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Stories from Sunday, March 24, 2013
Roadwork to begin in April on Highlands tour route at Mingo (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
PUXICO, Mo. -- Starting in April, roadwork will begin on the Ozark Highlands Auto Tour Route at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. The Ozark Highlands is the portion of the Auto Tour Route that begins at the spillway and winds through the west side of the refuge. Typically this route is open the months of April, May, October, November and one week in August. However, this year the Ozark Highlands will be closed for the months of April and May so the contractor can come in and begin roadwork...
Sadlers to celebrate 50th wedding anniversary (Anniversary ~ 03/24/13)
SUBMITTED photo Don and Marjorie Sadler were married April 6, 1963, and will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary Saturday, April 6, 2013, with a luncheon reception from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the South Pleasant Valley Baptist Church at the intersection of County Roads 572 and 519 in Bloomfield, Mo. All friends and family are invited to attend...
Celebrates 95th Birthday (Anniversary ~ 03/24/13)
SUBMITTED photo Charles Gisi celebrated his 95th birthday at his home in Essex surrounded by family and friends.
Tour brings 'humorcore' to Cape (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
SEMO News Service CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- A promoter calls it "a crazy party with lots of energy," and guarantees music fans who don't take their tunes too seriously will be in for a good time when the "Our Tour Can Beat Up Your Tour" comes to Pitter's Cafe and Lounge, 811 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, on April 11...
Turning tragedy into triumph; local charities team up (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
By NOREEN HYSLOP Managing Editor When a family loses a loved one - whether it be suddenly in a tragic accident or from a prolonged illness - there is always the question of why. When a young life is taken, and a family is left with a lifetime void and the pain of never knowing where that young person's potential might have taken them, that sense of loss and the question of 'why' seems only to be compounded...
Swearengin honored by Mo. Veterans Commission (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
By NOREEN HYSLOP Managing Editor BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- Missouri Veterans Cemetery at Bloomfield's Director Ken Swearengin was credited Wednesday with "setting the standard" by which the Missouri Veterans Cemeteries operate, as he was presented with the February 2013 Employee of the Month Award from the Missouri Veterans Commission...
Missing road signs cause for concern (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
By MIKE McCOY Statesman Staff Writer Stoddard County E-911 Services Administrator Carol Moreland told the board of directors Thursday night that the majority of road signs in a portion of Essex Special Road District are missing, and that it posed a safety problem for emergency responders. ...
Stroke victim credits equine help in recovery (Local News ~ 03/24/13)
By TOM MOATES Reprinted with permission Editor's note: This article features Dexter resident, Glen Francis and is reprinted with permission from the author and American Quarter Horse Journal. It appeared in their March 2013 issue. There's nothing wrong with Glen Francis' mind...
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Henry de Beauvoir Tupper
Captain (retired) Henry de Beauvoir Tupper, A.M., R.N. (7 April, 1883 – 14 November, 1952) was an officer in the Royal Navy.
1 Life & Career
2 World War II
4 Footnotes
Tupper was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 30 June, 1905.
Tupper was appointed in command of the destroyer Seal on 20 March, 1913.[1]
Tupper was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander on 30 June, 1913.
On 3 December, 1913, he was appointed in command of the destroyer Maori.[2]
On 22 June, 1914, Tupper was appointed in command of the destroyer Scourge.[3]
Tupper was promoted to the rank of Commander on 30 June, 1917.
He was appointed in command of the destroyer Lapwing on 19 August, 1918.[4]
Tupper won the Albert Medal for Lifesaving, gazetted 21 February, 1919.
Tupper was placed on the Retired List on 1 January, 1923. He was promoted to the rank of Captain (retired) on 7 April, 1928.
Naval Appointments
Frank O'B. Wilson Captain of H.M.S. Vixen
28 May, 1910[5] – 30 May, 1912 Succeeded by
Malcolm L. Goldsmith
Allan Baddeley Captain of H.M.S. Bittern
30 Jun, 1912[6] – 4 Feb, 1913 Succeeded by
Philip G. Wodehouse
Allan Baddeley Captain of H.M.S. Seal
20 Mar, 1913[7] – 3 Dec, 1913 Succeeded by
Laurence R. Palmer
Henry F. H. Wakefield Captain of H.M.S. Maori
3 Dec, 1913[8] – 1 May, 1914 Succeeded by
Benjamin W. Barrow
George L. D. Gibbs Captain of H.M.S. Scourge
22 Jun, 1914[9] – Sep, 1917 Succeeded by
Kenneth H. Grant
Henry D. Pridham-Wippell Captain of H.M.S. Comet
15 May, 1918 – 6 Aug, 1918[10] Succeeded by
Vessel Lost
William R. Leycester Captain of H.M.S. Lapwing
19 Aug, 1918[11] – 20 Mar, 1919 Succeeded by
George H. Knowles Captain of H.M.S. Vampire
7 Jan, 1922 – 16 Nov, 1922 Succeeded by
Reginald V. Holt
↑ The Navy List. (July, 1913). p. 374.
↑ The Navy List. (April, 1914). p. 344.
↑ The Navy List. (January, 1915). p. 380.
↑ The Navy List. (February, 1919). p. 828.
↑ The Navy List. (April, 1911). p. 395a.
↑ The Navy List. (August, 1912). p. 284.
↑ The Navy List. (May, 1914). p. 344.
↑ The Navy List. (August, 1917). p. 397w.
↑ Hepper. British Warship Losses in the Ironclad Era: 1860-1919. p. 138.
Retrieved from "http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php?title=Henry_de_Beauvoir_Tupper&oldid=267565"
People (UK)
Captains (UK)
H.M.S. Britannia (Training Ship) Entrants of May, 1898
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While making fun of H. Ross Perot is a standard feature of this column, there comes a time when Your Humble Scribe has to concede that yes, the eccentric billionaire (if Perot had to live on my budget, he wouldn't be considered eccentric, merely weird) has a point.
The movers and shakers who make up the Commission of Presidential Debates recently dusted off their criteria for inclusion in the 1996 media event, and decided Perot, founder, godfather and current presidential candidate of the Reform Party, did not qualify. Perot, not at all happy, decided to sue, with the intent of blocking the debates entirely if he is not allowed on the panel.
My first thought was "Good. If the debates are cancelled, that will be three fewer opportunities for political pandering by the Clinton and Dole teams." And while this still could be a plus factor, there's far more to it than cutting down the quantity of sound bites.
On the face of it, Perot may be facing an uphill battle; it's not as though the Commission wrote its official criteria specifically to exclude him — the rules were adopted over a year ago, long before most party nominees were in place. On the other hand, Perot can claim CPD bias toward major-party candidates, both of whom get an automatic free pass to the debates. And while yes, the last few dozen Presidents have come from these parties, "major" status can be fleeting: seen any Whigs lately?
On balance, I'm inclined to believe that if we're going to have these debates at all, they should be open to, say, the top six candidates (thereby eliminating fringe candidates who have, in the Commission's terms, less than a "theoretical" chance of being elected), which this year might include Perot, Harry Browne of the Libertarians, and the ever-popular Ralph Nader. But I must confess a sneaky desire here as well: I'd love to see Lyndon LaRouche get grilled on national television, once and for all, in front of 90 million people. To the extent that Perot's suit might make this actually possible — go get 'em, Ross!
| Vent menu | E-mail to Chaz
Copyright © 1996 by Charles G. Hill
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Home › Issues › The Short Run and the Long Run
The Short Run and the Long Run
BERLIN — It is odd to follow American politics at a distance. The instrumentation is the same — what the candidates say, what people write in the newspapers, discussions with people living in different parts of the country. But it is like watching events unfold through the other end of a spyglass.
The daily stories about the campaign are less interesting here — gay marriage, Ralph Nader, the outsourcing of jobs, the primaries. Stories about the candidates in the context of recent history seem to matter more.
Take the sharp difference of opinion about the significance of Howard Dean’s now-ended presidential candidacy that surfaced last Sunday between David Broder of the Washington Post and Todd Purdum of the New York Times.
Broder predicted that the Dean candidacy would turn out to be a landmark event in Democratic Party history. Not that his supporters would play much of a role in deciding whether John Kerry or John Edwards gets the nomination. Dean’s failed candidacy “may mean little in the politics of 2004,” wrote Broder, “but a great deal more in years to come.”
Why? Think of Barry Goldwater among Republicans, Broder continued. Or Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern for the Democrats
“Candidates who attract a passionate following — because of the issues they raise, rather than their own White House credentials — frequently launch their acolytes into political careers that become the next generation’s richest sources of leadership.”
“…Though they were seen as losers at the time, the energy they created in their campaigns fueled dozens of valuable legatees.”
Thus Ronald Reagan cut his teeth in the Goldwater campaign. Bill Clinton started his political career working for McGovern.
True, both Goldwater and McGovern gained their party’s nomination. But Dean is like them in one important respect, according to Broder.
“Though voters decided he did not have the personal qualities they seek in a president, his definition of the policy choices facing the country resonated so strongly that it changed the entire political environment.”
Purdum took the opposite position. The “supposedly smart money” had been wrong about Dean from the beginning. It was no more likely to be right at the end.
“Odds are good that some early post-mortems predicting his lasting impact may be similarly shortsighted.”
It was true enough that Dean had inspired a new generation of young volunteers, Purdum continued. But “their orange hats and intensity may have repelled as many voters as they energized.”
Moreover, Dean “lacked a broad public policy agenda that was sharply different from most of his rivals. He was for expanded health care, smaller tax cuts and a humbler foreign policy, but so, more or less, were they.” And his failure to deliver “an alternative economic plan of his own” ultimately helped bring him down.
This clearly is an exchange between a beat reporter who thinks that everything rides on what happens in the fall and an observer with a very long-time frame. (Broder is the dean of American political journalists.) But I take it to be something more. It represents the difference of opinion between those who expect much from the current election and those who expect little.
My money is on Broder.
The fact is that it was Dean who set the agenda for the coming election. Almost all the major positions of the emergent Democratic Party platform were developed by him. It is not clear how these positions will play out in the hands of others. But in time, they are capable of carrying the day.
Purdum thinks there was no “historical force” behind Dean, only anti-Bush backlash. I think he is wrong. Indeed, I suspect Dean’s influence will turn out to resemble that of Barry Goldwater more than anyone else.
Dean’s position on the war in Iraq was, I think, widely misunderstood. Had he succeeded in winning the nomination, almost certainly he would have moved towards the center.
He would have promised the same sort of responsible stewardship as that with which Dwight Eisenhower, having been elected in 1952, took over and ended Harry Truman’s Korean War in 1953.
For despite a certain amount of bungling in post-war Iraq, a less-pugnacious variant of the Bush doctrine is likely to remain US foreign policy for many years to come.
It was Dean, too, who was by far the sharpest critic of George Bush’s domestic strategy — enormous tax cuts despite looming crises in Social Security and Medicare funding.
As Broder wrote, “Almost single-handedly at first, [Dean] put those two topics on the agenda for the 2004 election, and they will remain there — though he is gone.” They will remain there after the election, too — until they are resolved.
John Kerry probably cannot win the presidency against George Bush. For the purposes of restoring a fairly widely-shared conviction that the country is “moving in the right direction,” it probably would not matter if he did. (The unexpected sometimes happens.) Each side is doomed to loathe the other’s standard-bearer for as long as he is on the scene.
Leaving aside the remote possibility of an Edwards presidency, whatever happens next won’t begin to heal the breach that developed before the 1992 election in the tradition of bipartisan consensus and fair play.
But starting in 2008, or, at the latest, in 2012, a Democratic Party candidate may emerge who can command a significant majority among voters in the general election. The Republican dominated Congress won’t change much, at least not quickly.
But with strong executive leadership, a return seems likely to the kind of politics that we like to think of as “progress” in the United States — along the lines of the interpretation of fiscal and social responsibility put forward this year by Howard Dean.
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Sam Edwards, Top Priority - 6
Sam Edwards signed with the Phillies directly out of Florida's Gateway High School in June 1990. He made clear to The Orlando Sentinel that, for him, the pros proved his only choice.
"I've been going to school for a long time, but my number one priority is playing pro ball," Edwards told The Sentinel after signing. "The sooner I get into the flow and get my feet wet, the quicker I'll move up in the organization."
The star of the Gateway High School pitching staff soon started his pro career in rookie ball. Once he got his feet wet, however, he moved up little. He made single-A Spartanburg in his fourth pro season. That season also turned out to be his last.
Edwards' career began that year in 1990, taken by the Phillies in the 32nd round of the draft out of Gateway. He's also credited by his formal name, Samuel Edwards.
In the run-up to the 1990 draft, Edwards made some noise on the field. He turned in an 11-3 record and recorded a 1.05 ERA to lead his county, The Sentinel wrote. Before pitching in front of scouts at a state All-Star baseball classic, Edwards talked options.
"The Phillies and Minnesota have called the house; but if they don't offer the best deal, college is my best bet," Edwards told The Sentinel.
Edwards soon nailed down the college option. He signed with Brevard Community College in late-May. Brevard coach Ernie Rosseau was happy to have him, he told The Sentinel after the signing.
"He's an outstanding control pitcher with pretty good stuff," Rosseau told The Sentinel. "It's a nice combination. Usually, pitchers have one, but are shortchanged on the other."
Edwards, however, soon spurned Brevard for the Phillies. Edwards started at rookie Princeton. He got into nine games in relief and recorded a 9.75 ERA.
He moved to rookie Martinsville for 1991 and stayed there for 1992. He had a 4.98 ERA in 1991 and a 5.67 mark in 1992. His 1992 numbers also included a brief stint with short-season Batavia.
Edwards' final pro season came in 1993 at single-A Spartanburg. He went 3-6, with a 4.38 ERA over 15 starts, ending his career.
Orlando Sentinel, May 18, 1990: Scouts' Eyes On Edwards This Weekend
Orlando Sentinel, May 31, 1990: Edwards Makes Pitch To Become Titan
Orlando Sentinel, June 21, 1990: Gateway Right-Hander Edwards Signs With Philadelphia
Players/Coaches Featured: 2,679
Never Made Majors:1,649-61.5%-X
5+ Seasons in the Majors: 426
Labels: minor leaguer, Princeton Patriots
TTM Success - Chipper Jones
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LABORATORY CORP OF AMERICA HOLDINGS - FORM 10-K - February 27, 2018
EX-32.1 - EXHIBIT 32.1 - LABORATORY CORP OF AMERICA HOLDINGS lh10-kex322017.htm
EX-31.2 - EXHIBIT 31.2 - LABORATORY CORP OF AMERICA HOLDINGS lh10-kex3122017.htm
EX-24.9 - EXHIBIT 24.9 - LABORATORY CORP OF AMERICA HOLDINGS exhibit2492017.htm
EX-21.1 - EXHIBIT 21.1 - LABORATORY CORP OF AMERICA HOLDINGS exhibit212017.htm
[X] Annual Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
[ ] Transition report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
For the transition period from ______ to ______
Commission file number - 1-11353
LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA HOLDINGS
(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
358 South Main Street,
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code) 336-229-1127
Name of exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $0.10 par value
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes [X] No [ ].
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. Yes [ ] No [X].
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 [X] No [ ].
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Website, 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 [X] No [ ].
Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 232.405) 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. [ ].
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company”, and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer [X]
Accelerated filer [ ]
Non-accelerated filer [ ] (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)
Smaller reporting company [ ]
Emerging growth company [ ]
If emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. [ ]
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes [ ] No [X].
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes [ ] No [X].
As of June 30, 2017, the aggregate market value of the common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $14.9 billion, based on the closing price on such date of the registrant’s common stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
Indicate the number of shares outstanding of each of the registrant's classes of common stock, as of the latest practicable date: 101.9 million shares as of February 22, 2018.
List hereunder the following documents if incorporated by reference and the Part of the Form 10-K into which the document is incorporated:
Portions of the Registrant’s Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement to be filed no later than 120 days following December 31, 2017, are incorporated by reference into Part III.
LabCorp Diagnostics Segment
Covance Drug Development
Investments in Joint Venture Partnerships
Sales, Marketing and Customer Service
Regulation and Reimbursement
Item 1A.
Item 1B.
Unresolved Staff Comments
Mine Safety Disclosures
Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters, and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Financial Statements and Supplementary Data
Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
Controls and Procedures
Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence
Principal Accountant Fees and Services
Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules
Form 10-K Summary
Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp® or the Company) is a leading global life sciences company that is deeply integrated in guiding patient care. Through its two business segments, LabCorp Diagnostics (LCD) and Covance Drug Development (CDD), the Company provides comprehensive clinical laboratory and end-to-end drug development services. Employing nearly 60,000 people worldwide, the Company’s mission is to improve health and improve lives by delivering world-class diagnostic solutions, bringing innovative medicines to patients faster, and using technology to improve the delivery of care.
The Company provides diagnostic, drug development and technology-enabled solutions for more than 115 million patient encounters per year. Typically processing tests on more than 2.5 million patient specimens per week, the Company believes that it generated more revenue from laboratory testing than any other Company in the world in 2017. The Company also supports clinical trial activity in approximately 100 countries through its industry-leading central laboratory business, generating more safety and efficacy data to support drug approvals than any other company. The Company collaborated on more than 90% of the novel drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017, including more than 90% of the novel rare and orphan disease drugs and two-thirds of the novel oncology drugs. In addition, CDD has been involved in the development of all current top 50 drugs on the market as measured by sales revenue.
The Company has been recognized for its focus on innovation, progressive business practices, and delivering value to customers. Recent accolades include being named to FORTUNE magazine's 2018 List of World's Most Admired Companies, and Forbes’ 2017 ranking of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies,” earning the highest achievable score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 16th annual scorecard on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) workplace equality and being designated as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality, and seeing its Covance business awarded the 2017 Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific CRO Customer Value Leadership Award.
The Company, headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina, is a Delaware corporation and was incorporated in 1971. Through a combination of organic growth and disciplined acquisitions, including the 2015 acquisition of Covance Inc. (Covance) and the 2017 acquisition of Chiltern International Group Limited (Chiltern), a specialty contract research organization (CRO), the Company has continually expanded and diversified its business offerings, technological expertise, geographic reach, revenue base, and financial growth opportunities.
Today the Company participates in drug discovery from early development to new drug approval and commercialization, offers a growing portfolio of high-value, high-quality clinical laboratory tests, and increasingly provides guidance to patients and care providers about how to integrate drugs and diagnostics into optimal patient care.
Combined, Global Capabilities
With the acquisition of Covance, the Company began transforming from a leading national laboratory to an integrated global life sciences company. The acquisition of Chiltern further enhanced Covance’s offerings as a major partner serving the top 20 biopharmaceutical segment and expanded the Company’s current offering to include a dedicated focus on the high-growth emerging and mid-market biopharmaceutical segments.
The combination of LabCorp Diagnostics’ patient insights and Covance’s global physician-investigator performance data creates a powerful competitive advantage that presents significant long-term growth potential. It helps the Company to win studies and to recruit patients and investigators for trials more efficiently and at lower cost than competitors. The Company has proprietary data sets with more than 30 billion lab test results, reaching roughly 50% of the United States (U.S.) population and a significant database of experienced investigators and trial sites.
Similarly, the combined capabilities of the businesses have made the Company the market leader in the development and commercialization of companion and complementary diagnostics. Companion diagnostics are tests that must be used before a patient can be treated with a specific therapeutic, to help identify how or if the therapeutic will be effective or if it may cause adverse events. Complementary diagnostics are not required for determining who should receive the therapeutic, or how it should be used, but can give physicians valuable information about a patient’s potential response to a specific therapeutic or class of therapeutics. The Company collaborated with more than 40 clients on more than 165 companion diagnostics projects in 2017 and has supported approximately 70% of companion diagnostics on the market today. The Company believes that the development and use of precision medicine tools, such as companion diagnostics, will become more prevalent as medical understanding of the specific causes of disease increases.
The Company serves a broad range of customers, including managed care organizations (MCOs), biopharmaceutical companies, governmental agencies, physicians and other healthcare providers (e.g. physician assistants and nurse practitioners, generally referred to herein as physicians), hospitals and health systems, employers, patients and consumers, CROs, food and nutritional companies and independent clinical laboratories. The breadth of the Company’s offerings has accelerated revenue and
profit growth while generating strong returns for shareholders through share price appreciation. The combination also helps to balance the impact of changes in the U.S. healthcare payment system, such as the recently introduced reductions to the Medicare fee schedule under the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA).
Positioning the Company for the Future
The Company believes that it can play a larger role in the rapidly evolving healthcare system by focusing on three key initiatives to broaden its role: supporting customers’ transition to value-based care, streamlining the drug development process, and creating a broad consumer engagement platform that integrates diagnostics, devices, and therapeutics. In addition, continued consolidation in healthcare and the Company’s strong relationships with hospitals and health systems will allow it to provide unique solutions to help improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
The healthcare system is in transition to value-based care, with increased use of reimbursement models based on quality of care and on patient outcomes, and less reliance on traditional fee-for-services based payments. The Company is focused on improving efficiency in care delivery, reducing the overall cost of patient care, and using the Company's combination of diagnostic and drug development capabilities to accelerate progress towards more precise and personalized healthcare.
From helping physicians choose the right test for the patient at the right time, to offering innovative molecular and genetic tests, to delivering the next generation of lifesaving drugs, the Company is a critical player in enabling targeted, tailored, high-value care. The Company’s leadership in companion diagnostics, investments in real-world evidence capabilities and market access solutions, along with its long-standing emphasis on quality, standardized test platforms, information technology (IT) expertise, and payer and provider collaborations support the goal of helping customers successfully transition to value-based care.
Streamlining Drug Development
In today’s healthcare landscape, there is a need to streamline drug development to bring new drugs to market faster. The number of molecules in the pipeline continues to increase. In addition, the development process itself is increasingly complex and costly. These trends have led to growing competition for investigators and patients in clinical studies. In this environment, demand from biopharmaceutical companies for data-driven study designs, scalable tools and relevant biomarkers continues to rise.
CDD’s unique end-to-end global capabilities and leading data and analytics platforms, underpinned by its deep scientific and therapeutic expertise, provide biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with differentiated solutions to streamline development by allowing for more efficient study design, and faster and more targeted identification of eligible patients and investigators. The Company’s investment in CDD’s tools and technology has strengthened its leadership advantage in areas such as companion diagnostics and real-world evidence. In addition, LCD’s strategic relationships with hospitals and health systems create opportunities for those organizations to become research partners to participate in studies and clinical trials with CDD.
The combination of the Company’s unique diagnostic and drug development operating models enables the company to create distinctive and innovative solutions to streamline drug development. An illustrative example is in virtual trials, in which the Company can apply its market access call-center capabilities to enroll and engage patients, its patient service centers (PSCs) to provide blood draws and biometric assessments in locations convenient to patients, and its central laboratory services to perform the associated testing.
Patients are taking a greater role over their own healthcare, with increased responsibility for the costs of their care, and more choice in how, when, and where they access healthcare. This change requires healthcare providers to increasingly view patients as consumers. The Company has made significant investments to engage more directly with patients as consumers, through new and upgraded tools and technology that provide consumers with greater convenience and control over their interactions with the Company.
The Company is committed to enhancing the experience in its PSCs through easier self-check-in options, including advanced check-in and verification of personal information on a mobile device; opportunities to learn more about clinical trials and consent to be contacted about studies for which the consumer may be eligible. In addition, with most commercial insurance plans, the Company is supporting greater transparency about costs, providing estimates of anticipated out-of-pocket cost prior to specimen collection now available at all PSCs and a growing number of in-office phlebotomy sites.
LCD’s online portal offers convenient access to new and historical test results, information about tests, and an option to receive information about clinical trials. The Company is expanding its access points, including the 2017 launch of its “LabCorp at Walgreens” collaboration to open PSCs in Walgreens stores. The Company is also investing in and evaluating new technologies that may enable self-collection of specimens, and it is exploring the potential use of wearable devices for diagnostics and in clinical
The Company performs the DNA testing for 23andMe, which has experienced significant test volume growth over the past several years, indicating increased consumer interest in having direct access to the information that testing provides. The Company also continues to support telemedicine, and other new care delivery models, that enhance consumer access to healthcare.
Hospital and Health System Partnerships
The established trend of healthcare consolidation continues. Private medical practices are joining larger medical groups or affiliating with health systems, while health systems are merging and absorbing additional facilities. MCOs are increasingly becoming not just payers but care providers, and in some markets, large health systems have created their own MCO. These combined organizations can provide economies of scale and the capital to make substantially greater investments in technology, and in some cases they can exercise greater control over how and where patients access care. These changes offer the promise of increased efficiency and reduced costs, while also improving patient outcomes.
The Company supports those goals through its unique combination of diagnostics and drug development. It offers integrated and optimized lab testing across multiple types of care settings. It can dramatically simplify IT structures and interfaces to standardize lab testing and data across a disparate network of providers, facilities and systems. That data can also identify patients that may be eligible for clinical trials and physicians who may be able to serve as trial investigators. The Company believes that its ability to offer these integrated solutions is a differentiator in the marketplace.
For more than three decades, the Company has developed and maintained a broad range of collaborations with hospitals and health systems and the Company continues to develop those relationships. In 2017, the Company entered into or extended strategic relationships with multiple health systems across the country, including Providence Health & Services, Catholic Health Initiatives, Novant Health, and Mount Sinai Health System, among others. These relationships are foundational in delivering high-quality, outcomes-driven, and cost-effective care to patients. The Company will continue to invest in its team and capabilities to support this important strategic initiative.
The Company is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the opportunities of the rapidly changing healthcare system. The combination of it leading diagnostics and drug development businesses adds new dimensions to the Company’s capabilities, strengthens its value proposition to key stakeholders and differentiates the Company from its competitors.
Company Reporting
The Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports are made available free of charge through the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website at www.labcorp.com as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Additionally, the SEC maintains a website at http://www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers, including the Company, that file electronically with the SEC. The public may also read and copy any materials that the Company files with the SEC at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20549. Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room may be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.
The matters discussed in this “Business” section should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements found in Item 8 of Part II of this report, which include additional financial information about the Company, such as financial information about geographic areas. This report includes forward-looking statements that involve risks or uncertainties. The Company’s results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including the risk factors described in Item 1A of Part I of this report and elsewhere. For more information about forward-looking statements, see “Forward-Looking Statements” in Item 7.
The Company reports its business in two segments, LCD and CDD. In 2017, LCD and CDD contributed 70.3% and 29.7%, respectively, of net revenues to the Company, and in 2016 contributed 69.9% and 30.1%, respectively. For further financial information about these segments, including information for each of the last three fiscal years regarding revenue, operating income and other important information, see Note 20 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
LCD Segment
LCD is an independent clinical laboratory business. It offers a comprehensive menu of frequently requested and specialty testing through an integrated network of primary and specialty laboratories across the U.S. This network is supported by a sophisticated information technology system, with more than 65,000 electronic interfaces to deliver test results, nimble and efficient logistics, and local labs offering rapid response testing. The Company also provides patient access points, strategically and conveniently located throughout the U.S., including more than 1,900 PSCs operated by the Company and more than 5,000 in-
office phlebotomists who are located in customer offices and facilities. In addition to diagnostic testing, LCD also offers a range of other testing services, including forensic DNA analysis, food safety and integrity services, as well as occupational and wellness testing for employers. LCD offers an expansive test menu including a wide range of clinical, anatomic pathology, genetic and genomic tests, and regularly adds new tests and improves the methodology of existing tests to enhance patient care.
Through the dedicated effort of approximately 39,000 employees, LCD typically processes tests on more than 2.5 million patient specimens each week and has laboratory locations throughout the U.S. and other countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom (U.K.).
Clinical Laboratory Testing Industry
It is estimated that although laboratory services account for less than 3.0% of total U.S. healthcare spending (and less than 2.0% of Medicare expenditures), the results of those tests impact an estimated 70% of all decisions regarding a patient's diagnosis and treatment.
Laboratory tests and procedures are used generally to assist in the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of diseases and medical conditions through the examination of substances in blood, tissues and other specimens. The results of such tests can help in the evaluation of health, the detection of conditions or pathogens and the selection of appropriate therapies. Clinical laboratory testing is generally categorized as either clinical pathology testing, which is performed on body fluids including blood, or anatomical pathology testing, in which a pathologist examines histologic or cytologic samples (i.e., tissue and other samples, including human cells). Clinical and anatomical pathology procedures are frequently ordered as part of regular healthcare office visits and hospital admissions in connection with the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. Certain of these tests and procedures are used in the diagnosis and management of a wide variety of medical conditions such as cancer, infectious disease, endocrine disorders, cardiac disorders and genetic disease.
The Company believes that in 2017, the U.S. clinical laboratory testing industry generated revenues of approximately $80.0 billion. The clinical laboratory industry consists primarily of three types of providers: hospital-based laboratories, physician-office laboratories and independent clinical and anatomical pathology laboratories, such as those operated by LCD. The clinical laboratory business is intensely competitive. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has estimated that in 2017 there were approximately 9,000 hospital-based laboratories, more than 122,000 physician-office laboratories and more than 6,000 independent clinical laboratories in the U.S. LCD competes with all of those laboratories.
LCD believes that physicians selecting a laboratory often consider the following factors, among others:
Quality, timeliness and consistency in reporting test results;
Reputation of the laboratory in the medical community or field of specialty;
Contractual relationships with MCOs;
Service capability and convenience;
Number and type of tests performed;
Connectivity solutions offered; and
Pricing of the laboratory’s services.
LCD believes that it competes favorably in all of these areas.
LCD believes that consolidation in the clinical laboratory testing business will continue. In addition, LCD believes that it and other large, independent clinical laboratory testing companies will be able to increase their share of the overall clinical laboratory testing market due to a number of factors, including cost efficiencies afforded by large-scale automated testing; mergers and acquisitions of complementary businesses; changes in payment models to performance and value-based reimbursement to deliver better outcomes at lower cost; and large, integrated service networks. In addition, legal restrictions on physician referrals and physician ownership of laboratories, as well as ongoing regulation of laboratories, are expected to continue to contribute to the ongoing consolidation of the industry.
Although testing for healthcare purposes and customers who provide healthcare services represents the most significant portion of the clinical laboratory industry, clinical laboratories also perform testing for other purposes and customers, including employment and occupational testing, DNA testing to determine parentage and to assist in forensic investigations, environmental testing, wellness testing, toxicology testing, pain management testing, medical drug monitoring and nutritional analysis and food safety testing.
LCD Testing Operations and Productivity
LCD has a network of PSCs, phlebotomists placed at a customer location, branches, rapid response (STAT) laboratories, primary testing laboratories and specialty testing laboratories, including 19 ISO 15189-certified laboratories that provide customers
with the assurance that comes with this rigorous global standard. Generally, a PSC is a facility maintained by LCD to serve the patients of physicians in a medical professional building or other strategic location. The PSC staff collects specimens for testing as requested by the physician. However, most patient specimens are collected by the customer's staff at their office or facility, or in some cases, by an LCD phlebotomist who has been placed in a physician office, hospital or other healthcare facility for the specific purpose of collecting specimens to be tested by LCD. These specimens are collected from PSCs and customer locations and sent principally through LCD's in-house courier system (and to a lesser extent, through independent couriers), to a branch or directly to one of LCD's laboratories for testing. A branch is a central facility that collects specimens in a region for shipment to one of LCD’s laboratories for testing. A branch is also frequently used as a base for sales and distribution staff. STAT laboratories, which are often co-located with a branch or a PSC, perform critical testing for nearby customers, with results typically delivered within 2-3 hours of receipt of the specimen. Primary testing laboratories perform frequently requested testing on a large scale. Specialty testing laboratories perform one or more types of specialty and esoteric testing.
Each specimen and related request form is checked for completeness and given a unique identification number. The unique identification number assigned to each specimen associates the results to the appropriate patient. Once the necessary testing and billing information is entered into the software system, either electronically through an interface with the ordering physician or manually by a data entry operator, the tests are performed and the results are entered through an electronic data interface or manually, depending upon the tests and the type of instrumentation involved. Most of LCD's automated testing equipment is connected to its information systems. Most specimens are picked up from the customer's location by late afternoon or early evening and delivered to the testing laboratory by late evening on the day of collection or overnight. Test results are in most cases electronically delivered to the physician via electronic interfaces, the LabCorp LinkTM (formerly LabCorp Beacon) platform, smart printers or personal computer-based products.
LCD remains focused on improving quality and productivity while lowering costs throughout all phases of its operations, supported by LCD's technology, automation and facility rationalization initiatives. As part of an ongoing commitment to remain the most efficient and highest-value provider of laboratory services, several years ago LCD began a comprehensive business process improvement initiative, referred to as LaunchPad, to reengineer its systems and processes to create a sustainable and more efficient business model, and to improve the experience of all stakeholders. In 2017, the Company achieved its three-year-goal to deliver net LaunchPad savings of $150.0 million, and expects that the system and process improvements implemented through LaunchPad will yield continuing benefits for the foreseeable future.
LCD Testing Services
LCD offers a growing menu of nearly 5,000 tests. Several hundred of those tests are used in general patient care by physicians to establish or support a diagnosis, to monitor treatment or to search for an otherwise undiagnosed condition. The most frequently requested include blood chemistry analyses, urinalyses, blood cell counts, thyroid tests, Pap tests, hemoglobin A1C, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), tests for sexually-transmitted diseases [e.g. chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)], hepatitis C (HCV) tests, vitamin D, microbiology cultures and procedures, and alcohol and other substance-abuse tests. LCD performs this core group of tests in its major laboratories using sophisticated instruments, with most results reported within 24 hours or less.
In addition, LCD provides a comprehensive range of specialty testing services in the areas of women's health, allergy, diagnostic genetics, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, endocrinology, oncology, coagulation, pharmacogenetics, toxicology and medical drug monitoring.
LCD also performs a range of other testing services, including DNA testing to determine parentage and to assist in forensic investigations, and occupational testing and wellness testing for employers. In addition, LCD provides testing services to the food, beverage, nutraceutical, animal feed, chemical and agrochemical industries, which include nutritional analysis and equivalency, nutritional content fact labels, microbiological and chemical contaminant safety analysis, product development expertise, sensory testing, pesticide screening and stability testing.
LCD’s Specialty Testing Group performs esoteric testing, cancer diagnostics, and other complex procedures. LCD's specialty testing businesses and their areas of expertise are summarized in the chart below.
The Specialty Testing Group offers advanced methods and access to scientific expertise in the following disciplines:
Anatomic Pathology/Oncology. LCD offers advanced comprehensive tumor tissue analysis, including immunohistochemistry (IHC), cancer cytogenetics and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) through its Dianon Pathology and Integrated Oncology specialty testing laboratories. Applications for molecular diagnostics continue to increase in oncology for leukemia analysis and solid tumor assessment. In cancers such as colon and lung cancer, assays that analyze genetic mutations can help guide appropriate therapy choices for a given patient. Through the combined expertise of LCD and CDD, the Company is a recognized leader in the development and introduction of companion and complementary diagnostics, which are becoming increasingly important in the treatment of cancer with new, targeted therapies for which only certain patients may be eligible, or which may provide greater or lesser benefits to certain patients, based on their individual genetic makeup.
Cardiovascular Disease. LCD’s cardiovascular menu includes cholesterol tests, expanded lipid profiles, a metabolic syndrome profile and tests for thrombosis and stroke. LCD also offers complete testing for monitoring disease progression and therapy response, including the clinical decision support (CDS) reports available through Litholink.
Coagulation. LCD offers an extensive menu of tests for hemostasis and thrombosis, including bleeding profiles and screening tests, profiles for reproductive health, factor analysis, thrombin generation markers, and thrombotic risk evaluation. In 2017, LCD introduced a new, internally developed method to test for ADAMTS13, a rare, life-threatening blood clot disorder; the new method offers clinically significant improvements to previously available tests. LCD also performs testing in support of clinical trials for therapies to treat hemophilia.
Diagnostic Genetics. LCD offers cytogenetic, molecular cytogenetic, biochemical and molecular genetic tests. The biochemical genetics offerings include a variety of prenatal screening options, including integrated and sequential prenatal assays and non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for more sensitive and earlier assessment of risk for multiple fetal chromosomal aneuploidies, such as Down syndrome. LCD has expanded its cytogenetics offerings through the use of whole genome single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarray technology, which provides enhanced detection of subtle chromosomal changes associated with the etiology of mental retardation, developmental delay and autism. The molecular genetics services include multiplex analyses of a variety of disorders, gene sequencing applications for both somatic and germ-line alterations and whole exome sequencing. Through Integrated Genetics, LCD provides the most comprehensive genetic test menu in the industry, as well as approximately 130 genetic counselors and six medical geneticists to provide patients and their physicians with analysis, assessment and interpretation of genetic test results to help optimize patient decisions and outcomes.
Endocrinology. LCD is a leading provider of advanced hormone/steroid testing, including comprehensive services for the endocrine specialist. LCD has expanded its menu in esoteric endocrine testing and has launched an initiative to develop steroid testing utilizing mass spectrometry technology. Mass spectrometry is used for detection of low levels of small molecule steroids, including testosterone in women, children and hypogonadal men. Additionally, LCD offers endocrine-related tests for genetic conditions including congenital adrenal hyperplasia, short stature, and thyroid cancer, along with extensive age- and gender-related reference intervals for those tests.
Infectious Disease. LCD provides complete HIV testing services, including viral load measurements, genotyping and phenotyping, and host genetic factors that are important tools in managing and treating HIV infections. The addition of resistance tests, including PhenoSense®, PhenoSenseGT®, Trofile®, and GenoSure PRIme® complements the existing HIV GenoSure® assay and provides LCD with an industry-leading, comprehensive portfolio of HIV resistance testing services.
LCD also provides extensive testing services for HCV infections, including both viral load determinations and strain genotyping and host genetic factors. LCD continues to develop molecular assays for infectious disease.
Women's Health. LCD offers a comprehensive menu of women's health testing. A key feature of this menu is the industry's leading suite of NIPT tests, including MaterniT® GENOME, a fully validated genome-wide NIPT test, reflecting the Company's deep prenatal genetics capabilities. Other LCD testing options for women's health include the NuSwab® portfolio, featuring high-quality, convenient single-swab tests for common infections of the genital tract; an innovative age-based test protocol for cervical cancer and sexually-transmitted disease screening; liquid-based Pap testing with image-guided cervical cytology for improved cervical cancer detection; and out-of-the-vial Pap testing with options for human papillomavirus (HPV). LCD also offers tests that utilize the latest technical innovations for the full range of reproductive care, including maternal serum screening, prenatal diagnostics, ethnicity carrier screening, testing for causes of infertility or miscarriage as well as postnatal testing services.
Pharmacogenetics. LCD provides access to the latest tests in the emerging field of pharmacogenetics. These tests can help physicians understand how a patient metabolizes certain drugs, allowing them to select the most appropriate therapies or adjust dosing.
Forensics and Donor Testing. LCD provides forensic identity testing used in connection with criminal proceedings. LCD continues to be a leading provider of DNA analysis for sexual assault cases for jurisdictions across the U.S. LCD also provides forensic testing used in connection with parentage evaluation services that assist in determining parentage for child support enforcement proceedings and determining genetic relationships for immigration purposes. Parentage testing involves the evaluation of immunological and genetic markers in specimens obtained from the child, the mother and the alleged father. LCD also provides testing services in reconstruction cases, which assist in determining parentage without the presence of the parent in question. Additionally, LCD provides human leukocyte antigen testing to match organ and tissue transplant recipients with compatible donors.
Occupational Testing Services. LCD provides testing services for the detection of drug and alcohol use for private and government customers. These testing services are designed to produce forensic quality test results that satisfy the rigorous requirements of regulated and non-regulated workplace drug testing programs. Additionally, LCD provides employee wellness screenings comprised of biometric measurements and diagnostic tests to assist in the detection of health risks including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. LCD also provides medical drug monitoring tests that detect common pain medications and illicit drugs to assist physicians with assessing the full scope of a patient’s drug use.
Medical Drug Monitoring Services. Medical drug monitoring is laboratory testing that monitors patients for the use of prescription pain medications or other controlled substances. These testing services are designed to provide physicians with information relevant to the treatment of patients who are prescribed controlled substances, including opioid pain medications, antianxiety medications, and stimulants. This testing can help physicians identify patients who are not taking their prescribed doses, which could be an indication that the drugs are being diverted elsewhere, and also to identify patients who may be supplementing their prescribed medication with other, non-prescribed substances. LCD offers broad choice in medical drug monitoring test options, including LabCorp MedWatch® monitor, customizable drug monitoring test options focused on the most commonly prescribed pain medications and illicit drugs, and LabCorp MedWatch ToxAssure®, a broad-spectrum drug analysis that analyzes as many as 180 compounds to assess a full range of medication use. LCD testing may assist in identifying patients who may benefit from greater caution and increased monitoring or interventions when risk factors are identified.
Chronic Disease Programs. Through Litholink, LCD uses a programmatic approach to the comprehensive treatment of chronic diseases, including kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, metabolic bone disease and diabetes, and offers CDS reports to both physicians and patients. LCD believes these chronic disease programs represent potential significant savings to the healthcare system by increasing the detection of early-stage diseases and effectively managing chronic disease conditions.
Development of New Tests
Advances in medicine continue to fundamentally change diagnostic testing. New tests are allowing clinical laboratories to provide unprecedented amounts of health-related information to physicians and patients. New molecular diagnostic tests that have been introduced over the past several years, including a gene-based test for HPV, HIV drug resistance assays, and molecular genetic testing for cystic fibrosis, have now become part of standard clinical practice. LCD continued its industry leadership in gene-based and esoteric testing in 2017, generating more than $2.0 billion in revenue from these testing services. As science continues to advance, LCD expects new testing technologies to emerge and, therefore, intends to continue to invest in advanced testing capabilities so that it can remain on the forefront of diagnostic laboratory testing. The Company has added, and expects to continue to add, new testing technologies and capabilities through a combination of internal development initiatives, technology licensing and partnership transactions, and selected business acquisitions. Through its sales force, LCD rapidly introduces new testing technologies to customers. This differentiation is important in the retention and growth of business.
In 2017, LCD continued its emphasis on scientific innovation and leadership with the introduction of significant test menu and automation enhancements and by launching more than 70 new tests. LCD is focused on the expansion of existing programs in molecular diagnostics as well as the introduction of new assays and assay platforms through licensing partnerships, acquisitions and internal development. The Company's commitment to the scientific advancement in the development and assessment of new diagnostics and therapeutics is evidenced by producing nearly 600 peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scientific meetings, along with regular presentations in academic medical center grand rounds and seminars, in 2017.
Examples of new tests and services introduced in 2017 include:
Infectious Diseases. LCD now offers a series of BioFire® test panels, produced by bioMerieux, with application across four clinical areas: respiratory, blood culture, gastrointestinal, and meningitis/encephalitis. These panels identify more than a hundred pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, yeast, parasites, and antimicrobial resistance genes, with faster turnaround times to help physicians more quickly and precisely diagnose and begin treatment in often-critical cases.
Oncology. LCD continued its leadership in oncology by offering a significant number of new tests focused on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. LCD was one of the first labs to offer Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Oncomine Dx Target Test, the first next-generation sequencing-based (NGS) test approved by the FDA as a companion diagnostic to aid in the selection of specific targeted therapies for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer patients. LCD was also one of the first laboratories to join Thermo Fisher’s Next-Generation Sequencing Companion Dx Center of Excellence Program, offering enhanced participation in clinical trials and early access to novel testing platforms and assays. With the Omniseq Immune Report CardSM test and the OmniSeq Comprehensive® panel, LCD became the exclusive laboratory to provide U.S. physicians with unique insights to help guide treatment decisions for cancer patients who may be appropriate candidates for immunotherapy and other targeted treatments. LCD extended its offering of proprietary NGS VistaSeqSM Cancer panels. The VistaSeq tests screen for elevated risk of hereditary cancer, and the expanded offering includes tests for multiple additional types of cancer.
Women's Health. LCD maintained its leading position in women's health testing, including a robust menu of NIPT testing options, ranging from screening for the common autosomal trisomies, to detection of select microdeletions, to a genome-wide assessment of large copy number variants. These offerings provide the most comprehensive menu of noninvasive fetal aneuploidy screening. LCD began to offer ReproSURE™, a blood test designed to provide information about ovarian reserve, which is an indication of a woman's reproductive potential to help physicians and patients in selecting the most appropriate fertility treatment to increase chances of becoming pregnant.
Medical Drug Monitoring and Toxicology. LCD’s existing expertise in medical drug monitoring and toxicology, through MedTox Laboratories and LabCorp Occupational Testing Services, was enhanced through the acquisition of Pathology Associates Medical Laboratory (PAML) which had particular strength in medical drug monitoring. The combination will allow LCD to provide expanded access and capacity for medical drug monitoring and toxicology services.
LCD continues its collaborations with university, hospital and academic institutions, such as Boston University, Columbia University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, The Mount Sinai Hospital, the University of Tennessee and Yale University, to license and commercialize new diagnostic tests.
LCD Technology-Enabled Solutions
LCD’s technology-enabled solutions include innovative decision support programs for chronic diseases, population health analytics tools, and a proprietary set of tools to provide customers and patients with convenient and secure access to LCD’s services. These industry-leading solutions are designed to improve health and improve lives by providing a better laboratory experience for physicians and patients, and ultimately improving the delivery of care.
During 2017, LCD delivered more than 6.0 million enhanced CDS reports for chronic health conditions, including kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, metabolic bone disease and diabetes. LCD’s proprietary CDS reports integrate patient-specific diagnostic information and evidence-based healthcare content to help physicians and patients better manage health. In addition, these decision-support programs promote physician adherence to evidence-based treatment guidelines.
LCD continues to develop new population health analytics programs that provide healthcare business intelligence tools to health systems, physician practices, and accountable care organizations (ACOs). These tools are intended to assist customers in their compliance and reporting requirements with respect to efficient management of their productivity, quality and patient outcome metrics. LCD's robust rules engine maintains a large number of clinical quality measures that are highly customizable and support compliance with meaningful use and quality reporting requirements such as ACO standards, Joint Commission standards and the CMS Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). Real-time clinical alerts highlight gaps in care for patients and patient populations.
LCD's centralized and proprietary LabCorp | LinkTM, which focuses on physicians, is a series of assets and functionalities that enhance the customer experience and provide an end-to-end lab solution. These assets and functionalities include:
A physician portal optimized for web and mobile devices;
Express electronic ordering for essentially all of LCD's brands and services;
Integrated results viewing and enhanced reports;
Lab analytics that provide one-click trending of patient, test and population data;
CDS tools at the point of testing and resulting;
AccuDraw, which provides graphical, step-by-step guidance to help improve accuracy, workflow and turnaround time in the collection and processing of specimens at the point of collection; and
Services-oriented architecture with rules-based engines, content aggregation and seamless integration with practice workflow.
LCD’s centralized and proprietary LabCorp | PatientTM is a series of assets and functionalities that enhance the patience experience. These assets and functionalities include:
A patient portal optimized for web and market-leading mobile devices;
Integrated results viewing and patient education materials;
Online appointment scheduling and bill payment;
An online patient cost estimator for select genetic tests; and
An option to receive information about clinical trials.
LCD introduced two new patient self-service products in 2017, LabCorp | PreCheckTM and LabCorp | ExpressTM, that improve the patient experience across the PSC network. LabCorp | PreCheck is a mobile optimized online application that allows patients to easily schedule a PSC visit in advance. LabCorp | Express uses tablets located in PSCs, allowing patients with or without an appointment to check into the PSC and, if they do not already have an appointment, find the next available one at that or a nearby PSC. Both systems support confirmation and manual entry of demographic and insurance information designed to expedite the intake process and improve patient flow at the PSC, and also provide options to receive testing and appointment notifications via email or text message. LabCorp | PreCheck also offers an image-capture option for driver’s licenses or other state-issued identification and insurance cards. LabCorp | Express supports bar-code scanning of those cards. These systems have demonstrably increased patient and staff satisfaction. In addition, the notifications may help increase test compliance, and the patient data collected will help accelerate enrollment in LabCorp | Patient and further increase the growing population of patients who may receive information about clinical study opportunities with CDD.
LCD’s centralized and proprietary LabCorp | PayerTM enables healthcare organizations to obtain test results and quality data through a web-based interface. Results and quality data are increasingly important as the healthcare system focuses on new payment models and the need to deliver better patient outcomes and reduce cost. Over time, this new portal will be expanded to deliver a wide variety of data and analytic value.
LCD's BeaconLBS business provides a technology-enabled solution that provides point-of-care decision support through interfaces with test ordering systems to assist physicians in selecting a lab and the right test for the patient at the right time. Physicians, patients, healthcare delivery systems and payers are expected to benefit from this innovation, which supports the selection of labs that are designed to improve quality, supports evidence-based guidelines for patient care, and more effectively manages laboratory testing utilization trends without disrupting physician work flow. The BeaconLBS rules engine interfaces with payer policies for ordering, utilization, adjudication and payment.
In 2013, BeaconLBS signed an agreement with UnitedHealthcare® to implement a laboratory benefit management program in Florida utilizing BeaconLBS. UnitedHealthcare launched the laboratory benefit management program with BeaconLBS in Florida on October 1, 2014. In April 2015, BeaconLBS achieved its targeted implementation for UnitedHealthcare in Florida, and LCD began recognizing revenue for providing this service. Results from the Florida program continue to demonstrate improvements in physician use of Labs of Choice (a network of quality, cost-effective labs); improvement in physician test selection based on evidence-based guidelines; reduction in patient out-of-pocket costs; and a reduction in patient use of non-par laboratories. UnitedHealthcare has not yet expanded the laboratory benefit management program beyond Florida. In 2017, BeaconLBS signed an additional agreement with UnitedHealthcare to implement a national molecular testing management program covering approximately 4.2 million fully insured customers across the U.S., which uses a new BeaconLBS molecular test management and decision support platform for test prior authorizations and notifications. The program became effective November 1, 2017.
Billing for Laboratory Services
Billing for laboratory services is a complicated process involving many payers such as MCOs, Medicare, Medicaid, physicians and physician groups, hospitals, patients and employer groups, all of which have different billing requirements. In addition, billing arrangements with third-party administrators may further complicate the billing process. Tests ordered by a physician may be billed to different payers depending on the medical benefits of a particular patient. Most testing services are billed to a party other than the physician or other authorized person who ordered the test. A growing portion of revenue is derived from patients in the form of deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, and charges for non-covered tests.
LCD utilizes a centralized billing system in the collection of approximately 89.7% of its domestic revenue (85.2% of consolidated LCD revenue). This system generates bills to LCD customers based on payer type. Customer billing is typically generated monthly, whereas patient and third-party billing are typically generated daily. Accounts receivable are then monitored by billing personnel, and follow-up activities are conducted as necessary. Bad debt expense is recorded within selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales considered necessary to maintain the allowance for doubtful accounts at an appropriate level, based on LCD's experience. LCD writes off accounts against the allowance for doubtful accounts when accounts receivable are deemed to be uncollectible. For customer billing, third-party and managed care, accounts are written off when all reasonable collection efforts prove to be unsuccessful. Patient accounts are written off after the normal dunning cycle has occurred and the account has been transferred to a third-party collection agency.
A significant portion of LCD's bad debt expense is related to accounts receivable from patients who are unwilling or unable to pay. In 2017, LCD continued its focus on process and account management initiatives to reduce the negative impact of bad debt expense related to patient accounts receivable.
Another component of LCD’s bad debt expense is the result of non-credit-related issues that slow the billing process, such as missing or incorrect billing information on test requisitions. LCD vigorously attempts to obtain any missing information or rectify any incorrect billing information received from the ordering physician. However, LCD typically performs the requested tests and returns the test results regardless of whether billing information is correct or complete. LCD believes that this experience is similar to that of its primary competitors. LCD continues to focus on process initiatives aimed at reducing the impact of these non-credit-related issues. This is accomplished through ongoing identification of root-cause issues, deploying technology-enabled solutions, training provided to internal and external resources involved in the patient data capture process, and an emphasis on the use of electronic test ordering. Specific to technology-enabled solutions, in 2016 LCD deployed insurance eligibility verification and address validation at the time of service in all PSCs. In 2017, the Company implemented system enhancements that provide patients with an estimate of their out-of-pocket costs. In 2018, the Company plans to deploy a self-serve platform for physicians to resolve claim issues related to diagnosis and coverage denials.
For the Company's operations in Ontario, Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (Ministry) determines who can establish a licensed community medical laboratory and caps the amount that each of these licensed laboratories can bill the government-sponsored healthcare plan. The Ontario government-sponsored healthcare plan covers the cost of clinical laboratory testing performed by the licensed laboratories. The provincial government discounts the annual testing volumes based on certain utilization discounts and establishes an annual maximum it will pay for all community laboratory tests. The agreed-upon reimbursement rates are subject to Ministry review at the end of each year and can be adjusted at the government's discretion based upon the actual volume and mix of testing services performed by the licensed healthcare providers in the province during the year. In 2017, the amount of the Company's capitated revenue derived from the Ontario government-sponsored healthcare plan was CAD $189.3 million.
Effect of U.S. Market Changes on the Clinical Laboratory Business
The delivery of, and reimbursement for, healthcare continues to change in the U.S., impacting all stakeholders, including the clinical laboratory business. Medicare (which principally serves patients who are 65 and older), Medicaid (which principally serves low-income patients) and insurers have increased their efforts to control the cost, utilization and delivery of healthcare services. Measures to regulate healthcare delivery in general and clinical laboratories in particular have resulted in reduced prices, added costs and decreased test utilization for the clinical laboratory industry by imposing new, increasingly complex regulatory and administrative requirements. From time to time, the government also has considered changes to the Medicare and Medicaid fee schedules, and LCD believes that pressure to reduce government reimbursement will continue.
Fees for most laboratory services reimbursed by Medicare are established in the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS), and fees for other testing reimbursed by Medicare, primarily related to pathology, are covered by the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). During 2017, approximately 12.1% of LCD’s revenue was reimbursed under the CLFS (12.3% in 2016), and approximately 0.7% was reimbursed under the PFS (0.8% in 2016). Over the past several years, LCD has experienced governmental reimbursement reductions as a direct result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) and the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014 (ABLE Act). In addition, payer policy changes have impacted the reimbursement for LCD. Further, PAMA, which became law on April 1, 2014, and went into effect on January 1, 2018, is expected to result in a future net reduction in reimbursement revenue under the CLFS. These laws include provisions designed to control healthcare expenses reimbursed by government programs through a combination of reductions to fee schedules, incentives to physicians to participate in alternative payment models such as risk-sharing, and new methods to establish and adjust fees.
In 2017, LCD received a 1.2% payment increase under the CLFS representing approximately $15.6 million. During this same period, LCD experienced a $3.6 million reduction in payments under the PFS.
Beginning in 2018, under PAMA, CMS is setting the CLFS using the weighted median of reported private payer prices paid to certain laboratories that receive a majority of their Medicare revenue from the CLFS and PFS and that bill Medicare under their own National Provider Identifier (NPI). On June 23, 2016, CMS issued a final rule to implement PAMA that required applicable laboratories, including LCD, to begin reporting their test-specific private payer payment amounts to CMS during the first quarter of 2017. CMS exercised enforcement discretion to permit reporting for an additional 60 days, through May 30, 2017. CMS used that private market data to calculate weighted median prices for each test (based on applicable current procedural technology (CPT) codes) to represent the new CLFS rates beginning in 2018, subject to certain phase-in limits. For 2018-2020, a test price cannot be reduced by more than 10.0% per year; for 2021-2023, a test price cannot be reduced by more than 15.0% per year. The process of data reporting and repricing will be repeated every three years for Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests (CDLTs). The second data reporting period for CDLTs will occur during the first quarter of 2020, and new CLFS rates for CDLTs will be established based on that data beginning in 2021, subject to the previously described phase-in limits for 2021-2023. The third data reporting period for CDLTs will occur during the first quarter of 2023, and new CLFS rates for CDLTs will be established based on that data beginning in 2024. CLFS rates for 2024 and subsequent periods will not be subject to phase-in limits. CLFS rates for Advanced Diagnostic Laboratory Tests (ADLTs) will be updated annually.
CMS published its initial proposed CLFS rates under PAMA for 2018-2020 on September 22, 2017. Following a public comment period, CMS made adjustments and published final CLFS rates for 2018-2020 on November 17, 2017, with additional adjustments published on December 1, 2017. For 2018, the Company estimates that the CLFS rates will reduce LCD revenue from all payers affected by the CLFS by a total of approximately 8% ($70.0 million).
The final rates published by CMS were based on data reported by only 1% of all laboratories paid by Medicare in 2015, and only 1% of the reported data was from hospital laboratories. Consequently, the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) filed a federal civil action against HHS for declaratory and injunctive relief on December 11, 2017, arguing that CMS violated the PAMA statute by excluding most of the laboratory market from reporting data on which the rates were based, resulting in rates that do not fairly reflect the private market as the clear language of PAMA requires. While that lawsuit is proceeding, ACLA continues to work with Congress on potential legislative reform of PAMA, which if enacted could reduce the negative impact of PAMA as implemented by CMS. The Company supports the ongoing efforts to prevent or lessen the negative impact of the changes to the CLFS pursuant to PAMA, and the full impact of those efforts, and what the long-term effect will be on the CLFS rates is not yet known.
On November 4, 2016, CMS noted in a final rule implementing MACRA that it intended to apply Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) requirements to pathologists practicing in independent laboratories, including LCD. Under this requirement, LCD pathologists would have been required to begin reporting certain quality metrics in 2017 for LCD to avoid negative PFS payment adjustments or to qualify for positive PFS payment adjustments beginning in 2019. ACLA met with CMS on March 9, 2017, regarding implementation of this requirement, which was not proposed in the MACRA proposed rule. CMS clarified that it would not apply MIPS requirements to pathologists practicing in independent laboratories.
In 2018, LCD anticipates it will realize an estimated $1.6 million reduction in PFS net revenue, driven by combined reductions in reimbursement for flow cytometry procedures.
Further, healthcare reform could occur in 2018, including changes to the ACA and Medicare reform, as well as administrative requirements that may continue to affect coverage, reimbursement, and utilization of laboratory services in ways that are currently unpredictable.
In addition, market-based changes have affected and will continue to affect the clinical laboratory business. Reimbursement from commercial payers for diagnostic testing has shifted and will continue to shift away from traditional, fee-for-service models to alternatives, including value-based, bundled pay-for-performance, and other risk-sharing payment models. The growth of the managed care sector and consolidation of MCOs present various challenges and opportunities to LCD and other clinical laboratories.
In 2006, the Company signed a 10-year agreement with UnitedHealthcare to become its exclusive national laboratory in the U.S. In September 2011, the Company extended this agreement for an additional two years through the end of 2018. The Company also serves many other MCOs. These organizations have different contracting philosophies, which are influenced by the design of their products. Some MCOs contract with a limited number of clinical laboratories and engage in direct negotiation of rates. Other MCOs adopt broader networks with generally uniform fee structures for participating clinical laboratories. In some cases, those fee structures are specific to independent clinical laboratories, while the fees paid to hospital-based and physician-office laboratories may be different, and are typically higher. MCOs may also offer Managed Medicare or Managed Medicaid plans. In addition, some MCOs use capitation rates to fix the cost of laboratory testing services for their enrollees. Under a capitated reimbursement arrangement, the clinical laboratory receives a per-member, per-month payment for an agreed upon menu of laboratory tests provided to MCO members during the month, regardless of the number of tests performed. For the year ended December 31, 2017, capitated contracts with MCOs accounted for approximately $259.1 million, or 3.6%, of LCD's net revenues. LCD's ability to attract and retain MCO customers has become even more important as the impact of various healthcare reform initiatives continues, including expanded health insurance exchanges and ACOs.
In addition to reductions in test reimbursement, the Company also anticipates potential declines in test volumes as a result of increased controls over the utilization of laboratory services by Medicare, Medicaid, and other third-party payers, particularly MCOs. MCOs are implementing, directly or through third parties, various types of laboratory benefit management programs, which may include lab networks, utilization management tools (such as prior authorization and/or prior notification), and claims edits, which impact coverage and reimbursement of clinical laboratory tests. Some of these programs address clinical laboratory testing broadly, while others are focused on molecular and genetic testing. In addition, continued movement by patients into consumer-driven health plans may have an impact on the utilization of laboratory testing.
Despite the overall negative market changes regarding reimbursement discussed above, LCD believes that the volume of clinical laboratory testing is positively influenced by several factors, including the expansion of Medicaid, managed care, and private insurance exchanges. In addition, LCD believes that increased knowledge of the human genome and continued innovation in laboratory medicine will continue to foster greater appreciation of the value of gene-based diagnostic assays. Additional factors that may lead to future volume growth include an increase in the number and types of tests that are readily available (due to advances in technology and increased cost efficiencies) for the diagnosis of disease, and the general aging of the U.S. population. As previously discussed, LCD also believes that it and other large, independent clinical laboratory testing companies will be able to increase their share of the overall clinical laboratory testing market due to a number of market factors, primarily related to a continued drive to improve outcomes and reduce costs across the healthcare system. LCD believes that its enhanced and growing esoteric menu of tests, leading position with companion diagnostics, broad geographic footprint, and operating efficiency provide a strong platform for growth.
CDD Segment
CDD provides end-to-end drug development, medical device and diagnostic services from early-stage research to clinical trial management and commercial market access. CDD provides a wide range of drug research and development (R&D) and market access services to biopharmaceutical companies and medical device companies across the world. With the acquisition of Chiltern, CDD now has more than 20,000 employees worldwide and a global network of operations. It has deep expertise in clinical trials, supporting clinical trial activity in approximately 100 countries through its industry-leading central laboratory business, generating more safety and efficacy data to support drug approvals than any other company. CDD collaborated on more than 90% of the novel drugs approved by the FDA in 2017, including more than 90% of the novel rare and orphan disease drugs and two-thirds of the novel oncology drugs. In addition, CDD has been involved in the development of all current top 50 drugs on the market as measured by sales revenue.
Drug Development Industry
Drug development services companies like CDD are also referred to as CROs and typically derive substantially all of their revenue from R&D as well as marketing expenditures of the biopharmaceutical industry. CDD offers comprehensive global drug, medical device and diagnostic development services from preclinical research through all phases of clinical development and into commercialization. Outsourcing of R&D services from biopharmaceutical companies to CROs has increased in the past, and is expected to continue increasing in the future, because of several factors, including: pressures to improve return on investment, limitations on internal R&D capacity, the need to reduce drug development timelines, stringent government regulation, as well as therapeutic, scientific and other expertise that customers lack internally. The investment and amount of time required to develop new drugs are significant and have been increasing, and these trends create opportunities for CDD and other CROs that can help make the drug development process more efficient.
The drug development industry has many participants ranging from hundreds of small providers to a limited number of large CROs with global capabilities. CDD competes against these small and large CROs, as well as in-house departments of biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic companies, and to a lesser extent, selected universities and teaching hospitals.
CDD believes that customers selecting a CRO often consider the following factors, among others:
•Reputation for quality, efficient, timely performance and regulatory compliance;
•Expertise and experience in operations, and the use of technology;
•Specific therapeutic and scientific expertise;
•Market access services;
•Scope of service offerings;
•Strengths in various geographic markets;
•Price;
•Quality of facilities;
•Ability to acquire, process, analyze and report data in a rapid and accurate manner;
•Quality of relationships;
Ability to manage large-scale clinical trials both domestically and internationally, including the recruitment of appropriate and sufficient clinical-trial subjects; and
•Size and scale.
CDD believes that it competes favorably in all of these areas.
Preclinical Services
CDD’s preclinical service offerings include research models, lead optimization, analytical services, safety assessment, and chemistry manufacturing and control (CMC) services for drug development. CDD offers solution-based approaches by leveraging highly experienced program development directors and project managers to help guide strategic decisions and manage molecule development in an integrated, streamlined manner across CDD's eight analytical laboratories and preclinical laboratories in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and China. CDD's historical innovations in the preclinical area include technologies such as MarketPlace and StudyTracker®. Covance MarketPlace is a private, secure web portal providing potential investors or partners access to information about new drugs in development. StudyTracker® is an internet-based customer access product, allowing customers of toxicology, bioanalytical, metabolism, and reproductive and developmental toxicology services to review study schedules and data on a near real-time basis.
Research Models. CDD is an American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International accredited provider of purpose-bred research models globally. Due to regulation by the FDA and other foreign regulatory bodies, safety and efficacy testing on research models is required as part of the drug development process prior to testing in humans. CDD has a strong commitment to animal welfare, and has instituted progressive enrichment practices and rigorous health testing standards that exceed industry standards to protect the health of CDD's models. CDD is also committed to seeking out alternatives to, or the reduction of, the use of research models when possible. CDD's research models include standard lines as well as disease state and genetically altered models to accommodate customers’ needs. CDD offers purpose-bred-specific, pathogen free rabbits, canines, nonhuman primates, and other species, as well as blood and tissue products and surgical/technical services, including telemetry. The purpose-bred research animals are sold to biopharmaceutical companies, university research centers and CROs.
Lead Optimization. Lead optimization services are designed to connect early discovery activities to regulated pre-clinical studies. These services include non-good laboratory practice (GLP) toxicology, in vivo pharmacology with model development and integrated safety and efficacy capabilities, nonclinical imaging, nonclinical pathology services, pharmacokinetic/toxicokinetic (PK/TK) analysis reporting and immunology services.
Analytical Services. Bioanalytical testing services help determine the appropriate dose and frequency of drug application from late discovery evaluation through Phase III clinical testing on a full-scale, globally integrated basis. CDD’s analytical services offering includes liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy immunoanalytical solutions and specialty support, translational biomarker solutions, discovery bioanalysis, vaccine analysis, PK/TK analysis and reporting, and organic synthesis. In addition, CDD offers a growing menu of validated, nonproprietary assays for hundreds of compounds, eliminating method development and validation time, and reducing program cost. CDD has dedicated lab facilities across three continents providing in vitro drug metabolism, in vivo radiolabeled absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion studies; metabolite identification/profiling and nonclinical PK screening; and radiosynthesis services. CDD also provides pharmaceutical chemistry services that determine the metabolic profile and bioavailability of drug candidates.
Safety Assessment. Safety assessment services include general, genetic, and immunotoxicology services; nonclinical pathology services; safety pharmacology services; and developmental and reproductive toxicology (DART) studies. CDD’s drug development services employ state-of-the-art technology and an integrated program for both large and small molecules with facilities across three continents. CDD's nonclinical pathology group is comprised of certified veterinary pathologists who provide critical insights and recommendations to help customers navigate the drug development process. CDD’s safety pharmacology services utilize the Value Added Safety Pharmacology & Toxicology approach to economically assess pharmacology endpoints during toxicology studies to minimize safety issues during the clinical phases. DART services help customers assess the birth defect risk for potential drug candidates.
Biopharm CMC Manufacturing Solutions. CMC offers packages supporting FDA Investigational New Drug Application and New Drug Application/Biologic License Application submissions, as well as programs to help CDD's customers meet acceptance criteria for the release of drug products for both biologics and small molecules. CMC provides well-coordinated capabilities and expertise operating within a global quality system framework to deliver robust, cost-effective solutions. Capabilities include safety, identity, strength, quality and purity assessments for biologics.
Early Phase Development Solutions. Early Phase Development Solutions (EPDS) offers customers access to a focused, multidisciplinary team of experts that crafts integrated solutions to rapidly identify and develop lead drug candidates and reduce development challenges. EPDS provides customers with seamless integration of the complete array of CDD nonclinical and
early clinical services, with a focus on scientific integrity and human subject safety. EPDS also offers an innovative parallel study approach for shorter proof-of-concept studies. This approach can increase clinical return on investment through the application of medical, scientific and therapeutic expertise, along with patient stratification strategies.
Central Laboratory Services
CDD provides central laboratory and specialty testing services to biopharmaceutical customers through its global network of central laboratories in the U.S., Switzerland, Singapore and China as well as its strategic agreement for central laboratory services testing in Japan with BML, Inc., a leading Japanese laboratory testing company.
CDD’s capabilities provide customers the flexibility to conduct studies on a global basis. Because CDD uses consistent laboratory equipment, methods, reagents and calibrators for studies, data can be combined with clinical trials in different regions to produce global trial reference ranges. Combinable data eliminates the cumbersome process of harmonizing results generated using different methods in different laboratories on different equipment. CDD also offers external-facing tools such as LabLink+ and Xcellerate® Investigator Portal, which are internet-based customer programs that allow customers to review and query clinical trial lab data on a near real-time basis, that provide an opportunity for enhanced collaboration between the investigator sites, CROs and sponsors.
CDD operates the world’s largest automated clinical trial sample collection kit production line, located in Indianapolis, Indiana. This facility provides kits and supplies to investigator sites around the world, promoting global consistency in sample collection. Extensive automation in the kit production process enables kits to be produced with 5.5 sigma precision, while maintaining the scalability needed to meet increasing global demand. CDD's biorepository facility in Greenfield, Indiana, is dedicated to long-term storage of clinical trial specimens. CDD has additional sample storage facilities in Indianapolis, Indiana; Geneva, Switzerland; Singapore; and Shanghai, China. These actively monitored facilities are able to store a wide range of specimens, including plasma, serum, whole blood, peripheral blood, DNA and tissue.
CDD has five ISO 15189-certified central laboratories that provide customers with the assurance that comes with this rigorous global standard. In addition to utilizing the broad scientific expertise of the LCD Specialty Testing Group, CDD has implemented a novel model for external lab selection and management that provides rigor and reduces internal resource drain for trial sponsors. The extended laboratory management solutions team focuses on managing all aspects of referral laboratory services, including vendor negotiations, governance, quality management, data services and contract services.
CDD, in conjunction with LCD’s expertise in a wide range of specialty and esoteric testing disciplines, offers a scientifically rich and diverse menu of specialty testing capabilities, spanning the clinical development continuum. These include applied genomics, next-generation sequencing, anatomic and molecular pathology, flow cytometry, clinical immunoassays as well as preclinical and exploratory biomarker development. The combination of CDD and LCD differentiated capabilities and unparalleled experience in companion and complementary diagnostic services support the parallel development of a new medicine and its associated diagnostic assay. The Company's dedicated companion diagnostics team has helped develop more than 70% of all currently available FDA-approved companion and complementary diagnostics, and worked on more than 165 global programs in this area in 2017. CDD can support the development of in-vitro diagnostic, companion diagnostics and laboratory-developed tests (LDT). By combining CDD’s strength in central laboratory and early-stage clinical development with LCD’s strength in test commercialization, the Company is well positioned to offer comprehensive, end-to-end support for companion diagnostic development.
Clinical Development and Commercialization Services
CDD offers a comprehensive range of clinical trial services, including the full management of Phase I through IV clinical studies, along with a wide offering of functional service provider (FSP) solutions. CDD has extensive experience in all major therapeutic areas, and provides the following core services either on an individual or aggregated basis to meet its customers’ needs: study design and modeling; coordination of study activities; trial logistics; monitoring of study site performance; clinical data management and biostatistical analysis; pharmacovigilance/safety assessments; and medical writing and regulatory services. CDD also has a dedicated group with extensive experience in the conduct of trials for medical devices, to provide services for the expanding market in medical devices, including wearable diagnostics.
CDD has extensive experience in designing and managing global clinical trials and regional clinical trial activities in North America, Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. These trials may be conducted separately or simultaneously as part of a multinational or global development plan. CDD can manage every aspect of a clinical trial, from clinical development plans and protocol design to new drug applications and other supporting services.
CDD provides clinical pharmacology services at its four clinics in the U.S. and Europe, including first-in-human trials, and early clinical trial subject proof-of-concept studies of new pharmaceuticals.
CDD offers a range of commercialization solutions, including life cycle management and post-approval studies, which are typically conducted after a drug has successfully undergone clinical efficacy and safety testing and the New Drug Application has been submitted to the FDA and/or other regulatory bodies. CDD also offers market access solutions, including reimbursement consulting and hotlines, patient assistance programs, health economic and outcomes research services, observational studies, real world evidence and analytics services, and value communication services. Biopharmaceutical companies purchase these services to serve patients in need of therapy and to help optimize their return on R&D investments.
CDD Technology-Enabled Solutions
CDD’s technology-enabled solutions are designed to improve the drug development process, providing its biopharmaceutical customers with greater access to key data and improved management of trials. These proprietary tools include the award-winning Xcellerate informatics platform, the PharmAcuity suite of software applications, and the endpoint trial management solution.
Xcellerate integrates multiple sources of data to deliver unique and timely information throughout the course of customer studies. Xcellerate helps to reduce the cost, time, complexity and risk associated with clinical trials. These solutions leverage a highly innovative data integration and visualization technology that provides timely, secure, integrated and contextualized access to all clinical trial data to enable proactive risk management and informed decision making. Key Xcellerate modules include Forecasting & Site Selection, Clinical Trial Management, Monitoring, and Insights:
Xcellerate Forecasting & Site Selection enables customers to identify the optimal sites and investigators by drawing on the world’s largest proprietary clinical trial knowledge base.
Xcellerate Clinical Trial Management provides the foundational operating systems to enable frictionless execution of clinical trials.
Xcellerate Monitoring enables customers to improve data quality, clinical trial subject safety and protocol compliance in the execution of clinical trials by proactively identifying and mitigating risks at the study site and clinical trial subject level.
Xcellerate Insights enables effective operational oversight by providing interactive, up-to-date views of a broad range of operational metrics and key performance indicators at the study and portfolio levels through a secure collaboration portal.
PharmAcuity is a cloud-based suite of software applications that helps biopharmaceutical companies fine-tune their clinical trial strategy, planning, and design months before a given trial begins. The performance data available via PharmAcuity is derived from past trials and public data sources covering more than 130 countries, reflecting the worldwide nature of clinical trials. Key PharmAcuity modules include Metrics and Benchmarking, and Trial Forecasting:
PharmAcuity Metrics and Benchmarking enables a client to assess the performance of past trials relative to the current targets as well as set accurate and feasible targets for a variety of future trial milestones. Utilizing the rest of the pharmaceutical industry’s performance data as a benchmark allows the client to evaluate its own clinical trial performance against the industry, thus leading to better trial, enrollment, and country planning.
PharmAcuity Trial Forecasting empowers a client to forecast its own clinical trial performance and build different forecasting scenarios across multiple dimensions, all based on proprietary inputs and historical, contextual industry performances.
CDD’s endpoint trial management solutions offer interactive response technology (IRT) to provide visibility across a customer’s clinical development portfolio, allowing for optimization of study management and reduced trial supply costs while helping to bring novel therapies to market faster. Key endpoint modules include:
endpoint’s proprietary PULSE® platform is made up of pre-validated, configurable study components that enable rapid development and quicker modification to a customer’s existing IRT system. PULSE can help to streamline complex trial randomization methods, improve drug supply management, and simplify site, study, and subject management. The fully digital, mobile-ready system allows access to patient data and outcomes in real time.
endpoint’s DRIVE platform provides visibility into supplies management for an entire clinical development portfolio. This enables automated supply functionality to help minimize costs, reduce waste, and manage regulatory compliance across multiple trial sites.
CDD’s other proprietary technology assets include an investigator database and analytic methodologies that are utilized to design and manage site selection and clinical trial subject enrollment, and MarketPlace, a private, secure web portal providing potential investors or partners access to information about new drugs in development.
Together, CDD's technology-enabled solutions improve the quality and speed of clinical trials, resulting in reduced costs and increased market potential for biopharmaceutical company customers.
The Company provides its services to a broad range of customers. The primary customer groups serviced by the Company include:
MCOs. The Company serves many MCOs, each of which operate on a national, regional or local basis.
Biopharmaceutical Companies. The Company serves hundreds of biopharmaceutical companies, ranging from the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies to emerging to mid-market organizations. Contracts with these institutions generally take the form of fee-for-service or fixed-price arrangements.
Physicians and Other Healthcare Providers. Physicians who require clinical laboratory testing for their patients are a primary source of requests for LCD's testing services. Physicians may practice individually, or as part of small or large physician groups, including those operated as part of a broader health system. Fees for clinical laboratory testing services rendered for physicians are billed either to the physician, the physician group, the patient or the patient’s third-party payer, such as an MCO, Medicare or Medicaid. Billings are typically on a fee-for-service basis. If the billings are to the physician, they are based on a customer-specific fee schedule and are subject to negotiation. Otherwise, the patient or third-party payer is billed at the Company's patient fee schedule, subject to third-party payer contract terms and negotiation by physicians on behalf of their patients. Patient sales are recorded at the Company’s patient fee schedule, net of any discounts negotiated with physicians on behalf of their patients, or made available through charity care or an uninsured or underinsured patient program. Revenues received from Medicare and Medicaid billings are based on government-set fee schedules and reimbursement rules.
Hospitals and Health Systems. The Company provides hospitals and health systems with services ranging from core and specialty testing to supply chain and technical support services, and the opportunity to be a research partner for participation in studies and clinical trials with CDD. Individual hospitals generally maintain on-site laboratories to perform immediately needed testing for patients receiving care. However, they also refer less time-sensitive procedures, less frequently needed procedures and highly specialized procedures to outside facilities, including independent clinical laboratories such as the Company and laboratories operated by larger hospitals or health systems. In some cases, a hospital’s on-site laboratory may be operated or managed by an outside contractor or independent laboratory, including the Company. The Company typically charges hospitals for any such tests on a fee-for-service basis that is derived from the Company’s client fee schedule. Fees for laboratory management services are typically billed monthly at contractual rates.
Other Customers. The Company serves a broad range of other customers, governmental agencies, employers, patients and consumers, CROs, academic institutions, food and nutritional companies and independent clinical laboratories. These customers typically pay on a negotiated fee-for-service basis or based on a set fee schedule.
The Company believes it has a strong track record of deploying capital to investments that enhance the Company's business and returning capital to shareholders.
From 2013, the Company has invested net cash of approximately $6.5 billion and equity of $1.8 billion in strategic business acquisitions. These acquisitions have significantly expanded the Company’s service offerings, expanded its customer and revenue mix, as well as strengthened and broadened the scope of its geographic presence. The Company continues to evaluate acquisition opportunities that leverage the Company’s core competencies, complement existing scientific and technological capabilities, increase the Company’s presence in key geographic, therapeutic and strategic areas, and meet or exceed the Company’s financial criteria.
From 2013, the Company repurchased approximately $1.7 billion in shares at an average price of approximately $115.02 per share. Following the November 2014 announcement of the Covance acquisition, the Company temporarily suspended its share repurchases, but the Company subsequently resumed the repurchase program in the fourth quarter of 2016. During 2017, the Company purchased 2.5 million shares of its common stock at a total cost of $338.1 million. At the end of 2017, the Company had outstanding authorization from the board of directors to purchase an additional $401.4 million of Company common stock. The repurchase authorization has no expiration date.
During 2017, the Company repaid $500.1 million of its Senior Notes, $493.0 million of its term loan, and $33.9 million of its zero coupon subordinated notes. In addition, the Company borrowed and repaid $1,392.2 million of debt through its revolving credit facility within 2017. The Company will continue to evaluate all opportunities for strategic deployment of capital in light of market conditions.
From 2013, capital expenditures other than acquisitions have been $1.3 billion, representing approximately 3.0% of the Company’s total net revenues during the same period. The Company expects such capital expenditures in 2018 to be approximately 3.5% of net revenues, primarily in connection with projects to support growth in the Company's core businesses, facility expansion
and updates, ongoing projects related to LaunchPad within the LCD business, LaunchPad's expansion within the CDD business, and further acquisition integration initiatives.
Seasonality and External Factors
The Company experiences seasonality in both segments of its business. For example, testing volume generally declines during the year-end holiday period and other major holidays and can also decline due to inclement weather or natural disasters. Declines in testing volume reduce net revenues, operating margins and cash flows. Operations are also impacted by changes in the global economy, exchange rate fluctuations, political and regulatory changes, the progress of ongoing studies and the startup of new studies, as well as the level of expenditures made by the biopharmaceutical industry in R&D. The results of both segments are impacted by exchange rate fluctuations. Approximately 21.4% of the Company's net revenues are billed in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, with the Swiss franc, British pound, Canadian dollar and the euro representing the largest components of its currency exposure. The Company expects the inclusion of Chiltern for a full twelve months in 2018 will increase the Company's percentage of revenues billed in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Given the seasonality and changing economic factors impacting the business, comparison of the results for successive quarters may not accurately reflect trends or results for the full year.
The Company holds investments in joint venture partnerships, with two located in Alberta, Canada, one located in Florence, South Carolina and several that were acquired through the Company's acquisition of PAML. These businesses are primarily represented by partnership agreements between the Company and other independent diagnostic laboratory investors. Under these agreements, all partners share in the profits and losses of the businesses in proportion to their respective ownership percentages. All partners are actively involved in the major business decisions made by each joint venture. The Company does not consolidate the results of these joint ventures. Effective June 30, 2015, the Company liquidated its interest in a joint venture partnership that had been located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The first Canadian partnership is a leader in occupational testing across Canada similar to LCD's U.S. occupational testing services. The second Canadian partnership has a license to conduct diagnostic testing services in the province of Alberta. Substantially all of its revenue is received as reimbursement from the Alberta government's healthcare programs (AHS). In August 2016, AHS and the Canadian partnership reached an agreement to extend the contract for five additional years through March 2022, with the intent to have the services provided pursuant to the contract transferred to AHS at the end of the five-year period. In consideration of AHS acquiring the assets and assuming liabilities in accordance with the parties’ agreement, AHS will pay CAD $50.0 million to the partnership when the transfer is effective, subject to a working capital adjustment.
As a result of the acquisition of PAML, the Company acquired PAML’s ownership interests in six joint ventures. During 2017, the Company further acquired the ownership interests of the other members of two of the six joint ventures, and the Company’s ownership interest in one of the six joint ventures was acquired by the other member. During 2018, the Company intends to acquire the membership interests of the other members of an additional two of these six joint ventures and will continue to evaluate future options for the membership interests in the sixth joint venture. The Company will continue to record minority interests in the consolidated joint ventures for which final transactions have not yet been completed.
LCD offers its diagnostic services through a sales force focused on serving the specific needs of customers in different market segments. These market segments generally include primary care, women's health, specialty medicine (e.g., infectious disease, endocrinology, gastroenterology and rheumatology), oncology, ACOs, and hospitals and health systems. LCD's general sales force is also supported by a team of clinical specialists that focuses on selling esoteric testing and meeting the unique needs of the specialty medicine markets.
CDD’s global sales activities are conducted by sales personnel in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The sales force provides customer coverage across the biopharmaceutical industry for services including lead optimization, preclinical safety assessment, analytical services, clinical trials, central laboratories, biomarkers and companion diagnostics, market access and technology solutions. Customer segments called upon include global and regional biopharmaceutical companies, other CROs and academic institutions.
The sales force is responsible for both new sales and for customer retention and relationship building and is compensated through a combination of salaries, commissions and bonuses at levels commensurate with each individual’s qualifications, performance and responsibilities.
The Company is committed to developing and commercializing technology-enabled solutions to support its operations and provide better care. LCD and CDD each operate standard platforms for their core business services, and the Company operates
standard platforms for its financial and reporting systems. These standard systems provide consistency within workflows and information as well as a high level of system availability, security, and stability. LCD’s and CDD's primary laboratory systems, including standardized support for molecular diagnostics, digital pathology and enhanced specialty laboratory solutions, facilitate the processing of tests that generate the vast majority of LCD revenue and virtually all of CDD's central laboratory services revenue. The Company's centralized information systems are responsible for tremendous operational efficiencies, enabling the Company to achieve consistent, structured, and standardized operating results and superior patient care.
In addition, LCD and CDD each offer proprietary and industry-leading information systems, which are discussed in more detail in the sections dedicated to each of those segments.
LCD and CDD have comprehensive quality systems and processes that the Company believes are appropriate for their respective businesses. This includes licensing, credentialing, training and competency of professional and technical staff, and internal auditing. In addition to the Company's own quality assurance programs, many of the Company’s laboratories, facilities and processes are subject to on-site regulatory and accreditation evaluations, external proficiency testing programs, and surveys, as applicable, by local or national government agencies.
Virtually all facets of the Company’s services are subject to quality assurance programs and procedures, including sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility of tests; turnaround time; customer service; data integrity; patient satisfaction; and billing. The Company’s quality assurance program includes measures that compare current performance against desired performance goals to monitor critical aspects of service to its customers and patients.
The Company has procedures for monitoring its internal performance, as well as that of its vendors, suppliers and other key stakeholders. In addition, various groups and departments within the Company, including the Company's supply chain management department, CDD's clinical trial services global vendor management department, CDD's central laboratory services expanded laboratory management services department, LCD's National Office of Quality, and project management staff supporting LCD and CDD, provide oversight to monitor and control vendor products and performance, and play an essential role in the Company’s approach to quality through improvements in processes and automation.
Customer Interaction. Continual improvement in the customers’ experience with the Company is essential. Use of technology and workflow improvements within are helping to improve patient experience by: reducing patient wait times at PSCs by offering advance appointment scheduling and patient check-in through through LabCorp | PreCheck; expediting the patient registration process at the PSC through LabCorp | Express; enhancing the specimen collection process through LabCorp Touch and AccuDraw; and allowing patients to access their test results, obtain educational materials, schedule appointments and pay bills directly through LabCorp | PatientTM. LabCorp | Payer provides healthcare organizations with a centralized location to access test results and quality data. CDD processes permit faster clinical trial study start-up and subject enrollment along with timely delivery of established deliverables to enhance and improve customer interaction.
Specimen Management. The Company's standardized logistics and specimen tracking technologies allow the timely transportation, monitoring, and storage of specimens. The Company is continually working to maintain and improve its ability to timely collect, transport and track specimens from collection points to all Company or designated external locations. In December 2017, CDD acquired Global Specimen Solutions, Inc. (GSS), which has expertise in streamlined global specimen tracking, as well as tracking for informed consent, and live data analytics that deliver actionable insights from specimens across development programs. CDD had previously entered into a strategic alliance with GSS.
Quality Control. The Company regularly performs quality control testing. These may include in-process and post-process quality control checks; use of applicable control materials and reference standards, peer reviews, and data review meetings; programmed data edit checks to detect variances and unusual data patterns; dual programming; and mock runs.
LCD Internal Proficiency Testing. LCD has an extensive internal proficiency testing program to assess LCD's analytical and post-analytical phases of laboratory testing, accuracy, precision of its testing protocols, and technologist/technician performance. This program supplements the external proficiency programs required by the laboratory accrediting agencies.
Accreditation. The Company participates in numerous externally administered quality surveillance programs, including the College of American Pathologists (CAP) program. CAP is an independent non-governmental organization of board-certified pathologists that offers an accreditation program to which laboratories voluntarily subscribe. CAP has been granted deemed status authority by CMS to inspect clinical laboratories to determine adherence to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) requirements. The CAP program involves both on-site inspections of the laboratory and participation in CAP's proficiency testing program for all categories in which the laboratory is accredited. A laboratory's receipt of accreditation by CAP satisfies the CMS requirement for CLIA certification. LCD's major diagnostic laboratories, CDD's major central laboratory facilities, and CDD's Phase I clinical research unit in Dallas, Texas, are accredited by CAP.
The Company's forensic crime laboratory, located in Lorton, Virginia, is accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB) in the discipline of biology and categories of nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA, body fluid identification and individual characteristic database testing. Under the accreditation program managed by the ASCLD/LAB, a crime laboratory undergoes a comprehensive and in-depth inspection to demonstrate that its management, operations, employees, procedures and instruments, physical plant, and security and personnel safety procedures meet stringent quality standards.
The Company's full-service forensic facilities in the U.K. are accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 by the U.K. Accreditation Service (UKAS) in many areas of forensic analysis. These facilities provide crime scene investigative services, collecting samples for DNA analysis, mitochondrial DNA testing, microscopic analysis of tool marks and paint, and other forms of forensic testing.
The Company has multiple labs that have received ISO 15189 accreditation. ISO 15189 is an international standard that recognizes the quality and technical competence of medical laboratories. The Company has 18 laboratories in the U.S. and five laboratories outside of the U.S. accredited to this standard, in addition to the laboratory operated for CDD pursuant to a strategic agreement with BML, Inc. that also has this accreditation. The list below reflects the Company's labs that have achieved this accreditation and the year in which it was achieved.
Regional Testing Facility, Raritan, New Jersey - January 2017
Regional Testing Facility, Knoxville, Tennessee - November 2016
Regional Testing Facility, San Antonio, Texas - July 2016
Colorado Coagulation, Denver, Colorado - January 2016
Dynacare, Laval, Québec - March 2015
Regional Testing Facility, Dublin, Ohio - March 2015
Endocrine Sciences, Calabasas, California - January 2015
Regional Testing Facility, Dallas, Texas - April 2014
Regional Testing Facility, Denver, Colorado - March 2014
Integrated Genetics, Santa Fe, New Mexico - October 2013
Integrated Genetics, Westborough, Massachusetts - September 2013
Dynacare, Montreal, Québec - June 2013
Regional Testing Facility, Phoenix, Arizona - April 2013
Regional Testing Facility, Birmingham, Alabama - February 2013
Integrated Oncology, Brentwood, Tennessee - February 2012
ViroMed, Burlington, North Carolina - January 2012
Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina - February 2011
Regional Testing Facility, Tampa, Florida - January 2010
Integrated Oncology, Phoenix, Arizona - September 2009
Covance Central Laboratory Services Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana - August 2015
BML Covance Central Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan - March 2015 (Operated for CDD pursuant to a strategic agreement with BML, Inc.)
Covance Pharmaceutical Research and Development (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Shanghai, China - March 2015
Covance (Asia) Pte. Ltd., Singapore - June 2014
Covance Central Laboratory Services SARL, Geneva, Switzerland - October 2013
The Company relies on a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and nondisclosure and non-competition agreements to establish and protect its proprietary technology. The Company has filed and obtained numerous patents in the U.S. and abroad, and regularly files patent applications, when appropriate, to establish and protect its proprietary technology. Occasionally, the Company also licenses U.S. and non-U.S. patents, patent applications, technology, trade secrets, know-how, copyrights or trademarks owned by others. The Company believes, however, that no single patent, technology, trademark, intellectual property asset or license is material to its business as a whole.
Patents covering the Company's technologies are subject to challenges. Issued patents may be successfully challenged, invalidated, circumvented, or declared unenforceable so that patent rights would not create an effective competitive barrier. In addition, the laws of some countries may not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as do the laws of the U.S.
Parties may file claims asserting that the Company's technologies infringe on their intellectual property. The Company cannot predict whether parties will assert such claims against it, or whether those claims will harm its business. If the Company is forced to defend against such claims, the Company could face costly litigation and diversion of management’s attention and resources.
As result of such disputes, the Company may have to develop costly non-infringing technology or enter into licensing agreements. These agreements, if necessary, may require financial or other terms that could have an adverse effect on the Company's business and financial condition.
As of December 31, 2017, the Company had nearly 60,000 employees worldwide, approximately 22.0% of whom were employed outside of the U.S. The Company's U.S. based subsidiaries have four collective bargaining agreements, which cover approximately 750 employees. Non-U.S. based subsidiaries have 52 collective bargaining agreements, which cover approximately 1,800 employees.
The Company’s success is highly dependent on its ability to attract and retain qualified employees, and the Company believes that it has good working relationships with its employees.
Because the Company operates in a number of distinct operating environments and in a variety of locations worldwide, it is subject to numerous, and sometimes overlapping, regulatory environments. Both the clinical laboratory industry and the drug development business are subject to significant governmental regulation at the national, state and local levels. As described below, these regulations concern licensure and operation of clinical laboratories, claim submission and reimbursement for laboratory services, healthcare fraud and abuse, drug development services, security and confidentiality of health information, quality, and environmental and occupational safety.
Regulation of Clinical Laboratories
Virtually all clinical laboratories operating in the U.S. must be certified by the federal government or by a federally approved accreditation agency. In most cases, that certification is regulated by CMS through CLIA. CLIA requires that applicable clinical laboratories meet quality assurance, quality control and personnel standards. Laboratories also must undergo proficiency testing and are subject to inspections. Clinical laboratories in locations other than the U.S. are generally subject to comparable regulation in their respective jurisdictions.
Standards for testing under CLIA are based on the complexity of the tests performed by the laboratory, with tests classified as “high complexity,” “moderate complexity,” or “waived.” Laboratories performing high-complexity testing are required to meet more stringent requirements than moderate-complexity laboratories. Laboratories performing only waived tests, which are tests determined by the FDA to have a low potential for error and requiring little oversight, may apply for a certificate of waiver exempting them from most CLIA requirements. All major and many smaller Company facilities hold CLIA certificates to perform high-complexity testing. The Company's remaining smaller testing sites hold CLIA certificates to perform moderate-complexity testing or a certificate of waiver. The sanctions for failure to comply with CLIA requirements include suspension, revocation or limitation of a laboratory's CLIA certificate, which is necessary to conduct business; cancellation or suspension of the laboratory's approval to receive Medicare and/or Medicaid reimbursement; as well as significant fines and/or criminal penalties. The loss or suspension of a CLIA certification, imposition of a fine or other penalties, or future changes in the CLIA law or regulations (or interpretation of the law or regulations) could have a material adverse effect on the Company.
