Apple (AAPL) Announces it Sold 47.8 Million iPhones But Investors Disappointed

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img alt="PHOTO: Advertisements for the iPhone 5 are displayed at an Apple store, Jan. 14, 2013 in New York." src="http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/gty_apple_sales_iphone_lpl_130122_wg.jpg" /><br /><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">Advertisements for the iPhone 5 are displayed at an Apple store, Jan. 14, 2013 in New York. </span><span class="caption_credit" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #888888; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">(Getty Images)</span><br /><span class="caption_credit" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #888888; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span><br /><div class="byline" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">By <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/author/susanna_kim" rel="author" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">SUSANNA KIM</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/skimm" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@skimm</a>)</div><div class="date" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 4px 0px 0px;">Jan. 23, 2013 From: <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/" style="background-color: transparent;">http://abcnews.go.com</a></div><div class="date" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 4px 0px 0px;"><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;"><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/business/companies/apple-computer.htm" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Apple</a> stock took a hit after its first-quarter earnings were released on Wednesday afternoon, topping profit forecasts but with lower than expected iPhone sales.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Apple stock was up 1.86 percent to $514.17 at the close of trading in New York.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"No technology company has ever reported these kinds of results," <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/12/apple-ceo-tim-cook-intense-interest-in-improving-tv/" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Tim Cook, CEO of Apple</a>, said on the earnings call.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">The company reported that it sold 47.8 million <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/09/iphone-5-1-day-sales-hit-2-million/" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">iPhones</a> in the quarter, compared with 37 million in the same quarter a year ago. Many investors had hoped that the company would sell 50 million iPhones, which drives Apple's earnings.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Investors eagerly awaited Apple to report its earnings, seeking clarity after a number of rumors about iPhone parts and sales.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Earlier this week there were reports about the next iPhone being released in June.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"Certainly a new product line is in the works," said Brian Colello, Morningstar senior equity analyst. "It remains to be seen what Apple will ultimately come out with and when. Those are certainly factors to keep an eye on."</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Last week, a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/01/apple-stock-aapl-closes-near-500/" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">report that Apple had decreased its order for iPhone parts</a>may have contributed to a decrease in its stock price to near $500.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"It will be interesting to see if Apple is really pushing the envelope in terms of innovation and shortening the product cycle," Colello said.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Colello said Apple is facing growing competition from Samsung. Last summer, when Apple released the iPhone 4S, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/samsung-galaxy-android-smartphone-review/story?id=16607381" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Samsung also released its Galaxy S 3</a>, which saw strong sales.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">On Wednesday, Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., said it sold a "record" 22.9 million iPads in the quarter, compared to 15.4 million a year ago. The company also sold 4.1 million Mac computers, compared to 5.2 million in the same quarter last year.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">On Apple's earnings call CFO Peter Oppenheimer attributed the Mac slide to the refreshed Mac products not being released until December. Its <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-imac-2012-review-reason-desktop/story?id=17847986" style="color: #336699; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">new iMac desktops</a> were not sold until early December.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"We believe our Mac sales would have been much higher without those constraints," Oppenhimer said on the call.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Colello said the iPhone unit sales were "a bit of a disappointment."</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">And despite a record number of iPad sales, he said they were still lighter than Wall Street's expectations.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">The company failed to beat Wall Street's expectations about revenue, but it did beat forecasts for profit. Apple's own forecast was $52 billion in revenue.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"We're thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter," said Cook in a statement. "We're very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world."</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">In light of the company's "fairly weak" quarterly earnings, Colello said Apple's forecast for $41 billion to $43 billion in future revenue was also "light."</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">The company still can boast about the amount of cash it has hoarded: $137 billion.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">On Tuesday, some investors had their hopes up after Verizon reported a stronger than expected number of new iPhone subscribers during its conference call.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Colello cautioned that Verizon's iPhone sales were strong but they also sold a large number of older iPhone models.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">"Obviously the iPhone is the biggest driver, but there are a couple factors in there, such as the types of units and at what prices," Colello said. "Was it the Phone 5 or 4S?"</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;">Apple does not break out the type of iPhones sold.</div><div style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 22px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 150px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Joanna Stern contributed to this report.</em></div></div></div>

AAPL Apple iphone Apple (AAPL) Announces it Sold 47.8 Million iPhones But Investors Disappointed

Advertisements for the iPhone 5 are displayed at an Apple store, Jan. 14, 2013 in New York.  (Getty Images) By  SUSANNA KIM  ( @skimm ) Jan....

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Merlot & me

<p>Watched a crazy programme the other night.  Called 'Merlot & me' it was all about Irish housewives and their drinking habits. Presented by Maia Dunphy, it was quite an eye opening watch.</p><p>A few of the ladies interviewed on the show revealed that they don't eat all day so as to save their calories for wine in the evening time.  OMG, what the heck!! What is this?! Alcorexia??!!</p><p>Another few ladies talked about going off to the bathroom to have a "vom" to empty their stomach so they could drink some more.  Mad! Booze-elimia!</p><p>I think some of these ladies need to take a serious look at their drinking habits!</p>

Merlot & me

Watched a crazy programme the other night.  Called 'Merlot & me' it was all about Irish housewives and their drinking habits. Pr...

