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09/18/2010 A mother, lost and found

Six years ago, Claire Robertson, awoke from a coma, surrounded by her husband and children. She had no idea who they are. Decades of family life gone from her memory was destroyed by a viral infection

One day in the summer of 2004, I lost my memory. I woke up in hospital surrounded by my husband and four children and I did not recognise a single one of them. They were strangers. I am told there was some build-up, in that I had been off work for a few days with a gastro-intestinal upset and became quite confused. My daughter tells me I called my husband Stephanie. They were told by the hospital that I had viral encephalitis, a serious neurological infection affecting the brain. I was 43.

I had to believe that my husband was the right person, but I had no sense of certainty about him. With our children, I had a bit more feeling of security because, although I did not recognise any of them, I had a feeling that they were ours. It was, I suppose, a strong maternal instinct. But I had no sense of belonging to this family who, I was told, were mine. I remember feeling completely separate from this group of individuals who seemed so intense and confident together. They were very clearly a unit, but one that I didn't feel part of. And I was very scared.

I didn't recognise our home, so I couldn't find my way around. I even had to be helped to go to the right rooms. My younger daughter, Georgia, who was nine, left pink heart-shaped notes all round the house: "Bedroom", "This way to the bathroom", and "I love you, Mummy". It was a lovely thing to do and I've kept those notes, but at the time I struggled to believe this was the home I lived in. I remember, in particular, not wanting to wear any of the clothes I was told belonged to me. I simply denied they were mine â€" a lot were lost and many have never been found. My husband thinks I disposed of most of the items that were previously my favourites, ones he supposes that I identified with the "me" I had lost.

In my life prior to the illness, I had a good education and 27 years of experience nursing in the NHS. Now I found myself unable to name plants and animals, as well as not knowing where to go two doors from home. I had always wanted to be a mum and was the person who organised family life â€" the cooking, the driving and so on â€" but now I found myself completely misunderstanding the needs of my own children. Struan, then 16, and Helen, then 14, would say (as they still do): "You know I don't like spicy chicken!" and "Why give me sugar in my tea when you know I don't have any?", but I really don't know that.

I want so much to get it right, but without the most basic memories I spend a lot of time getting it wrong. They have a mum who doesn't know them individually and who doesn't remember how to be Mum. At times, it has made me feel like a dismal failure â€" and it has been very difficult for them.

I've also learned how helpful it can be to write things down. It started with reminders on scraps of paper, such as how to use the washing machine and clean my teeth (I had forgotten these things too) and later developed to things such as "Helen dislikes kedgeree" and "Leo enjoys football". With the passage of time, and with the help of my written reminders, there have even been moments when I've been able to feel like Mum again â€" I mean, the mum I'm told I used to be â€" making smiley-face crumpets or driving my children somewhere they really like going. That feels good.

I've met others through the Encephalitis Society who suffer from the effects of this illness, and that is another thing that helps. Often people say "I know how you must feel", but like so many dramatic experiences in life, only those who have experienced it can really know.

Best of all, over time, I have pieced back together some memories. The first and the strongest were of my own childhood â€" a walk in the park as a child near where we used to live in Sheffield, for example, or a family day out in the Peak District to see the dams. I was able to link these memories to the people who I was told are my mother and father, as well as my three sisters. I started to feel a sense of belonging with them. The feeling was wonderful â€" something I will never take for granted again. My parents were so happy â€" it meant we were a true family unit again.

Making things even harder is the fact that I can forget any of them all over again within minutes because I have ongoing problems with facial recognition. It happens with my own family. I can usually recognise my husband or children at home if they are the only ones there, but there are occasions when I muddle Ed and Struan and they have to give me a gentle reminder. One time, Helen knocked on the door and I asked how I could help her. "It's me, Mum!" she laughed. When I'm out of the house, I struggle to pick my husband and children out at all â€" unless I can remember exactly what they are wearing â€" so I always make a mental note of it as we go out. I get little grins, waves and special eye contact to help me feel confident that it's them.

Maybe all this has affected them less than I think. I do see a lot of happiness in them. All four are confident and independent and have a special bond. I was talking to Struan, now 22, about things the other day, saying that I see my life as a jigsaw, one that has fallen off the top shelf and smashed into many loose pieces. He thought for a moment, and said he felt we'd found the corners now. He said happily that half the fun, the whole fun really, should be building the edges and then putting the pieces back in the middle. The only thing he did say can be frustrating for them is seeing me work so hard to live up to a preconception of what a mum should be. He says it can make me fuss a bit too much, which sometimes makes him and his siblings snap back.

Last Christmas, Georgia, 15, said, "You are no longer the integral cog in the family Christmas machine." She was only joking, but I feel that mums should know their children's life stories. It's part of the fabric of family life. I hardly know anything about my own life and almost nothing about theirs. Much of the time, I am still a stranger in my own world â€" a bit like an actor in the wrong play.

That said, over the last six years since this all happened, I have had a fantastic amount of help, both professionally and from my family. I may not be the wife, the mum, the nurse, the friend that I believe I was before. I may not be able to bear the thought of watching old home videos or seeing old photographs that remind me of the 20 years I've lost. But how lucky I am to be able to say that my heart is in the right place, even if my head isn't.

Claire Robertson was talking to Kate Hilpern

www.encephalitis.info; Tel: 01653 699599

Ed's story: 'We no longer have the shared history other couples do'

Because I'm a doctor, while Claire was in a coma I was well aware of the possibilities for recovery or otherwise. Then when she woke up it wasn't so bad because right from the outset she did improve a little each day. I'm an optimist, so I remained hopeful that this would carry on.

It becomes clear that she will have longer-term problems, but was never any point where we - the children and I - thought, we can 't handle it. In addition, Claire helped us a lot, being very strong. She gave us great hope for themselves and as time passed, I think I 've been proved right in my original feeling that everything will improve.

Obviously, this was a peculiar time to time in the beginning, firstly because there were times when she would remember who I am, and while she does not remember me. We 've set up mechanisms to deal with it - I wear a necklace with sharks' teeth at him, and that 's her a visual cue that it' s me, if she gets confused.

She still often says that she feels like an outsider, but to us she is the same.She looks the same, and many of the things that were true about her before the illness are still true now. She still has traits we instantly recognise: her drive to do things, a need to be busy and her sense of humour are all still the same. All those are things that haven't changed, and that's a lot of things. She has lost those experiences she had in the last 30 years, the memories.

There has been an element of starting again in terms of our relationship as a couple. We don't have that shared history that other couples have. All the reference points have gone. Nowadays, we do have the things that have happened in the past five or six years as a "new" history and although she still has trouble with those memories, they are stronger.

It has changed her character, but then it's changed the character of all of us. Our eldest daughter has said to me that it has benefited her in a way, helped her grow up. It's helped all of the children become self-sufficient.

The hardest part in the beginning was when she came home and was terribly emotionally unstable, which was so out of character for her. She was crying a lot and very anxious, and there really was nothing I could do for her. That was a terrible time.

The other thing which has been hard has been her inability to understand sarcasm. It sounds like nothing, but we have always been a family who use that kind of humour. So she took everything we said literally and to her it sounded like we were being very horrible to each other. That upset her. But in the end it's impossible to change that kind of behaviour â€" nobody can live their life literally. In the end we just used to shout "Tease!" every time she looked doubtful or worried about what we were saying.

It has been hard for the children, and as a family we've lost something, that maternal thing of remembering the little bits of history, the specifics that I'm rubbish at â€" though I do just about remember all their birthdays.

Right from the start I took the view that the priority, the people who needed most protection â€" emotionally and practically â€" were the children, not Claire or me. We sat and talked about it. I had no qualms about telling them everything, but at the same time you put a positive spin on things: "This has happened but we'll get through it, things will get better." I asked them if they wanted people to come in and look after them, to be with them in the house, but they all decided they wanted to cope on their own. I think that was beneficial and I think it mostly paid off. They are very confident and have probably come out of it not too badly â€" we still have a very loud house.

Ed was talking to Steve Chamberlain

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09/18/2010 The kids aren't all right

Thousands of under-16s are on antidepressants, and mental health problems in the young are on the rise. Why are children being diagnosed at ever younger ages, asks John Crace, and are drugs really the answer?

