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Are You With The Right Mate?
Home » Are You With The Right Mate?
By anewyou
In Relationship Topics
Are You With The Right Mate?2016-05-152017-03-09/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/a-new-you-logo-for-web.pngA New You Counseling/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/a-new-you-logo-for-web.png200px200px
At some point in every relationship it’s natural to ask whether your partner is the right one for you. But if that’s as far as you go, you’re missing the opportunity of your life.
By Rebecca Webber, published on January 01, 2012 – last reviewed on January 10, 2012
Elliott Katz was stunned to find himself in the middle of a divorce after two kids and 10 years of marriage. The Torontonian, a policy analyst for the Ottawa government, blamed his wife. “She just didn’t appreciate all I was doing to make her happy.” He fed the babies, and he changed their diapers. He gave them their baths, he read them stories, and put them to bed. Before he left for work in the morning, he made them breakfast. He bought a bigger house and took on the financial burden, working evenings to bring in enough money so his wife could stay home full-time.
He thought the solution to the discontent was for her to change. But once on his own, missing the daily interaction with his daughters, he couldn’t avoid some reflection. “I didn’t want to go through this again. I asked whether there was something I could have done differently. After all, you can wait years for someone else to change.”
What he decided was, indeed, there were some things he could have done differently—like not tried as hard to be so noncontrolling that his wife felt he had abandoned decision-making entirely. His wife, he came to understand, felt frustrated, as if she were “a married single parent,” making too many of the plans and putting out many of the fires of family life, no matter how many chores he assumed.
Ultimately, he stopped blaming his wife for their problems. “You can’t change another person. You can only change yourself,” he says. “Like lots of men today,” he has since found, “I was very confused about my role as partner.” After a few post-divorce years in the mating wilderness, Katz came to realize that framing a relationship in terms of the right or wrong mate is by itself a blind alley.
“We’re given a binary model,” says New York psychotherapist Ken Page. “Right or wrong. Settle or leave. We are not given the right tools to think about relationships. People need a better set of options.”
Sooner or later, there comes a moment in all relationships when you lie in bed, roll over, look at the person next to you and think it’s all a dreadful mistake, says Boston family therapist Terrence Real. It happens a few months to a few years in. “It’s an open secret of American culture that disillusionment exists. I go around the country speaking about ‘normal marital hatred.’ Not one person has ever asked what I mean by that. It’s extremely raw.”
What to do when the initial attraction sours? “I call it the first day of your real marriage,” Real says. It’s not a sign that you’ve chosen the wrong partner. It is the signal to grow as an individual—to take responsibility for your own frustrations. Invariably, we yearn for perfection but are stuck with an imperfect human being. We all fall in love with people we think will deliver us from life’s wounds but who wind up knowing how to rub against us.
A new view of relationships and their discontents is emerging. We alone are responsible for having the relationship we want. And to get it, we have to dig deep into ourselves while maintaining our connections. It typically takes a dose of bravery—what Page calls “enlightened audacity.” Its brightest possibility exists, ironically, just when the passion seems most totally dead. If we fail to plumb ourselves and speak up for our deepest needs, which admittedly can be a scary prospect, life will never feel authentic, we will never see ourselves with any clarity, and everyone will always be the wrong partner.
Romance itself seeds the eventual belief that we have chosen the wrong partner. The early stage of a relationship, most marked by intense attraction and infatuation, is in many ways akin to cocaine intoxication, observes Christine Meinecke, a clinical psychologist in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s orchestrated, in part, by the neurochemicals associated with intense pleasure. Like a cocaine high, it’s not sustainable.
But for the duration—and experts give it nine months to four years—infatuation has one overwhelming effect: Research shows that it makes partners overestimate their similarities and idealize each other. We’re thrilled that he loves Thai food, travel, and classic movies, just like us. And we overlook his avid interest in old cars and online poker.
Eventually, reality rears its head. “Infatuation fades for everyone,” says Meinecke, author of Everybody Marries the Wrong Person. That’s when you discover your psychological incompatibility, and disenchantment sets in. Suddenly, a switch is flipped, and now all you can see are your differences. “You’re focusing on what’s wrong with them. They need to get the message about what they need to change.”
You conclude you’ve married the wrong person—but that’s because you’re accustomed to thinking, Cinderella-like, that there is only one right person.
The consequences of such a pervasive belief are harsh. We engage in destructive behaviors, like blaming our partner for our unhappiness or searching for someone outside the relationship.
Along with many other researchers and clinicians, Meinecke espouses a new marital paradigm—what she calls “the self-responsible spouse.” When you start focusing on what isn’t so great, it’s time to shift focus. “Rather than look at the other person, you need to look at yourself and ask, ‘Why am I suddenly so unhappy and what do I need to do?'” It’s not likely a defect in your partner.
In mature love, says Meinecke, “we do not look to our partner to provide our happiness, and we don’t blame them for our unhappiness. We take responsibility for the expectations that we carry, for our own negative emotional reactions, for our own insecurities, and for our own dark moods.”
But instead of looking at ourselves, or understanding the fantasies that bring us to such a pass, we engage in a thought process that makes our differences tragic and intolerable, says William Doherty, professor of psychology and head of the marriage and family therapy program at the University of Minnesota. It’s one thing to say, “I wish my spouse were more into the arts, like I am.” Or, “I wish my partner was not just watching TV every night but interested in getting out more with me.” That’s something you can fix.
It’s quite another to say, “This is intolerable. I need and deserve somebody who shares my core interests.” The two thought processes are likely to trigger differing actions. It’s possible to ask someone to go out more.
It’s not going to be well received to ask someone for a personality overhaul, notes Doherty, author of Take Back Your Marriage.
No one is going to get all their needs met in a relationship, he insists. He urges fundamental acceptance of the person we choose and the one who chooses us. “We’re all flawed. With parenting, we know that comes with the territory. With spouses, we say ‘This is terrible.'”
The culture, however, pushes us in the direction of discontent. “Some disillusionment and feelings of discouragement are normal in the love-based matches in our culture,” explains Doherty. “But consumer culture tells us we should not settle for anything that is not ideal for us.”
As UCLA psychologist Thomas Bradbury puts it, “You don’t have a line-item veto when it comes to your partner. It’s a package deal; the bad comes with the good.”
Further, he says, it’s too simplistic an interpretation that your partner is the one who’s wrong. “We tend to point our finger at the person in front of us. We’re fairly crude at processing some information. We tend not to think, ‘Maybe I’m not giving her what she needs.’ ‘Maybe he’s disgruntled because I’m not opening up to him.’ Or, ‘Maybe he’s struggling in his relationships with other people.’ The more sophisticated question is, ‘In what ways are we failing to make one another happy?'”
Now in a long-term relationship, Toronto’s Katz has come to believe that “Marriage is not about finding the right person. It’s about becoming the right person. Many people feel they married the wrong person, but I’ve learned that it’s truly about growing to become a better husband.”
What’s most noticeable about Sarah and Mark Holdt of Estes Park, Colorado, is their many differences. “He’s a Republican, I’m a Democrat. He’s a traditional Christian, I’m an agnostic. He likes meat and potatoes, I like more adventurous food,” says Sarah. So Mark heads off to church and Bible study every week, while Sarah takes a “Journeys” class that considers topics like the history of God in America. “When he comes home, I’ll ask, ‘What did you learn in Bible Study?'” she says. And she’ll share her insights from her own class with him.
But when Sarah wants to go to a music festival and Mark wants to stay home, “I just go,” says Sarah. “I don’t need to have him by my side for everything.” He’s there when it matters most—at home, at the dinner table, in bed. “We both thrive on touch,” says Sarah, “so we set our alarm a half hour early every morning and take that time to cuddle.” They’ve been married for 14 years.
It takes a comfortable sense of self and deliberate effort to make relationships commodious enough to tolerate such differences. What’s striking about the Holdts is the time they take to share what goes on in their lives—and in their heads—when they are apart. Research shows that such “turning toward” each other and efforts at information exchange, even in routine matters, are crucial to maintaining the emotional connection between partners.
Say one partner likes to travel and the other doesn’t. “If you view this with a feeling of resentment, that’s going to hurt, over and over again,” says Doherty. If you can accept it, that’s fine—provided you don’t start living in two separate worlds.
“What you don’t want to do,” he says, “is develop a group of single travel friends who, when they are on the road, go out and flirt with others. You start doing things you’re not comfortable sharing with your mate.” Most often, such large differences are accompanied by so much disappointment that partners react in ways that do not support the relationship.
The available evidence suggests that women more than men bring some element of fantasy into a relationship. Women generally initiate more breakups and two-thirds of divorces, becoming more disillusioned than men. They compare their mates with their friends much more than men do, says Doherty.
He notes, “They tend to have a model or framework for what the relationship should be. They are more prone to the comparison between what they have and what they think they should have. Men tend to monitor the gap between what they have and what they think they deserve only in the sexual arena. They don’t monitor the quality of their marriage on an everyday basis.”
To the extent that people have an ideal partner and an ideal relationship in their head, they are setting themselves up for disaster, says family expert Michelle Givertz, assistant professor of communication studies at California State University, Chico. Relationship identities are negotiated between two individuals. Relationships are not static ideals; they are always works in progress.
To enter a relationship with an idea of what it should look like or how it should evolve is too controlling, she contends. It takes two people to make a relationship. One person doesn’t get to decide what it should be. And to the extent that he or she does, the other partner is not going to be happy.
“People can spend their lives trying to make a relationship into something it isn’t, based on an idealized vision of what should be, not what is,” she says. She isn’t sure why, but she finds that such misplaced expectations are increasing. Or, as Doherty puts it, “A lot of the thinking about being married to the wrong mate is really self-delusion.”
Sometimes, however, we really do choose the wrong person—someone ultimately not interested in or capable of meeting our needs, for any of a number of possible reasons. At the top of the list of people who are generally wrong for anyone are substance abusers—whether the substance is alcohol, prescription drugs, or illicit drugs—who refuse to get help for the problem.
“An addict’s primary loyalty is not to the relationship, it’s to the addiction,” explains Ken Page. “Active addicts become cheaper versions of themselves and lose integrity or the ability to do the right thing when it’s hard. Those are the very qualities in a partner you need to lean on.” Gamblers fall into the same compulsive camp, with the added twist that their pursuit of the big win typically lands them, sooner or later, into deep debt that threatens the foundations of relationship life.
People who cheated in one or more previous relationships are not great mate material. They destroy the trust and intimacy basic to building a relationship. It’s possible to make a case for a partner who cheats once, against his own values, but not for one who compulsively and repeatedly strays. Doherty considers such behavior among the “hard reasons” for relationship breakup, along with physical abuse and other forms of overcontrolling. “These are things that nobody should have to put up with in life,” he says.
But “drifting apart,” “poor communication,” and “we’re just not compatible anymore” are in a completely different category. Such “soft reasons,” he insists, are, by contrast, always two-way streets. “Nobody gets all the soft goodies in life,” he finds. “It’s often better to work on subtle ways to improve the relationship.”
In an ongoing marriage, he adds, “incompatibility is never the real reason for a divorce.” It’s a reason for breakup of a dating relationship. But when people say “she’s a nice person but we’re just not compatible,” Doherty finds, something happened in which both were participants and allowed the relationship to deteriorate. It’s a nice way to say you’re not blaming your partner.
The real reason is likely to be that neither attended to the relationship. Perhaps one or both partners threw themselves into parenting. Or a job. They stopped doing the things that they did when dating and that couples need to do to thrive as a partnership—take time for conversation, talk about how their day went or what’s on their mind. Or perhaps the real love was undermined by the inability to handle conflict.
“If you get to the point where you’re delivering an ultimatum,” says Bradbury, you haven’t been maintaining your relationship properly. “It’s like your car stopping on the side of the road and you say, ‘It just isn’t working anymore’— but you haven’t changed the oil in 10 years.” The heart of any relationship, he insists—what makes people the right mates for each other—is the willingness of both partners to be open and vulnerable; to listen and care about each other.
Although there are no guarantees, there are stable personal characteristics that are generally good and generally bad for relationships. On the good side: sense of humor; even temper; willingness to overlook your flaws; sensitivity to you and what you care about; ability to express caring. On the maladaptive side: chronic lying; chronic worrying or neuroticism; emotional overreactivity; proneness to anger; propensity to harbor grudges; low self-esteem; poor impulse control; tendency to aggression; self-orientation rather than an other-orientation. Situations, such as chronic exposure to nonmarital stress in either partner, also have the power to undermine relationships.
In addition, there are people who are specifically wrong for you, because they don’t share the values and goals you hold most dear. Differences in core values often plague couples who marry young, before they’ve had enough life experience to discover who they really are. Most individuals are still developing their belief systems through their late teens and early 20s and still refining their lifestyle choices. Of course, you have to know what you hold most dear, and that can be a challenge for anyone at any age, not just the young.
One of the most common reasons we choose the wrong partner is that we do not know who we are or what we really want. It’s hard to choose someone capable of understanding you and meeting your most guarded emotional needs and with whom your values are compatible when you don’t know what your needs or values are or haven’t developed the confidence to voice them unabashedly.
Maria Lin is a nonpracticing attorney who married a chef. “I valued character, connection, the heart,” she says. “He was charming, funny, treated me amazingly well, and we got along great.” But over time, intellectual differences got in the way. “He couldn’t keep up with my analysis or logic in arguments or reasoning through something, or he would prove less capable at certain things, or he would misspell or misuse terms. It was never anything major, just little things.”
Lin confides that she lost respect for her chef-husband. “I didn’t realize how important intellectual respect for my partner would end up being to me. I think this was more about not knowing myself well enough, and not knowing how being intellectually stimulated was important to me, and (even worse) how it would tie to that critical factor of respect.”
It is a fact that like the other basic pillars of life, such as work and children, marriage is not always going to be a source of satisfaction. No one is loved perfectly; some part of our authentic self is never going to be met by a partner. Sure, you can always draw a curtain over your heart. But that is not the only or the best response.
“Sometimes marriage is going to be a source of pain and sorrow,” says Givertz. “And that’s necessary for personal and interpersonal growth.” In fact, it’s impossible to be deliriously happy in marriage every moment if you are doing anything at all challenging in life, whether raising children, starting a business, or taking care of an aging parent.
Disillusionment becomes an engine for growth because it forces us to discover our needs. Knowing oneself, recognizing one’s needs, and speaking up for them in a relationship are often acts of bravery, says Page. Most of us are guarded about our needs, because they are typically our areas of greatest sensitivity and vulnerability.
“You have to discover—and be able to share—what touches you and moves you the most,” he observes. “But first, of course, you have to accept that in yourself. Few of us are skilled at this essential process for creating passion and romance. We’d rather complain.” Nevertheless, through this process, we clarify ourselves as we move through life.
At the same time, taking the risk to expose your inner life to your partner turns out to be the great opportunity for expanding intimacy and a sense of connection. This is the great power of relationships: Creating intimacy is the crucible for growing into a fully autonomous human being while the process of becoming a fully realized person expands the possibility for intimacy and connection. This is also the work that transforms a partner into the right partner.
Another crucial element of growth in relationships, says Givertz, is a transformation of motivation—away from self-centered preferences toward what is best for the relationship and its future. There is an intrapsychic change that sustains long-term relationships. Underlying it is a broadening process in which response patterns subtly shift. Accommodation (as opposed to retaliation) plays a role. So does sacrifice. So do willingness and ability to suppress an impulse to respond negatively to a negative provocation, no matter how personally satisfying it might feel in the moment. It requires the ability to hold in mind the long-term goals of the relationship. With motivation transformed, partners are more apt to take a moment to consider how to respond, rather than react reflexively in the heat of a moment.
In his most recent study of relationships, UCLA’s Bradbury followed 136 couples for 10 years, starting within six months of their marriage. All the couples reported high levels of satisfaction at the start and four years later. What Bradbury and his colleague Justin Lavner found surprising was that some couples who were so satisfied at the four-year pass eventually divorced, despite having none of the risk factors identified in previous studies of relationship dissolution—wavering commitment, maladaptive personality traits, high levels of stress.
The only elements that identified those who eventually divorced were negative and self-protective reactions during discussions of relationship difficulties and nonsupportive reactions in discussing a personal issue. Displays of anger, contempt, or attempts to blame or invalidate a partner augured poorly, even when the partners felt their marriage was functioning well overall, the researchers report in the Journal of Family Psychology. So did expressions of discouragement toward a partner talking about a personality feature he or she wanted to change.
In other words, the inability or unwillingness to suppress negative emotions in the heat of the moment eliminates the possibility of a transformation of motivation to a broader perspective than one’s own. Eventually, the cumulative impact of negative reactivity brings the relationship down.
“There is no such thing as two people meant for each other,” says Michelle Givertz. “It’s a matter of adjusting and adapting.” But you have to know yourself so that you can get your needs for affection, inclusion, and control met in the ways that matter most for you. Even then, successful couples redefine their relationship many times, says Meinecke. Relationships need to continually evolve to fit ever-changing circumstances. They need to incorporate each partner’s changes and find ways to meet their new needs.
“If both parties are willing to tackle the hard and vulnerable work of building love and healing conflict, they have a good chance to survive,” says Page. If one party is reluctant, “you might need to say to your partner, ‘I need this because I feel like we’re losing each other, and I don’t want that to happen.'”
In the end, says Minnesota’s Doherty, “We’re all difficult. Everyone who is married is a difficult spouse. We emphasize that our spouse is difficult and forget how we’re difficult for them.” If you want to have a mate in your life, he notes, you’re going to have to go through the process of idealization and disillusionment—if not with your current partner then with the next. And the next. “You could really mess up your kids as you pursue the ideal mate.” What’s more, studies show that, on average, people do not make a better choice the second time around. Most often, people just trade one set of problems for another.
Boston’s Real reports that he attended an anniversary party for friends who had been together 25 years. When someone commented on the longevity of the relationship, the husband replied: “Every morning I wake up, splash cold water on my face, and say out loud, ‘Well, you’re no prize either.'” While you’re busy being disillusioned with your partner, Real suggests, you’ll do better with a substantial dose of humility.”
There’s a difference between fighting for what you want in your relationship and being in direct control of your partner, demanding that he or she change, says Real.
Firmly stand up for your wants and needs in a relationship. “Most people don’t have the skill to speak up for and fight for what they want in a relationship,” he observes. “They don’t speak up, which preserves the love but builds resentment. Resentment is a choice; living resentfully means living unhappily. Or they speak up—but are not very loving.” Or they just complain. The art to speaking up, he says, is to transform a complaint into a request. Not “I don’t like how you’re talking to me,” but “Can you please lower your voice so I can hear you better?” If you’re trying to get what you want in a relationship, notes Real, it’s best to keep it positive and future-focused.
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Vertical line test app
The Vertical Line Test: Let's look at the vertical line test. So, how do you feel about identifying whether or not a relation is a function? By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie PolicyPrivacy Policyand our Terms of Service. Let's look at our relation, b that we used in our relations example in the previous lesson. Aapeli 1 3 I drew the vertical lines output on the graph to demonstrate what it would look like. Unless asked, you really don't need to draw the vertical lines, you can just imagine the vertical line, or I have my students use the edge of a sheet of paper and move it across the graph. Difference between horizontal and vertical line tests.
Vertical Line Test
Using the Vertical Line Test to Identify Functions
CK12 Foundation
Mathwords Horizontal Line Test
Vertical Line Test. Shodor > Interactivate > Activities > Vertical Line Test. Find us in the App Store.
Learner. Activity. Help. Instructor. tab0 content.
Your web. The Vertical Line Test Main Concept The requirement that each input to a function Applications and Example Worksheets; Math Apps; Algebra and Geometry.
Video: Vertical line test app The Vertical Line Test
Improve your math knowledge with free questions in "Identify functions: vertical line test" and thousands of other math skills.
So in short, if you have a curve, the vertical line test checks if that curve is a function, and the horizontal line test checks whether the inverse of that curve is a function.
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks! Example 1 Let's look at our relation, b that we used in our relations example in the previous lesson.
If you have duplicate inputs and they are paired with different outputs, then the relation is not a function. Yes, this is a function - remember that the outputs can be duplicated as long as the inputs are different.
Vertical line test app Comments We would love to hear what you have to say about this page!
A curve in the xy -plane is the graph of a function of x if and only if no vertical line intersects the curve more than once. So in short, if you have a curve, the vertical line test checks if that curve is a function, and the horizontal line test checks whether the inverse of that curve is a function.
A function is a relation a set of ordered pairs where the value of one variable depends on the value of the other variable. Let's look at our relation, b that we used in our relations example in the previous lesson.
Using the Vertical Line Test A function is a relation a set of ordered pairs where the value of one variable depends on the value of the other variable.
In mathematics, the vertical line test is a visual way to determine if a curve is a graph of a function or not.
A function can only have one output, y, for each unique. You can check whether a graph represents a function by using the vertical line test. The vertical line test is to check if a curve is a function.
If at some point the function crosses a vertical line twice, it's telling you that there are two.
Let's analyze our ordered pairs first. The vertical line test is always a good technique to use if you are unsure or want to justify your answer. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered. If the vertical line touches in more than one point, then it is NOT a function.
Is each input only paired with only one output?
Wie bekaempft man eifersuchtig englisch Post Your Answer Discard By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of serviceprivacy policy and cookie policyand that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.
I know it can be a little confusing. If the vertical line you drew intersects the graph more than once for any value of x then the graph is not the graph of a function.
Is this relation a function? Views Read Edit View history. As another example, a sideways parabola one whose directrix is a vertical line is not the graph of a function because some vertical lines will intersect the parabola twice.
Functions can have no more than one y value for each x value.
If a vertical line passes through a graph more than once, it means that that x value has more than. Vertical Line Test. The vertical line test is a quick way to determine if a given relationship is a function. In this lesson, you'll learn more about functions and how.
Views Read Edit View history.
If a vertical line intersects a curve on an xy -plane more than once then for one value of x the curve has more than one value of yand so, the curve does not represent a function. A curve in the xy -plane is the graph of a function of x if and only if no vertical line intersects the curve more than once.
This special test is used when you graph the ordered pairs. Let's look at a couple of examples to clarify this definition. This page was last edited on 29 Octoberat Let's verify it with the vertical line test.
Vertical line test app The Vertical Line Test: Connect and Follow Algebra Class.
Aapeli 1 3 Let's look at a couple of examples to clarify this definition. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Let's verify it with the vertical line test. However, in a function, each input x coordinate may be paired with only ONE output y coordinate.
2 thoughts on “Vertical line test app”
Mam:
I drew the vertical lines output on the graph to demonstrate what it would look like. Think about our little function machine - you cannot put in a 3 and get out a 0, and then put in another 3 and get out a
Zuluzragore:
Let's look at a couple of examples to clarify this definition. If you have duplicate inputs and they are paired with different outputs, then the relation is not a function.
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Women's Peace Union records, 1921-1941 [bulk 1929-1940]
The Women's Peace Union (WPU), founded in 1921, was a national organization committed to personal refusal to support war and to promote legislation outlawing war. The WPU was in favor of total independent disarmament by the U.S. and its main... more
The Women's Peace Union (WPU), founded in 1921, was a national organization committed to personal refusal to support war and to promote legislation outlawing war. The WPU was in favor of total independent disarmament by the U.S. and its main program was the passage of a constitutional amendment, known as the Independent Disarmament Amendment, which would make war, preparation for war or appropriations for war illegal. The WPU ceased operations in 1940. Collection consists of correspondence, minutes, reports, financial records, writings, and ephemera of the Women's Peace Union. Bulk of the correspondence dates from 1929 to 1940 and includes letters among committee members regarding planning and strategy, fundraising, news from other pacifist organizations, and conferences and meetings. Minutes cover some of the years from 1921 to 1940 and document activities of the members. Financial records, 1922-1939, contain treasurers' reports and records of expenditures and contributions. Writings of WPU members and supporters include articles, addresses, speeches, fiction, and poetry which reflect the pacifist position. Also, printed materials, signed petitions and appeals, photographs, and minutes of the United Pacifist Committee for 1939. less
Eichelberger, Clark M. (Clark Mell), 1896-1980
Clark M. Eichelberger papers, 1920-1991
, 216 linear feet (216 boxes)
Clark Mell Eichelberger (1896-1980) was a lecturer on national and international affairs with the Radcliffe Chautauqua System from 1922 to 1928. He was appointed director of the mid-West office of the League of Nations Association in 1928 and... more
Clark Mell Eichelberger (1896-1980) was a lecturer on national and international affairs with the Radcliffe Chautauqua System from 1922 to 1928. He was appointed director of the mid-West office of the League of Nations Association in 1928 and became director of the national organization in 1934. The name of the organization was changed to the American Association of the United Nations (A.A.U.N.) in 1945 and Eichelberger continued to serve as executive director until 1964. When the A.A.U.N. was merged with the United States Committee for the United Nations to form a new organization called the United Nations Association of the U.S.A., Eichelberger served as vice-president of the organization until 1968. He became increasingly involved with the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace which he helped to found in 1939 and became director (1939-1964), chairman (1964-1968) and executive director (1968-1974) of the Commission. He was associated with or helped to establish several other U.S. and international peace and world government organizations. Eichelberger also served as consultant to the League of Nations Secretariat, the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco Conference in 1945, and was a member of the committee which created the first draft of the charter of the United Nations. He authored several books on the United Nations. Collection consists of personal papers of Clark M. Eichelberger and records of organizations of which he was an official. Personal papers contain his writings, research notes, sound recordings of his radio broadcasts about the United Nations, oral history interviews, and personal miscellany including papers relative to his career as lecturer with the Radcliffe Chautauqua System. Bulk of the organizational records consists of records, 1920-1944, of the League of Nations Association; records, 1942-1965, of its successor, American Association for the United Nations; and records, 1939-1981, of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace. There are also records of the American Union for Concerted Peace Efforts, Americans United for World Organization, Citizens for Victory, Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, and Free World Association. Organizational records include correspondence of the executive directors and other officials, minutes, press releases, photographs, periodicals, phonotapes, moving-picture films, clippings, printed ephemera, and other records. less
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Home > Painters > Salvador Dali
Representing the figurative side of the modern Surrealist movement, this Spanish-born painter, illustrator and writer has single-handedly made Surrealism (see) an international commodity. From the beginning an enfant terrible, he has created a stir wherever he has gone: at school in Madrid; exhibiting in Madrid and Barcelona; studying in Paris, and exhibiting his very provocative works there. In 1931 he collaborated on a Surrealist film, The Golden Age, and in 1934 illustrated Lautreaumont’s Les Chants de Maldoror. Since 1940 he has been living in the United States, which has embraced his somewhat sensational ideas. After a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1941 his Secret Life of Salvador Dali was published in 1942. The publicity surrounding this painter must be separated from his significance.as an artist, especially in view of the avowed shock aims of the Surrealist school in general. The painting method of Dali may be described as a creation in paint of a far-reaching dream-world space in which move clearly and coldly painted figures. These figures arbitrarily bring together incongruous details and forms-as Bosch had done in the fifteenth century and Chagall in the early twentieth. Apart from its disconcerting effect, this method prods the imagination and the conscious mind into new avenues of thought, presumably under the influence of the subconscious or the dream world from which the images are drawn. Few people will deny that these works are stimulating and thought-provoking, but few will agree on the extent of their aesthetic purposefulness.
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Anti-capitalists think they've won. That means we've all lost
The Globe and Mail did yesterday what they do best: excuse away behaviour which was inexcusable.
Among the bankers who enjoyed a normal day of work was Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England. As the bank's ancient granite headquarters was pummelled and spray-painted by rioters, he reportedly worked calmly inside, undisturbed.
“The recurring joke of the day has been ‘spot the banker,'“ said Dan Wheeldon, who works near Moorgate tube station, a protest clash point.
“There seemed to be more of a festival atmosphere than anything else.”
Festival atmosphere? Festival atmosphere??
At its peak, the protest saw a modest crowd of 4,000 people throwing themselves at a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland – one of the few buildings in the district that, for reasons unknown, had not boarded up its windows in anticipation of a much larger action.
The more adventurous anti-capitalist rioters smashed its windows, threw flares inside, and entered its vacant lobby.
The irony was hard to avoid: RBS, along with most other British banks, was nationalized last year in an effort to save it from collapse. It now effectively belongs to the people, for what it's worth.
“Even if we break through to the vault, I doubt we'll find much in there,” protester Steve Elmond said as he backed away from truncheon-waving police during one of a handful of skirmishes outside the bank.
One protester reportedly died after collapsing at an anti-capitalist protest camp outside the Bank of England. But reports last night suggested that he had not been subject to police violence and died of natural causes.
Does this sound like any festival you've been to? This is hateful actions by hateful people. Aminta Xenakis needs to be smashed in precisely the way she wants "capitalism" smashes, mostly because she's too rank stupid to have a clue what capitalism actually is.
And here's a hint Doug Saunders: 4000 destroying a building is by no means "a modest crowd", and your "that girl deserved to be raped" attitude towards the Bank of Scotland not boarding up their windows like they needed to be terrified in the dark while this bunch of useless left-wing nitwits parades around in the street like they owned the place.
In a sane world, Bank of Scotland would have had snipers on the roof shooting anybody who made the slightest amount of damage to their building. But we see that even in Alberta even reasonable responses like Brian Knight are prohibited, while damaging other people's property is a-okay right in front of that property's owner.
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Profile > Hyde Park
Back to Neighborhoods
Centerstage Community Guide: Hyde Park
Community Map: Hyde Park
Explore Chicago: Hyde Park
Hyde Park Condos
Hyde Park Homes
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles (11 km) south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Oriental Institute and the Renaissance Society. It is formerly the name of a Township that included numerous other neighborhoods that have all been annexed by the city of Chicago.
Hyde Park was founded by Paul Cornell in the 1850s near the Illinois Central Railroad south of Chicago. In 1861, the Hyde Park Township was incorporated, extending from 39th to 63rd Streets. The southern border was later extended as far as South 138th Street and as far west as State Street. The township was independent of Chicago until 1889, when it was annexed to the city.
As a neighborhood, Hyde Park's definition has shrunk to a core area grouped closely around Cornell's development on 53rd Street and the lakefront. Today, the name Hyde Park is officially applied to the neighborhood from 51st Street (Hyde Park Blvd.) to the neighborhood around the Midway Plaisance or simply The Midway (between 59th and 60th) The neighborhood's eastern boundary is Lake Michigan and its western boundary is Washington Park.
Some consider Hyde Park to include the area between 47th and 51st Streets (E. Hyde Park Blvd.), although this area is actually the south half of the Kenwood community area. The area encompassing Hyde Park and South Kenwood is also referred to as Hyde Park-Kenwood. It hosts two of the four Chicago Registered Historic Places from the original October 15, 1966 National Register of Historic Places list (Chicago Pile-1, & Robie House).
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Does Parents' Nagging Kids About Screen Time Even Matter?
MONDAY, Nov. 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Parents' constant refrain, telling their teens to turn off the TV, stop playing video games or put down the cellphone, may not be necessary.
And new research suggests those worried about their kids becoming addicted to technology may even be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The amount of time young people spend on technology -- and parental limits on that time -- had no lasting effect on technology use by young adults, according to a new study.
"We think that parenting does matter, but not for how much you're using technology," said lead author Stefanie Mollborn, a professor of sociology at the Institute of Behavioral Science at University of Colorado, Boulder.
"It matters more for things like how you feel about your technology use. Do you feel like it's a good thing? Do you feel a little bit guilty about using it? And then it matters for how you imagine you're going to use it later when you're fully in adulthood," Mollborn said.
For the study, the researchers interviewed 56 young adults (aged 18 to 30) about their teenage technology use, parental restrictions or encouragement when they were kids, and their current tech use. They also analyzed surveys that followed nearly 1,200 young adults starting in adolescence, between 2007 and 2017.
The findings offered some surprises: Setting time limits for teens had no effect on how much technology they used as young adults. Neither did barring kids from watching shows during mealtimes.
Young adults who had fewer devices in their homes while growing up or who used less technology as kids did spend slightly less time on tech as adults. But the relationship was statistically weak, the researchers said.
"They're very thoughtful about their own tech use ... and how they would like to limit it. In many cases, they wish they were limiting it more than they currently are. But as they point out, adults feel that way, too," Mollborn said.
Exactly how much time young adults spend on tech varied. Single people used more technology than married couples. College students reported spending more time with technology than they ever have or expect to in the future.
"They also have really thoughtful strategies about why they're doing what they're doing, and what could be done to reduce it later, in the future, when they want to," Mollborn said.
This study, published online recently in the journal Advances in Life Course Research, is just the most recent of the team's research on kids and technology. Their studies began after conversations with parents several years ago.
"Most of what the families wanted to talk about was the kids' technology use," Mollborn said. "They were really worried about it."
To date, little research has explored how technology use carries over from childhood into adulthood, according to the study authors.
And the new findings don't mean that everyone is free from addiction to technology or that parents shouldn't ever set limits or talk about pros and cons, Mollborn cautioned.
The young adults in this study were teens when smartphones were released and in their late teens or early 20s when tablets became popular.
In 2014, U.S. teens spent 33 hours a week using technology outside school -- up 17% from 2002, according to the report. The mobility and speed of devices has also changed quite a bit over time.
"It really looks like ultimately the impact is fairly minimal," said Dr. David Hill, immediate past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media. "I find that very reassuring, because as a parent what I'm trying to get to is a happy functional adult, right? That's kind of the end game of parenting."
Of course, the pandemic has influenced screen time for many people -- parents and kids alike.
"I know for my own kids, they have had to increase their utilization of various forms of screen media to stay in touch with their friends," said Hill, a Goldsboro, N.C., pediatrician.
When parents of his patients express concern about a child's behavior or mood, Hill said he tries to learn how screen time might be affecting that.
"Electronic media represent among the most powerful tools ever developed for human communication and entertainment. When screen use is contributing to success in school and emotional and physical health, I'm happy," Hill said. "If kids are suffering anxiety, depression or poor sleep due to the way or amount they're using screens, I counsel them to change."
The Pew Research Center offers another look at teens and technology.
SOURCES: Stefanie Mollborn, PhD, professor, sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder; David Hill, MD, pediatrician, Goldsboro Pediatrics, adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and immediate past chairman, American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media; Advances in Life Course Research, Oct. 20, 2020, online
For Parents: Bicycle, In-Line Skating, Skateboard, and Scooter Safety
Guidelines for Raising Smoke-Free Kids
1 in 3 High School Seniors Who Misuse Prescription Opioids Turn to Heroin
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Saint Peter's University Hospital is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen. Saint Peter's is a state-designated children's hospital and a regional perinatal center, and is a major clinical affiliate of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and an affiliate of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
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Welcome to BetterMost!
BetterMost, Wyoming & Brokeback Mountain Forum »
Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond »
The Lighter Side (Moderators: Sheriff Roland, Fran, Sason) »
The "Ask a Stoopid Question - Get a Stoopid Answer" Game
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 [36] 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Go Down
Author Topic: The "Ask a Stoopid Question - Get a Stoopid Answer" Game (Read 241233 times)
Jr. Ranch Hand
Re: The "Ask a Stoopid Question - Get a Stoopid Answer" Game
Quote from: CellarDweller on July 31, 2018, 05:37:38 pm
Q: Does the basque bask in the sun?
A: He ain’t got time for that; Ennis and Jack jack him around.
Q: We know why Army didn’t get Jack. Why didn’t it get Ennis, though?
CellarDweller
The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
A city boy's mentality, with a cowboy's soul.
Quote from: Wojtek on July 31, 2018, 06:48:56 pm
A: He was too busy castratin' calves!
Q: Why does Pa Twist look so damn angry?
Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!
Bork bork bork
Quote from: CellarDweller on August 01, 2018, 06:27:59 pm
A: Coz he can't insult and mistreat Jack anymore
Q: Who picked the cherries for the cherry cake?
Düva pööp is a förce of natüre
Quote from: Sason on September 17, 2018, 04:51:32 pm
A: George Washington, after he chopped down the cherry tree.
Q: Did Ennis carry around condiments?
Quote from: CellarDweller on September 21, 2018, 09:18:09 pm
A: No, just condoms.
Q: Why was Alma tired of these old ranches?
A. She wanted a newer, more modern ranch.
Q. Did Lureen ever talk to Bobby's teacher?
A. Yes, and the teacher told her Bobby was allergic to hair bleach, which caused his learning problems.
Q. Was Bobby conceived in the car?
A. No, because Jack wore a condiment.
Q. Does the stud duck cut the duck?
A. No, the stud duck cuts the turkey, and the stud turkey cuts the duck.
Q. Is the stud duck cut or uncut?
Quote from: Sason on October 06, 2018, 03:02:33 pm
A. Truthfully, I don't want to know!
Q. Does Junior use crayons for her make-up?
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BirchCooper
Accounting Services Ltd
Henry Cooper
About the AAT
Tag Archives: employee shareholder status
Posted on November 24, 2016 by Henry Cooper
On Wednesday 23 November the Chancellor Philip Hammond presented his first, and last, Autumn Statement along with the Spending Review.
His speech and the supporting documentation set out both tax and economic measures.
Our summary concentrates on the tax measures which include:
the government reaffirming the objectives to raise the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to £50,000 by the end of this Parliament
reduction of the Money Purchase Annual Allowance
review of ways to build on research and development tax relief
tax and National Insurance advantages of salary sacrifice schemes to be removed
anti-avoidance measures for the VAT Flat Rate Scheme
autumn Budgets commencing in autumn 2017.
In addition the Chancellor announced the following pay and welfare measures:
National Living Wage to rise from £7.20 an hour to £7.50 from April 2017
Universal Credit taper rate to be cut from 65% to 63% from April 2017.
In the March Budget the government announced various proposals, many of which have been subject to consultation with interested parties. Some of these proposals are summarised here. Draft legislation relating to many of these areas will be published on IPT
5 December and some of the details may change as a result.
Our summary also provides a reminder of other key tax developments which are to take place from April 2017.
The personal allowance
The personal allowance is currently £11,000. Legislation has already been enacted to increase the allowance to £11,500 for 2017/18.
Not everyone has the benefit of the full personal allowance. There is a reduction in the personal allowance for those with ‘adjusted net income’ over £100,000, which is £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000. So for 2016/17 there is no personal allowance where adjusted net income exceeds £122,000. For 2017/18 there will be no personal allowance available where adjustedk net income exceeds £123,000.
Tax bands and rates
The basic rate of tax is currently 20%. The band of income taxable at this rate is £32,000 so that the threshold at which the 40% band applies is £43,000 for those who are entitled to the full personal allowance.
Legislation has already been enacted to increase the basic rate band to £33,500 for 2017/18. The higher rate threshold will therefore rise to £45,000 in 2017/18 for those entitled to the full personal allowance.
The additional rate of tax of 45% remains payable on taxable income above £150,000.
Long term commitments to raise the personal allowance and higher rate threshold
The Chancellor has reaffirmed the government’s objectives to raise the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to £50,000 by the end of this Parliament. He also announced that once the personal allowance reaches £12,500, it will then rise in line with CPI as the higher rate threshold does, rather than in line with the National Minimum Wage.
Tax bands and rates – dividends
Dividends received by an individual are subject to special tax rates. The first £5,000 of dividends are charged to tax at 0% (the Dividend Allowance). Dividends received above the allowance are taxed at the following rates:
5% for basic rate taxpayers
5% for higher rate taxpayers
1% for additional rate taxpayers.
Dividends within the allowance still count towards an individual’s basic or higher rate band and so may affect the rate of tax paid on dividends above the £5,000 allowance.
To determine which tax band dividends fall into, dividends are treated as the last type of income to be taxed.
Many individuals do not have £5,000 of dividend income and so their dividend income is tax free irrespective of the tax rates payable on other income.
Individuals who regard themselves as basic rate taxpayers need to appreciate that all dividends received still form part of the total income of an individual. If dividends above £5,000 are received, the first £5,000 will use up some or all of the basic rate band available. The element of dividends above £5,000 which are taxable may well therefore make the individual a higher rate taxpayer with the dividends being taxed at 32.5%.
Tax on savings income
Savings income is income such as bank and building society interest. Some individuals qualify for a 0% starting rate of tax on savings income up to £5,000. However, the rate is not available if taxable non-savings income (broadly earnings, pensions, trading profits and property income) exceeds the starting rate limit.
In addition, from 2016/17 the Savings Allowance (SA) applies to savings income. Income within the SA is taxed at 0% (the ‘savings nil rate’). However, the available SA in a tax year will depend on the individual’s marginal rate of income tax. Individuals taxed at up to the basic rate of tax will have an SA of £1,000. For higher rate taxpayers, the SA is £500 whilst no SA is due to additional rate taxpayers.
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
The overall ISA savings limit is £15,240 for 2016/17 but will jump to £20,000 in 2017/18.
A new Lifetime ISA will be available from April 2017 for adults under the age of 40. Individuals will be able to contribute up to £4,000 per year and receive a 25% bonus from the government. Funds, including the government bonus, can be used to buy a first home at any time from 12 months after opening the account, and can be withdrawn from age 60 completely tax-free.
The increase in the overall ISA limit to £20,000 for 2017/18 is partly due to the introduction of the Lifetime ISA. There will therefore be four types of ISAs for many adults from April 2017 – cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, innovative ISAs (allowing investment into peer to peer loans) and the Lifetime ISA. Money can be placed into one of each kind of ISA each tax year.
Money Purchase Annual Allowance
The Money Purchase Annual Allowance will be reduced from £10,000 to £4,000 from April 2017.
The ‘annual allowance’ sets the maximum amount of tax efficient pension contributions. The normal annual allowance is £40,000. The Money Purchase Annual Allowance was introduced in 2015, to restrict the annual allowance to £10,000 when an individual over 55 has taken income from a pension scheme. The government will consult on the detail of the further restriction now announced.
The tax treatment of foreign pensions will be more closely aligned with the UK’s domestic pension tax regime by bringing foreign pensions and lump sums fully into tax for UK residents, to the same extent as domestic ones.
Universal Credit is the new state benefit designed to support those on low income or out of work.
An individual’s entitlement to the benefit is made up of a number of elements to reflect their personal circumstances. Their entitlement is tapered at a rate of 65% where claimants earn above the work allowances. The current taper rate for those who claim Universal Credit means their credit will be withdrawn at a rate of 65 pence for every extra £1 earned.
From April 2017, the taper rate that applies to Universal Credit will be reduced from 65% to 63%.
The Chancellor stated this will let individuals keep more of what they earn and strengthen the incentive for individuals to progress in work. The government estimates that three million households will benefit from this change.
Corporation tax rates
Corporation tax rates have already been enacted for periods up to 31 March 2021.
The main rate of corporation tax is currently 20%. The rate will then be reduced as follows:
19% for the Financial Years beginning on 1 April 2017, 1 April 2018 and 1 April 2019
17% for the Financial Year beginning on 1 April 2020.
Corporate tax loss relief
Currently, a company is restricted in the type of profit which can be relieved by a loss if the loss is brought forward from an earlier accounting period. For example, a trading loss carried forward can only relieve future profits from the same trade. Changes are proposed which will mean that losses arising on or after 1 April 2017, when carried forward, will be useable against profits from other income streams or other companies within a group. This will apply to most types of losses but not to capital losses.
However, from 1 April 2017, large companies will only be able to use losses carried forward against up to 50% of their profits above £5 million. For groups, the £5 million allowance will apply to the group.
The removal of the restrictions on the use of carried forward losses is very welcome. The existing rules can result in losses not being used, particularly where a company closes down a loss making trade. Over 99% of companies will be unaffected by the restrictions imposed on large company losses above £5 million.
Corporate interest expense deductibility
Rules will be introduced which limit the tax deductions that large groups can claim for their UK interest expenses from April 2017. These rules will limit deductions where a group has net interest expenses of more than £2 million, net interest expenses exceed 30% of UK taxable earnings and the group’s net interest to earnings ratio in the UK exceeds that of the worldwide group.
Corporation tax on non-resident companies’ UK income
The government is considering bringing all non-resident companies receiving taxable income from the UK into the corporation tax regime.
The government wants to ensure that all companies are subject to the rules which apply generally for the purposes of corporation tax, including the limitation of corporate interest expense deductibility and loss relief rules.
The Chancellor highlighted that research and development is a key driver for economic growth and has committed to an extra £2 billion a year of additional funding by 2020/21. There are two types of tax reliefs for eligible expenditure. Under one of these, qualifying companies can claim a taxable credit of 11% in relation to eligible research and development expenditure. This is known as an ‘above the line’ tax credit. The government will review ways to build on this relief.
Class 2 NICs
Class 2 NICs will be abolished from April 2018, and following this, self-employed contributory benefit entitlement will be accessed through Class 3 and Class 4 NICs. Self-employed people with profits below the Small Profits Limit (£5,965 for 2016/17) will be able to access Contributory Employment and Support Allowance through Class 3 NICs.
Substantial shareholding exemption
Where qualifying conditions are met, the disposal of a substantial shareholding in a company by a UK company is exempt from tax. From April 2017, the government intends to simplify the rules of this relief, remove the investing requirement and provide a more comprehensive exemption for companies owned by qualifying institutional investors.
The substantial shareholding exemption allows some groups of companies to restructure and make disposals of shareholdings without incurring a tax charge. Currently the qualifying conditions are complicated and restricted to trading groups, so the proposed changes may allow more groups to access this valuable relief.
Museums and galleries tax relief
At Budget 2016, the government announced the introduction of a tax relief for museums and galleries that would be available for temporary and touring exhibition costs.
The government has decided to broaden the scope to include permanent exhibitions. The relief will take effect from April 2017. The rates of relief will be set at 25% for touring exhibitions and 20% for non-touring exhibitions and the relief will be capped at £500,000 of qualifying expenditure per exhibition.
Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR)
From 6 April 2017, the amount of investment that social enterprises aged up to seven years old can raise through SITR will increase to £1.5 million. Investment in nursing homes and residential care homes will be excluded initially, however the government intends to introduce an accreditation system to allow such investment to qualify for SITR in the future. The limit on full-time equivalent employees for a qualifying social enterprise will be reduced from 500 to 250.
Individuals investing in a qualifying social enterprises can deduct 30% of the cost of their investment from their income tax liability, either for the tax year in which the investment is made or the previous tax year. The investment must be held for a minimum period of three years for the relief to be retained. In addition there is no capital gains tax on a disposal of the investment.
Disguised remuneration schemes
Recent tax changes have tackled the use of disguised remuneration schemes by employers and employees. Now the government will extend the scope of these changes to tackle the use of disguised remuneration avoidance schemes by the self-employed.
Tackling the hidden economy
Consideration will be made by the government to introduce tax registration as a condition of access to some essential business services or licences.
First year allowances on electric charge-points
Expenditure incurred on or after 23 November 2016 on electric charge-point equipment for electric cars will qualify for a 100% first year allowance. This relief will expire on 31 March 2019 for corporation tax and 5 April 2019 for income tax.
Northern Ireland corporation tax rate
Devolution of power to the Northern Ireland Assembly allows the Assembly to set a Northern Ireland rate of corporation tax to apply to certain trading income. The Northern Ireland Executive has committed to setting a rate of 12.5% in April 2018. The government will amend the Northern Ireland corporation tax regime in Finance Bill 2017 to give all small and medium sized enterprises trading in Northern Ireland the potential to benefit. Commencement of the devolved power is subject to the Northern Ireland Executive demonstrating its finances are on a sustainable footing.
Venture capital schemes
The government has proposed to make further changes to tax-advantaged venture capital schemes including the Enterprise Investment Scheme, the Seed Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trusts to clarify some rules and provide some additional flexibility and certainty.
Off-payroll working in the public sector
From April 2017, where workers are engaged through their own limited company to work for a public sector body, responsibility to apply the intermediaries rules (commonly known as the IR35 rules) will fall to the public sector body, agency or other third party paying the worker’s company. The public sector body, agency or other third party will be liable to pay any associated income tax and National Insurance.
Where individuals are working through their own limited company in the private sector, the existing rules will continue to apply.
To help the public sector body, agency or other third party to determine whether the intermediaries rules apply, HMRC will provide a new interactive online tool. The aim is to support the decision making process, not only for public sector employers, but also for individuals working through their own limited company in the private sector.
Apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship funding
Larger employers will be liable to pay the apprenticeship levy from April 2017. The levy is set at a rate of 0.5% of an employer’s pay bill, which is broadly total employee earnings excluding benefits in kind, and will be paid along with other PAYE deductions. Each employer receives an annual allowance of £15,000 to offset against their levy payment. This means that the levy will only be paid on any pay bill in excess of £3 million in a year.
Draft apprenticeship levy regulations make it clear that only where an employer has a levy liability, or expects to have a levy liability during the tax year, will they need to engage with reporting the apprenticeship levy to HMRC.
The levy will be used to provide funding for apprenticeships and there will be changes to the funding for apprenticeship training for all employers as a consequence. Each country in the UK has its own apprenticeship authority and each will be making changes to their scheme.
Alignment of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs)
Currently, liabilities to pay income tax and NICs are calculated in different ways for employees. Employers are also required to pay NICs on most of the wages and salaries paid to employees.
The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) was tasked with a project to examine whether a closer alignment could be achieved between income tax and NICs. After its initial report in March 2016, the government asked the OTS to undertake further reviews on two recommendations from the initial report. The OTS has now published a further report on the recommendations.
The two recommendations are:
Moving to an annual, cumulative and aggregated assessment period for employees’ NICs on employment income, similar to PAYE for income tax. NICs would not be calculated separately on each employment but on all employments added together with one NIC free allowance split between them.
Basing employer NICs on whole payroll costs. At present, employer NICs are calculated at 13.8% of employees’ weekly or monthly pay, over a threshold of £156 per week. The OTS proposal is to break the link of employer NICs with the calculation of individual employees’ NICs and base the calculation of employers’ liabilities on total payroll costs. The OTS explored eight options of which the best would be to replace the employee threshold with a cumulative annual employee allowance per employer.
National insurance thresholds
From April 2017 the threshold above which employer and employee NICs will become payable will be aligned at £157 per week. This is as recommended by the OTS and should simplify the payment of NICs for employers.
National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates
Following the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission, the government will increase the National Living Wage from £7.20 to £7.50 from April 2017. The government will also accept their recommendations to increase the NMW rates from April 2017 for:
21 to 24 year olds from £6.95 to £7.05 per hour
apprentices from £3.40 to £3.50 per hour.
The NMW rates were last increased in October 2016.
The government has also announced that they will invest an additional £4.3 million per year to strengthen NMW enforcement. This will fund new HMRC teams to review those employers considered most at risk of non-compliance with the NMW. Other measures will provide additional support targeted at small businesses to help them comply and a campaign to raise awareness amongst workers and employers of their rights and responsibilities.
From April 2017, all employees called to give evidence in court will no longer need to pay tax on legal support from their employer. This should help support all employees and ensure fairness in the tax system. Currently, only those requiring legal support because of allegations against them can use the tax relief.
Forms of remuneration review
Employers can choose to remunerate their employees in a range of different ways in addition to a cash salary. The tax system treats these different forms of remuneration inconsistently and the government will therefore consider how the system could be made fairer between workers carrying out the same work under different arrangements. The review will look specifically at how the taxation of benefits in kind and expenses could be made fairer and more coherent. The government will take the following action:
Salary Sacrifice
The tax and employer NICs advantage of salary sacrifice schemes will be removed from April 2017. This change will not apply to arrangements relating to pensions, childcare, Cycle to Work and ultra-low emission cars. This means that employees who exchange salary for benefits will pay the same tax as individuals who buy them out of their post-tax income. Arrangements in place before April 2017 will be protected until April 2018, and arrangements for cars, accommodation and school fees will be protected until April 2021.
Valuation of benefits in kind
The government will consider how benefits in kind are valued for tax purposes, publishing a consultation on employer-provided living accommodation and a call for evidence on the valuation of all other benefits in kind at Budget 2017.
The government will publish a call for evidence at Budget 2017 on the use of the income tax relief for employees’ business expenses, including those that are not reimbursed by their employer.
Employer provided cars
The scale of charges for working out the taxable benefit for an employee who has use of an employer provided car are now announced well in advance. Most cars are taxed by reference to bands of CO2 emissions. There is a 3% diesel supplement. The maximum charge is capped at 37% of the list price of the car.
From 6 April 2017 there will be a 2% increase in the percentage applied by each band with a similar increase in 2018/19. For 2019/20 the rate will increase by a further 3%.
From 6 April 2017 the appropriate percentage for cars which have neither a CO2 emissions figure nor an engine cylinder capacity, and which cannot produce CO2 emissions in any circumstances by being driven, will be set at 9%. From 6 April 2018 this will be increased to 13% and from 6 April 2019 to 16%.
For 2020/21 new lower bands will be introduced for the lowest emitting cars whilst the appropriate percentage for cars emitting greater than 90 g/km will rise by one percentage point.
Capital gains tax (CGT) rates
The current rates of CGT are 10%, to the extent that any income tax basic rate band is available, and 20% thereafter. Higher rates of 18% and 28% apply for certain gains; mainly chargeable gains on residential properties that do not qualify for private residence relief.
The rate for disposals qualifying for Entrepreneurs’ Relief is 10% with a lifetime limit of £10 million for each individual. Entrepreneurs’ Relief is targeted at working directors and employees of companies who own at least 5% of the ordinary share capital in the company and the owners of unincorporated businesses. In 2016/17 a new relief, Investors’ Relief, was introduced which also provides a 10% rate with a lifetime limit of £10 million for each individual. The main beneficiaries of this relief are external investors in unquoted trading companies.
Example of CGT rates 2016/17
Annie, a higher rate taxpayer, will pay tax at these rates on the following chargeable gains after deduction of the annual exemption:
Type Amount of gain Tax rate
Eligible for Entrepreneurs’ Relief £100,000 10%
A residential property £30,000 28%
Other gains £10,000 20%
The annual exemption can be used in the most favourable way for the taxpayer – that is against the residential property gains in this example.
Inheritance tax (IHT) nil rate band
The nil rate band has remained at £325,000 since April 2009 and is set to remain frozen at this amount until April 2021.
IHT residence nil rate band
An additional nil rate band is being introduced for deaths on or after 6 April 2017 where an interest in a main residence passes to direct descendants. The amount of relief is being phased in over four years; starting at £100,000 in the first year and rising to £175,000 for 2020/21. For many married couples and civil partners the relief is effectively doubled as each individual has a main nil rate band and each will potentially benefit from the residence nil rate band.
The additional band can only be used in respect of one residential property which does not have to be the main family home but must at some point have been a residence of the deceased. Restrictions apply where estates are in excess of £2 million.
Where a person dies before 6 April 2017, their estate will not qualify for the relief. A surviving spouse may be entitled to an increase in the residence nil rate band if the spouse who died
earlier has not used, or was not entitled to use, their full residence nil rate band. The calculations involved are potentially complex but the increase will often result in a doubling of the residence nil rate band for the surviving spouse.
The residence nil rate band may also be available when a person downsizes or ceases to own a home on or after 8 July 2015 where assets of an equivalent value, up to the value of the residence nil rate band, are passed on death to direct descendants.
The potential increase in the nil rate band is to be welcomed by many individuals but the increase has introduced considerable complexity to IHT. From April 2017 we have three nil rate bands to consider. The standard nil rate band has been a part of the legislation from the start of IHT in 1986. In 2007 the ability to utilise the unused nil rate band of a deceased spouse was introduced enabling many surviving spouses to have a nil rate band of up to £650,000. By 6 April 2020 some surviving spouses will be able to add £350,000 in respect of the residence nil rate band to arrive at a total nil rate band of £1 million. However this will only be achieved by careful planning and, in some cases, it may be better for the first deceased spouse to have given some assets to the next generation and use up some or all of the available nil rate bands.
For many individuals, the residence nil rate band will be important but individuals will need to revisit their wills to ensure that the relief will be available and efficiently utilised.
Employee Shareholder Status to be abolished
Employee Shareholder Status (ESS) was made available from 1 September 2013 and enables employee shareholders, who agreed to give up certain statutory employment rights, to receive at least £2,000 of shares in their employer or parent company free of income tax and NICs. They also benefit from a CGT exemption on the eventual gains on shares with an original value of up to £50,000. This was subject to a lifetime limit of £100,000 for arrangements entered into after 16 March 2016.
These tax advantages linked to shares awarded under ESS will be abolished for arrangements entered into on or after 1 December 2016. The government has also announced that the status itself will be closed to new arrangements at the next legislative opportunity.
This change is being made in response to evidence suggesting that the status is primarily being used for tax planning instead of supporting a more flexible workforce.
On 15 August 2016 HMRC published six consultation documents on Making Tax Digital. The six consultations set out detailed plans on how HMRC propose to fundamentally change the method by which taxpayers, particularly the self-employed and landlords, send information to HMRC. Two key changes proposed are:
From April 2018, self-employed taxpayers and landlords will be required to keep their business records digitally and submit information to HMRC on a quarterly basis and submit an End of Year declaration within nine months of the end of an accounting period (accounting periods are typically 12 months long).
HMRC will make better use of the information which they currently receive from third parties and will also require more up to date information from some third parties, such as details of bank interest. Employees and employers will see the updating of PAYE codes more regularly as HMRC use the data received from the third parties.
The government has announced it will publish its response to the consultations in January 2017 together with provisions to implement the changes.
Non-UK domiciles
A number of changes are to be made from 6 April 2017 for individuals who are non-UK domiciled but who have been resident for 15 of the previous 20 tax years. Such individuals will be classed as ‘deemed’ UK domiciles for income tax, CGT and IHT purposes.
For income tax and CGT, a deemed UK domicile will be assessable on worldwide income and gains. There will be relieving provisions for some individuals who become deemed UK domiciled, such as the ability to rebase overseas assets on 5 April 2017 for CGT purposes, but conditions will be set.
A deemed UK domicile is chargeable on worldwide assets for UK IHT rather than only on UK assets if non-UK domicile. The effect of these reforms is that an individual will become deemed UK domiciled for IHT at the start of their sixteenth consecutive year of UK residence, rather than at the start of their seventeenth year of residence under the current rules.
Non-UK domiciles with UK domicile of origin
Individuals with a UK domicile of origin, who were born in the UK and who resume UK residence after a period of being non-UK domicile will be treated as UK deemed domicile whilst resident in the UK. A short grace period is proposed for IHT before the rule impacts but not for income tax and CGT purposes.
UK residential property
Changes are also proposed for UK residential property. Currently all residential property in the UK is within the charge to IHT if owned by a UK or non-UK domiciled individual. It is proposed that all residential properties in the UK will be within the charge to IHT where they are held within an overseas structure. This charge will apply whether the overseas structure is held by an individual or trust.
Business Investment Relief
The government will change the rules for the Business Investment Relief scheme from April 2017 to make it easier for non-UK domiciled individuals, who are taxed on the remittance basis, to bring offshore money into the UK for the purpose of investing in UK businesses. The government will continue to consider further improvements to the rules for the scheme to attract more capital investment in UK businesses by non-UK domiciled individuals.
VAT Flat Rate Scheme
An anti-avoidance measure will be included within the Flat Rate Scheme. A new 16.5% rate will apply from 1 April 2017 for businesses with limited costs, such as many labour-only businesses, using the Flat Rate Scheme. Businesses using the scheme, or considering joining the scheme, will need to decide if they are a ‘limited cost trader’.
A limited cost trader will be will be defined as one whose VAT inclusive expenditure on goods is either:
less than 2% of their VAT inclusive turnover in a prescribed accounting period
greater than 2% of their VAT inclusive turnover but less than £1,000 per annum if the prescribed accounting period is one year (if it is not one year, the figure is the relevant proportion of £1,000).
There will be exclusions from the calculation to prevent attempts to inflate costs above 2%.
The Flat Rate Scheme is only available to smaller businesses. The flat rate depends on the trade sector and the rates range from 4% to 14.5%. Some businesses will need to perform further calculations to determine whether the trade sector rate or the 16.5% rate applies.
Insurance Premium Tax
The standard rate of Insurance Premium Tax will rise from 10% to 12% from 1 June 2017.
The rate was recently increased from 9.5% to 10% on 1 October 2016.
The last Autumn Statement
Following the spring 2017 Budget, the Budget will be delivered in the autumn, with the first one taking place in autumn 2017. The Office for Budget Responsibility will produce a spring forecast from spring 2018 and the government will make a Spring Statement responding to that forecast. The Statement will review wider economic and fiscal challenges and launch consultations. The government will retain the option to make changes to fiscal policy at the Spring Statement if the economic circumstances require it.
As the Chancellor stated in his speech ‘No other major economy makes hundreds of tax changes twice a year, and neither should we’. This change should also allow for greater Parliamentary scrutiny of Budget measures ahead of their implementation. We shall see whether the Chancellor refrains from making late policy changes in spring of each year.
Disclaimer – for information of users
This summary is published for the information of clients. It provides only an overview of the main proposals announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Autumn Statement, and no action should be taken without consulting the detailed legislation or seeking professional advice. Therefore no responsibility for loss occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of the material contained in this summary can be accepted by the authors or the firm.
Posted in Newsletters | Tagged 2013/2014 personal allowance, apprenticeship levy, autumn statement, CGT, Class 2 NI, corporation tax, Disguised remuneration schemes, dividends, employee ownership, employee shareholder status, IHT nil-rate band, ISA, loss relief, making tax digital, MTD, NI Thresholds, NIC, non uk domicile, off-payroll working, pensions, research & development, savings income, tax bands, tax bands - dividends, tax rates, Universal Credit, VAT Flat Rate
Posted on May 25, 2013 by Henry Cooper
In this month’s enews we report on agreed and proposed law amongst other issues. Please do get in touch if you would like more detail on any of the articles.
eNEWS quicklinks
RTI annual schemes and guidance on payment date
Statutory Residence Indicator
HMRC gather extra £220m from high net worth individuals
New Employee Shareholder Status finally law
The Queen has announced the legislative programme
Tax credits renewals and scam emails
Expenses and Benefits online forms
HMRC have issued guidance on RTI and annual schemes, including clarification of the requirements and operating annual PAYE schemes in real time.
They have also published guidance for employers on what to do if they have been reporting payments to employees in RTI which do not match with the actual date of payment or with tax periods.
If you would like further help and advice on RTI please do get in touch.
Internet links: HMRC RTI corrections HMRC news
From 6 April 2013 the rules that determine whether an individual is resident in the UK for tax purposes have changed. These rules are known as the Statutory Residence Test (SRT).
For the majority of individuals determining whether or not they are resident in the UK for tax purposes is quite straightforward and under the test their position will not change. However for those with complex circumstances the SRT will provide more certainty about their residence status.
Residence is a complex area and we would be happy to discuss your position with you in more detail.
HMRC are planning to issue a pilot online residence indicator in the next few weeks. The residence indicator is designed to give users an indication of their residence status after answering a few straightforward questions regarding days spent in the UK, where your home is and whether you have family ties here.
Internet link: HMRC SRI
HMRC have announced that their High Net Worth Unit, which deals with the tax affairs of 5,800 people with assets in excess of £20m, increased its yield from tax enquiries by 10% in 2012/13 to £220m.
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, said:
“HMRC’s High Net Worth Unit provides the specialist attention they require in ensuring the wealthy pay the tax they owe. This Government has reinvested almost £1 billion in HMRC and expects them to deliver almost £22 billion in 2014/15.”
“Since 2010, the unit has raised £582 million, increasing its revenue year on year which, at a time when the Government is focused on reducing the deficit, is delivering real results for the country.”
Internet link: HMRC press release
After much debate the Growth and Infrastructure Act is now law.
One of the clauses contained within the Act introduces a new employee shareholder employment status, under which an employee or new recruit can agree to trade certain employment rights for shares in the company.
The House of Lords finally accepted the clause after the government made a number of concessions. One new requirement is that an offer being made under the new contract contains details of the rights being sacrificed and that the individual receives independent legal advice which will be paid for by the employer.
Internet link: Legislation
The Queen’s Speech set out the government’s legislative programme for the 2013/14 Parliamentary session including confirmation that the government plans to introduce an annual £2,000 National Insurance rebate for employers from April 2014.
John Cridland, the CBI Director-General, said:
“Business does not need a raft of new bills at this stage of a Parliament. You cannot legislate your way to economic growth – laws are only ever one piece of the jigsaw.”
“The surprise £2,000 National Insurance rebate in the Budget will give smaller firms the confidence to take on extra staff.”
“Extending the General Anti Avoidance Rule is sensible. No one can condone abusive avoidance schemes which serve no commercial purpose other than the minimisation of tax – even if they are legal.”
Internet links: CBI press release Queen’s Speech
Tax credit customers are being reminded by HMRC that they must renew claims by the 31 July deadline or their payments may stop.
Tax credits claimants are also being warned to be vigilant as last year the renewals process triggered more than 22,000 scam or ‘phishing’ emails being sent out by fraudsters in the run up to the renewal deadline.
These emails often advise that an amount of money is due to the claimant and, if they click on a link, they are taken to a fake replica of the HMRC website. They are then asked to provide credit or debit card details or other sensitive information such as passwords. The fraudsters then try to take money from their account.
Nick Lodge, Director General of Benefits and Credits, said:
“HMRC will never ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email. We are committed to your online security but the methods fraudsters use to obtain information are constantly changing, so you need to be alert. Anyone who receives this type of email should send it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk.”
Tax credits are state benefits which are generally available to lower income families. However, entitlement to the credits is significantly increased where individuals pay for childcare or suffer a drop in normal levels of income perhaps due to incurring trading losses or redundancy.
Individuals who have already claimed tax credits for 2012/13 have to finalise their provisional award, which would have originally been based on their 2011/12 income, and let HMRC know of any changes in their circumstances for 2013/14. This procedure is known as the renewals process and renewals packs should be issued to claimants between 19 April and 28 June 2013. The deadline for the submission of tax credit renewals is generally 31 July 2013.
Claimants need to be aware that the payment of tax credits will stop at the end of July if they have not renewed their applications by that date.
If you need any advice on tax or universal credits please do get in touch.
Internet links: HMRC tax credit deadlines Press release News scam emails
The forms P11D, and where appropriate P9D, which report benefits and expenses for both employees and directors for the year ended 5 April 2013, are due for submission to HMRC by 6 July 2013.
Employees pay tax on benefits provided as shown on the P11D, either via a PAYE coding notice adjustment or through the self assessment system. In addition, the employer has to pay Class 1A national insurance contributions at 13.8% on the provision of most benefits.
If you would like any help with the forms P11D or the calculation of the Class 1A liability please get in touch.
From April 2013 HMRC have introduced an additional method for employers and agents to report end of year expenses and benefits called ‘Online end of year Expenses and Benefits forms’. These are HMRC produced web based forms. However at present only two of the new online forms are available which deal with the situation where no P11Ds are due or benefits have been fully ‘payrolled’.
HMRC have advised that the rest of the planned online forms are in the final stages of development and should be available in June, prior to the 6 July filing deadline.
Employers who previously used HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools to create forms P11D, P9D and P11D(b) will need to consider alternative methods for completing these end of year forms as the tools will not provide this facility for the year ended 5 April 2013.
Internet link: HMRC online forms
Posted in Newsletters | Tagged employee shareholder status, expenses and benefits, high net worth, Residence, RTI, Tax credit scam emails
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Alyson Snipes Found Her Passion
Author Taylor Olmstead Date December 9, 2016
George and Alyson Snipes both found their dream jobs through Scouting. He is the Program Director for the Atlanta Area Council and she is the Resource Manager for High Falls State Park.
Long before they started these jobs, George invited Alyson to join his Venturing Crew. She came to the first meeting and was immediately elected President. Alyson became heavily involved in Venturing, earning her Silver Award and serving in the Atlanta Area Council Venturing Officers Association.
George also invited Alyson to serve with him on Bert Adams Summer Camp Staff. “Working at camp had been life-changing for me,” George says, “and I wanted her to have that same experience.”
Alyson met a group of other girls on staff who dubbed themselves the Bert Adams Princesses. The girls worked together for a number of years and still keep in touch. It was these friends, she says, that encouraged her to go to Philmont.
Alyson went to Philmont to participate in the Roving Outdoor Conservation School program. During the two-week trek Alyson discovered her passion for wildlife conservation and decided to pursue a career in the field.
Since that trip to Philmont George and Alyson Snipes have gotten married, had a son and begun careers in their dream fields. Alyson works for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in High Falls State Park. George oversees the operation of Bert Adams and its summer camp program. And Timothy Snipes is a regular visitor at both camp and the park. In fact, Timothy made his first trip to Bert Adams when he was less than a week old.
The Snipes family are following their dreams and working in careers they’re passionate about. “My dad always said if you find something you’re passionate about, you’re going to find a way to do it,” Alyson says.
George Snipes is an Eagle Scout and the Program Director for the Atlanta Area Council. Alyson Snipes is a Venturing Silver Award recipient and the Resource Manager for High Falls State Park. Their son Timothy isn’t a Scout yet, but he already has a uniform hanging in his closet.
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Georgia Department of Corrections
Brian Owens, Commissioner
Director of Public Affairs
Contact: Office of Public Affairs (478) 992-5247
New Deputy Warden of Security Named at Dodge State Prison - John Inman Promoted
Forsyth - Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens announced the promotion of John Inman to Deputy Warden of Security at Dodge State Prison effective Oct. 16, 2013. As the Deputy Warden, Inman will be responsible for supervising and managing 238 security staff and the overall management and operation of the prison at Dodge State Prison.
"John is a valuable asset to the Department and is committed to helping us carry out our mission," said Commissioner Brian Owens. "We look forward to the leadership and experience he will bring to Dodge State Prison," added Owens.
Inman joined the Department in 1987 as a Correctional Officer at Dodge State Prison. He was promoted to Sergeant in 1992 and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1993 at Milan Women's Center. He was promoted to Chief of Security at Pulaski State Prison in 1997. In 2010, he was promoted to Unit Manager at Pulaski State Prison, where he most recently served. In addition to his years of experience in corrections, Inman retired as a first sergeant from the Army National Guard after serving 25 years. He received the Bronze Star for valor and courage under enemy fire while serving in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Inman is currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice at Thomas University. He has completed Basic Correctional Officer Training, Basic Management Training, Professional Management Program and Advanced Management Training.
The GDC has one of the largest prison systems in the U.S. and is responsible for supervising nearly 60,000 state prisoners and more than 160,000 probationers. It is the largest law enforcement agency in the state with approximately 12,000 employees.
For more information on the GDC call 478-992-5247 or visit http://www.dcor.state.ga.us.
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After its recent DVD release we thought we’d do a review of this wonderful film.
“Paddington” is based on a series of books by Michael Bond (the the first one being published in 1958) and have been adapted to screen many times before. Paddington is directed by Paul King and was nominated for two BAFTA awards including ‘Best Screenplay” and ‘Best british film’, closely missing out to ‘The Theory of Everything’.
The film starts out in the bright sunny place of Darkest Peru and where we come across the three bears Paddington, his aunt Lucy and his uncle Pastuzo making marmalade. Their house begins to shake, an earthquake is happening , it is potentially life threatening for the bears.
After the earthquake, Paddington’s aunt Lucy insists that he makes his way to London to meet an explorer from the geographer’s guild who promised them a home if they were to ever find themselves in London.
Armed with only a red hat and some small talk about the weather, Paddington makes his way to London on a shipping vessel. He heads to Paddington station and he hopes to win someone over with his small talk about the rainy weather that they always have in London but he is unsuccessful , that is until he meets the Browns. Mary Brown the artist is willing to help the poor bear , his husband and children ,not so much. It is there that they give Paddington his name after finding his bear name just a little bit too hard to pronounce. Mr. Brown allows him to stay for the night but insists that he is brought to the authorities the next day but Mrs. Brown has a different idea, she wants to help him find the geographer that his aunt and uncle talk about when he was back in Darkest Peru. What Paddington and the Browns don’t know that someone else is planning to give Paddington a different home, a glass case in a museum……..
As it is based of off an old children’s classic series, you do not expect the film to be as clever and funny as it is. This film really is a true work of art. It is so clever in the way that it is filmed and the way that is staged, it really belongs in an art gallery.
When the film came out, there was some controversy over the age rating of it. It is PG, some parents wanted it to be rated Cert 12 because they thought it was too scary for little children but I believe that we should be introducing more films like this because it will really make them appreciate film as an art form.
I would recommend this film to everyone because it is so enjoyable, comical and beautiful that everyone will enjoy it.
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About Elder-Geek
Jesse’s Backlog: Suikoden V
Finishing a huge RPG like Suikoden V in a week is no easy task, and that is why I was not able to do it. However, I was able to get 20 hours in, and after the first few hours of introduction that comes packaged with most RPGs, I really started to enjoy this game. In fact, I think I’m going to go play some more right now.
Teenage protagonist, check. Possible love interest, check. Seasoned veteran and mentor, check. Boobs, check.
Okay, now where were we? Oh, right. The Suikoden series is famous for the insane amount of characters you can recruit throughout the games and Suikoden V is no different. Throughout the course of the game you can recruit 108 characters to your cause. Some with fight with you, and others will do other tasks like cook, teach and rub your feet after a long day. When you watch the opening video you will think that someone just started going crazy with Windows Movie Maker because still images of characters rapidly flash through the video like a middle school Power Point presentation. After a while your eyes will glaze over and you will accept the fact that you are going to be here for a while.
Suikoden V reminds me of a more tame Game of Thrones. There is corruption, back stabbing, and multiple families at war with each other for control of the country. Only instead of starting out as a badass lord like Ned Stark, you start out as a prince who looks like kind of a wuss. Thankfully, he goes from not being able to do anything by himself to taking on huge responsibilities lightning fast, and the best part is you get to name those responsibilities yourself. In my 20 hour old Suikoden V universe, Prince Jerome resides in Puzzles Castle recruiting people to the Pie Alliance, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I think we’ve been down this road before. Maybe we should ask for directions.
The first thing you’re probably going to notice about Suikoden V is that it’s huge. Not just because it’s a long game, but because it takes an obscene amount of time to explore just about every town and city you visit. I found myself getting lost looking for a certain shop because I’ve been spoiled by mini maps that have everything conveniently labeled for me. Large areas also roll out the red carpet for some pretty significant load times. You will become very familiar with the loading screen where a sprite of one of the characters walks in place, and you will hate it by the end of the game. On the upside, the locations do look nice for the most part, and the character art is top notch.
Another aspect of the game that takes a hit because of the massive areas you have to explore is the soundtrack. The music itself is not bad, but the songs are a little short and when you’re in an area for 45 minutes or so you are on the verge of losing it because this is the 22nd time the song has looped. The voice acting is also a mixed bag and the only thing I can think of to compare it to is a group of people watching home movies. There is some excellent voice acting, and those are the people who are explaining what their kid is doing in the video to their guests. Then there is the voice acting that sounds bored and tired, and those are the people that are being forced to watch somebody else’s family videos that frankly, they couldn’t care less about. Thankfully you can look past most of the voice acting because the story is strong enough to carry those poor trapped house guests on its back.
Six against two? I’m okay with this.
Finally, we’re getting to the gameplay. Time to fight some… wait, there’s a cut-scene. Okay that’s done, let’s walk over… another cut-scene. This happens for roughly the first six hours of the game. If I remember correctly when I hit the six hour mark I had been in exactly two fights and my hands were shaking because I wasn’t getting my turn-based fix. Thankfully at the point I’m at now I can freely go fight stuff whenever I want. The main focus is your classic turn-based RPG fighting where your team has different skills, magic, and well, you know the drill. The best part about it is that you can have six characters fighting at once, which has made everything stupid easy so far, and you can collect different formations which give you noticable tactical advantages like attack and defense bonuses.
Rock, paper, stick to the face
There are a couple other gameplay elements that like to make sure you know they’re a part of the game too every now and then. The first one is the one-on-one duel. This is like rock, paper, scissors on easy mode because the person you are fighting pretty much tells you what they’re going to do so you can counter with the better option. Then there are the mini RTS battles, which so far have been me selecting my unit and telling it to attack the enemy unit it’s strong against. It’s kind of like that game you play as a kid where you hammer the square peg through the square hole, the circle peg through the circle hole and so on. I can only assume it gets more difficult as the game progresses, so I’m looking forward to using some strategy, even if it is only a small amount.
All that being said, I’m still enjoying my time with Suikoden V. Despite the lengthy introduction, needlessly large areas and plentiful load times, it’s nice to get into a JRPG that doesn’t try to do anything too fancy. The battles are fun, the characters are diverse and odds are you’re going to be involuntarily marathoning entire sections of the game just because you want to see what happens next. If you can tough out the first six or so hours then you are going to be in for an enjoyable experience. Suikoden V is on the more expensive side of last gen gaming, but if you are lucky enough to see it on sale somewhere you should pick it up.
For my next backlog I am choosing five games that I have played before, but not on the system I now have the game on. For example, I have played Banjo-Kazooie on my Nintendo 64, but I never really got around to playing it on my XBOX 360. So without further ado, here they are.
1. Banjo-Kazooie – System I played it on: Nintendo 64, system I currently own it for: XBOX 360
2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3D) – System I played it on: Nintendo 64, system I currently own it for: 3DS
3. Final Fantasy VII – System I played it on: PS1, PC, system I currently own it for: PS3
4. Ghostbusters: The Video Game – System I played it on: XBOX 360, system I currently own it for: PS3
5. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – System I played it on: XBOX, system I currently own it for: PC
The voting is now closed and the big winner is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Jesse BaguchinskyJesse's BacklogSuikoden V 3 Comments Read more
3 thoughts on “Jesse’s Backlog: Suikoden V”
zkylon says:
Cool, glad you liked it. The game has a painfully slow start, but when it gets off it’s one hell of a ride. It’s not my favorite in the series, but I loved the art style and I simply love the idea of Suikodens in general because it’s so essentially fun. I mean, who wouldn’t like to build a fortress, populate it with diverse crazy people from all around the world and create an underdog army to go against a big empire? Suikoden VI is one of those MIAs I feel bad about. Konami, man. Jim Sterling said it, those guys can do nothing but wrong these days.
I voted for KOTOR, so you can play a PC game 😀 Let’s see how that goes…
Jesse Baguchinsky says:
The recruiting is the main reason I love this series. I can’t think of any other game or series of games that gives you a home base and lets you populate it with that many unique characters.
I tested out KOTOR and it seemed to work fine on my laptop, so if it comes to it hopefully it will work. haha
I’m surprised no other game has ever tried doing something using similar recruiting dynamics to Suikoden. I get the feeling I’ll have to fill that void myself
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Elizabeth Ducie: Author
Telling Lies for a Living
Competition Successes
Indie Publishing
Snapshots of Russia: St Petersburg
Saved in: My Blog
by Elizabeth Ducie
Between 1989 and 2012, I worked in the international pharmaceutical industry (yes, the sometimes murky world in which my thrillers are set). During that time, I travelled tall over the world, but gradually more and more of my time was spent in Russia and the Former Soviet Union countries. I met wonderful people, visited incredible places and built a fantastic collection of memories. This monthly series is designed to share some of those memories. Last month, we visited Moscow. This month we are heading for St Petersburg.
I had been working in Russia for a number of years before I first visited St Petersburg. I was used to serious people, gloomy if magnificent architecture, and a feeling that I needed someone to look after me, keep me safe, wherever I went. St Petersburg was completely different. It probably helped that I first went there in June, time of high temperatures, and the white nights of summer when it never went completely dark. During that first visit, I took part in the City Day celebrations, watched military bands parade through the streets, then strolled along crowded pavements to the square outside the Winter Palace to hear The 1812 Overture played to the accompaniment of fireworks, which worked surprisingly well against a brilliant blue mid-afternoon sky. I was alone, but felt completely safe.
It probably also helped that I made friends in the city and returned many times, not just for work, but for holidays with family and friends. I attended a memorable wedding day, consisting of a visit to the Wedding Palace where the registrar reminded us of the lilac fairy from Sleeping Beauty with her long flowing dress and ceremonial wand; a tour of the main tourist sites for photographs; a boat trip on the Neva River; a blessing in church; and a wonderful party where the vodka flowed late into the night. Oksana and Igor, we will never forget sharing your special day!
St Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia, with around five million inhabitants, has had a chequered history. Founded by Peter the Great in 1703, it was renamed Petrograd in 1914, then Leningrad in 1924, before returning to its original name in 1991. For most of its first two centuries, it was the capital of imperial Russia until the government moved to Moscow in 1918. Between 1941 and 1944, around 1.5m of its inhabitants died and the same number were evacuated during the Siege of Leningrad, one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history.
Many of the buildings remind me of Wedgwood china, especially the aforementioned Winter Palace, now the Hermitage Museum, in the centre of the city. It is complemented by the Summer Palace, located in the village of Tsarskoe Selo, 30km away, which bears a strong resemblance to Versailles. This is one city where the outsides of the building are often as spectacular as the insides.
St Petersburg is a major cultural centre, home of the Mariinsky Theatre which over the years has hosted the talents of such greats as Nijinsky, Pavlova, Nureyev, and Baryshnikov. I have enjoyed many wonderful performances there.
But strangely, it is the dead, rather than the living, that inhabit my strongest memories of St Petersburg. In 1998, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II and his family were interred in state in the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, having been recovered from the Koptyaki forest where they were dumped in 1918. Having visited both the original burial site and the new one, it is striking how this family, murdered for political reasons, have become the subject of religious fervour and are treated today as modern-day saints.
My favourite place to visit in St Petersburg is the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Here you can find the tombs of such musical greats as Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. I love to think about the jamming sessions those guys have around midnight when the rest of the city is asleep. Unless it’s June and the white nights, of course.
Russia is the location for my current work in progress, Corruption! which will be published in 2018. But it is also the setting for my prize-winning novel Gorgito’s Ice Rink. A tale of love, loss and broken promises, it tells the story of one man through the eyes of the people whose lives he touched. You can download your copy now by clicking here.
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Tagged: Borodin, Hermitage Museum, Mariinsky Theatre, Moscow, Mussorgsky, Nevsky Monastery, Peter the Great, Rimsky-Korsakov, Russia, Seige of Leningrad, St Petersburg, Summer Palace, Tchaikovsky, Winter Palace
Elizabeth Ducie was a successful international manufacturing consultant, when she decided to give it all up and start telling lies for a living instead.
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No: 232, 6 October 2020, Press Release Regarding Canada’s Statement On Suspension Of Export Licenses Of Some Military Products To Turkey.
Canada's statement regarding the suspension of the export licenses of some military products to Turkey is an indication of its double-standard approach. Canada is presenting the legitimate struggle of Azerbaijan to liberate its territories under Armenian occupation for 30 years as a pretext.
Canada sees no objection in exporting weapons to countries that are militarily involved in the crisis in Yemen, where one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies of this century is taking place. Furthermore, Canada is blocking the export of defense products to a NATO ally, while trying to portray these arms sales, which have even been criticized in reports prepared by UN experts, as a contribution to regional security. There can be no explanation for such a position.
Canada has been impeding export licenses of military materials for Turkey, especially since the launch of Operation Peace Spring, and has displayed an uncooperative attitude incompatible with the spirit of Alliance.
Turkey has a comprehensive export control regime and rigorously implements its obligations stemming from these regimes.
Our expectation from Canada is to refrain from double standards and to act without being influenced and getting trapped by the narrow political interests of anti-Turkey circles in the country.
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Essel Propack to acquire 100 per cent stake in Essel Deutschland Germany
Monday, 26 September, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
Essel Propack Limited, a global leader in laminated plastic tubes catering to the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and pharmaceutical space, will acquire a 100 per cent stake in Essel Deutschland Germany (EDG).
Following this transaction, EDG will be a 100 per cent subsidiary of Essel Propack, which was a joint venture (JV) partner with 24.9 per cent share in the company, whose enterprise value stands at $32 million.
The acquisition will help Essel Propack unlock synergies such as enhanced cross selling opportunity in the German markets, sourcing flexibility and better capacity utilisation at all of its plants in Europe.
Essel Propack can now deploy its proven capability to offer high-decoration laminated tube solutions for the premium non-oral care brands across Europe, including Germany. It will also have the benefit of a long-term supply agreement, which EDG recently signed with a local oral care company.
EDG’s revenue of approximately $40 million will now be consolidated in Essel Propack’s global revenue and will boost consolidated revenue by 11 per cent. In financial year 2016, Essel Propack’s consolidated revenue stood at Rs 2,184 crore.
Ashok Goel, vice-chairman and managing director, Essel Propack, said, “The acquisition of EDG will further enhance our position in the non-oral care category. This move is in keeping with our overall plans for achieving revenue growth of 15 per cent and profit after tax (PAT) growth of 20 per cent and achieving our Mission 20:20:20.”
The company has embarked on Mission 20:20:20 – earning before interest, taxes, depreciation and amotisation (EBITDA) margin of 20 per cent, return on equity (ROE) at 20 per cent and return on capital employed (ROCE) at 20 per cent within the next two years.
Ram Ramasamy, global chief operating officer, Essel Propack, said, “The complete buyout will enable us to step up productivity and efficiencies to those of other Essel Propack plants and improve overall profits.”
Alan Conner, European Business vice-president, Essel Propack, said, “This move will help us to creating a strong platform for growth in Europe, especially in the non-oral care category.”
“As we have a ready customer base, this will help improve our revenue growth through synergies. The acquisition will add 63 per cent to our Europe revenue on an annualised basis,” he added.
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Kaplan sentenced to 51 months in prison
BetOnSports founder Gary Kaplan was sentenced to 51 months in prison on federal racketeering charges Monday.
Kaplan, 50, had pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to violate the RICO statute, conspiring to violate the Wire Wager Act and violating the Wire Wager Act.
He will also have to forfeit $43.65 million in criminal proceeds, as well as approximately $7 million in related proceedings.
"Kaplan was unique in the scope and scale of his illegal operation," said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael W. Reap. "Despite his immense profits, he is living in federal custody. This case should serve as a warning to others who might choose to defy the laws of the United States on such a grand scale."
Kaplan was arrested in the Dominican Republic in March of 2007. He faced 20 felony charges for allowing American residents to wager at BetOnSports. He also ran illegal sports betting operations in New York and Miami before setting up BetonSports in Antigua and Costa Rica.
Kaplan was indicted in 2006 for his role with BetOnSports.
"Gary Kaplan was sentenced to the maximum under the plea agreement which sends a message to those operating illegal offshore gambling enterprises," said Roland Corvington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in St. Louis. "In addition to being in prison, hopefully some of the money forfeited will go to useful purposes such as fighting other Internet-related crimes, such as catching child predators who think they can hide on-line."
Former BetOnSports CEO David Carruthers pled guilty to racketeering charges in April, but last month reversed course and withdrew his plea. He has spent three years under house arrest in Missouri.
Carruthers had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors on other cases related to BetOnSports, including Kaplan's trial, as a part of his plea deal.
It is unclear why Carruthers withdrew his guilty plea.
Kaplan sentenced to 51 months in prison is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.
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4 years ago Among the Pirates
Attended The Mediator Fellowship open mic, which I had learned about online somewhere along the way, on the collection of bus, train, and plane rides between Eugene and Boston.
Coming back to Rhode Island was deeply difficult. I was quickly feeling as if my identity as an artist were a sort of dream that I was just unhappily waking from. Driving through the rainy, darkened, streets of Cranston, Rhode Island, I was struck by how old and gloomy the place seemed. No doubt the time of day and inclement weather helped this, but beyond that, the narrow streets and buildings all seemed to me a relic of some other age; like a cultural container formed seventy years ago and now capable of doing nothing beyond slowly falling apart.
This was the world I never wanted to be a part of; and now it seemed as if it had been the real world all along. All the while I was driving, I was thinking to myself in circles, variations on the theme, who do you think you are?
When I finally found The Mediator Fellowship building, set in the sprawling old suburb where Providence bleeds into Cranston, the very shape of it gave me some sense of relief. It looked like an old church, set in among the houses and duplexes and apartments.
Walking into the darkened room, I felt instantly at home. A man I would later learn was named Ray Cooke was playing on stage with skill and subtlety and passion. It was like finding an oasis in a desert. With Dunkin Donuts and coffee in the kitchen.
I got on the list at #11, of 12. For some reason, the host arranged it so the first 6 people on the list played for the first three hours, then the last 6 were hurried through the final thirty minutes. In any case, I eventually got to play Dail Up and One Planet on the stage piano. My voice felt very weak to start; but I leaned into the weakness and found what strength I had.
All in all, it didn’t feel like a particularly good performance, but the people in the audience were appreciative. Sold a few CD’s. The host offered me a featured slot if I would come back.
As I was leaving an older guy who reminded me of one of my now-deceased Italian-American uncles told me to never stop playing and never get discouraged. It was good to hear.
Assorted Rhode Island towns
Previous post Day One
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The History of Finland by Professor Jason Lavery, Ph.D.
Blog--My Finnish History
Ostrohoma—Oklabothnia
In August 1997 I moved to the city of Stillwater in Oklahoma to take a position at Oklahoma State University, where, with the exception of two separate years in Finland, I have been ever since. Except for a few days in February of that year that I spent here for an interview, I had never been to Oklahoma before moving here. I had never been to the American South. The best preparation I had for living here did not come from any experience I had had in the United States, but rather in Finland.
My first stay in Finland for a year was in Ostrobothnia, a region that covers Finland’s northwestern coastal area and the hinterlands. If you see Finland as a boot, Ostrobothnia is where the laces of the boot above the very large toe start. Oklahoma and Ostrobothnia share many features that distinguish themselves from the rest of their respective countries. First is geography. Both places are flat. Second, in both Ostrobothnia and Oklahoma wrestling is a popular sport. I am still looking to see if ever a wrestler from Ostrobothnia encountered a wrestler from Oklahoma State University or the state of Oklahoma in Olympic competition. Considering the talent on both ends I would not be surprised to find one eventually.
Third, both places are politically conservative vis a vis the rest of their respective countries. A democrat has not won Oklahoma in a presidential election since 1976. I seriously doubt Joe Biden will win this state three weeks from now. In Ostrobothnia with the exception of some cities, political power is held by parties of the center and the Right—the Center Party, the National Coalition Party, and in the region’s Swedish-speaking communities, the Swedish People’s Party. These three parties tend to lean more conservative than their counterparts in the rest of the country. Loyalty to these parties has been considered unbreakable until the recent rise of the anti-immigrant Finns party. Local elections next spring will tell. Ostrobothnia was also the home of the Lapua Movement, a far-right movement that in the 1930s challenged Finland’s democratic order by kidnapping opponents and even staging a coup that was crushed by overwhelming loyalty to the rule of law and more than a few rounds of cognac.
Above all though, both Oklahoma and Ostrobothnia fall into the Bible Belts of their countries. Oklahoma is a part of the American Bible Belt that ranges from Texas and Oklahoma in the west to cover states in the southeast. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that Ostrobothnia is Finland’s Bible Belt. It is a stronghold of the two largest revivalist movements within Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church—the country’s largest denomination. One of the revivalist movements is the Awakened. Paavo Ruotsalainen (1777-1852) became the leading figure of the Awakened. An uneducated peasant, Ruotsalainen attracted a substantial following by appealing to the poor and the oppressed through his emphasis on the inability of people to save themselves. Only God can save people. The other movement is Laestadianism also known as Apostolic Lutheranism. A parish minister in Swedish Lapland, Lars Levi Laestadius (1800-61), launched a campaign in the 1840s against what he considered sinful activities, above all consumption of alcohol. Support for Laestadius’s campaign spread into Finnish Lapland and other northern regions, such as Ostrobothnia. Laestadianism emphasizes the importance of confession of sins and the absolution of sins by someone of uncorrupted faith. Laestadianism is characterized by its specific application of teaching to everyday activities. Laestadians abstain from alcohol, contraception, even television. Both movements are recognized as one of the five revivalist movements within the Lutheran Church. They have their own meetings and annual events. The Awakened even have their own candy, a lozenge that tastes like Necco wafers. Although these two revivalist movements have little in common in terms of their activities, practices, and interpretations, they both arose out of a concern that Lutheranism was becoming too intellectual, bureaucratic, and hierarchical. They put an emphasis emotion and the individual faith experience.
Ostrobothnia is home to many other faith communities that are not as common in other parts of Finland. Staring in the later nineteenth century, Finnish seamen returning to Ostrobothnia’s coastal ports brought with them Protestant faiths such as Baptism, Methodism, and the Free Church movement. The arrival of refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s and 1980s has meant that for years regular Catholic services are held in cities such as Vaasa and Pietarsaari. For those of you who read Swedish a wonderful reportage of the different faith communities in Ostrobothnia was published in 2010 by Finland’s largest Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet.
Details about the book _The History of Finland_
Timeline of Historical Events in Finland's History
Details about the book _Germany's Northern Challenge_
Summary CV
Details about the book _Reforming Finland: The Diocese of Turku in the Age of Gustav Vasa 1523-1560_
Current Book Project: The Rise of Confession: Finland 1560-1611
The History of Finland--Finland since 2006
© 2021 The History of Finland by Professor Jason Lavery, Ph.D.
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Lavrov: the policy of regime change does not bring results, it is counterproductive
MOSCOW, December 14. The insistent line is to change unsuitable regimes does not bring results, this approach is counterproductive. This was stated by Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the meeting with participants of the programme Fund for public diplomacy support them. A. M. Gorchakov “Dialogue for the future”.
“Recent events have shown that we can achieve success only through collective efforts. Was held neither bipolar nor unipolar world,” he said.
“Any attempt to act unilaterally, did not bear fruit, they are counterproductive. Moreover, they bring chaos and uncertainty,” he said.
“Mean persistent line, despite failures, to replace objectionable regimes, to impose its own model of development, one’s own values, without taking into account national traditions”, – said the Minister.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict
Sergey Lavrov also said that the international community must become more actively involved in the Palestinian-Israeli settlement and not to go with the flow.
“When we are trying to cope with modern challenges and threats – such as, for example, collapse of entire countries – do not forget about the old conflicts,” he said.
“If we talk about the middle East, is, first and foremost, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which many decades cannot be resolved. Here the international community must more actively act, rather than trying to just go with the flow,” – said the Minister.
The Minister stressed that fighting is prohibited in the Russian Federation terrorist group “Islamic state” (IG) is inappropriate calculations for the satisfaction of geopolitical ambitions.
“For us it is absolutely necessary to lay aside everything secondary and to focus on combating terrorism – Lavrov said. – Especially when there are group IG, which has challenged the whole human civilization. The fight against this scourge must be an absolute priority. Is irrelevant to the calculations it is possible to satisfy their geopolitical ambitions”.
The conflict in Syria
External players in Syria should achieve practical results in the settlement, also said Lavrov. “In the Syrian settlement was possible for one negotiating table to collect all the external players that have a real impact on the situation in the country, he said. – Now that this group (of support for Syria – approx.) formed and it set out its priorities, which, in the opinion of outside players, should lead us forward in resolving this crisis, it is very important to achieve practical results”.
“These priorities very, very clear: an uncompromising fight against terrorism, especially with the “Islamic state” and “dzhebhat EN-Nusra” (terrorist group forbidden in the Russian Federation – ed.) and the like, and simultaneously advancing the political process with the participation of all Syrian political forces to ensure their interests”, – said Lavrov.
“I am confident that this approach is absolutely applicable to all of the other crises that we are witnessing in the middle East,” the Minister added
The activities of the OSCE
According to Sergey Lavrov, the OSCE activities in the security sector does not meet the interests of all countries within the shared European space.
“In the field of European security failed yet, at least, to make the main pan – European organization, referring to the Organization for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – were able to meet all interests, find a balance of interests, he said. – Therefore, the problem of the construction of a European architecture that would rely on a single economic and humanitarian space, on the principle of equal and indivisible security is a very important task”.
“As one of the directions of progress toward this goal, we consider our proposal to develop specific ways of harmonization of the processes of European and Eurasian integration”, – said the head of the Russian foreign Ministry.
PreviousLavrov: Minsk agreements must be implemented in full
NextUNESCO and PhosAgro will present the awards 6 scientists for research in ecology
The government wants to withdraw from the Treaty with Turkey on legal assistance
The Moscow city court left under arrest of the last defendant in the “Bolotnaya case” Dmitry Bochenkova
Three hours answers without cheat sheet: Putin on the truckers, the Seagull, the fact Rotenberg and Boris Nemtsov
A period of decay: the last Dec Union. 21 Dec 1991
The speaker of the state Council of Crimea considers unacceptable the adoption of the law on debt collection Crimeans
MFA of Russia: Lavrov and Kerry agreed to meet in the near future
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Captive militants in Ukraine do not want to go back
Source: NBNnews.com
Translated by: Anna Mostovych
Delays in prisoner exchanges between the Ukrainian side and the Donbas militants are due to uncertainty about the date of the next Minsk meeting but also because many captive terrorists do not want to go back, said Olena Hitlinska, press secretary for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), at a briefing on Wednesday, December 17, as reported by the Independent News Bureau.
“I think that everyone is waiting for the Minsk meeting (to begin the process for exchanging prisoners),” Hitlinska said. However, she also noted that among the terrorists held captive by the SBU there are many who do not want to go back.
“There are many people (in captivity) who are wanted by the terrorists, but these people refuse. They do not want to be exchanged. There are even Russian citizens among them,” she added.
She explained that one of the reasons for this reluctance is fear of torture. “A number of the people have begun cooperating with our forces and then they don’t want to go back. They’re afraid.”
Additionally, Hitlinska said that among the detained terrorists there are people who have crossed over to the Ukrainian side. She also noted that the delays in the prisoner exchanges are entirely because of the terrorists.
“The SBU has jurisdiction over a certain number of terrorists who want to return. We are ready to exchange all for all, and we are ready to do that today even,” she stressed.
Today in Warsaw Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he hoped that all captive Ukrainians would be released by the end of the year, especially all those who are illegally detained in Russia, including Nadia Savchenko.
Tags: Donbas war (2014-present), News, prisoner exchanges
Ukrainian media sources
Assorted media sources from Ukraine
» More » Captive militants in Ukraine do not...
Chinese Red Cross donates $3+ million in aid for Donbas refugees Next Post:
Lavrov: Poroshenko is Ukraine’s best chance
New report documents structure of Russian military invasion...
Donbas without water: The ecology of the east...
Conflict conservation in Ukraine’s east follows the Transnistria...
The toxic myth of “understanding and engaging” Russia
When referencing our materials, please include an active hyperlink to the Euromaidan Press material and a maximum 500-character extract of the story. To reprint anything longer, written permission must be acquired from [email protected]l.com.
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Glasstress 2019
Glasstress Venice
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Carlos Garaicoa, born in 1967 in Havana, lives and works between Havana and Madrid. He studied thermodynamics and later painting at the Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana (1989 – 1994).
He developed a multidisciplinary approach to address issues of culture and politics, particularly Cuban, through the study of architecture, urbanism and history. He focuses on a dialogue between art and urban space through which investigates the social structure of our cities in terms of their architecture. Through a wide variety of materials and media, Garaicoa found ways to criticise modernist Utopian architecture and the collapse of the 20th century ideologies.
Among his most important solo shows we can highlight those at Fondazione Merz, Torino (2017); MAAT, Lisbon (2017); Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao (2017); Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2016); Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (2015); CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid (2014); Fundación Botín, Santander (2014); NC-Arte and FLORA ars + natura, Bogotá (2014); Kunsthaus Baselland Muttenz, Basel(2012); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Brunswick, Germany (2012); Contemporary Art Museum, Institute for Research in Art, Tampa (2007); H.F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2011); Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), Amsterdam (2010); Centre d’Art la Panera, Lérida (2011); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Caja de Burgos (CAB), Burgos (2011); National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens (2011); Inhotim Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo, Brumadinho (2012); Caixa Cultural, Río de Janeiro (2008); Museo ICO (2012) and Matadero (2010), Madrid; IMMA, Dublin (2010); Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art (M.O.C.A), Los Angeles (2005); Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá (2000).
He has participated in prestigious international events such as: the Biennials of Havana (1991, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015), Shanghai (2010), São Paulo (1998, 2004), Venice (2009, 2005), Johannesburg (1995), Liverpool (2006) and Moscow (2005), the Triennials of Auckland (2007), San Juan (2004), Yokohama (2001) and Echigo-Tsumari (2012); Documenta 11 (2003) and 14 (2017) and PhotoEspaña 12 (2012).
In 2005 he received the XXXIX International Contemporary Art Prize Foundation “Pierre de Monaco” in Montecarlo, and the Katherine S. Marmor Award in Los Angeles.
Fragile Garden, 2019
Variable dimensions (installation)
Fondazione Berengo
San Marco 2847 – 30124 Venice
Fondazione Berengo Art Space
Campiello della Pescheria 4 – 30141 Murano
comunicazione@berengo.com
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goinggaijin.com
A European's move towards Japan
Washoku – Food
Kifune Jinja
Posted on February 4, 2018 by Iris
Kifune Shrine is a lovely little shrine in three parts in the north-eastern part of Kyoto. An exact foundation date of Kifune Shrine is not known, but it is estimated to be around 1500 years old. It is known, however, that in 818 the emperor visited the shrine to pray for the end of a draught. Kifune enshrines Taka-okami-no-kami and Kura-okami-no-kami (both seen as the manifestation of one serpent dragon god, who controls the rain), and Iwanagahime (the goddess of matchmaking).
The first thing one sees of Kifune shrine is a red torii on the left side of the road through the village. Behind it, there are prominent, lantern-lined stone steps, leading up to the Honguu outer shrine. Behind the gate on top of the steps lies the honden, the main building of the shrine, which is built in the nagare zukuri style with a characteristic, beautifully curved roof. Most of the events of Kifune shrine take place in the little square before the honden, and this is also where you can buy omamori charms and omikuji fortune slips.
Leaving the honden and turning left, there are two large horse statues. In the old times, when the emperor still lived in Kyoto, he used to send horses to Kifune shrine as offering to the god of rain. A black horse was sent as a prayer for rain to come, and a white horse was sent for the rain to stop. In modern times, it became troublesome to give and take care of many horses, so this may be the reason for the wooden ema tablets with horse images that are presented as prayer offerings nowadays.
Further north in the village you will come across the Yui-no-yashiro or naka miya, the middle shrine. This is where Iwanagahime resides, the goddess of matchmaking. Rejected by a lover (to be fair, he wanted her younger sister only, not both of them), she angrily decided to help everyone else to find their match. And, many legends confirm her powers: Most famously, Izumi Shikibu, famed love poetess of the Heian period, prayed for love with a sad poem at the Yui-no-yashiro, and was promptly reconciled with her husband. Note that the sought-for relationship need not be romantic, connections between businesses, getting a new job, even having children, count as well.
At the very end of the valley, and at the end of a lantern-lined foot path, lies the Oku-no-miya inner shrine. This is the spot of the original Kifune shrine, until a flooding in the 11th century forced people to move the main hall to its present location. According to legend, Kifune shrine came into being as follows: The goddess Tamayorihime, mother of first emperor Jimmu, appeared in Osaka Bay, and commanded that wherever her yellow ship would land, a shrine was to be built. And her ship went all the way via the Yodo and Kamogawa river to the end of Kibune valley, where the people indeed built a shrine and called it ki-fune, yellow boat. There is a prominent mound of stones to the left of the entrance to the Oku-no-miya, and legend has it that Tamayorihime’s yellow boat is buried beneath it.
The Oku-no-miya is a rather special building, since it is built above a well called ryu ketsu (dragon’s cave). There are only two more shrines like that in Japan, in Nara and Okayama. Since the Oku-no-miya is a the very end of the valley, it is a wonderfully peaceful place surrounded by enormous trees making the spot truly mystic, regardless of the season.
Kifune shrine is very popular among people whose businesses have to do with water: agriculture, fishing, brewing, dyeing; but also people working in fire departments, the Japanese marine, or as sailors come to pray to the god of rain and water here. When visiting Kifune shrine, ideally you first go to pay your respects at the Honguu main shrine, then at the Oku-no-miya inner shrine, and finally, on the way back, you pray at the Yui-no-yashiro.
Kifune shrine is worth a visit in any season. Since it is in the mountains, it is always cooler than in Kyoto city, which means snowy winters and breezy summers. Don’t forget to buy lucky charms! There is also a mizura omikuji to reveal your fortune – hopefully a good one – when placed in the water at the shrine.
This entry was posted in All Things Japanese, Kyoto Special by Iris. Bookmark the permalink.
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Movement for protecting voter rights «Golos» was founded on July 5th, 2013 by citizens of Russian Federations – active participants of Association «GOLOS», which since the year 2000 has been active in civil monitoring of elections all over the country, and whose activity was stopped due to unprecedented pressure. Today the movement is building regional divisions, organizing election monitoring and inviting active citizens to work together with us.
Helping citizens enforce their voter rights, in particular, their right to control the elections and referendums;
Helping development of Russian elections and referendums as the highest direct expression of the people’s power;
Helping development of a democratic rule of law society in Russia by raising the level of transparency, openness and lawfulness of elections of bodies of state government and local governments;
Consolidating civil forces on the basis of the goal to conduct elections and referendums in strict accordance with the law.
«Golos» is actively working in informing voters and observers, organizing hotlines, conducting long-term and short-term monitoring of elections.
«Golos» is strictly following political neutrality, as one of the main conditions for independent and objective election monitoring.
In civil election monitoring «Golos» follows common universal international election standards.
The history of «Golos» starts in 2000, when the Association of non-profit organizations «In defense of voter rights «Golos» was founded for independent monitoring of elections.
In 2002, Association «Golos» founded a newspaper «Grazhdanskiy Golos». In 2003, for elections of the Russian State Duma «Golos» presented 4500 public observers and held a parallel count of votes. Since 2004, «Golos» has implemented the practice of federal hotlines for collecting information on violations of electoral legislature at elections of all levels with output of these messages on the Internet. Since 2005, «Golos» is a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organization (ENEMO), as part of which it became one of international non-government organizations that approved the Declaration of principles of international election monitoring and the Code of conduct for international monitors, which were adopted by the UN on October 27th, 2005 in New-York. From 2008 to 2010 «Golos» has worked with Russia’s leading experts on creating the Electoral Code of Russia.
We are grateful to all those who are with us: voters, observers, journalists, members of election committees, representatives of candidate’s staff and political parties for cooperation in the struggle for free and fair elections.
