text:
Senator joins network advocating for financial transparency
OTTAWA — A Liberal senator whose name has been attached to an offshore tax haven has been elected to sit on an international board that advocates for greater transparency among the world's financial institutions.
Ethics filings for Sen. Pana Merchant show she was elected to the board of directors of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in late May.
According to the group's website, the organization gives politicians from more than 140 countries a platform to "advocate for increased accountability and transparency in international financial institutions and multilateral development financing." Much of the group's work, according to its website, focuses on oversight of foreign aid in developing countries.
The group held its annual meeting in Azerbaijan May 23-24. Merchant's filing to the ethics officer is dated May 28.
Merchant did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The Liberal senator from Saskatchewan has kept a low-profile after her name appeared in a news report about off-shore tax havens.
A report in April by the CBC said it had documents suggesting Pana Merchant was a beneficiary of a $1.7 million offshore trust set up by her husband, Tony Merchant, a noted lawyer. The CBC obtained the records, which Postmedia News has not seen, through an international consortium of investigative journalists. The network acknowledged that having offshore holdings is not evidence of illegal activity.
The Regina-based family is now suing the network for libel.
The Senate ethics officer was asked last month to determine whether an off-shore account existed. In making the request, Conservative Sen. Vern White argued the CBC report raised "serious questions" about whether Pana Merchant had run afoul of the Senate's conflict of interest code.
White said Wednesday he hasn't heard anything from Senate ethics officer Lyse Ricard regarding his request. Ricard's office wouldn't say what decisions, if any, she has made regarding White's request.


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ANZAC Day, celebrated on 25th April every year is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand. This day is celebrated in the memory of all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, peacekeeping operations" and "the contribution and suffering of all those who have served". This Day is commemorated in many countries all around the world but primarily celebrated in New Zealand and Australia. This day commemorates the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) in 1915 on the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey as part of the allied forces attempt to capture Constantinople and open up the shipping lanes and access to Russia. Though the Gallipoli campaign failed to achieve its military objectives of capturing Constantinople, the actions of the Australian and New Zealand troops during the campaign bequeathed an intangible but powerful legacy. The creation of what became known as an "ANZAC legend or ANZAC Spirit" became an important part of the national identity in both countries. This has shaped the way their citizens have viewed both their past and their understanding of the present.
On this day, most of the tour companies arrive in the early afternoon on the 24th and it is time for everyone to find the best spot. The atmosphere is buzzing overnight as everyone feels a great sense of pride. Throughout the night there are readings from the diaries of various soldiers, documentaries movies played on a big screen, announcements from the leaders of New Zealand, Australia and Turkey and plenty of other things. Once the sun comes up the Dawn Service starts with national anthems, the Last Post played and readings from the many dignitaries that attend on behalf of the countries involved. At the completion of the ANZAC Dawn Service there are three other services throughout the day starting with the Australian service at Lone Pine, the Turkish service at the 57th Regiment and the New Zealand service at Chunuk Bair. The timing of these program changes every year. After the Memorial's ceremony, families often place red poppies beside the names of relatives on the Memorial's Roll of Honour, as they also do after Remembrance Day services.
Thousands of people around the world come to Gallipoli every year for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service to pay their respects to those that gave so much. It is a very special and moving experience for them. Most people will make their way to the Gallipoli Peninsular for the Anzac Day commemorations as part of a tour group. Tour companies today offer the easiest, best and most comprehensive way of getting the most out of your visit to Gallipoli. If you are looking for cheap travel deals to Gallipoli, Call us toll free @877-247-7183 and get huge discount on airfares.