The Company is also subject to state and local laboratory regulation. CLIA provides that a state may adopt laboratory regulations different from or more stringent than those under federal law, and a number of states have implemented their own laboratory regulatory requirements. State laws may require that laboratory personnel meet certain qualifications, specify certain quality controls, or require maintenance of certain records.
The Company believes that it is in compliance with all laboratory requirements applicable to its laboratories operated both within the U.S. and in other countries. The Company's laboratories have continuing programs to maintain operations in compliance with all such regulatory requirements, but no assurances can be given that the Company's laboratories will pass all future licensure or certification inspections.
FDA and Other Regulatory Agency Laws and Regulations
Various regulatory agencies, including the FDA in the U.S., have regulatory responsibility over the development, testing, manufacturing, labeling, advertising, marketing, distribution, and surveillance of diagnostic and therapeutic products and services, including certain products and services offered by the Company, and the development of therapeutic products that comprise the majority of CDD’s business. The FDA and other regulatory agencies periodically inspect and review the manufacturing processes and product performance of diagnostic and therapeutic products. These agencies have the authority to take various administrative and legal actions for noncompliance, such as fines, product suspensions, warning letters, recalls, injunctions and other civil and
criminal sanctions. There are similar national and regional regulatory agencies in the jurisdictions outside the U.S. in which the Company operates.
On October 3, 2014, the FDA issued draft guidance regarding FDA regulation of LDTs. On November 18, 2016, the FDA announced that it would not release final guidance at this time and instead would continue to work with stakeholders, the new administration, and Congress to determine the right approach, and on January 13, 2017, the FDA released a discussion paper outlining a possible risk-based approach for FDA and CMS oversight of LDTs. Later in 2017, the FDA indicated that Congress should enact legislation to address improved oversight of diagnostics including LDTs, rather than the FDA addressing the issue through administrative policy proposals. There are other regulatory and legislative proposals that would increase general FDA oversight of clinical laboratories and LDTs. The outcome and ultimate impact of such proposals on the Company is difficult to predict at this time.
CDD’s laboratory facilities and LCD's clinical laboratory facilities that perform testing in support of clinical trials, must conform to a range of standards and regulations, including GLP and good clinical practice (GCP), good manufacturing practice (GMP), human subject protection and investigational product exemption regulations, and quality system regulation (QSR) requirements, as applicable. The preclinical and clinical studies that the Company conducts are subject to periodic inspections by the FDA as well as other regulatory agencies in the jurisdictions outside the U.S. in which the Company operates, which may include, without limitation, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the U.K., the European Medicines Agency, the China Food and Drug Administration, and the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency in Japan, to determine compliance with GLP and GCP as well as other applicable standards and regulations. If a regulatory agency determines during an inspection that the Company’s equipment, facilities, laboratories, operations, or processes do not comply with applicable regulations and conditions of GLP and/or GCP, the regulatory agency may issue a formal notice, which may be followed by a warning letter if observations are not addressed satisfactorily. Noncompliance may result in the regulatory agency seeking civil, criminal or administrative sanctions and/or remedies against the Company, including suspension of its operations.
Additionally, certain CDD services and activities, such as CMC services and manufacturing of investigational medicinal products for use in certain Phase I studies managed by CDD, must conform to current good manufacturing practice (cGMP). CDD is subject to periodic inspections by the FDA and the MHRA, as well as other regulatory agencies in the jurisdictions outside the U.S. in which the Company operates, in order to assess, among other things, cGMP compliance. If a regulatory agency identifies deficiencies during an inspection, it may issue a formal notice, which may be followed by a warning letter if observations are not addressed satisfactorily. Failure to maintain compliance with cGMP regulations and other applicable requirements of various regulatory agencies could result in fines, unanticipated compliance expenditures, suspension of manufacturing, enforcement actions, injunctions, or criminal prosecution.
The U.S Animal Welfare Act (AWA)
The conduct of animal research at CDD’s facilities in the U.S. must be in compliance with the AWA, which governs the care and use of warm-blooded animals for research in the U.S. other than laboratory rats, mice and chickens, and is enforced through periodic inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The AWA establishes facility standards regarding several aspects of animal welfare, including housing, ventilation, lighting, feeding and watering, handling, veterinary care, and recordkeeping. CDD complies with licensing and registration requirement standards set by the USDA and similar agencies in foreign jurisdictions such as the European Union and China for the care and use of regulated species. If the USDA determines that CDD’s equipment, facilities, laboratories or processes do not comply with applicable AWA standards, it may issue an inspection report documenting the deficiencies and setting deadlines for any required corrective actions. The USDA may impose fines, suspend and/or revoke animal research licenses or confiscate research animals. Other countries where the Company conducts business have similar laws and regulations with which the Company must also comply.
Payment for Clinical Laboratory Services
In 2017, LCD derived approximately 15.1% of its net revenue directly from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In addition, LCD's other commercial laboratory testing business that is not directly related to Medicare or Medicaid nevertheless depends significantly on continued participation in these programs and in other government healthcare programs, in part because customers often want a single laboratory to perform all of their testing services. In recent years, both governmental and private sector payers have made efforts to contain or reduce healthcare costs, including reducing reimbursement for clinical laboratory services.
Reimbursement under the Medicare PFS is capped at different rates in each Medicare Administrative Contractor's jurisdiction. Pursuant to PAMA, reimbursement under the CLFS is set at a national rate that is updated every three years for most tests. State Medicaid programs are prohibited from paying more than the Medicare fee schedule limit for clinical laboratory services furnished to Medicaid recipients. Laboratories primarily bill and are reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid directly for covered tests performed on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries; for beneficiaries that participate in Managed Medicare and Managed Medicaid plans, laboratory bills are submitted to and paid by MCOs that manage those plans. Approximately 12.1% of LCD's revenue is reimbursed under the CLFS.
Many pathology services performed by LCD are reimbursed by Medicare under the PFS. The PFS assigns relative value units to each procedure or service, and a conversion factor is applied to calculate the reimbursement. The PFS is also subject to adjustment on an annual basis. Such adjustments can impact both the conversion factor and relative value units. The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), the formula previously used to calculate the fee schedule conversion factor, would have resulted in significant decreases in payment for most physician services for each year since 2003. However, Congress intervened repeatedly to prevent these payment reductions, and the conversion factor was increased or frozen for the subsequent year. MACRA permanently replaced the SGR formula and transitioned PFS reimbursement to a value-based payment system. MACRA retroactively avoided a 21.2% reduction in PFS reimbursement that had been scheduled for April 1, 2015, and provided for PFS conversion factor increases of 0.5% from July 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015, and 0.5% in each of years 2016-2019, followed by 0.0% updates for 2020-2025, and updates that vary based on participation in alternative payment models in subsequent years. These changes to the conversion factor may be offset by reductions to the relative value units, as was the case with the 2016 PFS reductions. In addition, rates will be adjusted under the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System beginning in 2019. Approximately 0.7% of LCD's revenue is reimbursed under the PFS.
In addition to changes in reimbursement rates, LCD is also impacted by changes in coverage policies for laboratory tests and annual CPT coding. Medicare, Medicaid and private payer diagnosis code requirements and payment policies negatively impact LCD's ability to be paid for some of the tests it performs. Further, some payers require additional information to process claims or have implemented prior authorization policies which delays or prohibits payment. CLFS coding and billing changes related to toxicology and other procedures were implemented in 2016 and 2017. The Company experienced delays in the pricing and implementation of the new toxicology codes; however, the Company largely overcame issues related to price and margins through direct negotiation with the associated payers. Limited coding and billing changes related to other procedure types are expected to be implemented in 2018. The Company expects some delays in pricing and implementation of these new codes.
Future changes in national, state and local laws and regulations (or in the interpretation of current regulations) affecting government payment for clinical laboratory testing could have a material adverse effect on the Company. Based on currently available information, the Company is unable to predict what type of changes in legislation or regulations, if any, will occur.
Privacy, Security and Confidentiality of Health Information and Other Personal Information
In the U.S., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was designed to address issues related to the security and confidentiality of health information and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system by facilitating the electronic exchange of information in certain financial and administrative transactions. These regulations apply to health plans and healthcare providers that conduct standard transactions electronically and healthcare clearinghouses (covered entities). Six such regulations include: (i) the Transactions and Code Sets Rule; (ii) the Privacy Rule; (iii) the Security Rule; (iv) the Standard Unique Employer Identifier Rule, which requires the use of a unique employer identifier in connection with certain electronic transactions; (v) the National Provider Identifier Rule, which requires the use of a unique healthcare provider identifier in connection with certain electronic transactions; and (vi) the Health Plan Identifier Rule, which requires the use of a unique health plan identifier in connection with certain electronic transactions.
The Company believes that it is in compliance in all material respects with the current Transactions and Code Sets Rule. The Company implemented Version 5010 of the HIPAA Transaction Standards and believes it has fully adopted the ICD-10-CM code set. While to date the Company has not experienced any sustained disruption in receipts or indications of substantive reductions to reimbursement and net revenues related to the implementation of the ICD-10-CM code set, further future application of restrictive clinical or payment policies could negatively impact the Company. The Company believes it is in compliance in all material respects with applicable laws and regulations for electronic funds transfers and remittance advice transactions.
The Privacy Rule regulates the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI) by covered entities. It also sets forth certain rights that an individual has with respect to his or her PHI maintained by a covered entity, such as the right to access or amend certain records containing PHI or to request restrictions on the use or disclosure of PHI. The Privacy Rule requires covered entities to contractually bind third parties, known as business associates, in the event that they perform an activity or service for or on behalf of the covered entity that involves the creation, receipt, maintenance, or transmission of PHI. The Company believes that it is in compliance in all material respects with the requirements of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
The Security Rule establishes requirements for safeguarding patient information that is electronically transmitted or electronically stored. The Company believes that it is in compliance in all material respects with the requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule.
The U.S. Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which was enacted in February 2009, with regulations effective on September 23, 2013, strengthened and expanded the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules and their restrictions on use and disclosure of PHI. HITECH includes, but is not limited to, prohibitions on exchanging PHI for remuneration and additional restrictions on the use of PHI for marketing. HITECH also fundamentally changes a business associate’s obligations by imposing a number of Privacy Rule requirements and a majority of Security Rule provisions directly on business
associates that were previously only directly applicable to covered entities. Moreover, HITECH requires covered entities to provide notice to individuals, HHS, and, as applicable, the media when unsecured PHI is breached, as that term is defined by HITECH. Business associates are similarly required to notify covered entities of a breach. The Company believes its policies and procedures are fully compliant with the HITECH requirements.
On February 6, 2014, CMS and HHS published final regulations that amended the HIPAA Privacy Rule to provide individuals (or their personal representatives) with the right to receive copies of their test reports from laboratories subject to HIPAA, or to request that copies of their test reports be transmitted to designated third parties. The Company revised its policies and procedures to comply with these new access requirements and updated its privacy notice to reflect individuals’ new access rights under this final rule.
The Standard Unique Employer Identifier Rule requires that employers have standard national numbers that identify them on standard transactions. The Employer Identification Number (also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number) issued by the Internal Revenue Service was selected as the identifier for employers and was adopted effective July 30, 2002. The Company believes it is in compliance with these requirements.
The administrative simplification provisions of HIPAA mandate the adoption of standard unique identifiers for healthcare providers. The intent of these provisions is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the electronic transmission of health information. The National Provider Identifier Rule requires that all HIPAA-covered healthcare providers, whether they are individuals or organizations, must obtain a National Provider Identifier (NPI) to identify themselves in standard HIPAA transactions. NPI replaces the unique provider identification number and other provider numbers previously assigned by payers and other entities for the purpose of identifying healthcare providers in standard electronic transactions. The Company believes that it is in compliance with the HIPAA National Provider Identifier Rule in all material respects.
The Health Plan Identifier (HPID) is a unique identifier designed to furnish a standard way to identify health plans in electronic transactions. CMS published the final rule adopting the HPID for health plans required by HIPAA on September 12, 2012. Effective October 31, 2014, CMS announced a delay, until further notice, in enforcement of regulations pertaining to health plan enumeration and use of the HPID in HIPAA transactions adopted in the HPID final rule. This delay remains in effect. The Company will continue to monitor future developments related to the HPID and respond accordingly.
Violations of the HIPAA provisions could result in civil and/or criminal penalties, including significant fines and up to 10 years in prison. HITECH also significantly strengthened HIPAA enforcement by increasing the civil penalty amounts that may be imposed, requiring HHS to conduct periodic audits to confirm compliance and authorizing state attorneys general to bring civil actions seeking either injunctions or damages in response to violations of the HIPAA privacy and security regulations that affect the privacy of state residents.
The total cost associated with meeting the ongoing requirements of HIPAA and HITECH is not expected to be material to the Company’s operations or cash flows. However, future regulations and interpretations of HIPAA and HITECH could impose significant costs on the Company.
In addition to the HIPAA regulations described above, numerous other data protection, privacy and similar laws govern the confidentiality, security, use and disclosure of personal information. These laws vary by jurisdiction, but they most commonly regulate or restrict the collection, use and disclosure of medical and financial information and other personal information. In the U.S., some state laws are more restrictive and, therefore, are not preempted by HIPAA. Penalties for violation of these laws may include sanctions against a laboratory's licensure, as well as civil and/or criminal penalties. Outside the U.S., numerous other countries have laws governing the collection, use, disclosure and transmission (including cross-border transfer) of personal information, including medical information. The legislative and regulatory landscape for privacy and data protection is complex and continually evolving. For example, in December 2015, the European Union approved a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to replace Directive 95/46/EC, which will take effect May 25, 2018, governing use and transfer of personal data and imposing significant penalties for noncompliance. Additionally, data protection regulations have been enacted or updated in countries where the Company does business, including in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Failure to comply with these regulations may result in, among other things, civil, criminal and contractual liability, fines, regulatory sanctions and damage to the Company’s reputation. The Company has established processes and frameworks to manage compliance with privacy and data protection requirements and is executing on its GDPR readiness project to support compliance with the GDPR.
On January 2, 2018, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced the finalization of proposed changes to the Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records regulation, 42 CFR Part 2. This regulation protects the confidentiality of patient records relating to the identity, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment that are maintained in connection with the performance of any federally assisted program or activity relating to substance use disorder education, prevention, training, treatment, rehabilitation, or research. Under the regulation, patient identifying information may only be released with the individual’s written consent, subject to certain limited exceptions. The latest changes to this regulation seek to align to its requirements more closely with HIPAA, while maintaining more stringent confidentiality of substance use disorder
information. The Company will adopt such changes to its policies and procedures as may be necessary for compliance.
Fraud and Abuse Laws and Regulations
Existing U.S. laws governing federal healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, as well as similar state laws, impose a variety of broadly described fraud and abuse prohibitions on healthcare providers, including clinical laboratories. These laws are interpreted liberally and enforced aggressively by multiple government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, HHS’ Office of Inspector General (OIG), and various state agencies. Historically, the clinical laboratory industry has been the focus of major governmental enforcement initiatives. The U.S. government's enforcement efforts have been increasing over the past decade, in part as a result of the enactment of HIPAA, which included several provisions related to fraud and abuse enforcement, including the establishment of a program to coordinate and fund U.S., state and local law enforcement efforts. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 also included new requirements directed at Medicaid fraud, including increased spending on enforcement and financial incentives for states to adopt false claims act provisions similar to the U.S. False Claims Act. Amendments to the False Claims Act, and other enhancements to the U.S. fraud and abuse laws enacted as part of the ACA, have further increased fraud and abuse enforcement efforts and compliance risks. For example, the ACA established an obligation to report and refund overpayments from Medicare or Medicaid within 60 days of identification (whether or not paid through any fault of the recipient); failure to comply with this new requirement can give rise to additional liability under the False Claims Act and Civil Monetary Penalties statute.
The U.S. Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits knowingly providing anything of value in return for, or to induce the referral of, Medicare, Medicaid or other U.S. healthcare program business. Violations can result in imprisonment, fines, penalties, and/or exclusion from participation in U.S. healthcare programs. The OIG has published “safe harbor” regulations that specify certain arrangements that are protected from prosecution under the Anti-Kickback Statute if all conditions of the relevant safe harbor are met. Failure to fit within a safe harbor does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute; rather, the arrangement would be subject to scrutiny by regulators and prosecutors and would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Many states have their own Medicaid anti-kickback laws, and several states also have anti-kickback laws that apply to all payers (i.e., not just government healthcare programs).
From time to time, the OIG issues alerts and other guidance on certain practices in the healthcare industry that implicate the Anti-Kickback Statute or other fraud and abuse laws. Examples of such guidance documents particularly relevant to the Company and its operations follow.
In October 1994, the OIG issued a Special Fraud Alert on arrangements for the provision of clinical laboratory services. The Fraud Alert set forth a number of practices allegedly engaged in by some clinical laboratories and healthcare providers that raise issues under the U.S. fraud and abuse laws, including the Anti-Kickback Statute. These practices include: (i) providing employees to furnish valuable services for physicians (other than collecting patient specimens for testing) that are typically the responsibility of the physicians’ staff; (ii) offering certain laboratory services at prices below fair market value in return for referrals of other tests that are billed to Medicare at higher rates; (iii) providing free testing to physicians’ managed care patients in situations where the referring physicians benefit from such reduced laboratory utilization; (iv) providing free pickup and disposal of biohazardous waste for physicians for items unrelated to a laboratory’s testing services; (v) providing general-use facsimile machines or computers to physicians that are not exclusively used in connection with the laboratory services; and (vi) providing free testing for healthcare providers, their families and their employees (i.e., so-called “professional courtesy” testing). The OIG emphasized in the Special Fraud Alert that when one purpose of such arrangements is to induce referrals of program-reimbursed laboratory testing, both the clinical laboratory and the healthcare provider (e.g., physician) may be liable under the Anti-Kickback Statute, and may be subject to criminal prosecution and exclusion from participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. More recently, in June 2014, the OIG issued another Special Fraud Alert addressing compensation paid by laboratories to referring physicians for blood specimen processing and for submitting patient data to registries. This Special Fraud Alert reiterates the OIG's long-standing concerns about payments from laboratories to physicians in excess of the fair market value of the physician's services and payments that reflect the volume or value of referrals of federal U.S. program business.
The OIG has expressed additional concern about the provision of discounts on laboratory services billed to customers in return for the referral of U.S. healthcare program business. In a 1999 Advisory Opinion, the OIG concluded that a laboratory's offer to a physician of significant discounts on non-U.S. healthcare program laboratory tests might violate the Anti-Kickback Statute on the basis that such discounts could be viewed as in exchange for referrals by the physician of business to be billed by the laboratory to Medicare at non-discounted rates. In a 1999 correspondence, the OIG stated that a discount that a laboratory offers to a skilled nursing facility for tests billed to the skilled nursing facility to induce the referral of tests for which the laboratory is reimbursed by Medicare would implicate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
The OIG has also issued guidance in 1989 and 2003 regarding joint venture arrangements that may be viewed as suspect under the Anti-Kickback Statute. These documents have relevance to clinical laboratories that are part of (or are considering establishing) joint ventures with potential sources of U.S. healthcare program business. Some of the elements of joint ventures that the OIG identified as “suspect” include: arrangements in which the capital invested by referring providers is disproportionately
small and the return on investment is disproportionately large when compared to a typical investment; specific selection of investors who are in a position to make referrals to the venture; and arrangements in which one of the parties to the joint venture expands into a line of business that is dependent on referrals from the other party (sometimes called “shell” joint ventures). In a 2004 advisory opinion, the OIG expressed concern about a proposed joint venture in which a laboratory company would assist physician groups in establishing off-site pathology laboratories where the physicians' financial and business risk in the venture was minimal and the physicians would contract out substantially all laboratory operations, committing very little in the way of financial, capital, or human resources.
Violations of other fraud and abuse laws can also result in exclusion from participation in U.S. healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. One basis for such exclusion is an individual or entity’s submission of claims to Medicare or Medicaid that are substantially in excess of that individual or entity’s usual charges for like items or services. In a June 18, 2007, withdrawal of proposed rulemaking, the OIG stated that it would continue evaluating billing patterns on a case-by-case basis, noting that it is “concerned about disparities in the amounts charged to Medicare and Medicaid when compared to private payers,” that it continues to believe its exclusion authority for excess charges “provides useful backstop protection for the public from providers that routinely charge Medicare or Medicaid substantially more than their other customers” and that it will use “all tools available … to address instances where Medicare or Medicaid are charged substantially more than other payers.” An enforcement action by the OIG under this statutory exclusion basis or an enforcement action by Medicaid officials of similar state law restrictions could have an adverse effect on the Company.
Under another U.S. statute, known as the Stark Law or “self-referral” prohibition, physicians who have a financial or a compensation relationship with a commercial laboratory may not, unless an exception applies, refer Medicare patients for testing to the laboratory, regardless of the intent of the parties. Similarly, laboratories may not bill Medicare for services furnished pursuant to a prohibited self-referral. There are several Stark Law exceptions that are relevant to arrangements involving clinical laboratories, including: i) fair market value compensation for the provision of items or services; ii) payments by physicians to a laboratory for commercial laboratory services; iii) ancillary services (including laboratory services) provided within the referring physician's own office, if certain criteria are satisfied; iv) physician investment in a company whose stock is traded on a public exchange and has stockholder equity exceeding $75.0 million; and v) certain space and equipment rental arrangements that are set at a fair market value rate and satisfy other requirements. Many states have their own self-referral laws as well, which in some cases apply to all patient referrals, not just government reimbursement programs.
There are a variety of other types of U.S. and state fraud and abuse laws, including laws prohibiting submission of false or fraudulent claims. The Company seeks to conduct its business in compliance with all U.S. and state fraud and abuse laws. The Company is unable to predict how these laws will be applied in the future, and no assurances can be given that its arrangements will not be subject to scrutiny under such laws. Sanctions for violations of these laws may include exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other U.S. or state healthcare programs, significant criminal and civil fines and penalties, and loss of licensure. Any exclusion from participation in a U.S. healthcare program, or material loss of licensure, arising from any action by any federal or state regulatory or enforcement authority, would likely have a material adverse effect on the Company's business. In addition, any significant criminal or civil penalty resulting from such proceedings could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business.
The Company is subject to licensing and regulation under national, state and local laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment, and human health and safety laws and regulations relating to the handling, transportation and disposal of medical specimens, infectious and hazardous waste and radioactive materials. All Company laboratories are subject to applicable laws and regulations relating to biohazard disposal of all laboratory specimens, and the Company generally utilizes outside vendors for disposal of such specimens. In addition, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established extensive requirements relating to workplace safety for healthcare employers, including clinical laboratories, whose workers may be exposed to blood-borne pathogens such as HIV, HCV and hepatitis B virus (HCB). These regulations, among other things, require work practice controls, protective clothing and equipment, training, medical follow-up, vaccinations and other measures designed to minimize exposure to, and transmission of, blood-borne pathogens. Other countries where the Company conducts business have similar laws and regulations concerning the environment and human health and safety with which the Company must also comply.
In 2012, the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard was revised based on the adoption of the Globally Harmonized System that provides criteria for the classification of chemical hazards. Updated copies of Safety Data Sheets for chemical products used across the Company were obtained prior to the effective date of June 1, 2015.
The Company seeks to comply with all relevant environmental and human health and safety laws and regulations. Failure to comply could subject the Company to various administrative and/or other enforcement actions.
Drug testing for public sector employees is regulated by the SAMHSA, which has established detailed performance and quality standards that laboratories must meet to be approved to perform drug testing on employees of U.S. government contractors and certain other entities. To the extent that the Company’s laboratories perform such testing, each must be certified as meeting SAMHSA standards. The Company’s laboratories in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; Raritan, New Jersey; Houston, Texas; Southaven, Mississippi; Spokane, Washington; and St. Paul, Minnesota are all SAMHSA certified.
CDD handles controlled substances as part of the services it provides in preclinical testing and clinical trials. The use of controlled substances in testing for drugs of abuse is regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The Company believes that it is in compliance with these regulations as applicable.
The Company maintains a comprehensive, global compliance program that includes ongoing evaluation and monitoring of its compliance with the laws and regulations of the U.S. and the other countries in which it has operations. The objective of the Company’s compliance program is to develop, implement and update compliance safeguards, as appropriate. Emphasis is placed on developing and implementing compliance policies and guidelines, personnel training programs and monitoring and auditing activities. The compliance program demonstrates the Company's commitment to conducting business at the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity.
The Company seeks to conduct its business in compliance with all statutes, regulations, and other requirements applicable to its clinical laboratory operations and drug development business. The clinical laboratory industry and drug development industries are, however, subject to extensive regulation, and many of these statutes and regulations have not been interpreted by the courts. In addition, the applicability or interpretation of statutes and regulations may not be clear in light of emerging changes in clinical testing science, healthcare technology, and healthcare organizations. Applicable statutes and regulations may be interpreted or applied by a prosecutorial, regulatory or judicial authority in a manner that would materially adversely affect the Company. Potential sanctions for violation of these statutes and regulations include significant civil and criminal penalties, fines, exclusion from participation in governmental healthcare programs, and the loss of various licenses, certificates, and authorizations necessary to operate, as well as potential liabilities from third-party claims, all of which could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business.
The Company's success depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of its computer and communications systems, and secure maintenance of personal and health information is critical to the Company’s business operations. The Company has experienced and expects to continue to experience attempts by computer programmers and hackers to attack and penetrate the Company’s layered security controls. Disruptions or breaches of security could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, regulatory compliance, financial condition and results of operations. The Company maintains information security procedures and has other safeguards in place intended to protect against such disruptions and breaches. These procedures and safeguards are monitored and routinely tested internally and by external parties. The Company has also implemented policies and procedures designed to comply with the HIPAA privacy and security requirements and other laws and regulations related to the privacy and security of personal or health information. In addition, the Company carries property and business interruption insurance. As cyber threats continue to evolve, the Company may be required to expend additional resources to continue to enhance the Company’s information security measures or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities.
Investors should carefully consider all of the information set forth in this report, including the following risk factors, before deciding to invest in any of the Company’s securities. The risks below are not the only ones that the Company faces. Additional risks not presently known to the Company, or that it presently deems immaterial, may also negatively impact the Company. The Company’s business, consolidated financial condition, revenues, results of operations, profitability, reputation or cash flows could be materially impacted by any of these factors.
This report also includes forward-looking statements that involve risks or uncertainties. The Company’s results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including the risks described below and elsewhere. See “Forward-Looking Statements” in Item 7.
Changes in payer regulations or policies (or in the interpretation of current regulations or policies), insurance regulations or approvals, or changes in other laws, regulations or policies in the United States (U.S.) may adversely affect U.S.
governmental and third-party coverage or reimbursement for clinical laboratory testing and may have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
U.S. and state government payers, such as Medicare and Medicaid, as well as insurers, including managed care organizations (MCOs), have increased their efforts to control the cost, utilization and delivery of healthcare services. From time to time, Congress has considered and implemented changes in Medicare fee schedules in conjunction with budgetary legislation. The first phase of reductions pursuant to Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) came into effect on January 1, 2018, and will continue annually subject to certain phase-in limits through 2023, and without limitations for subsequent periods. Further reductions due to changes in policy regarding coverage of tests or other requirements for payment, such as prior authorization, diagnosis code and other claims edits, or a physician or qualified practitioner’s signature on test requisitions, may be implemented from time to time. Reimbursement for pathology services performed by LabCorp Diagnostics (LCD) is also subject to statutory and regulatory reduction. Reductions in the reimbursement rates and changes in payment policies of other third-party payers may occur as well. Such changes in the past have resulted in reduced payments as well as added costs and have decreased test utilization for the commercial laboratory industry by adding more complex new regulatory and administrative requirements. Further changes in third-party payer regulations, policies, or laboratory benefit or utilization management programs may have a material adverse effect on LCD's business. Actions by federal and state agencies regulating insurance, including healthcare exchanges, or changes in other laws, regulations, or policies may also have a material adverse effect upon LCD's business.
The Company could face significant monetary damages and penalties and/or exclusion from government programs if it violates federal, state, local or international laws including, but not limited to, anti-fraud and abuse laws.
The Company is subject to extensive government regulation at the federal, state, and local levels in the U.S. and other countries where it operates. The Company’s failure to meet governmental requirements under these regulations, including those relating to billing practices and financial relationships with physicians, hospitals, and health systems could lead to civil and criminal penalties, exclusion from participation in Medicare and Medicaid and possible prohibitions or restrictions on the use of its laboratories. While the Company believes that it is in material compliance with all statutory and regulatory requirements, there is a risk that government authorities might take a contrary position. Such occurrences, regardless of their outcome, could damage the Company’s reputation and adversely affect important business relationships it has with third parties.
The Company’s business could be harmed from the loss or suspension of a license or imposition of a fine or penalties under, or future changes in, or interpretations of, the law or regulations of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967, and the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), or those of Medicare, Medicaid or other national, state or local agencies in the U.S. and other countries where the Company operates laboratories.
The commercial laboratory testing industry is subject to extensive U.S. regulation, and many of these statutes and regulations have not been interpreted by the courts. CLIA extends federal oversight to virtually all clinical laboratories operating in the U.S. by requiring that they be certified by the federal government or by a federally approved accreditation agency. The sanction for failure to comply with CLIA requirements may be suspension, revocation or limitation of a laboratory’s CLIA certificate, which is necessary to conduct business, as well as significant fines and/or criminal penalties. In addition, the Company is subject to regulation under state law. State laws may require that laboratories and/or laboratory personnel meet certain qualifications, specify certain quality controls or require maintenance of certain records. The Company also operates laboratories outside of the U.S. and is subject to laws governing its laboratory operations in the other countries where it operates.
Applicable statutes and regulations could be interpreted or applied by a prosecutorial, regulatory or judicial authority in a manner that would adversely affect the Company's business. Potential sanctions for violation of these statutes and regulations include significant fines and the suspension or loss of various licenses, certificates and authorizations, which could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business. In addition, compliance with future legislation could impose additional requirements on the Company, which may be costly.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation of diagnostic products and increased FDA regulation of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) could result in increased costs and the imposition of fines or penalties, and could have a material adverse effect upon the Company’s business.
The FDA has regulatory responsibility for instruments, test kits, reagents and other devices used by clinical laboratories. The FDA enforces laws and regulations that govern the development, testing, manufacturing, performance, labeling, advertising, marketing, distribution and surveillance of diagnostic products, and it regularly inspects and reviews the manufacturing processes and product performance of diagnostic products. LCD’s point-of-care testing devices are subject to regulation by the FDA.
There are other regulatory and legislative proposals that would increase general FDA oversight of clinical laboratories and LDTs. On July 26, 2007, the FDA issued Draft Guidance for Industry, Clinical Laboratories, and FDA Staff: In Vitro Diagnostic Multivariate Index Assays. The guidance proposed certain changes to the agency's general past practice regarding the regulation of certain LDTs and announced that most devices deemed to be In Vitro Diagnostic Multivariate Index Assays (IVDMIAs) would
either be Class II or Class III devices, although it is possible that an IVDMIA for a low-risk indication could be Class I. Class II medical devices typically require FDA clearance or a premarket notification submission. Class III devices require the submission of an application for Premarket Approval. On October 3, 2014, the FDA published two additional draft guidance documents: Framework for Regulatory Oversight of Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs), which provides an overview of how the FDA would regulate LDTs through a risk-based approach, and FDA Notification and Medical Device Reporting for Laboratory Developed Tests, which describes the process for clinical laboratories to notify the FDA of the LDTs they "manufacture" and describes the Medical Device Reporting requirements for LDTs. On May 28, 2015, and October 22, 2015, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee released discussion drafts of a bill that would reform oversight of in vitro clinical tests (IVCTs), including both LDTs and test kits. The bill would establish a new regulatory framework in which the FDA would regulate IVCTs under a new category separate from medical devices, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regulation of laboratories under CLIA would be modernized. On November 16, 2015, the FDA issued a report titled, The Public Health Evidence for FDA Oversight of Laboratory Developed Tests: 20 Case Studies (LDT Report). The LDT Report compiles 20 case studies involving LDTs where the FDA alleges that noncompliance with the FDA regulations led to serious issues, such as false-positive or false-negative results, causing potential or actual harm to patients. On December 29, 2015, the FDA published notice of its intent to finalize guidance on its policy for regulatory oversight of LDTs in 2016. However, on November 18, 2016, the FDA announced it would not release final guidance and instead would continue to work with stakeholders, the new administration and Congress to determine the right approach, and on January 13, 2017, the FDA released a discussion paper outlining a possible risk-based approach for FDA and CMS oversight of LDTs. Later in 2017, the Commissioner of the FDA indicated that Congress should enact legislation to address improved oversight of diagnostics including LDTs, rather than the FDA addressing the issue through administrative policy proposals. There are other regulatory and legislative proposals that would increase general FDA oversight of clinical laboratories and LDTs. The outcome and ultimate impact of such proposals on the business is difficult to predict at this time.
Current FDA regulation of the Company’s diagnostic products and potential future increased regulation of the Company’s LDTs could result in increased costs and administrative and legal actions for noncompliance, including warning letters, fines, penalties, product suspensions, product recalls, injunctions and other civil and criminal sanctions, which could have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
Failure to comply with U.S., state, local or international environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act and the U.S. Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, could result in fines and penalties and loss of licensure, and have a material adverse effect upon the Company’s business.
As previously discussed in Item 1 of Part I of this report, the Company is subject to licensing and regulation under laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment and human health and safety, including laws and regulations relating to the handling, transportation and disposal of medical specimens, infectious and hazardous waste and radioactive materials, as well as regulations relating to the safety and health of laboratory employees. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could subject the Company to denial of the right to conduct business, fines, criminal penalties and/or other enforcement actions that would have a material adverse effect on its business. In addition, compliance with future legislation could impose additional requirements on the Company that may be costly.
Failure to comply with privacy and security laws and regulations could result in fines, penalties and damage to the Company’s reputation with customers and have a material adverse effect upon the Company’s business.
If the Company does not comply with existing or new laws and regulations related to protecting the privacy and security of personal or health information, it could be subject to monetary fines, civil penalties or criminal sanctions.
In the U.S., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy and security regulations, including the expanded requirements under U.S. Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), establish comprehensive standards with respect to the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI) by covered entities, in addition to setting standards to protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of PHI.
HIPAA restricts the Company’s ability to use or disclose PHI, without patient authorization, for purposes other than payment, treatment or healthcare operations (as defined by HIPAA), except for disclosures for various public policy purposes and other permitted purposes outlined in the privacy regulations. HIPAA and HITECH provide for significant fines and other penalties for wrongful use or disclosure of PHI in violation of the privacy and security regulations, including potential civil and criminal fines and penalties. The regulations establish a complex regulatory framework on a variety of subjects, including:
The circumstances under which the use and disclosure of PHI are permitted or required without a specific authorization by the patient, including, but not limited to, treatment purposes, activities to obtain payments for the Company’s services, and its healthcare operations activities;
A patient’s rights to access, amend and receive an accounting of certain disclosures of PHI;
The content of notices of privacy practices for PHI;
Administrative, technical and physical safeguards required of entities that use or receive PHI; and
The protection of computing systems maintaining electronic PHI.
The Company has implemented policies and procedures designed to comply with the HIPAA privacy and security requirements as applicable. The privacy and security regulations establish a “floor” and do not supersede state laws that are more stringent. Therefore, the Company is required to comply with both additional federal privacy and security regulations and varying state privacy and security laws. In addition, federal and state laws that protect the privacy and security of patient information may be subject to enforcement and interpretations by various governmental authorities and courts, resulting in complex compliance issues. For example, the Company could incur damages under state laws pursuant to an action brought by a private party for the wrongful use or disclosure of health information or other personal information.
The Company may also be required to comply with the data privacy and security laws of other countries in which it operates or with which it transfers and receives data. For example, in Europe both criminal and administrative sanctions are possible for violation of European Union (EU) member state implementations of the general data protection Directive 95/46/EC. In December 2015, the EU enacted a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to replace Directive 95/46/EC, which will take effect May 25, 2018, and which has a broader application and enhanced penalties for noncompliance. The Company is executing on its GDPR readiness project to support compliance with the GDPR. The GDPR creates a range of new compliance obligations for subject companies and substantially increases financial penalties for non-compliance. The costs of compliance with the GDPR and the potential for fines and penalties in the event of a violation of the GDPR may have a significant adverse effect on the Company's business and operations. In addition, similar data protection regulations addressing access, use, disclosure and transfer of personal data have been enacted or updated in countries where the Company does business in Asia, Latin America, Canada and Europe. The Company expects to make changes to its business practices and to incur additional costs associated with compliance with these evolving and complex regulations.
Regulations requiring the use of standard transactions for healthcare services issued under HIPAA may negatively impact the Company’s profitability and cash flows.
Pursuant to HIPAA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued regulations designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system by facilitating the electronic exchange of information in certain financial and administrative transactions while protecting the privacy and security of the information exchanged. The HIPAA transaction standards are complex and subject to differences in interpretation by payers. For instance, some payers may interpret the standards to require the Company to provide certain types of information, including demographic information, not usually provided to the Company by physicians. In addition, requirements for additional standard transactions, such as claims attachments, could prove technically difficult, time-consuming or expensive to implement. As a result of inconsistent application of other transaction standards by payers or the Company’s inability to obtain certain billing information not usually provided to the Company by physicians, the Company could face increased costs and complexity, a temporary disruption in receipts and ongoing reductions in reimbursements and net revenues. While the Company is working closely with its payers to establish acceptable protocols for claim submission and with its trade association and an industry coalition to present issues and problems as they arise to the appropriate regulators and standards-setting organizations, it may not be successful in these efforts.
Failure to maintain the security of customer-related information or compliance with security requirements could damage the Company’s reputation with customers, cause it to incur substantial additional costs and become subject to litigation.
The Company receives certain personal and financial information about its customers. In addition, the Company depends upon the secure transmission of confidential information over public networks, including information permitting cashless payments. A compromise in the Company’s security systems that results in customer personal information being obtained by unauthorized persons or the Company’s failure to comply with security requirements for financial transactions could adversely affect the Company’s reputation with its customers and others, as well as the Company’s results of operations, financial condition and liquidity. It could also result in litigation against the Company and the imposition of fines and penalties.
Discontinuation or recalls of existing testing products; failure to develop or acquire licenses for new or improved testing technologies; or the Company’s customers using new technologies to perform their own tests could adversely affect the Company’s business.
From time to time, manufacturers discontinue or recall reagents, test kits or instruments used by the Company to perform laboratory testing. Such discontinuations or recalls could adversely affect the Company’s costs, testing volume and revenue.
The commercial laboratory industry is subject to changing technology and new product introductions. The Company’s success in maintaining a leadership position in genomic and other advanced testing technologies will depend, in part, on its ability to develop, acquire or license new and improved technologies on favorable terms and to obtain appropriate coverage and reimbursement for these technologies. The Company may not be able to negotiate acceptable licensing arrangements, and it cannot be certain that such arrangements will yield commercially successful diagnostic tests. If the Company is unable to license these
testing methods at competitive rates, its research and development (R&D) costs may increase as a result. In addition, if the Company is unable to license new or improved technologies to expand its esoteric testing operations, its testing methods may become outdated when compared with the Company’s competition, and testing volume and revenue may be materially and adversely affected.
In addition, advances in technology may lead to the development of more cost-effective technologies such as point-of-care testing equipment that can be operated by physicians or other healthcare providers (including physician assistants, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives, generally referred to herein as physicians) in their offices or by patients themselves without requiring the services of freestanding clinical laboratories. Development of such technology and its use by the Company’s customers could reduce the demand for its laboratory testing services and the utilization of certain tests offered by the Company and negatively impact its revenues.
Currently, most commercial laboratory testing is categorized as high or moderate complexity, and thereby is subject to extensive and costly regulation under CLIA. The cost of compliance with CLIA makes it impractical for most physicians to operate clinical laboratories in their offices, and other laws limit the ability of physicians to have ownership in a laboratory and to refer tests to such a laboratory. Manufacturers of laboratory equipment and test kits could seek to increase their sales by marketing point-of-care laboratory equipment to physicians and by selling test kits approved for home or physician office use to both physicians and patients. Diagnostic tests approved for home use are automatically deemed to be “waived” tests under CLIA and may be performed in physician office laboratories as well as by patients in their homes with minimal regulatory oversight. Other tests meeting certain FDA criteria also may be classified as “waived” for CLIA purposes. The FDA has regulatory responsibility over instruments, test kits, reagents and other devices used by clinical laboratories, and it has taken responsibility from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for classifying the complexity of tests for CLIA purposes. Increased approval of “waived” test kits could lead to increased testing by physicians in their offices or by patients at home, which could affect the Company’s market for laboratory testing services and negatively impact its revenues.
Healthcare reform and changes to related products (e.g., health insurance exchanges), changes in government payment and reimbursement systems, or changes in payer mix, including an increase in capitated reimbursement mechanisms and evolving delivery models, could have a material adverse effect on the Company's net revenues, profitability and cash flow.
LCD's testing services are billed to MCOs, Medicare, Medicaid, physicians and physician groups, hospitals, patients and employer groups. Tests ordered by a physician may be billed to different payers depending on the medical insurance benefits of a particular patient. Most testing services are billed to a party other than the physician or other authorized person who ordered the test. Increases in the percentage of services billed to government and MCOs could have an adverse effect on the Company’s net revenues.
The Company serves many MCOs. These organizations have different contracting philosophies, which are influenced by the design of their products. Some MCOs contract with a limited number of clinical laboratories and engage in direct negotiation of rates. Other MCOs adopt broader networks with generally uniform fee structures for participating clinical laboratories. In some cases, those fee structures are specific to independent clinical laboratories, while the fees paid to hospital-based and physician-office laboratories may be different, and are typically higher. MCOs may also offer Managed Medicare or Managed Medicaid plans. In addition, some MCOs use capitation rates to fix the cost of laboratory testing services for their enrollees. Under a capitated reimbursement arrangement, the clinical laboratory receives a per-member, per-month payment for an agreed upon menu of laboratory tests provided to MCO members during the month, regardless of the number of tests performed.
Capitation shifts the risk of increased test utilization (and the underlying mix of testing services) to the commercial laboratory provider. The Company makes significant efforts to ensure that its services are adequately compensated in its capitated arrangements. For the year ended December 31, 2017, such capitated contracts accounted for approximately $259.1 million, or 3.6%, of LCD's net revenues.
The Company's ability to attract and retain MCOs is critical given the impact of healthcare reform, related products and expanded coverage (e.g. health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion) and evolving delivery models (e.g., accountable care organizations).
A portion of the managed care fee-for-service revenues is collectible from patients in the form of deductibles, coinsurance and copayments. As patient cost-sharing has been increasing the Company's collections may be adversely impacted.
In addition, Medicare and Medicaid and private insurers have increased their efforts to control the cost, utilization and delivery of healthcare services, including commercial laboratory services. Measures to regulate healthcare delivery in general, and clinical laboratories in particular, have resulted in reduced prices, added costs and decreased test utilization for the commercial laboratory industry by increasing complexity and adding new regulatory and administrative requirements. Pursuant to legislation passed in late 2003, the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Managed Medicare plans has increased. The percentage of Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in Managed Medicaid plans has also increased, and is expected to continue to increase; however, changes to, or repeal of, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may continue to affect coverage, reimbursement, and
utilization of laboratory services, as well as administrative requirements, in ways that are currently unpredictable. Further healthcare reform could adversely affect laboratory reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid or commercial carriers.
The Company also experienced delays in the pricing and implementation of new molecular pathology codes among various payers, including Medicaid, Medicare and commercial carriers. While some delays were expected, several non-commercial payers required an extended period of time to price key molecular codes, and a number of those payers, mostly government entities, indicated that they would no longer pay for tests that they had previously covered. These issues (particularly payer policy changes) and changes in coverage had a negative impact on revenue, revenue per requisition, and margins and cash flows in 2014 through 2017, and are expected to have a continuing negative impact. Similarly, the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) coding and billing changes related to toxicology and other procedures were implemented in 2016 and 2017. The Company experienced delays in the pricing and implementation of the new toxicology codes; however, the Company largely overcame issues related to price and margins through direct negotiation with the associated payers. Limited coding and billing changes related to other procedure types are expected to be implemented in 2018. The Company expects some continued delays in the pricing and implementation of these new codes.
In addition, some MCOs are implementing, directly or through third parties, various types of laboratory benefit management programs that may include lab networks, utilization management tools (such as prior authorization and/or prior notification), and claims edits, which may impact coverage or reimbursement for commercial laboratory tests. Some of these programs address commercial laboratory testing broadly, while others are focused on molecular and genetic testing.
The Company expects the efforts to impose reduced reimbursement, more stringent payment policies, and utilization and cost controls by government and other payers to continue. If LCD cannot offset additional reductions in the payments it receives for its services by reducing costs, increasing test volume, and/or introducing new services and procedures, it could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s net revenues, profitability and cash flows. In 2014, Congress passed PAMA, requiring Medicare to change the way payment rates are calculated for tests paid under the CLFS, and to base the payment on the weighted median of rates paid by private payers. On June 23, 2016, CMS issued a final rule to implement PAMA that required applicable laboratories, including LCD, to begin reporting their test-specific private payer payment amounts to CMS during the first quarter of 2017. CMS exercised enforcement discretion to permit reporting for an additional 60 days, through May 30, 2017. CMS used that private market data to calculate weighted median prices for each test (based on applicable CPT codes) to represent the new CLFS rates beginning in 2018, subject to certain phase-in limits. For 2018-2020, a test price cannot be reduced by more than 10.0% per year; for 2021-2023, a test price cannot be reduced by more than 15.0% per year. The process of data reporting and repricing will be repeated every three years for Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests (CDLTs). The second data reporting period for CDLTs will occur during the first quarter of 2020, and new CLFS rates for CDLTs will be established based on that data beginning in 2021, subject to the previously described phase-in limits for 2021-2023. The third data reporting period for CDLTs will occur during the first quarter of 2023, and new CLFS rates for CDLTs will be established based on that data beginning in 2024. CLFS rates for 2024 and subsequent periods will not be subject to phase-in limits. CLFS rates for Advanced Diagnostic Laboratory Tests (ADLTs) will be updated annually. CMS published its initial proposed CLFS rates under PAMA for 2018-2020 on September 22, 2017. Following a public comment period, CMS made adjustments and published final CLFS rates for 2018-2020 on November 17, 2017, with additional adjustments published on December 1, 2017. For 2018, the Company estimates that CLFS rates will reduce LCD revenue from all payers affected by the CLFS by a total of approximately 8% ($70.0 million). The Company supports the efforts of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) to work with Congress on potential legislative reform of PAMA, which if enacted could reduce the negative impact of PAMA as implemented by CMS.
Healthcare reform legislation also contains numerous regulations that will require the Company, as an employer, to implement significant process and record-keeping changes to be in compliance. These changes increase the cost of providing healthcare coverage to employees and their families. Given the limited release of regulations to guide compliance, as well as potential changes to the ACA, the exact impact to employers, including the Company, is uncertain.
Changes in government regulation or in practices relating to the biopharmaceutical industry could decrease the need for certain services that Covance Drug Development (CDD) provides.
CDD assists biopharmaceutical companies in navigating the regulatory drug approval process. Changes in regulations such as a relaxation in regulatory requirements or the introduction of simplified drug approval procedures, or an increase in regulatory requirements that CDD has difficulty satisfying or that make its services less competitive, could eliminate or substantially reduce the demand for its services. Also, if government efforts to contain drug costs impact biopharmaceutical company profits from new drugs, or if health insurers were to change their practices with respect to reimbursement for biopharmaceutical products, some of CDD’s customers may spend less, or reduce their growth in spending on R&D.
On December 13, 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law. This Act provides funding designed to increase government spending on certain drug development initiatives; contains several provisions designed to help make the drug development process more streamlined and efficient; and allows the FDA to increase staffing to support drug development, review
and regulation. These provisions should be helpful to biopharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs), including CDD, to the extent that they capitalize on the use of data, adaptive trial designs, real-world evidence, biomarkers and other development tools that are accepted by the FDA.
In addition, implementation of healthcare reform legislation that adds costs could limit the profits that can be made from the development of new drugs. This could adversely affect R&D expenditures by biopharmaceutical companies, which could in turn decrease the business opportunities available to CDD both in the U.S. and other countries. New laws or regulations may create a risk of liability, increase CDD costs or limit service offerings through CDD.
Failure to comply with the regulations of drug regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the United Kingdom (U.K.), the European Medicines Agency, the China Food and Drug Administration, and the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency in Japan, could result in sanctions and/or remedies against CDD and have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
The operation of CDD's preclinical laboratory facilities and clinical trial operations must conform to good laboratory practice (GLP) and good clinical practice (GCP), as applicable, as well as all other applicable standards and regulations, as further described in Item 1 of Part I of this report. The business operations of CDD’s clinical and preclinical laboratories also require the import and export of medical devices, in vitro diagnostic devices, reagents, and human and animal biological products. Such activities are subject to numerous applicable local and international regulations with which CDD must comply or be subject to civil, criminal or administrative sanctions and/or remedies, including suspension of its ability to import or export to or from certain countries, which could have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
Additionally, certain CDD services and activities must conform to current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) as further described in Item 1 of Part I of this report. Failure to maintain compliance with GLP, GCP, or cGMP regulations and other applicable requirements of various regulatory agencies could result in warning letters, fines, unanticipated compliance expenditures, suspension of manufacturing, and civil, criminal or administrative sanctions and/or remedies against CDD, including suspension of its laboratory operations, which could have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
Increased competition, including price competition, could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s net revenues and profitability.
As further described in Item 1 of Part I of this report, both LCD and CDD operate in highly competitive industries. The commercial laboratory business is intensely competitive both in terms of price and service. Pricing of laboratory testing services is often one of the most significant factors used by physicians, third-party payers and consumers in selecting a laboratory. As a result of significant consolidation in the commercial laboratory industry, larger commercial laboratory providers are able to increase cost efficiencies afforded by large-scale automated testing. This consolidation results in greater price competition. LCD may be unable to increase cost efficiencies sufficiently, if at all, and as a result, its net earnings and cash flows could be negatively impacted by such price competition. The Company may also face increased competition from companies that do not comply with existing laws or regulations or otherwise disregard compliance standards in the industry. Additionally, the Company may also face changes in fee schedules, competitive bidding for laboratory services, or other actions or pressures reducing payment schedules as a result of increased or additional competition.
Competitors in the CRO industry range from hundreds of smaller CROs to a limited number of large CROs with global capabilities. CDD’s main competition consists of these small and large CROs, as well as in-house departments of biopharmaceutical companies and, to a lesser extent, select universities and teaching hospitals. CDD’s services have from time to time experienced periods of increased price competition that had an adverse effect on a segment's profitability and consolidated net revenues and net income. There is competition among CROs for both customers and potential acquisition candidates. Additionally, few barriers to entering the CRO industry further increases possible new competition.
These competitive pressures may affect the attractiveness or profitability of LCD’s and CDD’s services, and could adversely affect the financial results of the Company.
Failure to obtain and retain new customers, the loss of existing customers or material contracts, or a reduction in services or tests ordered or specimens submitted by existing customers, or the inability to retain existing and/or create new relationships with health systems could impact the Company’s ability to successfully grow its business.
To maintain and grow its business, the Company needs to obtain and retain new customers and business partners. In addition, a reduction in tests ordered or specimens submitted by existing customers, a decrease in demand for the Company's services from existing customers, or the loss of existing contracts, without offsetting growth in its customer base, could impact the Company's ability to successfully grow its business and could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s net revenues and profitability. The Company competes primarily on the basis of the quality of services, reporting and information systems, reputation in the medical community and the drug development industry, the pricing of services and ability to employ qualified personnel. The
Company's failure to successfully compete on any of these factors could result in the loss of existing customers, an inability to gain new customers and a reduction in the Company's business.
Continued and increased consolidation of MCOs, biopharmaceutical companies, health systems, physicians and other customers could adversely affect the Company's business.
Many healthcare companies and providers, including MCOs, biopharmaceutical companies, health systems and physician practices are consolidating through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other types of transactions and collaborations. In addition to these more traditional horizontal mergers that involve entities that previously competed against each other, the healthcare industry is experiencing an increase in vertical mergers, which involve entities that previously did not offer competing goods or services. As the healthcare industry consolidates, competition to provide goods and services may become more intense, and vertical mergers may give those combined companies greater control over more aspects of healthcare, including increased bargaining power. This competition and increased customer bargaining power may adversely affect the price and volume of the Company’s services.
In addition, as the broader healthcare industry trend of consolidation continues, including the acquisition of physician practices by health systems, relationships with hospital-based health systems and integrated delivery networks are becoming more important. LCD has a well-established base of relationships with those systems and networks, including collaborative agreements. LCD's inability to retain its existing relationships with those physicians as they become part of healthcare systems and networks and/or to create new relationships could impact its ability to successfully grow its business.
LCD’s nutritional chemistry and food safety business exposes the Company to various risks, including liability for errors and omissions in work conducted for LCD customers.
LCD offers a range of product-development and product-integrity services to food and beverage manufacturers and retailers, industry organizations and academic institutions. LCD also is exploring the possibility of developing point-of-production testing for food safety. These business offerings and opportunities expose the Company to many of the same, or similar, risks that are applicable to other business activities of the Company, including with respect to the operations of its facilities and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The agricultural, food, beverage and dietary supplement industries are continuing to gain the attention of governments and regulators around the world, and regulations and applicable laws have increased in recent years. For example, many food and beverage manufacturers and retailers will be subject to new nutrition labeling regulations and new food manufacturing requirements, including regulations issued under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). With these enhanced requirements on the Company’s customers, there is an increased risk that errors in or omissions from nutritional analysis and food safety tests conducted by the Company for its customers could result in liability for the Company under customer contracts. If LCD determines to further expand its nutritional chemistry and food safety testing business in the future beyond what is currently anticipated, LCD could become subject to additional standards and regulations, including under the FSMA, and could face additional liabilities resulting from new and pending regulatory and other legal actions.
Changes or disruption in services or supplies provided by third parties, including transportation, could adversely affect the Company’s business.
The Company depends on third parties to provide services critical to the Company’s business. Although the Company has a significant proprietary network of ground and air transport capabilities, certain of the Company's businesses are heavily reliant on third-party ground and air travel for transport of clinical trial and diagnostic testing supplies and specimens, research products, and people. A significant disruption to these travel systems, or the Company's access to them, could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business. The Company is also reliant on an extensive network of third-party suppliers and vendors of certain services and products, including for certain animal populations. Disruptions to the continued supply of these services, products, or animal populations may arise from export/import restrictions or embargoes, political or economic instability, pressure from animal rights activists, adverse weather, natural disasters, transportation disruptions, or other causes. Disruption of supply could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business.
Damage or disruption to the Company’s facilities could adversely affect the Company’s business.
Many of the Company’s facilities could be difficult to replace in a short period of time. Any event that causes a disruption of the operation of these facilities might impact the Company's ability to provide service to customers and, therefore, could have a material adverse effect on the Company's financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The Company bears financial risk for contracts that, for reasons beyond the Company's control, may be underpriced, subject to cost overruns, delayed, or terminated or reduced in scope.
The Company has many contracts that are structured as fixed-price for fixed-contracted services or fee-for-service with a cap. The Company bears the financial risk if these contracts are underpriced or if contract costs exceed estimates. Such underpricing or significant cost overruns could have an adverse effect on the Company's business, results of operations, financial condition
and cash flows.
Many of CDD’s contracts, in particular, provide for services on a fixed-price or fee-for-service with a cap basis and they may be terminated or reduced in scope either immediately or upon notice. Cancellations may occur for a variety of reasons, including:
Failure of products to satisfy safety requirements;
Unexpected or undesired results of the products;
Insufficient clinical trial subject enrollment;
Insufficient investigator recruitment;
A customer's decision to terminate the development of a product or to end a particular study; and
CDD’s failure to perform its duties properly under the contract.
Although its contracts often entitle it to receive the costs of winding down the terminated projects, as well as all fees earned up to the time of termination, the loss, reduction in scope or delay of a large contract or the loss, delay or conclusion of multiple contracts could materially adversely affect CDD.
Contract research services in the drug development industry create liability risks.
In contracting to work on drug development trials and studies, CDD faces a range of potential liabilities, including:
Errors or omissions that create harm to clinical trial subjects during a trial or to consumers of a drug after the trial is completed and regulatory approval of the drug has been granted;
General risks associated with clinical pharmacology facilities, including negative consequences from the administration of drugs to clinical trial participants or the professional malpractice of clinical pharmacology physicians;
Risks that animals in CDD’s breeding facilities may be infected with diseases that may be harmful and even lethal to themselves and humans despite preventive measures contained in CDD's business policies, including those for the quarantine and handling of imported animals; and
Errors and omissions during a trial that may undermine the usefulness of a trial or data from the trial or study or may delay the entry of a drug to the market.
CDD contracts with physicians, also referred to as investigators, to conduct the clinical trials to test new drugs on clinical trial subjects. These tests can create a risk of liability for personal injury or death to clinical trial subjects resulting from negative reactions to the drugs administered or from professional malpractice by third party investigators.
While CDD endeavors to include in its contracts provisions entitling it to be indemnified and entitling it to a limitation of liability, these provisions do not uniformly protect CDD against liability arising from certain of its own actions. CDD could be materially and adversely affected if it were required to pay damages or bear the costs of defending any claim that is not covered by a contractual indemnification provision, or in the event that a party which must indemnify it does not fulfill its indemnification obligations, or in the event that CDD is not successful in limiting its liability or in the event that the damages and costs exceed CDD's insurance coverage. There can be no assurance that CDD will be able to maintain sufficient insurance coverage on acceptable terms.
Adverse results in material litigation matters could have a material adverse effect upon the Company’s business.
The Company may become subject in the ordinary course of business to material legal action related to, among other things, intellectual property disputes, contract disputes, data and privacy issues, professional liability and employee-related matters. The Company may also receive inquiries and requests for information from governmental agencies and bodies, including Medicare or Medicaid payers, requesting comment and/or information on allegations of billing irregularities, billing and pricing arrangements, or privacy practices that are brought to their attention through audits or third parties. Legal actions could result in substantial monetary damages as well as damage to the Company’s reputation with customers, which could have a material adverse effect upon its business.
The Company's quarterly operating results may vary.
The Company's operating results, particularly for CDD, may vary significantly from quarter to quarter and are influenced by factors over which the Company has little control, such as:
Changes in the general global economy;
Exchange rate fluctuations;
The commencement, completion, delay or cancellation of large projects or groups of projects;
The progress of ongoing projects;
The timing of and charges associated with completed acquisitions or other events; and
Changes in the mix of the Company's services.
The Company believes that operating results for any particular quarter are not necessarily a meaningful indication of future results. While fluctuations in the Company's quarterly operating results could negatively or positively affect the market price of
the Company's common stock, these fluctuations may not be related to the Company's future overall operating performance.
The failure to successfully obtain, maintain and enforce intellectual property rights and defend against challenges to the Company’s intellectual property rights could adversely affect the Company.
Many of the Company’s services, products and processes rely on intellectual property, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. In some cases, that intellectual property is owned by another party and licensed to the Company, sometimes exclusively. The value of the Company’s intellectual property relies in part on the Company’s ability to maintain its proprietary rights to such intellectual property. If the Company is unable to obtain or maintain the proprietary rights to its intellectual property, if it is unable to prevent attempted infringement against its intellectual property, or if it is unable to defend against claims that it is infringing on another party’s intellectual property, the Company could be adversely affected. These adverse effects could include the Company having to abandon, alter and/or delay the deployment of products, services or processes that rely on such intellectual property; having to procure and pay for licenses from the holders of intellectual property rights that the Company seeks to use; and having to pay damages, fines, court costs and attorney's fees in connection with intellectual property litigation.
CDD’s revenues depend on the biopharmaceutical industry.
CDD’s revenues depend greatly on the expenditures made by the biopharmaceutical industry in R&D. In some instances, biopharmaceutical companies are reliant on their ability to raise capital in order to fund their R&D projects. Biopharmaceutical companies are also reliant on reimbursement for their products from government programs and commercial payers. Accordingly, economic factors and industry trends affecting CDD’s customers in these industries may also affect CDD. If these companies were to reduce the number of R&D projects they conduct or outsource, whether through the inability to raise capital, reductions in reimbursement from governmental programs or commercial payers, industry trends, economic conditions or otherwise, CDD could be materially adversely affected.
Actions of animal rights activists may have an adverse effect on the Company.
CDD's preclinical services utilize animals in preclinical testing of the safety and efficacy of drugs. Such activities are required for the development of new medicines and medical devices under regulatory regimes in the U.S., Europe, Japan and other countries. CDD also breeds and sells animals for biomedical research. Acts of vandalism and other acts by animal rights activists who object to the use of animals in drug development could have an adverse effect on the Company.
Animal populations may suffer diseases that can damage CDD's inventory, harm its reputation, result in decreased sales of research products or result in other liability.
It is important that research products be free of diseases, including infectious diseases. The presence of diseases can distort or compromise the quality of research results, cause loss of animals in CDD’s inventory, result in harm to humans or outside animal populations if the disease is not contained to animals in inventory, or result in other losses. Such results could harm CDD’s reputation or have an adverse effect on CDD's financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.
Failure to conduct animal research in compliance with animal welfare laws and regulations could result in sanctions and/or remedies against CDD and have a material adverse effect upon the Company.
The conduct of animal research at CDD’s facilities must be in compliance with applicable laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which those activities are conducted. These laws and regulations include the U.S Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which governs the care and use of warm-blooded animals for research in the U.S. other than laboratory rats, mice and chickens, and is enforced through periodic inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The AWA establishes facility standards regarding several aspects of animal welfare, including housing, ventilation, lighting, feeding and watering, handling, veterinary care and recordkeeping. Similar laws and regulations apply in other jurisdictions in which CDD conducts animal research, including the European Union and China. CDD complies with licensing and registration requirement standards set by these laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it conducts animal research. If an enforcement agency determines that CDD’s equipment, facilities, laboratories or processes do not comply with applicable standards, it may issue an inspection report documenting the deficiencies and setting deadlines for any required corrective actions. For noncompliance, the agency may take action against CDD that may include fines, suspension and/or revocation of animal research licenses, or confiscation of research animals.
An inability to attract and retain experienced and qualified personnel could adversely affect the Company’s business.
The loss of key management personnel or the inability to attract and retain experienced and qualified employees at the Company’s clinical laboratories and drug development facilities could adversely affect the business. The success of the Company is dependent in part on the efforts of key members of its management team. Success in maintaining the Company’s leadership position in genomic and other advanced testing technologies and in drug development will depend in part on the Company’s ability to attract and retain skilled research professionals. In addition, the success of the Company’s clinical laboratories also depends on employing and retaining qualified and experienced laboratory professionals, including specialists, who perform commercial laboratory testing
services. In the future, if competition for the services of these professionals increases, the Company may not be able to continue to attract and retain individuals in its markets. The Company’s revenues and earnings could be adversely affected if a significant number of professionals terminate their relationship with the Company or become unable or unwilling to continue their employment.
Unionization of employees, union strikes, work stoppages or failure to comply with labor or employment laws could adversely affect the Company's operations and have a material adverse effect upon the Company's business.
The Company is a party to a limited number of collective bargaining agreements with various labor unions and is subject to employment and labor laws and unionization activity in the U.S. and other countries in which it conducts business. Disputes with regard to the terms of these agreements, potential inability to negotiate acceptable contracts with these unions, unionization activity, or a failure to comply with labor or employment laws could result in, among other things, labor unrest, strikes, work stoppages, slowdowns by the affected workers, fines and penalties. If any of these events were to occur, or other employees were to become unionized, the Company could experience a significant disruption of its operations or higher ongoing labor costs, either of which could have a material adverse effect upon the Company's business. Additionally, future labor agreements, or renegotiation of labor agreements or provisions of labor agreements, or changes in labor or employment laws, could compromise its service reliability and significantly increase its costs, which could have a material adverse effect upon the Company's business.
A significant increase in LCD's or CDD's days sales outstanding could have an adverse effect on the Company’s business, including its cash flow, by increasing its bad debt or decreasing its cash flow.
Billing for laboratory services is a complex process. Laboratories bill many different payers, including doctors, patients, hundreds of insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid and employer groups, all of which have different billing requirements. In addition to billing complexities, LCD has experienced an increase in patient responsibility as a result of managed care fee-for-service plans that continue to increase deductibles, coinsurance and patient copayments. LCD expects this trend to continue. A material increase in LCD’s days sales outstanding level could have an adverse effect on the Company's business, including potentially increasing its bad debt rate and decreasing its cash flows. Although CDD does not face the same level of complexity in its billing process, it could also experience delays in billing or collection, and a material increase in CDD’s days sales outstanding could have an adverse effect on the Company’s business, including potentially decreasing its cash flows.
Failure in the Company’s information technology systems or delays or failures in the development and implementation of updates or enhancements to those systems could significantly increase testing turnaround time or delay billing processes and otherwise disrupt the Company’s operations or customer relationships.
The Company’s operations and customer relationships depend, in part, on the continued performance of its information technology systems. Despite network security measures and other precautions the Company has taken, its information technology systems are potentially vulnerable to physical or electronic break-ins, computer viruses and similar disruptions. In addition, the Company is in the process of integrating the information technology systems of its recently acquired subsidiaries, and the Company may experience system failures or interruptions as a result of this process. Sustained system failures or interruption of the Company’s systems in one or more of its operations could disrupt the Company’s ability to process laboratory requisitions, perform testing, provide test results or drug development data in a timely manner and/or bill the appropriate party. Failure of the Company’s information technology systems could adversely affect the Company’s business, profitability and financial condition.
Hardware and software failures, delays in the operation of computer and communications systems, the failure to implement new systems or system enhancements to existing systems, and cyber security breaches may harm the Company.
The Company's success depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of its computer and communications systems. A failure of the network or data-gathering procedures could impede the processing of data, delivery of databases and services, customer orders and day-to-day management of the business and could result in the corruption or loss of data. While certain operations have appropriate disaster recovery plans in place, there currently are not redundant facilities everywhere in the world to provide information technology capacity in the event of a system failure. Despite any precautions the Company may take, damage from fire, floods, hurricanes, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, break-ins, cybersecurity breaches and similar events at the Company's various computer facilities could result in interruptions in the flow of data to the servers and from the servers to customers. In addition, any failure by the computer environment to provide required data communications capacity could result in interruptions in service. In the event of a delay in the delivery of data, the Company could be required to transfer data collection operations to an alternative provider of server-hosting services. Such a transfer could result in delays in the ability to deliver products and services to customers. Additionally, significant delays in the planned delivery of system enhancements, or improvements and inadequate performance of the systems once they are completed could damage the Company's reputation and harm the business. Finally, long-term disruptions in the infrastructure caused by events such as natural disasters, the outbreak of war, the escalation of hostilities, acts of terrorism (particularly involving cities in which the Company has offices) and cybersecurity breaches could adversely affect the business. Although the Company carries property and business interruption insurance, the coverage may not be adequate to compensate for all losses that may occur.
Security breaches and unauthorized access to the Company's or its customers’ data could harm the Company’s reputation and adversely affect its business.
The Company has experienced and expects to continue to experience attempts by computer programmers and hackers to attack and penetrate the Company’s layered security controls. These attempts, if successful, could result in the misappropriation or compromise of personal information or proprietary or confidential information stored within the Company's systems, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. External actors may be able to develop and deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs that attack the Company’s systems or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities. Outside parties may also attempt to fraudulently induce employees to take actions, including the release of confidential or sensitive information or to make fraudulent payments through illegal electronic spamming, phishing, spear phishing, or other tactics. Although the Company has robust information security procedures and other safeguards in place, which are monitored and routinely tested internally and by external parties, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, the Company may be unable to anticipate all of these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. In addition, as cyber threats continue to evolve, the Company may be required to expend additional resources to continue to enhance the Company’s information security measures or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities. The Company’s remediation efforts may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays or cessation of service. Breaches of the Company’s security measures and the unauthorized dissemination of personal, proprietary or confidential information about the Company or its customers or other third-parties could expose customers’ private information. Such breaches could expose customers to the risk of financial or medical identity theft or expose the Company or other third-parties to a risk of loss or misuse of this information, result in litigation and potential liability for the Company, damage the Company’s brand and reputation or otherwise harm the Company’s business. Any of these disruptions or breaches of security could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, regulatory compliance, financial condition and results of operations.
Operations may be disrupted and adversely impacted by the effects of natural disasters such as adverse weather and earthquakes, acts of terrorism, or other criminal activities, or disease pandemics.
Natural disasters may result in a temporary decline of volumes in both segments. In addition, such events may temporarily interrupt the Company’s ability to transport specimens, the Company's ability to efficiently commence studies, the Company’s information technology systems, the Company’s ability to utilize certain laboratories, and/or the Company’s ability to receive material from its suppliers.
A significant deterioration in the economy could negatively impact testing volumes, drug development services, cash collections and the availability of credit.
The Company’s operations are dependent upon ongoing demand for diagnostic testing and drug development services by patients, physicians, hospitals, MCOs, biopharmaceutical companies and others. A significant downturn in the economy could negatively impact the demand for diagnostic testing and drug development services, as well as the ability of customers to pay for services rendered. In addition, uncertainty in the credit markets could reduce the availability of credit and impact the Company’s ability to meet its financing needs in the future.
Foreign currency exchange fluctuations could have an adverse effect on the Company’s business.
The Company has business and operations outside the U.S., and CDD derives a significant portion of its net revenues from international operations. Since the Company's consolidated financial statements are denominated in U.S. dollars, fluctuations in exchange rates from period to period will have an impact on reported results. In addition, CDD may incur costs in one currency related to its services or products for which it is paid in a different currency. As a result, factors associated with international operations, including changes in foreign currency exchange rates, could significantly affect CDD's results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
The Company's international operations could subject it to additional risks and expenses that could adversely impact the business or results of operations.
The Company's international operations expose it to risks from failure to comply with foreign laws and regulations that differ from those under which the Company operates in the U.S. In addition, the Company may be adversely affected by other risks of expanded operations in foreign countries, including, but not limited to, changes in reimbursement by foreign governments for services provided by the Company; compliance with export controls and trade regulations; changes in tax policies or other foreign laws; compliance with foreign labor and employee relations laws and regulations; restrictions on currency repatriation; judicial systems that less strictly enforce contractual rights; countries that do not have clear or well-established laws and regulations concerning issues relating to commercial laboratory testing or drug development services; countries that provide less protection for intellectual property rights; and procedures and actions affecting approval, production, pricing, reimbursement and marketing of products and services. Further, international operations could subject the Company to additional expenses that the Company may not fully anticipate, including those related to enhanced time and resources necessary to comply with foreign laws and
regulations, difficulty in collecting accounts receivable and longer collection periods, and difficulties and costs of staffing and managing foreign operations. In some countries, the Company's success will depend in part on its ability to form relationships with local partners. The Company's inability to identify appropriate partners or reach mutually satisfactory arrangements could adversely affect the business and operations.
Expanded international operations may increase the Company’s exposure to liabilities under the anti-corruption laws.
Anti-corruption laws in the countries where the Company conducts business, including the FCPA, the Bribery Act, and similar laws in other jurisdictions, prohibit companies and their intermediaries from engaging in bribery including improperly offering, promising, paying or authorizing the giving of anything of value to individuals or entities for the purpose of corruptly obtaining or retaining business. The Company operates in some parts of the world where corruption may be common and where anti-corruption laws may conflict to some degree with local customs and practices. The Company maintains an anti-corruption program including policies, procedures and training and safeguards in the engagement and management of third parties acting on the Company’s behalf. Despite these safeguards, the Company cannot guarantee protection from corrupt acts committed by third parties associated with the Company. Violations or allegations of violations of anti-corruption laws could have a significant adverse effect on the business or results of operations.
Changes in tax laws and regulations or the interpretation of such may have a significant impact on the financial position, results of operations and cash flows of the Company.
U.S. and foreign governments continue to review, reform and modify tax laws, including with respect to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s base erosion and profit shifting initiative. Changes in tax laws and regulations could result in material changes to the domestic and foreign taxes that the Company is required to provide for and pay.
In addition, the Company is subject to regular audits with respect to its various tax returns and processes in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Errors or omissions in tax returns, process failures or differences in interpretation of tax laws by tax authorities and the Company may lead to litigation, payments of additional taxes, penalties and interest.
On December 22, 2017, the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was passed into law. The TCJA has given rise to significant one-time and ongoing changes to the taxes recognized and paid by the Company, and the full impact of the changes may only become fully understood over time.
A failure to identify and successfully close and integrate strategic acquisition targets could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business objectives and its net revenues and profitability.
Part of the Company's strategy involves deploying capital in investments that enhance the Company's business, which includes pursuing strategic acquisitions to strengthen the Company's scientific capabilities and enhance therapeutic expertise, enhance esoteric testing and global drug development capabilities, and increase presence in key geographic areas. Since 2013, the Company has invested net cash of approximately $6.5 billion and equity of $1.8 billion in strategic business acquisitions. However, the Company cannot assure that it will be able to identify acquisition targets that are attractive to the Company or that are of a large enough size to have a meaningful impact on the Company's operating results. Furthermore, the successful closing and integration of a strategic acquisition entails numerous risks, including, among others:
Failure to obtain regulatory clearance, including due to antitrust concerns;
Loss of key customers or employees;
Difficulty in consolidating redundant facilities and infrastructure and in standardizing information and other systems;
Unidentified regulatory problems;
Failure to maintain the quality of services that such companies have historically provided;
Coordination of geographically separated facilities and workforces; and
Diversion of management's attention from the day-to-day business of the Company.
The Company cannot assure that current or future acquisitions, if any, or any related integration efforts will be successful, or that the Company's business will not be adversely affected by any future acquisitions, including with respect to net revenues and profitability. Even if the Company is able to successfully integrate the operations of businesses that it may acquire in the future, the Company may not be able to realize the benefits that it expects from such acquisitions.
The Company’s level of indebtedness could adversely affect the Company’s liquidity, results of operations and business.
At December 31, 2017, indebtedness on the Company's outstanding Senior Notes totaled approximately $5,900.0 million in aggregate principal. The Company is also a party to credit agreements relating to a $1.0 billion revolving credit facility, a 2014 term loan with a principal balance of $72.0 million, and a 2017 term loan with a balance of $750.0 million as of December 31, 2017. Under the term loan facility and the revolving credit facility, the Company is subject to negative covenants limiting subsidiary indebtedness and certain other covenants typical for investment-grade-rated borrowers, and the Company is required to maintain a leverage ratio within certain limits.
The Company’s level of indebtedness could adversely affect its business. In particular, it could increase the Company’s vulnerability to sustained, adverse macroeconomic weakness, limit its ability to obtain further financing, and limit its ability to pursue certain operational and strategic opportunities, including large acquisitions.
The Company may also enter into additional transactions or credit facilities, including other long-term debt, which may increase its indebtedness and result in additional restrictions upon the business. In addition, major debt rating agencies regularly evaluate the Company's debt based on a number of factors. There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to maintain its existing debt ratings, and failure to do so could adversely affect the Company's cost of funds, liquidity and access to capital markets.
Global economic conditions and government and regulatory changes, including, but not limited to, the U.K.'s pending exit from the European Union (E.U.), could adversely impact the Company’s business and results of operations.
The Company could be adversely impacted due to the consequences of changes in the economy, governments or regulations across the globe. In June 2016, a majority of voters in the U.K. elected to withdraw from the E.U. (often referred to as Brexit) in a national referendum. Although the referendum was advisory, the current U.K. government is abiding by the referendum and is in negotiations to withdraw from the E.U. in the near future. The terms of any withdrawal and future relations between the E.U. and the U.K. are not yet determined. While it appears that E.U. laws and regulations will continue to apply in the U.K. until the withdrawal is completed, it is difficult to anticipate how the clinical trial landscape in the U.K. might change in the next several years.
This type of development or other government or regulatory change could depress economic activity, which could adversely impact the Company’s business, financial condition and results of operations. This could include long-term volatility in the currency markets and long-term detrimental effects on the value of affected currencies.
The Company's corporate headquarters are located in Burlington, North Carolina, and include facilities that are both owned and leased.
LCD operates through a network of patient service centers, branches, rapid response laboratories, primary laboratories, and specialty laboratories. The table below summarizes certain information as to LCD's principal operating and administrative facilities as of December 31, 2017.
Nature of Occupancy
Primary Facilities:
Prescott, Arizona
Englewood, Colorado
Tucker, Georgia
Itasca, Illinois
Ewing, New Jersey
Raritan, New Jersey
Burlington, North Carolina (5)
Owned/Leased
McLeansville, North Carolina
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (3)
Herndon, Virginia
Spokane, Washington (2)
Abingdon, United Kingdom
CDD operates on a global scale. The table below summarizes certain information as to CDD's principal operating and administrative facilities as of December 31, 2017.
Mechelen, Belgium
Beijing, China (2)
Shanghai, China (3)
Muenster, Germany
Harrogate, United Kingdom
Maidenhead, United Kingdom
Alice, Texas
Greenfield, Indiana
Cranford, New Jersey
West Trenton, New Jersey
Denver, Pennsylvania
Cumberland, Virginia
All of the Company’s primary laboratory and drug development facilities have been built or improved for the purpose of providing commercial laboratory testing or drug development services. The Company believes that these existing facilities and plans for expansion are suitable and adequate and will provide sufficient production capacity for the Company's currently foreseeable level of operations. The Company believes that if it were unable to renew a lease or if a lease were to be terminated on any of the facilities it presently leases, it could find alternate space at competitive market rates and readily relocate its operations to such new locations without material disruption to its operations.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS (dollars in millions)
The Company is involved from time to time in various claims and legal actions, including arbitrations, class actions, and other litigation (including those described in more detail below), arising in the ordinary course of business. Some of these actions involve claims that are substantial in amount. These matters include, but are not limited to, intellectual property disputes; commercial and contract disputes; professional liability; employee-related matters; and inquiries, including subpoenas and other civil investigative demands, from governmental agencies, Medicare or Medicaid payers, managed care organizations (MCOs) reviewing billing practices or requesting comment on allegations of billing irregularities that are brought to their attention through billing audits or third parties. The Company receives civil investigative demands or other inquiries from various governmental bodies in the ordinary course of its business. Such inquiries can relate to the Company or other parties, including physicians and other healthcare providers (e.g., physician assistants and nurse practitioners, generally referred to herein as physicians). The Company works cooperatively to respond to appropriate requests for information.
The Company also is named from time to time in suits brought under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act and comparable state laws. These suits typically allege that the Company has made false statements and/or certifications in connection with claims for payment from U.S., federal or state healthcare programs. The suits may remain under seal (hence, unknown to the Company) for some time while the government decides whether to intervene on behalf of the qui tam plaintiff. Such claims are an inevitable part of doing business in the healthcare field today.
The Company believes that it is in compliance in all material respects with all statutes, regulations and other requirements applicable to its commercial laboratory operations and drug development support services. The healthcare diagnostics and drug development industries are, however, subject to extensive regulation, and the courts have not interpreted many of the applicable statutes and regulations. Therefore, the applicable statutes and regulations could be interpreted or applied by a prosecutorial, regulatory or judicial authority in a manner that would adversely affect the Company. Potential sanctions for violation of these statutes and regulations include significant civil and criminal penalties, fines, the loss of various licenses, certificates and authorizations, additional liabilities from third-party claims, and/or exclusion from participation in government programs.
Many of the current claims and legal actions against the Company are in preliminary stages, and many of these cases seek an indeterminate amount of damages. The Company records an aggregate legal reserve, which is determined using calculations based on historical loss rates and assessment of trends experienced in settlements and defense costs. In accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification Topic 450 “Contingencies,” the Company establishes reserves for judicial, regulatory, and arbitration matters outside the aggregate legal reserve if and when those matters present loss contingencies that are both probable and estimable and would exceed the aggregate legal reserve. When loss contingencies are not both probable and estimable, the Company does not establish separate reserves.
The Company is unable to estimate a range of reasonably probable loss for the proceedings described in more detail below in which damages either have not been specified or, in the Company's judgment, are unsupported and/or exaggerated and (i) the proceedings are in early stages; (ii) there is uncertainty as to the outcome of pending appeals or motions; (iii) there are significant factual issues to be resolved; and/or (iv) there are novel legal issues to be presented. For these proceedings, however, the Company does not believe, based on currently available information, that the outcomes will have a material adverse effect on the Company's financial condition, though the outcomes could be material to the Company's operating results for any particular period, depending, in part, upon the operating results for such period. The amount of ultimate loss may also differ from the Company’s estimates. It is possible that an unfavorable outcome that exceeds the Company’s current accrued estimate, if any, for one or more of the matters below could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s financial condition.
As previously reported, the Company reached a settlement in the previously disclosed lawsuit, California ex rel. Hunter Laboratories, LLC et al. v. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, et al. (Hunter Labs Settlement Agreement), to avoid the uncertainty and costs associated with prolonged litigation. Pursuant to the executed Hunter Labs Settlement Agreement, the Company recorded a litigation settlement expense of $34.5 in the second quarter of 2011 (net of a previously recorded reserve of $15.0) and paid the settlement amount of $49.5 in the third quarter of 2011. The Company also agreed to certain reporting obligations regarding its pricing for a limited time period and, at the option of the Company in lieu of such reporting obligations, to provide Medi-Cal with a discount from Medi-Cal's otherwise applicable maximum reimbursement rate from November 1, 2011, through October 31, 2012. In 2011, the California legislature enacted Assembly Bill No. 97, which imposed a 10.0% Medi-Cal payment cut on most providers of healthcare services, including clinical laboratories. In 2012, the California legislature enacted Assembly Bill No. 1494, which directed the Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) to establish new reimbursement rates for Medi-Cal commercial laboratory services based on payments made to California clinical laboratories for similar services by other third-party payers, and provided that until the new rates are set through this process, Medi-Cal payments for commercial laboratory services will be reduced (in addition to a 10.0% payment reduction imposed by Assembly Bill No. 97 in 2011) by “up to 10 percent” for tests with dates of service on or after July 1, 2012, with a cap on payments set at 80.0% of the lowest maximum allowance established under the Medicare program. Under the terms of the Hunter Labs Settlement Agreement, the enactment of this California legislation terminated the Company's reporting obligations (or obligation to provide a discount in lieu of reporting) under that agreement. In April 2015, CMS approved a 10.0% payment reduction under Assembly Bill No. 1494. The new rate methodology established new rates that were effective July 1, 2015, but these new rates were not entered into the state computer system until February 2016. The 2016 rates have been implemented and recoupments began in 2017. Taken together, these changes are not expected to have a material impact on the Company's consolidated revenues or results of operations.
As previously reported, the Company responded to an October 2007 subpoena from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General's regional office in New York. On August 17, 2011, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed a False Claims Act lawsuit, United States of America ex rel. NPT Associates v. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, which alleges that the Company offered UnitedHealthcare kickbacks in the form of discounts in return for Medicare business. The Plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint further alleges that the Company's billing practices violated the False Claims Acts of 14 states and the District of Columbia. The lawsuit seeks actual and treble damages and civil penalties for each alleged false claim, as well as recovery of costs, attorney's fees, and legal expenses. Neither the U.S. government nor any state government has intervened in the lawsuit. The Company's Motion to Dismiss was granted in October 2014 and Plaintiff was granted the right to replead. On January 11, 2016, Plaintiff filed a motion requesting leave to file an amended complaint under seal and to vacate the briefing schedule for the Company's motion to dismiss while the government reviews the amended complaint. The Court granted the motion and vacated the briefing dates. Plaintiff then filed an amended complaint under seal. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
In addition, the Company has received various other subpoenas since 2007 related to Medicaid billing. In October 2009, the Company received a subpoena from the State of Michigan Department of Attorney General seeking documents related to its billing to Michigan Medicaid. The Company cooperated with this request. In October 2013, the Company received a civil investigative demand from the State of Texas Office of the Attorney General requesting documents related to its billing to Texas Medicaid. The Company is cooperating with this request.
On May 2, 2013, the Company was served with a False Claims Act lawsuit, State of Georgia ex rel. Hunter Laboratories, LLC and Chris Riedel v. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, et al., filed in the State Court of Fulton County, Georgia. The lawsuit, filed by a competitor laboratory, alleges that the Company overcharged Georgia's Medicaid program. The State of Georgia filed a Notice
of Declination on August 13, 2012, before the Company was served with the Complaint. The case was removed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The lawsuit seeks actual and treble damages and civil penalties for each alleged false claim, as well as recovery of costs, attorney's fees, and legal expenses. On March 14, 2014, the Company's Motion to Dismiss was granted. The Plaintiffs repled their complaint, and the Company filed a Motion to Dismiss the First Amended Complaint. In May 2015, the Court dismissed the Plaintiffs' anti-kickback claim and remanded the remaining state law claims to the State Court of Fulton County. In July 2015, the Company filed a Motion to Dismiss these remaining claims. The Plaintiffs filed an opposition to the Company's Motion to Dismiss in August 2015. Also, the State of Georgia filed a brief as amicus curiae. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
On August 24, 2012, the Company was served with a putative class action lawsuit, Sandusky Wellness Center, LLC, et al. v. MEDTOX Scientific, Inc., et al., filed in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. The lawsuit alleges that on or about February 21, 2012, the defendants violated the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by sending unsolicited facsimiles to Plaintiff and more than 39 other recipients without the recipients' prior express invitation or permission. The lawsuit seeks the greater of actual damages or the sum of $0.0005 for each violation, subject to trebling under the TCPA, and injunctive relief. In September of 2014, Plaintiff’s Motion for Class Certification was denied. In January of 2015, the Company’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the remaining individual claim was granted. Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal. On May 3, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued its decision and order reversing the District Court’s denial of class certification. The Eighth Circuit remanded the matter for further proceedings. On December 7, 2016, the District Court granted the Plaintiff's renewed Motion for Class Certification. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
On August 31, 2015, the Company was served with a putative class action lawsuit, Patty Davis v. Laboratory Corporation of America, et al., filed in the Circuit Court of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit for Hillsborough County, Florida. The complaint alleges that the Company violated the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act by billing patients who were collecting benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Statutes. The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief and actual and statutory damages, as well as recovery of attorney's fees and legal expenses. In April 2017, the Circuit Court granted the Company's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. The Plaintiff has appealed the Circuit Court's ruling to the Florida Second District Court of Appeal. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
In December 2014, the Company received a Civil Investigative Demand issued pursuant to the U.S. False Claims Act from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for South Carolina, which requests information regarding remuneration and services provided by the Company to physicians who also received draw and processing/handling fees from competitor laboratories Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc. and Singulex, Inc. The Company is cooperating with the request.
On August 3, 2016, Covance Inc. was served with a putative class action lawsuit, Daniel L. Bloomquist v. Covance Inc., et al., filed in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego. The complaint alleges that Covance violated the California Labor Code and California Business & Professions Code by failing to provide overtime wages, failing to provide meal and rest periods, failing to pay for all hours worked, failing to pay for all wages owed upon termination, and failing to provide accurate itemized wage statements to clinical research associates and senior clinical research associates employed by Covance Inc. (Covance) in California. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, civil penalties, injunctive relief, and recovery of attorney's fees and costs. On October 13, 2016, the case was removed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
Prior to the Company’s acquisition of Sequenom, between August 15, 2016 and August 24, 2016, six putative class-action lawsuits were filed on behalf of purported Sequenom stockholders (captioned Malkoff v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02054-JAH-BLM, Gupta v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02084-JAH-KSC, Fruchter v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02101-WQH-KSC, Asiatrade Development Ltd. v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02113-AJB-JMA, Nunes v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02128-AJB-MDD, and Cusumano v. Sequenom, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-02134-LAB-JMA) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California challenging the acquisition transaction. The complaints asserted claims against Sequenom and members of its board of directors (the Individual Defendants). The Nunes action also named the Company and Savoy Acquisition Corp. (Savoy), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, as defendants. The complaints alleged that the defendants violated Sections 14(e), 14(d)(4) and 20 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by failing to disclose certain allegedly material information. In addition, the complaints in the Malkoff action, Asiatrade action, and the Cusumano action alleged that the Individual Defendants breached their fiduciary duties to Sequenom shareholders. The actions sought, among other things, injunctive relief enjoining the merger. On August 30, 2016, the parties entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in each of the above-referenced actions. In connection with the settlement, Sequenom agreed to make certain additional disclosures to its stockholders. On September 6, 2016, the Court entered an order consolidating for all pre-trial purposes the six individual actions described above under the caption In re Sequenom, Inc. Shareholder Litig., Lead Case No. 16-cv-02054-JAH-BLM, and designating the complaint from the Malkoff action as the operative complaint for the consolidated action. On November 11, 2016, two competing motions were filed by two separate stockholders (James Reilly and Shikha Gupta) seeking appointment as lead plaintiff under the terms of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. On June 7, 2017, the Court entered an order declaring Mr. Reilly as the lead plaintiff and approving Mr. Reilly's selection of lead counsel. The Company is awaiting the Court's
appointment of a permanent lead Plaintiff. The parties agree that the MOU has been terminated. The Plaintiffs filed a Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint on July 24, 2017, and the Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss, which remains pending. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
On February 7, 2017, Sequenom received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to an SEC investigation into the trading activity of Sequenom shares in connection with the Company’s July 2016 announcement regarding the Sequenom merger. On March 7, 2017, the Company received a similar subpoena. The Company is cooperating with these requests.
On March 10, 2017, the Company was served with a putative class action lawsuit, Victoria Bouffard, et al. v. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The complaint alleges that the Company’s patient list prices unlawfully exceed the rates negotiated for the same services with private and public health insurers in violation of various state consumer protection laws. The lawsuit also alleges breach of implied contract or quasi-contract, unjust enrichment, and fraud. The lawsuit seeks statutory, exemplary, and punitive damages, injunctive relief, and recovery of attorney's fees and costs. In May 2017, the Company filed a Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs’ Complaint and Strike Class Allegations; this motion is currently pending. On October 10, 2017, a second putative class action lawsuit, Sheryl Anderson, et al. v. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The complaint contains similar allegations and seeks similar relief to the Bouffard complaint, and adds additional counts regarding state consumer protection laws. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuits.
On May 24, 2017, a putative class action lawsuit, Maria T. Gonzalez, et al. v. Examination Management Services, Inc. and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, was filed against the Company in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The complaint alleges that the Company misclassified phlebotomists as independent contractors through an arrangement with the co-Defendant temporary staffing agency. The complaint further alleges that the Company violated the California Labor Code and California Business and Professions Code by failing to pay minimum wage, failing to pay for all hours worked, failing to pay for all wages owed upon termination, and failing to provide accurate itemized wage statements. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, civil penalties, injunctive relief, and recovery of attorney's fees and costs. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
On August 3, 2017, a putative class action lawsuit, John Sealock, et al. v. Covance Market Access Services, Inc., was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleges that Covance Market Access Services, Inc. violated the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York labor laws by failing to provide overtime wages, failing to pay for all hours worked, and failing to provide accurate wage statements. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, civil penalties, injunctive relief, and recovery of attorney’s fees and costs. In November 2017, the Company filed a Motion to Strike Class Allegations. In December 2017, the Plaintiff filed a Motion for Conditional Certification of a Collective Action. The parties’ motions remain pending. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuit.
On November 6, 2017, Covance was served with two False Claims Act lawsuits, Health Choice Alliance, LLC on behalf of the United States of America, et al. v. Eli Lilly and Company, Inc. et al., and Health Choice Advocates, LLC, on behalf of the United States of America v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., et al., both filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The complaints allege under the Federal False Claims Act and various state analogues that Covance and the co-defendants unlawfully provided in-kind remuneration to medical providers in the form of reimbursement support services in order to induce providers to prescribe certain drugs. Neither the U.S. government nor any state government intervened in the lawsuits. The lawsuit seeks actual and treble damages and civil penalties for each alleged false claim, as well as recovery of costs. The Company will vigorously defend the lawsuits.
Under the Company's present insurance programs, coverage is obtained for catastrophic exposure as well as those risks required to be insured by law or contract. The Company is responsible for the uninsured portion of losses related primarily to general, professional and vehicle liability, certain medical costs and workers' compensation. The self-insured retentions are on a per occurrence basis without any aggregate annual limit. Provisions for losses expected under these programs are recorded based upon the Company's estimates of the aggregated liability of claims incurred. At December 31, 2017, the Company had provided letters of credit aggregating approximately $72.2, primarily in connection with certain insurance programs. The Company’s availability under its Revolving Credit Facility is reduced by the amount of these letters of credit.
