The closing plenary was presented by John Palfrey, Professor, Harvard Law School, a faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and a co-author of Born Digital. Palfrey is also Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School, so he focused much of his presentation on 4 broad issues currently affecting libraries and librarians. He noted that although there is a common cause between scholars, teachers, publishers, and librarians, we all face perils in separate ways. Why do we still need libraries, publishers, etc.? What is our role in learning space?
Youth and media are both born digital, which is not difficult to observe.
Kids have great digital skills, and there are different practices in information access. But it is not just kids who are learning in different way–everyone has a smart phone, Blackberry, etc. , and they are widely used. By 2012, we will be more likely to access the web on a mobile device than a PC, which will not be a distraction, but interaction and multitasking. Even now, many of us do a variety of things while we learn.
The media we are interacting with are digital, whether they are images (Flickr), audio/video (YouTube), or print (Google). Only when reading a monograph, do students customarily use printed materials, and the reasons they give are Bed, Bath, and Beach. In these circumstances, they prefer print by an 80/20 margin.
Credibility. There is a lot of misinformation on the web, as well as other hidden influences. Almost all students will look for information first on Google, and then on Wikipedia. Some cut and paste information from the Web into their papers; others don't trust anything online. Almost none of them go to the history or discussion pages of Wikipedia to determine the quality of the information, but most of them will go to the bottom of the Wikipedia page and click on the source links.
Overload. There is too much information. A major challenge is how to make more use of time when we are connected.
How do we harness what is great about the digital era? What will connected learning look like? Being in the mode of a creator is very important. The creators of today's information are also creators of the code for such services as Facebook, Google, etc. They were students when they started creating their services.
and is facilitating open access for student publications as well.
A fund to pay the fees if necessary has been created .
How is our work related to mass digitization projects? Harvard participates in the Google book scanning project and has launched a Digital Public Library of America project. The challenge is whether we can create a free library on the scale of a large academic library and still be consistent with copyright, etc.? This will be a useful project for the many people that are involved in text mining of these huge databases.
Even the richest schools do not have increasing library budgets. The best case today is that they will be flat. We are asked to get more materials from more places. How do we make a future for ourselves? We are not doing enough to connect our users to all types of content, especially digital materials. How do we think about space in a way that connects the physical and digital? Only 1% of the employees of the Harvard Library are devoted to managing the library's website, even though half of the library's traffic comes through it.
How do we architect classrooms for the digital age? We need to think about how the information architecture relates to the physical architecture. How do we think about sharing our collections differently? No great library can go it alone in today's environment of non-growing budgets. We must be more precise with our acquisition policies and determine what we have that no other library does and which we therefore have an obligation to collect.
Should we be in the business of creating better and different interfaces for people to access repositories? We need to be aggressively in the business of creating more content online. People are worried about losing the idea of serendipity, so we need to present information in ways that would enhance serendipity. We can create interfaces that will allow people to interact with information in ways that they cannot physically. Circulation data can be used to see which materials are most popular and can influence how they are "arranged" on a digital shelf, which will help people access information better.
We need to pay attention to new technologies and be in the business of adopting and shaping them. They may well be disruptive.
Look at where the problems lie and turn the challenges into opportunities. Opportunities lie in the areas of information creation, participation, and empowering individuals. We need to get in the business of realizing that we have a role to play in recreating our institutions. We are in a digital-plus era which is having a profound transition in every field. It comes back to our mission as teachers, librarians, and publishers, which are the same, even though we are all being disrupted in different ways.
Here are Palfrey's final conclusions.
Comments Off on Can You Trust Scholarly Information?
Can You Trust Scholarly Information?
What do monkeys have to do with publishing? Well, of course there's the "infinite monkey theorem" about an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite time and eventually producing something sensible, like a work of Shakespeare! (Even with just 50 monkeys, the probability of producing just a single word, like "Hamlet" has been estimated at approximately 1 in 15 billion.) But I digress: Carol Anne Meyer explained that monkeys matter in scholarly publishing because a scholarly paper on monkey behavior was retracted because of misconduct by the author. So the question of trust is very important. Although a blog, Retraction Watch, tracks retractions, websites do not handle them consistently, with the result that readers may never know that an article has been retracted. Science Direct adds "RETRACTED" to the titles of such articles, but some websites do not offer any type of indication. And what about e-books or results from federated search systems?
Documents on the web are living and can be easily changed. When content changes, readers need be aware of it. Which version is the version of record? Most reputable publishers are trying to communicate this information, some better than others. Here is a record of an article from Science, showing a link to a correction.
CrossRef has attemped to solve this problem by developing CrossMark, a logo that can be attached to a paper indicating that updates exist. When the user clicks on the logo, a popup window opens indicating that updates are available.
This logo can be applied to PDFs or other web documents, providing a way for the publisher to list the Publication Record information, such as funding agencies, publication history, plagiarism screening, license types, etc. The logo could even be displayed in Google search results, indicating the version of record. It is important to note that CrossMark is not a DRM system. A pilot test of CrossMark is underway now, with a 3rd quarter launch envisioned.
Researchers care about their identity when they join a faculty, apply for a grant, or submit a manuscript to a publisher. ORCID (Open Researcher & contributor ID Project) supports a record of scholarly community by creating a reliable identifier record for authors. It was started in December 2009, with launch planned for early 2012.
ORCID is a non-profit consortium of 230+ participants, with the largest group being international universities and societies. It is open to any organization with an interest in scholarly communication. There are many identifier silos; ORCID hopes to bridge them. ORCID's mission is to create a permanent, clear, and unambiguous record of scholarly communication by enabling reliable attribution of authors and contributors. All software developed by ORCID will be released under an Open Source Software license, and fees collected will be used to ensure the longevity of ORCID.
ORCID's first efforts will be disambiguation of author names using "trusted linking partners" (TLPs) to create a relationship with self-asserted systems. Input of records is very easy; building the author record is key. Knowing publications of an author is important. ORCID/DOI pairs will be sent to publishers during the article creation process.
The concept behind DataCite is that data should be citable just like articles to give it higher visability, easy re-use and verification, enhance its reputation for the collection and documentation (for example, in a citation index), and to avoid duplications. To accomplish its mission, DataCite assigns DOI names, which scientists know how to use, to data sets, thus linking them to the supporting scientific article. It is a global consortium of local institutions and is hosted and managed by TIB, the German National Library of Science & Technology. Most members of DataCite are libraries because they are trustworthy organizations for scientists. Here are the 3 main goals of DataCite.
DataCite has registered over 1 million datasets so far and has published a metadata schema for all of its members. This metadata will shortly be uploaded into the Web of Science and other indexes. In this way, DataCite supports researchers, data centers, and publishers.
A downloadable education pack is available for teachers and educators to accompany the story.
Inanimate Alice is a a unique and different example of how education and e-books will advance in the future.