Address: Elokhovsky Pass. 1 bld. 3, Moscow, 105066, Russia
For media inquiries please contact:
Roman Udot – [email protected], phone +7 (903) 723–14–45
The Movement’s Council
Vitaliy Averin
Stanislav Andreichuk
Andrey Buzin (co-chairman)
Yurii Gurman (co-chairman)
Vitaliy Kovin
Arkadiy Lyubarev
Grigory Melkonyants (co-chairman)
Alexey Petrov
Roman Udot
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10th, 1948
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 6th, 1966 and enforced on March 23rd, 1976
The Declaration of Free and Just Election Criteria, adopted by the Interparliamentary Union on March 26th, 1994
Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, June 5-29, 1990
Declaration of Global Principles for Nonpartisan Election Observation and Monitoring by Citizen Organizations, April 3, 2012,
Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation and Code of Conduct for International Election Observers, October 27, 2005,
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended by Protocols No. 1, 4, 6, 7 and 12,
As well as regional international electoral standards and norms of the Constitution of Russian Federation and the Russian electoral legislature
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Far be it from me to give the Catholic Church advice on its image--I don't see a downside to the current Pope's influence being diminished--but this decision makes absolutely no sense to me.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, acceding to the far-right of the Catholic Church, revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops on Saturday, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage....
Most contentious was the inclusion of Richard Williamson, a British-born cleric who in an interview last week said he did not believe Jews died in the Nazi gas chambers. He has also given interviews saying that the United States government staged the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a pretext to invade Afghanistan.
I just don't see any upside to that move. I mean, the church can say all it wants that Williamson's views on the Holocaust and 9/11 aren't approved of by the church, but no one is going to see it that way outside the hardcore people who demanded his reinstatement, and rightly so.
It's one thing to reinstate schismatics who were excommunicated because they wanted the Church to stay old-school; it's another completely to welcome back a Holocaust-denier. Again, I'm not a Catholic, but if I were a member of an exclusive group that had the power to determine who gets to be a member of the club, guess what? No Holocaust-deniers invited, no matter what other credentials they bring to the table. And if it sounds like I'm suggesting that people of certain belief systems ought to be shunned from polite society, you're right.
I hope there are voices inside the Catholic Church who will stand up to the Pope on this.
Labels: catholic church, Holocaust deniers, Pope Benedict, Richard Williamson
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Review by Georgina Fitzpatrick, Melbourne
Military Trials of War Criminals in the Netherlands East Indies 1946–1949
By Fred L. Borch
New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017. Pp. xii, 255. ISBN 978–0–19–877716–8.
Descriptors: Volume 2018, 20th Century, World War II, War Crimes Print Version
When the Dutch colonial masters returned to the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) in 1946 after its Japanese occupation (Mar. 1942–Aug. 1945) and the postwar military administration by the British (and the Australians east of Lombok), they had much business to conduct on several fronts. In this book, the American military lawyer Fred Borch[1] concentrates on one of those fronts—the prosecution of Japanese for war crimes against both POWs and civilians in the NEI. Of the 448 war crimes trials held in twelve locations, he has chosen for discussion forty-four[2] as, evidently, "representative" (67; he never specifies in what way). His book is but the latest in a flood of new publications on a cross-section of trials held by seven wartime Allies in the Asia-Pacific region between 1945 and 1951.[3] Some of these works are comparative in nature, others concentrate on the trials run by one particular ally based on meticulous research in relevant archives.[4] Borch's is the first extended English-language study of exclusively NEI trials; he has not, however, dug deeply into the archives, beyond some legal documents. Nor has he benefited from new research on trials elsewhere. This undercuts his representation of aspects of the NEI trials as "unique."
For the historical background of his first two chapters, Borch relies on the work of Louis de Jong[5] and the contributors to The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War.[6] Chapter 1, "Setting the Stage," outlines the Dutch colonial presence in the East Indies from 1595 until the surrender to the Japanese invading forces in 1942. Chapter 2, entitled "Asia for the Asians, Bushido, and Japanese War Crimes Tribunals in the NEI," gives close attention to the prominent role of the Japanese military police of the Army (kempeitai) and Navy (tokkeitai) in committing war crimes.
In chapter 3, "Prosecuting the Japanese," the author explains how the NEI tribunals were set up and the legal bases (in 1945) for categorizing an offense as a "war crime." He notes as well the changes made to Dutch domestic law in order to override existing prohibitions against such things as ex post facto laws. He details the decrees that formed the basis for the NEI trials, particularly Article 10 of Decree No. 45, which authorized prosecutions of groups charged with joint responsibility for a specific crime. He then sketches the configuration of the court (that is, a military court-martial presided over by three judges), the rules of evidence, and the review procedure. These subjects will instruct those interested in comparing different approaches to prosecuting war crimes. Chapter 4, "Preparing for Trial," sets out problems in identifying suspects, gathering evidence, and choosing cases for trial. Much of this is familiar from previous studies of trials conducted by other Allies.
Chapters 5–10[7] constitute the heart of the book. They are, Borch writes, "based almost exclusively on my analysis of the original war crimes tribunal judgments" (3) authored by the three judges in each trial. He also consulted written summaries of the proceedings of each case. Being fluent in Dutch,[8] he was able to read the original legal sources, a boon for his Anglophone readers. He does not, however, appear to use any investigative or administrative files or correspondence related to the trials.
The author's modus operandi here is to outline, case-by-case, the charges, witness statements, and final judgments, somewhat in the manner of an informal Law Report. He sometimes draws on a secondary source concerning a specific atrocity, but the recitation of the content of cases adds little to existing knowledge about Japanese war crimes in the Asia-Pacific and the ensuing trials.
Fortunately, some chapters go beyond mere summaries. In 7, Borch provides context by outlining the organized sexual slavery under Japanese occupation and noting the legacy of these trials for more recent prosecutions at International Courts. Chapter 10 provides some comparative context as well: Borch discusses the Yamashita case, an early, well known American trial conducted in Manila. He also describes some Australian cases for which brief Law Reports have been published[9] and summarizes three NEI command responsibility cases tried in Batavia. It is of interest that one of the defendants was is Gen. Hitoshi Imamura, who had already been tried at Rabaul in one of Australia's command responsibility trials. The chapter concludes with extended observations on why three of the four men charged were acquitted (192–95). In general, chapter 10 is more analytical than the others and benefits from the author's consideration of relevant trials elsewhere in the region.
As for Borch's contention that the NEI trials were unique in several respects, he states in his introduction that
The Dutch … tried war-related offenses that had not previously been prosecuted by any nation at any tribunal. Alone among the Allies conducting war crimes trials, the NEI authorities successfully prosecuted Japanese soldiers for the war crimes of forced prostitution. The Dutch also were the only Allied nation successfully to prosecute Japanese soldiers for the war crime of violating the terms of the armistice after the cessation of hostilities in August 1945. Finally, NEI authorities were also unique in prosecuting "criminal groups" [kempeitai and tokkeitai] for war crimes. (1)
The first two assertions here are compelling, but the last, repeated elsewhere in the book, is dubious. In chapter 8, the author lays out his argument in greater detail, maintaining that Article 10 of Decree No. 45 meant that
if a temporary court-martial determined that the commission of war crimes was an integral part of the day-to-day operations of the group or organization … then the personnel assigned to that organization were collectively responsible for war crimes committed as part of a criminal group. This meant that every individual member of the group was guilty of the war crime(s) for which the group had been found collectively responsible, with punishment dependent upon the level of individual culpability. (154)
Claims of "uniqueness" and "primacy" are always risky and Borch should have been aware of a similar approach in the British trials.[10] Several Australian trials "evidencing grounds of joint participation in criminal enterprise" have been discussed in the scholarly literature,[11] including a case tried at Darwin in April 1946, several months before the Dutch trials began.
Other notable (and commendable) features of the book include its ancillaries. Among its twenty-five photographs, mostly of Japanese suspects, one shows a courtroom with judges and accused sitting face-to-face under a formal portrait of Queen Wilhelmina. The map program is mostly adequate[12] and appendix B helpfully lists officers named in the text sorted by location of their trials.
The overarching value of this book, especially for Anglophone readers lies in its forty-four trial summaries, which highlight cases relevant to specific types of crimes. The book might also serve as a primer on Dutch war crimes trial procedures, recruitment of personnel, provision of ancillary staff, etc., as well as enable comparative analysis of the Allied trials arising from the Pacific War. However, a large-scale study firmly based in the pertinent Dutch archives and treating all the trials held by the Dutch in the NEI still awaits its author.
[1] He was the first Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
[2] Listed in appendix A.
[3] See, e.g., Kerstin von Lingen, ed., War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945–1956 (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Kirsten Sellars, ed., Trials for International Crimes in Asia (NY: Cambridge U Pr, 2016); Sandra Wilson et al., Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice after the Second World War (NY: Columbia U Pr, 2017); and Yuma Totani, Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region: Allied War Crimes Prosecutions (NY: Cambridge U Pr, 2015).
[4] See, e.g., Suzanne Linton, ed., Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials (NY: Oxford U Pr, 2013); Barak Krushner, Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice (Cambridge: Harvard U Pr, 2015); and Georgina Fitzpatrick, Tim McCormack, Narrelle Morris, et al., Australia's War Crimes Trials 1945–51 (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
[5] The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War (Leiden: KITLV Pr, 2002).
[6] By Peter Post et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
[7] Namely, 5, "Trials for the Mistreatment of Civilians and Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees"; 6, "Trials for Mass Murder and Unlawful Executions"; 7, "Trials for Forced Prostitution"; 8, "Criminal Group Responsibility"; 9, "Trials for Violations of the Terms of the Armistice"; and 10, "Command Responsibility."
[8] Borch lived in the Netherlands for several years as a child.
[9] In UN War Crime Commission: Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, vols 1–16 (Richmond, UK: HMSO, 1947–49).
[10] Nina H.B. Jørgensen, "On Being 'Concerned' in a Crime: Embryonic Joint Criminal Enterprise?" in Suzanne Linton (note 4 above) 137–67.
[11] See Gideon Boas and Lisa Lee, "Command Responsibility and Other Grounds of Criminal Responsibility," in Georgina Fitzpatrick et al. (note 4 above) 168–72, on "historical cases of joint participation in criminal enterprise."
[12] Map 1, though its caption reads "Netherland East Indies 1942," shows also the whole of the main island of New Guinea and most of Australia!
Purchase Military Trials of War Criminals in the Netherlands East Indies
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From its release in 1998, Half-Life saw fervent support from independent game developers, due in no small part to support and encouragement from Valve Software. Worldcraft, the level-design tool used during the game’s development, was included with the game software. Printed materials accompanying the game indicated Worldcraft’s eventual release as a retail product, but these plans never materialized. Valve also released a software development kit, enabling developers to modify the game and create mods. Both tools were significantly updated with the release of the version 1.1.0.0 patch. Many supporting tools (including texture editors, model editors, and rival level editors like the multiple engine editor QuArK) were either created or updated to work with Half-Life.
The Half-Life software development kit served as the development base for many multiplayer mods, including the Valve-developed Team Fortress Classic and Deathmatch Classic (an updated version of Quake).[21] Other mods such as Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat (DOD) began life as the work of independent developers (self-termed “modders”) who later received aid from Valve. Other multiplayer mods include Action Half-Life, Firearms, Science and Industry, The Specialists, Pirates, Vikings and Knights, Natural Selection and Sven Co-op.[citation needed]
Numerous single player mods have also been created, like USS Darkstar (1999, a futuristic action-adventure on board a zoological research spaceship), The Xeno Project 1 and 2 (1999–2005, a two-part mod starting in Xen and again including spaceships), Edge of Darkness (2000, which features some unused Half-Life models), Half-Life: Absolute Redemption (2000, which brings back Gordon Freeman for four additional episodes and another encounter with the G-Man), They Hunger (2000–2001, a survival horror total conversion trilogy involving zombies), Poke646 (2001, a follow-up to the original Half-Life story with improved graphics), Someplace Else (2002, Side story to the original Half-Life), and Heart of Evil (2003, Vietnam war with zombies).[22]
Some Half-Life modifications eventually landed on retail shelves. Counter-Strike was the most successful, having been released in six different editions: as a standalone product (2000), as part of the Platinum Pack (2000), as an Xbox version (2003), as a single player spin-off called Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (2004), Counter-Strike: Source, which runs on Half-Life 2’s Source engine, and the newest addition Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also running on the Source engine. Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Gunman Chronicles (2000, a futuristic Western movie-style total conversion with emphasis on its single player mode) and Sven Co-op were also released as stand-alone products.
In 2003, Valve’s network was infiltrated by hackers. Among the files included an unreleased Half-Life modification: “Half-Life: Threewave”, a cancelled remake of the mod Threewave CTF from Quake. The files were later found by Tyler McVicker from a Vietnamese FTP server on February 2016 and later released the modification unofficially on September 2016.[23]
Black Mesa, a fan-made remake of Half-Life utilising the Source engine, began development in 2005,[24] and was released as a free download on September 14, 2012.[25][26] The free 2007 Source SDK base is needed to run the game. It has been confirmed that Black Mesa will be distributed via Steam; the remake was among the first ten titles whose release on the platform was approved using Valve’s crowdvoting service Steam Greenlight.
Half-Life’s public reception was overwhelmingly positive in terms of reviews, acclaim and sales. As of November 16, 2004, eight million copies of the game had been sold,[34] by 2008 9.3 million copies had been sold at retail.[35] The game has won over 50 Game of the Year awards.
Half-Life was universally acclaimed, earning an overall score of 96 out of 100 on aggregate review website Metacritic. Computer Gaming World’s Jeff Green said that the game “is not just one of the best games of the year. It’s one of the best games of any year, an instant classic that is miles better than any of its immediate competition, and – in its single-player form – is the best shooter since the original Doom”.[31] IGN described it as “a tour de force in game design, the definitive single player game in a first person shooter”.[33] IGN has also respected the game as one of the most influential video games.[36] GameSpot claimed that it was the “closest thing to a revolutionary step the genre has ever taken”.[32] GameSpot inducted Half-Life into their “Greatest Games of All Time” list in May 2007.[37] In 2004, GameSpy held a Title Fight, in which readers voted on what they thought was the “greatest game of all time”, and Half-Life was the overall winner of the survey.[38] In the November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 issues of PC Gamer, Half-Life was named “Best Game of All Time”/”Best PC Game Ever”.
The immersive gaming experience and interactive environment was cited by several reviewers as being revolutionary.[30] AllGame said “It isn’t everyday that you come across a game that totally revolutionizes an entire genre, but Half-Life has done just that”.[30] Hot Games commented on the realism of the game, and how the environment “all adds up to a totally immersive gaming experience that makes everything else look quite shoddy in comparison”.[39] Gamers Depot found the game engaging, stating that they have “yet to play a more immersive game period”.[40]
Despite the praise that the game has received, there have also been some complaints. The Electric Playground said that Half-Life was an “immersive and engaging entertainment experience”, but said that this only lasted for the first half of the game, explaining that the game “peaked too soon”.[41]
Guinness World Records awarded Half-Life with the world record for Best-Selling First-Person Shooter of All Time (PC) in the Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2008.
A short film based upon Half-Life entitled Half-Life: Uplink, was developed by Cruise Control, a British marketing agency, and was released on March 15, 1999. However, Sierra withdrew it from circulation, after itself and Valve had failed to resolve licensing issues with Cruise Control over the film. The critical reception of the film was very poor. The plot of the film was that a journalist infiltrates the Black Mesa Research Facility, trying to discover what has happened there.
Microsoft Corporation (commonly referred to as Microsoft or MS) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2011, it was the world’s largest software maker by revenue,[8] and one of the world’s most valuable companies.[9]
Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The company’s 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition up to,[10] June 2016 announced plan to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.[11][12]
As of 2015, Microsoft is market-dominant in the IBM PC-compatible operating system market and the office software suite market, although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to Android.[13] The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including Internet search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the operating systems of Nokia’s former phones[14] and Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers. With the acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division to form Microsoft Mobile Oy, the company re-entered the smartphone hardware market, after its previous attempt, Microsoft Kin, which resulted from their acquisition of Danger Inc.[15]
The word “Microsoft” is a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software”
Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for computer programming, sought to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills.[19] In 1972 they founded their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which offered a rudimentary computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in computer science at Washington State University, later dropping out of school to work at Honeywell. Gates began studies at Harvard.[20] The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which Allen bought at Out of Town News, featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems’s (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer.[21] Allen suggested that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device; after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didn’t actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter. Although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the actual device, the interpreter worked flawlessly when they demonstrated the interpreter to MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1975; MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC.[17]:108, 112–114 They officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as the CEO.[22] Allen came up with the original name of “Micro-Soft,” as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article.[23][24] In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, “ASCII Microsoft”.[25] The company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.[22]
Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix.[26] However, it was MS-DOS that solidified the company’s dominance. After negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).[27] For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to PC DOS. Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS’s available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.[18][28]:210 The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press.[17]:232 Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin’s disease.
While jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20, 1985.[17]:242–243, 246 Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond on February 26, 1986, and on March 13 the company went public;[29] the ensuing rise in the stock would make an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.[30] Due to the partnership with IBM, in 1990 the Federal Trade Commission set its eye on Microsoft for possible collusion; it marked the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the U.S. Government.[31] Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987;[17]:243–244 meanwhile, the company was at work on a 32-bit OS, Microsoft Windows NT, using ideas from OS/2; it shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the Win32 application programming interface (API), making porting from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows easier. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.[32]
In 1990, Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office. The software bundled separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.[17]:301 On May 22 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 with a streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor.[33] Both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas.[34][35] Novell, a Word competitor from 1984–1986, filed a lawsuit years later claiming that Microsoft left part of its APIs undocumented in order to gain a competitive advantage.[36]
On July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact Statement that said, in part: “Beginning in 1988, and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive “per processor” licenses. Under a per processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM’s use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft’s use of per processor licenses has increased.”
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Review by Christopher Fischer, Indiana State University
Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi
By Thomas Weber
New York: Basic Books, 2017. Pp. xxiii, 422. ISBN 978–0–465–03268–6.
In Becoming Hitler, historian Thomas Weber (Univ. of Aberdeen) builds on his previous study of the early career of Adolf Hitler.[1] Here he focuses on the period roughly from the 1918 Armistice to the publication of Mein Kampf in 1925. Like all scholars of early Nazism, Weber must contend with the incomplete record of Hitler's early life, removing the layers of myth he himself propagated about his early life, while using a fragmentary set of records to plot his political and intellectual development. This study complements those of scholars like Ian Kershaw[2] and Brigitte Hamann.[3] Specifically, Weber argues that Hitler was neither a rank opportunist nor an inscrutable cipher, but a driven pragmatic politician whose ideological commitments developed, evolved, and solidified in postwar Bavaria.
Part I, "Genesis," examines Hitler's clear involvement—despite his later disavowals—in the revolutionary governments of Bavaria in the first half of 1919; throughout the turmoil, Hitler remained employed but uncommitted ideologically to the socialist and communist regimes, surviving until his eventual demobilization. This "drifter and opportunist" held onto his spot in the army and became a propagandist for the military; part of his work included a propaganda course which included themes anticipating some of his later obsessions: a rejection of Bolshevism, focus on food security, and predilection for populist politics. Hitler was no empty vessel: he "picked and chose large chunks of the ideas expressed by the speakers, when and if he felt they helped him to find his own answers to Germany's defeat and on how to set up a state unreceptive to external and internal shocks" (93).
Part II, "New Testaments," traces Hitler's path from modestly successful publicist to leader of the Nazi Party. His later accounts of his formative period, Weber notes, were suspect: for example, the introduction of the Nazi platform in 1920 did not win the broad acclaim Hitler later claimed. And audiences at many early Nazi meetings came to hear better known speakers than Hitler. Intellectually, this was the period when Hitler's interest turned toward Eastern Europe under the influence of Alfred Rosenberg and Dietrich Eckart, though his racism was not particularly anti-Slavic. The author also presents snippets of Hitler's private life, including his strained relations with most of his family (chap. 8).
Part III, "Messiah," follows Hitler's rise and seeming fall with the failed Munich ("Beer Hall") Putsch of 1923. Styled by some as a "Bavarian Mussolini," Hitler nonetheless overcame intra-Party conflicts and quarrels with local völkisch leaders and even the Bavarian government, which considered expelling the Austrian citizen. Weber traces Hitler's eclectic intellectual interests: he read race theorists who did not always accord with his later ideas, while rejecting occultism. He often skimmed books, seeking confirmation or expansions of his existing ideas. Hitler's belief in his own destiny continued to grow, though he carefully portrayed himself as the "drummer" or architect of a movement, while giving precedence to such prominent conservative leaders as Erich Ludendorff. The failure of the poorly planned Munich Putsch led to Hitler's conviction for treason and confinement in Landsberg Prison; he served nine months of his five-year sentence. There he thrived intellectually, using the time to write Mein Kampf. Many of his later ideas crystallized, including his preoccupation with Lebensraum, a concept borrowed from Hans Guenther. Hitler emerged from jail certain of his vision of himself and fully confident in his conception of Germany's destiny.
One of the major themes of the book is slightly counterintuitive: that Hitler's rise was possible only in the context of postwar Bavaria. Yet, Weber argues, had he remained in Bavaria, he would likely have flamed out. It was necessary for him to expand the scope of his ambitions to the whole of Germany. Weber also boldly contends that Hitler's radical anti-Semitism began to take shape only in 1919. Weber is careful, cagey even, arguing that it is difficult to discern how deeply Hitler's anti-Semitism ran even as he began to deploy it increasingly as a way to distinguish Nazism in the crowded rightwing landscape of Bavaria. Other elements—for example, the intertwining of anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism—were layered in over time.
Weber's key conclusion concerns the long-term aim of Hitler's anti-Semitism; he argues that Hitler "makes it perfectly clear that his preference by 1923 was for genocide, but that, if an outright genocide was not possible, he would be pragmatic and go for the second best-option: mass expulsion" (333). Scholars of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust will take note, as this assertion goes to the heart of understanding the longer term trajectory of Nazi anti-Semitism and the unfolding of the Holocaust.
Becoming Hitler demonstrates that, over seventy years (and 120,00 volumes) later, our view of Adolf Hitler's early, ill-documented intellectual and political development continues to be refined. Thomas Weber has persuasively shown that a good grasp of that development is vital to understanding Nazi foreign policy and, above all, the unfolding of anti-Semitic policies in the 1930s and early 1940s.
[1] Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War (NY: Oxford U Pr, 2010).
[2] Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (NY: Norton, 1998).
[3] Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship (NY: Oxford U Pr, 1999).
Purchase Becoming Hitler
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Maaleak Wilbur Rises From Foster Care to Social Media Marketing Sensation
Champions are born in the middle of challenges, and successful people are not those who never failed, but those who never quit. The story of Maaleak Wilbur is one of repeated hardship, unyielding determination, and inspiring success.
Maaleak Wilbur is a 20-year-old Social Media Marketing expert, serial entrepreneur, and investor who has worked with many media influencers to establish their brands. He is also a public speaker focused on youth development.
Maaleak had a rather difficult childhood. He spent the better part of his formative and teenage years in foster care, cycling through four different foster homes, three residential homes, and a few group homes. Because Maaleak did not grow up with a family that he could call his own, he was forced to learn how to be as self-dependent as possible and developed a knack for figuring things out for himself.
This independent streak would become pivotal during his life. At the age of 8, he discovered a passion for gaming and delved into it. In four years, he had built up a significant fanbase with 30,000 YouTube subscribers. However, the instability that characterized his childhood meant that he was soon back in the foster care system without access to his YouTube Channel. His extended time away led to his account being hacked, meaning he would have to pick himself up again from scratch.
In 2013, he switched platforms to Facebook and began again – this time centering on relationship advice. His wit and forthright personality endeared him to a new group of followers numbering over 100k. In time, Maaleak expanded to Snapchat and Instagram, increasing his followership by an additional 120k plus. Once again, life came hard at the young man as a series of events landed him in the Witness Protection Program, where he was denied any form of publicity for his safety. During that period, all his social media interactions and pages were suspended.
Maaleak returned to his everyday life and social media publicity when he turned 18 and left the Witness Protection program. Now an adult and still on his own, he took on a couple of jobs to cover the rent while putting himself through school, graduating with honors in due course. Equipped with a dogged determination and an iron will to succeed, he taught himself about trading and investing in the Foreign Exchange market. Ultimately, he was able to generate sustainable income from his efforts in trading and social media marketing.
Since his return to social media, Maaleak has built a network of over 50 million followers across social media platforms making valuable relationships and educational content that resonates with his tribe of followers. Maaleak has a genuine heart for people, helping upcoming influencers establish their brands and build an audience of their own. He also donates more than half of his profits to his supporters and people in need.
Having been through a lot of hardship, Maaleak is passionate about using his life events to inspire people not to lose faith and to know that they can achieve their dreams despite their situation. Although he came from a poor background, he has realized his dreams and made a career out of his hobby.
In the coming years, Maaleak plans on traveling the world as a public speaker. He intends to use his platform to tell his story and mentor young people who might be struggling with their direction in life. He also hopes to invest in businesses and possibly publish an autobiography.
Connect with Maaleak by visiting his website and his social media pages on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok.
Contact Person: Maaleak Wilbur
Website: http://maaleak.com/
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Canadian Tamil Congress hails TNA victory, asks Sri Lanka to implement 13th amendment
TORONTO: Hailing the victory of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Northern Provincial Council elections, the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) has urged Sri Lanka to respect the wishes of Tamils and implement the 13th amendment immediately.
In a statement here, the CTC congratulated Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran for leading the TNA to the impressive election victory in which the party bagged 30 out of 38 seats for the Northern Province Council.
Despite the intimidation by the Sri Lankan government through its army, police, military intelligence and paramilitary groups, the TNA has scored a resounding victory, the Canadian Tamil Congress said.
“The Tamils of Northern Province have sent a clear message to the Sri Lankan government, and the international community, that they strongly feel their democratic right to be heard must be heeded in any future actions concerning them,” the CTC statement said.
“We at the CTC call upon the Sri Lankan government to recognize the wishes of the Tamil people through the result of this election and immediately implement the 13th amendment in full. It is also very clear from the TNA election manifesto, the government of Sri Lanka must go far beyond the 13th amendment to satisfy the Tamil people. We therefore call upon the international community, particularly India, to put all their influence in helping to implement the legitimate demands of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka,” the statement added.
Congratulating the people of the Northern Province for voting the TNA to victory, the CTC vowed to “stand by the TNA and its Chief Minister elect Justice C.V. Wigneswaran in their quest to achieve real equality, justice, peace and respect for our people.”
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Twilight Transit
October 28 – December 3, 2005
作品精選 新聞稿 作品清單 藝術家
Angel Line, 2005
paper: 71 x 58 3/4 inches
(180.3 x 149.2 cm)
framed: 81 1/2 x 68 5/8 inches
(207 x 174.3 cm)
RH-89
Dance of Ghosts, 2005
Twilight Transit, 2005
unique sculpture comprised of six machines: steel, mirrors, glass, cast iron, bulbs, leather pouches, sheep's wool, 2 CDs and speakers
Soundtrack: Hayden Chisholm
Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to announce Twilight Transit, a major exhibition of new work by Rebecca Horn.
Rebecca Horn's exhibition is comprised of a sculptural installation, a film of early performances, and a group of new large-scale drawings. In the main gallery a new installation (above) employs cast skulls, light and mirrors, which reflect the viewer, the sculptures themselves and the skulls, while simultaneously reflecting light in the gallery, the whole evoking the inescapability of the passage of time and mortality. In gallery 2, a group of important drawings, the scale of which are determined by the extent of Horn's reach, suggest personal, metaphorical, and metaphysical influences through dynamic gesture. These fascinating new drawings clearly relate to Horn's early performances pieces in which she extended the body sculpturally into space with a performative component.
Concurrent with the exhibition opening on October 27th is the launch of an important new monograph, Rebecca Horn, Moon Mirror. Site-specific Installations 1982–2005, with texts by Richard Cork, Doris von Drathen, Steven Henry Madoff, and Rebecca Horn, published by the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, and Hatje Cantz. Rebecca Horn and two of the authors, Doris von Drathen and Steven Henry Madoff, will be present to sign copies of the monograph at the opening.
Rebecca Horn, (born in Germany in 1944), is without question one of the seminal artists of our time. Horn's work, has historically ranged over an extensive variety of media, including film, performance, installation, photography and sculpture, whilst addressing themes of corporeality, perception and philosophy. The employment of such wide ranging interests as science and alchemy, the rational and the intuitive, the mechanical and the sensual has occurred repeatedly in her work over the last three decades and resulted in one of the most distinct and individual oeuvres in recent memory. Horn has participated in the Venice Biennale, the Biennale of Sydney, and is one of very few artists who has been selected to participate in Documenta on four separate occasions.
Horn's work is included in major public collections worldwide including: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy; The Tate Gallery, London; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven and many others.
作品清單
Gallery 1:
Films of Performances, 1970-1973
Gallery 2 (counter-clockwise from left):
Night Watch in the Garden of Fear, 2005
paper: 71 x 58 3/4 inches (180.3 x 149.2 cm)
framed: 81 1/2 x 68 5/8 inches (207 x 174.3 cm)
Main Gallery:
unique sculpture installation comprised of six machines: steel, mirrors, glass, cast iron, electric bulbs, leather pouches, sheep's wool, sound
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Main Page > Quaid-i-Azam > Science > Department of Mathematics > Dr. Muhammad Zaeem ul Haq Bhatti
Dr. Muhammad Zaeem ul Haq Bhatti
Dr. Muhammad Zaeem-ul-Haq Bhatti is a Pakistani Mathematician and HEC Approved PhD Supervisor, specialized in Geometry, Relativistic Astrophysics and cosmology. He started his career by joining University of the Punjab, Lahore as a Lecturer in 2014. Currently, he is serving as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, PU after completing his PhD in 2015. According to the Directory of PSP 2017 released in 2018, “Pakistan Council of Science and Technology” has announced Dr. Zaeem as the thirteenth most productive young scientist of Pakistan (https://www.pcst.org.pk/docs/PSP2017.pdf ). He worked as the Coordinator of M.Sc. Program at the Department of Mathematics, University of the Punjab during 2016-19. He attended and presented research papers in many National and International Conferences and member of different societies and groups like Pakistan Physical Society and The Group of Gravitation and Cosmology (http://www.pu.edu.pk/ggc/). He has published about 85 research papers in various well-reputed Impact Factor International Journals like Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Physical Review D, Annals of Physics, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Physics of the Dark Universe, The European Physical Journal C, The European Physical Journal Plus, Astroparticle Physics, Astrophysics and Space Science, General Relativity and Gravitation, Physics Letters A, International Journal of Modern Physics D, The European Physical Journal A etc. which have been cited more than 2000 times by various National and International Researchers. The cumulative impact factor of his research articles is about 235, according to the 2019 Journal Citation Reports released by Thomson Reuters in 2020. He is a reviewer of various impact factor international journals and working on the editorial board of some international journals as well. He has been selected in Category A for Research Productivity Award in 2015 by “Pakistan Council of Science and Technology” and has been regularly awarded with Research Incentive Awards from University of the Punjab and PCST. He has obtained different research projects as Principal Investigator from University of the Punjab and Higher Education Commission, Pakistan. Due to his significant research, his name is among the top young researchers of Pakistan in the field of Mathematics. Dr. Zaeem is also involved in supervising M.Phil./Ph.D. students in the field of relativity, astrophysics and cosmology. Dr. Zaeem has also been involved in organizing various seminars as well as National and International Conferences on Gravitation and Cosmology in University of the Punjab.
Initially, Dr. Zaeem worked on the inhomogeneous matter distribution of the Universe due to different fields, in particular, electromagnetic fields. He also studied the dynamical instability issue and cavity formation in the cosmos with self-gravitating objects. Currently, he is investigating the alternatives to black holes and their stability problem in the background of different gravitational theories.
M.Sc, M.Phil., Ph.D. (PU)
Fields of Interest: General Relativity, Cosmology
CV of Dr. Muhammad Zaeem ul Haq Bhatti
Publication of Dr. Muhammad Zaeem ul Haq Bhatti
Phone Number: 92-42-99231241 Ext. 127
E-mail Address: mzaeem.math@pu.edu.pk
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MMGM- Dragon Ops and The Reign: Africa
Mancusi, Mari. Dragon Ops
May 12th 2020 by Disney-Hyperion
School library copy
Ian and his older sister Lilli loved the video game Fields of Fantasy, so they are super excited when their uncle, who is working on the new virtual reality theme park Dragon Ops, invites them to beta test the game on the remote island where the theme park will open. Unfortunately, they have to put up with their annoying cousin Derek as well. Even before they arrive at the island, Ian has some weird experiences, such as seeing the dragon Atreus, who is not supposed to be part of the game. He also meets a girl named Ikumi, who offers some information but is somewhat standoffish. Lilli hasn't been as thrilled with the game recently, and has, in fact, sworn off all technology, but the opportunity to participate in a game that has virtual reality superimposed upon a real landscape is undeniably appealing. When the guide who is supposed to take them into the game becomes ill, they end up being escorted by one of the coders. After meeting up with Atreus (and giving him some ear scratch 'ems!), the coder goes back to make the dragon more fierce, leaving the children unchaperoned. They don't think it will be a problem until Atreus returns with his "improved" coding and captures and imprisons Derek. Soon, Ian and Lilli, with some help from the elusive Ikumi, are engaged in an epic quest for dragon stones that should save their video game world... and which might help save their lives as well.
Strengths: My video game experience is limited to rapidly extinguishing my worlds in Sim City and Dino Park Tycoon about 15 years ago, and watching my children try to play Runescape on dial up internet, so there were a lot of video game details I didn't quite get. This makes it PERFECT for readers who actually know what is going on. This also had a lot of action and adventure that didn't require video game knowledge. I loved Lilli's reasons for quitting video games, and Ian and Ikumi's relationship was interesting and also had a BIG twist at the end. Like this author's Gamer Girl and Camelot Code, Dragon Ops will appeal to "techies" (as my father calls them) and fantasy lovers alike. I also have a very soft spot in my heart for this author's Princesses, Inc.
Weaknesses: While any novel involving technology is fascinating when it is published, they all run the risk of becoming dated very quickly. Computer dating books, anyone?
What I really think: Purchased this one without having read it and was NOT disappointed!
Nichole, C. The Reign: Africa
December 2nd 2020 by Pan African Publishing House
This book is an interesting overview of different tribes in Africa. Each two page spread includes one illustration of a member of the tribe mentioned in traditional costume, and the accompanying text covers topics such as where the tribe lives in modern times, the traditional languages, the activities of both men and women, rituals and customs, and additional information such as community activities, homes, animals that figure largely in the culture, traditional dishes, and an assortment of fun facts.
I can't think of any other books that cover such a large range of tribes. I would have loved to see a map that showed where the tribes were located, and photographs of the villages, buildings, etc. would have been great as well.
My school has a number of students from various parts of Africa, so this is a helpful book to have for all of my readers to gain more understanding of different cultures from this area of the world.
The only drawback of this book was that the text was a bit hard for me to read; it was sort of a compacted Comic Sans style that had very little space between letters. This book is not available from Follett, although Amazon does carry the paperback.
This is Not a Ghost Story
Portes, Andrea. This is Not a Ghost Story
November 17th 2020 by HarperTeen
Daffodil is glad to be escaping her humdrum life with her grandmother in Nebraska. On her way Bryn Mawr during the summer before college, she happens to disembark in a town that seems to be calling her, and before long has a better than expected job, working for a college professor watching his house and overseeing a renovation there. It's a mansion out in the country with a troubled past, and she runs into any manner of quirkiness while there. There is an older, very exuberant neighbor, the foreman of the renovation who occasionally is very odd, and a large animal scratching outside of the house. We also hear about her life in Nebraska, especially about a boy who liked her, and we learn more and more about how this situation didn't end well. As the odd instances increase, Daffodil starts to wonder if she is imagining them, or if there is really something odd going on in the house. Can she figure it out before more tragedy occurs?
Strengths: Creepy houses out in the country where things seem odd, well meaning neighbors who seem to be possessed by demons, protagonist doubting her sanity-- all good things. The cover is just creepy enough, and the book was a good length and moved quickly.
Weaknesses: This was more of a Young Adult title, with a little language. The style was what made this seem less middle grade to me-- it almost read like Lois Duncan's Down a Dark Hallway, with a dense, descriptive, somewhat rambling quality that took a bit of readjustment to follow. This is fine for older readers, but I think most of mine would struggle with this. The idea of an unreliable narrator often doesn't do well with younger readers.
What I really think: I'm always looking for scary stories for my students, but they want something more like Brown's The Forgotten Girl, Currie's Scritch Scratch, Lawrence's The Stitchers, or Harmon's Hide and Seekers.
Fantastic Tales of Nothing
Green, Alejandra and Rodriguez, Fanny. Fantastic Tales of Nothing
November 17th 2020 by Katherine Tegen Books
Nathan is a thief who suddenly finds himself in the woods. He ends up being saved by an individual he calls Haven, who speaks a language he does not. He thinks she might be one of the Volken; his world is divided into Humans and Volken. They manage to defeat robbers and end up joining Sina and Bardou, and head to the Capital. They talk about Lerina, who had brought peace to their world until she died. Nathan has some magical powers, which are forbidden in the Empire. When the group falls in with Ren, the spymaster for the Imperial family and Noaki, the son of the Chancellor of the Volken, they find out that Nathan is the Chosen One, and the group has quest-like adventures in order to save the kingdom.
Wow. Clearly, my fantasy amnesia COMBINED with my trouble reading graphic novels did not end well. Let's go with the official description:
In the first book of this full-color fantasy graphic novel series filled with humor and hijinks, the fate of the land of Nothing hinges on Nathan and an unlikely team of magical beings to save the day—perfect for fans of Amulet and Estranged.
Welcome to Nothing! Despite its name, this is a fantastic land where humans and magical volken coexist peacefully—at least they try . . .
This is the tale of Nathan, an ordinary human (or so he thinks) living an ordinary life (or so he wishes). Everything changes when he meets Haven, a mysterious creature who is neither human nor volken. Oh, and the two of them are being chased by volken mercenaries—a grumpy wolf named Bardou and a delightful crow named Sina.
Nathan soon learns he has mysterious powers, even though humans aren’t supposed to have magic. But there’s no time to dwell on that because this discovery sets the group on a perilous quest across windswept terrain, through haunted forests, and in ancient tombs. Nathan and his unlikely friends must prevent an impending war and defeat a dark evil to save their land.
No pressure, of course. If they fail, everything will turn into, well . . . nothing.
Strengths: The illustrations are great, the story fast paced, and the characters innovative and engaging. There is a lot going on in the story, and so many interesting sub plots. I imagine that this could easily be a series.
Weaknesses: This had a standard, Anglo-Germanic/Tolkienesque medieval feel to it, and I have a lot of those books. I've been so spoiled by the Rick Riordan Presents fantasies with other cultural connections that I was a little disappointed.
What I really think: This has a Nimona or Estranged vibe to it, and my students are not big fans of either of those. I will pass, but libraries who have graphic novel fans who also like fantasy will definitely want to invest in this one.
The Great White Shark (Dragged from Under #2)
Monninger, Joseph. The Great White Shark (Dragged from Under #2)
January 5th 2021 by Scholastic Inc.
After the events in The Bull Shark, Barn and his mother travel to Maine to spend some time with a friend of hers. As luck would have it, there was just a shark attack on a beach very near where Barn is staying. A boy was killed while surfing, and while Barn knows how sad this is (his father was killed in Afghanistan), he also wants to find out why a shark was in the area. After observing, he realizes that the seal population is very healthy, so sharks are making their way to the area to feed. Surf boards can look like animals, and once a human is accidentally bitten, the blood sets off the shark and tragedies can occur. Sharks don't find humans to be that desirable as food. When Barn sees some other teens surfing even though there are signs up, he calls the police, who caution the boys and don't get them into trouble at all. The leader, Vince, has had run ins with the law before and vows to make Barn "pay" for calling them. Barn's mentor from Florida, Jessup, is in the area for a conference, and Barn's mother wants to know if it is okay for them to date. Barn's friends, Finn and Margaret, are also in the area doing college visits with a cousin. Scientists tag the sharks in order to study them, and the beach is carefully watched during the summer, but Barn almost comes to grief when a run in with Vince and his gang causes him to disregard his own good advice.
Strengths: Sharks are always an interesting topic, and aside from Spradlin's Into the Killing Seas, Northrop's Surrounded by Sharks and Tarshis' I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916, there really aren't any middle grade novels that revolve around them! I love Barn's scientific interest in the animals, and the balanced approach to different types of grief that he feels. Jessup is a great character, and I don't mind at all if he dates Barn's mother! The storyline with Vince was an interesting way to get Barn to do things he wouldn't have done otherwise.
Weaknesses: I understand why Barn had to travel away from home, but it makes having Jessup and his friends around see a bit forced.
What I really think: Considering how much interest there is in sharks and how few fictional books incorporate them, I'm really glad to see this series and just with it were available in hardcover.
Salazar, Aida. Land of the Cranes
Nine-year-old Betita loves to hear her father tell Aztec legends about cranes, and agrees with him that her family are like the cranes that have come home and should be allowed to fly. Her parents have come to the US from Mexico, following an aunt and uncle. They work very hard, the father in construction and washing dishes, and the mother as a nanny, although her father was an agronomist and her mother a teacher in Mexico. They had to flee because Betita's grandparents had problems with a local drug cartel, and it was too dangerous to stay. When her father is seized in an ICE raid, Betita's carefully constructed life unravels. Her father is deported and ends up living on the streets in a larger city because he is afraid to go back to his home town. When the family decides to go and visit him at Friendship Park in San Diego where they can talk across a fence, Betita and her pregnant mother are grabbed and roughly taken into custody. They are kept in a cold building with very few basic necessities, and it is some time before the lawyer who is working on their immigration case can even find them. Betita experiences lice, verbal and physical abuse by the guards, and sees others who are beaten, and hears stories of sexual abuse. When a young activist is brought in, they try to use social media platforms to bring attention to their situation, but things get worse. Betita's mother is gravely ill, and when the baby comes, she is taken to a hospital far away, leaving Betita by herself. She copes with her despair and grief by continuing to write her picture poems about cranes and her experiences. These are useful to the activist and lawyer in bringing attention to the mistreatment of immigrants in detention, but will Betita and her family ever be able to fly free?
Strengths: It is great to finally see a few more books on topics of social justice for young readers, as well as books with Latinx characters. You would have thought that since #WeNeedDiverseBooks started six years ago, that we would be seeing even more. Betita's story is heartbreaking and is a good one for young readers who might not be aware of what is going on in the world.
Weaknesses: With both this book and this author's The Moon Within, there are a lot of situations that might be really unfamiliar to young readers. Adults reading these books will have read more about these issues and understand them better. While the constant use of crane imagery is very effective poetically in this novel in verse, it would be helpful to have more background information for my more concrete middle school readers.
What I really think: This is an excellent and timely novel about the horrific plight of detained immigrants that might be best introduced to younger readers with some support and back story about the treatment of immigrants in the US. We need more stories like this and Efrén Divided by Ernesto Cisneros.
Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad: Absolute Hero
Tripp, Valerie and Bowers, Geneva (illus.) Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad: Absolute Hero
September 8th 2020 by Under the Stars (National Geographic)
Izzy is nervous about starting a new school year at Atom Middle School, even though she has her good friends Charlie Darwin and Allie Einstein. Her other friend, Marie Curie, was away for the past two years, and has come back as a hyper busy, popular girl who scares Izzy a little bit. There are lockers, crowds of students, and new classes and activity like forensics (which they are sad to hear is public speaking rather than CSI-style investigation). They also soon find that the building is absolutely freezing. Since Izzy and her friends like science, they start an investigation into why the air conditioning in the school is on overdrive. They make a number of hypotheses, starting with the thermostat in the principal's office being hit by the sun and registering the building temperature inaccurately, and eventually take their investigation to the roof where the units are. Will the girls be able to survive middle school, solve the mystery, and repair their friendship with Marie?
Strengths: Friend drama is always in demand, and elementary students who are curious about what middle school is like will enjoy reading about Izzy and her friends' new classes and experiences. I loved that the girls were passionate about the scientific method and wanted to solve a problem at their new school. It's good to see them working together on a project for the common good. The occasional page decorations and illustrations are well done and convey a lot of personality. There is a decent amount of diversity in the ethnicity of the students, and Charlie has two moms.
Weaknesses: I can't imagine any school building where students would get accidental access to the roof. There were other things that don't reflect MY school - the school library is open after school, students can get into the principal's office to check on the thermostat, and 6th graders have extracurricular activities. Are there middle schools with marching bands? This made the book seem unrealistic to me, but might reflect schools in other states.
What I really think: This is similar to the Girls Who Code, Daring Dreamers, or StartUp Squad books or Alyssa Milano's Hope series, with the purposefully diverse group of friends, the science, business, or social activism interest. While it's great that the main character is a person of color in these books, the authors are not. I think the illustrator of Izzy is, possibly. Ten years ago, this would be fine, but publishers who want books to feature POC main characters REALLY need to be reaching out to actual POC writers at this point in time, especially since most of these books are formulaic and probably written to spec. There are no details about family culture or race relations at all; if Renee' Watson or Hena Khan had written any of these series, they would have had more interesting and diverse details. After this summer especially, publishing has to keep up with the desires of the US reading community.
Mouse Watch
Gilbert, J.J. Mouse Watch
November 3rd 2020 by Disney-Hyperion
Bernie is a young mouse who has always wanted to join the Mouse Watch, an organization of mice that does good in society, much like the Rescue Rangers founded by Disney's Chip and Dale. She has sent countless applications, and when her latest attempt to catch the eye of Gadget Hackwrench, the head of Mouse Watch, ends in a broken leg, she despairs of ever joining the group. Of course, this is when she gets an invitation to come to the training center. Even though her parents are worried, especially since her older brother was cruelly killed by an evil rat, they let her go. Once there, she meets fellow student Jarvis, who has tremendous computer hacking skills but whom she doesn't quite trust because he is a rat. When a training simulation they are in stops suddenly and they realize that everyone in the training facility has disappeared, they know they need to do something. Through the news, they find that a cheese smelling gas is being spread everywhere and wreaking havoc; the evil Dr. Thornpaw has taken a sleeping gas produced by Hackwrench and altered it for his evil purposes. Using all manner of cleverly mouse technology and gadgets, will Bernie and Jarvis be able to save the day?
Strengths: This was a very well written, engaging book. The descriptions were well worded and moved the story along instead of bogging it down, and the descriptions of mouse houses, clothing, daily life and spy practices would be enthralling to readers who loved Norton's The Borrowers. There' some social awareness, albeit in mouse/rat form, that is a nice, light lesson for younger readers. Bernie has a well entrenched dream and is allowed to follow it with the support of her parents, even though it seems unobtainable. The action scenes are well done, and Dr. Thornpaw is an evil supervillain who could easily be in league with Gargamel, Shredder, or the Purple Pieman.
Weaknesses: Since Rescue Rangers was on television 30 years ago, this must be trying to cash in on the nostalgia factor with parents buying the book in order to introduce their children to the series, but I would have liked it more if it hadn't had the Disney link. I don't know that my readers will get the references to Chip and Dale.
What I really think: My students are much less enthralled with mice books than I am, so I may not purchase. I would definitely buy this one for an elementary school library, since it was very well done and enjoyable, and has the possibility of being a series.
MMGM- Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries
My district returned to remote learning for two weeks since our county Covid cases put us into the "purple" zone. As much as I hate being away from school, being in school was very stressful. Most students were good about wearing masks, but as much effort as was put into distancing students in the class room and cafeteria, the students were not particularly good about social distancing. I tried to be so vigilant about wiping down surfaces, but because of HIPAA, we can't be told which students are being quarantined or are sick. Since I have to take groceries to my 86 year old father, I try to be super careful and only go out to the grocery.
There are different stresses with remote teaching, but at least they don't center around "Will I somehow infect one of my students or family today."
Bunce, Elizabeth C. Premeditated Myrtle
May 5th 2020 by Algonquin Young Readers
Possibly moved to October 2020
In 1893, Myrtle is being raised by her father, a lawyer, and her governess, Miss Judson, after the death of her mother. Myrtle is very interested in the law, crime, and the art of detection, so she is especially interested when her older neighbor, Miss Wodehouse, is found dead in her bathtub. Miss Wodehouse raised and propagated Gilded Slipper lilies and was wealthy, and Myrtle feels that something is not right. Between the missing cat, the state of the garden, and details she uncovers (like the state of Miss Wodehouse's nightgown), Myrtle has plenty to keep her investigating. Add a niece and nephew who could inherit, and the plot thickens. Her father objects more for show than in order for real change to be made, and Miss Judson is ready to encourage her charge. The Victorian era was not a great time for a young lady to be interested in science, much less crime, but Myrtle manages to stay out of trouble most of the time, and even manages to make friends with Caroline, the daughter of Dr. Munjal. Will she be able not only to prove that Miss Wodehouse was murdered, but to solve the case?
Strengths: There were a lot of twists and turns that I didn't see coming, which I always appreciate in a mystery. Myrtle and Miss Judson rode bicycles, believed that girls were as good as boys, and dealt with the strictures of society in a realistic, if enthusiastic, manner. The way Myrtle was treated by her peers ran true to the time period. The lilies added an interesting touch, as did the gardener.
Weaknesses: Myrtle wasn't that nice; she was privileged and spoiled and did not take other's feelings into account. Comparisons to Bradley's Flavia de Luce are apt. While it's nice to see some cultural diversity, I'm not sure how accurate it is to the time period; I just don't have that information.
What I really think: This was a well done mystery which I bought it for the students who like Robin Stevens' Wells and Wong mysteries, which have been a steady circulator. I need to hand sell this a bit, but once I assure readers it has a "good murder" in it, they are much keener!
October 6th 2020 by Algonquin Young Readers
After her murder investigation, Myrtle's father has to go to Paris for a conference, but wants his daughter out of the limelight. He sends her and Miss Judson on a seaside excursion with her overbearing great aunt Helena. There is a train trip organized by Sir Quentin Ballingall and his daughter Temperance, and the group will then stay at the fancy Ballingal Arms near the seaside. Myrtle is enthralled when she meets Mrs. Bloom, who is an insurance investigator who is not pleased at how Sir Quention is transporting the very expensive Northern Lights tiara her company has insured. When Temperance wears the tiara to perform a song for the passengers, the lights cut out and the tiara is stolen! Myrtle is all set to investigate with Mrs. Bloom, and the two have a breakfast meeting arranged to discuss this. When the investigator doesn't show, we know that no good can come of this turn of events. Not only that, but there are deep scars in the community where the hotel is located, stemming from a tragic pleasure boat fire in the past. Soon, Myrtle is thrust into a murder investigation on top of the theft, and must deal with helpful people, like photographer Clive Roberts and her old friend Mr. Blakeney, but must also contend with the inept investigator Arkwright and vaguely annoying people like her aunt's companion. Her aunt comes under suspicion for both the thefts and the murder and is arrested. Myrtle would like to contact her father to make things right, but Miss Judson thinks that they can solve the case themselves.
Strengths:The events and characters in this book will certainly seem familiar to readers who have delved deep into Christie, Sayers, and other British authors from the 1920s era of crime fiction. My students often ask for murder mysteries, and this definitely qualifies. The train travel and seaside resort are an interesting setting, and Miss Judson is about as engaging a governess as ever graced the pages of literature. Myrtle is a plucky young woman with definite career interests, and is not afraid of getting her own way.
Weaknesses: Myrtle isn't the most likable character, and she comes across as a bit bratty in the first chapter, where she is complaining about her vacation. She gets better, but she was hard to take in the first chapter.
What I really think: Historical mysteries are harder to sell than other kinds in my library; the kids will pick them up for the murder, but would prefer that they be modern. Robin Stevens' Wells and Wong does well, mainly because of the boarding school aspect and the fact that teachers die, but I buy these in the hopes that they will be a gateway to classic British mysteries.
Some Bunny to Love
Shusterman, Michelle. Some Bunny to Love
Laura's family owns a small bodega in a closeknit neighborhood near Harlem. She has a lot of social anxiety, so doesn't necessarily like to interact with customers a lot, and while she loves reading, doesn't want to join a book club at a nearby store. She takes a lot of comfort in her pet bunny, Evie, who is also very skittish about humans, even though she hangs out in the store in the same way that cats sometimes are present in various businesses. When Laura's family has to travel to a family wedding, a friend and volunteer at the local animal shelter volunteers to watch Evie. When Evie is given the tour of the apartment by the woman's cat, she is told that Laura will never come back. Evie escapes into Manhattan, but nearly comes to grief in traffic. She is rescued by Bart, a former show dog who has run away from his controlling owner, Bitsy, and is enjoying life on the street. He assumes that Evie has run away because she also wants to be free, and starts to show her all the highlights of life in the wild. When he realizes that Evie really wants to go home, he offers to take her in exchange for a service-- she will steal a collar from a pet store so that the local animal control agents will stop trying to capture him. The two are photographed, and people post their antics on social media under #BunnyandCanine. Laura sees these and starts to worry. When checking with the friend, the family finds out that Evie has in fact run away. As the two animals make their way to the Bodega, they have all manner of challenges. Laura checks on their progress and even offers tips to followers on how to catch Evie. When Bart sees Bitsy in the park, and Evie takes a diamond necklace she has dropped, the two start to worry that things will not end well. Will Evie be able to get home to be with her beloved Laura, and will Bart be able to continue his carefree life on his own?
Strengths: Much is made of Laura and Evie's anxiety, so it was nice to see that Laura was able to manage hers while with cousins, and Evie actual became much more daring during her adventures. There was a certain Disney movie quality to this-- I could just imagine the CGI images of the animals talking to one another, especially in a charming scene where Bart and Evie sneak onto the subway, then hide in a bag at someone's feet, but are soon discovered. The tie in with social media will resonate with middle grade readers who spend much more time on Instagram than they should, and the animal's adventure is quite fun. The adult villains, like Bitsy and the animal control agent, are used to good effect. This would be a great title to recommend during Scholastic Book Fairs, and the cover is adorable.
Weaknesses:Older readers will have to suspend a lot of disbelief, while younger ones will be perfectly willing to believe that Evie and Bart get along, that Bart can get Evie back home, and that Laura suddenly has thousands of followers on Instagram and can identify Evie. My enjoyment of the adventure was overshadowed by disbelief, but that is because I am old. I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a younger dog who was lost.
What I really think: I would buy this if it were in hard back, since it would be popular with readers of animal adventure books like Pyron's A Pup Called Trouble, but am not sure about buying a prebind copy.
Cartoon Saturday- Oh My Gods!
Cooke, Stephanie, Fitzpatrick, Insha, and Moon, Juliana. Oh My Gods!
January 5th 2021 by Etch/HMH Books for Young Readers
When Karen's mother gets an exciting work opportunity, Karen has to go live with her father, Zed, whom she only really sees on holidays. Still, she's excited for her mother, so packs her bags and gets ready to start middle school on Mt. Olympus. Her father has an enormous house and is not only the mayor of the community but also her school principal. The students are friendly enough, but everyone seems heavily into mythological LARPing, which strikes Karen as odd. The curriculum is also different from what she's used to, and she gets help from a classmate in the school library. One day, they hear a scream, and find that a student has been turned to stone. Karen learns that she is, in fact, in the world of Greek mythology, but instead of being something ancient and gone, her classmates have reinvented themselves as teens. When her friend, Pol (Apollo) is turned to stone, Karen and her classmates work to find out who did this to him so that they can reverse the damage.
Strengths: This had several very good things-- the illustration style is colorful and appealing but also different and somehow older than Jamieson or Telgemeier. This gave the book more of a high school feel, which my students will adore, even though it's stated that the students are in middle school. This is the best version of Zeus that I've seen; sort of like the Santa in Funke's When Santa Fell to Earth. Moving and living with a normally noncustodial parent needs more coverage in the literature. Of course, there is the nice myth based mystery, the band of friends working together, and an exotic setting.
Weaknesses: Shall we call a moratorium on mythology based books called Oh My Gods!? There are so many other word play that could be used. This was a bit light on mythology, but at least it didn't use any in an annoying way.
What I really think: Definitely purchasing. A main character named Karen AND mythology? I would be remiss not to. Remember, I was a Latin teacher in a previous life.
Kadohata, Cynthia. Saucy
September 29th 2020 Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
E ARC provided Netgalley.com
Becca is a quadruplet, and she and her brothers Bailey, Jammer, and J.C. live with their parents and grandmother in a small Ohio town. Becca knows that funds are tight for the family, with Jammer's hockey and Bailey's cerebal palsy that has him in a wheelchair. The family is close, and takes nightly walks. On one of these, Becca finds a very small, very sick piglet in the bushes. Becca and her father rush the animal to the vet, who says the piglet is very sick but may survive. This isn't a pocket pig-- it is a breed that normally grows to 600 pounds. The mother reluctantly agrees to let Becca raise the pig until it gets to be 100 pounds, which she amends to 50 or 60 when Saucy, who is being kept in the kitchen, wreaks such havoc that even the kitchen cabinet doors are ripped off. Becca, who struggles to find friends at school, doesn't feel too bad about the expense to which Saucy is putting the family, because she figures she is the least expensive child, and she will work to pay her parents back. As Saucy grows, it becomes apparent that he will need to go to a pig sanctuary. Becca isn't happy with this, even after the family visits the sanctuary and can see how happy Saucy is there. After Saucy leaves the house, Becca becomes interested in the factory farm from which Saucy escaped, which is very near her home. She and her brothers go into the farm at night and steal nine piglets. They raise them at home, much to her mother's chagrin, and work to fight the factory farm. Becca manages to make a few friends from this endeavor, and is glad that they all want to help raise awareness of the pigs' plight.
Strengths: It's always good to see close knit families, and also good to see books involving some aspects of farming. Pets, grandparents, and social activism are also popular topics. The addition of plentiful page illustrations are charming, since Saucy is a personable pig with lots of personality. We've had a couple of sets of quadruplets in our school system, so it was interesting to see how they interacted with their family. The Ohio setting made sense and didn't get any details wrong!
Weaknesses: This book seems more like an elementary level one, so I don't know that I will buy it.
What I really think: Kadohata's Checked was the perfect blend of sports, family problems, and pets, so I had high hopes for Saucy.
This is where the review gets tricky. I was so irritated by Becca and her insistence on keeping Saucy even though it put her whole family in a precarious position that I hated the book. I was angry that the parents didn't put their feet down and say "enough". The portrayal of the pig sanctuary was very positive, and it bothered me that Becca didn't seem to have Saucy's best interest at heart. I could have recommended the book even with those reservations, but when Becca and her brothers steal pigs from the farm, that put this one over the edge for me. Even if the farm is not treating animals correctly, stealing pigs is not the way to change this. There were not enough consequences for Becca's actions, AND the animal shelter ended up being burdened with nine more animals! I eat very little meat, and know that some animal farms are not run with the best interest of the animals at heart, but I also realize that farming is very, very hard to make profitable. I would give this book one star based on how I felt about it, but will give it three (out of five on Goodreads) on its other merits.
13 and 3/4 (Friendship List #4)
Greenwald, Lisa. 13 and 3/4 (Friendship List #4)
August 4th 2020 by Katherine Tegen Books
Ari and Kaylan get together with their friends before the summer begins. Since they will be in 8th grade, they want to make sure that the summer is one of the best, and they want to continue their tradition of making their list of things to accomplish. It's even more important this summer, because Ari is heading off for seven weeks at her rustic sleepaway camp in the woods, where she will connect with old friends, and Kaylan is headed to a comedy camp held on a college campus. With the help of their friends, they come up with a list that includes things like helping two counselors fall in love, getting a younger person to make a list, tie dye something, and make a difference. Ari settles right into camp, reconnects with her friends, and starts on her list. It's a little harder for Kaylan, who has to learn to get along with her roommate, Indigo, and needs to make friends in the program. Both make progress on their lists, but there are some family dynamics at work behind the scenes, and the girls have a misunderstanding about who knew what information when. Will they be able to finish their lists, work out their differences, and get ready to be the "seniors of middle school"?
Strengths: I'm always fond of a good camp story, having fond memories of Campfire Girl camps (Kiwatani and Yakewi), and since most of my students don't seem to go to camp, they are enthralled by the idea of being away from home alone. Kaylan's comedy camp, located on a college campus, was especially interesting. Dorm rooms are super exciting in middle school! There's plenty of friend drama, a little light romance, and a good description of the growing pains that middle school friendships can have. While other reviews seem to indicate that this will be the last book in the series, it seemed like 8th grade deserved a book, and one final list, of its own.
Weaknesses: There was so much description of the drama and list progress that there weren't as many details about being at camp. There's always a lot of humor in communal rest rooms and dining halls, and my readers often don't know what the camps are like.
What I really think: This series has been a popular one, so I bought this one without reading it. Greenwald is an author I can trust to deliver a strong middle grade story.
Before the Ever After
Woodson, Jacqueline. Before the Ever After
September 1st 2020 by Nancy Paulsen Books
Zachariah Johnson, Jr. has always been proud of his pro football playing father, even though he is more interested in music and poetry. He loves the adulation his father gets from their town and his friends Daniel, Darry, and Oliver, and just has a great time hanging out with his caring and supportive family. However, right around the turn of the last century, ZJ's father starts to have a lot of health concerns. He has horrific headaches that cause him to moan and lash out, and he sometimes forgets things he should definitely know. ZJ's mother knows that something serious is wrong, and takes him to doctors, especially since other men who played football with him are suffering from similar problems. It soon is discovered that ZJ's beloved father has Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and won't be getting better. He has to mourn his father while he is still right there, and he and his mother have to find a way forward.
Strengths: Woodson's writing is always lyrical and atmospheric, and this novel in verse is no different. ZJ clearly loves his father and is proud of his football skills, so is devastated when he sees his father going downhill. Losing a parent as a child is the most devastating loss there is, and ZJ's struggles with this, set against his regular life of having to go to school, hang out with his friends, and be approached to play tackle football games, is well done. The cover is fantastic.
Weaknesses: I wish this were set in current times and included more information about CTE, much like Korman's Pop.
What I really think: There is very little football involved in the story, but will be a great choice for teachers and librarians who want to read something that touches on sports, and also for readers who enjoyed the novels in verse by Kwame Alexander, including Rebound, which also deals with grief.
I will take any chance I can get to plug Steve Almond's fantastic Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto (2014). It is a perfect accompaniment to this book and discusses how serious the problem with CTE in football players is.
Pretty much the only pet I will ever have from now on, now that Sylvie is gone, will be an older (8+) rescue dog, whom I assume will already have a name. Small dogs, predominantly poodle mixes, probably female, are really the only fuzzy creature with which I want to cohabit. I'm also not a fan of giving dogs people names; my Sylvie was named by my daughters. My preference would have been Ion (ee OWN), after the Greek chocolate bar, since she started out a very dark brown. If I actually ever get to name a dog, I would most probably use Tock (which strikes me as a male name) or Beany (for a female).
Book characters I would name a pet:
Laika, From van Eekhout's Voyage of the Dogs (and also space fame)
Rider, after Alex Rider from Horowitz's Stormbreaker
Beany, from Weber's Beany Malone series
Wedgie, from Selfors' Wedgie and Gizmo, would have to be a Corgi.
Stick Dog, from Watson's Stick Dog series
Thromdurr (from O'Donnell's Homerooms and Hall Passes), great for large dog
Tock from Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, for any dog
Gimli (from Tolkein'e Lord of the Rings, actual dwarf hamster)
Miss Bianca (from Sharp's The Rescuers, actual hamster)
Sylvie (from Townley's The Great Good Thing, actual Yorkipoo)
Minecraft: The Shipwreck and National Geographic Kids Almanac
Lee, C.B. Minecraft: The Shipwreck
Published November 3rd 2020 by Del Rey Books
Jake and his father have moved around quite a bit after the death of his mother. His father is a project manager who oversees renovation of public housing complexes, and their latest move has landed them in a somewhat rough Los Angeles neighborhood that is being gentrified. While his father claims that since Jake is entering high school they will make this their final stop, Jake doesn't believe him and prefers to spend his time in the world of Minecraft rather than trying to make friends in the real world. Living in the complex is Thanh, who is Jake's age and who is called "Tank" by the group of kids he hangs around with, including Shark, who is usually up to know good, and Emily, who is ashamed of her larger family because she has friends whose lives are devoted to Instagram, YouTube, and shopping. Tank doesn't play Minecraft much, preferring only the gardening aspect of the world building, although his younger sister Viv does. Emily plays, but is ashamed of the geekiness of the pursuit. The three meet up when they are all caught after hours in a restricted area of the construction zone by a guard. Jake's father, along with community advocate and overseer Ellen Jenkins. Instead of calling the police, Mrs. Jenkins ask that the teens be remanded to her care in order to help clean up the community center that is going to be turned in fancy shops. The kids aren't thrilled, but glad not to be in more trouble. Jake has found an old version of Minecraft on the community center computers, and it involves a mystery that he hasn't been able to solve on his own. He gets Emily and Tank involved, and in between cleaning out sentimental items from Mrs. Jenkin's office, they work their way through the game. Time is not on their side, but they find an unlikely ally, as well as a surprising enemy, to their investigation of the mermaid themed world of the game and the history of the community center. Will they figure out the game before the cord is literally pulled on it?
Strengths: This was a fantasy book involving a game that makes absolutely no sense to me, but I was able to remember the story line and even characters' names, which says to me that this is really strong writing! The parts that I like best were the real life worries. Tank's concern about his father's employment and Tank's willingness to take small jobs to help the family while grappling with issues of personal identity and trying not to get sucked into a life of crime by Shark could have been a book all on its own. Emily's desire to please her friends even though she doesn't really enjoy their activities was nicely balanced at the end when her friends didn't care that her family's abode wasn't as picturesque as their own. Jake's disbelief in his father's promises was well founded, and it was good to see that his father did make progress to giving Jake more stability, and his new friend group was quirky but based on a common interest. Even the story with Mrs. Jenkins was touching. In short, this was a solid, middle grade novel with appeal for students even in high school who are fans of the video game. There are plenty of details about that, but I have to admit that I skimmed most of those!
Weaknesses: Come on, people. There are NO other reviews on Goodreads of this book? This series has been super popular in my library, and this volume is the best of the bunch. Adult librarians and teachers, go read this NOW!
What I really think: Definitely purchasing. The Shipwreck is definitely a whole grain, fiber added Pop Tart of a book!
National Geographic Kids. Almanac 2021
May 5th 2020 by National Geographic Society
Not sure how much traveling will be happening THIS year, but in case you are traveling anywhere with elementary aged children, this is a great book to purchase for long car rides. Just make sure that you assign reading times so there is no fighting about whose turn it is. Of course, as quotable as these books are, you might find that reading this is more of a group activity.
Unlike the pulpy, dictionary-like almanacs we used to keep on hand with statistics about countries before the internet (yes, children, there was a time when everything had to be looked up in print!), the National Geographic almanacs are filled with glossy pages of fantastic photographs. While there are some entries about countries of the world in the chapters under "Geography Rocks!", most of the book is filled with fun facts that are a great way for young readers to add to their general knowledge of the world.
From Amazing Animals (with super cute pictures) to Space and Earth, there are lots of topic covered. Science and Technology covers new innovations and has an interesting quiz, the Culture Connection covers holidays, religion, money and other topics, Going Green has good tips for being environmentally conscious, and History Happens offers up information on a variety of topics including government, presidents, and women in history. There's a little something for everyone, and you never know what small tidbit of information might lead to new avenues of investigation.
One of my favorite pieces was about codes-- "an old lady doesn't look like a threat"! Just what I need; more confirmation that I could totally be an international spy!
Right up there in popularity with the Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley's Believe It Or Not, the National Geographic Kids Almanac is a great choice for parents who would rather hear statistics about presidents recited than hearing about all of the gross records that get broken every year.
MMGM- Triple Threat
Lupica, Mike. Triple Threat
August 25th 2020 by Philomel Books
Alex and her father LOVE football, especially the Pittsburgh Steelers. Her mother left the family when Alex was small to pursue a medical degree, and now lives far away, so Alex and her father are very close. He was a football player in high school, in the same small Pennsylvania town where they still live, but never had the skills to take his career further. Alex plays soccer and is very athletic, and has superior throwing skills. When she decides to try out for the middle school football team, her father thinks she will make the team. The coach is a little confused at first that she has come to tryouts, but doesn't cause any problems, although the quarterback, Jeff, is a jerk. Her good friend Caleb isn't wild about the idea, but supports her as best he can, but her former soccer teammates are very mean. Alex is a good player, and makes the team. Her skill set aligns with being a quarterback, and after a little hesitation, the coach is putting her in, and she's doing well. She also takes some hits, which are painful, but she doesn't complain. Other teams' reactions are usually negative at first, changing to a grudging acceptance after they see her play. The notable supporter is Jabril, the team captain, who just wants his team to succeed and who knows that Alex is a player who can help the team. Jeff remains steadfast in his jerkhood, and Caleb struggles to balance his affection for his friend with the pushback of his teammates. Alex stands strong before all of the challenges she faces and refuses to back down, and her football skills serve the team well. Her coach admits that he was hesitant at first, and her father is her biggest advocate, even getting an ice cream cake for the team on the last game. Will it be a consolation or celebratory offering?
Strengths: For the target demographic, this has a great selection of football scenes that I didn't quite understand but which mimic the excitement of the field, and has a great dose of school drama. There was also a little bit about Alex's mom being so far away. For me, I loved the fact that there wasn't a huge deal made of her trying out-- no one even involved the principal, much less the school board or local media, as is the case in most previous middle grade books about girls playing football. She just played. She stood up to the guys who were jerks, aligned herself with others who supported her, and took the advice of a friend to ENJOY playing, because if it wasn't fun, what was the point? I thought the interactions between the characters were realistic, balanced, and reflected modern reality. I book marked a ton of pages that had great quotes. I absolutely ADORED Jabril and his style of captaincy. Have to say that I might have cried a little at the end. Maybe it was allergies.
Weaknesses: It seemed odd that Alex had to buy a helmet and pads for try outs. What if she hadn't made the team? I want to check with our athletic director, but I'm pretty sure our school provides all of this equipment. Also, in the book Alex puts her hair in a ponytail. Why is it loose on the cover? It looks silly.
What I really think: I don't think anyone should play football. The chance of severe injury is too high. However, it's 2020. If girls want to play and are skilled enough, they should play. Period.
Love & Olives (Love & Gelato #3)
Evans, Jenna Welch. Love & Olives (Love & Gelato #3)
November 10th 2020 by Simon Pulse
Olive Varanakis's father was obsessed with the lost city of Atlantis, and since he was born and raised on the island of Santorini, Greece, he left Olive in the US with her mother when she was eight years old and returned to the island. He has only sent a few occasional post cards, but Liv (as she prefers to be known now) has a box with the 25 items he left behind him, which included their favorite annoted map of Santorini. As she is preparing to apply to colleges (her boyfriend, Dax, wants her to go to Stanford with him, but she would rather go to the Rhode Island School of Design to pursue her art work), she gets a post card from her father asking her to come and spend time with him as he is working on a project. Her mother insists that she go. After a long flight, she is met by the exuberant but entirely unknown Theo, who is her age, very attractive, and does seem to know who her father is. Her luggage is sent separately as she takes off with Theo on his motorcycle. Her father has arranged a big party in her honor and given her a set of very special oil paints, but she is still irritated. She is sharing a small room right off the bookstore that Theo's mother owns with Theo, and the two spend a lot of time together working on a documentary about Atlantis that her father thinks National Geographic will feature. There are many problems along the way, family secrets revealed, light romance, but most of all, a chance for Olive to connect with her heritage and make things right with her father.
Strengths: This is a Young Adult novel that will also be popular with middle school readers. Liv isn't thrilled about spending time in Greece, but she doesn't complain, either, and she embarks on the documentary with good humor. The descriptions of Santorini are great, and I loved Theo and his mother, especially the book store. This gets into a lot of information about her father's mental health at the end, and I don't want to spoil that ARC, but it was well done and helped Liv make sense of her childhood and some anxiety that she herself has. The cover is fantastic!
Weaknesses: I can't wait to see this in person; the publisher's listing has it at 352 pages, but my E ARC said 514! It was a bit on the long side, although the print seems to be middle grade (12-14 point) rather than young adult size (10 point), which helps. I also thought it odd that she would room with Theo.
What I really think: The first two books, which are not related to this in any way that I can figure (other than the general theme of traveling) are hugely popular in my library. I do love books about Greece, so I'm definitely purchasing this, but I wish it had mentioned the scholarly archaeology that has been done on Santorini and was a little shorter.
Most readers won't care about this, but I was really surprised that there is no mention of the archaeological digs done in the at Akrotiri on Santorini by Spyridon Marinatos, or of Sir Arthur Evans and Knossos (although Olive does meet a man whose boyfriend is an archaeologist vaguely studying "the Minoans"). Why do I care? I was lucky enough to visit the site with Nanno Marinatos in 1985 and heard about all of the theories about Atlantis. Yep. That's just the flavor of Geek I was, and it did interfere with my own personal enjoyment of the book a bit!
This is me with my college roommate. We were both Classics majors both both ended up becoming librarians.
No comments: Labels: romance
The Witches (Graphic Novel)
Dahl, Roald and Pénélope Bagieu. The Witches: The Graphic Novel
September 1st 2020 by Scholastic Inc.
I am not a fan of Dahl, which is odd considering that he started writing when I was a child. His work is odd, and not in a pleasant way. He may be the reason that so many British writers portray adults as inherently evil and cruel to children. Not only that, but Dahl was, by all accounts, not very nice. My library has a few books that were purchased before I got here; I haven't added any others, and had never read The Witches (1983). Still not a huge fan, and I was considering getting the graphic novel for my bloodthirsty readers who all want to snuggle up with a good murder until the uproar over the movie.
**Spoilers**
A young boy goes to live with his eccentric, chain smoking grandmother after the death of his parents. He's used to being told bedtime stories, and so grandmother tells him one about the witches of the world who all hate children. They are bald, have weird fingers and toes, and odd eyes. When the grandmother becomes ill, the doctor visits and recommends a trip to the seaside for the cool air. Once there, the boy gets a present of two mice, but the hotel wants them to be kept in a cage. Since this interferes with training them to do circus tricks, the boy hunts around the hotel for a vacant space and finds an empty conference room. Soon, however, it is filled with women.. all wearing wigs and looking suspiciously like his grandmother's tales of witches. Sure enough, the Grand High Witch herself is there, and unveils her plan to turn all of the children in the world into mice while they are at school so that the teachers kill them. She has the serum developed, and needs to witches to set up candy shops to distribute the potion. She turns a girl into a mouse before their eyes, and turns the boy as well. The two children manage to get back to the grandmother, and they plan to snatch a bottle of potion, does the witches, and avert disaster by having them turn into mice. It's a plan fraught with peril, but they are successful. Returning home, the boy decides to stay a mouse, since his grandmother is 83 to his 8, and he will live about as long as she does if he remains in mouse form.
Strengths: The drawings are excellently creepy, even though they don't bear any resemblance to Quentin Blake's illustrations at all. The grandmother is very supportive of her grandson, and clearly loves him. She is quite the character. The story moves quickly, and the adaptation manages to describe things in enough detail that it's all easy to understand.
Weaknesses: This has some fairly gross and disturbing moments, with the boy in mouse form getting his tail hacked off in the kitchen, the witches turning into mice, and the head witch revealing her true form.
What I really think: So disturbing, and not in any sort of instructive way. There's no allegorical, moral lesson, and the fact that the boy wanted to stay a mouse so he would die when his grandmother did... just not my idea of a pleasant read. Others will enjoy this foray into Dahl's dark world, but I think I developed a new frown line or two reading this.
The Jasmine Green Series
Peters, Helen and Snowden, Ellie. A Collie Called Sky (The Jasmine Green #3)
September 1st 2020 by Walker Books Us
Jasmine lives on a farm in England with her mother, who is a veterinarian, her father, who raises sheep, younger brother Manu and older sister Ella. In previous books, she rescued a pig and a duck, and they now live on the farm. When she is out walking with her friend Tom, she finds a very neglected puppy who is so weak he can't even stand on his own. She brings the animal home and thinks about what her mother would do. She keeps him warm and gets him to drink a little water and eat some chicken. She asked her mother to bring home an IV set up, and together they clean the puppy and bring him back to health. It's a long haul, since Sky (what they name him) can't even walk by himself. He doesn't have a microchip, but someone does come forward with information about her brother, who mistreated a dog and said it had died. Jasmine wants to keep Sky, but her mother says it would be too much work. When Jasmine injures her leg while some distance from home, Sky is able to bring help to her, softening her mother's position, and Sky has a new job helping out on the farm.
Strengths: I would have absolutely adored this as a child. It's a perfect length (think Haywood's B is for Besty) and has lots of illustrations that have a Garth Williams sort of vibe-- there is nothing that melts my heart more than a Williams' mouse illustration! The setting is fantastic, sort of James Herriot for the younger set. The detail about caring for Sky is what will sell this to young readers.
Weaknesses: Jasmine is on the bratty side. Her mother and father are busy with things, have good reasons for not wanting more pets, and yet she keeps insisting that she be allowed to keep Sky.
What I really think: Sadly, I don't need anymore short chapter books, but I am sorely tempted to get this series in case I ever do. I hate to not have the whole series, and I don't think the pig and duck book would circulate well, so I will probably pass.
Peters, Helen and Snowden, Ellie. A Kitten Called Holly (The Jasmine Green #4)
When a barn cat has babies, Jasmine and Tom are surprised to find them. They've scared the mother, and she moves two of the kittens, but leaves the third. Jasmine begs her mother to allow her to raise the kitten, and she does, with the warning that perhaps there is something wrong that they can't see. Holly does well, and Jasmine keeps her away from the other two family cats. Her mother is insistent that Holly find another home, and Jasmine is upset when a classmate who wants to adopt her only cares about what cat accessories she can get. It doesn't help that it was this girl's dog who killed a duck in a previous book. After Holly gets out and causes a lot of destruction, the mother says that the cat must go. Will Jasmine be able to find a home for Holly that makes her happy as well?
Strengths: The details about caring for a cat and getting it accustomed to humans were great, and the English farm setting was tremendously appealing. The illustrations add so much to the story and make it a warm and fuzzy read.
Weaknesses: I'm not fond of Jasmine's behavior and was very glad when her mother did not give in to her requests to have a third cat!
What I really think: I really enjoyed this, but will pass on purchasing. I would definitely buy this whole series for an elementary library.
The Undrowned
Alexander, K.R. The Undrowned
February 4th 2020 by Scholastic Paperbacks
Samantha and Rachel have been friends for a long time, but after Rachel betrays Samantha in a bit of typical tween drama, Samantha's behavior turns ugly. She makes Rachel give her lunch money and do her homework, and is outright mean. Samantha has issues at home; her parents fight and have high standards for her behavior, and she has to put up with her "perfect" sister Jessica. When Samantha sees Rachel out at the local lake, the two have an altercation that ends in Samantha pushing Rachel into the water... and she drowns. Since no one else is around, and because she really thinks Rachel deserves to die, Samantha goes home and doesn't tell anyone about what happened. The next day at school, Rachel appears. She willingly gives Samantha lunch money and acts as if everything is fine... but it's not. Rachel is trailed by water logged items, and makes odd things happen. Still, Samantha doesn't feel quite enough guilt to do anything about it. The instances escalate, with Samantha's food turning to sand and fish bones in her mouth, her sheets turning to seaweed, and a pervasive dampness following her everywhere. When a group of kids goes to the lake with the two girls, they encounter more persistent evil. Will Samantha be able to put things right and save herself and her community?
Strengths: My students love creepy, scary stories, and this one has a lot going for it. Murder, friend drama, gas lighting, sister problems, gross stuff, and more murder. Add a disturbing cover, and this book is guaranteed to be checked out immediately upon coming back to the library. This author's Scare Me, The Collector (and its sequel, The Collected), and The Fear Zone are worth investing in as well. How did I miss Bury Me? Just added it to my upcoming order.
Weaknesses: Samantha is the single most unlikable book character I have ever met! She deserved everything she got. Even Rachel seemed meaner than she needed to be. More nuanced, sympathetic characters would have helped make this a stronger novel.
What I really think: If K.R. Alexander's books were pizza, they would have a cardboardy, slightly undercooked crust but the most amazingly yummy four cheese toppings. Alexander has a great feel for cheesy, middle grade horror, and I bought this one without having read it, which I rarely do. Are the books great literature? No. Will the copies get read until they are worn out fragments? Absolutely! (And since my thirty year old R.L. Stine prebinds are starting to pong, I probably need to weed more of those. )
Schroeder, Lisa. Don't Judge Me
November 10th 2020 by Scholastic
Hazel is having trouble adjusting to middle school. She misses the closeness of her elementary school, wishes that her best friend Tori weren't so concerned about fashion and being popular, and is tired of dealing with the jerky behavior of the boys in her school. When her mother refuses to sign the dress code that Hazel has brought home, things start to escalate. Her mother is involved in a sexual discrimination suit at work, since she was passed over for shift manager in favor of a man with very little experience, so she is encouraging Hazel to speak up for herself. Hazel also is fostering a tortoise that she found abandoned, and is trying to find the best place for the animal, since she's not sure she wants the same pet for the next 80 years! Spoiler: (She eventually contacts her fifth grade teacher, and Pip is made into a class pet.) Tori and Hazel eat lunch in the school library because they are uncomfortable in the cafeteria, and meet Dion, a sensitive boy who is having trouble with some of the jerks at the school. Hazel is horrified when Tori's brother, Ben, who had always been friendly with the girls before they hit middle school, has a notebook where boys opine about the girls in the school, usually in unflattering ways. Having dealt with other children calling her "thunder thighs" because she is athletic, Hazel is already uncomfortable with her appearance, and is encouraged to do something to put an end to this sort of behavior. Instead of approaching Ben's moms, she organizes a group of girls to try to form an organization to improve the culture of the school. The principal, who has previously refused to meet with Hazel's mom, also refuses to meet with the girls. Luckily, the assistant principal is able to force him to meet, and the girls' concerns are finally heard, which results in significant changes in the culture, including training to help with toxic masculinity.
Strengths: Schroeder is HUGELY popular in my library, and this certainly hits all of the buttons for a current look at sociopolitical trends in middle school. It also shows a reluctant student learning to embrace activism in order to improve her school environment. Hazel writes a lot of haiku, is sensitive to animals, and worried about her best friend. I like that some popular, fairly current books are mentioned, and that Pippi Longstocking is a big influence on Hazel.
Weaknesses: This is for the publisher, not the author: If Hazel is the girl in the middle of the picture, I can't imagine anyone calling her "thunder thighs". The array of girls on the cover is somewhat diverse culturally, put certainly does not reflect any middle school girl who weighs more than 90 pounds.
What I really think: The dress code issue didn't seem realistic to me; since all of the negative publicity that schools have gotten on social media pertaining to dress codes, I'm surprised schools still enforce them. Mine does not. We seriously had a girl come to school the other day in a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat onesie sleeper, and no one said anything. This does seem to be a popular topic for #MGLit, however.
How to Save the Universe (Dimension Why #1)
Cusick, John. How to Save the Universe (Dimension Why #1)
In the present day, Lola Ray is heading off on an airplane with her mother and younger siblings (for whom she is often responsible) to visit her father. When she sneezes when heading through security, she is rocketed forward in time to the 31st century. There, she meets Phineas T. Fogg, whose parents are always traveling and who leave him alone in his high tech apartment with just an animatronic teddy bear, Teddy, for company and protection. His parents are owners of a company that manufactures hypergates, and their partner, Goro Bolus, is super creepy and probably up to now good. Phin is glad of a little excitement, but since time traveling is illegal, the Temporal Transit Authority, and the Bog Mutants who are employed by it, are hunting Lola down. The two manage to escape Phin's apartment using baked beans, which are apparently the perfect substance for stabilizing worm holes, and are of on a kooky adventure to try to stay alive and get Lola back to her own time. If Lola falls into Bolus' hands, the planet will be doomed. Dealing with comsumercators, the Triumvirate of Pong, talking cats (named Mr. Donut), and other somewhat silly entities, will Lola and Phin manage to get Lola home? And since there is a book two in the works, (Revenge of the Sequel) what new adventure will the two encounter?
Strengths: The author has a lovely note at the beginning on how humor helps people deal with difficult things, and we certainly need things like that now. Lola and Phin are appealing characters, and there is nonstop action and goofy antics all through this book. The plot is simple enough to make the time travel and future world easy to comprehend, and the story moves quickly.
Weaknesses: My readers don't particularly like this flavor of science fiction book. This is sort of Hot Cheetos flavored-- some people really, really like them, but others are not fans at all.
What I really think: This is perfect for fans of goofy speculative fiction like Henry Clark's What We Found in the Corn Maze and How It Saved a Dragon, Jasper Fforde's The Last Dragon Slayer, Carmen's Floors. I think I'll stick with pushing Melissa Landers Blastaway, which is somewhat similar but not as goofy.
No comments: Labels: speculative fiction
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BIFF’s feature film is “A Lonely Place For Dying,” set in 1972 in an abandoned prison on the U.S./Mexican border. A KGB agent with Russian intelligence about CIA spies awaits a press contact, who will give him asylum in America. But will the CIA’s assassin arrive first?
Northwest Quarterly > Blog > Archive > Winter 2011 > BIFF: Where It’s Lights, Camera, Audience Reaction!
Arts & EntertainmentWinter 2011
BIFF: Where It’s Lights, Camera, Audience Reaction!
Posted by Karla Nagy January 31, 2011
Woodstock’s Creative Living Series Speakers Have Something to Say
For the sixth year, the Beloit International Film Festival will shine a spotlight on the magic of the movies and its magicians.
During its four-day run, the festival – short form, BIFF – will showcase national and international filmmakers and their works, while providing opportunities for them to speak with viewers about their art. This grassroots enterprise of Beloit entrepreneurs and scholars has grown exponentially since its inception, and has earned the city and its organizers accolades and respect among independent filmmakers.
The festival begins on Thursday, Feb. 17, with screenings scheduled in various venues around the city from 5-11:30 p.m. From 5-7 p.m. at the Eclipse Center is “Launch & Laurels,” the annual BIFF kick-off event to welcome entrants and announce the BIFF 2011 Filmmaker Award recipients.
Then, screenings continue each day, from Feb. 18-20, beginning at noon. Venue locations range from local restaurants and businesses to public meeting spaces. Seating capacities vary from 30 to 750, and many restaurants will offer special BIFF menu items and pricing.
This year’s chair honors will be shared by two former BIFF grant recipients, C.K. Lichtenstein II of Portland, Ore., and Jack Bennett of Seattle. Lichtenstein is a self-taught producer of such independent, small-budget films as “The Sexy Chef” and “Cathedral Park.” Bennett, a native of Shopiere, Wis., has acted, directed and edited on projects ranging from narrative films to documentaries and music videos.
BIFF offers special programming and events, also. The Silent Film Showcase, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19, at the Eclipse Center, is a BIFF signature event. Here, a classic silent film is screened to the accompaniment of the entire Beloit Janesville Symphony, under the direction of Maestro Robert Tomaro. This year, it’s “The General,” 1927, with Buster Keaton, the “stone-faced comic,” in what is considered one of the best silent comedies ever made. Its $750,000 budget was huge for its day.
The “Kids First!” program, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at Beloit Public Library, gives children the chance to learn about how to be discerning film viewers. This year, participants will learn basic production, write a script, choose roles, prepare, and then direct and shoot a short film.
The action doesn’t stop when the screens fade to black, however. At BIFF After Dark (BAD) parties, festivities continue into the wee hours of the morning, both Friday and Saturday. BAD venues are still to be confirmed.
One of BIFF’s biggest draws every year is its array of short films. All fewer than 30 minutes, they’re grouped into “Short Slots” and, as always, this year’s selection promises to be diverse and entertaining.
A new opportunity this year is “Cinema Café: Wake Up Downtown with a Filmmaker.” On Saturday morning, Beloit downtown businesses will be offering breakfast and a chance to talk with visiting filmmakers. “It will be a great way to start the day, and even see some of the filmmakers’ works before the scheduled films start around town,” says Executive Director Rod Beaudoin.
C.K. Lichtenstein
The event’s success has many contributing factors. First is the enthusiastic response filmmakers get from audiences. “Filmmakers internationally are taking Beloit seriously and asking to be a part of BIFF,” says Beaudoin. “It bears out our approach of promoting and encouraging those documentary and short filmmakers, who don’t usually get a lot of respect at other festivals. People are calling us, because they’ve heard just how great this festival is and what a warm reception they can anticipate from the Beloit audience.”
Another reason is the way BIFF involves the entire community, utilizing several film venues throughout Beloit. Among the downtown establishments to host screenings: The Eclipse Center; Bushel & Peck’s Local Market; Bagels & More; Casa Grande Mexican Restaurant; Domenico’s Italian Restaurant; The Metropolitan Restaurant, a new participant this year and BIFF’s first Janesville venue; and Beloit Public Library, where children’s films will be shown.
Organizers are especially excited this year to add the new Hendricks Center for the Arts at Beloit College to its list of screening locations.
“The two venues in the Hendricks Center will be the tiered film classroom and the sizable dance studio, great spots for both sight and sound,” says Ron Nief, one of BIFF’s three founding producers and a member of its marketing committee. “This is particularly appropriate, because the building is named to honor Diane and the late Ken Hendricks, who inspired BIFF and have provided the title sponsorship since the beginning of the festival.”
Many of the venues are within walking distance of one another, encouraging foot traffic for other downtown businesses. Shuttle service, provided by J&J Limo Service of Beloit, is once again being offered to all locations, including the box office.
The countdown for BIFF 2011 starts with the annual Reveal Parties, when organizers announce the festival’s full schedule and distribute the program. This year, these parties spanned three states. The first two were held Jan. 19 and 20, in Beloit and Janesville, respectively. Then, they were taken on the road, to Dubuque, Iowa, on Jan. 21, and to Rockford, Ill., on Jan. 25, where it was announced that screenings will be scheduled in Rockford in 2012.
Films for this year include: “The Rescuers,” a documentary about diplomats who saved thousands of Jews during WWII; “16:49,” featuring interviews with homeless Beloit high school students; “Snowmen,” a a full-length feature about the efforts of three small-town boys to set a Guinness World Record; “Bass Ackwards,” a comedy feature that follows a down-on-his luck man as he drives a ’76 VW van across America. For a complete schedule and to purchase tickets, go to www.beloitfilmfest.com.
Buster Keaton’s 1927 comedy hit, “The General,” will be screened on Feb. 19 at BIFF’s signature event, the Silent Film Showcase, with the accompaniment of the entire Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra.
BIFF’s redesigned Web site and new presence on Twitter, Facebook and local television allow fans to blog, tweet, Flickr and otherwise stay up-to-the-minute on all of the festival’s developments.
With a notable increase in all film categories, the selection committee faced a daunting challenge in choosing which to screen. But that also guarantees audiences four days of great film viewing. ❚
Tags: beloit beloit international film festival biff buster keaton cinema film indpendent
Karla Nagy January 31, 2011
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Achieving environmental security with economic impact
A.A.Nester, orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-6068, Khmelnytskyi National University, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
O.O.Nikitin, orcid.org/0000-0002-0842-3505, Khmelnytskyi National University, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
O.V.Romanishina, orcid.org/0000-0003-2029-1004, Khmelnytskyi National University, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
L.O.Mitiuk, orcid.org/0000-0003-4914-2387, National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Yu.O.Polukarov, orcid.org/0000-0002-6261-3991, National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dumping and storing spent pickling solutions on the territory of enterprises leads to environmental pollution, requires significant costs for their neutralization at the enterprise and at treatment facilities at the production sites.
Purpose. To clarify the previously known, but insufficiently studied processes of wastewater treatment and to present the results of research and tests conducted to obtain copper from wastewater and create environmentally friendly equipment.
Methodology. The paper studies individual processes of regeneration of copper-ammonia etching solutions using electrochemical technology to obtain dense copper deposits, whose release sharply reduces the formation and storage of sludge on the territory of enterprises.
Findings. It is noted that the chemical correction of etching solutions leads to the formation of a significant amount of wastewater, sludge which contains heavy metals that adversely affect soils, groundwater, the plant world and humans as the top of the food chain. To avoid the accumulation of sludge on the territory of enterprises, it is proposed to use the technology of regeneration of spent etching solutions, in which sludge is not formed, and the isolated metal is reused as a secondary raw material for copper production. In this case, the regenerated etching solution is reused for etching printed circuit boards. The creation of equipment for the regeneration of used solutions with the release of metal in a form suitable for melting becomes an important element in preserving the environment and obtaining raw materials for non-ferrous metallurgy in Ukraine.
Originality. For the first time, comprehensive studies have been carried out which made it possible to create promising wastewater treatment equipment based on them. The research-based etching line for printed circuit boards provides for the reuse of rinsing waters in the technological process after its regeneration. At the same time, the use the line rinsing water is available to replenish the withdrawn pickling solution.
Practical value. The use of the process with the separation of copper by dense deposits makes it easier to remove metal by simple mechanical operations and to avoid a complex structure for removing copper in the form of metal powders.
Keywords: regeneration, sludge, pickling solution, copper, cathode, rinsing water
1. National report on the state of the environment in Ukraine (2018). Retrieved from https://mepr.gov.ua/files/docs/Zvit/2020.
2. Petryk,A., Chop,M., & Pohrebennyk,V. (2018). The assessment of the degree of pollution of fallow vegetation with heavy metals in rural administrative units of Psary and Poki in Poland. 18th International multidisciplinary scientific geoconference SGEM Ecology and environmental protection: proceedings 2018, (pp.921-928).
3. Pohrebennyk, V., Karpinski, M., Dzhumelia, E., Koswitkowska, A., & Falat, P. (2018). Water bodies pollution of the mining and chemical enterprise. 18th International multidisciplinary scientific geoconference SGEM Ecology and environmental protection : proceedings 2018, (pp.1035-1042).
4. Nester, A.A. (2016). Wastewater treatment of printed circuit board production: monograph. Khmelnytskyi: Khmelnytskyi National University.
5. Nester, A.A., & Evgrashkina, G.P. (2017). Forecast of contamination of the machine-building enterprise with slimes in the production of boards and electroplating. News of the TulState University. Technical science, (6), 193-200.
6. Klyachkin, V.N., Shirkunova, K.S., & Bart, A.D. (2019). Analysis of the Stability of the Chemical Composition of Wastewater in the Production of Printed Circuit Boards. Ecology and Industry of Russia, 23(5), 47-51. https://doi.org/10.18412/1816-0395-2019-5-47-51.
7. Pashayan, A.A., & Karmanov, D.A. (2018). Recycling of Electroplating Wastes without Formation of Galvanic Sludges. Ecology and Industry of Russia, 22(12), 19-21. https://doi.org/10.18412/1816-0395-2018-12-19-21.
8. Prolejchik, A.Y., Gaponenkov, I.A., & Fedorova, O.A. (2018). Extraction of Heavy Metal Ions from Inorganic Wastewater, Ecology and Industry of Russia, 22(3), 35-39. https://doi.org/10.18412/1816-0395-2018-3-35-39.
9. Dorokhina, E.Y., & Kharchenko, S.G. (2017). Circular Economy: Problems and Ways of Development. Ecology and Industry of Russia, 21(3), 50-55. https://doi.org/10.18412/1816-0395-2017-3-50-55.
10. Vershinina, I.A., & Martynenko, T.S. (2019). Problems of Waste Recovery and Socio-Ecological Inequality. Ecology and Industry of Russia, 23(5), 52-55. https://doi.org/10.18412/1816-0395-2019-5-52-55.
11. Pohrebennyk, V., Cygnar, M., Mitryasova, O., Politylo,R., & Shybanova, A. (2016). Efficiency of sewage treatment of company Enzyme. International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference Surveying Geology and Mining Ecology Management, SGEM, 2, 295-302.
You are here: Home Publication ethics EngCat Archive 2020 Content №6 2020 Achieving environmental security with economic impact
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Public Golf Course
A classic design for the modern game
Playing Lesson
Alex Seelig finishes a final round 67, three under par, to win the 2020 club championship by a record 12 strokes..
Nine Decades of Champions
RCC's first club championship was played in 1924. Buddy Lutz has the most wins with eight (1948, ’49, ’51, ’57, ’58, ’59, ’64, ’66). Fred Tyler is second with five wins (1976, ’83, ’91, ’92, ’94).
Two of Buddy's sons won titles. Chip Lutz won twice, 1979 and '90. He also won the British Senior Amateur (2011, '12 and '16), the U.S.G.A. Senior Amateur (2015) and the Canadian Senior Amateur (2011 and '12) championships. Putter Lutz also won twice, 1993 and '95, giving the Lutz family 12 titles.
The list of RCC club champions is here.
Go here to read RCC's club championship records.
dsandritter@readingcountryclub.com
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It's not about how to make a movie… it's about how movies are made.
About Realfilmcareer.com
Forum/Industry Resources
The Book!
« Amputee stuntwoman sues RAF, film production firm for R40m
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#BoycottGeorgia? Brian Kemp victory stokes concern among film industry locals
Beth Ward
When Georgia declared Brian Kemp the winner of the governor’s race, actress Alyssa Milano took to Twitter:
“There are over 20 productions shooting in Georgia. Is the entertainment industry willing to support the economy of a totally corrupt state that suppresses democracy; where the winner isn’t the best choice for the people but the best schemer or crook?”
It was retweeted over 14,000 times, and many took it as a call for a boycott of Georgia’s film industry — an industry that, according to the Georgia Film Office, had an economic impact on the state of $9.5 billion from July 2017 to June 2018, with over $2 billion in direct spending.
Kemp seemed unworried and assured Georgians in a press conference that he would continue to support the film tax credit and do what he could to protect it. But that hasn’t provided much comfort to the film industry locals who live and work here, as Kemp has also promised to codify the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law during his tenure. The RFRA, a piece of legislation heavily criticized by Hollywood heavy-hitters, would allow businesses and business owners to refuse service to same-sex couples on the basis of religion.
Georgia’s General Assembly has already passed the act once, only to see it vetoed by Governor Nathan Deal. A similar law passed in North Carolina in 2016 that contributed to film companies such as Lionsgate pulling productions out of the state.
The stakes are high, as Georgia’s now considered the new hot spot for film and production.
According to data published in 2016 by the Georgia State University Fiscal Research Center, film industry employment in Georgia grew by 62% from 2009 to 2014. GSU also noted in its report that film industry employment “was generally higher than the average growth rate for all Georgia industries” following the introduction of the tax credit. It was, according to the report, an industry that even continued to experience a high rate of growth through the Great Recession.
Despite the fact that authors of the report note that “it is not clear whether the relatively robust performance of the film and video production industry over this period can be attributed solely to the establishment of the film tax credit,” it is clear that bringing film to the state has allowed many people in Georgia to go full-time with their side jobs and make a real, mortgage-paying living as make-up artists, costume designers, prop suppliers, light directors, extras and production assistants.
And according to data provided by the state’s Department of Economic Development, bringing film and TV to Georgia has generated over 90,000 jobs.
Maren Johnson is a set dresser in Atlanta who’s worked in the film industry for four years. She came to Atlanta out of college looking to get in on the film boom, and she now depends on it as her main source of income. As a member of a film union, she also relies on it for health insurance.
Johnson says she and her industry friends “would all be in the position of having to find a new career if we choose to stay in the state” should a boycott — either as a result of voter suppression allegations or the RFRA — take place.
“I’m fairly nervous,” she says, “because I get the impression that politicians underestimate how serious [film industry] people are — it happened in North Carolina, and the following boycott coupled with the loss of the film tax credit completely killed the film industry in the state.”
In 2016, many film and television productions pulled out of North Carolina as part of a boycott to the “bathroom bill” that many saw as discriminatory against the LGBTQ community.
Elizabeth Johnson (no relation to Maren), is a full-time camera operator. She has similar fears.
“If North Carolina is any indication, Atlanta will dry up fairly quickly,” she says. “Hollywood is serious about taking its business elsewhere if it feels it has to. Detroit, Miami, Wilmington are all cities that once boomed but are comparatively now like ghost towns for film industry workers. And most of those people have moved to Atlanta.”
Since coming to Atlanta from Los Angeles in 2012, Elizabeth says she’s worked “non-stop,” going from full-time show to full-time show for the past six years thanks to a thriving production industry. She recognizes what Georgia stands to lose should film and television leave town.
“Every film employs hundreds of workers making anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 per week — on average, some much higher — and there are usually 20 to 40 projects happening at a time,” Elizabeth says. “All of that money is going right back into the Georgia economy via the worker-turned-consumer. Not even mentioning the hotels we completely book up when we need, the food catering services we use, the car rentals.”
Georgia film is also responsible for the creation of niche businesses, like film tour companies, accounting firms that offer film payroll services, the University of Georgia’s Georgia Film Academy, which trains people for employment in film, and the Pinewood Atlanta Studios Home Depot Studio Store, opened to cater specifically to film crews.
Many of Georgia’s film workers say there are alternatives to a Georgia boycott should a religious liberty bill become law. And Stacey Abrams, who was narrowly defeated by Kemp in the governor’s election, has asked that the industry stand behind the thousands of Georgians who now rely on the film industry for income.
“There are positive ways to bring change and make points that don’t hurt innocent workers and their families, as opposed to taking away an industry from the state,” says Elizabeth Johnson.
She stands firmly against the boycott and says it would do more harm than good. “I am happy that my industry can throw its weight around and demand people treat others with fairness and equality — though it’s by no means a perfect entity, either,” she says. “But, I love it here. This is my home. I have actually purchased a home in Atlanta and am one of the few people my age [29] able to do so, all because of this industry here.”
This entry was posted on December 15, 2018, 11:25 pm and is filed under "Incentives"/Tax breaks, Georgia, Tax Incentives. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Film and Performance Industry Still Struggling Despite Relaxed Social Distancing
The European film industry strives to find its way through the second wave of the coronavirus
"Incentives"/Tax breaks
Australiia
California/Los Angeles
European Union EU
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FeaturesLocal Buzz
The Return of Cannes in a Van to Cannes
RIVIERA BUZZ
The long trek begins for the now annual pilgrimage to the French Riviera for the guys of Cannes in a Van, driving to Cannes…in a…van.
What started off as a drunken idea back in 2006 to screen independent short films in Cannes from the back of a van, is now quite possbily one of the highlights of the Festival de Cannes for many locals and visitors alike.
Arriving in Cannes for their first festival in 2007, the Cannes in a Van crew certainly generated plenty of buzz, receiving their fair share of media interest, both local and international. They even had a documentary film crew follow them on the trip.
Since then, they have built upon their reputation and spread their wings, creating the likes of the Van d’Or Awards, which are now in their third year (and were hosted last year by Barry Norman, no less), and their most recent venture, Swhype, a digital motion design house. They are constantly looking to expand their ethos through screenings, events and other ideas that will keep Cannes in a Van ahead of the competition.
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This year, they have a new van, kindly provided by Ford, and will be arriving in Cannes over the next few days. Keep an eye out for them as they make their way though France, heading down south.
Cannes in a Van, the ‘four-wheel film festival’ that takes independent film to the heart of the Festival de Cannes and beyond…see you on the Croisette very soon!
Cannes in a Van
Boulevard de la Croisette
Lead image courtesy Cannes in a Van Facebook page
Festival Crossover Celebrates Its Fifth
Affaire Le Roux – Lights, Camera, Action in Nice
The premier lifestyle magazine for the Côte d'Azur, truly the world's favourite playground. Read it, and you'll feel like you're there!
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Onconova Therapeutics, Inc.
Use these links to rapidly review the document
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
incorporation or organization) 22-3627252
(I.R.S. Employer
375 Pheasant Run, Newtown, PA
Title of each class
Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock, par value $.01 per share The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes o No ý
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No ý
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ý No o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ý No o
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer" and "smaller reporting company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer o Accelerated filer o Non-accelerated filer o
(Do not check if a
smaller reporting company) Smaller reporting company ý
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule12b-2 of the Act). Yes o No ý
As of June 30, 2015, the last business day of the registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter, the aggregate market value of the registrant's voting stock held by non-affiliates was approximately $30.1 million, based on the last reported sale price of the registrant's common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.
There were 27,401,035 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of March 15, 2016.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE: [NONE]
INDEX TO REPORT ON FORM 10-K
Item 1A:
Risk Factors 26
Item 1B:
Unresolved Staff Comments 60
Properties 60
Legal Proceedings 60
Mine Safety Disclosures 60
Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities 61
Selected Financial Data 61
Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations 62
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk 77
Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 77
Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure 77
Controls and Procedures 77
Other Information 78
Item 10:
Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 79
Executive Compensation 88
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters 95
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence 98
Principal Accounting Fees and Services 99
Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules 99
SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INDUSTRY DATA
This Annual Report on Form 10-K ("Annual Report") includes forward-looking statements. We may, in some cases, use terms such as "believes," "estimates," "anticipates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "may," "could," "might," "will," "should," "approximately" or other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements appear in a number of places throughout this Annual Report and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs, projections, outlook, analyses or current expectations concerning, among other things, our ongoing and planned preclinical development and clinical trials, the timing of and our ability to make regulatory filings and obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for our product candidates, protection of our intellectual property portfolio, the degree of clinical utility of our products, particularly in specific patient populations, our ability to develop commercial and manufacturing functions, expectations regarding clinical trial data, our results of operations, cash needs, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth and strategies, the industry in which we operate and the trends that may affect the industry or us.
By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events, competitive dynamics and industry change, and depend on the economic circumstances that may or may not occur in the future or may occur on longer or shorter timelines than anticipated. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this Annual Report, we caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industry in which we operate may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report. In addition, even if our results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and events in the industry in which we operate are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report, they may not be predictive of results or developments in future periods.
Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including risks related to:
our need for additional financing for our INSPIRE trial and other operations, and our ability to obtain sufficient funds on acceptable terms when needed, and our plans and future needs to scale back operations if adequate financing is not obtained;
our ability to continue as a going concern;
our estimates regarding expenses, future revenues, capital requirements and needs for additional financing;
the success and timing of our preclinical studies and clinical trials, including site initiation and patient enrollment, and regulatory approval of protocols for future clinical trials;
our ability to enter into, maintain and perform collaboration agreements with other pharmaceutical companies,, for funding and commercialization of our clinical drug candidates or preclinical compounds, and our ability to achieve certain milestones under those agreements;
the difficulties in obtaining and maintaining regulatory approval of our product candidates, and the labeling under any approval we may obtain;
our plans and ability to develop, manufacture and commercialize our product candidates;
our failure to recruit or retain key scientific or management personnel or to retain our executive officers;
the size and growth of the potential markets for our product candidates and our ability to serve those markets;
regulatory developments in the United States and foreign countries;
the rate and degree of market acceptance of any of our product candidates;
obtaining and maintaining intellectual property protection for our product candidates and our proprietary technology;
the successful development of our commercialization capabilities, including sales and marketing capabilities;
recently enacted and future legislation and regulation regarding the healthcare system;
the success of competing therapies and products that are or become available;
our ability to maintain the listing of our common stock on a national securities exchange;
the potential for third party disputes and litigation; and
the performance of third parties, including contract research organizations, or CROs and third-party manufacturers.
Any forward-looking statements that we make in this Annual Report speak only as of the date of such statement, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Annual Report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Comparisons of results for current and any prior periods are not intended to express any future trends or indications of future performance, unless expressed as such, and should only be viewed as historical data.
You should also read carefully the factors described in the "Risk Factors" section of this Annual Report and elsewhere to better understand the risks and uncertainties inherent in our business and underlying any forward-looking statements. As a result of these factors, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements in this report and you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements.
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Onconova Therapeutics, Inc., sometimes referred to as "we" or the "Company," is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel small molecule drug candidates to treat cancer. Using our proprietary chemistry platform, we have created an extensive library of targeted anti-cancer agents designed to work against cellular pathways important to cancer cells. We believe that the drug candidates in our pipeline have the potential to be efficacious in a variety of cancers. We have one actively enrolling Phase 3 clinical-stage product candidate and two other clinical-stage product candidates (one of which is being developed for treatment of acute radiation syndromes) and several preclinical programs. Substantially all of our current effort is focused on our lead product candidate, rigosertib. Rigosertib is being tested in both intravenous and oral formulations as a single agent, and the oral formulation is also being tested in combination with azacitidine, in clinical trials for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS, and related cancers.
In December 2015, we enrolled the first patient in a randomized controlled Phase 3 clinical trial of rigosertib IV in a population of patients with higher-risk MDS after failure of hypomethylating agent, or HMA, therapy. The trial, which we refer to as INSPIRE, is expected to enroll approximately 225 patients at more than 100 sites globally. The primary endpoint of INSPIRE is overall survival, and an interim analysis is anticipated. We anticipate reporting topline data from the INSPIRE trial in 2018.
During 2015, we sold shares of common stock for net proceeds of $7.5 million and at December 31, 2015, we had approximately $19.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. In January 2016, we completed a sale of common stock and warrants for net proceeds of approximately $1.6 million. During 2015 and into 2016, we have taken significant actions to conserve cash, including reduction in personnel and expenditures. While we will continue to take cash conservation actions where appropriate, our costs will increase in subsequent quarters as more INSPIRE sites open and more patients enroll in the INSPIRE trial. We believe that our cash and cash equivalents, together with anticipated contractual cost-sharing payments from Baxalta for a portion of the INSPIRE trial costs, will be sufficient to fund our ongoing trials and operations into the first quarter of 2017, although there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
We are exploring various sources of funding for continued development of rigosertib in MDS and acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML. If we raise additional funds through strategic collaborations and alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, which may include existing collaboration partners, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or product candidates, including rigosertib, or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to us. There can be no assurance, however, that the Company will be successful in obtaining such financing at the level needed to complete its research and development programs, on terms acceptable to the Company, or at all, or that the Company will obtain approvals necessary to market its products or achieve profitability or sustainable, positive cash flow. If we are unable to successfully raise sufficient additional capital, through future financings or through strategic and collaborative arrangements, we will not have sufficient cash to fund our planned business operations and due to our ongoing losses and our accumulated deficit in combination with these factors, the opinion of our independent registered public accounting firm on our audited consolidated financial statements for our fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 contains an explanatory paragraph regarding substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
Rigosertib
Rigosertib is a small molecule that inhibits cellular signaling by acting as a Ras mimetic. This is believed to be mediated by the binding of rigosertib to the Ras-binding domain, or RBD, found in
many Ras effector proteins, including the Raf and PI3K kinases. This mechanism of action provides a new approach to block the interactions between Ras and its targets containing RBD sites. Rigosertib is being tested as a single agent and in combination with azacitidine, in clinical trials of patients with MDS and related cancers. We have enrolled more than 1,200 patients in rigosertib clinical trials. We are a party to a license and development agreement with Baxalta, which is scheduled to terminate August 30, 2016. Pursuant to that agreement, Baxalta was granted certain rights to commercialize rigosertib in Europe, which rights will revert to us upon termination. We are also party to a collaboration agreement with SymBio, which grants SymBio certain rights to commercialize rigosertib in Japan and Korea. We have retained development and commercialization rights to rigosertib in the rest of the world, including in the United States, although we could consider licensing commercialization rights to other territories as we seek additional funding.
MDS is a group of blood disorders that affect bone marrow function. MDS typically affects older patients. In MDS, the bone marrow cells become dysplastic, or defective. Therefore blood cells do not develop normally, such that too few healthy blood cells are released into the blood stream, leading to low blood cell counts, or cytopenias. Thus, many patients with MDS require frequent blood transfusions. In most cases, the disease worsens and the patient develops progressive bone marrow failure. In advanced stages of the disease, immature blood cells, or blasts, leave the bone marrow and enter the blood stream, leading to AML, which occurs in approximately one-third of patients with MDS.
Based on Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) data from the National Cancer Institute, a marketing analytics firm has estimated the 2016 incidence of MDS will be approximately 17,390 cases and the prevalence of MDS at approximately 61,690 cases in the United States. We believe that the actual incidence numbers may be higher, due to underdiagnosing and underreporting of new cases of MDS to centralized cancer registries, and that the incidence of MDS in the United States is likely to increase, due to an aging population, improved disease awareness and diagnostic precision, and an increase in the number of cases of secondary, often chemotherapy-induced, MDS.
MDS is typically diagnosed using routine blood tests or by observing combination of certain symptoms, such as shortness of breath, weakness, easy bruising or bleeding, or fever with frequent infections. A diagnosis of MDS is confirmed by evaluating a bone marrow biopsy/aspirate showing dysplastic changes, and, in more advanced cases, the presence of excess blasts, meaning that blasts account for more than 5% of the total number of nucleated cells in the bone marrow. Several classification systems have been developed to gauge the severity of disease and help determine prognosis and treatment strategy. Two standard classification systems can be used, the French-American-British morphological classification system, or the FAB system, as modified by the World Health Organization, or WHO, and the recently revised International Prognostic Scoring System, or IPSS-R, to estimate anticipated survival for patients with MDS based on marrow function and marrow cytogenetics. IPSS-R ranks the severity of chromosome abnormalities, number of cytopenias, and percentage of bone marrow blasts observed at diagnosis to calculate a five-level risk score: Very Low, Low, Intermediate, High and Very High. MDS patients are generally classified using IPSS-R in order to assess the risk of dying or having their disease progress to AML.
Treating Myelodysplastic Syndromes
We believe that most higher-risk and some lower-risk MDS patients in the United States are treated with azacitidine or decitabine, the two approved HMAs for treatment of MDS. A provider of information services and technology for the healthcare industry estimates that in the year ended June 2012, approximately 12,500 MDS patients in the United States received treatment with HMAs.
A significant number of higher-risk MDS patients fail or cannot tolerate treatment with azacitidine or decitabine, which represent the current standard of care for higher-risk MDS patients, and almost all patients who initially respond to therapy eventually progress. Median survival time of MDS patients who have failed HMAs is less than six months. Accordingly, we believe that a new therapy that would extend survival in these patients would represent a major contribution in the treatment of MDS.
Allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell or bone marrow transplantation is a potentially curative therapy for MDS. However, since most patients with MDS are elderly and therefore ineligible for transplantation due to the arduous nature of the procedure, this option is generally considered only for the small proportion of younger MDS patients.
HMAs are believed to inhibit the methylation of DNA. Methylation is a biochemical process involving the addition of a methyl group to DNA and plays an important role in gene expression during cell division and differentiation. Hypomethylation may also restore normal function to genes that are critical for differentiation and proliferation. By contrast, rigosertib works by blocking multiple oncogenic pathways through a Ras mimetic mechanism. Because rigosertib has a mechanism of action that is different from HMAs, it may be active in patients who have failed treatment with those drugs. Furthermore, rigosertib's distinct mechanism of action has been shown to combine well with approved HMAs and preclinical studies testing the combination of rigosertib with azacitidine have demonstrated synergy between the two agents. Based on these studies and our current understanding of the mechanism of action of rigosertib, we believe that rigosertib has the potential to be developed in combination with azacitidine for front-line or second line MDS patients and for patients with AML who are not candidates for standard induction chemotherapy; or second-line AML who have failed induction chemotherapy.
Lower-risk MDS patients are those categorized as Very Low, Low or Intermediate risk by the IPSS-R scoring system, with transfusion-dependent anemia. The subset of del(5q) cytogenetic abnormality patients are generally treated with lenalidomide (Revlimid®). For all other lower-risk MDS patients, supportive care employing blood products, such as red blood cell and platelet transfusions, and erythroid stimulating agents, is the mainstay of therapy. Frequent transfusions introduce many risks, including iron overload, blood borne infections and immune-related reactions. We believe that a therapeutic agent that could lower or eliminate the need for transfusions over an extended period of time would fulfill a significant unmet medical need for this patient population.
Rigosertib IV for higher-risk MDS
In early 2014, we announced topline survival results from our "ONTIME" trial, a multi-center Phase 3 clinical trial of rigosertib IV as a single agent. The ONTIME trial did not meet its primary endpoint in the intent-to-treat population, although improvements in median overall survival were observed in various pre-specified and exploratory subgroups of higher-risk MDS patients.
During 2014 and 2015, we held meetings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, European Medicines Agency, or EMA, and several European national regulatory authorities to discuss and seek guidance on a path for approval of rigosertib IV in higher-risk MDS patients whose disease had failed HMA therapy. After discussions with the FDA and EMA, we have refined the patient eligibility criteria in the new trial by defining a more homogenous patient population. After regulatory feedback, input from key opinion leaders in the U.S. and Europe and based on learnings from the ONTIME study, we designed a new randomized controlled Phase 3 trial, referred to as INSPIRE, with overall survival as a primary endpoint. The INSPIRE trial is enrolling higher-risk MDS patients under 80 years of age who have progressed on, or failed to respond to, previous treatment with HMAs within the first nine months after initiation of HMA therapy, and had their last dose of HMA within six months prior to enrollment in the trial. The primary endpoint of this study is overall survival, and an interim analysis is anticipated. This randomized trial of approximately 225 patients is expected to be
conducted at more than 100 sites globally. In August 2015, we submitted an updated investigational new drug application, or IND, to the FDA, and in August 2015 we submitted Clinical Trial Applications, or CTAs, with the United Kingdom, German and Austrian regulatory authorities for IV rigosertib as a treatment for higher-risk MDS after failure of HMA therapy. The first CTA has been cleared by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The first patient in the INSPIRE trial was enrolled at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in December 2015 and, as of March 22, 2016, fourteen clinical sites are open and recruiting patients. The first patient in Europe was enrolled on March 18, 2016.
Safety and Tolerability of rigosertib IV in MDS and other hematologic malignancies
Rigosertib IV monotherapy has been evaluated in several Phase 1, 2 and 3 studies in MDS and other hematologic malignancies. Three of the Phase 1 and 2 studies are completed and clinical study reports (CSRs) are available. The three other studies have not yet completed; thus data are subject to change. The most frequent reason for study discontinuation (48.0%) was progressive disease (PD) based on 2006 International Working Group (IWG) criteria (44.9%) or symptomatic deterioration (3.1%). The occurrence of adverse events (AEs) led to withdrawal of 21.2% of patients. Withdrawal was at patient's request in 15.4% of the cases. A total of 109 patients (24.4%) died due to TEAEs. Only four of the TEAEs leading to death were considered related to rigosertib: acute renal failure, renal failure, septic shock, and sepsis. Using the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) terminology, the most frequently reported drug-related TEAEs were in system organ class (SOC) categories of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders (28.2%) and general disorders and administration site conditions (21.0%). Individual TEAEs reported by at least 5% of patients across SOC categories included, by decreasing order of frequency, nausea (14.8%), fatigue (13.9%), diarrhoea (11.2%), constipation (8.5%), and decreased appetite (5.8%). The most frequently reported ³ Grade 3 drug-related TEAEs were in the SOC categories of blood and lymphatic system disorders (8.3%) and Investigations (6.5%). Individual TEAEs reported by at least 1% of patients across SOC categories were anemia (4.0%); neutrophil count decreased (3.1%); platelet count decreased (2.9% each); neutropenia and thrombocytopenia (2.2% each); hyponatraemia (2.0%); white blood cell count decreased (1.8%); febrile neutropenia (1.6%); and fatigue (1.6%). Among the 11.0% of patients whose serious adverse events (SAEs) were considered drug-related, the two most frequent events were febrile neutropenia and delirium (1.1% of patients each). Other drug-related SAEs included hyponatraemia, confusional state, dyspnoea, dizziness, and mental status changes (0.7% each); anaemia, fatigue, dehydration, haematuria, and pollakiuria (0.4% each); and autoimmune haemolytic anaemia, thrombocytopenia, diabetes insipidus, abdominal distension, gastrointestinal haemorrhage, retroperitoneal fibrosis, asthenia, malaise, pyrexia, cholecystitis, bacteraemia, bronchitis, cystitis escherichia, lung infection, pneumonia, sepsis, septic shock, sinusitis fungal, urinary tract infection, hypoglycaemia, muscular weakness, convulsion, headache, dysuria, nephrolithiasis, renal failure, renal failure acute, pulmonary alveolar haemorrhage, and respiratory distress (0.2% each). Three patients (0.7%), all enrolled in a Phase 1 dose-escalating study, experienced dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs), defined as drug-related TEAEs that occurred during the first cycle of rigosertib administration. DLTs included pneumonia, dysuria, and dyspnoea (1 patient, 0.2%, each).
Rigosertib oral in combination with azacitidine for MDS and AML
We have completed enrollment in the Phase 2 portion of an open label Phase 1/2 clinical trial testing rigosertib oral in combination with the approved dose of injectable azacitidine for patients with higher-risk MDS and AML. This study is based on our published preclinical data demonstrating synergistic activity of this combination. We presented Phase 1 results from this trial at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in December 2014 and at the MDS Symposium in April 2015. These results showed encouraging activity in MDS and AML patients in terms of bone marrow
and hematological responses. Patients in the Phase 1 portion were treated at the full standard dose of azacitidine, and the drug combination was well tolerated in repetitive cycles.
The Phase 2 portion of the trial was designed to assess whether treatment with rigosertib, in combination with the approved dose of injectable azacitidine, reduces the number of bone marrow blasts, improves peripheral blood counts and can resensitize the marrow blast cells to azacitidine for patients who were previously exposed to azacitidine Patient enrollment in the Phase 2 portion of this trial was completed in the fourth quarter of 2015 and interim data were summarized by way of an oral presentation at the ASH Annual Meeting in December 2015.
The Phase 2 combination trial included both front-line MDS patients (that is, patients not previously treated with HMAs) and MDS patients whose disease had failed prior HMA therapy (second-line patients). The oral presentation at ASH presented results from a total of 37 MDS patients treated with the recommended Phase 2 dose of oral rigosertib (560 mg AM/280 mg PM) plus the full standard dose of injectable azacitidine. The combination of oral rigosertib and azacitidine was well tolerated, with a median duration of treatment of four months (range 1 to 27 months).
At the time of the ASH 2015 presentation, 30 MDS patients were evaluable for efficacy assessment per 2006 IWG, criteria. Twenty-three of 30 patients (77%) responded to the combination therapy, including six patients who had complete remissions. Hematologic improvement was observed in 13 of 26 patients that were evaluable for this part of the analysis. Notably, 16 of 19 (84%) HMA-naïve patients had a response to the combination therapy and 7 of 11 (64%) patients whose disease had previously failed HMAs responded. As of December 2015, the median duration of these responses had not yet been reached. Additional data collection continues for the patients remaining on study and may impact the final results of the trial.
Rigosertib oral for lower-risk MDS
Higher-risk MDS patients suffer from a shortfall in normal circulating blood cells, or cytopenias, as well as elevated levels of cancer cells, or blasts in their bone marrow and peripheral blood, whereas lower-risk MDS patients suffer mainly from cytopenias, that is low levels of red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets. Thus, lower-risk MDS patients depend on transfusions and growth factors or other therapies to improve their low blood counts.
We have explored single agent rigosertib oral as a treatment for lower-risk MDS in two Phase 2 clinical trials, 09-05 and 09-07. In December 2013, we presented data at the Annual ASH Meeting from the 09-05 Phase 2 trial. To date, Phase 2 clinical data have shown encouraging signs of efficacy of single agent oral rigosertib in transfusion-dependent, lower-risk MDS patients. Rigosertib has been generally well tolerated, except for urinary side effects at higher dose levels. Future clinical trials will be needed to evaluate dosing and schedule modifications and their impact on efficacy and toxicity of oral rigosertib in lower-risk MDS patients.
Data presented from the 09-05 trial also suggested the potential of a genomic methylation assessment of bone marrow cells to prospectively identify lower-risk MDS patients likely to respond to oral rigosertib. We therefore expanded the 09-05 trial by adding an additional cohort of 20 patients to advance the development of this genomic methylation test. Enrollment in this expansion cohort has been completed. We are collaborating with a methylation genomics company and academic collaborators to refine this genomic methylation test.
Safety and Tolerability of rigosertib oral in MDS and other hematologic malignancies
Oral rigosertib as a monotherapy has been evaluated in four Phase 1 and 2 studies in MDS and other hematologic malignancies. One study is completed and a CSR is available. The three other studies have not yet completed; thus final data are subject to change. The main reasons for study
discontinuation were Investigator's decision (22.6%) and PD per the 2006 IWG criteria (19.4%). The occurrence of AEs led to withdrawal of 20.0% of patients. Patients requested withdrawal in 16.1% of the cases. Ten patients (6.1%) died due to TEAEs, none of which was considered related to rigosertib. The majority of patients (76.2%) experienced TEAEs that were considered drug-related. The most frequently reported drug-related TEAEs were in the SOC category of renal and urinary disorders (56.1% of patients); and 22.6% of patients experienced drug-related gastrointestinal disorders. Individual TEAEs reported by at least 5% of patients across SOC categories included, by decreasing order of frequency, pollakiuria (31.1%), dysuria (26.8%), haematuria (20.7%), urinary tract pain (17.7%), micturition urgency (17.7%), urinary tract infection (12.8%), diarrhoea (9.8%), fatigue (7.9%), decreased appetite (6.7%), nausea (9.8%), and cystitis (6.1%). Drug-related TEAEs were ³ Grade 3 in 20.1% of the patients. The most frequently reported ³ Grade 3 drug-related TEAEs were blood and lymphatic system disorders (6.7%), infections and infestations (4.9%), and investigations (4.9%). Individual drug-related TEAEs ³ Grade 3 reported by at least 1% of patients included neutropenia (3.7%), cystitis (3.0%); neutrophil count decreased and haematuria (2.4% each); thrombocytopenia and dysuria (1.8%); leukopenia, urinary tract infection, platelet count decreased, hyponatraemia, urinary tract pain, and dyspnoea (1.2% each). Among the 13 (7.9%) patients whose SAEs were considered drug-related, the events were mostly urinary. Drug-related SAEs included cystitis (3.0%), haematuria (1.2%); and anaemia, angina pectoris, adverse drug reaction, urinary tract infection, hyperglycaemia, dysuria, dyspnoea, and lung disorder (0.6% each). During Phase 1 studies, nine patients (5.5%) experienced 14 DLTs, which were defined as drug-related TEAEs that occurred during the first cycle of rigosertib administration. These included neutropenia, pain, cystitis, limb injury, alanine aminotransferase increased, aspartate aminotransferase increased, blood creatinine increased, hypoalbuminaemia, hypocalcaemia, hyponatraemia, haematuria, dyspnoea, and haematoma.
Oral rigosertib in combination with azacitidine is under evaluation in a Phase 2 trial for patients with MDS. As of December 2015, 37 MDS patients were evaluable for safety analysis. The occurrence of TEAEs led to study withdrawal in 19% of patients. 3 patients (8%) of patients died due to TEAEs, none of which was considered drug-related. The majority of patients, 84%, experienced TEAEs which were considered drug-related. The most frequently reported related events (at least 3 patients) were Dysuria (32%), Nausea and Haematuria (22% each), Pollakiuria (16%), Neutropenia (14%), Decreased appetite, Diarrhoea, and Thrombocytopenia (11% each). TEAEs of ³ Grade 3 severity were observed in 84% of the patients and were considered drug-related in 38% of the patients.
The vast majority of the Company's efforts are now devoted to the advanced stage development of rigosertib for unmet medical needs of MDS patients. Other programs are either paused, inactive or require only minimal internal resources and efforts.
Briciclib
Briciclib, another of our product candidates, a small molecule targeting an important intracellular regulatory protein, cyclin D1, which is often found at elevated levels in cancer cells. Cyclin D1 expression is regulated through a process termed cap-dependent translation, which requires the function of eukaryotic initiation factor 4E protein, or eIF4E. In vitro evidence indicates briciclib binds to eIF4E, blocking cap-dependent translation of cyclin D1 and other cancer proteins, such as c-MYC, leading to tumor cell death. We have been conducting a Phase 1 multisite dose-escalation trial of briciclib in patients with advanced solid tumors refractory to current therapies. Safety and efficacy assessments are complete in six of the seven dose-escalation cohorts of patients in this trial. As of December 2015, however, the briciclib IND is on full clinical hold following a drug product lot testing failure. We will be required to undertake appropriate remedial actions prior to re-initiating the clinical trial and completing the final dose-escalation cohort.
Recilisib
Recilisib is a product candidate being developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense for acute radiation syndromes. We have completed four Phase 1 trials to evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetics of recilisib in healthy human adult subjects using both subcutaneous and oral formulations. We have also conducted animal studies and clinical trials of recilisib under the FDA's Animal Efficacy Rule, which permits marketing approval for new medical countermeasures for which conventional human efficacy studies are not feasible or ethical, by relying on evidence from studies in appropriate animal models to support efficacy in humans. Ongoing studies of recilisib, focusing on animal models and biomarker development to assess the efficacy of recilisib are being conducted by third parties with government funding. We anticipate that any future development of recilisib beyond these ongoing studies would be conducted solely with government funding or by collaboration.
Preclinical Product Candidates
In addition to our three clinical-stage product candidates, we have several product candidates that target kinases, cellular metabolism or cell division in preclinical development. We may explore additional collaborations to further the development of these product candidates as we focus internally on our more advanced programs.
Since commencing operations, we have dedicated a significant portion of our resources to the development of our clinical-stage product candidates, particularly rigosertib. We incurred research and development expenses of $25.9 million, $49.4 million and $50.2 during the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively. We anticipate that a significant portion of our operating expenses will continue to be related to research and development.
Baxalta GmbH
We are party to a September 2012 development and license agreement with Baxalta GmbH, successor in interest to Baxter Healthcare SA, which is scheduled to terminate August 30, 2016. We generally refer to Baxalta GmbH, together with its predecessor, collectively as "Baxalta." The development and license agreement granted Baxalta an exclusive, royalty-bearing license for the research, development, commercialization and manufacture (in specified instances) of rigosertib in all therapeutic indications in specified countries comprising most of Europe (the "Baxalta Territory"). Pursuant to the agreement, we received an upfront payment of $50,000,000, are receiving cost-sharing payments for our INSPIRE trial and were eligible to receive certain additional milestone payments and royalties as further described below.
On March 3, 2016, we received a notice from Baxalta of their election to terminate the development and license agreement because further support of this program did not align with their strategic priorities. The termination notice was received after commencement of the INSPIRE trial which was designed following consultation with Baxalta. In accordance with the terms of the Baxalta agreement, upon termination, the rights that we had licensed to Baxalta will revert to us at no cost. Additionally, any rights we have to previously-agreed funding, pre-commercial milestone payments and royalties from Baxalta would terminate in accordance with the agreement, absent any breaches.
Under the terms of the Baxalta agreement, we were initially required to perform research and development to advance three initial rigosertib indications, rigosertib intravenous (IV) in higher-risk MDS patients, rigosertib IV in pancreatic cancer patients and rigosertib oral in lower-risk MDS patients, through Phase 3, Phase 3 and Phase 2 clinical trials, respectively.
The Baxalta agreement contemplated development of rigosertib IV in higher-risk MDS patients through our ONTIME trial and potentially additional Phase 3 clinical trials. As our ONTIME trial did not achieve its primary endpoint, we are continuing the development of rigosertib IV in higher-risk MDS patients through our INSPIRE trial. In accordance with the agreement, we elected to have Baxalta fund fifty percent of the costs of INSPIRE, up to $15.0 million. We started billing Baxalta for these costs starting in the second quarter of 2015. We recorded revenue of $2.9 million during 2015 as a result of Baxalta's funding of the INSPIRE trial. We have overall responsibility for the trial, including determination of the trial specifications, selection of third party service providers and payment for all services and materials. Baxalta terminated the development and license agreement after commencement of the INSPIRE trial and after we had elected to have Baxalta reimburse us for our costs incurred in running this trial, per contract. We will attempt to maximize Baxalta's financial support for the INSPIRE trial, but there can be no assurances regarding the amount of funds which we will receive from Baxalta following termination.
SymBio Pharmaceuticals Limited
In July 2011, we entered into a license agreement with SymBio, as subsequently amended, granting SymBio an exclusive, royalty-bearing license for the development and commercialization of rigosertib in Japan and Korea (the "Symbio Territory"). Under the SymBio license agreement, SymBio is obligated to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop and obtain market approval for rigosertib inside the licensed territory and we have similar obligations outside of the licensed territory. We have also entered into an agreement with SymBio providing for it to supply SymBio with development-stage product. Under the SymBio license agreement, we also agreed to supply commercial product to SymBio under specified terms that will be included in a commercial supply agreement to be negotiated prior to the first commercial sale of rigosertib. The supply of development-stage product and the supply of commercial product will be at our cost plus a defined profit margin. Sales of development-stage product have been de minimis. We have additionally granted SymBio a right of first negotiation to license or obtain the rights to develop and commercialize compounds having a chemical structure similar to rigosertib in the licensed territory.
Under the terms of the SymBio license agreement, we received an upfront payment of $7,500,000. We are eligible to receive milestone payments of up to an aggregate of $22,000,000 from SymBio upon the achievement of specified development and regulatory milestones for specified indications. Of the regulatory milestones, $5,000,000 is due upon receipt of marketing approval in the United States for rigosertib IV in higher-risk MDS patients, $3,000,000 is due upon receipt of marketing approval in Japan for rigosertib IV in higher-risk MDS patients, $5,000,000 is due upon receipt of marketing approval in the United States for rigosertib oral in lower-risk MDS patients, and $5,000,000 is due upon receipt of marketing approval in Japan for rigosertib oral in lower-risk MDS patients. Furthermore, upon receipt of marketing approval in the United States and Japan for an additional specified indication of rigosertib, which we are currently not pursuing, an aggregate of $4,000,000 would be due. In addition to these pre-commercial milestones, we are eligible to receive tiered milestone payments based upon annual net sales of rigosertib by SymBio of up to an aggregate of $30,000,000.
Further, under the terms of the SymBio license agreement, SymBio will make royalty payments to us at percentage rates ranging from the mid-teens to 20% based on net sales of rigosertib by SymBio.
Royalties will be payable under the SymBio agreement on a country-by-country basis in the licensed territory, until the later of the expiration of marketing exclusivity in those countries, a specified period of time after first commercial sale of rigosertib in such country, or the expiration of all valid claims of the licensed patents covering rigosertib or the manufacture or use of rigosertib in such country. If no valid claim exists covering the composition of matter of rigosertib or the use of or treatment with rigosertib in a particular country before the expiration of the royalty term, and specified competing products achieve a specified market share percentage in such country, SymBio's obligation to
pay us royalties will continue at a reduced royalty rate until the end of the royalty term. In addition, the applicable royalties payable to us may be reduced if SymBio is required to pay royalties to third-parties for licenses to intellectual property rights necessary to develop, use, manufacture or commercialize rigosertib in the licensed territory. The license agreement with SymBio will remain in effect until the expiration of the royalty term. However, the SymBio license agreement may be terminated earlier due to the uncured material breach or bankruptcy of a party, or force majeure. If SymBio terminates the license agreement in these circumstances, its licenses to rigosertib will survive, subject to SymBio's milestone and royalty obligations, which SymBio may elect to defer and offset against any damages that may be determined to be due from us. In addition, we may terminate the license agreement in the event that SymBio brings a challenge against it in relation to the licensed patents, and SymBio may terminate the license agreement
The upfront payment is being recognized ratably using the straight line method through December 2027, the expected term of the agreement. We recognized revenues under this agreement of $455,000 and $455,000, for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. We recognized revenues related to the supply agreement with Symbio of $108,000 and $11,000 for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively.
SymBio has conducted phase 1 trials with IV and oral rigosertib in Japan at their own expense. Currently SymBio is preparing to participate in the INSPIRE trial by enrolling patients in Japan. For all rigosertib trials conducted by SymBio, we supply clinical trial supplies and provide other assistance as requested.
Preclinical Collaboration
In December 2012, we entered into an agreement with GVK Biosciences Private Limited, or GVK, to form GBO, LLC, or GBO, a joint venture entity owned by us and GVK. During 2013, GVK made an initial capital contribution of $500,000 in exchange for a 10% interest in GBO, and we contributed a sublicense to the intellectual property related to two of our preclinical programs in exchange for a 90% interest. In November 2014, GVK made a second capital contribution of $500,000 which increased its interest in GBO to 17.5% (and decreased our interest to 82.5%). The two preclinical programs sublicensed to GBO have not been developed to clinical stage as we had initially hoped, and we are in discussions with GVK regarding the future of GBO.
Patents and Proprietary Rights
Our intellectual property is derived through our internal research, licensing agreements with Temple University, or Temple, and licensing research agreements with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, or Mount Sinai.
License Agreement with Temple University
In January 1999, we entered into a license agreement with Temple as subsequently amended, to obtain an exclusive, world-wide license to certain Temple patents and technical information to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale and import several classes of novel compounds, including our three clinical-stage product candidates, rigosertib, briciclib and recilisib.
Under the terms of the license agreement, we paid Temple a non-refundable up-front payment, and are required to pay annual license maintenance fees, as well as a low single-digit percentage of net sales as a royalty. In addition, we agreed to pay Temple 25% of any consideration received from any sublicensee of the licensed Temple patents and technical information, which does not include any
royalties on sales, funds received for research and development or proceeds from any equity or debt investment.
The license agreement with Temple can be terminated by mutual agreement or due to the material breach or bankruptcy of either party. We may terminate the license agreement for any reason by giving Temple prior written notice.
Research Agreement with Mount Sinai School of Medicine
In May 2010, we entered into a research agreement with Mount Sinai. This agreement is described in more detail under the caption "Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions—Research Agreement."
Rigosertib Patents
As of March 2016, we owned or exclusively licensed 77 issued patents and 13 pending patent applications covering composition-of-matter, process, formulation and various indications for method-of-use for rigosertib filed worldwide, including seven patents and two patent applications in the United States. The U.S. composition-of-matter patent for rigosertib, which we in-licensed pursuant to the license agreement with Temple, currently expires in 2026. The U.S. method of treatment patent for rigosertib, which we also in-licensed from Temple, expires in 2025. A patent covering the use of rigosertib in combination with anticancer agents including azacitidine is issued and will expire in 2028. Patent term extensions may be available, depending on various provisions in the law.
Briciclib Patents
As of March 2016, we owned or exclusively licensed 14 issued patents and two pending patent applications covering composition-of-matter, process, formulation and various indications for method-of-use for briciclib filed worldwide, including two patent in the United States. The U.S. composition-of-matter patent for briciclib expires in 2025.
Recilisib Patents
As of March 2016, we owned or exclusively licensed 59 issued patents and 29 pending patent applications covering composition of matter, formulation and various indications for method-of-use for recilisib filed worldwide, including four patents and five patent applications in the United States. The U.S. composition-of-matter patent for recilisib expires in 2020.
As with other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, our ability to maintain and solidify a proprietary position for our product candidates will depend upon our success in obtaining effective patent claims and enforcing those claims once granted.
Our commercial success will depend in part upon not infringing upon the proprietary rights of third parties. It is uncertain whether the issuance of any third-party patent would require us to alter our development or commercial strategies, or our product candidates or processes, obtain licenses or cease certain activities. The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are characterized by extensive litigation regarding patents and other intellectual property rights. If a third party commences a patent infringement action against us, or our collaborators, it could consume significant financial and management resources, regardless of the merit of the claims or the outcome of the litigation.
The term of a patent that covers an FDA-approved drug may be eligible for additional patent term extension, which provides patent term restoration as compensation for the patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review process. The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984,
or the Hatch-Waxman Act, permits a patent term extension of up to five years beyond the expiration of the patent. The length of the patent term extension is related to the length of time the drug is under regulatory review. Patent extension cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval and only one patent applicable to an approved drug may be extended. Similar provisions are available in Europe and other foreign jurisdictions to extend the term of a patent that covers an approved drug. In the future, if and when our pharmaceutical products receive FDA approval, we expect to apply for patent term extensions on patents covering those products.
Furthermore, we may be able to obtain extension of patent term by adjustment of the said term under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 154 if the issue of an original patent is delayed due to the failure of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For example, we have received adjustments of 1,139 days extension to the patent term for the rigosertib composition of matter patent (US 7,598,232), 1,155 days extension for the patent covering the process for making rigosertib (US 8,143,453) and 751 days extension for rigosertib formulation patent (US 8,063,109) under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. §154.
We have received orphan designation for rigosertib for the treatment of MDS in the US and Europe. Our partner SymBio has received similar designation in Japan.
In addition to patents, we rely upon unpatented trade secrets, know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain a competitive position. We seek to protect our proprietary information, in part, through confidentiality agreements with our employees, collaborators, contractors and consultants, and invention assignment agreements with our employees. We also have agreements requiring assignment of inventions with selected consultants and collaborators. The confidentiality agreements are designed to protect our proprietary information and, in the case of agreements or clauses requiring invention assignment, to grant us ownership of technologies that are developed through a relationship with a third party.
The pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive and subject to rapid and significant technological change. While we believe that our development experience and scientific knowledge provide us with competitive advantages, we face competition from both large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. There are a number of pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, public and private universities and research organizations actively engaged in the research and development of products that may compete with our products. Many of these companies are multinational pharmaceutical or biotechnology organizations, which are pursuing the development of, or are currently marketing, pharmaceuticals that target the key oncology indications or cellular pathways on which we are focused.
It is probable that the increasing incidence and prevalence of cancer will lead to many more companies seeking to develop products and therapies for the treatment of unmet needs in oncology. Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial, technical and human resources than we have. Many of our competitors also have a significant advantage with respect to experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, as well as obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of products and the commercialization of those products. We anticipate intense and increasing competition as new drugs enter the market and as more advanced technologies become available. Our success will be based in part on our ability to identify, develop and manage a portfolio of drugs that are safer and more effective than competing products in the treatment of cancer patients.
There are several ongoing clinical trials aimed at expanding the use of approved chemotherapeutic and immunomodulatory agents in higher-risk MDS, as well as several new clinical programs testing novel technologies in this area. Companies competing in this space include Eisai Inc. (decitabine), Celgene Corporation (azacitidine in combination with lenalidomide, Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (tosedostat in combination with decitabine or cytarabine), Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (sapacitabine), and Astex/Otsuka (guadecitabine). To our knowledge, there are no Phase 3 trials being conducted for higher-risk MDS patients who have failed treatment with HMAs. In the lower-risk MDS market, we face competition from a number of companies in mid-stage and late-stage clinical trials, such as Celgene Corporation (lenalidomide), Array BioPharma Inc (ARRY-614), and Acceleron Pharma (sotatercept and luspatercept).
Acute Radiation Syndrome
Competitors developing products to address ARS include Soligenix, Inc., Cellerant Therapeutics, Inc., and Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. Each of these companies is working with the U.S. government to develop its products through federal contracts and grants.
Our product candidates are synthetic small molecules. Manufacturing activities must comply with FDA current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, regulations. We conduct our manufacturing activities under individual purchase orders with third-party contract manufacturers, or CMOs. We have in place quality agreements with our key CMOs. We have also established an internal quality management organization, which audits and qualifies CMOs in the United States and abroad.
We are working with CMOs to produce the rigosertib active pharmaceutical ingredient, which we believe will enable us to launch and commercialize rigosertib IV if and when marketing approval is obtained. Other CMOs produce rigosertib IV and rigosertib oral for use in our clinical trials. We believe that the manufacturing processes for the active pharmaceutical ingredient and finished drug products for rigosertib are being developed to adequately support future development and commercial demands.
The FDA regulates and inspects equipment, facilities and processes used in manufacturing pharmaceutical products prior to approval. If we fail to comply with applicable cGMP requirements and conditions of product approval, the FDA may seek sanctions, including fines, civil penalties, injunctions, suspension of manufacturing operations, operating restrictions, withdrawal of FDA approval, seizure or recall of products and criminal prosecution. Although we periodically monitor the FDA compliance of our third-party CMOs, we cannot be certain that our present or future third-party CMOs will consistently comply with cGMP and other applicable FDA regulatory requirements.
Commercial Operations
We do not currently have an organization for the sales, marketing and distribution of pharmaceutical products. We may rely on licensing and co-promotion agreements with strategic partners for the commercialization of our products in the United States and other territories. If we choose to build a commercial infrastructure to support marketing in the United States, such commercial infrastructure could be expected to include a targeted, oncology sales force supported by sales management, internal sales support, an internal marketing group and distribution support. To develop the appropriate commercial infrastructure internally, we would have to invest financial and management resources, some of which would have to be deployed prior to any confirmation that rigosertib will be approved.
As a pharmaceutical company that operates in the United States, we are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA, and other federal, state, and local regulatory agencies. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or the FDC Act, and its implementing regulations set forth, among other things, requirements for the research, testing, development, manufacture, quality control, safety, effectiveness, approval, labeling, storage, record keeping, reporting, distribution, import, export, advertising and promotion of our products. Although the discussion below focuses on regulation in the United States, we anticipate seeking approval for, and marketing of, our products in other countries. Generally, our activities in other countries will be subject to regulation that is similar in nature and scope as that imposed in the United States, although there can be important differences. Additionally, some significant aspects of regulation in Europe are addressed in a centralized way through the EMA, but country-specific regulation remains essential in many respects. The process of obtaining regulatory marketing approvals and the subsequent compliance with appropriate federal, state, local and foreign statutes and regulations require the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources and may not be successful.
United States Government Regulation
The FDA is the main regulatory body that controls pharmaceuticals in the United States, and its regulatory authority is based in the FDC Act. Pharmaceutical products are also subject to other federal, state and local statutes. A failure to comply explicitly with any requirements during the product development, approval, or post-approval periods, may lead to administrative or judicial sanctions. These sanctions could include the imposition by the FDA or an institutional review board, or IRB, of a hold on clinical trials, refusal to approve pending marketing applications or supplements, withdrawal of approval, warning letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, civil penalties or criminal prosecution.
The steps required before a new drug may be marketed in the United States generally include:
Completion of preclinical laboratory tests, animal studies and formulation studies in compliance with the FDA's GLP regulations;
Submission to the FDA of an IND to support human clinical testing;
Approval by an IRB at each clinical site before each trial may be initiated;
Performance of adequate and well-controlled clinical trials in accordance with federal regulations and with current good clinical practices, or GCPs, to establish the safety and efficacy of the investigational drug product for each targeted indication;
Submission of a new drug application, or NDA, to the FDA;
Satisfactory completion of an FDA Advisory Committee review, if applicable;
Satisfactory completion of an FDA inspection of the manufacturing facilities at which the investigational product is produced to assess compliance with cGMP, and to assure that the facilities, methods and controls are adequate; and
FDA review and approval of the NDA.
An IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational drug product to humans. This authorization is required before interstate shipping and administration of any new drug product to humans that is not the subject of an approved NDA. A 30-day waiting period after the submission of each IND is required prior to the commencement of clinical testing in humans. If the
FDA has neither commented on nor questioned the IND within this 30-day period, the clinical trial proposed in the IND may begin. Clinical trials involve the administration of the investigational drug to patients under the supervision of qualified investigators following GCPs, an international standard meant to protect the rights and health of patients and to define the roles of clinical trial sponsors, administrators and monitors. Clinical trials are conducted under protocols that detail the parameters to be used in monitoring safety, and the efficacy criteria to be evaluated. Each protocol involving testing on U.S. patients and subsequent protocol amendments must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. The informed written consent of each participating subject is required. The clinical investigation of an investigational drug is generally divided into three phases. Although the phases are usually conducted sequentially, they may overlap or be combined. The three phases of an investigation are as follows:
Phase 1. Phase 1 includes the initial introduction of an investigation drug into humans. Phase 1 clinical trials may be conducted in patients with the target disease or condition or healthy volunteers. These studies are designed to evaluate the safety, metabolism, pharmacokinetics and pharmacologic actions of the investigational drug in humans, the side effects associated with increasing doses, and if possible, to gain early evidence on effectiveness. During Phase 1 clinical trials, sufficient information about the investigational product's pharmacokinetics and pharmacological effects may be obtained to permit the design of Phase 2 clinical trials. The total number of participants included in Phase 1 clinical trials varies, but is generally in the range of 20 to 80.
Phase 2. Phase 2 includes the controlled clinical trials conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the investigational product for a particular indication(s) in patients with the disease or condition under study, to determine dosage tolerance and optimal dosage, and to identify possible adverse side effects and safety risks associated with the drug. Phase 2 clinical trials are typically well-controlled, closely monitored, and conducted in a limited patient population, usually involving no more than several hundred participants.
Phase 3. Phase 3 clinical trials are controlled clinical trials conducted in an expanded patient population at geographically dispersed clinical trial sites. They are performed after preliminary evidence suggesting effectiveness of the investigational product has been obtained, and are intended to further evaluate dosage, clinical effectiveness and safety, to establish the overall benefit-risk relationship of the product, and to provide an adequate basis for product approval. Phase 3 clinical trials usually involve several hundred to several thousand participants. In most cases, the FDA requires two adequate and well controlled Phase 3 clinical trials to demonstrate the efficacy of the drug. A single Phase 3 trial with other confirmatory evidence may be sufficient in rare instances where the study is a large multicenter trial demonstrating internal consistency and a statistically very persuasive finding of a clinically meaningful effect on mortality, irreversible morbidity or prevention of a disease with a potentially serious outcome and confirmation of the result in a second trial would be practically or ethically impossible.
The decision to terminate development of an investigational drug product may be made by either a health authority body, such as the FDA or IRB/ethics committees, or by a company for various reasons. The FDA may order the temporary, or permanent, discontinuation of a clinical trial at any time, or impose other sanctions, if it believes that the clinical trial either is not being conducted in accordance with FDA requirements or presents an unacceptable risk to the clinical trial patients. In some cases, clinical trials are overseen by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the trial sponsor, or the clinical monitoring board. This group provides authorization for whether or not a trial may move forward at designated check points. These decisions are based on the limited access to data from the ongoing trial. The suspension or termination of development can occur during any phase of clinical trials if it is determined that the participants or patients are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. In addition, there are requirements for the registration of ongoing clinical trials of drugs on public
registries and the disclosure of certain information pertaining to the trials as well as clinical trial results after completion.
A sponsor may be able to request a special protocol assessment, or SPA, the purpose of which is to reach agreement with the FDA on the Phase 3 clinical trial protocol design and analysis that will form the primary basis of an efficacy claim. A sponsor meeting the regulatory criteria may make a specific request for a SPA and provide information regarding the design and size of the proposed clinical trial. A SPA request must be made before the proposed trial begins, and all open issues must be resolved before the trial begins. If a written agreement is reached, it will be documented and made part of the record. The agreement will be binding on the FDA and may not be changed by the sponsor or the FDA after the trial begins except with the written agreement of the sponsor and the FDA or if the FDA determines that a substantial scientific issue essential to determining the safety or efficacy of the product candidate was identified after the testing began. A SPA is not binding if new circumstances arise, and there is no guarantee that a study will ultimately be adequate to support an approval even if the study is subject to a SPA. Having a SPA agreement does not guarantee that a product will receive FDA approval.
Assuming successful completion of all required testing in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements, detailed investigational drug product information is submitted to the FDA in the form of a NDA to request market approval for the product in specified indications.
New Drug Applications
In order to obtain approval to market a drug in the United States, a marketing application must be submitted to the FDA that provides data establishing the safety and effectiveness of the drug product for the proposed indication. The application includes all relevant data available from pertinent preclinical and clinical trials, including negative or ambiguous results as well as positive findings, together with detailed information relating to the product's chemistry, manufacturing, controls and proposed labeling, among other things. Data can come from company-sponsored clinical trials intended to test the safety and effectiveness of a product, or from a number of alternative sources, including studies initiated by investigators. To support marketing approval, the data submitted must be sufficient in quality and quantity to establish the safety and effectiveness of the investigational drug product to the satisfaction of the FDA.
In most cases, the NDA must be accompanied by a substantial user fee (currently exceeding $2,374,200); there may be some instances in which the user fee is waived. The FDA will initially review the NDA for completeness before it accepts the NDA for filing. The FDA has 60 days from its receipt of an NDA to determine whether the application will be accepted for filing based on the agency's threshold determination that it is sufficiently complete to permit substantive review. After the NDA submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth review. The FDA has agreed to certain performance goals in the review of NDAs. Most such applications for standard review drug products are reviewed within ten to twelve months. The FDA can extend this review by three months to consider certain late-submitted information or information intended to clarify information already provided in the submission. The FDA reviews the NDA to determine, among other things, whether the proposed product is safe and effective for its intended use, and whether the product is being manufactured in accordance with cGMP. The FDA may refer applications for novel drug products which present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee, typically a panel that includes clinicians and other experts, for review, evaluation and a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions. The FDA is not bound by the recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations carefully when making decisions.
Before approving an NDA, the FDA will inspect the facilities at which the product is manufactured. The FDA will not approve the product unless it determines that the manufacturing
processes and facilities are in compliance with cGMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. Additionally, before approving an NDA, the FDA will typically inspect one or more clinical sites to assure compliance with GCP. After the FDA evaluates the NDA and the manufacturing facilities, it issues either an approval letter or a complete response letter. A complete response letter generally outlines the deficiencies in the submission and may require substantial additional testing or information in order for the FDA to reconsider the application. If, or when, those deficiencies have been addressed to the FDA's satisfaction in a resubmission of the NDA, the FDA will issue an approval letter. The FDA has committed to reviewing such resubmissions in two or six months depending on the type of information included. Notwithstanding the submission of any requested additional information, the FDA ultimately may decide that the application does not satisfy the regulatory criteria for approval.
An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug with specific prescribing information for specific indications. As a condition of NDA approval, the FDA may require a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, or REMS, to help ensure that the benefits of the drug outweigh the potential risks. REMS can include medication guides, communication plans for healthcare professionals, and elements to assure safe use, or ETASU. ETASU can include, but are not limited to, special training or certification for prescribing or dispensing, dispensing only under certain circumstances, special monitoring, and the use of patient registries. The requirement for a REMS can materially affect the potential market and profitability of the drug. Moreover, product approval may require substantial post-approval testing and surveillance to monitor the drug's safety or efficacy. Once granted, product approvals may be withdrawn if compliance with regulatory standards is not maintained or problems are identified following initial marketing.
Changes to some of the conditions established in an approved application, including changes in indications, labeling, or manufacturing processes or facilities, require submission and FDA approval of a new NDA or NDA supplement before the change can be implemented. An NDA supplement for a new indication typically requires clinical data similar to that in the original application, and the FDA uses the same procedures and actions in reviewing NDA supplements as it does in reviewing NDAs.
The FDA and other federal regulatory agencies closely regulate the marketing and promotion of drugs through, among other things, standards and regulations for direct-to-consumer advertising, communications regarding unapproved uses, industry-sponsored scientific and educational activities, and promotional activities involving the Internet. A product cannot be commercially promoted before it is approved. After approval, product promotion can include only those claims relating to safety and effectiveness that are consistent with the labeling approved by the FDA. Healthcare providers are permitted to prescribe drugs for "off-label" uses—that is, uses not approved by the FDA and therefore not described in the drug's labeling—because the FDA does not regulate the practice of medicine. However, FDA regulations impose stringent restrictions on manufacturers' communications regarding off-label uses. Broadly speaking, a manufacturer may not promote a drug for off-label use, but may engage in non-promotional, balanced communication regarding off-label use under specified conditions. Failure to comply with applicable FDA requirements and restrictions in this area may subject a company to adverse publicity and enforcement action by the FDA, the DOJ, or the Office of the Inspector General of HHS, as well as state authorities. This could subject a company to a range of penalties that could have a significant commercial impact, including civil and criminal fines and agreements that materially restrict the manner in which a company promotes or distributes drug products.
Post-Approval Regulations
After regulatory approval of a drug is obtained, a company is required to comply with a number of post-approval requirements. For example, as a condition of approval of an NDA, the FDA may require post-marketing testing, including Phase 4 clinical trials, and surveillance to further assess and monitor the product's safety and effectiveness after commercialization. Regulatory approval of oncology products often requires that patients in clinical trials be followed for long periods to determine the overall survival benefit of the drug. In addition, as a holder of an approved NDA, a company would be required to report adverse reactions and production problems to the FDA, to provide updated safety and efficacy information, and to comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotional labeling for any of its products. Also, quality control and manufacturing procedures must continue to conform to cGMP after approval to assure and preserve the long term stability of the drug or biological product. The FDA periodically inspects manufacturing facilities to assess compliance with cGMP, which imposes extensive procedural and substantive record keeping requirements. In addition, changes to the manufacturing process are strictly regulated, and, depending on the significance of the change, may require prior FDA approval before being implemented. FDA regulations also require investigation and correction of any deviations from cGMP and impose reporting and documentation requirements upon a company and any third-party manufacturers that a company may decide to use. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain compliance with cGMP and other aspects of regulatory compliance.
We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties for the production of clinical and commercial quantities of our product candidates. Future FDA and state inspections may identify compliance issues at our facilities or at the facilities of our contract manufacturers that may disrupt production or distribution, or require substantial resources to correct. In addition, discovery of previously unknown problems with a product or the failure to comply with applicable requirements may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer or holder of an approved NDA, including withdrawal or recall of the product from the market or other voluntary, FDA-initiated or judicial action that could delay or prohibit further marketing.
Newly discovered or developed safety or effectiveness data may require changes to a product's approved labeling, including the addition of new warnings and contraindications, and also may require the implementation of other risk management measures. Also, new government requirements, including those resulting from new legislation, may be established, or the FDA's policies may change, which could delay or prevent regulatory approval of our products under development or result in additional post-approval requirements.
FDA Animal Efficacy Rule for Approval of Medical Countermeasures
Marketing approval by the FDA for new medical countermeasures in situations for which human efficacy testing is not feasible or ethical, such as for ARS, is based on the so-called "Animal Efficacy Rule." Under this rule, FDA can rely on the evidence from animal studies to provide substantial prediction of effectiveness of an agent in humans, when coupled with:
a reasonably well understood pathophysiological mechanism for the toxicity of the radiological or nuclear substance and its amelioration or prevention by the agent;
protective effect is demonstrated in generally more than one animal species expected to react with a response predictive for humans, and hence be a reliable indicator of its effectiveness in humans;
animal study endpoint is clearly related to the desired benefit in humans; and
data or information on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of the product in animals and humans is sufficiently well understood to allow selection of a dose predicted to be effective in humans.
The Hatch-Waxman Amendments to the FDC Act
Orange Book Listing
In seeking approval for a drug through an NDA, applicants are required to list with the FDA each patent whose claims cover the applicant's product or method of using the product. Upon approval of a drug, each of the patents listed in the application for the drug is then published in the FDA's Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, commonly known as the Orange Book. Drugs listed in the Orange Book can, in turn, be cited by potential generic competitors in support of approval of an abbreviated new drug application, or ANDA or 505(b)(2) application. An ANDA provides for marketing of a drug product that has the same active ingredients in the same strengths and dosage form as the listed drug and has been shown through bioequivalence testing to be therapeutically equivalent to the listed drug. Other than the requirement for bioequivalence testing, ANDA applicants are not required to conduct, or submit results of, pre-clinical or clinical tests to prove the safety or effectiveness of their drug product. Drugs approved in this way are commonly referred to as "generic equivalents" to the listed drug, and can often be substituted by pharmacists under prescriptions written for the original listed drug. 505(b)(2) applications provide for marketing of a drug product that may have the same active ingredients as the listed drug and contain the same full safety and effectiveness data as an NDA, but at least some of the information comes from studies not conducted by or for the applicant. The ANDA or 505(b)(2) applicant is required to certify to the FDA concerning any patents listed for the approved product in the FDA's Orange Book. Specifically, the applicant must certify that: (i) the required patent information has not been filed; (ii) the listed patent has expired; (iii) the listed patent has not expired, but will expire on a particular date and approval is sought after patent expiration; or (iv) the listed patent is invalid or will not be infringed by the new product. The ANDA or 505(b)(2) applicant may also elect to submit a statement certifying that its proposed label does not contain (or carves out) any language regarding the patented method-of-use rather than certify to a listed method-of-use patent. If the applicant does not challenge the listed patents, the ANDA or 505(b)(2) application will not be approved until all the listed patents claiming the referenced product have expired.
A certification that the new product will not infringe the already approved product's listed patents, or that such patents are invalid, is called a Paragraph IV certification. If the ANDA or 505(b)(2) applicant has provided a Paragraph IV certification to the FDA, the applicant must also send notice of the Paragraph IV certification to the NDA and patent holders once the ANDA or 505(b)(2) application has been accepted for filing by the FDA. The NDA and patent holders may then initiate a patent infringement lawsuit in response to the notice of the Paragraph IV certification. The filing of a patent infringement lawsuit within 45 days of the receipt of a Paragraph IV certification automatically prevents the FDA from approving the ANDA or 505(b)(2) application until the earlier of 30 months, expiration of the patent, settlement of the lawsuit, or a decision in the infringement case that is favorable to the ANDA or 505(b)(2) applicant.
The ANDA or 505(b)(2) application also will not be approved until any applicable non-patent exclusivity listed in the Orange Book for the referenced product has expired.
Upon NDA approval of a new chemical entity, or NCE, which is a drug that contains no active moiety that has been approved by the FDA in any other NDA, that drug receives five years of marketing exclusivity during which the FDA cannot receive any ANDA seeking approval of a generic
version of that drug. Certain changes to a drug, such as the addition of a new indication to the package insert, are associated with a three-year period of exclusivity during which the FDA cannot approve an ANDA for a generic drug that includes the change.
An ANDA may be submitted one year before NCE exclusivity expires if a Paragraph IV certification is filed. If there is no listed patent in the Orange Book, there may not be a Paragraph IV certification, and, thus, no ANDA may be filed before the expiration of the exclusivity period.
Patent Term Extension
After NDA approval, owners of relevant drug patents may apply for up to a five year patent extension. The allowable patent term extension is calculated as half of the drug's testing phase—the time between IND application and NDA submission—and all of the review phase—the time between NDA submission and approval up to a maximum of five years. The time can be shortened if the FDA determines that the applicant did not pursue approval with due diligence. The total patent term after the extension may not exceed 14 years.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, prohibits any U.S. individual or business from paying, offering, or authorizing payment or offering of anything of value, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official, political party or candidate for the purpose of influencing any act or decision of the foreign entity in order to assist the individual or business in obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA also obligates companies whose securities are listed in the United States to comply with accounting provisions requiring the company to maintain books and records that accurately and fairly reflect all transactions of the corporation, including international subsidiaries, and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls for international operations.
Europe and Other International Government Regulation
In addition to regulations in the United States, we will be subject to a variety of regulations in other jurisdictions governing, among other things, clinical trials and any commercial sales and distribution of our products. Whether or not we obtain FDA approval for a product, we must obtain the requisite approvals from regulatory authorities in foreign countries prior to the commencement of clinical trials or marketing of the product in those countries. Some countries outside of the United States have a similar process that requires the submission of a clinical trial application, or CTA, much like the IND prior to the commencement of human clinical trials. In Europe, for example, a CTA must be submitted to each country's national health authority and an independent ethics committee, much like the FDA and IRB, respectively. Once the CTA is approved in accordance with a country's requirements, clinical trial development may proceed.
To obtain regulatory approval to commercialize a new drug under European Union regulatory systems, we must submit a marketing authorization application, or MAA. The MAA is similar to the NDA, with the exception of, among other things, country-specific document requirements.
For other countries outside of the European Union, such as countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia, the requirements governing the conduct of clinical trials, product licensing, pricing and reimbursement vary from country to country. In all cases, again, the clinical trials are conducted in accordance with GCP and the applicable regulatory requirements and the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki.
During all phases of development (pre- and post-marketing), failure to comply with applicable regulatory requirements may result in administrative or judicial sanctions. These sanctions could include the FDA's imposition of a clinical hold on trials, refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, warning letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, product detention or refusal to permit the import or export of products, injunctions, fines, civil penalties or criminal prosecution. Any agency or judicial enforcement action could have a material adverse effect on us.
Other Special Regulatory Procedures
Orphan Drug Designation
The FDA may grant Orphan Drug Designation to drugs intended to treat a rare disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or, if the disease or condition affects more than 200,000 individuals in the United States, there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making the drug would be recovered from sales in the United States. In the European Union, the EMA's Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products, or COMP, grants Orphan Drug Designation to promote the development of products that are intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions affecting not more than five in 10,000 persons in the European Union community. Additionally, designation is granted for products intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life- threatening, seriously debilitating or serious and chronic condition and when, without incentives, it is unlikely that sales of the drug in the European Union would be sufficient to justify the necessary investment in developing the drug.
In the United States, Orphan Drug Designation entitles a party to financial incentives, such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical trial costs, tax credits for certain research and user fee waivers under certain circumstances. In addition, if a product receives the first FDA approval for the indication for which it has orphan designation, the product is entitled to seven years of market exclusivity, which means the FDA may not approve any other application for the same drug for the same indication for a period of seven years, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority over the product with orphan exclusivity. Orphan drug exclusivity does not prevent the FDA from approving a different drug for the same disease or condition, or the same drug for a different disease or condition.
In the European Union, Orphan Drug Designation also entitles a party to financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and ten years of market exclusivity is granted following drug approval. This period may be reduced to six years if the Orphan Drug Designation criteria are no longer met, including where it is shown that the product is sufficiently profitable not to justify maintenance of market exclusivity.
Orphan drug designation must be requested before submission of an application for marketing approval. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in, or shorten the duration of the regulatory review and approval process.
Priority Review (United States) and Accelerated Review (European Union)
Based on results of one or more Phase 3 clinical trials submitted in an NDA, upon the request of an applicant, a priority review designation may be granted to a product by the FDA, which sets the target date for FDA action on the application at six months from FDA filing, or eight months from the sponsor's submission. Priority review is given where preliminary estimates indicate that a product, if approved, has the potential to provide a safe and effective therapy where no satisfactory alternative therapy exists, or a significant improvement compared to marketed products is possible. If criteria are
not met for priority review, the standard FDA review period is ten months from FDA filing, or 12 months from sponsor submission. Priority review designation does not change the scientific/medical standard for approval or the quality of evidence necessary to support approval.
Under the Centralized Procedure in the European Union, the maximum timeframe for the evaluation of a marketing authorization application is 210 days (excluding clock stops, when additional written or oral information is to be provided by the applicant in response to questions asked by the CHMP). Accelerated evaluation might be granted by the CHMP in exceptional cases, when a medicinal product is expected to be of a major public health interest, defined by three cumulative criteria: the seriousness of the disease (e.g., heavy disabling or life-threatening diseases) to be treated; the absence or insufficiency of an appropriate alternative therapeutic approach; and anticipation of high therapeutic benefit. In this circumstance, EMA ensures that the opinion of the CHMP is given within 150 days.
Pediatric Information
Under the Pediatric Research Equity Act, or PREA, NDAs or supplements to NDAs must contain data to assess the safety and effectiveness of the drug for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the drug is safe and effective. The FDA may grant full or partial waivers, or deferrals, for submission of data. Unless otherwise required by regulation, PREA does not apply to any drug for an indication for which orphan designation has been granted.
The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, or BPCA, provides NDA holders a six-month extension of any exclusivity—patent or non-patent—for a drug if certain conditions are met. Conditions for exclusivity include the FDA's determination that information relating to the use of a new drug in the pediatric population may produce health benefits in that population, the FDA making a written request for pediatric studies, and the applicant agreeing to perform, and reporting on, the requested studies within the statutory timeframe. Applications under the BPCA receive priority review designation, with all of the benefits that designation confers.
In March 2010, the President of the United States signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which we refer to collectively as the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act substantially changes the way healthcare will be financed by both governmental and private insurers, and significantly impacts the pharmaceutical industry. The Affordable Care Act is a sweeping law intended to broaden access to health insurance, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on the health industry and impose additional health policy reforms.
Among the Affordable Care Act's provisions of importance to the pharmaceutical industry are the following:
an annual, nondeductible fee on any entity that manufactures or imports specified branded prescription drugs and biologic agents apportioned among these entities according to their market share in some government healthcare programs;
an increase in the statutory minimum rebates a manufacturer must pay under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, retroactive to January 1, 2010, to 23% and 13% of the average manufacturer price for most branded and generic drugs, respectively;
expansion of healthcare fraud and abuse laws, including the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute, new government investigative powers, and enhanced penalties for noncompliance;
a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program, in which manufacturers must agree to offer 50% point-of-sale discounts off negotiated prices of applicable brand drugs to eligible beneficiaries during their coverage gap period, as a condition for the manufacturers' outpatient drugs to be covered under Medicare Part D;
extension of manufacturers' Medicaid rebate liability to covered drugs dispensed to individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations;
expansion of eligibility criteria for Medicaid programs by, among other things, allowing states to offer Medicaid coverage to additional individuals and by adding new mandatory eligibility categories for individuals with income at or below 133% of the Federal Poverty Level, thereby potentially increasing manufacturers' Medicaid rebate liability;
expansion of the entities eligible for discounts under the Public Health Service pharmaceutical pricing program;
new requirements to report annually specified financial arrangements with physicians and teaching hospitals, as defined in the Affordable Care Act and its implementing regulations, including reporting any "payments or transfers of value" made or distributed to prescribers, teaching hospitals, and other healthcare providers and reporting any ownership and investment interests held by physicians and other healthcare providers and their immediate family members and applicable group purchasing organizations during the preceding calendar year, with data collection required beginning August 1, 2013 and reporting to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services required by March 31, 2014 and by the 90th day of each subsequent calendar year;
a new requirement to annually report drug samples that manufacturers and distributors provide to physicians;
a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to oversee, identify priorities in, and conduct comparative clinical effectiveness research, along with funding for such research; and
a mandatory nondeductible payment for employers with 50 or more full time employees (or equivalents) who fail to provide certain minimum health insurance coverage for such employees and their dependents, beginning in 2015 (pursuant to relief enacted by the Treasury Department).
The Affordable Care Act also establishes an Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, to reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending. Beginning in 2014, IPAB was mandated to propose changes in Medicare payments if it determines that the rate of growth of Medicare expenditures exceeds target growth rates. The IPAB has broad discretion to propose policies to reduce expenditures, which may have a negative impact on payment rates for pharmaceutical products. A proposal made by the IPAB is required to be implemented by the U.S. government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unless Congress adopts a proposal with savings greater than those proposed by the IPAB. IPAB proposals may impact payments for physician and free-standing services beginning in 2015 and for hospital services beginning in 2020.
In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. On August 2, 2011, the President signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011, which, among other things, created the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to recommend proposals in spending reductions to Congress. The Joint Select Committee did not achieve its targeted deficit reduction of at least $1.2 trillion for the years 2013 through 2021, triggering the legislation's automatic reductions to several government programs. These reductions include aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of up to 2% per fiscal year, starting in 2013. On January 2, 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other
things, reduced Medicare payments to several providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. These new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on our customers and accordingly, our financial operations.
We anticipate that the Affordable Care Act will result in additional downward pressure on coverage and the price that we receive for any approved product, and could seriously harm our business. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare and other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability, or commercialize our products. In addition, it is possible that there will be further legislation or regulation that could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Coverage and Reimbursement
In the US, many independent third-party payers, as well as the Medicare and state Medicaid programs, reimburse buyers of pharmaceutical products. Medicare is the federal program that provides health care benefits to senior citizens and certain disabled and chronically ill persons. Medicaid is the federal program administered by the states to provide health care benefits to certain indigent persons. In return for including our pharmaceutical commercial products in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, we may need to agree to pay a rebate to state Medicaid agencies that provide reimbursement for those products. We will also have to agree to sell our commercial products under contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Public Health Service, and numerous other federal agencies as well as certain hospitals that are designated as 340B covered entities (entities designated by federal programs to receive drugs at discounted prices) at prices that are significantly below the price we may charge to commercial pharmaceutical distributors. These programs and contracts are highly regulated and may impose restrictions on our business. Failure to comply with these regulations and restrictions could result in a loss of our ability to continue receiving reimbursement for our drugs once approved.
Different pricing and reimbursement schemes exist in other countries. In the European Community, governments influence the price of pharmaceutical products through their pricing and reimbursement rules and control of national health care systems that fund a large part of the cost of those products to consumers. Some jurisdictions operate positive and negative list systems under which products may only be marketed once a reimbursement price has been agreed. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval, some of these countries may require the completion of clinical trials that compare the cost-effectiveness of a particular drug candidate to currently available therapies. Other member states allow companies to fix their own prices for medicines, but monitor and control company profits. The downward pressure on health care costs in general, particularly prescription drugs, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products. In addition, in some countries, cross-border imports from low-priced markets exert a commercial pressure on pricing within a country. There can be no assurance that any country that has price controls or reimbursement limitations for dug products will allow favorable reimbursement and pricing arrangements of our products.
Other Healthcare Laws and Compliance Requirements
The federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits, among other things, knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting or receiving remuneration to induce or in return for purchasing, leasing, ordering or arranging for the purchase, lease or order of any healthcare item or service reimbursable under Medicare, Medicaid or other federally financed healthcare programs. This statute has been interpreted to apply to arrangements between pharmaceutical manufacturers on one hand and prescribers, purchasers, and formulary managers on the other. Although there are a number of statutory
exemptions and regulatory safe harbors protecting some business arrangements from prosecution, the exemptions and safe harbors are drawn narrowly and practices that involve remuneration intended to induce prescribing, purchasing or recommending may be subject to scrutiny if they do not qualify for an exemption or safe harbor. Our practices may not in all cases meet all of the criteria for safe harbor protection from federal Anti-Kickback Statute liability. The reach of the Anti-Kickback Statute was broadened by the Affordable Care Act, which, among other things, amends the intent requirement of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Pursuant to the statutory amendment, a person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of this statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. In addition, the Affordable Care Act provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the civil False Claims Act (discussed below) or the civil monetary penalties statute, which imposes penalties against any person who is determined to have presented or caused to be presented a claim to a federal health program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or is false or fraudulent.
The federal False Claims Act prohibits any person from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, a false claim for payment to the federal government or knowingly making, using, or causing to be made or used a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim to the federal government. As a result of a modification made by the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, a claim includes "any request or demand" for money or property presented to the U.S. government. Recently, several pharmaceutical and other healthcare companies have been prosecuted under these laws for allegedly providing free product to customers with the expectation that the customers would bill federal programs for the product. Other companies have been prosecuted for causing false claims to be submitted because of the companies' marketing of the product for unapproved, and thus non-reimbursable, uses. HIPAA created new federal criminal statutes that prohibit knowingly and willfully executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, including private third-party payors and knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services. Also, many states have similar fraud and abuse statutes or regulations that apply to items and services reimbursed under Medicaid and other state programs, or, in several states, apply regardless of the payor.
In addition, we may be subject to data privacy and security regulation by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. HIPAA, as amended by HITECH, and its implementing regulations, imposes requirements relating to the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information. Among other things, HITECH makes HIPAA's privacy and security standards directly applicable to "business associates"—independent contractors or agents of covered entities that receive or obtain protected health information in connection with providing a service on behalf of a covered entity. HITECH also increased the civil and criminal penalties that may be imposed against covered entities, business associates and possibly other persons, and gave state attorneys general new authority to file civil actions for damages or injunctions in federal courts to enforce the federal HIPAA laws and seek attorney's fees and costs associated with pursuing federal civil actions. In addition, state laws govern the privacy and security of health information in specified circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same effect, thus complicating compliance efforts.
In the United States, our activities are potentially subject to additional regulation by various federal, state and local authorities in addition to the FDA, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, other divisions of HHS (e.g., the Office of Inspector General), the DOJ and individual U.S. Attorney offices within the DOJ, and state and local governments. If a drug product is reimbursed by Medicare or Medicaid, pricing and rebate programs must comply with, as applicable, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 as well as the Medicaid
rebate requirements of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, or the OBRA, and the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992, each as amended. Among other things, the OBRA requires drug manufacturers to pay rebates on prescription drugs to state Medicaid programs and empowers states to negotiate rebates on pharmaceutical prices, which may result in prices for our future products that will likely be lower than the prices we might otherwise obtain. If products are made available to authorized users of the Federal Supply Schedule of the General Services Administration, additional laws and requirements apply. Under the Veterans Health Care Act, or VHCA, drug companies are required to offer some drugs at a reduced price to a number of federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and DoD, the Public Health Service and some private Public Health Service designated entities in order to participate in other federal funding programs including Medicaid. Recent legislative changes require that discounted prices be offered for specified DoD purchases for its TRICARE program via a rebate system. Participation under the VHCA requires submission of pricing data and calculation of discounts and rebates pursuant to complex statutory formulas, as well as the entry into government procurement contracts governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
Because of the breadth of these laws and the narrowness of available statutory and regulatory exemptions, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of such laws. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the federal and state laws described above or any other governmental regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including criminal and significant civil monetary penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government programs, injunctions, recall or seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, denial or withdrawal of pre-marketing product approvals, private "qui tam" actions brought by individual whistleblowers in the name of the government or refusal to allow us to enter into supply contracts, including government contracts, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. To the extent that any of our products are sold in a foreign country, we may be subject to similar foreign laws and regulations, which may include, for instance, applicable post-marketing requirements, including safety surveillance, anti-fraud and abuse laws, and implementation of corporate compliance programs and reporting of payments or transfers of value to healthcare professionals.
In order to distribute products commercially, we must comply with state laws that require the registration of manufacturers and wholesale distributors of pharmaceutical products in a state, including, in some states, manufacturers and distributors who ship products into the state even if such manufacturers or distributors have no place of business within the state. Some states also impose requirements on manufacturers and distributors to establish the pedigree of product in the chain of distribution, including some states that require manufacturers and others to adopt new technology capable of tracking and tracing product as it moves through the distribution chain. Several states have enacted legislation requiring pharmaceutical companies to, among other things, establish marketing compliance programs, file periodic reports with the state, make periodic public disclosures on sales, marketing, pricing, clinical trials and other activities, and/ or register their sales representatives, as well as to prohibit pharmacies and other healthcare entities from providing specified physician prescribing data to pharmaceutical companies for use in sales and marketing, and to prohibit other specified sales and marketing practices. All of our activities are potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws.
As of December 31, 2015, we had 36 employees. As part of our efforts to conserve cash, we are reducing our headcount during the first half of 2016. We have no collective bargaining agreements with our employees and have not experienced any work stoppages. We believe that relations with our employees are good.
We were incorporated in Delaware in December 1998. Our primary executive offices are located at 375 Pheasant Run, Newtown, PA 18940 and our telephone number is (267) 759-3680. Our website address is www.onconova.com. The information contained in, or that can be accessed through, our website is not part of this Report.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
You should carefully consider the following risk factors together with the other information contained in this Annual Report, including our financial statements and the related notes appearing in this report. We cannot assure you that any of the events discussed in the risk factors below will not occur. If any of the following risks actually occur, they may materially harm our business and our financial condition and results of operations. In this event, the market price of our common stock could decline and your investment could be lost. You should understand that it is not possible to predict or identify all such risks. Consequently, you should not consider the following to be a complete discussion of all potential risks or uncertainties
Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Needs
If we are unable to meet our needs for additional funding in the future, we will be required to limit, scale back or cease operations.
We do not have the funding resources necessary to carry out all of our proposed operating activities, including our INSPIRE trial. We will need to obtain additional financing in the future in order to fully fund rigosertib or any other product candidates through the regulatory approval process. Accordingly, we may delay or pause our planned clinical trials, including our INSPIRE trial, until we secure adequate additional funding. If we seek to proceed with a clinical trial without additional funding, we may receive questions or comments from the FDA, fail to obtain IRB approval, or find it more difficult to enroll patients in the trial. Additionally, we plan to scale down our operations in order to reduce spending on general and administrative functions, research and development, and other clinical trials, but may not be able to do so quickly.
We are exploring various dilutive and non-dilutive sources of funding, including equity and debt financings, strategic alliances, business development and other sources. However, we may not be able to obtain additional funding on favorable terms, if at all. If we are unable to secure adequate additional funding, we will continue to delay, scale-back or eliminate certain of our planned research, drug discovery and development activities and certain other aspects of our operations and our business until such time as we are successful in securing adequate additional funding. As a result, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows may be materially and adversely affected. We will incur substantial costs beyond the present and planned clinical trials in order to file an NDA for rigosertib. The nature, design, size and cost of further studies will depend in large part on the outcome of preceding studies and discussions with regulators.
Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including:
timing and success of our clinical trials for rigosertib;
continued progress of and increased spending related to our research and development activities;
conditions in the capital markets and the biopharmaceutical industry, particularly with respect to raising capital or entering into strategic arrangements;
progress with preclinical experiments and clinical trials, including regulatory approvals necessary for advancement and continuation of our development programs;
changes in regulatory requirements and guidance of the FDA and other regulatory authorities, which may require additional clinical trials to evaluate safety and/or efficacy, and thus have significant impacts on our timelines, cost projections, and financial requirements;
ongoing general and administrative expenses related to our reporting obligations under the Exchange Act;
cost, timing, and results of regulatory reviews and approvals;
costs of any legal proceedings, claims, lawsuits and investigations;
success, timing, and financial consequences of any existing or future collaborative, licensing and other arrangements that we may establish, including potential granting of licenses to one or more of our programs in various territories, or otherwise monetizing one or more of our programs;
cost of filing, prosecuting, defending and enforcing any patent claims and other intellectual property rights;
costs of commercializing any of our other product candidates;
technological and market developments;
cost of manufacturing development; and
timing and volume of sales of products for which we obtain marketing approval.
These factors could result in variations from our projected operating and liquidity requirements. Additional funds may not be available when needed, or, if available, we may not be able to obtain such funds on terms acceptable to us. If adequate funds are unavailable, we may be required, among other things, to:
delay, reduce the scope of or eliminate one or more of our research or development programs;
license rights to technologies, product candidates or products at an earlier stage or for indications or territories than otherwise would be desirable, or on terms that are less favorable to us than might otherwise be available;
obtain funds through arrangements that may require us to relinquish rights to product candidates or products that we would otherwise seek to develop or commercialize by ourselves; or
cease operations.
Baxalta's election to terminate our development and license agreement may negatively impact our ability to fund our business in the future.
Our development and license agreement with Baxalta granted it an exclusive, royalty-bearing license for the development and commercialization of rigosertib in specified countries comprising most of Europe. Under the agreement, we received an upfront license fee upon signing, and would have received certain pre- and post-commercialization payments and royalties if specified development and regulatory milestones had been achieved and Baxalta had engaged in sales of rigosertib in its territory. On March 3, 2016, we received a notice from Baxalta notifying us of Baxalta's election to terminate the development and license agreement based on a strategic reprioritization review, effective August 30, 2016. The decision by Baxalta to terminate this agreement, will reduce the funding we were eligible to receive under the collaboration agreement and could negatively impact our ability to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approvals for and commercialize our product candidates. In addition, the
decision by Baxalta to terminate this agreement could also damage our reputation and negatively impact our ability to obtain financing from other sources.
Our independent auditors have expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
Our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2015 have been prepared assuming we will continue to operate as a going concern. However, due to our ongoing operating losses and our accumulated deficit, in their opinion on our audited financial statements for our fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, our auditors indicated that there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Because we continue to experience net operating losses, our ability to continue as a going concern is subject to our ability to successfully raise sufficient additional capital, through future financings or through strategic and collaborative arrangements. There can be no assurances that we will be able to obtain such additional capital on favorable terms or at all. If we are unable to obtain sufficient additional capital, through future financings or through strategic and collaborative arrangements financing from the sale of our securities or from alternative sources, we will continue to delay, scale-back or eliminate certain of our planned research, drug discovery and development activities and certain other aspects of our operations, or we may not be able to continue as a going concern.
We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur losses in the future.
We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Investment in biopharmaceutical product development is highly speculative because it entails substantial upfront capital expenditures and significant risk that a product candidate will fail to gain regulatory approval or become commercially viable. We do not have any products approved by regulatory authorities for marketing and have not generated any revenue from product sales to date, and we continue to incur significant research, development and other expenses related to our ongoing operations. As a result, we are not profitable and have incurred losses in every reporting period since our inception in 1998. For the years ended December 31, 2015, and 2014, we reported net losses of $24.0 million and $63.8 million, respectively, and we had an accumulated deficit of $318.6 million at December 31, 2015.
We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses for the foreseeable future. These losses may increase as we continue the research and development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our product candidates, and potentially begin to commercialize any products that may achieve regulatory approval. We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate revenues. If any of our product candidates fail in clinical trials or do not gain regulatory approval, or if approved, fail to achieve market acceptance, we may never become profitable. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods.
We have a limited operating history, which may make it difficult for you to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.
Our operations to date have been limited to organizing and staffing our company, acquiring product and technology rights, discovering novel molecules and conducting product development activities for our product candidates. We have not yet obtained regulatory approval for any of our product candidates. Consequently, any predictions about our future success, performance or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history or approved products on the market.
We currently have no source of product revenue and may never become profitable.
To date, we have not generated any revenues from commercial product sales. Our ability to generate revenue from product sales and achieve profitability will depend upon our ability to successfully commercialize products, including any of our current product candidates, or other product candidates that we may in-license or acquire in the future. Even if we are able to successfully achieve regulatory approval for these product candidates, we do not know when any of these products will generate revenue from product sales for us, if at all. Our ability to generate revenue from product sales from our current or future product candidates also depends on a number of additional factors, including our ability to:
successfully complete development activities, including the necessary clinical trials;
complete and submit NDAs, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, and obtain regulatory approval for indications for which there is a commercial market;
complete and submit applications to, and obtain regulatory approval from, foreign regulatory authorities;
successfully complete all required regulatory agency inspections;
set a commercially viable price for our products;
obtain commercial quantities of our products at acceptable cost levels;
develop a commercial organization capable of sales, marketing and distribution for any products we intend to sell ourselves in the markets in which we choose to commercialize on our own;
find suitable distribution partners to help us market, sell and distribute our approved products in other markets; and
obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement from third parties, including government and private payors.
In addition, because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with product development, including that our product candidates may not advance through development or achieve the endpoints of applicable clinical trials, we are unable to predict the timing or amount of increased expenses, or when or if we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability. Even if we are able to complete the development and regulatory process for any product candidates, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with commercializing these products.
Even if we are able to generate revenues from the sale of our products, we may not become profitable and may need to obtain additional funding to continue operations. If we fail to become profitable or are unable to sustain profitability on a continuing basis, then we may be unable to continue our operations at planned levels and be forced to reduce or suspend our operations.
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our existing stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates.
Until we can generate substantial revenue from product sales, if ever, we expect to seek additional capital through a combination of private and public equity offerings, debt financings, strategic collaborations and alliances and licensing arrangements. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interests of existing stockholders will be diluted, and the terms may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of existing stockholders. Debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include restrictive covenants limiting our ability to take important actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. If we raise additional funds through strategic
collaborations and alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, which may including existing collaboration partners, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or product candidates, including rigosertib, or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financing when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market product candidates or formulations that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.
The sale or issuance of our common stock to Lincoln Park Capital Fund LLC, or Lincoln Park, may cause dilution and the sale of the shares of common stock acquired by Lincoln Park, or the perception that such sales may occur, could cause the price of our common stock to fall.
In October 2015, we entered into a purchase agreement with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which Lincoln Park has committed to purchase up to $16,500,000 of our common stock. Concurrently with the execution of the purchase agreement, Lincoln Park purchased 846,755 shares of our common stock for total proceeds of $1,500,000 and we issued 200,000 shares of our common stock to Lincoln Park as a fee for its commitment to purchase shares of our common stock under the purchase agreement. We may sell shares to Lincoln Park at our discretion from time to time over a 36-month period which commenced November 3, 2015, after the SEC declared effective a registration statement covering the resale of shares we have sold and may sell in the future to Lincoln Park under the purchase agreement. The purchase price for the shares that we may sell to Lincoln Park under the purchase agreement will fluctuate based on the market price of our common stock. Depending on market liquidity at the time, sales of such shares may cause the trading price of our common stock to fall.
We generally have the right to control the timing and amount of any sales of our shares to Lincoln Park. Additional sales of our common stock, if any, to Lincoln Park will depend upon market conditions and other factors to be determined by us. Lincoln Park may ultimately purchase all, some or none of the shares of our common stock that may be sold pursuant to the purchase agreement and, after it has acquired shares, Lincoln Park may sell all, some or none of those shares. Therefore, sales to Lincoln Park by us could result in substantial dilution to the interests of other holders of our common stock. Additionally, the sale of a substantial number of shares of our common stock to Lincoln Park, or the anticipation of such sales, could make it more difficult for us to sell equity or equity-related securities in the future at a time and at a price that we might otherwise wish to effect sales.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our future success is dependent primarily on the regulatory approval and commercialization of our product candidates, including rigosertib.
We do not have any products that have gained regulatory approval. Currently, our product candidates are rigosertib, briciclib and recilisib, and rigosertib is our only late-stage product candidate.
As a result, our business is substantially dependent on our ability to obtain regulatory approval for, and, if approved, to successfully commercialize rigosertib and, to a lesser degree, briciclib and recilisib in a timely manner. We cannot commercialize product candidates in the United States without first obtaining regulatory approval for the product from the FDA. Similarly, we cannot commercialize product candidates outside of the United States without obtaining regulatory approval from comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of any product candidate for a target indication, we must demonstrate with substantial evidence gathered in preclinical and well-controlled clinical studies, generally including two well-controlled Phase 3 trials, and, with respect to approval in the United States, to the satisfaction of the FDA, that the product candidate is safe and effective for use for that target indication and that the manufacturing facilities, processes and controls are adequate. Even if rigosertib or another product candidate were to
successfully obtain approval from the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, any approval might contain significant limitations related to use restrictions for specified age groups, warnings, precautions or contraindications, or may be subject to burdensome post-approval study or risk management requirements. If we are unable to obtain regulatory approval for rigosertib in one or more jurisdictions, or any approval contains significant limitations, we may not be able to obtain sufficient funding or generate sufficient revenue to continue the development of briciclib, recilisib, or any other product candidate that we may discover, in-license, develop or acquire in the future. Furthermore, even if we obtain regulatory approval for rigosertib, we will still need to develop a commercial organization, establish commercially viable pricing and obtain approval for adequate reimbursement from third-party and government payors. If we or our commercialization collaborators are unable to successfully commercialize rigosertib, we may not be able to earn sufficient revenues to continue our business.
The results of preclinical testing or earlier clinical studies are not necessarily predictive of future results, rigosertib, or any other product candidate we advance into clinical trials may not have favorable results in later-stage clinical trials or receive regulatory approval.
Success in preclinical testing and earlier clinical studies does not ensure that later clinical trials will generate adequate data to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of an investigational drug. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, including those with greater resources and experience, have suffered significant setbacks in clinical trials, even after seeing promising results in earlier clinical trials. Despite the results reported in earlier clinical trials for rigosertib and our other clinical-stage product candidates, we do not know whether the later-stage clinical trials we may conduct in the future will demonstrate adequate efficacy and safety to result in regulatory approval to market any of our product candidates in any particular jurisdiction. If later-stage clinical trials do not produce favorable results, our ability to achieve regulatory approval for any of our product candidates may be adversely impacted.
Clinical drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome.
Clinical testing is expensive, can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and early clinical trials.
We may experience delays in our ongoing or future clinical trials and we do not know whether planned clinical trials will begin or enroll subjects on time, need to be redesigned or be completed on schedule, if at all. For example, in December 2015, the FDA put the briciclib IND on full clinical hold following a drug product lot testing failure. There can be no assurance that the FDA will not put clinical trials of any of our product candidates on clinical hold in the future. Clinical trials may be delayed, suspended or prematurely terminated for a variety of reasons, such as:
delay or failure in reaching agreement with the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority on a trial design that we are able to execute;
delay or failure in obtaining authorization to commence a trial or inability to comply with conditions imposed by a regulatory authority regarding the scope or design of a clinical study;
delay or failure in reaching agreement on acceptable terms with prospective contract research organizations, or CROs, and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and trial sites;
delay or failure in obtaining institutional review board, or IRB, approval or the approval of other reviewing entities, including comparable foreign regulatory authorities, to conduct a clinical trial at each site;
withdrawal of clinical trial sites from our clinical trials as a result of changing standards of care or the ineligibility of a site to participate in our clinical trials;
delay or failure in recruiting and enrolling suitable subjects to participate in a trial;
delay or failure in subjects completing a trial or returning for post-treatment follow-up;
clinical sites and investigators deviating from trial protocol, failing to conduct the trial in accordance with regulatory requirements, or dropping out of a trial;
inability to identify and maintain a sufficient number of trial sites, many of which may already be engaged in other clinical trial programs, including some that may be for the same indication;
failure of our third-party clinical trial managers to satisfy their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines;
delay or failure in adding new clinical trial sites;
delay or failure in meeting regulatory agency inspectional requirements;
ambiguous or negative interim results or results that are inconsistent with earlier results;
feedback from the FDA, the IRB, data safety monitoring boards, or a comparable foreign regulatory authority, or results from earlier stage or concurrent preclinical and clinical studies, that might require modification to the protocol for the trial;
decision by the FDA, the IRB, a comparable foreign regulatory authority, or us, or recommendation by a data safety monitoring board or comparable foreign regulatory authority, to suspend or terminate clinical trials at any time for safety issues or for any other reason;
unacceptable risk-benefit profile, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects;
failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a drug;
difficulties in manufacturing or obtaining from third parties sufficient quantities of a product candidate for use in clinical trials;
lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial, including the incurrence of unforeseen costs due to enrollment delays, requirements to conduct additional clinical studies or increased expenses associated with the services of our CROs and other third parties; or
changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial.
Patient enrollment, a significant factor in the timing of clinical trials, is affected by many factors including the size and nature of the patient population, the proximity of subjects to clinical sites, the eligibility criteria for the trial, the design of the clinical trial, ability to obtain and maintain patient consents, risk that enrolled subjects will drop out before completion, competing clinical trials and clinicians' and patients' perceptions as to the potential advantages of the drug being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new drugs that may be approved for the indications we are investigating. Furthermore, we rely on CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials, and while we have agreements governing their committed activities, we have limited influence over their actual performance.
If we experience delays in the completion or termination of, any clinical trial of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of our product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenues from any of these product candidates will be delayed. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues. In
addition, many of the factors that could cause a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates.
The regulatory approval processes of the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable, and if we are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates, our business will be substantially harmed.
The time required to obtain approval by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities is unpredictable, but typically takes many years following the commencement of preclinical studies and clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. In addition, approval policies, regulations, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate's clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. We have not obtained regulatory approval for any product candidate, and it is possible that none of our existing product candidates or any product candidates we may discover, in-license or acquire and seek to develop in the future will ever obtain regulatory approval.
Our product candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval from the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority for many reasons, including:
disagreement over the design or implementation of our clinical trials;
failure to demonstrate that a product candidate is safe and effective for its proposed indication;
failure of clinical trials to meet the level of statistical significance required for approval;
failure to demonstrate that a product candidate's clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks;
disagreement over our interpretation of data from preclinical studies or clinical trials;
disagreement over whether to accept efficacy results from clinical trial sites outside the United States or clinical trial sites where the standard of care is potentially different from that in the United States;
the insufficiency of data collected from clinical trials of our product candidates to support the submission and filing of an NDA or other submission or to obtain regulatory approval;
disapproval of the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with whom we contract for clinical and commercial supplies; or
changes in the approval policies or regulations that render our preclinical and clinical data insufficient for approval.
The FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority may require more information, including additional preclinical or clinical data to support approval, which may delay or prevent approval and our commercialization plans, or we may decide to abandon the development program altogether. Even if we do obtain regulatory approval, our product candidates may be approved for fewer or more limited indications than we request, approval contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials, or approval with a label that does not include the labeling claims necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of that product candidate. In addition, the FDA may require the establishment of Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategies, or REMS, or a comparable foreign regulatory authority may require the establishment of a similar strategy, that may restrict distribution of our products and impose burdensome implementation requirements on us. Any of the foregoing scenarios could materially harm the commercial prospects for our product candidates.
Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by foreign regulatory authorities and approval by one or more foreign regulatory authorities does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or by the FDA. However, a failure or delay in obtaining regulatory approval in one country may have a negative effect on the regulatory process in others. We may not be able to file for regulatory approvals and even if we file we may not receive the necessary approvals to commercialize our products in any market.
Our product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent their regulatory approval, limit the commercial profile of an approved label, or result in significant negative consequences following any marketing approval.
Undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authority. For example, patients in our earlier-stage clinical trials of rigosertib in some cases experienced side effects, some of which were severe.
As a result of undesirable side effects or safety or toxicity issues that we may experience in our clinical trials, we may not receive approval to market any product candidates, which could prevent us from ever generating revenues or achieving profitability. Results of our trials could reveal an unacceptably high severity and prevalence of side effects. In such an event, our trials could be suspended or terminated and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development or deny approval of our product candidates for any or all targeted indications. These side effects could affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled subjects to complete the trial or result in potential product liability claims.
Additionally, if any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such product, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
we may be forced to suspend marketing of such product;
regulatory authorities may withdraw their approvals of such product;
regulatory authorities may require additional warnings on the label that could diminish the usage or otherwise limit the commercial success of such products;
we may be required to conduct post-market studies;
we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to subjects or patients; and
our reputation may suffer.
Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular product candidate, if approved.
Even if our product candidates receive regulatory approval, they may still face future development and regulatory difficulties.
Even if we obtain regulatory approval for a product candidate, it would be subject to ongoing requirements by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities governing the manufacture, quality control, further development, labeling, packaging, storage, distribution, safety surveillance, import, export, advertising, promotion, recordkeeping and reporting of safety and other post-market information. The safety profile of any product will continue to be closely monitored by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities after approval. If the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities become aware of new safety information after approval of any of our product candidates,
they may require labeling changes or establishment of a REMS or similar strategy, impose significant restrictions on a product's indicated uses or marketing, or impose ongoing requirements for potentially costly post-approval studies or post-market surveillance. The label ultimately approved for rigosertib, if it achieves marketing approval, may include restrictions on use.
In addition, manufacturers of drug products and their facilities are subject to continual review and periodic inspections by the FDA and other regulatory authorities for compliance with current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, and other regulations. If we or a regulatory agency discover previously unknown problems with a product, such as adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or problems with the facility where the product is manufactured, a regulatory agency may impose restrictions on that product, the manufacturing facility or us, including requiring recall or withdrawal of the product from the market or suspension of manufacturing. If we, our product candidates or the manufacturing facilities for our product candidates fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, a regulatory agency may:
issue warning letters or untitled letters or otherwise unacceptable inspectional findings;
mandate modifications to promotional materials or require us to provide corrective information to healthcare practitioners;
require us to enter into a consent decree, which can include imposition of various fines, reimbursements for inspection costs, required due dates for specific actions and penalties for noncompliance;
seek an injunction or impose civil or criminal penalties or monetary fines;
suspend or withdraw regulatory approval;
suspend any ongoing clinical studies;
refuse to approve pending applications or supplements to applications filed by us;
suspend or impose restrictions on operations, including costly new manufacturing requirements; or
seize or detain products, refuse to permit the import or export of products, or require us to initiate a product recall.
The occurrence of any event or penalty described above may inhibit our ability to commercialize our products and generate revenue.
Advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval in the United States will be heavily scrutinized by the FDA, the Department of Justice, or the DOJ, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, state attorneys general, members of Congress and the public. Violations, including promotion of our products for unapproved or off-label uses, are subject to enforcement letters, inquiries and investigations, and civil and criminal sanctions by the FDA. Additionally, advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval outside of the United States will be heavily scrutinized by comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
In the United States, engaging in impermissible promotion of our products for off-label uses can also subject us to false claims litigation under federal and state statutes, which can lead to civil and criminal penalties and fines and agreements that materially restrict the manner in which we promote or distribute our drug products. These false claims statutes include the federal False Claims Act, which allows any individual to bring a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company on behalf of the federal government alleging submission of false or fraudulent claims, or causing to present such false or fraudulent claims, for payment by a federal program such as Medicare or Medicaid. If the government prevails in the lawsuit, the individual will share in any fines or settlement funds. Since 2004, these False
Claims Act lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies have increased significantly in volume and breadth, leading to several substantial civil and criminal settlements based on certain sales practices promoting off-label drug uses. This growth in litigation has increased the risk that a pharmaceutical company will have to defend a false claim action, pay settlement fines or restitution, agree to comply with burdensome reporting and compliance obligations, and be excluded from the Medicare, Medicaid and other federal and state healthcare programs. If we do not lawfully promote our approved products, we may become subject to such litigation and, if we are not successful in defending against such actions, those actions could compromise our ability to become profitable.
Failure to obtain regulatory approval in international jurisdictions would prevent our product candidates from being marketed abroad.
In order to market and sell our products in the European Union and many other jurisdictions, including Japan and Korea, we must obtain separate marketing approvals and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements. The approval procedure varies among countries and can involve additional testing. The time required to obtain approval may differ substantially from that required to obtain FDA approval. The regulatory approval process outside the United States generally includes all of the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval. In addition, in many countries outside the United States, it is required that the product be approved for reimbursement before the product can be approved for sale in that country. We may not obtain approvals from regulatory authorities outside the United States on a timely basis, if at all. Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions, and approval by one regulatory authority outside the United States does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions or by the FDA. We may not be able to file for marketing approvals and may not receive necessary approvals to commercialize our products in any market. If we are unable to obtain approval of any of our product candidates by regulatory authorities in the European Union, Japan, Korea or another country, the commercial prospects of that product candidate may be significantly diminished and our business prospects could decline.
Healthcare legislation, including potentially unfavorable pricing regulations or other healthcare reform initiatives, may increase the difficulty and cost for us to obtain marketing approval of and commercialize our product candidates and affect the prices we may obtain.
The regulations that govern, among other things, marketing approvals, coverage, pricing and reimbursement for new drug products vary widely from country to country. In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to successfully sell any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, or the Affordable Care Act, among other things, imposes a significant annual fee on companies that manufacture or import branded prescription drug products. It also contains substantial provisions intended to broaden access to health insurance, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against healthcare fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for the healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and impose additional health policy reforms, any of which could negatively impact our business. A significant number of provisions are not yet, or have only recently become effective, but the Affordable Care Act is likely to continue the downward pressure on pharmaceutical and medical device pricing, especially under the Medicare program, and may also increase our regulatory burdens and operating costs.
In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since passage of the Affordable Care Act. The Budget Control Act of 2011, among other things, created the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to recommend to Congress proposals in spending reductions. The Joint Select Committee did not achieve a targeted deficit reduction of an amount greater than $1.2 trillion for the fiscal years 2012 through 2021, triggering the legislation's automatic reduction to several government programs. This included aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to healthcare providers of up to 2.0% per fiscal year, which went into effect in April 2013. In January 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several categories of healthcare providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. If we ever obtain regulatory approval and successfully commercialize our product candidates, these new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on our customers and accordingly, our financial operations.
In the United States, the European Union and other potentially significant markets for our product candidates, government authorities and third-party payors are increasingly attempting to limit or regulate the price of medical products and services, particularly for new and innovative products and therapies, which has resulted in lower average selling prices. Furthermore, the increased emphasis on managed healthcare in the United States and on country and regional pricing and reimbursement controls in the European Union will put additional pressure on product pricing, reimbursement and usage, which may adversely affect our future product sales and results of operations. These pressures can arise from rules and practices of managed care groups, judicial decisions and governmental laws and regulations related to Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare reform, pharmaceutical reimbursement policies and pricing in general.
Some countries require approval of the sale price of a drug before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period begins after marketing or product licensing approval is granted. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing governmental control even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we might obtain marketing approval for a product candidate in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay our commercial launch of the product, possibly for lengthy time periods, which could negatively impact the revenues we are able to generate from the sale of the product in that particular country. Adverse pricing limitations may hinder our ability to recoup our investment in one or more product candidates even if our product candidates obtain marketing approval.
Laws and regulations governing international operations may preclude us from developing, manufacturing and selling certain product candidates outside of the United States and require us to develop and implement costly compliance programs.
As we expand our operations outside of the United States, we must comply with numerous laws and regulations in each jurisdiction in which we plan to operate. The creation and implementation of international business practices compliance programs is costly and such programs are difficult to enforce, particularly where reliance on third parties is required.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, prohibits any U.S. individual or business from paying, offering, authorizing payment or offering anything of value, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official, political party or candidate for the purpose of influencing any act or decision of the foreign entity in order to assist the individual or business in obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA also obligates companies whose securities are listed in the United States to comply with certain accounting provisions requiring the company to maintain books and records that accurately and fairly reflect all transactions of the corporation, including international subsidiaries, and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls for international operations. The anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA are enforced primarily by the DOJ. The Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, is involved with enforcement of the books and records provisions of the FCPA.
Compliance with the FCPA is expensive and difficult, particularly in countries in which corruption is a recognized problem. In addition, the FCPA presents particular challenges in the pharmaceutical industry, because, in many countries, hospitals are operated by the government, and doctors and other hospital employees are considered foreign officials. Certain payments to hospitals in connection with clinical studies and other work have been deemed to be improper payments to government officials and have led to FCPA enforcement actions.
Various laws, regulations and executive orders also restrict the use and dissemination outside of the United States, or the sharing with certain non-U.S. nationals, of information classified for national security purposes, as well as certain products and technical data relating to those products. Our expanding presence outside of the United States will require us to dedicate additional resources to comply with these laws, and these laws may preclude us from developing, manufacturing, or selling certain products and product candidates outside of the United States, which could limit our growth potential and increase our development costs.
The failure to comply with laws governing international business practices may result in substantial penalties, including suspension or debarment from government contracting. Violation of the FCPA can result in significant civil and criminal penalties. Indictment alone under the FCPA can lead to suspension of the right to do business with the U.S. government until the pending claims are resolved. Conviction of a violation of the FCPA can result in long-term disqualification as a government contractor. The termination of a government contract or relationship as a result of our failure to satisfy any of our obligations under laws governing international business practices would have a negative impact on our operations and harm our reputation and ability to procure government contracts. The SEC also may suspend or bar issuers from trading securities on U.S. exchanges for violations of the FCPA's accounting provisions.
Even if we are able to commercialize our product candidates, the products may not receive coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors, which could harm our business.
Our ability to commercialize any products successfully will depend, in part, on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, determine which medications they will cover and establish reimbursement levels. A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular medications. Increasingly, third-party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. Third-party payors may also seek additional clinical evidence, beyond the data required to obtain marketing approval, demonstrating clinical benefits and value in specific patient populations before covering our products for those patients. We cannot be sure that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be available for any product that we commercialize and, if reimbursement is available, what the level of reimbursement will be. Coverage and reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. If reimbursement is not available or is available only at limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval.
In the United States, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, or Medicare Modernization Act, established the Medicare Part D program and provided authority for limiting the number of drugs that will be covered in any therapeutic class thereunder. The Medicare Modernization Act, including its cost reduction initiatives, could decrease the coverage and reimbursement rate that we receive for any of our approved products. Furthermore, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policies and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement
rates. Therefore, any reduction in reimbursement that results from the Medicare Modernization Act may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.
There may be significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Moreover, eligibility for coverage and reimbursement does not imply that any drug will be paid for in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, manufacture, sale and distribution. Interim reimbursement levels for new drugs, if applicable, may also not be sufficient to cover our costs and may only be temporary. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. Net prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs or private payors and by any future relaxation of laws that presently restrict imports of drugs from countries where they may be sold at lower prices than in the United States. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement policies. Our inability to obtain coverage and profitable reimbursement rates from both government-funded and private payors for any approved products that we develop could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition.
If we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to market and sell our product candidates, we may be unable to generate any revenue.
We do not currently have an organization for the sale, marketing and distribution of pharmaceutical products and the cost of establishing and maintaining such an organization may exceed the cost-effectiveness of doing so. In order to market any products that may be approved by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, we must build our sales, marketing, managerial and other non-technical capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services. If we are unable to establish adequate sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, whether independently or with third parties, we may not be able to generate product revenue and may not become profitable. We will be competing with many companies that currently have extensive and well-funded sales and marketing operations. Without an internal commercial organization or the support of a third party to perform sales and marketing functions, we may be unable to compete successfully against these more established companies.
Our commercial success depends upon attaining significant market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved, among physicians, patients, healthcare payors and the major operators of cancer clinics.
Even if we obtain regulatory approval for any of our product candidates that we may develop or acquire in the future, the product may not gain market acceptance among physicians, healthcare payors, patients or the medical community. Market acceptance of any of our product candidates for which we receive approval depends on a number of factors, including:
the efficacy and safety of such product candidates as demonstrated in clinical trials;
the clinical indications for which the product candidate is approved;
acceptance of such product candidates as a safe and effective treatment by physicians, major operators of cancer clinics and patients;
the potential and perceived advantages of product candidates over alternative treatments;
the safety of product candidates seen in broader patient groups, including its use outside the approved indications;
the prevalence and severity of any side effects;
product labeling or product insert requirements of the FDA or other regulatory authorities;
the timing of market introduction of our products as well as competitive products;
the cost of treatment in relation to alternative treatments;
the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement and pricing by third-party payors and government authorities;
relative convenience and ease of administration; and
the effectiveness of our sales and marketing efforts and those of our collaborators.
If any of our product candidates are approved but fail to achieve market acceptance among physicians, patients, or healthcare payors, we may not be able to generate significant revenues, which would compromise our ability to become profitable.
Our relationships with customers and third-party payors will be subject to applicable anti-kickback, fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm and diminished profits and future earnings.
Healthcare providers, physicians and third-party payors will all play important roles in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our future arrangements with third-party payors and customers may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we would market, sell and distribute our products. As a pharmaceutical company, even though we do not and will not control referrals of healthcare services or bill directly to Medicare, Medicaid or other third-party payors, federal and state healthcare laws and regulations pertaining to fraud and abuse and patients' rights are and will be applicable to our business. Restrictions under applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate include the following:
the federal healthcare Anti-Kickback Statute will constrain our marketing practices, educational programs, pricing policies, and relationships with healthcare providers or other entities, by prohibiting, among other things, persons from knowingly and willfully soliciting, offering, receiving or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, to induce or reward, or in return for, either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, order or recommendation of, any good or service, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program such as Medicare and Medicaid;
federal civil and criminal false claims laws and civil monetary penalty laws impose criminal and civil penalties, including through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, against individuals or entities for knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, to the federal government, including the Medicare and Medicaid programs, claims for payment that are false or fraudulent or making a false statement to avoid, decrease or conceal an obligation to pay money to the federal government;
the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, imposes criminal and civil liability for executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program and also created federal criminal laws that prohibit knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false statements in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services;
HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, also imposes obligations, including mandatory contractual terms, with respect
to safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information;
the federal physician sunshine requirements under the Affordable Care Act requires manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies to report annually to HHS information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians, other healthcare providers, and teaching hospitals, and ownership and investment interests held by physicians and other healthcare providers and their immediate family members and applicable group purchasing organizations; and
analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payors, including private insurers; some state laws require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry's voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government and may require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures; and state and foreign laws govern the privacy and security of health information in specified circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.
Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. If any physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business are found to not be in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs.
Our employees may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements, which could cause significant liability for us and harm our reputation.
We are exposed to the risk of employee fraud or other misconduct, including intentional failures to comply with FDA regulations or similar regulations of comparable foreign regulatory authorities, provide accurate information to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, comply with manufacturing standards we have established, comply with federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws and regulations and similar laws and regulations established and enforced by comparable foreign regulatory authorities, report financial information or data accurately or disclose unauthorized activities to us. Employee misconduct could also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions and serious harm to our reputation. We have adopted a code of conduct for our directors, officers and employees, or the code of conduct, but it is not always possible to identify and deter employee misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business and results of operations, including the imposition of significant fines or other sanctions.
We face substantial competition, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing products before or more successfully than we do.
The development and commercialization of new drug products is highly competitive. We face competition with respect to our current product candidates, rigosertib, briciclib and recilisib, and will face competition with respect to any product candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future, from major pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies worldwide. There are a number of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that currently market and sell products or are pursuing the development of products for the treatment of the disease indications for which we are developing our product candidates. Some of these competitive products and therapies are based on scientific approaches that are the same as or similar to our approach, and others are based on entirely different approaches. Potential competitors also include academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection and establish collaborative arrangements for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization.
Our product candidates are being developed for cancer therapeutics and radiation protection. There are a variety of available therapies and supportive care products marketed for cancer patients. In many cases, these drugs are administered in combination to enhance efficacy or to reduce side effects. Some of these drugs are branded and subject to patent protection, and others are available on a generic basis. Many of these approved drugs are well established therapies or products and are widely accepted by physicians, patients and third-party payors. Insurers and other third-party payors may also encourage the use of generic products. This may make it difficult for us to achieve market acceptance at desired levels in a timely manner to ensure viability of our business.
