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Some may have been perplexed by the "yaoi" element in last night's South Park episode but it's turns out that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were just ripping the lid off a long existing shocking secret about Craig and Tweek. Here's the startling truth!

Mal Peet was a delight to read and meet. I can’t describe him as a YA author because he would loathe that description, refusing to see his writing pigeonholed into age categories. But clearly both young adults and adults appreciated his novels, and children his picture books. He has left a legacy of memorable books […]

Brendan Reichs, co-writer of the YA Fiction Virals series, shares with us some insights, favorites, and confessions of his dynamic author life.

“I got an email from a fellow in London. He had been on his lunch hour, and seen my cartoon in a magazine at the newsstand. This fellow didn’t buy the magazine, but remembering my name, he walked back to his office, Googled me and found my site. His UK company was going to do a big ad campaign, and would I be willing to draw some cartoons for it?”

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Mike Lynch Cartoons: The Business of Cartooning: Your Signature

I've lost count of the number of times that I've been asked to write or draw something for free but reassured that my work would get great exposure.

As the video above points out, exposure doesn't pay the bills.

Thanks to Hazel Mitchell for the link.

SYNOPSIS:

In Exposure, Therese Fowler has written her most gripping novel to date—a ripped-from-the-headlines story of ardent young love and a nightmarish legal maelstrom that threatens to destroy two families.

Amelia Wilkes’s strict father does not allow her to date, but that doesn’t stop the talented, winsome high school senior from carrying on a secret romance with her classmate Anthony Winter. Desperately in love, the two envision a life together and plan to tell Amelia’s parents only after she turns eighteen and is legally an adult. Anthony’s mother, Kim, who teaches at their school, knows—and keeps—their secret. But the couple’s passion is exposed sooner than planned: Amelia’s father, Harlan, is shocked and infuriated to find naked pictures of Anthony on his daughter’s computer. Just hours later, Anthony is arrested.

Despite Amelia’s frantic protests, Harlan uses his wealth and influence with local law enforcement and the media to label Anthony a deviant who preyed on his innocent daughter. Spearheaded by a zealous prosecutor anxious to turn the case into a public crusade against “sexting,” the investigation soon takes an even more disturbing and destructive turn.

As events spiral wildly out of control and the scandalous story makes national news, Amelia and Anthony risk everything in a bold and dangerous attempt to clear their names and end the madness once and for all.

A captivating page-turner, Therese Fowler’s Exposure is also a deftly crafted, provocative, and timely novel that serves as a haunting reminder of the consequences of love in the modern age.

From USAToday:

Author Therese Fowler has followed that advice with her third novel, Exposure (Ballantine, $25), in stores Tuesday. The plot centers on the red-hot issue of teens sexting, and Fowler’s knowledge is hard-earned.

In 2009, Fowler’s then-19-year-old son was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for e-mailing nude photos of himself to a 16-year-old female friend.

“I was astonished that simply sharing a photo of himself with a girl he knew could be considered criminal,” says Fowler, 44, from her home in Wake Forest, N.C. (The charges were dismissed.)

Fowler used the experience to write a Romeo-and-Juliet drama set at a posh private school in North Carolina.

 

Edna Foa is a Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety.  Her most recent book, Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, was written with Elizabeth Hembree and Barbara Olaslov Rothbaum. The guide gives clinicians the information they need to treat clients who exhibit the symptoms of PTSD.  Recently Foa was name by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in 2010.  Below she reacts to the honor.

My first reaction was that of disbelief when I learned that I had been selected for Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in 2010. I thought someone was pulling my leg. I called my husband and shared the news with him, he thought I was pulling his leg. My youngest daughter said: “get out of here, you must be joking”. But of course, we all know that the email was genuine. First, I was stunned. After all, I am not a rock star, not a head of state, not even a famous athlete. And then I was delighted. Isn’t it wonderful that someone at Time recognized the importance of the work we, clinical psychology researchers, do to help PTSD sufferers. I felt quite honored to represent our field.

As clinical scientists we know that we have a lot of powerful treatments. But we also are painfully aware of how difficult it is to make these treatments widely available. The treatments that we have for anxiety disorders are particularly efficacious and yet most clinicians do not deliver them. For many reasons it is hard to get mental health clinicians to adopt new treatments. As a result, countless individuals with anxiety and other disorders experience needless suffering that could be decreased or terminated via the application of the effective treatments we developed.

The cost of bad treatment reaches beyond individuals. Institutions and society as a whole suffer from what is a public health issue. For example, the VA, the military and insurance companies all have a stake in individuals receiving the most effective treatments for psychological disorders. And yet, there have been very few effective initiatives requiring practitioners to learn and deliver the best psychological treatments.

