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When the Tempest in the Teapot Is You
One day last March, over the course of 12 hours, the legislature of North Carolina spent $42,000 for the singular purpose of taking away my civil rights, stopping me from using the restroom that corresponds with the gender on my driver's license and passport. Within a few weeks a major American controversy had erupted, and I said, "Whhhaaatt? This is a tempest in a teapot. Transgender people don't abuse children, though evidence suggests some clergy and politicians do. What is going on?"
This whole fiasco might be fascinating to watch, except for one thing. I am the tempest in the teapot. After a lifetime of fear of retribution for emerging as I truly am, my fears are being realized, not just within the Evangelical church, but in the entire State of North Carolina, to say nothing of the 22 other states in which anti-transgender legislation is pending. Evidently a lot of Americans do not want me to exist, let alone go to the bathroom.
My initial response was a sarcastic piece that appeared in the Huffington Post. It was fun to write and garnered a fair amount of national attention. But as the controversy escalates, I am getting uncomfortable.
This is quite a comeuppance from my previous life, in which I was treated deferentially. Paul enjoyed the benefit of the doubt. If I accidentally took the wrong seat on an airplane, the other person assumed the problem was theirs. If I was waiting in line at the grocery store, they were likely to open a new register. If I told the guy at the Apple Genius Bar my Mac wasn't fixed by repairing permissions, he believed me. Yeah, that was then.
It was startling enough to enter the world of women, where you are always considered not quite as competent as the boys. But now to be the object of outright derision is quite the conundrum. What began as a North Carolina nuisance has become a genuine problem. I'm starting to think, "What's next?"
Then I stand back and take stock. My suffering can be measured in millimeters, not miles. No one is burning crosses on my lawn. I am not being turned away from poling places, or made to sit in the balcony at the movie theater. Racism was, and is, a national disgrace. For me, transphobia is little more than an inconvenience.
I flew through Charlotte last Friday. Everyone at the Admiral's Club was apologizing for the actions of their self-important legislature. They said, "This is embarrassing. It makes us look like backwoods bigots." It is important to note that North Carolina's HB2 was in response to an expansive civil rights law passed by the Charlotte city council. Not all of North Carolina has lost its mind, just the prejudiced and ill-informed part. It is the same crowd that has always looked pretty bad in history's rearview mirror.
I go to North Carolina again next week, and I will spend ten days there in July. I am not worried. What I face is nothing compared to what my African-American son-in-law faces, or what my Indian daughter deals with, or what my Indian daughter-in-law has had to endure. They have known real prejudice, not just the media-hyped transgender wars. And what they have faced is not as difficult as what their parents went through, or their parents before them. Prejudice has been around a while.
I am embarrassed I had so many years of privilege. Last Friday I watched a man all dressed in Brooks Brothers, about my age and height, as he was given more than his share of attention at the Admiral's Club at LaGuardia. He has no idea how much America is tilted in his favor. I would not trade the knowledge I have gained by losing that privilege. It has been eye opening and life changing. When I compare my life of privilege to the bit of prejudice I receive nowadays, it will take decades before the scales of personal privilege are balanced.
Don't get me wrong. I am not happy about HB2. But if that and Evangelical rejection are the only problems I have to face, I should stop complaining and count my blessings. I live in a nation in which the President and Attorney General have my back, and America's largest corporations are willing to take a stand against LGBTQ injustice. I live in a world in which I still get to preach and teach in the church (though not the Evangelical church) amidst people who are wonderfully supportive. All in all, I've got it pretty easy. This tempest in a teapot will pass, and life will go on, and all manner of things shall be well.


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I love fashion week, but for one thing and one thing only—the nailsthese foiled beauties at LibertineHarryimmediately
. Nothing gets me more excited than a bold new mani trend or some groundbreaking technique that I can't wait to try on my own! So when I saw , I knew I needed to get the lowdown from my favorite Brit (besides of course) and butter LONDON global color ambassador, Katie Hughes ! The runway version had tons of pompoms and studs glued on the nail as well, but let's be real: those aren't practical for everyday. Instead, check out the steps below for my shortened (but just as sparkly) version!
- Start with two coats of a shiny black lacquer.
- Let your nails dry completely before applying a quick swipe of top coat down the center. Blow on it for a few seconds to get a gummy texture before lightly pressing a nail art foil (DollarNailArt.com has tons of colors for super cheap) to the nail and quickly removing for an oil slick look!
- Apply a few studs in random spots (I used them to cover any mistakes) using a nail art glue. Finish with a top coat to keep it all in place!
What do you think of this edgy look? If you give it a try, tweet @seventeenmag a pic with the hashtag #manicuremonday—we'll retweet our faves!

subset: commoncrawl


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Surgery - and then the hard part
Weight-loss surgery is "just a tool": As Chris Christie and other patients learn, "eat less" remains the imperative.
Debbi Cook decided to have weight-loss surgery when her doctor told her she needed five shots a day for her diabetes instead of four.
She was 5-foot-8 and 349 pounds, and she'd already had diabetes for 37 years. She just couldn't face one more shot. "I really honestly would have rather died," the Norristown woman said.
Cook, 57, chose to have gastric bypass surgery at Mercy Suburban Hospital 11 months ago. The most complex of the three common weight-loss procedures, it also has the best record of alleviating or even reversing diabetes.
Cook knew, though, that she'd have to drastically change her behavior. Worried that she'd blow it later if she couldn't eat right, she began the restrictive postsurgery diet before her doctor reduced the size of her stomach and bypassed part of her intestine.
One by one, she had a last meal with her favorite foods - fish and chips, Coca-Cola, ice cream, mac and cheese, homemade carrot cake, Yorkshire pudding, a Bloomin' Onion - as if they were dying, beloved relatives.
"This was the funeral for that food," she said.
She lost 40 pounds before surgery and 150 more afterward. She's still losing.
New Jersey Gov. Christie's decision to have the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band or lap band has focused attention on weight-loss procedures. But experts and surgery veterans said patients still must change their ways.
"A lot of times people don't focus on this and it's probably the most important part," said David Tichansky, director of minimally invasive and bariatric surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "The surgery's just a tool to help people stay on a diet, but it's still a diet."
The really successful patients also exercise intensely.
About 20 percent lose less than expected or regain weight, said David Sarwer, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who counsels weight-loss surgery patients. "Most of the time, it's more behavioral in nature," he said. People return to the "eating behaviors that got them in trouble in the first place."
In the lap-band procedure, a band filled with saline is wrapped around the upper part of the stomach. This forms a small pouch and restricts entry of food into the rest of the stomach, but doesn't change digestion. Patients can "cheat" by eating soft, high-calorie foods.
It is becoming less popular, while sleeve gastrectomy is in ascendancy; surgeons staple the stomach vertically, reducing its size by 85 percent.
In gastric bypass, the size of the stomach is greatly reduced and it's attached to the middle of the small intestine. This limits calorie absorption.
The duodenal switch, which is done less often, combines gastrectomy with a longer bypass.
All the procedures make patients feel full quickly. All but the lap band also reduce the release of hormones that signal hunger.
On average, patients lose the most with the bypasses and the least with the lap band. The band is reputed to have the most weight regain, but Sarwer said studies had been equivocal. It also produces the slowest weight loss.
Patients can undermine any of the operations by eating too much of the wrong foods.
Michelle Porter, a registered dietitian who works with weight-loss surgery patients at Jefferson, said patients' diets are similar regardless of the procedure. They are to eat three small meals a day. By small, she means that each mea totals about 4 ounces or 1/2 cup. Three ounces of that should be lean protein. Many use protein supplements to meet daily requirements, and take vitamins.
They don't drink fluids with meals and aren't supposed to drink alcohol. It's wasted calories, and the tiny meals make its effect more potent.
Jaime Ponce, president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, gives patients the rule of 20s: Chew each bite 20 times. Put the fork down for 20 seconds. Stop eating in 20 minutes.
Patients eat about 1,000 calories a day at one year after surgery, and a few hundred more daily after that.
Overeating can cause vomiting. Bypass patients who overeat or eat sugar risk "dumping syndrome," which can give patients nausea and diarrhea.
The new way of eating changes patients' relationship with food, and with friends and family. "It does kind of take their world and flip it upside down," Porter said. "It's not just a diet. It's changing their life."
Surgery patients said that over time, they'd gotten a little more relaxed about the rules. They felt they could eat whatever they wanted in very small quantities and didn't deny themselves an occasional glass of wine. They'd learned to substitute walks or exercise classes for socializing over meals.
Kenya Boyle of Upper Darby chose the lap band at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in 2007 because it was the least scary. She was 5-foot-5 and 285 pounds. She dropped to a low of 128, thought that was too thin, and she's now 146.
Boyle, 37, still exercises three days a week and watches what she eats. At a recent dinner, she ate the same food as her three daughters, but they got big plates and she ate on a saucer. She had two baked chicken wings, a couple of level tablespoons of potato salad, and some collard greens. She has to be disciplined, but the band helps. "I don't feel hungry all the time," she said.
Kelly Niszczak, 44, of Lansdale, who had a sleeve gastrectomy at Abington Memorial Hospital in November 2011, often shares restaurant meals with her 6-year-old and still takes food home. "I'm like the queen of to-go containers wherever I go," she said.
Now that she has lost 90 pounds, she has a new perspective on restaurant portions. "It's overwhelming to me how much I'm overserved food," she said.
Ellen Garfield, 41, of Bensalem, who had the duodenal switch at Abington in 2010, always takes powdered protein with her when she goes out so she can make a protein shake if she needs to eat.
"I have friends that laugh at me," said Garfield, who has lost 200 pounds. "I put protein in my purse. You never know when you're going to need some protein."
She has also taken up running.
The patients and the pros think Christie has a shot at doing well - if he follows the rules. His job will make things challenging, but Tichansky said the governor's power will help. If he asks for a smaller portion, he'll probably get one. Even then, it will be too much food.
"Every restaurant in the country is going to give you a bigger portion than you're supposed to eat," he said.