More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their greater size, cash flows and institutional experience. Compared to us, many of our competitors may have significantly greater financial, technical and human resources.
As a result of these factors, our competitors may obtain regulatory approval of their products before we are able to obtain patent protection or other intellectual property rights which will limit our ability to develop or commercialize our product candidates. Our competitors may also develop drugs that are safer, more effective, more widely used and cheaper than ours, and may also be more successful than us in manufacturing and marketing their products. These appreciable advantages could render our product candidates obsolete or non-competitive before we can recover the expenses of development and commercialization.
Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller and other early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific, management and commercial personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.
If we breach the license agreements or fail to negotiate new agreements pertaining to our product candidates, we could lose the ability to continue the development and potential commercialization of these product candidates.
In January 1999, we entered into an agreement with Temple, as subsequently amended, to obtain an exclusive, world-wide license to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale and import several classes of novel compounds, including all three of our clinical-stage product candidates. In May 2010, we entered into an agreement with Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as subsequently amended, giving us the option to exclusively negotiate licenses related to certain compounds. If we fail to meet our
obligations under these license agreements or if we fail to negotiate future license agreements, our rights under the licenses could be terminated, and upon the effective date of such termination, our right to use the licensed technology would terminate. While we would expect to exercise all rights and remedies available to us, including attempting to cure any breach by us, and otherwise seek to preserve our rights under the patents and other technology licensed to us, we may not be able to do so in a timely manner, at an acceptable cost or at all. Any uncured, material breach under the license agreement could result in our loss of exclusive rights and may lead to a complete termination of our product development and any commercialization efforts for the applicable product candidates.
Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and to limit commercialization of any products that we may develop.
We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our product candidates in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any products that we may develop. Product liability claims may be brought against us by subjects enrolled in our clinical trials, patients, healthcare providers or others using, administering or selling our products. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against claims that our product candidates or products caused injuries, we could incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
decreased demand for any product candidates or products that we may develop;
termination of clinical trial sites or entire trial programs;
injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;
withdrawal of clinical trial participants;
significant costs to defend the related litigation;
substantial monetary awards to trial subjects or patients;
loss of revenue;
diversion of management and scientific resources from our business operations; and
the inability to commercialize any products that we may develop.
We currently hold $10.0 million in product liability insurance coverage in the aggregate, which may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise. We intend to expand our insurance coverage for products to include the sale of commercial products if we obtain marketing approval for our product candidates in development, but we may be unable to obtain commercially reasonable product liability insurance for any products approved for marketing. Large judgments have been awarded in class action lawsuits based on drugs that had unanticipated side effects. A successful product liability claim or series of claims brought against us, particularly if judgments exceed our insurance coverage, could decrease our cash and adversely affect our business.
Our future success depends on our ability to retain our executive officers and to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel.
We are highly dependent upon Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer; Manoj Maniar, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Product Development; Steven Fruchtman, M. D., Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Research and Development; and our other executive officers. Although we have employment agreements with the persons named above, these agreements are at-will and do not prevent such persons from terminating their employment with us at any time. We
do not maintain "key person" insurance for any of our executives or other employees, other than our President and Chief Executive Officer. The loss of the services of any of these persons could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives.
If we are unable to attract and retain highly qualified employees, we may not be able to grow effectively.
Our future and success depend on our ability to retain, manage and motivate our employees. During 2015 and early 2016, we reduced our headcount in order to conserve cash. These activities, along with any other actions we are taking or may take to conserve cash, may make it more difficult to retain key employees. The loss of any member of our senior management team or the inability to hire or retain experienced management personnel could compromise our ability to execute our business plan and harm our operating results. Because of the specialized scientific and managerial nature of our business, we rely heavily on our ability to attract and retain qualified scientific, technical and managerial personnel. The competition for qualified personnel in the pharmaceutical field is intense and as a result, we may be unable to continue to retain qualified personnel necessary for the development of our business. In addition, if our development plans are successful, we will need additional managerial, operational, sales, marketing, financial and other resources, and may find it more difficult to attract such qualified personnel.
We may engage in future business combinations that could disrupt our business, cause dilution to our stockholders and harm our financial condition and operating results.
While we currently have no specific plans to acquire any other businesses, we may, in the future, make acquisitions of, or investments in, or otherwise engage in business combinations with companies that we believe have products or capabilities that are a strategic or commercial fit with our current product candidates and business or otherwise offer opportunities for our company. In connection with these acquisitions or investments, we may:
issue stock that would dilute our existing stockholders' percentage of ownership;
incur debt and assume liabilities; and
incur amortization expenses related to intangible assets or incur large and immediate write-offs.
We may not be able to complete any future business combination on favorable terms, if at all. If we do complete a business combination, we cannot assure you that it will ultimately strengthen our competitive position or that it will be viewed positively by customers, financial markets or investors. Furthermore, future business combinations could pose numerous additional risks to our operations, including:
problems integrating the businesses, products or technologies;
increases to our expenses;
the failure to discover undisclosed liabilities of an acquired asset or transaction partner;
diversion of management's attention from their day-to-day responsibilities;
harm to our operating results or financial condition;
entrance into markets in which we have limited or no prior experience; and
potential loss of key employees.
We may not be able to complete any business combination or effectively integrate the operations, products or personnel gained through any such business combination.
Our business and operations would suffer in the event of computer system failures.
Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems, and those of our CROs and other third parties on which we rely, are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters, fire, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. If such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our operations, it could result in a material disruption of our drug development programs. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from completed, ongoing or planned clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. To the extent that any disruption or security breach results in a loss of or damage to our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and the further development of our product candidates could be delayed.
If we fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.
We are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Our operations involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials. Our operations also produce hazardous waste products. We generally contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and wastes. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties.
Although we maintain workers' compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biological or hazardous materials.
In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our research, development or production efforts. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Business disruptions could seriously harm our future revenues and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.
Our operations could be subject to earthquakes, power shortages, telecommunications failures, water shortages, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, fires, extreme weather conditions, medical epidemics and other natural or manmade disasters or business interruptions, for which we are predominantly self-insured. The occurrence of any of these business disruptions could seriously harm our operations and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses. We rely on third-party manufacturers to produce our product candidates. Our ability to obtain clinical supplies of product candidates could be disrupted if the operations of these suppliers is affected by a man-made or natural disaster or other business interruption. The ultimate impact on us, our significant suppliers and our general infrastructure of being consolidated in certain geographical areas is unknown, but our operations and financial condition could suffer in the event of a major earthquake, fire or other natural disaster.
We are relying on the FDA's "Animal Efficacy Rule" to demonstrate efficacy of recilisib, which could result in delays or failure at any stage of recilisib's development process, increase our development costs and adversely affect the commercial prospects of recilisib.
Because humans are not normally exposed to radiation and it would be unethical to expose humans to such, effectiveness of recilisib cannot be demonstrated in humans, but instead, under the FDA's "Animal Efficacy Rule," can be demonstrated, in part, by utilizing animal models. This effect has to be demonstrated in more than one animal species expected to be predictive of a response in humans, but an effect in a single animal species may be acceptable if that animal model is sufficiently well-characterized for predicting a response in humans. The animal study endpoint must be clearly related to the desired benefit in humans and the information obtained from animal studies must allow selection of an effective dose in humans. Safety may be demonstrated in human studies.
We may not be able to sufficiently demonstrate the animal correlation to the satisfaction of the FDA, as these correlates are difficult to establish and are often unclear. The FDA may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies, refuse to approve recilisib, or place restrictions on our ability to commercialize recilisib. Furthermore, other countries, at this time, have not established criteria for review and approval of these types of products outside their normal review process. There is no "Animal Efficacy Rule" equivalent in countries other than the United States, and consequently there can be no assurance that we will be able to make a submission for marketing approval in foreign countries based on such animal data.
Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties
We rely on third parties to conduct our preclinical and clinical trials. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our product candidates.
We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon third-party CROs to monitor and manage data for our ongoing preclinical and clinical programs. We rely on these parties for execution of our preclinical and clinical trials, and we control only some aspects of their activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol and legal, regulatory and scientific standards, and our reliance on the CROs does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We also rely on third parties to assist in conducting our preclinical studies in accordance with Good Laboratory Practices, or GLP, and the Animal Welfare Act requirements. We and our CROs are required to comply with federal regulations and current Good Clinical Practices, or GCP, which are international standards meant to protect the rights and health of patients that are enforced by the FDA, the Competent Authorities of the Member States of the European Economic Area, or EEA, and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our products in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce GCP through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we or any of our CROs fail to comply with applicable GCP, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. We cannot assure you that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our clinical trials comply with GCP requirements. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product produced under cGMP requirements. Failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat preclinical and clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process.
Our CROs are not our employees, and except for remedies available to us under our agreements with such CROs, we cannot control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our ongoing clinical, nonclinical and preclinical programs. If CROs do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical
data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our clinical protocols, regulatory requirements or for other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our product candidates. As a result, our results of operations and the commercial prospects for our product candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenues could be delayed.
Because we have relied on third parties, our internal capacity to perform these functions is limited. Outsourcing these functions involves risk that third parties may not perform to our standards, may not produce results in a timely manner or may fail to perform at all. In addition, the use of third-party service providers requires us to disclose our proprietary information to these parties, which could increase the risk that this information will be misappropriated. We currently have a small number of employees, which limits the internal resources we have available to identify and monitor our third-party providers. To the extent we are unable to identify and successfully manage the performance of third-party service providers in the future, our business may be adversely affected. Though we carefully manage our relationships with our CROs, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.
If we lose our relationships with CROs, our drug development efforts could be delayed.
We rely on third-party vendors and CROs for preclinical studies and clinical trials related to our drug development efforts. Switching or adding additional CROs would involve additional cost and requires management time and focus. Our CROs have the right to terminate their agreements with us in the event of an uncured material breach. In addition, some of our CROs have an ability to terminate their respective agreements with us if it can be reasonably demonstrated that the safety of the subjects participating in our clinical trials warrants such termination, if we make a general assignment for the benefit of our creditors or if we are liquidated. Identifying, qualifying and managing performance of third-party service providers can be difficult, time consuming and cause delays in our development programs. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO commences work and the new CRO may not provide the same type or level of services as the original provider. If any of our relationships with our third-party CROs terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs or to do so on commercially reasonable terms.
We have limited experience manufacturing our product candidates on a large clinical or commercial scale and have no manufacturing facility. We are dependent on third-party manufacturers for the manufacture of our most advanced product candidate as well as on third parties for our supply chain, and if we experience problems with any third parties, the manufacturing of our product candidates or products could be delayed.
We do not own or operate facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates. We currently have no plans to build our own clinical or commercial scale manufacturing capabilities. We currently rely on a single source contract manufacturing organization, or CMO, for the chemical manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredient for rigosertib, another CMO for the production of the rigosertib intravenous formulation for our Phase 3 clinical trial, and a third CMO for the production of the rigosertib oral formulation for a Phase 2 clinical trial. To meet our projected needs for clinical supplies to support our activities through regulatory approval and commercial manufacturing, the CMOs with whom we currently work will need to increase the scale of production. We may need to identify additional CMOs for continued production of supply for our product candidates. In addition, regulatory authorities enforce cGMP through periodic inspections of active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API and drug product manufacturing sites, quality control contract laboratories and distribution centers. If we or our CMO fail to comply with applicable cGMP, the manufacturing data generated and subsequent API lots and drug product batches in our supply chain may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional API and drug product
manufacturing before approving our marketing applications. In 2013, we began preparing a second CMO for potential manufacture of API and incurred significant expense to do so. During the first quarter of 2015, we suspended the original CMO for manufacture of the rigosertib intravenous formulation for quality related reasons, leaving us again with a single source of manufacture for this formulation. We have not yet identified alternate suppliers in the event the current CMOs we utilize are unable to scale production, or if we otherwise experience any problems with them. Although alternative third-party suppliers with the necessary manufacturing and regulatory expertise and facilities exist, as we have experienced with respect to our existing CMOs, it could be expensive and take a significant amount of time to arrange for alternative suppliers. If we are unable to arrange for alternative third-party manufacturing sources, or to do so on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely manner, we may not be able to complete development of our product candidates, or market or distribute them.
Reliance on third-party manufacturers entails risks to which we would not be subject if we manufactured product candidates or products ourselves, including reliance on the third party for regulatory compliance and quality assurance, the possibility of breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party because of factors beyond our control, including a failure to synthesize and manufacture our product candidates or any products we may eventually commercialize in accordance with our specifications, and the possibility of termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the third party, based on its own business priorities, at a time that is costly or damaging to us. In addition, the FDA and other regulatory authorities require that our product candidates and any products that we may eventually commercialize be manufactured according to cGMP and similar foreign standards. Any failure by our third-party manufacturers to comply with cGMP or failure to scale up manufacturing processes, including any failure to deliver sufficient quantities of product candidates in a timely manner, could lead to a delay in, or failure to obtain, regulatory approval of any of our product candidates. In addition, such failure could be the basis for the FDA to issue a warning letter, withdraw approvals for product candidates previously granted to us, or take other regulatory or legal action, including recall or seizure of outside supplies of the product candidate, total or partial suspension of production, suspension of ongoing clinical trials, refusal to approve pending applications or supplemental applications, detention or product, refusal to permit the import or export of products, injunction, or imposing civil and criminal penalties.
Any significant disruption in our supplier relationships could harm our business. Any significant delay in the supply of a product candidate or its key materials for an ongoing clinical study could considerably delay completion of our clinical studies, product testing and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates. If our manufacturers or we are unable to purchase these key materials after regulatory approval has been obtained for our product candidates, the commercial launch of our product candidates would be delayed or there would be a shortage in supply, which would impair our ability to generate revenues from the sale of our product candidates.
We have entered into collaboration agreements with SymBio and Baxalta for rigosertib development and commercialization in certain territories and we may elect to enter into additional licensing or collaboration agreements to partner rigosertib in territories currently retained by us. Our dependence on such relationships may adversely affect our business.
Because we have limited resources, we seek to enter into, and in the past we have entered into, collaboration agreements with other pharmaceutical companies. We may elect to enter into more of these agreements in the future. In July 2011, we entered into a license agreement with SymBio, as subsequently amended, granting an exclusive, royalty-bearing license for the development and commercialization of rigosertib in Japan and Korea. In September 2012, we entered into a development and license agreement with Baxter Healthcare SA, which subsequently assigned its interest in the agreement to Baxalta. Our agreement with Baxalta, which is scheduled to terminate August 30, 2016,
grants it an exclusive, royalty-bearing license for the development and commercialization of rigosertib in specified countries comprising most of Europe. Any failure by our partners to perform their obligations or any decision by our partners to terminate these agreements, including the termination of the Baxalta agreement, could reduce or terminate the funding we may receive under the relevant collaboration agreement and could negatively impact our ability to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approvals for and commercialize the applicable product candidate. In addition, any decision by our partners to terminate these agreements could also damage our reputation and negatively impact our ability to obtain financing from other sources.
We may not achieve the milestones set forth in our collaboration agreements, or may disagree with our collaboration partners as to whether certain milestones have been met. Any such failure or disagreement would negatively impact our potential funding sources if we are unable to receive the contemplated milestone payments.
Our commercialization strategy for rigosertib in territories currently retained by us may depend on our ability to enter into agreements with collaborators to obtain assistance and funding for the development and potential commercialization of rigosertib in those territories. Despite our efforts, we may be unable to secure additional collaborative licensing or other arrangements that are necessary for us to further develop and commercialize rigosertib. Supporting diligence activities conducted by potential collaborators and negotiating the financial and other terms of a collaboration agreement are long and complex processes with uncertain results. Even if we are successful in entering into one or more collaboration agreements, collaborations may involve greater uncertainty for us, as we have less control over certain aspects of our collaborative programs than we do over our proprietary development and commercialization programs. We may determine that continuing a collaboration under the terms provided is not in our best interest, and we may terminate the collaboration. Our collaborators could delay or terminate their agreements, and as a result rigosertib may never be successfully commercialized.
Further, collaborators may develop alternative products or pursue alternative technologies either on their own or in collaboration with others, including our competitors, and the priorities or focus of our collaborators may shift such that rigosertib receives less attention or resources than we would like, or they may be terminated altogether. Any such actions by our collaborators may adversely affect our business prospects and ability to earn revenues. In addition, we could have disputes with our current or future collaborators, such as the interpretation of terms in our agreements. Any such disagreements could lead to delays in the development or commercialization of rigosertib or could result in time-consuming and expensive litigation or arbitration, which may not be resolved in our favor.
With respect to our programs that are currently not the subject of collaborations, we may enter into agreements with collaborators to share in the burden of conducting clinical trials, manufacturing and marketing these product candidates. In addition, our ability to develop additional proprietary compounds may depend on our ability to establish and maintain licensing arrangements or other collaborative arrangements with the holders of proprietary rights to such compounds. We may not be able to establish such arrangements on favorable terms or at all, and our future collaborative arrangements may not be successful.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, our competitive position could be harmed.
We depend on our ability to protect our proprietary technology. We rely on trade secret, patent, copyright and trademark laws, and confidentiality, licensing and other agreements with employees and third parties, all of which offer only limited protection. Our commercial success will depend in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our proprietary technology and products. Where we have the right to do so under our
license agreements, we seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our novel technologies and products that are important to our business. The patent positions of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally are highly uncertain, involve complex legal and factual questions and have in recent years been the subject of much litigation. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patents, including those patent rights licensed to us by third parties, are highly uncertain.
The steps we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be adequate to preclude misappropriation of our proprietary information or infringement of our intellectual property rights, both inside and outside the United States. The rights already granted under any of our currently issued patents and those that may be granted under future issued patents may not provide us with the proprietary protection or competitive advantages we are seeking. If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our technology and products, or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficient, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and products similar or superior to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and products may be adversely affected.
With respect to patent rights, we do not know whether any of the pending patent applications for any of our licensed compounds will result in the issuance of patents that protect our technology or products, or if any of our issued patents will effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products. Our pending applications cannot be enforced against third parties practicing the technology claimed in such applications unless and until a patent issues from such applications. Further, the examination process may require us or our licensor to narrow the claims for our pending patent applications, which may limit the scope of patent protection that may be obtained if these applications issue. Because the issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, issued patents that we own or have licensed from third parties may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such challenges may result in the loss of patent protection, the narrowing of claims in such patents or the invalidity or unenforceability of such patents, which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products, or limit the duration of the patent protection for our technology and products. Protecting against the unauthorized use of our patented technology, trademarks and other intellectual property rights is expensive, difficult and may in some cases not be possible. In some cases, it may be difficult or impossible to detect third-party infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property rights, even in relation to issued patent claims, and proving any such infringement may be even more difficult.
We could be required to incur significant expenses to perfect our intellectual property rights, and our intellectual property rights may be inadequate to protect our competitive position.
The patent prosecution process is expensive and time-consuming, and we or our licensors may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that we or our licensors will fail to identify patentable aspects of inventions made in the course of our development and commercialization activities before it is too late to obtain patent protection on them. Further, given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. We expect to seek extensions of patent terms in the United States and, if available, in other countries where we are prosecuting patents. In the United States, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 permits a patent term extension of up to five years beyond the expiration of the patent. However, the applicable authorities, including the FDA in the United States, and any equivalent regulatory authority in other countries, may not agree with our assessment of whether such extensions are available, and may refuse to grant extensions to our patents, or may grant more limited extensions than we request. If this occurs,
our competitors may be able to take advantage of our investment in development and clinical trials by referencing our clinical and preclinical data and launch their product earlier than might otherwise be the case. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection. The laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and these foreign laws may also be subject to change. For example, methods of treatment and manufacturing processes may not be patentable in certain jurisdictions. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing or in some cases not at all. Therefore we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions.
Patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.
On September 16, 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy-Smith Act includes a number of significant changes to U.S. patent law. These include provisions that affect the way patent applications will be prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. In particular, under the Leahy-Smith Act, the United States transitioned in March 2013 to a "first to file" system in which the first inventor to file a patent application will be entitled to the patent. Third parties are allowed to submit prior art before the issuance of a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or the USPTO, and may become involved in opposition, derivation, reexamination, inter partes review, post grant review or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights, which could adversely affect our competitive position.
Many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, and in particular, the first to file provisions, did not become effective until March 16, 2013. Currently, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submissions, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.
Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. If we or our licensors fail to maintain the patents and patent applications covering our product candidates, our competitive position would be adversely affected.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our intellectual property, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.
Competitors may infringe our patents or misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property rights. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to determine the validity and scope of our own intellectual property rights or the proprietary rights of others. This can be expensive and time consuming. Many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to defend their intellectual property rights than we can. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property. Litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent owned by or licensed to us is invalid or unenforceable, or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation proceeding could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable or interpreted narrowly. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.
Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could harm our business.
Our commercial success depends upon our ability and the ability of our collaborators to develop, manufacture, market and sell our product candidates, and to use our proprietary technologies without infringing the proprietary rights of third parties. We may become party to, or threatened with, future adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our products and technology, including interference or derivation proceedings before the USPTO. Third parties may assert infringement claims against us based on existing patents or patents that may be granted in the future. If we are found to infringe a third party's intellectual property rights, we could be required to obtain a license from such third party to continue developing and commercializing our products and technology. However, we may not be able to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we are able to obtain a license, it may be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. We could be forced, including by court order, to cease commercializing the infringing technology or product. In addition, in any such proceeding or litigation, we could be found liable for monetary damages. A finding of infringement could prevent us from commercializing our product candidates or force us to cease some of our business operations, which could materially harm our business. Any claims by third parties that we have misappropriated their confidential information or trade secrets could have a similar negative impact on our business.
We may be subject to claims that our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their former employers.
Many of our employees, including our senior management, were previously employed at other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Some of these employees, including each member of our senior management, executed proprietary rights, non-disclosure and non-competition agreements in connection with such previous employment. Although we try to ensure that our employees do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these employees have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee's former employer. We are not aware of any threatened or pending claims related to these matters or concerning the agreements with our senior management, but in the future litigation may be
necessary to defend against such claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.
Intellectual property disputes could cause us to spend substantial resources and distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities.
Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may cause us to incur significant expenses, and could distract our technical and management personnel from their normal responsibilities. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the market price of our common stock. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to adequately conduct such litigation or proceedings. Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of such litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could compromise our ability to compete in the marketplace.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.
In addition to seeking patents for some of our technology and products, we also rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, CMOs, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We also generally enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. Despite these efforts, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts both within and outside the United States may be less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent such competitor from using that technology or information to compete with us, which could harm our competitive position.
Although we expect all of our employees to assign their inventions to us, and all of our employees, consultants, advisors and any third parties who have access to our proprietary know-how, information or technology to enter into confidentiality agreements, we cannot provide any assurances that all such agreements have been duly executed or that our trade secrets and other confidential proprietary information will not be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. Additionally, if the steps taken to maintain our trade secrets are deemed inadequate, we may have insufficient recourse against third parties for misappropriating the trade secret, In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets and proprietary information. For example, the FDA, as part of its Transparency Initiative, is currently considering whether to make additional information publicly available on a routine basis, including information that we may consider to be trade secrets or other proprietary information, and it is not clear at the present time how the FDA's disclosure policies may change in the future, if at all.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on all of our product candidates throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products, and may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but where enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products in jurisdictions where we do not have any issued patents and our patent claims or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from so competing.
Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biopharmaceuticals, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial cost and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business.
Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats to our competitive advantage.
The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations, and may not adequately protect our business, or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. The following examples are illustrative:
Others may be able to make compounds that are the same as or similar to our product candidates but that are not covered by the claims of the patents that we own or have exclusively licensed.
We or our licensors or any strategic partners might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by the issued patent or pending patent application that we own or have exclusively licensed.
We or our licensors or any strategic partners might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our inventions.
Others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our intellectual property rights.
It is possible that our pending patent applications will not lead to issued patents.
Issued patents that we own or have exclusively licensed may not provide us with any competitive advantages, or may be held invalid or unenforceable, as a result of legal challenges by our competitors.
Our competitors might conduct research and development activities in the United States and other countries that provide a safe harbor from patent infringement claims for certain research and development activities, as well as in countries where we do not have patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets.
We may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable.
The patents of others may have an adverse effect on our business.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
The trading market in our common stock has been extremely limited and substantially less liquid than the average trading market for a stock quoted on the NASDAQ Markets.
Since our initial listing on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on July 25, 2013 and transfer to the NASDAQ Capital Market on February 5, 2016, the trading market in our common stock has been limited and substantially less liquid than the average trading market for companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange. The listing of our common stock on the NASDAQ Capital Market does not assure that a meaningful, consistent and liquid trading market currently exists. We cannot predict whether a more active market for our common stock will develop in the future. An absence of an active trading market could adversely affect our stockholders' ability to sell our common stock at current market prices in short time periods, or possibly at all. Additionally, market visibility for our common stock may be limited and such lack of visibility may have a depressive effect on the market price for our common stock. As of March 15, 2016, approximately 43% of our outstanding shares of common stock was held by our officers, directors, beneficial owners of 5% or more of our capital stock and their respective affiliates, which adversely affects the liquidity of the trading market for our common stock, in as much as federal securities laws restrict sales of our shares by these stockholders. If our affiliates continue to hold their shares of common stock, there will be limited trading volume in our common stock, which may make it more difficult for investors to sell their shares or increase the volatility of our stock price.
Our share price may be volatile, which could subject us to securities class action litigation and result in substantial losses to our stockholders.
The trading price of our common stock is highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. Between January 1, 2014 and March 15, 2016, the price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Stock Market has ranged from $16.22 per share to $0.32 per share. In addition to the factors discussed in this "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in this Annual Report, factors that could impact the trading price of our common stock include:
results of clinical trials of our product candidates or those of our competitors;
regulatory actions with respect to our products or our competitors' products;
actual or anticipated changes in our growth rate relative to our competitors;
announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, collaborations or capital commitments;
the success of competitive products or technologies;
regulatory or legal developments in the United States and other countries;
developments or disputes concerning patent applications, issued patents or other proprietary rights;
the recruitment or departure of key personnel;
the level of expenses related to any of our product candidates or clinical development programs;
the results of our efforts to in-license or acquire additional product candidates or products;
actual or anticipated changes in estimates as to financial results, development timelines or recommendations by securities analysts;
variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;
fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;
share price and volume fluctuations attributable to inconsistent trading volume levels of our shares;
announcement or expectation of additional financing efforts;
sales of our common stock by us, our insiders or our other stockholders;
changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;
market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors; and
general economic, industry and market conditions.
In addition, the stock market in general, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of these companies. Broad market and industry factors may negatively affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. The realization of any of these risks or any of a broad range of other risks, including those described in these "Risk Factors," could have a dramatic and material adverse impact on the market price of our common stock.
If we are unable to regain compliance with the requirements to maintain a continued listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market, our common stock may be delisted and the price of our common stock and our ability to access the capital markets could be negatively impacted.
Our common stock is currently listed for trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market. We must satisfy NASDAQ's continued listing requirements or risk delisting, which would have a material adverse effect on our business. On February 10, 2016, we received a deficiency letter from NASDAQ notifying us that for the preceding 30 consecutive business days the bid price of our common stock had closed below the minimum $1.00 per share requirement for continued listing. In accordance with NASDAQ listing rules, we have been provided an initial period of 180 calendar days, or until August 8, 2016, to regain compliance. We are currently considering available options to resolve the listing deficiency and to regain compliance. There can be no assurance that we will be able to regain compliance with the NASDAQ Capital Market listing requirements. A delisting of our common stock from the NASDAQ Capital Market could materially reduce the liquidity of our common stock and result in a corresponding material reduction in the price of our common stock. In addition, delisting could harm our ability to raise capital through alternative financing sources on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and may result in the potential loss of confidence by investors, suppliers, customers and employees and fewer business development opportunities.
We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.
The market price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile, and in the past companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. Likewise, companies that have experienced a clinical hold, as we have with one of our secondary compounds, have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management's attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.
Our principal stockholders and management own a significant percentage of our stock and will be able to exert significant control over matters subject to stockholder approval.
Our executive officers, directors and holders of five percent or more of our capital stock, including Baxalta, in the aggregate beneficially owned approximately 43% of our voting stock at March 15, 2016.
These stockholders may be able to determine the outcome of all matters requiring stockholder approval. For example, these stockholders may be able to control elections of directors, amendments of our organizational documents, or approval of any merger, sale of assets, or other major corporate transaction. This may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our common stock that you may feel are in your best interest as one of our stockholders. The interests of this group of stockholders may not always coincide with your interests or the interests of other stockholders and they may act in a manner that advances their best interests and not necessarily those of other stockholders, including seeking a premium value for their common stock, and might affect the prevailing market price for our common stock.
We are an "emerging growth company" and we take advantage of reduced disclosure and governance requirements applicable to emerging growth companies, which could result in our common stock being less attractive to investors.
We are an "emerging growth company," as defined in the JOBS Act, and we take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We may take advantage of these reporting exemptions until we are no longer an emerging growth company, which in certain circumstances could be until December 31, 2018. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile. In addition, it may be difficult for us to raise additional capital as and when we need it. Investors may be unable to compare our business with other companies in our industry if they believe that our financial accounting is not as transparent as other companies in our industry. If we are unable to raise additional capital as and when we need it, our financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.
If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting in the future, we may not be able to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our common stock.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective internal controls for financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. Under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we are required to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. This assessment includes disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting that results in more than a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act also generally requires an attestation from our independent registered public accounting firm on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. However, for as long as we remain an "emerging growth company" as defined in the JOBS Act or a "Smaller Reporting Company", we intend to utilize the provision exempting us from the requirement that our independent registered public accounting firm provide an attestation on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
We cannot assure you that there will not be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting in the future. Any failure to maintain internal control over
financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. If we are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness or significant deficiency in our internal control over financial reporting once that firm begins its Section 404 audits of internal control over financial reporting, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the NASDAQ Stock Market, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.
Our disclosure controls and procedures may not prevent or detect all errors or acts of fraud.
We are subject to the periodic reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to reasonably assure that information required to be disclosed by us in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the SEC. We believe that any disclosure controls and procedures or internal controls and procedures, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met.
These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by an unauthorized override of the controls. Accordingly, because of the inherent limitations in our control system, misstatements or insufficient disclosures due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
We incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management is required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives.
As a public company, we are incurring and will continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company, and these expenses may increase even more after we are no longer an "emerging growth company." We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Protection Act, as well as rules adopted, and to be adopted, by the SEC and NASDAQ Stock Market. Our management and other personnel need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations increase our legal and financial compliance costs and make some activities more time-consuming and costly. For example, these rules and regulations can make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance and we may be required to incur substantial costs to maintain the sufficient coverage. We cannot predict or estimate the amount or timing of additional costs we may incur to respond to these requirements. The impact of these requirements could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, our board committees or as executive officers.
Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our capital stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, will be our stockholders' sole source of gain.
We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance the growth and development of our business. In addition, the terms of any future debt agreements may preclude us from paying dividends. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be our stockholders' sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.
Future sales and issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, could result in additional dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause our stock price to fall.
We expect that significant additional capital will be needed in the future to continue our planned operations. To raise capital, we may sell substantial amounts of common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for common stock. These future issuances of common stock or common stock-related securities, together with the exercise of outstanding options and any additional shares issued in connection with acquisitions, if any, may result in material dilution to our investors. Such sales may also result in material dilution to our existing stockholders, and new investors could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock.
Pursuant to our equity incentive plans, our compensation committee is authorized to grant equity-based incentive awards to our directors, executive officers and other employees and service providers, including officers, employees and service providers of our subsidiaries and affiliates. At December 31, 2015, there were 5,157,602 shares of our common stock underlying outstanding options and 1,354,133 shares available for future grant under our 2013 Equity Compensation Plan. In accordance with the terms of the 2013 Equity Compensation Plan, on January 1, 2016, the maximum aggregate number of shares of our common stock that may be issued under the plan was automatically increased by 1,018,567 shares, such that immediately after such increase the number of shares remaining available for future issuance under the plan was 2,372,700. On January 11, 2016, we issued warrants to purchase 968,421 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $1.15 per share, subject to customary adjustments. Future option grants and issuances of common stock under our 2013 Equity Compensation and warrants may have an adverse effect on the market price of our common stock.
Some provisions of our charter documents and Delaware law may have anti-takeover effects that could discourage an acquisition of us by others, even if an acquisition would be beneficial to our stockholders and may prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.
Provisions in our tenth amended and restated certificate of incorporation, or certificate of incorporation, and amended and restated bylaws, as well as provisions of Delaware law, could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us or increase the cost of acquiring us, even if doing so would benefit our stockholders, or remove our current management. These include provisions that will:
permit our board of directors to issue up to 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock, with any rights, preferences and privileges as they may designate;
provide that all vacancies on our board of directors, including as a result of newly created directorships, may, except as otherwise required by law, be filled by the affirmative vote of a majority of directors then in office, even if less than a quorum;
require that any action to be taken by our stockholders must be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting of stockholders and not be taken by written consent;
provide that stockholders seeking to present proposals before a meeting of stockholders or to nominate candidates for election as directors at a meeting of stockholders must provide advance notice in writing, and also specify requirements as to the form and content of a stockholder's notice;
not provide for cumulative voting rights, thereby allowing the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock entitled to vote in any election of directors to elect all of the directors standing for election; and
provide that special meetings of our stockholders may be called only by the board of directors or by such person or persons requested by a majority of the board of directors to call such meetings.
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, who are responsible for appointing the members of our management. Because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may discourage, delay or prevent someone from acquiring us or merging with us whether or not it is desired by or beneficial to our stockholders. Under Delaware law, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its capital stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other things, the board of directors has approved the transaction. Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or amended and restated bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common stock.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock is influenced by the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. There can be no assurance that analysts will continue to cover us or provide favorable coverage. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our stock or change their opinion of our stock, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Our corporate headquarters and research facilities are located in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where we lease an aggregate of approximately 9,500 square feet of office and laboratory space, pursuant to lease agreements, the terms of which expire in March 2017 and February 2017, respectively.
We believe that our Newtown, Pennsylvania facility is adequate for our near-term needs. When our lease expires, we may exercise renewal options or look for additional or alternate space for our operations. We believe that suitable additional or alternative space would be available on commercially reasonable terms if required in the future.
We lease temporary office space in Munich, Germany, for our European personnel.
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
We are not a party to any legal proceedings and we are not aware of any such proceedings contemplated by government authorities.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Our common stock began trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on July 25, 2013 under the symbol "ONTX." The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ Global Select Market for the period indicated.
Year Ended December 31, 2015
First Quarter $ 4.43 $ 2.15
Second Quarter 3.02 2.26
Third Quarter 4.00 1.35
Fourth Quarter 1.89 0.92
First Quarter $ 16.22 $ 6.05
In February 2016, we transferred the listing of our common stock from the NASDAQ Global Select Market to the NASDAQ Capital Market and subsequently received a deficiency letter from NASDAQ notifying us that we had failed to meet the minimum bid price required for continued listing for 30 consecutive business days. In accordance with NASDAQ listing rules, we have been provided an initial period of 180 calendar days, or until August 8, 2016, to regain compliance.
Stockholders
As of February 29, 2016, there were 167 holders of record for shares of our common stock. This does not reflect beneficial stockholders who held their common stock in "street" or nominee name through brokerage firms.
Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans
Information regarding securities authorized for issuance under the Company's equity compensation plans is contained in Part III, Item 11 of this Annual Report.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to support our operations and finance the growth and development of our business. We do not intend to pay cash dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future.
ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA
As a smaller reporting company, the Company is not required to provide the information otherwise required by this Item.
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this Annual Report. Some of the information contained in this discussion and analysis or set forth elsewhere in this Annual Report, including information with respect to our plans and strategy for our business and related financing, includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. You should review the "Risk Factors" section of this Annual Report for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion and analysis.
We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel small molecule drug candidates to treat cancer. Using our proprietary chemistry platform, we have created an extensive library of targeted anti-cancer agents designed to work against cellular pathways important to cancer cells. We believe that the drug candidates in our pipeline have the potential to be efficacious in a variety of cancers. We have one actively enrolling Phase 3 clinical-stage product candidate and two other clinical-stage product candidates (one of which is being developed for treatment of acute radiation syndromes) and several preclinical programs. Substantially all of our current effort is focused on our lead product candidate, rigosertib. Rigosertib is being tested in both intravenous and oral formulations as a single agent, and the oral formulation is also being tested in combination with azacitidine, in clinical trials for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS, and related cancers.
We were incorporated in Delaware in December 1998 and commenced operations in January 1999. Our operations to date have included our organization and staffing, business planning, raising capital, in-licensing technology from research institutions, identifying potential product candidates, developing product candidates and building strategic alliances, as well as undertaking preclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates.
Since commencing operations, we have dedicated a significant portion of our resources to the development of our clinical-stage product candidates, particularly rigosertib. We incurred research and development expenses of $25.9 million and $49.4 million during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. We anticipate that a significant portion of our operating expenses will continue to be related to research and development as we continue to advance our programs. In July 2013, we completed our initial public offering, or IPO, from which we received net proceeds of $79.8 million. Prior to the consummation of the IPO, we funded our operations primarily through the sale of preferred stock amounting to $144.7 million, the issuance of debt amounting to $26.8 million, which was later converted into shares of preferred stock, the receipt of $8.0 million from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society under a May 2010 funding agreement, and the receipt of upfront payments of $57.5 million from Baxter (predecessor to Baxalta) and SymBio in connection with our collaboration agreements. During 2015 we sold 3,761,920 shares of common stock for net proceeds of $7.5 million. Under the Baxalta collaboration agreement, we are receiving payments towards costs for the INSPIRE trial, with a cap of $15.0 million. The agreement is scheduled to terminate in August 2016 as a result of Baxalta's decision to terminate following its strategic review of priorities. We received the termination notice from Baxalta in March 2016, after we had consulted with Baxalta on the design of the INSPIRE trial and commenced patient enrollment. We will attempt to maximize Baxalta's financial support for the INSPIRE trial, but there can be no assurances regarding the amount of funds we will receive from Baxalta following termination. As of December 31, 2015, we had $19.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. In January 2016, we completed a sale of common stock and warrants for net proceeds of approximately $1.6 million.
Our net losses were $24.0 million and $63.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. As of December 31, 2015, we had an accumulated deficit of $318.6 million. We expect to incur significant expenses and operating losses for the foreseeable future as we continue the development and clinical trials of, and seek regulatory approval for, our product candidates, even if milestones under our license and collaboration agreements may be met. If we obtain regulatory approval for any of our product candidates, we expect to incur significant commercialization expenses. We do not currently have an organization for the sales, marketing and distribution of pharmaceutical products. We may rely on licensing and co-promotion agreements with strategic or collaborative partners for the commercialization of our products in the United States and other territories. If we choose to build a commercial infrastructure to support marketing in the United States for any of our product candidates that achieve regulatory approval, such commercial infrastructure could be expected to include a targeted, oncology sales force supported by sales management, internal sales support, an internal marketing group and distribution support. To develop the appropriate commercial infrastructure internally, we would have to invest financial and management resources, some of which would have to be deployed prior to having any certainty about marketing approval. Furthermore, we have and expect to continue to incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company.
We do not have the funding resources necessary to carry out all of our proposed operating activities. We will need to obtain additional financing in the future in order to fully fund our INSPIRE trial and to further develop rigosertib or any other product candidates through the regulatory approval process. Accordingly, we may delay our ongoing clinical trials, including the INSPIRE trial, until we secure adequate additional funding. Additionally, we plan to scale down our operations in order to reduce spending on general and administrative functions, research and development, and other clinical trials. We are exploring various dilutive and non-dilutive sources of funding, including equity and debt financings, strategic alliances, business development and other sources. If we raise additional funds through strategic collaborations and alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, which may including existing collaboration partners, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or product candidates, including rigosertib, or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to us. If we are unable to secure adequate additional funding, we will continue to delay, scale-back or eliminate certain of our planned research, drug discovery and development activities and certain other aspects of our operations and our business until such time as we are successful in securing adequate additional funding. As a result, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows may be materially and adversely affected. We will incur substantial costs beyond the present and planned clinical trials in order to file an NDA for rigosertib. The nature, design, size and cost of further studies, if required, will depend in large part on the outcome of preceding studies and discussions with regulators.
During the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, our revenues were derived exclusively from activities conducted in accordance with our collaboration arrangements with Baxalta and SymBio, as well as recognition of revenue from our May 2010 funding agreement with The Leukemia and
Lymphoma Society, or LLS. The following table sets forth a summary of revenue recognized during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014:
Year ended December 31,
Baxalta license and collaboration revenue $ 2,893,000 $ 334,000
SymBio license and collaboration revenue 563,000 466,000
LLS Research funding revenue 8,000,000 —
$ 11,456,000 $ 800,000
In May 2010, we entered into a funding agreement with LLS to fund our ONTIME trial and certain related activities. We received $8.0 million under the LLS funding agreement, as amended, and terminated the funding agreement effective March 2013. As a result of the potential obligation to repay LLS, we initially recorded the funding received as deferred revenue. During the fourth quarter of 2015, however, we determined, based in part on the commencement of the INSPIRE trial, that the research program covered by the LLS funding agreement was unsuccessful and, as a result, the funding received non-repayable. Accordingly, we recognized $8.0 million of deferred revenue during the quarter ended December 31, 2015.
We have not generated any revenue from commercial product sales. In the future, if any of our product candidates currently under development are approved for commercial sale in the United States or other territories where we have retained commercialization rights, we may generate revenue from product sales, or alternatively, we may choose to select a collaborator to commercialize our product candidates in these markets.
The Baxalta collaboration agreement was considered to be a multiple-element arrangement for accounting purposes. We determined that there were two deliverables under the Baxalta agreement; specifically, the license to rigosertib for Europe and the related research and development services that we were obligated to provide. We concluded that $42.4 million of the fixed and determinable $50.0 million upfront payment was associated with the license and $7.6 million was associated with the research and development services. We recognized the entire $42.4 million associated with the upfront license as revenue during the third quarter of 2012 upon the execution of the Baxalta agreement, and we recognized the research and development services revenue of $7.6 million on the proportional performance method over the period of commitment and development, which was estimated to be through March 31, 2014, the period of our non-contingent obligations to perform research and development services sufficient to advance rigosertib. For the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, we recognized $2.9 million and $0.3 million, respectively, of research and development services revenue under the Baxalta agreement.
The SymBio collaboration agreement is also considered to be a multiple-element arrangement for accounting purposes. We determined that there were three deliverables under the SymBio collaboration agreement; specifically, the license to rigosertib for Japan and Korea, our obligation to perform research and development services necessary for SymBio to seek approval in its territory and our obligation to participate on a joint steering committee. We concluded that these deliverables should be accounted for as a single unit of accounting. We determined that the $7.5 million upfront payment received in 2011 should be deferred and recognized as revenue on a straight-line basis through December 2027, reflecting our estimate of when we will complete our obligations under the agreement. For the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, we recognized revenues of $455,000 and $455,000, respectively, under the SymBio collaboration agreement. In addition, we recognized revenues of $108,000 and $11,000 for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, related to the supply agreement with SymBio.
The following table summarizes our operating expenses for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014:
General and administrative $ 9,533,000 $ 15,119,000
Research and development 25,895,000 49,425,000
Total operating expenses $ 35,428,000 $ 64,544,000
General and Administrative Expenses
General and administrative expenses consist principally of salaries and related costs for executive and other administrative personnel, including stock-based compensation and travel expenses. Other general and administrative expenses include facility-related costs, communication expenses, insurance, board of directors expenses and professional fees for legal, patent review, consulting and accounting services.
We anticipate that our general and administrative expenses will decrease in the short-term, but would increase in the future with the continued research and development and potential commercialization of our product candidates. These increases will likely include increased costs for insurance, costs related to the hiring of additional personnel and payments to outside consultants among other expenses. Additionally, if and when we believe a regulatory approval of a product candidate appears likely, we anticipate an increase in payroll and expense as a result of our preparation for commercial operations, especially as it relates to the sales and marketing of our product candidates.
Research and Development Expenses
Our research and development expenses consist primarily of costs incurred for the development of our product candidates, which include:
employee-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, travel and stock-based compensation expense;
expenses incurred under agreements with CROs and investigative sites that conduct our clinical trials and preclinical studies;
the cost of acquiring, developing and manufacturing clinical trial materials;
direct expenses for maintenance of research equipment, clinical trial insurance and other supplies; and
costs associated with preclinical activities and regulatory operations.
Research and development costs are expensed as incurred. License fees and milestone payments we make related to in-licensed products and technology are expensed if it is determined that they have no alternative future use. We record costs for some development activities, such as clinical trials, based on an evaluation of the progress to completion of specific tasks using data such as patient enrollment, clinical site activations or information provided to us by our vendors.
Research and development activities are central to our business model. Product candidates in later stages of clinical development generally have higher development costs than those in earlier stages of clinical development, primarily due to the increased size and duration of later-stage clinical trials. We plan to decrease our research and development expenses in the short-term by reducing the number of product candidates currently under development.
To date, our research and development expenses have related primarily to the development of rigosertib. We do not currently utilize a formal time allocation system to capture expenses on a project-by-project basis because we are organized and record expense by functional department and our employees may allocate time to more than one development project. Accordingly, we do not allocate expenses to individual projects or product candidates, although we do allocate some portion of our research and development expenses by functional area and by compound.
The following table summarizes our research and development expenses by functional area for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014:
Pre-clinical & clinical development $ 12,200,000 $ 25,303,000
Personnel related 6,988,000 10,336,000
Manufacturing, formulation & development 2,838,000 5,069,000
Stock-based compensation 1,850,000 2,986,000
Consulting fees 2,019,000 5,731,000
$ 25,895,000 $ 49,425,000
It is difficult to determine with certainty the duration and completion costs of our current or future preclinical programs and clinical trials of our product candidates, or if, when or to what extent we will generate revenues from the commercialization and sale of any of our product candidates that obtain regulatory approval. We may never succeed in achieving regulatory approval for any of our product candidates. The duration, costs and timing of clinical trials and development of our product candidates will depend on a variety of factors, including the uncertainties of future clinical and preclinical studies, uncertainties in clinical trial enrollment rate and significant and changing government regulation. In addition, the probability of success for each product candidate will depend on numerous factors, including competition, manufacturing capability and commercial viability. We will determine which programs to pursue and how much to fund each program in response to the scientific and clinical success of each product candidate, an assessment of each product candidate's commercial potential and our available funds.
Interest Expense and Other Income, Net
Other income, net consists principally of interest income earned on cash and cash equivalent balances and foreign exchange gains and losses.
Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates
This management's discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations is based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities in our consolidated financial statements. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates and judgments, including those related to accrued expenses, revenue recognition, deferred revenue and stock-based compensation. We base our estimates on historical experience, known trends and events and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.
While our significant accounting policies are described in the notes to our consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report, we believe the following accounting policies to be most critical to the judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.
We generate revenue primarily through collaborative research and license agreements. The terms of these agreements contain multiple deliverables, which may include licenses, research and development activities, participation in joint steering committees and product supply. The terms of these agreements may include nonrefundable upfront license fees, payments for research and development activities, payments based upon the achievement of specified milestones, royalty payments based on product sales derived from the collaboration, and payments for supplying product. In all instances, we recognize revenue only when the price is fixed or determinable, persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred or the services have been rendered, collectability of the resulting receivable is reasonably assured and we have fulfilled our performance obligations under the contract.
Effective January 1, 2011, we adopted the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, No. 2009-13, Multiple-Deliverable Revenue Arrangements , or ASU 2009-13. This guidance, which applies to multiple-element arrangements entered into or materially modified on or after January 1, 2011, amends the criteria for separating and allocating consideration in a multiple-element arrangement by modifying the fair value requirements for revenue recognition and eliminating the use of the residual value method. The selling prices of deliverables under an arrangement may be derived using third-party evidence, or TPE, or a best estimate of selling price, or BESP, if vendor-specific objective evidence of fair value, or VSOE, is not available. The objective of BESP is to determine the price at which we would transact a sale if the element within the license agreement was sold on a standalone basis. Establishing BESP involves management's judgment and takes into account multiple factors, including market conditions and company-specific factors, such as those factors contemplated in negotiating the agreements as well as internally developed models that include assumptions related to market opportunity, discounted cash flows, estimated development costs, probability of success, and the time needed to commercialize a product candidate pursuant to the license. In validating the BESP, management considers whether changes in key assumptions used to determine the BESP will have a significant effect on the allocation of the arrangement consideration between the multiple deliverables. We may use third-party valuation specialists to assist us in determining BESP. Deliverables under the arrangement are separate units of accounting if (i) the delivered item has value to the customer on a standalone basis and (ii) if the arrangement includes a general right of return relative to the delivered item, delivery or performance of the undelivered item is considered probable and substantially within our control. The arrangement consideration that is fixed or determinable at the inception of the arrangement is allocated to the separate units of accounting based on their relative selling prices. The appropriate revenue recognition model is applied to each element and revenue is accordingly recognized as each element is delivered. Management exercises significant judgment in determining whether a deliverable is a separate unit of accounting.
In determining the separate units of accounting, we evaluate whether the license has standalone value to the collaborator based on consideration of the relevant facts and circumstances for each arrangement. Factors considered in this determination include the research and development capabilities of the collaborator and the availability of relevant research expertise in the marketplace. In addition, we consider whether or not (i) the collaborator can use the license for its intended purpose without the receipt of the remaining deliverables, (ii) the value of the license is dependent on the undelivered items and (iii) the collaborator or other vendors can provide the undelivered items.
Under a collaborative research and license agreement, a steering committee is typically responsible for overseeing the general working relationships, determining the protocols to be followed in the research and development performed, and evaluating the results from the continued development of the product. We evaluate whether our participation in joint steering committees is a substantive obligation or whether the services are considered inconsequential or perfunctory. The factors we consider in determining if our participation in a joint steering committee is a substantive obligation include: (i) which party negotiated or requested the steering committee, (ii) how frequently the steering committee meets, (iii) whether or not there are any penalties or other recourse if we do not attend the steering committee meetings, (iv) which party has decision making authority on the steering committee and (v) whether or not the collaborator has the requisite experience and expertise associated with the research and development of the licensed intellectual property.
For all periods presented, whenever we determine that an element is delivered over a period of time, we recognize revenue using either a proportional performance model or a straight-line model over the period of performance, which is typically the research and development term. We typically use progress achieved under our various CRO contracts as the measure of performance. At each reporting period, we reassess our cumulative measure of performance and make appropriate adjustments, if necessary. We recognize revenue using the proportional performance model whenever we can make reasonably reliable estimates of the level of effort required to complete our performance obligations under an arrangement. We recognize revenue under the proportional performance model at each reporting period by multiplying the total expected payments under the contract, excluding royalties and payments contingent upon achievement of milestones, by the ratio of the level of effort incurred to date to the estimated total level of effort required to complete the performance obligations under the arrangement. Revenue is limited to the lesser of the cumulative amount of payments received or the cumulative amount of revenue earned, as determined using the proportional performance model as of each reporting period. Alternatively, if we cannot make reasonably reliable estimates of the level of effort required to complete our performance obligations under an arrangement, then we recognize revenue under the arrangement on a straight-line basis over the period expected to complete our performance obligations.
Incentive milestone payments may be triggered either by the results of our research efforts or by events external to us, such as regulatory approval to market a product. We recognize consideration that is contingent upon achievement of a milestone in its entirety as revenue in the period in which the milestone is achieved, but only if the consideration earned from the achievement of a milestone meets all the criteria for the milestone to be considered substantive at the inception of the arrangement. For a milestone to be considered substantive, the consideration earned by achieving the milestone must be commensurate with either our performance to achieve the milestone or the enhancement of the value of the item delivered as a result of a specific outcome resulting from our performance to achieve the milestone, relate solely to our past performance and be reasonable relative to all deliverables and payment terms in the collaboration agreement.
For events for which the occurrences are contingent solely upon the passage of time or are the result of performance by a third party, we will recognize the contingent payments as revenue when payments are earned, the amounts are fixed and determinable and collectability is reasonably assured.
We will recognize royalty revenue, if any, as earned in accordance with the contract terms when third-party sales can be reliably measured and collectability is reasonably assured.
We recognized revenue of $2.9 million and $0.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, under our license and collaboration agreement with Baxalta. We recognized revenue of $0.6 million and $0.5 million during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, under our license and collaboration agreement with SymBio. We recognized revenue of $8.0 million and $0 during the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, under our funding agreement with LLS. The Baxalta and SymBio agreements are the only agreements that are being accounted for under ASU 2009-13.
Research and development costs are charged to expense as incurred and include, but are not limited to, license fees related to the acquisition of in-licensed products, employee-related expenses, including salaries, benefits and travel, expenses incurred under agreements with CROs and investigative sites that conduct clinical trials and preclinical studies, the cost of acquiring, developing and manufacturing clinical trial materials, facilities, depreciation and other expenses, which include direct and allocated expenses for rent and maintenance of facilities, insurance and other supplies and costs associated with preclinical activities and regulatory operations.
We record costs for certain development activities, such as clinical trials, based on our evaluation of the progress to completion of specific tasks using data such as patient enrollment, clinical site activations, or information provided to us by our vendors on their actual costs incurred. Payments for these activities are based on the terms of the individual arrangements, which may differ from the pattern of costs incurred, and are reflected in the consolidated financial statements as prepaid or accrued research and development expense, as the case may be.
We recorded deferred tax assets of $149.1 million as of December 31, 2015, which have been fully offset by a valuation allowance due to uncertainties surrounding our ability to realize these tax benefits. The deferred tax assets are primarily composed of federal and state tax net operating loss, or NOL, carry forwards and research and development tax credit carry forwards. As of December 31, 2015, we had federal NOL carry forwards of $178.9 million, state NOL carry forwards of $201.5 million and research and development tax credit carry forwards of $66.2 million available to reduce future taxable income, if any. These federal NOL carry forwards will begin to expire at various dates starting in 2022. The state NOL carry forwards will begin to expire at various dates starting in 2016. In general, if we experience a greater than 50 percentage point aggregate change in ownership of specified significant stockholders over a three-year period, utilization of our pre-change NOL carry forwards will be subject to an annual limitation under Section 382 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, and similar state laws. Such limitations may result in expiration of a portion of the NOL carry forwards before utilization and may be substantial. We have determined that we have experienced ownership changes in the past and approximately $24.0 million of our NOL carry forwards are subject to an annual limitation under Section 382 of the Code. If we experienced a Section 382 ownership change in connection with the offering or as a result of future changes in our stock ownership, some of which changes are outside our control, the tax benefits related to the NOL carry forwards may be further limited or lost.
Prior to April 2013, our stock option awards were accounted for as liability awards as we, through our chairman of the board of directors, who is also a significant stockholder, had established a pattern of settling these awards for cash. Accordingly, we measured stock-based compensation expense at the end of each reporting period based on the intrinsic value of all outstanding vested stock options on each reporting date and recognized expense based on any increases in their intrinsic value since the last measurement date to the extent the stock options vested. The intrinsic value represented the difference between the current fair value of our common stock and the contractual exercise prices of the awards.
On April 23, 2013, we distributed a notification letter to all holders of stock options under our 2007 Equity Compensation Plan advising them that cash settlement transactions would no longer occur, unless, at the time of a cash settlement transaction, the option holder has held the common stock issued upon exercise of options for a period of greater than six months prior to such cash settlement transaction and that any such settlement would be at the fair value of the common stock on the date of
such sale. Following this notification, we reclassified options outstanding under our 2007 Equity Compensation Plan from liabilities to stockholders' deficit within our consolidated balance sheets. Upon issuing the notification, a modification to the liability awards occurred and the awards are now accounted for as equity awards from the date of modification with compensation expense fixed at fair value at the modification date. As a result, we reclassified the amount of stock-based compensation liability at the modification date to additional paid-in capital. The modification date fair value is recognized over the remaining service period, generally the vesting period, on a straight-line basis. The fair value of the modified awards was estimated on the modification date using the intrinsic value model. The grant date fair value of awards granted after the modification is estimated using the Black-Scholes valuation model, net of estimated forfeitures. Awards granted to non-employees will also be valued using the Black-Scholes valuation model and will be subject to periodic adjustment until the underlying equity instruments vest.
We record stock-based compensation expense as a component of research and development expenses or general and administrative expenses, depending on the function performed by the optionee. For the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, we allocated stock-based compensation as follows:
General and administrative $ 1,936,000 $ 2,082,000
Research and development 1,850,000 2,986,000
$ 3,786,000 $ 5,068,000
Fair Value Estimates
Since April 23, 2013, we estimate the fair value of share-based awards to employees and directors using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. The Black-Scholes model requires the input of highly complex and subjective assumptions, including (a) the expected stock price volatility, (b) the calculation of the expected term of the award, (c) the risk free interest rate and (d) expected dividends. Due to our limited operating history and a lack of company specific historical and implied volatility data, we based our estimate of expected volatility on the historical volatility of a group of similar companies that are publicly traded. When selecting these public companies on which we have based its expected stock price volatility, we selected companies with comparable characteristics to us, including enterprise value, risk profiles, position within the industry, and with historical share price information sufficient to meet the expected life of the stock-based awards. The historical volatility data was computed using the daily closing prices for the selected companies' shares during the equivalent period of the calculated expected term of the stock-based awards. Due to our lack of sufficient historical data, we will continue to apply this process until a sufficient amount of historical information regarding the volatility of our own stock price becomes available. We estimate the expected life of our employee stock options using the "simplified" method, whereby, the expected life equals the arithmetic average of the vesting term and the original contractual term of the option. The risk-free interest rates for periods within the expected life of the option are based on the U.S. Treasury yield curve in effect during the period the options were granted. We have never paid, and do not expect to pay dividends in the foreseeable future.
Prior to April 23, 2013, we were required to estimate the fair value of the common stock underlying our stock-based awards when performing the fair value calculations using the intrinsic value method at each reporting date. In the absence of a public trading market for our common stock, on each grant date, we developed an estimate of the fair value of our common stock by engaging an independent third-party valuation firm to assist our board of directors in determining the fair value of the common stock underlying our stock-based awards. We determined the fair value of our common
stock using methodologies, approaches and assumptions consistent with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or AICPA, Audit and Accounting Practice Aid Series: Valuation of Privately Held Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation, or the AICPA Practice Guide. All options to purchase shares of our common stock were granted with an exercise price per share no less than the fair value per share of our common stock underlying those options on the date of grant, based on the information known to us on the date of grant. Accordingly, under the liability method of accounting, we did not record any stock-based compensation expense on the grant dates of our options. However, under the liability method, the liability for all outstanding vested stock-based awards was adjusted through our statement of operations, based on the current estimated fair value of our common stock at each reporting date.
Clinical Trial Expense
As part of the process of preparing our consolidated financial statements, we are required to estimate our accrued expenses. Our clinical trial accrual process is designed to account for expenses resulting from our obligations under contracts with vendors, consultants and CROs and clinical site agreements in connection with conducting clinical trials. The financial terms of these contracts are subject to negotiations, which vary from contract to contract and may result in payment flows that do not match the periods over which materials or services are provided to us under such contracts. Our objective is to reflect the appropriate clinical trial expenses in our consolidated financial statements by matching the appropriate expenses with the period in which services are provided and efforts are expended. We account for these expenses according to the progress of the trial as measured by patient progression and the timing of various aspects of the trial. We determine accrual estimates through financial models that take into account discussion with applicable personnel and outside service providers as to the progress or state of completion of trials, or the services completed. During the course of a clinical trial, we adjust our clinical expense recognition if actual results differ from our estimates. We make estimates of our accrued expenses as of each balance sheet date in our consolidated financial statements based on the facts and circumstances known to us at that time. Our clinical trial accrual and prepaid assets are dependent, in part, upon the receipt of timely and accurate reporting from CROs and other third-party vendors. Although we do not expect our estimates to be materially different from amounts actually incurred, our understanding of the status and timing of services performed relative to the actual status and timing of services performed may vary and may result in us reporting amounts that are too high or too low for any particular period.
In April 2012, the JOBS Act was enacted. Section 107 of the JOBS Act provides that an "emerging growth company" can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. Thus, an "emerging growth company" can delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have irrevocably elected not to avail ourselves of this extended transition period and, as a result, we will adopt new or revised accounting standards on the relevant dates on which adoption of such standards is required for other companies.
Comparison of Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014
Revenue $ 11,456,000 $ 800,000 $ 10,656,000
Operating expenses:
General and administrative 9,533,000 15,119,000 5,586,000
Research and development 25,895,000 49,425,000 23,530,000
Total operating expenses 35,428,000 64,544,000 29,116,000
Loss from operations (23,972,000 ) (63,744,000 ) 39,772,000
Change in fair value of warrant liability — 20,000 (20,000 )
Other income (expense), net (35,000 ) (52,000 ) 17,000
Net loss before income taxes (24,007,000 ) (63,776,000 ) 39,769,000
Income taxes 16,000 19,000 3,000
Net loss $ (24,023,000 ) $ (63,795,000 ) $ 39,772,000
Revenues increased by $10.7 million in 2015 when compared to 2014 primarily as a result of recognizing in the fourth quarter of 2015, $8 million of deferred revenue from our May 2010 funding agreement with LLS. The increase was also caused by $2.9 million of contractual cost-sharing revenue from Baxalta for a portion of the costs of the INSPIRE trial in 2015, partially offset by $0.3 million of research and development revenue under the Baxalta agreement which was recognized on a proportional performance basis which was completed during the first quarter of 2014. In addition, clinical supply revenue from SymBio was $0.1 million in 2015 compared to $0 in 2014.
General and administrative expenses decreased by $5.6 million, or 36.9%, to $9.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to $15.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2014. The decrease was primarily caused by a decrease in professional fees and consulting fees of $2.7 million as a result of higher pre-commercialization consulting during the 2014 period. The decrease was also caused by a $2.1 million decrease in facilities and personnel and related costs from a reduction in general and administrative headcount to 13 at December 31, 2015 from 15 at December 31, 2014. Stock-based compensation expense was $0.2 million lower in the 2015 period as a result of fewer outstanding options following the reduction in workforce. Meetings and sponsorship expenses were $0.6 million lower in the 2015 period as the company attended and presented at fewer conferences.
Research and development expenses decreased by $23.5 million, or 47.6%, to $25.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to $49.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2014. This decrease was caused primarily by a $13.1 million decrease in pre-clinical and clinical development costs in the 2015 period, as we focused our planning and development efforts on the INSPIRE trial and worked to reduce expenses related to other programs or legacy studies. The clinical and preclinical decrease was comprised of $6.8 million less expense in the 2015 period for the higher-risk MDS studies which preceded INSPIRE, offset by $1.9 million of clinical expense related to INSPIRE. The clinical and preclinical decrease was also attributable to $3.0 million less expense related to lower risk MDS studies in 2015, $2.2 million less preclinical and sponsored research in 2015, and $3.0 million less
expense related to legacy studies and other clinical costs during 2015. The decrease in research and development expenses in 2015 was also caused by a reduction of $2.3 million in API manufacturing and formulation costs related to validation activities and a reduction of $3.7 million in consulting expenses related to analyzing clinical trial results and preparing for meetings with regulatory authorities in the 2014 period. Personnel and related costs were $3.3 million lower as research and development headcount was down to 23 at December 31, 2015 from 35 at December 31, 2014. Stock-based compensation expense was $1.1 million lower in the 2015 period as a result of acceleration of vesting and expense recognition in the 2014 period in connection with our reductions in workforce in the third quarter of 2014.
Change in fair value of warrant liability
The fair value of the warrant liability, which relates to a warrant issued in June 2009, was unchanged during the year ended December 31, 2015 compared to a decrease of $20,000 during the year ended December 31, 2014. The decrease in the fair value of the warrant liability in 2014 was primarily due to the revaluation of the warrants, which, at December 31, 2015, entitled the holder to purchase up to 4,597 shares of our common stock. These warrants are expected to expire unexercised on July 30, 2016.
Other income, net
Other income (expense), net, was $35,000 of other expense for the year ended December 31, 2015, compared to $52,000 of other expense for the year ended December 31, 2015. This change of $17,000 was due primarily to a $43,000 lower exchange loss in the 2015 period, partially offset by the loss on disposal of office furniture of $15,000 related to closing of one office location and $11,000 less interest income as a result of lower cash balances in the 2015 period.
Since our inception, we have incurred net losses and generally negative cash flows from our operations. We incurred net losses of $24.0 million and $63.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. Since inception our accumulated deficit is $318.6 million. We believe that our cash and cash equivalents, together with anticipated contractual cost-sharing payments from Baxalta for a portion of the INSPIRE trial costs, will be sufficient to fund our ongoing trials and operations into the first quarter of 2017. Due to our ongoing operating losses and our accumulated deficit, in combination with the fact that the future success of the Company is dependent on its ability to obtain additional financing, the opinion of our independent registered public accounting firm on our audited consolidated financial statements for our fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 contains an explanatory paragraph regarding substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
The following table summarizes our cash flows for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014:
Net cash (used in) provided by:
Operating activities $ (31,238,000 ) $ (57,648,000 )
Investing activities — 39,772,000
Financing activities 7,464,000 1,463,000
Effect of foreign currency translation (9,000 ) (14,000 )
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents $ (23,783,000 ) $ (16,427,000 )
Net cash used in operating activities
Net cash used in operating activities was $31.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 and consisted primarily of a net loss of $24.0 million, and a decrease in deferred revenue of $8.0 million and $0.5 million of revenue from our LLS research agreement and SymBio collaboration, respectively, partially offset by $3.8 million of noncash stock-based compensation expense and $0.2 million of depreciation and amortization expense. Changes in operating assets and liabilities resulted in a net decrease in cash of $2.7 million. Significant changes in operating assets and liabilities included an increase of $1.4 million in receivables, primarily due to our collaboration with Baxalta. Accrued expenses decreased $2.0 million due to lower accrued clinical costs and bonus, and the timing of invoices for clinical trial and manufacturing development costs related to the ongoing trials at December 31, 2015. Accounts payable decreased $0.6 million due to the timing of payments to our vendors. Prepaid expenses and other current assets decreased $1.2 million as a result of the recognition of expense for clinical and manufacturing activities, as well as insurance expense. Restricted cash decreased $0.1 million due to the expiration of a letter of credit related to an office lease which was terminated during the first quarter of 2015.
Net cash used in operating activities was $57.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2014 and consisted primarily of a net loss of $63.8 million, and a decrease in deferred revenue of $0.8 million related to the recognition of deferred revenue under the Baxalta and SymBio collaboration agreements, which was partially offset by $5.5 million of noncash increases primarily related to stock compensation expense of $5.1 million and depreciation of $0.4 million. The cash used in operating activities was also impacted by the changes in operating assets and liabilities including a decrease in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $1.2 million which was the result of the timing of expense recognition and payments to our contract research and manufacturing organizations, and an increase of $0.3 million in accounts payable and accrued expenses, which was primarily due to the timing of our payments of clinical trial costs related to the ongoing trials and development of our product candidates.
Net cash provided by investing activities
Net cash provided by investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2015 was $0.
Net cash provided by investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2014 was $39.8 million, and consisted of maturities of marketable securities of $40.0 million, offset by purchases of fixed assets of $0.2 million.
Net cash provided by financing activities was $7.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2015, which was due to proceeds from the sales of our common stock.
Net cash provided by financing activities was $1.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2014, which was due to $1.0 million in proceeds from the exercise of stock options and the $0.5 million capital contribution to GBO by our collaboration partner, GVK. GBO, the entity which represents our pre-clinical collaboration with GVK, is consolidated in our financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014. GBO's assets and liabilities are included in our balance sheets and its expenses in our statements of operations, less those amounts comprising the non-controlling interest. The consolidation of GBO did not have a material effect on our consolidated financial position or results of operations.
Operating and Capital Expenditure Requirements
We have not achieved profitability since our inception and we expect to continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. We expect our net cash expenditures in 2016 to decrease from 2015
due to a reduction in cash expenses related to administrative expenses and non-core clinical trials, which will be partially offset by an increase in cash expenditures related to our INSPIRE trial. In February 2016, we communicated to certain employees our plan of termination to reduce a number of positions as part of our ongoing commitment to reduce costs and conserve cash. We estimate the net reduction to be approximately 6 employees, which represents approximately 17 percent of our workforce. Affected employees have been offered severance pay in accordance with our policy or, if applicable, their employment agreements. As a result of the workforce reduction, we estimate that we will record in the first quarter of 2016, a one-time severance-related charge totaling approximately $2.8 million, which includes a non-cash charge of approximately $1.6 million related to the accelerated vesting of the outstanding stock options for certain of the affected employees. The severance-related charge that we expect to incur in connection with the workforce reduction is subject to a number of assumptions, and actual results may differ materially. We may also incur other charges or cash expenditures not currently contemplated due to events that may occur as a result of, or associated with, the workforce reduction.
We do not have the funding resources necessary to carry out all of our proposed operating activities. We will need to obtain additional financing in the future in order to fully fund our INSPIRE trial and to further develop rigosertib or any other product candidates through the regulatory approval process. Accordingly, we may delay or pause our planned clinical trials, including the INSPIRE trial, until we secure adequate additional funding. If we seek to proceed with a clinical trial without additional funding, we may receive questions or comments from the FDA, fail to obtain IRB approval, or find it more difficult to enroll patients in the trial. Additionally, we plan to scale down our operations in order to reduce spending on general and administrative functions, research and development, and other clinical trials.
We are exploring various dilutive and non-dilutive sources of funding, including equity and debt financings, strategic alliances, business development and other sources. However, we may not be able to obtain additional funding on favorable terms, if at all. If we are unable to secure adequate additional funding, we will continue to delay, scale-back or eliminate certain of our planned research, drug discovery and development activities and certain other aspects of our operations and our business until such time as we are successful in securing adequate additional funding. As a result, our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows may be materially and adversely affected. We will incur substantial costs beyond the present and planned clinical trials in order to file a New Drug Application (NDA) for rigosertib. The nature, design, size and cost of further studies will depend in large part on the outcome of preceding studies and discussions with regulators.
costs of pending or future legal proceedings, claims, lawsuits and investigations;
If we are unable to successfully raise sufficient additional capital, through future debt or equity financings, product sales, or through strategic and collaborative ventures with third parties, we will not have sufficient cash flows and liquidity to fund our planned business operations. In that event, we may be forced to limit many, if not all, of our programs and consider other means of creating value for our stockholders, such as licensing to others the development and commercialization of products that we consider valuable and would otherwise likely develop ourselves. If we are unable to raise the necessary capital, we may be forced to curtail all of our activities and, ultimately, potentially cease operations. Even if we are able to raise additional capital, such financings may only be available on unattractive terms, or could result in significant dilution of stockholders' interests. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to recoverability and classification of recorded asset amounts or the amounts and classification of liabilities that might be necessary should we be unable to continue in existence.
Please see "Risk Factors" for additional risks associated with our substantial capital requirements.
Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements
We do not have any off-balance sheet arrangements, as defined by applicable SEC regulations.
Segment Reporting
We view our operations and manage our business in one segment, which is the identification and development of oncology therapeutics.
In May 2014, the FASB issued guidance on revenue from contracts with customers that will supersede most current revenue recognition guidance. The underlying principle is that an entity will recognize revenue to depict the transfer of goods or services to customers at an amount that the entity expects to be entitled to in exchange for those goods or services. The guidance permits the use of either a retrospective or cumulative effect transition method. In July 2015, the FASB approved a one-year deferral of the effective date of the guidance to interim and annual periods beginning on or after December 15, 2017. Early adoption is permitted but not before the original effective date of December 15, 2016. We have not yet selected a transition method and are currently evaluating the impact of the amended guidance on our consolidated financial position, results of operations and related disclosures.
In August 2014, the FASB issued guidance on determining when and how to disclose going-concern uncertainties in the financial statements. The new standard requires management to perform
interim and annual assessments of an entity's ability to continue as a going concern within one year of the date the financial statements are issued. An entity must provide certain disclosures if conditions or events raise substantial doubt about the entity's ability to continue as a going concern. The guidance applies to all entities and is effective for annual periods ending after December 15, 2016, and interim periods thereafter, with early adoption permitted. We are evaluating the potential impact of the new guidance on our quarterly reporting process and our consolidated financial position, results of operations and related disclosures.
ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
The financial statements and supplementary data required by this item are listed in Item 15—"Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules" of this Annual Report.
ITEM 9. CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE
ITEM 9A. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management, with the participation of our President and Chief Executive Officer (our principal executive officer) and our Vice President, Financial Planning & Accounting and Chief Accounting Officer (our principal financial officer), evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2015 The term "disclosure controls and procedures," as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), means controls and other procedures of a company that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC's rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to the company's management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2015, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer concluded that, as of such date, disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.
Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
This Annual Report does not include an attestation report of our registered public accounting firm regarding internal control over financial reporting. Management's report was not subject to attestation by our registered public accounting firm pursuant to exemptions provided to issuers that are non-accelerated filers or qualify as an "emerging growth company," as defined in Section 2(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, or the Securities Act, as modified by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Management assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2015. In making this assessment, management used the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) in Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued in 2013. Based upon the assessments, management has concluded that as of December 31, 2015 our internal control over financial reporting was effective to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP.
Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
There has been no change in our internal control over financial reporting during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2015 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
ITEM 9B. OTHER INFORMATION
The names and biographies of our current directors are set forth below. We believe that all of our directors bring to our board executive leadership experience from their service as executives and/or directors of our Company and/or other entities.
Position(s) with Onconova Therapeutics, Inc.
Served as
Director From
Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D. 77 Director 2009
Jerome E. Groopman, M.D. 64 Director 2013
Michael B. Hoffman 65 Chairman of the Board of Directors 2002
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. 60 Director, President and Chief Executive Officer 1998
Viren Mehta 66 Director 2004
James J. Marino 65 Director 2015
E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D. 72 Director 1999
Anne M. VanLent 68 Director 2013
Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D. Dr. Bienen has served as a member of our board of directors since May 2009. He currently serves as the chairman of Rasmussen College, has served as the president emeritus of Northwestern University since August 2009 and served as the president of Northwestern University from 1995 to 2009. Dr. Bienen was the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University prior to his appointment at Northwestern. Dr. Bienen began his association with Princeton University in 1966, advancing from assistant professor to professor of politics and international affairs, and was then appointed the William Stewart Tod Professor of Politics and International Affairs in 1981 and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in 1985. Dr. Bienen has served as a director of the Grosvenor Registered Multi Strategy Fund (TI 1), LLC, the Grosvenor Registered Multi Strategy Fund (TI 2), LLC, the Grosvenor Registered Multi Strategy Fund (TE), LLC and the Grosvenor Registered Multi Strategy Master Fund, LLC since April 2011. Dr. Bienen serves on the board of directors of Ryan Specialty Group and previously served on the boards of directors of The Bear Stearns Companies Inc., until its purchase by JP Morgan Chase & Co. in 2008, SPSS Inc. from 2007 until 2009, when the company was sold to IBM Corporation, and Gleacher & Company, a publicly held investment banking firm, from May 2010 to April 2013. Dr. Bienen also currently chairs the advisory board of The Vistria Group, a private equity firm, and serves on the Chicago Board of Education. Dr. Bienen received his Bachelor's Degree with honors from Cornell University and both his Master's Degree and Ph.D., from the University of Chicago.
Our board of directors believes Dr. Bienen's perspective and experience as a director of a public company, as well as his educational background, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
Jerome E. Groopman, M.D. Dr. Groopman has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2013. Dr. Groopman has served as the Dina and Raphael Recanati Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School since January 1992. He has also served as Attending Hematologist/Oncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since July 1996. Dr. Groopman received an M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Columbia College.
Our board of directors believes Dr. Groopman's perspective and experience in the healthcare industry, as well as his educational background, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
Michael B. Hoffman. Mr. Hoffman has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2006 and as a member of our board of directors since December 2002. Since 2003, Mr. Hoffman has been a partner of Riverstone Holdings LLC, or Riverstone, where he is principally responsible for investments in power and renewable energy. Before joining Riverstone, Mr. Hoffman was senior managing director and head of the mergers and acquisitions advisory business of The Blackstone Group L.P., or Blackstone, where he also served on the firm's principal group investment committee as well as its executive committee. Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Hoffman was managing director and co-head of the mergers and acquisitions department at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. Mr. Hoffman currently serves as a director of Pattern Energy, Inc., Talen Energy Corporation, and the general partner of Enviva Partners. Mr. Hoffman also serves on the board of directors of QR Pharma and various private companies sponsored by Riverstone. His non-profit board affiliations include Rockefeller University. Mr. Hoffman received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from Northwestern University and his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
Our board of directors believes Mr. Hoffman's perspective and experience as an investor, as well as his educational background, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. Dr. Kumar is one of our co-founders, and is currently our President and Chief Executive Officer, a position he has held since 1998, as well as a member of our board of directors. Prior to our founding, Dr. Kumar held positions in research and development or management at Princeton University, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, or Bristol-Myers Squibb, DNX Corp. (later Nextran Corp., a subsidiary of Baxter International Inc.) and Kimeragen, Inc. (later ValiGen Inc.), a genomics company, where he was President of the Genomics and Transgenics Division. Dr. Kumar received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and trained at the National Cancer Institute. Additionally, Dr. Kumar received his B.Sc. and M.Sc., both with honors, in Microbiology from Panjab University.
Our board of directors believes Dr. Kumar's perspective and experience as our co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as his depth of operating and senior management experience in our industry, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
James J. Marino. Mr. Marino has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2015. Prior to July 2015, Mr. Marino was a Partner at the global law firm of Dechert LLP for 28 years, where he served as Managing Partner of the Princeton Office. Mr. Marino served as the outside counsel for Onconova from its inception through and including its initial public offering. Previously, he served on the board of directors of Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery, Inc. from 2000 to 2006 and has worked in advisory capacities and on the boards of multiple non-profit organizations, including Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Wake Forest University and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Mr. Marino received his B.A., J.D. and MBA from Rutgers University.
Our board of directors believes that Mr. Marino's perspective and experience advising Onconova and numerous other leading life science companies in connection with financings, acquisitions and strategic alliances, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
Viren Mehta. Dr. Mehta has served as a member of our board of directors since February 2004. Dr. Mehta has been a managing member of Mehta Partners since 1997. Mehta Partners provides strategic advisory services to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Prior to founding Mehta Partners, Dr. Mehta co-founded Mehta and Isaly in 1989, and prior to that was a part of the strategic planning team of the International Division at Merck & Co. Dr. Mehta earned a Doctor of Pharmacy at the University of Southern California, and an M.B.A. from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Our board of directors believes Dr. Mehta's perspective and experience in the life sciences industry as a biopharma fund manager, fund consultant and a strategic advisor to senior managers in the biopharma industry, as well as his educational background, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D. Dr. Reddy is one of our scientific founders and has served as a member of our board of directors since February 1999. Since March 2010, Dr. Reddy has served as a Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, or Mount Sinai and Director of the Experimental Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai. From 1992 to February 2010, Dr. Reddy served as a Professor and Director of the Fels Institute for Cancer Research of Temple University. He was the founder and co-editor of the international journal of cancer research, Oncogene, published by Nature Publishing Group. Dr. Reddy received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Osmania University.
Our board of directors believes Dr. Reddy's perspective and experience as our co-founder, his educational background, as well as his experience in research and product development, provide him with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
Anne M. VanLent. Ms. VanLent has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2013. Ms. VanLent has served as President of AMV Advisors, a personal consulting firm providing strategic and financial services to companies in the greater life sciences sector, since May 2008. Ms. VanLent has served as a director of Biota Pharmaceuticals, Inc. since May 2013, where she has also served as chair of the audit committee and as a member of the nominating and governance committee since May 2013 and lead independent director since November 2015; as a director and chair of the audit committee of Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. since April 2013 and a member of the compensation committee and the compliance committee since 2015; and as a director of Ocera Therapeutics, Inc. (formerly Tranzyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) since April 2011, where she has also served as chair of the nominating and governance committee since December 2013. From December 2004 to May 2013, Ms. Van Lent served as a director of Integra Life Sciences Holding Corporation, where she was a member of the audit committee from December 2004 to May 2013, serving as its chair from May 2006 to May 2012, and a member of the compensation committee from 2004 to 2006. Ms. VanLent also served as a director of Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co., from 1997 to 2010, where she was chair of the audit committee from 2002 to 2010 and chair of the nomination and governance committee in 2010. Ms. VanLent received a B.A. degree in Physics from Mount Holyoke College.
Our board of directors believes that Ms. VanLent's extensive leadership and finance experience, and her extensive experience serving as a board member, audit committee member and audit committee chair of public companies in the life sciences industry, provide her with the qualifications and skills to serve as a director.
The following table sets forth certain information regarding our executive officers who are not also directors.
Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D. 65 Chief Medical Officer, and Senior Vice President, Research and Development
Manoj Maniar, Ph.D. 53 Senior Vice President, Product Development
Mark P. Guerin 47 Vice President—Financial Planning & Accounting, and Chief Accounting Officer
Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D. Dr. Fruchtman has served as our Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Research and Development since January 2015. Dr. Fruchtman is a board certified hematologist with extensive industry experience in clinical research for myelodysplastic syndromes, hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. From June 2014 to January 2015, Dr. Fruchtman was a hematology oncology drug development consultant. From September 2013 to June 2014, Dr. Fruchtman served as Chief Medical Officer at Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. From July 2011 to July 2013, Dr. Fruchtman was the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Research and Regulatory Affairs at Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. From February 2011 to June 2011, he was Vice President of Research at Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. From February 2009 to January 2011, Dr. Fruchtman was Vice President, Clinical Research at Allos Therpeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. Prior to this, Dr. Fruchtman held senior positions at Novartis and Ortho Biotech Products. Dr. Fruchtman was on the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and was the Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation and Myeloproliferative Disorder Programs at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Dr. Fruchtman received his medical degree from New York Medical College and his B.A. from Cornell University.
Mark P. Guerin Mr. Guerin has served as Vice President—Financial Planning & Accounting, and Chief Accounting Officer since May 2014, and as Vice President—Financial Planning & Accounting from September 2013 to May 2014. He has also served as our principal financial officer since Februaury 12, 2016. Between January 2012 and September 2013, Mr. Guerin was self-employed as a financial and accounting consultant. For more than six years, through December 2011, Mr. Guerin was employed by CardioKine, Inc., serving as Chief Financial Officer from mid-2009 through December 2011. Mr. Guerin received his B.A. in Accounting from DeSales University.
Manoj Maniar, Ph.D. Dr. Maniar has served as our Senior Vice President, Product Development since August 2005. Prior to joining us, Dr. Maniar was with SRI International, Inc., a nonprofit research institute, where he served as Senior Director, Formulations and Drug Delivery. Dr. Maniar received his B.S. in Pharmacy from Bombay College of Pharmacy and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Connecticut.
Our board of directors currently consists of eight members. Our board of directors has undertaken a review of the independence of our directors and has determined that all directors except Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. and E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D. are independent within the meaning of Section 5605(a)(2) of the NASDAQ Stock Market listing rules and Rule 10A-3 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Our tenth amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that our board of directors will consist of not less than three nor more than 11 directors, as such number of directors may from time to time be fixed by our board of directors. Each director shall be elected to the board to hold office until his or her successor is elected and qualified at the next annual meeting of stockholders.
Board Leadership Structure and Role in Risk Oversight
Our board of directors recognizes the time, effort and energy that the chief executive officer is required to devote to his position in the current business environment, as well as the commitment required to serve as our chairman, particularly as the board of directors' oversight responsibilities continue to grow. We believe that, at present, separating these positions allows our chief executive officer to focus on our day-to-day business, while allowing our chairman to lead the board of directors in its fundamental role of providing advice to, and independent oversight of, management. Our board of directors also believes that this structure ensures a greater role for the independent directors in the
oversight of our company and active participation of the independent directors in setting agendas and establishing priorities and procedures for the work of our board of directors.
While our bylaws do not require that our chairman and chief executive officer positions be separate, our board of directors believes that having separate positions is the appropriate leadership structure for us at this time and demonstrates our commitment to good corporate governance.
Risk is inherent with every business, and how well a business manages risk can ultimately determine its success. We face a number of risks, including but not limited to risks relating to limited cash resources, need to raise additional funds, product candidate development, technological uncertainty, dependence on collaborative partners and other third parties, uncertainty regarding patents and proprietary rights, comprehensive government regulations, having no commercial manufacturing experience, marketing or sales capability or experience and dependence on key personnel. Management is responsible for the day-to-day management of risks we face, while our board of directors, as a whole and through its committees, has responsibility for the oversight of risk management. In its risk oversight role, our board of directors has the responsibility to satisfy itself that the risk management processes designed and implemented by management are adequate and functioning as designed. The board of directors periodically consults with management regarding the Company's risks.
Our board of directors is actively involved in oversight of risks that could affect us. This oversight is conducted primarily through the audit committee of our board of directors, but the full board of directors has retained responsibility for general oversight of risks.
Our board of directors has established three standing committees: the audit committee, the compensation committee and the nominating and corporate governance committee. The current members of our audit committee are Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D., James J. Marino, Viren Mehta and Anne M. VanLent, with Anne M. VanLent serving as chairperson. The current members of our compensation committee are Michael B. Hoffman, Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D., James J. Marino and Anne M. VanLent, with Michael B. Hoffman serving as chairperson. The current members of our nominating and corporate governance committee are Michael B. Hoffman, Viren Mehta and Jerome E. Groopman, M.D., with Viren Mehta serving as chairperson.
Our board of directors has determined that Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D., James J. Marino,Viren Mehta and Anne M. VanLent meet the additional test for independence for audit committee members imposed by Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") regulations and Section 5605(c)(2)(A) of the NASDAQ Stock Market listing rules and that Michael B. Hoffman, Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D, James J. Marino and Anne M. VanLent meet the additional test for independence for compensation committee members imposed by Section 5605(d)(2)(A) of the NASDAQ Stock Market listing rules.
The primary purpose of our audit committee is to assist the board of directors in the oversight of the integrity of our accounting and financial reporting process, the audits of our consolidated financial statements, and our compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Our audit committee met five times during fiscal 2015. The functions of our audit committee include, among other things:
hiring the independent registered public accounting firm to conduct the annual audit of our consolidated financial statements and monitoring its independence and performance;
reviewing and approving the planned scope of the annual audit and the results of the annual audit;
pre-approving all audit services and permissible non-audit services provided by our independent registered public accounting firm;
reviewing the significant accounting and reporting principles to understand their impact on our consolidated financial statements;
reviewing our internal financial, operating and accounting controls with management, our independent registered public accounting firm and our internal audit provider;
reviewing with management and our independent registered public accounting firm, as appropriate, our financial reports, earnings announcements and our compliance with legal and regulatory requirements;
reviewing potential conflicts of interest under and violations of our code of conduct;
establishing procedures for the treatment of complaints received by us regarding accounting, internal accounting controls or auditing matters and confidential submissions by our employees of concerns regarding questionable accounting or auditing matters;
reviewing and approving related-party transactions; and
reviewing and evaluating, at least annually, our audit committee's charter.
With respect to reviewing and approving related-party transactions, our audit committee reviews related-party transactions for potential conflicts of interests or other improprieties. Under SEC rules, related-party transactions are those transactions to which we are or may be a party in which the amount involved exceeds the lesser of $120,000 or 1% of total assets, and in which any of our directors or executive officers or any other related person had or will have a direct or indirect material interest, excluding, among other things, compensation arrangements with respect to employment and board membership. Our audit committee could approve a related-party transaction if it determines that the transaction is in our best interests. Our directors are required to disclose to this committee or the full board of directors any potential conflict of interest, or personal interest in a transaction that our board is considering. Our executive officers are required to disclose any related-party transaction to the audit committee. We also poll our directors on an annual basis with respect to related-party transactions and their service as an officer or director of other entities. Any director involved in a related-party transaction that is being reviewed or approved must recuse himself or herself from participation in any related deliberation or decision. Whenever possible, the transaction should be approved in advance and if not approved in advance, must be submitted for ratification as promptly as practical.
The financial literacy requirements of the SEC require that each member of our audit committee be able to read and understand fundamental financial statements. In addition, at least one member of our audit committee must qualify as an audit committee financial expert, as defined in Item 407(d)(5) of Regulation S-K promulgated under the Securities Act, and have financial sophistication in accordance with the NASDAQ Stock Market listing rules. Our board of directors has determined that Anne M. VanLent qualifies as an audit committee financial expert.
Both our independent registered public accounting firm and management periodically will meet privately with our audit committee.
The board of directors has adopted a charter for the audit committee, which is available in the corporate governance section of our website at http://www.onconova.com.
The primary purpose of our compensation committee is to assist our board of directors in exercising its responsibilities relating to compensation of our executive officers and employees and to administer our equity compensation and other benefit plans. In carrying out these responsibilities, this
committee reviews all components of executive officer and employee compensation for consistency with its compensation philosophy, as in effect from time to time. Our compensation committee met ten times during fiscal 2015. The functions of our compensation committee include, among other things:
designing and implementing competitive compensation, severance and change in control policies to attract and retain key personnel;
reviewing and formulating policy and determining the compensation of our executive officers and employees;
reviewing and recommending to our board of directors the compensation of our non-employee directors;
reviewing and evaluating our compensation risk policies and procedures;
administering our equity incentive plans and granting equity awards to our employees, consultants and directors under these plans;
administering our performance bonus plans and granting bonus opportunities to our employees, consultants and non-employee directors under these plans;
if required from time to time, preparing the executive officer compensation information required to be included in our annual proxy statement;
engaging compensation consultants or other advisors it deems appropriate to assist with its duties; and
reviewing and evaluating, at least annually, our compensation committee's charter.
The board of directors has adopted a charter for the compensation committee, which is available in the corporate governance section of our website at http://www.onconova.com.
During 2014 and 2015, the compensation committee has utilized Radford ("Radford"), an Aon Hewitt company, as its executive compensation consultant. Radford reports directly to the compensation committee. The compensation committee may replace Radford or hire additional consultants at any time. Upon request by the compensation committee or its chair, a representative of Radford attends meetings of the compensation committee and is available to discuss compensation issues in between meetings.
In connection with its work for the compensation committee, Radford provided various executive compensation services to the compensation committee pursuant to a written consulting agreement. Generally, these services included advising the compensation committee on the principal aspects of our executive compensation program and evolving industry practices and providing market information and analysis regarding the competitiveness of our program design and our award values in relation to performance.
The compensation committee retains sole authority to hire any compensation consultant, approve such consultant's compensation, determine the nature and scope of its services, evaluate its performance, and terminate its engagement. We assessed the independence of Radford pursuant to SEC rules and determined that no known conflict of interest existed that would prevent Radford from serving as an independent consultant to the compensation committee.
The compensation committee has reviewed our compensation policies and practices for all employees, including our named executive officers, as they relate to risk management practices and risk-taking incentives, and has determined that there are no risks arising from these policies and practices that are reasonably likely to have a material adverse effect on us.
Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee
The primary purpose of our nominating and corporate governance committee is to assist our board of directors in promoting the best interest of our company and our stockholders through the implementation of sound corporate governance principles and practices. Our nominating and corporate governance committee met two times during fiscal 2015. The functions of our nominating and corporate governance committee include, among other things:
identifying, reviewing and evaluating candidates to serve on our board of directors;
determining the minimum qualifications for service on our board of directors;
developing and recommending to our board an annual self-evaluation process for our board of directors and overseeing the annual self-evaluation process;
developing, as appropriate, a set of corporate governance principles, and reviewing and recommending to our board of directors any changes to such principles; and
periodically reviewing and evaluating our nominating and corporate governance committee's charter.
The board of directors has adopted a charter for the nominating and corporate governance committee, which is available in the corporate governance section of our website at http://www.onconova.com.
Code of Conduct for Employees, Executive Officers and Directors
We have adopted a code of conduct applicable to all of our employees, executive officers and directors. The code of conduct is available in the corporate governance section of our website at http://www.onconova.com.
The audit committee of our board of directors is responsible for overseeing the code of conduct and must approve any waivers of the code of conduct for employees, executive officers or directors.
Meetings of the Board of Directors
The board of directors held 20 meetings during fiscal 2015. During fiscal 2015, each director attended at least 75 percent of the aggregate of the total number of meetings of the board of directors and the committees on which such director served.
Directors are encouraged, but not required, to attend the annual meeting of stockholders. Michael B. Hoffman, Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D., E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D., and Anne M. VanLent attended the 2015 annual meeting of stockholders.
Director Nomination Process
The process followed by our nominating and corporate governance committee to identify and evaluate director candidates includes requests to board members and others for recommendations, meetings from time to time to evaluate biographical information and background material relating to potential candidates and interviews of selected candidates by members of the nominating and corporate governance committee and the board of directors.
In determining whether to recommend any particular candidate for inclusion in the board of director's slate of recommended director nominees, our nominating and corporate governance committee considers the composition of the board of directors with respect to depth of experience, balance of professional interests, required expertise and other factors. The nominating and corporate governance committee considers the value of diversity when recommending candidates. The committee
views diversity broadly to include diversity of experience, skills and viewpoint. The nominating and corporate governance committee does not assign specific weights to particular criteria and no particular criterion is a prerequisite for each prospective nominee. Our board of directors believe that the backgrounds and qualifications of its directors, considered as a group, should provide a composite mix of experience, knowledge and abilities that will allow it to fulfill its responsibilities.
Stockholders may recommend individuals to our nominating and corporate governance committee for consideration as potential director candidates. The nominating and corporate governance committee will evaluate stockholder-recommended candidates by following the same process and applying the same criteria as it follows for candidates submitted by others.
Stockholders may directly nominate a person for election to our board of directors by complying with the procedures set forth in Section 2.2(A) of our bylaws, and with the rules and regulations of the SEC. Under our bylaws, only persons nominated in accordance with the procedures set forth in the bylaws will be eligible to serve as directors. In order to nominate a candidate for service as a director, you must be a stockholder at the time you give the board of directors notice of your nomination, and you must be entitled to vote for the election of directors at the meeting at which your nominee will be considered. In addition, the stockholder must have given timely notice in writing to our Secretary. To be timely, a stockholder's notice must be delivered to the Secretary at our principal executive offices not later than the 90th day, nor earlier than the 120th day, prior to the first anniversary of the prior year's annual meeting of stockholders (provided, however, that in the event that the date of the annual meeting is more than 30 days before or 60 days after such anniversary date, notice by the stockholder must be delivered no earlier than the 120th day prior to the annual meeting and no later than the later of the 90th day prior to such annual meeting or the 10th day following the day on which public announcement of the date of such annual meeting is first made by us). Your notice must set forth (i) the name, age, business address and, if known, residence address of the nominee, (ii) the principal occupation or employment of the nominee, (iii) the class and number of shares of stock of the Company directly or indirectly, owned beneficially or of record by the nominee, (iv) a description of all arrangements or understandings between you and the nominee and any other person or persons (naming such person or persons) pursuant to which the nomination is to be made by you, and (v) all other information relating to the nominee that is required to be disclosed in solicitations of proxies for the election of directors in an election contest, or is otherwise required, in each case, pursuant to Section 14 of the Exchange Act and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder. Nominations for director must be accompanied by the nominee's written consent to being named in the proxy statement as a nominee and to serving as a director if elected.
Stockholder Communications with the Board
You can contact our board of directors to provide comments, to report concerns, or to ask a question, at the following address.
375 Pheasant Run
You may submit your concern anonymously or confidentially by postal mail. You may also indicate whether you are a stockholder, customer, supplier, or other interested party.
Communications are distributed to our board of directors, or to any individual directors, as appropriate, depending on the facts and circumstances outlined in the communication.
Pursuant to Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act and the rules issued thereunder, our executive officers, directors and beneficial owners of more than ten percent of our common stock are required to file with the SEC reports of holdings of and transactions in our securities. Copies of such reports are required to be furnished to us. Based solely on a review of the copies of such reports furnished to us, or written representations that no other reports were required, we believe that all required reports were filed in fiscal 2015 in a timely manner, except that, one Form 4 for each of our executive officers subject to Section 16(a) reporting: Ajay Bansal, Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D., Mark P. Guerin, Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D., and Manoj Manair, Ph.D., related to a grant of stock options on September 25, 2015, and one Form 3 for Manoj Manair, Ph.D related to his initial Section 16 (a) filing upon becoming an executive officer on April 27, 2015, were filed late.
Overview of Executive Compensation
The compensation committee of our board of directors is responsible for overseeing the compensation of all of our executive officers. In this capacity, our compensation committee annually reviews and approves the compensation of our chief executive officer and other executive officers, including such goals and objectives relevant to the executive officers' compensation that the committee, in its discretion, determines are appropriate, evaluates their performance in light of those goals and objectives, and sets their compensation based on this evaluation.
2015 Summary Compensation Table
The following table sets forth information for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 concerning compensation of our principal executive officer and the two most highly compensated executive officers during 2015. We refer to these three executive officers as our "named executive officers."
($)(1)
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. 2015 542,810 — 224,056 12,960 779,826
President and Chief Executive Officer 2014 525,000 188,409 484,961 18,804 1,217,174
Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Research and Development(4)
Manoj Maniar, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Product 2014 356,860 108,664 166,272 30,589 662,385
Represents discretionary annual bonus amounts paid.
The entries in the option awards column reflect the grant date fair value of the awards, as calculated for financial statement reporting purposes in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) No. 718, Compensation—Stock Compensation. The option values were calculated using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. These amounts do not represent the actual value realized by the named executive officers. See Note 8 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2014 for a discussion of the relevant assumptions used to determine the valuation of our stock options for accounting purposes.
Includes amounts paid for insurance premiums on behalf of the named executive officer and matching funds paid pursuant to our 401(k) Plan.
Dr. Fruchtman was not a named executive officer in fiscal 2014.
We have entered into employment agreements with each of our named executive officers, and the compensation of our named executive officers is determined, in large part, by the terms of those employment agreements. Following are descriptions of the material terms of each named executive officer's employment agreement.
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D.
We entered into an employment agreement with Dr. Kumar on July 1, 2015, which supersedes any prior employment agreements. The employment agreement continues indefinitely, unless terminated in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
The employment agreement provided for an initial base salary of $543,375, subject to adjustment upon annual review by our board of directors, and an annual bonus of up to 55% of such base salary, payable upon our achievement of revenue or profit objectives, specific business plan goals or other performance milestones mutually agreed to by Dr. Kumar and our board of directors, provided that Dr. Kumar remain employed by us throughout the performance year. The bonus may be paid in the form of cash, stock options, shares of our Common Stock, or a combination thereof, at our compensation committee's discretion. Dr. Kumar may also be entitled to additional compensation in recognition of extraordinary contributions, at the sole discretion of our compensation committee. On February 12, 2016, we entered into a letter agreement with Dr. Kumar pursuant to which Dr. Kumar agreed to a voluntary reduction in his base salary from $543,375 to $407,531, effective as of January 1, 2016. For purposes of severance and other benefits calculated based upon base salary, however, Dr. Kumar's base salary will be deemed to remain at $543,375.
Dr. Kumar is entitled to participate in all of our employee benefit plans and programs that are made generally available from time to time to our executive officers and is entitled to vacation benefits. Pursuant to his employment agreement, Dr. Kumar is entitled to term life insurance coverage in a face amount that is not less than his base salary, a reasonable transportation allowance if we relocate our research facility more than 40 miles from its present location, and up to $10,000 annually for educational programs related to the performance of his duties. If Dr. Kumar dies during his employment, we will be entitled to a $1 million death benefit under a "key man" life insurance policy. Dr. Kumar's employment agreement contains non-solicitation, non-competition, confidentiality and inventions assignment provisions that, among other things, prevent him from competing with us during the term of his employment and for a specified time thereafter.
If Dr. Kumar's employment is terminated due to his death, disability, by us for "cause" or by Dr. Kumar without "good reason" during the term of his employment agreement, we will pay to Dr. Kumar or his spouse or estate the balance of his accrued and unpaid salary, unreimbursed expenses, and unused accrued vacation time through the termination date.
If Dr. Kumar's employment is terminated by us without "cause" or by Dr. Kumar for "good reason," other than during a change in control protection period, Dr. Kumar will be entitled to receive severance equal to his current base salary and target bonus for the fiscal year during which his employment ceases. If the termination is during a change in control protection period, Dr. Kumar will be entitled to receive severance equal to two times the sum of his current base salary and target bonus for the fiscal year during which his employment ceases, less any severance previously paid. A change in control protection period commences three months prior to and ends twelve months following a change
in control. The Company will also reimburse Dr. Kumar for a portion of his medical insurance costs and all of Dr. Kumar's incentive stock options that are unvested as of the date of such termination would fully vest as of the date of termination.
Steven Fruchtman, M.D.
We entered into an employment agreement with Dr. Fruchtman on January 12, 2015. The employment agreement provides for an initial term of two years, unless extended by mutual agreement of the parties or sooner terminated in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
The employment agreement provides for an initial base salary of $420,000, subject to adjustment upon annual review, and subject to the compensation committee's sole discretion, an annual bonus, based on the performance of Dr. Fruchtman and the Company, of up to 40% of such base salary. The bonus may be paid in the form of cash, stock options, shares of our Common Stock, or a combination thereof, at our compensation committee's discretion.
In accordance with the agreement, upon hiring, Dr. Fruchtman received 120,000 stock options that vest proportionately over four years, a sign-on bonus of $25,000 and an advance against his annual bonus of $25,000.
Dr. Fruchtman is entitled to participate in all of our employee benefit plans and programs that are made generally available from time to time to our executive officers and is entitled to vacation benefits. Dr. Fruchtman's employment agreement contains non-solicitation, non-competition, confidentiality and inventions assignment provisions that, among other things, prevent him from competing with us during the term of his employment and for a specified time thereafter. The Company will reimburse Dr. Fruchtman for reasonable expenses including certain commuting costs to the Company's offices.
If Dr. Fruchtman's employment is terminated due to his death, disability, by us for "cause" or by Dr. Fruchtman without "good reason" during the term of his employment agreement, we will pay to Dr. Fruchtman or his spouse or estate the balance of his accrued and unpaid salary, unreimbursed expenses, and unused accrued vacation time through the termination date.
If Dr. Fruchtman's employment is terminated by us without "cause", by Dr. Fruchtman for "good reason," or at the expiration of the term of the agreement, Dr. Fruchtman will be entitled to payments equal to six months base salary and also to continued health benefits for six months. All incentive stock options that are unvested as of the date of such termination would fully vest as of the date of termination.
We entered into an employment agreement with Dr. Manair on July 1, 2015, which supersedes any prior employment agreements. The employment agreement continues indefinitely, unless terminated in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
The employment agreement provides for an initial base salary of $371,135, subject to adjustment upon annual review by our board of directors, and subject to the compensation committee's sole discretion, an annual bonus, based on the performance of Dr. Manair and the Company, of up to 40% of such base salary. The bonus may be paid in the form of cash, stock options, shares of our Common Stock, or a combination thereof, at our compensation committee's discretion.
Dr. Manair is entitled to participate in all of our employee benefit plans and programs that are made generally available from time to time to our executive officers and is entitled to vacation benefits. Dr. Manair's employment agreement contains non-solicitation, non-competition, confidentiality and inventions assignment provisions that, among other things, prevent him from competing with us during the term of his employment and for a specified time thereafter.
If Dr. Manair's employment is terminated due to his death, disability, by us for "cause" or by Dr. Manair without "good reason" during the term of his employment agreement, we will pay to Dr. Manair or his spouse or estate the balance of his accrued and unpaid salary, unreimbursed expenses, and unused accrued vacation time through the termination date.
If Dr. Manair's employment is terminated by us without "cause" or by Dr. Manair for "good reason," other than during a change in control protection period, Dr. Manair will be entitled to receive severance equal to nine-twelfths of the sum of his current base salary and target bonus for the fiscal year during which his employment ceases. If the termination is during a change in control protection period, Dr. Manair will be entitled to receive severance equal to the sum of his current base salary and target bonus for the fiscal year during which his employment ceases. A change in control protection period is the twelve months following a change in control. The Company will also reimburse Dr. Manair for a portion of his medical insurance costs and all of Dr. Manair's incentive stock options that are unvested as of the date of such termination would fully vest as of the date of termination.
Stock Option and Other Compensation Plans
We maintain our 2013 Equity Compensation Plan for the purpose of attracting key employees, directors and consultants, inducing them to remain with us and encouraging them to increase their efforts to make our business more successful. The plan provides for awards of stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, restricted stock units, deferred shares and other equity-based awards.
The following table contains certain information regarding equity awards held by the named executive officers as of December 31, 2015:
Outstanding Equity Awards at 2015 Fiscal Year-End
(#) Exercisable
(#) Unexercisable
Ramesh Kumar 16,739 — 6.00 4/7/2017
18,754 — 5.76 3/17/2020
52,513 — 6.13 12/10/2020
10,335 — 6.13 12/5/2021
93,773 — 13.28 12/18/2022
70,315 (1) 23,458 13.28 12/18/2022
100,000 — 15.00 7/25/2023
3,018 (2) 1,982 15.00 7/25/2023
43,750 (3) 131,250 3.98 12/18/2024
14,583 (3) 72,917 2.32 4/16/2025
5,468 (3) 82,032 1.48 9/25/2025
Steven Fruchtman
Manoj Maniar
7,501 — 6.13 12/10/2020
3,780 — 6.13 12/5/2021
22,501 (1) 7,506 13.28 12/18/2022
15,000 (3) 45,000 3.98 12/18/2024
25% of the total shares underlying this option vested on December 18, 2013. The remaining shares vest 1/36th monthly over 36 months thereafter, subject to continued service to us through each vesting date.
25% of the total shares underlying this option will vest on July 25, 2014. The remaining shares vest 1/36th monthly over 36 months thereafter, subject to continued service to us through each vesting date.
Shares vest in equal monthly installments over four years, 1/48th per month. The first shares vest one month after the date of grant.
Potential Payments Upon Termination of Employment or Change in Control
As discussed under the caption "—Employment Agreements" above, we have agreements with our named executive officers pursuant to which they will receive severance payments upon certain termination events. The information below describes certain compensation that would be available under our existing plans and arrangements if (i) the named executive officer was terminated as of December 31, 2015 or (ii) if a Change in Control, as defined herein, occurred on December 31, 2015 and the named executive officer's employment had been subsequently terminated on the same date.
