News for today's 2018

Montagne Jeunesse Review and Giveaway!

2:20 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcy0cb1S_iClpEJi_Ks0dxLPFes7PJOkRc9wjD09GAc_SR4vSdLaptjviRe1ZAvg4yXCk3zVj80hajhyphenhyphenhOjlilx5IMJO8aiARawPRdo3zinQ7SxJY6JOMpRNLaewTLL5PWwS0FvKRLNIE/s1600/Monpackage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcy0cb1S_iClpEJi_Ks0dxLPFes7PJOkRc9wjD09GAc_SR4vSdLaptjviRe1ZAvg4yXCk3zVj80hajhyphenhyphenhOjlilx5IMJO8aiARawPRdo3zinQ7SxJY6JOMpRNLaewTLL5PWwS0FvKRLNIE/s320/Monpackage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Doesn't it feel so relaxing and soothing to get a facial?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let's face it though, without gift cards or coupons they sure are pricey!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I understand that you want the clean and healthy glow on your face as well.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well not try one in the privacy of your own home?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can with <a href="http://www.montagnejeunesse.com/">Montagne Jeunesse</a> facial cleansing masques that open up your pores, gets rid of oily skin and blemishes!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have many varieties to choose from.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Their products include peel off masques, moisture and purifying masques, deep cleansing masques, facial scrubs and self heating masques.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Did you know they have products for men as well!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have them in all skin types too.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oily, Dry, Sensitive Combination, mature and normal skin types.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Strawberry Souffle-</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdLRi3bOsZOQyNWvLtA7_17TvoGBXei8x0SKHsSMPr1DggYfdeuX4ttjXFJqcRQgeYYg4zXn5aNg-VixDBV8i3z_4a5Dgjd28Yf_PbbkuSLNbZ3irGEG91s-Q3ZU7sA89KL6Q6snX1UI/s1600/strawberry+souffle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdLRi3bOsZOQyNWvLtA7_17TvoGBXei8x0SKHsSMPr1DggYfdeuX4ttjXFJqcRQgeYYg4zXn5aNg-VixDBV8i3z_4a5Dgjd28Yf_PbbkuSLNbZ3irGEG91s-Q3ZU7sA89KL6Q6snX1UI/s320/strawberry+souffle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gently apply this sweet scented souffle masque with the calming scent of vanilla for supple smoother skin!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Hot Chocolate-</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP9KkEtYIMVOmvxmruh9baP17I7bXLJ1dx1hXQCr4-aU1qCr_wSWPnLV5ws6XiKGF77AXy52ZKGpyy2rxt9uYcS2LJ_K2r0U2SzIP7ugSBHXlwfWEAUSf5MNbgk6V_vLYuSZPK07IeF0M/s1600/hot+chocolate+masque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP9KkEtYIMVOmvxmruh9baP17I7bXLJ1dx1hXQCr4-aU1qCr_wSWPnLV5ws6XiKGF77AXy52ZKGpyy2rxt9uYcS2LJ_K2r0U2SzIP7ugSBHXlwfWEAUSf5MNbgk6V_vLYuSZPK07IeF0M/s320/hot+chocolate+masque.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beware Do not Eat! </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suggest warming up some hot chocolate while applying this so your not tempted to eat it LOL.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ready?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apply the chocolaty masque with the exotic scent of oranges leaving you oh so refreshed!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Smells so delicious with the decadence of chocolate and citrus oranges, and I can feel it working already and it's only been on for not even a few minutes!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Virgin Olive-</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2iuJSPFuxkmZoGqR8xpFpiLHwZRBcKNxXmiL6XzwdewR2cz_lo7GZbpesPrCihS0o4Jx1NH-SUQR65hcYtNmKd8Yt0ESHmVY6GqypSE12y11bbFaHlufZqaIXh7-K0Hn36RO2Zcw9dc/s1600/virginolive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2iuJSPFuxkmZoGqR8xpFpiLHwZRBcKNxXmiL6XzwdewR2cz_lo7GZbpesPrCihS0o4Jx1NH-SUQR65hcYtNmKd8Yt0ESHmVY6GqypSE12y11bbFaHlufZqaIXh7-K0Hn36RO2Zcw9dc/s320/virginolive.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">infused with Shea and cocoa butter to rejuvenate into healthy and smooth looking skin.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Green Tea-</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGT9T1RpzEu7Ra8ha6Wam5R2QVkJvaZfSGkAoRoNojF4lo3zn37bQNV_K83cVLpUA7SxO4y65DMt_qIFuuzEkuPQO76qxsK-s1I66tHOvwqrUFvYfjtKlL7M96lVrQOQjbVjBrbEf59o0/s1600/greentea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGT9T1RpzEu7Ra8ha6Wam5R2QVkJvaZfSGkAoRoNojF4lo3zn37bQNV_K83cVLpUA7SxO4y65DMt_qIFuuzEkuPQO76qxsK-s1I66tHOvwqrUFvYfjtKlL7M96lVrQOQjbVjBrbEf59o0/s320/greentea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">made with green tea and root ginger with squeezed lemons to detoxify your skin.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Talk about healthy skin! </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div>1. Enter to win by telling me how you keep your skin looking refreshed? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Want an extra entry? </div><div style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>2. Follow my blog.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>3.Then also follow me via Twitter, here. https://twitter.com/kelli_bliss </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>4. then tweet about the giveaway and make sure you use #montagnejeuness</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>5. leave me a link here to your tweet.</div></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can find them online as well!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/montagnejeunesse"> www.facebook.com/montagnejeunesse </a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or here.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.twitter.com/montagnejeuness"> www.twitter.com/montagnejeuness</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>

Montagne Jeunesse Review and Giveaway!

