Police say that they are currently working with a "large amount" of evidence to find Le's killer. Officials revealed they are looking at a suspect, but it is not Le's fiance. • The suspect is apparently a student, though "not necessarily a Yale student," who has suspicious wounds. • Kidnapper Phillip Garrido's bail has been set at $30 million. • His wife Nancy, meanwhile, has been placed in isolation after other inmates threatened to rape and kill her. • Judi Dench will donate the set from Shakespeare in Love — which was given to her by the filmmakers and is currently in storage — to a Shakespeare Company in northern England for use as an actual theater. • U.S. officials say they are in the process of approving a HPV vaccine for men. Like Gardasil, which is administered solely to women, the vaccine will protect against genital warts, come in three doses, and cost $375. • An ad network rejected Tucker Max's ads — sample line: "Sexism isn't the same as misogyny, you stupid bitch." — because they violated policy of not running "garbage." • 'Researchers have found that particular types of fat can cause the brain to ignore the messages coming from insulin and leptin that tell us when we are full, which leads to overeating. The study, performed on rodents, found that the effects of high-fat foods can last up to three days. •  Oh, god: Police in Bangladesh are investigating the marriage of a 13-year-old girl to a 75-year-old moneylender. They believe the girl was sold by her parents as payment for her father's debts. • This Daily Fail article, about women searching for their keys, seems a little too alarmist and sensationalistic for my taste. It basically screams big purses will get you raped, with absolutely no evidence other than the fears of several survey respondents. • The Fail also says men lie an average of six times a day — twice as often as women — and lies include "claiming their partner's behind doesn't look too big." • Due to a field that's "deeper in talent and geographic diversity" than it was a few years ago, women's tennis is doing well despite the recession. • And tennis-playing sisters Elizabeth and Mary Profit may be following in the Williams sisters' footsteps, despite Elizabeth's diabetes and living in an RV. • The awesome blog Sociological Images has uncovered a fascinating video series called "Consuming Kids," which explores the commercialization of childhood. The clips are enlightening, but be warned, you will come out feeling even more jaded and cynical. • The press won't be allowed into Sarah Palin's upcoming speech in Hong Kong — this way she can say anything she wants without those nasty reporters pestering her about the truth. • Though Pakistan's fighter pilots were all male until six years ago, seven women are now trained to fly for the Pakistani Air Force. Says cadet Anam Faiq, "We're more hardworking, more consistent and more patient" than men. • Judi Dench has kindly donated the entire set from the film Shakespeare in Love to a British theater company. The oak-timbered set was modeled on London's 16th-century Rose Theater, and will be now used as a "living history center." • Roy Colton, 75, is a former coal miner, and possibly Britain's oldest transsexual. Colton began living openly as a woman when she was 70, and has since changed her name to Rachel. • Radio host Neal Boortz, who once called Katrina refugees "debris," said that Obama addressing Wall Street today was "like sending a child molester to speak to a kindergarten class." • Samantha Orobator left prison several weeks ago to give birth in a hospital. Orobator has still not revealed who the father is, but there are rumors that John Watson, another prisoner, could have impregnated the 20-year-old. •

"...(most of all) they are a strain not only on their clothing but on NHS resources. The secret of their size? Their outsized appetites are matched by a lack of self-control and even less self-respect."

It is hardly worthwhile to debunk Platell's argument point by point: the knowing assumptions based on casual observation; the reflexive equation of size with health; the assumption that anyone not matching a certain weight profile is filled with self-loathing and incapable of self-respect; the normative standards; the rhetoric which, directed at any other group, would qualify as blatant hate-speech.

People like Platell (think Meme Roth on steroids) couch their disgust in a disingenuous concern for the health of the lazy slobs they so deplore. Each one talks, pityingly, about the "fatties" in their own families. Are there obesity epidemics in America and the UK? Yes. Do people eat badly and not exercise enough? Definitely. Are some of these issues tied up with economics and complex issues of social injustice? Of course. But this isn't what Platell is actually talking about; this merely becomes a justification, in her mind, for conflating her issues and ugliness with a fig leaf of conscience. She doesn't want to help these people. Get rid of them? Shrink them? Sure. But let's not pretend it doesn't come down to the fact that she finds them "unattractive" and that something about overweight people frightens her.