The Company's common stock, par value $0.10 per share (Common Stock), trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “LH.” The following table sets forth for the calendar periods indicated the high and low sales prices for the Common Stock reported on the NYSE Composite Tape.
Year Ended December 31, 2016
On February 22, 2018, there were approximately 2,500 holders of record of the Common Stock.
The transfer agent for the Company's Common Stock is American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, Shareholder Services, 6201 Fifteenth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219, telephone: 800-937-5449, website: www.amstock.com.
The Company has not historically paid dividends on its Common Stock and does not presently anticipate paying any dividends on its Common Stock in the foreseeable future.
Common Stock Performance
The graph below shows the cumulative total return assuming an investment of $100 on December 31, 2012, in each of the Company’s common stock, the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Composite-500 Stock Index and the S&P 500 healthcare Index (Peer Group) and assuming that all dividends were reinvested.
Comparison of Five Year Cumulative Total Return
S&P 500 Health Care Index
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities (all amounts in millions, except per share amounts)
The following table sets forth information with respect to purchases of shares of the Company’s Common Stock made during the quarter ended December 31, 2017, by or on behalf of the Company:
Total Number of Shares Repurchased
Average Price Paid Per Share
Total Number of Shares Repurchased as Part of Publicly Announced Program
Maximum Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Repurchased Under the Program
November 1 - November 30
December 1 - December 31
At the end of 2016, the Company had outstanding authorization from the board of directors to purchase up to $739.5 of Company common stock. During 2017, the Company purchased 2.5 shares of its common stock at a total cost of $338.1 (inclusive of 0.1 shares of common stock at a cost of $6.0 representing committed purchases as of December 31, 2016, that settled in early 2017). At the end of 2017, the Company had outstanding authorization from its board of directors to purchase an additional $401.4 of Company common stock. The repurchase authorization has no expiration date.
SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA (in millions, except per share amounts)
The selected financial data presented below under the captions “Statement of Operations Data” and “Balance Sheet Data” as of and for the five-year period ended December 31, 2017, are derived from consolidated financial statements of the Company, which have been audited by an independent registered public accounting firm. This data should be read in conjunction with the accompanying notes, the Company's consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto, and “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” all included elsewhere in this annual report.
Statement of Operations Data:
Net revenues
Operating income (i)
Net earnings attributable to Laboratory
Corporation of America Holdings (j)
Basic weighted average common
Diluted weighted average common
Balance Sheet Data:
Cash and cash equivalents, and
Goodwill and intangible assets, net (h)
Total assets (f)
Long-term obligations (f) (g)
During 2017, the Company recorded net restructuring charges of $70.9. The charges were comprised of $36.1 in severance and other personnel costs and $39.9 in facility-related costs primarily associated with facility closures and general integration initiatives. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $0.5 in unused severance and $4.6 in unused facility-related costs. The Company also recognized asset impairment losses of $23.5 related to the termination of software development projects within the CDD segment and the forgiveness of certain indebtedness for LCD customers in areas heavily impacted by hurricanes during the third quarter.
During 2016, the Company recorded net restructuring charges of $58.4. The charges were comprised of $30.9 in severance and other personnel costs and $33.8 in facility-related costs primarily associated with facility closures and general integration initiatives. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $2.8 in unused severance and $3.5 in unused facility-related costs.
During 2015, the Company recorded net restructuring charges of $113.9. The charges were comprised of $59.2 in severance and other personnel costs and $55.8 in facility-related costs primarily associated with facility closures and general integration initiatives. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $1.1 in unused facility-related costs.
During 2014, the Company recorded net restructuring charges of $17.8. The charges were comprised of $10.5 in severance and other personnel costs and $8.4 in facility-related costs primarily associated with facility closures and general integration initiatives. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $0.4 in unused severance and $0.7 in unused facility-related costs.
During the first quarter of 2016, the Company adopted Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2015-03, Interest-Imputation of Interest: Simplifying the Presentation of Debt Issuance Costs. In accordance with this guidance, unamortized debt issuance costs of $52.8, $39.0 and $26.1 associated with the Senior Notes and loan obligations have been reclassified from total assets to long-term obligations for fiscal 2015, 2014, 2013, respectively, in the table above.
Long-term obligations primarily include the Company’s zero-coupon convertible subordinated notes, 5.625% Senior Notes due 2015, 3.125% Senior Notes due 2016, 2.20% Senior Notes due 2017, 2.50% Senior Notes due 2018, 4.625% Senior Notes due 2020, 2.625% Senior Notes due 2020, 3.75% Senior Notes due 2022, 3.20% Senior Notes due 2022, 4.00% Senior Notes due 2023, 3.25% Senior Notes due 2024, 3.60% Senior Notes due 2025, 3.60% Senior Notes due 2027, 4.70% Senior Notes due 2045, 2014 term loan, 2017 term loan, revolving credit facility and other long-term obligations. The accreted balance of the zero-coupon convertible subordinated notes was $8.8, $42.4, $94.5, $93.9, and $110.8 at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013, respectively. The principal balance of the 5.625% Senior
Notes was $0.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 and $250.0 at December 31, 2014 and 2013. The principal balance of the 3.125% Senior Notes was $0.0 at December 31, 2017, and 2016 and $325.0 at December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The principal balance of the 4.625% Senior Notes was $600.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The aggregate fair value of the fixed-to-variable interest rate swap on the 4.625% Senior Notes was $4.1 at December 31, 2017, $14.6 at December 31, 2016, $21.6 at December 31, 2015, $18.5 at December 31, 2014, and $0.0 at December 31, 2013. The principal balance of the 2.625% Senior Notes was $500.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, and was $0.0 for the years 2014 and 2013. The principal balances of the 2.20% Senior Notes was $0.0 at December 31, 2017 and $500.0 at December 31, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The 3.75% Senior Notes was $500.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The principal balance for the 3.20% Senior Notes was $500.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 and was $0.0 at both December 31, 2014 and 2013. The principal balances of the 2.50% Senior Notes due 2018 and 4.00% Senior Notes due 2023 were $400.0 and $300.0, respectively, at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The principal balances of the 3.60% Senior Notes due 2025 and 4.70% Senior Notes due 2045 were $1,000.0 and $900.0, respectively, at December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 and were each $0.0 at both December 31, 2014, and 2013. The principal balance of the 3.25% Senior Notes due 2024 was $600.0 at December 31, 2017, and $0.0 for all other years presented. The principal balance of the 3.60% notes due 2027 was $600.0 at December 31, 2017, and $0.0 for all other years presented. The outstanding balance on the 2014 term loan was $72.0 at December 31, 2017, $565.0 at December 31, 2016, $715.0 at December 31, 2015, and $0.0 for all other years presented. The outstanding balance on the 2017 term loan was $750.0 at December 31, 2017, and $0.0 for all other years presented. The outstanding balance on the revolving credit facility was $0.0 at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. The remainder of other long-term obligations consisted primarily of capital leases and mortgages payable with balances of $76.8, $71.8, $60.9, $42.4, and $14.6 at December 31, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013, respectively. Long-term obligations exclude amounts due to affiliates.
During 2016, the Company revised the final purchase price allocation for Covance. As a result, an out of period adjustment of $25.6 was recorded to reduce goodwill and increase a deferred tax asset as of December 31, 2015. The Company concluded that the impact of this adjustment was not material to the current or prior periods.
The Company changed its financial statement classification for certain gross receipts taxes in 2016, removing these taxes from its provision for income taxes and moving this expense into selling, general and administrative expenses. Certain gross receipts taxes of $6.1, $6.1, and $7.6 were reclassified in 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.
Net earnings attributable to Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in 2017 includes a provisional net benefit of $519.0 due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). For additional information on the TCJA, see Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (in millions)
Net revenues increased 8.1% in comparison to 2016 primarily due to growth from acquisitions of 5.8% and organic growth (net revenue growth less revenue from acquisitions for the first twelve months after the close of each acquisition) of 2.3%. Operating income increased 3.9% in comparison to 2016 primarily due to acquisitions, organic revenue growth and the Company's LaunchPad business process improvement initiative. During 2017, the Company achieved its three-year-goal to deliver $150.0 in net LaunchPad savings. The Company expects the inclusion of Chiltern International Group Limited (Chiltern) for a full twelve months in 2018 will provide an approximate 13.0% to 14.0% increase in CDD revenue for 2018, excluding the impact of the adoption of the new revenue recognition accounting standard.
On April 25, 2017, the Company announced that it was expanding its LaunchPad business process improvement initiative to include its CDD segment. The Company generated $20.0 in savings in 2017, and expects to achieve additional net savings of $130.0 through the three-year period ending 2020. This initiative is expected to align people and capabilities with client and business demand, utilize automation and new information technology platforms to create efficiencies, and enhance customers' experience with CDD through investments in commercial and operational processes.
During the fourth quarter of 2017, the Company recorded the estimated impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which resulted in a favorable re-valuation of deferred taxes, partially offset by the deemed repatriation tax. Given the significant changes resulting from the TCJA, the estimated financial impact is provisional and subject to further clarification, which could result in changes to these estimates in 2018. The Company expects its consolidated effective tax rate to be approximately 25.0% in 2018, which will benefit earnings per share and cash flow compared to the tax rate in 2017. The Company will invest a portion of this benefit in its employees, and has announced a one-time payment to all eligible employees that will be paid in 2018 based on length of service and certain other criteria.
The new accounting standard on revenue recognition will be effective for the Company beginning January 1, 2018. The Company will adopt the full retrospective method allowed by this standard and is continuing to evaluate the expected impact of this adoption. Currently, the Company expects this standard to reduce LCD revenue but increase LCD operating margins due to the recording of substantially all LCD bad debt expense against net revenues (versus selling, general and administrative expense) as an implicit price reduction. The Company expects this standard to increase CDD reported revenue and decrease gross profit margin due to inclusion of reimbursable out-of-pocket expenses and investigator fees in revenues and cost of sales. In addition, the Company expects the timing of revenue recognition for customer contracts in the clinical business to accelerate, as revenue from study related change orders will be included in the total transaction price and recognized as the single performance obligation is satisfied, when reasonably estimated, which is often prior to the signed change order threshold used previously. CDD will also discontinue its current practice of expensing sales commissions when paid upon the execution of a customer contract and instead will recognize this selling expense over the weighted average of the underlying contract terms for each major revenue stream. Based on its preliminary analysis, the Company currently anticipates that 2017 total revenue will be approximately 2.0% to 5.0% higher under the new standard upon retrospective restatement consisting of an increase in CDD revenue (due in large part to the inclusion of out-of-pocket and investigator fees in revenue) partially offset by a decrease in LCD revenue (due to the recording of bad debt expense as an offset within revenue). The Company also anticipates enhanced financial statement disclosures surrounding the nature, amount, timing and uncertainty of revenue and cash flows arising from contracts with customers. The Company is currently performing a detailed contract review which will be completed before the final quantification of the impact of the standard is completed. The impact of the new standard will be finalized upon adoption in the first quarter of 2018 and is therefore subject to change.
The Company notes that changes to the Affordable Care Act may continue to affect coverage, reimbursement and utilization of laboratory services, as well as administrative requirements, in ways that are currently unpredictable. Further, structural reforms of Medicare that could occur, such as imposition of uniform co-insurance and combination of the Medicare Part A and Part B deductibles, could adversely affect Medicare reimbursement for laboratory reimbursement.
CMS published its initial proposed CLFS rates under PAMA for 2018-2020 on September 22, 2017. Following a public comment period, CMS made adjustments and published final CLFS rates for 2018-2020 on November 17, 2017, with additional adjustments published on December 1, 2017. For 2018, the Company estimates that the CLFS rates will reduce LCD revenue from all payers affected by the CLFS by a total of approximately 8% ($70.0 million)
The Company plans to continue to work to maintain its investment grade credit rating and plans to use its operating cash flows to meet its annual capital expenditure requirements and to continue building long-term shareholder value through strategic acquisitions, debt reduction and the return of capital to shareholders.
The Company experiences seasonality in both segments of its business. For example, testing volume generally declines during the year-end holiday period and other major holidays and can also decline due to inclement weather, reducing net revenues, operating margins and cash flows. Operations are also impacted by changes in the global economy, exchange rate fluctuations, political and regulatory changes, the progress of ongoing studies and the startup of new studies, as well as the level of expenditures made by the biopharmaceutical industry in R&D. The results of both segments are impacted by exchange rate fluctuations. Approximately 21.4% of the Company's net revenues are billed in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, with the Swiss franc, British pound, Canadian dollar and the euro representing the largest components of its currency exposure. The Company expects the inclusion of Chiltern for a full twelve months in 2018 will increase the Company's percentage of revenues billed in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Given the seasonality and changing economic factors impacting the business, comparison of the results for successive quarters may not accurately reflect trends or results for the full year.
Years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015
Years Ended December 31,
Intercompany eliminations
(1.8
The 8.1% increase in net revenue for the year ended December 31, 2017, as compared with the corresponding period in 2016 was due to growth from acquisitions of 5.8% and organic growth of 2.3%.
LCD net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2017, were $7,170.5, an increase of 8.7% over net revenues of $6,593.9 in the corresponding period in 2016. The increase in net revenue was the result of acquisitions, organic volume growth (measured by requisitions), price and mix. Total volume (measured by requisitions) increased by 5.8%, of which organic volume was 2.2% and acquisition volume was 3.6%. Revenue per requisition increased 2.9%.
CDD net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2017, were $3,037.2, an increase of 6.8% over net revenues of $2,844.1 in the corresponding period in 2016. The increase in net revenue was primarily due to the acquisition of Chiltern, which contributed growth of 6.6%, an increase in organic growth of 0.4% and an unfavorable impact from foreign currency translation of approximately 0.2%.
The increase in net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016, as compared with the corresponding period in 2015 was driven primarily by the inclusion of Covance's financial results for the entire year as well as solid organic growth and acquisitions, partially offset by the negative impact of foreign currency translation.
LCD net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016, were $6,593.9, an increase of 6.4% over net revenues of $6,199.3 in the corresponding period in 2015. The increase in net revenues was driven by organic volume growth, measured by requisitions, of 1.2%. The commercial launch of Beacon LBS, the Company's technology-enabled solution providing point-of-care decision support, contributed 0.3%. The increase in net revenues was unfavorably impacted by 0.3% of currency fluctuations. Revenue per requisition favorably impacted revenue by 2.7%. In addition, acquisitions added 2.5% to net revenues.
CDD net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2016, were $2,844.1, an increase of 23.3% over net revenues of $2,306.4 in the corresponding period in 2015. The increase in revenue is due to the inclusion of a full year of Covance revenue for 2016 as compared to the period from the close of the Covance acquisition on February 19, 2015, through December 31, 2015, as well as demand and mix. This increase was partially offset by the expiration on October 31, 2015, of a minimum volume service contract and an unfavorable currency impact of approximately 160 basis points.
Net Cost of Revenues
Cost of revenues as a % of net revenues
Net cost of revenues (primarily laboratory, labor and distribution costs) increased 7.8% in 2017 as compared with 2016 primarily due to increased volume, measured by requisitions, and test mix changes. The slight decrease in net cost of revenues as a percentage of net revenues in 2017 as compared to 2016 was due to LaunchPad savings and acquisition integration synergies offset by relatively higher costs of revenues for certain 2017 acquisitions. The increase in net cost of revenues in 2017 was negatively impacted by a net increase of 0.1% due to currency fluctuations.
Net cost of revenues (primarily laboratory, labor and distribution costs) increased 11.7% in 2016 as compared with 2015 primarily due to increased volume, measured by requisitions, and test mix changes. The increase in net cost of revenues as a percentage of net revenues in 2016 as compared to 2015 was due to the inclusion of CDD operations, which carry higher personnel costs as a percentage of revenue, for the entire year along with overall growth in the Company's operations. The increase in net cost of revenues in 2016 was negatively impacted by a net increase of 0.6% due to currency fluctuations.
Labor and testing supplies for the year ended December 31, 2017, comprise over 76.3% of the Company’s net cost of revenues. Net cost of revenues has increased over the three-year period ended December 31, 2017, primarily due to the impact of acquisitions, overall growth in the Company's volume and increases in merit-based labor costs.
SG&A as a % of net revenues
Selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues increased to 17.8% in 2017 compared to 17.3% in 2016. The increase in selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues is primarily due to current year acquisitions offset by LaunchPad savings. Bad debt expense as a percentage of net revenues for LCD was 4.4% for that segment during 2017 as compared to 4.3% in 2016. The increase in selling, general and administrative expenses in 2017 was impacted by a net increase of 0.1% due to currency fluctuations.
The Company incurred legal and other costs of $49.7 primarily relating to the acquisition of Chiltern. The Company also recorded $25.6 in consulting and other expenses relating to Covance and Chiltern integration initiatives. In addition, the Company
incurred $4.4 in consulting expenses relating to fees incurred as part of its integration and management transition costs. The Company also recognized asset impairment losses of $20.9 related to the termination of software development projects within the CDD segment and the forgiveness of certain indebtedness for LCD customers in areas heavily impacted by hurricanes during the third quarter. Excluding these charges, selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 16.8% for the year ended December 31, 2017.
Selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues decreased to 17.3% in 2016 compared to 19.1% in 2015. The decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues is primarily due to the Covance acquisition, integration synergies, and the impact of LaunchPad, LCD's comprehensive, enterprise-wide business process improvement initiative. Bad debt expense as a percentage of net revenues for LCD remained constant at 4.3% for that segment during 2016 and 2015. The increase in selling, general and administrative expenses in 2016 was impacted by a net increase of 0.5% due to currency fluctuations.
During 2016, the Company incurred additional legal and other costs of $4.6 relating to the wind-down of two operations used to service minimum volume service contract operations. On February 9, 2016, the Company reached an agreement for the sale of assets and business of one of these sites. As required by U.K. law, substantially all of the employees were transferred with the business. On November 21, 2016, following the wind-down of the business, the Company reached an agreement for the sale of the property and assets of the other site. In addition, the Company incurred $8.0 in acquisition fees and expenses. The Company also recorded $6.9 in consulting expenses relating to fees incurred as part of its Covance acquisition integration costs and compensation analysis, along with $2.5 in short-term equity retention arrangements relating to the Covance acquisition and $8.9 of accelerated equity compensation relating to executive transition. In addition, the Company incurred $9.0 of non-capitalized costs associated with the implementation of a major system as part of LaunchPad. Excluding these charges, selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 16.9% for the year ended December 31, 2016.
During 2015, the Company incurred additional legal and other costs of $5.7 relating to the wind-down of two operations used to service minimum volume contract operations. The Company also recorded $25.6 in consulting expenses relating to fees incurred as part of LaunchPad as well as Covance integration costs and employee compensation studies, along with $5.4 in short-term equity retention arrangements relating to the Covance acquisition and $0.3 of accelerated equity compensation relating to the previously disclosed retirement of a Company executive. During the fourth quarter, the Company paid $12.2 in settlement costs and litigation expenses related to the resolution of a U.S. federal court putative class action lawsuit. In addition, the Company incurred $3.0 of non-capitalized costs associated with the implementation of a major system as part of LaunchPad. Excluding these charges, selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues were 18.5% for the year ended December 31, 2015.
Amortization Expense
Amortization of intangibles and other assets
The increase in amortization of intangibles and other assets from 2015 through 2017 primarily reflects the impact of acquisitions offset by the impact of working capital and earnout adjustments.
Restructuring and Other Special Charges
During 2017, the Company recorded net restructuring charges of $70.9; $16.8 within LCD and $54.1 within CDD. The charges were comprised of $36.1 in severance and other personnel costs and $39.9 in facility-related costs primarily associated with general integration activities. The charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $0.5 in unused severance and $4.6 in unused facility-related costs.
During 2016, the Company recorded net restructuring and other special charges of $58.4; $15.8 within LCD and $42.6 within CDD. The charges were comprised of $30.9 related to severance and other personnel costs along with $33.8 in costs associated with facility closures. A substantial portion of these costs relate to the planned closure of duplicative data center operations and other facilities. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $2.8 in unused severance and $3.5 in unused facility-related costs, as the result of selling one of its minimum volume service contract facilities to a third party.
During 2015, the Company recorded net restructuring and other special charges of $113.9; $39.2 within LCD and $74.7 within CDD. The charges were comprised of $59.2 related to severance and other personnel costs along with $55.8 in costs associated with facility closures and general integration initiatives. A substantial portion of these costs relate to the planned closure of two CDD operations that serviced a minimum volume contract that expired on October 31, 2015. These charges were offset by the reversal of previously established reserves of $1.1 in unused facility-related costs. Included within the facility-related charges noted above is a $26.7 asset impairment charge relating to CDD lab and customer service applications that will no longer be used.
(20.3
)%
The increase in interest expense for 2017 as compared with the corresponding period in 2016 is primarily due to the issuance of Senior Notes, the addition of the 2017 term loan, and increased borrowings under the Company's Revolving Credit Facility, to fund the acquisition of Chiltern and support growth. This increase was partially offset by the repayment of the 2.20% Senior Notes in August 2017 and a portion of the zero-coupon subordinated notes, and the retirement of the convertible Senior Notes acquired as part of the Sequenom acquisition in October 2016.
The decrease in interest expense for 2016 as compared with the corresponding period in 2015 is primarily due to the reduction of the term loan balance, Covance acquisition-related expenses including a $37.4 make-whole payment that was required in connection with the prepayment of the $250.0 Covance Senior Notes and $15.2 of deferred financing costs associated with the Company's previous credit agreement and the bridge financing facilities used to complete the Covance acquisition. In addition, the Company repaid the 3.125% Senior Notes in May 2016. These decreases were offset by $5.6 of interest expense relating to the early retirement of subsidiary indebtedness and the timing of Covance acquisition-related debt.
Equity Method Income, Net
Equity method income, net represents the Company's ownership share in joint venture partnerships along with equity investments in other companies in the healthcare industry. All of these partnerships and investments reside within LCD. The increase in income for 2017 as compared with the corresponding period in 2016 was primarily due to the increased profitability in one of the joint ventures and the addition of several joint ventures related to the May 2017 acquisition of Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML).
Other, Net
(133.3
Other, net is primarily comprised of net investment gains and losses as well as the realization of foreign currency transaction losses.
The decrease in other, net for the year ended December 31, 2017, is primarily due to the inclusion of a net gain of $9.7 on the sale of investment securities from the Company's venture fund in 2016, offset by an increase in net realized foreign currency transaction losses.
The increase in other, net for the year ended December 31, 2016, is primarily due to a net gain of $9.7 on the sale of investment securities from the Company's venture fund offset by net realized foreign currency transaction losses and a non-cash loss of $2.3 upon the dissolution of one of the Company's equity investments in 2015.
Income Tax Expense
Income tax expense as a % of income before tax
During the fourth quarter of 2017, the Company recorded the estimated provisions of the TCJA, which resulted in a reduction in income tax expense arising from a re-measurement of deferred taxes, and the release of deferred taxes on unremitted foreign
earnings, partially offset by the deemed repatriation tax. Given the significant changes resulting from the TCJA, the estimated financial impact is provisional and subject to further clarification, which could result in changes to these estimates in 2018.
The effective rate for 2017 was favorably impacted by the re-measurement of the Company's net deferred tax liabilities to rates enacted in the TCJA, partially offset by the deemed repatriation tax enacted in this legislation. The 2017 rate was also favorably impacted by foreign earnings taxed at rates lower than the U.S. and by share-based compensation.
In 2016 and 2015, the Company's effective rate was favorably impacted by foreign earnings taxed at lower rates than the U.S. statutory tax rate and, for 2016 specifically, by a reduction in certain foreign rates. The 2016 rate also benefited from the early adoption of share-based payment accounting and the reversal of uncertain tax position reserves. The Company considers substantially all of its foreign earnings to be permanently reinvested overseas.
The effective rate for 2015 was unfavorably impacted by restructuring and acquisition items, the recording of additional uncertain tax reserves and a decrease in the benefit recorded from releasing uncertain tax reserves.
Operating Results by Segment
LCD operating margin
CDD operating margin
General corporate expenses
LCD operating earnings were $1,298.6 for the year ended December 31, 2017, an increase of 9.3% over operating earnings of $1,187.6 in the corresponding period of 2016 and an increase of 0.1% in operating margin year-over-year. The slight increase in operating margin was primarily due to strong revenue growth and LaunchPad savings, offset by lower margins on certain 2017 acquisitions prior to the full impact of synergies. During the year, the Company achieved its three-year goal to deliver $150.0 in net LaunchPad savings.
CDD operating earnings were $206.2 for the year ended December 31, 2017, a decrease of 24.4% over operating earnings of $272.7 in the corresponding period of 2016 and a decrease of 2.8% in operating margin year-over-year. The decrease in operating earning and operating margin was primarily due to acquisitions and transaction costs. The segment also experienced higher personnel costs and increased restructuring and other special charges related to the expansion of LaunchPad and the termination of a software development project. These costs were partially offset by cost synergies. During the year, the Company achieved its three-year goal to deliver cost synergies of $100.0 related to the Covance acquisition.
General corporate expenses are comprised primarily of administrative services such as executive management, human resources, legal, finance, corporate affairs, and information technology. Corporate expenses were $140.6 for the year ended December 31, 2017, a decrease of 4.9% over corporate expenses of $147.9 in the corresponding period of 2016. The decrease in corporate expenses in 2017 is primarily due to a reduction in acquisition related costs and certain incentive compensation.
Liquidity, Capital Resources and Financial Position
The Company's strong cash-generating capability and financial condition typically have provided ready access to capital markets. The Company's principal source of liquidity is operating cash flow, supplemented by proceeds from debt offerings. The Company's senior unsecured revolving credit facility is further discussed in Note 11 to the Company's Consolidated Financial Statements.
In summary the Company's cash flows were as follows:
For the Year Ended December 31,
Net cash used for investing activities
(2,228.7
Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities
Effect of exchange rate on changes in cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents at December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 totaled $316.7, $433.6 and $716.4, respectively. Cash and cash equivalents consist of highly liquid instruments, such as commercial paper, time deposits and other money market investments, substantially all of which have original maturities of three months or less.
Cash Flows from Operating Activities
During the year ended December 31, 2017, the Company's operations provided $1,459.4 of cash as compared to $1,175.9 in 2016. The $283.5 increase in cash provided from operations in 2017 as compared with the corresponding 2016 period was primarily due to higher net earnings and improved working capital in 2017. The Company’s 2017 earnings were impacted by $70.9 of restructuring and special items compared to an impact of $58.4 during the same period in 2016.
During the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company's operations provided $1,175.9 of cash as compared to $982.4 in 2015. The $193.5 increase in cash provided from operations in 2016 as compared with the corresponding 2015 period was primarily due to higher net earnings in 2016. The Company’s 2016 earnings were impacted by $58.4 of restructuring and special items compared to an impact of $113.9 during the same period in 2015, primarily in connection with the Covance acquisition.
Cash Flows from Investing Activities
Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2017, was $2,228.7 as compared to $795.7 for the year ended December 31, 2016. The $1,433.0 increase in cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2017, was primarily due to a year over year increase of $1,334.0 in cash paid for acquisitions. In addition, the Company had proceeds of $5.5 from the sale of assets during 2017 in comparison to $30.8 during 2016. Capital expenditures were $312.9 and $278.9 for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. Capital expenditures in 2017 were 3.1% of net revenues primarily in connection with projects to support growth in the Company's core businesses, projects related to LaunchPad and further Covance integration initiatives. The Company intends to continue to pursue acquisitions to fund growth and make important investments in its business, including in information technology, and to improve efficiency and enable the execution of the Company's mission. Such expenditures are expected to be funded by cash flow from operations or, as needed, through borrowings under debt facilities, including the Company's revolving credit facility or any successor facility. The Company expects such capital expenditures in 2018 to be approximately 3.5% of net revenues, primarily in connection with projects to support growth in the Company's core businesses, facility updates, ongoing projects related to LaunchPad within the LCD business, LaunchPad's expansion within the CDD business, and further acquisition integration initiatives.
Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016, was $795.7 as compared to $3,994.9 for the year ended December 31, 2015. The $3,184.3 decrease in cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016, was primarily due to cash paid for the Covance acquisition in the first quarter of 2015. In addition, the Company had proceeds of $30.8 from the sale of assets during 2016 in comparison to $0.6 during 2015. Capital expenditures were $278.9 and $255.8 for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.
Cash Flows from Financing Activities
Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2017, was $631.9 compared to cash used for financing activities of $649.8 for the year ended December 31, 2016. This movement in cash within financing activities for 2017, as compared to 2016, was primarily a result of $923.0 of net financing proceeds and $338.1 in share repurchases in 2017 compared to $658.4 in debt repayments combined with $43.9 share repurchases in 2016.
Net cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2016, was $649.8 compared to $3,184.6 net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2015. This movement in cash within financing activities for 2016, as compared to 2015, was primarily a result of $3,113.7 of net financing proceeds in 2015 compared to $658.4 in debt repayments combined with $43.9 for the re-initiation of the Company's share repurchase program in 2016.
On August 22, 2017, the Company issued new Senior Notes representing $1,200.0 in debt securities consisting of a $600.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.25% Senior Notes due 2024 and a $600.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.60% Senior Notes due 2027. Interest on these notes is payable semi-annually on March 1 and September 1 of each year, commencing on March 1, 2018. Net proceeds from the offering of these notes were $1,190.1 after deducting underwriting discounts and other expenses of the offering. Net proceeds were used to pay off the 2.20% Senior Notes due August 23, 2017, as well as a portion of the cash consideration and the fees and expenses in connection with the Chiltern acquisition.
On September 15, 2017, the Company entered into a new $750.0 term loan. The 2017 term loan facility will mature on September 15, 2022. The 2017 term loan balance at December 31, 2017, was $750.0.
On December 19, 2014, the Company entered into a five-year term loan credit facility in the principal amount of $1,000.0 for the purpose of financing a portion of the cash consideration and the fees and expenses in connection with the transactions
contemplated by the November 2, 2014, Merger Agreement to acquire Covance. The term loan credit facility was advanced in full on the Covance acquisition date and was amended on July 13, 2016 and further amended on September 15, 2017. The term loan credit facility will mature five years after the Covance acquisition date and may be prepaid without penalty. The 2014 term loan balance at December 31, 2017, was $72.0.
Also as part of its financing of the Covance acquisition, the Company issued $2,900.0 in debt securities consisting of $500.0 aggregate principal amount of 2.625% Senior Notes due 2020, $500.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.20% Senior Notes due 2022, $1,000.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.60% Senior Notes due 2025 and $900.0 aggregate principal amount of 4.70% Senior Notes due 2045.
On February 13, 2015, the Company entered into a 60-day cash bridge term loan credit facility in the principal amount of $400.0 for the purpose of financing a portion of the cash consideration and the fees and expenses in connection with the Covance acquisition. The 60-day cash bridge term loan credit facility was advanced in full on the Covance acquisition date, and was repaid in March 2015.
On September 15, 2017, the Company also entered into an amendment and restatement of its existing senior revolving credit facility, which was originally entered into on December 21, 2011, and amended on December 21, 2011. The senior revolving credit facility consists of a five-year revolving facility in the principal amount of up to $1,000.0, with the option of increasing the facility by up to an additional $350.0, subject to the agreement of one or more new or existing lenders to provide such additional amounts and certain other customary conditions. The revolving credit facility also provides for a subfacility of up to $100.0 for swing line borrowings and a subfacility of up to $150.0 for issuances of letters of credit. The revolving credit facility is permitted to be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital, capital expenditures, funding of share repurchases and certain other payments, and acquisitions and other investments. There were no balances outstanding on the Company's current revolving credit facility at December 31, 2017, or December 31, 2016.
On January 30, 2015, the Company issued the Covance acquisition notes, which represent $2,900.0 in debt securities consisting of $500.0 aggregate principal amount of 2.625% Senior Notes due 2020, $500.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.20% Senior Notes due 2022, $1,000.0 aggregate principal amount of 3.60% Senior Notes due 2025 and $900.0 aggregate principal amount of 4.70% Senior Notes due 2045. Net proceeds from the offering of the Covance acquisition notes were $2,870.2 after deducting underwriting discounts and other estimated expenses of the offering. Net proceeds were used to pay a portion of the cash consideration and the fees and expenses in connection with the acquisition of Covance.
Under the Company's term loan credit facilities and the revolving credit facility, the Company is subject to negative covenants limiting subsidiary indebtedness and certain other covenants typical for investment grade-rated borrowers and the Company is required to maintain certain leverage ratios. The Company was in compliance with all covenants under the term loan credit facilities and the revolving credit facility at December 31, 2017. As of December 31, 2017, the ratio of total debt to consolidated pro forma trailing 12 month earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) was 3.2 to 1.0.
The 2014 term loan credit facility accrues interest at a per annum rate equal to, at the Company’s election, either an Intercontinental Exchange London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) rate plus a margin ranging from 1.125% to 2.00%, or a base rate determined according to a prime rate or federal funds rate plus a margin ranging from 0.125% to 1.00%. The 2017 term loan credit facility accrues interest at a per annum rate equal to, at the Company’s election, either a LIBOR rate plus a margin ranging from 0.875% to 1.50%, or a base rate determined according to a prime rate or federal funds rate plus a margin ranging from 0.0% to 0.50%. Advances under the revolving credit facility accrue interest at a per annum rate equal to, at the Company’s election, either a LIBOR rate plus a margin ranging from 0.775% to 1.25%, or a base rate determined according to a prime rate or federal funds rate plus a margin ranging from 0.00% to 0.25%. Fees are payable on outstanding letters of credit under the revolving credit facility at a per annum rate equal to the applicable margin for LIBOR loans, and the Company is required to pay a facility fee on the aggregate commitments under the revolving credit facility, at a per annum rate ranging from 0.10% to 0.25%. The interest margin applicable to the credit facilities, and the facility fee and letter of credit fees payable under the revolving credit facility, are based on the Company’s senior credit ratings as determined by S&P and Moody’s.
As of December 31, 2017, the effective interest rate on the revolving credit facility was 2.7% and the effective interest rate was 2.8% and 2.6% on the 2014 and 2017 term loans, respectively.
There was no outstanding balance on the Company's revolving credit facility at December 31, 2017, or 2016. As of December 31, 2017, the Company provided letters of credit aggregating $72.2, primarily in connection with certain insurance programs. Letters of credit provided by the Company are issued under the Company's revolving credit facility and are renewed annually.
During 2017, the Company purchased 2.5 shares of its common stock at a total cost of $338.1. At the end of 2017, the Company had outstanding authorization from the board of directors to purchase an additional $401.4 of Company common stock. The repurchase authorization has no expiration date.
The Company had a $27.4 and $28.3 reserve for unrecognized income tax benefits, including interest and penalties, as of December 31, 2017, and December 31, 2016, respectively. Substantially all of these tax reserves are classified in other long-term liabilities in the Company's Consolidated Balance Sheets at December 31, 2017, and 2016.
During 2017 and 2016, the Company settled notices to convert $37.1 and $59.4 aggregate principal amount at maturity of its zero-coupon subordinated notes with a conversion value of $33.9 and $53.7, respectively. The total cash used for these settlements was $33.9 and $53.7 and the Company also issued 0.3 and 0.4 additional shares of common stock, respectively. As a result of these conversions in 2017 and 2016, the Company also reversed approximately $0.0 and $4.9, respectively, of deferred tax liability to reflect the tax benefit realized upon issuance of the shares.
On September 12, 2017, the Company announced that for the period of September 12, 2017 to March 10, 2018, the zero-coupon subordinated notes will accrue contingent cash interest at a rate of no less than 0.125% of the average market price of a zero-coupon subordinated note for the five trading days ended September 8, 2017, in addition to the continued accrual of the original issue discount.
On January 3, 2018, the Company announced that its zero-coupon subordinated notes may be converted into cash and common stock at the conversion rate of 13.4108 per $1,000.0 principal amount at maturity of the notes, subject to the terms of the zero-coupon subordinated notes and the Indenture, dated as of October 23, 2006, between the Company, and The Bank of New York Mellon as trustee and the conversion agent. In order to exercise the option to convert all or a portion of the zero-coupon subordinated notes, holders are required to validly surrender their zero-coupon subordinated notes at any time during the calendar quarter beginning January 1, 2018, through the close of business on the last business day of the calendar quarter, which is 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Friday, March 31, 2018. If notices of conversion are received, the Company plans to settle the cash portion of the conversion obligation with cash on hand and/or borrowings under its revolving credit facility.
The Company’s debt ratings of Baa2 from Moody’s and BBB from S&P contribute to its ability to access capital markets.
Contractual Cash Obligations
Payments Due by Period
2023 and
Operating lease obligations
Contingent future licensing payments (a)
Minimum royalty payments
Purchase obligations
Capital lease obligations
Scheduled interest payments on Senior Notes
Scheduled interest payments on Term Loan
Total contractual cash obligations (b) (c)
Contingent future licensing payments will be made if certain events take place, such as the launch of a specific test, the transfer of certain technology, and the achievement specified revenue milestones.
The table does not include obligations under the Company’s pension and postretirement benefit plans, which are included in “Note 16 to Consolidated Financial Statements.” Benefits under the Company's postretirement medical plan are made when claims are submitted for payment, the timing of which is not practicable to estimate.
The table does not include the Company’s reserves for unrecognized tax benefits. The Company had a $27.4 and $28.3 reserve for unrecognized tax benefits, including interest and penalties, at December 31, 2017, and 2016, respectively, which is included in “Note 13 to Consolidated Financial Statements.” Substantially all of these tax reserves are classified in other long-term liabilities in the Company’s Consolidated Balance Sheets at December 31, 2017, and 2016.
The Company does not have transactions or relationships with “special purpose” entities, and the Company does not have any off-balance sheet financing other than normal operating leases and letters of credit.
Other Commercial Commitments
As of December 31, 2017, the Company provided letters of credit aggregating approximately $72.2, primarily in connection with certain insurance programs. Letters of credit provided by the Company are secured by the Company’s revolving credit facility and are renewed annually.
The contractual value of the noncontrolling interest put in the Company's Ontario subsidiary totaled $20.8 and $15.2 at December 31, 2017, and 2016, respectively, and has been classified as mezzanine equity in the Company's consolidated balance sheet.
Based on current and projected levels of cash flows from operations, coupled with availability under its revolving credit facility, the Company believes it has sufficient liquidity to meet both its anticipated short-term and long-term cash needs; however, the Company continually reassesses its liquidity position in light of market conditions and other relevant factors.
Critical Accounting Policies
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reported periods. While the Company believes these estimates are reasonable and consistent, they are by their very nature estimates of amounts that will depend on future events. Accordingly, actual results could differ from these estimates. The Company’s Audit Committee periodically reviews the Company’s significant accounting policies. The Company’s critical accounting policies arise in conjunction with the following:
Revenue recognition and allowance for doubtful accounts;
Pension expense;
Accruals for self-insurance reserves;
Income taxes; and
Goodwill and indefinite-lived assets.
Revenue Recognition and Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
LCD recognizes revenue for services rendered when the testing process is complete and test results are reported to the ordering physician. The sales are generally billed to three types of payers – customers, patients and third parties such as managed care organizations (MCOs), Medicare and Medicaid. For customers, sales are recorded on a fee-for-service basis at the Company’s customer list price, less any negotiated discount. Patient sales are recorded at the Company’s patient fee schedule, net of any discounts negotiated with physicians on behalf of their patients, or made available through charity care or an uninsured or underinsured patient program. LCD bills third-party payers in two ways: fee-for-service and capitated agreements. Fee-for-service third-party payers are billed at the Company's patient fee schedule amount, and third-party revenue is recorded net of contractual discounts. These discounts are recorded at the transaction level at the time of sale based on a fee schedule that is maintained for each third-party payer. The majority of the Company’s third-party sales are recorded using an actual or contracted fee schedule at the time of sale. For the remaining third-party sales, estimated fee schedules are maintained for each payer. Adjustments to the estimated payment amounts are recorded at the time of final collection and settlement of each transaction as an adjustment to revenue. These adjustments are not material to the Company’s results of operations in any period presented. The Company periodically adjusts these estimated fee schedules based upon historical payment trends. Under capitated agreements with MCOs, the Company recognizes revenue based on a negotiated monthly contractual rate for each member of the managed care plan regardless of the number or cost of the tests performed.
CDD recognizes revenue either as services are performed or products are delivered, depending on the nature of the work contracted. Historically, a majority of CDD’s net revenues have been earned under contracts that range in duration from a few months to a few years, but can extend in duration up to five years or longer. Occasionally, CDD also has committed minimum volume arrangements with certain customers. Under these types of arrangements, if the annual minimum dollar value of service commitment is not reached, the customer is required to pay CDD for the shortfall. Annual minimum commitment shortfalls are not included in net revenues until the amount has been determined and agreed to by the customer.
Service contracts generally take the form of fee-for-service or fixed-price arrangements subject to pricing adjustments based on changes in scope. In cases where performance spans multiple accounting periods, revenue is recognized as services are performed, measured on a proportional-performance basis, generally using output measures that are specific to the service provided. Examples of output measures in preclinical services include, among others, the number of slides read, or specimens prepared. Examples of output measures in the clinical trials services include, among others, the number of investigators enrolled, the number of sites initiated, the number of trial subjects enrolled and the number of monitoring visits completed, or the number of dosings for clinical pharmacology. Revenue is determined by dividing the actual units of work completed by the total units of work required under the contract and multiplying that percentage by the total contract value. The total contract value, or total contractual payments, represents the aggregate contracted price for each of the agreed upon services to be provided. CDD does not have any contractual arrangements spanning multiple accounting periods where revenue is recognized on a proportional-performance basis under which the Company has earned more than an immaterial amount of performance-based revenue (i.e., potential additional revenue tied to specific deliverables or performance). Changes in the scope of work are common, especially under long-term contracts, and generally result in a change in contract value. Once the customer has agreed to the changes in scope and renegotiated pricing
terms, the contract value is amended with revenue recognized as described above. Estimates of costs to complete are made to provide, where appropriate, for losses expected on contracts. Costs are not deferred in anticipation of contracts being awarded, but instead are expensed as incurred.
Billing schedules and payment terms are generally negotiated on a contract-by-contract basis. In some cases, CDD bills the customer for the total contract value in progress-based installments as certain non-contingent billing milestones are reached over the contract duration, such as, but not limited to, contract signing, initial dosing, investigator site initiation, patient enrollment or database lock. The term “billing milestone” relates only to a billing trigger in a contract whereby amounts become billable and payable in accordance with a negotiated predetermined billing schedule throughout the term of a project. These billing milestones are generally not performance-based (i.e., there is no potential additional consideration tied to specific deliverables or performance). In other cases, billing and payment terms are tied to the passage of time (e.g., monthly billings). In either case, the total contract value and aggregate amounts billed to the customer would be the same at the end of the project. While CDD attempts to negotiate terms that provide for billing and payment of services prior or within close proximity to the provision of services, this is not always possible, and there are fluctuations in the levels of unbilled services and unearned revenue from period to period. While a project is ongoing, cash payments are not necessarily representative of aggregate revenue earned at any particular point in time, as revenues are recognized when services are provided, while amounts billed and paid are in accordance with the negotiated billing and payment terms.
In some cases, payments received are in excess of revenue recognized. For example, a contract invoicing schedule may provide for an upfront payment of 10% of the full contract value upon contract signing, but at the time of signing performance of services has not yet begun. Payments received in advance of services being provided are deferred as unearned revenue on the balance sheet. As the contracted services are subsequently performed and the associated revenue is recognized, the unearned revenue balance is reduced by the amount of revenue recognized during the period.
In other cases, services may be provided and revenue recognized before the customer is invoiced. In these cases, revenue recognized will exceed amounts billed, and the difference, representing an unbilled receivable, is recorded for the amount that is currently not billable to the customer pursuant to contractual terms. Once the customer is invoiced, the unbilled services are reduced for the amount billed, and a corresponding account receivable is recorded. All unbilled services are billable to customers within one year from the respective balance sheet date.
Most contracts are terminable with or without cause by the customer, either immediately or upon notice. These contracts often require payment to CDD of expenses to wind down the study or project, fees earned to date and, in some cases, a termination fee or a payment to CDD of some portion of the fees or profits that could have been earned by CDD under the contract if it had not been terminated early. Termination fees are included in net revenues when realization is assured. In connection with the management of multi-site clinical trials, CDD pays on behalf of its customers fees to investigators, clinical trial subjects and certain out-of-pocket costs, for which it is reimbursed at cost, without markup or profit. Investigator fees are not reflected in net revenues or expenses where CDD acts in the capacity of an agent on behalf of the biopharmaceutical company sponsor, passing through these costs without markup or profit. All other out-of-pocket costs are included in total revenues and expenses.
LCD has a formal process to estimate and review the collectability of its receivables based on the period of time they have been outstanding. Bad debt expense is recorded within selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales considered necessary to maintain the allowance for doubtful accounts at an appropriate level. LCD’s process for determining the appropriate level of the allowance for doubtful accounts involves judgment and considers such factors as the age of the underlying receivables, historical and projected collection experience, and other external factors that could affect the collectability of its receivables. Accounts are written off against the allowance for doubtful accounts based on LCD’s write-off policy (e.g., when they are deemed to be uncollectible). In the determination of the appropriate level of the allowance, accounts are progressively reserved based on the historical timing of cash collections relative to their respective aging categories within LCD’s receivables. These collection and reserve processes, along with the close monitoring of the billing process, help reduce the risks of material revisions to reserve estimates resulting from adverse changes in collection or reimbursement experience.
The following table presents the percentage of LCD’s net accounts receivable outstanding by aging category at December 31, 2017, and 2016:
Days Outstanding
The above table excludes the percentage of net accounts receivable outstanding by aging category for certain foreign operations, BeaconLBS, and the nutritional chemistry and food safety business. Combined these net accounts receivable balances comprise less than 10.8% of LCD's total net accounts receivable balances. The Company believes that including the agings of the accounts receivable for these businesses would not be representative of the majority of accounts receivable by aging category for LCD. The majority of the accounts receivable for the foreign operations, BeaconLBS, and the nutritional chemistry and food safety business are generally paid within 30 to 60 days of billing.
CDD endeavors to assess and monitor the creditworthiness of its customers to which it grants credit terms in the ordinary course of business. CDD maintains a provision for doubtful accounts relating to amounts due that may not be collected. This bad debt provision is monitored on a monthly basis and adjusted as circumstances warrant. Since the recorded bad debt provision is based upon management's judgment, actual bad debt write-offs may be greater or less than the amount recorded. Historically, bad debt write-offs have not been material. The allowance for doubtful accounts amounted to $2.3 and $2.8 at December 31, 2017, and 2016, respectively.
Pension Expense
The Company has a defined-benefit retirement plan (Company Plan) and a non-qualified supplemental retirement plan (PEP). In October 2009, the Company received approval from its board of directors to freeze any additional service-based credits for any years of service after December 31, 2009, on the Company Plan and the PEP. Both plans have been closed to new participants. Employees participating in the Company Plan and the PEP no longer earn service-based credits, but continue to earn interest credits. In addition, effective January 1, 2010, all employees eligible for the defined-contribution retirement plan (401K Plan) receive a minimum 3% non-elective contribution (NEC) concurrent with each payroll period. The 401K Plan also permits discretionary contributions by the Company of up to 1% and up to 3% of pay for eligible employees, based on service.
The Company Plan covers substantially all employees employed by the Company prior to December 31, 2009. The benefits to be paid under the Company Plan are based on years of credited service through December 31, 2009, interest credits and average compensation. The Company's policy is to fund the Company Plan with at least the minimum amount required by applicable regulations. The PEP covers a portion of the Company's senior management group. Prior to 2010, the PEP provided for the payment of the difference, if any, between the amount of any maximum limitation on annual benefit payments under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the annual benefit that would be payable under the Company Plan but for such limitation. Effective January 1, 2010, employees participating in the PEP no longer earn service-based credits. The PEP is an unfunded plan.
In addition, as a result of the Covance acquisition, the Company has a frozen non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP). The SERP, which is not funded, is intended to provide retirement benefits for certain employees who were executive officers of Covance prior to the Covance acquisition. Benefit amounts are based upon years of service and compensation of the participating employees. As a result of the Covance acquisition, the Company also sponsors two defined-benefit pension plans for the benefit of its employees at two U.K. subsidiaries (U.K. Plans) and one defined-benefit pension plan for the benefit of its employees at a German subsidiary (German Plan), all of which are legacy plans of previously acquired companies and are closed to new entrants. Benefit amounts for all three plans are based upon years of service and compensation. The German Plan is unfunded while the U.K. Plans are funded. The Company’s funding policy for the U.K. Plans has been to contribute annually amounts at least equal to the local statutory funding requirements.
The Company's net pension cost is developed from actuarial valuations. Inherent in these valuations are key assumptions, including discount rates and expected return on plan assets, which are updated on an annual basis at the beginning of each year. The Company is required to consider current market conditions, including changes in interest rates, in making these assumptions. Changes in pension costs may occur in the future due to changes in these assumptions. The key assumptions used in accounting for the defined-benefit retirement plans were a 3.7% discount rate and a 6.8% expected long-term rate of return on plan assets for the Company Plan, a 3.7% discount rate for the PEP, a 4.2% discount rate for the SERP, a 1.7% discount rate and a 2.0% expected salary increase for the German plan and a 2.7% discount rate and a 3.8% expected salary increase for the U.K. Plans as of December 31, 2017.
The Company evaluates several approaches toward setting the discount rate assumption that is used to value the benefit obligations of its retirement plans. At year-end, priority was given to use of the Towers Watson Bond:Link model, which simulates the purchase of investment-grade corporate bonds at current market yields with principal amounts and maturity dates closely matching the Company's projected cash disbursements from its plans. This completed model represents the yields to maturity at which the Company could theoretically settle its plan obligations at year end. The weighted-average yield on the modeled bond portfolio is then used to form the discount rate assumption used for each retirement plan. A one percentage point decrease or increase in the discount rate would have resulted in a respective increase or decrease in 2017 retirement plan expense of $1.5 for the Company Plan and PEP. A one percentage point decrease or increase in the discount rate would have resulted in a respective increase or decrease in 2017 retirement plan expense of $1.1 for the U.K. Plans.
Return on Plan Assets
In establishing its expected return on plan assets assumption, the Company reviews its asset allocation and develops return assumptions based on different asset classes adjusting for plan operating expenses. Actual asset over/under performance compared to expected returns will respectively decrease/increase unrecognized loss. The change in the unrecognized loss will change amortization cost in upcoming periods. A one percentage point increase or decrease in the expected return on plan assets would have resulted in a corresponding change in 2017 pension expense of $2.4 for the Company Plan. A one percentage point increase or decrease in the expected return on plan assets would have resulted in a corresponding change in 2017 pension expense of $2.4 for the U.K. Plans.
Net pension cost for 2017 was $14.6 as compared with $14.9 in 2016 and $12.0 in 2015. The increase in pension expense was due to increases in the amount of net amortization and deferral as a result of lower discount rates. Pension expense for the Company Plan and the PEP is expected to increase to $13.3 in 2018 as a result of a lower assumed discount rate and changes in participant mortality tables. Pension expense for the Germany Plan and the U.K. Plans is expected to increase to $0.1 in 2018 as a result of changes in participant mortality tables.
Further information on the Company’s defined-benefit retirement plans is provided in Note 16 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.
Accruals for Self-Insurance Reserves
Accruals for self-insurance reserves (including workers’ compensation, auto and employee medical) are determined based on a number of assumptions and factors, including historical payment trends and claims history, actuarial assumptions and current and estimated future economic conditions. These estimated liabilities are not discounted.
The Company is self-insured (up to certain limits) for professional liability claims arising in the normal course of business, generally related to the testing and reporting of laboratory test results. The Company maintains excess insurance which limits the Company’s maximum exposure on individual claims. The Company estimates a liability that represents the ultimate exposure for aggregate losses below those limits. The liability is based on assumptions and factors for known and incurred but not reported claims, including the frequency and payment trends of historical claims.
If actual trends differ from these estimates, the financial results could be impacted. Historical trends have not differed materially from these estimates.
The Company accounts for income taxes utilizing the asset and liability method. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the future tax consequences attributable to differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities and their respective tax bases and for tax loss carryforwards. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using enacted tax rates expected to apply to taxable income in the years in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in income in the period that includes the enactment date. The Company does not recognize a tax benefit, unless the Company concludes that it is more likely than not that the benefit will be sustained on audit by the taxing authority based solely on the technical merits of the associated tax position. If the recognition threshold is met, the Company recognizes a tax benefit measured at the largest amount of the tax benefit that the Company believes is greater than 50% likely to be realized. The Company records interest and penalties in income tax expense.
During the fourth quarter of 2017, the Company recorded the estimated impact of the TCJA, which resulted in a favorable remeasurement of deferred taxes, partially offset by the deemed repatriation tax. Given the significant changes resulting from the TCJA, the estimated financial impact is provisional and subject to further clarification, which could result in changes to these estimates in 2018.
Goodwill and Indefinite-Lived Assets
The Company assesses goodwill and indefinite-lived intangibles for impairment at least annually or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. In accordance with updates to the FASB's authoritative guidance regarding goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible asset impairment testing, an entity is allowed to first assess qualitative factors as a basis for determining whether it is necessary to perform quantitative impairment testing. If an entity determines that it is not more likely than not that the estimated fair value of an asset is less than its carrying value, then no further testing is required. Otherwise, impairment testing must be performed in accordance with the original accounting standards. The updated FASB guidance also allows an entity to bypass the qualitative assessment for any reporting unit in its goodwill assessment and proceed directly to performing the quantitative assessment. Similarly, a company can proceed directly to a quantitative assessment in the case of impairment testing for indefinite-lived intangible assets as well.
The quantitative goodwill impairment test includes the estimation of the fair value of each reporting unit as compared to the carrying value of the reporting unit. Reporting units are businesses with discrete financial information that is available and reviewed by management. The Company estimates the fair value of a reporting unit using both income-based and market-based valuation methods. The income-based approach is based on the reporting unit's forecasted future cash flows that are discounted to the present value using the reporting unit's weighted average cost of capital. For the market-based approach, the Company utilizes a number of factors such as publicly available information regarding the market capitalization of the Company as well as operating results, business plans, market multiples, and present value techniques. Based upon the range of estimated values developed from the income and market-based methods, the Company determines the estimated fair value for the reporting unit. If the estimated fair value of the reporting unit exceeds the carrying value, the goodwill is not impaired and no further review is required. An entity should recognize an impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the reporting unit’s fair value; however, the loss recognized should not exceed the total amount of goodwill allocated to that reporting unit.
The income-based fair value methodology requires management's assumptions and judgments regarding economic conditions in the markets in which the Company operates and conditions in the capital markets, many of which are outside of management's control. At the reporting unit level, fair value estimation requires management's assumptions and judgments regarding the effects of overall economic conditions on the specific reporting unit, along with assessment of the reporting unit's strategies and forecasts of future cash flows. Forecasts of individual reporting unit cash flows involve management's estimates and assumptions regarding:
Annual cash flows, on a debt-free basis, arising from future revenues and profitability, changes in working capital, capital spending and income taxes for at least a five-year forecast period.
A terminal growth rate for years beyond the forecast period. The terminal growth rate is selected based on consideration of growth rates used in the forecast period, historical performance of the reporting unit and economic conditions.
A discount rate that reflects the risks inherent in realizing the forecasted cash flows. A discount rate considers the risk-free rate of return on long-term treasury securities, the risk premium associated with investing in equity securities of comparable companies, the beta obtained from the comparable companies and the cost of debt for investment grade issuers. In addition, the discount rate may consider any company-specific risk in achieving the prospective financial information.
Under the market-based fair value methodology, judgment is required in evaluating market multiples and recent transactions. Management believes that the assumptions used for its impairment tests are representative of those that would be used by market participants performing similar valuations of the reporting units.
Management performed its annual goodwill and intangible asset impairment testing as of the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2017. The Company elected to perform the qualitative assessment for goodwill and intangible assets for all reporting units except the Canadian reporting unit and its indefinite-lived assets consisting of acquired Canadian licenses for which a quantitative assessment was performed.
In the qualitative assessment, the Company considered relevant events and circumstances for each reporting unit, including (i) current year results, ii) financial performance versus management’s annual and five-year strategic plans, iii) changes in the reporting unit carrying value since prior year, (iv) industry and market conditions in which the reporting unit operates, (v) macroeconomic conditions, including discount rate changes, and (vi) changes in products or services offered by the reporting unit. If applicable, performance in recent years was compared to forecasts included in prior valuations. Based on the results of the qualitative assessment, the Company concluded that it was not more likely than not that the carrying values of the goodwill and intangible assets were greater than their fair values, and that further quantitative testing was not necessary.
In 2017, the Company utilized an income approach to determine the fair value of its Canadian reporting unit and its indefinite-lived assets consisting of acquired Canadian licenses. Based upon the results of the quantitative assessment, the Company concluded that the fair value of the indefinite-lived Canadian licenses was greater than the carrying value.
It is possible that the Company's conclusions regarding impairment or recoverability of goodwill or intangible assets in any reporting unit could change in future periods. There can be no assurance that the estimates and assumptions used in the Company's goodwill and intangible asset impairment testing performed as of the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2017 will prove to be accurate predictions of the future, if, for example, (i) the businesses do not perform as projected, (ii) overall economic conditions in 2018 or future years vary from current assumptions (including changes in discount rates), (iii) business conditions or strategies for a specific reporting unit change from current assumptions, including loss of major customers, (iv) investors require higher rates of return on equity investments in the marketplace or (v) enterprise values of comparable publicly traded companies, or actual sales transactions of comparable companies, were to decline, resulting in lower multiples of revenues and EBITDA. The Company will particularly monitor the financial performance of and assumptions for two of the CDD reporting units for which an income approach was performed in 2017. A future impairment charge for goodwill or intangible assets could have a material effect on the Company's consolidated financial position and results of operations.
The Company has made in this report, and from time to time may otherwise make in its public filings, press releases and discussions by Company management, forward-looking statements concerning the Company’s operations, performance and financial condition, as well as its strategic objectives. Some of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “believes”, “expects”, “may”, “will”, “should”, “seeks”, “approximately”, “intends”, “plans”, “estimates”, or “anticipates” or the negative of those words or other comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and the Company claims the protection afforded by the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors in addition to those discussed elsewhere herein, including in Item 1A Risk Factors, and in the Company’s other public filings, press releases and discussion with Company management, including:
changes in government and third-party payer regulations, reimbursement, or coverage policies or other future reforms in the healthcare system (or in the interpretation of current regulations), new insurance or payment systems, including state, regional or private insurance cooperatives (e.g., health insurance exchanges), affecting governmental and third-party coverage or reimbursement for commercial laboratory testing, including the impact of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA);
significant monetary damages, fines, penalties, assessments, refunds, repayments, unanticipated compliance expenditures and/or exclusion or disbarment from or ineligibility to participate in government programs, among other adverse consequences, arising from enforcement of anti-fraud and abuse laws and other laws applicable to the Company in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
significant fines, penalties, costs, unanticipated compliance expenditures and/or damage to the Company’s reputation arising from the failure to comply with national, state or local privacy and security laws and regulations, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and similar laws and regulations in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
loss or suspension of a license or imposition of a fine or penalties under, or future changes in, or interpretations of applicable national, state or local licensing laws or regulations regarding the operation of clinical laboratories and the delivery of clinical laboratory test results, including, but not limited to, the U.S. Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967 and the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 and similar laws and regulations in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
penalties or loss of license arising from the failure to comply with applicable national, state or local occupational and workplace safety laws and regulations, including the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements and the U.S. Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act and similar laws and regulations in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
fines, unanticipated compliance expenditures, suspension of manufacturing, enforcement actions, injunctions, or criminal prosecution arising from failure to maintain compliance with current good manufacturing practice regulations and similar requirements of various regulatory agencies in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
sanctions or other remedies, including fines, unanticipated compliance expenditures, enforcement actions, injunctions or criminal prosecution arising from failure to comply with the Animal Welfare Act or similar national, state and local laws and regulations in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
changes in testing guidelines or recommendations by government agencies, medical specialty societies and other authoritative bodies affecting the utilization of laboratory tests;
changes in national, state or local government regulations or policies affecting the approval, availability of, and the selling and marketing of diagnostic tests, drug development, or the conduct of drug development and medical device and diagnostic studies and trials, including regulations and policies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the U.K., the China Food and Drug Administration, the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency in Japan, the European Medicines Agency and similar regulations and policies of agencies in jurisdictions in which the Company conducts business;
changes in government regulations or reimbursement pertaining to the biopharmaceutical and medical device and diagnostic industries, changes in reimbursement of biopharmaceutical products or reduced spending on research and development by biopharmaceutical customers;
liabilities that result from the failure to comply with corporate governance requirements;
increased competition, including price competition, potential reduction in rates in response to price transparency and consumerism, competitive bidding and/or changes or reductions to fee schedules and competition from companies that do not comply with existing laws or regulations or otherwise disregard compliance standards in the industry;
changes in payer mix or payment structure, including insurance carrier participation in health insurance exchanges, an increase in capitated reimbursement mechanisms, the impact of a shift to consumer-driven health plans or plans carrying an increased level of member cost-sharing, and adverse changes in payer reimbursement or payer coverage policies (implemented directly or through a third party utilization management organization) related to specific diagnostic tests, categories of testing or testing methodologies;
failure to retain or attract managed care organization (MCO) business as a result of changes in business models, including new risk based or network approaches, out-sourced Laboratory Network Management or Utilization Management companies, or other changes in strategy or business models by MCOs;
failure to obtain and retain new customers, an unfavorable change in the mix of testing services ordered, or a reduction in tests ordered, specimens submitted or services requested by existing customers;
difficulty in maintaining relationships with customers or retaining key employees as a result of uncertainty surrounding the integration of acquisitions and the resulting negative effects on the business of the Company;
consolidation and convergence of MCOs, biopharmaceutical companies, health systems, large physician organizations and other customers, potentially causing material shifts in insourcing, utilization, pricing and reimbursements, including full and partial risk based models;
failure to effectively develop and deploy new systems, system modifications or enhancements required in response to evolving market and business needs;
customers choosing to insource services that are or could be purchased from the Company;
failure to identify, successfully close and effectively integrate and/or manage acquisitions of new businesses;
inability to achieve the expected benefits and synergies of newly acquired businesses, and impact on the Company's cash position, levels of indebtedness and stock price;
termination, loss, delay, reduction in scope or increased costs of contracts, including large contracts and multiple contracts;
liability arising from errors or omissions in the performance of contract research services or other contractual arrangements;
failure to successfully obtain, maintain and enforce intellectual property rights and defend against challenges to the Company’s intellectual property rights;
changes or disruption in services or supplies provided by third parties, including transportation;
damage or disruption to the Company's facilities;
damage to the Company's reputation, loss of business, or other harm from acts of animal rights extremists or potential harm and/or liability arising from animal research activities or the provision of animal research products;
adverse results in litigation matters;
inability to attract and retain experienced and qualified personnel;
failure to develop or acquire licenses for new or improved technologies, such as point-of-care testing, mobile health technologies, and digital pathology, or potential use of new technologies by customers and/or consumers to perform their own tests;
substantial costs arising from the inability to commercialize newly licensed tests or technologies or to obtain appropriate coverage or reimbursement for such tests;
inability to obtain and maintain adequate patent and other proprietary rights for protection of the Company's products and services and successfully enforce the Company's proprietary rights;
scope, validity and enforceability of patents and other proprietary rights held by third parties that may impact the Company's ability to develop, perform, or market the Company's products or services or operate its business;
business interruption or other impact on the business due to adverse weather, fires and/or other natural disasters, acts of war, terrorism or other criminal acts, and/or widespread outbreak of influenza or other pandemic illness;
discontinuation or recalls of existing testing products;
a failure in the Company's information technology systems, including with respect to testing turnaround time and billing processes, or the failure to maintain the security of business information or systems or to protect against cyber security attacks such as denial of service attacks, malware, ransomware and computer viruses, or delays or failures in the development and implementation of the Company’s automation platforms, any of which could result in a negative effect on the Company’s performance of services, a loss of business or increased costs, damages to the Company’s reputation, significant litigation exposure, an inability to meet required financial reporting deadlines, or the failure to meet future regulatory or customer information technology, data security and connectivity requirements;
business interruption, increased costs, and other adverse effects on the Company's operations due to the unionization of employees, union strikes, work stoppages, general labor unrest or failure to comply with labor or employment laws;
failure to maintain the Company's days sales outstanding and/or bad debt expense levels including a negative impact on the Company's reimbursement, cash collections and profitability arising from unfavorable changes in third-party payer policies, payment delays introduced by third party benefit management organizations and increasing levels of patient payment responsibility;
impact on the Company's revenue, cash collections and the availability of credit for general liquidity or other financing needs arising from a significant deterioration in the economy or financial markets or in the Company's credit ratings by Standard & Poor's and/or Moody's;
failure to maintain the expected capital structure for the Company, including failure to maintain the Company's investment grade rating;
changes in reimbursement by foreign governments and foreign currency fluctuations;
inability to obtain certain billing information from physicians, resulting in increased costs and complexity, a temporary disruption in receipts and ongoing reductions in reimbursements and net revenues;
expenses and risks associated with international operations, including, but not limited to, compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act, other global anti-corruption laws and regulations, trade sanction laws and regulations, and economic, political, legal and other operational risks associated with foreign jurisdictions;
failure to achieve expected efficiencies and savings in connection with the Company's business process improvement initiatives;
changes in tax laws and regulations or changes in their interpretation, including the TCJA; and
global economic conditions and government and regulatory changes, including, but not limited to the United Kingdom's announced intention to exit from the European Union.
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURE ABOUT MARKET RISK (in millions)
Market risk is the potential loss arising from adverse changes in market rates and prices, such as foreign currency exchange rates, interest rates and other relevant market rate or price changes. In the ordinary course of business, the Company is exposed to various market risks, including changes in foreign currency exchange and interest rates, and the Company regularly evaluates the exposure to such changes. The Company addresses its exposure to market risks, principally the market risks associated with changes in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates, through a controlled program of risk management that includes, from time to time, the use of derivative financial instruments such as foreign currency forward contracts and interest rate swap agreements. Although, as set forth below, the Company’s zero-coupon subordinated notes contain features that are considered to be embedded derivative instruments, the Company does not hold or issue derivative financial instruments for trading purposes.
Foreign Currency Exchange Rates
Approximately 10.2% of the Company's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2017 and approximately 10.3% of those for the year ended 2016 were denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. The Company's financial statements are reported in U.S. dollars and, accordingly, fluctuations in exchange rates will affect the translation of revenues and expenses denominated in foreign currencies into U.S. dollars for purposes of reporting the Company's consolidated financial results. In both 2017 and 2016, the most significant currency exchange rate exposures were to the Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, euro and British pound. Excluding the impacts from any outstanding or future hedging transactions, a hypothetical change of 10% in average exchange rates used to translate all foreign currencies to U.S. dollars would have impacted income before income taxes for 2016 by approximately $2.3. Gross accumulated currency translation adjustments recorded as a separate component of shareholders’ equity were $262.3 and $(250.0) at December 31, 2017, and 2016, respectively. The Company does not have significant operations in countries in which the economy is considered to be highly inflationary.
The Company earns revenue from service contracts over a period of several months and, in some cases, over a period of several years. Accordingly, exchange rate fluctuations during this period may affect the Company's profitability with respect to such
contracts. The Company is also subject to foreign currency transaction risk for fluctuations in exchange rates during the period of time between the consummation and cash settlement of transactions. The Company limits its foreign currency transaction risk through exchange rate fluctuation provisions stated in some of its contracts with customers, or it may hedge transaction risk with foreign currency forward contracts. At December 31, 2017, the Company had 26 open foreign exchange forward contracts with various amounts maturing monthly through January 2018 with a notional value totaling approximately $360.5. At December 31, 2016, the Company had five open foreign exchange forward contracts with various amounts maturing monthly through January 2017 with a notional value totaling approximately $167.9.
Some of the Company's debt is subject to interest at variable rates. As a result, fluctuations in interest rates affect the Company's financial results. The Company attempts to manage interest rate risk and overall borrowing costs through an appropriate mix of fixed and variable rate debt including the utilization of derivative financial instruments, primarily interest rate swaps.
Borrowings under the Company's term loan credit facilities and revolving credit facility are subject to variable interest rates, unless fixed through interest rate swaps or other agreements. As of December 31, 2017, and 2016, the Company had approximately $72.0 and $565.0, respectively, of unhedged variable rate debt under the 2014 term loan credit facility and $750.0 and $0.0, respectively, under the 2017 term loan credit facility.
During the third quarter of 2013, the Company entered into two fixed-to-variable interest rate swap agreements for its 4.625% Senior Notes due 2020 with an aggregate notional amount of $600.0 and variable interest rates based on one-month LIBOR plus 2.298% to hedge against changes in the fair value of a portion of the Company's long-term debt.
The Company’s zero-coupon subordinated notes contain the following two features that are considered to be embedded derivative instruments under authoritative guidance in connection with accounting for derivative instruments and hedging activities:
The Company will pay contingent cash interest on the zero-coupon subordinated notes after September 11, 2006, if the average market price of the notes equals 120% or more of the sum of the issue price, accrued original issue discount and contingent additional principal, if any, for a specified measurement period.
Holders may surrender zero-coupon subordinated notes for conversion during any period in which the rating assigned to the zero-coupon subordinated notes by S&P Ratings Services is BB- or lower.
Each quarter-point increase or decrease in the variable rate would result in the Company's interest expense changing by approximately $2.1 per year for the Company's unhedged variable rate debt.
Information required by this item is incorporated to the Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm and from the consolidated financial statements, related notes and supplementary data. See the Index on Page F-1.
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Tag Archive for: Gp Austria
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F1 | Gp Austria, THE POINT BY GIAN CARLO MINARDI “FERRARI THE 5th FORCE”
5 July 2020 /in F1, News, The Point by Gian Carlo Minardi /by Redazione
The Formula 1 world championship started again with a “bang”. The grand prix showed all the problems tied to a championship that started four months late between reliability problems, mistakes by the mechanics and a certain nervousness by Vettel and Hamilton, the latter certainly helped by the marshals who decided to give him a 40’ penalty for the start of the race.
The grand prix was distorted by 4 safety cars (this had not happened in a while), just as seeing only eleven cars cross the finish line. All the teams had problems, except for Ferrari that however saved the weekend thanks to a great driver, a good strategy and a lot of luck.
Ferrari was the only team not to improve its lap time compared to the previous edition despite running with the same mixes and showed problems also on the engine front as also emerged from the times by Alfa Romeo and Haas. Beyond the result Ferrari is the championship’s fifth force behind Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Racing Point, paying a gap of more than 1” second from the top. The result in qualifying certainly reflected better the real forces at play.
It was a pity for Albon. He was the only driver to keep up with Mercedes, helped by an excellent strategy by Red Bull’s men on the wall. The work was thwarted by the collision with Hamilton who was then rightly penalized.
Unfortunately, we lost one of the protagonists right from the start, Verstappen.
Congratulations to Lando Norris who reached his first podium at 20 years of age with a McLaren in good shape, even if I did not understand the strategy used by Sainz. I hope that this is not the beginning of a political and not clean ploy in regards to the Spaniard.
Honestly, I also did not understand the strategy used by Alfa Romeo with Giovinazzi which was remedied under the safety car with the Italian managing to finish in ninth place in front of Vettel.
There was another mistake by Vettel who was nervous when he came to Austria. I did not understand his declarations during the press conference that went against what we had read up till then and had never denied by him.
This will be replayed in a week’s time, even if with different mixes. There really is little time with a lot of work to do.
In the next few days I want to discuss the clones with you which should race in a separate championship.
http://www.minardi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/XPB_1040864_HiRes-1.jpg 683 1024 Redazione http://www.minardi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/logo_m-1.png Redazione2020-07-05 19:23:512020-07-06 08:59:24F1 | Gp Austria, THE POINT BY GIAN CARLO MINARDI “FERRARI THE 5th FORCE”
F1 | GP AUSTRIA, MINARDI “IT FINALLY STARTS”
2 July 2020 /in F1, News /by Redazione
Tomorrow it finally starts after the very long lockdown. It will be a restart full of variables starting with the weather forecasts that promise rain for Friday.
We are faced with a situation that is anomalous and new for everybody with a calendar that at the moment is made up of 8 rounds compressed into two months with the Italian grand prix scheduled for September 6.
It starts again on a track characterized by heavy braking and demanding bends where the gas will be open to the max for 78% of the lap. It is a considerable challenge for the drivers who have been practically stopped since the March tests except for some sporadic outings on the track.
Red Bull will take to the track after the wins in the last two editions but Mercedes is still the car of reference despite the reliability problems that emerged during the Barcelona tests.
The teams have had little time to work on the developments that were initially planned and they will restart from the winter tests that highlighted great competitiveness with the cars enclosed within a gap of barely 1.7”.
Amongst this season’s anomalies we have to also add the change of colours of some drivers with Carlos Sainz’s arrival in Ferrari, Ricciardo’s in McLaren and Sebastian Vettel momentarily on foot.
We will also have to watch what will happen inside the paddock considering the significant financial problems of the teams (see Williams and McLaren) and also on the part of Liberty Media.
There is a lot of meat on the fire but one thing is certain. At 11.00 am tomorrow, Friday, the motor will roar once more.
http://www.minardi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Red-bull-ring-800x445-1.jpg 445 800 Redazione http://www.minardi.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/logo_m-1.png Redazione2020-07-02 11:34:252020-07-02 14:11:29F1 | GP AUSTRIA, MINARDI “IT FINALLY STARTS”
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Western Raine, William MacLeod: Ridgway of Montana. V1. 17 Apr 2010
#1 crutledge 04-17-2010, 09:06 AM
William MacLeod Raine (18711954), was a British-born American novelist who wrote fictional adventure stories about the American Old West.
"Mr. Ridgway, ma'am."
The young woman who was giving the last touches to the very effective picture framed in her long looking-glass nodded almost imperceptibly.
She had come to the parting of the ways, and she knew it, with a shrewd suspicion as to which she would choose. She had asked for a week to decide, and her heart-searching had told her nothing new. It was characteristic of Virginia Balfour that she did not attempt to deceive herself. If she married Waring Ridgway it would be for what she considered good and sufficient reasons, but love would not be one of them. He was going to be a great man, for one thing, and probably a very rich one, which counted, though it would not be a determining factor. This she could find only in the man himself, in the masterful force that made him what he was. The sandstings of life did not disturb his confidence in his victorious star, nor did he let fine-spun moral obligations hamper his predatory career. He had a genius for success in whatever he undertook, pushing his way to his end with a shrewd, direct energy that never faltered. She sometimes wondered whether she, too, like the men he used as tools, was merely a pawn in his game, and her consent an empty formality conceded to convention. Perhaps he would marry her even if she did not want to, she told herself, with the sudden illuminating smile that was one of her chief charms.
H » F » E-Book Uploads - Patricia Clark Memorial Library» Offline» IMP Books (offline) » Western Raine, William MacLeod: Ridgway of Montana. V1. 17 Apr 2010
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What is behind the Qatar crisis?
Dejan Kukic and Hamid Alizadeh
For the last month the Gulf state of Qatar has been blockaded by its neighbours Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, who along with Egypt have severed all diplomatic ties with the country. These events have opened up a crisis situation in the Gulf region, which is being viewed with trepidation by the major powers on the world stage.
[Note: it appears, as we predicted, that pushed by the US administration, a deal with Qatar seems to be in the making, but this doesn't change anything fundamental in the present article, which was written a few days ago]
Over a third of food supplies and consumer goods in Qatar are imported from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. What is more, most of the investment projects within Qatar are tied up with investors from these countries. Consequently, the sanctions have led to an economic crisis inside Qatar, whose stocks slumped 8% at the beginning of June blowing a $13bn black hole in its economy. Residents have been panic-buying food and household supplies, hastening longer-term shortages if the blockades continue. The two million foreign nationals who make up the majority of the population (many of them working in semi-slave conditions) have been stranded in the country without an obvious route out.
The diplomatic row which led to the present situation supposedly began when a report emerged on the Qatar News Agency’s website in May of the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani saying, “There is no wisdom in harbouring hostility towards Iran.” Qatar has since shut down the website, claiming that the report was fake and that it had been hacked. US officials threw in their two cents, taking up the convenient “Russian hackers did it” excuse. But the whole affair is very suspicious when one considers how Saudi news outlets were spitting out dozens of articles of reports and long articles attacking Qatar almost immediately after the leak, which happened in the middle of the night! The Al-Thanis, they claimed, had proven their treacherous allegiance to Iran and to “terrorism” - severe measures had to be taken.
On the 23rd June the Saudis issued a list of demands which Qatar would have to meet within ten days for the blockades to be lifted. These include distancing itself from Iran, cutting all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah (and Islamic State and al-Qaeda for good measure), shutting down its Al-Jazeera Media Network and handing over the political dissidents of its fellow Gulf States. Qatar is being told in no uncertain terms that it must get back into line with the interests of its more powerful neighbour. It has not been made clear, however, how the situation would be escalated further if the demands were not agreed to.
The demands in full
Curb diplomatic ties with Iran and close its diplomatic missions there. Expel members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and cut off any joint military cooperation with Iran. Only trade and commerce with Iran that complies with US and international sanctions will be permitted.
Sever all ties to “terrorist organisations”, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, al-Qaida and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Formally declare those entities as terrorist groups.
Shut down al-Jazeera and its affiliate stations.
Shut down news outlets that Qatar funds, directly and indirectly, including Arabi21, Rassd, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and Middle East Eye.
Immediately terminate the Turkish military presence in Qatar and end any joint military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatar.
Stop all means of funding for individuals, groups or organisations that have been designated as terrorists by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, the US and other countries.
Hand over “terrorist figures” and wanted individuals from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain to their countries of origin. Freeze their assets, and provide any desired information about their residency, movements and finances.
End interference in sovereign countries’ internal affairs. Stop granting citizenship to wanted nationals from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. Revoke Qatari citizenship for existing nationals where such citizenship violates those countries’ laws.
Stop all contacts with the political opposition in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. Hand over all files detailing Qatar’s prior contacts with and support for those opposition groups.
Pay reparations and compensation for loss of life and other, financial losses caused by Qatar’s policies in recent years. The sum will be determined in coordination with Qatar.
Consent to monthly audits for the first year after agreeing to the demands, then once per quarter during the second year. For the following 10 years, Qatar would be monitored annually for compliance.
Align itself with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially and economically, as well as on economic matters, in line with an agreement reached with Saudi Arabia in 2014.
Agree to all the demands within 10 days of it being submitted to Qatar, or the list becomes invalid. [Source: The Guardian]
So far Qatar has refused to budge. Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stated on Saturday that they do not fear military action from the blockading nations. The Qatari regime claims that the demands which have been raised are so far-fetched that they were designed not to be met. They have baulked at the ten-day deadline, which was first passed, was then extended by forty-eight hours and finally swept under the carpet by the Saudis.
German Foreign Minister Sigmund Gabriel, who took part in talks with the countries involved, attempting to defuse tensions, echoed the fears of some bourgeois commentators when he said, “There is a danger that this dispute could lead to war.” This conclusion is somewhat drastic, nonetheless the United States and other imperialist powers are viewing these events with serious concern, not least because Qatar hosts the largest US base in the Middle East, the al-Udeid Air Base.
Given the severity of this crisis, it is important that we should understand why it is happening. It is also important to counter the misinformation of various bourgeois media outlets, which – along with US President Donald Trump – seem especially taken with Saudi Arabia’s sudden commitment to fighting terrorism.
Saudi Arabia and ‘counter-terrorism’
Saudi Arabia is the principal source of Islamist terrorism the world over. Since its inception, the Saudi regime has openly aided and abetted the spread of Wahhabi fundamentalism throughout the Middle East. The Saudi royal family has always considered that the main threat to its power within Saudi Arabia would come from either Sunni radical Islamism which, although it forms the ideological basis of its regime, prefers a Caliphate as opposed to a monarchy. In order to kill two birds with one stone the regime has allied itself with the most extreme brand of Sunni Islamism to oppress revolutionary movements, the country’s Shia minority and other groups of people which the two see as their enemies.
The Saudis have accordingly poured more than $100bn into the coffers of Wahhabi mullahs and the organisers of mass terror attacks from Western Europe to Indonesia. Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the 9/11 plotters, confessed to US authorities that members of the Saudi royal family had been giving money to al-Qaeda before the attacks. More recently, Saudi Arabia has been the main source of funding for Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda which has itself funnelled weapons and finance to the Islamic State.
It is laughable that the Saudis are now calling on another nation to “sever all ties with ‘terrorist organisations’”. That Donald Trump has taken credit for the move, only further condemns him as a supporter of the most barbaric regime on the face of the planet. This is not to say that the Qatari regime isn’t also funding many of the same terrorist groups as Saudi Arabia and shouldn’t be reviled for its actions. Apart from keeping many of its inhabitants in conditions that would not have been out of place in Ancient Greece or Rome, Qatar is more than happy to sponsor whatever reactionary or terrorist organisation serves its interests internationally. But to go along with the Saudi line and believe that ‘counter-terrorism’ has anything to do with the current sanctions against Qatar is to enter the realm of fantasy.
It is true that Qatar has formally backed several key organisations which the other Gulf States oppose. Many observers have focused on the Muslim Brotherhood connection, given that Egypt has joined in the sanctions against Qatar. But although Saudi Arabia historically is mistrustful of the Muslim Brotherhood neither it nor Hamas or Hezbollah pose any immediate threat to the interests of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain or any of their respective allies in the region.
When the Muslim Brotherhood was a threat – while in power in Egypt – Saudi Arabia was silent about Qatar’s support for it. And when the Brotherhood was overthrown and Sisi took power, Qatar actually supported him, proving the general point that in the Middle East as anywhere else there are no permanent allies, only permanent interests. Egypt’s role in the current crisis is actually as a lackey of Saudi Arabia, a role it is developing rather well as it becomes more and more desperate for the Gulf Power’s financial support.
The real causes
To find the real reasons for the current Qatari crisis we need only to look at the first and final (12th) demands on Saudi Arabia’s list. Qatar has begun to reach too far above its station for Saudi Arabia’s liking. Compared to the dominant power in the Gulf, it is a tiny state seemingly with little political sway and a very small army. Yet its access to disproportionately large natural-gas reserves have allowed it to accumulate an investment portfolio around the world to rival its much larger neighbours.
Qatar has also traditionally been an outpost for Western imperialism in the Gulf. Since the 1920s, first Britain and then America have used the country as a base for military campaigns. Since the time of the Ottoman Empire in fact, Qatar has been supported by one or another imperialist power to counter the weight of other clans and fiefdoms on the Arab Peninsula.
The Qatari government spent $1bn building the al-Udeid base after joint military operations with the US during the Gulf War. When the US invaded Iraq, they moved their air operation headquarters from Saudi Arabia to al-Udeid and it has remained there throughout the US intervention in Syria. Although closely interlinked with its neighbours, both its enormous gas profits and its strategic importance to the United States have enabled Qatar to throw its own political weight around and to act independently of the Saudis.
As long as Saudi Arabia was the predominant power amongst the Arab nations and the world economy was growing this was tolerated by the Al-Sauds. But after the Iraq war and the 2011 Arab revolution, Saudi Arabia emerged weakened both internally and in the region where Iran’s power was expanding. Qatar’s independent role in the region became a bigger threat to Saudi interests, as was the case when Qatar supported the Morsi regime in Egypt after the revolution, when Saudi Arabia was fiercely opposed. As the previous order in the Middle East has been breaking up, Qatar has increasingly gone its own way posing a danger to the fragile Al-Saud regime. The Al Jazeera news network and Middle East Eye web magazine for instance, have become key propaganda weapons throughout the region and represent a direct threat to the totalitarian nature of Saudi rule.
The pivotal divergence from Saudi interests which has provoked this crisis is Qatar’s increasingly close alliance with Iran. Iran and Qatar share control over the world’s largest natural gas field, South Pars/North Field in the Persian Gulf. Earlier this year, almost simultaneously, first Iran and then Qatar each decided to develop their extraction of their own part of the field, in Qatar’s case for the first time since 2005.
When asked if this involved collaboration between the two, Qatar Petroleum’s chief executive Saad al-Kaabi said: “What we are doing today is something completely new and we will in future of course... share information on this with them [Iran].” This comes three years after Qatar openly offered help to Iran to advance their own gas extraction, with one official stating: “We have many studies on the field that I’m sure can benefit Iran.” In return for these benefits Qatar expects a far larger share of the field than Iran.
But at a time when Saudi Arabia is becoming dangerously unsettled by the growing prominence of Iran as a power in the region, Qatar working so closely with this rival power has created tensions among the Gulf States. Donald Trump with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud- wikipedia commons
Central to the shifting dynamic in the entire region is the sudden turnaround in Iran’s fortunes. The country has emerged from the bloody civil war in Syria with its military authority in the region strengthened and with new trade opportunities with the West opening up. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have played a vital role in smashing Qatar- and Saudi-backed al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Syria, as well as in shoring up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The victory in Syria further strengthened Iran’s position and it is clear that Qatar is in talks with Iran and Turkey to cut a deal in Syria possibly even stepping in with investments in the rebuilding of Syria. Such a deal, would leave the Saudis to take the biggest losses, financially, politically and geo-strategically.
The rise of Iran represents an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, not only to its imperialist ambitions in the region, but also militarily and internally as a potential patron of a rising Shia movement in the oil rich eastern regions of the Kingdom. To up the ante, the Saudis responded by starting a war in Yemen which has proved foolish and irresponsible even on their own terms; to claim two Red Sea islands from Egypt in return for a small bailout package; to cut an arms deal of historic proportions with the United States; and now to sanction their junior neighbouring power, threatening them with a stern ultimatum.
The other Qatari allegiance which is now making Saudi Arabia uneasy is with Turkey. Diplomatic ties between the two countries have been strengthening lately. In December 2015, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the establishment of a Turkish military base in Qatar, following the Turkish and Qatari armies’ joint training exercises. While Saudi Arabia is a declining power, Turkey has been on the rise becoming by far the strongest economy and military of the Middle East. Erdogan’s Anatolian backers have always had neo-Ottoman ambitions and the Arab Peninsula, home of Mecca and Medina, is no small part of this plan. Erdogan is determined in the long run to conquer Saudi Arabia’s position as the “leader of the Islamic world”. The relationship with Qatar and the building of a military base there has given Turkey its first foothold on the Arab Peninsula since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The previous Obama administration acknowledged the weakness of Saudi Arabia, which is why it cut a deal with Iran. The 2015 agreement on nuclear power with the UN Security Council was a result that reflected Iran’s newfound position of strength and ended the sanctions which had weakened their position in the region for decades – and which in turn strengthened its position vis a vis Saudi Arabia.
But Donald Trump, backed up by religiously anti-Iranian layers within the US state bureaucracy, such as Secretary of Defence James Mattis, has pledged to roll back Iranian influence. That was the basis of Trump’s Middle East trip in April and May where he signed a supposed $350 billion deal with Saudi Arabia and supported the setting up of “an Arab NATO” essentially aimed at Iran. With the full support of the US, the Al-Sauds decided to work towards re-establishing the previous balance of power.
Firstly the King’s son, Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS), in an unprecedented move settled the score internally, crushing opposing factions within the rotten ruling family and established himself as the crown prince. Having been Minister of Defence since his father came to power, bin Salman has been the driving force behind the war in Yemen and was no doubt heavily involved in the arms deal with the US. In return for selling shares from its own companies - including Aramco, the state oil company - MBS plans for Saudi Arabia to establish a $2trn sovereign wealth fund through which to export Saudi capital. MBS is now the real ruler of the Kingdom and has concentrated all power in his hands. The direction in which the country is heading on both counts is expressed in the person of this hot-headed young prince.
How will the crisis end?
Secondly, feeling the false comfort of the support of the Trump administration, MBS thought that he could draw a line in the sand, “Either you are with us, or you are against us!” Thus, the illusion of Sunni Arab unity and “an Arab NATO” collapsed before the ink was dry.
The Trump administration which arrogantly strutted around in the Middle East - showing Obama “how it’s done” has since been frantically running around to stop a clash between these two key allies. The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been negotiating day and night to bring the sides back together and to minimise the damage. The Americans are very worried about the crisis, having sizeable financial and military interests tied up in both sides of the stalemate. The whole manoeuvre which was aimed at isolating Iran and propping up Saudi Arabia has only led to strengthening ties with this key GCC country and Turkey gaining a serious military foothold on the Arab Peninsula.
The UAE has suggested that if Qatar fails to meet the demands set, then the next step would be an indefinite continuation of the current sanctions. But Qatar has withstood the blockades for a month – they have not had the effect that Saudi Arabia would have desired. The longer the issue is left hanging, however, and the more matters will escalate.
The point is, how will Saudi Arabia enforce any of its demands. This goes to the root of the question. The Kingdom has suggested a potential invasion of many occasions. But this is a pipe dream. The first problem is the al-Udeid Air Base, which houses both USAF and RAF forces. Saudi Arabia cannot invade a country which houses a US military base without the full cooperation of the US army - which is not interested in invading a new country in the Middle East anytime soon. Secondly, it would be facing a Turkish force which would not accept a Saudi invasion and possibly an Iranian force as well.
If anything, this crisis has pushed Qatar further into the arms of Iran, who have come out strongly against the blockades. They have been alleviating food shortages by sending 1,100 tonnes of fruit and vegetables and sixty-six tonnes of beef to Qatar on a daily basis. Moreover, the Turkish government has opposed the blockades and deployed two extra divisions of their army to Qatar since the crisis began. It is also worth bearing in mind that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been working with the Qatari army since 2010, when an officer of the IRGC announced: “IRGC and Qatar's navy can have close cooperation in intelligence, security and training fields.” The Qatari Defence Minister went on to state that Qatar is ready to have joint military training exercises with Iran.
The Saudi army would not stand a chance against any of these forces. In fact the Saudi Army has never been in real war. Even in Yemen it is relying on Emirati organised mercenaries and local reactionary clans rather than its own armed forces. The reason is Saudi Arabia’s historical weakness as a regime. The regime commands little to no legitimacy amongst the population which is made up of Wahhabi anti-royal extremists, oppressed Shias, democratic youth, semi-enslaved migrant labour and tribal elements, all of whom are opposed to the regime for their own reasons. It is this fundamental weakness of Saudi Arabia which in the conditions of the crisis of capitalism is emerging as an existential threat to the Al-Sauds. A Saudi war against Qatar is inconceivable. This whole affair will only serve to highlight this fact and add to the Saudi crisis.
Of course this won’t mean that Qatar will not budge at all. The entire Qatari economy fundamentally relies on GCC agreements, mainly with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The most likely scenario is that a deal is struck and a gradual normalisation of ties is achieved over time. Qatar may give some minor concessions, but the real loser will be Saudi Arabia which will have exposed its own weakness. However, a patch-up deal would only delay the tensions developing in the region from boiling to the surface – particularly in relation to the mutually antagonistic aims of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Qatar’s relationships with Iran and Turkey only reflect the real situation in the region, one where Saudi Arabia is in decline while Iran and Turkey are rising to become the main powers in the region. This new balance of forces is based on the real economic and military situation in the region. While Iran and Turkey (along with Egypt) are the only real nation states in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is an artificial state which could only survive due to a particular position it had, in particular as the main source of oil for US imperialism. But today the regime has completely rotted from the inside, as is evident from the shortsightedness of its representatives, while its international position has been weakened by the newly found oil-selfreliance of the US.
Meanwhile Turkey and Iran are expanding their influence and for the world powers there is no way around this. The Trump promoted idea of “rolling back” Iranian influence, as witnessed here, will only accelerate the ongoing process.
The economic crisis, the Arab revolution and the crisis of US imperialism, which all emerge from the crisis of Capitalism, have thrown the Al-Sauds into a violent struggle for their own existence. Like a cornered and wounded animal it is lashing out on all sides. The Qatar-crisis has only moved this struggle closer to the heart of the Kingdom.
The Arab Revolution: Manifesto of the International Marxist Tendency 14 Mar 2011
After the defeat of Islamic State: is peace approaching in the Middle East? 11 Dec 2017
What is behind the Qatar crisis? 12 Jul 2017
The Six-Day War: Fifty years on 3 Jul 2017
Five years on: What happened to the Arab Revolution? 25 Jan 2016
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The Tesla effect: Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park almost out of land after 74,000-acre sale
News - January 23, 2018 - by Ray Hagar
The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, billed as a largest industrial park in North America, is nearly out of land.
About 74,000 acres of the park east of Sparks -- or about 115 square miles -- was recently sold for about $175 million, TRI partner-broker Lance Gilman said on Nevada Newsmakers.
