Komen President Steps Down to Focus on Making More Money [Disgrace For The Cure]

Nancy Brinker, founder, President, and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (which I'm now required to characterize as "embattled") announced yesterday that after years at the helm of the breast cancer charity, she'd be stepping down from her role to focus more on "revenue creation." Two other board members resigned on the same day, and it's not clear who will replace Brinker as she works to convince more people to give her money for the cure.

The charity's had a disastrous year — at the very end of January, Komen announced that it would be cutting off its grants to Planned Parenthood, angering women's groups, politicians, and fueling a long-whispered theory that the organization cared more about its own image than it did about actual women's health. And in the days after the announcement, it was discovered that, thanks to some highly-placed Komen officials with ideologically extreme agendas, the grant cutoff wasn't procedural, but political. The charity couldn't get its story straight — it first claimed that Planned Parenthood grants had been discontinued because the family planning organization was under Congressional investigation, but when several people pointed out that Planned Parenthood gave money to plenty of organizations and institutions that were under investigation, Nancy Brinker took it upon herself to defend Komen's actions in a series of media appearances that only made her look like Lady Who Lunched who didn't need to fully explain herself to the millions of American women who didn't want to see women's health further politicized.

Planned Parenthood's funds were eventually restored by the charity, but not before several curiously political Komen stances and questionable practices were brought to light — why had the charity supported embryonic stem cell research in 2006, and disavowed it in 2011? Why did Nancy Brinker, wealthy thanks to a profitable divorce, still earn almost half a million dollars a year and live a lavish, charity-funded lifestyle? How beholden to right-wing political pressure was the organization? And why the hell were they partnering with the dictator of Uzbekistan's socialite pop singer daughter, whose fashion line uses child slave labor? And why did the perfume the charity sold contain carcinogens? And why did the organization refuse to condemn cancer-causing chemicals used by companies that gave them lots of money? And why did they spend so much time suing other, smaller charities?

Komen officials hoped its Hell Fortnight would end when former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and once and always anti-abortion zealot Karen Handel resigned her executive post at the charity, but public trust was already shaken and in the ensuing months, Komen's fundraising suffered and never recovered. The charity's signature fundraising event, Race for the Cure, lagged in nearly every market. Galas were canceled. Officials in chapters across the country resigned in disappointment. Many critics called for Nancy Brinker to resign if she valued the future of the charity, but there she was, hanging on.

Until yesterday.

What pushed Brinker over the edge and prompted her to hand the mess off to another, yet-to-be-named candidate wasn't specified by Brinker's sunny press release about the shake up ("I want to focus on Susan G. Komen's global mission and raising resources to bring our promise to women all around the world."), but I'd venture a guess it had something to do with vocal criticism from the scientific community of Komen's deceptive practices. In a piece published in the British Medical Journal last week, the directors of the Center for Medicine and the Media at Dartmouth Medical School wrote that Komen was flat-out lying to women about the benefits of mammograms (well, the paper used the words "misleading" and "false," which is a less confrontational way to say "lying"). According to Komen literature, 98% of women who detect breast cancer early survive versus the 23% who survive without early detection. One of the authors of the study told Bloomberg,

We think Komen can do a lot better by giving women the information they need to weigh the benefits and the harms. They aren't doing a good job. The ads are misleading and give false promises.

Ouch.

In addition to Brinker's resignation, two other members of the Board stepped down yesterday.

This debacle will one day make a great lesson in How Not to Handle a PR Snafu; even with Brinker's resignation, it may be too late for Komen to restore the cloying pink sheen to its reputation, though, as the damage has been done.

[LAT]

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10 Quick Steps to Becoming a Google Power-User

Whether you use Google, Yahoo, MSN or Dogpile, searching the web can be both rewarding and frustrating. If you don't have a few tips under your belt, you can waste needless time sorting and sifting through results which are all over the board. Everyone knows that you type words into your search engine and it returns pages upon pages of information about websites containing answers you might be seeking. Unfortunately, if you just type a few words into the search bar, you're going to receive a jumble of both relevant and irrelevant results.

So how do you pare down your Googles? Let's take a look at two of the biggest search engines: Google. Now, I'm a Google nut, but I have also used Yahoo from time to time.

Let's start with the basics on Google. You type in a couple words and viola, pages return with information. You start sifting through.

Tip #1: Get exact results by adding "quotation marks" around your search term

Most people know that if you type in more than one word, for instance, a name, search engines will return every result that contains those two words. I searched first on my name, Judith Brandy. Google brought back every website that had the words, Judith and Brandy in its title or description. It included a liquor site, people who were names Brandy with a different first name and assorted other junk that was irrelevant to my search. I was Googling myself to see where my articles had been placed. So, Brandy DVDs and Videos at Search Extreme, would not help me. Surprisingly, I popped up at the top as an ExpertAuthor on an article site and found out that a couple of my articles had been picked up on some other websites already. This was nice know, but as I scrolled down, I found relevance disappearing before I reached the bottom of page one. So I added the quotations, and viola, a much more narrow, relevant search result was returned. So the addition of quotations was a real plus.

Tip #2: Narrow the results you receive by adding a space followed by a minus signed followed by the words you want to exclude.

