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She Wanted To Be The Perfect Mom, Then Landed In A Psychiatric Unit
KQED | By April Dembosky
Lisa Abramson holds her firstborn child, Lucy, in 2014. A few weeks after Lucy's birth, Abramson began feeling confused and then started developing delusions — symptoms of postpartum psychosis.
Lisa Abramson says that even after all she has been through — the helicopters circling her house, the snipers on the roof, and the car ride to jail — she still wants to have a second child.
That's because right after her daughter was born in 2014 — before all that trouble began — everything felt amazing. Lisa was smitten, just like she had imagined she would be. She would look into her baby's round, alert eyes and feel the adrenaline rush through her. She had so much energy. She was so excited.
"I actually was thinking like, 'I don't get why other moms say they're so tired, or this is so hard. I got this,' " she says.
Lisa wanted to be the perfect mom. She was ready to be the perfect mom. She and her husband lived in San Francisco, and Lisa had worked as a successful entrepreneur and as a marketing executive for a Silicon Valley tech company. When it came to starting her family, she was organized and ready to go. And that first week after her baby was born, everything was going according to plan. The world was nothing but love.
/ Courtesy of Claire Mulkey
David Abramson found "postpartum psychosis" on the Internet after his wife, Lisa, developed signs of anxiety and delusions in 2014 after their daughter Lucy was born. Studies suggest the condition affects about one or two women out of every thousand who give birth.
Then the baby started losing weight, and the pediatrician told Lisa to feed her every two hours.
Lisa started to feel like she couldn't keep up.
"It weighed on me as, 'I've failed as a mom. I can't feed my child,' " she says. "I needed to feed her — that was the most important thing. And my well-being didn't matter."
She was barely sleeping. Even when she could get a release from what felt like breastfeeding purgatory, she couldn't relax. As she got more and more exhausted, she started to get confused.
Lisa thought going to a spin class would help. This was something she usually loved. But after 10 minutes, she fled the room.
"The noises and intense volume of the spin class was really alarming to me," Lisa says, "It felt like the walls were talking to me."
Then, back at home, she noticed police helicopters circling over their apartment. "There were snipers on the roof," she remembers thinking , "and there were spy cams in our bedroom and everyone was watching me. And my cellphone was giving me weird messages."
Lisa waited for the police to burst in and take her away. But the next morning, she woke up in her own bed.
The cops must have arrested the nanny instead, she decided. That was wrong, Lisa thought to herself. The nanny shouldn't be punished for my crime.
Lisa told her husband it wasn't fair. She was going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
And that was when her husband told her he was going to drive her to the police station himself.
"It was like, 'Oh, OK, he's taking me in, and I guess I'm getting arrested,' " Lisa says.
Her husband, David Abramson, remembers it as one of the worst days of his life.
"I'm bringing my wife to the hospital and then checking her into an inpatient unit," says David, explaining what really happened that day. "It was really, really challenging."
Not jail, but a psych ward
There had been no crime after all --and no snipers and no spy cams. The nanny hadn't been arrested, and Lisa's destination that day wasn't a jail cell, but rather the general psychiatric ward at Sutter Health's California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
The other patients were there for drug overdoses or alcohol withdrawal. People were screaming. One patient thought he was a dog and was crawling around on all fours, barking. To David, it didn't seem like the right place for a new mom.
"That was probably the most heart-wrenching thing, was having to leave her that night with the hospital staff," he says. "You could see in her eyes and her body language that she was panicked."
For the first five days, Lisa says, she didn't speak to anyone.
"I don't know if I couldn't speak, or I wasn't speaking," she says, "but I was terrified enough of the environment that I decided I wasn't going to answer anyone's questions."
Lisa doesn't remember any doctors or nurses telling her why she was there or what was going on. But she does remember, about a week into her hospitalization, her husband bringing a printout from online about postpartum psychosis.
The article said elevated hormones from childbirth — plus sleep deprivation — can trigger confusion and paranoia. Lisa didn't believe it — she thought her husband was tricking her and had spent hours using Photoshop to piece together a fake article.
"I really was just like, 'No. I've heard of postpartum depression,' " she says. "No! I have never heard that there's postpartum crazy."
New data on moms who die by suicide
But postpartum psychosis is real. Studies suggest it affects about one or two women out of every thousand who give birth; some doctors now think even more women than that are affected, but go undiagnosed. Without proper treatment, some of those women end up dying — by suicide.
California researchers just finished their first big study on maternal suicides. The state's public health department hasn't published the findings yet, KQED was able to review some of the data: 99 new moms in the state died by suicide over a 10-year period.
The investigators determined that of those 99 suicides, 98 were preventable. The women might be alive today if the health care system in California had done a better job screening women, diagnosing their illness and treating them.
"The work that we do here is less than 10 percent of what needs to be done," says Dr. Nirmaljit Dhami, a psychiatrist at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif. She helped review the suicides but did not share data from the report with journalists.
Dhami is an expert on postpartum mental illness and often treats cases of postpartum psychosis that OB-GYNs mishandled. Based on her clinical experience and observations, she says, a lot of doctors don't know the early signs of postpartum psychosis and don't know that the symptoms wax and wane.
"A lot of times the patient will present very clearly, then at other times, will present with acute confusion and disorganization," Dhami says.
It's what happened to Lisa Abramson — feeling like she was of sound mind one moment and then believing the walls were talking to her in the next.
"This is a symptom that clinicians who are not trained in this field can easily miss," Dhami says, "because when they see the patient in their office with the family, they can think that the patient is normal and is probably suffering from sleep deprivation — and discharge them home."
That's how women can end up dead. In the U.S., mental health problems are one of main contributors to maternal mortality, according to a 2018 report from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiative called Building U.S. Capacity to Review and Prevent Maternal Deaths. On the report's list of causes of death among new moms, mental health problems (which include drug overdoses) rank seventh — nearly tied with the complications of high blood pressure. For white women, mental health problems are the fourth leading cause of death.
Even when new moms do get referred for psychiatric care in the days and weeks after their child's birth, Dhami says, the care is often inadequate or inappropriate. Doctors prescribe the wrong medications. Insurance companies push patients out of psychiatric units before they are ready. And the staff of psych units, generally, are not trained in these illnesses, Dhami says, and may not be equipped to care for even the most basic physical needs of new moms.
For example, when Lisa Abramson first arrived at the psych ward, her husband told the medical resident who admitted her that he thought Lisa had postpartum psychosis. The resident said to him, "Postpartum what?"
Then, several days into Lisa's stay, she complained of pain in her breasts. She had stopped breastfeeding when she left home, and it didn't seem to occur to anyone that her breasts would become engorged.
Her husband had to negotiate with the staff to bring in Lisa's breast pump from home.
She remembers that when she wanted to pump, she had to use a room with padded walls that looked like a solitary confinement chamber — "what you'd imagine from a terror movie," Lisa says.
But the worst thing of all was not being allowed to see her baby daughter. The inpatient unit has a strict policy: No infants or children on the ward. The hospital says this is intended as a safety measure for everybody.
Her family lobbied on her behalf.
"They said, 'She's a new mom and she needs to see her baby. That's keeping this bond going, it's important,' " Lisa recalls, tearing up. "That was the hard part, was not getting to see her."
About five days into her time there, Lisa's family was able to negotiate permission for one-hour visits with her daughter, but they were supervised by a person who kept looking at his watch.
Lisa's family was so unhappy with her care at the hospital, that her husband decided he needed to get her out of there. They found Dhami and asked her to take over Lisa's treatment.
Dhami enrolled Lisa in a comprehensive outpatient program she runs at El Camino Hospital, called the Maternal Outreach Mood Services (MOMS) program, where the new mother can bring her baby along during appointments.
California Pacific Medical Center declined to comment on Lisa's case specifically, even though Lisa authorized the hospital to discuss her medical records. The hospital's inpatient psychiatric medical director, Dr. Stephanie Wilson, says that breast pumps are now available to women who need them and that health care providers review new moms' wishes to see their babies on a case-by-case basis.
"We take into full consideration all of the circumstances and the details of that patient, of the infant — and really seeing what, if any, benefit or even potential harm, it could have to the mother," Wilson says. "Once the symptoms of depression and psychosis start to get better, that's when I would start to allow more visitations."
A different kind of care for moms
There's plenty of research, dating back to the 1940s, on the ideal protocols for inpatient treatment of postpartum mental illnesses. The gold standard is to admit the mother and the baby into the hospital together, on a specialized mother-baby unit, where they're treated as a pair.
Part of the mom's therapy in these units is getting guidance on how to read the baby's cues and how to meet the baby's needs — as well as her own. At night, the baby sleeps in a supervised nursery, so the mom can get uninterrupted sleep.
In the United Kingdom, there are 21 of these mother-baby psychiatric units. In France, there are 15. They exist in Belgium and New Zealand and one in India.
But in the U.S., there are zero.
The closest approximation can be found in North Carolina, 3,000 miles from where Lisa lives, in the hospital at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
The perinatal psychiatric unit here is reserved exclusively for pregnant women and new moms.
"There is a need for them to see other moms going through what they're going through," says Dr. Mary Kimmel, the psychiatrist who runs the unit. She wears a denim jacket and black suede ankle boots, and whenever a patient wants to know whether she's a mom too, she says yes, she has two kids.
Every room has a hospital-grade breast pump, Kimmel says, and there's a lactation consultant who helps women with breastfeeding. The unit has a designated refrigerator for moms to store pumped milk.
April Dembosky / KQED
Psychiatrist Mary Kimmel runs the mom's psychiatry unit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The most distinctive feature about the program is the visitor policy.
"Babies can come to the unit, and we really encourage that," Kimmel says. "We encourage older kids to also come to the unit."
Most afternoons, toddlers scurry around the day room or color, play with toys and play with each other. Women cradle their visiting newborns, rocking them, feeding them.
The babies are not allowed to stay overnight though. Unlike the units in Europe, there's no nursery here. The main reasons for that policy are the restrictions of U.S. insurance plans.
Kimmel says no insurer in the U.S. would ever pay for a healthy baby to be admitted to a hospital.
"That baby doesn't have a distinct need to be admitted and so it's not possible to bill for that baby being at the hospital," she says. And without that, the hospital can't afford to run a nursery.
The days on the UNC unit are very structured, with a range of treatments. There's one-on-one therapy and lots of group classes: parenting and time management lessons, for example, where women practice asking their partner for help; relaxation classes; and spiritual counseling.
Alice Sarti says the moms unit at UNC was the first place that gave her hope as a new mother. After she gave birth to her son, she became engulfed by mania. She had dealt with depression many times before, she says, but never this.
"Every minute I had to fill with a task: researching day cares, doing and re-doing my budget," she remembers. "I'm not going to line up three bottles — I'm going to line up 17 bottles."
She loved how productive she was. She's a business analyst and loves getting things done. But then, everything started to spiral.
"There was a definite snap," she says. "I started yelling about things that didn't make sense. They made sense to me."
To her family, it was just an incoherent rage. They called the police and they took Alice to the nearest hospital that had an available bed — not the mom's unit at UNC, but rather a general psych ward, several towns away.
"You saw people that couldn't speak, that could barely walk," she says. "People were discharged in that condition."
Alice refused to take any meds, making her unpopular with the staff.
"I did have a social worker tell me I was going to lose my child if I didn't 'pull it together,' " she says.
During her three-week stay, she saw her son once, for 20 minutes.
"I was not able to touch him on any level. He was in his car seat and I reached for him and I was yelled at," she says.
It's hard for her to admit what it was like coming back to him, after she was discharged.
"It felt like a burden, "Alice says. "It felt like, 'How am I ever going to do this?' I held him, I bathed him, and I did all the things — but the connection was not there. I lost time with my son and I'm never going to get it back."
Alice was treated at two hospitals, never feeling any better, before she ended up at the moms psych unit at UNC Chapel Hill.
Finally, everyone seemed to understand what she was going through, she says — the pressure she was feeling and the guilt. She saw her son regularly, and staff helped her start to re-establish her bond with him.
"It was this incredibly nurturing environment," she says. "It changed the trajectory of my life, and my son's life."
Yet, even in this seemingly perfect place, things can go wrong. By the time Alice was discharged, her mania had cleared. But then she slipped into the deepest, darkest depression she had ever known. She checked herself back into UNC, afraid she was going to kill herself.
With Alice, and with other patients, doctors are under so much pressure to get moms home quickly that sometimes they overshoot on the medications, Kimmel explains. Some of that pressure comes from the moms themselves, who want to be with their kids, but it also comes from the insurance companies.
UNC's moms unit pays the bills like other hospitals — they take commercial insurance and Medicaid to cover the costs of care.
But the longer a patient stays, the more an insurer has to pay, and that's not good for its bottom line. Kimmel and other doctors say as soon as a patient comes off suicide watch, insurers start calling, asking when she can go home.
"Our average length of stay runs from about one week to two weeks," Kimmel says.
And in Europe? "About 40 to 50 days is the average length of stay there," she says.
That means that some U.S. doctors may start their patients on new drugs but not have time to see if they work well. Or they have to start women on the most intense medications right away — medications that force her to stop breastfeeding — instead of slower-acting therapies that could allow a mother more time to feed her infant breast milk.
It also means that patients like Alice can end up hospitalized four times before they get the right treatment they need to truly recover.
Insurers insist the decision to discharge is not just about cost, but about what's best for patients.
Hospitals are not necessarily the ideal environment for making sure medications are stabilized, says Kate Berry, senior vice president of Clinical Innovation for America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for insurers.
"There are other settings where the care can continue," she says, "such as a partial hospital or an intensive outpatient care setting that may be more supportive of having the mom and the baby together."
Alice Sarti says mental hospitals in the U.S. are just warehousing people. Only the mom's unit felt like a place of healing.
"It's a different kind of place," she says. "It's the type of mental health care that everyone should have access to — not just mothers. That's what mental health care in this country should look like. And it doesn't come close."
Right now, UNC is the only hospital in the country that has a designated psych unit just for pregnant women and new moms. A hospital in New York has a women-only unit. And El Camino Hospital, where Dhami practices in California, will soon start construction on a women-only psych unit, with a special focus on the needs of new moms. It is slated to open in 2019.
Ready to try again
Lisa Abramson is playing catch with her daughter Lucy.
"Ready? Set? Go!" Lucy shouts, and Lisa rolls her a small rubber soccer ball.
Lisa feels like she's back to her normal self. But she has been thinking a lot about her experience with postpartum psychosis.
Despite everything, she decided to have another baby.
"That was the most courageous moment of my life," she says. "Without knowing anything [about] how this is really going to work out, let's try it again."
She was terrified, though, that the psychosis would come back.
"They say there's about a 50 percent chance," she says. "I can try to set up a more optimal situation, but you also just don't know — and it's out of your control, which is hard."
The No. 1 thing she wanted to avoid was going back to the hospital.
"The hospitalization was probably the most traumatic [aspect] of the whole experience," Lisa says.
These days, she loves being a mom, she says. Lucy is 5 now. Her second daughter, Vivian, is 18 months old.
The psychosis did not come back after Vivian's birth, in part because of all the precautions Lisa took. She made sure she got enough sleep. She gave herself permission to give up breastfeeding if it became too much.
"We've got so many messages of just self-sacrifice," Lisa says. " 'Do anything for your kids.' 'Drop everything. That's what it means to be a good mom.' And for me, that's not what made me a good mom. That's what made me fall apart.
"I'm trying to put myself first — guilt-free — and know that that makes me a better mom."
This story is part of NPR's reporting partnership with KQED, the California Report and Kaiser Health News .
Copyright 2020 KQED. To see more, visit KQED.
April Dembosky


