Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the newest, and perhaps most versatile, medical imaging technology available. Doctors can get highly refined images of the body's interior without surgery, using MRI. By using strong magnets and pulses of radio waves to manipulate the natural magnetic properties in the body, this technique makes better images of organs and soft tissues than those of other scanning technologies. MRI is particularly useful for imaging the brain and spine, as well as the soft tissues of joints and the interior structure of bones. The entire body is visible to the technique, which poses few known health risks.
Detail. MRI creates precise images of the body based on the varying proportions of magnetic elements in different tissues. Very minor fluctuations in chemical composition can be determined. MRI images have greater natural contrast than standard x rays, computed tomography scan (CT scan), or ultrasound, all of which depend on the differing physical properties of tissues. This sensitivity lets MRI distinguish fine variations in tissues deep within the body. It also is particularly useful for spotting and distinguishing diseased tissues (tumors and other lesions) early in their development. Often, doctors prescribe an MRI scan to more fully investigate earlier findings of the other imaging techniques.
Scope. The entire body can be scanned, from head to toe and from the skin to the deepest recesses of the brain. Moreover, MRI scans are not obstructed by bone, gas, or body waste, which can hinder other imaging techniques. (Although the scans can be degraded by motion such as breathing, heartbeat, and normal bowel activity.) The MRI process produces cross-sectional images of the body that are as sharp in the middle as on the edges, even of the brain through the skull. A close series of these two-dimensional images can provide a three-dimensional view of a targeted area.
Safety. MRI does not depend on potentially harmful ionizing radiation, as do standard x-ray and CT scans. There are no known risks specific to the procedure, other than for people who might have metal objects in their bodies.
MRI is being used increasingly during operations, particularly those involving very small structures in the head and neck, as well as for preoperative assessment and planning. Intraoperative MRIs have shown themselves to be safe as well as feasible, and to improve the surgeon's ability to remove the entire tumor or other abnormality.
Given all the advantages, doctors would undoubtedly prescribe MRI as frequently as ultrasound scanning, but the MRI process is complex and costly. The process requires large, expensive, and complicated equipment; a highly trained operator; and a doctor specializing in radiology. Generally, MRI is prescribed only when serious symptoms and/or negative results from other tests indicate a need. Many times another test is appropriate for the type of diagnosis needed.
Brain and head. MRI technology was developed because of the need for brain imaging. It is one of the few imaging tools that can see through bone (the skull) and deliver high quality pictures of the brain's delicate soft tissue structures. MRI may be needed for patients with symptoms of a brain tumor, stroke, or infection (like meningitis). MRI also may be needed when cognitive and/or psychological symptoms suggest brain disease (like Alzheimer's or Huntington's diseases, or multiple sclerosis), or when developmental retardation suggests a birth defect. MRI can also provide pictures of the sinuses and other areas of the head beneath the face. Recent refinements in MRI technology may make this form of diagnostic imaging even more useful in evaluating patients with brain cancer, stroke, schizophrenia, or epilepsy. In particular, a new 3-D approach to MRI imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI, measures the flow of water within brain tissue, allowing the radiologist to tell where the normal flow of fluid is disrupted, and to distinguish more clearly between cancerous and normal brain tissue. The introduction of DTI has led to a technique known as fiber tracking, which allows the neurosurgeon to tell whether a space-occupying brain tumor has damaged or displaced the nerve pathways in the white matter of the brain. This information in turn improves the surgeon's accuracy during the actual operation.
Joint. MRI scanning is most commonly used to diagnose and assess joint problems. MRI can provide clear images of the bone, cartilage, ligament, and tendon that comprise a joint. MRI can be used to diagnose joint injuries due to sports, advancing age, or arthritis. MRI can also be used to diagnose shoulder problems, like a torn rotator cuff. MRI can also detect the presence of an otherwise hidden tumor or infection in a joint, and can be used to diagnose the nature of developmental joint abnormalities in children.
Skeleton. The properties of MRI that allow it to see through the skull also allow it to view the inside of bones. It can be used to detect bone cancer, inspect the marrow for leukemia and other diseases, assess bone loss (osteoporosis), and examine complex fractures.
The rest of the body. While CT and ultrasound satisfy most chest, abdominal, and general body imaging needs, MRI may be needed in certain circumstances to provide better pictures or when repeated scanning is required. The progress of some therapies, like liver cancer therapy, needs to be monitored, and the effect of repeated x-ray exposure is a concern.
MRI scanning should not be used when there is the potential for an interaction between the strong MRI magnet and metal objects that might be imbedded in a patient's body. The force of magnetic attraction on certain types of metal objects (including surgical steel) could move them within the body and cause serious injury. Metal may be imbedded in a person's body for several reasons.
Medical. People with implanted cardiac pacemakers, metal aneurysm clips, or who have had broken bones repaired with metal pins, screws, rods, or plates must tell their radiologist prior to having an MRI scan. In some cases (like a metal rod in a reconstructed leg) the difficulty may be overcome.
Injury. Patients must tell their doctors if they have bullet fragments or other metal pieces in their body from old wounds. The suspected presence of metal, whether from an old or recent wound, should be confirmed before scanning.
Occupational. People with significant work exposure to metal particles (working with a metal grinder, for example) should discuss this with their doctor and radiologist. The patient may need prescan testing-usually a single, regular x ray of the eyes to see if any metal is present.
Chemical agents designed to improve the picture and/or allow for the imaging of blood or other fluid flow during MRA may be injected. In rare cases, patients may be allergic to or intolerant of these agents, and these patients should not receive them. If these chemical agents are to be used, patients should discuss any concerns they have with their doctor and radiologist.
The potential side effects of magnetic and electric fields on human health remain a source of debate. In particular, the possible effects on an unborn baby are not well known. Any woman who is, or may be, pregnant should carefully discuss this issue with her doctor and radiologist before undergoing a scan.
In essence, MRI produces a map of hydrogen distribution in the body. Hydrogen is the simplest element known, the most abundant in biological tissue, and one that can be magnetized. It will align itself within a strong magnetic field, like the needle of a compass. The earth's magnetic field is not strong enough to keep a person's hydrogen atoms pointing in the same direction, but the superconducting magnet of an MRI machine can. This comprises the "magnetic" part of MRI.
Once a patient's hydrogen atoms have been aligned in the magnet, pulses of very specific radio wave frequencies are used to knock them back out of alignment. The hydrogen atoms alternately absorb and emit radio wave energy, vibrating back and forth between their resting (magnetized) state and their agitated (radio pulse) state. This comprises the "resonance" part of MRI.
The MRI equipment records the duration, strength, and source location of the signals emitted by the atoms as they relax and translates the data into an image on a television monitor. The state of hydrogen in diseased tissue differs from healthy tissue of the same type, making MRI particularly good at identifying tumors and other lesions. In some cases, chemical agents such as gadolinium can be injected to improve the contrast between healthy and diseased tissue.
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is different from MRI because MRS uses a continuous band of radio wave frequencies to excite hydrogen atoms in a variety of chemical compounds other than water. These compounds absorb and emit radio energy at characteristic frequencies, or spectra, which can be used to identify them. Generally, a color image is created by assigning a color to each distinctive spectral emission. This comprises the "spectroscopy" part of MRS. MRS is still experimental and is available in only a few research centers.
Doctors primarily use MRS to study the brain and disorders, like epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, brain tumors, and the effects of drugs on brain growth and metabolism. The technique is also useful in evaluating metabolic disorders of the muscles and nervous system.
Regardless of the exact type of MRI planned, or area of the body targeted, the procedure involved is basically the same and occurs in a special MRI suite. The patient lies back on a narrow table and is made as comfortable as possible. Transmitters are positioned on the body and the cushioned table that the patient is lying on moves into a long tube that houses the magnet. The tube is as long as an average adult lying down, and the tube is narrow and open at both ends. Once the area to be examined has been properly positioned, a radio pulse is applied. Then a two-dimensional image corresponding to one slice through the area is made. The table then moves a fraction of an inch and the next image is made. Each image exposure takes several seconds and the entire exam will last anywhere from 30-90 minutes. During this time, the patient is not allowed to move. If the patient moves during the scan, the picture will not be clear.
For the head and neck, a helmet-like hat is worn.
For the spine, chest, and abdomen, the patient will be lying on the transmitters.
For the knee, shoulder, or other joint, the transmitters will be applied directly to the joint.
Additional probes will monitor vital signs (like pulse, respiration, etc.).
The process is very noisy and confining. The patient hears a thumping sound for the duration of the procedure. Since the procedure is noisy, music supplied via earphones is often provided. Some patients get anxious or panic because they are in the small, enclosed tube. This is why vital signs are monitored and the patient and medical team can communicate between each other. If the chest or abdomen are to be imaged, the patient will be asked to hold his/her breath as each exposure is made. Other instructions may be given to the patient, as needed. In many cases, the entire examination will be performed by an MRI operator who is not a doctor. However, the supervising radiologist should be available to consult as necessary during the exam, and will view and interpret the results sometime later.
