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V.V. Brown visits The Recording Academy for 5 Questions With…
Photo: The Recording Academy
V.V. Va-Voom
Energetic R&B singer/songwriter V.V. Brown visited The Recording Academy headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 29 for a performance and an installment of 5 Questions With…, a new Academy series designed to engage recording artists and professionals on a variety of topics.
Through five simple questions, Brown provided a glimpse into who she is as a person and artist. With influences ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to the Sex Pistols (with the obvious bridge of Grace Jones in between), Brown describes herself as a creative person, which she means literally. In addition to writing and performing her own work, she has also produced a comic book and is currently working on a novel.
Born Vanessa Brown in England, she began her career co-writing the Pussycat Dolls' "I Don't Need A Man" for their 2005 PCD album. Her debut single "Whipped" appeared on the soundtrack for the NBC TV series "Las Vegas," billed as Vanessa Brown. As a solo artist, she emerged as V.V. Brown, a genre-bending R&B singer with roll-up bangs and a novel approach to music that puts her in a similar camp to another noteworthy new star, Janelle Monáe. Her debut album, Travelling Like The Light, is an adventurous hybrid of soul, rock and pop ripe with fresh sounds and attitude.
Asked about her biggest career moment to date, Brown said, "Today…to be sitting here at The Recording Academy itself for me is a massive big dream." Oh, and hanging out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, of course.
More 5 Questions With... video: V.V. Brown, Jakob Dylan, Alejandro Fernández, Florence + The Machine, Rosi Golan, K'Naan, John Legend, Bruno Mars, Janelle Monáe, and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart


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From the book The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill. © 2009 by Gwen Ifill. Posted by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc..
chapter three
baRack obaMa
If you were to get a handbook on what's the path to the presidency, I don't think that the handbook would start by saying, "Be an African American named Barack Obama." —Barack Obama
Two events in the course of Barack Obama's tumultuous twenty-one-month campaign for president stand as testament to the clashing impulses of race and politics. One occurred on a bitterly cold morning in Atlanta, Georgia, the other on a perfect balmy evening in Denver, Colorado.
A light snow dusted rooftops and a thin sheen of ice coated the reflecting pool at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site on Auburn Avenue the January day Obama arrived. This was unusual weather in the Deep South, and all across town, churches canceled Sunday morning services. But not at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Not on the King holiday weekend.
Obama, who almost exactly one year later would be sworn in as the nation's first African American president, had an appointment that day in Dr. King's pulpit—or at least in the new version of it. The congregation at Ebenezer now worshiped in a soaring, modern sanctuary directly across the street from the old red brick church, which still stands. The future president laid a wreath on the graves of Martin and his wife, Coretta, who are buried next door.
Obama had come to Atlanta, a city where every other downtown street seems to be named after peaches or 1960s civil rights leaders, to pay his respects. Just the night before, Hillary Clinton had beaten him like a drum in the Nevada Democratic caucuses, and he was in need of reassurance. The warm and welcoming Sunday morning crowd was eager to supply it.
Two thousand worshipers filled the sanctuary to the rafters. Hundreds more who could not get in braved the frigid weather outside to listen via loudspeakers. Here was the familiar: an African American candidate for office entering a sanctuary while a choir sang James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Negro national anthem. (Bill Clinton famously knew every word of every verse.) Next the candidate and the ministers clasped hands as the congregation swayed and joined in the full-throated singing of "We Shall Overcome." The choir, surrounding the candidate on three sides and draped in kente cloth, broke into the rollicking gospel song "Victory Is Mine": I told Satan, get thee behind; victory today is mine.
"We don't take this pulpit lightly," the Reverend Raphael G. Warnock said as he introduced Obama. "We invited this brother because he's committed, he's brilliant. He has a spiritual foundation. And he is the embodiment of the American dream. Regardless of whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, when you think about the long history of America, Barack Obama makes us proud."
Congregants, crammed into every seat on the floor and the balcony, all but willed the young senator to bring them to their feet. But the candidate had other things in mind. This sermon would not be about race. Not exactly.
"Unity is the great need of the hour," he told the worshipers. "It is the great need of this hour as well. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country."
Then Obama slipped into what would become a running theme when he addressed black audiences: spreading the blame around. "All of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays—on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system," he said. "And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community."
This was classic Obama. When given the chance to talk about race in the ways most expected to hear, he resisted. Race was worth talking about, he thought, but only in the context of broader issues. You would never catch this black man with his fist in the air.
"The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things," he said, referring to the March on Washington. "They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred. But what the people heard instead—people of every creed and color, from every walk of life—is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one."
This too was classic Obama. He did not deny his race, but he generally didn't bring it up either. You had to look in the pages of his acclaimed autobiography, Dreams from My Father, to learn about his admiration for Malcolm X and his collegiate flirtation with black activism. But the book also held these words: "My identity might begin with the fact of my race," he wrote. "But it didn't, couldn't end there."1
Obama and his advisers decided early that he was not going to win the presidency by playing up his race. Those who would be drawn to that aspect of his biography would vote for him in any case, they reasoned. The toughest votes to win would come from those who might overlook or distrust him because of something he could not control— the color of his skin.
"The thing is, a black man can't be president of America, given the racial aversion and history that's still out there," Cornell Belcher, an Obama pollster who is himself African American, told me after the election. "A black man can't be president of America. However, an extraordinary, gifted, and talented young man who happens to be black can be president."
So Obama was to become the world's most famous black man not by denying his biracial identity but by embracing parts of it selectively. On the podium at the Democratic National Convention, we saw his Indonesian half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, but not his Kenyan half sister Auma Obama. And the omissions in his biography were not limited to race: There was just passing reference made to Michelle and Barack Obama's elite educations at Princeton and Harvard and to their law degrees.
"He appreciates and embraces his blackness," observed Michael Eric Dyson, the Georgetown professor and author who climbed aboard the Obama presidential campaign bandwagon early. "But he doesn't want that to exhaust his agenda, or determine what his vocational trajectory will be. What he will say, what he will do, how he will behave, how he will act."
It was a fairly perilous tightrope Obama walked, and one that had never been managed at this level before. He had to integrate the tactical with the strategic, reaching out to some voters without alienating others, and change the face of black politics altogether. He did this in part by crafting his persona and his speeches to appeal to all listeners. On the night he won the Iowa caucuses, he was making history, but he allowed others to interpret his meaning when he bellowed, "They said this day would never come!" "I knew that it would have multiple meanings to multiple people," Obama's twenty-seven-yearold white speechwriter, Jon Favreau, acknowledged later.2 Obama's caution continued even after he won the presidency. Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes asked him after the election what he thought of his racial breakthrough, and Obama once again spoke of other people's reactions—the faces in the crowd, his mother-in-law—not his own.
But it became clear early on that this would be no color-blind campaign. During the heated and competitive primary season, an edgy and alarming debate took place between Hillary Clinton and Obama about race, gender, and even the legacy of Bill Clinton. The former president had famously deemed Obama's plan for Iraq a "fairy tale," and compared Obama's South Carolina victory to Jesse Jackson's twenty years before. Then Hillary Clinton credited Lyndon B. Johnson rather than King, it seemed to critics, with getting the Civil Rights Act passed. "It took a president to get it done," she said. "That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people's lives, because we had a president who said were going to do it and actually got it done."
Obama called her remarks "ill-advised." Senator John Edwards told a black church audience he was "troubled" by the comment.3
The Clintons were furious at being accused of playing the race card. There was "not one shred of truth" to suggestions that she was trying to exploit racial tension in the campaign, Hillary Clinton said indignantly on Meet the Press. "I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I certainly hope it is not about race."4
"She started this campaign saying that she wanted to make history, and lately she has been spending a lot of time rewriting it," Obama responded tartly.5
And in a widely noted address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—the nation's oldest civil rights organization—Obama admitted he was aware of the sensitivity his comments stirred. "I know some say I've been too tough on folks, talking about responsibility," he said to the three thousand members gathered in Cincinnati. "At the NAACP, I'm here to report, I'm not going to stop talking about it."
Later in that speech he added, "When we are taking care of our own stuff, then a lot of other folks are going to be interested in joining up and working with us and taking care of America's stuff."7
Many conservative black churchgoers applauded this approach, rising to their feet in venue after venue to cheer him on. But some black leaders wondered if something wasn't missing. Why wasn't Obama speaking as a champion for black people instead of pointing out their shortcomings? Why wasn't he talking specifically about racial disparities when he discussed issues such as education, health care, and criminal justice? Or, as Jesse Jackson famously whispered into an open microphone, was Obama "talking down to black people"?
Obama was not in this to prove he could lead or speak only to black people. The goal here was to romance the entire country. When I asked Obama in the summer of 2007 about whether the prospect of electing a black president was affecting how people viewed him, he recounted a conversation he'd had with Jackson.
"He said something that's very accurate," Obama told me. "He said, 'Barack, we had to break the door down, which means sometimes you're not polite. You get bloodied up a little bit. You get some scars. You haven't had to go through that, and that's a good thing. That's part of what we went through. I don't expect you to have the same battle scars that I did.'"
Obama made his most overt attempt to acknowledge the racial debt in March 2007, when every living member of civil rights royalty gathered in Selma, Alabama, to observe and reenact the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" march across the city's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Georgia congressman John Lewis, who'd had his head bashed in with a brick during the original protest forty-two years before, spent part of the day attempting to get Obama and Hillary Clinton to link arms for the photographers. It did not work, but Obama was there with another goal in mind anyway. He needed to silence the naysayers within his own community, many of whom had known the Clintons long before they had ever heard Obama's name.
The risks were many. Obama received Secret Service protection earlier than any other candidate in history. In the days after he won the November election, law enforcement agencies reported that threats directed at the newly elected president spiked dramatically. Such serious safety concerns made some of the racial gibes aimed at Obama during the campaign seem juvenile, but they acted as reminders that not all of America was buying into the notion of racial transcendence.
It's hard to pick a favorite outrage. There were the men who wore monkey shirts to Obama's rallies, and elected officials who called him "uppity." There was the Kentucky Republican, Representative Geoff Davis, who referred to Obama as "that boy" during a GOP dinner in Frankfort.9 There was the GOP vendor in Texas who marketed buttons that read, "If Obama is president . . . will we still call it the White House?"10 And there was the ten-dollar box of "Obama Waffles" sold at a conservative political convention, complete with a picture of a black man with pop eyes and big lips, smiling at a plate of waffles.11 There was the newsletter distributed by a California Republican club that featured an Obama caricature surrounded by ribs, watermelon, and fried chicken—all on a fake food stamp.12 I could go on.
The taunts did not come only from white Republicans. During the heated primary campaign, Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and a prominent Clinton supporter, managed to allude to Obama's teenage drug use. "Obama was doing something in the neighborhood," he said, as if steering around a confidence. "I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book." He also suggested Obama was a sellout, comparing him to Sidney Poitier's character in the interracial romance drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. This earned a rebuke even from the conservative columnist George Will. "For the uninitiated," Will wrote, "that is how you call someone an Uncle Tom in an age that has not read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"13
"We're letting other people pick our leaders," Johnson later complained to the Washington Post.14
"I think we looked like we were going to win, and I think that an element of overt race awareness kicked in," campaign manager David Plouffe told me in the spring. "Which is really, 'Should it be this easy for this guy? Is he getting a break because he's an African American political superstar?' Each time he's looked like he could secure this thing, there's been a backlash."
Most of the time, Obama refused to be drawn into the racial dramas. Whenever he did, as when he suggested mildly that he did not look like other presidents seen on U.S. dollar bills, he was accused—as John McCain's campaign manager once said—of playing "the race card . . . from the bottom of the deck."15
Axelrod and Plouffe had worked for black candidates before, notably Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and they were convinced talking about race was not going to get their candidate elected. Axelrod said it was a "function of math." "It was obvious that if you were going to play in a larger venue and not just a majority-black one, you needed a candidate who could appeal" to nonblack voters, he said.
This worked for Patrick when he was elected governor in 2006. "I don't care whether the next president is the first black president or the first woman president or the first whatever, to tell you the truth," the governor told a Boston Common crowd early in the Obama campaign. "I care that the next president has moral courage, a political backbone, the humility to admit what he doesn't know, and the wisdom to learn from others."
This approach, however, was thrown spectacularly off track in spring 2008, when Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., almost derailed the Obama candidacy. The campaign had worried about Wright enough to yank him from the program at Obama's February 2007 announcement of his candidacy. But that was before snippets of videotape surfaced featuring Wright at his most incendiary.
His pastor's comments, Obama said, lapsing into the harshest language he would use all week, were "stupid." "We benefit from that past," he told me. "We benefit from the difficult battles that were taking place. But I'm not sure that we benefit from continuing to perpetuate the anger and the bitterness that I think, at this point, serves to divide rather than bring us together."16