Doesn't it feel so relaxing and soothing to get a facial? Let's face it though, without gift cards or coupons they sure are pricey! ...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 01/06/2013

11:30 AM Tukiyooo 0

<ul class="diigo-linkroll">      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://mrsmcconnellsblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-12-reflections-on-2012-conclusion.html">Mrs. McConnell's Blog: Top 12 Reflections on 2012 - conclusion</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">IN her final set of reflections, Sandy uses a new feature, that of Google plus tagging in a blogger blog, which is how I found what she wrote! IF you use blogger, use the plus and tag people and we'll find you more easily than the traffic type things. Finally an advantage for being on blogger besides just tight integration with Google.  I love how her work with edtech and ipads is part of what she's done. With all she's been through: layoffs, cancer, adding onto her house - I think I've found a new hero and definitely someone I"ve added to my PLN. I've known of her work, but now I"m a fan.  Sometimes, when you open up, share and reflect, you connect on a deeper, more personal level than if you pretend like life is perfect. TEachers, lets stick together and encourage each other.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/inspiration">inspiration</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/all_teachers">all_teachers</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://mrsmcconnellsblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-top-12-reflections-on-2012-pt-2.html">Mrs. McConnell's Blog: My Top 12 Reflections on 2012, pt. 2</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Even more inspirational, here Sandy shares how she worked hard to find a place where students are treated with compassion and inclusion and how she found someone to work with her. She also built onto her house and had surgery on a thyroid tumor. I think that some people think that innovators have it easy and they'll just work when it is easier. Sandy didn't have it easy at all and look at what she's done. I find her reflections so heartwarming and hope some of you will share your stories. We should draw strength from one another.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/reflection">reflection</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/all_teachers">all_teachers</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://mrsmcconnellsblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-top-12-reflections-on-2012-pt-1.html">Mrs. McConnell's Blog: My Top 12 Reflections on 2012 pt. 1</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Sandy McConnell has created a nice set of reflections for 2012, something I think all admins should want their teachers to do, where she shared her views, what she has done, and how she's improved. Such retrospection on a year is a powerful way to mark learning and remember. She's done so many things, but particularly I like how she didn't let the fact that she was temporarily laid off stop her from learning and moving forward. IF you're having a tough time, you might want to read what Sandy is and has done. She inspires me. Wow. I"ll link to all of her sets, because I"d like you to read them all.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/reflection">reflection</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/best">best</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/practices">practices</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/all_teachers">all_teachers</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=145599">QR Codes in Elementary School - LiveBinder</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">A very useful livebinder by some teachers on QR codes in the elementary school with information and guides. I've found this is pretty updated even though the first page has a description from 2010. Very useful if you want to use them in your classroom or library at the elementary level.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/qrcode">qrcode</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/history">history</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/elementary_teacher">elementary_teacher</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.activehistory.co.uk/Miscellaneous/menus/history_mystery/qr.php">How to set up a QR Code Treasure Hunt</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">Simple instructions that history teachers will love for setting up a QR code scavenger hunt. My favorite app is i-Nigma for scanning qr codes -it just works.  "	A QR-Code Treasure Hunt is a fun, simple way to get students using their mobile devices to continue learning outside of lesson time. Here's how we set one up at the International School of Toulouse with some guidance on how to do the same with your own students using the QR Treasure Hunt Generator at ClassTools.net."</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/history_teacher">history_teacher</a></p>                                <ul class="diigo-comments">                  </ul>                      </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/gwynethjones/qr-codes-in-the-elementary-classroom">QR Codes in the Elementary Classroom</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">A nice presentation by Gwyneth Jones about QR codes in the elementary classroom and library. If you're looking for ideas and simple explanations, this is a great slideshow.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/qrcode">qrcode</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a></p>                                        </li>  </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 01/06/2013

Mrs. McConnell's Blog: Top 12 Reflections on 2012 - conclusion IN her final set of reflections, ...