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Hatshepsut temple Luxor built just north of the Middle Kingdom temple of Mentuhotep. In fact, it is in the bay of cliffs which known as Deir El Bahri. In ancient times, Hatshepsut temple Luxor called Djeser-djeseru, meaning the "sacred of sacred". It influenced by the style of the earlier temple at Deir El Bahri. Hatshepsut's construction surpassed anything which built before. It is both in its architecture and its beautiful carved reliefs. Moreover, the female pharaoh chose to site her temple in a valley sacred to the Theban Goddess of the West. It was on a direct axis with Karnak Temple of Amun on the east bank. On the other side of the mountain was the tomb which Hatshepsut constructed for herself. In fact, the tomb located in the Valley of the Kings (KV 20).
Hatshepsut temple Luxor built on three terraced levels. It is with a causeway leading down to her Valley Temple. It would have connected to the Nile River by a canal. Moreover, Gardens with trees planted in front of the lower courtyard. In first court of Hatshepsut temple Luxor, there are colonnades. They are on the southern and northern sides of a ramp leading to the second court. At the end of the northern colonnade a colossal statue of the queen. In fact, it reconstructed and re erected from fragments. Reliefs in the southern lower portico are shallow and often difficult to see. But if the light is right they are interesting. The Reliefs show the transportation by ship of two obelisks from the granite quarries at Aswan. Furthermore, they escorted by soldiers, standard bearers, musicians and priests.
Further along the wall, the queen offers the obelisks to Amun at Karnak. It is along with the dedication ceremonies. The lower northern portico of Hatshepsut temple Luxor shows Hatshepsut in a boat. She fowls and fishes in ritual scenes with birds, and a net of waterfowl drawn by two gods. Other ritual scenes include the queen offering statues and driving calves to Amun. She also portrayed as a sphinx trampling her foes. Crouching lions carved at the bottom of the ramp leading to the second terrace. In the second court of Hatshepsut temple Luxor, there was once a brick temple. It dedicated to Amenhotep I and Ahmose-nefertari. In fact, it destroyed when Hatshepsut's architect Senenmut began construction of the new temple.
A brick shrine dedicated to Aesclepius by Ptolemy III (also destroyed). It stood in front of the southern side of the portico on the second terrace of Hatshepsut temple Luxor. At the end of the southern portico is a Chapel of Hathor with many reliefs of Hatshepsut. It licked or suckled by the goddess in the form of a cow. Beautiful Hathor headed pillars line the central part of the hall at Hatshepsut temple Luxor. They lead the way to the sanctuary area of the chapel cut into the hillside at the back. Unfortunately these inner chambers usually closed to visitors. On the northern wall in the hypostyle of the Hathor Chapel are colorful scenes. The scenes are of boats and a parade of soldiers, a panther and Libyans dancing in a festival of Hathor.
In the southern colonnade are the famous scenes of Hatshepsut's expedition to Punt. The precise location of Punt is not known. But it thought to have been on the east coast of Africa, to the south of Egypt. The end wall shows a village in the land of Punt. Moreover, its dome shaped houses on stilts with ladders to access them. There are wonderful birds and animals all around in Hatshepsut temple Luxor. The famous relief of Ity the 'Queen of Punt' is now in Cairo Museum. It is a fat lady who was actually the wife of Parahu, Punt's chief. It has replaced by a reproduction. On the western wall at Hatshepsut temple Luxor, rigged sailing boats. They get ready to bring the tribute back to Egypt. They include incense trees in baskets, cattle, baboons and a panther.
Note the many types of fish in the water in the register below. Further along we see the transplanted incense trees in the gardens at Karnak. The produce from the expedition weighed and documented by officials. It is before presented to the queen to offered to Amun. The northern colonnade at Hatshepsut temple Luxor, begins with a Chapel of Anubis. It echoes the Hathor Chapel on the southern side. It shows colorful scenes of Hatshepsut in the presence of the jackal headed god. In some places Hatshepsut's figure has removed. But the figure of her successor Thutmose III remains. It offers scenes to Amun as well as Anubis, Wepwawet, Sokar, Osiris and other mortuary gods. In the northern portico we see scenes of the queen. They establish her right to rule by illustrating her divine birth.
The reliefs are shallow and not well preserved. They show the divine union of Hatshepsut's mother Ahmose with Amun. We can see Khnum the creator god then fashions the queen and her ka on the potter's wheel. We also see Ahmose led to the birth room by the goddess Hekat who presides over the childbirth. Hatshepsut then presented to Amun. Many other deities and the goddess Seshat, with Hapi, records her name and reign length. The register above portrays the coronation ceremonies of the queen. It is where she crowned first by her father Thutmose I, then by Horus and Set. The ramp at Hatshepsut temple Luxor leads to the third terrace. It flanked by Horus falcons.
The Polish Egyptian mission working to restore the upper terrace of Hatshepsut temple Luxor. It is since 1961 and it closed to visitors until 2002. The pillars in the portico in front of the third terrace decorated with Osirid statues of the queen. Passing under a huge pink granite doorway the visitor enters a columned courtyard. The wall to the north of the doorway shows scenes from the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley'. It is with barques carrying statues of Thutmose I, II, III and Hatshepsut. The chambers in the northern part of the upper terrace dedicated to the solar cult of Re-Horakhty. In one of these is a huge alabaster altar. It is on which sacrifices would have left exposed to the sun.
Other niches and chapels lead off from these chambers. They still have well preserved colorful paintings. In fact, they still closed to visitors. They include another dedicated to Anubis and one to the parents of Hatshepsut. The southern side of court in the upper terrace dedicated to the royal mortuary cult. The wall to the south of the doorway also shows scenes of processions of royal statues in boats. It is with their attendants. On the south wall are offering scenes to various deities. The chambers to the south of the court still closed. They included cult chapels of Hatshepsut and her father Thutmose I. They with similar well preserved decoration in each.
In the center of the upper court at the rear is the sanctuary of Amun. The focus of the temple which cut deep into the rock of the mountain (not at present open to visitors). This would have been the resting place for the barque of Amun during the "Valley Festival". Two chambers in the sanctuary show scenes of Hatshepsut. It is with her daughter Neferure and Thutmose III worshiping various gods. In fact, the sanctuary later expanded by Ptolemy VIII. Euergetes who added a third chamber. It dedicated to Imhotep and Amenhotep Son of Hapu. They worshiped as deities at that time and associated with gods of healing. The third terrace later became a sanatorium.
Hatshepsut temple Luxor is open from 8 am to 4 pm in winter. Tickets cost 50 Egyptian pound and should bought at the ticket office. There is a little train (Taftaf) from the parking area. It is to the temple entrance that costs 5 Egyptian pound. The temple is floodlit in the evening. Although not open, it is a beautiful sight which seen from any high point. You can see it even from across the river in Luxor.


