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November Meeting Betting Tips – 15th, 16th & 17th November 2019
Photo © Chris Allen (cc-by-sa/2.0)
Cheltenham Racecourse hosts many of the biggest days of the National Hunt season. The Cheltenham Festival in March is up there with the most popular sporting events of the year but it's far from the only time that top class horses descend on Cheltenham.
The three-day November Meeting (we're just starting to get used to that name!) has plenty of high class races featuring some huge stars.
It's been incredibly wet across vast swathes of Britain over the last couple of weeks. Cheltenham has not escaped the rain and there is even more in the forecast for November Meeting. Those heading to Prestbury Park on Saturday only should escape without needing an umbrella but anybody with tickets on Friday and Sunday will need to dive for cover at times. The rain could also see the going move from its current reading of "soft, heavy in places" before racing begins and we could well see an all-out mud bath, especially by Sunday afternoon.
Countryside Day: Friday 15th November 2019
12:40 Markel Amateur Riders' Handicap Chase 3m1f Graceful Legend to Win
1:15 Valda Energy Novices' Handicap Hurdle 2m½f Mack The Man to Win
1:50 BetVictor Handicap Chase 2m Brelan D'As to Win at 6/1
2:25 Steel Plate And Sections Novices' Chase 2m4f Not That Fuisse to Win at 11/2
3:00 Cross Country Handicap Chase 3m6f Tea For Two Each Way at 14/1
3:35 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle 2m5f I K Brunel to Win at 10/3
Due to conditions on the course, racing for this day has been cancelled. The 3:00 Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase has provisionally been moved to Sunday at 1:15. The Ballymore Novices' Hurdle has provisionally been moved to Saturday at 12:05.
There's more than just the racing to entertain the thousands of fans heading to the first day of the November Meeting. It's Countryside Day at Cheltenham with lots of activities going on around the racing. Of course, those after our own heart who are there strictly for the action on the course will not be disappointed, with some quality contests in store.
Markel Insurance Amateur Riders' Handicap
12:40, Class 3, 3m1f
The Markel Insurance Amateur Riders' Handicap gets the November Meeting off to a fairly low grade start. The amateur riders in this race will all be incredibly keen to win on such hallowed turf but they'll need to be partnered with an experienced horse if they are to have a decent chance. 3m1f over the Old Course is a difficult trip to get and the muddy conditions certainly won't make life any easier. Graceful Legend is one of those who has been previously tested on soft ground at Cheltenham. She has shown glimpses of form that suggest this trip could be perfect for her and she blew away the cobwebs with a run at Uttoxeter last month so she is worthy of support.
Graceful Legend to Win
Valda Energy Novices' Handicap Hurdle
There's a chance for those still learning the ropes over hurdles to secure a win in a decent race next up. The Valda Energy Novices' Handicap Hurdle is open to horses aged three and older and there are a handful of three-year-olds in the running. It's a five-year-old who gets the nod from us though.
Mack The Man still looks very green at times when he runs but he is improving in that regard with every performance. He gave his backers cause for concern when veering off line under pressure last time out but had enough raw quality to get the win at Warwick. He looked to have plenty of energy left last week so a quick return to action could produce another win.
Mack The Man to Win
BetVictor Handicap Chase
One of the great things about the November Meeting is the number of horses who return year on year. Each of the last two winners of the BetVictor Handicap – Bun Doran and Doitforthevillage – are in the field for this year's renewal. Indeed, they're the top two in the betting at odds of 7/2 and 5/1 respectively. Of the two, it's Doitforthevillage who is best treated by the handicapper but there are concerns about whether the 10-year-old still has the pace for this sort of quickly run 2m chase.
It may be worth giving Brelan D'As another chance after his disappointment at Cheltenham last time out. In truth, he looked to be a beaten horse by the time he unseated Barry Geraghty three out from home in another 2m chase. The eight-year-old has run very well in this sort of race before though and should come on for that run. He'll also enjoy the ground unless it gets really muddy, which it shouldn't by this stage of the meeting, so is well priced at 6/1.
Brelan D'As to Win at 6/1
Steel Plate And Sections Novices' Chase
The field for the 2019 Steel Plate And Sections Novices' Chase includes a number of horses who are embarking on the start of their chasing career having already landed some nice prizes over hurdles. Birchdale (7/4) and Jarveys Plate (5/2) are two such horses who deserve their billing as the top two in the betting.
Winners of this race are rarely missed by the bookies and it would be a surprise to see a winner go in at a double figure price. The odds of 11/2 that bet365 are quoting on Not That Fuisse's chances do stand out in comparison to the two favourites though.
Trainer, Dan Skelton, clearly believes that his six-year-old has a chance to be a quality performer over fences with just a little more experience. To that end he's already run him twice this season over the bigger obstacles. Not That Fuisse made some mistakes but is sharpening his jumping up all the time and has the raw ability to win a race that would propel him onto bigger things and set him up for a really exciting season.
Not That Fuisse to Win at 11/2
Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase
Cross country races are not to everybody's taste. Despite the supreme, mesmerising performance Tiger Roll put in at the Festival's version in March last year, some of those at Cheltenham will give the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase a wide berth.
However, those who have taken the time to understand the contest can profit handsomely from it. It's a specialists' race in which experience is vital. The vast majority of recent winners were aged eight or older, had run at Cheltenham before and had already made their seasonal reappearance.
Tea For Two ticks many of the boxes suggested by the trends for this race. The one place the 10-year-old falls down is that he's available at 14/1 and the majority of recent winners came from the top three in the betting. He does have ample experience and stamina to suggest that he will be very tough to shake off. If he can hang on and kick home with something left in the tank, Tea For Two could spring a surprise but an each way bet looks the safest option.
Tea For Two Each Way at 14/1
3:35, Grade 2, 2m5f
The Ballymore Novices' Hurdle is one of the most important races of the November Meeting. Many of those who have either won or run well in this early season contest have gone on to be major players in the novice hurdling division. We have some potentially high class horses in the field once again with Thyme Hill (2/1), I K Brunel (10/3) and L'Air Du Vent (10/3) all fancied to go well on Friday and in the months to come.
All three of the favourites have already got their season underway which is a vital stat for the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle. They've also each shown promise but it's I K Brunel who has the extra hurdling experience. That could well prove to be key on Friday, especially against a big field over 2m5f, so back Olly Murphy's five-year-old.
I K Brunel to Win at 10/3
Day Two: Saturday 16th November 2019
12:05 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle 2m5f I K Brunel to Win at 10/3
12:40 JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle 2m½f Mick Pastor to Win
1:15 mallardjewellers.com Novices' Chase 3m½f Mulcahys Hill to Win
1:50 BetVictor Smartcards Handicap Chase 3m3½f Lil Rockerfeller to Win at 11/2
2:25 BetVictor Gold Cup Handicap Chase 2m4f Casablanca Mix E/Way At 20/1
3:00 Big Buck's Handicap Hurdle 3m The Butcher Said to Win at 13/2
3:30 BetVictor Intermediate Handicap Hurdle 2m5f Anytime Will Do to Win at 9/1
On to day two we head and with a bit of luck the rain might just stay away. Saturday of the Cheltenham November Meeting is one of the real highlights of the first few months of the jumps season. The BetVictor Gold Cup will take much of the attention but every race on the card offers some real interest and the chance to win some cash with your horse racing bets.
12:05, Grade 2, 2m5f
Please click here to see full text from Friday at 3:35.
JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle
12:40, Grade 2, 2m½f
Saturday's card kicks off with an important Grade 2 contest. Connections of the market leaders in this 2m½f hurdle will be hoping that their charges show the necessary quality to return to Cheltenham in March. It's relatively rare for winners of this race to win the Triumph Hurdle itself but it's far from impossible so it's well worth taking note of any strong performances.
The bookies and the market rarely miss the winner of this contest. 11 of the last 14 winners had a starting price of 4/1 or shorter so it makes sense to focus on the highest quality horses in the field. Mick Pastor is one such high quality performer. It's impossible to be overly confident about any three-year-old as they make their British debut but J P McManus and Paul Nicholls are incredibly good judges and they believe he could be a very smart horse so he looks the one to beat.
Mick Pastor to Win
mallardjewellers.com Novices' Chase
The mallardjewellers.com Novices' Chase is another race which has typically gone to horses from the upper echelons of the betting market. Whilst it's not the sort of race to bet blindly on the favourite, the chances of Mulcahys Hill do look to be strong. He's earned more experience over fences than most of his competitors and broke his duck last time out in his fifth chasing start. Connections believe that he came on physically over the summer so he has every chance of back to back successes at Cheltenham.
Mulcahys Hill to Win
BetVictor Smartcards Handicap Chase
1:50, Grade 2, 3m3½f
What a race we have in prospect in the BetVictor Smartcards Handicap Chase. The betting is especially close even for a race that is usually highly competitive. The early betting has three horses available at 11/2 – Lil Rockerfeller, Ramses De Teillee and West Approach. All three have plenty of experience in this sort of demanding handicap chase and may well line up against one another come the Grand National in April.
The top three in the betting have also got their seasons off to strong starts already. Ramses De Teillee won a novices' hurdle at Cheltenham a few weeks ago whilst Lil Rockerfeller and West Approach both had credible second place finishes. Neil King would have liked Lil Rockerfeller to have finished closer to Ballyoptic at Chepstow last time out but he knows it's a long season with plenty of big races for his eight-year-old to land. He may do just that at Cheltenham. His handicap mark is fair and the drier weather forecast on Saturday is good news so it's Lil Rockerfeller who gets the nod.
Lil Rockerfeller to Win at 11/2
BetVictor Gold Cup
There's a cool £90,00 on offer for the winner of the BetVictor Gold Cup on Saturday. Understandably, the sizeable prize pool has attracted a large number of entries with a full field of 20 expected to compete in this Grade 3 contest. Always a competitive betting heat, the BetVictor Gold Cup has been won by horses ranging from 11/2 to 25/1 over the last decade. The way the 2019 renewal is shaping up suggests it would be no surprise to see a winner from the bigger range of those odds so this looks perfect for an each way punt.
It's not that there is a lack of quality at the head of the betting, just that you can pick holes in all of the most fancied horses so it's tough to get excited about the value on offer. There is value on offer about Casablanca Mix though. Nicky Henderson's seven-year-old is towards the top of the weights but has enough class and experience to grind out a solid performance over the 2m4f trip so an each way bet looks in order at very chunky odds of 20/1.
Casablanca Mix Each Way At 20/1
Spinal Injuries Association Big Buck's Handicap Hurdle
3:00, Listed, 3m
Long distance hurdling is not for every horse. Those who thrive at this division of jumps racing can really earn connections a lot of money over the course of the season and each year some of the best practitioners line up to compete in the Spinal Injuries Association Big Buck's Handicap Hurdle. None of those in the field for the 2019 running are quite of the standard of Big Buck's but that's hardly a criticism given the brilliance of the four-time World Hurdle king. None the less, those at the top of the betting have the quality to compete in some of the biggest long distance hurdles of the next few months and a win here could well be the first step to stardom for one of them.
That said, the specialist nature of this race is made clear by the fact that the average starting price of the last 10 winners is 9/1. This is not a race to go looking for an unexposed horse from lower down the betting. Rather, concentrate on horses who have got similar jobs done before. Horses like The Butcher Said. The ground is the one concern but on the driest day of the November Meeting, The Butcher Said (13/2) should be able to build on his first showing of the season where he finished second to Ramses De Teillee.
The Butcher Said to Win at 13/2
BetVictor Intermediate Handicap Hurdle
The previous winners of the BetVictor Intermediate Handicap Hurdle show that this is traditionally no easy puzzle for punters to put together. The last decade has produced winners from all over the betting market which suggests this is a race in which it can pay to take a bit of a risk.
There are several horses just below the early favourite, Jatiluwih, around the 8/1 mark but it's the 9/1 shot, Anytime Will Do, who is the one to support. Dan Skelton's six-year-old is one of the top rated horses in the field and got a much needed run under his belt last month. Harry Skelton will have to get his race tactics right to ensure Anytime Will Do is wound up a fair way before home. His improved jumping should help things go smoothly during the bulk of the race though, so it will come down to whether he can keep the challengers at bay in the closing stages.
Anytime Will Do to Win at 9/1
Day Three: Sunday 17th November 2019
12:45 Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle 2m5f Colditz Castle to Win
1:15 Cross Country Handicap Chase 3m6f Tea For Two E/Way at 14/1
1:50 Arkle Trophy Trial Novices' Chase 2m Getaway Trump to Win at 6/4
2:25 Shloer Chase 2m Politologue to Win at 7/4
3:00 Unibet Greatwood Handicap Hurdle 2m½f Quel Destin E/Way at 10/1
3:30 Supreme Trial Novices' Hurdle 2m½f Ecco to Win at 7/2