FRANCE CHOOSES THE PATH OF AUSTERITY

6:15 AM Tukiyooo 0

<br /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUjOpNqvuQwiISP2pOzCjlN_C4xxuMG4TSrJuz3vlF4wO8Tj_RjTETAE2BfAG7_PEz-wr5I-qC2FIJi4C57w_jRb9anjhNwvZu6-sh1g241_zU-ebVTcQP4ndxKV06VjoBrbwWiZ8EbH7/s1600/the-international-monetary-fund-imf.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUjOpNqvuQwiISP2pOzCjlN_C4xxuMG4TSrJuz3vlF4wO8Tj_RjTETAE2BfAG7_PEz-wr5I-qC2FIJi4C57w_jRb9anjhNwvZu6-sh1g241_zU-ebVTcQP4ndxKV06VjoBrbwWiZ8EbH7/s200/the-international-monetary-fund-imf.gif" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc5AqqGCaJluMWhWpl7xS7vPsZgt5v08nHSL18tQoHFlj7-iQ81iVdV0tqXpnWgH-o5J4DVqfZClFLWMOnEe4zC6Q6FsffVMnRdJhyphenhyphen1aBfvXAgHpWdmCQHQmdgd0txMoZVmtXNKjeSGm6/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc5AqqGCaJluMWhWpl7xS7vPsZgt5v08nHSL18tQoHFlj7-iQ81iVdV0tqXpnWgH-o5J4DVqfZClFLWMOnEe4zC6Q6FsffVMnRdJhyphenhyphen1aBfvXAgHpWdmCQHQmdgd0txMoZVmtXNKjeSGm6/s400/images.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; 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; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">HAS THE NEOLIBERAL MODEL LED EUROPE TOWARD DISASTER?</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.5pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Despite the election of socialist François Hollande to the presidency of the Republic, FRANCE, far from breaking with the neoliberal model that has led much of EUROPE toward disaster, has chosen the path of austerity.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">GEOPOLITICAL INFLUENCE: TROIKA IMF, ECB AND WORLD BANK: POLITICALLY UNPOPULAR, ECONOMICALLY INEFFICIENT AND SOCIALLY DISASTROUS?</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The austerity policies advocated by the EUROPEAN UNION - promoted primarily by GERMANY’S Angela Merkel - the International Monetary Fund and the EUROPEAN Central Bank have led to deadlock. They are politically unpopular, economically inefficient and socially disastrous. Wherever they have been implemented, whether in GREECE, IRELAND, ITALY, PORTUGAL, SPAIN and ARGENTINA - without a single exception - they have been unsuccessful, engendering an increase in poverty, unemployment, and public indebtedness as well as leading to the dismantling of the welfare state through the destruction of public services and a drastic lowering of state revenues.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">François Hollande’s election to the presidency of the Republic in May 2012 sparked some hope among FRENCH citizens for an alternative to austerity policies. But rather than significantly increasing the minimum wage and public investment - measures that would have boosted economic growth - the government of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault adopted the "Pact for competitiveness" recommended by the Gallois report. This is a pact that has shown itself slavishly devoted to policies that have already demonstrated their ineffectiveness across EUROPE.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">FRANCES GOVERNMENT MEASURES WILL LEAD TO </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">REDUCTION IN ECONOMIC ACTIVITY</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The government has in fact decided to implement the measures recommended by Louis Gallois, commissioner general for investment. In his opinion the policy would improve the competitiveness of French companies at the international level, stimulate the economy and create jobs. At the same time, President Holland has chosen to reduce the corporate tax by granting a tax credit of 20 billion EUR.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In order to do this, the Elysée has adopted two measures. As a first step, public expenditure will be reduced by 10 billion EUR. This means that public services made available to FRENCH citizens will be severely affected, with a direct impact on the quality of life of the most vulnerable elements of the population.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVH576kBmteHZmvn2QZQLPMnpiQMEut600xRI92mwNTwx7JsAeWcZuNI9Bo5y7zyX0m5eGVNG55NzPzmSe-_Ty7GNgugkatp9ihAflb0D18zZpbLi-IhA4vS0VNyJbQEPmWFC-xmGa93q8/s1600/1352912503-european-protest-against-austerity-measures-paris_1596648.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVH576kBmteHZmvn2QZQLPMnpiQMEut600xRI92mwNTwx7JsAeWcZuNI9Bo5y7zyX0m5eGVNG55NzPzmSe-_Ty7GNgugkatp9ihAflb0D18zZpbLi-IhA4vS0VNyJbQEPmWFC-xmGa93q8/s320/1352912503-european-protest-against-austerity-measures-paris_1596648.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The second measure is the most unpopular: Reneging on his campaign promise, François Hollande has made a decision to increase VAT, or value-added tax. Indeed, former President Nicolas Sarkozy had already raised the VAT using a differentiated formula in which the middle rate was raised from 5% to 7% and the overall rate from 19.6% to 21.4%. This represents an increase in VAT of 10.6 billion EUR, a cost that would necessarily be borne by FRENCH citizens.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">One of the first measures taken by the new National Assembly in July 2012 was to remove this VAT hike. Now, three months later, the Socialist government has reversed this decision by again raising the main VAT rates. Thus, beginning the first of January 2014, the overall rate will climb from 19.6% to 20% and the intermediate rate from 7% to 10%. Only the lowest rate will be decreased from 5.5% to 5%. Collectively, these measures represent a tax increase for the FRENCH population of 7 billion EUR, an imposition that will mainly affect the most vulnerable elements of the population. Indeed, this new tax will account for a loss in purchasing power of 260 EUR per person per year, in other words, 25% of the monthly minimum wage .</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><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";">FRANCES FISCAL GIFT OF 20 BILLION EUR TO LARGE CORPORATIONS ALLEGEDLY WILL CREATE 300,000 JOBS IN BY 2017!!</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The increase in the VAT (+3% for products as necessary as gas, electricity, transport, books, or medicines not reimbursed by social security) will inevitably lead to a reduction in economic activity. Indeed, the loss of household purchasing power will result in a decrease in consumption and, thereby, a decrease in production. This in turn will cause an increase in unemployment, and consequently a decline in tax revenues for the State as well as an increase in the cost of allowances paid to the unemployed.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Furthermore, this plan will stimulate only 20% of the country’s economy. Indeed, in FRANCE, export production represents only one fifth of the wealth produced, while eighty percent of the country’s production is intended for domestic use. It is the latter that will be directly affected by the increase in the VAT </span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">According to the Government, this fiscal gift of 20 billion EUR to large corporations will potentially create 300,000 jobs in FRANCE by 2017. However, this is highly uncertain and, in fact, it is contrary to all economic logic. Indeed, assuming that the number is correct, this means that 67,000 EUR will need to be allocated to cover the cost of each job created. However, the creation of a post of teacher, nurse, social worker or cultural attaché in the public service requires an expenditure of only 40,000 EUR yearly. Thus, had the State allocated 20 billion EUR to the public sector, 500,000 quality jobs would without a doubt have been created. This is 200,000 more than what is currently planned for and these are jobs that would contribute greatly to the improvement of public services and the welfare of citizens.</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;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The measures taken by President François Holland and the Government of Jean-Marc Ayrault constitute an economic oxymoron and are doomed to failure. They fall directly in line with the austerity policies already implemented throughout EUROPE, policies that have led the most vulnerable elements of the population to disaster.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">By </span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Salim Lamrani</span></span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><br />