text:
Subin Tipmanee() is a Thai boccia player who represented Thailand at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. She, along with her 3 teammates, won a gold medal in Boccia in the Mixed Team BC1–2 event.

References

Living people
Subin Tipmanee
Boccia players at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Subin Tipmanee
Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
Medalists at the 2020 Summer Paralympics
Place of birth missing (living people)
Paralympic medalists in boccia
Boccia players at the 2020 Summer Paralympics
Subin Tipmanee
1982 births
Subin Tipmanee

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Proof that angles are equal given that the length of a segment is minimized
I am attempting to prove that $\angle APX$ is equal to $\angle BPY$ when $XP + PY$ is minimized.

Thi problem is part of some extra practice in math class. We were mostly focused on ellipses during class, so I have a suspicion that this relates to the reflection property of ellipses, though I am not entirely sure yet. I could maybe see X and Y as focal points and the line AB to be a tangent line that intersects the ellipse at P.

A: A proof is to reflect for example $Y $ over the segment $(AB)$ to get point $Y'$ then the distance $XP+PY'$ is minimal if  $X$, $P$, $Y'$ are on a same line which is your condition.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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The difference between NFL and college football rules when it comes to reviewing close calls was a lesson driven home a couple of times in Wednesday's Rose Bowl game.
In the NFL, a coach can demand a review and it costs him a timeout only if he's wrong.
In college football, a coach can beg for a review all he wants on the field, but only the replay official in the press box can call for one.
And at a key time in the second quarter, on a Vince Young lateral to Selvin Young that went for a 12-yard scoring play that put Texas ahead, 9-7, the call for review never came.
Television replays clearly showed that Vince Young's knee was on the ground before the Texas quarterback pitched the ball. And there was some question that he might have pitched the ball forward, which would have been a penalty.
But there was no review, despite protests from USC.
Coach Pete Carroll could have done more than protest, however. He could have called a timeout and used it to beg for a review, hoping that worked -- as it did for Michigan's Lloyd Carr last week in the Alamo Bowl against Nebraska. The Wolverine coach protested enough to where he got a review and a call was overturned.
Through a spokesman, David Parry, the national supervisor of officials, declined to answer questions on why the Texas touchdown was not reviewed.
The officiating crew was from the Big Ten Conference, and the conference policy, Parry noted, is to not comment on replay decisions.
The replay official had the same access to TV replays available to the networks.
Earlier in the game, Texas got a review after what was ruled on the field as an incomplete pass, and the replay official awarded Longhorn safety Michael Griffin with an interception in the end zone -- the right call.
That killed a USC drive that had taken the Trojans from their 27 to the Texas 25.
There was another key review early in the fourth quarter, when a Vince Young pass to Jamaal Charles was ruled incomplete on the field.
Replays seemed to indicate that Charles had possession of the ball, then lost it, with USC recovering.
But after a review, the play stood as called on the field and Texas went on to score on a 34-yard field goal by David Pino to trim USC's lead to 31-26 with 8 minutes 46 seconds left.


Hello! I am a SC wife, mother, grandmother, and I have been writing on line for over 7 years. When I am not on line, we enjoy dancing and being at the beach with our grandchildren.
Vintage bathroom decorating ideas you can use to create the vintage bathroom of your dreams. Whether your house is 80 years old or brand new, vintage bathroom decor is all the rage. You can give your bathroom a vintage look with a few well-chosen products. From vintage shower curtains to vintage toilet paper holders, we have found the prettiest and most unusual on the web. Take just one idea, and let your imagination fly. What is your overall goal in your decor? Historically accurate? Beautiful? Functional? Whatever you choose, enjoy the process – express yourself in your home decor.


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Marattiaceae, porodica paprati jedina u redu Marattiales. Tipični rod Marattia dao je svoje ime i porodici i redu. U tropskim močvarama kasnog paleozoika rasle su vrste iz roda Crenulopteris, nekad nazivan Lobatopteris.

Među današnjim vrstama porodice Marattiaceae postoji 6 rodova s preko 150 vrsta, od kojih se jedna vodi kao invazivna, to je Angiopteris evecta s Malajskog poluotoka i jugoistočne Azije i nekih otoka Oceanije, a koja je uvezena na havaje i Jamajku, i jedna kao kritično ugrožena, Ptisana purpurascens s otoka Ascension.

Rodovi i broj vrsta
 Angiopteris Hoffm., 1796, 47
 Christensenia Maxon, 1905, 2
 Danaea Sm., 1793, 51
 Eupodium J. Sm., 1841, 4
 Marattia Sw., 1788, 6
 Ptisana Murdock, 2008, 34
 †Crenulopteris Wittry et al.

Izvori

Marattiopsida
Biljni redovi
Biljne porodice


The title and airdate for the 30th and 31st episode of Pocket Monsters XY has been unveiled. XY030, Koruni and Lucario! The secret of Mega Evolution!! is scheduled to air May 29 alongside XY029, ジャジャーン!ニセサトシ現る!! Ta-da! Fake Satoshi Appears!!, as an hour long special.
XY031, ルカリオVSバシャーモ!試練の洞窟!! Lucario VS Bursyamo! The Cave of Trials!!, will be airing on June 5th. It is still unknown when the postponed episode, The Undersea Castle! Kuzumo and Dramidoro!! will air.
Additionally, the airing schedule for the remainder of the month has been revealed.
Thanks to Bluesun for the translation.