It creeps up on you unannounced. One day you are coping, the next you aren't. It's as though a veil has come between you and the rest of the world. Even getting out of bed feels like too much hassle. Everything feels pointless. Quite often, you want to die. If depression is this unbearable for an adult, imagine what it must be like for a teenager.

Amy was 13 and living at home with her parents when she first started feeling low. "There was no single trigger," she says. "I was stressed with Year 9 SATs, but so was everyone. Everything started to feel meaningless. I'd never had a lot of friends, but I began to find spending time with them less and less easy. Before long, I started to self-harm."

Initially, Amy's parents put her behaviour down to normal adolescent monosyllabism â€" she was good at concealing her cuts â€" but after three months they were worried enough to take her to their GP, who told them teenage depression was common and referred her to a psychiatrist.

\\ "I was anti-depressants," Amy says, "and within a week I felt a lot worse than I told the psychiatrist, who immediately doubled my dose soon I felt twice as bad again .. A few weeks later, I was adopted by young people 'S House my local psychiatric hospital, and took my medicine. "

At the hospital, Amy was given a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and seemed to respond well. In fact, she says, "I was just trying desperately to get out. I was sure my parents were arrayed with a psychiatrist, to keep me there, so I started to lie about how I feel."

The lying paid off after three months, and she went home. No one other than her parents and two much older sisters had come to see her while she was in hospital (her headteacher had taken it upon himself to say that no one should visit, and Amy felt too ashamed to call her friends), so she felt even more distant. She started seeing a different therapist, but that didn't help. "I hadn't appreciated how hard coming out of hospital was going to be," she says. "But I was so scared of being readmitted that I carried on lying about how I was feeling. The lying just made things worse, and I felt more and more hopeless. Not long after, I took my first overdose and ended up in A&E."

Amy is now 17. She has been in and out of mental hospital and has made several suicide attempts. She kept up with her schoolwork well enough to pass her GCSEs, but college is a struggle. "I'd like to get a degree and teach early-years kids, but my mood is still up and down. I'd like to think I can recover, but some aspects of my illness feel as if they will be around for ever."

There are many more teenagers such as Amy, and their numbers are growing every year. The quantities of antidepressants prescribed by the NHS have almost doubled in the last decade, and figures released under the Freedom of Information Act last year showed that more than 113,000 prescriptions for antidepressants were issued to under-16s in 2007 alone.

"We're getting clear evidence that the onset of depression is happening earlier and earlier," says Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane. "In previous generations, people would be overwhelmed by depression in their 20s. Now the peak age for onset is 13-15: the numbers of teenagers calling us for help suggest the rates of depression in the under-14s have doubled in the last four years, and in the 15-24 age group it has increased by one-third."

So what's going on? Are there really more teenagers suffering mental health problems than there were a generation ago? Is it that we are getting better at diagnosing depression in teens? Or is it, as some argue, that doctors in the UK have followed those in the US and started to medicalise the normal ups and downs of adolescence? When, in 2006, it became legal in the UK to prescribe fluoxetine (Prozac) to children as young as eight, there was a flurry of concern about the numbers of young people on medication, especially in the wake of the huge increase in the use of Ritalin to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

With one in 10 children in the UK suffering from a diagnosable mental health disorder, and at a time when cuts to mental health services threaten the provision of psychotherapy, you can see why doctors might turn to antidepressants to treat teenagers such as Amy. In her case, the drugs didn't work, but leaving the symptoms to develop can be a greater risk. "It's an extremely worrying trend," Wallace says, "not just because teenagers are more vulnerable than adults, but the earlier the age a depression is experienced, the more likely it is to be long-lasting if untreated."

If depression is notoriously difficult to pin down, in teenagers it can be almost impossible. No two people report precisely the same feelings or respond to treatment in the same way. Rather, it's a collection of symptoms ranging from persistent sadness, a lack of interest in life, tiredness, disturbed appetites, an inability to concentrate and low levels of self-confidence to suicidal thoughts and acts. If you have four or more of these for longer than two weeks, you may be diagnosed. And that's just the start of the process.

Psychiatrists have dismissed as unhelpful ideas of exogenous (caused by external events) and endogenous (no obvious external cause) depression, since it's often impossible accurately to disentangle the two: depression is classified as mild, moderate and severe â€" depending on how many of the symptoms the patient has and how acute they are. Even that's not precise, because symptoms are not uniform: some may be mild, others acute. In short, it's a minefield, with diagnosis and treatment frequently a matter of judgment â€" especially with teenagers who are hit by hormonal changes and mood swings, and so may not always be the most reliable reporters of their own symptoms.

"While an adult is likely to refer themselves to a doctor," says David Cottrell, dean of medicine and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Leeds University, "teenagers almost never do until their symptoms are acute. To pick up the symptoms of depression early on, you generally have to rely on the intervention of a parent or teacher. Parents are often reluctant to believe their children have serious mental health issues: they would rather think they were going through standard teenage angst."

It's easy to see why. No parent wants to admit their child has serious mental health problems, not just because of what it might mean for their child, but what it might say about them as a parent. Nor can we rely on schools to pick up on problems, as teachers often spend most of their time dealing with disruptive kids, so those who cause no trouble in class often slip through the net.

Adam is a case in point. Now 18 and living in Kingston-upon-Hull, his symptoms started when he was 11. "I could feel the pressure building when I had to move school," he says, "but things got really bad when a 14-year-old friend attempted suicide. I felt really guilty that I had been such a bad friend to this boy and I began to get panic attacks. I didn't know I was depressed. I just knew I felt empty and couldn't cope. But I felt too ashamed to tell anyone. One day I accidentally cut myself and I realised it felt good. I saw the blood and it proved I was alive inside after all."

Adam became skilled at concealing the scars, and the cutting went unnoticed for months before he eventually talked to a couple of friends, who advised him to go to his GP. He was given six months CBT, and the self-harming became less frequent. Though he never actually stopped. "I didn't want to give up my weekly sessions with a therapist," he says, "but I wasn't given a choice. My school grades began to slip, I stopped going out, and when my best friend April killed herself in a psychiatric unit, I was devastated. I decided I was never going to get close to anyone again, and for four months my only real contact with people was chatting to a couple of mates online. At no point did my parents intervene: they've had no part in my treatment, and I'm not sure they are even aware I had a problem."

What ultimately helped Adam was involved in a youth non-governmental health organizations, Mind Matters and YoungMinds , as an organiser and a worker, setting up Facebook groups and helplines, and talking to other people his age with similar experiences. Adam doesn't for a minute believe he is cured, though. "I think I will always be susceptible to depression, though I do feel I now have the coping mechanisms to handle it."

For those teenagers who do get referred there are clear National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) guidelines. Treatment ranges from counselling sessions, to more prolonged periods of CBT and other counselling and, finally, antidepressants.

"Parents and teenagers come to us expecting a solution," Cottrell says. "But there is no cure-all. Treating depression is an inexact science. Antidepressants are only ever offered as a last resort. No one is ever casually put on fluoxetine [the only drug recommended by Nice for teenagers]. Of course, you need to be careful, because there is a known, if small, risk of teenagers developing suicidal thoughts when they start the medication, but you have to balance that against the fact that these patients are already severely ill and may be experiencing suicidal feelings anyway."

Cottrell also suggests that the increase in the number of antidepressant prescriptions may actually be a sign of much better practice. "It used to be that teenagers were taken off antidepressants as soon as they showed any signs of getting better. We now know that long-term recovery is more likely if patients take their medication for six months. So I believe the increase in the number of prescriptions is in part because we are doing what we should, although more children are also getting prescribed antidepressants."

At the root of the problem, Wallace says, is our shift from an age of anxiety to one of depression, from a time when people worried life was going to be hard to one where they know it's going to be hard. "Families are fragmented and the inequality gap is widening," she says. "Social networking sites provide a veneer of communication, but they make vulnerable young people feel more alone, as they are exposed to the lives of others who may seem more successful. This is reinforced by celebrity culture."

Everywhere you look, the ante is being raised. Even the physical expressions of depression are getting more violent: youth agencies report anecdotal evidence that teenagers who once used a penknife on their wrist now cut or burn themselves secretly and badly. And the anxiety among mental health professionals is that there are still large numbers of cases going unreported. While the white middle classes may be reasonably adept at getting help for their children, some cultures regard mental illness as a social stigma too far. In cultures where arranged marriages are common, any hint of mental illness can make a child unmarriable, so depression is something to be ignored or explained away.

