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Good news about the 21st century, a counterbalance to the doomsters
Larry Kummer, Editor	Good News, History	 9 May 2008 29 December 2016
As a breath of fresh air after the previous post, I recommend reading this article. I strongly recommend reading this article. A brief excerpt gives the flavor of the contents.
"In the Air – Who says big ideas are rare?", Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker (12 May 2008)
Nathan Myhrvold met Jack Horner on the set of the "Jurassic Park" sequel in 1996. Horner is an eminent paleontologist, and was a consultant on the movie. Myhrvold was there because he really likes dinosaurs. Between takes, the two men got to talking, and Horner asked Myhrvold if he was interested in funding dinosaur expeditions.
… In Montana, which is prime dinosaur country, people had been hiking around and looking for bones for at least a hundred years. But Horner wanted to keep trying. So he and Myhrvold put together a number of teams, totalling as many as fifty people. They crossed the Fort Peck reservoir in boats, and began to explore the Montana badlands in earnest. They went out for weeks at a time, several times a year. They flew equipment in on helicopters. They mapped the full dinosaur ecology-bringing in specialists from other disciplines. And they found dinosaur bones by the truckload.
… People weren't finding dinosaur bones, and they assumed that it was because they were rare. But-and almost everything that Myhrvold has been up to during the past half decade follows from this fact-it was our fault. We didn't look hard enough. … "Our expeditions have found more T. rex than anyone else in the world," Myhrvold said. "From 1909 to 1999, the world found eighteen T. rex specimens. From 1999 until now, we've found nine more."
… In 1999, when Nathan Myhrvold left Microsoft and struck out on his own, he set himself an unusual goal. He wanted to see whether the kind of insight that leads to invention could be engineered. He formed a company called Intellectual Ventures. He raised hundreds of millions of dollars. He hired the smartest people he knew. It was not a venture-capital firm. Venture capitalists fund insights — that is, they let the magical process that generates new ideas take its course, and then they jump in. Myhrvold wanted to make insights-to come up with ideas, patent them, and then license them to interested companies. He thought that if he brought lots of very clever people together he could reconstruct that moment by the Grand River.
… How useful is it to have a group of really smart people brainstorm for a day? When Myhrvold started out, his expectations were modest. Although he wanted insights like Alexander Graham Bell's, Bell was clearly one in a million, a genius who went on to have ideas in an extraordinary number of areas-sound recording, flight, lasers, tetrahedral construction, and hydrofoil boats, to name a few. The telephone was his obsession. He approached it from a unique perspective, that of a speech therapist. He had put in years of preparation before that moment by the Grand River, and it was impossible to know what unconscious associations triggered his great insight. Invention has its own algorithm: genius, obsession, serendipity, and epiphany in some unknowable combination. How can you put that in a bottle?
But then, in August of 2003, I.V. held its first invention session, and it was a revelation. "Afterward, Nathan kept saying, 'There are so many inventions,' " Wood recalled. "He thought if we came up with a half-dozen good ideas it would be great, and we came up with somewhere between fifty and a hundred. I said to him, 'But you had eight people in that room who are seasoned inventors. Weren't you expecting a multiplier effect?' And he said, 'Yeah, but it was more than multiplicity.' Not even Nathan had any idea of what it was going to be like."
The original expectation was that I.V. would file a hundred patents a year. Currently, it's filing five hundred a year. It has a backlog of three thousand ideas.
… One of the sessions that Gates participated in was on the possibility of resuscitating nuclear energy. "Teller had this idea way back when that you could make a very safe, passive nuclear reactor," Myhrvold explained. "No moving parts. Proliferation-resistant. Dead simple. Every serious nuclear accident involves operator error, so you want to eliminate the operator altogether. Lowell and Rod and others wrote a paper on it once. So we did several sessions on it."
The plant, as they conceived it, would produce something like one to three gigawatts of power, which is enough to serve a medium-sized city. The reactor core would be no more than several metres wide and about ten metres long. It would be enclosed in a sealed, armored box. The box would work for thirty years, without need for refuelling. Wood's idea was that the box would run on thorium, which is a very common, mildly radioactive metal. (The world has roughly a hundred-thousand-year supply, he figures.) Myhrvold's idea was that it should run on spent fuel from existing power plants. … It was a long-shot idea, easily fifteen years from reality, if it became a reality at all. It was just a tantalizing idea at this point, but who wasn't interested in seeing where it would lead? "We have thirty guys working on it," he went on. "I have more people doing cutting-edge nuclear work than General Electric.
… Insight could be orchestrated: that was the lesson.
The last line leads to the most important part of the essay, which provides a basis for optimism about both America and humanity's future in the 21st century. We have just started our long climb into the future.
1. An earlier profile of "The Microsoft Provocateur", Ken Auletta, The New Yorker (12 May 1997)
2. More information about Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures: "Patent Firm Lays Global Plans", Wall Street Journal (12 November 2007) — "Intellectual Ventures Is Seeking $2 Billion As Strategy Shifts"
3. Another perspective on this concept: "Gladwell amongst the patent trolls", Information Processing blog (8 May 2008) — Excerpt:
If you read this blog often, you know my opinion about Gladwell: he has a good nose for interesting topics, but not enough brainpower or common sense for reliable analysis. The same is true here: he produces an interesting profile of Myhrvold (although see here for a much better one from 1997 by Ken Auletta) and friends, but seems to entirely miss a number of important points. Intellectual Ventures is not about real inventions, but about patenting around ideas so that they have a future claim on the ones that turn out the be useful. In other words, they are patent trolls. Gladwell does not seem to realize the difference between rampant speculation and true invention: the hours of painstaking work in the lab required to convert an idea into reality.
Here's an excerpt about how the "invention" process works — get some smart guys in a room and let them talk (every theory group lounge is a fount of commercializable ideas ;-). Yes! if your inventors are smart enough, they can produce 36 new inventions at dinner! Is this a statement about real innovation, or about what a patent attorney might manage to get the understaffed, overburdened USPTO to approve? It makes a mockery of what real inventors and innovators do. Why start a company and hire engineers to build a prototype? Just get a few lawyers and patent everything in sight.
…For the cognoscenti out there, yes, the Wood mentioned in the article is none other than Star Warrior Lowell Wood, former head of the zany (useless?) O Group (NYTimes 1984) at Livermore. Wood is perfect for Myhrvold's purposes — for decades his group bamboozled the US defense establishment with wild ideas that cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Follow the link to the Times article and tell me how many of the ideas mentioned turned into something useful, now almost a quarter century later.
… Let me close with my usual observation (specifically aimed at venture capitalists, research lab directors and university administrators) concerning an asymmetry in cognitive depth: yes, physicists can casually read the New England Journal of Medicine and come up with interesting insights, but, no, biologists and medical doctors cannot read Physical Review.
4. A company doing something similar, but with more emphasis on carrying ideas through development to commercialization: Idealab.
Founded in in 1996 to create and operate pioneering technology companies. Our companies are based on ideas that challenge the status quo, and change the way people think, live, and work. The structure of Idealab has allowed us to test many ideas at once and turn the best of them into companies, attracting the human and financial capital necessary to bring them to market.
Please share your comments by posting below, relevant and brief please (max 250 words). Too long comments will be edited down (very long ones might be deleted). Or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).
Posts about good news for America
Good news: The Singularity is coming (again) (8 December 2007) — History tends to look better over longer time horizons.
Some good news (one of the more important posts on this blog) (21 December 2007)
Some good news (one of the more important posts on this blog)
A crisis at the beginning of the American experiment (27 December 2008) — Looking at the problems looming before us, it is easy to forget those of equal or greater danger that we have surmounted in the past.
An important thing to remember as we start a New Year (29 December 2007) — As we start a New Year I find it useful to review my core beliefs. It is easy to lose sight of those amidst the clatter of daily events. Here is my list…
Is America's decline inevitable? No. (21 January 2008)
Let us light a candle while we walk, lest we fear what lies ahead (10 February 2008) — Need we fear the future?
A happy ending to the current economic recession (12 February 2008)
Fears of flying into the future (25 February 2008)
Experts, with wrinkled brows, warn about the future (2 May 2008) — Experts often see the future with alarm, seeing the dangers but not benefits. That gets attention, from both the media and an increasinly fearful public. Both sides feed this process. It need not be so, as most trends contain the seeds of good and bad futures. This post considers two examples.
Peak Oil Doomsters debunked, end of civilization called off (8 May 2008)
Good news about the 21st century, a counterbalance to the doomsters (9 May 2008)
An effective way to support our Troops: help the Blue Star Mothers of America (8 June 2008) — There are ways to support our troops, actions more effective than a bumper sticker on your car.
There is no "peak water" crisis (19 June 2008)
Click here for all posts discussing good news about America's future.
doomster
Published 9 May 2008 29 December 2016
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2 thoughts on "Good news about the 21st century, a counterbalance to the doomsters"
Also to add on to the revival of nuclear energy (though the above is much cheaper alternative) we have the very real prospect of He-3 mining on the moon which can be used in fusion power. Civilisation has gone through a substantial leap forward over the last 100 years, I guess we are just going through what economists like to refer to the current economic crisis as a 'period of readjustment' but in energy terms.
