Warm Bodies in the Theater

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img src="http://www.wired.com/geekmom/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/warm-bodies-big1-350x518.jpeg" /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">While watching a particular scene in the movie <a href="http://warmbodiesmovie.com/" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><cite style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Warm Bodies</cite></a>, my friend leaned over to me, “Aw, and her name is even ‘Julie,’ how sweet.”</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">Hm? I grunted back. And then my brain cells slowly pieced together: <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">balcony scene … Julie … his name is ‘R’ … oooOH!</em></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">Maybe that’s why I liked the book, and happily, the movie too. Like R, I try my best, but making connections, even freakin’ obvious Shakespearean ones (how could I miss that in the book?!) can be really hard. Connecting to people? Even harder. I love one of the opening shots of the film where R is reminiscing about what the world was like before he was a zombie, picturing the airport filled with people “spending time together.” But all the people he’s imagining are looking at their cell phones.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/01/warming-up-to-warm-bodies/" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">In my previous post</a>, I said I wasn’t going to read the book until after the movie, since the trailer caught my eye. But I’ve never been known as a patient person. A week was too long for the story, so I bought a copy and read it. Very sweet, with a straightforward storyline; perfect for a movie. Not too many side-plots, though I knew the relationship between Perry and R was not going to make it on the big screen.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">I wondered how the voice of R would come through. There was some voice over, not too much, but I found those parts my favorite. Maybe because I could relate. It’s one thing to read R’s voice in the novel, but seeing that blank stare on the screen, with an intelligent and very frustrated voice behind it, was perfect. How often do I have a similar look and frustration level with my inability to say what I mean? I won’t answer that question.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">I did miss R’s voice, however. The gradual waking up of this dead man was the point of the novel, the love story was the point of the movie. Overall, the movie was entertaining, although certainly no prize winner. The makeup bothered me. It was inconsistent and obvious. The zombies did not look dead enough. If the producers were worried about making <a href="http://www.hollywood.com/news/Nicholas_Hoult_5_Reasons_Hes_Not_the_Next_Robert_Pattinson/48675514" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Nicholas Carodoc Houl</a> look bad, they shouldn’t have.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">On the way out my friend said awkwardly, “Well, that actor certainly has grown up since <cite style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">About A Boy</cite>. I mean, he looked … he was….”</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">“He’s hot. Yes. You can say that. We may be the age of his mother, but you can call him ‘hot’.”</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">The bonies were creepy, but not the most realistic special effects. The human settlement was way too settled that soon after an apocalypse (not that I know from experience, but…) I liked the casting of M, but I was disappointed that Nora was not ethnic with curly hair. (I’m always looking for diversity in main characters.) The father (played by John Malkovich) was lame in the movie, and we had a Hollywood ending on that storyline.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">Speaking of lame however, I had one wish going into the theater. “Please don’t make Julie lame. Please don’t make Julie lame.” The slow motion kick-ass with a gun scene where R first falls in love is funny, sweet, and she’s not lame! Yay!</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;">The movie makers really missed it on one scene, though. While reading the book, there is a part where R takes a shower, his first since becoming a zombie, and the years of dirt, grime, dried blood, and everything else you can imagine is cleaned revealing the scars and bullet wounds that can never be scrubbed away. I thought, “that will be the most beautiful scene in the movie.” Yeah, no. They skipped right to clean skin with scars and bullet wounds. It was enough to make my friend make sounds of sympathy, but there are few times when a movie can outshine a book, and this very visual metaphor was a missed opportunity.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px;"><cite style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Warm Bodies</cite> was a romantic comedy unlike any other I’ve seen. For those who have read the book, Hoult embodied the lovable monster with empathy and humor. For those who didn’t, you can be introduced to a sweet story of what it means to be human. My friend and I both enjoyed it. So, if you’re in the mood for some zombie apocalyptic love, check it out.</div></div>

Warm Bodies Warm Bodies in the Theater

While watching a particular scene in the movie  Warm Bodies , my friend leaned over to me, “Aw, and her name is even ‘Julie,’ how sweet.” Hm...