In order, however, to explore the issue like the objective, serious journalist she is, Platell travels to the West Midlands, England's "Fat Central," an economically-depressed area with rising obesity rates. What she finds, shockingly enough, disgusts her.

Everywhere, there were fat people. Men with stomachs so large it must have been decades since they'd seen their toes; women so overweight they had rolls of fat cascading down their backs, their thighs so large they couldn't walk, they waddled. More troubling still were the huge number of people on motorised buggies - every one of them obese. Others staggered along supporting their bulk by leaning on shopping trolleys. It doesn't take long to see that immobility is the inevitable outcome of a lifetime of obesity. Saddest of all, though, were the young kids, just teenagers, with arms so fat they stuck out from their sides, legs so large their feet pointed outwards. I'm sorry if that sounds cruel. But until we recognise the reality of the problem, we'll have no hope of beating it.

Yeah, she sounds really sorry. This is clearly the way to address the issue. In her investigation, she arrives at several highly bizarre conclusions: the government is throwing its money away on "arts centres" instead of facilitating, fitness and, oh yeah, people want to be fat because of - wait for it - social pressures. "In other words, being a normal size is abnormal around here. If you want to fit in (as most of us do, wherever we live) then pile on the flab. And so the problem gets steadily worse, generation after generation." Now, on the one hand, stopped-clock-style, she's not wholly wrong; those parents with unhealthy eating habits are probably more likely to foster them in their kids. But her larger point - that the problem is people feeling too good about themselves - is among the most disturbing in the whole disgusting piece.

So, how does the trip leave her feeling? Take a wild guess. "I had thought the sight and plight of people in Britain's fattest town might soften my attitude to the obese, but while I have sympathy for the individuals I spoke to, I'm sorry to say my overall thinking has only been hardened by what I witnessed." Shocker, that. She went amongst a group of people she despised based on their appearance, stared at them like a particularly crap nature documentarian, found that, yes, they were fat, and hated them even more. Her point, I guess, is that...well, I don't know what it is. That she hates fat people? We got that. That she feels morally superior? Check. That she's a loathsome human being? Because that's what I took away from it! Without resorting to Godwin's Law, Platell's language is that of racialist justification - the dehumanization, the reflexive contempt and, yes, the naked hatred. That she feels comfortable writing this filth in a national publication - even a rag like the Daily Mail - is shocking and sobering. There are those who will condemn my even giving her the virtual ink, or giving the Mail the credence. But I think it's important to acknowledge that this is how a lot of people feel - and feel comfortable stating - and expose it as the ugliness it is wherever we see it. If her concern is really for improving people's health, well, she's undermining it. If she's trying to harden a hateful, irrational fattist fringe, well, good job.

My Visit To Fat Central On A Mission To Find Out Who's Really To Blame For Our Obesity Crisis [Daily Mail]

The NY Times has a piece about plus-size clothing with the subhead, "Fashion Reaches Out to Heavier Young Women." Haha! Really? No, not really. But the story touches on Beth Ditto's line for Evans, as well as Faith21 and Torrid.

The Wall Street Journal's got an article by Christina Binkley — who previously wrote about being overlooked by fashion because of her age — in which she discusses clothes for "curvy" women. Binkley writes:

By curvy, I do not mean obese, unless you think Marilyn Monroe was fat. Women of a certain shape, it seems, have been forgotten.

Binkley talks to Michael Glasser, founder of Seven For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and Rich & Skinny jeans. She asks the burning question: Why does he (and so many other designers) create clothing to fit young, thin women? Glasser "threw back his head and guffawed": "Because they're hot!"

Turns out, Cookie Johnson, wife of basketball legend Magic Johnson is starting a line of jeans for "curvy" women, CJ by Cookie. As a size 8, she can't fit into most mainstream denim lines, which use thin fit models. Guess who Ms. Johnson's business partner is? Michael Glasser.

Then there's the always-classy Daily Fail, with the headline: "Fashion's Big Fat Lie About Kate Moss's Big Fat Friend: Size Zero Brigade Embrace A Token Chubby-Chops."

But while it's great that plus-sized fashion is getting attention, let's hope reporting about Beth Ditto isn't just a trend; here today, gone tomorrow. Because what really matters is whether the women who want — need — the clothes feel as though they're being included.