The University of Virginia football program entered Friday night's matchup with Pittsburgh ranked in the Top 25 of the Associated Press and coaches' polls for the first time since 2011. Additionally, the Cavaliers controlled their own destiny in the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal division. But under the Scott Stadium lights, the Cavaliers simply couldn't find the form that helped them achieve nationally-ranked status and a prime spot in the conference race.
Penalties – Virginia was flagged 10 times for 80 yards after averaging only 4.3 penalties per game prior – highlighted a sloppy night for Virginia football, particularly on offense, and the Hoos fell to Coastal Division foe Pitt, 23-13. UVA drops to 6-3 on the season, 4-2 in conference play.
Virginia's struggles surfaced in the game's opening five minutes. In what was nothing short of a torrential downpour, Cavalier junior wide receiver Joe Reed dropped the opening kickoff, picked up the ball, was hit and fumbled before tight end Evan Butts made the recovery. UVA squandered a 1st-and-10 at its own 43 by picking up back-to-back penalties – the false start and holding calls were two of three flags on Virginia that opening drive – that would lead to a punt.
Pitt took advantage of Virginia's scoreless opening sequence as well as clearing skies with an 8-play, 84-yard scoring drive on its first possession of the game. Senior running back Darrin Hall, who rushed for over 100 yards against Virginia last year, burst through the line and ran 41 yards to the end zone to give the visitors a 7-0 first-quarter lead.
After a rough start, the complementary football Virginia had exhibited so well in wins in its previous three contests seemingly returned, beginning with a Reed 37-yard kick return, which, coupled with a personal foul call on Pitt, resulted in the Hoos having possession at the Panther 42. The very next play, junior quarterback Bryce Perkins threw a beautiful pass down the sideline to seldom-used sophomore receiver Terrell Jana, who hauled in the throw in stride and cruised in for a 42-yard touchdown, the first of his collegiate career.
Pushed around on Pitt's opening drive, the Cavalier defense responded to the challenge by forcing the Panthers to punt on their next four possessions. Meanwhile, the Virginia offense struggled to put up points after the big touchdown play. The usually sure-handed Butts fumbled on a 4th-and-4 at the Pitt 31, ending a promising second-quarter drive. UVA would secure a 10-7 halftime lead when placekicker Brian Delaney booted through a 29-yard attempt in the final seconds of the second quarter.
Just as they had the week before against UNC, the Virginia defense held Pitt to a punt to start second-half action. Unlike last week, Perkins and company did not drive down the field and score a touchdown. UVA managed only eight yards on six plays on its opening second-half possession before having to punt. Offensive tackle Ryan Nelson's false start and a dropped pass by junior running back Chris Sharp on an open wheel route led to the demise of the drive.
On the ensuing possession, Virginia's defense appeared to stop Pitt for a fifth straight drive when junior quarterback Kenny Pickett was tackled for a 3-yard loss on 3rd-and-11 from the Panther 15. Sophomore linebacker Elliott Brown was flagged for a personal foul horse collar tackle. The penalty, while controversial at first glance, appeared to be the right one and it gave Pitt new life. The Panthers would convert three more third downs on its way to a 15-play, 84-yard drive capped off by a 2-yard touchdown run by Hall. The visitors took a 14-10 lead after an Alex Kessman extra point.
What made Pitt's second touchdown drive more difficult was the fact that, after the horse collar penalty, UVA saw two of its starters leave the game due to injury. Sophomore defensive lineman Mandy Alonso and sophomore safety Joey Blount both left the field in obvious pain from leg injuries and would not return. The Cavaliers had lost starting safety Juan Thornhill in the first half due an ankle injury. Thornhill returned to the field with a walking boot on his left ankle.
Despite its struggles, Virginia pulled to within one on a 42-yard field goal by Delaney with 9:51 remaining in the game. Hall struck again, though, bursting through the Cavalier defense for a 75-yard touchdown on the next drive. A fumbled extra point kept the Cavaliers within seven at 20-13, but the Virginia offense finished the game with a punt followed by a turnover on downs. Meanwhile, a Kessmann 53-yard field goal with 4:25 remaining gave Pitt its final 10-point edge.
Coach Bronco Mendenhall has stated several times in recent weeks that these games come down to only a handful of plays. Friday night, it was Pitt (5-4, 4-1) making those plays and coming away with an important victory that puts the Panthers in first place and in control of its own destiny in the ACC Coastal Division. An average Panther defense that surrendered 45 points to Duke the previous week controlled the line of scrimmage and dominated a potent Virginia rushing attack, limiting the Hoos to 44 yards on 26 carries. Cavalier senior running back Jordan Ellis managed 46 yards on 10 rushes, but 22 of those yards came on a burst up the middle in the fourth quarter.
The Panthers defense harassed Perkins with five sacks and held him to minus-7 yards on 15 carries. Virginia's signal caller completed 17-of-24 passes for 205 yards and a touchdown; however, he was 7-of-11 for 36 yards in second half play. Jana led the Cavaliers with 71 yards receiving while senior Olamide Zaccheaus was held to just four receptions for 31 yards. OZ had only 36 yards of offense on the night.
Limiting Pitt's rushing attack was a key for the Cavaliers coming in, and, outside of Hall, the Panthers had 31 yards on 20 carries, including 24 yards on seven attempts by leading rusher Qadree Ollison. But Hall had a huge day, rushing 19 times for 229 yards and three scores. Virginia had allowed only 58 and 66 yards rushing in its previous two games, against Duke and UNC, respectively.
Pickett completed only 7-of-14 passes for 61 yards, but it was enough to get the win. He was sacked three times by the Virginia defense, with linebackers Charles Snowden and Matt Gahm and cornerback Bryce Hall each picking up a sack. Virginia, which was led in tackles by Blount with 11, totaled seven tackles for loss. In his return to a starting role, junior linebacker Jordan Mack had six stops (1 solo). Sophomore Rob Snyder, who had performed admirably in Mack's absence, did not play because of an undisclosed injury.
Whatever the case, Virginia's "New Standard" was not met against Pittsburgh on Friday night. The Hoos will look to get back on track when Liberty comes to Scott Stadium next Saturday, November 10. Kickoff is 3 p.m., and this will be the Cavaliers' final home game of the 2018 season.


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Academy President on 'Birth of a Nation': 'People need to see this movie'
by Sandra Gonzalez @CNNMoney August 26, 2016: 2:46 PM ET
Nate Parker responds to rape case controversy
The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wants the public to judge "The Birth of a Nation" as a film and not by its director's personal history.
"People need to see the movie and judge the movie," Cheryl Boone Isaacs told TMZ during an ambush airport interview Thursday.
Asked her thoughts on how the controversy over Parker's past trial and acquittal for rape is impacting the film's reception, Isaacs, who has not seen the movie, said she sees the two as mutually exclusive.
"That's one issue. That's his personal issue and then there's the issue of the movie," she said. "And with the issue of the movie, the important thing is for people to see it and enjoy the film, be impressed by the film, and I think that is what is very important."
Isaacs' statement comes just a few days after the American Film Institute canceled plans to hold a screening of the film and a Q&A with Parker.
Press screenings of the movie began in Los Angeles this week. The test to see whether the film's impact will outweigh Parker's past is now underway.
Parker and his co-writer on the film, Jean Celestin were charged with rape in 1999 while they were students at Penn State University. Parker was acquitted. Celestin was convicted, but it was later overturned on appeal.
Conversation about Parker's personal history hit a fevered pitch in recent weeks following a report from Variety that revealed the woman who accused Parker of rape committed suicide in 2012.
Parker said he was "devastated" by the news in a lengthy note posted to Facebook last week.
"The Birth of a Nation" debuted in January to excellent early reviews at Sundance. The film was quickly picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight for a record $17.5 million.
Oscar buzz has since taken a back seat to conversations about the allegations Parker once faced, however.
The negative attention now stands to possibly upset the movie's hopes for accolades.
RELATED: Will rape story kill 'Birth of a Nation?'
The studio has said it will move forward with plans to highlight "The Birth of a Nation" at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival and send Parker on a media tour. Sasha Stone, founder of AwardsDaily.com, told CNN last week this move could be a play to earn back its investment.
"I don't think that they're planning on winning any Oscars or even going into the Oscar race at all," she said. "I think it's more about making the film some money more than anything."
The true impact of the controversy on the movie's awards chances will take some time to see, she added.
"They have a movie they have to sell that's a really good movie, that a lot of people say is an important movie, and they're hoping they can find an audience for it of people who won't be protesting outside with signs against the studio or against the film," she said. "And certainly the Oscar voters are not going to want to go anywhere near anything like that."
Academy voters have historically been what Stone called "controversy averse."
"The tiniest bit of controversy will keep a film out," she said.
But why then have Woody Allen and Roman Polanski -- who've both faced allegations of sexual assault -- not been impacted? That's simple, said Stone. Up-and-comer Parker isn't yet established or "in the club."
"A Roman Polanski or a Woody Allen, they were known to these people," she said. "They're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they won't do that with Nate Parker."
"The Birth of a Nation" opens in theaters October 7.
CNNMoney (Los Angeles) First published August 26, 2016: 2:46 PM ET