In some cases (such as for MRI brain scanning or an MRA), a chemical designed to increase image contrast may be given by the radiologist immediately before the exam. If a patient suffers from anxiety or claustrophobia, drugs may be given to help the patient relax.
The patient must remove all metal objects (watches, jewelry, eye glasses, hair clips, etc). Any magnetized objects (like credit and bank machine cards, audio tapes, etc.) should be kept far away from the MRI equipment because they can be erased. The patient cannnot bring their wallet or keys into the MRI machine. The patient may be asked to wear clothing without metal snaps, buckles, or zippers, unless a medical gown is worn during the procedure. The patient may be asked to remove any hair spray, hair gel, or cosmetics that may interfere with the scan.
No aftercare is necessary, unless the patient received medication or had a reaction to a contrast agent. Normally, patients can immediately return to their daily activities. If the exam reveals a serious condition that requires more testing and/or treatment, appropriate information and counseling will be needed.
A normal MRI, MRA, or MRS result is one that shows the patient's physical condition to fall within normal ranges for the target area scanned.
Generally, MRI is prescribed only when serious symptoms and/or negative results from other tests indicate a need. There often exists strong evidence of a condition that the scan is designed to detect and assess. Thus, the results will often be abnormal, confirming the earlier diagnosis. At that point, further testing and appropriate medical treatment is needed. For example, if the MRI indicates the presence of a brain tumor, an MRS may be prescribed to determine the type of tumor so that aggressive treatment can begin immediately without the need for a surgical biopsy.
Angiography — Any of the different methods for investigating the condition of blood vessels, usually via a combination of radiological imaging and injections of chemical tracing and contrasting agents.
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) — A refinement of magnetic resonance imaging that allows the doctor to measure the flow of water and track the pathways of white matter in the brain. DTI is able to detect abnormalities in the brain that do not show up on standard MRI scans.
Gadolinium — A very rare metallic element useful for its sensitivity to electromagnetic resonance, among other things. Traces of it can be injected into the body to enhance the MRI pictures.
Hydrogen — The simplest, most common element known in the universe. It is composed of a single electron (negatively charged particle) circling a nucleus consisting of a single proton (positively charged particle). It is the nuclear proton of hydrogen that makes MRI possible by reacting resonantly to radio waves while aligned in a magnetic field.
Ionizing radiation — Electromagnetic radiation that can damage living tissue by disrupting and destroying individual cells. All types of nuclear decay radiation (including x rays) are potentially ionizing. Radio waves do not damage organic tissues they pass through.
Magnetic field — The three-dimensional area surrounding a magnet, in which its force is active. During MRI, the patient's body is permeated by the force field of a superconducting magnet.
Radio waves — Electromagnetic energy of the frequency range corresponding to that used in radio communications, usually 10,000 cycles per second to 300 billion cycles per second. Radio waves are the same as visible light, x rays, and all other types of electromagnetic radiation, but are of a higher frequency.
Clark, C. A., T. R. Barrick, M. M. Murphy, and B. A. Bell. "White Matter Fiber Tracking in Patients with Space-Occupying Lesions of the Brain: A New Technique for Neurosurgical Planning?" Neuroimage 20 (November 2003): 1601-1608.
Hendler, T., P. Pianka, M. Sigal, et al. "Delineating Gray and White Matter Involvement in Brain Lesions: Three-dimensional Alignment of Functional Magnetic Resonance and Diffusion-Tensor Imaging." Journal of Neurosurgery 99 (December 2003): 1018-1027.
Kubicki, M., C. F. Westin, P. G. Nestor, et al. "Cingulate Fasciculus Integrity Disruption in Schizophrenia: A Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study." Biological Psychiatry 54 (December 1, 2003): 1171-1180.
Mahmoud-Ghoneim, D., G. Toussaint, J. M. Constans, and J. D. de Certaines. "Three-Dimensional Texture Analysis in MRI: A Preliminary Evaluation in Gliomas." Magnetic Resonance Imaging 21 (November 2003): 983-987.
Rees, J. "Advances in Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Brain Tumours." Current Opinion in Neurology 16 (December 2003): 643-650.
Satoh, T., K. Onoda, and S. Tsuchimoto. "Intraoperative Evaluation of Aneurysmal Architecture: Comparative Study with Transluminal Images of 3D MR and CT Angiograms." American Journal of Neuroradiology 24 (November-December 2003): 1975-1981.
American College of Radiology. 1891 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 22091. (800) 227-5463. http://www.acr.org.
American Society of Radiologic Technologists. 15000 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque, NM 87123-3917. (505) 298-4500. http://www.asrt.org.
Center for Devices and Radiological Health. United States Food and Drug Administration. 1901 Chapman Ave., Rockville, MD 20857. (301) 443-4109. http://www.fda.gov/cdrh.
a noninvasive nuclear procedure for imaging tissues of high fat and water content that cannot be seen with other radiologic techniques. The MRI image gives information about the chemical makeup of tissues, thus making it possible to distinguish normal, cancerous, atherosclerotic, and traumatized tissue masses in the image.
The patient having an MRI procedure lies in the bore of the cylindrical magnetic resonance machine; therefore, the test can induce claustrophobia. Furthermore, the person must lie motionless during the test, which can last from 15 to 90 minutes. If patients are susceptible to claustrophobia or cannot tolerate the tedium of lying still in a confined space, a sedative can be given without compromising test results.
Magnetic resonance imaging. The patient enters a cylinder, which serves as a magnet. Radiofrequency coils within the cylinder emit signals that are transformed into an image of a display unit.
Coronal view from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The MRI study provides anatomical information about the osseous and soft tissue extent of a tumor. From Thrall and Ziessman, 2001.
a diagnostic radiologic modality, using nuclear magnetic resonance technology, in which the magnetic nuclei (especially protons) of a patient are aligned in a strong, uniform magnetic field, absorb energy from tuned radiofrequency pulses, and emit radiofrequency signals as their excitation decays. These signals, which vary in intensity according to nuclear abundance and molecular chemical environment, are converted into sets of tomographic images by using field gradients in the magnetic field, which permits 3-dimensional localization of the point sources of the signals.
medical imaging based on the resonance of atomic nuclei in a strong magnetic field. The field causes those nuclei with an odd number of protons to align and rotate around the axis of the field. Application of a radiofrequency pulse causes the protons to resonate. When the pulse is terminated, the protons "relax" back toward equilibrium. As they do so, they release energy that is detected as a radio signal. Analysis of the amplitude and frequency of the signal yields information about the number and position of nuclei in the tissue, from which the image is produced. MRI is the method of choice for a growing number of disease processes. Among its advantages are its superior soft-tissue contrast resolution, ability to image in multiple planes, and lack of ionizing radiation hazards. MRI is regarded as superior to computed tomography for most central nervous system abnormalities, particularly those of the posterior fossa, brainstem, and spinal cord. It has also become an important tool in musculoskeletal and pelvic imaging. The procedure usually does not require a contrast medium but may use an IV injection of gadolinium. About 15% of patients require an anxiolytic to overcome claustrophobia during MRI, and children may need a sedative as well. Patients must remain motionless for high-quality imaging. Images also may be degraded by motions related to heart contractions, respiration, and bowel peristalsis. Contraindications to MRI are pacemakers, metallic aneurysm clips, and some metallic prostheses and foreign objects. Also called zeugmatography. Compare open magnetic resonance imaging. See also magnetic resonance.
Imaging A noninvasive technique for imaging anatomic structures which involves placing a person in a strong magnetic field and then, using magnetic gradients and brief radiofrequency pulses, determining the resonance characteristics at each point in the area being studied; the creation of images by magnetic resonance–MR, which is a function of the distribution of hydrogen nuclei–protons in the body; the MR image is a computerized interpretation of the physical interaction of unpaired protons with electromagnetic radiation in the presence of a magnetic field; although both have multiplanar capabilities, MRI often trumps CT: no ionizing radiation; contrast between normal and pathologic tissue is greater; confounding bone artifacts do not occur; rapidly moving components appear dark, therefore blood flow through large vessels can be analyzed as a type of natural contrast; the images derive from analysis of the amplitudes and frequencies of the weak signals produced by MR, allowing deduction of the sample's chemical composition, with protons providing the best images. See Burst MRI, Diffusion-weighted imaging, Dynamic imaging, Perfusion-weighted imaging, Short-bore MRI.