FRANCE CHOOSES THE PATH OF AUSTERITY

HAS THE NEOLIBERAL MODEL LED EUROPE TOWARD DISASTER? Despite the election of socialist François Hollande to the presidency of the Republic...

On the Way to Hospice, Surprising Hurdles - NYTimes.com

4:08 AM Tukiyooo 0

<base href="data:">I've often wondered why more families don't call hospice when a loved one has a terminal disease — and why people who do call wait so long, often until death is just days away.<br><br>Even though more than 40 percent of American deaths now involve hospice care, many families still are trying to shoulder the burden on their own rather than turning to a proven source of help and knowledge. I've surmised that the reason is families' or patients' unwillingness to acknowledge the prospect of death, or physicians' inability to say the h-word and refer dying patients to hospice care.<br><br>But maybe there's another reason. A study in the journal Health Affairs recently pointed out that hospices themselves may be turning away patients because of certain restrictive enrollment policies. It's possible, too, that physicians who know of these policies aren't referring patients whom the doctors fear wouldn't qualify.<br><br>Surprisingly, this randomized national survey of almost 600 hospice programs represents the first broad inquiry into enrollment practices, though it's been nearly 30 years since hospice became a Medicare benefit.<br><br>Nearly 80 percent of hospice programs, the study found, reported having at least one policy that could restrict access. "It represents a barrier to people who want hospice care but can't receive it," said lead author Melissa Aldridge Carlson, a geriatrics and palliative care researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.<br><br>What kind of barriers are we talking about? More than 60 percent of hospices won't accept a patient on chemotherapy, and more than half won't take someone relying on intravenous nutrition. Many won't enroll patients receiving palliative radiation or blood transfusions; a few say no to tube feeding.<br><br>This made more sense a couple of decades ago, when Medicare developed the regulations requiring patients to forgo curative treatments when they entered hospice. Hospice patients must have a terminal disease, likely to cause death within six months, so such treatments were presumed futile.<br><br>But medicine evolves. Now, Dr. Aldridge Carlson pointed out, the distinction between curative and palliative treatments has grown blurry. "It's increasingly an artificial dichotomy," she said. "That's not the reality for most patients today with end-stage disease."<br><br>Chemotherapy, for instance, is often used to shrink tumors that cause pain; radiation can prevent nausea and vomiting for patients with bowel obstructions. Though neither will cure a terminal cancer, as palliative treatments they can improve quality of life. Blood transfusions can help anemic cancer patients feel better, too, at least for a while.<br><br>Why, then, would hospices not accept dying people using these treatments? First, these are expensive to provide. The national average Medicare reimbursement for hospice care is just $140 a day, the study notes, and it's not adjusted to reflect the cost of more complicated regimens. Besides, hospices worry about running afoul of Medicare regulations and being denied even that inadequate reimbursement.<br><br>This probably explains why the researchers found that smaller hospices were more likely than large ones to say no to patients receiving such treatments. "If you're a small hospice caring for someone with many medical issues and the reimbursement doesn't even cover the care – and then Medicare comes to take it back – that's a big hit," Dr. Aldridge Carlson said. Larger organizations with more patients and bigger budgets can better absorb the costs.<br><br>One bright note, though, is that almost 30 percent of the hospices studied offer some kind of open access enrollment without insisting on those prohibitions. Much more common in nonprofit hospices (a pity, because the real growth is in for-profit ones), open access usually means enrolling people who don't yet meet the Medicare criteria, then converting them to Medicare patients as they become eligible.<br><br>At Gilchrist Hospice Care in Baltimore, for instance, patients still using chemotherapy, radiation, transfusions and several other treatments can enter what it calls "expanded care," sometimes also known as "concurrent care." (At Gilchrist, however, such patients still must meet the six-month hospice eligibility requirement.)<br><br>"If you say, 'You can't get blood transfusions any more,' people say, 'Why would I go with your program?'" said Regina Bodnar, Gilchrist's clinical director. The hospice's concurrent program "is not so either/or."<br><br>People who enter hospice care with palliative treatments usually decide to forgo them anyway when they become less effective or more burdensome, Ms. Bodnar said, but "this allows people to make the transition over time." As the largest hospice program in Maryland, a nonprofit with generous donors, Gilchrist can afford this more flexible, but expensive, approach.<br><br>Could it be the future of hospice? That would require Medicare to make some changes in eligibility and reimbursement practices — a shift that might bolster Medicare's solvency, too.<br><br>"Hospice saves money because it keeps people out of the hospital," Dr. Aldridge Carlson said. Even more expensive outpatient treatments, like palliative radiation, are less costly than days spent in intensive care. Adjusting policies to allow more patients into hospice might bring costs down.<br><br>But as important, it could make the call to hospice a slightly less terrifying prospect and provide more families with the help they need at the end of life. "We need to take down the barriers to hospice care," Ms. Bodnar said, "and this is one way to do it."<br><br><i>Paula Span is the author of "When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions."</i><div><br><a href="http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/hospice-obstacles/?src=recg">http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/hospice-obstacles/?src=recg</a><br><br></div>