Take Nicky, an 18-year-old Asian girl from London. Her problems began when she was 14 and had anorexia, which her parents chose to ignore. "They liked to say I was on a diet," she laughs. Anorexia became bulimia a year later. "It was out of control, a dirty secret. My parents didn't want to know, but friends were harder to fool, so I took to hiding myself away. I felt terribly low. I wouldn't talk to anyone and I let my appearance go."

Not long after, Nicky started cutting herself four times a week. "I hoped it was a phase, but it got worse, and I began having trouble sleeping. I was having fights with my parents about my A-level choices, but still they had no idea what was going on with me."

She missed school, forged her parents' signature on absence slips and the cutting became burning. Things became so bad, she even tried to tell her parents, but they couldn't cope and pretended everything was OK. In desperation, she opened up to a teacher, who put her in touch with a counsellor and she started to receive treatment.

"I've had all sorts of therapies and I've been on antidepressants," Nicky says, "but I've never completely stopped self-harming, and I've been in and out of hospital after overdoses. It's all got worse since I turned 18, as I've been passed on to adult services. It's got so bad I've taken on a part-time job while I'm at college to save for private treatment."

Like Adam, Nicky is closely involved with YoungMinds, and helping others with similar problems has made her feel better about herself. Yet her bleak assessment of her chances of making a long-term recovery are about right. The outcomes of the treatments are as variable as the treatments themselves.

"Ten per cent of those with milder depressions will recover spontaneously within three months," Cottrell says. "Forty per cent will do so spontaneously within a year. Similarly, 40% of those who have been on antidepressants will be depressed after two years and 20-30% will have a recurrence within five. But predicting who is going to fall into which category is impossible. All we can say is that having an episode of depression makes it more likely you will have another one."

Most experts think the situation will only get worse. Mental health is the Cinderella of the NHS, and with cuts in services inevitable, it's likely that already overstretched mental health teams will be struggling still further to cope. It can be hard enough being a teenager at the best of times: depression brings on the very worst of times.

Some names have been changed

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09/16/2010 Baroness Brenda Hale: "I often ask myself 'why am I here?'"

Supreme court judge, Baroness Brenda Hale, on the highlight of the court's first year, selling bottled water and becoming known as 'Ms Diversity'

Over the summer, two of the editors of the UKSC Blog took a trip to the supreme court to interview supreme court justice, Baroness Hale. This is what she said.

The UK supreme court has just completed its first legal year, what for you has been the highlight?

I asked our judicial assistants about this and they all agreed that the highlight was the JFS case [R (on the application of E) v Governing Body of JFS and the Admissions Appeal Panel of JFS and others [2009] UKSC 15].

In addition, they said, all of the justices were very engaged in the case and the quality of the advocacy was superb. So that is why they thought that it was the high point of their year, and I think that they were probably right.

Are you satisfied with the level and quality of public discussion of the supreme court "with the decision? There were very high-profile decisions, but in most cases, they come and go without a huge amount of public debate. What is the supreme court do to encourage more public interest and discussion?

It's very difficult isn't it? We thought that we would probably be more in the public eye here than we were in the House of Lords, yet I don't think that the press and the media have taken much more interest in our work than they did before. My impression is that the difference has been in the general public's interest rather than the media's. As far as media discussion goes, it seems to me that it's neither better nor worse than it used to be. Of course we welcome informed debate and are sad when debate is ill-informed.

In terms of encouraging more discussion, I think producing press summaries on the supreme court's website (rather than press notices) is a good idea. At least it means that there is an accurate summary of what the issue in the case was, what decision was made and the reasons for it. Over time, this ought to improve people's understanding of what the supreme court is doing.

There has been an increasing tendency towards the use of written submissions over the past two decades. Is this a good thing?

Yes, of course it's a good thing. In fact it makes proceedings less boring because in the past, when there wasn't so much written argument, people used to read out loud what we have now all read before the hearing begins, and advocates would spend even more time reading parts of the evidence and extracts from the law reports and so on. I myself would reduce the oral submissions further (although not necessarily as far as the US supreme court, where oral arguments are limited to, I believe, half an hour on each side).

Most of my colleagues would probably take a different view from me, but I do not like listening to counsel cherry-picking the bits they like out of the important cases. I think we should be told what cases counsel thinks we should all have read in full before the hearing, and then the oral discussion can concentrate on what they mean and what their impact is on the case in hand. That's what I would rather do.

However, I do believe that oral submissions are important, and not just because one can change one's mind in the course of oral argument. It often becomes much clearer what the real issues are in a way that may not have emerged from the written submissions alone.

Is the present system of judicial recruitment and training a good one in terms of there being a large enough pool of experience and interest being brought to the bench?

There is a case for greater diversity of experience and interest at all levels, and an argument that a second tier appellate court could, and should, be even more diverse than either trial courts or first tier appellate courts.

Given that in the supreme court, we are not finding facts or assessing evidence, but looking at issues of principle, sometimes with a policy dimension or even a small 'p' political dimension, a wider range of experience might be appropriate than simply having been practitioners and lower tier judges. In fact there are supreme courts around the world which do have a more diverse composition than we do for just that reason. However, if we were going to follow this approach in the UK, we would have to do it quite openly, to be clear about it, and why.

I'm quite embarrassed to be the only justice to tick a lot of the diversity boxes, for example the gender one, the subject areas in which I'm interested (which are not ones that most of my colleagues have had much to do with up until now), the fact that I went to a non-fee-paying school and the fact that I wasn't a practitioner for any great length of time. I'm different from most of my colleagues in a number of respects (and they're probably at least as conscious of this as I am). I think we could do with more of that sort of diversity.

However, this is not something that we re 'on the Supreme Court, so in the case of direct elevation to the Supreme Court is much stronger than in the Court of Appeal.

In his recent lecture, Lord Hope spoke about the funding of the supreme court. Have you any comments on this?

I have read Lord Hope's recent lecture and I think it's very interesting. When the whole debate about setting up the supreme court was taking place I was in favour of its creation, and a great follower of Lord Bingham's enthusiasm for it, because I did not think that we should be in parliament, and the more effective and political the House of Lords became the less appropriate I thought it was that we were there.

On top of that, we took up a lot of space in the House of Lords (although we still didn't have enough room) and our being there caused confusion to members of the public who thought we were also doing a parliamentarian's job. So I was a great believer in making the change, but of course not in our being thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I did touch on the issue in a lecture that I began developing some years ago, so I was at least aware of the argument. But until the credit crunch and the extreme necessity for restricting public expenditure it probably didn't seem like more than a theoretical problem. I think that it may be a real problem in the future. I don't want to add to anything that Lord Hope has said but he has drawn attention to the fact that this may well be the case.

There have been one or two branding things which have caused me some irritation since we moved to the supreme court. For example, we have joined the government secure intranet and the message on the bottom of our emails used to say that emails would be monitored and recorded by the Ministry of Justice. I do not think it acceptable for emails sent from or within any court to suggest that its email traffic is monitored by government. Of course the reality is that it's done by whoever is providing the computer services and under the supervision of the court and not of anybody else, but any suggestion of oversight is unacceptable and apparently nobody thought of it until I noticed it.

A further example can be seen by my telling a silly little story. When my daughter with her two tiny children first came to visit the supreme court, they went into the supreme court café to buy a bottle of water to take away with them. They were told by the person working in the café it was ministry policy that they couldn't sell bottled water because tap water was good enough. But we should have our own policy for things such as this â€" we should not follow government policy or Ministry of Justice policy. For the record, the café does now sell bottled water, which is much better for people than the fizzy drinks they also sell. It's just little things like that which made it look as if we were out of parliament but actually closer to the government than we had been for centuries. That's not anybody's intention but it's something we have to keep an eye on.

What reforms, if any, would you like to see in the way that justices do their work, specifically in relation to delivering judgments? What do you think of the idea of single judgments? Do you think the delivery of single judgments will become more commonplace in the future?

