This picture is worth a thousand words about how nuts this episode was.

A piece that cannot be replaced

RIP Frank Gleason. With all of Pete and Don’s collective ennui (in addition to the dangerous behavior Kenny was subjected to in the opening of this episode), my Mad Men death-dar was completely distracted from Weiner’s most obvious next victim. In memorializing his friend and colleague, Ted Chaough says of Gleason, “He made our company whole… he’s a piece that cannot be replaced.” However, being a new business struggling to hang on to their accounts, SCDPCGC (no new name yet?) will have to do just that. The ease and immediate comfort of replacement was one of the most prominent themes in last night’s episode (with the #1 theme being WTF?!?!?!).

In a Chevy-induced panic, most of the gang is subbing in a “complex vitamin super dose” for energy, creativity, and health. Peggy, while standing in as Stan’s office mom/sister/nurse/object of affection, busted Beardy for replacing his emotional response to the death of his 20-year-old cousin Robbie with drugs and sex. Her caregiving role did not end there, as we see her tend to a distraught Ted and check in on an absent and bananas Don. While all women in the SCDPCGC office end up tending to one man or another, Peggy is left taking care of three. There’s a value in not letting yourself become a complete mess at work, but one is left wondering if the tables were turned and Peggy was the one needing help whether her coworkers would view her as any less capable in or deserving of her position of authority.

Speaking of positions of authority, there’s big sister/substitute mother Sally. Sally! It’s been too long! As much as I was hoping for an episode centered on her, wearing miniskirts while questioning an intruder are not exactly the sort of madcap adventure I was hoping to see our favorite 14-year-old in. Given the parenting failures of Betty and Don (emphasis on the latter this week), it should be no surprise that the adults lean on Sally to take care of her two younger brothers. However, we quickly see that she is no replacement for a full-fledged adult, as she unsuccessfully attempts to handle Ida the Intruder (the discovery of whom interrupted her bedtime reading, Rosemary’s Baby, another story of significant replacements). Most of “Grandma” Ida’s success in deluding Sally has to do with her own self-admitted lack of knowledge of her dad (welcome to the club, Sally Whitman). Ida could replace Sally’s void of Don-formation with just about anything without being tripped up in a lie. After all, as Don admits to Sally, he left the back door open in more ways than one. I guess it helps if the apartment you’re ransacking is owned by someone with a replacement identity and past.

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Dear Ms. Opinionated,

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I want to invite one of my exes-turned-into-a-friend to my upcoming wedding. My fiancé, who is not ever the jealous type nor the controlling type, has absolutely put his foot down. How do I convince him? Should I even try? Am I totally in the wrong here?

I will admit up-front that I have a long-standing bias on this issue as someone who remains friends with a lot of exes for whom I still have (non-relationship) feelings and with whom I have no interest in getting back together. I think especially in a day and age in which many people — even most people — have relationships both big and small that don’t work out for tons of reasons unrelated to unrequited love or unforgivable behavior on one partner’s part, there are some great reasons to keep someone you care about in your life, but in a different capacity than just an “ex” (for those people for whom it makes sense). And, as one of those people for whom it often does make sense, I have zero tolerance for a new partner’s jealous behavior towards an ex/friend, and never really have — after all, every current partner is, on a certain level, a potential ex (I’m a fatalist, what can I say?), and if a partner really can’t conceive of why me and an ex would be great friends after a relationship ended, that says a lot to me about how that partner views romantic attachments and friendships.

So, in general, my reaction would be… extraordinarily negative, were I in your shoes.

That said, you need to ask yourself a couple of serious questions and be really, really honest about them before I can give you carte blanche to take what I think is the general high ground on this issue.

Do you really have zero romantical feelings for your ex/friend? Does s/he appear to have any for you? What is your fiancé’s awareness of and/or opinion of those? If you have an ongoing sexual attraction to your ex/friend, does that violate anything spoken or unspoken-but-understood in your relationship with your fiancé? Do you think your ex/friend has an ongoing sexual attraction to you? How do you feel about that? How does your fiancé feel about your feelings and those of your ex/friend? Are you inviting your ex/friend because you want that person to be part of your special day, or to show off in any way? Is your fiancé opposed to the friendship, or just the wedding attendance?