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Watch The First Footage From THE WALKING DEAD Season 5
CRAWL Blu-ray Review
GIVEAWAY – Win Free Advance Screening Passes to THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA in New York
Yacht Club Games Announces Two New Shovel Knight DLC With Release Date
Alan Plummer
LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT Out Now
Everyone has gone through a moment in their life where they are struggling with something. Whether it is a physical struggle, a mental struggle or an emotional struggle, we have all gone through something. A lot of us look up to someone or something, our parents, friends or idols. Whatever it may be, those sometime help give us strength in times of need. Here's a story directed and produced by Brett Culp of people who look up to the dark knight, the caped crusader, Batman. Take a look at the trailer of "Legends of the Knight."
Legends of the Knight – Official Trailer from Brett Culp Films on Vimeo.
Here is the press release of the film which is out now on DVD and On Demand platforms:
AN INSPIRING FILM ABOUT THE REAL POWER OF BATMAN PROVES THAT SUPERHEROES ARE REAL – AND THEY LIVE AMONG US
LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT
A Documentary Showing How the Dark Knight of Comic Books, Movies and TV Has Given Hope to Those Facing Great Challenges Comes to Virgil Films DVD and Digital Download on November 18, 2014
"You will not see a more emotionally engaging Batman movie in your entire life."
– Filmmaker Kevin Smith
Batman may be a fictional character but he has proven to be a genuine inspiration to millions of people facing disease, disability or hardship, as movingly revealed in the new documentary LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT. The powerful, feel-good film will be released on Virgil Films DVD, VOD and Digital Download on November 18, 2014.
Batman has always held a special place in the hearts of superhero fans. Orphaned at a young age, he is an emotionally intense mortal whose compassion and sense of justice have helped him rise to heroic heights. LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT weaves together the uplifting true stories of individuals who have embraced their inner superhero, overcome devastating obstacles, and unselfishly given to their communities because of their love for the Caped Crusader.
Through the deeply personal tales of Batman fans, writers and filmmakers, this feature-length documentary encourages viewers to find their own uniquely courageous paths. Funded by more than 1,100 people from around the world, LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT is a return to our childhood dreams of becoming a hero.
Says filmmaker Brett Culp: "Each of my films is a 'cinematic documentary'. I am passionate about real stories with inspirational messages. My work is about reminding us of the beauty within our own stories and in the stories around us."
Culp's LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT has screened in 90 cities to date, with proceeds benefiting charities and the families they serve. Each screening has become an evening of inspiration and heroic possibilities for families – complete with superhero costumes and capes – while raising awareness and funds for charity. More than 60 charities have benefited, including Ronald McDonald House, Make-A-Wish Foundation, St Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Boys & Girls Club of America, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Special Olympics, children's hospitals and more.
"Not your typical superhero flick," said Whitney Matheson of USA Today. "I didn't expect to get teary-eyed." Said Nerdvana, "This is one of the most uplifting films you're likely to see this year. Highly recommended." Movie Pilot called it "the most important superhero movie you should see this year."
Put your cape on and get inspired by the Dark Knight!
For more, visit Wearebatman.com
BatmanBrett CulpLegends of the Knight
Possible New Details About THE FORCE AWAKENS Villain From the Teaser Trailer
First Look At "Flash vs. Arrow"


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Ontario Newsroom
More Progress in Mining Act Modernization
Archived News Release
McGuinty Government Promoting Sustainable Mineral Exploration and Development
October 3, 2012 2:47 P.M.
Ministry of Energy, Northern Development and Mines
Ontario is modernizing the way companies stake and explore their claims to be more respectful of Aboriginal communities and private landowners.
New rules under the province's Mining Act include:
New requirements for notifying private landowners and consulting with Aboriginal communities potentially affected by proposed exploration activities.
New tools to help protect sites of Aboriginal cultural significance.
An awareness program for prospectors about the Mining Act changes.
More ways to keep mining claims in good standing.
New early exploration requirements to help minimize the impact on the environment.
The rules were developed in close partnership with industry stakeholders and Aboriginal representatives and take effect on Nov. 1, 2012. These changes will help ensure that mineral exploration and development in Ontario continues to occur in a balanced, socially and environmentally responsible manner.
Supporting a sustainable mining sector is part of the McGuinty government's plan to create jobs for Ontarians, create opportunities for Aboriginal communities and strengthen the economy.
The first phase of Mining Act changes came into effect in 2011 and included the mandatory notification of private landowners at staking, and the introduction of paper staking in southern Ontario.
In 2011, exploration spending reached a record $1 billion in Ontario, accounting for 26 per cent of the national total.
There are over 600 active mineral exploration projects in Ontario.
Ontario accounts for over 25 per cent of mining jobs in Canada, with the mining industry creating over 27,500 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs in the province.
About modernization of Ontario's Mining Act
Read about New rules under Ontario's Mining Act
"We've brought a 100-year-old piece of legislation into the 21st century. Through these regulations, as well as our ongoing work with industry and Aboriginal communities, we can all ensure Ontario continues to be a leading jurisdiction for mineral exploration investment for decades to come."
Rick Bartolucci
Minister of Northern Development and Mines
"These changes will ensure Aboriginal communities are appropriately notified and consulted throughout critical points in the mining sequence, from early exploration to mine closure. This will help industry and Aboriginal communities to build positive relationships and ensure respect for Aboriginal and treaty rights as well as the protection of sites of Aboriginal cultural significance."
Minister of Aboriginal Affairs
"The Ontario Mining Association appreciates the consultative and focused approach to the development of new Mining Act regulations. Ontario competes with other jurisdictions for mining investment, and a clearly defined regulatory environment is critical to ensuring the province continues as a mining leader."
Chris Hodgson
Ontario Mining Association
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This document was published on October 03, 2012 and is provided for archival and research purposes.


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51½°N
If today's stretch of the 51½th line of latitude were 500 metres further north, it'd run from Tower Bridge to the Royal Festival Hall. Instead it slips through the minor backstreets of Southwark, missing almost everything of interest, for which I apologise in advance. [map] [photos]
Bermondsey Street [51.5°N 0.081°W]
How hip is Bermondsey Street? Not at its northern end, where it slinks beneath London Bridge station, but down here winding through the becalmed historic heart of Bermondsey proper. Time Out are hyper for the place, evangelising especially about the food and drink options, but also the retained artsy craftsy vibe. 51½°N sweeps in across Tanner Street Park, around half of which is tennis courts, and well-used tennis courts at that. The remainder is mostly grass and path, where creative types come to recharge, students skim through their college notes and well-dressed women follow behind tiny pugs with plastic bags poised. What looks like a cafe in the corner is more of a restaurant, with pre-booked tables and a wine list, so Al's Cafe on the main street is a better bet. A shop called Lovely and British promises Eclectic British Sourced Lifestyle Shopping, and is shelved with stuff nobody genuinely needs, which doesn't stop it being busy. The average age of those hereabouts looks to be below average, while the average income looks to be above average, in sharp contrast to the slice of Southwark we're passing through next.
I'm peeved because the White Cube gallery isn't quite on my invisible line, so I have an existential debate with myself about whether 51.4998°N really counts. It's only ten metres out, and if my smartphone were less accurate it'd be reading 51.500°N anyway. I decide no, it doesn't count, but go in anyway. I enjoy the latest exhibition, Memory Palace, more than I expected. The themes it's hanging off are tenuous, but some of the artwork is challenging and splendid, and I spend far too long looking at Jac Leirners collage of 1980s regional advertising. Best of all there's a new-ish Christian Marclay film to enjoy, a 24 minute decontextualised splicing of movie scenes depicting the destruction of art, and it totally hyped me up for next month at the Tate.
The Borough [51.5°N]
The next kilometre is the dull stretch I hinted at earlier. I'm expecting a lot of this kind of thing out west, but wasn't expecting to experience it quite so close to the South Bank. It turns out northern Southwark has an entrenched residential/commercial underbelly of housing estates, backstreets and minor office blocks, as if the primeness of the location has been overlooked simply because it's south of the river.
The Leather Market [51.5°N 0.085°W] once housed true craftspeople, but now hosts recruitment consultants, marketing executives and novelty wellness engineers. The stark terraced flats of the Lockyer Estate [51.5°N 0.086°W] have an unavoidably undernourished feel. On the Kipling Estate, Richer Sounds Head Office [51.5°N 0.089°W] is a peculiar bastion of modern infill, opposite an LCC block where a council operative is strimming round the pear trees. The Royal Oak [51.5°N 0.091°W] is a traditional Victorian boozer serving Sussex ales, and a highly recommended watering hole, but I'm too early to get behind the net curtains. Lighthouse-keepers Trinity House own a lot of land alongside Borough High Street, which is why Avon Place [51.5°N 0.094°W] has a bicentennial mural along its length featuring Henry VIII, osteopathy and a fox chewing a brake cable.
Scovell Estate [51.5°N 0.098°W]
Here's an oddity off Great Suffolk Street, an entirely atypical council estate built by Southwark's architects in the 1970s. Long blocks of totally lowrise housing run along pedestrianised walkways decorated with pot plants and hanging baskets, with a few garages hidden out of sight out of mind. Many residents have little back gardens, with gate access to one of the mini streetlets, and some actually own bungalows. You see this kind of development further out from the city centre, but here we're less than a mile from Westminster Bridge or the Bank of England, so it all feels delightfully parochial. I don't think residents are used to many cut-through visitors, though. A lady out chatting to her neighbour has to break off ("Olly!") to stop her Jack Russell ("Olly! Olly!!") from chasing after me ("Olly! Olly!! Olly!!!"), and my presence leaves both quite perturbed.
Blackfriars Road [51.5°N 0.105°W]
Nearly, not quite at St George's Circus, the foot of Blackfriars Road is in flux. The old BT offices at Erlang House have been demolished, and in their place has arisen Blackfriars Circus, a large Barratt development whose last penthouse apartments are currently up for sale for between £1m-£2½m. The ground floor retail/restaurant units have yet to be filled, apart from a Tesco Express, whose delivery lorry has decided not to park in the bay provided and is blocking the single southbound carriageway. There used to be two lanes, but one has been sacrificed to a smart whizzy Cycle Superhighway on the other side of the road, the two-way nature of which throws me when I walk out into it without looking. Thankfully no Super Cycles were incoming.
Facing Blackfriars Circus is a completely different approach to housing, in plain London brick rather than some fancy variegated palette. Peabody Square is a Victorian collection of four-storey tenement blocks, each with a central porch, and each of these topped off with a keystone flourish depicting a letter of the alphabet. Blocks A to R run clockwise around the first great courtyard, now filled with a micro-playground, while a second quadrangle juts off from the rear. It's quiet and human in scale, admittedly concierge-free, but I'm sure most residents are happier to pay less rent rather than have a suave clerk to sign off their Amazon packages. A plaque confirms that the Queen Mother visited in 1962 to mark the centenary of the George Peabody Donation Fund. Expect Blackfriars Circus to be demolished long before any royal curtain-tugger drops by.
Lower Marsh [51.5°N 0.114°W]
Just briefly, let's do Lambeth. Lower Marsh is a beloved market street, technically a conservation area but very much a treasure in transition. Several quirky old businesses survive - the Olympic Cafe has a slew of photos of its Chinese menu across its window, and Top Wind is a flute shop whose retro frontage seemingly hasn't changed since it opened in 1991. But elsewhere are blatant incomers, like Waffle Doodle-Doo and Vaulty Towers, and heaven knows how anyone gained planning permission for the geometric white condo at the western end of the street. All the street vendors serve from identikit stalls in Olympic ring colours, with tables alongside to enable rapid guzzling. Don't expect hot dogs, it's more Taste of Morocco/Falafel Wrap/Newdlez.com kind of line-up. I greatly approve of Barbarellas cafe because one of the things advertised on its shopfront is panini, plural. The beggar sitting crosslegged outside the Co-Op is busy reading a book, obliviously hoping that passers-by drop coins into his empty popcorn tub.
At the far end of Lower Marsh the multiple tracks heading out of Waterloo station cover a large portion of Westminster Bridge Road. It's gloomy under there. Only four of Waterloo's platforms extend far enough to just cross the line of 51.5°N, and they're the former Eurostar platforms so are currently out of commission.
St Thomas' Hospital [51.5°N 0.118°W]
I've ended up at London's most central hospital, thankfully of my own volition. Entrance to the site is on two levels, a concrete walkway for independent visitors and a canyon below for all kinds of ambulance. One neonatal carrier from the Kent coast has seemingly come a heck of a long way. Inpatients has recently been relocated to Gassiot House, alongside the Pain Management Unit. I watch as a member of staff, downgraded from her receptionist role by automation, politely tells a checker-in that they may have to press harder because the touchscreens "can be a bit temperamental sometimes". Beneath my feet is the Florence Nightingale Museum, which I had been planning to pop inside because it's the first museum I've encountered on the 51½th parallel. Instead I transfer that baton to Ian Visits, because he's just published a review of the place, saving me the need to go round again.
The Hospital Gardens provide a chance to escape the wards for staff and patients alike, for example the nurse who walks past shepherding an old man in pyjamas. Other orderlies are grabbing a bite to eat around the new statue of Mary Seacole, or wandering off site completely for a cigarette. Someone medical-looking is breastfeeding her baby while she takes lunch. Caution, the water in the fountain is impregnated with chemicals. A new plaque reveals that Searle's Boathouse, first home of the Leander Club, was established here in 1818. A siren wails as another arrival pulls in down below. Once again I'm hugely impressed by the NHS's compassionate ambition (and equally despairing of an official poster I spot on a wall by the ambulance park praising the valued contribution of "Siemens Healthineers").
The point on the Albert Embankment where 51.5°N launches off across the Thames is marked, coincidentally, by the memorial plaque to the victims of Human BSE (vCJD). The spot is very popular with tourists, who like to place one or more of the group against or on the river wall and take photos with Westminster's gothic turrets immediately behind. Westminster Bridge is very close by, along the line of 51.501°N, but I've come on the one day passage is sealed off by a strip of blue and white tape, two police cars, several clustered officers and at least one wielded weapon.I will get across the river to continue my latitude quest, but alas a screwball in a Ford Fiesta got there first.
WESTMINSTER;


