, the more I notice how much easier having a positive body image becomes. I know that's clearly not the case for all older women: after all, plenty of women my age and older are getting sliced, diced and Botoxed to within an inch of their lives. However, it's also not just me.
Pornography, Strip Clubs & Other Feminist Relationship Quandaries
I could really use some help on this issue. I am a feminist, and pride myself on being open-minded and trying to keep my insecurities in check. I have been with my boyfriend for years, and we have lived together for 2. Within the past few months I have been looking at his computer and seeing that he watches pornography. While I do try to understand why, I cannot help but feel hurt....
Help Lift Sex Ed to a Higher Plane: Support Scarleteen!
You probably know Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998.
Welcome to the 6th Feminist Carnival!
We're pleased to host the 8th edition of the newly reborn Feminist Carnival! In the spirit of rebirth, and in alignment with the readers and mission of Scarleteen, this round puts its focus on young feminist bloggers and feminist issues particularly pertinent to younger women.
Is something wrong with me because I like BDSM? Can I like it and still be a feminist?
For as long as I can remember, I have been turned on my imagining my own pain and humiliation. I am going out with someone for the first time now, and we've been together for almost eight months. Recently we've started experimenting with very mild SM-type things--tying each other up, biting, spanking. I love it, and so does he. But is this normal?...


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Filed under: friends & family, sticks & string | Tags: brother, dad, knitting, scarf, xmas gift
a great big long scarf for someone male in my life. i'm not sure who this will go to yet…
6″ wide and over 6′ long. damn.
trendsetter magnolia: 4 skeins. basketweave stitch: six sets of 3 stitch/3 rows of stst & rev stst. size 8 bamboo circs.
this yarn is pretty fuckin' cool. i found it at a discount store and couldn't quite resist italian yarn at 50ff. it has a strand of charcoal cotton with another strand of lighter grey plasticy stuff that reminds me of recycled tire mulch. no stretch at all. my hands were literally aching by the time i finished this motherfucker.
this scarf has been on my mind for a long time. that's why i went ahead and knat it up even though i have all kinds of xmas gifts on the needles with actual recipients in mind. when i was a wee 'ittle one my dad taught me to crochet. i did that off & on for years and then became tired of the 'homemade' look of the stitch. rummaging through the coat closet at my dad's house one winter i came across a scarf that he had made for me when i was young. it was meticulous and i was amazed that he had taken that much time to sit & think of me and knit this up. anyway, it was done the same stitch as this scarf and inspired me to learn to knit with the thought that i would one day make a scarf of the same stitch. dad didn't teach me to knit. that goes to my mama but he did teach me to crochet and that's pretty effin' cool. i would give this scarf to him but i don't think he would enjoy the novelty of this (not-at-all-warm) yarn.
Filed under: sticks & string | Tags: knitting, lace, scarf
my first finished xmas gift for this year. this scarf is for miss karen – my dad's lady friend…
branching out scarf from knitty. karabella mirage – kid mohair: 1 skein. size 8 wooden needles.
i wish the blocking would have done a better job of bringing out the leaf pattern, but then again my patience for blocking is somewhat lacking.
i seem to be progressing swimmingly on most of the gifts i planned for this year. maybe i will actually get everything finished, that would be a first. anyway i'm on the verge of finishing about 6 more things so i will be posting a bunch of boring posts like this in the coming days. fair warning.


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Aside from containing the world's finest Mānuka Honey, each Manuka Emporium Honey jar holds our pledge, it carries not only the signature of our registered master beekeepers, but also a traceable batch number.
The batch number records the journey of the honey from the beekeeper and the hives from which the honey was harvested. Each jar of Manuka Emporium Honey can be traced back to its origins.
As proof of authenticity, all of our releases are laboratory tested to ensure they meet the New Zealand Government's 2018 Mānuka Honey definition.
As Mānuka Honey contains over 200 unique compounds, we go the extra mile to safeguard its reputation which is why the Methylglyoxal (MGO) rating on each Manuka Emporium Honey jar is also tested by a recognised laboratory accredited by the New Zealand Government.
Trust Through traceability
All Manuka Emporium Honey is tested to export quality by a New Zealand Government recognised laboratory. This allows the industry to separate Mānuka Honey from other honey types, to identify it as either mono-floral or multi-floral Mānuka Honey, and to make it harder for anyone to attempt blending different honeys with Mānuka Honey to meet the definition.
To improve traceability of bee products through the supply chain, beekeepers must be listed with the New Zealand Governemnt, keep information about their apiary sites and production volumes, create an identification number for every honey box, and provide written declarations for every delivery of bee products presented for extraction.