Acceleration of Equity Awards
Pursuant to the terms of each named executive officer's option agreements, in the event of a "Change in Control" that occurs during any time prior to such named executive officer's Termination of Service (as such terms are defined in our 2013 Equity Compensation Plan) with us, all stock options granted pursuant to such option agreement shall fully vest.
Termination Other than for Cause, Death or Disability; Resignation for Good Reason
The payments and benefits to which each named executive officer would be entitled in the event the named executive officer's employment is terminated for any reason other than for cause, death, or disability, or if the named executive officer resigns for good reason, whether or not following a "change in control" is described above.
The following table summarizes compensation paid to our non-employee directors in fiscal 2015.
2015 Director Compensation
Paid in Cash ($)
Awards ($)(1)
Compensation ($)
Total ($)
Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D. 41,000 16,977 — 57,977
Jerome E. Groopman, M.D. 33,000 16,977 — 49,977
Michael B. Hoffman 68,000 22,070 — 90,070
James J. Marino 20,250 46,888 — 67,138
Viren Mehta 45,000 16,977 — 61,977
E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D. 30,000 16,977 196,526 (2) 243,503
Anne M. VanLent 56,000 16,977 — 72,977
Represents the fair value of the shares and options on the date of grant, calculated in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) No. 718, Compensation—Stock Compensation (ASC 718).
Represents consulting fees paid to Dr. Reddy. See "Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions."
At December 31, 2015, the aggregate number of outstanding stock option awards held by each non-employee director was: Dr. Bienen—67,803; Dr. Groopman—94,252; Mr. Hoffman—222,794; Mr. Marino—30,000; Dr. Mehta—30,000; Dr. Reddy—48,754; and Ms. VanLent—50,000.
In June 2013, our board of directors approved a non-employee director compensation policy, which became effective for all non-employee directors in July 2013. In accordance with this policy, each
non-employee director receives an annual base retainer of $30,000. In addition, our non-employee directors receive the following cash compensation for board services, as applicable:
the chairman of our board of directors receives an additional annual retainer of $20,000;
each member of our audit, compensation and nominating and corporate governance committees receives an additional retainer of $6,000, $5,000 and $3,000, respectively; and
each chairperson of our audit, compensation and nominating and corporate governance committees receives an additional annual retainer of $15,000, $10,000 and $6,000, respectively, in addition to the retainer received for service as a member of such committee.
All amounts are paid in quarterly installments.
In addition, newly appointed non-employee directors receive a one-time initial award of options to purchase 20,000 shares of our common stock, which vests annually over a three-year period subject to the director's continued service on the board of directors. Thereafter, each non-employee director receives an annual award of options to purchase 10,000 shares of our common stock, which vests monthly over a twelve-month period subject to the director's continued service on the board of directors. The chairman of our board of directors additionally receives an annual award of options to purchase 3,000 shares of our common stock, which vests monthly over a twelve-month period subject to the director's continued service on the board of directors.
All of our directors are eligible to receive additional discretionary awards under our 2013 Equity Compensation Plan, provided that non-employee directors may not receive incentive stock options.
We reimburse each non-employee director for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in connection with attending our board of directors and committee meetings. Compensation for our directors, including cash and equity compensation, is determined, and remains subject to adjustment, by our board of directors.
The following table summarizes the total number of outstanding options and shares available for other future issuances of options under all of our equity compensation plans as of December 31, 2015. All of the outstanding awards listed below were granted under our 2013 Equity Compensation Plan. See "Stock Option and Other Compensation Plans—2013 Equity Compensation Plan" above for a summary of the 2013 Equity Compensation Plan.
Number of Shares to
be Issued Upon
Outstanding Options,
Warrants and Rights
Weighted-Average
Exercise Price of
Under the Equity
(Excluding Shares in
First Column)
Equity compensation plans approved by stockholders 5,157,602 $ 8.56 1,354,133
Equity compensation plans not approved by stockholders — — —
In accordance with the terms of the 2013 Equity Compensation Plan, on January 1, 2016, the maximum aggregate number of shares of our common stock that may be issued under the plan was automatically increased by 1,018,567 shares, such that immediately after such increase the number of shares remaining available for future issuance under the plan was 2,372,700.
The following table sets forth certain information regarding the beneficial ownership of our common stock as of March 15, 2016 by (a) each person known by us to be the beneficial owner of more than 5% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, (b) each named executive officer identified in Part III, Item 11 of this Annual Report, (c) each of our directors, and (d) all of our executive officers and directors as a group.
The percentage of common stock outstanding is based on 27,401,035 shares of our Common Stock outstanding on March 15, 2016. For purposes of the table below, and in accordance with the rules of the SEC, we deem shares of common stock subject to options that are currently exercisable or exercisable within sixty days of March 15, 2016 to be outstanding and to be beneficially owned by the person holding the options for the purpose of computing the percentage ownership of that person, but we do not treat them as outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage ownership of any other person. Except as otherwise noted, each of the persons or entities in this table has sole voting and investing power with respect to all of the shares of common stock beneficially owned by him, her or it, subject to community property laws, where applicable. Except as otherwise noted below, the street
address of each beneficial owner is c/o Onconova Therapeutics, Inc., 375 Pheasant Run, Newtown, PA 18940.
Name and Address of Beneficial Owner
Beneficially Owned
Percentage of Shares
5% or greater stockholders:
The Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013
Descendants Trust
712 Fifth Avenue, 51st Fl.
New York, NY 10019 4,518,275 16.5 %
Michael B. Hoffman(1)
(Includes The Michael and Jane
Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust)
712 Fifth Avenue, 51st Fl
Baxalta GmbH(2)
Thurgauerstrasse 130
Glattpark (Opfikon) Switzerland 8152 2,603,295 9.5 %
Frigate Ventures LP(3)
5950 Berkshire Lane, Suite 210
Dallas, TX 75225 1,936,842 7.1 %
E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D.(4)
Other Directors, Director Nominees and Named Executive Officers:
Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D.(5) 81,071 *
Jerome E. Groopman, M.D.(6) 80,749 *
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D.(7) 935,578 3.3 %
Manoj Maniar, Ph.D.(8) 211,859 *
James J. Marino * *
Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D.(9) 85,859 *
Viren Mehta(10) 173,331 *
Anne M. VanLent(11) 41,533 *
All current executive officers, directors and director nominees as a group (11 persons)(12)
Represents a beneficial ownership of less than one percent of our outstanding Common Stock.
Includes (i) 4,518,275 shares of Common Stock held by the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust of which Mr. Hoffman is donor, (ii) 84,530 shares of Common Stock held by the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust (Non-GST Exempt Trust) of which Mr. Hoffman is donor and (iii) 220,627 shares of Common Stock subject to outstanding options that are exercisable within 60 days of March 15, 2016. Mr. Hoffman has no voting or dispositive power with regard to any of the shares held by the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust and the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust (Non-GST Exempt Trust). A.J. Agarwal and Jane Hoffman, Mr. Hoffman's spouse, as trustees, have voting and dispositive power with regard to the shares held by the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust and the Michael and Jane Hoffman 2013 Descendants Trust (Non-GST Exempt Trust).
The shares are owned directly by Baxalta GmbH, which is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Baxalta Incorporated, and as such Baxalta Incorporated is an indirect beneficial owner of the shares.
Based on a Schedule 13G filed with the SEC on January 13, 2016. The Schedule 13G was filed on behalf of Frigate Ventures LP (d/b/a Anson Group), a Texas limited partnership ("Frigate"), Admiralty Advisors LLC, a Texas limited liability company ("Admiralty"), Mr. Bruce R. Winson, the principal of Frigate and Admiralty, M5V Advisors Inc. (d/b/a Anson Group Canada), an Ontario, Canada corporation ("M5V"), Mr. Adam Spears, a director of M5V, and Mr. Moez Kassam, a director of M5V. The shares were purchased by a private fund to which Frigate and M5V serve as co-investment advisors (the "Fund"). Frigate and M5V serve as co-investment advisors to the Fund and may direct the vote and disposition of the 1,936,842 shares of Common Stock held by the Fund. As the general partner of Frigate, Admiralty may direct the vote and disposition of the 1,936,842 shares of Common Stock held by the Fund. As the principal of Frigate and Admiralty, Mr. Winson may direct the vote and disposition of the 1,936,842 shares of Common Stock held by the Fund. As directors of M5V, Mr. Spears and Mr. Kassam may each direct the vote and disposition of the 1,936,842 shares of Common Stock held by the Fund.
Includes 47,087 shares of Common Stock issuable upon the exercise of options that are currently exercisable or exercisable within sixty days of March 15, 2016.
Includes (i) 150,037 shares of Common Stock held by the Ramesh Kumar 2012 Trust and (ii) 659,078 shares of Common Stock subject to outstanding options that are exercisable within 60 days of March 15, 2016. Dr. Kumar has voting and dispositive power with regard to the shares held by the Ramesh Kumar 2012 Trust.
Includes 211,859 shares of Common Stock issuable upon the exercise of options that are currently exercisable or exercisable within sixty days of March 15, 2016.
Includes (i) 28,438 shares of Common Stock held jointly with Dr. Mehta's spouse, (ii) 8,056 shares of Common Stock held by Mehta Partners, LLC, (iii) 1,733 shares of Common Stock held by Mehta Partners, LLC FBO Jean Marie Kiss IRA, (iv) 8,295 shares of Common Stock held by Viram Foundation and (v) 28,333 shares of Common Stock subject to outstanding options that are exercisable within 60 days of March 15, 2016. Dr. Mehta, as managing member, has voting and dispositive power with regard to the shares held by Mehta Partners, LLC. Dr. Mehta, as trustee, has voting and dispositive power with regard to the shares held by Mehta Partners, LLC FBO Jean Marie Kiss IRA. Dr. Mehta, as trustee has voting and dispositive power with regard to the shares held by Viram Foundation.
Includes 1,503,840 shares of Common Stock issuable upon the exercise of options that are currently exercisable or exercisable within sixty days of March 15, 2016.
Review and Approval of Related Person Transactions
The audit committee of our board of directors is charged with the responsibility of reviewing and approving all related person transactions (as defined in SEC regulations), and periodically reassessing any related person transaction that we enter to ensure continued appropriateness. This responsibility is set forth in our audit committee charter. A related party transaction will only be approved if the audit committee determines that the transaction is in the best interests of the Company. If a director is involved in the transaction, he or she will recuse himself or herself from all decisions regarding the transaction.
The following is a description of transactions during fiscal 2015, to which we have been a party, in which the amount involved in the transaction exceeds $120,000 or 1% of total assets, and in which any of our current directors, executive officers or to our knowledge, beneficial owners of more than 5% of our capital stock or an affiliate or immediate family member thereof, had or will have a direct or indirect material interest, other than the employment relationships with our executive officers and the related compensation solely resulting from those employment relationships.
On May 3, 2010, as subsequently amended, we entered into a research agreement with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine ("Mount Sinai"), with which E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D., a member of our board of directors and the beneficial owner of more than 5% of our capital stock, is associated. The research is undertaken by Mount Sinai on our behalf. Mount Sinai, in connection with us, will prepare applications for patents generated from the research. Results from all projects will belong exclusively to Mount Sinai, but we will have an exclusive option to license any inventions. The initial term of the research agreement was one year with options to extend by mutual agreement. The term of the agreement has been extended through July 4, 2016. Payments to Mount Sinai for the year ended December 31, 2015 were $1,089,000.
We entered into a consulting agreement with E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D., a member of our board of directors and the beneficial owner of more than 5% of our capital stock, effective as of January 1, 2012 for consulting services rendered in addition to his membership on our board of directors. The consulting agreement provided for a term of one year, unless renewed by mutual agreement of the parties. The current term has been extended through December 31, 2016, unless sooner terminated in accordance with the terms of the agreement. The board member provides consulting services to the Company on the terms set forth in the agreement. Payments to this board member for the year ended December 31, 2015 were $197,000.
See "Item 10—Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance" for additional disclosure required pursuant to Item 13.
Fees of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
The following table summarizes the fees of Ernst & Young LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, billed to us for each of the last two fiscal years.
Fee Category
Fiscal 2015
Audit Fees(1) $ 338,000 $ 337,000
Audit-Related Fees(2) 85,000 25,000
Tax Fees(3) 65,000 117,000
Total Fees $ 488,000 $ 479,000
Audit fees consist of fees for the audits of fiscal 2015 and 2014 and quarterly reviews of our consolidated financial statements and other professional services provided in connection with statutory and regulatory filings or engagements.
Audit-related fees consist of fees for assurance and related services that are reasonably related to the performance of the audit and the review of our consolidated financial statements and which are not reported under "Audit Fees."
Tax fees for fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2014 include fees for tax advice, tax return preparation assistance and review.
Pre-Approval Policies and Procedures
The audit committee's policy is that all audit services and all non-audit services to be provided to us by our independent registered public accounting firm must be approved in advance by our audit committee. The audit committee's approval procedures include the review and approval of engagement letters from our independent registered public accounting firm that document the fees for all audit services and non-audit services, primarily tax advice and tax return preparation and review.
All audit services and all non-audit services in fiscal 2015 were pre-approved by the audit committee. The audit committee has determined that the provision of the non-audit services for which these fees were rendered is compatible with maintaining the independent auditor's independence.
(a) (1) Financial Statements: See Index to Consolidated Financial Statements on page F-1.
(3) Exhibits: See Exhibits Index on pages 102 to 104
Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
/s/ RAMESH KUMAR
Ramesh Kumar
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated:
/s/ RAMESH KUMAR, PH.D.
Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. Director, President and Chief Executive Officer (Principal Executive Officer) March 28, 2016
/s/ MARK GUERIN
Mark Guerin
Vice President, Financial Planning & Accounting (Principal Financial Officer)
/s/ MICHAEL B. HOFFMAN
Michael B. Hoffman
Chairman, Board of Directors
/s/ HENRY S. BIENEN, PH.D.
Henry S. Bienen, Ph.D.
/s/ JEROME E. GROOPMAN, M.D.
Jerome E. Groopman, M.D.
/s/ JAMES J. MARINO
James J. Marino
/s/ VIREN MEHTA
Viren Mehta
/s/ E. PREMKUMAR REDDY, PH.D.
E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D. Director March 28, 2016
/s/ ANNE M. VANLENT
Anne M. VanLent
EXHIBITS INDEX
3.1 Tenth Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 3.1 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 25, 2013).
3.2 Amended and Restated Bylaws of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 3.1 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 25, 2013).
4.1 Form of Certificate of Common Stock (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 4.1 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013.)
4.2 Eighth Amended and Restated Stockholders' Agreement, effective as of July 27, 2012, by and among Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and certain stockholders named therein (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 4.2to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013).
4.3 Amendment No. 1 to Eighth Amended and Restated Stockholders' Agreement, effective as of July 9, 2013 (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 4.2 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013).
10.1 * Development and License Agreement, effective as of September 19, 2012, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Baxter Healthcare SA (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.1 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 2 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 18, 2013).
10.2 * License Agreement, effective as of July 5, 2011, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and SymBio Pharmaceuticals Limited (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.2 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 2 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 18, 2013).
10.3 * First Amendment to License Agreement, effective as of September 2, 2011, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and SymBio Pharmaceuticals Limited (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.3 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.4 * License Agreement, effective as of January 1, 1999, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.4 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.5 * Amendment to License Agreement, effective as of September 1, 2000, by and between Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education and Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.5 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.6 * Amendment #1 to Exclusive License Agreement, effective as of March 21, 2013, by and between Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education and Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.6 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.7 * Definitive Agreement, effective as of May 12, 2010, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.7 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.8 * First Amendment to Definitive Agreement, effective as of June 23, 2011, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.8 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.9 * Second Amendment to Definitive Agreement, effective as of May 29, 2012, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.9 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.10 * Third Amendment to Definitive Agreement, effective as of January 5, 2013, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.10 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.11 Termination of Agreement, effective as of February 5, 2013, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.11 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.12 * Limited Liability Company Agreement of GBO, LLC, dated as of December 12, 2012, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and GVK Biosciences Private Limited (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.12 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.13 + Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. 2007 Equity Compensation Plan, and forms of agreement thereunder (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.13 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013).
10.14 + Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.1 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 8, 2015).
10.15 + Letter Agreement, effective as of January 1, 2016, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Ramesh Kumar, Ph.D. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.2 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on February 17, 2016).
10.16 + Amended and Restated Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Thomas McKearn, M.D., Ph.D. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.2 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 8, 2015).
10.17 + Amended and Restated Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Ajay Bansal. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.4 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 8, 2015).
10.18 + Consulting Agreement, effective as of January 1, 2012, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and E. Premkumar Reddy, Ph.D., including Consultant Agreement Renewal, dated February 27, 2013 (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.23 to the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on June 14, 2013).
10.19 + Form of Indemnification Agreement entered into by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and each director and executive officer (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.24 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013).
10.21 + Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. 2013 Performance Bonus Plan (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.26 to Pre-Effective Amendment No. 1 the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on July 11, 2013).
10.22 + Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Dr.Manoj Manair. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.3 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 8, 2015).
10.23 + Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Mark Guerin. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.2 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on February 17, 2016)
10.24 + Amended and Restated Employment Agreement, effective as of July 1, 2015, by and between Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. and Steven M. Fruchtman, M.D. (Incorporated by reference to Exhibit 10.5 to the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on August 13, 2015).
21.1 Subsidiaries of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc.
23.1 Consent of Ernst & Young, LLP.
31.1 Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
31.2 Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
32.1 Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350 as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
32.2 Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350 as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
101.INS XBRL Instance
101.SCH XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document
101.CAL XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
101.DEF XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
101.LAB XBRL Taxonomy Extension Labels Linkbase Document
101.PRE XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document
Indicates management contract or compensatory plan.
Confidential treatment has been requested with respect to certain portions of this exhibit. Omitted portions have been filed separately with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
ONCONOVA THERAPEUTICS, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Index to Consolidated Financial Statements
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm F-2
Consolidated Balance Sheets, December 31, 2015 and 2014 F-3
Consolidated Statements of Operations, Years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 F-4
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss, Years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 F-5
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity, Years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 F-6
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows, Years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 F-7
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements F-8
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
The Board of Directors and Stockholders of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc.
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. as of December 31, 2015 and 2014, and the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive loss, stockholders' equity and cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2015. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. We were not engaged to perform an audit of the Company's internal control over financial reporting. Our audits included consideration of internal control over financial reporting as a basis for designing audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company's internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion. An audit also includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, and evaluating the overall consolidated financial statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.
In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. at December 31, 2015 and 2014, and the consolidated results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2015, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern. As discussed in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company has incurred operating losses and negative cash flows from operations and will require additional capital to fund planned operations. These conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern. Management's plans in regard to these matters are also described in Note 1. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.
/s/ Ernst & Young LLP
Cash and cash equivalents $ 19,799,000 $ 43,582,000
Receivables 1,504,000 132,000
Prepaid expenses and other current assets 1,832,000 3,066,000
Restricted cash 50,000 125,000
Total current assets 23,185,000 46,905,000
Property and equipment, net 248,000 420,000
Other non-current assets 12,000 12,000
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 3,729,000 5,777,000
Deferred revenue 455,000 455,000
Total current liabilities 7,605,000 10,259,000
Deferred revenue, non-current 5,000,000 13,455,000
Other — 1,000
Stockholders' equity:
Preferred stock, $0.01 par value, 5,000,000 authorized at December 31, 2015 and 2014, none issued and outstanding at December 31, 2015 and 2014 — —
Common stock, $0.01 par value, 75,000,000 authorized at December 31, 2015 and 2014, 25,464,193 and 21,703,173 shares issued and outstanding at December 31, 2015 and 2014 255,000 217,000
Additional paid in capital 328,334,000 317,122,000
Accumulated other comprehensive income (22,000 ) (13,000 )
Accumulated deficit (318,557,000 ) (294,578,000 )
Total Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. stockholders' equity 10,010,000 22,748,000
Non-controlling interest 830,000 874,000
Total stockholders' equity 10,840,000 23,622,000
Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 23,445,000 $ 47,337,000
See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.
Years ended December 31,
Revenue $ 11,456,000 $ 800,000
General and administrative 9,533,000 15,119,000
Total operating expenses 35,428,000 64,544,000
Loss from operations (23,972,000 ) (63,744,000 )
Other income, net (35,000 ) (52,000 )
Net loss before income taxes (24,007,000 ) (63,776,000 )
Income taxes 16,000 19,000
Net loss (24,023,000 ) (63,795,000 )
Net loss attributable to non-controlling interest 44,000 113,000
Net loss attributable to Onconova Therapeutics, Inc (23,979,000 ) (63,682,000 )
Net loss per share of common stock, basic and diluted $ (1.05 ) $ (2.94 )
Basic and diluted weighted average shares outstanding 22,739,760 21,653,536
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss)
Net loss $ (24,023,000 ) $ (63,795,000 )
Other comprehensive income, before tax:
Foreign currency translation adjustments, net (9,000 ) (14,000 )
Other comprehensive income (loss), net of tax (9,000 ) (14,000 )
Comprehensive income (loss) (24,032,000 ) (63,809,000 )
Comprehensive income (loss) attributable to non-controlling interest 44,000 113,000
Comprehensive income (loss) attributable to Onconova Therapeutics, Inc $ (23,988,000 ) $ (63,696,000 )
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity
Paid in
Balance at December 31, 2013 21,467,482 215,000 311,093,000 (230,896,000 ) 1,000 487,000 80,900,000
(63,682,000
Contribution from non-controlling interest — — — — — 500,000 500,000
Other comprehensive loss — — — — (14,000 ) — (14,000 )
Exercise of stock options 235,691 2,000 961,000 — — — 963,000
Stock-based compensation — — 5,068,000 — — — 5,068,000
Balance at December 31, 2014 21,703,173 $ 217,000 $ 317,122,000 $ (294,578,000 ) $ (13,000 ) $ 874,000 $ 23,622,000
Net loss — — — (23,979,000 ) — (44,000 ) (24,023,000 )
Other comprehensive loss — — — — (9,000 ) — (9,000 )
Issuance of common stock, net 3,761,920 38,000 7,426,000 — — — 7,464,000
Common stock surrendered (900 ) — — — — — —
Operating activities:
Adjustment to reconcile net loss to net cash (used in) provided by operating activities:
Loss on asset disposal 22,000 —
Change in fair value of warrant liabilities — (20,000 )
Treasury note discount amortization — (6,000 )
Stock compensation expense 3,786,000 5,068,000
Changes in assets and liabilities:
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DOMA repeal next, Biden says
DOMA repeal may be next on the political agenda, according to Vice President Joe Biden.
Speaking to TV host George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, Biden said there is an 'inevitability for a national consensus on Gay marriage.'
'I think the country's evolving. And I think you're going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so called DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act],' he said.
The interview was broadcast December 24.
Although Biden's comments on DOMA took up only a few minutes of an interview that ranged from the federal budget deficit to the war in Afghanistan, they may reflect high-level talks between the Obama administration and Gay rights activists.
The Obama administration has so far taken an equivocal position on same-sex marriage.
On the one hand, President Obama has said he will seek the repeal of DOMA, a 1996 federal law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even if they are legal in some U.S. states, but the White House has not pushed the issue.
On the other hand, the president has expressed a personal preference for states to pass same-sex civil unions that convey the legal protections and rights of marriage - a position he reiterated at a press conference on December 22 just after signing DADT repeal into law.
'This is an issue that I'm still wrestling with, others are still wrestling with,' President Obama said.
'I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting Gay or Lesbian unions. And they are extraordinary people, and this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about.
'What I know is that, at minimum, a baseline is that there has to be a strong, robust civil union available to all Gay and Lesbian couples.'
'I think that's the right thing to do,' the president added. 'But I recognize that [for same-sex couples] it is not enough, and I think [that] is something that we're going to continue to debate.'
In response, left-leaning Gay rights activists called on President Obama to show political leadership on the issue.
'I appreciate what [Obama] said,' D.C. Gay activist Peter Rosenstein told the Washington Post on December 24. 'But what would be nice would be, rather than waiting for the public to evolve, if he were to lead the country to accept marriage equality.'
'Support for Gay rights is no longer the third rail of political danger that it perhaps once was,' said liberal Gay blogger John Aravosis. 'There's really no excuse for the president's, or any Democratic politician's, reticence on marriage equality.'
A Pew Research Center poll released in October showed 48% of people nationally opposed Gay marriage, while 42% were in favor, compared with 54% opposed and 37% in favor just a year ago.
The Pew poll showed that a majority of self-identified Democrats and people younger than 30 support legalizing same-sex marriage.
But voters 65 and older - a key part of the electorate that swung heavily to Republicans in 2010 - are mostly opposed to the idea.
In an October interview with liberal bloggers, President Obama suggested that he believed public opinion overall was trending in favor of same-sex marriage.
'I think it's pretty clear where the trend lines are going,' he said.
A DOMA repeal bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, was introduced in the House of Representatives in September of 2009, by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).
Although the bill has accumulated 108 co-sponsors, it has not had a hearing in any House committee and there is no companion Senate bill.
Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management and the highest-ranking openly Gay official in D.C., did not support the bill.
Frank said that 'the backbone is not there' in Congress to repeal DOMA.
Both officials suggested DOMA could be overturned more quickly through lawsuits such as Gill v. Office of Personnel Management filed by GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders).
Five states - Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia - currently allow same-sex marriages.
DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing such marriages, however, so that couples who are legally married in those jurisdictions are not eligible for the same federal benefits as opposite-sex married couples.
Besides DOMA repeal, other unfinished LGBT Congressional business includes ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act), the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, and the Uniting American Families Act.
When the 112th Congress convenes in January, Republicans will have a solid majority in the House of Representatives, making it unlikely that any of these measures will be passed in the next two years.
The next opportunity for Democrats to regain control of Congress, will be in the 2012 election, when President Obama will also be up for reelection.
LGBT Washington reflects on 2010
Bearing witness to history as Obama signs DADT repeal
Equal Rights Washington looks ahead to 2011
Ten Utah municipalities pass anti-discrimination ordinances
McGinn orders a review of Gay bars being unfairly scrutinized
Gay miner sues company for sexual harassment
Gay teen suicide attracts attention from Feds
Madison Pub gets new owner
The OutField: Looking back at 2010
Neil Rogers, Gay radio pioneer, dies
OUTBOUND: BEST OF TRAVEL 2010
In Isolated Utah City, New Clubs for Gay Students
Outside groups gird for gay marriage fight
Mission Drift at Gay Inc.
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I've seen comedies with fewer laughs than "Body of...
Madonna plays Rebecca Carlson, a sex bomb who parades naked...
As the icy blond seductress in Body of Evidence, Madonna...
When it comes to the come-on, nobody does it better than...
Home :: DVD Movies :: Drama / Melodrama :: Body of evidence :: Reviews
I've seen comedies with fewer laughs than "Body of Evidence," and this is a movie that isn't even trying to be funny. It's an excruciatingly incompetent entry in the "Basic Instinct" genre, filled with lines that only a screenwriter could love, and burdened with a plot that confuses mystery with confusion.
The movie stars Madonna, who after "Bloodhounds of Broadway," "Shanghai Surprise" and "Who's That Girl?" now nails down her title as the queen of movies that were bad ideas right from the beginning. She plays a kinky dominatrix involved in ingenious and hazardous sex with an aging millionaire who has a bad heart. He dies after an evening's entertainment, and Madonna is charged with his murder.
But she's innocent, she protests - and indeed there is another obvious suspect, the millionaire's private secretary (Anne Archer), who is also his spurned former lover. Willem Dafoe plays the defense attorney who firmly believes Madonna is innocent, or in any event very sexy, and Joe Mantegna has the Hamilton Burger role.
The movie takes place in Portland, Ore. - a city small enough, Madonna volunteers from the witness stand, that she once dated a guy who dated a girl who dated Mantegna. That's a typical exchange in the courtroom scenes, which involve Dafoe being reprimanded by the judge for just about every breath he draws.
I don't know whether to blame the director, the cinematographer or the editor for some of the inept choices in this movie. One example: Dafoe is addressing his opening remarks to the jury, and the camera pulls focus so that we see an attractive young female juror sitting in the front row. She gives Dafoe an unmistakable look. We in the audience are alerted that the movie is establishing her for a later payoff. We're wrong. She's just an extra trying to grab some extra business.
But enough on the technical side. What about the story here? It has to be seen to be believed - something I do not advise. There's all kinds of murky plot debris involving nasal spray with cocaine in it, ghosts from the past, bizarre sex, and lots of nudity. We are asked to believe that Madonna lives on a luxury houseboat, where she parades in front of the windows naked at all hours, yet somehow doesn't attract a crowd, not even of appreciative lobstermen. What does she dedicate her life to? She answers that question in one of the movie's funniest lines, which unfortunately cannot be printed here.
When it comes to eroticism, "Body of Evidence" is like Madonna's new book. It knows the words but not the music. All of the paraphernalia and lore of S & M sexuality are here, but none of the passion or even enjoyment. We are told by one witness that sex with the Madonna character is intense. It turns out later he's not a very reliable witness.
Date Added: 05/13/2013 by Heidi Klum
Notify me of updates to Body of evidence
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Labrador Retrievers For Sale in Bridgeport, CT
According to registration statistics recently released by the American Kennel Club® (AKC), the Labrador Retriever is the most popular purebred dog in the Hartford, CT area.
The Labrador Retriever is also the most popular purebred dog in America for the 21st straight year. More than twice as many Labs were registered than any other breed making it a likely leader for many years to come.
In a recent article, a licensed professional counselor for more than twenty-five years, explained how owning a Lab can help produce healthier, happier, more well adjusted children. Here is an excerpt from her article:
The ten reasons that I am giving for children to have a dog are not listed in order of importance. All of us have different characteristics which we find more important than others. Every reason I list, however, is important to the childhood of your son or daughter.
Dogs are a mood booster.
Very few of us, if any, have not heard that a “dog is a man’s best friend.” They can also be a woman’s or a child’s best friend, as well. Historically, dogs have been great companions. Research has shown that it only takes a mere 15-20 minutes with your pet to feel more relaxed and calm (per Web, MD). Playing with theirs dogs can raise the level of children’s of dopamine and serotonin, which are neurotransmitters in the brain that are associated with pleasure and tranquility. Also, when children reach out and pet or hug their dog, they are giving of themselves and soon feel better. Why pay for tranquilizers? Besides, who wants to put children on drugs any way?
Be sure to read the rest of her seven part article, Ten Reasons to Own a Dog.
At Twin Lakes Kennel, we have been breeding and training world class Labrador retrievers for more than thirty-five years. Our Labs can be found across the states from Hawaii to Maine, from Alaska to Florida. Our second-to-none Puppy Guarantee makes buying a pure-bred Labrador retriever one of the wisest decisions you will ever make.
But don’t take our word for it. Read the personal testimonials from prominent Lab owners from around the country. And visit our Puppy Page or call Woody or Judi for up-to-date puppy information at 910.462.3246.
The first English settlement on the west bank of the mouth of the Pequonnock River was made somewhere between 1639 and 1665 and was called Pequonnock.
During the American Revolution, Bridgeport was a center of privateering. In 1800, Newfield village was chartered as the borough of Bridgeport, and in 1821 the township of Bridgeport, including more of Stratfield, was incorporated. Bridgeport was chartered as a city in 1836.
The circus-promoter and former mayor P.T. Barnum, is a famous resident of the city. Barnum built three houses in the city, and housed his circus in town during winters.
The city is home to the first Subway Restaurant, opened in the North End section of the city in 1965.
The city was home to the Frisbie Pie Company, and it is claimed that Bridgeport is the birthplace of the frisbee.[9]
The distance from Bridgeport to Washington DC is 262 miles. The distance to the Connecticut state capital is 50 miles. (as the crow flies).
Nickname(s): The Park City, The Port, B-Port, BPT
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Building Notices
Groceries & Pharmacies
Applications Committee
Infrastructure Committee
Air Conditioner Rules & 2019 Safety Inspections
Authorization for Entry Form
By-Laws of 3750 Lake Shore Drive, Inc.
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The History of Kwa̱nu’sila, “The Thunder-Maker.” The Totem Pole at Addison Street and Lake Shore Drive.
Posted by under Events
The History of Kwa̱nu’sila, “The Thunder-Maker.” The Totem Pole at Addison Street and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois.
Information below the break-line was provided by Wax̱a̱widi Chief William Wasden Jr., great-great-grandson of the original carver of the totem pole Kwa̱nu’sila that stood at Addison and Lake Shore Drive after the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
The Totem Pole that currently stands in Lincoln Park at Addison Street just east of Lake Shore Drive at 3510 N Recreation Drive in Chicago, Illinois was installed in 1986. The Lincoln Park totem pole belongs to the tradition of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Indians in western British Columbia, Canada.
The Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Indians are renowned for their woodcarving skills, including not only totem poles, but also elaborately carved and painted masks.
Totem Pole sculptures belong to the tradition of several Pacific Northwest Native American tribes living in Alaska, western British Columbia and stretching south into the states of Washington and Oregon. These totem poles were placed in specific locations and served three main purposes. Some were placed on the front of a house, often framing the doorway.
Other carved poles were found in the interior of the house, acting as supports for the roof beams. And some were free-standing, erected outside a home. Poles were commissioned by chiefs or other wealthy members of the tribe to commemorate an event, memorialize a death or mark a particular location.
Many Chicagoans had their first contact with the Totem Pole Kwa̱nu’sila “The Thunder-Maker” during the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Lincoln Park totem pole during the 1929 dedication ceremony (left). Totem pole about 1967 (right).
Note the differences, particularly in painted design. Photos courtesy Kraft, Inc.
Franz Boas was working at Harvard’s Peabody Museum and was asked to participate in the 1893 Columbian Exposition. He had already traveled to British Columbia, where he sought out George Hunt. Hunt was the son of a Scottish Hudson Bay Company employee who married a high ranking Tlinglit woman from Alaska.
At the time it was practice for employees to marry First Nation women in order to gain access to communities in order to conduct trade. His father’s position was in Ft. Rupert, B.C. where the Kwakiutl’l lived. George Hunt was given full Kwakiut’l status, and spoke both Kwakwa’la, the native language, as well as English. This made him a valuable informant for Boas, and they began collaborating in 1885 on Kwakiut’l ethnography, for which Hunt wrote three-quarters of Boas’ ethnography.
Hunt assisted Boas in collecting and in mounting the Columbian Exposition project, bringing Kwakiut’l to Chicago’s Jackson Park to erect a native village. After the Exposition, Boas joined the burgeoning Columbian Museum of Chicago (Later to be renamed the Field Museum of Natural History), and worked there for several years. Boas was asked to leave the museum and he resumed teaching at Columbia University, becoming the “father of American Anthropology.” Boas and Hunt continued working together for decades, refining the ethnography. Boas incorrectly named all the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation as the Kwakiut’l, given their common language, though the Kwakiut’l were but one of the tribes in that language group and Nation.
It should be noted that Hunt also worked with Edward S. Curtis, and was the assistant director on “In the Land of the War Canoes” (formerly called “In the Land of the Headhunters”), produced in 1914.
There is no record of George Hunt being involved in the purchase of the Kwanu’sila Totem Pole.
After the Exposition, most of the objects from the exhibit were donated to the Columbian Museum of Chicago, where many can still be seen on display today at the Field Museum.
The totem pole in Lincoln Park, however, was not from this collection. The original pole that stood at Addison and the lakefront in Lincoln Park was donated to the city in 1929 by James L. Kraft, the founder of Kraft Inc. The pole was 40 feet tall and, like many totem poles, was carved from a single cedar log.
Mr. Kraft, an accomplished lapidary and collector of jade, made trips to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest in his search for jade and other rare minerals; while on these trips the unique art and culture of the Northwest Coast Indians attracted him. In 1926, after several years’ negotiation, he purchased through intermediaries two totem poles (including the one to be pl in Lincoln Park) and a 15-foot-long feast dish; the three huge carvings were shipped to Chicago from British Columbia on railroad flatcars.
In 1927 the feast dish was given to the Wisconsin State Historical Society, in Madison, and in 1952 the Historical Society loaned the dish to the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle, where it remains on exhibit.
One of the totem poles now stands on private property, “Kraftwood Gardens,” of the Kraft family in northeastern Wisconsin. The other pole laid on the Chicago River dock of a Kraft plant for three years. Finally, in 1929, James Kraft gave the pole to the City of Chicago. It was erected in Lincoln Park and officially dedicated to the schoolchildren of Chicago in June of that year.
But the city was not kind to the sculptural landmark. The victim of carpenter ants, vandals, and the normal processes of weathering and decay, the Lincoln Park pole has undergone more than a dozen modifications since 1929. All of this restoration has been done under the direction of Kraft, since it was arranged at the time of presentation that the company would continue to assume the task of maintenance.
In 1958 the arm positions of the pole’s human figure were changed because rotting had occurred in the arm sockets; one hand was moved so that it covered the figure’s eyes. (A visitor observed that the figure no longer had to watch the spectacle of rush hour traffic which passed before it.) In 1966..the pole was drastically renovated: the sea monster at the base, the Thunderbird at the top, and the human figure were recarved by skilled Kraft workers. Their work appears to be a faithful attempt at restoration, but the painted symbols were inaccurately reproduced. The significance of features in the original painting, which had been more elaborate, could never have been appreciated by a restorer unacquainted with Northwest Coast art. A Kraft supervisor of the restoration has suggested that Kraft workers trying to copy the intricate symbols perhaps didn’t realize how important it was to duplicate features with great accuracy. The original painted symbols on the pole have almost totally disappeared.
Kraft has tried conscientiously to hold back and to repair the onslaughts of time as well as acts of vandalism against the pole.
In 1982 the Field Museum opened its permanent exhibit dedicated to the “Maritime Peoples of the Arctic and Northwest Coast” for the first time. Research conducted for the preparation of the exhibit brought new attention to the lakefront totem pole, and experts began to suspect the pole was of greater historical and cultural importance than anyone had realized.
As a result, members of the ‘Namgis and Kwakiut’l tribes of the Kwawkaka’wakw First Nation visited Chicago in 1985. They saw the terrible condition of the pole, and mounted a limited effort to repatriate it in order to preserve it. It had been repainted with house paint and was disintegrating. A deal was struck. The Kwa̱nu’sila totem pole was to be sent to U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, B.C. for evaluation. After realizing there was nothing to do, Tony Hunt, Jr., a relative of George Hunt and a famous carver was commissioned to replicate it. It is that pole that now stands in Lincoln Park.
Kraft Inc., following the example of its founder, then commissioned a new pole to take the place of the original. The totem pole which stands today at Addison Street and Lake Shore Drive was unveiled on May 21, 1986, and it is a faithful replica of the 1929 pole that restored the form and colors of that pole as it looked before it was damaged by botched restoration attempts. A sea monster with a lively expression forms the base of the pole, while a whale balances on top of it with its tail in the air. The pole is topped by a thunderbird with its wings outstretched, and which grips the whale’s tail.
Tony Hunt Sr. carved the current lakefront totem pole, which is called Kwa̱nu’sila. Hunt is the hereditary chief of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw tribe of Fort Rupert, British Columbia. He is also an internationally renowned artist whose work in wood, carved in the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw tradition, can be found in collections such as the St. Louis Art Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Chicago’s own Field Museum.
Tony Hunt Sr. is also a descendent of the same George Hunt who brought the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago more than a hundred years ago. So, that he should be the artist responsible for the lakefront totem pole seems both meaningful and appropriate.
Kwa̱nu’sila is a special and important work of public sculpture in Chicago. And, although it was completed in 1986, the totem pole by the lake has a story that goes back to the 19th century.
The information below was provided by Wax̱a̱widi Chief William Wasden Jr., great-great-grandson of the original carver of the totem pole Kwa̱nu’sila that Kraft bought.
The Totem Pole Kwa̱nu’sila “The Thunder-Maker.” Originally from Alert Bay BC Canada.
The owner and carver of the Kwa̱nu’sila totem pole is identified in Marius Barbeau’s book titled “Totem Poles” by Chief Daniel Cranmer who identifies this man as Chief T̓łakwagila “The Copper-Maker.” This man was also known as Wax̱a̱widi “Canoes Come to Him” who was a Clan Chief and the owner of the third traditional Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Big House coming from the south end of the ‘Na̱mgis village at Alert Bay. The house ownership with his family and extended family is recorded in housing censuses done annually by George Blenkinsop for the early Canadian government starting circa. 1879. The present family has stated that the traditional family name is “I’nis”, and this name appears in potlatch ledgers and government and church records. On Wax̱a̱widi’s oldest daughter Alice Esther’s death certificate, his given Christian names are Samuel Alvin and his wife’s name is listed as “unknown”. This man was commonly known by his “Play Potlatch name” T̓łaxw ’sam meaning “Red Cod.”
On the marriage certificate of his granddaughter Emma, his daughter Alice has given her name as Esther Alice “T̓łaxw̱ ’sam”. Waxa̱ ̱widi and Tł̓ axw ’sa̱m are also identified as the same man in a tape-recorded interview with Mrs. Moses Alfred known as Axa̱ ̱wa.
The totem pole “Kwa̱nu’sila” stood outside of the house of “T̓łax̱w’sa̱m,” the pole was purchased from him by the Kraft Foundation.
The crests on the totem represent the history of the Gigi̱lg̱a̱m “First Ones” clan of the ‘Na̱mg̱is Tribe. There are now four clans and the Gigi̱lg̱a̱m are seated as the second in social order. This clan was founded by a Thunderbird named Kwa̱nu’sila who transformed into a man to start this particular tribe.
This is our story told by my Great-great- grandmother G̱a’ax̱stalas Mrs. Jane Cook:
The Legend of Kwanu’sila and ‘Namugwadzalas told by Mrs. Stephen Cook
‘Namugwadzalas was the first man of one of the clans of the ‘Namgis Tribe of Indians. He was camped on the Nimpkish River just below the lake at the time of this story. Udzo’las “Flat Place” is the name of the present site of the fishing village of the ‘Namgis.
This man became tired of the migratory life he was living, and wanted a permanent home, so in his mind he made a plan of the present type of Indian Community house. To build it, he secured and prepared huge cedar timbers; each shaped and cut with a hand adze. He put in the huge posts and cross pieces, but he had not foreseen that he could not put up alone the huge ridge beams, and so when all was ready he found to his sorrow that he could not lift the big timbers into place. When he realized this he was very sad. He sat out on the bank of the river and could have cried had he not been a brave man. As he sat there feeling so glum, he looked across the river and saw a huge Thunderbird sitting on a large stone.
He said to the bird, “If you were only an intelligent human being, what help you could be to me with your great strength.” The Thunderbird said to him, “Why, I am human, what do you wish?” As he spoke, he lifted up the visor of the Thunderbird costume, and showed his face, the face of a man. “I wish you could help me to put up the beams on my house,” said the man. “Surely,” said the Thunderbird, who closed up his visor and flew up and alighted on the middle of the big beam and seized it with his enormous claws, carrying it up and placing it in position on the posts.
He then asked the man what his building was to be. ‘Namugwadzalas told him of his idea of building for himself and his people a permanent home. The Thunderbird said it was a grand idea. “I think,” said he, “I will join you and together we will form a tribe.” Then the brave ‘Namugwadzalas told him that he would rejoice in his company.
So the Thunderbird undressed himself of his thunder dress, and sent it back to the heavens with these words, “Go back to your home, and take heed that you thunder not out of season. At one time only shall your voice roar forth and that only if one of my future posterity is near to the borders of death.”
This is the legend of the Thunderbird, telling why its spreading wings adorn all totems of the ‘Na̱mgis Tribe. It is still believed that when there is thunder over the Nimpkish River, one of the Tribe or line of the ‘Na̱mgis is in danger of death, near death, or dead.
Another version of the same story including the other crests on the Kwa̱nu’sila Totem:
Story of the Totem Pole belonging to the Gigi̱lg̱a̱m as told by Chief Ha̱mdzida̱g̱a̱me’ Charles Nowell
A man up ‘Na̱mg̱is River named “Gwa’ni” near the lake, he was a steelhead salmon before he became a man. When the Great Flood began, he assumed his steelhead dress again and stood behind a rock at a place called U’dzolas. When the Flood receded he became a man again. His name was X̱wax̱wasa “Easily Excited.” He began to make his house at U’dzolas. He had the posts up, boards, and was making the beams. When he finished it, he sat down wondering how he was going to raise them up.
Suddenly a big bird flew down and sat on the rocks at the bank of the river. It was the Thunderbird Kwi̱nkwi̱nxwa̱lige’. X̱wax̱wasa turned around and saw Kwi̱nkwi̱nxwa̱lige’ and said, “I wish you were a man, to help me raise these beams. I don’t know how to raise these beams by myself.” This bird raised his mask and said, “I am a man! I came on purpose to help you.” He put back his headdress and flew up, and came to the middle of the beam, grabbed it with his claws, and flew up, to lift it up on top of the posts. Then he sat on the rocks where he was before. Then X̱wax̱wasa said, “I wish you would stay with me because I am all alone. We’ll build another house below mine.” So Thunderbird says, “I’ll do that.” He took off his bird clothing and said to his clothing, “You go up! But don’t make thunder too often. Whenever there will be death among the people that come after me, make thunder.” This man’s name was Gi̱lg̱a̱m “The First One” and he became the ancestor of the Gigi̱lg̱a̱m ‘na̱mima “clan.” Kwa̱nu’silawe’ are the descendants from the Kwi̱nkwi̱nxwa̱lige’. This is their name when they use the Thunderbird for their crest.
Gigi̱lg̱a̱m ‘na̱mima has a totem pole with a Thunderbird on top, a whale below and on the back of the whale is a man holding a spear (he is X̱wax̱wasa, and on the bottom is the head of the ‘Na̱mx̱iyalagiyu the Halibut-Like Sea Monster (this is the creature with a man on its back that went to Xwa̱lkw).
The following information regarding the crest figures was taken from information collected from the Kraft Foundation and it is clear that the information is mixed up concerning the other pole purchased from Alert Bay from another family at the same time:
At the top of the pole stands the Thunderbird (the other pole has a Ḵulus, another species of supernatural bird covered in thick white down and a blueish-green beak and only feathered plumes on its head), one of the most ancient of the Indian symbols, a sacred and all-powerful being. According to legend, the mighty Thunderbird has his powerful talons fastened deep in the quivering flesh of a great Baleen Whale, on whose broad back the universe rests.
The Steelhead Man, historic tribal founder, is the carved figure standing in relief, with raised lance, against the body of the Whale. This carving tells how the Steelhead Man, transformed from a Steelhead Salmon at the Nimpkish River after the Great Flood, meets with his Creator the Thunderbird who helps him rear his dwelling, set up his tribe, and overcome all human and fabulous sea monsters.
The carving just below the Steelhead Man represents the great victory of a warrior’s daughter over the fabulous double-headed monster of the sea, the “Sisiyutł”. The princess-daughter, approached one day on the river bank by this fearsome monster, is given miraculous strength. In her hands is placed a divinely sharpened spear by the ever- protecting Thunderbird. She smites the monster and is honored by her tribe. The warriors of the tribe vie with one another for favor with her.
The blowhole of the great Whale is a warrior’s face and references the legend about the princess who slays the double-headed serpent to take the supernatural power of the serpent for her own and becomes a powerful warrior amongst her tribe.
The base figure and what represents our grandfathers (ancestors) crest holding up the history and cultural obligations of the family. Amongst Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw culture the “low man on the totem pole” is the foundation and strength of the family, our paternal ancestry. Quite opposite of the western saying about the low man on the totem pole. The base figure is the head of an important sea monster that has come to be the famous prized crest of the ‘Na̱mg̱is Tribe.
This story come from the first clan in social order of the ‘Na̱mg̱is:
Legend of the Tsitsał̱ ’walaga̱ ̱me’ “Famous Ones” 1st Clan of the ‘Namgis.
In ancient times, many of our first ancestors came to the world as animals or supernatural beings that transformed into people and began our tribes. After some time, the first people became bad and were very disrespectful to each other and mainly the animals and the land. The Iki Giga̱ ̱me’ “Great Chief Above” was going to send a huge flood that would cleanse the earth and create a new beginning. There were some people who were to be spared from this great catastrophe due to their respect and following of the ancient ways. Some of these people were sent messages through dreams or visions about the flood that was to come.
One ancestor of the ‘Na̱mgis Tribe was sent a message from the Creator in a dream that when the flood came, the great Halibut-Like Sea Monster ‘Na̱mx̱iyalagiyu “Only One” would rise from the depths of the ocean to come and take him to a place where he would be protected for the duration of the flood. This man waited on the beach out in front of his village at the mouth of the river when it began to rain and never stopped for a very long time. This man waited and waited until the water had risen to very high levels and was standing in the water that had risen up to his neck. He had almost given up believing that he would be saved and was ready to run and try and seek refuge.
Then a great swell came from the sea and the water levels began to drop. Out of the ocean surfaced ‘Na̱mx̱iyalagiyu that swam to the beach and allowed the man to climb on and walk towards its back. This creature was so big that the man appeared to be a small speck on the rim of the monster. The man was bestowed with supernatural power and the ability to breath under water and was then carried to the bottom of the ocean. He was taken there for a great length of time. The flood was said to have lasted a very long time and that the tides were extremely rough around the world. A great number of people perished during this time.
When the flood receded, ‘Namx̱iyalagiyu surfaced from the depths of the sea and returned the man to the shore at his home at Xwalkw “Foundation” and then returned to its home under the ocean. During the Great Flood the former people that did not survive, were transformed into animals and stones.
The man looked around the land and saw that there were no other survivors; therefore, he called himself ‘Na̱mukustolis “Having Come to the Earth as the Only One”. In time, ‘Namukustolis grew lonely, so he made a snare and caught seagulls that he transformed into people. These people became his tribe and he married one of the women. Soon, he had a son called Nage’ “Mountain.” Together he and his son kept a fire going on the beach and were always sitting beside it.
Then one day, Ka̱̓ ’niki’lakw the “Transformer” in his canoe passed their way and landed at Xwa̱lkw. He sat down by them at their fire in such a way that ‘Na̱mukustolis and Nage’ were sitting on one side and him on the opposite. He wanted to test his spiritual power with them, so he put some fish, which, he had with him by the fire and roasted it. Na̱ge’ wished to eat some of this fish, so his father held his hand underneath it and caught the fat dripping down and gave it to his son to taste. Ka ’niki’lakw took the fish and broke it and gave it to them to eat. He thought that they would die because it was really a Sisiyutł “Double-Headed Serpent,” but to his surprise it didn’t harm them.
‘Namukustolis himself had a Sisiyutł, which, he roasted and gave to Ka̱̓ ’niki’lakw to eat in return. Ka̱̓ ̓niki’lakw was very surprised at this. Then Ka̱̓’niki’lakw tried to transform the two into a pair of ducks. He succeeded, but after a short time, they both became human again. They sat down by the fire again and Ka̱̓ niki’lakw then transformed them into two large mountains. Again, the two soon regained their human shape. Then he transformed them into a pair of kingfishers. These too, soon became human again.
‘Nam̱ ukustolis also transformed Ka̱̓’niki’lakw three times, but was not able to prevent him from assuming his real shape each time. Thus, when Ka̱̓’niki’lakw saw that he was unable to defeat them, he made friends with them and journeyed on. At this time ‘Namukustolis went up into the valley to see if there were any other survivors. When he found no one, he returned back down the small river and then assumed the name Gwa’nalalis “Coming Down River in this World.”
Wax̱a̱widi Chief William Wasden Jr. Note:
I am grateful to Judy Hoffman for asking me to give our history and connection to this totem pole. Much has been written and published by “expert authors” who do not consider our present day knowledge as valuable or worthy. In ancient times, stories were guarded cultural property and only those who came from the stories and histories were permitted to tell them and this makes complete sense. Why would you tell someone else’s story especially when they are capable and they have the connection, we call it respect. Today, I am honored to say that I carry my great-great- grandfather’s name and cultural position of Wax̱a̱widi. My late grandmother and her older sister knew their maternal great-grandfather and chose me to uphold our traditional responsibilities to his name and our people and to learn who our family is and our history. Once again, thank you G̱wixsi’sa̱las Judy for helping us share our truths about our history represented on the totem pole named “Kwa̱nu’sila.”
Link to original article: http://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-history-of-kwanusila-totem-pole-at.html
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John Ruskin at Brantwood, Coniston, Cumbria
Libellés : Brantwood, Coniston, Cumbria, Ruskin (John)
Brantwood, Coniston, Cumbria. Not the most brilliant photo of an author's home I've ever taken, but there we are. The original building (much added to later) dates from the tail end of the eighteenth century, when the land was bought by Thomas Woodville. By 1852 the poet William James Linton had bought it: his second wife was the popular novelist Eliza Lynn Linton, who wrote several of her triple-deckers here. John Ruskin (1819–1900) was recovering from an illness in Matlock, Derbyshire in 1871 when he bought the property unseen for £1500: he knew where it was and the view it commanded, and although the house itself was disappointing he was more than impressed by its actual situation.
'JOHN HOWARD
WHITEHOUSE 1873–1900
who saved Brantwood
as a memorial to
John Ruskin'
The study. Linton had knocked two rooms into one here. This was a centre of activity for Ruskin, where for instance he founded the Guild of St George to provide fair rent farms.
The wallpaper is to Ruskin's original design.
The drawing room, with the painting Zipporah to the left of the fireplace.
The bay window looking onto Coniston Water, and the septangular room leading from the drawing room, are additions dating from 1905, after Joan (Ruskin's cousin) and Arthur Severn had inherited the estate from John Ruskin.
The dining room.
Children's illustrator Kate Greenaway (1846–1907), born in Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, who was a friend of Ruskin's and who first visited Brantwood in 1883.
Plaster copy of the medallion on the Ruskin memorial at Friar's Crag, Derwent Water.
The turret, again looking out onto Coniston Water.
The bed in which Ruskin died on 20 January 1900.
Finally, images from the grave of John Ruskin in the parish church graveyard, Coniston:
Dorothy Una Ratcliffe in Temple Sowerby, Cumbria
Libellés : Cumbria, Ratcliffe (Dorothy Una), Temple Sowerby
Temple Sowerby Manor, Cumbria. Originally called Acorn Bank, this building dates from around 1600 but was much renovated in about 1745 and bought by the writer Dorothy Una Ratcliffe (1887–1967) – who changed the name to Temple Sowerby Manor – in 1934, after which it was further renovated. Dorothy was born Dorothy Clough and married Charles Radcliffe (brother of the forgotten poet Victor Radcliffe) in 1909. She married her second husband Noel McGrigor Phillips in 1930, and lived with him here until his death in the 1940s. She also lived here for a few years with her third husband, Alfred Charles Vowles, who altered his surname to Phillips by deed poll. Dorothy Una Ratcliffe donated Temple Sowerby Manor (without contents!) to the National Trust, who have now (er, for purely historical reasons, or also out of spite because she took the contents?) chosen to change the name back to the original.
Drainpipe with Dorothy Phillips's initials.
'THIS
AND ITS ESTATE
WERE GIVEN
TO THE NATIONAL TRUST
BY MRS NOEL MCGRIGOR PHILLIPS
(DOROTHY UNA RATCLIFFE)'
The room in Temple Sowerby Manor dedicated to Dorothy Una Ratcliffe. The painting is a copy of an original by Ambrose McEvoy, now (as with many of the contents of this building) left to the City of Leeds.
Dorothy Una Ratcliffe published over forty books: plays, poems (sometimes in Yorkshire dialect), travel writings, etc. She was editor of the literary magazine Microcosm.
Dorothy Phillips's etching on a window in the entrance hall.
Our National Trust guide mentioned (more than once and clearly mockingly) that Dorothy Phillips (aka Dorothy Una Ratcliffe) thought herself lady of the manor. But without her, the National Trust certainly wouldn't have her (renamed) Temple Sowerby Manor to crow about.
On a happier note: this caravan is the first structure that greets visitors: Dorothy Una Ratcliffe was a fan of gypsies – even thought that she had gypsy blood in her – and she was an early caravanning enthusiast: with her third husband, she toured Scotland in one.
Sylvain Tesson: Sur les chemins noirs (2016)
Libellés : French Literature, Sylvain Tesson
After a drunken and near-fatal fall from a building, the writer Sylvain Tesson spent four months recovering. He chose an unconventional form of 'ré-éducation': walking the length of France, which was a change from Russia, Tibet, South America, or any other far-flung places he's written about his journeys through before.
He chose to begin near Tende, near the Italian border with France, and go through Provence, across the Rhône and through the Massif Central and the Loire valley to the tip of the Contentin peninsula. He often camped rough or stayed at simple hotels along the way, drinking Viandox (a meat stock product similar to OXO (ugh!)) at cafés he passes, and occasionally being joined by friends such as the writer Cédric Gras or Arnaut Humann, or on one occasion his sister. But the general rule he was following, greatly aided by IGN maps, was wherever possible to use chemins noirs – an expression once used in Provence writer René Fregni's book title Les Chemins noirs – and which are applied to old untarmacked roads or footpaths deep in rural France.
Tesson has a number of things against technology: he hates the telephone, hates the thought that the government has a scheme for 'connecting' areas that it designates as in a state of 'hyper-ruralisation'. New technologies don't simplify life but are a substitute for it, they remodel the human psyche, block out thought. We are becoming the most docile and submissive people in the history of the world. By taking the chemins noirs we go through the crack in the wall.
And Tesson certainly has a point: the chemins noirs are as much mental paths as physical ones, as much an anarchistic way of looking at life. He reminds us that Napoleon said there are two kinds of people: those who command and those who obey. But Tesson suggests there's a third kind: those who run away, refuse to accept whatever fate is preparing for them.
All the same I can't can't help thinking that Sylvain Tesson couldn't have communicated with his friends using a poste restante address and guess that he didn't use telepathy, so he surely must have made use of the dreaded new technology to let his friends know where he was. And his friend Humann – incidentally a camera enthusiast – must have used a t........ to contact medical assistance when Tesson had an epileptic fit on the way. (Just thinking aloud.)
This is a thought-provoking book which at 142 pages could easily be read in a few hours, although it's far more advisable to take your time, act as if you're on a chemin noir, and use a map while reading it so you can trace out the fascinating paths.
Guy Mazeline: Les Loups | The Wolves (1932)
Libellés : Céline (Louis-Ferdinand), French Literature, Mazeline (Guy), Prix Goncourt
It hardly seems possible to mention Guy Mazeline's Les Loups without also mentioning the fact that Mazeline triumphed in the 1932 Goncourt at the expense of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's masterpiece Voyage au bout de la nuit, and how this was an outrage, a scandal, a travesty of justice, etc. And of course it was all of this: Les Loups doesn't come anywhere near the category of masterpiece. But does the novel really deserve all the opprobrium that's been thrown at it? Certainly much ink has been used over it, and in 1999 Eugène Saccomano published a novelisation of the dispute (Goncourt 32), with a publisher's band 'Le Duel Céline–Mazeline' across the lower part of the cover. Much more recently Les Loups has been called 'illisible' (unreadable) in Figaro and 'Voyage au bout de l'ennui' in a particularly sarcastic article in Le Parisien. Why all the hatred? Have the people who criticise Les Loups actually read it?
The short answer in almost all cases is certainly 'No': in fact I doubt if more than a few people alive today have read it. I resolved to come to my own conclusions, take a deep breath and dip into it. You have to take a deep breath because it's 622 pages of minutely-packed print, or a roomier 775 in the English translation The Wolves. After all the scorn that's been poured on it I scarcely expected to wade through all of it, and yet – to my immense surprise – I not only read it all but in fact really enjoyed it.
Les Loups is not a quick read, and not only due to its sheer bulk: it's so crammed with characters, shifting allegiances and subtle plotting that it demands to be read carefully – if you want to take full advantage of its subtleties, that is. And there certainly are subtleties: this is what I'd call a psychological novel, in which what is going on in the mind of the characters is all-important.
Most of the main characters, though, aren't particularly likable, or at least not a great deal of the time. Pride comes over as a central theme, as does lust for money, and in the dog-eat-dog world of this book – set in Le Havre (where Mazeline was born) towards the end of the nineteenth century – appearances are vital.
Maximilien Jobourg has inherited his father's business and at the beginning of the story lives (financially) comfortably enough with his wife Marie-Jeanne and his children Didier (a lover of the sea), Vincent (who has a limp due to a childhood accident), Benoît (who's headstrong, given to violence and of the three brothers the one most addicted to prostitutes), Geneviève (who's engaged to the wealthy Gilbert), and Blanche (who's married but still lives at home along with her ferociously ambitious banker husband Georges, whom the younger sons accurately call the 'Hypocrite'.
Maximilien has long grown tired of Marie-Jeanne, who is largely concerned with the way things look, and who is exasperated that her husband has no interest in business. Maximilien's mother Virginie hates the working-class-born Marie-Jeanne, whom she insists on calling by her maiden name 'la Bretot' – when she's speaking to Maximilien, that is, which is not often at all: the two don't get on, which seems par for the course in the Jobourg family.
In fact Virginie (it seems) hates Maximilien too, as she plots with her grandson-in-law Georges to bankrupt him by getting him to move all his money into shares which are in fact worthless: a very bad psychologist as well as a very bad businessman, Maximilien can't see through the many faces of his son-in-law: in any case, why should the banker be working against his own interests, thinks Maximilien?
The appearance of Valérie in Le Havre radically changes Maximilien's life. He believes in self-renewal, which he sees as impossible in a family: how can his own family, for instance, ever see him as anything other than lazy, incapable of holding onto his fortune and his prestige? Valérie, though, is his secret daughter, the child his lover Pauline had after she left Le Havre for Martinique twenty years before, when she married Labrête and Valérie was brought up as their child. But Labrête drowns himself on learning Valérie isn't his daughter, and now a dying Pauline has sent Valérie to her 'uncle' Maximilien in Le Havre. Maximilien hides her with a former servant of his and comes to love her more than his children by Marie-Jeanne.
The end is dramatic, with Valérie – on learning that Maximilien is her real father and being incapable of living with the fact that her previous life has been a lie – killing herself with the 'ornamental' weapon her father has unthinkingly furnished her room with, and Maximilien lining his pockets with stones and jumping into the sea.
This may make the narrative sound a little melodramatic, but it isn't portrayed that way. Guy Mazeline can write and can write well, and although we can criticise him for stretching credibility (a twenty-year-old girl not realizing Maximilien is her father, after all he's done for her?), and for writing maybe a few hundred pages in excess and creating several characters too many, but so what? OK, Céline definitely should have won the Goncourt in 1932, but that's no reason to take it out on Guy Mazeline: clearly, this is not the best ever Goncourt, but nor is it the worst by any means.
Guy Mazeline's grave in the Cimetière du Montparnasse:
Michel Host: Valet de nuit (1986)
Libellés : French Literature, Host (Michel), Prix Goncourt
Following L'Ombre, le fleuve, lété (1983), Michel Host's second novel Valet de nuit (1986) won the Goncourt in the year of publication. Unusually for such a prestigious prize though, it only sold 70,000 copies and in spite of about twenty later publications today the name of the author means little or nothing to most French people.
This is mainly the quest for the narrator Philippe Archer's father, although at the same time it is inevitably a quest for himself. He thought his father a war hero who had died, but reality bites and he's been a long way from the truth. Philippe's being cushioned from everything (especially from material discomfort) throughout his life doesn't really help him.
Didier Decoin: John l'Enfer (1977)
Libellés : Decoin (Didier), French Literature, Prix Goncourt
Didier Decoin's apocalyptic, Goncourt-winning John l'Enfer is set in a New York of stark contrasts in fortune, now a faded glory where the skyscrapers are crumbling, the dogs are taking to the mountains and we see the city through three people.
The book begins with the fall of an Indian window cleaner from a skyscraper: the twelfth in the last six months, when Indians don't normally suffer from vertigo. John l'Enfer is a Cheyenne Indian and also a cleaner of skyscrapers in this city of his ancestors until he loses his job following a demonstration about work conditions. He is in love with Dorothy, but the relationship is only platonic.
Dorothy Kayne is a young sociology lecturer temporarily blinded and infantilised after an accident, and who wears a mask. She too is doubtless in love with John, although she's blind to it and her sexual energy is spent on Ashton.
Ashton Mysha is a Polish Jew, a naval officer now grounded due to ill health, who will love Dorothy – if that's the right word – and then leave New York city, leave life, in a well-planned suicide.
Only John l'Enfer appears to be aware of what's really happening to New York. Oddly, there's no English translation of this very incidentally cinematic tale.
Félicien Marceau: Creezy (1969)
Libellés : French Literature, Marceau (Félicien), Prix Goncourt
Creezy – obviously a distortion of the English word 'crazy', and the same title of which was used in the English translation – is a story of not-so-everyday madness, but certainly of the madness of consumerism and the inability of the market to supply certain demands, such as love or happiness.
Creezy begins and ends in the same place, with député Jacques waiting a half-hour for the engine noise in his car to be fixed in the garage. While he's waiting, though, the reader learns why his life is such a mess, why he no longer has a wife and of the events leading up to the death of his beloved Creezy.
Jacques first caught a glimpse of Creezy – a beautiful and famous fashion model – at the front of the audience at a show. After that he meets her at an airport, the pair hit it off very well in sitting next to each other during the flight, and Creezy seems to be another of the conquests of the député (married with two children).
A fling becomes an obsession, lust turns to love and therefore psychological dependence, and all the hell that that brings. No, Jacques can't keep two lives together and things start to fall apart quickly. There's no indication of this in the form of the book, though, which consists of eighteen sections in a single paragraph, apart from when occasionally being split to incorporate quotations.
Creezy marks my thirtieth Goncourt winner reading, although this relatively short (197-page) novel feels – at the moment at least, although I'll definitely reread it one day for confirmation or otherwise – like one of the best of them.
The grave of Félicien Marceau (1913–2012) in Le cimetière ancien de Neuilly:
My Félicien Marceau posts:
Félicien Marceau: La Terrasse de Lucrezia
Félicien Marceau: Creezy
Georges Conchon: L'État sauvage | The Savage State (1964)
Libellés : Conchon (Georges), French Literature, Prix Goncourt
Georges Conchon wrote the 1964 Goncourt-winning novel L'État sauvage – translated into English as The Savage State – after he had been secrétaire général of L'Assemblée législative centrafricaine in Bangui. Politically correct it certainly isn't. The epigraph, from Marcel Proust's Sodome et Gomorrhe, is instructive: 'Ils avaient l’air d’une bande d’anthropophages chez qui une blessure faite à un blanc a réveillé le goût du sang' ('They looked like a gang of cannibals for whom a white person's wound had aroused the taste for blood.') The quotation at the head of the final chapter – from Blaise Cendrars's Poèmes nègres – is no less provocative – 'Le commerce des Européens sur cette côte et leur libertinage ont fait une nouvelle race d'hommes qui est peut-être la plus méchante de toutes' ('Europeans trading on this coast and their moral dissoluteness have created a new race of men who are perhaps the most vicious of all.')
The novel is set over a twenty-four hour period in Fort-Jacul, a Central African country recently independent from French rule. It begins with twenty-six-year-old French UNESCO employee Avit landing at the airport in Fort-Jacul, and ends with him leaving it. He has spent two years recovering from his very young wife Laurence just leaving him and taking off with another man, although he finds shortly after arriving in Fort-Jacul that Laurence is in Fort-Jacul too and now living with Patrice Doumbé, the country's minister of health.
And on landing, Avit is sent to see Modimbo, the Ministre de l'Information, who in no uncertain terms tells him to go home, although he doesn't say why. It becomes quite clear that the reason is the blacks' prejudice against the whites, and this is seen throughout the book, from the killing of Doumbé whose relationship with Laurence causes anger among the population, through the increasingly violent and threatening atmosphere of the country, all the way to the thousands of black and white people following Laurence and Avit to the airport.
The book was faithfully adapted into a film whose screenplay was written by Conchon and the director Francis Girod in 1978. I'm unsure how such works would fair in a post-politically correct age though.
Jean Rouaud: Les Champs d'honneur (1990)
Libellés : French Literature, Prix Goncourt, Rouaud (Jean)
Jean Rouaud's Les Champs d'honneur was his first novel, and he won the Goncourt with it. Reading back over the immensely enthusiastic reviews, that win seems almost an inevitability.
And reading that novel for the first (and probably not last) time I have to say that I can understand the enthusiasm. Temporarily, the book flits all over the place, but that isn't important. This novel is (the beginning of) a family saga of sorts. Deaths are important here, and some of them relate to World War I. But the three deaths of note are those of the father, the 'petite tante' or great-aunt, and the grandfather.
The book begins with the grandfather and immediately the reader is captivated. His erratic driving, the painstaking way his chain-smoking while driving is described, but most of all his old 2 CV , which is called Bobosse and which lets in water through the canvas roof, make grand-père almost more the partner of his car than his wife. Great-aunt Marie, with her saints and her lasting belief in their triumph over science and health, is also a fascinating character, and a kind of celestial comeback kid who comes back to life but loses her senses.
But maybe the rain (especially in the département of Loire-Atlantique) is the principal character on, er, reflection: one critic called Rouaud the 'Mozart of the rain-gauge', with his ability to comically describe and differentiate between spitting, drizzling, regular raining, downpouring, etc. Rouaud was an obvious gift to French literature.
Marie Redonnet: Mobie-Diq (1982)
Libellés : French Literature, Redonnet (Marie)
Marie Redonnet's Mobie-Diq, particularly with its hyphenation, obviously calls to mind Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, as well as the Bible (Jonah and the whale), but more so – this being Redonnet and early Redonnet in particular – Samuel Beckett. Minimalism is in the nature of this play, which like Tir & Lir (1988) merely has two characters, although unlike that later play has no voices of other people.
Mobie is the ageing woman, Diq her husband, and they are in evening dress – which little by little turn to rags as the play progresses – because they have been having the honeymoon they didn't have on marriage, on board the luxury liner Tango. Unfortunately the ship (like the Titanic on its maiden voyage) comes to grief and Mobie and Diq are apparently the only survivors, on a rowing boat without a compass, but not without hope.
Although, the audience surely knows that hope is a short-lived commodity in the Redonnetian (as in the Beckettian) universe: the 'treasure' found in the boat will prove to be valueless, any compensation after the disastrous voyage (paid for by the sale of their pathetic home) will not be forthcoming, and inevitably they will end up in the belly of a whale. Gulp, all gone.
Links to my other Marie Redonnet posts:
Marie Redonnet: Rose Mélie Rose | Mellie Rose
Marie Redonnet: Seaside
Marie Redonnet: Nevermore
Marie Redonnet: Tir et Lir
Beatrix Potter in Near Sawrey, Cumbria
Libellés : Cumbria, Potter (Beatrix), Sawrey (UK)
Hill Top, Near Sawrey (Sawrey consisting of the hamlets Near Sawrey and Far Sawrey). This is the farm the very successful Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) – author and artist (a word she scorned in relation to herself) – moved to in 1905, shortly after her fiancé Norman Warne's death. At the time John Cannon managed the farm and lived there with his family .
Potter wanted the Cannons to stay there, so had an extension built, which is dated 1906. She married local solicitor William Heelis in 1913.
The entrance hall.
The parlour, originally a bedroom.
A glimpse of the kitchen.
Beatrix Potter only rarely used this room, and never slept in this bed.
The sitting room.
On the road down from Hill Top:
'Buckle Yeat
is featured in many
of Beatrix Potters [sic]
books, including The Tale
of Tom Kitten, Pie &
The Patty Pan and
Piggling Bland'
Beatrix Potter bequeathed over 4000 acres to the National Trust, including fifteen farms and many cottages.
Georges Conchon: L'État sauvage | The Savage State...
William Wordsworth in Grasmere, Cumbria (continued)
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Trefnant
The junction of the A525 and the B5428 roads
Location within Denbighshire
1,581 (2011 Census)
Principal area
Ceremonial county
Sovereign state
Post town
Postcode district
Dialling code
Vale of Clwyd
Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament
List of places
53°13′37″N 3°25′44″W / 53.227°N 3.429°W / 53.227; -3.429Coordinates: 53°13′37″N 3°25′44″W / 53.227°N 3.429°W / 53.227; -3.429
Trefnant is a village and community in Denbighshire, Wales. It is located on the A525 road in the Vale of Clwyd (Dyffryn Clwyd), about halfway between St Asaph (Llanelwy) to the north and Denbigh to the south. At the 2001 Census, the community had a population of 1,409,[1] increasing to 1,581 at the 2011 Census.[2]
Holy Trinity Church, designed by George Gilbert Scott, is a Grade II* listed building in the village. It was erected to commemorate the life of John Lloyd Salusbury, of Galltfaenan Hall.[3] It forms part of a significant group of listed Scott-designed structures in the village, which include a school and parsonage.[4][5][6]
Nearby is Llannerch Hall.[7]
Trefnant railway station served the village. It closed in the 1960s. Also Llannerch railway station was located nearby at Llannerch Hall. It closed in 1871.
Welsh language author and polemicist Emrys ap Iwan was a minister at Trefnant at the end of the 19th century.[citation needed]
Green Methodist Chapel was built in 1824. Built in the simple Gothic style, gable entry type.[8]
Trefnant used to have a football team called Trefnant Village FC. They dropped out of the Clwyd League due to a cash crisis. They have a Summer league team which won the first summer title in 1927 and they last won a trophy in 2004, the shield, beating Henllan in the final.[citation needed]
An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches beyond the boundaries of the Community and the total population taken at the 2011 Census was 1,970.[9]
^ 2001 Census: Trefnant, Office for National Statistics, retrieved 18 March 2009
^ "Community population 2011". Retrieved 24 May 2015.
^ "Holy Trinity Church". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
^ "Former rectory". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
^ "Trefnant School". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
^ "Llannerch Hall". Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
^ http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/7900/details/green-chapel-welsh-calvinistic-methodist-trefnant. Retrieved 9 October 2018. Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 24 May 2015.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Trefnant.
www.geograph.co.uk: photos of Trefnant and surrounding area
This Denbighshire location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Public Whip
The Public Whip is a parliamentary informatics project that analyses and publishes the voting history of MPs in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
It was developed by Francis Irving and Julian Todd following the 18 March 2003 Parliamentary Approval for the invasion of Iraq as a tool to record which MPs had defied their party's whip long after the information had become effectively inaccessible for reference.
On 1 August 2011 Irving and Todd handed control of the site to a new team.[1]
The project is loosely affiliated to mySociety's TheyWorkForYou with which it shares a large part of the same parliamentary parsing code-base.
In 2014 the OpenAustralia Foundation launched a fork of the project for Australia's federal parliament called They Vote For You .
1 Awards and funding
3 Publicity
4 Activism
5 Creators
Awards and funding[edit]
In 2004 the Public Whip won the New Statesman New Media Award for "civic renewal".[2]
The site has never received a grant from any funding body and remains entirely paid for by its creators, including server costs and bandwidth.[3]
Technology[edit]
Originally the software was written in Perl, and then later rewritten in Python. The main process downloads the daily transcripts from the online Hansard, matches and assigns IDs to the names of MPs, and saves them into XML files. These are later uploaded into a mySQL table and viewed through PHP webpages.
At the end of 2003 the project was extended to read the archive of Parliamentary Written Answers. Following a request from mySociety, the Parliamentary Parser[4] was expanded to include House of Commons and Westminster Hall debates, and finally the House of Lords, which are all more or less in the same format. It is now maintained by them to provide the data to their TheyWorkForYou website.
Publicity[edit]
The website has occasionally been cited in newspaper articles, and is sometimes referred to in election material.[5] It has also been used to provide voting analysis to citizens during elections.
Activism[edit]
An election quiz which advised voters of which party or incumbent candidate most closely matched their political opinions (according to the Parliamentary vote) was on the site for the 2005 General election and received over 10,000 hits.
In anticipation of preparing a version of it again for the next general election, Julian has distributed leaflets and tried out variations of the site at the 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election[6][7] and the 2008 Glenrothes by-election.[8]
Creators[edit]
Francis Irving currently does programming work for mySociety, most recently WhatDoTheyKnow, a site that provides an on-line interface to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Julian Todd has extended the concept of parsing transcripts for speeches and votes to the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations with a website called undemocracy.com established in 2007.[9] The work was motivated by the discovery of the transcripts on-line during research into the application of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 in his home town of Liverpool.[10]
^ Katy (6 August 2011). "Okay, so what are you going to do with it?". publicwhip.org.uk.
^ "New Media Awards TwoThousandAndFour". New Statesman. 2004.
^ "FAQ: Do you make any money out of Public Whip".
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-07-16. Retrieved 2006-06-26. CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ Francis Irving (3 March 2005). "Found this week in Bristol election leaflet".
^ "The Public Whip Crewe". 19 May 2008.
^ Ozimek, John (17 May 2008). "Can't decide how to vote? Publicwhip.org will tell you". TheRegister.
^ "The long winding road in Glenrothes". 4 November 2008.
^ Grossman, Wendy (13 March 2008). "Is it possible for geeks to fix the United Nations?". The Guardian.
^ "The UN as evidenced on the streets of Liverpool". Freesteel blog. 4 September 2006.
Public Whip webpage
Parlparse
TheyWorkForYou.com
Julian Todd's blog posts relating to PublicWhip and undemocracy.com
undemocracy.com website
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Public_Whip&oldid=995768465"
Politics of the United Kingdom
British political websites
Political whips
Software using the GNU AGPL license
Open government in the United Kingdom
CS1 maint: archived copy as title
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Thames Mouth Chapter
Province of Essex - Consecrated 8th May 1954
What is the Holy Royal Arch?
Royal Arch is an Order in Freemasonry closely associated with Craft Freemasonry.
The first documented evidence of a ‘Royal Arch’ comes from Ireland in 1743; it seems likely that this was an ‘added extra’ worked within Craft Lodges in England, Ireland and Scotland for many years. Thus it came to be regarded, by the Antients in England, as a fourth Degree in Freemasonry.
The Moderns, on the other hand, do not appear to have officially recognised the Degree at all (with a few exceptions), leading in due course, to completely separate Royal Arch Chapters. These differences were partially resolved at the Union of the Grand Lodges in 1813, by a compromise: the new United Grand Lodge of England declared the Royal Arch to be an official and accepted part of ‘Pure and Antient Freemasonry’.
The Royal Arch is an integral part of Freemasonry and interwoven with the Craft, the teachings of which it completes.
The Royal Arch is the continuation of Craft Freemasonry. Its members, called Companions, meet in Chapters under a Grand Chapter. Chapters are ruled over by three Principals, who rule conjointly, and the Grand Chapter is ruled over by three Grand Principals, with a Pro First Grand Principal when the First Grand Principal is a Royal Prince.
In England the Royal Arch has four ceremonies: the exaltation ceremony to bring in new members and an installation ceremony for each of the three Principals. The exaltation ceremony is in two parts: a rather dramatic presentation of the principles of the Order followed by three Lectures in which the history, symbolism and principles of the Royal Arch are further explained. Like Craft Freemasonry, the Royal Arch is open to men of all faiths.
The allegory of the exaltation ceremony is based on the Old Testament telling of the return to Jerusalem from the Babylonish captivity to rebuild the city and temple. In clearing the ground of the original temple for the foundations of the second temple, the candidate makes a number of discoveries which emphasise the centrality of God to man's life and existence and, without transgressing the bounds of religion, lead the candidate to a consideration of the nature of God and his personal relationship with Him, whatever his religion might be.
If you want to find out more about Freemasonry, then click here
© Copyright of Thames Mouth Chapter 2020
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the farm hostel
The Farm Hostel Canggu is the most relaxing budget accommodation in Canggu, Bali.
michael may blind
Michael Oher said the 2009 hit movie "The Blind Side" has taken away from what he does on the field. and navigation for the blind! It gained significantly when you bought it but now it has declined into the loss area. MAY SMITHERS HILLS Michael May, second from left, walks with his children and their friends to a park near his home in Davis, Calif. on . His explosive and masterfully crafted novels draw upon the full breadth of his unique experiences. While the surgery was a. Mike may was totally blinded at age three from an explosion of calcium carbide. A tough but unhappy Broadway star re-evaluates her life when she crosses paths with a blind pianist. The voice of Holland is dé talentenjacht van Nederland op RTL 4. Thank you for reaching out. They don’t see the advantages conferred by their Y chromosome. Cause you're made of strength and mercy And my soul is yours to save I know this much is true When my world was dark and blue I know the only one who rescued me was you Close your eyes Let me tell you all the reasons why With Martin Sheen, Michael Callan, William Daniels, Clifford David. Most of our funding comes from individuals, not corporate sponsors. "The Blind Side" depicts the story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home, taken in by the Touhys, a well-to-do white family who help him fulfill his potential.At the same time, Oher's presence in the Touhys' lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own. their actions may be sabotaging their investing decisions. He went on to work for the CIA and became a successful entrepreneur, founding the Sendero Group, a company that makes GPS and talking-map products for blind people. Directed by Charles Walters. You’ll find a community that has your back on The Mighty, no matter what health situation you’re going through. May went blind at age 3 when a jar of chemicals exploded in his face. Please complete the form below and one of our staff will be in touch! Haas murmured as he ran his fingers over the holes, "You... Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images But in real life, Michael Oher didn’t have a fiery Sandra Bullock teaching everything he needed to know about the game. McKenna. Love Is Blind 2020 TV-MA 1 Season Competition Reality TV Nick and Vanessa Lachey host this social experiment where single men and women look for love and get engaged, all before meeting in person. Dashiell Bennett. In fact, one actress, in particular, remains a close friend to Oher: none other than Sandra Bullock herself. To May, getting lost was the best part. Michael May, totally blind at age three from an explosion of calcium carbide, grew up believing he was lucky to be blind and still alive. I am sure you will have many views and opinions on this book. Without contact tracing, countries are 'driving blind' warns WHO official WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan made the comments today. May underwent a rare stem cell transplant in 2000 and became one of a handful of documented cases of partial vision restoration. You love the product and are an enthusiastic customer so you are still confident, and you buy more shares. Abigail. Your support is vital! Optional: I would like to see George Michael surprised the world with his return. Michael Landon played the role of "Pa" with so much swagger that it's hard to believe the real Charles Ingalls actually looked like this. CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- "The Blind Side'' may have been a box office hit, but the player it was about has been blindsided by its effect on his NFL career. Buy Blind alpine skiing and racing 2nd ed by May, Michael (ISBN: ) from Amazon's Book Store. Narrated by Michael Lewis. NEXT: Here’s how ‘The Blind Side’ made Michael Oher look weak to the NFL… It also left out the true story behind Michael Oher’s success. May had a stem-cell transplant in his right eye in 2001 when he was 43, after 40 years of blindness. He grew up believing he was lucky to be blind and still alive. By Press Association Monday 11 May 2020, 9:31 PM It's your beauty that betrays you Your smile gives you away. Mike leading an Accessible GPS Treasure Hunt with O&M Instructors ; GPS WayFun Trip Group exploring Canada with Accessible GPS Television series docu-drama traces the career of John Dean, special counsel of president Nixon. (COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA) is pleased to announce its new board of directors, which includes seven new appointees and three returning board members. Michael May, rendered completely blind at the age of 3, makes the tough decision to undergo a rare stem cell transplant surgery to be able to see again as a grown, married man. Blue-collar. Michael would never do that to his children. His story was recently told in the book Crashing Through, by Robert Kurson. FICTION: What The Movie "The Blind Side" Got Wrong. Like “She dropped the matter, and his birthday remained May 28. With Joan Crawford, Michael Wilding, Gig Young, Marjorie Rambeau. Highlight on Mike May, blind entrepreneur, inspirational speaker. The winners receive […]. We'll be in touch soon! Mike May has over two decades research and development of accessible navigation devices. Michael May. Michael may blind. Michael Scott: Now, you may look around and see two groups here. Three years ago, Mike May's sight was partially restored by a pioneering transplant using stem cells. Mike May Michael (Mike) May, blind since age 3, is an athlete, an entrepreneur, and a pioneer in the development of way-finding technology. Power: Abigail can temporarily stop pain by electrically stimulating certain parts of the brain. It’s part of the process of discovering things.” When they asked how he’d gotten so adept at cane travel he told them it was his curiosity, not his cane. And you know why not? "At the age of 45, Michael May, who had been blind since childhood, was given the possibility of sight through a revolutionary stem-cell transplant surgery. The Sendero founders began developing accessible GPS in 1993. Michael (Mike) May, blind since age 3, is an athlete, an entrepreneur, and a pioneer in the development of way-finding technology. Michael Lewis, the author of The Blind Side, ... Moore shooed away that allegation in a May 2010 New Orleans Times-Picayune story about Chouest’s bid to purchase the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets. [Blind Gossip] You may remember that story we told you about a big shot politician who was oh-so-concerned about public health. We have hosted concerts for almost every major Country artist including Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels, The Bellamy Brothers, and … Haas murmured as he ran his fingers over the holes, "You... Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images He told people, “I’m very curious. into May’s eye, which May could barely detect (most blind people have some vague light perception). It took only moments for him to see that May was totally blind. © Copyright 2020 American Foundation for the Blind Privacy Policy [Read more…] about He Threw A Birthday Party. Plaintiffs, the National Federation of the Blind, Mi-chael May, Michael Hingson, and Christina Thomas bring this prospective class action against United Air-lines, Inc. John-Michael May and his blind friend Doug Hass walked by Berg's condo and Haas Put his fingers into the bullet holes in Berg's garage door. Michael May, totally blind at age three from an explosion of calcium carbide, grew up believing he was lucky to be blind and still alive. May was just three years old when he lost his sight in a chemical explosion. Blind Items health, party, politics. Michael G. "Mike" May (born 1954) was blinded by a chemical explosion at the age of 3 but regained partial vision in 2000, at 46, after corneal transplantation and a pioneering stem cell procedure by San Francisco ophthalmologist Daniel Goodman. May went blind at age 3 when a jar of chemicals exploded in his face. He does not consider himself blind. 2011-05-13T14:13:36Z The letter F. An envelope. May has been blind since the age of three but has been able to gain some of his sight back after corneal surgery Carson May and his father Mike May, speaking at an American Foundation for the Blind conference Carson May was last seen skiing at the Sugar Bowl Resort near Lake Tahoe on January 14, 2016. Discovering Your Investing Blind Spots 2/10 Y our favorite tech stock has not been co-operating. I can’t see Michael faking his death since there are kids involved. A great memorable quote from the The Office movie on Quotes.net - Michael Scott: Now, you may look around and see two groups here. Your organization can change the way the world sees blindness. They released the first GPS version for a laptop in 2000. May has also worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, Bank of California, TRW and Arkenstone. It is not my colour wheel and I'm not gonna wear it. Michael Oher is still friends with the cast of “The Blind Side” Though Michael Oher was not a fan of “The Blind Side,” he seems to get along with the actors and actresses from the film just fine. Coronavirus: Consultant fears his patients may ‘go blind’ due to loss of private care Prof Michael O’Keefe says temporary nationalisation during pandemic could lead to deaths And you know why not? And I promise that I will be at every game cheering for you. Because I am collar-blind. We talk about what health is really like — mental health, chronic illness, disability, rare disease, cancer, and much more. Michael Burry always saw the world differently—due, he believed, to the childhood loss of one eye. [Blind Woman's Bluff] [Author: Paulson, Michael] [May, 2014]: Paulson, Michael: Books - Amazon.ca Mike leading an accessible gps treasure hunt with o m instructors. Rate this quote: (4.00 / 2 votes) 2,029 Views. You are now in the contact form, navicge to the close button to close, Press this button to close the form and return to the top of the page, Grievance, Complaint and Appeal Procedures, USABA Named Winner of 2020 Robert Wood Johnson Sports Award. Physical Description: Tall with long blond hair and bright blue eyes. De eerste audities vinden geblindeerd plaats doordat de jury met rug naar de performer toe zit wanneer de jury onder de indruk is van het talent draaien zij hun stoel, om aan te geven dat zij vinden dat het talent door mag. With Joan Crawford, Michael Wilding, Gig Young, Marjorie Rambeau. Michael Oher: Every game. Directed by Charles Walters. Michael G. "Mike" May (born 1954) was blinded by a chemical explosion at the age of 3 but regained partial vision in 2000, at 46, after corneal transplantation and a pioneering stem cell procedure by San Francisco ophthalmologist Daniel Goodman. Michael May, totally blind at age three from an explosion of calcium carbide, grew up believing he was lucky to be blind and still alive. White collar, blue collar. Athlete – Alpine Skiing Inducted 2010. But I will not wear that gaudy orange, I will not. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. View Michael May's profile for company associations, background information, and partnerships. Sean and I have been talking and Michael, if you're gonna accept a football scolarship we think it should be to Tennesee. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. The retired England striker confirmed James was diagnosed with Stargardt disea… Your contact form has been successfully submitted. You know why not? Michael Oher: Courage is a hard thing to figure. Because I am collar-blind. Prodigy Search, a national leader in executive recruitment, helped […], COLORADO SPRINGS (October 4, 2020) – The United States Association of Blind Athletes has been selected as one of five 2020 winners of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Sports Award from a pool of 270 applicants. A tough but unhappy Broadway star re-evaluates her life when she crosses paths with a blind pianist. So getting lost doesn’t feel like a bad thing. 21) “Collar blind” Michael Scott quotes. He was formerly senior investment commentator, global markets editor in London and prior to 2015 was the US markers editor. But I don’t see it that way. John-Michael May and his blind friend Doug Hass walked by Berg's condo and Haas Put his fingers into the bullet holes in Berg's garage door. see review. Michael is the FT's US investment editor. May competed in the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics where he broke the world record for B1 athletes in downhill speed skiing with a speed of 65 MPH and was the first blind man to ever ski a run at an Olympic Games. She can heat herself to more than 3,000 Kelvin. Stealing Signs And Stealing Hearts. For more than four decades, Michael May could only dream of catching a ball or see the faces of his loved ones. prospect to many blind people. Three years ago, Mike May's sight was partially restored by a pioneering transplant using stem cells. The Blind Horse Saloon opened its doors in 1995 and has been the Premier Country Nightclub in the upstate of South Carolina ever since. The topics in this discussion are an interesting account of Michael May's becoming sighted after being Blind most of his life: "At the age of 45, Michael May, who had been blind since childhood, was given the possibility of sight through a revolutionary stem-cell transplant surgery.
120 Volt Air Conditioner With Heat, Nizoral Shampoo Hair Loss, Kentucky Death Records, 1852-1965, Doom Emacs 27, Wella Luxe Oil, 9 Examples Of Supply And Demand, Ngiyakuthanda Sthandwa Sami Poems, Gin Oregano Cocktail, What Does A Business Woman Do,
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Tag Archives: nazis
Policy, Politics
November 22, 2016 Administrator
While many are calling for the public to “give the Trump administration a chance” the Institute for Science and Policy has been working hard to foresee what will be the result of his presidency. Our outlook is very pessimistic for all the reasons which are outlined below.
As president-elect Trump has already begun to build his administration around the worst possible fears of his opponents. He is appointing white nationalists to key positions in his administration, he is seeking to register religious minorities, and roll back the finally realized rights and protections so many of our citizens have earned and deserve.
We expect:
A failed economy rife with fraud and the loss of publicly owned infrastructure
Global war and the collapse of traditional allegiances
Increased white nationalism, hate crimes, and paramilitary involvement in domestic matters
Significant roll backs of civil rights and liberties
Persecution of the free press and limited access to information
Trump family enrichment through governmental power and influence
Environmental collapse in the Mountain West
A drift toward authoritarianism and fascism
The chances of military coup inside the United States has never been greater
Jobs, Graft, Nepotism, Kleptocracy, and the Economy
What is readily apparent and troubling is the hurried pace at which Donald Trump is seeking to enrich himself via the power of the presidency. Trump is hardly the first wealthy man to hold the most powerful office in the land, but he is by far the wealthiest of them all, and the first to refuse to put his vast holdings into a blind trust. Trump is still the chair of his privately held conglomerate. His children will be running the day-to-day business operations, but at the same time he seeks to give his children top secret clearance and have them hold key positions in his administration as advisers.
The Trump Family opens its newest hotel in Washington DC, a former post office leased from the US government. Trump is about to become his own landlord.
It has already been reported that diplomats, dignitaries, and heads of state will be flocking to the Trump Hotel just blocks from the White House to pay $20,000 a night to stay in the most premium rooms. One Asian diplomat stated it as such, “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’ ” Reports are already coming out that he is using his new position to enrich himself via graft from other heads of state.
This is the key: enrich. Trump cares about money. Money will be first and foremost in a Trump administration. Trump admires Russian President Vladimir Putin. He admires his authoritarian rule, he admires his business acumen. What is Putin’s business acumen, you ask? Amassing some $200 billion in wealth as the head of state. In America presidents are expected to forego their dreams of wealth and riches until after they have served their country. Donald Trump will not do this. The country will serve Donald Trump.
Trump will mire us financially. His tax policy will suck hundreds of billions out of the treasury every year as he slashes corporate taxes, and invites a loophole for the highest paid executives to become “consultants” and pay 15% tax on their wealth rather than 35% on their salaries. The wall he wants to build is estimated to cost $25 billion, but we think that is under estimating the costs by about $200 billion. Constructing a light rail line in Seattle costs $10 billion. The largest concrete project in human history is going to be a logistical nightmare as it eminent domains land, fights legal battles, claws for raw material, experiences delays, costs overruns, shoddy workmanship, protests, etc… Trump’s plan for deporting immigrants would cost up to $600 billion just to enforce and deport, and another $1.5 trillion in economic loss to our economy!
His base wants jobs. They voted for Trump believing that jobs will come to them. They won’t. The jobs these people had years and years ago, are not coming back. In 1973 the United States produced 137 million metric tons of steel and employed 605,000 people (226.4 tons per worker). In 2013 steel production was down to 87 million tons and 147,000 employees (591.8 tons per employee). It is thought that production has been growing since 2013 due to construction and manufacturing being on the rise, but even if we had the peak steel production of 1973 replicated today, there would still be 373,503 fewer workers producing said steel. Only inefficiency will bring back those jobs.
In coal country the prospects are even more grim. West Virginia overwhelmingly has put their faith into Donald Trump to bring back coal jobs. Overall yearly coal production in West Virginia is down about 60 million tons per year since the peak of 1997, yet the number of workers mining coal is higher than ever! In 1997 20,542 people worked in the coal industry in West Virginia and mined 181 million tons. By 2013 that total was 52,213 people mining 120 million tons. Why? It became harder to get permits to blow the tops off of mountains and open pit coal mines. Open pits require a fraction of the work force to obtain a higher yield, it is also incredibly destructive to the environment. Today, coal is harder to mine, more labor intensive, and employs more people now than it has for 30 years and is comparable to coal employment over peaks of the past century.
So, why is West Virginia hurting? For the same reason it has always been hurting: too many people, not enough industry. West Virginia has no sea ports, no interesting landmarks or tourist stops, not enough flat ground, and a poorly educated population. No corporations of worth want to be there, only corporations who have to be there. The majority of its employed population work in hospitals and pharmacies, and for Walmart or Krogers. It is almost entirely an economy built upon a dying population. Donald Trump is not going to make West Virginia more appealing, he is not going to get more people to work in coal. If West Virginia was worth the investment, Trump would have invested in it by now.
Coal production is just not efficient in West Virginia and will vanish entirely in the near future. Wyoming produces 255 million more tons of coal than WV and does so with only 6,646 employees. Even Wyoming coal is feeling the pinch as natural gas becomes a much cheaper, cleaner-burning alternative for traditional coal fire power plants. How would Trump bring coal jobs back? He would have to make natural gas expensive again, which would kill the natural gas market and put many of the 170,000 jobs tied to gas exploration and production at risk. Trump’s only option at this point is to capitulate and make one of these industries really angry, or artificially boost the coal market and create an unsustainable bubble.
With regards to Wall Street and big banks, Trump wants to see regulations be purged from the markets. History has shown that when Republicans control all three branches of government the economy collapses: 1929, 2008… 2017? Since 1981 there have been four recessions, all of which happened during a Republican administration. We are about to see a complete reversal in policy towards the markets and expect to see a housing bubble part II.
When markets get deregulated, and banks are allowed to invest savings into the markets at will one should expect fantastic, quick gains; but this is inevitably unsustainable. As long as traders are allowed to insure their investments with credit default swaps, there will be artificial inflation of securities and commodities, as many will no doubt bet against the market and stand to make fortunes. Trump plays with other people’s money and seldom has stake in the game. He has defaulted on billions of dollars in loans since the 1970s and now receives most of his investment from overseas. An undisclosed amount of loans possibly totaling $1 billion from the Bank of China, his debts also include over $350 million from Deutsche bank, and an unsettling amount of money from Russian oligarchs tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle for overseas Trump projects, which…
…Brings us back to Vladimir Putin and Trump’s ties to him. While Trump denies any connection with Putin, the money and personal trail is deep. Trump’s daughter Ivanka is good friends with Putin’s girlfriend, Wendi Deng, and went on vacation with her to Croatia this past summer (if this alone is not enough to warrant a rejection for security clearance, we don’t know what is). Putin’s M.O. for the past decade has been to install his surrogates and allies as the heads of states in the former Soviet Bloc via invasion or questionable elections. This tactic has become more global than regional as of late with the election of Duterte in the Philippines and, some would say, Trump.
Ivanka Trump on Vacation with Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend Wendi Deng
During the campaign, Donald Trump made some very troubling comments about NATO, the allegiance that has kept the Russian Bear at bay for almost 70 years. The prime directive is that the attack of any one NATO member is an attack on all. While being a Cold War necessity, this doctrine is very recently relevant as Russia has begun overthrowing its former Soviet subjects making many former Iron Curtain nations nervous enough to jump at the opportunity of NATO membership. Just this week Estonia has a new Prime Minister in Juri Ratas who has deep ties to Vladimir Putin. Russia has been amassing military personnel and armament along the border with Estonia since last year. Lithuania is so fearful of Russian invasion that they have been running nation-wide drills with its citizenry and preparing its troops for an imminent war.
We expect that during Trump’s term that Russia will invade one, or all, of the Baltic states and challenge NATO’s allegiances and prime directive. We expect Russia to assume that the Trump administration will look the other way al la Chamberlain with regards to the Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland. This will plunge Europe into war without its largest, most important ally, the USA. In other words World War III.
In Asia Trump will ignore allegiances with traditional partners like Japan, South Korea, The Philippines, and Taiwan; and will let die recent ties with Vietnam. Trump has said that he wants these nations to have more of a role in their security and for the US to pull out. This plays directly into the hands of Chinese and Russian interests.
Japanese President Shinzo Abe is a hawk unlike any leader since the end of WWII. China will begin to exert more dominance in East Asia and make its neighbors nervous of invasion of their borders and infiltration of their governments. This action will lead to military buildups by previously weakly armed governments. North Korea will go largely ignored and will continue development of weapons systems and will become a belligerent threat to its immediate neighbors. The Korean Peninsula has never been closer to all out war since the cease fire. Result? World War III. Only worse than the European side as allegiances will have become much more muddled and the US will not have a strong policy for its position.
The Middle East, while at the moment is the most pressing concern, will largely fall by the wayside as Trump let’s Putin control policy and action in Syria and Turkey. As the rest of the planet falls into posturing and war, our Middle East policy will largely be forgotten anywhere that does not sell oil. We expect to see internal strife similar or worse than the Arab Spring arise in multiple nations as soon as the US government becomes preoccupied with skirmishes across the globe.
Our outlook with regards to international relations is not good. We have never been closer to nuclear annihilation than we are about to become in the period since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On Meanwhile on the domestic front, new Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions will see law and order unravel as the Justice Department’s attention does a 180 degree turn. Sessions’ ties to white nationalists, and his overt racism, cost him a federal judgeship. Expect to see any federal law enforcement operations following white nationalist groups like the KKK, Neo Nazis, Aryan Brotherhood, Odinists, the Alt Right, paramilitary militia organizations, and Sovereign Citizens to all but vanish. White Nationalist groups will use this period as an opportunity to become the defacto “Brown Shirts” of the Trump administration as they see Trump’s ascendancy a sign that their race war is near. Hate crimes against ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQ peoples will continue to increase with impunity.
The Justice Department will double down on the War on Drugs. Expect the DEA to return focus on state-legal pot operations. Very few users and purveyors of legal marijuana voted for Trump; this will be an opportunity to clear out the opposition. It will also be a financial boon for the private prison industry and wreak havoc on the the economies of West Coast.
The EPA will become toothless. Should Myron Ebell take over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency he will gut it. He will make life for the bureaucrats and scientists who have worked at the EPA for decades so miserable that many will quit or retire. He will do one of two things: let the agency operate understaffed, or fill any openings with climate denial underlings who will keep the agency inept for generations. This means that violators of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act will likely go unpunished. Pipeline construction out of the Bakken oil fields will crisscross the continent and any spills or explosions will receive little to no attention from the federal agency. Expect air and water quality to continue to denigrate during the Trump administration as more lands are opened to fraking and energy exploration.
Myron Ebell was satirically wanted by environmentalists at the Paris Climate Summit, now he is in charge of the agency which regulates our environment.
For years Republicans in Congress have been trying to unload federal lands. Now that Republicans control all three branches of government, there is a higher than likely chance there will be a push for such a liquidation. Federal lands generate trillions of dollars to the US economy and provide recreation for millions as well as much of our potable water. The ultimate goal is to unload the lands onto the individual states who are not financially equipped to maintain such large tracts. The states will subsequently be forced to sell to the highest bidder; generally mining, ranching, and logging operations. Once these lands are out of the control of the state and federal governments it will be a free-for-all. Combine this with the future impotence of the EPA and we will see environmental degradation the likes of which the North American continent has never seen.
With Trump’s appointee(s) to the Supreme Court the future of Roe v Wade and Marriage Equality are certainly doomed. Trump may say he has the backs of the LGBTQ community, but his selection of Mike Pence as his Vice President is proof that this is not the case. Lip service to the LGBTQ community will not matter to a man like Pence who believes in gay conversion therapy and the Orwellian named “religious freedom” legislation which allows the open discrimination of Americans by businesses based on religious grounds. We are in uncharted territory with never having had an Evangelical with as much power as Pence has.
Further degradation of voting rights will occur as individual states make it harder and harder for minorities to vote. This will lead to more consolidation of power for Republican legislatures and Congress. States like Alabama recently required identification to vote and then closed 31 of its 67 DMVs to make it nearly impossible for millions of its citizens to obtain a valid ID. There is a direct connection that voter disenfranchisement won Trump the presidency and Republicans Congress in 2016.
Donald Trump does not like native tribes. He blames Indian casinos for the collapse of his gambling interests in Atlantic City. He will seek revenge on them especially if tribes do not let him build his wall along the Mexico border, or readily construct pipelines through the nation’s heartland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbjUQf8G2X4
National infrastructure may finally get the upgrades and maintenance it so desperately needs but it will come at a cost: ownership of almost all vital infrastructure. Trump’s stated plan for upgrading the nation’s vast networks of roads, ports, bridges, and sanitation networks involves using private capital rather than public bonds and taxes.
Today when improvements are made, or new projects financed, the government sells low interest bonds to investors and pays back the loan via tax dollars. Trump wants to have private contractors use higher interest bank loans to rebuild infrastructure and in return the federal government will give the newly renovated infrastructure to the private company to run and profit from. This would turn hundreds of thousands of miles of roads into toll roads. Imagine paying a dollar a mile to cross the United States by highway. This will collapse the economy alone.
Couple this with the ineptitude with which private industry runs public infrastructure and we will have a double whammy of projects which cost several times more than usual, and are rife with violations of federal law, questionable financials, and poor management. Who will ultimately own all this infrastructure should private industry default on the loans? Banks, of course! If you thought the housing bubble was big, just wait for the securities derivatives market to crash with trillions of dollars of what was publicly owned projects. It will cost us twice; once when we give away public property, and again when we bail out the banks and do not receive ownership of the infrastructure in return. At least when the bond market collapses the government can buy back the bonds and forgive its own debt.
Information and the Media
The consolidation of media distribution and communications companies is a real threat to not only the access Americans have to information, but to the economy as a whole. Net Neutrality is one of the strongest drivers of the economy giving all people equal access to the Internet and its services. Large telecom companies want to throttle back this access and create a market for high speed broadband access for users as well as distributors of content. A Trump FCC and Supreme Court will allow for the death of Net Neutrality.
This will raise costs for consumers for substandard access to the Internet and media. It will bankrupt entire industries who cannot pay for their customers to access their content on the preferred networks of telecom giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.
Trump has made no secret of his willingness to crush the free press. Should telecoms and ISPs be able to restrict access to the Internet for news sources and social media this could greatly impede the ability of the public to make informed decisions. Trump would like to see the press corps dissolve, and go about his administrative functions as the head of state for the most powerful nation on Earth unchecked. Outside of puff pieces, Trump does not want journalists reporting on him.
We do not want to mince words. Trump will ruin the economy in the long term for short term gains. An economy is defined by the movement of goods, capital, services, people, and information. His infrastructure plan will impede the movement of people, goods and services. His media and communications plane will impede the movement of information. With the collapse of four of the five tenets of an economy the newly unregulated capital will also vanish. Which brings us to a very important topic…
The Safety Net
The Republicans in Congress want to privatize everything. Absolutely everything. They want to invest Medicare and Social Security into the stock market. This would increase the amount brokers and hedge fund managers would make on trades and gains on the market, with no skin in the game themselves, as 250 million Americans are compelled to pay into the gambles and whims of Wall Street suits. Today, should the market collapse, the last bastion of financial sanctuary for Americans is Social Security and Medicare. If the Republicans have their way, and invest Social Security and Medicare into the precarious market of a Trump administration, then should the market crash, then the populace of the entire nation also collapses. The Great Depression will have nothing on the ruin this act will wrought. This is Murphy’s Law 101.
Trump, time and again, says that he wants to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. It has been two years and he has not stated what he would replace it with. Should Congress successfully repeal the ACA and 20 million Americans go back to being uninsured the political fallout for Trump would be very large.
The President-elect also has plans to abolish the Veterans Affairs and privatize the VA hospitals. As it stands today, the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid are the three most effective and efficient providers of healthcare in the United States. The VA also enjoys the highest patient satisfaction of any hospital system in the nation. What the federal government provides in healthcare for one to two cents on the dollar, private industry does for 30 cents on the dollar. Under a Trump administration costs will skyrocket and care will vanish. When the past 8 years of growth the nation has experienced comes crashing down there will be no safety net for the populace since all of the reinvested Social Security capital will have vanished as well.