Now, only about 250 acres of undeveloped land remains unsold at TRI. The industrial park has sold almost all of its 165-square miles of land in less than 20 years -- an accelerated timeline when compared to original expectations.
"We thought this would take three generations to accomplish," Gilman said about selling almost all the 165-square miles at TRI. "That was my vision at the time. I thought for sure, based on the rate of absorption in Northern Nevada, that we would, certainly, be looking at three generations. But it has been done in less than 20 years."
Gilman and partner Roger Norman Sr., opened the industrial park in 1998 and it has become a major driver of the Northern Nevada economy.
Gilman credits Tesla's selection of TRI in 2014 as the location of its $5 billion gigafactory as the spark that led to the rapid expansion and TRI's emergence as a preferred location for technology giants in the U.S.
Google and Switch also have large high tech operations at TRI, along with Tesla.
"I always smile when I go back and think about four years ago when Tesla arrived," Gilman said. "We already had about 115 companies in there. Wal-Mart was there, Pet Smart was there. Amazon was there. Zulily was there. PPG was there and we had U.S. Ordinance building the .50 caliber machine guns. It was a tremendous park before we ever met Tesla.
"But when we met Tesla, that put us on an entirely different international platform," Gilman said. "And when that platform started to grow, all of a sudden, here came Switch (and others)... and we just had these corporate groups come in here, following Tesla all of a sudden. And so we've entered the tech world."
Yet with the latest round of land deals, "the technology that is coming into TRI now is of epic proportions," Gilman said.
The latest deals were done in 15 separate transactions, Gilman said. The biggest buyer is Blockchains LLC, which is "at the forefront of one of the most revolutionary innovations since the advent of the Internet, block chain distributed ledger technology," according to its web site.
"It is quite a spread of property," Gilman said of the 165-square mile land deal. "From 15,000 feet (above ground view), I believe they envision a product that will showcase all of the capabilities of the block chain technology.
For comparison, the entire county area of Carson City -- from the high desert to Lake Tahoe -- is 157 miles.
Blockchains, too, will be a city within itself, Gilman said.
"So think in terms of a residential project that would be 4,000 housing units and apartments, along with the shopping .. a full cybernetic community based on the block chain theory and technology," Gilman said.
"They pick up a huge amount of property along the freeway (Interstate 80) for what I would call freeway-visible retail and that would include everything from hotels, truck stops and restaurants," Gilman said. "And again, all with the block chain technology foundation."
The Blockchains plans mesh well with those of an "Emerald City" plan of Randy Aleman and the Encore Group at TRI, although it is not associated with Blockchains.
Gilman called the "Emerald City concept, "beyond beautiful."
It includes a lake in the middle of a 500-acre town center that would double as a holding reservoir for treated water to be used by industrial park residents.
"Around this lake would be beautiful piers, jogging and bicycling and with the hotels and casinos," Gilman said. "And I can tell you at least five of the major-flag hotels in the United States are already focused on their properties and building out. So Emerald City will shine in the middle of what is a really, truly, industrial center of mega proportions."
Another part of the plan includes a nanotechnology campus that would do research and development for the U.S. military, Gilman said.It could be part of the Blockchains concept at TRI but is not yet.
Alternative forms of transportation to connect the vast industrial park could also become part of the Blockchains plan.
"They would also like to have a short rail line that could come out and deliver to a depot," Gilman said. "That would then allow folks working out at TRI to disperse throughout the various companies."
In all, plans are large and complex, Gilman said. Now that almost all of the available land has been sold, TRI is entering a bustling era.
"There are a lot of components," he said. "You have a nanotech park in the south. You have a freeway and commercial stuff out in the Patrick area. You have the residential component out in the Painted Rock area. Then you have the downtown area. And they (Blockchains) have their own campus. Each one is a stand-alone (project) and it will be very, very busy."
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Government mulls innovation fund to boost R&D in MSME: Kalraj Mishra
New Delhi, Nov 12 : The government proposes to launch an innovation fund exclusively for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to encourage and promote new knowledge–driven ventures and programs. This would help in fostering entrepreneurship in rural areas, amongst women, and SC/STs.
The fund would also cover activities of the khadi, village and coir sectors, said Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Kalraj Mishra while inaugurating the two-day ‘Global R&D Summit 2014,’ here today.
Organized by FICCI in association with the Department of Science and Technology, the theme of the summit is ‘Next Gen Innovations through Interdisciplinary Research’.
Speaking at the event, Mishra said that the new Sfurti scheme launched by his ministry has helped in providing start-up funds for small and new ventures. This was in keeping with the government’s desire to promote innovation in industry and make India a global R&D hub in the coming years.
Further, he said that the 15 new technological research centers for high end research to be set up with the help of the World Bank will devise new production techniques and push India’s products in the world market. They will also make India an ideal destination of ‘Make in India’ policy launched by the new government.
Mishra said that engineers involved in the MSME sector greatly assisted in the Mangalayan spaceship project which has done our country immense proud. According to him, the ministry is continuously working towards skill development by introducing and implementing biometric system. In addition to technical advancement support, the ministry is equally focusing on the social problems of the country by promoting women and SC/ST entrepreneurship, especially in the rural and tribal areas.
Also speaking on the occasion, President-elect, FICCI and Chairperson and Managing Director, Bharat Hotels Ltd, Dr Jyotsna Suri emphasized that India has to dedicate more funds and time to its Research and Development programs. The recent success of the Mars Orbitor Mission speaks volumes of the R&D capabilities and given appropriate funds it is capable of scaling up its innovative productivity, she said.
Suri said that the government has to play a vital role in promoting the R&D potential in India. There are certain policies in place which unfortunately are bound by tedious regulations. There is also a lack of awareness of the government policies. Most entrepreneurs are unaware that the government provides a weighted tax deduction of 200 per cent on expenditure other than land and building. Over the last 10 years, only a Rs. 1000 crore have been deducted. The government therefore must first simplify its policies and then via a massive campaign increase the awareness of its benefits to entrepreneurs across the country.
On the other hand, Counselor for Economic Affairs and Environment, Science and Technology, The U.S Embassy, India, George Sibley stated that R&D is envisioning the new products that the market would need and innovate and develop such products. He said that the technological advancements have helped in averting mass destruction during floods and droughts as well. But the advancements have led to climate change and there was a need to re-double the efforts to prevent the environment from any more harm. There would be a demand for low cost renewables and technology that manages global warming better and this required a thrust in R&D.
Also speaking on the occasion, General President, Indian Science Congress Association Dr. Sarjerao Bhaurao Nimse said that the scientific community needs to support the Prime Minister’s ambitious vision of ‘Make in India’. Earlier, not much importance was given to R&D but now the stress is on developing innovative technologies. There was an immediate need to invest in research to develop knowledge and this knowledge must be converted into patents so that the investment is able to generate revenue. Industry, he said, must support laboratories and fund the R&D programs.
Offering his comments, Adviser to the Minister, Ministry of S&T, Trinidad and Tobago, Cornell Buckradee said that investing in R&D and building intellectual capacity is must for fostering R&D. He added that his country was emphasizing on R&D, and was organizing science festivals, science week and science forums in the country to promote it adequately. To strengthen science and technology enhanced collaboration among stakeholders was needed.
Also speaking on the occasion, Outstanding Scientist, Directorate of Industry Interface, Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), S Radhakrishnan said that DRDO was working relentlessly towards developing technology that could be adopted and adapted both by the defence and civilian sectors. DRDO has come with many innovations for defence; one such was the bio-digester, which was a bio-toilet designed for defence personnel who were posted at places that lacked the basic necessity. However, after the successful completion of the project, it was realized that it was a viable option for rural India as well and was replicated in various parts of the country.
Meanwhile, distinguished scientist, Indian Space Research Organization, A S Kiran Kumar, said that in the last five decades, India made use of its indigenous talent and available resources to bring about developments that could address the problems of the country. He added that now with India making giant strides in science and technology such as the successful launch of the Mangalayan spaceship project, many countries such as the US are attracted to have joint missions with India.
Even as Co-Chairman, FICCI S&T/Innovation Committee and Managing Director and CEO, Battelle Science and Technology India Pvt. Ltd, Shalendra Porwal, urged the Minister to continue initiatives such as the Innovation Fund as the R&D sector lacked finance and was in dire need large amount of investment; Chairman, FICCI National replica bags Committee on S&T/Innovation and Sr. VP-Innovations, Reliance Industries Ltd, Makarand Phadke said that it was time for convergence of diverse and inter-dependent ideas to develop novel products and services to further the technological advancement in the country.
During the event, the Minister felicitated winners of the FICCI R&D Awards.
The awards were bagged by Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) of DRDO for developing the Aakash Missile Systems and Perfint Healthcare for designing Maxio. The flagship product of Perfint is a multifunctional, interactive robotic system specifically designed to allow clinicians visually plan, execute, and validate interventional procedures on a single system and is being used by radiologists around the world for biopsy, drug delivery.
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Published: Wednesday, 12 November 2008 22:59 | Written by Osaro Osayi | Print |
THE President of national association of Nigerian community in Austria(NANCA), Mr. Dominic Aghaizu has called on all Nigerians outside the country to emulate the political philosophy of the United states of America President-elect, Senator Barack Obama.
Mr. Aghaizu made the call in Vienna, the administrative headquarters of Austria, while commenting on the landslide victory of Senator Obama under the platform of democratic party in the recently concluded American elections.
The ability of Nigerians to emulate the visions, dedication, and perseverance attributes of Sen. Obama, the President said, would go a long way in actualising the set aims and aspirations in all their endeavours.
While describing the success of Sen. Obama as unprecedented in the political history of America and other developed parts of the world, the NANCA’s president said that the victory of the president-elect would enhance the hopes of the minority citizens of America. ‘This moment we are going to witness in history as long as history will be written’, he added.
Furthermore, Mr. Aghaizu said that the Afro-American president-elect has not only succeeded in making the yesteryear tall dreams of the late Martin Luther King Jnr a reality but also as a symbol of hope and option of peace and prosperity for the whole world.
In view of the outcome of the great efforts of Sen. Obama which rested on the slogan ‘Yes, we can’, The leader of Nigerian community in Austria enjoined Nigerians to extend such efforts to the national association of Nigerian community in Austria in order to ensure a more formidable and well focused association. He also stressed the need for Nigerians to be more committed to association so that it will at no time relent in its efforts at making the general welfare of Nigerians in Austria a reality.
Since Sen. Obama’s electoral victory has rekindled hopes and confidence of the hitherto less privilege people all over world, Mr. Aghaizu stated that it becomes a challenge on the part of national association of Nigerian community in Austria to fortify these given hopes and confidence among Nigerians for a better future for Nigeria.
The NANCA’s president on behalf of all Nigerians in Austria congratulated the president-elect, and wish him eternal adequate God’s guidance and protection.
……by Osaro Osayi
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NoodleFood
Sensible Deer
Posted by Diana Hsieh on 7 April 2005 at 10:01 am Uncategorized
I like a great many things about life in Colorado, particularly as opposed to the East Coast where I grew up. I like the friendly and seriously people involved in Front Range Objectivism. I like the relaxed, friendly, and independent culture of the West. I like the big open landscapes. I like the crazy weather. I like the nearby skiing. I like the common “pry my gun from my cold dead hands” attitude. I like living near our good friends Cliff and Alexa Brett and their four fabulous children. (They just moved back to Colorado last week from Los Angeles. Hooray!)
Of course, I do have some complaints. I mourn the lack of Trader Joe’s, the most amazing grocery store ever. (It’s a cheap and delicious gourmet store.) Happily, they are getting closer, as they are now in Santa Fe; it’s only a matter of time before they expand to Denver. I also wish that I could be closer to my parents, but there’s not exactly good sailing in Colorado.
One of my favorite aspects of life in Colorado is rather peculiar: sensible deer. I grew up (mostly) on a farm in Maryland. Driving up the long private road to the house was always a nerve-wracking experience, particularly at night. The white-tail deer would jump out into the road, just in front of the car, without any warning whatsoever. Now in Colorado, I also live in a fairly rural area. However, we have sensible mule deer. When cars pass them on the road, they do turn their heads to look. But they stay put. And so every time I see them placidly gazing at my passing car, I say to myself: Thank goodness for Colorado’s sensible deer!
Really, life is better out west.
Sensible Deer Add comments
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fashion, music, art, food, theater, film, lulz, cute things, nail art, feminism + NYC
User Agreement In German
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However, a provision of the licensing agreement allows the licensee to terminate the contract before the start of insolvency due to a delay in payment, debt or a deterioration in the financial situation of the taker. In addition, a provision allowing termination of the contract in the event of a late payment or where the licensee cannot meet a minimum use obligation of the intellectual property right granted, even after the insolvency proceedings have been requested, is generally valid. With respect to the sub-licences that the licensee may have granted, the principles of question 36 should also apply in the event of the bankruptcy of the taker, whether the liquidator decides to no longer use the intellectual property right granted or the licensee terminates the contract before or after the application to initiate the insolvency proceedings. At least with respect to patents, the right of omission cannot be waived with real effect (LG Mannheim, case 7 O 94/08), but it may be waived to assert the right to omission in an agreement with a third party. In this case, the third party has a defence against the request for omission if the third party is prosecuted for violation (RGZ 153, 329, 331). There are restrictions on the applicability of such a waiver when terms and conditions are applied (see question 32). Several decisions have established that the lower licence granted by the licensee to his sublicensing was not affected by the termination of the agreement between the insolvent licensee and the purchaser (Bundesgerichtshof, I ZR 153/06, I ZR 24/11, i ZR 70/10). As a result, the licensee can reduce the risk of the donor`s bankruptcy by sub-licensing (z.B to its related licensed companies). The licensee does not have specific pre-contract advertising obligations. However, the general duty to act in good faith (see question 5) assumes that a party is subject to a potential licensing agreement with information sufficiently relevant to the other party`s decision for a disclosure to be reasonably expected. For example, the courts found an advertising obligation when the licensee was aware of the state of the art that could invalidate the patent (RG GRUR 41, 99, 101), or where the licensee was the inventor and owner of the rights to the invention whose use was to be granted but a third party, not the donor, was registered as a formal applicant for the corresponding patent application (LG Munchen I, case).
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The WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is a tariff liberalisation agreement. Canada is a signatory to the World Trade Organization on Public Procurement (WTO GPA) agreement, which aims to open up public procurement among participants. The province is subject to the WTO GPA through an agreement between the province and the Government of Canada.(…)
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Read.gov
The Library of Congress > Read.gov > Letters About Literature > Letters About Literature Winners
Letters About Literature Winners
« Back to National Winners
Letters About Literature National Winners — 2016
National Winner, Level 1: Aleema Kelly
Dear Alex Gino,
Your book George has inspired me in many ways. It got me thinking about how life is not fair especially to specific groups of people I hadn't really ever thought about before, people unable to really be themselves. It also inspired me to be true to myself and not let anyone's expectations or judgments make me change who I am.
Your book made me think more about how life can pose totally unexpected problems that are very hard to deal with. George was born in a boy's body, but he feels like he's really a girl. He worried about whether his mom would still love and accept him for who he felt he really was if he told her. He couldn't be himself with friends and classmates which caused him to limit his friends to only one close friend. People shouldn't have to be scared of what people think of them, especially their own family members. In your book when George told his mom he felt like a girl, she couldn't accept it. Mothers are supposed to love you no matter what, even if you aren't what they hoped you would be. When I thought about that I realized when George's mom didn't accept him, he sort of shut down and became discouraged.
After I read this book I thought about how it's not a bad thing if a girl says that she is a TOMBOY and she can enjoy the outdoors, run, climb, and like sports and the more traditional boy colors like blue and green. A Tomboy is usually seen as a positive trait. On the other hand, if a boy says that he wants to do ballet, sewing, playing with dolls, or that he likes pink or purple he'll risk being teased and not being accepted by others. It isn't fair, and it doesn't make sense.
If a boy wants to go and play dress up they are limited as to what they can get dressed up as, without being called names or being made fun of. They can wear a pirate costume or be a superhero, but if they wanted to wear a princess costume or something "girly" they will be thought of as something less than a boy. I even thought about how sometimes if a boy doesn't want to fight with someone and they want to resolve the issue with words, they will be thought of as a wimp because they don't want to fight. Boys are not supposed to cry or show emotion but they are supposed to act tough. That seems so ridiculous because everyone has emotions and everyone should be allowed to feel and show all of their emotions.
I also thought about how many people like George have to live their life scared of what people will think of them, forced to hold in this really big secret their whole life. I thought about how there was a whole issue about Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn Jenner having lived his whole life hiding a big secret for many decades because of what other people would think. Even though Bruce Jenner was famous, accomplished, rich, and admired by millions, he still had to struggle with what people would think of him for 60 years before he let out his big secret. If that was so hard for a world famous athlete, it made me realize how much harder it would be for a child like George to have such a huge secret in middle school that they couldn't share with anyone, because even their parents might not understand or accept their feelings.
After reading this book I gave my friends a list of words and asked them to tell me if each word described boys or girls. The words like blue, green, sports, interrupting, being physical, science, math, writing, computers, building, getting in trouble, risky behavior, scary, fighting, teasing, driving fast, inventing, and exploring were ones most people said described a boy. The words Barbie, dresses, hair, stylish, worried about appearances, gossiping, well behaved, quiet, reading, giggling, using correct grammar, getting along, clubs, groups, driving safely, fancy clothes, being helpful, pink, purple, and following rules were ones most of my friends chose as describing a girl. I thought that in a way society brainwashes us as if everybody should fit into the boy and girl boxes that society has created.
I thought of how many people think that they will be judged because they don't fit in with "society's expectations". Society tells us we need to want to be normal to fit in. I thought about parents, and even my parents - how they were brought up to believe these things. Most of the kids that make fun of people who think, act or look differently, are doing what they have been taught by society, and by their parents who also believed in some of "society's expectations". I believe that it is time that we changed these expectations, as we know now that a person's physical body doesn't determine who they are or who they like or what they like or how they feel.
Ever since I read your book I have been more confident in myself and I have been trying to put myself in other people's shoes before I speak. Your book helped me better understand how people would feel when they can't be themselves. I think your book helped me become a better person, someone who will stand up for people who are being put down and someone who will accept others as they want to be. I haven't found any other book that talks about this issue of a teenager who feels like they don't belong in the body they were born with. It made me realize that not only should kids be reading your book but so should adults and parents, because even though change is scary no one should have to feel afraid to be themselves.
Thank you, Alex Gino. Your book led me to have many discussions with my librarian, my parents, and my friends. Your book and the issues it raised helped me be someone who is more supportive of people who face stereotypes like the ones in your book, about who people are and how they should act. Your book made me realize that maybe I can help the next George be accepted throughout their life, and I can also help the next mother of George better accept their child if they have that challenge. I want to make sure that the next Bruce Jenner can be Caitlyn from the beginning, when they first feel that way. I don't want anyone to have to live their whole life hiding the secret of not feeling the gender that the doctor told them that they were born with. Your book made me want to help others accept themselves and others without prejudice or any stereotypes.
Finally, your book made me realize how lucky I am to be comfortable with myself, and to feel like I belong in my own skin and to have parents and friends who support me just as I am.
Aleema Kelly
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City vs. Suburbs: What’s Best for the Kids?
In Denver Real Estate, Moving | on June, 27, 2012 | by Pat | 0 Comments
Tags:children, city, comparison, Denver, kids, raising, suburbs, versus
According to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2000 and 2010, there has been a distinct shift in the population during the past decade. While the population of urban areas grew by 12.1 percent, the country’s population overall grew by only 9.7 percent during those same years, revealing a trend toward urban living.
With moving season in full swing, Rent.comsurveyed parents regarding their attitudes about raising kids in the city versus the suburbs to gauge their primary concerns and preferences. According to the survey, city life has its pluses and minuses when deciding where to settle.
For parents raising kids in Denver, the question commonly arises – should we stay in the city, or should we go? Forty-two percent of survey respondents cited they have always lived in the city and are raising their kids there too, and 41.5 percent of respondents are equally dedicated to their suburban ties, choosing to remain in the suburbs to raise their families. Though, for those that did make a move when they had children, suburbia takes a marginal victory, as 10 percent of respondents cited a move from the city to the suburbs to raise their kids, while only 6.5 percent cited a move from the suburbs to the city to raise their kids.
When it comes to making the move to a big city like Denver, Rent.com respondents agree that safety comes first with 82 percent of parents saying that a safe neighborhood is the most important determining factor when selecting an apartment or home in the city. In fact, over half, 56 percent, of survey respondents revealed that safety is their biggest concern when considering raising kids in the city. Forty-six percent of respondents agree that living in a suburb or smaller town when raising kids offers the advantage of a safer neighborhood when compared to raising them in the city.
Survey respondents did acknowledge there are some real advantages to raising kids in an urban environment. In fact, almost 40 percent of respondents believe that the access to diverse cultures—people, food, art and more—is the biggest advantage to living in a city compared with the suburbs, while 16 percent said that opportunities for a better education made city living more appealing. Additionally, another 12 percent of survey respondents felt that the diversity of a city population is more conducive to raising kids since there is a greater chance to find like-minded friends and a place to fit in. On the contrary, a little under one-third of respondents did answer that the big city life does not offer any advantages over suburban living.
One commonly perceived barrier that stands in the way of pursuing a city-centered life is cost of living; however, only about one in four respondents mentioned cost would be an issue when considering an urban move with the kids. Additionally, respondents weren’t too worried about the size of apartments and homes in the city, with only 9 percent of parents citing their biggest concern for city living being that they would not have enough space for their family.
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Toward Sustainability 2.0: Making the Perspective Shift
KEY Platform
As regular readers know, Sense & Sustainability traveled to Seoul last month as a program partner in the 2014 K.E.Y. Platform, a two-day conference on business model disruption and innovation hosted by Money Today. S&S Co-Director Jisung Park delivered the conference’s wrap-up speech, which concluded a series of discussions moderated by members of the S&S team by encouraging seasoned managers and budding ecologists alike to take a wider view of sustainability.
At the heart of the talk, which can be seen below, is a perspective shift from sustainability as something we have to do toward sustainability as something we want to do. This shift follows the realization that sustainability and development are not mutually exclusive. However, for businesses, reconciling the two requires more than CFLs and recycling bins in the office: it requires viewing challenges like climate change, resource scarcity, and public health not as sources of new compliance obligations but as potential sources of innovation.
Jisung illustrates this point with three companies that have been able to successfully implement sustainable practices, one by altering peripheral support operations and two by addressing social needs as part of their core value propositions. Because in the long term, he explains, the market value of a product is roughly equivalent to its true social value, which accounts for added scarcity value and negative social costs, these companies have succeeded by anticipating social needs and minimizing negative externalities.
Jisung also provides insights into short-term sustainability success by highlighting the work of Harvard researchers Michael Hiscox and Nick Smyth on consumer demand for social labeling, as well as the success and magnitude of Socially Responsible Investing, which in 2011 accounted for over 3.74 trillion dollars in assets in the US alone.
Though sustainable development also depends on the efforts of social enterprises and governments, Jisung tells the audience, composed of CEOs and entrepreneurs from around the world, the innovation required to meet our evolving social needs must take place largely in the private sector. However, this action cannot occur without a new, broader concept of sustainability, one that we at Sense & Sustainability hope to continue developing and sharing with our readers, listeners, and contributors.
Eric Jett
Eric is Sense & Sustainability's webmaster. He is also a co-founder of Full Stop, an online literary review focusing on debuts, works in translation, and books published by small presses. He lives in Charleston, WV.
Tags Innovation, Korea, Sustainability
Chaining the Digital Titans
Online Learning for a New Higher Education
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Evolution, behaviour and environment
Understanding links between environment and people is key to sustainable development
The study helps identify connections between the SDGs, for example, maintaining healthy vegetation on watersheds could contribute to up to five of the goals.
A deeper understanding of the connections between the environment and people is crucial to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a new study.
The study, led by Professor Jörn Scharlemann with colleagues from the School of Life Sciences and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), is the first of its kind to analyse the interactions between SDGs in relation to how the environment and people affect each other.
It is believed the findings will shape future responses to the SDGs; they could help inform the UN’s Decade of Action on SDGs and the development of the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Professor Jörn Scharlemann, of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme and School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex, said: “For some SDGs it has always been evident that we need to consider the ways in which the environment and people affect one another – what we call environment-human linkages. However, here we demonstrate that these linkages actually affect the achievement of the vast majority of SDGs.
“Only ten years remain to achieve all of these goals globally, so there is a growing need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of action. By understanding the role of the environment and people in how different SDGs relate to and influence each other, it will allow more informed decision-making as we appreciate the trade-offs, overlaps and consequences involved.”
The researchers conducted a cutting-edge, in-depth analysis of how actions to achieve one SDG could influence the progress towards another through human-environment linkages. This included both the services that nature offers to people, such as climate regulation and food provision, and the effects of people on the environment.
The study helps identify connections between the SDGs, therefore highlighting where there is scope for progress on multiple goals simultaneously. For example, maintaining healthy vegetation on watersheds could provide clean water (SDG 6) thereby directly contributing to improving people’s health (SDG 3), while reducing greenhouse gas emissions (SDG 13) and erosion, potentially contributing to food production (SDG 2), while also contributing to protection, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial biodiversity (SDG 15).
A deeper understanding of these linkages can help identify the environmental safeguards that might be needed to reduce the risks of unintended negative environmental consequences - and any resulting impact on people - from some options available for progressing on individual SDGs.
Such risks can then be taken into consideration in national and global policy processes and in actions being delivered around the world to progress on the SDGs.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals were introduced to address global challenges including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.
The Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) aims to be a key global centre for delivering ‘Science for the SDGs’ and aspires to be one of the lead organisations in the world providing international, national and local stakeholders with integrated research results.
Towards understanding interactions between Sustainable Development Goals: the role of environment–human linkages is published in Sustainability Science.
This research was part of the Towards a Sustainable Earth Programme, funded by NERC, ESRC and The Rockefeller Foundation.
By: Jessica Gowers
Last updated: Wednesday, 22 April 2020
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« The Weeknd Interview: Abel Says Grew Up Listening to Aster Aweke & Mulatu Astatke
The First Trailer for Ethiopian Film ‘Lamb’ »
New Book on Triumph & Tragedy of Ethiopia’s Last Emperor Haile Selassie
Published by Tadias Magazine August 31st, 2015 in Featured and Reviews. Closed
Emperor Haile Selassie (L) and the author Asfa-Wossen Asserate, his grandnephew. (Photos: Haus Publishing)
Published: Monday, August 31st, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — The world does not seem to want to forget Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s last Emperor who has been gone for more than forty years, continuing the debate regarding his complicated legacy as both a reformer and an autocrat. And in November 2015 a new book from Haile Selassie’s grandnephew, Asfa-Wossen Asserate, is slated to be released by Haus Publishing and distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press.
Asserate’s book entitled King of Kings: Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia provides an authoritative, insider’s perspective and a refreshingly balanced look at this fascinating international figure who was the global face of Ethiopia for most of the 20th century.
To be sure Haile Selassie governed a much different Ethiopia than today with a population three times less and a country dominated by a handful of politically connected feudal landlords that were either related to or favored by the royal palace. From his vantage point as a close family member the author — who is the grandson of Ras Kassa Haile Darge and the son of Ras Asserate Kassa– shares his personal memories of the Emperor as well as a rarely told and candid behind-the-scenes account of palace politics, family feuds and coup d’etats that eventually led to the coronation of Haile Selassie in 1930, and forty four years later, his swift downfall and unceremonious removal from power.
No challenging event in Ethiopian history, however, could better encapsulate the triumph and tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie than his historic appearance before the General Assembly of the League of Nations in 1936 — only six years after he took power. Asserate, who currently lives in Frankfurt, Germany, notes: “The forces of Mussolini’s Fascist Italy had invaded Ethiopia and the exiled monarch made a moving appeal to the world’s conscience. The words he spoke that day have gone down in history: ‘Catastrophe is inevitable if the great states stand by and watch the rape of a small country.’” Five years later in 1941, after Mussolini’s Blackshirts were driven out of Ethiopia by British and Ethiopian forces “he returned in triumph to reclaim the Ethiopian throne.”
Asserate’s book is also timely not only because there is a renewed interest in Haile Selassie by a new generation of artists, researchers and historians, but also because this year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, which was created in 1945 with the active participation from the Ethiopian leader.
Asserate’s description of the Emperor’s attempt at modernization, especially the fast-paced changes that were taking place in the capital Addis Ababa in the 1950′s, reminds one of today’s much publicized development projects in the city than activities taking place six decades ago: “Gradually, an urban infrastructure arose –with metalled roads, wide boulevards, shops, factories and warehouses, hotels and guest houses, restaurants, bars and nightclubs, plus a handful of cinemas. In addition, this period saw construction of new administrative blocks, schools and hospitals, as well as embassy buildings. The city’s growth attracted entrepreneurs and businessmen, advisors, educators and adventurers from all four corners of the world.”
Asserate adds: “And yet in many respects the center of Addis Ababa continued to resemble the residential seat of some 19th-centurey German provincial ruler rather than an international capital in the mid-20th century. The heart of the city was occupied by the imperial palaces: the Genete -Leul Palace, the emperor’s own residence at the time, and the Menelik Palace complex, also known as “the big Gebbi‘, with its numerous buildings, including the palace ministry. This was also the site of the Aderash, the cavernous hall that hosted regular state banquets, and which could accommodate up to three thousand people.”
King of Kings: Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is full of captivating details that only an insider could share; it is written with great poise and warmth for the enigmatic leader while at the same time cognizant of the swelling unhappiness and criticism the Emperor faced from his own people impatient with the pace of change.
Haile Selasse still Debated 40 Years After his Death (RFI)
From The Guardian Archive, 24 August 1974 Ethiopia’s Fallen Aristocrats
Book Review: ‘Prevail’: Personal Stories From Mussolini’s Invasion of Ethiopia
Review of ‘Long Ago and Far Away’: A Novel Set In Ethiopia by John Coyne
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Articles Featured Guest Posts
Oscars 2018 – The Big Best Picture Row
02/03/2018 02/03/2018 Tom Beasley 0 Comment Awards Season 2018, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Oscars 2018, Phantom Thread, The Big Best Picture Row, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
The Oscars 2018 will take place on March 4 at Dolby Theater in Los Angeles
This weekend, the pageantry and glamour of awards season is set to finally hits its zenith with the Oscars 2018. The Academy Awards ceremony at Hollywood’s glitzy Dolby Theater is the culmination of the awards calendar, allowing the best and the brightest from the world of cinema to congregate in celebration of the year that has passed. This year, as far as awards are concerned, it’s a straight fight between the nominations-leading The Shape of Water and the spiky favourite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
To help you make sense of it all, and to provide a balanced view on one of the strongest Oscar races in years, we’re bringing you the Big Best Picture Row. For the fifth consecutive year, I’ve rounded up a team of guest writers to stand up for each of the nine contenders battling for the main prize at the Oscars 2018.
So, with thanks to everyone who took the time to write one of these, let’s go to battle and decide who deserves to win big at the Oscars 2018, leaving the Dolby Theater with their head held high.
Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer in romantic drama Call Me By Your Name
The Popcorn Muncher Review
Call Me By Your Name is a rare beast in the sense that every aspect aims to satisfy mood over plot. From the direction and performances down to the cinematagrophy and script, the film is an expertly executed emotional journey through a summer romance. Its minimal plot – a romance growing between two young men in 1980s Italy – feels all-encompassing when you’re drenched in the chemistry of growing love, the euphoria of a relationship just beginning and the heartbreak of a summer coming to an end.
In the lead roles, Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer deliver stunning performances and are able to leave you utterly engrossed in their romance from the first moment the pair see one another. With such capable leads and a perfect eye for the beauty of a remembered summer, Call Me By Your Name is a stunning movie that is peerless in its ability to put the characters’ emotions, and therefore the audience’s, right at the centre.
Luke Stevenson is one of the hosts of The Popcorn Muncher Podcast. He is only serious about Bee Movie.
Gary Oldman stars as wartime leader Wisnton Churchill in Darkest Hour
Winston Churchill was divisive. He could be selfish, he could be rude and he could be unforgiving, but it was his leadership that saw Great Britain come out of the Second World War on the right side. Churchill was a great orator, who managed to rally a continent into not giving up the fight, into refusing to give into the Nazis.
It’s for this reason that I don’t hate “that scene”. You know, the one on the Tube that is “a fictionalisation of an emotional truth”, according to director Joe Wright. It’s a representation of the people in hiding in Nazi Germany or occupied France who have credited their strength to Churchill’s inspirational words. Darkest Hour perfectly encapsulates how Churchill kept fighting for Britain, how he stayed as Prime Minister even though his party didn’t want him and how he rallied a nation into winning the war with his words.
This film is about a man who everyone bet against and how he managed to defy odds and succeed at leading us to victory. He was the right man for the right job at the right time. For me, the success of Darkest Hour isn’t in how it brings the darkness of the War Rooms to life, how the speeches sound or how it looks, but in the actual story, in the history, in its portrayal of the man himself and his groundbreaking, electrifying words. And that’s why it should win.
Elly Rewcastle is a journalism graduate and production editor interested in music and film.
Kenneth Branagh in the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk
It may be an outsider, but Dunkirk has proved its worthiness of the coveted Best Picture award. Immersive in a way that few films have ever been, it acts as a sober portrayal of the 1940 evacuation. Watching this film was about as close to a visceral experience as you can get in the cinema. From Hans Zimmer’s pressing beat of a score to the miraculous set pieces, Dunkirk offers a horrifying glimpse into those days at war. If it was up for Best Picture on ambition alone, I’d say it was a shoe-in.
Shot as an action film, Dunkirk fell under criticism when it missed out a central figure to focus on, instead assembling an ensemble cast of fictional characters. Although director Christopher Nolan did extensive interviews with war veterans, some felt that the film missed an emotional heart. However, Dunkirk didn’t need a big climactic moment to have heart. Instead, we’re dropped in to witness what ordinary men do in the most critical moments of their lives, seeing the little moments of bravery that the soldiers did to survive. There’s so much empathy there. It’s just not spelled out for audiences.
Dunkirk effectively uses ambitious filmmaking to show the horror of war. True to life, there’s no outright hero but rather we’re reminded of the ordinary heroism shown in times of immense strain. The result is profoundly powerful and a fitting tribute.
Jen Scouler is a journalist for a popular children’s magazine by day and a devoted film critic by night. She runs her own entertainment site Lost In Drama, focusing on covering every period drama and historical film under the sun.
Daniel Kaluuya in the brilliant Jordan Peele horror movie Get Out
Calling Get Out a satire in the tradition of The Stepford Wives might boost its chances of winning with the Academy, who are of course a notoriously horror-averse bunch. But to deny its genre would be to deny its powerful point – transposing the oppressive dread of horror filmmaking into the oppressive dread of being a black American in a very white space. It’s a reinvigoration of tropes that resonates so clearly that even whiter-than-mayonnaise critics such as myself can understand.
Jordan Peele’s debut is a little messy round the edges, but I’m not lobbying for him to be named Best Director this year. His film illuminates real issues with ruthless efficiency, giving us a polemical text on race in the 21st century that has already resonated enough to spawn perfect memes for the Trump age.
Love stories may be emotional, historical dramas come and go, but a film that changes the cultural conversation, explains how the world works and has some gore-splattered fun while doing it is very special indeed. If that’s not what Best Pictures are, then what is cinema even for?
Stephen Wood is a journalism graduate. You can keep up with his film viewing on Letterboxd and follow his attempts to document the use of newspapers in film.
Saoirse Ronan stars in quirky dramedy Lady Bird
Lady Bird is a deceptively ‘small’ story, set in the small city of Sacramento that actually has found universal appeal by being almost painfully relatable. Focusing on protagonist Lady Bird’s senior year of high school as she makes decisions about college, boys, friendships and the relationship with her family. This film is filled with realistic and recognisable characters.
Saoirse Ronan gives another impeccable performance as the protagonist – she would also be my choice for Best Actress – as she navigates her Catholic school. Meanwhile at home, she repeatedly butts heads with her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), who is struggling to cope financially and with the realisation that her daughter will soon be moving away.
Set in the early noughties, the soundtrack and costume design subtly evokes the era without beating you over the head. Lady Bird has been underrated in the technical fields, such as cinematography and editing, but both are thoughtful and masterfully handled. The hilarious screenplay and impeccable direction, both by Greta Gerwig, are sublime. She has deftly achieved that trickiest of feats – a highly specific story that people all over the world can relate to. It’s totally anarchist, baller and hella tight and should be winning Best Picture at the Oscars 2018.
Fiona Underhill is a writer for Jump Cut UK and a former teacher of Media and Film Studies.
Daniel Day-Lewis could win a fourth acting Oscar for Phantom Thread
How do you dictate what classifies a movie as Best Picture? I like to think of it as all of the elements of filmmaking craft including direction, performance and editing, coming together as a whole to elevate each of those individual elements. With Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson has created a masterful tale of creative obsession, co-dependency and toxic relationships taken to their logical end.
The film is as visually textured as the dresses made by Reynolds Woodcock, who is expertly and mesmerisingly portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis. If this is his last performance, it is a beautiful exit. Vicky Krieps delivers a star-making turn as the female lead and the two actors share barbs and tenderness with an amazing and believable rapport.
The pace and editing are perfect and really drag you into the world of fashion. Never would I have thought a film about a fashion designer would have me so enraptured – sorry, Devil Wears Prada fans – but the fact is the movie uses fashion as the dressing of this story that zeroes in on these two characters and how their relationship evolves from tender to toxic. A best picture should enrapture you, captivate you and use every aspect of film to tell stories with rich character and purpose. Therefore, Phantom Thread is Best Picture.
Patrick Wilson is the main host of the weekly Popcorn Muncher Podcast and also writes as a regular guest contributor to The Popcorn Muncher.
Tom Hanks is newspaper editor Ben Bradlee in The Post
It’s pretty hard to believe that it’s taken this long for Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep to star in a film together, and some might say that this alone makes The Post Oscar worthy. This film has arrived at a crucial moment in time, coinciding with the fact that public trust in the press is dismally low, not helped by confusion over what ‘fake news’ actually is.
The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, strives somewhat unintentionally to break down the stigmas about newshounds, instead highlighting the integrity of print journalists and how deeply they can value and respect the anonymity of sources. It follows the true story of newspaper publisher Katharine Graham, who had to decide whether to publish secret government papers in the public interest and risk going to jail.
Hanks gives a strong performance as editor Ben Bradlee, making him incredibly loathsome to viewers at times, with razor-sharp wit and a mean streak you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of. Streep, by comparison, is soft-spoken and endearing, making you feel genuine empathy for her as she’s thrust into a male-dominated culture, fighting for the mic. It means when she does eventually come into her own, conquering her inner fears, it’s all the more powerful.
As topical themes go, The Post has never been more relevant, and serves as an incredibly important reminder to all about the necessity of trusting in the fourth estate
Molly Mileham-Chappell is a multimedia journalist, currently reporting on local news in Kent. She also has a keen interest in films, Disney and musical theatre. You can see more of her work via her online portfolio.
Sally Hawkins stars in Guillermo del Toro monster movie The Shape of Water
There’s barely a cigarette paper between the two frontrunners for Best Picture at the Oscars 2018, but my vote definitely goes to Guillermo del Toro‘s mesmerising fantasy masterpiece The Shape of Water. It’s a beautifully poignant romance built on the unlikely outsider romance between a fish man and the mute cleaning lady tasked with maintaining the facility in which he is being confined.
Del Toro’s revisionist fairytale storytelling is perfectly served by this movie, which weaves a compelling narrative driven by the all-consuming simplicity of pure love and affection. Sally Hawkins is tremendous in the wordless central role, with the likes of Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins providing impressive support.
In the current climate, a movie that’s transparently about women rising up to take down the personification of the privileged white man could not be more relevant. It lacks the outright social potency of Get Out and the riotous entertainment value of Three Billboards, but The Shape of Water is a fascinating, poignant movie from the maestro of the monsters.
Tom Beasley is the editor of The Popcorn Muncher and a freelance film journalist published on New Statesman, Flickering Myth and What Culture.
Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
After having taken this year’s Golden Globes by storm and now, the BAFTAs, after nabbing a whopping five awards, it’s safe to assume that Three Billboards is going to be one hell of a serious contender to beat at the 90th Academy Awards. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been treated to such astonishing filmmaking and so many astounding performances at the movies, but Three Billboards stands out like a sore thumb as the only film that has the most going for it. I could write forever about why I think it’s so great and just so, so worthy of sweeping all of the awards, but I simply don’t have enough words here to get stuck into all of that.
The main reason why I think it will win really comes down to its much-needed representation of women in film. Here, we have a really badass female in the leading part, played by none other than Frances McDormand, who we can all really get behind and totally cheer for. She’s desperate to get answers to the conundrum of her daughter’s murder and will do just about anything to get them. Her motives are clear and entirely justifiable.
Add to this a great ensemble cast, a wickedly funny and dark script, surprisingly brutal moments of violence and a really thought-provoking open ending that can be interpreted in different ways. This stands out as not only a massive crowd-pleaser, but also a film that has all the boxes ticked to have that Oscar win for Best Picture totally in the bag.
Martin White has been a film blogger for the past three years now, having maintained his own film blog where he talks about everything and anything that is entirely movies and cinema related.
Which film do you think will win Best Picture at the Oscars 2018? Let me know in the comments section and vote in my Facebook poll. Also, be sure to head back to the site on Sunday evening for all of our live Oscars coverage, from the red carpet to the inevitable envelope gags.
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Intersectionality Hypocrisy and the Jewish Question. An Israeli Perspective..
Intersectionality Hypocrisy and the Jewish Question.
An Israeli perspective by Barry Shaw.
People with strategic antennae can detect a throwback to the Soviet inspired canard of “Zionism is Racism.” This radical left-wing anti-Israel trope raised its ugly head way back in 2001 at the UN World Conference Against Racism in South Africa where thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators and groups hijacked the event to target the Jewish state with phony propaganda including apartheid accusations. Sadly, despite being beaten down in the United Nations, this same anti-Zionism has breathed new life and is active today on the campuses and streets of America and Britain reaching out into support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
As it was then, it is dressed up as a universal human rights issue. The same tiresome aspersions are trotted out, and soft vacant minds of the impressionable young are hooked on a cause to which they are physically detached but to which they have been seduced to dedicate their energies. It fits their progressive upbringing. Sadly, a growing number of the newly deceived are Jewish.
In America, many have been raised by parents from the anti-war, hippie, flower power, era who, from a distance, frowned on Israel for not bringing peace to the Palestinians and, from their distant armchairs, encourage their kids to become activists in an anti-Israel cause. And they claim to do it for the benefit of an Israel that is too dumb and too aggressive to see the error of our ways. What they have yet to realize is that firstly, they are wrong, and secondly their kids have gone from being liberal to becoming the most illiberal, closed-minded, and intolerant people in the community. They exist, you see, on a higher moral plain than the rest of us. They know better.
In Britain, a diminishing Jewish population is losing control over their country. Some of them doggedly cling to a Labour Party that is riddled with anti-Semitism. Some of the new generation to Israel not to support Israel but to visit European NGO-funded Palestinian activists or, at home, participate in public displays of mourning for dead Palestinians, mostly members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad terror groups killed in attempts to cross into Israel and kill and kidnap Israelis.
Recently, both American and the British anti-Israel Jewish fringe groups have used deception (some would say fraud) by exploiting subsidized Israel Experience group trips to advance their pro-Palestinian propaganda with other group members, or to attempt to hijack Israelis on the street to their anti-Israel cause.
A small group of them were caught trying to spread their “Israel is occupying Palestine” garbage in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market. Ari Fuld, a noted Israel advocate, videoed one of them with a simple question, “When did Israel occupy Palestine?” The Jewish propagandist couldn’t answer the question to that slogan printed in his t-shirt. Instead, he accused Fuld of harassment.
These are the hashtag activists. Question their hashtag soundbites and slogans and they fall apart. Read ‘BDS for IDIOTS’ and see how it applies to most of the anti-Israel BDS propagandists.
Harassment? This is surprising. One of the leaders on his side of the US political divide, Maxine Waters, recently ordered leftists like him to harass those with opposing views. She told them to “push back on them. And tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Yet this guy got upset when he comes to Israel to spread his unpopular lies and someone pushes back on him. Hypocrite!
Harassment is something that pro-Israel spokespeople know very well. Try bringing the truth about Israel and the Palestinians, let alone expose the fraudulent messaging of the BDS Movement, to campuses in America and Britain. Good luck with that.
The anti-Israel views of the increasingly radical left of the Democratic Party in America and within the British Labour Party, led by a leader who considers Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends, could be a disaster in the making both for Israel and for the Jews of those nations. Israeli voices are stifled at public events. Should a pro-Israel event take place in Britain the venue must be kept a closely-guarded secret due to fear of a violent disruptive backlash. Yet, it is perfectly acceptable for thousands of flag-waving Israel-haters to take to the streets of London in support of Hezbollah and Hamas.
In America, there is no intersectionality for Zionist Jews. Intersectionality is a new political word indicating a joining of interests between two or more different groups. So, for example, it is acceptable to be a feminist or gay and a supporter of the Palestinian cause.
If, however, you are a feminist or gay and support Israel you are beyond the pale and banished from the leftist club, a club in which the notoriously hateful Linda Sarsour is one of the leaders that sets the rules.
Sarsour has been adopted as an icon of this radical brand of politics and, as such, she calls the shots. They think they are being awfully progressive and liberal but they are, at heart, the most intolerant, radical, and regimented grouping in America today. They twist reason into a pretzel to the extent that Sarsour can grant Palestinian terror the badge of absolute moral justification.
Referring to Sarsour, US rocker, Courtney Love, got slammed when she tweeted that “I won’t follow anything that is being led by an anti-Semitic terrorist that’s using feminism as a tool to promote her radicalism.”
Sarsour led the twitter campaign against Love. This is, in itself, a metaphor of what Sarsour is all about.
Sarsour has not conducted acts of terror but she has promoted and glorified Palestinian terrorists. In 1917, she shared a stage with Rasmea Odeh, a female Palestinian terrorist who murdered two young students outside a Jerusalem supermarket in 1969. She embraced Odeh and told the audience that she was “honored and privileged to be here in this space, and honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.”
Sarsour is a firm BDS supporter. She has said that “there is nothing creepier than Zionism” and her solution to Zionism is the elimination of the Jewish state. In other words, she would wipe Israel off the map. In her world, be a feminist and support the Palestine liberation movement and you are in. Be a feminist and support the Jewish liberation movement and you are banned from entering her intersectionality club.
Unfortunately, this mode of politics has become so trendy to impressionable youngsters that too many Jewish kids are being seduced and sucked into the swill of this dangerous nonsense.
Too many of the unhinged and hate-mongering radical left look on Israel as “white supremacists.” The Black Lives Matter folk look on Arab Palestinians as their “brown brothers.” Their stunted, sloganistic thinking leave them blinded to the fact that the majority of Israelis originate from Arab and Muslim countries with thousands of black Africans from Ethiopia and that Israel is the most diverse country in the whole of the Middle East and Africa.
If the Black Lives Matter people really cared about their brethren beyond their American shores they should be made aware that, today, slavery is being practiced on a massive scale in Africa where blacks are forced into slavery and black women are forced into sex slavery by slave traders and owners who are predominantly Muslim and Arabs.
This is where the BLM people share the crime of hypocrisy with the pro-Palestinian intersectionality pretenders. Those who profess to champion the Palestinian cause do so solely to hit on Israel, but are silent when abuses, oppression, and slaughter, are heaped on Palestinian Arabs by other Arabs. Examples include ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Assad in the bombing of the Palestinian population in Syria, the 70-year-old apartheid inflicted on stateless refugees in Jordan, and the blockade of Gaza imposed by Egypt. All go unchallenged by those who profess to champion Palestinian human rights.
So goes the “outrage” of Black Live Matter advocates who have adopted the Palestinian movement into their revolutionary cause. They rage about Israeli “white supremacists” in their slogans, but shockingly turn their backs on the suffering and slavery of their African brethren. Do they not know that the current plague of slavery in Africa is perpetrated by the Muslim Arabs they support and the victims are their fellow blacks? Why doesn’t this appear in their intersectionality activism?
What connects current political trends in America and Britain is the rise of radical Socialism hiding behind a thin veneer of liberal democracy. What we are witnessing in the Democratic Party is reminiscent of the clash between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, begun in 1903, to see how far left they could drag Russia. It is sad to see so many young impressionable Jewish minds being dragged into this poor excuse for political progressivism. It is not progressive. It is an intolerant regressive hard Socialism on its way to harsh Communism.
It's not surprising really. The "Zionism is Racism" sloganeering back in 2001 Durban was a Soviet-style form of propaganda. They saw Israel as "imperialistic," "capitalistic," "colonialistic," and any other "istic" they could invent. It got beaten down but has metastasized as intersectionality or identity politics. It is as hateful and as intolerant as it was in South Africa and way back at the turn of the last century in Communist Russia.
Two questions should be answered by the naïve young Jews who have lost their bearings and have bought into the misinformation about Israel. Can you still call yourself a proud Jew when you associate and partner with those that boo whenever G-d and Israel is mentioned? Don’t you have a feeling of betrayal to your own people, to yourself? These are signs for you to walk away from a false and hateful cause that will benefit neither Palestinians, nor Israelis, nor you.
Work your way through the delusion. Eventually, with moral clarity, you will arrive at the reality and core belief in the survival and protection, indeed the legitimate right of the Jewish people, to exist in peace in their own nation, Israel. Allow us that at least.
Once you arrive at that point you may be able to better sympathize with our young men and women, those of your own age, who are prepared to fight and die to protect us and our right to live in our own land.
You will find this as moral and as just as anything being pumped out by people such as Sarsour and BLM.
Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also the author of ‘BDS for IDIOTS,’ and ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism.’ Make great gifts for kids who really need to know what’s going on.
Britain's Labour Party continues to insist there i...
Israel, and Native Americans and Canadians.
Intersectionality Hypocrisy and the Jewish Questio...
The Arab world opens up to the truth about Palesti...
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Home Bali Bali expected to lure 40% of 2017 tourist arrivals
Bali expected to lure 40% of 2017 tourist arrivals
Bali is expected to attract 40 percent of the total target of 15 million foreign tourists to Indonesia in 2017.
The province has been given a bigger portion than other regions because it still remains the prime destination for foreign tourists, according to the Assistant Deputy for Tourism Human Resource Development, Wisnu Bawa Tarunajaya, on Saturday (Jan. 21).
"Bali is still number one compared to the other regions in Indonesia," he said.
The capital Jakarta is expected to attract 30 percent, while Batam in the Sumatran province of Riau Islands is expected to get 20 percent. All other regions of the country are expected to get the remaining 10 percent.
The three major regions will play important roles in meeting the targets for attracting foreign tourism in Indonesia, added Tarunajaya.
In order for the other regions to compete, the Ministry of Tourism is also planning to develop new tourist destinations. These include Toba Lake in North Sumatra, Tanjung Klayang in Bangka-Belitung province, Thousand Islands in Jakarta and Tanjung Lesung in Banten province, West Java. Mandalika in Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Labuhan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara, Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi and Morotai in North Maluku are also listed for potential development.
Through careful planning and sustainable development, the Ministry of Tourism is hoping to boost the promotion of new tourist destinations to attract more foreign visitors, said Tarunajaya.
He also mentioned that most of the foreign tourists that are expected to visit this year are likely to come from China and other ASEAN countries, as well as Australia. (Antara)
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WHAT IS IDENTITY THEFT
HOW LIFELOCK WORKS
ID THEFT ADVICE
HELP PROTECT AGAINST ID THEFT
WHAT IS PII
WHAT IS A CREDIT REPORT
ORDERING A FREE CREDIT REPORT
DISPUTING A CREDIT REPORT
LOST SOCIAL SECURITY CARD
REPLACE SOCIAL SECURITY CARD
Written by Brian O'Connell for NortonLifeLock
Do you know your credit score? Did you know you have more than one? Do you know what makes a good credit score or how they’re calculated? Lenders and creditors know, and you should, too.
Knowing your credit score could help you save money on mortgage loans, credit cards, auto insurance, and other personal finance items. Not knowing your credit score can cost you, in terms of time and money.
As you can probably guess, when it comes to credit scores, the higher, the better, though a good credit score ultimately depends in part on what credit score you’re looking at. There are many different types of credit scores. We each have dozens of them. These days, most of the widely used credit scoring models—including FICO?—use a range of 300-850, with 300 being the worst score and 850 being the best. And whereas for most of us, the term “good” means acceptable or OK, in the world of credit scores, it means something very specific.
Notice how “Good” is in the middle? It doesn’t just mean OK in this context. It means you have a FICO score somewhere between 670 and 739. Again, the higher your credit score, the better, because a higher score can help you save money through lower interest rates on credit cards, mortgage loans, auto insurance and other personal finance items.
Let's take a look at different types of credit scores, how they’re determined, what they’re used for, and what you can do to boost your creditworthiness.
Understanding your credit score: Getting beyond 'Good'
Here are a few things to keep in mind when diving deep into credit scores:
A credit score is a numerical representation of your credit history—your record of paying back borrowed debt.
Credit bureaus update their credit scoring models, which can affect both your credit score and the number of scores available.
You have dozens of credit scores. Credit bureaus generate them, and lenders use them to make lending decisions.
Credit scores are mathematical formulas that calculate the likelihood that you will pay back the money you borrow, based on your past borrowing behavior listed in your credit reports. If your credit reports indicate that you make a lot of late payments or fail to pay back debt completely, your credit score will suffer.
Credit scores are formulas that look at the information compiled in your credit reports, and they come up with a number—a credit score—which tells lenders if they should lend you money and how much interest they should charge you if they do.
Companies like FICO and VantageScore create credit scores. Most of the different credit scoring models follow the same general principals. Let’s take a closer look, starting with FICO.
FICO—developed by Fair Isaac and Company—is the most widely used credit scoring model. As we said, most FICO scores use a range of 300 to 850. While a score of 670 to 739 is considered “Good,” lenders will likely give you better lending rates if your credit score is “Very Good” (740 to 799) or “Exceptional” (800 to 850). Most lenders use FICO scores when deciding whether to offer you a loan or credit card, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Lenders first started using FICO scores in 1989. FICO has updated its base scoring formula over the years to keep pace with changes in the lending market. But when FICO releases a new version to the market, not all lenders upgrade at the same time. That means different lenders may see different scores for you. Currently, FICO Score 8 is the most widely used version of the company’s base credit score.
FICO also has industry-specific scores—for auto loans, for instance. FICO says the foundation of these versions is the same as their base versions, but each is fine-tuned for industry-specific risk behavior. Here’s the difference:
A base FICO score is designed to predict how likely you are to pay back a loan on time.
An industry-specific score predicts how likely you are to pay back a specific type of credit—such as a car loan—on time.
On top of that, each of the three major credit reporting agencies has a different version of each FICO score it uses. That means there’s a FICO 8 Score for Experian and a different FICO 8 Score for both Equifax and TransUnion.
Worth noting: Not everybody has a FICO score.
“To have a FICO score at all, you need at least one account that’s been open six months or longer, and you need at least one creditor reporting your activity to the credit bureaus in the last six months,” says Leslie H. Tayne, founder of Tayne Law Group in New York.
Why credit score ranges are important
Typically, “Prime” credit is defined as a credit score that falls in the second-highest range of a scoring model—that would be a FICO score from 740 to 799. The top range is “Super Prime.” If you have a Prime or Super Prime credit score, a bank is more likely to approve you for a loan and offer the best interest rates.
“At the upper end of the FICO range, consumers will get the very best pricing available to them—typically over 740 FICO, although it ranges widely by bank and by credit product,” says Brendan Coughlin, head of consumer lending at Citizens Bank in Providence, Rhode Island.
Given the scale, a single point can have an impact. That’s why it’s important to try to drive up your credit score to 740 and higher. It could help save you money.
What is a VantageScore?
The VantageScore model was developed by the three major credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—and introduced in 2006 under the name VantageScore Solutions. If you’re wondering what a good VantageScore is, the answer depends, in part, on which model you’re using. There are three available VantageScores: VantageScore 1, 2, and 3. VantageScore 4 is expected to be released in fall 2017.
The ranges for the older VantageScore models 1 and 2 are 501 to 990. Also, the models use letter grades—A through F—for each level of risk. Here’s how they look:
How to Dispute a Credit Report Error in 5 Easy Steps
Does checking your credit score lower it?
Free Credit Reports: How to Order Yours
Editorial note: Our articles provide educational information for you. Norton LifeLock offerings may not cover or protect against every type of crime, fraud, or threat we write about. Our goal is to increase awareness about cyber safety. Please review complete Terms during enrollment or setup. Remember that no one can prevent all identity theft or cybercrime, and that LifeLock does not monitor all transactions at all businesses.
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Notes for Gen 11:1LEB
The whole earth. Here "earth" is a metonymy of subject, referring to the people who lived on the earth. Genesis 11 begins with everyone speaking a common language, but chap. Gen 10:1-5LEB has the nations arranged by languages. It is part of the narrative art of Genesis to give the explanation of the event after the narration of the event. On this passage see A. P. Ross, "The Dispersion of the Nations in Genesis 11:1–9LEB, " BSac 138 (1981): 119-38.
Heb "one lip and one [set of] words." The term "lip" is a metonymy of cause, putting the instrument for the intended effect. They had one language. The term "words" refers to the content of their speech. They had the same vocabulary.
Heb "they"; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
Or perhaps "from the east" (NRSV) or "in the east."
Heb "in the land of Shinar."
Shinar is the region of Babylonia.
Heb "a man to his neighbor." The Hebrew idiom may be translated "to each other" or "one to another."
The speech contains two cohortatives of exhortation followed by their respective cognate accusatives: "let us brick bricks" (נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים, nilbbénah lévenim) and "burn for burning" (נִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה, nisréfah lisrefah). This stresses the intensity of the undertaking; it also reflects the Akkadian text which uses similar constructions (see E. A. Speiser, Genesis [AB], 75-76).
Or "bitumen" (cf. NEB, NRSV). The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.
A translation of "heavens" for שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) fits this context because the Babylonian ziggurats had temples at the top, suggesting they reached to the heavens, the dwelling place of the gods.
The form וְנַעֲשֶׂה (véna’aseh, from the verb עשׂה, "do, make") could be either the imperfect or the cohortative with a vav (ו) conjunction ("and let us make…"). Coming after the previous cohortative, this form expresses purpose.
The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means "that we be not scattered."
The Hebrew verb פָּוָץ (pavats, translated "scatter") is a key term in this passage. The focal point of the account is the dispersion ("scattering") of the nations rather than the Tower of Babel. But the passage also forms a polemic against Babylon, the pride of the east and a cosmopolitan center with a huge ziggurat. To the Hebrews it was a monument to the judgment of Elohim on pride.
Heb "the sons of man." The phrase is intended in this polemic to portray the builders as mere mortals, not the lesser deities that the Babylonians claimed built the city.
The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ (banu), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea ("had started building") should be understood here.
Heb "and one lip to all of them."
Heb "and now." The foundational clause beginning with הֵן (hen) expresses the condition, and the second clause the result. It could be rendered "If this…then now."
Heb "all that they purpose to do will not be withheld from them."
The cohortatives mirror the cohortatives of the people. They build to ascend the heavens; Elohim comes down to destroy their language. Elohim speaks here to his angelic assembly. See the notes on the word "make" in 1:26 and "know" in 3:5, as well as Jub. 10:22–23, where an angel recounts this incident and says "And the Elohim our Elohim said to us…. And the Elohim went down and we went down with him. And we saw the city and the tower which the sons of men built." On the chiastic structure of the story, see G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:235.
Heb "they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor."
The infinitive construct לִבְנֹת (livnot, "building") here serves as the object of the verb "they ceased, stopped," answering the question of what they stopped doing.
The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.
Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant "the gate of Elohim," but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for "confusion," and so retained that connotation. The name "Babel" (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated "confused" (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
Notes for Gen 11:11LEB
The word "other" is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
The reading of the MT is followed in vv. 11–12; the LXX reads, "And [= when] Arphaxad had lived thirty-five years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan, Arphaxad lived four hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died. And [= when] Cainan had lived one hundred and thirty years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah]. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah], Cainan lived three hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died." See also the note on "Shelah" in Gen 10:24LEB; the LXX reading also appears to lie behind Luke 3:35–36LEB.
Here and in vv. 16, 19, 21, 23, 25 the word "other" is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
The phrase of the Chaldeans is a later editorial clarification for the readers, designating the location of Ur. From all evidence there would have been no Chaldeans in existence at this early date; they are known in the time of the neo-Babylonian empire in the first millennium b.c.
Heb "upon the face of Terah his father."
The name Sarai (a variant spelling of "Sarah") means "princess" (or "lady"). Sharratu was the name of the wife of the moon god Sin. The original name may reflect the culture out of which the patriarch was called, for the family did worship other gods in Mesopotamia.
The name Milcah means "Queen." But more to the point here is the fact that Malkatu was a title for Ishtar, the daughter of the moon god. If the women were named after such titles (and there is no evidence that this was the motivation for naming the girls "Princess" or "Queen"), that would not necessarily imply anything about the faith of the two women themselves.
Heb "And the days of Terah were."
Heb "Terah"; the pronoun has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.
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ONLINE 3D Medical Printing Series
26 January 2021 - 4 February 2021, 12:00 - 16:00 CET (Central European Time)
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3D Dental Printing
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Posted on February 20, 2014 by Pieter Hermans
Launch of Chemelot InSciTe: research and knowledge institute for biobased and biomedical materials
UM and Maastricht UMC+, TU/e, DSM, Chemelot Campus and the Province of Limburg invest €80 million in innovation institute.
As of today, the Netherlands has an international research and knowledge institute for bio-based and biomedical materials: Chemelot InSciTe (Institute for Science and Technology). As an international knowledge hub, Chemelot InSciTe provides a place for top scientists, businesses and government bodies to come together to make innovative new chemical building blocks from biomass and to develop, test and prepare new biomedical materials for introduction on the market. The parties involved have jointly invested €80 million in the institute, thereby stimulating both employment and the further development of knowledge and activity in the Limburg region and beyond.
Top scientists from Maastricht University (UM), Maastricht UMC+, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and experts from DSM and the Chemelot Campus are combining forces and using their joint knowledge and expertise to play their part in the responsible use of sustainable raw materials and in helping older people stay healthy in a cost-effective way. Partnerships between knowledge institutes and businesses in the Netherlands and worldwide are crucial to drive developments in both of these areas. For the bio-based market, Chemelot InSciTe will develop highquality biochemical building blocks which can be used, for example, in resins for cars, on solar cells, in buildings and in electronic equipment. For biomedical applications, the institute will be working on, among other things, materials for new blood vessels, materials by means of which cartilage can repair itself and regenerate in the body, and clever miniature ‘containers’ of medicines that are placed in the eye to prevent and treat eye infections.
Chemelot Campus’s position in Sittard-Geleen as a European springboard to the rest of the world attracts innovative companies and visionary investors, and functions as a hub for entrepreneurs and businesses which support each other’s growth. It also increases employment opportunities in the Limburg region. The three Founding Fathers, Eindhoven University of Technology, DSM, and Maastricht University together with Maastricht UMC+, have made an initial investment of €10 million each over the next six years. Via the Chemelot Campus, the Province of Limburg is investing €30 million into R&D activities and €20 million into research infrastructure and facilities for scaling-up production. The day-to-day management of the institute is in the hands of Managing Director Emiel Staring.
Atzo Nicolaï, President of DSM Nederland: “Chemelot InSciTe is an example of the business model of the future. By using the golden triangle of knowledge institutes, government and businesses in a smart way, we in the Netherlands can further build on our international top position in innovation, set a course for the future, create employment and opportunities and work toward making the economy more sustainable in all three dimensions: People, Planet and Profit.”
Prof. Hans van Duijn, Vice-Chancellor of Eindhoven University of Technology: “For the TU/e, Chemelot InSciTe is an important platform for initiating and expanding research activities in areas of innovation which are of great significance to the TU/e. The collaboration with industrial and academic partners like DSM and UM/MUMC+, the availability of the bio-based pilot plant and the presence of biomedical research facilities on the Chemelot Campus offer us excellent opportunities to further build on our leading position on a global scale. In addition, Chemelot InSciTe is perfectly suited to creating added economic value from research results.”
Guy Peeters, CEO of Maastricht UMC+: “Chemelot InSciTe enables Maastricht UMC+ to strengthen its position in the field of biomedical materials and regenerative medicine. This is crucial for our institute, because breakthroughs are expected in these domains in the next few years. Developing new materials calls for a combination of technical knowledge and skill, material sciences and an integral approach to sickness and health. Of course, Maastricht UMC+ cannot do this on its own. That is why we are so pleased to work together with the TU/e and DSM at Chemelot InSciTe. Thanks to this collaboration, the Maastricht UMC+ can anchor itself even more firmly in the southeastern region of the Netherlands.”
Prof. Martin Paul, chairman of the executive board of Maastricht University: “We are happy with the Provincial Council’s decision, which represents an important step forward. InSciTe is a magnificent initiative and we have a great deal of faith in it. The next step is to fine-tune a number of organizational, financial and legal points by discussing these with our University Council and Supervisory Board. At InSciTe, the partners bring together knowledge and experience in the field of biomedical and bio-based materials. This is extremely valuable to Maastricht University in our efforts to further develop the strategic aim of advancing the sciences. The collaboration with the TU/e and DSM, and the research and experimental opportunities available on the Chemelot Campus, offer the greatest added value. Working together with DSM and TU/e and integrating the research and demonstration facilities at Chemelot into study programs creates a hotspot for training a new generation of talented scientists and entrepreneurs.”
Bert Kip, CEO of Chemelot Campus: “Chemelot InSciTe is a crucial element in the process of making Chemelot Campus the number-one place in Europe for knowledge workers in the fields of bio-based materials and biomedical materials, two important focus areas for developing the campus. This development is based on, among other things, the presence of knowledge carriers, for example knowledge institutes. Chemelot InSciTe is a new knowledge institute which can achieve this goal. Chemelot Campus wants to accelerate its growth to encompass 2900 jobs and 1000 students in 2023 (these figures are currently at 1350 and 250). We also want a hundred companies to be established at the Campus by that time. Chemelot InSciTe greatly adds to the campus’s appeal and will therefore help realize this growth.”
Twan Beurskens, member of the Provincial Executive for Economy and Real Estate Department for the Province of Limburg: “I am very happy about the establishment of Chemelot InSciTe and I’m also proud of it. This scientific center with a large number of knowledge workers physically active in the region will play a pioneering role in the field of developing biomedical and bio-based materials. The core of our policy is to strengthen the regional economy by means of the ‘Knowledge Axis’. Our region plays a crucial role in this process within several top sectors and as part of the EU Horizon 2020 programs, and there is also a lot of common ground with our partners just across the border. In short, this is the start of a wonderful new development, and we as a province can also expect profits from marketing the products created by this institute.”
CategoriesBiomaterials, Development, Innovation, Uncategorized TagsBiomedical Materials, Chemelot Campus, Chemelot InSCiTe, DSM, Investment, Limburg, Maastricht UMC, TU/e, UM
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Why AC/DC Welcomed Phil Rudd Back to the Band
Gary Miller, FilmMagic, Getty Images
Angus Young believed Phil Rudd could play drums with AC/DC again after seeing him at Malcolm Young's funeral. “He just looked so good,” Angus told Rolling Stone. “He was there and in good shape. He was keeping himself well-together. He was getting therapy and sorting himself out. It was really good.”
That day in November 2017, less than two weeks after Malcolm's death, was the first time Angus had seen the drummer since the conclusion of the Rock or Bust sessions in 2014. A month before the album's release, Rudd was charged with trying to hire a hitman, threatening to kill someone and possession of methamphetamine and cannabis. By April 2015, the procurement charge was dropped, and Rudd pleaded guilty to the other charges. He was sentenced to eight months of home detention.
Chris Slade, who drummed with AC/DC from 1989-94, was then brought back into the band. But during the entire ordeal, it was never announced that Rudd was fired from the band. The day after his arrest, the band put out a statement saying his absence "will not affect" tour plans. "He’s got to sort himself out, I think," Angus Young said a week later. "But we were resolved to go forward."
By 2016, Rudd had declared himself a changed man, saying he had quit drugs and was seeing a therapist every week. "It has become part of who I am now," he revealed. "With help. I have had to get help on my issues. I've never felt better in my life. Physically, mentally, I am in the best shape I have ever been."
The long road to recovery has paid off, with Rudd returning to the drum stool for the band's new album, reportedly titled Power Up. The drummer's involvement with the project was rumored in the summer of 2018, when he was spotted with singer Brian Johnson at a recording studio. His return was confirmed when AC/DC recently issued a new publicity photo featuring the band lineup.
Johnson, who remained in touch with Rudd, also noticed the difference in his bandmate. “I speak for all the boys with Phil,” the singer told Rolling Stone. “We defend Phil to the hilt. What happened up there, that’s not the Phil we know. That was just something else. He’s really looking brilliant now and doing everything great.”
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Source: Why AC/DC Welcomed Phil Rudd Back to the Band
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Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'
Renowned physicist shares thoughts on God, fatherly advice in ABC interview.
By KI MAE HEUSSNER
June 7, 2010— -- Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking knows more about the universe than almost any other person ever to walk the planet, but some answers still escape even him.
When asked by ABC News' Diane Sawyer about the biggest mystery he'd like solved, he said, "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing."
Hawking, who was honored last week at the World Science Festival in New York, is famous for probing the deepest questions of the cosmos.
Until he stepped down last fall, he held the post of Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton, the "father of physics" himself.
During Hawking's 30 years in the post, he gave his colleagues new ways to look at the universe. But he also gave the public, through his many books and occasional appearances, a way to connect with the often obscure world of theoretical physics.
'Brief History of Time' Is an International Best-Seller
"Stephen has had a tremendous impact on our understanding of the universe, particularly of warp space and warp time in the universe, black holes, the origin of the universe," said physicist Kip Thorn at last week's World Science Festival event honoring Hawking.
Hawking's most well-known book, "A Brief History of Time," sold more than 9 million copies and is an international best-seller. He's even made brief cameos in pop culture staples like "The Simpsons" and "Star Trek."
But exploring the origins of time inevitably leads to questions about the ultimate origins of everything and what, if anything, is behind it all.
"What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."
When Sawyer asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."
Hawking: Alien Visit Would Be Like Columbus' Arrival in the Americas
Hawking, 68, was diagnosed with the motor neuron disorder ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, when he was 21. He was told that he likely would not live more than a few years.
But on his personal website he said that with "a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before."
"I suddenly realized that there were a lot of worthwhile things I could do if I were reprieved," he said.
He went on to have a family (he has three children and one grandchild) and, though his condition progressed, he continued his research unabated with the help of a wheelchair and, later, an electronic speech synthesizer.
Though Hawking no longer holds his position with Cambridge University, he continues to hold the public's attention.
In April, he grabbed headlines after the premiere of the Discovery Channel series, "Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking."
Aliens Might Look to Conquer, Colonize, Hawking Said
In the program, he said it is likely that alien life exists, but a visit from extraterrestrials might be similar to Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas.
"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."
He also speculated that aliens' capabilities "would be only limited by how much power they could harness and control, and that could be far more than we might first imagine."
It might even be possible for aliens to harvest the energy from an entire star, he added.
"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach," Hawking said.
Hawking to His Children: Look Up at the Stars
But though Hawking may think that looking for aliens is not a wise choice, his daughter Lucy, with whom he has written a children's book, told Sawyer that she disagrees.
"We have a fundamental disagreement on that one," she said good-naturedly. " Because I think if they're so smart that they could destroy us, then it doesn't matter if we look for them or not. Because if they're that clever, they know we're here. They can find us whether we look for them or not."
But Lucy said she and her father agree on many other things.
"We like the bustle, we like the excitement, we like the lights, we like the company," she said. "We like all the complicated things that human civilization has created."
As Hawking's children navigate the many complexities of human life, he told Sawyer that he's offered up three pieces of advice.
"One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it," he said. "Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away."
If you want to learn more about the 5-day World Science Festival, click here.
Click here to return to the "World News" page.
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Non-Surgical Procedures – Botox
The market of botulinum toxin has been growing in recent years. In Brazil is the most desired product by most women and moves million reais every year. The most well known and respond by the name of Botox and Dysport. They act primarily by paralyzing the muscles of the face, in particular in the region of the forehead, smoothing the so feared Tan expression and also around the eyes, ending with the chicken feet! Can be used as a way to prevent wrinkles, giving more longevity to an unmarked skin.
Many consider botox as youth formula!
– Frequently asked questions
How does the botulinum toxin in our body?
Botulinum toxin acts by preventing the passage of electrical impulse between the nerve and the muscle. With that, the muscle is paralyzed. The use of botox in the field of aesthetic medicine is due to the fact that the dynamic wrinkles (those that occur when you move the face) are produced by the muscle contraction. Soon, paralyzing the muscles that produce those wrinkles, there will be no further formation of wrinkles by the time of the product.
When should we start using botox?
There is no age pre determined for the start of the use of this product. It can be used from a young age (20 years) in the case of many patients expressive, using much the muscles of the forehead and make dynamic wrinkles, in order to prevent the formation of permanent wrinkles (even those who remain without muscle contraction) or middle-aged patients or even older as a way to rejuvenate the face, either on its own or complementing the result of plastic surgery.
In which regions of the face to botulinum toxin can be used?
Botulinum toxin can be used safely on the face in the following areas: the forehead (frown lines on the forehead), around the eyes, treating wrinkles known as crow’s feet, between the eyebrows, treating the creases that affect this region , used in the area below the eyebrow aiming to raise a bit its tail, which indicates youthfulness, wrinkles around the mouth and lips and finally the handle and smooth the wrinkles of the neck and chest area.
It is true that the botox takes the expression of the face?
Botulinum toxin can but leave the face without expression, so the patient should seek a plastic surgeon or dermatologist so that you applied the product the right way in order to let the person with younger air, but without compromising your facial expression . An application made in adequate doses, improves skin, softens wrinkles and returns the most joyful features the face naturally.
The application of botox is painful? How long does the effect?
Don’t. The application is made after the use of a local anesthetic and ice location that is acting for about 20 minutes before performing the procedure. What you feel is a slight discomfort in the region where the needle is inserted, but totally bearable. The effect occurs between 2 to 10 days and lasts on average of 4 to 6 months.
What are the precautions that must be taken after the application of botulinum toxin?
The main care should be taken in the first 4:0 after the application of botox. We recommend that the patient not lie down during this period to prevent the migration of the product to other muscle is not scheduled to be paralyzed. The patient gets a micropore dressing in the region applied and cannot do physical activities on the same day.
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Tag Archives: Nairobi
Cape Town’s water crisis proves we need to think about water in a new way
Cape Town caught the world’s attention earlier this year with dramatic headlines that it could become the world’s first major city to run out of water, joining an ever-growing line-up of major cities, regions and nations facing comparable threats, including São Paulo, Mexico City, Barcelona, Bangalore, Nairobi, California; and Australia and large parts of the Middle East and North Africa.
A tough water-saving regime helped push back Day Zero for dry taps in Cape Town to 2019. But the crises around the world have surfaced deep patterns of disconnect in our relationships with water. At the same time, at a local scale, water has emerged as a lens through which to view the complex dynamics of politics, governance, privilege and agency in one the world’s most unequal societies.
The Khoikhoi pastoralists, thought to be the original inhabitants of what is now Cape Town, were drawn to the slopes of Table Mountain around 2,000 years ago for the freshwater springs and rivers that flow year round. They named the place Camissa, the “place of sweet waters.” The natural abundance of water also drew early Dutch settlers here in the 17th century to establish a supply station for ships crossing the seas for the Dutch East India Company.
Aqueducts, channels, an old sand filtration system, and other relics of an extensive colonial-era water infrastructure can still be found on the mountain. The growing modern city long ago outstripped these natural resources, however, and these local waters disappeared from everyday life. Rivers and streams were encased in concrete, recharge areas for underground groundwater stores were paved over, and distant catchment areas were tapped to feed the city. At the same time millions of liters of fresh water were channeled from the city out to sea every day in storm-water drains.
But the Cape Town water supply remains as dependent as ever on surface water collected in dams from rivers, and the ecological health of these rivers has long been neglected.
Read more at: Quartz Africa
dcaputo Posted in environment Africa, Africa News, Bangalore, Barcelona, California, Cape Town, Mexico City, Nairobi, South Africa, Water Crisis, water-saving regime Leave a comment
Kenya election 2017: Raila Odinga says election systems hacked
Kenya opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga has said the electoral commission’s IT system has been hacked to manipulate the election results.
He rejected early results from Tuesday’s vote indicating a strong lead for President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The electoral commission has not yet responded to Mr Odinga’s accusation, but politicians have called for calm.
Many fear a repeat of the violence after a disputed election 10 years ago.
More than 1,100 Kenyans died and 600,000 were displaced following the 2007 vote.
Africa Live: Results and reaction
Full election coverage
Mr Odinga said that the hackers gained access to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) computer system by using the identity of the commission’s IT manager, Chris Msando, who was killed last month.
The opposition leader had earlier told journalists the results coming in were “fake”, because the authorities had failed to present documents verifying the results.
Electoral officials say that with 91% of results in, Mr Kenyatta is leading with about 54.5%, to Mr Odinga’s 44.6%.
These results mean Mr Kenyatta appears to be heading for a first-round victory. In order to avoid a run-off, a candidate needs 50% plus one of the votes cast and at least a 25% share of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.
There were eight candidates in all, but apart from Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga none polled more than 0.3% of the vote.
What is Mr Odinga’s complaint about the vote?
The opposition has described the results being released online as a “fraud” because they were not accompanied by original result forms 34A and 34B from the polling stations.
“They are fictitious, they are fake,” said Mr Odinga.
He said that the results were “the work of a computer” and did not reflect the will of voters.
“We have our projections from our agents which show we are ahead by far,” he added.
Opposition officials have said that, despite assurances from the electoral commission, they still have not received the result forms.
What does the electoral commission say?
The electoral commission has been urging people to wait calmly for the full results of Tuesday’s vote.
“During this critical phase, we urge all Kenyans to exercise restraint as we await official results from the polling stations and indeed as they start trickling in,” the commission said.
However, it admitted that a lack of mobile data coverage had delayed the delivery of the supporting documents, forms 34A and 34B.
There had been reports on election day of the failure of some voter-identification equipment. Also, one in four polling stations were apparently without mobile phone coverage, meaning that officials were asked to drive to the nearest town to send results.
The presidential candidates’ agents would have “special access” to the forms, though, the electoral commission said.
The Daily Nation newspaper quoted commission head Ezra Chiloba as saying only results supported by the forms had been published.
How did the voting go?
Voting passed off largely peacefully and some polling stations remained open after the scheduled 17:00 (14:00 GMT) closing time.
People started queuing early to ensure they could cast their vote. Long queues could be seen, and video footage at one polling station showed people injured after an apparent stampede.
There were reports that one man had been killed in clashes in the Kilifi area.
But there was one heartening moment when a woman gave birth to a baby girl as she queued in West Pokot to cast her ballot. New mother Pauline Chemanang called the circumstances of the birth a “blessing” and called her baby Kura, Swahili for “ballot”, according to local radio.
However, in the run-up to election day, a top election official was murdered, there were claims of vote-rigging and hate speech flyers and rhetorical text messages began circulating.
Some nervous Kenyans stockpiled food and water, while police prepared emergency first aid kits in the event of violence.
What is at stake?
Mr Kenyatta is hoping for a second term in office.
Voting for the national and local assemblies has also been taking place
Mr Odinga, 72, has run for president three times and lost each time. President Kenyatta, the 55-year-old son of Kenya’s founding president, beat him in the last election in 2013, but their rivalry is generations old – their fathers were political opponents in the 1960s.
Mr Kenyatta and his running-mate William Ruto were indicted by the International Criminal Court for their alleged roles in the bloodshed a decade ago. The case ultimately collapsed due to lack of evidence, and after key witnesses died or disappeared.
Six separate ballot papers: For president, national assembly, female representatives, governors, senate and county assemblies
47 parliamentary seats and 16 senate seats reserved for women
Eight presidential candidates: President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga are favourites
Kenyatta beat Odinga in 2013 – their fathers were also political rivals in the 1960s
A candidate needs 50% plus one vote for first-round victory
More than 14,000 candidates running across the six elections
More than 45% of registered voters under 35
Some 180,000 security officers on duty nationwide in case of trouble
Read full article on BBC
dcaputo Posted in Uncategorized Africa, Democracy, Economy, Election, Governance, government, hacked, Kenya, Nairobi, president, rigger, Vote Leave a comment
Kenya: Tribalism or Regionalism – Factors That Will Determine Kenya Polls Winner
Kenya: Tribalism or Regionalism – Factors That Will Determine Kenya Polls Winner. Kenyans go to the polls today to choose their next crop of leaders for various elective posts.
The presidential election is billed as one of the most tightly contested in the country’s electoral history, with the most recent opinion polls showing a 1-3 percentage gap between the incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee Party and Raila Odinga of the National Super Alliance.
While the cost of living, unemployment, corruption, security and free public services are key issues having an impact on the lives of Kenyans, the ultimate winner will be determined by a motley of factors.
The EastAfrican’s Peter Munaita lists the top ten.
1. TRIBALISM OR REGIONALISM
Politicians talk of shunning it, at least until an election comes around.
Alliances are primarily informed by it and top leaders in them, principals in Kenya parlance, picked depending on their potential to rally their communities behind the coalition. That includes the choice of running mates too for presidential and gubernatorial positions.
So it is that the Jubilee Party is viewed as a dominion championing the cause of two communities, Kikuyus and Kalenjins, while the National Super Alliance (Nasa) is taken to be rooting for the interests of the Luo, the Kamba and the Luhya.
Predictably, the protagonists deny this and claim to be motivated by a need to unite Kenyans. Practice, however, discounts their word, with candidates in metropolitan areas like Nairobi appealing to tribal sentiment and those in rural areas exploiting the clan factor.
The recognition of Asians as Kenya’s 44th tribe recently — forget their diverse cultural and religious background — falls under this matrix.
So tribal is Kenya that opinion polls show a polarisation on key issues by region and by dominant community. On matters like worsening cost of living which affects all voters, Central, North Eastern and Rift Valley — home to the president, leader of government business and deputy president respectively, led in approval of the government.
In contrast, Nyanza, Eastern, Western and Coast — homes to Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga, running mate Kalonzo Musyoka, two principals Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula and Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho — led in disapproval of the government.
Overall, 85 per cent of Jubilee supporters in a poll by Ipsos approved of the president while 74 per cent of Nasa supporters disapproved of him.
In a poll by Infotrak, five per cent of those who said the country was going in the right direction boldly said it was because “my candidate is in power” while nine per cent blamed tribalism for the country going in the wrong direction.
Asked about tribalism trampling on issues in Kenyan elections during the presidential debate, Mr Odinga referred to the homeboy mentality in the US to explain why Nyanza voters were more likely to support him than Mr Kenyatta, with the vice versa obtaining in Central.
Outside the home areas, however, Mr Odinga said that the support of each would be more inclined to issues. While the homeboy factor holds going by opinion polls, it is unlikely that issues explain why Jubilee is also the most popular party in Eastern, Rift Valley and North Eastern, while Nasa holds more sway in Nairobi, Coast and Western.
Voters identifying with a candidate’s issues outside the home region would be expected to be more evenly spread. Of note was a finding in the Ipsos poll that less than a half of respondents (46 per cent) believed any political party “genuinely represents the interests of ordinary Kenyans.”
A winning presidential candidate is by law required to garner more than a half of the votes cast (50+1) and win at least a quarter of the votes in 24 of the 47 counties.
All opinion polls show the leading candidates will meet the second condition but the regions present quite a tight race with regard to the first.
2. MONEY AND SOURCES
Running an election is an expensive affair, with regard to logistics and mobilisation of supporters. Upwards of Ksh5 billion ($500 million) has been floated the amount required to run an affective presidential campaign.
It is reported that in 2013, in the choice of Musalia Mudavadi as a fallback candidate should Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto be barred from running because of crimes against humanity charges that were facing them, money became a dealbreaker.
“We cannot support you and give you money for the campaigns” is said to have been one of the home truths uttered to Mr Mudavadi’s face.
Until recently, elections were won by the candidate who would lobby rivals and their supporters to step down in their favour; something that is still believed to be key in determining which alliance top leaders choose.
The mudslinging between Jubilee and Nasa on the role of businessman Jimi Wanjigi in the current and previous campaigns is understood to revolve around a deal gone sour for the tapping of one principal to shift alliances.
Nowhere is the influence of money more evident than in political rallies where followers are bedecked in party attire, helicopters fly from one venue to another and party mobilisers are compensated for a day’s work. Crowds are also hired to participate in rallies and other campaign activities.
With the campaign financing regulations in limbo and funding of political parties by the State inadequate, resources are mobilised through fundraisers where a dinner plate goes for more than $10,000.
Source from allAfrica
dcaputo Posted in Economy, Employment, governance, News Africa, Democracy, Economy, Election, Kenya, Kenya Votes, KenyaDecides, Nairobi, Voter, Voting Leave a comment
Kenyans queue for hours to vote amid fears of post-election violence
Long queues formed outside polling stations across Kenya on Tuesday morning as fiercely contested presidential elections got under way following last-minute calls for calm from officials and politicians.
Many voters had waited for hours in the rain to choose between the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been in power since 2013, or the veteran opposition politician Raila Odinga. The most recent polls did not indicate a clear winner.
An estimated 180,000 police officers and members of the security forces have been deployed amid fears of violence after the result is announced, which may be as early as Wednesday morning.
The campaign was marred by hundreds of violent incidents – including the murder of a high-profile election official – issues with new voting technology and widespread concerns about fraud.
More than 1,100 people died after the losers rejected the election result in 2007.
In recent days bus stations have been busy as many Kenyans have left major cities for provincial areas which are seen as safer. Others have stockpiled groceries, phone cards and other essentials.
Election officials have circulated short videos on social media calling on voters to accept that in a “healthy democracy there are winners and losers”.
Kenyatta, 55, addressed the nation on Monday night, urging citizens to vote “in peace” while the former US president Barack Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, led international calls for a violence-free election.
“I urge Kenyan leaders to reject violence and incitement; respect the will of the people,” Obama said in a statement.
There are more than 19 million registered voters in the nation of 48 million. Half are aged under 35. They will vote in 40,000 polling stations.
Pamela Mwande, 33, said she had voted for Kenyatta in the upscale Lavington area of Nairobi.
“[The president] has been a good leader. We should not have change and disruption and fuss,” she said.
Observers see the election as the last showdown of a dynastic rivalry between the families of Kenyatta and Odinga, 72, that has lasted more than half a century.
The presidential candidates’ fathers – Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga – fought together for independence from Britain in 1963 before becoming bitter rivals.
Odinga is making his fourth attempt to gain power. He claims that elections in 2007 and 2013 were stolen from him.
The men belong to two of the country’s main ethnic groups, Kenyatta from the Kikuyu, the largest, and Odinga from the Luo.
Both have built coalitions with other influential communities in a country where voting still takes place largely along ethnic lines.
Kenyatta’s first term saw a massive infrastructure drive and steady economic growth of more than 5%, making Kenya one of the best performing economies in Africa.
However his record has been undermined by soaring food prices, ongoing high unemployment and major corruption scandals.
Result of tight contest between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga could be known by Wednesday morning.
Via TheGuardian
dcaputo Posted in Economy, Employment, governance, News Africa, Democracy, Economy, Election, growth, Kenya, Nairobi, Polling Station, Vote, Voter Leave a comment
Kenya: Polls Open in Centers Countrywide Amid Tight Security
Nairobi — Polls have opened in Kenya’s high stakes election, with voters having started streaming to polling stations as early as 1am.
Voting has already started in most parts of the country.
Anxious voters camped throughout the night at various polling stations ready to cast the vote on Tuesday morning, signaling a likely high voter turnout in the Kenya vote.
At the Moi Avenue Primary School Polling Station in Nairobi’s Starehe Constituency, hundreds of voters started lining up at 11pm and more were streaming in at 1am, five hours ahead of 6am when polls were set to open.
“I thought I am the only one coming early… I am surprised at the number of people here and the more that are coming,” Peter Mureithi said, having joined the queue shortly before midnight Monday.
The polling station is the largest in the city centre, and the queue was already past the Globe Cinema Interchange a few meters from Moi Avenue.
Most of the voters who chose to spend the night at the poll station were hawkers from around the city who wanted to vote early and carry on with their work.
“It was easier for us to stay here than go home then come back here early in the morning. We have our jobs to do and our families to feed but we also want to exercise our constitutional right to vote for the leaders we want,” one of the voters who identified herself as Muthoni said.
Another voter added: “There is no sleeping today. If we have to, we will do so while sitting here. We want to be among the first ones to vote and by 9am all of us should be back to work. Above all, we want to vote peacefully.”
The call for peace resonated with everyone we spoke to with all calling for restraint and people to accept the results.
“Everyone has a right to vote and we should all be ready to accept the results. There is no need to fight because of elections. We are all Kenyans irrespective of tribe. If we fight, will any of the candidates come to bring us food in our houses?” Calvin Otieno, another voter said after joining the queue at midnight.
Another one added: “These politicians always say we are the stupid ones because for them at the end of the day they will be friends, call each other brother and son while we are fighting with each other for them. We must be friends too.”
There was heavy security at the polling station, with more than 10 police officers patrolling the area.
Starehe is one of the constituencies in the city which will witness a bare knuckle fight for the new Member of Parliament with the battle pitting youngsters; businessman Steve Mbogo, musician Charles ‘Jaguar’ Njagua and activist Boniface Mwangi.
via allAfrica
dcaputo Posted in Economy, governance, News Africa, Communications, Democracy, development, Economy, Election, Employment, Environment, Governance, government, growth, Kenya, Nairobi, opportunity, Polls, sustainability, Vote Leave a comment
The top 10 wealthiest cities in Africa: AfrAsia Bank & New World Wealth
AfrAsia Bank and New World Wealth recently reviewed the 10 wealthiest cities in Africa by total wealth held.
“Total wealth” refers to the private wealth held by all the individuals living in each city. It includes all their assets (property, cash, equities and business interests) less any liabilities. We exclude government funds from our figures.
Top 10 Cities:
Johannesburg: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$245 billion. Home to 18,200 millionaires (HNWIs), 970 multi-millionaires and 2 billionaires. Our figures for Johannesburg include Sandton. Major sectors in the city include: financial services (banks, accountancies, insurance), professional services (law firms), construction, telecoms and basic materials.
Cairo: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$140 billion. Home to 8,900 millionaires, 480 multi-millionaires and 5 billionaires. Major sectors in the city include: real estate & construction, financial services and basic materials.
Cape Town: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$135 billion. Home to 8,200 millionaires, 440 multi-millionaires and 2 billionaires. Major sectors in the city include: real estate, financial services (fund management), retail and tourism. Cape Town is also a second home hotspot for the wealthy with over 1,500 multi-millionaires living in the city during peak holiday months (many of these individuals are from outside South Africa).
Lagos: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$120 billion. Home to 6,800 millionaires, 360 multi-millionaires and 4 billionaires. Major sectors in the city include: real estate & construction, telecoms, transport, financial services and basic materials.
Nairobi: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$55 billion. Home to 6,800 millionaires and 280 multi-millionaires (no billionaires). Major sectors in the city include: financial services, real estate & construction, retail, tourism, FMCG, telecoms and basic materials.
Luanda: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$48 billion. Home to 4,100 millionaires, 240 multi-millionaires and one billionaire. Major sectors in the city include: real estate & construction, transport and basic materials (oil & gas).
Durban: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$46 billion. Home to 3,200 millionaires, 130 multi-millionaires and one billionaire. Our figures for Durban include Umhlanga, Ballito, Zimbali and La Lucia. Major sectors in the city include: real estate, finance, healthcare, construction, retail and transport.
Pretoria: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$42 billion. Home to 2,600 millionaires and 110 multi-millionaires (no billionaires). Major sectors in the city include: basic materials, manufacturing and financial services.
Casablanca: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$40 billion. Home to 2,300 millionaires, 110 multi-millionaires and 2 billionaires. Major sectors in the city include: basic materials, manufacturing and financial services.
Accra: Total wealth held in the city amounts to US$35 billion. Home to 2,300 millionaires and 100 multi-millionaires (no billionaires). Major sectors in the city include: basic materials, manufacturing and financial services.