This from the Times:

"I've noticed lately that they are trying to make big sizes more into style," said Kathy Salinas, as she considered a zebra-striped Piper & Blue tunic at a Kmart in downtown Manhattan this week. "You see that at regular stores, not just the plus-size stores, and that's a good thing."

Fashion First, Whatever The Size [NY Times]
Making Fashion Fit The Form, For A Change [WSJ]
Fashion's Big Fat Lie About Kate Moss's Big Fat Friend: Size Zero Brigade Embrace A Token Chubby-Chops [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Beth Ditto Makes Plus-Size Clothing Fun, Sequined, 80s
On Beth Ditto, "Promoting" Obesity & Fat Shame
Are Older Women Ignored By Fashion?
Fashion Designers Are Small Minded About Plus Sizes

Candy starts her article in the Daily Mail with the somewhat disturbing claim that, as the editor of a women's magazine, she knows all about young women, "from what they wear to who they want to date" (if that's true, I apparently enjoy putting candle wax in my boyfriend's anus and slapping ruching on everything to give myself a bust). Then she says that today's thirtysomething women "are happiness hunters; they have abandoned career ambition and decided to choose love over work, contentment above the stress of success, marriage and kids above jobs, friends above status."

First of all, like so many articles about opting out, balancing family and career, and the like, this ignores the many women who have to work at jobs that are not necessarily high-powered careers, and don't really have a choice between friends and status. Secondly, the idea that career is about drudgery, dues-paying, and obligation while true happiness comes only from family and friends is kind of a strange one coming from Candy. Why did she and her 40-something friends bother "climbing the career ladder" if it didn't make them, in some way, happy? This is an article about women with the luxury of choosing between a fun personal life and an intellectually demanding job — is she really saying only one of those choices is fulfilling?

It's also not true that everyone has to choose. Candy acknowledges that the 30-year-olds she talks to don't "believe a woman's place is with her babies or her boyfriend" — they just want a balance between family and career. And she points out that women her age may have been afraid to ask for such a balance. She says, "I didn't tell my bosses that I was pregnant until I was nearly five months gone, so worried was I about the response." She and other women her age and older "have probably paved the way" for younger women to ask for reasonable hours, family leave, and the like. Candy and those who came before her proved something that shouldn't need proving — that women can work just as hard and well as men. If women truly feel that they don't have to prove that anymore (and unfortunately, we doubt that this is always true), it doesn't necessarily mean their priorities are different from those of women before them — it just means they feel more comfortable expressing them.

So there's really nothing strange about the 30-something "happiness hunters" Candy describes. Everybody wants happiness. And the freedom to balance work and family is good for everyone, even if you pick work. We should be striving to make this freedom available to more women — and men too. When people get a little flexibility in their lives, we shouldn't be surprised when they exercise it — and we shouldn't assume that their desire to take a day off means they only care about love.

Why I envy Generation Me who choose love over career - and children above status [Daily Mail]

photo by Ben Lister for the Daily Mail

Writing in the Daily Mail, Pelling includes the obligatory dig at "ladette" culture ("anybody who sees drunken young women on the pull in city centres knows that, for that generation, feminine mystique is already well nigh extinct") and the obligatory why-should-ladies-want-to-act-like-men rhetoric ("While I would fight tooth and claw for women's right to sexual freedom, I'm not sure the sisterhood has gained much if it sees that freedom as a chance to brag about sex and conquests in the same kind of tedious and lewd manner that made the new lad so obnoxious back in the Nineties.") But she's especially pissed off about contemporary erotic writing, like The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl and Charlotte Roche's Wetlands, because it creates a "crushing new sexual orthodoxy [that] inevitably puts pressure on young women to behave as if they're hot, horny and 'up for it', twenty-four seven." She writes,

I didn't even lose my virginity until I was 20, but today's young women are being pressured to think that anything less than hooker-style knowledge of multiple partners and outré sexual positions is abnormal. In the end I question whether extreme promiscuity suits more than a very small handful of women. The boring truth is that most women prefer sex when their emotions are deeply engaged as part of a proper, involved relationship. I am certainly not saying that women shouldn't write about sex, merely that they must do so for a reason.

