News for today's 2018

LATIN AMERICA AND EUROPE:

6:22 AM Tukiyooo 0

<br /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgspb1puOJ6DzEhV1vTqpAF2paCRPUHEBVOnbg_EJhiFX0wGeP8wH9RL6vfoqtH6SudL0CN9bMweI07-DUBcjoUkAPNvOlzspFTO0YIlbksKCOXUjbJ8ttufRFqHf042ZbQgFmZ8vGhM5HD/s1600/logo-eurolat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgspb1puOJ6DzEhV1vTqpAF2paCRPUHEBVOnbg_EJhiFX0wGeP8wH9RL6vfoqtH6SudL0CN9bMweI07-DUBcjoUkAPNvOlzspFTO0YIlbksKCOXUjbJ8ttufRFqHf042ZbQgFmZ8vGhM5HD/s320/logo-eurolat.jpg" width="320" /></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; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR GREATER INTER-REGIONALISM</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For two decades, EUROPEAN governments largely ignored LATIN AMERICA. Disinterest for the region grew in the 1990s when attention became focused on rebuilding and integrating EASTERN EUROPE. General disregard continued at the turn of the century, despite LATIN AMERICA’S booming economic growth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, since the beginning of 2013, things appear to be changing in the international arena. At the end of January, the First EUROPEAN UNION – LATIN AMERICAN and CARIBBEAN (EU – CELAC) Summit took place in CHILE. It gathered the EU’s 27 and LATIN AMERICA’S 33 countries with the objective of creating a “strategic alliance for sustainable development”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Important political figures were present during the meeting, including José Manuel Barroso, President of the EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Hermann Van Rompuy, President of the EUROPEAN COUNCIL and GERMAN Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The quality of the attendants alone seems to highlight the importance the region is taking for EUROPE. In addition, Merkel herself stated that LATIN AMERICA had the potential to help redress EUROPEAN countries in distress, in particular SPAIN and PORTUGAL.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Later, in mid-February, the LATIN AMERICAN Development Bank (CAF) and the prestigious school of government in Paris, Sciences Po, organized a Conference on EU-LATIN AMERICAN inter-regional relations. Renowned political, economic and academic figures from both regions were present to discuss the opportunities and challenges of greater interdependence. These offered important insights on the issues at stake and the viability of a strategic alliance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">INTER-REGIONAL COOPERATION IS HIGHLY DESIRABLE </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First, all participants agreed that EUROPE and LATIN AMERICA’S common history, culture and values were a strong basis on which to develop positive inter-regional relations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Second, according to Enrique Iglesias, IBERO-AMERICAN Secretary General (SEGIB), EUROPE’S past role as a socio-political, economic and integration model also facilitated collaboration between the two regions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Admittedly, this model has proven to be ridden with imperfections as a result of the crisis affecting the EUROZONE and put the EU’s prime position in doubt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, according to Enrique Garcia, CAF Executive President, the current situation in EUROPE provides the opportunity to diversify LATIN AMERICA’S economic relations.  If EUROPEAN countries and the EU reach out to foreign markets to stimulate growth, LATIN AMERICAN countries should see this as an incentive to increase bilateral and inter-regional relations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">CONSIDERABLE NEED FOR INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE, HUMAN CAPITAL AND TECHNOLOGY</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In fact, while the LATIN AMERICAN region as a whole has experienced an average 4% to 5% growth since 2007, for Iglesias, governments should be cautious about “Latinoptimism”. Macroeconomic fundamentals and debt have been controlled, poverty has been reduced, but considerable challenges remain.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most countries still have a considerable need for investment in infrastructure, human capital and technology. With an economy three times the size of LATIN AMERICA and an advanced degree of development, EUROPE’S funds and skills remain highly attractive. EUROPEAN and LATIN AMERICAN development funds, government representatives and businessmen all agreed on this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGSGo5m0KrSPkNf_WmED1OKszHQcGFGgu9vgfa-Uy7f2Q3T4deLYLVcqFt_seO-7rcqGLKJGxP-Yz4bKMQbEA7VPgYpJPmXeB1K43DIdWG97j3mQFfHNhnbBEQSWQXvg_pk5-QILHRXFi/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGSGo5m0KrSPkNf_WmED1OKszHQcGFGgu9vgfa-Uy7f2Q3T4deLYLVcqFt_seO-7rcqGLKJGxP-Yz4bKMQbEA7VPgYpJPmXeB1K43DIdWG97j3mQFfHNhnbBEQSWQXvg_pk5-QILHRXFi/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As Juan Carlos Echeverry, former Minister for the Economy of COLOMBIA put it, LATIN AMERICA also suffers from political tensions, but these can be tamed by continued growth. While countries such as BRAZIL have done an impressive job expanding the domestic market to absorb the shock of the US and EU crises, external markets will have to be reinvigorated to sustain and strengthen these rates of growth.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hence, during the conference, many stressed that private sector initiative is crucial to foster business agreements and associations in the two regions. For Donato di Santo, an ITALIAN diplomat, in the past two years, small and medium ITALIAN enterprises in BRAZIL have increased from 200 to 800, benefitting parties on both sides of the Atlantic. However, for Iglesias and Di Santo, government intervention and political decisions to bolster inter-regional cooperation is also urgently needed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">INTRA- AND INTER-REGIONAL TENSIONS HINDER SUSTAINABLE COOPERATION</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, interregional cooperation suffers from a certain number of tensions. For Yves Saint –Geours, former FRENCH Ambassador to BRAZIL, Juan Gabriel Valdés, former Minister of Foreign Relations in CHILE and Ernesto Talvi, academic director of the Center for the Study of Economic and Social Affairs (CERES) in URUGUAY, inter-regionalism is difficult because there is not a united region for the EU to negotiate with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not surprising when we see the myriads of regional organizations in the AMERICAS. Since the 1990s, there have been the NAFTA, MERCOSUR, CAN and SICA, to name just a few. In recent years, we’ve seen the emergence of ALBA, UNASUR and most recently, the Pacific Alliance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These have effectively resulted in fragmenting rather than deepening regional integration. Differences in countries’ visions about regional integration and international relations, as well as competition between these visions have proved to be a further obstacle in creating a coherent regional stance for effective inter-regional cooperation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Linked to this phenomenon, for Mario Pezzini, Director of the OECD Development Centre, differences in needs and demands on either side of the Atlantic limit greater inter-regionalism.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA HAVE INCREASED PROTECTIONIST MEASURES, WHICH GO AGAINST THE EU’S POLICY GOALS</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For instance, the EU is seeking to stimulate global demand and re-establish confidence in the Eurozone. Hence, it is aiming to increase access to secure and profitable external markets through free trade agreements, while maintaining EU agricultural subsidies.  However, LATIN AMERICAN countries want to stimulate the domestic demand and achieve sustainable growth. To do so, countries such as BRAZIL and ARGENTINA have increased protectionist measures, which go against the EU’s policy goals.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moreover, there is the fear that EUROPEAN interests will continue to be driven by energy needs. Consequently, the exploitation of natural resources risks deepening the primarization of the LATIN AMERICAN economy, leading to growth, but not development.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To conclude, the beginning of 2013 has been subject to a number of important moves aimed at extending and deepening EURO-LATIN AMERICAN relations. As former AUSTRIAN Foreign Minister and European Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner put it, the EU-ECLAC was a “very, very important summit”, which marked the change towards a more equal and symmetrical relationship between the two regions. The Second Sciences Po-CAF conference equally marked the growing importance given to EU-ECLAC relations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Notwithstanding the advantages that could be reaped on both sides from greater inter-regionalism, a number of important hurdles need to be overcome. Achieving greater intra-regional cohesion and inter-regional cooperation are some of them and clearly not the easiest ones. It seems that beyond political will, effective negotiations to reach common, viable and sustainable policies will be needed in the next few months. It is highly doubtful that we will see integral and effective inter-regionalism any time soon, but hopefully, concrete measures in that direction will be put into action.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Charlotte Serres</span></div>