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The Ed Koch Show

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><nyt_byline style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></nyt_byline><br /><h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 2px 0px;">By <span itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">JOE NOCERA From:</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/" style="background-color: transparent;">http://www.nytimes.com</a></h6><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br /><h6 class="dateline" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px;">Published: February 1, 2013 </h6><h6 class="dateline" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px;"><em style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">“I never doubted that I would be a good mayor,” said Ed Koch, with a self-satisfied smile. “I never did.”</em></h6><h6 class="dateline" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px;"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/27/opinion/Nocera_New/Nocera_New-popup-v2.jpg" /></h6><h6 class="dateline" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px;"><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">It was Tuesday night, and the documentary “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkBI-fYQIHE" style="color: #666699;" title="A trailer of the movie">Koch</a>,” written and directed by my old friend Neil Barsky, was having its premiere at the Museum of Modern Art. In his late 80s, the former New York mayor looked his age in the film, but he was still very sharp and quite funny — and as needy as he’d always been for public attention and approval. As Ed Koch matter-of-factly uttered those words, early in the movie, the audience, full of former staff aides, political loyalists and New York movers-and-shakers, chuckled knowingly. Throughout his political life, Koch’s ego had never been far from the surface. It says here that his egotism is part of what made him a great mayor.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Koch had planned to be in the audience Tuesday night. He had cooperated fully with Barsky and had given a few interviews in the run-up to the premiere. He was clearly looking forward to basking in the spotlight again. But earlier that day he had been admitted to the hospital. By Friday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/nyregion/edward-i-koch-ex-mayor-of-new-york-dies.html" style="color: #666699;" title="His obituary in The Times">he was dead</a>. Is it tasteless to say he couldn’t have planned a better promotional campaign? Probably. But Koch himself would have laughed at the joke. Which was another thing about him: He was probably the last mayor of New York to have a sense of humor.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Like Koch, Barsky was born in the Bronx. A former Wall Street Journal reporter and hedge fund manager, he was in college when Koch was first elected mayor. About 10 years ago, he told me, he had driven around the South Bronx, an area he hadn’t ventured into in decades. He was stunned to see, as he put it, that “I couldn’t find any of the old burned-out buildings” that he recalled from the 1970s. “They had all been replaced with real housing.”</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Affordable housing was a big part of Koch’s legacy, Barsky realized; indeed, under Koch, the city spent $5 billion on housing, more than the next 50 American cities combined. The memory of that tour of the South Bronx stuck with him. When Barsky closed his hedge fund to become a filmmaker, Koch was an obvious subject.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Which is not to say the film is a big wet kiss. Yes, it gives plenty of credit where it is due: Koch’s sound financial management brought the city back from the brink of bankruptcy. He helped New York regain its confidence. He took on the transit union. He began the process that led to the renewal of Times Square and other areas of the city. He reduced the rampant crime that had created such a climate of fear in New York.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">But Barsky is also cleareyed about his foibles. Koch’s lack of empathy. His contentious and at times ugly relationship with the black community. His slowness to react to the AIDS crisis. Barsky tackles the rumors that Koch was a closeted gay man, asking him point-blank about his sexuality. “None of your business,” replied Koch, in somewhat more pungent language. (<a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/02/01/koch_gays_and_aids.php" style="color: #666699;">Many gay activists are convinced</a> that Koch didn’t do more during the AIDS crisis because he was uncomfortable with his own sexuality. But the totality of Koch’s record — he was a leader in pushing for gay rights — suggests otherwise, at least to me.)</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">What was most striking about “Koch,” however, was the extent to which, for Hizzoner, it was always about, well, Ed Koch. He needlessly picks fights, calling people “schmucks” and “idiots” when they disagreed with him. He takes actions designed to win him praise in the media. One of his former aides recalls him saying, after reading the paper, that nothing of note had happened that day. What he meant was that he wasn’t mentioned. “How’m I doin’?” wasn’t just a trademark phrase; it was an expression of a deep psychological need. On the other hand, if that is what drove him to spend $5 billion on new housing, who can complain?</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">A few days after the “Koch” premiere, I went to see “Fiorello!,” a 1959 musical about another great New York mayor, Fiorello H. LaGuardia, which is having <a href="http://www.nycitycenter.org/tickets/productionNew.aspx?performanceNumber=6623" style="color: #666699;">a short run at City Center</a>. LaGuardia was also an egotist, who loved “the people” more than he did people, who reformed city government yet who also had a profound need to be at the center of every orbit he entered.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Indeed, the same can largely be said of our current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, whose view of himself as a Great Man doing a Great Job is so ingrained that, according to The New York Times, he has tried to recruit someone he thinks has sufficient stature to succeed him.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">New York’s three greatest mayors were also three of its great egotists. It’s no accident.</div></h6></div>

Ed Koch The Ed Koch Show

By  JOE NOCERA From: http://www.nytimes.com Published: February 1, 2013  “I never doubted that I would be a good mayor,” said Ed Koch, with ...

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Groundhog Day forecast: Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">From: </span><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/groundhog-day-punxsutawney-phil-predicts-early-spring-article-1.1253756#ixzz2JlrSSnlG" style="border: 0px; color: #003399; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none !important; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.nydailynews.com</a><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">Thousands gathered in Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania to see whether the famous groundhog would see his shadow. Legend has it that if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Feb. 2, winter will last six more weeks. If he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.</span><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><br /><img alt=" In this Feb. 2, 2012 file photo, Groundhog Club handler Ron Ploucha holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 126th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. Legend has it that if the groundhog sees his shadow on Feb. 2, winter will last six more weeks. No shadow means an early spring. " src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253746.1359815863!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-10-web.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><div class="story-img" itemid="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253746!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-10-web.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In this Feb. 2, 2012 file photo, Groundhog Club handler Ron Ploucha holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 126th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. Legend has it that if the groundhog sees his shadow on Feb. 2, winter will last six more weeks. No shadow means an early spring.</h4></div><div class="story-rail p402_hide" style="border: 0px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 200px;"></div><div class="story-body p402_premium" itemprop="articleBody" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — Punxsutawney's famous groundhog predicts spring will come early this year.</div><div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With thousands watching on Gobbler's Knob in west-central Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair Saturday but didn't see his shadow.</div></div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="GROUNDHOG3N_9_WEB" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253747!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-9-web.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><br /><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jon Lovitch of the Bronx, New York waits in the cold for the weather-prognosticating groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, to make his annual prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 127th Groundhog Day Feb. 2, 2013.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Legend has it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.</div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><br /><img alt="GROUNDHOG3N_8_WEB" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253748!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-8-web.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><br /><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Katie Wolf of South Bound Brook, New Jersey waits for the weather-prognosticating groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, to make his annual prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 127th Groundhog Day Feb. 2, 2013.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The prediction is made during a ceremony overseen by a group called the Inner Circle. Members don top hats and tuxedos for the ceremony on Groundhog Day each year.</div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bill Deeley, president of the Inner Circle, says that after "consulting" with Phil, he makes the call in deciphering what the world's Punxsutawney Phil has to say about the weather.</div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fred Ungar (L) of York, Pennsylvania and Barry Edwards of Lancaster, Pennsylvania joke around while waiting for the weather-prognosticating groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, to make his annual prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 127th Groundhog Day Feb. 2, 2013.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Phil is known as the "seer of seers" and "sage of sages." Organizers predicted about 20,000 people this weekend, a larger-than-normal crowd because Groundhog Day falls on a weekend this year.</div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="GROUNDHOG3N_6_WEB" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253750!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-6-web.jpg" /><br /><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jason Grusky, also known as The Big Chill and a member of the Inner Circle of the Groundhog Club, wears a thermometer showing the current low temperatures on the 127th Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, Feb. 2, 2013, as crowds wait for the weather-prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil on Gobbler's Knob.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Phil's got company in the forecasting department.</div><div style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There's Staten Island Chuck, in New York; General Beauregard Lee, in Atlanta; and Wiarton Willie, in Wiarton, Ontario, among others noted by the National Climactic Data Center "Groundhog Day" Web page.</div><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><img alt="GROUNDHOG3N_3_WEB" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253751!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-3-web.jpg" /></span></span></span><br /><div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pam Markin of Dallas, Texas, waits for Punxsutawney Phil to come out from his winter den during the 127th Groundhog Day Celebration at Gobbler's Knob on Feb. 2, 2013 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Punxsutawney can't keep something this big to itself," the Data Center said. "Other prognosticating rodents are popping up to claim a piece of the action."</div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><img alt="GROUNDHOG3N_4_WEB" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1253753!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/groundhog3n-4-web.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="story-img" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 635px;"><h4 class="caption" itemprop="description" style="border: 0px; color: #111111; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A crowd surround a fire to keep themselves warm during the 127th Groundhog Day Celebration at Gobbler’s Knob on Feb. 2, 2013 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.</h4></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Phil is the original — and the best, Punxsutawney partisans insist.</div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"We welcome them all. We like the competition," Deeley said this week.</div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The 1993 movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray brought even more notoriety to the Pennsylvania party. The record attendance was about 30,000 the year after the movie's release, said Katie Donald, executive director of the Groundhog Club. About 13,000 attend if Feb. 2 falls on a weekday.</div><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div></div>

Groundhog Day Groundhog Day forecast: Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring

From:  http://www.nydailynews.com Thousands gathered in Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania to see whether the famous groundhog would see his s...