When I saw the title of this panel, I wondered if it should be called "The Big Brother Panel". Web analytics provide lots of data on who is visiting your site, and in turn that allows you to develop strategies for understanding your business.
Melissa Blaney, Manager of Platform Analytics and Communications at the American Chemical Society (ACS), led off with a description of some of the common tools that the ACS. These include Atypon's Literatum, which provides COUNTER reports, identity and content reports, and advertising statistics; Google Analytics, which is used to track usage of ACS online journals and community sites, and Omniture SiteCatalyst, which is used for tracking accesses to ACS's weekly news magazine, Chemical and Engineering News.
Analytics are used by many internal stakeholders in an organization: Executives, advertising, sales, web strategy and innovation, marketing, editorial , sales analysis and support. The ACS has been providing COUNTER reports to stakeholders since 2002, and among other uses, one of the factors in determining renewal prices is online usage. Platform enhancements and web development initiatives are also influenced by the data. Beyond COUNTER other statistics can measure key performance indicators (KPIs) for the business, such as referrals, searches, geography, unique registrants, etc. Useful information can be obtained from data on usage in various time periods, such as seasonality.
Data on referrals shows how people get to the site and where they come from. Although Google may drive 90% of the traffic to site, discovery tool use may be more valuable. In general, browsing seems to be decreasing, which indicates users are finding information less frequently by serendipity. Much web traffic is international, so geographic data are important. And world events can influence traffic; for example, when the Olympics were in China, there was a big decrease in traffic, and when storms keep people at home, traffic from that area decreases. Tracking social media is often a challenge. You must know your audience, define expectations, and document and categorize what works.
Using analytic data, future developments can be planned. For example, when the ACS wanted to develop products for mobile platforms, the following data were used to prioritize which platforms to develop for first.
In conclusion, it is important to recognize that web analytics are only one source of data. Others include focus groups, user testing, customer surveys, and direct feedback from sales teams.
Mike Sweet, CEO of Credo Reference titled his talk "Web Analytics: Pragmatics Rule–"It's the People". Many analytics tools give you a lot of data, but what does it mean? You need analysts to interpret the data and then figure out how to implement the results. If you try to focus on all the data that's available, you won't achieve anything.
Credo's primary platform goal is to increase traffic. They began by choosing a web analytics package that provided a number of techniques: on-site web analytics, usability testing, focus groups, market scanning, but soon learned that Google Analytics was the best for their purpose.
Assess where you are on the evolutionary curve.
Choose packages and data mining projects carefully.
Don't plan to rely solely on on-site web analytics data. Mix on-site and off-site data to get a complete picture.
Assess your teams' agility and your platform's extensibility. Only gather insights into things you are actually ready to act on.
Numbers aren't customers. Use a larger approach to improvements.
The experimenter's mindset is a key–get started and have fun!
Mark Johns, Manager, Publication Management Group at HighWire Press noted that robots are widely used to crawl sites and obtain usage data for them. "Good" robots are good for business, so having your websites exposed to them is extremely critical. The "not so good" robots are the overzealous up-time tracker that hits the website frequently and causes problems for it, or malicious ones crawling the web.
The web is becoming more personalized and is molding itself to users in real time. Publishers cannot get direct access to information users because of the institutional purchasing model. It is time to start thinking about individual users. One example of this is the BBC, which lets users rearrange their home page to their liking (except for the ads). We know a lot about subscribers so we can target things to them. But we also have data about anonymous users, such as their IP address, search terms, geographical location, language settings, content viewed in a session. Therefore, that metadata can be used to create a user profile.
Have your content semantically tagged. Semantics provide a normalized, logical metadata layer on content.
Accumulation: look at user interactions by accumulating the tags of documents they look at. Build this over time and look for patterns.
Create affinities and put profiles together. Affinities can be to topical interest gorups, ads, products, events, individuals, etc. User affinities are constantly updating as the site captures more usage.
Use affinities to create personalized profiles for users, create a marketing campaign, or promote products when people come on to the site.
Use the resulting semantic profiles to understand your audience as individual information consumers, tackle the anon user problem, and provide more detailed targeting for marketing and advertising efforts.
Like most people in this day of information abundance, I suffer from overload. So I thought it would be interesting to hear some solutions to the problem. (Evidently, many other SSP attendees thought the same because the room was packed to overflowing, so I wondered if the session should have been called "Room overload"!) This was a fascinating and interesting session offering different views on a common problem that besets everyone.
Phil Davis, a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, began his two-part talk by describing of the problems he faced in coping with many distractions and interruptions as he attempted to write his Ph.D. dissertation. He noted that dissertations are not like scholarly articles because they contain things a journal editor does not want to see: details of experimental research, an extensive bibliography, and suggestions for future research.
Why are journals still published when authors can reach readers without them?
Why has repository publishing failed to become more popular?
Why has post-publication review failed?
The principal function of journals is to organize and mediate quality signaling in the author-reader market. We need to think of overload as a market problem. Journals are mediators of quality signaling, which gives them many opportunities to alleviate information overload.
In high school we were taught to be literal readers. Then at college, we were bombarded with information, experienced overload, and needed to learn to skim and select. Thus, we were told to behave in a way that is now our problem! What is this doing to our brains, to scholarship, and to our livelihoods?
What we do and read shapes how we think. Culture and education work together, making us smarter at some tasks than we would be otherwise, and language is allows us to share and store information. For further information, a good reference is Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The internet increases access and storage, puts many traditional economic models at risk, multiplies but shrinks the workspace, and fragments our attention.
Pre-printing (memorization, dialog and debate, etc.) originally led to printing books and papers. Did we gain or lose? Consider what scholars produce and share.
We have not served users well and have left them to their own devices. Our products are not targeted at them: there is a wall between the user and publisher. David Shenk's book, Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut is a good reference on the symptoms of overload.
Serendipity is how ideas are generated, and publishers could do better at producing tools to help it. The HighWire users were conservative towards change and did not want to take time to learn how to use new tools. We need productivity, not novelty, but our websites tend to be like Swiss Army Knives with all the blades out!
Show abstracts in popup windows, saving clicks.
Clean up the real estate by providing more intelligent choices.
Use scrolling in place widgets like Amazon.
Provide visibility to content not necessarily associated with the article.
Don't muddy search results with a lot of extra information (but have it nearby).
Think about new ways of doing things using touch screens or augmented reality.
At the conference luncheon today, I managed to get this photo of 3 SSP presidents.
One of the best ways to learn what's coming down the proverbial pike is to see what startup companies are doing. So I was intrigued by a session (which the moderator called "The Startup Beauty Parade") featuring a series of short presentations by 6 startup companies in publishing. And I was not disappointed; these were not only interesting and forward-looking products, but they are addressing real problems of today's users.