We expect the military budget to explode. The continued privatization of military functions; the further closure of bases and consolidation leading to both lucrative construction contracts and pennies-on-the-dollar acquisitions of prime government real estate; and the rampant purchasing of non-effective military hardware will all contribute to the runaway military budget.
Trump’s backing among infantry is unquestioned. His backing by commanders who control the nuclear arsenal is unclear. Considering Trump’s blasé attitude toward the use of nuclear arms terrifies those who manage such weapons, there is a real possibility Trump could order a first strike nuclear launch and those orders would be refused. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.
What we will end up with in the near future is a bloated military budget, and a pentagon preoccupied with moving personnel from bases around the world and consolidating them here at home while international relations fall apart elsewhere on the planet. A tenuous situation to say the least. Trump’s impending incompetence, stripping of civil rights, and weakening of US military dominance around the globe, when combined with an impending economic collapse, means the overthrow of our government by a military faction to be a stronger than ever possibility.
Authoritarianism and Fascism
It is no small measure than many are concerned with Trump’s rhetoric with regards to his administration becoming authoritarian or even fascist. During the debates Trump said he would jail his opponent, he repeatedly quoted white nationalists and fascists on social media, and he wants even greater policing authority. Combine these attributes with his attitude toward a free press, satire and free expression, and his love affair with Hitler’s speeches, and we have a very real possibility that his narcissistic personality disorder could lead to an authoritarian crack down on dissent.
We have never elected someone as dangerous as Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. He becomes bored with the details of the job, he is an admitted sexual predator, a fraud, and is interested in his own financial gain. Trump has been contemplating a run for the presidency for decades; he has thought about exactly how he will do this.
The Institute for Science and Policy feels that a Trump Presidency has the very real possibility to seeing the end of Democracy, Liberty, and Rights in the United States. We do not want to mince words; he is a danger to us all. If even one of these outcomes were come true it would spell disaster for our nation and would be an historic failure of our system of government.
Our goal is to not just spout doom and gloom, but to find solutions to these dangers as soon as possible.
-Houston Wade, Executive Director, The Institute for Science and Policy
alt rightaryan brotherhoodauthoritarianismbrown shirtscivil rightscoalcollapsedepressionDonald Trumpdoomeconomyepaestoniaexpectationsfascismfreedomhatehitlerinfrastructureivankalgbtqlibertylithuaniamilitary coupmilitiasminingnatural gasnazisnorth koreanuclear weaponspredictionsprivatizationracismrussiasciencesocial securitySteve Bannontheresistancevladimir putinwendi dengwest virginiawhite nationalismworld war threeWWIII
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LA’s Sweeping New Transportation Plan Could Give Cyclists, Transit Riders the Edge … and Change Your Life
http://citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/9457-la-s-sweeping-new-transportation-plan-could-give-cyclists-transit-riders-the-edge-and-change-your-life
By Jean Stanley, August 11, 2015
OUR CHANGING CITY--Los Angeles has an undeserved reputation for being weak on public transportation, but big infrastructure reform in the works in city council could bury the notion of the car-worshiping Southern California city once and for all. According to the Los Angeles Times:
Council members are on the verge of approving a sweeping new transportation policy, one that calls for hundreds of miles of new bus-only lanes, bicycle lanes and “traffic calming” measures over the next 20 years. The initiative, dubbed Mobility Plan 2035, has sparked a debate over the ramifications of redesigning major corridors such as Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Way and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The plan isn’t without critics. While supporters say it will ease congestion and improve bicyclists’ safety and give people who don’t want to or can’t drive more options, dissenters say that it will cause more congestion, both during and after construction, and could be dangerous if it blocks more roads from emergency vehicles.
“Cars are just going to sit there,” Don Parker, a board member with Fix the City, an advocacy group fighting the plan, told the Times. “So labeling it a mobility plan is just not reflective of what the plan actually does.”
Mobility Plan 2035 is the city’s first major transportation update since 1999. And though L.A. has the second most-expansive public transportation system in the country, only 11 percent of Angelenos actually use it for commuting.
“A paradigm shift of this kind often causes growing pains,” Connie Llanos, spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Garcetti, who supports the mobility plan, told the Times. “But the long-term benefits outweigh the impacts.”
According to the Times, the outcomes of the Vehicle Miles Traveled method of evaluating traffic projections favors the plan:
Under that analysis, completion of the mobility plan would result in about 35 million miles per day being traveled on LA surface streets in 2035. Without the plan, that number would grow to more than 38 million, the city found.
State officials are in the process of eliminating Level of Service as a tool for measuring traffic in the state’s environmental review process, said Juan Matute, associate director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. The Vehicle Miles Traveled system is a more accurate way of assessing the environmental impacts of major construction projects, he said.
If the plan goes through, it will be a lot more beneficial to those who already don’t rely on their cars or who wish to change their ways for greener options like bicycling. Those who continue to rely on their cars may be the worst hit by the changes.
“There are going to be people who are going to be worse off as a result of implementation” Juan Matute, associate director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies, told the Times. “And those are going to be the people that continue driving the same or greater distances as they do now.”
(Jenn Stanley is a freelance journalist, essayist and independent producer living in Chicago. She has an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. This piece was originally posted at NextCity.org.)
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Video by Joe Cano: Caltrans Hearing Home Sales
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EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD RINGS LIKE A BELL:
In the Lofoten Islands of Norway, Spaceweather.com reader Rob Stammes operates a magnetic observatory. Twenty-four hours a day, he measures the strength and direction of the local magnetic field as well as electrical currents running through the ground. During geomagnetic storms, his chart recordings go haywire. On Jan. 13th, something different happened. They rang like a bell:
"For about an hour, electrical currents in the ground beneath my observatory flowed back and forth with a sinusoidal period near 2 minutes," says Stammes. "This is rare."
These are natural ultra-low frequency oscillations known to researchers as "pulsations continuous" (Pc). The physics is familiar to anyone who has studied bells or resonant cavities. Earth's magnetic field carves out a cavity in the surrounding solar wind. Gusts of solar wind can make the cavity "ring" akin to a bell (references: #1, #2, #3). Human ears cannot hear this ringing; it is electromagnetic rather than acoustic. The physical effect is felt beneath our feet. As the cavity vibrates, magnetic fields swing back and forth, causing electrical currents to flow through the ground below.
The Pc waves Stammes detected are a variety known as Pc4, which oscillate in the frequency range 6.7–22 mHz. Such waves are good at energizing particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field and often cause local outbursts of bright auroras. www.spaceweather.com
Similar occurrences were also reported on 12 September and 23 October 2016:
http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/quick-info/-earths-magnetic-field-rings-like-a-bell - 12 Sept. 2016
http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/quick-info/sinusoidal-ground-currents-in-norway - 23 Oct. 2016
Giant gravity wave spotted on Venus
Andrew Liptak : The Verge : 16 Jan 2017
The Japanese probe Akatsuki has observed a massive gravity wave in the atmosphere of Venus. This is not the first time such a wave was observed on the Solar System's second planet, but it is the largest ever recorded, stretching just over 6,000 miles from end to end. Its features also suggest that the dynamics of Venus' atmosphere are more complex than previously thought.
An atmospheric gravity wave is a ripple in the density of a planet's atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency. (This isn't a gravitational wave, which is a ripple in space-time.) We have these waves in Earth's atmosphere, too; they interfere with weather and cause turbulence. Scientists have observed atmospheric gravity waves on Venus before: the European Space Agency's Venus Express spotted several before the end of its mission in 2014. Since its initial observations, Akatsuki has spotted several smaller structures with its infrared cameras in April and May 2016.
Akatsuki spotted this particular gravity wave, described in a paper published today in Nature Geoscience, when the probe arrived at the planet on December 7th, 2015. The spacecraft then lost sight of it on December 12th, 2015, because of a change in Akatsuki's orbit. When the probe returned to a position to observe the bow-shaped structure on January 15th, 2016, the bright wave had vanished.
What sets the huge December wave apart from previously discovered ones is that it appeared to be stationary above a mountainous region on the planet's surface, despite the background atmospheric winds.
The study's authors believe that the bright structure is the result of a gravity wave that was formed in the lower atmosphere as it flowed over the planet's mountainous terrain. It's not clear how the wave exactly propagates to the planet's upper atmosphere, where clouds rotate faster than the planets itself — four days instead of the 243 days it takes Venus to rotate once.
The massive gravity wave might mean that the atmospheric conditions closer to the planet's surface are more variable than predicted.
"Is it right?"
Cowardice asks the question: "Is it safe?"
Expediency asks the question: "Is it politic?"
Vanity asks the question: "Is it popular?"
But conscience asks the question: "Is it right?"
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular
but one must take it because one's conscience tells one
what is right.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"You Are the Light" - Kryon
From Kryon Book 7: Letters From Home (Loving Messages from the Family): Page 127
There is nothing inappropriate that will ever be able to penetrate that “light push” of yours. What we’re saying is that the energy of your spiritual countenance—of your light that is fueled by your connection with the lattice, is so strong that there is no need any more for shields. You are the light as you walk into and around your space and your family and your work and your life.
~ KRYON, through Lee Carroll, the Original Kryon Channel
Tyranny and Oppression
Enlighten the people generally,
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
~ Thomas Jefferson
PILEUS CLOUDS:
On Jan. 6th, Peter Lowenstein observed a rainbow-colored saucer over Mutare, Zimbabwe--but it wasn't a UFO. "This is a classic example of a pileus cloud," he says.
Pileus clouds form on sunny afternoons when the heat of the summer sun causes cumulus clouds to boil upwards. Roiling toward the sky, cumulus clouds push layers of moist air above them where they cool and condense to form droplet-rich cloud caps or 'pileus' (Latin for cap).
Sometimes, as in Mutare on Jan. 6th, pileus clouds form very quickly. In such cases their water droplets tend to be all the same size--the perfect condition for iridescent colors.
Lowenstein took four pictures over a period of just three minutes. "They show the cloud appearing, then changing shape and color," he says. "One minute later it had disappeared behind the summit of the growing cumulonimbus cloud."
Intent and Truth - Kryon
From Kryon Live Channelling: "Revelations of Darkness"
October 2014 in Philadelphia, PA
Do not despair! Generate the light that you came in with and stand tall and out of fear. "That's too simple, Kryon." Oh really? How do you think this planet has turned this major corner, dear Lightworker? Old soul, do you not understand that the light that you have is a multidimensional force? It is not linear. It is not the amount of it that is important. It's the intent of it and the truth of it. That is to say, a little goes a long way and old souls are extremely powerful in this department.
Give the People the Truth
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon
to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
~ Abraham Lincoln
POLAR STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS:
Earth's stratosphere is normally free of clouds. Not this weekend, though. Observers around the Arctic Circle are reporting an outbreak of brilliantly-colored icy clouds in the typically dry and transparent layer of our planet's atmosphere. Eric Fokke photographed the display on New Years Eve from the Lofoten Islands of Norway:
These icy clouds are a sign of very cold temperatures. For ice crystals to form in the arid stratosphere, temperatures must drop to around -85º C. High-altitude sunlight shining through tiny ice particles ~10µm across produce the characteristic bright iridescent colors.Once thought to be mere curiosities, some polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are now known to be associated with the destruction of ozone. Indeed, an ozone hole formed over the UK in Feb. 2016 following an outbreak of ozone-destroying Type 1 PSCs.
These clouds really are as amazing as they look in Fokke's photo. They have much more vivid colors than ordinary iridescent clouds, which form closer to Earth in the troposphere. Once seen, a stratospheric cloud is never forgotten.
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Mary J. Blige- Growing Pains
So whilst I was looking over the new releases, and debating on whether to burn my brain cells listening to Birdman, or Gucci Mane, I thought, why not toss some r and b up in here too. I mean most of it now has a mean hip-hop influence, and besides it can't be as bad as some of this "hip-hop" out here. So the first album I was able to take a grab at is the new one from Mary J. Blige.
Growing Pains starts off with "Work That" which you should know from the Ipod/Itunes commercials from Apple, a quick paced anthem tailor made to fit into the clubs and having the patented "been through it so listen to me" Mary message of positivity. This of course is Mary's calling card, the ability to show how she overcame her past and empower you to do the same, thus the first official single "Just Fine" which is slightly annoying but not so much that you dont want to hear it anymore...yet.
The bulk of the first two-thirds of the album is mid to up-tempo songs with some slightly confusing production behind "Grown Woman" which features Ludacris. It is a unsuccessful attempt at riding the hip-hop turned r and b sound that she pioneered. "Fade Away" sounds like a hybrid of Amel Lieurreaeux (i know that isn't spelled right) and maybe an older 70's funk tune. It's a different sound but it works. Mary steps into the blues area with "Roses"
She returns to her roots and the theme of the album with "Work in Progress(growing pains)" to let everyone know that her life just like any, is a work in progress from the beginning and every day afterwards. The majority of the rest of the album is standard r and B fare however the song "Shake Down" featuring Usher is a strong pairing as their voices mix together well. I can see this being a single in the near future if Usher can get himself together (we all know that woman got the poor brother whipped)
Overall, this is a solid album, and i have happened to listen to some of her lesser offerings earlier this week, such as the one Puffy produced, i can't remember the album title it was so lame, but this isn't one of them. Go Mary, Keyshia Cole ain't ready to knock you off yet.
Wu-Tang Clan- 8 Diagrams
Bow wow and Omarion- Face Off
Cassidy- B.A.R.S. (the Barry Adrian Reese Story)
The Dream- Love Hate
Gucci Mane- Back to the Traphouse
Freeway- Free at Last
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ACW Railway "The Carolina Route"
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Incentives for Rail Shippers in North Carolina
Companies looking to locate on an industrial site along the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway Company have many incentives and grant programs available to them. These funding sources are available through the state or various counties, towns, or regional partnerships. These continue to make North Carolina the #1 place to do business for 9 out of the last 10 years. See our list below or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.
County Tax Credits
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Biotechnology Financing and Assistance for New or Expanding Businesses in North Carolina
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Tax grant incentive program for new and expanding industries.
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One North Carolina Fund - A Discretionary Grant for Job Creation
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Foreign Trade Zones in North Carolina
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Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) Discretionary Incentives in North Carolina
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Tax Credits available for those who spend over a certain amount or create a certain amount of jobs.
NC Rail & Siding Grant
This grant is available to rail shippers for siding construction
Industrial Road Access Funding
Industrial Road Access Funding available through North Carolina Department of Transportation (DOT)
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incentives for montgomery county through the Montgomery County EDC
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Tax Credit Incentives for Businesses Exporting from North Carolina Ports, Wilmington or Morehead City Ports. This grant is made available…
Technology Development and Research Tax Credits in North Carolina
Technology Development and Research Tax Credits, available through the North Carolina Department of Commerce
IDF Infrastructure Fund
Industrial Development Fund in North Carolina for Infrastructure in Economically Distressed Tier I/Tier II Counties
For Emergencies: (877) 533-6913
Main Office: (910) 974 - 4219
967 NC Hwy 211 E
Candor, NC 27229
Railroad Overview
Connections: CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern
Markets Served: Raleigh, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Greensboro
Ownership: Privately Held
Miles: 150
Paul Hoben is the Director of Business Development the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway Company.
Paul comes to the ACWR after 27 years in the concrete and construction materials industry as both a sales and marketing representative as well as a transportation coordinator. Paul attended Catawba College where he earned his bachelor’s degree and later attended Pfeiffer University and received his master’s in business administration. Paul brings a shipper’s mentality to the ACWR which offers our customers and prospective customers an added consultative advantage. Paul has extensive experience in working with the Class I railroads and looks forward to
Robert Menzies is the Owner and Chairman of the Aberdeen Caroilna & Western Railway Company.
He acquired the Aberdeen Carolina & Western in 1987 from the Aberdeen & Briarpatch Railway. He has had a lifelong interest in the transportation industry. He began his undergraduate studies in transportation at Arizona State University. He continued on to receive a graduate degree in transportation and logistics at Michigan State University. Bob then taught transportation at Murray State University in Kentucky as well as Tri-State University in Indiana. He has owned businesses in other service industries across the U.S., and always stresses the need
Dale Parks is Vice President of Mechanical at the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway Company.
He began his Railroad career in 1986 at the Mid Atlantic Railroad in Chadbourn N.C. Having been in Train Service as a locomotive engineer, he worked his way up to Chief Mechanical Officer. In 1989, he took a job opportunity to work with Railtex at the Georgia South Western where he was responsible for the locomotive and freight car fleet. Then in 1992, he was transfered to the North Carolina & Virginia Properties, where he took care of The Chesapeake and Albemarle Railway and the
Ed is Vice President of Transportation/Maintenance of Way at the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway Company.
He began his railroad career in 1990 at the North Carolina & Virginia Railroad as an Engineer/Conductor for RailTex. In 1994, Ed attended the University of Tennessee and received his certification as a FRA Certified Track Inspector. In 1995, Ed accepted the position as Train Master at the Virginia Southern Railroad in Keysville, Virginia, for RailTex. Also, in 1995, Ed received his certificate for DSLE training and in 1998 received his certificate of completion for Hazardous Material Operations in Pueblo, Colorado. In 2005, Ed
Jennifer is President of the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway.
After graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Business Management at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Jennifer worked for a prominent commercial real estate firm in Charlotte for 3 years. After getting a strong understanding in the commercial and industrial sector, she moved back to Pinehurst to begin her railroad career beginning as Director of Marketing and Sales.
Anthony re-joined the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway after working as a management consultant at Ernst & Young's (EY) Supply Chain & Operations practice. He has a passion for helping companies improve logistics, transportation, warehousing, and inventory management processes.
Prior to his five years at EY, he received his MBA at the University of Tennessee with a focus in Supply Chain Management and interned at CAT Logistics (Caterpillar). He also holds a Master's in Business Analytics and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As the Head of Strategy & Logistics Services, Anthony's main focus at the
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CARRIE RICKEY
FILM CRITIC AND WRITER
HOME ARTICLES REVIEWS BLOG ABOUT CONTACT
Looking at Renoirs, Moving and Still
PHILADELPHIA — On a visit to the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, well before the museum’s move to Philadelphia’s Center City in 2012, a friend and I paused before one of the collection’s 181 works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) to admire how the Impressionist painter intensified his strokes of cobalt blue with daubs of teal. That’s the first time I noticed, after dozens of prior visits, a vase resting on a plant stand right below the painting, which was similarly glazed in cobalts and teals, establishing an implicit chromatic connection between canvas and vessel. Since Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes, when he set up his foundation, was more interested in color, line, and form than in authorship, he did not expressly identify the artists and makers of objects whose works he put on display — a policy that changed only after the move to Center City. Nevertheless, noticing my interest, a smiling security guard momentarily broke Dr. Barnes’s rules of attribution and whispered, “The vase is by Renoir’s son.”
“His son Jean, the filmmaker?” I asked. The guard shrugged me off. I had asked too much. I knew that before Pierre-Auguste was a painter of canvases he was a painter of ceramics. But Jean? The next day I called Kimberly Camp, then director of the Barnes, to see if there was in fact a painting by Renoir the father hanging above an earthenware vase by the son. Yes, she said. There were five such Renoir/Renoir pairings on view.
What she neglected to say was that in storage there were 35 more pieces by Jean (1894–1979). Who knew that the future director of The Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) had, like his father, apprenticed in the applied arts? Were there other confluences and consonances between the two careers? We do know that Pierre-Auguste’s influence on his life and work is something Jean thought about, as he wrote in My Life and My Films (1974). Was that influence perceivable in the works themselves? My gut reaction was yes, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. However this was my first opportunity to test it against the works themselves.
Happily, The Barnes Foundation’s Renoir: Father and Son/Painting and Cinema, a co-production among the Barnes, the Musee d’Orsay et de la Orangerie, and the Cinematheque Francaise, on view at the Barnes through September 3, answers the question. This remarkable show, which intersperses Renoir père drawings and paintings with pottery and clips from the films of Renoir fils, lays out the considerable differences between father and son — for obviously paintings are capable only of implying movement, while movies move — as well as the confluences, consonances and bridges connecting them.
Not only did they share DNA and a facility for decorating ceramics, but also a muse, Andree Heuschling. She was Pierre-Auguste’s last model, subject of more than 100 paintings (many of which hang at The Barnes and the nearby Philadelphia Museum of Art). Andree’s nimbus of strawberry-blonde hair and folds of golden brioche skin are familiar to those who know the painter’s late works. Weeks after Pierre-Auguste’s death, Andree and Jean wed. Under the name Catherine Hessling (and by this time streamlined as an Art Deco hood ornament), she starred in five of Jean’s early films, including Nana (1926) and The Poor Little Match Girl (1928).
“The desire of the son merges with the old man’s fascination with the same object,” writes Pascal Merigeau, the French film critic, in one of the essays in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition. For Merigeau, this is creepy. He asks, “Has there been a more disturbing convergence in the whole history of art?” Unsettling, perhaps, yet how many lovers are brought together by a shared love for a third party?
Second of the painter’s three sons, Jean was born when his father was 54, the age of many grandfathers. Jean posed, not always willingly, for about 60 of Pierre-Auguste’s paintings, many on view at the exhibition, and a few more in the Barnes’s permanent collection. So not only did the father inspire the son but vice-versa. With his round, rosy face and girlish strawberry-blond locks (that his father would not let him cut), young Jean glows like a ripe peach. He appears so blissful that it is disconcerting to read Merigeau’s account that as a boy Jean rarely encountered his father except while posing for paintings. Given that an artist’s model should neither move nor speak, Papa Renoir enjoyed that rare children-should-be-seen-but-not-heard experience.
During World War I Jean was wounded, narrowly avoiding amputation of his injured leg. His mother died soon after. When he returned home, the crutch-dependent son and wheelchair-bound father (crippled by rheumatoid arthritis), united in grief, spent most every day together in the elder’s studio. While Pierre-Auguste painted and talked about the past, Jean listened.
Jean’s younger brother, Coco, in order to stay near Pierre-Auguste after the death of their mother, accepted his father’s offer to work in a ceramics studio built next to the painter’s atelier at Les Collettes, the family home near Nice. Probably at his father’s instigation, Jean also began making and decorating ceramics there between 1919 and 1923. Cobalt blue, teal, and viridian are the dominant colors on the eight examples (vases, bowls, and plates) on view at the Father and Son exhibition. The palette is that of Renoir the elder, but the Arcadian figures painted on some are more obviously Matisse-y than Renoirish. Now that I know that those voluptuous vases are by the son of Pierre-Auguste, I would compare the shape of their tiny “waists” and ample “hips” to the forms of late Renoir nudes. In the catalogue, Margaret Little notes that Dr. Barnes found Jean’s ceramics delightful — in spite of being so porous that they leaked water. Jean sold them for 100 Francs each, about $7 dollars in 1920 currency, comparable to $84 today.
When the elder Renoir enrolled in art school in his 20s, he often lacked money for paint and canvas. Not so his sons, whose bequests from the painter’s estate largely freed them from immediate pressure to make their livings. In My Life and Films Jean, whose elder brother Pierre began his career as a film actor in 1911, wrote that he became a director in order to make Hessling a star. By casting her and Pierre in Whirlpool of Fate (1925), Jean reproduced his father’s pattern of turning his art into a family affair. Pierre appeared in many of his brother’s films, and in the 1930s Claude, Pierre’s son, became Jean’s cinematographer, shooting five of his movies, notably The River (1951), Jean’s first film in color.
One of my impressions of Jean before visiting the exhibition is that he often “quoted” his father’s paintings. And if one compared the elder’s “La Balancoire” (“The Swing,” 1876) with a still from the younger’s unfinished A Day in the Country (1936), the two images would look remarkably similar. But with the opportunity provided by the Barnes exhibition to see the father’s paintings in the same galleries as the son’s film clips, the motifs that Pierre-Auguste and Jean shared are outweighed by the differences in their vision, temperament, and respective medium. To see a painting by Pierre-Auguste is to perceive light, color, and the human form in nature. To watch a movie by Jean is to be drawn into the nature of the human comedy.
In other words, the painter is about sensation and the filmmaker is about story. La Balancoire, in which two men and a child are entranced by a young lovely standing on a swing, is an exhilarating glance at youth and beauty in peak flower. Based on the story by de Maupassant, A Day in the Country ends on the bittersweet note of that young lovely, now much older, looking back upon on that glorious day. While Pierre-Auguste paints intense moments of joie de vivre, Jean tells stories in which joy is one emotion on a spectrum that includes pain and regret, as his masterpieces, The Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game, so powerfully express.
Of Jean’s 30 films, four are from stories by writers of Pierre-Auguste’s immediate circle, like Emile Zola or Octave Mirbeau, or his contemporaries, like Flaubert. Consider Zola’s Nana (1926), Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1934), Zola’s The Human Beast (1938), Mirbeau’s Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). Two more — French Cancan (1954) and Elena and Her Men (1956) — are set in a 19th-century his father knew well. The Montmartre of the former is where the Renoirs lived, and the upscale Paris arrondissements of the latter are where affairs of state, and more than a few affairs of the heart, were conducted. While these two color films by Jean are the ones that I remembered having the most in common with the works of his father, I was mistaken.
Though the films vividly evoke the Paris of the elder Renoir, to see the clips from them playing on monitors near his canvases is to realize that their Technicolor primary hues — I might add, Tricolor hues — have little in common with his secondary palette and atmospherics. According to the catalogue essay by Dudley Andrew, these films , however, were an aide-memoire for Jean, immersing him in Pierre-Auguste’s milieu and helping him complete Renoir, My Father, a book first conceived in 1941 and published in 1962, a family history more poetic than accurate.
Though mostly familiar, the clips from Jean’s films surprised me. Never before had I registered how many of his sequences involve a frame within a frame, i.e., characters in a room looking out a window into one across the way, where another human drama plays out, drawing the viewer into the frame and the narrative. His dramatic use of shadow and deep space in films such as The Grand Illusion and The Human Beast is antithetical to the way his father uses light and color to draw the eye to the surface phenomena dancing on the picture plane. And yet when Pierre-Auguste or Jean contain the movement within a group scene — think Pierre-Auguste’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette (1876) or Jean’s French Can-Can(1955) — both bracket the action in such extreme close-ups that it threatens to spill out of the frame.
Although I walked into to this challenging and unconventional exhibition, as I mentioned above, thinking that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, it would be facile to say that I left it with the conclusion that the works of Pierre-Auguste and Jean were apples and oranges. The truth is that Pierre-Auguste is the great-branched apple tree and Jean an orange tree planted close to it. There are many convergences and many more divergences. Their roots and trunks are entwined, but one bears sweet fruit while the other’s is tart.
P.S. If you’re like me, you’ll want to see or re-see Jean’s films. You can stream them on Filmstruck and or buy them on its companion site, Criterion.
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© COPYRIGHT 2021 CARRIE RICKEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1861, it quickly established itself as a centre for excellence in performance training. LAMDA has provided theatre and the world of film and television with generation upon generation of first class actors and expertly trained stage managers across the world. It is also one of only three drama schools in the Conservatoire of Dance and Drama (CDD). LAMDA began offering speech examinations to the public in the 1880s. Since then, these examinations have been refined and developed into a comprehensive system of performance evaluation by experts in education, acting and communication. In addition to being the UK’s largest statutory speech and drama awarding body, LAMDA Examinations has a reputation of excellence across the globe.
LAMDA examinations are designed to equip learners, whatever their age or aspirations, with a range of skills that will serve them throughout life. LAMDA’s overall mission is to improve standards in communication and spoken English by fostering an appreciation of literature, poetry and drama and supporting individual development.
The Communication Examinations help students develop an appreciation of literature, the skills required to organise arguments and ideas into structured speeches, confidence in speaking both in conversation and to a group, presentation skills, a clear and focused speaking voice and positive body language.
The Performance Examinations help students develop creativity, vocal confidence and physical presence, empathy and an understanding of the impact of language.
In addition, by developing an understanding of good teamwork and empathy, students are equipped with the skills and confidence to integrate with children from other countries and cultures.
Preparation for an Examination can unlock the imagination and creative-thinking, develop communication skills, refine technical skills and artistry, and promote team-working.
The examinations themselves provide learners with an opportunity to:
measure progress against an international standard
make contact with expert practitioner examiners outside the immediate teaching environment
acquire skill certification for career development
receive critical appraisal and guidance for future development
LAMDA Exams Available at Centre Stage
At Centre Stage, introductory examinations are designed to introduce learners to creative expression and to the LAMDA examinations framework. Learners will develop the ability to share a poem and respond to simple questions with confidence, while also enhancing their memory and recall skills.
Communication Exams – Reading for Performance
Reading for Performance examinations helps to develop key life skills, as self-confidence and maturity are needed to put together your own recital. Learners also prepare and memorise introductions, linking sentences and conclusions for their recitals – invaluable presentation techniques that are applied throughout life. As with all LAMDA examinations, the development of a clear speaking voice and good body language are an integral and positive product of the exams, helping learners to improve their communication skills across the board.
Communication Exams – Verse & Prose
LAMDA examinations in Speaking Verse and Prose, use poetry and prose to develop effective oral communication skills that will prove invaluable throughout life. Performing texts from memory develops strong presentation skills and a good speaking voice. Equally importantly, memorising a number of pieces encourages self-discipline and focus. From Grade 4 and above, where sight-reading is introduced, these exams also help candidates to think on their feet.
LAMDA Performance – Acting Exams
LAMDA examinations in Acting use the preparation and performance of dramatic scenes to support the development of self-confidence and communication skills. By portraying other characters, learners can explore a range of different personalities and emotions, which in turn makes them more emotionally aware and empathetic. Exploring different characters also allows learners to get to the heart of how feelings and emotions dictate behaviour, encouraging them to become more self-aware. As with all LAMDA examinations, the development of a clear speaking voice and good body language are an integral and positive product of the exams.
LAMDA Accreditations & Recognition
LAMDA has been recognised as an awarding organisation by Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulations in England, and the corresponding regulatory authorities in Wales (DfES) and Northern Ireland (CCEA).
There are many benefits to being a recognised awarding organisation with Ofqual:
It gives confidence to students and employers that the qualifications are delivered by an organisation whose integrity, resources and competence have been independently checked.
It informs those who use the awarding organisation’s qualifications – students, schools, employers etc. – that the qualifications are monitored and are of the advertised standard and level.
If the awarding organisation develops qualifications for specific trades or industries, it gives assurance that the qualification is suitable for those specific or specialist needs.
It allows the awarding organisation’s qualifications to be transferred throughout Europe as part of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and can enhance the standing of the awarding organisation’s qualifications in countries outside Europe.
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Timothy Ivison
Tim Ivison is a writer and artist based in Los Angeles working on the history and political ecology of cities. He is a faculty member at ArtCenter College of Design and the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where he teaches a broad range of courses in urban and architectural theory. Recent collaborations with the artist Julia Tcharfas include the exhibitions Operations Theater and 710 at Before Present, and Science of Rehearsal at the Swiss Institute, New York. Ivison holds a B.A. in Visual and Critical Studies and a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He completed his Ph.D. at the London Consortium in 2017, where he studied under Mark Cousins. From 2014-2016, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Researcher at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
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FamilySearch’s Top 10 Most Searched Record Collections:
Collection 9 — Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-1997
March 11, 2015 By Steve Anderson
Spanning more than 2 centuries and including more than 4.5 million records, the Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-1997 records collection provides a “must use” source of primary records for Ohio genealogy. The variety and breadth of information this collection offers is why it is #9 in our list of top 10 most searched records collections on the FamilySearch.org website. . .
This collection of marriage records consists of indexes and images of county marriage records within the state of Ohio. County marriage records include the following information:
Names of bride and groom
Date and place where license issued
Date and place of marriage
Date marriage was recorded
Name of officiator
Occupations listed can lead you to employment records or other types of records such as military records.* The name of the officiator is a clue to their religion or area of residence in the county. However, ministers may have reported marriages performed in other counties.
Compile the marriage entries for every person who has the same surname as the bride or groom, this is especially helpful in rural areas or if the surname is unusual.
Continue to search the marriage records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives of the bride and groom who may have married in the same county or nearby. This can help you identify other generations of your family or even the second marriage of a parent. Repeat this process for each new generation you identify.
When looking for a person who had a common name, look at all the entries for the name before deciding which is correct.
Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1800s.
There is also some variation in the information given from one marriage record to another record.
The facts that were current at the time of the marriage, such as marriage date, residence, and so on, were usually accurate, although some misinformation may have been given. Other facts that relied on a person’s memory, such as age or birthplace, were more likely to have been incorrect.
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Different Picture - The Writing & Photography of Simon Goss
MINIMISLAM
Push Pineapple Shake A Tree
Agadir is not like other places. Utterly destroyed in an earthquake in the 60s, it has been rebuilt in the international style, a mix of softish brutalism that wouldn't seem out of place in Coventry were the sun to ever shine, and the clean bold lines of modernism that Morocco does so well.
The beach is a tourist hotspot across the Islamic world, attested to by the long line of Lebanese, Gulf & Turkish restaurants that line it, and the ginger Pashtuns who fill the Pakistani cafe. There's a posh marina with a Zara and policemen who run face control on anyone deigning to come close. Agadir is not like other places, but it is like every place.
The Scottish Mediterranean
View from my balcony
Trundeling through the Tunisian countryside this time, I saw what would have made the Romans feel at home. Great, wide bowls of wheatfields, broken up with the occasional olive plantation, or with avenues of straight poplars leading to French built manors on top of cols. Here and there an ignored triumphal arch or toppled column marked their presence. Only a faint backdrop of twisted mountains suggested you weren’t on the northern side of the Mediterranean.
I’d been surprised at how verdant Egypt had been, but it at least had the decency to look tropical, all palm trees and sugar cane. Despite being on the same latitude as Gibraltar, northern Tunisia looked more like France or perhaps southern Tuscany. Things got even weirder when I reached my destination, the mountains overlooking Algeria around the village of ‘Ain Draham. Here the profusion of pine and heather lent an almost Scottish feel to the highlands, one helped by the extreme changeability of the weather. I could go for a walk in glorious sunshine, sit out a hailstorm in a café, then walk home through sleet and snow.
The village itself had a slight alpine feel, no doubt because the French had built it initially as a hill-station to escape the heat. There were lots of beautiful old buildings with red, sloping roofs and contrasting green highlights. Sadly, as it’s cheaper to build a new house than maintain an old one, Ave. Habib Bourguiba was lined with old wrecks, and Arab sprawl was starting to fill the valleys below. Still, it hadn’t quite reached tipping point, and the view from my balcony whilst the sun was shining was spectacular.
Getting The Hell Out Of Dodge
It was time to get out of Tunis. It wasn’t that it was a bad city. On the contrary, it was actually reasonably beautiful, in a shabby sort of way. The streets were lined with bougainvillea, and after they suddenly cut all the foliage down one day, you could see that it wasn’t a slouch architecturally either. It all needed a lick of paint, but the Ville Nouvelle was an interesting mix of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the slow bleed of the former into the latter. On some streets you could literally watch the march of architectural fashion, as curves became less floral and more abstract on each subsequent building.
I think part of the reason it looked so decent was the light out here. It really is amazing. I’m not sure if it has to do with the latitude or some optimum level of dust to moisture, but it was particularly clear and made everything look wonderful. If I didn’t hate the word, I’d describe it as limpid. It also led to a remarkable range of clouds, painted in far more than fifty shades of grey, with detours through blue and purple, and highlights of white, pink and orange. I didn’t pay enough attention in Geography class to describe the moosemash of different types of clouds, or why they arose, but they were astounding. I can just see the next advertising campaign – come to Tunisia and see our clouds!
A Revolution of Thieves
The kids of Carthage have a game they like to play when they ride the TGM, a suburban train line that links Tunis to its extended suburbs. When the train starts to leave, two friends hold the doors open, whilst the third runs along beside it, and, at the last moment, as the train starts going too fast for them and they almost run out of platform, they jump on. So I didn’t think anything of it when some teenagers started doing it as I caught the train back towards town after a day filming on the ancient sites.
I don’t think either when instead of jumping on, the kid grabs my bag: I just jump off after him. The doors catch my shoulder as they close, and I hop along as best I can as the train accelerates. With a final pull I’m free, but I’m spinning round, and trying to run as fast as I can backwards to stop myself falling over. For the briefest moment there’s an illusion of control, and then my feet go over the end of the platform and I’m pedalling like a cartoon character as I plummet the five feet or so to the tarmac. I’m not thinking when I roll away from the vast metal wheels that grind past my elbow. I’m not thinking when I jump up and run back into the station – adrenalin is a hell of a thing – pushing screaming bystanders out of the way, gradually becoming aware I’m only wearing one shoe, and that the fact everything’s blurry means I’ve lost my glasses. The boys are gone. My bag is gone. My camera, all my photographic equipment, my brand new kindle, it’s all gone. It’s all gone.
It's perhaps hard to remember the hope we felt during the first flushes of the Arab Spring, when I, for one, was glued to the news websites, reading their live streams and dreaming of real change. Despite the good news coming out of Egypt at first, it seems like the army have been playing for time, hoping that the people would grow tired of revolution and settle for something that doesn't really shift the status quo. It can feel odd cheering on the Muslim Brotherhood, but despite what a raft of internet warriors would have you believe, there are many shades of Islamism, and the Freedom and Justice Party so far have proven closer to the Turkish sort than the Iranian.
So, how to keep the army busy and out of politics? With nearly half a million active soldiers (the 10th largest army in the world, who knew?) they certainly have plenty of personnel. Perhaps if the UN were serious about securing peace in Syria some of these guys could be sent over there, rather than the paltry 300 observers on the last mission. I can't say it's a flawless plan - the Alawites in Syria might be a little worried about letting a largely Sunni force in, for a start. Then again, Syria and Egypt were the same country in the lifetimes of most officers, if not of the grunts. And generals with some proper action on their hands might be less inclined to spend all their time defending their personal fiefdoms.
A pipe dream at best, but given that its clear which side Saudi Arabia is on, it's a more practical solution than asking them to step in and keep the peace.
Egypt's 'Carbtastrophe'
The first thing that struck me when I arrived in Egypt proper (as opposed to the Sinai), was just how lush and verdant it was. Throughout history Egypt has been the breadbasket of empires, and driving through the fertile delta region where blocks of flats squeeze together to leave as much field space as possible it's easy to believe. With this and the entire Nile Valley under cultivation since the Aswan Dam came into being, the contrast with much of the rest of the Middle East & North Africa couldn't be more marked.
Growing sugar in the Nile Valley
Perhaps that's why there's been such interest in a couple of sentences thrown into a report on malnutrition by The Economist:
Egypt’s agricultural value-added per person rose more than 20% in 1990-2007. Yet both malnutrition and obesity rose—an extremely unusual combination.
Some bloggers have been swift to see the not quite so invisible hand of capitalism slapping away. Certainly meat has been in increasing demand from the new Egyptian middle classes, with all the inefficiency of food use that implies. Egypt has also been switching increasingly from growing wheat to growing cash crops, and the traditional fellah tending his little patch of land has been displaced by increasing levels of agribusiness.
Whither China?
It’s always been a great source of dismay to me that despite predicting the financial crisis in ’07, I didn’t have the foresight to write anything down and thus claim my place amongst the economic gurus of our age. Admittedly the horror stories I would describe to friends were a little more rooted in a post apocalyptic imagination than a sound grasp of Credit Default Swaps and their likely implications, but I thought it fitting that I get my current vague forebodings down in writing at the start of this blog so that I don’t miss another chance to claim my rightful title as Seer Extraordinaire.
Whilst it’s hardly news to say ‘Keep your eyes on China’, I have a feeling that in the next few years, the meteoric rise of the Dragon may stutter, or indeed change direction. I must confess to having little insider knowledge – I’ve only spent a couple of weeks in China, and all of that was within Xinjiang. However, as with the financial crisis, my belief that something will change comes from looking at everything in the public domain and deciding something doesn't make sense.
If you asked the man in the street about China, then you might expect to hear something about its inexorable rise. Yet there’s something very rotten in this state that comes to the surface with only a little digging. We have grown immured to the constant strikes and protests, but it still comes as a shock to hear that an estimated 90,000 happen every year. The current spate of immolations in Tibet will probably be controlled like the riots in Xinjiang before them, but the anger of the Han Chinese majority may be harder for officials to contain.
Little ideas that spin through my mind.
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Journalism students receive Human Rights Press Award
Three students from the Department of Journalism have won a prestigious Human Rights Press Award in the Student Writing (English) category at the 24th Human Rights Press Awards. Merit awards were also given to three other students for their excellent reporting.
The top prize went to a team comprising Year 3 Journalism students Kwok Hiu-ching, Randy Lin and Wong Ting-yan, who are all from the Data and Media Communication Concentration. The winning piece was a data-driven news story titled “Gender-based violence against journalists in Hong Kong”. By applying data analysis, coding, website production and news writing techniques, they successfully visualised the “boring” data and turned it into a meaningful, in-depth news story.
Dr Rose Luqiu, Associate Head and Assistant Professor of the Department of Journalism, was glad to see her students pick this important, timely and unexplored news topic. She believes that the use of data is a good way to strengthen news content which in turn helps journalists play a better gatekeeping role in society.
The two merit prizes were awarded for the news report “Social Workers Hopeful Looking at the Future of Ethnic Minorities”, which was written by International Journalism students Yanni Chow and King Woo, and a news story titled “In a Leaderless Movement, Hong Kong’s Student Activists Face Local and International Threats”, which was written by Yanni Chow and her classmate Anna Kam.
Journalism students win the Human Rights Press Award in the Student Writing (English) category at the 24th Human Rights Press Awards for their data journalism story on gender-based violence.
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Allison Gilmore
The Shape of the Future: Topological Data Analysis Applied to Predictive Modeling
The combination of Topological Data Analysis and Machine Learning creates predictive models that are both more accurate and can be stood up in a fraction of the time. The talk will discuss how prediction models work within the TDA framework and why superior outcomes can be achieved.
Dr. Gilmore is currently a data scientist on the team at Ayasdi where she specializes in highly complex and dimensional data across a variety of industries. Prior to joining Ayasdi, Allison served as a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow and an Assistant Adjunct Professor in mathematics at the University of California Los Angeles. Dr. Gilmore also did post-doctoral research at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University in New York in May 2011. Allison completed her undergraduate and masters degrees from Washington University where she was selected as as a Rhodes Scholar. She studied at Green College, Oxford University, and graduated in 2006 with an M.Phil. (with distinction) in sociology. Her research interests include topology and geometry, network analysis and social movements. Dr. Gilmore serves on the board of The Friends of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation whose mission is to fund the development of exceptional leadership capacity in southern Africa.
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Title: Alliteration
Subject: Rhyme, Poetry, Alliterative verse, Onomatopoeia, Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 24
Collection: Poetic Devices, Poetry Articles Needing Expert Attention
Manners of articulation
Obstruent
Affricate
Fricative
Sibilant
Sonorant
Flap/Tap
Approximant
Semivowel
Pulmonic
Ejective
Implosive
Lingual (clicks)
Linguo-pulmonic
Linguo-ejective
"Alliteration" comes from the Latin word “Latira”, meaning “letters of the alphabet”. Alliteration is defined as; stylistic literary device, identified by the repeated sound of the first consonant in a series of multiple words.[1] The first known use of the word as a literary device was around 1624.[2] Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables of a phrase. Alliteration developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed,[3][4][5] as in James Thomson's verse "Come…dragging the lazy languid Line along". Another example is, "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers".[6]
Consonance (ex: As the wind will bend) is another 'phonetic agreement' akin to alliteration. It refers to the repetition of consonant sounds. Alliteration is a special case of consonance where the repeated consonant sound is at the stressed syllable.[7] Alliteration may also include the use of different consonants with similar properties[8] such as alliterating z with s, as does the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or as Anglo-Saxon (Old English) poets would alliterate hard/fricative g with soft g (the latter exemplified in some courses as the letter yogh - ȝ - pronounced like the y in yarrow or the j in Jotunheim); this is known as license.
There is one specialised form of alliteration called Symmetrical Alliteration. That is, alliteration containing parallelism.[9] In this case, the phrase must be constituted of two end words both starting with the same letter, and the pairs of outside words getting progressively closer to the centre of the phrase also starting with identical letters. For example, "rust brown blazers rule", "purely and fundamentally for analytical purposes" or "fluoro colour co-ordination forever". Symmetrical alliteration is similar to palindromes in its usage of symmetry.
In poetry, literature, and theatre 1
Use as a literary device 1.1
Examples in nursery rhymes 1.2
Historical use 1.3
In poetry 1.4
In rhetoric 2
Pop culture 3
In poetry, literature, and theatre
Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado is the source of a well-known example of alliterative lyrics:[10]
"To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a lifelong lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!"[11]
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe has many examples of alliteration including the following line: "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain".
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner has the following lines of alliteration: "For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky." and "the furrow followed free..."
Robert Frost's poem Acquainted with the Night has the following line of alliteration: "I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet".
In Walter Abish's novel Alphabetical Africa (1974) the first chapter consists solely of words beginning with "A". Chapter two also permits words beginning with "B" and so on, until at chapter 26, Abish allows himself to use words beginning with any letter at all. For the next 25 chapters, he reverses the process.
Use as a literary device
Alliteration can be used in ways similar to onomatopoeia because it can be related to the sense of sound. Representing sound with words alone, as onomatopoeia does, can be difficult; so, the use of alliteration can replace onomatopoeia if the author or speaker desires. Examples of the replacement of onomatopoeia with alliteration could be the phrase “crumbly cookie”. The use of repeated C sounds is doubling as alliteration and onomatopoeia because the C sound replicates the actual crunch that they cookie would make. In addition to an aural cue, alliteration can also be a visual enhancer on which a reader can focus or be influenced.[12]
Examples in nursery rhymes
In "Thank-You for the Thistle" by Dorie Thurston, poetically written with alliteration in a story form: "Great Aunt Nellie and Brent Bernard who watch with wild wonder at the wide window as the beautiful birds begin to bite into the bountiful birdseed".
In the nursery rhyme Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose, use of alliteration can be found in the following lines : "Three grey geese in a green field grazing. Grey were the geese and green was the grazing."
The tongue-twister rhyme Betty Botter by Carolyn Wells is an example of alliterative composition : "Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said, this butter's bitter; if I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my bitter batter better..."
Another commonly recited tongue-twister rhyme illustrating alliteration is "Peter Piper". - "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?".
Historical use
Alliteration is commonly used in many languages, especially in poetry. Alliterative verse was an important ingredient of poetry in Sanskrit shlokas,[13][14] Old English, Old Norse, and Old Irish especially - as well as other old Germanic languages such as Old High German, and Old Saxon. This custom extended to personal name giving, such as in Old English given names.[15] This is evidenced by the unbroken series of 9th century kings of Wessex named Æthelwulf, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, and Æthelred. These were followed in the 10th century by their direct descendants Æthelstan and Æthelred II, who ruled as kings of England.[16] The Anglo-Saxon saints Tancred, Torhtred and Tova provide a similar example, among siblings.[17]
In poetry
In relation to English poetry, poets can call attention to certain words in a line of poetry by using alliteration. They can also use alliteration to create a pleasant, rhythmic effect. In the following poetic lines, notice how alliteration is used to emphasize words and to create rhythm:
"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling!' Walt Whitman, "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun"
“They all gazed and gazed upon this green stranger,/because everyone wondered what it could mean/ that a rider and his horse could be such a color-/ green as grass, and greener it seemed/ than green enamel glowing bright against gold". (232-236) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Benard O'Donohue
"Some papers like writers, some like wrappers. Are you a writer or a wrapper?" Carl Sandburg, "Paper I"
Alliteration can also add to the mood of a poem. If a poet repeat soft, melodious sounds, a calm or dignified mood can result. If harsh, hard sound are repeated, on the other hand, the mood can become tense or excited. In this poem, alliteration of the s, l, and f sound adds to a hushed, peaceful mood:
"Softer be they than slippered sleep the lean lithe deer the fleet flown deer." E. E. Cummings "All in green went my love riding" [18]
In rhetoric
The term Alliteration has many potential uses in the various spheres of public speaking and rhetoric as far as persuasion is concerned. Additionally the use of alliteration can be considered an artistic constraint that is used by the Rhetor in a rhetorical situation. An artistic constraint is one that the Rhetor creates out of his or her own need to sway the audience to feel some type of urgency, or perhaps even lack of urgency, in regards to a rhetorical situation being presented.[19] Such examples of Alliteration as an artistic constraint can be seen when it is used to create an emotional effect on the audience. For example: H or E sounds can sooth where as a P or a B sound can be percussive and attention grabbing. S sounds can imply danger or make the audience feel as if they are being deceived[20] Alliteration also serves as a linguistic rhetorical device more commonly used in persuasive public speaking. Rhetoric is broadly defined as the "Art of Persuasion", which has from earliest times been concerned with specific techniques for effective communication.[21] Alliteration serves to "intensify any attitude being signified".[21] Its significance as a rhetorical device is that it adds a textural complexity to a speech, making it more engaging, moving, and memorable. The use of alliteration[22] in a speech captivates a person's auditory senses that assists in creating a mood for the speaker. The use of a repeating sound or letter forces an audience’s attention because of their distinct and noticeable nature. The auditory senses, hearing and listening, seem to perk up and pay attention with the constant sounds of alliteration. It also evokes emotion which is key in persuading an audience. The idea of pathos solidifies that playing to a person's emotions is key in persuading them and connecting them to the argument that is being made. For example, the use of a "H" sound can produce a feeling of calmness.[23] Other sounds can create feelings of happiness, discord, or anger, depending on the context of the alliteration. These feelings become memorable to a listener, which have been created by alliteration.
The most common example of this is in John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, where he uses alliteration twenty-one times throughout his speech. The last paragraph of his speech is given as an example here.
"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice (ALLITERATION) which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love (ALLITERATION), asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own." –JFK[24]
Other examples of alliteration in some famous speeches:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." — Martin Luther King, Jr.[25]
"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth". — Barack Obama[26]
"And our nation itself is testimony to the love our veterans have had for it and for us. All for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom's front." — Ronald Reagan, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Address[27]
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". -Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Alliteration is most commonly used in modern music but is also seen in magazine article titles, advertisements, business names, comic strips, television shows, video games and in the dialogue and naming of cartoon characters.[28]
An example would be Tupac Shakur's "If I Die 2Nite" off his Me Against The World release.
Anadiplosis
Parachesis
Tautogram
Tongue twister
^ "Definition of Alliteration, Literary Devices". Retrieved 2013-09-27.
^ "Alliteration, Merriam-Webster". Retrieved 2014-09-26.
^ "Alliteration, University of Tennessee Knoxville". Retrieved 2013-09-10.
^ "Definition of Alliteration, Bcs.bedfordstmartins.com". Retrieved 2013-09-10.
^ Alliteration - The Free Dictionary
^ Stoll, E. E. (May 1940). "Poetic Alliteration". Modern Language Notes 55 (5): 388.
^ Paul Fussell (15 May 2013). The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford University Press. p. 98.
^ Wren, Gayden (2006). A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan. Oxford Univesity Press. p. 168.
^ The Mikado libretto, p. 16, Oliver Ditson Company
^ "Alliteration-Figurative Language". Retrieved 2014-09-27.
^ Langer, Kenneth, "Some Suggestive Uses of Alliteration in Sanskrit Court Poetry", Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1978), pp. 438–45.
^ K.N. Jha, Figurative Poetry In Sanskrit Literature, 1975, ISBN 978-8120826694
^ Gelling, M., Signposts to the Past (2nd edition), Phillimore, 1988, pp. 163–4.
^ Old English "Æthel" translates to modern English "noble". For further examples of alliterative Anglo-Saxon royal names, including the use of only alliterative first letters, see e.g. Yorke, B., Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, Seaby, 1990, Table 13 (p. 104; Mercia, names beginning with "C", "M", and "P"), and pp. 142–3 (Wessex, names beginning with "C"). For discussion of the origins and purposes of Anglo-Saxon "king lists" (or "regnal lists"), see e.g. Dumville, D.N., 'Kingship, Genealogies and Regnal Lists', in Sawyer, P.H. & Wood, I.N. (eds.), Early Medieval Kingship, University of Leeds, 1977.
^ Rollason, D.W., "Lists of Saints' resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England", in Anglo-Saxon England 7, 1978, p. 91.
^ Techniques Writers Use
^ Bitzer, Lloyd (1968). "The Rhetorical Situation". Philosophy and Rhetoric.
^ "Literary Devices, Author's Craft". Retrieved 2014-09-26.
^ a b Lanham, Richard (1991). A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 131.
^ "Alliteration". Alliteration. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
^ "Pathos." Pathos. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
^ "What made JFK's Inaugural Address so effective?".
^ "I Have A Dream Speech Analysis Lesson Plan".
^ "Obama's Alliteration".
^ http://www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/alliteration.htm
^ Coard, Robert L. "Wide-Ranging Alliteration." Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 37, No. 1. (July 1959) pp. 30–32.
A collection of Dutch alliterations and related material (with sound files)
Examples of alliteration in poetry
Articles that may contain original research from October 2013
Poetry articles needing expert attention
Ballet, Opera, Harmony, Psychology, Tonality
The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, Mike Leigh, Operetta, Oscar Wilde
Authority control, BBC News, WorldCat, LibriVox, MusicBrainz
Literary consonance
Edgar Allan Poe, Assonance, Fugees, Alliteration, The Raven
Latin, Middle Ages, Bible, Linguistics, Judaism
Literature, Iliad, Epic poetry, Homer, Prose
Alliterative verse
Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Poetic Edda, Rhyme, Old High German
Japanese language, English language, Sheep, The Simpsons, Nickelodeon
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Read up on our latest news regarding Harris Utilities and our software solutions.
Cayenta | The Board of Education of School District No. 82 (Coast Mountains) Chooses Cayenta
Terrace, BC | We are very excited that The Board of Education of School District No. 82 (Coast Mountains) has chosen to move forward with an upgrade to the Cayenta Financial, Human Resources and Connect systems. This district in Northern British Columbia has already begun their migration to the MS SQL Server platform for the SDS suite. Once this is complete they will be will be ready to join the northern district implementations aimed at sharing both operational and implementation best practices.
Through Cayenta’s push technology and mobile platform, automatic notifications can be acted on anytime and anywhere. This responsive approach will eliminate the need for tasks and to do lists that are traditionally pulled then circulated with considerable manual intervention. Our goal for School District No. 82 is to realize efficiencies from these technologies that not only facilitates a faster completion rate but begets an improved experience for their district staff.
Alanna Cameron, Secretary Treasurer at The Board of Education of School District No. 82 (Coast Mountains) has this to say:
“For over two decades, Coast Mountains School District 82 has been grateful for the positive relationships and the exemplary hands-on service levels that have been provided to us by the SDS client support team. With this continued support, we feel very confident as we begin the process of our software transition, and we look forward to capitalizing on the improved functionality, reporting enhancements and operational flexibilities and efficiencies that will come to us with the new Cayenta Financial, Human Resources and Connect systems.”
We look forward to updating you on the progress of this very exciting project in the months to follow. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Cayenta Schools team.
About Cayenta and Harris:
Cayenta is a wholly-owned subsidiary of N. Harris Computer Corporation that provides a fully integrated and comprehensive ERP solution exclusively to utilities and municipalities. Harris is a leading provider of financial management and Customer Information Systems (CIS) software solutions. Since 1976, Harris has focused on providing feature-rich and robust turnkey solutions to all levels of local government as well as public power and water markets throughout North America. Harris' focus is on creating long-term relationships with our customers and ensuring that we meet the changing needs of our customers over time. For further information on Harris Computer Systems, please visit our website at www.harriscomputer.com, or call 888-847-7747.
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Minority Health Disparities
Minority Health Disparities Minority Health Disparities
National Center on Minority Health
Americans enjoyed improved health and longer lives during the latter part of the 20th century. However, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, who represented 25 percent of the U.S. population, continued to experience striking health disparities, including shorter life expectancy and higher rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, substance abuse, and infant mortality and low birth weight. Scientists believed these health disparities resulted from the complex interaction among several factors such as biology, the environment, and specific behaviours that were significantly impacted by a shortage of racial and ethnic minority health professionals, discrimination, and inequities in income, education, and access to health care. The Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health asked NIH to do more 1) to determine why minorities were experiencing an undue burden of diseases, disability, and premature death and 2) to eliminate health disparities.
Today: Closing the Gap in Health Disparities
Establishment of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD)
The NIH has been steadily working to build a robust program to address health disparities. In 2000, Congress established the NCMHD to lead, coordinate, support and assess the NIH effort to eliminate health disparities. One of the significant outcomes of the legislation was a Strategic Plan and Budget for Eliminating Health Disparities to enhance NIH efforts in 1) research, 2) research infrastructure, and 3) public information and community outreach. For the first time,with input from all of the ICs, the NIH released a comprehensive health disparities plan. The plan has raised health disparities to a critical national priority spurning substantial awareness and interest in this important health issue.
The NIH is currently 1) expanding the breadth of its research portfolio focused on health disparities experienced by racial and ethnic minorities, the rural and urban poor, and other medically underserved populations; 2) conducting population-specific community-based research; 3) enhancing the capacity to conduct health disparities research nationally; 4) recruiting and retaining racial and ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups into the scientific research workforce; 5) establishing health education programs for special populations; and 6) promoting the inclusion of women, minorities and other medically underserved groups in clinical trials.
Much of the research at the NIH advances the understanding of the development and progression of diseases and disabilities adversely affecting certain populations:
The Pima Indians have the highest rates of diabetes in the world. For 30 years, the Intramural Program of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has collaborated with the Pima Indians of the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, Arizona and with the Indian Health Service in a unique research program.
These studies have provided knowledge that has helped researchers 1) develop a definition of diabetes and diagnostic criteria used worldwide; 2) identify characteristics of insulin action and secretion; 3) document the relationship between diabetes and obesity; 4) increase understanding of the roles of high insulin levels and insulin resistance in diabetes; 5) gain insight into the influence of genetics in the development of diabetes, obesity, and even susceptibility to diabetic kidney disease; 6) demonstrate how in utero exposure to a mother’s high blood sugar may increase the baby’s risk for diabetes and unhealthy weight later in life; and 7) provide evidence of the beneficial effects of exercise and weight loss in lowering blood sugar and reducing weight.
Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. Racial and ethnic minorities and individuals with low-socioeconomic status are most adversely impacted. Several studies are underway to study CVD in these populations. The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis is conducting investigations that detect CVD non-invasively before it has produced clinical signs and symptoms in a cohort consisting of whites, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. The Jackson Heart Study is studying the physiological, environmental, social and genetic factors related to cardiovascular disease and the high rates of complications from hypertension in African Americans, including, stroke, kidney disease, and congestive heart disease. Other studies include the Strong Heart Study of American Indians, and the Genetics of Coronary Artery Disease in Alaska Natives (GOCADAN).
Eye Disease
Latinos living in the United States have higher rates of eye disease and visual impairments compared to other ethnic groups. The Los Angeles Latino Eye Study (LALES) is the largest epidemiological study of visual impairment in Latinos conducted in the U.S. Researchers found that Latinos had high rates of diabetic retinopathy, an eye complication of diabetes; and open-angle glaucoma, a disease that damages the optic nerve. One in five individuals with diabetes was newly diagnosed during the study. One in five adult Latinos had cataract. Overall, Latinos were much more likely to have received general medical care than to have received eye care. This study re-affirms the importance of increased awareness about diseases of the eye.
RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRAINING
The NIH is developing institutional capacity to conduct research relevant to health disparities. It also funds research training of underrepresented individuals in order to promote a culturally diverse biomedical research enterprise.
NCMHD Centers of Excellence conduct research on health disparities within several disease areas and conditions, such as, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, diabetes, nutrition, obesity and maternal and infant health.
Community-Based Participatory Research awards engage scientists and communities in health disparities research.
Loan Repayment awards promote research careers in basic, clinical, and behavioral research for young scientists from underserved communities.
Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) awards support young scientists conducting scientific research abroad.
The Bridges to the Future Program helps students transition from Associates to the Baccalaureate degree and from the Masters degree to the Doctoral degree.
Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS), Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) and Research Endowment grants support research and strengthen the biomedical research capability of the eligible institutions.
PUBLIC INFORMATION AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Numerous NIH health education campaigns are bringing useful health information to diverse communities:
The HIV Communications Campaign is increasing awareness of HIV vaccine, treatment, and prevention among Hispanic Americans and African Americans.
Real Men Real Depression, launched in 2003, is raising awareness about depression in Native American, Latino, Asian, and African American communities.
The Back to Sleep campaign marks its twelfth anniversary with renewed efforts to reduce Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in the African American community by reminding parents and caregivers to place infants on their backs to sleep.
Racial and ethnic minority populations in the U.S. will double in size some time in the 21st century according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As the pace of creating and translating new scientific knowledge into prevention and treatment strategies accelerates, the NIH Health Disparities Research Agenda ensures that the needs of ethnic and racial minorities, rural communities and the urban poor will be addressed. The NIH would like to see that all Americans enjoy improved public health.
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Certainty and Predictability Are the Winning States’ Hallmarks
State business climates are exceedingly competitive in 2020, if Site Selection’s latest Business Climate Ranking is any indication. For the first time ever, two states claim the top spot — Georgia, which now has an eight-year run in first place, and North Carolina, which missed tying Georgia last year by just two points. What’s more, there are two additional sets of tied states in the Top 10, Texas and South Carolina in fourth place and Alabama and Arizona in seventh. Half the ranking is based on a survey of corporate executives and site selectors (asked to identify the states they believ...
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Of course, the big factor impacting office and industrial parks going into 2021 is COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced business production and workforce (through illness, social distancing, and remote working), disrupted the supply chain and cash flow, and brought about significant investments in technology. Across the nation, the demand for suburban office parks is rising as more skilled workers move back to suburbs, due to concerns about housing costs and quality of education — they also feel safer from COVID-19 and the civil unrest that is happening in some larger cities. Click here to read full article.
Where Aerospace Manufacturers Are Gravitating in 2020
PwC’s Aerospace & Defense practice has issued the seventh edition of its Aerospace Manufacturing Attractiveness Rankings. It does so at “a precarious moment in the industry’s history,” according to the report’s introduction. “By April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had plunged commercial aviation into crisis mode, with global revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) nosediving by 94% compared to the same month a year earlier. International flights ground to a near-complete halt. By June, RPKs were down 87% against the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasts that 2019 levels will not be restored until 2024.” Click here to read ful...
Intimate Wedding Venue Near Columbus, Ohio
An intimate wedding venue offering privacy can easily be found in Violet Township, near Columbus, Ohio. The Wigwam is surrounded by trees in a parklike setting, has a pond and water features and a variety of intimate spaces ideal for wedding ceremonies. The Wigwam’s grounds are massive and parklike. That alone, makes the wedding space more intimate because it is incredibly private. In fact, some brides may prefer to get married outside in the pergola or on the patio near the water. At the Wigwam there are multiple places to get married, including a theater space and banquet hall, but the...
Affordable Wedding Hall Near Columbus, Ohio
An affordable wedding hall near Columbus, Ohio doesn’t have to look like an elementary school cafeteria! To the contrary, it can be stunningly gorgeous, full of historic charm and a former entertaining spot for presidents and hollywood celebrities. Sound too good to be true? It’s not. You can have everything you want for the perfect wedding at the Wigwam Event Center in Violet Township. Violet Township purchased the Wigwam Event Center and has remodeled the facility to ensure that it is both beautiful and functional. Still, since the city owns it, they rent it at rates that are affordable to th...
Entrepreneur-led ‘digital ecosystem’ envisions model to support Dayton businesses
Last year, a group of entrepreneurs banded together to identify solutions for a complex problem: underrepresentation. More than 99% of Ohio companies, about 950,000 of them, are small businesses. Together, they account for nearly half of the state’s workforce and create tens of thousands of new jobs each year — but the economic development groups that support them capture only a fraction of the playing field. Click here to read full article.
2020 By the Numbers: Quantifying Ohio Startup Impact
As 2020 comes to a close and COVID-19 vaccines begin distribution across the country, it’s a good opportunity to take stock of the amazing accomplishments that came from this year, even amid a pandemic. For months, Ohio companies have been showing us that they’re much more than just business ventures. They’re built to help us learn, allow us to connect, keep us safe and even let us get away for a bit. Click here to read full article.
Best Outdoor Wedding Venue Near Columbus, Ohio
A gorgeous pond, parklike setting, and picture-worth locations are what you will find at the best outdoor wedding venue near Columbus, Ohio - the Wigwam Event Center. Outdoor weddings need a beautiful backdrop that is more detailed than a large open space. You get that at the Wigwam. The facility is surrounded by acres of trees in a parklike setting that offers a stunning backdrop and many picture perfect areas, including water features and fountains. There is a patio space where tents can be set up, an outdoor dance floor created and tables and chairs put out for an outdoo...
Sunny days ahead for Ohio solar farm developers; nearly 2 dozen projects in the works
Blocked from developing more wind power in Ohio, renewable energy companies have set their sights on the sun. Nearly two dozen solar farms are in some form of development across the state, according to the Ohio Power Siting Board, the state agency that approves construction of new sources of electricity. Add it all up, and it amounts to about 4,000 megawatts of power — the equivalent of two or three traditional power plants and about a seventh of Ohio's current total electricity production. Right now, solar power contributes just about 0.5% of Ohio's output. Click here to read full article.
Inclusion Grant Assists Golden Protective Services’ Expansion
Golden Protective Services (GPS) plans to purchase and renovate an industrial building in Southeast Ohio to service the company’s growing business on the east coast of the USA. The building is larger than the space the company has been operating from for the past nine years. GPS will also add new machinery and equipment at the facility. Click here to read full article.
Large Wedding Venue in Columbus, Ohio
Are you looking for a large wedding venue in Columbus, Ohio that is also glamorous? The Wigwam Event Center in Violet Township is perfect for big weddings. There is a large banquet hall that can seat hundreds (up to 500), along with a theater space that can seat 300 people watching the wedding party get married on stage. When it comes to large weddings, most venues have limited offerings. Being able to choose between the banquet hall, theater space, outdoor grounds - or a combination of them, makes the Wigwam unique in the Columbus area. Brides looking for a large weddin...
Learn the HR Skills You Need When Your Business Grows
As an entrepreneur, you likely have a growth mindset. You didn't expect to be a one-person operation forever did you? But when you're ready to start growing your business, you're suddenly presented with a whole new slew of challenges. In The HR and Administrative Career Training Bundle, you'll learn how to tackle each one of them capably. This five-course bundle is designed to help you on the next logical step of your small business's journey. You'll learn what it takes to build an awesome team and how to motivate them to do their best work. Click here to read full article.
BEST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WEBSITES FOR 2021
A common question that our team is asked is "Can you give examples of the best economic development websites for 2021?" Each year, backed by research, conferences, and the latest trends, the Golden Shovel Agency team puts together a list of what we consider to be the best economic development websites. This is a difficult task, as there are so many organizations that deserve to be on this list, but we try to keep it to 10 for you. Click here to read full article.
Cold Storage Is Hotter Than Ever
Our attitudes about food and beverage influence the brands we purchase, how we socialize, where we shop — and sometimes even where we live. Our expectations are high when it comes to product mix and availability. When our wants and needs are not met quickly, as was the case at the start of the pandemic, we are highly dissatisfied. While food transport has been occurring for centuries, modes of delivery, advances in food safety, and time-sensitive supply chains have evolved to meet the changing desires of consumers across increasingly broad geographies. Often, new trends become ingrained habits that can alter consume...
How the Video Game Industry Drives DC Location Decisions
It’s natural to expect more data center capacity is needed to handle the boom in e-commerce, streamed programming and virtual meetings since the pandemic arrived. But there’s another subset of screen-based transactions that requires that expansion too. Statista reports there are an estimated 2.7 billion video gamers around the world in 2020. The largest proportion of these gamers, some 55% or 1.5 billion players, live in the Asia Pacific Region. North America, with 8%, claims just over 200 million gamers. Total prize money in 2018 for e-sports was $1.5 billion, with the 2018 League of Legends World Championship Finals reaching 99....
Opportunity for All?
They’re cities of dreams. They’re the nation’s glamor capitals. But they’re attracting the lion’s share of Opportunity Zone funds meant to spark the economies of neighborhoods struck more by poverty than by fame. Analysis published in September 2020 by tax break experts Novogradac found that investment in more than 800 Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs) tracked by the organization exceeded $12 billion, though the total amount in all QOFs was “undoubtedly more.” The White House Council of Economic Advisers put the total around $75 billion. But where are those funds targeted for action? “QOFs can focus on a national, regional, state or cit...
Starlink service by SpaceX supporting BroadbandOhio and JobsOhio in pilot providing high speed internet access
This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Takeaways Global: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 75M globally and the number of confirmed deaths globally stands at over 1.65M. U.S.: The Federal Reserve raised its 2021 economic outlook slightly, sees 4.2% growth next year. Ohio: Ohio’s unemployment rate was 5.7% in November 2020, down from a revised 6.1% in October. Click here to read full article.
How to Navigate the Reshoring of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
In recent years, geopolitical and economic trends have been encouraging pharmaceutical drug manufacturers to shift their active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) sourcing and physical manufacturing plants onto domestic soil or near-shore locations. This has been a gradually turning tide that accelerated this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and, in its wake, a presidential Executive Order requiring all essential medicines to be manufactured within the United States. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet disclosed the list of essential medications, it has become apparent that having a strategy for the reshoring of pharmaceutical manufacturing is crucial. There ar...
In Focus: The Evolving Role of Outdoor Spaces
This year has been hallmarked by re-evaluation. On all levels, people have taken a second look at their habits, spaces, and lifestyles and have had to adjust greatly to meet the new needs of today. With safety as a priority, people entered their homes in March, and most have not returned to a “normal” lifestyle. On a macro-level, spaces must be reimagined in order for people to return safely and once again participate in day-to-day activities without fear of getting sick or infecting others. One solution is moving traditionally indoor spaces outdoors. The office is a great example of how outdoo...
Combating Loneliness & Building Resilience For Tomorrow's Workplace
In this era of social distancing, safer-at-home orders and telecommuting, the American workforce is more dependent on technology for connection and has less separation between work and home than ever. Add to that the emotional turmoil resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, an uncertain economic climate and increased recognition of systemic racial injustice, and the state of mental health in America needs attention. Click here to read full article.
Front Line: Vocational Training Alliances in Tough Times
As if manufacturers are not challenged enough by COVID-19, many face shortages of appropriately skilled workers to keep their tech-savvy factories competitive. A 2018 report by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Instituteestimated the manufacturing industry would have as many as 2.4 million jobs to fill by 2028. Last year, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) reported in 3rd Quarter 2019 that the top concern among manufacturers was the inability to attract and retain a quality workforce. Stephen Gold, president/CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI), recently wrote in IndustryWeek that the skills gap today isn’t so much about a lack of STE...
4 KEY COMPONENTS TO CREATING A SOPHISTICATED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MARKETING STRATEGY
The strategy of simply creating a website and hoping new businesses will look at your community isn’t going to work by itself. You need a marketing plan to work along with it. A workforce attraction and business growth strategy need to target specific industry sectors. A solid strategy will have four key components: workforce attraction strategy, narrative placemaking and successful story creation, aggressive social media campaign, and a robust analytical approach to measuring the marketing effectiveness. Click here to read full article.
Attaining a Big-Picture Perspective With a Facility Master Plan
Leading a successful site and facility master plan challenges even the most seasoned leaders. After all, how often have you undertaken a master-planning process, only to be disappointed in the outcome, or worse yet, end up with a building that doesn’t align with your business goals? Based on over 30 years of working with manufacturing organizations, we have identified several master-planning process “must haves” that are vital to achieving successful, actionable and, most importantly, implementable site and facility master plans. With construction cost trending upward at a rate of 3 to 5 percent annually — and an industry focused on continuou...
5 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Brand Strength and Equity
It’s not enough to have a competitive advantage in the Covid-19 era. Marketing must adapt to the new normal, and crafting a strong and authentic brand helps with this process. Brand-building is a long-term initiative that demands patience and persistence, but its benefits are worth the effort. The perks of brand-building are present in both internal and consumer-facing aspects of your business. Click here to read full article.
Best Wedding Spot in Columbus, Ohio
The Wigwam Event Center is the best wedding spot in Columbus, Ohio, and while we are outside of the city in Violet Township, the short drive is well worth it. This stunning venue is beloved by brides because the grounds are gorgeous and parklike with beautiful water features that make for the best picture spots. From the moment you enter the private drive leading to the Wigwam, you can tell the place is special. It transports you to another time - perfect for celebrating the start of the rest of your life. Part of the Wigwam’s charm comes from the fac...
Movers & Shakers: Will Zell on Columbus entrepreneurship, his ever-evolving career path and his new venture capital firm
Will Zell has been a part of the central Ohio entrepreneurial scene for the better part of a decade, founding multiple startups in diverse fields and racking up the stories along the way. The Nikola Labs founder and president has also added a new project to his plate, the formation of his new venture capital firm, Zell Capital. We caught up with the Columbus enthusiast and serial entrepreneur to talk about his new venture, running for city council as a high schooler and turning Columbus into the next Silicon Valley. For those who aren’t familiar, what is Nikola Labs? Nikola Labs i...
Five Predictions For The Manufacturing Industry In 2021
There's no shortage of articles that will opine about how tumultuous 2020 was for the economy, jobs, and industry as the world grappled with the impact of COVID-19 on business and daily life. However, there's reason to be optimistic, especially in manufacturing. Despite 60% of manufacturers feeling the impact of COVID on operations, a recent survey of senior leaders of manufacturing and distribution companies noted significant or modest growth in company revenue during the pandemic. Demand for products is surging, requiring new and innovative production methods, and many manufacturers have stepped up to the plate. As we close out the year, we'll better understand jus...
Public-private coalition offers affordable internet, computers to central Ohio students
A coalition of public and private partners has come together to provide – for a nominal fee – computers and internet access to students who otherwise might not be able to complete remote-learning assignments. When the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic led to a state order shutting down school buildings in March, officials at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and the Educational Service Center of Central Ohio realized some students in the region were at risk of falling behind because of a lack of home access to the internet or computers. The issue remained for the current school year, with most districts using remote- or hybrid-learnin...
SEO FOR THE SAVVY ECONOMIC DEVELOPER
Authors don’t write books for librarians, they write books for readers. So why are economic developers creating websites just for search engines? The sole focus on search engine rankings has moved economic development website marketing away from the true intended purpose - connecting communities to business owners and expanding economic growth opportunities. Click here to read full article.
Web cameras in Dublin high school classrooms will connect in-person and remote students
Starting in January with the next Dublin City Schools semester, in-person and remote-learning high school students might be able to connect in real time through a virtual-learning initiative. Lindie Schweitzer, K-12 coordinator of educational technology for the district, said high school classrooms would be equipped with web cameras to enable students learning online at home to interact with the students in the same class at school. A conference microphone would enable conversation between the groups, she said. Teachers in the district's three high schools – Coffman, Jerome and Scioto – have been receiving the equipment, said Deputy Superintendent Tracy Deagle. “Once all the equipment is distributed, every high school classroom wil...
Zoning-code change would add more potential sites for data centers
After approving a real-estate deal in early November that is expected to result in the construction of another data-center complex for Amazon Web Services, Hilliard officials want to add pathways for more data centers in the city. Hilliard City Council on Nov. 23 heard the first reading of an ordinance that would amend the zoning code to allow data centers as a permitted use in M-1 restricted-industrial and M-2 general-industrial zoning districts. The ordinance is scheduled for a second and final reading at the Dec. 14 council meeting. Currently, data centers are permitted in B-3 and B-4 zoning districts, which are spread out over commercial areas in th...
Central Ohio Christmas tree farms expecting high demand
For central Ohioans concerned about – and weary of – the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the Christmas season promises a welcome respite. Yet, with indoor gatherings strongly discouraged by medical experts and Gov. Mike DeWine, and live performances of such holiday staples as “The Nutcracker” canceled, families might be seeking activities that are festive, as safe as possible and outside four walls. Perhaps cutting a Christmas tree could be one of those activities that adds some sparkle to the season. Sensing a trend, numerous central Ohio tree farms are expecting high demand this year. “That’s what we’re being told through the industry,” said Donna Cackler of Delaware's Cackler Family Farms, which opened Nov. 21. Read full article.
Planning commission begins consideration of Sheetz application
The Grandview Heights Planning Commission is seeking more information regarding a proposal to redevelop the property on the southeast corner of Grandview Avenue and Dublin Road as a Sheetz restaurant, convenience store and gas station. The company is seeking a major site-plan review and conditional use to allow construction on the lots at 744-746 Grandview Ave. and 1075 Dublin Road. The application was discussed Nov. 18. The commission agreed to wait to vote on the request until more details, including the results of a traffic study, are available from the applicant. The corner is occupied by a Meineke store and a vacant restaurant building. Th...
How To Poise Your Business For Success (And Survival) In The Covid Economy
Business life in the era of Covid has elements of both crisis management and an endurance trial. How can your business join the ranks of those that are succeeding in this environment? LJ Suzuki, founder and fractional CFO at CFOshare and I recently dissected this question together, with an eye toward the actionable steps you should be taking now–and the potholes you need to avoid. Micah Solomon, Senior Contributor, Forbes; Customer Service Turnaround Expert and Consultant: It’s been several quarters since Covid began to make inroads into the economy; how are small businesses faring? LJ Suzuki, Founder and Fractional CFO at CFOshare: The small businesses within my purview have see...
OSU seeks approval to build $36.7M innovation center
Provided that the Board of Trustees approves the project this week, construction will start in June 2021. The facility would be slated to open in May 2023. Read full article.
Violet Township distributes nearly $65K in CARES Act funding
Fifteen businesses and nonprofit organizations recently received nearly $65,000 in combined grants after Violet Township officials distributed federal money allocated in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. One of those is Heather Kluth, who’s had a difficult time since she opened Visage Studio Salon at 10400 Blacklick-Eastern Road, Suite 120, last November. Just four months later, the pandemic hit and a state order forced her to close her salon and spa room for two months. She didn’t qualify for some assistance programs because her business was so new and she doesn’t have a payroll because the stylists who work at the salon are self-employed. “During that time...
6 Ways to Keep Your Employees Learning At Work
No company can reach its business goals without a qualified and dedicated workforce. As new technologies emerge, on-job training programs have become increasingly useful to enhance both employees’ soft and practical skills. But learning at work can go beyond formal training. Businesses should get creative so that employees are constantly developing their skills. The Benefits of Ongoing Training While most companies invest in costly recruitment processes to attract the right candidates, their efforts on employee engagement and education often fall short. Without any type of incentives or supportive programs, it's easy for employees to feel overlooked and unappreciated after a while — an...
Literary Buffs Will Love These Roadside Destinations
Once upon a time in a land close to home, there were workplaces and living spaces of famous authors and illustrators that literary fans could explore through printed maps created by the Ohioana Library Association. After more than 50 years, the organization, which collects, preserves and celebrates Ohio literature, has now gone digital with the Ohio Literary Trail, an online map that connects people to more than 60 notable sites around the state. “Literary tourism is becoming a much more popular thing because people love authors and books,” says Ohioana Library Association executive director David Weaver. “It’s exciting to g...
First Person: Effects of the Global Pandemic on Company Supply Chains
AD: Will more companies be re-shoring or near-shoring as a result of the global pandemic? Jensen: For certain, most companies are closely examining the options available to them to avoid future supply chain interruptions. Part of the challenge of making a decision on a future sourcing direction is that this story isn’t over. As the pandemic progresses, every week, sometimes every day, brings new information to light regarding risks associated with both the supply available for companies to transact business, as well as the fluctuations in the demand associated with their specific product offerings. It is very safe to say that at present...
Front Line: COVID-19 Spurs More Automated Manufacturing
The global pandemic has upended the labor market and dramatically and suddenly reversed U.S. economic expansion. COVID-19, especially, has caused U.S. manufactures to face unprecedented labor challenges. With COVID-19 and the need for social distancing, these shortages are escalating. Many factories have shuttered to protect workers and prevent COVID-19’s spread. Even before this global crisis, in 2018 Deloitte had already projected that manufacturers would face shortages of some 2.4 million workers through 2028. Read full article.
Adding “COVID-19 Community Response” to the Site Selection Checklist
Much has been written about the disruptions of COVID-19 on every line of business. In the realm of economic development, this has included a recommitment to retention and expansion programs, touting quality of life to capture the influx of remote workers, a rush to virtual site tours, and many other endeavors. All of these adjustments will play a part in a community’s success in the years to come. But it seems that when all of them are stacked up, they point to the foundation of a community — or to use a construction expression, they reveal whether a community ha...
Data-Driven Operational Strategies in the Pandemic Era
As state economies struggle between surging cases of COVID-19 and intense pressure to reopen — albeit with varying degrees of restrictions — companies that reduced or halted operations in response to stay-at-home orders are torn between the urgent needs to both restore revenue streams and to ensure the safety of their employees and customers. Since every location has a different dynamic and risk profile, creating a return-to-work strategy is complicated, whether a company operates in five locations or 500. The solution to developing a sound, portfolio-wide strategy includes having ready access to data, analytics, and insights, including regional and community-specifi...
Shifts in Mobility and Transportation Infrastructure in a COVID-19 World
While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create an environment of unpredictability, the one certainty is that the way in which people previously commuted to their jobs — and the way in which goods and services were traditionally delivered — is likely changed forever. It is still too early to predict the entire spectrum of mobility changes that are destined to occur, but one thing is for sure — the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the fact that our mobility systems are critical to our day-to-day lives and serve as the backbone of the U.S. economy. Now, more than ever, if th...
Ohio Ranked Third in Site Selection’s 2020 Top State Business Climate Rankings
This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Takeaways Global: International FDI fell by 49%; outlook remains negative. U.S.: U.S. unemployment rate falls to 6.9%, Federal Reserve holds rates at zero amid considerable risks as economy continued to recover. Ohio: Ohio ranked third in Site Selection’s 2020 Top State Business Climate Rankings. Global Foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 49% to $399B in the first half of 2020 according to UNCTAD. The European Union’s executive commission lowered its economic forecast for next year and doesn’t expect to reach pre-virus levels until 2023. The ne...
Site Selection Magazine ranks Ohio’s business climate near the top
Ohio again has been recognized on a nationwide list for its business climate. That’s according to the 2020 Business Climate Rankings from Site Selection Magazine, a national publication that focuses on economic development. Ohio ranks third on the list, which was based partially on a survey of corporate executives and site selectors who were asked to identify the states they believe to have the best business climate and partially on an index of project counts and other criteria. Inclusion on the list further shows why so many companies are investing in projects in the Buckeye State. Read full article.
The New Normal in the Automotive Supply Chain
For immediate evidence of disruptions in the automotive supply chain, you need to look no further than your local dealer. Many lots are nearly empty of new vehicles, with average dealer inventories across the U.S. far below the normal 50–60 days’ supply. How did this happen? Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic is a major part of the problem. When automotive production was abruptly halted in March, there were not any new vehicles being produced until early May. Even then, production has been proceeding in fits and starts. At the same time, consumers have continued to purchase vehicles, keeping auto demand surprisingl...
The Next Recovery: Regional Leaders & Laggards
To call the road that most metro areas have traveled this year rocky would be akin to labeling Mount Everest a speed bump. But the most turbulent period of our lifetimes will eventually give way to a sustained recovery. And when it does, certain types of metro areas are in far better shape to take advantage. In the short run, places that suffered the steepest job and income losses will struggle most, which bodes especially ill for the Northeast and tourism-dependent Hawaii and Nevada. But what happens after that? Much depends on the course of the virus, such as whether outbreak...
What’s Next: Leveraging Mergers and Acquisitions with Incentives
It’s not surprising that in the face of a global pandemic and its economic impact, merger and acquisition activity is gearing up. It’s inevitable that in periods of economic downturn, stronger and better positioned companies acquire struggling businesses. However, it’s also common for both acquirers and the communities in which they operate to overlook opportunities and pitfalls in a merger or acquisition. So how do you take advantage of the first and avoid the second? One path that yields great results is thoughtful economic incentive due diligence, which offers specific and unique opportunities for an acquirer related to each of the thre...
Automotive, Steel and Other Sectors Pave this Region's Road to Recovery
What pandemic? Facility investment might be on hold in some locations as companies rethink their property portfolios and supply chains. But it’s hard to find evidence of that in the Southeast. More than $1.4 billion in capital investment has been announced — in Alabama alone. Just in August. Plenty more projects are getting underway elsewhere in the region. Mazda Toyota Manufacturing (MTM), the joint venture between automakers Mazda Motor Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., plans to make an additional $830 million investment in Alabama to incorporate new cutting-edge manufacturing technologies to its production lines and provide enhanced training to its workforc...
More Than Just Real Estate
Commercial real estate communities built around colleges and universities, hospitals and medical research institutions rightly are hailed for supporting large numbers of jobs, many that pay exceedingly well. They drive critical medical research, and they support the commercialization of life-saving cures. A perhaps under-appreciated bonus comes in the ways that Eds & Meds developments can serve to enrich urban ecosystems, including the under-utilized, undervalued and forgotten. South Street Landing in Providence, Rhode Island, is a modest but spritely example. Its transition from abandoned power plant to sleek, medical education hub recently claimed a prestigious award for adaptive re-use from the Nationa...
These are the Skills and Mindsets of the Leader of the Future
When we hear the word water, an image immediately comes to mind, we know what we are talking about. The same does not happen with the term leadership or when we want to refer to the leader. However, this character plays a fundamental role in cultures and organizations. Jacob Morgan, a futurist who explores leadership, the future of work and the experience of employees, participated in INCmty where he pointed out the nine skills and mindsets that the leader of the future must have, whom he referred to as "the leader of today" . Also founder of FutureOfWorkUniversity.com , an online education and training platform tha...
Air Force, Ohio State announce partnership to improve diversity in science, engineering
The Ohio State University and the U.S. Air Force are creating a national consortium to increase opportunities in the Air Force for minority STEM students and graduates. Ohio State will co-lead the new effort with Wright State University, North Carolina A&T State University, and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The six-year, $40 million project, funded by the AFRL, will include summer internships for minority engineering students, access to specialized research equipment and laboratory space at AFRL, Ohio State and Wright State, and support for projects to be determined by collaborating with historically black colleges and universities an...
The Entrepreneurs Center Marketplace Connects Customers and Products Created by Local Businesses
As e-commerce thrives and large companies like Amazon make it easier than ever to buy online, local shops and companies can often suffer. And in the midst of a pandemic that has people shopping less, those challenges have only increased as we head into the 2020 holiday season. To help solve that problem and connect shoppers with local goods, The Entrepreneurs Center in Dayton has created the TEC Marketplace, an e-commerce platform that features and sells products from TEC companies and those participating in TEC’s Small Business Development Center. Many available products are aimed at holiday shoppers and include active apparel, hats...
Staying Safe And Strong In Ohio
When Ohio’s first three positive test results for COVID-19 were announced on March 9, Gov. Mike DeWine didn’t hesitate. The governor immediately declared a state of emergency. DeWine’s prompt action (which came just five days after California became the first state to declare a COVID-19 emergency) is credited by medical experts with sparing Ohio from the onslaught of cases (and fatalities) that afflicted other large states who took longer to react. In an exclusive Governor’s Report interview with Business Facilities, Gov. DeWine described the point at which he recognized the scope of the impending public health crisis. “COVID-19 had been on my rada...
Natalia Harris hits the ground running as Delaware's new city attorney
Natalia Harris is quite acquainted with the duties required by her new job as Delaware city attorney. She was an assistant city attorney in Columbus for 11 years and spent most of that time working in civil and administrative law. Harris became Delaware city attorney Oct. 21, succeeding Darren Shulman, who left Delaware to become city attorney for Upper Arlington. Harris was named interim city attorney Sept. 1 and became the city’s prosecutor -- handling cases in the countywide Delaware Municipal Court, among other duties -- in July 2019. Read full article.
Leaning into the storm: Reshoring manufacturing is Ohio’s call to duty
Ohioans couldn’t get N95 masks into our hospitals. Business couldn’t buy PPE to stay open. States fought to get testing kits. It didn’t stop with medical supplies. Try to buy a bicycle during COVID? Good luck. Many overseas-dependent products couldn’t be found on our shelves. Some seemingly simple items couldn’t be found because of one tiny component in the supply chain wasn’t available in our country. Reshoring, the restoring of manufacturing supply chains to our North American shores, is imperative! It’s also bipartisan. It’s clearly one of only a few issues upon which both sides of the aisle can agree — let’s bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Read full article.
3 Ways Great Leaders Have Evolved in the Wake of Covid-19
Starting March 11, 2020, when the pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global pandemic, we quickly experienced a flurry of events thereafter, witnessing drastic changes not only take place on a worldwide scale but also in our own personal lives at home and in business as we had to adapt quickly to the “new normal”. As we conformed to the new rules and retreated to the safety of our homes, it gave entrepreneurs a chance to sit with their own stark reality of what they’d created up until that point - what was working, what wasn’t working, what our strength...
How to Keep Remote Workers Productive and Happy
If a company has survived this far into 2020, they've figured out how to make remote work possible. But companies that see it as a temporary make-do effort will soon fall behind. Not only are the effects of the pandemic likely to affect the way we do business long term, but the fact is that remote work was a growing trend before the pandemic, and now it's here to stay. To be successful, companies need to move beyond making remote work possible and begin to make it more productive and efficient. They need to focus on ways to bring remote employees together while apart, engaging them with tools and information tha...
Ohio’s Unemployment Rate Declined to 8.4% in September
This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Takeaways Global: World’s governments have committed $11.7T (12% of global output) to fight the coronavirus-induced economic downturn. U.S.: Economists said pandemic could end up costing U.S. $16T, four times as costly as last recession. Ohio: Ohio’s unemployment rate was 4% in September 2020, down from 8.9% in August. Cleveland Innovation Project announces initiatives to propel region’s growth. Columbus named the happiest city in Ohio, and one of the happiest in the U.S., according to Zippia’s latest study. Read full article.
Ohio could be leader of drone, autonomous aircraft technology
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The future is here in Ohio and all you have to do is look to the sky. Drones and other autonomous aircraft could become a part of our daily life. Advocates say being the test ground could supercharge our economy. We have an in-depth look at what this new technology could mean for our state. The future of transportation may not be the first thing you think about when you drive down I-71. But an initiative called DriveOhio, supported by O-DOT, has that vision. It’s a state start-up that wants to make I-71, which is already a connector between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati...
A Guide to Aerospace Investment Decisions
The aerospace and defense (A&D) industry had a record year in 2019. Revenue passenger miles set a record, up 4.2 percent from 2018, and have been growing at roughly double GDP for the past two decades. Airbus’ and Boeing’s order backlogs ended 2019 at around 13,000 aircraft. The industry reported a record $780 billion in revenue — 5 percent over 2018. But in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the industry into crisis, literally overnight, with air traffic decreasing about 90 percent as society shut down and stayed at home. Hopes for a quick recovery have been dashed by the persistence of transmissions, and many believ...
NCAA announces nearly 450 host site selections
For only the third time in its history, the NCAA undertook a site selection process where most of its championships were put out for bid at the same time. The result: The Association made more than 450 selections of host sites for preliminary rounds and final sites of predetermined championships in Divisions I, II and III, with most to be held from 2022-23 through 2025-26. The NCAA received more than 3,000 bid submissions from NCAA member schools, conferences, sports commissions and cities vying to host predetermined rounds for 86 of the NCAA’s 90 championships. The sites were selected by the respective NCA...
Why Target, Walmart, And Best Buy Are Booming Amid The Pandemic - And Being Hailed As Heroes
In late February, Target CEO Brian Cornell was sipping coffee in a Manhattan deli—one eye on the keynote address he was soon to give at an investor conference, the other on his phone as news alerts of America’s first confirmed Covid-19 death buzzed in. Target’s communications, investor relations and special-events teams had spent months agonizing over every detail of the speech, given to 200 Wall Street analysts and journalists and able, in a matter of minutes, to send Target’s stock price climbing—or crashing. Three years ago, Cornell, 61, who took over Target’s top spot in 2014 after running Pepsi’s food business, ha...
How Site Selection Can Help Meet Corporate Social Responsibility Commitments
The increased role of corporate social responsibility in site selection Corporate social responsibility is playing a major factor today in company's decisions on where they're locating their business. That's happening for a few reasons. I think companies are realizing that they need to be more conscious as to what's going on in the environment today, and they need to react to that. But primarily that's being driven by their consumers (for any company that is selling a product to the consumer base). Consumers want to know that the company is delivering on certain sustainability goals. They want to feel like they'r...
How Technology Is Making Data Collection for Incentives Programs Applications Easier
The Importance of Software in Incentives Analysis Software is becoming a bigger part of incentives analysis as clients increasingly want to use this tool. Many clients are building the internal capabilities to perform initial credits and incentives and site location analyses. They want to do some of that research on their own with their internal team prior to pulling in an advisor, or maybe they have an internal team that can handle the project from start to finish. Unless they have the ability to go to all the various jurisdictions under consideration and understand all their programs, the team’s software, dependin...
How To Make Your Virtual Company Party A Success
With the morning air a bit crisper, the sun setting earlier and the leaves falling to the ground, we are reminded that the holiday season is quickly approaching. For businesses, this means it's time to start planning the time-honored year-end company party. However, amid a global pandemic, party objectives and safety concerns are markedly different this year. Stymied by in-person gathering restrictions, companies turning to virtual solutions have the difficult task of figuring out how to make these "events" meaningful and engaging. While this could make party-planning committees hold their collective breaths, all hope is not lost, and businesses can stil...
In Focus: An Evolving Last Mile
Apart from the tragic global health implications, the economic fallout from the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic has been highly disruptive. The longer-term impact from the profound behavioral shift on the part of consumers who have — by necessity — been introduced to online shopping will persist long after the current recessionary cycle ends. While some new online shoppers will go back to their pre-COVID habits once the pandemic is behind us, many will be “sticky,” finding the convenience of online shopping too alluring. One recent survey finds that 46 percent of shoppers currently plan to continue buying online. Read full article.
Infrastructure Investment as an Economic Stimulus Tool
In times of economic struggle — such as the recession that abruptly arrived with the COVID-19 pandemic — analysts and advocates promote an array of options as effective tools for stimulating the economy. One of the most frequently suggested options is infrastructure spending. Proponents of infrastructure spending during dire economic times view it as a productive job creator and essential foundation for a long-term recovery and return to sustained prosperity. Brian Raff, director of Communications and Public Affairs for the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), cites a 2015 study by the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness to demonstrate infrastructure investment’...
In Focus: Increased Data Center Growth Driven by the COVID-19 Pandemic
The stratospheric rise of the cloud over the past few years caught many off guard and created an arms race among the cloud providers, with data center development underpinning the effort. These cloud providers were anticipating ever-increasing demand for the cloud by globally creating a robust and redundant network of massive data centers tethered together through a network of smaller data centers and fiber connection locations. Data centers that service other segments of the market (wholesale colocation, “edge,” and retail) were also riding the wave of increased demand. Little did we know a global pandemic would make data centers and th...
Why are Foreign Trade Zones Making a Comeback?
FTZs Are Making a Comeback There was a double-digit growth in foreign trade zone use [in 2018], according to the federal government's report for that year. When the 2019 report comes out, that double double-digit growth will have increased even more. The reason is that these tariffs are a whole new way to save money, compared to before, when the most important things were speed to market, using direct delivery and weekly entry, cutting your supply chain time and lowering your cost of operations. Now it's cut your supply chain time, lower costs and mitigate the tariffs. The number one thing w...
COVID-19 Reshuffles The Cold Chain & Logistics Deck
No sector now is more active than logistics, and there is no busier niche within it than cold chain for grocery and medical needs. The busiest companies within that niche, before and since COVID-19, are automated logistics pioneers and the grocers they serve. Digital Commerce 360’s 2020 Online Food Report, released in August, analyzes the top 1,000 food-dedicated retailers, as well as mass merchants with growing sales in the category — Walmart and Amazon represent more than 60% of the online grocery market, with Walmart having the biggest market share of online food in 2019 at 31%. Read full article.
Have Years of Darwinism in Rural America Paid Off During COVID-19?
As cities reel from a public health crisis and civic unrest, rural and small town community leaders are the unspoken heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have historically learned how to thrive through fostering creative connections between limited resources and community needs. Years of practice navigating threats and finding solutions keeps rural America surviving, even amidst a pandemic. Progressive rural community leaders developed a task force in March. They used frequent and clear communication on the local plan. Rural America applied well-practiced skills listening to citizens, health care professionals, business owners and educators to make decisions right for their own communities...
Ohio Faring Better than U.S. in ‘Back-to-Normal’ Index
This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Takeaways Global: Both WTO and IMF updated their 2020 forecasts with an upward revision due to improved economic condition in Q2 and Q3. U.S.: Latest genetic, epidemiological and computational research suggests COVID-19 was spreading inside the U.S. in January. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell called for continued aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus for an economic recovery. Federal budget deficit was $3.1T in FY2020, the Congressional Budget Office estimated. Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus and Akron listed in the Top 25 Most Resilient U.S. Cities of 2020. In conjunction with it...
When Businesses Support Their Employees In Voting, It Makes A Huge Difference
Americans’ ability to vote is facing its greatest challenge in decades. Between the Covid-19 pandemic, voter laws that vary by state, and uncertainty about whether mail-in ballots will be counted, many Americans are willing to stand in long lines just to vote early. It is important that businesses support their employees as they do this on election day and the weeks leading up to it. “Voting rules are complicated and vary from state to state, and most people who don't vote say they simply didn't have enough time,” said Jim Doyle, President of Business Forward Foundation. “When employers share reminders, hel...
Before 2020, the concept of working from somewhere other than an office was largely seen as either a luxury or a niche product. Coworking spaces were full of independent contractors or creatives with no real office to visit. But after six months of a pandemic, attitudes toward these spaces are changing as the world revisits its ideas of productivity, office space and community. At Akron’s Bounce Hub, coworking space is a relatively recent addition to their offerings. The spaces, however, have become an important refuge for those who need a break from their couch, dining room table or cramped home office. Rea...
Everybody Knows this is Somewhere
Double-digit unemployment — that’s where my career in economic development began. As the country struggled to pull itself out of the Great Recession, I spent my days in workforce and economic development activities ranging from assisting displaced workers to providing resources to businesses to aiding communities in creating a better tomorrow. I was fortunate to cut my economic development teeth in East Central Indiana, between the state’s largest and third largest cities (Indianapolis and Fort Wayne). The area’s largest city is Muncie (pop. 68,000), home to Ball State University, and the smallest is Jonesboro (pop. 1,600). Read full article.
Five Common Ways To Fund A Small Business Beyond Personal Savings
One of the most cliched statements in starting a small business is that “it takes money to make money”... but it is often true. Many businesses need an infusion of cash to buy essential components of their operations. For a pizzeria, that could be an industrial oven, and for a yard care business, that could be a commercial lawn mower. A common funding practice many new business owners take is to use personal savings and start small by reinvesting profits into the business. This approach, known as bootstrapping, seems rooted in common sense, but can be restrictive to your business’ growt...
Ohio-produced natural gas is essential to economic and environmental progress
In a state as big and diverse as Ohio, it's easy to focus on our differences. As the political season intensifies, advertising will seek to magnify those differences even more. They want us to think: What could a family in Cuyahoga County possibly have in common with a family in Monroe County, down along the Ohio and West Virginia border? The truth is, quite a lot. As a natural gas and oil producer operating in Southeast Ohio, I have seen firsthand the positive benefits the industry has had on families across the state. From the compressed natural gas (CNG) cleanly fueling RTA buses...
Trans-Cycle Industries of Ohio Expands its Headquarters, Boosts Recycling Capacity
Company Name: Trans-Cycle Industries of Ohio LLC Location: Columbus Industry Sector: Advanced Manufacturing Company Profile: Trans-Cycle Industries (TCI) of Ohio is one of the members of the G&S Family of businesses, all devoted to the environmentally safe processing and recycling of transformers and other oil-filled electrical equipment, and the safe processing and re-use of electrical oils. Through its innovative and environmentally focused approach, more than 99% of the material processed by TCI of Ohio is salvaged for beneficial re-use rather than landfilled. Company Website: www.tciohio.com Read full article.
Beat Zoom Fatigue With These 6 Tips
Do you audibly sigh every time you have to log on to what feels like your thousandth Zoom meeting of the day? You’re not alone. While we’re all more or less used to video calls and meetings being the norm now, the newly coined effect of Zoom fatigue hasn’t gone away. Since working from home is here to stay, video calls are here for the long run too. This makes it incredibly important to find a way to prevent Zoom fatigue from taking over your workday. Here are a few ways you can mitigate its effects. Read full article.
BBI Logistics Expands, Plans to Nearly Quadruple Its Workforce in Ohio
Company Name: BBI Logistics Location: Columbus Industry Sector: Logistics and Distribution Company Profile: BBI Logistics is a freight brokerage firm based out of Columbus, OH. The company specializes in handling full truck load shipments while also dealing with a variety of other services such as, less-than-truckload shipping, intermodal, specialized equipment, and expediting shipments. Company Website: www.bbilogistics.com Read full article.
Delivering Local Government Services During a Pandemic
The defining challenge that local governments have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and one that they will continue to face for some time, is how to administer critical services in a manner that keeps both the public and government employees safe and healthy. While many services can be delivered via internet/ web-based applications, some residents do not have access in their homes, and others may prefer to interact face-to-face. Still others do not have access to transportation or must rely solely on public transit where it is available. As a result, there is an enduring need for areas inside governmen...
Economic Equity Agenda Needed to Revive the American Dream for All
2020 has been a disaster. COVID 19 not only infected millions of American and likely will kill a couple hundred thousand more but, triggered by police misconduct, a surge of legitimate protests along with unwarranted violence lead to the destruction of neighborhoods and property across the United States. The economic challenge for many communities even before COVID 19 illustrated a clear line between winners and losers. In Franklin County, Ohio, home to mid-sized urban market winner Columbus, before the large negative impact of COVID 19 the county’s overall poverty rate was 16.7%, 29.9% for African Americans, and 25% for children. ...
Helping All Ohioans Return to Work
Like the rest of the nation, Ohio faces historically high unemployment in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The impact, at its height, has reached more than a million displaced workers, disproportionately touching Ohio’s economically vulnerable populations. In response to this employment crisis, JobsOhio, the state’s private nonprofit economic development corporation, and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) have partnered to launch an initiative called Ohio To Work. The goal of this initiative is for employers to find the workers they need while ensuring workers have the skills employers desire. Ohio To Work aims to accomplish this throug...
How To Keep Women In The Workforce During The Pandemic
We may be losing some of our best leaders to caregiving duties, and the pandemic is sending us backwards when it comes to gender equality. Women’s careers often take a backseat when caregiving duties rise, and women are more vulnerable to job loss during an economic downturn. The research shows that pandemic is hitting women hard on both fronts. Women are more than twice as likely as men to say they handle more than 50% of the caregiving and education responsibilities and 34% of working families are still without childcare coverage, according to Cleo’s State of Working Parents Study. A recent FlexJobs survey reports that 80% of workin...
Luma Financial Technologies Doubles Workforce at Ohio HQ
Company Name: Luma Financial Technologies Location: Cincinnati Industry Sector: Financial Services Company Profile: Launched in 2011, Luma Financial Technologies is the creator of Luma, a fully customizable, independent, buy-side platform that helps financial advisors more efficiently learn, create, order and manage market-linked investments such as structured products, structured annuities and more. Luma is headquartered in Cincinnati with offices in New York City. Company Website: lumafintech.com Read full article.
Ohio Receives $5 Million Grant to Boost Defense Manufacturing
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted announced that the U.S. Department of Defense has approved a $5 million grant to improve defense manufacturing processes in the state and train workers for next-generation jobs. The grant follows an announcement in August designating Ohio as a Defense Manufacturing Community. It is a program designed to support long-term community investments that strengthen national security innovation and expand the capabilities of defense manufacturing. “Ohio is positioned to be the premier state for defense manufacturing, and this grant will help our companies and workers achieve that,” Governor DeWine said. “Ohio is committed to ensurin...
Sustainable Communities are Jobs Magnets
In recent years, state and local economic development teams are getting some questions they might not expect from companies looking for new locations. In addition to information about economic climate and quality of life, businesses want to know more about a community’s track record around environmental sustainability. These days, it should surprise no one that a prominent U.S. company would want to operate in a community that values environmental protection and prioritizes waste diversion. Read full article.
These Dayton entrepreneurs are taking their startups to the next level
Dayton’s startup ecosystem is gaining traction with key entrepreneurs leading the way. The industry’s latest developments have been highlighted at the Techstars Startup Week Dayton, presented in partnership with Launch Dayton. The week kicked off Monday and is set to run until Friday. The week has hosted a number of events, ranging from manufacturing and food creation to beauty and technology, among others. Here’s a few startups to keep an eye on. Read full article.
Violet’s Wigwam Center Provides Columbus Event Space During COVID-19
Event planners, brides and organizers looking for event space near Columbus, Ohio for fall 2020, should look no further than the Wigwam Event Center in Violet Township. This beautiful historic property has been a go-to destination for the political elite, celebrities visiting the area and the movers and shakers of the Columbus region. Now, it is open for public use. With stunning grounds, gorgeous event space and a beautiful theater, the Wigwam can accommodate all types of events from corporate meetings to conferences, weddings, parties, recitals and even school events. Columbus event space during COVID-19 For those looking for Columbus event spac...
New Strategies for Learning and Development in an Increasingly Virtual World
Newly dispersed work teams are facing new challenges. During the early months of the global pandemic, more than three-quarters of organizations reported 80 percent or more of their employees were working from home, according to a global survey on workplace re-entry. While workplace mobility isn’t new, the scale of remote work has accelerated digital transformation, with rollout timelines shrinking from years to weeks. Workflows have also been upended as employees try to adopt new tools as part of their daily routines. Read full article.
Optimizing Project Outcomes Through Advanced Project Planning
While APP involves a modest amount of additional upfront time for planning, the investment pays significant dividends throughout the project — and at the most critical times. Detailed planning is executed in advance, enabling the project team and stakeholders to discuss project objectives, prioritize needs, and examine costs from the very outset. This relieves some of the reactive urgency surrounding these decisions, when such issues are addressed amid the thin margins associated with not only time but also the cost of business today. Using APP, facilities that have inevitable downtime related to modifications can plan more efficiently. Read full article.