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THE BALKANS – ORGANIZED CRIME AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION PART 6

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class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BALKAN: BIO - CHEMICAL WEAPON THREAT? </span></b></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; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><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";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from Ioannis Michaletos</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The EU strategists, whoever they may be, should be aware of the complicated BALKAN reality: the region is a mostly secular one, but it has the peculiarity of hosting safe havens of terrorists and organized crime related Islamists. Most of these areas are under international protection a paradox that ridicules the entire Western anti terror campaign. Another worrying fact is the real danger of proliferation of chemical or biological weapons into the hands of terrorists, especially in the case of ALBANIA. Already this threat is one of the top priorities for the security services across SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE, and GREECE along with the USA, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, and the EUROPEAN UNION; assists ALBANIA in destroying the stockpiles of its chemical weapons. It is worthwhile to mention that the ALBANIAN authorities had discovered 16 tons of chemicals in 2002, stored in an underground cache, but there are no verified accounts if any amount had been stolen during the 1997 riots, thus raising a question as to whether terrorist organizations already have taken hold of quantities of chemicals.</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";">Lastly, the attack on the USA Embassy in Athens-GREECE in January 2007 with an RPG weaponry, is assumed to have a BALKAN-ALBANIAN connection, meaning source it came from, the “Weapons black market” vividly active in the borderlines between KOSOVO and FYROM.</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";">Only a coordinated pan EUROPEAN operation would be able to eradicate this perilous condition. The bombings in Madrid and in London had a BALKAN flavor in them, namely the explosives used, according to many, came from those very same Muslim pockets in the BALKANS that are protected by WESTERN armies. For the future then, Islamic radicalism in the BALKANS is an X factor. What is certain though is that this factor will not be used for the benefit of the West and the only way of neutralize it is by disrupting its logistic and financial base.</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="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">WEST AND EU UNDERESTIMATE IMPORTANCE OF THE BALKANS? </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Political ambitious, international reputations and the all pervading political correctness, hinders the right actions to be taken. Unfortunately the implications of the WESTERN involvement have spilled-over worldwide and with dire consequences regarding the global anti-terror campaign. Shaul Shay states that “In the course of 1999-2000, several terror cells were discovered in the U.S. and CANADA. Some of their members lived in Bocinja [BOSNIA] or were connected to radical Islamic entities that resided there”. The West followed a contradictory stance in the BALKANS where it promoted the advance of radical Islamic elements linked to terrorism, in the same period -1999- it enacted the attacks against SERBIA, thus empowering the former.</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;"><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring</span></i></b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">: It should be noted that the author of this article is Greek, thus favoring a pro SERBIAN and RUSSIAN stance. GREECE and CYPRUS and their respective orthodox churches provided sanctuaries to SERBIAN refugees and Chetniks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks ) during the KOSOVO and BOSNIAN wars.</span></i></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";">A great leader once said “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. That surely sums up the mentality of the international officials around this Balkan “X factor”.</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;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="color: blue;">THE MUSLIM MINORITIES IN THE BALKANS</span><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />In contemporary EUROPE there is a great debate on the role of Islam in modern societies and the path that the EUROPEAN-MUSLIM relationship will lead into the 21st century. The BALKANS is a European area where considerable Muslim communities reside, some of them for over 700 hundred years and since the era of the Ottoman Empire.</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";">The BALKAN Peninsula was always an area characterized by continuous population arrivals and exodus due to the turbulent history of the region and because of its geopolitical disposition in the midst of three continents. Since the fall of the Roman Empire immigration and conquest waves have over the centuries shaped the population composition of this EUROPEAN soil. The Slavs in the 6th Century AC, the BULGARIANS in the 7th and the TURKS in the 14th one, have all constructed more or less modern ethno-diversity in the BALKANS.</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 former were able –after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 AC- to create the Ottoman Empire stretching from modern day SAUDI ARABIA and NORTH AFRICA, right up to the infamous “Gates of Vienna” or more specifically in Klagenfurt and the Styria province. During much of the previous 6 centuries, there have been massive conversions to Islam that formatted the existing Islamic enclaves in the BALKANS. The fall of the SOVIET Bloc in 1989, and the civil wars in Ex-YUGOSLAVIA; brought the remembrance of the war of faiths, which were part of the BALKAN history for the better part of the last Millennium.</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";">Nowadays, all BALKAN states-Bar RUMANIA- have Muslim minorities that are part of the social and political life of the respective states and most importantly have been often accused as acting like a “Trojan Horse” from powers seeking to exercise influence in the area.</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="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA</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";">BOSNIA was already a part of the Ottoman realm, back in 1463 and a mass conversion of the Bogomil Christian sect, (See: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism</a>) endured the existence of a large and influential Islamic community in the state. This area was for centuries the epicenter of the BALKAN Muslim life, since it was ideally placed in the centre of SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE and had a viable and vibrant Muslim community. At this point it should to be noted that the Bogomils were the most affluent class of BOSNIA and their adherence to Islam constituted an initiative from their part to retain their privileges and rights under the newly formed dominion.</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 1908 BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA was annexed by the then AUSTRIA-HUNGARIAN Empire, at the same period the idea of a united confederation of the Southern Slavs –SERBS, CROATS, SLOVENIANS- was gaining momentum. The creation of Yugoslavia after WW1 didn’t resolve the wide religious and cultural gaps between Catholics, Orthodox and Sunni Muslims. The Second World War saw the alliance between the Fascist, pro-GERMAN CROATIAN regime of Andre Pavelic and the Muslims in BOSNIA.