Where bees gather nectar and pollen depends on the available blooming plants in the area. When a bee is wrestling in a flower collecting nectar and pollen, it gets covered in pollen granules which inevitably find their way into the finished honey. This pollen not only adds to a honey's unique characteristics, but it is the traceable indicator, not nectar, to which flowers the honeybee visited during their foraging.


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Gemini Man Personality And Traits 2018 – How will you feel if you are asked to hold quicksilver in your hands? You will dart helter-skelter and run yourself ragged by trying to contain the flowing metal. Even after all this effort, you will not succeed and end up being totally exhausted, annoyed and definitely with a dent on your pride. This is what will happen to you try and hold on to the Gemini man! He is charming, clever and always enthusiastic and is especially adept at making anyone laugh.
Doom and gloom are never near when you go partying with a Gemini man! You will find yourself walking with at least two different men and they both would be him! This is not such a bad thing in most situations, but may leave you a little exhausted and a little worse for wear, but in a good way.
Adventure and never-ending fun, without making any emotional demands, are a Gemini man's specialty. Because they are so witty and charming and have so many interests, it is difficult for Gemini men to feel deeply. Hence, if someone is looking to experience a deep emotional connection and intense feelings with a Gemini man, that person is only setting themselves up for hurt and frustration.
This does not mean that Geminis-born people cannot love – they just cannot understand the need to be so serious about it all! When pressurized to conform to norms, it is possible for Gemini men to resort to lying and cheating, successfully so, considering they have the gift of gab.
We must also understand that most Geminis are idealistic, honest people, who do not believe in hurting people. But remember, this is one sign that can turn to forgery and fraud, often with considerable success. So beware of a smooth talking Gemini, especially if has a history of not keeping his promises! But all said and done, a Gemini man's deep sense of fairness will seldom allow him to be disloyal.


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The machine can be specified in four heights from 2m to 2.9m vehicle heights and can be decorated from a choice of 18 colours.
In the larger height variants, a Design-Plus option is available that offers smart LED lights shining from the car motifs on the front panels.
WashTec UK's managing director, Michael Harris, commented: "The enhanced EasyWash range opens this affordable machine to the largest number of UK operators.
"At its smallest size it will fit into a bay just 2.81m high. This model combines the best of WashTec engineering with functionality, style and at a competitive price."
01371 878800


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Cooking up a mess of Greens
All of my life, I have been told to eat my greens. The thing is, they were always mustard and turnip greens, usually cooked by my granny, boiled down to mush and very bitter. Back then, we had never heard of baby leaf lettuce or kale, just iceberg lettuce and greens from our fall garden. Yet, some of my favorite fall plants to grow for Peace Farm Organics are the various varieties of Mustard. They are easy to grow and always so colorful. This year, I actually had time to plant some in my garden, and now I get to enjoy them for myself.
These are just the perfect size. I like to cook them with bacon, but I also like to saute them with garlic and oil or butter.
I cook the bacon first and remove it from the skillet. Then, I drop the greens right into the oil and stir around to coat. Next, I add 1/4 cup of water and cover to let it steam for just a couple of minutes. Finally, I throw on some salt and pepper, and they are ready to serve.
So tasty and not the least bit bitter!
Enjoy! --Leigh Ann


text: February 22, 2012Action AlertsAbuse, Action Alerts, Animal Cruelty, Animal Welfare, PETAkalel Avon, Mary Kay, and Estée Lauder Are Paying for Tests on Animals For more than two decades, Avon, Mary Kay, and Estée Lauder have been among the largest mainstream international companies on PETA's cruelty-free lists. Avon banned all tests on animals following PETA's massive "Avon Killing" campaign, and Mary Kay pledged to go cruelty-free after cartoonist Berkeley Breathed mocked the company in his popular Bloom County comic strip. Since then, all three companies have enjoyed the support of PETA and millions of consumers who choose to buy cosmetics from companies that don't harm animals. But now we have learned that all three companies have been paying for tests on animals at the requirement of the Chinese government—and they did not inform PETA or consumers that their policies had changed. We have no choice but to downgrade them by placing them on our list of companies that test on animals. When we learned that the Chinese government requires tests on animals before many cosmetics products can be marketed in China, we immediately contacted all three companies. While we understand that China is an enormous market that these companies aren't willing to ignore, we had hoped they would take action to eliminate this requirement or push for non-animal test methods to be accepted. Mary Kay had taken some steps to work with officials in China, and at our urging, promised to continue this effort—but Avon and Estée Lauder appear to have gone along with the painful animal tests without objection. PETA is financially supporting the efforts of the Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS), which is putting together a coalition of corporate experts, providing training for scientists in China in the use of non-animal test methods, and working with officials there to promote the acceptance of non-animal methods that are used in the U.S., the European Union, and much of the world. Fortunately, there are still more than 1,000 companies on our "Don't Test" list whose products consumers can buy with a clear conscience. Please take a moment to let Avon, Mary Kay, and Estée Lauder know that you are disappointed in their backsliding and that you will no longer buy the companies' products as long they are tested on animals. Message Dear [Decision Maker], Sincerely,[Your Name] By signing up here and giving us your details, you're acknowledging that you've read and agreed to our privacy policy. GD Star Ratingloading...Article source: PETA Action Alerts Related posts: Avon, Mary Kay, Estée Lauder Paying for Tests on Animals Tell Cosmetics Companies to Stop Paying for Tests on Animals Cosmetics Companies No Longer Cruelty-Free 3 Companies Booted Off Cruelty-Free List Mother Keeps Son's Memory Alive by Paying Tribute to His Compassion for Animals


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Walmart Lotion Round-Up
Brandefyers love a round-up post because it means a testing party with snacks and geeking out over products galore. We tested seven name brand lotions against their equate counterpart. See which generics measured up, and which ones missed the mark.
