text:
Evaluation of Pulmonary Perfusion Heterogeneity and Compliance in Patients With Pulmonary Hypertension Using Positron Emission Tomography Imaging
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The purpose of the study is to find out how the blood flow changes in the lungs of people with pulmonary hypertension compared to healthy individuals without pulmonary hypertension. We would like to find out if there are differences in how blood flows when subjects are given a drug to dilate (widen) the arteries in their lungs and when they breathe extra oxygen. We will compare the results to when subjects don't receive any drug or extra oxygen. We hope that knowing about these differences will help us to better understand pulmonary hypertension and how to diagnose it earlier.
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Other: CT imaging, functional PET imaging
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Open Label
|Official Title:
|Evaluation of Pulmonary Perfusion Heterogeneity and Compliance in Patients With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Using Functional Positron Emission Tomography Imaging
- Coefficient of variation of perfusion [ Time Frame: One imaging visit lasting up to 3 hours ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]Images will be generated with positron emission tomography that will be used to calculate the degreee to which the blood flow in the lung is patchy rather than smooth. The statistical measure of this is called the coefficient of variation.
- Vascular compliance [ Time Frame: One imaging visit lasting up to 3 hours ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]Positron emission tomography images will be obtained during different phases of the heart beat that will show how the blood vessels in the lung stretch with ejection of blood from the heart. The change in volume of the blood vessels is called vascular compliance and is a measure of blood vessel stiffness.
- Perfusion gradient [ Time Frame: One imaging visit lasting up to 3 hours ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]From the images of blood flow in the lung, the change in mean blood flow from the bottom of the lung to the top will be calculated. Normally, there is more blood flow at the bottom of the lung compared to the top, but this can be changed with lung disease.
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|February 2013
|Estimated Study Completion Date:
|November 2016
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:
|July 2016 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
Experimental: pulmonary hypertension
Patients with Group I pulmonary arterial hypertension and exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension to undergo CT imaging, functional PET imaging
Other: CT imaging, functional PET imaging
Physiology study using CT and functional PET imaging with 13NN and 11CO as radiotracers; images obtained before and after administration of inhaled nitric oxide and balance 80% oxygen as pulmonary vasodilators
Active Comparator: healthy controls
healthy adults to serve as controls and to undergo the same study procedures: CT imaging, functional PET imaging
Other: CT imaging, functional PET imaging
Physiology study using CT and functional PET imaging with 13NN and 11CO as radiotracers; images obtained before and after administration of inhaled nitric oxide and balance 80% oxygen as pulmonary vasodilators
Detailed Description:
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) refers to abnormalities in the pulmonary vasculature associated with a diverse group of disorders. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies pulmonary hypertension into five groups, with Group I comprising pulmonary arterial hypertension (formerly referred to as "primary pulmonary hypertension"). Although not currently a part of the WHO classification, exercise-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension (EIPAH), defined by normal pulmonary artery pressures at rest and elevation of pulmonary pressures with exercise, is increasingly recognized as a distinct clinical entity. In some patients, exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension may represent a precursor for developing an established elevation in pulmonary pressures at rest that defines PAH. Functional PET imaging has not previously been utilized to quantify perfusion and vascular compliance in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. The overall goal of this study is to evaluate regional lung perfusion, perfusion heterogeneity, and vascular compliance in patients with both exercise-induced and resting pulmonary hypertension using functional positron emission tomography imaging. Ultimately, if quantifiable differences between healthy subjects and patients with PAH are detected with 13NN and 11CO labeled PET, functional PET imaging may provide a useful imaging modality in early diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension and monitoring response to therapy. In this pilot study, we will recruit 10 adult patients with pulmonary hypertension (5 with PAH and 5 with EIPAH) who are on stable PAH-specific therapy (if any), and 5 healthy controls.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 70 Years
|Genders Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- A signed and dated written informed consent is obtained from the subject.
- The subject is capable of giving informed consent, which includes compliance with the requirements and restrictions listed in the consent form.
- Available to complete the study.
- Able to lie flat and able to perform a 30 second breath hold.
Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension
- Subject is male or female aged = or > 18 years of age and < or = 70 years.
- Subject is diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension (WHO Group I, by right heart catheterization, mean PA pressure > 25 and PCWP < 15) or exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension (by right heart catheterization + Level III cardiopulmonary exercise testing, mean PAP > 30 and PCWP < 20 during exercise, but normal at rest), with the most recent of above diagnostic tests taking place within 12 months of study entry.
- If patient has been on PAH-specific therapy, the therapy (agent and dose) has been unchanged for at least 3 months.
Exclusion Criteria:
- FEV1 and/or TLC < 70% predicted
- PCWP > 15 mm Hg
- Inability to perform the study (by primary MD or investigator assessment)
- Subjects who have a past or present disease, which as judged by the Investigators may affect the outcome of this study
- The subject has suspected history of drugs or alcohol abuse within the six months prior to the screening visit.
- The subject has a positive pregnancy test.
- The subject is unable to perform the respiratory manoeuvres necessary for the exam.
- The subject has been exposed to a radiation dose over the past year that, when added to the radiation dose expected in this study, would exceed permissible yearly exposure as determined by the MGH radiation safety committee.
Subjects with Pulmonary Hypertension
- Subject with clinical instability in the judgment of the investigator, or hospitalization for progression of pulmonary hypertension or right heart failure in the three months prior to the study.
- Subjects in whom PAH therapy has been escalated (additional agent started) within 3 months of enrolment.
- Subject with diagnosis of active tuberculosis, lung cancer, clinically overt bronchiectasis, allergic rhinitis, asthma, or COPD.
- Subject that had a respiratory tract infection in the 4 weeks prior to the screening visit and throughout the duration of the study.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01461343
|United States, Massachusetts
|Massachusetts General Hospital
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
|Contact: R. Scott Harris, M.D. 617-726-9429
|Principal Investigator: R. Scott Harris, M.D.
|Principal Investigator:
|R. Scott Harris, M.D.
|Massachusetts General Hospital
No publications provided
|Responsible Party:
|Robert Scott Harris, M.D., Associate Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01461343 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|October 25, 2011
|Last Updated:
|April 6, 2015
|Health Authority:
|United States: Institutional Review Board
Keywords provided by Massachusetts General Hospital:
pulmonary hypertension, PET imaging, CT/PET
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Hypertension, Pulmonary
Cardiovascular Diseases
Lung Diseases
Respiratory Tract Diseases
Vascular Diseases
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on October 09, 2015


