Great Pretender
GREAT PRETENDER is an anime series about Team Confidence, a group of con artists who work together to take down corrupt and evil targets. The series primarily follows Makoto Edamura (voiced in the English dub by Alan Lee), a young man ostracized from society after his father was sent to prison for corruption. Edamura's family reputation and own unfortunate circumstances prevent him from finding work to help pay for his sick mother's medical treatment. Edamura decides to turn to a life of swindling and sets his sights on becoming the greatest conman in all of Japan, eventually joining Team Confidence.
Great Pretender
Actinomycosis is a rare, chronic disease caused by a group of anaerobic Gram-positive bacteria that normally colonize the mouth, colon, and urogenital tract. Infection involving the cervicofacial area is the most common clinical presentation, followed by pelvic region and thoracic involvement. Due to its propensity to mimic many other diseases and its wide variety of symptoms, clinicians should be aware of its multiple presentations and its ability to be a 'great pretender'. We describe herein three cases of unusual presentation: an inferior caval vein syndrome, an acute cholecystitis, and an acute cardiac tamponade. We review the literature on its epidemiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.
Lester Bowie's projects apart from the Art Ensemble of Chicago tread a high wire between challenging improvised music and R&B-pop. This seeming dichotomy purports a universally appealing sound close to selling out, but speaks more to the whimsy and farcical elements Bowie sees in the hypocrisy of life. The Great Pretender is a perfect title for this effort, a mix of funk and humor, gospel and jazz, with no small points of reference to Dizzy Gillespie, early doo wop, Mahalia Jackson, James Brown, and Sun Ra. The lengthy title track modernizes the Buck Ram hit on many levels, as Bowie's sly, ribald, and comedic trumpet playing hits every nerve over a head nodding church hued backbeat, accented by the ooh-ooh vocals of Fontella Bass and David Peaston. The band doubles the tempo in waltz time with Hamiet Bluiett's burly baritone sax leading a mellow charge, while Bowie takes more slapstick liberties, adding a vocal component directly copped from Daffy Duck. The other prime cut here is "Rios Negroes," an electrifying calypso where unending kinetic energy flows through the commanding trumpeter's part Don Juan caballero, part General George Patton lyricism -- his finest jam ever. The deep bass playing of Fred Williams and montuno piano of Donald Smith perfectly support the flashy Bowie in great depth and constraint with no bombs bursting. The band does a hilarious goofball version of "It's Howdy Doody Time" with bouncy bass and Phillip Wilson's New Orleans drumming. Bowie's not finished there, calling out spooky spirits with vocal hauntings through darkness and shadows on the foreboding "Oh, How the Ghost Sings," and questions "Doom?" in "When the Doom (Moon) Comes over the Mountain" by evoking wickedly fearsome growling and bleating through his horn over Smith's organ, the popping electric bass of Williams, and Wilson's pounding drumming. The Great Pretender falls just short of Bowie's magnum opus The 5th Power, but not by much in terms of sheer modernism. It's utterly enjoyable creative jazz, worthy of a space in your collection.
Owen and Callie enter the attending's lounge. He complains about Herman overloading the OR schedule with procedures, while Callie is concerned about not being great with one night stands anymore. She wants to know how he picks up woman. He says he's just honest about his past in the army and his work as a trauma surgeon, and Callie understands why that works. Owen then notices the couch has disappeared from the room.
Meredith is watching Bailey talk to Curt as Maggie comes over. After some small talk about Zola, Maggie says she's not here to judge Meredith, but she's a bad liar. Maggie knows that Meredith didn't pack the suitcase full of lingerie to go see Derek, because he called her three times, asking where Meredith was. Meanwhile, Meredith texted her she was having a great time. So, wherever Meredith was this weekend, it wasn't with Derek. Maggie wants to be there for Meredith, but she likes Derek and she hates lying. Suddenly, Bailey calls them into Curt's room as he throws up blood.
Hypoadrenocorticism is known as the great pretender. Patients can present with a variety of vague clinical signs, which include vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia, and weight loss. These symptoms may be acute or wax and wane chronically. Any breed can develop hypoadrenocorticism, however standard poodles, Portuguese Water dogs, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling and bearded Collies have a predisposition. This disease is more commonly seen in young to middle-aged dogs but can present at any age.
In the United States, about half of MSM with P&S syphilis also have HIV.2 Additionally, MSM who are HIV-negative and diagnosed with P&S syphilis are more likely to get HIV in the future. 6 Genital sores caused by syphilis make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually. The risk of acquiring HIV increases if exposure to that infection occurs when syphilis is present. 7 Furthermore, syphilis and other STDs might indicate ongoing behaviors and exposures that place a person at greater risk for acquiring HIV.
Whether we will do so depends greatly on whether we come to understand what Trump's presidency truly has been. Donald Trump inspired profound devotion and visceral loathing of a kind rarely manifested by American political leaders. Even before the Animal House Putsch at the Capitol, nearly half of Americans strongly disapproved of the president, and even after the insurrection he inspired, over a quarter strongly approved. These people see something in Trump, whether they love it or hate it. But do they see what's really there?
Trump was not a good king who embodied the nation. Nor was he a bad king, the embodiment of our nation's worst self who must be ritually extirpated for the nation to be redeemed. Rather, he was never king at all, and inasmuch as he played one, and got us to treat him as one, he was a usurping pretender.
On a deeper level, Mack Smith is unfair to Mussolini. He presents Mussolini in isolation, a clown blustering his way through history as a knockabout turn. There is little attempt to set Mussolini within the framework of his time. Statesmen usually succeed when they are in tune with events and fail when the tune changes. So it was with Mussolini. Mussolini seemed to be a great man when events ran his way. Later they turned against him and he seemed to have been a fraud from the beginning.
Mussolini had never wanted a real war. Thereafter he contemplated his fate with helpless resignation. He even claimed that in June 1940 he had been the only pacifist in Italy, and the claim was not altogether without foundation. Mussolini was a strange mixture of shrewdness and incompetence. If Europe had still been the center of the world, he would have been an important figure. As it was, he become the chief drummer in a continent of pretenders. 041b061a72