Thanks for including your age of deflowering, Ms. Pelling, thereby proving that you're not slutty like today's youth. And thanks for telling us "the truth" about what kind of sex women like. You don't include any data to back this up, but that's okay, we know this is candid woman-to-woman sharing, and not another kind of "crushing sexual orthodoxy" that has been making women ashamed of their bodies and their desires since long before your no-doubt "proper" first time. And your requirement that women write about sex "for a reason" is such a great way of reinforcing the old idea that women only fuck to keep a man around, or to feel good about themselves, or to express their love, and never for the sheer pleasure of fucking. "Surely it's time," you say, "to recognise that the way anyone has sex is a matter of personal preference, not dubious gender politics. " Surely it is, Ms. Pelling, and yr doing it rong.

Un-Erotica? As Another Female Writer Publishes An Explicit Novel Is This New Feminism Or A Tawdry Betrayal Of Women? [Daily Mail]

• Sad news: Lorene Rogers, former president of the University of Texas and possibly the first woman to lead a public university in America, died January 11th, at the age of 94. • Plastic surgery is on the rise in Britain, with boob jobs, abdominoplasy and "designer vaginas" leading the way. Ugh. • And this is not as gender specific as one would think: the number of "moob" jobs (reducing the amount of a man's breast tissue) has increased by 44% in the past year. • New research shows that the color red makes men feel "more amorous." •  Bromance among chimps? New study shows that male bonding is an important part of the adult chimpanzee life. • The rate of infant deaths due to suffocation or strangulation has quadrupled in the past twenty years in the US. Doctors recommend that parents avoid this tragedy by not bed-sharing and keeping cribs free of clutter. • India is struggling with a horrifically high maternal death rate, with as many as 450 deaths per 100,000 live births. Women in lower castes are the worst sufferers, since they are frequently denied access to even basic health care. • America's largest retirement community, The Villages in Florida, is reportedly a "widower's paradise," with female-to-male ratio at 10 to 1. Workers say there is a big black market for Viagra. • New data shows that the number of repeat abortions among British teens has risen 70% since 1991. Experts speculate that the rise in binge drinking could be partially to blame. • A research group in the UK is investigating whether consuming caffeine during pregnancy could lead to rise in the baby's risk for developing leukemia in childhood. • Although Americans are no happier than we were in the 1970's, the happiness gap (the gap between those who report being happiest and those who are the least) has significantly narrowed. • There are two weird stories today about giant baked goods: 1. A team of 55 Mexican cooks baked the world's largest cheesecake. 2. A sticky rice roll weighing more than a ton has been made in Vietnam to raise money for the poor. • And in other strange food news, the "delicacies of the Antarctic" (seal brain, penguins eggs), are off the menu at Antarctic bases, replaced by dried onion and split pea soup. • "Ladettes" (young women emulating their male peers) are responsible for an upswing in female crime, experts say. • The Martha Graham Dance Company is launching an internet-based global dance competition this year. The winning footage will be shown at the company's New York season in May. • Villagers in a small town in India recently married a young girl to a stray dog in a religious ritual. Fortunately, there do not seem to be any lasting effects of the ritual, and the girl is free to marry later in life if she so chooses. • Amphetamines have been found in illegal diet pills from South America. • A mother from Texas who allegedly abused her three daughters will not be prosecuted. The mother, suffering from Munchhausen's syndrome, brought her children to many different doctors, which apparently makes it difficult to prosecute the case. • A 41-year-old British woman will become the first to give birth after using a new IVF technique that screens eggs for abnormal chromosomes. • 

Apparently researchers asked 100 women in their 40s and 50s to look at photographs of women. According to the Fail, "It found that those who had reached the menopause were more likely to agree that good-looking women were 'attractive'. In contrast, those who had not yet reached the menopause were more likely to say they disliked the woman in the photograph." Haha, I mean, duh, we're all just ready to claw each others' eyes out in order to guard our men! Unless we no longer have our periods and then we're just benign old crones waiting to die.

Apparently researcher Lisa DeBruine told the Daily Fail, "Post-menopausal women are taking on a completely different role in society. They have a change in their balance of hormones which changes their lifestyles. They go from needing to find a mate and competing with other females to wanting to become heads of the community.This change means that they will view the attractive women they once saw as rivals as friends. They will still want to nurture them or mother them but they won't see them as threats." Despite perpetuating these stereotypes of older women as sexually impotent, the Fail will also have you know that it is totally not sexist, because it points out that "Other studies have shown men are just as likely to be bitchy as women."