Fabius Maximus replies: I absolutely agree. However short or long, painful or benign, this transitional period will probably be quickly forgotten. Just as we have forgotten the many depressions in the last half of the 19th century.
Fabius Maximus says:
Update: "Gladwell amongst the patent trolls", Information Processing blog (8 May 2008) — Excerpt:
"{Malcolm Gladwell} has a good nose for interesting topics, but not enough brainpower or common sense for reliable analysis. The same is true here: he produces an interesting profile of Myhrvold (although see here for a much better one from 1997 by Ken Auletta) and friends, but seems to entirely miss a number of important points. Intellectual Ventures is not about real inventions, but about patenting around ideas so that they have a future claim on the ones that turn out the be useful. In other words, they are patent trolls. Gladwell does not seem to realize the difference between rampant speculation and true invention: the hours of painstaking work in the lab required to convert an idea into reality.
"… For the cognoscenti out there, yes, the Wood mentioned in the article is none other than Star Warrior Lowell Wood, former head of the zany (useless?) O Group (NYTimes 1984) at Livermore. Wood is perfect for Myhrvold's purposes — for decades his group bamboozled the US defense establishment with wild ideas that cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Follow the link to the Times article and tell me how many of the ideas mentioned turned into something useful, now almost a quarter century later.
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The Chilli Pepper is the fruit of the plant from the genus capsicum, they are members of the nightshade family. The main active ingredient of a chilli when eaten or applied to the skin is capsicum and related compounds known as capsacinoids. The Chilli Peppers originated in Mexico and with modern trade routes quickly spread around the world although can be traced back as far as 7,500 BC.
The Intensity of the chill can be increased during the growing cycle of the plant. If water stressed, they are more likely to up the concentration of the capsaicin in part of the fruit.


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● #0d2312 color description : Very dark (mostly black) lime green.
The hexadecimal color #0d2312 has RGB values of R:13, G:35, B:18 and CMYK values of C:0.63, M:0, Y:0.49, K:0.86. Its decimal value is 860946.
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text:
Alzheimer's Vaccine Shows Promise in Mice
MONDAY, Nov. 26, 2018 (HealthDay News) — An experimental Alzheimer's disease vaccine shows promise in animal tests, and researchers say it could have the potential to reduce dementia cases by half.
In mice created to develop Alzheimer's, the vaccine triggered an immune response that reduced accumulation of two toxic proteins associated with the fatal brain disease.
There was a 40 percent reduction in beta-amyloid proteins and up to a 50 percent reduction in tau proteins, with no harmful side effects, according to researchers at the University of Texas.
But there's a catch: While such tests showed positive results in mice, research on animals doesn't always produce the same effects in humans. More study is needed.
Still, the researchers remained optimistic. Reductions in these proteins could someday have significant benefits in people at risk for Alzheimer's disease, said study senior author Doris Lambracht-Washington, of the UT Southwestern Medical Center Brain Institute in Dallas.
"If the onset of the disease could be delayed by even five years, that would be enormous for the patients and their families," she said in a center news release. "The number of dementia cases could drop by half."
Lead researcher Dr. Roger Rosenberg is founding director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at UT Southwestern.
"This study is the culmination of a decade of research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this vaccine can effectively and safely target in animal models what we think may cause Alzheimer's disease," said Rosenberg.
"I believe we're getting close to testing this therapy in people," he added.
Two previous studies from Rosenberg's lab showed that the vaccine triggered similar immune responses in rabbits and monkeys.
UT Southwestern scientists are also working to create a test to detect abnormal tau levels in spinal fluid before the memory-loss symptoms of Alzheimer's appear. They said such a test would identify people who could benefit from the vaccine.
In people with Alzheimer's, the beta-amyloid and tau proteins spread in lethal plaques and tangles on the brain, the study authors explained.
"The longer you wait [to administer the vaccine], the less effect it will probably have," Rosenberg said. "Once those plaques and tangles have formed, it may be too late."
About 5.7 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. That number is expected to more than double by the year 2050, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no effective treatment for the disease.
The study was published recently in the journal Alzheimer's Research and Therapy.
SOURCE: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, news release, Nov. 20, 2018
Posted on November 28, 2018 Author anactivelifeCategories Senior Health News
One Twin's Difficult Birth Puts A Project Designed To Reduce C-Sections To The Test
This story is part of a partnership that includes WBUR, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
This story can be republished for free (details).
The tiny hand and forearm slipped out too early. Babies are not delivered shoulder first. Dr. Terri Marino, an obstetrician in the Boston area who specializes in high-risk deliveries, tucked it back inside the boy's mother.
"He was trying to shake my hand and I was like, 'I'm not having this — put your hand back in there,'" Marino would say later, after all 5 pounds, 1 ounce of the baby lay wailing under a heating lamp.
This is the story of how that baby, Bryce McDougall, tested the best efforts of more than a dozen medical staffers at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., that day last summer.
Bryce's birth also put to the test a new method of reducing cesarean sections developed at Dr. Atul Gawande's Ariadne Labs, a "joint center for health systems innovation" at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
The story starts before Bryce's birth, on the last day of August at about 9:30 in the morning.
Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.
Melisa McDougall has just checked into South Shore, after a routine ultrasound. She's in her 36th week, pregnant with twin boys. The doctors have warned Melisa that her placenta won't hold out much longer. She's propped up in bed, blond hair pulled into a neat bun, makeup still fresh, ordering a sandwich, when her regular obstetrician arrives.
"How are you?" asks Dr. Ruth Levesque, sweeping into the room and clapping her hands. "You're going to have some babies today! Are you excited?"
The first of the twins — Brady — is head-down, ready for a normal vaginal delivery. But brother Bryce is horizontal at the top of Melisa's uterus.
That's one reason Melisa is a candidate for a C-section. Babies do not come out sideways. And there's another reason most doctors would not consider a vaginal delivery in Melisa's case, Levesque says. Four years ago, she delivered the twins' sister by cesarean.
"[Melisa] has a scar on her uterus," Levesque explains, "so there's a risk of uterine rupture — very rare, but there's always a possibility."
And that possibility may be greater for Melisa because she's 37 and having twins. But the McDougalls hope to have vaginal deliveries for both boys.
"I just feel like it's better for the kids — better for the babies," Melisa says.
Melisa McDougall hears comforting words from her nurse at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass. Part of the focus of the Team Birth Project is on facilitating communication among parents, nurses and doctors.(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
How The 'Team Birth Project' Came To Be
Avoiding C-sections is also better for many moms. With cesareans, there's a longer recovery period, a greater risk of infection and an association with injury and death. And most C-sections are not medically necessary, said Dr. Neel Shah, who directs the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Ariadne Labs.
"We're fairly confident that, when you look nationally, the plurality — if not the majority — of C-sections are probably avoidable," said Shah.
Those avoidable C-sections are the focus of the Team Birth Project, designed by Shah with input from roughly 50 doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, public health specialists and consumer advocates who focus on childbirth. South Shore Hospital is one of the pilot sites for the project.
In describing the collaboration, Shah begins with an acknowledgement: Childbirth is complicated. You've got two patients — the mother and the baby — and an ad hoc, often shifting team that at a minimum includes the mom, a nurse and a doctor.
"So you've got three people who have to come together and become a very high-performing team in a really short period of time, for one of the most important moments in a person's life," Shah said.
And this team has to perform at its best during an unpredictable event: labor.
Shah says doctors and nurses generally agree about three things: when a mom is in active labor; when a mom can definitely try for a vaginal delivery; and when she must have a C-section.
"And then there's this huge gray zone," Shah said. "And actually, everything about the Team Birth Project is about solving for the gray."
To avoid unnecessary C-sections when what to do isn't clear, this hospital, in conjunction with Ariadne, has changed the way labor and delivery is handled from start to finish.
First, women aren't admitted until they are in active labor. Secondly, the mom's preferences — such as whether she'd like an epidural or not, whether she wants to have "skin-to-skin contact" with the baby immediately after birth — help guide the members of the labor team. The team members map the delivery plan — including mom's preferences and the medical team's guidance — on a whiteboard, like the one in Melisa's room.
For the births of Bryce and Brady McDougall, the white erasable planning board gets a lot of use.
Under "Team," Levesque and registered nurse Patty Newbitt write their names. Melisa and Shaun McDougall are also listed as equal partners. The names of other family members or nurses may be added and erased as labor progresses. Shah's idea is that this team will "huddle" regularly throughout the labor to discuss the evolving birth plan.
The birth plan itself is divided into three separate elements on the board: Maternal (the mom), Fetal (the baby) and Progress (in terms of how the labor is progressing). A mom with high blood pressure, for instance, may need special attention — and that would be noted on the board — but she could still have a normal labor and vaginal delivery.
The whiteboard in Melisa McDougall's hospital room details the birth plan, including her preferences and the medical team's guidance.(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Good Communication Throughout Labor And Delivery Is Key
Dr. Kimberly Dever, who chairs the OB-GYN department at South Shore, highlights a section of the whiteboard called "Next Assessment."