LATIN AMERICA AND EUROPE:

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR GREATER INTER-REGIONALISM For two decades, EUROPEAN governments largely ignored LATIN AMERICA. Disinterest...

A Plan To Fix Cancer Care - NYTimes.com

5:28 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">This year, more than 1.6 million Americans — 0.5 percent of the population — will receive a diagnosis of cancer. Their treatment will consume at least 5 percent of the country's health care spending, at a cost that is growing faster than all other areas of medicine. Doctors and patients recognize that this is unsustainable and that we need to change the way we deliver care.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">But we need help, and that is why more than 20 prominent members of the oncology community contributed to the drafting of this essay (their names appear below).</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Many cancer patients, after getting a diagnosis of a terrifying disease, pursue any potentially promising therapy, regardless of the price. But the main cost driver is the fee-for-service payment system. The more doctors do for patients, the more reimbursement they receive. Surgeons earn more for every procedure. Oncologists typically make more money if they use newly approved drugs and the latest radiation treatments than if they use cheaper, older alternatives that work just as well. (This is because they get paid back the cost of the drug, in addition to an extra 6 percent of that cost — the more expensive the drug, the higher the compensation.)</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Some of these new therapies are rightly heralded as substantial advances, but others provide only marginal benefit. Of the 13 anticancer drugs the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2012, only one may extend life by more than a median of six months. Two extended life for only four to six weeks. All cost more than $5,900 per month of treatment.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Significant costs also come from hospitalizations and emergency room visits that could be prevented with better management of common symptoms. Unfortunately, doctors earn more treating patients for serious problems in the hospital than they do preventing those problems from occurring in the first place.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Five major changes need to occur:</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">First, over the next few years, the payment system needs to move away from fee-for-service toward a system of bundled payments, in which doctors are paid one fee for all the treatments involved in caring for a cancer patient. This would remove the incentive to prescribe more expensive drugs when older generics are equally effective.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Second, insurers have to give physicians information about where they are spending money. As crazy as it sounds, most physicians have little ability to track the care they deliver, or how they compare with other physicians who care for similar patients. Costs vary wildly for patients with identical cancers. One study of patients with cancers that had spread throughout their bodies showed that the costs of four months of scans varied from $1,800 to $6,400 per patient. Doctors don't have a clear sense of whether the money is going to chemotherapy, hospitalizations or follow-up M.R.I. scans. Armed with better data, physicians can learn how to improve care at lower cost.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Third, any change in payment methods must be accompanied by rigorous quality monitoring to ensure that there is neither under- nor over-utilization of care.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Fourth, we need more "high touch" oncology practices. In these practices, nurses manage common symptoms before they escalate to the point that they require visits to the emergency room, and doctors talk with patients about palliative-care services and end-of-life preferences early on — not in the weeks before death. These services are frequently not paid for by insurers but can improve the quality of care and save significant money by averting repeated tests, hospitalizations and futile, toxic chemotherapy. Insurers need to share the resulting savings, enabling physicians to invest in providing these services.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Fifth, we need better incentives for research. Many expensive tests and treatments are introduced without evidence that they improve survival or reduce side effects, and with poor information about which patients should receive them. For instance, while more than 800,000 robotic surgeries, mostly for cancer, have been performed in the last two years, there is no reliable evidence that the robots either improve survival or reduce side effects — despite the fact that they cost more than traditional surgery. Once interventions are paid for, the incentive for research disappears.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">The oncology community cannot make these changes alone. The government is deeply involved and has to help. Today, 60 percent of cancer diagnoses are made in patients who are eligible for medicare. By 2030, that number will rise to over 70 percent. Medicare and the other payers need to work with oncologists. The secretary of health and human services should organize a working group representing Medicare, private insurers, oncologists, quality experts and patients to figure out how to develop these proposals — with no increase in costs — and start implementing them by the end of 2015. Everyone engaged in cancer care needs to help improve it.