text:
By Fr. James Thornton
All we know of freedom, all we need to know,
This our fathers won for us, long and long ago.
This familiar passage from Rudyard Kipling was a favorite of Robert Welch, that brilliant and cultivated man whom so many still remember as the founder and first leader of the John Birch Society. The words of this poem symbolize Mr. Welch, his life, and his outlook, and especially they call to mind his respect for the past and his belief that we are debtors, owing all we have to those who came before us. Freedom, of course, is never won only once, but must be won over and over again, each generation bearing an awesome responsibility in that regard and each remembering those who have gone before and who have struggled to establish or uphold the great gift of freedom. That is why we do well to remember Robert Welch.
The following is not intended as a comprehensive biography of Mr. Welch. That work has already been admirably accomplished by others, most notably by G. Edward Griffin in his outstanding volume, The Life and Words of Robert Welch. Though this article will touch briefly on some of the salient aspects of his life, the wish here is to capture some notion of the significance of Robert Welch by exploring aspects of his philosophy as they are set forth in his writings. Inasmuch as this philosophy represents more than something to which Welch merely assented intellectually, but actually lived, this philosophy is therefore a true measure of the man. In him, theory and practice were perfectly fused. Moreover, that philosophy was vivified even more strikingly in the founding of the John Birch Society, which will always constitute the permanent legacy of Mr. Welch and assure that his thought continues to inspire Americans, so long as the Republic exists.
Undeserved Attack
Reading about the real Robert Welch, one is sometimes astonished at the calumny that has been heaped on him by liberals and their media mouthpieces. So much is this so, that one who does not know better might be tempted to wonder what sort of wicked man he was and what terrible acts he committed to deserve such unmitigated vilification. Did this man perhaps foment bloody revolutions or plot to overthrow the government through violence? Did he sell out his country or connive with agents of some foreign power? Was he possibly an unprincipled politico seeking personal enrichment and pandering to the mob by telling it whatever it wanted to hear?
The answers to all of these questions, needless to say, are identical -- an unqualified and resounding no. Mr. Welch was guilty of none of these things. His "crimes," as those familiar with his life know, were the very same "crimes" committed by so many of the men who helped found this nation and who fought for its continued existence. Robert Welch's "crimes," simply put, were these: He loved his country and everything it stood for and, with relentless determination, sought to defend it against its mortal enemies. He spent approximately the last 40 years of his life investigating the motives and objectives of the liberal Establishment. He questioned the direction in which they were leading (and continue to lead) the country. And, when he came fully to understand what these objectives and motives meant, and perceived clearly the direction in which America was heading, he sought to organize the American people in defense of freedom and national independence. Most unforgivably from the standpoint of the liberal Establishment (and definitely a "crime" in its eyes), he never hesitated to name names whenever he felt the necessity.
Robert Welch's philosophy, in the judgement of this writer, may be summarized in this way: He loved truth; he loved freedom; he loved courage; he loved knowledge. Let us now explore his philosophy within the framework of these four guiding principles.
Robert Welch was born just before the turn of the century, on December 1, 1899. That was a time as different from the one in which we now live as noon is different from midnight. America's proud heritage as a land of sturdy pioneers, of rugged individualists, of proud men and women who made their way in life through their honest toil and innate ingenuity and who never looked for handouts from any all-powerful government, was still very much alive when Mr. Welch was born. Self-reliance, good manners, moral uprightness, respect for hard work, and especially rigorous honesty were as pervasive among Americans then as watching television and collecting welfare are for a great many of them today. Robert Welch was reared in that vigorous atmosphere and he never forgot it. That is why, for him, honesty -- telling the truth whatever the circumstance -- was always central.
Author Alan Stang writes that he often heard Mr. Welch say that "most of the ills of the world would disappear if people just started telling the truth." Stang called Mr. Welch a "fanatic for the truth" and went on to relate that:
many people revere it; some even tell it. Robert Welch is ferocious about it .... The surest way to set off an eruption that would rank with Krakatoa is to prove to Robert Welch that somebody is lying .... To Robert Welch, honesty is everything.
Lying Leaders
This characteristic, Stang writes, is one of the reasons Welch decided to lead a fight, literally to the death if necessary, against conspirators whose entire worldview has always been rooted in deception and whose unacknowledged spiritual leader is that very same father of lies spoken of in the Gospel of St. John. It was this unyielding zeal for truth that impelled him to write his most famous book, The Politician.
The Politician is Mr. Welch's study of the amazing career of Dwight David Eisenhower and was originally written as a private letter to close friends. Welch had been involved for some years in the Republican Party in his home state of Massachusetts, where he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1950.
During the 1952 presidential campaign, conservative Robert Taft was the favorite of patriotic individuals and organizations for the Republican presidential nomination. Conservatives saw in Taft possibilities for a patriotic counterrevolution that would undercut the rising forces of internationalism and welfarism and restore the Republic as it had existed before Roosevelt's election in 1932.
Those hopes were dashed, however, by the entry into the race of General Eisenhower, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe in World War II. Eisenhower, though he snatched the nomination away from Taft, ran as a conservative (like Nixon, Reagan, and Bush in more recent years). Like many other Americans, Mr. Welch tried to maintain optimism, hoping that Ike might, after all, accomplish at least some of what Taft had promised. Yet such hope soon floundered on the sharp rocks of reality. Eisenhower spoke against communism, against the welfare state, and against the moral decay that even then was evident in American society. But once in office, he did everything in his power to preserve and reinforce all of those policies for which the American electorate had rejected the Democrats.
Eisenhower soon dubbed his brand of leadership "modern Republicanism," which actually meant liberal, big-government Republicanism. The Eisenhower Administration differed from liberal, big-government Democratic administrations in style, but not in substance. This betrayal of conservative principles led Mr. Welch to scrutinize more closely the record and career of General Eisenhower, and what he found left him stunned.
Eisenhower Exposed
First, he discovered that Eisenhower was no military genius, contrary to the image so assiduously cultivated by the liberal media. Such capabilities as he possessed were more in keeping with those of a wily politician, not a military man. So mediocre were Ike's talents that only a few years before his appointment as Supreme Commander he had served as aide-de-camp, with the rank of major, to General Douglas MacArthur. However, what he lacked in military acumen he compensated for in shrewd political "savvy." Succeeding in capturing the attention of President Roosevelt, from that moment his future was assured. Eisenhower rose ever higher in the starry upper echelons of military rank while serving as the ever-faithful crony of Roosevelt and his Administration, the leftist ideology of which he apparently shared fully.
Mr. Welch's second discovery was that, throughout World War II, Eisenhower was obsessed with the notion that, whatever the sacrifice in Allied lives or cost to the postwar order of the various European nations, everything possible must be done to facilitate the forward motion of the Red Army and to assure that, when all of the dust finally settled, the communists would control as much of Europe as possible. Eisenhower's penchant for protecting Soviet interests was made manifest especially as the war entered its last phases. Though Berlin and Prague might well have been captured by U.S. forces, thus making the postwar world infinitely less complex and dangerous, Eisenhower ordered advancing U.S. armies to stop, thus assuring the capture of strategically vital territory by the Soviets.
To make matters even worse, Eisenhower gave unqualified approval to such monstrous schemes as the Morganthau Plan which, had it been carried out completely, would have resulted in the deaths of roughly 40 million Germans and the swift Bolshevization of Europe. He insisted too on the notorious Operation Keelhaul, the "repatriation" of Russian, Ukrainian, and other peoples who had escaped Stalin's hell on earth behind the retreating German armies. Perhaps five million people were herded into trucks and railway boxcars and shipped eastward to certain death or worse. Operation Keelhaul was FDR's and Eisenhower's magnificent gift to Stalin and to his grim, satanocratic gulag empire; it was a culmination of friendship, fidelity, and accord; and it was a deed that for its sheer infamy is unmatched in the history of our nation and its armed forces.
Next, Mr. Welch considered Eisenhower's career after his return to civilian life. As president of Columbia University, Eisenhower took great pains to protect faculty members known for their communist sympathies or affiliation. He chose a known communist, Joseph Fels Barnes, to ghostwrite his book, Crusade in Europe. Finally, once elected to the Presidency, Eisenhower, as we noted, resisted those who wished a return to genuine American principles in government. He sabotaged anticommunists such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and continued the march towards bloated, centralized government at home and interventionism and internationalism abroad.
A Private Letter
This was the sordid record that impelled Robert Welch to pen The Politician and circulate it, as an untitled private letter, among his close associates and friends. For a respected business leader and conservative political activist fearlessly to reveal the facts about a powerful minion of the Establishment, one whom, furthermore, the public adored as a great "war hero" and as a kind of second "Father of the Country," was an act of audacity in pursuit of truth of almost legendary magnitude. It was also an act typical of Robert Welch, for whom, as was mentioned earlier, truth was everything.
When that private letter became public in 1960, the Establishment, shaken to its foundation by the possibility of exposure, commenced its usual screams for blood. Always prepared to insist on "freedom of expression" and the "sacred rights" of a "free press" when such cant serves its own interests, the liberal media joined in a uniform howl of indignation that anyone would dare to speak his mind about one of its chosen national "hood ornaments." Mr. Welch was never, of course, given access to that same media to defend himself. When, to set the record straight, he finally consented to the release of The Politician for publication, the entire cause célèbre was instantly enveloped in an all-encompassing cloud of silence. Willing to whip the public into a veritable lynch-mob hysteria when it deemed such demagogy fitting, the Establishment was by no means prepared to let honest folks read the book for themselves and make up their own minds. Nonetheless honest people, as we all know, find ways around orchestrated campaigns of censorship. And so, despite the most strenuous efforts to quash the whole issue, hundreds of thousands of copies of Robert Welch's penetrating study of Dwight David Eisenhower have been circulated through unofficial, uncensored channels. The Politician stands today as a monument to Robert Welch's love of truth. In fearlessly researching it, writing it, circulating it to friends, and finally publishing it, Mr. Welch, it must be emphasized, had nothing to gain and everything to lose -- everything, that is, but his personal integrity. He believed, with Plato, that "truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and on earth and he who would be blessed and happy should be from the first a partaker of the truth, for then he can be trusted."
Let us now consider Robert Welch's love of freedom, a word much misused and misunderstood in our day, but one which had a precise meaning for him. Mr. Welch encapsulated his definition of freedom in five words: "less government and more responsibility." That government was finding ways of intruding into the personal lives of individual Americans and making them helpless dependents Mr. Welch considered an unqualified calamity. It was exactly contrary to the notion of freedom with which he was reared. In a debate with socialist Norman Thomas in 1964, Mr. Welch elaborated this notion in an address he entitled "My Concept of Freedom":