For exact reasons still unknown, vitiligo is a skin condition caused due to the loss of pigmentation which causes discoloration of the skin.
Melanocytes are skin cells that impart color to our skin by producing a pigment melanin.When these cells die or are destroyed, the corresponding lack of melanin causes vitiligo.
Some less common areas include hairs, inner eye and inside mouth.
Lack of awareness or perhaps a need to recover soon may compel a vitiligo patient to take conventional treatments which though may seem promising initially but may cause several side effects later.
The conventional treatments may contain topical corticosteroid therapy, immunomodulators, Psoralen Plus Ultraviolet A [PUVA], Narrow Band Ultraviolet B[UVB] therapy, Grafting, laser, etc all of which have reported cases of side effects including an increased vulnerability to sunlight, itching, dryness, digestive issues, aging, skin cancer, shrinkage, sores, etc..
It is not only about the skin issues one faces but also the social embarrassment and disturbed psychological state that requires significant attention in vitiligo treatment. Unfortunately, conventional medicines don't consider this aspect which in time starts affecting the patients' psyche so much that they can lose hope.
Is vitiligo curable in Homeopathy?
Homeopathy, serve as a natural cure for vitiligo as the remedies are all natural, safe and non-addictive.
Dilution and succussion are what makes homeopathic remedies free from any side effects.
The re-pigmentation of the discolored patches is done using homeopathic medicines made from all natural ingredients such as plants, herbs, animals, nosodes, etc.
Though vitiligo is a skin condition which cannot be eliminated entirely by any treatment but it can be managed well under the guidance of an expert homeopathic practitioner.
So, if you have patience and want a long lasting relief with no side effects, homeopathy is the best option for you.
Also a homeopath gives importance not just on your physical state but also to your mental and psycho-social state.
During your consultation, a homeopath may also ask some other questions which help her in prescribing you with the right remedies for maximum effectiveness.
As remedies prescribed may vary as per individual requirement, we are providing here only a generalized list of remedies. Do consult a homeopath before self medicating these remedies.
Having a vitiligo condition whereby the milky white skin patches are surrounded by dark borders, Calcarea carb is prescribed.
It is a popular constitutional remedy given to patients with specific symptoms such as perspiration, intolerance to cold, getting fatigued easily, constipation and obesity.
Silicea is a popular homeopathic remedy to treat vitiligo and belongs to a special class of homeopathic therapies known as nosodes.
This homeopathic remedy is very effective to treat deep-rooted fear and beliefs. Most people who have a fear or lack of confidence are prescribed with this remedy.
Also, the patients who are more prone to catch a cold easily can take it.
Extremely effective homeopathic remedy. Used to treat a variety of skin, mental, digestive and other body system disorders.
This is a very potent remedy being prepared from the cancerous tissues of the breast and is helpful to treat the diseases at the genetic level itself.
Here, by capturing just the healing powers the active substance the poisonous effect is entirely removed. This ability of carcinosin to heal the diseases at the genetic makeup level makes it a very potent constitutional remedy for vitiligo.
One of the essential minerals of our body is phosphorus and serve as a homeopathic remedy to treat a variety of ailments/diseases.
Apart from raising the inner vitality, it also serves to provide relief from the burning and itching sensation that might come up with skin ailments.
Nitricum acidum is a very beneficial constitutional remedy to treat the vitiligo. It is also used to treat the bones, nerves, gastric issues, etc.
The above is the list of most common remedies for vitiligo and may differ for each patient. In that case, we recommend you to consult a well-trained homeopathic doctor who can set the right prescription for you.
Homeopathic medicines for vitiligo are all safe and natural, yet the exact remedy needed , its frequency, dosage required and finally the overall symptomatic picture can be well suggested by a homeopath.
So, before opting for self-medication do consult a well-trained homeopath who will best analyze your case study (consultation session) so that the doses are such that the healing time is reduced.
If you still have any doubts or queries, leave me a message at info@RChomeopathy.com.au and I will get back to you soon.