</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";">Actually in 1943 the latter created the 13th Mountainous SS Brigade –Waffen Gebirgs division der SS- See: (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_%281st_Croatian%29">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_%281st_Croatian%29</a>) that committed atrocities against civilian SERBIAN population in classic ethnic cleansing procedures. In 1944 a similar brigade was to be formed by the KOSOVO ALBANIANS -21st Skanderberg Brigade- that sought as well the elimination of SERBIANS from KOSOVO-Metohija. See: (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Skanderbeg_%281st_Albanian%29">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Skanderbeg_%281st_Albanian%29</a>)</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";">During the 90’s, Mujahedeen from various Islamic states, fought along BOSNIAN Muslims against CROATIANS and SERBS. Numerous allegations and documents reveal a strong Jihad connection between the then <b>Izebegovic</b> administration and <b>Al Qaeda</b> operatives that sought a safe haven in the centre of the BALKANS and close to EUROPE. Stephen Schwartz notes “Muslim BOSNIA and neighboring territories also face growing Islamist extremism. Wahhabi missionaries, promoting the ultra-radical cult financed by SAUDI ARABIA, have come back to the BALKANS after their expulsion from Sarajevo in the aftermath of September 11. BOSNIAN authorities acted then with admirable speed in cracking down on the SAUDI High Commission for Relief of BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, a center of al Qaeda activity”. Currently about 45% of BOSNIA’S population is Muslims, mainly populating the urban centers.</span></span></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/AVvXsEjWyPwM7v50stXK1DFk4oQ__THm6WPv16PjxDQUqrkT2Jw6TvdwoCHFmf_9wWZB-HH36FRAz74z4Iw0qfQnoJZVDa11NZ0n62iXJP27vHZB_8Z1rATEZgK9CrHKsBDOQ1H9i8VkIuzE5Ep4/s1600/ethnic_majoities_bosnia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWyPwM7v50stXK1DFk4oQ__THm6WPv16PjxDQUqrkT2Jw6TvdwoCHFmf_9wWZB-HH36FRAz74z4Iw0qfQnoJZVDa11NZ0n62iXJP27vHZB_8Z1rATEZgK9CrHKsBDOQ1H9i8VkIuzE5Ep4/s640/ethnic_majoities_bosnia.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></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="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">SERBIA-FYROM-MONTENEGRO</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";">SERBIA’S largest Muslim minority is to be found in KOSOVO where over 90% of the population is of ALBANIAN descent and Muslim in denomination. The situation after the 1999 NATO intervention has revealed a massive destruction of the SERBIAN Christian Orthodox heritage. KOSOVO has been since the early Middle Ages a traditional SERBIAN pilgrimage and state epicenter. </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";">The percentage of the Muslims in KOSOVO was traditionally 50-60% from the Ottoman period and up until the 1950’s. The mass immigrations of ALBANIANS from Northern ALBANIA, the immigration of SERBIANS to EUROPE and the very high birth rate of the former; resulted in the creation of an almost homogenized ALBANIAN-Muslim KOSOVO in the course of the second half of the 20th century. The importance of KOSOVO to the SERBIAN psyche, stems amongst other by the greatness of its artistic, literature and architecture grandeur during the Middle Ages and under the SERBIAN Nemanjia Kingdom, most probably the most highlighted era in the history of the SERBIAN Kingdom.</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";">Another SERBIAN province with large numbers of Muslims is SANJAK –Close to KOSOVO borderline- that is also a habitation of Wahabbism. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">See:</span></span></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";">SANDŽAK REGION, NOT ONLY THE GATEWAY FOR BALKANS ORGANIZED CRIME SYNDICATES, BUT ALSO FOR SPREADING WAHHBISM TO EUROPE</span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></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";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/wahhabism-in-bosnia-herzegovina-part-4.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/wahhabism-in-bosnia-herzegovina-part-4.html</a></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";">FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is a state which can be characterized as a hub between SERBIA, ALBANIA, BULGARIA and GREECE. Due to its unique location it always attracted various ethnic and religious minorities, amongst them the largest Muslim one,<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span>mainly composed of ALBANIANS, TURKS and ROMA. After the 1999 war, scores of KOSOVO ALBANIANS sought refuge in FYROM thus increasing the total percentage of Muslims in the country. The 2001 conflicts between the SLAVIC majority of the country and the ALBANIAN minority revealed the cultural rift between the two <span style="font-size: large;">ethnicity</span>, as well as the growing fear of the SLAVS that the high birth rates of their Muslim compatriots will make Muslims the main ethnic entity in the course of the 21st century. Already, about 30% of citizens are Muslims.</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";">MONTENEGRO on the other hand had always had a small Islamic community that has increased considerably due to the continuous influx of refugees from the YUGOSLAVIAN wars in the 90’s. Roughly 20% of the population is Muslim, and their vote was crucial during the independence referendum in 2006, that broke MONTENEGRO’S ties with SERBIA.</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="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">ALBANIA</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";">ALBANIA is the only BALKAN country that has an absolute majority in terms of Muslim citizens. Officially 70% of the population is Sunni Muslims, even though there are considerable portion of secular ones. The main reason for the Muslim majority was the mass conversion during the Ottoman Empire, which saw a considerable stratum of the ALBANIAN population converting from Christian faith to Islam in order to obtain advantages within the Ottoman bureaucracy and army. Actually many TURKISH historical figures were ALBANIANS, and one of them rose to become the first Pasha of EGYPT; Mehmet Ali Pasha.</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";">Since 1992 Albania is a member of the Islamic conference, an intergovernmental Muslim organization which has often become the focal point by the international community because of Muslim fundamentalists infiltration in the state apparatus.</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="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BULGARIA</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";">BULGARIA has a considerable Muslim minority in the southern regions bordering with GREECE and TURKEY. The Communist regime in BULGARIA after 1945, initiated measures that forced Muslims –of TURKISH descent mostly- to immigrate to TURKEY. In the 1980’s alone 300, 000 of those fled to BULGARIA. Nevertheless the percentage of Muslims in the country is well over 10% and they exercise significant influence in the political landscape of BULGARIA. The existence of a well established TURKISH-Muslim minority in BULGARIA has proved to be one of the main reasons for the GREEK-BULGARIA rapprochement that enacted in the mid-70’s and continues up to date, bringing the two states with a colorful history of rivalry together; along with excellent bilateral relations.</span></span></div>

THE BALKANS – ORGANIZED CRIME AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION PART 6

BALKAN: BIO - CHEMICAL WEAPON THREAT?    Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from Ioannis Michaletos The EU strategists, whoeve...

