Plus-Size Model Crystal Renn Rocks V Magazine Size Issue

Waif Jacquelyn Jablonski in a fashion face-off with womanly Crystal Renn. Photo courtesy of V Magazine

As we reported last week, the next issue of V magazine will celebrate women of all shapes and all sizes -- including plus-size.

And although the sure-to-be-controversial issue (#63) doesn't hit newsstands until Jan. 14, we got a sneak peek at one of the fashion stories.

Photographer Terry Richardson's story, dubbed 'One Size Fits All,' features plus-size model/author Crystal Renn -- a 5 ft, 9 in. beauty with 36-31-41 measurements -- opposite model-on-the-rise Jacquelyn Jablonskiwho stands at the same height as Renn, but with more waifish stats: 32-24-34.

Both women, shown in side-by-side images, strike similar poses and don identical and often vibrantly patterned ensembles by the likes of Ralph Lauren, Proenza Schouler and Dolce & Gabbana with bold accessories by Versace, Burberry and Alexis Bittar.

One spread (shown above) features both models wearing the ubiquitous bodysuit and innerwear as outerwear trend, here, in the form of a fully visible bra, both by Dolce & Gabbana.

The point of the spread is apparent -- to show that size doesn't matter and fashion can flatter a multitude of figures. Now, if only all the fashion designers would include plus-sizes in their collections, we'd be getting somewhere.

V Magazine - One Size Fits All

Terry Richardson

4 photos

V Magazine tackles the size issue by showing two models with two very different body types wearing the exact same thing.

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V Magazine - One Size Fits All

V Magazine tackles the size issue by showing two models with two very different body types wearing the exact same thing.

Terry Richardson

V Magazine - One Size Fits All

Jacquelyn Jablonski (left) and Crystal Renn (right) wear Ralph Lauren tops, Proenza Schouler skirts, Viktor & Rolf belts, shoes by Versace, clutches by Giorgio Armani, socks by We Love Colors, scrunchies by Marc Jacobs, earrings, purple necklace and gold bangle by Patricia von Musulin, yellow cuff with spikes by M.C.L. by Matthew Campbell Laurence and rod necklaces, rings and the rest of the bangles by Alexis Bittar.

Terry Richardson

All the single ladies... Jablonski and Renn rock Beyonce-like bodysuits and bras by Dolce & Gabbana, leather belts by Burberry Prorsum, bangles worn in hair by Patricia Field, gold necklaces, blue-and-yellow jeweled and leopard bangles by Alexis Bittar, Lucite bangles with ivory inset by Patricia von Musulin and red-and-gray necklaces and the remaining bangles by Cara Croninger.

Terry Richardson

Whip it good. Jablonski and Renn wear Versace tops, skirt and shoes by Proenza Schouler, belt by Kokin, socks by We Love Colors, bangles (worn in hair), silver, blue-and-yellow jeweled and Lucite bangles by Alexis Bittar, Lucite necklace by Alexis Bittar for Michael Kors, gold bangles by Patricia von Musulin, black-and-white striped cuffs by Giorgio Armani and black-and-gray necklaces, red bangles and blue marbled cuffs by Cara Croninger.

Terry Richardson

Jablonski and Renn wear illustrated dresses by Danielle Scutt, belts by Giorgio Armani, shoes by Pierre Hardy, socks by We Love Colors, yellow and heart necklaces, blue marbled cuffs and Lucite rings by Cara Croninger, green necklaces and gold bangles by Patricia von Musulin, purple Lucite bangles by Burberry Prorsum, clear Lucite and blue jeweled bangles by Alexis Bittar and blue cuffs with spikes by M.C.L by Matthew Campbell Laurence.

Terry Richardson

But we want to know who you think best worked the looks. Leave a comment.

To see Crystal Renn in a more natural state (read: naked), check out this Glamour magazine photo shoot.

A pocket guide to avoiding mortgage modification scams

Mortgage loan modification. You need it. You want it. You have to have it. You're determined to get it. You're out on the street if you don't!

And, in case you haven't figured this out yet on your own, by the time you even start thinking the things mentioned in the paragraph above, a host of people in your community -- and even outside -- already know that you are in deep housing trouble. The wrong kinds of people. The kinds of people more than willing to reach their hands into your already-empty pocket and try to suck up even the dust left from the last few coins you once carried there.