The next day, Obama channeled this thinking into a speech that decried the nation's "racial stalemate" and returned to his campaign's most uplifting themes—change and hope.
"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society," Obama said. "It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country—a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."
Wright himself suggested that Obama was ducking a race debate: "I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do. I am not running for office."17 But by then, Obama was not much listening to Wright anymore.
Plouffe told me the campaign and the candidate had hoped never to have to give a "race speech." "The Wright thing made it more than necessary, and he needed to put that in context," he said. "He's obviously running to do big things domestically and internationally. And if the campaign gets defined by 'Are we going to have racial reconciliation or not?' I think a lot of that gets crowded out.
"The issues he raised in that speech are not essential to his candidacy," Plouffe added. "They are essential, they're important problems we're dealing with in this country, but it's not like in August and September and October he's going to keep reprising his speech and offering his candidacy as a way to heal the country."
Indeed, just as Plouffe, Axelrod, and the candidate himself planned, Obama never gave a speech exclusively about race again. "Barack's candidacy, while he spoke to those issues, it was pitched in a much broader way," Axelrod said after Election Day. "He came to this not primarily as the black candidate, but as a candidate for president who happened to be black."
It is impossible to overstate how complicated a feat this was to pull off in a nation where the races worship and socialize separately, listen to different music, and watch different television shows. Somehow, instead of becoming a dominant feature of a historic campaign, the divisive issue of race—in Obama's words, "a part of our union that we have yet to perfect"—was ultimately reduced to the occasional eruption.
Part of the reason this happened is the temperament of the candidate himself. Obama was convinced that focusing the conversation on race in and of itself was a losing argument for a crossover black politician. "I'm sympathetic to efforts to have a racial conversation in this country," he told the National Association of Black Journalists at their summer 2007 convention. "But I find that generally there's a lot of breast-beating and hand-wringing and then not much follow-through. The kind of conversation I'm interested in having about race is very concrete. Do we have a criminal justice system that is color-blind? If we do not, how do we fix it? . . .
"My belief is that African Americans, like other racial minorities in this country, are much more interested in deeds than words," he continued. "And that's the kind of leadership that I want to show as president of the United States."
Obama campaigned in much the same way as he talked to us that day. On one occasion in South Carolina, a black woman stepped forward to tell him that her elderly father was not convinced a black man could win. "If I came to you and I had polka dots," he responded, "but you were convinced that I was going to put more money in your pockets, and help you pay for college and help keep America safe, you'd say, 'OK. You know, I wish you didn't have polka dots, but I'm still voting for him.'"18
"I would always get the question, 'What is Barack Obama's agenda for black America?'" Corey Ealons, who directed campaign outreach to African American media outlets, told me. "I would respond by saying, 'It's the same as Barack Obama's agenda for all America.'"
Obama's star turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention arose out of the efforts of a trio of black Democrats—Brazile, Minyon Moore, and Alexis Herman—to lobby for black speakers in prime speaking spots. They called their plan the "Barbara Jordan Project," an homage to the Texas congresswoman who delivered a memorable convention keynote in 1976. Obama was just fifteen years old at the time, but Jordan's words sounded the themes he would utter from that podium twenty-eight years later. "Are we to be one people bound together by common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation?" she thundered. "For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future."20
It was little noted how much Obama's words in 2004 echoed Jordan's. "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America," he said. "There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America— there's the United States of America."
The future, Obama was convinced, could not be painted in black and white. "I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina," he said in 2008 after trouncing Clinton in the Palmetto State's primary. "I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children."21
Erasing race had another side benefit. Before he could be taken seriously as a national candidate, Obama had to get conventional wisdom on his side. Since white opinion leaders rarely engaged in race-specific conversations and largely found them uncomfortable, color blindness was considered a good thing. They were willing to embrace a black man who did not make them feel guilty about race.
This conventional wisdom about Barack Obama began forming, as it so often does about rising stars, in Washington—at Georgetown dinner parties and in fussy ballrooms all over the nation's capital, where the city's most self-referentially powerful lawmakers, government officials, and journalists meet to socialize.
Membership organizations such as Washington's Gridiron Club are almost entirely white. (Until 1974, the journalists' group was entirely male as well.) How white? The first time I attended one of their annual spring dinners, in the mid-1990s, Donna Brazile and I were greeting each other amid the sea of white ties and white skin, happy to discover at least one other African American in the room. Suddenly, we felt our elbows encased in a firm grasp, and Vernon Jordan leaned in. He was grinning, his teeth very white against his very black skin. "This isn't what they expected at all," he chortled. We laughed too. When these clubs were created we were expected to be serving, not dining. Even now, I'd bet most people in that room possessed not a single black friend. And if they did, it was likely to be Vernon or Donna or me.
So it was that much more remarkable when Obama strode onto the dais at the annual dinner in March 2006. It could have been an intimidating evening. The room was filled with movers and shakers of the first order. But Obama, who had spent a lifetime challenging preconceptions about race, politics, and political timing, seemed entirely at home. He made fun of himself, poked light fun at President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and even sang a little. He was a hit.
Roger Wilkins found Obama's racial straddle to be shrewd politics "that effectively calls on Americans to get serious about their nation's founding ideals, including we don't torture people, we don't get involved in wars of choice, we don't get wildly into debt as if the future doesn't count, and we don't ignore global warming because we think scientists are stupid. The racial issue gets subsumed in what he's doing—and that's a good thing. It's very sophisticated and it's very complex and sensitive; but right now he is pulling it off."22
But Obama was not naive. He was well aware there were voters who would never support him—the ones who bought the waffles and laughed. "I don't believe it is possible to transcend race in this country," Obama told me one day while he was on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "The notion that if we just ignore race, somehow our racial problems are solved, is the kind of unfortunate thinking the Supreme Court recently engaged in on the Seattle schools case." Obama was referring to a Supreme Court decision that limited the Seattle school district's ability to use race as a factor in promoting integration.
"Race is a factor in this society," he said. "The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away. It is not an accident that African Americans experience high crime rates, are poor, and have less wealth. It is a direct result of our racial history. We have never fully come to grips with that history."
"You just don't walk away from the past," Michelle Obama told me separately. "You bring it along with you. It is always a part of the tradition. You don't move to the next phase without understanding what happened in the civil rights movement."
Like many people of their generation, the Obamas operate at something of a remove from that movement—speaking of it with respect but not with the passion expressed by their elders. Michelle did more of this than her husband did, and even then much was under the conventional political radar. While campaigning in South Carolina, where the black vote was crucial, she would invoke the names of Coretta Scott King, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. "These were all women who cast aside the voices of doubt and fear that said, 'Wait, you can't do that. It's not your turn. The timing's not right. The country's not ready,'" she told an Orangeburg audience in a speech the campaign circulated to black voters online and on DVDs. "That gnawing sense of self-doubt that is so common in all of us, is a lie—it's a lie," she said, breaking into a preacher's cadence that belied her Princeton and Harvard education. "It's just in our heads. See, nine times out of ten, we are more ready. We are more prepared than we could ever know."
Obama saw himself as the bridge between those fears and the possibilities his candidacy represented. "Part of what happened in the sixties after the initial civil rights era was we lost some balance and we started thinking in terms of either-or," Obama told me during the campaign. "Either you were picking yourself up by your own bootstraps, you were an integrationist, you were Sidney Poitier, or you were burning down the house."
Obama's fiercest critics often came from the left. Princeton's Glaude, who early on was one of Obama's most prominent black skeptics, said he was frustrated with the way the nation's first black presidential nominee was handling race.
"He's supposed to be a transformative figure," Glaude told me. "Why is it the case that he can't simply say, when we talk about health care, we know it disproportionately affects poor people and black people? Why can't he begin to talk about these issues in ways that identify black communities, without trying to sound like Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton? The thing is, the very way that Jesse and Al have exploited the theater of racial politics, he's doing it from a different vantage point. We haven't changed the game. That's what makes me so angry. He hasn't stepped outside of the game."
Perhaps he hadn't. But an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken one month before Election Day pointed to the reason. Forty percent of whites, and an equal percentage of self-described swing voters, declared themselves bothered that "Barack Obama has been supported by African American leaders such as Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton."23 This was the backlash risk the Obama campaign had been worried about.
In the end, nothing succeeds like success, and most of Obama's black critics were muted, some because they believed political sacrifice was a necessary ingredient for victory. "We inherently believe that what he's doing he has to do," Kevin Wardally, a New York political consultant, said. "He has to not be in Harlem to get those white votes."24
Others, however, are playing wait-and-see. Will the nation's first African American president deliver? And what does delivering mean anymore if the normal corridors to power are not more readily available to African Americans by virtue of the fact that the man in the Oval Office is black?
There is every chance the Moses generation, in ceding the next round to the Joshua generation, may have to adapt to a new definition of success. There is also every evidence that Barack Obama has not transcended race. But his election has provided new proof that he has redefined what racial politics is.
Gwen Ifill is host of ''Washington Week'' on PBS.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Austerity cuts in Spain could lead to the effective dismantling of large parts of its healthcare system and significantly damage the health of the population, according to a study published on Thursday.
Researchers who analyzed the situation warned that if nothing was done to reverse the trend, Spain risked spiraling health problems and could see increases in infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and the virus that causes AIDS.
As part of the analysis, interviews were conducted with 34 doctors and nurses across Catalonia in northern Spain. Many reported feeling "shocked", "numbed" and "disillusioned" about the cuts, and some expressed fears that "the cuts are going to kill people", the researchers said.
"For five years, policies to address the financial crisis have focused almost entirely on economic indicators," said Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who co-led the study. "Our paper sheds light on the burden of human suffering that has followed from these policies."
The study published in the British medical Journal (BMJ) found that Spain's national budget cuts of almost 14 percent and regional budget cuts of up to 10 percent in health and social services in 2012 have coincided with increased demands for care, particularly from the elderly, disabled and mentally ill.
The researchers also noted increases in depression, alcohol-related disorders and suicides in Spain since the financial crisis hit and unemployment increased.
"If no corrective measures are implemented, this could worsen with the risk of increases in HIV and tuberculosis — as we have seen in Greece where healthcare services have had severe cuts — as well as the risk of a rise in drug resistance and spread of disease," said Helena Legido-Quigley, a lecturer in Global Health at LSHTM who worked with McKee.
The findings in Spain chime with other studies in Europe and North America which found budget cuts had a devastating effect on health, driving up suicides, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care.
In a book published in April, researchers said around 10,000 suicides and a million cases of depression had been diagnosed during what they called the "Great Recession" and the austerity measures that have come with it across Europe and North America.
The BMJ study noted that Spain already had one of the lowest public expenditures on healthcare relative to GDP in the European Union. It said planned further cuts to a dependency fund for the elderly and disabled this year would put these vulnerable people even more at risk.
Other changes in health provision include excluding unofficial immigrants from accessing free health services and increasing payments by patients for extra treatments such as drugs, prosthetics and some ambulance trips.
In Madrid and Catalonia, regional cuts have led to a move towards privatization of hospitals, longer waiting times, cutbacks in emergency services and fewer surgical procedures, the researchers found.
Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Pravin Char