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Will we turn environmental protection into a game of profit? What you need to know about the global gathering.
The following article written by Janet Redman appeared recently on Yes Magazine and is reposted under the magazines creative common share licence
In 1992, the Rio Earth Summit brought world leaders together around the frame of "sustainable development" and launched global agreements on biodiversity, climate change and desertification. Two decades later, the environmental and economic crises they had hoped to stave off—global warming, record extinction rates, depleted fisheries, vast economic inequality—are upon us. And so political leaders and grassroots activists are gathering again in Rio in late June to take up the planet's most pressing issues. Here are 10 things you should know about the Summit:
- What, if anything, will be decided? Rio+20 won't produce a legally binding agreement, but the outcome document will lay out a so-called "Green Economy" agenda as a new roadmap for sustainable development.
- Beware of the slogan "Green Economy." This might sound nice, but many who are using the slogan in the Rio+20 context are just trying to use the environmental crisis as an opportunity for corporate profits. They say the answer to our environmental woes is to allow corporations to buy and sell our forests, water, and other natural resources, as if they were just another widget.
- Value versus price. A big idea being revived for Rio is that if we put a price on natural resources and environmental services (like filtering water), we can manage them more efficiently. But this means the people with the most money get the biggest say in decisions about common resources.
- Nature as a new asset class. Wall Street is hoping the Rio+20 leaders will endorse their efforts to 'financialize' nature by creating derivatives based on underlying 'natural' assets. The biggest experiment so far is the carbon market, which has tanked while failing to deliver the climate pollution reductions or clean technologies promised by its architects. And yet for investors looking for the kinds of high returns they got used to before the financial crash, this is a new frontier.
- The risk of turning nature into a casino. A fundamental question our world leaders face is this: Does it really make sense to put the future of our remaining common resources—forests, genes, the atmosphere, food—into the hands of people who treated our economy like their personal casino? The financialization of nature might generate a whole lot of paper wealth for a few powerful people, but it's unlikely to pull billions of people out of poverty or protect the planet.
- Rio needs a reality check. The problem that plagues Rio+20 is a fundamental flaw that underlies most development discussions—that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. We need to return to serious strategizing about limits to growth and ways to meet people's needs that are consistent with ecological boundaries.
- All people are created equal. The fact that the 20 percent of humanity living in North America, Europe, and Japan is gobbling up 80 percent of the planet's resources means that there's little left for impoverished countries to meet basic needs without trashing the planet. Rio+20 should reinforce the need to reduce consumption in industrialized countries.
- Democracy deficit. The fact that the draft outcome document doesn't even mention the rights of poor people to land, forests and other commons shouldn't be surprising. Civil society has had less inputinto the official process than 20 years ago, and most of the important deals are being brokered in the hallways, where poor people have little to no access.
- The real action will be at the alternative People's Summit. People from movements all over the world are coming to Rio armed with practical ideas to solve the ecological crises. These include commons management of the Great Lakes, keeping oil in the soil in Ecuador, taxing financial speculators to fund green jobs, and getting rid of subsidy handouts to oil, coal and gas companies.
- Build the movement! Be a part of the global day of action on June 20th to defend our common future and reject the commodification of life by hosting or joining an event or activity in your community.
The Rio Earth Summit is presenting us with a false choice between environmental protection through private profit on the one hand and state-sponsored green growth on the other. What we really need is a multilateral process that supports local living economies, and public institutions to democratically manage the commons.


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What the heck was I doing in Denver last month? I'd been invited by a company called, Craftsy.com, to make a video course on Studio Portrait Lighting. I worked with a producer from the company to put together an in-depth outline that covered everything from which lights I work with and why, through basic portrait lighting, and into a little behind the scenes of how I work. The program took days to commit to video (hey, I'm a photographer not a professional actor) and almost a month of post production and editing to get just right. What we ended up with is a 2.5 hour video that people can purchase and watch online (and once purchased can watch forever...). I hope that people find it interesting and useful. It's for people who've mastered basic photography concepts and now want to extend their expertise into the realm of studio work. In particular, portrait work.
My only fear, now that we're approaching the launch date, is that there's some sort of very embarrassing blooper reel I don't know about that the producers are going to release to pay me back for being a newbie on the set. Seriously though, I had a great time working with the company and I hope they invite me back for more. I'm not posting any links yet because I don't want people to go prematurely and be disappointed that the programming isn't there yet. Look for more details in the next two weeks.
An added benefit for me was a deep immersion into studio video production. Spending ten hours a day in front of two and three cameras at a time was like taking a crash course in how to do more adventurous and polished video. And yes, I still think sound is the most important consideration!! Well, sound and having someone incredibly beautiful in the program with you.....
Quick Equipment Review: I don't know if it's the sharpest 50mm 1.4 lens in the whole world, in fact I suspect that just about any current 50mm lens from Leica will handily beat it, but I really like shooting with the beefy and imposing Sigma 50mm 1.4 lens that I recently bought. I've used it pretty extensively over the last month and it's a great match for both the full frame Sony's that I own. For the last week I've had it spot welded onto the front of my Sony a850 and am attempting to shoot (as much as possible) at f1.4, f2.0 and f2.8 just for kicks. I mean, why else own a fast lens? The reason I'm using it on the a850 is that I'm a contrarian. The a850 reminds me of Kodachrome 64. You can't really push it up to very high ISOs so I'm making a conscious effort to shoot everything where that particular camera shines. Most of the time I leave it at ISO 100 and when push comes to shove I crank it on up to ISO 200 and live dangerously. At those speeds I don't think the camera has any competitors that are head and shoulders better. You could argue for a Nikon D800, but only one that focuses on both sides of the frame....
Once you've dialed in an a850 you're working with a really great image maker with a smaller IQ sweet spot than some of the newer 24 megapixel cameras. Interesting point for the DXO true believers: the Sony a850's overall score of 79 is only two points lower than that of the Canon 5d mk3 which is four years newer... The a850 still spanks that camera in the dynamic range realm which means more to a studio type photographer than just about any of the other measurements the inscrutable ones do....
Anyway, back to the Sigma 50mm 1.4. When it first hit the market a lot of people had trouble with front and back focusing but so far (knock on wood) mine is right on the money with both varieties of the full frame cameras. In terms of sharpness most people will take points off for the fact that the lens is very sharp in the middle but that the far corners need to get close to f5.6 to be really, critically sharp. Since I only use the lens for human-style, three dimensional subjects and not ever for flat copy work I understand that this metric is meaningless for the intended use of the lens and joyously use it at all apertures, counting on it to be less sharp in the corners and far edges when I'm shooting images of people. But it's really no different in that regard than the older Sony 50mm f1.4 or those that I've owned from Canon and Nikon. If you need sharp edge to edge, near wide open then you are in the market for a macro lens, not a high speed lens.
When I shot with the Canon 1DS mk2 and the 5d mk2 cameras I bought and (tried ) to use the vaunted Zeiss 50mm 1.4 lens. When I had luck riding with me and all the variables (like focus) lined up for me the image could be very good with rich colors and pleasing tonalities. But the rub in that set up (and I suspect most situations where one is attempting to connect a legacy style manual focus lens with a modern, autofocus camera (which through ancient design choices does not feature focus peaking) ) is the fact that the 50mm ZE, when used in the most popular part of the focus range (closer than ten feet) had a tendency for pronounced focus shift. Even if your green dot of focus confirmation lied to you and told you the lens was in focus it was not. The only way I was uniformly successful in using that lens was to take advantage of Canon's live view function. As you can imagine it was a major pain in the derriere when trying to shoot in bright light. The ambient light just washed out the screen image and you wound up basically guessing when you had achieved sharp focus.
Of course if you use a camera with an EVF and integrated focus peaking it's much easier to determine the point of sharp focus on the fly. And with image magnification and in finder live imaging paranoid levels of confirmation are much easier.
I've wanted to buy the fast Sigma 50 for the Sony for some time but already owned Sony's version and it's not at all a bad lens in its own right. I finally grabbed a Sigma 50mm 1,4 when the priced dropped from daunting $499 to a less anxiety inducing $399. I've used it for many shoots and love the images at nearly every aperture. I've sold off all the other Alpha capable 50mm variants I had lying around and I'm breathing a sign of relief at my inventory downsizing. While the lens is big and feels ungainly on my a58 (which is a crop frame camera) it's just the right balance in my hands when coupled to the a850 which is in itself a monster sized cameras.
I love shooting with the combo only because of the nostalgia I have for a time gone past. In days of camera yore every "professional" camera came with a choice of 50mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4 lenses. And that's how we bought them back then. I remember the succession: Nikon F2 with 50mm ai 1.4, Canon F1 with 50mm 1.4 SSC, Contax RTS III with Zeiss Planar 50mm 1.4, and even a brontosaurus like Nikon F5 with the 50mm 1.4 AF.... Those cameras trained my hands and my mind to favor the fast over the flexible and mass over pocket ability. The Sony a850 is their digital analogue. And I love it when I pick it up.
The Sigma 50mm 1.4 is available for all of the "big three" camera makers and, if the price stays where it is, To summarize: in the center of the lens it's very, very sharp---on par with just about anything not made exclusively for NASA or the military. Far edges? On par with just about all the competitors---better than some, even with others. Size? Enormous and imposing. Cool factor? 8.5. I think you should check it out if you are in the market for normal/fast. It's a good value.
Travel Plans: I'll be traveling to Berlin on the third of September to do some serious shooting, to meet with execs from a camera company, and to attend a small part of the annual IFA show (fun, high tech stuff----huge showcase with lots of tech product launches and introductions). I'll be there for about a week and I'd love to meet for coffee with any VSL readers who will be in Berlin during that time frame. Let me know what works and when my itinerary is set we can start making plans.
I'll be traveling to Tokyo in early November and I'd love to hear from Tokyo VSL readers. My schedule is wide open on that trip. The Tokyo adventure is purely for shooting and socializing. I'll be there by myself and it's always nice to meet photographers when traveling.
Books: If you don't already own a "Kirk Tuck" book now is the time to get one. They're still in stock at Amazon and they are still full of the same great information they've always had. Please check out the links to the books at Amazon.com below.
Yesterday I started making a short movie about what Austinites do when the temperature starts to climb like crazy. I'm trying to edit it quickly and get it up by tomorrow. It's mostly just for fun but it shows off what you can do with a little mirrorless camera like the Samsung NX300. I was amazed at how well it handled the wide range of tones in direct sun. Maybe you will be too. Not much difference between the footage from the small camera and the footage from the a99 or 5Dmk2. Stay tuned.
Amazon links below!!! If need diapers or sardines or car parts or even camera gear and books I'd be much obliged if you'd click through any one of the links below to start your shopping adventures...