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Consumer Reports Tackles Cancer Screening Tests - ABC News

You trust Consumer Reports when it comes to buying your next car or fridge. But now, for the first time ever, consumers can get ratings of cancer screening tests the same way they do for their toaster.<br /><br><br /><br>Of the 11 common screenings evaluated by the consumer watchdog group, only three were recommended -- and even then, only for certain age groups. Specifically, Consumer Reports gave their most positive ratings for cervical cancer screening in women age 21 to 65 and colon cancer screening in people age 50 to 75. They gave a slightly less enthusiastic endorsement of breast cancer screening for women 50 to 74.<br /><br><br /><br>As for screenings for bladder, lung, skin, oral, prostate, ovarian, pancreatic and testicular cancers, none garnered the group's recommendation.<br /><br><br /><br>The ratings come at a time of mammogram parties, mobile prostate screening vans, and services offered directly to consumers by screening test companies. Many medical experts, however, urge that patients make cancer screening decisions in close consultation with their physician. This way, they maintain, patients are able to ask their doctors which tests are and aren't right for them -- keeping in mind more isn't always better.<br /><br><br /><br>The Consumer Reports recommendations are based on evidence-based reviews from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). USPSTF is an independent panel of prevention and evidence-based medicine experts appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency makes the evidence-based recommendations physicians look to when treating and advising patients. However, these messages have not traditionally targeted patients. That, said Dr. John Santa, is the point of the Consumer Reports rating guide.<br /><br><br /><br>"The USPSTF has great evidence-based data, the contents of which was not being translated to patients," said Santa, who runs Consumer Reports' Health Ratings Center. "We saw there was a need to get this information to consumers, so we did."<br /><br><br /><br>The way they opted to convey this information was by using their traditional rating system, applying it to screening tests. In this case, the guide rated tests on whether the benefits of having the screening outweigh the harms.<br /><br><br /><br>ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser said the straightforward and understandable rating system is useful for consumers.<br /><br><br /><br>"I like the way Consumer Reports uses their typical rating system -- the same symbols you'd see applied to a car or a vacuum cleaner," he said. "This is a system consumers know and are comfortable with. It is so much more user friendly than the materials that doctors usually provide."<br /><br><br /><br>In addition to relying on the USPSTF guidelines, the Consumer Reports group analyzed research from leading journals and organizations, consulted with patients and medical experts, and surveyed thousands of their own readers. They found that too many people were getting unneeded tests, while too few were getting appropriate screening.<br /><br><br /><br>While the dangers of not being screened are obvious, the dangers of unnecessary screening are often not recognized -- a product, some doctors say, of a nothing-to-lose, everything-to-gain message. Some screening tests, such as ovarian and pancreatic cancer, often don't have the ability to detect the disease at a curable stage. Unnecessary use of other tests, meanwhile, can lead to excess treatments and biopsies that are not without their own risk for complications.<br /><br><br /><br>"Many doctors and patients are attached to testing," Besser said. "There has been so much marketing around cancer screening in particular."<br /><br><br /><br>Besser added that he feels the consumer-level ratings guide may add some balance to the picture.<br /><br><br /><br>"Only get a test when the results are more likely to improve your health than to produce harm," Besser said. "Sometimes, it's not as straightforward as you might think. Just because a doctor orders a lot of tests doesn't mean that doctor is practicing smart medicine."<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/consumer-reports-tackles-cancer-screening-tests/story?id=18359910">http://abcnews.go.com/Health/consumer-reports-tackles-cancer-screening-tests/story?id=18359910</a>

Consumer Reports Tackles Cancer Screening Tests - ABC News

You trust Consumer Reports when it comes to buying your next car or fridge. But now, for the first time ever, consumers can get ratings of c...