Brandefy compares store brands (i.e., equate) to name brands (i.e., Vaseline) to show you when the generic is as good as the name brand, and to warn you when it is not. Our purpose is to help you save time and money, and to have a good time while doing it.
Vaseline brand makes several different types of lotions, with various scents and consistency types. We found that a particular factory is making many of the equate versions of Vaseline lotions. The levels of similarity did differ a great deal.
Starting with the worst Vaseline dupes, we gave the equate version of Vaseline Intensive Care Cocoa Radiant a similarity score of 65%. The Moisture Care Cocoa Divine lotion by Walmart had fairly similar ingredients to Vaseline, but what really marked it down was the smell. Equate's lotion smelled sour and musky, off-putting! Additionally, the Vaseline lotion dried faster, and had a better after-feel. We will stick to the name brand here.
Another Vaseline dupe that didn't quite hit the mark was the equate version of Vaseline Intensive Care Essential Healing. We gave this one a 68% similarity score. The equate Moisture Care Essential Review has a more pungent smell, and is less thick. While they have similar ingredients, we found the percentage amounts of these ingredients to be different. We suggest you stay with the Vaseline brand.
Fear not, Vaseline fans. There are some equate versions of other Vaseline lotions that performed better. Walmart's Moisture Care Advanced Recovery scored a 75% similarity score to Vaseline Intensive Care Advanced Repair. These lotions had a similar consistency and after-feel. The equate version smelled slightly more baby powder-ish, but was not offensive. The ingredient panel was extremely similar, but the name brand did have an additional paraben. We think you may want to switch to the store brand.
Another well-performing Vaseline dupe is equate's Moisture Care Aloe Cool, which is their version of Vaseline's Intensive Care Aloe Soothe. We gave it a similarity score of 82% because both lotions had a very similar smell and ingredient panel. We found the equate version to be slightly watery, but not a huge difference. We think you will like to switch and save here.
We also tested two popular Jergens lotions and their equate counterparts. We gave Jergens Shea Butter lotion and Walmart's Shea Butter lotion a 70% similarity score. These two had a similar ingredient panel, but we found the name brand to have a sweeter smell. Equate's lotion had a slightly thicker consistency. We found the after-feel to be similar for these two lotions.
Next, we tested the Jergens Original Scent Long Lasting Moisture to equate Classic Scent Dry Skin Lotion. The lotions themselves were fairly similar across smell, consistency, ingredient panel, and after-feel. We did, however, have to knock the similarity score down to an 80% because of a packaging flaw. The equate version was extremely difficult to open, and we ended up unscrewing the pump top in order to test the lotion. Not cool!
Finally, we tested a Lubriderm lotion against equate Daily Skin Therapy. This lotion scored an 80% similarity score to the Lubriderm Daily Moisture. These two had similar ingredients and consistency. We liked the after-feel on both as well. While the store brand had a slightly more chemical smell to it, we will still be switching to the store brand to save.
We hope we gave you a little guidance for next time you visit the large lotion aisle. Stay smooth this winter!


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Infinite Paradise: Cassia Cottage
On the 2nd full day, we went scoping for a place to stay the second half of the trip. We wanted to be on the beach and we were willing to splurge a little for it. After all, Louise needed to "work" a little each day so we wanted to be somewhere that she didn't have to go far to enjoy the water while still having wifi. We came across Cassia Cottage on a travel blog, where I had actually been looking for great restaurant recommendations. We stopped in the office, were greeted with cold hibiscus tea, and booked for our final 3 nights after a tour of the gorgeous grounds.