For example, say you want to search on Battletar Galactica, but you don't want to get every website and blog out there. You don't want to get the original Battlestar Galactica television show from 25 years ago. You want the new, reimaged Battlestar on television now. So you type into the search box "space" (that's not the word, by the way. You hit the space bar once) and then type a minus "-" sign plus the term you want to exclude like I've done below:Search term: Battlestar Galactica -original - This takes out any website that covers the 1978 original television show, Battlestar Galactica.

Tip #3: Get up-to-date stock quotes without going past the search page.

This is an easy one. Simply type in a stock symbol and it will return the company name, latest price and price chart at the top of the page, plus all relevent websites connected to it below. So I typed in GOOGLE STOCK SYMBOL to get back GOOG, then I typed GOOG into the box and it returned a chart, the open-high-low as well as other website where it can be further researched. Needless to say, Google is doing quite well. Google now has a new web browser called Chrome, geared completely to Google and Google products.

Tip #4: Type in certain questions about people and places and get answers.

Are you interested in the population of Tokyo, Japan? Or New York City? Would you like to know where Edward James Olmos or Joe Flanigan were born? Would you like to know what is "rabbit proof fence"? These are the kinds of questions you can ask Google.

Simply type the following:

"population of Tokyo, Japan" with no quotes and Google returns "Japan - Population: 127,417,244"

"population of New York City" with no quotes and Google returns "New York City - Population: 8 Million"

"birthplace of Edward James Olmos" and Google returns "Edward James Olmos - Place of Birth: East Los Angeles, California, USA"

"birthplace of Joe Flanigan" and Google returns "Joe Flanigan - Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, USA"

"who is Joe Flanigan" you wonder? Well, type it in and you'll get an answer. "Joe Flanigan ... has long-running guest roles on numerous television series, including Profiler, First Monday, ..." and a link to where you can find out more.

Try the last one yourself. Type in what is "rabbit proof fence" and Google returns . . .

Tip #5: Find out where an area code or zip code is located quickly and easily.

Ask Google. Type - area code "610" and Google will return this answer - Area Code Look Up and ReferenceListing of the majority of Area Codes throughout the US and the world. ... 610, PA, SE Pennsylvania: Allentown, Reading, 484, 835 ... - no muss, no fuss, just the facts at lightspeed. Tip #6: Get the weather of any place in the world Type "weather plus a location" and Google will return the current weather plus, for places in the United States, four days worth of weather and a few graphic representations in 0.09 seconds. Much faster and easier than surfing over to the weather channel and looking it up. You don't need the quotation marks, by the way.

Tip #6: Google is a calculator

Type in 25 x 25 and Google will calculate and deliver you the result of 625. Instant calculations online. Divide = / and Multiply = *. Plus and minus are + and -.

Tip #7: Get the local time any place on Earth.

What time is it in Venice, Italy? Now you could surf on over to the World Time Clock, scroll through and find the country, find Italy, find the city of Venice, but why waste time? Simply type in "what time is it in Venice, Italy" and Google will return the correct answer, plus a link to where you can get more information all in 0.26 seconds. Be sure and check out Google's new web browser called Chrome, geared completely to Google and Google products.

Tip #8: Going to a foreign country? Do current monetary conversions.

Simply key the following into the search box - 23000 yen in US dollars - and Google will return a quick conversion: 23 000 Japanese yen = 196.68197 U.S. dollars. If you're headed to Asia, this is invaluable and easy.

Tip #9: Check on flights and airports.

Do you want to find out if a flight is delayed or if an airport is having weather problems? Here's an easy way to find out before you start surfing and calling. Type in the airport number for instance PHL Airport and search. The first link that pops up will take you to the AIRPORT STATUS INFORMATION which is provided by the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center. The status information provided on this site indicates general airport conditions... It also provides a link to a Glossary of Air Traffic Management Terms if you need clarification.

Check on the flight is just as simple. Type the following "United 134" as an example and Google will return Track status of United Airlines flight 134 with links to Travelocity, Track status on Travelocity - Expedia - fboweb.com.

Tip #10: Google tracks Fedex, UPS and USPS packages

If you have a tracking number type it in and Google will return the latest information on your package:

- UPS tracking numbers example search: "1Z9999W99999999999"

- FedEx tracking numbers example search: "999999999999"

- USPS tracking numbers example search: "9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99"

Google also has a spell checking option which automatically looks at your query and checks to see if everything is spelled right. Did you ever "sort of" know how to spell a famous person's name? Google's spellchecking is based on the number occurrences of all words on the Internet, so it is able to suggest common spellings for proper nouns (names and places) that might not appear in a standard spell check program or dictionary. You can also use it as a spell checker in a way.

Word Speller: If you type in a word that you kind of know how spell, Google will return "Did you mean: spell aardvark" It's not a dictionary, but it is a quick way to get words you already have an idea how it's spelled.

Google has a wealth of other features which I haven't even touched on yet. I encourage you to click on the I'M FEELING LUCKY which give you results, check out the Advanced Search which gives you many more choices and links, Language Tools which has a small translater with a good number of languages and an option to add yours. There's even a language called "Bork, bork, bork!" Go find out what it is. It's all quite interesting and will greatly expand your Google mindset. There is a lot more you can do with Google than the tips I've outlined. Check out my website link to their features page for a complete look at Google features. And even though they have a lot of features listed, I keep finding other ways to use Google. I think of this search engine as a creative entity constantly growing.

Free report on the new Google Chrome Web Browser

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