When I asked the judicial assistants what they thought the high point of the last year had been (in order to assist me in answering question 1 above) I also asked about what they thought the low point had been. They all had (different) decisions with which they didn't agree which is to be expected. However, as a group, they found it most disappointing that the supreme court justices had not got more of a grip on the presentation of judgments. This would include having more single judgments, less duplication between judgments, the order in which judgments are printed, and attempting to have plurality judgments.

The idea of plurality judgments as the norm is very radical. It would mean that the majority who agreed on the result would have one judgment which reflected their common views (with possible post-scripts from adherents) rather than numerous judgments reasoning in almost identical ways towards the same result. It is something that I think some of us are sympathetic to, but it would take a long time to achieve.

This is partly because not everybody is sympathetic to it. There is a view that as a judge you have to take responsibility for your own decisions and be prepared to reason it through for yourself. You cannot just go along with somebody else's reasoning: that is abdicating your judicial role, especially at supreme court level. And of course once you have reasoned through it for yourself, you may just possibly want to share that reasoning with the rest of the world.

It is interesting that the judicial assistants should have picked out the JFS case as a high point because it could be said that the reasoning of all five of the majority was virtually identical. But it is a good example of what I am talking about. If you've read all five of those judgments you will see that each justice was going back over landmark discrimination cases and working out for themselves what those cases meant. I think it was important for every single justice hearing that case to do that. The problem (essentially whether one can discriminate without meaning to) was not new to me, because I have written on this subject before, but for some of my colleagues it was important to undertake such an exercise because they hadn't necessarily been confronted with the issue previously in quite such a stark form.

But we are taking some steps in that direction and the justices are doing more joint judgments now. However, we would never get to the position where you couldn't dissent and I personally hope we would also never get to the position where one could not do a footnote or postscript type judgment. For example, I frequently have a different "take" on a case from that of my colleagues, even though I might agree in the result and with most of the reasoning. However, as "Ms Diversity" I would regard myself as being considerably inhibited if I couldn't come along and say "hang on, what about the child in this case?" or "hang on, you are you're telling the factual story in a different way from the way that I would tell it".

Single or plurality judgments would make life easier for practitioners, but I have a theory about this. If you are a lower court judge looking for a rule or principle on which to decide the next case you'd probably rather have a single judgment (preferably a single paragraph telling you what the answer is) and this would also be true for the majority of litigants. But academics and high-flying and big money practitioners might want the diversity of judgments while the foot soldiers would prefer the precision. If there are several judgments which all reach the same conclusion in different ways then practitioners can benefit, because it opens up a variety of arguments which they can seek to exploit on behalf of their clients. The trouble is the law can never be as clear as people think it is.

The justices do sometimes sit and discuss their judgments. I think we can take steps to forge more consensus but that takes time. It also takes a bit of a culture change and we would not want to lose the benefits that accompany individual judgments.

Do you think with 7 or 9 panel benches in higher court cases is a useful innovation?

Having bigger panels has become more frequent, and that's been a conscious decision. One of the points in Lord Hope's lecture which hadn't occurred to me before is that we have the space at the supreme court to sit seven or nine Justices whenever we want, whereas when we were in the House of Lords we had to make special arrangements to have a bigger committee room and that might not always have been practicable.

Our main concern is that we are not very happy to have a five-member panel which is split 3/2 on a difficult or sensitive case where people can say "if only it had been justice A instead of justice B who heard that case then the result would have been different". Of course, this begs all sorts of questions about how predictable an individual justice's decision-making is or isn't. Some of us hope that we are not so predictable, but others may see us differently. You can of course have a 4/3 decision if there are seven justices on the panel, and 5/4 decisions if there are nine. But in such circumstances, the fact that five out of nine justices have reached a particular decision makes it both more authoritative and much less likely that a change in the composition would have changed the result. So that's the thinking behind sitting in a larger constitution more often, although it does add to the length of proceedings and I don't think that we've always been consistent in the cases that we've selected to do it.

If we are being asked to overturn a previous decision of the House of Lords or the Privy Council we would normally have a panel of seven. If we are being asked to reconcile previous inconsistent decisions of the House of Lords and the Privy Council, we would probably have a panel of nine. If a case comes with a great big banner saying "this is of constitutional importance", we would probably have a panel of nine (the case of R (Smith) v Secretary of State for Defence & another [2010] UKSC 29 would fall in this category, for example). But some cases which have had seven or nine justice panels have come into none of those categories (for example Radmacher (formerly Granatino v Granatino). So we have not been entirely consistent.

What steps do you think could be implemented to assist with the improved representation of women on the bench, particularly at the higher levels?

On my desk at the moment is the annual report of the Judicial Appointments Commission. In the past I would have answered this question by saying "the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission" but that has now been done, which is a step in the right direction.

Assessing potential is very difficult. There used to be an easy way of doing it, which was to say that if you are successful in a certain sort of legal practice you are the best candidate for a certain sort of judicial job. So the best silks became high court judges and could progress further, and the best juniors became circuit judges and occasionally might progress further, and solicitors became district judges and a range of people might become tribunal judges. That was the stereotype. Now I think that the Judicial Appointments Commission is trying to break away from this. But it is extremely difficult to assess in other ways whether people have demonstrated the capacity to do the things that judges do. We are all still in that mode of thinking "well if you have done X that shows you can do Y". So that too is a work in progress.

For example, setting an examination looks like a very objective way of assessing whether an individual is suitable to be a judge. However, if the examination is set and judged by judges, it can be a recipe for more of the same. "More of the same" is of course very good objectively, which is part of the problem, as it makes it more difficult for people from different backgrounds who might well be able to learn how to be a judge to demonstrate this.

The goal is to have an excellent judiciary. I always say that "the four 'in-quotients'" are what's important: that is intelligence, independence, integrity and industry. Those four things are what you need to be a good judge and we have to preserve that come what may. But that doesn't mean to say that they can only be found in the traditional places.

The most obvious barrier to the progression of women in the judiciary is that high judicial office has been reserved to those with successful careers as barristers. The Bar is the least family friendly profession in the world, I should think, with the possible exception of investment banking and so for a variety of reasons, the proportion of senior women at the Bar is still relatively low â€" only something like 10% of silks are women. This is particularly the case in certain practice areas.

The barrier is very much still within the legal profession itself. The solicitors' profession is also very divided between the solicitors who do a lot of court work and advocacy (who tend not to be in firms that are seen as the most prestigious) and those who may do a lot of litigating but little or no advocacy (who may work for the bigger, more prestigious firms). Indeed, in many of the more prestigious firms there is very little encouragement for solicitors to do part time judging (and of course we do take the view, which is a sensible view, that judges should normally have had a part time post before they take on a full time one). Appointing more solicitors would be a good way of diversifying the judiciary but for as long as the big firms of solicitors don't encourage or support talented people to do this it will not happen. So the problem is one of barriers within the legal profession, coupled with judicial assumptions about what you need to have done to become a judge.

Can we ask you about your academic career?

I think that it is the reason I am here. I often ask myself "why am I here?" when there are plenty of capable women with more conventional careers than I have had. One of my theories is that because I have had such an unusual career, my colleagues don't compare themselves to me in the way that they otherwise might. They aren't saying "oh I was in chambers with her", or "I was against her once" or "I knew her at the Bar" or "she was no better than me", or "she was worse than me". They could not do that because I was only at the Bar for a short time as a junior. So the unusual career I have had may have made it possible for me to be in the unusual position I am now. Whether it would be possible under the new system is another question.

What do you see the frontiers of the law being over the next 10 to 15 years? Issues such as relationship between the state and the citizen, the definitions of the state and discrimination are very significant at the moment but what will the future issues before the supreme court be?

I do think the relationship between the citizen and the state is going to go on being important, as will be the relationship of this state with other states. When I was studying public international law in Cambridge more than 40 years ago, the idea that issues of public international law would play such a big part in the decision-making of the domestic courts as they do now would have beggared belief. But human rights law is of course public international law, as is the refugee convention, and these international treaties are having huge implications for the rights of individuals.

I also believe in equality is very important. For example, how do you reconcile the equality of rights of people with certain religious beliefs, which include the belief that certain sexual practices are wrong, and the rights of those people who are engaged in these sexual practices are free to do that and should not be considered evenly others ?