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My friends, The Duke and I have been in mourning for quite some time now. As longtime readers are doubtless aware, Spanish horror icon and world-class creative force of nature Paul Naschy, nee Jacinto Molina, passed away in November of last year from pancreatic cancer. Paul was and continues to be the patron saint of Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies, the impetus of the project itself and the subject of its very first review. Over the course of our explorations into the wild and the woolly of world cinema, Naschy has always been the giant upon whose shoulders we planted our feet--the cream in our coffee, the wind beneath our wings, the everlasting inspiration for all we do and say.
In the months since Naschy's death, I've continued to watch and enjoy his movies, but have felt strangely unequal to the task of writing about them. They have still brought me the kind of joy rarely matched by any other filmmaker's oeuvre, but when it came to putting fingers to keyboard or pen to paper to sing their praises, my muse would invariably flee. Perhaps the wound was still too raw, the joy too tinged with bittersweet nostalgia and the dark sour void of our loss. The King is dead--how can I, his unworthy knight, sally forth again into this newly silent realm?
But then, a voice called out to me from across the vastness of time, if not indeed from beyond the very grave. It spoke words of comfort, of encouragement, of the importance of the yet-unaccomplished quest. It was Naschy's voice, of course, speaking from the awe-inspiring monument of one of his greatest works. The magnum opus? 1973's El Caminante, aka The Traveler.
We open in Medieval Europe--Flanders, perhaps?--to find bearded, rag-clad traveler Leonardo (Naschy) walking a dusty path. He happens upon another traveler--a formerly rich gambler now down on his luck--who offers to share his wine and food in exchange for company. He tips Leonardo of a farm about fifteen miles away, where the kind farmer and his lovely wife opened their doors to him and gave him the bounty they now enjoy. However, when the gambler expresses doubts about Leonardo's account of his own military service, the Traveler repays the insult by blinding his benefactor with ash and then stabbing him in the throat! Helping himself to the remains of the dead man's food and gold, Leonardo sets off again. "The world is so beautiful," he says to himself, cryptically. "I shall enjoy it!"
For the rest of the movie we follow Leonardo on his travels, witnessing his various adventures. It's a tale in the classic picaresque form, as our Traveler is a rascal and a rogue, living by his wits, and not above theft, rape, and outright murder in pursuit of a more comfortable fortune. A philosopher as well as an anti-hero, Leonardo is prone to pronouncements like, "Man is the only true evil being of Creation," and "Religion, qualms, conscience...that's all loser's tripe!" As time and time again his precepts are proven true, the film hints that our Traveler may indeed be much more than he seems...
After his initial murder, Leonardo's next encounter is with a farmer tending his crops--and by "tending" I mean "fertilizing them with his own fundament!" As the squatting horticulturist sits helpless mid-loaf, Leonardo ransacks his melon patch, then casts a large stone with deadly accuracy, nearly bashing the old man's brains in and sending him sprawling backward into his own filth-pile! It's the first medieval-style scatological slapstick we see in the film, and it certainly will not be the last.
A bit later Leonardo meets a blind scholar and his young serving boy Tomás (David Rocha, who would work with Naschy again in Night of the Werewolf [1981]). Undetected by the old man, Leonardo listens as the scholar preaches frugality, using this lesson as an excuse to short the kid on rations and abuse him when he complains. When the scholar sends Tomás for water, Leo calls the boy over and sends him back with a cup full of steaming Naschy piss! The old man takes a stiff snort and sputters curses, whereupon Leo nearly drowns him in the river before making off with his money, his food, and his serving boy.
Together, Leo and Tomás head to the farmhouse where the gambler got his money, and there meet the farmer and his wife Inés (the lovely Silvia Aguilar, whose later Naschy credits include Human Beasts [1980], Night of the Werewolf [1981], and the disastrous comedy flop Madrid al desnudo [1979]). The farmer is as kind as his reputation, and leaves Leo to chop firewood while he meekly tends the fields of his master. Inés, who has a maimed leg due to an accident, has little else wrong with her, but apparently the farmer's been falling behind in his husbandry, IYKWIM. Leo sneers after his host, "You benighted peasant--your wife is in heat and yearning! You shouldn't leave her alone with me!" Which is of course true of any character Naschy plays, but in this case particularly so.
graphically making out with her leg wound, working his tongue over the scar tissue like it was Wonka's Lickable Wallpaper! Soon Inés is riding the Great White Horse. "Oh, my goodness!" she gasps. "The pleasure! I've never felt anything like this before! It's like...like I'm being possessed by the Devil!" Oh rrrreaallly....?
Once he's taken her to the heights (depths?) of pleasure, Leo demands payment for his stud services in the form of all the cash in the house. When Inés claims poverty and prays to the Apostles to deliver her, things turn ugly. "The Apostles were not on your mind when we were fornicating last night!" he reminds her, and threatens violence unless she coughs up the loot. Disappointed in the paltry haul, Leo further hints, "A shabby loot. If you only knew by whom you were had!" Not one to leave without making his mark, Leo finishes by carving an upside-down cross on Inés's backside!
"idiot," and clearly has a great time going nearly full-retard, pulling the lady's hair, stroking her breasts, and finally pissing on her shoes! The offense doesn't stop the woman noticing the size of his "rod" however.)
That dirty deed done, they next seek shelter with Doña Aurora, a widowed aristocrat whose daughter is on the verge of death. Leonardo says he will save the girl with his healing arts, but only if Mom will have sex with him in exchange. Desperate, the lady agrees, and in the morning her little tot is looking the picture of health. However, after Naschy takes his booty (which is to say, HER booty) and leaves, the child quickly falls ill again and succumbs. As if her sudden bereavement and loss of honor isn't enough, Aurora soon finds she's pregnant with Leo's child! And what rough beast is this?
The remainder of the journey takes a downward turn for Leo. After killing a Lothario and taking his place with his married mistress (and therafter marking her cuckolded husband with another asswards St. Peter's Cross), Leo and Tomás are themselves robbed and left to start over again. Luckily they are able to waylay a couple of priests who stop to help them, proving once again that in horror movies, Good Samaritans are suckers. Disguised as men of the cloth they enter a convent for shelter, where Leo quickly seduces the Mother Superior, Elvira (Blanca Estrada of The Ghost Galleon, aka Blind Dead 3). He also exposes a horny orchard boy as the sexual "demon" who's been haunting the nuns, and is nearly killed by the boy for his trouble! Thereafter our pair find themselves at a brothel--which is the best place to go if no nunneries are available, clearly--and go to work for the Madame as bouncers. Of course they get their pick of the staff as payment, leading to a fast-motion montage that lacks only Yakkety Sax to be a Benny Hill moment!
At last it seems that Leonardo's wickedness has caught up with him when he and the Madame agree to sell Tomás's favors to a powerful gay nobleman. After all, Leo reasons, "no arsehole on earth is worth 100 ducats...but then, no friendship is worth 100 ducats either!" The deal goes down, and Leo robs the matron of her cut and then heads out on the road alone. Tomás has learned his teacher's ruthless lessons well, however, and with his new lover's support sets out in pursuit. They catch up to Leonardo, who is beaten, berated, and finally crucified in a ruined abbey for the striking climactic scene. Hanging helpless across from a stone Jesus, Leonardo offers his own Calgary speech: "Good Lord!" he cries out, "How could You give Your life for these pigs? I don't understand! I don't understand!"
End spoilers coming, if you care by this point:
The film comes around to end pretty much where it began, with Leo crippled and limping on the road, cooking his meal while another traveler comes up beside him. Leo offers him food and drink, anything to assuage his unbearable loneliness. To pass the time, Leonardo tells a fascinating tale.
"Let me tell you an old legend. A tale about the Devil. Once upon a time, the Devil was getting bored in Hell. And so, transformed into a mortal, he chose to visit Earth. He accepted all the weaknesses that came with living in the flesh. He could get sick, or even die. He rarely used his powers, for he thought things would be easy. He started off poor, so that he could move up through mischief and evilness. What human could stand up to him? After all, he was the Devil.
"The Devil went through every felony. He fornicated, killed, cheated, stole...and eventually became rich. He was having fun. He was happy. He begat a son, and he loved. But then his luck began to change. He was swindled, mocked, robbed and ravaged. Love made him lose his power. He ended up in misery. And the poor Devil found out that men were more wicked than himself."
Paul Naschy seldom gets the praise I think he deserves as an actor, though I admit upfront my bias in this regard. However, in El Caminante he gives a tour de force performance that anyone should be able to appreciate. His sneer of cold command, the malevolent intelligence in every gaze, the world-weary but still bemused manner of his philosophical lessons--it's a study in Evil with a capital "E" that surpasses even his portrayal of Alaric de Marnac, in my opinion. In fact, as I said to the Duke of DVD after our viewing: "You know how we always wished Paul and Coffin Joe had made a movie together? Well, Leonardo IS Paul's Coffin Joe!" And if you don't know what high praise that is...well, I don't know what to tell you.
The movie also seems a very personal work from Naschy, who also wrote and directed. (According to the indispensable Mark of Naschy website and the man himself in his autobiography, Paul counted this one of his best films, and possibly his personal favorite.) In addition to the black comedy and bemused if bleak view of humanity the story offers, Naschy also waxes serious when Leonardo sends Tomás visions of the future in a dream. These take the form of stock footage from World War II concentration camps and presumably the Spanish Civil War, both extremely formative influences on Paul's personal development. The grainy black and white images of bombs dropping, mass graves, and marching soldiers are in stark contrast to the sumptuous color cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa in the rest of the film, and cast an intentional pall on the film's comic elements that is as jarring as it is effective.
I first became aware of this movie while reading Naschy's excellent autobiography, Memoirs of a Wolfman. (Order a copy now, and damn the cost!). Never released to English-speaking audiences, El Caminante has been criminally unseen on this side of the pond, at least by the tragically monolingual. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, fans have taken up the gauntlet and subtitled the previously unsubtitled film--to those involved in this labor of love, my heartfelt and eternal thanks, because this movie, from my point of view, is just about perfect. Well-made, wonderfully acted, full of the fantastique elements and gorgeous Eurobabe nudity we know and love from Naschy, and so very, very much more...really, this one has it all.
For now these bootlegs are all that's available for English speakers to my knowledge, which is a shame--this movie needs to be seen by a much, much wider audience, especially now that Paul's contribution to world horror cinema is better appreciated. Still, if you're a fan of Naschy or 70s fantastique in general, you NEED to track down a copy, by hook or by crook. Really, it's just that good.
I remember the night that I learned Paul Naschy had died, I felt I needed to watch one of his films to mark his passing. I chose Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (ably and entertainingly reviewed here by Empress Kate of Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire). I was worried that my sadness at his death would color my enjoyment of the film, that I'd never be able to get through it without wallowing in the loss. However, once the movie began and the story sucked me in, the sadness disappeared, leaving only that contagious, chest-filling joy that has always been Naschy's peculiar gift. He keeps on giving, even now--reasons to smile, reasons to thrill, reasons to keep on singing his praises. He's still with me--with us--and I can never thank him enough.
All the Thumbs, ever.
I miss you, Paul.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
El Caminante (1979): or, The Devil Walks Out
Posted by The Vicar of VHS at 12:45 PM
Labels: '70s, 3+ Thumbs, Deal with the Devil, Fantasy, Paul Naschy, Road Trip
10 comments:
- The Duke of DVD said...
Friends, the Vicar and I both watched this movie on the same night, ensconced in our respective estates, surrounded by opulence, as is our want, and I assure you there was much texting back and forth!
We had collectively thought we'd seen it all, touched every passioned morsel that Paul Naschy had to offer. So imagine our surprise when El Caminante came along! Speaking for myself, this is Naschy's crowning achievement. As the Vicar stated so eloquently, our impetus for creating this blog was Naschy and his sheer aplomb for movie-making, and this movie exemplifies it like no other.
A few things I would add to the Vicar's stellar review: I firmly believe that no other Naschy movie looks better than this one, both in terms of picture quality and in terms of cinematography. Just look at the screen-captures above! The crucifixion shot alone should quicken the breath and flutter the heart! Such composition! Such magnificence! Alejandro Ulloa's eye, and Naschy's direction, present a feast for the senses.
Please, for the love of all that is MAD, track yourselves down a copy of this movie, and watch it. Sell your wailing children! Their entreaties for food fall on deaf ears anyway, as you sit before the glowing tv shrine, searching for the remote amongst the folds of your pale flesh. You don't need them! Buy Paul's magnum opus today!
- July 14, 2010 at 4:44 PM
- venoms5 said...
Great film. I reviewed it myself back in early June. I bought a handful of the Vellavision discs although they have no English subs on them, sadly. INQUISITION, BEAST & THE MAGIC SWORD and VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY all look gorgeous, too, also from Vellavision. His son Sergio, had a hand in these being released. A shame those discs have no English options.
- July 14, 2010 at 6:18 PM
- Samuel Wilson said...
This looks like cinematic sacrilege of the first order, and maybe Naschy emulating Bunuel a bit. It intrigues me because he seems to be tapping into a deeper Spanish and Euro tradition rather than his Universal fandom, but with all his exploitative aplomb. May the Evil One make it more accessible in English soon!
- July 14, 2010 at 10:25 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@The Duke--you're absolutely right about the look of this film--it's really some of the most gorgeous cinematography and composition I've seen of any film of this era, let alone Naschy's work. Alejandro Ulloa also lensed NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF for Naschy (another great cinematographical effort) as well as HUMAN BEASTS, which I've watched but need to revisit. Other titles include EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 and the wonderfully titled FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION. After his stellar work here, I'd like to see more of Ulloa's visions.
@venom5--I saw your review in June (everyone should check out and follow venom5's excellent blog, Cool Ass Cinema, btw!), which encouraged me to go looking for EL CAMINANTE again. I was ecstatic to find the subtitle file and a wonderful transfer down in the vaults. It's a shame, as you say, about the lack of English releases of those films. FWIW, the fansubs are excellent and well-written.
@Samuel--You're right about the departure from the Universal tradition to more traditional Euro folk/morality tales here, which makes it fascinating but no less engaging. Again, I encourage everyone to seek this one out!
- July 15, 2010 at 8:34 AM
- The Duke of DVD said...
@Vicar, I've never heard of "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" before, but now that I have, I immediately ordered it based on title alone (not to mention cinematographer!) and will have it for review early next week! It also was scored by Ennio Morricone!
- July 15, 2010 at 9:08 AM
- venoms5 said...
EL CAMINANTE is a truly excellent piece of work, Vicar as you demonstrated in your excellently detailed review.
I dug out an old issue of Videooze I bought back in the early 90's which was strictly about Naschy and his movies. It included a detailed interview with the man, too. He was singing the praises of the film and the cover featured an image from the film.
Ordering those Vellavision discs was a nightmare. For the cost of the shipping, you'd think they would arrive the next day, but it took well over a month. I don't know anything about obtaining subs online, but I plan to visit a friend in New York in the coming weeks so I hope to get them then. My limited Spanish only went so far with me when watching the movie and I know I was missing out on some clever nuances and wordplay.
Hopefully, with your review now, the film will get more exposure. It definitely deserves it!
- July 15, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Another fine review and I agree completely, this masterpiece of celluloid is desperately needing on "our" side of the pond.
I have also found it extraordinarily difficult to take up quill and set it to parchment in wake of The Suzarian of Horror's passing yet we must remember... Molina once locked himself in a room with nothing but pen, paper and an 8-Ball and two days later stepped out with a ready-to-shoot script. His determination to produce a quality movie invokes the best in us, his ever-loving fans and we must continue on as he would have wanted us to do.
- July 15, 2010 at 7:17 PM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
@venom5--I have seen that issue on VIDEOOZE on ebay a couple of times and have been sorely tempted to buy it, even though it's a bit pricey. I may have to pull the trigger at some point--maybe when I get some Xmas money or something. :P As for the subtitle files, the VLC media player will play them with AVI formatted files, just fyi. Feel free to email me for further discussion! scott.axeman[at]gmail[dot]com.
>>Molina once locked himself in a room with nothing but pen, paper and an 8-Ball and two days later stepped out with a ready-to-shoot script.
And if memory serves, that script was Horror Rises from the Tomb, one of his greatest! Truly an inspiration to all of us! Well, maybe except for the 8-ball thing... ;)
- July 16, 2010 at 8:12 AM
- venoms5 said...
Ah, yes, I see it on ebay. $25. The original price was $7 and it was a double issue. It's the only one I ever bought and I think I only knew about it from a flyer from one of the mail order catalogs I used to get. Maybe I'll do a review of the magazine to give you a push to pick it up!
- July 16, 2010 at 7:13 PM
- Jenn said...
I, too, as you know, have been in mourning for quite some time. I haven't watched a film featuring Paul since his death because, as much as I want to, I will just miss him that much more. I shall honor his memory again one day, but for now, it's too soon for me.
That being said, this one seems like a riotous romp, with the peeing and whoring and that all too lovely poster, which I've had in my pics for my screensaver for far too long without ever having checked out the actual film.
Thanks for the heads up :)
- July 18, 2010 at 12:52 AM