A diagnostic modality in which the magnetic nuclei (especially protons) of a patient are aligned in a strong, uniform magnetic field, absorb energy from tuned radiofrequency pulses, and emit radiofrequency signals as their excitation decays. These signals, which vary in intensity according to nuclear abundance and molecular chemical environment, are converted into sets of tomographic images by using field gradients in the magnetic field, which permits three-dimensional localization of the point sources of the signals. Unlike conventional radiography or computed tomography, MRI does not expose patients to ionizing radiation.
An important method of body scanning offering a degree of resolution of detail unequalled by any other method. The body is exposed to an intense magnetic field which forces spinning atomic nuclei into a standard orientation. Brief radio waves (electromagnetic signals) applied to the body cause certain atoms, especially the hydrogen in water, to take up a new alignment. In returning to the standard orientation these atoms emit small radio waves that can be picked up and their origin computed. The MRI scanner then reconstitutes images of cross-sections of the body in much the same way as does the CT scanner. The MRI scanner is capable of resolving subtle abnormalities in soft tissue such as brain and nerves. The characteristic plaques of multiple sclerosis, for instance, are clearly revealed as is an area of brain deprived of its blood supply. No ionizing radiation is involved. See also CT SCANNING.
Non-invasive method of imaging part of the body to facilitate diagnosis and therapy. Unlike other radiological methods, this technique does not expose the patient to ionizing radiations. It depends instead on a strong magnetic field which induces the spins of atomic nuclei within the body (e.g. hydrogen atoms) to align themselves along the axis of the magnetic field. When exposed to a pulse of electromagnetic energy at a specific radio frequency, the nuclear spins tilt momentarily then regain their original orientations thus re-emitting an electromagnetic signal at the same radio frequency, which can be detected and analysed to generate a three-dimensional image. The rate at which the radio frequency signal decays can be used to characterize the properties of different tissues, both normal and abnormal. The rates are referred to as T1 and T2 and each yields different contrasts: T1-weighted images are best for anatomical details and T2-weighted images are best for pathological details. This technique provides better image contrast than X-ray computerized tomography in many instances (e.g. the patches of demyelination in the white matter of patients with multiple sclerosis), while the reverse is true in other instances (e.g. a meningioma in the posterior visual pathway). Usage includes the detection of optic nerve disease (e.g. glioma, optic neuropathy), retrobulbar neuritis, lesions in the chiasma and orbital tumours. In general, this procedure takes longer than X-ray computerized tomography (Fig. M3).
functional MRI (fMRI) A non-invasive method used to map the various areas of the cortex, as well as brain tumour mapping, by observing brain activity in response to performing a task that engages a specific behaviour (e.g. tests of colour vision, face perception, motion perception, solving a mathematical problem). This is accomplished, within a conventional MRI scanner, by detecting the change in magnetic susceptibility of blood haemoglobin (and thus blood oxygenation) in various areas of the brain. During task execution when a brain region is active there is an increase in blood flow, which is more oxygenated and has a lower concentration of haemoglobin. This leads to a focal increase in MR image intensity, of around 1-5%, which can be detected using appropriate statistical methods. See visual association areas; radiology; positron emission tomography.
Diagnostic radiologic modality, using nuclear magnetic resonance technology, in which magnetic nuclei (especially protons) of a patient are aligned in a strong, uniform magnetic field, absorb energy from tuned radiofrequency pulses, and emit radiofrequency signals as their excitation decays. These signals, which vary in intensity according to nuclear abundance and molecular chemical environment, are converted into sets of tomographic images.
n also known as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. It is a diagnostic technique in which the phosphorus in cellular tissues is excited by magnetic force. The distribution and alignment of these cellular elements can be captured on phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance instruments forming a high-resolution tissue image. A higher degree of resolution of soft tissues is possible using this technique than from radiographic techniques.
Q. Anybody to tell me more about MRI scan? had an MRIscan and this has snown adenocarcinoma of endometrium early stage There is no lymphatic involvement but is it possible an MRIscan to miss some tumor?
A. MRI is a very effective machine but it has it's limits. it has a great resolution but will not see very small tumors. therefore- it can miss metastasis sometime. but if your adenocarcinoma is in early stage- it might not sent metastasis. they did a biopsy? that can give you some idea what to expect.
Q. i lost a lot of hearing in my ears a couple of years ago,and i had a mri done,the mri said i had ETD, the ETD caused my eushation tube to close,its very uncomfortable,i dont feel the wind or air in my ears no more,i also feel fluid behind my ear drum,i lost a lot of inner hearing,its hard to hear my own voice,and nothing sounds clear,i also feel presser behind my ear drum from the fluid,i went to several doctors for this and i tryed medican and nothing worked,i tryed steriods for the influmation in my ears,that didnt work,i asked many doctors to drain my ears and give me venteling tubes,no doctor will do it,is there anyone out there that has the same ear problem that i do,and the doctors wont give them the tubes?why are the doctors not puting tubes in ears anymore?is it just me.or is everyone getting turned down for the tubes in there ears?i just feel so alone in this does anyone have the same problem and if they do could you share your experence,it would be nice to talk to someone that has the ETD ear problem like me,im in content discomfort,and i dont understand why nobody will help.
Magnetic resonance imaging is a non-invasive and safe imaging modality and in current clinical practice magnetic resonance imaging is the first line investigation for the identification of suspected acoustic neuroma in appropriately selected patients.
We are excited by the market response to our offering and the recognition of the value of our gateway to improved performance for the magnetic resonance imaging industry as a whole, which our product and technology set offers," said C.
Unlike magnetic resonance imaging, this technique can be used for studying the internal structure of metal alloys, composites and other materials.
Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, the technology that allows physicians to look at cancer cells and brain lesions, has for the first time been used to examine core samples taken from the ocean floor.
NASDAQ: EPIX), a developer of innovative pharmaceuticals for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and Predix Pharmaceuticals, which has signed a definitive merger agreement with EPIX, announced today that the companies' presentation at the Needham & Company, LLC's Fifth Annual Biotechnology and Medical Technology Conference 2006 will be webcast live.
OTCBB: BIPH; FWB: BTN), a developer of next-generation medical technology, today announced that it has entered into a research partnership with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help improve patient safety in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) environments.
Biophan is focused on making biomedical devices that are safe and image compatible under Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
Designers of medical systems, such as magnetic resonance imaging and patient monitoring receivers, which involve complex, multi-channel designs will benefit from the new converters which offer the highest signal to noise ratio (SNR) at 79dB, and deliver 16-bit precision at high IFs (intermediate frequency) and supporting sampling rates up to 130 MSPS (mega samples per second).
NASDAQ: EPIX), a developer of innovative pharmaceuticals for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), today announced that the fifty-second and final patient has been enrolled in the Company's Phase IIa study of its thrombus-imaging agent, EP-2104R.


text:
Event Administrator
St John Ambulance provides First Aid and life-saving care at thousands of events every year, including concerts, football games and large-scale events such as the London Marathon.
As an Events Administrator, you will be involved in the whole Event process from handling customer enquiries about First Aid at Events and updating the customer, to updating the events management system and ensuring that we have the correct level of volunteer support at events to meet the needs of the customer.
You will provide a strong level of administrative support in the region covering London and parts of the South of England. You will also update trackers, monitor invoicing, produce management information and liaise with internal stakeholders to ensure that the events team have the support they need.
As you will be the first point of contact and in regular contact with internal and external customers, you will be a strong communicator with a passion for great customer service.
You will also have worked in a busy and demanding office administration capacity previously and have the ability to prioritise tasks in a fast-paced environment.
St John Ambulance will provide system training, however, you must have the ability to use Microsoft Office/Office 365 applications to an intermediate level.
St John Ambulance works at the heart of communities, providing first aid, keeping people safe at events and working alongside the NHS in response to 999 calls. Much of our front-line delivery is provided by our dedicated and highly-trained volunteers.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people, many of them under 18, also learn how to save a life through our training, education and youth programmes.
Over the next decade, we have bold ambitions to help transform out-of-hospital care, having a positive impact on the people we treat, the communities we serve, and our own people.
We are a team of over 1,600 employees and 18,000 volunteers, united by our goal of saving lives through first aid, training and campaigning.
Your wellbeing is very important to us, we, therefore, provide a variety of confidential services to help manage your money, health and mental wellbeing which you can start using from the moment you join.
You will receive; Competitive salary, fantastic pension scheme, cycle to work scheme, health and wellbeing portal, access to discounts portal including gym discounts, high street stores and restaurants and access to our confidential assistance programme.
Interview Date: 29 January 2019
Application Review Date: 21 January 2019
We may review applications before the Application Review Date, however, if you apply after the Application Review Date, your application may not be considered. We will accept applications until we have successfully filled the role
If you are a current St John Ambulance employee, please apply here: Click here
For all other candidates, or SJA volunteers wishing to apply, please click here
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Ian Crowley had been the subject of a manhunt since Wednesday night.