The question of socio-economic and other so-called positive rights is also an interesting area. Take the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant) ex parte Limbuela (FC) [2005] UKHL 66 for example [concerning the obligation of the state to keep asylum seekers from destitution]. You could either look upon that as a case about interference with freedom, because the state denied a person all means of supporting himself, or you could regard it as establishing an obligation to supply him with some support. Is that a positive or a negative obligation? The division is not as clear cut as we might like it to be. Also in respect of article 8 and social housing, if a public authority has an obligation not to evict a tenant if this would be a disproportionate interference with his right to respect for his home, this might begin to look like a positive right to a home, although Strasburg might never say that.

Have a Good NEWS

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[[[Scout Pocket Rocket Tote Bag, Good News]]]

Discription : Bungalow bags not only offer unique, beach house inspired, colors and patterns they also offer unparalleled quality. Whether you're off to the beach, about town, the mall, the grocery store, a vacation or even college, you won't go wrong, packing it up in a stylish and quality built bag from Bungalow. The Good News Pocket Rocket is an all-new multi-pocketed tote bag offering easy transport for your bottle of water, favorite pair of flip flops, towel, sun block, and snacks.  Fastened with zipper on top for added security, the Good News Pocket Rocket also comes with grommets to reinforce weight. Stylish black web handle completes the look.


More review coming soon.

I've been using this bag all summer to tote my things on vacation, to the pool, and the beach. The six pockets come in handy so items are easy to find and I'm not digging through the large section for keys, lip gloss, etc. I also like that the top zippers which was great when I traveled on the plane so things didn't fall out of the bag. The colors are vibrant and since it's waterproof, I don't worry about it getting wet or my things inside getting wet. It's worth the price!

I love stripes and I love Scout bags. Perfect together! It's a compact and convenient bag that can hold lunches, small playthings for the park or beach (or towels for the pool). The side pockets are great, but can make carrying the bag over the shoulder a little challenging. You can hold the bag, though, by the handles. It's great that it works both ways. I love it! I do need a bigger bag for the family of 4 to go to the beach, though.

I bought this for a gift for someone. It is water resistant, has 6 outside pockets and is big enough for a beach towel but not too over-sized like most beach bags. Perfect for individual trip to the pool or beach. Manageable enough for each person to have their own. Rust& Gold colors (autumn paisley)are stylish.Scout Pocket Rocket Tote Bags



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[[[Good news about injustice, updated 10-th Anniversary: Witness of Courage to the people of planet]]]

Discription : A year 2000 Finalist in the ECPA book competition!

Accounts of injustice from our own communities and from around the world often leave us feeling outraged and helpless. We wonder what we can possibly do in response. And we wonder where is the God of justice?

Jesus, however, said, "Take heart! I have overcome the world." Gary Haugen sees the truth of Jesus' claim vindicated throughout Scripture, which portrays a God who rises up against injustice.

He also believes that this is true in life sometimes little-known Christians, who for many years courageously face of evil when they saw him. Here he tells the stories of these witnesses of hope to people of the planet.

The good news about injustice is that God is against it. God is in the business of using the unlikely to perform the holy, Haugen contends. And in this book he not only offers stories of courageous witnesses past and present, he also calls the body of Christ to action. He offers concrete guidance on the ways and means its members can rise up to seek justice throughout the world.


More review soon.

The Good News About Injustice is a gripping, moving, and extremely informative examination of the unbelievable depths of injustice in the world, and how as Christians we can and must bring relief and justice to those who are suffering. Never before have I been inspired by a book in the way The Good News About Injustice has inspired me.

It exposes the truth about what the bible says about oppression and violence against God's children, and the resounding call for God's followers to stand against the forces of corruption and oppression. I recommend this book not only to those with an active interest in justice and human rights, but for anyone who wants a more complete understanding of who God is, and what it means to follow him.

Buy this book.

This is an excellent book for anyone to gain a basic or deeper understanding of what justice is, why we need to care about justice, and how to make a difference for the lives of individuals around the world in unjust situations.

As early as the preface, Haugen shows his heart for justice issues and acknowledges that he is only a small part in the work of justice. He needs you and me and all the people at International Justice Mission and in other helping organizations.

Haugen begins with the truth about his feelings and emotions, as he began the Ministry of Justice, and turns it into a problem for the reader to get out of the American suburban complacency. He then proceeds to find the motivation for the administration of justice in the Bible, and acutely describe the heart of God for the justice of his people.

Then he describes the "anatomy of injustice" and explains how oppressors work, and what we can stop them. He gives hundreds of examples throughout the book, mostly of the work of lawyers within IJM to seek out justice for those enslaved to child labor, held captive in brothels, or victims of genocide.



Overall, Haugen has much experience in working with justice issues around the world and will grip your heart with stories of oppression and liberation, pleading with you to join the cause. Read this in a room where you can cry, and make sure to read the first chapters carefully so that you will be well-founded in the Word of God and tips about how to circumvent compassion fatigue.

I liked this book a LOT!! Gary Haugen does an excellent job at inspiring the average person that they too have a role in the fight against injustice. He moves from a place of inspiration to practical steps for helping to abolish modern day slavery, including human trafficking. I'm so glad I read this! :)



Buy Here (for discount) Good News About Injustice, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World

07/21/2010 Gay marriage and the semantics of relationships | Philippa Booth

the legalization of Argentina 'same-sex marriage has reawakened an old debate. For some civil partnership just is not good enough

Argentina recently became the first South American country to legalise gay marriage. It is not, however, the first South American country to allow gay people to enter into an officially recognised relationship â€" that was Uruguay in 2007.

The UK and several other countries differentiate between marriage and civil partnerships, while others specifically allow gay marriage. The ECHR recently held that such a distinction is not unlawful as the EU Convention "enshrine[s] the traditional concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman", thus countries may, rather than must, interpret this as including same-sex couples.

So, if a person as a result of the same, it is important that the union is called? This discussion may focus on determining: online dictionaries (as well as my own offline Penguin) give as the primary definition a union with someone of the opposite sex, and a secondary definition of a more general "marriage of concepts". A Spanish dictionary(In Spain allows gay marriage) is analogous: " Unión de hombre y mujer concertada mediante determinados ritos o formalidades legales"; as is a French dictionary: "Acts of a musical instrument solennel par un homme une femme et al, établissent entre eux une alliance ".

The Latin root matrimonium , includes matri, a clear indication of the intent of such a union. This often leads to discussions of marriage as being primarily for the procreation (rather than parenting) of children, but that arguably does not reflect the modern meaning of the word, more concerned with the desires of the two people entering into it than any subsequent person who might be created from it.

Some gays are satisfied with equal legal rights under the Civil Partnership Act and are not concerned with terminology. And then there are other priorities, with gay people in some countries facing state-sanctioned violence, prison sentences â€" even execution. There is an argument that pressure should be concentrated there rather than fine-tuning the vocabulary of life in Britain â€" there is nothing to stop gay people referring to their engagement, marriage, missus, partner or husband if they wish.

For others, true equality will not be achieved until the word used to describe unions is the same for all concerned. The difference recalls "separate but equal", a seemingly reasonable idea nonetheless rooted in inequality. Given the difference between the origin of the phrase and the current situation, this may seem hyperbolic. A single word cannot be as detrimental to a person's rights as an entire system of segregation on racial lines. But the distinction remains, which, in this view, displays the idea of fundamental difference.

Yuvraj Joshi recently set out some competing views in the gay community: that for some, inclusion in the institution of marriage is something to be pursued, while for others it is important to retain a sense of difference, to resist "assimilation" and a sense of "moral hierarchy" between state-recognised relationships and those existing outside these norms. Diversity of relationships, as he notes, exists in opposite-sex as well as same-sex relationships. Rather than focusing on difference, which the second approach can imply is solely a gay issue, perhaps "equality of opportunity" to marriage is the key point, thus allowing all people to either buy in or not, as they wish.

I once mistook two French phrases â€" séparé (to be separated) and with EST Pareil ' (it's the same thing), which made me wonder if the situations of civil partnership and marriage are so similar in their substance that what they are called is no matter? For me, the distinction is an annoyance, largely based on semantic logic. If marriage is indeed based on religious ideas of union, then any non-religious union should be a civil partnership; alternatively, if there is no necessary link with religion (which is my view), then all state-recognised unions should be marriages.