That category is included on the board, Dever said, "because one of the things I often heard from patients is that they didn't know what was going to happen next. Now they know."
Asking the mom — and the couple — about their preferences for the delivery is crucial, too, Levesque said.
"It forces us to stop and to think about everything with the patient," she explained. "It makes us verbalize our thought process, which I think is good."
Shaun McDougall walks across the room to get a closer look at the whiteboard.
"Honestly, it seems like common sense," he says. "I would always think the nurses would have something like this, but to have it out where mom and dad can see it — I think it's pretty cool."
With Melisa McDougall's plan in place, everyone settles in, to wait. About four hours later, Melisa isn't yet feeling contractions. Levesque breaks the water sac around Brady.
"Looks nice and clear," Levesque reports. "Hey bud, come on and hang out with us," she says to the baby.
"So, you're going to keep leaking fluid until you leak babies," the doctor explains to Melisa. "Whenever you start getting uncomfortable, we'll get you an epidural at that point."
Levesque moves to the board and adds updates: Melisa is 4 centimeters dilated; her waters broke at 13:26; the next assessment will be after she gets an epidural.
The medical team insisted ahead of time that Melisa agree to be numbed from the waist down if she wants to deliver Bryce — the second twin — vaginally. Melisa agreed. The obstetricians may need to rotate the baby in her uterus, find a foot and pull Bryce out, causing pain most women would not tolerate.
One of those doctors — Marino — peeks into the room and waves.
"Just came to say hi," says Marino, who has more experience than most obstetricians in delivering babies positioned like Bryce. Along with Levesque, Marino has been seeing Melisa regularly through office visits.
Shaun McDougall asks the physicians if they'll pose for a picture with his wife.
"Can we make funny faces?" asks Levesque.
"I want you to," says Shaun. "You guys are like her favorite people on the planet."
As the hours tick by, there's a shift change, and registered nurse Barbara Fatemi joins the McDougall team. She checks Melisa's pain level regularly to determine when she's ready for the epidural.
Melisa says she isn't feeling much, but adds that she has a high tolerance for pain. Shaun tells Fatemi he sees the strain on his wife's face. Fatemi acts on Shaun's assessment, and calls an anesthesiologist to prepare the epidural, something Shaun later says reinforces his feeling that they're a team.
Levesque soon arrives for the promised "next assessment." Melisa is now 10 centimeters dilated and ready to deliver — but she must hold on until nurses can get her into an operating room.
The OR will be the right place if the second baby, Bryce, doesn't shift his position, and the doctor needs to do a last-minute cesarean.
"I'll see you in a few minutes. No pushing without me, OK?" Levesque says over her shoulder as she heads to the OR to prep.
"I'll try," Melisa says, weakly. In a minute, nurses are rolling her down the hall, following Levesque.
Almost five years ago, two women who were wheeled into this hospital's operating rooms during childbirth died after undergoing C-sections. Though state investigators found no evidence of substandard care, Dever, the head of obstetrics, said the hospital scrutinized everything.
"When you have something like that happen, that expedites your efforts," she said. "Exponentially."
Now, Dever said, she sees an opportunity, through the Team Birth Project, to model changes that could help women far and wide.
"I would love women everywhere to be able to come in and have a safe birth and healthy baby," she said. "That's why I'm doing it."
'They Did Not Flinch'
Dever is about to see her pilot study of the Team Birth Project pushed to new limits by little Bryce McDougall. First, though, Melisa must deliver Bryce's twin brother, Brady. Even his birth, the one that was expected to be easier, is more difficult than anticipated.
Bent nearly in half, her face beet red, Melisa strains for five pushes. She throws up, then gets back to laboring. And suddenly, there he is.
"Oh my goodness Brady, oh Brady," wails Shaun. He follows a nurse holding his son over to a warmer.
Marino takes Shaun's place next to Levesque, who has reached inside Melisa to get the next twin. Levesque's mission is to grab Bryce's feet and guide him out. But everything feels like fingers, not toes.
"That's a hand," she murmurs. "That's a hand, too."
Marino rolls an ultrasound across Melisa's belly, hoping the scan will show a foot. But Bryce's feet are out of sight and out of reach.
Marino has had more experience than most obstetricians with transverse babies and this procedure, known as a breech extraction; she asks to try. She reaches into Melisa's uterus while Levesque moves to Melisa's right side and uses her forearm to shift Bryce and push him down. Dever has come into the room, and takes over the ultrasound. At least six doctors and nurses encircle Melisa, whose face is taut. Shaun frowns.
"Babe, you OK?" he asks.
Melisa nods. Bryce's heart rate is steady. But there's still no sign of a foot. One little hand slips out and Marino nudges it back in.
"Open the table," says Marino, her voice strained.
It's open and ready, her colleagues say, referring to the array of sterile surgical instruments that Marino may soon need, to begin a C-section.
For 36 seconds, this room with more than a dozen adults grows oddly quiet. Everyone is watching Marino twist her arm this way and that, determined to find Bryce's feet. Levesque leans hard into Melisa's belly. Shaun bites his lip. Then Marino yanks at something — and her gloved hand emerges, clenching baby Bryce by his two teeny legs.
"Oh babe, here he comes, here he comes — Woo!" squeals Shaun.
Shaun is overcome with emotion again. Melisa manages an exhausted giggle. Baby Bryce keeps everyone waiting a few more seconds and then howls.
Levesque tends to Melisa, and Marino comes around to congratulate the new mom.
"He was fighting you, huh?" Melisa says, and laughs.
"I think I found at least five hands," says Levesque.
Outside the OR, Levesque and Marino look relieved and elated. Both agree that most doctors would have delivered Bryce by C-section. But at South Shore, the McDougalls found a hospital that has challenged itself to perform fewer C-sections, and a doctor with experience in these unusual deliveries — one who knew and respected the parents' preference.
"They specifically wanted to have a vaginal delivery of both babies," Marino says — and that was on her mind during the difficult moments.
Bryce was fine, says Marino, so the deciding factor for her was that Shaun and Melisa did not panic.
"They did not flinch — they were like, 'Keep going,'" Marino recalls. "Sometimes the patient will say 'stop,' and then you have to stop."
The babies' father says he came close to requesting that, in the very last minute before Bryce was born.
"That part with the arm — it was pretty aggressive," Shaun says.
But in that moment, he adds, the feeling that he and Melisa were part of the team made a difference.
"It made us more comfortable," Shaun says, and that comfort translated to trust. "We trusted the decisions they were making."
Melisa says she's grateful for the vaginal delivery.
"I did not want to have a natural birth and a C-section," she says. "That would be a brutal recovery."
Instead, 30 minutes after Bryce's birth, Melisa is nursing Brady and talking with family members on FaceTime.
Next Assessment For The Team Birth Project
South Shore began using the Team Birth approach in April. Three other hospitals are also pilot sites: Saint Francis in Tulsa, Okla.; EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, Wash.; and Overlake in Redmond, Wash. The test period runs for two years. In the first four months at South Shore, the hospital's primary, low-risk C-section rate dropped from 31 percent to 27 percent — about four fewer C-sections each month.
Experts who contributed to the development of the Team Birth Project are eager to see whether other hospitals can lower their rates of C-section and keep them down.
"Once you get past the early adopters, how do you demonstrate the benefits for others that aren't willing to change?" asked Gene Declercq, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health.
Declercq noted that a few insurers are beginning to force that question, refusing to include in their networks hospitals that have high C-section rates, or high rates of other unnecessary, if not harmful, care.
The federal government has set a target rate for hospitals: No more than 23.9 percent of first-time, low-risk mothers should be delivered by C-section. The U.S. average in 2016 was 25.7 percent.
The target was put in place because research has shown that if a woman's first delivery is a C-section, her subsequent deliveries are highly likely to be C-sections, too — raising her (and her baby's) risk for complications and even death.
Declercq said the project's focus on communication in the labor and delivery room makes sense because many physicians decide when to perform a cesarean based on clinical habit or the culture of their hospital.
"If you can impact that decision-making process, you can perhaps change the culture that might lead to unnecessary cesareans," said Declercq.
This story is part of a reporting partnership with WBUR, NPR and Kaiser Health News.
KHN's coverage of these topics is supported by
Heising-Simons Foundation and
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Martha Bebinger, WBUR:
marthab@wbur.org,
@mbebinger
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Posted on November 27, 2018 Author anactivelifeCategories Uncategorized
Harsh parenting can be buffered by warm relationships with teachers, peers
(Reuters Health) – – Children whose parents often threaten and criticize them are more likely to become defiant and aggressive, research shows. But these effects can be buffered by warm relationships with teachers and school friends, a new study suggests.
Kindergartners who experienced harsh parenting but also had developed close buddies were less likely at the end of the school year to exhibit behaviors such as defiance towards adults, rule breaking and angry outbursts than those who did not have warm relationships, according to the study published in Development and Psychopathology.
"This highlights the potential utility of interventions that are more school based for oppositional defiant disorder behaviors," said study leader Danielle Roubinov of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. "Parent management training programs are some of the most widely used interventions for these kids, but a large proportion of families don't respond to these kinds of interventions."
