Pimples’s shingles pain chickenpox

By MARY JACOBS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
maryjacobs44@yahoo.com
Josh Glick missed the Cowboys’ game last Thanksgiving to go to the
emergency room. In retrospect, he’s glad he did.

Josh Glick got medication for shinglesearly during his outbreak last
year, so even though the shingles slowed him down for a while, he’s
back to his athletic self, working out at the Jewish Community Center
in Dallas. He’s now a college freshman. “>

Josh Glick got medication for shinglesearly during his outbreak last
year, so even though the shingles slowed him down for a while, he’s
back to his athletic self, working out at the Jewish Community Center
in Dallas. He’s now a college freshman.

A high school senior at the time, Josh broke out with a rash on one
side of his face, which he at first thought was just a patch of
“really gross pimples.” But he also had an unexplained toothache, and
the fluid-filled blisters were extremely painful – red flags
that spurred his grandfather, a pediatrician, to take Josh to the
hospital.

The diagnosis: shingles, a severe skin condition caused by varicella-
zoster, the same virus that causes chickenpox. Doctors started Josh on
anti-viral medication right away, with pain medication to help.
Normally athletic and active, he was exhausted and in constant pain
and missed 10 days of school.

“I never ate,” he recalls. “All I wanted was for my mom to rub my back
and give me more pain meds.”

Relatively speaking, however, Josh’s case was mild, partly because he
is young and partly because he got the medication early.

Around Christmas 2005, Ms. Emery, now 61, noticed blisters on her
back, but she assumed the cause was a heating pad she’d used for her
aching back. By New Year’s Eve, the normally energetic community
volunteer felt so horrible she could barely move.

Her doctor diagnosed shingles and started the anti-viral medications,
but it was too late. For the next four months, Ms. Emery was
miserable, exhausted and in terrible pain.

“The blisters on my back felt like a really bad toothache, where you
can feel the nerve endings,” she says. Wearing clothing on her back
was unbearably painful. When her husband would walk by, “just the
breeze when he passed by was excruciating.”

Already slim, Ms. Emery lost so much weight during the bout with
shingles that she had to buy new clothes.

“I was just skin and bones,” she says. It wasn’t until November,
almost a year after her first symptoms appeared, that she began to
regain the weight.

The lesson learned from Ms. Emery’s nightmare: Know the symptoms and
see your doctor right away if you suspect you have shingles.

Or better yet, get the vaccine. The FDA approved Zostavax, a vaccine
against shingles, in 2006 – too late for Ms. Emery.

Anybody who has had chickenpox can get shingles, and sooner or later a
significant number of them will.

“Once you’re infected with chickenpox, the virus is dormant in your
body for the rest of your life,” says Dr. Stephen Tyring, clinical
professor in the department of dermatology at the University of Texas
Medical School in Houston. But physical or emotional stress, or immune
suppression caused by disease or cancer treatment, can trigger an
outbreak.

Don’t think you had chickenpox when you were a kid? Think again. Dr.
Tyring’s research says that, while many don’t remember having
chickenpox, more than 90 percent of the population has had it.

The research, published recently in the Archives of Dermatology, also
pointed to family history as another risk factor for shingles.

“If just one blood relative has had shingles, you should get
vaccinated,” Dr. Tyring says. “Your risk is double that of someone who
has had no relatives with the virus.”

For youngsters, there’s another possible risk factor. Those who had
chickenpox in infancy, before their first birthday, have an increased
risk of pediatric shingles.

You don’t need to have a trigger or a risk factor to get shingles,
however. If you’ve had chickenpox at any time in your life, you can
get the disease.

Shingles can’t be cured, but early intervention with antiviral
medication can minimize the length and severity of the symptoms. The
key word is “early.”

“We’d like to see patients within the first 48 hours after the onset
of symptoms,” says Dr. James Luby, professor of internal medicine-
infectious diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “But the sooner
the better.”

Steroids also may be prescribed to help reduce the severity of the
outbreak, but they are not usually prescribed for children with
shingles. Josh didn’t have steroids.

For those experiencing severe pain with the onset of the rash, drugs
to treat nerve pain such as Neurontin or Lyrica can help, according to
Dr. Randall Wooley, an internist at Presbyterian Hospital.

The first sign is often burning or tingling pain, or itch, followed by
a rash of fluid-filled blisters, similar to chickenpox. And usually
someone coming down with shingles will feel generally crummy, with
chills, fever, upset stomach or headache.

There’s also a distinctive pattern to the blisters. Josh’s outbreak,
on just one side of his face, was what tipped off his grandfather.