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; "><em><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'">Written with:<br><a href="http://medicine.duke.edu/faculty/details/0050834" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Amy P. Abernethy, M.D., Duke University</a>; <a href="http://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g275/p8199210" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Justin E. Bekelman, M.D., University of Pennsylvania</a>; <a href="http://pressroom.cancer.org/OtisBrawley" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Otis W. Brawley, M.D., American Cancer Society</a>; <a href="http://www.canceractionnow.org/about/martinelson.php" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Robert L. Erwin, Marti Nelson Cancer Foundation</a>; <a href="http://www.ph.ucla.edu/hs/bio_ganz.asp" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Patricia Ganz, M.D., U.C.L.A.</a>; <a href="http://www.utmb.edu/internalmedicine/divisions/geriatrics/faculty/goodwin.asp" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">James S. Goodwin, M.D., University of Texas Medical Branch</a>; <a href="http://www.palmbeachcancerfoundation.org/board.php#green" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Robert J. Green, M.D., Palm Beach Cancer Institute</a>; <a href="http://www.cfah.org/jessie-gruman/jessie-gruman-biography" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Jesse Gruman, President, Center for Advancing Health</a>; <a href="http://www.texasoncology.com/doctors/Russell_Hoverman/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">J. Russell Hoverman, M.D., Ph.D., Texas Oncology, United States Oncology</a>; <a href="http://faculty.mdanderson.org/John_Mendelsohn/Default.asp?SNID=352973192" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">John Mendelsohn, M.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center</a>; <a href="http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/Newsroom/Profile/LeeNewcomer.aspx" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Lee N. Newcomer, M.D., UnitedHealth Group</a>; <a href="http://medicine.duke.edu/faculty/details/0470093" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Jeffrey M. Peppercorn, M.D., M.P.H., Duke University</a>; <a href="http://www.fhcrc.org/en/labs/profiles/ramsey-scott.html" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Scott D. Ramsey, M.D., Ph.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center</a>; <a href="http://services.bidmc.org/Find_a_doc/doc_detail.asp?sid=41414643494542" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Lowell E. Schnipper, M.D., Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center</a>; <a href="http://www.centralgeorgiacancercare.com/dr-frederick-schnell.php" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Frederick M. Schnell, M.D., Central Georgia Cancer Care</a>; <a href="http://doctors.dana-farber.org/directory/profile.asp?dbase=main&setsize=16&picture_id=2705957&grouptype_typeid_data=1&gs=c&nxtfmt=c&display=Y&oldurl=Y&pict_id=2705957" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Deborah Schrag, M.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute</a>; <a href="http://med-www02.bsd.uchicago.edu/339/FacultyPro/faculty_profile.aspx?empl_id=12953" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Ya-Chen Tina Shih, Ph.D., University of Chicago</a>; <a href="http://www.cmoh.org/staff.php?id=1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">John D. Sprandio, M.D., Consultants in Medical Oncology and Hematology</a>; <a href="http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/doctors/results/directory/profile/8283165/thomas-smith" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Thomas J. Smith, M.D., Johns Hopkins University</a>; <a href="http://pennoncology.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=142%3Aarthur-p-staddon-md&Itemid=77" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Arthur P. Staddon, M.D., Pennsylvania Oncology Hematology Associates</a>; <a href="http://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/doctor.aspx?id=17359" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none;">Jennifer S. Temel, M.D., Massachusetts General Hospital</a></font></em></div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Helvetica Neue'"><br><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/a-plan-to-fix-cancer-care/?src=recg&pagewanted=print">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/a-plan-to-fix-cancer-care/?src=recg&pagewanted=print</a>    </font>

A Plan To Fix Cancer Care - NYTimes.com

This year, more than 1.6 million Americans — 0.5 percent of the population — will receive a diagnosis of cancer. Their treatment will consum...

IWs Babe of the Week...The Jaymom!!

9:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">IWS Radio will be LIVE today from Noon-2 PM ET on Blog Talk Radio with our Palm Funday Show, but in addition to talking about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and getting spanked with palm fronds, we will have a boatload of Birthday shout-outs to um...shout-out.<br /><br />And, our friends...there will be no bigger shout-out than to a loud, proud, and sassy southern woman who celebrates her Birthday TODAY.<br /><br />That's right folks....You know her; you love her, and she is the bestest mom in the entire world...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6odw08ziYFIQnF7-tVdA_-lFBF7UR09r6-h1TCLDIyqXCHVarGzkgaNZoWk_VzgAUL34oUVnS7yrF0FZHHBttcRPY9dqboM6dLgoMjHpF2-ytvuXx7_MBRUkQjwBi-Mo6vaJiabsRCo/s1600/Jaymom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6odw08ziYFIQnF7-tVdA_-lFBF7UR09r6-h1TCLDIyqXCHVarGzkgaNZoWk_VzgAUL34oUVnS7yrF0FZHHBttcRPY9dqboM6dLgoMjHpF2-ytvuXx7_MBRUkQjwBi-Mo6vaJiabsRCo/s400/Jaymom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The Jayyyyyyyyyyymom!!<br /><br />And she is our IWS Babe of the Week.<br /><br />So, join us from Noon-2 PM ET on Blog Talk Radio today, as we talk Jesus, Jaymom, John, Joshua and a host of other things.<br /><br />To catch us LIVE today at Noon ET click<a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid/2013/03/24/palm-funday"> <i><span style="color: blue;">HERE.</span></i></a><br /><br />It's going to be a Palm Funday that you will soon not forget!!<br /><br /></div>

IWs Babe of the Week...The Jaymom!!