Our first spot was very nice, but Cassia Cottage was luxurious. Mind you, with the lower costs (of generally everything) in Vietnam, the price was still vastly less than it would be if this place was plucked off this beach and dropped on St. Bart's. Beautiful gardens and individual cottage style rooms on one half the resort, the other half newly built rooms with French Riviera infusion. Complete with 3 pools (one "infinity" style), a spa, a delicious buffet breakfast and a private beach area, we knew we had hand picked the best beach front accommodations on the island.
I bet you can guess what we did for the next 3 whole days straight.
Well, at least until the final day, which I spent mostly inside reading with sun poisoning. Even that wasn't so bad, as our room was comfortable and adorable.
We even squeezed in a little Studdly shoot (as usual).
We truly loved the entire stay. The staff was incredible and so kind. It's a definite destination for anyone traveling to Phu Quoc, even if only for a night.


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I think about a world to come where the books were found by the golden ones, written in pain, written in awe by a puzzled man who questioned, "What are we here for?" All the strangers came today and it looks as though they're here to stay.-David Bowie "Oh! You Pretty Things"
This must be a fake.
No. I've seen a couple of them here in Texas on road trips. I'm usually in a vehicle and traveling too fast to get a really good picture.


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It was dawn on a muddy track in rural Africa. Families were emerging, groggy-eyed, from their grass-roofed mud huts. A monkey looked down from the trees. Children were washing; mothers were filling water cans, preparing what little they had to eat for breakfast.
They looked up, surprised, to see groups of Westerners and local people jogging past in sports gear with numbers pinned to their chests. Welcome to the first ever Sierra Leone marathon.
It was early June 2012 and the weather was stiflingly hot. Although it was only 7am, the temperature was already 24C and the air was heavy with humidity, but the whole Hope family – my wife, Sarah, Barnaby, Sapphire, Pollyanna, and I – had made the trip to Sierra Leone for this race (this was no conventional half-term break).
Sarah was several miles ahead, toiling through a 13-mile half-marathon. Then came Barnaby and Sapphire, charging round the shorter, five-kilometre course. And, marvellously, hobbling along just in front of me, her two purple crutches click-click-clicking on the road, was Pollyanna, our seven-year-old daughter. It was remarkable because Pollyanna lost her leg six weeks after her second birthday, when she was hit by a bus, and this was by some stretch the longest distance she had ever run.
It may have been five years since the crash, but to me the events of that day were still as vivid as they had ever been. It was a normal Wednesday morning, April 25 2007. I had just arrived at my desk in the news room of The Daily Telegraph, a cavernous room that used to be a trading floor for a major City bank.
As usual, the telephone rang. I expected it to be a reader. Instead, a male voice was screaming something – I could not make out what he was saying. Gradually it became clear. A bus had lost control, mounted a kerb and smashed into Sarah, her mother, Elizabeth, and Pollyanna, on a pavement near our home in south-west London.
I ran out of the office. Forty minutes later I arrived at Mortlake bus station, where the accident had taken place, to be confronted by something that resembled a scene from the television drama series Casualty. Police cars and ambulances were parked haphazardly, blocking the road.
Blue-and-white police tape flapped in the breeze, only 200 yards from our front door. Sarah was lying on her back in an ambulance. I had to stand directly over her to speak to her as her head was squashed between two large orange blocks to keep her neck and spine straight. I wanted to know what to do. She said I should be with Pollyanna, who had already been taken to Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in west London. A police car was on hand to drive me there, its blue lights flashing.
Pollyanna was lying in her nappy on a bed in the hospital's Accident & Emergency department, wearing an oxygen mask. I stood over her and said her name. She looked at me and said, 'Daddy,' – one of the few words she could say at that age – and tried to take off the mask. I put it back on and held her. Her blond hair was flecked with blood.
I noticed what I took to be a deep cut just below her right knee and was alarmed to see that below the cut the skin had turned pale grey. Nurses were trying to push the right leg up towards her knee, as I found out, to help the blood to flow.
One of the nurses took me to a side room. They had bad news: Elizabeth – who had been staying with us to visit Sarah's twin sister, Victoria, whose son, Rollo, had been born two days earlier – had died as a result of her injuries. I burst into tears. The tears were momentary – I had to pull myself together. Pollyanna was being taken to an upstairs operating theatre so surgeons could try to save her leg. I asked if she would survive. The doctors hoped so but could not be sure. Everything was a risk. I kissed her goodbye and went with the police to see Sarah, who was lying in a bed in the A&E department of Charing Cross Hospital, a few miles away. Her hair was matted with blood, but mercifully she said that she could move her toes. Elizabeth's body was in a small room yards from Sarah's bed.