“Shingles is almost always on one side of the body,” says Dr. Joel
Steinberg, who is a professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern. “It
always follows an exact nerve root pattern.”

Most commonly, the blisters form as a band spanning one side of the
trunk. (The disease often produces a “girdle” or belt of blisters on
one side of the waist, thus the name zoster(Greek for girdle) and the
name shingles,which comes from cingulum,the Latin word for beltor
girdle.)

The second most common location is on one side of the face around the
eye and on the forehead. However, shingles can involve any part of the
body.

Some rashes merge and produce an area that looks like a severe burn.
Other patients may have just a few scattered lesions that don’t cause
severe symptoms. In a few cases, patients have the pain but no
blisters at all.

In Josh’s case, shingles was diagnosed with a test of fluid taken from
one of the blisters. In most cases, however, it’s diagnosed by
symptoms alone.

About 1 million cases of shingles occur in the U.S. each year, about
half of them affecting people 60 or older.

“The older you are, the more likely you are to get shingles,” says Dr.
Martin Myers, professor of pediatrics and co-director of public health
policy for the Sealy Center for Vaccines at the University of Texas
Medical Branch, Galveston. “As people pass the age of 60, the risk of
developing shingles goes up with each decade.”

While shingles most often strikes after age 40, it’s common enough
that cases in young people, like Josh, are not rare.

“Shingles is an intense inflammation within the nerves,” says Dr.
Randall Wooley, an internist at Presbyterian Hospital. “It’s just
about the worst kind of pain you can have.”

Other complications can include scarring, bacterial skin infections,
muscle weakness and, depending on the location of the outbreak,
hearing loss, vision loss or paralysis on one side of the face. Some
can have long-term nerve pain (called post-herpetic neuralgia).

“The older you are when you get shingles, the greater your chance of
developing post-herpetic neuralgia,” says Andrew B. Crocker, a
gerontology health specialist for the Texas AgriLife Extension
Service.

“This pain can last for weeks, months or even years.” The agency is
working to increase awareness and encourage people 60 and older to get
vaccinated.

Shingles is not contagious – exactly. “You can’t give shingles
to someone else, but it’s possible that a person with an active
outbreak of shingles could transmit chickenpox to someone who has
never had chickenpox, or who has not been vaccinated,” says Dr.
Wooley. In other words, an unvaccinated youngster could catch the
chickenpox from a grandparent with active shingles.

The shingles left Josh Glick with no lingering problems, just memories
of the Christmas when his friends nicknamed him “Shingle Bell Rock.”
He’s working out daily and back to normal, aside from a few scars.

“When I returned to school, everybody thought I’d been in a knife
fight,” he likes to joke. “But I’m not that cool.”

“I’d recommend the vaccine to anyone,” she says. “You don’t want to go
through what I did.”

Get the vaccine: Zostavax, the vaccine against shingles, has been
approved for people 60 and older. It’s expensive (about $200) but
usually is covered by insurance. Some studies are looking at whether
people 50 and older should be vaccinated. It’s basically the same
vaccine that’s used for chickenpox, but with a different dosage.

Know the risk factors:People who have had chickenpox can get shingles.
People who have received the chickenpox vaccine, which was approved by
the FDA in 1995, are less likely to get shingles than those who have
had the disease. Other risk factors: aging, a family history of
shingles or a weakened immune system due to cancer, certain drugs,
transplants, chemotherapy, HIV or stress.

Know the symptoms: Common symptoms include burning, tingling or
numbness of the skin; chills, fever, upset stomach or headache; fluid-
filled blisters; skin that is sensitive to touch; mild itching to
strong pain. Many shingles sufferers will experience pain before the
blisters appear.

Act fast:Antiviral medications can minimize the pain and duration of a
shingles outbreak, if the medication is started early enough. Call
your doctor immediately if you suspect you have shingles.

Conversation guidelines: We welcome your thoughts and information
related to this article. When leaving comments please stay on topic
and be respectful of others.

Why test system in pimples

One of the most tortuous events of adolescence is the explosion of
pimples on one’s facial landscape. Unbeknownst to most, these bulbous,
bloated, bulging beacons of embarrassment have an intelligence of
their own and connive to materialize at the worst possible moment —
and in the most awful location. Therefore, it is guaranteed that the
morning of the formal prom, one will be greeted in the mirror by a
gargantuan red, inflamed, swollen one-inch zit on the tip of your
nose. Take it to the bank.