IWS Radio will be LIVE today from Noon-2 PM ET on Blog Talk Radio with our Palm Funday Show, but in addition to talking about Jesus riding i...

Suddenly, They're All Gone - NYTimes.com

6:26 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div><div class="w480"><span class="credit">Lauri Rotko/Getty Images</span> <span class="caption"></span></div><p>Caring for the old is just like parenting an infant, only on really   bad acid. It's all there: the head-spinning exhaustion, the fractured   brain, the demands and smells. Only this time with the knowledge that it   won't get better. </p><p>That was my life for five years.  First came my mother-in-law,  then   my father-in-law, then my childless aunt, then my mother — all needing   different kinds of help as they weakened and started going downhill, all   the care overlapping, and almost all of the work to be done despite   distance. </p><p>You're so good, friends would murmur, but I wasn't — there were   plenty of  days I muttered, "Can't do this anymore," and nights when I   threw back too many drinks, feeling how badly I needed for it to be   over.</p><p>Now, though, it is done for real, everyone is dead, and the surprise is that instead of being relieved, I feel worse.  </p><p>More than a year after the last funeral, I still have all the numbers   on speed dial: my in-laws' neighbors in Texas and my aunt's in upstate   New York;  the security guard at my mother's gated San Diego community;   doctors, hospitals and emergency rooms in three states; two home health   agencies; the 24-hour hospice nurse. I still sleep with the phone on and   stashed on my night table, where I can grab it fast. It's over, but I   can't let go. No, it's worse than that: I don't want to.  </p><p>Maybe there is nothing new to say about the nightmare of shepherding   the old through the time that is the prelude to death but not active   dying. I knew it would be bad, but you don't really understand until   you're there, any more than the childless can grasp why a new mother   goes three months without shaving her legs.  </p><div>"Drowning" was the word that came to my mind as the endless crises   unspooled. My  terminal mother-in-law, abandoning the 50-year pretense   that she could stand her husband to demand: "Put him in a nursing home!   Get him out of here!" My father-in-law, newly widowed and alone in an   early Alzheimer's haze, barricading himself in the house against   caregivers. My aunt, her lungs destroyed by a three-pack-a-day cigarette   habit and reeling from one hospitalization after another, begging me to   send morphine so she could end it all.<span id="more-14730"></span></div><p>Alerts peppered every hour. Do something! Your father-in-law's behind   the wheel again. Your aunt's in the hospital with pneumonia; she's   recovering; no, she's failing, come quickly; no, she's been yanked back   from death into a life of oxygen concentrators and cognitive crash; find   a nursing home — wait, are you in New York? Because your mother's in   the hospital in San Diego and it could be serious, can you get on a   plane? </p><p>Frantic was my new normal and normal the new never, because when   someone is old, especially if dementia is involved, nothing is routine.   Even the answer to a straightforward question, like  "What day is it?,"    vanishes on the wind; every patched-together arrangement works only   until it doesn't. </p><p>"Drowning" — also buried, shredded, torn apart. Helping my daughter   prep for the SAT, cooking family dinners and maintaining a professional   life, while also paying three sets of bills, running three houses in   three cities, either planning a trip to see how things were going or   recovering from that trip, and never living in just one place. </p><p>I started keeping my cellphone on my desk, then leaving it on all   night, and finally didn't even risk putting it down because the one time   I did, to watch my child in a high school soccer game, there were five   frantic caregiver messages by halftime: Where are you, what should I do,   she can't breathe! </p><p>And yet: Parenting on bad acid is still parenting. I wasn't one of   those women who went all dewy-eyed the second she gave birth. "I don't   feel anything," I remember thinking in dull panic as I looked at my   squash-faced,  just-born daughter. "How can I love her? She's a   stranger." Within two weeks, though, I was transformed, flattened by a   passion I had never even dreamed existed, and it was the grunt work of   motherhood that did it to me, the holding, touching, watching, feeding,   smelling — the getting to know the specifics of this little creature in a   way that went down to my bones. </p><p>I had always imagined that you put up with the job of caring for a   baby because you loved her,  but for me it was the unfathomable,   slightly terrifying intimacy of caregiving that brought the love. </p><p>And with my old people, it was the same. The fried-brain resentment   that gets you drinking at night fades when you are with someone in the   living room or kitchen. Just as it is with a baby, your job is tending,   and the comfort you bring is simple and physical. You sit for hours, the   heat always cranked up high, doling out pills and pouring water,   changing the nitro patch, combing hair. You fix lunch, rub in skin   cream. </p><p>You come to know the precise texture of thin, dry skin, the kind of   touch that pleases, the small things that bring a smile. My   father-in-law had to have vanilla ice cream every day, but only Blue   Bell brand and in a waffle cone. Even with her thinking garbled, my aunt   needed the New York Times crossword puzzle and endless games of gin   rummy.  