subset: commoncrawl


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Sunday, May 01, 2005
Filibustering Frist
In any case, even left-wing protests at the TigerHawk alma mater tend to be moderate in tone and free of a lot of the craziness that seems to attend lefty activism on the West Coast. There are relatively few BushHitler signs and that sort of nonsense.
There is a very smart and entertaining protest going on right now, in fact, and I went down to pay it a visit at 7 a.m. this rainy Sunday morning. An enterprising clot of activists is conducting a "filibuster" in front of -- I kid you not -- the Frist* Campus Center. They have been speaking for something like 118 hours, and plan to keep going at least through Wednesday. This fellow has been reading the Bible for hours, having worked his way through the gospels. He had "skipped a few" and was reading Revelations during my brief visit.
Here's a side view of the protest -- there were a lot of people there at 11:30 last night, but being a college campus there was nobody watching at 7. They'll be back, though.
TigerHawk exclusive photographs.
For those of you who want to keep up with the action, there's a webcam and lotso' links here. The "filibuster's" official site has received more than 58,000 visits in less than three days, mostly via lefty blogs. Technorati shows only 20 links, but I think that its taxed servers are running far behind reality.
Because the protestors are friendly and moderate, they have gotten various politicians to speak, including our own Congressman Rush Holt. CNN has been out there, and one of the organizers, a very friendly junior named "Karen," told me that Air America was going to interview them. I expect that they will get more of the MSM next week. 'Prince' coverage here.
The official TigerHawk position on the filibuster, by the way, is that it would be a mistake for the Republicans, in a moment of ephemeral ascendancy, to abolish it even for judicial nominations. Once abolished for one thing, people will want to change the rules for tax increases, entitlement programs, environmental laws and attorney general nominations. However, I think that these Princeton students have the right idea: If you are going to filibuster, then you should have to filibuster. Filibusters should come at some personal and political cost. We should abolish the candy-ass filibusters of modern times, and require that if debate is not closed it must therefore happen.
The prospect of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy bloviating for hours on C-SPAN would deter filibusters except when the stakes are dire, if for no other reason than the risk that long debate would create a huge amount of fodder for negative advertising. If Frist were to enact the "reform" of the filibuster instead of its repeal, he would sieze the high ground. He could take the position that the Republicans are merely rolling back the "worst excesses" of the long period of Democratic majority in the Congress, and that filibusters will still be possible if Senators are willing to lay it all on the line. Indeed, even the students at Princeton would be hard-pressed to argue against such a reform of the filibuster, since extended speechifying is precisely the means they have used to make their point.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! If you're unfamiliar with TigerHawk's eclectic offerings, please take a moment to look around.
UPDATE: MUSC Tiger points out that Dick Morris made the same argument a couple of days ago.
UPDATE (Sunday night): As predicted, the MSM is picking up the story. WaPo here.
Final UPDATE (Monday night): Recognizing that I am hardly the first to this idea, thanks to Instapundit's exposure my post seems to have triggered a mini-debate today. I have more developed thoughts and links here.
*Yes, it is the same Frist. Or essentially the same Frist. Bill Frist (Princeton '74) is from a very rich Princeton family with a number of alumni. Some years ago they contributed a big wad to build the University's first real student center. Not surprisingly, it is named after them. It's just up the road from Carl Ichan laboratory and (Meg) Whitman College. Princeton's that kind of place.
32 Comments:
By Fausta, at Sun May 01, 08:50:00 AM:
I wonder if they take blogger guest filibusterers . . .
By TigerHawk, at Sun May 01, 09:39:00 AM:
I bet they would! Go over and volunteer for a stretch -- I would guess that there is lots of room between, say, 3-5 a.m. on Monday morning!
By Fausta, at Sun May 01, 11:10:00 AM:
I meant diurnal blogger guest filibusterers
(a) The prospect of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy bloviating for hours on C-SPAN would deter filibusters except when the stakes are dire, if for no other reason than the risk that long debate would create a huge amount of fodder for negative advertising.
Brilliant. Is it awkward being a genius, or do you get accustomed to it? (I ask on behalf of a couple of my kids.)
(b) Re "Fellow travelers" - we are the virtual Mongol horde, per the WSJ.
Tom Maguire
By Kid Various, at Sun May 01, 02:49:00 PM:
Spot on!
Forcing either side to bring business in the Senate to a halt and to go on a marathon talk binge like Jimmy Stewart would discourage the filibuster's use but still leave it as an important arrow in the quiver for dire circumstances.
By Fausta, at Sun May 01, 04:26:00 PM:
I went by and the kids are agreeable to guest filibusterers. I might get my filibuster after all
By TigerHawk, at Sun May 01, 04:42:00 PM:
Heh. Let us know when you are going on -- we need to publicize that. :)
Wrong. Bill Frist is the son of a doctor who has since died. They are from Nashville. His father and older brother Tommy founded Hospital Corporation of America and made a lot on the stock. There is a Frist Family Foundation which I believe funded both Frist buildings(one at Harvard..one at Princeton...both Bill Frist alma maters.
I'll tell you a secret about the guy as I've known him since I was knee-high to a grasshopper so to speak. He's perhaps one of the finest people I've ever known. He's not holier than thou but he is really responsible.
If kids were drinking in high school at a party...he wasn't. He was the one that drove them home. Everybody loved the guy...regardless of politics.
An old friend of Billy Frist.
By TigerHawk, at Sun May 01, 07:28:00 PM:
Last Anonymous Guy: I have no problem with Bill Frist. I know one guy who knows Frist, and he says the same thing. OK, his family foundation built the building. When I said "old Princeton family" I meant as alumni, not residents. Sorry about the confusion.
Thanks Tigerhawk...Nashville is quite covetous of their own, LOL.
By Lynxx Pherrett, at Sun May 01, 08:00:00 PM:
Jack Kemp wrote the same thing back in November 2004: "Force a real filibuster, if necessary."
By TigerHawk, at Sun May 01, 08:46:00 PM:
Lynxx - The idea of returning to the original "manly" filibuster is not particularly new, Tom Maguire's much appreciated kudos notwithstanding. However, it has been strangely absent from the recent discussion of the topic. I mentioned it to the Princeton protesters this morning, and they didn't even know what I was talking about (probably because they were, like, 20 years old). I'm glad to give the idea some renewed vigor, and happy that Glenn picked it up.
By Elisson, at Sun May 01, 10:26:00 PM:
I got your Frist - right here.
Does anyone know why and when they quit doing actual filibusters? I bet there was no damn good reason other than it was uncomfortable.
I agree that it would be amusing to make the donks filibuster, but here's the thing - the filibuster concept is over.
I mean, do you doubt for a minute that when the pendulum swings, & the Democrats are back in control of one or the other houses of congress, they will hesitate for even a minute to eliminate the filibuster if the Republicans try to use it the way that the donks threaten on judges?
So the only real question is whether the Republicans have the votes to eliminate the filibuster now, or the Democrats have the votes to eliminate it later.
Either way, the filibuster party is over.
The problem with this stance on filibustering -- that the process of speaking endlessly for days actually take place -- is that the majority party has to actually listen to it. That is, they must have enough senators on the floor to maintain an quorom, or else the filibusterers (is that the term?) would get to shut up/sleep until the quorum is restored. This quorum rule is what the Democrats in the Texas legislature attempted to use instead of a filibuster when DeLay Gerrymandered Texas a few years back. --dblack
By TigerHawk, at Mon May 02, 12:51:00 PM:
I understand the point, but that would mean that the majority also has to care a lot, rather than a little, when it wants to go to the mat. The existence of an actual brink (the minority looking like idiots and the majority sitting in their seats for day son end) might make both the minority and the majority less likely to engage in brinksmanship.
By Colin, at Mon May 02, 05:04:00 PM:
Hey guys, you're a little late to the party, I was talking about this last week. ;)
I have an alternative idea for "reforming" the filibuster. Set up a dunk tank in the Capitol rotunda. Each day at 7am, the filibustering senators get in the tank for consecutive 15-minute terms. As long as they can get 41 senators in the tank that day, the filibuster holds; as soon as they come up short, the filibustered motion comes to a vote. In order to have the privlege of dunking one of these august luminaries, ordinary citizens will pay $100 and get 3 balls and 3 minutes.
All the way around, it's a win. Either we get judges in the vacancies, or we fully fund social security for the next 200 years... Most importantly, it fulfills a core need of America today: the need for our citizens to express our sheer bipartisan loathing for the whole lot of them politicians.
Oh, yeah, and the water starts at a comfy 100 degrees F and after 2 weeks of filibustering it drops 1 degree per day until it gets to ice water...
cathy :-)
You know, I always thought a Mr.Smith-style filibuster required stamini (bladder control) on the part of the filibusterER, not the filibusterEES. But that hasn't been true since Byrd used a simple majority vote to change the filibuster rules, back in '75. Now, even a "real" filibuster is practically cost-free for the minority (they can tag-team, and only one need be present), but is very costly for the majority (almost everybody must be continually present). That kind of perverse incentive is why we have these 'fake' filibusters in the first place. Taken together (cost-free even if you have to hold the floor, and you usually don't have to hold it anyway) explains why (a) we've had so many "filibusters" in the past 30 years, and (b) why their use has expanded to the executive calender instead of being restricted to the legislative calender.
As another anon poster above said, the problem is a "real filibuster" really requires a rules change TOO (and how do you enact THAT rules change, without some nuclear parliamentary trick?) Under current rules, it takes "three-fifths of all Senators elected" break a filibuster, not (as it was during 1917-1949 and 1959-1975) [such-and-so] "of all Senators voting and present."
"Currently a quorum is required while a filibuster is being conducted (51 members present) that means the Republicans would have to have at least 51 of their 55 members on the floor in addition to the one filibustering Democrat Senator. The other Democrats could be home asleep in their beds under the current rules since it takes 60 votes (three-fifths of all elected Senators) for cloture. If the Senate was operating under the older-style cloture (with today's three-fifths instead of the older two-thirds) rule of 'three-fifths of Senators voting and present' then the Democrats would have to have a minimum of 31 Senators present to ensure that the presence of 51 Republican Senators would not allow the 'three-fifths of Senators voting and present' to achieve a successful cloture vote. The reason that the Republicans must have at least 51 members (out of their current 55) present on the floor is that if they only had 50 members present, once the single filibustering Democrat got tired he could simply walk off the floor of the Senate with the other 30 Democrats and there would be no quorum (51 members) present and hence no Senate business may take place." Explanation taken from
Without SOME change to rule XXII, the Mr.-Smith-Goes-To-Washington filibuster is an imaginary figment: the minority pays a very small price in caucus support, because only one member at a time must be present on the floor. But, they can force the OTHER party to pay a very high price -- because almost every member of the majority must remain continually present. After about three days of this, which group of pampered grandees will fold: the well-rested minority, or the exhausted pajama-clad majority?
Now, you could say that "well, if the majority doesn't care enough to park their well-padded posteriors forever, then the minority deserves to win." But is that really true? You need almost total unanimity -- not just on the merits, but also on the willingness to look foolish, take no showers, get no sleep, and DO NO FUNDRAISING/JUNKETS!!! for days on end -- among the majority, but you only need a half-dozen or so in the minority (and they get to take fundraising/junket/sleep/shower breaks!)
Under current rules, and the nature of our spoiled and lazy elected officials, a "real filibuster" is the same as a win for the minority. PR comes out even: one well-rested and well-dressed fool reading a phone book, versus 51 unshaven bedraggled rumpled-suit-wearing bleary-eyed majority members shambling around on CSPAN. At least under the old rules, it was an endurance test on BOTH sides, instead of only on the side that nominally has the votes to win the issue on the merits.
Be it noted, however, that the R's are willing to allow this perverse-incentive style "filibuster" to stand, with respect to legislative function. It's only with regard to nomination confirmations that they consider it (now) to be out of bounds.
By Wave Maker, at Mon May 02, 10:25:00 PM:
Hey congrats on the Big Hit, TH!
I've been mulling this issue for a month, but never posted on it for the same reason cited above -- In any event, I think the compromise rule chnage made years ago to make it convenient for a minority filibuster was a big mistake (although perhaps it didn't look like it at the time).
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text:
Shamus Plays: Champions Online, Part 3Shamus Plays - RSS 2.0
If you remember from last time, Dr. Silverback told me to go to Champions headquarters and help the hero Ironclad. I imagine Ironclad will be standing there idle, and he'll ask me to punch five aliens for him. Eh. It's a living. Let's get this done.
A massive cannon has been set up just outside of Champions HQ. I don't mean some fancy photon cannon or death-beam. I'm talking about a gigantic gunpowder-based, shell-firing, heavy-ass hunk of industrial metal. They've got some Star Trek lights bolted to the thing for show, but this is basically WWII-level technology we're dealing with here. I'm not so rude as to ask why superheroes would keep something like this around, but I do wonder.
Holy Haymakers! That is a big stinking gun.
Frankly, if these alien ships were susceptible to bullets I think we'd have beaten them by now. Still, I'll bet the Champions don't get many chances to use their huge-ass low-tech gun, so we might as well make the most of this.
Battle of The Ironclad!
This event is pretty simple. You have to kill a set number of aliens that rush the cannon. Then you run around and click on crates to "gather parts for the cannon." Then you defend the location for a fixed time limit. Then everyone gets their little reward cookie.
The event repeats indefinitely, so if it's fun you can do it as much as you like, and leave when you've had your fill. Public quests are one of my favorite aspects of Champions Online.
Ironclad is here. Unlike Silver Avenger, Kinetic, and the other superhero I didn't even bother talking to, he's not standing around asking people to do things for him like a murderous beggar. Ironclad is kicking so much ass that I'm having trouble finding asses that are still un-kicked. As soon as I run up to an nefarious alien invader, Ironclad whips a hunk of concrete at them and sends them into the alien afterlife. I give the bugs a few token beatings, but frankly I don't think Ironclad needs all that much help and I'm starting to feel like a sidekick. He likes to run around the battlefield, one-shotting bug aliens while shouting stuff like, "These aliens will PAY for the terror they have wrought!"
Ironclad lets us know that, "If we lose this battle today, then tomorrow, all humanity will fall." I suspect Ironclad is over-valuing Millennium City quite a bit. According to the loading screen, Millennium City used to be Detroit, which was destroyed by Mr. Truth-In-Advertising himself, Dr. Destroyer. If humanity was dependent on the health and welfare of Detroit, we would have gone extinct decades ago.
Taste justice, evil bug... thing!
Once the aliens give up and stop trying to smash up our totally-not-compensating-for-anything gun, I head back to see Dr. Ape Guy and let him know everything worked out pretty okay, I guess.