4:00 Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race 2m4f Time Flies By
Sunday at the November Meeting is all about fun for the family. The organisers are putting on a host of fun activities for kids and adults to enjoy around the racing and they should be rewarded with a big crowd through the gates despite the weather forecast perhaps not being ideal. Most of those who do turn up do so for the racing however and they'll be treated to a varied and exciting card.
November Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle
Sunday's opening race looks a very tough one to call. Punters are split on which horse represents the best value in this 2m5f handicap hurdle and for good reason. There are many who could well claim the win including Colditz Castle. Alan King's five-year-old has experience of running against big fields which will stand him in good stead against as many as 23 rivals. He'll also have no problems with the trip and should cope with softer ground so he's the one for us here at what should be a nice price.
Colditz Castle to Win
Arkle Trophy Trial Novices' Chase
Azertyuiop will be the horse on the minds of every trainer with a runner in the Arkle Trophy Chase. The 2002 winner is the last horse to kick on and win the Arkle at the Cheltenham Festival in March which is the big hope of connections of every horse in Sunday's field.
We certainly have some high quality novice chasers in the running. Getaway Trump and Al Dancer are two such horses. They are battling for favouritism here, just as they battled for the win when they met last month in their first appearance of the season.
Both have room for improvement in the early stages of their chasing careers but they could each go on to be serious players in the Arkle. Al Dancer got the win when they met last month but Getaway Trump should be able to reverse the form. He likely would have beaten his rival were it not for a couple of bad jumping mistakes whilst Paul Nicholls claimed he was in need of a run to get up to full fitness so back Getaway Trump at odds of 6/4.
Getaway Trump to Win at 6/4
Shloer Chase
Minimum distance chasing is an incredibly exciting division of National Hunt racing. It requires a real dose of pace as well as pinpoint jumping accuracy to get to the top of this division. Clearly, there are bigger races than the Grade 2 Shloer Chase but it's been used before by some very good horses to prepare for the huge contests to come and we have an excellent field assembled for this year's running.
Each of Defi Du Seuil, Politologue and Sceau Royal have the class to win the biggest 2m chases of the 2019/20 season. None of them has been seen since last season and they all finished second in their most recent performance so it really is a mouthwatering clash between the three of them. Preference just about goes to Politologue thanks to his extra experience and proven class at the top level though, so back Paul Nicholls' eight-year-old at 7/4.
Politologue to Win at 7/4
Unibet Greatwood Handicap Hurdle
3:00, Grade 3, 2m½f
The Greatwood Hurdle is shaping up to be one of the most exciting and competitive races of the November Meeting. At the top of the betting for this Grade 3, 2m½f handicap, sits Benny's Bridge who is available at odds of 11/2. The six-year-old has already picked up a win this season and will be a major player but there is some better value available a little further down.
Quel Destin is particularly appealing at 10/1. This impressive four-year-old gave a good showing of himself in last year's Triumph Hurdle where he finished fifth. He wasn't seen again last season but has already run twice in this new campaign. His most recent outing was a win over this trip at Cheltenham on heavy ground so he has every chance of landing a place, if not winning. A victory over course and distance in more or less the exact same conditions counts for a lot and so double-digit odds look well worth snapping up.
Quel Destin Each Way At 10/1
Supreme Trial Novices' Hurdle
3:30, Listed, 2m½f
Paul Nicholls clearly thinks a lot of Ecco. The four-year-old made an impression on racing fans when he arrived from Germany for the last National Hunt season and Nicholls has prepared him for the big races ahead. He started off in a maiden handicap over 1m7½f at Wincanton which he won with ease before winning again over the same distance at Ascot. This is a significant step up in class but it's one this potentially very smart performer can take in his stride at odds of 7/2.
Ecco to Win at 7/2
High Sheriff Of Gloucestershire And Racing Remember Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race
The November Meeting comes to a close with a low key flat race. It's clearly not the highest grade race of the day but there is always a chance to win and bumpers add a little more variety to the mix. Taking advantage of that chance may well be best achieved by backing Time Flies By. He picked off a strong favourite with ease in his sole performance to date just a couple of weeks ago and is ready to win again.
Time Flies By
Photo © Pauline E (cc-by-sa/2.0)
There are many jumps racing festivals held over the course of the year, with all roads ultimately leading to the big four-day Cheltenham Festival at Prestbury Park in March. It is fitting therefore that, for many, it is at Cheltenham racecourse where the latest National Hunt journey really begins each year. The jumps season will already be underway by the time we reach this three-day meeting in November – known to many as The Open Meeting but now called The November Meeting – but it is here where the season proper really begins to kick into gear.
Featuring early trials for the major Cheltenham Festival contests, a generous helping of high-quality handicapping action – including one of the biggest such events of the entire season – and plenty more besides, this meeting annually serves to warm the cockles of jumps fans as the winter months roll around.
Key Races
Prestbury Juvenile Novices Hurdle
Anyone seeking a future star, and potential Cheltenham Festival winner, will do well to take in the major juvenile contest on the Saturday card. Held over a trip of 2m½f, this Grade 2 event is the first real recognised Triumph Hurdle trial of the season and as such attracts a number of the most highly touted three year old hurdlers in the game. Defi Du Seuil went on to land the Triumph for Philip Hobbs having taken this in 2016, whilst 2006 champ, Katchit, did even better, claiming Champion Hurdle glory in 2008.
The big contest on the Saturday card at the meeting is this Grade 3 Handicap held over a trip of 2m4½f. Open to runners aged four and older, there are 16 formidable fences standing between the runners and the considerable prize pool on offer – £160,000 in 2018. Still referred to as "the Mackeson" by racegoers of a certain vintage, Paddy Power also sponsored the race between 2003 and 2015, with BetVictor then taking up the reins. Whilst this may "only" be a handicap, that hasn't stopped a number of high class performers landing the prize over the years, including dual Champion Chaser, Fortria, who took this twice in the 1960s, and future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Imperial Commander, who came home in front in 2008.
The most eye-catching – and highest class – of the chases on Day 3 is this 2m Grade 2 affair open to runners aged four and older. Officially titled simply, "The Cheltenham Chase", this event was added to the roster in 2009 and has quickly compiled a classy roll of honour. Classiest of them all – and our favourite chaser of all time – was 2015 hero Sprinter Sacre, who took this on route to that stunning second Queen Mother Champion Chase success when back at Cheltenham in March. The race remains one of the key early season trials for the Champion Chase and is an excellent prize in its own right, offering £75,000 in prize money in 2018.
Greatwood Handicap Hurdle
The closing Sunday of this meeting also sees one of the biggest and best early season Handicap Hurdles take place. Again, open to runners aged four and older, this Grade 3, 2m½f event offers excellent prize money – £100,000 at the time of writing. One of the classiest races of its type of the season, talented dual-purpose performer Detroit City and future Champion Hurdle winner Rooster Booster feature prominently on the list of previous winners. Best of the lot though was the Irish raider, Sizing Europe. Bursting onto the scene when taking this in 2007, the prolific Henry de Bromhead runner went on to score eight times at the very highest level.
Many of the races that feature heavily in this three-day meeting have been with us for a while now – the BetVictor Gold Cup for example has been run in various guises since 1960 – however this meeting as a whole only came into being at Cheltenham Racecourse in 1999.
Known as The Open Meeting from the time of its inception until 2017, it will forever be referred to as such by many racing fans. The official title of the event according to the racecourse itself though is, The November Meeting. The reason given for this change being in order to avoid confusion with The British Open. That's the same British Open played in July using a metal stick and a little white ball. Nevertheless, it seems somebody, somewhere must have been confused.
Regardless of the naming alterations though, this has always been a celebration of the sport which has drawn together the great and the good of the jumping game and remains one of the first dates pencilled into the diaries of National Hunt fans.
A Complete History of the November Meeting
Formerly known as the Cheltenham Open, the now-branded November Meeting has long been what many consider the true start of the jump racing season. There are certainly earlier jump races that take place but the three-day meeting is the first big fixture on the National Hunt calendar.
For all the jump racing fans out there this is something that can never come soon enough. We certainly can't help but feel a little excited as the meeting draws near but how exactly did it become such an important part of Cheltenham's fixture list? Technically speaking the meeting didn't begin until 2000 but some of the races that form it have histories that stretch further back.
1960 – Mackeson Gold Cup Established
Stout producers Mackeson sponsor the first ever running of this November handicap, run over a distance of two miles, four and a half furlongs. Their partnership with the race lasted for 35 consecutive years before being replaced by Murphy's Brewery in 1996. Now known as the BetVictor Gold Cup, it has long been the feature race of the entire November Meeting.
1994 – Sharp Novices' Hurdle Moved
Originally held in December, organisers opted to bring the Sharp Novices' Hurdle, or rather the Supreme Trial Novices' Hurdle, forward a month. It has featured during November at Cheltenham ever since and has seen its fair share of superb winners in this time including Cue Card, Dodging Bullets and Altior.
1994 – Hyde Novices' Hurdle Founded
Fresh on the scene in 1994 was the Hyde Novices' Hurdle, known more recently as the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle. It began as a lower class affair but in 2008 attained Grade 2 status.
1994 – November Novices' Chase Also Part of Reshuffle
Organisers at Cheltenham were kept busy in 1994 with this race featuring another of their changes. Previously known as the Coventry Novices' Chase, the minimum distance event underwent a makeover including an upgrade to Grade 2 status. Best Mate won the contest six years after its reclassification, for what was his first major chase title.
2004 – Greatwood Hurdle Re-Classified
For a period the Greatwood Hurdle, another main highlight of the long weekend, carried Listed status but in 2004 it enjoyed an upgrade to Grade 3. The minimum distance event has kept this grade since, allowing it to attract a high calibre of hurdlers to Cheltenham.
Also enjoying a promotion was the Prestbury Juvenile Novices' Hurdle, now reclassified as a Grade 2 contest.
2005 – Pipe Hits Smoking Hot Form
No trainer has dominated the BetVictor Gold Cup quite like Martin Pipe did between 1996 and 2005. In this fairly short space of time the 15-time Champion Trainer saddled the winner on seven occasions, putting his overall tally up to eight. This is enough to hand him a giant lead at the top of the leaderboard for this race and is a record unlikely to be broken for quite some time.
2007 – A Future Star is Born
The November Meeting is no stranger to well-recognised names but few winning horses have gone on to enjoy more success than Sizing Europe. His victory in the 2007 Greatwood Hurdle was the first major title he claimed, acting as the platform for what turned out to be a trophy-laden career.
2008 – Joe Lively Storms to Victory
For a long time the BetVictor Handicap Chase, known in the past under several different titles, has been one of the big betting events of the November Meeting. Hopeful punters witnessed quite the scene in 2008 as Joe Lively, trained by Colin Tizzard and ridden by his son Joe, claimed a devastating 14 length win. Never before had a horse won this traditionally competitive handicap by such an impressive margin.
2009 – New Race Added
When founded, the November Meeting didn't require the creation of races in order to complete the fixture. It did however add something new to its schedule during this renewal as it rolled out the Cheltenham Chase, also known as the Shloer Chase. Initially a conditions race, it moved to a Listed affair before being handed Grade 2 status two years later in 2015. Quite fittingly the upgrade in class saw a classy runner, Sprinter Sacre, win during the same year.
2012 – Coneygree on the Map
After destroying the field in a Class 4 contest at Uttoxeter, Mark Bradstock sent Coneygree to compete in Hyde Novices' Hurdle. Winners of the race have rarely enjoyed a huge amount of success later on but Coneygree is most certainly an exception to the rule. The 8/1 shot absolutely cruised to a November Meeting win before returning to Cheltenham a month later for another Grade 2 win.
2013 – Greatwood Returns
Between 2003 and 2011 the retired racehorse charity Greatwood had sponsored the minimum distance hurdle race that ran in the November Meeting. The name switched to the Racing Post Hurdle in 2012 but the change didn't last long as when Stan James bookmakers began sponsoring in 2013, they put Greatwood back into the title.
2017 – Meeting Handed a Name Change
Following conversations with The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Cheltenham Racecourse decided to change the name of this meeting. According to both parties, having two events called The Open was in no way beneficial when it came to promoting either event. To avoid any future confusion between the historic golf tournament and the long weekend racing fixture, Cheltenham opted to choose the more distinctive 'November Meeting' for their event's new title.