My techno-challenged mother wanted written computer instructions   to consult the next time the infernal machine swallowed her text. </p><p>More than anything else, when you're with the old, you listen. My   Greatest Generation/Army veteran father-in-law, whose interest in the   world essentially ended in the late 1950s, talked in endless circles   about his small-town childhood and the World War II campaigns of Italy   and North Africa. My aunt, obese and isolated for years in a small   upstate town, had spent her 30s and 40s single, teaching history in New   York City public schools for nine months a year, then buying elegant   clothes and setting out for Europe and Africa. </p><p><em>The giraffes came down to the water hole every night, right in   front of where I stayed…. One night, in Turkey, in a cafe next to the   sea, we danced in the moonlight….</em></p><p>When the present is unbearable and there is no future, the past comes   rushing back: family history, secrets and buried memories rising out of   the ether. My relentlessly forward-thinking mother never dwelled on   sorrow or regret, but my Aunt Belle committed suicide by jumping in   front of a subway train, she told me one night as we sat among the empty   cups and crumbs at the dinner table. </p><p><em>I was home alone when someone called. I had to tell my father that his sister was dead. I'd never seen him cry before.</em></p><p>I could see it all: my father-in-law's bungalow in Crandall, Tex.,   whose open front door proved irresistible to a contrary billy goat one   day in the 1920s. The 10-cents-an-hour wage my aunt earned tending a   booth on the Coney Island boardwalk during the Depression —  <em>I was saving to buy myself a new pair of shoes, but my mother took the money and I still can't forgive her for it.</em>   My mother's quiet, wild joy during her first  winter in Ithaca, N.Y.,   when a Cornell scholarship let her escape the dirt and smudge of Queens   to a snowfall that stayed white. </p><p>All the years I was young, the center of life's drama, I barely saw   these people. Now they were simultaneously disappearing and becoming   unbearably real to me, heartbreakingly diminished and yet still   powerful, deeply rooted trees that against all reason would not let go.    </p><p>There was my 98-pound mother, befriending the immigrant podiatrist   who tried to relieve her painful, bunion-crippled feet; limping to her   desk and squinting her one good eye at that maddening computer,  so she   could finish an article for her community newspaper. There was my   wheezing, demented aunt, frowning at the sign "Don't Toutch" that her   caregiver had placed above a complicated new hallway thermostat, and   pushing her walker to it so she could correct the spelling. </p><p>Their singularity dazzled me. Their selves, revealed in all their   layered complexity, could never be replaced.  I came to know them — and I   fell in love. </p><p>When you care for the old, life can go on unchanged for years. Then   suddenly, without much warning, everything shifts. Six months after her   cancer diagnosis, my mother-in-law died; 18 months later, my   father-in-law fell, had a small stroke, fell again and lasted only two   months in the Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home. </p><p>Two years after she survived near-death by respiratory failure, my   aunt's breathing got so bad she couldn't even make it to the bathroom;   she wanted only to sleep, to talk to her long-dead sister, who she   insisted she heard on the stairs. <em>You'd better come quick.</em> Minutes after my plane landed at Kennedy Airport I got the call saying she was gone. </p><p>Not long after my mother, radiant in a sun-colored jacket and pearls,   celebrated her 90th birthday with a huge party, she said her stomach   hurt. A week later, I was in a hospital room sobbing against her cold,   still shoulder. </p><p>I have my life back now, but that fact is less simple than it was   before. When I look at the mementos I've inherited, the crumbling photo   albums, cookbooks that smell of cigarette smoke, '50s furniture and cut   glass, I also see where they used to sit, in other places and rooms. I   miss the quiet afternoons, the houses that eventually came to feel like   home, in cities I'll never again have reason to visit. I miss it all. I   miss them.  </p><p>Sometimes, when I'm out, I catch a glimpse of a short, gray-haired   man in a baseball cap or a skinny old woman in a tailored bright jacket   and my heart stops. I see my old people everywhere, which only reminds   me that I'll never see them again.  </p><p>When you have a baby, it's as if your whole self shifts, reshaping   itself around a presence that later you can't even remember living   without. You reach down and take a small hand, and joined, you hurtle   toward the future. Death just offers stasis, absence, dissolving   shadows.</p><p>None of that was a surprise, but it's still a shock. While you're   caring for the old, you can't believe what you're called on to do and   where you find yourself, can't believe that your time with them will   ever end. Then one day, it just does. </p>  <hr><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div class="shortbio"><em><p>Carol Mithers is a Los   Angeles-based journalist and the co-author, with the 2011 Nobel Peace   Prize winner, Leymah Gbowee, of "Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood,   Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War."</p></em></div></div><div><br></div>  <a href="http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/suddenly-theyre-all-gone/?hpw">http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/suddenly-theyre-all-gone/?hpw</a>