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Biobased and Other Animal Co-Products Research
News and Events
New Method to Produce Biodiesel
Weekly Activity Report
The annual meeting of the Research Liaison Committee of the American Leather Chemists Association (ALCA) was held on April 24-25, 2012, at the Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC), Wyndmoor, PA. Outside participants included representatives of the US Hides Skins and Leather Association, chrome and vegetable tanning industries, suppliers to the tanning industry, and users of the collagenous byproducts of the leather industry. ARS participants in addition to BOAC scientists were Center and Area administrators and the National Program Leader. This meeting brings together stakeholders and customers of the ERRC hides and leather research program. Stakeholders greatly appreciated ERRC???s progress, particularly on airborne ultrasonic inspection of hides, tanning mechanism, eco-friendly unhairing, manure removal, and new applications for tanning wastes. Stakeholders commented ERRC???s hides/leather research is needed to secure a viable future for the American hides and leather industries. They also suggested Hides researchers need to take the lead in developing methods to simultaneously protect both the meat and the hide. A tentative date was set for the next meeting at ERRC in April 2013.
ARS News Articles


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Firebug 1.4 Auto-suspend and Simplified ActivationWednesday, March 25th, 2009
One of the features of Firebug we like least has been the enable/disable stuff. Joe Hewiit's original 1.0 Firebug had a pretty simple blacklist scheme for disabling Firebug sites; mostly users thought it was fine. But when users tried Firebug 1.1, the impact on performance of the
eval() debugging features was too large, especially for users focusing on CSS or HTML. But the biggest problem wasn't folks using any particular debugging feature, it was users of heavy AJAX apps like gmail.
For Firebug 1.2 we added more options to control what parts of Firebug were active. These enablement controls were hard to understand and very unpopular. But no one was willing to give up their favorite setting either. And at least you could blacklist gmail to reduce the pain of having Firebug installed in your browser.
Firebug 1.3 made some UI improvements that helped make the controls easier to learn. But the real innovation in 1.3 was the introduction of suspend/resume. This was a global off/on switch which was simple and effective.I briefly experimemented with an 'auto-suspend' feature but could not get it to work before we closed 1.3.
In Firebug 1.4 we started with another round of fine-tuning. Then Steve Souders pushed for a more aggressively simplifed approach.
So for 1.4 we have ripped out all of the per-site controls and even the manual suspend/resume. Everything is now controlled by auto-suspend and the panels have only "enabled" or "disabled" settings. In the new model, if you can see Firebug, then its active. If you can't it's not.
We hope and believe that the new solution will be very natural: you'll open Firebug and start working. If you don't want Firebug on a site, close it. If you have Firebug open on a site and change tabs, Firebug will suspend. If you go back the the page you had Firebug open on, it will be open again and resumed. If you really want to have Firebug running on a tab that's not on top, open Firebug in a new window (so you can see it, then it's active).
The Console, Script, and Net panels will be disabled by default when you first start Firebug. You can enable them if you need them; once you do enable them they will be enabled for all sites you open Firebug on. You can't mix and match sites and panels like you could in 1.3, but we think this is a rarely used feature we can live without. There is one surprise: enabling the Console also enabled the Script panel. We hope to fix this in Firebug 1.5.
The new activation is in Firebug 1.4a14 if you want to give it a try.


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a $200 Windows laptop meant to be a Chromebook killer
Inexpensive HP Stream 11 wants to be as cloud-friendly as a Chromebook, with Windows 8
Low-Cost Laptop With a Bold Sense of Style
a convertible touchscreen Chromebook that's let down by its keyboard
Lenovo's N20p is portable and functional, but it doesn't offer the performance we expect from a modern Chromebook.
Touch and Go
Unbeatable price, Slim and light
Ultra-light design, Long battery life, Very affordable
Very little capability when offline
Extremely low price, Excellent keyboard
ReviewGist helps you find the best products to buy by making sense of online reviews.
We are currently aggregating 376,500 reviews
covering over 29,477 products.
© 2019 ReviewGist.com. All Rights Reserved.


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Quatermass 2 is a 1957 British science fiction horror serial. Professor Quatermass has discovered that space aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of the British government – Part Six.
Quatermass II – Part 6
Readers Comments (1)
this is the bbc television series ,following the first
bbc quatermass series the previous year-both were made into feature films starring brian donelevy,later in the
early 70?s a follow up was released,in cinemas
which is shown fairly often on tcm
heres a link or 2 for the cine versions


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Thompson Square Has New Music due out on April 21st! Check out 'Testing The Water' it's our Fresh Track of the Day!
Thompson Square, made up of husband and wife Keifer and Shawna Thompson, have had phenomenal success right out of the gates with hits like 'Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not', 'I Got You', 'If I Didn't Have You' and 'Everything I Shouldn't Be Thinking About'. Today the duo will be 'Testing The Water' with their new single, and it's our Fresh Track of the Day!
Check out some of 'Testing The Water' from Thompson Square
Check every day after the Q-106.5 Fresh Track of the Day at 11:45 am every weekday, and let us know what you think of that day's song. Thanks from Q-106.5!


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This is the Nissan NV, a trio of Titan-based vans available with a 4.0-liter V6 or 5.6-liter V8 and a freaky "High Roof" option. It comes in half-ton, 3/4-ton and full-ton flavors and will make the perfect taco truck.
There are two kinds of taco trucks. The first the monstrous moving restaurant on wheels with multiple service windows and huge roof vents. They're clean and fast and very professional setups and where all the upstanding taco-eaters go. Then there are the scummy, busted, Vandura-based taco trucks you see belching smoke and covered in enough grease to lube a Rockwell axle. Those are, of course, the better tacos, and that's a shame because the scuzzy look of the trucks keeps the normals away. We suspect if those operators are interested in giving their business a bump they'll take a look at this beast, the Nissan NV.
It's kind of ugly and pretty awkward, but dag-gummit it's the perfect size for a good small taco truck. Nissan's building it on a frame similar to the Titan but with thicker frame rails for the added loading (probably a good hint at the Titan's future) and it starts with the half-ton NV1500 which only comes with a normal height roof, then you can move up to the 3/4 ton NV2500 HD and full-ton NV3500 HD, each of which can be had with a freakishly tall roof high enough to stand upright in. Interior measurements are a 120.7 inches in the cargo floor, 70.3-inch floor width and up to 76.5 inches tall inside. The small-time mobile taqueria can be fitted with either a cheap 4.0-liter V6 or the more powerful 5.6-liter V8, both with a 5-speed automatics transmission, GPS and interior cladding to protect the walls from getting bashed up from stuff inside.
It's hard to ignore who Nissan seems to be targeting with this move as the company initially had an agreement with Dodge to build Ram-based Titans but the deal was killed. Rather than focus on the small commercial vehicle space occupied by the Ford Transit Connect, Nissan is going after the HD commercial truck space occupied by Dodge. Before the NV vans, the only vehicles like this were the Dodge Sprinter, which is crazy expensive, and regular vans with custom fitted roofs. Now Mercedes has reclaimed the Sprinter and Dodge is trying to keep commercial buyers interested in their HD commercial trucks.
Revenge is sweet, though perhaps not as sweet as a good hatch salsa. Now we need some tacos al pastor with cilantro and onions.