Some will think "Well, it's just words, let's get on with other stuff"; others, like me, think "It's a piddling little point, let's just change it"; and some have much stronger views one way or the other. Thinking of this as "just words" should also make us think that this can be used as an excuse for the expression of hate, denigration, or dismissal. But if you have to reach for a dictionary to define a loving relationship, you might also be missing the point.

Have a Good NEWS

[[[The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism]]]

Description:


More review soon.

What is a catechism anyway? [...] defines it as "an elementary book containing a summary of the principles of the Christian religion, esp. as maintained by a particular church, in the form of questions and answers" and "a series of formal questions put, as to political candidates, to bring out their views."



However, the author of this book has made up for what the original catechism left out by providing Scripture for the catechism, along with his own commentary. It is a well-rounded in-depth study.

The translations used in this book are ESV, KJV, NIV, and NRSV with ESV being used the most.

Thanks to Moody Publishers for sending me the review copy in exchange for my honest review.





That, ultimately led DeYoung to write The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism. DeYoung structures the book as a devotional commentary, sharing his insights on each of Heidelberg's 129 questions over 52 Lord's Days. The catechism's questions are run opposite each of DeYoung's essays, allowing readers like me to appreciate the Heidelberg for itself.

That, honestly, is one of the things I appreciate most about The Good News We Almost Forgot. I love learning about historical Christian thought and seeing the catechism's structure--covering the broad topics of guilt, grace, and gratitude while explaining the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer--is fascinating. The authors understood well the necessity of our understanding our sinfulness before we can grasp the importance of God's grace. That's not to say that they spend an inordinate amount of time on it; as DeYoung notes, "The guilt section is by far the shortest with only three Lord's Days and nine Questions and Answers. The authors of the Catechism wanted Heidelberg to be an instrument of comfort, not condemnation" (p. 25).

And a great comfort it is. Reading the Heidelberg itself was, in some ways, more enjoyable than reading DeYoung's commentary. It's a very pastoral document, challenging readers and encouraging them in their understanding of Christian doctrine. One of my favorite Question and Answers is Q. 28:

"How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us?

"We can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing will separate us from His love. All creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they can neither move nor be moved." (p . 58)

It's simple, yet profound.

DeYoung's commentary, meanwhile, is lively and fast-paced; if you've read any of his other books, this will be no surprise to you. He doesn't try to come off as showy, but he is very sharp. I especially enjoyed his defense of the virgin birth on pages 75-78. Here, he writes:

"Is the virgin birth really that essential to Christianity? The answer . . . is a resounding Yes! First, the virgin birth is essential to Christianity because it has been essential to Christianity. That may sound like circular reasoning, but only if we care nothing about the history and catholicity of the church. . . . But if Christians, of all stripes in all places, have professed belief in the virgin birth for two millennia, maybe we should be slow to discount it as inconsequential. . . . Second, the gospel writers clearly believed that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. . . . If the virgin birth is false, the historical reliability of the Gospels is seriously undermined. Third--and this intersects the Catechism--the virgin birth demonstrates that Jesus was truly human and truly divine. How can the virgin birth be an inconsequential spring for our jumping when it establishes the very identity of our Lord and Savior? . . . Fourth, the virgin birth is essential because it means Jesus did not inherit the curse of depravity that clings to Adam's race. . . . So if Joseph was the real father of Jesus, or Mary had been sleeping around . . . Jesus is not spotless, not innocent, and not perfectly holy. And as a result, we have no mediator, no imputation of Christ's righteousness (because He has no righteousness to impute to us), and no salvation. So yeah, the virgin birth is essential to our faith."

In my opinion, De Young 's final appeal, probably the most important part of this book. After writing books on theology and loving of Theology, he reminds readers that theology makes sense if it works it down to our core. Everything else makes us unbalanced.

\\ "If it is worth anything, our spiritual heart of our spiritual momentum predicts that makes us into people who are more devout prayer more and more passionate about the Bible, lost, and the world around us. We are theologically solid core, without unnecessary cortex. It's like the Heidelberg Catechism. And something like Jesus. "(p. 244)

The Good News We Almost Forgot is a delightful, pastoral read that reminds readers to appreciate the wisdom of the saints who have come before us--because their insights can remind us of the beauty of the gospel, and the God who brings it.



This book is so good and so convicting. It shows how very relevant this 16th century catechism is, and the helpful commentary by the author is both informative and entertaining. This was a great book, and I recommend it to anyone.



Buy Here (for discount) The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism

06/23/2010 Free choice isn't healthy for the food industry's menu | Felicity Lawrence

Intervention on salt and trans fats could transform the nation's health. Left unregulated, junk food turns the biggest profits

With exquisitely bad timing the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has concluded that the government could save 40,000 lives and many millions of pounds each year by tackling our junk food industry.

Giving shoppers clear "traffic light" labelling on the salt, fat and sugar in processed foods, banning toxic trans fats created in food manufacturing, and controlling junk-food advertising to children would allow the government to transform the nation's health. But it's too late. With the coalition government the political climate on public health and food has changed, and now feels as though it is lurching back to the Neanderthal days when rightwing lobby groups could argue that opposing controls on tobacco was a vote for individual freedom.

The Treasury estimates calculated that, conservatively, the cost of medical services associated with nutritional diseases not only millions, but the ?? 6 billion a year and growing. That was almost 10 years ago. Nice , which has the unenviable job of giving guidance on NHS spending priorities, is merely highlighting what has been obvious for years: that the state could make huge savings if it prevented the cancers, heart disease, strokes, diabetes and obesity caused by poor diet rather than waiting to treat them, just as health experts did with tobacco. But its recommendations have already been overtaken by events.

New brooms at the Department of Health have thanked Nice for its pains by suggesting it has overreached itself, and by reverting to the tired old mantra that eating healthily is a matter of individual responsibility and choice.

Traffic-light labelling was voted down in Europe only last week, scuppered by food industry lobbying of breathtaking determination and expense. European consumer watchdogs say ¤1bn was spent by multinationals bombarding MEPs with emails and meetings ahead of the vote. Instead an industry-sponsored scheme of nutrition labelling that serves only to confuse has won the day.

Agency on food standards, which angered industry, being too efficient to name and shame the producers for excess salt in their products, looks certain to join the promised bonfire of the quangos before it gets to grips with excess fat. Plans are well advanced to emasculate it by returning its role in improving public nutrition to the Department of Health, whose past performance on food has been lacklustre. Another success, then, for the food industry and its lobbyists, who were hard at work in the runup to the election.

Nor is the junk-food business likely to be troubled by calls for greater control of advertising to children before the 9pm TV watershed. It worked out long ago how to sidestep restrictions and exploit the reality faced by most parents â€" that ads and viral marketing promoting unhealthy eating habits are downloadable 24 hours a day in the unregulated world of the web.

This is not a world in which individuals make free, fully informed choices about food. It is a world in which children are targeted by junk-food manufacturers from the youngest age. We live in a culture in which adult appetites are shaped by marketing that preys on our insecurities and emotional needs. It is an environment in which understanding the labels on our food practically requires a PhD in food chemistry.

Making healthy and responsible choices about food entails a constant battle against relentless pressures in the opposite direction. Labour had been coaxed away, during its years in office, from the fear of being called nanny state-ist, and towards tackling this imbalance in power between industry and consumer. It had finally formed a coherent food policy that might have addressed the social inequalities around diets and disease. Will David Cameron, who once professed a keen interest in improving the quality of food, throw all that away? The industry certainly hopes so. Its trade body, the Food and Drink Federation, emphasised yesterday how much the industry had done voluntarily. But this is not a business that can put its own house in order â€" for very straightforward economic reasons.

Food manufacturers operate in a market system, which places no monetary value on health and social costs. They can not make the same return from a good, plain food, so they can industrialized ISED package cheap ingredients product - fats, starches and sugars.

City analysts at JP Morgan expressed the quandary neatly in a report in 2006 on how the industry was responding to the obesity crisis. Categories of food that are healthy â€" fresh fruits, wholegrains, pulses â€" only give manufacturers and processors below-average margins of 3% to 6%. Relatively simple processed foods, like cheese or plain yoghurt, give 9% to 12% margins. Highly processed cereals, snacks, biscuits, soft drinks and confectionery give brand manufacturers more than 15% margins.