Read More: African Business Central
dcaputo Posted in News Accra, Africa, Cairo, Cape Town, Casablanca, Durban, Johannesburg, Lagos, Luanda, Nairobi, Pretoria Leave a comment
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ATR:
African Traditional Religion. There are two main concerns of ATR: one is ancestral veneration, and the other is service to the divinities.
candomblé:
the name of the most widely recognized African Traditional Religion (ATR) practiced in Brazil. There are many different denominations of ATR in Brazil, and there are many different sects of candomblé, called 'nations', including West, Central and Southern African traditions, such as ketu, bantu, and jeje.
carioca:
refers to people born in Rio de Janeiro. Carioca da gema refers to people whose families have been born in Rio de Janeiro for many generations.
chattel slavery:
a form of slavery that involves a person owning another person as a piece of personal property—able to lend, rent, sell or inherit—in the same way one can own a cow or a pig. This is distinct from other types of slavery, like wage slavery, punishment, or indentured servitude.
escravo de ganho (earning slave):
a type of urban slavery where the enslaved person had to work at a job, but the wages/salaries were paid to the person designated as the 'master'. Typical jobs included construction and transportation of goods and people.
favela:
tight-knit urban communities that are self-built and self-organized due to lack of State services and infrastructure, like sewers, trash collection, and street lamps. Often referred to as "slums" or "shantytowns" in the international press, Rio de Janeiro has between 600-1000 favela communities, depending who's counting.
jongo:
a drum rhythm, a song and a dance originating from Congo-Angola, which was continued by the enslaved in rural Brazil. Today, descendants keep this tradition in both rural and urban strongholds. Jongo is a symbol of political and cultural resistance.
ladino:
a category of enslaved Africans who had adapted to the culture of their captors; an African-born person 'broken' by the slave system.
designates a large public area; a square.
mãe-de-santo or pai-de-santo:
Holy Mother or Holy Father; Priestess or Priest. In Candomblé and other ATRs, both men and women can rise to the highest ranks in the religious orders and lead groups of practitioners and initiates in their rituals, teaching the wisdom, the traditions and the secrets of their sect.
In humans, melanin is the biological substance that gives us color--skin, hair, eyes--and why skin gets darker in the sun. People with albinism have little to no melanin. Lighter-skinned people have less, while darker-skinned people have more of it.
orixá:
(in Spanish: orisha); the divine spiritual entities at the center of ATR practices in Brazil. In short, the orixás represent the manifestations of the powers of nature — likely the origin of those similar pantheons in Greek or Roman mythology.
pardo:
a racial category of brown-skinned or mixed-race people. Historically, in Brazil, race has often been designated in 3 categories: branco/branca=white; pardo/parda=brown or mixed-race; and preto/preta=black. For many Afro-Brazilians, "preto/preta" is an offensive term and they prefer "negro/negra". Also, there is some controversy around including "pardo/parda" with African identity, as it could be erasing indigenous identity. Indigenous-mixed Brazilians can be brown-skinned but not Afro-descendant.
praça:
designates a large public area; a plaza.
pretos novos:
(literally: new blacks) refers to the captured and enslaved Africans as they arrived in Brazil. Upon arrival to Brazilian shores, the pretos novos had been in captivity, on average, for one year.
pretos velhos:
(literally: old blacks) a powerful spiritual entity found in Camdomblé, Umbanda, and other ATRs. Spiritually, the pretos velhos act as guardian angels, protectors, and guides for the descendants of the enslaved in Brazil. They hold African memory and connect the New World to Old Africa.
quilombo:
(in Spanish: palenque) a community of runaway slaves; maroon community. There are over 2500 registered quilombos in Brazil, but the true number is still unknown.
terreiro:
In Candomblé and other ATRs, the terreiro is the place where the group gathers to practice their rituals. A practitioner belongs to a specific terreiro the same way a Christian belongs to a specific church, a Jew belongs to a specific synagogue, or a Muslim belongs to a specific mosque. Usually, the terreiro is an outdoor location, though in urban settings, it can be indoors, like a temple.
tigres (tigers):
a very low status enslaved person who was charged with carrying waste from homes and dumping it into the bay. Tigres carried the waste in large vessels on their heads and the foul contents would slop and slosh around as they walked through the city. The drips would permanently stain their skin, leaving a striping pattern and thus, they were called 'tigers'.
umbanda:
a syncretic religion that mixes traditions from Africa, the Roman Catholic saint system, the Spiritism practices of Allan Kardec, and indigenous religious practices. This religion was founded near Rio de Janeiro, in the city of Niteroí, but has spread throughout Brazil and South America.
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Tag Archives: Miles Davis Tutu
Marcus Miller: Suspending the Rules
Posted on August 22, 2012 by Angelika Beener
As Marcus Miller catches me up on a major project he’d been working on over the last couple years, he stops mid-sentence to give me some background, humbly explaining, “I had produced an album called Tutu for Miles Davis.”
No big whoop, right?
When you talk to the bassist, composer, producer, arranger, and film scorer, his down-to-earth and disarming demeanor is center stage, while his illustrious career speaks volumes for itself. In the twenty-six years since that landmark album with Davis, Miller has carved out his own distinguished path, setting himself miles apart from the pack. His collaborative efforts include an esteemed list of trailblazers across musical styles and genres including Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Mariah Carey and Herbie Hancock. He has also positioned himself as one of the most highly sought after black film scorers in Hollywood while simultaneously enjoying a successful solo career. On Renaissance (Concord Jazz), his eighth studio album as a leader, Miller’s message away from his instrument is just as profound as the music performed by he and his fresh band of dynamic, young players. “I think that music is really just a mirror to whatever’s going on in the world, and we’re just in a time where people are kind of playing it safe,” Miller proclaims. “People are nervous; people are thinking about money all the time, so they’re not taking the chances they used to take. It’s difficult — even if you’re doing something interesting — it’s difficult to get people to hear it. Record companies are just trying to stay in business so they’re not really concerned with presenting new, challenging music. So it’s more like the business people are calling the shots more than they used to. Back in the day, it was the music lovers who called the shots, and then they’d have to explain it to the business people. Not a lot of guys around like that anymore. Everybody’s just trying to keep the doors open. Music and business has always been an uncomfortable relationship, but right now the music is really suffering.”
Miller’s effortlessness at being completely himself oozes out of every corner of Renaissance, and if it’s about risk-taking, he has accomplished said mission on an album which directly references a span of over thirty years of black culture, including songs from Michael Jackson, WAR, and Janelle Monáe. Although for Miller, it’s just a day in the life of a musician bred in the thriving 70s music scene of Jamaica, Queens. “It’s a reflection of the madness in my mind, which sounds really normal to me. It all just sounds like soulful black music. It’s all so related, so I don’t really hear it as eclectic as other people do.” Miller also presents some of his most prolific writing to date, with eight original compositions that showcase his talented band which includes trumpeters Sean Jones and Maurice Brown; alto saxophonist Alex Han; keyboardists Kris Bowers, Federico Gonzalez Peña and Bobby Sparks; guitarists Adam Agati and Adam Rogers; and drummer Louis Cato. The band has been touring extensively over the last two years, and came together around Tutu Revisited, a project started in tandem with the French Miles Davis exhibit, We Want Miles.
“The museum curator who made the exhibit asked me if I would play all the music from Tutu for the exhibit. So I said I would really like to do something in conjunction with this museum. Miles wasn’t really a guy who liked to look back… I’m not sure he would have liked that, but I said maybe if I get some young musicians who could reinterpret it and turn it into something from today, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, so that’s what I did. I found Alex at Berklee, and he recommended a drummer, and the drummer recommended another musician, and next thing you know, I have this band of 20-something cats, and instead of two gigs, it ended up being two years on tour, because people started getting wind of what we were doing. I felt myself being re-energized with this band. The band before, I had for a long time, and I found myself playing different and playing with a different energy and I kind of got hooked on that feeling.” Like his iconic mentor, Miller now finds himself in similar circumstances — a source of inspiration, organically bridging the generational gap.
Marcus Miller and Kris Bowers. Photo by Bibi Green.
“Miles never talked about being a mentor,” says Miller. “I’m not even sure he was consciously trying to be a mentor but just being around him as a young person… that’s how young people usually learn from older people anyway. Not necessarily from hearing them run their mouths, but just observing them and seeing how they run their everyday lives, and I had the benefit of watching him for a little while and how he made decisions and was just getting through life and I think it really affected me. I couldn’t tell you exactly how. The only thing I know is that I try to get the best out of my musicians where they can shine. I try to put them in situations where they can discover something about themselves.”
To his point, Miller carefully crafted the exquisite repertoire found here with this specific group in mind and brought them in on the process, most notably on the arrangement of the 1971 classic, “Mr. Clean”, written by another early mentor and unsung cultural hero — the late, great “Young, Gifted and Black” composer, Weldon Irvine.
“I was born in Brooklyn, but at the age of ten, I moved to Jamaica, Queens, and started my musical life there,” Miller reminisces. “Eventually at about fourteen [years old], I started meeting these bad musicians from Jamaica like Omar Hakim, and Tom Browne and Donald Blackman… and when I first met them, every one of them would refer to Weldon. Weldon was the mentor of the Jamaica cats. He’d put together gigs, because all of us were too young, so he was the one to coordinate and call all the guys together to play, and he was the one after the gig who would have some of us sit in the back of his Chevy Nova and listen to it on cassette (because he would record everything). He’d ask us to explain ourselves… the musical decisions that we made. He’d make us tell him what we had planned for our lives…what our goals were. ‘Mr. Clean’ was like his theme song, and on every gig we’d do with Weldon, we’d play different versions of it. We’d do it really funky and nasty or really jazzy. We had an off day on the road while on tour a couple of years ago, and we decided to rent out a rehearsal studio and we just worked up our own arrangement. It was so great to see these guys discover something I discovered so many years ago.”
Vocalists Dr. John, Rubén Blades and Gretchen Parlato make memorable guest appearances throughoutRenaissance, with Blades and Parlato partnering up on a gorgeous rendition of Brazilian composer Ivan Lins’ “Setembro”. Dr. John is a stunner, dropping New Orleans-flavored rap verses on the Janelle Monáe smash, “Tightrope”.
“I was listening to that Janelle Monáe cut, and I was just like, man this is so sweet! I was listening to that bass line and I said that sounds like one of those New Orleans piano players from back in the day, sort of boogie-woogie. I said I want to do a version of this song and accent the New Orleans aspect of this song and show the roots of where it comes from. With Dr. John, as soon as he says one word, you hear New Orleans. So I called him up and asked him if he’d be interested in collaborating. I said, ‘One thing is you’re going to have to rap, so get ready.’ He said, ‘Man, I don’t know how to rap.‘ I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.’ So I flew to New Orleans and we worked on Big Boi’s rap, and it was a lot of fun.”
Though Miller is now of veteran status, he insists that the inspiration is reciprocal and he is just as passionate about learning from his bandmates. With a band whose members have worked with artists like Beyoncé, Kanye West and Mary Mary, Miller is seeing first hand how his reputation as a limitless musician is influencing the next generation of jazz players, who can sometimes struggle with a community which can be heavily divided at times on matters of authenticity and does not always reward the idea of boundary-pushing.
“I think the biggest thing to consider is that if Charlie Parker had listened to people like that, he would never have ended up playing the way that he did because bebop was so different from the music that preceded it,” Miller says. “And then you can go down the line: If Miles had listened to those people in the 50s, if Trane would have listened to those people, he would never have done what he did. [For] people who are a little less secure, it’s really hard for them to accept new music… because you don’t know the rules yet. All the jazz musicians who I admire like Sonny Rollins; he’s not scared of anything. Herbie Hancock; he’s not afraid. Miles wasn’t afraid. It’s just the kind of people who aren’t that talented and that open, who want to set up the rules because they feel uncomfortable; they know they can’t hang. I know jazz guys who put down funk music, and then I’ll be on a gig, and invite him to come sit it with us, and he gets his head blown off [laughs]! He can’t even get started, because funk music has it’s own set of rules. It has its own requirements. A lot of jazz cats don’t have the tools, and vice versa. Although funk cats are smart enough to stay off the stage! But I’ve played with Aretha Franklin. You wanna put down R&B as a jazz musician? Come with me and sit down while Aretha sings in front of you, and I dare you to pass judgement. Stevie, Luther Vandross, Donny Hathaway — come on! That is the top level of musicality. So you just have to respect these different languages. It’s like, stop being a snob, man.”
It would be impossible to have a career distinction as singular as Miller’s and not have such a philosophy, or at least something close to it. It would be even more unimaginable to be a product of the school of Miles Davis, and not push against the status quo. Miller’s ability to do so both unapologetically and authentically, will likely be a significant part of his legacy, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
“It’s people in America who still want their music to be like European classical music… because with European classical music, the book is closed. You can’t write like Mozart anymore, you can’t write like Beethoven. That all happened, so European classical music has a real structure to it now because the book is closed. Once the book is closed you can put music in categories because it all happened and I think that there are a bunch of people in jazz who would like jazz to be the same way. They don’t really feel comfortable with what jazz really is. They’d rather it be America’s classical music, and they’re taking that shit too seriously. They’re trying to make it classical music, and jazz isn’t dead yet. Once it dies then you can say, ‘OK, this is jazz, that’s not jazz.’ As long as you got people out here still making it, you have to suspend the rules.”
** Writer’s Picks: “Detroit”, “Mr. Clean”, “Tightrope”
Posted in Arts, Culture, Interviews, Jazz, Music, News, Politics | Tagged Adam Agati, Adam Rogers, Alex Han, Bobby Sparks, Federica Gonzalez Pena, gretchen parlato, Janelle Monae, Kris Bowers, Louis Cato, Marcus Miller, Maurice Brown, Miles Davis Tutu, Ruben Blades, Sean Jones, WAR | 2 Comments
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| ERROR: type should be string, got "https://apnews.com/article/philippines-china-coronavirus-pandemic-rodrigo-duterte-46788b112c760c557cbc926c11a71cfd\nThe Latest: Spain hopes to vaccinate those in nursing homes\nBy The Associated PressNovember 24, 2020 GMT\nMortuary workers Marina Gómez and Manel Rivera store the body of a person who died of COVID-19 at Mémora morgue in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. Gómez and her fellow mortuary workers form part of Spain's rarely seen front line in the fight against COVID-19. Like doctors and nurses, they are part of a group of essential workers who see and touch the daily march of death amid the worst public health crisis in over a century. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)\nMADRID — Spain officials say health workers and residents in elder care homes will be the first group vaccinated when potential doses arrive.\nHealth Minister Salvador Illa says Spain has signed agreements with five vaccine producers and hopes to do so with two more. Once the vaccines are approved by the European Medicines Agency, Spain hopes to receive 140 million doses.\nGiven most vaccines will involve two doses, he says this should be enough to vaccinate some 80 million people and cover any possible problems with some vaccines.\nSpain, with a population of 47 million, intends to give vaccines for free and provide the excess vaccines to countries outside the European Union that need them, Illa says.\nThe government hopes to vaccinate some 2.5 million people in the first stage between January and March and most of the population who need vaccines covered by mid-year. The vaccinations will be given in Spain’s 13,000 public health centers.\nSpain has reported more than 1.5 million cases and more than 55,000 confirmed deaths.\n— Millions in US stick to Thanksgiving travel plans despite CDC warnings\n— Spain’s mortuary workers in high demand again, working with grace and professionalism as virus resurges\n— Just in time for December holidays, England to cut its mandatory 14-day quarantines for travelers from unsafe virus countries to as little as five days with testing regimen.\n— Los Angeles on the brink of a stay-home order as coronavirus cases rise.\n__ Drones to the rescue: Berlin lab seeks quicker virus tests.\nFollow AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak\nPRAGUE — The Czech Republic’s prime minister says his government is working on a plan to use rapid coronavirus tests for the entire country.\nPrime Minister Andrej Babis says the antigen testing will be free and won’t be mandatory. Babis says it would take place a week or 10 days before Christmas with the help from the military. The Health Ministry will present a detailed plan as soon as possible, Babis says.\nAntigen tests are less reliable than the standard PCR coronavirus tests, but they cost less and produce results in minutes.\nSlovakia tested nearly two thirds of its 5.5 million people in one weekend this month.\nThe Czech Republic, a nation of 10.7 million, has 496,638 confirmed cases and 7,360 deaths.\nTHE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch public health institute reports 36,931 confirmed coronavirus cases, a drop of about 775 in the past week.\nThe Netherlands imposed what it called a partial lockdown in mid-October, closing all bars and restaurants.\nThe public health institute says those admitted to hospitals with the coronavirus in the last week fell from 1,496 to 1,291. The number in intensive care dropped from 224 to 193 in the past seven days.\nSchools in the Netherlands have remained open since the first wave of infections in the spring.\nThere have been more than 500,000 cases in the Netherlands. The confirmed Dutch death toll is 9,035, although the actual number is likely higher because not all who had a suspected coronavirus infection were tested.\nNEW DELHI, India — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged states with a surge in coronavirus cases to establish cold storage facilities for COVID-19 vaccines.\nModi’s Tuesday meeting with state leaders came as India’s total infections soared past 9.18 million. More than 134,000 Indians have died due to the coronavirus.\nModi says his government is keeping track of vaccine development in the country and is in touch with vaccine developers across the world. He says “our priority is to make the vaccine available for all.”\nIndia is home to some of the world’s biggest vaccine makers and there are five vaccine candidates under different phases of trial here. But the state-run cold chain facilities used to keep some vaccines consistently refrigerated would be inadequate for the enormous challenge of rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine.\nTo address this issue, Modi’s government is augmenting the cold chain and transport mechanism for the vaccines. It is also readying a database of healthcare and frontline workers who will be inoculated first.\nBERLIN — State and federal health authorities in Germany say they are shortening quarantine periods for people who have come into contact with a confirmed COVID case from 14 days to 10, if they provide a negative test.\nOfficials said Tuesday that people who have previously had COVID-19 themselves and recovered do not need to quarantine anymore if they come into contact with a newly diagnosed patient, unless they show symptoms of illness.\nHealth officials have asked federal authorities to provide a legal basis for specially trained teachers to perform rapid antigen tests for the virus. Such tests are increasingly seen as an effective tool for screening people in schools and are deemed sufficient for shortening the quarantine period.\nLJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Slovenia has registered 59 new coronavirus deaths, a daily record for the small Alpine state.\nThe government says 1,302 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours, which raises the number of overall cases to 67,080. It has a total of 1,156 confirmed virus deaths.\nThe country of 2 million people has introduced strict lockdowns and other health measures to try to stem the outbreak.\nHELSINKI — Estonia has put in place new, tightened coronavirus restrictions that make wearing masks mandatory in public indoor places including transport, and reduce the maximum number of participants allowed to attend public events.\nRestrictions concerning masks and social distancing began Tuesday and the restrictions related to indoor public meetings, events and entertainment venues with fixed seating will take effect on Nov. 28.\nEstonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas says the spread of coronavirus is at a critical level in the country, especially for its medical system, for the number of COVID-19 patients is still increasing.\nThe small Baltic nation of 1.3 million has seen the number of daily coronavirus cases rising rapidly in the past two weeks, with 204 new cases in the past 24 hours. The 14-day average of new cases is now about 284 per 100,000 inhabitants.\nBERLIN — Germany’s 16 states want people to self-quarantine for several days before visiting family at Christmas, to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus to elderly and vulnerable relatives.\nThe dpa news agency reported Tuesday that states have agreed among themselves on a proposal for tightening Germany’s partial lockdown measures in the coming weeks, so they can be relaxed over the festive period.\nThe plan, which also suggests bringing forward school breaks and that employers should let staff work from home, will be discussed Wednesday at a virtual meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel.\nGermany’s disease control agency recorded 14,361 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past day, and 249 further deaths. Germany has done relatively well in the pandemic, with an overall death toll of 14,400, one-fourth that of Britain’s.\nLONDON — The British government says people arriving in England from a destination not on its coronavirus safe list will from next month be able to reduce the time they have to quarantine themselves if they test negative for the virus.\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps said the 14-day quarantine period can be reduced if people have a negative test from five days after their arrival.\nThe change, which takes effect on Dec. 15, has been long-awaited by the travel industry, one of the worst-hit sectors during the pandemic.\nUnder the new rules, passengers can reduce the 14-day period by paying for a test from a private firm on or after day five at a cost of potentially 100 pounds ($133). Results are normally issued in 24 to 48 hours.\nMANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials say about 60 million Filipinos are being targeted for vaccination against the coronavirus next year at a cost of more than 73 billion pesos ($1.4 billion) to develop considerable immunity among a majority of Filipinos.\nCarlito Galvez Jr., who oversees government efforts to secure the vaccines, said late Monday that negotiations were underway with four Western and Chinese pharmaceutical companies, including U.S.-based Pfizer Inc. and China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd., to secure the vaccines early next year. One company based in the U.K., AstraZeneca, can commit to supply up to 20 million vaccines, he said.\n“We will target the most vulnerable and the poorest communities in areas that were affected,” Galvez said, addressing who would be prioritized for vaccination.\nPresident Rodrigo Duterte said he wanted police and military personnel to be prioritized for their many sacrifices, including in disaster-response work.\nThe Philippines has had more than 420,000 confirmed cases, the second-most in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia, and 8,173 deaths.\nBEIJING — China has reported new coronavirus cases in the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin as it seeks to prevent small outbreaks from becoming larger ones.\nThe National Health Commission said Tuesday that there were two new locally spread cases in the previous 24-hour period, one in each city. It also reported 20 cases among people who had arrived from overseas.\nIn Shanghai, the mass testing of 17,719 workers at the city’s Pudong aiport found one infection, a Fedex employee. Everyone else tested negative.\nThree UPS workers at the airport have also tested positive in recent days, along with the wife of one of them. In all, Shanghai has reported eight non-imported cases since Friday.\nIn Tianjin, where 2.3 million people had been tested as of Monday, the city reported one case in a person who developed symptoms after testing positive earlier. China does not include people without symptoms in its confirmed case count.\nTo date, the health commission has recorded 4,634 deaths.\nLOS ANGELES — Restaurant owners in Los Angeles County were trying to pivot Monday to a model that would keep them afloat when an order goes into effect Wednesday closing all dining for three weeks.\nOwners said they were upset that the county had taken the action, claiming infections are more likely coming from private gatherings where rules aren’t enforced.\n“The same people desperate to go to bars are going to party in their houses,” said Brittney Valles, owner of Guerrilla Tacos in downtown Los Angeles.\nCounty Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said restaurants are part of the problem.\nOutbreaks in the first two weeks of the month doubled at food facilities, including restaurants, processing plants, bottlers, grocery stores and related businesses, Ferrer said.\nValles was working Monday to develop a plan to keep as many of her workers employed as possible.\nANCHORAGE, Alaska — Norwegian musher Thomas Waerner said Monday that he won’t defend his title at next year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race because of restrictions and uncertainty over travel during the coronavirus pandemic.\n“I cannot find a way to get the dogs to Alaska,” Waerner said in an email to The Associated Press.\nAs he learned earlier this year, getting to Alaska is only half the battle: Waerner wasn’t able to return to his wife and five children in Torpa, Norway, for months after winning the world’s most famous sled dog race because travel was restricted as the pandemic took hold. The Iditarod was one of the few professional sports that wasn’t canceled last March.\nWhile the defending champion says he won’t participate in the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) race across the rugged Alaska terrain, the Iditarod is still scheduled to start March 7.\nThat includes a fan-friendly ceremonial start a day earlier that usually attracts thousands of people in Anchorage.\nWaerner hopes to return to the race in 2022.\nLOS ANGELES — The largest county in the United States is on the brink of a stay-home order after a coronavirus surge surpassed a level set by Los Angeles County public health officials to trigger such an action.\nA swell of new cases Monday put the county over an average of 4,500 cases per day.\nPublic Health Director Barbara Ferrer said no action would be taken until county supervisors meet Tuesday.\nA stay-home order would be the first such action since mid-March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom followed several counties and issued a statewide order that closed schools and most shops.\nCases and hospitalizations have been rapidly rising across California in November. The state recorded its highest day of positive test results Saturday with more than 15,000. Hospitalizations have increased 77% over the past two weeks.\nIn Los Angeles, the county of 10 million residents has had a disproportionately large share of the state’s cases and deaths."
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Preventing violence and atrocity crimes against minorities
24 November 2014 – Today, over 500 participants, including international specialists on minority issues and representatives from States and minority communities from all regions, will gather in Geneva to seek new initiatives to prevent and respond to violence and atrocity crimes targeted against minorities worldwide.
“This is not a matter of history but a present day reality that requires national and international action to prevent or end violence, which is often perpetrated with complete impunity,” warned United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsák.
“Minorities continue to face violence or mass atrocities, as numerous situations show globally,” she said, announcing the seventh UN Forum on Minority Issues which continues its session until 26 November.
The Forum will focus on some of the key issues of global concern facing minorities: understanding the root causes of violence and atrocity crimes against minorities; improving the prevention of violence and atrocities; measures for resolution, protection and security after the violence has broken out; and key actors and activities to promote reconciliation, peacebuilding and managing of diversity in post-violence situations.
“The voices of minorities will once again be at the forefront of our discussions,” Ms. Izsák said. “Their personal experiences will help the Forum to consider initiatives to better prevent and respond to violence, and identify specific post-violence reconciliation measures to ensure lasting peace.”
The Forum provides a unique and inclusive venue for dialogue and for the elaboration of practical recommendations from all participants: UN Member States from all regions, minority communities, experts from UN bodies and specialized agencies, international organizations, academics and other experts.
A set of recommendations stemming from the session on preventing and addressing violence and atrocity crimes targeted against minorities will be presented to the Human Rights Council in March 2015.
UNRIC's related links:
Article: Minorities brutally attacked in Iraq
Article: Indigenous peoples cannot be "deleted" from new development goals
Article: Myanmar's Rohingya - stateless and unwanted
Article: Minority languages threatened by assimilation, conflict and forced displacement
UNRIC's Backgrounder on Genocide
UNRIC's Backgrounder on Racism
The Forum on Minority Issues was established in 2007 by the Human Rights Council to provide a platform for promoting dialogue and cooperation on issues relating to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. It identifies and analyses best practices, challenges, opportunities and initiatives for the further implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, under the guidance of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsák.
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Home Opinion Worth Reading The devil and Dr. Carson
The devil and Dr. Carson
smacoy
Many Americans no doubt were mystified during the second night of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, when Dr. Ben Carson — a candidate for president on the Republican ticket, oh so long ago — started talking about Lucifer. No doubt many convention attendees and folks watching on TV were mystified.
The background: Hillary Clinton is known to have been taken with the ideas of Saul Alinsky, whose 1971 polemic “Rules for Radicals” is often seen as a textbook for progressive change. In what some call a dedication — the fact-checking website www.snopes.com calls it “three epigraphs on an introductory page” — Alinsky wrote this:
Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history … the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.
In a rather lengthy column, but one that’s definitely Worth Reading, Paul Kengor sheds light on Dr. Carson’s reference. Money quote:
(T)his much we can certainly say: Saul Alinsky clearly had an influence on the future Democratic nominee for president.
And further, we must add that Alinsky’s influence was not only on the current Democratic nominee. He impacted the previous nominee as well. As noted, a young man named Barack Obama would read and teach Alinsky’s tactics during his community-organizing days in Chicago.
Alinsky’s influence on the Democratic Party today is so pronounced that his son, David, boasted eight years ago that the “Democratic campaign in 2008 … is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky.” He beamed: “the Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style.”
The 2016 Democratic National Convention likewise will owe something to Saul Alinsky. Hillary and crew may not give an open acknowledgment to Lucifer, but they ought to give an admiring nod to the lingering presence of Saul Alinsky.
I sympathize with Dr. Carson on one level: liberals tend to view evil in clinical rather than spiritual terms. When people do bad things, it’s because they suffered abuse as children, or were exposed to substances that affected their thought processes. Liberals reject the idea of evil in the hearts of human beings — all the way up to and including Adolf Hitler, whose difficult childhood and adolescence, followed by his horrendous experiences during World War I, easily could explain the rage, violence, megalomania and sociopathy that manifested themselves in adulthood. It’s an understandable impulse. If someone or some movement is evil, all you can do is destroy it or lock it up. If it’s viewed clinically, it can be cured with some combination of kindness, drug therapy and psychiatry. Nobody needs to get hurt.
Lucifer, however, is the embodiment of evil. He can’t be cured or persuaded to behave differently. Whether he’s a metaphor, a physical individual (i.e., space alien) or a literal, immortal being, as described in the Bible, he thrives on harm coming to others. For him, what seems evil to us is good. He represents an evil that can’t be destroyed or cured. It only can be fought, forever, at enormous personal and social cost. I can see where liberals and others might see this conflict as so daunting, they pretend it simply doesn’t exist — and can be explained away by bad chemicals and worse parents. So a passing reference to the Prince of Darkness may seem harmless to a secularist like Clinton, but leaves a devout Christian like Ben Carson horrified.
It’s therefore not at all surprising that someone with Dr. Carson’s sensibilities would find the “epigraph” very disturbing, especially in the context of what may be an impending presidency. The worst that can be said of his speech was that he assumed knowledge most of his listeners didn’t possess, and therefore left them more confused than disturbed by the prospect of a Hillary Clinton administration.
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No sign of improvement
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A core part of ASK’s practice is representing parties interested in making strategic or financial acquisitions of assets from bankruptcy estates via section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code or through a confirmed plan of reorganization. ASK LLP attorneys counsel clients through all aspects of the section 363 process, including negotiation of purchase agreements, bidding procedures, stalking horse bidder protections, and auction participation and represent asset purchasers at court hearings to approve bid protections and asset sales.
ASK attorneys represented Chinese conglomerate Heining Mengnu Group Co., Ltd. (Mengnu), the largest unsecured creditor of Jennifer Convertibles, Inc. (JC), in its acquisition of the debtor. Mengnu served as the DIP Lender and Plan Sponsor and ultimately acquired JC through a plan of reorganization, obtaining over 90% of JC's common stock. ASK LLP attorneys also also represented Royal Spirit Ltd., a Hong Kong company and the largest creditor of The Connaught Group, a leading manufacturer and retailer of women's designer clothing with over $100 million in annual revenue that filed for bankruptcy. ASK used Royal Spirit's leverage as the largest unsecured creditor to acquire The Connaught Group's assets.
Most recently, ASK LLP attorneys represented Parts Authority Metro LLC in the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of California-based aftermarket automotive parts distributor Metropolitan Automotive Warehouse, Inc. and its affiliate Star Auto Parts, Inc. ASK LLP attorneys also represented Q Holdings LLC in the successful acquisition of the Quirky.com platform and related intellectual property in the Quirky, Inc. bankruptcy proceeding.
Creditor Rights
ASK LLP has a wide array of experience representing creditors of all types in Chapter 11 restructurings, including secured, unsecured, priority and administrative. We pride ourselves on thinking outside the box to try to get recovery for our clients, even when that possibility seems remote. ASK LLP represents creditors across the entire spectrum of industries including apparel, retail, food & beverage, oil and gas, renewable energy, healthcare, and mining, to name a few.
ASK LLP often represents shareholder groups who are being treated unfairly by other bankruptcy constituents who are entitled to priority under the bankruptcy code. As an example, ASK LLP attorneys represented a group of shareholders in the bankruptcy case of Visteon, Inc., a $2 billion dollar automotive supplier. ASK LLP lawyers appealed Visteon's plan of reorganization, arguing that the shareholders were being treated unfairly under the plan. As a result, Visteon settled with the shareholder group for $2,250,000
"We were extremely pleased with ASK’s representation. A situation like ours required constant communication, fast response time, the ability to be flexible, and most of all, knowledge of this very specific section of the law. The whole team did a fantastic job of us which was magnified by difficult circumstances."
Randy Buller, President
Parts Authority (DIP lender and purchaser of all assets in the Metro Automotive bankruptcy
This article focuses on the continuous stream of teen apparel bankruptcies. The industry continues to decline as the shift in teen spending habits from fashion to technology becomes more pronounced. In addition.
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Congrats John Wright ’69 – Selected for Wheaton High Schools Hall of Fame
Posted on September 1, 2015 by Alpha Tau Omega - Gamma Zeta Chapter
The Wheaton Community High Schools Alumni Club just announced their 2015 Hall of Fame inductees which include John Wright (Gamma Zeta ’69).
John was a three sport athlete who received All-State accolades in football and track and field. He was the state champ and record holder in the 180 low hurdles in 1964. John excelled in football and track at the University of Illinois garnering six letters and reaping both All- American and Academic All-American honors. Upon graduation, John was the all time U of I and Big Ten historical leading receiver and ranked 5th in NCAA history. Following college, John was drafted at the top of the second round in the NFL by the Atlanta Falcons. Subsequently he was traded to the Detroit Lions where he played for six years. As CEO of the Wright Financial Group, he grew his office from $750 million to over $9 billion of insurance. He was voted the top speaker at the NFL National Rookie Symposium six times. He’ll be formally inducted at the Wheaton High Schools Alumni Association annual dinner and golf outing on September 10 in Wheaton. Congrats John!!
This entry was posted in ATO Alumni News, Congrats by Alpha Tau Omega - Gamma Zeta Chapter. Bookmark the permalink.
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PCMag Australia Software & Services Games Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) Games
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4)
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag puts the franchise back on track with a gorgeous huge open world that's ripe for exploration. It's a must-buy for stealth-action fans.
ByPCMag Australia
13 Jun 2018, 10:38 p.m.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : Combat Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : Diving Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : The Deep Seas Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : The High Seas
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : Combat
Black Flag's combat revolves around countering an enemy's attack and delivering a blow of your own.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : Diving
Leaping into bodies of water from high locations never gets old.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : The Deep Seas
Black Flag also has underwater missions. You can mix it up with sharks.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PlayStation 4) : The High Seas
You can recruit others to join your crew.
The Best Sony PlayStation 4 Games for 2020
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Universal Orlando says goodbye to Frank Kincaid as Disaster Studios closes for good
By ErikSep 08, 2015, 05:55 am
Frank Kincaid was a legendary action director. He wrote the book (literally) on how to make a great disaster movie. He was the head writer, director, choreographer, blood, sweat and tears of Disaster Studios, and he believed in his latest film, Mutha Nature so much that he sank every last dime into it. Unfortunately, the film was dismal. I blame the extras, honestly, it’s so hard to get good help these days. Sadly, heartbroken, Frank Kincaid went to that big movie studio in the sky on Monday, as Disaster Studios closed it’s doors for good. Okay, so Frank Kincaid was completely made up, but he is gone as Universal Orlando closed it’s doors on Monday.
On Monday, September 8th, 2015, Universal Studios Florida did one final take of Disaster! Studios. The closing of the ride actually marks another classic attraction at Universal Orlando that pretty much opened with the park…sort of. The ride closed to make way for the all new Fast & Furious: Supercharged.
Cast and crew handed out buttons for the final ride on Disaster, as the ride shut down. The audience was filled with fans of the ride, and those who wanted to see the ride go off in style. Top executives were present, and as the last lines were spoken, and Lonnie moved everyone on for the last time, the audience cheered, sending the ride off into the sunset…or the underground tunnel.
The ride was actually more of an experience, with guests going behind the scenes of the making of a disaster film. The experience started in a pre-show room where guests were cast as extras in a movie. They were then taken into a screening room where they met director Frank Kincaid. The director was played by Christoper Walken, through Musion screen technology. Musion uses a projection screen to make the characters walk around the stage while interacting with other characters and props. While the technology was amazing, the screen did tend to fade over time, making the character stand out more than the rest of the stage.
The audience was then put through a series of shoots, and scenes, doing special effects shots that would be used in the film later in the ride. The ride itself was actually the old Earthquake experience, which opened with the park. In fact, not terribly much changed about the ride when it made the transition from Earthquake to Disaster, except the preshow. The ride remained the same.
The new ride will be very similar to Universal Studios Hollywood’s newest addition to the tram tour, Fast&Furious. The new addition is a finale to the tram, and takes riders on a massive adventure outside of the film. The franchise is one of the top grossing movie franchises in the world, and has grown from a simple “movie about cars” (as so many people have put it) to action spectaculars, featuring cars doing amazing, and insane things. Several of the movies have taken on a heist theme, with the gang using cars to pull of these amazing jobs.
Video-Go for a ride on Fast & Furious Supercharged at Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood is also home to the original Earthquake, which is also a part of the Studio Tour. In fact, Universal Orlando took many aspects of the tram tour, and made them stand alone attractions. It’s a tradition that the park started 25 years ago, and it continues today. Earthquake was just one stop on the tour, showing guests the power and destruction of a huge earthquake.
Video-Experience THE BIG ONE at Universal Studios Hollywood
Will Fast & Furious in Orlando be identical to Hollywood? Not in the slightest. If Disaster is any indication, Universal Orlando is going to expand the experience, much like they’re doing with Kong, and add huge set pieces, and more physical effects. In fact, it’s very likely that guests will see a lot of the old attraction again, with pieces like the trucks and the explosions coming back.
Next year, Universal will bring back the classic, King Kong, as Skull Island: Reign of Kong comes to Islands of Adventure. The new attraction will be based heavily on Kong 360 at Universal Studios Hollywood, only reimagined, and reconstructed from a single scene and screen to a huge new ride with several new elements. It’s likely that Fast & Furious will follow the same mold, taking the basic ideas from Hollywood and expanding on them in a way that you won’t believe.
Fast & Furious opens in 2017.
Stay tuned for more from Universal, and be sure to get social with us on Facebook, and follow along with us on Twitter @BehindThrills for the latest updates!
TAG2017 attractions Disaster! Fast & Furious Supercharged Universal Studios Florida
Previous PostUniversal Orlando unveils three new street shows Next PostUbisoft is launching a next gen theme park with Assassins Creed, Rabbids and more!
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Feb 1, 2015 | A Study in Genesis, Studies
(Gen 49:1 NASB) Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Assemble yourselves that I may tell you what shall befall you in the days to come.
Gen 49:1: The term “days to come” is also translated “the last days” and is an interesting one. It refers to a time in the future when Elohim’s announced purposes for a particular group, a particular nation, or the world, were about to be consummated. The writer of Hebrews says that the last days were also the time of the arrival of the Messiah Yeshua (Heb. 1:1-2).
Most often, it refers to Israel’s final rebellion against Elohim (Deut. 31:29) accompanied by a time of great trouble (Deut. 4:30, Ezek. 38:16), followed by the return of Yeshua (Hosea 3:5).
(Gen 49:2 NASB) “Gather together and hear, O sons of Jacob; And listen to Israel your father.
(Gen 49:3 NASB) “Reuben, you are my first-born; My might and the beginning of my strength, Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
(Gen 49:4 NASB) “Uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence, Because you went up to your father’s bed; Then you defiled it– he went up to my couch.
Gen 49:4: Jacob has taken away the birthright of Reuben and given it to the sons of Joseph. Does he have that right (Deut. 21:15-17)? If, as we have postulated up to this time, that Torah was already given to Elohim’s people, then could Israel have done this? It would appear so because the very next passages say that a rebellious son is to be stoned (Deut. 21:18-21).
Reuben should consider himself lucky because his rebellion was greater than being a drunk and a glutton (Gen. 35:22). Israel did not bring this shameful act to the governing authorities for action. He dealt with it by taking away Reuben’s birthright and blessing.
(Gen 49:5 NASB) “Simeon and Levi are brothers; Their swords are implements of violence.
(Gen 49:6 NASB) “Let my soul not enter into their council; Let not my glory be united with their assembly; Because in their anger they slew men, And in their self-will they lamed oxen.
(Gen 49:7 NASB) “Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.
Gen 49:7: Simeon and Levi were the culprits behind the attack of the city of Shechem as described in Gen. 34 (Gen. 34:25-26). They are described by Jacob as “instruments of cruelty.” Simeon never received any prominence as a tribe. In the first census, they were numbered at 59,300. In the census just before entering into the promised land, they were reduced to 22,200. Neither in the Blessing of Moses in Deut. 33, nor in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), is the tribe even mentioned. This is why the list of the tribes are different in different places of Scripture.
Levi was still cursed and they were scattered throughout Israel as the priests of the people. They were given the blessing of priests because of their faithfulness in the wilderness (Ex. 32:26-28).
(Gen 49:8 NASB) “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s sons shall bow down to you.
Gen 49:8: The blessing was not given to the three eldest of the sons because of the reasons given. So the blessing is going to fall upon the fourth in line, Judah.
Jacob says that his brothers shall praise him (Psalm 76:1). His hand shall be on the neck of his enemies (Psalm 78:68-71, Isaiah 9:7, Heb. 10:12-13). And your father’s children shall bow down before you (2 Sam. 5:3, Phil. 2:9-11).
(Gen 49:9 NASB) “Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him up?
Gen 49:9: Judah is called a lion. He will have a Son that rises to take possession of the whole earth (Rev. 5:5).
(Gen 49:10 NASB) “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Gen 49:10: The scepter shall not depart from Judah. When David was made king, no man from any other tribe was to be king. Some translations says that Judah will be “a lawgiver,” instead “ruler’s staff.” Judah will be the lawgiver (Psalm 60:7).
This passage describes Judah as the king, the lawgiver, and the judge (Isa. 33:22).
“Until Shiloh comes…” This is an unmistakable reference to Messiah (Isa. 9:6, 11:1-5, Jer. 23:5-6, Matt. 21:9). Why was the term the “Son of David” so important? Because that is the designation for the Messiah (2 Sam. 7:11-14).
(Gen 49:11 NASB) “He ties his foal to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, And his robes in the blood of grapes.
Gen 49:11: What does it mean that Judah’s Descendant will wash His clothes in the blood of grapes? He is coming in judgment (Isa. 63:1-3, Rev. 14:18-20).
(Gen 49:12 NASB) “His eyes are dull from wine, And his teeth white from milk.
Gen 49:12: His eyes being dull from wine speaks of His sorrow in His judgment (Prov. 23:29). His teeth being white seems to speak of His judgment.
(Gen 49:13 NASB) “Zebulun shall dwell at the seashore; And he shall be a haven for ships, And his flank shall be toward Sidon.
Gen 49:13: Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea, but his borders were inland (Deut. 33:18-19).
(Gen 49:14 NASB) “Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between the sheepfolds.
(Gen 49:15 NASB) “When he saw that a resting place was good And that the land was pleasant, He bowed his shoulder to bear burdens, And became a slave at forced labor.
Gen 49:15: Issachar is chided here. If one studies the time of Joshua and Judges, it appears that Israel has a tough time dislodging many of the Canaanites. Issachar may have had a part in this by having a passive attitude toward their hostile neighbors and would rather work with them as a servant rather than overtake them as commanded. This tribe is not even mentioned in the inventory of tribes in Judges 1.
(Gen 49:16 NASB) “Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel.
(Gen 49:17 NASB) “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, A horned snake in the path, That bites the horse’s heels, So that his rider falls backward.
(Gen 49:18 NASB) “For Thy salvation I wait, O LORD.
Gen 49:18: Dan shall judge his people. Probably the most famous of the Judges was Sampson, a Danite.
(Gen 49:19 NASB) “As for Gad, raiders shall raid him, But he shall raid at their heels.
Gen 49:19: There is not any particular historic event that can be penned here. However, this is a good description of the demon possessed man of the Gadarenes who was possessed by a legion of demons in Mark 5. After Yeshua drove his demons out, he wanted to travel with Him. But Yeshua told him to go back to his people and tell them what He had done for him. He was obedient and told others and many people marveled.
(Gen 49:20 NASB) “As for Asher, his food shall be rich, And he shall yield royal dainties.
Gen 49:20: The territory of Asher was famous for its olives and olive oil (Deut. 33:24-25).
(Gen 49:21 NASB) “Naphtali is a doe let loose, He gives beautiful words.
Gen 49:21: This was probably fulfilled when Yeshua started His ministry (Matt. 4:13-16).
(Gen 49:22 NASB) “Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a spring; Its branches run over a wall.
(Gen 49:23 NASB) “The archers bitterly attacked him, And shot at him and harassed him;
(Gen 49:24 NASB) But his bow remained firm, And his arms were agile, From the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),
Gen 49:24: The term “Joseph” is a reference to the sons of Joseph which are Manassah and Ephraim. Jacob compares him to a fruitful bough by a well with his branches running over the wall.
It is difficult to ascertain exactly what is meant by archers who have shot at him and hated him. It is likely a reference either to his brothers and their treatment of him in the past or it could be a prophetic statement concerning the Muslims.
Jacob says that Joseph remained strong. This does fit well with the life of Joseph. But if this is prophetic, it still could be referring to Israel today.
The reference to the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel is obviously pointing to Elohim Himself.
(Gen 49:25 NASB) From the God of your father who helps you, And by the Almighty who blesses you With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
(Gen 49:26 NASB) “The blessings of your father Have surpassed the blessings of my ancestors Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; May they be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.
Gen 49:26: Jacob blesses Joseph with blessings of the deep and of the offspring. Jacob says that he was blessed even greater than his fathers. He extends those blessings onto the head of Joseph.
He tells Joseph that he is distinguished above his brothers.
(Gen 49:27 NASB) “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he devours the prey, And in the evening he divides the spoil.”
Gen 49:27: This seems to be a contrast to the meek and mild son that Jacob did not want out of his sight earlier in his life.
There are several instances in the books of Judges, Samuel, and Chronicles where Benjaminites were fierce warriors. Two of David’s mighty men were from the tribe of Benjamin. These things seem to be targeted here by Israel.
(Gen 49:28 NASB) All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one with the blessing appropriate to him.
Gen 49:28: Jacob ended his life with the blessing of his children. It was a unifying gesture and one that showed the power of Elohim in his life.
(Gen 49:29 NASB) Then he charged them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
(Gen 49:30 NASB) in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a burial site.
Gen 49:30: Jacob told his sons to bury him in the place that his fathers are buried. But when he told Joseph this when they were alone, he made Joseph promise to follow through (Gen. 47:29-31). But he did not urge his other sons to make this promise. The reason being is the only Joseph had the power and authority to fulfill that promise. Plus he was the one that Israel trusted.
(Gen 49:31 NASB) “There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah–
(Gen 49:32 NASB) the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.”
(Gen 49:33 NASB) When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
Gen 49:33: Jacob was apparently sitting on the side of his bed. He drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last.
I find the term “and was gathered to his people” to be an interesting one. It is not pointing toward his soul going up to heaven so he can now be with Abraham and Isaac. Rather, it is a reference of the fulfillment of his last wish which was to be buried in the land given to him by Elohim and where is buried Abraham and Isaac. If this verse is read in context with the other verses, it is clear that it is a reference to his burial. We are given greater detail in the next and last chapter of Genesis.
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Related Biography: Hala Gorani
Born in October 23, 1959 to a working class family in Macon, Georgia, Grace studied at the Valdosta State University and then at Mercer University where she received her Bachelor’s degree. She had initially aspired to take up teaching as a profession but the untimely death of her fiancé, Keith Griffin changed her mind and she chose law school instead. She received her Juris Doctor from the Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law present in New York City. She married David Lynch in 2007. Lynch is an investment banker based in Atlanta. Nancy gave birth to fraternal twins in November 2007.
Nancy Grace started her career as Special prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office at Georgia. She worked for over ten years dealing with serial rape, child molestation, arson, and serial murders. After her career as prosecutor, she was given the offer of legal commentator on Court TV by its founder Steven Brill. She started working on the show alongside Johnnie Cochran. After Cochran’s exit from the show, she handled it on her own. She then started working on the primetime legal analysis show on CNN Headline News in 2005 along with her Court TV show. She left Court TV in 2007.
In the year 2006, Nancy Grace interviewed Melinda Duckett concerning the disappearance of her two year old son. Melinda was unable to reply to the questions Grace had put forth regarding the events of the day when her son disappeared. Melinda shot herself the next day and her death was attributed to the media scrutiny she was under, especially her interview with Grace. Grace was also involved in another controversial case the same year namely the Duke Lacrosse scandal where she took a pro-prosecution position. But the charges were removed thereafter. Grace was also involved in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case where she claimed Ricci to be guilty who died during the custody. It was later proved that he was not guilty.
Nancy Grace is also an author. Her first book titled ‘The Eleventh Victim’ was published in 2009. It involved the story of a young psychology student whose fiancé is murdered just before their wedding. She prosecutes the violent crime and is left to face with the consequences. Grace has also helped to establish a hotline for helping women in distress at the battered women’s centre in Atlanta.
FAQ: How old is Nancy Grace?
FAQ: What is Nancy Grace networth in 2020?
Also Read: Alexis Glick
Ex. Husband: She had a fiance rather
Profession: Legal commentator
Husband: David Lynch
Children: Fraternal twins
Date of Birth: October 23, 1959
Nationality: US
Employer: CNN
Birth Date: 23 Oct, 1959
Age: 60 yrs
Occupations: Journalist
Birth Place: Macon
Twitter Id: NancyGraceHLN
Last Modified: Sep 25 2020
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Bahamas U-15 Boys Defeats Saint Martin
“The second half was all Bahamas as Plakaris opened the scoring in the period nine minutes in.”
The Bahamas won 8-0 over Saint Martin Friday at the CONCACAF Boys Under-15 Championships, hosted in George Town, Cayman Islands.
The Bahamas got goals from Antonio Hanna (12’), Keegan Bischof (30’), Nicholas Plakaris (44’), Omri Williams (51’), Ethan Willie (62’, 66’), Terry Joseph Mosko (65’) and Keshawn Edwards (68’) Plakaris was named the man of the match.
After Hanna’s score, Bischof scored just five minutes before the half for a 2-0 lead at the interval.
Willie’s scores came rapidly within a four minute span. It was a welcome response after the Bahamas failed to score in their first two games of the tournament, a 4-0 loss to Aruba and 1-0 loss to Bermuda.
The loss dropped Saint Martin out of contention for a berth in the semifinals following group stage play.
Countries competing in the tournament include Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, El Salvador, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Saint Martin, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands.
For first-round play, the squads have been drawn into four groups – three of six teams and one comprised of five teams. Each team will play the others in its group once and the group winners will advance to the semifinals on August 23.
U-15 Boys National Team Fights Until The Final Whistle
Monica Ceus
BFA Names Boys Under 15 Team for the CONCACAF 2019 Qualifiers
Ronen Davis Won MVP
U-15 Boys National Team Celebrates A Win
U-15 Boys National Team Lost Against Turks & Caicos Islands
The Boys Are Ready To Travel
Bahamas Under-15 Boys Team Invited to an Invitational in Turks and Caicos
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Summer Movie Blockbusters 2012
By Dan Morgridge May 14, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Filed Under:Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Dan Morgridge, Men In Black 3, Movies, Prometheus, Spring Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises
(Photo Credit: Thinkstock)
Summer is finally here, and some big movie titles are missing. A-list brands like Harry Potter, Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean are done — for now — and Twilight‘s next chapter won’t come out until Halloween. With such big shoes to fill, who’s going to step up and own the summer? As usual, a couple of reboots and sequels come in as favorites, but there’s also a few new titles that could stake their claim (some more literally than others). We’ve rounded up some of the most promising movies of the summertime.
Men in Black 3 (May 25)
(Photo Credit: Columbia Pictures)
Alright, so it’s not technically summer, but a Will Smith blockbuster action movie anywhere close to July has to be acknowledged. Fifteen years after Men In Black helped continue his half-decade reign of summer blockbusters, Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return once more to the MIB with newcomer Josh Brolin as Jones’ younger self. Aside from Brolin, with his picture-perfect Jones impersonation, Emma Thompson heads up the modern MIB; Bill Hader makes an appearance as Andy Warhol; and Jemaine Clement, of Flight of the Concords fame, gets to be the villain of the day. And Men In Black 3‘s A-list of celebrity cameos doesn’t stop there; Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga and Tim Burton all swing by for some fun.
Prometheus (June 8)
(Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox)
Ridley Scott’s Alien spawned one of the most iconic monsters in horror history… and more than a few regrettable offshoots. For his latest film Prometheus, Scott, original writer John Spaihts and LOST scribe Damon Lindelhof have teamed up to make a new story that may or may not be a direct prequel to the world of Alien. Reports of the xenomorph monster making an appearance are mixed, but one thing is for sure — H.R. Giger’s amazing architecture is on display in full-force, promising to make viewers feel like they’re on a whole other world.
Check out this summer’s hottest outdoor concerts.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
(June 22)
Oh, it’s no joke. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, produced by Tim Burton, is the second story from Seth Grahame-Smith (author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). It features Benjamin Walker as our sixteenth president, who apparently used his axe for a lot more than log cabins. While the premise is clearly tongue-in-cheek, the action shows to be top-notch — Civil war reenactments, ax-assisted marital arts, and all of it in eye-popping 3D. There’s no glittering teenage vampires in this tale, but we’re pretty sure there’s an audience that won’t mind in the least.
The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3)
With the series getting rebooted quicker than a Hulk movie, you might have reason to pause for the latest incarnation of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. It’s been ten years since Tobey and Kirsten shared their epic upside-down kiss, but only five since a giant Thomas Hayden Church made of sand tried to crush Spider-Man for his bad dance routines. (On second thought, maybe we should forget that one.) So what’s Marc Webb (the director of (500) Days of Summer) got in store for The Amazing Spider-Man? A new Spidey (Andrew Garfield) with lots of family questions, a slightly more sinister suit and one rather large lizard-man to smash up the city. And Peter Parker prefers blondes in this adaptation: Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy takes the romantic lead, with Mary Jane nowhere in site.
The Dark Knight Rises (July 20)
(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
While critics aren’t sure where the new Spider-Man will rank in the canon, Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the Batman series is arguably its best appearance on the silver screen. And considering Tim Burton’s excellent entries, that’s no small compliment. The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final film of his take on Bruce Wayne, finds the hero still deposed and disgraced after taking the fall for Harvey Dent. Lucky for us, the appearance and mayhem of Bane (Tom Hardy) makes sure that this will not be a movie about retirement. Anne Hathaway might not replace Michelle Pfeiffer as the quintessential Catwoman, but all we ask is that she help us forget Halle Berry’s terrible spinoff. Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson and Michael Caine are all back, and other notable newcomers include Joseph Gordon-Levitt (perhaps as Robin?) and a vehicle that is definitely not a car.
Check out the Summer Guide at CBS Local.
Dan Morgridge is investing in 3D glasses.
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The American Bankers Association nominating committee—chaired by Jeff Szyperski, chairman, president and CEO, Chesapeake Bank, Kilmarnock, Virginia—has selected a slate of candidates for association officer positions.
ABA Nominates Officers for 2020-2021
on July 22, 2020 Newsbytes
The American Bankers Association nominating committee—chaired by Jeff Szyperski, chairman, president and CEO, Chesapeake Bank, Kilmarnock, Virginia—has selected a slate of candidates for association officer positions. The election will be held during the association’s virtual annual meeting on Oct. 20. Nominees are:
Chairman: Jim Edwards, CEO, United Bank, Griffin, Georgia
Chairman-Elect: Scott Anderson, president and CEO, Zions Bank, Salt Lake City
Vice Chairman: Dan Robb, president and CEO, Jonesburg State Bank, Jonesburg, Missouri
Treasurer: Louise Walker, president and CEO of First Northern Community Bancorp., Dixon, California
“We appreciate that the Nominating Committee has assembled such a strong slate of officers to lead the banking industry at this critically important time,” said ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols. “These leaders bring a wealth of knowledge and personal experience that will serve them well in these important positions representing America’s banks. I look forward to working with them to take on the challenges facing banks of all sizes and ensuring that our industry continues to be a source of strength for the nation.”
ABA leadership ABA news
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Wilco, Ken Waagner, and the future of music
Chad Dickerson music, yahoo August 29, 2005
Wilco is one of my favorite bands and has been since I picked up Being There sometime in the ’97 timeframe. If you take a look at my Last.fm artist charts and you skip past the Pink Floyd (no apologies, fellow indie rock fans — I enjoy it without irony), Wilco is in the top 20, and at various times, I’m sure Wilco has been on heavy-enough rotation in my household to be #1. (And yeah, my current Last.fm charts might suggest that I hold Prince in only slightly higher esteem than Buck Owens. And that would be right, but maybe it’s because I’ve seen Prince live three times and Buck only two.)
Continuing the speaker series here at Yahoo! that I mentioned last week when we had Mark Pauline with Survival Research Labs, on Friday we had Ken Waagner, the digital strategist behind Wilco.
I didn’t take detailed notes, but this excerpt from this Wired story by Lawrence Lessig gives you a sense of what Ken’s work has meant to the music industry at large:
The band Wilco and its quiet, haunted leader, Jeff Tweedy, is something different. After its Warner label, Reprise, decided that the group’s fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was no good, Wilco dumped them and released the tracks on the Internet. The label was wrong. The album was extraordinary, and a sold-out 30-city tour followed. This success convinced Nonesuch Records, another Warner label, to buy the rights back – reportedly at three times the original price. The Net thus helped make Wilco the success it has become. But once back in Warner’s favor, many wondered: Would Wilco forget the Net?
We’ve begun to see the answer to this question. Wilco’s Net-based experiments continue: the first live MPEG-4 webcast; a documentary about the band in part screened and funded via the Net; bonus songs and live recordings tied to CDs. Its latest album, A Ghost Is Born, was streamed in full across the Net three months before its commercial release. And when songs from it started appearing on file-sharing networks, the band didn’t launch a war against its fans. Instead, Wilco fans raised more than $11,000 and donated it to the band’s favorite charity. The album has been an extraordinary success – and was nominated for two Grammys.
Ken was the guy who put the song files for the unreleased Yankee Hotel Foxtrot up as Quicktime streams on a web server for fans to download for free while the record itself was in limbo. Aside from instigating a flurry of upset messages from his hosting provider (one of those $29.95 outfits) who were surprised at the massive surge of bandwidth usage, the success of the Internet-only (at the time, at least) album led to an appearance on Conan O’Brien. Ken said that Wilco was “the only band to ever play Conan O’Brien in support of a Quicktime stream.”
The discussion of major label music reminded me of an old issue of punker-than-thou zine MAXIMUMROCKNROLL (#133, June 1994) that gave a seriously grim and uncompromising punk rock view of major record labels. The image to the left says it all — signing with a major label is like putting a gun in your mouth — one can only assume that a pull of the trigger is imminent. The original issue has been preserved here.
A few additional links on Wilco and Ken Waagner:
“Whose Entertainment is it?” — Interview with Lawrence Lessig and Ken Waagner
Interview: Ken Waagner, the Digital Mind Behind Wilco
Why Wilco is the Future of Music (by Lawrence Lessig, in Wired)
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U.S cybersecurity policies update
Filed in Information Warfare, Security Risk Assessment on Jun.08, 2010
By Greg Masters
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a defense bill that contains an amendment aimed at regulating the information security responsibilities and practices of federal agencies.
The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., updates the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and establishes a National Office for Cyberspace in the Executive Office of the President.
The amendment was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, which passed the House Friday by a 229-186 vote.
“The passage of this amendment comes after a great deal of work to raise awareness about the cybervulnerabilities that exist throughout our federal government,” Langevin, co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus, said in a news release. “These provisions will establish strong, centralized oversight to protect our nation’s critical information infrastructure and update our comprehensive policy for operating in cyberspace.”
The measure integrates a number of policy recommendations made by the Obama administration’s 60-day Cyberspace Policy Review, the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which has offered suggestions for remedying security vulnerabilities across federal agencies.
The amendment establishes the National Office for Cyberspace (NOC) within the Executive Office of the President.
A director, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would be charged with coordinating and overseeing the security of agency information systems and infrastructure. In addition, a CTO would be hired.
Also, a Federal Cybersecurity Practice Board within the NOC would be charged with overseeing the implementation of NIST-approved standards and guidelines, in addition to defining policies that agencies must adhere to in order to comply with FISMA requirements.
Further, agencies would be required to undertake automated and continuous monitoring of their systems to ensure compliance and to identify potential risks to assets. An annual independent audit of information security programs to determine their overall effectiveness and compliance with FISMA requirements would also be required.
The amendment also calls for developing policies to be used in the purchasing of technology products and services.
A version of the bill currently making its way through the Senate does not contain the Watson-Langevin amendment, but it could be altered before it is voted on by the upper chamber. Adjustments between the two versions of the bill could be made in conference before it is presented for President Obama’s signature. The Senate version passed the Armed Services Committee
The amendment combines two previous bills: Watson’s Federal Information Security Amendments Act and Langevin’s Executive Cyberspace Authorities Act.
FISMA Reform Inches Forward (blogs.splunk.com)
Slippery Slope Alert: “National Office for Cyberspace” Proposed (pff.org)
Telos Provides Cybersecurity Expertise For Administration Web Initiative (eon.businesswire.com)
Panel Backs Measure To Boost Federal Cybersecurity (techdailydose.nationaljournal.com)
Federal Cybersecurity Monitoring Goes Real Time (techdailydose.nationaljournal.com)
Telos Awarded Blanket Purchase Agreement with Office of Governmentwide Policy (eon.businesswire.com)
Tags: Diane Watson, Federal government of the United States, Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, FISMA, Information Security, Security, Senate, United States
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Conservation scientists mull reconstruction of buddhas
by Kate Melville, Scienceagogo.com, 28 February 2011
Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- Coordinated by UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a group of scientists is examining the debris left from the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and considering whether reconstruction of the giant statues might be feasible.
Located on the Silk Road, the 1,500 year-old works of art once formed the centerpiece of one of the world's largest Buddhist monastic complexes. At one time, thousands of monks tended countless shrines in the niches and caves that pierced a kilometer-long cliff face.
Since the destruction of the statues by the Taliban regime, restoration experts have been endeavoring to secure the remains and restore access to the statues. Examination of several hundred fragments from the 55m and 38m tall statues has yielded some surprising insights.
"The Buddhas once had an intensely colorful appearance," explained Professor Erwin Emmerling, from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, in Germany. He discovered that prior to the conversion of the region to Islam, the statues were over-painted several times, presumably because the colors had faded. The outer robes, or sangati, were painted dark blue on the inside and pink, and later bright orange, on top. In a further phase, the larger Buddha was painted red and the smaller white, while the interior of the robes was repainted in a paler blue.
The statues themselves were hewn out of the cliff, but the flowing garments were formed using clay, which was applied in two or three layers. "The surfaces are perfectly smooth - of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Emmerling. The bottom layer of plaster was held in place with ropes attached to small wooden pegs. This allowed craftsmen to apply unusually thick layers of up to eight centimeters.
Previous attempts to determine when the statues originated were estimates based on the style of the Buddha's robes or similar criteria. Mass spectrometer tests now date the construction of the smaller Buddha to between 544 and 595 and the larger Buddha between 591 and 644.
The conservators working on the project have stacked the ruins in temporary warehouses in the Bamiyan Valley. Larger pieces have been covered over in situ. "However, that will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Emmerling explains. He adds that conventional methods of conservation are out of the question. "On this scale, under the climatic conditions in the Bamiyan Valley, the behavior of the synthetic resins usually used would vary too widely relative to the natural rock," said Emmerling, who instead hopes to refine a new process that injects an organic silicon compound into the stone.
The scientists consider a reconstruction of the smaller Buddha to be possible, but the larger Buddha, with a depth of around 12 meters, may be more problematic. The smaller figure with a depth of around two meters was more along the lines of a relief, says Emmerling. However, even to restore the smaller figure, there are political and practical obstacles to overcome. Conservation of the fragments would require the construction of a small factory in the Bamiyan Valley - alternatively some 1,400 rocks weighing up to two tons each would have to be transported to Germany. A conference to be held in Paris this week will further consider the fate of the fragmented Buddhas.
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Success! Online Art Auction!
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Blyth Festival Taking 2021 Season Outdoors
admin November 27, 2020 Blog
BLYTH, ONT. — It’s been a year to forget for the Blyth Festival.
“Last year we had about $800,000 in ticket sales. This year, we will have $0 in ticket sales, so that’s a significant change to the bottom line,” says Gil Garratt, the Blyth Festival’s Artistic Director.
For the first time in it’s 46 year history, Blyth had pull the plug on its 2020 season, due to the pandemic. The good news for theatre fans is, there will definitely be a 2021 season.
“We are going to take the Blyth Festival and put it, outdoors,” says Garratt.
At least two plays will be staged at the Blyth Fairgrounds next summer. Instead of 400 patrons in the theatre, 100 people will be allowed to watch outdoors, it’s believed. It’s the first time, Blyth has taken their plays outside. In 2001 and 2002, “The Outdoor Donnelly’s” wowed audiences.
Garratt says next season wouldn’t be a possibility without the community’s support. An art auction currently underway, plus donations totalling as much as $100,000 from two local theatre goers, are helping to keep the Blyth Festival going.
“As long as we can get the rest of the community to meet them, we’ll have a $200,000 pot to be able to develop new plays from, to put that work outside, and online, and reinvent the Blyth Festival,” says Garratt.
The 2021 season is happening regardless of how the auction and matching donation’s go, says Garratt, who expects next year’s plays to be announced early next year.
“It’s truly been a devastating year. But, at the same time, the rallying support has it all the more clear, the Blyth Festival really belongs to everyone in this region, and nobody wants to see it go,” he says.
To learn more about the 10×10 art auction, the matching donation fundraiser, or the 2021 season, you can click here.
Click here to read the full article and watch the video.
© Copyright 2021 Blyth Festival Theatre - Website Powered by Akira Studio Ltd
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Posts Tagged ‘England’
For Love & Money by Jonathan Raban
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book reviews, books, Eland, England, English authors, For Love & Money, Jonathan Raban, memoir, nonfiction, reading, reviews, travel writing on November 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
My dad sent me For Love & Money: Writing. Reading. Travelling 1969-87 by Jonathan Raban. He’s a fan of Raban’s travel writing. It’s taken me a couple of weeks to read this book for a few reasons. First, between the election and COVID, I’ve been a little distracted by news (ok, to be honest, I’ve been, like most of us, compulsively scrolling). Second, I have been watching more television: the four part screen adaptation of Summer’s Lease, the Great British Baking Show, and season 4 of The Crown. Third, For Love & Money just isn’t a quick read.
For starters, although the narrative is about Raban’s development as a writer, the three parts are only related in that way. It’s not like reading a book with a beginning, middle, and end. Raban tells us about his childhood and early aspirations as a writer, his starting out as a professor and his chucking academia for the freelance life. But along the way, there is a whole chapter that unless I’m really missing something, is someone else’s story (A Senior Lectureship), which I didn’t quite understand. The reviews section is very interesting, and shows readers what Raban was doing as a reader and writer, but require a little insider’s knowledge, either of the authors and their works or England and English history and society.
This makes for a sense of starts and stops rather than a smooth, flowing book. Some sections read more as narratives. I loved the part about The New Review and Raban’s early days as a freelancer. I admit to laughing out loud reading the section on Freya Stark rafting down the Euphrates and the section on Florida. Describing Stark calmly embroidering on the raft while all around, rain fell and tempers rose as the BBC crew and the locals argued about logistics Raban writes, “You need to have that peculiarly Arab sense of the absurdity of most human endeavor in the face of anything as mighty and unyielding as the landscape of the Euphrates. That is exactly what Dame Freya has: a serene humor that can be maddening to the sort of people who live off nerves and sandwiches.”
Raban visits Florida in the 80s because he’s been reading the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald and he wants to meet him. He’s utterly amazed by the wildlife (“I had only seen alligators in zoos. Here they littered the banks of the ditch by the side of the road.”). And the natives (he describes meeting a man wearing a hat that says “If God made man in his image he must be a redneck” and the conversation they have about hunting; he also describes American senior citizens in “pastel romperwear” driving around in golf carts that are reminiscent of “tricycles and sandpits”). And the the commercial hucksterism (“It was a goldrush landscape, torn to bits by the diggings of latterday prospectors. The skyline was jagged with unfinished condos, the roadside a bright mess of of advertising hoardings that begged the passing motorist to invest in his own patch of heaven before it was too late”). “Everywhere I looked, someone was trying to bribe me to inspect their condominiums,” Raban writes. His description of touring one complex in exchange for lunch was especially funny.
He also meets MacDonald and writes admiringly about him as well as his writing. And that is the kind of writer Raban is, generous, truthful (he doesn’t hold back in the more critical of his reviews), observant, smart. There were a few places where I felt lost, because I think at times the books pieces that appeared elsewhere read a little awkwardly strung together to try to make a narrative. But I have a sense that if I’d dipped into this book here and there instead of reading it start to finish, that wouldn’t have seemed like an issue. I also really enjoyed the personal essays, in particular the story of Raban’s family and how he both grew up and grew out of his childhood and came to make peace with it.
For Love & Money ends with Raban’s finding the boat he ended up sailing around the UK in, which he wrote about in Coasting. That sounds like one of his best books. Anyway I’m glad to get to know one of my dad’s favorite writers and to be reminded of how much I enjoy travel writing. Not the kind that reads, as Raban dismissively describes, “as a more or less decorated version of the ship’s log” but the kind that tells a story about a journey. Raban explains the difference very nicely.
As a bonus, I hadn’t heard of Eland, the publisher of this book. Its purpose is to “revive great travel books” that are no longer in print, and publishes other works “chosen for their interest in spirit of place.” I’ll have to explore their list!
Honour by Elif Shafak
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book reviews, books, Elif Shafak, England, family, fiction, gender roles, Honour, novels, reading, Turkey on July 6, 2020| 1 Comment »
I read Honour, by Elif Shafak, for a discussion group at work. it’s a complicated novel about Adem and Pembe Toprak, Kurdish Turks who have emigrated to London in the 1970s with their children, Iskander (whose English friends call him Alex) and Esma. In England they have a second son, Yunus. While the family has a decent life in London, both Adem and Pembe bear the scars of their childhoods in Turkey, where rules about propriety, violence, and shame deeply impact them and their families.
Shafak changes point of view and time period frequently, which is something I don’t usually like and often find confusing. But I managed to follow what was happening in Honour, and the shifting narrative works well in this story. Different perspectives remind the reader that the same event, viewed through a different lens, might appear differently. And she is telling different generations’ stories, so the shifting comes naturally.
We learn early — right in the first chapter, from Esma, that she has a brother who is a murderer. The rest of the book marches steadily towards that moment. But it also veers back into the past, into Pembe’s childhood, where she and her twin sister, Jamila, grew up in village, in a family of eight daughters, and where their mother died trying to bear a son. And into Adem’s childhood, where he grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father, whose actions destroyed his family, even though his wife, Adem’s mother, is the one who brought them shame.
This is one of the book’s themes: men do plenty of dishonourable things, but women are the ones who bring shame to the family. And yet, there are a few kindly or wise men, and a few women who judge things shameful or enable or mete out the punishment to those who have brought shame; Shafak doesn’t oversimplify the moral universe of her book. She touches on extremism, nationalism, the pressures to conform to western standards of beauty, the dangers of forcing men and women into set gender roles, and the painful consequences of capitalism, all without forcing any of these things on readers — they unfold in the novel naturally.
Religion and belief play a strong role, but Shafak is once again skillful and nonjudgemental; even the most extreme beliefs appear within their contexts to be part of the lives she portrays. She doesn’t over-dramatize or make the God the culprit when humans act outside their own interest, but she also doesn’t belittle the strongly held beliefs some of her characters have. Love is also a central theme, and the relationships between family members, friends, and lovers. There wasn’t a relationship in the book that felt forced for the plot or unrealistic, and that’s saying something in a story this complex.
Shafak manages to write a book that doesn’t feel heavy or brutal, but empathetic and somewhat hopeful, even as she tells the story of people burdened by heartbreaking circumstances. A very interesting read, that took me into other people’s lives. I always love a book that transports me and this one did that, whether to Istanbul, a Kurdish village or remote areas of Turkey, London, or a jail cell in Shrewsbury. Oddly, there is even a brief outbreak of a deadly virus.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 20th century, book reviews, books, England, fiction, historical fiction, Kazuo Ishiguro, novels, reading, The Remains of the Day on November 24, 2019| 2 Comments »
I’ve only read one other book by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, but ever since reading that a couple of years ago, I’ve kept my eyes out for his other books. I bought The Remains of the Day at a used bookstore. I’ve never seen the film, nor had I read the book before. It’s pouring buckets today so I thought it might be a good day to read a book set in the English countryside.
The Remains of the Day is about a quintessential English butler, Stevens, who prides himself on having learned from his father before him how to embody the dignity derived from “a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits.” When the book opens, Stevens remains at Darlington Hall in the early 1950s, although this great house has been sold to an American who has cut back on the staff and does not live there full time. Stevens is concerned with some recent errors he himself has made while working under these conditions and is considering how best to appeal for more staff when a letter arrives from Darlington Hall’s former housekeeper, Mrs. Benn, formerly Miss Kenton.
When his American boss suggests he take a break and even offers his car, Stevens sees an opportunity to visit Mrs. Benn and see whether he can persuade her to come back to Darlington Hall. The novel is taken up with Stevens’ reminiscing, as he travels, about their work together in the house’s heyday. As he muses, Stevens posits that to be a great butler, as he strove to be, meant “to serve the great gentlemen of our times in whose hands civilization had been entrusted.”
And he recalls the way his former employer’s reputation suffered because he truly believed that the Germans suffered after the treaty of Versailles and that the honorable way to treat a former enemy was not to saddle that enemy with reparations, but to leave the past in the past and “offer generosity and friendship to a defeated foe” as Lord Darlington’s godson Mr. Cardinal puts it. As Stevens recalls the events of the 1930’s and the men who came to consult with Lord Darlington and each other before WWII, it’s clear he is ruminating on Mr. Cardinal’s belief that, “Today’s world is too foul a place for fine and noble instincts.”
Ishiguro’s beautiful and subtle writing never spells out the final position Stevens takes on whether Lord Darlington was wise or foolish, although he seems to trust that his former boss was sincere. That’s one of the things I love about Ishiguro, is that he respects the reader’s ability to connect their own dots. Among which, in this book, is whether Stevens has any regrets and what his visit to Mrs. Benn revealed to each of them abut their choices in life. Would the world have turned out differently had Lord Darlington and men like him had not had so much influence? Would war have been averted if left to “the professionals” rather than gentlemen? Why did Mrs. Benn leave Darlington Hall? Did Stevens realize it at the time, or does he only come to see it during this visit? This would be a wonderful book club read.
A lovely read on a gloomy afternoon.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book reviews, books, coming of age, England, evangelicals, fiction, God, Jeanette Winterson, novels, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, reading on February 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I am not exactly certain where I got Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, but I think it was either a library free cart or sale. I hadn’t read Jeanette Winterson before. This was her first novel and I’ve seen it described as “semi-autobiographical.” It’s a coming of age story about a girl growing up the adopted daughter of an evangelical woman in northern England. Jeannette (the character, not the author) loves her mother, who tells her stories and teachers her music and tells her she’s destined to be a missionary. And she is part of her mother’s church family, mainly a group of women. Men are not at all central to the story, except for Pastor Spratt, a missionary and leader in her mother’s church, but even he appears sporadically.
When Jeanette is small, her mother is the star she orbits. When the school sends a letter saying Jeanette must attend (her mother had previously kept her home, calling school “a Breeding Ground”), she begins to see herself, and her mother, for the first time through the world’s eyes. As a teen, she falls in love with another young woman and this sets up the rest of the book’s drama as her mother and the church deal with this revelation and Jeanette chooses her path. Along the way Winterson writes at times affectionately, at times critically, and often humorously of the church people who form Jeanette.
The book’s chapters are named for books of the Old Testament, and there are legends and stories woven into Jeannette’s narrative. I especially liked the story of Winnet Stonejar, a young girl who becomes a sorcerer’s adopted daughter and apprentice. Jeanette is a careful observer, and Winterson gives her space to reflect, towards the end of the book, on her upbringing: “I miss God who was my friend. I don’t even know if God exists, but I do know if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it . . . . As it is, I can’t settle, I want someone who is fierce and love me until death and know love is as strong as death and be on my side for ever and ever.” That goes on and develops into a beautiful reflection on why men find love challenging, why she can’t measure her own need, and what betrayal means. I can’t quote the whole two pages but it’s really wonderful and you should read it.
Altogether a good read, the kind that can, as Seamus Heaney wrote, “catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”
A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory by Margaret Drabble
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 20th century, A Natural Curiosity, AIDS, art, Cambodia, capitalism, communism, England, fiction, global warming, Margaret Drabble, media, novels, serial killers, socialism, Thatcher, The Gates of Ivory, The Radiant Way, theater, travel, women in fiction, writers on January 5, 2019| 1 Comment »
In my last post I wrote about The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble, and over the last week I finished the trilogy, reading A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory. These books are the continuing story of Liz Headland, Alix Bowen, and Esther Breuer, friends since their late teens when they arrived at Cambridge, in their fifties by the end of The Gates of Ivory.
A Natural Curiosity also focuses on a few other characters who are introduced in The Radiant Way but don’t play a large part in the first book. For example, Shirley, Liz’s sister, and others who live in in Northam, where Alix has moved. Drabble also discusses one of her signature topics in this book — marriages, and how they work or don’t. We watch Shirley and her husband Clive as his business implodes and Esther, faced with a proposal after being single and mainly living alone her entire adult life. We see a middle aged lawyer in Northam whose wife starts a torrid affair, trying to carry on. And her girlhood friend, who is married to a famous archeologist, who are happily married even though they don’t seem to be at all suited. And Liz, seeming to grow closer to her ex-husband, Charles, who left her so dramatically in The Radiant Way but has come home from Washington and is in the process of a divorce.
There’s also a fair bit of politics in these books, which is one of the critiques of them that I’ve seen in reviews. Personally, I don’t mind. I also empathize with the characters, who find that their views shift a bit as they mature, but who are also disappointed, even disillusioned to see the world as it’s evolving. Unlike Liz and her friends I was never an apologist for communism, and as a young person I didn’t really have well thought out views. I parroted the views I’d heard as a child from adults, and it wasn’t until I had children that I began to think for myself about what I valued, and to try to understand what various political views meant practically in the world and whether any politicians or parties actually represented my views.
Drabble’s characters are surer from the start, and a few really live their views in accordance with their views — like Alix and her husband Brian, and Brian’s best friend Stephen Cox. In the second book, Alix is trying to help Paul, the serial killer, now jailed near her home in the north, who lived above Esther’s flat and killed one of Alix’s students in The Radiant Way. And almost the entire third book is about Stephen Cox trying to get to Khmer Rouge territory (which in the early 80s were officially out of power and not in charge in the cities, but still controlled parts of the Cambodian countryside).
Cox is a Booker winning novelist and we watched him grow closer to Liz in the second book. In fact it is at dinner with her that he says he’s going to go and see what happened, and why the communist ideal didn’t work in Kampuchea, and write a play about Pol Pot. Liz is a little alarmed, but doesn’t stop him. In the beginning of the third book she receives a package containing some finger bones and packet of fragmented writing — notes, sketches, journals. The novel bounces between scenes of Stephen making his way to Cambodia and meeting various people along the way (including the wonderful Thai business woman Mrs. Porntip), and Liz and others back in England.
She and Stephen’s other friends decide they have to determine what happened to him. Drabble introduces a character who narrates bits of The Gates of Ivory, at times addressing the reader directly, Hattie Osborne. She is Stephen’s agent and a former actress, and the night before he leaves they attend a friend’s 70th birthday dinner and a party and in the wee hours he suggests she stay in his apartment while he’s away. Hattie, it turns out, was also at the party at the very beginning of The Radiant Way, and is additionally an acquaintance of Polly Piper, Alix’s former boss.
It’s this social network — the myriad ways Drabble’s characters’ lives interweave — that made me think last night as I finished The Gates of Ivory that these books would make great television. I can see them adapted for a multi-season drama. These books together tell not only the story of three women and their friends and relations, but also of England, through the post-war years, the Thatcher years, the massive social, economic, and political changes. of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, and the art, theater, music, and media that Liz and Alix and Esther and their friends enjoy. In this way, Drabble’s books are like Jane Austen’s, social in more than one way — they examine the lives of particular families but also the life of a society, with all the layers that entails.
The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1980's, 20th century, book reviews, books, Cambridge, England, fiction, London, Margaret Drabble, novels, reading, The Radiant Way, trilogies, women in fiction on December 28, 2018| 1 Comment »
I started The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble in Maine last Saturday, and then came back to the last minute cleaning, cooking, etc. and the Christmas Eve and Christmas festivities, and went back to work on Boxing Day, so it took me several days to finish. This is actually part of a trilogy about the same group of characters, centered around three women who meet at Cambridge in the 1950s. When the book opens, one of them, Liz Headleand, a London psychiatrist, is preparing to host a huge New Year’s bash on the last day of 1979. It ends in June 1985, on her friend Esther Breuer’s fiftieth birthday. Which they spend together, along with their third university friend, Alix Bowen.
In the nearly 400 pages between, Drabble spins the story of these women’s adult lives, occasionally dipping into their childhoods, describing the society they live in (mainly well educated but not posh London, and the north of England, where Alix and Liz are from), the disciplines they devote themselves to (psychiatric medicine for Liz, art history and especially the Italian Renaissance painter Crivelli for Esther, literature and teaching it to under-served people, like women prisoners, for Alix), the men they love, and the children they bear.
As I’ve written here before, I love the way Drabble writes about people as they relate to each other — friends, relatives, lovers — and the way those relationships knit together create society. She works into the story politics and culture, literature and art, anthropology and history and myth, but always returns to the relationships. And these not only populate society but also Drabble’s fictional world. Kate Armstrong, the main character of The Middle Ground appears on the edges of The Radiant Way, for example. As in other Drabble books the women here are serious, thinking people no matter how they spend their days, and she captures the way they manage their own needs, goals, ambitions, work with the care of others in a way that really resonates with me.
I’ve read some criticism of Drabble — she gets too caught up in description and explanation, she injects too much (read too liberal) political commentary into her fiction, she writes about privileged people, her novels are uninteresting for all of the above reasons. But I love her lens, I love vicariously living in her England for a few days, and I love her writing, and I’ve started the second book in the trilogy, A Natural Curiosity.
Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, England, Europa Editions, Faith Fox, fiction, Jane Gardam, novels, reading on October 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Longtime bookconscious followers will know I am a big Jane Gardam fan. I was browsing on Hoopla and realized they have a large selection of Europa Editions, including Gardam’s Faith Fox, which I hadn’t even heard about. I did the Europa challenge a couple of times, reading a certain target number of books from that publisher, and I really don’t think I ever disliked a Europa Editions book. But once I was working in an academic library, I didn’t get in to my public library all that often, and so ended up reading a lot of other things. I’m very glad to have found this trove of Europa titles easily accessible on my iPad. I still don’t love eBook reading, but I saw a number of books I want to read, so I may be eReading for a bit.
Faith Fox, like many of the Europa Editions Jane Gardam books, was published in England many years ago. It’s the story of a baby whose mother died in childbirth, and what happens to the people in her family and their friends. We’re introduced to several of them — Faith’s mother’s circle, from the South of England, and her father’s family, in the North. Faith’s father, a doctor in the South, takes the baby to his brother Jack’s farm and retreat center, the Priory, where Jack takes in various people — former inmates, Tibetan refugees, etc. — and now his tiny niece. Jack is the hub to the rest of the characters’ spokes, an Anglican priest whose “gentleness, his innocence, and his loving looks” reveal what several characters believe is his holiness. Others think he’s daft. At any rate, Jack is the one through whom all the other characters are connected.
Gardam as always examines society from many angles in this brief story, from family relationships and the meaning and manifestation of faith to the cultural differences between northern and southern England, the impact of education, the different ways people manage grief, and how people who are different than the cultural norms get by. One of the things I love about Gardam’s writing is that she writes about life unvarnished, and doesn’t shy away from the tragedies and traumas, but also doesn’t dwell in them. People get on, one way or another, as they do in the world. Her stories almost always offer some hope for humanity, which I appreciate. And she is really good at inhabiting so many different kinds of characters, male and female, old and young, well off or not.
This was a delightful read, and I’m looking forward to some more Europa Editions!
The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 20th century, aristocracy, book reviews, books, Elizabeth von Arnim, England, fiction, Germany, novels, reading, satire, The Caravaners on July 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »
My friend Peg lent me this book after reading my review of The Enchanted April. Elizabeth von Arnim wrote many novels, and The Caravaners was the eighth, published in 1909. It is meant to be the diary of Otto, Baron von Ottringel, an officious German army major who tells readers he is writing a book about his caravan holiday in England. Besides Otto and his wife, Edelgard, and their neighbor, the widow Frau von Eckthum, they traveled with an aristocratic German-English couple, Mr. and Mrs. Menzies-Legh, a niece of that couple and her friend, a Socialist MP named Jellaby, and a man “going into the church” named Browne, who Otto later learns is also Lord Sigismund, younger son of an aristocrat.
Otto has very definite ideas about women and the English, none of which are favorable. He believes Germany to be superior in every way, and looks forward to a time in the near future when he believes Germany will conquer England. Von Arnim was clearly writing with the impending World War on her mind. And with Otto, she satirizes German alpha masculinity as Otto appears more and more ridiculous throughout the book. Edelgard enjoys the holiday and comes into her own, even shortening her very proper skirts. By the end readers may wonder why she stays with him, when he is such a disagreeable, bullying, sanctimonious, self-absorbed man, but perhaps von Arnim knew what that was like.
At any rate, while the book is funny, it was less funny to read this past week as a similarly self-absorbed, misogynist alpha male blundered around Europe in America’s name. I enjoyed it, but my sense of humor is low at the moment. Still von Antrim is wickedly observant and I found her comparison of Anglican and Lutheran practices at the time interesting. Otto tells an Anglican priest “And Lutherans . . . do not pray. At least not audibly, and certainly never in duets.” I chuckled at that.
A good read, although maybe one not perfectly matched to my present mood. I’m glad Peg thought of me though, and shared it.
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Home › News › General news › 2019 ACS Quality and Safety Conference focuses on putting the patient first, value-based care
GSV standards unveiled
PROs and quality measurement in surgery
Improving communication with patients
Avoiding burnout, increasing resilience
Leadership in providing patient-centered care
ACS THRIVE
The value equation
Tying together the cornerstones of quality, safety, and value
Continued developments in the opioid epidemic
News > General news > 2019 ACS Quality and Safety Conference focuses on putting the patient first, value-based care
2019 ACS Quality and Safety Conference focuses on putting the patient first, value-based care
By Matthew Fox and Diane S. Schneidman
PUBLISHED October 2, 2019 • Print-Friendly
Dr. Ko
Conference attendees
Dr. Awdish
Dr. Rosenthal
Dr. Temple
Dr. Neuman
Dr. Kapadia
Dr. Schwarze
Dr. Riall
Dr. Frates
Dr. Turner
Dr. Sharma
Dr. Rusch
Dr. Hoyt
Conference attendees at the Abstract Poster Reception
Dr. Hall
Dr. Wong
Dr. Aloia
Dr. Angelos
Dr. Kelz
Dr. Chang
Dr. Makary
Dr. Waljee
Dr. Stulberg
More than 2,100 surgical team members, clinical registry experts, and allied and administrative health care professionals attended the American College of Surgeons (ACS) 2019 Quality and Safety Conference, July 19–22 in Washington, DC. The theme of the conference, Putting Our Patients First, was evident in the conference’s seven preconference sessions, nine general sessions, and many breakout and abstract sessions, as well as the formal launch of the Geriatric Surgery Verification (GSV) Quality Improvement Program.
In his welcoming remarks, Clifford Y. Ko, MD, MS, MSHS, FACS, Director, ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care, said, “This is the largest Quality and Safety Conference ever, with the largest number of sessions and most abstract submissions (approximately 600).” In fact, the conference has grown so much over the last 12 years that it now needs to take place at a conference center rather than a hotel.
Dr. Ko focused his opening remarks on value improvement in surgery, noting that the value equation is the sum of quality divided by costs. He said the denominator—quality—means more than “first, do no harm.” It is defined by “making patients better” in a way that is meaningful to them. Dr. Ko said, “Quality should be defined as care and outcomes that matter to the patient.” Using this definition, quality metrics would include not only clinical data, but also patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).
Sometimes physicians learn the importance of putting the patient first by being patients themselves. Rana Awdish, MD, FCCP, FACP, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI, and keynote speaker at the conference, experienced this situation when she developed a ruptured hepatic adenoma at seven months into a pregnancy.
She spoke of being rushed to the hospital and then into the operating room (OR) for an emergency cesarean section. As she was going into deep sedation, she heard the anesthesiologist say, “‘She’s circling the drain.’” When she awoke a few days later, she could hear the intensive care unit team rounding and heard the chief resident say, “‘She’s been trying to die on us.’ I felt by him saying that, he was creating an adversarial relationship,” Dr. Awdish said, revealing that she had made similar comments just days before, but it was different to hear as a patient.
“For me, that immediate transposition from critical care physician to critically ill patient exposed things to me about medicine, this field that I had revered since I was a child,” Dr. Awdish said. “There were deficits in communication, there was discoordination of care, and, at times, there was a complete lack of ability to attend to suffering. I saw us through the lens of our patients, and it frightened me.”
Dr. Awdish pulled through and recovered from hepatic and renal failure as well as a stroke thanks to the medical treatment she received, which included 26 units of blood products on the night of her collapse, five major operations, and extensive physical therapy. The experience exposed her, though, to the shortfalls in how she and her colleagues would interact with patients.
Clinicians are trained to detect and treat illness. “What we’re less well-trained to do is decode the fear our patients are experiencing,” Dr. Awdish said. At that juncture, she said, she needed “things that medicine couldn’t give”—time to be with her family, to feel supported and valued as a person. “I never understood how much illness robs our patients of their identities,” she said.
“We don’t always take the time to integrate a patient’s values and emotions into their care,” Dr. Awdish said. When she returned to active practice, Dr. Awdish wanted to reconcile being a confident, proficient physician with what she learned as a patient. She recalled previously believing that her “value came from healing, from treating illness,” but she had come to understand how “holding space for the patient’s suffering, listening to their pain was in and of itself a therapeutic act.”
“Many of us were taught in medical school that if we give of ourselves, we’ll somehow be depleted. I think it’s the opposite,” Dr. Awdish said. “These channels of active listening, of empathy, of compassion, are reciprocal. We gain more than we ever give.”
One ACS initiative that has been developed with the goal of attending to patients’ overall goals of care is the GSV Quality Improvement Program, which was unveiled at a reception and dinner July 18. With the support of The John A. Hartford Foundation, the GSV program was developed over a four-year period with more than 50 stakeholders and two phases of hospital site visits, culminating in the creation of 30 standards that hospitals must meet to receive ACS GSV accreditation. These standards aim to concisely address the most important aspects of surgical care for patients ages 75 and older.
“This program really has the potential to do something,” said Ronnie A. Rosenthal, MD, MS, FACS, who led the Coalition for Quality in Geriatric Surgery (CQGS) Core Development Team, which produced the GVS Standards. “This is going to be a game-changer for older Americans.”
The guest speaker at the event was Shari M. Ling, MD, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Ling said that CMS is the largest payor for health care services in the nation and that most beneficiaries have four or five medical conditions in addition to the one treated in a single episode of care. As a result, it is important that all providers work in alignment to provide care “to all the patients we touch upon in a true and earnest way,” Dr. Ling said.
Underscoring the importance of including patients in the discussion about the care they receive, patients now serve on all CMS advisory panels “to help us understand what care looks like when they receive it to help guide us in our program and policy development,” Dr. Ling said.
Speaking of the GSV program specifically, “I’ve been personally honored to watch this work evolve,” Dr. Ling said. “Thank you for having the courage to go forward.”
The conference included a track of preconference workshops and breakout sessions on the GSV, which focused on how to become a geriatric surgery-verified center; the aging population and rising health care costs; improved geriatric outcomes; and emergency, cancer, and bariatric surgery for older adults.
Assessing the quality of surgery and surgeons through clinically reported metrics is vital to quality improvement, but it is equally important to think about quality from the patient’s perspective. Larissa Temple, MD, MSc, FACS, professor of surgery and chief of colorectal surgery, University of Rochester Medical Center, NY, spoke about how PROs can help improve clinical care. She noted that one study showed that collecting PROs from a group of stage IV cancer patients as they underwent treatment led to improved survival time, likely because their clinicians had a better understanding of their health status. Patient data collection can be difficult, so “we really need to make sure we’re asking the right questions, and we need to make sure we’re asking the questions that matter to the patient,” Dr. Temple said.
Effective communication is paramount to the provision of high-quality, patient-centered care.
Heather Neuman, MD, FACS, associate professor, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, said patient-centered communication “considers patient needs and values, builds a strong relationship, and includes the patient in care decisions.” These variables can be measured. “Thinking through what it is you’re trying to measure and what perspective is going to be the most important is one of the first things you need to do in measuring communication,” Dr. Neuman said. She explained different methods of measurement, including patient surveys, direct observation such as audio- or video-recorded interactions, and feedback from third-party observers. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and it can be difficult to decide which option to pursue, but “we all agree communication is important, and it is a skill that can be developed through data.”
Setting expectations before and immediately after surgery is crucial in communicating with patients and developing a positive relationship, according to Muneera Kapadia, MD, FACS, clinical associate professor, University of Iowa, Iowa City. “Setting expectations allows patients and their families to participate in shared decision making,” Dr. Kapadia said. Classically, surgeons explain to their patients all of their expertise regarding possible outcomes, but “the reality is, preoperative expectation setting is much more effective if it is done as a dialogue and not a monologue.”