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Canadian Law Students / Re: Joint LLB/JD through Osgoode/NYU« on: October 04, 2008, 12:27:40 PM »
From what I know there are three joint JD/LLB programs, Osgoode/NYU, Ottawa/Michigan State and Windsor/Detriot Mercy, there might be another but I do not know.
The better Ottawa program is with American University's Washington College of Law. While this American institution comes nowhere near having the prestige of NYU, it is a better school for employment prospects than either MSU or Detroit Mercy, I would think.


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As the price of petrol climbs to another record high, the government is coming under renewed pressure from consumer groups to look at cutting the current fuel duty.
While prices at the pumps vary greatly up and down the country, the average price per litre is the widely accepted benchmark for comparison purposes. Drivers in Britain are probably the worst hit in Europe perhaps even the world, when it comes to levels of tax and duty they have to pay on each litre of petrol.
The coalition government have said that they are studying the possibility and feasibility of introducing a scheme by which fuel duty would fall as the price of oil rose. However, such a scheme is likely to take a very long time to research and implement, and this has led to calls from people for the government to simply cut fuel duty (even if only temporarily).
This is not the first time such a scheme has been discussed as a possibility. Indeed one of the Conservative party's main election pledges was to introduce what they called "fair fuel stabiliser".
Businesses, especially those who are directly affected by the price of fuel such as the transport and logistics sector, have criticised the government for what they view as stalling.
The way the current fuel prices are setup, it is a significant revenue stream for the government, with so much going straight into the treasury. At a time when the country has an incredibly large deficit from which they are trying to recover from, they may be reluctant to make any changes which will reduce their income.
Over the last month, the price of fuel has steadily continued to rise, with more rise to come in April. This has not been helped by the increase in VAT to 20% which took place this month and increased the price of fuel even further still.
If you are a diesel user you may be pleased, or maybe not, to know that while unleaded petrol prices are at their all time highest, the price per litre of diesel fuel has not yet to break its previous record high price.
To see how we rank in the fuel prices European league table check out the chart below.
The charts illustrate how much drivers in Europe pay for their fuel per litre at the pumps.
For ease of comparison all prices are quoted in Euros.
At the time of publishing the Euro was valued at approximately 84 Pence.
Average amount in euros per one litre of Unleaded EURO 95.
€ 1.24
€ 1.50
€ 1.15
€ 1.13
Czech Republic
€ 1.31
€ 1.19
€ 1.48
€ 1.36
€ 1.47
€ 1.58
€ 1.32
€ 1.42
€ 1.25
€ 1.23
€ 1.27
€ 1.20
€ 1.44
€ 1.14
€ 1.26
United Kingdom
€ 1.45
Average amount in euros per one litre of Diesel
Average amount in euros per one litre of LPG
€ 0.73
€ 0.65
€ 0.66
€ 0.63
€ 0.80
€ 0.69
€ 0.74
€ 0.57
€ 0.67
€ 0.84
€ 0.72
€ 0.58
€ 0.52
€ 0.78
€ 0.83
Fiat is carrying out a recall on some of its X250 Ducato vans and chassis cabs. This chassis cab is one of the most common base vehicle for European motorhomes.
The problem is caused by some of the bolts that connect the vehicle's engine to its transmission which can come loose.
The issue was first brought to attention in the middle of December 2010 when Europe's largest automobile association, the German ADAC, published the reports of tests it had carried out on Fiat Ducato X250 based motorhomes. The tests revealed that some of the bolts coupling the engine to the transmission could come loose, resulting in difficulties changing gears.
According to German motorhome magazine "Promobil", a repair which only takes about half an hour to carry out is recommended and this is being offered free of charge to German Ducato X250 model owners.
Fiat UK says that it is also offering the repair free of charge to UK owners and that it has been contacting owners of models which are affected They started doing this in late December 2010.
As this is not classified as a safety recall, it will not be listed on the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) recall database.
Fiat is recommending that any owners of X250 Ducatos with 2.3-litre or 3.0-litre engines, within the chassis number range 1614651 - 1907289 should contact their local dealer to fnid out if their vehicle is one of those which are affected.
It is also possible for owners to check themselves if their vehicle is affected by logging online at http://www.fiatcamper.com/check.php
As the Ducato is the product of a partnership between Fiat and PSA Peugeot-Citroën, and is sold by all three makers , current models of the Peugeot Boxer and Citroën Relay may be affected by this recall as well.
Abacus Motorhome Hire, based in Dorset on the south coast of England has expanded its fleet, and revealed that its weekday and weekend hires have risen by 35% this year compared to the same period last year.
The firm is spending around £700,000 updating its hire fleet for the fourth year running. It is replacing ten of its 2008 registered motorhomes which will increase their hire fleet size from 30 to 36 vehicles. The 17 new motorhomes have been ordered from the tried and tested range of the Swift Group, and are expected to be delivered before Easter 2011 ready in time for the busy summer season.
Earlier this year, Abacus also expanded its capabilities by launching a dedicated motorhome centre to facilitate hire, sales, repairs, servicing and valeting of their motorhomes. The company which was launched in 1985 not only hires but also sells motorhomes, and offers try-before-you-buy rebates to customers who hire with a view to purchasing.
Managing Director Dave Wolfenden said that 'the company's location on the south coast close to the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth and also the New Forest gives it a competitive edge, and that it is already seeing promising business for 2011 and expects good utilisation of the new fleet'.
It's not every year a new coachbuilt motorhome company is born but this year sees the creation of Bentley Motorhomes, a brand new company yet with many years of experience and a name that's known throughout the industry for excellence in motorhome design, manufacture and after sales.
Bentley Motorhomes has been created by three familiar and trusted faces from the motorhome industry, with decades of experience in the production of high quality coachbuilt motorhomes - Autocruise founder and former managing design director Gordon Bentley and son Richard along with former Autocruise chairman John Cockburn. Their team have all won awards for design innovation, quality and aftercare throughout their careers - creating motorhomes and brands that have been lauded in the press and coveted by customers. They all have a lifetime of experience, and they are committed to creating a motorhome experience that is second to none.
They say that they want to put the personal touch back into motorhomes, something their name has been known for in the past, and their customer service aim is to continue this, to make sure that owning a Bentley Motorhome is as positive an experience as it can be.
Through the years they have used many motorhomes themselves, and they know how much the word 'quality' really means. Each Bentley Motorhome has been developed with this forefront in their minds. The personal touch and the quality is apparent from the moment you walk into the vehicle, to the hundredth time you shut that cupboard door. It's this dedication to service; quality and the friendly touch that they think will give you the experience of a lifetime.
Richard and Gordon Bentley
The Rapido Group of France has acquired renowned German campervan maker Westfalia. This puts Westfalia on a firm footing, after it was forced to file for insolvency last January to undergo restructuring.
Rapido produces luxury low-profiles and A-classes out of its factory near Le Mans, and only this year debuted its first van conversion. Westfalia, on the other hand, is regarded as the inventor of the campervan, with the Volkswagen Type-2 based camper that first appeared in the early 1950s. Westfalia remained the official Volkswagen camper manufacturer until 2001, when Daimler-Chrysler took a majority stake in the company, motivating VW to move its camper operations in-house.
According to a statement issued by Rapido, Westfalia's factory in Rheda-Wiedenbrück and all of its 100 employees will be retained. The statement seems to hint that expansion is on the cards, as well. "Rapido has the necessary industry and market know-how at its disposal and is ready and in a position to make the necessary investments," said Westfalia's insolvency administrator, Rainer Eckart. And according to Rapido Group chairman, Pierre Rousseau: "Rapido Group has a thorough knowledge of distribution networks in Europe, which represents a development potential for Westfalia."
Dolphin Motorhomes, located in Bursledon, near Southampton has recently spent over £150,000.00 in the sales and servicing facilities at its site. They have increased the size of their sales display area and also added more customer parking spaces. They have improved the handover bay and customer waiting area too as well as giving their showroom a makeover. Want to know more then visit their web site at http://www.dolphinmotorhomes.co.uk/
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Despite concerns over cloud security and compliance, a new survey of 200 IT organizations in the U.S. and 200 in the United Kingdom, conducted by SailPoint, a provider of identity management and access tools, finds that one in three mission-critical applications already runs in the cloud. Moreover, the IT organizations surveyed said they expect that one in two mission-critical applications will run in the cloud by 2015.
Unfortunately, the survey also makes it plain that when it comes to security and compliance many IT organizations are playing catch up with new cloud applications.
Related Topics : Cloud Computing, Dell, Services Vendors, SMBs, Web Platform Vendors
IT administrators need to identify zombie assets, verify idle status and shut off anything that is unused. Here's how to get your dormant infrastructure back in shape. ... More >>
Cloud SaaS adoption allows organizations to gain the flexibility and scalability necessary for creating a high-velocity business. ... More >>
IT executives need the right tools to monitor and control their cloud infrastructure to maximize the positive impacts and mitigate security threats. ... More >>


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Kanye West Is Having a Kardashian Khristmas
Kanye West may not be able to revel in some holiday cheer this year, as he's being forced into some Kim Kardashian Khristmas activities instead. Ho, ho, ho.
This is at least according to Kim's brother Rob Kardashian, who says the rapper will be joining the enormous reality show clan for their Christmas celebrations in Los Angeles.
Yet he wasn't good enough to be Photoshopped into their Christmas card (sorry, Khristmas Kard) alongside Kim's dead cat. Tsk, tsk.
"My mom has a really big Christmas party every year on Christmas Eve," Rob told Radar. "We all sleep over at the house, and on Christmas morning we wake up at like 6AM and do presents."
We know you don't know how to treat a lady Rob, but it's called opening presents. Not doing them.
Rob added, "They all make breakfast, all the girls. We watch basketball. It's a family day."
We're so glad that on Christmas morning all the men lounge around and watch sports and all the women serve them food. Just as evolution intended.
As fun as it might be having Kardashian women bring you sandwiches, the Christmas plans will continue to affect West's public image, as his concert sales have taken a slump since becoming Kimye. And we're sure wearing that leather skirt didn't help either.
Try to enjoy your Khristmas festivities, Kanye. We hear that every time a Kardashian actually displays human behavior an angel gets his wings.