I want for our country enough laws to restrain me from injuring others, so that these laws will also restrain others from injuring me. I want enough government, with enough constitutional safeguards, so that this necessary minimum of laws will be applied equitably to everybody, and will be binding on the rulers as well as those ruled. Beyond that I want neither laws nor government to be imposed on our people as a means or with the excuse of protecting us from catching cold, or of seeing that we raise the right kind of crops, or of forcing us to live in the right kind of houses or neighborhoods, or of compelling us to save money or to spend it, or of telling us when or whether we can pray. I do not want government or laws designed for any other form of welfarism or paternalism, based on the premise that government knows best and can run our lives better than we can run them ourselves. And my concept of freedom, and of its overwhelming importance, is implicit in these aspirations and ideals.
The Greatest Tragedy
Robert Welch was fond of a quotation from Herbert Spencer, and repeated it often: "The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." That government seemed intent on transforming the entire citizenry into whining fools, or into children to be cared for and controlled, was in Mr. Welch's opinion the "greatest tragedy of the twentieth century." Not content with corrupting the American people and duping them into surrendering their precious freedom, those same forces were crushing the freedom of other peoples and using American money and might to deliver whole nations into the hands of the most evil and rapacious tyranny in history.
The struggle against the forces of the collectivist conspiracy is the fiercest in which the American Republic has ever engaged. Too few people today, however, grasp the fact that many Americans did not immediately fathom the seriousness of this fight. In the Roosevelt and Truman years, Americans were told that Joseph Stalin was our friend and ally, that he was a good "democrat," and that he was in no way different from us in wanting a just and peaceful world. Exhausted by the tremendous exertion of the war, Americans were slow at first to come to grips with the communist menace.
To make matters worse, Roosevelt and Truman refused themselves to come to grips with communist subversives in the U.S. government. "Some of my best friends are communists," Roosevelt once declared (no doubt accurately!) with a chuckle. With so blasé an attitude on the part of the President of the United States, it is no surprise that hordes of communists infiltrated critical agencies of the federal government and, once ensconced in influential positions, used their newly acquired power to advance the aims of their superiors abroad. Robert Welch was among the first to expose the scandal of the use of the country's power, prestige, and money in furthering communist objectives, and he did this by writing his first major political work, May God Forgive Us.
National Guilt
May God Forgive Us, like The Politician, began as a lengthy letter to an acquaintance, and was written during July and August 1951. Shortly after completing it, Mr. Welch sent copies to three other friends and within a short span of time requests for additional copies poured in. This led him to make several hundred duplicates, but the more he produced the greater was the demand. Americans, it seemed, sensed the truth when they read it. Roughly 30 thousand mimeograph copies were distributed during those months after the letter first appeared. Henry Regnery, the well-known publisher, read one of these copies and then asked Mr. Welch if he could publish it. Mr. Welch added another ten thousand words to the work and thereupon Regnery began the publication of tens of thousands of copies. In the eight months between March 1952 and the end of that year, 194,000 copies of May God Forgive Us were published and distributed.
In May God Forgive Us, Mr. Welch begins with an analysis of the tremendous disasters that followed in the wake of our World War II victory and that threatened to overwhelm free nations around the world. These included, most particularly, the loss of Eastern Europe and of China to the Communist Bloc. Welch considered carefully the widespread influence of various leftist organizations in accomplishing these victories for communism. He also turned the spotlight on government agencies that had been subverted by communist agents and on individuals who used their positions of power and prestige to change the direction of American policy, to allay the rising suspicions of the American people about communism, and to spread various forms of disinformation to cause confusion and misunderstanding. The brunt of Mr. Welch's criticism was aimed at Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, who played an extremely unsavory role in these debacles.
Mr. Welch desired neither fame nor fortune from this endeavor. Such proceeds as he received from the huge sales of his book were immediately dedicated to the free distribution of 40,000 copies to community leaders and various influential citizens throughout America.
Robert Welch speaks truly from the heart in May God Forgive Us. Intensely ashamed for his country and deeply distressed that "the land of the free and the home of the brave" was being used by vicious traitors to betray innocent men, women, and children to Bolshevik beasts and to undermine the very foundation of our Western culture, Mr. Welch's mode of expression is poignant and eloquent:
[T]he real trouble is a callousness throughout the whole mood and the collective conscience of the American people. How can we expect either a Roosevelt or Truman to have been disturbed by the barbarous Katyn Massacre, or to have reduced for that reason their pampering appeasement and generosity to its perpetrators? The news of a similar mass murder, of eight thousand of our own sons and brothers, as prisoners of war behind the Korean lines, caused only a temporary ripple of indignation across the national consciousness; and we go serenely on negotiating with, and making new concessions to, the cold-blooded murderers.
What is the matter with us, anyway? Neither facts nor pictures seem to sink into our centers of feeling any more .... The physical suffering, the mental anguish, the never-ceasing terror of our fellow human beings, represented by these words and pictures, no longer reach through the glaze to activate our imaginations or to excite our sympathies ....
As we sit in our warm homes, after a happy meal with our families, and turn on our television sets or radios, it is hard for us to think of a man just like ourselves always half-starved, always half-frozen, haggard and hopeless, remembering the days when he too was free, as he is brutally driven to finish up the literal exhaustion of his body in labor for the benefit of the very tyrant who has enslaved him. It is harder still to remember that there are millions of such men; or that in the past six years six hundred millions of our fellow human beings have been placed under the merciless heel of this monster and the bestial control of his henchmen and police.
For the pusillanimous part that we played in all this spreading horror; for our indifference to the grief of others; for our apathy to the crimes we saw and our blindness to those we should have seen; for our gullibility in the acceptance of veneered treason and our easy forgetfulness even when the veneer rubbed off; for all our witting and unwitting help to the vicious savages of the Kremlin and to their fellow ordinate savages everywhere, may God -- and our fellow men -some day forgive us!
There can be no doubt whatever that in this small volume a genuine patriot of the old school stares straight into the hideous countenance of treachery and cries out for the tocsin to be sounded in defense of our national honor and of freedom everywhere.
Nowhere do we see better Robert Welch's love of courage, and his conviction that courageous action is essential to the survival of the American Republic, than in his book, The Life of John Birch. In the 1950s, Mr. Welch had a number of friends and acquaintances in the U.S. Congress who allowed him access to important documentation and testimony from Senate committee hearings. It was his practice to read through these voluminous transcripts, looking for answers as to why America and the world had fallen into such lamentable circumstances. It was on one such occasion, he tells us, that he came upon an obscure reference to a man by the name of John Birch, a name until then unknown to Mr. Welch and to the American people. Though he did not realize it at that moment, the hand of Providence had reached down to change the course of Robert Welch's life.
Mr. Welch himself explains the happening in these words:
All alone in a committee room of the Senate Office Building in Washington, I was reading the dry typewritten pages in an unpublished report of an almost forgotten congressional committee hearing. Suddenly I was brought up sharp by a quotation of some words an army captain had spoken on the day of his death eight years before. Interest in the quotation soon led me to the incident with which the following narrative begins. From then on the light of John Birch's actions gradually became greater than the light of his words, and neither would depart. With regard to both, I had to learn all I could of their source and circumstances.
A Hero's Story
The Life of John Birch is the story of the prototypical American, growing to manhood on a Southern farm and there, close to the soil, learning from experience the true import of faith, of family, and of country. John Birch received his education in the 1920s and '30s, and after completing college and Bible seminary determined that he would spend his life in missionary work overseas. In 1940 he departed for China, then, as now, a country of immeasurable suffering as wars and internal strife continued taking their bloody toll. A man of keen intelligence, Birch was soon speaking the native dialect, which enabled him to teach and to work spreading the message of Christ's Gospel. This tireless dedication to Christianity impressed Robert Welch when he read of it, since, he insisted, true religious piety and rectitude make a people and a nation into a bastion of invincible strength, immunizing it against the ideological bacillus of communism.
Mr. Welch also learned through his investigation that during China's war against the Japanese invaders, John Birch was utterly fearless in crossing back and forth between the occupied and free regions of the country. Since these perilous journeys were vital to the successful discharge of his duties as a missionary, not even a major war was permitted to stand in his way.
Moreover, shortly after America's entry into the war, John Birch volunteered to join General Claire Chennault's 14th Air Force, known also as the Flying Tigers. Birch was of particular value in the war because of his facility with various Chinese dialects and it was thus that he was assigned primarily to intelligence work. During those years he never shrank from even the most dangerous assignments, each of which he managed to accomplish, as in virtually everything he did, through quiet courage and unparalleled skill. Such was his outstanding bravery that he was soon promoted to captain and decorated by his own government, and by that of the Chinese.
Author G. Edward Griffin writes that Mr. Welch saw in John Birch a model for every American, especially every young American. Birch was an uncompromising patriot; he was devout in his religious outlook; he was a moral paragon; he had indestructible roots in his family and home; and when called upon by his country, he gave everything he had without hesitation. That spirit of self-assurance, of decency, of boldness, and of selfless love for God, country, and for his fellow man was second nature to John Birch and exemplified those attributes that the youth of a nation must emulate if it is to resist the seductive blandishments of the Godless Ones and of their soul-deadening and nation-devouring ideology.
During World War II, as victory approached, John Birch came to see ever more clearly the true nature of the Red Chinese forces, which had begun a drive for domination. He came to see communism, despite its temporary posture of alliance and cooperation during the war, as the archenemy of all mankind. Thus it came to pass that in August 1945 Captain John Birch was murdered by the Chinese communists, who no doubt recognized in him an implacable foe.
When these facts were reported later to the American authorities, a witness to Birch's murder testified that the brave American officer's last words were these: "It doesn't matter what happens to me. But it is of utmost importance that my country learn now whether these people are friend or foe." These were the words that leapt off the page as Robert Welch sat in the Senate Office Building eight years after they were spoken. Robert Welch writes:
[I]n one blade of grass lies the key to all creation, could we only understand it; and in the forces that swirled around John Birch lay all the conflicts, of philosophy and of implementation, with which our whole world is now so imperatively concerned. Therein lay the significance of his life and death ....