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THE BALKANS – ORGANIZED CRIME AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION PART 1

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font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14yW51w-dzRaMarKYLQA16A35K8ltyJ5DG_W9MMmbVoPSWs8gcv9Ds8OH1eKnNHTVJgsruL2KrMZSXjaAC5NunwBE58_bpp5qzB23LAiHyOnPDh_MY97-DVMcsCs_0waTviv3CVg_avYK/s1600/genetic_makeup_of_the_balkans_map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14yW51w-dzRaMarKYLQA16A35K8ltyJ5DG_W9MMmbVoPSWs8gcv9Ds8OH1eKnNHTVJgsruL2KrMZSXjaAC5NunwBE58_bpp5qzB23LAiHyOnPDh_MY97-DVMcsCs_0waTviv3CVg_avYK/s640/genetic_makeup_of_the_balkans_map.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME, EXTREMISM & GEOPOLITICS</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 153.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from Ioannis Michaletos </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: 153.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">ORGANIZED CRIME (OC) SYNDICATES EMERGING IN THE BALKANS</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The main threat to the BALKANS nowadays is the existence of well organized criminal groups that to an extent are an integral part of the world wide “Crime Syndicates” that for the most part control the narcotics trade as well as human trafficking in our époque. The infamous BALKAN drugs route is the main path by which narcotics and specifically heroin; are smuggled to EUROPEAN countries. It is actually a network of contrabands, corrupted public officials and war lords that make sure that the heroin produced in AFGHANISTAN is smoothly transferred to the EUROPE.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">ORGANIZED CRIME SYNDICATES (OC) CONSTANTLY INCREASE THEIR RICHES AND THUS POLITICAL INFLUENCE</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">According to the Council of Foreign affairs, AFGHANISTAN has almost tripled its heroin production and in 2005 32,000 acres were reserved for poppy cultivation, out of 12,000 acres in 2004. This fact shows first of all failure by the International Community (IC) in that country to create the necessary framework for the reconstruction process. As far as the ramifications for the BALKANS are concerned, the increased profits by Organized Crime syndicates (OC) have boasted them with tremendous riches and political influence.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There are mainly two organized ethnic groups that deal most of the arrangements concerning the OC in the Balkans. The so-called ALBANIAN mafia and the TURKISH crime syndicates. The ALBANIAN OC is very active since the collapse of the Communist rule in this country that opened the way for various indigenous gangs to spread their wings further and take part in one of the most profitable commerce of all times, namely drugs and human trafficking. A leading FRENCH criminologist Xavier Raufer has extensively dealt with the issue of the ALBANIAN mafia. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He considers the ALBANIANS as the only true “Mafia” in the BALKANS due to the peculiar social structure of their society in the Northern parts of the country “The land of the Genghis”.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">An isolated society with very firm beliefs in issues of honor and manhood pride coupled with severe social problems and a culture of vendetta; has been transformed into a huge international crime network. Various reports indicate that roughly 70-80% of the heroin distributed in EUROPEAN is under ALBANIAN control, a really impressive percentage for a nation of just 6 million people. Moreover in the BALKAN route –In reality three distinct routes-, the ALBANIAN mafia plays a vital role in safeguarding the interests of the world drugs trade by having its “Soldiers” and “Capos” along the way and protecting shipments from police and official interruption.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN FROM ALBANIA IS ONE OF THE MAIN WAYS TO ESTABLISH A “WAR CHEST” FOR OC</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Furthermore ALBANIA as a country is a major producer of Cannabis, which is mainly exported to neighboring GREECE and ITALY. The narcotic traded is placed along the trafficking and human trafficking operations that have seen the ALBANIANS gaining the fame as the most powerful and dangerous criminal group in SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE. In GREECE alone the revenues from prostitution run at around 7.5 billion USD, a large portion of that being controlled by ALBANIAN criminal groups. Trafficking of women from ALBANIA is one of the main ways to establish a “War chest” for OC, in order to invest its wealth in the drugs trade.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In essence the first stage for every respectable OC unit, is to establish a prostitution ring, make easily large amounts of cash, and then invest them for the drugs trade by constructing the expensive logistics bases, fake companies, pay corrupted officials and so on. Therefore when looking into the different aspects of organized criminal activity, one should note that all forms of that activity are interconnected and that each one leads to the other. That actually is one of the differences of organized crime from the other forms of criminality.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN OC AND TERRORISM</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Back to the activities of the ALBANIAN criminal groups, the recent history illustrates the existence of a hybrid criminal form, meaning the interconnection between criminal activities and terrorism. The ALBANIAN groups that are mostly active in the North of the country have been associated with the preparations of the U.C.K guerilla forces in the late 90’s, as well as, with their arming and training. The troubling 90’s in SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE saw the convergence of the drugs trade along with the formation of radical Islamic groups and the pervasion of corruption in the upper echelons on the countries involved. In the ALBANIAN case the past decade it is assumed that the country is facing a virtual takeover of its institution by the OC that in its turn has been linked with international terrorism, with Al Qaeda withstanding.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The main role of the ALBANIAN Mafia in the narcotics trade is the one of wholesale distributor of AFGHAN heroine. Along the BALKAN route and especially the one passing through SOUTHERN BULGARIA, FYROM; the ALBANIANS import heroin and then dispense it to ITALY, or BOSNIA- CROATIA to AUSTRIA and CENTRAL EUROPE. After 1999 and the consequent ALBANIAN dominance in KOSOVO, Pristina has become the unquestionable narcotics capital of EUROPE. A traditionally provisional city in the midst of the BALKANS is nowadays the epicenter of all drugs deal of an area encompassing CENTRAL EUROPE, BALKANS, and MIDDLE EAST.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">KEY ELEMENT IN BALKANS OC: KOSOVO-ALBANIAN DIASPORA</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The lack of law coupled with the existence of a society reluctant to pursue OC, has created a “black hole” in the centre of the BALKANS that primarily lives on criminal activities and the remittances of the KOSOVO-ALBANIAN Diaspora. The latter is strategically located in countries such as SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA, GERMANY and DENMARK and dominates the EUROPEAN heroin trade. Despite the fact that ALBANIANS are relatively newcomers to the EUROPEAN organized crime scene-Like the old-timers Sicilians, Corsicans – they have already taken over the entire EUROPEAN heroin market and make large advances in the sectors of trafficking, racketeering, arms smuggling, illegal gambling and human trafficking.