But! Fun fact from Live Science: guppies and gorillas also go through menopause. This makes sense, as Koko is way less bitchy now than she was in the 70s.

Why Women Become LESS Bitchy As They Get Older (And Yes, It's To Do With Men) [Daily Mail]
Women Mellow With Age [Live Science]

1. The asshole dad will agree to grace the delivery room with his presence, but not to help out in any way. He thinks of "videoing the whole thing, assisting the Caesarean (yes, it happens), cleaning the baby, birthing plans, keeping the placenta and that ghastly prospect, cutting the umbilical cord," rather oddly, as "the tasting menu," and he wants no part of it.

2. He does not want to talk to your doctor while you are, potentially, not in the mood for talking. Davis tells the cautionary tale of one poor schmo, "a meek sort" who "had been told by his wife to ensure that the hospital adhered to all her demands." The asshole dad thinks of the plans you have for the birth as unreasonable, harpyish "demands" — don't expect him to help you carry them out.

3. He will forget everything he learns in prenatal classes, if you can even get him to attend them. Because "men do not discuss births with each other," such classes are not manly.

4. His biggest worry about the whole thing is this: "Will I still fancy the mother of my child if I witness the birth?"

The real question is, if your baby-daddy behaved as Davis describes, would you still fancy him?

What Men Really Think About... Being Present At The Birth [Daily Mail]

Anna's husband left her three years ago with her higher salary and their 5-year-old daughter because, she thinks, she made more money than him. Two subsequent dates with whiners that complained about her not being "feminine" enough and too "in-control," she found herself crying at the dinner table and decided she needed to be a different kind of woman. Did she get actual post-divorce therapy? It doesn't sound like it, because if her accounting of the end of her marriage is true, she keeps dating the same exact asshole. Her ex-husband was intimidated by not being a high earner, so she's going out with a series of men who are intimidated that she's not a 25-year-old opinionless bimbo with no self-control. Does she stop to consider that the problem might not be that she's not feminine enough (or that it won't be solved by putting on a little make-up), but that the problem is with the men she's with and their outdated ideas of what is attractive in a woman?

My dad and I had a little conversation this weekend — he is, after all, married to my mom with whom I have a lot in common. He'd read a little drunkenly miserable blog post of mine in which I'd worried that being single at 30 was reflective of some fundamental problem with me and not the various issues of the idiots I spent my twenties dating. My dad told me (as dads are wont to do) that my single status doesn't mean that there's a goddamn thing wrong with me — and that my exes obviously all had problems in their own ways. He added that if there's anything wrong with me, it's that I keep choosing to get into relationships with idiots who can't deal with me being strong and independent, and that it's far better to end up strong and independent and still myself than to try to hide me under a bunch of frou-frou pink girly bullshit to get a man to stick around for a while and find out in 10 years that I lost myself and couldn't hold onto him either.

Anna, my dad is available for sympathetic, platonic drinks whenever you want. But, for free, he suggests you take a second look at that male friend who liked you when you were make-up-less, Botox-free and stressed out.

Fast Track To Femininity: Why Competing With Men Has Left Women Out Of Touch With Their Feminine Side [Daily Mail]

Dorries' calls America "The Abortion Capital of the World" because the rate of abortion per 1,000 women is 19.4 to Britain's 18.3 (Australia's is the highest in the world, at 20.0). The Daily Mail has a chart comparing abortion laws in 9 different countries; in it, the newspaper lists the "Upper Limit" of legally-acceptable abortions in the U.S. to be 26 weeks. But the reality is that getting an abortion after 12 weeks in many states is outright impossible.

According to NARAL, the pro-choice organization, "23 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable bans that could outlaw abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy, with no exception to protect a woman's health." In addition, "15 states have unconstitutional and unenforceable near-total criminal bans on abortion." Zoe Williams points out that "If you really wanted more abortions to take place earlier in the pregnancy, then you would work towards improving access to terminations on the NHS." Similarly, if Americans really wanted fewer late term abortions, they would provide better sex education in public schools and easy and cheap access to birth control. As we said earlier, 87% of counties don't even have access to an abortion provider. And anyway, Dorries is just picking on America because we're so loud and crass and angsty over the abortion issue. If she were really being accurate, she'd go after those abortion-happy Aussies, who "kill babies" even more than we do.