Most people (yes, teens are people) are too polite to say anything
when you appear to all the world like a caricature of W.C. Fields, any
sinus commercial, and Bozo the Clown. Your day is spent inventing
reasons why you cannot move your hand from the front of your face
because even though you’ve tried to conceal the damage with two pounds
of blemish makeup (causing your skin to develop the oh-so-attractive,
tomblike cast of a mannequin), Captain Blackhead unflinchingly stands
out front taunting, “Don’t look him in the eyes; instead gawk
intently at his red, puffy, swelling.”

Acne might be a thing of my past, but the feelings of embarrassment
are identical to when I feel bloated from excess consumption. My
stomach becomes a radio station, broadcasting on all channels:
“This is a test of the emergency mortification system; for the
next 60 minutes, please don’t look anywhere
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else. Glare unblinkingly at his immense, distended, belly while
pointing in a mocking fashion. Should this have been a real emergency,
you would have been instructed to add humiliating comments. This is
only a test.”

To compensate, I suck in my abdomen, causing the tonal range of my
voice to increase one octave while adding a slightly breathy quality
to my speech. (I rationalize this, believing others find it a sexy
addition to my speech pattern.)

Of course, there are problems with this approach, most notably would
be sitting or bending, as one can never be sure of the tensile
strength of button thread under strain. I would feel terrible should
the round fastener explode forth from my midline, fly across the room
and put out somebody’s eye. I wager the medical report would make
history: “Blindness induced by excessive chocolate intake from
out-of-control dieter in nearby restaurant booth.”

Oh sure, I try using denial. When asked my pants size, I reply proudly
(while loosening my belt), “32 W-L-D.” Women have
descriptors like “petite” or “junior”; why
can’t men?

Scott “Q” Marcus is a THINspirational speaker and author.
Since losing 70 pounds more than 13 years ago, he conducts speeches,
workshops and presentations throughout the country. His new online
support system is at http://www.ThisTimeIMeanIt.com.