After a short while I left Sarah with two friends, and went home to collect some overnight clothes as it was likely that I would be in hospital with Pollyanna for a few days. Two traffic detectives from the local police station arrived. They had picked up the driver, they said, and he was being interviewed. By now it was late afternoon and The Daily Telegraph's management had swung into action and arranged an emergency nanny to look after Barnaby and Sapphire, then six and four, who had been collected by a friend from their primary school. I met the nanny and told her that she was hired. I did not learn her surname for a week. My mobile telephone rang. It was the Chelsea & Westminster, saying the surgeons needed to see me urgently. The detectives pushed me into their car, and – with blue light flashing again – we cut through the static A4 traffic in minutes.
On arrival, I was taken to a room on the fifth floor of the hospital. One of three surgeons who had worked on Pollyanna came in, still wearing his gown and blood-splattered white wellington boots. He had bad news, he said: they had not been able to save Pollyanna's right leg, and had amputated it. Pollyanna was otherwise fine, although her legs were heavily scarred – she was nearby in the recovery room, in a deep sleep. I walked in. The lights were dimmed. It felt like a night nursery. I went over and kissed her. I felt below her right knee, hoping that I had dreamt the past few hours. The bone continued for an inch and a half, and then – nothing. Her right thigh was bandaged, too, the bone having been stapled back together.
Pollyanna stayed in hospital for six weeks, visiting the operating theatre 14 times so that surgeons could find out whether – as they initially feared – her right knee was infected and would have to be amputated as well. Most nights I slept next to her bed, or in a parents' room in the hospital. She was too young to be able to articulate what was wrong, so my main role was to keep her calm and happy.
If she cried out, I had to decide whether she wanted me to ease her pain by manually squeezing more morphine into her body, or to put another episode of Peppa Pig on the portable DVD player.
Sarah – with a scar the width of a tyre on her leg – was moved to Chelsea & Westminster to be near us the day after the crash. At night I would leave Pollyanna sleeping and try to soothe Sarah, who was screaming for her mother and asking doctors to cut off her leg, because she could not bear its unsightliness, and because she wanted to share Pollyanna's pain.
A year later the driver of the bus was jailed for his part in the crash. It was tempting to leave it all there, to move on from the tragedy. But two years after the accident I wrote an account of what happened, published in the Telegraph Magazine on April 25 2009, the two-year anniversary of the accident. Headlined 'Pulling Together', the article ended on a positive note, detailing how we drew huge strength from colleagues, friends and family. Some neighbours ran a meals service, leaving homemade pies on our doorstep; in the garden a dozen dads took down a shed, built a wall and laid a new lawn.
I wrote about how Sarah, who is now 40, had started running, on the advice of her surgeon, to deal with depression and to strengthen her damaged leg muscles. She was raising money for the Limbless Association, a charity providing advice for amputees, and I suggested that readers might want to sponsor Sarah. The response was overwhelming. A tidal wave of cheques amounting to thousands of pounds swamped my desk.
Within six days readers had sent in more than £6,200. Most of the cheques were for small amounts, ranging between £5 and £25. Some of the money came from friends and family we had not heard from in years. But the vast majority of cheques and letters were from strangers. The money kept flooding in, and Telegraph readers donated £80,000 in all. Altogether – including a summer charity ball organised by friends in Shropshire – Sarah raised £140,000.
This posed its own questions: what to do with all this money, which far outstripped the sum we had been hoping to raise? We originally wanted the Limbless Association to spend some of the money on developing a special limb so Pollyanna could point her toes in ballet, just like all her friends, and to help children like our daughter to walk in poorer parts of the world.
The Limbless Association wanted to help, but movable toes have yet to be developed for prosthetic limbs. Furthermore, the charity abandoned its international remit while we were still fundraising for it, so – after a great friend stepped in and offered to help with the administration – we decided to set up our own charity, using half of the money raised for the Limbless Association. And so Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope was born, set up by Sarah and Victoria in memory of their mother, Elizabeth, who had died in the accident, to raise money for amputee children in the poorest parts of the world.
The need is definitely there. In Britain the number of child amputees is mercifully small. Few children lose limbs through trauma such as road accidents. But in the poorest parts of the world children are more exposed to danger, and amputation is used as a means of preventing infection from spreading.
Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope – or ELoH, as it is known in parts of Africa – finds reputable partner charities operating on the ground and gives them money to spend on specific projects. ELoH is already active in Sierra Leone and Tanzania, where a child can be kitted out with a new leg for the price of a meal for two in London. The charity helps children who really have nothing at all. For them it seems as though a glimmer of light has started to shine at the end of a very, very dark tunnel.
In Sierra Leone the charity is paying for new prosthetic limbs and physiotherapy for 66 child amputees. It is hoped that it will pay for hundreds more. The problems here are particularly acute. Many adults lost limbs in brutal attacks during the civil war that raged in the late 1990s, and children suffered as collateral damage, mainly through coming into contact with landmines.