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The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Podcast Transcription
Steve: Welcome to the Scientific American podcast Science Talk, posted on October 8th, 2012. I am Steve Mirsky. Just after 5:30 this morning Eastern time, Göran Hansson of the Karolinska Institute and Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine stepped to the microphone in Stockholm.
Hansson: The Nobel assembly has concluded its meeting and made the decision. I'll read the announcement. The Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogramed to become pluripotent. And with that I would like to ask Professor Thomas Perlmann of the Nobel Committee to present the science behind the prize.
Perlmann: John Gurdon from Great Britain is a professor at the University of Cambridge and the Gurdon Institute. Shinya Yamanaka, born in Japan and a professor at Kyoto University. This year's Nobel Prize awards the discovery that has changed the way we understand how cells in the body become specialized, and it has provided entirely new tools for effective development of drugs and new therapies. A fertilized egg develops first into an embryo and then into an adult human with all its specialized cells, such as muscles, nerves and skin. As we all know, this process always moves in the same direction, from immature cells in the embryo to specialized cells in the adults. A common metaphor for this process visualizes how cells move downhill in a landscape to finally reach their destinations as specialized mature cells at the bottom of the valleys. Scientists believe for a long time that our genes are likely altered in this process, in ways so that this journey could never be set in reverse; and it seemed impossible for mature cells to travel back, all the way to the immature state at the top of the mountain. Now John Gurdon changed this view by a ground-breaking experiment in frog cells. He thought that if a gene's, contrary to the common view, were intact in mature cells, its nucleus should be able to develop when moved into the cellular context of an egg. So, he destroyed the nucleus of an egg and used a fine pipette to transfer and replace it with a nucleus from a mature intestinal cell from a tadpole. In most cases, this modified egg could not develop, but in a few cases, it developed into normal swimming tadpoles and later adult frogs. At first many were skeptical and surprised by this result, but this paradigm shifting discovery was confirmed. And we now know that the same experiment works to clone mammals, the first being Dolly the sheep, but later also mice, cows, pigs and other animals. Gurdon had shown that a nucleus of a mature cell retains all genetic information that is required to generate an animal. But could this also be done in intact cells, without dissecting out the cell nucleus and using a pipette like Gurdon did, and placing it in an egg. Shinya Yamanaka, over 40 years later, made a discovery that also whole intact mature cells can be reprogrammed and that this could be achieved by surprisingly simple procedure. Now Yamanaka, he studded genes that are important for the function of pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells are found in the early embryo and can develop into all different types of mature cells in the body. And he thought that some stem cell genes may induce pluripotency if they would be transferred into mature cells in a mouse. Twenty-four candidate stem cell genes were selected. This target cell was the skin cell from a mouse. Now usually scientists transfer genes into other cells one by one, but in a strikingly bold experiment, all of these 24 genes were introduced in one single step into the skin cells, and a few cells became reprogrammed into cells that could generate all the mature cells in a mouse. They had now become pluripotent. Further experiments demonstrated that only four genes were needed for this induction of pluripotency. He named these cells induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. The iPS cell technique is a truly groundbreaking discovery that has opened up whole new research areas in cell biology and medicine. For example, iPS cells can now be generated from patients with disease and from these iPS cells, mature cells can be cultured so that we now have a procedure that gives success to new cell models for disorders that previously have been very difficult to study. Thanks to these two scientists, we now know that development is not strictly a one way street.
Hansson: Thank you Thomas. So we are now ready for questions.
Boyce: I'm Karen Boyce from the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter; and how far away do you think those iPS cells are from treatment for people?
Hansson: I'll ask Urban Lendahl, chairman of the Nobel Committee, to comment.
Lendahl: So, it is difficult to give an exact time prediction for when things and stem cells of any kind move into cell therapy, but what is a more imminent area is actually to use them as platforms for drug screening and actually to learn about disease; because this is the first time where we can generate large number of cells and differentiate them into specific cell types, and often they actually recapitulate critical parameters of a disease. So that's where we are right now. But to give an exact time axis for when they reach cell therapy, I think that's beyond what we want to do today.
Louise: Hi, Louise from the AP. I was wondering if you've been able to get a hold of the winners and how their reactions were?
Hansson: Yes. This year, I spoke to both of the laureates on the phone and they were equally happy and are looking forward to coming to Stockholm later this year.
Louise: I was wondering the exact age of the two laureates, and also how this can be applied for someone who doesn't really know what pluripotent means?
Hansson: John Gurdon is 79 years old and Shinya Yamanaka, 50 this year—I don't know if he has had his birthday yet, but he was born in 1962. How to explain it? Who would like to take a shot at that? Yeah, Urban.
Lendahl: I think we've always viewed development as going from the undifferentiated to the differentiated state, and I think it's such an important notion that all differentiated cells encapsulate a possibility to go back to the undifferentiated state; and I think that is very remarkable. And I think that that was very much an uphill battle, originally, from Gurdon to, sort of, prove the concept and then I think with the discovery that it was simple in the sense that it required a very limited set of genes, to actually do this in an intact cell from Yamanaka's experience. I think both these discoveries really, sort of, sent shockwaves into the world and really, sort of, challenged and shattered dogma.
Landis: Avan Landis with The Local. I was wondering if you could reflect a bit upon or elaborate how these discoveries affect the moral debate around stem cells in certain countries and how these advances affect that debate going forward?
Hansson: Anna Wedell, professor of clinical genetics.
Wedell: Well, of course, there can be different views on moral issues but in general in science, we have a very open debate and we, the Nobel Committee, does not really participate in that. But we as individual scientists and physicians do, and I think regulations evolve according to a general consensus in society—what is acceptable and what is not acceptable—and also another point is that every great discovery in biology that has applications in humans needs to be discussed, every individual application, and I think that is being done. That debate is continuously going on. We try to contribute to the best of our knowledge to that.
Landis: How would you describe the main obstacles to therapy with iPS?
Hansson: Therapy with stem cells, as of course, I mean, it's already used for hemapoietic stem cells in therapy, but the type of stem cells we're talking about here, pluripotent stem cells, we're still at a very early stage. I mean, there's a lot of promise and excitement and difficult disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and perhaps more likely Parkinson's disease are very interesting targets. But we have to remember that we're at an early phase, even with pluripotent stem cells that have been known for quite a while. iPS cells can in theory solve the problem, the immunological problem, surrounding therapy with stem cells, but we have to remember that there are many obstacles and many of them are associated with safety. We have to be certain that pluripotent stem cells that are grafted, when they are, that they are totally safe and will not cause tumors and other problems. And we are not there yet, but for sure there is hope that it will progress.
The Press Release from the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 goes jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent
The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop.
John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. In a classic experiment, he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole. The DNA of the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog.
Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. Surprisingly, by introducing only a few genes, he could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells, i.e. immature cells that are able to develop into all types of cells in the body.
These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.
Life – a journey towards increasing specialisation
All of us developed from fertilized egg cells. During the first days after conception, the embryo consists of immature cells, each of which is capable of developing into all the cell types that form the adult organism. Such cells are called pluripotent stem cells. With further development of the embryo, these cells give rise to nerve cells, muscle cells, liver cells and all other cell types - each of them specialised to carry out a specific task in the adult body. This journey from immature to specialised cell was previously considered to be unidirectional. It was thought that the cell changes in such a way during maturation that it would no longer be possible for it to return to an immature, pluripotent stage.
Frogs jump backwards in development
John B. Gurdon challenged the dogma that the specialised cell is irreversibly committed to its fate. He hypothesised that its genome might still contain all the information needed to drive its development into all the different cell types of an organism. In 1962, he tested this hypothesis by replacing the cell nucleus of a frog's egg cell with a nucleus from a mature, specialised cell derived from the intestine of a tadpole. The egg developed into a fully functional, cloned tadpole and subsequent repeats of the experiment yielded adult frogs. The nucleus of the mature cell had not lost its capacity to drive development to a fully functional organism.
Gurdon's landmark discovery was initially met with scepticism but became accepted when it had been confirmed by other scientists. It initiated intense research and the technique was further developed, leading eventually to the cloning of mammals. Gurdon's research taught us that the nucleus of a mature, specialized cell can be returned to an immature, pluripotent state. But his experiment involved the removal of cell nuclei with pipettes followed by their introduction into other cells. Would it ever be possible to turn an intact cell back into a pluripotent stem cell?
A roundtrip journey – mature cells return to a stem cell state
Shinya Yamanaka was able to answer this question in a scientific breakthrough more than 40 years after Gurdon´s discovery. His research concerned embryonal stem cells, i.e. pluripotent stem cells that are isolated from the embryo and cultured in the laboratory. Such stem cells were initially isolated from mice by Martin Evans (Nobel Prize 2007) and Yamanaka tried to find the genes that kept them immature. When several of these genes had been identified, he tested whether any of them could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells.
Yamanaka and his co-workers introduced these genes, in different combinations, into mature cells from connective tissue, fibroblasts, and examined the results under the microscope. They finally found a combination that worked, and the recipe was surprisingly simple. By introducing four genes together, they could reprogram their fibroblasts into immature stem cells!
The resulting induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) could develop into mature cell types such as fibroblasts, nerve cells and gut cells. The discovery that intact, mature cells could be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells was published in 2006 and was immediately considered a major breakthrough.
From surprising discovery to medical use
The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialised cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. Although their genome undergoes modifications during development, these modifications are not irreversible. We have obtained a new view of the development of cells and organisms.
Research during recent years has shown that iPS cells can give rise to all the different cell types of the body. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine. iPS cells can also be prepared from human cells.
For instance, skin cells can be obtained from patients with various diseases, reprogrammed, and examined in the laboratory to determine how they differ from cells of healthy individuals. Such cells constitute invaluable tools for understanding disease mechanisms and so provide new opportunities to develop medical therapies.
Sir John B. Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, UK. He received his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. He joined Cambridge University, UK, in 1972 and has served as Professor of Cell Biology and Master of Magdalene College. Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.
Shinya Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan in 1962. He obtained his MD in 1987 at Kobe University and trained as an orthopaedic surgeon before switching to basic research. Yamanaka received his PhD at Osaka University in 1993, after which he worked at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Yamanaka is currently Professor at Kyoto University and also affiliated with the Gladstone Institute.
Key publications:
Gurdon, J. B. (1962). The developmental capacity of nuclei taken from intestinal epithelium cells of feeding tadpoles. Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology 10:622-640.
Takahashi, K., Yamanaka, S. (2006). Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors. Cell 126:663-676.