On the Way to Hospice, Surprising Hurdles - NYTimes.com

I've often wondered why more families don't call hospice when a loved one has a terminal disease — and why people who do call wait s...

Age of Autism

4:03 AM Tukiyooo 0

Welcome to Age of Autism, the Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic.  We are published to give voice to those who believe autism is an environmentally induced illness, that it is treatable, and that children can recover. For the most part, the major media in the United States aren't interested in that point of view, they won't investigate the causes and possible biomedical treatments of autism independently, and they don't listen to the most important people – the parents, many of whom have witnessed autistic regression and medical illness after vaccinations. We do all those things, and more.<br /><br><br /><br>We believe that autism is the defining disorder of our age, man-made and therefore preventable, and that it points to the truth about other problems that beset us, from ADD to asthma to Alzheimer's. We address those issues as well, along with exposing the special interests, bureaucratic inertia, and medical malfeasance that perpetuate denial and suffering.<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/">http://www.ageofautism.com/</a>

Age of Autism

Welcome to Age of Autism, the Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic. We are published to give voice to those who believe autism is an ...

Autism Strains Yet Strengthens a Marriage - NYTimes.com

4:01 AM Tukiyooo 0

<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: 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); ">Last summer, Nancy Clarke, 54, and Jay Petrow, 53, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary with family members in the backyard of their Westport, Conn., home. As Jay's brother, I was best man at their <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/13/style/nancy-clarke-marries.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">1987 wedding</a> at our parents' house in Southampton, L.I., and since then have watched as he and Nancy have taken on an extraordinary challenge — raising an autistic and seriously disabled son, William, who is now 19.</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 two decades Jay worked "10 to 10" as a magazine art director, and then five years ago decided to make a new beginning, starting a <a href="http://petrowgardens.com/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">landscape design company</a>. Nancy, a Princeton graduate and former Wall Street trader, became a stay-at-home mom after William's birth. They also have a daughter, Anna, who's 15. Following is a condensed and edited version of our conversation about their marriage.</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); "><strong>Tell me about the first kiss.</strong></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); ">Nancy: We spent a weekend together with 10 other friends, which was the first time we met. I thought Jay was different — more approachable, someone I could be friends with. The ride back to the city took eight hours and it would have been much easier for Jay to drop me off first — I just thought he was being sweet by making me the last. As I was about to get out of the car I leaned across to give him a kiss on the cheek, but somehow the corner of my lip hit the corner of his lip and I got a jolt. It was like "Whoa!" and all of a sudden the weekend took on a different meaning.</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); ">Jay: She still tries to re-enact that kiss every time. There was definitely electricity.</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); "><strong>A year and a half later, Jay proposed. How did that come about?</strong></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); ">Nancy: I had been getting a little impatient and I asked him if it's appropriate for women to ask men to marry them. He said, "Maybe, but I wouldn't do that if I were you." So I just let go of it.</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); ">Jay: I told her: "When I'm ready to get married, I'll ask you. I don't want you to ask me."</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); ">Nancy: The night before my 29th birthday we went out to the River Café [in Brooklyn] and had a nice dinner. Afterward he got down on his knee and proposed. I was so stunned that I burst out crying.</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); ">Jay: I decided I didn't want to live without 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); "><strong>Not long after, you both quit your jobs. Were you crazy?</strong></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); ">Nancy: We had been married for about three years when we decided to take a trip around the world — 20 countries in 14 months. This was an adventure I had always dreamed about, but I was so serious, making money, on "track." Jay bumped me off the track.</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); ">Jay: We really wanted to see the world before the complexities and limitations of life engulf you, to step out of the normal routine of working hard, retiring and dying.</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); "><strong>Eighteen months after you returned, William was born. Things didn't work out according to plan, did they?</strong></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); ">Nancy: From the start everything was so hard with William. He didn't latch on. He didn't sleep. I'd held a lot of babies before, but it was so hard for me to hold my own; he just didn't koala into my own body. And then he started his head banging, out of frustration because he really couldn't communicate at all. Sometimes at home, other times in public.</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); ">Jay: You could just hear his head hitting the wall and the floor so that —</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); ">Nancy: — it created swelling and bruising. I couldn't bear to watch it and I couldn't stop him from doing it. I felt humiliated and like a failure.</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); ">Jay: Just after he turned 2, our neurologist told us he wasn't "right" and likely never would be, that we had a big job ahead of us. I'm the kind of person who usually thinks things will work out, but now I was devastated. And I certainly didn't understand all the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/100266159.