The pimples obama favreau favs

When you know how to say what you have to say, it often does not
matter when you have to say it. What matters is saying it as it ought
to be said. Of course, it is always not very easy saying it exactly as
it should be. Those who are able to string profound ideas together in
very good and memorable sentences are usually great men and women who
have perfected the art of public speaking and public relations. Often,
they are communication specialists who have lived through time and
experienced events as they unfolded. So when you hear that a 26 year
old writes speeches for a presidential candidate, you are tempted to
believe that he is a gem. And when that candidate happens to be Mr.
Barack Obama, a phenomenon of on orator and a writer of two
bestselling books, then you have every reason to believe that the 26
year old is a gem through and through. Jon Favreau is his name. Obama
and others simply call the lad Favs. Whatever the outcome of the
November presidential elections in America, history has been made. It
would either be a black man in the White House as president, or a
white woman as vice president, lending a helping hand to a
septuagenarian white president. History does just not happen; events
make history, and there is a reason behind every event. Among several
other things, what has catapulted Barack Obama to the very heights of
American politics is his ability to deliver inspirational speeches.
What brought him to the limelight was the 2004 speech he gave to
introduce then Democrat presidential nominee, John Kerry. He penned
that speech himself, the amazing writer that he is. After that, it has
been one brilliant speech after another, making him the toast of a
nation that is crying for answers. People cry when they hear him
speak. Others only manage with a few goose pimples. Even very great
journalists are awed by his words. There is something about him that
you can’t easily digest, pundits have long established. He is a great
orator, no doubt. But the people behind the oratory are the greatest.
At 26, Jon Favreau hasn’t walked the walk that great writers have
done. He may not have read much. He may not even have a library. He
reads Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King for inspiration. Indeed,
when Obama asked him: “What is your theory of speech
writing?” Favreau was honest: “ I have no theory.”
Probably he didn’t even know that speechwriters need to have a certain
theory on which their ideas are planked, in much the same way that a
broadcasting house would have a broadcasting philosophy. He has
basically learnt the art of speechwriting from the sidelines. He tells
Obama: “When I saw you at the convention, you basically told a
story about your life from beginning to end, and it was a story that
fit with the larger American narrative. People applauded not because
you wrote an applause line but because you touched something in the
party and the country that people had not touched before. Democrats
haven’t had that in a long time.” That got Obama thinking about
the lad. He got onboard the Obama train after that. “The trick
of speech writing, if you will, is making the client say your
brilliant words while somehow managing to make it sound as though they
issued from their own soul”, Christopher Buckley, a former
speechwriter for President Bush Snr, has said. That means you would
have to be in the thinking of your client on almost all issues, and
complete his thoughts. That is how the Obama-Favreau relationship
works. Favreau puts it even more poignantly: “What I do is to
sit with him for an hour. He talks and I type everything he says. I
reshape it, I write. He writes, he reshapes it. That is how we get a
finished product.” The youngster has mastered the way Obama
speaks. He knows his favourite ideas and sentences. So when Obama
wants to say anything, he calls Favs. “What would Obama
say?” the New York Times asks. And I would add “without
Jon Favreau.”In fact, Favreau is so important that Google is
quick is distinguish him from another Jon Favreau, a more popular
actor and film director. The search engine giant puts the word
‘speechwriter’ after young Favreau. He had started writing for the
John Kerry campaign four years ago. That means he was 22 or 23, a
fresh graduate of the College of Holy Cross, a Catholic institution in
Massachusetts. But he had guts, and above all he had some ‘audacity’.
And he lived that audacity when he interrupted a speech that Obama was
rehearsing during the 2004 convention. He pointed out a line that
wasn’t captured properly in Obama’s speech and ordered that the
senator rewrite that thought. Favreau says “He kind of looked at
me, kind of confused- like ‘who is this kid?’” That audacity has
today made him the chief speechwriter for a man who is chief in
everything letters. So, perhaps, it is only fitting that Obama duly
acknowledges Jon Favreau in his bestseller The Audacity of Hope, for
“literally going beyond the call of duty.” Now, let’s get
back home. What could I do at 22? Well, I had completed university of
Ghana at 23 years. Apart from the English degree that had been thrust
upon me, I had nothing I could count on. Not that I was very proud of
the degree; in fact, I couldn’t help thinking that I had merely been
passed through the degree mill like a piece of sausage. I had left no
memorable impression at the department of English, where I did my
major. Professor Martin Owusu had penned his famous The Story Ananse
Told when he was 23. Ama Atta Aidoo had written The Dilemma of a Ghost
in her early twenties. She probably didn’t have the usual dilemmas
that today’s female university graduates have to deal with. I had a
lot of dilemmas at 23 – dilemmas born out of the sheer inability
to do nothing. Three of us- Cephas Arthur, Maxwell Kotoka and me – had
come together to write a play, but we couldn’t agree on a workable
theme. We abandoned the idea and went our separate ways after the
first scene of the first act. Who would have read our play anyway, we
would later ask ourselves. Well, not many people do very well at 23,
especially in Africa. Apart from Uganda-born John Sentamu, Archbishop
of York in Britain, who was 24 years when Idi Amin appointed him a
judge, and Idi Amin’s son, who had some military titles at an age that
he couldn’t hold a gun, we don’t have many stories of young gems on
that continent. John Agyekum Kufour had served the Busia government as
deputy foreign minister at 29 or thereabouts. And Jerry John Rawllings
had become Chairman of the PNDC in his early thirties, after a bloody
coup. There may be a few others in Africa who made their mark quite
early in life but their successes may not have made the record books.
I was still a fresh face when I was 26. Well, not as fresh as Jon
Favreau’s; he could pass for 19 because he has a baby face. But he is
no baby; he heads a small team of speechwriters made up of Adam
Frankel, another 26 year old, who had worked with John F. Kennedy’s
speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, and Ben Rhodes, 30, who helped Lee
Hamilton to write the Iraq Study Group report. These are young brains
behind big things in America. So, when Barack Obama delivered the
first line of a powerful speech after his historic victory over
Hillary Clinton in Iowa, a white neighbourhood, “They said this
day will never come”, the crowd cheered at the candidate, and
roared along with the inspirational rendition of that opening
sentence. But behind the scenes Favreau and his team knew they had
succeeded. Those words had come from Favs, but they were familiar
words in the Obama dictionary. In the art of speechwriting, that is a
big plus for Favs. He knows his master’s words; and he makes the words
sound like his master. America is a big place, and people believe in
big things. So Favs has a big task measuring up and meeting the
expectations of men. Can a small lad be the reason behind Obamamania,
a phenomenon that is taking America by storm? Favreau admits:
“There’s been a few times when people have said ‘I don’t believe
you, that you’re Barack Obama’s speechwriter.’” To which I
reply, ‘If I really wanted to hit on you, don’t you think I’d make up
something outlandish?” So you know there is no make-belief here;
Favs runs the show, and he gives it his all. He is too busy he would
not have time for a girlfriend. He doesn’t need one. I guess that
would wait until Obama becomes president. Jon Fvreau appears a
focused, decent-looking lad, who detected earlier in life what he was
about. He didn’t waste time after completing college; he joined
politics, writing speeches with no previous speechwriting experience
at all. He had gone through the usual ‘vegetation’ that most young
graduates endure. After the Kerry campaign ended with his failed bid
for the presidency, Favs was effectively unemployed, “broke,
taking advantage of all the happy-hour specials I could find in
Washington.” But he did something unusual: he didn’t sleep too
much. He lives the Shakespearean truism, that people who make it big
are those who stay up and toil deep into the night when their
compatriots are asleep. Favs goes to bed at 3am and wakes up at 5. Two
hours must be enough for any serious man who wants to succeed. Bill
Clinton has also said that watching too much TV is not good for any
young person who wants to be great. He didn’t watch much TV as a young
man, but he read much, even as governor and president. I was the
direct antithesis to Favs when I was 26. I had completed a graduate
programme in communication studies, and had taken a copywriting job in
advertising. I didn’t excel very much, perhaps because I slept too
much and read nothing for a year. I had learnt the art of professional
writing but had failed to write and speak the language of the
consumer. I wasn’t surprised at that because at the communication
school, our professor had asked us what each of us would like to do
after graduation, and the entire class, made up of some mums and dads
who were on study leave, had looked at the Prof’s grey beard and said
nothing. “You don’t know what you want to do after a
postgraduate programme? Why did you come here then?” the noble
academic yelled, perusing his beard. Well, a few of us have found
something to do eight years from then. Cephas Arthur is deputy Public
Relations Director for the Ghana Police service while Maxwell Kotoka
is up north, working for the Volta River Authority, instead of
critiquing films and novels on television. The tallest person in the
class at the time owns a newspaper. Me? Can I write for a president at
34? If Obama becomes president, I would be happy for Jon Favreau.
Benjamin TawiahEmail: btawiah@hotmail.com, quesiquesi@hotmail.co.uk