The marathon was organised by Street Child of Sierra Leone, one of ELoH's partner charities. Before the start of the race we met some of the children whom the charity was going to help. Some seemed so traumatised that they had forgotten how to smile. Eleanor, 18, told how she was 'walking with my mum when I stepped on a landmine' as a toddler. Her foot flew into a bush and her mother was hit in the waist. Another, Mariatu, crawled on to a landmine at the age of seven months. She lost her leg below the knee; she has only ever had one prosthetic leg and she is now 10 years old.
Meeting these children had a big effect on the family. Barnaby, Sapphire and Pollyanna were not meant to be running in the marathon; we were planning to line the route and cheer Sarah on. But then, on the evening before the race, the three of them decided they wanted to take part, too, in the shorter, five-kilometre run.
The course stretched out into the west African bush from Makeni, Sierra Leone's fifth largest city, in the centre of the country. Planning the route some months earlier had presented its own challenges. The most recent map for the area from Sierra Leone's Ministry of National Statistics was drawn up in 1964, and Google Maps, which gave only a few local street names, was out of date. Some of the local police and representatives of the Red Cross were unaware that a number of the villages on the route of the race existed. So Ben Hodgson, the race director, bought his own GPS software and mapped the course from the pillion position on the back of a scooter.
Hodgson says, 'I drove around in circles for days on end, marking interesting things and places. I spoke to people in Makeni saying, "If you were to run, hypothetically, 26 miles around Makeni, what would be good to see?" Most people said, "Well the clocktower is nice, Wusum Hill is nice, the cathedral…" I really wanted to go out into the countryside.'
There were 60 marshals and 90 police along the course, as well as doctors, paramedics and 62 first-aiders. This being the first organised marathon in Sierra Leone, many of the stewards had to be briefed on what to do and say. At times their enthusiasm got the better of them. One told several exhausted marathon runners – no doubt with the best of intentions – that they were only two kilometres from the finish – when in fact it was an agonising six kilometres.
So on June 9 a 386-strong field from 20 countries – including 150 from Britain, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Spain and the Netherlands – gathered in the darkness at a sports field in Makeni. A local brass band started up at dawn, playing the Sierra Leonean national anthem, and General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army and a patron of Street Child, counted down from 10 to start the three races – the marathon, the half-marathon and the five-kilometre.
We headed off into the African gloom, stumbling on the mud roads in the half-light through villages, some of which had no name. This was a running race like no other. One of the early runners found a topless woman washing herself in a puddle at first light. Another competitor was cheered on by a woman with a dead chicken stuffed under one arm. One local trader tried to sell bric-a-brac to an exhausted runner as he wheezed towards the finishing line. Another runner was overtaken by an old man in flip-flops carrying a baby.
Unlike in other charity marathons, where the goal is raising money for an abstract cause such as medical research, many of the crowd watching the passing runners were likely to benefit directly from their efforts. Perhaps aware of this, some villagers gave runners high fives, saying, 'Thank you, thank you'. Either they knew who we were supporting – or they were simply glad to see visitors.
There were cultural differences, too. While friends and supporters of the international visitors cheered wildly at the sight of any runner, most locals looked on mutely, excited only when the leaders were in view. Some locals kindly offered lifts. Others tried to encourage, shouting, 'You run fast for a white man.' Ben Hodgson blamed a 'lack of familiarity' with the idea of running so far in the broiling heat. He said, 'The concept of why anyone would want to run 26 miles, or 13 miles – there are two reactions. One is seeming indifference and the other is this brilliant, incredulous sound – eeeeeh? – this really shrill sound. You have to tell people two or three times, "It's 26 miles." The whole idea of doing it is foreign, just absurd. Why not take a bike?'
Why not, indeed. In the midst of all this activity, at the back of the field, in the sweltering heat, Pollyanna was still running, her NHS crutches clicking away on the hard ground, her face gripped with determination, sweat pouring down her face. The course was never the same for more than a few hundred yards: one moment it was a muddy track, the next it was tarmac, then solid volcanic stone, which made the going difficult for Pollyanna on her rubber prosthetic leg.
Locals were running alongside us shouting 'oporto' (the standard name for anyone with a white face, after the first Portuguese settlers) and 'little girl'. Others said 'club foot', mistakenly imagining that Pollyanna's hobble was because of a diseased leg, which afflicts many local children (in fact Pollyanna's prosthetic leg was too short after a growth spurt, and she was waiting for a new one).