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">stresses it would put on our marriage</a>. William always demanded so much time and attention that it was hard to find balance and passion with each other.</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); ">Nancy: I remember leaving the neurologist's office on the Upper East Side after he had given us the news, pushing William in the stroller and just sobbing. My older sister Susan was with me and she kept saying, "It's going to be O.K.," and I told her, "No, it's not going to be O.K. This can't be fixed."</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); "><strong>That was a long time ago. What's William like now?</strong></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); ">Jay: Every night he wets himself, sometimes two or three times a night. He's 19 and man-size now. He also continues tantrums. Three years ago we had to call the local police because he got so angry and started throwing furniture around and broke the glass on the front door.</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); ">Nancy: Last night William unplugged all the wires to the Wii, VCR, stereo and DVD player that take hours to connect.</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); ">Jay: It's unrelenting when he becomes manic and just keeps coming at you. "Do you want to play Wii?," sticking the remote in your face. "Where's the train? I want the train."</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); ">Nancy: I could see Jay was beside himself so I jumped in. Now when we're in the midst of a terrible situation like this, I know that it's going to be O.K. because we have each other.</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); "><strong>Was there a time when you didn't think it would be O.K. between the two of you?</strong></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); ">Jay: I never wanted to get divorced, but the stresses got to be too much. I felt like I couldn't stay in our situation. Part of it was William and part of it was how stressed out Nancy was.</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); ">Nancy: I remember when Jay said: "Maybe we should consider a divorce. It just hurts so bad. I'm in pain." He also said: "If I were going to war I would want you to be in the trench next to me, but we're not soldiers, you're my wife."</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); "><strong>How did you get past those tough times?</strong></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); ">Jay: We try not to think about what our lives could have been — what we're missing out on. Rather we focus on what we have, especially each other. That's really helped bring us together. We developed the ability to communicate about these issues, which really helps. So, too, does a sense of humor.</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); ">Nancy: I had to learn about balance, not a forte of mine, and that my singlemindedness about helping William had costs associated with it. That somehow, in spite of everything, we had to operate as a family, with everyone's needs taken together. This was and is still very difficult to manage.</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); "><strong>Anna was born four years after William. How did you have the courage to have a second child?</strong></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); ">Jay: That was probably one of our hardest decisions because <a href="http://www.autismspeaks.org/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">autism</a> does have a genetic component. We were scared that we'd have another child with special needs, and that would have been pretty devastating.</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); ">Nancy: Brave and stupid are flip sides of each other. With Anna, I realized what a leap of faith it is to have a baby.</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); "><strong>And how did she turn out?</strong></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); ">Jay: She did have special needs — she was in the "gifted" program during elementary school.</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); "><strong>I know William brings you joy too, I've seen it.</strong></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); ">Jay: William is usually the life of the party — at weddings and bat mitzvahs — he loves to dance and often "gets down" with the bride. He's got certain music that he loves to sing to — Wilson Pickett, Tom Petty and David Byrne. He croons like Frank Sinatra, has the passion of Gladys Knight, is so full of life and joyful that it just makes me happy and proud that he's my son.</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); "><strong>I know you've been remodeling the house you've lived in for nearly 20 years. Is that a metaphor for your relationship?</strong></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); ">Jay: No, not at all. I pushed for the house remodel after Nancy's sister, <a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newsday/obituary.aspx?n=susan-clarke-mcdermott&pid=149026642&fhid=2058#fbLoggedOut" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Susan, died from pancreatic cancer </a>two years ago. She was only 54. I said to Nance: "We might as well do it now because we could be dead tomorrow."</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); ">Nancy: Susan's illness was really life-changing for us. Before that, it had been very difficult for me to leave William. But when she was diagnosed I knew I had to be with her. I looked at Jay and said, "I need to go." He said, "I know." She died four months later, and that time together was the biggest gift anyone could ever give me. My Aunt Mary always used to say, "Oh Jay, that's my angel."</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); "><strong>What exactly did she mean, Nancy?</strong></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; ">Nancy: He's made of good stuff. He's just always completely there for me.</p></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/booming/autism-strains-yet-strengthens-a-marriage.html?src=recg&_r=1&pagewanted=all&">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/booming/autism-strains-yet-strengthens-a-marriage.html?src=recg&_r=1&pagewanted=all&</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Autism Strains Yet Strengthens a Marriage - NYTimes.com

Last summer, Nancy Clarke, 54, and Jay Petrow, 53, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary with family members in the backyard of their ...