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKISH CRIME SYNDICATES ARE THE <span style="font-size: large;">UNDISPUTED</span> PARTNER OF THE ALBANIANS</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The infamous ALBANIAN mafia is a formidable criminal network, but the existence of another one, influential as well, should be added in order to examine the whole spectrum of drugs trade in the BALKANS. The TURKISH crime syndicates are the undisputable partner of the ALBANIANS. It would not be possible for the ALBANIANS to become distributors in the first place if the weren’t able to acquire their goods from the East, and that is where the role of the TURKS begins.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKEY is a country strategically located between the EAST and the WEST. Apart from its importance in political and military level, it is also an integral part of the international narcotics smuggling. It would just be very hard for heroin to travel from CENTRAL ASIA to EUROPE without being able to trespass TURKEY, the only ASIAN country bordering with EUROPE. TURKEY traditionally is producing Opium, for pharmaceutical purposes. In the early 70’s international pressure –Mostly from Nixon administration in the USA- obliged TURKEY to enforce stricter rules for Opium production in 1974. Up until then heroin was produced in TURKEY as an Opium derivative and quantities were sold to the West with the assistance of the Sicilian and Corsican mafias.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKISH NARCOTIC PRODUCTION BASES ESTABLISHED IN AFGHANISTAN AND NORTHERN PAKISTAN</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The heroin to be sold was transported with ships to Sicily, and then to Marseilles were the Corsicans had created labs for the fabrication of the commercial product. From then onwards it was transferred to New York and other USA ports where the AMERICAN-ITALIAN mafia would assure its allocation in the end-users, the heroin addicts. The forceful USA administration at that time declared a war against narcotics and obliged the TURKS to seek other sources of the lucrative opium. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Soon enough TURKISH operational production bases were established in AFGHANISTAN and NORTHERN PAKISTAN. The war in the former during the 80’s, as well as, the resurge of the KURDISH guerilla fighting after 1984 and the IRAQ-IRANIAN war the same period; created a convergence of political, criminal and military operations based in heroin trade.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Events such as the IRAN-Contra scandal illuminate how far the <b>heroin trade has penetrated the higher echelons of the world’s decision-making process and how it interacts with the international affairs.</b> See: <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/09/crime-corruption-and-political-system.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/09/crime-corruption-and-political-system.html</a>and <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/09/crime-corruption-and-political-system_7.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/09/crime-corruption-and-political-system_7.html</a> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Moreover the effective destruction of Beirut during the 80’s collapsed the cities ubiquitous reputation as the prime port for narcotics trade and this role was taken over by Istanbul. The situation after the end of the Cold War in 1989, found the TURKS financially strong from their trade in the previous decades and also ready enough to pursue stronger ties with the countries of Central ASIA.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKEY, A KEY PLAYER IN DRUG TRAFFICKING?</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Furthermore the appearance of the ALBANIANS and the civil wars in former YUGOSLAVIA, provided ample of human resources in the BALKANS, eager in getting involved in the drugs trade so as to survive financially or gain capital to achieve their political aims. EUROPE now already hosted considerable TURKISH minorities-Especially GERMANY – and individuals from those TURKISH communities were used to act as local retail agents for the heroin distribution in EUROPE.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In 1996 the Susurluk accident(</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susurluk_scandal">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susurluk_scandal</a>) revealed to TURKEY the extent where the Drug –Lords have penetrated the upper crust of the society and they were able to conduct their businesses untouched by the law. Even the spouse of the then TURKISH Prime Minister Tancu Tsiller was accused by the local media for close interactions with notable underworld figures. Furthermore the accusations that the TURKISH security forces were conducting drugs trade in South Eastern TURKE, were in relation to the civil strife in that region because of the KURDISH fight and that presents once more that politics and criminal groups seem to go hand in hand.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveE5Ekdx93pmeJM_1OTsg5banAE-UbpTwhAi_-1qJK_epdupMu45i8_77iwbBG1UfuACSPl0mMcwlX5hyphenhyphenzqAWvj-rEzBj4Nk44CP36HS9NUfS0ATDdbpNvZE5lPKtlBk_yn8hgEWUuTjL/s1600/balkan_map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveE5Ekdx93pmeJM_1OTsg5banAE-UbpTwhAi_-1qJK_epdupMu45i8_77iwbBG1UfuACSPl0mMcwlX5hyphenhyphenzqAWvj-rEzBj4Nk44CP36HS9NUfS0ATDdbpNvZE5lPKtlBk_yn8hgEWUuTjL/s400/balkan_map.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The modus opperandi of the TURKISH organized crime in drugs trade follows the role of the coordinator and distributor. Large amounts of heroin shipments enter TURKEY each month and then delivered through the BALKAN route mostly, to all over EUROPE. It has to be noted that the country with the largest TURKISH community-GERMANY- is being used also as a redistribution centre. That means that when heroin reaches GERMANY, it is being handed out from there to the other major EUROPEAN markets, especially UK and SCANDINAVIA. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Moreover some of the strongest “Capo” of the TURKISH syndicates resided in GERMANY and generally speaking this country has become the centre of gravity for the TURKISH drug barons, as far as, their posture in the EUROPEAN narcotics scene is concerned. Furthermore the impact of the TURKISH drug lords has alarmed EUROPEAN security agencies due to the importance of their overall contribution in the narcotics market on the Continent. For instances since the 1970s, TURKEY has accounted for between 75 and 90 per cent of all heroin in the UK. The key traffickers are TURKS or criminals who operate along that route using TURKISH contacts.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The alliance of TURKISH and ALBANIAN crime groups can be explained at first glance by the cultural, religious and ethnic links –A large percentage of TURKS in Western TURKEY have ALBANIAN ancestry. Also, the tradition of the ALBANIANS to join and serve larger ethnic groups with whom they feel to have a kind of affinity might have its explanation. The same was the case in USA and New York especially where for decades the ALBANIAN crime syndicates tended to operate under the aegis and influence of the much stronger AMERICAN-SICILIAN crime corporations.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">See also </span>Part 2 to 6 on this Blog<span style="font-size: large;"></span> </span></span></div>