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Breastfeeding Without Borders
/campaign-carousel-items/ors-and-zinc-kenya
Blog: ORS Saves Lives in Kenya
"Stakeholders in the health sector should collaborate to ensure both ORS and zinc are available in primary care sources across the country." -Andolo Miheso, PATH Kenya #DefeatDD
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ors-zinc-kenya
Kenya is one of six countries to include co-packaged ORS and zinc in its List of Essential Medicines for Children. But community awareness of this cornerstone diarrhea treatment remains low. Kenya has prioritized availability of ORS and zinc in clinics throughout the country.
ORS Is a Magic Solution
/campaign-carousel-items/integrated-approach-diarrhea
Report: State of the Field
Click to read the report
Proven tools can defeat diarrhea: vaccines; water, sanitation, and hygiene (#WASH); nutrition; exclusive #breastfeeding; and oral rehydration solution and zinc. Use our report to advocate for funding and uptake. #DefeatDD #VaccinesWork
integated-approach
Proven tools can defeat diarrhea: vaccines; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); nutrition; exclusive breastfeeding; and oral rehydration solution and zinc. Use our report to advocate for funding and uptake.
Stop the Cycle: State of the Field
/campaign-carousel-items/complementary-solutions-pneumonia-and-diarrhea
Blog: Complementary Solutions for Diarrhea and Pneumonia
To address the most resilient threats to child health, PATH's country director in Kenya highlights the importance of partnerships and strategy that addresses national alongside local needs. #DefeatDD
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complementary-solutions-pneumonia-diarrhea
To address the most resilient threats to child health, PATH's country director in Kenya highlights the importance of partnerships and strategy that addresses national and local needs.
Kenya's Child Health Strategies
/campaign-carousel-items/kenya-national-newborn-child-and-adolescent-health-strategy
Kenya's Newborn and Child Health Strategic Plan
Click to view the strategy
NEWBORN & CHILD HEALTH STRATEGIC PLAN (1).pdf
Kenya's Newborn and Child Health Strategic Plan is a commitment to families and communities! With this cohesive strategy, the Ministry of Health aims to empower health systems so that children may "Thrive, Survive, and Transform."
Kenya health strategy quote_1.png
kenya-national-child-health-strategy
/campaign-carousel-items/advocating-primary-care
Video: Advocating for Primary Care
Click to watch and share
DBCTFhT3UkA
We asked some of our advocacy partners to explain why primary health care is a priority in Kenya.
advocating-primary-care-kenya
In 2022, the Kenya Ministry of Health launched its Primary Health Care network guidelines, to support counties in strengthening primary health care service delivery. We asked some of our advocacy partners to explain why primary health care is a priority in Kenya.
Advocating for Stronger Primary Health Care
/campaign-carousel-items/pneumonia-kenya
Fact Sheet: Pneumonia in Kenya
Pneumonia is the leading cause of child death in Kenya, and interventions to prevent and treat it often overlap with diarrheal disease solutions, as well. @MOH_Kenya #DefeatDD
pneumo-DD-infographic_1.png
pneumonia-fact-sheet-kenya
Pneumonia is the leading cause of child death in Kenya, and interventions to prevent and treat it often overlap with diarrheal disease solutions. The Ministry of Health's new fact sheet details the burden of pneumonia in Kenya, as well as strategies and actions that health facilities and advocates can take to help overcome it.
View the fact sheet
/campaign-carousel-items/kenyas-plan-and-global-goals
Blog: Complementary tools for pneumonia and diarrhea
The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) elevates an integrated prevention and treatment approach as the gold standard to address pneumonia and diarrhea. #DefeatDD
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kenya-and-global-goals
Kenya's national strategy reflects goals of the UNICEF/WHO Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPP-D), which provides a framework to protect children using proven interventions that have contributed to major reductions in child deaths.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This episode is one of a series that was recorded at the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture's symposium in St. Louis, Missouri.
In this interview we go behind the scenes in the hospital and see how Dr. Christopherson used acupuncture to help patients come out of anesthesia, treat a wide variety of pain and help the staff of operating rooms find their own most lucid balance.
She also shares with us some personal experiences using acupuncture to help her husband with circulatory issues, and how she treated supposedly untreatable conditions.
1:53 Treating neuropathy with acupuncture.
7:14 But it is impossible to treat neuropathy with acupuncture! Or is it?
10:39 Using acupuncture before and after surgery.
14:44 Other conditions that acupuncture is used for in the hospital setting.
19:08 Not just for pain, consider using acupuncture for these conditions as well.
20:28 How does acupuncture work?
23:57 A story about how acupuncture can dramatically improve circulation for pressure ulcers.