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The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits
he has acquired during the first half. – By: roylexi.com

Pimples’s confessions boys window

Some months ago, cops from Ahmedabad drove into Delhi’s Seelampur
ostensibly looking to question a particular man. They found his son,
all of thirteen, and drove off with the lad without so much as a by
your leave to anyone. For three days, the boy was in the custody of
Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Then, on a whimsy, they got set to expel him
to Bangladesh. In the nick of time, the Delhi High Court’s writ
restored the child to his parents. Luckily, a bystander had noted the
cop car number. If the child had been pushed alone and friendless into
Bangladesh, into what hands would he have fallen? And if it had been a
girl, then what other hell might have been in store for her? A hair-
raising thought indeed.The perspicacious, however, do not get goose-
pimples. They prepare for the events to come. Gujarat is foremost in
the clamour for special laws to effectively tackle terror. Perhaps,
they would like to be ready for the day when boys like the one they
had so nearly deported return from the border as full blown
terrorists.Eleven young men were tried for shooting dead the former
home minister of Gujarat. Haren Pandya, six feet tall and almost as
wide, was found dead on the driver’s seat in a tiny Maruti 800 parked
in broad daylight in Ahmedabad’s crowded Law Garden area. The front
left window was almost completely rolled up. The front right window
was rolled down hardly three inches from the top. A bullet said to be
fired (from the right window which was opened ever so little) into the
lower left part of his scrotum had travelled diagonally left to right,
up to his right shoulder! Six other bullet wounds similarly improbable
in that situation were found on the body. The seat had hardly a speck
of blood.It did not need an expert in forensics to say this was
impossible. But two experts of unimpeachable credentials from reputed
government forensic institutions did testify that this was plumb
impossible. Beyond doubt, a different site of murder and so, a
different truth was indicated. The boys were still convicted. After
all it was a POTA trial and the boys had confessed. Each one of them
had been in unbroken police custody for a month or more and had, of
course, willingly confessed. The case, then, even had an eye-witness
who claimed impossible postures taken by the dead man to oblige the
killer, like bring up his knees regardless of dashboard and wheel!
What price then forensic impossibility?Their confessions, too, were
fraught with interest. The elevated status of the Superintendent of
Police was POTA’s proud safeguard for police confessions in terror
crimes. This superior officer in this case had, ‘recorded’ the
confession of one of the boys in his office, precisely when his
subordinate officer was presenting the same boy to the civil hospital
for medical examination. Dangerous terrorists manage to be in two
places at the same time. Naturally their confessions are indispensable
to justice. Confessions relieve policemen from the unnecessary task of
investigation.

Members of News Broadcasters Association, a regulatory body for
television broadcast, has unanimously elected G Krishnan as its
President.