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Life in A Day of House
← Thursday 31 May 2012
Saturday 02 June 2012 →
Posted on June 2, 2012 by house78
I'd be lying if I said I was revolted by The Queen. Or, to put it another way: I am not in danger of revolting against The Queen. I am also not a royalist.
There are certainly people knocking about that a ferverent republicans and want rid of the royals like yesterday, man. I am more on their side than I am the royalists, but I think they should just be slowly faded out. Are they pointless? No. They certainly bring in massive amounts of tourists and do some cracking PR for England around the world. But they are expensive. But they bring in a lot of money. But they don't pay tax. But they do. But it's volunteered and only done on private income. But the public income is massives and the expenditure is far outweighed by it. Etc
You know The Queen has the right to ownership of any beached whale? That must have been one for the small claims court before the law was created.
A lot of people have been saying some mean stuff about her building up to and during this, her jubilee year. I have seen stuff on Twitter comparing her to a dictator. Which seems a bit of a stretch. I suppose it was inevitable that for every street party there would be someone saying "oh she's a bit rubbish" and worse things – that seem to get a bit personal if you ask me, which no-one did. I don't mind people pointing out, as I read yesterday, that (allegedly) The Queen has never used the word gay publically and that she has never spoken out in support of the rights of homosexuals. The former made me think she has clearly never had to differentiate between which Kray was Ronnie and which was Reggie; the latter I wasn't too concerned with. And then I was because she should probably have done that, I would like everyone to do that so I don't see why she shouldn't. Maybe she resents her title being used to describe ostentatious transvestites, she should get over it if that's her reason.
I am all for the right to protest. I think legitimate protest is a cornerstone of a democratic society. But sometimes, mainly when I am tired, I just think can't we just let one thing happen without someone hijacking it by criticising the thing being celebrated or trying to say everyone should prefer something else? People who don't like something or don't believe in something are often obsessed with other people agreeing with their disagreement. Mainly I think dissenting voices are a good thing but just sometimes I wish everyone else in the fucking world would just fuck off and die just because they can't accept that no-one can agree on everything and they never will: I can't stop millions of people being impressed by a dog tricks so why drive myself mad going on about it? [I realise this renders most of the previous 550 blogs extremely hypocritical, but I am a fucking hypocrite you dicks.]
Some Tweets
Well I thought they were funny…
An inside source tells me Roy Hodgson is delivering all communication to players in iambic pentameter.
— Philip Bridgehouse (@house78) June 1, 2012
Source also revealed that the non-playing squad members plan to do some flashmob dance routines around people taking throw-ins.
Entertainment in the evenings has been provided by Stewart Downing MCing over beats provided by Phil Jones.
Andy Carroll has also been doing 15-minutes of stand-up every night, described as very Woody Allen.
Gary Neville's nightly football quiz has proved popular as well. Though Neville has made attendance compulsory.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged politics, small claims court, society, yesterday man. Bookmark the permalink.
Does anyone else hate audience participation (haha, I would be funny if I had an audience) at the start of podcasts… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 days ago
@elleaitchtee You bloody would 6 days ago
(And of course walking slowly behind dog walkers who make no effort to be remotely thoughtful) 6 days ago
I am sure I annoy people as a runner to be fair. Always going on the road so as not to make pedestrians uncomfortab… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 6 days ago
But the ones who do tend be 10+ years older than me (so old) and 100% are white (but I live in Stockport so...and a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 6 days ago
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Virgin Hotels Las Vegas Opening Celebration Headlined by Christina Aguilera
Posted on: June 8, 2021, 02:24h.
Last updated on: June 30, 2021, 10:35h.
Devin O'Connor Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Novelty Betting, Politics.
Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, the former Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, opened in March to little fanfare because of ongoing limitations caused by the pandemic. But with most restrictions now lifted, and Las Vegas returning to its typical Vegas ways, Virgin is ready to properly celebrate the off-Strip casino resort's reincarnation.
Christina Aguilera is seen at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The pop star is headlining this weekend's bash at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. (Image: Getty)
Beginning this Thursday, June 10, and running through the weekend, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is reveling in what it's calling an "Unstopped Weekend Celebration." The four-day party kicks off with Christina Aguilera headlining a concert that will include performances by Flo Rida and Mix Master Mike.
Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire business magnate who founded the Virgin Group in the 1970s, is also set to be on hand. Richard Bosworth, president and CEO of the casino resort's ownership group — JC Hospitality — says such a party couldn't have been held in March.
We wanted vibrancy. We wanted a party. And we wanted it to be safe," Bosworth told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "We felt it would have been irresponsible to have that level of a party when you had to have anywhere from three- to six-foot social distancing, or 75 percent capacity, or no dancing."
Bosworth says Branson will make a grand entrance. "That's his surprise. He doesn't even share it with me," Bosworth explained.
Weekend Lineup
Tickets for the Aguilera-headlined concert start at $49, plus taxes and fees. For floor admission with a complimentary bar package, the rate is $99.
Friday, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas will unveil its Elia Beach Club. The Mykonos-themed beach venue will debut with Sofi Tukker and Sam Blacky. General admission is $40, with cabanas running up to $5,000.
On Saturday night, Virgin will host a Top Rank boxing match between 2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson against challenger Jeremiah Nakathila. Stevenson is the heavy favorite, DraftKings, Unibet, and BetRivers all having him at -5000. On those odds, a winning $100 bet nets just $2.
Virgin's "Unstoppable Weekend" stops Sunday night with a celebratory "shutdown party" at Money, Baby!, which the casino dubs as "Vegas's newest adult playground." The venue features sports betting and interactive games.
Room rates aren't cheap at Virgin this weekend. For a standard room for this Friday to Sunday, the two-night stay will cost $873.03. The rate is inclusive of taxes. Virgin Las Vegas is one of the rare casinos in town that does not impose a resort fee on hotel guests.
Property on Market?
Though it only recently opened as Virgin, a leading blogger is reporting that the casino resort might already be up for sale. Scott Roeben, who runs Vital Vegas, reported on the rumblings this week.
Word is Virgin Las Vegas is being shopped for a potential sale.
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) June 6, 2021
Roeben said that while the resort's makeover was well done, the property's location obviously wasn't something that could be changed. Virgin Las Vegas is located east of the Strip along Harmon Avenue.
Few pedestrians are willing to make the nearly one-mile trek in the Nevada desert from the Strip to Virgin.
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10 de December de 2018 by juliana brina
Perhaps freedom has no meaning
Dear Iris,
The Unicorn (1963) is a tale of imprisonment in a shared fantasy, where the cages, rotating on a blank axle, are full of longing.
When the story opens, Marian Taylor, a thirty-something school teacher, is coming to a country house located in a remote area on the west coast of Ireland. Having answered an advertisement for working as a governess in Gaze Castle, Marian believes she has been hired to be a tutor for children. However, she soon discovers that she is to work as a companion of the lady of the house, the mysterious Hannah Crean-Smith.
As Marian becomes gradually entangled in the house's strange pattern of lies and mysteries, she starts to suspect that Hannah is being kept a prisoner by her estranged husband, Peter Crean-Smith, who has been away from Gaze Castle for seven years. Perhaps, Marian has been hired, in a way, just as another of Hannah's jailers.
Through the estate's clerk, Denis Nolan, Marian learns that Peter has been an absent, unfaithful, and probably abusive husband. During one of his travels, Hannah had an affair with the neighbour, Philip "Pip" Lejour. One day, having arrived home unexpectedly, Peter caught the couple together and, after an ensuing struggle with Hannah, he fell from a cliff. Badly injured, Peter moved to New York to pursue an affair with a man, and imprisoned Hannah in Gaze Castle as punishment, leaving the house in the hands of Gerald Scottow, his former lover.
Gerald is a handsome man, who seems both to attract and repel each character in a different way. In his task of controlling Gaze Castle, he is assisted by the teenager Jamesie and the spinster Violet Evercreech, two distant poor relations of Hannah. Marian is told that, after having tried to free Hannah one day, Jamesie was whipped into submission by Gerald, and ended up by becoming… his lover.
The only contact of Gaze Castle with the world outside is provided by the neighbours at Riders. Max Lejour, Pip Lejour's father, is a former Philosophy professor who is writing a never-ending book on Plato. Alice, his daughter, is a middle-aged woman caught in an unrequited love for Effingham Cooper, a successful public servant who had been Max's pupil and, since then, comes every year to visit him (and to court Hannah, for whom he is in love).
From the beginning, we feel that there is something off with this place and its inhabitants: they seem to be under a strange spell, woven into Gaze Castle's mysterious tapestry, and as imprisoned by it as Hannah herself. All seem to be waiting for something magical to happen, after the end of the seven years of punishment; and all seem to be bewitched by the lady of the house: "Hannah makes romantics of us all". Moreover, it is not clear who is the prisoner of whom; is Hannah a victim or an executioner? Is she in love with her jailer? Did she really try to kill Peter? By attempting to answer those questions, we become prisoners of Gaze Castle's pattern, too.
This feeling is accentuated by the novel's delicious Gothic atmosphere: the remote setting, surrounded by lonely moors, a deadly bog, and dangerous cliffs, lashed by a violent sea; the labyrinthic house full of dark rooms, lit by oil lamps and candles; the ethereal figure of Hannah, a prisoner surrounded by mirrors, who may or may not be a mad woman in the attic. In Gaze Castle, we feel as if we were entering a world of elemental passions, magic, and violence, where the limits between reality and fantasy are somewhat blurred. Also, we are not sure to what extent we are imagining things here: is the place really haunted, or are we led to think so, by becoming a part of it? It feels as if you were probing how far you can weave the reader into the tapestry of the book.
The unicorn in the title is a symbol for a sacrificial figure, "a pure being who only suffers and does not attempt to pass the suffering on". At first, it is tempting to read it as a representation of Hannah, a magical, lonely beast with a strange power to enchant everyone around her; a thing of beauty made captive of everyone's desires, like a blank slate where each character projects what he or she most needs. Is Hannah a victim in need of protection? Or an executioner in need of its victims? The enchanter and the enchanted? A saint or an egotist? A martyr or a madwoman? The unicorn in a cage or the cage itself? Whatever the characters come to seek in Hannah, they end up by only finding what they had set out to find in the first place – and, ultimately, they find themselves. Or, rather, we find them.
Another reading of the image of the unicorn, however, would be to conflate it with the idea of freedom – a value that either is to be sacrificed so as to make the pattern hold together; or that only is truly achieved by the destruction of the pattern itself. If it is true that both Marian and Effingham desire to free the lady of the house from her cage, they do so precisely because they are prisoners of their own thoughts about what Hannah is or should be; they are impelled more by their own fantasies of freedom than by a reckoning with the reality of Hannah. As you write about Effingham, "he had not really loved Hannah, he loved a dream figure which he had been able to superimpose upon her".
For them, she has become an object of contemplation, an emblem of suffering. Marian and Effingham are as imprisoned by their own fantasies about Hannah as she is: more than a prisoner of Gaze Castle, she is a prisoner of other people's ideas about her. Whoever attempts to free the lady of the house will never be able to give her any freedom, and will only lose his own in the meantime: "The soul under the burden of sin cannot flee. What is enacted here with her is enacted with all of us in one way or another. You cannot come between her and her suffering, it is too complicated, too precious, we must play her game, whatever it is, and believe her beliefs. That is all we can do for her."
Hannah's cage, when open, will prove to be even more violent than when it was locked, for the escape and the freedom this opening entails. No one can free Hannah, as much as no one can free the woman in the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries: she is the pattern of her own suffering; she feeds on her captivity. Likewise, only the destruction of the pattern – and thereby Hannah's own destruction – can make the other characters free.
Maybe the image of the unicorn stands not for the value of freedom itself, but for that without which no freedom is possible: the idea of goodness, as discussed by one of the characters, the recluse Max Lejour. In a conversation with his former pupil, Effingham, Max argues that goodness frees oneself from pain by taking it all in, and refusing to pass it on: pain and guilt are transferred from one person to another, until they reach a truly good person who refuses to pass them on to others. Once Hannah agrees to destroy the pattern on which the people around her were caught, she takes on the suffering, so as to free them; she breaks their fantasies, and, by doing so, she makes herself real to them: "she is gone, and now we can all see each other again."
In The Bell (1958), you wrote: "Violence is an escape from oneself." You claim that true moral experience is marked by the ability to pay attention to contingency, to see the reality of other people: the highest form of moral vision is love. As long as one is deluded by fantasies – for instance, fantasies about what Hannah represents, or about what one is in relation to her -, self-knowledge collapses, and it is impossible to see and love others: violence is the result of this escape from the reality of others and of oneself.
Locked in one's own fantasies about other people, one gives up the realm of contingency in the name of necessity; and, in this sense, gives up the sole realm where goodness and freedom are possible. Once the characters are brought back to reality by means of tragedy, they are forced to confront their own fantasies about each other – and so are we, as readers of those fantasies.
The characters are thrown into contingency: they seem to be emerging from a dream. We cannot help but to have the feeling that, soon, they will be weaving each other into another tapestry pattern again. But, for now, they are just that: unique things, like images peeling off from a painting, finally meeting one another.
Detail from The Lady & the Unicorn, c.1495
"There are things which are appalling to young people because young people think life should be happy and free. But life is never really happy and free in any beautiful sense. Happiness is a weak and paltry thing and perhaps"freedom" has no meaning. There are great patterns in which we are involved, and destinies which belong to us and which we love even in the moment when they destroy us." ― Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn
Love holds the world together, and if we could forget ourselves everything in the world would fly into a perfect harmony, and when we see beautiful things that is what they remind us of." ― Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn
Vintage Classics, 2001, 270 p. Goodreads
My rating: 4 stars
I read this book for the Iris Murdoch Readalong
Posted in Scarlet LettersTagged Betrayal, character study, Family, Favourite, Ireland, Iris Murdoch, Mental health, Modern Classics, Morality, Novel, Philosophical novel
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2 thoughts on "Perhaps freedom has no meaning"
10 de December de 2018 at 22:24
This sounds so intriguing. I've never read Murdoch but I really like the sound of this.
This is my favourite of hers so far, Cathy! 🙂