Roubinov and her colleagues studied the impact of school-based relationships on 383 kindergartners from 29 classrooms in six public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Seventy-one percent had been exposed to high levels of harsh parenting, while the other 29 percent had been exposed to lower levels of harsh parenting.
Overall, 10 percent of the children met the criteria for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).
Young children with ODD often don't outgrow it. ODD has been associated with an elevated risk of antisocial behavior, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, criminal offenses and incarceration in adolescence and adulthood.
To take a closer look at the possible buffering effects of warm relationships at school, the researchers collected information from the children themselves, parents, teachers and other students.
"First we asked parents to report on their parenting practices," Roubinov said. "We asked about their discipline strategies, including how harsh, negative or critical their parenting was."
Children were asked how warm, caring and positive they felt their relationships were with their teachers. Teachers were asked about their relationships with the children and about how well the children fit in with others in the classroom.
To get a sense of how well a child got along with peers, the researchers interviewed the entire class. "We went into the classroom and showed the children a big display board with pictures of all the classmates and told them to nominate which classmates they liked to play with," Roubinov said. "From that we could derive how well accepted a student was among their peers."
In the fall, at the beginning of the study, all three groups were asked about the children's ODD behaviors. The groups were asked to rate the behaviors again in the spring.
When the researchers analyzed ODD symptoms from a composite of parent, teacher and children's reports, they found harshly parented kids who were liked and accepted by their classmates had a 64 percent lower ODD symptom score than children who were not liked. Those who were exposed to harsh parenting but had a warm relationship with their teacher had a 29 percent lower ODD symptom score than counterparts without a positive teacher relationship.
The new study shows that "for kids who have parenting that is less than optimal, there are opportunities in both their friendships and relationships with teachers at school to get the support, engagement and reinforcement of their worth that may help blunt the negative impact of harsh parenting," said Patrick Tolan, the Charles S. Robb Professor in the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. "But I don't think the message from this study is that having good friendships overcomes harsh parenting."
The best solution, Tolan said, is to give parents the training they need so they will be less harsh with their children. "The first step is learning to monitor yourself and to calm yourself down," Tolan said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/2AChWJB Development and Psychopathology, online November 21, 2018.
Posted on November 27, 2018 Author anactivelifeCategories Consumers Health News
Roche buys U.S. biotech Jecure in race for liver disease drugs
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Swiss drugmaker Roche is seen at its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland February 1, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche is buying U.S.-based Jecure Therapeutics, joining Pfizer, Gilead Sciences and Novartis in pursuit of new drugs to treat fatty liver disease.
Roche did not say how much it was paying for Jecure, which gives it a preclinical portfolio of so-called NLRP3 inhibitors being developed for fighting inflammatory diseases like non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and liver fibrosis as well as gout, inflammatory bowel disease and cardiovascular diseases.
Novartis and Pfizer last month teamed up to develop treatments for NASH, which many drug companies believe will become a hugely lucrative market, as it is tied to the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Unchecked, NASH can lead to advanced cirrhosis and liver failure.
"We're excited to combine Jecure's portfolio with our discovery and development capabilities, as well as our expertise in NLRP3 biology, to potentially help people with inflammatory diseases," James Sabry, Roche's head of partnering, said in a statement on Tuesday.
NASH, so far with no approved treatments, is poised to become the leading cause of liver transplants by 2020. [reut.rs/2HojtnT]
Jecure Therapeutics is focused on novel therapeutics for the treatment of NASH and liver fibrosis and was founded by Dr. Ariel Feldstein, who heads gastroenterology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.
Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Alexander Smith
Key Strategies When Caring for a Loved One With Dementia
SUNDAY, Nov. 25, 2018 (HealthDay News) — People caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's or other types of dementia should focus on four main safety issues, an expert says.
Nearly 6 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. About 16.1 million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer's or other dementias.
"When approaching dementia families, I follow the safe and sane rule," said Dr. Andrew Duxbury, a geriatrician in the Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
"Everything we do needs to make the patient safe and the family sane. In terms of safety, it boils down into the big four: meals, wheels, bills and pills," he explained in a university news release.
In terms of meals, caregivers need to consider whether the person is capable of preparing food, eating healthy and appropriate amounts of food, and has the awareness that they need to eat, Duxbury said. "If any link in that chain breaks, the person may not eat," he said.
When it comes to kitchen safety, the "biggest issue is leaving things on the stove and forgetting to turn the oven off; but if cooking is part of someone's routine, let them cook on their own while monitoring what they are doing from another room," he said.
"Think about it this way: Would you let your 12-year-old make dinner? You may, but you would definitely be in the next room listening for anything that could go wrong," Duxbury said.
Other suggestions include planning meals that require minimal preparation or can be made in the microwave; removing scissors and knives from the countertop and drawers; putting labels on kitchen cabinets; and disguising the garbage disposal switch to prevent someone from turning it on accidentally.
It's not safe for patients with late-stage dementia to prepare food on the stove or in the oven, Duxbury said.
When it comes to getting out of the house, the loss of independence caused by having to give up driving can be difficult for dementia patients.
"A lot of times, an older man may just want to have the car keys, feel them in his pocket and see the car in the driveway," Duxbury said. "You can let him have the keys, just not the key to the actual car. Give him the keys to a different car or remove the car key from his set of keys. This way, he has the keys, hears them jingle in his pocket and sees his car, but can't go anywhere."
If a person can no longer drive, caregivers need to ensure there is another source of transportation, especially for medical appointments. Arrange to have medications, groceries or meals delivered.
Evaluate and monitor the person's finances to make sure he or she has enough money to pay bills and is not being taken advantage of or scammed, Duxbury advised.
Many seniors take multiple medications. Those with dementia often forget to take their pills or take pills together that can cause harmful side effects. Caregivers need to ensure their loved one is correctly managing their medications and going to medical appointments. It's also important to keep an eye on the person's other health issues.
To help your loved one, set up a pillbox with a week's worth of pills, sorted by day. Some pillboxes have timers and locks you can set to prevent him or her from taking the wrong day's dose.
Duxbury said most people with dementia think they're fine.
"Families need to remember that a person with dementia does not live in the same reality that we live in," he said. "They live in a reality of their brain's dementia. These individuals may have completely different perceptions of the world around them and what it means. … We have to accept their reality for what it is."
SOURCE: University of Alabama at Birmingham, news release, Oct. 29, 2018
Nonprofit Bets Asian-American Students Can Learn To Avoid Unhealthy Gambling
This story also ran on Mic.
The students listened attentively as Ryan Wong explained how casinos keep customers chasing that elusive jackpot.
Labyrinthine layouts force guests to walk past card tables and slot machines in search of well-concealed restrooms and exits, said Wong, an intern at the nonprofit NICOS Chinese Health Coalition, a San Francisco partnership of health and social service organizations. Casinos ply customers with free alcohol to loosen inhibitions, and clocks are nowhere to be found.
"You lose track of time," Wong, 23, told the members of an Asian-American studies class at City College of San Francisco. "The more you gamble, the more it favors the casino."
NICOS staff members and interns visit Asian-American studies classes around the San Francisco Bay Area to talk to students about gambling because studies suggest Asian-American college students have a higher rate of problem gambling than their peers. NICOS hopes to reduce their risk.
It's not that they gamble more than others but that they are significantly more likely than their white, black or Latino counterparts to report unhealthy gambling behavior, according to a 2016 study in the Journal of Gambling Studies. It found that 8 percent of Asian-American students at a large public research university in Texas met the criteria for pathological gambling, compared with about 5 percent of whites and 4 percent of blacks and Latinos.
Problem gambling includes lying about losses, feeling guilty about gambling, and missing school or work because of it.
When problem gambling worsens into an addiction, also known as pathological or compulsive gambling, people fail repeatedly to curb their habit. And if they manage to stop, they have withdrawal symptoms, including restlessness and irritability. They gamble increasing sums to maintain the rush of excitement.
Why Asian-American students have a higher rate of gambling-related problems is not entirely clear, said Nolan Zane, a professor of psychology and Asian-American studies at the University of California-Davis.
He thinks cultural, social and psychological factors all play a role. In many Asian cultures, he noted, a "belief in good luck or fortune pervades customs and rituals."
At family and social events, for example, many Asian-American adults bet money in games that involve skill and chance, such as mahjong. Often, they teach children to play, too. Exposing youngsters to gambling at an early age tends to normalize it.
"If you look across cultures, anytime there's a behavior that's more acceptable, then people are more likely to develop problems with that behavior," Zane said.
Zane's research suggests that impulsivity is not a factor in problem gambling among Asian-American students, as it is for white students. Rather, they gamble to cope with negative feelings, such as anxiety, shame, loneliness or a sense of being disconnected from the college culture or mainstream society.
Asian-American studies departments at Bay Area colleges first approached NICOS more than a decade ago about educating students, said Michael Liao, the organization's program director. "Instructors were noticing that gambling affected their students, either directly or through someone they knew, like a family member."