Ava lauren smart in pimples

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Almost every girl known to man wishes to change a certain
characteristic about them: They want more intelligence, less frizzy
hair, a slimmer body, fewer pimples, longer legs, more dates —
the list could go on forever. Claire LaZebnik bases her novel
“The Smart One and the Pretty One” on these desires for
change with two differing sisters who help one another through
life’s struggles.

After graduating from Harvard University, LaZebnik wrote for several
women’s magazines including Vogue,GQand Cosmopolitan. A few
years later, she married television writer/producer Rob LaZebnik
(“The Simpsons”) and had four children, the oldest of whom
was diagnosed with autism at a young age. Her daughter’s
struggle motivated her to write books on the disease, including
“Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope
that Can Transform a Child’sLife” and “Same as It
Never Was,” in the hope of educating others.

LaZebnik is the youngest of five siblings, and that fact provided the
foundation for her latest novel. “It takes a sister to know a
sister. No one gets you the same way, and while you can drive each
other crazy at times, there’s a basic loyalty there that pretty
much nothing can destroy,” author LaZebnik said in an interview
with the blog Bookshipper. Her sister Nell stimulated her to become a
writer and promoted her career in every possible way, which actually
parallels the relationship between Ava and Lauren, the two main
characters of “The Smart One and the Pretty One.”

The tone of this novel is quickly established in the description of
the main characters — Ava as “the smart one” and
Lauren as “the pretty one” — and gives the reader a
feel for their distinct personalities; however, in real life, both
girls have smarts and beauty, but neither will believe it. As the
novel concludes, their views on life intermingle and the reader is
left with feelings of delight and inspiration to change for the
better. “The Smart One and the Pretty One” connects with
many women of the 21st century because, instead of focusing solely on
a desire to find true love, the story focuses more on the strong
connection between the two sisters.

Ava is a successful, conscientious and smart businesswoman and Lauren
is a fearless, disorganized saleswoman who eventually loses her job
and goes to live with her sister. This time together allows Ava and
Lauren to help one another with their problems — i.e.,
Ava’s troubles with men and Lauren’s troubles with money
and growing up into a mature adult.

Men are not Ava’s forte, so when Lauren is reminded of a
previous childhood experience with Ava and some neighbors, she is able
to catch hold of a perfect scheme to set her sister up on a date.
However, Ava is resistant to this change because she doesn’t
want to lose her sense of self. “I’m not going to change
myself to get a guy. I want to be appreciated for who I am,” is
Ava’s excuse for not wanting to date men. The reader sympathizes
with her, and actually cheers for her to open herself up to others.
Although the moral of this story is corny, Ava must find her inner
beauty first before anyone else will truly see it.

Conversely, many know wanting something and needing to own it are two
different things. But thrill-seeker Lauren only wants to have her cake
and eat it, too. Her troubles with money motivate Ava to find Lauren a
financial counselor so she can become an independent, self-sufficient
adult. Lauren does not believe she has the smarts to become wealthy
like her sister and struggles with being unable to buy things on a
whim. She uses her beauty to earn her place in life, but she finds out
beauty can only take you to a point and for the rest, you’re on
your own.

Separating this novel from the rest of the “chick-lit”
genre, the guy aspect is — admirably — not No. 1 on the
agenda. The struggles of Ava and Lauren allow for their relationship
to grow, and a twist thrown into the story allows them to become even
closer. The sisterly love and developing relationship found in
“The Smart One and the Pretty One” serves as a source of
inspiration — and it even creates a feeling of love in those who
read it.

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The pimples sun sunspot cycle

MUMBAI: A significant sunspot, a fast-growing active region with two
dark cores, each larger than Earth, is emerging on the sun. The
magnetic polarity of the sunspot identified it as a member of new
Sunspot Cycle 24. Because the year 2008 has brought so many blank
suns, some observers have wondered if we are ever going to climb out
of the ongoing deep solar minimum, NASA spaceweather alert said on
Tuesday. Today’s new sunspot is an encouraging sign that the
11-year solar cycle is indeed progressing, albeit slowly, NASA
astronomers said. According to a senior astronomer, Dr Mayank
Vahia of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the number of
sunspots on the sun varies with time and they follow a sinusoidal
(oscillatory) cycle of 11 years. The last solar cycle ended a couple
of years ago. However, the sun spots have not recovered this time
as fast as they should and some scientists have wondered if the sun
is going into a long term quiet phase. A sunspot sighted now
indicated that even if slowly, this cycle of the sunspots is
recovering, Vahia said. Sunspots are regions of the sun where a
large concentration of magnetic field works like a bottle and
isolates and cools the plasma on the surface of the sun. Such regions
appear dark in relation to the rest of the solar surface and hence
these pimples on the surface are called sunspots.