1950's 3-D. No special software needed !!
HARRY HEPCAT TO THE RESCUE !
Hey, Kids ! 1950's 3-D glasses are easy to make. So, don't be left out if you don't have a pair. Just cut two holes in a piece of cardboard or a stiff piece of paper to cover your eyes. Oh! And, don't forget to cut out a spot for your nose. Put some red cellophane (plastic wrap) over the left hole and some blue (or green) cellophane over the right hole. Then stick your finger up your nose (I mean, put your glasses on). That's it! You're in business. Don't tell Sillycone Valley.
USER MANUAL: Put on your 3-D glasses. Relax. Stare at the picture. Wait a couple of minutes for your eyes to adjust to the monitor. You may want to turn out any distracting overhead lights and adjust your distance away from the monitor.
E-gad! This even works with an old browser. Great goo-ga moo-ga !! We don't need MicroSoft OR Netscape Explorer anymore!


Car accidents are extremely dangerous for anyone involved. They are one of the biggest killers of human lives every day. Fatal accidents and severe injuries are not uncommon. Another important cause of death is undiagnosed injuries because no one notices them.
Simply put, these injuries are hidden from you because you are not a medical professional. Even if you feel alright, your body is not always the best judge of an injury especially if you are stressed from the crash. You may only start to feel symptoms hours after the crash happened. If you do, these symptoms probably are pointing at potential life-changing injuries.
Discovering hidden injuries is not always simple. The injuries could occur inside your skin so they do not show or they may happen to be chronic injuries that will become worse as time goes on. It is important to set up a medical examination immediately after the accident through a legal and health perspective. Fast medical exams can find hidden injuries at their early stages; which you may be able to cure or start your path to recovery sooner.
Legally, injury lawyers will want you to get a medical exam as early as possible because insurance companies may try to show that your injury was caused by other factors. They might argue that the accident was never responsible for the injury. If you have the medical exam right after, it will help prove that the accident was the cause. Your personal injury lawyer will be able to use the information from a medical exam to help you with your settlement.
Headaches can have fatal implications, especially after a car crash. Headaches are common because people might be hit in their head or might suffer from whiplash without knowing it. If one is hit in the head, there could be a fracture in the skull. You may have suffered from a concussion because of the car accident. Muscle damage and nerve damage can also be causes of a headache after a car accident.
It is common for headaches to be severe and last for a long time if there is any real damage to your neck and back. This is because your nervous system is damaged. Your brain is one of the main parts of the system.
Someone could also suffer a headache because of emotional stress. Crashes are traumatic for everyone because of how life threatening they are. A car accident makes people feel hopeless when the car loses control. Emotional trauma should not be overlooked as they can cause chronic symptoms to last forever.
Whiplash is considered the most classic example of a hidden symptom. While whiplash can happen anywhere, most people link the word to car accidents for good reason. When a car is moving at the speed a car usually does and comes to an abrupt stop, it is normal for a human's neck to snap back because of the interaction between inertia and the seatbelt.
You will want to get an X-ray if you are feeling any neck pain. Whiplash involves muscles that could have been torn or strained. Without proper professional expertise, it could take a very long time before the pain goes away.
The same way a neck gets injured in a car accident, the back can also be subject to an intense amount of force because of the relationship between inertia and the seatbelt. Your body just is not designed for that much force to be exerted onto it.
Back pain can be caused by multiple reasons. You might have hurt the muscles in your back. They may have stretched too much in the accident and have been damaged as a result. Back pain may also be the result of a spine injury. Your spine is very important because it acts as the central nervous system in your body.
Damage to the spine can create chronic pain that will affect you for the rest of your life. It is hard to help the spine recover because there are many cells in the spine that are very unique and cannot divide themselves to create new ones. Spine damage can also deteriorate to the point you will stop being able to use parts of your body because of paralysis.
Spinal cords may also be injured because whiplash can damage discs. Your chord is held by multiple intervertebral discs that act as a cushion for a shock. It helps the brain and your spinal cord receive less damage. Sometimes, the shock is so great that the compositions of the discs touch the nerves in your cord. This can cause pain and even create other impaired nerve symptoms.
These symptoms include your abdominal system. You may not have realized that you were hit in the area during the car accident. There are many vital organs in the abdominal area so any of them could be injured.
Diarrhea and pain could be a sign that your digestive system was greatly injured. These symptoms could also be caused by stress too. It is always better to check why these symptoms are happening with a CT scan.
If your stomach feels swollen or seems to be swelling, this is usually a sign of internal bleeding. Other symptoms of internal bleeding could include deep purple bruising, dizziness and fainting. Internal bleeding is very dangerous and the fatality is further encouraged because the symptoms for internal bleeding can take a few days before they show up.
Internal bleeding happens when one of your important organs becomes punctured. The blood slowly clots up into one of the open spaces in your body. Most of your organs are near the stomach and there are a lot of cavities around there. In other words, swelling is a sign that one of your organs has already been bleeding for a while. This is why it can be so hard to self diagnose yourself when you suffered trauma to a vital organ.
You may be feeling numb because your nervous system was injured. Whiplash does not always cause damage to the spine even when it causes nerve damage. Since whiplash is so common during car accidents, it is likely some nerves was damaged during the accident.
The nervous system in the body is so large; damage to nerves must be treated case by case. It depends where there is nerve damage and how severe the damage is. Damage could result in paralysis, numbness, pain, muscle weakness and uncontrollable movements. People have also described a tickling sensation that seems to tingle in their body. You might also find yourself feeling more sensitive to temperatures.
While car accidents will affect most people's emotions, some emotional symptoms might actually be a result of very long lasting mental health issues caused by the accident. These symptoms are the hardest to catch. You might feel that you are just having an off day or they might take a while before they fully develop. Since diagnosis for these symptoms is usually so delayed, late treatment is common.
An accident could affect your energy levels. You might start to feel tired all the time or you might have difficulty sleeping. You might feel unmotivated to wake up and do activities. People can find themselves neglecting their everyday duties because they have no energy to get up.
The accident itself might seem to haunt you. Maybe you suffer from memory loss which prevents you from dealing with the accident rationally. If this is not treated, you might suddenly find yourself being triggered to remember which can cause intense panic attacks. These triggers could come in the form of flashbacks and nightmares. Some people suffer from these symptoms even when their memory isn't lost.
Some people may even find that their personality seems to change. This could be a result of a concussion. You might feel that you easily get upset compared to before. Mood swings are a common symptom of mental diseases.
The two most common types of mental diseases are depression and PTSD. Both of these diseases can happen because of large emotional trauma. A car accident is an intense situation that can cause this trauma. Anxiety is another disease these symptoms could imply. Lots of medical attention will be needed in the form of therapy or medicine.
While symptoms do not always imply the worst scenario, you should always try to prepare for the worst. It will help you get better coverage and get the settlement you deserve. These injuries could impact your life forever and the medical bills could rack up. You have to get as much help as you can to pay for those. Even though money is not a cure, everyone feels better when justice is won.
If you or a family member gets into a car accident, make sure you immediately try to find medical attention. Only a professional can detect these injuries without the symptoms and they can immediately save your life.


Put on your rubber gloves and protective goggles. Add four to five gallons of water to your plastic bucket.
Slowly pour the can of lye into the bucket of water, and carefully mix the contents together using your piece of wood.
Bend your wire hangers into hook-shapes that fit over the edge of your bucket, to suspend the cast iron pots and pans from. Make one hook per piece of cookware to be cleaned.
Slip one end of a wire hanger-hook through the hole found in the handle of each cast iron pot or pan you wish to clean. Hang these over the edge of the bucket, so that the lye water covers them.
Allow the cast iron pieces to soak in the lye water for one day to one week, depending on how dirty they are. The lye water will not damage the cast iron, so don't be afraid to soak them as long as they need.
Remove the cast iron pieces from the lye bath, while wearing your gloves and goggles. Take the pots and pans outside and spray them down with a hose with a high pressure setting. The grease should simply wash away. If some remains, wipe the surface with a scouring pad until it is clean.
Wash the cast iron pots and pans in the sink with warm water and dish soap, and rinse thoroughly. Allow them to dry completely.
Coat the cast iron cookware with mineral oil, and allow them to sit overnight to absorb the oil. Wipe off any excess mineral oil the next day. The mineral oil protects the cast iron surface.
Always add the lye to the water, and never add water to the lye. Adding water to the lye can cause the mixture to dangerously heat up, and possibly cause burns.
Always wear your rubber gloves and goggles when working with lye. If the lye water comes in contact with your skin, rinse immediately.
Because cast iron is heavy, your bucket may become unbalanced and possibly spill. Because lye is caustic and can cause damage, make sure your bucket is of heavy construction and is balanced well.
Save the lye water for the next time you need to clean your cast iron cookware. It will last through several cleaning sessions.
While the lye water will thoroughly clean your cast iron cookware, it will not remove rust.
Why Choose Cast Iron Cookware?


"I went to the doctor yesterday."
This is the line you never want to hear from anyone. It usually means one of two things. Either you're going to get a bucketful of bad news, or you're going to get a glimpse into Too Much Information.
Anyway, this is always bad news. I've had this recur about four times now in what appears to be a disturbing trend. I think it's part of some sort of old guy disease. This stuff never happened when I was 25, so what gives?
The reason I needed to get my ears flushed is because I'm looking into getting hearing aids.
I know you're thinking: "Say what? He's so young!" You're thinking that, right? I knew it.
Yes, while I am pretty sure I don't need hearing aids, my family begs to differ. Why, just the other day, I asked Donna what we were having for dinner and she said "Fried web burgers." At least that's what I'd heard. When I repeated it back to her, she and Ben had a good laugh with it.
"I said prime rib burgers."
This is the comedy of errors that goes on regularly in our house between me and my bride who is fighting back her own hearing loss.
So off to the doctor I go. I get an appointment with a nurse practitioner who weighs me in at 5 pounds heavier than I am at home. I think I have doctor induced weight gain or something. Then she takes my blood pressure and tells me that the hundred number is borderline high. She doesn't tell me how to fix it of course, just letting me know in case I stroke out while I'm getting flushed.
She takes a peak into my ears and says, "Yep, all backed up. I'll get the assistant to flush them." It seems there's a hierarchy to old guy ear flushing and she was having none of it.
A few minutes later the nursing assistant came in and set to work. It starts with her filling up the Windex bottle with slightly too-cool water and hydrogen peroxide. Then she hooks on the torture nozzle and hands me a cup to hold up to catch the water that flows out of my ear.
It is not unlike taking a fire hose to your cranium.
The water blasting goes on for a good 3-4 minutes before she takes a break to see if there's been any progress. "Nope, it's not moving," she says. The tortuous blasting resumes until I forget my birth date, sprout gills out of my neck and a blowhole out the top of my head. Eventually she concludes that she'll need drops to help break things up.
I'm thinking, maybe next time we start with drops. I'm thinking that in between bouts of consciousness, mind you.
Finally she has luck with the right ear and then starts on the left. Just when you think the hard part is over, it gets harder. For some reason the left ear was even more sensitive. Or maybe she was poking the torture nozzle closer to my brain. I don't know.
I now know what it's like to be the victim of water boarding, however.
After five more minutes of literal brainwashing, the left ear clears. The difference was both noticeable and instantaneous. I would even say, miraculous.
And for all the joking, I don't want to minimize either the duties or the crap that nurses have to deal with every day. I joke about them torturing me, but I have the utmost admiration for all that they do. I can be a big baby when it comes to this kind of thing, so when both ears were cleared I wanted to hug this nurse. We'd both been through an ordeal, and she was the miracle worker in my mind. They really do care and do their jobs well.
So, no more Fried web burgers for me for a while.