Dr. Kapadia suggested using a communication model called Ask-Tell-Ask. Begin by asking a patient’s perspective about what they know about their condition; tell the patient specific technical information about their procedure while prioritizing key information and avoiding jargon; and then ask the patient again what their expectations are as a “teach-back” moment to make sure they understand what has been discussed. Ask-Tell-Ask also is useful in the postoperative setting in cases that resulted in poor outcomes, Dr. Kapadia said.
Gretchen Schwarze, MD, MPP, FACS, associate professor of surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke about different ways to improve communication with patients. “Patients want to participate in their own care—they just don’t always know how,” Dr. Schwarze said. One method she discussed was “patient activation” before the surgical consult, which means giving patients the ability to frame and communicate their questions beforehand. Question-prompt lists, decision aids, and patient navigators are useful resources in this stage. Dr. Schwarze also stressed the importance of talking about goals and tradeoffs. “We’ve all been taught to talk about risks and benefits, but really, if you’re going to talk about whether surgery is worth it, you need to talk about what the outcome is and whether all of the things you need to go through to achieve that outcome are absolutely worth it,” Dr. Schwarze said.
Surgeons should focus on discerning the patient’s goal for the operation—“I want to be healthy and functional”—over the surgeon’s—“I want to remove this tumor efficiently.” Finally, surgeons should “attend to emotion, because once you do, you can move forward and have a rational conversation.”
Providing patient-centered care goes beyond technique and data; it begins with surgeons taking care of themselves to avoid burnout and increase resilience in a demanding field, according to Taylor Riall, MD, PhD, FACS, professor and division chief, surgical oncology, department of surgery, University of Arizona, Tucson. The consequences of burnout, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a low sense of personal achievement, affect surgeons and their colleagues, leading to career dissatisfaction, depression, substance abuse, and suicide, among other issues. “For many of us, the concept of burnout resonates poorly. It suggests failure of resourcefulness or resilience, of suffering a ‘moral injury,’” Dr. Riall said. “But the moral injury of health care is being unable to provide high-quality health care from a lack of personal care,” and surgeons must be leaders in expecting better self-care for themselves and colleagues.
Beth Frates, MD, director of wellness programming, Stroke Institute for Research and Recovery, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and clinical assistant professor, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, said that part of self-care begins with lifestyle medicine—a holistic approach that addresses some of the root causes of mental distress or burnout. It is based on six pillars, including exercising regularly; eating healthy foods; getting enough sleep; having strong interpersonal relationships; managing stress; and cutting down on smoking, drinking, and other unhealthy habits. “When we talk about well-being for preventing burnout, we can’t just talk about exercise, diet, or sleep,” Dr. Frates said. “We also need a peaceful mind. We need to be able to unplug and to have a peaceful heart, which is born through connecting your sense of purpose to your work.” Dr. Frates recommended stress resiliency training and one-on-one therapeutic coaching for surgeons to “allow them to be their best selves.”
According to Patricia L. Turner, MD, FACS, Director, ACS Division of Member Services, “leadership is a process.” Anyone within an organization can and should lead. “Effective leadership styles can be learned,” but it is important that leaders find a style that matches their personality. “It has to be authentic,” she said.
Certain behaviors can derail leadership, Dr. Turner said. Examples include lack of enthusiasm, acceptance of one’s own mediocre performance, lack of vision and direction, poor judgment, unwillingness to collaborate, inauthenticity, resistance to new ideas, repeating the same mistakes, lack of interpersonal skills, failure to develop others, and ineffective communication.
Paramount to leadership is emotional intelligence, which involves self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness or relationship management, Dr. Turner said.
At the highest level, leadership is about creating change within the organization and encouraging others to grow. “It isn’t about you anymore,” she said. “If your leadership isn’t all about you, it will live beyond you.”
Jyotirmay (Joe) Sharma, MD, FACS, FACE, associate professor, general and endocrine surgery, division of general and gastrointestinal surgery, department of surgery, Emory University School of Medicine; and director, thyroid and endocrine surgery, Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, GA, said leaders in mid-level positions need to define patient-centered health care and quality for their teams.
The hallmarks of patient-centered, quality care include efficacy, efficiency, effectiveness, optimization, acceptability, and equity, Dr. Sharma said. When leading efforts to apply these concepts within institutions, it is important to ensure that the strategic plan reflects the values of the organization and to clearly define the criteria for success, he added. Leaders should “celebrate success, establish alignment, and clear the path.”
ACS President-Elect Valerie W. Rusch, MD, FACS, said, “The top challenges in leadership arise from widely divergent opinions or an entrenched point of view.” When this scenario develops, leaders need to open people’s minds to shifting paradigms, manage their anxieties, and thwart disruptive behavior.
To respond to challenges in leadership, Dr. Rusch recommended the following actions:
Provide good data
Develop consensus-based solutions
Find common ground
Engage all interested parties
Establish agreed-upon mechanisms and time frames for implementation
Display patience and perseverance
To ensure patients continue to have access to high-quality care, the health care system needs transformative change, which ACS THRIVE (Transforming Health Care Resources to Increase Value and Efficiency) is designed to do. ACS THRIVE is the result of collaboration between the ACS and the Harvard Business School (HBS) Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. THRIVE combines the knowledge the ACS has amassed in improving surgical outcomes to reduce costs with an HBS plan to create a value-based health care system. “Our goal is to deliver better care for lower care costs,” said ACS Executive Director David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS.
“One of the things the ACS brings to this discussion most is experience,” he said, through the establishment of standards-setting, accreditation, and quality improvement programs. Through these initiatives, the ACS has found that “if you encourage hospitals to analyze their data, outcomes improve,” Dr. Hoyt said.
“There are two definitions of quality,” Dr. Hoyt said: conformance quality, in which the provider hits the specifications and averts any preventable or avoidable complications; and performance quality, which means providing superior care and achieving patient goals. Moving toward performance quality will require that health care professionals “focus more on want patients want, not just what physicians think they want,” Dr. Hoyt said.
At the same time the College was developing its expanding array of Quality Programs, the HBS was developing a plan for a value-based health care delivery system, Dr. Hoyt said.
According to Frank G. Opelka, MD, FACS, Medical Director, ACS Quality and Health Policy, the U.S. needs to move to a value-based health care system because “44 states now spend more on Medicaid than K−12 education, health care spending per person is growing twice as fast as household income, and 48 million people can’t afford their prescriptions.” Furthermore, health care has shifted from a cottage industry to a complex enterprise, but physicians are still paid using the same fee-for-service model used in the 1960s. As a result, patient care has become fragmented, with multiple clinicians providing distinct services without coordination across the continuum of care, leaving the nation with “a health care system that has an unknown value, is unaffordable, and unsustainable,” he said.
Mary Witkowski, MD, MBA, fellow, HBS Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, outlined the strategic agenda for creating a value-based health care delivery system, as follows:
Reorganize care around patient conditions or groups of related conditions into integrated practice units covering the full cycle of care
Measure outcomes and costs for every patient
Move to value-based reimbursement models and, ultimately, bundled payments for conditions
Integrate and coordinate care in multi-site care delivery systems
Expand or affiliate across geography to reinforce excellence
Build an enabling information technology platform
Robert Kaplan, MS, PhD, senior fellow and Marvin Brower Professor of Leadership Development, emeritus, HBS, said, “The whole health care sector is behind in measuring cost.” To modernize the system, costs should be measured across the continuum of care using time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC), Dr. Kaplan said. TDABC involves three steps, as follows:
Determine the care process; that is, what activities are performed, who performs each activity, and how long each activity should take
Calculate the cost per unit of time for each type of personnel and resource
Account for consumables, such as materials, supplies, and drugs
“We find that bundled payments are ideally suited to value-based care,” Dr. Kaplan said. A value-based bundle payment should include a single, risk-adjusted payment that covers all of the care required to treat a patient’s medical condition contingent on achieving good outcomes and at a price that provides a fair margin for delivering effective and efficient care, he said.
Bruce Hall, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS, vice-president and chief quality officer, BJC Healthcare, St. Louis, MO, and consulting director, ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, said value-based care is about “taking better care of our patients and communities in a more sustainable way.” In a value-based health care system, patients, their families, and advocates should expect desirable outcomes that are consistent with their goals of care; to be informed of what to expect during the course of treatment; to feel confident that appropriate care is furnished; financial transparency; and that it is a positive, respectful experience. Physicians, other health care professionals, and health care facilities should expect acknowledgments and rewards for providing high-quality care, predictable and low administrative burdens, and support and rewards for innovations. Payors should anticipate reduced costs, less cost variations, and more efficient payment processes.
Sandra L. Wong, MD, MS, FACS, chair of surgery, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and senior vice-president, surgical service line at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Lebanon, NH, said the goal of value-based care is to optimize quality by using the right metrics, including PROMs, while decreasing costs.
“There are problems with how we measure costs,” Dr. Wong said. ”We still live in a fee-for-service environment.” Dartmouth engaged in an eight-year experiment to determine the effects of a global, or bundled, payment system for surgical care and after a period of time began realizing savings. “I think we are making some headway in decreasing costs,” she said.
Thomas Aloia, MD, FACS, chief value and quality officer, department of value and quality; chief medical executive; and professor, department of surgical oncology, division of surgery, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said providers and patients define value differently. “Ninety percent of providers emphasize survival, while 90 percent of patients want recovery. They want to go home,” he said.
Dr. Aloia noted that “60 percent of health care dollars are spent in the last six months of life. Stop doing things that don’t help people.” To provide care that is more meaningful to patients, he encouraged surgeons to use risk calculators for shared decision making.
The cornerstones of patient-centered, value-based care include ethical behavior, standardization, case review, and reduction of unnecessary spending.
Peter Angelos, MD, PhD, FACS, Linda Kohler Anderson Professor of Surgery; chief, endocrine surgery; and associate director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, University of Chicago, IL, explored the ethical dimensions of surgical care. He noted that key elements of ethical patient care include trust, communication, the surgeon-patient relationship, and shared decision making. “The surgeon-patient relationship is intensely personal. We are asking patients to trust us individually, and we have a responsibility to uphold that trust,” Dr. Angelos said.
Rachel Kelz, MD, MBA, MSCE, FACS, professor of surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, spoke on the role of standardization. A lack of standards leads to duplication, miscommunication, and ambiguity—all of which negatively affect patient care. “Standardization establishes a relationship between people and their work processes,” Dr. Kelz said. In developing standardized practices within your institution, “act with integrity, act with reason, and act as a citizen” of your community, she added.
“Case outcomes are an indicator of structure or process,” noted Michael Chang, MD, FACS, chief medical officer, USA Health, and associate vice-president for medical affairs and professor of surgery, University of South Alabama College of Medicine, Mobile. Consequently, “Case review is foundational to any surgical performance improvement program.” Dr. Chang noted that the ACS Red Book, Optimal Resources for Surgical Quality and Safety, describes the process for both single-discipline and multidisciplinary case review. “After case review, act on a single case or trend,” he said.
Martin Makary, MD, MPH, FACS, chief, islet transplant surgery, and professor of surgery, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, noted that “24 percent of Americans avoid care because of fear of medical bills.” He said a significant driver of high costs in health care is the “middlemen,” including group purchasing organizations and pharmacy benefit managers. Health care institutions and other providers that use these entities must “pay to play,” and often are asked to give these groups exclusivity, enabling them to set prices that are higher than if the resources were purchased directly from the manufacturer, thereby driving up costs, which are then passed on to patients.
Inappropriate care is another factor that adds to health care cost, Dr. Makary said. In fact, physicians say 21 percent of care is unnecessary. “The opioid crisis is a manifestation of the crisis of inappropriateness,” he added.
Opiate abuse and misuse continues to be a topic of concern in the health care community, with more than 100 people in the U.S. dying from overdoses each day. Because opioid prescriptions given at postoperative discharge create a significant risk factor for chronic opioid use one year later, it continues to be incumbent upon the surgical community to act responsibly.
Jennifer Waljee, MD, FACS, associate professor of plastic surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said up to 80 percent of opioids prescribed postoperatively go unused and are at risk of being diverted into the community—and unlike in primary care or emergency medicine, data show that opioid prescriptions by surgeons actually increased from 2010 to 2016. Through the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (OPEN) surgeons and other health care providers partnered to “get data, guide change, and collaborate on best practice guidelines,” Dr. Waljee said. They found that when 30–50 pills were prescribed postoperatively, only six were used on average, leaving many at risk for potential diversion. Since OPEN created new prescribing guidelines that lowered the number of given pills, “we have never seen any increase in calls for refills, no change in patient-reported pain, and when patients are prescribed fewer pills, they take fewer pills,” Dr. Waljee said. In fact, Michigan hospitals have experienced an approximately 50 percent decrease in prescribed pills while maintaining patient satisfaction after implementing the guidelines.
Other opioid initiatives are finding success across the country. Jonah Stulberg, MD, PhD, MPH, FACS, assistant professor of surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, provided an update on the work he and his colleagues at the Illinois Surgical Quality Improvement Program are doing with the Minimizing Opioid Prescribing in Surgery (MOPiS) program. Although MOPiS has resulted in fewer opioid prescriptions, “Where we still seem to be failing is in addressing this culture of pain we’ve developed over decades,” Dr. Stulberg said. He said that if the principles curated through MOPiS were applied to all procedures and across all specialties, a natural institutional culture shift in opioid prescribing patterns would emerge.
“We need to recognize that there are multiple dimensions to how our patients experience pain,” said Zara Cooper, MD, MSc, FACS, trauma surgeon and Kessler Director, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, speaking on the use of opiates in palliative care. Pain for patients in palliative care can be physical, psychological, social, or spiritual, Dr. Cooper said. Unfortunately, “too often, we try to treat all of them with opiates.” She suggested that surgeons and surgical teams think more broadly about the problem. To address the opioid crisis, surgeons need to employ a multimodal approach, not only with nonopioid medication, but with strong patient communication and attendance to emotional needs.
The 2020 ACS Quality and Safety Conference will take place July 24–27 in Minneapolis, MN.
Tagged as: ACS Quality and Safety Conference, ACS Quality Programs, value-based care
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Artist "Landfall"
Label: Frontiers Records s.r.l.
Biography Landfall
a Brazilian melodic rock band, have announced they will release their debut album, "The Turning Point" via Frontiers. Hailing from Curitiba, Brazil, Landfall's sound can be described as falling between classic melodic rock a là Journey with some slightly heavier influences, such as classic era Dokken, White Lion, and Extreme. The band, of course, is more than the sum of their influences and brings in elements of progressive and hard rock to their melodic rock delivery to create a truly delightful sound punctuated by a singer with a voice that matches perfectly (and powerfully) with the music.
“I should say ‘The Turning Point’ means a lot more than just the album name. Signing with Frontiers is a great example of a real turning point for us in terms of our careers and lives. About the album, the concept was built based on the urban elements of a big city, the urban jungle, the downtown. It drives the listener through these city elements and modern urban themes. All the songs are connected to this universe. Hope you enjoy the ride!“ says Felipe Souzza.
“I’m really glad to be back with Frontiers with a new band and new songs in a new perspective. I believe this is my best album so far. I was really impressed when I met the band for the first time. They are truly amazing, gifted and very prepared to do this with me,” says Gui Oliver.
Landfall was originally started by drummer Felipe Souzza and guitarist Marcelo Gelbcke, who are childhood friends and have been playing together since they were about 15 years old. Some years later, bassist Thiago Forbeci joined up with them, adding new musical input and influences and thus the band decided to go in a new musical direction. They began writing songs, creating their own music repertoire to work off of, and it was during this period that they recorded a few albums together and performed several concerts around Brazil, including opening for acts like Glenn Hughes and Mike Vescera. The guys later joined up with Gui and created Landfall and commenced to work on their magnificent blend of hard rock, melodic rock, and AOR for their upcoming debut album.
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New Finding Aids, 1st Quarter 2020
This post is one in a quarterly series in which the New-York Historical Society highlights the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, Bobcat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large or complex that…
“Take No Medicine Without Advice”: New York Reacts to Pandemics Past
The grim new numbers of the cases and deaths from COVID-19 reach us every day. As laypeople, we want to tune them out at times, but they are crucial to medical practice and public health. Certainly, we see that in history: Here is the sobering list of yellow fever deaths at Bellevue Hospital in 1795…
Food for Thought: The Duane Family Cookbooks, 1840-1874
Food is a critical part of our daily lives, and of our history. Cuisine is passed down from generation to generation and is an expression of a shared identity. At the most basic level, it reflects ethnicity, but also lifestyle, values, and traditions. The Duane and Wells family’s recipe book gives us a glimpse into…
An Ambrotype Army from the Cased Image File
The Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library is home to one of the largest cased image collections in the country, consisting largely of daguerreotype, ambrotype or tintype portraits. Cased images typically include the image plate and a cover glass wrapped together in a brass mat, placed inside a…
Rose O’Neill, Mother of the Kewpies
When Rose O’Neill’s illustrations appeared in True Magazine on September 19, 1896, she made history by becoming the first female cartoonist to publish a comic strip in America. A self-taught artist, O’Neill (1874-1944) had spent her childhood studying artists and submitting her work to various periodicals around the country. She set out for New York City at…
Martha Lamb: New-York Historical Society Pioneer
From the title Scholars and Gentlemen, one of the essential histories written about the New-York Historical Society and that dates from the 1980s, one might get the wrong impression, that only men played a role in the life of the institution over the course of its 216 years. Yet many women have played significant roles…
Benjamin West’s Memorial to Washington
Prior to the construction of Robert Mills’ Washington Monument in 1833, proposals to erect a memorial in honor of George Washington began as early as 1783. The defeat of the British under his command and his consecutive time as the first President of the United States had thrust Washington into the public’s mind as an…
Beach Pneumatic Transit: The 1870 Subway That Could Have Been?
Could a subway station have a grand piano, chandeliers, and a fountain with goldfish to boot? Alfred Ely Beach certainly believed so in the years following the Civil War, and, in fact, he was not deterred in creating such a subway, one that debuted 150 years ago, on February 26, 1870. Beach (1826-1896) was an…
Benjamin Franklin’s Plan for Unification
Twenty years before the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, a group of colonial representatives from nine colonies met in Albany, New York during the onset of the French and Indian War. The Albany Congress of 1754 brought together colonial and Indigenous leaders in an attempt to strengthen relations while defending the northern…
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Political intermediation for just sustainabilities
Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico
By Prakash Kashwan
Present understanding of the relationship between environmental conservation and social justice – the two of the greatest challenges of our times – is fraught with multiple confusions, especially in the context of developing countries. UN agency reports blame deforestation on poor people’s “inappropriate use of wood and other resources for cooking, heating, housing and crafts” while ignoring the massively wasteful lifestyles of the rich, including those living within the poor countries in the global South. On the other hand, recent scholarly research indigenous land rights to successful environmental outcomes. Yet, these studies offer little guidance as to why the effectiveness of indigenous land rights statutes vary significantly across different countries.
How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others on this front? The answer lies in the political intermediation mechanisms, that is, well-established processes and relationships that help citizen groups, civil society organizations, and social movement participants engage in political and policy processes that affect them directly. Noticeably, in the context of questions of environmental conservation and social justice, the strength of political intermediation mechanisms matters more than the formal institutions of democracy, which are vulnerable to majoritarian politics.
Consider the case of India, which has been celebrated for the integrity of its democratic institutions. Despite their many accomplishments, the country’s post-independence leadership failed to bring about transformative change in the status of its minorities, specifically, its over 100 million indigenous people. The persistence of colonial-era political and economic institutions, including the total control of forestland in the hands of government forestry agencies, is a major barrier against the social, economic, and political development of the indigenous groups. The first few years of the new millennium witnessed nation-wide mobilization to demand forest and land rights, the election of a left-of-center federal government, and the establishment of a National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC – a semi-autonomous agency that integrated civil society actors into policy making processes – was instrumental in the enactment of a number of progressive laws to protect the social, political, and economic rights of poor citizens.
The goals of environmental conservation and social justice are not at odds. Instead, to a large extent, the political economy of forest control and uses determines whether national forestry regimes are socially just and environmentally sustainable.
One of these laws was the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006, which gave legal protection of household land rights and community-level forest rights of indigenous and other forest-dependent groups. National and international conservation groups lauded the FRA as one of the best efforts globally to reconcile the goals of environmental conservation and social justice. Yet, the deeply entrenched nature of the status-quo that vests too much discretion in the hands of government forestry officials undermined the realization of statutory intention in practice. As a result, forest-dependent groups who have successfully protected and utilized forests sustainably, cannot hold the government forestry agencies to account. Yet, the poor continued to be blamed for forest degradation, while the ineffective and corrupt forestry agencies continue to receive a lion’s share of national and international funding devoted to nature conservation. A very similar story unfolds in Tanzania even though there are some important differences in the institutional structure of Tanzania’s national forestry administration, which offers better opportunities for improving the accountability of forestry and wildlife agencies.
Contrast the Indian experience to the state of affairs in Mexico, which is home to the world’s most successful community forestry policies and programs. Mexico’s success is often attributed to the post-revolutionary land redistribution between 1935 and late 1960s, yet, this book shows that these redistributions were a result of persistent social and political mobilization of the peasants and indigenous groups, and inter-elite competition for power within the ruling PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party). For instance, the redistribution of nearly 70 percent of Mexico’s forestland to agrarian and indigenous communities was a result of the effort of the government to compensate for the failure to distribute good quality irrigated land owned by politically influential groups. To be sure, for Mexico’s environmental elites, the distribution of forestland to peasants raised the specter of a complete decimation of the country’s forests. The federal forestry service sought to bring forests under “scientific management” that would combine conservation and sustainable harvesting by commercial loggers. However, unlike their counterparts in India and Tanzania, Mexico’s peasants were both mobilized and sufficiently well-connected to the ruling party to thwart the plans for the development of an exclusionary forestry regime.
Political scientists often find Mexico’s form of peasant corporatism wanting in comparison to the ideal-type liberal democratic institutions of policy-making. Yet, instead of being the oppressive anti-democratic arrangements they are often made out to be, party-sponsored peasant organizations became part of a broader mechanism of political intermediation that afforded the peasant and indigenous groups significant leverage in the political and policy processes. As a result, in comparison to other countries, forestland rights of Mexico’s forest-dependent people are very secure – both in law and practice. Moreover, the well-established links between peasant groups, party machine, and the state agencies have made Mexico’s policy-making far more responsive and the forestry and wildlife agencies more accountable compared to their counterparts in India and Tanzania.
The available evidence that Mexico’s inclusionary forestland regime is far more effective than are India and Tanzania’s exclusionary forest policies at achieving nature conservation. The goals of environmental conservation and social justice are not at odds. Instead, to a large extent, the political economy of forest control and uses determines whether national forestry regimes are socially just and environmentally sustainable. International agencies and middle-class donors of environmental charities have an opportunity to ensure that conservation investments are redirected, from countries that fail to hold their government agencies to account, to the countries that have put in place effective institutional arrangements that promote accountability and share the benefits of forest conservation with forest-dependent groups.
Featured image credit: Landscapes San Miguel De Allende Mexico by marcoreyesgt. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.
Prakash Kashwan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut.
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New Jersey online gambling ops scolded for incentivizing reverse withdrawals
Macau VIP gambling claims record low casino revenue share
Seven poker quotes from WSOP bracelet winners to inspire you
Premier League Gameweek #18 Review – City on the March
Which Premier League manager is favourite to be sacked next?
Born and raised on a hippie commune/grow-op in British Columbia, Steven Stradbrooke is likely high right this second. Steven began writing at an early age, leading to his being expelled from high school one month from graduation for publishing an op-ed in the school paper suggesting the theme for the prom should be the Jim Carroll Band’s ‘These Are People Who Died’. Steven later moved to Los Angeles, where he penned numerous adult film screenplays under the pseudonym Phil E. Cheesedick. Following a brief but productive stint with Hallmark Cards, Steven discovered online gambling, and has been struggling to work off his debt to Calvin Ayre ever since. If you run into Steven at the bar, he¹ll have a Stradbrooke (three parts Rémy Martin champagne cognac, one part green Original Sport Aqua Velva).
LATEST ARTICLES BY Steven Stradbrooke
By Steven Stradbrooke
New Jersey gambling regulator warns online licensees not to incentivize customers to reverse pending withdrawal requests.
VIP gambling claims a record low share (34.5%) of Macau casino gaming revenue in Q4 2020 due to COVID-19 and China law changes.
Russia blocks another payment processor from dealing with int'l firms; Russian-licensed online sports betting traffic falls 30% in 2020.
Andrew Burnett predicts an industry shakeup in 2021
Max Meltzer explains player behavior in the US sports betting market
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Macau's ban on phone use at casino gaming tables proves no match for tech-savvy junkets, who equip proxies with wireless ear pieces.
Pinnacle Sports rebrand drops the ‘sports’
Online sports betting operator Pinnacle Sports undergoes comprehensive rebrand that drops the 'sports' following Pinnacle.com acquisition.
Billy Walters pleads not guilty to insider trading, keeps private plane, loses bong
Sports bettor Billy Walters pleads not guilty to insider trading charges, gets to keep using private plane, loses medical marijuana script.
Hackers target Czech Republic gov’t sites over plans to block gambling domains
Hackers claiming affiliation with Anonymous collective target Czech Republic government sites over plans to block online gambling domains.
Las Vegas Sands settles six-year-old court fight with Sands China ex-CEO Steve Jacobs
Las Vegas Sands announces confidential settlement of the six-year-old wrongful termination suit brought by Sands China ex-CEO Steve Jacobs.
Northern Territory lures Betfair; in-play sports betting apps proving tough to kill
Northern Territory lures Betfair Australia by passing exchange wagering legislation; Aussie in-play sports betting apps prove tough to kill.
Boyd Gaming sells 50% stake in Atlantic City’s Borgata casino to MGM Resorts
Boyd Gaming sells 50% stake in Atlantic City's market-leading Borgata casino to MGM Resorts for $900m.
NYX Gaming acquires UK rival Betdigital
NYX Gaming Group boosts content offering via acquisition of UK-based omni-channel gambling technology provider Betdigital.
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Celebrating the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection | Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and MuseumBilly Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
Celebrating the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection
Two new exhibitions at The Ohio State University celebrate the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection, which was recently transferred to OSU’s Cartoon Library and Museum (formerly the Cartoon Research Library). The union of these two institutions created the largest collection of original cartoon art in the world. The exhibitions showcase the treasures of the collection including original art from editorial cartoons, comic strips, animation and comic books. Fan favorites Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Blondie, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse, For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury, Spider-Man, Beetle Bailey and Family Circus will all be on display. The characters and images depicted may be familiar, but taken out of their traditional context in print and on screen, cartoons can be examined and appreciated as works of art; triumphs of design and craftsmanship. The originals reveal the method behind the magic, offering visitors an opportunity to look at the popular culture icons and images so prevalent in their everyday lives in new and different ways. These exhibitions will engage and delight audiences of all ages.
From Yellow Kid to Conan: American Cartoons from the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection will be held at the Hopkins Hall Gallery + Corridor from June 28-August 7, 2009. The exhibition is open weekdays from 10:30 am-4:30 pm and is located at 128 North Oval Mall.
Hogarth and Beyond: Global Cartoons from the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection will be held at the Cartoon Library and Museum’s Reading Room gallery from June 10-August 31, 2009. The exhibition is open weekdays from 9:00 am-5:00 pm and is located at 27 W. 17th Ave. Mall (entrance near Wexner Center, north of Mershon Auditorium)
Admission to both exhibitions is free.
A series of events on June 27-28, 2009 has been scheduled to celebrate the opening of the exhibitions:
June 27, 2009, 7:00 pm, Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Theater
101 Dalmations (1961) proceeded by animated shorts, Brave Little Tailor(1938) and Leprechaun’s Gold (1949). Introduction by animation historian Jerry Beck. Visit wexarts.org or call 614-292-3535 for tickets. $7 ($5 for members, students, and senior citizens).
June 28, 2009, Grand Lounge, The Ohio State University Faculty Club, 181 South Oval Drive.
1:00 pm Milestones of the International Museum of Cartoon Art. Panel discussion with former trustees Brian Walker, Mort Walker, and Arnold Roth moderated by Dr. Jared Gardner, Dept. of English.
2:15 pm Keynote Speaker – Jim Borgman, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and co-creator of the comic strip Zits.
3:30-5:00 pm Exhibition opening reception at the Hopkins Hall Gallery + Corridor. Refreshments will be served.
All June 28 events are free and open to the public.
The following additional programs are scheduled:
July 14, 2009, 7:00-9:00 pm, 162 Hopkins Hall, 128 North Oval Mall. Free.
“A Whirlwind History of American Comics” by Dr, Jared Gardner and gallery talk by Lucy Shelton Caswell, curator of From the Yellow Kid to Conan.
July 19, 2009, Free family programs.
12:00-4:30 pm From the Yellow Kid to Conan: American Cartoons from the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection at Hopkins Gallery + Corridor.
1:00 pm The Secret of N.I.M.H. (1982) Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Theater.
2:30-4:00 pm Special events at the Hopkins Gallery + Corridor. Enjoy lemonade and cookies! Print a comic strip with Bob Tauber, Logan Elm Press and Book Arts Program! Make an authentic newspaper printer’s hat!
About the International Museum of Cartoon Art (IMCA): IMCA was established in 1973 by Mort Walker, the creative force behind Beetle Bailey, as the first museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting cartoons. IMCA’s collection consists of approximately 200,000 works, including original drawings from all genres of cartoon art (comic strips, comic books, animation, editorial, advertising, collectibles, and works on film and tape, CD’s and DVD’s.
IMCA’s operating history spanned nearly thirty years and three locations. Unfortunately, in 2002, after six years of highly successful operation in Boca Raton, Florida and the expectation ofa long and similarly successful future, financial difficulties forced the museum to close. The entire collection was transferred to OSU in 2008.
About the Cartoon Library and Museum: The library’s primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to these collections. The library is open Monday-Friday 9 am to 5 pm. See https://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information.
Contact the Cartoon Library and Museum for an image to accompany this release.
← Jean Schulz, Widow of “Peanuts” Creator Charles M. Schulz, Gives $1 Million to Cartoon Library & Museum Move | Winsor McCay: Legendary Cartoonist →
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XC_CM_NBC's 'America's Got Talent' Season 12 Live Show_Mel B, Melanie Brown_129.JPG
HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CA, USA - AUGUST 15: Mel B, Melanie Brown arrives at NBC's 'America's Got Talent' Season 12 Live Show held at Dolby Theatre on August 15, 2017 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Xavier Collin/Celebrity Monitor)
Celebrity Monitor, Xavier Collin, CM, USA, United States, United States Of America, California, CA, Los Angeles, Los Angeles - California, Los Angeles County, City of Los Angeles, Hollywood, Hollywood - Los Angeles, Hollywood - California, Event, Red Carpet, Arts Culture and Entertainment, Red Carpet Event, Editorial, Arrival, Attending, Celebrities, Arts, Culture, Entertainment, Full Length, Headshot, Posing, Portrait, Smiling, Eye Contact, Fashion, Looking At Camera, Photography, Arts and entertainment, Celebrity, Celebrity red carpet, People, 2017, Photograph, Image, NBC, NBC Universal, Universal, NBCUniversal, Dolby Theatre, Dolby Theater, America's Got Talent, AGT, Live Show, Post, Live, Show, Season, Season 12, Backstage, Mel B, Melanie Brown
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NewsFile | Eduardo Paolozzi Mosaics Saved!
Back in February we wrote about the danger facing Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics which have adorned the walls of London’s Tottenham Court Road tube station. The mosaics, at least a few of them, had to come down due to reconstruction efforts in the station.
It wasn’t a total tragedy; the station removed only about 5 percent of the work in the process. It was a shame, though, that we lost his iconic murals above the escalator arches.
This week it was announced that these mosaics were preserved. They’ll be sent off to Scotland. The good news comes to us from the London Evening Standard:
Colourful mosaics welcoming visitors to Tottenham Court Road station for more than 30 years are to be restored and put on display in Scotland, it can be revealed today. Eduardo Paolozzi’s murals above three escalator arches – which campaigners said were integral to the complete set of mosaics throughout the station – were stripped as part of a £400 million central London station’s redevelopment for the Crossrail programme.
Transport for London announced today they will be taken to Paolozzi’s native Edinburgh for restoration by students at the Edinburgh College of Art before going on public display.
TfL said the majority of Paolozzi’s other mosaics inside Tottenham Court Road station, notably those on the Central Line and Northern Line platforms, have been cleaned and repaired and will remain in situ.
A large mural at the Oxford Street entrance will be remounted elsewhere in the newly upgraded station, which is due for completion in 2018.
The complete set of mosaics, unveiled in 1984, comprised 1,000 squares metres.
TfL said “around 95 per cent of the mosaics at the station are being retained in their original locations”.
Any thoughts about this post? Share yours in the comment box below.
Filed Under: All Topics, Architecture, Art, Design, News, Public Art Tagged With: eduardo paolozzi, london, mosaic, scotland, tile, uk
2 thoughts on "NewsFile | Eduardo Paolozzi Mosaics Saved!"
Nancie Mills Pipgras
This is good news, isn’t it?!
Sheila Menzies
wonderful news that they are not ‘lost to the hammer’ but will be restored in edinburg, Scotland.
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Select ratingGive Soldier of Love 1/5Give Soldier of Love 2/5Give Soldier of Love 3/5Give Soldier of Love 4/5Give Soldier of Love 5/5
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I Fall In
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Letters from the Inside
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Jason Fowler has been a member of:
The Union of Sinners and Saints
Jason Allen Fowler is an American Christian musician who plays Christian pop, rock, and country style of contemporary worship and gospel music. He was born in Atlanta Georgia to parents Terrel and Jeanne Fowler, where he was raised with younger siblings Chad and Cara.
Jason Fowler’s sound is a mix of melodic passion, with roots that can be traced to a musically inspired family. Fowler first displayed his talents for music and writing in the band Ultraphonic. The band went on to win a $250,000 recording contract with Garage Band Records. Ultraphonic would begin recording its third album with legendary producer, Johnny Sandlin (Allman Bros. Band/Widespread Panic), complemented by industry force, Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, (aka The Swampers). Later Fowler was the frontman for the band Speed X alongside Mike Stone of ’80s metal band Queensryche, Josh Sattler of Double Drive, as well as Nick Catanese and Mike Froedge of Black Label Society. The band proved to be a force in the hard-rock music scene for several years. He went on to perform with industry heavyweights Will Turpin of Collective Soul and Shane Evans, the original drummer for Collective Soul.
After checking himself into a Christian based rehab clinic for drug and alcohol addiction, he emerged with a new personal focus and, after 10 years of sobriety, released his debut Christian album I Fall In. He also joined the ranks of Christian supergroup The Union of Sinners and Saints.
Jason lives in Atlanta with his wife and two kids, where he has served as the worship pastor of Refuge City Church.
JasonFowlerMusic.com
Facebook: JasonFowlerMusic
Twitter: @_jasonfowler
Instagram: @JasonFowlerMusic
External links are provided for reference purposes. Christian Music Archive is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Today you get to hear my conversation with Jason Fowler. Jason is an incredibly talented guitar player and singer. In addition to his solo career, he is a member of the supergroup The Union of Sinners and Saints with John Schlitt of Petra and Billy Smiley of White Heart. Jason was an award-winning athlete and even attended the Olympic Training Camp for speed skating. But when you talk with Jason you quickly hear that his story is about God’s redemption, healing, and forgiveness.
Jason Fowler releases first Christian album, I Fall In, chronicling his rise to rock stardom, fall from grace and ultimate redemption
Los Angeles, Calif.: Singer/songwriter Jason Fowler announces the release of his highly-anticipated project I Fall In.
Created by: siremidor on 25-February-2016 - Last Edited by siremidor on 09-November-2019
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Ariane Holtschlag
Law Office of William J. Factor, Ltd.
Ariane Holtschlag is a partner with the Law Office of William J. Factor, Ltd. in Chicago. Her practice is focused primarily in the field of consumer bankruptcy and is equally divided among representing trustees, debtors and creditors in chapters 7 and 13. She also represents individuals and small businesses in chapter 11. Ms. Holtschlag obtained her undergraduate degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2004 and her J.D. from the University of Iowa in 2007.
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ALL CLASSES ARE CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE ONLINE VIA ZOOM AND ARE OPEN TO EVERYONE, REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU ARE LOCATED!
Cultural workshops starting at $60 – Group French classes starting at $150
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We offer daytime, evening and weekend online French classes, 7 days a week, on multiple time zones.
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Homage to Astérix
Albert Uderzo, the co-creator of France’s most popular comic series Astérix, passed away on March 24. Mourning Uderzo, Emmanuel Macron said that France had lost “one of this century’s most creative imaginations.” Hundreds of readers wrote testimonials about the way Uderzo’s work had changed their lives on the Astérix fansite. “For more than 60 years,” wrote the site’s creators, “Astérix has brought pleasure and profound joy to millions of readers around the world.”
While this period of confinement is difficult, it gives us the opportunity to spend more time reading and reflecting about what’s important to us. This is the perfect moment to celebrate the beloved characters Astérix and Obélix, who, as Uderzo’s fans put it, “continue to spread values of tolerance and perseverance throughout their adventures.” If you’re a fan of Astérix, now is the time to revisit some of your favorite stories about le petit Gaulois. And if you’ve never read the comics, we invite you to join us in paying homage to Uderzo by learning about his work. Below, we celebrate the series’ enduring humor and optimism, as well as its ability to bring people from all over the world together.
By Sophia Millman
Goscinny and Uderzo: A Beautiful Friendship
Scénariste René Goscinny and dessinateur Albert Uderzo came up with the idea for their tiny, fearless hero Astérix in 1959. After publishing a few Astérix comic strips in the newspaper Pilote, the two collaborated on their first book, Astérix le gaulois, in 1961. Between 1961 and 1977, they created 23 Astérix books. Up until his death, Goscinny had always written the stories, but when he passed away in 1977, Uderzo took over as both author and illustrator. Uderzo continued to sign each Astérix book with Goscinny’s name, and if that isn’t the sign of une belle amitié, we don’t know what is. In a recent interview, Goscinny’s daughter said, “My father and Uderzo were more than inseparable. The dictionary definition of ‘friendship’ could simply be their two names.”
Watch a 1968 interview with the two friends here!
Want to learn more about Uderzo? Read these ten surprising facts about him in French!
What to Know about the Books and Where to Start Reading
“Nous sommes en 50 avant Jésus-Christ. Toute la Gaule est occupée par les Romains… Toute? Non! Un village peuplé d’irréductibles Gaulois résiste encore et toujours à l’envahisseur.” So begins the description of the first Astérix book. Translation: It’s 50 BC. All of Gaul (which will become modern-day France) is occupied by the Romans… Except for one small village populated by die-hard Gauls who resist the invader. It turns out that these Gauls possess a magic potion which gives anyone who drinks it superhuman strength.
The series revolves around two Gauls, Astérix and Obélix, but includes other recurring characters like the dog Idéfix. Why do all the Gallic characters names end in -ix? Well, Americans don’t learn about him, but every French child knows of the famous Gallic rebel leader called Vercingetorix. (Not sure how to pronounce that? Listen here!) All the Gauls’ names include that -ix suffix, and their names are also puns. Idéfix = idée fixe, a French way of saying “obsession.” And that’s just one type of linguistic pun that appears throughout the series! If you want to challenge yourself and read the books in French, you should check out this guide that explains many of the jeux de mots (puns) you’ll find.
Which Astérix book should you read first? The first volume is of course a good start because it introduces you to the characters, but readers’ favorites are Astérix et Cléopâtre, Le Tour de Gaule d’Astérix, and Astérix chez les Bretons.
Are you curious about the historical facts that Astérix is based on? Listen to this brief FranceCulture episode about the politics behind the series’ representation of French history.
Interested in learning more about the series’ puns and how they are translated into English? Read this article!
Astérix’s Best References
While you might think that the Astérix cartoons were written for children, many of the series’ jokes are in fact targeted at adults. For instance, there are tons of references to French politics as well as classic works of art and literature. The character Preposterus, who appears in Obélix et Compagnie, was based on Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who would later become president. One of the series’ best parodies appears in Astérix légionnaire, in which Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa is transformed into a raft for pirates. And here’s another, more obscure reference: if you’re a fan of author and director Marcel Pagnol, you might notice that the café that appears in Le Tour de Gaule is an exact replica of the one in Marius. Apparently, when Pagnol realized that Le Tour de Gaule was filled with allusions to his work, he exclaimed, “Now I know my work will be immortal!”
You can find a list of cultural allusions in Astérix here.
Just as Uderzo once rendered homage to many illustrators, France’s most famous artists are now paying him homage.
Why does Astérix remain so popular around the world?
While American readers are more likely to be familiar with the Tintin comic series, Astérix has always been more popular among francophone audiences. When René Goscinny died in 1977, one French critic wrote that “it was if the Eiffel Tower had fallen down.” In 1969, two-thirds of the French had read at least one Astérix book, and by the time of Goscinny’s death more than 55 million copies of his books has been sold. And here’s another crazy fact: the first French satellite launched into space in 1965 was called Astérix! Today, fans of the series can even visit Parc Astérix, and Astérix et Obélix: Mission Cléopatre is the fourth biggest French box-office hit of all time.
Astérix has been translated into over 100 languages and sold 370 million copies worldwide. Why does this symbol of France’s cultural heritage perform so well internationally? Some critics speculate that it’s because the story is about the underdogs succeeding: against all odds, the Gauls continue to thwart the ever powerful Roman Empire. In an article about the series’ success, journalist John Lichfield argues that the answer might be even more simple. “Astérix is, above all, a story of two beautiful friendships, first between Astérix and Obelix and second between their creators, Albert Uderzo… and René Goscinny,” he writes. Uderzo, whose parents were Italian, and Goscinny, who came from a Polish-Jewish family, were able to create a story that is decidedly French, yet whose message has universal appeal.
What’s great about Astérix is that the series contains lessons for almost all occasions. This fun French Huffington Post article called “Coronavirus: Les cinq leçons d’Astérix et Obélix pour survivre au confinement” gives you tips for getting through the virus!
And speaking of the virus, did you know that there’s a character in Astérix named Coronavirus? Check out an article about him here.
Posted by: coucou
Tags: astérix, astérix et obélix, french comic books, bande dessinée, uderzo, goscinny, french literature, french books, french culture —
September 18, 2020 / Culture
Coucou Top 10: The Greatest French Kids Movies
Discover our favorite films for young French learners and even adults!
August 26, 2020 / Culture
The Best Children’s Books for French Learners of All Ages
Our favorite reads for young learners and adults.
July 16, 2020 / Culture
The Other French Revolutions
A guide to all the French revolutions you should know about!
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The Role of Business in Society
By Otto Scott, R. J. Rushdoony
The Role of Business in Society from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.
Topics Business, Economics
Otto Scott
Otto Scott (May 26, 1918—May 5, 2006), a former Chalcedon staffer, was a journalist, business executive, and historian. He began his newspaper career at the age of sixteen and later worked for United Features Syndicate and TheSan Diego Union. When WWII broke out he joined the Merchant Marine. After the war, Scott worked in the advertising industry, then became editor of a manufacturing trade journal, Rubber World. In the course of his assignments, he interviewed Paul Blazer, the chairman of Ashland Oil, in Ashland, Kentucky, and was invited to write the history of the company. He would later write corporate histories for Raytheon, Black & Decker, and Arch Mineral Corporation. After his conversion to Christianity, he focused on writing about modern history, politics, and cultural trends. In his later years, he worked for Chalcedon before publishing his own newsletter, The Compass.
→ More by Otto Scott
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The Salvation of Zaccheus
By Mark R. Rushdoony
Topics Gospels, The, New Testament History
Mark R. Rushdoony
Mark R. Rushdoony graduated from Los Angeles Baptist College (now The Master’s College) with a B.A. in history in 1975 and was ordained to the ministry in 1995.
He taught junior and senior high classes in history, Bible, civics and economics at a Christian school in Virginia for three years before joining the staff of Chalcedon in 1978. He was the Director of Chalcedon Christian School for 14 years while teaching full time. He also helped tutor all of his children through high school.
In 1998 he became the President of Chalcedon and Ross House Books, and, more recently another publishing arm, Storehouse Press. Chalcedon and its subsidiaries publish many titles plus CDs, mp3s, and an extensive online archive at www.chalcedon.edu.
He has written scores of articles for Chalcedon’s publications, both the Chalcedon Report and Faith for all of Life. He was a contributing author to The Great Christian Revolution (1991). He has spoken at numerous conferences and churches in the U.S. and abroad.
Mark Rushdoony lives in Vallecito, California, his home of 40 years with his wife of 42 years and his youngest son. He has three married children and nine grandchildren.
→ More by Mark R. Rushdoony
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In-flight entertainment: Bring your own device trend surges
The world’s largest airline, American Airlines, has decided to remove in-flight entertainment screens on its new fleet of Boeing Co. aircraft.
“We know in-flight entertainment is important to our customers, which is why we’ve committed to offering free, streaming high-quality movies and music, and to investing in fast satellite-based internet access and power at every seat across our domestic fleet”, the airline said in a statement
The airline reasoned that over 90 percent of its passengers now carry mobile phones, tablets, and laptops with them on-board. Video screens will remain on airplanes used for international flights, and on some single-aisle ones used for specific flights.
"Entertainment and connection options like these are the future of in-flight entertainment, which is why we’ve decided that our new Boeing 737 MAX will arrive later this year without seat-back video screens,” the airline said in a statement.
With the increasing popularity of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, passengers are opting to use their own portable devices onboard aircrafts instead of high-resolution seat-back devices.
For airlines, these moves mean more investments into secure and reliable IFE systems that enable passengers to use devices they’re already comfortable with.
Not all airlines are on-board with removing the seat-back screens. Delta, one of American Airlines biggest domestic competitors are doing both - keeping their IFE video screens and providing the possibility to use their own devices if they so choose,
“Providing seat-back entertainment in addition to the ability to access content via mobile devices on-board is something Delta is choosing to invest in while competitors remove options,” said a Delta Air Lines spokesperson to The Verge.
“Our customers tell us that flexibility is important to them and we will continue to listen to them.”
In order to cover the full end-to-end media workflow for wireless and in-seat IFE systems, choosing the right content management system becomes paramount.
The CMS solution has to support specific industry requirements in both connected and disconnected environments (e.g. on-board an aircraft). Work with cloud and on-premise data centers and cover a plethora of synchronization and delivery scenarios for content and services.
Content Management for Wireless and In-Seat IFE Systems
Axinom CMS is an extensible content management system designed to cover the full end-to-end media workflow for wireless and in-seat IFE systems.
It's the first full-featured content management solution for the worldwide aerospace market that enables both cloud-based and on-premise deployments for a wide set of connected and disconnected consumer scenarios (e.g. on-board of an aircraft). Based on industry-standards, it fulfills the highest requirements regarding security and reliability.
With workflows delivered in source code and a unified API, Axinom CMS provides an open development platform allowing customers to expand to platforms that may not be considered part of the in-flight entertainment ecosystem today and to connect and organize services on-ground and on-board of the aircraft.
Furthermore, the ability to provide studio-grade DRM protection in offline environments and cover different usage scenarios on-board is one of the core requirements for modern IFE systems.
Secure Content Store for Early Window Hollywood Movies
Early window movies have a set of stringent requirements concerning data security in order to safeguard content copyright. This is to protect the content from piracy.
We work closely with leading Hollywood studios to build secure content stores for premium video content stored on on-premises data centers and in the cloud. Our multi-DRM service conforms with the highest security standards - such as Microsoft PlayReady SL3000.
It gives customers the flexibility needed to rapidly launch VOD and live streaming services and deliver them in secure and flexible IFE settings to the widest range of consumer devices.
Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X/macOS and the majority of popular client devices – tablets, mobile phones, game consoles, and Smart TVs are all supported.
It's the first multi-DRM product that can operate in a disconnected fashion enabling premium video on-board more than than a hundred different aircraft makes and models.
Content Synchronization and Delivery
Today’s services in an aircraft have several challenges. Networks can be slow and unreliable, bandwidth can be changing or costly, data can be personal and critical. A world with ubiquitous connectivity will never exist.
Traffic quotas, allocated bandwidth, availability of connectivity, storage space, computational power, data security, privacy, and many other resources and requirements cannot be taken for granted.
Axinom CDS is built to transfer data fast, securely, and reliably in any environment. Be it on-board servers and devices exchanging entertainment content and services with the management platform in the cloud.
It's a robust solution that manages all aspects of synchronization. Including utilization of different pipes (LAN, WiFi, 3G, LTE, satellite networks), managing interruptions, prioritizing important data, controlling data transfer cost and more.
Axinom provides a set of core products (Axinom CMS, Axinom CDS, and Axinom DRM) designed specifically for the aerospace industry. The set includes management capabilities of different connected services, various assets, crew members and passenger data
All this is backed up by proven aerospace industry-specific architectures and technologies allowing customers to build the next generation of digital platforms for management and delivery.
To learn more about our products and services, chat with one of our agents below:
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General information about the faculty
Department of Biophysical Chemistry and Nanobiotechnologies
Department of Inorganic, Organic and Analytical Chemistry
Educational-Scientific Center of Experimental Chemistry
Department of Botany and Ecology
Department of Biophysics and Physiology
Department of Teacher Training, Physical Education and Management of Education
The Department of Biophysics was founded at the Faculty of Biology of Donetsk State University in 1995 on the basis of the Department of Artificial Intelligence (headed by Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Shevchenko A.).
During the 20 years of its existence, the department has trained more than 500 specialists in the field of biophysics and medical biophysics.
Since 2014, a new stage of development of the department in Vinnytsia has begun. New specialists have joined the scientific – teaching staff of the department. The department has new scientific areas: systems biology, electrophysiology and biology of aging, according to which new courses have been developed.
Due to the fact that the department conducts research and teaches courses in human physiology, from 2019 the department became known as the Department of Biophysics and Physiology.
On July 1, 2020, the Department of Biophysics and Physiology merged with the Department of Zoology.
The Department of Zoology was established in 1965. Its founder and first head was Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Zinaida Usova, who made a great contribution to the formation of the Department of Zoology and the Faculty of Biology as a whole. In 1968, a postgraduate course was opened under it. The first graduate students were A. Riazantseva, V. Skliar, O. Panchenko, M. Yaroshenko. Three of her students defended their doctoral theses. The scientific topic of the department concerned a number of groups of invertebrates and mouse rodents of Donetsk Oblast. Already in the city of Vinnytsia after 2014 the staff of the department was supplemented by Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Pavlo Bihun, Candidate of Veterinary Medicine Berezovskyi Ihor, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences Valentyna Panko and Ph.D. in Biology Kavun Eduard , who is currently acting Head of the Department. Today the scientific interests of the department are developing in several new directions: entomofauna and ornithology of Vinnytsia region, study of species composition and state of aquatic ecosystems, physiological bases of sensory systems, analysis of resistance of natural and artificial ecosystems to anthropogenic loading.
The Department of Zoology was established in 1965. The organizer and the first head of the department was Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Zinaida Usova.
At that time the department was formed in the following composition: Head of the department, Professor Usova Z., Senior Lecturer Zaitseva L., Senior Lecturer Kuhtina A., Associate Professor Kara Y., Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor Kharchenko V., Head of the laboratory, assistant – senior lecturer Panchenko A., senior teacher Khodakov V., Head of the laboratory – assistant Frolkov V. The department trained highly qualified specialists in the field of Botany and Zoology at the full-time and part-time forms of education.
Z. Usova made a great contribution to the development of the Department of Zoology and the Faculty of Biology as a whole. She headed the department from 1965 to 1982, and was also the dean of the biological faculty from 1966 to 1971. It created a scientific school for the study of blood-sucking insects and mites. Her main scientific works were devoted to the study of fauna, systematics and ecology of blood-sucking midges of Ukraine. Under her leadership, expeditions were organized and conducted to collect faunistic material in the Black, White, Barents and Japanese Seas, the Far East, and Buryatia.
Since 1968, a postgraduate course has been opened at the department under the direction of prof. Usova Z. Her first graduate students were A. Riazantseva, V. Skliar, O. Panchenko, M. Yaroshenko.
During the work of Usova Z. more than 300 master’s and master’s theses were prepared; 23 PhD Theses. Three of her students defended their doctoral theses, this is M. Yaroshenko, V. Kaplych, E. Sukhomlyn.
The scientific topic of the department was the study of a number of groups of invertebrates. One of the first graduate students of Professor Z. Usova was a Doctor of Biological Sciences, Mykola Yaroshenko. His scientific interests were in the field of soil zoology – the study of mites-oribatids and other soil microarthropods. Thanks to his work at the Department of Zoology, a scientific school was also founded.
From 1968, Alfred Panchenko began to study the fauna of the simulant of Ukraine and led the research team from 1968 to 1976. He was in the first graduation of the Department of Zoology of Donetsk State University. Subsequently, in 1970, he became the head of the laboratory.
Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Zinaida Usova.
In the photo: E.B. Sukhomlin with students, 1983. From left to right, top row: V.M. Kaplich, A.P. Zinchenko, N.D. Bazarova, В.А. Bully, T.L. Savustyanenko, A.B. Panchenko, А.М. Makarenko; bottom row: E.B. Sukhomlin, M. Masti, Z.V. Usova, M.M. Yaroshenko, R.D. Semushina.
Sklyar V.E., who until 1975 worked at the department as an assistant, studied ectoparasites of murine rodents in the Donetsk region.
From 1969 to 1976 the group of geneticists composed of associate professors Sokolova I., Nenasheva H., Senior lecturer Petrova A. and head of Plotnikov Laboratory, who later moved to the Department of Botany.
The traditions of the study of blood-sucking insects of important medical and veterinary importance were continued by the students of Z. Usova. After graduation and defending her Ph.D. thesis, Alla Riazantseva, a member of the Ukrainian Entomological Society and Society of Parasitologists of Ukraine, worked for a long time at the department. Alla Riazantseva worked on the study of fauna, seasonal dynamics, biology of blood-sucking mosquitoes, was engaged in the protection of rare and endangered insects of Donbass. A. Ryazantseva developed an original method for identifying mosquito species of epidemiological significance. As a talented and erudite teacher she also worked abroad (Cuba).
The topic of the scientific works of the teachers of the department has traditionally been related not only to the territory of southeastern Ukraine. O. Panchenko studied the fauna and ecology of the Transcarpathian midges.
Due to the successful study of midges, the School of Simulidologists in Donetsk has gained recognition and popularity both in the former USSR and far abroad. Postgraduate students from the Far East, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus have been seconded to train specialists in the Department of Zoology. He directed his graduate students and the Institute of Zoology I. Schmalhausen in Kyiv and Moscow Pedagogical Institute. Specialists of the department’s simulologists have described 10 new species for science.
Due to the occupation of Donetsk, the Faculty of Biology moves to Vinnytsia. Much organizational work on the reproduction of the department is carried out by Ovchynnykova Yuliia, who from October 2016 to August 2019 fulfilled the duties of the Dean of the Faculty of Biology. Circle of scientific interests Y. Ovchynnykova is traditional for the department – environmental research and study of soil entomofauna.
In Vinnytsia, the staff of the department was supplemented by Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor Bihun Pavlo, Ph.D. Berezovskyi Ihor, Ph.D. Panko Valentyna and Ph.D. Kavun Eduard, who is now acting Head of Department.
Since April 2019, Algimantas Paulauskas has been working at the department with a doctor of biological sciences, professor in the department of zoology.
Since September 2019, the Department of Zoology and Ecology has been renamed the Department of Zoology.
On September 1, 2019 Vasyl’ Stus Educational and Scientific Institute of Chemistry of DonNU and the Biology Faculty were reorganized through their merger and formation of the Faculty of Chemistry, Biology and Biotechnology.
Scientific work of the Department of Zoology is performed in the following areas: entomofauna and ornithology of Vinnytsia region, parasitology, study of species composition and state of aquatic ecosystems, physiological bases of sensory systems, as well as analysis of the stability of natural and artificial ecosystems to anthropogenic loading.
Now the main tasks of the department are:
– providing quality educational services in accordance with educational standards and norms that meet the requirements for the content of higher education and the formation of accessible learning conditions for each student;
– implementation of effective educational activities and modernization of the educational process in order to increase the professional competence of graduates of hogher educational institutions;
– the formation of a qualitative structure of personnel support of the department, ensuring the high quality of teaching of educational disciplines by the teachers of the department;
– providing innovative (educational and research activity) development of the department;
– formation at the department of the scientific school and ensuring its recognition in the scientific community, involvement of higher education applicants in research work;
– formation of effective forms of partnership with both domestic and foreign educational institutions.
– use of the results of research work in the educational process;
– establishing scientific links at regional, national and international levels;
– increased competition in the market of educational services by improving the quality of training of specialists in accordance with the requirements of the labor market,
use of modern forms and methods of career guidance, including through the Internet, to attract potential entrants to study programs that are implemented by the department and faculty.
Використання будь-яких матеріалів, розміщених на даному сайті, дозволяється за умови посилання на chem.donnu.edu.ua. Для інтернет-видань — обов'язковим є пряме посилання, відкрите для пошукових систем.
21021, вул. 600-річчя, 21, Вінниця, Україна
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Enriched Uranium Particle Appears Over Alaska
By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | February 15, 2018 06:50am ET
There’s a whiff of something radioactive in the air.
A research plane flying over the Aleutian Islands on Aug. 3, 2016 detected a single speck of enriched uranium floating about 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) above Alaska’s far-western island chain, according to a new research paper that will be published in April in The Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.
The uranium sample was tiny and harmless, a small chunk of a mote of dust just 580 nanometers wide (about half the size of a red blood cell). And it was completely alone; no other radioactive material turned up in that stretch of sky. But, the researchers wrote, it was “definitely not from a natural source.”
And the scientists can’t explain how it got there. The plane’s onboard mass spectrometer, brought along to analyze standard-issue pollution, detected just a single uranium particle, mixed with traces of chemicals from burning oil, the authors reported. And on its own, that find wouldn’t be too remarkable — uranium is the heaviest element commonly found on Earth, after all.
“Particulate matter containing uranium can originate from sources such as combustion of coals with trace uranium, windblown crustal material, and mining and processing of ores, whether it be for the uranium itself or other minerals such as rare earths [a group of chemically similar elements that aren’t actually that rare, but are difficult to mine] and phosphate,” the researchers wrote. [The 10 Greatest Explosions Ever]
What makes this particle unusual is that it was rich in an isotope called uranium-235, or U-235, which made up about 2.6 percent to 3.6 percent of its mass, according to the paper. Naturally occurring uranium typically contains just 0.7 percent U-235, with the rest given over to the much more common uranium-238.
Tagged: Alaska, Letzter, particle, Uranium
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The Creative Wealth Project
Music: An Interview With Katey Gatta
by Mitch Cuming
Katey Gatta can do more with her voice and an acoustic guitar than most people can with a full band, and if you’ve never heard her sing before, you’re about to find out why. Sweet and soft one moment and then sultry and soulful the next, her music is like an emotional hurricane… before you know what’s really happening, you’re left completely blown away.
Based in St. Catharines, Ontario (Canada), you might first notice her as the innocent-looking girl not wearing any shoes up on stage… but when she starts singing… you’d better be prepared to stay awhile because her siren’s call will quickly draw you in and mesmerize you with her secrets.
I’ve known Katey for a few years now, and I’ve been fortunate enough to see her perform numerous times. So, it was fantastic that I was able to catch up with her and shoot the shit about her upcoming album, life as a full-time musician, and of course, grab some takeaway advice for anyone who might want to follow in her “barefooted” footsteps.
Hi Katey, long time no see! It’s been what, a couple years now, yeah?
Yeah something like that! Nice to see you Mitch!
Nice to see you too! So for those who don’t know you, tell us about Katey Gatta; tell a bit about yourself.
I’m a singer-songwriter based in St. Catharines, Ontario (Canada). My sound’s a mix of Etta James and Joni Mitchell. I’ve been playing music for the past 10 years in bars and restaurants, and I’m now transitioning into playing my own music full-time on the road. That is, whenever we’re allowed to go back on the road.
It seems everybody’s hurting right now in the music industry – not being able to gig and all – but that’ll be fun when it happens… I miss the road myself sometimes.
So how did you personally get started with music then? Did you start singing first, or playing the guitar?
Katey Gatta
Photo credit: Lauren Garbutt Photography
Playing air piano on my parent’s coffee table when I just a kid was the first indication… I’d just be watching sesame street trying to play along with it *laughs*. Pretty much as soon as I could talk, everything came out in song. My parents put me in lessons when I was very young, which was great. Actually, some of my first gigs ever were doing national anthems for major sporting events. I sang at games for the Toronto Raptors, the Buffalo Sabres, and the Toronto Blue Jays, when I was about 9 or 10 years old.
Really? That’d be interesting to go and see that footage sometime… that’s a pretty cool start.
Yeah, so the fear of large crowds for me really never became a thing… that was just a normal part of the job.
That’s awesome. So you’ve pretty much been a musician as soon as you could talk.
It’s really been a lifelong thing.
You mentioned a few other artists when you described your sound, but would you say it’s your music that sounds like them? Or your voice? If you were to describe the Katey Gatta experience to somebody and they’ve never heard you before, what would you say to them?
Well, my music is definitely folk-influenced and includes a lot of introspective lyrics. I find myself very inspired by 1930s – 1940s jazz artists, and I also really love pop & jazz standards from the 1950s and 1960s, so I’m trying to incorporate elements of that into my songwriting now.
I find whatever music I make reflects – at least a little bit – whatever music I’m taking in at that time. I’ve been on an Etta James kick for the longest time… I can’t seem to get enough of her. So, in her case, I find inspiration in the way she phrases things or how she uses the rasp in her throat… those elements just kind of find their way into some of my songwriting… and maybe the attitude behind it too.
That’s really cool! You know, it’s kind of funny you mentioned your 1930s and 40s influences because I was sitting here with my brother the other night, and I showed him the video of you and Dan (Serre) performing “That’s Okay, That’s Alright.” We both agreed pretty quickly that you could almost hear that old-timey radio static noise coming in to introduce the song. As in, it would sound appropriate for it. So it’s very cool that you mentioned those old influences.
That’s actually what we were trying to go for. And on that note, the thing I love about exploring older music is that it’s a never-ending well. There’s just so much to sift through and find – it’s just as exciting as trying to find new music today. Everybody might know about the popular hits, but there is also this plethora of other music that was made that was never on the radio – that music still got made, and it still influenced what other people did.
Katey Gatta and Dan Serre performing “That’s Okay, That’s Alright”
Video Credit: G3 Designs
That’s very interesting. Today, obviously, the digital landscape has really changed a lot of things – now music that’s actively distributed is not just limited to the songs being played on the radio. With everything out there on streaming services, you can discover bands you’ve never listened to before and then go and get access to their entire catalogs of music. I think that’s pretty cool for music fans.
Yeah, it’s almost like tracing your heritage or your family tree. You can listen to a song, figure out who the artist was inspired by, go listen to them, find out who that person was inspired by, and just keep going further and further back to trace their roots.
So how does your creative process work when you write music then? Do you have a regular routine?
I try to have routines. I try to write something at least once a day now, or at the very least, sit with my guitar and pick away at this or that, but for the most part, it just kind of comes. I’ve learned over time to try and not to really put too much pressure on the creative process while it’s happening. There are days when I don’t feel the most inspired, but I sit down anyways with my guitar, and I try and chip away at what I can. Sometimes I just play for myself, and on those days, it’s enough.
I find that having a dedication to making space for music every day is helpful, but I’ve never really had to do anything to kick start the creative process if that makes sense. I usually just try and be honest about what I’m feeling or what I’m thinking about. Sometimes even interactions I’ve had that day play a part – someone might say something to me in a conversation, and that will spark a song or at least an idea that I’ll write down and end up using somewhere down the line.
So for you, sometimes it’s the lyrics that spark something and sometimes it’s the music – you’ve always got a bunch of things on the go at once.
Yeah, but I do find I’ve been writing the parts separately more often. I’ll write out full sets of lyrics for a song and have no music written for it, but then the musical side of the song will go through a few different iterations until I land on what I feel it should be.
Right on. So, your prime influences – personal and musical – if you had to pick a few, you’d say…?
Well, in terms of someone whom I could model a career after… I would love to have 10 percent of Joni Mitchell’s life – even just 10 percent would make me so happy. Her creative output is so vast and so intricate… she’s amazing. I’ve also been on a Nina Simone kick because I just watched her documentary. The dedication she had to her craft… I just found it so incredible.
Photo credit: Linton Armstrong
There’s also this woman Connie Converse, who was in Greenwich village (Connecticut) around the same time that Bob Dylan was doing his thing. Her story kind of goes like this: she tried to make it as a musician, had little to no recognition, and eventually, she just got in her car one day and disappeared. Poof. No one ever heard from her again. But they found her demos 50 years later and released them, and her record of living room recordings became a sleeper hit.
So that one hits home a bit because there’s this big part of me that really likes the idea of just creating without the worry of consumption.
Yeah, no kidding! That kind of thing seems to happen a lot in the creative world. For example, right now, I’m writing a lot – not just for the Creative Wealth Project, but I’m writing a fiction novel too – and I’ve been really diving into some of my favorite authors’ works and their biographies. What I’ve noticed is that some of the most prominent influential works and authors cited by modern writers were during their lifetimes, actually living in poverty – for their entire lives.
These authors existed in a world where nobody knew or cared about their work, and yet long after they’ve died, their work ends up becoming hugely influential on not just other authors, but on many different creative people. Metallica, for example, wrote a few songs about the mythic Cthulhu found within H.P. Lovecraft’s lore – when Lovecraft was alive, nobody cared about him or what he wrote. Yet many years later, his creations have gone on to influence one of the biggest metal bands in the world and hugely successfully authors like Stephen King… so yeah, it’s kind of cool how that works with art.
It’s very cool. I mean, clearly, as a musician, I would like to have enough success in that I can be a human that can put food on the table and pay my rent on time… and maybe get some guacamole when I go to Chipotle *laughs*… I’m not looking for much more than that.
But I also think there’s something to be said about great music, the kind of music I want to make – it’s often ahead of its time, and you don’t always recognize it or celebrate it as it’s happening. I think anything good should take a little time to grow on you; it shouldn’t be immediate. There should be enough layering within it that it takes someone a few listens or a few times through experiencing it or however it’s consumed to really grasp what’s great about it.
I think I agree with that sentiment too.
So you’ve been performing music now professionally for a while – and a lot. I know personally that I used to see you perform very regularly when I was bartending in Niagara, so what do you like about playing music for a living?
When we first met, that’s when I had just started playing music full-time. Up until then, it had always been a side thing that I did through university and my post-grad in college, and then I had a “real job” in Toronto for a bit. It wasn’t until I was about 25 that I thought it was time to give music a real shot. Switching to becoming a full-time musician, however, has come with its own challenges.
Never in a million years did I think I wouldn’t want to go to a gig – I never dreamed that would be something I would feel or say out loud – but now it happens. When you do anything – and I mean, I play over 250 dates a year – when you do anything that much, at some point, you’re going to get tired of it, and you won’t always love it as purely as you do when you play for yourself.
About a year into playing music full-time, I realized I had hit a wall in my development – and I knew I had hit it. When that happened, it was hard and a little humbling to force myself to go back to square one and start working on things that I hadn’t in a long time. Performing so often, you can be more acutely aware of your deficits, and it really transitioned my thinking from “oh, I know what I’m doing” to the realization that “okay, no, maybe I don’t.” The only thing left to do then is to put in the work and start improving.
That all being said, the sheer love of music is what always ends up carrying me through it all… it’s why musicians like myself don’t end up quitting; why we keep trying and keep pushing forward. For me, I have a harder time connecting with people on a human level than I do on a musical one… so it’s music that really lets me do that; it opens all those doors of an emotional connection for me. I’m horrible at communicating my thoughts and feelings in real-time. Music lets me process my emotions in real-time; it allows me to work through all my shit in songs and let strangers see who I really am beneath all the layers I use in everyday life.
I like that… kind of like you get to show off many colors without having to actually say what they are.
Photo credit: Left – J.P. Kelly, Top right – G3 Designs, Bottom right: Steph Montani
I know that you’re working on an album. I know this, of course, because I was one of the lucky few that got to listen to the demos… and I must admit when you sent them my way there were a lot more songs on that playlist than I was expecting to receive – but that’s a good thing – you get to choose from a vast catalog.
*Laughs*… that’s about half of the current catalog. There are still so many more songs that I didn’t include in that playlist that will sit collecting proverbial dust. To be honest, I’ve been horrible about demoing all my work. I’m great at creating mental blocks that lead to procrastinating and putting things off for the longest time.
I sat on a batch of songs for a long time that just seemed to keep growing, and when I sat down to start sorting through the tunes and figure out what would work on an album, I realized I had over 50 songs to demo. Shit. *more laughing*
Procrastination… it always seems to get the best of us, no? Are there any other projects that you’re working on aside from the album? I’m also guessing that because the album’s not yet done, you don’t have a tentative release date for it.
Right, there’s no tentative release date yet. I do know it’s going to be called Silk Screens though!
I’ve had a few other things on the go as well. I was lucky enough to collaborate with Danny (Serre) on his album that just came out under the moniker Six Men Get Sick. For anyone wondering, I keep referring to it as ambient post-hardcore… but Dan says he’s not so sure if that’s true *laughs*. So check that out for yourself and make your own judgment. But I helped wordsmith the lyrics, contributed some backing vocals, and helped with all the branding/design. His punk band (the Shitbats) is getting ready to release a record too, so I’ve been helping them out a little with some branding and website stuff.
Wow so keeping really busy then, that’s good.
I like to keep crazily occupied. Typically too, of course – well not right now, but when life goes back to normal – there are always regular gigs to play. For me, it’s always a balancing act between trying to work on my own stuff and not getting overwhelmed with everything else.
Considering how often you perform, do you have any favorite stories from your musical journey?
There’s a few I can think of.
Playing covers has let me weirdly weave my way into being a special part of someone’s life, which is special in its own way. I can’t tell you how many times people will come into the venue, and they’ve just gotten eloped, and I would end up playing their first dance. And they get to have this strange, spontaneous memory, you know? Those kinds of very heartwarming little moments that can make you feel closer to people you don’t know.
Someone also tipped me via cheque once on tour too, which was really funny. I was playing a show in Kingston at the Musikki Café (when I was on tour with Edmonton singer/songwriter St. Arnaud), and the show was just a “pass the hat” type of situation… anyways somebody in the crowd wrote me a cheque with the words “you sound better than Norah Jones” scribbled on it. They just handed it to me. That one was really cool. I actually still have it taped on my refrigerator.
Since I can remember, I try not to wear my shoes while I’m playing. It gets a little more difficult to maintain in the winter these days. Anyways, last summer, I was playing at the Niagara Brewing Company, standing on my little carpet or whatever, and this little girl with her parents was walking by, and she made her family stop to listen. Her mom explained how much she loved singing, so we picked a song she knew, and I asked if she wanted to join me. Next thing I know, she was right beside me on the carpet, ripping off her shoes and was ready to start singing. *Laughing* I like that one a lot.
That’s a classic! And very cute. Okay, so, this part – and the whole point of why I started The Creative Wealth Project – this is where I’m going to ask you about advice. Myself, I have worn many hats: musician, writer, I’ve worked in the sports industry, I’ve worked in the education industry… but as you know… there are so many mistakes that most of us make in this industry – we look back, and we’re always saying to ourselves: “if I would have just read about this somewhere or someone had told me that before, maybe I could have avoided that mistake…”.
That being said… what advice do you have for people starting out in the music game?
Personally, when I started, I tried to model a lot of the decisions I made after the Beatles.
I knew that they had played hours upon hours of cover gigs, and while sometimes I can admit that can be soul-sucking, I’d recommend to any musician who wants to get good to play as many gigs as you can. Don’t think you’re ever above a gig. You’re probably not. Everybody has ten thousand hours to put into getting good – everybody. The moment you think you’re hot shit and have nothing more to learn is the moment you start slipping. You should always challenge yourself to get better in some way, shape, or form.
I’d also recommend trying to be consistent with practicing… I was never somebody who practiced or spent time at home with my instrument unless I absolutely had to, and now I’m trying to fix that bad habit by creating better ones. You can always see a difference between somebody who sits with their guitar for three hours a day and somebody who doesn’t.
I think all of us musicians can relate to that last one *laughing*. That’s some great advice, Katey.
I do believe that’s pretty much all I had for you today, so I want to say thanks for taking the time to chat, and it’s been really great just catching up with you in general!
Yeah! Thanks Mitch! Thanks for reaching out!
Anytime Katey, keep in touch!
Well, we’ve talked about it, so now let’s hear it:
Check out Katey’s live off the floor performance of “I’m Not Shakin'” from her upcoming album Silk Screens!
Make sure you keep up to date with Katey by following her on one (or better yet, all of) the mediums below:
Website: www.ktgatta.com
She’s also generously offered the option to listen to her catalog of demos she’s narrowing down for Silk Screens… so don’t be shy to check out a private playlist here if you’re interested (click the icon below):
Posted in Featured Creator, Featured Creator: Music, Music InterviewTagged Featured Creator: Music, Interview, Katey Gatta, Music Interview
Mitch Cuming
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One thought on “Music: An Interview With Katey Gatta”
Whoarewe March 31, 20204:00 pm Reply
loved that ❤
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Home | Live Coverage | ASTMH 2016
Zika is a global epidemic after hitting 75 countries as number of Brits infected reaches 251
This post originally appeared on The Mirror.
Zika has become a global epidemic after hitting 75 countries, a report warns.
The number of countries reporting birth defects related to the virus has also doubled in four months from 13 to 26.
Senior doctors, researchers and global health leaders are set to discuss the World Health Organisation ’s findings at an emergency meeting on Friday.
A total of 251 Britons have been infected by the mosquito-borne bug during trips abroad, according to a separate report by Public Health England.
Zika is a serious risk for pregnant women as it can cause babies to be born with microcephaly – an abnormally small head – and other birth defects.
Professor Jimmy Whitworth, of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Zika is widespread globally, and while it is now winter in the northern hemisphere, there is no slowing down of the epidemic overall.
“The concern is over the devastating complications, especially infection in pregnant women who may pass the virus to their unborn babies which may cause microcephaly and other abnormalities.”
Prof Paul Hunter, of the University of East Anglia, added: “The disease is certainly spreading to new areas. The big issue is how far will it spread and after the outbreaks, will it stay around?”
The current outbreak started in Brazil. It has spread as far as Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.
Among the countries to report birth defects are Canada, Costa Rica, Slovenia, Spain and the US. Last month we revealed how two Brits had caught the bug in Florida.
Read full story>>
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Unbelievable!Coronavirus in Italy exist before China?
Coronavirus in Italy
Coronavirus in Italy : The Italian scientists have come up with a shocking revelation. The scientists have reported that Coronavirus was circulating in Italy much before the first case was found in December 2019 in China. The scientists have found the traces of Novel Coronavirus in the samples of sewage water that they tested from Northern Italy.
The test was carried out by Italian National Institute of Health. 40 sewage samples were collected from wastewater treatment plants in Milan and Turin. The samples were collected between October 2019 and February 2020. After the tests it was found that the water samples collected on December 18, 2019 had the traces of new Coronavirus. The research brings to light that the virus was circulating in northern Italy much before first case was reported in China. It must be noted that China declared the first case on 31st December 2019.
The findings, however, does not reveal that the first Coronavirus in Italy was from these viruses found in sewage water in Northern Italy. Italy reported its first Coronavirus positive case in the month of February. In Italy the first known non-imported case was a patient in town of Northern Lombardy.
Earlier we reported that Scientists from Hyderabad had made a shocking discovery. The virus, which had set a nationwide lockdown from March, after its mass spreading, has been spreading in the country since November. According to a Times of India report, scientists have estimated that the ancestor of the novel coronavirus strain, discovered in Wuhan, China, was in circulation since December 11, 2019. Scientists associated with top Indian research Institutions used a technique to find out the Most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of Indian Strains and discovered that the virus that is circulating in India originated somewhere in between November 26 to December 25. The median date of which is said to be 11 December 2019.
Some Facts About Coronavirus In Italy
Italy was the first European country to report Coronavirus Positive Case.
Government of Italy issued order of no autopsies of the patients who died of Coronavirus.
Italy was the first European country to call for nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Coronavirus.
In Italy more men than women have been infected by the Coronavirus and as a result more men died due to virus in the country than women.
In China which gave the virus to the world, death rate in male was reported to be 2.8 percent while in women it was 1.7 percent. However, in Italy the death rate was around 8 percent in male and 5 percent in female.
READ: Huge: Coronavirus Cases in Tamil Nadu Triple in 3 weeks
Since the Coronavirus outbreak, researchers around the world are trying to find out different modes of transmission of virus. This finding, however, turns out to be one of the major breakthroughs. It must be noted that in Spain, similar study found out that the virus existed in country in the early days of January. The first recorded case in Spain was in February 1st, 2020. In France it was reported that a Frenchman was infected with the virus as early as late December, nearly a month before the country detected its first case.
Till date there have been 2,37,290 cases of Coronavirus in Italy. 16,457 people have already succumbed to the virus. Lombardy, where the first case of Coronavirus in Italy was reported has reported around 91,917 cases till date. Italy which was one the most affected countries due to the virus has been able to contain the virus. Gradually the lockdown measures have been eased. However, the fear of 2nd wave still concerns the nation after the Chinese capital Beijing started reporting new cases. In last 24 hours there have 221 cases of Coronavirus in Italy with 14 deaths.
Read: Supreme Court Allows Rath Yatra in Odisha
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Tone-Deaf (Movie Review)
August 19, 2019 Tone-Deaf (Movie Review)
The struggle is real! It’s Baby Boomers vs. Millennials in the brand new Tone-Deaf, starring the brilliantly embattled Robert Patrick and Amanda Crew. Saban Films deliver the Horror-Comedy to theaters and On Demand as of Friday, August 23rd, 2019.
Tone-deaf former wannabe pianist Olive (Crew: The Haunting in Connecticut 2009, The Age of Adaline 2015) is a Millennial living amongst the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. Her hippie mother Crystal (Kim Delaney: All My Children series, NYPD Blue series) lives on a commune, and her father (Ray Wise: Twin Peaks series, Jeepers Creepers 2 2003) committed suicide when she was still a little girl. This fact perpetually impacts her relationships, including the “easiest break-up ever” with her most recent useless boyfriend (Tate Ellington: Remember Me 2010, Sinister 2 2015). Unfortunately, after she puts him out with the trash, her bad week turns even worse when she talks back to her creeper boss Asher (Ray Santiago: Meet the Fockers 2004, Ash vs Evil Dead series) and is fired for insubordination.
Tone-Deaf still.
Out in the country, Baby Boomer Harvey (Patrick: Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991, The Faculty 1998) is showing the early stages of dementia according to his son David (Ronnie Gene Blevins: The Dark Knight Rises 2012, Twin Peaks series). Though he’s lived a good life and traveled the globe, he still clings to an old tomahawk and the dream of guiltless, gory murder. So, he does like any self-respecting wannabe sociopath would do and opens an Airbnb.
When Olive’s sultry bestie Lenore (Hayley Marie Norman: Hancock 2008, Adam Ruins Everything series) urges her to seek out her Eat, Pray, Love moment, to escape the city and decompress, she finds herself online and renting a 5-bedroom mansion in the sticks for the weekend. A getaway to relax and reinvigorate her soul can’t hurt anyone, right?
Clocking in at 90 minutes, Tone-Deaf was written and directed by Richard Bates Jr. (Excision 2012, Trash Fire 2016). It also features the acting talents of AnnaLynne McCord (90210 series, Secrets and Lies series), Nancy Linehan Charles (Minority Report 2002, The Stepfather 2009), Johnny Pemberton (In the Loop 2009, Superstore series), Shane Brady (The Endless 2017, Doctor Sleep 2019), Heidi Kaufman (#WhenTodayEnds 2018, Chicken Girls series), and more.
Oh, Tone-Deaf. How you speak to a divided nation through your blood-splashing antics, dark humor, and sharp-witted satire. With endless digs at modern, vapid society, this is a film that says a lot in its underlying layers while maintaining its Slasher-Comedy facade. If you’re a Horror aficionado, the gore factor is nothing off the charts but there’s certainly some splashing amongst the slashing.
Throughout the entirety of the film, the characters intentionally represent tropes, from the dementia-laden old man who longs for the better days to the free-lovin’ hippie to the bored elitist from the big city. In fact, when it comes to Harvey and Olive, one is the stern-faced, jaded and bitter Shirley Temple-drinking landline, while the other is the hybrid-driving, Tinder-swiping, acid dropping cellphone. Perfectly opposed forces of nature, Harvey and Olive represent the refusal to find common ground amidst our country’s current, polarizing divide.
Patrick is genius in his stone-faced and acerbic delivery of soliloquies that highlight a disgust for the younger generation’s commitment to change and obsession with overpopulation and the environment. “If you want to be a conduit for change go drink a gallon of bleach,” he advises in one heart-warming aside. His Harvey is a perfectly-sculpted glance into the eyes of an elder gentleman who has faced his prime, and is afraid to allow the next generation to inherit the Earth. Patrick is at all times harsh and hard-hearted, and yet there’s a part of his condition that will evoke empathy in anyone who has dealt with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Certainly none of this forgives his murderous intentions, but that, my friends, is part of the comedy.
Crew’s Olive is certainly no angel either. Her nose is always in her cellphone, she has an utter lack of respect for the home that she’s renting, she uses drugs out of boredom, and she proudly wears her coat of elitism with honor. She’s entitled, and while not exactly a villain she’s certainly no hero. Crew brings these quirks to life on screen, exaggerating the life that many Millennials live on a daily basis so that viewers can see the flaws in their apathetic facade. And, plot twist, while she might not be a killer of people, but she is definitely a murderess of music!
The filmmakers use some intriguing cutaway scenes soaked in red, white, and blue to make additional socio-political commentary and offer keen insights into the mind of Baby Boomers such as Harvey. Contrast that with the inclusion of Awkwafina’s hysterical and very modern track “My Vag,” and you have a film that goes to extremes to accentuate the clear-cut divide among the population of the United States. Therefore, one can easily say that Tone-Deaf is a socio-political satire baked into the easily digestible crust of a Slasher-Horror flick. And, spoiler alert, all sides of the debate are tomahawked! For these reasons, Cryptic Rock give Tone-Deaf 5 of 5 stars. Every era has a dark side.
Saban Films
acerbic soliloquies, Airbnb, Amanda Crew, AnnaLynne McCord, Awkwafina, Baby Boomers, blood, Comedy, country getaway, dark humor, Dementia, Hayley Marie Norman, Heidi Kaufman, horror, Horror Comedy, Johnny Pemberton, Kim Delaney, mansion, Millennials, murder, My Vag, Nancy Linehan Charles, Ray Santiago, Ray Wise, rented home, Richard Bates Jr., Robert Patrick, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Saban Films, satire, Shane Brady, slasher, socio-political commentary, sociopath, Tate Ellington, Tone-Deaf
Jeannie Blue
Jeannie likes to joke that she is little, yellow, blue, and different. She seemingly popped out of her mother's womb with a pen in her hand and has been writing ever since. Many moons ago - in what feels like a separate lifetime - Jean was co-editor of an online music magazine that afforded her great opportunities to interview and photograph some of her favorite bands/musicians: Tommy Lee, Good Charlotte, Warrant, Bring Me The Horizon, My Chemical Romance, Sevendust, New Found Glory, Deftones, Poison, VH-1 "Band On the Run" Flickerstick, an endless list of unsigned locals, and so many others. These days, she can usually be found hiking aimlessly through the woods in her favorite Technicolor sneakers with a Nikon in hand and her rescue dog, Molly, who is a bit hare-brained.
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An employee is a worker or manager working for a company, organisation, or community.
Feb 7, 2020 Carta debuts fund to invest in startups that tap into its platform.
In a blog post written by Carta CEO Henry Ward, three companies are mentioned: A startup focused on helping other companies come up with fair and market-fitting “total compensation” for employees including both cash and stock; a startup focused on “build[ing] analytic investment tools for venture as an asset class;” and one final startup focused on executing and publishing research on private companies.
Feb 13, 2020 EFF Defends Ex-Kraken Employee's Right to Post Anonymously About Company.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is defending a former Kraken employee embroiled in a lawsuit over an anonymous review of the crypto exchange on Glassdoor.
Jan 16, 2020 Google Reaches $1 Trillion in Value, Even as It Faces New Tests.
“So proud to see it hit the storied $1T market cap today!” Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, said in a tweet on Monday, prematurely celebrating the milestone. She said she remembered when Google had raised money at a $100 million valuation in 1999, the year she became employee No. 20.
Mar 24, 2020 Customers and Employees Need Your Empathy.
For a majority of consumers and employees, companies should approach the social and economic disruptions caused by Covid-19 empathetically through the lens of reactions to loss.
Mar 20, 2020 Managing the Cyber Risks of Remote Work.
Across the world, companies and governments are rapidly taking responsible measures to protect the health of their employees and citizens—including asking people to work remotely. More than 30 million office workers in the US, and up to 300 million globally, are expected to be working from home, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Boston Consulting Group estimates. Accounting clerks, procurement officers, human resources staff, the C-suite, and other workers will be logging into company sites, attending online meetings, and accessing sensitive company data via the internet—in many cases through their home computers and private mobile phones.
May 2, 2020 Cash-strapped lobbyists spend $12,000 publishing council 'rich list'.
There, in addition to the chief executive, 10 employees are listed with incomes above $250,000, and sorted into bands of $10,000, while the company listed just eight executives - but specified their titles - and lumped them all in a band of $280-390,000.
Employee benefits and benefits in kind include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to ...
A salary is a form of payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract.
A payment is the voluntary tender of money or its equivalent or of things of value by one party to another in exchange for ...
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer by a governmental organization in ...
A letter is a written message conveyed from one person to another through a medium.
A contract is a legally binding document between at least two parties that defines and governs the rights and duties of the ...
Discounts and allowances
Discounts and allowances are reductions to a basic price of goods or services.
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on contract where work is paid for, where one party, which ...
Termination of employment is an employee's departure from a job and the end of an employee's duration with an employer.
Management is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government ...
A wage is the distribution from an employer of a security paid to an employee.
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative ...
An employee handbook, sometimes also known as an employee manual, staff handbook, or company policy manual, is a book given ...
A form is a document with spaces in which to write or select, for a series of documents with similar contents.
Human resources is the set of the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy.
The labour law concept of leave, specifically paid leave or, in some countries' long-form, a leave of absence, is an ...
A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes.
Labour law mediates the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions and the government.
A performance appraisal, also referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation, development discussion, or ...
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The Trolls of Academe: Making Safe Spaces Into Brave Spaces
Written by adminon January 5, 2018
This is very tempting advice for me personally. T. More alert friends reminded me that Horowitz is one of the most notorious turncoats in American political history. I have a right to talk back. Defend their right to speak on campus, but challenge them on the steps outside in counter-demonstrations and teach-ins that expose the shallowness of their ideas. Suing Horowitz for libel is too expensive for most people, and especially for someone whose job prospects are being harmed by false public accusations, circulated widely on social media. It became a point of pride to be on Horowitz’s enemies list. After some years of obscurity and exile during the Obama era, he has reemerged in the time of Trump as a leading partisan of the alt-right’s internet assault on American universities. They are a parody of “free speech,” designed to stifle speech and to suppress all criticism of the state of Israel. I am urging the University of Chicago to follow UCLA’s example, and to go well beyond it. I have numerous friends on both sides of this long-standing conflict, and have seen my role as that of someone trying to find a peaceful resolution, largely through cooperation between artists, intellectuals, and moderate political forces. The two-state solution has been the carrot in front of that donkey known as the “peace process” for quite a long time, and, Trump’s actions on Jerusalem suggest that the one-state condition of Israel/Palestine has now become an undeniable reality. Any prospective employer who looks up their names will find a profile of them on Canary Mission, right at the top of their Google results. Feminism, critical race studies, and venerable figures like Marx and Freud were suddenly dangerous once again. He brags about his web presence, and sees himself as conquering the frontier of streaming video in the coming years: infomercials for bigots, fake news, tweets, endless conspiracy theories rooted in a rich loam of enemies — Blacks, gays, Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and the Master Signifiers: Immigrants. But these attacks backfired for obvious reasons: the problem with tenured radicals is that they are tenured, hard to get rid of. At first I assumed that the basis for smearing me as a terrorist supporter was my essays on the politics of landscape in the occupied territories of the West Bank, many of them published in Hebrew by a respected Israeli publisher. [1] Since 1987 I have been a frequent guest of universities in both Israel and the Palestinian territories, speaking as an invited lecturer at Hebrew University, Shenkar University, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Birzeit University, and the International Art Academy Palestine in Ramallah. They may be hyperbolic in tone, but they do not really qualify as hate speech, and even if they did, they would still be protected as political expression. They wanted to fight back but felt that going public would make a bad situation worse. But there I was, with a caricature of my face on the posters as the designated terrorist supporter among Chicago’s senior faculty. Now he targets the untenured, seeking to ensure that they remain that way. ¤
[1] Holy Landscape, ed. The best example I know of a moderate, balanced institutional response to the Horowitz phenomenon is that of UCLA’s Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion, Jerry Kang. Horowitz admits as much when he complains that American universities are so completely in the thrall of liberal humanism and scientific rationality (of course he is a climate change denier) that they are probably a lost cause. Kang pointed out that the groups attacked by Horowitz, the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine, “are recognized student organizations.” He went on to condemn Horowitz by name, warning that the university can take legal action against those responsible for the posters because they violated university policies on unauthorized graffiti and postings. But in a strange and complicated way, it feels like an honor to be attacked by an odious character like David Horowitz; a number of my senior colleagues even confessed to a bit of jealousy. They are pure slander; they aim to harass, intimidate, and do harm to the job prospects of vulnerable students and faculty. So Horowitz is only one weapon in the arsenal of a broad-based campaign that threatens to destroy all the basic institutions of American democracy. ¤
I organized a teach-in this fall at the University of Chicago to find out whether it would make sense to respond to the attacks of a troll with such a dismal reputation. His poster artist, Bosch Fawstin, famous for his violently Islamophobic cartoon strip Pigman, has even done me the favor of making me look like Salman Rushdie, which I presume means that I am now the target of a Horowitz fatwa. It is coming first for the most vulnerable individuals — students, recent alumni, and untenured faculty. Stephen Bannon, Fox News, Breitbart, and the alt-right media brought Horowitz out of retirement. Horowitz will claim that the posters and the blacklists are political speech protected by the First Amendment. They felt intimidated and harmed by the potential damage to their lives and career prospects. But on further reflection it strikes me that silence in the face of defamatory speech signifies assent. You find yourself labeled as a public enemy, a terrorist, by a wealthy and powerful political movement that regards itself as fighting a war with your kind of person. I would urge students not to engage in violent protests against these provocateurs. Universities must make clear who the targets of his defamatory posters are — namely, critics of Israel and sympathizers with the Palestinian cause — and reassure these individuals that the university supports their right to free speech without in any way endorsing what they have to say. The Horowitz posters are not merely a local issue for the University of Chicago. The attack on graduate education embedded in the Republican tax bill makes this national strategy evident. Horowitz’s poster with the names of others redacted
The ready access to private information provided by social media makes it easy for a determined, well-financed organization like Horowitz’s to steal not just your credit cards, but your reputation. After a long career, first as a professional extremist on the left, and then on the right, Horowitz had resigned himself to living out his days on the trash heap of lost causes. As a securely tenured professor, I could easily ignore Horowitz’s attacks. The truth is, BDS is still relatively weak as an economic or political force. Some of our recent graduates testified to a sharp decline in their job prospects in the wake of last year’s attack. Of course this “logic” would be laughable if it were not so insidious. “Our mission,” declares Canary Mission, “is to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.”