... He commanded no armies, headed no government, converted no nations to his creed. His impact would have been of transient memory and comparatively small importance, had not that impact occurred at a time and in a way to make it supply particulars from which momentous generalizations can properly be projected. With his death and in his death the battle lines were drawn, in a struggle from which either Communism or Christian-style civilization must emerge with one completely triumphant and the other completely destroyed.
"It doesn't matter what happens to me. But it is of utmost importance that my country learn now whether these people are friend or foe." Such words represent the sentiments of an American hero who knew that wherever freedom is found, there also is found sacrifice. That sacrifice he shouldered in the same way his countrymen have done since Lexington and Concord. Robert Welch chose John Birch as a symbol of selflessness in defense of the innocent, of duty to one's country and way of life, and of that lofty valor without which nothing we believe, and nothing we hold dear, can possibly endure.
When he writes of the indifference of people to the suffering of those under the communist heel in May God Forgive Us, Robert Welch, at the same time, touches on the key to unlocking that enigma of American complacency, even though he does not bring it out with the force it later assumes. Americans are certainly not a cold people, but they often lack the knowledge and information necessary for action. Consequently, the key is education. "Education is our total strategy and truth is our only weapon," was Mr. Welch's oft-repeated maxim after he founded the John Birch Society. Robert Welch's love and respect for education, both as a process and as an end, is a deeply-engraved feature of the whole of his life, and one that came to him naturally. Robert Welch's mother, Lina Welch, began her son's schooling at home, when he was only two years of age. At three he was proficient at reading, by four had memorized the multiplication tables, and at six was adept at algebra. After turning seven he commenced the study of Latin, and read all nine volumes of John Clark Ridpath's formidable History of the World. Ridpath's numerous historical works enjoyed the same acclaim in the world of the late-19th and early-20th century as Will Durant's multi-volume historical tour de force did 50 or 60 years later. Ridpath, an American popular historian of strongly individualistic opinion, profoundly shaped Robert Welch's worldview and imparted to him both a sense of the grand sweep of history and of the uniqueness of the American experiment in self-government and individual liberty.
Some liberal media commentators have suggested that Robert Welch was indifferently educated. In actual fact, Mr. Welch entered high school at the age of ten and the University of North Carolina at the age of 12, graduating from the latter institution in the top third of his class when only 16. He attended the United States Naval Academy for two years, ranking fourth in a class of almost a thousand, and Harvard Law School for another two-and-a-half years. The story, therefore, that Robert Welch was poorly educated brings to mind the kind of naked prevarication about which Shakespeare writes: "These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable."
A Lifelong Romance
What a pity that every young man and woman of high school age cannot read Robert Welch's The Romance of Education. Were they able to do this, I suspect that many of them -- at least the brightest and best -- would adopt a radically changed attitude towards the learning experience. This superb work was written by Mr. Welch between 1942 and 1946, long before the author ever imagined that he would become one of the most controversial men in America. It was not finally published, however, until 1973 when friends insisted that he resurrect the manuscript.
"The Romance of Education," writes G. Edward Griffin, "reveals Robert Welch as the mature scholar." Indeed, any objective reader of this book would have to agree, for in this work Mr. Welch seeks to ignite in the reader a passion for the acquisition of knowledge, and to stimulate that natural intellectual curiosity common to most people, especially the young (and young at heart). Furthermore, as Mr. Welch puts it, "the reward [of education] is not at the end of the struggle, in the benefits of acquisition, but is continuous, in the satisfaction of acquiring knowledge; not in the games to be enjoyed after becoming a person of some level of education, but in the mental adventure of the becoming." Separate chapters of The Romance of Education deal with such diverse fields as language, history, mathematics, and poetry, all subjects in which Mr. Welch himself excelled and all part of that intellectual foundation without which men are not wholly educated.
There was no hypocrisy in the counsel of Robert Welch. He never urged others towards that to which he was not himself devoted. Few things were as important to him as "joy in the pursuit of knowledge." Author Gary Allen said of Robert Welch that he "never slowed his frenetic pace. He never considered success in the financial and business worlds as anything other than a means to buy the time to pursue the world of scholarship and travel the globe. As he consumed one book after another, his personal library grew until it eventually comprised some five thousand volumes -- most of which [he] had actually read!" It goes without saying that such a systematic, lifelong acquisition of knowledge cannot but result in a mind steeped in wisdom.
Conspiracy Above Communism
Knowledge is a joy to acquire and is an unending pleasure to possess, as we have seen. But knowledge often represents other things as well and has its more sobering facets. Thus it is that the subject of Robert Welch's love of knowledge brings us to one of the most controversial aspects of his philosophy, which is his view that Christendom and the forces of civilization continue to confront serious and repeated threats to their existence as the result of the activities of a conspiracy. To some degree that theme formed the background of Mr. Welch's worldview from the 1950s. At that time his efforts were directed against the International Communist Conspiracy, which, incidentally, was a term then in widespread use, even outside of conservative circles. Beginning in 1964, however, when he delivered his famous "More Stately Mansions" address in Chicago, the theme was developed far beyond the confines of his earlier thoughts.
If it were indeed true that the entirety of the danger we face is confined only to a communist conspiracy, which aims at the destruction of freedom through subversion and violence, then, Mr. Welch reasons, many interesting paradoxes are left unanswered. Why, for instance, are so many of the super-wealthy involved in programs and policies that aid and abet collectivist and socialist objectives? Why do the powerful elite in America and elsewhere, made up of people who seemingly have the most to lose should communism, socialism, or any form of collectivism be victorious, almost invariably oppose efforts to expose the subversion of our society? Why do they so frequently sabotage conservative activities? To these difficult problems Mr. Welch applied his first-rate research skills and, after much labor, reached some startling conclusions.
First, he concluded that the Conspiracy is more deeply rooted than he had previously thought, and supported this thesis by tracing its origins back over a century to an occult group known as the Illuminati, founded on May 1, 1776 by a Bavarian named Adam Weishaupt. Tenaciously tracking back through the pages of obscure books and dusty old documents, he found that this conspiratorial band had participated in the French Revolution of 1789, which infamous uprising, as we know, struck out with intense savagery against God and civilization and resulted in the murder of roughly a million human beings. Clearly, the upheavals and atrocities of 1789 served as a model for revolutions to come, especially the Bolshevik Revolution.
But the French Revolution did not achieve its objectives. It did not result in the complete overthrow of the existing order in Europe. Traditional ways of life persisted and gradually returned even to France. Still, the conspirators, he found, were not discouraged. Instead, they maintained their secrecy and determined to wait until more favorable situations presented themselves. Throughout the 19th century several offshoots of the original Illuminati were formed, some of which eventually coalesced into the communist conspiracy of our own time. Mr. Welch stated that communism is a tool used by the Conspiracy to demolish traditional patterns of life, beliefs, systems, and cultural mores. When these phenomena endure, in spite of subversion and persecution, they make it impossible for the Conspiracy to triumph.
Common View
Robert Welch's attack on the larger Conspiracy made him the target of many new enemies, Among these were Establishment conservatives who derided him for accepting the unstylish "conspiracy theory of history." One may justly wonder when and how such a theory became controversial, for it was not always so labeled. Instead, as the following references indicate, it was widely held, although those who held it may not have agreed completely with Robert Welch:
• In 1951, in his concurring opinion accompanying a 6-2 decision upholding the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson labeled communism a "conspiracy."
• In its July 1953 report entitled Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee led by Indiana Senator William Jennet described the "Soviet international organization" as a "conspiracy" and maintained that its "policies and programs ... are still in effect within our Government and constitute a continuing hazard to our national security."
• In 1956, the House Committee on Un-American Activities published a series of five reports under the overall heading The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism. That same year, a House measure calling for a continuation of funding for the committee's work won approval by a vote of 385-1, which is only one indication of the acceptance of the term "conspiracy."
• In August 1956, the Elks Magazine published an article about the communist threat to America written by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In it, Hoover stated: "Yet the individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
All of these official views were matched by many other privately authored unofficial warnings about a conspiracy operating within our nation to destroy freedom and enslave mankind. But enemies saved their most vicious attacks for Robert Welch, not so much because he dared to label a conspiracy for what it truly was, but because he had built an organization to expose it.
It is difficult to do proper justice to so complex a topic as Robert Welch's mature philosophy of history within the constraints of the present article. At best we can only probe its outward contours. Suffice it to say that it represents the culmination of his lifetime of study, the crowning achievement of his quest for knowledge. His examination of the evidence of a Conspiracy, and of the Insiders who control it, are contained in his essay, "More Stately Mansions" (which appears as one of several of Mr. Welch's essays in the book, The New Americanism) and are further detailed in his magnificent 1966 essay, "The Truth in Time" (recently published as an addendum to the 24th printing of The Blue Book of the John Birch Society).
Love of truth, of freedom, of courage, and of knowledge -- of such noble substance was the character of Robert Welch made, and of such substance were many Americans made not so very long ago. It was with qualities like these that oceans were crossed and continents were conquered, that great cities were built and that the imaginations and hopes of tens of millions were stirred as never before in the annals of mankind. It was, perhaps, with such thoughts in mind that Robert Welch continued to exhort the John Birch Society to complete the task he conferred on it at its foundation.
Robert Welch once explained to the members of the organization he created that history has thrust upon them a heavy obligation. Like him, they too must come to terms with that obligation and give a portion of their lives and treasure to the good fight. About that bounden duty Robert Welch wrote these characteristic words:
The responsibilities which are imposed by rank and privilege and good fortune can ... become very onerous indeed. But they cannot, for that reason, be ignored by any American who is worthy of the name. Least of all can they be ignored by that elite group of Americanists, that body of the finest men and women on earth, which we identify as The John Birch Society. For, quite literally, the whole world today is looking for us to take the lead in carrying out those obligations imposed on the American people as a whole by the beautiful, compassionate and courageous principle of noblesse oblige. So prepare yourselves unto the battle, my wonderful friends. For this trumpet will never give out an uncertain sound, so long as this trumpeter remains alive and the struggle is still unwon.
Robert Welch departed this life on January 6, 1985. As we have seen, his great gifts are unique and irreplaceable. Yet the story does not end there. The struggle is still unwon and the trumpeter still gives his steady sound through those unwavering men who have succeeded him in leading "that elite group of Americanists, that body of the finest men and women on earth, which we identify as The John Birch Society."