The man accused of attacking his mother with a meat tenderizer in Walpole was found and arrested in Vermont, police said.
Walpole police had been searching for Crowley since Wednesday night when around 7 p.m. they said he allegedly was involved in an assault and battery with a knife in Common Street's 500 block. He took off on foot in a dark Fila jumpsuit, they said, leading to a manhunt.
While police originally said the weapon used was a knife, multiple news outlets said police later clarified that it was a meat tenderizer — and the victim was his mother.
Over the past couple of days, K-9 units had been used to search around Common Street for Crowley. The state police's Air Wing also searched around Jarvis Farm Thursday night.
Common Street Neighborhood Advisory: @WalpolePolice and K9 will have a continued search presence today in areas on and off of Common Street. This is a continued effort to search and there is no new information to report. We apologize for further disruption.


My favorite part of shopping consignment is finding amazing deals on high-end fashion. Consignment can already be up to 90% off of retail prices—which is incredible value—but did you know there are tricks to negotiating an even better bargain for your resale snags? There is nothing more satisfying than turning a good deal into a total steal!
If you walk away, be prepared to let it go! A good negotiator has to know what the price limit is and be prepared to walk away. But remember, at consignment, there is typically only one of everything—so if you walk, be prepared to let it go! There is no guarantee that it will be there tomorrow. If you have your heart set on something, grab it!


Having read the absract of Eric Muller's law review article (but not the article itself), it appears that he does not like the concept of inconsistent verdict and is afraid that if the Supreme Court heard this case, it would hurt the chances of his position being advanced.
You should read the entire article. It's extraordinarily readable and exceptionally practical.
The article takes apart and puts back together the Supreme Court's inconsistent, illogical approach to verdict inconsistency.
And he's not advocating a "position" that is either liberal or conservative. He's merely advocating a coherent approach that makes sense out of this otherwise very confused area.
I think his opposition to cert. in Getsy is not based on any "harm" it'd cause to his position. I think Eric's suggesting that Getsy would be another detour.


text:
Is "Duty" A Dirty Word? by Anthony McCarthy
Or just a corrupted virtue?
In the decay of our imperial culture, words are primary aspects of the general corruption of thought and language in service of privilege. Theft and usurpation by the rich have to be called something, after all, they will not only be noticed and discussed, in order to effect them, defend them and, ultimately, to render them unillegal, words must be used. The corrupt actions have to be talked about in order to do them and to defend them but they can't be called what they are. The malignant actions have to be glossed over if not disguised in order to make them seem to fit into the role of virtues, or at least benign entities.*
And the opposite happens too. Whatever inhibits theft and corruption can't be called by its rightful name. Misidentification of virtues is, if anything, an even more pressing problem for the systematic and universal corruption of life. Nothing can be allowed to get in the way of acquisition and the amassing of wealth by the wealthy and nothing endangers the most successful branch of organized crime like the old-fashioned, named virtues. No words have been more vandalized and twisted by liars in service to the crooks of the ruling class than those dealing with morality. Duty is divorced from morality and turned into an opportunistic citation of conventionalized role playing. Listening to the media or the Bush regime talk about duty in the context of today's military adventures is to experience a truly pornographic gut punch.
We live in a country in which the language of morality and moral indignation are twisted and stretched to the point where corruption is called reform and personal morality is deformed into mild guilt over eating chocolate and a highly selective, unlikely and baldly hypocritical moral indignation over the private sex lives of Democratic politicians.** And that's only the most easily taken form of it. When given lip service at all, moral duty is transfigured into that kind of ABC-Disney film of corn sweetener that renders just about anything it covers emetic and pathogenic.
For others, outside of the military, the idea of duty seems to be particularly corrupted as has the idea of actual moral responsibility in general. On one hand, these necessities of a civil society have been mostly deformed into impossible burdens for unarmed civil servants, guaranteeing their failure. It would be interesting to consider how much of the corruption of the civil service is generated by that intentional sandbagging. On the other hand, these burdens for the highest of those, in the judiciary and elected office***have been considerably relaxed from past ethical requirements.
For the general population, duty and moral responsibility are to be seen as pathologies and harmful inhibitions to be discarded, character defects and signs of personal weakness, with the exception of those mentioned in the second paragraph above. In recent pop-psych the resultant inhibitions were held responsible for the increase in cancer rates. Those limiting the frivolous and irrational consumption of vendible junk and the borrowing to service that consumption have been suppressed until just recently. The patriotic duty to buy and borrow is a truly bizarre concept.
While there are exceptions to this, I think it is more the rule that moral duty, the obligation to put the needs of other people and living beings over our personal desires and whims, the obligation to face and tell even the unprofitable truth, the obligation to protect the weak and unable over the strong and powerful, are despised and derided in our late stage empire. Those who try to systematically practice these unfashionable virtues are seen as chumps or derided as anal retentive kill joys. On the blogs it is often met with the order to "lighten up", or some equivalent admonition.
Any ideas on this?
* I suggested once that words used like that be called "Millerisms" after Judith Miller.
** eg. Sally Quinn on Bill Clinton's sex life. The racial and gender differences in the definition and application of morality are ever present too and deserving of continued treatment.
*** There are few ideas as stress worn by flexing than "Conflict of interest", especially in the context of the upper reaches of the judiciary and Senate that confirms them.
Note: This was written before the invasion of privacy in yesterday's news. Note the difference in media handling between the Edwards scandal, involving private business, and McCain's relationship with a lobbyist who was doing business before his committee.
Georgia's Lost Territories (by Phila)
Danger Room has some background on the conflict in Georgia:
Since 2002, the U.S. military has been providing Georgia with a serious amount of military assistance, beginning with the Georgia Train and Equip Program in 2002....
When I returned to Krtsanisi in early 2006, the place had been transformed into a model base. It even had a sparkling new KBR-style dining facility. The Georgian troops were smartly decked out in U.S.-style uniforms; they were preparing for a troop rotation in Iraq.
Officially, SSOP was supposed to prepare Georgians for service in Iraq. But Georgian trainees I spoke to in 2006 at the Krtsanisi training range saw things a bit differently. A female sergeant told me: "This training is incredibly important for us, because we want to take back Georgia's lost territories."
There's more here:
As Sergei Shamba, the foreign affairs minister of Abkhazia, told me in 2006: "The Georgians are euphoric because they have been equipped, trained, that they have gained military experience in Iraq. It feeds this revanchist mood… How can South Ossetia be demilitarized, when all of Georgia is bristling with weaponry, and it's only an hour's ride by tank from Tbilisi to Tskhinvali?"
One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly. "We're giving them the knife," he said. "Will they use it?"
Perhaps so, since all Georgian troops are leaving Iraq:
Georgia will withdraw its entire 2,000-strong military contingent from Iraq within the next three days to join the fighting in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, a senior Georgian military official said Saturday...The US military has agreed to help with the logistics of the Georgian redeployment, Maisuradze added...
Last year, the Georgians raised the number of troops in Iraq from 850 to 2,000 at a time when most non-American contingents were cutting back — a move that won them points with US commanders.
Sounds like a tense situation. But I'm more worried about larger issues, like whether John Edwards' infidelity will rob Obama of the moral authority he'd need to carpet-bomb Tehran.
Posted by Phila at 8/09/2008 09:22:00 AM
Online dating (by Suzie)
Anyone who needs reminding that people can be anyone they want to be on the Internet should try online dating. If I ever do it again, shoot me I need to put in my profile: "I enjoy investigating. Do not contact me if you have something to hide."
One man had a long history of hiring women to act as his girlfriends, called the "girlfriend experience" in prostitution. After we broke up, I thought of sending him an invoice.
Then there was the man who had to leave his job as a high-school teacher (and his marriage) because he wanted to continue a relationship with a 17-year-old in his class, even after her mother had taken out a restraining order. Last I heard, he was getting a degree in counseling.
Women also lie to men, of course. But this isn't a battle of the sexes in which both teams are equal and the playing field is level. Women who lie can hurt feelings and waste time. But a lying woman is not as likely to be dangerous to a man as vice versa.
I dislike that most men are looking for younger women. A WaPo article says many women now want younger men. This is the hook of the article, which goes on to acknowledge that men want younger women, which is dog-bites-man.
The article describes eHarmony: "… members are matched according to a psychological profile and personality characteristics." I was matched with men who had nothing in common with me other than we were all carbon-based life forms.
One site asks about your politics. Because "sort-of-radical feminist" wasn't an option, I put "very liberal." I quickly learned that many men read "very liberal" as "easy" or "kinky." I had to explain to "very conservative" guys that I would never have sex with them because I was very liberal.
In hopes of finding other progressives, I signed up at Act for Love, "the largest matchmaking site for Democratic singles." The slogan "take action, get action" should have tipped me off that this was not the place for me. (As a feminist, I really, really don't want a man who is taking political action in hopes of getting laid.)