We crossed an open sewer that snaked across the road. I jumped across, momentarily forgetting that this represented a major challenge for Pollyanna. But then I turned to see a small local boy, who had been jogging with us for 10 minutes, lifting her over the trench. On one of the small hills she started to cry, saying she was too hot. I offered to carry her, but she waved me away. If I tried to pass her so I could see her face, she sped up. She kept asking, 'Are we there yet?'
The marathon was won by Idrissa Kargbo in two hours 38 minutes, a triumph given that the farthest he had ever run in his life was 20 miles. Kargbo, a member of the Sierra Leone Athletics Association in the capital Freetown, won $120 – enough to pay for a child to go to a private school for a year. Lord Dannatt had feared that someone would die from heat exhaustion. He said he had seen enough tragedy for the families of soldiers without more lives being lost in the heat of Sierra Leone. 'I don't mind who won, or how quickly they ran it,' he said. 'What I really mind about is the fact that 386 people ran over five kilometres, a half-marathon or a full marathon and all completed it, and they are alive and well and having a laugh. That's success as far as I am concerned.' Only five of the runners needed minor medical treatment.
Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope – born from the most awful tragedy – had its own reason to celebrate, too. More than an hour after starting out, Pollyanna crossed the finishing line, to a heroine's welcome. She was last, but she had set her own record by going for five kilometres on her crutches. When all the fuss had died down I asked Pollyanna why she would not let me carry her. 'That would be cheating,' she said.
elizabethslegacyofhope.org. A video of Pollyanna's five-kilometre run can be seen at telegraph.co.uk/christopherhope. If you would like to sponsor her, please visit justgiving.com/pollyannahope. The next Sierra Leone Marathon will be on May 26 2013 (sierraleonemarathon.com; street-child.co.uk)


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Emotion perception
Facial expressions convey essential information about the expresser's intentions and attitudes towards people and things in the environment. This social information guides observers' behavior: a toddler learns to avoid a hot stove after seeing her mother's expression of fear; a teenager throws away his Power Rangers t-shirt after a classmate smirks at it; a woman walking past a man on the street feels safe after seeing his non-threatening, affiliative smile. Clearly we say a lot with our faces. Attending to, correctly interpreting, and responding appropriately to the often subtle expressions of others is one of the most important tasks we accomplish as social animals.
Our lab studies the underlying processes that support emotion perception. We propose that the ability to understand the meaning of others' facial expressions relies, in part, on the ability to produce facial expressions. In a process referred to as sensorimotor simulation, perceiving an expression activates the brain network involved in expression production, giving the perceiver access to associated cognitive and emotional states. The perceiver can infer the mental state underlying the expresser's facial expression and predict the expresser's next behaviors. Of course, this cross-modal contribution is not the only way we can understand facial expressions. People can process and recognize expressions like they would any other visual input. But we suggest that sensorimotor simulation, particularly when perceiver and expresser are situated in the same context, gives an additional boost to emotion perception. Sensorimotor simulation is sometimes reflected in measurable facial mimicry, or automatic facial muscle activity.
Below we describe recent supporting evidence from our lab. Also see our 2016 Trends in Cognitive Science review for an overview.
Disrupting facial feedback reduces emotion perception accuracy
To examine whether sensorimotor activity contributes to emotion perception, we disrupt people's facial sensorimotor systems while they complete different emotion perception tasks. In one study, participants who wore sports mouth guards were worse than control participants at distinguishing between dynamic spontaneous and posed smiles. In another study, wearing a facial feedback-distorting gel face mask reduced participants' ability to distinguish highly similar facial expressions apart. In a recent study (in prep), participants wearing medical tape on their faces were slower to categorize videos of expressions as negative or positive. We suggest that manipulating facial sensorimotor activity allows us to more directly test the causal contribution of simulation to emotion perception, compared to studies that correlate measured facial mimicry and emotion recognition accuracy.
Prolonged pacifier use affects boys' facial mimicry and emotional competence
If facial sensorimotor activity supports emotion perception, what happens when it is chronically inhibited during social interactions? Infant-caregiver interactions involve extensive facial mimicry, which in addition to building bonds may foster the development of sensorimotor simulation processes. Pacifiers prevent the baby from fully engaging in such facial expression exchanges. Studies from our lab suggest that length of pacifier use in boys negatively predicts the amount of automatic facial mimicry and emotional competence they display later in development. Adult observers also mimic babies' facial expressions less when their mouths are covered by a pacifier. Upcoming work will investigate why girls' pacifier use does not appear to predict later emotional competence. We speculate that gendered socialization, which encourages greater emotional expressivity in girls, buffers them against the effects of pacifiers.