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The Boy With a Thorn in His Joints - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:">When my son, Shepherd, was 3 years old, he and his twin brother, Beau, took soccer lessons for the first time. They were so excited that they slept in their uniforms — a purple T-shirt with a yellow star kicking the ball with one of its points — the night before their first practice. But when we got to the field the next day, Shepherd's enthusiasm evaporated. While Beau and the other kids ran zigzags around the cones, Shepherd stood still and looked bewildered. When it was his turn to kick the ball, he seemed lost. After 15 minutes, he walked off the field and sat down in my lap, saying he was too tired to play. We watched the other kids, and I pointed out to him the drills I thought he might enjoy, the ones that Beau was charging through. But he refused to go back to the field. His passivity didn't concern me much — he was 3, after all, and I already thought of him, in the way that parents tend to categorize their children even as we tell ourselves we shouldn't, as a little clingy and not especially athletic. My husband, Darin, and I had recently noticed that Shepherd occasionally walked with a limp, but it was faint enough that sometimes when you looked for it, it was gone. Faint enough — though it seems incredible now — that we didn't connect it to his reluctance on the field.<br><br>I assumed that Shepherd would warm to his soccer lessons the next time around. He and Beau still donned their jerseys at bedtime and talked each night about "soccer school" at the dinner table. But the following Saturday, Shepherd burst into tears the moment he started to run.<br><br>That week we saw our pediatrician, who referred us to an orthopedist. When no injury showed up on the X-ray, the doctor said that arthritis was most likely the issue. Arthritis in a 3-year-old? It sounded more odd than alarming at first, but over the next few weeks, we watched Shepherd spend more and more time on the couch. His stiff-legged walk became more pronounced, though he claimed that he was just walking like a penguin. Then he started having trouble getting out of bed.<br><br>A month after our first appointment, we went to see Philip Kahn, a pediatric rheumatologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, who gave Shepherd a diagnosis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (J.I.A.), an autoimmune disease that causes painful swelling in the joints. J.I.A. can lead to stunted growth, disability and, rarely, blindness.<br><br>When Dr. Kahn tested his joints, Shepherd denied that it hurt even as he teared up in pain. Our son was stoic, Dr. Kahn said, as the kids he treated often were. Shepherd turned out to have arthritis in both knees and both wrists, as well as in his left shoulder and elbow. It was only when I started working on this article that a particular memory came back to me, its attendant guilt still intact: we'd bribed him to go to that last practice with the promise of ice cream.<br><br>Before driving home, all four of us stopped for lunch at a hummus place that Dr. Kahn recommended. We sat outside on the sidewalk, and Darin and I pretended that we were celebrating. This is great news, we told Shepherd. Now that we know what's wrong, you can take medicine that will make you feel better. Darin remembers thinking that we were lying to him, but he was trying to be more optimistic than he felt, for Shepherd's sake and for mine. Shepherd barely ate his lunch.<br><br>When we got home, I called my sister, Rae. She knew that overwhelmed feeling of getting a child's diagnosis all too well; she'd been through it with her daughter, also 3, who had severe asthma and 14 food allergies. Rae talked about how that moment when you receive the diagnosis eclipses everything, but she tried to reassure me that if an illness isn't life-threatening, the fear eventually dies down, and coping with it becomes routine.<br><br>Before we hung up, she mentioned that her sister-in-law had a friend who sent her own son's arthritis into remission with alternative medicine. Her name was Char Walker, short for Charlotte. Did I want to talk to her? I told her that I didn't, that we liked Dr. Kahn and wanted to follow his advice for now. We were starting Shepherd on a course of naproxen, a relative of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory ibuprofen. We didn't want to mess around with something that might not work, when conventional treatments were known to be effective. What I thought that day but didn't say to Rae was, We don't want to waste time talking to a kook.<br><br>While he was taking the naproxen, Shepherd's arthritis spread. Joints in his fingers and thumbs ballooned, and he developed nodules on his knuckles, suggestive of serious rheumatic disease. He started wetting his pants more frequently because, we realized, his fingers hurt too much for him to pull his pants down. We went back to Dr. Kahn, who said it was time to try methotrexate, an immune suppressant that is the most commonly used treatment for juvenile idiopathic arthritis. In significantly higher doses, it is used as chemotherapy. At the dose Shepherd would be getting, a minuscule fraction of that, methotrexate can still cause nausea, dizziness and drowsiness. The list of more serious possible side effects was terrifying — including liver damage and increased risk of lymphoma — even though Dr. Kahn told us that those risks were practically nonexistent. Kids like Shepherd, with polyarticular J.I.A. — meaning five or more joints affected — are unlikely ever to outgrow it; he would probably be on medication for life. What were the long-term effects on 3-year-olds taking this drug? It was a question I tended to visit in the middle of the night, when Dr. Kahn's reassurances that methotrexate was completely safe gave the least amount of comfort.<br><br>When I first gave Shepherd his methotrexate pills, he was enthusiastic about taking them. The pills were orange, his favorite color. The real coup: Beau didn't get to take them. But watching my son gulp them down defeated me. It reinforced an image of Shepherd as sick, forever dependent on a drug I felt afraid of, however unreasonable a doctor might tell me that fear was.<br><br>One morning, while the boys were at preschool and Darin was out of the house, I decided to call Char Walker. She answered the phone, and within minutes I was crying to this woman I had never met. Walker told me that when her son Shane was a month old, he started waking up seven or eight times a night screaming and crying, which he continued to do for a year and a half. He didn't have any symptoms that she could see. What was wrong? Soon she was crying every night, too. And then at around 18 months, he learned to talk and told her what hurt: his leg, his hip and his wrist. Once they had the diagnosis, Walker realized he'd probably been in pain every night of his life.<br><br>Walker is a social worker and massage therapist who works with cancer patients at NorthShore University HealthSystem outside Chicago. When Shane's rheumatologist presented methotrexate or steroid injections as the only choices, she was horrified. Because she worked in the integrative medicine department — a combination of alternative and conventional treatments — she knew there were other things to try. She dug into medical-literature databases. She learned about a centuries-old, anti-inflammatory Chinese concoction called four-marvels powder from a visiting naturopath. And she sought guidance from her colleague, Dr. Leslie Mendoza Temple, the head of the hospital's integrative medicine program, who, while wary of the risks, had been comfortable giving Walker's program a three-month trial. "I tried everything that I knew was safe to see what would work," Walker told me.<br><br>I grabbed my pen and paper and started taking notes. No gluten. No dairy. No refined sugar. No nightshades, a group of plants that includes potatoes and tomatoes, which are thought by some to be potentially inflammatory, as is sugar. Every day, Shane took a probiotic. Plus two tablespoons of sour Montmorency cherry juice and at least 2,000 milligrams of omega-3's from fish oil, known for their anti-inflammatory properties. Instead of naproxen, Shane took a combination of ibuprofen and Tylenol to lower his overall intake of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, which can be hard on the gut. And a quarter teaspoon, daily, of the four-marvels powder.