THE BALKANS – ORGANIZED CRIME AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION PART 1

SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEAN ORGANIZED CRIME, EXTREMISM & GEOPOLITICS Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from Ioannis Michaletos ...

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Today's archidose #645

Here is a photo of the "<a href="http://www.stadt-koeln.de/5/stadtbibliothek/foerderaktionen/06339/">Minibib</a>" in Stadtgarten, Köln, Germany, by <span class="text">Sonja Zimmermann </span>(2009). Photographs are by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/">Matthijs Borghgraef</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs_borghgraef/8407989929/" title="Stadtgarten Köln by kwikzilver, on Flickr"><img alt="Stadtgarten Köln" height="427" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8518/8407989929_f5e28a3f24_z.jpg" width="640"></a><br /><br />To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:<br /><blockquote>:: Join and add photos to the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/archi-dose/">archidose pool</a>, and/or<br />:: Tag your photos <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/archidose/">archidose</a></span></blockquote>

Today's archidose #645

Here is a photo of the " Minibib " in Stadtgarten, Köln, Germany, by Sonja Zimmermann (2009). Photographs are by Matthijs Borghgra...

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The dorm from hell - Penn Gazette

As I emerged from yet another restless night, I made a vow to myself. If I didn't get some real sleep soon, I was going to kill someone. Then I turned over on my narrow hospital bed and was startled to see a woman I knew as Jeanstanding over me, smiling benevolently.<br /><br><br /><br>I looked back at her, wondering what she could possibly want so early in the morning. A nurse came in and shooed her out. It dawned on me that Jean didn't work at the nursing home. I later learned she was a fellow patient who happened to be a former nurse, and sometimes reverted to caregiver mode.<br /><br><br /><br>Ironically, many residents at this Bucks County nursing, convalescent, and rehab facility thought I was a staff member, because, at age 46, I was mobile and relatively young compared to the rest of the population. Some employees assumed I was a visitor, a misconception that served me well the night I escaped. <br /><br><br /><br>It wasn't my proudest moment, but my frustration with the place had peaked early. What would I do if I had to live there the rest of my life, returned to a state of dependency and set adrift in a new social order of octogenarians and their overlords?<br /><br><br /><br>It all started with what neurologists call a "thunderclap headache." <br /><br><br /><br>I had always been a fairly headache-y person. Stress, hunger, and changes in weather all brought various levels of discomfort. But this new pain struck so suddenly and intensely that I asked the contractor who happened to be doing work on my home that day to drive me to the local emergency room. The diagnosis was a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. I was shipped to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for emergency surgery the next day. <br /><br><br /><br>As brain traumas go, I was extremely fortunate. I experienced no lasting impairment and recovered rapidly from the operation. But in addition to a rather unfortunate haircut, I was left with holes in my short-term memory that you could drive a truck through.<br /><br><br /><br>This memory deficit, while protecting me from whatever unpleasantness I went through pre- and post-surgery, made me question why I was in a nursing home. I'm sure people explained it to me, but the four-lane highway route through my synapses muddled things. <br /><br><br /><br>To an outside observer the reason would have been quite clear. In the three weeks or so following aneurysm surgery, anything can happen. Seizures, a stroke, and other scary stuff were real possibilities at any given time. So I was out of the hospital but not out of the woods, not by a long shot. I still required 24-hour supervision, hence my transfer to this nursing/rehab home. <br /><br><br /><br>And yet in terms of rehab there wasn't much for me to do. I quickly proved that the odds of my falling down or walking into a wall were pretty low. I also mastered sequencing exercises to show I wasn't going to burn the house down while scrambling an egg once I got home. After that, the rehab was more or less over. I spent a lot of time watching daytime TV and napping. <br /><br><br /><br>I also people-watched. There was one fellow resident who had a particular claim on my attention. Monkey Woman, as I came to think of her, had the rather disconcerting habit of throwing back her head and screaming like a chimpanzee. She did this to express displeasure, intimidate people, or just to show that she could. Even when she wasn't screeching, her mood was foul since her family had decreed she had to quit smoking. Watching other residents crowd into the outdoor common area every day to light up had to be maddening for her. <br /><br><br /><br>My 80-something roommate Julia was cordial enough, but wary of a new person in her space. I didn't see her that much because the staff whisked her away to activities all day, every day. At night, Julia went to bed early—but not before carrying on like a small child begging the nurses not to hurt her as they transferred her from her wheelchair to the bed.<br /><br><br /><br>A cadaverous man was routinely parked at the nurse's station just across from my room for hours on end. I never found out why he was left there, nor did I manage to decode what he kept shouting every 15 minutes or so. <br /><br>One night Julia had enough of him. <br /><br><br /><br>"Joseph, you shut up!" she yelled from her bed. She began muttering loudly about Joseph's shortcomings.<br /><br><br /><br>Feeling mischievous, I couldn't help asking: "Julia, are you two dating?"<br /><br><br /><br>"No!" Julia snapped. "But he does owe me money!"<br /><br><br /><br>It all seemed vaguely familiar. I suddenly flashed back to dorm life. That was it! Except, I was stuck in the Dorm from Hell, forcibly returned by age and circumstance to the days of communal living – with the rules, the craziness, and the bingo, but none of the freedom and fun. <br /><br><br /><br>Unlike all but a handful of people there, at least I knew I was going home. But I couldn't get a straight answer about when that might be. So after nearly a week, I decided I couldn't just sit around waiting anymore. <br /><br><br /><br>One night, after listening to Julia plead with the staff as they settled her into bed, I slipped out of the room and down the hall to the security door for the main lobby. A code opened the door after business hours, which I obtained by asking a random person passing by. It was ridiculously easy. Looking like a visitor did have its advantages.<br /><br><br /><br>Elated, I crossed the lobby and went outside to the parking lot. Freedom! Now, what to do with it?<br /><br><br /><br>I looked around, picked a direction, and started walking along the highway in the warm night air until I came to a Shell gas station. Standing in the orange and yellow glow, I realized I had no plan whatsoever. So I called my sister. <br /><br><br /><br>She was not thrilled to hear that I had become a fugitive, and informed me that she was not going to abet my attempt at life on the lam. She ordered me to stay put until she came to pick me up. <br /><br><br /><br>Some time later she did—and, along with two nurse's aides who had been quietly following me, returned me to the nursing home. I was promptly fitted for an electronic monitoring bracelet that sounded an alarm if I got too near to an exit. Back in my room, my sister promised she would negotiate a few rule changes for me, like being able to take a shower every day. <br /><br><br /><br>Partly as a show of good faith and partly to be a smart ass, I demonstrated that I could slide the bracelet off and on. <br /><br><br /><br>As I let a nurse secure the bracelet more snugly, it occurred to me that Monkey Woman and I were not so different. Sooner or later, I was going to get my life back, but for now she and I had very little say about what was best for us. Neither of us was happy about it. <br /><br><br /><br>I was allowed to go home not too long after my escape attempt. My progress since then has been steady; some say miraculous. My experiences in the nursing home and the people I met there had a profound effect on me, particularly my brushes with Monkey Woman.<br /><br><br /><br>I like to think that if she wasn't confined to a wheelchair, she might have hung out at the Shell station to smoke when she got the chance. I would have gladly given her the door code.<br /><br>Samantha Drake CGS'06 lives in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0113/voices.html">http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0113/voices.html</a>