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Monday, February 9, 2009
Rainbow comfort packs for little ones effected by the bush fires
Basically we are putting together bags of goodies for the kids / babies who have been affected by the bush fires. These bags will be given to the Emergency Relief Centers around Victoria.
The aim is to provide some comfort and distraction while parents are dealing with what it is they need to face in the aftermath of their own tragedy.
So I am thinking along the lines of....
A bag of some sort which will have some items depending on their age group. (the bags should be re-usable like cloth, string)
Comfort: something to hold, cuddle, talk, imagine with (like a soft toy)
Distraction: something they can play, do, look at, read (colouring book, book, puzzle.... needs to be compact and light to carry)
I've asked the brands that I stock in my store to donate items for the packs and to assist any way they can. So am waiting for replies on this, but so far have gotten a few items as a start.
Now, what YOU can do is one (or all!) of the following:
1. Donate something for the packs:
can be new or second hand (MUST be in GREAT condition please)
Comfort - soft toy, teddy, doll (people who craft, this would be a great opportunity!)
Distraction - colouring book, crayons, pencils, plain paper book, books to read (all levels), puzzles.... nothing too heavy or bulky please.
Anyone who can get their hands on little bottles of wedding bubbles (they are the best!).
Make a library sized bag from fabric.
Clothing for all ages, summer I think. (Again if second hand, MUST be near perfect condition... please don't burden us with all your opp-shop stuff.... they still need you!
We are open to any ideas....... please email or comment here.
Send items to:
Rainbow Comfort Packs
70 Clifton Street,
Balwyn North, Vic. 3104
2. If you can not donate:
We are also listing some packs ready to go on the bpab web shop that will have only new products in them. They will be at cost price and basically you purchase one (to cover the cost of items) and we will include them in the drops. We will not be making ANY money from this. It is strictly for the Bush fire victims. Please do not abuse this service and buy for yourself (because you will not get it! hahahaha).
Please allow a bit of time for packs to become available at the shop, we will work as fast as we can.
If you have a blog or want to email people about this......
This little sign will be on the top right corner of my blog for people to lift and paste in their blogs etc. Please link it back to this post so everyone will get the info they need.
If you have any trouble, let me know.
Thanks so far for the great response, as you are aware the Emergency Centers are so over whelmed generous offers, so this is a way you can help a little bit down the track when they need supplies again.
Stay safe and happy,
Update post: tues. 10th Feb
Also: 11th feb -more drop points and update
51 comments:
- The Cherub's Craft Blog said...
Have linked up. I hope you are inundated with donations and purchases.
- Monday, February 09, 2009 9:17:00 PM
- Gilly said...
Have also linked up - hoping to help in anyway I can.
- Monday, February 09, 2009 9:41:00 PM
- Qtees Designs said...
I have also added the logo and linked back to this page on my blog, will email my database as well. great idea!!!
- Monday, February 09, 2009 10:15:00 PM
- Allyoo said...
Linked up !
Hoping to make a up a few things in the next few days to send your way .... Will also see what else I can get my hands on !
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 12:20:00 AM
- Hot Fudge said...
This is a very worthy cause and I have placed the logo on my blog. I will be sending a parcel to you later in the week.
I am a member of Schoolhouse Quilters and will email them this morning, giving details of your blog.
I have survived a bushfire and know what these poor people are going through.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 7:24:00 AM
- Nikki said...
I'm more than happy to spread the word and act as a drop-off point for people in the Northern suburbs. Being a "bags" gal and a mother, this idea seems a highly appropriate way to contribute what help I can. God knows something like this leaves us all feeling so helpless.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:51:00 AM
- willywagtail said...
I have posted a link. I am not sure if my health will hang out to make something but hopefully this will help attract others.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 9:58:00 AM
Sorry for being so dense, but can you define "library size bag"?
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:39:00 AM
- Veronica said...
Posted a link on my blog as well, I hope I can help in any way I can. :)
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:57:00 AM
- jeanamarie said...
I have also created a link to this and will email it on to others - will you let us know of other drop off points as they arise? thank you so much for this!
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:02:00 PM
- Katy said...
i have posted a link on my blog too and plan to make some library bags to put the items in, when do you need them posted to you by? Email me with any info, great idea.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:41:00 PM
- Katherine said...
Brilliant idea. I will link up and I want to thank you for providing a way to reach out and help.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:38:00 PM
- Amanda Edwards said...
I have two bags ready to go but I was wondering if there was somewhere closer to Croydon that I could drop them off to? The postage to Balwyn is going to be crazy for the size package I have....
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 4:18:00 PM
- Juddie said...
I've linked up too, and am heading down to my local party supply shop for bubble kits this afternoon ...
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 4:47:00 PM
- Handmade said...
Hi - I have also linked up and planning an open studio day this Saturday to make bags and toys. I'm in the Newcastle area, NSW. Do you think Australia Post could come to the party and help out with free postage for this cause? The cost of postage will probably exceed the cost of the materials - would be nice to think that they could forgo the profits for this cause?
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 6:13:00 PM
- Kirsty said...
I've got some stuff to go IN those bags...I'll drop off in the next few days.
& depending where they end up going...I might be able to assist with delivery.
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:16:00 PM
- mimoo said...
hi monica,
great post and I will be sending a box of comfort packs tomorrow to the address posted.
bless you
- Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:54:00 PM
- magikquilter said...
thank you for this..
adding a link to my blog now
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:14:00 AM
- magikquilter said...
hi i have added the widget
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 5:17:00 AM
- Vanessa said...
Hi Monica, count me in - what a great idea. I'll be sending some stuff and have also put a link on my blog to you.
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 7:37:00 AM
- emma - theberrypatch said...
Great idea.
I have added the logo to my blog and linked back to this page.
I will make some packs over the next few days and send them your way.
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 9:59:00 AM
Hi Monica
I am going to make some bags, but in the meantime do you need a drop off point in the western suburbs? I live in Spotswood, just of the Westgate, or during the day stuff can be dropped of at work in Brooklyn.
Let me know if I can help
Creative Bliss
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 10:40:00 AM
- Wems said...
I have just emailed all my playgroup members and we are organising a bulk lot of bags headed your way :)
Might be an idea for everyone else to get their community groups involved :)
yeah for the Aussie mates who can't but help their fellow Aussies :)
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 11:14:00 AM
I really need you to get back to me as soon as you get this. My class at school would like to send some toys etc and some packs.
I will print this for the teacher and there's about 10-15 people in our class. We agreed we should all make 2 packs. Is that enough?
I can print labels with what age range/gender etc and stick them on there for you too.
Is that okay?
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 4:50:00 PM
Also, my email is:
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 4:52:00 PM
- Standardrose said...
Can I drop off some things at the address you gave? I have some good kids clothes I was planning on ebaying, this is a much better idea!
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 6:34:00 PM
- Jejune said...
Wonderful idea. I'm a Canberra bushfires survivor, and know all too well how horrendous things must be in Victoria. Glad to be able to help in this way.
I've linked to you, and posted on my blog :) Thank you!
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 7:58:00 PM
- MoziEsmé said...
Great idea. I've posted your button.
- Wednesday, February 11, 2009 9:27:00 PM
- sooz said...
Hi Monica. Hopefully I will be at Nicole's sewing bee and bringing along some stuff. It's a great thing you are doing. Just thought I'd mention too that apparently there's a real shortage of kids underwear - you might want to encourage people to pick up a six pack of kids smalls when they do their grocery shopping. I've also heard there aren't many PJs, so something else people might be able to pick up easily and cheaply.
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:36:00 AM
- Suse said...
Hi there, I wanted to add that if a packet of new undies can be included in the care packs that would be great!
You can easily throw a 3-pack of kids underwear in your supermarket shopping trolley, and BRAND NEW UNDERWEAR is something that the bushfire relief victims are crying out for. They've been inundated with secondhand clothing, but of course people don't donate knickers!
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:44:00 AM
- Monica @ bpab said...
Okay, newest post refers to including new undies and jox for the little folk.... not sure how to link everything up so everyone gets all th e info??
All of you are amazing amazing people and I really appreciate the support you've offered in this project.
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 12:29:00 PM
- Suzy said...
I have lots of wedding bubbles, so will put them in the post!
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 6:54:00 PM
I would love to help out with this but I am not sure if I have missed the boat. Can you email me and let me know. firstname.lastname@example.com
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 8:39:00 PM
I have a heap of brand new books and a few brand new disney toys that I would love to post down to you that hopefully you can use as fillers. I won't even attempt to sew a bag as I have not used a sewing machine since high school!
I will pop them in the post tomorrow and add your info into my blogs shortly.
- Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:23:00 PM
- Gill G said...
I think this is a wonderful idea and will be doing something to send. If someone finds out if Australia Post will send items for free I would be willing to be a drop off point for the Hills area in Perth.
- Friday, February 13, 2009 12:18:00 AM
Hi - some little sticker, pencils, pads sets etc on the way from the UK tomorrow. Hope they're some use to someone x
- Friday, February 13, 2009 3:23:00 AM
- lucy tartan said...
Money given to the Red Cross would be far better since the charities cannot cope with the quantity of goods they've already received. If you check the red Cross website you'll see they are specifically asking donors to not give them any more material items as they have no way of distributing them. Sorry. But I hate to see effort wasted. In honesty, money is what's needed now and everyone can afford to give something.
- Friday, February 13, 2009 10:54:00 AM
- Hot Fudge said...
In response to Lucy Tartan, I have given money, but this is something extra that I choose to support. I am sure that these comfort packs will be filled with lovely new items which will delight the traumatised little children who have nothing. I have no doubt that they will find their way into the right hands. Sometimes money isn't everything.
- Sunday, February 15, 2009 3:07:00 PM
- MelZ said...
I am still collecting, I have so far 10 packs pencils, 11 packs crayons, 10 plain scrapbooks, 3 colouring books.
A bag of things which should make up 5 packs, includes stickers, boy things, girl things, toys, colouring books.
Would you be happy to get girls and boys underwear? I hear they need it, but if this is more for entertainment things, I can donate those elsewhere :)
Will be collecting more similar things this week, should be in the post by the weekend :)
- Sunday, February 15, 2009 4:10:00 PM
- MelZ said...
Also forgot to add that someone is giving me a pile of childrens books, Will go through them and make sure they're in good condition. They are used.
- Sunday, February 15, 2009 4:13:00 PM
- Kasia said...
Hello, This is a lovely idea! I've received it as a fwd from a friend of a friend so the word is far and wide (interstate and overseas I notice too!).
In response to the latest listings from Lucy Tartan and Hot Fudge, I'd like to point out that your, Monica's, original post did say "as you are aware the Emergency Centers are so over whelmed generous offers, so this is a way you can help a little bit down the track when they need supplies again."
This is just what's needed I think. Everyone is so aware of the problem NOW. Kids and parents are going to need comfort and support months and months away, when the fires are no longer headline news. So thanks Monica, wonderful idea and our local craft group will be tagging along with you all!
- Monday, February 16, 2009 12:21:00 PM
- MelZ said...
Hi again :)
I have just sent you 2 big boxes full of reading books, colouring books and scrapbooks, pencils, crayons, hairties, stickers, pencilcases, toys, bubbles etc etc.
You should get it in a few days :)
Thanks so much for allowing me to be a part of this :)
- Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:03:00 PM
- Southworth Crew said...
I live in the USA and I have been very moved by what is going on over there we have good freinds that are living about 45 mins from there and they are telling us all about it. We have a group that would like to send over some bags that are made up. We are looking forward to doing this.
- Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:24:00 PM
- jennifer said...
We're having a sewing bee in Brunswick tomorrow, not far from where Nikki's was last week. Would love to see you!
See here for details http://handmadehelpsout.blogspot.com/2009/02/rainbow-comfort-packs-update.html
- Friday, February 20, 2009 12:54:00 PM
We are putting together some packs from our Mothers' Group - hope we are not too late. I'll have them to you by the end of the week. Do I just send them to the address on your blog page? Thanks, Louise.
- Monday, March 02, 2009 2:18:00 PM
- Monica @ bpab said...
It's not too late to send bags and other donations!
Send to:
70 Clifton St.
Balwyn North,
Vic 3104
Or if you live near any of the drop points listed in the right hand column of this blog, then save postage and drop off there.
- Monday, March 02, 2009 6:53:00 PM
- MelZ said...
Hi Monica, I have another bunch of stuff to send you, will do this in the next week or so. :)
- Friday, March 06, 2009 11:20:00 AM
Hi, I am hoping that you are still wanting donations...I think it is important to keep the thoughts, love and donations coming for some time yet...I will post soon, Coralie xx
- Thursday, March 26, 2009 1:27:00 PM
- a life of Riley said...
Hi, I have been totally procrastinating, and have a number of things half done. Can I still send some parcels to you? I really hope I am not too late.
- Saturday, April 04, 2009 10:46:00 AM
- Website design nyc said...
Good post
- Saturday, April 11, 2009 10:56:00 PM
- Margaret @ Konstant Kaos said...
I have 15 packs coming your way for Grade 6/Year 7 kids that my kids have made. We have more but we are still sorting things out!
I will be dropping them off some day this week if that is ok ... you can email me at mlawson at stmichaels dot vic dot edu dot au
- Monday, July 20, 2009 10:34:00 PM