<br><br>Walker said she believed that her son's arthritis was caused by something I had never heard of before — leaky-gut syndrome, a concept that has been accepted in alternative circles for years despite a name that asks you not to take it seriously. The idea is that inflammation in the gut causes the tight junctions between the cells that make up the intestinal lining to loosen. Then, like a lax bouncer, the barrier starts letting through undesirables, various proteins or bacteria that would normally be rebuffed; they then leak into surrounding tissues. The uninvited guests, the hypothesis goes, then trigger an offensive by the body, which uses inflammation to try to get rid of them. That sustained inflammatory response characterizes autoimmune disease.<br><br>What could have caused the inflammation in Shane's gut in the first place? Walker suspected an allergy or sensitivity to gluten and dairy (common perpetrators). She also implicated antibiotics, since they can decimate protective, good bacteria along with the bad. A week before he started waking up so frequently, Shane was given antibiotics for a 104-degree fever. By the time he was 1, he would have at least five more courses for urinary tract infections. After Walker told me this, I noted that Shepherd had started limping not long after taking amoxicillin for pneumonia. There's no proof of causation, of course, and lots of children take antibiotics and don't get arthritis, but it was an intriguing detail.<br><br>Six weeks into the alternative therapy, Shane started feeling better. After three months, his arthritis pain was gone. He'd been in remission for almost two years, Walker told me, much better than anything we were told to expect.<br><br>A week later, we told Dr. Kahn about Shane's story and floated the possibility of following the same course. He wasn't familiar with leaky gut but agreed that it wouldn't be harmful to try Walker's regimen. He was adamant, though, that we not quit the medication. In fact, he wanted to up the dose of methotrexate from 10 milligrams to 15 milligrams, because we were seeing the full effects of the initial dosage and Shepherd was still in pain. He now sobbed in the middle of the night, saying his ankle hurt. Arthritis had now leached into his toes. He hadn't grown in at least four months, and so Dr. Kahn was opposed to cutting two major categories of food out of Shepherd's diet. But he was O.K. with the rest of Walker's regimen as long as it was complementary to the methotrexate, not used in place of it. He jotted down "four-marvels powder" in Shepherd's chart with a good-natured smile. He once told us about a patient of his whose Chinese grandmother was giving him a tea along with his medication that appeared to be helping. He was a believer, he said, in anything that worked.<br><br>I was nervous about keeping Shepherd on methotrexate, but Darin didn't share my squeamishness. He has always been more comfortable with pharmaceuticals, more trusting in general. As we talked it over on the way back from Dr. Kahn's, Darin agreed that if Walker's treatment worked for her son, there was certainly a chance it could work for Shepherd. But we both had to admit it was iffy. I was desperate to find a way to solve Shepherd's problems without the drugs; maybe my hope was misplaced. What if Darin was right and methotrexate was the only effective course? Darin worried that I might start insisting on no medication at all, and that I'd win. We compromised by trying Walker's regimen while we continued with the drug. Walker said it took six weeks for Shane to start feeling better. Dr. Kahn and Darin agreed to hold off on increasing the methotrexate until we gave the experiment that much time.<br><br>But after five weeks on Walker's regimen and the initial dose of methotrexate, Shepherd seemed to be getting worse. He was already nauseated and could barely eat for two days after taking his weekly pills. He now spent entire afternoons on my lap. He started using a stroller again, and we went to physical therapy, occupational therapy or a doctor's appointment almost daily. Conversations with Darin became pain diaries. I would report on everything that hurt Shepherd that day, whether he could walk home from the playground or not. We no longer slept, and we moved through our days in a fog of depression. Beau started pointing out that he was stronger than his brother, who'd always been his almost literal equal.<br><br>Three months after Shepherd first saw Dr. Kahn, we sought a second opinion from Lisa Imundo, director of pediatric rheumatology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Imundo wanted to more than double the dose of methotrexate. She had treated thousands of kids with arthritis, she said, and diet changes did not work. I tried to explain leaky gut, but I'm sure I was stammering and blushing. She handed me a piece of paper with a list of hospital resources that included a name next to the words "complementary medicine."<br><br>After the drubbing Walker's regimen took from Dr. Imundo, Darin was in a froth. A top doctor in New York had just said Walker's regimen wouldn't work, so it must be true. In general, Darin is almost pathologically easygoing. Now he was cornering me in the kitchen to press his case. Shepherd is in bad shape, you are in bad shape, I am in bad shape, he said. What the hell are we doing? I promised that I would agree to up the dose immediately after the six-week deadline, if he would give it until then. Darin says now that I was steely and shut down, and he remembers worrying that this was the kind of thing that breaks up marriages, that if Shepherd didn't get better, he didn't know what would happen to us. That month, I lost my purse, then my suitcase, and then I got into a car accident. Though it wasn't serious, the boys were in the back seat, and I was shaken. I called Darin and cried. "I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I can't handle it." He brought home a pink orchid that night. I made an appointment with a therapist.<br><br>A couple of days shy of six weeks, with Shepherd still struggling, I heard back from Elena Ladas, the complementary-medicine researcher Dr. Imundo passed me off to. Her message was simple and direct. Yes, she said of Walker's regimen, if it seems to be helping, keep going. We weren't fools after all, I thought. That short phone call was the thing that got us all to the finish line.<br><br>At six weeks — to the day — Shepherd woke up and, for the first time in months, got out of bed himself. I'd gone into his room to help, as I did every morning, and found him standing in his pajamas. "Mommy," he said, "my knees don't hurt anymore." He was probably wearing the pajamas with the skateboarding monkeys. Beau was probably groggy, still in bed. Honestly, I really don't know. When I think of it, there's only Shepherd, standing there, not crying. I was too stunned to say anything back before he scampered out to the kitchen for breakfast. Within several months his arthritis pain was gone.<br><br>Shepherd has now been weaned off the methotrexate entirely. The guy we think of as "the old Shepherd" is back, the goofball with the high-beam smile. He initiates running races — and isn't always the most gracious when he wins. He improvises what he thinks is karate. He pirouettes. While his brother was sick, Beau shot past him in height. Now Shepherd is taller, and he's closing the gap in weight. On medication, he got sick twice as often as Beau. That side effect is gone now.<br><br>He has had five flare-ups since going into remission a year ago. Two of them followed courses of antibiotics. The other three came on the heels of his accidentally eating gluten. He had a chocolate-chip cookie, a couple of bites of toast, less than a quarter of a sandwich on sourdough. Each time, he felt pain within 24 hours, and it lasted as long as two weeks.<br><br>To be clear: There is no proof that it was Walker's regimen that drove away Shane's and Shepherd's arthritis. Shane's case makes a stronger argument, since he didn't take methotrexate. Still, his arthritis may have gone into spontaneous remission, and a study of one is not much of a study at all.<br><br>Methotrexate works for many kids, and its effects can kick in later than the expected four-to-six-week window. We tried so many things at once for Shepherd that there's no way to know for sure what worked, or what combination of things had an effect. Dr. Imundo remains unmoved. But Dr. Kahn says he believes the dietary regimen may have contributed to his recovery. "I'm mystified by children on a daily basis," he told me. "I've seen kids paralyzed, unbelievably critically ill. I don't know why they get better. The main thing is, if a kid's better, run with the football, you know? I'm thrilled."