U.S. Settles Accusations That Doctors Overtreated - NYTimes.com

3:39 AM Tukiyooo 0

A group of doctors who performed unusually high rates of heart procedures on patients at a community hospital in Ohio settled with the Justice Department over accusations that some of the procedures were medically unnecessary, federal regulators announced on Friday.<br /><br><br /><br>The settlement covered accusations that the doctors and the hospital, then known as the EMH Regional Medical Center, had billedMedicare for unnecessary medical care from 2001 to 2006. The hospital agreed to pay $3.9 million to settle the accusations, and the physician group, the North Ohio Heart Center, agreed to pay $541,870, according to a Justice Department statement.<br /><br><br /><br>Federal regulators had accused the doctors and the hospital of performing unnecessary procedures known as angioplasties, in which a clogged blood vessel is opened. The procedure often requires insertion of a device called a stent to keep the blood vessel from closing again.<br /><br><br /><br>Besides the cost to Medicare, "performing medically unnecessary cardiac procedures puts patients' lives at risk," said Steven M. Dettelbach, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, which was involved in the investigation. "Patient health and taxpayer dollars have to come before greed," he said.<br /><br><br /><br>The high rate of heart procedures at the hospital was the subject of a front-page article in The New York Times in August 2006. Medicare patients in Elyria, Ohio, where the hospital is located, were receiving angioplasties at a rate nearly four times the national average, a figure that prompted questions from insurers and raised concerns about overtreatment.<br /><br><br /><br>The concerns included whether many patients in Ohio and elsewhere were receiving expensive and inappropriate medical treatments because of the high fees the procedures generated.<br /><br><br /><br>The settlement represents the latest in a series of actions brought against cardiologists and hospitals for performing questionable cardiac procedures. Patients typically have a choice of treatments, and many doctors say some individuals should be treated more conservatively with medicines rather than through costly procedures.<br /><br><br /><br>At the time, the Elyria cardiologists defended their high rates as a result of an aggressive style of medicine, and the doctors continued to defend the medical care they provided. They said the procedures they performed were medically warranted but might not have met the government's guidelines for reimbursement.<br /><br><br /><br>"We choose to settle rather than go to court," said Dr. John Schaeffer, the chairman of North Ohio Heart, which is now part of the hospital system, EMH Healthcare. The government did not single out any individual physicians, and neither the hospital nor the medical group said it disciplined any of the doctors.<br /><br><br /><br>"As the physicians on the ground when these decisions were made and the procedures were performed, we felt confident we were making the correct choices for our patients," he said in a statement on the group's Web site. "We still do."<br /><br><br /><br>The former manager of the hospital's catheterization lab, Kenny Loughner, filed a whistle-blower complaint in October 2006. Mr. Loughner, who will receive $660,859 from the settlement for alerting the government, described how doctors urged nurses and others to falsify complaints of chest pain to justify the unnecessary angioplasties. He also described the doctors' technique of treating patients in stages, forcing patients to come back for multiple procedures.<br /><br><br /><br>The government did not include the accusations in its findings, the hospital said, and they are without merit.<br /><br><br /><br>In a separate statement issued by EMH Healthcare, the system's chief executive, Dr. Donald Sheldon, said "no patients, to our knowledge, were ever at risk, and there is no question that the patients treated had heart disease and some degree of blockage." The hospital also said it was conducting an external peer review of its cardiac care.<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/business/us-settles-accusations-that-doctors-overtreated.html?src=recg">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/business/us-settles-accusations-that-doctors-overtreated.html?src=recg</a>

U.S. Settles Accusations That Doctors Overtreated - NYTimes.com

A group of doctors who performed unusually high rates of heart procedures on patients at a community hospital in Ohio settled with the Justi...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/06/2013

1:31 AM Tukiyooo 0

<ul class="diigo-linkroll">      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2013/01/how-professors-really-feel-about-digital-technology-study">How Professors Really Feel About Digital Technology [#Study] | EdTech Magazine</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">The good news, technology has increased good relationships between professors and students -- the bad, it costs more personal time and can increase stress. Also, only 6.3 of professors feel their university rewards digital contributions - something that will need to change in organizations that want to be known as 21st century e-learning powerhouses. In this scenario, a research paper in a journal may be viewed more positively than a MOOC with 100, 000 participants - which is counter to which would benefit the institution most in terms of "marketing" (a dirty word among many academicians, I know) but not even marketing - but also the future of the organization as they transition to bricks and clicks is at stake.  Nice write up from Jimmy Daly (thanks for sharing with me on Google plus).   "As a follow-up to their study on how professors view online learning, Inside Higher Ed partnered with Babson Survey Research Group to explore how college professors and administrators interact with technology. The survey, summarized in Digital Faculty: Professors, Teaching and Technology, posed questions about digital learning content, e-books, social media, communication, learning management software and a variety of other technology-related issues. Here are a few key points from this excellent report."</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/research.">research.</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/gwynethjones/qr-codes-in-the-elementary-classroom">QR Codes in the Elementary Classroom</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">A nice presentation by Gwyneth Jones about QR codes in the elementary classroom and library. If you're looking for ideas and simple explanations, this is a great slideshow.</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/qrcode">qrcode</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/teaching">teaching</a></p>                                        </li>      <li>      <p class="diigo-link">                <a href="http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm">Engagement Theory:</a>      </p>      <p class="diigo-description">A document that I've referenced about creating collaborative, engaging teams.   "Engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating successful collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom. These three components, summarized by Relate-Create-Donate, imply that learning activities:  occur in a group context (i.e., collaborative teams) are project-based have an outside (authentic) focus"</p>              <p class="diigo-tags">          <span>tags:</span>                      <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/research">research</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/collaborative">collaborative</a>            <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/writing">writing</a></p>                                <ul class="diigo-comments">                  </ul>                      </li>  </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/06/2013

How Professors Really Feel About Digital Technology [#Study] | EdTech Magazine The good news, techno...