They should stay up to "chain". But the problem for us all is what they call value-added nutritional value. Nutritional value is usually dropped in inverse proportion to the shareholder value added, so the government and Nice to intervene.

Have a Good NEWS

[[[Reebok New Orleans Saints Toddler Jersey And Pant Set-Size: 4T]]]

Discription : Your growing gridiron fan will be ecstatic on gameday when he's dressed in the Reebok? toddler jersey and pant set. Both pieces are designed in the NFL? team's primary team color, while the team name is displayed on the chest, sleeves and left hip. The snap buttons on the shoulder and the elastic trim on the cuffs and waist ensure your child is comfortable at all times.


More review coming soon.









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07/20/2010 Lockerbie bomber: Cameron to discuss Megrahi's release with US senators

Questions over release of Libyan threaten to overshadow first official US visit as Clinton calls for review of decision

David Cameron has agreed to meet four US senators who have been calling for an inquiry into how BP lobbied the British government for a prisoner transfer agreement ahead of the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The British embassy had initially said Cameron's two-day schedule in Washington was too crowded to meet the senators, but on arriving in the US capital last night the prime minister rapidly changed his mind, saying he wished to show respect to the families of the Lockerbie victims.

Fresh advice suggested that a rejection of the meeting might overshadow Cameron's first formal bilateral talks with Barack Obama today.

The change of heart came as it was revealed that Hillary Clinton has asked the British government to review the decision to release Abelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent.

In her reply to a letter from the senators, the US secretary of state said she had asked both her opposite number, William Hague, and the Scottish executive "to review again the underlying facts and circumstances leading to the release of [Abdelbaset] al-Megrahi and to consider any new information that has come to light since his release".

"That Megrahi is living out his remaining days outside of Scottish custody is an affront to the victims' families, the memories of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing, and to all of those who worked tirelessly to ensure justice was served," she wrote.

Before the visit, Cameron stressed that he never agreed with the release of Megrahi by the Scottish government, saying it was completely wrong.

The call to see Cameron arose from the decision by the senate foreign relations committee to hold hearings on 29 July over the circumstances surrounding the release last August of Megrahi. The Libyan had served eight years of a life sentence for his role in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, which killed 270 people, mostly Americans.

Democratic senators Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez wrote to Cameron yesterday asking to meet him to discuss the case.

The senators said they hoped to discuss "what we can all do to provide greater transparency into the circumstances surrounding the release, address the injustice and ensure that a similar mistake is not repeated".

Specifically, the senators have been demanding to know what role BP played in lobbying for a prisoner transfer agreement that Britain and Libya concluded in December 2007. The senators have said they want to explore possible links between Megrahi's release and BP's eagerness to win Libyan ratification of an offshore oil deal company officials have said could be worth $20bn (£13bn).

Cameron, speaking on US national public radio this morning, said proper processes had followed when Megrahi had been released by the Scottish government. But he added: "I agree the decision to release him was wrong and I said it was wrong at the time. It was profoundly misguided â€" he was convicted of the biggest mass murder in British history and in my view he should have died in jail. I said that very clearly at the time and that is my view now."

Cameron also said that the decision to release Megrahi was not accepted by BP - it was a decision taken by Scottish ministers.

He added that he was sure BP would do everything necessary to cap the oil well, clear up the spill and pay compensation. "I have spoken to BP and they know they want to do that and they will."

In an unexpected twist David Miliband, the foreign secretary at the time, also criticised the release of Megrahi. He told the Glasgow Herald today: "It was clearly wrong because it was done on the basis he had less than three months to live and it's now 11 months on.

"The decision was made in accordance with our constitution and so it was a decision for the Scottish minister to make.

"Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds and, as I understand it, that depends on him having less than three months to live, so something has gone badly wrong."

Miliband acknowledges the Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill made his decision in good faith .

In a Commons statement in October, Miliband pointed out that British interests "would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than Libya".

Miliband admitted that there had been a national interest in signing the transfer agreement. There had never been an explicit statement that the Megrahi release would flow from the agreement, but few doubted that it would apply to him. With Megrahi in a Scottish jail, the Scottish nationalist government rejected the transfer agreement on the grounds that the then prime minister, Tony Blair, had done a dirty deal in the desert with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

In a BBC television interview yesterday, Cameron said he had strongly opposed the bomber's release at the time. "As leader of the opposition, I couldn't have been more clear that I thought the decision to release Megrahi was completely and utterly wrong," he said.

With regard to BP 's role, he said: "I do not know that BP I am not responsible for BP .."

British sources stressed that it was unlikely that any British figure would be asked to give evidence to the senate inquiry, but there is concern that it will become another stick with which to beat the oil company already under fire over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has insisted that its lobbying was limited to the transfer agreement, and did not include pressure for Megrahi's release.

Libyan officials, including a son of Gaddafi, have said Libya made clear to Britain that if Megrahi was not included in the transfer agreement, lucrative oil deals for UK companies would not be approved.

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09/16/2010 Report cuts into UK cosmetic clinics

Many clinics employ under-skilled surgeons in badly equipped operating theatres, warns report

Tough regulation is needed to safeguard patients who seek cosmetic surgery from being exploited by a multitude of private clinics employing underskilled surgeons in poorly equipped operating theatres, a damning report finds today.

Senior doctors working for the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD), set up by the medical royal colleges, reveal a disturbing picture of an industry that too often puts patient safety at risk.

They raise serious questions about the lack of strict control, despite the succession of informing research, including the main report of the Commission on Health, to the chief physician in 2005, followed by a report of the expert group, published by the Department of Health, the need to regulate the industry.

Yet today's report finds poor standards and bad practice, even among the minority of cosmetic surgery clinics that complied with the investigation. More than half the companies approached breached the rules of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which is the nominal regulator, by failing or refusing to fill in NCEPOD's questionnaire. "It's been incredibly difficult to get information about the industry," said Ian Martin, a surgeon and one of the authors. "That says something in itself. If we have difficulty finding who is doing what and where, then heaven help patients trying to find out what these facilities are like."

One in 10 of the clinics approached ceased to exist before the study was completed, suggesting a rapidly shifting and unstable industry.

NCEPOD found that cosmetic surgery hospitals and clinics offered a large menu of procedures, from breast enlargement or reduction to liposuction and nose-straightening. But their surgeons were not sufficiently experienced in all the operations on offer. With the exception of breast enlargement, the most common procedure, the majority of centres performed fewer than 20 of the offered procedures a year, the report says. Surgeons with less experience in a particular operation are less likely to have good outcomes than those who do it frequently.

Less than half the operating theatres (44%) were properly equipped and 22% did not have a resuscitation team on hand at all times. Nearly a third (32%) did not offer a cooling-off period, as they are supposed to, so that after an initial discussion the patient can go away and decide whether to have the operation. Only a third (35%) offered psychological counselling. Many breached the rules on offering financial incentives and discounts in their advertising.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, an organisation representing NHS-trained consultants, backs NCEPOD's call for tighter regulation.

"These figures present a distressing picture, but one which is sadly not surprising to us as they only confirm what we have been saying for years â€" that there is an absolute need for statutory regulation in this sector," said its president, Nigel Mercer. "Aesthetic surgery needs to be recognised as the multimillion pound speciality it is and not just a fragmented cottage industry.

"Just as someone eating in a restaurant wouldn't have to personally inspect the kitchen, the public should have the right to expect providers of aesthetic surgery to be properly overseen and regulated on their behalf by our government."

He calls CQC acknowledge that the report's findings to create a task for national regulation. There should be specific guidelines for cosmetic surgery in a public format, which is able to extend the protection of patients and good doctors.

Ian Martin said the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, should also be more active. "The GMC, with its responsibility for specialist listing, has not seen fit to create a specific list for cosmetic surgery," he said. "One suspects that is because it is not a public-sector industry so they are reluctant to get involved."

Patients can and should check whether the consultant they have been offered is registered with the GMC, but his or her speciality will not be listed as cosmetic surgery. Some consultants in the field will be general surgeons while others are ear, nose and throat specialists, for instance.