text:
Q: dynamically prepend 'a' tag to posts with 'featured' classes. 'featured' class is being dynamically added too I'm using the code below to dynamically add a class featured to the posts with a meta_value of yes. Additionally, I need to prepend <a href="<?php bloginfo("url"); ?>/about"> to the posts that have the featured class. Is there any way I can add something to this code to achieve this?
function wpse80098_filter_post_class( $classes ) {
    global $post;
    if ( 'yes' == get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_jsFeaturedPost', true ) ) {
        $classes[] = 'featured';
    }
    return $classes;
}
add_filter( 'post_class', 'wpse80098_filter_post_class' );

Right now, the HTML looks like this:

hello

hello

I want the HTML to look like this:

hello

    <a href="<?php bloginfo("url"); ?>/about">

hello

With <?php bloginfo("url"); ?> of course being replaced by my site.
If I can't add to the code, what other ways could I go about doing this?

A: Add below code for prepend the url.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
require 'spec_helper'

describe BetfairApiNgRails::Api::Config do
  subject(:config) { described_class }

  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :application_key }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :ssl_key_filepath }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :ssl_crt_filepath }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :username }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :password }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :locale }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :formatter }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :keep_alive_session }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :use_cache }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :cache_expire }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :proxy_url }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :proxy_enable }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :go_localuser }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :go_filename }
  it { is_expected.to have_attr_accessor :endpoint }

  describe ".load_for_environment" do
    let(:path)   { "path" }
    let(:opts)   { [:opt1] }
    let(:config_hash) { {'env' => { 'opt1' => :val1 }} }

    before do
      stub_const("BetfairApiNgRails::Api::Constants::LOADABLE_CONFIG_OPTIONS", opts)
      allow(YAML).to receive(:load_file).with(path).and_return config_hash
    end

    it "loads config from file and apply it" do
      expect(config).to receive('opt1=').with(:val1)
      config.load_for_environment path, 'env'
    end
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Designed for I/O-intensive and latency sensitive environments, Synology Flash Station FS2017 provides reliable, high performance all-flash storage solution with comprehensive business applications for enterprise users. Synology Flash Station FS2017 simplifies data management and optimizes virtualization environments, providing lightning-fast storage. Synology FS2017 is backed by Synology's 5-year limited warranty.


13 oz scrim vinyl outdoor banners provide a full color way to display your message economically, and can be pre-installed with a collapsible stand, or with grommets to allow for hanging at rallies.
Outdoor Banners can be used for billboards, building wraps, banners, trade show signage and more. Waterproof and durable, you can use them outdoors and indoors.


text:
From 'Total exoneration!' to 'Impeach now!' – the Mueller report and dueling fact perceptions
How can a community decide the direction it should go, if its members cannot even agree on where they are? Two political scientists say the growing phenomenon of dueling facts threatens democracy.
By David C. Barker Published on May 08, 2019.
Can a country move ahead when its citizens all hold dueling facts? Shutterstock
The Mueller report was supposed to settle, once and for all, the controversy over whether the Trump team colluded with Russians or obstructed justice.
Clearly it has not.
Reactions to the report have ranged from "total exoneration!" to "impeach now!"
Shouldn't nearly 700 hundred pages of details, after almost two years of waiting, have helped the nation to achieve a consensus over what happened?
Well, no.
As the German philosopher Goethe said in the early 1800s, "Each sees what is present in their heart."
Since 2013 – long before Donald Trump was even a candidate – we have been studying the "dueling facts" phenomenon: the tendency for Red and Blue America to perceive reality in starkly different ways.
Based on that work, we expected the report to settle next to nothing.
The conflicting factual assertions that have emerged since the report's release highlight just how easy it is for citizens to believe what they want, regardless of what Robert Mueller, William Barr or anyone else has to say about it.
The Mueller report has sparked dueling perceptions of fact. Here, Attorney General William Barr, right, is sworn in to testify before Senate on May 1, 2019. AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Dueling facts in American democracy
Our research has led us to several conclusions about the future of political discourse in the U.S.
The first is that dueling fact perceptions are rampant, and they are more entrenched than most people realize.
Some examples of this include conflicting perceptions about the existence of climate change, the strength of the economy, the consequences of racism, the origins of sexual orientation, the utility of minimum wage increases or gun control, the crime rate and the safety of vaccines.
This has serious implications for American democracy. As political scientists, we wonder: How can a community decide the direction they should go, if they cannot even agree on where they are? Can people holding dueling facts be brought into some semblance of consensus?
To figure that out, it is important to determine where such divergent beliefs come from in the first place.
This is the perspective we began with: If dueling fact perceptions are driven by misinformation from politicians and pundits, then one would expect things to get better by making sure that people have access to correct information – via fact-checking, for example.
We envisioned the dueling facts phenomenon as being primarily tribal, driven by cheerleading on each side for their partisan "teams." We assumed, like most other scholars, that individuals are simply led astray by their team's coaches (party leaders), star players (media pundits) or fellow fans (social media feeds).
But it turns out that the roots of such divergent views go much deeper.
Dueling facts: Climate change was referred to on an Obama administration EPA page, left; it was excluded on the Trump administration's version of the page. EPA vis AP
We found that voters see the world in ways that reinforce their values and identities, irrespective of whether they have ever watched Fox News or MSNBC, and regardless of whether they have a Facebook account.
For example, according to our data from five years of national surveys from 2013 to 2017, the most important predictor of whether a person views racism as highly prevalent and influential is not her partisan identification. It is not her general ideological outlook. It is not the amount or type of media that she consumes. It is not even her own race.
It is the degree to which she prioritizes compassion as a public virtue, relative to other things like rugged individualism.
Facts rooted in values
Values not only shape what people see, but they also structure what people look for in the first place. We call this "intuitive epistemology."
Those who care about oppression look for oppression, so they find it. Those who care about security look for threats to it, and they find them. In other words, people do not end up with the same answers because they do not begin with the same questions.
For example, the perception that vaccines cause autism – against all available empirical evidence – is now shared equally by Democrats and Republicans. Partisanship cannot account for this dueling fact perception.
But when we looked at the role of core values and their associated questions, we found the strongest predictor. If someone we surveyed ranked this question highly, "Does it appear that people are committing indecent acts or degrading something sacred?" they were by far the most likely to believe that vaccines are dangerous.
Partisan identity, on the other hand, has no relationship at all with those beliefs. Because the starting points for different groups of citizens are deeply polarized, so are their ending points. And the starting points are often values rather than parties.
The stronger those commitments to their values are, the stronger the effects. Those with extreme value commitments are much more certain than others that their perceptions are correct.
Perhaps the most disappointing finding from our studies – at least from our point of view – is that there are no known fixes to this problem.
Fact-checking tends to fall flat. The voters who need to hear corrections rarely read fact-checks. And for those who might stumble across them, reports from distant and distrusted experts are no match for closely held values and defining identities.
Education is the another possible means of encouraging consensus perceptions, but it actually makes things worse.
Rather than training people how to think more reasonably, college and graduate school merely sharpen the lenses graduates use to perceive reality. In our data, those with higher levels of education are more, not less, divided. And the higher the level of training, the more tightly values and perceptions intertwine. Education provides the tools to more efficiently match their preferred values to their perceived facts.
Based on this evidence, we conclude that dueling fact perceptions (or what some have labeled "alternative facts") are probably here to stay, and worsen.
Mueller's muddle
We suspect that the Mueller report would have been rejected by roughly half the country, even if its conclusions had been definitive.
But with key phrases like "Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," the report's indecisiveness reinforces how difficult it can be to really know the "truth" about a lot of things.
If a respected prosecutor like Robert Mueller can't offer a firm conclusion after two years of document dumps and interviews, what are the rest of us to do?
As with so many other things, people will go with their guts, using their heads to feel better about the choices they have already made.
Our conclusions are much more definitive than Mueller's: We see clear evidence of collusion and obstruction. Collusion between values and facts. Obstruction of the capacity to observe and accept legitimate evidence.
So for the past couple of weeks, the chorus of "I told you so!" has rung out from the country's Blue coastlines and from every Red mile of heartland in-between.
And with that, the U.S. continues to inch ever closer to a public square in which consensus perceptions are unavailable and facts are irrelevant.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Caren Morrison - 11 hours ago
The US hit the debt ceiling in March and is expected to run out of ways to get around the new $22 trillion…
By Steven Pressman - 11 hours ago


We've got a beautiful new premiere from London's own Royce Wood Junior.
Royce Wood Junior is a London based soul singer and producer who's about to make big waves with his debut album The Ashen Tang. It's the product of RWJ's personal and distinctive blend of influences that include R&B heroes like D'Angelo and Prince but also wonky electronica from the likes of Radiohead as well as the precise production of J Dilla. Cutting his teeth over the past few years as a co-producer for the likes of soul-sensation Jamie Woon and BBC Sound Music poll topper Kwabs, RWJ's latest release from the album is 'Don't Wanna Lose You': that you can exclusively hear on Wonderland first.
The track is a cover of Tony D and Veba's underground classic of the same name (no, me neither), and layers RWJ's distant-vocals against a lushly produced foreground of tinkering melody and murky underwater distortion. It's an intelligently orchestrated piece that part soothes and part intrigues: a pretty good sign that The Ashen Tang will be one to look out for when it drops at the end of the month.
The Ashen Tang is out January 29th on 37 Adventures.