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Obesity Crisis: Why the Military is Sounding Off On Young People's Waistlines
ByFrank Hagler
The United States military has begun releasing military personnel for being physically unfit. According to the Washington Post, the number of military personnel considered obese or overweight has tripled over the past 12years. WaPo said that in 2010, a report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center found that 5.3% of the force received at least one clinical diagnosis as overweight or obese. Dismissals have noticeably increased since the government began drawing down its troops in Iraq, and some of have speculated that this is part of a larger effort to reduce the number of active personnel. The Army, for example, is under orders to reduce the "active-duty force from 570,000 to 490,000 by 2017" and one way to do that is to "weed out substandard troops."
Beyond cutting troop numbers, the effort to remove physically unfit military personnel has brought into sharp attention the growing problem of obesity in American youth, a problem which may plague the military for years to come.
The growing trend of unfit youth, particularly among minorities, should be of great concern for the military. Minorities, particularly Latinos, are the fastest-growing demographic in America, and it is likely that it is the population that will be called upon to staff our military in the next generation. Young people, particularly minorities, have to get in shape if they expect to join and stay in the military and protect the country. WaPo notes that "obesity is the leading cause of ineligibility for people who want to join the Army," which the military considers a "national security concern."
The military is one of the oldest and most honorable professions in mankind. It is even more honorable when a man or woman volunteers to serve their country by joining the military. What can be nobler than to volunteer to defend and die for your country?
The military offers many advantages. As an organization, it is large and complex, but the one common denominator is they need you to be a physically fit soldier. Regardless of your skill set, you are always first and foremost a soldier. Have you ever wondered why in most movies or television shows regardless of the specialty skill the soldiers are always fit and able? It is because it is a requirement, and the military wants its personnel fit and able to fight. It is because of this basic requirement that the military has begun to crack down on "unsat" soldiers. No more jelly belly fatties allowed in service.
Physical fitness has always been a requirement for service personnel. However, as the need for bodies grew due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military relaxed its standards and accepted and retained service personnel who could not meet the basic physical fitness requirement. Navy SEAL and fitness expert Stew Smith told the Washington Post "during a war period, when we were ramping up, the physical standards didn't have a lot of teeth because we needed bodies to go overseas, to fill platoons and brigades."
Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who was in charge of upgrading the Army's training program, said "75% of civilians who wanted to join the force were ineligible" because of obesity. He went on to say that "of the 25% that could join, what we found was 65% could not pass the [physical training] test on the first day. Young people joining our service could not run, jump, tumble or roll — the kind of things you would expect soldiers to do if you're in combat."
This reflects the general poor health of young people throughout America. Regardless of the advancements in sports technology and the ever-expanding physical fitness market, the young appear to be in pretty poor shape relative to other periods in history. While medical science and advancements in agricultural science have us living longer, they can't make us run, jump or tumble.
We spend most of our time on the web, playing videos and texting. Citing a Kaiser Family Foundation Study, the Centers for Disease Control said that "children 8—18 years of age spend an average of 7.5 hours a day using entertainment media, including TV, computers, video games, cell phones, and movies." We are spending less and less time doing anything remotely physical and working up a sweat means "actually sweating." We will probably spend more time discussing which gym to join, what exercise program or guru to follow and discuss and what apparel to wear than we actually spend working out.
The Centers for Disease Control found that "more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) and approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese." Furthermore they found that obesity is extremely high among non-Hispanic Blacks (49.5%), Mexican Americans (40.4%), and all Hispanics (39.1%). Among non-Hispanic whites they found the obesity rate to be 34.3%. The CDC said one-third of the country over the age of 20 is overweight.
And, unsurprisingly, the military reflects these trends. The Washington Post reports that this year the U.S. Army has increased the number of soldiers discharged for being out of shape by 16 times over the number released in 2007. The number of discharges in the U.S. Navy has grown by 40%.
The military makes it relatively easy to pass the physical requirements. For example, in the US Navy, you have to fail the Physical Fitness Assessment twice in the last seven tries and fail to pass any portion of the assessment on the third test before being automatically expelled from the service. The military also provides help for soldiers struggling with the fitness requirements. The Army "Weigh to Stay" program provides weight training and nutritional guidance for soldiers who have been flagged for being out of shape. The mandatory weight management program can be completed in person or online.
But given problems with obesity amongst young people, replacement personnel may be difficult to come by. The 38th annual Population Representation in the Military Services Fiscal Year 2010 found that "although the overall youth population is large, only a relatively small proportion of American youth is qualified to enlist. Over one-third of youth (35%) have a medical disqualification, with obesity a large contributing factor." According to the report, 45% of all applicants are 18-19, the number of minorities enlisting is growing faster than its population, and the Census Bureau found that this year was the first in which the majority of births occurred in the minority community.
Young people, particularly those interested in a military career, have to put down the game pads and smartphones. They have to stop playing Farmville and eat better and they have to stop playing Madden Football and go outside and play some football.


The Corcovado National Park is a 42,469-hectare park located in the southwestern corner of the Peninsula de Osa. It is composed of eight distinct habitats that range from mangrove swamps, primary rainforest, secondary rainforest, low altitude cloud forest, and sandy coastlines. These habitats support a diverse wildlife population that includes Costa Rica's largest population of scarlet macaws and other endangered species such as the giant anteater, the harpy eagle, white-lipped peccary, jaguars, and Baird's tapir. These qualities earned it the label of "the most biologically intense place on earth" from National Geographic. It also has the distinction of being the last great tract of tropical rainforest in Pacific Central America.
The park remains remote to general tourism but is open to the adventure travelers who are willing to travel the distance to get there and experience its natural beauty. Backpackers generally flock there to swim in desert beaches, hike through the rainforest, and bathe under waterfalls.
One can go there by taking the bus, ferry, or airplane. The 699 Puerto Jimenez and 612 Golfito buses have daily departures from San Jose. Travel time straight to Puerto Jimenez will take ten hours, while to Golfito will take eight hours. The ferry from Golfito to Puerto Jimenez usually takes around an hour and a half. Traveling by air is an option but is very expensive compared to land travel.
It is possible to stay overnight in the park as there are camping areas with portable water supply. The six ranger stations located inside the park are equipped with radio and telephone. Camping equipment is available for rent or there is also the option of staying at one of the bunkhouses. Reservations for camping or staying at the bunkhouses are made at the administrative headquarters east of Puerto Jimenez. The town of Puerto Jimenez also offers inexpensive accommodations as well as bicycle, kayak and horse rentals.


Grilled chicken strips, Monterey Jack cheese, chipotle sauce, mixed peppers and red onions served on focaccia bread.
Grilled chicken strips, Monterey Jack cheese, BBQ sauce, mixed peppers and red onions served on focaccia bread.
Grilled steak strips, Monterey Jack cheese, chipotle sauce, mixed peppers and red onions served on grilled focaccia bread.
Grilled chicken strips, Monterey Jack cheese, pesto sauce, mixed peppers, low fat mayo, and red onions served on grilled focaccia bread.