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WASHINGTON — The government is capping pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chief executives at $500,000 per year and eliminating annual bonuses, giving in to pressure from Congress to stop big payouts at the bailed-out mortgage giants.
The pay and bonus structure of the government-controlled mortgage giants came under fire this fall after it was revealed that 12 executives got $35.4 million in salary and bonuses in 2009 and 2010. Fannie"s chief executive, Michael J. Williams, received about $9.3 million for the two years. Freddie"s chief executive, Edward Haldeman Jr., was paid $7.8 million.
Republican lawmakers welcomed the cap, noting that pay at mortgage companies should be more in line with government salaries. But administration officials said such limits will make it harder to attract talent because chief executives could earn far more in comparable jobs on Wall Street.
There"s no start date in place for when the cap will be instituted. Haldeman and Williams will each be paid $5.4 million this year.
But Haldeman and Williams are leaving their positions this year and officials say the cap will be applied to their replacements" salaries.
The government rescued Fannie and Freddie three years ago after they nearly folded because of big losses on risky mortgages. Taxpayers have spent about $170 billion to prop up the two companies, the most expensive bailout of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government agency that oversees Fannie and Freddie, said the executives were hired after the companies were taken over in 2008. After the takeover, the salaries for those positions were reduced by an average of 40 percent and some senior positions were eliminated.
Fannie and Freddie executives receive salaries, bonuses and other forms of compensation for their work, including deferred salary, which is tied to the company"s performance and is usually paid after one year with the companies.
Edward J. DeMarco, the FHFA"s acting director, has repeatedly defended the salaries and bonuses. He said they were used to retain talented executives and keep the companies running smoothly. Without them, it will be harder to attract talent and taxpayers could incur greater losses, he said.
Under the cap, Fannie and Freddie executives will be paid about 50 percent less than the median salary of comparable positions for big private financial firms, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the government says.
"The employees are subject to extraordinary scrutiny," DeMarco said on a Friday morning conference call with reporters. "And they are being paid less than other employees in their field."
Freddie Mac reported in its quarterly earnings report Friday that it had experienced a higher-than-usual 17 percent turnover of its senior staff last year, citing the anticipated reduced salaries as the chief factor.
Even with the cap, the executives could expect to earn far more that government workers.
DeMarco made roughly $240,000 last year, according to government records. The highest-paid federal worker — a medical officer at the National Institute of Health — earned $350,000.
Congressional leaders say Fannie and Freddie have already turned into pseudo-government agencies and are private companies in name only.
"Fannie and Freddie are government-owned entities that have become more akin to policy tools for this administration than real businesses," said U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
One of the mortgage giants" chief critics — U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee — said the change in pay for executives at the firms was "long overdue" and a "step in the right direction."
"The taxpayer funded bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the biggest bailout in history," he said. "The lavish compensation packages and million dollar bonuses that have been given to top executives of these two failed companies are an outrage to the taxpayers whose assistance is the only thing keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac afloat."


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Brucella melitensis infection in certain breeds of sheep causes clinical disease similar to that in goats ( see Brucellosis in Goats Brucellosis in Goats The signs of brucellosis in goats are similar to those in cattle. The disease is prevalent in most countries where goats are a significant part of the animal industry, and milk is a common source... read more ). However, B ovis produces a disease unique to sheep, in which epididymitis and orchitis impair fertility—the principal economic effect. Occasionally, placentitis and abortion are seen, and there may be perinatal mortality. The disease was first described in New Zealand and Australia and has since been reported from many sheep-raising areas of the world. B ovis infection among sheep in the USA is rare.
There is no evidence that the disease is present in any other animal species. Rare natural and experimental infections in farmed red deer stags have been reported in New Zealand.
Rams as young as 8 wk have been infected experimentally by various nonvenereal routes. The disease can be transmitted among rams by direct contact. Active infection in ewes is unusual but has developed after mating with naturally infected rams. Contaminated pastures do not appear to be important in spread of the disease. Infection frequently persists in rams, and a high percentage shed B ovis intermittently for several years.
Primary manifestations are lesions of the epididymis, tunica, and testis in rams; placentitis and abortion in ewes; and occasionally perinatal death in lambs. Lesions may develop rapidly. In rams, the first detectable abnormality may be a marked deterioration in semen quality associated with the presence of inflammatory cells and organisms. An acute systemic phase is rarely seen in naturally occurring infections. After regression of the acute phase—which may be so mild as to go unobserved—lesions may be palpated in the epididymis and scrotal tunics. Epididymal enlargement may be unilateral or bilateral. The tail of the epididymis is involved more frequently than the head or body, and the most prominent lesion is spermatoceles of variable size containing partially inspissated spermatic fluid. The tunics frequently become thickened and fibrous, and extensive adhesions develop between them. The testes may show fibrous atrophy; these lesions are usually permanent. In a few cases, palpable lesions are transient, while in others, organisms may be present in semen over long periods without clinically detectable lesions.
Because not all infected rams show palpable abnormalities of scrotal tissues (and not all cases of epididymitis are due to brucellosis), the remaining rams must be examined further. Rams shedding organisms, but having no lesions, must be identified by culture of semen. Repeated examinations may be necessary to identify intermittent shedders. Microscopic examination of stained semen smears may also be helpful; fluorescent antibody examination is a highly specific diagnostic aid. Serologic tests used for eradication of disease and certification of animals include indirect ELISA, complement fixation, hemagglutination inhibition, indirect agglutination, and gel diffusion.
Incidence and spread of the disease may be reduced by regular examination of rams before the breeding season and culling of those with obvious genital abnormalities. Because susceptibility in rams increases markedly with age, it is advantageous to keep a young ram flock and isolate noninfected rams from older, possibly infected rams.
Immunization of weaner rams with attenuated (Rev. 1) B melitensis has been recommended in some countries. Because infection in ewes apparently originates almost exclusively from service by infected rams, lamb losses through infection of ewes may be controlled economically by restricting vaccination to rams. There is no recommended vaccination in the USA.
Chlortetracycline and streptomycin used concurrently have effected bacteriologic cures. However, treatment is not economic except in especially valuable rams, and even if infection is eliminated, fertility may remain impaired.