Suddenly, They're All Gone - NYTimes.com

Lauri Rotko/Getty Images Caring for the old is just like parenting an infant, only on really bad acid. It's all there: the head-spinn...

NYC by Cameraphone

6:00 PM Tukiyooo 0

After my <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-high-line-for-all-seasons.html">High Line tour</a> today I came across a couple buildings that I wanted to photograph, but finding myself without my camera I used my old-school phone and its lo-fi camera. So pardon the quality of the photos of the buildings, one just completed and one under construction.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_rp6eWn8oYgeWetNwiKgyxviac1aV1rgrEIoblROJgYVcfIfOgb8gCwFFOMas6eE8aKVv1Zsmu5N14sG_ZuL-6PUVlbKFyXf3EaVmaR5mmqRddVkYxmbw2-30dQZ6MzZqP3Cw0gdO8nh_/s1600/Photo091.jpg" /><br /><br />First is the new <a href="http://www.davidzwirner.com/">David Zwirner Gallery</a> on West 20th Street in Chelsea, which opened just last month. This is the gallery's second building in the area and is designed by <a href="http://www.selldorf.com/projects/featured/david-zwirner-20th-street/">Selldorf Architects</a>.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgALEMrIaFeJXaqSOOrAYXupvuX95O0MFDReg92Qw7Y69FrESII5Dl_Kn1R0GEOR23K6xnd-q7CQQl_B5VAZZYTMSdgCN9vro_Dpg4uBWeCZ9v4XK2PmZbGsQdReqAF3mqsbnwc7yP5cHxn/s1600/Photo097.jpg" /><br /><br />I first noticed the building while traversing the High Line on the tour, wondering about the concrete building in the distance. Returning there after the tour I got a closer look at and inside the five-story building of concrete, wood, and glass.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWojcdwLcFRAJzHYXKaIsJpBdwQoMoxyZL0pkDUW1nFX4XIYxMWxmUgil_qpJ2uA1vVr1-CmlMvnHpcAomOV4hxmbV0kLWzd2YkTvUhEFmkc8AU0go0VlVBXi6Re3HE8mZVPV4PRAa-i_F/s1600/Photo098.jpg" /><br /><br />My first thought on seeing the building from across the street: "It's a Swiss building dropped into Chelsea." The combination of materials, the simplicity of the details, and so much exposed concrete; it may not be as executed as well as a Swiss concrete building (could any building in NYC compare in that regard?), but the planar yet textured concrete exterior works pretty well in this context. <br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Tsoe1W19aQ7yKlO3AK-bIugDgLquQ2oQojslWT2ZGa-G9ck2csGRpTUln9-8DJEJKsEpjGWeQhRuPtPzRelOo4Xg5PrgCDXILajKw2K7pnPmo0dGkoBhqcT4fJwsRrf2-eyRGNIKNYmf/s1600/Photo099.jpg" /><br /><br />Not surprisingly, the galleries are white boxes, some of them with windows and the large one on the ground floor with skylights. Concrete extends inside to define the lobby and the circulation spaces beyond; the skylit stair is especially nice.  <br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPiHAmpEB_DqSDI1v8ENQPQhUtEzBN45sHCKZVIBhmWe9ufyTIHcMDiFx_LGzKxKnPkyVrSArBlr8W_EfPlmEnIJ4-qiPY0cFC604JYrjCYVTkOzVToGSCKlKCCYFEq7U5xguM4JI-BXL0/s1600/Photo095.jpg" /><br /><br />On my way to the subway I checked out the construction progress on The New School's <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/university-center/">University Center</a>, designed by <a href="https://www.som.com/project/new-school-university-center">SOM</a> and located at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAX7ZY-anB33uZMl-1Rli_ayCi_ofuA5LrpNCkcnVwUf8XBnChGstCgxc6IFnHC57Xi4yQBOzwJj3ltQmOlYyKNNYZ_hkXtf__dmEyjKDeE0lHJgedCqsd2M4dYvkbVIOIdBVVnSjjd2Jv/s1600/Photo101.jpg" /><br /><br />The 16-story building is an unrelenting wrapper of horizontal bands of metal and reflective glass broken up by clear-glass cuts that rise and fall across the three facades of its base. <br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekncIJycWiPg-0EeuOzX4JbwGjD6N31zPaJoL3oTEc5wm7fzVLmXx_I_A23N8X09G0jBkWOC-_dqk-QZOPsOGUz4V5RXPcp36Vb-rM4_-S-GE4Il9R2-ciYftKTZ7t-eG4N2I8b7vqosN/s1600/Photo103.jpg" /><br /><br />Behind these diagonals are the "the three central staircases that will weave their way through the building," per the building's own website. The faceting of the facade at the stairs reminds me of another SOM building (and one I also captured with my crappy cameraphone), the <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2012/01/wrapping-diamond.html">International Gem Tower</a> also under construction in Midtown.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4CysSZe1NLGS-McX6lio7mzGr3LnJDvnIBcw5YLQS4bqF-IF5FGKKq0UStFbo_Y2bkeUD6LAd7v7y2CrZyYTyZh-jiABqFUHUqHdYslBXsKP9X1QLVcDXww5mhD4VjM3KTqkXuj90Tqwh/s1600/Photo104.jpg" />

NYC by Cameraphone

After my High Line tour today I came across a couple buildings that I wanted to photograph, but finding myself without my camera I used my ...