The dorm from hell - Penn Gazette

As I emerged from yet another restless night, I made a vow to myself. If I didn't get some real sleep soon, I was going to kill someone....

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Part Time Library Assistant - Wolcott Public Library

<strong>Part Time Library Assistant -</strong> <strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Wolcott Public Library</span></strong> has an opening for a library assistant, 15-20 hours per week. Hours include days, evenings, and rotating weekends. Duties include a variety of library and clerical tasks, basic support services, and services to patrons. Responsible for routine circulation functions (checking books in and out, registering patrons, etc. using an automated circulation system, shelf maintenance), answering telephones, assisting patrons with library resources and computers, ready reference and various clerical tasks. Qualifications: High school diploma, excellent customer service and computer skills. Library experience a plus. Please send resume and letter of application to Candace Barth, Wolcott Public Library, 469 Bound Line Road, Wolcott, CT 06716 or email (preferred) same to <a _fcksavedurl="mailto:cbarth@biblio.org" href="mailto:cbarth@biblio.org">cbarth@biblio.org</a>. Applications accepted until <span style="color: red;">February 15, 2013</span>.

Part Time Library Assistant - Wolcott Public Library

Part Time Library Assistant - Wolcott Public Library has an opening for a library assistant, 15-20 hours per week. Hours include days, e...