These are the mortgage modification scam artists and we know there are plenty of them because criminal cases all across the country have been escalating these past several months, such as mentioned in an earlier post by Amy Pyle.

So, with this in mind, it is probably a good time to review, courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (and if they don't know a thing or two about picking your pockets, then who the hell does,right?) a few warning signs of a mortgage modification scam.

You can click on the provided link -- like here -- to go directly to the site of the Comptroller of the Currency for a fuller explanation of how these various scams actually work. But for now, hold on as we zip through the ten warning signs (a little like a David Letterman bit, only serious!):

1. Beware of "counselors" who insist you hand over money to them upfront for their services. While some perfectly legit types may charge a token fee, if the tab comes to thousands of dollars, run for the hills. Better still, drive there.


2. The dude who tells you something like, "Hey, no problem saving your home! I guarantee it!" is trouble with a giant "T". No one can make such a promise except a fool, or a crook. Guess which one you would be talking to?


3. If someone tells you to sign over your home to them and they will then pay your mortgage and rent your own house back to you, be afraid. Be very afraid. Not only are you more than likely about to be scammed, but, guess what? Even if you do sign over your home, YOU are still responsible to the lender to pay the mortgage back. Bummer!!! But true.


4. A sort of variation on this one is the con person who instructs you to just simply stop paying your mortgage, that someone else will do it for you. Yeah, and do you want to buy a bridge from the guy? I'm sure it can be arranged.


5. Let's say your new found "friend" tells you, "hey, if your lender calls, don't talk to the bum," or words to that effect. That's just looking for trouble. In fact, says the government, the first person you should be talking to is your lender.


6. My absolute favorite scam goes like this: the scam dude tells you, with a straight face, "Your lender never had the legal authority to make a loan." Love that one. Of course it is total bull. But apparently people do fall for it. Don't!


7. Look out for the classic "sign now, we'll fill in the blanks later" scam. AMAZING anyone would still fall for this one. But hey, people get desperate and do desperate things. Don't sign anything you can't read fully first.


8. This is the one where you're instructed to dial a special number or maybe go to a special website that has a government- sounding name....like 1-800-Fed-Loan. Careful, warns the federal government. Could be a scam. And it is really important to keep in mind that a legit government program will never ask for a fee up front.


9. Watch out for the crook who files for bankruptcy in your name and doesn't tell you about it...They do it to temporarily stop the foreclosure so you believe they are actually doing something to help you. Guess again.


10. High pressure tactics...that's a simple one. The real deal doesn't badger you with all sorts of horrible scenarios.

So, there you have it: The ten warning signs of a possible mortgage modification scam.

Happy New Year!

Desperate Housewives - Deaths on Wisteria Lane

So all how was it to find out that Karl bit the big one? You know it only made sense that they killed off Karl, no harm no foul. As for Lynette losing one of the babies again this was kind of a nonstarter we knew something was going to happen to her. I will say though that this episode was one of the saddest of the season. It tugged at the heart strings while giving us pertinent information about each person and their possible future outcomes as seen through the many "what if" scenarios.

I for one will miss the character of Karl probably as much as I miss Edie because he injected something other than the norm to the ensemble. His funeral service was touching and left us pondering over the "what if's" in life. As for Lynette's loss, Felicity Huffman showed such a range of emotion that even I teared up while watching her in the hospital bed as Tom told her that they had lost the baby but the other one is just fine. I really loved the dream she had in which she was able to see her son (Patrick) graduate from school. Was his speech not riveting! And when Gabby came to visit her in the hospital touching especially when she told her what they were going to name him.

As for the lady trying to blackmail Angie & Nick well we saw that coming about a mile away. I have to admit I'm glad that she died but I also am left wondering if she told anyone about what she had learned as a way of double crossing them??

As for Carlos & Gabby their what-if was kinda right of out Sunset Blvd meets Grey Gardens! I was glad to have Gabby wake up to the realization that she could not live her daughters life.

Susan's scenario was rather funny but when aren't Susan's? I mean come on. Susan, overweight because she stayed with Karl, eating herself into self loathing. I loved it!

Absent was Katherine from this episode so I guess she's off to the psychward for a bit of R&R.

Only time will tell how our Wisteria friends will fair but I for one am locked in for the season!

Desperate Housewives - Upcoming Spoilers

Well if you've been following my blog you're in for a treat! Julie Benz has bounced back from her shocking Dexter departure with a major role on Desperate Housewives.