The government said the CQC would shortly take a more robust approach to cosmetic surgery. "Poor practice in some organisations casts a long shadow over the cosmetic surgery industry and undermines the efforts of some highly professional practitioners," said NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh.

"From October 2010, all private providers will have to be registered with the CQC and comply with 16 safety and quality requirements, which will include looking at the suitability of professionals to provide services. The Care Quality Commission will have strengthened enforcement powers to take action where providers fail to meet these standards."

£5,000 well spent … Until things went wrong

Denise, 55-year-old employee of the NHS in Wolverhampton, paid private cosmetic surgery clinics ?? 5000 in 2005 that breast implants are installed "how to relate to his". But even if one of them burst in the past year, the damage to her health, the surgeon and the clinic has not acted to correct the problem.

"Initially I was absolutely thrilled with my breast augmentation. I felt better about myself and thought it was £5,000 well spent. The only problem at the time was some scarring around my nipples which the surgeon said he would put right, but never did.

"But around this time last year I began having pains and heaviness in my breasts and arms. I thought it was a hormonal thing, given my age. But a routine mammogram found a problem. An ultrasound and MRI scan revealed that the right implant had burst and the silicon had been absorbed into my lymph glands under my right arm, which meant my arms were so painful that on some days I can hardly lift them. My implants had to come out and be replaced.

"I was due to have an operation for that, and to finally have the scarring fixed, on 6 March. They demanded £1,500 to do it, even though it was their fault. But it was cancelled two weeks beforehand â€" they gave me two different reasons for that â€" and has never been rearranged, despite me ringing the clinic many, many times. They won't even speak to me now.

"I feel let down by the surgeon and the clinic, and angry with the surgeon for ignoring me. He has treated me appallingly by refusing to do the corrective operation.

"The whole experience has been soul destroying. These private clinics should not expect the NHS to pick up the tab when they have had money from people and are making a profit.

\\ "There must be thousands of women like me who have had bad experience with plastic surgery. There 'SA a lot of bad practices in the industry. It exploits people. It' SA deception."

Denis Campbell

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09/15/2010 Criminal records: pop stars in prison

Pete Doherty was terrified, the Stones were defiant â€" and Lil' Wayne carried on recording. As George Michael goes to prison, Tim Jonze takes a rollcall of jailhouse rockers

George Michael's chequered history with motor vehicles finally caught up with him this week when, as punishment for crashing his Range Rover into a branch of Snappy Snaps while stoned, he was handed down the ultimate humiliation â€" an open letter from Tony Parsons in the Mirror saying he couldn't handle his spliffs. To make matters worse, he was also sentenced on Tuesday to eight weeks in Pentonville prison, of which he will spend four in custody and four "on licence" in the community. Still, those worried as to how Michael will cope in the clink can at least take comfort in the fact that he's far from the first musician to spend time inside; the list includes Sid Vicious, Chuck Berry, Rick James, Paul McCartney and, most recently, Happy Mondays' Bez.

Perhaps the most famous musical lag of recent times is Pete Doherty. His first spell inside (sentenced to six months in 2003 for burgling Libertines bandmate Carl Barât) was a time of creative inspiration. As well as a prison journal and a scrapbook of doodles, Doherty wrote the song PentonvilleWho complained about the dangers of sleeping on the "lumpy mattress" (the sound of an outpouring of public sympathy noticeably absent in the mixture). "Prison horror stories", he said Evening Standard in 2006. "Prisoners scared me. You know, I never hurt anyone else but me, but some of these guys ..."

James Brown served jail terms before and after his fame, but like Doherty, his first â€" aged 16 for armed robbery â€" would be the most productive. It was while serving time that Brown's vocal talent caught the ears of Bobby Byrd. Byrd was so blown away that he helped Brown secure early release, and the pair went on to work together in the Famous Flames. The Rolling Stones also feature famous jailbirds â€" although Mick Jagger and Keith Richards only spent a single night in the cells in 1967 for drugs charges as they were released on bail the next day pending appeal. While awaiting the hearings the band recorded We Love You, the video for which recreated the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde. The writer is a good guide for the types of art in prison (Doherty often namechecked him) as his time in prison reading defines the image of a creative outside the law, which had been punished unfairly.

There is, of course, only so much moaning the casual fan will tolerate, and while time inside is undoubtedly horrible, you'd be best advised to take it with dignity and a dash of humour. Contrast Phil Spector's letters from inside â€" which complained about being surrounded by lowlife scumbags who would "kill you for a 39-cent bag of soup" â€" with, say, Boy George's post-prison Glastonbury performance, during which he sang Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen and cheekily changed the words of Karma Chameleon to "I'm a man, with three convictions." In PR terms, avoiding self-pity is crucial.

Dead pigeons stuffed with weed

One cliche is for pop stars to "find God" while in jail. Love's Arthur Lee even told the Guardian in 2002 that God had instructed him to reform his band, the Lord Almighty apparently a big fan of Forever Changes. There may be other benefits, too â€" Ian Brown converted to Islam while serving time in Strangeways because it was the only way to ensure he received chicken dinners: "After all," Brown whispered darkly, "you never did know what was in them meat pies." The former Stone Roses frontman emerged armed with great anecdotes, including one tale of dead pigeons stuffed with "an ounce of weed" sailing over the prison walls and into the gym yard.

Despite rock'n'roll's sketchy past, if we really want to get genre specific then the world of hip-hop is where you'll see the most sentences served. Despite claims that jail time can be good for credibility (Lil' Kim's 2005 spell in jail was regarded in more cynical quarters as a PR coup, for instance), the reality is that most rappers find it hard to maintain a career from behind bars. The importance of not fading away has not been lost on Lil' Wayne. Since being sentenced to a year in Rikers Island prison for gun possession in March, he's managed to start a blog (which publishes his letters from jail), sell Free Weezy T-shirts from his website and work on an album with Drake â€" contributing tracks that he recorded over the prison telephone, no less. Posting on his Weezy Thanx You blog, Wayne provided an understanding typical day at Rikers: "I wake up around 11 am, drink coffee Call my children and my wonderful mother I am the soul to Read the fan mail Lunch Back on the phone ...... Read a book or write a few thoughts. dinner. Telephone. Pushups. Then I listen to ESPN radio. Read the Bible, then sleep. It 's my day. "

Another rapper who maintained their career trajectory from within a cell was Tupac Shakur, who became the first artist to have an American No 1 while in jail with his album Me Against the World. Tupac also found time in jail to get married, write a screenplay (Live 2 Tell) and read, among other things, Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Alarmingly for George Michael, however, might be the fact that Tupac described withdrawal from weed as one of the most startling aspects of starting his prison term. Still, given that so many musicians have faced time inside before and come out relatively unscathed, perhaps the singer shouldn't worry too much. It's only eight weeks, after all, and if he can just keep his head down, start a blog, write a new album, find God, find another god and read several tomes on Chinese military strategy then he should be OK.

Erwin James: 'Prison could restore George's sense of reality'

Trust me: Pentonville is one of London 'S less salubrious prisons. Waking up in this dirty old jail - known as the main prison holding the city 'S drunks, junkies and down and outs - will be George Michael' S-time low.

But Pentonville's most famous prisoner may benefit from some improvements, such as the substance misuse unit, which offers "harm minimisation and health promotion modules". The bad news is that, like most UK prisons, Pentonville is awash with drugs.

He will need to be strong, but early indications are that his strength has deserted him: a man who shared a cell with him at the courthouse described how he sat "crying his eyes out".No shame in that. He definitely will not be the first adult to tears at the sound of cell door banging shut - not the last. But once he got over his initial fear, he can recognize it as an opportunity.

Emotionally, the pressures that come with wealth and stardom can be just as debilitating as poverty and strife. Alone in a cell, he will have time to reflect and hopefully heal. Prison can and does break people, but it can make them, too. Michael has been in the spotlight for decades, but there must still be occasions when, even to him, his sense of reality seems distorted. Prison could restore it.

Famous people often become targets for bullies on a prison landing, but he's a global star who has given pleasure to millions and caused serious harm only to himself. I think he will be safe. He might be asked to sing, though: maybe a tongue-in-cheek request for Outside.

And the excitement generated by his presence will lift the morale of everyone there, prisoners and guards alike. Seeing the former Wham! singer queueing for porridge in the morning would be unforgettable.

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