And so I hope that Time Magazine’s recognition of my work is in essence recognition of the tremendous importance of not only developing effective, evidence-based treatment, but more importantly, disseminating them among mental health professionals. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought home the awareness of how important it is to deliver effective treatments to the many soldiers who return from these wars with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I strongly believe that PTSD is not only a mental health disorder; it is also a societal problem. It is the responsibility of our society to help PTSD sufferers as a result of being injured at work, raped in our schools, physically assaulted in our streets, or experiencing the horror of war. We know that effective treatments for PTSD such as Prolonged Exposure (PE) can help patients regain their lives in as few as 10 sessions over the course of 5 weeks. It is no long

Susan J. Epstein, MS, MEd, is the Program Coordinator at the Jacobs Neurological Institute. In her new book The Life Program For MS: Lifestyle, Independence, Fitness, and Energy, she addresses the limitations imposed by Multiple Sclerosis which results in patients becoming sedentary, gaining excess weight and developing poor eating and exercise habits.  Epstein provides a user-friendly teaching tool that helps sufferers to incorporate new behaviors into their daily routines.  In the original article below Epstein looks at the role of vitamin D in MS.

A deficiency in vitamin D is currently one of the most studied environmental risk factors for MS and is potentially the most promising in terms of new clinical implications. In particular, this vitamin could alter the immune response taking a positive role in the central nervous system. There are two main types of risk factors for MS: genetic and environmental. In today’s world many genetic predispositions for various conditions have been discovered, and the various environmental triggers identified; making this an exciting time for learning specific ways to change behavior to improve or protect health.

The following environmental factors influence the risk of MS:
1. latitude
2. past exposure to sun
3. serum level of vitamin D

Worldwide, latitude has an undeniable effect on the prevalence of MS which occurs with much greater frequency in areas further away from the equator. Lower incidence of the disease is found in tropical regions where the high degree of sunlight is recognized as the correlate. Latitude has an overall influence on the amount of sunlight in a given region making geographical location advantageous. So if we know that the level of exposure to sunlight directly affects the level of vitamin D in our bodies and this vitamin is known as the “sunshine vitamin” where does that leave those of us who live in the northern hemisphere? Does this suggest people even without disease are deficient in vitamin D? Also, the western diet lacks this crucial vitamin providing less than 100 IU a day, falling far below the daily requirement of 2,000 IU/d. It is thought that vitamin D is most likely involved in a number of regulatory activities besides just bone health, and could have a dramatic effect on immune function. Such low average levels of vitamin D raise serious public health issues and there is an urgent need for national health institutes to take preventative measures. With this knowledge should come behavior change, not only for the MS patient but also the general population.

Clinically most MS patients have low levels of vitamin D in their blood and are in a state of deficiency compared to the international norm. A recent study found a direct link between the level of vitamin D circulating in the blood and the disease, without factoring in the effect of latitude or sun exposure. Further research trials are necessary before any firm recommendations can be made but in the meantime, physicians can no longer ignore that many MS patients have a lack of vitamin D, which could be detected through systematic blood tests. Vitamin D supplements are appropriate to restore their levels to within normal range. This should be considered a general medical recommendation simply to increase levels in the blood to the current recommended amount of at least 2,000 IU/d. This would mean taking between 1,000 and 3,000 IU of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) on average per day. There are two types of vitamin D: D2 and D3. Vitamin D3 is the healthy kind your body makes when exposed to sunshine. D2 is the synthetic form used in prescriptions and is considered inferior to D3.

Having this knowledge regarding the benefits of vitamin D as well as the current published research indicating the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency; behavioral strategies seem appropriate and can be very safe when discussed with your physician. Since moving to a tropical region is unlikely, the options available are:

safe sun exposure, vitamin supplementation, and a diet with foods rich in vitamin D.

Optimizing sun exposure is a topic in itself and comes with some risk along with conflicting opinions and recommendations from experts in the field though it seems reasonable to get a dose of fresh air and sunshine on days when the weather is in your favor. Some experts recommend exposing your body to sunlight for 15-minutes before applying sunscreen in order to get the benefits from the UV rays which naturally provide the vitamin D needed for good health. Luckily a vitamin D3 supplement can provide the same benefits when given in the appropriate dose to bring blood levels to within normal range.

Before purchasing a supplement you should have a blood test to determine your baseline levels of vitamin D. Your neurologist can then take the results and prescribe the amount of vitamin D3 to bring your levels up to within normal range. MS patients are seen regularly to monitor their disease status and can systematically have blood levels measured. You also may want to search for MS Centers that are running clinical trials to study the effects of Vitamin D on MS and inquire about being a subject.

Vitamin D3 supplements are available in both liquid and capsule form. They can be purchased at any pharmacy for as little as $4.49 for 100 capsules containing 1000.0 IU. Check the label to make sure the primary ingredient is Vitamin D (as cholecalciferol). As mentioned earlier the Western diet is commonly very low in vitamin D but there are good food choices to increase the amount in your diet. Excellent food sources include: oily fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines; vitamin D-fortified milk and cereals; whole eggs, liver, and beef. A combination of the three available sources of vitamin D is optimal, and purely from a medical point of view, supplementation is unavoidable in order to improve the general health of the MS patient. And with clinical research trials underway all over the globe, supplementation may soon be proven to be neurologically beneficial.