In one profile, I made the mistake of answering honestly the question: "What are you reading?" I was reading feminist philosopher Sandra Bartky's "Femininity and Domination," which I highly recommend. Surprisingly, I did not attract philosophers.
Any day now, I'm becoming a political lesbian, I swear.
Ani DiFranco as teacher (by Suzie)
For those who have trouble understanding the anger or fear that some women feel, in regard to sexual abuse, please read the lyrics to "Parameters" and "Hide 'n Seek." I can't find any audio or video, but the words are powerful enough on their own. As she says in another song, "Feminism ain't about equality. It's about reprieve."
Feminist men (by Suzie)
Can any man say he's a feminist? Should women accept what he says without question? Is a feminist man who does something bad to a woman worse than a Joe Shmoe who does the same thing?
The answer: If Camille Paglia can call herself a feminist, anyone can. There's no credentialing committee. I'm sure people can become feminists by mail, without any actual study.
Second question: Of course, people have the right to question anyone's credibility as a feminist. In fact, it's a minor sport. I give women more benefit of the doubt, sort of like extra credit for experience in the field.
One complication is the different definitions of feminism. But this is more than a question of semantics. Because of the Kyle Paynes of the world, women should always have the right to question a man's feminism. I'm not saying male feminists are suspect, but for our own safety, we have the right to ask questions whenever we have doubts.
Kyle Payne was a rape crisis advocate, women's studies student, and resident advisor at his university. While "looking after" an unconscious drunk student in his care, he undid her shirt and took a photograph and video of her breast.
This comes from Lauredhel, who has gathered other comments on him. The description above is what Payne has acknowledged in a plea agreement, in which assault charges were dropped. Payne also inspired various posts in the 61st Carnival of Feminists. There are a number of sites that discuss men and feminism in general. Some good ones, such as XY, can be found in this recent Twisty thread.
To answer the third question: Yeah, I think Payne is worse than some other guy who did the same crime because he makes it harder for women to trust male allies.
ETA a second time: A colleague didn't think I should mention a commenter by screen name and so, I have deleted that passage.
Mutterings and Stutterings
Josh Marshall has posted a video compilation of McCain's bloopers. The campaign must be hard work and I understand that the candidates must "misspeak" just because of fatigue. But I'm still a little bit concerned about the number of various types of errors McCain has made.
Tacky Tactics
Are often suggested on the comments threads of political blogs. For instance, when the wingnuts attack Michelle Obama, the frequent recommendation I read on liberal blog threads is to counter the attack by going after Cindy McCain. It's as if the wives of the presidential candidates are part of their husbands' private property and therefore a fair target in the campaign battles. You know, like trying to destroy the artillery units of an opposing army. But spouses are not artillery units.
I'm aware of the American political tradition here and also of the fuzzy line between public and private roles of, say, the presidential candidates' wives, and I'm often worried about possibly crossing that line inappropriately in my own writing. But I'd say that character assassinations of the candidates' family members certainly cross that line. Inappropriately.
Today's Deep, Deep Thought
It's about certain types of comments on the Internet, especially on YouTube and it's by the Onion:
"We are blessed to be living in an age when we have a global communications network in which idiots, assholes, and total and complete wastes of fucking human life alike can come together to give instant feedback in an unfettered and unmonitored online environment," Mylenek said. "What better way to take advantage of this incredible technology than to log onto the Internet and insult a complete stranger?"
Buffalo Chips and John McCain
Funny how memes are created in the media. It's mostly the right-wing memes that seem to stick in that so-called liberal media. Even the progressive/liberal blogs spend much of their time refuting the right-wing memes instead of making up new ones and on the whole that helps the memes to stick more. Sad, is it not? Also the reason why today's topics are whether Obama is too arrogant or too inexperienced and young. And all the time the alternative topic of McCain being too out-of-touch and too old just sits there, like an invisible elephant on your living-room couch. We "libral demon rats" have avoided the easy schtick of ageism but nothing of the sort holds back the right-wing meme machine. So now we can discuss Obama's age but not McCain's age.
Here's my offer for a nice meme about McCain which has nothing to do with his age: He wants his wife to participate in a beauty pageant of this sort:
This is the Buffalo Chips beauty pageant at least a year ago, having to do with bikers and biker chicks and consisting of various things, including pretend fellatio of a banana. John McCain would like his wife Cindy to participate in a similar pageant:
On Monday, John McCain appeared at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a veteran-friendly event that featured Kid Rock, Def Leppard, REO Speedwagon (?!) and a biker beauty pageant called "Miss Buffalo Chip" that the presumptive presidential nominee may or may not have known featured topless women.
"I encouraged Cindy to compete," he told the crowd. "I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip."
Now to parse this all: It's obviously McCain's attempt to make a joke and I'm pretty sure that he didn't know Cindy would have to suck a banana in that competition.
But note that he didn't bother to find out anything about the pageant beforehand and he hasn't bothered to apologize for his statements afterwards, or at least I found no mention of such an apology. Yet he was violating family values in a way which I'd think the fundamentalist right would deplore, as a minimum, and he was also telling us in no uncertain terms that respect towards women is not high on his pyramid of values. Anything to get a cheap laugh beats that.
Here's the fascinating aspect of all this: Imagine what would have happened if Barack Obama had cracked this joke about Michelle? Or if Hillary Clinton had earlier offered Bill Clinton as a participant in some semi-naked hunk competition? The media treats McCain as if he was fragile and above all criticism. Even something as juicy as this story gets no traction as a meme.
Guys On The Pill
Is that ever going to be the norm? A piece in Time discusses the reasons why we should all be quite pessimistic about the likelihood of a male contraceptive pill or injection or something of the sort. To create a safe and effective form of male-controlled birth control (other than the condom) is tricky for both scientific reason and cultural reasons. The latter have to do with both the assumption that not enough men are interested in having access to medical male-controlled birth control and that women wouldn't trust men to take care of contraception in the first place, unless they can see it happening with their own eyes (as is the case with the condom).
The Time article also mentions the high costs of developing new forms of birth control. If the market just isn't there the costs are not justified. But is the market there or not? I can see the reluctance of anyone (including us women) to possibly mess with the health of their bodies just for the sake of birth control. But many women do exactly that, and one might think that men might also be willing to do so because of the many advantages that control has.
As examples of those advantages one might mention the ability of a man to take over contraception when his partner can't tolerate the pill or uterine devices and when the couple doesn't like or trust condoms. But perhaps more importantly, a man cannot be the "victim" of paternity suits after one-night stands if he used good birth control himself. I would think that the Men's Rights Activists would be loud and vociferous in their demands for better male contraceptives. Wouldn't you?
If it is indeed true that the market for the male pill, say, is insufficiently large, the reason might be the simple fact that we already have the female pill. There is less need in general for additional forms of contraception. But note that the recent Bush administration attempts to equate the birth control pill and the intra-uterine devices with abortion might change that comfortable status quo. A male pill would do the prevention inside the male body and no stretch of pro-life imagination could make that into abortion!
Wouldn't it be weird if that was what made the male birth control pill a reality?
From My Self-Promotion Files: Do Women Have An Inner Glass Ceiling?
You might like to read what I have to say about the scarcity of women in American politics. I worked very hard for the piece, by the way, even going out and playing girl reporter.
Peace and Punditry
Picture from Scarlet. More here.
Wouldn't peace be nice right about now? We could then focus on arguing about all the nitty-gritty stuff, such as rebuilding the dangerous infrastructure of this country. Of course Banana Republics require a dangerous infrastructure and as a Banana Republic seems to be on the plank of the Republican Party as the future of this country I guess that we won't see those bridges fixed. Could someone tell me, please, how much work has been done since last summer's bridge collapse? And how much money has been spent in Iraq during the same time frame?
On the other hand of the scales of victory, there is a new Kentucky Fried Chicken store in Fallujah.* So the troops can come home now and start fixing the bridges, right? I love being a naive goddess.
Naive goddesses don't understand why the coverage of the presidential campaigns is like this:
For those who can't watch the video, the pundits go on about how saintly McCain is and how much he is isolated from what really matters which is discussing Obama's arrogance (who does he think he is?) and his use of the race card and how all that was created by the meanies in McCain's campaign while McCain was just being all honorable and stuff.
* The store appears to be an unauthorized knockoff, not part of KFC.
One Day in the Life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I wonder if he would have selected his last day for a book with that title? I'm ripping off his famous One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, of course, a book which captured the odd taste of happiness as extremely relative. As anyone who has been very ill knows, a small reduction in the symptoms can give you the highest high of your life. Similarly, Ivan Denisovich could be happy in his horrible prison experience, because on that particular day there was just a little bit more bread, a little bit more time, a little bit more independence.