We are drowning in PDF documents that we have collected and when we try to remember what was in the ones already read, we can't. Mendeley helps researchers work smarter. It works on any platform, and it's free. It organizes PDF documents, extracts research data, allows highlighting sections of a PDF, adding "sticky notes", and aggregation of research data into the cloud. This makes science more collaborative and sharable.
Using Mendeley, one can set up a social research network like Facebook, and thus enhance collaboration. Because all the uploaded articles are collected into a single server, Mendeley can identify what are the most read ones, and do other statistical analysis, thereby identifying trends. Tags show popular groups, popular papers, etc. Clicking on an article results in a page, metadata, sources, lists of related articles, and readership statistics.
Opportunities for publishers include deriving insights and analytics, getting traffic and usage statistics on their data, and connecting academia to the "general public". People not in academia are using the system to pursue their interests. Mendeley currently has 950,000 users.
Currently, there is no easy way to share documents on the web, or to search for or share research, which led to the development of Scribd. Scribd can turn any file type into an HTML page. It has become the world's largest reading and sharing website and is integrated with Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms to make it easy to share. Text of any document can be made searchable by OCR. Connections are made through content interests, not just friends, as in normal social networking platforms.
Scribd readers tend to be highly educated: 60% are ages 18-49, and 60% have college or postgrad degrees. Many publishers are partnering with Scribd.
Scribd provides reading statistics for any document, which allows companies to develop marketing campaigns. This allows questions like "Where is your content being shared?" or "Where are documents being embedded?" to be answered. Authors can revise their documents without losing existing read counts, comments, etc.
Readers can create collections of documents, such as things to read later, etc. The National Archives created a small collection of documents on Presidents' mothers that drew over 25,000 readers in a very short time.
Reading is ready for a revolution. Scribd is re-imagining a reading experience for mobile platforms, ignoring the barriers between different types of content.
Take my content — please! SureChem: the service-based business model.
SureChem is the first acquisition by Digital Science, a unit of Macmillan. It is a chemical patent search designed for scientists and allows searching structures embedded in the text of patents. SureChem has compiled a database of about 12 million structures from 20 million patents and 12 million Medline records.
From this data, 3 products have been developed.
SureChem can be used for intellectual property "landscape analysis", large scale chemical analysis. comparison of internal and external data, or competitive analysis. Today's customers need to store external data beside their internal datal, manipulate external data behind the firewall, and freely share results throughout the organization. All this is much easier if the data are owned by the user.
Owning the data is a better investment for an organization than renting it.
Price increases are tied solely to improvements in functionality.
It is easy to add other content sources.
Today's market landscape is made up of 250 million knowledge workers who are generating 4 billion visits/year to publisher sites. About half of them do not find what they want and go away, which represents a large missed opportunity for the publishers. Many users are discovering content they cannot access because the publishers have high prices for single copies of articles. DeepDyve has tried to solve this problem by creating a rent-an-article model, in which an article costs $.99 to $4.99, expires after 24 hours, and there is no printing or downloading.
DeepDyve partners with many publishers in both scientific and humanities areas. For last year, most of their effort was in getting relationships and content. Now they are concentrating on making subscriptions worthwhile. Customers come from Google or publisher rental links to DeepDyve placed on their site.
DeepDyve thinks of themselves as a data and technology company, not a content company. They operate as a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, where the sale is to the user, not the enterprise.
Recorded Future (RF) has built largest temporal index in the world. They discovered analytic demands for external data, such as what technology areas are changing, who is talking about what, what's coming next, etc. Many of the answers are in newspapers or public websites? Search engines make it easy to search for specific things, but they operate in a browse paradigm. RF is organizing the internet for analysis.
The web is loaded with temporal signals, but it is impossible to search on "next month", "last month", etc. Similarly, events provide additional structure.
RF's engine takes unstructured data from the Web and applies natural language processing to the data and organizes impacts of future events that have been discussed online to determine what impact is expected. They have an analytic engine to process this content and also use historical models to find relationships and test predictive models.
Information outside of journals was formerly in the heads of researchers and in their personal knowledge. If you worked for one of those researchers, you could get that knowledge, but otherwise you couldn't. Information technology allows that information to leave the heads of those people and go into separate applications and systems, so that everything will be clickable and findable.
BioRaft was developed using publicly available regulatory compliance data on hazards to scientists, track what they use, and organize it for safety. Regulatory compliance requires companies to provide information on who is in their laboratories, what they work with, their projects,and their equipment.
These data are then linked to journal articles and other references to research projects. Users want direct links to journals as well as updates, etc. Sometimes researchers buy access to journals but nobody else in the company knows about it or is able to get access. BioRaft is are building an enterprise management site to solve these access hurdles.
The opening session drew an overflow crowd to hear Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager at Google, speak on Approximating Omniscience. He began by observing that we have access to more ideas than ever before, but because our efficiency at finding scholarly information has not kept pace, an era of experimentation is beginning. Scholarly publishing is an inefficient market of ideas, with an excess of both supply and demand. Publishers can reduce this inefficiency by packaging ideas into new forms targeted at people who are not currently being reached. The more structured the content, the more cheaply this can be done.
Google wants to digitize the world's books, and so far it has done about 10% of them. Twice a week, they count all the books in the world by looking at union catalogs, WorldCat, and other major catalogs, from which they have concluded that there are 129 million books in the world. Extending this estimate, if you count all the books, scholarly publications, and inventions, there are probably about 200 million objects. Can they all be visualized? Orwant showed them as a graph over time from 1600 to date, which yielded a fascinating visualization.
Other visualization techniques, like a tree map, can be used to examine the corpus in different ways.
Using a financial economic model, readers invest time in books and are paid out, slowly, in ideas. You can therefore think of a book like a savings bond. Papers are then like stocks, and journals are like mutual funds.
Comparing scholarship to finance, publishing tells customers what's good but does not support research directly. Finance develops new instruments in response to customer demand, but publishing rarely does this. Can publishing do more to support research? One experiment is the mutual fund approach: mix and match articles and chapters to create a book tailored to an individual or classroom.
Google is funding researchers to do interesting types of data mining on their huge sets of data, has received a number of proposals, and has funded 29 of them. The idea of a "semantic stack" was developed to evaluate the proposals; the research will allow us to move up the stack. Here are 2 semantic stacks: one for books and one for videos.
Orwant has developed a "books ngram viewer" that shows graphs of phrases in books published in various time periods and can produce fascinating conclusions.For example, here is a comparison of "kindergarten", "nursery school", and child care" in … that shows that "child care" has become much more popular in recent years.
Using this technique, a comparison of "The United States is" and "The United States are" between 1780 and 1900 in American English literature enables one to conclude that the US as a single unified country became a much more popular mindset after the Civil War.
Another researcher has developed a "Music Ngram Viewer" that shows a time series of a particular melody appearing in a database of sheet music.