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Mar, John Erskine, 2d (or 7th) earl of
Mar, John Erskine,
2d (or 7th) earl of, 1558–1634, Scottish nobleman; son of the 1st (or 6th) earl. In 1578 he was persuaded by James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton, to assert his claims to Stirling Castle and the guardianship of the young James VI (later James I of England). Mar emerged in control of the king's person, while Morton attempted to recover his authority. After the rise of Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox, and James Stuart, earl of Arran, Mar fell out of favor with the king. He participated in the capture of James in the raid of Ruthven (1582). After James's escape, Mar was received at court, but he was banished in 1584 and fled to England. In 1585 he joined the other banished Scottish nobles who invaded Scotland and overthrew Arran. Mar was made a member of the privy council. In 1601 he was sent as ambassador to England to offer secret assistance to the 2d earl of Essex in his rebellion. This was crushed before his arrival, and Mar spent his time negotiating the question of James's succession to the English throne. In 1603 he accompanied James to England and was made a member of the English privy council. From 1616 to 1630 he was lord high treasurer of Scotland.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies


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After Alice by Karen Hofmann
My rating: 4/5 stars
Having escaped the place in her youth, retired professor Sidonie von Taler returns to her ancestral Okanagan valley orchards still very much in the shadow of her deceased older sister Alice.
As she sifts through the detritus of her family history, Sidonie is haunted by memories of trauma and triumph in equal measure, and must reconcile past and present while reconnecting with the people she left behind.
Karen Hofmann's debut novel blends a poetic sensibility with issues of land stewardship, social stratification and colonialism. Her eye for period detail and characterization is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin" or Margaret Laurence's "The Stone Angel," while her lyrical realization of bygone B.C. pastoralia recalls the work of George Bowering.
The blurb is right: After Alice reminded me of The Stone Angel, big time. This is good, because TSA is one of my favourite books, but it's also bad, because nothing can really measure up. Eventually, I realized there are enough differences here for After Alice to stand on its own, majorly influenced by Laurence, perhaps, but not derivative.
Where The Stone Angel fascinated me with it portrayal of aging – of a woman aging, specifically, and reverting back to childhood impulsiveness and petulance – After Alice frightened me. Hagar was 90, an age one may or may not reach, but Sidonie is in her 60s, and her stubbornness, her ambivalence towards her nephews and nieces (which reminded me of Hagar's hate-on for Martin,) the creeping suspicion that she had mattered too little, had left no mark – is too close for comfort.
Sidonie's retreat to her abandoned childhood home and subsequent illness are very reminiscent of Hagar's journey into the wilderness. It may just be a coincidence, but I recently read yet another book with the "aging woman wanders into wildness, is stranded, and reflects on life" thing (Malarky, review forthcoming.) Is this becoming a cliche? It is effective though.
There are also shades of The Grapes of Wrath in the plight of the seasonal workers, both necessary and marginal. The reverse colonization, where Japanese labourers are brought in, during Sidonie's childhood, is contrasted with present-day gentrification.
After Alice isn't just about aging and pastoral scenes. It's about importance of relationships, or sometimes, the lack of importance. I was struck by how few words are given to the recounting of Sidonie's married years. The fact that Sidonie's married life wasn't central to her story was unexpected and I don't know what that says about me, but it certainly conveys that Sidonie is an unconventional character given her age and background.
Hofmann is really effective in revealing the ambivalence in close blood relations – siblings, children, cousins. The sisters, Alice and Sidonie, especially. After sniping at each other in a way that is horribly recognizable, Alice lets her guard down for just a moment and Sidonie realized she doesn't know her sister anymore:
"I pity you," Sidonie says… "because you're married to Buck, who, everyone knows, is a drunk and a bum, and you'll always be poor and have black eyes and get fat."
And then Alice opens her mouth in a sort of grin that is also a snarl, a rictus, and Sidonie sees what Alice has been hiding with her hand, her tight-lipped speech. Both of Alice's upper eyeteeth are gone, pulled out, and dark spaces agape. Alice is missing teeth. How has this happened?
I was also fascinated by Alice as a mother, disgusted with her deaf child Claire; and how Sidonie related to Claire after Alice was gone, and then, in the present day, how Sidonie placed so many hopes on Claire's child, teenager Justin. The portrayal of Justin and his two teenage cousins was great. They are at times sulky, entitled and "emo" but then suddenly caring and resourceful. The kids gave this book a hopeful tone that I welcomed, after the slow revealing of Alice's death and Sidonie's childhood trauma.
That slow reveal is so well done. Hofmann tells a story over many generations and places and not only makes it coherent, but makes you want, no, need to know more. Not a lot happens in the present, but after the halfway point, actually, right around the point of that excerpt, I needed to know. What happened to Alice? To Sidonie? Who was to blame? How did they seemingly end up trading fates?
After Alice has the makings of a CanLit classic, with complex characters, heavy themes done with a light touch, and expert pacing. Did I mention that this is Karen Hofmann's first novel? I can't wait to see what she does next.
Thank you to NeWest Press for the review copy!
For an amazing review of After Alice, check out Pickle Me This.


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Thursday's opening match between Croatia and Brazil will be the first-ever World Cup game to be equipped with goal-line technology, designed to quickly and definitively determine whether a ball crossed over the line. Since the last World Cup, organizers have been testing the technology at lower-level tournaments and events.
Video cameras mounted along the roof or catwalk of the stadiums capture the ball as it moves along the field and in the air. Those cameras are connected to computers that perform image analysis to precisely determine the position of the ball. When a goal is detected, referees receive an instantaneous vibration on a wristwatch, flashing with the word "GOAL."
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), soccer's worldwide governing body, formally approved the use of the sensory devices last year. As FIFA states on its website: "it is a technical means of instantly determining whether or not the whole of the ball has crossed the goal-line, not more and not less."
The new gear is designed to avoid incidents like one that happened during the previous World Cup in 2010, in a match between England and Germany. During the thirty-seventh minute, English midfielder Frank Lampard fired a shot that struck the German goal's crossbar, bouncing downward and into the goal. The referees ruled that it had not crossed the line even though cameras mounted above the goal clearly showed that it had.
After the obvious error, FIFA head Sepp Blatter apologized and as a result said he would "reopen the file on goal-line technology." Initially, Blatter had been skeptical, saying that soccer should be played the same way, with the same technology (or lack thereof) worldwide.
"No matter which technology is applied, at the end of the day a decision will have to be taken by a human being," he said in March 2010, months before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. "This being the case, why remove the responsibility from the referee to give it to someone else?"
Under pressure from FIFA following the 2010 World Cup, the International Football Association Board, soccer's global rule-making body, changed its mind. The Board then outlined new rules that any goal-line technology setup must have:
- The goal-line technology applies solely to the goal line and only to determine whether a goal has been scored
- The [goal-line technology] system must be accurate
- The indication of whether a goal has been scored must be immediate and automatically confirmed within one second
- The indication of whether a goal has been scored will be communicated only to the match officials (via the referee's watch, by vibration and visual signal)
The difference a few milliseconds can make
So far, FIFA has approved two companies—one British, one German—to install their technologies in different soccer fields in stadiums in Brazil for this World Cup (and in other European stadiums as well).
Hawk-Eye, the British firm, has long used its similar camera-based setup in cricket, tennis, and snooker. It works through a system of high-speed cameras that follow the ball while in flight and then triangulate the ball's position.
While Hawk-Eye's system is already in stadiums in England, Wales, Germany, and the Netherlands, its German competitor GoalControl has outfitted all of the World Cup locations in Brazil. Hawk-Eye did not respond to Ars' request for comment.
"One of the challenges for referees is that the human eye can handle only approximately 16 images per second, which means the ball needs to be behind the line for at least 60 milliseconds," Rolf Dittrich, the spokesperson for GoalControl, told Ars by e-mail.
"However, in some cases the ball is only behind the line for a few milliseconds before a player kicks it back or it rebounds back into the field of play, with the result that the human eye cannot see whether the ball has crossed the line," Dittrich said. "The ball can only be detected by the human eye at a speed of 12 kilometers per hour or less, whereas nowadays players are able to shoot at a speed of over 120 kilometers per hour."
GoalControl's setup costs about €200,000 to €300,000 (roughly $272,000 to $407,000) per stadium, borne by the cost of the club owner or organizing entity (in this case, FIFA). Each set of seven of the roof or catwalk-mounted cameras is pointed at each goal.
GoalControl has a background in "automated surface inspection and measurement system for rubber and plastic extrusion via real-time image analysis," Dittrich added. "So the team has many years of experience in developing and deploying camera-based vision systems that can detect, identify and track moving objects in complex sceneries, i.e. a football in three dimensions on a pitch."
Last month, GoalControl installed its system at the Tivoli Stadium in Aachen, near the company's headquarters. That stadium is the home field of Alemannia Aachen, which plays in the fourth-tier of German soccer, but the stadium hosts international matches sometimes as well.
"The arrangement of the cameras is nearly a mirror image—with two cameras attached to the pitch halfway line at all times, two cameras are positioned roughly opposite each other at mid-distance between the goal line and halfway line, two cameras are mounted opposite just behind the goal line and one camera is located behind the goal," Dittrich noted.
"The development and mathematical calculations show that this is the best way to set up the cameras," he said. "Due to the high distance to the pitch—cameras are situated under the stadium roof or catwalk—there is absolutely no danger of [being damaged]!"
Of course, as any Spanish-speaking soccer fan in the US can tell you, cameras or not, it's not really a goal until Andrés Cantor shouts: "GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAL!"