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Facing Cancer, a Stark Choice - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In the 1970s, women's health advocates were highly suspicious of mastectomies. They argued that surgeons - in those days, pretty much an all-male club - were far too quick to remove a breast after a diagnosis of <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">cancer</a>, with disfiguring results.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But today, the pendulum has swung the other way. A new generation of women want doctors to take a more aggressive approach, and more and more are asking that even healthy breasts be removed to ward off cancer before it can strike.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Researchers estimate that as many as 15 percent of women with <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/breast-cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">breast cancer</a> - 30,000 a year - opt to have both breasts removed, up from less than 3 percent in the late 1990s. Notably, it appears that the vast majority of these women have never received genetic testing or counseling and are basing the decision on exaggerated fears about their risk of recurrence.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In addition, doctors say an increasing number of women who have never had a cancer diagnosis are demanding mastectomies based on genetic risk. (Cancer databases don't track these women, so their numbers are unknown.)</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"We are confronting almost an epidemic of prophylactic <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/surgery/mastectomy/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">mastectomy</a>," said Dr. Isabelle Bedrosian, a surgical oncologist at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "I think the medical community has taken notice. We don't have data that say oncologically this is a necessity, so why are women making this choice?"</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One reason may be the never-ending awareness campaigns that have left many women in perpetual fear of the disease. Improvements in breast reconstruction may also be driving the trend, along with celebrities who go public with their decision to undergo preventive mastectomy.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">This month Allyn Rose, a 24-year-old Miss America contestant from Washington, D.C., made headlines when she announced plans to have both her healthy breasts removed after the pageant; both her mother and her grandmother died from breast cancer. The television personality Giuliana Rancic, 37, and the actress Christina Applegate, 41, also talked publicly about having double mastectomies after diagnoses of early-stage breast cancer.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"You're not going to find other organs that people cut out of their bodies because they're worried about disease," said the medical historian <a href="http://asp.cumc.columbia.edu/facdb/profile_list.asp?uni=bh15&DepAffil=HSS" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Barron H. Lerner</a>, author of "<a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryOther/HistoryofMedicine/?view=usa&ci=9780195161069" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">The Breast Cancer Wars</a>" (2001). "Because breast cancer is a disease that is so emotionally charged and gets so much attention, I think at times women feel almost obligated to be as proactive as possible - that's the culture of breast cancer."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Most of the data on prophylactic mastectomy come from the University of Minnesota, where researchers tracked contralateral mastectomy trends (removing a healthy breast alongside one with cancer) from 1998 to 2006. Dr. Todd M. Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology, said double mastectomy rates more than doubled during that period and the rise showed no signs of slowing.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">From those trends as well as anecdotal reports, Dr. Tuttle estimates that at least 15 percent of women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis will have the second, healthy breast removed. "It's younger women who are doing it," he said.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The risk that a woman with breast cancer will develop cancer in the other breast is about 5 percent over 10 years, Dr. Tuttle said. Yet a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21947590" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">University of Minnesota study</a> found that women estimated their risk to be more than 30 percent.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"I think there are women who markedly overestimate their risk of getting cancer," he said.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Most experts agree that double mastectomy is a reasonable option for women who have a strong genetic risk and have tested positive for a breast cancer gene. That was the case with Allison Gilbert, 42, a writer in Westchester County who discovered her genetic risk after her grandmother died of breast cancer and her mother died of <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/ovarian-cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">ovarian cancer</a>.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Even so, she delayed the decision to get prophylactic mastectomy until her aunt died from an aggressive breast cancer. In August, she had a double mastectomy. (She had her ovaries removed earlier.)</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"I feel the women in my family didn't have a way to avoid their fate," said Ms. Gilbert, author of the 2011 book "<a href="http://www.allisongilbert.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Parentless Parents</a>," about how losing a parent influences one's own style of parenting. "Here I was given an incredible opportunity to know what I have and to do something about it and, God willing, be around for my kids longer."</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Even so, she said her decisions were not made lightly. The double mastectomy and reconstruction required an initial 11 1/2-hour surgery and an "intense" recovery. She got genetic counseling, joined support groups and researched her options.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But doctors say many women are not making such informed decisions. Last month, <a href="http://www.asco.org/ASCOv2/Meetings/Abstracts?&vmview=abst_detail_view&confID=126&abstractID=104375" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">University of Michigan researchers reported</a> on a study of more than 1,446 women who had breast cancer. Four years after their diagnosis, 35 percent were considering removing their healthy breast and 7 percent had already done so.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Notably, most of the women who had a double mastectomy were not at high risk for a cancer recurrence. In fact, studies suggest that most women who have double mastectomies never seek genetic testing or counseling.</div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: medium; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">"Breast cancer becomes very emotional for people, and they view a breast differently than an arm or a required body part that you use every day," said Sarah T. Hawley, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan. "Women feel like it's a body part over which they totally have a choice, and they say, 'I want to put this behind me - I don't want to worry about it anymore.' "</div></div><a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/facing-cancer-a-stark-choice/?pagewanted=print">http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/facing-cancer-a-stark-choice/?pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Facing Cancer, a Stark Choice - NYTimes.com

In the 1970s, women's health advocates were highly suspicious of mastectomies. They argued that surgeons - in those days, pretty much an...

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The Last Calendar - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">By the time he was 76, my father was frail. His balance was poor and he had trouble walking. He lived alone in Baltimore in a big house full of stairs, and watching him come tottering down those stairs was terrifying. Each time, I thought he might fall. He refused to make the house safer — no stair lifts, no grab rails (they would disfigure the house, he said) — and would not consider living anywhere else. When my brother and his wife invited my father to move in, the invitation was vigorously declined. And we lived in three different cities, far apart.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">To try to cope better with this situation, my brother and I created a shared Google calendar — an online calendar in which we could both make entries from wherever we happened to be. Each time either of us spoke to our father, we marked it in the calendar — what time of day it was, how he sounded, what we spoke about. (If one of us called and he did not answer, we marked that, too. Yes, we both have an obsessive streak.)</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">For example, on Oct. 13, 2009, at 1:30, I telephoned home, spoke to my father and wrote in the calendar that he was "just off to see the new doctor, writing a list of his medications. Nothing else to report; leaves starting to turn and it's starting to get cold." Later that afternoon, he called my brother and said that he liked the new doctor (she was "slim, tall, pretty, and seemed very nice"), and that he had indeed discussed his medications with her.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The upshot was that we had an excellent record of how he was — whether he was getting out, if he was cheerful or feeling low, changes to his medicines, any falls he said he had had. The calendar also allowed us to make sure that one of us spoke to him just about every day. And if I couldn't reach him, I didn't have to wonder if he was lying hurt and helpless at the bottom of the stairs for days — I could look at the calendar and see that my brother had spoken to him a few hours ago.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">We never told my father we did this — he probably would have been furious. There is, after all, something weird about the idea that people are taking notes on you, however loving their motives. It was our imperfect solution to an imperfect setup. And it helped us.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Just before his 79th birthday, my father started collapsing. First, he fell in the street. He thought he had tripped, but he wasn't sure. Then he fell several times in the house (fortunately, not while on the stairs). The calendar provided a full record of it — and we could both see that there was something new, something abnormal. It turned out that his heart was stopping. My brother flew down and took him to a hospital, where he had a pacemaker put in.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But the calendar had other, more subtle effects, too. It was, in essence, a journal kept by two people who read each other's entries, and so it gradually became a conversation between the two of us as well as a straight-up record of events. One day, he's infuriating my brother with speculations about two friends' having an inappropriate affair: "I said I thought he was being outrageous and that it was none of his business, even if his wild speculations were true. I hope he has the sense not to say anything to anyone else about his unfounded, wild, no evidence claims." Another day, I'm remarking, "I'm worried by the extent to which he does not seem to cook for himself anymore."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">As you might expect, there are times when reading someone else's journal entries is disquieting and revealing. I discovered aspects of my brother's relationship with our father that I hadn't appreciated. One of his entries said: "Asked about my accident (first time)." This was more than a year after my brother had been hit by a car and badly hurt. My heart cracked: I had not realized how inattentive my father had been.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Going back through the calendar now, more than 18 months after my father died, the entries chart a relentless physical decline — profound fatigue, sore hips and knees, aching wrists, swollen legs, inflamed teeth, increasing <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/symptoms/memory-loss/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Memory loss." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">forgetfulness</a>, the savage indignities of old age. One day, he took a bath but couldn't get out of the tub. Luckily, the housekeeper arrived; she couldn't get him out either, so she recruited the postman to help. My father thought this was hilarious: I admired his ability to laugh.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">For through it all, there's such courage. Yes, he's just had a pacemaker installed and he's feeling rotten, but he's making strawberry jam. One day, "He sounded very low — lonely, old, and scared." But another, he's reading a history of some sinister French aristocrats and planning to install a wood stove in the fireplace. A beloved friend is coming to stay. He's just learned a new poem.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">At the time, I was glad we kept the calendar because it helped us to cope with a difficult situation. Now I'm glad for a different reason: it helps me remember small details about him, the little things that slip out of memory, that fade with time. Laughs, tears, worries, frustrations, joy and love — it's all in the calendar.</p><nyt_author_id style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><div class="authorIdentification" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 15px !important; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-style: italic; "><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/olivia-judson/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; font-size: 15px !important; line-height: 22px; ">Olivia Judson</a> is a writer and an evolutionary biologist.</div></div></nyt_author_id></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/opinion/the-last-calendar.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/opinion/the-last-calendar.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