How are Uncertain Times Altering Company Location Strategies?
As corporate decision-makers develop their business strategies for the future, the markets they consider are rapidly changing. This dynamic trend was already in place before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic as businesses sought to alleviate concentration risk. With the unprecedented impacts on the global economy of the current public health crisis, however, the search for alternative locations has taken on new urgency and quickly became a priority. Read full article.
In times of economic struggle — such as the recession that abruptly arrived with the COVID-19 pandemic — analysts and advocates promote an array of options as effective tools for stimulating the economy. One of the most frequently suggested options is infrastructure spending. Proponents of infrastructure spending during dire economic times view it as a productive job creator and essential foundation for a long-term recovery and return to sustained prosperity. Read full article.
Survey Reveals Manufacturers’ Post-Pandemic Plans
Few implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are as consequential to global manufacturers as disruptions to their supply chains. For many, this is the most consequential by far. Supply chains are always a work in progress as such market variables as transportation costs, tariffs and trade agreements force logistics managers to tweak their supply chains a little here, a lot over there and everywhere in between. That’s under normal conditions. Add a global health pandemic originating in the world’s second largest economy and the largest in industrial output, and it’s a whole new ballgame. Read full article.
Could a Post-Pandemic National Industrial Strategy Advance the Cause of Advanced Manufacturing?
As the coronavirus pandemic disrupted global supply chains, a new report released in April by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) urged the U.S. government to develop a national industrial strategy to strengthen the competitive position of advanced, traded-sector industries that are “too critical to fail.” “Even before this pandemic, China posed an unprecedented competitiveness challenge in the advanced industries that are most critical to America’s economic wellbeing and national security,” said ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson, the report’s author and a past contributor to Site Selection. Read full article.
Work from Anywhere?
Somewhere between your umpteenth Zoom meeting of the month and the latest webinar on the economic impacts of COVID-19, this thought probably crossed your mind: “How long will I be working from home?” While an exact answer to that question still eludes most companies, the effects of remote working are starting to come sharply into focus. Read full article.
How Small Businesses in the Heartland Are Coping
The Brookings Institution hosted a webinar on June 10 titled “Mitigating the Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Rural Areas.” Moderator Tracy Hadden Loh, a Brookings Institution Fellow, engaged three experts on rural economies in looking back at the pandemic’s effect on two small towns and across rural America, and how recovery steps are taking shape. The panelists were Lindsey Dotson, executive director of the Main Street Downtown Development Authority in Charlevoix, Michigan; Todd Wolford, executive director of Downtown Wytheville, Inc., Wytheville, Virginia; and Matt Wagner, vice president of revitalization programs at the National Main Street Center. Read full article.
Indemnification Provisions in Incentives Agreements: Best Practices and Special Public Entity Issues
Indemnification provisions are an important part of the fine print of many contracts. These clauses generally operate to protect one party against the other party’s actions or failures to act that lead to a loss claimed by a third party (not a party to the contract). A common example is the indemnification provisions (or entire agreements) used in the rental car setting. Before you drive off the lot, the rental car company will require you indemnify (or protect) it against a third party (not you) bringing a claim due to your being in an accident. Read full article.
Site Selection 2020: The Importance of “Regional Depth” with Global Reach
The last several years of corporate site selection have been influenced by many trends. Among these are corporate tax cuts, a red-hot industrial real estate market, the explosion of e-commerce, increasing trade protectionism, record economic growth and, in a stunning reversal, a global health pandemic and recession. It seems the ever-shifting tide of global and domestic affairs can be confusing at best and downright frightening at worst to corporate executives evaluating where to locate their next headquarters, newest manufacturing plant, or distribution center. Risk and uncertainty have never seemed higher, and without looking deeper and thinking differently, it can b...
Tech Talent & COVID-19
Beset by the COVID-19 pandemic and its recessionary shocks, companies across the globe are paring workforces at alarming rates. In the United States alone, some 40 million workers had filed jobless claims by the end of May, with the biggest losses occurring in the leisure and hospitality, professional business services, retail trade and manufacturing sectors. Driven, however, by the expectation of long-term social distancing, the remote economy is soaring, as is the demand for technology workers, especially engineers. Read full article.
5 Effective Strategies for Employee Retention
Effective hiring and retention practices are key to effective leadership. The reality is that managers that hire well and that are able to keep talented employees produce better results. Replacing employees is time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive. Plus, when an employee leaves, it can impact the entire team and cause a ripple effect of unhappiness or turnover. Read full article.
How to Leverage LinkedIn for Lead Generation and Sales
With 700 million users, LinkedIn provides a massive opportunity for businesses to increase sales leads and revenue. In this video, the creator and host of “The Startup Story” shares tips for leveraging LinkedIn to start conversations with cold contacts, namely: Research, learning more about the contact you’re reaching out to from their profile as well as other social media accounts Read full article.
Walnut Creek Foods Invests in New Ohio Manufacturing and Distribution Facility
Company Name: Walnut Creek Foods Location: Millersburg Industry Sector: Food and Agribusiness Company Profile: Walnut Creek Foods has two retail stores located in Walnut Creek and Berlin, which annually serve over one million people. The company’s wholesale operations deliver in 12 states, serving over 2,000 customers. All of this is possible because of the 350 associates at Walnut Creek Foods and Cheese. Read full article.
Fall in love with Greater Cleveland’s waterfalls
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Exploring Greater Cleveland’s many waterfalls is a foolproof remedy for current pandemic-related blues. With summer days still to come and autumn rains not far off, we are entering the ideal window for “waterfalling,” though there is no bad time to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of cascading natural streams. Read full article.
Greater Cleveland Partnership tool connects businesses, entrepreneurs with resources
The Compass assesses needs and connects entrepreneurs and businesses to appropriate resources in the Northeast Ohio entrepreneurial ecosystem. Read full article.
JobsOhio and The Ohio State University Partner on International Business Program
One of the primary needs for businesses looking to invest and expand is a sizable and skilled workforce. Many companies cite the caliber of workforce as their reason for investing in Ohio. More than 300 higher education campuses across the state graduate over 170,000 students annually. Ohio is also a top 10 state in the competitive labor environment as well as leading workforce development programs. JobsOhio continually invests in initiatives to increase education and innovation in the state in order to create a workforce that’s competitively advantageous to companies. Read full article.
This Cleveland Startup is Revolutionizing Remote Special Needs Education
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many startups across the country have had to pivot and innovate just to stay afloat. For the educators at Cleveland’s Vizzle, however, the surge in demand for high-quality remote educational software has been a chance to shine. The company’s platform, which specializes in maximizing the potential of special education students, was already in place in districts across the country. But as districts look for the best ways to teach students during the pandemic, Vizzle is rising to the top. Read full article.
Prioritizing Ohio Businesses During COVID-19 Recovery
This year presented us with a lot of unexpected challenges. But as Ohioans, we don’t give up, and throughout this pandemic, we’ve demonstrated the value of our economic development network. The JobsOhio team is thankful for all you’ve done to help companies and your communities during this time. We have a long road still ahead of us, but JobsOhio believes this is the time to rebuild, improve and seize opportunities. The DeWine/Husted Administration’s pandemic response has earned Ohio positive attention on a national level. This presents us with a generational, once-in-a-lifetime chance to leverage the attention in our favor. At JobsOhio’...
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Come discover why so many families love living in Violet Township.
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A Prime Example of the Idiocy of the Tea Party
Former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is running for President in the Republican Tea Party primary, recently told an audience in Iowa that the Supreme Court is essentially a myth, and is unconstitutional. He told his teabagging followers that Congress can pass a law weakening the power of the Judicial branch of government. "In the American system, if you read the Constitution correctly — this is why I wrote 'A Nation Like No Other' — if you read the Federalist Papers correctly, the fact is the Congress can pass a law and can limit the Court’s jurisdiction. It’s written directly in the Constitution...There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution."
Hmmmm....how then would Mr. Gingrich explain the opening of Article 3 of the US Constitution which reads, "The judicial power of the United States[] shall be vested in one Supreme Court.” Seems pretty clear to me, but I am not considered a conservative intellectual.
Think Progress points out that not only is Gingrich inaccurate (as he usually is), but he is also unoriginal. Michele Bachmann floated the same nonsense two months ago, and notorious racist Republican Senator, Jesse Helms, tried it in the 1980s.
Labels: 2012 Election, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Radical Right, Republican
It's pretty ironic how you've revealed yourself to be the moron here (or at least intellectually dishonest). I notice you didn't bother quoting Gingrich's very next sentence which puts his quote into context.
He did not say the words "Supreme Court" don't appear in the Constitution; he's saying that there's not SUPREME Court (listen to the emphasis on the audio) -- i.e., the court is not "supreme" over the other two branches of government.
But why bother being honest when you serve your agenda, right?
Nice try, Mr. Anonymous, but Gingrich is wrong, as usual. And you are too. No one has ever argued that the Supreme Court is supreme over the other branches (which is kind of why those who understand the Constitution use the phrase "three co-equal branches"). That is a red herring. It is what you righties do all the time to make your asinine points. The Supreme is co-equal, and ever since Marbury v. Madison (a decision that not even Scalia disputes), judicial revue has been an essential part of American constitutional law. Crack a book once in a while, man.
Judicial review is necessary because a legislative branch could, theoretically pass any law, and an executive could sign it. However, it still may be unconstitutional (i.e. passing a law barring redheads from serving in the military). Just because something passes Congress does not make it automatically constitutional.
I understand this. You and Mr. Gingrich do not.
To quote your hero, "There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution." Those are his words, numbnuts, not mine.
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Hungary: UPR should encourage re-opening of civil society space
States should encourage Hungary to protect human rights defenders and civil society space through its forthcoming UPR, ISHR and TASZ said in a new briefing paper launched today
Download ISHR and TASZ’s new UPR briefing paper on Hungary here!
(Geneva) - Hungary is scheduled to be reviewed at the 25th session of the Universal Periodic Review in April 2016.
However, the reality for human rights defenders on the ground has worsened since the State’s last review, as increasingly restrictive legislation has been enacted regarding freedom of the press, accreditation and funding of NGOs, and independence of the judiciary.
Human rights defenders have faced public stigmatization by authorities, whilst those working towards the rights of the LGBTI population face particular threats.
Key recommendations that should be made to Hungary at the UPR in 2016 include
Respect and protect the right of NGOs to access and utilise resources, including funding from foreign sources, and ensure that foreign-funded civil society organisations can operate freely and without discrimination or undue restriction.
Continue to demonstrate international leadership at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York to promote and protect the right of all persons to safe and unhindered communication with international organisations and to prevent and promote accountability for acts of intimidation or reprisal.
Take specific steps to recognise and protect HRDs working on the rights of the LGBTI population, including through a review of the Constitution and the Family Protection Act.
Reform Article IX of the Constitution on freedom of speech, in consultation with local civil society and international experts.
This Briefing Paper on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Hungary, developed by ISHR and Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), is intended to assist States and other stakeholders to formulate questions and recommendations regarding the protection of human rights defenders during the UPR.
For further information about the Briefing Paper or for any assistance or advice in the formulation of recommendations, please contact ISHR's Ben Leather, b.leather@ishr.ch.
UPR | ISHR launches multilingual guide for civil society to track progress on China’s human rights commitments
国际人权服务社发布多语言版普遍定期审议民间社会指南！
HRC45 | Turkey must protect human rights defenders
Reprisals | Call for submissions for the Secretary-General’s report on reprisals
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From January to October this year, the number of foreign tourists in Thailand fell by 79.5% year-on-year, and the number of international tourists entering Thailand from April to September was zero.
According to reports, the epidemic has severely affected Thailand, where tourism accounts for 12% of GDP. After the epidemic eased in Thailand, only 1,201 international tourists were received in October this year, of which 471 were from China, while Thailand received 3.07 million international tourists in the same period last year. Although the conditions for the entry of international tourists have been restored, the number of international tourists in October was only a drop in the bucket for the Thai tourism industry, and it is difficult to solve the problem of the tourism industry.
It is understood that affected by the epidemic, the Thai government plans to reduce the expectations of international tourists this year. It is estimated that 6.7 million international tourists will enter Thailand, compared with 39.9 million last year. From January to October this year, the number of foreign tourists in Thailand fell by 79.5% year-on-year, and the number of international tourists entering Thailand from April to September was zero.
The director of the National Tourism Administration of Thailand, Yutasa, said that Thailand's tourism industry is expected to recover to about 80% of its pre-epidemic level in 2022. Unless there is a successful vaccine development, Thailand’s main source markets will not relax travel. Restrictive measures. According to the forecast by the National Tourism Administration of Thailand, Thailand may achieve 2.5 trillion baht (approximately 542.3 billion yuan) in tourism revenue in 2022, reaching 80% or higher 90% of revenue in 2019.
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Next:Official: By 2022, the total number of national tourist receptions and tourism consumption will return to pre-epidemic levels
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Nothing from January 15, 2021 to February 14, 2021.
St Andrew’s congregation values highly the warmth of its welcome and the feeling of togetherness and support amongst the members of our congregation. Our overriding aim is to make incarnate the love of God and the values of his kingdom in the community that we serve.
The church building is set in a delightful rural setting, embowered by fields and trees. Our next-door neighbours, a large static and touring campsite at Akebar, present an exciting mission field for the future. This year there was a much loved outdoor service, as well as a full range of Christmas carol services and our Maundy Thursday ‘foot washing services,’ all of which form part of our mission across the benefice; we would love these to continue.
Our vision is to see more people, of all ages, becoming members of our church family, not only on Sundays or within the church building; we are looking for opportunities to model God’s grace and love more effectively in the wider community.
We enjoy good ecumenical links with our Methodists brothers and sisters
The church is a grade 2* listed building, with parts dating back to the mid-12th century, with later 14th century additions. The church has an open graveyard, which is maintained by the church.
Finghall village is home to about 160 people, and has an excellent pub, the Queen’s Head. Although small in size it is an active community with an annual barrel push and village fete which attracts people from a wide area. The village is mainly a farming community, together with some commuter workers and retired people. The Wensleydale Railway has a popular request station on the edge of the village, where one can sometimes catch sight of the steam train ‘taking on water’.
The parish also includes the village of Constable Burton, best known for its Hall, a handsome Palladian villa standing in extensive woodland and formal gardens which are open to the public. It was designed by the celebrated architect John Carr for Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, and completed in 1768. The village also boasts one of the best eateries in the Dale.
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The GC: is this what we’ve come to admire?
Posted on 10:59, May 4th, 2012 by Lew
After some consideration of my sanity, I watched the first episode of The GC. It was more or less as I expected. I’ll probably never watch another minute of it, but it’s not a show for me. Nor is it a show for all those other high- and middlebrow honkeys (including Mike Hosking, TV reviewers, and 10,000 Facebookers) who are wringing hands and clutching pearls about how it’s empty trash that glorifies superficial extravagance and shallow excess at the expense of what is “real” or “authentic”, how it’s exploitative and demeaning to Māori, or whatever.
There’s some merit in these critiques, and in the complaints about NZ On Air funding, which it seems to have been allocated to a slightly different show than what ended up actually getting made. But ultimately I don’t think it matters. The GC tells us important things, not only about the beaches, bods and booze society it portrays, but the society from which its participants originated. The most legitimate object of critique is not the show, or its cast, but the system that makes such a bizarre phenomenon not only viable, but compelling.
Always bound to be something. Don’t matter if it’s good or not. Mama always said, “finish your kai. Don’t be fussy!”
Tame (pronounced “Tommy”) was talking about aunties, but the statement expresses the main reason many young Māori leave school and go to The GC and places like it in the first place: because they’re places where there always is bound to be something that’s better than nothing; you take your opportunities as they come up, and eventually you’ll be ka pai. Aotearoa, for many young Māori, is not such a place: the release of employment data showing that Māori unemployment is twice the national average will be no news to anyone who’s been paying attention, and the trans-Tasman wage disparity for those who are employed remains broad. If a kid like Tame can roll like a wideboy property investor on a scaffolder’s coin in The GC, and the counterfactual is minimum wage, gangs and prison back home in Timberlea, why not? As Annabelle Lee-Harris, a producer for Māori Television’s Native Affairs, said on Twitter:
Stay in NZ with the other 83 k unemployed youth or go to the GC where everyone has $ and lives in bikinis? Seems like a no brainer #TheGC … You can’t deny Maori have a far better quality of life on #TheGC. It may seem shallow but actually their kids aint gonna get glue ear etc.
Returning to the question: is this what we, as a society, have come to admire? The answer is yes; this is the neoliberal reality in which we all live. The truth is we always did admire it; it’s only the nouveau-riche cosmetics we cringe at. When our hereditary nobles and “real” celebrities live their extravagant, idiotic lives in public we celebrate them. When a bunch of brown kids do it, all of a sudden they’re an embarrassment; they’re abandoning their heritage, dishonouring their ancestors, should get real jobs and get back in their place.
But it’s all very well for snooty middle-class (and, I suspect, largely middle-aged) white folks to peer down their noses and mutter about how much of a shame it is. It’s easy to do when you’ve got options, mobility and capital (both financial and social). It’s easy to do when you’re not forced to choose between keeping your ahi kā burning, staying with your people and trying to preserve (or find) your place in society on the one hand, and earning a decent wage and staying out of prison on the other. It’s all very well to mythologise and romanticise Māori as a noble people, beyond wealth, if you don’t have to live their reality. And the Māori reality is not static. NZ On Air funding was sought and granted to examine aspects of the contemporary Māori reality. If you look beyond the caricature, the phenomenon examined by The GC is an aspect of the contemporary Māori reality. This goes some way to mitigating the criticism. Former TVNZ CEO Rick Ellis was completely serious (if wrong) when he cited Police Ten-7 as a legitimate portrayal of Māori on TV; there are few outside the niche market occupied by Maori Television, and like the shows on that underrated network The GC at least has the benefit of being made by, for and starring Māori. You don’t have to be very cynical to conclude that there’s a racial motive, however unconscious, behind calls for The GC to be cancelled and its funding redirected to saving TVNZ7, which Paul Casserly recently called “Pākehā TV“.
Maybe the “I’ve got mine” flight to material wealth is simply neoliberalism dragging people away from their values and further into its clutches, but at some point it stops mattering. Māori have had enough generations of being told to be patient, to make do, to play nice and they’ll get what’s good for them. Those who do the telling are are far from impartial. How long are Māori supposed to wait for the Pākehā justice system to make things right, to repair the alienation and dysfunction and reverse the discrimination that still affects them? And even when the system does finally deliver, it’s no sure thing: emerging Māori business leaders are mocked as fools when their ventures fail and abused as fat-cat tribal oligarchs when they succeed. As far as Pākehā society is concerned, Māori can do very little right, so the only surprise about the Mozzie phenomenon is that there are still so many young Māori who haven’t given up waiting for the NZ system to work, and set about making the Australian one work for them. We expect them to act in their own self-interest, and we construct economic and political mechanisms to that end. This is our system, not theirs: if you don’t like their rational responses, don’t blame them: blame yourself, and your part in making it so.
Tags: Annabelle Lee-Harris, cultural cringe, Facebook, Maori TV, Media, Native Affairs, neoliberalism, Paul Casserly, Police Ten-7, reality TV, Rick Ellis, Tame Noema, The GC, Tino Rangatiratanga, TVNZ7, twitter
Posted in An inclusive society, cultural difference, identity, Media, Take Māori | Print
57 Responses to “The GC: is this what we’ve come to admire?”
Rachel Cunliffe on May 4th, 2012 at 11:41
Brilliant post, thank you for the insightful commentary.
Mike Smith on May 4th, 2012 at 11:44
Good piece. Applause.
John Salmon on May 4th, 2012 at 11:59
What did Mike think? Can’t find his comments… :S
Stephen on May 4th, 2012 at 12:06
to John salmon – it was in the paper – ‘Broadcaster Mike Hosking said television had reached a new low. “Congratulations to TV3 for providing this country with the most appalling, low rent, pointless piece of televisual crap I have ever seen in my life,” he said.’
by the way, great post – most original comments I’ve read about the show
Lew on May 4th, 2012 at 12:07
Sorry, yes — borked a couple of links. Now fixed.
Chris Philpott on May 4th, 2012 at 12:14
Nice read, Lew – though I’m not sure whether to be offended at being called a “middlebrow honkey” ;) (For the record, my review would’ve been exactly the same if the show was about a bunch of Pakeha living in Gisborne.)
Scott Anderson on May 4th, 2012 at 12:32
I’m wondering too if some of the shock and calls for The GC to be taken off air stem from the novelty of seeing a tv show about young Maori where none are unemployed.
Michael on May 4th, 2012 at 12:36
Many thousands of NZrs hit the nightclubs in town every weekend, doing just what these people are doing – yet we see it on tv and it’s the end of the world.
Maori on tv without mentioning tikanga, being the approved aspirational role models (he’s only a scaffolder), or being societal victims that need our help – the end of the world.
Maori looking pretty affluent and just enjoying it as if they were rich kids out of Remuera – the end of the world.
The show is worth every penny of taxpayer funding just for the opportunity to throw up a mirror to the people who react so violently against it.
Brad on May 4th, 2012 at 12:39
I think a bit too much is being read into the reactions of most people
James on May 4th, 2012 at 12:42
I agree it tells us about the reality of the attraction of the GC, and I *am* interested in finding out more about that. But we all know the reality TV format distorts what is recorded into something else.
If the story stays at the level of ‘what shall I wear to the next party’, I can’t see how it will tell me more about their situation than I learned in the first episode.
Graeme Edgeler on May 4th, 2012 at 12:54
Still not pissed off with you, I’m afraid =)
Sanctuary on May 4th, 2012 at 13:12
The only thing you need to know about reality TV is that the last thing it is is real. Once you work that out, you can see it for what it is – grey propaganda.
Pablo on May 4th, 2012 at 13:14
I guess the questions begs: if what Lew writes is true (and I believe his insight to be correct), then can we say the same about disenchanted twenty-something Italian Americans (“Guidos” and “Guidettes”) in Jersey Shore and assorted alienated Chavs in Geordie Shore? It strikes me that in all three cases wealthy White producers find reality TV gold in the nihilism of marginalized working class youth, with ethnicity a nice icing on that cake.
Peter A on May 4th, 2012 at 13:27
Nice commentary, Lew. And well-delivered. Thanks.
“The truth is we always did admire it; it’s only the nouveau-riche cosmetics we cringe at.”
… rings true to me.
TV, like almost every other form of entertainment, is largely a matter of taste. That applies in triplicate to ‘Reality’ TV and faux controversy du jour like this.
Pania whauwhau on May 4th, 2012 at 14:01
kia ora for the really insightful korero. before reading this i totally hated the show and felt like it was letting us MAori back in aotearoa down and I also felt like these boys were plastics as but like you said this is their reality. i still refuse the constant barrages of job offers over in aussie to help my Maori peers but i can’t get past the fact that they choose to leave all their maoriness behind to create a new life. Yes they can still be Maori way over there but it’s just not the same. we still have to pay to get our whanau home for their tangi and mozzies still want all the benefits of a marae and a tangi even though they not here to help with the marae maintenance. i still get hoha with beautiful maori men who insist on having white girlfriends, and beautiful maori peple who insist on having a kirituhi rather than a tamoko. i know there’s no mahi here but we still need our whanau to help.
TerryB on May 4th, 2012 at 15:11
A very insightful post Lew, thanks. Very thought-provoking.
Alex on May 4th, 2012 at 15:22
Thank you for this article. It goes some way to explaining the unprecedented vitriol against something as lighthearted and inconsequential as the “Maori Jersey Shore”. For the “middlebrow honkeys”, the very concept of Maori who are able to embarrass themselves with their own success and outside the New Zealand system seems to have provoked their indignation and upset their idea of “You can succeed, but only when we let you.”
SHG on May 4th, 2012 at 15:34
Fascinating article, although as a Maori who left NZ and moved to Australia I haven’t seen GC and thus have no frame of reference.
Meta comment?
Moata Tamaira on May 4th, 2012 at 16:55
I think you’ve got some good points to make, Lew, particularly with regards to the reasons young Māori make the break for Australia. I have cousins who have done just that and they seem to be enjoying a pretty good quality of life over there.
However, your theories about the reasons for the outcry related to the show don’t hold as much water as they should because, well, it’s just not a very good programme. In fact it’s a horribly bad programme.
And trust me, that’s not the Pakeha half of my genetics saying that. It really is shit and I can completely understand people being surprised/disappointed that it received NZ on Air funding.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I doubt I’d be reacting more favourably to the show if it focused on vacuous Pakeha 20-somethings in Aus. Vacuous 20-somethings are UNIVERSALLY annoying. Especially to anyone who used to be one (which is most people over 30).
To start off, let me say thanks, and welcome to all the new readers.
Moata, let me clear a few things up. First, this is not a defence of The GC on entertainment or ‘quality’ grounds. I found it execrable. But there’s more to any TV show, and especially any reality TV show, than mere entertainment. They convey important information about where they’re from, and who for, and that’s the point of this piece. Second, I don’t mean to say that all Māori must inevitably like and support The GC. There’s diversity of opinion. Morgan, for one non-random example, hates it and has real concerns about its portrayal of Māori, and as he says, he’s the target demo.
Fine. My point, though, is that the response I’ve seen (and I’ve done due diligence) has been pretty strongly split by ethnicity, age and class, and a lot of the criticism seems to assume that because *I* don’t like it it’s not worth liking. You seem to be doing this as well, talking as if quality is something that can be measures with a ruler. Vacuous 20-somethings are UNIVERSALLY annoying, right, and yet they’re the subject of nearly every wildly-successful reality show ever made, and a good many comedies and dramas besides.
Another thing, more generally; as I said to Chris on the tweets, ‘middlebrow honkey’, while not exactly a term of endearment, isn’t much of a criticism either. It’s just a term that describes most of the media establishment, and the source of most of the criticism of The GC. Well, of course. Mormon housewives aren’t the target market for pro wrestling, folks who hate sports can’t be expected to care about Boil Up, and so it goes. But criticism should at least extend to an awareness of who the target market is, and why they might care about something, even if you don’t, and why the wider social context might be relevant.
(Hrm, some weird comment artefacts there.)
Talei Morrison on May 4th, 2012 at 21:03
Fantastic! My thoughts exactly!
DeepRed on May 5th, 2012 at 01:31
I watched the first few minutes of Episode 1, and my suspicions were confirmed – it’s taken cheesy ersatz to Jersey Shore levels. Somehow that’s the real reason for the negative reactions to The GC, rather than actual Maori-bashing.
My take on the issue is that The GC is merely the trigger for something that’s been simmering for some years, and it took this one show for it to start boiling over.
Melissa on May 5th, 2012 at 09:56
Thanks for an interesting piece. In terms of the public backlash (as it were) I’m not sure that ”racial undertones” are really that much of a factor. As Moata says, a show about white kiwi kids being well-off and vacuous would inspire a whole lotta hate too, and i think a show that was actually about young Maori being successful (in a non-kardashian sense) in Australia would be great. I wonder if the GC hate is more simply a result of them being kiwis. It’s a bit like watching one of your family members join Jersey Shore – suddenly, the vacuity and terrible behavior that once, when done by people who you so little identified with that were almost a foreign species, was entertaining, becomes much more real, and you start seeing it for what it is.
Melissa, I’m open to the explanation, but if that’s so, why does the majority of criticism of the show seem to be from white middle-class middle-aged folks, while the majority of those supporting it seem to be Māori and/or working-class and young?
I’m not alleging purposive or conscious racism here — I’m saying that it’s hard to detach from one’s underlying prejudices.
Jade on May 5th, 2012 at 10:57
I agree with Brad, too much is being read into the responses of the audience. Personally, I could not bring myself to watch it, not because of the Maori people on it, (I actually had no idea it was only Maori, I thought it was NZers in gerneral) but because Reality Television is NOT quality television. And quite frankly, the GC is riding on the backs of Jersey Shore and Geordie Shore. By funding this we really are beating a dead horse. Its been done before in a specific niche market and it just so happens that the same style of television is not suited to our own culture – thus the backlash. And lastly, I have Maori heritage so there are no racial motivations behind my reasoning, and I am young. Don’t just apply a ‘one-size-fits-all’ to us please because many of my YOUNG, MAORI friends detested the show also.
Morgan Godfery on May 5th, 2012 at 14:36
I detested the show too, Jade, and I think Lew makes an excellent point. You’re right, the Jersey Shore/Only Way is Essex style show is not suited to our culture and even less so to Maori culture.
My objection is that Maori are selected to showcase the qualities that these shows encourage – arrogance, narcissism, ignorance and so on. This, I think, showcases a fair degree of unconscious racism. The same is true in Jersey Shore where Italian Americans were selected (of course it would be too overtly racist to select Black people) and in Geordie Shore where lower class hooligans are selected. Middle class, anglo-saxon whites are not portrayed, although they are often the target market and, in my opinion, do a fair degree of sneering against Maori/Italian Americans/lower class Brits.
Hugh on May 5th, 2012 at 19:54
@Morgan: What makes you think it’s aimed at middle class people? The middle class TV diet is documentaries and historical dramas, not reality TV.
Morgan, thanks for weighing in. I’m interested in your argument that such a format has an essential conflict with “our” (presumably Aotearoan) culture, or Māori culture more specifically. I’m not convinced; much of the favourable response I’ve seen has made the case that “bugger off somewhere where we can get a job” actually is one of the more viable options open to young Māori, and it’s a legitimate and often successful strategy. Among the criticism, there seems a reasonable amount of love for The GC — much of it among those who are two or more of young, working-class and Māori — and it rated pretty well (not stunning, but not bad for a first run). The media narrative around its reception has been that it “divided” audiences, not that they universally hated it. And I think the debate around the “quality” or value of The GC is less interesting than thinking about why people have responded to it in the ways they have.
There are important differences between Jersey/Geordie Shore and The GC — particularly the expatriate aspect of The GC, given the importance of turangawaewae and whakapapa and the risk of alienation from both that emigration presents — but Pablo’s observation upthread is a good one: there’s mutual exploitation going on here. A small cadre of marginalised working-class youth with few options and fewer scruples have found a way to monetise their situation, and the mainstream that marginalised them has found a way to monetise them in turn. One important question that observation raises is: who is ultimately exploiting whom? Is the wealth and (superficial) freedom afforded by The GC lifestyle a good tradeoff for the cultural risks noted above; can those cultural risks be managed or mitigated; if so are they? And there’s also the obvious point that 99% of Mozzies don’t roll that large, so even if the tradeoff we see portrayed on The GC is an obvious win, is that true more generally?
These are hard questions that Pākehā society can’t adequately answer for Māori, but I think it’s a debate that desperately needs to be had.
Hugh: “What makes you think it’s aimed at middle class people? The middle class TV diet is documentaries and historical dramas, not reality TV.”
Or house porn. Or cooking porn. Or crime porn.
Lew: “One important question that observation raises is: who is ultimately exploiting whom? Is the wealth and (superficial) freedom afforded by The GC lifestyle a good tradeoff for the cultural risks noted above; can those cultural risks be managed or mitigated; if so are they? And there’s also the obvious point that 99% of Mozzies don’t roll that large, so even if the tradeoff we see portrayed on The GC is an obvious win, is that true more generally?”
I suspect that such nouveau riche flagrancy sets unrealistic expectations for many a thwarted social climber, thereby inflaming their existing inferiority complexes.
What’s also getting people worked up is the inconsistency between being told that TVNZ7 costs too much to continue running, while NZ On Air funding goes to prolefeed like this. The race to the bottom is ever closer to hitting rock bottom.
“Prolefeed”, and the argument that a Māori programme should not be funded so as to maintain high-middlebrow honkey “Pākehā TV”. My point exactly.
One of the best comments I’ve seen was that The GC should have aired on TVNZ7, so as to ensure its viability.
I recap the first post I made in this thread: “My take on the issue is that The GC is merely the trigger for something that’s been simmering for some years, and it took this one show for it to start boiling over.”
I suspect the fallout wouldn’t have been much different if it were a bunch of Hutt Valley trailer trash, or ‘Asian airheads’ in Howick, rather than Maori in the GC. What they’d all have in common is a sense of nouveau riche ersatz.
Keir on May 7th, 2012 at 01:19
Hang on Lew, it’s a bit glib to assert that TVNZ7 is honkey tv. In fact, I reckon it’s pretty offensive to shows like Te Karere etc.
I am also really suspicious of your theories of class here Lew. I would submit a good bulk of the criticism of the GC comes from (or is agreed with by) those stalwart defenders of middle brow culture, the working class family man and his wife.
Of course it’s glib, Keir. Did you read Paul Casserly’s column? (Edited to add: in reality, every other channel bar Māori Television is Pākeha TV inasmuch as any content that isn’t explicitly targeted at honkey middlebrow folks is either exceptional or incidental.) And are you talking about the Te Karere that has, for many years, been produced on TV One, and is merely repeated on TVNZ7? The fact is that much of TVNZ7’s programming does is pitched to middle-class liberal-arts-educated sensible mainstream Pākehā folks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good TV, and I think the channel is a valuable thing. But then, I would; it’s TV by, for and about folks like me.
The argument I’m making is not entirely, or even mainly, about class — it’s about the intersection of class, ethnicity and age, of which ethnicity (I argue) is the most significant. So I’m sure you’re right; there’s criticism of The GC from working class blokes and their wives. But I’ll bet you can add “white middle-aged” to the front of that and it’ll remain substantially true.
So is much of Maori TV’s programming. And in reality, I would imagine that much of the defence of The GC is coming from liberal arts educated Pakeha. I would suggest that the people most likely to be offended are not liberal arts educated at all.
Belinda Borell on May 7th, 2012 at 14:40
Tena koe Lew. Thanks for this article. I couldn’t agree more with both your analysis of the situation for Maori youth and your responses to the comments aired here.
I also agree with your analysis of where (socially) the criticism has been coming from. As someone interested in “white privilege” within our colonial context, I have seen some of the most blatantly paternalistic and patronising elements of anti-Maori discourse really come to the fore in this debate.
I am much reminded of Irihapeti Ramsden who claimed the attacks on Maori as unintelligent, dispossessed, lazy, criminal etc… will be nothing to the attacks they will be subject to when they are successful. I would argue the outrage about the GC shows we are on this huarahi.
Again, thanks for your thoughts. Tautoko.
Bill on May 7th, 2012 at 17:31
I just don’t like it because it is lazy, cheap and boring programming. Good on the people who have moved to the Australia looking for a better life, I hope they find it.
Keir, that’s probably true in spheres like this one, where liberal-arts-educated Pākehā predominate. And that’s part of the point of this piece: there’s a media discourse going on about The GC that marginalises most of those to whom the show is pitched, and most of those to whom the show might speak.
You know how the blues, and motown, and hip-hop didn’t take off until white folks got interested in them? Like that, in reverse.
But I am pushing back on this concept of a discourse because I think you are failing to adequately analyse who is speaking here. It reminds me heaps, in fact, of the reaction to the guy that researched bogans, or possibly even to hip-hop tours etc, which was, yes, predominantly arising from middle-class pakeha etc, but also involved a fracture within that group, and also involved a resentment of said middle-class pakeha.
Keir, hang on. I’ve stipulated that there’s considerable diversity of opinion on the topic. But the target of the piece is those middle-class (middle-aged) Pākehā who are snootily tut-tutting about The GC, rather than looking to their own, very substantial, role in creating a society where this phenomenon is inevitable.
I haven’t said the criticism is *only* coming from middle-class middle-aged Pākehā; only significantly. The media coverage of the past week substantiates a fair chunk of this, and at least makes clear that those leading the discourse fit this description. I suppose it’s mathematically possible that a high proportion of the thousands of haters on social media, the comments to news stories and discussion threads elsewhere, and folks quoted in coverage, are secretly young working-class Māori, but if you believe that, you probably believe Eric Clapton invented the blues.
Vincristine on May 7th, 2012 at 22:00
Sometimes a crap TV programme is just a crap TV programme, without overlays of race, gender or age
It really just is a terrible television
Christine, if you wish to argue that there is no racial, class or age dimension to The GC’s reception, have at it. But please spare us the essential-quality nonsense.
Well, I’ll be honest, the only people I know who liked the GC (or rather, will even admit to watching it) are young, well-educated, & high status. Contrariwise, the people I know who disliked it the most were young, not so well educated, and not so high status. Obviously not a representative sample, but.
And I certainly am not saying that is being driven by young Maori guys; I am saying that it is very easy to talk in very broad brush strokes about groups, and sure it’s a good starting point, but it is not super accurate once you push it beyond the caricature of nice white people and the nasty brown people produced as an inevitable result of those nice white people’s politics.
(There’s also something worrying about the complete dismissal of any qualitative discussion of the show; after all, mightn’t Maori have a desire for quality in their TV? Isn’t a discussion about the quality of the show integral to an analysis of the reactions?)
I also don’t think nice middle brow NZers comment on newspaper websites. I would imagine, frex, that if you talked about the GC on talkback radio, you’d get a pretty scathing response. That isn’t coming from nice NZ.
Keir, the point is that any discussion of the quality of the show is bounded by other factors. A person’s assessment of whether the show is good, or worthwhile, is to a large extent determined by who the person is in relation to the audience the show is pitched at. This isn’t true of The GC alone, or of reality TV more generally — it’s true of every bit of media. People who dislike sports don’t like Boil Up, skater kids aren’t so hot on Downton Abbey, that sort of thing. So you can’t meaningfully have the ‘quality’ discussion outside the ‘identity’ discussion.
The post is not about the audience response (which isn’t knowable without surveys) but about the discourse (from which we can infer some things about the audience response). While any such discussion is going to be inexact, theorising audiences from “who I know” is even more tenuous, because it’s bounded by who you know. The public media discourse, on the other hand, is, well, public.
We do know a few things about the audience for The GC; the show is pitched at young Māori; and 413k people watched it, including 40% of the Māori audience for that timeslot. We also know a few things about the sort of folks who make up the response demographics: on the internet news sites: whiter and more middle-class and probably older than the target demo; on social media: whiter, more middle-class and about the same age. Those leading the discourse (media elites, arbiters and tastemakers) are whiter, almost universally middle-class/much wealthier, and much older than the average. Looking at the actual content of the discourse makes it more clear: talk about Māori and young people in the third person, expressly racist comments, discourses of quality that take for granted that The GC has no merit (even without having seen it), and that’s not getting into the outright “good riddance, more lazy Māoris off to Australia” racism. So I feel reasonably comfortable making the qualified generalisations I have.
helenalex on May 9th, 2012 at 16:11
A person’s assessment of whether the show is good, or worthwhile, is to a large extent determined by who the person is in relation to the audience the show is pitched at. This isn’t true of The GC alone, or of reality TV more generally — it’s true of every bit of media. People who dislike sports don’t like Boil Up, skater kids aren’t so hot on Downton Abbey, that sort of thing. So you can’t meaningfully have the ‘quality’ discussion outside the ‘identity’ discussion.
Nah, not really. Sure ‘it didn’t appeal to me so it’s no good’ pseudo-criticism is just lazy crap, but anyone should be able to give some assessment of the quality of a show regardless of whether they’re in the target demographic. I have no interest in sport, and if I were to say ‘Boil Up is crap because it’s about sports and sports are boring’ that would make me an idiot. But I can still look at the depth of its analysis or the quality of its humour, even if I won’t be able to appreciate either to the same extent as a sports fan. Likewise, ‘GC is prolefeed’ is an inherently invalid argument no matter who makes it; ‘GC is rubbish because it’s exploitative/misleading/racist/shallow’ can be a legitimate argument no matter who makes it, although granted it carries more weight when made by someone who demographically should enjoy it.
Nothing against your main argument, especially since the only criticism I’ve read of the show is Morgan’s (also I haven’t seen the show itself). But the argument that only people in the target audience can validly comment on the show just doesn’t work. By that logic no-one over the age of 12 could legitimately comment on whether Sesame St is better or worse than He-Man.
Helenalex,
anyone should be able to give some assessment of the quality of a show regardless of whether they’re in the target demographic … ‘GC is rubbish because it’s exploitative/misleading/racist/shallow’ can be a legitimate argument no matter who makes it
I agree, and I wish people would make arguments on the actual merits like this. Morgan’s criticism comes closest; another that’s pretty decent is this by TV3’s Ally Mullord who, despite an interest in promoting the thing, levels some reasoned critique. But almost none of the criticism makes any attempt to engage with the material before writing it off, and almost all of it misses the point that the mere portrayal of contemporary Māori reality on TV is half the point of the show. I submit that these two things are linked.
Max on May 9th, 2012 at 20:54
While it is a horrible show, it isn’t nearly worth the column inches/blog lines written here. Ignore it, hopefully it will go away.
And yet you add to them.
AJ on May 9th, 2012 at 21:23
Nice piece. Well written and well considered. Keep it up!
The show is, I think, attractive to young Maori in that the lives of the characters represent something that is attainable or easily imagined. On the other hand mainly older Maori dislike the show for, what they deem, an unrealistic portrayal of Maori.
On the culture point, I think NZders are essentially understated – the passionless people is a good description – and as a result the traits paraded in the GC do not mesh well with what NZders consider right, proper and normal. The same argument applies to Maori culture. Although Maori value “cheeky” characters, probably best encapsulated by Maui, there is considerable value placed on humility. The GC is many things, but not humble.
The cultural risks emigration creates are not easily mitigated. Maori living overseas and not contributing to the whanau, hapu and iwi can be regarded with scorn and, in extreme cases, excluded from many aspects of Maori life, for example the Marae. Having said this, most Maori manage the isolation from their culture well. If anything, Maori living overseas appreciate their taha Maori more than many Maori living, for want of a better term, the Maori life.
Makere Edwards on May 9th, 2012 at 23:45
Not all Maori who leave for Australia get to lead or want to lead such superficial lives as those on TheGC. Many travel to Oz to genuinely find employment but return home broke and disillusioned, unable to find work for a number of reasons. I think young Maori are being seduced into thinking that the gold coast is the promised land. The GC reinforces self indulgence with little responsibility back to the whanau or for their actions and where getting tatoos has been glorified and glamourized as crucial signs for their Maori identity because there is no Maori support systems in place for them while they live away from home.
Joseph on June 13th, 2012 at 17:20
Hi Lew,
Nicely written article.
I can only speak for myself here. My distaste for this show is not racially motivated. I cannot stand the Gold Coast & a lot of the people who live there.
The GC is about a bunch of Maori boys who live there and act just like the rest of the residents. I don’t want to watch a show about anyone from the Gold Coast living their superficial, oxygen-wasting lives.
Now, if people don’t like a show then the obvious solution is to not watch it. There are plenty of idiotic shows like the GC and a lot of people lap them up. If that’s what you’re into then fine. In the case of the GC however tax payer funds have helped to make it which is where my gripe is. If they want to make this crap on their own dime then fine, they will be very successful doing so.
The reason it seems that most of the complaints come from the middle-aged “honkies”? – My money would be on the fact that this generation doesn’t understand the youth of today & thinks that most of them are decadent so & so’s. The GC only exemplifies this opinion.
Young Maori loving this show? – The word “young” stands out here. Most young people these days brought up by TV look at this GC life-style and think “Choice bro”. Cruise around in a cool car, bang some hot babes, get some mean-as tats & make heaps of cash for not doing much at all. This is a lifestyle that is extremely desirable for much of the youth of today, both Maori & Pakeha.
The bottom line is, I think, that the show is cringe-worthy & we all had to pay to make it. If it was a bunch of white boys from Wainuiomata doing the same thing then I would think the same.
thegoat on August 21st, 2012 at 14:25
I live in Australia, and I loved your post. Couldn’t have said it better myself. There is much focus on flight or brain drain between NZ and Australia because of income disparity, but seriously, anyone who lives here knows that many people come over here to make a new life for themselves. In the final shake down the cost of living pressures are similar here as they are in NZ if you are seriously trying to make your way – save money, get a house etc.,
Being Maori in Australia is just another ethnicity added to the mix, and I really do think (after 10 years here) that it’s easier for young Maori to make their way in the world without all the s**t that’s heaped on them at home. It’s more than just the money, it’s the opportunity to make your own way in the world without the expectations that you talked about in your perfect post. Touche.
Work in progress…. | Kiwi Back in Sydney on August 21st, 2012 at 14:36
[…] more on this to come, but perhaps have a read of this very well written blog post on kiwipolitico. It’s about a new reality TV series featuring a […]
barvasfiend on August 21st, 2012 at 14:48
I too wrote a blog post with references to three recent articles about kiwis living in australia and the push//pull factors involved
you can see it here:
http://barvasfiend.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/work-in-progress/
“The GC” – Feeling Sorry For The Cast – My Blog on December 13th, 2016 at 04:38
[…] a read of the blog KiwiPolitico where the writer argues much of the fuss is due to implicit racism. Is middle New Zealand so used […]
'The GC' - Feeling Sorry For The Cast on September 18th, 2019 at 21:34
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Trump Awards Medal Of Valor To Married Lesbian Officer Crystal Griner
President Donald Trump on Thursday awarded the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor to a married lesbian wounded in an attack on a congressional baseball practice.
Capitol Police special agents Crystal Griner and David Bailey are being recognized for their actions as a gunman attacked Republican congressmen as they practiced for an upcoming baseball charity game in Alexandria, Virginia.
The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, severely wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, whom the agents were protecting. Only Scalise, because he's in the Republican leadership, had protection. Trump and his wife, Melania, visited Griner and her wife, Tiffany Dyar, as she recovered in the hospital.
The ceremony took place at the East Room in the White House a day after Trump announced a ban on transgender troops and his Justice Department argued in an amicus brief that current law does not protect LGBT workers from discrimination.
“They raced through the bullets,” Trump said. “That's exactly what they did. They raced through the bullets and immediately engaged the gunman.”
“Despite their injuries, both officers heroically continued to face down the gunman until they brought him down. And he had rifles; they had handguns. That's a big difference,” he added.
Scalise, who was transferred to a rehabilitation center last week, said in a statement: “I cannot think of a group of individuals more deserving of this award.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who opened the ceremony, also praised the officers for their valor.
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11 Best Songs Of 2014
| Bombacy Bicycle Club, Catfish and The Bottlemen, Clean Bandit, ezra koenig, FKA Twigs, how to dress well, Hozier, Jess Glynn, jungle, Music, SBTRKT, Sia, The War On Drugs, tom krell, Vampire Weekend
Joyce Jude Lee |
December 24, 2014 | 11:12 p.m. PST
Sia performing on "Chelsea Lately" (Twitter/@Sia).
What makes a good song: a catchy hook, an infectious melody, a powerful verse or experimental sounds? Just one of these aforementioned ingredients would make a good song, but a track that incorporates all of these would make it one of the best.
Out of all the fantastic music that has been on the radio or dominated music forums, these 11 tracks rise above the rest.
1. "Red Eyes" by The War On Drugs
The War On Drugs exudes a heroic melancholy characteristic of greats like Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. Penned by lead singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel while he was suffering through a bought of depression, "Red Eyes" sounds sad but hopeful, vulnerable but persistent. The "woo!" in the last half of the song sees a triumphant breakthrough and works as an incredible turning point for the track. Combining textured guitars, synths, woodwinds and pianos, "Red Eyes" envelopes sounds to evoke a memory. It's one of those songs that are so much more than itself-it's expansive acreage redefines Americana and connects to listener to Granduciel's experiences with loneliness, longing, and depression simultaneously.
READ MORE: 7 Best Dressed At 2014 Cannes Film Festival
2. "Chandelier" by Sia
This day and age, image matters more than anything else, but that's not the case with Sia. Her song writing chops produced hits like Rihanna's "Diamonds" and her vocals made a song like "Titanium" an instant radio hit, but neither of those songs pack a punch quite like "Chandelier," the lead single off her album, "1000 Forms Of Fear." Though some may argue that "Chandelier" is overplayed, it is one of the only mega-pop hits that lets listeners in on the pain and vulnerability that Sia feels singing the song. The sobering lyrics and triumphant beats create a juxtaposition that distinguishes it from other run-of-the-mill radio hits; not to mention, the video is absolutely brilliant.
3. "Two Weeks" by FKA Twigs
Though this song may be NSFW, it is definitely one of the best of the year. FKA Twigs shows off her sensual but fragile vocals in the lead single off her acclaimed album "LP1" and pulls in the audience with her vulnerability and honesty. Because of the success of this song (and album), she's been an early favorite to play Coachella and other festivals in the New Year. Listen to this song with earphones on and you'll understand why I think it's one of the best of the year-the production creates a rounding sound from your left to right ears and makes the listening experience so much better. There is genuinely no one out there who is as sure about her craft as FKA Twigs is. "Two Weeks" is brazen and bold, just like FKA Twigs, whose near-deity status convinces listeners to bow down to her talent.
READ MORE: FKA Twigs At The Regent Theater
4. "Repeat Pleasure" by How To Dress Well
The most powerful moment on the song comes when Tom Krell wails "Even broken my heart will go on!" As beautifully composed as the rest of "What Is This Heart?" is, "Repeat Pleasure is easily a record highlight. Krell, who performs as How To Dress Well, studied philosophy before embarking on his music ventures, and his pondering over love and loss are evidenced throughout his discography, especially on this track. "Repeat Pleasure" displays Krell's pop-n-B talent and exudes infatuation, but in the end, Krell understands that love fades.
5. "New Dorp, New York" by SBTRKT Ft. Ezra Koenig
"Flags flapping in Mahattan, New Dorp, New York. Gargoyles gargling oil, peak of the empire, top of the rock." This catchy hook repeats throughout the song, and is as poetic as it is funky. This song is refreshing, grimy, catchy, and awesome. Penned about a Staten Island borough, this song features Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig and immense production value. It's as fun as it is catchy, making it one of the best tracks of the year.
6. "Take Me To Church" by Hozier
This song, which sounds like a church hymn, is actually the exact opposite. The video (which perfectly plays to the song), explores sodomy and how it's wrongfully condemned in society, which makes it all the more relevant in 2014. Hozier's yearning vocals and powerful lyrics makes this one of the best written tracks of the year. With every "Amen" in the song, the music transcends to a cathartic level.
Once, while waiting for a Bastille gig to begin, the song began to blast out of the PA system and everyone in the crowd sang along. The pull the song has on young and old people was truly something to behold.
READ MORE: 2014 AMAs: 7 Best Red Carpet Looks Of The Past
7. "Busy Earnin'" by Jungle
Sirens, chimes and soul. These are the ingredients which makes this song (and Jungle) so damn likable. A song like "Busy Earnin'" is experimental, but multiple listens make it obvious that the indie Londoners are paying homage to soul groups. The bright piano melodies and synths will have you swaying your hips side to side and grooving along.
8. "Every Other Freckle" by alt-J
This single off of alt-J's latest record is easily one of the best songs of 2014 (no, not only because it has three cat references, but that helps). The London trio take indie music to another level with their synthy, subtly anthemic tracks. It may take you a few listens to warm up to it, "Every Other Freckle" makes experimental music sound cool.
9. "Cocoon" by Catfish And The Bottlemen
You may not have heard of these lads before, but Catfish and The Bottlemen are about to kick ass over here in America. Give "Cocoon" a listen and you'll realize that it's one of the best songs released this past year. Van McCann has vocal chops that features growls and a range that remind listeners of a baby version of Julian Casablancas (The Strokes) but the guitar riffs in the song are reminiscent of Kings of Leon.
READ MORE: 10 Best Films Of 2014
10. "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit Ft. Jess Glynne
I heard this track when it first started to get airplay on BBC Radio 1. It sounded like a pop song, but also not. Electronic mixed with strings brings the song to another level, but had it not been Jess Glynne's velvety vocals, the track might not have made the list. All the pieces in the tune perfectly coexist to form a summer hit that we'll be revisiting for years to come.
11. "Carry Me" by Bombay Bicycle Club
This track off of "So Long See You Tomorrow" perfectly captures all the elements that make Bombay Bicycle Club one of the best bands in the world. The rhythmic intro to the song launches listeners right in the thick of things and the song only gets better from there. The track takes a break from the anthemic drums and claps midsong and Jack Steadman's voice, along with some signature Bombay Bicycle beats, creeps in as the pace picks up and takes the song to another planet.
Reach Music Editor Joyce Jude Lee here.
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How COVID-19 Has Changed Consumer Behavior and the Future of Retail
U.S. retail sales suffered in the spring of 2020 due to safety concerns, government-mandated lockdowns, and economic uncertainty wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. Sales — including purchases at stores, restaurants, and online — plunged from $483.95 billion in March to $412.77 billion in April, a record 16.4% drop.1
Fortunately, retail sales rebounded sharply after the economy began to reopen in May, matched pre-pandemic levels in June ($529.96 billion), and continued to rise steadily from July through September. But sales softened in October, ticking up just 0.3% to $553.33 billion.2
The arrival of an effective vaccine could inspire some holiday cheer, though it probably won’t be widely available until next spring.3 Until then, consumers will likely spend more time at home.
U.S. consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all economic activity, so it’s good news that many businesses and consumers have adapted quickly to the new normal created by the pandemic.4 Here’s a look at recent changes in consumer behavior, the state of the retail industry, and what these trends could mean for the broader U.S. economy.
Stay-at-Home Spending Shifts
Some workers with stable incomes have been able to save money they would normally spend on transportation, gym memberships, restaurant meals, and expensive “experiences” such as vacations, concerts, sporting events, and other live shows. On the other hand, many households are spending more on home improvements, household goods, fitness equipment, and other lifestyle purchases that make sheltering in place more tolerable.5
For example, huge demand for bicycles resulted in surprising shortages.6 And with offices closed and most special events cancelled or postponed, a preference for casual and comfortable clothing has decimated consumer demand for more formal attire like business suits and dresses.7
A swift expansion of e-commerce was also unleashed. New online habits were created in the first three months of the pandemic, accelerating the adoption of digital technologies that might have taken 10 years to achieve otherwise.8
When lockdowns and social distancing measures were put in place, many consumers were compelled to shop online and use other digital services (e.g., video chat, virtual doctor visits, and online classes) for the first time. Surveys suggest that a vast majority of new users found online services to be useful and convenient; many said they will continue to use them permanently.9
But anxious consumers have also been boosting their savings. The personal saving rate — the percentage of disposable income that people don’t spend — hit a record 33.6% in April before falling to 14.1% in August, far above February’s 8.3% rate.10 When consumers prioritize saving, it may help individual households build financial stability and prepare for retirement, but it can also hold back the nation’s economic growth.
Traditional Retailers on the Ropes
Big-box retailers that sell groceries and other goods in one place and home-improvement stores were deemed “essential” in the spring. Regardless of local virus conditions, these businesses have remained open for a steady flow of customers eager to stock up on food and other necessities. As a result, they have generally been able to book healthy profits.11
Meanwhile, temporary closures, capacity limits, and a drop-off in overall customer traffic have taken a toll on nonessential retailers that couldn’t offer a convenient online shopping experience with home or curbside delivery. The pandemic may land the blow that knocks out some familiar brick-and-mortar retailers, many of which were already buckling under excessive debt and fierce competition from e-commerce giants.
Retail bankruptcies and store closings are on track for a record year in 2020. By mid-August, 29 U.S. retailers had filed for Chapter 11 protection, including several long-standing department-store chains. More than 10,000 permanent store closings have already been announced in 2020, vacating roughly 130 million square feet of physical retail space.12
A Holiday Season Like No Other
Higher unemployment and wage cuts might have had a more severe impact on consumer spending from March to October were it not for the expanded unemployment benefits and stimulus checks delivered to consumers by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. At the time of this writing, Congress had not passed a follow-up stimulus package, and consumers were facing new challenges going into the holiday season.
More than 11 million U.S. workers were still unemployed in October, before a nationwide surge in virus cases and hospitalizations sparked a new round of business restrictions and closures in mid-November.13–14 CARES Act provisions that offer financial support for affected consumers and small businesses expire by the end of December.
Holiday sales figures are often considered an economic barometer, reflecting consumer confidence and funds for discretionary spending. In 2019, holiday spending in November and December rose 4.1% over 2018, suggesting that economic growth was picking up steam.15 But holiday shoppers were blissfully unaware that a pandemic was on its way.
Black Friday holiday deals are designed to create a frenzy and lure throngs of shoppers into stores. But retailers seemed to agree that a different approach was needed in 2020: Promotions were offered online and earlier; store hours were shortened and capacity was limited; and unlike in past years, most stores stayed closed on Thanksgiving.
The prospects for holiday retail sales in 2020 are murky, but consumers are expected to purchase more gifts online than ever before — and possibly too many for shipments to be delivered on time. To be on the safe side, the National Retail Federation is recommending that consumers get their shopping done early and take advantage of curbside pickup.16
1) The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2020
2) U.S. Census Bureau, 2020
3) The New York Times, November 17, 2020
4) U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2020
5) The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2020
6) The New York Times, June 18, 2020
7) The Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2020
8–9) The Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2020
10) The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2020
12) The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2020
13) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020
14, 16) Associated Press, November 11 and 17, 2020
15) National Retail Federation, 2020
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10 Travel Movies That Inspire Wanderlust
Kid Free Travel October 9, 2014 Travel Essentials 4 Comments
Few things in this world can instill serious wanderlust like a good travel movie. I love movies and if I can’t hop on a plane, I enjoy putting my feet up, sipping a glass of wine, and taking a journey while in my own living room.
I started watching movies at a young age with my mom who loved to travel when she was younger and still enjoys getting out and about when she can. She was big into the classics so that started off my love of travel movies at an early age.
These are some of my favorite travel movies that have inspired my wanderlust.
image via IMDB
Shirley Valentine
Starring Pauline Collins and Tom Conti
Ok, very few people have ever heard (much less seen), this movie. This was one of my mom’s favorites back in the day.
In the film a middle aged Liverpool housewife starts to reflect on her life and what she used to be like. After her friend wins a trip for two to Greece. As she ventures out and explores, she starts to see her life a little differently.
image from IMDb
Starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck
Roman Holiday is a classic of all classics. How can you not love Audrey Hepburn and Italy? And did I mention a hot Gregory Peck?
It’s a reverse Cinderella story of a princess who longs to get away from her rigid life. On a trip to Rome she slips away to explore the city and embarks on her own adventures.
image form IMDb
Il Postino
Starring Philipe Noiret, Massimo Troisi and Maria Grazia Cucinotta
In this 1994 film Mario, a postman, is hired to deliver mail to an exiled poet. The two become friends and Mario starts to learn and appreciate poetry.
He falls in love with Beatrice and even though he is shy, he’s able to communicate with her through his poetry.
The film is set in Italy around the 1950’s and was filmed on the islands of Procida and Salina.
On a real life note, Massimo Trosi, who was also the writer and co-director, had postponed heart surgery so that he could finish the movie. The day after filming he died of a heart attack.
Starring Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson
In Bruges is a dark comedy about two Irish hitmen (Ray and Ken) who are sent to hide out in the town of Bruges, Belgium. Ralph Fiennes plays their gangster boss. The two hitmen explore the historical city while dealing with their past crimes.
Most people had never even heard of Bruges before the movie came out. The city itself is steeped in history and the historic center has been an UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
This 2000 drama was filmed on the Thai island of Koh Phi Phi. The movie offers stunning scenery of the thai island and will make you want to hop on a plane and experience it for yourself.
in the film, Richard, 20s something backpacker, obtains a map from his crazy neighbor that discloses the location of a secluded, tropical paradise.
Starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson
Two very different people: a withering, depressed movie star and a young woman, come together to form an unlikely friendship as they explore Tokyo.
The movie is the second film by Sofia Coppola.
Starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy
Before Sunrise is a story of a young man and woman who meet on a train traveling from Budapest to Vienna. After forming a connection on the train they agree to spend on day together in Vienna. It’s very much a cute girl-meets-boy kinda of movie.
Before Sunrise is part one of a trilogy that was filmed over the course of nearly 20 years. If you like this one, check out the other two: Before Sunset and Before Midnight.
Starring Diane Lane
A San Francisco writer has her world upturned when her husband files for a divorce to marry the woman he’s been having an affair with. After taking a vacation to Italy to escape she impulsively decides to buy a villa in Tuscany.
I swear this movie made everyone want to pack their bags and buy a cute villa in Italy, myself included!
Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Starring Ben Stiller
I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Ben Stiller in his usual roles. But I really enjoyed the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The cinematography was stunning and the way the fantasies played into real life was awesome.
In the movie a manager at Life magazine dreams of adventures and romance. He sets off on a mission to connect with one of the magazine’s key photographers in hopes of finding a special image for the magazine. The quest takes him to far off countries and real life adventures.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Starring Elijah Wood
I’m a total nerd at heart and LOVE the Lord of the Rings movies. They have everything you could want: drama, action, adventure, elves and magic and phenomenal visual effects.
One of the key visual elements of the movies is the stunning scenery of New Zealand. Some of the filming locations were so remote that at times the crew took survival kits in case helicopters could not reach them in time.
The movies have been a huge boost to tourism in New Zealand and you can even book tours to visit some of the filming locations.
What are some of your favorite travel movies?
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4 thoughts on “10 Travel Movies That Inspire Wanderlust”
Leticia February 28, 2015 at 8:05 pm
up in the air, about a million miler, with George Clooney. The Spanish apartment, w/ bonus awesom music by Ali Farka Toure.
Kid Free Travel Post author March 1, 2015 at 10:36 pm
Up In The Air has been on my list to see actually. Thanks for the reminder! I have to track it down and watch it!
DeniseM @eventjes December 1, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Hideous Kinky!!
Kid Free Travel Post author December 2, 2014 at 11:58 am
OO…I haven’t seen that one! Thanks for the recommendation I’ll have to check it out!
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8 July 2005 28 September 2020
Rating: ★★★★
USA. 2000.
Director/Screenplay – John Harrison, Based on the Novel by Frank Herbert, Producer – David Kappes, Photography – Vittorio Storaro, Music – Graeme Revell, Visual Effects Supervisor – Ernest Farino, Visual Effects – AI Effects Inc (Supervisor – Frank Isaacs), Area 51 (Supervisor – Tim McHugh), Flat Earth Productions Inc & Netter Digital Entertainment (Supervisor – Laurel Klick), Stop Motion Animation – Chiodo Brothers Productions Inc, Special Effects Supervisor – Jim Healy, Production Design – Miljen ‘Kreka’ Kljakovic. Production Company – New Amsterdam Entertainment Productions/Victor Television Productions Inc/Evision.
Alec Newman (Paul Atreides/Muad’Dib), Saskia Reeves (Lady Jessica), Uwe Ochsenknecht (Stilgar), Barbora Kodetova (Chani), Ian McNeice (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen), William Hurt (Duke Leto Atreides), Julie Cox (Princess Irulan), Matt Keeslar (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen), Giancarlo Giannini (Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV), R.H. Moriarty (Gurney Halleck), Zuzana Geislerova (Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim), Laszlo Imre Kish (Rabban), Karel Dobry (Dr Liet-Kynes), Laura Burton (Alia), James Watson (Duncan Idaho), Drahomira Fialkova (Reverend Mother Ramalla), Robert Russell (Dr Wellington Yueh), Jaroslava Siktancova (Shadout Mapes), Christopher Lee Brown (Jamis)
The Padishah Emperor places the Atreides family in charge of the desert planet Arrakis, known informally as Dune. Arrakis is source of the all-important chemical spice, which is used by the Guild Navigators to travel through space. This move is deeply resented by the Atreides’ sworn enemies The House of Harkonnen. On Arrakis, the Duke Leto Atreides’ son Paul becomes fascinated with culture of the native Fremen, which is based around survival in the harsh desert conditions. Baron Harkonnen launches an elaborate plot to bring about the Atreides’ downfall. The Baron reoccupies Arrakis with his armies and slaughters the Atreides with the assist of a traitor within their household. Paul and his mother Jessica, a member of the matriarchal Bene Gesserit religious order, flee into the desert and take refuge among the Fremen. Under the influence of spice, Paul begins to discover his abilities to see the future and realises that he is the long sought-after Kwisatz Haderach that the Bene Gesserit have long manipulated the bloodlines of the empire in an effort to produce. Taking the name of the desert mouse Muad’Dib, Paul organises the Fremen into a powerful fighting force and sets out to bring down the Harkonnen occupation by sabotaging the all-important spice production.
Frank Herbert’s novel Dune (1965) is an undisputed classic of science fiction literature. Dune almost invariably tops the list among readers 2-3 favourite works of science-fiction literature. Author Frank Herbert (1920-86) trained as a journalist and began publishing science-fiction in 1952. Dune emerged out of an article that Herbert was assigned to write in the late 1950s on the ecology of sand dunes in Oregon. In researching the subject, Herbert became so fascinated with the surrounding issues that he gained far more background research than he could ever use in an article. This evolved into Dune, which was first published in the science-fiction magazine Analog as two shorter serialised novellas, Dune World (1963-4) and The Prophet of Dune (1965), and then in book form.
The book crystallizes the many concerns that run throughout Herbert’s fiction – the future evolution of humanity, the flawed nature of the superman, and in particular the concerns with environmentalism, a subject that Frank Herbert later wrote non-fiction articles and lectured about. (For Herbert, the battle over spice was a metaphor for oil). Dune throws these together in a plot that draws inspiration from Roman history and the character of Lawrence of Arabia, the charismatic figure that drew Bedouin tribes together to fight during World War II. Dune is a sweeping work that can only be compared in the breadth of scope and complexity of its cultural-historical background to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954-6).
The book won all of the science-fiction community’s major awards the year it was published. Frank Herbert spun out a series of sequels of lesser but not entirely unworthy effectiveness – Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), God Emperor of Dune (1981), Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapter House Dune (1985). Subsequent to Frank Herbert’s death in 1986, the series has been sharecropped into a series of routine prequels by Herbert’s son Brian. There have also been all manner of Dune spinoffs, including both computer and board games (there are few other works of written science-fiction that can make that claim). None of Frank Herbert’s other books ended up standing up there alongside Dune – Herbert has highly articulate ideas but the drawback of his writing is that these often come presented in the midst of excessively complicated plots that do not always make for easy reading.
A film version of Dune had been planned for a number of years. In the mid-1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky of El Topo (1970) fame planned a fascinatingly bizarre adaptation from a script by Dan O’Bannon and with designs by H.R. Giger, although this adapted the book very freely. (Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013) is a documentary about the production that never happened). Producer Dino De Laurentiis then inherited the rights and planned a version with director Ridley Scott. However, the complexity of the work – both in terms of the extraordinarily Byzantine convolutions of Frank Herbert’s plotting and counter-plotting and the number of themes that the book broaches (environmentalism, alien culture, politics and a kind of intergalactic I, Claudius) proved daunting. A film version did finally emerge directed under David Lynch with Dune (1984). Although universally regarded as a disappointment in terms of the book, the David Lynch film is a not entirely uninteresting effort. If it is a failure, then it is certainly a fascinating one that holds some visually stunning moments.
Paul Atreides (Alec Newman) and his mother Lady Jessica (Saskia Reeves)
This six-hour tv mini-series remake of Dune was one of a host of adaptations of science-fiction literary classics that were commissioned by the US-based Sci-Fi Channel, along with other works like Riverworld (2003) and Earthsea (2004). The mini-series was made by Richard P. Rubinstein, the former producing partner of George Romero, and his New Amsterdam Entertainment production company. Rubinstein has placed the adapting and directing chores in the hands of John Harrison. John Harrison first gained his break working as an assistant director and an actor in minor parts in various Romero films – he was the zombie that got a screwdriver in his ear in Dawn of the Dead (1978) – and then graduated to composing the scores for Creepshow (1982) and Day of the Dead (1985). Harrison made his debut as a director on the Romero-Rubinstein produced Tales from the Darkside horror anthology series (1984-6) and then went onto make his first feature film with the fine and underrated Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Harrison worked sporadically in series television throughout the 1990s, with his most notable credit being co-writing the script for the animated Disney film Dinosaur (2000). Subsequently, Harrison went onto direct the disappointing disaster mini-series Supernova (2005) and the Clive Barker adaptation Book of Blood (2009).
David Lynch’s version of Dune was driven by a flamboyant visual ostentation; by comparison, this production is much more modest. In fact, John Harrison’s unassuming approach is something that brings the strengths of the book out rather than tends to act as a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version as the Lynch film did. All of the elements – from the Fremen culture to the complexities of the politics – are there and granted fair time on screen. Harrison brings out incidents in the book – the sandworm devouring the miner, the Hunter-Seeker entering Paul’s bedroom and so on – and makes them dramatically enthralling set-pieces, while also anchoring them within the plot.
Certainly, Harrison has made a number of changes to the book. The most apparent of these is in turning both Feyd-Rautha and Princess Irulan into much more central characters, whereas in the book they tended to be peripheral figures, only coming into their own at the very end. Both have been made stronger characters in the series, particularly Irulan (played by the bewitchingly lovely Julie Cox) who is shown as more of a schemer and much more politically astute than Frank Herbert had her. The dramas involving the two of them (and Paul) also function as a mini stage at the forefront of the story – one that is essentially played out by the children of the three houses – for the grander conflicts of the families in the background.
John Harrison also spends a good deal of time elaborating out the scenes with the Fremen and detailing the ecological themes, a side of the book that David Lynch glossed over. We get a genuine sense of a living, breathing alien culture on screen. On the minus side, Harrison for some reason downplays the Bene Gesserit as characters – Zuzana Geislerova’s Reverend Mother holds little in the way of threat (even less when compared to Siân Phillips fine performance in the David Lynch version) and little time is given over to the sisterhood’s machinations. Harrison also makes no mention of Frank Herbert’s concept of Mentats, humans that came to replace computing machines in his anti-technological future, nor is there any mention of the employment of nuclear arms by the Atreides to win their climactic battle.
Nevertheless, all told, John Harrison does a surprisingly strong, dramatic, coherent and above all faithful job of bringing Dune to the screen. The 1984 film has the edge in terms of spectacle and design but John Harrison’s version is almost certainly the better as an adaptation of the book and the more coherent as an overall story.
The complex culture of the Fremen on Arrakis
The designers make a concerted effort to get away from association with Lynch’s Dune with occasionally ungainly results. The Guild Navigators appear only briefly and look weak in comparison to the fabulous space warping sequence that Lynch gave us. The costume designers go wild, creating some at times bizarre creations – the Bene Gesserit wear headgear that seems to enwrap the head in giant silken seashells; Feyd-Rautha has an enormous triangle seated on the back of his costume behind his neck; while Princess Irulan goes through a mind-boggling series of changes, at one point wearing a dress with plastic butterflies woven into the material.
The sets both make a conscious effort to get away from the distinctively styled worlds of the David Lynch version, although ultimately fairly much end up following the same design schemes. Nevertheless, there is an elegant beauty to the sets. Giedi Prime comes all in angular Byzantine reds and bronzes; the Emperor’s homeworld Secusa Secundus has a blue-drenched Florentine look; while the Fremen scenes are designed with a fascinating mixture of traditional Arabic designs and modern technology.
The series cut location costs by avoiding going out into the desert to shoot by instead building a desert on a soundstage in the Czech Republic with piles of sand and a series of giant painted backdrops. The backdrops are occasionally obvious but the lighting and colour schemes employed also lend a beautiful abstract quality, particularly during Paul and Jessica’s journey across the desert during the middle episode. (It is hard to think of any other works of filmed science fiction where the lighting scheme plays such an integral part in the creation of an alien world. John Harrison also conducted striking lighting schemes in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie).
The effects do not have the budget available that David Lynch did, although the one thing that John Harrison does have on his side in between the time the two versions were made is the advent of CGI. The effects team do some superb work. The first appearance of a sandworm, blasting out of the sand and opening its giant maw and the struggle of the Duke’s ornithopter to escape being sucked in as the worm devours the sandminer is a stunningly good set-piece that is as fine as anything in the 1984 version.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the mini-series is the casting of Ian McNeice as Baron Harkonnen. McNeice gives us the Baron as a prissy champagne villain who lacks in any real threat or cruelty, at most demonstrates a preference for young boys. In Ian McNeice’s performance, we have a jolly and overweight upper-class British man floating around who demonstrates little in the way of the deviously calculating intelligence and depraved perversity that we saw in the book or Kenneth McMillan’s entertainingly broad performance in the David Lynch film. Another disappointment is Saskia Reeves’ Lady Jessica. Saskia Reeves gives an okay performance but rarely one that seems to hold the mystery and elegant presence that the character did on the page and particularly in Francesca Annis’s striking portrayal in the 1984 film.
Paul Atreides (Alec Newman) and his Fremen wife Chani (Barbora Kodetova)
On the plus side, Scottish actor Alec Newman is excellent as Paul Atreides. Harrison and Alec Newman give us a character who evolves with subtle regard throughout the course of the series – from the brash but intelligent youth we meet at the start to the charismatic messiah following a vision that lies beyond this horizon that we come to see by the time of the third part – and Newman rises to fill the requirements of the role with considerable strength.
One of the strong points of the series is also the lovely Julie Cox, who makes an elegantly beautiful Irulan and imbues the character with a sharp intelligence, bringing her to life far more so than Frank Herbert ever did. John Harrison has also cast many of the supporting roles, particularly those of the Fremen, with non-native English speakers (German and Czech), where the accents have an unusual alienating effect. The performances from Uwe Ochsenknecht as Stilgar and Barbora Kodetova as Chani are particularly good here – he projecting a considerable dignity and she a haughty strength.
John Harrison (only writing the script this time) and most of the cast later returned for a sequel, Children of Dune (2003), which actually combines Herbert’s two subsequent book sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. A further cinematic Dune remake was posited throughout the 2010s first by director Peter Berg and Pierre Morel before going ahead as a two-part film from Denis Villeneuve with the upcoming Dune (2021).
(Winner in this site’s Top 10 Films of 2000 list. Winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, Nominee for Best Actor (Alec Newman), Best Supporting Actress (Julie Cox), Best Special Effects and Best Production Design at this site’s Best of 2000 Awards).
Trailer here
Director: John Harrison
Actors: Alec Newman, Saskia Reeves, William Hurt, Julie Cox, Ian McNeice, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Matt Keeslar, Giancarlo Giannini, R.H. Moriarty, Zuzana Geislerova, Karel Dobry, Robert Russell
Themes: Other Planets, Drugs and Addiction, Clairvoyance and Precognition, New Religions, Genetic Engineering, Aliens, Politics, TV Mini-Series, Films of 2000
Children of Dune (2003)
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001)
The Martian Chronicles (1980)
Riverworld (2010)
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
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Home/Posts/NEWS RELEASES/Mission Ready Provides Revenue Guidance, SOE Solicitation Update
Mission Ready Provides Revenue Guidance, SOE Solicitation Update
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – December 5, 2019 – Mission Ready Solutions Inc. (“Mission Ready” or the “Company”) (TSXV: MRS) is pleased to report a substantial increase in booked revenues for Q4 2019 – currently projected to be ~$10 million – up over 100% from the $4.9 million reported in the Q3 2019 and 1,400% over the reported revenue for the corresponding period in 2018 (Q4 2018). Revenues for October 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019 will be reflected in the Q4 2019 audited results which are due to be filed April 29, 2020.
The projected increase in revenues through Q1 2021 is primarily attributable to the scheduled fulfillment of confirmed orders received by the Company through its privileged access to numerous government contracting vehicles. In a news release dated September 20, 2019, the Company reported that its wholly-owned subsidiary – Unifire, Inc. (“Unifire”) – had received an aggregate of ~CAD $75,000,000 in orders to date during fiscal 2019. The aggregate value of these orders shipped, or scheduled to ship, during fiscal 2019 is projected to be ~$19,000,000, leaving ~$56,000,000 in queued orders that are scheduled to ship between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021.
Further to the February 12, 2019 news release announcing that the Company had submitted a proposal to the Defense Logistics Agency (“DLA”) related to the upcoming renewal of the Tailored Logistics Support (“TLS”) Special Operational Equipment (“SOE”) contract (the “SOE Contract Renewal”), the Company has since been notified that its proposal “is being excluded from the competitive range and will not be given further consideration for award.” The Company will be seeking clarification on the notification and exploring the availability of options to retain its status as an SOE contracting partner (“Prime Vendor”) while continuing to perform as an incumbent Prime Vendor on the current SOE bridge contract (the “SOE Bridge”) that extends through March 6, 2020. The Company’s inclusion in, or exclusion from, any future SOE contract renewals are not expected to impact the Company’s previous SOE awards or any future awards that it may receive through the SOE Bridge or any further extensions to the current SOE Contract.
Mission Ready presently directs the bulk of its sales efforts specifically to the SOE contracting vehicle due to the Company’s in-depth knowledge of the SOE program and efficiency in responding to solicitations. However, in order to ensure the Company’s readiness to respond to opportunities across any one of its multiple government contracts – and adaptability to unpredictable events – all newly-implemented processes and procedures have been developed to facilitate the full scope of government contracts held by the Company, including multiple United States General Services Administration Schedules (“GSA Schedules”). The Company has recently received a 5-year renewal on the following GSA Schedules:
Schedule 84 | Security, Fire & Law Enforcement
Schedule 78 | Sports, Promotional, Outdoor, Recreation, Trophies & Signs (SPORTS)
Schedule 51V | Hardware Superstore
GSA Schedules (also referred to as Multiple Award Schedules and Federal Supply Schedules) are long-term governmentwide contracts with commercial firms providing federal, state, and local government buyers access to more than 11 million commercial supplies (products) and services at volume discount pricing. The Schedules Program was designed to provide discount resources to all GSA federal agencies worldwide, as well as state and local governments. Under this program, a contract holder can sell to any government agency with just one source, instead of having separate contracts with each agency. GSA Schedule contracts are indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (“IDIQ”), long-term contracts under the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (“MAS”) program which was created to streamline government purchasing of commercial products and services, leveraging the buying power of the United State federal government.
Jeffery Schwartz, President & CEO of Mission Ready, states “The Company’s coveted access to sales channels and government contracting opportunities is tremendously beneficial in that it allows us to focus primarily on delivering sales as opposed to sourcing them – While it’s inevitable that there will be complexities and challenges to navigate during periods of rapid growth, we do not view the availability of unawarded solicitations as a limiting factor for the Company at this time.”
Management are working diligently to create sustainable shareholder value with a strong focus on revenue growth, process improvements, debt reduction, cost-of-capital improvements and the engagement/retention of an experienced, well-connected, and driven sales team.
The CAD figures referenced herein have been converted from US currency (USD) to Canadian currency (CAD) using an exchange rate of 1.34.
About Mission Ready Solutions Inc.
Mission Ready specializes in providing comprehensive government contracting solutions through its privileged access to a host of government contracting vehicles including multiple General Services Administration (“GSA”) Schedules and the Tailored Logistics Support (“TLS”) Special Operations Equipment (“SOE”) contract administered by the United States Defense Logistics Agency (“DLA”).
Mission Ready’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Unifire, Inc. (“Unifire”), is 1 of 6 companies globally that is authorized to provide equipment and designated services under the multi-billion-dollar TLS program developed and supported by the DLA. Unifire is a designated Small Business and an industry-leading manufacturer and distributor of over 1.5 million fire, military, emergency, and law enforcement products. As an incumbent awardee of DLA’s SOE contract, with extensive knowledge and experience in providing solutions to the US Federal Government, Unifire utilizes its highly efficient and scalable technology infrastructure to provide procurement solutions for program managers, military and federal contracting offices, base supply centers, and other governmental supply agencies.
Mission Ready trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MRS.
For further information, visit MRSCorp.com or contact:
T: 1.877.479.7778 – Ext 5
E: IR@MRSCorp.com
Mission Ready Solutions Inc.
(signed “Jeffery L. Schwartz”)
Jeffery L. Schwartz,
This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “anticipate”, “believe”, “plan”, “expect”, “intend”, “estimate”, “forecast”, “project”, “budget”, “schedule”, “may”, “will”, “could”, “might”, “should” or variations of such words or similar words or expressions. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by Mission Ready Solutions Inc. as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Mission Ready Solutions Inc. to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Mission Ready Solutions Inc. does not undertake to update any forward-looking information that is included herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
Mission Ready2019-12-04T17:01:46-08:00December 5th, 2019|NEWS RELEASES|
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Mission Ready Announces Stock Option Grant December 15, 2020
NOVEMBER 2020 SHAREHOLDER UPDATE | LETTER FROM THE CEO November 27, 2020
Mission Ready Appoints William J. Bratton as Director November 12, 2020
Mission Ready Appoints Buck L. Marshall and Terrace L. Nixon as Directors November 6, 2020
Letter to shareholders from Buck Marshall, President and Chief Executive Officer October 14, 2020
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2019 nba finals game 6
Raptors hold off Warriors, win first ever NBA Championship
Photo Credit: Associated Press
The Toronto Raptors are the NBA Champions for the first time in franchise history after defeating the Golden State Warriors in Game 6, 114-110, in the final game played at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
This game was an instant classic, much like the rest of the series, and it was off to a hot start from the opening tip. Kyle Lowry was smoldering in the first quarter, scoring 11 points on 4-of-4 shooting to build an early lead. The Warriors weren’t going out without a fight and trimmed the Raptors early nine point lead down to one to end the quarter.
The rest of the first half was an exciting punch-counterpunch from each team, swapping mini-runs in an attempt to take control of the game. The Raptors took a 60-57 lead into the half from solid play by Lowry and Pascal Siakam and the Warriors were able to hang around thanks to Andre Iguodala and Klay Thompson.
The injury bug reared its head again on the Warriors when Klay Thompson went down awkwardly on his left leg after Danny Green contested his breakaway dunk attempt with 2:22 left in the third quarter. Klay left the floor, had to come back to shoot his two free throws, then pleaded with the coaching staff to stay in the game. He eventually went back to the locker room to be evaluated and left the arena on crutches with a torn ACL in his left knee.
With both Kevin Durant and Klay out of the lineup, Steph Curry took it upon himself to put the team on his back and carry them the rest of the way. Though it was a valiant effort, Curry struggled, only scoring 4 points the rest of the game, and was outscored by three other Warriors. The Warriors continued to battle and hung around with the Raptors throughout the rest of the game. Steph Curry had a good look from three in the closing seconds but it wouldn’t go down, the rebound was loose, the Warriors gained possession and called a timeout...but had none left. The subsequent technical foul free throw effectively ended the game, and seemed to close the door on the Warriors dynasty.
Kyle Lowry finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Raptors. Pascal Siakam also went for 26, while Kawhi Leonard and Fred VanVleet each added 22 of their own. Klay Thompson led the Warriors with 30 points, and Andre Iguodala chipped in 22 points. Steph Curry scored 21 points but shot just 6-of-17 from the field and 3-of-11 from three point range.
Kawhi Leonard was named the Finals MVP for the second time in his career and became only the third player in NBA history to be named NBA Finals MVP with two different teams, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Bucks & Lakers) and LeBron James (Heat & Cavaliers).
And now, for the first time in franchise history, “We the North” is now “We the Champs”
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cassowary claw wound
This can only result in more human-cassowary encounters going forward. The Kalam people considered themselves related to cassowaries and did not classify them as birds but as kin. There are three species of cassowary, all of which are native to Australasia. In the ensuing tussle, the older boy tripped and fell; the cassowary then kicked him in the neck, inflicting a deadly wound. Cassowaries are certainly striking to look at, with a vivid blue face, two red wattles (flaps of skin) hanging from their neck and a hollow "helmet", known as a casque, atop their heads. See... Kofron, C. P. 1999. Low Impact damage – less e… Historical Biology 28, 507-518. Á. Cassowaries are the only members of the family Casuariidae and belong to the order Casuariiformes, which also includes the emu.There are three species (counted by some experts as six), each with several races. ... A cassowary's primary weapon is its dagger-like digit II claw… The animal from which great whites flee: 5 killer records held by orcas. They are native to the tropical forests of south-east Asia and Australia. 2017c) His injuries were so severe that he later died in hospital. However, cassowaries have also been successfully housed with other animals without incident. They will also kick or chase cars, again because they appear to associate the human occupants with food. 1. Though size varies across the three different species (see end of article), cassowaries can stand up to 2 m (6 ft 6 in) tall and weigh as much as 60 kg (132 lb) – the equivalent of six mute swans, which are the heftiest birds native to the UK. Subscribers get more award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. food & feeding conservation They do not fly but the feathers do serve to protect them from the moisture and humidity of the rainforests where they live. "The cassowary can … The Cassowary claw is a deadly weapon. While cassowaries are certainly equipped to kill, they do not seek out trouble. Females are bigger and more brightly colored. Cassowary’s three species include – The dwarf Cassowary, which is the smallest with an average height roughly 3 feet tall. 2. How to set or break a Guinness World Records title. All cassowaries have feat… The southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius), also known as double-wattled cassowary, Australian cassowary or two-wattled cassowary, is a large flightless black bird. The claw on the inner toe is particularly formidable, reaching lengths of 12 cm (5 in)! But it’s all too easy to exaggerate how dangerous they are, and we shouldn’t forget that an enormous number of interactions occur that don’t end in aggression or injury. However, cassowaries do not attack indiscriminately and a 1999 study by Christopher Kofron (1999) of 221 recorded attacks by Casuarius casuarius johnsonii showed that attacks are mostly due to association of humans with food. The common, or southern, cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, which inhabits … This is an orange- throated behemoth which can stand about 5 feet tall. The claws however cannot do this – though they can leave a nasty puncture wound up to two centimeters in diameter. The last-known victim was 16-year-old hunter Phillip McClean, who tripped while fleeing from a bird in Australia in April 1926. Holiday Sale: Save 25%, Cassowaries have quite the reputation. Between June 1996 and February 1997, six cassowaries were killed by dogs in the Cairns area and, of 35 cassowary attacks recorded by Kofron (1999) on dogs, 29 were in self-defence. It’s well known that cassowaries can be dangerous, and indeed together with ostriches [UPDATE: and chickens] they are the only birds known to have definitely killed humans*. People who live in cassowary territory have a healthy respect of the big bird. WHAT MAKES A GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS TITLE? Some New Guinea Highlands societies capture cassowary chicks and raise them as semi-tame poultry, for use in ceremonial gift exchanges and as food. Cassowary has muscular legs with three claw-tipped toes that can give you a pretty strong punch. National. Adult Southern Cassowariesare 1.5 to 1.8 metres (59–71 in) tall, although some females may reach 2 metres (79 in), and weigh 58.5 kilograms (129 lb). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 49, 339-342. ... and all appear to have died from gunshot wounds. They are the only indigenous Australasian animal known to have been partly domesticated by people prior to European arrival. Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at, The Integrated Maniraptoran, Part 3: Feathers Did Not Evolve in an Aerodynamic Context, Walter Rothschild and the rise and fall of Sclater’s cassowary, Getting a major chapter on birds – ALL birds – into a major book on dinosaurs, The ‘ghosts’ of extinct birds in modern ecosystems, Controversies from the world of ratite and tinamou evolution (part I), Ratites in trees: the evolution of ostriches and kin, and the repeated evolution of flightlessness (ratite evolution part II). Discover world-changing science. The cassowary’s primary weapon is its dagger-like inside claw, measuring 4-5 inches in an adult. If a cassowary feels threatened, it will leap up and strike out with these dagger-like weapons, inflicting potentially lethal wounds to internal organs and causing severe bleeding. Structure and function of the cassowary’s casque and its implications for cassowary history, biology and evolution. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. There are already certain coastal resorts, such as Queensland's Mission Beach and Moresby Range, where cassowaries are becoming a regular sight, wandering past sunbathers and even into local residents' gardens. He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. Journal of Zoology 249, 375-381. The attacker was identified as a southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, a large flightless bird that is native to tropical rain forests in northeastern … Cassowaries will also kick or peck at doors and windows, sometimes breaking panes of glass or screen panels. Serious injuries resulting from cassowary attacks are most likely to occur if the person is crouching or is lying or has fallen on the ground. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com! The Maring people of Kundagai sacrificed cassowaries (C. bennetti) in certain rituals. It is one of the three living species of cassowary, alongside the dwarf cassowary and the northern cassowary.It is a ratite and therefore related to the emu, ostriches, rheas and kiwis Attacking cassowaries charge and kick, sometimes jumping on top of the victim. All cassowaries are usually shy birds of the deep forest, adept at disappearing long before a human knows they are there. I’ll finish with one last observation. This only encourages them to approach people and danger zones such as busy roads, If travelling to an area where cassowaries are known to live, consider leaving your dog at home, or at least keeping your pet on a leash. A cassowary montage. The claw on the inner toe is particularly formidable, reaching lengths of 12 cm (5 in)! The commonest injuries they cause in humans are puncture wounds, lacerations and bone fractures. Advantages 1. An attacking cassowary either jumps up and kicks out at its adversary with both feet at once, or races past, kicking out as it goes with the long, sharp claw on the inner toe, which can inflict a mortal wound. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. Find out about more record-breaking animals in our records showcase. Urban myths abound about the birds being able to disembowel a man with their claws. It confuses me as the cassowary claw doesn't look suited to make a long slash. Very high status chance. The birds suddenly panic and usually chase or charge their ‘victim’. Kofron, C. P. 2003. Structure and function of the cassowary’s casque and its implications for cassowary history, biology and evolution. Davey held a long pole in his right hand, a large, heavy feed bucket hanging at the end. There are currently three species of cassowary … The cassowary bird is flightless, much like the ostrich and penguin. At Currumbin Sanctuary, Queensland, a cassowary killed an ibis and attacked some eastern wallaroos that entered its enclosure. Stance slot has polarity, matches Shimmering Blightstance. The male and the female have the same essential look to them. Northern Cassowary has a large orange, red, yellow, or blue area on its lower foreneck (Pratt and Beehler 2015; Folch et al. It is not advised that captive cassowaries be kept with other species as they may attack and kill them. Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). If you're wearing a backpack or bag, move it to your front in order to shield your chest. They are black and cover them from their neck to their high quarters. It can kill with the sharp claws... wtf is he doing in Far Cry 3??? Naish, D. & Perron, R. 2014. The Cassowary is a very big bird and while it may look essentially harmless, we all know looks can be deceiving. These birds are potentially dangerous and should be treated with caution and respect, should you encounter one in the wild. Cassowaries are fast and explosive, so are their kicks. Environmental organization Rainforest Rescue, which set up the Save the Cassowary campaign in response to the decline of southern cassowaries in Australia, has issued some top tips to protect both people and the birds from harm. Explore our digital archive back to 1845, including articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize winners. The southern cassowary is Earth's second-heaviest bird. If its dagger-sharp claws get a hold of you, be ready for some serious scratches and wounds. Unfortunately, the older boy tripped and fell to the ground and before he could recover, the Cassowary was upon him, kicking him in the neck with that sharp claw, and the wound opened the boy’s jugular vein, after which he quickly bled to death. So what should you do if you meet a cassowary in the wild (or indeed on your property)? Tied with the Orthos Prime for the fastest attack speedof all polearms. On top of that, Cassowary is the only birds that have the reputation of killing humans. Davey tried to keep the six of them in sight, and wondered where Hester, the largest of the birds, was hiding. High Slash and good Puncture damage – effective against health and armor. Do NOT run, as these birds can outsprint us. We use cookies on this website. Furthermore, there are various anecdotal accounts of Golden eagles Aquila chrysaetos killing humans... but if you’ve been visiting the blog for a while you’ll know this. Quite the contrary: like most animals, these birds would much rather avoid conflict, only choosing fight over "flight" as a last resort if they feel their lives – or those of their young – are endangered. However, the Southern Cassowary … Its first defense is to escape in the vegetation. Cassowary, (genus Casuarius), any of several species of large flightless birds of the Australo-Papuan region. This assumes that pointed claw tips are needed for slashing wounds but this may not always be the case (good job, as claw tips that contact substrate get worn). In fact, the deadliest animals of them all are no bigger than your thumbnail. I've also encountered references to the death of a zookeeper named Luke James who was apparently killed by a captive cassowary, but have only read about this online and am not sure as to its reliability (readers: please let me know if have access to any further information on this case). Horns of plenty: steer from Alabama has horn span wider than the Statue of Liberty’s face! * Bits of children have been discovered beneath the nests of African crowned eagles Stephanoaetus coronatus, but we’re not totally sure that the eagles did the killing. Scientists recognize three living species of … 2017c) Northern and Dwarf Cassowaries have a larger bulge on lower face than Southern Cassowary (Folch et al. These birds are very aggressive and very unpredictable. The thing is Cassowary is very tall, and each of their foot has sharp claws that can go deep into your skin. This fierce bird species can run very fast and jump as high as 1 meter in the air. Corporate Social Responsibility activities & fundraising ideas, Community engagement & tourism marketing activities, Do not feed cassowaries or leave out litter that the birds can easily access. The anatomy that makes them so dangerous lies lower down. Naish, D. & Perron, R. 2014. Tardigrades: are these the world’s toughest animals? The part of the body that makes it become dangerous is the leg. What makes a Guinness World Records title? Third lowest base damage of all polearms, after Orthos and Tonbo. When confronted with a charging cassowary it’s clearly unwise to crouch or turn one’s back on the bird. The great cassowaries aesthetics. Attacks to humans and domestic animals by the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii) in Queensland, Australia. On mainland Australia, the most recent recorded fatality occurred in April 1926 when 16-year-old Phillip McClean received an injury to the throat after running from a cassowary and falling to the ground. A large, flightless bird native to Australia and New Guinea attacked and killed its owner on a farm in Florida, according to authorities. The more severe of these injuries have resulted in swift death (Kofron 2003). Claims that jogging incites cassowaries to attack (supposedly because the sound of running feet imitates a foot-stamping rival cassowary) do not withstand scrutiny as walking people have been attacked more frequently than joggers. The exotic birds in question weren't parrots or canaries, however… Along with animals such as alligators and wild cats, cassowaries are listed as Class II wildlife in Florida, owing to the risk that they pose. Dogs are a big threat to young cassowaries and can also stress out adults, leading to aggression. Otto - Longest human tunnel travelled through by a skateboarding dog, Ashrita Furman - Most Guinness World Records titles held. The last record human death by cassowary was in 1926. It can even lead to lethal wounds to internal organs and bleeding. It’s a gruesome story, but I’m short on sympathy. Location: Indonesia, New Guinea, north-east Australia, Height: 1.5–1.8 m (4 ft 11 in–5 ft 10 in), Header/thumbnail image credits: Alamy, Shutterstock, Registered Office: South Quay Building, 77 Marsh Wall, London E14 9SH United Kingdom. And for all the hype surrounding cassowary aggression, let us also not forget that it is frequently we – speeding along in our vehicles –who are a danger to them. So what exactly is a cassowary? December 3, 2020 — Ainissa G. Ramirez and Steve Mirsky, 3 hours ago — Mark Fischetti and Shirley Wu. A cassowary can fracture a human tibia with a kick (as well as cause deep puncture wounds and lacerations). It was when McClean was on the ground that he received a fatal blow to the neck. Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019: the winners and the records behind the LOLs, World’s fastest ant gallops into the record books, clocking 20 times Usain Bolt’s top speed, Life in the slow lane: three amazing sloth records. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. I'm also unsure whether that's enough to win here, but I can definitely see it kicking the chimp to death with repeated powerful attacks. Case histories of attacks by the Southern cassowary in Queensland. Today, it’s time to revisit the Tet Zoo archives, and post this (now very old) section of text on cassowaries. Their heavy, muscular legs have three toes and each toe bears a large claw up to 0.79 inches long, shaped like a dagger and used for fighting and scratching. It has a long, sharp claw on each feet. The cassowary will use these claws to … His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. A cassowary attacks in an australian crocfarm near innisfail. The cassowary, native to tropical forests of New Guinea and Australia, is the third-tallest and second-heaviest living bird. However a cassowary that is injured, has chicks nearby or knows itself surrounded or trapped is more dangerous than otherwise. Last Friday (12 April 2019), a 75-year-old man was attacked by (at least) one of the exotic birds that he rears on his property in Florida, USA. Unlike emus, which reputedly can only kick backwards (no, I don’t believe this either), cassowaries can kick in a forward and downward direction. © 2020 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc. Support our award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. The cassowary’s three-toed foot looks like a dinosaur foot, armored with scales and huge talons. By far the greatest number of attacks (109) involved soliciting of food by the cassowary. Their middle claw can be up to twelve centimeters (4.75″) long which is therefore used in fights as a dagger like weapon. Most incidents involving dogs concern a dog approaching or pursuing a cassowary; the cassowary, when possible, then faces at least one of the dogs, kicks it, and the dog is either lacerated or bodily punctured by the cassowary's foot claws. I haven’t finished on the Mesozoic maniraptorans, by the way (for parts published so far see part 1, part 2, part 3). 4. The commonest injuries they cause in humans are puncture wounds, lacerations and bone fractures. Cassowaries have been covered a few times before on Tet Zoo. Cassowaries also dislike cats. Granted, dromaeosaurids tended to have very robust distal limb segments built more for power than speed, but maybe, just maybe, the cassowary could prove to do the same here; it doesn't really sound that unreasonable. Presumably a pointed tip is drawn down through the flesh. Well, no—but also yes. That Thing Atop Their Head Is Called a Casque. In these cases they are presumably attacking a reflection which they perceive as another cassowary. Cassowaries dislike dogs and will attack them without provocation, presumably because feral dogs and dingos often prey on cassowaries. Though it is smaller than the ostrich and emu, the cassowary still stands 1.5-1.8 meters tall, weighing more than 50 kilograms, almost the size of an adult human. Oct 11, 2015 - See related links to what you are looking for. Disadvantages 1. Human feeding would thus appear to have modified cassowary behaviour and in fact cassowaries are naturally wary and highly unlikely to attack without provocation. If a cassowary feels threatened, it will leap up and strike out with these dagger-like weapons, inflicting potentially lethal wounds to internal organs and causing severe bleeding. This weapon deals primarily Slashdamage. Several attacks (7) appeared to be a territorial reaction to the presence of humans in an area where the cassowary was feeding while some (32) were clearly defensive – the cassowary was either protecting itself or its chicks or eggs. A kick of a Cassowary's foot with its sharp claw can produce a deadly ripping wound. These attacks were presumably territorial in motive. Six of the seven cassowaries poked about in the brush, shaking the bushy water gum and silky weeping lilly pilly leaves, causing a variety of lizards and furry critters to hightail it out of there. Like their cousins the emus, these large, flightless birds with bristly feathers are ratites. It first appeared here (at Tet Zoo ver 2) back in May 2007. If a cassowary does start acting belligerently, back away slowly or take cover behind trees or shrubs. According to the San Diego Zoo's website, cassowaries are the world's most dangerous bird, boasting a four-inch claw on each foot. Kofron (1999) reported that such behaviour was not recorded in his study area prior to 1985. Muscular legs that can pack a powerful kick terminate with three claw-tipped toes. The Northern and Dwarf Cassowaries are not well known. Attacks on horses and cows have also been recorded and C. casuarius is anecdotally credited with having killed small horses, though confirmed attacks have only involved lacerations (Kofron 2003). It’s obviously true that cassowaries are dangerous and that they can, and will, hurt people on occasion. However, if you ever corner a cassowary or get too close to it, be ready for an attack. This is far worse for these birds than it is for humans, as many are killed by vehicles and dogs every year. Keep your distance – particularly if an adult is guarding eggs or with chicks. Although this avian family are widely considered the most dangerous birds, this is the first confirmed human death attributed to a cassowary in 93 years. Ostrich 2017b; Folch et al. 1.1. In areas where humans have taken to feeding cassowaries, some cassowaries act boldly and aggressively in expectation of being fed and will run up to or chase people, sometimes kicking if no food is offered. Innate and polarities. Even the more accessible Southern Cassowaryof the far north Queensland rain forests is not well understood. 2017c) Northern Cassowary has pinkish longitudinal bands on bill (Folch et al. If a cassowary were to kick you, you’d definitely have some broken bones. They may also peck, barge or head-butt. The Cassowary may weigh as much as 120-140 pounds and be about six feet tall or a little less. Hidden habitat Cassowaries thrive in undisturbed forests. It's made of keratin, the same protein that the bird's … This means an owner must satisfy a number of tests and acquire a special permit from the local authorities to legally keep them. We had no idea at the time, but that was the first of several cassowaries we would see while in Mission Beach. 3. What's concerning is that the dense rainforest habitat favoured by cassowaries – particularly on the north-eastern coast of Australia – is being diminished by property developers, conversion into farmland and the encroachment of associated infrastructure such as roads and fences. Then the other one is the Northern Cassowary. But is it deserved? McClean’s death in 1926 was not the result of an unprovoked attack: he had struck the bird with the intention of killing it and had then fled; he also had a dog with him (Kofron 1999, 2003). In terms of dangerous animals, you are far more likely to fall foul of a snake bite or even an infection transmitted by dogs – "man’s best friend" – than you are these birds – even if there's something particularly Velociraptor-like about their appearance. The cassowary is a "large, ... "Each 3-toed foot has a dagger-like claw on the inner toe that is up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) long! 5. While on the ground, the Cassowary pummeled Philip in the neck with its deadly claw, nicking a major artery.
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Is the next Bayern march through threatening the Bundesliga? Under Neo-Coach Kovac, the Munich star ensemble is heading for its seventh championship title in
Mismanagement, a populist president and ultra-attacks pushed Sporting to the brink of ruin. Now the youth club of Cristiano Ronaldo is germinating new hope.
Austria has the largest delegation of legionnaires in the German Bundesliga, ahead of world champions France. Adi Hütter holds up the red-white-red coach’s flag
Our technology has sufficiently grown to allow us to stay in touch no matter where we went. If we wanted to travel the world
Everyone has a different way of learning. If you are an educator, you will know right away what we are referring to. There are
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Posted By: Leslie Withers FC Bayern, Franck Ribery, VfB Stuttgart
Is the next Bayern march through threatening the Bundesliga? Under Neo-Coach Kovac, the Munich star ensemble is heading for its seventh championship title in a row. But there is hope for a little more excitement.
Munich – For six years now, FC Bayern has been holding the Bundesliga in a tight grip. Before the start of the 56th season, the German upper house is now hoping for an end to Munich’s dominance. Even if the record champion with ÖFB team player David Alaba is once again the favourite with fans and most experts in the new season, there are still arguments against another low-tension march through of Bavaria.
That speaks for the Bavarians
IMPULSE GIVER: The new Bayern coach Niko Kovac is burning with ambition. After Carlo Ancelotti and veteran Jupp Heynckes, who are too cozy, the 46-year-old sets fresh stimuli and wants to repay the trust of the Bayern bosses with titles. His advantage: Kovac knows the rules of the famous Bayern cabin from player times and knows how to deal with the sensitivities of the stars. The 5:0 in the Supercup against his old employer Eintracht Frankfurt was a sign that Kovac got his team up and running quickly. “It is worked hard and again on discipline attached great importance , praises president Uli Hoeneß. Kovac is the “right coach”.
WM-WUT: Bavaria’s big DFB national players faction around Manuel Neuer, Mats Hummels and Thomas Müller are eager to prove themselves again after the messed up WM. The league could feel the effects of this. The Russian debacle serves as a motivational injection for the sometimes monotonous everyday life.
TORMASCHINE: He wanted to leave. But now Robert Lewandowski just keeps shooting for the Bayern goals on the assembly line. Three in the Supercup, one in the Cup – the Pole remains at least nationally the guarantor of success for the Munich team. Lewandowski is a model professional and will not let himself be deterred from scoring by the annoyance of shattered changeover dreams.
MIA SAN MIA: The championship title is part of Bavaria’s self-image. The team is enormously experienced, in all positions with outstanding class occupied. Also on weaker days the ripped off residents of Munich in the federal league are hardly to be conquered, particularly since the quality of the competition in Germany elite class left last often to be desired. The permanent burden of three competitions is a matter of habit for Munich. And the infamous Bayern-Dusel helps in case of need.
That speaks against the Bavarians
STILFRAGE: The Bavarian hunters can consider the flaccid 1:0 at the fourth league team Drochtersen/Assel in the trophy as encouragement. The amateurs showed how to rob the Munichers of their fun and strengths with a lot of passion and clever defensive. The defeat in the cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt and also the recent World Cup showed that the ball possession football shaped by Pep Guardiola with the record champion no longer necessarily leads to success. Coach Kovac has yet to prove whether he can teach the Bavarians other stylistic devices.
HAMMERSTART: Looking at the match schedule, one can only hope that the Bavarians will not be left behind at the beginning of autumn. The opening match against Julian Nagelsmann’s Hoffenheim team, who also won the cup 6-1 in Kaiserslautern with a weak substitute, is a danger of stumbling. This will be followed by a guest appearance at VfB Stuttgart, in May 4:1 winner in Munich. Bayer Leverkusen and runners-up FC Schalke 04 test the Bavarians on match days three and four. These starting weeks could pose problems for the defending champion. Elf Slots will take you on a euphoric journey of amazing games and marvellous offers.
TRANSFERGEIZ: The Bavarians have foregone top shopping. They have only invested ten million euros in the talent of Alphonso Davies. The 17-year-old Canadian will come on January 1, 2019. The New Leon Goretzka and Serge Gnabry must first assert themselves. The mental monster Arturo Vidal let the Munich players go to Barcelona, in Jerome Boateng and Sebastian Rudy two German national players could say goodbye. It is questionable whether Franck Ribery (35) and Arjen Robben (34) will once again be able to play healthy and at their best. If you want, you can discover a few possible weak points in the Munich team.
JAGDFIEBER: Borussia Dortmund has spent a lot of money on new personnel such as Belgium’s World Cup winner Axel Witsel and Lucien Favre, a coach who is regarded as a tactical chestnut and a better man. The Schalkers have also invested in their squad and tied their successful coach Domenico Tedesco for the long term. RB Leipzig is again driven by Ralf Rangnick. Julian Nagelsmann even talks about the championship title before his last year in Hoffenheim, but names the Leverkusen team as his favourite. Because at some point the series of the Bavarians must end. So why not this year?
Posted By: Leslie Withers Bruno de Carvalho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Primeira League
Lisbon – For years, Sporting Lisbon was regarded as the flagship of Portuguese football. As a club where Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo learned to play football, the Portuguese earned themselves the reputation of a European talent factory. But now the lions are threatening to sink into chaos. The blame is attributed above all to a man who is known as the “Donald Trump” of Portuguese football.
When Benfica Lisbon receives its city rival Sporting at the Estadio da Luz this Saturday, Portugal’s capital will once again be paralysed by the derby. It is not only a traditional, but also a top duel, because both teams together with FC Porto have dominated the sporting events in the Primeira League for decades.