Throughout the late '60s and early 70s, Grand Funk Railroad was the top selling American rock band. They had 4 World Tours selling out in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and South America. Their 1971 performance at Shea Stadium in New York sold out even faster than The Beatles did. One could even say that they were the pioneers of early metal music as well. With over 12 Gold albums to their credit and 11 Platinum albums, there's no denying that they deserve their name in history. Their mega-career produced such hit albums as, "On Time," "Grand Funk Railroad," Closer To Home," "Live Album," "Survival," "E Pluribus Funk," "Mark, Don & Mel," " Phoenix," "We're An American Band," "Shinin' On," and "All The Girls In The World Beware!!!" Their timeless classic songs included, "I'm Your Captain," "Paranoid," "Inside Looking Out," "Footstompin' Music," "Rock N Roll Soul," "We're An American Band," "Walk Like A Man" and many, many other hits.
And now, just a little over a decade since Grand Funk's disbandment, Mark Farner, Don Brewer and Mel Schacher are back again. This time with a firm commitment to continue playing together as longs as their fans will have them. Music News had a chance to talk with Mark Farner recently and get his thoughts on the reunion tour and the future of Grand Funk Railroad. They have also just released their first album in years, "Bosnia," a two-CD live album recorded at in Detroit with proceed going to benefit the Bosnian-American Relief Fund.