In other words, if things don’t appear to be “done” in all the ways that you or your fiancé needs them to be done, there are things you have to talk about, openly and honestly — everything from why you might be attracted to other people from time to time (normal) to what, if anything, you’re likely to want to do about it and whether you would do anything about it and how that fits into your understanding with your fiancé. Maybe you need to talk more about why that relationship ended and how you’ve moved on from the romantic phase of it, or not, and why none of that impacts how you see your marriage. Or maybe you do still carry a bit of a torch for the person and you need to figure out what that means to you, for you, and for both your friendship with the one and your relationship with your fiancé.

And if things are really done but for whatever reason your fiancé doesn’t see it, then it’s incumbent on him to explain what he’s seeing that you’re not and for the two of you to honestly assess whether that is a truthful, patriarchal-baggage free analysis of the situation or a bunch of hooey about the fact that you might have loved and/or fucked someone before him and don’t hate the person because that’s not required after a break-up to get over someone.

Finally, if this is all some thing about the ex/friend showing up for the wedding but not about you two being friends, I hate to break out the -zilla here because maybe your fiancé is totally chill about everything else, but dude needs to get chiller about this. If you’d invite the ex/friend to any other party, there’s no reason to leave him or her out of this one unless s/he is going to be all mopey-faced and terrible (in which case, see also: things you probably need to discuss with your ex/friend and also give credit to your fiancé for recognizing).

(Full disclosure: I’ve also been the ex/friend at three weddings off the top of my head, and was really happy to share my friends’ special days with them, our friends and their families. Also knowing too well that, for some people, my attendance might have been an issue, I also appreciated and respected their now-wives more than I did before their weddings for wanting and having me there. So there’s that possibility for your fiancé to consider, too.)

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In the past couple of days I have had weird dreams about my wife. The first dream went like this: She wasn’t feeling too well so I took her to see the doctor. At the clinic/hospital, there was a sea of doctors to choose from. Trying to lighten her mood, I asked her to pick a cute/good looking one (I don’t think I really specified male or female). She then picked a male doctor, who happened to be someone I knew from medical school (we were classmates). He came along and I started to tell him about her symptoms (a fever, etc), she told me I didn’t know exactly how she felt (in a nice way) and shooed me away. Next I found myself in some kind of vantage position (picture being on the top bunk of a bunk bed and looking down on the bottom bunk over the edge). The doctor started examining/treating her and then I saw that he started fingering her and my wife was moaning. I don’t really know what happened afterwards but next thing I recall is my wife coming out to meet me in a waiting room with that smile and after-sex/after-orgasm glow. I woke up shortly after.

Second dream: We were in our apartment and I was in the living room and she was in the bedroom with another woman (I don’t think I know who it was). It seemed like they were either just cleaning or talking. The next thing I recall is that they were making love. I did not see them in the act and I somehow didn’t have the willpower to get up to go to the bedroom to actually look at them but from the sounds it was clear what they were up to. While I was in the living room, I happened to be watching porn on the TV. Then I vaguely recall them climaxing in the room and I in the living room.

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It’s not often that a comment makes us laugh out loud, but this one did. There’s just something about a hater that can brighten the day. The best thing about it: we’d understand if this were in response to one of our more political, opinionated posts on, say, gender inequities or abortion rights, but 5 Easy Ways to Talk Dirtier Tonight is a simple advice column with some little tips and tricks for the tongue-tied to spice things up. Who knew it was such a touchy subject? Behold, “Sexual Being”‘s wallop:

This is the worst article I have ever read on any subject. Please don’t ever write anything ever again. You have contributed nothing to the sexually active community. The only people who would benefit from this article are five year olds. Please, please, PLEASE quit this job and go on a journey of self discovery. You are not a writer.

Oh, and by the way S.B., our seven books — including our latest AWARD-WINNING one — would beg to differ with your last point.

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by Maureen Connolly, Executive Editor of KnowMore.tv 

Monday’s New York Times op-ed piece from Angelina Jolie announcing her decision to have both of her breasts surgically removed in order to drastically reduce her chances of developing a genetic form of breast cancer was met with praise and support around the globe. Readers applauded her bravery, as well as her choice to publicly share this very personal ordeal. Jolie inherited a mutated form of a gene known as BRCA1 that, in her case, results in a lifetime chance of breast cancer of up to 87 percent and lifetime risk of ovarian cancer of 40 percent or more. Jolie’s mother died at age 56 after a 10-year battle with ovarian cancer.