text:
I've been trying to get up in the mornings at 5:30 but it just seems like a losing battle. Almost every morning it ends up being between 6:00 and 6:30. Not too bad but not the time I really want to be up either. This morning my eyes popped open at 6:11. I thought I had an alarm set but never heard it go off. But even though I started a little later than I wanted I was pleased with what I got done before I had to leave at 9:00 - showered, fed fish, plants watered, kitchen swept, two loads of laundry ready to hang on the clothesline, fresh pot of coffee brewed, tea made, kitchen window washed, bed made, and two blog posts written and scheduled.
Michael and I went to my sister's this morning and played games, read books, reviewed flashcards and colored pictures with the kids there.
I came home for lunch, hung the two loads of laundry out to dry and read with Austin and Amanda and then headed back to my sister's. Her youngest had a Dr. appointment this afternoon so I watched the other kids while she did that. I was able to write while the little ones were sleeping.
When I got home Doug was home from work and had brought home a trailer and truck load of pallets and scrap lumber from work to use on the pallet fence. Austin helped with unloading some of them, Michael and Cayson played outside, riding around the yard, and Amanda spent some time outside with her dog and the cats.
After dinner, dishes and folding lots of laundry I went back to my sister's again because she had to take some of her children to music lessons.
It's been a good, busy day.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using these links.


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In May 2013 the University of Cergy-Pontoise, near Paris, hosted a conference on 'Education and Secularism', thus bringing to the fore two of the major challenges of today's globalised world. The conference, held under the auspices of the Cergy-based research group SARI (Societé d'Activité et de Recherche sur les mondes Indiens), brought together scholars of diverse provenances in a multicultural context to present and discuss aspects of secularism, education and the interaction between the two in India, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
This event has now borne fruit in the volume ÉDUCATION ET SÉCULARISME: PERSPECTIVES AFRICAINES ET ASIATIQUES, co-edited by SARI members Evelyne Hanquart-Turner and Ludmila Volna and published by Éditions L'Harmattan of Paris (2013 – ISBN 978-2-343-01916-1). It is published as part of the collection 'Discours identitaires dans la mondialisation' (general editor: Michel Naumann).
A notice of the book may be found at:
The articles are based on their authors' papers from the conference, and appear (there is one exception, in English) in French, having been translated where necessary from English. All articles have an abstract in English; there is an introduction by the editors. Here is the table of contents:
The authors are as follows:
- Jacques Coulardeau (Synopsis PAIE-CEGID-Nice-Boulogne-Billancourt)
- Michel Naumann (Universiy of Cergy-Pontoise, President of SARI)
- Ana García-Arroyo (University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain)
- Shruti Das (Berhampur University, India)
- Subhendu Mund (IIT Bhubaneswar, India)
- Belkacem Belmekki (University of Oran, Algeria)
- Vijay Kumar (Maharsi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India)
- Neema Ghenim (University of Oran, Algeria)
- Dhana Underwood (University of Liverpool, England)
- Michel Naumann (Universiy of Cergy-Pontoise, President of SARI)
- Debashree Dattaray (Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; article in English)
- Sumedha Dhani (Maharsi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India)
- Fewzia Bedjaoui (University of Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria)
- Cruz L. Bonilla (University of Granada, Spain)
- Christopher Rollason (independent scholar, Luxembourg)
- Jitka de Préval (University of Paris I – Sorbonne Nouvelle)
On a personal note, I believe I may remark that Chapter 15 (pp. 197-2010) is my own paper from the conference, '"Shalimar the Clown", de Salman Rushdie, récit laïque: une éducation séculaire et syncrétiste' (pp. 197-210). The original English version of this paper, 'Salman Rushdie's "Shalimar The Clown": A Secularist Manifesto?', is available on-line on my personal site at: http://yatrarollason.info/files/RushdieShalimarCergyEN.pdf – see also entry on this blog for 4 June 2013 (includes abstract in English).
In addition, I translated (from English to French) the paper by Shruti Das (Chapter 4), 'Un programme scolaire multireligieux pour une éducation séculariste: la restructuration du "National Curriculum Framework" indien en 2005' (pp. 49-66; original title: 'Multi-Faith Curriculum for Secular Education: Restructuring the National Curriculum Framework 2005').
I can vouch from the conference that the papers and debates were of a consistently high standard and stimulating nature, and therefore feel able wholeheartedly to recommmend this volume of essays that represents its outcome: much about multiple and surprising traditions of secularism and forms of education can be learned from its pages!
Note added 15 May 2014.
The English-language version of my paper on 'Shalimar the Clown' has now also been published in India. For details, see entry on this blog for 15 May 2014.


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This morning I ran in my 5th half marathon race in Carmel, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis.
The events are called Carmel Marathon Weekend, which includes an 8 kilometer race, a full marathon, a half marathon and a marathon relay. Many of my running buddies in my running club decided to form a marathon relay team and had a good time. Maybe running "only" an 8 mile leg of a 26.2 mile course is more fun than running the entire 26.2 miles? I wouldn't know since I have never attempted a full marathon.
About a month ago I had thought that I would jog this race in Carmel and save my energy for the half marathon on May 4th, two weeks from now. But Carmel Marathon weekend and I have a bit of an uneasy history. 2011 was the first year of these running events. I ran in the 8 kilometer race and didn't do very well, failing to finish in the top half of my age/gender division. In 2012 I ran the half marathon and didn't do well, again failing to finish in the top half among my contemporaries.
So, about a week ago I decided that it rather than jog this race, I would take off the gloves and do a full effort. I wanted to beat my personal record in the half marathon, my 1 hour and 55-56 minute finish last November.
I remembered the Carmel course from last year as being relatively flat. But because of the flooding in some areas, the race director had to change the course at the last minute and had to get this new course re-certified by USA Track and Field as being 13.0975 miles. This course seemed to have more hills than I remembered. Maybe my memory of the course is distorted by the fact that I hit the wall last year near the end and did a walk/jog for the last 3 or 4 miles? Also, I think in order to get this course certified by USA Track and Field at the last minute, they might have erred on the course being a bit longer than 13.1 miles. My Garmin GPS watch said that I covered 13.27 miles this morning.
I finished in about 1 hour and 54 minutes, a new personal record. During the race, after the first 3 miles, I relied on my heart rate monitor to determine whether I was pushing it too hard or not running hard enough. In my previous 4 half marathons I didn't rely on heart rate data at all for pacing help. I think using heart rate is a good idea. The only downside is that I might have used my heart rate as an excuse not to push harder than I perhaps could have. On the other hand, several times during the race the data from the heart rate monitor gave me permission to run harder than I would have if I had relied only on pace from the GPS feature.
I am happy about the results, even though my Garmin GPS watch was telling me during the race that I was doing better than my 1:54 or so finish as stated in the official results. Garmin can't be wrong, can it? My Garmin records me as having run a little faster in the second half of the race than in the first half. But the official results say the opposite. This makes me think that the race director did add an extra tenth of a mile in there somewhere at the end. But it was a good time, even though it was about 34 degrees at the start of the race and stayed in the mid-30s for the remainder of the race.
Perhaps the highlight of the race was during one of the middle miles of the race, perhaps mile 8, when we the course took us through a residential area. There was a little girl, maybe 7 years old, holding a sign that said, "Run for Boston." Yes, the tragedy of Boston last Monday was in the minds of us runners in this race. We had a moment of silence to honor the victims just prior to the beginning of the race.
This Carmel Marathon Weekend has become a 3 times in a year habit. Maybe I'll do it again next year. I admit that running another full effort half marathon two weeks from now sort of goes against my idea of avoiding something called "Extreme Endurance Exercise" and whatever cardiovascular damage that might result from it. But that's a topic for another post.