subset: commoncrawl


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CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- Double Pack
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Game Details
Published by: Ubisoft
Developed by: Telltale Games
Genre: Compilation
Release Date:
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M for Mature : Realistic Violence, Blood and Gore
Also known as: CSI -- Double Pack
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ASB Feedback & Game Issues Thread (New Proposal Handling System in OP)
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WEST SENECA, N.Y. - West Seneca Police say they've caught the person they believe stole beer and cookies from a supermarket and triggered an extensive search Monday night.
Underwater recover teams were called out after the suspect gave police the slip while they questioned him on Harlem Road.
Investigators say he jumped off an over pass and into Buffalo Creek.
They lost track of him, but officers say they picked him up today and he's at the holding center now.
Police have not released his name.


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NPRThursday, December 26, 2013
Officials Warn Swimming In Sac County May Be Toxic
Strong El Niño May Help, Won't End California Drought
Man Arrested For Allegedly Making Threats Against American River College
Rain No Help For California Reservoirs
Governor Signs Bills To Boost Transit, Protect Rivers
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Extended Infant Post-exposure Prophylaxis With Antiretrovirals to Reduce Postnatal HIV Transmission
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The purpose of this study is to determine if extended antiretroviral regimens given to the infant during the first 14 weeks of age would decrease breast milk transmission of HIV.
HIV Infections
Drug: Nevirapine
Drug: AZT
Drug: NVP and AZT
Drug: NVP
Drug: NVP+AZT
Phase 3
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Open Label
Primary Purpose: Prevention
|Official Title:
|Extended Infant Post-exposure Prophylaxis With Antiretrovirals to Reduce Postnatal HIV Transmission
- A. Rate of HIV infection at 9 months and assess HIV infection rates at 6-8 & 14 weeks, and 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. B.Determine HIV survival rates at ages 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. C. Evaluate safety of oral NVP and ZDV for 14 weeks. [ Time Frame: 9 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
- To determine overall infant survival rates at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. [ Time Frame: 6,12,18 & 24 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|April 2004
|Study Completion Date:
|October 2009
|Primary Completion Date:
|August 2007 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
Active Comparator: A
Single dose NVP + ZDV daily for the first week.
Drug: Nevirapine
Oral NVP daily dosage
Other Name: NevirapineDrug: AZT
Oral AZT daily
Other Name: Zidovuidne (ZDV)Drug: NVP and AZT
Oral single dose NVP plus oral daily AZT during the first weeks
Other Name: Nevirapine and zidovudine
Experimental: C
Arm A plus NVP + ZDV daily to age 14 weeks.
Drug: Nevirapine
Oral NVP daily dosage
Other Name: NevirapineDrug: AZT
Oral AZT daily
Other Name: Zidovuidne (ZDV)Drug: NVP+AZT
Oral NVP daily plus oral AZT daly to age 14 weeks
Other Name: Nevirapine plus zidovudine
Experimental: B
Arm A plus oral NVP daily to age 14 weeks.
Drug: Nevirapine
Oral NVP daily dosage
Other Name: NevirapineDrug: NVP
Oral NVP daily to age 14 weeks
Other Name: Nevirapine
Detailed Description:
This is a three-arm randomized, open label, clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of two extended regimens of antiretrovirals compared to infant single dose nevirapine plus AZT given twice daily for 1 week (comparison regimen). All infants receive the comparison regimen at birth and then randomized at birth to start either one of the two extended regimens after the first week. The extended regimens are nevirapine daily and nevirapine plus AZT daily - both regimens are given up to age 14 weeks.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 54 Years
|Genders Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Had given birth within the last 24 hours
- Ability and willingness to give informed consent for HIV testing and enrollment into the study
- Willing to receive HIV results
- HIV infected
- Planning to deliver or had given birth at the study clinics
- Willing to come back for follow-up visits for 2 years postnatally
- Resident of Blantyre city or its suburbs
Exclusion Criteria:
- HIV negative
- Women with discordant HIV results
- Women who indicate that they will not breastfeed at time of delivery
- Inability or unwillingness to follow any of the inclusion requirements
- Newborn with life-threatening condition
- Women who previously enrolled in this study and have a second pregnancy cannot reenroll
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00115648
|College of Medicine
|Blantyre, Malawi, 1331
|Principal Investigator:
|Taha E Taha, MD PhD
|Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
No publications provided by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Additional publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
|Responsible Party:
|Michael Thigpen, Medical Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00115648 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|June 23, 2005
|Last Updated:
|March 6, 2014
|Health Authority:
|Malawi: College of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee
Keywords provided by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:
HIV Seronegativity
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Anti-HIV Agents
Anti-Infective Agents
Anti-Retroviral Agents
Antiviral Agents
Enzyme Inhibitors
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Nucleic Acid Synthesis Inhibitors
Pharmacologic Actions
Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors
Therapeutic Uses
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on October 13, 2015


text:
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until the early nineties, but it is now looking west and attaches a great deal of importance to tourism. Ukraine is flat with a pleasantly temperate continental climate and a sub-tropical southern fringe, in the Crimea. The winters are severe but the summers are warm and are therefore the best time to visit Ukraine.
Kiev has a fascinating history and a high level of cultural life. For the past few years, it has also offered an exciting nightlife, with numerous theatres, cafés, restaurants and nightclubs.