"Transcoding", format conversion (now used to create PDFs for print, HTML for the web), might be used to render an article simultaneously into various versions for different audiences (academic peers, lay audiences, non-native speakers).
The problems with this include the high cost of apps (which is expected to decline sharply soon) and getting the rights to the works (which is much harder).
Orwant concluded with this list of 7 experiments he would like to see done.
The SSP 2011 conference opened last night with a reception in the exhibit hall. Here are some scenes from that event.
As usual, the bar attracted a good crowd of attendees.


Creative Designer born and bred in Austria with British roots. Experience in the international fashion and textiles industry.
My design have a highly innovative touch and can be used for various applications and areas.


I always like to say that I lived a very "real world" life before coming out of the closet as an intuitive and an empath.
Like most other kids, I cared about things like SAT scores and getting into a good college.
Then I moved to LA; within a few years, I landed a job as the head story analyst for the Sundance Institute Writers' and Directors' Labs.
I started my own script consultation business with the express mission of supporting writers to to unlock the stories that actually lit up their hearts.
My clients went from day jobs to producing and creating shows like Friday Night Lights, Cold Case, Memphis Beat, Bojack Horseman and many others. They also produced and directed well over 15 feature films that played in esteemed festivals, won awards and starred A-list talent.
I was additionally hired as the visiting professor of screenwriting at Wesleyan University's Film Studies program.
Between my work with Sundance, my freelance work with clients, and teaching at Wesleyan, I became a one-man story resource for working and aspiring screenwriters around the world.
Meanwhile, my passion for self-actualization and inner work opened up a whole other aspect of my professional life.
I couldn't help but feel there was more out there for me.
I enrolled in a 4-year training and certification program for a body-based psychotherapy called Core Energetics - to learn more about myself and more about others.
I used my training as a Core Energetics practitioner to go even deeper with writers.
I recognized that writing is very much a holistic process - and what often holds a writer back stems not from an intellectual block but from an emotional block. Core Energetics allowed me to work with writers in a personal, feeling way so that they could find their own creative wisdom and write their scripts from a place of heart-based flow (rather than control-based intellect).
Soon, I was working with artists and entrepreneurs of all types to help them unblock their creative energy.
I didn't plan this at the time, but my work with Core Energetics opened me up to a deeper, spiritual part of me that had always rippled below the surface but had never quite come to the surface.
I never thought much of these intuitive hits because I thought this information was available to everyone.
I truly thought that my way of seeing, hearing and experiencing the world was everyone's way of seeing, hearing and experiencing the world (a fish in water doesn't know it's in water).
I took the things I saw for granted as "obvious" or, even worse, totally off base.
So, I usually kept it silent.
My Core Energetics training was my first real understanding that I had a way of experiencing people and the world that was uniquely my own.
These feelings and insights I receive are real.
So, I risked speaking up more.
People are paying attention to what I have to say - in other words, these intuitive hits are not obvious to the rest of the world - not everyone is seeing and hearing the things that I am seeing and hearing.
My gut feelings and intuition are having a major impact on the people who receive them.
By the end of my training, I had people telling me that an intuitive message I had offered them had literally changed their lives.
It has been a gradual process bringing my intuitive and empathic resources to the world.
I embedded all of it into my work with screenwriters and other creatives.
My clients were truly getting life-changing results, but it was still hidden under the banner of script work or therapy.
Until it got to a point where I didn't want to hide anymore.
The intuitive level: receiving psychic images, messages and information.
The empathic level: feeling the client's conscious and unconscious feelings in my own body.
The channeling level: letting the client's energy literally move through my own body in order to clear it out, let it flow and work on it.
The shamanic level: working with the unseen forces to create healing in this realm of existence.
I know what it is to start and run a successful business.
I have worked in the entertainment industry.
I have worked in academia.
I know that all the magic in the world ultimately needs to support us to live in harmonious accord with the demands of the world around us - which includes making money, balancing work and relationships, and being a part of the modern civilization into which we were born.
This work supports real world integration (rather than bypassing it).
My therapeutic training likewise brings a depth to this work that I find is often missing in the New Age community.
Whether it's rage, terror, grief, love, joy, sexuality - it's all a part of your energy.
And it is in fact the suppression of these vital life forces that cause distortions, destructive energy leaks, abusive behavior and patterns of disempowering blame and self-victimization.
Hollywood Readings do not bypass uncomfortable or strong (or uncomfortably strong) feelings.
And that is part of what makes these readings powerful.
In short, I love these readings because they bring together all the different threads of my past experience - as a script consultant, as a professor, as an intuitive/empath, as a Core Energetics practitioner and as a human being.
They're dynamic, multifaceted experiences that operate on several different levels at once: they address spirit, the energetic body, emotions and feelings, and also real world demands.
Ultimately, it is space where you have full permission to go wherever you need to go in order to arrive at your deepest truth and to do what you were brought here to do.


I am happy to share with you my current beauty favourites. Took a while to find the essentials that are perfect for me but here they are!
I am a huge Dior fan! This is my third Dior palette. It has very nice soft colours, ideal for the day and also a bit of gold and silver sparkle for a glam look. These have a very nice texture and are super easy to apply.
No surprise why I also picked a Dior pencil. I prefer using a black one.
This mascara gives awesome volume, length, separation and curl to my lashes. I have natural long lashes and it works well for me. The packaging is also sleek and elegant.
I cannot tell you how happy I am for finding this product! A little of it goes a long way and it is very easy to use. It lasts until I take it off and this is what I also love about it. The dark brown is a perfect match for me.
Tip: I found this product on the website http://www.beautybay.com much cheaper than in stores.
Another Dior product. I don't use foundation but I like BB creams. They are much lighter and look natural on my skin. This BB cream adds just enough moisture, giving my skin a fresh glow. It also has SPF 10 sun protection. I bought two different shades – number 2 and number 3 to better match my skin colour when seasons change.


Mom, what did you used to do?
Used to do about what, I asked.
What did you used to do all day when we were little?
I was in Pasadena to spend a few days with my daughter, son in law and 15 month old grandson. It was a spur of the moment trip, planned after I just had that feeling that I needed to be out there. We talk daily, and my daughter never complains about her lot as a stay at home Mom, but lately she had seemed a little burdened. I decided that Mimi needed to come to town and assess the situation.
We didn't have many plans. I knew I wanted to be of help but didn't exactly know what kind of help she might need. Not long after I arrived she asked what I used to do all day back when I used to stay at home all day with small children. Good question.
What DID I used to do all day? I didn't remember, and privately, I figured it was probably irrelevant. That was so long ago, and I was a completely different person then. Besides, our situations were different. My daughter and her husband are in their thirties and completed their respective educations before Micah was born. On the other hand, by the time I had been married for three years, I had two babies under the age of two, a husband who drove our only car to work all day and attended graduate school at night. While my daughter and son in law are two of the most capable people I know, when I had small children I was scared to death.