text:
Bob Hoskins to Retire From Acting Following Parkinson's Diagnosis
Actor Bob Hoskins has announced today that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and will retire from acting at the age of 69.
Bob Hoskins has had a long and wonderful career that's given us memorable roles in films like Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil,' 'Mona Lisa,' 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' 'Hook,' 'Mermaids,' 'Super Mario Bros.' and 'Unleashed.' The veteran actor most recently starred as one of the seven dwarfs in 'Snow White and the Huntsman,' a dark twist on the classic fairy tale starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron.
Hoskins was sadly diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease last fall — something he's kept secret from the public until now — and released this official statement via his agent today:
"Bob Hoskins wishes to announce that he will be retiring from acting, following his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease last autumn. He wishes to thank all the great and brilliant people he has worked with over the years, and all of his fans who have supported him during a wonderful career. Bob is now looking forward to his retirement with his family, and would greatly appreciate that his privacy be respected at this time."
Hoskins has been an absolute treat to watch in films over the years, and he will surely be missed. Parkinson's is the same disease that afflicts fellow actor Michael J. Fox. For more information, you can visit MichaelJFox.org


text:
Course Details
EQS353 Teaching Techniques IV - Saddle Seat
A practical teaching course that continues the development of applied teaching skills. Assistance with an applied riding class will occur. Observation, class management, teaching skills, and riding student and peer teaching assessment will be practiced.
Credit Hours: 2
Prerequisites: Any Teaching Techniques III


text:
Why experts are rethinking the pregnancy weight-gain guidelines.
Before Jennifer Griola, then 30, of West Orange, N.J., became pregnant, she weighed just under 300 pounds. Griola lost 30 pounds, but at 5 feet 10 inches tall, she was still considered obese when she found out she was expecting. During her pregnancy, Griola gained back the 30 pounds and developed borderline hypertension and gestational diabetes. At week 34 she went into labor and delivered her daughter, Sarah, via emergency Cesarean section because her placenta ruptured. Sarah was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for 10 days, a harrowing time for Griola and her husband.
After giving birth, Griola was determined to take the weight off and lost 55 pounds. During her second pregnancy six months later, she gained only 15 pounds. That time around, her blood pressure and blood sugar levels were normal and her second daughter was delivered at term. Today, two years after her first pregnancy, she has lost 92 pounds.
Fortunately, Griola learned from her first pregnancy experience. As in her case, being overweight or obese even before becoming pregnant puts you and your future baby at increased risk for complications, including C-sections, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, preterm birth, stillbirth, birth defects and the child's own risk of obesity later in life. The heavier you are, the greater the risks (see box below). Experts agree that the best way to reduce those risks is to achieve a healthy weight before conceiving. If that's not possible, the next best thing is avoiding excess weight gain during pregnancy.
Your weight's toll on both of you Some experts partly blame the nation's obesity epidemic on excessive weight gain during pregnancy. It's much harder to lose weight after a pregnancy if you gain too much, and this can lead to a lifetime of obesity. "When obese women are asked how they got so heavy, the majority says it happened during pregnancy," says Marie Cedergren, M.D., a maternal obesity expert in Sweden.
Studies also show that excessive weight gain in pregnancy contributes to a too-high birthweight and, later, childhood obesity, says Emily Oken, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of prevention at Harvard Medical School. Maternal obesity raises the risk of birth defects; the strongest association is to spina bifida (double the risk, which means that very heavy women may need higher doses of folic acid), but also linked are heart defects, short limbs, hernias and other problems. Plus, babies born to obese women have a greater risk of preterm birth and, among babies born at term, a low Apgar score, a sign that a baby may need to spend time in the NICU.
Rethinking the guidelines The federal government's Institutes of Medicine (IOM) published pregnancy weight-gain guidelines in 1990, but because most experts believe the weight ranges are too high, they are currently being revised. Not everyone adheres to even the current guidelines, however: In 2003 (the most current statistics available), 38 percent of pregnant women gained too much weight; 25 percent put on more than 41 pounds during a singleton pregnancy. Adding fuel to the idea that current weight guidelines are too high is one study that found overweight or obese women who stayed within the recommended ranges still had children who were four times more likely to be overweight at age 3.
Recent studies show that overweight women can reduce their risk for complications by gaining less weight while expecting and that some obese women can even safely lose weight while pregnant. "My recommendations are that obese women gain very little, if any, weight during pregnancy," says prenatal weight and exercise expert Raul Artal, M.D., chairman of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and women's health at Saint Louis University in Missouri.
Safe weight management Artal and other experts also agree on another problem: The current weight-gain guidelines neither establish an upper limit for obese women (recommending instead that they gain at least 15 pounds) nor distinguish between different degrees of obesity. To address these oversights, the chart above indicates the weight gain (or loss) that recent research has shown can lower the likelihood of complications without raising the risk of having a low-birthweight baby.
The IOM and other medical groups have not yet sanctioned these suggested guidelines, so talk to your doctor before trying to limit your weight gain. Artal strongly advises that obese expectant women who try to do so or even to lose weight should be under the supervision of a high-risk OB and a nutritionist or dietitian who specializes in pregnancy and can create a personalized diet and exercise plan.