Or so I recall that book. I read Solzhenitsyn pretty early in my life, around the age of fifteen. Indeed, my first book essay at school was on the Cancer Ward. I loved writing about death and the gloominess and so on, and the teacher was a bit concerned until he got to the end of the essay which had an ode to the victorious human spirit. So that was all right.
Much has been written about the political meaning of Solzhenitsyn recently and a lot less about his actual talents in writing. His message about the horrors of Soviet communism struck a cord with his co-patriots and obviously with the other side in the Cold War, and his currency soared high. Later the reverse happened, because Solzhenitsyn's forced exile in the West revealed his hatred of the West and because he decided to become a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox on his return to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
These political waves may have brought him first too high and then too low. I tend to think of his actual literary merits as somewhere in the middle. We shall see what the future will say about them. At least he doesn't have to worry about being now forgotten for his gender. (I just had to turn this all into a feminist discussion,didn't I?)
Knowing the opinions of a living author always makes the enjoyment of her or his work more difficult, especially if those opinions are unpleasant. It's a little like being invited to see a wonderful artistic piece of furniture in the context of the workshop. There it stands, beautiful, but surrounded by sawdust and bits of lumber and tools all helter-skelter and the smell of varnish and paint remover and dust everywhere. It's hard not to look at the room instead of the furniture, and it's probably true that the state of the workshop does tell us something about how carefully and well the piece was made. But mostly we'd prefer to see the final work of art against some more neutral background.
From Austen to Dowd
The most recent Maureen Dowd column is called "Mr. Darcy Comes Courting." It employs Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as the pattern into which Obama's election campaign is to be fitted. Yes, you guessed it: Barack Obama is Mr. Darcy. Who is Elizabeth Bennet, then? That's a tad unclear.
Dowd ends up arguing that the United States is Elizabeth, but most of the column is spent on berating Hillary Clinton, the women who voted for her, working class women and American women in general. That's Dowd's usual m.o. and somehow based on the idea that she might, after all, not be a woman herself. Good luck with getting the guys to accept her honorary guyness.
I shouldn't be writing about Dowd's misuse of Jane Austen's book. Molly Ivors has put together an excellent literary response, but I would still like to say a few small words about this bit from Dowd:
The odd thing is that Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chick-lit history. The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever, haughty, reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy.
Jane Austen belongs to the history of chick-lit? Only if you are willing to see Rembrandt or da Vinci or Rubens as the forerunner of your family snapshots. Note, by the way, that this is not in any sense intended to demean the writers of chick-lit (if such a genre really exists in the first place); only to point out that Jane Austen was one of the few great geniuses of the English language and that her books are not about love-and-marriage anymore than Rembrandt's paintings are about trying to take photographs before photography was invented.
Here's an interesting question: Does Maureen Dowd herself write the kind of chick-lit she deplores? I rather suspect so, given her obsession of turning everything about politics into a teenage drama, replete with cheerleaders and burly guys playing football and rather nasty geeks who shouldn't get the girls. All this made me Google what else she may have said about Jane Austen and chick-list. This is what I found in a 2007 column titled "Heels Over Hemingway", a piece deploring the omnipresence of chick-lit, its pink covers turning bookstores into a sea of pink in which the testicle-driven Important Classics are drowning:
Suddenly I was swimming in pink. I turned frantically from display table to display table, but I couldn't find a novel without a pink cover. I was accosted by a sisterhood of cartoon women, sexy string beans in minis and stilettos, fashionably dashing about book covers with the requisite urban props — lattes, books, purses, shopping bags, guns and, most critically, a diamond ring.
Was it a Valentine's Day special?
No, I realized with growing alarm, chick lit was no longer a niche. It had staged a coup of the literature shelves. Hot babes had shimmied into the grizzled old boys' club, the land of Conrad, Faulkner and Maugham. The store was possessed with the devil spawn of "The Devil Wears Prada." The blood-red high heel ending in a devil's pitchfork on the cover of the Lauren Weisberger best seller might as well be driving a stake through the heart of the classics.
I even found Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" with chick-lit pretty-in-pink lettering.
"Penis lit versus Venus lit," said my friend Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, who was with me. "An unacceptable choice."
"Looking for Mr. Goodbunny" by Kathleen O'Reilly sits atop George Orwell's "1984." "Mine Are Spectacular!" by Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger hovers over "Ulysses." Sophie Kinsella's "Shopaholic" series cuddles up to Rudyard Kipling.
Even Will Shakespeare is buffeted by rampaging 30-year-old heroines, each one frantically trying to get their guy or figure out if he's the right guy, or if he meant what he said, or if he should be with them instead of their BFF or cousin, or if he'll come back, or if she'll end up stuck home alone eating Häagen-Dazs and watching "CSI" and "Sex and the City" reruns.
Weirdly enough, Dowd in that column warns us all from confusing chick-lit with Jane Austen's love-and-marriage stories. I guess she has changed her mind about that.
But do you spot something else fascinating about those paragraphs I quoted? Do you spot one of the oldest tricks in the tool kits of us propagandists? Suppose that I wanted to make the reverse argument from Dowd's point. How would I accomplish that?
I'd pile the books in a bookstore into two imaginary piles, one consisting of Lady Murasake's The Tale of Genji, the books by the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and so on and the other consisting of potboilers written by guys: books all about killing other guys and about having sex with lots of women, with a few military cartoons and Superman stories thrown in. Then I'd compare what's in the two piles and conclude that bookstores are drowning all the important classics written by women in this horrible sea of testosterone, whatever its color might be. And that's the trick Dowd uses except in reverse: She compares the best of male authors with female authors from a genre that she dislikes.
Time now for a very different literary metaphor, one having to do with Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football. For those of you not familiar with this cartoon, Lucy repeatedly holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick, but every time she lifts the ball up at the last moment, causing poor Charlie to fall back after kicking into air.
Charlie never learns the lesson not to kick. Now replace Lucy with Maureen Dowd and Charlie with me and what do you get? A setup where every stupid column written by Dowd elicits an angry response from me, and that's exactly what the New York Times wants from their opinion columnists: The loonier the better! Bring them all in: Brooks, Kristol and Dowd! They can always be trusted to say something vile and nasty about womankind and that's how we like it here at the Gray Lady.
No wonder that Maureen Dowd as Lucy is one of their favorite girls. Just see how many people e-mail Dowd's columns to each other. Sadly, most of them probably feel like Charlie Brown, wishing that they could stop reading the dratted thing.
Sigh. Let's return to the idea of applying Pride and Prejudice to this election campaign, if we must. Who in the book is John McCain? Dowd suggests the wily Wickham, but I think a much closer model would be Mr. Collins, the boring and calculating clergyman with friends in high places. He was even quite a maverick, easily switching to a different woman when Elizabeth Bennet refused his courting.
From My Self-Promotion Files: Do Women Have An Inn...


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Senate investigates whether CIA tried to smear Juan Cole
from the Detroit Free Press: U.S. Senate investigates claim CIA tried to smear U-M professor
The Senate Intelligence Committee is reviewing whether the CIA and the Bush White House may have tried to smear Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes a popular blog on Middle Eastern issues.
"Depending on what we find, we may take further action," U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who heads the committee, said in a statement.
Cole told the Free Press that the reported spying "was criminal."
"The Bush White House request that the CIA spy on me to discredit me clearly violated the American Constitution, U.S. law, the CIA charter, and my civil and human rights," he said.
As first reported by the New York Times last week, Carle said his supervisor at the CIA asked him: "Does he (Cole) drink? What are his views? Is he married?" And, "What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?"
But a spokesman for the CIA, Preston Golson, told the Free Press last week that: "We've thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the CIA provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong."
Benjamin said...
If he was spied upon, then the US did something incredibly stupid with their intelligence services (again). On the other hand, it's ironic that Cole is in such a huff about the prospect of being spied upon by the US; after all, he called for the FBI to spy on someone he didn't like:
http://www.juancole.com/2004/09/aipac-spy-case-update-knight-ridders.html
Turnabout's a bitch.
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Georgia Football Scrimmage: Bulldogs Treat Latest Practice As A Real Game
By Jeremy Mauss@JeremyMauss Aug 22, 2012, 10:40pm EDT
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The Georgia Bulldogs went all out in their latest scrimmage of fall camp by hosting a "practice game," which they treated as a real game with officials, live kicking and substitutions. The game was set up to replicate Georgia's Week 1 opponents, the Buffalo Bulls, and ended with the Bulldogs winning 49-48.
The role of the Bulls was played by Georgia's scout team, who went up against the starters. If you're wondering why the score was so close, the scout team was spotted 35 points in the scrimmage.