What did I know about raising children? Nothing!
The question receded to the back of my mind as I focused myself on the issues at hand. This visit was about what my daughter, not I, was doing all day. What could I do to help?
I got the impression that the days were long for my daughter, especially as they have no family where they live.
The first day there went very quickly. Micah was at his little preschool when I arrived, so we took that opportunity to hit her local thrift stores. After we picked the baby up from school I stayed at their house until Micah's bed time, when I retired to my hotel room.
It wasn't until the next day that I started to feel helpful. My daughter picked me up in the morning and brought me to her house. Apparently one need have no memory of what one used to do all day in order to fall right back into….what one used to do all day. The baby and I went into my daughter's bedroom where while I made the bed, he investigated the shiny coasters on the night stand. When my task was finished, I grabbed him and made a hasty retreat from the room.
Next, Micah and I moved to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher. With one swift move I removed the butter knives he had taken into the living room and thrust into his hand a plastic spatula. Every fifteen seconds I had to make another swap in the name of safety. But the clean dishes were put away and the dirty ones loaded.Yes, this is what I used to do, to somehow run the house despite the children.
In the middle of the job my daughter walked in, surprised that I would be doing this while Micah was awake. Watching me intercept Micah's grab for a dinner plate she remarked that having the baby interrupt would just drive her crazy. Hmm, I replied, it doesn't bother me at all. Many years of practice had made it so.
That morning we paid a visit to the Mission Gabriel area of Pasadena, where we admired everything we could, given that we could not turn Micah loose in the cactus garden or in the streets, both places of vital interest to our little fellow. And because of his obsession penchant for being the one to push the stroller, he spent lots of his time in his Ergo, cuddled up to his Mama in the warm sunshine. When he began to sing softly to lull himself to sleep, we rushed him home to let him take his nap.
Micah leaves no door unopened.
While he was asleep I organized his toys in the living room. Puzzles now rested beside puzzles, cars beside cars, wooden toys with other toys. Though Micah would soon make the arrangement of toys much more diverse, there was order in the room for now.
As I arranged the toys I felt the most insistent physical deja vu sensation. It was as though I were meeting myself again after 34 years of not seeing me. My body remembered. In my mind's eye I saw myself at twenty five, with big hair and big glasses, moving like a whirlwind through the little house where we lived. Yes. I knew this person who used to run behind children all day, putting things back several times a day, only to repeat the process in a few hours.
I recognized this person, and I liked her. During those years I never had the time or the luxury to think about whether my job was hard. After my daughter, my second child, was born I was thrilled to be able to resign from teaching to be able to stay home with my children. I couldn't tolerate the idea of someone else spending the day with my babies. I'm sure I wouldn't have complained about the long hours, frustrations or tedium of being a stay at home Mom.
I can't say every day was a picnic.
It's a little embarrassing to admit but I think I always assumed that because I was so young and inexperienced, that someone else could have done a better job than I did. That some other unknown person could have walked in and known exactly what to do, which would cause our household to run like an expensive Swiss watch. I would never make such an assumption about someone else. Now I realize that I never have given myself credit (though others have) for mustering up the courage and the creativity and the continuity it took to stay home with my three children.
In Pasadena with Micah, my old routine came right back to me. Whatever room I was in, I straightened or organized. Toys were put away before naps. I alternated playing and reading stories with doing chores or starting dinner, just as I had done all those years ago when was alone with children all day and couldn't go anywhere. Running along behind the children, trying to create some kind of order in the chaos was the only way I could figure out to cope, to give me some concrete sense of accomplishment, and to keep my mind off the fact that these children had been entrusted to me, who had no idea how to do this job.
Parenting instructions were not very clear!
Somehow the children were raised, and I moved onto other things, without realizing I still harbored this negative judgement of myself. I forgot the way my day used to hinge on small but important events, such as how long a nap lasted or whether we were out of applesauce, and how hard I worked to try to influence the outcome of those very events. If I had not entered my daughter's world to give moral and hands on support, I don't know if I ever would have reexamined those years. But I had plenty of time to think when my daughter and son in law went away for the night together, their first night alone since Micah was born.
Mommy and Daddy get ready to leave!
I got to relive familiar scenes, including being awakened by a chatting baby at 5:30 A.M., manhandling a screaming child into the car, and strolling at the speed of light before a short attention span expires. But mostly I remembered how it feels to be the only adult alone with a whirling dervish. Is there a word for that feeling?
Who, me? I never even THOUGHT about crashing this vase to the floor!
The trip was a success in every way. I had sweet times with all my people out there, and felt gratified to have helped. In fact, my daughter wrote a post about the visit if you care to see it. But the gift of revisiting my young mother self was an unexpected pleasure. It feels good to look back on my younger self with admiration and appreciation. That new mother helped me become the confident grandmother I am today. And let tell you, as a grandmother I am quite confident. Who put a short sleeved shirt on that baby? And just where are his socks?
Since I can't reach back in time, I'm thanking that younger me right now, in print. Thanks dear, for all your hard work. You didn't know what you could do until you needed to do it. It is important to acknowledge that what can seem like the most thankless of jobs is of immeasurable importance. The benefits of your efforts are reaching down through the generations. No one could have done better than you did. You were just right for the job!
New projects just thrill me. Or, to be perfectly honest, the moment when I open the energy spigot for a new project and feel that divine surge of dopamine… that's a lovely moment. My most recent energy filled pursuits have been meeting Grandchild Number One and Grandchild Number Two. True, I was not directly involved in their creation, but I was very involved in preparing my own heart and mind for their arrival. And in giving, um…unsolicited advice.
Go ahead. Ask me all your parenting questions!
During this beautiful "birth season", naturally, I drifted away from some of my usual pastimes, because let's face it: nothing can top the birth of a precious new baby. For a time I devoted all my creative energy to helping the new parents adjust, and in trying to get myself designated as chief baby soother. A perfect day would begin with my daily face time with Grandchild Number One, during which I could "babysit" while my daughter left the room to fix her coffee. Pay no attention to my neck.
Go brew your coffee; I've got you covered!
Then I would put on my work clothes, pack my computer and other home making accoutrements I might require, and zoom to my son's house to help take care of the new parents and Grandchild Number Two. After I had helped with the baby and dinner I drove home tired but gratified, ready to relax with a library book.
You can go home , Emmy. My parents know what they're doing!
In the last couple of weeks, however, the frenetic new-baby vibe has quieted down. Everyone seems healthy, settled and happy. As my hands-on grandmother time has subsided, I have found myself hopeful that I would find my way back to knitting, painting, writing, and the other glorious hobbies that help keep me balanced.