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Here is a very interesting idea. Churches uniting across the country sharing 1 week to introduce your church to other church models. In addition, as a pastor, you can create your own video sermon and share it with other churches across the country. Check out the video below. This is a big idea. I love the idea of pooling offerings, working with other churches in your city as well as other cities. None of this is done to make money for a church or speakers, and it is a uniting of the body. Here is a link. Thoughts?
This is a cool place to make a mixtape.
This is a cool commercial for a mix tape. Creativity creates a space for itself….
My Man Jay posted this video on his blog and I am officially BITING!!!!! This song is so un-freaking-believable that I had to share it with those of you who have never taken the time to go see Jay's dope blog. Hope you enjoy. KATE NASH…
" loswhit: I seriously might work in the most bad a– church building on the planet. Just sayin. "
from the twitter of CDubbs. I love that he loves God, and is still just a real dude.
According to a Barna study, 2/3's of American church attenders say they have never experienced the presence of God.
That is very very scary.
based on a talk by Mike Coleman at chapel:
- Gods kingdom is about organization. The Kingdom is righteousness, peace, joy.
- The price Jesus paid on the cross was not death, it was being removed from the presence of God
- When Adam and Eve sinned they did not see God, they only heard him
- Inhabit is to sit down, settle, remain, and marry
- God wants daily fellowship, not occasional glances
Here is a small snapshot of how hard it is to break a record in just the Christian world:
Almost 15,000 titles released last year via distribution systems.
10% sold 20 units or more.
1,213 albums can more than 200 units.
only the top 93 units on a given week on soundscan (on average) sell 100 or units or more per week. This equates to almost 1 unit per store.
Before you release your album, sign your deal, etc, find out what your expectations are and if they can be met. Is it necessary to create a hard product for retail? Maybe a digital release makes more sense. How many units do you need to sell to pay for your album? How do you get this done? Just some thoughts.
VERY rarely do I cut and paste a blog. PLEASE go over and read my friend Ben Arments blog and subscribe. This post this morning touched me so deeply:
The Tragedies that Propel you to Greatness
By Ben Arment
Let me ask you a question. Would you rather be well-adjusted and marginally successful… or emotionally wounded and highly successful? I've noticed a strong correlation between successful leaders and dark pasts.Some of the most successful men and women have experienced traumatic childhoods that propel them to become high-achievers. The early loss of a mother, the neglect of a father, abandonment, abuse…Just listened to Steve Jobs describe how his single mother gave him up for adoption to another couple that she made promise would put him through college. Imagine the pain. He ended up dropping out of school and the rest is history…I've heard similar stories about successful pastors and church planters. What often drives them to greatness is the motivation of escaping or redeeming their dark past. Righteous or not, it stirs up a great force within them that seeks wholeness, satisfaction.more later….


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A very useful, but Hard To Find pourer that will attach to most bottles of alcohol and will dispense just 1cl of liquid, which is ideal for tasting sessions or sampling events.
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5. To dispense a shot, invert the bottle in a smooth continuois motion to an angle of approximately 60 degrees or the spout of the pourer is pointing straight down. When the liquid stops flowing the shot is complete and the bottle should be returned to the upright position.


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On behalf of prof. Giancarlo C. Righini (Conference Honorary Chair) and the co-chairs of the Workshop Maurizio Ferrari and Laeticia Petit I have a honour to invite for International Workshops on Photoluminescence of Rare-Earth: Photonic Materials and Applications (PRE'17). We would like to welcome all the interested experts from different countries in the world to PRE'17, which will be held on November 30 - December 2, 2017 in one of the most ancient and beautiful cities in the world: Roma.
The comprehensive information about the the Workshop you will find at www.pre17.org.


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The Sundays In Lent Don't Count
By Beth Demme
Lent is a season of the Christian Year where Christians focus on simple living, prayer, and fasting in order to grow closer to God." Rev. Penny Ford
Many people choose to give up something in Lent as a devotional act. Some people give up chocolate, desserts, or all sweets. Others sacrifice a bit of their time to add more Bible reading into their day.
Lent is the 40-day period before Easter. Since Easter moves around on the calendar, Lent moves around, too. The first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, is on March 1 this year, but in 2018 it will arrive on Valentine's Day!
However, no matter when Lent begins, the Sundays in Lent don't count.
That's right, Sundays are not a time for sacrifice even when they fall during a sacrificial season on the church calendar.
Some might call it a loophole, but I promise it's legit.
You should observe your Lenten sacrifice six days a week, not seven. Here's why.
#1— Including Sundays extends Lent beyond the traditional 40-day period.
Lent is a forty-day period because it marks the forty days Jesus was in the wilderness following his baptism. (Matthew 4:1-11) Counting the Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter stretches Lent to forty-six days. This year (2017) Ash Wednesday is on Wednesday, March 1. Forty days from March 1 would be April 9, but Easter isn't on the 9th, it's on April 16!
#2—Sundays are a day for celebration, not sacrifice.
Fasting or abstaining on the Sundays of Lent would be inappropriate because Sundays are a day of celebration for Christians. Sunday is Resurrection Day!
The United Methodist Church is direct about this. "Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday." In the UMC, "each Sunday [in Lent] represents a 'mini-Easter' and the reverent spirit of Lent is tempered with joyful anticipation of the Resurrection."
The same sentiment is expressed by Catholic, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches.
#3—Lent is about connecting with God. Sundays are no exception.
Even though Sundays aren't sacrificial days in Lent, I'm not suggesting you gorge yourself on whatever food or activity you've given up the other six days of the week. Lent is no excuse for gluttony, people!
In other words, don't lose your focus. Lent is a reminder that God is our focus.
Lent is a special time to connect with God. For that, the Sundays of Lent are no exception.
For me, pausing my Lenten routine on Sundays has an important benefit. During the week, I tend to focus on (or maybe, obsess over) what I'm giving up, when really I should be focused on God.
If I didn't have a break on Sundays during Lent, I might get to Easter completely focused on the magnitude of my sacrifice instead of thinking about Jesus.
Sundays in Lent, and throughout the year, are a reminder of what really matters.
Let's be faithful in our Lenten sacrifice, and let's keep the Sabbath holy. Let Sundays in Lent remind us that our faithfulness is possible only because of God's faithfulness.
Do you observe Lent? Do you abstain from something or do you add something (like prayer or service)? Do you count Sundays or is that a day of reprieve for you? Tell me about it in the comments, in an e-mail, or on Facebook.
Join Me on Facebook Live TODAY!
Do you wish you knew the Bible better? Have a friend who isn't sure where or how to start? This Lent is your chance!
I will do a quick broadcast on Facebook Live every day at 1:30. I'll take you thru the Bible in about 5 minutes a day. Click here for more information.


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Born in Marseille, France, Patrick studied with Rudy Bryans, his mother Colette Armand, and at the Ecole de Danse de Marseille. He won the Prix de Lausanne in 1980 and continued his studies at the School of American Ballet and at the Centre de Danse International in Cannes. In 1981, he joined the Ballet Theatre Français and was promoted to principal dancer in 1983. That same year, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Béjart's Song of a Wayfarer with Rudolf Nureyev. In 1984 Patrick was invited by Peter Schaufuss to join the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), where he danced for six years before joining the Boston Ballet in 1990, under the direction of Bruce Marks.
Patrick's repertoire includes many leading roles in works by Ashton, Balanchine, Cranko, MacMillan, Petit, Tetley, and van Manen. Notably, in 1988, he performed Siegfried in the world premiere of Natalia Makarova's Swan Lake at London Festival Ballet. That same year, he was voted best dancer of the year by the British magazine, Dance and Dancers. In addition, he has had work created on him by such choreographers as Bohbot, Bruce, Tharp, and Wheeldon, among others. As a guest artist, Patrick has performed with the Australian Ballet, the Bayerische Staatsballet, the Deutsche Oper Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, and the Noriko Kobayashi Ballet Theatre. Since 2002, he has been the director of the Studio Ballet Colette Armand in Marseille. He has also been a frequent guest teacher for schools and companies in Amsterdam, Florence, London, Naples, Tokyo, and Toronto.
In 2003, Patrick co-produced Act III of Raymonda for the Noriko Kobayashi Ballet Theatre at Tokyo's New National Theater. In 2006, he was appointed teacher and ballet master of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. In 2010 he choreographed a production of Don Quixote for the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.
In 1998 and 2009, Patrick served as a jury member of the Prix de Lausanne and since 2010 has been the competition's official male coach and teacher. Also in 2010, he was appointed principal of the SF Ballet School Trainee Program and in September 2012 assumed the position of SF Ballet School associate director. In 2017 he was promoted again, this time to Director of the SF Ballet School.