It's all about glycans, it always has been, it always will be.
I am an ARC Future Fellow at the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University and heading the Institute for Glycomic's Glycoanalytical Mass Spectrometry Facility, which has been established as part of the Australian Centre for Cancer Glycomics (A2CG) in 2017. My major research theme is translating and understanding the glyco-languages that all cells use to communicate to exploit this knowledge for disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Though the basic building blocks of the alphabet are similar across all domains of life, we are still on the brink of understanding the individual languages and dialects that cells have evolved. I am particularly interested in understanding how cells are speaking to each other and how pathogens or tumour cells are abusing this language for their evil intentions. Understanding this language is the key to selectively target cells that talk in a different language and to use their dialect to filter them out of the big crowd of cells "talking normally". For this purpose, my team and I have been developing key technologies that allow decoding the cells' glyco-languages. My research naturally requires a multi-disciplinary research approach where we have made great progress in the areas of glycomics and glycoproteomics techniques, in particular in their application on clinically relevant sample material where we were the first ever to report glycome analyses from as low as 1000 cells. In-depth knowledge on naturally occurring glycan structures and their glycoconjugate molecules is fundamental to elucidate the functional and diagnostic aspects hidden in glycan and glycoprotein sequences.
Hinneburg, H., Korac, P., Schirmeister, F., Gasparov, S., Seeberger, P. H., Zoldos, V., & Kolarich, D. (2017). Unlocking cancer glycomes from histopathological formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue microdissections. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 16(4), 524–536.
Alagesan, K., Khilji, S. K., & Kolarich, D. (2017). It is all about the solvent: on the importance of the mobile phase for ZIC-HILIC glycopeptide enrichment. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 409(2), 529–538.
Everest-Dass, A., Kolarich, D., Pascovici, D., & Packer, N. (2017). Blood group antigen expression is involved in C. albicans interaction with buccal epithelial cells. Glycoconjugate Journal, 34(1), 31–50.
Gutierrez, A. M., Miller, I., Kolarich, D., Hummel, K., Nobauer, K., & Razzazi-Fazeli, E. (2017). Detection and first characterization of an uncommon haptoglobin in porcine saliva of pigs with rectal prolapse by using boronic acid sample enrichment. Animal, 11(5), 845–853.
Hinneburg, H., Schirmeister, F., Korac, P., & Kolarich, D. (2017). N- and O-glycomics from minor amounts of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1503, 131–145.
Liu, Y., McBride, R., Stoll, M., Palma, A. S., Silva, L., Agravat, S., … Smith, D. F. (2017). The minimum information required for a glycomics experiment (MIRAGE) project: Improving the standards for reporting glycan microarray-based data. Glycobiology, 27(4), 280–284.
O⎥ill, E. C., Kuhaudomlarp, S., Rejzek, M., Fangel, J. U., Alagesan, K., Kolarich, D., … Field, R. A. (2017). Exploring the Glycans of Euglena gracilis. Biology, 6(4), 45–1–45–13.
Stavenhagen, K., Hinneburg, H., Kolarich, D., & Wuhrer, M. (2017). Site-specific N- and O-glycopeptide analysis using an integrated C18-PGC-LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS approach. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1503, 109–119.
Almeida, A., & Kolarich, D. (2016). The promise of protein glycosylation for personalised medicine. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. General Subjects, 1860(8), 1583–1595.
Carvalho, S. R. Q., Catarino, T. A., Dias, A. M. B., Kato, M., Almeida, A., Hessling, B., … Pinho, S. S. (2016). Preventing E-cadherin aberrant N-glycosylation at Asn-554 improves its critical function in gastric cancer. Oncogene, 35(13), 1619–1631.
Hinneburg, H., Hofmann, J., Struwe, W. B., Thader, A., Altmann, F., Silva, D. V., … Kolarich, D. (2016). Distinguishing N-acetylneuraminic acid linkage isomers on glycopeptides by ion mobility-mass spectrometry. Chemical Communications, 52(23), 4381–4384.
Hinneburg, H., Stavenhagen, K., Schweiger-Hufnagel, U., Pengelley, S., Jabs, W., Seeberger, P. H., … Kolarich, D. (2016). The Art of Destruction: Optimizing Collision Energies in Quadrupole-Time of Flight (Q-TOF) Instruments for Glycopeptide-Based Glycoproteomics. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 27(3), 507–519.
Ito, H., Kaji, H., Togayachi, A., Azadi, P., Ishihara, M., Geyer, R., … Narimatsu, H. (2016). Comparison of analytical methods for profiling N- and O-linked glycans from cultured cell lines: HUPO Human Disease Glycomics/Proteome Initiative multi-institutional study. Glycoconjugate Journal, 33(3), 405–415.
Janesch, B., Schirmeister, F., Maresch, D., Altmann, F., Messner, P., Kolarich, D., & Schaffer, C. (2016). Flagellin glycosylation in Paenibacillus alvei CCM 2051T. Glycobiology, 26(1), 74–87.
Lohse, S., Meyer, S., Meulenbroek, L. A. P. M., Jansen, J. H. M., Nederend, M., Kretschmer, A., … Valerius, T. (2016). An anti-EGFR IgA that displays improved pharmacokinetics and myeloid effector cell engagement in vivo. Cancer Research, 76(2), 403–417.
Loke, I., Kolarich, D., Packer, N., & Thaysen-Andersen, M. (2016). Emerging roles of protein mannosylation in inflammation and infection. Molecular Aspects of Medicine, 51, 31–55.
Mereiter, S., Magalhaes, A., Adamczyk, B., Jin, C., Almeida, A., Drici, L., … Reis, C. A. (2016). Glycomic analysis of gastric carcinoma cells discloses glycans as modulators of RON receptor tyrosine kinase activation in cancer. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. General Subjects, 1860(8), 1795–1808.
Mereiter, S., Magalhaes, A., Adamczyk, B., Jin, C., Almeida, A., Drici, L., … Reis, C. A. (2016). Glycomic and sialoproteomic data of gastric carcinoma cells overexpressing ST3GAL4. Data in Brief, 7, 814–833.
Moginger, U., Resemann, A., Martin, C. E., Parameswarappa, S., Govindan, S., Wamhoff, E.-C., … Kolarich, D. (2016). Cross Reactive Material 197 glycoconjugate vaccines contain privileged conjugation sites. Scientific Reports, 6, 20488–1–20488–13.
Struwe, W. B., Agravat, S., Aoki-Kinoshita, K. F., Campbell, M., Costello, C. E., Dell, A., … Kettner, C. (2016). The minimum information required for a glycomics experiment (MIRAGE) project: sample preparation guidelines for reliable reporting of glycomics datasets. Glycobiology, 26(9), 907–910.
Ventham, N. T., Kennedy, N. A., Adams, A. T., Kalla, R., Heath, S. C., O'Leary, K. R., … al., et. (2016). Integrative epigenome-wide analysis demonstrates that DNA methylation may mediate genetic risk in inflammatory bowel disease. Nature Communications, 7, 13507–1–13507–14.
Kolarich, D., Ranzinger, R., Kettner, C., & York, W. S. (2015). Minimum Information Required for a Glycomics Experiment (MIRAGE): Enhancing the Value of Glycoanalytic Data. In Glycoscience: Biology and Medicine (pp. 193–200).
Kolarich, D., Windwarder, M., Alagesan, K., & Altmann, F. (2015). Isomer-specific analysis of released N-Glycans by LC-ESI MS/MS with porous graphitized carbon. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1321, 427–435.
Campbell, M., Nguyen-Khuong, T., Hayes, C. A., Flowers, S. A., Alagesan, K., Kolarich, D., … Karlsson, N. G. (2014). Validation of the curation pipeline of UniCarb-DB: Building a global glycan reference MS/MS repository. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. Proteins and Proteomics, 1844, 108–116.
Leitsch, D., Janssen, B. D., Kolarich, D., Johnson, P. J., & Duchene, M. (2014). Trichomonas vaginalis flavin reductase 1 and its role in metronidazole resistance. Molecular Microbiology, 91(1), 198–208.
Leitsch, D., Soki, J., Kolarich, D., Urban, E., & Nagy, E. (2014). A study on Nim expression in Bacteroides fragilis. Microbiology, 160, 616–622.
Marco-Ramell, A., Miller, I., Nobauer, K., Moginger, U., Segales, J., Razzazi-Fazeli, E., … Bassols, A. (2014). Proteomics on porcine haptoglobin and IgG/IgA show protein species distribution and glycosylation pattern to remain similar in PCV2-SD infection. Journal of Proteomics, 101, 205–216.
Stavenhagen, K., Kolarich, D., & Wuhrer, M. (2014). Clinical Glycomics Employing Graphitized Carbon Liquid Chromatography-Spectrometry. Chromatographia, 78, 307–320.
Theodoratou, E., Campbell, H., Ventham, N. T., Kolarich, D., Pucic-Bakovic, M., Zoldos, V., … Lauc, G. (2014). The role of glycosylation in IBD. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 11(10), 588–600.
York, W. S., Agravat, S., Aoki-Kinoshita, K. F., McBride, R., Campbell, M., Costello, C. E., … Kettner, C. (2014). MIRAGE: The minimum information required for a glycomics experiment. Glycobiology, 24(5), 402–406.
Everest-Dass, A., Abrahams, J., Kolarich, D., Packer, N., & Campbell, M. (2013). Structural feature ions for distinguishing N- and O-linked glycan isomers by LC-ESI-IT MS/MS. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 24(6), 895–906.
Everest-Dass, A., Kolarich, D., Campbell, M., & Packer, N. (2013). Tandem mass spectra of glycan substructures enable the multistage mass spectrometric identification of determinants on oligosaccharides. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 27(9), 931–939.
He, X., Pierce, O., Haselhorst, T., von Itzstein, M., Kolarich, D., Packer, N., … Kermode, A. R. (2013). Characterization and downstream mannose phosphorylation of human recombinant α-L-iduronidase produced in Arabidopsis complex glycan-deficient (cgl) seeds. Plant Biotechnology Journal, 11(9), 1034–1043.
Klatt, S., Rohe, M., Alagesan, K., Kolarich, D., Konthur, Z., & Hartl, D. (2013). Production of glycosylated soluble amyloid precursor protein alpha (sAPPalpha) in Leishmania tarentolae. Journal of Proteome Research, 12(1), 396–403.
Kolarich, D., Rapp, E., Struwe, W. B., Haslam, S. M., Zaia, J., McBride, R., … York, W. S. (2013). The minimum information required for a glycomics experiment (MIRAGE) project: Improving the standards for reporting mass-spectrometry-based glycoanalytic data. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 12(4), 991–995.
Leymarie, N., Griffin, P. J., Jonscher, K., Kolarich, D., Orlando, R., McComb, M., … al., et. (2013). Interlaboratory study on differential analysis of protein glycosylation by mass spectrometry: The ABRF glycoprotein research multi-institutional study 2012. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 12(10), 2935–2951.
Stavenhagen, K., Hinneburg, H., Thaysen‐Andersen, M., Hartmann, L., Silva, D. V., Fuchser, J., … Kolarich, D. (2013). Quantitative mapping of glycoprotein micro-heterogeneity and macro-heterogeneity: An evaluation of mass spectrometry signal strengths using synthetic peptides and glycopeptides. Journal of Mass Spectrometry, 48(6), 627–639.
Wongtrakul-Kish, K., Kolarich, D., Pascovici, D., Joss, J. L., Deane, E., & Packer, N. (2013). Characterization of N- and O-linked glycosylation changes in milk of the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii) over lactation. Glycoconjugate Journal, 30(5), 523–536.
Everest-Dass, A., Jin, D., Thaysen-Andersen, M., Nevalainen, H., Kolarich, D., & Packer, N. (2012). Comparative structural analysis of the glycosylation of salivary and buccal cell proteins: Innate protection against infection by Candida albicans. Glycobiology, 22(11), 1465–1479.
He, X., Galpin, J. D., Tropak, M. B., Mahuran, D., Haselhorst, T., von Itzstein, M., … Kermode, A. R. (2012). Production of active human glucocerebrosidase in seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana complex-glycan deficient (cgl) plants. Glycobiology, 22(4), 492–503.
He, X., Haselhorst, T., von Itzstein, M., Kolarich, D., Packer, N., & Kermode, A. R. (2012). Influence of an ER-retention signal on the N-glycosylation of recombinant human α-L-iduronidase generated in seeds of Arabidopsis. Plant Molecular Biology, 79, 157–169.
He, X., Haselhorst, T., von Itzstein, M., Kolarich, D., Packer, N., Gloster, T. M., … Kermode, A. R. (2012). Production of α-L-iduronidase in maize for the potential treatment of a human lysosomal storage disease. Nature Communications, 3, 1062–1–1062–9.
Jensen, P. H., Karlsson, N. G., Kolarich, D., & Packer, N. (2012). Structural analysis of N- and O-glycans released from glycoproteins. Nature Protocols, 7(7), 1299–1310.
Kolarich, D., Jensen, P. H., Altmann, F., & Packer, N. (2012). Determination of site-specific glycan heterogeneity on glycoproteins. Nature Protocols, 7(7), 1285–1298.
Kolarich, D., Lepenies, B., & Seeberger, P. H. (2012). Glycomics, glycoproteomics and the immune system. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 16, 214–220.
Leitsch, D., Drinic, M., Kolarich, D., & Duchene, M. (2012). Down-regulation of flavin reductase and alcohol dehydrogenase-1 (ADH1) in metronidazole-resistant isolates of Trichomonas vaginalis. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, 183(2), 177–183.
Williams, C. F., Lloyd, D., Kolarich, D., Alagesan, K., Duchene, M., Cable, J., … Leitsch, D. (2012). Disrupted intracellular redox balance of the diplomonad fish parasite Spironucleus vortens by 5-nitroimidazoles and garlic-derived compounds. Veterinary Parasitology, 190, 62–73.
Grass, J., Pabst, M., Kolarich, D., Poltl, G., Leonard, R., Brecker, L., & Altmann, F. (2011). Discovery and structural characterization of fucosylated oligomannosidic N-glycans in mushrooms. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 286(8), 5977–5984.
Lee, A., Chick, J. M., Kolarich, D., Haynes, P. A., Robertson, G. R., Tsoli, M., … Baker, M. S. (2011). Liver membrane proteome glycosylation changes in mice bearing an extra-hepatic tumor. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 10(9), 1–18.
Parker, B. L., Palmisano, G., Edwards, A. V. G., White, M. Y., Engholm-Keller, K., Lee, A., … Cordwell, S. J. (2011). Quantitative N-linked glycoproteomics of myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury reveals early remodeling in the extracellular environment. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 10(8), 1–13.
Scott, N. E., Parker, B. L., Connolly, A. M., Paulech, J., Edwards, A. V. G., Crossett, B., … Cordwell, S. J. (2011). Simultaneous glycan-peptide characterization using hydrophilic interaction chromatography and parallel fragmentation by CID, higher energy collisional dissociation, and electron transfer dissociation MS applied to the N-linked glycoproteome of Campylobacter jejuni. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 10(2), 1–18.
Sumer-Bayraktar, Z., Kolarich, D., Campbell, M., Ali, S., Packer, N., & Thaysen-Andersen, M. (2011). N-glycans modulate the function of human corticosteroid-binding globulin. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 10(8), 1–14.
Weber, A., Butterweck, H. A., Mais-Paul, U., Teschner, W., Lei, L., Muchitsch, E. M., … Schwarz, H. P. (2011). Biochemical, molecular and preclinical characterization of a double-virus-reduced human butyrylcholinesterase preparation designed for clinical use. Vox Sanguinis, 100(3), 285–297.
Alagesan, K., Everest-Dass, A., & Kolarich, D. (2018). Isomeric Separation and Characterisation of Glycoconjugates. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 1104, 77–99.
Moginger, U., Grunewald, S., Hennig, R., Kuo, C.-W., Schirmeister, F., Voth, H., … Kolarich, D. (2018). Alterations of the Human Skin N- and O-Glycome in Basal Cell Carcinoma and Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Frontiers in Oncology, 8, 70–1–70–18.
Domagalski, M. J., Alocci, D., Almeida, A., Kolarich, D., & Lisacek, F. (2017). PepSweetener: A Web-Based Tool to Support Manual Annotation of Intact Glycopeptide MS Spectra. Proteomics - Clinical Applications, 1700069–1–1700069–10.
I currently supervise 2 PhD students and 3 post-doctoral fellows, with a track record of 6 PhD, 6 Master and 3 Bachelor thesis completions at my previous affiliation with the Freie Universität Berlin and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam/Berlin, Germany (2011-2016).
In my group we are always welcoming motivated students.
I became fascinated with glycobiology and mass spectrometry during my undergraduate studies in Vienna. During my PhD with Professor Friedrich Altmann and his post-doctoral work with Professor Nicolle H. Packer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, I worked intensively on glycopeptide oriented glycoproteomics of human glycoproteins and plant/insect glycoprotein allergens. In late 2010 I took up the opportunity to establish my own independent research group at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany. There my research was focusing on glycomics and glycoproteomics techniques to investigate the role glycosylation plays in health and disease. I was awarded an ARC future fellowship in late 2016 and I joined the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University in January 2017 continuing my research in disease and evolutionary glycomics and glycoproteomics.