Britain Is 'Becoming The Abortion Capital Of The World' Claims Tory MP Fighting To Lower Legal Limit [Daily Mail]
Fact, Fiction And Foetuses [Guardian]
Abortion Bans After 12 Weeks [NARAL]
We Had Our Babies Under The 24-week Abortion Limit - And They All Survived [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Pro-Life Teen Says "I Feel Like We're All Survivors Of Abortion"

"In its mild form, men often take to their bed in the week following the birth, complaining of everything from a stomach ache or migraine," claims Dr. Odent. "And in the most graphic example, one perfectly healthy man had his first experience of schizophrenia two days after watching his wife give birth. Was this his way of escaping reality?" Normally, such a statement would have us laughing so hard we'd be curled up into the fetal position but another article — this from the much-respected Guardian — is reporting that male postnatal depression is not only a reality, but a harbinger of future child behavioral problems. Certainly, the story — which comes out of a study at the University of Bristol — makes absolutely no correlation between paternal depression and childbirth, but we have a feeling that Dr. Odent will be taking this latest news and running with it all the way to the NHS maternity wards.

A Top Obstetrician On Why Men Should NEVER Be At The Birth Of Their Child [Daily Mail]
Male Postnatal Depression Affects Child Behaviour, Study Shows [Guardian]

Related: A Perilous Journey From Delivery Room To Bedroom [NY Times]

• Matthew McConaughey baby mama/former model Camila Alves is doing something to really make a difference: She created a handbag line, called Muxo. "We wanted to create something that was unique and not already in the market, and it took us that long to create this. My main goal was to create something where people didn't have to compromise, that it could be exactly what they needed." Someone grab me a tissue, I think she just gave me a reason to keep on livin'. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Say what you will about the Daily Mail but it did put Anna Wintour on its worst-dressed list. [Daily Mail]
  
• Naomi Campbell is rumored to be the face of the Fall 2008 Yves Saint Laurent campaign. Maybe it will have an S&M theme? [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Can we please discuss the placement of Victoria Beckham's breasts in the latest Marc Jacobs ad? [Sassybella]

• Minnie Driver is still solvent, y'all! At last week's L.A. Prada party last week she announced: "I'll have you know I dressed myself tonight. These are my own Prada clothes which I came in and bought!" God bless. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Lauren Conrad's makeup. [BellaSugar]
• An anonymous buyer for an English retailer confesses: "I haven't bought a pair of shoes I can walk in for about two years." This is just great; we are sort of revisiting that whole "bound feet" tradition they had for so long in China. [Telegraph]
• Victoria's Secret looks cheap? No shit! [AdAge]
• Is Madonna done with England and ready to pretend she's Italian? She's wearing (vintage) Dolce & Gabbana on the cover of her new album Hard Candy and Roberto Cavalli for the video of her single "Four Minutes" (which omg co-stars Justin Timberlake.) [WWD, 2nd item]

Finally, more than 50% of women "asked maths questions by their children or family said they struggled to answer them," reports the BBC. If the vintage calculator ad above is any indication — "If you can't remember numbers, Rapidman can!" displayed with a picture of a smiling, groceries clad couple — it's not that the average woman is worse at math than the average man, but that, as the BBC implies, she's just less confident in her abilities. (Age also was a major factor in the poll, as men and women over 55 were the most confident in their mathematical abilities, while 25 to 34-year-olds were the least sure of themselves.) Studies have shown that in the bell curve of mathematical ability, most women end up clustered around the middle, while men more often fall on the high and low ends of the ability spectrum, and in American schools, girls and boys are now equal in their math courses. Once again we say to the Daily Mail: sod off. Your proclamations about women's frivolousness are only discouraging their latent math skills. Danica McKellar, Winne Cooper from the Wonder Years and the co-author of a scientific paper about a theorem in mathematical physics is our new math deity.

[Image via Vintage Ads.]

Earlier: Do We Suck At Math Because Of Biology Or The Patriarchy?
It All Adds Up
A Blast From The Past Brings A Glimmer Of Hope For The Future