Kona Kase Review

2:03 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-snwtPfssDck/UU4b0oXQdqI/AAAAAAAAHSc/unYSe8qLn1A/s1600/kona+kase+has+arrived!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-snwtPfssDck/UU4b0oXQdqI/AAAAAAAAHSc/unYSe8qLn1A/s320/kona+kase+has+arrived!.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since losing weight I need to have good foods around the house to keep myself in check so I won't over eat especially foods that are no good for me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What better way to stay healthy than receiving delicious </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">snacks straight to you're door?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I came across <a href="http://www.konakase.com/">Kona Kase</a> and saw that they offer all natural hand picked snacks that are healthy I just knew I had to contact them for review.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was psyched when I heard a knock at my door the other morning and Kona Kase arrived!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I couldn't wait to see what I was going to be reviewing!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was so excited when I saw some of the products I've seen before so I knew I was going to love this box!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my box I received:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lentil's Chips</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SanFranola Granola</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FRS Chews</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Barre</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pacific Health Labs- 2nd Surge Energy Gel</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pocket Fuel</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vitalyte</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kind Bar</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will be telling you about each product in detail.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>SanFranola Granola:</u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">fresh roasted granola!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">High in protein and higher in fiber as well.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Less sugar than your average granola's.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Single serve packets for on the go!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Add some to your yogurt, ice cream or on top of a smoothie for a light crunch!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You will always have a healthy snack at hand whether your going on a hike, going to the beach, or even working out.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You will be pleased with this subscription box of healthy snacks for you and you can even send them to someone as a gift!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kind Bar:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course I didn't take a photo before I ate it, ugh cravings!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Any who I received the Almond, Walnut and Macadamia nut bar and it is so delicious, super nutty and sweet too!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Packed with protein and makes a great snack and nut lovers will love it!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Enjoy Life Plentil Chips:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am absolutely in love with these Lentil Chips that I received in my Kona Kase Box!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They taste sort of like Muncho's Chips with a robust garlic and Parmesan flavor. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am a big fan of chips that have a certain flavor such as these wonderful crispy tasty chips.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are also good for you and gluten free!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d8MWHzcC9CE/UU4RbUiFROI/AAAAAAAAHSM/TpMLqkuUPTc/s1600/garlic+and+parmesan+kona+kase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d8MWHzcC9CE/UU4RbUiFROI/AAAAAAAAHSM/TpMLqkuUPTc/s320/garlic+and+parmesan+kona+kase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pocket Fuel:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ycyIZtMYhzw/UU4jriE1wfI/AAAAAAAAHTE/EYxV_IVng9g/s1600/pocket+fuel+kona+kase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ycyIZtMYhzw/UU4jriE1wfI/AAAAAAAAHTE/EYxV_IVng9g/s320/pocket+fuel+kona+kase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Almond Butter with a kick!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's portable and you can bring it anywhere with you.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Packed with seeds,nuts and fruits to give you a boost of sustained energy from an intense workout and perfect recovery snack.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can squirt it on apples, add to a smoothie, or even spread it on rice cakes!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Vitalyte Chia Surge:</u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TAVrLKUebSU/UU4eWw9qsXI/AAAAAAAAHSs/RHXqNyVuWWk/s1600/Chia+Surge+Kona+Kase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TAVrLKUebSU/UU4eWw9qsXI/AAAAAAAAHSs/RHXqNyVuWWk/s320/Chia+Surge+Kona+Kase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Chia seeds in gel form, gives you're body what it needs to kill any workout or even competition. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Pacific Health Labs 2nd Surge Energy Gel:</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HWr0s-O19GI/UU4eft2pALI/AAAAAAAAHS0/y7-bYYznJ3I/s1600/2nd+surge+kona+kase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HWr0s-O19GI/UU4eft2pALI/AAAAAAAAHS0/y7-bYYznJ3I/s320/2nd+surge+kona+kase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Proven to deliver nutrients during your workouts, you can use it before or after exercise.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FRS Chews:</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Feeling like you just want to give up in the middle of a long intense run?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pop in an FRS energy chew and you will feel energized in no time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just take the recommend amount of 2 chews twice daily and within 3-4 days you will feel energized! </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Barre:</u></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MPGebJnw0jk/UU4jPtfbf5I/AAAAAAAAHS8/tvqVEh6ZhC8/s1600/barre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MPGebJnw0jk/UU4jPtfbf5I/AAAAAAAAHS8/tvqVEh6ZhC8/s320/barre.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A nutrition bar developed by dancers and for everyone to enjoy!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Free of refined sugars and provides balanced nutrition.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be sure to check them out online 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.konakase.com/">http://www.konakase.com/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like them on Face Book </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Kase/144635405674991">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Kase/144635405674991</a></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;">Follow Them Via Twitter:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/konakase">https://twitter.com/konakase</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Due to FCC guidelines:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Kona Kase sent me healthy snacks in exchange for a product review. However, All the opinions expressed here are my own.</span><br /><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div></div>

Kona Kase Review

Since losing weight I need to have good foods around the house to keep myself in check so I won't over eat especially foods that are no ...

Michigan Clinic: How to Break a Press

1:48 PM Tukiyooo 0

I really can't believe it's been 19 years since Michigan reached a Sweet Sixteen. They have either been out of the tournament completely, or eliminated in the first weekend, for <i>nineteen years.</i><br /><br />"Havoc" is what they call Virginia Commonwealth's defense, but to me it looked a lot like a high-intense 3/4 press. And I've learned, ever since grade school basketball, that the best way to break a press is to pass.<br /><br />And boy, I sure saw some great passing by Michigan!<br /><br />It was clear that head coach John Beilein prepared this team for what it was going to face today against VCU. They ran up and down the court, spreading out the floor and finding the open man when VCU tried to trap.<br /><br />It didn't help that VCU shot less than 40% from the floor for the game. More important than that, Mitch McGary was out of his mind today, scoring a career high 21 points and grabbing 14 rebounds. The Michigan offense had to prevent turnovers from VCU, and they "only" gave up the ball 12 times. But, considering teams that lost to VCU this season gave up the ball an average of 21 times, 12 isn't that bad.<br /><br />I was impressed. I hope that Beilein can get Michigan ready for whatever Jayhawk-Tar Heel attack they'll face on Friday...<i>away </i>from Michigan.

Michigan Clinic: How to Break a Press

I really can't believe it's been 19 years since Michigan reached a Sweet Sixteen. They have either been out of the tournament comple...

Steak time!

1:16 PM Tukiyooo 0

Steak time!

This is what we ate for dinner. Fillet steak, chips & pepper sauce. So simple, so good!