Sources confirm to me exclusively that Benz — whose character, Rita, succumbed to the most horrific bubble bath in television history in last month’s Dexter finale — has been cast in the recurring role of Debbie, a stripper with a heart of gold and a Masters degree in education. When Susan offers her the chance to transition into a more legitimate career, Deb jumps at it.

Benz is booked for at least three episodes, the first of which is scheduled to air in February.

Thoughts? Happy Benz’ career didn’t die along with Rita? Think she’ll fit in on Wisteria Lane? Sound off below!

Solution to Killer Superbug Found in Norway

Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner.

Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked.

The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.

Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.

Now a spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying these deaths -- 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS -- are unnecessary.

Kirsty Wigglesworth, AP

Dr. Lynne Liebowitz, a microbiologist, works in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn, England.

"It's a very sad situation that in some places so many are dying from this, because we have shown here in Norway that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be controlled, and with not too much effort," said Jan Hendrik-Binder, Oslo's MRSA medical adviser. "But you have to take it seriously, you have to give it attention, and you must not give up."

The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet. A six-month investigation by The Associated Press found overuse and misuse of medicines has led to mutations in once curable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, making them harder and in some cases impossible to treat.

Now, in Norway's simple solution, there's a glimmer of hope.

---

Dr. John Birger Haug shuffles down Aker's scuffed corridors, patting the pocket of his baggy white scrubs. "My bible," the infectious disease specialist says, pulling out a little red Antibiotic Guide that details this country's impressive MRSA solution.

It's what's missing from this book -- an array of antibiotics -- that makes it so remarkable.

"There are times I must show these golden rules to our doctors and tell them they cannot prescribe something, but our patients do not suffer more and our nation, as a result, is mostly infection free," he says.

Norway's model is surprisingly straightforward.

-- Norwegian doctors prescribe fewer antibiotics than any other country, so people do not have a chance to develop resistance to them.

-- Patients with MRSA are isolated, and medical staff who test positive stay at home.

-- Doctors track each case of MRSA by its individual strain, interviewing patients about where they've been and who they've been with, testing anyone who has been in contact with them.

Haug unlocks the dispensary, a small room lined with boxes of pills, bottles of syrups and tubes of ointment. What's here? Medicines considered obsolete in many developed countries. What's not? Some of the newest, most expensive antibiotics, which aren't even registered for use in Norway, "because if we have them here, doctors will use them," he says.

He points to an antibiotic. "If I treated someone with an infection in Spain with this penicillin, I would probably be thrown in jail," he says, "and rightly so, because it's useless there."

Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections.

"We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," Haug says.

Convenience stores in downtown Oslo are stocked with an amazing and colorful array -- 42 different brands at one downtown 7-Eleven -- of soothing, but non-medicated, lozenges, sprays and tablets. All workers are paid on days they, or their children, stay home sick. And drug makers aren't allowed to advertise, reducing patient demands for prescription drugs.

In fact, most marketing here sends the opposite message: "Penicillin is not a cough medicine," says the tissue packet on the desk of Norway's MRSA control director, Dr. Petter Elstrom.

He recognizes his country is "unique in the world and best in the world" when it comes to MRSA. Less than 1 percent of health care providers are positive carriers of MRSA staph.

But Elstrom worries about the bacteria slipping in through other countries. Last year almost every diagnosed case in Norway came from someone who had been abroad.

"So far we've managed to contain it, but if we lose this, it will be a huge problem," he said. "To be very depressing about it, we might in some years be in a situation where MRSA is so endemic that we have to stop doing advanced surgeries, things like organ transplants, if we can't prevent infections. In the worst-case scenario, we are back to 1913, before we had antibiotics."

---

Forty years ago, a new spectrum of antibiotics enchanted public health officials, quickly quelling one infection after another. In wealthier countries that could afford them, patients and providers came to depend on antibiotics. Trouble was, the more antibiotics are consumed, the more resistant bacteria develop.

Norway responded swiftly to initial MRSA outbreaks in the 1980s by cutting antibiotic use. Thus while they got ahead of the infection, the rest of the world fell behind.

In Norway, MRSA has accounted for less than 1 percent of staph infections for years. That compares to 80 percent in Japan, the world leader in MRSA; 44 percent in Israel; and 38 percent in Greece.