The players treated this scrimmage as a real game, and they welcomed the change:
"To be honest, it was like a real game," said senior wide receiver Marlon Brown. "We left from the Butts-Mehre, went to the stadium, went to the locker room, did the team and individual warm-ups, listened to Coach Richt's speech and went out there and played. It's good because it's Georgia versus somebody else instead offense against the defense all the time."
The scrimmage was closed to the public and media, but stats were later released. Starting quarterback Aaron Murray had a big day, completing 20 of 25 passes for 253 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
The hotly contested running back battle saw freshman Todd Gurley lead all backs for the third straight scrimmage, tallying 54 yards on six carries and a touchdown. Sophomore Ken Malcome added 50 yards on six carries.
The defense was led by linebackers Mike Gilliard, who had four tackles. Amarlo Herrera had three tackles and returned an interception 23 yards for a touchdown.
For the latest on all things Georgia Bulldogs, head over to Dawg Sports and join the discussion.


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Starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss & Laurence Fishburne
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Directed by Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski
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"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."--Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to Neo
"I know kung fu."
- Neo to Morpheus and Tank (Marcus Chong)
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real' What if you were unable to wake from that dream' How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world'"
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"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."
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"The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
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...Clever....This virtual-reality saga takes advantage of Reeves' sometimes endearingly boyish personality...
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Rating: 3/4 -- The Wachowskis and cinematographer Bill Pope take advantage of currently available technical trickery to create visually distinct levels of reality while setting high-speed cameras in motion to make the action sequences particularly dynamic and fluid. Full Review
The Matrix embedded itself in pop culture so thoroughly that it's easy to forget how different it was when it first arrived. Full Review
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Rating: 5/5 -- The Matrix still stands up as a fiercely exciting and discombobulating futurist drama, which pioneered breathtaking "bullet-time" action sequences inspired by Asian martial arts. Full Review
The Matrix is an inner-circle sci-fi Hall of Famer, a visual trendsetter, and a cultural touchstone that remains culturally prominent today. Full Review
A technologically stunning movie that furthers the genre and features crowd-pleasing performances to go with the frequent scenes of gunplay and violence. Full Review
With THE MATRIX, the Wachowskis have established themselves as innovative filmmakers who push the boundaries of live-action films. Like the groundbreaking STAR WARS, THE MATRIX (also the first film of a trilogy) showcases a unique visual style, one the Wachowskis achieved through an array of techniques and digital effects, some never before seen in mainstream Hollywood films. Although computer morphing technology had been used before in films such as THE ABYSS and TERMINATOR 2, the Wachowskis were the first to use "bullet time," a time-bending digital effect that utilizes both computer-generated imagery and still photography.
The film itself is a complex story that aspires to mythology, focusing on a computer hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) who searches for the truth behind the mysterious force known as the Matrix. He finds his answer with a group of strangers led by the charismatic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). What they encounter in confronting that truth makes for a lightning-paced, eye-popping thrill ride of a movie. Packed with stunning fight scenes (choreographed by accomplished Hong Kong director Yuen Wo-Ping), astonishing visual effects, quotable lines, and a terrific supporting cast (led by Carrie-Anne Moss, in her first major Hollywood film), THE MATRIX is a bold triumph that raises the bar for all science fiction films.
Plot Synopsis:
An imaginative hybrid of action, kung fu, and science fiction, THE MATRIX is a hyperkinetic, mind-bending, and visionary spectacle. Keanu Reeves stars as Neo, a disaffected computer hacker seeking the answer to the question, "What is the Matrix'" His search leads him to the elusive Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who begins to enlighten Neo about the illusions of his so-called reality. In accepting the answer Morpheus provides, Neo is hurled into a futuristic world where old realities are shattered, and he must fight for his life, and the future of humanity, against a dangerous group of inhuman government agents.
Action | Futuristic | Martial Arts | Science-Fiction | Recommended | Theatrical Release | Philosophy | Kung Fu | Special Effects | Future / Futuristic Worlds | Essential Cinema
Theatrical release date: April 2, 1999.
THE MATRIX won three Academy Awards: Achievement in Film Editing, Sound, and Visual Effects (beating out STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE). In each category, the winners quoted a line from the film.
The Wachowski brothers got their start at Marvel Comics, where they wrote dialogue for Clive Barker's HELLRAISER.
The official website, www.whatisthematrix.com, features a revolving showcase of comic book writers.
The actors initially thought combat training would take a few weeks. They eventually trained for more than five months (October 1997-March 1998), primarily because the actors and the Wachowskis wanted to limit the use of stunt doubles in the picture; the directors wanted the audience to see that the actual actors were performing the stunts.
Each actor had their own kung fu master on the set.
Neo is an anagram for "One."
The Wachowskis named Neo's alter ego Thomas, for the biblical Doubting Thomas.
SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION, Jean Baudrillard's theoretical text concerning culture, reality, and simulation, is the title of the book Neo uses to keep his contraband.
Carrie-Anne Moss sprained her ankle during the filming of the federal lobby scene but told no one at the time, even though she was unable to walk the next day.
Moss appeared in the 1993 television show MATRIX, about a hit man working for the underworld.
A musical theater piece by the Live Bait Theater group in Chicago (the Wachowski brothers' hometown) called NEO: A MATRIX MUSICAL ran in May 2000.
Producer Joel Silver called THE MATRIX "the first film of the new millennium."
Talking about the making of the film, Fishburne compared the brothers Wachowski to the Brothers Grimm in their ability to tell fairy tales.
Weapons expert Rock Galotti taught the cast how to realistically hold and shoot all the weapons in the film.
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Knowledge Engineering Institute in Beijing Science and Technology of University initially constructed KDTICM (Knowledge Discovery Theory System based on Inner Cognitive Mechanism) internationally in 2002, awarded two important international awards ("Achievement Award" and "Outstanding Achievement Award"), and developed KDTICM deeply such as proposing KDK, four new intelligent system and five important issues. In the KDTICM application research such as biology information field, we have got the leading position in predicting protein secondary structure, and apply the KDTICM and its software ICCKDSS in eight fields such as electrolytic aluminum production, agriculture, medical information and etc.
We have published 470 pieces of paper, among which 155 pieces of paper are indexed by SCI/EI/ISTP, and 15 literatures. 30 scientific research achievements gained national and provincial certification and acceptance, 5 subjects are being studied. We have obtained 9 prizes for progress in science and technology at provincial and ministerial levels and 9 national invention patent certifications being the only inventor (1 patents are in process), one item of software copyright certification, one software certification.
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text:
Book Review: Mister And Lady Day: Billie Holiday And The Dog Who Loved Her
by Amy Novesky, Illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
Target Age Group: Picture Book
Imprint: HMH Books for Young Readers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Parent Company: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Read a Description of Mister And Lady Day: Billie Holiday And The Dog Who Loved Her
"The great jazz singer Billie Holiday, known as Lady Day, had fame, style, a distinctive singing voice—and lots of dogs. But a boxer named Mister was the dog she loved most.
She took great care of Mister, and Mister took good care of her. When the spotlight lit her up like a star, Mister was there. When the stage—and her life—went dark, Mister was there.
No matter what, Mister gave Lady Day courage. But would she have enough courage to sing at the grandest venue of her career?
—Excerpted from the inside flyleaf."
I was somewhat skeptical of the children's book about Jimi Hendrix published last year, until I read it and was pleasantly surprised by its apropos storyline. Since the self-destructive, rock guitarist had overdosed on drugs at 27, it was hard to see how anybody could figure out how to put a positive spin on his checkered career in a way that would work for impressionable young readers.
I was just as wary approaching this exquisitely illustrated tale about Billie Holiday (1919-1959), given that it's aimed at tykes between the ages of 4 and 8. After all, the late jazz legend known as Lady Day died way before her time after a relentlessly-rough life marked by absentee parents from infancy, rape during adolescence, teenage prostitution, a string of abusive relationships, substance abuse, a prison stint for drug possession and passing away of cirrhosis of the liver while in police custody.
Apparently, the doomed diva's saving grace was being a dog lover, including owning a beagle, a mutt, a poodle, a terrier, a Great Dane and a couple of Chihuahuas. This touching tome is devoted to chronicling Billie's enduring bond with her beloved boxer, Mister. She and the anthropomorphic canine were ostensibly inseparable, with her cooking and knitting sweaters for him while he would keep fans at bay by guarding her dressing room before and after shows.
The delightful picture book's plot thickens when we learn that the loyal pet was inconsolable after she was sent up the river. What supplies the primary suspense is the question of whether or not the recently-paroled ex-con would be up to the daunting challenge of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall soon after her parole.
Of equal import is Billie's concern for her long-lost hound's whereabouts. Of course, he miraculously materializes, waiting in the wings just offstage, allowing a very grateful master to share a joyous reunion with Man's, or should I say, Lady Day's best friend.