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4th of July Coffee Filter Fireworks Pom Poms
Summer is the perfect time to try new crafts, especially on rainy afternoons. If you are in search of an easy and entertaining craft that results in a cute 4th of July decoration this is your project. I expected my girls to decorate maybe 10 coffee filters before moving on, but nearly two hours later we decorated more than 50 filters. And my six year old would have kept going if wasn't time for dinner.
Mississippi Mud Pie No Bake Cheesecake
My kids loved my recent recipe of my Mississippi Mud cookies, in fact two days later they were asking me to make them again. I didn't want to make the exact same thing, so I turned their new favorite cookies into a no bake cheesecake which is a dessert they always seems to love. So enjoy this summer sensation as a family, at a BBQ or pool side party.
Frozen Birthday Invitations – 2 Designs!
from One Creative Mommy
Last weekend, we hosted a Frozen Birthday Party for Lu, and I'm worn out! If you read my blog regularly, you know that I go a little nuts when it comes to birthday parties. I love to host themed parties, and I love to create games and crafts to go with the parties.
Yard Sale Milk Glass
I went to a yard/estate sale Saturday where two lovely ladies were selling what was left of their mothers things, Their mother had amassed quite a collection of milk glass....about two rooms full.
Grilled Corn, Zucchini & Black Bean Enchiladas
from LeMoine Family Kitchen
How do I balance out all those cookie recipes I've been sharing? Well, with a Meatless Monday Mexican dish of course! Its been awhile since I've posted a Meatless Monday recipe but I've certainly been making an effort to create more vegetarian meals for my family. These Grilled Corn, Zucchini & Black Bean Enchiladas are absolutely wonderful! They are incredibly flavorful and filling and of course full of good for you veggies and lean protein of the beans. The homemade enchilada sauce is really what brings the flavor and makes this dish a bit addicting!
The product I'm reviewing today is Maybelline's SuperStay 24HR Concealer. This is literally the best concealer I've ever used. No joke. I've tried the really expensive ones and none of them have the staying power that this one does. I live in a very humid area, so any make up on my face has to practically be glued down.
A Portrait of Feminine Dress ~ From Church to Wedding
With weddings and graduations coming up, I've been thinking a lot about what to wear. As I get older, I sometimes have to put a good bit of effort into attire so I am not frumpy. As we work on the heart issues of modesty, let's also turn our attention to the exterior for a few moments!
Two Peas in a Pod Tutorial Series: DIY Seashell Door Stop
from CereusArt
from CereusArt
Wake: Nautical terminology; the track or path that a boat leaves behind it, when moving across the waters. Weekly recap of events from Cereus Art. Starfish Boutonnieres Last weekend in between my mom's birthday celebrations, I was able to spend some time in my studio.
Old Fashion Apple Pie reminds me of one such commercial. Every time I think about it I remember a jingle from an old Chevrolet commercial that promoted all things American. They sang a chorus about "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet. They go together in the Good Ol' USA."
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Common Word Community Service San Jose 2012
SAN JOSE, California — On Sunday, April 29, 2012, thirty-four Muslims and Christians joined together to build peace by serving nearly 300 meals to residents of CityTeam Men's Recovery Center and to the homeless. Orientation began at Lincoln Glen Church, and was co-sponsored by Pacifica Institute, Silicon Valley Branch. Christian and Muslim volunteers were paired into buddy groups and got to know each other by discussing fun questions about fond childhood memories, favorite holidays, and faith heroes. Afterwards, buddy groups worked together to make fruit salad, green salad, tasty halal chicken, rice, and revani, a sweet Turkish dessert. After all dishes were prepared, volunteers brought the meal to the Cityteam Men's Recovery Center for service. Before the meal was served, Pastor Larry Albright thanked God for the food and prayed a blessing over guests. After all guests had eaten, volunteers also dined together and enjoyed a much-deserved break over more conversation. A member of Pacifica Institute closed our time together with an Arabic prayer of thanksgiving to God that the hungry and homeless were fed, new friendships were made, and bridges of peace and understanding were built between our Muslim and Christian communities.Read More
Photos courtesy of Pacifica Institute and Ray Rodriguez
Photos courtesy of Pacifica Institute and Ray Rodriguez


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Careful observers of media coverage of the protests in Egypt will have noticed a certain symbol turning up in the protests again and again — typically scrawled on a photo or caricature of Hosni Mubarak. The symbol in question is, namely, the Star of David. In a post for the Weekly Standard blog, I commented yesterday on the appearance of the below caricature on the front page of the German daily Die Welt.
The caricature was clearly visible in the background of a larger photo showing an Egyptian soldier being carried triumphantly on a protestor's shoulders.
Neither the accompanying article nor the caption to the photo made any reference to anti-Semitic and/or "anti-Zionist" sentiment among the protestors.
But it is not only Germany's Die Welt that has managed the unusual feat of documenting, but not seeing the evidence of anti-Semitism amidst the protests in Egypt. Here some further examples of the same motif, depicting Hosni Mubarak with a Star of David scrawled on his forehead or over his face. The implication that Mubarak is a stooge of Israel and/or "the Jews" is obvious.
Note that of the various media from which these images are taken, the only one to comment explicitly (and critically) on the significance of the image is the German blog Politically Incorrect. Politically Incorrect is regularly attacked in the mainstream German media for allegedly being "right-wing extremist." (The Daily Beast uses the AP photo in a context that implies recognition of the hostility to Israel, but that in fact minimizes the threat.)
Readers may also have heard about Hosni Mubarak being hanged in effigy in Tahrir Square in Cairo yesterday. In fact, three effigies were hung or otherwise abused by protestors. The below image of one of them comes from the German-language Swiss television network SF.
The effigy appears to be a representation of Omar Suleiman, who was recently named vice president by Mubarak. (The Mubarak effigy is to the left in the video.)
The use of the traditional symbol of Judaism to express hatred and contempt could hardly be described as anything other than anti-Semitic. And yet despite the clear visual evidence that it exists, this aspect of the protests has been almost entirely ignored by the reports in the Western media.
The current protest movement may or may not represent the advent of liberty and democracy and all things good for Egyptians. This remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: it represents the advent of the complete banalization of anti-Semitism as far as the Western media is concerned.


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Information has a discernible value -- one that should be accounted for on a company's books, according to Doug Laney, VP, analytics & information management at Gartner. Laney is best known for his influential research note in 2001 that framed big data in terms of the three V's: Volume, Velocity and Variety.
Unfortunately, Laney declared, accounting practices have not caught up to this need. He noted that after the 9/11 terror attacks, insurance companies denied claims related to data loss because the companies hadn't put these assets on their balance sheets. The current financial accounting standard still "explicitly excludes" data, Laney said.
[ Overwhelmed with information? Here's how to take control: 6 Steps To Manage Big Data. ]
The situation may be somewhat better internationally. Introducing the panel, Bob Kress, Accenture's executive director, global IT audit, observed that "data" was added as an asset class during the World Economic Forum Summit in Dubai in November.
Laney said Gartner clients lately have been asking not only how they can become more information-driven but how they can generate revenues from their own data assets. Some of the "dark data" -- information a company captures but doesn't use -- can be "spun into gold," he said.
Panelist Michael Connor, VP, enterprise data architecture at insurance giant QBE North America, said data was valued, in general. But echoing Laney, he said different types of data and their relative worth were not being captured from an accounting standpoint.
He suggested today's businesses need a more nuanced way to account for the value of different data assets. "The revelation for manufacturing accountants in the late '80's and early '90's centered on properly assigning re-work dollars proportionately to the appropriate line of business," Connor explained in an email. "For the auto industry, as an example, it implies that certain cars (e.g., lines of business) looked profitable because all cars (LOBs) shared in re-work dollars equally. However, the reality was that the certain line of cars deserved 90% of the costs." Whether you want it or not, the amount and variety of data are expanding exponentially, said panelist John Lewis, president & CEO, consumer group, NA, at Nielsen. Lewis urged the audience of about 150 to "embrace that trend" and transition their organizations to "understand information is a competency" that needs the right people, processes and platforms. Later, he said that executives who say the big data phenomenon is being overhyped "are behind and will fall further behind."
Asked where organizations err in their data approach, Lewis said a common mistake was "falling in love with your own data" and failing to incorporate external sources, such as industry or consumer data. "You'd be surprised how common that is," he said.
For Gartner's Laney, it's a mistake to use exclusively data events. Gartner has defined four levels of business intelligence sophistication: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive. In the final, prescriptive stage, Laney said, "[companies can] take insights and predictions to make something happen."
Predictive analysis is getting faster, more accurate and more accessible. Combined with big data, it's driving a new age of experiments. Also in the new, all-digital Advanced Analytics issue of InformationWeek: Are project management offices a waste of money? (Free registration required.)


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BERLIN (AP) — A German museum has put on display a copy of Vincent van Gogh's ear that was grown using
genetic material provided by one of the 19th-century Dutch artist's living relatives.
The Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe said artist Diemut Strebe made the replica using living cells
from Lieuwe van Gogh, the great-great-grandson of Vincent's brother Theo.
Using a 3D-printer, the cells were shaped to resemble the ear that Vincent van Gogh is said to have cut
off during a psychotic episode in 1888.
"I use science basically like a type of brush, like Vincent used paint," Strebe told The Associated Press
in a telephone interview Tuesday.
The U.S.-based artist said the ear, which was grown at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, is being
kept alive inside a case containing a nourishing liquid and could theoretically last for years.
Convincing Lieuwe van Gogh to take part was easy. "He loved the project right away," said Strebe.
Lieuwe and Vincent van Gogh share about 1/16th of the same genes, including the Y-chromosome that is
passed down the male lineage.
But hopes of using genetic material that belonged to the post-Impressionist master himself were dashed
when DNA extracted from an envelope turned out to belong to someone else. "The postman messed it up,"
Strebe joked.
Still, work is underway with a female relative to include mitochondrial DNA — passed down the mother's
line — for future installations.
The exhibition, at which visitors can speak into the ear through a microphone, lasts until July 6. Strebe
said she plans to display the ear in New York next year.
Museum website: http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$8887
Ear grown from Van Gogh DNA on display
BERLIN (AP) — A German museum has put on display a copy of Vincent van Gogh's ear that was grown using


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This article from Reuters explains what happened.
It says:
The left-wing New Democrats won election in the Canadian province of Alberta on Tuesday, ending the 44-year run by the Progressive Conservatives amid promises to review oversight of the oil and gas sector in the home of Canada's oil sands.
At the end of a month-long campaign, the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has never held more than 16 seats in the 87-seat provincial legislature, will lead a majority government. It held a commanding lead in early results, leading or elected in 54 seats at 9 p.m. local time while the Conservatives were ahead in just 13, according to CBC TV.
The NDP is expected to be far less accommodative to the Western Canadian province's powerful energy industry.
NDP Premier-elect Rachel Notley has proposed reduced support for pipeline export projects and a review of oil and gas royalties in the resource-rich province, and energy shares on Canadian stock markets are expected to react negatively to her party's victory.
The NDP had promised to hike corporate tax rates by two percentage points to 12 percent if elected, but its promise to review the amount of royalty payments due the province from oil and gas production made some investors nervous.
Alberta's oil sands are the largest source of U.S. oil imports.
The Conservatives had won 12 straight elections, but support for rookie Premier Jim Prentice plunged during the campaign and right-wing voters split support between the Conservatives and the younger, more conservative Wildrose Party, which appeared on track to be the official opposition.
The Alberta "Progressive Conservatives" are almost as leftist as the NDP. The only real conservatives in Alberta are the Wildrose.
This Canadian Press looks at specific NDP policies:
The NDP have won a majority in Alberta. What could Alberta look like moving forward? Leader Rachel Notley campaigned on having the wealthy pay more to fund better health care and education. Here's a look at some of the party's key platform planks:
— A Resource Owners' Rights Commission to review the royalties oil companies pay to the province with any amount earned above the current rates going into savings.
— A boost in the corporate tax rate to 12 per cent from 10 per cent and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 and hour by 2018.
— More tax brackets on high earners than the Tories are proposing: A 12 per cent tax rate on income between $125,000 to $150,000; 13 per cent on income between $150,000 to $200,000; 14 per cent between $200,000 and $300,000 and 15 per cent over $300,000. The NDP also plans to roll back the Tory health levy.
— The creation of 2,000 long-term care spaces over four years.
— A ban both corporate and union donations to political parties.
That last one looks like a conservative policy, since big corporations and unions are both leftist. So there's a silver lining to this cloud. I'm sorry for my Canadian friends who will have to live with this, but the mistake was made last election, when they chose the Progressive Conservatives over Wildrose. One thing is for sure, Alberta supplies a lot of our oil here, so this NDP win will raise oil prices, and it's going to put pressure on American families. Maybe we should be drilling for our own oil?


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The iPhone's got its first GTA title, and it looks pretty great. As teased before, this is a top-down GTA, and it's a near-direct port of the Nintendo DS version, albeit with better graphics, and more awkward controls.
Touch Arcade's had some time to run/jack/drive/murder their way around the game a little bit, and here's what they noticed:
• The graphics are much better than they looked in the early screenshots, falling closer to the PSP version of the game than the DS version.
• The plot and writing are classic GTA, which is to say decent, and gratuitously profane. In a good way!
• The controls aren't as awkward as they look. (Note: they look very awkward.)
• It's a full-fledged GTA title, with integrated minigames, hours of gameplay and an appropriately high price: $10.
GTA: Chinatown Wars is live in the App Store. [Touch Arcade]


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Why airlines didn't avoid risky Ukraine airspace
The shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines plane with nearly 300 people on board over war-torn eastern Ukraine is likely to have profound consequences for the world's airlines.
Airlines are already being more vigilant about avoiding trouble spots. That will make flights longer and more costly because of the need for extra fuel — an expense that will be passed on to passengers. They may be quicker to abandon routes near conflict areas.
In the aftermath of Thursday's disaster, carriers around the globe rerouted flights to avoid Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines announced that it will no longer fly over any portion of the country, routing flights over Turkey instead.
Some airlines had been circumventing the country for weeks after warnings from aviation authorities, and experts questioned Malaysia's decision to fly near the fighting.
"I find it pretty remarkable that a civil airline company — if this aircraft was on the flight plan — that they are flight-planning over an area like that," said Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The airline noted Friday that other carriers flew the same path in the days and weeks before — and even on the same day its plane was shot down. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lay insisted again Friday that the airline's path from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was an internationally approved route.
Violence in Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russia rebels in the country's east erupted after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March. Earlier this week, the rebels claimed responsibility for hitting a Ukrainian military jet with a portable surface-to-air missile; the pilot was able to land safely. And the government charged that a military transport plane was shot down by a missile fired from Russian territory.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had warned pilots in April not to fly over parts of Ukraine, and the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization told governments to warn their airlines.
Thomas Routh, an aviation attorney in Chicago, said it would be unusual for an airline to ignore such warnings, but that there are many potentially dangerous air corridors and airlines must decide whether a flight will be safe.
"There are airlines flying through Afghanistan airspace every day," Routh said.
Greg Raiff, an aviation consultant in New Hampshire, said that if airlines are forced to avoid all the world's hot spots, flight times will be extended, requiring extra fuel and pilots. Some routes will become uneconomical, forcing airlines to abandon them, he said.
Aviation experts said many airlines continued to fly over Ukraine despite the warnings because it offered a shorter route that saved fuel. Joshua Marks, CEO of aviation-data firm masFlight, calculated that flying over Ukraine instead of around the country saved Malaysia Airlines up to $1,500 per flight in fuel, or 2 percent, and shaved about 10 minutes off the trip.
Ukraine closed the eastern region to air traffic below 26,000 feet on July 1 and extended the ban to 32,000 feet on Monday. An official with Eurocontrol, a consortium of European air traffic agencies, said about 350 planes had been flying over the area every day before the restrictions, but that had dropped by about one-fourth before Thursday's crash.
By Friday, snapshots from flight-tracking services showed dense traffic to the west of Ukraine, light traffic over western Russia, and very few planes over Ukraine.
Dubai-based Emirates airlines suspended flights to Kiev indefinitely. Germany's Lufthansa rerouted trips to avoid eastern Ukraine, although flights to Kiev and Odessa were unaffected. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said that it would stop flying over any part of the country. India's aviation agency said Air India and Jet Airways would also avoid Ukraine.
Some airlines had already changed their routes.
Australia's Qantas stopped flying over Ukraine several months ago and shifted its London-Dubai route 400 miles to the south. A spokeswoman declined to explain the change. Korean Air said it rerouted cargo and passenger flights in early March as the situation in Crimea deteriorated.
Beyond Ukraine, Emirates recently stopped flying over parts of Syria as a civil war expanded. Some airlines have curtailed service in Iraq, where violence has escalated between the government and a jihadist militant group. The FAA has current warnings about flying over parts of Iran, Yemen, Egypt's Sinai peninsula, North Korea and other countries.


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Monthly radiation dosimeters due
Monthly radiation dosimeters ("badges") were due for exchange on May 1.
Please return your April dosimetry to your departmental dosimetry contact and retrieve your May dosimetry. The wear period is printed on the front and back of the dosimeter.
On-time return of dosimetry enables timely reporting of results and improves departmental compliance with University and UMHHC dosimetry policies.
Dosimetry results are sent to departmental dosimetry contacts and supervisors shortly after release by the dosimetry processor. If you wish to review your dosimetry results, contact your departmental dosimetry contact or supervisor.
If you have questions about your radiation dosimetry, please contact the U-M Radiation Safety Service (764-4294).
Website: http://www.oseh.umich.edu/pdf/UMHHC_Dosimetry_Instructions.pdf


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I have some mkv files, and while Totem plays them perfectly, when i use Devede to burn them to dvd it all gets messed up: the video is ok, but the audio is out of sync.
I did see that Devede does write my dixv avi files correctly to disk.
So i am thinking what the best way could be to convert my mkv for playback on dvd?
I was thinking maybe converting them to avi first? But i did not find a good way for that to happen.
What do you suggest?


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Quark License Administrator (QLA) is a server-based, license management system. When you purchase two or more licenses of a Quark application, QLA, which is included with the application, simplifies the installation and maintenance of the application on multiple computers.
NOTE You must run the QLA Server software on a computer with a fixed IP address.
During the QLA Server installation process, a browser window will open after you click Install in the Installation Type dialog box. You must download this license file before you can use QLA to regulate license usage on your network. After you download this license file, you must place it in the QLA Server application folder.


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Picture can speak thousands of words. Random pictures of insignificant moments always been the most important and most valuable.
Photographers and painters beautifully imprint huge number of events, objects and types. Some do it by accident on the momentary desire.
Others do it in order to fix the time for the future. For me they are really different and thoughtful , simple but speak lots of words………
1. Hope dies.
Photographer – Zilvinas Valeika.
2. Cat's House.
One of the best photos on the version of Red Bull Illume 2010.
4. Ordinary Miracle.
Little boy is going to ask Santa for his father returns from Iraq. He does not know that his wish will come true right now …
5. "Thank you" to veterans.
6. Feats are priceless.
7. A faithful friend.
This picture consists 365 photographs that were made by each day from the same place.
9. The passage of time.
10. Neighbors.
11. On the roof.
Photographer – Julia Kurbatova.
12. Funk.
14. Give me five.
15. Japan .
16. Love for enemies.
17. The struggle for supremacy.
18. The sergeant, his wife and their unborn child.
19. Mum.
20. Sperm whale.
21. The future artist.
12. Farewell.
23. When zeal is frightening.
Photos of children's choir from North Korea. Diligence and discipline – it is certainly good, But this case is little scary for the children.
24. Grandma's care. Ears were freezing.
25. Ku-ku.
28. Panda on the way to the zoo in Edinburgh.
29. Filming the Titanic.
31. Their is no age for Love…
The celebration of March 8 in Belgrade.
32. Smoking – Harm.
"My 3-year-old son Charlie, – said by the author of the photo Blake Zickefoose, Kid love his friend caterpillar.
34. Forests of giant sequoias.


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The Week That Was in Blue Jays Land
|Courtesy of Yahoo
The start of the 2013 season began with much anticipation for the Toronto Blue Jays; and although it came with some mixed results, week one is now officially in the books.
It came with it's share of juicy story lines, (Dickey struggles at the Home Opener, Bautista's injury, Farrell's return, the bevvy of home runs), so here are a few brief thoughts on what happened this past week in Blue Jays Land.
Programming note: Patrick and Chris were kind enough to have me on the Triple Play Podcast yesterday to talk about week one for the Blue Jays, so have a listen to the podcast. The Blue Jays segment starts about halfway through.
The Sky is Falling … It Is Not
The Major League Baseball season is an extremely long one; 162 games in total, 27 weeks, 6 months long. It truly is a grind; and that's why they say a baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint.
Unlike the NFL, people don't have to stew over losses for six days until the next matchup. In baseball, there is almost always another game the very next day. 24 hours later, it's a brand new ballgame.
These are things to keep in mind after a 2-4 week by the Toronto Blue Jays and a 13-0 drubbing at the hands of the Boston Red Sox. It's a long, long season.
At the risk of sounding like your atypical baseball manager, that game is now in the rear view mirror and Tuesday is a brand new day and the beginning of a new series against the Detroit Tigers.
Expectations for the 2013 Blue Jays are sky high, and they absolutely should high. If this were a 16-game NFL schedule, a 2-4 record might be cause for concern. But it's not … only 4% of the schedule is down and there are 156 more games to play.
Jeff Blair described it best when R.A. Dickey was getting booed on Sunday; fans weren't booing the player per se, they were booing the situation. Fans were booing the fact that their number one starter was getting rocked.
Personally, I don't condone that kind of behaviour from fans, but I certainly understand it.
Don't Worry About Dickey
After a pair of bad starts this week, R.A. Dickey's debut in a Blue Jays uniform didn't go quite as expected. Then again, it's only two starts … and it's a very long season.
Dickey wasn't the only high profile starter to get roughed up for eight earned runs yesterday, the same also happened to AL Cy Young Winner David Price, Matt Cain and even Cole Hamels.
So I'm willing to chalk it up to just a bad day at the office for R.A. Dickey.
In fact, the Atlanta Braves roughed up Dickey for eight 8 runs in 4.1 innings in early April as well, and then R.A. went 18-5 with a 2.50 ERA the rest of the way, and it netted him a Cy Young Award.
R.A. Dickey even noted himself that he's a bit of a slow starter, and the numbers reflect that; career he has a 4.93 ERA in April, and then it drops nearly a full run to 3.94 in May, and then 3.24 lifetime in the month of June.
The Boomsticks Were Out
Not only were the Blue Jays launching baseballs left, right and centre out of the Rogers Centre this week, so was the opposition. In total, 25 home runs were hit in six games played in Toronto.
It really has been feast or famine for the Blue Jays this week, as 18 of their 22 runs scored this week came via the home run. That means 82% of their runs that crossed the plate this week were due to the longball.
Although this team has to potential to manufacture runs, unfortunately the Blue Jays haven't had very much luck with that. Not to mention, they're dead last in the Majors with a team .091 AVG with runners in scoring position.
So looking at those numbers, frankly it's surprising the Blue Jays managed to scrounge up enough runs to win two games this week and not drop all six of them against the Indians and Red Sox.
Colby Crushes One
Colby Rasmus truly was two different players this week; he struck out six times in the first four games, and then he found his power stroke and started absolutely launching balls over the outfield fence.
Most notably, the home run above traveled 468 feet in total, which was the furthest home run hit in all of baseball this past week. The ball bounced off the facing in the third deck in dead centre field, and frankly I'm surprised it didn't go higher than it did.
It's amazing how effortless and fluid that swing looked by Colby Rasmus. There has been glimmers of it in the past, most predominantly on this grand slam in Spring Training and this moonshot at Yankee Stadium last August.
Hopefully that was just the first of many towering home runs Rasmus will hit this season for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Reyes the On Base Machine
One of the bright spots this week on the Blue Jays roster was unquestionably Jose Reyes. He managed to get in base in all six games this week, and he lead off the first five games for the Blue Jays by getting on base.
That is precisely what this Blue Jays lineup needs; a tablesetter at the top of the order than can get on base for guys with power like Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion.
Although, there were a few scary moments with Reyes after he bonked his noggin on Asdrubal Cabrera's shin on Thursday and then got tagged in the nether region on Saturday. The fact is that aside from perhaps Jose Bautista, Jose Reyes is the most important bat in the Blue Jays lineup right now.
Despite the Blue Jays batting a paltry 0.091 with RISP, they simply cannot afford to have Jose Reyes miss any time due to injury. It would upset the entire balance of the lineup and would completely change the dynamic of that order.
Luckily Jose Reyes shook those things off, and continues to get on base; reaching in 14 of 22 at bats so far, which translates to a .519 on base percentage. A small sample size mind you, but that's an extremely promising start for the new Blue Jays leadoff man.