I have to confess that I was only dimly aware of the existence of David Horowitz until the first week of classes this fall, when his posters hit the University of Chicago campus. So, I am told, the best strategy is to ignore him. Republicans often seem to regard political combats as they would a debate with the Oxford Political Union, as though winning depended on rational arguments and carefully articulated principles. See also, Landscape and Power (University of Chicago Press, second edition, 2005). And those who despise this ideology should be allowed to express their dissent as well. In addition to my portrait, the posters include the names of two dozen students and recent alumni, along with the face and name of an untenured colleague. I am not now and never have been a supporter of terrorism in any form. Silence in the face of these assaults on academic freedom in the name of free speech is not just cowardly, it is dangerous. In the coming weeks I will be submitting a petition to the Council of UChicago’s University Senate proposing that we join with other universities in calling out Horowitz by name and demanding that he cease his attacks on students, alumni, faculty, and universities themselves. BDS is, to my mind, not so much a single, unified set of obligatory tactics, but an opening for critical thought on the future of both Israel and Palestine. This is a critical point: no one is asking any university to side with the Palestinian cause against Israel or with Israeli hardliners against Palestinians, only to support the rights of students and faculty to speak freely and bravely about these issues. David Horowitz is the tip of a spear aimed at the heart of higher education. My advice would be to exercise the right to peacefully protest such appearances, and make the sponsors of speakers who have a history of inciting violence pay for their own security arrangements up front. More important than my own right to defend my reputation is the question of institutional responses. My sense is that BDS could be the salvation of Israel. No one took him very seriously when he published books attacking “The 100 Most Dangerous Professors” in American academia. These individuals are conspicuously vulnerable to attacks of this sort. Horowitz’s tactics are taken from the playbook of Joe McCarthy’s shameless red-baiting crusade of the 1950s, now enhanced by new media. But the audience of politics is not made up of Oxford dons, and the rules are entirely different […] Politics is war. It seeks to blacklist a generation of American and foreign students because of their Arab identity or solidarity with minorities and immigrants; it labels them as terrorists, at least as dangerous a smear as it was to be called a communist in the 1950s. The Nazi and Confederate marchers in Charlottesville had a perfect right to parade their anti-black and anti-Semitic slogans. And be sure to have plenty of video cameras there to document the activities of violent provocateurs. More to the point, I have a real obligation. He had now found truly vulnerable targets, and, armed with the financial support of the alt-right, he was beginning to do the sort of damage that he only dreamed of back in the days of tenured radicals. Aside from his avowed intention to harass and intimidate our students, Horowitz’s campaign has a broader purpose, which is to corrupt the very foundations of American universities as places of reasoned debate. Most of his targets were what we used to call “tenured radicals,” professors whose research involves traditions of progressive thought and critical theory in the humanities and social sciences. I have better things to do than attend to the antics of a troll like Horowitz and defend myself against the charge of being a terrorist supporter. The offspring of communist parents, a committed radical in the New Left, and an editor of Ramparts Magazine in the 1960s and ’70s, he turned to the right during the Reagan era and steadily moved to more extreme positions in the ensuing years. Israelis and Palestinians will have to find a way to turn this condition into a solution, to live together in a civil society, and nonviolent tactics such as the boycott are one signpost on that way. In a rare moment of clarity during his interview with Gottlieb, Horowitz enunciated his political philosophy in a sharp distinction between his principles and those of higher education:
In political warfare you do not fight just to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy’s fighting ability. Our forthcoming winter 2018 issue will feature an essay by Saree Makdisi on the appropriateness of the term “apartheid” for the conflict, alongside a dossier of five Israeli scholars reflecting on their studies of the occupation. We have tried to stage the debates in as even-handed a fashion as possible, balancing a critique of Frank Gehry’s Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem with a response from four scholars from the Wiesenthal Foundation and from Gehry himself; pairing Edward Said’s critique of Zionism (which he refused to call racism), with a response from Robert Griffin, a staunch defender of Zionism. As an expert in creationist dinosaur paleontology, I would probably attend. Finally, universities must offer help to students in the form of online reputation management, aggressive labeling of trolls, and alerting social media and search engines (Google, Facebook, et cetera) that are providing a platform for a campaign of harassment and intimidation designed to suppress political speech and attack academic freedom in one fell swoop. But those of us who support it do have to reckon with the horror it provokes among some right-wing Zionists. But it may also be because Horowitz’s considerable financial resources from right-wing funders like the Olin and Scaife foundations allow him to pay Google to push these defamatory profiles to the top of its search pages. His attacks do not threaten my employment, and if I remain silent, what alternative do the vulnerable victims of the Horowitz campaign have? It is, so far as I can tell, a loosely organized movement that embraces a wide range of perspectives. Defamatory posters naming students and faculty as “Terrorist Supporters” have appeared on numerous campuses across the country. Does this mean that we must now engage in affirmative action for creationist scientists because, after all, “evolution is just a theory”? It will not stop there but will come for leading institutions of American higher education, all in the name of free speech, civility, and opposition “against the totalitarianism of political correctness.” People who say this sort of thing have never lived under real totalitarianism. The whole purpose of creating a “safe space” for rational debate is to create a brave space where controversial ideas can be aired, and stupid, illogical, and hateful beliefs can be exposed as such. It has almost nothing going for it except a relentless focus on moral issues. Larry Abramson, a collection translated into Hebrew by Rona Cohen (Tel Aviv: Resling Publishing, 2009). Higher education is one of the few safe spaces left for reasoned debate and the production of real knowledge. All the data available about them on the internet, including pictures, is framed inside a claim that they “are promoting hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on college campuses across North America.” This prominence in the search engine is partly a result of the fact that students do not have a very deep set of achievements or associations in their profiles. His accusations have no foundation in logic or evidence. As a strong free speech advocate, my answer has to be a reluctant yes. All this shows how easy it has become to inflict harm by linking a local poster campaign to an international social media network armed with job-killing blacklists. Unlike the students and untenured faculty attacked by Horowitz, I have the armor of tenure to protect me. Such tactics have played into the hands of right-wing clowns and white supremacists like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer, whose whole strategy is to buy their way into an “invited” speaking engagement and leave a trail of destruction behind, with the university left to pick up the bill. A full listing of my publications is available at https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/wjtmitchell/publications-4/. ¤
Much as I would like to, I think we cannot ignore the Horowitz campaign. Political correctness, which used to be a name for politeness and respect for the feelings of others, has now become a slogan for the alt-right, synonymous with thought control. The turning point for Horowitz came with the election of Donald Trump. What rights and responsibilities do American universities have in the face of this kind of attack? None of this matters to a troll like Horowitz, for whom any criticism of Israel and any association with groups who support Palestinian interests launches a simplistic equation: criticism of Israel/support of Palestine = anti-Semitism = terrorism = specific links with Hamas. But we should not underestimate the capacity of an ethically rigorous form of nonviolence to produce a radical change in political and legal structures. Populist ignorance and cynical demagoguery are now at the gates of higher education, demanding to get in under the banner of “free speech” and “civility.” It is particularly ominous when one of University of Chicago’s own administrators unilaterally declares that the University “does not condone safe spaces” where controversial subjects can be discussed respectfully, but must open its doors to every fanatic and con man that the alt-right has to offer. I am opposed to violence on both sides — both the desperate suicide attacks of Palestinians, and the massive Israeli military interventions in Gaza and the illegal settlements in the West Bank. J. He simply turned over the rock they had been hiding under. But we should not forget his candid declaration of war on “rational arguments and carefully articulated principles.” When backed by political and governmental forces from the American presidency on down, it is a clear and present danger to higher education as such. My personal support for BDS is based in its adherence to the time-honored tactics of nonviolent protest pioneered by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. People I respect have advised me that legal remedies are unlikely to succeed. If one visits the Horowitz site, one finds this site is linked to an entire network of sites, including Frontpage Mag, TruthRevolt, and Jihad Watch, which are collectively committed to “identify[ing] the enemies of America and free societies generally.” It doesn’t take much browsing on Horowitz’s website to come across an online blacklist known as CanaryMission.org, which provides profiles of all the persons named on his posters, along with many others who have publicly expressed criticism of Israel, or solidarity with Palestinians, or joined groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, or the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement (BDS). Trump did not have to invent characters like Horowitz. Horowitz equates mere association with these groups with anti-Semitism and support for terrorism. Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the boycott a greater threat to Israel than Iranian missiles. ¤
W. Fighting back will simply play into his hands by giving him free publicity. It brought together the students, faculty, and alumni who had been named in the poster, and it became clear that this was not the old Horowitz of futile name-calling. So what is to be done? If my colleagues in biology decide they want to bring in a creationist for a lecture, it is fine with me. Stanley Fish was denounced as a communist. JANUARY 5, 2018
IN THE LAST YEAR, the University of Chicago, along with dozens of other universities across the country, has undergone a severe test of its commitment to free speech and academic freedom. Professional journalism is now “fake news”; the judiciary system is populated by “so-called judges”; elections are corrupted by trolls, hackers, foreign interference, unlimited dark money, and voter suppression; public education is under siege, along with the environment, unions, health care, and climate science. Many progressive Jews belong to it (which only earns them the label of “self-hating Jews” in Horowitz’s fantasy world). It is the fantasy of an unhappy warrior who has inhabited the dogmas of both the extreme left and right fringes of American politics for half a century. I don’t know this for sure; I would like an investigative journalist to find out. Mitchell is Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. He has been the editor of Critical Inquiry since 1978, and his latest book Image Science: Iconology, Media Aesthetics, and Visual Culture was published by Chicago University Press in 2015. Horowitz is a “birther,” so of course Barack Obama heads his enemy list as a dangerous radical and secret Muslim, the leader of “the most dangerous administration in American history.” When Akiva Gottlieb wrote a profile of Horowitz around the time of Obama’s reelection in 2012, Horowitz described himself as a has-been who had been banished to a ghetto with his wings clipped. If the Political Science department decides to bring in a white supremacist, I think they must be allowed to do it, too. The posters are linked to social media via the hashtag #StopUniversitySupportForTerrorists and the website for the David Horowitz Freedom Center. And it is a nice irony that in the same week that the defamatory Horowitz posters appeared at University of Chicago, I was being inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among the highest honors that an American scholar can receive. If nothing else, the free publicity provided by the Horowitz attacks will perhaps lead more people to read my books. I think we can forget and forgive this bizarre picture of the Republican Party as a genteel debating society. My prominent position on the posters may also be because during my editorship of Critical Inquiry, a respected peer-reviewed journal in the humanities, we published numerous essays on the subject of Israel/Palestine by eminent scholars from a variety of fields and points of view. Don’t forget it. Does Horowitz pay Google? It is strange to be saying this phrase that I heard on radio broadcasts of the McCarthy hearings when I was eight years old.
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Everybody Knows His Name: James Baldwin and Richard Avedon’s “Nothing Personal”
Written by adminon April 7, 2018
It is an opportunity to consider the art with fresh eyes. Fortunately, the archival material reproduced in the booklet of the Taschen reissue encourages thoughtful looking and reading, with well-designed pages that graphically provide commentary without jumping to conclusions. I find him inspiring, in part, because of how he was changed by his work, by the times, and I am continuously astounded by how his work changes with us. It is fitting, then, that Nothing Personal — a project that came from the period in which Baldwin was forced to seriously reckon with his fame for the first time — is being reprinted now, as his star rises again. In the archival photo, Casby is seated, holding a peacefully sleeping infant. Like his mentor Richard Wright, Baldwin wielded the pronoun with purpose. The first is an almost shockingly conventional image of an attractive, white heterosexual couple standing knee-deep in the ocean. What if their condemnations were phobic responses to the perception of difficulty, of suddenly being on unfamiliar ground without recourse to the usual critical tools or aesthetic standards? The reissue of Nothing Personal gives us a chance to look at the artist in transition, to side-step familiar narratives that would circumscribe what might be felt or thought in the encounter with his writings. In the process of turning the artist into a model or standard-bearer, though, I fear we run the risk of losing sight of the art, of the variability that makes Baldwin so vital. This moment has been widely described as the peak of Baldwin’s fame. Recall that heart-rending qualification at the end of “Down at the Cross”: “If we — and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others…” Recall the “we” that appears in “Everybody’s Protest Novel”: it is unadorned and emphatic, an insistent occupation of the neutral voice. Always with a grain of salt. We, all of us living in the 21st century, have been so well trained by the mass media to take in images and text, it is easy to assume that we know how to handle mass cultural spectacles. The first section of his essay describes two mass cultural consumers, a so-called “virile male” and an “aluminum-and-cellophane girl,” who are doomed to a life without real physical pleasure. Nothing Personal begins with Baldwin’s fiery condemnation of the mass media. Now that I’m technically and legally a celebrity, I find that people don’t look at me any more than when I was an anonymous cat in Harlem.” Life had caught up with Baldwin as he traveled through the South for CORE, just months after the publication of his best-selling book, The Fire Next Time. Richard Avedon once suggested that in creating Nothing Personal, he and Baldwin were purposefully exploiting the coffee-table book format in order to reach Avedon’s fashion-oriented audience. At the dawn of 2018, it seems that the main reason “we” look to Baldwin is that we — and here I write as a Latina finding my footing in the coalition of conscious lovers — are trying to figure out what to do as the horrors of American white supremacy continue to unfold in the present tense, or better yet, the tense present. The booklet includes images of alternate page layouts and often fascinating photographs that didn’t make the final cut, such as a group portrait of William Casby and his family on a porch. The author had become an ambivalent fixture of the mainstream media as the press wrestled with the question of how to cover the civil rights crisis; in 1963, he appeared not only in Life, but also on talk shows, on the cover of Time magazine, in the fashionable pages of Harper’s Bazaar. Avedon’s outsized portrait of Casby highlights the complicity of the viewer in the reproduction of white supremacist culture — it brings her in so close that it verges on confrontation. […] James Baldwin adds these words to show How Beautiful Life Can Be …
The Taschen edition of Nothing Personal also appeared (serendipitously?) during the holiday season. They stare past each other; they forget to reflect on their future as a family. Now that Nothing Personal is back in print, readers can decide for themselves whether the tome evokes experiences that resonate with those found in the pages of such esteemed texts as Another Country and Giovanni’s Room. For instance, there are photos of Baldwin’s mother looking at pictures of her son taken by his friend Dick; there’s a double self-portrait of Baldwin and Avedon in a mirror that looks eerily like a selfie any artful twentysomething might post to Instagram. Its reappearance calls for reflection. Take the piece Robert Brustein wrote for the December 17, 1964 edition of the New York Review of Books, “Everybody Knows My Name” (a play on the title of Baldwin’s 1961 collection of essays). In it, Brustein suggests Nothing Personal is the work of two celebrity artists who sold out, creating a marketable book just in time for the holidays. As such, it could give us a new way to think about the commodification of anti-racism and the role that “business art” — to borrow a phrase from Andy Warhol — can play in contemporary struggles. When and if you happen upon Avedon and Baldwin’s book in a shop, or on a coffee table, or in a library, I would ask you to resist looking for the artist whose name you already know and consider the art itself — consider whether it is possible that the original reviewers might have been on to something. Avedon’s photo of Casby with his family, reprinted in the new booklet, challenges the viewer in a different, but related, way.
Carmen Merport is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. That’s up to you and me. Nothing Personal strikes a glamorous pose — its pristine white covers house glossy pages full of dazzling photos and lyrical language — even as it simultaneously poses serious questions about the relation between American mass culture, white supremacy, love, and solidarity. The camera, the Casby family portrait seems to suggest, is not capable of lifting subjects out of history or of overcoming white supremacist ideology. In Nothing Personal, one finds a tightly cropped, monumental portrait of Casby. “The Way We Live Now” booklet provides readers for the first time with alternate shots of this magazine-ready heteronormative couple, ones that weren’t selected. Of course, the heterogeneity and complexity of Baldwin’s oeuvre defies any simple answer. There is a blonde woman and she is pregnant. Perhaps the text targeted the people who could afford — figuratively and literally — to turn back to the excoriations of “Letter from a Region in My Mind” for a thrill, and go on to contemplate whether or not to buy the luxury cars and goods that The New Yorker advertised around thin columns of Baldwin’s fiery prose. For Harper’s, Baldwin was photographed by Richard Avedon, an old friend but also a celebrity photographer of the rich, famous, and infamous. I think it is possible that what early reviewers saw as mannerisms and magazine clichés were part of this exploitation of a privileged white audience who could afford to buy the very expensive and ostentatious book that resulted from the collaboration, an audience accustomed to Baldwin’s passionate lyricism. In fact, it seems that it was at the Harper’s shoot that Avedon first floated the idea of the collaboration that would become 1964’s Nothing Personal, recently reissued by Taschen. The new booklet also contains contact prints that provide tantalizing clues about Nothing Personal’s perplexing closing section. Baldwin was well aware of the commodification of his labors by the time he declared himself “technically and legally a celebrity” in Life. To some extent, this is inevitable. In addition to a facsimile of the 1964 volume, it comes with a booklet containing an essay by Hilton Als, which is artfully printed among truly striking reproductions of contact sheets, letters, and other archival materials associated with the project. Over half a century has elapsed since the work of this celebrity duo was first published, and we find ourselves still looking at Baldwin. The booklet also gives us a literal glimpse into moments shared by Avedon and Baldwin over the years, building a case for the agelessness and depth of their bond. Rather, its prose reflects the best of Baldwin: “Nothing Personal is a work of enormous style and proves, once again, that Baldwin is unparalleled in his construction of American sentences.” Philip Gefter, whose New York Times article focuses primarily on Avedon’s contribution to the project, likewise characterizes Baldwin’s essay in very familiar terms. Accompanying these somewhat cloying passages are photographs of children and adults at the beach in Santa Monica. I’m not suggesting that Nothing Personal is a bad book. If statements like, “One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found,” strike one as belonging in a mass magazine, surely this image is no different. However, reference to this standard can often get a bit contentious, as it did immediately after Toni Morrison suggested that Ta-Nehisi Coates was something like Our New James Baldwin. But, just like Baldwin’s audience in 1963, it is always possible that we are looking — at the artist, at the devastating violence of white supremacy, at ourselves and the ways in which we are complicit — but not seeing. In it, Baldwin’s text becomes sparser and sparser on the page, consisting mostly of hopeful abstractions like the ones decried in Robert Brustein’s review. Quite the opposite — I think it is brilliant. Could it be that critics were reacting to a sense of difference — a violation of expectations? This is, at least in part, because when it was first released, just before Christmas in 1964, outraged reviewers lambasted it as “disgusting, unnecessary,” and “vulgar.” These critics did more than just dismiss the book; they performed their revulsion. It is given the briefest of captions: “William Casby, born in slavery.” You might know this picture from other contexts; Roland Barthes famously references it in Camera Lucida as he describes the manner in which a skillful photographer can sometimes transform the human face into a mask, can make it appear as if it were a signifier carved into flesh by history. There is, nonetheless, an understandable inclination to isolate certain admirable elements of the Baldwin persona in order to set the artist up as a model. While it may have been true that no one was truly seeing Baldwin and his works, they were certainly looking at him. There’s a tendency to use the assemblage of photos, novels, essays, films, interviews, anecdotes, and articles that has come to stand for Baldwin as a kind of gold standard for socially engaged artistic practice. As Baldwin’s text and Avedon’s images tell their respective stories about American society — narratives that wind toward and away from each other — it seems clear that it is not simply the prerogative of the artist to decide who is and who is not a “marked man,” so to speak. Until now, Nothing Personal has been largely neglected by critics and so has been slow to take its place in the Baldwin canon. The Guardian’s Steven Thrasher finds that the Nothing Personal essay is not full of empty rhetoric at all. It’s difficult to nail down, to reach any consensus about, what it is exactly that Baldwin’s work teaches us about cultural politics in the present day. What about his undeniable capacity to bring to life the experiences of characters inhabiting intersections of race, sex, class, and gender that would otherwise be absent from the mainstream? In the very short piece he wrote to accompany the portrait Avedon took for Harper’s at that fateful photo-shoot in 1963, we hear his frustration with this dynamic:
After all, Americans like a steadily changing diet of self-reproach, just enough for each day’s indigestion […] their flashy books on their own money-sickness, comfort-sickness, dope-sickness, almost convince me of what Myrdal said that I most like to remember: “America is constantly struggling for her soul.”
Nothing Personal is many things, but it is also a commentary on the marketability of social commentary, a critique of the “flashy book” that documents the American sickness and makes the big bucks doing so. It is necessary to build on the hard-won wisdom of those who have previously led the fight for justice, and thoughtful analysis is a step in this direction. In these frames, the faces of the couple look less happy. The fashionable context of this encounter seems to have left its mark on the opulent volume of images and text that Baldwin and Avedon eventually created together. His essay looks inward and outward; it is intensely personal but also takes care to carve out a place for Nothing Personal in the known Baldwin universe. Ah no gentle reader (looker?) […] Employing the slick Vogue-Playboy technique of double-page coverage, it is a Shocker. In the last few years, he has reemerged as a cultural mainstay, serving as the keystone of numerous essays, books, exhibitions, and festivals, not to mention the award-winning documentary by Raoul Peck that took Baldwin as its subject. APRIL 7, 2018
“SINCE I GOT to my grits,” James Baldwin explained to a Life magazine reporter in May 1963, “I mean, since I’ve had enough to eat — around two years ago, I’ve been as lonely as I ever was in my life. He calls the text a “cri de coeur of astonishing eloquence,” a “mournful jeremiad.”
All this is a far cry from the responses of the ’60s critics. Behind them stands a group of family members, and behind this group is Avedon’s famous white seamless. And yet, in the foreground, intruding into the scene from the bottom of the frame, there is a chain-link fence that announces itself with a sign — “Amco Fence.” The absurdity of the sign makes a mockery of the viewer who would take the bait of the taped-up backdrop and try to separate the photograph’s subjects from their surroundings, buying into the dangerous fantasy of the camera as an impartial witness to human life. She grins prettily; her bathing suit has a little bow that celebrates the fact of her growing belly. In fact, it is reminiscent of images produced at other beach shoots Avedon had previously undertaken for Harper’s. It is taped onto clapboard in an improvised fashion, as if to abstract the family from their surroundings. The answer might have to do with author’s unabashedly lyrical voice in the face of devastating structural oppression, or it could stem primarily from his thoughtful relation to the work of his black radical contemporaries. The writing in Nothing Personal is said to represent an outgrowth of the same “black and queer moral vision” (original emphasis) that produced Giovanni’s Room. He claims that while Baldwin was “[o]nce direct and biting in his criticism of American life,” his writing “has now become a reflex mannerism that curls his fingers around his pen and squeezes out empty rhetoric.”
Baldwin has either adapted his ideas to the intellectual chic of the women’s magazines, or he is putting his readers on. Or, more precisely, when we look to him? What about Baldwin’s insistence, as an artist and a public intellectual, on reaching “relatively conscious” white and black audiences alike — on his ability to speak across difference? Just what is it that we are looking for when we look at Baldwin now? Maybe that is part of the point. Other reviewers of the 2017 edition take similar stances. The essay, entitled “The Way We Live Now,” seeks to overcome these initial negative evaluations of the collaboration by situating the photo book within Avedon’s and Baldwin’s respective and highly respected practices, as well as by offering a moving account of Als’s own experience with the work. In Nothing Personal, however, Casby’s portrait is more than an illustration of artistic ability. How might we account for that? I wonder though, about the frosty reception the project received at midcentury. How else is one to explain such Norman Vincent Pealisms as “I have always felt a human being could only be saved by another human being” — and “One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found” — and, again, “All that God can do, and all that I expect Him to do, is lend one courage to continue one’s journey and face one’s end, like a man.”
Lincoln Kirstein, writing for The Nation, went even further in his searing review, calling it:
the coffee-table horror supreme […] this album is the work of two great American artists, James Baldwin, the author of The Fire Next Time and Blues for Mister Charlie, and Richard Avedon, a skillful photographer of luxury products […] An odd combination? Each time I revisit Nothing Personal and come to the strangeness of its final section, it makes me wonder if I have been looking at things all wrong, despite my credentials as a professional looker. A great deal depends, of course, on who “we” speaks for. So why would the book offer readers such a stereotypical image of white coupledom, and such clichéd text, in its final moments? No good reader of Baldwin would forget that. Als also implies that Nothing Personal’s meditation on love is something like the one so many of us have admired in Another Country. Her male partner has demonstratively placed a hand on her stomach and gazes there in happy contemplation of his incipient paternity. Will she have the gall to collapse Casby’s face, depicted in such careful detail, into a three-word phrase: “born in slavery”?
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One America - Alternatives in Medicine: HIGH School Exposure Program
Program: Alternatives in Medicine: HIGH School Exposure Program, Dallas, TX
Contact(s): M. Renee Valdez or Gussie Robinson, Program Directors: (214) 648-2168
Purpose: To provide underrepresented minority high school students with access to information about and exposure to minority role models in the
health profession
Background Program Operations Outcomes
The Alternatives in Medicine: HIGH School Exposure Program (A.I.M. HIGH) of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas was created in 1992 by the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) in an effort to motivate primarily African American male youth. The program has expanded to serve a population of students that is half African American and half Hispanic students, as well as half female and half male students. As a result of these changes in demographics, A.I.M. HIGH is now co-sponsored both by the Latin American Student Association (LASO) and SNMA.
Program Operations
Applications for A.I.M. HIGH are distributed throughout the Dallas Independent School District to 9th and 10th grade high school students at 12 local high schools that have a predominantly minority student population. A committee made up of SNMA and LASO members then reviews these applications for students who demonstrate a serious interest in the health profession; from there, approximately one hundred 9th and 10th graders are selected. The specific goals for A.I.M. HIGH are the following: 1.) to expose minority high school students who are interested in the sciences to different health professions; 2.) to facilitate interaction among minority high school students, medical students and faculty in the health science community; 3.) to increase awareness of the unique needs of minority and economically disadvantaged communities; 4.) to strengthen high school students' motivation in pursuing a career in the sciences by using creative scientific, sociopolitical and cultural methods; and 5.) to advise serious college-bound minority high school students on how to achieve and succeed in a premedical curriculum as well as in college in general. The program is made up of seven four-hour sessions. Each four-hour session is divided into 2 mini-sessions, one that focuses on issues pertinent to the health profession and the other that allows students to write essays about themselves and their career aspirations. Issues that have been previously covered in these sessions include "Career Options in Medicine," "Teen Sexuality and Teen Violence," and "Preventative Health."
Outcomes and Significant Accomplishments
The first class of A.I.M. HIGH students are scheduled to graduate from college in spring 1998.
Promising Practices - South
-More South-Page 1
African American Economic Experience
Alternatives in Medicine: HIGH School Exposure Program
Amistad Research Center
Atlanta Black/Jewish Coalition
Black/Jewish Forum of Baltimore, Inc.
Bridging the Gap Project, Inc.
Center for Applied Linguistics: Program in Language and Public Policy
Center for Racial Justice
Central and South Florida Higher Education Diversity Coalition
Children's Express
City at Peace-Charlotte
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G. Edward Deseve - August 6, 1998OMB Home
STATEMENT OF
G. EDWARD DESEVE
ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT
BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am before you today to discuss H.R. 4244. I would like to address three matters in particular: (1) performance measurement and acquisition workforce training; (2) the Government's acquisition of commercial support services; and (3) the proposed moratorium on the application of the CAS to FEHBP contracts.
Performance Measurement and Acquisition Workforce Training
Let me begin by addressing the provisions on performance measurement and acquisition workforce training. While the Administration shares the Committee's goal of ensuring the quality and professionalism of the Government's acquisition workforce and measuring the performance of procurement operations, the Administration opposes those sections of H.R. 4244 that would establish a new statutory basis for measuring progress in procurement performance and would require reporting by agencies that allocate greater than 50 percent of their budget to procurement programs. Section 6 of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Act already assigns the development of government wide procurement system standards to OFPP. Working with OFPP, the President's Management Council commissioned the Procurement Executives' Working Group to develop agency procurement system performance measures. A menu of 54 measures was established. Agencies selected measures from the list based on their individual missions, organizational structures, types of procurement, and availability of data collection systems. OMB has made increased use of performance based service contracting a priority management objective requiring regular progress reports from the 20 agencies that award the most service contracts. OMB also is committed to working with the agencies to determine whether other core performance measures should be required. In addition, certain agencies submit specific performance measurement information as part of their annual performance plans under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).
Thus, we believe that the performance measurement sections of proposed H.R. 4244 would duplicate existing requirements for the establishment of government wide procurement system standards already contained in both the OFPP Act and GPRA, and would impose potentially burdensome and duplicative reporting requirements.
The Administration also opposes those sections of H.R. 4244 which address the Government's acquisition workforce. The Administration shares the goal of ensuring the quality and professionalism of the Government's acquisition workforce. Rather than reflecting an emphasis on the goals of flexibility and streamlining of personnel policies, these sections would instead impose rigid and inflexible personnel, training, and associated budgetary policies upon agencies. This would detract, rather than enhance, their ability to manage and train their acquisition workforce. These sections would also drain limited training funds from the various agencies in order to enhance the budget of the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), a small subdivision of the General Services Administration. Proposals to increase funding for FAI should instead be addressed through the regular budget process. The bill would also assign to OFPP, an operational role in the funding and direction of FAI. This is not an appropriate role for an office whose primary mission is to develop and oversee broad procurement policies. The Administration believes that the issues raised in the acquisition workforce sections of H.R. 4244 are better handled by administrative action tailored to each agency's specific needs, rather than through inflexible statutory requirements.
In addition to these basic concerns about the acquisition workforce provisions of H.R. 4244, the Administration also notes that neither FAI nor the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council has the expertise to determine functional training requirements for members of the Government's acquisition workforce beyond contracting personnel. H.R. 4244 would also upset many of the Administration's recent initiatives designed to improve the education and training of the Government's contracting workforce, including activities sponsored by the Department of Defense, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and OFPP.
The Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act
I would now like to discuss the provisions of Title II of H.R. 4244, entitled the "Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act of 1998" or the "FAIR Act." As you know, the Government's acquisition of commercial support services has been the topic of extensive discussions involving the House and the Senate, the Administration, the private sector and the unions who represent Federal employees. The Administration has urged the Congress to ensure that any legislative initiative in this area contributes to the process of expanding opportunities for public-private competitions.
As a part of these discussion, we developed a set of fundamental principles for the development of legislation in this area. First, the legislation needs to promote competition to achieve the best deal for the taxpayer - not simply to outsource. Second, the legislation needs to establish the principle that it would not increase the level of judicial involvement in the Government's management decisions as to whether or not to outsource or how that comparison is conducted. Third, the legislation must recognize that current and extensive OMB Circular A-76 guidance to promote a level playing field is already in place. Any changes to the management documentation, employee participation, costing and source selection rules for the competitions must be well understood so as to be enforceable and remain impartial. Fourth, the legislation must recognize the complexities of public-public and public-private competitions. Fifth, the legislation must be fair and equitable to all interested parties. One-way competition is unacceptable. Sixth, the legislation must view public-public and public-private competition in the context of our larger reinvention effort. Outsourcing is only one management tool to reinvent and improve Government performance. We must not treat competition as a variable independent from our other reinvention and management improvement efforts. And finally, it would be inappropriate and may, in fact, be detrimental, if the legislation were to require the head of each agency to undertake competitions in accordance with a schedule mandated in law. Such schedules are likely to be extremely administratively burdensome and may preclude a mix of reinvention, re-engineering, consolidation, privatization, and cost comparison efforts.
The FAIR Act provisions do not violate these principles. In our view, the FAIR Act provisions serve to reinforce ongoing efforts to improve the identification and review of support activities that are commercial or subject to contract. Agencies are already reviewing which support activities are: (1) inherently governmental and cannot be contracted out any time, any place or for any reason; (2) commercial and subject to contract, but are specifically exempt from the cost comparison requirements of the Circular A-76 for reasons of, for example, the national defense, patient care, or other specified reasons; (3) commercial and which should be competed with public and private sector offerors on the basis of quality and cost; and (4) commercial, but must be retained in-house -- for now -- for reasons that need to be explained by the agency, including the involvement of that function in a larger re-engineering, reinvention, consolidation or privatization review.
In essence, the FAIR Act preserves our ability to increase opportunities for public-private competitions and permits us to achieve the quality improvements and cost reductions we all seek in the acquisition of commercial support activities. Accordingly, the Administration would not object to passage of the FAIR Act provisions.
Proposed Moratorium on the Application of CAS to FEHBP Contracts
Turning to the third issue, the Administration opposes those provisions of H.R. 4244 that would preclude the application of Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) to experience rated contracts awarded under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Various provisions of CAS have applied to FEHBP contracts since the 1980s. Recently, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association has sought to stem application of certain CAS provisions to their FEHBP contracts. CAS, and its underlying cost accounting principles, are applied to all contractors (including FEHBP contractors) that perform under negotiated, cost-based pricing arrangements with the Federal Government in order to ensure that costs are properly allocated to the Federal Government, and, in the case of the FEHBP, to the Federal employees and annuitants who pay more than one-quarter of the premium costs.
Congress has already provided in statute for a formal waiver process that appropriately considers circumstances that are so unique as to make the application of CAS inappropriate. For this reason, the Administration would also oppose any language imposing a temporary moratorium on application of CAS to FEHBP carriers pending future action to be taken by the CAS Board Review Panel. CAS waivers and exemptions should only be granted upon a thorough investigation and evaluation of the factual and technical merits of a specific accounting situation by the CAS Board. The proposed statutory CAS exemption for FEHBP contractors does not meet this important criterion.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I will be pleased to answer any questions that you or the other Subcommittee Members may have.
The Budget Legislative Information Management Reform/GPRA Grants Management Financial Management Procurement Policy Information & Regulatory Policy Contact the White House Web Master
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THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION:
BUILDING A SAFER AMERICA
If we are going to fight the criminals of the future, we need to develop the crime fighting tools of the future. We must put the best possible tools in the hands of our law enforcement community so they can quickly and effectively identify, apprehend, and prosecute criminals.
-Vice President Al Gore
Today, Vice President Al Gore joins Attorney General Janet Reno, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Energy Secretary Federico Pe a in announcing the "Partnership for a Safer America", a cooperative effort amongst the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Energy to share cutting-edge law enforcement technologies.
Working Toward a Safer America. Ensuring that all Americans are safe in their homes and communities requires constant innovation from law enforcement. While the crime rate in America has dropped consistently for six years, the Administration continues to develop ways to give law enforcement officials the tools they need to keep our streets safe. The Partnership for a Safer America will give federal, state, and local law enforcement officials the opportunity to access cutting edge technology being developed by the Department of Energy.
Crime Fighting Technology For the 21st Century. Today's announcement will provide police officers with new techniques to fight crime, including:
Team Leader: Multimedia Data Collection and Communication System: This device gives officers enormous flexibility when investigating crime scenes. The Team Leader gives officers the ability to communicate, transmit, and receive evidence from other investigators, make voice and digital video recordings, scan evidence through a digital barcoding system which can be accessed by other Team Leader members, and forward all of this information to remote locations or site locations where other aspects of the investigation are ongoing.
Computer Forensics Technology: The Department of Energy's national laboratory offers assistance to law enforcement officials who investigate computer-related crimes. With the laboratory's assistance, law enforcement officials have investigated and prosecuted criminals engaged in cellular phone fraud, Internet pedophilia, and the theft of trade secrets from NASA.
Radiation Detection Devices: The Department of Energy has already begun a collaborative effort to assist the Customs Agency in the detection and prevention of radioactive material which might be transported across our borders, or through our airports and seaports. This partnership also encompasses private sector firms who are working with the Energy Department to develop pager-size radiation detectors and a radiation alarm which can be attached to luggage scanners at airports.
Building On A Record Of Accomplishment. The Administration has made crime fighting a top priority. Since the passage of the President's Crime Bill in 1994, funding for 73,000 new police officers has been approved; an estimated 300,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers have been denied guns under the Brady Bill; and the importation and manufacture of 19 different assault weapons has been banned. With today's announcement, the Administration continues its commitment to a safer America.
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Archives For cost of discipleship
Three Portraits of Reconciliation
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 5:43-45 ESV
In my Christian life, I have struggled with identifying who “my enemy” is and how to respond to them. Facing an enemy, I feel frustration, confusion, and hatred. These emotions can eat me up if gone unchecked. What do we do with this struggle of emotion?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed up how we deal with our enemies properly.
“The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified.”
As I read this quote from Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship against scripture, three portraits of reconciliation come to mind that help me work through reconciliation and suggest ways to love my enemies.
I pray they help you too.
1. Reconciliation after Apartheid
In the dramatic storytelling of the 1994 Rugby World Cup through the movie Invictus (2009), we see the nation of South Africa struggling to overcome decades of abuse under Apartheid. Black South Africans had been persecuted for generations under the white ruling class. But a new president had come to power: Nelson Mandela. Mandela was an activist and then a prisoner under the old regime for twenty-seven years. But now he recognized that in order to bring the nation together, he must lead by example and embrace the mostly white rugby team in their quest for the cup. The nation would see white and black, former foes, all as newly united South Africans. And it could not have been done without courage and leadership by Mandela and the rugby team. Invictus is a beautiful portrayal on how a few with great courage can make such a difference.
Morgan Freeman as South Africa President Nelson Mandela shaking hands with South Africa Rugby Captain Francois Pienaar played by Matt Damon. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
2. Reconciliation after The American Civil War
On April 9th 1865, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States of America surrendered in Appomatox Courthouse, Virginia to General U.S. Grant of the Union forces. The fate was sealed for the Confederacy after four years of intense battle. Typically the conquered like Lee would be placed in prison, hanged, or publicly humiliated after defeat. But this name was like no other before it.
The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest in the history of mankind. Most of the south was destroyed, and there were over one million casualties, among these 650,000+ dead soldiers, and 50,000 dead civilians. Both sides had good reason to hate one another after four years of extreme bloodshed and destruction.
In the book April 1865 the author described Lee’s exit after agreeing to the terms of surrender. As he left the house of surrender, General Grant walked out after Lee with his staff and all saluted the famous General as he left. Lee was not to leave as one conquered, but as a man with dignity and honor. Other soldiers showed similar grace.
“Without having planned it-and without any official sanction (Joshua L.) Chamberlain suddenly gave the order for Union soldiers to “carry arms as a sign of their deepest mark of military respect. A bugle call instantly rang out. All along the road, Union soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders, the solute of honor.”
Enemies had been made from smallest to greatest, from the smallest families and most rural communities up to the largest cities, the most prosperous states, and even to the nation itself. And now each one who fought as enemies needed healing. The time after The Civil War is known as “Reconstruction” but it should be called “Reconciliation”.
“The Last Offer of Reconciliation” by Kimmel & Forster, courtesy of the Library of Congress
3. Reconciliation through a Handshake
Described at the end of Unbroken, after Louis Zamperini spent years in prison being tortured by the Japanese he went back years later to visit his captors. The author noted,
“Before Louie left Sugamo (the prison), the colonel who was attending him asked Louie’s former guards to come forward. In the back of the room, the prisoners stood up and shuffled into the aisle. They moved hesitantly, looking up at Louie with small faces. Louie was seized by childlike, giddy exuberance. Before he realized what he was doing, he was bounding down the aisle. In bewilderment, the men who had abused him watched him come to them, his hands extended, a radiant smile on his face.”
Along with scripture, I encourage you to read these stories and watch these movies to better understand reconciliation. My faith is strengthened by these stories, and they have helped me to better understand how to love my enemies.
Your enemy may be a person in a far away culture, or it could be your next door neighbor. Consider offering that hand as Christ offered it to you through the cross.
Reconciliation is beautiful because Christ was the example of it on the cross.
For me. For you.
What does reconciliation teach you about your own faith? What stories teach you about reconciliation?
In Faith, History 16th president of the united states, abraham lincoln, apartheid, April 1865, cost of discipleship, dietrich bonhoeffer, enemies, francois pienaar, General Lee, general robert e. lee, handshake of grace, invictus, Jay Winik, joshua chamberlain, Laura Hillenbrand, matt damon, morgan freeman, movies about forgiveness, movies about grace, movies about reconciliation, nelson mandela, portraits of reconciliation, president abraham lincoln, reconciliation, reconciliation ministries, reconstruction, robert e. lee, south africa, the american civil war, the civil war, The Cost of Discipleship, Unbroken
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Eye of the Editors
Standalone Cartoons
Naught But Books
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Favorites: Top 5 Picks of September
Frances Wu, Asst. News Editor|September 30, 2014
Having been an avid reader since first grade, I started my own book blog around a year ago. On it, I review each and every book I read, from fantasies to contemporaries to dystopian. There’s a book for everybody, be it the Bible or Harry Potter. So without further ado, here are the top five books and series that I’m recommending if you’re looking for something to read.
1. “Throne of Glass” series by Sarah J. Maas: This series stars teenage assassin Celaena Sardothien, who is known as the best assassin in all of Adarlan. After being captured and sent to the salt mines in the far areas of the region, she is now being set free to compete in a tournament of thirteen other assassins to become the King’s Assassin. There’s nothing a reader could want more from this series. Because the series is high fantasy, the world does take some getting used to, but once you adjust, it’ll be a compelling ride. Currently, the series is set to have six books, three of which are published, with an additional prequel.
2. “The Bone Season” by Samantha Shannon: Despite the many times that this novel was recommended to me, I have just recently picked this up, and was pleasantly surprised. “The Bone Season” is set in 2059 London, controlled by a corporation called Scion. The main character is a young woman named Paige Mahoney, who is working in the criminal underworld as a dream walker, a rare type of clairvoyant. She soon learns that there is a seat of power even greater than Scion itself, and that it has a completely different plan in mind for Paige and her abilities. Much of our modern technology doesn’t exist in the novel, and surprisingly, clairvoyants and soothsayers are very much real. Shannon uses the traditional (separate) worlds of magic and criminal society and blends them together seamlessly for an epic read that is sure to be an international best-selling series.
3. “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell: “Fangirl,” a fun and contemporary read, is about Cath, who has just recently gone to college and has a difficult time adjusting. The Internet is her safe haven, where she writes fanfiction about Simon Snow, a fictional parody of the renowned Harry Potter series. Her work gets thousands of hits daily, and her life revolves around her writing. Fangirl is a heartwarming tale of Cath and her adventures in college — dealing with her free-spirited twin,Wren, learning how to deal with illiterate college boys, and most of all, stepping outside her comfort zone and becoming more in touch with the real world.
4. “Uglies” series by Scott Westerfeld: In the not-so-wonderful world of Uglies, children are taught that everyone is born Ugly, and when they turn 16, they undergo a seemingly magical operation that completely reconstructs their face, making them a Pretty. New Pretties live in New Pretty Town, an area where incoming Pretties party and have fun for months on end. Tally Youngblood only has three months before she turns Pretty, and she can’t wait — until she befriends a resistant Ugly named Shay and starts to question the procedure that she has wanted for so long. This series was one of the pioneers of the dystopian genre, way back before “The Hunger Games” was even published, and before “Divergent” had even been written.
5. “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern: “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. It is called Le Cirque des Reves, and it is only open at night.” This is an enigmatic story of a fierce competition between two magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained all their lives for this express purpose. The circus is their battleground, and they duel it out by out-doing one another with mystical tents of indescribable wonder. In a familiar twist, the two become star crossed lovers, oblivious to the fact that only one of them can survive this awe-inspiring competition. Though slow paced, this book does not and cannot be rushed —like a work of art that moves ever so slowly that it takes an eternity before one notices that it’s changed.
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Prehistoric Caribbean boa snake bone beads
Posted on May 15, 2020 by petrel41
This 2018 video is called Dominican Red Mountain Boa, Caribbean Island of Hispaniola.
From the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany:
Beads made of boa bones identified in lesser Antilles
Today Boa snakes have a patchy distribution in the islands that form the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, but the constrictors are nearly absent from archaeological deposits in the region. Whether this scarcity is due to past species distribution, poor preservation conditions, or a lack of interaction with human communities, remains unknown.
To find out why boas occur sparsely in the Lesser Antilles today but hardly at all in archaeological contexts, Corentin Bochaton of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Bordeaux, conducted a multidisciplinary study combining archaeological evidence with historical and biological data sources. The study, published in Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, describes eight archaeological Boa finds on islands where the reptiles have never previously been identified and provides insights into the relationship between Amerindian groups and Boa before Western colonization.
Boas had a special status in pre-Columbian Lesser Antilles
To conduct the study, Bochaton investigated the animal remains from three sites: Dizac Beach on Martinique, Basse-Terre Cathedral on Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe) and Pointe Gros Rampart on La Désirade (Guadeloupe). Using a binocular microscope, Bochaton observed the surface condition and taxonomic features of the finds, eventually identifying eight vertebrae from the Boa genus.
Despite the presence of many other snake species in the archeological assemblages of the Lesser Antilles, these Boa remains are the only snake bones that appear to have been made into beads, an important clue as to their cultural significance. “The extreme scarcity of Boa in zooarchaeological assemblages, combined with the fact that these are the only snake bones to be modified, reflects the prominent status Boa had in Pre-Columbian Amerindian communities,” says Bochaton.
The fact that Boa are largely absent from archaeological finds suggests they probably weren’t hunted or eaten by human populations, at least not near their settlements, and evidence from historical records further points to an elevated status of Boa snakes. A chronicle of a 17th-century voyage to the Caribbean in a document known as Carpentras Anonymous describes the indigenous people of the islands as unwilling to kill Boas, believing the harm they did to the snakes would also be done to their grandchildren. Further, an account by Charles de Rochefort (1658) retells a story told by the people of Dominica of a monstrous snake who carried on its head a stone of great worth that would glow when it drank or moved in the abyss.
“These documents show us that Boa snakes had, among all snakes, a special status and were especially feared and respected, which could help explain their scarcity in archaeological deposits,” says Bochaton.
Multiple lines of evidence help to reconstruct lost past
The islands of the Lesser Antilles were first colonized by Amerindian groups between 7,000 and 5,500 years ago, but molecular evidence and the presence of Boa in fossil deposits show that the snakes colonized these islands thousands, if not millions of years before. Approximately 2,500 years ago, ceramic producing cultures arrived and evolved until the first European contact. At this point a ceramic style known as Cayo emerges.
Western colonization in the 17th century almost completely depopulated the Lesser Antilles of Amerindians and wiped out indigenous cultural practices. It also brought about the extinctions of a long list of species, ranging from terrestrial and flying mammals to birds and scaled reptiles — a list this paper shows to remain incomplete.
“Because of their absence in the archaeological record, Boa snakes were presumed absent from Guadeloupe,” Bochaton explains. “These remains not only show that Boas were here, they remind us how much of the cultural and natural history of these islands has been lost, and how important it is to use different lines of evidence to discover and interpret the past.”
This entry was posted in Archaeology, Biology, Reptiles and tagged Caribbean, snakes by petrel41. Bookmark the permalink.
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Decoded Past
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Mary Lamb: Insanity and Matricide Among the Romantic Poets
November 25, 2014 by Janet Cameron Leave a Comment
It’s hard to imagine that someone guilty of killing her own mother went on to become a famous literary figure. Image by Janet Cameron, all rights reserved.
The life of Mary Lamb (1764- 1847) was an extraordinary one. This gifted writer and loyal supporter of her younger brother, poet, essayist and drama critic, Charles Lamb (1775-1834), was always subject to bouts of insanity, usually accompanied by a tendency to violence. This madness led to tragic results when she took a carving knife to her own mother.
At the time of this terrible incident in September, 1796, Charles Lamb worked at the East India House in London. It seems he returned to their home just in time to wrest the knife from her hand before she did further damage, but not in time to save their infirm mother.
Mary Goes Into the Madhouse
Charles and Mary Lamb’s father, John, worked for Samuel Salt, a Bencher at the Inner Temple, and Salt was instrumental in assisting Charles’ entry to Christ’s Hospital, where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was also being educated. The two young men formed a lifelong friendship. He and Mary also had contact with Wordsworth, Southey and Hazlitt.
Shortly after the tragedy of the carving knife, Lamb wrote to his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on 17 September, 1796. The letter, published in Romanticism, edited by Duncan Wu, acknowledges that Coleridge might already know about the terrible calamities that had befallen the Lamb family, possibly from the “public papers.” Lamb says:
“I will only give you the outlines. My poor dear dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of our own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse from whence I fear she must me moved to an (sic) hospital. God has preserved me my senses. I eat and drink and sleep and have my judgement, I believe, very sound.”
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Charles explains that Mary wounded their father in the attack and he needed care, as did his aunt, but that he, Charles, was feeling calm and composed. No doubt the poet found some consolation through his deep, religious beliefs.
A Bad Start In Life
Mary Lamb was born on 3 December 1764. Her father was servant to a barrister, and her mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of a housekeeper, had always been in service. In Kathy Watson’s book, The Devil Kissed Her, Mary is described as resembling the actress Mrs. Siddons, being fairly attractive and with the same long nose and dark hair.
The main trauma she appeared to have suffered as a child was the death of her baby sister. She was around four years old at the time, old enough to have cuddled and played with the little girl. The grief of her loss remained with her throughout her life.
There were further trials when her father John’s sister, Hetty, came to live with the family according to Watson. Hetty and Elizabeth disliked each other intensely. Elizabeth was a gentle woman, and always anxious to please. Hetty was the opposite. She found Elizabeth’s attempts to get along with her tedious and oppressive, and suspected her sister-in-law of being deceitful.
Watson quotes Mary: “They [meaning Elizabeth and Hetty] made each other miserable for a full twenty years of their lives.” This, of course, must have resulted in a tense and unhappy household.
On the death of Salt in 1792, the Lambs had to move from the Temple into lodgings in Little Queen’s Street. The family was poor and had to struggle to survive. This compelled Elizabeth to work as a seamstress as well as bear and look after their children, although of the seven children she bore, only three survived.
Charles Lamb: A Loyal Brother
Mary endured onerous responsibilities, as Elizabeth became infirm and needed constant care and attention. Perhaps it was little wonder she was prone to awful bouts of insanity.
The newspaper report of her trial in The Times, on Saturday, September 24, 1796, expanded on the gruesome details, reprinted on the website Biographies: Charles Lamb:
“On Friday afternoon the Coroner and Jury sat on the body of a Lady, in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who died in consequence of a wound from her daughter the previous day. It appeared by the evidence adduced, that while the family were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife laying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the calls of her infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and with loud shrieks approached her parent.
“The child, by her cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too late. The dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife and the old man her father weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the effect of a severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling about the room.”
After Mary murdered their mother, she was officially certified as insane, and sent to an Islington mental asylum. Charles, meanwhile, moved into lodgings with his sick father, as close as he could to the asylum.
Fortunately for Mary, as seen from his letter to Coleridge, Charles was a concerned and caring brother. It may have helped that he, too, had suffered a fit of temporary insanity in 1795, causing his confinement in an asylum for several weeks. On her release, he took her into his care and guardianship. Their father died in 1799, and so Mary moved into Charles’ lodgings with him.
Charles devoted himself to her welfare and the two became inseparable, although Mary was to continue to suffer from regular bouts of illness.
Charles’ Poem: The Old Familiar Faces
This poem, composed in 1798, was, perhaps, cathartic for Charles Lamb. This young man had to carry the burden of such terrible memories, while supporting his sick sister. It should be remembered that at the time of the murder, when Mary was 32 years old, her younger brother was only 21. Here are two stanzas, the first and the fourth.
“Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? / I had a mother but she died and left me, / Died, prematurely in a day of horrors – / All, All are gone, the old familiar faces.
“I loved a love once, fairest among women; / Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her – / All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”
Literary Activities
It might be expected, after such dreadful trauma, the pair would live quietly and not attempt any further demanding projects. The opposite was the case. Charles wrote a poetical drama, John Woodvil, and a prose piece, Rosamund Gray. He attempted journalism around the turn of the century, and he wrote articles, criticism, articles and short, witty features for the Morning Post and for The Londoner.
Next, came a project the siblings could complete together. William Godwin, (husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley) commissioned Charles Lamb to produce simplified versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and so Charles took on the tragedies and entrusted the comedies to Mary. He called the book, “Tales from Shakespeare.” Published in 1807, Tales was a great success.
Charles Lamb produced the Shakespeare for Very Young Children and Young Ladies. Image by Rosevita.
For Very Young Children and Young Ladies
However, the book wasn’t just for children. Here is an excerpt from the original preface, reprinted in the Introduction to the author’s copy:
“It has been wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost of their ability, the writers have constantly kept this to mind, but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task. It was no easy matter to give the histories of men and women in terms familiar to the apprehension of a very young mind.
“For young ladies, too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book…”
The Lambs continue by entreating boys to assist their sisters and to explain to them what was hardest for them to understand.
Obviously, this was a well-meaning and probably effective action, although it says a great deal about the shortcomings of society at that time – a society that excluded “young ladies” from pursuits that might be too hard for them!
However, the Tales are easy to read, and Shakespeare’s language can sound strange to the ears of those who are not familiar with him. The Tales are probably helpful to young men too!
Mary went on to write some successful stories for children, including Mrs. Leicester’s School in 1809. As ever, the siblings enjoyed collaborating and Charles contributed three stories of his own.
Emma Isola and the Lambs
A rather heartwarming addition to this sad story is that of Emma Isola, an orphan, whom Charles and Mary adopted. In 1827, the three of them moved to Enfield, and later to Edmonton. Charles’ contemporaries admired him for his gentle personality and his whimsical humour, which attracted many friends. When he died in 1834, he had outlived his friend, Coleridge, by six months.
Mary Lamb was fortunate is having such a man for her brother, a brother who supported her through terrible times, and who remained close to her and included her in everything he did. But for their close relationship, it is doubtful Mary’s legacy would be available to us. The following, touching passage appears at the end of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Authors’ Preface to the Tales:
“…it is the writers’ wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them {e,g,young readers} in older years – enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity, for, of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full.”
When Mary Lamb died in 1847, at age 82, she was buried next to her beloved brother in a churchyard in Edmonton, Middlesex.
Filed Under: Literature in History
Janet Cameron
Janet Cameron has a BA (Hons) 2.1 with the Open University in literature and philosophy, (1994-96) including “The Philosophy of Art.” She holds an MA in modern poetry with the University of Kent at … Read More about This Expert
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Resources for this article
Watson, Kathy. The Devil Kissed Her. (2004). Tarcher. Accessed on November 25, 2014
Wu, Duncan (Editor), et al. Romanticism An Anthology. (1994). Blackwell.
Lessing, Doris (Editor), et al. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. (1988). Cambridge University Press.
Lamb, Charles, et al. Tales from Shakespeare. (1953 (orig. 1809)). Collins.
Drabble, Margaret (Editor). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. (1987). Guild Pubishing London.
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One-third of DePaul students low income
Mariah Woelfel|January 31, 2016
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the 17th floor of 55 E. Jackson Blvd., in a corner office enclosed by windows that look out onto the Chicago skyline, Division of Enrollment Management and Marketing Vice President David Kalsbeek keeps his head down, working to develop strategies to improve academic profiles of students, increase socioeconomic diversity and increase student retention rates.
On the ground, DePaul senior Abdus Saleem works not only to finish his degree, but to pay for it. His school day starts at 6 a.m., ends at 10:30 p.m., with a commute, class, homework, an hour at the gym and online job searches in between, Twitter if he’s not too tired. The rest of his week is dedicated to working 40 hours at an IT company where he hopes to be hired after graduation.
This heavy workload is a tradeoff Saleem has accepted to avoid the burden of student debt. Instead of taking on loans, Saleem relies on federal and state grants — money that doesn’t need to be paid back — to offset the rising costs of a college degree.
He’s not alone. Saleem is part of 34 percent of DePaul’s student body that is eligible for and receives the federal Pell Grant, and is therefore considered by the Department of Education to be low-income.
When compared to other private, four-year research institutions, this 34 percent is somewhat high. Out of 101 universities in that same category, with the No.1 university enrolling 70.8 percent low-income students, DePaul holds its spot at number 20.
But when Pell Grants were instituted in 1965 to help low-income students pay for college, the average cost of four-year university tuition, room and board was around $2,000.
The percent of average college costs covered by the maximum Pell Grant declined from a high of 67 percent in 1975 to 27 percent in 2012.”
Today, tuition skyrockets past $30,000 at private universities, and even with federal and state grants and scholarships, United States college tuition still far exceeds that of universities abroad, and that which students, specifically low-income students, can afford.
And when there is a balance still owed after Pell Grants and other scholarship awards go through, many DePaul students have to make tough decisions about how they will earn or borrow the money they still owe.
While Saleem found a way to balance a full-time job in order to pay the rest of his tuition out-of-pocket, the remaining balance was a deal breaker for Pell recipient Katie Pederson.
“After my GI bill ran out, and after my FAFSA money had gone through, I still owed $5,000, and there was no way I was going to be able to pay that. I saved up like $300 and realized it was just going to be way too much,” she said.
Pederson, unable to take out enough loans on her own, finished her last quarter at DePaul in fall of this year, and will continue at Roosevelt University to complete her degree in sociology.
DePaul senior Revan Lowe-Watkins, who works 15 to 20 hours a week, decided to take on student loans in order to pay the balance – an average she says, of about $7,000 for each of her two years at DePaul.
A ProPublica report estimates the 2013 cost of a year at DePaul including tuition, books and living expenses at $46,375. And while Pell Grant recipients receive a discount of 52 percent, the amount of tuition dollars covered by Pell has declined significantly in the past 40 years.
The percent of average college costs covered by the maximum Pell Grant declined from a high of 67 percent in 1975 to 27 percent in 2012, according to Pell Institute documents in a 2015 report.
“(Pell Grants) can be seen as an example … of how the state intervenes to cushion the costs of education being commoditized. It enables students to continue their education but it also distracts from the issue of why education has become a commodity, and such an expensive one at that,” DePaul economic professor Maureen Sioh said.
The Office of Financial Aid is assisting Lowe-Watkins in securing extra loans for the rest of her tuition.
“That’s really what I’ve utilized a lot at DePaul is Financial Aid and people helping me with that, because it would just be so stressful sometimes working on it with only my mom,” Lowe-Watkins said. “I need them to help me figure out loan situations and how to go about that process.”
After being rejected to DePaul in 2012 on her first application, Lowe-Watkins decided to go to a two-year community college to complete her general education requirements, and re-apply to DePaul after doing so. Her motivation to become a DePaul student, rather than apply to a less expensive four-year university, stemmed from observations she made during her tour of DePaul her senior year of high school.
“The one thing I liked about DePaul is I saw a lot of people that looked like me,” Lowe-Watkins said. “I’m a woman of color and I just I saw the diversity here and not just people that look like me, but a lot of different people of color and I liked that.”
Her experience of discovering diversity at DePaul is something Kalsbeek claims that many students of color and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds share, and decided to take on costs because of.
“We just live out that kind of brand,” he said. “Low-income students from low-income communities know that DePaul is a place where students with a wide variety of backgrounds can succeed and will succeed.”
DePaul’s diversity statistics might support that – 37 percent of students are of color, and while still a minority compared to the 54 percent of Caucasians, Vice President for Institutional Diversity and Equity Liz Ortiz said these statistics are changing quickly.
“Diversity is a compelling interest for higher education,” Ortiz said. ”The changing demographic – for the first time, two years ago, more students of color were graduating from high school than Caucasian students. We know in 2016 that Caucasians will be the minority, not the majority; people of color will have passed the 50 percent mark.”
This compelling interest is not only about students’ ability to learn in a diverse environment, but it is an important aspect for Kalsbeek’s work in something called strategic enrollment management.
“Strategic enrollment management is more than just organizing universities, but trying to align universities’ enrollment plans strategically – how does it fit with the university’s overall enrollment goals? What makes it strategic is it’s oriented to the changing external market dynamic, that it’s looking outward not just sitting around and saying how do we shape our enrollment within, but realizing that our enrollment our strategies are only as informed as we are sensitive to changes in market dynamics and demographic changes.”
These strategies come in the form of pipeline programs and relationships with Chicago Public Schools, where schools from low socioeconomic areas are included in tours and visits to increase awareness of DePaul. These are areas that Kalsbeek said many other universities avoid.
“We don’t spend all our time, and there are many institutions that do, in the magnet schools that are hyperselective to get into and are sending all of their students to college,” he said. “It’s not that we are deliberately recruiting low-income students, but we are in fact providing programs and opportunities for students to visit the campus, where we don’t bracket off communities and populations that are going to be more low income.”
While adapting to changing demographics might benefit university marketing strategy and increase the presence of a diverse student body, a DePaulia investigation into diversity at DePaul last year revealed that while the Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity, as well as the Enrollment Management and Marketing, work together to cultivate an equitable experience for all students, some students of color feel less represented in person than they are on paper.
“I think we have to actually define what diversity is and I think that’s the main problem,” a black woman of color and DePaul student said to the DePaulia last year. “Diversity has been correlated with representation, they’re there, so everything is fine. We need to clearly define diversity and racism, these are people’s lives at the end of the day and we can’t treat these topics as something that’s just interesting.”
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Labour’s candidate for the May County Council elections in Glossopdale has accused the leader of Derbyshire County Council of reneging on his promise that information days at the Victoria Hall Library would be held when the County Council submitted plans for it’s new Library on the site of the Old St. Lukes School site.
Damien Greenhalgh said that the failure to put into action a specific pledge represented another letdown on the part of the County Council to pay regard to the feelings of local people.
In his open letter published on 8th November 2012, County Council Leader Councillor Andrew Lewer said “We are keen to work alongside local people.”
He then went on to write that he “would urge local people to get involved by commenting on the plans when the Council seeks planning permission over the next few weeks, or by attending one of our information days at the library…”
With consultation due to end on 14th February, Mr Greenhalgh said there appeared to be no intention to hold a realistic and reasonable discussion with the Glossopdale community.
“When a senior Borough Councillor phoned the Library on Monday afternoon (4th. Feb), staff confirmed that no consultation had so far been held, but that a senior manager would return his call. A very senior officer rang back to confirm that there was no intention to hold any information days at the library until after the planning application had been granted.”
“If they do end up holding a meeting, it will be as a result of this intervention rather than because they intended to listen to the people of Glossopdale.”
Damien Greenhalgh said that an additional Derbyshire planning committee had been called for 13th March. He suspected that this was to allow the application to go forward would not consider whether people wanted investment in Victoria Hall or in the demolition of the old St Lukes building.
Derbyshire County Council Labour Leader Anne Western has already promised a new consultation will be undertaken in conjunction with High Peak Council if Labour take over at the May elections.
Posted by Damien Greenhalgh in Andrew Lewer, County Election 2013, Glossop, Glossop and Charlesworth, Glossopdale, New Library, Victoria Hall
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August 4, 2010 August 31, 2010 Dan Walsh
Union mid-season report card
(Published on the Philly Soccer Page on Aug. 4, 2010.)
Major League Soccer’s all-star game was last week, but Philadelphia Union only just passed the 15-game mark. That makes it time for a midseason review that may come a bit late to some but hopefully just in time for the rest of you. The team is 4-8-3 and in 6th place in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference, but the record is less relevant for an expansion team. What’s important is how the team actually plays on the field and what’s building for tomorrow, and that’s the focus of this review.
Chris Seitz has been the man in goal all season.
GK Chris Seitz: C+
Seitz has looked steady at times, questionable at others, and occasionally spectacular. Questions still remain over whether he’s the guy long-term, but sometimes those questions are unfair. Is it his fault a free kick took a bizarre bounce over his head against New England? Can we blame him for the ref not calling foul on Jaime Moreno’s rule-breaking interference? Goalkeepers need wide shoulders, and Seitz’s shoulders need to carry some of the responsibility for the Union being the league’s only team without a shutout yet. Still, he looks like a potential keeper at the keeper spot. At just 23 years old, he’s a baby in goalie years. He still has something to prove, but he’s earned the time to prove it.
GK Brad Knighton: C/incomplete
Knighton remains somewhat of a blank canvas to many. He looked solid against Manchester United, but other than appearances in friendlies, we haven’t seen much of him.
DF Jordan Harvey: A
Harvey has been one of the team’s two most consistent players, along with Sebastien Le Toux. The left fullback has played solid defense and he’s been increasingly dangerous on the attack down the left flank. With the Union often opting for a 4-2-2-2 formation, it’s given more opportunities for attacking fullbacks. His crossing hasn’t always been spot on, but he hustles, plays solid defense, rarely loses possession of the ball, and has a nose for the ball in the box. A terrific pick-up and a player that his former team, Colorado, sorely misses.
DF Cristian Arrieta: C+
Arrieta started off brilliantly, showing his accuracy on crosses and excellent field vision. Then he hit such a funk that manager Peter Nowak yanked him from the lineup and then began experimenting with him at left center back, where he’s now playing. At times, he looks like he doesn’t hustle and that he gives up on plays, but it may be that it’s simply a lack of speed combined with poor body language, as Arrieta has a laconic demeanor and posture that may obscure the actual truth. What’s clear is that he is a gifted natural soccer player and a good pickup for the team. What’s not clear yet is whether he’s a long-term starter and, if so, where.
Danny Califf has earned at least as much applause as he’s given.
DF Danny Califf: A-
Yeah, so the season started with a booking one minute into the first game and the PPL’s Elbow earning him his first ejection at Toronto. Then off came the mohawk and the Mr. T persona and in came the smart defender who was always in the right position at the right time. Califf has been excellent since those first games, settling in as the defensive anchor and team leader. Early in the season, we talked about the Union possibly having one of the league’s best center back tandems. Califf has held up his end of the deal.
DF Michael Orozco Fiscal: B-
If we can ever figure out where this guy belongs on the field, we may really see what Orozco can do. He’s talented, aggressive (sometimes overly so), and fun to watch. In fact, he might be the most athletically gifted player on the squad. But he’s moved around to so many positions – left back, right back, center back, left midfield, center defensive midfield – that he’s yet to settle in anywhere. It’s not clear where he belongs on the field either, but one thing’s clear: He definitely belongs.
MF/DF Toni Stahl: D
Stahl has had a rough time of it. He started the opening game at center back, got ejected after two yellow cards (one of which was questionable) and hasn’t seen the field in a regular season game since. He got ejected again in the Celtic friendly in less than a half, and considering it was just the second time most Union fans had seen him play, it branded him with an unfortunate impression. He played defensive midfielder in college, so playing center back may not have helped. But on a team stacked with holding midfielders and lacking any depth on the back line, the experiment made sense. He’s appeared at both spots so far, and it’s unclear where he belongs or whether he belongs at all. Many thought he was the most pro-ready of the Union’s draft picks this season. Apparently not. The jury remains out. He still has time, but maybe not much.
Shea Salinas has been terrific when healthy, but injuries have dogged him.
MF/DF Shea Salinas: A-
Salinas has been awesome when he plays. He’s probably the team’s fastest player, and every time he touches the ball, he looks like he’s about to go “Beep beep!” as he flies past Wile E. Coyote. That ability injects the game with excitement and forces defenses to adjust in his direction, as defenders must be ready to help on the second level when he beats the first defender off the dribble. He’s moved between right back and the midfield winger roles without settling in at either, but he’s looked good at both and could be a future starting right back for the national team if he gets fully comfortable there. The problem is staying healthy. He got injured in preseason, again in late spring, and now he’s out with a fractured fibula. He’s the team’s most fun player to watch, but sadly we don’t get to watch him enough.
MF Stefani Miglioranzi: B
Miglioranzi does so many things that nobody notices. He maintains defensive positioning to keep a disciplined shape for the squad, cuts off attacks before they begin in earnest, and is at the beginning of so many counterattacks. He’s a smart player who, occasional red card aside, plays a key role for the team. Unlike many Union players, however, he’s already at his ceiling. He never scares on offense, which could eventually force him to step aside to make room for Andrew Jacobson or Michael Orozco in the holding midfield role.
MF Andrew Jacobson: B-
Jacobson began the season as a surprise starter. He played fairly well but lost his spot as it became a revolving door of players in the role. Now, he seems to have hit his stride on the field, but he’s finding it increasingly difficult to find his way there due to the Union’s stockpiling of holding midfield players. He hasn’t hit the net yet with his long-distance sniping, but it’s clearly just a matter of time. That’s a weapon that Miglioranzi doesn’t offer, and it could help Jacobson get back on the field.
MF Eduardo Coudet: incomplete
The 35-year-old new signing has only played one regular season game. So far, he looks solid. His experience at high levels, as an integral part of River Plate for years, gives him the presence to not be intimidated against anyone. He seems a good link between the defense and attacking players, and his presence could help put the Union in the playoffs. The only problem is that it may marginalize promising young players such as Jacobson.
MF Kyle Nakazawa: C+
Nakazawa earned a few starts before getting injured in the spring and displayed excellent dead ball ability, sending up the best free kicks of anyone on the team. He also played fairly well in the course of play, though he didn’t stand out in a holding midfield role. The jury remains out on him, but we know at least some of what he brings to the table. He needs more time to show where he fits on the field.
MF Amobi Okugo: C+
Okugo looked ungangly and awkward in his first appearances, but the defensive midfielder looks to be catching up to the speed of the game. He looked terrific against Celtic and has shown that he can do the job as a second half reserve. He’s fast and, when he’s on his game, rarely turns the ball over by choosing smart, simple passes. The U.S. youth international is still just 19, and he looks like a good pickup and core part of the club’s future.
MF Fred: B-
Fred finally seems to be getting his footing with the Union. Early on, we’d see him make spectacular plays with his footwork and then pass up the wide open shot on goal, and it would drive us nuts. Now he’s gotten to know his teammates better, as well as his place on the field, and he’s performing accordingly. He rarely loses possession of the ball, and that’s key for this team. Still, his positioning on the field leaves something to be desired at times. He’s a natural center midfielder, and he always seems to move inward if he’s starting on the wing, which he sometimes does in the 4-2-2-2 or whatever other version of the 4-4-2 (4-1-3-2, etc.) that Nowak is bringing out that day. It’s not always a bad thing, but it is a tendency that leaves gaps and collapses the team’s width a bit too much at times.
Roger Torres has tantalized and teased with his talent.
MF Roger Torres: B-
Tons of talent on the ball, excellent on crosses, drives us nuts with his tendency to dribble into traffic and lose the ball, dives like Greg Louganis. But he’s just 19. That makes him an excellent pickup, because almost anything he does is just gravy on top. He has good field vision at times, but it sometimes disappears under heavy defensive pressure. With time, that will improve. Here’s hoping the Union keep him long enough to give him time, because he should be part of the team’s long-term foundation.
MF Justin Mapp: incomplete
The new arrival has played in just one game. No grade for him, but it definitely was a coup to acquire him at such a low cost.
MF J.T. Noone: incomplete
We’re just glad he’s finally officially on the roster. Finally, we got a guy with Philly ties in the rookie from Temple. He also looks like he can play, but we’ve still seen too little of him to know just how much.
MF/FW Nick Zimmerman: C
Zimmerman has only gotten snippets of time here and there, and when he has, it hasn’t been enough time to impress. He’s been a serviceable substitute, but he needs more extended periods of time on the field to show what he can do.
Sebastien Le Toux has been all-league this season.
FW/MF Sebastien Le Toux: A+
What more can we say about Le Toux that hasn’t already been said? Eight goals, seven assists, constant hustle, versatility to move between forward and right midfield, and the kind of player who raises his teammates’ level of play by showing the hustle that Philadelphia Union expects. He is the standard-bearer for this team, a clear statement about everything Union players can and should be. His humble, never-say-die attitude on the field is everything that Philadelphia fans love in their teams and players. He is, without a doubt, the single most important player on this team for so many reasons, and he has rightfully earned a spot for himself in the MVP discussion.
FW Alejandro Moreno: B-
Moreno played a crucial but oft-unappreciated role in the spring. His hustle and tough hold-up play led to excellent through balls to create goals for his teammates. He knows how to find gaps in a defense (his throw-in to Le Toux on the doorstop of the goal two games ago epitomized that), and he unselfishly takes a role that brings him no glory. Since he got injured, however, he hasn’t been the same player, and it makes you wonder if he’s playing at full strength. He lacks the speed to be dangerous as a goal-scorer right now. And he’s taking a beating from opposing players, as refs seem to be taking his reputation for diving into account and not giving him calls he should get. Also, he remains a forward without a goal this season. His starting spot is beginning to look tenuous, but don’t underestimate his importance on the field.
FW Danny Mwanga: B+
Let’s remember that he’s just 19. Right now, he looks like the MLS Rookie of the Year. He’s shown excellent finishing ability, a nose for the goal and the instinct for securing position to accept passes from teammates. Mwanga appears limited once he has the ball at his feet, however, and hasn’t shown he can beat defenders off the dribble. Given time though, he could be a superstar.
FW Jack McInerney: B
Like Mwanga, he’s so young at just 17, but he’s a completely different (and much smaller) player. He’s extraordinarily creative and daring with the ball, and he thinks to take chances that no one on the field would consider. Some might say that’s a folly of youth, but I personally can’t wait to see what it means once it’s leavened with experience.
Grading the franchise
Front office – player personnel issues: A
The Union management team has pulled off trades that have netted them several players at apparently low cost. The pre-draft deal that netted Fred and a draft pick for the rights to pick Troy Perkins looks like an absolute steal. Expansion draftees Harvey and Le Toux have been the team’s most consistent players, and fellow draftees Moreno, Miglioranzi and Jacobson have been regular contributors. The only misstep appears to be the release of fan favorite Brian Perk, though with two apparently open roster spots and just two goalies on the roster, another pickup may be in the works.
PPL Park has proved to be a terrific place to watch soccer
Stadium: A
The complex is not done yet, but PPL Park is just beautiful, already a gem of a field. Each game increases the appreciation for it. The front office appears to have done everything right with this stadium, so much so that fans are perfectly accepting of the delays in completing the complex.
Overall franchise management: A-
They’ve done so much right. They chose youth and a long-term foundation over quick fixes to make the playoffs, and it’s installed the mindset of slow growth in fans, making them far more patient than they might otherwise have been given Seattle’s success last year. They’ve mixed in veterans like Califf, Le Toux and Moreno who set the right example for young players. They chose to play attacking, exciting soccer in search of wins, which is more fun than watching a team that plays not to lose. CEO Nick Sakiewicz is refreshingly open about the team, and mercurial Peter Nowak seems almost a force of nature, a brilliant soccer mind mixed with a fearlessness and experience in MLS. Likewise, the team has intelligently used online social networking and modern technology to stay in regular contact with its fans, a major plus for a sport with too little mainstream media coverage.
The most notable flaw has been the secrecy in player personnel issues. Strategically, there is clearly an advantage for it, but it can disconnect a team from its fans. When Salinas breaks his leg, fans want to hear about it. When a new trialist shows up on the field against Manchester United, people want to know who he is. Every time a fan reads about the club, the relationship between the two is strengthened. Every time the club cuts off the fans, the relationship frays. A fan base must be cultivated, respected, and communicated with, not stonewalled. With mainstream media devoting relatively few resources to soccer and operations like ours working only in our spare time, that burden falls increasingly upon the club’s front office to inform people. For a franchise that has done so much right, the Union should take care that this one perceived flaw – and perception is key when talking about how fans view you – doesn’t undo so much else that has been good, particularly when it has an adept PR staff available. Because in the end, the first half of this season has shown that Philadelphia Union could be one of the greatest successes of American soccer.
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Hours © Daniel Walsh 2020
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orville johnson represents musicians at middle school career day
orville johnson is a friend of mine from seattle. he is a great guitarist singer and songwriter. he was asked to speak at career day at a local middle school. orville was pleasantly surprised by the experience and as he told me about it, we agreed it would be cool to write a little piece about it for folktronics.
Orville writes:
Career Day at Meadowdale Middle School
My friend Bruce Laven invited me to come to speak at Career Day at Meadowdale Middle School in Edmonds Wa. Bruce is the band director and quite a good pianist. We've played many gigs together. He wanted me to address the life of a professional musician and speak to the kids about the ups and downs, ins and outs, pros and cons, and all that. It was pretty cool even though i did have to show up at 7AM.
Their questions were generally thoughtful though I did get the "have you played with famous people" and " have you been on TV" kind of stuff mixed in. i played them a couple of tunes as well as fielding questions. i was surprised at how many students were considering music as a career. I spoke to three sessions of about 25 kids each and they were not all band or music students. Any student was free to come. i'd say two thirds of those who came (by show of hands) were interested in pursuing music.
One young man told me he was a singer and asked what advice could I give him about working with a band. I told him he should learn a musical instrument and some music theory besides developing his voice. In working with a band, i said, you'll get much more respect from the other musicians if you can speak some of the language of music and not just be one of those singers that doesn't know when to come in or what a bridge or a middle eight is. He listened well and when that session finished he came up and shook my hand and introduced himself properly. i was impressed with his sincerity and thought this cat might actually get somewhere.
Another thing I told them in regard to music as a career is that, even though I do it as my career, I didn't come to it with that in mind. I consider it a calling, more like a priesthood than a job. I do it because I need to do it and only do it as my job because I couldn't stand the thought of spending many hours a day doing something else for money and, Lord knows, we all gots to make a little money somehow to keep our world spinning. I told them if your goal is money making then you'd probably be better off going to law school. In the music biz there's no promotion schedule or pension benefits and you have to make your own way but, for some people, that's the best way to live. It has been for me.
PS I got an envelope today in the mail with letters of appreciation from some of the students. One told me I was "fanomenal" (his spelling), one young lady said she enjoyed my performance even though she doesn't particularly care for the style of music I play (thanx a lot! :) and another said she likes doing things for herself and when people try to take over her life she gets angry. I understand that.
a method for learning about new things
a little experiment that i run from time to time involves asking five or ten friends, to make a list of three new things they are into. it's a very interesting thing to try.
i run this gambit about every couple of years or so, sometimes more often, or whenever, to find out what people are currently digging. to see what i'm missing. there so much going on, yikes! and word of mouth is really my favorite way of learning. especially if there's a group of folks around you that you look up to and respect in regard to what they have to say. in today's world we have to filter out an amazing amount of dross, and it's sometimes easy to just tune everything out and do our thing. when i catch myself in that groove, i might seek out some good minds and put the quiz on 'em.
i recently posited this question, "what are three new things you are into?" to several of my acquaintances, mentors, friends and the like. or folks i thought would give me a response worth looking into. the answers were notable in several respects:
one thing i noticed was that, in days past, most of the time folks would be all excited about a band, record, or artist, or a play, or a movie or a book or something like that. i found it interesting that more than half of the responses i received in my recent query were about products instead. in years past, where someone would be jazzed about a poet or a band or something, today they were on about software or a gadget. at least half of the responses. i found that remarkable.
the other thing i noticed was, no one asked me what i was digging myself. which is fine and not a point of the exercise so to speak, but still worth noting. they were off in their own worlds.
============ an interpretation of this experiment
this exchange got me thinking about some of the books i've been reading lately about the isolationist trends of techno-capitalism, and the post-modern condition, and structuralism, semiotics. subsequently bringing to mind a narrative i've seen bandied about recently, the whole "death of the mainstream" plot. (this has no bearing on me personally, and i watch it with about as much interest as a baseball trade, which is to say slight interest. slight, but interest nonetheless.) most of the folks around me have their own little unique weird world they live in. strange jobs, hobbies, diverse interests.
i must confess, that i like my own context that i have created for myself and don't mind saying so, and enjoy myself therewith. i make my own meanings out of headlines and advertising slogans. the older i get, the less inclined i am to subscribe to these other outside narratives. however, the particular story line about the disappearance of the mainstream intrigues me to some extent. mainstream sales are down, yet there is more great new music out there than a person could keep up with. i read somewhere that amazon sells more strange off the beaten path type books in the aggregate than they do the bestsellers. in other words they make more money off of selling fewer copies of more titles. if this is true, i think this is a good trend.
the direction that data is heading, and the new delivery mediums, are all fascinating to observe. i read with some interest the articles and books on the tail of the comet, so to speak, and the tipping points and so on. however i question anybody's ability or right to be able to explain any of this shit. it seems that things exist only in their particulars. (thank you george berkeley)
it actually is possible to find something to watch on cable teevee, if you can believe that. you have to know where to look, and time it just right, and be ready with the flipper so you never have to watch a commercial, which is hard because the whole things are commercials for other products and concepts and narratives, but it is possible to enjoy oneself for a time. lowering your standards also helps. i don't mess with a tivo because i don't find very much of the data involved worth keeping.
the story arc of whats going on in the business of newspapers, and music, politics, is very fun to watch.
jean-francois lyotard writes:
"eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary culture: you listen to reggae; you watch a western; you eat at mcdonald's at midday and local cuisine at night; you wear paris perfume in tokyo and dress retro in hong kong; knowledge is the stuff of tv game shows."
that was written in 1982. it is exponentially easier and more typical to behave in this way today, twenty six years later. now this concept/machine is all rapped out in overdrive and someone is dangling from a helicopter and is bolting a jet engine onto it, and another person is shooting at them with a laser beam trying to kill them so they can install a time warp mechanism.
another interesting event is that my acquaintances likely to complain loudly about post-modernism, and are apt to use the phrase as a derogative term for art they don't like or care to understand, are frequently the most shining examples of the term. often bringing together a whole pastiche of differing disjointed concepts to create an interesting life that is not like anyone else's and then being able to afford to buy property with very strange jobs based on niche marketing. sub-genres of sub-genres. i read somewhere that modernists are angst ridden because nothing is the way it used to be....cars, going to the bank, television, going to the grocery store, jobs, houses, life, nothing is materially like it used to be. i like the way it is now better myself because of access to ideas. in addition, what can you do other than take an assessment of what is, adapt and keep moving forward? complaining and negativity is a drag for everybody, the complainer and the giver of solace or deaf ear.
i gotta say, it's pretty hep to be able to listen to almost any recorded music so easily. to be able to have access to almost any movie and have it delivered to my door tomorrow. and be able to copy everything for later use and research. that part of the whole thing i enjoy. i really love making my own world of ideas and books and music. my father was that way, and my brothers also, so i come by that honest. with today's data delivery systems, we are totally loaded for bear vis-a-vis this behavior.
i digress. if anyone would have thought to ask, one of the new things i'm excited about is a software also.
by whatever mode of analysis applied, last year was my best year ever and the year before that was up until that point also. so whatever is happening is very good for my own art/business model. cheap plane tickets, the dis-intermediation of my industry, the staggering amount of music being reissued for my research applications, and the interest that people in general have in strange music, because strange music is so easy to obtain, interesting cheap gear, open source software, free distribution mediums, ipods that have re-invigorated folks' interest in music because it's so easy to turn off the knuckleheads and juke out on exactly what you want to hear......"what was that song by that band back in?............BAM got it............so and so was telling me about this new band?..........BAM got it.......hey pretty cool, i'll email my friend that i think would like this," all this works together to create a happy working and learning environment for cats like me. and they still make certain things on vinyl. which sounds so good.
i think music is the most badass thing ever, and no matter what happens in our lives it still sounds killer.
thanks for reading and listening.
a re-appreciation of captain beefheart's trout mask replica
and the potential applications of Its experimental ideas in american country musics
for some years this record has been in my mind. I became aware of it in the middle seventies, although it was released some years prior, in 1969. a very interesting albeit strange friend of my oldest brother adored this record and couldn't speak of it without laughing. it became one of my all time favorite musical works and my vote for one of the greatest recordings ever. there is something so far out in the music on this thing.
In the last few years, my thinking in regard to currently produced american country musics has come to rest on the idea that there could be more interest created by changing the order and composition of certain archetypical structures, and by utilizing different approaches in the recording methodology, as demonstrated to great effect by the experiments on trout mask replica. (see the term granular synthesis in wikipedia as an example of another technique that has yet to become a part of the set of recording ideas for these musics. american country music forms could be approached with ideas such as granular synthesis to a stunning result).
having grown up with american country, folk and similar forms of music, i didn't really notice the constant repetition of certain musical motifs, even more so in contemporary statements of these forms. some might argue that, like haiku, the beauty is in the constant rearranging of these basic units of sound, or limiting factors. i don't use the word limit as a negative phrase, only to describe the process. for example if we say, let's arrange a piece of music for resonator guitar and washboard and voice, we are limiting or dithering things down so they can be dealt with. compositionally and arrangement-wise this must be done, as the entire cosmos is hard to write music for. (john hartford once told me that style was based on limitation). so i guess i'm using this phrase in a quantitative way rather than a qualitative way.
there are certain thematic objects that are the basis of the language of traditional american country musics. for example (this is obviously tremendously simplified) in a bar of 2/4, in bluegrass music for example, the bass has a specified figure, the fiddle, banjo and mandolin typically play modal scale patterns in sixteenth notes, the strum of the guitar and the path of the vocal melody are architecturally similar from one piece of music to the next.
much of the variation consists of regional dialect. as in the different accented rhythms that ralph stanley and earl scruggs and don reno would use to play the same melody. it's almost like comparing differing accents of the speaking voice.
this is indeed a fascinating study, of course. differences in the way a person from georgia, virginia, louisiana, and missouri, and new york would say a certain phrase can be a very interesting thing to observe. the different ways they might play the same melody on a fiddle are likewise interesting, and to my way of thinking, can be related to speech patterns.
this is all well and good, and continues to hold our attention to a certain extent. however my feeling is that some new ideas would be healthy for everyone, because in the above example, the artists are, after all, saying the same thing. and i think that the type of experiments developed by the good captain can and should be brought to american country music forms. his is an unrestrained playfulness and open-mindedness in regard to structural components, in opposition to a stylistic dogmatism.
the experiments on trout mask replica have been banging around in the back of my mind for several decades. i recently went back to it and have been listening to it quite a bit. the way the music was apparently de-constructed and re-assembled, produces a most striking result. (i have no idea of his actual process, other than what i have read, but the music reminds me of working in a garage for some reason). some of the lo-fi technology, while i doubt the term existed then, has become the language of much of the interesting pop music of the more current timeframe ( not that these contemporary artists consciously copied captain beefheart, but i can still hear a certain thematic unity in the latin playboys first cd, samples of vinyl noise that run throughout certain hip hop tracks, wu tang, the fractured bass sample that busta rhymes if you really want to party with me is based on, dj spooky, the way turntablists reconstruct music architecturally, the list goes on for quite some time).
there are raw elements of traditional american blues and jazz in the music of trout mask replica, but a whole new type of language was created from the arrangement of the musical monads, or within the atomic structure, the micro view. the recording techniques themselves also become a part of the composition. example, in one of the spoken word pieces, the portable tape recorder used to gather sounds, produces some audible thumps as the switch is turned on and off, and becomes a component of the overall effect. captain beefheart didn't try to hide the brush strokes, as it were.
i think that alternative country, or whatever that is called, americana, current folk, bluegrass music, and american country musics in general could well benefit from more experimentation of the rhythmic, melodic, and sonic concepts, along these lines. the procedures of how these musics are recorded could use some new thought. my take on it is that we are faced with a copy of a copy of a copy, and the original aristotelian archetype, if you will, has perhaps been lost. the societal relevance perhaps comes into question, the essential context. the typical newer versions of the music sound okay but what is being said? and why? what is the relation between the poetry and the actor, or the singer and the song?
there are so many things that can be done with the basic tonal ideas of american country musics. the potential is limitless. but if the same basic homogenized building blocks get used over and over again, the overall point can become unclear. then what is the purpose of this music? most especially when so many of the back catalogs are available in boxed sets with copious notes, and contain perhaps better renditions and more interesting recording techniques.
at one point, even the music that is now being copied was new and different. my understanding was that bill monroe was quite the innovator. so was muddy waters. and johnny cash. this could be a very long list. to which i would add captain beefheart.
on trout mask replica, the innovations come dripping out of the speakers. every song is de-constructed and re-assembled in the most intriguing way. captain beefheart's music still sounds fresh and new to me. trout mask replica is such an interesting stew, it's hard to place it on a time line. it could totally come out today, yet it has some pastiche of 78 rpm delta blues, and contemporary cut and paste art techniques, found art, outsider art, beatnik poetry, and hard to classify sonic weirdness and gleeful experimentation, contemporary composed music and avant-garde.
an aside========
a fellow living up here near me is buell neidlinger. i consider him to be one of the greatest musicians that i have ever witnessed. his resume has him playing with the greatest figures of western music. buell told me of sitting in with captain beefheart at their rehearsal studio, i believe, and declared the music to be the "greatest erector set ever constructed!" buell is a musician of the highest caliber and never spoke very highly of anyone's music to me except for igor stravinsky, cecil taylor and cats like that (buell played and recorded with them both, as well as hundreds of other of the heaviest musicians).
once, while buell played on a recording of some music i had written (which is an activity quite like trying to go a few rounds with joe louis), the engineer said, referring to buell's track, " i think he made a mistake in that middle section." upon listening to the playback, i realized buell had reconstructed the fundamental idea on the fly and turned the whole bass part around, it was awesome! (interesting to note that the engineer heard this as a mistake). these types of connections began to occupy my mind at that point. buell, to me, had re-invented the role of how an acoustic bass could be played in an american country type setting. we kept the track just like it was. it really lifted the whole piece up into the stratosphere. this is a one measure example of what can happen when a musician knows a form so well that he or she can innovate within and without the parameters. (this is what i am trying to do with my banjo playing in case you were wondering).
on trout mask replica this goes on in virtually every bar of music for the entire twenty six tracks. with parts stacked vertically on other parts. it's like finding the ruins of an ancient civilization and realizing that it is perhaps more advanced than yours.
on this, captain beefheart's masterpiece, there is hardly a section of music that you can really tell what is going to happen next. yet it sounds strangely familiar. it's kind of like listening to all music at once. the effect is interesting and invigorating. it's kind of beautiful and ugly at the same time. man, i love this record.
music syllabus
I. scales
II. chords
III. reading
IV. repertoire
my music syllabus is not the only way a person could look at learning to play, but it is a possible overview. this outline could be adapted for mandolin, banjo and other fretted instruments.
the concepts given here lay out a good practice routine. sit down and warm up with scales, look at some chord stuff, work on some reading, and then all three of those go together to make the repertoire. some other things i would add on page two, so to speak would be an examination of the cycle of fifths, and arpeggio study. but this will get you going. obviously there's an infinity of things left out, what i've given here is a possible version. also this syllabus is western in concept, i have no experience with other musics and can't comment on that, though i am certain there are like methodologies and pedagogy for those realms.
if you are just starting out, this might seem like a lot of complicated topics. start with one thing at a time, and remember it's a good idea to learn what defines the basic unit. example, okay we are working on scales. what's a scale? if you dive in and start learning a ton of fingerings, you might get lost as to the purpose of the exercise. though i guess on one hand, anything you learn is good, it's application may elude you, but eventually, if you forge ahead, this will get clearer.
two things that won't lie to you are a tape recorder (or some recording device) and a metronome. they are handy to have around.
a little more info:
learn how to figure out the names of all the notes on the neck. they don't have to be memorized per se but just so long as you can deduce them, you're alright. then study what a half step and a whole step is. then you can learn the formula for a major scale. how would that lay out on one string? this will help us see why it's so cool that we have more than one string to play, we can carry on up the scale with another string which saves us from having to jump all around on one string. though that's kind of fun and musical also.
the next step would be to work out the fingerings, or learn them from a teacher or a book, the common first position scales for your instrument. roughly they would be named after some of your open strings. for example, on guitar the E, A, D, and G scales are common. different methods group them in different ways. the way i was taught on guitar was to remember the word CAGED. those five letters give you the five common fingerings for guitar in standard tuning.
then next idea is to turn these into moveable ideas, where you can play each fingering pattern chromatically up and down the neck in all the keys. again a teacher or book can help, and perhaps i'll expound on this on the site if folks were interested.
the end result is that the student can play a major scale in each key, in several different fingerings based on the geometry of the particular instrument they are playing. for instance, on the guitar, there are roughly five, C,A,G,E, and D forms. those five fingerings can be played in first position and then moved all over the neck up and down. for banjo, there are roughly three,
A,F, and D forms.
you can pick a scale name, like Bb, we can play that scale in five fingerings for the guitar. using c form, a form, g form, e form, and d form, scooted to the right fret, with the starting note on a Bb. for banjo we can play a Bb scale in three places a form, f form, and d form. there are others but this gets you going on the logic of how the neck is laid out shape-wise.
the next conclusion that the student can work on is playing all the fingerings in this system, in a certain key and studying how they relate. the cycle of fifths is a good list of keys that keeps us working on all twelve keys.
then you can work on connecting them together.
then you can work out other types of scales, which can still be based on these fingerings.
one of my teachers long ago, demonstrated to me how he could play all the E minor information on the guitar from the lowest note all the way up to the highest note. this system was how he visualized the neck. as a series of interconnecting patterns. i was dying to learn how he did that.
learn how chords are built, and the formulas for major minor diminished and augmented, and how these fingerings lay out on your instrument. these are three note chords. the next step would be to study the four note chords and memorize the formulas for them. this information is all over the internet and various places so i'll leave it up to you to turn that particular rock over.
if you then look up and learn the harmonized major scale, and develop that in every key, you will be a long way down the road of studying how chords work and how they relate together and how they relate to scales. this is a lifelong process so enjoy it.
a teacher can be of enormous help here, but a book i like for guitar is a modern method for guitar by william leavitt volume 1. for banjo a good one is mel bay's banjo method c tuning concert style by frank bradbury. for mandolin (i don't play this instrument so here i'm guessing) the student could learn from beginning violin books since the music is the same.
i don't know of a good reading method book for mandolin plectrum style, though i'd guess mr. bay has some. plectrum means with a pick.
here is where you put all the stuff to use playing actual music. the scales, chords and reading will be combined to work out the list of your tunes that you play, your repertoire. the idea is to get five or ten pieces that you really like and learn them inside and out. play them over and over and figure out as much as you can about them. typically this would be a list songs or pieces that the student really likes and therefore would be motivated to really practice. however i would add a codicil to this and recommend that we study pieces that other people might know. standards in other words. the reason is that eventually you are going to want to play with others, and learning music that other people are likely to know will save you a step. if you learn obscure pieces, it's harder to do this. a teacher can really help or you can do some research and ask some folks. it's cool to learn the obscure pieces also, it's just harder to jam with others if that's all you know. also the standards are standards many times because they contain elements that other music is based on. we get a lot of bang for the buck learning standard pieces.
some things to remember:
don't worry about sounding bad. have fun.
don't listen too much to what one person says, unless they are some really badass guy, and even then....you know sometimes the language we have to use to describe music is incomplete. usually what a good teacher says in context is probably pretty close to being right. there are different opinions about all this stuff, and that's okay.
listen to what you are doing. i know that sounds kind of dumb but if you have been playing for a while you will understand what i mean.
learn to think in phrases.
don't put yourself down. it's going to take you ten years of hard work to get anywhere, really. so if you've only been playing for a year, guess what?
it's really fun to take lessons. i take them, and i recommend that you do too. most folks have their own way of learning. figure out what yours is and capitalize on it. but work on the other ways of learning as a way of stretching your brain.
if you are new, a good thing to work on is leaving your left hand fingers down long enough to make a nice round sound. most of the students i have had in the past, would lift their left hand fingers up too soon. let the instrument do the work for you. if this is unclear, ask your teacher to explain the term legato.
if you can get the tuning and time really together, even very simple things sound great. we don't have to extract the music from the instrument as though we were digging a hole in the ground or building a house, the music is already in your instrument, you just have to let it go at the right time.
when i get where i'm going
there's something really cool that happens when i get to the destination on a music trip. usually the two days prior to departure are spent getting everything ready and all that and there' s not much practice time. the travel day is typically pretty long.
when i get where i'm going, after grabbing a bite, and resting and catching up on emails and stuff, out comes the banjo. i get kind of overwhelmed with thankfulness as i tune it up in some distant place, all by myself in a hotel room. dust it off and put on new strings and get it all intonated and warm up a little bit.
i've been working on playing a banjo for thirty six years, and it feels so comfortable and familiar in my hands. the way the fifth string comes out of the side of the neck and the way the strings feel. at this point, i can review some of the music the job will require the next day. my suitcase has music books and practice materials in it. that all comes out. pick quietly for an hour or two in the hotel silence. metronome clicking away.
it's a real thankful, peaceful feeling. i'm very glad things turned out the way they did and things are the way there are.
the way hotel rooms are with the neutrality, it's cool that you can make your own space in there. i don't mind living in hotels. about a third of my life is spent there. sometimes more sometimes a little less.
if you're in the room next to mine, i hope you like banjo music.
how to amplify a banjo
Here's some thoughts on how to amplify a banjo.