Sun Cups Review

1:03 PM Tukiyooo 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KwvWocPVwYw/UU4Ls4zan6I/AAAAAAAAHSE/3QcFz6oiWKY/s1600/sun+cups.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KwvWocPVwYw/UU4Ls4zan6I/AAAAAAAAHSE/3QcFz6oiWKY/s320/sun+cups.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Created for peanut allergies <a href="http://suncups.com/">Sun Cups</a> came up with a sweet and creamy alternative to peanut butter with sunflower butter.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They then took the jar of Sun Flower butter and chocolate and that's when Sun Cups were born!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am a huge fan of sweets whether it's caramel, peanut butter you name it I love it!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've never tried sunflower butter before, so when I came across Sun Cups I just knew I had to give them a try.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was sent their cups of mint, caramel and sunflower butter for review. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8hMQqV1uQcc/UU4HUiP5k9I/AAAAAAAAHR0/PVDqREBXiek/s1600/sun+cups+display.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8hMQqV1uQcc/UU4HUiP5k9I/AAAAAAAAHR0/PVDqREBXiek/s320/sun+cups+display.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I absolutely love the packaging on these tasty little treats.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With a name like Sun Cups it's sure to make you happy by just looking at the colorful and detailed packaging.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a treat this afternoon mom and I dished out some ice cream and put a caramel cup on top and it was pure deliciousness. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The taste of the sweet milk chocolate and the luscious caramel along with the creamy vanilla ice cream was amazing.</span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zfb-QbMyL1I/UU4HbOA9D4I/AAAAAAAAHR8/mNPGwYDhNZA/s1600/caramel+sun+cup+with+vanilla+bean+ice+cream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zfb-QbMyL1I/UU4HbOA9D4I/AAAAAAAAHR8/mNPGwYDhNZA/s320/caramel+sun+cup+with+vanilla+bean+ice+cream.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Sunny Facts:</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gluten Free</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nut Free</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Certified Organic</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;">Be sure to check them out:</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>Website:</u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://suncups.com/">http://suncups.com/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u><br /></u></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Like Them On Face Book : </u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/suncups?fref=ts">https://www.facebook.com/suncups?fref=ts</a></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>Follow them Via Twitter: </u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/suncups">https://twitter.com/suncups</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Check out their Pinterest Board:</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;"><a href="http://pinterest.com/suncups/">http://pinterest.com/suncups/</a></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Due to FCC guidelines:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sun Cups sent me their chocolate cups in exchange for a product review. However, All the opinions expressed here are my own.</span><br /><div><br /></div></div>

Sun Cups Review

Created for peanut allergies Sun Cups came up with a sweet and creamy alternative to peanut butter with sunflower butter. They then took th...

Alo Drink Review

11:49 AM Tukiyooo 0

<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have never felt so refreshed and hydrated in my life, and I owe it all to <a href="http://alodrink.com/">Alo Drinks</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know what your thinking isn't aloe a plant?</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;">Yes, but they make it straight from the leaf itself and add in natural good for you flavors!</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 have to say I was sort of skeptical at first to try but have heard great rumors about their products and when I came across them I had to try them out for myself.</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 work out a lot whether it's in the gym, at home to my work out tapes or taking a walk so I need something to hydrate me.</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;">So I got to reading about their products and here's what I found out about them.</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;">*Made with all natural flavors</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*Made from aloe leaves</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*full of vitamins and minerals</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*refreshing</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*healthy</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9qrEamw9rak/UU4E3vl83wI/AAAAAAAAHRs/_O3w_NTlPO0/s1600/Alo+drinks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9qrEamw9rak/UU4E3vl83wI/AAAAAAAAHRs/_O3w_NTlPO0/s320/Alo+drinks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was so excited when I found out I was going to do a review on these drinks, especially because they are flavored!</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 am a sucker for flavored waters, they are not only healthy but they have delicious flavors that satisfy and hydrate you!</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 couldn't wait to open this box when I saw it yesterday, I just had to see what was inside.</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;">So I opened the box and saw many flavors of their Alo original line of drinks!</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 couldn't believe how many they sent!</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 am beyond excited to be doing this review to share with you all.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><u style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alo Original:</u></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;">Aloe Watermelon Peach</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Honey</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Pineapple Guava Seabuckthorn Berry </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Wheat Grass</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Cranberry Pomegranate</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Pomelo Pink Grapefruit lemon</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Twelve Fruits and Vegetables</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Mangosteen Mango</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aloe Vera Olive Leaf Tea</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;">The drink I chose to try first was the Alo Watermelon Peach.</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;">What do I have to say about it?</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 took a drink and was surprised at how delicious and full of flavor this drink really was!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was refreshing and kept me hydrated the rest of the day!</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Best of all they contain no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. </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 can't wait to try the other flavors that they sent me!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--YyeKv5ia68/UU4ElUj4eII/AAAAAAAAHRk/6SF-uPUbWoM/s1600/coco+exposed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--YyeKv5ia68/UU4ElUj4eII/AAAAAAAAHRk/6SF-uPUbWoM/s1600/coco+exposed.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I would love to try their Coco Exposed line as well since I love all things coconut, drinks especially!</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;">Don't forget to check them out:</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;">Website:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://alodrink.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://alodrink.com/</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like them on Face Book: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ALOdrink">https://www.facebook.com/ALOdrink</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Follow them via Twitter : </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ALOdrink">https://twitter.com/ALOdrink</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can find them at these local retailers:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whole Foods</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Food For Thought</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Vitamin Shoppe</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wegman's </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and more!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Due to FCC guidelines:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alo Drinks sent me a case of their drinks in exchange for a product review. However, All the opinions expressed here are my own.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div></div>

Alo Drink Review

I have never felt so refreshed and hydrated in my life, and I owe it all to Alo Drinks . I know what your thinking isn't aloe a plant? ...