<br><br>One thing we do know is that there is a link between the gut and inflammation, and we've known it for some time. During visits over the last year, amid his serious talks with Shepherd about Batman — If he can't fly, why does he have a cape? — Dr. Kahn told us about a colleague who was researching how the gut and inflammation worked together. When I called José Scher, the director of the Arthritis Clinic at the N.Y.U. Hospital for Joint Diseases, he rattled off four different kinds of arthritis that are connected to inflammatory responses in the gut, including one linked to celiac, a gluten intolerance. He told me he'd also seen some of his autoimmune arthritis patients improve by removing gluten from their diet.<br><br>Early on, a celiac blood test came back negative for Shepherd. But could he still have a sensitivity, something short of full-on celiac, that triggers a similar inflammatory response? A small, 2006 study published in the journal Gut (you probably subscribe) points to a possible yes. The researchers found significantly elevated antibodies to various foods in the digestive tracts of rheumatoid-arthritis sufferers but not in their blood. So not only were many of the arthritis patients found to have some level of intolerance to certain foods, but it wouldn't necessarily have been detected by a blood test.<br><br>Leaky gut, meanwhile turns out not to be conjecture after all. "A lot of doctors and people may think that leaky gut itself is sort of a froufrou alternative concept," says Sanford Newmark, a clinical professor at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "The real name is 'increased intestinal permeability,' and it is a definitive, scientific fact." It's not known if increased intestinal permeability causes autoimmune arthritis, but some scientists in the field say it's possible.<br><br>Many autoimmune arthritis researchers are less focused on the stealthy bacteria of a leaky gut than on the community of gut microbes as a whole. Their work is an outgrowth of the Human Microbiome Project, a National Institutes of Health initiative to catalog all the microbes in our system. What's already clear is that changes in our bacterial populations are associated with changes in our health. In a still-unpublished study, Dr. Scher and his team identified a particular microbe that was common in a large cohort of rheumatoid-arthritis patients but was much less prevalent in the healthy group. In two related studies, researchers discovered a microbe that can activate an immune response; in germ-free mice that were genetically predisposed to autoimmune arthritis, it was enough to cause the disease.<br><br>"Traditionally we've thought about disease as being caused by a specific bacteria," says Dr. Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the N.I.H.'s National Human Genome Research Institute. But now some scientists think it is more about the balance of a bacterial community. "It may be that if you have a disease-associated bacteria within a healthy population, then the other members of the community may keep that 'bad' bacteria in check."<br><br>And if you throw off the delicate ratios in that community, the bad actors might get too much leeway. An example of how this works is Clostridium difficile, or C. diff., a bacterial infection that causes severe diarrhea. People don't get sick from acquiring the bacteria — it's already in the gut of some healthy individuals, kept in line by other bacteria. It's only when something like a course of antibiotics wipes out the peacekeepers that C.diff. can turn pathogenic.<br><br>The same balancing act could be at play with inflammation. If some bacteria in the gut activate immune cells, and others get them to settle down, an imbalance of these microbes could contribute to the sustained inflammation that characterizes autoimmune arthritis. "So probably the ratio, the combination of bacteria in the gut will determine whether you will get disease or not," says Ivaylo Ivanov, an assistant professor in microbiology and immunology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.<br><br>Some researchers are optimistic that probiotics, which contain various strains of bacteria, could one day help restore a balanced population. A couple of different ones have been shown to reduce joint inflammation in mice, says Fergus Shanahan, the chairman of the department of medicine at University College, Cork, in Ireland, and a leading probiotics researcher.<br><br>Probiotics may also help to tighten up a hyperpermeable gut barrier, says Robert J. Shulman, a professor of pediatrics with a specialty in pediatric gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He has an N.I.H. grant to study the effects of a probiotic called VSL No. 3 (which is the kind we gave Shepherd) on gut bacteria and gut-barrier function in children with irritable bowel syndrome, a disorder in which changes in the gut bacterial population are associated with inflammation in the colon.<br><br>Another potential method of recolonizing the gut, which is gaining ground, is the fecal transplant. It is exactly what it sounds like. People infected with C. diff. have responded well when they've been given stool from healthy individuals (usually via colonoscopy). There's enough excitement about the therapeutic potential of stool that when I spoke to Martin J. Blaser, a professor of medicine and microbiology and the director of the Human Microbiome Program at NYU Langone Medical Center, he suggested I stash some of Beau's and Shepherd's in our freezer, which I will do, right next to the peas.<br><br>Data on diet and supplements are lacking, at least partly because they are hard to get. It's hard to design a great study around something with so many variables, like the food we eat. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, lend themselves easily to randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials. Plus, anti-arthritic drugs are great for business. Together, the top two sellers, Humira and Enbrel, took in more than $8 billion in 2012, not including December, according to IMS Health, a health care technology and information company. At the N.I.H., the complementary-and-alternative center's budget is 0.4 percent of the entire N.I.H. pie.<br><br>And yet, if you look hard enough, evidence that diet and supplements can work does exist. In a study published in The Lancet more than 20 years ago, a group of rheumatoid-arthritis sufferers was isolated on a "health farm" and, after a week of fasting, were fed a gluten-free, vegan diet. After four weeks, they showed "significant improvement," compared with the control. In 2001, a study in the journal Rheumatology echoed the positive effect of a similar diet. A 2011 case study in The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine closely tracks Shepherd's story. The evidence for omega-3's also looks strong. Even if we can't know what helped Shepherd for sure, at home, we believe Walker's regimen is what did the trick.<br><br>Sunday night has always been pizza night in our family, but now it's dairy-free-mozzarella-and-sausage-on-corn-tortilla-night. And these days, everyone also takes fish oil and probiotics. Shortly after Shepherd started his regimen, Darin went off gluten and dairy in solidarity. Now 5, Shepherd often has more energy than Beau. Even so, I don't think I ever look at Shepherd without scrutinizing how he's moving. This will most likely be true for a long time, I realize, but for now, every time I look, I never see anything but a gleeful little boy.<br><br>It was almost a year ago that Dr. Kahn examined Shepherd and found that he had no active arthritis. That night when I kissed Shepherd good night, I told him to give me five. "For the no arthritis?" he asked. I nodded, holding out my hand. He slapped my palm again and again, over and over. It sounded like clapping.<br><br><i>Susannah Meadows writes the Newly Released column for The Times.</i><br><br><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/the-boy-with-a-thorn-in-his-joints.html?src=me&ref=general&pagewanted=all">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/the-boy-with-a-thorn-in-his-joints.html?src=me&ref=general&pagewanted=all</a><br><br>

The Boy With a Thorn in His Joints - NYTimes.com

When my son, Shepherd, was 3 years old, he and his twin brother, Beau, took soccer lessons for the first time. They were so excited that the...

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