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Well, I have returned from my first adventure…but things have been far too hectic and I have been far too exhausted (and ill with cellulitis) to write about the experience yet. But it is a post I am looking forward to sharing! In the meantime, I thought I would return with a photo challenge post. Thank you so much for all of the likes and comments on my last post — and for being there to cheer me on…
These may not be the greatest photos, but to me, they are wonderful representations of this week's photo challenge topic, "love."
There were many contenders, but I am far too tired to add them all (and I don't want to bore you!), so here are just a few. I may come back to add more at a later date…
Thank you for reading!
It was Christmas and my littlest sister decided that after all of my chemo and surgeries, the best gift she could give me would be a little companion to help me weather the remainder of my cancer treatments. So she chose this sweet little mini dachshund and presented her to me with a red ribbon around her furry little body. Ginger has spent many hours snuggling with me and giving me comfort in the two years we have been together. And she is a wonderful reminder of the special kind of love sisters sometimes share.
Another Christmas photo… I was sick and so tired. And my sweet miniature schnauzer, Mattie, snuggled up next to me. I had so much to do to get ready for a busy day of making our Christmas rounds that day, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to lay there with my special girl. And I am so glad that I did because she died suddenly of cancer a couple of months later. She loved me unconditionally and I miss her as much today as I did when she first died.
And my boys…
Weekly Photo Challenge: Love
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate
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This will probably seem like an odd post, but I'm going to present a snippet of my afternoon from two different perspectives for no other reason than "just because." Thanks for indulging me.
Scenario 1:
Across the room, a girl sits in a recliner with a small table beside her. She is sipping a large cup of tea. The tea bag tag dangles gently over the edge of her cup. The girl stares off into the distance and a smile crosses her lips. What is she thinking about? Perhaps she is remembering a lover from her college days? Maybe she is picturing a basket of puppies?
Wait… judging from a frame most would describe as thin and a belly that is unmistakably large and rounded, it's clear that she must be pregnant — she must be thinking of the baby growing in her womb. Yes.
Her eyes light up as she thinks of the "baby duckling yellow" paint color she and her husband chose for the baby's room this morning. "It's not too masculine, not too feminine, and it will be easy to paint over if we decide to change it when the baby gets a bit older." She bites her lip as she wonders how she is going to wait for the next three months to meet her new baby. She has slipped her calendar out of her purse and is making a list of baby names now. It's the same list she and her husband have been coming up with every night before bed. But she thinks she might have a revelation and "the one" might pop into her head today.
She continues her list.
She is mostly alone as she relaxes in the large open room filled with beds and curtains and chairs just like hers. Mostly. She has a number of visitors over the course of the next hour. Each one stops by to chat briefly with her. She laughs and talks with them individually. And then her visitors move on, one by one.
She continues to sip on her unusually large cup of hot tea. Her final visitor is dressed in white and bears the name of her grandmother. Her hands are full, but with what? It's hard to say. The visitor dressed in white sits across from the girl and then leans toward her for an unusually long time. She holds what looks like a long, shiny pin or needle in her hand. Odd. But when she stands up to walk away, her hands are empty and she and the girl are both smiling. She now has something pinned to her chest — a flower perhaps?
Just as her name is called she looks at her list. She is clearly pleased with her accomplishment and is excited to share this new name with her husband. It was her grandmother's name.
She slides gracefully out of the chair (well, as gracefully as a pregnant woman can) to meet the woman who beckoned her. They walk happily down the hall together and slip into a room nearby. The door closes behind them.
When they emerge, they are smiling and walking again. The girl is stroking her belly, as if to comfort the baby inside. She returns to her chair as the lady in white brings her a cocktail with one of those cute little paper umbrellas poking out from the rim of the glass. She relaxes for a bit longer before rising from her comfy chair, bidding adieu to her friends and walking out to greet her waiting husband.
Scenario 2:
I am sitting in a large, sterile room. Across the way, I see a girl…or a woman, really. She looks biologically young, but I can tell she has been weathered by experience. Something tells me that she probably still thinks of herself as a girl in the quiet morning hours when everyone else is asleep. So I will indulge her and call her "a girl." It's the least I can do.
The woman, uh, girl, is sitting in a reclining hospital chair. Beside her is a small table where alcohol swabs and some medical paraphernalia sit. She holds a large, lidded Styrofoam cup, the largest one I have ever seen, in her hands. Dangling on the side of the cup I see a tea bag tag. She looks at the bit of wisdom the tag has to dispense, rolls her eyes, and takes a sip from her straw. Odd that she is drinking hot tea through a straw. Maybe she's one of those women who don't want to stain their teeth so they drink their tea and coffee through straws?
Just then a nurse walks over to her and asks her to sign a form stating that she understands the risk of drinking this tea. WTF?
Well, it's not your average tea. It's tea that has been infused with a radiocontrast agent. Is it radioactive tea?
The girl stares off into the distance and a smile crosses her lips. She is thinking of a sandy beach in a warm place far away. "If this is more cancer," she thinks, "I am moving to that beach."
She puts her hand on her protruding belly and secretly hopes one of the nurses will ask her if she is pregnant when she signs the next consent form. It's an odd thing to hope for, almost masochistic, really. She pictures what she would say in response to the question. "Of course I'm not pregnant. I've been gutted. Every part that makes me a woman (except the "V" one) has been stolen from me. I am empty inside. Dead inside. And, oh, this? It's edema. My belly is swollen with fluid. No baby. I'm here to see if it's cancer in here, not a baby. My fate was sealed at 33 when those lumps in my breast were written off as nothing."
Of course no one asks her if she is pregnant. They all know the answer. They all know why she is here.
And she wouldn't have the guts to say what's on her mind, anyway. She wouldn't want to hurt or bewilder anyone. She wouldn't want to ruin anyone's day. So she thinks about what she would really say. "Nope, just fluid."
She snaps out of her daydream when a second nurse asks to see the port in her chest. They'll need it later.
She slips her calendar out of her purse and tries to recall the appointments she has scheduled for next week. Her fuzzy chemobrain has made it impossible for her to remember much these days. She soon finds herself drawing seagulls and starfish in the margins. "Oh, to have my toes in the sand right now and to be anywhere other than here," she dreams.
She shifts gears and makes a list of everything she needs to do when she leaves. Her 3rd graders — twin boys — will be waiting for her. It will be dinnertime.
She is mostly alone as she sits in the large open hospital room filled with curtains on tracks and not rods, hospital beds and hospital reclining chairs just like hers. Mostly alone. A number of nurses stop over to check on her progress with "the drink" or to ask her to sign a form. She smiles and makes small talk with each of them. And then her visitors move on, one by one. She continues to sip on her unusually large cup of hot tea. Through a straw. That's probably so she doesn't spill the giant cup of lukewarm possibly radioactive tea on herself.
Her final visitor is dressed in white and bears the name of her long deceased grandmother. Nancy. Her Nanna was one of her most favorite people in the world. She watched her die a painful death from cancer when she was 8 through 9 years old. "My kids are 8, too," she thinks.
The nurse sets up a tray with everything she needs to access the girl's port.
She holds a long shiny needle and asks if the girl likes to hold her breath or if she applied the EMLA cream in advance to make it hurt less.
The girl laughs, "No, no need. Just go ahead." She has been poked and cut so many times it's not even funny.
The needle punctures her upper right chest skin and enters her port. Now they will be able to push the intravenous radiocontrast agent through her chest.
The nurse dresses her port with a tegaderm and gauze. With the little yellow butterfly clip sticking against the transparent tegaderm, it almost looks as though the girl has a flower pinned to her chest. An ugly flower, but a flower nonetheless.
Just as her name is called, she looks at her list. She is already tired, but smiles at the thought of being able to sit down with her kids when she is done.
She drags her body from the chair to meet the woman who beckoned her. They walk quietly down the hall together and slip into a room nearby. The door closes behind them.
When they emerge, they are smiling faint smiles and walking again. The girl is doing that thing she does — looking dizzy and as though she is going to hit the deck. She strokes her sore belly. The nurse asks her to lie down until she feels better and says that people who receive the contrast through their ports need to wait 10 minutes for observation before they can leave anyway. The nurse brings the girl a drink. This time it's plain cola. Nothing added. The nurse puts a bendy straw in the Coke. The straw wrapper bears the name of a famous medical supplier. "Yikes, a straw from a medical company! It probably cost $50," she thinks.
When her 10 minutes is up, she is so ready to leave that she walks out in her disposable drawstring hospital pants and stuffs her slacks in her bag. It's time to go home.
So I was sitting in one of those recliner-type hospital chairs drinking oral contrast in preparation for my CT scan when I started thinking about perspective. Of course the "girl" above is me…
Thanks for reading… Your comments and "Likes" brighten my life…
So I spent Thursday night through Friday morning in the E.R. with one of my sons. I was reluctant to go in, but his 106.2 degree fever and listlessness made it necessary. Though no one likes the emergency room, I have a developed a particular and overwhelming distaste for the whole hospital scene. And, sadly, this hospital overnight prompted me to realize how "jaded" I've become when it comes to the severity of symptoms and illnesses in general. Call it another side effect of being a cancer patient.
What I am afraid to admit out loud — and even really hesitant to share in this, my somewhat anonymous blog, is that I am beginning to wonder if cancer is interfering with my ability to be the kind of parent and person I want to be (and the kind of parent/person I used to be).
While procedures and blood draws and surgeries and medications and side effects and…(well, you get the picture) have become the norm for me, they are not the norm for everyone. And, fortunately, they are not the norm for my children. But I sometimes lose sight of the fact that everyone hasn't spent what amounts to months (when you add up all of my time as an inpatient and outpatient since my cancer diagnosis in April 2010) in hospitals and cancer centers for surgeries, life-threatening infections, chemo, radiation, appointments, monoclonal antibody infusions, port blood draws, tests and procedures. Or that not everyone is waiting to find out if that lesion in their brain is malignant or if their liver function and lab values are so poor because the cancer may have metastasized to a vital organ.
I see my new perspective reflected in my everyday life. Someone will tell me about a symptom they're experiencing or about their cold or papercut and I try to be supportive and kind. In my mind, though, I sometimes find myself wandering off to thoughts of how upsetting it might be for them if they had to have their breasts cut off and their lymph nodes dug out, if they faced each day with a constant headache, if they had to manage life with lymphedema, or if they lived their lives with unrelenting neuropathy (a leftover gem from the chemo) that gets so bad that it interferes with their ability to concentrate/type/hold a glass.
Or when I hear a pregnant woman my age talking about heartburn or swollen ankles and I am consoling on the outside, but inside I am thinking about how the large masses in my pelvis and ovaries prompted two painful surgeries and the loss of what remained of all but one of my female parts (in case you are wondering, it rhymes with bagina). And then I drift off to a mental picture of the baby girl I will never get to hold in my arms because:
a.) You need a uterus to have a baby — and ovaries and Fallopian tubes and a cervix lend something to the process, too. But all of these things filled my gynecologic oncologist's specimen jars and were sent off to a lab and probably a garbage bin somewhere.
b.) Who would allow someone with my medical history to adopt a baby? As much as I would love to be here to raise a new little baby, let's face it, I am clearly a flight risk.
I thought of a "c".
c.) I know surrogacy has gained popularity. But that's not even an option for me because my eggs were stolen. Okay, they weren't stolen. But it feels like they were.
And I have that heartburn and those swollen ankles (and legs), too. Two years of chemo and Herceptin messed up my kidneys and made edema a big problem for me. And I have my dusty bottle of Nexium for my acid reflux disease, but I stopped taking it because I take so many pills that I'd rather look at those pretty purple capsules than ingest them.
The bottom line is, even though I want to feel sorry for you because you have a cold, inside I am dreaming of what it would be like if a runny nose and congestion were my biggest medical problems. Not so deep down I am wishing I could just take some NyQuil, hop into bed, and wake up the next day and be all better.
This is NOT me. This is NOT who I am. I
am was a kind and thoughtful person before cancer left my spirit beaten and bruised. Even if I felt like I like was dying, I would put your illness ahead of mine. I would comfort and take care of you. I would ask what I could do to be there for YOU. Even if I had just had surgery myself, I would gladly and altruistically chop vegetables and brown chicken for your homemade chicken soup. And I would do it without a second thought.
Though my ovaries weren't technically stolen, I feel like the deeply compassionate person I used to be was.
While this isn't great news for most of the people in my life, it is worse news for my twin 3rd graders. I fear that there will come a time when I devalue their medical experiences, their illnesses, their scrapes and bruises, their throat cultures and their trips to the doctor for a flu shot or a blood draw, or the sessions with the nebulizer to that help with their asthma. And that's just not good.
So I am trying my best to undo some of what the cancer has done. I am making a conscious effort to put the severity of some of my experiences aside to look at things as they are for other people and to avoid comparisons. I am trying to give my boys the special hugs they need for their scraped knees and to talk them through their fears of having blood drawn or shots given. And, as was the case this week, I am putting my own exhaustion and pain and sickness aside (as much as I can, anyway) to care for these boys who need me. Case in point — even though my brain shouted, "Don't do it!" because I am leukopenic and neutropenic, I climbed into my son's hospital bed to cuddle with him because he was worried about what was going to happen to him… While I can't guarantee that it always will, my heart won this time.
I am really trying to do what counts for my kids. But I may still look at you with envy when you tell me you have a cold.
*Special thanks to Donna & Robert Trussell for allowing me to use their fantastic cartoons*
After hearing yet another "young" person's cancer story, I feel absolutely compelled to write this post. It's too late for me to prevent my cancer, but it may not be too late for you or your mother, sister, daughter, friend, wife, husband, son, father, aunt…
I am writing today to urge you to limit your intake of the harmful chemicals found in plastic. Because the dangers of plastic use have been largely ignored by the powers that be, you probably ingest more chemicals than you even realize each and every day.
As a breast cancer patient diagnosed in my early thirties, I am literally sick over this. I am actually quite surprised that I haven't posted about this topic sooner because it is something I think about every day. Until I was aware of the danger (at some point after my cancer diagnosis), I ate and drank from plastic packaging at least as much as the average consumer. I used plastic water bottles and those plastic travel coffee mugs all the time. I left water bottles in the hot car and drank from them without a thought. I consumed soups and other foods from cans, used plastic food storage containers, plastic wrap and plastic bags, and I didn't think twice about handling store receipts coated with BPA (bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical often found in plastics and register receipts and linked to cancer, obesity, heart disease and other diseases).
Can I blame my cancer on my exposure to the chemicals in plastics and other products? No, probably not entirely. But do I think this played a role in encouraging my illness? Yes, definitely. As a young person with no family history and no risk factors for breast cancer, I feel pretty justified in pinning some of the blame on an environmental cause, especially since I am in a segment of the population that has seen an increase in breast cancer rates since plastic use became so widespread.