Jolie’s motivation for being so pro-active is quite simple: her children. “I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can,” wrote Jolie.

Her revelation, however, raises many questions for women including, how do you inherit a defective BRCA gene, how do you know if you have one, and is a double mastectomy your only option if you discover you carry a defective gene.

Defective BRCA1 and BRCA2  genes can be passed down from your mother or father. These gene defects are considered rare, estimated to occur in less than a half percent of the general population without breast or ovarian cancer, and in five to 10 percent of women with breast or ovarian cancer.  BRCA1 and 2 mutations are also rare in women who first develop breast cancer over 50, but more common in women who first develop breast cancer in their 30’s and 40s. (More facts about BRCA genes.)

If you have a family member affected with breast or ovarian cancer, but their BRCA1 or 2 status is unknown, then this family member should be tested first.  If they are negative for a mutation, then you should not be tested.

Is Double Mastectomy the Treatment of Choice?

For women carrying the defective gene who want the greatest reduction of risk for developing breast cancer, a double mastectomy is the most viable option at this point. (Yet even after removing both breasts, a woman with BRCA1 mutation will still have a cancer risk of 5 to 10 percent since there is no way to completely remove all breast tissue with surgery.)

Carol Fabian, MD, a breast medical oncologist and director of the Breast Cancer Prevention at the University of Kansas, says it’s important to note that for women between 35 and 40 facing the same situation as Jolie, there are viable alternatives to removing their breasts. “Another option for Jolie would have been to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes, but keep her breasts and have twice yearly breast imaging, alternating with breast MRI and mammography, and twice yearly exams.” By taking this route, Dr. Fabian says a BRCA- positive woman could reduce her chances of developing breast cancer by 50 to 70 percent and reduce the ovarian cancer risk by 80 to 95 percent.

But when facing cancer, every reduction in risk matters, and so do statistics about mortality. The type of breast cancer that occurs in 50 percent of BRCA 1 mutation carriers like Jolie—triple negative breast cancer, or TNBC—is three times more fatal than all other breast cancers (even accounting for chemotherapy and radiation therapies). You begin to understand why a woman would choose to pre-emptively remove her breasts and ovaries.

But given the reality these women face —cutting off and out body parts with major surgeries that carry their own risk of serious complications, including breast reconstruction surgery, instant menopause from ovary removal, and permanent loss of sensation to the breasts— and the advances in other areas of medicine, the question that needs to be addressed is why are these drastic measures our only options?

“There’s a certain tragic component to all of this,” says Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D, an immunologist at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, referring to the surgery Ms. Jolie and thousands of other women in the U.S. have each year; he estimates the Cleveland Clinic alone does around forty prophylactic mastectomies per year. “Angelina did something defensively because she is in a situation where her only option is surgery—so she dealt with it now by removing her breasts, says Dr. Tuohy. “In other cases, we wait until the breast cancer is discovered, and then we proactively attack the tumor with all sorts of offense, including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.”

A Breast Cancer Vaccine: We Might Be Closer Than We Think

Dr. Tuohy believes we can do better by women, and he’s spent the last eleven years working with a team of researchers in the hopes of finding a better way to control breast cancer: a simple preventive vaccine.

To date, his research has involved mice and experiments with human breast tumors, and specifically TNBC. Dr. Tuohy’s vaccine targets proteins that are overexpressed in TNBC, but not expressed in any other normal human tissues except lactating breasts. “The vaccine has the potential both to treat and prevent TNBC and would likely be particularly useful for women who have finished breastfeeding and are at high risk for developing breast cancer”, says Dr. Tuohy, “It would provide pre-emptive immunity against emerging triple negative tumors.”

If the initial research looks so promising, why aren’t researchers rushing to get the human trials underway? Lack of funding, says Dr. Tuohy, who has applied for more than a dozen grants and been turned down for all of them. Some of the reasons given included concerns that the vaccine would cause autoimmune complications and that the proteins that need to be targeted are not expressed in human breast tumors.