text: August 2, 2012 AndroidGuys MobiAir a 0 b 0 c 0 d 0 j 0 About author AndroidGuys 4670 posts Founded on November 5, 2007, we've enjoyed bringing you the latest in Android news and rumors. Updated daily, we strive to deliver reviews, opinions, and updates on all things related to Android. Search AndroidGuys Search for: Save Today! Preorder the Ulefone Paris 4g 8-core Android 5.1 unlocked smartphone at Gearbest.com for $129.99 October 6, 2015 Upcoming DevicesMotorola Moto X Force HTC One A9 (Aero) Motorola Droid Maxx 2 Samsung Galaxy S7 LG G5 LG G Flex 3 LG G4 Note (Pro) Popular GalleriesHuawei Nexus 6P LG Nexus 5X Motorola Moto X Style (Pure) Motorola Moto 360 (2015) Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Don't Miss The inability to adapt is why Samsung will fall October 6, 2015 Why low to mid range phones are the "Next Big Thing" October 5, 2015 Sidestepping the carriers: Is Motorola in the right direction? October 5, 2015


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Digging to Americaby Anne Tyler
Staff Pick
Anne Tyler put her skilled pen to paper and wrote a powerful novel of America's melting pot. Brought together by international adoptions, two family's lives intertwine and illuminate America's cultural spectrum and all its universalities of human nature. Funny, touching, highly recommended.
Anne Tyler put her skilled pen to paper and wrote a powerful novel of America's melting pot. Brought together by international adoptions, two family's lives intertwine and illuminate America's cultural spectrum and all its universalities of human nature. Funny, touching, highly recommended.
"With her 17th novel, Tyler has delivered something startlingly fresh while retaining everything we love about her work. Digging to America delivers the blithely insular, suburban Baltimore characters we expect, but it's a bait-and-switch move....Her success at portraying culture clash and the complex longings and resentments of those new to America confirms what we knew, or should have known, all along: There's nothing small about Tyler's world, nothing precious about her attention to the hopes and fears of ordinary people." Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World (read the entire Washington Post Book World review)
"[S]tupendously wise and very funny....Digging to America succeeds on many levels — as a satire of millennial parenting, a tribute to autumn romances, and, most important, an exploration of our risible (though poignant) attempts to welcome otherness into our midst." Elizabeth Judd, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after thirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her "outsiderness."
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport — the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam's fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian American wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate with an "arrival party," an event that is repeated every year as the two families become more deeply intertwined.
Even independent-minded Maryam is drawn in. But only up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by one of the Donaldson clan, a good-hearted man of her vintage, recently widowed and still recovering from his wife's death, suddenly all the values she cherishes — her traditions, her privacy, her otherness — are threatened. Somehow this big American takes up so much space that the orderly boundaries of her life feel invaded.
A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that cast a penetrating light on the American way as seen from two perspectives, those who are born here and those who are still struggling to fit in.
"Tyler (Breathing Lessons) encompasses the collision of cultures without losing her sharp focus on the daily dramas of modern family life in her 17th novel. When Bitsy and Brad Donaldson and Sami and Ziba Yazdan both adopt Korean infant girls, their chance encounter at the Baltimore airport the day their daughters arrive marks the start of a long, intense if sometimes awkward friendship. Sami's mother, Maryam Yazdan, who carefully preserves her exotic 'outsiderness' despite having emigrated from Iran almost 40 years earlier, is frequently perplexed by her son and daughter-in-law's ongoing relationship with the loud, opinionated, unapologetically American Donaldsons. When Bitsy's recently widowed father, Dave, endearingly falls in love with Maryam, she must come to terms with what it means to be part of a culture and a country. Stretching from the babies' arrival in 1997 until 2004, the novel is punctuated by each year's Arrival Party, a tradition manufactured and comically upheld by Bitsy; the annual festivities gradually reveal the families' evolving connections. Though the novel's perspective shifts among characters, Maryam is at the narrative and emotional heart of the touching, humorous story, as she reluctantly realizes that there may be a place in her heart for new friends, new loves and her new country after all." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Ms. Tyler deserves her reputation as a master of the fine threads of human relationships. The barely registered slights, fleeting intuitions and shivers of pity that pass between these characters are a pleasure to behold." The Wall Street Journal
"Anne Tyler has written 17 novels and you only wish for more. Her newest, Digging to America, is wonderfully wry, yet intimately involving. There's a definite sense of loss when it's over and done." New York Daily News
"Tyler creates many blissful moments of high emotion and keen humor while broaching hard truths about cultural differences, communication breakdowns, and family configurations. This deeply human tale of valiantly improvised lives is one of Tyler's best." Booklist (Starred Review)
"At a time when discussions of immigration and citizenship have become increasingly fraught, Tyler's Digging to America offers tranquil insight by telling one immigration story and telling it well." Rocky Mountain News
"[A] compelling novel. Anyone can tell a story, but few writers allow us to identify with their 'just folks' characters, and, like Tyler, let us revel in the day-to-day, often repetitive activities that are at the heart of being a family member and a friend." USA Today
"Digging to America is studded with lovely observations....Tyler has cast her abiding theme — the art of surviving among shifting, challenging circumstances — in a story more anchored in a specific time than any previous work." Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A touching, well-crafted tale of friendship, families, and what it means to be an American. Recommended." Library Journal
"If you plan to soak up a few rays while reading [Digging to America], liberally apply the sunscreen before you start the 277-page book. Otherwise, you might find yourself caught up in her 17th novel and not want to stop to slather up again." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Once again, this wise and warm-hearted author delves beneath the surface of ordinary Americans to find that there are no ordinary Americans." Christian Science Monitor
About the Author
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tyler's seventeenth novel; her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore.
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DSD just what i need!!! thanks
I need this DAC!
I'd like to congratulate Benchmark for keeping up w/ the competition and adding DSD. Another improvement is simplified gain control. In DAC1, variable vs non-variable gain – non-variable mode required an adjustment of each channel w/ the trim pots, which was quite inconvenient for a regular user. It's also good to have the indicators for the sample rate and word length. However, I'm surprised that Benchmark didn't disclose the type of the low-pass filter used (linear phase, minimum phase, or apodizing). It shouldn't be such a big deal, especially now when everyone uses pretty much similar technology. There is also no option for user-selectable filter, but perhaps the price couldn't be the same. Also, I found that the manual is not always clear enough in explaining all features available (eg, I couldn't find what the HT indicator on the front panel is for).
I'm saving up for one of these anyway, so heck yes - add me to the list!
Thank you.
But can it compete with the Schiit Bifrost?


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Curriculum and Lab Supplies
Access Nanotechnology curriculum and supplies that can be integrated into general science, biology, and environmental science, chemistry, and physics classes. Curriculum and supplies are available to all educators. To request free materials to use in your class please fill out the SHINE Material Request Questionnaire.
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The Traitor King (25 player)
Kill 25 Swarm Scarabs within 30 seconds in 25-player mode.
|Swarm Scarabs Slain (25)
|Quick Facts
|Swarm Scarabs Slain (25)
The Wowhead Client is a little application we use to keep our database up to date, and to provide you with some nifty extra functionality on the website!
It serves 2 main purposes:
You can also use it to keep track of your completed quests, recipes, mounts, companion pets, and titles!
So, what are you waiting for? Download the client and get started.