The Last Calendar - NYTimes.com

By the time he was 76, my father was frail. His balance was poor and he had trouble walking. He lived alone in Baltimore in a big house full...

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Reference and Adult Programming Department Head - Whittemore Memorial Library, Naugatuck

<b>Reference and Adult Programming Department Head - </b><b><span style="color: #48286d;">Whittemore Memorial Library</span></b>, Naugatuck. 35 hours/week. $20.00 - $26.50 per hour, excellent benefits. Includes occasional evening and weekend hours. Schedule and supervise reference department staff. Work at the reference desk. Plan and oversee adult programming in conjunction with other staff members. Maintain reference and adult nonfiction collections. Must have technological proficiency, and exceptional oral and written communication skills. MLS preferred. 3-5 years public library experience including reference service and ability to relate well to the public and library staff required; readers’ advisory skills desirable. Familiarity with Evergreen or similar circulation system and MS Word/Excel/Publisher preferred. Please submit cover letter and resume with names of three references by Friday, <span style="color: red;">February 8, 2013</span> to Jocelyn Miller, Library Director, Howard Whittemore Library, 243 Church Street, Naugatuck, CT 06770.

Reference and Adult Programming Department Head - Whittemore Memorial Library, Naugatuck

Reference and Adult Programming Department Head - Whittemore Memorial Library , Naugatuck. 35 hours/week. $20.00 - $26.50 per hour, excelle...