I hoped, but instead of taking action I observed, watched and waited. Yes, there was just a smidge of anxiety that made me think I should do something to MAKE something happen, but I resisted. And just last week I found myself up in my newly cleaned out craft room, checking to see if my sewing machine even works. It does work. And it has fuchsia thread in it. I can't remember what it was I ever intended to sew, but that will come. Another day I made a foray into my long unused painting corner, my copy of Brave Intuitive Painting open beside me, just making marks on paper with paint. On a walk around the lake by my house I snapped a picture of a crane surrounded by turtles. I'm sprouting. And the babies and parents are doing fine.
And guess what??? While I am integrating the grandchildren in with the creativity, It is RAINING GRANDCHILDREN AROUND HERE!!! We just got word that Grandchild Number Three should arrive this fall. Then all three of my children will be parents. That's balance along with a definite dopamine thrill.
I hadn't thought of this before, but it is creative just to decide what kind of grandmother to be. It's a dream come true for a free spirit. I can put in some Auntie Mame and throw in some Maya Angelou right along with some dashes of my own mother and grandmothers. Meaning I'll be a character, an utterly unique recipe. Meaning my grandchildren will all share a grandmother who loves to nurture and spoil them but still manages to plant some flowers, take some pictures, try on hats in the thrift stores, turn out a pair of socks, or just in general make a mess. I wouldn't want these children to have to endure a calm, sedate grandparent. That would be completely out of balance!
In the Fall of 2014 I learned that I was to be honored by a royal visit. No, not Prince Harry and Princess Catherine; they were already here last May for a wedding. This time the royal personage involved was none other than my grandson, Prince Micah, making his first visit to Memphis, accompanied by his royal attendants and parents, Lady Cameron and Sir Eric.
Since they would not be bringing a full accoutrement of Court members, I feared I would have to scramble around for some ladies in waiting, squires and the like. But as soon as word of their visit got out, I was fairly besieged with offers for royal duty. In fact, I feared we would have a surfeit of hangers on at the Memphis Court. In the end however, since in the South we would rather have too much of a thing than not enough, all who offered were given tasks to perform. And now, according to Prince Micah's decree, the following pictures are to be shared with all his subjects, as he was unable to grant an audience to all.
Immediately upon arrival the Prince suffered a bout of very pink cheeks, brought about by the Arctic air. Someone forgot to order balmy temperatures.
Luckily, heads did not roll. Here, Lady Cameron allows him to gnaw on a blanket.
The diminutive Prince took quickly to allowing others to wait upon him. Here, the Matron Emmy receives a welcome opportunity. Early the first evening of the visit, two more matronly Ladies in Waiting arrived: Great Aunts Lady Ann and Lady Mare. They were suitably impressed with the Prince's advanced growling and drooling skills.
State visits occurred on Saturday and Sunday with young Prince Ollie, approximately eight months of age, who made the trip over from Arkansas with his attendants. Ladies Ann and Mare were able to serve both royal households. No pictures of the state visits are available at the moment, but Prince Micah was deemed the more bellicose of the two young rulers.
By Sunday evening, freezing rain and sleet covered the Memphis area. The frigid temperatures caused Prince Micah's Court to be held largely in front of the fireplace. At this point, and I do lower my voice here, the two major female Court attendants began a daring task which was distinctly unrelated to the Prince – that of cleaning out an entire craft room. Lady Cameron felt that going through her high school detritus DURING A ROYAL VISIT was worth the risk. I bowed to her judgment.
I look normal, don't I?
but by Tuesday he was plagued with a runny nose which may have diverted his attention. Upstairs the cleaning out moved apace, with hefty bag after hefty age of trash lined up in the hall. Downstairs the menfolk labored unsuccessfully to wipe their charge's nose. As the Prince protested such treatment , suddenly we heard – DING DONG!
And the next installment of Courtiers arrived – Sir Eric's parents, who had driven through the ice and snow all the way from Illinois just to be able to see their grandson, the Prince.
Lady Cameron consults with Sir Eric's Dad, no doubt while Lady Annette rocked the Prince.
We were all glad for the influx of fresh attendants who knew more songs and silly games and who were willing to spend their days on the floor in front of the fireplace. I was mostly upstairs in knitting needle hell, for the project, once begun, could not be abandoned, and with new Court members on hand , my services would not be missed for the nonce.
Through the week either the temperature or frozen precipitation kept the young Master indoors. Efforts were made to keep the Prince's routine unchanged from that of his California home. The Prince's expectation is that his work continue unimpeded, no matter his location. Just when the Illinois contingent had to depart, Great Aunt Lady Ellen appeared upon the scene, and after a brief introduction to our local Princess Lillian, was eager to participate in Court life and intrigue. Since the craft room had been the only intrigue, we made do with a sociological experiment about whether a cardboard box can rightfully be considered a throne. Too soon it was Saturday, and the last full day of the royal visit. The weather had improved enough for the Prince to hold an impromptu audience, which greatly cheered the throngs who had been denied a viewing. The Court members struggled to complete the rest of the scheduled events. First, there was the royal photo shoot, which had to be held indoors. Four attendants were required for the grueling session. And there was a last afternoon coffee, served with cookies, at which two more Court ladies, Great Aunt Lady Carla and Lady Alexis, and a fellow royal, Princess Cee Austin were able to pay Court to the Prince. The last night of the visit was rather glum, for every single member of the Court was sad and plumb worn out. This writer, for example, was unable to move from her own bed after 8:00 P.M. Sometime in the early morning the Prince and his small contingent were conveyed to the airport from which they returned to California.
We have had no negative feedback from the visit, so we must conclude that his Highness was pleased with the level of service that can be provided by a minimum of eleven volunteer attendants. I wonder if Prince Harry and Princess Catherine had such a well functioning temporary Court for their Memphis visit?
Last time I wrote I alluded to big changes happening in my life. I mentioned that I was downsizing my practice in order to devote more time to my own creativity, and to being a more hands on grandmother. I know what you asked yourself: Why does she have to do this NOW???
In the midst of preparing to be an out of town grandmother, I received the unexpected but thrilling news from my "baby", Nick, and his girlfriend Heather, that early in 2015 I was also to become an in-town grandmother.! As soon as my head began to spin more slowly atop my neck, I began to ask myself the questions that have no answers. They were deep questions indeed. For example, "WHAT??? This son of mine, this man/boy who still has his mail sent to our house is going to be a father? What's to become of us all? " And "What if he insists on naming the child after an NFL football player, how will I cope?" You know, the types of questions one asks one's self thirty thousand times in the middle of the night.
Thirty thousand unanswered questions later, my mind was able to focus on more practical matters. Maybe I would have no say in what the child would be named, but I could certainly make myself available to be helpful. And if I played my cards right, maybe I would get to do some of the things for THIS new Mama that my Mother, an in town grandmother, got to do for me.( And which I promptly took for granted.) Of course my own Mother felt she had license to just barge right in and do things, but since I would be a paternal grandmother, I knew I would have to earn my spot at the table. I knew I would have to use all my considerable subtleness, lest I be declared a nuisance.