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Chineasy
The Chinese Zodiac – Happy Chinese New Year of the Pig
By Joseph Beadle | A Super Chineasian
An appreciation of the Chinese zodiac is a key insight into the cultural identity of China, as a reflection of ancient tradition. According to creator of Chineasy ShaoLan's TED talk in 2016, a quarter of the world's population is influenced by the Chinese zodiac, so even if you view it as mere superstition, it is worth getting to grips with what it represents, as it is more prominent in the world and decision-making than you first might think. The zodiac is a view of someone's personality, career prospects, and private life, by linking twelve animals to a cycle of twelve years: from the rat to the pig. Unlike the Western zodiac, it is not based on constellations and is founded upon years, rather than months. Each animal is characterized by its own qualities, strengths, and weaknesses: personified in those born in their year.
The influence of the zodiac:
The ancestors based much of their lives and decisions on yin and yang, the five elements, and the twelve animals of the zodiac. This tradition has carried through all the way until now, affecting some people's decisions on naming children, when to give birth, and people's innate attitudes and interactions with others. Some Chinese people even plan when they give birth according to which animal of the zodiac they would like their baby to be born into! For example, the dragon is often seen as the superior animal, symbolizing power and wealth, so in 2012 – the year of the dragon – there was a 5% increase in birth rate in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: that is, one million more babies! There was also an increased proportion of boys being born that year: a 120:100 ratio of boys to girls. In the same way, the birth rate decreased significantly in the years of the tiger: an animal associated with an unstable temperament. The zodiac is also important in how people intrinsically react with others. For example, pigs are said to have perfect romantic relations with the tiger, goat, and rabbit, and some animals are natural born enemies. Personally, I am a snake, and some believers in the zodiac uphold that pigs do not get on well with snakes, and similarly, rabbits do not get on well with roosters. Playing a role even in such major decisions as a stock market investment, the global economy, and politics, the Chinese zodiac clearly has a bigger impact than first perceived, and gives us a fascinating insight to how the Chinese people think.
How did the zodiac begin?
The Chinese zodiac is a twelve-year cycle, based on Jupiter's orbital period: the largest planet of the solar system. In Chinese mythology, one story of how this came about was from a time long ago, when all the animals of the kingdom were invited to a New Year celebration. The Jade Emperor held a competition, testing the animals' intelligence and physical skill, with an elephant as the judge! The winners were announced: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog, and the pig. And this became the order of the Chinese zodiac.
Similarly, some believe that it was the Buddha who called for a great race of the animals and that the first twelve through the finish line earned their place in the zodiac. Another story is that the Buddha called for a gathering for his departure of the world, inviting all the animals of the kingdom. The animals in the zodiac were the ones who showed up to the Buddha's earthly farewell: in that order.
In Chinese astrology, there are also animal signs assigned by month (inner animals), day (true animals) and hours (secret animals). For example, somebody born in the year of the Dragon might be a snake internally, an ox truly, and a goat secretively. In my opinion, this reflects the countless dimensions of our identity and existence, and how we live much more deeply than what may first meet the eye of others.
So what does the zodiac reveal about Chinese culture?
It is important to appreciate how this zodiac is not confined to China and is often equally influential in countries such as South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Vietnam, Sri Lankan, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. For me, the zodiac offers a sense of union between people, and – in the bloodstreams of our identities and underneath the apparent coincidences of our existence – there exists a primordial interconnectedness and a common purpose between all of us.
Which animal are you? This Chinese New Year, we are celebrating the year of the Pig, whose people are seen to be happy, easygoing, honest, trustworthy, intelligent, sincere and brave.
Joe is a sixteen year old student living in London, and is the grandson of a Chinese policeman and painter. As an active speaker of French and Spanish, he believes strongly in the power of intercultural exchange, and using languages and cultures to reveal the stories of humanity today and where we've come from. Fascinated by the literature, music and philosophy of China, Joe cannot wait to share his passions on the Chineasy blog.
Instagram: @joe.beadle
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Four years ago when I turned fifty, my congenital stomach defect ( hiatal hernia) went from bad to worst, to the extent that I could no longer take solid foods. After several medical examinations, from one specialist to another, doctors told me that I have GERD probably caused by my hiatal hernia . But what was confusing was, that aside from the gastro reflux I became allergic to almost everything I eat. I lost weight very fast, from 95lbs to 70lbs. I became very weak and could not perform my usual activities so I retired early from my job. I was on antacids and anti-allergies continuously for more than two years but my condition even got worse. I developed other pains like aching bones , nagging sore throat, canker sores, dizziness , bloating of head and stomach which were so frustrating for an active person like me. So I decided to try alternative modalities after conventional medicine failed to help me. We went from one alternative practitioner to the next but relief was temporary. Then I saw Dra Patawaran on TV interview and I went to her clinic. She gave me detox procedures and introduced Quantumin plus to me a year ago. Since then I gradually regained my health. I am no longer taking antacids nor any antihistamines for more than a year now. Thanks to Quantumin plus! I'm back to work and is doing the usual activities I used to do.
GERD stands for Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease. "Gastro" refers to the stomach. Esophageal refers to the esophagus , the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach. Reflux means a back-flow. GERD is a condition in which acid, bile and partially-digested food in the stomach goes back and up into the esophagus.
What happens when a person has GERD? Partially digested food contains a strong acid including powerful enzymes that break down food. The stomach lining has a special protective layer against acid attack but the esophagus is not protected so when acid and enzymes come in contact with the esophagus, they cause irritation, inflammation, pain, and other symptoms. One of these symptoms is heartburn or acid indigestion which is an unpleasant burning sensation behind the breastbone that usually occurs after a meal.
GERD can be brought about by a weakness in the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) . The LES is located at the very bottom of the esophagus and is a high pressure zone made up of muscles. The LES normally opens or relaxes as food is moved down the esophagus to the stomach. When it is closed, the LES prevents the food and digestive juices from going back into the esophagus. For some reason, the muscle in the LES weakens and GERD results.
In about 80 percent of people with GERD, they have a hiatal hernia which makes heartburn and other symptoms more likely. A hiatal hernia occurs when part of the stomach bulges into the chest cavity through a weak normal opening in the diaphragm, a sheet of muscle that separates the stomach cavity from the chest cavity.
Mrs. Santos is just one of the 15 million people suffering daily from GERD! What was termed before as "hyperacidity" has been relabelled today as Gastro-esophageal reflux to describe more clearly what actually happens inside the stomach. The stomachaches she suffered resulted from the back flow of acids and enzymes into the esophagus due to her congenital hiatal hernia. The weak opening in diaphragm and weak lower esophageal sphincter are reflective of weakened muscles. Reviewing anatomy and physiology, these muscles work effectively when there is enough minerals to effect contraction and relaxation as needed. Quantumin plus has the minerals needed to produce effective contraction making the sphincter and the diaphragm stronger and lessening the GERD effects or in the case of Mrs. Santos the absence of the GERD symptoms for over a year could be an indication that her defect has been possibly cured. Of course, a repeat scan or endoscopy is required to document such cure but Mrs Santos now has a busy schedule because she's now back in teaching and like any other patients who went thru the pain and anxiety of endoscopy, they're not willing to go through it again unless they again have disturbing symptoms.
The several allergies Mrs Santos and others suffer may result from unhealthy lifestyle, toxins from unhealthy diet that we grab from fastfood chains when we're in a hurry and residues of medications we have taken since we're in high school. To top it all, she was under so much stress that is commonly encountered when one tries to orchestrate life being a wife, a mother and a full time university professor. Quantumin plus is rich in anti-oxidants that will neutralize all free radicals produced by stress and toxins that also caused her pains all over her body. It also has fulvic substance that is capable of unbelievable healing of tissues ruined by acids. Moreover, Quantumin is also an alkalinizer capable of neutralizing acids in places where it is not needed. In the 15 million worldwide who suffers from GERD or hyper acidity daily, Quantumin will be a blessing to their stomach, to their health and to their pocket! Let's all reach out and help them wherever they are in this world.


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Get a Computer
Robert Langford's Story
Blinded at age 16 in a Halloween accident, Bob Langford's life changed in ways no one could have predicted. No longer could he demonstrate his competitive nature and physical strength on the football field. His parents knew in their hearts that independence, education, and a strong moral compass would guide Bob to fulfill his dreams… sighted or not.
Bob was the first blind person to graduate from public high school in New Mexico and the first blind person to receive a Bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico. His degree included a triple major: Psychology, Social Work, and Education.
In Bob's mind, employment was the objective and education was the best means of preparation. To compete, he felt he had to be better prepared than the rest. After applying for a vocational rehabilitation job with the University of Wisconsin and not receiving a response, Bob took a bus to Madison. His intent was to secure an interview.
Bob arrived in Madison on a Friday night, took a cab to the university, and called the head of the rehabilitation program. He convinced the head of the program to meet with him on a Saturday morning. Bob learned that the job he wanted had been put on hold for six months due to budget constraints. He figured if they got to know him, they would like him. He found housing within walking distance of the campus and got accepted to the University. Taking a full-academic load, Bob graduated with a Master's Degree in Vocational Rehabilitation. The job was never funded.
Through networking, Bob learned of an employment opportunity in Brooklyn, New York. The job was to teach the blind to operate a sewing machine. This program offered a sheltered work center for the blind and the opportunity to learn a trade. The executive director of the organization expected to hire a sighted person to teach. Bob convinced the executive director to let him do the job on a volunteer basis for six months. The paid position became his and Bob's career was launched.
In subsequent years, Bob worked as a field representative teaching the blind basic living skills. Bob learned many lessons, but the one that stood out the most was: "You have to be innovative to teach. You have to understand the fears, the experiences, and the hopes of the student." Bob then reflected on his own feelings: "I knew I wanted to help others mainstream. I knew that learning takes place when the student is invested and the support systems (namely the family) are in place to nurture growth."
Leadership roles followed at the state and national levels. After attaining a Doctorate Degree in Vocational Rehabilitation, Bob held leadership roles with rehabilitation centers, state agencies, and The Texas Commission for the Blind. Often these roles required Bob to convince others that a blind man could in fact manage the details, be fiscally responsible, and lead others. Each day, he would get up and decide what needed to be done that day. He often said "I didn't think about it, I just did it. It needed to be done."
In later years, Bob and his family moved to Texas and retired. Bob retired from traditional employment and continued to commit his life in service to the blind. In 1995 , he founded the Texas Center for the Physically Impaired, now called Computers for the Blind (CFTB). The original mission of the organization was to act as a resource agency for the blind. Bob had hoped to help others navigate the many roads leading to independence for the blind.
An amazing thing happened along the way, Bob got his first computer and his life changed. He discovered how computers could help him overcome communication barriers and wanted to give other persons with visual impairments access to this wonderful tool. Bob said "For the first time, I could communicate privately. I was in control of when I wanted to read. I could independently manage my own finances." He began to experience freedom and independence he had never dreamed of before.
Computers for the Blind became the central focus of his organization and to date has delivered tens of thousands of computers to persons with visual impairments.
Bob and his wife Doris celebrated a wonderful marriage. They have four beautiful and independent children. The family has lived in ten states over Bob's career. The primary focus for his family was service to the blind.
Contact us: (214) 340-6328 / info@computersfortheblind.org
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