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This traditional table will fit flawlessly in any office.
Special Offer:
12 Issues of Money Magazine
Included with purchase ($20 value).
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|Shape: Circular
Table Top Material: Wood
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|Wheels Included: No
|Country of Manufacture: United States
About the ManufacturerFor years, small businesses in search of affordable laminate furniture typically had to sacrifice aesthetics to stay within budget. Times have changed. Small businesses are more important to the economy than ever. And ABCO is providing affordable furniture with style befitting the new stature of small businesses.
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$1M bond for Phoenix policeman shooting suspect
PHOENIX — Bond is set at $1 million for a convicted felon who's accused of
shooting and wounding a Phoenix police officer.
Brandon McCabe made his initial court appearance Thursday. He's being held on
suspicion of attempted first-degree murder, misconduct involving weapons,
criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.
Authorities say the 28-year-old McCabe is prohibited from possessing a firearm.
McCabe allegedly shot Phoenix policeman Peter "Chris" Bennett six times last
Sunday night. The 36-year-old Bennett survived and is recovering from surgery to
his face, right arm and right hip.
Police say Bennett approached McCabe in an area with a high burglary rate. They
say McCabe ignored the officer's command and the two exchanged gunfire.
McCabe was found hiding in a shed and arrested. He also was hospitalized with
gunshot wounds to both hands.


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Minas Gerais spending dataSpending data with COFOG classification for the Minas Gerais region in Brazil
UY: Uruguay Budget 2011Datasets to be imported to the OpenSpending.org site.
EU European Regional Development Fund UK BeneficiariesAll direct beneficiaries of European Cohesion policy have to be published by the Managing Authorities under the rules governing the implementation of the funds 2007-2013 (EC No...
ERDF Spending FinlandThe CSV contains all the projects and beneficiaries for European Union Cohesion Policy in Finland
Minsk City Budget 2010Minsk City Budget spending by funstion for 2010
Presupuesto Chile 2012Detalle Presupuesto 2012, Gobierno de Chile
Santarem - PA - Budget DataDados de orçamento de Abril de Santarem, PA. Brasil.
Il n'y a pas de description pour ce jeu de données
Belarus National Budget SpendingAll chapters of the national budget of the Republic of Belarus spending for the period 2006 - 2011. This is an update. Something is still wrong with the encoding of cyrillics...
Belarusian National Budget Spending 2006-2011Only national level budget spending as planned by the central government for 2006-2011. The data is in Russian. Encoding problems with .csv might occur.
Hungarian Government Budget Database 1995-2009The spreadsheet in this package shows budget spending by the Hungarian central government between 1995 and 2009 - measured in million HUF. The source of the data is the...
Minsk City budget 2007Testing a data model for the file.
haushalt_berlin_2010 2011my firt attempt of uploading Berlins (Germany) spending. Any comments appreciated.
UK: Brighton and Hove Finance DataBrighton & Hove City Council is one of the first authorities opening up its spending for review by its residents. For an overview of our spending please go to the Brighton...
UK: Adur District Council Spending DataFrom Spikes Cavell, Spotlight on Spend. For Ardur, records from April 2009-March 2010 are currently available (2011-008-04)
AU: Australian Federal Government Contract SpendingSpending by Australian Federal Government agencies on goods and services from 2007 onwards. Source: Department of Finance and Deregulation, "AusTender: Contract Notice Export"...


text: Photos: Artist draws giant chalk lion Share this story email Share this story «Previous 6 of 11 Photos Next » « » Artist's giant chalk lion amazes Westlake crowd Artist Gabrielle Abbot of Seattle was shocked when she produced a large chalk mural - for free - at a Seattle public park one day and was told by a police officer to stop because she didn't have a permit. She later got a permit and has since been hired by the city to create chalk art. This past weekend she created a lion at Westlake Center. She calls the chalk art "the fun part of her job."


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In case you missed, oh the last two months of the Mets' season, you missed out on the fact that Matt Harvey is excellent and one of the big reasons for optimism about the Mets' future. And just a few months ago, he was a top pitching prospect in Buffalo. In light of that last fact, John Manuel at Baseball America has named him the AAA International League's top prospect. It seems like a funny award for a guy who has already had big league success and pitched enough that he's no longer rookie eligible in 2013, but that's the way these lists go.
Manuel placed RHP Jeurys Familia on his list at #14 in the IL.
His comments on Familia's stuff ring true:
He can work at 94-95 mph and touch 97 with his fastball, but he doesn't command it despite a compact arm action. More thrower than pitcher, he falls behind in the count often enough to get punished, even by Triple-A hitters.
His short, hard slider is a plus pitch at times and his sinking changeup has its moments, but Familia trusts neither pitch because of their inconsistency.
Manuel is chatting at 3 pm as well.


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Recap: Paul DePodesta conf. call with bloggers
Tonight, Vice President of player development and amateur scouting Paul DePodesta held a conference call with Mets bloggers.
Below is a recap of the questions and responses:
Michael Baron, MetsBlog.com: When evaluating amateur talent, from both a pitching and a hitting standpoint, what are some of the keys you're looking for and what seems to catch your eye when watching players?
Paul DePodesta: At the top of the draft, we get a little greedy. We want everything. For pitchers, we look at command, power and secondary stuff. On the hitting side, we look for power and patience at the plate, plus solid defense. In the absence of those things, which even happens in the first round, you have to start balancing what you think is important. As you move through the draft you ask 'is there a guy with a plus breaking ball? Above average command?' Those types of things we look for and how it changes through the three days.
Kerel Cooper, On the Black: Do you plan on watching the movie 'Moneyball', and what do you think of Jonah Hill playing a fictionalized character of him in the movie?
Paul DePodesta: I knew sooner or later I'd have to answer this question. At some point I'll see it. It's a little surreal & it's a little awkward and hopefully it will be fun and enjoyable. When I spoke to Jonah Hill I reminded him just to a lot of fun with the role because that's how I remembered my time in Oakland.
Matthew Artus, Amazin' Avenue: Before the season, you said the second base job will be a competition until someone takes it themselves. What have you seen at second base at the big league level as well as within in the organization?
Paul DePodesta: These are the probe you hope for in the organization – guys are comfortable and playing well, and that's the situation with Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy. As we've all learned as you go through the 162 game season, you need an awful lot of players. One example is last year is last year, Atlanta's non-starters were outstanding. Hopefully we're in that position once we get healthy.
Caryn Rose, Metsgrrl: As an early adopter of social media, when you started blogging did you have any theories about it?
Paul DePodesta: I certainly wasn't skilled at it, nor am I still. The thing that struck me was the idea you could have a one-on-one with our fans, our stakeholders and that was pretty powerful. This forum allows for us to be interactive and a much more personal conversation. When I first started, Some of the dialogue Ive been able to have with the fans is meaningful for me, and hopefully for them.
Steve Keane, Kranepool Society: Looking at the recent draft, it was nearly even in drafting in pitchers and position players, and it seemed there were clusters that went specifically at pitching? Was that planned? Was it your target in the middle to late part of the draft?
Paul DePodesta: In the early part of the draft, it wasn't our plan – it's just how these things roll. As far as clustering the picks are concerned, that certainly was planned. We felt there was an unusual depth in this year's draft where we felt that later there would be a pool of pitching to choose from.One of the things you'll see is rounds two through five was all college pitching, but the later rounds we drafted high school pitching. It was definitely calculated.
Shannon Shark, MetsPolice: Your home life – is there a man cave? A big screen? How do you deal with your family and having to say "I have to watch this game?"
Paul DePodesta: The reality is Im on the road a lot and when I am home, I want to be a good father and husband. I have four kids and I want to be able to spend time with them. I manage to get work done here and there and I definitely take advantage of late night when everyone is asleep. I wish I had a man cave – I don't. Maybe someday.
Mike Silva, NYBD: Following up on the amateur draft question, do you think there are one or two kids who can help the big league roster in a year or year and a half?
Paul DePodesta: I don't think Id put that expectation on anyone. There are a couple of kids who we think can be good in the shorter term. In the batch of college pitchers we took, you never know – you have to see how they do in professional ball. None of them are going to pitch very much this summer as they've come close to what we consider a healthy innings total at this point in their lives. We will be able to make a better determination next Spring on their ability to impact the club.
Michael Donato, Optimistic Met Fan: Regarding the minor leagues, is there anyone we haven't seen yet who we can expect to see towards the stretch run who can make an impact on the big league roster?
Paul DePodesta: Due to the injuries, you've already seen a bunch of them. Kirk Nieuwenhuis was playing well in triple-A, but he came down with an injury. He was really having a terrific year. Aside from that, you've already seen most of those guys. I don't know what August and September will hold – it will depend on how they perform and how the big league team performed. Right now, there isn't anyone else knocking on the door who can make a significant impact. Maybe one other one who hasn't been up yet, because he isn't on the 40 man roster was Chris Schwinden – he's at Triple-A and has pitched really well there.
Eric Simon, Amazin' Avenue: Drawing from your experience in Oakland, LA and now New York how do you balance in-game autonomy for the manager?
Paul DePodesta: Its important the manager has complete autonomy once the game starts. The reality is that in-game strategy is dictated by personnel. For example, If we have a lot of guys who can run, the manager will run them more. I absolutely believe the manager controls the game 100% while its going on. His charge is to best utilize the personnel and our job is to provide him the best and most versatile personnel as possible so he can effectively manage them through the course of the game.
Joe Decaro, Mets Merized Online: What do you mean by 'makeup' in a player? Is it something you see int he draft, or is it developed over time? What about Jose Reyes and his makeup? Is he a championship player?
Paul DePodesta: For me, makeup can mean an a lot of different things: work ethic, character, selflessness. There are a lot of things we look for in a player's makeup. Work ethic and ability is what makes them great as well as a tremendous distaste for losing. They want to be out there competing and doing what it takes to win. It's a special kind of mindset and a lot of people don't have that. There are plenty of productive players out there, but what separates guys is their will and passion. Its definitely something we look for in the draft. The minor leagues is a real grind and not a lot of players get through it. They deal with a lot of failure, fatigue and selfishness. A lot of people's goals are not to win, but to get to the big leagues – it can be a difficult atmosphere. We look for people who can not just survive, but thrive in that environment.
Regarding Reyes, it's not my place to comment. Ive been in NY all of ten days and haven't seen much of him. I can say he plays with a tremendous amount of passion, which is a key. He brings up the players around them. Its obvious even when you watch him on TV.
Greg Prince, FFiF: Given how much the Mets have had to scramble as a result of injury, versatility has been important. How can you judge who can be versatile, and how easy is it to teach someone to play more than one position?
Paul DePodesta: Most players, when they first get to the big leagues are in a role they are largely unaccustomed to. Maybe they are a utility player, long reliever. What we try to do is prepare guys for that. That puts them in a better position to help at the major league level. For example, Jordanny Valdespin – he has been a second baseman, but he has played most of this season as a shortstop. This example provides a lot of value to the club. Valdespin has played well there, and he could prove to be an everyday shortstop.
Joe Janish, Mets Today: Much of your work must depend on the scouting of others. Is there a universal philosophy on evaluating ballplayers, and can you give some insight on evaluating the evaluators?
Paul DePodesta: You're right – I can't go out and see every player. None of us can. A lot of what we do is read reports and ask questions and then try to make the best decision we can. Same goes for Sandy – he needs to be able to ask the right questions of the evaluators and make decisions based on that at times. We try to get to know each others as evaluators – some people grade talent different. As long as you know their tendencies when heading into a discussion, you're better equipped to process the response. We all have our own biases in what we tend to look for. If we all looked at this in the same way, we wouldn't need anybody.