Plastic is EVERYWHERE. Food, drinks and personal care items like lotions and cosmetics are packaged in plastic more often than not. This makes chemical exposure almost inevitable. I have tried to eliminate plastic from my life (and from my children's lives) but have determined that this would be far too costly and time consuming for tired ol' me. In the world we live in today, plastic exposure is virtually unavoidable. So I have refocused my energy on limiting our plastic use.
Some of my favorite ways of reducing our plastic exposure:
-We drink from glasses and mugs whenever possible. I have recycled most of the kiddie cups that once filled the shelves of my
cupboard (and I wish I could take back the years I used plastic sippy cups for the kids). We make a concerted effort to use non-plastic drinking vessels now.
-I reuse my empty glass Snapple bottles. I fill them with water (and other beverages) and carry them in lieu of a plastic water bottle. I usually keep one or two with me and have a couple in the fridge so I can just grab them and go. Of course you can do this with any glass bottle. Not only will you be making a healthier choice for yourself, but you'll also be making a good choice for the environment.
-We store food in glass and never in plastic. At first this was really difficult because I just had a few glass storage containers. I made makeshift containers by putting plates on top of bowls as lids — not a good use of space! But I have since asked for Pyrex for Christmas and birthdays and my little collection is growing.
-We have reduced our use of canned foods. BPA is often found in the lining of food and baby formula cans.
-I avoid leaving cosmetics, lotions and other liquids packaged in plastic in the car. You may have heard the warning about not leaving water bottles in the car for the same reason — heating plastic encourages the release of toxic chemicals.
-We don't use "steam in the bag" foods like frozen vegetables.
-Whenever glass is available (for food, beverages, personal care products), I'll choose it over plastic, even if it costs a little bit more. We are on a REALLY tight budget, but I think it's worth it. Unfortunately, though, it's not usually a choice — glass is often hard to find. Even the organic hormone-free milk at my grocery store comes in a plastic container!
Why am I publishing a post like this? It is not because I'm having a bad day and need to vent (that's just a coincidence!). It is not because I am trying to blame someone for the hell I have been through in the past few years. It is because I want to save someone else from the pain and the loss I have experienced and will likely continue to experience. It is because I want to save YOU.
While I realize you may not be able to nix plastic from your life entirely, I hope you will please do your best to cut out as much plastic exposure as possible.
And PLEASE ask your friends and family and everyone you care about to do the same. If you are worried about sounding like an alarmist or a nutcase or a conspiracy theorist, take comfort in the fact that there is enough evidence to support the cancer – plastic link to validate your plight.
You can also consider joining an email writing campaign to urge companies to use safer packaging. Or sign a petition urging the FDA to ban the use of packaging that contains carcinogens. Here's one asking the FDA to ban BPA, a carcinogen found in cash register receipts, in many of the plastics we eat and drink from, and in the bodies of more than 80% of Americans! It will just take a minute and could make a big difference:
I googled "breast cancer plastic" and at the top of the list of search results (other than images of plastic 'breast cancer awareness' items — that's another blog post!), I found an article that was featured on one of my favorite go-to sites for breast cancer information and support — breastcancer.org. While I love bc.org and think the article is great for creating awareness, I do disagree with one section. It lists "safe" plastics, but based on my research, it seems there may be no truly "safe" plastics. Plastic = Chemicals. Right now the focus is on BPA which was long considered "safe" by the FDA (we're talking half a century here!). I believe it's just a matter of time before more of these chemicals are studied and deemed carcinogenic. In the meantime, here is the breastcancer.org article:
Of course I hope you will share this post with everyone you know and I hope you will work to reduce your chemical consumption. But I know that's a lofty dream in today's world. So, please do whatever you can. Whether you do one of these things or all of them, know that I am proud of you.
If we can prevent even one more person from getting sick, we've done something good.
If you have an idea for a way to reduce plastic use, please share it with us! Thanks!
I am not a ranter by any means and I have been pretty quiet about "Pinktober" and what has come to be known as "Pinkwashing" in breast cancer circles, but seeing October 13th advertised as "National No Bra Day" and as a "fun" way to support people with breast cancer has pushed me over the edge.
Are you kidding me? How on earth could a day where girls and women are encouraged to post and share photos of their braless breasts and to walk around with their nipples poking through their shirts be "supportive" for women who are living with or who have died from breast cancer, or who have managed to 'complete' the arduous treatments and disfiguring surgeries required to put them into remission?
I think the answer is simple. It is not.
Like so many women–and men–who have faced this disease, I have lost my breasts to cancer. Though I had a terrific surgeon, it was a physically and emotionally disfiguring surgery.
The cancer had gone so deep and was so extensive on my left side that it was at first inoperable. Even after months of chemo, my surgeon took as much tissue and skin as possible and went deep into my axilla (underarm area). The cancer had metastasized to my lymph nodes and had invaded them to such a degree that they broke open to allow the cancer cells to go beyond the walls of the nodes. Because of how invasive the surgery was and of how much nerve damage, etc. resulted, it was not only extremely painful then, but continues to be a source of pain and phantom sensations that affect my entire upper torso even today.
I required over a year of physical therapy just to be able to raise my arms again and I still don't have full function or range of motion. And, because of pain, swelling, conspicuous compression sleeves and gloves, I am constantly reminded of the lymphedema that resulted from the surgery and loss of my lymph nodes. Oh, and the life-threatening infections that forced a couple of hospitalizations and four months of massive doses of antibiotics this summer (almost 2 years after my original surgery), are also a little reminder of some of the things that the bilateral mastectomy and lymph node surgeries have left me with. And there is so much more…
So the thought of seeing bra-less women flaunting two body parts that I have lost to cancer — more than I already see this on a regular day — does not feel all that supportive. In fact, it feels quite the opposite.
I think of myself as an open-minded person. I do my best not to judge others or their beliefs and ideals. I have a pretty good sense of humor and am usually the first to poke fun at myself. And I make light of breast cancer and my struggles, treatments and their side effects, lack of breasts, fear of death, etc. fairly frequently. It is how I cope. But, given what I have been through, I think I have earned the right to joke and make light of how this terrible disease has affected me. But if you haven't been there or taken care of someone who has been there, then you should think twice before you publicize a day that jokes about putting the first body parts we usually lose to this disease "out there" on display even more conspicuously and then labeling it as an activity that helps our 'cause'.
We live in a society that makes a huge hoopla about breast cancer while at the very same time trivializing the seriousness of the disease. How can we be so contradictory?
While I am beyond thrilled that breast cancer is no longer a taboo issue and that people are talking about it, the commercialism has gotten out of hand. There is nothing pink and rosy about breast cancer, yet it has been pink-washed to death. It is a serious disease that kills.
And while I do think we need more awareness and education (about metastatic disease, about how young women CAN develop breast cancer, about how women (young and not so young) DO die from this disease, about the importance of research, etc.), I don't think we need the kind of awareness that buying a jar of salsa with a pink ribbon on it brings. While I hardly ever see "awareness" products addressing the topics above, I can't go anywhere without seeing pink products. Heck, I just have to look out of my front window to see giant pink garbage totes. The stores are filled with pink as companies try to make a buck off breast cancer. If you look carefully at these products, you'll find that some of them don't even donate a cent to breast cancer awareness, support, research, etc. And oftentimes those that do make a very minimal donation — and not always to organizations/programs where the money is well spent. Case in point — during a recent trip to my grocery store's pink breast cancer section, I found (after reading the small print) that the maximum per item donation to the breast cancer "cause" was $0.35. An abysmal $0.35 for a $25.00 plastic coffee mug! And, guess what, once that $0.35 reaches "the cause," a portion of it is lost to overhead, salaries and advertising costs.
One of the most unfortunate issues here is that well-meaning people are willing to buy pink products, even pay a little extra, because they think they are helping to do something to "cure" breast cancer or to provide "hope" to breast cancer patients. Why is this sad? Because those dollars spent on pink key chains, pink beer koozies, pink boxes of crackers and pink plastic water bottles could be going to fund research into metastatic disease, better (and less harmful) treatments, the elusive "cure" and, dare I say it, PREVENTION.
My intention is not to offend or to hurt the feelings of anyone who is genuinely trying to help, but I think it is important for you to know the truth. So please put your bra back on, put down those pink garbage bags (unless you really like pink that much!), that pink "awareness" pepper spray keychain, and that pink breast cancer "awareness" vibrator and dildo (yes, I'm blushing and yes, these are real things that their merchandisers say will "help you raise breast cancer awareness" — though they are shipped discretely in plain, unmarked boxes so no one knows what you purchased) and send a few dollars to an organization that devotes their fundraising dollars to research. You just have to do a bit of homework or read the labels on those pink items to see where your money is actually going. [There are pink products out there that do help to fund research, etc. — they seem to be in the vast minority, but they do exist.]
And, if you don't like homework, here are a few great organizations — there are many others, but these are some of my favorites:
*** Metavivor.org ***: [A terrific organization…] From support groups to funding vital research, our programs sustain the power of hope. Passionately committed patients ourselves, we rally public attention to the urgent needs of the metastatic breast cancer (MBC) community, help patients find strength through support and purpose, and make EVERY dollar count as we work with researchers to regain longevity with quality of life.
*** http://www.standup2cancer.org/ ***: [Another great one — and it's not just for breast cancer. Note that your donation will NOT be BREAST CANCER-specific, but will be directed toward multiple cancers. Since you are reading a breast cancer-specific post I know this may or may not be in line with your philanthropic goals, but if it is, SU2C is an excellent choice.] "Our mission is to fund collaborative, translational cancer research to bring treatments from the bench to the bedside faster, and save lives now." Since Stand Up To Cancer was founded in May 2008, we have granted $161 Million Dollars to ten Dream Teams of scientists and researchers, one international translational research team and 26 high-risk, high-reward Innovative Research Grants. 100% of public funds go directly into research grants. A portion of the funds that are raised from major donations and third-party fundraising go towards administrative expenses and overhead.
Other Important Organizations:
***A number of people diagnosed in my age bracket have emailed or commented about how Young Survival Coalition (YSC) has helped them. This organization is the premier global organization dedicated to the critical issues unique to young women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. Founded in 1998, YSC's mission is to serve the roughly 13,000 under 40 (often an under-recognized contingent of the breast cancer population) who are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.
YSC helps these young women by providing support and health information to see them from diagnosis to long-term survivorship. The nonprofit tackles issues specific to this population, like early menopause, effects on fertility, more aggressive cancers and lower survival rates. From YSC, "compared to older women, young women generally face more aggressive cancers and lower survival rates. More and more evidence tells us that breast cancer before age 40 differs biologically from the cancer faced by older women." Thus, the organization also advocates for increased studies on young women with breast cancer. YSC offers resources, connections and outreach so women feel supported, empowered and hopeful.
***If you are interested in making a difference for through an organization specifically targeting Inflammatory Breast Cancer, I recommend http://www.theibcnetwork.org/: Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) is a rare and highly fatal form of breast cancer that is not typically discovered by mammogram and often occurs prior to standard breast cancer screening age recommendations. Our all volunteer board is focused on education and funding research for this 200 year old orphaned form of breast cancer. No Lump Still Cancer.
…or consider a group that helps cancer patients and their families cope with their illness. For example:
CancerIsAJerk.org — This is a charity my dear friend jme set up to help families touched by cancer. You can make a financial donation or if you'd like to have a tangible something to wear to show your support, you can purchase a "Cancer Is a Jerk" t-shirts with all proceeds going to help actual families touched by cancer. You can also contact jme through the charity if you'd like to sell shirts as a fundraiser with all proceeds going to benefit cancer family applicants in general OR designate a specific family of your choosing.
And don't underestimate the value of local organizations. My local Breast Cancer Coalition is a perfect example. The Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester's mission is to make the eradication of breast cancer a priority through education and advocacy; to empower women and men to participate fully in decisions relating to breast cancer; to provide support to those coping with a breast cancer diagnosis; and to focus research into the causes, prevention, treatment and cure of breast cancer.
Also local for me is The Karen Carson Crane Foundation. Founded by Karen's siblings after she died of breast cancer, the mission of the Karen Carson Crane Foundation ("the KCC Foundation") is to provide support and financial assistance for individuals affected by breast cancer; to encourage breast cancer patients to have the strength, courage and passion to overcome their disease; to support local organizations that assist breast cancer patients; and to donate a portion of its fundraising dollars to organizations that research and promote alternative cancer treatment methods.
There are many other great organizations and groups out there — these are just a few.
And if you can't help with a financial donation, consider volunteering your time or talents. Perhaps to local cancer patients — bringing a meal or knitting a chemo cap or scarf, or sending a cozy blanket are examples of ways to show your support. I remember when a small box of craft supplies was left on my doorstep when I was first going through chemo — what a gift that was — my kids loved it and it kept them occupied for a little while when I was really ill! Or consider volunteering (or providing non-financial support) at/for a local cancer center, hospital oncology floor, or for an organization that helps cancer patients and/or their families. [If you need help with finding a place to volunteer, etc in your area, please email me with your town/city name & I will do my best to help…]. There are many ways to show your support that don't require $$.
And, of course, don't forget to go for your regular mammograms and to feel your breasts when you can (and report any changes to your doctor) because doing these things IS important. It — what I can loosely call a self-breast exam (but which was really just washing myself in the shower) — is how I found my own lumps, about 17 years before I was due for my first mammogram (according to the recommended screening age back in 2009). If I had ignored my lumps and waited for that first screening mammogram, I can safely say I would have been long dead! So please pay attention to your body and your breasts. While the vast majority of lumps are benign, I still believe it's always best to bring your breast changes to the attention of your doctor. Thanks for reading…
I will leave you with a picture that I believe is my best advertisement for Breast Cancer Awareness Month:
Side note: The ACTUAL National No Bra Day is July 9th annually. Someone had the great idea to do a braless day during October — Breast Cancer Awareness Month — to support "the cause." Adding insult to injury, the day they chose — October 13th — is actually the one day out of the whole year designated for Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness. Sadly, I've seen far more No Bra Day awareness advertising circulating around the web than I have Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day info.