The pimples lata song proved

Lata Mangeshkar turns 79 today. And even as she’s all set to turn 80
next year the nightingale of India can still give the younger lot of
playback singers a run for their money. With a career in music, which
has spanned more than six decades we present to you, some of our all-
time favourite numbers; one from each decade.

The ’40s: Aayega Aayega Aane Wala, from Mahal is a song, which even
now has the 20-somethings in tears. That’s no mean achievement.

The ’50s: Eh Malik Tere Bande Hum from Do Aaankhen Barah Haath is
enough to send goose pimples down your spine. Lata brilliantly
captured the philosophical note in the song.

The ’60s: Piya To Se from Guide, The guitar player Andy Summers from
Sting and The Police was deeply moved by this song and he mentioned it
in his autobiography. And it happened at a time when it wasn’t
fashionable to talk about Bollywood. Lata proved beyond a doubt that
it wasn’t just sad songs, which were her forte.

The ’70s: Achcha To Hum Chalte Hain, this song can probably be counted
as one of ‘s biggest hits. Lata’s voice comes through as young and
mischievous. Guess the melody queen never shied away from trying new
genres.

The ’80s: The song that made Kumar Gaurav the overnight teen
heartthrob had Lata Mangeshkar as the lead female playback singer.
Dekho Maine Dekha Hai played on Binaca Geetmala for almost a year.

The ’90s: Even as Lata kept growing older the heroines kept getting
younger. And for those who thought Lata’s voice wouldn’t be suited to
Preity’s western looks, Lata proved them wrong. Jiya Jale from Dil Se
still remains an all-time favourite.

In the last 10 years: The title song of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was a
huge hit and proved one thing beyond doubt. Lata Mangeshkar had no
intentions of retiring soon.

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Skin teen girls in pimples

Six teen girls from Australia have managed to balance school, studies
and social life with helping to create a green skin care line for
teenage girls. Bellaboo is all natural, recyclable and ticks all the
must-haves when it comes to what teen girls want from a skin care
range. Thanks to the teen girls who helped create it, Bellaboo is a
company that dedicates equal energy to teen issues as it does to brand
development and marketing.

Sydney, NSW () September 19, 2008 — What do teen girls want when it
comes to their skin? Green beauty is in and chemical-based products
are so totally out, according to hot new teen beauty brand, Bellaboo
().

Bellaboo is the creation of six teen girls, aged 15-19, known as the
Bellaboo Crew, who have worked with mum-trepreneur, Snezna Kerekovic,
to develop a skin care line that ticks all the boxes on a teen girl’s
beauty wish list.

Number 1 on the list — teen girls are definitely into green. They
want effective skin care but it must use natural and, where possible,
organic ingredients. Teens are definitely savvy to the fact that they
don’t want to lather themselves in products based on chemicals. They
want beauty products that are good for them and the earth.

Says Jess, 18, from the Bellaboo Crew: “I had really bad pimples and
used everything under the sun. I found that many of the products I
used burnt my skin, made it red and flaky and just made the problem
worse. That started me thinking that this stuff can’t be good for you.
So, when there was a chance to help develop skin care for teen girls I
jumped at the chance of having a say about what I felt was really
important. Each and every girl on the Crew felt that using natural,
gentle ingredients was the number one priority.”

The Bellaboo Crew brainstormed, tested and trialled. The end result —
Bellaboo — a simple 3 Step Natural Skin Care System designed to help
teen girls adopt a healthy skin care regimen designed to balance,
nourish and protect skin. And, as pimples are the bane of most teens’
lives, they also created a super effective pimple serum that will
blitz zits without causing harm or damage to the skin, plus a range of
treatment masks based on yummy ingredients like chocolate, berries and
a bounty of botanicals.

According to Bellaboo Founder, Snezna Kerekovic: “The girls have had a
huge influence on shaping this brand. They have a say on everything —
the formulas, the packaging, our advertising and marketing. Not one
decision is made without their input. This has been incredible as they
are all so passionate about Bellaboo and it has been wonderful to see
young girls get so involved.

“As a former beauty editor and mum, I knew that I wanted to create
skin care that I would be happy for my own daughter to use. When I
looked at what was out there, I couldn’t think of a single brand I
would recommend in terms of formulation or visual appeal. So, with the
help of the Crew, we’ve come up with something that totally gets them.
I’ve learnt a lot about teenagers along the way too, which will come
in very handy when my own daughter hits her teens!”