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RoC77 wrote:One day, I saw this on the street with some of my coworkers on my way to lunch, with a teenage girl driving it, instantly hated her parents....
[snip picture of pink HUMVE]
Pwnerade wrote:Ahh, the H2 limo. It just embraces the fact that the H2 wasn't intended to be an off-road vehicle, but rather a gas-guzzling penis extension.
Silverdream wrote:MOST UNLIKED BY SILVERDREAM
-Vami IV
WINNER: Nitewatchman
Natalya wrote:Did I explain that well?
Natalya wrote:You're in here too.
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Norma I. Felber
SMITHFIELD - FELBER, Norma I., 83, died Sunday, April 21, 2013. She was the wife of the late William J. Felber, Jr.
Born in Cumberland, she was a daughter of the late Francis and Celia (Forgette) Billington.
She is survived by five sons, James, Robert, Michael, Paul and Mark, a daughter, Ann Marie St. Laurent; nine grandchildren, 3 great grandchildren and a brother, Donald Billington. She was the sister of the late Charles and Raymond Billington, Joan Silver and Eleanor Gadue.
Visitation and Mass in the Jeanne Jugan Residence. Mass Thursday at 10:30am, visitation Wednesday 4-7pm. Burial in Resurrection Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations to Jeanne Jugan Residence, 964 Main Street, Pawtucket, RI 02860. For complete obituary and messages of condolence visit www.andersonwinfield.net


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If you have been around my blog for sometime now, you might have heard about the struggles I had for the first few months that I breastfeed Princess P. However, despite the countless problems (clogged ducts, Mastitis, latch issues, supply issues and even the aspiration of a lump), I am glad I pushed through and continued to nurse P through her first birthday. However, as I look back on it now, maybe I didn't have the proper products to help me through the journey. While I might still have had latch issues, they might not have been as severe if I had had the right nursing pillow. Or, maybe if I had thought to purchase the right supplements to help with my supply, I wouldn't have had to stay up all night pumping.
My Brest Friend is a company that is devoted to all things breastfeeding. Founded in 1994, My Brest Friend was developed in a "laboratory" of new moms, babies and breastfeeding experts who set out to create a pillow whose sole purpose was to answer all the needs of the breastfeeding moms and babies. After redesigning, retesting, poking, tightening and shifting, the My Brest Friend Original Pillow was released. And now, 17 years later, the pillow is still loved around the world.
First off, I had to try out the Original Pillow because of its unique design! Not only is the pillow supportive but it is also comfortable for both mom and baby. Its wrap-around design secures to the body, helping mom and baby maintain ideal positioning and latch-on. The built-in back rest helps maintain good posture during feeding and the arm and elbow rests eliminate shoulder stress. Also, the My Brest Friend Original Pillow features a firm, flat front cushion to eliminate the gap between you and your baby, which keeps baby from rolling in or away during breastfeeding.
When breastfeeding Princess P in public, I was always very modest. Even when I had a nursing cover around us, I still felt like something was showing that wasn't supposed to be. But, now that I have seen the My Brest Friend Nursing Cover in person, I don't think that nursing in public will be a problem when baby #2 comes along.
My Brest Friend also sent me a bottle of each of their breastfeeding vitamins and supplements. Each is specifically formulated for the nutritional needs of nursing mothers.
Omega-3 Lemon Fish Oil is loaded with DHA and Omega-3 fatty acids which supports heart, lung, joint, skin, brain and nerve functions. They are especially crucial for development of proper neurological and visual functions in infants.
Fenugreek is the most popular herbal remedy that has been used by millions of women around the world for increasing milk production. Research suggests that diosgenin, a natural compound found in the Fenugreek seed, may be responsible for stimulating milk production by up to 40%. Women generally notice an increase in milk supply within 1 to 3 days after supplementing with Fenugreek.
Buy It: The My Brest Friend Original Pillow ($44), Slipcover ($18), Nursing Cover ($28), Breastfeeding Essentials ($34.95), Fenugreek ($9.95) and Omega-3 Lemon Fish Oil ($9.95) can be purchased at amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com. For a full list of retailers, please click here.
To Enter: Visit My Brest Friend and leave a comment on a product you would love to try. Please leave your email address in the comment or make sure it is visible in your profile.
Extra Entries:
1. Grab my button. Leave an address where it can be found.
2. Subscribe to my feed. Must be verified to count.
3. Follow me on Google Friend Connect.
4. Enter any of my other current giveaways. Leave a separate comment on which one(s).
5. Follow me on Twitter and Tweet about this giveaway using the text below. You can tweet once daily for an extra entry each day.
Enter to win a @MyBrestFriend Nursing Prize Pack (valued at $145) during the #ohbabyevent @PieceOfMeBlog! http://bit.ly/eT9Z1v
6. Follow My Brest Friend on Twitter
7. Add the "Oh, Baby!" button to your sidebar. Leave an address where it can be found.
8. 1 Extra Entry if you placed the "Oh, Baby!" button on your sidebar before the start of the event and left a comment on the event announcement post.
9. 2 Extra Entries if you "like" My Brest Friend on Facebook
10. 5 Extra Entries if you blog about this giveaway. Please leave an address where it can be found.
Giveaway will end on March 29th at 11:59pm ET. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced here as well as emailed. The winner will have 48 hours to contact me or a new winner will be chosen. Giveaway open to Continental US residents.
A big thank you to My Brest Friend for this review and giveaway opportunity!