Liao has firsthand experience: His stepfather attempted suicide after racking up insurmountable gambling debts and losing the family's life savings.
Some immigrants who work at low-paying jobs are under financial strain and perceive gambling as a magic ticket, especially if their English is poor, Liao said. "'Oooo, that next lottery ticket, that next trip to Vegas — that could be my way out, my way to send my kids to that school that they want to go to.'"
San Francisco State University graduate student Calvin Zhao and Michael Liao, NICOS Chinese Health Coalition's program director, present study findings at the 2018 Nevada State Conference on Problem Gambling. (Courtesy of NICOS Chinese Health Coalition)
Even well-educated young Asian-Americans can get caught up in the allure of big money. College graduate Calvin Zhao's ordeal began at age 21. He was an assistant and translator for an investor in a cosmetics company. The man was known as a high roller, or "whale" in casino parlance — a customer who wagered thousands of dollars in a single day. Zhao tagged along with his boss to the casinos.
"I would spend days, even all-nighters, in casinos," Zhao recalled.
When he started betting his own money and lost several thousand dollars, he realized his gambling had become a harmful habit. "You lose money, you get sad," he said. As his gambling habit grew, Zhao said, he became more isolated.
He ultimately broke the bad cycle by quitting his job and setting limits on his gambling. His scrape with problem gambling led Zhao, now a 23-year-old graduate student at San Francisco State University, to study unhealthy gambling among his Asian-American peers on campus for his master's thesis.
If students visit casinos, NICOS offers these tips: Limit spending by leaving credit and debit cards at home, and set an alarm on phones or watches to signal when it's time to quit.
When students ask Zhao for advice about their own gambling worries, he tells them that gambling itself isn't a bad thing. Just "don't do it excessively," he said. "Even if you lose, you should be OK with what you lost."
KHN's work with California ethnic media is supported in part by The California Wellness Foundation.
California Mental Health
Loved ones with health-care decision-making power often over-confident
(Reuters Health) – People entrusted with decision-making for incapacitated loved ones tend to believe they know what their loved ones would choose – but the vast majority of surrogate decision-makers in a recent study were wrong about loved ones' wishes.
Researchers who interviewed patients and their surrogates separately found that just 21 percent of patients and surrogates were on the same page when it came to rating whether specific situations – for example, feeling daily pain, as with a broken bone or appendicitis – would be acceptable.
"Patients and their loved ones actually tend to overestimate how well they've talked to each other and how well the loved ones understand what the patient would want under circumstances of advanced illness and making decisions about those illnesses," said the study's lead author, Dr. Terri Fried, a professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and an attending physician at the VA Connecticut Health Care System. "The thing that's particularly disturbing in this study is we asked how confident they were and their confidence level was high."
The problem is that many assume they've made their wishes clear when they haven't, Fried said. "It's not a conversation that comes naturally," she added. "And people often mistake passing comments, when they see something on TV, as what their loved one would want. So some ER show might be on and the patient might say 'O gee, I don't want that to ever happen to me,' and the surrogate thinks that means they've had a conversation."
There are consequences for the surrogate who doesn't really know what their loved one wants.
"It's been found in other studies, that after having to make such decisions, surrogates often felt very burdened and afterwards felt like they didn't know enough about the patient's wishes to make an informed decision," Fried said.
Instead of focusing on specific treatments, like mechanical ventilation, for example, the researchers focused on outcomes that a patient might or might not want to live with.
Those outcomes were: being bedbound and requiring assistance with bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting; being unable to recognize family members; daily pain feeling like a broken bone or appendicitis.
"It's important to noted that the whole telephone survey probably took about 20 to 25 minutes and interviewers were asking questions about planning for the future and health care decisions," Fried explained. "So, if people had questions, the interviewer could clarify anything the responder didn't understand."
As reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, the 349 patients in the study were randomly selected from a list of community-dwelling military veterans aged 55 and older who were receiving primary care through the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. At the outset, the patients were asked to provide the name of the person they would choose to make medical decisions if they were incapacitated. More half of the surrogates, 52 percent, were patients' spouses.
Patients' and surrogates' responses were in agreement on single outcomes between 54 and 59 percent of the time. But surrogates got it right for all three outcomes just 21 percent of the time. Nevertheless, 75 percent of surrogates rated themselves as extremely confident that they knew what the patient's wishes would be. And among those who were extremely confident, just 23 percent were correct in their prediction for all three outcomes.
Because people's attitudes can change over time, Fried recommends people have not just one conversation about their wishes, but also to return regularly to the topic.
Dr. Albert Wu wasn't surprised by the findings. "Americans are not comfortable thinking about death, especially their own," said Wu, an internist and professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "And I think we are very uncomfortable having these conversations."
While it may be difficult to talk about the topic, "it will be much more difficult to have the conversation at a time of crisis," said Wu, who was not involved in the new study. "We don't have enough of these discussions and we don't have them soon enough to learn what a loved one wants. If we were to do so, a lot more people would have the kind of death everyone really wants to have: to die in bed without too much pain surrounded by your loved ones."
SOURCE: bit.ly/2TLZczV JAMA Internal Medicine, online November 26, 2018.
South Africa's Aspen launches three-in-one HIV drug
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare on Monday launched a triple-combination tablet for the treatment of HIV in the country where the virus is most prevalent.
The company's new Emdolten drug is a once-a-day tablet in the form of dolutegravir, an antiretroviral medication that counters the drug resistance that often develops with older HIV treatments, Aspen said.
The drug also contains lamivudine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate alongside dolutegravir.
In May the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority and the European Medicines Agency issued a warning advising doctors not to prescribe dolutegravir to women seeking to become pregnant.
This followed preliminary data from a study in Botswana, which found four cases of neural tube defects in babies born to mothers who became pregnant while taking the drug.
The drug is found in the branded medicines Tivicay and Triumeq, which are sold by GlaxoSmithKline's majority-owned ViiV Healthcare unit.
Aspen, which pioneered the development and manufacture of generic antiretrovirals (ARV) in South Africa, said that using dolutegravir was safe for men, women who are not of child bearing age and child-bearing women using contraceptives, adding that these groups represent more than 70 percent of HIV patients.
"The fact that it (Emdolten) has been registered means that SAHPRA is comfortable that it is safe to take to the public," Aspen strategic trade executive Stavros Nicolaou told Reuters, referring to South African Health Products Regulatory Authority.
The company launched Aspen Stavudine – its first generic ARV drug in August 2003 – at a time when the country was grappling with a high rate of HIV infection.
South Africa has 19 percent of the global number of people living with HIV, 15 percent of new infections and 11 percent of AIDS-related deaths, the United Nations AIDS agency says on its website.
There is no vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS. Current treatments only helping patients to manage the disease, but the fast-mutating virus has proved a challenge to the medical community because it often develops resistance to existing medicines.
Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by James Macharia and David Goodman
Congo approves clinical trials for Ebola treatments
KINSHASA (Reuters) – Congolese authorities have authorized clinical trials for four experimental Ebola treatments, which will allow researchers to collect valuable data about their effectiveness, the health ministry said on Saturday.
FILE PHOTO: A doctor cares for a patient inside an isolate cube at The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) treatment center in Beni, North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Fiston Mahamba/File Photo
Health workers have already administered therapeutic treatments to more than 150 Ebola patients since August in an effort to contain the worst of Democratic Republic of Congo's 10 outbreaks of the hemorrhagic fever since 1976.
But until now doctors have decided which treatment to use on a case-by-case basis. In the clinical trial, the choice of treatment will now be randomized.
Treatment will still be free of charge, the ministry added in a statement.
"Precious information about the effectiveness of the treatments obtained during the clinical trial will allow for the development of these treatments on a wider scale to save more lives," the ministry said.
The four treatments are mAb114, which was developed by the U.S. government; ZMapp, an intravenous treatment made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical; Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences; and Regeneron's REGN-EB3.
As of last weekend, 151 patients had received one of the four drugs. Of those, 76 had recovered, 44 had died and 31 were still hospitalized — a mortality rate of 37 percent.
By contrast, among those who had not received treatment, the mortality rate was close to 80 percent.
The ministry said that the data from the current outbreak would probably not be sufficient to make definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatments and that the trials could continue during future outbreaks.
Despite the use of the treatments as well as an experimental vaccine manufactured by Merck, authorities have struggled to contain the outbreak due to widespread militia violence in eastern Congo and community resistance to health workers.
At least 228 people are believed to have died, and the World Health Organization said last week that it expects the outbreak to last at least another six months.
Reporting By Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Aaron Ross
Dining out with food allergies may be safer with at least 15 precautions
(Reuters Health) – A survey of people with food allergies who dine out successfully has found they employ quite a few strategies.
Those who never had an allergic reaction in a restaurant tended to employ an average of 15 strategies to avoid allergens, while those who have had a reaction tended to use only six different strategies before suffering a problem, researchers found.
"Physicians can encourage families to use several different strategies when dining out in an effort to prevent food allergy reactions," the study's co-author, Dr. Leigh Ann Kerns, a pediatric allergist and immunologist at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital in Ohio, told Reuters Health by email.