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I'll be speaking with Richard Salsman on Thursday (May 10) at 8:30pm EDT / 5:30 PDT on Facebook Live. Tune in to learn more about Salsman's TOS-Con 2018 presentation: "Jean-Baptiste Say, Ayn Rand, and Objective Economics."
The interview will be broadcast live on TOS's Facebook page.
I hope to see you there!
(For more information about TOS-Con, visit TOS-Con.com.)


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Thousands of members of the Orange Order are marching through Edinburgh today in a bid to persuade waverers to reserve the union and vote "No" in Thursday's referendum on Scotland's future. Organisers estimated 10,000 would attend but "Yes" campaigners have put the total at closer to 3,500.
Orange Order chapters from Northern Ireland including Belfast, Antrim and Londonderry will also be on the march, with organisers stressing it will be a peaceful affair and only full members of the Order can take part. Liverpool's Provincial Grand Orange Lodge is also participating.
The Scottish Orange Order's grand treasurer, James MacLean, said: "We have worked very closely with Edinburgh City Council and Police Scotland to ensure that we have a trouble-free march and that the undoubted inconvenience is kept to an absolute minimum."
"The 'No' campaign has been criticised for not showing enough passion for the Union," Scotland's Orange Order grand master Henry Dunbar told marchers, "well look out, here comes some passion. We are the Orangemen and women of Scotland and we are passionate about our Queen and country."
However, many in the "Yes" campaign believe the spectacle of the controversial Orange Order marching through Edinburgh may give the pro-independence campaign another boost.
"The Orange Order represents the past," said chair of the James Connolly Society Jim Slaven. "The referendum offers us an opportunity to build a new Scotland without sectarianism." On Twitter Tom Doorley remarked: "Orangeorder marches in Edinburgh, thus helping to bolster support for a 'Yes' vote."
The presence of the overtly Protestant Orange Order marching through Edinburgh is a reminder of the country's sectarian past, though most people in both the "Yes" and "No" camps now believe the country has moved on.
With the vote on Scotland's future now just five days away, the campaign across Scotland is becoming increasingly fractious. First Minister Alex Salmond says the "Yes" campaign won't be bullied by warnings from banks and business about the future for an independent Scotland. A Guardian/ICM poll has the "No" vote on 51% and the "Yes" vote on 49% - with 17% still undecided.