In the U.S., cases have soared and MRSA cost $6 billion last year. Rates have gone up from 2 percent in 1974 to 63 percent in 2004. And in the United Kingdom, they rose from about 2 percent in the early 1990s to about 45 percent, although an aggressive control program is now starting to work.

About 1 percent of people in developed countries carry MRSA on their skin. Usually harmless, the bacteria can be deadly when they enter a body, often through a scratch. MRSA spreads rapidly in hospitals where sick people are more vulnerable, but there have been outbreaks in prisons, gyms, even on beaches. When dormant, the bacteria are easily detected by a quick nasal swab and destroyed by antibiotics.

Dr. John Jernigan at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they incorporate some of Norway's solutions in varying degrees, and his agency "requires hospitals to move the needle, to show improvement, and if they don't show improvement, they need to do more."

And if they don't?

"Nobody is accountable to our recommendations," he said, "but I assume hospitals and institutions are interested in doing the right thing."

Dr. Barry Farr, a retired epidemiologist who watched a successful MRSA control program launched 30 years ago at the University of Virginia's hospitals, blamed the CDC for clinging to past beliefs that hand washing is the best way to stop the spread of infections like MRSA. He says it's time to add screening and isolation methods to their controls.

The CDC needs to "eat a little crow and say, 'Yeah, it does work,'" he said. "There's example after example. We don't need another study. We need somebody to just do the right thing."

---

But can Norway's program really work elsewhere?

The answer lies in the busy laboratory of an aging little public hospital about 100 miles outside of London. It's here that microbiologist Dr. Lynne Liebowitz got tired of seeing the stunningly low Nordic MRSA rates while facing her own burgeoning cases.

So she turned Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn into a petri dish, asking doctors to almost completely stop using two antibiotics known for provoking MRSA infections.

One month later, the results were in: MRSA rates were tumbling. And they've continued to plummet. Five years ago, the hospital had 47 MRSA bloodstream infections. This year they've had one.

"I was shocked, shocked," Liebowitz says, bouncing onto her toes and grinning as colleagues nearby drip blood onto slides and peer through microscopes in the hospital laboratory.

When word spread of her success, Liebowitz's phone began to ring. So far she has replicated her experiment at four other hospitals, all with the same dramatic results.

"It's really very upsetting that some patients are dying from infections which could be prevented," she says. "It's wrong."

Around the world, various medical providers have also successfully adapted Norway's program with encouraging results. A medical center in Billings, Mont., cut MRSA infections by 89 percent by increasing screening, isolating patients and making all staff -- not just doctors -- responsible for increasing hygiene.

In Japan, with its cutting-edge technology and modern hospitals, about 17,000 people die from MRSA every year.

Dr. Satoshi Hori, chief infection control doctor at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, says doctors overprescribe antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on patients.

Hori now limits antibiotics only to patients who really need them and screens and isolates high-risk patients. So far his hospital has cut the number of MRSA cases by two-thirds.

In 2001, the CDC approached a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh about conducting a small test program. It started in one unit, and within four years, the entire hospital was screening everyone who came through the door for MRSA. The result: an 80 percent decrease in MRSA infections. The program has now been expanded to all 153 VA hospitals, resulting in a 50 percent drop in MRSA bloodstream infections, said Dr. Robert Muder, chief of infectious diseases at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

"It's kind of a no-brainer," he said. "You save people pain, you save people the work of taking care of them, you save money, you save lives, and you can export what you learn to other hospital-acquired infections."

Pittsburgh's program has prompted all other major hospital-acquired infections to plummet as well, saving roughly $1 million a year.

"So, how do you pay for it?" Muder asked. "Well, we just don't pay for MRSA infections, that's all."

---

Beth Reimer of Batavia, Ill., became an advocate for MRSA precautions after her 5-week-old daughter Madeline caught a cold that took a fatal turn. One day her beautiful baby had the sniffles. The next?

"She wasn't breathing. She was limp," the mother recalled. "Something was terribly wrong."

MRSA had invaded her little lungs. The antibiotics were useless. Maddie struggled to breathe, swallow, survive, for two weeks.

"For me to sit and watch Madeline pass away from such an aggressive form of something, to watch her fight for her little life -- it was too much," Reimer said.

Since Madeline's death, Reimer has become outspoken about the need for better precautions, pushing for methods successfully used in Norway. She's stunned, she said, that anyone disputes the need for change.

"Why are they fighting for this not to take place?" she said.