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Maker Aware of 40% Failure in Hip Implant - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">An internal analysis conducted by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/johnson_and_johnson/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Johnson & Johnson" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Johnson & Johnson</a> in 2011 not long after it recalled a troubled hip implant estimated that the all-metal device would fail within five years in nearly 40 percent of patients who received it, newly disclosed court records show.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Johnson & Johnson never released those projections for the device, the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R., which the company recalled in mid-2010. But at the same time that the medical products giant was performing that analysis, it was publicly playing down similar findings from a British implant registry about the device's early failure rate.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The company's analysis also suggests that the implant is likely to fail prematurely over the next few years in thousands more patients in addition to those who have already had painful and costly procedures to replace it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The internal Johnson & Johnson analysis is among hundreds of internal company documents expected to become public as the first of over 10,000 lawsuits by patients who got an A.S.R. prepares to go to trial this week. The episode represents one of the biggest medical device failures in recent decades and the forthcoming trial is expected to shed light on what officials of Johnson & Johnson's DePuy Orthopaedics division knew about the device's problem before its recall and the actions they took or did not take.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The trial, which is expected to begin Friday in California Superior Court in Los Angeles, may also provide a guide to the consequences of the A.S.R. episode to Johnson & Johnson, both for the company's finances and its reputation. Last year, the company <a title="Reuters article." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/business/johnson-johnson-takes-3-billion-charge-for-hip-recall.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">took a $3 billion special charge</a>, much of it related to medical and legal costs associated with the device. DePuy has offered to pay patient costs for replacement procedures.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The A.S.R. belonged to a once-popular class of hip implants in which a device's cup and ball component were both made of metal. While the A.S.R. was the most failure-prone of those implants, surgeons have largely abandoned using such devices in standard hip replacement because their components can grind together, releasing metallic debris that damages a patient's tissue and bone.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">On Friday, Judge J. Stephen Czuleger, who is presiding over the Los Angeles case, unsealed a number of motions that contained portions of pretrial depositions of DePuy officials as well as related company records. Those disclosures, like the company's estimate of the A.S.R.'s failure rate, represent only a tiny fraction of the information that will become public if the trial proceeds. Over the last two years, plaintiffs' lawyers working on A.S.R.-related lawsuits have reviewed tens of thousands of internal DePuy documents and taken depositions from dozens of company executives.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Executives of DePuy have long insisted that their handling of the A.S.R. was forthright and appropriate. In mid-2010, when DePuy recalled the implant, officials said they were doing so because data that year from the National Joint Registry of England and Wales showed for the first time that it was failing prematurely at a higher rate than competing implants. In 2011, the British implant registry updated its projected failure rates for A.S.R. patients who had had it the longest, saying it was failing in one-third of them. It was that estimate that was challenged by DePuy.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">About 7,000 of the A.S.R. lawsuits have been consolidated in a federal court in Ohio. An additional 2,000 cases have been consolidated in a California state court. The California case chosen to go to trial this week was selected because the plaintiff, a man named Loren Kransky, has <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Cancer." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">cancer</a> and may not live much longer, lawyers involved in the case said. DePuy has already settled a few A.S.R. cases before trial and it may choose to do so in Mr. Kransky's case as well.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">About 93,000 patients worldwide received an A.S.R., about one-third of them in the United States.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">There are two versions of the A.S.R., one used in standard hip implants and the other used in an alternative replacement procedure known as resurfacing. Only the standard implant was sold in the United States. Both versions of the A.S.R., however, used the same metal hip cup as part of their design.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Asked for comment about the company's internal analysis, a spokeswoman for DePuy, Mindy Tinsley, said in a statement that it "was based on a small, limited set of data that could not be used to generalize" the overall failure rate for the A.S.R.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In 2011, when DePuy challenged the British joint registry's findings, the company made similar comments. Other medical organizations, however, have also projected very high failure rates for the A.S.R.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Hip implants, which are generally made from metal and plastic, often last for 15 years before they wear out and need to be replaced. Such devices can fail prematurely for a variety of reasons, but the early replacement rate is typically 1 percent after a year, or 5 percent at five years.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In pretrial testimony, Paul Voorhorst, DePuy's director of biostatistics and data management, said that the company performed several reviews of A.S.R. failures in patients in fall 2011, a year after it recalled the model.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Based on the number of patients who had already undergone device replacement at the time, DePuy <a title="Pretrial testimony on artificial hips." href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/560445-testimony-on-artificial-hips.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">estimated that about 37 percent of patients</a> who got an A.S.R. might need to have it replaced within five years of receiving it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Last year, The New York Times reported that DePuy executives decided in 2009 to <a title="Times article." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/business/fda-asked-depuy-for-safety-data-just-before-hip-implants-phaseout.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">phase out the A.S.R.</a> and sell off its inventories weeks after the Food and Drug Administration asked the company in a letter for additional safety data about the implant.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The F.D.A. also told the company at that time that it was rejecting its efforts to sell the resurfacing version of the device in the United States because of concerns about "high concentration of metal ions" in the blood of patients who received it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In other pretrial testimony released Friday, a DePuy engineer stated that company officials were aware in 2008 of reports by an English surgeon that the resurfacing version of the A.S.R. was releasing high levels of metallic ions, particularly in women. As a result of the reports, company officials felt they had to move quickly to redesign the implant.</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "></span></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/business/jj-study-suggested-hip-device-could-fail-in-thousands-more.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/business/jj-study-suggested-hip-device-could-fail-in-thousands-more.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Maker Aware of 40% Failure in Hip Implant - NYTimes.com

An internal analysis conducted by  Johnson & Johnson  in 2011 not long after it recalled a troubled hip implant estimated that the all-m...

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Library Assistant II - Babcock Library, Ashford

<strong>Library Assistant II - </strong><span style="color: #48286d;"><strong>Babcock Library</strong></span> in Ashford, Connecticut has an opening for position of Library Assistant II, Children’s Specialist. 30 hours every 2 weeks, including every other Saturday and occasional evening hours. Vacation, sick leave and paid holidays. $14.00 per hour. Anticipated start date March 1, 2013. Duties include the following: Planning, scheduling, publicizing and hosting children’s programs, story hours and activities. Planning and coordinating lively summer reading program each year. Planning and leading activities for children during school vacations. Visiting preschools for stories and outreach. Leading a monthly book discussion group for preteens. Recommending titles for purchase to Director. Cataloging children’s materials. Maintaining cheerful and current atmosphere in Children’s area. Preparing monthly items for local newspapers and statistics for reports. Circulation desk time, including general reference and phone. Assuming essential duties of other staff members in the event of their absence. Other duties as assigned. Requirements: High School diploma or equivalent; 2 years recent pertinent experience working with children in a library setting. Enthusiasm for planning and hosting programs for children. Understanding of principles of library cataloging and familiarity with DDC. Working knowledge of desktop applications such as MS Word and Publisher. Ability to work with minimal supervision and to self-start. Ability to work as a team member and be flexible as circumstances may require. Preferred Skills: Experience with ICONN request. Experience using automated library system for cataloging and circulation. Ability to multi-task and self-start. Ashford is a busy small town that enthusiastically supports and utilizes its library. The atmosphere is upbeat and friendly, thus the successful candidate will be a team player who is cheerful, cooperative and positive. He or she will be willing and able to function as part of a small town library staff, including pitching in to do what needs to be done. Please send cover letter, resume, and names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of 3 professional references via USPS or email no later than 6 pm <span style="color: red;">February 15, 2013</span>, to: Ginny Moses, Director, Babcock Library, 25 Pompey Hollow Road, Ashford, CT 06278, <a _fcksavedurl="mailto:gmoses@babcocklibrary.org" href="mailto:gmoses@babcocklibrary.org">gmoses@babcocklibrary.org</a>.

Library Assistant II - Babcock Library, Ashford

Library Assistant II - Babcock Library in Ashford, Connecticut has an opening for position of Library Assistant II, Children’s Specialist....

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