"Family members spend a lot of time reading labels and reducing chances of cross contamination in the home, but it is more difficult to prevent unintentional exposures in restaurants due to poor understanding of food allergy, miscommunication, and possible cross contamination of ingredients," Dr. Kerns said.
Her team surveyed 39 people with food allergies, 19 of whom had suffered an allergic reaction while dining in restaurants. Based on the responses, the researchers compiled a list of 25 strategies that diners use and reported them November 16 at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology's annual conference in Seattle, Washington. (The strategies can be found here: bit.ly/2zxyCCj.)
The top five are these: Speak to waiter on arrival (80 percent), order food with simple ingredients (77 percent), double-check food before eating (77 percent), avoid restaurants with higher likelihood of cross-contamination (74%), and review ingredients on a restaurant website (72 percent).
The least-used strategies reported were these: place food allergy order separately (23%), use a personal allergy card or chef card (26 percent), no longer eat at restaurants (39 percent), choose a chain restaurant (41 percent), go to restaurants during off-peak hours (44 percent).
Patients with food allergies need to be vigilant when going to restaurants, primary investigator Dr. Justine Ade, of University Hospitals' Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio told Reuters Health.
"Using more strategies before going out to eat and while dining may help prevent food allergy reactions. (And) always bring an epinephrine device when going out to eat," Dr. Ade said.
The survey suggests that engaging in a wide variety of preventive efforts may reduce a patient's risk, said Dr. Clifford Basset, Medical Director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York in New York City and a spokesperson for the ACAAI, who was not involved in the study.
"Optimal preventive strategies are an integral part of a successful food allergen risk reduction program. Several of the identified preventive strategies feature proactive, clear communication between the patient/family and the restaurant staff," Dr. Basset said.
Adapting an old maxim to the topic, the takeaway from the study may be that there are two kinds of diners with food allergies: those who take lots of precautions and those who have not yet had their first reaction.
SOURCE: bit.ly/2zxyCCj American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, November 16, 2018.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The U.N. Population Funding has deployed first mobile delivery unit in western Mosul for lifesaving
The U.N. Population Funding (UNFPA) has deployed the first mobile delivery unit inside western Mosul to meet the lifesaving needs of primary healthcare for women and girls. The U.N. released a statement saying the humanitarian needs of thousands of people still inside Mosul remain a "major concern" as military operations continue to regain the western side. According to the United Nations, the mobile delivery unit has been deployed in al-Maamoun district to serve the population in western Mosul. The mobile delivery room is funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). Around 255,000 people have been displaced from Mosul and surrounding areas since October, including more than 100,000 since the latest military campaign in western Mosul began on Feb. 19, according to United Nations figures.


The item Refund : stories, Karen E. Bender represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Middle Georgia Regional Library.
We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: Money. Who has it. Who doesn't. How you get it. How you don't. In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the lives of her characters. The stories in Refund reflect our contemporary world-swindlers, reality show creators, desperate artists, siblings, parents - who try to answer the question: What is the real definition of worth?


text:
Julio Jones Zach Ertz Dallas Goedert Darren Sproles Nelson Agholor Carson Wentz Jordan Howard Case Keenum Miles Sanders Alshon Jeffery Malik Jackson Rasul Douglas Matt Ryan Doug Pederson DeSean Jackson Sidney Jones Terry McLaurin Sports Athlete injuries Athlete health NFL football Professional football Football NFL Playoffs
Philadelphia Eagles Washington Redskins Atlanta Falcons
Wentz, Jackson show off Eagles' dynamic offense
By ROB MAADDI - Sep. 09, 2019 11:21 PM EDT
Philadelphia Eagles' DeSean Jackson celebrates after scoring touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Washington Redskins, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Michael Perez)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Carson Wentz shook off the rust quickly and DeSean Jackson provided the spark the Philadelphia Eagles needed to offset a shaky defense.
That could be the story all season.
Wentz threw for 313 yards and three touchdowns in a 32-27 win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday in his first game back from a back injury that forced him to miss the last five games, including two playoff games, last season.
Jackson celebrated his return to Philadelphia with eight receptions for 154 yards and a pair of 50-plus-yard TD catches.
An offense with potential to be dynamic took a quarter to get going before racking up 436 yards as the team rallied from a 17-0 deficit. The defense surrendered 380 yards passing and three TDs to Case Keenum, didn't get much pressure up front and looked suspect in the secondary before stepping up in the second half.
"It was the difference between the two halves," coach Doug Pederson said Monday. "You think about defensively we couldn't get off the field on third down in the first half, but yet we did in the second half, and offensively we couldn't convert a third down, and in the second half we did. It's just a credit to the guys making subtle adjustments at halftime, but it just boiled down to execution, and the only way we were going to get back in the game was to convert those, honestly, and they did a nice job doing that."
Jackson's ability to stretch the field was quite evident on the two deep balls, and his presence makes a talented offense even more dangerous because it opens up things for other receivers. Alshon Jeffery had five catches for 49 yards and one TD, plus he turned a backward pass into a 2-yard TD run. Zach Ertz had five catches for 54 yards. Nelson Agholor and Dallas Goedert weren't big factors only because there's one ball. The offense didn't just rely on the pass. Darren Sproles, Jordan Howard and Miles Sanders combined for 116 yards rushing.
WHAT NEEDS HELP
The pass rush was an area of concern entering the season and the lack of pressure on Keenum was obvious. He was sacked once and had too much time in the pocket to pick apart the secondary. The Eagles need more from their front four to take the burden off the defensive backs.
STOCK UP
Howard averaged a team-high 7.3 yards per carry, finishing with 44 yards. He also reached down to make a nice grab on one of his two catches for 11 yards. Howard ran hard, was tough to bring down, and could see an increased workload.
STOCK DOWN
Rasul Douglas got a slightly surprise start over Sidney Jones at one of the outside cornerback spots. Both got beaten by Terry McLaurin on deep passes, but Keenum overthrew the one pass that Jones had in coverage. Douglas was burned for a TD.
Defensive tackle Malik Jackson, a key signing in free agency, suffered an injury to his left foot late in the game and wore a walking boot afterward. Pederson said the team is waiting for more test results but called the injury "significant" and expects Jackson to miss a lot of time.
KEY NUMBER
12 of 13 — Wentz was 12 of 13 for 197 yards and three TDs on third down. The offense converted 11 of 17 third downs.
The Eagles (1-0) hit the road to face the Atlanta Falcons (0-1) on Sunday night. Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and Co. are trying to avenge losses in Philly in a divisional-round playoff game two years ago and the NFL season opener in 2018.


WASHINGTON, June 30, 2010 " The Senate today unanimously confirmed Army Gen. David H. Petraeus to be commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
The Senate acted quickly on the nomination after yesterday`s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Senate confirmation also kicked in NATO approval for the general to become commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama thanked the Senate for its prompt action.
General Petraeus is a pivotal part of our effort to succeed in Afghanistan - and in our broader effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida " and he has my full confidence, " Obama said in a written statement issued by the White House. The Senate`s quick action and General Petraeus`s unrivaled experience will ensure we do not miss a beat in our strategy to break the Taliban`s momentum and build Afghan capacity. "
Petraeus was serving as the commander of U.S. Central Command, and replaces Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan. Centcom`s deputy commander, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John R. Allen, will serve as acting commander until a replacement for Petraeus is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Petraeus is flying to NATO Headquarters in Belgium for meetings with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He also will address the North Atlantic Council in permanent session with ISAF contributors.


Planning a road trip? Take a little bit of home with you. Satellite TV in your RV, car, boat train or plane will make life on the road even more comfortable and entertaining for you and your family. With an in-motion RV satellite you can do just that. These systems can acquire a satellite signal even when you're moving, so your family can enjoy their favorite TV programs while you're on the way to your campsite and beyond. In addition, many of these systems offer dual hook-ups, so you can hook up more than one TV at once.
This is not always an easy decision. Most people automatically think that they will not use or do not want the TV on while the vehicle is in motion. There are many facets to making the decision of whether to have an In-Motion System or not. An In-Motion System is not only to view satellite programming while the vehicle is moving, but you can also be recording (with the use of a DVR receiver) a program that may be airing during your travel time so that you can watch it later. You may also use the in-motion function to view current weather conditions while you are traveling to assist you in the decision to continue into an area that may be experiencing inclement weather, tracking a moving storm cell or keep abreast of current news conditions. When parking in an RV Park or campsite, the In-Motion System takes the "guess work" out of determining if buildings or trees near your site are blocking your signal.
The choice is yours! Open faced antennas, will provide you with a greater reception opportunity for programming in DishNetwork, Bell Express Vu or DirecTV programming. If you currently have DishNetwork Dish500 or Super Dish, Dish HD or DirecTV HD satellite programming, this requires an antenna to have multiple satellite LNB's for your programming to come in simultaneously, you can only achieve this with an open faced antenna. If you use a domed antenna with this type of programming package, the antenna has to "toggle" between the two different satellite locations and can only truly support one (1) satellite receiver for proper functionality. If you select DishNetwork pay as you go programming package or DirecTV non HD programming packages, the domed antenna will serve you well for single receiver applications. With the open faced antennas, you do have to remember when breaking camp and preparing to move the RV that the antenna is stowed, whereas with the domed antenna, you can just drive away.