Read HMH Books for Young Readers's description of Mister And Lady Day: Billie Holiday And The Dog Who Loved Her.


Veterinary technologists are listed as eighth overall and in the top 30 fastest-growing occupations requiring at least an associate degree by CareerOneStop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor. Vet techs are also listed as 12th in its top 36 occupations with the most openings through the coming decade.
Technologists and technicians usually begin work as trainees in positions under the direct supervision of a veterinarian.
People who love animals get satisfaction from working with and helping them, though caretaking work includes repetitive, dirty and unpleasant tasks. Veterinary technicians may clean cages and lift, hold or restrain animals, risking exposure to bites or scratches. Workers must take precautions when treating animals with germicides or insecticides. The work setting can be noisy.
Veterinary technologists who work with abused animals or who help perform euthanasia may experience emotional stress. Those working for humane societies and animal shelters often deal with the public, some of whom might react with hostility to any suggestion that owners are neglecting or abusing their pets.
In some animal hospitals, research facilities and animal shelters, a veterinary technician is on duty 24 hours a day, which means that some work night shifts. Most full-time veterinary technologists work about 40 hours a week.
Most states use the National Veterinary Technician (NVT) exam. Prospects usually can have their passing scores transferred from one state to another, so long as both states use the same exam.
Passing the state exam assures the public that the technician has sufficient knowledge to work in a veterinary clinic or hospital. The exam includes oral, written and practical portions and is regulated by the state board of veterinary examiners or the appropriate state agency.
Cedar Valley's associate degree program graduates are eligible to take the Texas Examination for Registered Veterinary Technicians (RVT) and the Veterinary Technician National Examination (VTNE). Both exams are required for registration in the state of Texas, and the VTNE is required for credentialing as a technician by several other states.


ALEX: Fairies in the Tub Playset.
HomeGiftsBabyBaby Bathing and ChangingBaby Bath ToysFairies in the Tub - Bath Toys.
Fairies in the Tub - Bath Toys.
Fairies in the Tub by ALEX.
Create a magical escape for your child during bathtime. Let their imaginations run wild and let their mind be away with the fairies!
Also comes with bubble solution with holder and dip tray that feature suction-cups allowing you to stick them to the walls.
Suitable for all fairy-lovers ages two and above.


This is weight loss forums own view on where to BUY XENICAL online in the UK.
The same question has been posted on this board over & over again. Which is, "Where to buy Xenical online ?"
We list below a website / on-line Pharmacy that have been trading for more than 10 years and we have been advised sells genuine Xenical medication.
And there prices on there website are as below.
In our opinion, you should deal with a registered UK company that shows its UK Registration Number on their website, and an address that is not a P.O. Box or some unit on an industrial estate. All UK companies that trade online must show their V.A.T number by law, even if they are selling prescribed medication that is exempt. If a V.A.T number is not shown, they are either registered outside the UK, trading illegally or are a very small company with a turnover under 60k, which we suggest you avoid.
This is only our opinion, and we only give this information as we are constantly bombarded by this question. At the end of the day, it is your money, your body, and your decision.


text:
Terri Reed
Also by Joss Whedon:
Serenity Volume 2, September 2011
Angel Omnibus, July 2011
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Volume 8: The Last Gleaming, June 2011
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight, October 2010
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat, March 2010
Angel: Not Fade Away, November 2009
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 5: Predators And Prey, September 2009
Angel: After The Fall, August 2009
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 4: Time Of Your Life, May 2009
Angel: After The Fall, April 2009
Angel: After The Fall, February 2009
Paperback (reprint)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3: Wolves At The Gate, November 2008
Angel: After The Fall: First Night, October 2008
Angel: After The Fall, July 2008
Nothing but Red, July 2008
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2: No Future For You, June 2008
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home, November 2007
Angel, October 2002
Also by Christopher Golden:
All Hallows, February 2023
Road of Bones, February 2022
Red Hands, December 2020
The Pandora Room, February 2020
The Pandora Room, May 2019
Ararat, September 2018
Trade Size
Charlaine Harris Cemetery Girl Book Three: Haunted, August 2018
The Map of Moments, July 2018
Trade Size (reprint)
Blood of the Four, March 2018
Indigo, June 2017
Ararat, April 2017
Urban Allies, August 2016
Paperback / e-Book
Seize The Night, October 2015
Tin Men, July 2015
Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism, October 2013
Four Summoner's Tales, September 2013
Joe Golem And The Drowning City, April 2013
Baltimore Volume 1: The Plague Ships, June 2011
Waking Nightmares, April 2011
Of Masques and Martyrs, December 2010
Angel Souls And Devil Hearts, October 2010
Soulless, November 2008
The Lost Ones, March 2008
The Borderkind, January 2008
Crashing Paradise, September 2007
Baltimore,: Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, September 2007
Stones Unturned, October 2006
The Myth Hunters, January 2006
The Tears of the Furies, June 2005
Wildwood Road, April 2005
The Nimble Man, October 2004
The Gathering Dark, June 2003
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts, November 1998
Of Saints and Shadows, October 1998
Also by Brett Matthews:
Angel Omnibus
Joss Whedon, Christopher Golden, Brett Matthews
Graphic Novel | Fantasy Urban
Heralding the return of Angel to Dark Horse Comics!
Collecting all of Dark Horse's Angel comics to date, this single volume features stories by series creator Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews (Serenity: Those Left Behind), and Christopher Golden (Baltimore). Set during Seasons 1 and 2 of the Angeltelevisionseries, favorite characters appear--Cordelia, Doyle, Wes, Gunn--as the investigations of LA's vampire detective agency delve into all that is dark, grotesque, strange, and unexplainable. Angel faces demonic rats, bizarre deaths from spontaneous combustion, Hollywood demons encounteredcourtesy of Cordelia, angry spirits, zombies, and more!
* Includes four issues written by Joss Whedon.
* Chronicles the earliest adventures in the Angel saga!
* A collection of the first published Angel comics! Angel #1-#14, #17, Angel: Long Night's Journey #1-#4, Dark Horse Presents #153-#155: "Hunting Ground," Dark Horse Extra #25-#28: "Angel," and Angel: Point of Order.


News flash: More lawyers are using social media!
OK, we all knew that. But it's always nice to see some numbers that give us a sense of where we are. The recently published 2012 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report on web and communication technology does that.
Not surprisingly, the survey shows a continued rise in the number of lawyer blogs. Asked whether their firm has a blog, 22% said yes, up from 15% in 2011 and 14% in 2010. The attorneys most likely to say their firm has a blog are those in firms of 100 or more attorneys — 47% answered yes. By comparison, just 9% percent of solo lawyers said their firm had a blog.
8%, 100 or more attorneys.
A topic of ongoing debate within the legal community is whether blogs generate business. In the ABA survey, 39.1 percent of lawyers who blog answered yes to the question, "Have you ever had a client retain your legal services directly or via referral as a result of your legal topic blogging for professional purposes?" Among solo lawyers, 53.3 percent answered yes to that question. Of lawyers in firms of 2-9 members, 50 percent answered yes.
Another 7% of lawyers said that they maintain a blog, but for personal, non-professional purposes.
Lawyers were asked whether their firms maintain a presence on Twitter. Thirteen percent said yet, up from 7 percent the year before and 5 percent in 2010. Fully half the lawyers who answered yes to this question were in firms of 100 or more attorneys. By comparison, 10 percent of solos said their firms use Twitter.
The survey asked lawyers which social networks their firms maintain a presence on. The chart below shows that 88 percent of lawyers said their firms are on LinkedIn and 55 percent are on Facebook. Meanwhile, firms reduced their presence on legal-vertical networks such as MH Connected and Legal OnRamp, the survey indicates. Use of Plaxo by firms dropped from 11 percent in 2011 to 4 percent in 2012.
Personal use of social networks for professional purposes.
Asked about their own use of social networks for professional purposes, 95 percent of lawyers said that they are on LinkedIn and 38 percent said they use Facebook. Use of the legal-vertical networks showed little change but indicates that only a fraction of lawyers use these.
When asked why they maintain a presence in these social networks, the most common reason was career development and networking, an answer given by 72 percent of lawyers. The next most-common reason was case investigation (44 percent), then client development (42 percent) and education and current awareness (15 percent).
Notably, 96 percent of lawyers answered yes to the question of whether they use a social network or online community for non-professional purposes. Ninety-seven percent of solos answered yes to that.
The 2012 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report consists of six volumes, covering a range of topics from technology basics to mobile lawyering. The social media results are contained in Volume IV, which covers web and communication technology. Volume IV is available for purchase from the ABA for $350 (or $300 for ABA members). An abbreviated trend report on web and communication technology can be purchased for $55 (or $45 for ABA members).


text: Pruebas Ruby On Rals

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