Moderators of sensorimotor simulation and facial mimicry
Perceivers likely rely more on sensorimotor simulation when it is important for them to know what the expresser is feeling and thinking--for instance, if the expresser is a romantic partner or authority figure. In one study, men who received intranasal oxytocin, a hormone thought to be important for social bonds with ingroup members, demonstrated more facial mimicry compared to men who received a placebo. Although the precise social consequences of oxytocin are unclear, this study and others suggest facial mimicry is sensitive to social contexts.
Another study found that people mimic facial expressions more when they can achieve eye contact with the expresser. Eye contact may signal to the perceiver that the facial expression is self-relevant and therefore demands deeper processing.


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Reducing maternal mortality rates has been a long-term goal of public health officials. In the past, the majority of research has focused on infant mortality and its relation to the mother's age (maternal age), leaving the connection between maternal mortality rates and maternal age understudied. Recent research indicates that maternal mortality rates increase significantly after age 39, and women over the age of 50 are actually at a greater risk of death than infants.
A longstanding goal of both developing and developed societies is to decrease the maternal mortality rate. In 2000, the United Nations declared a reduction in maternal mortality and morbidities to be a primary goal by 2015. Historically, the research focus has been on infant mortality rates, with little data available on maternal morbidity. In recent years, women making the decision to have children at increasingly older ages, creating a need for more robust data to properly inform them of the risks pregnancy and childbirth entail.
The importance of understanding how maternal mortality rates increase with age is crucial. Until recently, there was a paucity of research on maternal morbidity in older women. There is a need for more rigorous studies like that of researchers at the University of Manchester who recently published their findings on maternal mortality rates by maternal age.
In their ten-year analysis of a population-based cohort study of all births in Washington State, they found that the maternal mortality rate over age 50 is actually higher for the mother than for the infant. Their findings conclude that even after age 40, women were found to be at risk of severe and even life-threatening obstetric morbidities. This begs healthcare professionals to shift the typical concerns about infant mortality to the risk for the mother.
Despite the marked progress in prenatal care in high-income countries, the trend of older women having children has actually prevented an overall decrease in maternal mortality rates. Clearly, further studies are required physicians to confidently advise and mitigate the health risks for these 'would-be' mothers over 40. The decision to delay childbirth to a later age should be one that is supported by more reliable research and informed health care professionals.
Written by Soleil Grisé, HBSc
Lisonkova S, Potts J, Muraca GM, Razaz N, Sabr Y, Chan W-S, et al. (2017) Maternal age and severe maternal morbidity: A population-based retrospective cohort study. PLoS Med 14(5): e1002307. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.100230


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Custom CNC Billet Aluminum Mounts are now available to secure your Hi-Lift jack to your Vanagon Overland Window- V.O.W to gain quick and easy access for roadside recovery and repairs. These Aluminum mounts can be added to any vehicle for a heavy duty mounting point.
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Please see Store Info for more information.


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Our client, University of San Francisco (USF) is looking to fill a temporary position at their Sacramento Campus as a part-time Simulation Technician within the School of Nursing & Education. Resumes are being looked at immediately and qualified candidates will be considered.
A temporary position is an excellent opportunity to gain industry experience or get your foot in the door with an employer. It's a great way to network, pick up new skills and expand yourresume.
The Simulation Technician serves as a technical expert who is able to set up, operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and in some cases repair simulation equipment including high and low fidelity mannequins and other similar equipment, hospital-type equipment used in simulation activities, and AV/IT equipment used in simulation activities. The Simulation Technicians instructs and assists simulation educators/faculty and learners in the use of technical equipment used in simulation. In addition, assists in operational activities such as staff and maintenance scheduling, and inventory/purchasing functions. The Simulation Technician is familiar with the various modalities of simulation education and has a good grasp of simulation educational principles; thus is able to assist in the development, setup, and delivery, and take down of simulation education sessions. They will also assist in project planning, staff on boarding, and commissioning activities as required.
Qualifications: • Bachelor's Degree or Diploma in a relevant technical or clinical field.
• 2+ years' experience as a technician in a simulation centre including experience in maintaining an equipment inventory and maintenance schedule.
• Demonstrated ability to install, operate, maintain, and troubleshoot simulation, hospital, and IT/AV equipment and software used in a clinical education environment
• Ability to communicate technical information to non- technical audiences
• Demonstrated adaptability and resourcefulness
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Ability to acquire new skills and learn new procedures
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite
• Fluency in written and spoken English.
• Ability to autonomously control the physiological parameters of a patient simulator in a realistic manner
• Awareness of latest simulation technological developments and products in simulation
• Demonstrated understanding of curriculum development
• Familiarity with Clinical Information Systems
• Flexibility with your schedule as this role will be part time estimated at 20 hours/week, the department is in need of someone with open availability during the week dependent on the School of Nursing's needs and programs.