Despite this, he’s not discouraged. He senses a shift in how the medical community is viewing the research and he believes that this changing perspective may soon make it possible to prove the effectiveness and safety of this breast cancer vaccine

Related Link: 3 Food Combos That Can Improve Your Health

“We need to promote more of the innovative research such as the type Dr. Tuohy is doing,” says Dr. Fabian. “I think part of the resistance may be because he’s an immunologist rather than someone with a track record in cancer research. But really, we need to be looking at other alternatives and I think he’s on to something.”

If the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute is able to raise six million dollars they could begin the clinical trial process to determine the dose and safety profile of the vaccine for use in women. Advanced clinical trials to test efficacy of the vaccine would require another round of funding, and the whole testing process would take about ten years from start to finish. Assuming each phase of the testing is successful, and the vaccine wins FDA approval, the vaccine could be available in 10 years.

Being open to the idea of a vaccine for breast cancer is one thing, shifting the current paradigm of how we fund breast cancer is quite another, says Breast Cancer Surgeon Kathleen Ruddy, MD, a founder, president, and executive director of the Breast Health & Healing Foundation, and author of the forthcoming book on a breast cancer virus.

“Breast cancer is a huge and varied industry and one that is highly profitable and may not necessarily be inclined to sacrifice itself on the altar of prevention,” says Dr. Ruddy. “Of the estimated $50 billion devoted to breast cancer (diagnosis, treatment, support, philanthropy, and research) less than two percent is spent either on understanding the causes of the disease or working toward primary prevention of the disease.”

The idea that we could vaccinate against cancers is a relatively new idea, but now we have proof of concept with the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.  The possibility of other effective and protective cancer vaccines is now within reach.

“We believe that this vaccine may someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children,” says Dr. Tuohy.

“Someday” may have been too far off for Jolie. But should one or both of Jolie’s two biological daughters inherit the defective BRCA1 gene, surely their mom and dad would be thrilled knowing a single vaccine could be given to help prevent and/or treat this insidious disease.

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by Alison Jimenez, NYC Recessionista

It may be almost eight years since I went on my last first date, but the near-crippling indecision of what to wear on a date is still all too fresh in my mind. There are so many things going on in a woman’s mind when they’re trying to find that perfect date outfit, and so many variables to consider:

1. I want to look cute, but not like I’m trying to look cute.

2. What on earth do I wear to a baseball game?

3. How am I going to get on his motorcycle in a skirt?

4. If I wear this cocktail ring and he goes to hold my hand, will it be in the way?

5. I am always freezing at the movies, but I don’t want to wear too many layers.

If you’ve had thoughts like these before, then you know exactly what I am talking about. The problem is, we want our date night looks to be completely effortless. We don’t want to be seen tugging on our dress straps, fidgeting with our panty hose or pulling up our bras at any point during the evening; it ruins the illusion of perfection that we’re always trying to create (that is, until we’re on date four or five, and we can start to let little bits and pieces of our real selves show).

Well, now that summer is almost upon us, it’s time to start thinking about all of those great date nights that could be filling up your social calendars very soon. And in order to help put your date wardrobe fears to rest, I’ve put together some outfit ideas for several possible warm weather date scenarios.

For a Ballgame Date …

Just because you’re going on a sportier date doesn’t mean you can’t wear a skirt or a dress. Just look for more athletic details and casual, laid-back pieces and you’ll definitely score big points.

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MINEOLA, N.Y. — As a family prepared for the funeral of a Hofstra University junior killed by a police officer’s bullet during a standoff with an armed intruder, some on Monday questioned whether officers should have confronted the gunman or waited for help, including a hostage negotiating team.

The dead woman’s godfather criticized the police handling of the confrontation as unprofessional and others offered insights into the difficulty of making the call to use deadly force.

“There’s a balancing act of trying to take decisive action, but wise action,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College. “These situations are so unique and are differentiated by what the cops knew at the time.”

A key question is whether the officers responding to the house near the Hofstra campus at 2:30 a.m. Friday were aware the intruder was holding hostages. Police officials described the initial report as simply a robbery in progress.