What were my parents having for dinner after my Mother helped me all day long? I must admit it never crossed my mind.
Meanwhile, as I mentally ran in circles, Heather, the new Mama, ran circles around me, taking care of herself, preparing for the baby, working and going to school. I cannot say enough good about Heather. Her strength and integrity remind me of why it is that women run this world. We're just better at it. I am grateful that Heather will be the model for Lillian in so many important ways.
My sweet Heather, on the right, with her sister, five days before the baby was born.
And what fun Heather has let me have! As her pregnancy neared the end, she let me take her to some of her Doctor's appointments and then out to lunch, just as my Mother used to do for me, and just as I would have loved to be able to do for my own daughter. The day before she went in labor we went to about 5 stores getting whatever baby items they still needed, and then to eat authentic Mexican food. Sure enough, she went in labor the next morning, and guess who they called? ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!! And guess who ran a red light with impunity on the way to hospital? ME ME ME ME!!!!!!
I got to be there for most of the labor!
And I was out in the peanut gallery when she was born! Heather's family arrived from out of town later that day to join in the celebration.
Yep. My baby's a Daddy!
Grandaddy with his new sweetheart.
Since the baby has been born I have been off of work so that I can go to my son's house almost every day to help. I envisioned many after- baby scenarios, mostly involving sleep deprived parents and screaming babies, but none with an easy baby who sleeps all the time, because I never had one of those. Miss Lillian, however, is thus far an easy and happily breast fed baby, so I haven't been needed as much as I thought.
Lillian in the blanket I barely finished before she was born.
Soon Heather's family will be back to marvel over how big Lillian has grown. Naturally I plan to (cough) gracefully step aside and let them have their share of Grandparent Crack. I'm a reasonable person.
Bread rising on a cloth diaper.
Using the kitchen sink as a countertop to mash potatoes for shepherd's pie Also I noticed that day that my camera smelled like an onion. It was worth it.
That's about it for today. If you've wondered where I have been, now you know. And if you need me, you know where I'll be. Hopefully I can get around to catching up on all of YOUR blog posts that I've missed this past month. Meanwhile, tonight's menu is chicken parmesan with orzo and sautéed zucchini and tomatoes. I'd better get on it!
You know Kelly Suellentrop from over at "Are You Finished Yet," right? I'm pleased to share the news that her new read aloud children's picture book, "Absolute Mayhem", is being released just in time for holiday shopping and holiday memory making. Let me tell you about it! As a new grandmother, watching my daughter center her entire day around my grandson, knowing her focus on his every move will last for years, it dawns on me that parenting is a whole lot of work. Why must it be so hard? Why can't we just let the little critters do whatever they want to do? Because it's not good for them; that's why! Take Lulu and Milo, the protagonists of Kelly Suellentrop's delightful new read aloud picture book "Absolute Mayhem". What a grueling week these two have, working math problems, eating balanced meals, doing chores, and going to bed early. I'll bet Lulu and Milo feel like the most put upon children on the block. Sound familiar? But the siblings have a secret weapon – the "absolute mayhem" they're looking forward to on the weekend. Suellentrop's use of color helps show the contrast between the weekday world and the weekend world. All week life is pictured in an oh- so- mundane back and white, while the weekend erupts in riotous color as the children become royalty, explorers, and adventurers, able to live life on their own terms. Anything goes on the weekend, because absolute mayhem means "fun rules the day". And the children indulge to their heart's content. The trouble is that they indulge past their hearts' content, and soon are tired, cranky and way over-sugared. Mayhem indeed. Could it be that by the end of the weekend with no limits whatsoever – dare I say it – the children are looking forward to their once hated weekday routine? I am thrilled to see a read aloud picture book that helps children learn in a fun way that there is a time for everything. There is a time for imagination and flight of fancy – as long as they help get those fractions done. But there is also a time to keep to commitment, routine and repetition, which help children feel safe and secure. Children won't thank us for the rules we impose, but it is our job as parents nonetheless. I predict that every overworked, under appreciated parent will feel some much needed validation when they read "Absolute Mayhem" aloud with their children. The story is crafted so skillfully that even the children will be nodding their heads in agreement that Lulu and Milo had best have an early bedtime. No parent will want to miss that moment! Here's a you tube video of Lulu and Milo coming to life. After you watch the video fifteen times, head on over to Amazon and order yourself a copy… and let the mayhem begin!
Big, big exhalation. How long have I been holding my breath? About nine months and three weeks, the exact length of time it took for my grandson to grow large enough to come into the world and for me to get out there to meet him.
How can I be a grandmother I don't know how to be a grandmother all I know is what my mother did which was come over every day for weeks and weeks and wash the clothes and cook and clean and help with the baby and sometimes she brought her sisters for reinforcement and there C. and E. are out there in California with no relatives, well they know some people but not that many why haven't I retired what if she needs help and I'm not there it's not like I can just get in a plane and fly over there anytime stop overwhelming yourself and what will I do when I miss the baby that is going to be intolerable it hurts my stomach right now and I don't even know what to be called all I know is nothing countryfied, like, not Meemaw or Mawmaw or no undignified baby talk words like MooMoo or PooPoo you'll eventually be called something yes but when I do go out there how can I get all the cleaning and cooking and baby stuff done so they will be all caught up by the time we leave so she won't need me after we've gone and so nothing will upset or depress her the way I always was postpartum oh groan it was so awful that would be unacceptable I'll just have to get everything done that's all and what if I'm not good with the baby I never thought I was good with babies and what if I can't do anything with him that would be a disaster I haven't taken care of a baby in twenty seven years but they'll EXPECT me to be good with soothing upset babies because that is what grandmothers know how to do and I am going to be declared one, but how can I be a grandmother?
As with most unknowns, there was nothing to do but wait, and to be sure, one day before his due date Micah was born. Without me. We already had our dates planned to come out, according to the way my daughter and son in law wanted things to be, in case anyone wonders why we didn't charter the first plane out of Memphis.
Finally we met our baby. When I held him, I felt a deep, peaceful knowing, as if reconnected to an old soul. I know you, I thought, and you are mine. I rushed headlong into baby love.
What about my worries? About soothing the baby, the best news ever was this little invention, the swaddler, which did not exist in my day. The blanket like garment soothes a fractious baby and makes him feel warm, safe and secure. The old fashioned…uh… grandmother in me was skeptical at first but soon I was won over when Micah, bundled, relaxed immediately in my arms.
What about the sleep deprived parents? It turns out that these people know how to take naps, something I was never able to do. When we arrived each morning from our nearby motel we relieved whichever parent was awake to retreat to bed. The parents would say they were tired, but they seemed pretty sane to me. They were wearing clothes, for example, and seemed to be taking showers. I saw them reading sometimes.
