text:
Life, which was directed by Ted Demme from a script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, begins in the present as a tall tale told by an old convict named Willie (Obba Babatunde), who reminisces over the graves of his two old friends, Rayford Gibson (Eddie Murphy) and Claude Banks (Martin Lawrence). Then the film flashes back to said friends in Harlem some 65 years ago: Ray is a fast-talking hustler with slippery fingers who meets Claude when he relieves him of his wallet in the men's room of Club Spanky, a swank speakeasy owned by a notorious gangster of the same name. The predictable result of this petty crime is that these transgressors must appear before Spanky (Rick James) himself, and we find out that both men have already made the gangster's acquaintance. Because neither Ray nor Claude is able to pay back the money they owe, Spanky threatens to take it out of their hides when Ray hurriedly suggests the gangster join him in a little business venture. Ray, it seems, has access to the best moonshine in the state of Mississippi. If Spanky will spare the lives of Claude and Ray, they will travel down South and bring back a truckload of the stuff.
To their amazement Spanky jumps at the deal, setting up the second act of what is already a long prelude to the film's real story. While the two men are in Mississippi, they are wrongfully prosecuted, and convicted, for the bloody murder of a local gambler. The sentence? Life. As the men arrive at the Mississippi State Prison, the story starts to unfold, but even at this early point, the movie already feels stagnant and pointless. Life may be the film's title, but it's also what the picture lacks. Murphy has called the film "a big prison-escape film with comedy." But with the exception of one short breakout, during which nothing particularly funny or dramatic occurs, the characters remain in prison for the film's duration. There are, at least, some bright spots. In what is perhaps the funniest scene, Murphy loudly proclaims what will happen should anyone try to snatch his cornbread. By the time we figure out that Ray and Claude are going to remain in prison, interacting with the same dull roster of characters, the film loses whatever little dramatic tension it had managed to accumulate.
Watching The Nutty Professor or Dr. Doolittle, you can't help but be impressed by Murphy's range and diversity as an actor. In Life though, much of that raw ability is wasted. Not only are Demme and the screenwriters unable to come up with much of a character for Murphy to play, they also can't seem to find ways for the two comedians to interact with each another. Of the two characters, Murphy's Ray is more clearly drawn. (He gets the better part of the jokes, too.) Before Ray was arrested, he had dreams of some day opening a club called Ray's Boom Boom Room, a nightspot that in terms of riches and class would put the Cotton Club to shame. In one of the film's most poignant scenes, Ray fantasizes out loud about the club, giving each of his fellow inmates a job to fill. Claude's dreams are the most prosaic: All he wants to do is put this lousy episode behind him and go back to work at his job as a bank teller. Unfortunately these tiny bits of characterization are about all the filmmakers have given the actors to work with, so the heroes come across as vague and underdeveloped.
By comparison their fellow inmates are mere one-note wonders. A late arrival to the prison is a young mute who because of his speech impediment is given the nickname Can't Get Right (Bokeem Woodbine). In addition to not being able to speak, Can't Get Right is a naturally gifted baseball player who's able almost literally to knock the cover off a baseball. From the moment Claude first sees this phenomenal talent, he conjures a plan to make himself so instrumental to the young man's future that when he leaves prison to become a professional ballplayer, Claude will have to be released along with him.
When this last hope is finally dashed, Claude proclaims to Ray that their friendship is finished and withdraws into himself. By the time they begin talking again they are old men, and with the help of make-up wizard Rick Baker, they certainly look as if they have aged. Unfortunately they also look as though they have rubber Halloween masks glued to their faces. Instead of enhancing the actors' expressivity, the makeup reduces it.
What's most baffling about Life is how someone with Murphy's obvious gifts can produce pictures such as The Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle but then falter and come out with duds like Metro or this new mediocrity. There are indications scattered throughout Life that Murphy wanted the film to be more than just another shallow laugh fest. As the director of The Ref and coproducer on Rounders, Demme has experience with a more realistic brand of movie comedy than the kind Murphy is known for. At the same time, though, the movie depends all too often on dumb gags far below the actor's ability. As a result the film doesn't seem to know what sort of comedy it wants to be; it comes across as more confused than funny. In the long run, the title is a bit unfortunate as well. No film titled Life should remind us so often how much of ours it is wasting.
Directed by Ted Demme, from a script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone. Starring Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Obba Babatunde, Bokeem Woodbine, and Rick James.


text:
Rigel Will Resume Responsibility for Fostamatinib Program
Fostamatinib at 100mg BID Significantly Improves Rheumatoid Arthritis in Both OSKIRA-2 & OSKIRA-3
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., June 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) and AstraZeneca AB (AZ) today announced the topline results from OSKIRA-2 and OSKIRA-3, the remaining pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials investigating fostamatinib, the first oral spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) inhibitor in development for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
In the OSKIRA-2 study of patients inadequately responding to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), fostamatinib in combination with DMARDs showed statistically significant improvements in ACR20 response rates at 24 weeks in both the 100 mg twice daily (bid) group and the group receiving 100 mg bid for four weeks followed by 150 mg once daily (qd) compared to placebo.
In the OSKIRA-3 study of patients inadequately responding to methotrexate (MTX) and a single TNF-alpha antagonist, fostamatinib in combination with MTX showed statistically significant improvements in ACR20 response rates at 24 weeks in the 100 mg bid group, but not in the group given 100 mg bid for four weeks followed by 150 mg qd compared to placebo.
Fostamatinib ACR20 Scores
100 mg bid
49%, p<0.001
39.6%, p<0.001
36.2%, p=0.004
100 mg bid/150 mg qd
44%, p=0.006
39.6%, p<0.001
27.8%, p=0.168
Fostamatinib continues to be well tolerated by patients. The safety findings in both the OSKIRA-2 and OSKIRA-3 studies were generally consistent with those observed in the prior OSKIRA-1 study as well as the TASKi Phase 2 program.
Based on the totality of the results of the OSKIRA Phase 3 program in patients with RA, AZ has decided that it will not proceed with regulatory filings and will return the rights to the compound to Rigel.
Fostamatinib remains an important asset for Rigel. It is the most advanced oral SYK inhibitor in development and may have applications in patients with RA as well as other potential indications. Over the next couple of months, Rigel will collect and review the results of AZ's extensive development efforts with fostamatanib and determine the appropriate path forward.
"Fostamatinib continues to demonstrate positive patient outcomes and a reasonable safety profile," said James M. Gower, Rigel's chairman and chief executive officer. "We are looking forward to receiving and evaluating the full aggregation of AZ's efforts on this program this summer as we consider the appropriate next steps with this product candidate."
About the OSKIRA program
The (Oral SYK Inhibition in Rheumatoid Arthritis) OSKIRA program was designed to investigate fostamatinib as a potential new oral treatment option for RA and an alternative to injectable therapies for patients with an inadequate response to conventional DMARDs, including MTX (OSKIRA-1 and OSKIRA-2) and those with an inadequate response to TNF-α antagonists (OSKIRA-3).
- OSKIRA-1 was a 12-month study with ~900 patients, examining the effect of fostamatinib (100 mg bid or 100 mg bid for one month followed by 150 mg qd) compared with placebo over a 24 week period, in patients responding inadequately to MTX. OSKIRA-1 had co-primary endpoints of ACR20 scores and mTSS (x-ray endpoint assessing structural progression) at 24 weeks.
- OSKIRA-2 was a 12-month study with ~900 patients, examining the effect of fostamatinib (100 mg bid or 100 mg bid for one month followed by 150 mg qd) compared with placebo over a 24 week period, in patients responding inadequately to DMARDs. OSKIRA-2 had a primary endpoint of ACR20 at 24 weeks.
- OSKIRA-3 was a six-month study of ~320 patients assessing the effect of fostamatinib (100 mg bid or 100 mg bid for one month followed by 150 mg qd) compared with placebo in patients responding inadequately to TNF-α antagonist therapy. The primary endpoint of OSKIRA-3 was ACR20 at 24 weeks.
About Fostamatinib
Fostamatinib (previously referred to as R788) is the first kinase inhibitor with selectivity for SYK in development as an oral treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. In February 2010, AstraZeneca and Rigel Pharmaceuticals announced a worldwide license agreement whereby AstraZeneca was granted rights to develop and commercialize fostamatinib.
About ACR20
The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) score represents a percentage improvement in symptoms (tenderness and swelling in the joints). 28 joints are evaluated for tenderness and swelling respectively (prior to taking any required analgesic that day if possible). To qualify for an ACR20 score, a person with RA must have at least 20% fewer tender joints and at least 20% fewer swollen joints. He or she must also show a 20% improvement in at least three of the following five areas: 1) the person's overall (global) assessment of his or her own RA, 2) the physician's global assessment of the person's RA, 3) the person's assessment of his or her own pain, 4) the person's assessment of his or her own physical functioning, and 5) the results of an erythrocyte sedimentation rate or C-reactive protein blood test (both of which test for inflammation).
About Rigel (www.rigel.com)
Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage drug development company that discovers and develops novel, small-molecule drugs for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, as well as muscle disorders. Rigel's pioneering research focuses on intracellular signaling pathways and related targets that are critical to disease mechanisms. Current product development programs include fostamatinib, an oral SYK inhibitor for RA; R343, an inhaled SYK inhibitor for asthma, R333, a topical JAK/SYK inhibitor for discoid lupus, and R348, a topical JAK/SYK inhibitor for chronic dry eye, in/entering Phase 2 clinical trials; and two oncology products in Phase 1 trials with partners BerGenBio and Daiichi Sankyo.
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, including, without limitation, statements related to the further development of, and the therapeutic and commercial potential of, fostamatinib, including the return of full rights to fostamatanib to Rigel and potential next steps, and the timing for potential regulatory filings and publications of clinical data. Any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as "planned," "will," "may," "expect," and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Rigel's current expectations and inherently involve significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties, which include, without limitation, the uncertain timing of completion of and the success of clinical trials and the potential problems that may arise in the clinical development process, the uncertain and time-consuming regulatory filing and approval process, the availability of resources to develop Rigel's product candidates, the uncertain therapeutic and commercial value of fostamatinib, market competition, risks associated with and Rigel's dependence on Rigel's corporate partnerships, as well as other risks detailed from time to time in Rigel's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2013. Rigel does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements and expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein.
Contact: Raul Rodriguez
Phone: 650.624.1302
Email: email@example.com
Media Contact: Susan C. Rogers, Alchemy Consulting, Inc.
Phone: 650.430.3777
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
SOURCE Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Released June 4, 2013

subset: commoncrawl


text:
NOTES from the UNDERGROUND… No.126 | November 28, 2007
John Bennett: Murmurs and Shards by Norbert Blei
It's almost a square-shaped chapbook, unusual in size, about 7 by 8 inches (plus or minus) stuffed in my small library of stacked wooden crates (floor to ceiling) here in this old chicken coop where I work. The chaps are packed tightly in rows, folded stapled bindings sans titles. Some I almost know by color, by sight…covers faded, tattered. This is a working writer's library-at-hand of good friends (mostly never met), good words, good work. A personal collection of special, small press books I have a history with and keep near. Touchstones of a sort. Probably no one within miles and miles of this place ever heard of any of these books and writers. A reminder that the literary world, the literary life belongs to these writers too. The un-Oprahed, unlisted, un-academically acclaimed. "Authentic" is a word that comes to mind.
I pull the chaps out of the crates for almost any reason and at almost any time of year. Spring, summer, fall especially, when I can sit on the bench outside the coop, take a break, sip a cup of coffee (once upon a time, smoke a pipe) and just dwell in the quiet of the woods, the knowledge of lake water within walking distance, and the words, images, ideas, memories of a writer and his work—often an old, small press friend I may have lost track of through the years.
The faded gray cover of John Bennett's chapbook, ANARCHISTIC MURMURS from a High Mountain Valley, alas has seen better days. I handle it like an old sea scroll. The flimsy cover has finally separated from the staple binding. The corners are bent, There's a slight tear on both front and back. The fuchsia-colored mountain range (wrap-around cover image) however, still speaks as loud and in unison with the title. On the bottom of the back cover one finds: VAGABOND CHAPBOOK #1 $1.00 Inside the front cover I discover the chap was published in 1975. It goes back to then. Anarchy, mountains, valleys, murmurs and more. The pages are pure pulp, turning brown, fading fast. The words, though, still highly readable. The miracle of mimeograph printing (the high-tech of those, our times). Everyman his own printer. Small press printing at its affordable best—which Bennett practiced with a passion. A book pleasurable enough to sift through at any time. Murmuring still:
Take this for the truth: the ground is wet and the leaves are green and the man next door drives a big truck. The cup on the desk you used to drink beer out of once in a land called Germany (when you were young and foolish) now holds dust, spiders and the stubs of your pencils. But don't panic. Just take a deep breath and try to realize that this is the way life goes.
I remember when I first read that. l always liked it. Begin with a line "Take this for the truth" and who knows where it will take you—writer or reader. I have memorable mugs all over my own desk and windowsills, filled with dust, spiders, moths, marbles, mouse turds, colored pencils, paint brushes, broken pipes, pencil stubs, dead flowers, dry ballpoint pens… this is the way life goes…
Read on…
The trick is not to let anything begin to take shape. The moment it takes shape or even gives an indication of taking shape, rip it apart. Rip it out by the roots in your head and run the plow through one more time. Even if you're out there on the plow day and night, under the sun and under the moon, keep at it. Forget about the harvest. There will be no harvest. Just keep your plow going. Back and forth, back and forth for the rest of your days. There is no sense in figuring any of it out, because there is nothing to be figured out. What you figure out you make up, and that's where all the trouble starts.
A good murmur for a writer to lend heart to, repeatedly.
There's a temptation to print everything by Bennett within reach of me. Acquainting the reader with yet another mostly unknown, unheralded underground writer of note. Back to the 60's…back to the time he edited his own movin' little mag, VAGABOND. Back to the 70's, when he printed a number of his stories ("Zabrinski's Finest Hour," "The Night of the Great Butcher," among them) in Curt Johnson's 'big' little/literary mag, december. The late 80's into the 90's I lose track…Both a lot going on and nothing going on. For many of us still working the sidelines, a sort of fog seemed to seep in, everybody disappeared or disappearing to some degree, some pulling back; some settling into the onslaught of age and health; some maybe a little lost, fed up, wandering through unfinished works and thoughts of what might-have-been but wasn't, never will be. None of us know the other's whole story, true or false. But most everyone continued the journey, struggled with the world one way or another. Bennett, at last count, has some 38 books to his name, yet damn few know his name—outside the small press world.
It started for Bennett with murmurs (ANARCHISTIC MURMURS)…and now, in these our contemporary times, I can say with authority and (the sound of my own two hands clapping): he's still around. Never really left. A little older, angrier, wiser. A little more worse for wear, physically—if I read the dark health reports clearly between his lines. He's still at his outpost—Ellensburg, WA. And it's just harder an harder to find writers like him these days of everybody reading-the-same-book-some celebrity-tells-you-to read while the real writers out there, men and women of integrity, are continually ignored, dismissed, made invisible.
As I see it, taking the long view, Bennett's now turned his old heart "Murmurs" into these brilliant "Shards" which he calls them. Shards that keep surfacing from somewhere deep within a lifetime of work, reading, writing, observation. These philosophical, poetic sharp shards, which he keeps picking and polishing and publishing…laying them down one at a time on the internet—for those who can find them, those willing to take the time to read the real stuff.
The artist strives to recreate his reality minute by minute, that's the consensus of a school of thinkers who make it their business to stay on top of things. This is news to the artists who are too busy doing it to think about it.
The thinkers are disturbed by what they perceive as this nonchalance on the part of artists and their anarchistic tendency to jack reality around on a whim. They spend a lot of time establishing schools for the artists to be trained in, in order to enhance their understanding of their proper place in the order of things. The thinkers see themselves as guardians of The One True Reality, and the artists who fall in line are awarded with titles and recognition and generous creation grants; their art is then exhibited, their music played, and their books published. Artists who rebel against the thinkers are labeled irrelevant, and measures are taken to prevent their deviant creations from coming off the blocks.
I probably shouldn't be saying this out in the open, because once the guardians of The One True Reality get wind of it, they'll put their enormous Uniformity Machine in gear and set up a whole new network of screening schools, but I'll say it anyway: I think the driving force in true artists goes deeper than an urge to create new realities for themselves; I don't think they're realities at all, I think they're maneuvers and ploys, attempts to suck up and transform the misnomered One True Reality and its Uniformity Machine into a booming world of trumpets and drum rolls, undulations of undiminishing ecstasy and rapture, bright blended color, ceaseless motion that flows so harmoniously it appears to stand still.
I think true artists are the angels at the core of things, and they're out to get us.
Limited derangement. Hobnobbed estrangement. Ancestral echoes rumbling through my blood like thunder. Who are these people? What have they left me to deal with what I have no choice but to deal with?
I was born disassociated and there's nothing left to hang on to. Bring on your elections, your church-going multitudes, your wise investments and your slaughter-house wars. I walk through it all as if it were mist.
It's no better with progeny. I'm a glitch in an eternal continuum. I'll make do with small moments of kindness and soft fingers that now-and-then brush my cheek.
Driving along yesterday between window jobs I got a cell call from a good friend who years ago I used to drink with. I almost wrote party with, but we didn't party, we drank, and then we went crazy. People keep waiting for me to do the romantic thing and die young in a car crash or from a drug overdose or from a bullet through the crown of my skull as I shimmied down a drain pipe from the second story window of another man's wife, but I kept on keeping on and got older and people lost interest.
My friend had concern in his voice. "You doing okay?" he asked
"Fine," I said. "How about you?"
"I'm fine," he said. "I was just wondering about you."
I figured it was the Shards. I get that concern from a number of close friends, some I've had to take off the list they get so upset.
I think most of what's wrong with the world comes from people spending too much time with each other. Spend enough time alone (and I may be talking more time than you can possibly imagine) and a you that has nothing to do with the you that hangs out with people (in churches, at dances, in sports arenas, the Cub Scouts, the army, marching bands, the bars, your living room) begins to surface. I've been spending large amounts of time alone since I was a small child, and that's the me who writes Shards,
This is probably as close as I'll ever get to having both of me in the same place at the same time, not that that's a good thing.
If you meet a writer who is exactly like what he writes, he's an imposter.
I asked John for a little bio to include in this piece. I asked him to talk about the Shards. Like many a writer who had reached a certain stage in life—he was through with bio. No thanks. There's enough truth and bullshit out there. Go figure. Let the work speak for itself. And, like many a writer who's always a work in progress, it's impossible to talk about the work without revealing the writer behind it.
"I think they [the Shards] came to me. With the wisdom of hindsight, I see now that the seed for Shards was there from early on, and this seed got planted and broke ground back in the mid-60s when I broke free of the desire to be published in big-name magazines, the day I sat down with a bottle of Jack Daniels, a pen and a legal pad and in one afternoon smashed out the story "The Night of the Great Butcher". When I'd finished that first draft, I knew with a deep certainty that I had written something true and for the first time in my own voice. Butcher was my first published story, in Curt Johnson's, December; Curt's acceptance letter (I didn't know him from Adam at the time) consisted of: Goddam! The story that makes the issue always comes in at the last minute!
"There was an outpouring of stories after that, lots of poems and a novel or two, but over time I began to experience a sense of being "hemmed in". The next significant breakthrough came when I took a road trip around America in 1982 and kept a journal that turned into Tripping in America. As with the story "The Night of the Great Butcher", Tripping unleashed a torrential outpouring, and in two years I wrote non-stop in the same vein as Tripping (writing anchored in actual experience with wild spins into fantasy and conjecture). Included in this outpouring were the books Flying to Cambodia and Crime of the Century, the trilogy Survival Song, and numerous shorter works of 10, 20 and 30 pages, including The White Paper Series. What it all had in common was a "theme" that motivated the writing.
"And then the bottom fell out for me big time, and I wrote nothing for two years. When I finally brought the typewriter (remember typewriters?) down off the shelf, I found myself writing journalism, much of it for the local paper and one piece, Dead Dylan in the Summer of Love that got published in The Clinton Street Quarterly and won me the Darrell Bob Houston Award, sponsored by the Seattle Weekly. The journalism was like a fighter who's been out of the ring for a long time working out in the gym to get back in shape.
"Then, in the mid-90s, I took a trip to Belize, and something happened, I don't know what, but after I got back I woke up one morning with the words The Ghost of Tokyo Rose going around in my head, I sat down at the typewriter and began to write. I thought I was writing a book, and I wrote several hundred furious pages in a week before I realized that what I was doing was taking dictation. There were voices in my head and they were completely unfettered and said whatever they damn well pleased.
"For the past fifteen years I've been a stenographer. The Shards come out without premeditation or warning. I don't think about them before I write them, and I don't think about them afterward. I'm not trying to create a "body of work". I don't have an eye on the future, on making it, on being accepted. I just write them down as they come with a ballpoint on legal pads and transfer them onto my computer afterwards. It's a wonderful feeling. I think it is the feeling that should always accompany an act of creation.
"The Shards have found their way into a number of chapbook collections and every now and then someone like yourself expresses an interest in gathering some of them together and presenting them to a nebulous audience. I'm all for it. But how they get "out there" to begin with is through my e-mail address list, a hundred or so intrepid souls upon whom Shards rain down out of cyber space almost daily. Shards are right at home in this cyber-space, lightning-fast world. Who woulda thunk it. Me, the King of the Mimeo Revolution (according to Booklist), zinging around through cyberspace like a gooney bird."
To join John's mailing list of intrepid 'shard' souls, contact him at daslebenatfairpointdotnet and to read more about him, purchase his work, etc. check this website here…
For an encore, here's a recent Shard to sum-up the John Bennett story— so far.
Mental Health
I served my country. Fought the good fight. Valor and "Can do, sir! Yes sir! No excuse, sir!"
Lock and load and open fire. No child left behind, draft the lot of them.
So now I qualify for V.A. medical. Last time in my doctor apologized for not catching my aneurysms a year earlier. I told him not to sweat it, he has enough on his mind, and anyhow, how is he supposed to detect an aneurysm from a man's blood pressure and pulse rate in an annual check up? Hell, nine times out of ten they miss them with CAT scans.
I like my V.A. doctor. He's a P.A., actually, a Physician's Assistant. He was special forces, dropped out, went to med school. He's a young wired black belt who reads books. When I went in for my initiation into the system five years ago he was passing by as the in-take nurse weighed me in, and he picked up on my plucky, flirtatious banter. "I'll take him," he said, and snatched my file out of the nurse's hand. The place was crawling with WWII and Korean vets who were overweight, disillusioned and sporting serious alcohol problems. I was a breath of fresh air. We spent most of the first session talking books.
Today I filled out a ten-page "how are we doing" questionnaire from the V.A. I gave everything to do with cleanliness, courtesy and quality care an excellent, but then the questions began shifting, and suddenly it was all about me. They began digging around to see if I had a drug problem. And if I was mentally disturbed. I sat back, lit a cigarette, and pondered whether to go on or toss the whole thing in the round file. Out of curiosity, I went on.
I haven't had a drink in 22 years, and my drug problem amounts to cigarettes and coffee. Where it got interesting is when I got to the questions around depression and anxiety. It made me think of ten years earlier when things were so bad I sat the entire day for days on end staring out the window over a cup of cold coffee. Sleep was impossible except in snatches, and I dropped forty pounds in two weeks. It finally got so bad I went to a counselor.
She was a foxy little thing, the counselor, and right off the bat she put me on Zoloft. She told me I was at the patriarchal stage of life and should assume that role, then I'd feel better. She referred to the books I've written as articles. I lasted four weekly meetings with her, and then one morning I found myself on a ridge at sunrise, dancing like a dervish and finally crying out, "They're stealing my fire!"
After that I began exercising like a demon, forced myself to write and to play music, and got downright Spartan in all aspects of my life. Eventually, the blackness lifted.
If I'd answered truthfully every question on that questionnaire that probed for depression and anxiety, I'd have been batting 1000 and they probably would have hauled me in for observation. So I toned down my answers to make me look like a run-of-the-mill vet mired in melancholy.
When I told the counselor I'd flushed the Zoloft down the toilet, she told me I was in danger of spontaneous suicide.
"Is there any other kind?" I said.
She said it wasn't a laughing matter.
I said, "Well maybe you'll find this funny—I'm flushing you down the toilet, too."
She sat up straight and her eyes went cold. In slow, measured tones she said: "I can have you committed, you know."
"You don't want to open that can of worms," I said, and walked out.
By-the-book counselors?
I'd rather be a gored matador lying face down in the hot sand than turn myself over to these soul crushers.
A murmur is invisible, sounding some continual question.
A shard has some history, an ancient piece of a greater whole waiting to be discovered beneath the surface of things.
Transformation. Propagation through time, destruction.
A smoothening of the edges.
A sharpening of our story.


text:
Microsoft announced today that the Surface Pro tablet will be released in 19 additional countries in May, plus five more by the end of June.
Notably, the Surface pro will arrive in the U.K. in May, Microsoft revealed on its Surface blog.
Add to that Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland in May as well, and the Surface Pro will finally be a global product.
But it won't stop there - the following month, in June, the Surface Pro will launch in Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Surface going global
Unlike the Surface RT, which runs a dumbed-down version of Windows known as Windows RT, the Surface Pro runs a fully functional version of Windows 8.
The Pro version of the Surface tablet is currently availably only in the U.S., Canada and China, but that will change rapidly starting next month as Microsoft's flagship tablet begins rolling out to 24 additional countries.
The Surface RT, meanwhile, already available in 25 markets, will also extend its reach soon: The inferior Surface tablet will launch in Malaysia on April 25, in Mexico by the end of May and in Korea and Thailand in June, Microsoft revealed.
Learning from past mistakes
Microsoft claimed that demand for Surface tablets has been high, and that it's had difficulty keeping the 128GB Surface Pro in stock. That may account for the delay in the tablet's global launch - at least that's what Microsoft seems to say.
The company also said that would-be Surface users around the world have requested more updates, prompting Microsoft to add:
"To those of you who have pressed for information - please understand that before making these announcements we make sure that we have the volume of devices in place and alignment with our retail partners to do each launch well."
To be fair, any release delays are understandable considering what happened when the Surface Pro launched in the U.S. No doubt Microsoft is eager not to repeat those mistakes.


text:
May 1, 2009
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported 331 cases of swine influenza H1N1 in 11 countries as of 6 a.m. GMT today. The case numbers by country are United States, 109 (1 death) (these are yesterday's totals); Mexico, 156 (9 deaths), Canada, 34; Spain, 13; United Kingdom, 8; New Zealand, 3; Germany, 3; Israel, 2; and 1 each in Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. [WHO update 7]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 141 confirmed US cases in 19 states as of 11 a.m. ET today. New York leads the list with 50, followed by Texas, 28; South Carolina, 16, and California, 13. Other states have 4 or fewer cases. [CDC H1N1 flu page]
The US government will buy 13 million treatment courses of antiviral drugs to battle the swine flu, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last night. The new supplies will replace 11 million courses that HHS released to the states this week and add 2 million more, at a cost of $251 million, she said. She also said the government is sending 400,000 courses to Mexico. [HHS news release]
Hospitals and clinics in some parts of the country, including New York, California, and Alabama, are seeing a surge of the worried well—patients who have minor symptoms but major worries about swine flu, the Associated Press (AP) reported today. For example, a pediatric hospital in San Diego is seeing up to 50% more patients than usual.
The first person in Mexico who became ill with what turned out to be the new flu virus got sick on Mar 17, according to an MMWR Dispatch from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The first outbreak was reported to the Pan American Health Organization Apr 12. Mexico had a total of 1,918 suspected cases from Mar 1 through Apr 30, of which 286 were probable and 97 were confirmed. [MMWR Dispatch]
Nearly 300 schools nationwide were closed yesterday because of concern about the new virus, the Washington Post reported today. Most of the schools were in Texas, where all 147 schools in the Fort Worth district were closed for 10 days after one case was confirmed and three probable cases were reported.
Hong Kong has imposed a 7-day quarantine on about 200 guests and staff members of a hotel where a Mexican man who tested positive for swine flu stayed, according to ChannelNewsAsia.com. Authorities were also trying to trace passengers who were on the man's flight from Shanghai. A Hong Kong hotel was the launching pad for the international spread of SARS in 2003.


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Last day of the holidays today, so I thought I'd try not to spend the day learning stuff from the web, but do something else instead, like read a book, or watch a film, clean the greenhouse, try out a new recipe, or maybe even get a (late) head start on some marking, start looking at putting a bid together, or draft a paper for some tinpot journal or other, (because I really, really, really need to generate some 'research' income, publish something academically credible, find some way, any way, of justifying my salary…).
But it never works out like that, does it…? Because I saw a couple of tweets from Martin, and they lead, as ever, to a bit of playing…
So for example, from this post of Martin's – Free (and rebuild) the tweets! Export TwapperKeeper archives using Google Refine – I realised that Google Refine offers all sorts of import options I hadn't really noticed before (like the ability to import data from an XML (incl. Atom/RSS), RDF or JSON feed. Which means I really need to have a quick play with that…
…for example, by seeing if I can load in some data directly from a Twitter search using a URL of the form:
Ooh… magic:-)
Looking around various Google Refine works in progress, I also noticed that there appears to be a Python library for running Google Refine project scripts, which means you can presumably automate the Google Refine process? (Note to self – I still haven't found a noddy tutorial to help me get started with running the Gephi Toolkit from Jython).
Or how about this tweet, "forwarded" by Martin in the sense that he replied to a tweet from @SuButcher and included me in the response, so I could look up the thread being replied to: "@mhawksey I want to use a Googledocs form to populate a google map with twitter users – see http://t.co/uJGC78b8 and http://t.co/hLbBEUXY" which got me idly wondering about the quickest way to geocode data in a Google spreadsheet, remembering the Google Gadget that will do just this (Google Spreadsheet geocoding map gadget – a quick play suggests you can set the range to a whole column (e.g. B:B), but setting the range from a specific row to the end of the column using the format B2:B (eg for use mapping results from a google form, excluding the title row), doesn't seem to work?!)
Googling around, I also found this handy trick for getting the lat/long of a point out of Google maps in a recipe for Geocoding with Google Spreadsheets:
– CSV output for Google maps point geocoder: http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?output=csv&q=PLACENAME_OR_ADDRESS
And hence in the Google Spreadsheet context:
where "LOCATION" might equally be a reference to a cell that contains a location.
So… day wasted… again… may as well spend the rest of it doing F1DataJunkie stuff now…!
PS seems I was unwittingly sort of involved in the publication path of that Google Maps/CSV hack I linked to above… That's why I do what I do… unforeseen consequences.


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Yet another great talk at the JMM: Lauren Williams gave an introduction to cluster algebras in the Current Events section which was perfect for people, like me, who didn't know the definition. (The talks by Wei Ho, Sam Payne, and Mladen Bestvina were equally good, but I don't have any idle questions about them!)
This post will be too long if I try to include the definitions myself, and I wouldn't do as good a job of exposition as Williams did, so it's good news that she's arXived a survey paper which covers roughly the same ground as her talk.
Setup for idle question: you can get a cluster algebra comes from a process called "seed mutation" — given a rational function field K = k(x_1, … x_m), a labelled seed is a pair (Q,f) where Q is a quiver on m vertices and f = (f_1, … f_m) is a labelling of the vertices of Q with rational functions in K. For each i, there's a seed mutation mu_i which is an involution on the labelled seeds; see Williams's paper for the definition.
Now start with a labelled seed (Q,(x_1, … x_m)) and let T be the set of labelled seeds obtainable from the starting seed by repeated application of seed mutations mu_1, …. m_n for some n < m. (I didn't think carefully about the meaning of this special subset of n vertices, which are called the mutable vertices.)
It's called T because it's a tree, regular of degree n; each vertex is indexed by a word in the n seed mutations with no letter appearing twice in succession.
Anyway, for each vertex of T and each mutable vertex i you have a rational function f_i. The cluster algebra is the algebra generated by all these rational functions.
The great miracle — rather, one of the great miracles — is that, by a theorem of Fomin and Zelevinsky, the f_i are all Laurent; that is, their denominators are just monomials in the original functions x_i.
We are now ready for the idle question!
Let's take k to be a finite field F_q, and let U be (F_q^*)^m, the rational points of the m-torus over F_q. Choose a point u = (u_1, … u_n) in (F_q^*)^m.
Then for any vertex of T, we can (thanks to the Laurent condition!) evaluate the functions (f_1, …. f_m) at u, getting an element of F_q^m.
So a random walk on the tree T, combined with evaluation at u, gives you a random walk on F_q^m.
Idle question: Is there a spectral gap for this family of walks, independent of q?
Update: As David Speyer explains in the comments, this finite random walk is not in general well-defined. Let me try another phrasing which I think makes sense.
Let t be the endpoint of a length-R random walk on T; then evaluation at (1,1,..1) gives a probability distribution P_{R,N} on (Z/NZ)^m. Let U_N be the uniform distribution on (Z/NZ)^m. Now for each N we can ask about the limit
(I don't think it matters what norm we use.)
The idea is that the random walk on the tree should be equidistributing mod N, and the speed of convergence is governed by Λ_N. Then we can ask
Idle question mark 2: Is Λ_N bounded away from 1 by a constant independent of N?
This is a question in "spectral gap" style, which, if I did it right, doesn't a priori have to do with a sequence of finite graphs.
Motivation: this setup reminds me of a very well-known story in arithmetic groups; you have a discrete group Gamma which comes equipped with an action on an set of objects "over Z" — then reducing mod p for all p gives you a family of actions of Gamma on larger and larger finite sets, and a critical organizing question is: do the corresponding graphs have a spectral gap?
For that matter, what happens if you, say, keep k = C and then evaluate your f_i at (1,1,… 1)? Looking at a bigger and bigger ball in the tree you get bigger and bigger sets of elements of C^m; what do these look like? Do they shoot off to infinity, accumulate, equidistribute…..?


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Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Secret Weapon
It's my crock-pot and in fifteen minutes of prep time – I can create the illusion of having slaved in the kitchen for the last ten hours. Magically this appliance takes raw meat and vegetables and creates a main dish, a side and gravy. This satisfies my meat and potato men (separate sides of the plate, please) and my casserole (one dish, less clean-up) mentality.
I've heard the concerns about crock pot cooking: the appliance doesn't cook hot enough to be safe. What if it malfunctions (which has happened and we ordered take-out that night)? What if it sets off a fire when I'm not home? I'm willing to take the risks as I do with all the other appliances plugged into my house. Thankfully no one has gotten ill from one of my crock-pot adventures, and I have yet to burn the house down.
I own about fifteen slow cooking cookbooks, and always looking for a new take on my stainless steel wonder. One of my family's favorites is pork BBQ. It is stupidly simple and can spawn multiple varieties. One pork butt roast with bone intact (don't know why the bone matters but it does). Put the roast in the slow cooker ten hours in advance of dinnertime. If I remember, I try to put a liner in the cooker to ease my clean-up. Pour one bottle of BBQ sauce over the top and cook on low for 10+ hours. I keep this one very simple with just meat – but I usually add vegetables to my other slow cooker recipes such as pot roast, chicken and dumplings, (bastardized) chicken cacciatore, or beef stew.
At the end of cooking time (and this works well overnight for lunch, too), all the meat falls off the bone into juicy, tangy ribbons of pork which are easily draped over a sandwich roll. I like it by itself with vinegar BBQ sauce. Throw together some salad, fruit or baked beans, and I have a meal. Turkey or chicken can be substituted for less time with good results.
The best part ….the whole house smells like I've cooked all day. Heroically I can serve dinner at 6PM sharp with clean-up by 7. Not faster than a speeding bullet but according to 19th century French chef and author Urbain Dubois, "the ambition of every good cook must be to make something very good with the fewest possible ingredients."
5 comments:
- AnonymousSeptember 17, 2008 at 12:17 PM
I love practical recommendations like this one.ReplyDelete
At first glance I thought you were saying you owned fifteen slow cookers. This impressed me.
Please recommend a specific slow cooker and your favourite cookbook.
- AnonymousSeptember 17, 2008 at 2:16 PM
Any of the Fix It and Forget Cookbooks are good. Have also found good recipes in the $4.95 cookbooks by the register on the way out of the grocery store. I have 2 crock pots - the most recent is one of the bigger Rival brands. I use both of them during the holidays.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 17, 2008 at 6:02 PM
I so completely agree with this post. I could not survive without my crock pot! A couple of add-ons I've found helpful...ReplyDelete
Crock pot recipes usually yield lots of leftovers. I put 2 servings of a leftover dish into a vacuum-seal bag and seal it with the vacuum-sealer. I label the bag and put it in the freezer. When I can't get home or if I don't have time to cook an entree that night, I yank a bag or two out of the freezer and heat them up. Instant entree, and my husband can do this when I'm late at the hospital.
On weekends that I'm off and we're not out of town, I'll make 3 or 4 different entrees in the crock pot and freeze most of them in this way. This allows me to have a large variety of frozen entrees to choose from on busy nights.
I would love to learn how to wield a crock pot. We got one as a gift and I just haven't had the motivation/energy/time (how appropriate) to figure out how to use it or what to make. My inertia has always been frightening.ReplyDelete
But you are inspiring me to make that bbq pork!
- AnonymousSeptember 19, 2008 at 10:01 PM
You can do the same thing with a pot roast and have BBQ beef. A sliced onion in there helps it.ReplyDelete


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The book recounted blow by blow, the horror and ecstasy of war and killing by the Marines. Riding in the back seat of a humvee the author saw it all. Now and then some of the solidiers began to feel conflicted about the war. Wright recounted one GI named Espera, from Los Angeles, who was beginning to feel remorse.
He wrote that though Espera took pride in being a "violent warrior," the philosophical
implications weigh on him. "I asked a priest if it's okay to kill people in war," Espera told Wright. "He said it's okay as long as you don't enjoy it. Before we crossed into Iraq, I fucking hated Arabs. I don't know why. I never saw too many in Afghanistan. But as soon as we got here, it's just gone. I just feel sorry for them. I miss my little girl. Dog, I don't want to kill nobody's children."
Wright reports Marines call themselves "Devil Dogs" -- according to lore, German soldiers in WWI nicknamed them, "Tuffen Hunds," in grudging praise of their tenacity -- and the chaplain assigned to the outfit incorporated this into his sermons. "They nickname you Devil Dogs," he tells his flock. "But Jesus was the original Devil Dog. He faced evil, and he beat it. Jesus is the Devil Dog you will want on your side going into battle."
If Jesus was Devil Dog, who would Allah be?
Wright tells us about Alpha Company commander Bryan Patterson, Naval Academy graduate before becoming a Marine. Patterson says, "There is not a good thing that comes out of war. I'm not going to pretend I'm this great American savior in Iraq. We didn't come here to liberate. We came to look out for our interests. That we are here is good. But if to liberate them means putting a Starbucks and a McDonald's on every street corner, is that liberation? But I have to justify this to myself. It's Saddam's fault." Still, he says, "the protestors have a lot of valid points. War sucks."
Then there was Carazales from Cuero, Texas. He hates the Marines, hates officers, hates rich people. As they move from village to village, they are shooting at virtually anyone who moves. It wears on Carazales. Wright reports again, "How do you think we would feel if someone came into our country and lit us up like this?" Carazales says. "South of Al Gharraf I know I shot a building with a bunch of civilians in it. Everyone else was lighting it up. Then we found out there were civilians in there. It's fucked up." Carazales works himself into a rage. "I think it's bullshit how these fucking civilians are dying! They're worse off than the guys that are shooting at us. They don't even have a chance. Do you think people at home are going to see this -- all these women and children we're killing? Fuck no. Back home they're glorifying this motherfucker, I guarantee you. Saying our president is a fucking hero for getting us into this bitch. He ain't even a real Texan."
The book ends with the Marines sent back to the states but with orders to soon return to Iraq. Espera returns home to Los Angeles. He was invited to a party at a gated community in Malibu where residents wanted to toast a war hero. Wright recounts how guests repeatedly praised his heroism in serving his country. Then, after his fifth or sixth glass of wine, Espera rose to his feet. "I'm not a hero," he said. The guests nodded, their smiles stretching even wider at this hero's show of humility. "Guys like me are just a necessary part of things," Espera continued. "To maintain this way of life in a fine community like this, you need psychos like us to go out and drop a bomb on somebody's house."


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Tony Stewart says Ward's death will affect him forever
HAMPTON | Unshaven and with a quivering voice, NASCAR superstar Tony Stewart said the death of Kevin Ward Jr. will "affect my life forever" as he returned to the track Friday for the first time since his car struck and killed the fellow driver during a sprint race in New York three weeks ago.
Stewart read from a statement that, his team said, he wrote himself. He spoke just under 2 1/2 minutes, pausing several times to compose himself. He took no questions about the incident that it still being investigated by law enforcement officials.
"This has been one of the toughest tragedies I've ever had to deal with, both professionally and personally," Stewart said in a packed media room on the infield at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "This is a sadness and a pain I hope no one has to experience in their life. That being said, I know that the pain and mourning that Kevin Ward's family and friends are experiencing is something that I can't possibly imagine."
He mentioned Ward's parents and three sisters by name, saying he wanted them "to know that every day I'm thinking about them and praying for them."
The brief news conference presented a much different side to the brash driver known as "Smoke," whose explosive temper has led to clashes with the media and fellow drivers. Wearing a black polo shirt and blue jeans, Stewart delivered his 285-word statement in a quivering tone, his eyes moist.
He skipped three races after Ward's death, going into seclusion at his rural Indiana home. Stewart's team said he needed time to grieve, and some questioned if he felt guilt over the crash.
During an Aug. 9 sprint-car event in upstate New York, Stewart and Ward collided while racing into a turn, which sent Ward's car spinning. The 20-year-old Ward climbed from his wrecked machine and wandered onto the track, apparently wanting to make his displeasure known to the three-time NASCAR champion. One car appeared to swerve to avoid Ward, but he was struck by the back right tire of Stewart's car.
"I've taken the last couple of weeks off out of respect for Kevin and his family and also to cope with the accident in my own way," Stewart said. "It's given me the time to think about life and how easy it is to take it for granted. I miss my team, my teammates and I miss being back in the race car and I think being back in the car this week with my racing family will help me get through this difficult time."
The 43-year-old Stewart pulled out of the race at nearby Watkins Glen the morning after Ward was killed, and then skipped events at Michigan and Bristol.
But with two weeks left until the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, Stewart is preparing to go racing again. He was set to practice Friday afternoon, go through qualifying in the evening, and race Sunday night on the 1.54-mile trioval. He will need a medical waiver to still be eligible for the playoff.
Stewart-Haas Racing executive vice president Brett Frood said it was "100 percent" Stewart's decision to race at one of NASCAR's fastest tracks.
"I think for Tony, it's all about the healing process," Frood said. "Besides his mom, his dad, his sister, his niece and nephew, his family is here at the racetrack. Part of the healing process is to be with family he's been with since (entering NASCAR) in 1999. Knowing these people will help him get through this."
Asked if Stewart had reached out to Ward's family, Frood said the driver sent flowers and a card around the time of the funeral.
"Besides, that, he's been very respectful of them and their time to grieve," Frood said. "It's important for Tony to spend time with the family. I do think that will happen at the appropriate time."
Stewart said he knows there are plenty of questions surrounding Ward's death. Many of those have focused on whether he was trying to frighten a young driver who had the nerve to challenge him over a racing crash. Authorities said Friday that the law enforcement investigation will last for at least another two weeks.
"Tony is very emotional. It's been a difficult two weeks," Frood said. "But Tony is ready to be in the race car. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't."


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MOTIVATION, MINDSET and GRIT: Practical, Proven Strategies to Increase Learning
Presented by Catherine Wilson
Specifically Designed for Classroom Teachers, Reading Specialists, Special Education Staff, Behavior Intervention Specialists, Counselors, Instructional Assistants, School Psychologists, and Administrators Serving Grades 3-12
- Ready-to-use resources to help your students develop a positive growth mindset to increase their success in school – socially, emotionally and academically … Proven ideas for in-person and distance learning environments
- Innovative ways to teach grit and increase perseverance that will maximize instructional time, reduce "I can't" language and self-defeating attitudes
- Proven tips and strategies that will inspire and motivate your students to develop a growth mindset and strengthen grit
- Receive an extensive resource handbook filled with an abundance of practical strategies, lessons and models designed to accelerate each student's learning and success in your classroom
Practical Ideas and Strategies
In this outstanding seminar, Catherine Wilson will share dozens of practical ways to address the challenges of working with a diverse range of students and how you can help them achieve greater motivation, grit, determination, and perseverance. Throughout the seminar, you'll receive highly practical tips, strategies, instructional techniques, and activities to not only increase the rigor of your teaching, but engage your students in meaningful ways that will allow for greater connections and increased understanding. You will learn powerful ways to help students develop a positive growth mindset and a stronger capacity to actively engage in the learning process. Learn to help students understand the importance of effort and how to persevere when they meet obstacles in their path towards achievement.
You'll leave this seminar with a renewed sense of purpose, equipped with an expanded "toolbox" of proven strategies that will allow your students to become more engaged and motivated in ways that make learning more meaningful and achievable.
Ten Key Benefits of Attending
- Help Students Experience Greater Motivation in Your Classroom
Connect positively with the most difficult students and breach their cycles of failure and misbehavior … Gain proven ways to increase students' motivation to learn and succeed whether you are teaching in-person, online or in a hybrid learning environment
- Increase Student Engagement
Learn how to use universal interventions to foster academic perseverance … Gain useful resources, tools and tricks you can use immediately
- Help Your Students Develop Growth Mindsets
Discover the difference between fixed and growth mindsets and how mindset directly affects student achievement … Learn techniques extraordinary teachers use to motivate even the most unmotivated students
- Enhance Students' Attention and Memory
Gain insight from the latest scientific research on how students learn and what you can do to strengthen your classroom teaching … Learn proven strategies that enhance struggling students' motivation, attention and memory
- Help Your Students Take Greater Responsibility for Their Own Learning
Help your students take greater responsibility for their own learning and experience increased success in your classroom … Gain easy-to-use mindset and grit lessons to counter learned helplessness that affects many of today's students
- Develop the Powerful Drive Inside All Learners
Discover the motivating and energizing effects of grit and ways that developing a 21st Century mindset can help alter a student's trajectory … Learn how to cultivate a classroom built on curiosity and increase student drive
- Increase Active Engagement, Decrease Negative Student Behavior
Learn specific techniques, activities and routines to increase active engagement, student interest and collaboration, while decreasing negative student behaviors
- Make Instruction More Meaningful for Students
Explore how the use of explicit, relevant instruction allows for increased success and understanding for students when applied to everyday activities and concepts … Here's how!
- Low-Prep, High-Impact Strategies
All students can succeed when teachers create differentiated pathways for different learners … Return to the classroom ready to put low-prep, high-impact perseverance strategies into action whether working in-person or online
- Receive an Extensive Digital Resource Handbook
Each participant will receive an extensive digital resource handbook filled with practical strategies and useful resources presented in this seminar
Outstanding Strategies You Can Use Immediately
- The best instructional practices for students who struggle, including dozens of differentiated instructional strategies that support multi-tiered systems of support … Proven ideas for in-person as well as distance learning environments
- Ready-to-use resources to grow mindsets and grit in your classroom, including mindset assessment tools
- Practical approaches to building positive, trusting relationships with students and creating a learning community where students not only want to put forth their maximum efforts but enjoy learning
- The latest scientific research on how students learn and what you can do to motivate them to persevere
- Engaging and relevant instructional strategies for students that increase student interest, time-on-task and self-reflection
Specific strategies to improve students' attitudes toward learning and themselves as learners
- Tips and tools for effectively responding to "I can't" language or self-defeating attitudes of struggling students
- Research-based instructional techniques that build grit by providing scaffolding while supporting your students in overcoming learned helplessness, making progress academically and learning new skills
- How to create a culture of accountability with effective ways to increase students' intrinsic motivation
- Innovative ways to incorporate social-emotional learning throughout your classroom
- Easy ideas to replace worksheets with engaging and meaningful activities that will inspire and motivate your students
- Numerous ways you can turn your learners into critical thinkers, readers and writers
- Motivating individual and group activities to keep students engaged throughout your lessons and throughout their school day
A Message From Your Seminar Leader
Dear Colleague:
I know from my own experience that among the many challenges of working with students, often the most difficult is how to engage students who seem unmotivated, unreachable, refuse to participate, and disrupt other students. Many students have struggled for years, just don't believe they can be successful and that they are doomed to fail.
But all the current research confirms that humans are natural learners and that we are not limited by IQ or disability. As teachers, if we can provide the right environment to unleash students' curiosity we can produce increased motivation, engagement and time spent on task for all learners. We now know which elements are needed to accomplish this … We also know the value in explicitly teaching our students about mindsets. We can literally teach our students the skills to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, changing how they think about their own abilities and responsibility for learning.
Students who have learning differences are often very aware of which tasks are difficult for them. They may experience frustration that can result in a lack of confidence and eventually low self-esteem. Students often make a decision about themselves early on as to whether they are good at something and about their intelligence. This is why the development of skills such as perseverance, resiliency, grit, emotional regulation, and optimism; along with providing the right learning environment has never been more essential.
It is my goal that this seminar will open new doors to help you better reach the needs of all your students using growth mindset, grit and motivation strategies. You will learn practical strategies that can be used immediately within your classroom to help your students. I will share proven ways to teach students how to increase their academic success and quickly become aware of their own negative self-defeating attitudes that get in the way of learning.
I look forward to meeting you and sharing many innovative ideas and strategies you can add to your instructional "toolbox" for working more effectively with your learners whether you are in-person, online or a hybrid learning environment.
Catherine Wilson
P.S. This seminar is a MUST if you work with students who don't believe they can learn, give up easily, don't want to try without significant assistance or believe that they're just "not good at school."
Who Should Attend
Classroom Teachers, Interventionists, Title I Staff, Program Specialists, Paraprofessionals, and Administrators Serving Grades 3-12
Special Benefits of Attending
Extensive Digital Resource Handbook
Each participant will receive an extensive digital resource handbook specifically designed for this seminar. The handbook includes:
- Key ideas, specific tips and numerous strategies for increasing achievement of students whether you're working at school or online
- Essential strategies for increasing students' intrinsic motivation and curiosity for learning
- Specific lesson ideas that grow mindsets and grit
- Practical approaches for increasing students' determination, ability to learn from failure and their perseverance
- Ready-to-use ideas to create an energized, engaged and motivated classroom culture built on mindsets
- Digital tools to help educators promote a rigorous and supportive classroom climate including resources, reproducibles, materials, and tools
Share Ideas with Other Educators
This seminar provides a wonderful opportunity for participants to share ideas with other educators interested in enhancing their students' motivation and positive growth mindset.
Consultation Available
Catherine Wilson will be available at the seminar for consultation regarding your questions and the unique needs of your own growth mindset program.
On-Site Training Guarantee
BER is not a booking agency that just finds a presenter who presents on the topic you requested. Rather, we only recommend highly experienced BER presenters who have consistently received outstanding evaluations from educators attending their trainings.
Consequently, we provide a strong program guarantee.
We guarantee you'll be fully satisfied or you'll owe us nothing after your on-site training event.


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Intracerebral Gene Therapy for Children With Early Onset Forms of Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (TG-MLD)
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01801709
Recruitment Status : Active, not recruiting
First Posted : March 1, 2013
Last Update Posted : January 11, 2022
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The objective of this open-label, single arm, monocentric, phase I/II clinical study is to assess safety and efficacy of ARSA gene transfer in the brain of children affected with early onset forms of Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD). For this purpose, an adeno-associated virus serotype rh.10 (AAVrh.10) vector will be used to transfer the ARSA cDNA coding for Arylsulfatase A (ARSA) enzyme into the brain of children. Five patients with early onset form of MLD, age ranging from 6 months to 4 years, will be included in this protocol and will be followed during 24 months.
Patients will be selected at presymptomatic or early stage of their disease, following clinical, neuropsychological and brain imaging criteria.
Twelve simultaneous injections of the investigational medicinal product will be performed in the white matter of both brain hemispheres, through 6 image-guided tracks, with 2 deposits per track.
A low dose (1x10EXP12 vg total) will be administered to the first 2 patients, while the last 3 will receive a higher dose (4x10EXP12 vg total).
Safety and efficiency will be evaluated based on clinical, neuropsychological, radiological, electrophysiological and biological parameters.
|Condition or disease
|Metachromatic Leukodystrophy
|Genetic: intracerebral administration of AAVrh.10cuARSA
|Phase 1 Phase 2
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Estimated Enrollment :
|5 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Single Group Assignment
|None (Open Label)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|A Phase I/II, Open Labeled, Monocentric Study of Direct Intracranial Administration of a Replication Deficient Adeno-associated Virus Gene Transfer Vector Serotype rh.10 Expressing the Human ARSA cDNA to Children With Metachromatic Leukodystrophy.
|Actual Study Start Date :
|June 2014
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|June 2016
|Estimated Study Completion Date :
|May 2029
Experimental: AAVrh.10cuARSA
intracerebral administration of AAVrh.10cuARSA at 12 sites in the white matter of both brain hemispheres.
Genetic: intracerebral administration of AAVrh.10cuARSA
- Evaluate the tolerance of the intracerebral administration of a single dose of AAVrh.10cuARSA [ Time Frame: During the two years follow-up ]
Tolerance will be measured by :
- Adverse event,
- Clinical and neurological exams,
- Laboratory tests,
- Neuroimagery (CT scan, brain MRI).
- Evaluate the efficacy of intracerebral administration of a single dose of AAVrh.10cuARSA to stop the disease progression. [ Time Frame: During the two years follow-up ]
Efficacy will be measured by:
- MLD neurological severity score,
- Neurological evaluation,
- Motor scores (GMFM, Ashworth and ICARS),
- Cognitive functions (Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID)(0-42 months), or Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III (WPPSI-III) (43 months-6 years)),
- MLD severity MRI score, MRI-DTI parameters, measurement of cerebral atrophy and spectroscopy,
- Neuroelectrophysiological tests (peripheral nerve conduction velocity, visual, auditory and somatosensory evoked potentials).
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|6 Months to 5 Years (Child)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Boys or girls with an early onset form of MLD.
- Age between 6 months and 5 years, inclusive
- Diagnostic of MLD based on the measurement of ARSA activity in leukocytes and the accumulation of sulfatides in urine, along with normal activity of at least one other sulfatase
- Informed consent signed up and willingness for monitoring 2 years after treatment.
- Normal values for standard laboratory tests
Exclusion Criteria:
- Absence of ARSA protein by immunocytochemistry and/or ELISA
- Gestational age <32 weeks of amenorrhoea and age < 1 year
- Brain atrophy with a subdural space > 10 mm in the frontal region
- Performance IQ<50 at WPPSI-III or cognitive function < 3rd percentile at the Bayley's test of infant development
- If age > 16 months at inclusion, inability to walk few steps alone OR inability to walk few steps with support on one side along with inability to stand up alone
- Impossibility for anesthesia
- Malignancy, cardiac malformation, liver dysfunction, or renal dysfunction
- Neurological disorder, except benign, not related to MLD.
- Any other clinically significant untreated co-morbid medical condition as determined by the clinical investigator, including cardiac, pulmonary or kidney disease.
- MRI impossibility
- Evoked potential impossibility
- Participation to another therapeutic clinical trial for MLD.
- Unaffiliated to any French or any other National Health Insurance.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT01801709
|Bicêtre Hospital - Paris Sud
|Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
|Principal Investigator:
|Patrick Aubourg, MD-PhD
|Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris and Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
|Study Director:
|Caroline Sevin, MD-PhD
|Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
|Study Director:
|Michel Zerah, MD, PhD
|Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
|Study Director:
|Thomas Roujeau, MD, PhD
|Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
|Study Director:
|Nathalie Cartier, MD, PhD
|Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Biomédicale
Publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
|Responsible Party:
|Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
2011-004410-42 ( EudraCT Number )
|First Posted:
|March 1, 2013 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|January 11, 2022
|Last Verified:
|January 2022
Brain Gene Therapy
Adeno Associated vector
Lysosomal sotage diseases
Leukodystrophy, Metachromatic
Hereditary Central Nervous System Demyelinating Diseases
Brain Diseases, Metabolic, Inborn
Brain Diseases, Metabolic
Brain Diseases
Central Nervous System Diseases
Nervous System Diseases
Lysosomal Storage Diseases, Nervous System
Demyelinating Diseases
Metabolism, Inborn Errors
Genetic Diseases, Inborn
Lipid Metabolism, Inborn Errors
Lysosomal Storage Diseases
Metabolic Diseases
Lipid Metabolism Disorders


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What are Prescription Custom Orthotics?
Custom orthotics are specially-made devices designed to support and comfort your feet. Prescription orthotics are crafted for you and no one else. They match the contours of your feet precisely and are designed for the way you move. Orthotics are only manufactured after a podiatrist has conducted a complete evaluation of your feet, ankles, and legs, so the orthotic can accommodate your unique foot structure and pathology.
Prescription orthotics are divided into two categories:
- Functional orthotics are designed to control abnormal motion. They may be used to treat foot pain caused by abnormal motion; they can also be used to treat injuries such as shin splints or tendinitis. Functional orthotics are usually crafted of a semi-rigid material such as plastic or graphite.
- Accommodative orthotics are softer and meant to provide additional cushioning and support. They can be used to treat diabetic foot ulcers, painful calluses on the bottom of the foot, and other uncomfortable conditions.
Podiatrists use orthotics to treat foot problems such as plantar fasciitis, bursitis, tendinitis, diabetic foot ulcers, and foot, ankle, and heel pain. Clinical research studies have shown that podiatrist-prescribed foot orthotics decrease foot pain and improve function.
Orthotics typically cost more than shoe inserts purchased in a retail store, but the additional cost is usually well worth it. Unlike shoe inserts, orthotics are molded to fit each individual foot, so you can be sure that your orthotics fit and do what they're supposed to do. Prescription orthotics are also made of top-notch materials and last many years when cared for properly. Insurance often helps pay for prescription orthotics.
What are Shoe Inserts?
You've seen them at the grocery store and at the mall. You've probably even seen them on TV and online. Shoe inserts are any kind of non-prescription foot support designed to be worn inside a shoe. Pre-packaged, mass-produced, arch supports are shoe inserts. So are the "custom-made" insoles and foot supports that you can order online or at retail stores. Unless the device has been prescribed by a doctor and crafted for your specific foot, it's a shoe insert, not a custom orthotic device—despite what the ads might say.
Shoe inserts can be very helpful for a variety of foot ailments, including flat arches and foot and leg pain. They can cushion your feet, provide comfort, and support your arches, but they can't correct biomechanical foot problems or cure long-standing foot issues.
The most common types of shoe inserts are:
- Arch supports: Some people have high arches. Others have low arches or flat feet. Arch supports generally have a "bumped-up" appearance and are designed to support the foot's natural arch.
- Insoles: Insoles slip into your shoe to provide extra cushioning and support. Insoles are often made of gel, foam, or plastic.
- Heel liners: Heel liners, sometimes called heel pads or heel cups, provide extra cushioning in the heel region. They may be especially useful for patients who have foot pain caused by age-related thinning of the heels' natural fat pads.
- Foot cushions: Do your shoes rub against your heel or your toes? Foot cushions come in many different shapes and sizes and can be used as a barrier between you and your shoe.
Choosing an Over-the-Counter Shoe Insert
Selecting a shoe insert from the wide variety of devices on the market can be overwhelming. Here are some podiatrist-tested tips to help you find the insert that best meets your needs:
- Consider your health. Do you have diabetes? Problems with circulation? An over-the-counter insert may not be your best bet. Diabetes and poor circulation increase your risk of foot ulcers and infections, so schedule an appointment with a podiatrist. He or she can help you select a solution that won't cause additional health problems.
- Think about the purpose. Are you planning to run a marathon, or do you just need a little arch support in your work shoes? Look for a product that fits your planned level of activity.
- Bring your shoes. For the insert to be effective, it has to fit into your shoes. So bring your sneakers, dress shoes, or work boots—whatever you plan to wear with your insert. Look for an insert that will fit the contours of your shoe.
- Try them on. If all possible, slip the insert into your shoe and try it out. Walk around a little. How does it feel? Don't assume that feelings of pressure will go away with continued wear. (If you can't try the inserts at the store, ask about the store's return policy and hold on to your receipt.)
Call Dr. Tatiana DeLaurentiis for Prescription Custom Orthotics
If you are simply looking for extra cushioning or support, you may wish to try an over-the-counter shoe insert first. If you have serious pain or discomfort, however, schedule an appointment with Dr. Tatiana DeLaurentiis. She will assess your overall health and look for any other contributing factors and is specially trained to evaluate the biomechanics of the lower extremity.
Dr. DeLaurentiis will examine your feet and how you walk. She will listen carefully to your complaints and concerns and will assess the movement and function of your lower extremities. She may use advanced technology to see how your feet function when walking or running.
The information gathered during the exam will help Dr. DeLaurentiis determine if shoe inserts might be helpful or if you need prescription orthotics. If orthotics are needed, Dr. DeLaurentiis will capture a three-dimensional image of each foot. Those images, as well as any measurements obtained by Dr. DeLaurentiis, are used to create a set of unique foot supports that will improve your foot movement and lead to more comfort and mobility. Dr. DeLaurentiis might also suggest additional treatments to improve the comfort and function of your feet.
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