Problem Description DISH Network® is in the process of converting most of its satellite signals from QPSK modulation to a more efficient 8PSK format. This upgrade will allow DISH Network to provide additional content and more highdefinition programming, improving the customer experience. However, like many other technological advances today, the new format is not backward compatible with older receiver or antenna equipment. Therefore, some older TracVision antenna models may need to be upgraded or replaced to continue receiving the full line-up of DISH Network's programming.


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The Elmhurst Funion
Dave Noble
Filming Begins in Elmhurst for New 'Million Dollar Listing' Reality TV Series
Posted on February 24, 2017 February 24, 2017 by The Elmhurst Funion
by Dave Noble, Entertainment Editor
ELMHURST – Move over New York, Miami and San Francisco! The city of Elmhurst is ready to be featured in the next series spin-off from the hit Bravo cable television reality show "Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles". Set to air this fall, shooting for "Million Dollar Listing Elmhurst" began earlier this month. The series chronicles the professional and personal lives of local real estate agents and the whirlwind adventures of selling high-end residential properties in Elmhurst.
"There's a lot of competitiveness in the real estate market here, and some juicy storylines," said series producer Ralph Gunner, who selected Elmhurst as the location for the fourth spin-off of Million Dollar Listing based on its rising million-dollar home sales and the propensity of Elmhurst homebuyers to tear down perfectly good houses and replace them with "McMansions" that often occupy up 95% of the lot size. "By the time we're done filming this spring, we'll have enough material for two or three seasons of shows."
One of the agents featured on the series is Schiller Real Estate's Mike Sparrow, known for being the man who not only sold the most expensive house ever listed in Elmhurst, but managed to unload a famously difficult property that had been on the market for more than ten years.
"I'll do whatever it takes to close the deal," said Sparrow, who in the opening episode slips one client a pair of free tickets to an Elmhurst College men's basketball game and is later shown closing a deal with another client during the Turtle Racing Finals at The Club Shot & Beer. "If I have to wine and dine a client to make the deal, then that's what I'm going to do."
The series also features some of the home buyers, who are typically a husband and wife from Chicago with two kids, a disposable income and an urge to live in the Bank Robbery and Lost Dog Capital of the Western Suburbs. Agent Suzanne Phelps of Berkshire Hathaway is featured in an episode trying to meet the eccentric wishes of one couple who will only look at homes that are less than six months old and have a direct view of Wilder Mansion, The Prairie Path or Salt Creek.
"Most families looking at million-dollar listings just want an outdoor fireplace, an in-ground pool and a couple of media rooms," said a frustrated Phelps in a scene filmed outside of Ace Hardware, where the 30-year veteran of the Elmhurst real estate market came up empty in her search for a water feature of any kind that would have been used to depict Salt Creek for her clients. "But I seem to get all the most difficult buyers."
Local viewers will recognize various parts of Elmhurst that serve as a picturesque backdrop throughout the series, including the town's majestic parking garages, empty downtown storefronts, and the quarry.
ImagePosted in Elmhurst, Illinois, The Elmhurst FunionTagged Ace Hardware, Bershire Hathaway, Bravo, Elmhurst, McMansions, Million Dollar Listing, Salt Creek, Schiller Real Estate, The Club Shot & Beer, The Illinois Prairie Path, Turtle Races4 Comments
Elmhurst Crumbles Under the Weight of 'Spring Fever'
by Dave Noble, City News Editor
ELMHURST – Record-breaking weather unleashed by Mother Nature this weekend upon the unsuspecting and unprepared residents of Elmhurst wreaked havoc throughout town on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as citizens and businesses struggled with unseasonably warm temperatures, bright sunshine, and a city-wide epidemic of "Spring Fever" in the middle of February.
Hundreds of potential customers were reportedly left feeling hungry and frustrated at Hamburger Heaven on Friday afternoon, as window replacement activity outside the legendary food stand known for burgers, root beer, and speeding 80,000-pound semi-trailer trucks whizzing by within arm's length of the pick-up window inadvertently gave passersby the impression that it was open for business.
On the city's west side, resident Brenda Rose told reporters on Saturday that she was still recovering from a terrifying event at her home that took place earlier that morning, where she struggled for more than 20 minutes to locate her son's lightweight North Face Mack Mays Full Zip Hoodie, which was lost in a sea of winter North Face Triclimate jackets, North Face Himalayan parkas and North Face Thermoball vests hanging in his walk-in closet. Rose was further distraught after learning that two of her three children had already stepped in dog feces within ten minutes of playing in the family's River Glen Avenue backyard.
Along the Prairie Path, drivers and path users reported a temporary loss of vision on both Saturday and Sunday as bicyclists, walkers, and joggers blinded each other throughout the day with their winter-white legs. Victims were treated with water and shade and were later released to continue their activities.
On Sunday evening, Bryan Street homeowner Tony Guidry summed up the mayhem in Elmhurst caused by three consecutive days of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60's.
"I was really looking forward to shooting the puck around with my kids this weekend," said Guidry, who also owns the property next to his house, where he built a 125-foot by 50-foot hockey rink back in December that is clearly not a membrane structure nor a potential contributor to flooding and is surely covered by his homeowners insurance policy. "I didn't build this thing for my kids to play soccer in the month of February. So we're all praying that Elmhurst can return to normal weather before people lose their minds."
According to the National Weather Service, the high temperature in Elmhurst is expected to be 66 degrees both Monday and Tuesday.
ImagePosted in Elmhurst, Illinois, The Elmhurst FunionTagged Elmhurst, Hamburger Heaven, Spring Fever, The Illinois Prairie Path, The North Face1 Comment
Elmhurst "Have-Nots" Endure Elements, Each Other to Sign Up for YMCA After-School Program
Posted on February 6, 2017 February 20, 2017 by The Elmhurst Funion
ELMHURST – Hundreds of local parents inexplicably living in something called a "two-income household" and unable to afford a nanny or to rely on a single breadwinner for their family braved the frigid temperature, the constant rumbling of nearby freight trains, and the company of fellow Elmhurst residents by standing in line for hours outside the First Street YMCA Saturday morning for the opportunity to register their kids for a prized after-school program offered by the local community center that transports children from their school to the "Y" every day and allows parents to pick them up as late as 6:00 p.m.
With space for the 2017-2018 school year program limited by the maximum occupancy of one bus per District 205 school and further reduced by a grandfather clause that allows early registration for current program members, parents began lining up outside the First Street YMCA around midnight for the 6:00 a.m. registration start and were challenged to stay awake, to keep warm, and to interact on friendly terms with other Elmhurst residents competing for same program spots and whose demeanor ranged from "slaphappy" to "irritated".
"I've been out here since about 2:00 a.m.," said Emerson Elementary dad Max Knight, angrily clutching a Shell gas station large "regular" coffee diluted with an off-brand sugar substitute and a powdered non-dairy creamer while standing in front of the warming flames of a burning Elmhurst Park District garbage can, placed on the sidewalk about 20 feet from the front door of the YMCA. "If we don't get into this program, then my wife will probably have to quit her job so she can pick up our daughter from school every day. And then there goes our trip to the Wisconsin Dells this summer."
While the stress weighed heavily on the minds of many parents waiting to find out if their children would get into the swanky after-school program noted for turning meagerly-athletic children into adequate swimmers, skaters, and mixed-martial arts competitors, others clearly embraced the comradery of waiting outside in the cold with their fellow residents.
"I've had three shots of Fireball, so I'm feeling pretty warm inside," said Jackson Elementary mom Sandy Meyer, referring to the popular cinnamon-flavored whiskey often compared to the flavor of Red Hots candy soaked in water and associated with a complex history of bad decisions by those who have over-consumed the spirit. "It's just so nice to share this nice experience with other nice people, and to share a drink or two."
YMCA front desk clerk Brian Smoltz – scheduled to open the doors for registration at precisely 6:00 a.m. and instructed to "get the hell out of the way" after he does so – was concerned that some parents would display unhappiness or frustration if their kids weren't able to get into the Y's after-school program.
"I'm not the 'bad guy' here," said Smoltz, wearing swim trunks, a tank top and flip-flops while staring out the YMCA windows at a large crowd of drowsy, shivering zombies waiting to complete the registration process and go back home to bed. "So if they can't get into the program, it's not my fault. Maybe these people should have thought about child care first before moving to Elmhurst."
ImagePosted in Elmhurst, Illinois, The Elmhurst FunionTagged Elmhurst, Fireball, YMCA1 Comment
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Bensenville, IL
Villa Park, IL


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Are the San Francisco 49ers the most hated team in the US?
Aug 2, 2014 at 10:06 PM • --
San Francisco 49ers fans love their fiery head coach, Jim Harbaugh. However, the rest of the NFL may not feel the same way. Or maybe it is the fact that for the span of nearly two decades, starting in the 80's, the 49ers beat up on -- well -- just about everyone.