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The winner for May-June '08 Video Contest is....
Congratulations Jiths!!
We didn't have lot of entries for this contest. We are little disappointed with that. However, most of the entries are creative and nicely made.
Following videos are also in our short list:
As we mentioned in the beginning of the contest, we took many factors into consideration in judging the videos: The number of views attracted by video, comments from users, rating of the individual thread, creativity of the video and the message presented.
We wish that we get lot more video entries in our next video contest. We will wait for few more months before announcing the next video contest.


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Oakley mountain bike mavericks sparked the look of smooth lines and edges that mirror mountain bike geometry, and along with a swept-back lens shape for velocity, Traildrop has Unobtainium® components that rival the slip-free hold of handle grips. Our riders have a need for speed but they also respect comfort, so we made it with durable yet lightweight O Matter™ frame material and a Three-Point Fit to ensure the lenses stay positioned for precise visual correction.
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Constructed of lightweight, durable O Matter™ material which is 25% lighter and 2x stronger than acetate
Base Curve - 5-Base
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Return requests should be made within 14 days of purchase to firstname.lastname@example.com. We will then email you a Returns Authorisation (RA) code and details of what to do next. We offer a free returns service for all UK orders and our Returns Authorisation email will also include details of how to print your Free Tracked Returns label. All returns must be as new and unworn and include all tags and labels.
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