The new parents are holding their own.
What about being helpful? Within the first few minutes of our arrival, my daughter said to me, "Thanks for holding the baby so I can have an adult conversation." Aaaah, we were already helping! And speaking of helping, Micah's grandfather turned out to be the most effective baby whisperer in the house. Whenever he wasn't doing some manual labor for my daughter, such as hanging pictures, he could be found with Micah in his arms.
But what about my daughter's mood? SHE WAS FINE!!!!!!! Her focus was on baby's well being, not seeming a bit overwhelmed, just taking things moment by moment. I did have to make some changes in the eating arena. One can only choke down so many dry turkey sandwiches. Though the meals I fixed were often consumed more hurriedly than in the past, hopefully they made the new parents feel nurtured.
I wanted them to have fresh, delicious food.
And about the cleaning, my daughter did allow me to clean her kitchen floor on my hands and knees. Pregnant ladies can't see their own feet, let alone a floor. She was very appreciative that I had done it, but the good news was that had I not gotten around to it, it wouldn't have bothered her a bit. Finally the memories of myself as a new mother, feeling sad and defeated because my house was so cluttered, faded in my mind. Actually, I had been the one in disarray, not the house.Thankfully, my daughter does not have those burdens.
As the days went by we settled into an easy routine of baby care. It came to me that we were all pitching in to take care of the baby, the parents, and their home. Why had I thought all the emotional responsibility was going to fall only on me? I found I could relax and just be a grandmother!
This is the tree I'm planning to climb with Micah.
All too soon it was time to leave. I came to Pasadena in hypervigilant mode, ready to do whatever battles were necessary for my people. I anticipated it to be hard. Yes, I did work all day and retire each night to sleep as hard as a brick bat, but it was fun, joyous and fulfilling.
The Saga Motor Inn, where my husband and I returned each night, opened the shutters of our room to let in the cool evening air, and read our books in complete, delightful silence before we crashed.
We were all bound by our love for Micah, and enjoyed seeing one another enjoy him. The arrival of this precious little fellow had changed all our previous, familiar configurations. Wife to mother. Husband to father. Mother to grandmother. Father to grandfather. We all revolved, gracefully, I thought, around our new sun.
I marveled at my son in law's transformation into a Daddy. He has won my heart over and over with his devotion and thoughtfulness.
My sweet son in law. Now he's a Daddy.
I beamed at seeing my daughter in action as a Mother.
I marveled at this this couple, reassured at their priorities and partnership.
I treasured seeing Grandaddy gaze at the baby.
I drank in each moment with Micah, just as I had hoped to do. I have memorized him now.
Families are all more than the sum of their parts, but now we have more parts in the mix, and it's glorious. More relationships. More ties. More moments to savor now and memories to plan for the future.
I was not ready to leave, but I did so with a heart that was full and peaceful.


Bruce Kaskey, co-founder of OrecX company, speaks about the present and future of Asterisk call-centers.
Among the experts who contributed to Loway's blog are some of the most prominent analysts of this generation.
Here they highlight predictions of the people involved in shaping this industry future.


text:
Health / News
Critically-ill child denied hospital entry, dies
by Dino Crescini 2014-09-01
Butuan City, Philippines—A distraught mother took to social media to express her grief over the death of her 10-year-old daughter, who was denied admission in a Butuan City hospital because she could not pay the admission deposit.
Tutz Salarda-Chan posted on Facebook how she pleaded to the admitting personnel of Butuan Doctors Hospital to have her critically-ill child admitted, but to no avail.
Jannary Chan or "Yanna," 10, (shown above) passed away on July 16 at around 3 a.m. from congestive heart failure.
Chan said Yanna had congenital heart disease since she was six months old. She was also diagnosed early this year with diabetes and a kidney problem.
She said they brought Yanna to the San Francisco Doctors Hospital in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, on July 13 because she was ill. On July 15, however, Chan said they decided to transfer the girl to the better-equipped Butuan Doctors Hospital in Butuan City, Agusan del Norte, due to ''her emergency situation and critical condition.''
Onboard an ambulance, Chan said they travelled more than an hour to reach Butuan City, the regional center of the Caraga region in Mindanao.
Two nurses from the San Francisco Doctors Hospital accompanied Yanna and her parents, bringing with them complete medical certificate and referral.
No full deposit, no entry
But upon arrival at the Butuan Doctors Hospital, Chan said the hospital staff refused to admit her child because they could not pay the full deposit of P30,000 for the intensive care unit (ICU).
She said they only had between P8,000 and P10,000 in cash but promised to pay the balance the following morning.
"We have money but we can't pay now," Chan recalled telling the hospital personnel, saying it was already 8 p.m. and could not get their cash from a money transfer service.
"Also my daughter has intubation and needs to be brought to ICU. She's been in the ambulance for hours, we travelled long distance, please it's really an emergency," she remembered pleading to the staff. But she said her pleas fell on deaf ears.
"The money you have is far from the P30,000 needed for admission. There's no charity here. This is a private hospital," she quoted the staff as saying. "What is your job by the way? Where would you get the money to pay the bills?" the staff purportedly asked the distraught mother.
The staff even argued that Yanna's condition was "not an emergency" case. "You call it an emergency case when someone was ran over by a vehicle."
Resigned, Chan said they decided to bring their child to Davao City, about 305 kilometers from Butuan City, on board the same ambulance.
But Yanna didn't make it to the hospital, succumbing to cardiac arrest while on the way to a Davao hospital, Chan said.
The Law says otherwise
According to Republic Act 8344, hospitals are prohibited to demand deposits or advance payments before administration of medical treatment in emergency cases. Section 1 of the law states: "It shall be unlawful for any proprietor, president, director, manager or any other officer, and/or medical practitioner or employee of a hospital or medical clinic to request, solicit, demand or accept any deposit or any other form of advance payment as a prerequisite for confinement or medical treatment of a patient in such hospital or medical clinic or to refuse to administer medical treatment and support as dictated by good practice of medicine to prevent death or permanent disability." — By Nestor Corrales (INQ.net)
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Dino Crescini
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Carlos Borja Morca (Coyuca de Catalán, Guerrero,  - Guadalajara, Jalisco, ) fue un baloncestista mexicano. Fue medalla de bronce con México en los Juegos Olímpicos de Berlín de 1936. Es hermano del también medallista olímpico Víctor Borja.

Palmarés internacionales

Enlaces externos
 Ficha del jugador en databaseolympics
 Ficha en sports-reference

Baloncestistas de México en los Juegos Olímpicos de Berlín 1936
Hermanos baloncestistas
Deportistas de Jalisco
Nacidos en Guadalajara (México)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia