Lethean Cottage

My Author of The Month (December 2011)

2012-02-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

Stig Daggerman has had the touch of magic on my soul,irritably shaking the core with his shockingly direct and masterfullyaggressive style. Daggerman epitomize the very simple and defenselessintellectual exposed to harsh reality of 20^th century. Sweden, hishomeland was passing a crucial period with much pressure hinging on the laborerand low-income. Anarchism and syndicalism was surging all across the Europestir up the calm nature of region. Joining syndicalism was the fruit of a complicatedpolitical/social background which is less dignified. Like all well-known publicblack-outs, a surging interest in his works has appeared since 1980s and areward is called to his honor. He was the full-view representative ofintellectuals highly affected in the wake of post-world war II era. Hiswritings convey the themes of existentialism via artfully expressed feelings offear and uncertainty. Imagine Kierkegaard’s level of consciousness stripped ofall intangible chase for spirituality (Kierkegaard’s 2^nd and 3^rdlayers) more focused on aesthetics of social conducts and family affairs instead.

I think something, an unknown factor still dominates his lines, haunting the reader. Definitely Dagerman’s family life andemotional conflicts have made the fair ground for his outstanding streak ofwriting to flow. I’ve spent a number of my desolation days with the highlyemotive pulsation of Daggerman’s “Snake” under my skin. Feeling insecure lonelyand hopeless is not a heavenly gift but admittedly has yielded some literarymasterpieces, as history has shown.

I spent some pleasant time with Stig Dagerman's short stories in december. pedram

Limbic

2012-01-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

“When the child then runs through the garden it thinks allthe time about the river and the boat and the fish who are swimming and nobodywhispers to it that it has eight minutes to live and that the boat shall remainwhere it rests all day and many days thereafter.”

Stig Dagerman

Closure

2012-01-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

Small table
Back corner
Stark bar
He'd have nod off

Ghosts of the beloved...
Would have greeted him
Angels of oblivion
Would have embraced him
pedram

My Album of The Month (November 2011)

2012-01-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

A decent post-rock album by german band "Collapse Under The Empire". The duo manage to conjure up a perfect blend.Shoulders & Giants is the first half of a two-part concept work that thematically deals with the human existence, the dream of advancement, a life of absolute freedom, isolation, and death. The album is bleak and severe, but subtly lit from within with touches of hope and beauty. It immerses the listener in the sensation of being alone in the mountains and crevasses of an arctic environment – the harshness of the bitter solace, the joy at the soaring beauty of nature’s splendour.

United: Adapting To Adversity

2011-12-29T01:57:00.000-08:00

When Manchester United are at their fluent attacking best Sir Alex Ferguson's players delight in confounding opponents by frequently, if temporarily, interchanging roles. Invariably wonderful to watch, such positional rotation is something only very good teams dare indulge in. Moreover their managers tend to ensure that these fluid interludes of movement are firmly underpinned by the reassuring presence of tactical safety nets.

Under enemy fire, leading sides usually revert to default starting formations with defenders deployed conventionally and even free spirits in the Wayne Rooney or Dimitar Berbatov moulds detailed to perform specific marking tasks. Yet as Ferguson prepares to celebrate his 70th birthday on Saturday he knows that so many pieces of United's basic framework have recently required patching up with ill‑fitting parts that he has little option but to improvise for entire 90-minute stretches.
With 11 senior players – including the long‑term absentees Nemanja Vidic and Darren Fletcher – occupying the Old Trafford treatment room the phrase "positional rotation" has assumed a whole new meaning as United's fit squad members are asked to pretend they are Ajax-type "total footballers".
If Michael Carrick and Patrice Evra cannot be described as exactly "ersatz" centre‑halves, the fact that Ferguson's team played much of their 5-0 Boxing Day thrashing of Wigan Athletic with the midfielder and the left-back paired at the heart of defence can only have warmed Roberto Mancini's heart. Even so, Manchester City's manager knows that a wounded United represents a most dangerous enemy. Since his side humiliated Ferguson's men 6-1 at Old Trafford in October, their neighbours have proceeded to win eight of the subsequent nine Premier League games, the last two 5-0.
Yet if fielding a talented winger such as Antonio Valenica at right-back and again promoting the hitherto unwanted Darron Gibson from the reserves to central midfield, clearly did not cramp United's style against Wigan, greater challenges await. The prospect of being without a cadre of key performers during a January programme featuring tricky league trips to Newcastle and Arsenal could conceivably cost United the title.
Pointing out that they now stand level on points with City at the top of the table, Evra takes a rather less gloomy view. Although Chris Smalling and Phil Jones may well recover in time to man the centre-half stations against Blackburn on Saturday, the France international is confident he and Carrick could, once again, prove able deputies.
"At United, the team is the star," says Evra. "That's why you can put me and Michael Carrick at centre-back and we're still going to win. It's about the team effort and the team spirit and that's why I'm confident. The United spirit is that you can play everywhere, in any position. No other side has United's spirit. That's why I'm so proud to play here."
There have been blips along the way but Evra now regards the Champions League exit to Basel as a disguised blessing. "It was a big disappointment when we went out early," he says. "But it was a wake-up call; maybe everyone looked at themselves in the mirror and said 'we can do much better'. What the fans expect of every player, we're all doing now. We're working hard. Nothing is easy but we have to keep our momentum going and trust each other."
If such endeavour is thrilling Ferguson, his side surely cannot keep on exceeding the sum of their currently out of position parts. "The injuries start to be annoying," acknowledges Evra. "We want everyone fit if we want to win the league." The fear inside Old Trafford is that history could be in recycling mode. With the manager's room for January transfer market manoeuvre presumably restricted by the gargantuan debt imposed on the club by the Glazer family, memories have been rewinding almost 14 years.
Despite at one stage enjoying an 11-point lead over Arsenal, a rash of injuries variously afflicting Peter Schmeichel, Gary Pallister, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt in March 1998 saw Ferguson forced to ultimately concede the title to Arsène Wenger.
Coming second to Mancini would hurt more but the Glaswegian is often at his most innovative when backed into corners. "United can adapt to adversity," argues Roberto Martínez, Wigan's manager. "They have the mentality every other team wants. Anyone wanting to win the league has to better United's mentality."
Louise Taylor
@Guardian

Santa Claus Is Weird

2011-12-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

Every light is on fire

The final scene is empty

Your beautiful face is alive

What the hell am I supposed to do

I watch the meter drop

I can't think about external judgment

I wish you'd go away

I've got to grow up someday

The light is perfect now

Santa Claus is weird

Idaho

Les anges du peche (1943)

2011-12-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

The Secular and the religious, the extremism and the wisdom, innocence and sin, these have been thematic concerns of Robert Bresson and are present as this movie as well. Bressonian stylistic signature is visible in images and narration.
The story takes place in a convent which aim is to rehabilitate former convicts. The story orbit around the character of Anne-Mariea: a rich and idealistic girl who joined the convent as a dedicated novice. In a visit from a jail she becomes preoccupied with a prisoner, an opportunistic person (Therese). After her release from prison, Therese kills an ex-friend because of which she has been imprisoned. Thereafter Therese joins the convent as an escape from the public and police. Anne-Marie's expects the event and embrace her with absolute fascination. Therese is reluctant to tell her the dark secret and protests against her innocence and kindness. pedram

aka: Angels of the streets or Angels of sin
Director/Writer: Robert Bresson
Starring: Renee Faure, Jany Holt, Mila Parely
Produced: 1943
Release Date (USA): 1950

My Author of The Month (November 2011)

2011-12-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

I finished "The Buddenbrooks" in november and i dedicate this post to its great creator Thomas Mann. The drama is a twisted epic about the decline of a family. It conveys many dimensions which can be analyzed and studied. I attached an article from Ian Sansom, explaining the term "the Buddenbrooks effect", an extension of Mann's novel to fields like economics, history, etc. He intends to formulate a great dynasty through this. pedram

Historians and economists sometimes refer to the Buddenbrooks effect. The term derives from Thomas Mann's 1901 novel, Buddenbrooks, in which he depicted the decline of a bourgeois family (which rather resembled Mann's own). The Buddenbrooks effect refers to the tendency among family businesses to decline over a period of about three generations. All good things, in other words, must come to an end. And all good columns also.

In our discussion of family dynasties we have covered princes and politicians, kings, queens and emperors, movie stars, musicians, writers, artists and wrestlers. We never quite got round to the Capetians, the Merovingians or the Carolingians. Many families of dictators got away, including the Gaddafis and the Kabilas. As for banking and business families, there were just too many: the Barings never got a look in, or the Fords, or the Gettys.
We barely mentioned the French – the Mitterrands, the Le Pens, the De Gaulles – let alone the Swiss Bernoulli family of mathematicians, or the English Knott family of lighthouse keepers. Among the fictional families, the Simpsons got a mention, but Tolkein's Tooks and JD Salinger's Glass family failed to make the cut.
For some of the families we surveyed, as well as many whose stories are untold, the Buddenbrooks effect certainly seems to apply. The classic Buddenbrooks downcurve looks like this. There is a founder of the dynasty. They achieve great success: they build a better mousetrap. Their son or daughter then struggles to achieve similar or greater success: there are only so many amazing things one family can do with a mousetrap. Then along come the grandchildren, who turn out to be nogoodniks who squander the inheritance, sully the family name, and sell the mousetrap business. And so back to square one.
This pattern applies particularly to family business dynasties: capitalism triumphs over hearth and home. But for others, the Buddenbrooks effect is only the beginning of a much longer and more complicated story, or simply does not apply at all. The Mughals, for example, ruled for generations, demonstrating, if anything, a kind of double Buddenbrooks effect. And there were dozens of Bachs who excelled as musicians from the 16th to the 19th century. The great Khan squash dynasty were more like a sprawling clan than a family. And the Holy Family abide by rules entirely of their own.
In his book Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses (2006), economist David S Landes quotes from a set of rules drawn up by Robert Peugeot, scion of the French car manufacturing dynasty. Peugeot sought to secure the family future and fortune by insisting that "Shares in the enterprise would be passed only to sons, never to daughters or sons-in-law" and that "Black sheep had to be put aside, where they could make no trouble". It is one way of avoiding the Buddenbrooks effect. There are others.
Stephen R Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families (1998), suggests that families write their own mission statement, which may be worth considering, though try explaining your Latin motto – Virtus Repulsae Nescia, say, or Nec pluribus impar – to your Xbox-addicted teen. Versions of the Covey approach can be found in Matthew Kelly's Building Better Families: A Practical Guide to Raising Amazing Children (2008) and Steve Stephens' 20 Surprisingly Simple Rules and Tools for a Great Family (2006), where the first rule is simply, "Plan ahead".
Other ways to ward off the Buddenbrooks effect include: not having children; not allowing your children to have children; or simply ensuring that any children you do have inherit only your good humour, tolerance and a capacity to muddle through.

by: Ian Sansom

A Warning Shot For Putin

2011-12-10T18:57:00.001-08:00

Russia's parliamentary election last Sunday saw Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia, receive slightly less than 50 percent of the popular vote. In most countries, this would be viewed as a stunning victory. Instead, it is being interpreted by the Russian and Western press as a rebuke by a restive Russian public to Putin and his policies.
Although the electoral results are undoubtedly a signal to Putin and his political protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev, that Russian voters will not blindly follow wherever the Kremlin leads, in reality they do not portend seismographic shifts in the Russian political landscape.
Some reports, including that of The New York Times earlier this week, have argued that with only 238 seats in the 450-seat Duma, as opposed to the 315 parliamentary seats it previously held, United Russia will now be unable to change the Russian constitution unilaterally. True enough -- but what they fail to mention is that the Kremlin has little need to make any significant constitutional changes in the foreseeable future. The constitution is already stacked in favor of the presidency, and even with a reduced number of seats in parliament for United Russia, the Duma will still be compliant, since no new parties have gained seats.
The Duma is already relatively powerless compared to what Russia watchers call the "super" presidency enshrined in the 1993 constitution that was hastily written by Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first elected president. Between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and 1993, Yeltsin faced a recalcitrant parliament (then called the Congress of People's Deputies), whose members resisted his attempts to reform the country's troubled economy. The standoff reached its climax in the fall of 1993, when Yeltsin disbanded parliament. When Russian deputies trapped inside the parliament building broke out and attempted to take control of a national television station, Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the building, putting an end to the showdown.
The constitution that Yeltsin then forced through by popular referendum in December 1993 resolved the issue of legislative executive power in no uncertain terms. It allows the president to rule by decree in almost every area but the budget. At the same time, the president has the authority to disband the Duma and call new elections should parliament refuse three times to accept the president's choice of prime minister, and the executive branch has full control of the country's security and defense ministries.
The ruling tandem of Putin and Medvedev has made further constitutional changes to strengthen the executive's hand. In the constitution's original version, the president could serve a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms. In his first year as president, Medvedev changed the constitution, then approved by the United Russia-dominated Duma and the compliant Federation Council (Russia's appointed upper house of parliament), to allow for two consecutive six-year terms, paving the way for Putin to serve for a total of 12 years when he retakes the presidency (as he intends to do in the upcoming March 2012 presidential elections).
What is more, even if Putin and his allies decided they needed to change the constitution (and this is doubtful), they would still have little difficulty doing so. Sunday's election results, however dispiriting for United Russia, will not bring about any significant change to the composition of the Duma. The Communist Party (which finished second with just under 20 percent of the vote, translating into 92 seats in the Duma), the Just Russia party (13 percent and 62 seats), and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (11.7 percent and about 56 seats), are exactly the same parties that have sat in the pliant Russian Duma of the past four years.
Of the three, the Communist Party has taken the most oppositional positions toward United Russia -- at least relatively speaking -- but it has seldom voted against United Russia on legislation that actually mattered. It provided modest opposition on cuts to subsidized transportation fares for pensioners, for example, but strongly supported the invasion of Georgia in 2008.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democratic Party, which was created by the Kremlin in the 1990s, has not provided any true opposition in the last ten years. Its outspoken and flamboyant leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is more concerned with attracting attention and outrage for his appearances on television than in having any substantive debate with Putin and those close to him.
Finally, although Just Russia did manage to increase its representation in the Duma over its 2007 standing, it, too, is a Kremlin construct. (The party was originally conceived as a social democratic alternative to United Russia, but one that would still vote with the ruling party on big issues.) Historically, it provided little opposition to United Russia and is unlikely to do so now.
In effect, the opposition parties that gained seats are no real opposition at all. Any true opposition forces were weeded out far in advance of Sunday's elections. Only seven political parties met the state's strict registration requirements; the courts simply did not permit other parties that represent more independent liberal alternatives to register. The leadership of some of these groups -- in particular, Boris Nemtsov of Solidarity -- are now leading street protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They have little nationwide support, however, and given the degree of state control over the media, their brave efforts this week will not bring about a popular revolution.
In the end, the biggest loser on Sunday was neither United Russia nor Putin, but rather his fall guy, Medvedev. At United Russia's party congress on September 24, Medvedev nominated Putin to take over again as president. Accepting the nomination in a well-choreographed exchange, Putin then nominated Medvedev to become his prime minister should he win the presidency next March. This "castling" of positions is evidently the straw that broke the back of many Russians' tolerance for Putin's growing autocracy. Medvedev, now the party's nominee for prime minister, was the only name that appeared on the United Russia electoral list in the Duma elections. The Kremlin's apparent logic was that Medvedev's personal popularity would carry the party to easy victory.
Given the effects within Russia of the global economic downturn, a decline in the fortunes of the ruling party was inevitable, at least relative to United Russia's high in 2007, when it captured 62 percent of the vote. But few predicted that the party would receive less than 50 percent of the vote; as of late last week, reputable Russian polling agencies were predicting that it would receive at least 53 to 55 percent. The fact that United Russia supporters resorted to ballot stuffing and other falsifications to boost their votes and still fell below 50 percent will likely affect Medvedev's political prospects the most, given that he headed the party's ticket. In a foreshadowing of exactly such a scenario, Putin late last week amended his offer of the office of prime minister to Medvedev, suggesting the post might be contingent on United Russia's performance in the Duma elections. Medvedev is now particularly vulnerable.
Despite the clear falsification of electoral results, international expressions of displeasure with the electoral process, public demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg calling for "Russia without Putin," the new Duma will most likely be seated by the end of the month. Putin's largely successful efforts to control the country's media and curb freedom of expression and assembly eviscerated any meaningful opposition years ago. Further, Putin remains personally popular, still polling at slightly below 70 percent approval. And if the need for muscle arises, Putin has already shown willingness to use the security forces to put down any opposition activity; he is also adept at mobilizing the country's state-controlled media and government-created youth groups to counter protests.
Still, although there will be no immediate seismic shift in the balance of power in Russia today, the masses have fired a warning shot at Putin's presidential bid. Protests against the election may be relatively small and are unlikely to lead to a Ukrainian-style popular revolt, but should Putin and Medvedev not appear to listen to voters and be ready to make a few concessions, they may have to resort to the sporadic use of force to keep the regime afloat.

by: Kathryn Stoner-Weiss

Solemnly

2011-12-06T19:08:00.001-08:00

Who is it that walks so solemnly through the graves?

Is it a shadow or just some vision?

Apocalyptic dream

Tracing patterns to bring us down

Who is it that walks?

The March of Death

Mourning Beloveth

Super-family of Blackened Souls

2011-12-05T07:21:00.001-08:00

I was wondering why these rosy kind intelligent super-tender people, always deliver the worst feelings to me?
One by one i must unmask their malicious deeds?
Have they left a corner of the earth unspotted?
just curious!

Wilson

2011-12-02T05:59:00.001-08:00

"Don't worry Wilson, I'll do all the paddling. You just hang on."

Mimic

2011-12-01T22:42:00.001-08:00

Since you feel utterly secure in the depth of your heart

Ghastly Realm

2011-11-25T23:51:00.001-08:00

Ghostly doves flew to the shambles

2011-11-23T22:37:00.001-08:00

Manchester United 2 Benfica 2
Conceded goals were really freaky !
The defensive progress after 4 consecutive clean sheets, overshadowed by these errors.

My Album of The Month (October 2011)

2011-11-23T22:19:00.001-08:00

Giving Yourself Away (2007)

Bow

2011-11-21T19:45:00.001-08:00

Each breathe that i take,
I must remind myself,
This very moment of my life is irreplaceable
I'm silently alive.

The Road

2011-11-16T12:00:00.001-08:00

Ambushed by terror
Dwarves escape
It never meant to be anything less than a war
It never meant to be fair

pic : from delts.org

My Author of The Month (August and October 2011)

2011-11-16T01:21:00.001-08:00

Andrei Tarkovsky

I've been reading some pieces and parts of screenplays. I was extremely engrossed by the depth of his thought and the adamantine element of poetry entwined with philosophy.

My Album of The Month (August 2011)

2011-11-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

Listening to his wonder skillful pieces was one of the memorable moments...

Hello again

2011-11-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Life with its ups and downs. Just want to remind myself what matters the most is my attitude.

Crack Rabbit Heroics

2011-09-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

Master of Your Own Demise

2011-09-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

Only you

You are the sole reason
Of falling down
Down into the well of sorrow
You are the master
The master of your own demise

Officium Triste

My Author of The Month (July 2011)

2011-08-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

بابک احمدی

اول به دلیل ترجمه ی دشوار متن" طبیعت و قاعده" قسمت هایی از دیالوگ که ریکور سخن می گوید را احمدی ترجمه کرده است. اما دلیل اصلی من برای این انتخاب کتاب "امید بازیافته" در تحلیل سینمای آندری تارکفسکی است. چندی پیش بود که با یکی از دوستانم در کافه ی تئاتر شهر،به درد دل مسئول کتابفروشی تئاترگوش می دادیم.از کلاس های احمدی برای اهالی تئاتر و سینما می گفت. از نادر بودن این فرهیختگی در اهالی سینما می نالید.والبته واهمه ایست به جا: گم شدن این تک صدا در همهمه ی عامیان.

My Album of The Month (July 2011)

2011-08-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

A decent work by finnish gothic metal band : Sinamore
My favorite tracks are : Dressed in White, Eyes of May and Frozen Mile

Operation Rock Avalanche

2011-08-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Just to mention a true inspiration in one's way is damn important.
Soldiers in iraq or afghanistan are worthy role-models in my mind;in terms of facing difficult occasions.
Thank you Allie , for reminding the hidden beauties of our lives.To enjoy the very moment of my life.
I appreciate.

Best Regards

2011-08-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

That's a sign of a progress;they say

So;

You !

Superstar !

Still determined to erect your red flags all across the globe ?

Parasite ! Enjoying your free ride?

Your friendship ; This fabulous postiche ;

Won't be missed !

2011-07-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

اي جلجتا، اي كه از چوب دارو درختت بود

ديدي كه آن مرد مصلوب از جام آخر مست

چون دانه بعد از نهفتن از كام سنگش رُست

چون غنچه بعد از شكفتن از دام تنگش رَست

سیمین بهبهانی

Some New Stuff

2011-07-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

I added 4 new albums to my music archive:
Canaan : A Calling To Weakness 2002
Evadne : The 13th Condition 2007
Orestea : Love Lines and Blood Ties 2010
Future of Forrestery : Travel III EP 2010

An Iconic Visit

2011-07-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

"Had a tour around The White House. Unfortunately never met The President as he was locked in meetings but a great experience all the same."

Michael Owen on twitter

@Manutd.com

Dilapidation and Death

2011-07-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

Trying to separate the outside from the inside
Trying to remain calm, 'though they mix in subtle manner
Chaos inside, losing all hope, basking in pain that seems endless
Alone in this life and its futile signs of malignant forms
Silent hatred for nothing, weakened for everything

Gloom is no more the same, light increases the pain in this suffering
Feelings have shriveled to death, awaiting to die with no idolatry
Believing in nothing at all
These bleeding veins are as indifferent as existence in itself
No sorrow behind these wounds, just hatred and pain
Reaching the end for good

I might as well just sleep and awake no more to watch the dilapidation of all
I might as well just dream there would be a life instead of growing nothingness

"Who told you that I wouldn't come back to you
I am inside and growing, destroying your mind and your worthless dreams
Corrupting your senses, erasing the reason and all that's left of you
You can't escape for I've become you - forevermore!"

The sight is darkening and chaos reigns in here
There's no more explanations for this seems like the end
All your precious memories and wishes are gone
The swirl of damnation furls you to this nightmare
Touching the cosmic horror beyond the space and time
Reaching for inhuman experience, the journey to afar
The limits of mind are gone, hallucinating the death of the universe
Vortex of chaos and hell leaves only ash and dust

There was none to witness the death of a man who saw it all coming
Juhani Palumaki

The Dilemma of Breast Cancer Screening

2011-07-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

By : Kevin Pho
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recently released their recommendations for breast cancer screening.
Previously, they had recommended a mammogram every 1 to 2 years for women between the ages of 40 to 49.
Now, they recommend more intensive screening:
Due to the high incidence of breast cancer in the US and the potential to reduce deaths from it when caught early, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (The College) today issued new breast cancer screening guidelines that recommend mammography screening be offered annually to women beginning at age 40. Previous College guidelines recommended mammograms every one to two years starting at age 40 and annually beginning at age 50.
This contradicts the 2009 recommendation from the USPSTF, which recommended an individualized approach and against routine screening for women aged 40-49.
No wonder patients are confused.
In our society, which values tests and generally believes that earlier cancer detection is better care, the ACOG recommendations were met with media acclaim.
Gary Schwitzer, for instance, points out the bias in CNN’s reporting the guidelines, and specifically takes senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen’s Tweet on the issue to task:
On many occasions that we’ve written about on this blog in recent years, CNN has demonstrated a bias in favor of screening – touting benefits, minimizing harms. Sanjay Gupta’s badgering of US Preventive Services Task Force member Lucy Marion will always stand out in my mind – and in the minds of many of who saw it – as opinionated “attack” journalism that reflects the polarization we often see in politics now creeping (leaping?) into health care and into health care journalism.
As to which guideline to believe, physicians will be divided. I suspect that physicians who practice more strict evidence-based medicine will go with the USPSTF recommendations, while gynecologists will follow their college’s more aggressive recommendations.
Although I’m a proponent of clinical guidelines, obtaining the needed consensus will be difficult. There are too many proverbial cooks in the pot, with every medical society releasing potentially conflicting recommendations and confusing both doctors and patients.
@KevinMD

Amy Winehouse's Death:Still Mystery

2011-07-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

An autopsy on the body of Amy Winehouse revealed no cause of death Monday for the 27-year-old retro-soul singer, leaving fans and family to wait for the results of toxicology tests due in two to four weeks.

A funeral for Winehouse, who was Jewish, was likely to be held Tuesday or Wednesday.
"I can't tell you what this means to us," father Mitch Winehouse told fans gathered Monday outside her home in London's Camden district. "We're devastated and I'm speechless, but thanks for coming."
The singer's mother, Janis Winehouse, was in tears as she examined the flowers, candles, vodka bottles, flags, drawings and handwritten cards left by neighbors, fans and well-wishers. Many of the offerings expressed the same sentiment: "What a waste."
Amy Winehouse, who had last spoken to members of her team around 10 a.m. Saturday, may have been dead for several hours before she was found by security guard Andrew Morris in her home that afternoon.
"She was in her bedroom after saying she wanted to sleep and when (Morris) went to wake her, he found she wasn't breathing," Chris Goodman, her representative in Britain, told the Sun. "He called the emergency services straight away. He was very shocked.
"At this stage, no one knows how she died. She died alone in bed."
The frail singer had been getting regular doctor checkups, the Sun said, most recently the night before her death. Her family said Monday that reports their daughter had bought cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy hours before she died were "nonsense."
Though only in her 20s, Winehouse reportedly suffered from emphysema as a result of smoking cigarettes and crack cocaine.
Winehouse's last public appearance came Wednesday when she briefly joined her goddaughter, singer Dionne Bromfield, on stage at the iTunes Festival near Camden. Winehouse didn't sing, but danced and clapped and encouraged the audience to buy Bromfield's album.
An inquest into the singer's death was opened and adjourned at London's St. Pancras Coroner's Court on Monday. During the two-minute hearing, an official read out the name, birth date and address of Winehouse, described as "a divorced lady living at Camden Square NW1."
Ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, currently serving a 32-month jail sentence for burglary and gun possession, was "in total shock" and inconsolable upon hearing about the death, girlfriend Sarah Aspin told the Sun.
The scene at Winehouse's home had been investigated and "determined non-suspicious." In Britain, inquests are held to establish facts when a person dies violently or in unexplained circumstances. Winehouse's inquest will resume Oct. 26.
By Christie D'Zurilla, Los Angeles Times
@Edmonton Journal

یک انتقاد

2011-07-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

ریشه ی این مشکلات کجاست؟ چیست ریشه ی این نخوت ؟ چیست رازاین کلبی مشربی ؟

اعتقاد من این است که کسی جرات نکرد یک بار ، صریح ، روشن ، مستدل بگوید حرف هایت یاوه گویی است... ،جرات نکرد بگویداین رفتارها یت زننده و بچگانه است...جرات نکرد بگوید منشا این غرور ،ضعف است. جرات نکرد برملا کند پشت این ژشت دموکراسی خواهانه ،خودکامه ترین اگو نشسته است.جرات نکرد فاش بگوید ،پشت پرده ی عقلانیت معظم تو هزار کتاب نخوانده است

با کمال احترام ، این موضع برتر تو را درک نمی کنم.این تمسخربه اصطلاح فرودست و این تحقیرهمنوع برایم قابل فهم نیست. ...رفته رفته به میانسالی نزدیک میشوی...کمبود هایی حس می کنی

Ramadan

2011-07-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

Raven perched on the dusty balcony , staring at me.
Pedram

Gutted by The Bitter News

2011-07-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wow

2011-07-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

Marine researchers in South Africa had a narrow escape after a three-metre-long great white shark breached the surface of the sea and leapt into their boat, becoming trapped on deck for more than an hour.
The incident occurred while the research team was conducting a shark population study off Seal Island, near Mossel Bay, on South Africa's Cape coast.
Using sardines as bait to attract the predators, the seven-strong crew was able to observe four great whites. The animals are renowned locally for bursting through the surface as they prey on seals.
Dorien Schröder, team leader at Oceans Research, based at Mossel Bay, said that last Monday morning, after more than an hour of shark activity around the vessel, the Cheetah, the waters at the stern had been quiet for five minutes. "Next thing I know I hear a splash, and see a white shark breach out of the water from [the] side of the boat hovering, literally, over the crew member who was chumming [throwing food bait] on the port side," she said.
Schröder recounted how she pulled her colleague to safety before the shark, weighing about 500kg (half a ton) landed on top of the bait and fuel containers. At first half of its body was outside the boat but in a panic the shark thrashed its way further on to the vessel, cutting the fuel lines and damaging equipment before becoming trapped between the containers and the stern. The crew found safety at the bow of the boat.
As Schröder poured water over the shark's gills to keep it alive, another boat was sent out to the Cheetah. A rope from the second vessel was secured around the shark's tail, but repeated efforts to tow the fish into the water failed.
The rescue ship then towed Cheetah to the port with the shark still on deck. A hosepipe was placed in the fish's mouth to ventilate its gills, before it was lifted off the boat with a crane, then lowered back into the water.
Though the shark swam away it was unable to navigate its way out of the harbour and soon beached. With Oceans Research's co-director, Enrico Gennari, an expert on great white sharks, the team tried unsuccessfully to "walk" the shark back to sea. Finally they tied ropes to the shark's tail fin and behind its pectoral fin, and attached these ties to the rescue vessel, which towed the shark out through the harbour estuary. The ropes were then removed and the animal swam away.
Gennari said it was the first time he had heard of a great white shark jumping onto a research vessel. He estimated the predator would have had to have leapt about three metres out of the water to be able to land on the boat. A smaller vessel would have capsized, he said.
As for the cause of the shark's behaviour, Gennari said it was almost certainly an accident rather than an attack on the boat. In the low-visibility water the fish could have mistaken the vessel's shadow for prey, or been disturbed by another shark close by, he said.
"It's all speculation," he said. "But sometimes a shark breaches the surface when it feels another shark underneath it. They [move] like a flying fish and end up several metres away."
@Guardian
pic :A great white shark off Seal Island, South Africa. The animal on the Cheetah would have leapt three metres out of the water, scientists said. Photograph: Chris Brunskill Ltd/Rex Features

تکامل را به عروسک بازیمان راهی نیست

2011-07-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

همان است ، عینا همان ، همان بازی بچگانه ، همان عروسک بازی.شگفتا ،سال ها،به اصطلاح بلوغ ،به اصطلاح آکادمی ، به اصطلاح تمدن،چیزی را در توتغییر نداده است.میوه ای که گویا هر زمان بچینی طعم فساد می دهد.مشغول با همان توهمات کودکانه.احساس ابلهانه ی تملک در رگهایت می جوشد. تکامل بر علیه خود بر آشفت، به خودت واگذار کردندو چنین شد...توانستی همه چیز را با قواعد عروسک بازیت سامان بدهی ولی این یک نقطه خلا ،مغفول مانده و تا لب به سخن می گشایی، اسرار هولناکی آشکار می شود. صادقانه بگویم کمتر رغبتی در وجودم باقی می ماند وقتی به این تقابل نامیمون با تووامثال تومی اندیشم.وقتی بیشتر حس می کنم نباید هم انتظار آسودگی داشته باشم.باید جامه ی رزم بر تن کرد،بر علیه شما قوم همواره بر حق باید جنگید.

کودک میانسال ما :به عروسک بازی خود ادامه بده.صاحب شو:هر آنچه لیاقتش را داری ...و نداری.سخن بگو :راجع هرآن چه درک می کنی ...و نمی کنی.عروسک جان ندارد . حس نمی کند.پاسخی نمی دهد،نفرتش را ابراز نمی کند،بر خلاف انسان. پدرام 28 تیر 1390

Biutiful (2010)

2011-07-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy of Adelina)
a dazzling movie. It's become one of my favorites.Javier Bardem's just astonishing.Inarritu surprises again this time with a gritty biutiful ! It will be watched several times.

The Risks and Benefits of 5α-Reductase Inhibitors

2011-07-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Authors : Marc R. Theoret, M.D., Yang-Min Ning, M.D., Ph.D., Jenny J. Zhang, Ph.D., Robert Justice, M.D., Patricia Keegan, M.D., and Richard Pazdur, M.D.
The use of 5α-reductase inhibitors for prevention of prostate cancer continues to be widely discussed within the scientific and medical communities. Much of this discussion has been fueled by the findings of two large randomized, placebo-controlled trials — the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) with finasteride and the Reduction by Dutasteride of Prostate Cancer Events (REDUCE) trial . Together, these trials showed an overall relative reduction of 23 to 25% in prostate-cancer diagnoses, a seemingly significant benefit from drugs aimed at preventing one of the most common cancers in men. However, the observed reduction resulted from a decreased incidence of only low-grade prostate cancer (Gleason score, ≤6). In fact, in both trials, there was an absolute increase in the incidence of high-grade prostate cancers in the chemoprevention group.
Evaluating the potential chemopreventive benefits of 5α-reductase inhibitors and assessing the potential increased risk for high-grade prostate cancers have been central issues for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There has been much hope for an FDA-approved chemopreventive agent for prostate cancer, and there is clearly ongoing off-label use of 5α-reductase inhibitors for this indication. The FDA has been actively evaluating the relevant data and held a meeting of its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee to address this topic in December 2010.

Both chemoprevention trials were conducted in men who were at risk for prostate cancer but did not have diagnosed prostate cancer at study entry. The FDA’s analysis of the trials confirmed that there was a relative reduction of approximately 25% in the overall incidence of prostate cancer and a significantly increased incidence of high-grade prostate cancers. During the FDA review of the REDUCE trial, we requested that biopsy specimens be reassessed, according to the modified Gleason scale, by an independent pathologist who was unaware of the earlier scores. The central pathologist for PCPT performed this reassessment. The use of modified Gleason scores is consistent with current recommendations for prostate-cancer grading and the grading system used in PCPT; modified Gleason scores were not originally reported in the REDUCE trial.
The reassessment revealed no reduction in the incidence of tumors with modified Gleason scores between 7 and 10 — a finding that was consistent with the published data. However, an absolute increase of 0.5% in the incidence of tumors with modified Gleason scores of 8 to 10 (relative risk, 2.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13 to 3.75) was observed with dutasteride treatment. This increase is similar to the absolute increase of 0.7% in the incidence of such tumors observed with finasteride treatment (relative risk, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.23 to 2.34) .These results suggest that one additional man would receive a diagnosis of high-grade prostate cancer (modified Gleason score, 8 to 10) for every 150 to 200 men treated long-term with a 5α-reductase inhibitor.

It has been suggested that detection bias, attributable to the fact that 5α-reductase inhibitors reduce serum levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and prostate volume, led to an increase in detection of high-grade prostate cancer in the finasteride group of the PCPT. Indeed, the sensitivity of an elevated PSA level (a PSA level above 4 ng per milliliter in the placebo group or, in the finasteride group, above the adjusted value designed to correct for a finasteride-induced PSA reduction of approximately 50%) for the detection of prostate cancer, including high-grade tumors, was increased in the finasteride group of the PCPT. The observation that the increased risk of high-grade tumors (modified Gleason score, 8 to 10) with finasteride or dutasteride persisted in analyses of scheduled biopsies independent of PSA results argues against PSA-related detection bias as the cause of the observed increase in the incidence of high-grade tumors. Approximately 56% of all prostate cancers in the PCPT and 90% of those in the REDUCE trial were diagnosed by means of scheduled biopsies.
As for detection bias due to 5α-reductase inhibitors’ reduction of prostate volume by approximately 20%, it is possible that core needle biopsies may uncover more cancers, including high-grade tumors, in smaller prostates because of increased sampling density. Proponents of this hypothesis accounted for the intergroup difference in prostate volume either by statistically adjusting for prostate volume at the time of biopsy (using logistic-regression analysis or the Peters–Belson method) or by circumventing any potential for sampling bias by extrapolating from the Gleason scores for a subgroup of patients who had had prostatectomies to patients without prostatectomy data (weighted imputation estimation). These analyses resulted in estimates of the relative risk of high-grade prostate cancer (Gleason score, 7 to 10) in the finasteride group ranging from no increase to a relative decrease of 27%. Since conventional criteria define “high-grade” as a Gleason score of 8 to 10 and 75% of the increase in tumors with modified Gleason scores of 7 to 10 observed in the finasteride group involved tumors with a score between 8 and 10, the FDA repeated the same analyses, statistically adjusting for prostate volume and using a modified Gleason score of 8 to 10 as the definition of a high-grade tumor. The results of those analyses do not support the contention that increased sampling density is responsible for the increased incidence of high-grade tumors in the finasteride group (see table for opposing risk estimations for tumors with a modified Gleason score of 7 to 10 and those with a score of 8 to 10). Although questions concerning detection bias remain, none of the post hoc exploratory analyses provide convincing evidence that the increased incidence of high-grade disease observed in both trials can be dismissed.
Analyses of these trials indicate that the reduction in prostate-cancer risk with both drugs was limited to tumors with a modified Gleason score of 6 or lower. Prospectively collected data in REDUCE showed that 80% of such tumors met the Epstein pathological criteria for “very-low-risk” disease, which indicates that a reduction in their incidence is unlikely to be clinically significant. An analysis of biopsies performed in response to an elevated PSA level or an abnormal digital rectal examination, as would be done in clinical practice, revealed a smaller reduction in the relative risk of prostate cancer (14%; 95% CI, 4 to 23%) than that reported for all cancers in men receiving finasteride. Therefore, the trade-off inherent in using a 5α-reductase inhibitor for prostate-cancer prevention is the acceptance of one additional high-grade cancer in order to avert three to four potentially clinically relevant lower-grade cancers.

The conclusion drawn by the advisory committee in December was that finasteride and dutasteride do not have a favorable risk–benefit profile for the proposed use of chemoprevention of prostate cancer in healthy men. The FDA agrees with this assessment. The effects of finasteride or dutasteride on the incidence of metastatic prostate cancer and prostate-cancer–specific morbidity and mortality have not been evaluated.
Strategies for reducing cancer risk expose people who do not have and may never develop cancer to a drug and its potential adverse effects. In these circumstances, a high level of certainty about benefits and risks of intervention is warranted. The labels of approved 5α-reductase inhibitors, which are currently indicated for the treatment of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia and male-pattern hair loss, have been modified to include the observation of high-grade prostate cancers in the relevant trials. In addition, health care professionals prescribing 5α-reductase inhibitors to men who opt for PSA screening should be aware that these agents reduce PSA values and that any increase in the PSA level above the lowest value obtained may signal the presence of prostate cancer, even if the value remains in the normal range for men not taking such an agent.

Post-Galactico Madrid Era

2011-07-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

If there's anyone in the world who could have done with a decent summer holiday and a month-long lie-down it was José Mourinho. In May, the plot-losing Madrid manager was at war with Barcelona, UEFA, his own bosses, the Spanish FA, the Spanish League, referees and probably his own reflection if he gave himself a funny look, as the pressure of having to deliver immediate success at the Santiago Bernabeu took its toll on the Special One's suffering psyche.

That grey-haired, slouching, bleary-eyed rant-bag has been banished and replaced by an infinitely more relaxed figure, who sat in the team hotel in Los Angeles and spoke to the media for the first time since his self-imposed press exile two months ago. There was good reason for the Special One to be looking so sprightly, as Mourinho is now enjoying full control of the sales and signings at the club without having suits standing over him, tutting about marketing values or shirt sales in Singapore.
On Monday, the Real Madrid squad gathered together and headed to the UCLA campus for a second summer in a row for pre-season training and three friendly games. And as in the year before, there were no new shiny Galacticos on board the plane. Instead the new recruits for Real Madrid would barely get 80 people to their presentations, rather than the 80,000 who turned up to see Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.

This is especially the case with 19-year-old French defender, Raphael Varane, who was signed from Lens for €10m with 'Marca' claiming that the young centre-back was the new Hierro, for lack of any other information on him. Even Michel Platini admitted that he had never heard of him in an interview with the paper.
Midfielder, Nuri Sahin, may have been the Bundesliga player of the year last season, but is hardly a household name in Spain. Free transfer, Hamit Altintop, didn't exactly set the pulses racing and nor did the purchase of former youth team player, José Callejón and his trademark wedge haircut, who joined from Espanyol.
Most money has been spent on speedy left back Fabio Coentrao, but few Madrid fans would admit to knowing that much about the former Benfica defender aside from the fact that he has bleached hair, has cost quite a lot of cash and shares the same agent as Mourinho.
The fairly low profile of the footballers reflects the control that Mourinho now has at the club with former Director General, Jorge Valdano, moved out by Florentino Pérez. Rather than Galacticos coming to the Spanish capital like Kaká, the Portuguese boss has brought in footballers he sees as being pliable team-members rather than superstars, a long way from mohican-sporting, show-boating, five sponsor-possessing Neymar for example. "We have signed players that we felt were important for completing a squad that was already very good."
Mourinho says that there is one more recruit to come over the summer in the form of a striker and the signs are that it won't be Neymar or Sergio Kun Agüero joining for €45m, despite the latter being the obsession of Florentino Pérez, but the less glamourous Emmanuel Adebayor returning for a permanent spell after a decent loan period last season. "Adebayor is better as it is closer," admitted the Madrid boss.
A second sign of the power that Mourinho now has in being able to mould the club to his own desires is the footballers that have been shunted onto the sidelines. These include Pedro León and Sergio Canales - two players brought in by Valdano that Mourinho appears to neither rate as players nor like as people - and Lassana Diarra who refused to travel to Los Angeles and instead chose to sulk in Madrid and wait for a move to the Premier League.

'Cantera' players such as Pablo Sarabia and Juan Carlos have been sold to Getafe and Zaragoza respectively, rather than being moved into the first team as Barcelona might have done. Mourinho still has little sentimentality when it comes to hiring and firing his players and feels no obligation to promote youth teamers no matter how much supporters and the press grumble when comparing Madrid's youth policy to La Masia.
Another former youth-teamer, Dani Parejo - a footballer that Alfredo Stefano thought was one of the best he had ever seen - was allowed to move from Getafe to Valencia after Mourinho decided not to activate the buy-back clause on the U-21 international.
The former Chelsea man appears to have succeeded where so many have failed, in turning Florentino Pérez away from the Galactico policy of 'Zidanes and Pavones' to a much more balanced way of doing business. While Zinedine Zidane has become Madrid's Sporting Director - although the role is not yet clearly defined - it is obvious who is wearing the trousers in this relationship.
Indeed, Real Madrid may even make money this summer if Kun and Neymar are passed over with the resale value of the transferable Diarra, Fernando Gago, Léon, Canales and Royston Drenthe potentially being greater than the current outlay of €55m.
However, this more modest strategy of Mourinho could all change if Barcelona manage the double whammy deal of bringing in Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sánchez to strengthen for the season ahead. At this point Florentino Pérez may begin to panic and revert to default mode by bringing in a big name, against Mourinho's wishes. But until this moment comes, Real Madrid is becoming a Galactico-free zone as Mourinho begins to take complete control of the club.
By Tim Stannard
@Football365

The Adjustment Bureau(2011)

2011-07-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

Written and Directed by George Nolfi
Starring : Matt Damon,Emily Blunt
I liked the concept .

In a Stew

2011-07-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

A piece of bread which tastes nonexistence.
Pic : James Nachteway/Magnum:Famine victims received rehydration salts and food from volunteer aid workers

My Album of The Month (June 2011)

2011-07-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

If you'd asked , i'd definitely say it was Gavin Hayes' voice , lurking in my ears all these long days.
Two thumbs up Dredg , Two Thumbs up "The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion".Their fantastic concept album is a fair mix of Progressive Rock and experimental music .Gavin Hayes' vocal's adorable.

ADT for Prostate Cancer

2011-07-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

In the 1990s, reversible androgen suppression with the use of luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone analogues and oral antiandrogen agents was shown to induce apoptotic regression in androgen-responsive cancers, potentially improving the prospects of local control and the duration of survival free of metastatic disease.
Clinical Pearls

How can short-term androgen deprivation be achieved?
In this study, patients assigned to short-term androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) received flutamide at a dose of 250 mg orally three times a day and either monthly subcutaneous goserelin at a dose of 3.6 mg or intramuscular leuprolide at a dose of 7.5 mg for 4 months.
How more effective was ADT with radiotherapy as compared to radiotherapy alone for patients with localized prostate cancer in this study?
According to the results of this study, the 10-year rate of overall survival was 62% among patients receiving radiotherapy plus short-term ADT (the combined-therapy group) versus 57% among patients receiving radiotherapy alone (hazard ratio for death with radiotherapy alone, 1.17; P=0.03). The addition of short-term ADT was associated with a decrease in the 10-year disease-specific mortality from 8% to 4% (hazard ratio for radiotherapy alone, 1.87; P=0.001).
Morning Report Questions
Q. Which group of patients benefited the most from ADT in this study?
A. The addition of short-term ADT to radiotherapy conferred the greatest clinical benefit in the intermediate-risk subgroup, with an increase in the 10-year rate of overall survival from 54 to 61% and a reduction in the 10-year disease-specific mortality from 10 to 3%.
Q. What are adverse effects of ADT?
A. In prospective studies, short-term ADT caused measurable muscle loss, fat accumulation, decreased insulin sensitivity, and increased cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
@NEJM

This Crazy Summer

2011-07-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Is he coming?

Business and Healthcare;Entrepreneurship Joints?

2011-07-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Part-maverick, part-unconventional, part-smart business owner Sir Richard Branson has business lessons to share in spades. Since I recently read his third autobiographical book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur, I wanted to pass on some of what I learned from the book.

Without knowing exactly why, I have long admired his acumen and chutzpah. His story has provided me insights into why I’ve been so drawn to his adventures in business and his larger-than-life personality.
For those of you who don’t know much about him, Branson is the product of a somewhat privileged middle-class upbringing (he descends from a line of barristers and judges) and an English public school (what we in the US call a private school). A self-proclaimed poor student with dyslexia, he failed to complete any college degree, but opted instead to start a business, first as a magazine publisher and then as a mail-order record company owner. He went on to found Virgin Records, and this single venture expanded over the decades to become the Virgin Group, a conglomerate of businesses focused on travel (planes, trains, space travel), entertainment and lifestyle (including humanitarian ventures like fighting HIV, AIDS and climate change).
I came away with many business lessons. Here are a few.
Branson’s business philosophy is crystallized in these words, when asked why he went into business:
I’ve never been interested in being ‘in business’. I’ve been interested in creating things … Business is creative. It’s like painting. You start with a blank canvas. You can paint anything – anything – right there, is your first problem. For every good painting you might turn out, there are a zillion bad paintings just aching to drip off your brush. Scared? You should be. You start. You pick a color. The next color you pick has to work with the first color … People who succeed in business have swallowed their fear and have set out to create something special, something to make a difference to people’s lives …
Lesson: To thrive in business, it really helps to be passionate about creating something worthwhile. As a relative newcomer to entrepreneurship, I have maintained for years now that being an entrepreneur is a radical act of creativity, and it makes an every day “practice” so much more fun once you think of it as an entrepreneurial venture.
His fiercely independent path to success, in the face of rampant naysayers and critics, is both inspirational and hard to imagine duplicating. His gut instincts have won out many times over the analytics and pompous prognostications of others. He’s a master as staying on course with his vision and sense of purpose and ignoring the conventional wisdom.
I’m not good at theory. Almost everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned by doing.
Lesson: While you may draw insight and inspiration from someone else’s success story, you must rely on knowledge about your own marketplace, along with your inner talents and skills, to forge your own path.
Branson has been driven by the desire to innovate, partly I suspect because it’s in his genetic make-up and partly because he has been an astute observer of his own ecosystem’s evolution.
The best, most solid way out of a crisis in a changing market is through experimentation and adaptation.
Lesson: Healthcare is in crisis and the market is changing. It’s vital that we, as providers in an unstable setting, experiment and adapt. New business models? New levels of customer service? New joint ventures, relationships, partnerships?
His two greatest secrets of business success, in my opinion?
1. His relentless focus on the Virgin brand, along with his absolute clarity about what the brand stands for.
2. His dogged insistence on placing the people who work for him first. Wouldn’t that be nice, in healthcare?
by Philippa Kennealy, MD, MPH

Listening To Lovers In Japan !

2011-07-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Lovers, keep on the road your on

Runners, until the race is run

Soldiers, you've got to soldier on

Sometimes even right is wrong

They are turning my head out

To see what I'm all about

Keeping my head down

To see what it feels like now

But I have no doubt

One day, were gonna get out

Tonight, maybe we're gonna run

Dreaming of the Osaka sun

Ohh, ohh, ohhh

Dreaming of when the morning comes

They are turning my head out

To see what I'm all about

Keeping my head down

To see what it feels like now

But I have no doubt

One day, the sun will come out

Truly amazing song ;p.

Pic : Martin Buzora

It's The Month of July

2011-07-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

Today was the day of a fierce tete-a-tete.I'm gonna fight till the very end.Pedram,July 11 2011

Off To US

2011-07-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

My Author of The Month (June 2011)

2011-07-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

How i feel his vigorous presence in my life

With Love

2011-07-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

Ghost of perdition deflowered plenty of innocent souls

Pedram

An Engrossing Picture

2011-07-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Fortunately i managed a pretty succinct schedule to watch some underrated and out of the spotlight movies in the last 2 weeks.Special thanks to my friend Amir who earnestly suggests and shares the most matched .
Here is a brief note on one of the most thrilling experiences i had in recent months.
Red,White and Blue 2010
Written and directed by Simon Rumley
First of all i had not heard about Simon Rumley ; that zero expectance made the apporoach more fascinating :)
Movie info according to Rottentomatoes:
"Red, White and Blue is a powerful, visceral and oddly touching thriller/slash movie. It's also very sophisticated storytelling with temporal shifts and three protagonist characters who function as both the killer and the prey.Erica is a tough, troubled nymphomaniac with wounds across her soul. For Erica, sleeping with multiple men forms the core of her life, until she meets the mysterious Iraq vet Nate .Despite his quiet air of danger, Nate's the only guy who doesn't immediately want to sleep with her, and the two form a hesitant bond. But in a shocking twist, one of Erica's earlier sexual encounters, with wannabe rock star Franki , will have unexpected - and devastating - consequences on both of their lives. Hard-edged and uncompromising, the film has already been compared to the works of such disparate filmmakers as Larry Clark and Sam Peckinpah. "
i believe the movie , a brutal americana is a polished image of violence and its cursed cycle. Three protagonists' unsavory characters are masterfully executed in a 102 min run.
Beware:i have to agree with David Lewis of San Francisco Chronicle: the movie is certainly going to leave some squeamish !
Pedram
pic : Amanda Fuller , Marc Senter , Noah Taylor

Assault on Democracy

2011-07-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar's praise for Venezuela's socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism.

Venezuela's president, who hasrevealed that he has had surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumour, turned one of Chomsky's books into an overnight bestseller after brandishing it during a UN speech. He hosted Chomsky in Caracas with smiles and pomp. Earlier this year Chávez even suggested Washington make Chomsky the US ambassador to Venezuela.
The president may be about to have second thoughts about that, because his favourite intellectual has now turned his guns on Chávez.
Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an "assault" on Venezuela's democracy.
"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not."
Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke on the eve of publishing an open letter that accuses Venezuela's authorities of "cruelty" in the case of a jailed judge.
The self-described libertarian socialist says the plight of María Lourdes Afiuni is a "glaring exception" in a time of worldwide cries for freedom. He urges Chávez to release her in "a gesture of clemency" for the sake of justice and human rights.
Chomsky reveals he has lobbied Venezuela's government behind the scenes since late last year after being approached by the Carr centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Afiuni earned Chávez's ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges. Cedeño promptly fled the country.
In a televised broadcast the president, who had taken a close interest in the case, called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years. "That judge has to pay for what she has done."
Afiuni, 47, a single mother with cancer, spent just over a year in jail, where she was assaulted by other prisoners. In January, authorities softened her confinement to house arrest pending trial for corruption, which she denies.
"Judge Afiuni has suffered enough," states Chomsky's letter. "She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free."
Amnesty International and the European parliament, among others, have condemned the judge's treatment but the intervention of a scholar considered a friend of the Bolivarian revolution, which is named after the hero of Venezuelan independence, Simón Bolívar, is likely to sting even more.
Speaking from his home in Boston, Chomsky said Chávez, who has been in power for 12 years, appeared to have intimidated the judicial system. "I'm sceptical that [Afiuni] could receive a fair trial. It's striking that, as far as I understand, other judges have not come out in support of her … that suggests an atmosphere of intimidation."
He also faulted Chávez for adopting enabling powers to circumvent the national assembly. "Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo [authoritarianism] and it has to be guarded against. Whether it's over too far in that direction in Venezuela I'm not sure, but I think perhaps it is. A trend has developed towards the centralisation of power in the executive which I don't think is a healthy development."
Chomsky expressed concern over Chávez's cancer and wished the president a full and prompt recovery.
Chomsky's book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance became a publishing sensation after Chávez waved a copy during a UN address in 2006 famous for his denunciation of President George W Bush as a devil.
Its author remains fiercely critical of the US, which he said had tortured Bradley Manning, alleged source of the diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks, and continued to wage a "vicious, unremitting" campaign against Venezuela.
The Chávez government deserved credit for sharply reducing poverty and for its policies of promoting self-governing communities and Latin American unity, Chomsky said. "It's hard to judge how successful they are, but if they are successful they would be seeds of a better world."
Leonardo Vivas, co-ordinator of Latin American initiatives at the Carr Centre, said that Afiuni's case was the most prominent example of the erosion of justice in several Latin American countries. The centre hoped that Caracas would now heed Chomsky.
"He is one of the most important public intellectuals in the US and is respected by the Venezuelan government."
The decision to lobby publicly was taken because quiet diplomacy had limits, said Vivas.
Chávez, who is convalescing in Cuba, has a reputation for lashing back at criticism, raising the risk that the Afiuni initative could backfire.
"That could happen," said Vivas. "But that would mean recognition of the problem."

Chomsky's letter

Judge María Lourdes Afiuni has suffered enough
With this public letter I want to express my open support of the liberty of judge María Lourdes Afiuni, detained in Venezuela since December 2009. In November of last year I was informed of her situation by the Latin American initiative of the Carr Centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Ever since, I have been directly involved in mediation efforts with the Venezuelan government, with the purpose of releasing her from prison through a gesture of clemency by President Chávez.
Judge Afiuni had my sympathy and solidarity from the very beginning. The way she was detained, the inadequate conditions of her imprisonment, the degrading treatment she suffered in the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina, the dramatic erosion of her health and the cruelty displayed against her, all duly documented, left me greatly worried about her physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as about her personal safety.
Those reasons motivated me in December 2010 to address, jointly with the Carr Centre, a petition for an official pardon from the president in the context of the yearly presidential amnesties.
In January I received with relief the news that Venezuela's attorney general had suggested house arrest for judge Afiuni given her fragile health condition, which ended up with emergency surgery. Being in her house with her family and with adequate medical attention has been without doubt a significant improvement of her situation.
However, judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free, not only due to her physical and psychological health conditions, but in conformance with the human dignity the Bolivarian revolution presents as a goal. In times of worldwide cries for freedom, the detention of María Lourdes Afiuni stands out as a glaring exception that should be remedied quickly, for the sake of justice and human rights generally and for affirming an honourable role for Venezuela in these struggles.
For the above reasons I want Venezuelans to be aware of my total solidarity with judge Afiuni, while I affirm my unwavering commitment with the efforts advanced by the Carr Centre in Harvard University to release her from imprisonment. At the same time, I shall keep high hopes that President Chávez will consider a humanitarian act that will end the judge's detention.
@Guardian
Pic : Maria Lourdes Afiuni

Sun Day

2011-07-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's inside of me.

it's what I want to be.

It's inside of me,

and it's clear to see.

You're my heart.

It's inside of me.

It's what I'll always be.

It's inside of me,

and it's clear to see.

You're my heart.

my...

Ode to Eloah

2011-06-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Barrow of charcoal clouds,

Shadow doleful loner's browse ,

Tell me

Isn't the moon condemned to rise?

And the rancorous sun

To groom all hopes jeopardized?

Seasons past my life

And the joy of all wassailing

Turned out to be an immaculate falderol

Sagely masked to be enrolled

The metaphor of eternal life elludes

The king amongst carnal brutes

No fragrance of delight

Ever flees at tragic height

Pedram,23 June 2011

هرجایی

2011-06-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

تقاطع گیشا - آل احمد ، ساعت 7 صبح ، سوارماشین هستم در مسیر

بیمارستان... به ناگهان یک ماشین از لاین خودش منحرف می شه می آید در مسیر من ، من مجبور می شوم ناگهان ترمز بگیرم . ماشین پشت سر من هم به همین ترتیب....در این بین ماشین پشت سری به شدت پیگیر این موضوع میشود وبا مهارت خاص ایرانی از من سبقت می گیرد...دختر و پسر جوانی در ماشین هستند.پسرکه پشت رل است به سمت من بر می گردد و بلند داد و فریاد می کند. البته نمی فهمم چه می گوید بعید میدانم اگر شیشه ی ماشین پایین بود و صدای گیتار جان فیهی هم اجازه می داد و همه ی توجهم را هم می دادم ، باز هم چیزی درک می کردم . نفهمیدم چی گفت : راستش این روز ها از کمتر حرفی که می شنوم سر در می آورم .دختر هم خیره شده است به جلو گویا فیلمی را تماشا می کند. زیر پل پارک می کنم .به طور اتفاقی می بینم که همان ماشین بیرون پارکینگ ،زیر پل نگه داشته است و دختر و پسر لحظات ملکوتی جدایی را می گذرانند. واقعا خوشحالم اگر امروز باعث شدم یک دختر به دوست پسرش افتخار کند یا به هرشکلی به شکل گیری هر اتفاقی در هر جایی کمک کردم

photo: John Fahey by Bettina Herzner

Testa

2011-06-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

"Well they blew up chicken man in philly last night / now they blew up his house too"

Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen

My Album of The Month (May 2011)

2011-06-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Shape of Despair : Illusion's Play 2004

Fabulous , just a fantastic piece of art from finnish pioneers of funeral doom genre.It's really hard to specify a favourite song .Illusion's play count as an unwavering display of atmospheric funeral doom music:how far and clean this subgenre can penetrate.How masterfully it can explore the senses of sadness and terror. It summons very deep forgotten sentiments of the listener. Patient doom metal fans will find this album so astonishing , as it has been positively received by most funeral hard-liners.Not recommended to all , yet a funeral doom masterppiece indeed !

The Katyn Wood Massacre

2011-06-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

The first news of a massacre at Katyn Wood came in April 1943 when the Germans found a mass grave of 4,500 Polish soldiers in German-occupied Russia. The discovery at Katyn Wood was to greatly embarrass the Russian government.
The Russians responded to the German claims that Russia's secret police did it, by claiming that the massacre was carried out by the Germans themselves. In the context of the war - the Allies were fighting the Nazi war machine and Russia was a valued ally - the German version was not accepted by the British or other Allied governments. However, in the era of the Cold War, the Russian version was heavily scrutinised and questionned.
The first announcement of what had been found at Katyn Wood was made on Radio Berlin on April 13th, 1943.

"A report has reached us from Smolensk to the effect that the local inhabitants have mentioned to the German authorities the existence of a place where mass executions have been carried out by the Bolsheviks and where 10,000 Polish officers have been murdered by the Soviet Secret State Police. The German authorities went to a place called the Hill of Goats, a Russian health resort situated twelve kilometers west of Smolensk, where a gruesome discovery was made." Radio Berlin broadcast

The Germans claimed that they found a ditch 28 meters long and 16 meters wide at the Hill of Goats in which were 3,000 bodies piled up in layers of twelve. All the bodies were fully dressed in military uniform; some were bound and all had pistol shots to the back of their heads. The Germans believed that they would find 10,000 bodies (hence the figure in the broadcast) but eventually the final total was 4,500.
The Germans claimed that the bodies were in good condition and they even recognised a general Smorawinsky as one of the victims. The soil had done a great deal to preserve the bodies and any documentation found on them.
However, any information relating to this massacre made public during the war came from Goebbel's propaganda ministry and had to be treated as suspect by the Allies. In January 1943, the Russians had turned the tide of the war with the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad - a victory Churchill had urged all on the Allied side to celebrate. As if in a knee-jerk reaction, any criticism about the Russians in Easter 1943 would not have been acceptable. Any connection between the massacre and the Germans, however, would have been more readily accepted by all those fighting against the Nazis.
But what exactly did happen at Katyn Wood?
When German forces attacked Poland in September 1939, the Blitzkrieg tactic tore great holes in the Polish defence. However, on September 17th, as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Russian forces also invaded Poland. The Russian leadership called on the Polish soldiers to rise up against their officers and political leaders as a punishment for getting the country into an unjust war. Those Polish officers and senior NCO's captured by the Red Army were arrested and deported to Russia.
It is known that they were taken to three camps in Russia - Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov. One of the camps, Kozelsk, contained more than just officers. It contained arrested Polish university lecturers, surgeons, physicians, barristers and lawyers. One woman prisoner was held at Kozelsk - Janina Lewandowski. Her body was found at Katyn clothed in the uniform of the Polish Air Force. Ostashkov held officers - but it also held anybody from Poland who was considered to be 'bourgeois'. It seems that only Starobelsk held only officers from the Polish military.
To start with, the Russians attempted to 're-educate' the Poles in all three camps. Brigadier Zarubin of the Soviet Secret State Police was put in charge of this task. His efforts to promote the Soviet way of life probably had no chance. The Poles in the camp were forbidden to say Mass - which for a devout Roman Catholic nation was a major blow and it was almost certainly done secretly. Therefore, it is untenable to think that there were any takers for the Soviet view point which Zarubin was trying to sell. It seems that Zarubin reported his failure to Moscow and shortly after this a colonel from the Soviet Secret State Police turned up at all three camps. Just after the visit of this colonel, groups of prisoners were taken from the camps to an unknown destination.
In April 1940, all three camps were simultaneously cleared.
On June 22nd, 1941, Nazi Germany launched 'Operation Barbarossa'. The German military swept aside the Russian army and penetrated deep into Russia. Stalin, alarmed by the collapse of the Red Army, ordered that an amnesty should be granted to all Polish prisoners who were willing to fight against the Germans. On August 14th 1941, a Polish-Soviet military agreement was signed. However, no-one could account for the whereabouts of the officers held in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov. Winston Churchill himself wrote about the embarrassment such a disclosure brought on the Russian authorities.
The Polish government in exile, based in London, was especially concerned that the Russians explain where these men were. Stalin gave two answers. Initially, he claimed that the men had escaped to Manchuria. However, the authorities in Moscow - which was effectively Stalin - claimed that the men were held in territory that the Germans had taken in their lightning attack in June 1941 and that only the Germans could account for their whereabouts. This was to become the standard Moscow answer to the problem - the Germans were responsible.
Locals at Katyn Forest had long known that it was an area used by the secret police to execute those who had fallen out with Stalin's government. As early as 1929, the Soviet secret police had built a dacha there surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. To keep out the locals, the secret police also used guard dogs to patrol the perimeter of the dacha.
On July 16th, 1941, Smolensk fell to the Germans. The Russian authorities had fled from Katyn and for the first time in years, the area was open 'to the public'. In 1942, Poles from the Todt Organisation arrived in the area to collect any form of scrap. As they worked on the Hill of Goats, they found the body of a dead Polish officer who was later buried in a dignified service. However, the winter for 1942-43 was severe and the ground at the Hill of Goats was frozen over.
In the Spring of 1943, a Russian peasant, Ivan Krivozertzev, read an article in a newspaper ('Novyj Put') regarding General Sikorski and his search for thousands of Polish officers whom he could not account for. Despite communism in Russia, Krivozertzev had maintained his religious beliefs and re-called what he had seen in Smolensk in 1940.
He had seen rail wagons coming into Smolensk station but being shunted into screened sidings. He had seen men being herded under armed guard into 'Black Ravens' - the local nickname for prison vehicles. Krivozertzev had also seen 'normal' prisoners being driven from Smolensk city in lorries with shovels and pick axes. Krivozertzev went to the Germans and told them that he believed the Polish officers would be found at the Hill of Goats. The Germans went to the forest and dug up mounds that had young fir trees on the top of them. These trees gave away an obvious secret as the rings on them indicated that they had been planted in April 1940.
The Germans started digging in the Hill of Goats and found the bodies of many men, still in military uniform, who had been shot in the back of the head with their hands tied behind their backs. The Germans also found the bodies of Russian men and women who had been shot long before 1940. Curiously, the Germans claimed that the way the Russians and Poles had been tied was identical and that whoever did both sets of murders was the same organisation. The 4,500 bodies that were exhumed came from Kozelsk - no-one knows what happened to the men held at Starobelsk and Ostashkov. Moscow announced its stance on April 14th 1943:

"The Polish prisoners in question were interned in the vicinity of Smolensk in special camps and were employed in road construction. In was impossible to evacuate them at the time of the approach of the German troops and, as a result, they fell into their hands. If, therefore, they have been found murdered, it means that they have been murdered by the Germans who, for reasons of provocation, now claim that the crime was committed by Soviet authorities."

On April 15th, the British government publically stated via the BBC that the Germans had told lies and that it accepted the Russian version. This caused the Polish government in exile to call for an independent inspection of Katyn - something the International Red Cross in Switzerland could do. The German and Polish government (in exile) agreed to this; Moscow did not. The Russians broke off all relations with Poland and set up a puppet Polish government in Moscow.
When Russia advanced into Europe and re-captured Katyn, it seemed as if the issue was solved as it was clear that the Russians were not going to allow any investigation into what happened at Katyn. At the Nuremburg trials, the murders were linked to the indictment against Goering and the Russians presented their evidence to 'prove' it was the Germans, but they were never probed and Katyn drifted into obscurity. At the final judgment of the International Tribunal, Katyn was not even mentioned.
For their part the Russians claimed that the massacre took place after it became obvious that the Wehrmacht was in full retreat after their defeat at Stalingrad and that it was carried out by the Nazis. They put up the following evidence gathered at Nuremburg:
The Germans did not allow any external authority to fully examine either the bodies or the grave sites. The Polish Commission, set up by the Nazis to examine the evidence, was only allowed to see what the Germans wanted them to see. One Bulgarian professor, Marko Markov, claimed that he was only allowed to dissect one body that was presented to him and that he could not conclude from this body that it had been in the ground for three years – as the Nazis tried to suggest to him that it had been. In his written report, Markov only wrote about what he found on the body – he did not give a conclusion as to how the body got into its state.
He and seven other experts were only allowed two half-a-day visits to the grave sites by the Germans. “It reminded me of a tourist trip”, claimed Markov.
The Russians also claimed that the issue of the three year old saplings was also easy to explain. They claimed that there was no evidence that they came from the grave mounds themselves and that they could have been gathered at any point from Katyn Wood and handed in as ‘evidence’.
The Russians also claimed that all the bullets found on the bodies were made by the German firm Geko. It was claimed that they were all Geko 7.65 mm bullets which only the German would have had access to.
Who committed the murders remained a mystery until 1990 when the Russian authorities admitted that it was the Russian Secret police (NKVD), that then spent much time and effort in attaching blame on the Germans.
@historylearningsite.co.uk
Pic : General Mieczyslaw Smorawinski

Katyn (2007)

2011-06-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

It's the brutal characteristic of this dirty piece of history which makes Katyn so special. It's splendid and of course depressing. It's a deep cut into the post-traumatic aspect of disaster.The Families,Mothers,wives,children who lost their beloved in this dark collision with fate penned by war-time so-called allies.

درسکوت

2011-06-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

کلا خاطرات زیادی برای من زنده شد ،وقتی سال 77 رفته بودیم دنبال آیدا ،من توی ماشین کتاب جنایت و مکافات را تمام کردم.....مثل یک انقلاب درونی که با سکوتی با شکوه برگزار شد

30 and Life !

2011-06-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

"If I did not believe in life, if I were to lose faith in the woman I love, if I were to lose faith in the order of things, even if I were to become convinced, on the contrary, that everything is a disorderly, damned, and perhaps devilish chaos, if I were struck even by all the horrors of human disillusionment - still I would want to live, and as long as I have bent to this cup, I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all! However, by the age of thirty, I will probably drop the cup, even if I haven't emptied it, and walk away... I don't know where. But until my thirtieth year, I know this for certain, my youth will overcome everything - all disillusionment, all aversion to life."

Fyodor Dostoyevski
Courtesy of my friend Steven

My Author of The Month (May 2011)

2011-06-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Stig Dagerman 1923 - 1954

...so gain to build and build to gain because others will bring you down on a little small hanging string...

Never Let Me Go 2010

2011-06-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

It’s the story of Kathy ,Ruth and Tommy .Not exactly a love triangle…not exactly a science-fiction…not exactly a british film.Mark Romanek’s third movie is a dystopian drama based on Kazuo Ishiguro novel of the same name. Starring Carey Mulligan , Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley.3 protagonists are speciemens deigned to thrive for a sole reason of providing organs for severely –ill amongst normal population.There is no evidence of such murky future in opening section of the movie .A calm childhood incarcerated in Hailsham; an elite boarding school , all as a prelude of a convicted life in which the three characters are imprisoned. There is a blossoming hope of a possible deferral,which appears to be untrue. 3 caharacters in this movie weakened and downtrodden find no horizon for their doomed life beyond donating their organs freely and show-off the number of painful procedures they ‘ve undergone. I assume the movie is critical about materialism , and the science-fiction icing is just instrumental to define the sharp borders of sordid reality . Gloomy landscapes and sad expression and wordless conversations lead a morbid passage to a cold and barren world. Where even beautifully portrayed love can’t save desperate souls as they defenselessly embrace their empty ending.

“Never Let Me Go “ conjures up so much questions in an eligible fashion.It was a great pleasure watching this movie , absolutely unexpected !

Curse Life

2011-06-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

I used to feel...

I used to sense what were

Inside of me

To feel waves of difference

Waves which brought me to live

I enjoyed this life in me

Breathing and feeling

Burning and suffocating

Didn't curse the hour

Which gave birth to me

Didn't curse another life

When bearing death inside

Now all things I do bear

Are all gone and free

This, myself...

Now fleeing around death

Cursing the hour

And another life...

Which whom I used to care

Now...

Watching myself

My own life

Fading to afar...

Listening these voices

And trying to tell them

That I will soon be gone

For me... what did you really gave... life.

image : Andre Kertesz Distortion 147, Paris 1933

پیک ها

2011-06-02T06:31:00.000-07:00

حق انتخاب داشتند که یا شاه باشند یا پیک شاه . به رسم کودکان ،جملگی خواستند پیک باشند. از این رو پیک های بی شماری هستند که جهان را در می نوردند واز آن جا که شاهی در میان نیست یکدیگر را مخاطب پیام هایی که دیگر بی معنا شده است قرار می دهند. خوش داشتند به زندگی فلاکت بار خویش پایان دهند ، اما جرات نمی کنند زیرا سوگند یاد کرده اند به وظیفه ی خویش وفادار بمانند...از کتاب تمثیلات ترجمه ی کوروش بیت سرکیس

Time Grinds

2011-05-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Words intrude my mind , swinging between dream and reality, i need to write them down , i ought to save these perplexing evocations . Many wills unfulfilled ,corroded in time finally deplorably denied.
Pedram May 30 2011
Pic : R. Gatward

My Author of The Month (April)

2011-05-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

well, it's not fair to make a judgement in an unstable mood and that's definitely the case when i finished Nabokov's "The Defense" about 6-7 years ago. I really couldn't apporoach the novel,could't get close to the core of the story,and that's exactly an opposite impression i found when i reread the novel last month.that's an interesting outcome , in that specific period,an extreme bafflement and thought disorder, a very predictable result is the aforementioned near zero uptake .It's the outshining fact that oppressed mind does have a tendency to keep its calm by not entering the difficult process of reasoning.Now what seems necessary is to overlook some thaught materials and reread some of my essential books and notes shadowed by unclarity. The ordeal of rediscovering some masked pieces of value in literature is an amazing experience raising the question of how far silent wizening ages affected my logic and deduction powerhouse and drove it to apathetic status .
"The Defense " experience will count as an outstanding experience and a prelude to some vastly illuminating alliance.
Pedram May 29 ,2011

عصر یکشنبه ی من با استیگ دگرمن

2011-05-23T00:13:00.000-07:00

خسته از کار و سایش های روزمره به خانه برگشتم . باز همان حالت خستگی ...باز همان حس خالی شدن ...همان نا امیدی همیشگی...کتاب استیگ دگرمن را از کنار تخت بر می دارم و بدون هدف ورق می زنم. حس عجیبی من را ترغیب می کند که بخوانم.داستان کوتاهی را شروع می کنم. "کودکی کشته می شود " من را به سال ها پیش می برد ،فضایش شدیدا برایم آشناست. گویا بخشی از دغدغه های من بیان شده است. گویا کلامی آشنا بعد از این همه پیام های نا مفهوم مغزم را ناگهان از جمود در می اورد. پیامی که ارزش توجه کردن را دارد.احسا س تنهایی رخت بر می بندد، انسانها یی که ذهنمم را درگیر کرده بودند یک به یک به نقاط بسیار کوچکی تبدیل می شوند.دیگر احساس خستگی نمی کنم .کتاب را می بندم.

What Patients Need To Know About Osteoporosis

2011-05-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

Osteoporosis is a condition that is sure to become increasingly diagnosed as our population ages.
Osteoporosis is significant because it is associated with an increased risk of bone fracture, including fracture of the hip and vertebra, which are the cause of significant morbidity, mortality, loss of independence and medical expense in the elderly. In current clinical practice, osteoporosis is diagnosed on the basis of either the occurrence of a low-impact or fragility fracture, or on the basis of measured low bone mineral density (BMD). A low-impact fracture is one that occurs after a fall from standing height or less; a fragility fracture occurs spontaneously or with no trauma (cough, sneeze, sudden movement).
Bone strength is determined by bone density, bone “quality,” and bone microarchitecture. Of these features, bone density, or mass, is what we are able to measure. Osteoporosis is defined by World Health Organization criteria based on a person’s bone density by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Osteoporosis occurs when bone density is below 2.5 standard deviations from the mean for non-Hispanic white women between ages 20 and 29 (T score < -2.5). Osteopenia is defined by bone density of between 1 and 2.5 standard deviations below the mean for non-Hispanic white women in their twenties (T score of -1 to -2.5).
In recent years a variety of effective medications have been developed and approved for treatment of low bone density. Nonetheless, there are still significant gaps in our knowledge. Recently, the FDA issued a warning about an increased risk of “atypical fractures” that has been observed amongst women who take bisphosphonates, the most commonly prescribed drugs for osteoporosis. A few years ago these drugs were also linked to another rare problem, osteonecrosis of the jaw. This was primarily described in cancer patients and those on cancer medications, but the finding got patients, dentists, and oral surgeons quite worked up over the potential risks.
In clinical practice there is significant variation in the practice of screening for and treating osteoporosis and its precursor, osteopenia. According to national epidemiological data from NHANES III over 56% of women over age 50 have reduced bone density, of these 16% have osteoporosis. In their 80s 87% of women have reduced bone density and 44% of have osteoporosis. The key to prevention and treatment is trying to figure out who and when to treat aggressively to best prevent fractures. Current guidelines by the US Preventive Services Task Force support screening women at age 65. However, many post-menopausal women under age 65 are also at risk and the conservative evidence-based USPSTF guidelines do not comment on which of these women should also be screened. Other professional guidelines, such as those issued by the National Osteoporosis Foundation, support screening younger women who are post-menopausal and who have risk factors.
A variety of clinical tools exist to help women quantify their osteoporosis risk.
Osteoporosis risk factors include:
• Low body weight (<57 kg)

• Asian or Caucasian ethnicity

• Personal history of fragility fracture

• Family history of osteoporosis

• Smoking

• Drinking > 2 glasses of alcohol per day

• Excessive caffeine intake

• Certain medications (glucocorticoids)

• Sedentary lifestyle

• Amenorrhea (lapses in menstruation prior to menopause)

• Eating disorders

• Marathon running

• Dietary deficiencies of calcium and vitamin D

• Chronic health conditions (chronic liver and kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis)

Many women fall into these increased risk categories and thus are screened before age 65 leaving them with a diagnosis of osteopenia or osteoporosis and creating the conundrum of what to do for the remainder of a woman’s life.
In general, most women with osteopenia should not receive pharmacologic therapy unless they are higher risk, or have already suffered a fracture. Instead, they should be counseled to institute behavioral measures, such as increased weight-bearing exercise and increases in calcium and vitamin D supplementation. When these women should be rescreened is not clear, but probably no more often than every two years. Tracking the rate of bone density decline may help identify women who subsequently should receive drug therapy.
Effective pharmacologic treatments for osteoporosis are available and are, in general, well tolerated. Medication options include the bisphosphonates: alendronate, residronate, ibandronate and zoledronic acid, hormonal treatments (estrogen and selective estrogen receptor modulators), and recombinant parathyroid hormone (teriparatide). Of these options, the oral bisphosphonates, alendronate (Fosamax) and residronate (Actonel), have the most evidence supporting their efficacy in fracture prevention, and are considered first line. These drugs, however, can be somewhat inconvenient to administer because of their poor bioavailability that requires them to be taken on an empty stomach for best absorption. In addition, they are associated with gastrointestinal side effects—specifically esophagitis, and for this reason are contraindicated in patients with precancerous changes of the espophagus, “Barrett’s Esophagus.” For patients who experience gastrointestinal side effects the intravenous bisphosphonate, zoledronic acid may be administered every one to two years.
Hormonal therapies, such as estrogen, are effective treatment for low bone density. However, as indicated by the results of the Women’s Health Initiate, their use has been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. Raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), is approved for both prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Its use, while associated with a reduction in breast cancer risk, is also associated with an increased risk of thomboembolism. Its effect on cardiovascular disease appears to be neutral.
The appropriate duration of therapy and frequency of monitoring patients who are on pharmaceutical treatment are areas that remain ill-defined. Studies have indicated that 5 years of alendronate may be adequate for many average risk women. However, my experience in clinical practice is that many women are left on these drugs for years and years. Some have advocated drug “holidays” after five years of therapy. The largest randomized controlled trial looking at alendronate use and fracture outcomes was 10 years in duration, which in my view calls into question the safety of prolonged use.
Many questions remain about how to approach the treatment of aging bones to prevent the debilitating outcome of bone fracture. Seasoned clinicians have seen the problems that may occur in some cases with treating large populations of well patients for normal life processes (postmenopausal estrogen replacement therapy). Let’s hope that future research will address the question of when to treat with medication and for how long with further precision. Until then let’s use appropriate caution when prescribing medicine for normal senior bones.

by : Juliet K. Mavromatis

My Album Of the Month (April)

2011-05-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Sarah Brightman : Eden 1998

Phyllodes Tumor

2011-05-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Findings: Mammogram shows a lobular hyper dense mass with partially circumscribed and partially obscured margins. No calcifications visible

Meaning : leaf-like in Greek, phyllodes tumors demonstrate papillary growth of epithelial lined stroma
Key point: Large rapidly growing circumscribed mass without calcifications
Mammography :Phyllodes tumors appear as a dense, round or oval masses with circumscribed or lobulated borders on mammography. Indistinct margins favor malignant transformation. Calcifications are rare but when present are coarse.
Ultrasonography: demonstrates an oval, round, or lobulated hypoechoic mass. Cystic spaces favor malignancy. Increased vascularity can be common .

T1W1/T2W1 :Phyllodes tumors appear heterogeneously hypointense on T1WI with slit like areas of increased T2WI representing fluid. Enhancement is typically rapid and suspicious kinetics can be observed in approximately 33% of cases.
Differential Diagnosis:
Typically occurring in younger women, fibroadenomas also appear as oval or lobulated mass but have dense, coarse calcifications, homogeneous echogenicity, and more moderate enhancement characteristics.
While there is some overlap with phyllodes tumors demonstrating malignant transformation, breast carcinoma is more likely to demonstrate indistinct margins. Pleomorphic calcifications also favor carcinoma.
Primary sarcoma of the breast is distinguished from phyllodes tumors by the absence of epithelial components. The clinical course of primary sarcoma of the breast is similar to malignant phyllodes tumors.

Ultrasound shows an irregularly shaped mass with heterogeneous echogenicity and ill-defined borders.

Treatment: is by surgical excision with greater than 1 cm margins. Mastectomy may be required for large tumors. Axillary node dissection is usually unnecessary. With respect to adjuvant therapy, radiation reduces local recurrence. Chemotherapy has demonstrated no benefit.

US Braced For Fights With Pakistanis

2011-05-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.
Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.
One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”
The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.
About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.
That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.
“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”
With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, American officials on Monday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.
A United States official said that American investigators would soon be allowed to interview Bin Laden’s three widows, now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, made on television talk shows on Sunday.
American officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the Seals team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about Bin Laden’s life and activities since he fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Qaeda plots, personnel and planning.
“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.
In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, will talk soon with his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,” an American official said.
On Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “Mullen just wanted to check in with him,” said an American military official. “The conversation was civil, but sober, given the pressure that the general is under right now.”
In describing the mission, the officials said that American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan’s police forces and military responded to the raid. That determined how long the commandos could safely remain on the ground going through the compound collecting computer hard drives, thumb drives and documents.
American forces were under strict orders to avoid engaging with any Pakistani forces that responded to the commotion at the Bin Laden compound, senior administration officials said.
If a confrontation appeared imminent, there were contingency plans for senior American officials, including Admiral Mullen, to call their Pakistani counterparts to avert an armed clash.
But when he reviewed the plans, Mr. Obama voiced concern that this was not enough to protect the troops on the mission, administration officials said.
In planning for the possible capture of Bin Laden, officials decided they would take him aboard a Navy ship to preclude battles over jurisdiction.
The plan, officials said, was to do an initial interrogation for any information that might prevent a pending attack or identify the location of other Qaeda leaders.
“There was a heck of a lot of planning that went into this for almost any and all contingencies, including capture,” one senior administration official said.
In the end, the team organized to handle his death was called into duty. They did a quick forensics study of the body, washed it, and buried it at sea.
But the officials acknowledged that the mission always was weighted toward killing, given the possibility that Bin Laden would be armed or wearing an explosive vest.

By ERIC SCHMITT, THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER

@ NYTimes

Migraine : Update on New Therapies

2011-05-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Drugs with a better efficacy or side–effect profile than triptans may soon become available for acute treatment. The future may also look brighter for some of the very disabled chronic migraineurs thanks to novel drug and neuromodulation therapies.

•The oral calcitonine gene–related peptide antagonist Telcagepant is efficacious in acute treatment.
•Triptans, as other drugs, are more efficient if taken early but nonsteroidal anti–inflammatory drugs and analgesics remain useful for acute treatment, according to several meta–analyses.
•Single–pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation during the aura rendered more patients pain–free (39%) than sham stimulation (22%) in one study.
•Topiramate could be effective for migrainous vertigo, but it did not prevent transformation to chronic migraine in patients with high attack frequency.
•Onabotulinumtoxin A was effective for chronic migraine and well tolerated, but the therapeutic gain over placebo was modest; the clinical profile of responders remains to be determined before widespread use.
•Occipital nerve stimulation was effective in intractable chronic migraine with 39% of responders compared to 6% after sham stimulation. This and other neuromodulation techniques, such as sphenopalatine ganglion stimulation, are promising treatments for medically refractory patients but large controlled trials are necessary.
•One study suggests that outcome of patent foramen ovale closure in migraine might depend on anatomic and functional characteristics.

study by : Magis D et al

@Current Opinion in Neurology

Beyond Revenge

2011-05-09T02:33:00.000-07:00

it's an interesting article ,psychological analysis of ecstatic joy after Bin Laden's death/Pedram

Some Americans celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden loudly, with chanting and frat-party revelry in the streets. Others were appalled — not by the killing, but by the celebrations.
“It was appropriate to go after Bin Laden, just to try to cut the head off that serpent, but I don’t think it’s decent to celebrate a killing like that,” said George Horwitz, a retired meat cutter and Army veteran in Bynum, N.C.
Others were much more critical. “The worst kind of jingoistic hubris,” a University of Virginia student wrote in the college newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. In blogs and online forums, some people asked: Doesn’t taking revenge and glorying in it make us look just like the terrorists?
The answer is no, social scientists say: it makes us look like human beings. In an array of research, both inside laboratories and out in the world, psychologists have shown that the appetite for revenge is a sensitive measure of how a society perceives both the seriousness of a crime and any larger threat that its perpetrator may pose.
Revenge is most satisfying when there are strong reasons for exacting it, both practical and emotional.
“Revenge evolved as a deterrent, to impose a cost on people who threaten a community and to reach into the heads of others who may be contemplating similar behavior,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and author of “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct” (Jossey-Bass, 2008). “In that sense it is a very natural response.”
Many of the sources of the joyous outburst were obvious: A clear victory after so many drawn-out conflicts. A demonstration of American competence, and of consequences delivered. The public relations value of delivering a public blow to a worldwide terror network. And, it needs to be said, the timing: The news hit just as many bars were starting to clear out for the night.
But this was much more than a simple excuse to party.
“Pure existential release,” said Tom Pyszczynski, a social psychologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who has studied reactions to 9/11. “Whether or not the killing makes any difference in the effectiveness of Al Qaeda hardly matters; defeating an enemy who threatens your worldview, the very values you believe are most protective, is the quickest way to calm existential anxiety.”
After almost 10 years, the end was nothing if not final. “The emotions were so strong, I think, because the event was compacted: Bin Laden was found and killed, and it was done — done and over, just like that,” said Kevin Carlsmith, a social psychologist at Colgate University and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. “We’re so used to people being brought in, held at Guantánamo, the trials, the appeals; it feels like justice is never done.”
As a rule, people are far more forgiving than they might guess, studies find. After most betrayals, like being dumped by a love interest or insulted, the urge for revenge erodes around the same rate that certain memories do: sharply in the first few weeks, and much more slowly afterward. The same kind of pattern can follow even physical assaults, depending on the circumstances and the personality of the victim.
“The intensity of the emotion falls off precipitously, simply because the body can’t carry such a giant load of outrage and function very well,” Dr. McCullough said.
But the urge for payback — especially for a crime like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed almost 3,000 civilians — never goes to zero. “There is a stubborn part of the memory that hangs on to the urge, to a little piece of it,” and the pain is refreshed every time the memory is recalled, Dr. McCullough said.
It is easy to forget how much fear was in the air after the 9/11 attacks: the anthrax mailings, the airport lines, the color-coded terror alerts. Many of those celebrating late on Sunday and early Monday were teenagers during those years, young people who have lived much of their lives under the threat of terrorism — and this terrorist in particular — and who had the time and energy to hit the streets and share the moment.
“For them this was a chance to be a part of history,” Dr. Pyszczynski said.
In a long series of studies, psychologists have shown that when people are reminded that they will one day die, they fixate on attributes they consider central to their self worth. Those who are religious become more so; those who value strength or physical attractiveness intensify their focus on these qualities; and people generally become more patriotic, more supportive of aggressive military action.
“Even subtle reminders of 9/11 have the same effect,” Dr. Pyszczynski said.
The sight of Bin Laden’s face on television or a smartphone news feed might have been enough to move people from the sidelines into the streets, to cheer for the home team.
Finally, people everywhere have a strong belief in “just desserts” punishment. In a 2002 study, psychologists at Princeton University had more than 1,000 participants evaluate specific crimes and give sentencing recommendations for each. The subjects carefully tailored each recommended sentence to the details of the infraction, its brutality and the record of the perpetrator.
The drive to enforce those sentences varies widely from person to person. But in a crowd of like-minded people, the most intense drives for justice become the norm: People who may have felt a mix of emotions in response to the news can be swept up in the general revelry.
Thus the natural urge for revenge — satisfied so suddenly, releasing a decade of background anxiety, stoked by peers — feeds on itself. Delight turns to chanting turns to climbing on lamp posts.

by : Benedict Carey

Leukotriene Antagonists as Effective as Other Asthma Therapies?

2011-05-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Leukotriene-receptor antagonists may be as effective as inhaled corticosteroids for first-line treatment of asthma and as effective as long-acting beta agonists for add-on therapy, according to two "real-world" trials reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The two trials included individuals aged 12 years and older with asthma. In one, some 300 patients beginning asthma therapy were randomized to open-label treatment with either a leukotriene antagonist or an inhaled glucocorticoid. In the other, roughly 350 patients already taking an inhaled glucocorticoid were randomized to add-on therapy with a leukotriene antagonist or a long-acting beta agonist.
The primary endpoint — asthma-related quality of life at 2 months — was similar between treatment groups. However, the researchers report that at 2 years, outcomes did not quite meet equivalence criteria.
Editorialists note that leukotriene antagonists likely work well in real-world settings because of their ease of use (i.e., pill vs. inhaler).

She's Everything To Me

2011-05-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

She never stopped believing,
Even though I gave her reason.
She weathered out the lonliness and cold.
The years have not been easy,
All those winter nights, those breezy
Drafty, rainy times that make a man feel old.

She smiles when a smile can still my heart.
Her kisses lift me as a man apart
From the man I am,
And I'm free again.
And she's everything...
She's everything to me.

She's never stopped her trying,
Though I'd hear her softly crying,
Asking God, in her own way,
For strength to last another day.
She's taken everything I am
And has made me a much
Better man.

And in all my wonder, I confess,
This love my Lady does possess,
Makes me smile,
And every once in a while
All I see
Is her being free.
Yet she's still here loving me.

Poem : Richard D. Remler

Image :

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix

("Head of a Woman"1822 :This haunting oil study of an old woman in despair, prepared for the Massacre at Chios, was taken from a Parisian model.)

Ready For Chelsea

2011-05-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

United's defeat at Arsenal last weekend has opened the door for the defending champions who appeared to be out of the title race just a few weeks ago. The Reds still hold their destiny in their own hands and know victory on Sunday will all but guarantee a record 19th championship crown.

"Everyone's aware of the magnitude of Sunday's game and it's one we're looking forward to," Sir Alex told reporters at his pre-match press conference.

"Last Sunday's result has certainly brought an awareness to us of how important this game is and I think it's one of the reasons I had to pick the team I did on Wednesday. It's given us a fresh team for Sunday. It should be a fantastic match and if we win, we should win the league."

The Reds possess one of the best home records in Europe having dropped just two points all season in the league. And the boss is hoping his team can produce can another match-winning display against Ancelotti's men.

"Our home form is a big advantage. That's the reason we're there [on top]," said Sir Alex. "It's probably the best in Europe. Some of our performances at home have been absolutely terrific. Hopefully we get the result we want."

@Manutd.com

Sir Alex : We Were Vindicated

2011-05-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

After his side demolished Schalke 6-1 on aggregate in the Champions League semi-final, the jubilant boss said: "It's fantastic for the club (to be in a third final in four years). I've said it many times, we should have done better in Europe over the years.

"I think we're getting closer to that. I think this team can win the cup. I think it's a team full of great desire and determination. These qualities, allied to their ability, will help them at Wembley."

Sir Alex acknowledges that Barcelona - conquerors of United in the respective clubs' last final, in 2009 - are a different prospect to Schalke, indeed to any other team in the world currently.

"I think they (Barcelona) are definitely, without doubt, the team of the moment. There's no question about that. They play fantastic football. It's a pleasure to watch them play. Their semi-final (against Real Madrid) was unfortunate in that we expected a lot better from both sides."

Turning back to his own team, the manager admitted he'd lost some sleep on the eve of Wednesday's win over Schalke, as he pondered his line-up. He made eight changes from the side that started at Arsenal and given the stage of the competition, this was seen in some quarters as a gamble.

"I woke up about four times last night and picked different teams. But they did me proud. When I analysed each individual who was playing, I said to myself, 'This is a Manchester United player. Why can't I play him?' The fact it's a semi-final and such an important game does create a certain bit of doubt in your mind as to whether you're doing the right thing but I'm glad we were vindicated.

"We're in the final now and we'll prepare properly. We've got a big game on Sunday, so let's look forward to that."

Sir Alex recognises, of course, that a European Cup final at Wembley has special meaning for United, given that the Reds first won the biggest prize in club football there back in 1968. Could that be an omen?

"Let's hope so. This club has created destiny many times and its fate follows things like that."

@Manutd.com

Libyan Forces Chase Rebel Convoy Into Tunisia

2011-04-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

The fighting in Libya briefly spilled into neighboring Tunisia on Friday when troops loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi forced rebels from a border crossing in the northwest of Libya and pursued them into a nearby Tunisian town, according to a rebel spokesman and fighter who witnessed the events
Government forces attacked a convoy of rebel fighters and supply trucks at the checkpoint at Wazen in midmorning, said Tarek Bodrani, the fighter, who was reached by telephone. Mr. Bodrani said a pro-Qaddafi force with about 30 vehicles struck from the north and south, and seven pickup trucks carrying antiaircraft machine guns followed rebels toward the Tunisian town, Dhiba, roughly three miles away.
One government pickup truck crashed and the others were stopped, and the pro-Qaddafi soldiers were detained after being confronted by a roadblock operated by the Tunisian military and local residents. Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, a rebel spokesman, said Colonel Qaddafi’s forces fired mortar shells onto Tunisian soil during the chase.
Outraged Tunisian officials summoned a Libyan envoy to complain about the incursion, Al Jazeera reported. Libyan ordnance reportedly fell in Tunisian territory on Thursday as well, when fighting for control of the Wazen post began, wounding some civilians and potentially further imperiling the Libyan government, which is already fighting on multiple fronts and facing a NATO air campaign.
In an address broadcast live early on Saturday, Colonel Qaddafi called for negotiations with NATO, Reuters reported. “Let us negotiate with you, the countries that attack us,” he said.
The rebels had captured the border post at Wazen with hopes of opening a supply route for opposition fighters battling Colonel Qaddafi’s troops in Libya’s western mountains. The fate of that ambition is now unclear, as was the status of the captured Libyan soldiers.
In Libya’s most violent area, in the besieged coastal city of Misurata, fighting erupted across a broad front along the city’s south and west, as rebel fighters pressed toward the city’s airport and faced a fresh ground attack on their western flank.
The fighting in Misurata began early in the morning and raged throughout the day. The city’s edge became a cacophony of machine-gun and mortar fire, punctuated by the rolling explosions of ground-to-ground rocket strikes in neighborhoods behind the front lines.
As the two sides fought, Misurata’s troubles appeared to deepen further as NATO said that pro-Qaddafi forces had been caught Friday mining the waters around the harbor to harass traffic from the sea, which has been the sole lifeline for a city otherwise cut off by loyalist ground troops.
Three mines were discovered and were being disposed of, NATO said in a statement, adding that the devices were being laid two to three kilometers offshore when the inflatable boats on which they were being carried were deliberately sunk.
At least one vessel with humanitarian aid scheduled to enter the port on Friday delayed its arrival and waited off the coast for an all-clear sign from NATO, medical officials in the city said.
Supplies from the sea have been integral to the city’s survival during the two-month siege, as internationally chartered aid ships have delivered food, water, medicine and ambulances, and evacuated thousands of migrant workers and many wounded Libyans in need of treatment not available in the city.
A flotilla of rebel fishing vessels and tugboats have also smuggled in weapons, ammunition and other military equipment, allowing the sparsely supplied rebels to push forward against Colonel Qaddafi’s conventionally equipped troops.
The fighting on two fronts in the Misurata area on Friday appeared to signal simultaneous thrusts, in different places — one by the rebels and the other by loyalist troops.
The loyalists, backed by at least three tanks, struck first, trying to push into and through the village of Zawit al-Mahjoub early in the morning, fighters and medical officials said. The rebels repelled the attack, but not before three tanks entered the village, six rebel fighters were killed and at least 10 more were wounded, a doctor treating them said.
As the battle in the village continued, rebel groups were pushing southward toward the airport, which is still held by the loyalists, and meeting stiff resistance from Colonel Qaddafi’s troops dug in around the airfield or garrisoned within.
By midmorning, a large battle had been joined, and mortar fire was landing, in explosion after explosion, near rebels clustered and hiding in buildings and behind walls.
Most of the pro-Qaddafi forces inside the city have been killed or chased out. But the Qaddafi units control the city’s approaches and many remain at Misurata’s edges, from where they have been shelling the city at will. A rebel commander, who said he had been a lieutenant colonel in the Libyan military before joining the opposition, said the immediate goal of the southern thrust was to push the pro-Qaddafi units from the airport and ultimately out of rocket range.
“Right now nowhere in the city is safe, and we worry about our mothers, our wives and our daughters,” he said. The commander, who provided his name, asked that it be withheld from publication to prevent retaliation against his family.
As machine-gun fire crackled and mortar rounds landed in the neighborhood, a second officer, whose fighters identified him as a police colonel who had defected from the government’s side, said the rebels did not know how many loyalist troops were defending the airport.
The rebels have not managed to encircle the airfield, he said, and the Qaddafi forces control an access road to the airport that connects them to the rest of Libya. Their numbers, the officer said, seemed to fluctuate each day.
The fighting built in intensity as the hours passed. Shortly after 1 p.m. the Qaddafi forces struck the city with a heavy barrage of rockets, which landed in a civilian neighborhood, miles away from the fighting. The smoke and dust of multiple explosions could be seen from afar.
A few minutes later, a shoe factory near the airport was struck by munitions and set ablaze. A dense column of black smoke rose, forming a cloud that drifted over Misurata.
The smoke continued to rise at sunset, when funeral processions for many rebels and civilians killed in the day’s fighting wound through the city.
In Benghazi, the rebel capital, the National Transitional Council, as the de facto rebel government calls itself, pledged in a communiqué that “no forces under its command” would use antipersonnel or antivehicular land mines.
Whether the council and its forces have the means or command-and-control capacity to live up to these pledges remains to be seen; many rebel groups have demonstrated poor discipline in the field, especially in eastern Libya, and the council’s ability to supervise the forces is not always evident.

By C. J. CHIVERS and SCOTT SAYARE

@NYTIMES

Appeals Court Overturns Stem Cell Research Ban

2011-04-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

Opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research lost a key round in a U.S. appeals court Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the court of appeals in Washington overturned a judge's order that would have blocked taxpayer funding for stem cell research. The judges ruled that opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research are not likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop it.
The panel reversed an opinion issued last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.
"We're thrilled with this decision and look forward to allowing federally funded scientists to continue with their work without political constraints," said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Opponents say the research is a form of abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the stem cells.
The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them
The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that President Obama's expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells — ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues — because it will mean extra competition.

Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, issued a preliminary injunction in August to block the research while the case continued.
The Obama administration immediately appealed and requested the order be stopped. The appeals court quickly ruled that the research could continue at the National Institutes of Health while the judges took up the case.
The opinion tossing out Lamberth's ruling was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan, and supported by Judge Thomas Griffith, a nominee of President George W. Bush. The dissent came from Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush; she agreed with the lower court judge that the lawsuit was likely to succeed.
As a result of the appellate ruling Friday, the original lawsuit can continue before Judge Lamberth, but the taxpayer-funded research also will go on. Lamberth hasn't thus far either held a trial or issued a final ruling, which he could do based on court filings without taking testimony.
Once the cells are culled, they can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely. So government policies said using taxpayer dollars to work with the already-created batches of cells is allowed.
The Obama administration has expanded the number of stem cell lines created with private money that federally funded scientists could research, up from the 21 that President George W. Bush had allowed to at least 75 so far. To qualify, parents who donate the original embryo must be told of other options, such as donating to another infertile woman.
Congress twice passed legislation specifically calling for tax-funded stem cell research, which President Bush vetoed.

@AP

Pic : Judge Royce Lamberth

The Royals Need To Earn Their Keep

2011-04-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

Amid the flag-waving and the street parties to celebrate the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton today, bigger questions about the relevance of the monarchy to modern Britain lurk like uninvited guests. Extravagant living in a time of austerity abrades public sensibilities; unearned privilege is resented, while snobbery and elitism are seen as dangerously outmoded. The usual arguments in support of the monarchy — continuity, tradition and dignity — are no longer enough. The royals need to earn their keep.
While only a small minority here favor a republican government, many Britons hope the wedding might signal the dawning of a more populist monarchy. This is the marriage of a senior royal prince and a commoner — the first in 350 years — that spans the class divide and is, it seems, a marriage for love. These two met in college, have lived in a shared house with friends, and plan to spend at least the first few years of their married life in northern Wales, with William continuing his service as a search-and-rescue pilot for the Royal Air Force. They have caught the public’s imagination not because of outdated deference to royalty but because of their appearance of normality and togetherness even amid the strictures of royal protocol and the frenzy of press coverage.
Comparisons have of course been drawn to the wedding of William’s parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Diana was young, aristocratic, naïve and intimidated, whereas Kate is older, middle-class, educated, respected by her groom and undoubtedly wiser to the pressures that will surround her. But the circumstances are similar: in 1981, as now, Britain was mired in economic difficulty and the public was expected to welcome the opulence of the ceremony as a respite from hardship.
To understand how a wedding could accomplish that, it is instructive to look much further back than 1981 — to a time before royal weddings meant much at all to ordinary Britons.
Consider Mary Tudor’s 1554 marriage to Philip of Spain. Officials feared that the public might object to the queen, herself half-Spanish, marrying a Spanish prince. And so the nuptials were performed some 50 miles from London, at Winchester Cathedral. It was an alliance born of the mutual strategic interest forged by the marriage of Mary’s parents, Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon.
Royal marriages had long been arranged for diplomatic and political reasons. In 1420, Henry V married Catherine of Valois in an attempt at peace with France during the Hundred Years’ War; in 1589, James I married Anne of Denmark to establish a strong Protestant alliance in Europe; in 1625, Charles I married Henrietta Maria of France during a brief period when England’s pro-Spanish policy was replaced by a pro-French one.
Under the Stuarts, royal brides were mainly Catholic, which jarred a Protestant nation. The monarchs of the German House of Hanover, which acceded in 1714, invariably wed Germans of similar rank.
What finally changed all this was a remaking — indeed a rebranding — of the monarchy in 1917. England and Germany were at war, so another marriage to a German was out of the question. Instead, what was then the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was renamed the House of Windsor, and George V decreed that his children could now “marry English men and English women.” In that moment the all-British monarchy was born. And royal weddings became big events to be celebrated publicly and patriotically.
When the future George VI married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923, wedding fever engulfed the country. Newspapers and magazines scrutinized every detail: the dress, the guests, the venue. A million people lined the route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. There were fireworks and parties in the streets.
The wedding of Charles and Diana followed this tradition. The ceremony was moved from the abbey to the larger St. Paul’s Cathedral, and much of the country watched on television. Celebratory merchandise, from mugs and plates to plastic trays and tea towels, were sold worldwide. The royal family had become the ultimate British brand.
As the wedding unfolds today, many people here will be keenly aware that this is a spectacle to which they, the taxpayers, have contributed. Britons want to see their royals demonstrating “value for money,” to be seen to be in touch, to have a greater ethos of service and to be more than vacuous figureheads propped up by pomp and pageantry. In a democratic age of mass media, maintaining public favor has never been more critical.
Queen Elizabeth II’s longevity — next year will be her 60th on the throne — has in many ways suspended public discussion of the reform and modernization of the monarchy.
This might prove to be the biggest threat to the royal future: more than half of Britons now believe William should succeed the queen. With Charles first in line, there is a real prospect that William and Kate will not become king and queen until they are middle-aged. By then, the honeymoon will be over, their public appeal will surely have waned and the new “classless” monarchy that their marriage symbolized may well have arrived too late.
@NYTIMES

Alzheimer's Association

2011-04-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's always satisfying to pursue worthy ideas and join a right cause.
Lethean Cottage is glad to share some useful information with the readers in order to improve the public understanding about the disease.
if you're willing to join the cause :

Facebook.com/actionalz

twitter.com/alzassociation
and here :you can find some useful information about the disease
and you can add some useful items to your website:use texts,videos,banners,etc so we can make sure as many people as possible have access to the basic information.

Regards

Pedram

Melanoma : Clinical Pearls and Morning Report Questions

2011-04-27T01:04:00.000-07:00

Clinical Pearls

What are the currently approved treatments for metastatic melanoma?
The two therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration, high-dose interleukin-2 and dacarbazine, are each associated with response rates of only 10 to 20% and a small percentage of complete responses; neither is thought to improve overall survival. In randomized trials, the median survival among patients treated with dacarbazine was less than 8 months.
How prevalent is the v-raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homologue B1 (BRAF) mutation among patients with metastatic melanoma?
A search for mutations in a component of the MAP kinase pathway in a large panel of common cancers revealed that 40 to 60% of melanomas, and 7 to 8% of all cancers, carry an activating mutation in BRAF.

Morning Report Questions

Q. How effective was the oral inhibitor of BRAF, PLX4032, in treating patients with metastatic melanoma?
A. This trial demonstrated that therapy targeting tumors containing activating V600E BRAF mutations can induce clinically significant tumor regression in patients. PLX4032 induced clinically significant tumor regression in 81% of patients who had melanoma with the V600E BRAF mutation. Responses were observed at all sites of disease, including the bone, liver, and small intestine.
Q. What tumors emerged in patients treated with PLX4032?
A. Eight patients in the dose-escalation cohort (15%) and 10 patients in the extension cohort (31%) developed cutaneous squamous-cell carcinomas — a total of 35 carcinomas. These were reviewed centrally, and all but one either were keratoacanthomas or had features of a keratoacanthoma. The median time to the appearance of a cutaneous squamous-cell carcinoma was 8 weeks; the majority of the carcinomas were resected, and in no case did any lead to discontinuation of treatment.

Fly

2011-04-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Fly

and out

Fly

It's putrid

It's cold

My world

People

Are hateful

It's putrid

It's cold

Fly

and out

Fly

Sway

The blue sky

Shed a tear

for me

and the abhorred

Pedram

خاطرات 4

2011-04-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

آموزشی من یک روز دیرتر از همه ی همدوره ایهام تمام شد. پنج شنبه ساعت 9:30 صبح نامه معرفیم را گرفتم و از پادگان خارج شدم.پادگانی که خالی از نیروهای آموزشی شده بود. اردیبهشت با 24 ساعت پر استرس برای من آغاز شد.حقیقت آن است که به خودم نمره ی قبولی نمی دهم. از نمایشی که داشتم و از طرز مواجهه با استرس خودم بسیار ناامید شدم،انتظار من خیلی بیشتر بود.زندگی من از این اسان تر نخواهد شد .این وظیفه من است که پاسخ خوبی به این اتفاقات بدهم.

My Author Of the Month (March)

2011-04-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

My Author of The Month (February)

2011-04-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Sæglópur (Lost at Sea)

2011-04-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sæglópur, á lífi

kominn heim

Sæglópur, á lífi
kominn heim
það kemur kafari
kominn heim
það kemur kafari
kominn heim

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
A lost seafarer, alive
has returned home
A lost seafarer, alive
has returned home
a diver comes
has returned home
a diver comes
has returned home
Sigur Ros

My Album of The Month (March)

2011-04-14T09:16:00.001-07:00

Dredg : The Pariah,The Parrot,The Delusion 2009

Thank You

2011-04-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

I want to say thank you

for all the love destroyed

For all the just causes ,rejected,

for all my forzen laughters

Thank you;

for this horror show

You solely lead

Your acts of sarcasm,

stinks like rotten flesh

Thank you ;

For all the mocked cuddles

All the fake senses

After all this,

I swore i'd become a stronger one

To despise your rules

Imagine a world

Where hatred evaporates

and love dominates.

Thank you
Pedram

Carry On

2011-04-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

i'm leaving home,willing to fight till the end. i can feel the strength,
one more week ...

Highway To Sheol

2011-04-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

...for she has wounded many and thrown them down; indeed, she has slain a great multitude. Her house is a highway to Sheol, leading down to the chambers of death.

Proverbs 7:26-27

Evening Star

2011-04-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

'Twas noontide of summer,

And mid-time of night;

And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold- too cold for me-
There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
Edgar Allan Poe

خاطرات 3

2011-04-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

روزی که روزبرگ بودن در حد فاصل 7 تا 11 فروردین اعلام شد،روز بسیار خوبی بود. یکشنبه 7 فروردین 1390