Babe of the Week: Jenny McCarthy

9:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">IWS is proud to announce that our Babe of the Week for this week is none other than Jenny McCarthy!<br /><br />Jenny began her amazing career as a Playboy Centerfold way back in 1993. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnRgFhXpsi_Rmmw74dPIK2VQeOKuUJRyjiKegEa4UZ9DwTZABYGCV6WAfzrFmDF_R25ANrboH9U0UNi3fU8wnLScfsiFgSgG7T-utFl-vr-_nhOldosYPXDWeNN1D3EKdUUo0ggUCZKWw/s1600/Jenny+McCarthy+Nude+Bikini+Hot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnRgFhXpsi_Rmmw74dPIK2VQeOKuUJRyjiKegEa4UZ9DwTZABYGCV6WAfzrFmDF_R25ANrboH9U0UNi3fU8wnLScfsiFgSgG7T-utFl-vr-_nhOldosYPXDWeNN1D3EKdUUo0ggUCZKWw/s400/Jenny+McCarthy+Nude+Bikini+Hot.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br />From there she landed a spot on one of my favorite game shows of all time, MTV’s “Singled Out!” <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZiL2Rl-m3_hDTzMYsn624dzWV5TC76YqhzzZlOU74Sgmkc0a2tMDUkRN0jfRM_btiEyTIHvoH1CP66hfmX9SGR-GDqz9F_poA0PzH2WYws0SGaCOgjIa8m_yPevoRkWbCCKmeYtBVt7I/s1600/Jenny+McCarthy+Upskirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZiL2Rl-m3_hDTzMYsn624dzWV5TC76YqhzzZlOU74Sgmkc0a2tMDUkRN0jfRM_btiEyTIHvoH1CP66hfmX9SGR-GDqz9F_poA0PzH2WYws0SGaCOgjIa8m_yPevoRkWbCCKmeYtBVt7I/s400/Jenny+McCarthy+Upskirt.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><br />After that she married comedic actor Jim Carrey and became a movie star. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8whX0-1KQfGcefKBUTZV3lz-sabsxsFCcCgCBC0dmjtCZirtN0bEIBS82hEh7rdFwN2LA3gY6QhGva3PvWobBq9HHE68g0dbKKWN02kg0LeGs4By4aN9orPNGuQ2SN6BQoJviwA9X4_o/s1600/Jenny+McCarthy+Yoga+Abs+Hot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8whX0-1KQfGcefKBUTZV3lz-sabsxsFCcCgCBC0dmjtCZirtN0bEIBS82hEh7rdFwN2LA3gY6QhGva3PvWobBq9HHE68g0dbKKWN02kg0LeGs4By4aN9orPNGuQ2SN6BQoJviwA9X4_o/s400/Jenny+McCarthy+Yoga+Abs+Hot.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><br />Now she’s a correspondent for Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve and is also one of the world’s leading authorities on Autism. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzWHEmR0784822uzM_HxCJsUtBOYh08JjSW9pt54iCHiAGiIPAkoarFMoG7RssCiGCGgJotsciKHEIOoZ3HdFXWMPrQnYl4dcdavtkaK15_03ddyCa4zkZ2sY02x9-xhaS1vHESWlwm4/s1600/Jenny+McCarthy+Dance+Sexy+Drunk.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzWHEmR0784822uzM_HxCJsUtBOYh08JjSW9pt54iCHiAGiIPAkoarFMoG7RssCiGCGgJotsciKHEIOoZ3HdFXWMPrQnYl4dcdavtkaK15_03ddyCa4zkZ2sY02x9-xhaS1vHESWlwm4/s400/Jenny+McCarthy+Dance+Sexy+Drunk.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br />So, as you can see, there’s more to Jenny than great boobs and a hot ass. She smart, hard-working and very accomplished. And now she has IWS Babe of the Week to add to her trophy case! <br /><br />In other news we had a sad, yet still wonderful show last night on I’m With Stupid. Man, did we bring the heartache! It was just one sad story after another. Everything from losing basketball games to Lance Armstrong to people who personally have let us down. Make sure you have a box of tissues close by when you listen to this one. <br /><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="105" id="143577" name="143577" width="210"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4226361&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4226361&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="143577" id="143577" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid">Im With Stupid</a> on Blog Talk Radio<br /><br /><br /></div></div>

Babe of the Week: Jenny McCarthy

IWS is proud to announce that our Babe of the Week for this week is none other than Jenny McCarthy! Jenny began her amazing career as a Play...

Homeward bound.....

7:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

Homeward bound.....

We had a lovely last KW meal in Santiago's Bodega. Sadly we get on the road for Fort Lauderdale tomorrow morning. After spending a night...