But Benfica and Sporting are now worlds apart. While the Eagles (Benfica) won four of the last five championships, the Lions won their 22nd and last titles 16 years ago. In addition, Sporting experienced months of chaos, ultra-attacks, star dismissals and kicks. In short: proud Sporting fights for survival.
Jose Peseiro Honours
Portuguese Second Division: 1999–00
AF Madeira Cup: 2001–02
UEFA Cup: Runner-up 2004–05
Taça da Liga: 2012–13
Egyptian Premier League: 2015–16
Taça de Portugal: Runner-up 2015–16
No more salaries in November?
Also in economic terms. “It’s possible that the club won’t be able to pay the players’ salaries in November,” warned Jose Maria Ricciardi recently. The 63-year-old entrepreneur and banker, whose great uncle Jose Alvalade co-founded the club in 1906 and gave his name to the club stadium, is one of the seven candidates in the presidential election scheduled for 8 September. His words remained unchallenged because they are probably accurate. Two of the club’s three accounts have already been seized because of debts of at least 40 million euros to suppliers and other unknown liabilities to the Treasury and Social Security, according to recent media reports.
The problems of the “green-whites” are by no means only of a financial nature. After several years of confusion, the situation dramatically deteriorated on May 15 of this year. At that time, numerous masked hooligans entered the dressing room at the training ground in Alcochete near Lisbon after a series of poor results. Armed with sticks and belts, they beat several players and coaches. “We all feared for our lives,” wrote national goalkeeper Rui Patricio in a letter.
According to the prevailing opinion, the club “owes” the fact that it could come to this point to the then club boss Bruno de Carvalho. The 46-year-old entrepreneur had criticised the professionals unusually harshly in the spring after the Aus Sportings in the quarter-finals of the Europa League against Atletico Madrid and even suspended 19 players. De Carvalho lifted the internal suspension after a short time, but continued his harsh public criticism after losing points in the league. In doing so, he “motivated” the hooligans to attack, the media said.
The Donald Trump of Portugal
The former club president Jose Roquette, the US newspaper “Politico”, the British newspaper “The Independent” and many others agree: “De Carvalho is the Donald Trump of Portuguese football”. Like the US president, the entrepreneur, who was elected Sporting Boss in 2013 and confirmed in office in 2017, is criticised as a “populist” who does not shy away from speeches and actions.
On 23 June, the “Presidente” was prematurely voted out of office at an extraordinary general meeting of almost 15,000 club members with more than 70 percent of the votes and replaced by interim president Jose Sousa Cintra. However, the club is still suffering from the consequences of the mismanagement and the actions of De Carvalho. After the hooligan attack, coach Jorge Jesus and several professionals terminated their contracts. Prime Slots offers a great range of games.
In the meantime, however, hope arose quietly. The new coach Jose Peseiro, who reached the UEFA Cup final with Sporting in 2005, seems to have formed a solid team around the European Champion Nani (31), who returned after many years. According to a report in the specialist newspaper “Record“, Brazilian ex-star Roberto Carlos will be signing as head of sports in the next few days. “Sporting is opening a new page and I think it’s going to be very good,” Fernandes is convinced.
Posted By: Leslie Withers German Bundesliga, Philipp Mwene, Real Madrid
Austria has the largest delegation of legionnaires in the German Bundesliga, ahead of world champions France. Adi Hütter holds up the red-white-red coach’s flag at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Innsbruck – The red-white-red field in the German Bundesliga is approaching the 30-mark. In the previous season, 25 Austrian footballers were in the squads of the first division clubs before the league kick-off, but the number has now risen to a new record of 28. Austria thus has the largest contingent of legionnaires ahead of France (23).
The Austrian Armada in the German House of Lords has grown considerably this summer – even though this was only partially the case on the transfer market. Only LASK goalkeeper Pavao Pervan from the domestic Bundesliga went to VfL Wolfsburg as number two.
Within Germany, former U21 team player Philipp Mwene from second division relegator Kaiserslautern was drawn to Mainz 05 by Hanover centre-back Kevin Wimmer from England. The ÖFB-Internationale was lent by Stoke City for a season, Hannover also has a purchase option. Philipp Lienhart has remained, who has been hired by Real Madrid from SC Freiburg.
The Austrian contingent became bigger with the promotion of 1. FC Nuremberg and Fortuna Düsseldorf. Georg Margreitter and Lukas Jäger are under contract with the Nürnbergers, Fortuna took Kevin Stöger from Bochum. The Upper Austrian, who was trained at VfB Stuttgart, will be almost 25 years old when his first minutes in the first league come.
Georg Teigl Honours
Austrian Bundesliga: 2011–12
Austrian Cup: 2011–12
Austrian Bundesliga: 2010–11, 2012–13
Augsburg number one
The biggest Austrian delegation will be FC Augsburg with Martin Hinteregger, Kevin Danso, Michael Gregoritsch and Georg Teigl. They are followed by runners-up Schalke, Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen, each with three ÖFB legionnaires. In the coming days, it will be seen to what extent there will still be additions and retirements in the clubs. The German transfer window closes on 31 August at 18.00 o’clock. 10Bet is a relatively old gambling site that offers both a casino and a sportsbook.
The number of Austrians in the neighbouring country is rising continuously. In 2008/09 there were only six Austrian professionals earning their money in the first German league. Martin Harnik (now Bremen) and Ramazan Özcan (Leverkusen) are still with them this year. In 2010/11, 16 Austrian professionals were already in action. Last year, Austria took first place in the league-wide legionnaire statistics for the first time.
The coaching squad has decimated. Ralph Hasenhüttl is history at Leipzig, Peter Stöger is currently without an employer after the end of his engagement in Dortmund. However, the duo continues to enjoy a good reputation in Germany. The only Austrian in the position of head coach is Adi Hütter, who had a more than mixed start with Eintracht Frankfurt.
Our technology has sufficiently grown to allow us to stay in touch no matter where we went. If we wanted to travel the world and tell our friends about it, social media made it very possible to do so. However, in the convenience of things, a lot of people have taken their safety for granted. A lot of individuals have bad online habits and without fully realizing it, expose themselves and their loved ones to dangers.
Surveillance Trouble
In recent years, a lot of people have obtained reports of various governments—particularly their own—making use of the web to keep track of the habits of their citizens. When someone goes online to post about their opinions, it seems the “Big Brother” is carefully logging all our information and in some cases, profit from them.
For example, social media platforms like Facebook are still a form of business. The do need to make profits. They make those profits by running ads. You may notice that your ads seem to always be relevant to something that you’ve recently looked up on a search engine and that is not at all a coincidence.
Social media platforms willfully log and collate your information and sell them to companies which want to target you specifically. Targeted marketing is one of the more effective marketing campaigns which can ensure businesses that client engagement isn’t just about clicks—they turn into actual purposes as well.
With this being a fact of life, what can you as a technology user do?
Smart Habits
It all boils down to smart habits. To give you a better chance at securing your privacy, here are a few tips for you:
Make Your Profiles Private
If you must have a social media page, you must make sure that the information you put up there cannot be accessed by strangers. There are setting that you can tweak which make it impossible for people who are not your friends to access that information.
Turn Off Location Tracker on Your Phone
Every phone will always have a location tracker. Apps tell you that they need it in order to better serve you. They actually do that so that they can better plot your purchasing habits and where you are specifically so that they can better target you with relevant ads.
Never Use Unsecured Networks
It can be quite tempting to make use of free and public Wi-Fi spots. What a lot of people may not realize is that their information can be accessed if they log onto such networks.
The online world is really great but it should be used with both eyes open. Surveillance isn’t just something that is perpetrated by governments. They are also done by criminals that would love to just obtain your private information so that they can either steal your identity or directly steal from your bank account. It’s a crazy world out there and it is your responsibility to make sure that you are always safe in it.
What are your safety habits when it comes to avoiding surveillance online?
Everyone has a different way of learning. If you are an educator, you will know right away what we are referring to. There are visual learners among us and they are some of the people that have greatly benefitted from the power granted to visuals.
Our technology isn’t just about the better cars that we drive or how fast it takes us to warm something that’s been cold in the fridge for hours. A lot of the time, the most drastic change that we’ve seen our technology take is through visuals! This is something that has greatly impacted conferences as a whole.
It was not strange at all back then for conferences to be more about speaking rather than showing people. It was quite difficult to really render things on a digital scale. Our video technology wasn’t as advanced back then so there were a lot of errors that tended to happen on a fairly regular basis. It was quite disastrous for some instances.
Back then, if a person was attending a conference, they really needed to stay silent and listen hard since discussions were often fast and everything was primarily auditory.
In the world that we have now, everything is al about the visual impact. The screens that we have built for ourselves come alive in color. They also seem like they’re jumping out into our actual plane of existence. When it comes to conferences, it is no longer just about someone giving a talk. Nowadays talks can be prerecorded and can be enhanced because of the technology that we now possess.
This has greatly helped people who have often struggled to keep up with discussions and panels. People in conferences make it a point to provide specific points of information through a digital screen so that everyone can keep up with the present point of discussion.
The future of conferences is really exciting to think about. The technology of today is nice but the technology that we and our children will get to enjoy is even better. There is much focus on the land of virtual realty and even augmented reality. We feel that conferences will take a leap into the future and they will no longer just be contained to the hall that they are being held.
We are truly excited for things to come—especially when the visual improvements are only going to get better. It’s not only the realm of visual which will enjoy a significant boost! We’re pretty darn sure that the audio, actual presentations and the other things that make conferences such a treat to go to shall improve as well. In your opinion, how has technology improved the realm of conferences? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
One of the best things about conferences is that it lets you get closer towards people who have some pretty unique and useful perspectives on life and certain topics. When it comes to the topic of technology, it is places like technology centered conferences will let you meet and listen to the interesting and truly helpful words of keynote speakers that can share different points of view.
In one of the previously held conferences, a keynote speaker by the name of Jamais Cascio gave a pretty rousing talk. He discussed the idea that people are equipped with and are generally given the necessary tools that they can use to better improve their world. This was something that we wanted to explore.
It gave us something to really think about—whether or not we did have the tools to affect our world or our lives. The term ‘world’ is quite large. It can encompass the literal sense as it refers to the planet we live on or it could be something not quite as literal as that. Our world can be affected by our decisions and our actions and we were curious to see if we had the tools that Cascio referred to.
This is a no brainer. Of course, we have technology. We use it everyday. Of course, this also means that we had to look at the bigger picture altogether. How did the production and utilization of technology affect the world that we live in? How does it affect our lives in general? How do we make use of the technology that we have to positively impact our world?
Strength of Character
This was quite surprising to say the least. It is not everyday that we are made to question whether or not we carried the strength of character that is necessary to affect positive change in our lives. However, a lot of the time this is the case. A lot of people end up making bad decisions because they lack the gumption to stick to the straight and narrow path. They feel like taking shortcuts because it is perceived as easier but not necessarily healthier.
The very idea that our world can be shaped by things that we have around us—particularly referring to technology—is quite compelling. A lot of the time people like to blame their circumstances on events that they feel they had no control over. While that can be true for some of the time, it is statistically impossible for that to be true 100% of the time. People do need to take responsibility for the state of their existence. After all, the only true factor that they can control in that situation is them.
In your opinion, do you have the tools to better improve your world? What tools can you think of?
Technology centered conferences are one of the best places to learn more about actual technology and its many applications in the world of business and in our private lives. With that vein of thought, we received a lot of questions about where people could learn more about conference schedules. We’re actually glad that people asked since now we can discuss this.
Conferences don’t just pop out of the blue. They are carefully planned and carefully executed. It takes several months and even a full year to put together. The best conferences in the world often happen annually and it progressively gets better as the years go by.
So where do you learn more about them and their schedules?
When you manage to attend a conference, you will have a registration booth at the very entrance. You can choose to give over your email address to be the recipient of newsletters. This can really help you keep track of that particular conference brand and other affiliated businesses. They will normally update their audiences about any upcoming events that are associated with them.
Anyone who is looking forward to attending another conference that they enjoyed can find out more about it by paying attention to the newsletters that they get on a periodic manner.
Follow Relevant Social Media Accounts
If there was anything that we can take advantage of today, it is the availability of information that is spread through social media. A lot of big businesses that attend conferences or symposiums all make it very clear to their supporters and consumers that they will be taking part of certain events in the future. This ensures better instances for interaction with those who are interested in their brand.
So if you’re one who likes to attend conferences and would like to take part of it again in the future, this would be a good step for you to do.
Check Out Official Websites
Big conferences will always have official websites so interested parties can go and check them out. They will always have updated posts about the schedules of upcoming events and who will take part. It is often important for them to have official websites to lessen the likelihood of misinformation going around the web.
Always make it a point to get the URL of the official website. Normally, you can find that out from relevant social media pages and you can get that from pamphlets as well.
So there you go! We’ve discussed some of the best ways on how you can better learn about the schedules of conferences. Which methods have you tried before? When it comes to finding out information and deciding on whether or not a conference is worth attending, what do you do?
When it comes to attending conferences, it’s not just the knowledge that you get to walk away with. You get to have some pretty special keepsakes that are both functional and eye-catching. Today, we wanted to talk about some types of keepsakes that you get to keep when you visit conferences!
We feel this is important because the reward center of the brain should never be underestimated. Not only would there be a lot of things to learn from going to conferences—especially technological ones—but you get to have more than just knowledge to remember the event by.
Here are some of the keepsakes that you get to have if you are lucky enough to attend a technology conference:
This is, by far, one of the more common keepsakes that you get to keep with you after your time at a conference. Usually, apparel is easy to produce and easy to distribute. They can come in the forms of shirts, caps, wristbands, socks, and a plethora of other things that you can wear. It will normally have the name of the conference and the date.
Or it could even have the brand name of the booth or the company that handed them out. They’re great because you can add them to your comfy home shirts and are usually pretty durable.
Who says that tech conferences are stingy with the accessories that they promote? If you’re a big fan of tech conferences you will know for a fact that tech companies like to give away something that can help people remember them fondly. They do this by giving away little accessories which come in handy.
One of our favorite forms of accessories is little USBs and little LED flashlights. These come in handy when you least expect it and they’re small enough that you can keep them on your person wherever you go.
Technology conferences are always quite generous when it comes to their literature. They like to share their knowledge through promotional literature. They could be little pamphlets or can be full blown booklets that help you better understand their piece of technology and how you can make use of it to the fullest.
This is our particular favorite! No conference is complete without a raffle! The prizes can vary but usually it is a piece of new technology like the latest phone release, latest computer, or it could even be an all expenses paid stay at a notable hotel or resort.
In the end, there are a lot of things—not just the physical keepsakes—that you get to keep that can remind you of your trip. You get to meet people who share the same interests and even get to rub elbows with some of the brightest minds in the industry that can help you realize your goals. Have you ever been to a tech conference? What sort of keepsakes did you get to bring away with you after it was done?
In the world that we live in today, we would be very hard-pressed to find anyone that isn’t using technology in their day to day life. The technology that we have—both past and present—plays a significantly big part in our lives. Today, we wanted to elaborate a bit further on that idea. We wanted to see how technology affects daily life. We’re basing this off from our personal opinions so you’re free to pipe in what your thoughts are as well!
Technology Makes Medicinal Practice Increasingly More Effective
Back in the day, our medicine in general was really, really bad. It was so bad that you were sooner expected to die before you turned the age of three. The common diseases that were pretty much a death sentence are no longer as feared because our technology has enabled those that work in the field of medicine to come up with better ways to diagnose and combat the ills that have decimated us through the centuries.
Technology Makes Communication Faster and Easier
One of the biggest mysteries that a lot of youngsters wonder nowadays is how in the holy seven kingdoms din snail mail ever work—especially when the person you were writing to was overseas? In today’s world communicating with someone in a different part of the world is as easy as clicking a few buttons or tapping your screen a couple of times. The ease in which we can now communicate has also helped media get the word out about important updates that affect many people.
Technology is something that we can hardly live without. The fields of business, medicine, education, and so much more have all the tendrils of technology wrapped around it tightly. We firmly believe that technology has a lot of both positive and negative effects in our lives as a whole. However, it is up to the users to determine and strike the balance between something positive and something that affects them negatively.
How do you think technology affects daily life?
When it comes to finding out more things about specific fields or pieces of technology, it is a fairly safe bet that you can find out more from conferences dedicated to it. Today, we would like to take a closer look regarding what we all can actually learn from technology conferences!
Latest Pieces of Tech
There is no denying the fact that the field of technology is one which rapidly changes and shifts with time. We could be completely reliant on one piece of technology then find ourselves working with something that is outdated.
Technological conferences are the places where big name companies and start ups launch the latest pieces of development that they have curated. This is where they are introduced to the public and a better explanation of what they are used for is discussed.
Stronger Grasp of Technological Applications
While there are always newer pieces of technology, this does not mean to say the current pieces of technology that we have now is all outdated. They are still good but not a lot of people understand how to make the most out of them.
Technological conferences make it a point to have panels which help users better understand how a particular piece of technology is used and applied in everyday living.
When it comes to learning more about technology, it always helps to soak up the knowledge from events where it is celebrated and even the absolute focus of. Technology centered conferences happen several times a year in different places all over the world. You would be hard pressed to find a major city that does not have one since technology has a rather big part to play in our lives.
So when it comes down to it, what do you think you can learn from technology focused conferences? We’d love to hear your thoughts
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Juneteenth Flag: Historic symbol of Black liberation from slavery flown at City Hall Complex for first time
Posted by Editor | Jun 20, 2020 | BLM MKE, Featured, Photos, Video |
First time in the city’s history the Juneteenth flag was flown over a municipal building on June 19. It was a long overdue recognition for Milwaukee’s Black community, and one of many smaller events that took place throughout the area to celebrate the special day.
Milwaukee is home to one of the longest standing Juneteenth Day celebrations in the country. Because the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the festivities for 2020, the city was able to start the day with a raising of the Juneteenth Day flag outside the Zeidler Municipal Building. The ceremony offered a positive way for the Milwaukee and residents to mark the holiday.
“Juneteenth is ‘Independence Day’ for African Americans, and it is important that we celebrate and recognize the history and significance of the day and what it means for thousands of Milwaukee residents and African Americans across the country,” said Alderwoman Chantia Lewis.
Alderwoman Lewis led the effort because she wanted to see the flag raised this year in support of Black Lives Matter. The social justice movement has focused national attention on systemic racism and police brutality directed at people of color.
“I was thinking about how can we make sure that we’re talking about Juneteenth, and how can we make sure that since we don’t have a celebration this year that we can still keep the celebration going,” added Alderwoman Lewis.
Joining her for the ceremony was city treasurer Spencer Coggs, Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs, Alderman Ashanti Hamilton, Alderwoman Nikiya Dodd, Common Council President Cavalier Johnson, and Mayor Tom Barrett.
“The jubilation and celebration that occurred after getting word of their freedom is something that 155 years later we celebrate here today. Just like how some people have July 4 as the day they celebrate this nation, for those of us of African descent in America, this is our day of liberation,” said Alderwoman Coggs. “So I think people should even celebrate with greater intention. My hope is that people pay tribute to our ancestors who fought and showed their resilience for us to even be here today. There are people across the globe unified on the idea and concept that Black Lives do in fact matter.”
Juneteenth Day commemorates the moment in history on June 19, 1865 when the final enslaved Africans in the United States were granted their freedom in Galveston, Texas. This year, Juneteenth Day holds even more significance as the people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the nation, work to make sure their voices are heard regarding issues of racial equality.
Common Council President Johnson explained there was nothing political behind the statement: “Black Lives Matter.” He said, “what it simply means is that people of African descent in this country deserve the same rights and privileges and guarantees of birth in this nation that everybody else does.”
The commemorative flag was designed by activist Ben Haith, founder of the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation (NJCF). Haith created the flag in 1997, and it was revised in 2000 to include the date “June 19, 1865” in remembrance of the day that Union Army Major General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told enslaved African Americans of their emancipation.
The white star in the center of the flag represents Texas, the Lone Star State, but also symbolizes the freedom of African Americans in all 50 states. The bursting outline around the star was inspired by a nova, a term that astronomers use for the creation of a star, to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States and a new beginning.
The red, white, and blue represents the American flag, a reminder that slaves and their descendants were and are Americans. Juneteenth was officially recognized for the first time in Wisconsin in 2009.
“Those slaves in Galveston, Texas – for two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation – were still indentured, because their slave owners never told them they were free,” said Mayor Barrett.
Calling June 19 a historic day, Mayor Barrett reflected on how the first coronavirus infections arrived in the city and had a disproportionate impact on the African American community.
“I looked at the statistics and I thought, infant mortality, life expectancy, access to health care, cancer mortality, in every one of those categories, the indicators are worse for African Americans than they are for Caucasians. And that’s the reason that this city and this county declared racism a public health issue,” added Mayor Barrett. “We did it because Black Lives Matter.”
The original 1997 version of Juneteenth Flag without the date was also seen flying at various locations around the area, including the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Fiserv Forum, and All Saints’ Cathedral.
Milwaukee Independent · First Juneteenth flag flown in Milwaukee
BLM Coverage | About
BLM Coverage | 2020
These headline links feature the daily news reports published by Milwaukee Independent about the George Floyd protests, the revival of the Black Lives Matter movement that followed, and their impact on the local community in for 8 months from May to December of 2020.
PreviousWisconsin Justices issue open letter confronting need to recognize racial injustices in our legal system
NextTen names of American heroes that should replace Army bases named after Confederates
This is a general byline. The news we report is our focus, not getting credit. This generic attribution is used when our staff wants to make sure the attention goes where it belongs, on the story. Our mission is to inspire and transform the Milwaukee community. Publishing requires an author, so this account is used to keep the spotlight is on our coverage.
Never Forget: Milwaukee pays tribute to victims of 9/11 during 18th anniversary memorial ceremony
Video: Mayor Barrett rebukes Trump’s support for white supremacists
Reggie Jackson: Why the bully in Blackface never really has to apologize
From construction to testing: An 18-month look at Milwaukee’s Streetcar
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Ending another year of our activity…
… so its time to sum up the most important works and thank to all the supporters without whom many of our actions would not be possible.
Traditionally, the most important part were the repairs of the old buildings. In 2015, after three-years break, we managed to obtain a financing sufficient to rebuilt the oldest part of the shed, the so-called “Łowicz annex”. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage provided for this purpose 100000 PLN. It was the biggest fund PARE has ever received but the only one we had this year (despite five other requests). The total cost of the rebuilding works reached 140000 PLN. The remaining money were obtained from own sources (the 1% from income tax – most of the 27000 PLN received in 2015) and the donation from PKP Group.
The donation of the City Council of Skierniewice (7000 PLN) was devoted for preparing the documentation required for further adaptation of the Engine Shed as a museum and cultiral facility.
Rolling stock conservation works in 2015 concentrated around the rebuilding of beer refrigerator car from 1912. The required resources came from 1% of income tax and donation of PKP Group.
On behalf of members and volunteers of PARE we would like to say a big thank you to allour supporters and sponsors.
PARE sponsors in 2015
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Home Pump Industry News & Product Updates Agilent Technologies buys Italian vacuum pump manufacturer
Agilent Technologies buys Italian vacuum pump manufacturer
Agilent Technologies Inc.has acquired P.V.R. s.r.l., a pump manufacturer based in Valmadrera, Italy. The privately held company expands Agilent's vacuum products portfolio for industrial applications. The company did not disclose the details of the transaction.
P.V.R has been designing and making vacuum pumps for more than 50 years. It's products include rotary vane vacuum pumps for the industrial market, oil-free micro pumps, rotary lobe vacuum pumps, dry rotary claw vacuum pumps, central vacuum systems and vacuum accessories for the paper, food, chemical and other industries.
Giampaolo Levi, Agilent's vice president and general manager says P.V.R has been a trusted partner for years. Agilent's Vacuum Products Division has had an original equipment manufacturer relationship with P.V.R. since 2008. Agilent gained its vacuum division as part of the Varian Inc. acquisition in 2010.
"Joining together as one company will only accelerate our innovations and increase our ability to serve customers faster and better with a broader range of solutions," Levi says. "This acquisition is a very good example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts."
P.V.R.'s products complement Agilent's existing vacuum portfolio, which includes high vacuum pumps, dry and wet primary pumps, and vacuum instrumentation. The acquisition also brings Agilent a significant vacuum customer base in the growth markets of Asia.
Stefano Severgnini, former managing director of P.V.R., says the acquisition will help P.V.R get to the next level. "We will benefit from Agilent's global distribution channels and brand, which will help our business expand to new regions and more customers. And we value Agilent's ongoing investments in R&D, ensuring that its vacuum technology leads the market."
P.V.R.'s 38 employees have now joined a wholly owned subsidiary of Agilent in Italy.
Source: Agilent.com
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Home Pump Industry News & Product Updates Multi-Million Dollar Panama Canal Project is Awarded to Xylem
Multi-Million Dollar Panama Canal Project is Awarded to Xylem
Contributed by: PumpScout Staff
Xylem Inc., an industry leader in fluid technology applications and water solutions, will be providing its heavy-duty Godwin dewatering pumps to the Panama Canal Expansion Project that is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2016. The dewatering pumps will fill the third set of basin locks on the Pacific Ocean sector with 1.7 billion gallons of water. The process will begin with performance trials for the system before being commissioned. When completed, it will include a new traffic lane and two new lock complexes which will double the capacity of the canal.
This is the second project awarded to Xylem under the Panama Canal Expansion Project. The pump manufacturer also supplied 64 Flygt mixers that are meant to prevent the formation of corrosive deposits on the rolling gates during installation.
Xylem contributed 15 Godwin diesel-driven pumps to the project. In June, the pumps transported up to 122 gallons of water each day in order to fill the third set of locks on the Pacific Ocean.
The pump manufacturer’s engineers will be designing and installing the system which includes more than 2.5 miles of 18-inch, high-density polyethylene pipeline that will be able to handle massive amounts of water. Xylem is also supervising the performance of the 15 Godwin pumps that use a remote monitoring system called Field Smart Technology.
The third set of basic locks will save water and improve efficiency, using seven percent less water, while recycling 60 percent of the water used in the operation.
“Xylem is providing its global experience at a local level,” says Jorge Alvarado, managing director for Xylem Latin America North. “With the world’s largest inventory of rental pumps and related equipment, Xylem has the ability to mobilize our vast resources quickly. In combination with the local presence and engagement of our Panama-based team, we are able to rapidly deliver the quality services demanded by the ACP for the execution of the Expansion Project.”
Source: Xylem
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Book Review: Motorcycles & Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden
All across North America, and in fact around the world, the tradition of the trickster has a long and storied history among the older cultures of the world. Whether the Raven of the West Coast, Coyote of the plains, the bumbling Nanabush or Nanabozo of the woodlands, or whatever shape or form he has been given by his people, his purpose is the same. By epitomizing our worst traits, and putting them into action, he teaches us object lessons on how to live. By his own estimation he's the most intelligent. the bravest, the toughest, and generally all around best at everything, yet he invariably ends up falling flat on his face. Somehow or other he's always just tricky enough to outsmart himself and no one else.
The other thing all tricksters, no matter what their nationality, have in common is their complete lack of humility. No matter what happens, no matter how embarrassing the situation they end up finding themselves in, they never seem to able to learn the lesson that they were the ones responsible for their own downfall. While many of their predicaments are quite funny, there are occasions when our laughter at what happens to them is slightly tinged with sadness or even unease. For, while the stories are told to ensure we never get to full of ourselves, there are only so many times you can watch someone slip on a banana peel and find it funny until you start to either feel sorry for them or begin to wonder what it might be like to slip on it yourself.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any room in the modern world for tricksters anymore. Which is a pity, because we're currently a world that thinks way to highly of itself and has a far overblown sense of our own importance. We've all become so wrapped up in going about our business that we've forgotten how to live. Well, Canadian author Drew Hayden Talyor, a member of the Ojibway nation - or as they refer to themselves, Anishnawbe (The People) - has decided its about time to see what would happen if the ancient trickster of his nation were to show up on a modern day Reservation. What would he look like, what would people's reaction to him be, and what kind of mayhem would be the result? The answers to those questions and others can all be found in his first full length novel, Motorcycles & Sweetgrass, being published by Random House Canada on March 9/10.
The action takes place on the fictional Anishnawbe Reserve of Otter Lake, located somewhere in central Ontario, Canada. Maggie Secord has the usual problems single moms do with raising a teenage boy, but they're compounded by her decision to take over he late husband's role of elected Chief of the band. She's sure there was a good reason for her doing so at the time, but now she's damned if she can remember what that was. It's been especially difficult in the last couple of years as the government has finally decided to return to the band land that had been "borrowed" from them. Aside from all the paper work, and meetings with all levels of government - county, provincial, and federal - this involves, it sometimes seems, every person living on the reserve having their own opinions as to how the land should be put to use and each of them spelling their plans out in detail for her.
As if things couldn't get any more difficult, there's the whole matter of the mysterious white stranger who showed up at her mother's house just before she died. He pulled up on a bright red 1953 Indian motorcycle, and marched into the house and into her bedroom like he was expected. Well it turns out he was, for looking in his grandma's window, Maggie's son Virgil sees the young, blond white guy, kissing his grandma in a very friendly manner. Now grandma Lillian Benojee was one of those who were taken off to the residential schools in an attempt to take the Indian out of native children. Somehow or other though she managed to hold onto her language and beliefs, while also accepting some of the white man's. It always amazed her children how she could go to church on Sunday, yet also know all the old tales about Nanabush the trickster and recite them and her prayers with an equal amount of sincerity. In fact she could talk about both Jesus and Nanabush as if she knew them personally.
While we never find out about the former, Lillian does turn out to have been buddies with Nanabush and it was she who invited him to show up at Otter Lake reserve to say good bye to her before she left and to ask him a favour. Virgil, who was already suspicious of John after seeing him kissing his grandma, becomes even more so when he turns his attention to his mother. There's something decidedly odd about this white man whose eyes are always changing colour, can speak the Anishnawbe language better than most elders, and knows how to braid sweetgrass so perfectly. Aside from everything else, why do the local racoons seem to be following him everywhere he goes?
In Motorcycles & SweetgrassDrew Hayden Taylor has brought the character of Nanabush the trickster out of the old tales of his people and has him up to his usual tricks. He's not just some fun loving guy who plays practical jokes on people, he's also vindictive, selfish, and a liar. While he does make life more interesting for Maggie while he's on the reserve and helps her to have fun for the first time since her husband died, he also creates no end of problems for her with his solution for dealing with the land being returned to the tribe. Along the way Taylor manages to poke fun at his own people and politicians, while raising the issues of non-natives attitudes to land clams and Residential schools in a way which is humorous but at the same time doesn't diminish the reality of the situation.
People who aren't used to twenty-first century Natives, are going to be surprised to hear how much life on a reserve sounds like life in any small town. Everybody knows everybody, and its hard to have business that others aren't going to be sticking there noses in all the time. Of course they did use to be quite a bit different from those who are now living in neighbouring towns, and life on a reserve isn't quite the same as anywhere else. Yet, while Taylor manages to bring that reality to life its not the one we read in the newspapers all the time of despair and hopelessness. These are real people trying to balance the realities of living in the twenty-first century and holding onto their culture.
While Taylor doesn't shy away from the ugly truths that populate the history of the relationship between Native Canadians and their government, he uses humour to bring these issues into focus. Like the Nanabush stories of the past with their lessons on how to live a good life, Motorcycles & Sweetgrass slyly sneaks its message in when we're not looking. Its a gentle and timely reminder that while we may think we know what we're doing, there's a damn good chance that we're missing out on what's really important in our lives. We can get hung up in politics and issues all we want, but at the end of the day we all still have to look at ourselves in the mirror.
(Originally posted March 2010)
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Actor Matt Dillon Puts Rare Celebrity Spotlight on Rohingya
By Robin McDowell
SITTWE, Myanmar -- American actor Matt Dillon put a rare star-powered spotlight on Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims, visiting a hot, squalid camp for tens of thousands displaced by violence and a port that has been one of the main launching pads for their exodus by sea.
It was "heartbreaking," he said after meeting a young man with a raw, open leg wound from a road accident and no means to treat it.
Mothers carrying babies with clear signs of malnutrition stood listlessly outside row after row of identical bamboo huts, toddlers playing nearby in the chalky white dust.
"No one should have to live like this, people are really suffering," said Dillon, one of the first celebrities to get a look at what life is like for Rohingya in the western state of Rakhine. "They are being strangled slowly, they have no hope for the future and nowhere to go."
Though Rohingya have been victims of state-sponsored discrimination for decades, conditions started deteriorating three years ago after the predominantly Buddhist country of 50 million began its bumpy transition from a half-century of dictatorship to democracy.
Taking advantage of newfound freedoms of expression, radical monks started fanning deep-seated societal hatred for the religious minority. Hundreds have been killed by machete-wielding mobs and a quarter million others now live under apartheid-like conditions in camps or have fled by boat - hundreds of dehydrated, hungry Rohingya washing onto Southeast Asian shores in recent weeks.
Denied citizenship, they are effectively stateless with almost no basic rights. As they become increasingly marginalized, several groups are warning that the building blocks of genocide are in place.
"I know that's a very touchy word to use," said Dillon. "But there's a very ominous feeling here."
"I've been to some places where the threats of violence seemed more imminent," said Dillon, who has also visited refugee camps in Sudan, the Congo and elsewhere. "Here it's something else. It feels more like people are going to be left to wither away and die."
Dillon said he decided to come to Myanmar following a desperate, urgent appeal by Rohingya activist Thun Khin at a Refugees International fundraiser in Washington, just over a month ago. In Japan to promote his new television series, "Wayward Pines," he decided it was a good time to make the trip.
"There are people working here, people who know a hell of a lot more about it than I do," Dillon said after hearing grumbling from some aid workers about what he hoped to achieve. "But listen, if I can use my voice to draw attention to something, where I see people suffering, I'll do that any day of the week. I'm happy to do that."
He spoke to two teenage boys who tried to flee by boat, only to find themselves in the hands of human traffickers, and was chased away by armed security guards when trying to snap pictures of the last standing Rohingya neighborhood in the state capital - a ghetto surrounded by tall walls topped by rolls of heavy barbed wire.
But what really choked him up were the camps: "It affected me more than I thought it would."
While there were clear signs humanitarian agencies are active - new latrines, well-placed hand pumps, concrete open sewers - he noted in contrast to camps he's visited in Sudan and the Congo, he didn't run into a single Western aid worker during his two-day visit.
Nor were NGO trucks rumbling through with medical equipment, food or other supplies - due primarily to severe restrictions placed on aid agencies by the government following pressure from Buddhist extremists.
"A lot of people are suffering," he said. "I'm really glad I had a chance to come, to see for myself what's happening here."
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Blog Post #15: Response to Julie
Call out: Obviously, Julie was nearly as confused as the State was about annexation. But the confusion she evidenced in her questions to us was unrelated to the values in the appraisal.
A few weeks before Julie’s hearing, we suddenly got a desperate email from her asking for help in answering some questions. As a reminder to you, the reading public, we had never spoken to Julie or corresponded with her in any way. This was the first time we had ever heard from her directly. Here’s what she wrote, with our responses in red:
Julie: “Hi Sharon ~ I hate to ask you, but this really is important and your tax credits as well as my life pretty much depends on your help. This is what my attorney wants to know.
Is there any evidence in the county/city records that shows the prior annexation was denied?
Us: Not to our knowledge. The City Council voted unanimously to annex the first 120 acres of our land (it was going to be a phased annexation due to the rules about the % of contiguity with the city) on Tuesday, June 19th, 2001 (Resolutions 1(A) and 2(B). At the public hearing on August 7, 2001, no one spoke against the annexation and the City Council unanimously passed the two resolutions. As far as we know, those resolutions are still on record. We have never been contacted with any information to the contrary and we have never read about these resolutions being rescinded.
Some time after that, the City put a moratorium on annexation until the drought was over due to concerns about water. We never understood this as being a “denial.”
Meanwhile, based on the City’s promises over many years, we had invested heavily in this project, and felt we needed to continue at a rapid rate to recover our investment. So, when they put the moratorium in place, we grew weary of working with the City, and began to doubt the benefits to us. So we began to pursue the idea of developing the land in the county instead of in the City, and we received approval on the first two filings (see faxed newspaper article[i]), which is a matter of public record. We continued to negotiate a water agreement with the City and we have an agreement with the City of Walsenburg for extraterritorial water for the subdivision, which was signed on approximately January 28, 2005.
Julie: I think this appears to be a red herring, i.e., that there never was an annexation therefore they assume it was denied. We need to make sure your contacts in Huerfano County will testify that they did support an annexation.
Us: The county officials had nothing to do with our negotiations with the City for annexation. The votes of the City Council are a matter of public record.
Julie: If the annexation you contemplated was mistakenly for Huerfano County instead of Walsenburg, would the subdivision still have been possible?
Us: There is no mistake: we were petitioning the City of Walsenburg to annex our property. The property is in the County. But, then we changed direction and decided to not pursue annexation to the City, and to work in the County instead. Working in the county merely required that we do some zoning changes and follow the county’s requirements for subdivision, which we did (see newspaper article).
Julie: the bulk of the expert report relates to the failed annexation several years back. if we can establish with witnesses that annexation was on the table then we defeat a huge part of their expert report.
Us: There is no “failed annexation.” The City passed the resolution to annex our land (mentioned above) and to our knowledge, the City has never rescinded its resolution. In addition, the newspaper (The Huerfano World) recently reported that the new city manager (Eric Pearson) is very “pro” annexation. (I’m so sorry, but I don’t remember which issue it was in – I will continue to hunt for that article.) In addition, the moratorium must have been lifted (I’m not sure when) because the City is proceeding with an annexation on the north side of the city called “Northlands.”
Julie: i want to have our investigator interview your contact in Huerfano County to "get them on record" that they supported annexation.
Us: Again, the County had nothing to do with annexation. They are on record as supporting our subdivision in the County because they approved the first two filings, and they had a master plan that showed a full build out of all 1000 acres.
Julie: can you set up a phone call so they are not surprised by our investigator's contact? In addition, this failed annexation that they discuss so much, where would that proof be located? would it be in county filings? do you have someone down there that could look at the filings to see if there even was a denial?
Us: Perhaps you can call the City Clerk? To our knowledge there is no such “denial.” I can’t emphasize this enough: the annexation did not proceed because we chose not to proceed.
Julie: I guess the whole case rests on the annexation problem. Would you mind if someone called to to discuss this with you? Please let me know.
Us: We are happy to talk to you, your investigator, or your attorney. Please feel free to contact us.
Obviously, Julie was nearly as confused as the State was about annexation. But the confusion she evidenced in her questions to us was unrelated to the values in the appraisal. We were still at a mental standoff with the State: We thought the appraisals were too low and the state thought they were artificially inflated. Even if we simply compromised on a middle value, it would have been enough to reach the threshold for a conservation easement. But this issue had not come up yet – as you can see, there’s more to the story! © Sharon Cairns Mann
[i] I must have had a hard copy of a newspaper article that I faxed to Julie. Since our house was later destroyed by fire, we’ve lost many artifacts, and I can’t find the article we mentioned at the time.
Blog Post #14: Storm Clouds -- The Complaint against Julie
“Electricity extended the entire length and width of the property and is readily observable on the land.”
As I mentioned in the previous post, Stan wrote a confidential rebuttal of DORA’s Division of Real Estate complaint against Julie O’Gorman and sent it to our attorney. We found the complaint against Julie shocking, on many levels. Terrifying, really. It seems that the government can just allege whatever it wants without stating any facts. That they could swoop in and damage someone’s life by making false allegations still seems terrifying to me. Here is a link to the complaint that they filed, apparently without checking any facts whatsoever. Including the entire complaint in this blog post is not feasible, and I really want you to see it with your own eyes – it’s real, I’m not making this up!
If the state had contacted us before making these allegations and given us the chance to explain their misconceptions, they would not have had a case against Julie. But we still had not been contacted by anyone. So, we simply responded to our own attorney, Todd, about the matter. Here’s what we wrote. (To find the allegations that we were answering point-by-point, please refer to the link above.)
Our Observations on the Complaint Against O’Gorman
Confidential Remarks
Re: Julie M. O’Gorman Matter
From: Stan and Sharon Mann
Preliminary Observations:
It appears that virtually no defense was presented in behalf of Respondent O’Gorman because there are so many misstatements of facts set forth by the Attorney General.
No person ever contacted us to check on the veracity of what is stated as fact by the Attorney General.
Initial Factual Analysis: For ease in discussion the following comments will follow the numbered paragraphs set forth in the Notice Of Charges brought against Respondent by the Colorado Board of Real Estate Appraisers.
The appraisal cover letter does indeed state: “The market value of the proposed conservation easement considers the “hypothetical condition” that the proposed improvements of the subject property will be completed according to the preliminary plans and specifications supplied by xxxx, which includes annexation into the Town of Walsenburg and a zoning change from AG-Agricultural to a UR/Urbanizing Residential District. (Emphases added.) This, of course, is not true. The property was being developed in the County, not the City of Walsenburg, and the zoning is County zoning not City zoning. Thus, no discussion with the City planning department would have been prudent.
Clearly a misstatement of facts. Indeed, prior to 2004 the City Council held formal public annexation hearings. No opponents appeared at any of these hearings. As a result the City Council unanimously declared the property to be annexable. The next step was to set up the requirements the City wished to propose. After lengthy discussions with the Land Use Planner employed by the City, and what was believed to be total agreement between the Planner and Developer, the Water Committee wanted a nonrefundable contribution from Developer. Developer then requested and received an Extraterritorial Water and Sewer Agreement from the City in order to do the development in the County. All parties approved this approach. The City never denied annexation.
This statement is also false. The City never denied annexation and the only record that exists in the City records is a formal declaration that the property is annexable--a unanimous decision by the City Council.
Los Leones Ranches is not the same as Los Leones Subdivision. Annexation of Los Leones Ranches to the City had never been requested, and therefore could not have been denied, and was not denied. Annexation of Los Leones Subdivision was initiated, but withdrawn when the City agreed to supply water and sewer service to Los Leones Subdivision on an extraterritorial basis. No denial exists. Development had already begun in the County, and the City had already extended water service to three homesites in the County on an extraterritorial basis. There is no question that both the County and the City anticipated the development of “hundreds of acres” (emphasis added). Neither the City nor the County ever denied annexation or development of the property.
What Respondent could have said or should have said differently we do not know. But the “facts” alleged by the Attorney General are simply false.
Filing 1 of Los Leones Subdivision was approved, the zoning changed from AG-Agricultural to UR/Urbanizing Residential District, and two new homes constructed therein. Both those homes obtained City water service and have City water service to this date.
Filing 2 of Los Leones Subdivision had been preliminarily approved and the zoning officially changed from AG-Agricultural to UR/Urbanizing Residential District by the County Commissioners. Why Respondent refers to the “Town of Walsenburg” (it is a City, not a Town) in the second paragraph on page 39 of her appraisal we do not know. The City had nothing to do with County zoning.
The Attorney General states facts unrelated to the historical development of Los Leones Subdivision.
Further investigation—and a thorough defense—would have shown that electricity was extended (by us) the entire length and width of the property and is readily observable on the land. The prison line was actually placed on someone else’s property.
The “Water and Sewer Service Agreement” for Filing 2 was the second such agreement. Obviously there would have been a series of such Agreements as all parties contemplated. Any proper inquiry would have discovered this fact. Again, there never was an annexation denial, and annexation should not be an issue in the appraisal.
We do not have an opinion regarding this allegation. It is common knowledge in Walsenburg that the City owns water sufficient for a city of approximately 20,000 people, but has a population of around 4000.
This you will have to address.
This statement hinges upon the misstatements of fact by the Attorney General.
Respondent probably should have noted that Richard McCabe is a well-known developer with extensive experience and a great familiarity with the Los Leones project.
Already addressed.
It is quite obvious that Tract 10 is included in the development of “a much larger development.”
It appears the Attorney General and the Board are applying an appraisal standard not required for conservation easements.
Black Diamond and Los Leones are very similar.
A high percentage of the lots in Los Leones would also border on open space and a running stream.
The amenities listed for Black Diamond are just as available to Los Leones, and the difference in distance to these amenities is probably no more than 3 to 4 miles.
Los Leones is probably 200 yards off of the same Highway 160, and is about one mile from I-25. Black Diamond has two-lane gravel roads throughout the development. Once cannot enter Black Diamond without utilizing these gravel roads after turning off Highway 160. Los Leones does exactly the same thing.
The views from Los Leones are exactly the same as those from Black Diamond but from a slightly different angle. One would be hard pressed to note the difference.
This is a repeat of the same misstatements.
Too bad the Attorney General has immunity from prosecution for making false accusations.
Even a cursory reading of our response should give you an idea of how massively confused the state was in this case. Watch for what happens next! © Sharon Cairns Mann
Blog Post #13: The Tiny Cloud
But, this is where the first plot twist arose. On June 1, 2007, The Colorado Board of Real Estate Commissioners filed a complaint with the State’s Office of Administrative Courts regarding Julie O’Gorman.
In early 2007, we happily sent distribution checks to our partners again. We were gearing up for continued C.E. donations in 2007. We had 16 remaining parcels, and we planned on doing 8 in 2007 and 8 in 2008.
In addition to wanting to take advantage of the favorable conditions (the improved federal and state tax treatment mentioned in Posts #4 and #10), Stan and I were just tired. We had 23 partners, and dealing with all the tax questions that accompanied each transaction was nearly a full-time job, and Stan and I were both otherwise occupied. It made us incredibly busy, and we worked really hard on a lot of boring tax information, memos, research, and spreadsheets. It was natural that we wanted to get it over with as soon as possible!
Plot Twist: The Public’s Safety or Welfare
But, this is where the first plot twist arose. On June 1, 2007, The Colorado Board of Real Estate Commissioners filed a complaint with the State’s Office of Administrative Courts regarding Julie O’Gorman. Julie had been our real estate appraiser, and ran a well-reputed real estate appraisal company in Loveland. The shocking thing about the complaint was that the Division of Real Estate issued an emergency summary suspension of Julie’s license. Summary suspensions are rare and used only where the public’s safety or welfare requires immediate action.
From comments submitted to the Greeley Tribune when it broke the story, we learned that O’Gorman had a long and distinguished career in real estate. It appeared from reader comments that she was well-known and respected, she had been a certified appraiser for 12 years, she was on the Larimer County Board of Appeals, and was a member of both the Loveland and Fort Collins Chambers of Commerce. She had offices in Loveland, Westminster, Cheyenne, Pueblo and Montrose. Needless to say, this action came as quite a shock to Julie and to her community because there was no hearing prior to the suspension.
The hearing was set for August and we learned that Julie was not allowed to work or even visit her own offices during her suspension – almost three months! All of this seemed unnecessarily harsh.
The public’s reaction was mostly supportive of Julie, and became increasingly negative about Division of Real Estate Director, Erin Toll. Over the next months and years, Toll possibly became one of the most-hated public officials in the history of Colorado, but it took four years before Toll’s “take-no prisoners character trait” would “prove to be her undoing.” (From The Denver Post, “The rise (and fall) of Erin Toll, Colorado regulator with a tough reputation.”)
Todd contacted us about two weeks after this startling development to let us know about it. We were especially stunned because one of our appraisals (Tract #10) was mentioned in the complaint, and yet no one had ever contacted us. No one had questioned us about anything related to the appraisals, so we were completely blindsided. The appraisals seemed incredibly thorough to us, and we had, in fact, been utterly shocked at the low valuations – remember, we were going to develop this land, meaning selling many, many lots in each parcel. So, when we got the appraisals we had thought they were very low, but it didn’t matter because they passed the threshold for the valuation for the conservation easements; therefore, the fact that Julie as being investigated for artificially inflating the appraisals was jaw-dropping to us.
Additionally, we were puzzled about how one of our appraisals had gotten into the hands of DORA. After all, it was really confidential material. As far as we knew we were the only ones who had a copy, plus Julie, plus our partner who was assigned to Tract #10, and Todd. It was a mystery for a while, but after some investigation, Todd discovered the root of the problem. Todd had talked to Kevin Shea, who apparently posed as someone interested in brokering the sale of tax credits. Todd gave him our appraisal, and Kevin turned around and gave it to Mark Weston (why would he do that?), who turned around and gave it to Erin Toll (why would he do that?). (These facts were later verified at Julie’s hearing.)
The answer to “why would he do that?” has never been clear – the actions of Shea and Weston just seem petty and mean-spirited – but as the story unfolds, you’ll see a pattern: it appeared that the “Good Old Boys” who had a cozy, insular club of appraisers and land trusts in the conservation arena did not like the new upstarts like Todd and Julie. If you happened to read the article I mentioned in Blog #1 (scroll to bottom), which describes the lawsuit that landowners recently filed against the State of Colorado, you’ll see that we are not the only ones appalled by Mark Weston’s actions – the suit names him “individually and in his official capacity as Director of the Colorado Conservation Easement Commission,” which was not his capacity when he handed the appraisal over to Erin Toll – there was no “oversight” commission at that time. As far as I know, he was just an appraiser at the time.
Our Response to Julie
Of his own accord, Stan wrote a confidential rebuttal to the complaint, and sent it to Todd, merely as an exercise. Julie was represented by another well-known attorney in Denver, with whom we had no relationship. Julie’s hearing was scheduled for August, and we were curious about it, but felt it would blow over and she would be vindicated. While we are exceedingly irritated about Erin Toll’s actions, we were utterly confident that all would go well for Julie, they would straighten it all out, and that would be the end of it. Little did we know what a huge storm would erupt from this tiny cloud. © Sharon Cairns Mann
Blog Post #12: Happy Futures
The state was unquestionably seeking to “incentivize” landowners. If that’s not bait, I don’t know what is.
Can you imagine how happy you would be if you made that kind of money for your family members or friends while doing some good for the environment!?
During 2006, we continued to move forward with another batch of conservation easements. We were able to complete the paperwork (appraisals, baseline reports, etc.,) and by the end of the year we had created another eight conservations easements and donated them to Noah Land Conservation.
Again, we carefully reviewed every document that Todd sent us. The paperwork for each transaction was a bit overwhelming, but we powered through.
Todd handled brokering the sales of the tax credits to the transferees and had no trouble finding people who wanted them. It certainly seemed as if it were true that he had people lining up to buy them. And, we started hearing more about others who were doing conservation easements. It seemed like a gold mine for everyone, and everyone seemed happy. More and more land was being permanently preserved in Colorado. Landowners weren’t making as much as they would have from an outright sale of the land, but they got to live on their own land and enjoy it, protect it from future development, and receive the tax credit or the proceeds from selling the tax credit. And, of course, they also got the federal deduction.
The State of Colorado Is Happy
In fact, the State was so happy with this program that on May 1st, 2006, Colorado Governor Owens signed House Bill 06-1354 into law. This bill:
Adjusted the formula structure of the conservation easement tax credit program. It replaces the previous two-tiered structure with a single-rate structure that allows up to 50% of the fair market value (FMV) of the conservation easement to be claimed as a state tax credit.
The bill simultaneously increased the maximum amount of the credit that may be claimed from $260,000 to $375,000 (50% of the first 750,000 FMV of the donation), meaning we would be able to sell the tax credits for more.
It’s hard to believe, with the passage of an optimistic and incentivizing bill like that, that the state was unhappy with the C.E. program. I can’t overstate this – the state was unquestionably seeking to “incentivize” landowners. If that’s not bait, I don’t know what is.
We closed out 2006 with eight more C.E.s, and in early 2007, we again wrote checks to our partners. By the time we sent this second batch of checks, the return on their original investment was close to 400% and we were thrilled that our patience and their patience had paid off. Can you imagine how happy you would be if you made that kind of money for your family members or friends while doing some good for the environment!?
Just a few more years of doing these donations in batches, and we would be finished. Eventually all the land would be in C.E.’s and we could end the partnership, and feel confident that we had done a beautiful thing. Life was good and we all had happy futures. © Sharon Cairns Mann
Blog Post #11: Riding High
Yes, nine long years after our initial formation, Stan and I could finally write checks to our cherished partners. You can’t imagine our joy in sending them money! Hallelujah, this was going to work. It was a miracle!
By the end of November 2005, we were finalizing the details of a settlement with T.C.*, and ready to move forward with the Conservation Easements.
Todd, our “one-stop shop” C.E. attorney, encouraged us to actually go ahead and make some donations for 2005. After the lawsuit with T.C., we were hurting for cash, so we decided this was “A Miracle” – an answer to our many prayers -- and we moved forward with gusto.
We read all the materials that Todd had given us, and Stan diligently studied the law on conservation easements. As Todd said, “The law was made for us.” There were no red flags. It was golden.
Phasing the Subdivision
The next step was to finish “phasing” the subdivision. We had Phase I and Phase II drawn up and approved by the county. We needed to finish dividing up all the land.
Why? Because a landowner could only make one C.E. donation per year, and at that rate, it would take us 24-to-28 years to make all the 35-acre donations from our 1000-acre parcel.
Wait! Why wouldn’t we just donate the whole thing all at once and be done with it? Because we’d only get the $260,000 tax credit once for the entire 1000 acres, whereas if we divided the 1000 acres into 35-acre parcels (entirely legal), we could do 24-to-28 donations x $260,000. We had 24 partners, so it worked out perfectly. It was a miracle – the law was made for us. In fact, in looking back through my files to refresh my memory to write this post, I found a letter we sent to the partners explaining how the C.E.s worked, in which we wrote, “Interestingly enough, this is also part of the miracle because owning the land in a limited partnership sets us up in an ideal way to maximize the potential of conservation easements -- far more so than if a single individual owned the land.”
One of our partners owned an engineering firm, so he finished up the “phasing” of the subdivision for us, dividing it into 28 parcels, and we were able to create seven qualified donations in 2005.
The Cost of Donating a Conservation Easement
Little did we know how expensive doing the C.E.’s was going to be! There were fees for the subdivision work, high fees for the appraiser (an appraisal was required for the donation), fees for some guy (it turned out to be Todd’s father) to come and do a “Baseline Report,” and, of course, Todd’s bills.
And, honest-to-goodness, I’m not making this up: we had to give a cash donation to the Land Trust to help cover the costs of administration of the land we were donating to them! Sheesh! We began to feel a little frustrated as we saw our profits on each parcel dwindle. Even if we could get the predicted $208,000 for a brokered deal, we were paying tens of thousands of dollars for each donation. We were beginning to feel a little raked over.
Still, we trusted this was The Miracle we needed, and the proceeds, even if they were dwindling daily, would cover our recent legal expenses in our T.C. case, and still net enough to start sending money to our partners. Additionally, we were genuinely excited about preserving the land and the amazing views from the county road that bisects the property. We have to drive right down the middle of that 1000 acre parcel to reach our home, and we were delighted that the land could be preserved.
December was a blitz of paperwork and following Todd’s directions: sign this, sigh this, sign this.
At one point, I remember saying to him, “just let us know when the appraiser is coming down, and we’ll show her around,” and he said, “oh, she’s already been there.” And, sure enough, massive and complex appraisals started showing up. I don’t remember actually having a holiday season that year. It was just a mad scramble to keep up and get all the paperwork done and ready.
The Appraisals Arrive: Sticker Shock in More Ways Than One!
The appraisals were huge documents, hundreds of pages long. We were shocked at the values in the appraisals. They were very low in relationship to the future development value of our subdivision, and C.E. appraisals are to be done taking the “highest and best use” of the land into consideration. Our appraiser clearly didn’t understand how valuable our land was, and what we would earn if we continued to build it out as a development. But, it didn’t really matter, because the appraisal figures were still high enough to get us over the threshold for getting the full tax credit for each parcel. Dear reader, please bookmark this thought as it will be very important in the future!
In addition, the cost of the appraisals was beastly! They were about $3,800.00 each and we did seven, so we had to pay the appraiser more than $26,000. We later found out that was relatively cheap – that other appraisers charged $20,000 to $100,000 for a single conservation easement appraisal! Do you smell a racket?
Writing Checks
The transferees (the people buying the tax credits) have until April 15 of the following tax year to buy the tax credits, so we knew we might have to wait for the all to be sold. But, in December of 2005, the money started coming in, with commitments for all of the money to arrive by April 1, 2006.
After paying all the costs associated with donating the easements, we really did have some money left over, and we began making distributions to our partners in March. Yes, nine long years after our initial formation, Stan and I could finally write checks to our cherished partners. You can’t imagine our joy in sending them money! Hallelujah, this was going to work. It was a miracle. © Sharon Cairns Mann
*Unfortunately, we can’t say a peep about the settlement.
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SIPPYCUPS & CUFFLINKS
Learning to be a better person, by raising two of my very own...
Sippy Cup is an extremely lucky little boy who is spoiled by his grandparents, relatives and even my next door neighbors. For Christmas, he received an absurd amount of gifts and (after he had unwrapped all of them) we thought it would be a good idea to store some of the smaller toys to be opened on a rainy, boring weekend. We figured it would be an awesome way to extend the holiday season well into the summer.
He, on the other hand, thought this was a terrible idea and has spent the past few days sneaking under the couch and into the closet to try and open his remaining gifts.
Me: "Hey, little guy, quick question: who opened the truck that was under the couch?"
Sippy Cup (shocked): "I didn't do it! Nino did it!"
Me: "Really? Your grandfather opened up a toy truck to play with it?"
Sippy Cup (nodding): "I told him not to do it. But he never listens to me."
Me: "Oh wow. He didn't listen to you? That's not good. I'm going to call him and find out why he didn't listen to you."
Sippy Cup (running to grab the phone out of my hand):
"No! No! Wait! Don't call him! Ha! You don't have to call him!"
Me: "Why not? If you're telling the truth, it won't matter. He'll explain it to me."
Sippy Cup (jumping up and down): "Look! I'm exercising! Where's my sweater? I think I left it in my room."
Me: "Fantastic attempt at distraction, I must say. Regardless, I'm calling him."
Sippy Cup (looking over his shoulder and whispering): "No, wait, it was a ghost!"
Me: "A ghost? A ghost opened your toy truck?"
Sippy Cup (replicating a zombie's lopsided stroll): "Yes! With his wavy arms! Ooooh! Ooooooooooooooh! Look at my scary, magic, wavy arms!"
Me (sighing): "You want to try this one more time? Who opened the truck?"
Sippy Cup (looking up at me): "I'm just going to go sit on timeout for a few minutes and think about it."
Me: "Good idea."
Growing Up Means
Letters to Future Sippy Cup
Memo to Future Parents
Movies With Awesome Dads
Mr. Cufflink Presents...
Silent Postings
The Bottle Caps
Things I Never Thought I'd Say
What I Learned Today
What I Should Have Said
Questions of Etiquette
Stunt Cups
We Do These Things Too
Disclaimer / Terms of Service
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Disneynature BEARS Releases Aug 12
As this family's Momma Bear I am so excited to see this! I know the children will love it, for sure!
Get ready for an epic journey to the Alaskan wilderness without leaving home as Disneynature's Bears releases on Blu-ray Combo Pack on August 12th! A portion of first-week sales will be donated to the National Park Foundation as part of the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund to Protect Wildlife and Wild Places. Bonus features include the music video for "Carry On" featuring Olivia Holt and four making-of featurettes.
This spectacular film showcases a year in the life of a bear family as two young cubs are taught life's most important lessons.
Press materials available for download at http://tinyurl.com/DisneynatureBears
This is just an announcement so please hold review requests at this time.
FROM THE STUDIO THAT BROUGHT YOU
“Earth” and “Chimpanzee”
The True Life Adventure Comes Home on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, Digital HD,
Disney Movies Anywhere, and On-Demand, Aug. 12, 2014!
Disneynature Will Donate a Portion of First-Week Sales to the National Park Foundation
Through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund To Protect Wildlife and Wild Places
Burbank, Calif., June 13, 2014 – From Disneynature, the studio that brought you “Earth” and “Chimpanzee,” comes the must-own true life adventure “Bears,” available on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy), Digital HD, Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA), and On-Demand, Aug. 12, 2014. An epic story of breathtaking scale, this heartwarming and visually spectacular film showcases a year in the life of a bear family as two impressionable young cubs are taught life’s most important lessons. Families everywhere can now travel to a majestic Alaskan wilderness teeming with life without leaving home as “Bears” arrives on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, and Digital HD featuring stunning high definition picture, transporting sound, and exciting bonus features both parents and their children will love.
To celebrate the in-home debut of “Bears,” Disneynature is proud to continue the conservation program initiated with the film’s theatrical release. For every purchase of the movie through August 19, 2014, Disneynature will make a donation through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund to the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks, to further protect and conserve endangered or threatened wildlife and wild places as well as enhance field research across more than 2.9 million acres of National Park Service land.
Bonus features on the “Bears” Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, and Digital HD include the music video for “Carry On,” featuring Olivia Holt, and four making-of featurettes, including “Welcome To Alaska,” which tracks the filmmakers as they set forth on an epic journey to film Sky and her cubs out in the wilds of the Alaskan frontier; “The Future For The Bears,” which spotlights a special visit to the film’s production from legendary primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall; “A Guide to Living With Bears,” which introduces viewers to the guides who instructed the filmmakers on how to work with these magnificent creatures; and “How Did They Film That?,” which provides an inside look on some of the extreme filmmaking that went into getting shots high in the mountains and under frigid cold water.
“Bears” was directed by Alastair Fothergill (“Earth,” “African Cats” and “Chimpanzee”) and Keith Scholey (“African Cats”). It features narration by John C. Reilly (“Wreck-It Ralph,” “Chicago” and “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”).
This must-own Disneynature true life adventure can be experienced in the following formats with bonus features as listed:
Bonus Materials for This Product:
Blu-ray, Digital HD & DMA
· Welcome To Alaska - Journey with the filmmakers into the Alaskan wilds to film Sky and her cubs.
· The Future For The Bears - Experience the thrill of living with the bears during production, and the importance of protecting the wilderness to ensure their survival…and our own.
· A Guide To Living With Bears - Learn how the team interacts safely with these magnificent creatures.
· How Did They Film That? - Get an inside look on some of the extreme filmmaking that went into getting shots high in the mountains and under frigid cold water.
· “Carry On” Music Video By Olivia Holt
*Digital bonus offerings will vary per retailer
Disc Specifications:
Street Date: Aug. 12, 2014 (Direct Prebook: 06/17/14 Distributor Prebook: 07/01/14)
Feature Run Time: Approximately 78 Minutes
Rating: Feature Film: “G” in U.S., “G” in Canada (CE and CF)
Bonus Features Not Rated
Aspect Ratio: Blu-ray Feature Film = 1.78:1 • 1080p High Definition
DVD Feature Film = 1.78:1 • Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions
Audio: Blu-ray Feature Film = English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks
DVD Feature Film = English 5.1 and DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks
Languages/Subtitles: English, SDH, Spanish and French Subtitles (Applies To Film Content Only)
Learn more and get connected: Visit our Website: http://disney.com/bears
Like our Facebook page @ Facebook.com/Disneynature
Follow us on Twitter @ Twitter.com/Disneynature
Also, check us out on: Tumblr @ Disneynature.tumblr.com;
Pinterest @ Pinterest.com/disneystudios/disneynature;
Instagram @ Instagram.com/disneystudios
Hashtags #DisneynatureBears, #MeetTheCubs, #Scout and #Amber
ABOUT DISNEYNATURE:
Disneynature was launched in April 2008. Its mission is to bring the world’s top nature filmmakers together to share a wide variety of wildlife stories on the big screen in order to engage, inspire and educate theatrical audiences everywhere. Walt Disney was a pioneer in wildlife filmmaking, producing 13 True-Life Adventure motion pictures between 1948 and 1960, which earned eight Academy Awards®. The first four Disneynature films, “Earth,” “Oceans,” “African Cats” and “Chimpanzee,” are four of the top five highest overall grossing feature-length nature films to date, with “Chimpanzee” garnering a record-breaking opening weekend for the genre. Disney’s commitment to conservation is a key pillar of the label and Disneynature films empower the audience to help make a difference. Through donations tied to opening-week attendance and week 1 Blu-ray sales for all four films, Disneynature, through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, has planted three million trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, established 40,000 acres of marine protected area in The Bahamas, protected 65,000 acres of savanna in Kenya, protected nearly 130,000 acres of wild chimpanzee habitat, educated 60,000 school children about chimpanzee conservation and cared for chimpanzees. For more information about Disneynature, like us on Facebook: facebook.com/Disneynature and follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/Disneynature.
ABOUT THE WALT DISNEY WORLD CONSERVATION FUND:
The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund works to inspire people and partnerships to protect the world’s wildlife and to connect kids to nature to help develop lifelong conservation values. To date, DWCF has granted more than $18 million to support conservation programs in 112 countries, including funding to support community conservation programs to protect lions, cheetahs and chimpanzees. More information about DWCF’s efforts for wildlife, wild places and the people so closely linked to their survival can be found at disney.com/conservation. The DWCF also maintains the Rapid Response Fund, which has provided emergency funding to more than 160 relief efforts.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION:
The National Park Foundation is the official charity of America's national parks and nonprofit partner to the National Park Service. Chartered by Congress in 1967, the National Park Foundation raises private funds to help PROTECT more than 84 million acres of national parks through critical conservation and preservation efforts, CONNECT all Americans with their incomparable natural landscapes, vibrant culture and rich history, and INSPIRE the next generation of park stewards. Find out more and become a part of the national park community at www.nationalparks.org.
ABOUT DISNEY MOVIES ANYWHERE (DMA):
Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA) is a cloud-based digital movie service that offers a hassle-free way for consumers to buy, watch, and manage Disney digital content across platforms and devices via the easy-to-use DMA app or at DisneyMoviesAnywhere.com. A DMA-eligible digital title purchased from an iTunes-connected account or redeemed in DMA will be accessible in a user’s DMA and iTunes lockers. There are currently over 400 films from Disney’s rich history available through DMA for streaming and download, including Disney Branded Animation, Disney Live-Action, Pixar, and Marvel titles, along with exclusive, original content. For more information or to redeem Digital Copy codes to build your library and earn Disney Movie Rewards Points for digital purchases, visit DisneyMoviesAnywhere.com.
ABOUT THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS:
For 90 years, The Walt Disney Studios has been the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company was built. Today, the Studio brings quality movies, music and stage plays to consumers throughout the world. Feature films are released under the following banners: Disney, including Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios; Disneynature; Marvel Studios; Lucasfilm; and Touchstone Pictures, the banner under which live-action films from DreamWorks Studios are distributed. The Disney Music Group encompasses the Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records labels, as well as Disney Music Publishing. The Disney Theatrical Group produces and licenses live events, including Disney on Broadway, Disney On Ice and Disney Live!
Posted by Ashley Gill at 5:36 PM
Ashley Gill
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Undead, undead, undead: Bauhaus reunites for first concert in 13 years this November
Goth-rock legends Bauhaus will reunite for their first concert in 13 years this November, a performance at the Hollywood Palladium that comes after the band seemingly had split into competing camps in recent years, with bassist David J touring with frontman Peter Murphy and guitarist Daniel Ash teaming up with drummer Kevin Haskins as Poptone.
The band — featuring all four original members — will perform at the 5,000-capacity Los Angeles venue on Nov. 3. Tickets, priced at $79.50, go on sale at 10 a.m. PST on Friday, Sept. 13.
No other concerts have been announced, nor has any explanation been offered for the reunion, which is being revealed just weeks after Murphy suffered a heart attack during a run of New York City shows.
Bauhaus first reunited for well-received tours in 1998 and then again in 2005, but the group has not played live since it finished its European tour in early 2006. The band followed that up with a new album, Go Away White, which was released in 2008. But that also marked Bauhaus’s end, as the group crumbled in acrimony and didn’t tour or promote the new record.
In recent years, Ash and Haskins have toured as Poptone, performing sets largely comprised of their Tones on Tail material, but also featuring selections by Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. David J joined Murphy last year on his tour celebrating 40 years of Bauhaus.
Peter Murphy: ‘I am very happy to say that I have made a full recovery’ from heart attack
Peter Murphy suffers heart attack; remainder of New York City residency postponed
Six Bauhaus albums to be reissued on colored vinyl for band’s 40th anniversary
Bauhaus releasing 5-song 1979 studio session that spawned ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’
Tags: Bauhaus, Daniel Ash, David J, Kevin Haskins, Love and Rockets, Peter Murphy, Poptone
daniel t pelfrey
I am expecting this to be helping to cover Murphy’s medical expenses.
Scott Stalcup
Funny old thing, mortality.
Hopefully they’ll finally realize, “We’re a stronger unit together than fragmented.” Saw them in 2004 sandwiched between Peaches and NIN. Left before NIN took the stage. No point in waiting for The Monkees to come on after The Beatles.
Great show. Sorry they had to deal with the Indianapolis crowd. No coincidence that the city’s name shares the same first four letters as “indifference.”
Great news. Those four have unbelievable chemistry when they are able to be in the same room together. I was wondering if events would merge since David J was performing with Murphy and the other two sprang up as Poptone. I also saw them open for Nine Inch Nails, which seemed absurd because they were and are the better band by an infinite amount.
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Home / Posts tagged 'Through the Looking Glass'
New releases: Siouxsie and the Banshees, XTC, Afghan Whigs, Wedding Present, Nick Cave
This week’s new releases include a huge number of reissues, with re-released titles coming from Siouxsie and the Banshees, XTC, The Afghan Whigs, The Wedding Present and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, plus a brand-new live album from The Fall compiled by Mark E. Smith.
Tracklists revealed for Siouxsie and the Banshees’ final 4 expanded reissues
Late last month, Siouxsie and the Banshees confirmed the long-overdue reissue of the final four albums in the band’s catalog, and while tracklists were not announced at the time, they’ve now been revealed as the re-releases have appeared on Amazon UK for pre-order ahead of the Oct. 13 street date.
Siouxsie and the Banshees’ final 4 expanded reissues confirmed for Oct. 13 release
As we first reported last month, the final four titles in Siouxsie and the Banshees’ catalog (1987′s Through the Looking Glass 1988′s Peepshow, 1991′s Superstition and 1995′s The Rapture) finally will receive expanded-and-remastered CD reissues — and today the band itself announced a new, confirmed release date of Oct. 13.
Steven Severin hints Siouxsie and the Banshees’ final 4 reissues coming Sept. 15
Bassist Steven Severin hinted this weekend that the final four titles in Siouxsie and the Banshees’ catalog finally will receive expanded reissues Sept. 15, more than four years after Universal Music pulled the plug on the band’s reissue campaign midstream.
Steven Severin: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ reissue program dumped by Univeral Music
Universal Music Group is scrapping its Siouxsie and the Banshees reissue program midstream, meaning the band’s’ final four albums — 1987’s Through the Looking Glass 1988’s Peepshow, 1991’s Superstition and 1995’s The Rapture — will not receive expanded re-releases as originally planned, ex-bassist Steven Severin reports.
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The Most Inspiring Athletes of 2020
by Promoted Posts on February 4, 2020 in Promoted
We get inspired by athletes in various ways; they encourage us to reach greatness. Sports being part of the world and our daily lives, many people hold the athletes as role models in society. In many parts of the world, athletes are in the same light as activists, politicians, and even religious leaders.
This post is going to highlight the top 3 most inspiring athletes of 2020, their achievements, and how they have inspired the world in their career.
Dina was faster than her teachers at the age of seven; her old friends can now tell that she is a grown version of her young self. The twenty-three-year-old lady has had a successful and inspiring career journey.
She was born and grew up in Orpington, in the high-end areas of South East London.
Dina Asher’s Career
In her career life, Dina has managed to scoop several awards including:
Shining in the four by hundred meters relay at the Beijing Championship in 2009.
She won a silver medal at Great Britain’s 4x100m team at the International Association of Athletes Federation in the Doha world championship. This is aside from her earlier won, two hundred meters race gold and hundred-meter race silver, making it a new British record.
She is currently aiming for an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo next year.
Her Personality
Dina is known to be a fantastic, modest, modest, humble, hard-working, kind, enthusiastic, bright, and incredible person. She is one of the most helpful humans, as described by her competitors and her teachers. She inspires the world because she excelled in her studies just a year after she won a hundred meters at the World Junior Championships.
She’s also recognized for setting a British record in the two hundred meters at her ever first world championships in Beijing. She not only excelled in the athlete but also inspired many when she appeared on the Elle Cover magazine, which featured her other significant personality.
Through Dina’s’s career goals, we get to understand that great inspiration comes from such people, we gain confidence in life, committed to our goals. The truth is that we need daily inspiration that you can listen to, watch, or read inspiring quotes from athletes, their drive and determination will magically lift your spirit. The quotes provoke our emotions. Inspiration is a necessary benefactor to pursuing our goals. Yes, an inspiration may get you out of bed.
Janja Garnbret
The twenty-year-old is a renowned reincarnated spider monkey in her climbing career; she can scale walls. She first conquered her peaks by climbing trees, furniture, and cabinets. She studied climbing techniques as a sport. She first clinched the European Junior Champion title in 2013 in the National Colors Championship. By the end of high school, Janja had achieved her two dozens world-class awards. She won gold at the World Junior Championships in 2014, 2015, and 2016 and progressed to win in most IFSC competitions.
Her achievements include:
Becoming the first to win every world cup event in seasons.
Winning the world climbing titles in 2018 and 2019, making her the most favorite for Olympic gold.
In 2017, Janja won the World Cup as she finished second.
She was named a champion of the year in the Slovenian Sports Journalists Association in 2018. In 2019, she received an outstanding International Achievement award.
Janja’s most exciting part is that she aims to conquer the peaks of the world’s most robust rock formations.
Kylie Masse
The 23-year-old is renowned for her swimming excellence. She won bronze in 2016, setting a national record. She made history in 2014 by becoming the first Canadian lady to get the swimming title after she scooped a gold.
She inspires the world with her extraordinary swimming skils, where she started at the age of 10. She liked swimming and latter joined a competitive team with her siblings, where she discovered herself.
Her coach describes her as a humble lady who just wants to enjoy the moment. She is caring, helping those around, and thrives in a group, living life.
Athletes work hard and overcome all odds to make their career success, their busy and active schedules, the challenges. They inspire people to strive for such alife, knowing that nobody can put a limit on what you want to do with your life.
If you want something, go for it, and if you feel discouraged and exhausted along the way, don’t just give up easily, think about such inspiring champions and wake up to your dream life.
← Highlights of Auburn’s 75-66 Win Over Kentucky
Auburn Basketball Review – Week 14 (Ole Miss, Kentucky) →
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In Latin this word means a female animal used for breeding. In Geology it is the natural material surrounding a metal or gem. In Biology it is the intercellular substance of a tissue. The commonest use of the word, however, is in Mathematics. Also appearing in the title of a film with superb special effects, which word? (The) MATRIX
A famous example of classic Arabic literature is ‘The Book of One Thousand and One Nights’. Part of the book is a collection of travel-romances telling the story of a legendary sailor’s fantastic voyages on the Indian Ocean. What was the name of that sailor? SINDBAD (Sinbad)
The name of this African language comes from Arabic, meaning ‘coast’. The syntax and grammar is Bantu but much of the vocabulary can be associated with Arabs and Persians who moved to the East African coast. There are approximately five million first-language speakers and 30 to 50 million second-language speakers. Which language? SWAHILI
In 1927, a famous sports team was created by Abe Saperstein. Originally known as the ‘Savoy Big Five’, they have played more than 20,000 games under their current name, notably against the Washington Generals and the New York Nationals. What is the name of the team? HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS
In Judo the highest levels, normally signified by a black belt, are called Dan. What name is given to the lower levels that can be represented by yellow, orange, green, blue or brown belts? KYŪ
What name is given to the simulation strategy game that became, in 2002, the best-selling PC-game in history (with over 6 million copies sold)? The aim of the game is to create people and help them attain their personal goals. The player has to ensure the characters find a job, have fun and keep healthy. Some add-ins were called ‘Hot Date’, ‘Vacation’, ‘House Party’ and ‘Superstar’. The SIMS
One particular month is known for its close connection to warfare and tragedies. Events taking place in that month include: the outbreak of the American Civil War and the Bosnian War, the Rwandan genocide; the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II; the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the San Francisco earthquake, the first use of poison gas in WWI and the sinking of the Titanic. Which month? APRIL
In order to fight the French, Native American tribes like Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca formed a confederacy. What was this confederacy called? IROQUOIS
In 1905, a patent clerk from Bern published a number of articles that changed the world. The year 1905 was later called his ‘annus mirabilis’. Who was this man? Albert EINSTEIN
What important source of protein in the cuisines of China, Japan, Korea and South-East Asia, dating back to the Han dynasty, is made from dried soybeans that are soaked in water, crushed and boiled? Its by-product Okara is also eaten. TOFU
Where would a Saudi man wear a Ghutra, Iqal and Tagia? HEAD (CLOTH, CORD, SKULL CAP)
Which part of the body might a doctor examine using an Otoscope? EAR
The NASA Cassini mission, which also carried the ESA’s Huygens probe, is exploring which Solar system planet through to the year 2017? SATURN
This imaginary line passes through the headquarters of the Swatch company and is the basis of a time system devised by them for their latest watches. By what name is this time system known? INTERNET Time
Mexico’s largest state gave its name to a breed of dog. What name? CHIHUAHUA
There are about 6,000 languages spoken in the world. About 1,000 of them are spoken on a single island. Which island? NEW GUINEA
In many Eastern belief systems it is an incarnation or representation of a deity or holy man. Younger people will probably be familiar with the word used to describe it not from religion, but from internet chat rooms. Which word? AVATAR
Which African country with the official name of Federal Democratic Republic of …., still uses the pre-Julian Solar calendar, which has 12 months that are 30 days, and a thirteenth month that is five or six days? Its New Year commences on September 11 in the Gregorian (Western) calendar and ends on the following September 10. In addition, the the calendar runs eight years behind the Gregorian. ETHIOPIA
In the cult television series The Simpsons, there is a cartoon that runs in the background and is often part of the main story. What is the name of this show? THE ITCHY & SCRATCHY SHOW
What name is given to the 13th century collection of over 1,000 mostly Latin songs, poems and religious plays, some of which were set to music by the 20th century German composer Carl Orff? CARMINA BURANA
The original Arabic news channel, it was set up in Qatar in 1996. Which network was forced to close its office in Baghdad in August 2004 by the Iraqi interim government? AL-JAZEERA
Which chemical element is the main constituent of photographic emulsions? SILVER
Unlike most birds which hunt by sight or hearing, this bird has nostrils at the tip of its beak. It uses these to smell and find its food. What is this bird, which known for another reason to most of us? KIWI
What do we call the study of forces acting on bodies, whether moving or at rest? MECHANICS
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Cannes 2016 – Irish Cinema’s International Deals
May 16, 2016 Updated: October 30, 2019 08:31:12
INTERNATIONAL DEALS ANNOUNCED FOR IRISH FILMS AT THE CANNES FILM MARKET
The leading lights of the Irish film industry have been making their presence felt at the Cannes Film market, Le Marché du Film, this weekend with a number of international sales deals announced. There are 26 Irish films selling in the market in total.
Irish production company Tilted Films have announced that ‘Juno’ star Ellen Page has joined the cast of the new Irish film ‘Third Wave’ to be directed by David Freyne. The film, also penned by Freyne, is set in the aftermath of a devastating virus that has gripped the continent for six years, transforming humans into zombie-like monsters. The film is produced by Tilted Films with support from the Irish Film Board.
Sales news include deals for Irish prison break story MAZE directed by Stephen Burke. NonStop Entertainment have picked up for Scandinavian rights and a UK deal is understood to be in the works for the true story of the 1983 escape by 38 prisoners from the HMP Maze high security prison in Northern Ireland which was filmed on location in Cork last month. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor stars as Larry Marley, the chief architect behind the break-out. The film is produced by Mammoth Films with support from the Irish Film Board.
North American and Latin American rights to Billy O’Brien’s I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER have been picked up by IFC Midnight. The film, with a screenplay by O’Brien and Christopher Hyde, is based on the novel by Dan Wells, stars Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser and Karl Geary. I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER made its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year and was produced by Floodland Pictures.
Ireland will also be represented at the Cannes Film Festival by Irish actress Ruth Negga who will walk the red carpet for her new film LOVING selected for International Competition at the festival. Renowned Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan has two films in international competition in Cannes including Ken Loach’s film I, DANIEL BLAKE which premièred to rapturous applause on Friday evening and AMERICAN HONEY starring Shia LaBeouf.
The Irish Pavilion in Cannes is the focal point for the Irish industry and is set up to promote Irish film to the international market, to promote Ireland as a destination for large international film & TV projects and to provide business support for the Irish industry.
Previous Previous post: Nuit Debout in Ireland – Levons-nous!
Next Next post: Ken Loach Wins Again at Cannes
January 17, 2014 Updated: October 30, 2019 08:32:38
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Carney Says BOE Will Keep Polluting Industries in QE Program
The Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said he’ll maintain the status of polluting industries in the central bank’s bond buying program even though he’s worried investors aren’t doing enough to assess the risks of climate change.
The bank shouldn’t “overburden” monetary policy with rules that could restrict the kind of bonds that are included in a quantitative easing program to bolster the economy, Carney said in an interview with Bloomberg television on Thursday.
Almost half of Bank of England corporate bonds bought are from companies in manufacturing and utilities industries, even though they make up less than 12 percent of the economy. All together, those companies produce 52 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.K., according to research by the London School of Economics and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Conversely, renewable energy companies aren’t represented in the Bank of England purchases, though oil and gas companies make up 1.8 percent, the research showed.
Carney said there were no plans to review the bond buying program and that he had no plans to “make judgments” about policies on climate.
“We just mimic the gilt curve. When we buy corporate bonds, the only restriction that we have is that an issuer has to have material activity here in the U.K.,” he said.
FSB Chief
In his role as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, Carney on Thursday published recommendations for investors and companies on how to be more transparent about risks they may face from the growth of low carbon goods and services, that could harm investments in highly polluting industries.
Carney said he was worried investors aren’t doing enough to assess climate risk and the recommendations from a taskforce of industry experts encourages companies to include scenarios in their financial reports showing how they could be affected by climate change in the longer term.
“Who’s going to win, who’s going to lose, who’s going to benefit who’s going to be penalized? If I’m allocating capital, I want to know. I want to have that information to make those judgments,” Carney said.
Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News and its parent company Bloomberg LP, was appointed to lead the 31-member panel, which also includes executives and advisers from a variety of industries around the world.
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Falling Clean Energy Costs Can Provide Opportunity to Boost Climate Action in COVID-19 Recovery Packages
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Merrill Lynch Much More Optimistic for Upside in Major Utilities in 2019 and Beyond
Last Updated: January 30, 2020 10:39 pm
Many investors flocked into the utility sector during and after the Great Recession. After all, this was a safety and defensive investing strategy, first and foremost. But the sector also offered investors high dividend yields at a time when interest rates were next to zero. But now that interest rates have risen handily, those interest rates have started to tick lower on the long-end of the yield curve. Some investors might be thinking that the safety and income from utilities already has seen its upside.
Merrill Lynch does not feel that way at all. During the week of March 29, 2019, the firm increased its price objectives on many top utility stocks in its coverage universe, and it has Buy ratings on many of these names. While not all the utility shares come with Buy ratings, even some of the more cautious names saw their price objectives raised substantially.
Here 24/7 Wall St. offers a brief review of each company, along with the respective hikes in the price objective and the 52-week trading ranges and Refinitiv consensus analyst target prices.
The electric utilities team at Merrill Lynch is made up of seven named analysts making the reports. With several utility companies embarking on substantial renewable build-outs across the firm’s coverage universe, the firm examined the nuances of tax credits and the major players that utilize various recognition methods. The firm does note that it continues to see tax credit valuation as an evolving debate and only a portion of utility investors have adequately delved into the subject.
While the views are hard to see universally at each and every utility, Merrill Lynch looked into the recognition of investment tax credits (ITCs) for solar and offshore wind to allow for more flexibility for these companies to elect to recognize ITCs in earnings over a shorter or longer duration. The added flexibility could be viewed as advantageous, but the firm also thinks it should be examined more diligently by investors.
The Merrill Lynch report also looked at how investors should value the tax equity contribution in overall utility earnings rather than based on traditional P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio analysis. The report said:
While many investors traditionally view utility earnings on a P/E basis, applying the same methodology to tax credits can be misleading given the lack of transparency and eventual sun-setting of incentives for renewables. With tax credits frequently taken on a very short duration basis, all of the earnings power of assets is effectively accelerated into the initial years of the structure. Thus, we caution from putting a multiple on these earnings as they are effectively interest expense tied to the tax equity, and instead encourage a DCF approach. We believe reconciling the full extent of earnings power through this method rather than applying a P/E multiple to earnings that remain generally opaque is more appropriate… We see proper value less than half (~45%) of that that would be applied on a straight P/E basis. As renewable development continues to proliferate, we believe these considerations will become increasingly important when assigning value to tax credits in earnings that are generally less in quality.
Ameren Corp. (NYSE: AEE) is a public utility holding company operating in electricity and natural gas throughout Middle America. Merrill Lynch raised its price objective to $77 from $70 (versus a $73.46 prior close). Ameren has a 2.5% dividend yield, a 52-week range of $55.01 to $74.91, and a consensus price target of $70.78.
American Electric Power Co. Inc. (NYSE: AEP) is a top utility with millions of customers in middle America as well. The firm raised its price objective to $94 from $90 (versus an $83.79 close). AEP has a 3.1% dividend yield, and the company historically has been one of the most vocal dividend supporters of all utilities. Merrill Lynch has a Buy rating and noted that AEP acquired new wind through Sempra and is likely in the early stages given roughly $1 billion remaining in its renewable capex guidance. The 52-week range is $62.71 to $86.10, and the consensus price target is $82.75.
American Water Works Co. Inc. (NYSE: AWK), America’s leading water utility, saw its price objective raised to $114 from $103 (versus a $104.32 close). Merrill Lynch has a Neutral rating despite that big upside. Its dividend yield is 1.7%. The 52-week range is $77.73 to $107.71, and the consensus price target is $103.46.
Avangrid Inc. (NYSE: AGR) operates a natural gas and renewable energy utility company in the northeastern part of the United States. Merrill Lynch has a Neutral rating but raised its price objective to $54 from $52 (versus a $50.01 close) in a sum-of-the-parts valuation, compared with the most recent closing price of $50.01. The stock has a dividend yield of 3.5%. The 52-week range is $45.81 to $54.55, and the consensus price target is $50.38.
Black Hills Corp. (NYSE: BKH) is an electric and natural gas utility company with customers in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. Its price objective was raised to $75 from $71, along with a Neutral rating, and it comes with a 2.7% dividend yield. The 52-week range is $52.63 to $74.77. The consensus price target is $68.67.
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Six Characters in Search of a Play
Mar. 01, 201989 Min.Not Rated
Sordid Lives creator Del Shores’ new film of his one-man show, directed by Emerson Collins, proves once and for all that he is not a writer, he’s a self-proclaimed thief! In Six Characters In Search Of A Play, riffing on Pirandello’s classic title, Shores brings to life six one-of-a-kind characters he has met in real life that haven’t quite made it into one of his plays, films or TV shows. The audience will hear the truth behind how he collected these eccentrics and their stories as he portrays his hilarious, off-the-rails encounters with them. The audience will meet Yvonne, the anti-vegetarian Dallas waitress; Sarah, a Trump-hating elderly actress with an inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other; Jimmy Ray, the evolving, Magic Mike-loving latent Georgia redneck; Loraine, the once-brilliant drama teacher who has lost her damn mind and is now obsessed with porn; Marsha, the monkey-hating lesbian with COPD; and Aunt Bobby Sue, the racist Republican with a heart of gold.
Original titleSix Characters in Search of a Play
IMDb Rating4.7 13 votes
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8 Old Video Gaming Consoles We Still Love Today
by arkvine
“Brown Box” — that’s the name of the first-ever multiplayer video game console prototype. It’s the “Father” of all video games, having had existed in 1967.
Its creation is all thanks to the genius and efforts of Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison, and Bill Rusch.
From there, Brown Box became officially-known as “Magnavox Odyssey” in 1972. It’s this system that spawned today’s 200 million global videogamers.
While Odyssey is no longer in circulation, some of the old gaming consoles that it paved the way for still are. They’re still entertaining videogamers and making them shriek in delight, and yes, annoyance. (Game Over, remember?)
Ready to learn what these old school gaming systems are that you can still button-mash? Then let’s get right into it!
1. Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
We’ll start off with this one, and not only because it came out in 1983. That alone, however, already makes it one of the most classic gaming consoles that you can still get today.
The main reason you should pick up an NES is because of Super Mario Bros, Zelda, and Pac-Man. It’s also the console that gave rise to Donkey Kong, Kirby’s Adventure, and a long list of other retro games. Yes, it’s the NES that gave us a platform to enjoy all these billion-dollar hits.
2. Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
SNES, the improved version of NES, is also one of the top classic game consoles from Nintendo. It first came out in 1991 in the US, and we should be glad it did, as it came out with titles like Super Mario World and SimCity.
Today, you can pick up a SNES Classic and buy video games like Zelda, Kirby, and Final Fantasy aside from Super Mario. There are, in total, 20 titles you can play, plus two special, exclusive releases.
3. Sega Genesis
Want to reminisce all those battles with the mad scientist and evil Doctor Eggman? Well, you’re in luck, because you can, thanks to the release of the Sega Genesis Mini. It’s an emulation of the original Genesis, which means that it comes with 16-bit hardware.
Sega calls it “Mini” because it’s about half the size of the original Genesis console. It’s in no way “mini” when it comes to playable titles, as there are 42 games for you to enjoy. The exact titles vary where you live, but if you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ll know how to get access to many of these.
4. Game Boy
Having celebrated its 30th birthday in 2019, Game Boy still lives up to its name. It’s also thanks to this console that we have a strong market of portable video games today. Since its release, Nintendo has sold over 100 million of the classic and Color versions.
Tetris, Pokemon, Super Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong are just to name a few titles playable on Game Boy. Either way, it’s a good investment, especially if you’re always on the go and need something to pass the time with.
5. Retro-Bit
Retro-Bit is one of the classic game systems that allow you to bring home retro arcade games. It has licensed games from big names like Capcom and Nintendo, with titles like Mega Man (2 and 3) and Super Dodge Ball. Other favorites included are Double Dragon, Strider, Final Fight, and BurgerTime.
Retro-Bit may not be as huge as Nintendo, but it’s an inexpensive alternative. Plus, if you’ve got another gamer who lives with you, it’s a great way to have friendly battles for hours on end.
6. Atari Flashback 8
The Atari Flashback 8 lets you take a trip back to the future, in HDMI style. You may think that its 720p feature defeats the purpose, but it’s only there to make the graphics look a bit cleaner. It comes with a couple of 2.4G wireless controllers, so it’s another way to go multiplayer.
Atari’s Flashback 8 is what Nintendo’s SNES Classic is to its fans. In fact, Atari rolled it out at the same time (September 2017) that Nintendo did with its SNES Classic Mini. There are loads of games with the Flashback 8, 120 of them built-in to be exact.
7. C64 Mini
Vividly red joystick — check. Beige keyboard — also check. Waves of nostalgia — definitely.
All these, you get to enjoy with the C64 Mini from Retro Games Ltd. It’s the company’s way of updating and upgrading the Commodore 64 home computer. Yes, it’s for PC gamers out there, which is why it definitely deserves a spot on this list.
Although it’s slightly flawed (stiff joystick, for instance), it’s still retro-packed. You won’t find all the best titles here like Wasteland and Elite, but the rest of the games are still worth it. Speaking of which, there are 64 games that come included with the console.
8. PlayStation Classic
The PlayStation Classic is Sony’s way of combining its new and old gaming systems. It’s a retro console that lets you play 3D games, after all. From Resident Evil to Final Fantasy VII to Metal Gear Solid, the PS Classic gives you all that and more.
Fancy playing with — and winning — over your friends? The PS Classic also lets you do that with multiplayer titles like Twisted Metal and Tekken 3.
All these make the Sony PS Classic a must-have if you’re looking to expand your console collection.
Get Your Game on With These Super Entertaining Old Gaming Consoles
Who says you always need CGI and very realistic graphics just to have fun? That’s not always the case, and this ultimate list of the best and the most fun old gaming consoles says it all. If you’re thinking of treating the gamer in you, then one (or a few) of these units should be some of your top choices.
Tags: #entertainment, #gaming, #videogames
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Windscribe Alternatives & Reviews
Windscribe will help you conceal your physical location, circumvent censorship, and block ads and trackers on sites you use daily. Windscribe is a VPN desktop program and proxy browser extension which work together to block advertisements, trackers, restore access to blocked content and enable you to protect your privacy online. Free plan provides 10 GB of data per month, and the Pro program has unlimited data and access to servers in over 62 countries.
37 Best Windscribe Alternatives
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Radmin VPN is a free and easy-to-use software product to create a virtual private network (VPN). The program enables users to connect computers, located behind firewalls securely.
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Psiphon is a open-source and free Internet censorship circumvention tool which uses a combination of secure communication and obfuscation technologies. Psiphon is a centrally managed, and geographically diverse network of thousands of proxy servers, using a performance-oriented, multi and single hop architecture.
CyberGhost is a software firm which offers a virtual private network for internet browsing. It provide users online privacy and internet traffic security. The business is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania. In 2017, it had been obtained by Kape Technologies PLC.
The Invisible Internet Project is an anonymous network layer which permits censorship-resistant, peer to peer communication. Anonymous connections are accomplished by encrypting the user's traffic, and sending it through a volunteer-run network of about 55,000 computers spread around the world.
TunnelBear is a public virtual private network service based in Toronto, Canada. The company was founded by Daniel Kaldor and Ryan Dochuk in 2011. In March 2018, TunnelBear was acquired by McAfee.
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VyprVPN is a virtual private network service provider provided by Golden Frog, GmbH. VyprVPN was designed by the internet privacy firm Golden Frog GmbH in 2009 and is incorporated in Meggen, Switzerland.
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anonymoX
AnonymoX is an initiative for anonymization on the Internet. The purpose is to revive the users right of anonymity in the net. Most sites monitor the behavior of the users, giving the sites hosts the ability to analyze the overall users behavior and make detailed user profiles, which are often offered to third parties.
BetterNet is a free VPN that provides safe and effective web browsing. It not only provides users with protection from internet threats, but it provides access to restricted content. With the program's encrypted tunnel, you can search and browse without limits.
Spotflux
Spotflux is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) software application that encrypts your Internet connection so that you can surf the Internet anonymously and safely. Spotflux is simple to install and can be used anywhere you can connect to the Internet. A VPN establishes a secure connection between your personal computer and a remote server, which connects to the Internet for you.
Freelan
FreeLAN is computer software that implements peer reviewed, full net, virtual private network methods for producing secure point-to-point or site-to-site connections in routed or bridged configurations and remote access facilities. It's open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License.
ProtonVPN is a virtual private network service provider run by the Swiss firm Proton Technologies AG, the company behind the email service ProtonMail. ProtonVPN secure VPN sends your internet traffic through an encrypted VPN tunnel, so your passwords and private information remain secure, even over public or untrusted Internet links.
OkayFreedom VPN
OkayFreedom is a VPN from the German technology firm, Steganos Software. The VPN is available for Windows only. The business provides a free ad-supported version of the VPN, but the paid support is available on a yearly plan that's actually inexpensive. If you want a VPN for Android, an iOS VPN, a VPN for Mac or a Linux VPN, you will have to consider another VPN.
Expat Shield
Expat Shield is a VPN software that offers you access to a huge array of TV sites based in the united kingdom. This is a superb feature that this program offers because typically, you wouldn't be able to gain access to such services unless you're in the uk.
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TorGuard VPN is a wonderful VPN service that protects your internet traffic and provides a plethora of add-ons to complete the package. Its impressive supply of servers makes it well worth a look, but a few may be turned off from the program's appearance. If that's no problem for you, TorGuard will serve you well.
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An anonymizer or an anonymous proxy is a tool which tries to make action on the Internet untraceable. It's a proxy host computer that serves as an intermediary and privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Internet.
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CloakVPN is an OpenVPN tunnel services. You can get an IP in Kansas City, USA. OpenVPN uses the OpenSSL library to encrypt both the control and data channels. CloakVPN serves as a means to reestablish your internet traffic and cloak your real location.
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IronSocket
IronSocket is a Hong Kong-based VPN provider that started out as HideMyNet.com, which was subsequently rebranded and rebuilt to the robust VPN solution it's now. With servers in 38 countries, P2P support, along with a detailed solution wrapped in one neat client, IronSocket is a competent -- but not perfect -- contender.
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Abu Dhabi initiative doles out awards for COVID-19-focused environmental work
UAE Tuesday 12th January 2021 09:49 PM REPORT
We show you our most important and recent visitors news details Abu Dhabi initiative doles out awards for COVID-19-focused environmental work in the following article
Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - Omar El-Huni
Across 9 different facilities, 14 roadshows have been conducted and 164 members of the Green Majlis, an intercollege youth-lead platform based in the UAE that aims to address environmental challenges both locally and globally, have joined since 2015.
Tuesday 12/01/2021
Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) Manager Aisha Al Mazrouei with Executive Director of the Environmental Science, Information and Outreach Sectorat EAD, Ahmed Baharoon at the virtual Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) ceremony. (Youtube)
LONDON – The Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI), an annual event hosted by the Environment Agency- Abu Dhabi, this year focused on participants’ initiatives dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Established in 2014, the SCI is hosted by the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi with Borouge, a leading provider of innovative plastic solutions, and supported by the UAE’s Department of Energy, Department of Transport, the Abu Dhabi Waste Management Center and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. This year it was held remotely due to the pandemic.
The event aims to harness the energy, innovation and ambition of students, encouraging them to work together to identify solutions to pressing environmental challenges. It partners with local higher education facilities, allowing students to contribute to the country’s sustainable development plans and green growth strategy.
During the virtual event, awards for Best Sustainability Action Project and Best Green Campus Audit were awarded to three universities. The American University of Ras Al Khaimah received an award for Best Sustainability Action Project, while the Green Campus Audit was awarded to the American University of Sharjah. The Manipal Academy of Higher Education received an award in both categories.
A logo of the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, host of the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) event. (Abu Dhabi Environment Agency)
Executive Director of the Environmental Science, Information and Outreach Sectorat EAD, Ahmed Baharoon said: “It is such an honour to be here today and to reward all of the students who have continued to take part in the SCI, despite the pandemic. This is a true reflection of their commitment towards sustainability and environmental work and it proves that there is a heightened awareness among the upcoming generation regarding the impotence of the environment, which is in line with our goals at EAD. Nothing can stop them, and with every passing year, SCI keeps growing and the number of participants keeps increasing.”
He added: “This year for the first time, SCI launched new programmes highlighting remarkable research, encouraging point of views and opinions, and all of these programmes were managed, hosted and executed by students. This year, SCI was also associated with government entities and international coalitions, including the United Nations, and collaborated with environmental groups from South Korea to influence and empower youth. Moreover, SCI facilitated initiatives between various humanitarianentities and hosted leaders, change-makers and other youth to elevate sustainability.”
A total of 58 students and faculty members from 22 universities and colleges have worked on the SCI since 2014. There are currently 42 Green Campus Audit reports and 43 Sustainable Action Projects being taken on by participants.
Across 9 different facilities, 14 roadshows have been conducted and 164 members of the Green Majlis, an intercollege youth-lead platform based in the UAE that aims to address environmental challenges both locally and globally, have joined since 2015. In addition to putting on 3 virtual roadshows, the initiative has reached 972 members across the facility and the student body.
ADU’s Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) was recognized at the 2019 Annual Ceremony for its active participation in the Sustainable Action projects and Green Campus Audits. (https://www.adu.ac.ae/)
Borouge’s senior vice president for corporate affairs, Abdulrahmen Al Ateek said: “At Borouge, we believe that the youth of today can make a great difference to the world of tomorrow.”
Omar El-Huni is a contributor to The Arab Weekly on environmental issues. He is a graduate of the University of Reading on environmental matters.
These were the details of the news Abu Dhabi initiative doles out awards for COVID-19-focused environmental work for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at The Arab Weekly and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
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Climate finance for cities
The sixth biennial Mayors Summit, C40 flagship event on climate change concluded in New Mexico earlier this month. The event attracted mayors and leading thinkers from around the world to advance a shared agenda, through collaboration and knowledge-sharing, about the global potential of climate actions in various cities.
The world’s cities are at the forefront of climate change, both in the fight against climate change and experiencing its impacts. Cities emit more than 70 percent of global emissions and consume around the same proportion of the world’s primary energy. At the same time, they generate 80 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In the face of rising global temperatures and the increased incidence of climate-induced disasters, urban structures and services are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as heat waves, storm surges and rising sea levels.
According to recent estimates, the world’s big cities need a total investment of $375 billion to curb climate change. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the new president of the C40 network of big cities, said at the summit: “It is a lot, but there is no other option. Together we will seek that money. If that amount is made available, humanity will have a chance of surviving”.
Several cities around the globe, particularly in low-income countries, face a number of challenges: high population growth, limited access to water and sanitation as well as poor housing. These problems are likely to worsen with climate change. Urgent steps are required to build climate resilience in the cities. These include, but are not restricted to, building disaster-resilient infrastructures, improving drainage and storm water collection structures, constructing flood protection embankments, developing green zones and relocating vulnerable groups living in hazardous areas of the city.
To boost mitigation and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, city governments can promote a number of climate-friendly measures in the energy, transport, waste and land use sectors. These include reducing the energy consumption in buildings. This can be achieved by installing solar water heaters, adding adequate insulation, double glazing windows, improving architectural design as well as encouraging energy efficiency measures. In addition, low-carbon measures in the transport sector, such as incentivising the use of public and non-motorised transport and reducing private vehicle use can substantially reduce emissions.
Considerable financial investment is required to meet these adaptation and mitigation needs of the cities. However, it is clear that without this form of heightened action at the city level it will be difficult to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. This accord pledged to keep the average global temperature increase to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and ensure a paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climate-resilient development.
To finance this paradigm shift, the cities can access funds from a variety of sources, including international, domestic and local sources. Lisa Junghans, a policy adviser on climate change at Germanwatch, believes “the sheer scale of investment needed to transform cities into climate compatible urban spaces makes all three channels relevant”. He adds: “While locally-raised funding is important to strengthen ownership and safeguard the sustainability of interventions as well as the stability of revenue, it will take time to establish governance structures that ensure a steady flow of local revenue dedicated to climate change work.”
National sources are also important and it is the state’s responsibility to allocate resources to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation activities in selected cities. However, in view of resource constraints, particularly in developing countries, these allocations are inadequate to meet financing needs. International funds are required to close the financing gap and fuel climate-compatible development in the cities.
Accessing international climate finance is not without challenges, and, given the sheer scope of financing required, will not suffice in meeting all requirements. Nevertheless, international funds remain crucial not only to meet the stated objectives of a proposed project, but also to act as a catalyst for the deployment of national or sub-national resources.
A project, funded by the Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) and implemented by LEAD Pakistan, aims to assess the climate finance needs and gaps in three cities across three countries – India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Based on research and extensive stakeholder consultations, the assessment has outlined the possible sources of domestic and international sources for cities. This includes the Green Climate Fund (GCF) – the primary fund for channelling a significant part of the $100 billion committed to combat climate change in developing countries.
The project’s recommendations to access funding from the GCF include the creation and innovative access modalities, such as the cities serving as implementing entities or a national city facility that receives GCF funds and coordinates urban climate change projects across the country.
One of the barriers to enhancing the flow of climate finance for the cities is the lack of technical and institutional capacity in city governments. While local authorities understand the problems and the potentially transformative solutions required, turning them into bankable project concepts or proposals remains a challenge.
City institutions may also find it difficult to meet the requirements set by funding institutions on fiduciary standards and social and environmental safeguards. However, concerted efforts for capability-building and training can help the cities overcome these barriers to receiving international assistance. This form of international assistance, in the form of financial and technical support, can be used to fund, build resilience to and fuel low-carbon economic development in the cities of developing countries.
The writer works as team leader,Climate Finance Readiness in the Climate Action Programme of Lead Pakistan. Email: [email protected]
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ANAS HASSAN
Scottish journalist
The next UK General Election could be a low key affair in Scotland
Posted by Anas Hassan on March 13, 2015
Glasgow voted Yes to Scottish independence last year. But can the SNP win many of the city’s Westminster seats?
It is hard to believe that in just under two months from now, the next UK General Election will be taking place and a new group of MP’s will be elected to Westminster. And it is even more hard to believe in the current context following last year’s Scottish independence referendum.
But we are rapidly heading towards polling day and, quite potentially, an absolutely seismic result in Scotland. The nation was absolutely transformed by the independence referendum and it is very accurate to believe that politics is now very different to previous times. Nearly everybody predicted the demise of the Scottish National Party in the event of a No vote. But the reality couldn’t be any more different.
The Yes side, who lost the vote last September, are with the greatest sense of irony the winners. Although not every Yes supporter is necessarily an SNP voter, there has never been a greater sense of optimism over Scotland’s future and this is clearly reflected in the current state of the polls. If the SNP continue to dominate, then they will by a huge margin return more representatives wearing bright yellow rosettes to Westminster.
It will be Scottish Labour who will face a ghastly fall from grace, alongside the Scottish Liberal Democrats. And yet, David Cameron could face a humiliating scenario of having absolutely no Scottish Conservative MP’s if David Mundell loses his seat in Dumfriessshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale – the current Prime Minister’s legitimacy of governing Scotland as UK Prime Minister will be severely questioned.
But in a way, have we almost been here before? Let’s not forget that Alex Salmond led the SNP to an overall majority for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2011. An SNP dominated result in May will not lead to independence in the immediate aftermath and could have some sense of a feeling of déjà vu. Time and time again, SNP representatives have stated that the way to achieve independence is to gain a Yes vote in any prospective referendum.
It is without doubt that the SNP’s ultimate objective is independence for Scotland. That could yet well become a reality within five to ten years. But in the context of things, there is a danger that this forthcoming UK General Election could be soon forgotten about swiftly if Scotland’s home rule journey is severely disrupted. And it’s worth not forgetting about what the referendum caused in Scotland last year – an elevation in awareness of the issues, an increasing interest in politics and an extraordinary enlightenment of the whole nation and it’s democracy. It’s also worth remembering that since the methods of registering to vote has changed recently, there is a danger that some people may end up finding out that their chance to vote may disappear.
With all that in mind, there is a chance that the General Election in May could end up becoming the disappointing sequel to last year’s independence referendum.
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