Whatever the reason, if the below maps are correct, the 49ers are one of the least liked teams in the United States.
Reddit user KMHokie35 asked Reddit users who their least favorite team was. He then gathered the information based on region/state and created the maps below to give you a better visual of NFL hate.
Let's start with the regional map of the United States. A lot of this is not surprising. Seahawks fans hate the 49ers. 49ers fans hate the Seahawks. Cowboys fans are not big on the Eagles. The Cardinals are still holding a grudge for Super Bowl XLIII. There is nothing terribly surprising here.
What gets interesting is when KMHokie35 displayed the data based on continent. There is some serious USA hate for San Francisco's home team, the 49ers. Seriously Mexico? Oh, and Australia -- what gives?!
PS - Kudos to you Africa!
San Francisco 49ers are 2.5-point dogs at the Philadelphia Eagles - 2023 NFC Championship odds and pick
By Winston Chung
The San Francisco 49ers may have prioritized game management and not won style points in grinding to a 19-12 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round, but kept its winning streak alive to advance to the conference championship. The Niners will be underdogs for the first time since Week 8 when they travel to the east coast to take on the number one seeded Philadelphia Eagles to decide who will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Here we discuss the odds and analysis from a betting perspective. When: Sunday, January 29th, 2023 at 12:00pm PT (FOX) Where: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Line: 49ers +2.5 (-105), o/u 45.5 Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles laid waste to an overmatched
49ers announce 2022 team award winners, Nick Bosa wins Len Eshmont Award
The San Francisco 49ers announced the organization's 2022 team award recipients. They are listed below. Len Eshmont Award DL Nick Bosa The Len Eshmont Award is voted on by the players and is given to the 49er who best exemplifies the inspirational and courageous play of Len Eshmont, an original member of the 1946 49ers team. Eshmont, who coached at Navy and Virginia following his career in San Francisco, died in 1957. The award was established that year. Bill Walsh Award LB Fred Warner The Bill Walsh Award was established in 2004 in honor of San Francisco's Hall of Fame Head Coach. The award, which is voted on by the coaching staff, is given to the 49er who has best represented the


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Obama holds historic meeting with Cuba's Castro, pledges to 'turn the page'
President Obama held a historic formal meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro Saturday, the first between US and Cuban leaders in over half a century, pledging to 'turn the page' and develop a new relationship between the two countries.
The two leaders shook hands Friday at the start of the summit and met Saturday on the sidelines of the a Panama City convention center.
Obama and Castro met for about an hour, with Obama telling reporters before the meeting that, after 50 years of unchanged policy, it was time to try something new and to engage with both Cuba's government and its people.
"What we have both concluded is that we can disagree with a spirit of respect and civility," Obama said. "And over time, it is possible for us to turn the page and develop a new relationship between our two countries."
Obama thanked Castro "for the spirit of openness and courtesy that he has shown during our interactions" and pledged to do whatever he could to "make sure that the people of Cuba are able to prosper and live in freedom and security."
Castro, for his part, said he agreed with everything Obama had said. However, he added the caveat that they had "agreed to disagree" at times. Castro said he had told the Americans that Cuba was willing to discuss issues such as human rights and freedom of the press, maintaining that "everything can be on the table."
"We are disposed to talk about everything — with patience," Castro said in Spanish. "Some things we will agree with, and others we won't."
Not since 1958 have a U.S. and Cuban leader convened a substantial meeting. Dwight Eisenhower and Fulgencio Batista met that year, and the following year, former Cuban President Fidel Castro met with Richard Nixon, who was vice president at the time.
The flurry of diplomacy was aimed at injecting fresh momentum into their months-old plan to restore normal relations between their countries.
The historic gathering played out on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, which this year included Cuba for the first time. Although the meeting wasn't publicly announced in advance, White House aides had suggested the two leaders were looking for an opportunity to meet while in Panama and to discuss the ongoing efforts to open embassies in Havana and Washington, among other issues.
Obama had pledged earlier on Saturday not to refight the battles of the Cold War.
"The Cold War has been over for a long time," Obama said at the summit. "And I'm not interested in having battles frankly that started before I was born."
Castro later rallied to Obama's defense, absolving the president of fault for the U.S. blockade in a stunning reversal of more than 50 years of animosity between the United States and Cuba.
"In my opinion, President Obama is an honest man," Castro said — a remarkable vote of confidence from the Cuban leader, who praised Obama's life and his "humble background."
In January, the Obama administration began to chip away at the U.S. embargo against Cuba, announcing new changes taking effect Friday that will allow more trade and travel between the two countries.
The changes were announced despite concerns from members of Congress that the landmark shift in U.S.-Cuba relations is a "one-sided deal" that will benefit the Castro regime.
And they have since been questioned by the only two official Republican candidates for president in 2016 – Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Rand Paul, Kentucky.
At a recent summit in California sponsored by the Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners, Paul argued that a half-century of economic embargoes have failed to remove leaders Fidel and Raul Castro.
"The Castro brothers are brutal dictators," responded Cruz, a Cuban-American.
Castro, on Saturday, in a meandering, nearly hour-long speech to the summit, ran through an exhaustive history of perceived Cuban grievances against the U.S. dating back more than a century — a vivid display of how raw passions remain over American attempts to undermine Cuba's government.
Then, in an abrupt about face, he apologized for letting his emotions get the best of him. He said many U.S. presidents were at fault for that troubled history — but that Obama isn't one of them.
"I have told President Obama that I get very emotional talking about the revolution," Castro said through a translator, noting that Obama wasn't even born when the U.S. began sanctioning the island nation. "I apologize to him because President Obama had no responsibility for this."
Speaking just before Castro, Obama acknowledged that deep differences between their countries would persist. Yet he said he was uninterested in getting bogged down in ideology, instead casting the thaw in relations as an opening to create "more opportunities and resources for the Cuban people."
"The United States will not be imprisoned by the past," Obama said. "We're looking to the future."
Yet the optimistic tone from the president wasn't enough to offset the skepticism of some Latin American leaders about U.S. intentions in the region, including many who have sharply criticized recent U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan officials.
Even President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, whose country is a close U.S. partner, told the summit that such unilateral policies of isolation are always counterproductive and ineffective. "For that reason we reject the adoption of sanctions against Venezuela," she said.
Raising the stakes even higher for the two leaders was mounting speculation that Obama would use the occasion of the summit taking place in Panama to announce his decision to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a gesture that for Cuba holds both practical and symbolic value.
The U.S. long ago stopped accusing Cuba of conducting terrorism, and Obama has signaled that he's ready to take Cuba off the list. Earlier in the week he suggested an announcement was imminent when he revealed that the State Department had completed its lengthy review of the designation.
Removal from the terror list is a top priority for Castro because it would not only purge a stain on Cuba's pride, but also ease its ability to conduct simple financial transactions. Castro said Cuba should never have been on the list in the first place.
"Yes, we have conducted solidarity with other peoples that could be considered terrorism — when we were cornered, when we were strongly harassed," he said. "We had no other choice but to give up or to fight back."
Yet Obama's delay in delisting Cuba comes as the U.S. seeks concessions of its own — namely, the easing of restrictions on American diplomats' freedom of movement in Havana and better human rights protections. Obama said the U.S. would continue pressing Cuba on human rights even as he called for Congress to lift the economic embargo on the island nation 90 miles to the south of Florida.
A successful relaunch of U.S.-Cuba relations would form a cornerstone of Obama's foreign policy legacy. But it's an endeavor he can't undertake alone: Only Congress can fully lift the onerous U.S. sanctions regime on Cuba, and there are deep pockets of opposition in the U.S. to taking that step.
Obama was scheduled to take questions from reporters before returning to Washington.
Posted in Breaking News Headlines, Latest U.S. News, PoliticalTagged Associated Press, Barack Obama, historic formal meeting, Latest U.S. News, Raúl Castro, successful relaunch of U.S.-Cuba relations, U.S. embargo against Cuba, U.S.-Cuba relations, WashingtonBy TMLeave a comment
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Louder Than Bombs trailer features Jesse Eisenberg and sadness, but in a good way
A film about the depression and ennui that creeps into a family during the years after a matriarch's suicide may be a tough sell for a fun night out at the movies, but this looks like one of those films you'll be glad you made the effort to catch. Louder Than Bombs follows a father (Gabriel Byrne) and his eldest son (Jesse Eisenberg) as they grapple with whether or not to talk to their younger son/brother (Devin Druid, who played the young pothead version of Louie CK on Louie) about the details of his mother's suicide.
There's a lot of "state of the American family"-looking detail on this, but if the gorgeous establishing shots in this trailer don't convince you to give it a shot, maybe the endorsement of A.V. Club's own Ignatiy Vishnavetsky, who caught it at Cannes and called it, "a film of superb performances, mysteries, and moments of earthy poeticism," will help convince you. Isabelle Huppert is rarely anything but magnetic, and this English-language debut by Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31) looks to utilize her effectively, with an exploration of the after-effects of tragedy that emphasizes how others' action will always remain a mystery.
Louder Than Bombs opens in select theaters on April 8.