Bellaboo’s products are free of petrochemicals, parabens, mineral
oils, animal-derived ingredients, artificial colours or fragrances.
They are based on certified organic and natural ingredients and
designed for teens by teens. Packaging is recyclable.

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The pimples up brad week

Brad Basker relates a recent journey to Austin, Texas. He also
discusses the “process for everyone’s life” and his continuing effort
to write “Mad Brads.”

Sometimes, it’s like there is so much going on. Hurricanes are popping
up like pimples on a boy in puberty and someone from Alaska could be
making important decisions.But my attention on elections and storms is
grossly overshadowed by the The Dark Knight’s climb over $500 million
at the box office, and my suspicion that the iTouch has a mind hell
bent on destroying life as we know it. The fact is, no matter how many
movies break 500 million dollars, and how loud we turn up our iPods,
we still have to face the situations and the storms of our lives.Last
week I was stressed and depressed. It was a tandem that hardly visits
me and can never seem to remember my name. I normally never let them
get to me, because my general apathy won’t allow me to care enough. I
just put on some Jack Johnson and I forget what was bothering me.
However, I found myself not being the “Glad Brad” that everyone’s used
to. I think it has a lot to do with being in school all summer. The
breaks between semesters and sessions gave hardly enough space for me
to think, and I plunged right back into it for the fall. If it weren’t
for having only 31 hours until graduation, I probably would have moved
to Tuscany to write poetry and eat pasta on a villa.I planned to head
to Austin to see the Meg and Dia band rock out. It was a twofer for me
because they’re one of my favorite bands, and I had never been to
Austin in my adulthood.Upon my return, I found that Sam Houston State
was still here. My responsibilities, work and relationships were
waiting for me to attend to them. I still had two classes a day, and a
pudgy stomach. All that my trip did for me was remind me to live, and
that there is a process for everyone’s life. When you come to college
you’re insinuating your commitment to a four or so year process by
which yields a degree and a transition from calling mommy for snack
money, to buying groceries for the week. No matter what you study, or
what you want out of life, you cannot escape.I am determined to grow a
full man-beard before the New Year, and I will find every piece of
free food that SHSU has to offer. I wake up every day and hope that
President Gaertner will knock on my door and say, “Hey, Brad Basker,
you’re so great! You don’t have to go to class anymore. Just keep
those columns coming and I’ll have your diploma in May.”But that
hasn’t happened yet.Even if the president never comes to my door, and
I never grow a man-beard, I will still produce a “Mad Brad” to waste
four minutes and 37 seconds of your lives once a week. It’s the least
I could do.

I agree with this article, and it made me smile =). I just signed up
to the houstonian and this article made me want to come back to see
what else will be written. ()

The pimples mrsa western useful

As reported across the Western Illinois University campus on
Wednesday, a student has been diagnosed with Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus. He was transported to a regional hospital,
where he currently remains. Although this is the only case of this
illness at Western Illinois University, the infection is not
necessarily gone. “It started up on the 15th floor of the men’s side
in Thompson,” explained Allison Lamb, a student worker in Thompson.
“There are even signs up in the recreation hall to remind students to
always wash their hands before and after using the equipment.”MRSA is
a skin infection and is commonly found on the skin or nose of 1
percent of healthy people in the United States. Community associated
MRSA has been becoming more common in recent years.”The most common
means of transmission is skin-to-skin contact,” said Mary Margaret
Harris, director of Western Illinois’ Beu Health Center. “One can also
contract MRSA from contaminated surfaces such as door knobs, exercise
equipment and other surfaces that contact skin.”Some cases of MRSA are
minor, such as pimples or boils, and can be treated with antibiotics.
On the other hand, some can be very serious skin infections that can
lead to pneumonia, bloodstream infections and other major illnesses,
and can also be fatal. The infected area will include redness,
swelling, tenderness, pus and weeping. If these symptoms start to
show, getting it checked is the best option.Antibiotics are a very
useful resource to get rid of MRSA, but a useful technique to get rid
of it. “It can also be treated by what’s called “incision and
drainage,” Harris said. “That is when a healthcare provider opens and
drains the area.” She added that the affected area must also be
covered up while they are draining.There are some very simple
precautions to take so you can stay healthy. First of all, wash your
hands. Washing your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds is very
useful, and keeping a small bottle of hand sanitizer can come in
handy. Also, do not share personal items such as towels, razors and
clothing. If you have a cut on your body, make sure to keep it
bandaged until it is completely healed.