One of the two officers who entered the home found the intruder holding 21-year-old Andrea Rebello in a headlock and “kept saying

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By Bryan Graham

NEW YORK CITY — Three men were indicted on drug trafficking charges after police seized nearly 20 pounds of heroin and crystal meth worth more than $2 million, prosecutors announced Monday.

The New York State Police nabbed the men in red-handed with a hefty 6.6 pound bag of heroin at the intersection of East 212th Street and Dekalb Avenue in The Bronx on April 9, after trailing the trio from the alleged stash house at 24-24 96th St. in Queens, according to court papers.

One of the suspects, Miguel Mercado-Guelen, 33, who lives at the two-level apartment in Corona, was due to be arraigned Monday in Manhattan on conspiracy and drug possession charges.

Mercado-Guelen, who according to prosecutors was deported in 2003 and illegally returned to the United States, also faces charges for drug paraphernalia and weapons possession. He sometimes goes by the name Tony Perez, prosecutors said.

The other suspects are Diego Estevez, who was arraigned on May 1 with bail set at $500,000, and Henry Nunez, who was arraigned on May 6 with bail set at $200,000, prosecutors said. Estevez, a Brooklyn resident, and Estevez, a Danbury, Conn. resident, were charged with conspiracy and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

A search of the alleged stash house yielded more than 3 pounds of “black tar” heroin, nearly 9 pounds of methamphetamine, a 9-millimeter handgun and a loaded magazine clip, authorities said.

Also recovered was a ledger of crystal meth transactions, $2,000 hidden inside a vent and supplies for packaging narcotics, including masks, grinders, a kilo-press and a scale, prosecutors said.

The meth, which was in smokable form, was believed to have originated from Mexico and carries a street value of about $960,000, according to Bridget Brennan, the city’s special narcotics prosecutor.

“This seizure is typical of a pattern that we’ve seen developing in our narcotics investigations across the city,” Brennan said.

According to the city’s Department of Health, emergency room visits related to meth more than doubled between 2004 and 2011, climbing from 214 to 576.

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NEW YORK — A New York Police Department detective told a federal judge that he’s seen no evidence that one of his informants brought up the subject of jihad as a way to bait Muslims into making incriminating remarks. But text messages obtained by The Associated Press show otherwise.

And while the detective, Stephen Hoban, described the activities in a new legal filing in U.S. District Court as narrowly focused on a few people under investigation, text messages show a wide-ranging effort. Eager to make money, Shamiur Rahman, the informant, snapped pictures during prayer sessions, rallies and a parade; recorded the names of people who signed petitions or protested; and reported fellow Muslims who volunteered to feed needy families.

When the detective responded, his text messages nearly always sought more information:

“Did you take pictures?”

“I need pictures from the rally. And I need to know who is there.”

“Get pictures”

Rahman told the AP last year that he made about $9,000 over nine months spying widely on friends and others. He said the NYPD encouraged him to use a tactic called “create and capture.” He said it involved creating conversations about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the responses and sending them to the NYPD.

Now, as the NYPD defends itself from allegations by civil rights lawyers that such tactics violated a longstanding federal court order, the department said Rahman was either lying or didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Rahman was never tasked to, nor did he as far as I know, engage in what he refers to as a

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Kim Kardashian has endured way too much abuse for her weight gain during pregnancy, her sister Khloe writes in a letter Kim posted on her blog.

“I find it disturbing that society loves to critique a woman’s shape no matter how beautiful or happy she may be within herself,” Khloe writes, noting she’s been herself prone “to public attacking in regards to my body or appearance.

Khloe wrote anyone who dares to “criticize a woman who is growing another life inside of her is true scum in my eyes,” noting that this should be the “most memorable and beautiful” time of her sister’s life, as she’s carrying boyfriend Kanye West’s child.

“I would hurt for her for years if all she remembers is the pain and emotional abuse she has received from so many vicious people,” Khloe wrote, telling the haters to “stop being so careless with your words.

“Kim, you may be one of the strongest people I know. I have no idea how you endure such abuse but still smile and shine everyday! I commend you for not putting your head down and going into hiding like so many would.”

“I wish you could see how you have this pregnant glow and you sparkle everyday!” Khloe wrote at the end of the post. “I couldn

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