These are just ideas and my intention isn't to come off as a know-it-all, but just to toss out some concepts. If you are already getting a sound, you don't need my advice, but if you are having trouble, think about the following.
My theory is that if a person puts a pickup on a standard bluegrass style banjo it won't sound very good. One of the reasons is that the flat head style tone ring, and the acoustic sound most of the regular bluegrass type cats are going for, has this cool hollow open type sound. That's a really cool tone alright but really hard to capture with a pickup. In my experience, it's too complex a waveform to read and it confuses FX and samplers and stuff.
Also if a person plays a banjo with a pickup on it, with the same attack as they do playing acoustically in a bluegrass type band, it will sound like an icepick in your head. Also if the musician is unclear on the concept of how the EQ works good tone shall elude.
I've had success with Rob Bishline's wood rim banjo. The wooden rim produces a nice fundamental tone that can be read easily by electronic gear. It doesn't confuse electronics and modules because it gives such a fundamental tone. Also the slightly shorter scale allows you to run heavier strings which fatten up the tone. The wood rim has a fatter tone as well. This has worked very well for me. Rob worked with me on some ideas I had, and we came up with this set up. It allows me to play funky sounding stuff acoustically because of the thick tone.
So here's what works. Put a pickup on this type of banjo. What type of pick up you may ask? Well, it's best to try different ones because different banjos react differently to different pickups. I like the ones that mount in the bridge, but that's just me. Also make sure the wire from the pickup to the jack is shielded. If not your are going to get RF interference. Use a nice pre-amp that has sweep-able mid-range. The Treble Mid Bass thing doesn't dial in frequencies that well. A phase reversal switch is a good idea too. It's like a get out of jail free card. Experiment with your EQ and get good at it. You won't be able to set it and forget it as each night in a different room on a new system, the settings will change.
Here are some things to look for. The honky kind of icepick thing is somewhere around 2.5K or 3. The real high brittleness is around 6K. The woofy low end thing that sounds like your banjo is hooked up to an industrial shop vac tends to be around 200 or multiples of that 400 etc.
Find a chart on the net that has the notes that correspond with the frequencies. If a certain note "takes off" into feed back, you can find it on the EQ and attenuate it a couple of db. Or have your trusty sound man do that.
It's not cool to squish the heck out of everything and have a too many frequencies attenuated or boosted, that changes the phase of everything and makes the banjo sound funny, plus you can kind of fight yourself by squishing a bunch of stuff down and then turning up the gain and doing it all over again. You only should have one or two things cut or boosted probably. And usually only a couple db or one db. Maybe three. Don't get too drastic with the EQ. If you find you must, you probably have some other problem.
Learn to play to the pickup. If a person just blasts away like they would with the acoustic band, the sound will be thin and too crispy. A lighter touch is needed. And also since the electric stuff is an amplifier, remember that 1X2 = 2, but 2X2 = 4
Where 1 is the input, X 2 is the amplification and the sum 2 is the output.
If we raise the input one increment to 2, but we go up two increments on the output. So for an increment differential of 1, we get an output change of 2.
The point:
You get more out of slight changes in your volume electrically than you would acoustically. A very small dynamic change on your end comes across as a bigger change out of the system.
Also the acoustic sound is like a vector shooting away from you. It's very easy to be playing to banjo too loud to begin with.
You may have to move your hand in a little bit towards the neck. And play lighter. Listen and adjust. With different systems, things are going to change. This is good and not bad. Visualize a good tone and then close your eyes and move your hands around until it sounds good.
If you find yourself in a really loud situation, use in-ear monitors. It takes some getting used to but you can totally crank the banjo in your phones and play very lightly and not have to dig in. The sound guy can have your solos smoking out front. Wireless in-ear rigs are very inexpensive. The sound is consistent from night to night.
In extreme cases one could stuff the banjo, but I've never had to resort to that. Also if you know the material really well, it's ok to play where you can just barely hear the banjo. It's a good practice. I just saw an old Black Sabbath video and they had no monitors at all in the early days, and the same with the video I saw of David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars. So it's possible to play quite well in that format. For a long time, nobody had monitors. Decades.
Resist the urge to dig in and try to get more volume that way, your technique goes out the door and the sound gets all gnarly. And yes it will never sound like a loud acoustic banjo really, but hey...so what. My job is to re-contextualize all this stuff anyway so I'm off the hook. Also this never seemed to bother Sugarcane Harris!
Music is Good.
Danny Barnes 12.28.07
Adam Curtis' Century of the Self
First, I want to say thanks to Barnes for suggesting I post something; he's always a good engaging guy both with his music and his mind.
I was hanging out a concert the other night and I ran into an old friend of mine. He used to perform with a band that had since split up, and ended up continuing his education at the New School in New York. We talked about what each other was doing for a little while, and it wasn't long before we got into talking about what he was working on--I don't know what to call it exactly, but I'll just say social theory, post-modernism, you get the point. Anyway, he brought up this documentary by a guy named Adam Curtis, who works with the BBC, called Century of The Self. I found it on the web, ordered it and got it in the mail a few days later. I watched the four hours and afterwords was pretty blown away by some of it's points of view, which went something like: ever since WWI, the maladministration of psychology has played an importantly understated and powerful role in changing consumers from an economy of need/essentials to an economy more located in the realms of desire/emotion; moreover, this misuse of psychology has been used more recently and insidiously in the political sphere as well. Not so overtly as in the past, but more along the lines of issues like V chips and so on. I thought is was a fantastic and broad examination of what the purchasing public views as paramount. Also I think I'll be heading to the library to check out some of the theorists mentioned. If I suggested you buy it, it would be too inconsistent, so If you can, rent it.
a short list of worthwhile books
Introduction to metaphysics by martin heidegger
they give away paperback books of this type in used book stores. the best books ever written. it takes about three readings of a book like this for me to begin to grasp things. one of my fave things in here is how he analyzes the verb "to be." his thing is that "to be" has lost meaning, we say something is or isn't and we don't even really think about it. one of his ideas is that the verb "to be" initially had a component of endurance. to exist entails endurance. i read over that a few times and cut way down on my complaining. if we live, there are things that must be endured. it's a component of living. there's much more here, that's just one thing.
an introduction to the symbolism and the psychology
written by a co-worker of jung, this book bridges together the ancient ideas of alchemy with more modern thought. sample:
" If through fighting and meeting the unconscious one has suffered long enough, a kind of objective personality is established; a nucleus forms in the person which is at peace, quiet even in the midst of the greatest life storms, intensely alive but without action and without participation in the conflict. that peace of mind often comes to people when they have suffered long enough: one day something breaks and the face acquires a quiet expression, for something has been born which remains in the center, outside or beyond the conflict, which does not go on any more as it did."
i think that frozen moment the author describes there, is what poets and songwriters have been capturing or trying to capture. so many of the songs i love and have tried to write have attempted to deal with that moment. when something better starts happening, almost of it's own accord.
a few years ago my friend jim woodring sent me a copy of this. if you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and read it three times. i usually always have a copy of it on me in paperback when i travel.
" action imprisons the world
unless it is done as a sacrifice;
freed from attatchment, arjuna,
perform action as sacrifice."
a treatise concerning the principles of human understanding
eyvind kang told me about this book. again, i had to take quite a few gos at it. berkeley has such an interesting take on human experience and develops it in a way that can be understood, even if you don't agree with him.
i do agree with him.
it's funny to see berkeley bash locke soundly about the head and shoulders.
after dispensing with matter on page 81 things get really interesting.
in the introduction he shows the implausibility of abstract ideas.
try this one on:
"Qualities as hath been shewn, are nothing else but sensations or ideas, which exist only in a mind perceiving them; and this is true not only of the ideas we are acquainted with at present, but likewise of all possible ideas whatsoever."
some of berkeley's ideas reminded me when say for instance you are going to a foreign country, and some know-it-all will say, "well here's the deal with THAT place." and you go and it's nothing like what mr. know-it-all said.
things only exist in their particulars.
like when people say, "well in the south here's what people do." and you go there and it's nothing like that.
that happened to me over and over and i could never understand that function.
so i was glad to get ahold of berkeley.
i just finished bertrand russell's abc's of the theory of relativity, and it seems that berkeley posited many of the things einstein had to say three hundred years earlier, about relative motion and such. russell made no mention of the western dudes that hinted at those theories centuries earlier. why?
introduction to logic
harry j. gensler
this is a textbook so it's kind of dry. a funny thing happened after i studied about halfway through. things people would say didn't make any sense any more. it kind of messed me up because the weird things that people say that don't make any sense...well they stopped making sense. you hear things all the time that don't technically make sense, or contain a logical fallacy. i wasn't used to questioning on that level. gensler presents a system whereby you can take a statement and give the words symbols and then work through the equation and evaluate it. i came to the conclusion that almost nothing makes sense really.... headlines, things people say as common wisdom, lines in movies, yikes. it got kinda bad, and you can really piss people off if you interupt them and say, "what you just said doesn't make sense and contains a logical fallacy."
i have since read emails from friends that had some weird logical leap in there and i restrained myself from writing back, "you know there is a logical fallacy in your statement here and if you find it and cop to it, i'll send you fifty bucks." or something like that. but i thought better and let it pass.
what's the deal with taping shows?
i kind of dig that folks tape shows. if the idea is to get music out there, taping helps! most of the tapers i have met have been very nice and freaky music fans. as far as i'm concerned, tape all you want, just eat all you tape!
my feeling is that if you are concerned about losing money on letting someone tape your show, you are in the wrong business. and don't let your knucklehead friend that's an armchair music manager tell you otherwise.
it took me quite a few years to understand this concept.
i wasn't aware of how the economics of the system actually worked in real time. i'm a slow learner and it took awhile for the empirical evidence to mount up. tape away tapers! send me a copy so i can study my own work.
give a copy away to anyone you think would dig what i'm doing.
do certain people steal music? of course
is there anything that can be done? no sir
are the majority of folks pretty cool about the whole deal? yes
also, giving stuff away is a sure fire way to cut down on stealing. you can quote me on that one!
if an artist is under contract, there is a proviso to take money from the artist and pay for sending out music promotionally. in my experience, very little of the product sent in this way produces very much. yet the artist pays for all this out of their end...well EVERYTHING gets charged off to the artist so never mind the significance of that. the point is that typically one has to pay quite a bit of money to send out stuff in bulk that more often then not either winds up in the trash or in the used record store.
taping gets music out at no cost to the artist.
also if you ask me, dude, if you don't hassle me up, and come to see a show, i don't care if you build a doghouse out there! taping is the least of my worries jackson.
i asked my friend mark burgin to write a little about what he thinks about taping, why he does it and stuff like that. he's a friendly, knowledgeable funny cat. it's great when you load into a show and you see him getting his gear out. he's a good friend to have around. you know that one guy at least is going to be really into the music. and if you need an extension cord or a mike stand or something, he can be a lot of help. it's inspiring when he's there because you want to do a good job since lots of folks listen to his tapes.
DB: Why record shows?
Mark Burgin: I record because I truly enjoy live music and I want everyone else to enjoy it too. To preserve a series of moments in time. In my case, that would be an auditory representation or documentation of those series of moments. Like a photographer will document a single visual moment in time or a videoagrapher will capture a series of visual moments in time, we document the auditory side of history. To review those series of moments in time to bring back other memories of that moment, day, week, month and year of my life, the people around me at that time, and the experience had. Why document live music, or tape? Because live music is alive! No two performances are the same and each performance has it's moments of genius that will forever be lost if not documented. Something magical happens on stage in a live setting that can't be reproduced or captured in the studio. I think it's important to document the creativity of humanity. Some people don't really care about music but I think it's one of the most important creative outlets that humans produce. It elicits such a strong response from so many people and it's so easy to make a connection with it. When I go to a show and there is something amazing happening on stage, I like to know that the "amazingness" of it is captured so people can listen and re-listen again and again. When I listen to a show that I attended and taped, it's almost like I invented a time machine.
DB: Why do artists allow you to tape show?
MB: Many reasons why bands allow us to tape. Several of these would be the free promotion that this creates to furthering their own fanbase by free circulation of performances. To keep fans interested by having each tour documented and in trade friendly circulation. By entertaining the fans by allowing them to take home a memory of that performance. The band also gets an aural document of their chosen profession. Just a few reasons, I'm sure the list is limitless.
DB: How does the taping/trading community act to regulate the illicit sale of recordings?
MB: By self policing our own and shutting down known bootleggers or reporting them to the appropriate powers that be for future shutdown. I think the main way that tapers regulate bootlegging is to educate people. At 95% of the shows I tape at, I have at least one person ask me why I'm taping and if I'm making any money off of it. It's so foreign to people that someone would spend their own time, money, and resources to record a show and then not try to turn a profit on it. As a taper, I think it's your duty to explain the paradigm of taping to people and what the spoken and unspoken rules are. I usually tell people "The cardinal rule that you never want to break is that 'money should never exchange hands'."
Intro to folktronics
in the later part of 1996, i was producing, writing and recording the bad livers album hogs on the highway. there was quite an epiphany during the process of making the song Falling Down the Stairs with a Pistol in my Hand, and it felt really good, as though a whole new world of ideas was opening up to me.
prior to that, roughly the idea for me in regard to recording, was to try and get a good natural sound, as though the listener was hearing a real band playing. even though the tracks on most of the records i had worked on previously had been put together in layers (overdubs), usually, the goal was to try and create a band type sound.
with this track, i just started getting sounds down and chasing that around and seeing where that would lead. much like i envisioned Jackson Pollock, or other modern painters might have worked, throwing some stuff on there, and then developing it. this was the beginning of my Folktronics approach. the rough idea of Folktronics is to hear all of American music at once. it's a combination of scratchy old music from the beginning of the physically recorded medium, and contemporary editing techniques. the cool thing is with just a few parameters, like a binary code or the light and shade of chiaroscuro, there can be infinite variation.
many times in listening to modern "bluegrass" or "acoustic" music and the like, my feeling is that the production is kind of dry or bland. kind of like an old school documentary. it gets the point across but it's time to smash the mold. i just don't get the relevance of imitating bill monroe. himself an innovator. (i grew up with old country music in the house and didn't have to embrace it, or discover it later in life, the more usual story for much of the contemporary listeners... turning onto it later in life i think tends to make one more of a zealot. my mother said the other day, "people talk about how much they like country music now, when i was a kid they made fun of you for listening to country music." she heard the opry back in the day and listened to the light crust doughboys and stuff like that in the early morning. )
my Folktronic approach is an endeavor to bring sonic interest into these forms of music. i lost the relevance of making records that used the same blueprint as the stuff that came before. why try to make a song sound like an overdone copy, which is a copy of something else? why not bring contemporary editing and mixing procedures to this music? what if the aphex twin played banjo?
so Falling Down the Stairs was a song that saw that flower of an idea bloom in my mind. here are some things that set the stage for this concept in my brain at that point in time:
Lee Perry records. Butthole Surfer records. classic experimental music from the twenties (and on) from my history of recording classes. Charles Ives. riding around in vans for years with music freaks and listening to strange music. electronic music. punk rock. experimental music.
so from that song, sprouted the idea for Blood and Mood, a cd i worked on a couple of years later. (Falling Down the Stairs was strangely never really mentioned in the media reviews, however music freaks to this day write fan mail about that song....so it wasn't an economic or commercial prestige thing that got me excited about that piece, but the fact that i got away with it!) in the process of researching new stuff i came across this roni size vinyl record called Brown Paper Bag, and it had a phrase in there where the vocalist said, "new configuration, new riff and new structure." and that has been my catch-phrase since then really. from there, came my cd Oft Mended Raiment, which was entirely sample based and created on an MPC sampler.
around this time i had moved to the seattle area and came to know and work with bill frisell, wayne horvitz, buell neidlinger, and eyvind kang. all of these musicians opened my eyes to the possibilities of music. it is so far-out to be able to listen to these master musicians discuss the methodologies of cecil taylor, igor stravinsky, charles ives, captain beefheart, stockhausen, morton feldman, john zorn, autechre, and hundreds of other important figures in the development of this thing called music.
i became interested in contemporary composed music, freer forms, electronic music, philosophy, esoteric math, rosicrucianism, poetry (specifically william blake), noise music, plato's timaeus, george berkeley's treatise concerning the principles of human understanding, gnosticism, martin heidegger's introduction to metaphysics, symbolic logic, meteorology, ornithology, immanuel kant's introduction to logic, ......Folktronics is my attempt to meld my own style, combining these elements.
my recent cd is called Barnyard Electronics and it represents my latest efforts in this regard. i'm very interested in a Post Modern, Post Structuralist vision. i just got off the phone with my good friend Jim Woodring and described this idea to him and he said," well i think you nailed it." for me this is the greatest glory, to have another artist that you admire, let you know they appreciate what you are up to. i can work for years on a compliment like that.
the way that oscillators are used in synthesized music, as a basis for sound, is a way that the banjo can be used, or other folk instruments. as a waveform generator that can be used to make these epic pieces. and with sampling, we can re-contextualize sounds and make new configurations and architectures of music.
the old records have already been done. they were/are really cool, but i don't think i can compete with them, nor do i want to. no matter how old the music is, somebody thought it up. i'm more interested in that moment when someone said, "hey, what if we did this?"
another way to look at my work is as re-purposed obsolescence. i relate to visual artists, and also the type of artists who make things because they can't stop doing so. this era is so perfect for this type of endeavor. cheap plane tickets, cheap gear. people that are interested in music. places to play, computers. everything has really been leading up to this in my view. and it's a great thing. there exists more great music being done now than ever, and more great gear to work with. Yikes. welcome to my folktronics site.
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Home » Dillon, Thomas
Dillon, Thomas
by Elaine Murphy
Dillon, Thomas (1615–1673/4), 4th Viscount Dillon of Costello-Gallen, army officer, was born in March 1615, second son of Sir Christopher Dillon of Ballylagham, Co. Mayo, lord president of Connacht, and Lady Jane, eldest daughter of James Dillon, 1st earl of Roscommon. He was a grandson of Sir Theobald Dillon (qv), 1st Viscount Costello-Gallen, and a nephew of Sir James Dillon (qv), army officer and confederate. Raised a catholic, he converted to protestantism in 1630 when, aged fifteen, he succeeded to the title on the death of his infant nephew Theobald, the 3rd viscount. The ward of his estate was granted to his uncle Sir Lucas Dillon (qv) and Lord Wilmot (qv), until he came of age and received livery of his lands on 15 March 1636.
In November 1641 he was appointed joint governor of Mayo with Miles Bourke (qv), Lord Mayo and, for a time, he succeeded in keeping the county free of rebels. In the same month he was chosen, together with his brother-in-law Lord Taaffe (qv), to go on a secret mission to the king in England on behalf of members of the Irish house of lords and present him with a remonstrance. A storm forced their ship to land in Scotland, from where they set out for England. By order of the house of commons, they were arrested at Ware as rebel agents and taken to London. They were held by parliament for several months, before they succeeded in escaping to join the king at York. Charles I refused to return them to parliamentary custody and granted Dillon a command of horse in the royalist army.
Dillon returned to Ireland in July 1644, when he was appointed lieutenant general of the royalist army and joint president of Connacht with Lord Wilmot. Based at Athlone in 1645, he sought to prevent the Scots army from wasting the province. In 1646 he went to Dublin and, as a member of the council led by Ormond (qv), he was a signatory of the peace treaty of that year. During his absence from Connacht the confederates, including his uncles Sir James Dillon and Father George Dillon, managed to gain Athlone castle by subterfuge. On his return to Athlone, he was unable to retake the castle and although he intended returning to Dublin to vindicate his honour, his family and friends persuaded him to go to Kilkenny and join the confederates. There he took the confederate oath of association and was reconciled to catholicism. He sought the restoration of Athlone castle and Rinuccini (qv), believing Dillon's conversion to be sincere, ordered Captain MacGawley to give up the castle. However, the captain refused to obey the order, even when declared a traitor.
In 1647, despite his lack of military experience, General Thomas Preston (qv) appointed Dillon commander of the Leinster cavalry. This probably contributed to the poor performance of the confederate cavalry at the battle of Dungan's Hill in August 1647, when they fled the battlefield. In September 1647 he was mentioned in relation to the plan to ship confederate soldiers to France, a plan in which his uncle Sir James Dillon was also involved. After the 1648 cessation, he commanded the Leinster cavalry in a successful expedition to retake Athlone, although he was unable to prevent the army of O'Neill (qv) from wasting Co. Westmeath. He signed the 1649 peace treaty and was appointed to the ‘commission of trust’ responsible for administering those parts of the country still under catholic control. In August 1649 he was in charge of the 2,500 men who remained at Finglas while Ormond took the rest of the royalist army to Rathmines. In 1651 he attended the council of Clanricarde (qv) in Galway and was governor of Athlone. After the surrender of the Athlone garrison to parliament, many within the royalist camp did not trust him and he was replaced as an army general.
On 12 May 1652 his cavalry force was designated to surrender to the Cromwellians in Mullingar. The parliamentary commissioners declared that he should have no immunity and his estates in Mayo, Roscommon and Westmeath were seized. Dillon subsequently went into exile abroad, but he returned to Ireland shortly after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In May 1660 he wrote to Ormond, outlining his fears that the affairs of those who had loyally served the crown might be prejudiced by the many private applications to the king for satisfaction. On 16 March 1661 Charles II ordered that Dillon's lands were to be restored and his military arrears paid. Although still nominally joint lord president of Connacht, he resigned from the position in 1662, for which he was financially recompensed and appointed custos rotulorum for Co. Westmeath. He made his will in May 1673 and died later that year on in 1674.
Before 1636 he married Frances (d. 1674), daughter of Sir Nicholas White of Leixlip and Ursula, daughter of Garret, 1st Viscount Moore (qv) of Drogheda. The couple had at least three sons, two of whom, Charles (b. 1636), an army general in France and Spain, and Rupert, a page to Charles II, appear to have predeceased their father. The only surviving son, Thomas, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Burke of Co. Galway, briefly became the 5th Viscount Dillon of Costello-Gallen, though he died shortly after his father and the title passed to his cousin Lucas Dillon in 1674.
Lodge, Peerage Ire. (1789), iv, 185–9; Webb, 149–50; Gilbert, Contemp. hist., 1641–52, i, 76–7, 99, 125–6, 136–42, 265–70, 291, 333, 367–8, 745–53, 768–9, 773–4; ii, 99, 150, 157–8, 161, 373–4, 427–9; iii, 22, 59, 98, 215–16, 301; Gilbert, Ir. confed., ii, 49, 133, 214; iv, 67–8, 152–3, 354–5; v, 251–2; vi, 56, 60, 283, 350; vii, 75, 85–90, 107–8, 129, 186, 235, 331; D. Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland (1883), 25, 32, 295; HMC, Rep. 12, app. 9 (1891), 495; DNB, v, 991–2; HMC, Ormonde MSS, n.s., i, 132–6, 187–8, 191–3; ii, 25; iii, 99, 104; CSPI, 1625–32, 459, 473, 480, 484, 493, 544, 550, 604; 1633–47, 258, 261, 353, 605, 624; 1660–62, 96, 101, 146, 171, 243, 264, 320; 1666–9, 247, 264; G.E.C., Peerage, iv, 357; HMC, Manuscripts of the earl of Egmont: diary of Viscount Percival, afterwards first earl of Egmont (3 vols, 1920–23), i, 165–6, 239, 326, 332; Charles McNeill (ed.), The Tanner letters (1943), 339; J. Lowe, Letter book of the earl of Clanricarde 1643–7 (1983), 62, 81–4, 99–100, 111, 152; Micheál Ó Siochrú, Confederate Ireland 1642–9 (1998), 129, 145; Aidan Clarke, Prelude to restoration in Ireland: the end of the commonwealth, 1659–1660 (1999), 296; James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland (1999), 74, 133, 135, 163, 204; Burke, Peerage (107th ed., 2003), 1147; ODNB
Costello-Gallenarmy officer
Place of death is unknown
Elaine Murphy
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How to Build Schedule Blocks
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Documentary Film Workshop: San Jose
Documentary Filmmaking:
Live Case Study
Discovering the Sundance Film Festival
Saturday, August 19, 9:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
Hammer Theatre, San Jose State University
101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose, CA
Written and Directed by Jamie Sisley
NeueHouse, 110 E. 25th St., New York, NY
Text goes here
How do documentary filmmakers challenge themselves to shape compelling non-fiction narratives in an era of increasingly sophisticated documentary storytelling? Join Sundance Institute for an in-depth case study of the documentary Cesar’s Last Fast, including a screening of the film followed by panels and Q&As with the director/producer, composer, and distribution executives. Follow the story's life cycle from initial idea to release, with discussions on producing, unique story structures, score composition, and sales and distribution options to reach audiences worldwide.
This case study is presented in collaboration with Santa Clara University and San Jose State University and is FREE thanks to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Program Begins: Welcome
Session I: From Inception to Completion: Producing the Independent Documentary
Stanford professor and documentary filmmaker Jan Krawitz leads a conversation with Richard Ray Perez, director and executive producer of Cesar’s Last Fast, that addresses the critical phases of producing an independent feature documentary.
Film Screening: Cesar’s Last Fast
Lunch (on own)
Session II: All the Easy Films Have Already Been Made Richard Ray Perez
breaks down and discusses Cesar’s Last Fast’s unique story structure: a narrative that’s built around an intense emotional core, harnesses a defined central conflict, and exploits the story’s inherent suspense.
Session III: Scoring the Motion Picture Soundtrack of Cesar’s Last Fast Composer Ed Bargularena delivers an interactive presentation about the transformative power of the documentary film score, discussing the interpersonal skills needed to work with a team of collaborators including directors and editors, and share a behind-the-scenes look at how decisions are made in designing music for a film
Session IV: Navigating the Documentary Sales and Distribution Landscape
Distribution and sales executive Annie Roney (Founder & CEO, ro*co Films), filmmaker Tricia Creason-Valencia (prod. Stable Life), filmmaker and Santa Clara University professor Michael Whalen (dir. Gringos at the Gate), and filmmaker Richard Ray Perez (Cesar’s Last Fast) discuss a range of sales and distribution options available to today’s filmmakers. Moderated by Barnaby Dallas.
Tricia Creason-Valencia is a documentary filmmaker who teaches video production, feminist approaches to filmmaking, and broadcast journalism at Santa Clara University. She produced the Emmy-nominated documentary Stable Life and directed Changing Boundaries: The History of San Jose.
Barnaby Dallas is the director of production for film and theatre at San Jose State University. He also teaches screenwriting and story development for DreamWorks Animation.
Jan Krawitz is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work includes Perfect Strangers, Big Enough, and Mirror Mirror. She has screened films at festivals such as Sundance, the New York Film Festival, and South by Southwest, as well as on national television, and she is a professor at Stanford University.
Richard Ray “Rick” Perez is the director of creative partnerships for Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. He directed and executive-produced Cesar’s Last Fast (2014 Sundance Film Festival) and is currently executive-producing Cassandro, Queen of the Ring. Rick was previously an executive producer at Brave New Films, and he holds a BA in visual and environmental studies from Harvard University.
Annie Roney is the founder and CEO of ro*co films, which is built on the belief that a well-told, well-researched, and emotionally-driven documentary can challenge the way people think about issues in every corner of the globe.
Michael Whalen is a documentary filmmaker whose credits include Another First Step, A Question of Habit (PBS), Gringos at the Gate (ESPN), and The Farmer & The Chef. As a television writer, producer, director, and creator, he has worked on such shows as A&E’s Biography, Ancient Mysteries, and Discovery Channel’s Super Structures, among many others, and he teaches filmmaking at Santa Clara University.
Ed Barguiarena (from San Jose) is an LA musician and composer who has worked on projects for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kennedy Center, and the San Francisco Symphony, among many others. He recently completed Sleepless at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the The Johnson Chronicles at the Matrix Theater in Hollywood. His documentary film scores include Cesar’s Last Fast, Raising Ryland, and In Our Son’s Name.
This program is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
business meets innovation
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Saturday, August 19, 9:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m. Hammer Theatre, San Jose State University 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose, CA
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Category Archives: China
The Garratts in China
Kevin and Julia Garratt were keynote speakers at Vancouver MissionsFest. They were falsely imprisoned for spying in China after serving for 30 years. Click to view the 100 Huntley Street interview.
Categories: China | Tags: forgiveness, Garrett, Jesus Christ | Permalink.
Eric Liddell’s Fiery Chariots
By Rev Dr Ed & Janice Hird
– published in the July 2019 Light Magazine
How often does a Chinese-born missionary to China become the subject of an academy award-winning movie?[1] The people of China see Eric Liddell as their first Olympic gold medalist, even recently unveiling a statue of him.[2] His daughter Patricia Liddell commented, “My father was multi-faceted, he didn’t just appeal to religious people. He was born in China, he worked in China, he died in China. He’s their Olympic hero.” Duncan Hamilton poignantly commented, “In Chinese eyes, he is a true son of their country; he belongs to no one else.”[3]
In Chariots of Fire, he is shown running for the glory of God in the 1924 Olympics.[4] Eric commented, “I never prayed that I would win a race. I have of course prayed about the athletic meetings, asking that in this too, God might be glorified.”[5] A leading sports reporter summed him up as ‘probably the most illustrious type of muscular Christianity ever known.’[6] Nicknamed the flying Scotsman, he famously said: “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”[7] When asked how he ran so quickly, he often said that he ran as fast as he could for the first half of a race, and then asked God to help him run even faster for the second half.[8] Eric won so much gold and silver that his mother hid his trophies under her bed at night, in case of burglary.[9]
Missionary families often make great sacrifices for the sake of the lost. Born in 1903 at Siao Chang on the Great Plain of Northern China, Eric and his older brother Robert were sent in 1912 to the Eltham missionary boarding school in London. While at Eltham, Eric earned the Blackheath Cup as the best athlete of his year, becoming the captain of both the cricket and rugby union teams.[10] Eric did not see his mother again for seven years, and his dad for thirteen years.[11] Since Eric only knew Chinese culture, he experienced enormous culture shock in his parents’ homeland of Scotland.
While earning a chemistry degree at the University of Edinburgh, he was not only a track and field runner, but also became an award-winning rugby player for the Scottish national team.[12] Being painfully shy, Eric never could have imagined that he would become the most famous person in Scotland.[13]
Chemistry Professor Neil Campbell at Edinburgh commented, “No athlete has ever made a bigger impact on people all around the world, and the description of him as ‘the most famous, the most popular, and best-loved athlete Scotland has ever produced’ is no exaggeration.”[14] Dunky Wright, Scotland’s greatest long-distance runner, said of Eric: “he was without doubt the most glorious runner I have ever seen …with such a high moral Christian character…”[15]
Eric had a unique running style that coaches tried to cure without success. The New York Times noted that he seemed to do everything wrong.[16] The Daily Mail sketched him in a cartoon as if he were a rubber contortionist. Throwing his head back, he swayed and rocked like an overloaded express train.[17] Eric was compared to a startled deer, a windmill with its sails off kilter, a terrified ghost, and someone whose joints had never been oiled.[18] Jack Moakley, the wisest and oldest of the American Olympic running team, said, “That lad Liddell’s an awful runner, but he’s got something. I think he’s got what it takes.”[19]
It hurt Eric deeply when many called him a traitor for being unwilling to run on Sunday at the Olympics.[20] His strong Christian convictions led him to refuse to work on Sundays, including winning gold medals. His stunning gold Olympic win in the 400 metres turned him from a national embarrassment to a celebrated hero.[21] The closest parallel to his new fame was Beatlemania, complete with an actual Eric Liddell fan club.[22]
For Eric, the 1924 Olympics was just a brief diversion on his way to serve as a missionary in China. Before he boarded the boat to China, enormous crowds came to hear him speak in churches. Over a thousand people had to be turned away sometimes because there was no more room.[23]
Eric served in China as a missionary chemistry teacher from 1925 to 1943, first in Tientsin (Tainjin) and later in Siaochan. During a first furlough in 1932, he was ordained as a minister.[24]
In 1941, the fighting between the Chinese and invading Japanese forces became so dangerous that he was forced to send his Canadian wife Florence and their three children back to Canada.[25] Kissing his wife goodbye, he whispered in her ear ‘Those who love God never meet for the last time.’[26] The Sino-Japan War was often referred to as the ‘Forgotten War’ because so few foreigners took any interest in it.[27] The Japanese occupiers did not allow Eric to hold church services with any more than ten people present. So Eric met nine people for afternoon tea, giving out copies of his sermon. These nine people then each met nine other people giving them copies of the sermon until everyone was reached. This became known as the Afternoon Tea Church.[28]
The Japanese had sworn that before 1942 had ended, they would grant approval for anyone to leave. On March 12th 1943, the Japanese declared that no ‘enemies’ would be allowed to leave China. All British & American ‘enemies’ were to report to Weidendorf Internment Camp, the former Presbyterian Church compound, in the center of Shantung Province, four hundred miles southeast of Tientsin.[29] The Japanese called it a Civilian Assembly Center.[30] Some of the wealthy British business people on the way to the Internment camp brought along beach chairs, silver cutlery, and even a set of golf clubs.[31] Over 1,000 missionaries were imprisoned by the Japanese, many of whom died.[32] In 1943, Eric was sent to the Weixhan Internment Camp in modern-day Weifang, Shandong, with 1800 other prisoners, including 100 other missionarys’ children. While interned in this 150 by 200 yard camp, he helped the elderly, taught Bible classes at the camp school, arranged games, and taught science to the children, who referred to him as Uncle Eric.[33] David J Michell, a child internee, remarked, “He had a smile for everyone.”[34] He was the hardest worker in the internment camp.[35] Sports Writer A.A. Thomson said of Eric: “During the worst period of his imprisonment, he was, through his courage and cheerfulness, a tower of strength and sanity to his fellow prisoners.”[36] Sometimes he ran races against the Japanese guards in order to allow food and medicine to be smuggled in for the starving inmates.[37]
Influenced by his missionary mentor Dr. E Stanley Jones, Eric wrote a book The Disciplines of the Christian Life.[38] At that time, there was little written material available to instruct Chinese pastors. Eric was passionate about absolute surrender to the will of God.[39] In Eric’s 1942 book Prayers for Daily Use, he wrote, “Obedience to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know but willingness to do (obedience) God’s will that brings certainty.”[40] His major sermon topics in the internment camp were the Sermon on the Mount and 1 Corinthians 13.[41] In Eric’s booklet “The Sermon on the Mount for Sunday School Teachers”, he wrote “Meek is kind and gentle and fearless…Meek is love in the presence of wrong.”[42]
One internee said, “He wasn’t a very good preacher, but he certainly had us all listening to him because his personality or his sincerity or whatever it was came across so strongly.”[43] In a letter to a friend, the Rev Howard-Smith wrote, “I never saw Eric angry. I never heard him say a cross or unkind word. He just went about doing good.”[44] Eric was a friend, if you needed him, particularly in times of relationship conflict.[45] A fellow internee said, “Of all the men I have known, Eric Liddell was the one in whose character and life the spirit of Jesus Christ was pre-eminently manifested.”[46] He became the camp’s conscience without being judgmental or critical of others.[47] He lived his Christianity.[48] Norman Cliff, in his book Courtyard of the Happy Way, described Eric as : “the most outstanding Weihsien personality…in his early forties, quiet-spoken and with a permanent smile. Eric was the finest Christian man Idfazt have had the privilege of meeting.”[49]
Eric never saw his family again, dying at age 38 in the internment camp of a brain tumour, just months before the WW II liberation. His last words were, “It’s complete surrender.”[50] Langdon Gilkey wrote, “The entire camp, especially its youth, was stunned for days, so great was the vacuum that Eric’s death had left.”[51] Adopted by the Chinese as their very own, he is commemorated in a monument in Weifang, featuring these words from Isaiah: “They shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary.”[52] Like Eric Liddell, what might it take for us to feel God’s pleasure for the sake of the nations?
Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird
[1] Chariots of Fire took four Oscars in 1982, including best picture.
[2] Movie: On Wings of Eagles: The Eric Liddell Story (Goodland Pictures, 2017) Excerpt: “Eric Liddell – China’s first gold medalist and one of Scotland’s greatest athletes – returns to war-torn China.”; ”Joseph Fiennes’ Chariots of Fire Sequel” “ He became a hero to the Chinese people, partly due to his athletic achievements – some consider him the first Chinese gold medallist.” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/15/joseph-fiennes-chariots-of-fire-sequel (accessed 05/27/2019); https://churchleaders.com/daily-buzz/261525-chinas-hero-eric-liddell-honored-statue.html (accessed 06-10-2019)
[3] Duncan Hamilton, For The Glory (Random House Canada, 2016), p. 6.; p. 14 “The Chinese, wanting no one to forget Weihsien’s woes, have created a museum…Liddell has a commemorative corner to himself.”
[4] Hamilton, p.10 “Chariots of Fire captures the inherent decency of Liddell.”
[5] John W Keddie, Running The Race: Eric Liddell — Olympic Champion & Missionary (Evangelical Press, Darlington, England, 2007, p. 47.
[6] Sally Magnusson, The Flying Scotsman (Quartet Books, Inc, New York, NY, 1981), p. 177.
[7] https://www.epm.org/blog/2018/Feb/12/olympian-eric-liddell
“My favorite lines from the movie are when Eric’s character, played by actor Ian Charleson, says, ‘God…made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.’” (accessed 05/29/2019)
[8] Janet & Geoff Benge, Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold (YWAM Publishing, Seattle, WA, 1999), p. 43.
[9] Benge, p. 33.
[10] “On Wings of Eagles: the sequel to Chariots of Fire”
https://sonomachristianhome.com/2017/11/on-wings-of-eagles-the-sequel-to-chariots-of-fire/
(accessed 05/26/2019)
[11] Benge, p. 21-22.
[12] Benge, p. 34.
[14] Magnusson, p. 35.
[15] Magnusson, p. 178.
[16] Hamilton, p. 13.
[17] Hamilton, p.13 “There was an ungainly frenzy about him. Liddell swayed, rocking like an overloaded express train, and he threw his head well back, as if studying the sky rather than the track.”
[20] Benge, p. 46.; Magnusson, p. 14.
[21] Benge, p.68 (After winning in the 1924 Olympics) he was Scotland’s greatest sports star.; Keddie, p.11 “Eric Liddell took just 47.6 seconds to win the 400 metres race at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games…(but his victory has become a timeless moment in modern sporting history and achievement).”
[24] https://sonomachristianhome.com/2017/11/on-wings-of-eagles-the-sequel-to-chariots-of-fire/ (accessed 05/28/2019)
[25] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold (Lion Hudson, Oxford, UK, 2001),, p. 295 “Florence Liddell remained in Canada where she married Murray Hall, a widower, in 1951…Eric and Flo’s three daughters, Patricia, Heather, and Maureen, have nine children among them and make their homes in Canada.”
[26] Benge, p. 162 “Escorting Flo and his daughters to the ship that would take them to Canada was probably the most difficult thing Eric Liddell ever had to do in his life.”
[27] Benge, p.164.
[28] Benge, p. 165.
[29] Benge, P. 167.; Hamilton, p.7 Born at Weihsien was the Nobel laureate Pearl S Buck of The Good Earth book fame. Henry Luce, founder of Time Magazine, lived in the compound as a boy.
[30] Hamilton, p. 7.
[33] Benge, p. 184 P.184 “(In the internment camp) Eric ran a Friday night youth group with square dancing, chess tournaments, puppet plays, and quiz shows…Eric was probably the most popular person in the whole camp.”; Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life (Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1985), p. 15.
[34] Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life, p. 12.
[35] Hamilton, p. inside cover.
[37] https://dove.org/review/12605-on-wings-of-eagles/; Magnusson, p.167 “The inhabitants of Weihsien were slowly starving.”
“In one scene of Wings of Eagles, Liddell, nearly starved, is forced to race against a Japanese soldier when he falters and falls. Later, in order to secure medicine for a man that is dying, he agrees to race again.” (Accessed 05/25/2019)
[38] Benge, p. 163.; Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life.; McCasland, p .192 “(one) of his favourite books The Christ of the Mount by E. Stanley Jones.”
[39] Magnusson, p.166 “What was the secret of his consecrated life and far-reaching influence? Absolute surrender to God’s will as revealed in Jesus Christ. His was a God-controlled life…”; p.176 Rev A.P. Cullen stated that “He was literally God-controlled in his thoughts, judgement, actions, words, to an extent I have never seen surpassed, and rarely seen equalled.” …”First of all, absolute surrender to the will of God. Absolute surrender —those words were often on his lips, the conception was often in his mind; that God should have absolute control over every part of his life.”
[45] Magnusson, p. 162 “Most of all he was the person we turned to when personal relationships got just too impossible.”
[47] Hamilton, p. 8 “…Liddell’s forbearance was remarkable. No one could ever recall a single act of envy, pettiness, hubris, or self-aggrandizement from him. He badmouthed nobody. He didn’t bicker…Liddell became the camp’s conscience without ever being pious, sanctimonious, or judgmental.”
[50] Another fellow missionary said that Liddell’s last words “It’s complete surrender” referred to his relationship with God. https://sonomachristianhome.com/2017/11/on-wings-of-eagles-the-sequel-to-chariots-of-fire/ (accessed 05/28/2019)
[52] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Liddell
“In 1991 the University of Edinburgh erected a memorial headstone, made from Isle of Mull granite and carved by a mason in Tobermory, at the former camp site in Weifang. The simple inscription came from the Book of Isaiah 40:31: They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary.” (Accessed 05/29/2019).
Categories: China, Eric Liddell, Olympics | Tags: Chariots of Fire, China, faith, forgiveness, internment, Japan, Jesus, Missions, Olympics | Permalink.
by edhird Leave a comment
The Unforgettable Henry Luce, Publisher
Since becoming a professional writer in 2007 with The Word Guild, it has been fascinating to learn more about how the world of publishing actually works. Alan Brinkley produced an intriguing book The Publisher which explores the life of Henry Luce. As the founder of TIME, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines, Luce, says Brinkley, is ‘arguably the most important publisher’ of the last hundred years. I remember ‘cutting my teeth’ as a child on TIME and Life magazines to which my parents subscribed.
Luce’s parents sacrificially devoted their lives as missionaries in China. Being sent to boarding school robbed Luce of a healthy family upbringing, leaving him feeling alone and driven to impress others. Luce described his boarding school experience as a ‘hanging torture’, commenting: “I well sympathize with prisoners wishing to commit suicide.” Many missionaries, in hindsight, have regretted sending their children to boarding schools. The high valuing of academic education has sometimes caused well-meaning parents and their children to lose those vital family connections.
Born in Penglai City in China, Luce first came to North America at age 15. Everything was strange and different to him. Luce had an insatiable curiosity to understand unfamiliar settings. The novelist John Hersey who worked for Luce said that “the most attractive thing about Luce was that he was relentlessly curious about absolutely everything; he was delighted to learn any fact that he had not known before.” This curiosity was at the heart of the inventiveness of the four magazines that he birthed.
Luce inherited his parent’s missionary zeal to connect with a foreign culture and make a helpful difference. North America for Luce was always a foreign culture that he strove to understand. He always felt like an outsider. No matter how hard he strived, he never really felt like he fit in. Brinkley describes Luce as a “fundamentally shy, lonely and somewhat awkward man with few true friends… (yet he) had the ability to connect publicly with millions of strangers”. In many ways, Luce was an emotional orphan. He once said that he did not have a high regard for ‘feelings’, that they were ‘secondary’ to thought. One colleague described Luce as ‘the loneliest man I’ve ever known.’
While at Yale, Luce worked endlessly seeking to be accepted by the other students. As a missionary’s child, he lacked the money and position of other Yale students. Instead he gained acceptance through his keen inquisitive mind, and his involvement in helping produce the Yale Daily News. In partnership with fellow Yale Editor Britton Hadden, Luce birthed an unlikely newsmagazine in 1923 called TIME. Seventy percent of TIME subscribers were younger business executives under age 46. Brinkley says that Luce’s magazines contributed to ‘the birth of a national mass culture to serve a new and rapidly expanding middle class.’
Sadly Luce’s career success was often at the cost of his family life. Divorcing his first wife, he turned to the glamorous Clare Boothe, having what Brinkley described as a marriage made in hell. Philip Seib said that they were ‘both intensely self-centered and exceptionally ambitious…a perfect formula for making each other miserable.”
Luce always believed that his magazines could make a positive difference and shape a better world. The image of the Good Samaritan was a strong motivator in Luce’s thinking. In 1954, Luce put Billy Graham on the front cover of TIME magazine, and invited Billy Graham and six other leaders to write essays in Life magazine on the theme of National Purpose. The late Billy Graham said in Life: “We must recapture our moral strength and our faith in God.” Luce re-explored his faith and became a regular attender at Madison Presbyterian Church. TIME became an active supporter of civil rights and desegregation, with TIME reporters occasionally being beaten and injured.
As Alan Brinkley put it, “Henry Luce –for all his many flaws and sometimes noxious biases – was an innovator, a visionary and a man of vast and daunting self-confidence.” In this time of great technological and cultural change, we can all learn from the relentless curiosity, inventiveness and missionary zeal of Publisher Henry Luce.
– previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
Categories: books, China, Time, USA | Tags: Alan Brinkley, Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada), Battle for the Soul of Canada, Billy Graham, boarding school, Britton Hadden, business executives, China, civil rights, Clare Boothe, curious, desegregation, foreign, Fortune, Good Samaritan, Life magazine, loneliest, Madison Presbyterian Church, middle class, missionaries, National Purpose, North America, novelist John Hersey, outsider, Penglai City, Philip Seib, professional writer, Rev Ed Hird, Sports Illustrated, technology, The Publisher, The Word Guild, Time Magazine, Yale, Yale Daily News | Permalink.
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Why GST Is Called As An Indirect Tax?
Is GST good or bad?
Who invented GST in world?
Who is the father of GST?
How much indirect tax do we pay?
Who is the father of GST in India?
What does indirect tax mean?
Who pays indirect tax?
What is difference between indirect tax and direct tax?
What are the 3 types of GST?
What is indirect tax give examples?
On which products GST is not applicable?
What is direct tax with example?
Who started GST first in world?
Why GST is an indirect tax?
Which indirect taxes are included in GST?
The Good, The Bad The major advantage is that it compels all businesses to come under the ambit of this reform.
The unified tax system and easy input credit avoid cascading effect of all the taxes.
Since this tax system is applicable all over the country, it removes the barriers of interstate movement of goods..
The concept behind GST was invented by a French tax official in the 1950s. In some countries it is known as VAT, or Value-Added Tax. Today, more than 160 nations, including the European Union and Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Singapore and China practice this form of taxation.
A single common “Goods and Services Tax (GST)” was proposed and given a go-ahead in 1999 during a meeting between the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his economic advisory panel, which included three former RBI governors IG Patel, Bimal Jalan and C Rangarajan.
Indirect Tax Service tax is charged at the rate of 15% currently.
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEEATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE – THE MAN WHO APPROVED GST Convinced with the idea of GST, Atal Bihari Vajpayee government set up a committee in 2000 headed by CPM leader and the then finance minister of West Bengal Asim Dasgupta to design a GST model.
Indirect tax is defined as the tax imposed by the government on a taxpayer for goods and services rendered. Unlike direct taxes, indirect tax is not levied on the income, revenue or profit of the taxpayer and can be passed on from one individual to another.
3. Collection is easy. Unlike direct taxes where documents need to be accomplished and filing is required, indirect taxes are paid the moment a consumer buys a product. The tax is collected by the supplier and paid to the government.
Taxes can be either direct or indirect. A direct tax is one that the taxpayer pays directly to the government. These taxes cannot be shifted to any other person or group. An indirect tax is one that can be passed on-or shifted-to another person or group by the person or business that owes it.
Know about the types of GST in IndiaHighlights.CGST, SGST and IGST are the 3 types of GST in India.CGST and SGST are levied on intra-state transactions.CGST is collected by the centre and SGST by the state.IGST is charged on inter-state goods/services transactions.
To put it simply, indirect taxes are those taxes that can be shifted from one individual to another. It is not levied directly on the income of the taxpayer, but is levied on the expenses incurred by them. Some examples of indirect taxes include sales tax, entertainment tax, excise duty, etc.
Also, supplies that attracting nil rate of tax (0% tax) are cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, natural honey, salt, and more. Along with this, petroleum crude, high-speed diesel, motor spirit (commonly known as petrol), natural gas, and aviation turbine fuel are also exempted from GST.
Direct taxes include income tax, property tax, corporate tax, estate tax, gift tax, value-added tax (VAT), sin tax, and taxes on assets. There are also indirect taxes, such as sales taxes, where a tax is levied on the seller but paid by the buyer.
FranceFrance was the first country to implement the GST in 1954; since then, an estimated 160 countries have adopted this tax system in some form or another. Some of the countries with a GST include Canada, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, Monaco, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Brazil, South Korea, and India.
1. Goods and Services Tax (GST) … It is a single, comprehensive, indirect tax which is imposed on all the goods and services as per the tax slabs laid by the GST council. One of the biggest benefits of GST is that it mostly eliminated the cascading or tax-on-tax effect of the previous tax regime.
How will imports be taxed under GST? Answer : The Additional Duty of Excise or CVD and the Special Additional Duty or SAD presently being levied on imports will be subsumed under GST. As per explanation to clause (1) of article 269A of the Constitution, IGST will be levied on all imports into the territory of India.
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State Government of Western Australia beginning 2 April 1959 - period in office of Premier Brand, David ending on 3 March 1971
Previous period in this series for WA | Next period in this series for WA
Brand, David
Liberal and Country League
Country and Democratic League
Coalition Minority
Gain in parliamentary support
WA 20 February 1971 David Brand Liberal Party John Trezise Tonkin Australian Labor Party
WA 23 March 1968 David Brand Liberal and Country League David Brand Liberal and Country League
WA 20 February 1965 David Brand Liberal and Country League David Brand Liberal and Country League
WA 21 March 1959 Albert Redvers George Hawke Australian Labor Party David Brand Liberal and Country League
Loss of general election (Hawke): Beginning of Brand's period in office: 'The Hawke [Australian Labor Party] ministry was defeated at the election on 21 March 1959. On 1 April the Liberal Country League and the Country and Democratic League parliamentary parties met and re-elected Brand and [A F] Watts their respective leaders. After negotiations between the parliamentary and extr-parliamentary parties six places in the ministry were assigned to the LCL and four to the CDL. The CDL caucus elected its Ministers, while the Liberals were selected by Brand. Portfolios were allocated by consultation between the parties', Hughes and Graham, p. 237 (see 'Sources', below).
Brand was commissioned as Premier of a Liberal and Country League and Country and Democratic League coalition minority government on 2 April 1959. The coalition parties had won only 25 of the 50 seats in the Legislative Assembly, but could rely on the support of two Independent Liberal members (W L Grayden and E P Oldfield). For a brief comment on the formation of the ministry, see F K Crowley, 'Western Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Political Chronicle, 5(2) November 1959: 243-245 at 244. For a more extensive treatment, see F K Crowley, State Election:The Fall of the Hawke Government, A Brief Account, especially pp 71-74 (Perth: published by the author, 1959).
Change in parliamentary support: By December 1960, at the end of the first parliamentary session after the general election for the Legislative Assembly on 21 March 1959, W L Grayden, who had been elected as an Independent Liberal, had decided to join the Liberal and Country League, giving the Brand coalition government majority support in the Legislative Assembly; see Robert Orr, 'Western Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Australian Political Chronicle, 6 (1) May 1960: 106-108 at p. 106.
Loss of general election (Brand): The Brand government was defeated at the general election for the Legislative Assembly on 20 February 1971, with the Australian Labor Party gaining a majority of one seat in the Assembly. After the election results were finalized, Premier Brand resigned on 3 March 1971.
Liberal Party and Liberal and Country League: During Brand's period in office, the Liberal and Country League reverted to its earlier name of Liberal Party at the party conference in [July] 1968; see David Black, 'The Liberal Party and its Predecessors', in Ralph Pervan and Campbell Sharman (editors), Essays on Western Australian Politics, pp 191-232, at pp 225-226 (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1979, ISBN 0855641495).
Country Party and Country and Democratic League: During Brand's period in office, there was a change in the party name of his coalition partner. The name Country and Democratic League had been adopted by the Country Party in 1944, but the parliamentary party reverted to the name 'Country Party' in 1949 even though the '... title of the organization did not revert from CDL [Country and Democratic League] to Country Party until the 1960s', Lenore Layman, 'The Country Party: Rise and Decline', in Ralph Pervan and Campbell Sharman (editors), Essays on Western Australian Politics, pp 159-190, endnote 49, p. 188 (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1979, ISBN 0855641495).
References: For a study of the style of parliamentary politics during this period, see Lenore Layman, 'Continuity and Change, 1947-1965', and Harry Phillips, 'The Modern Parliament, 1965-1989', both chapters in David Black (editor), The House on the Hill: A History of the Parliament of Western Australia 1832-1990, pp 97-151 (Layman), and pp 185-262, particularly pp 186-201 (Phillips), (Perth: Western Australian Parliamentary History Project, Parliament of Western Australia, 1991, ISBN 0730939839).
Summary information on Western Australian premiers from 1890 to 1982 and a short essay, 'The Premiers -- An Introductory Comment', can be found in Reid and Oliver (see 'Sources', below).
The Australian Journal of Politics and History has provided brief surveys of Western Australian politics since 1956 in the 'Political Chronicle' section of the journal in issues of each annual volume. This publication can be viewed online through Wiley-Blackwell Journals at subscribing libraries.
For a survey of Brand's career, see David Black, 'Brand, Sir David (1912 - 1979)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, pp 249-250, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), on line at:
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130280b.htm?hilite=Brand
Colin A Hughes and B D Graham, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics 1890-1964, (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1968, SBN 708102700); Colin A Hughes, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics 1965-1974, Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1977 (ISBN 0708113400); John Mandy and David Black (editors),The Western Australian Parliamentary Handbook Centenary Edition, (Perth: Parliamentary History Project, Parliament of Western Australia, 1990, ISBN 0731697847); G S Reid and M R Oliver, The Premiers of Western Australia 1890-1982, (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1982, ISBN 0855642149).
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Lauburu: On the edge
VINCE JUARISTI
A friend of mine wants to take me skydiving. He’s a four star admiral, now retired, who once led the Navy SEALs. He has fought in wars, run special ops, and led U.S. Central Command in Florida. He is comfortable living on the edge. I am not. Each time he asks, I find an excuse to postpone our wild excursion in the clouds. Truth is I don’t like heights. I live a comfortable distance from life’s edges.
I come by my apprehension naturally. Most Basque, as a people, do not live on the edge. They are even keel, thoughtful, conservative in motivation, and rarely impulsive. They bide their time and choose their day in the sun with great care and minimal risk. Over the long term, this approach yields for them well paced progress onward and upward.
There are outliers, of course, a small handful of Basque who are diametrically opposite. They live on the edge, or more apt, at the edge of the world. They devote all their energies to climbing the tallest mountains on earth.
One of the greatest Basque climbers is Edurne Pasaban. She grew up in Tolosa, Spain at the foot of the Pyrenees. Awkward, shy, and weak as a young girl, she started climbing with a local club. When other girls graduated to makeup, fancy dresses, and school parties, she honed her skills, often alone or with her teacher, and little by little, sought bigger and more treacherous mountains to climb.
In her teen years, she summited Mt. Blanc (4,810m) and the Matterhorn (4,478m) in the Alps. A year after her 18th birthday, she conquered Chimborazo (6,268m) and Cotopaxi (5,897m) in the Andes.
As a young woman, she was no longer the awkward, shy, and weak girl of her youth. She had strength, drive, ambition, and purpose, which also sparked an inner tug-of-war. Pulling on one side was mountaineering; on the other, tradition, love of parents, fear of disappointing her family, and expectations of marriage and children.
The struggle between these worlds never subsided. More likely, the conflict grew and drove her even harder. In 2001, she took up the mightiest of climbing challenges — to summit the 14 tallest mountains in the world, all above 8,000m, stretched between the Himalayas and the Karakoram. No woman had ever achieved this milestone.
Over three years, she climbed as a woman possessed — Everest, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Lhotse, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II. She climbed injured. She climbed tired. She watched companions fall and die. She faced down warlords in Nepal to reach a base camp.
Nothing stopped her. Then in 2004 came K2, a dragon’s tooth of limestone and ice. Climbers have a 27% chance of dying on K2, compared to a 9% chance on Everest. Of all her challenges, K2 scared her most. “Courage is not advancing without fear,” said Edurne, “it is feeling fear and still advancing.”
Her climb was treacherous. In snow, sleet, and wind, she climbed, stopping often to whisper, “Just a little more,” and then go on. “Just a little more,” she said again and again to propel her a few more painful steps.
She reached the top of K2 near dusk, and descended in darkness, or rather a pitch blackness on the edge of the world. Halfway down she dropped her light and lost a glove and sat down in the snow for “a little rest, just a little rest.” Instantly, she was asleep; there, to die on the edge, until suddenly, she woke to a companion pulling her arm over his shoulders and dragging her down the mountain.
Edurne lost toes on each foot, and needed months of recovery, but by the next year, 2005, she added Nanga Parbat as an eighth conquest.
With six mountains left, it seemed she was on a promising glide path. But then everything went topsy-turvy. Her boyfriend left her. She had no money. In her eyes, she had accomplished nothing. She entered a hospital for depression, and at one point, downed a bottle of pills and slit her left wrist.
With months of therapy, and time spent crocheting dolls, she found a new balance in her tug-of-war. “I was starting from scratch,” she said, “but taking off from a more solid foundation.”
And take off she did. She climbed Broad Peak in 2007, Dhaulagiri and Manaslu in 2008, Kangchenjunga in 2009, and Annapurna in 2010.
Her last peak, Shisha Pangma, had eluded her four other times. But on the fifth attempt, leaving camp at 4am in howling wind, she reached the top eight hours later.
She cried. The tears celebrated as much the conquest as the whole 10 years of Edurne’s journey with so much physical struggle and personal pain and death of friends.
It also put her in the history books as the first woman to summit the 14 tallest mountains on planet earth.
When I asked her about that moment, she said, “The important thing is knowing myself.” Then she paused and told me about meeting Sir Edmund Hillary at Everest in 2001. He had told her, and I was privileged now to hear it, “Mountains are there to be enjoyed, and life is a beautiful thing.”
Only now, said Edurne, does she understand what he had meant.
Free Climbing
Kangchenjunga
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Frampton Cotterell
This article possibly contains unsourced predictions, speculative material, or accounts of events that might not occur. Information must be verifiable and based on reliable published sources. Please help improve it by removing unsourced speculative content. (November 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Frampton Cotterell is a village and parish, in South Gloucestershire, South West England, on the River Frome. The village is contiguous with Winterbourne to the south-west and Coalpit Heath to the east. The parish borders Iron Acton to the north and Westerleigh to the south-east, the large town of Yate is 2.1 miles (3.4 km) away. The village is 7.5 miles (12 km) north-east of the city of Bristol.
'The Windmill' and Windmill Cottage on Ryecroft Road, Brockeridge, 2009. Click image for more information[1]
Thornbury and Yate
51°32′N 2°29′W / 51.54°N 2.48°W / 51.54; -2.48Coordinates: 51°32′N 2°29′W / 51.54°N 2.48°W / 51.54; -2.48
The village has evolved from a once rural Gloucestershire village, to a partial dormitory village for Bristol. The population according to the UK crime statistics was around 9,385 and is increasing.[2] The population was remeasured at the 2011 census and came to 6,520 for the parish alone.[3]
1.1 Pre Anglo-Saxon history
1.2 Anglo-Saxon and Medieval history
1.3 Industrial era
1.4 20th and 21st centuries
4.1 Cogmill
5 Location grid
Pre Anglo-Saxon historyEdit
Dullage- The row of shops at the Frampton End Road/Church Road junction, believed to be the site of a Roman settlement in the village
Very little archaeological work has taken place in the Frampton Cotterell area so knowledge of the area prior to the Anglo-Saxon arrival is limited. Local historians tend to use field names and street names to work out the distant history of the village. It is believed from place names that there were two settlements in the area in the Roman times. One centred on the group of shops at the Church Road/Frampton End Road junction, where the name Dullage survived until the 1940s. The second was in rural farmland west of Cogmill in between Frampton Cotterell and Iron Acton, here several fields held the name Chessolds from the old English 'ceastel' meaning 'a heap of stones'.[4]
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval historyEdit
The name Frampton means 'the settlement (farmstead or village) on the Frome'. Frampton Cotterell was recorded as Frantone in the Domesday Book (1086). All the other local villages (Westerleigh, Stoke Gifford and Winterbourne) also have Old English names, suggesting they were either conquered or resettled between 577 and 1066.[4]
Early in the 11th century, Frampton may have been under the manor of Winterbourne, a later medieval record refers to 'the Lordship of Frampton and Winterbourne'. This would have included Stoke Gifford. However, at no point after 1066 were these three manors owned by the same person. The name of a lane in the village, 'Harris Barton' also may be of pre-Norman origin, Barton comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'bere' and 'tun' meaning 'place where grain was stored' this suggests there was a farm here prior to Norman conquest.[4]
In 1086 Frampton was held by Walter the Crossbowman (Balistarius) and then contained 10 villagers and 11 smallholders. Indicating a total population of about 100, to this total should be added slaves and their families. In 1086 there was a church which was not there before 1066 (so under 20 years old) this church was probably on the site of St. Peter's church today. There were also two water mills, probably behind the church (near Mill Lane today) and at Cogmill.
By 1301 Frampton had a third watermill, probably at 'Frampton Lido' upstream from the church (where remains of a mill could be seen as late as the 1970s), a windmill, on the site of the current one at Brockeridge. and a coal pit, presumably at Coalpit Heath (although this name did not appear until around 1680)
By the 13th century the village was known as Frampton Cotell.[5][6] The name Cotell or Cotterell is derived from the Cotele Family, lords of Frampton Manor in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Their manor house was not at modern day Frampton Court, it was probably located behind the church on the east of Mill Lane, here the field names 'Hall Marsh' and 'Hall Marsh Mead' survived into the 19th Century.
The medieval village was long and rectangular, located on the ridge between (Lower) Stone Close and the River Frome, and between Church Road and Rectory Road. The village was provided for using the open field system. Surrounding the village would have been three big fields; these fields were cultivated by peasants who held scattered strips in the many furlongs which made up the fields, every year one of the fields would be left unploughed and would be fertilised by the manure from the local animals. This system would have provided for the village.
Besides these fields there were also common wastes, Frampton Common, Adam's Land, Brockridge, Goose Green, Woodend Green, and Tovey's Green to name a few.
This system lasted until about 1550 by which time the big fields had made way for compact farms, cultivated by independent farmers as they saw fit. This boosted the village's economy, providing dairy products, cider, pigs, and turnips.[4]
Industrial eraEdit
Frampton Cotterell developed on a sloping bank of the River Frome, as seen here from Frampton Common on the other side of the river. St. Peter's Church is off to the left of the picture.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the hamlets of Brockridge, Adam's Land and others joined together with Frampton Cotterell to form the modern village. Since then the modern village has joined with Winterbourne, Watley's End and Coalpit Heath. One notable Industrial Revolution landmark in the village is the hat factory on Park Lane.
Frampton Cotterell Church of England Primary School was established on School Road in the village in the 19th century. It was moved to its present location on Rectory Road in the 1960s.
20th and 21st centuriesEdit
Ordnance Survey maps from the middle of the 20th century show open land between the three villages of Frampton Cotterell, Coalpit Heath and Winterbourne. Hamlets at Watley's End, Frampton End and Harris Barton,[7] all of which are now part of Frampton Cotterell and Winterbourne, were still separate at this time.
The most dramatic changes have occurred in the south-east of the village at the boundary with Coalpit Heath, in 1928 Beesmoor Road was constructed through farmland, connecting Badminton Road, the main Yate – Bristol thoroughfare, with the Woodend area of Frampton Cotterell. Since then estates of closes, drives and cul-de-sacs have been built up in the green land between Park Lane and Woodend Road.
In the 1960s Church Road, the main thoroughfare, was rerouted A field in between Rectory Road and Church Road called 'Benson's Field' was sold for housing becoming the 'Benson's Estate'. This estate comprises Beaufort Road, Foxe Road, Winchcombe Road and Brookside Close. Another field north of School Road was built on becoming Robel Avenue and Western Avenue. Houses on Heather Avenue and Beesmoor Road were built.
In 1996, an area of farmland to the south of the village was sold in a joint contract with housing estate developers Barratt and Taywood. In the years 1996–2000 they built a large housing estate known as Park Farm, adding an extra 200 3,4 and 5 bedroomed homes to the settlement. There was fierce opposition from local residents, particularly those living on Beesmoor Road. This followed another 20th-century housing development between Woodend Road and Beesmoor Road. In 2011 Barratt Homes began building another large estate on Denny's Field, alongside Park Farm and Heather Avenue, again despite fierce opposition from residents.
The centre of Frampton Cotterell, looking down Church Road from Ryecroft Road, towards the River Frome, St. Peter's Church is visible. The former post office is on the right.
Frampton Cotterell is seven miles north east of Bristol City centre, and two miles outside the city's ring road, and lies in the commuter belt. It is joined to the villages of Winterbourne and Coalpit Heath, forming a sizeable settlement with a collective population of around 17,500. It is linked by the A432 to Yate and Chipping Sodbury to the north and Downend to the south.
There are three takeaways in the village. A Chinese takeaway also sells fish and chips, a fish and chip shop and there is an Indian takeaway all on Lower Stone Close. The Golden Lion Pub on Beesmoor Road was an Indian takeaway with restaurant facilities but has now been demolished for housing despite being one of the oldest buildings in the village. The village has its own Post Office located in the Nisa shop. The village also has a handful of small grocery shops including a Sainsburys which was opened in 2016.
The A432 is used by residents to travel into nearby Yate and Downend for services.
Frampton Cotterell is twinned with Kelbra, Germany.
In Popular CultureEdit
Frampton is mentioned in the Monty Python sketch "Adolph Hitler lives In a guesthouse in Minehead".
GovernanceEdit
An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches from Frampton Cotterell in the south to Iron Acton in the north. The total population of this ward taken at the 2011 census was 7,327.[8]
CogmillEdit
Cogmill is the name of a historical, and now almost non-existent hamlet in the north of Frampton Cotterell parish in South Gloucestershire. It is located on the B4058 between Frampton Cotterell and Iron Acton, and was possibly the site of a Roman settlement. The name derives from the site of a watermill that was the originally recorded in the 1086 Doomsday census as "Cock Mill" and served as a gristmill for "Cock Mill Farm". The last known recording of this spelling was in the Appointment Roll of 1841 Tithe Map, from then on it has been known as Cogmill.
The watermill remained functioning until the early 19th century and was final demolished in 1958 by a compulsory purchase order by South Gloucestershire Council to eliminate a sharp corner on the B4058 road. Cogmill Farm still remains but the only evidence of the watermill is the remains of the tail-race tunnel and spill tunnel each side of the current river bridge. An article describing the mill was published by the Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society in 1981 (BIAS Journal, volume 13, page 2)
In 2006 near the site of Cogmill, South Gloucestershire Council selected an area of land for a residential site for Gypsies and Travellers called Frampton Park.
Location gridEdit
^ Frampton Cotterell Local History Society
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 30 December 2009. CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ "Parish population 2011". Retrieved 20 March 2015.
^ a b c d Frampton Cotterell and Coalpit Heath by the Frampton Cotterell Local History Society Tempus, 2007.
^ ISBN 0-19-852758-6 Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names
^ Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; National Archives; CP 40/677; Year: 1430; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no677/aCP40no677fronts/IMG_0637.htm; 4th entry; home of the defendant, Thomas Weston
^ Ordnance Survey one-inch map of Great Britain, Sheet 156 Bristol and Stroud, Seventh series 1949, 1963 revision
^ "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 20 March 2015.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frampton Cotterell.
Frampton Cotterell Parish
Frampton Cotterell Rugby Club
Frampton Cotterell Cricket Club
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frampton_Cotterell&oldid=1000657511"
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For other uses, see Ischia (disambiguation).
Find sources: "Ischia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
View of Ischia from Procida
40°43′52″N 13°53′45″E / 40.731204°N 13.895721°E / 40.731204; 13.895721Coordinates: 40°43′52″N 13°53′45″E / 40.731204°N 13.895721°E / 40.731204; 13.895721
Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy
Show map of Campania
Ischia (Italy)
Show map of Italy
Mountain type
Complex volcano
Last eruption
January to March 1302[1][2]
Tyrrhenian Sea
46.3 km2 (17.9 sq mi)
Highest elevation
Mount Epomeo
Metropolitan City
Largest settlement
Ischia (pop. 18,253)
Pop. density
1,339.7/km2 (3469.8/sq mi)
Ischia (/ˈɪskiə/ ISK-ee-ə, Italian: [ˈiskja]) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures approximately 10 km (6 miles) east to west and 7 km (4 miles) north to south and has about 34 km (21 miles) of coastline and a surface area of 46.3 square kilometres (17.9 sq mi). It is almost entirely mountainous; the highest peak is Mount Epomeo, at 788 metres (2,585 feet).[3] The island is very densely populated, with 60,000 residents (more than 1,300 inhabitants per square km).[citation needed]
Ischia is the name of the main comune of the island. The other comuni of the island are Barano d'Ischia, Casamicciola Terme, Forio, Lacco Ameno, and Serrara Fontana.
Ischia's main industry is tourism, centering on thermal spas that cater mostly to European (especially German), American and Asian tourists eager to enjoy the fruits of the island's natural volcanic activity, its hot springs, and its volcanic mud.[citation needed]
1 Geology and geography
3.1 Ancient times
3.2 From 1st century AD to 16th century
3.3 16th–18th centuries
3.4 Since the 18th century
4 In literature and the arts
4.1 Events
4.2 Notable guests and works
4.3 Motion picture setting
6 Main sights
6.1 Aragonese Castle
6.2 Gardens of La Mortella
6.3 Gardens of Villa Ravino
6.4 Villa La Colombaia
7 Voluntary associations
8 Town twinning
9 Environmental problems
Geology and geography[edit]
The roughly trapezoidal island is formed by a complex volcano immediately southwest of the Campi Flegrei area at the western side of the Bay of Naples. The eruption of the trachytic Green Tuff Ignimbrite about 56,000 years ago was followed by caldera formation. The highest point of the island, Monte Epomeo (788 m (2,585 ft)), is a volcanic horst consisting of green tuff that was submerged after its eruption and then uplifted. Volcanism on the island has been significantly affected by tectonism that formed a series of horsts and grabens; resurgent doming produced at least 800 m (2,600 ft) of uplift during the past 33,000 years.[4] Many small monogenetic volcanoes formed around the uplifted block. Volcanism during the Holocene produced a series of pumiceous tephras, tuff rings, lava domes, and lava flows.[5][6] The last eruption of Ischia, in 1302, produced a spatter cone and the Arso lava flow, which reached the NE coast.
The surrounding waters including gulfs of Gaeta,[7][8] Naples and Pozzuoli are both rich and healthy, providing a habitat for around 7 species of whales and dolphins including gigantic fin and sperm whales. Special research programmes on local cetaceans have been conducted to monitor and protect this bio-diversity.[9][10]
Name[edit]
Maronti beach, east of the spit of St. Angelo
Virgil poetically referred to it as Inarime and still later as Arime.[11] Martianus Capella followed Virgil in this allusive name, which was never in common circulation: the Romans called it Aenaria, the Greeks, Πιθηκοῦσαι, Pithekoūsai.[12]
(In)arime and Pithekousai both appear to derive from words for "monkey" (Etruscan arimos,[13] Ancient Greek πίθηκος, píthēkos, "monkey"). However, Pliny derives the Greek name from the local ceramic clay deposits, not from píthēkos; he explains the Latin name Aenaria as connected to a landing by Aeneas (Princeton Encyclopedia). If the island actually was, like Gibraltar, home to a population of monkeys, they were already extinct by historical times as no record of them is mentioned in ancient sources.
The current name appears for the first time in a letter from Pope Leo III to Charlemagne in 813: the name iscla mentioned there would allegedly derive from insula, though there is an argument made for a Semitic origin in I-schra, "black island".[citation needed]
Ancient times[edit]
An acropolis site of the Monte Vico area was inhabited from the Bronze Age, as Mycenaean and Iron Age pottery findings attest. Euboean Greeks from Eretria and Chalcis arrived in the 8th century BC to establish an emporium for trade with the Etruscans of the mainland. This settlement was home to a mixed population of Greeks, Etruscans, and Phoenicians. Because of its fine harbor and the safety from raids afforded by the sea, the settlement of Pithecusae became successful through trade in iron and with mainland Italy; in 700 BC Pithecusae was home to 5,000–10,000 people.[14]
The ceramic Euboean artifact inscribed with a reference to "Nestor's Cup" was discovered in a grave on the island in 1953. Engraved upon the cup are a few lines written in the Greek alphabet. Dating from c. 730 BC, it is one of our most important testimonies to the early Greek alphabet, from which the Latin alphabet descended via the Etruscan alphabet. According to certain scholars the inscription also might be the oldest written reference to the Iliad.
In 474 BC, Hiero I of Syracuse came to the aid of the Cumaeans, who lived on the mainland opposite Ischia, against the Etruscans and defeated them on the sea. He occupied Ischia and the surrounding Parthenopean islands and left behind a garrison to build a fortress before the city of Ischia itself. This was still extant in the Middle Ages, but the original garrison fled before the eruptions of 470 BC and the island was taken over by Neapolitans. The Romans seized Ischia (and Naples) in 322 BC.
From 1st century AD to 16th century[edit]
Local view of Il Fungo (The Mushroom)
In 6 AD, Augustus restored the island to Naples in exchange for Capri. Ischia suffered from the barbarian invasions, being taken first by the Heruli then by the Ostrogoths, being ultimately absorbed into the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantines gave the island over to Naples in 588 and by 661 it was being administered by a Count liege to the Duke of Naples. The area was devastated by the Saracens in 813 and 847; in 1004 it was occupied by Henry II of Germany; the Norman Roger II of Sicily took it in 1130 granting the island to the Norman Aldoyn de Candida created Count d’Ischia; the island was raided by the Pisans in 1135 and 1137 and subsequently fell under the Hohenstaufen and then Angevin rule. After the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, the island rebelled, recognizing Peter III of Aragon, but was retaken by the Angevins the following year. It was conquered in 1284 by the forces of Aragon and Charles II of Anjou was unable to successfully retake it until 1299.
As a consequence of the island's last eruption in 1302, the population fled to Baia where they remained for 4 years. In 1320 Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancia visited the island and were hosted by Cesare Sterlich, who had been sent by Charles II from the Holy See to govern the island in 1306 and was by this time nearly 100 years of age.
Ischia suffered greatly in the struggles between the Angevin and Durazzo dynasties. It was taken by Carlo Durazzo in 1382, retaken by Louis II of Anjou in 1385 and captured yet again by Ladislaus of Naples in 1386; it was sacked by the fleet of the Antipope John XXIII under the command of Gaspare Cossa in 1410 only to be retaken by Ladislaus the following year. In 1422 Joan II gave the island to her adoptive son Alfonso V of Aragon, though, when he fell into disgrace, she retook it with the help of Genoa in 1424. In 1438 Alfonso reoccupied the castle, kicking out all the men and proclaiming it an Aragonese colony, marrying to his garrison the wives and daughters of the expelled. He set about building a bridge linking the castle to the rest of the island and he carved out a large gallery, both of which are still to be seen today. In 1442, he gave the island to one of his favorites, Lucretia d'Alagno, who in turn entrusted the island's governance to her brother-in-law, Giovanni Torella. Upon the death of Alfonso in 1458, they returned the island to the Angevin side. Ferdinand I of Naples ordered Alessandro Sforza to chase Torella out of the castle and gave the island over, in 1462, to Garceraldo Requesens. In 1464, after a brief Torellan insurrection, Marino Caracciolo was set up as governor.
In February 1495, with the arrival of Charles VIII, Ferdinand II landed on the island and took possession of the castle, and, after having killed the disloyal castellan Giusto di Candida with his own hands, left the island under the control of Innico d'Avalos, marquis of Pescara and Vasto, who ably defended the place from the French flotilla. With him came his sister Costanza and through them they founded the D'Avalos dynasty which would last on the island into the 18th century.
16th–18th centuries[edit]
Throughout the 16th century, the island suffered the incursions of pirates and Barbary privateers from North Africa – in 1543 and 1544 Hayreddin Barbarossa laid waste to the island, taking 4,000 prisoners in the process. In 1548 and 1552, Ischia was beset by his successor Dragut Rais. With the increasing rarity and diminishing severity of the piratical attacks later in the century and the construction of better defenses, the islanders began to venture out of the castle and it was then that the historic centre of the town of Ischia was begun. Even so, many inhabitants still ended up slaves to the pirates, the last known being taken in 1796. During the 1647 revolution of Masaniello, there was an attempted rebellion against the feudal landowners.
Since the 18th century[edit]
Thomas Ender, Ischian landscape (1832), National Museum, Warsaw
Tableau topographiques et historiques des isles d'Ischia, de Ponza, de Vandotena (1825)
With the extinction of the D'Avalos line in 1729, the island reverted to state property. In March 1734 it was taken by the Bourbons and administered by a royal governor seated within the castle. The island participated in the short-lived Republic of Naples starting in March 1799 but by 3 April Commodore Thomas Troubridge under the command of Lord Nelson had put down the revolt on Ischia as well as on neighboring Procida. By decree of the governor, many of the rebels were hanged in a square on Procida now called Piazza dei martiri (Square of the Martyrs). Among these was Francesco Buonocore who had received the island to administer from the French Championnet in Naples. On 13 February 1806 the island was occupied by the French and on the 24th was unsuccessfully attacked by the British.
On 21st and 22 June 1809 the islands of Ischia and Procida were attacked by an Anglo-Bourbon fleet. Procida surrendered on 24 June and Ischia soon afterwards. However the British soon returned to their bases in Sicily and Malta.[15]
On 28 July 1883, an earthquake destroyed the villages of Casamicciola Terme and Lacco Ameno.
In 1936 Ischia had a population of 30,418.[16]
On August 21st, 2017 Ischia had an 4.2 magnitude earthquake[17] which killed 2 people and injured 42 more.[18][19]
Today, Ischia is a popular tourist destination, welcoming up to 6 million visitors per year, mainly from the Italian mainland as well as other european countries like Germany and the United Kingdom (approximately 5,000 Germans are resident on the island), although it has become an increasingly popular destination for the well-to-do Eastern Europeans (particularly Russia and Poland).[citation needed] Ischia is easily reached by ferry from Naples, with an approximate travel time of between 40 minutes and one hour. The number of thermal spas on the islands makes it particularly popular with tourists seeking "wellness" holidays. A regular visitor is Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
In literature and the arts[edit]
The view from the Waltons' house - La Mortella
The island is home to the Ischia Film Festival, an international cinema competition celebrated in June or July, dedicated to all the works that have promoted the value of the local territory.
Notable guests and works[edit]
The Italian politician Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the most important figures of Italian unification, stayed on the island for healing himself from a serious injury and finding relief in the peaceful area of Casamicciola Terme (at the Manzi Hotel).
In May 1948 W. H. Auden wrote his poem "In Praise of Limestone" here, the first poem he wrote in Italy.[20]
In 1949, British classical composer William Walton settled in Ischia. In 1956, he sold his London house and took up full-time residence on Ischia; he built a hilltop house at Forio, called it La Mortella, and Susana Walton created a magnificent garden there.[21] Walton lived on the island for the remainder of his life and died there in 1983.[22]
German composer Hans Werner Henze lived on the island from 1953 to 1956 and wrote his Quattro Poemi (1955) there.[citation needed]
Samuel Taylor's Broadway play Avanti! (1968) takes place on the island.
Hergé's series of comic albums, The Adventures of Tintin (1907–1983), ends in Ischia, which serves as the location of Endaddine Akass' villa in the unfinished 24th and final book, Tintin and Alph-Art.
French novelist Pascal Quignard set much of his novel Villa Amalia (2006) on the island.
In Elena Ferrante's series of Neapolitan Novels, the island serves as the setting of several summer holidays of the main characters.
Motion picture setting[edit]
In addition to the works noted above, multiple media works have been set or filmed on the island. For example:
The American film The Crimson Pirate (1952) was filmed on the island.[citation needed]
Avanti! (1972), starring Jack Lemon and Juliet Mills.
Part of Cleopatra (1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor, was filmed on the island.[citation needed]
Ischia Ponte stood in for 'Mongibello' in the Hollywood film of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).[23]
The American film And While We Were Here (2012), starring Kate Bosworth, was filmed on the island of Ischia.[24]
Ischia's Castello Aragonese was used as the 'Riva's Fortified Fortress' island in Men in Black: International (2019)[25]
Wines[edit]
The island of Ischia is home to the eponymous Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) that produces both red and white wines though white wines account for nearly 80% of the island's wine production. Vineyards planted within the 179 hectares (440 acres) boundaries of the DOC tend to be on volcanic soils with high pumice, phosphorus and potassium content.[26]
The white wines of the island are composed primarily of Forastera (at least 65% according to DOC regulation) and Biancolella (up to 20%) with up to 15% of other local grape varieties such as Arilla and San Lunardo. Grapes are limited to a harvest yield of no more than 10 tonnes/ha with a finished minimum alcohol level of at least 11%. For wines labeled as Bianco Superiore, the yield is further restricted to a maximum of 8 tonnes/ha with a minimum alcohol level of 12%. Only certain subareas of the Ischia DOC can produce Bianco Superiore with the blend needing to contain 50% Forastera, 40% Biancolella and 10% San Lunardo.[26]
Red wines produced under the Ischia DOC are composed of 50% Guarnaccia, 40% Piedirosso (known under the local synonym of Per'e Palummo) and 10% Barbera. Like the white wines, red grapes destined for DOC production are limited to a harvest yield of no more than 10 tonnes/ha though the minimum finished alcohol level is higher at 11.5% ABV.[26]
Main sights[edit]
S. Angelo d'Ischia
View From La Mortella
Ancient Olive tree in La Mortella
Aragonese Castle[edit]
The Aragonese Castle (Castello Aragonese, Ischia Ponte) was built on a rock near the island in 474 BC, by Hiero I of Syracuse. At the same time, two towers were built to control enemy fleets' movements. The rock was then occupied by Parthenopeans (the ancient inhabitants of Naples). In 326 BC the fortress was captured by Romans, and then again by the Parthenopeans. In 1441 Alfonso V of Aragon connected the rock to the island with a stone bridge instead of the prior wood bridge, and fortified the walls in order to defend the inhabitants against the raids of pirates. Around 1700, about 2000 families lived on the islet, including a Poor Clares convent, an abbey of Basilian monks (of the Greek Orthodox Church), the bishop and the seminar, and the prince, with a military garrison. There were also thirteen churches. In 1912, the castle was sold to a private owner. Today the castle is the most visited monument of the island. It is accessed through a tunnel with large openings which let the light enter. Along the tunnel there is a small chapel consecrated to Saint John Joseph of the Cross (San Giovan Giuseppe della Croce), the patron saint of the island. A more comfortable access is also possible with a modern lift. After arriving outside, it is possible to visit the Church of the Immacolata and the Cathedral of Assunta. The first was built in 1737 on the location of a smaller chapel dedicated to Saint Francis, and closed after the suppression of convents in 1806, as well as the Poor Clares convent.
Gardens of La Mortella[edit]
Main article: La Mortella
The gardens, located in Forio-San Francesco, were originally the property of English composer William Walton. Walton lived in the villa next to the gardens with his Argentinian wife Susana. When the composer arrived on the island in 1946, he immediately called Russell Page from England to lay out the garden. Wonderful tropical and Mediterranean plants were planted and some have now reached amazing proportions. The gardens include wonderful views over the city and harbour of Forio. A museum dedicated to the life and work of William Walton now comprises part of the garden complex. There's also a recital room where renowned musical artists perform on a regular schedule.
Gardens of Villa Ravino[edit]
Main article: Giardini Ravino
A botanical garden, located in Forio-Citara Bay, is the result of 50 years of the dedicated work of Captain Giuseppe D'Ambra, the owner of the Villa. Giardini Ravino is a botanical garden with one of the richest collection of cacti and succulents cultivated outdoors in Europe. Giardini Ravino has been the subject of an award from the OPE (European Parliamentary Observatory) for the most ecofriendly property in South Italy.
Giardini Ravino is also the location of Meristema Fair, an exhibition dedicated to both professional and quality amateur gardeners, enriched with seminars and hands on experiences regarding biodiversity in nature. Giardini Ravino is also the headquarters of many social associations that organize events, in collaboration with international humanitarian aid organizations, such as MSF (Doctors Without Borders), the non-profit eco-gastronomic member-supported organization Slow Food and many other cultural exhibitions during the year around.
Villa La Colombaia[edit]
Villa La Colombaia is located in Lacco Ameno and Forio territories. Surrounded by a park, the villa (called "The Dovecote") was made by Luigi Patalano, a famous local socialist and journalist. It is now the seat of a cultural institution and museum dedicated to Luchino Visconti. The institution promotes cultural activities such as music, cinema, theatre, art exhibitions, workshops, and cinema reviews. The villa and the park are open to the public.
Others[edit]
Sant'Angelo (Sant'Angelo, in the comune of Serrara Fontana)
Maronti Beach (Barano d'Ischia)
Church of the Soccorso' (Forio)
Piazza S.Restituta, with the best luxury boutiques (Lacco Ameno)
Bay of Sorgeto, with hot thermal springs (Panza)
Poseidon Gardens – spa with several thermal pools (Panza)
Citara Beach (Panza)
English's Beach (Ischia)
Pitthekoussai Archaeological museum[27]
The Angelo Rizzoli museum[27]
Voluntary associations[edit]
Committees and associations work to promote tourism on the island, and provide services and activities for residents. Among these are:
Il coniglio di Rocco Alfarano, associazione per la protezione del quadrupede sull’isola
Accaparlante Società Cooperativa Sociale, Via Sant'Alessandro
Associazione Donatori Volontari di Sangue, Via Iasolino, 1
Associazione Nemo per la Diffusione della Cultura del Mare, via Regina Elena, 75 Cellulare: 366-1270197
Associazione Progetto Emmaus, Via Acquedotto, 65
A.V.I. Associazione Volontariato e Protezione Civile Isola D'Ischia, Via Delle Terme, 88
Cooperativa Sociale Arkè onlus, Via delle Terme, 76/R Telefono: 081-981342
Cooperativa Sociale Asat Ischia onlus, Via delle Terme, 76/R Telefono: 081-3334228
Cooperativa Sociale kairòs onlus, Via delle Terme, 76/R
Kalimera Società Cooperativa Sociale, Via Fondo Bosso, 20
Pan Assoverdi Salvanatura, Via Delle Terme, 53/C
Prima Ischia – Onlus, Via Iasolino, 102
Town twinning[edit]
Los Angeles, USA (2006)[28]
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (2006)[29][30]
Maloyaroslavets, Russia
Many migrants from Ischia also settled in the port town San Pedro, California, the college town of Princeton, New Jersey, the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, NY, Providence, RI, Philadelphia, and Norwalk, Connecticut.[citation needed]from 1918 through 1929 many settled in the Hells Kitchen section of N.Y., N.Y and found employment on the waterfront.
Environmental problems[edit]
The sharp increase of the population between 1950 and 1980 and the growing inflow of tourists (in 2010 over 4 million tourists visited the island for at least one day) have increased the anthropic pressure on the island. Significant acreage of land previously used for agriculture has been developed for the construction of houses and residential structures. Most of this development has taken place without any planning and building permission.[31] As at the end of 2011, the island lacked the most basic system for sewage treatment; sewage is sent directly to the sea.[citation needed] In 2004 one of the five communities of the island commenced civil works to build a sewage treatment plant but since then the construction has not been completed and it is currently stopped.
On 14 June 2007 there was a breakage in one of the four high-voltage underwater cables forming the power line maintained by Enel S.p.A. — although never authorized by Italian authorities — between Cuma on the Campania coast and Lacco Ameno on the island of Ischia. Inside each cable there is an 18 mm‑diameter channel filled with oil under high pressure.[32] The breakage of the Enel cable resulted in the spillage of oil into the sea and into other environmental matrices — with the consequent pollution by polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs, the use of which was banned by the Italian authorities as long ago as 1984), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and linear alkyl benzenes (aromatic hydrocarbons) — in the ‘Regno di Nettuno’, a marine protected area, and the largest ecosystem in the Mediterranean Sea, designated as a ‘priority habitat’ in Annex I to the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and comprising oceanic posidonia beds.[citation needed]
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Castello d'Ischia Lighthouse
2017 Ischia earthquake
^ "Ischia: Eruptive History". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution. [dead link]
^ Ischia: Eruptive History volcano.si.edu, accessed 28 September 2019
^ "Mount Epomeo". Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites.
^ "Ischia". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution.
^ "Ischia: Synonyms and Subfeatures". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution. [dead link]
^ Ischia: Synonyms and Subfeatures volcano.si.edu, accessed 28 September 2019
^ 2016. Orca avvistata (Orca sighted) www.caiccomed.com, accessed 21 September 2019
^ D'Alelio D.. 2016. Laggiu soffia! Cronaca di una “caccia” al capodoglio nelle acque tra Ischia e Ventotene – Leviatani, nascosti e preziosi. The Scienza Live. Retrieved on March 29, 2017
^ Mussi B.. Miragliuolo A.. Monzini E.. Battaglia M.. 1999. Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) feeding ground in the coastal waters of Ischia (Archipelago Campano) (pdf). The European Cetacean Society. Retrieved on March 28, 2017
^ RAICALDO P.. 2014. Delfini e capodogli tra Ischia e Procida. Retrieved on March 29, 2017
^ His poetical allusion was apparently to the mention in Iliad (ii.783) of Typhoeus being chained down ein Arimois
^ The plural likely so as to include nearby Procida as well.
^ Robinson, Andrew (2002). Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undechiphered Scripts. Nevraumont Publishing.
^ Jonathan M. Hall (2013). A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BCE. John Wiley & Sons. p. 124. ISBN 978-1-118-34046-2.
^ "ISCHIA - A brief history of Ischia - Austrians and Bourbons - HOTEL ISCHIA - OFFERTE HOTEL ISCHIA". www.ischiaonline.it. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
^ Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer, p. 849
^ Terremoto di magnitudo Mw 3.9 del 21-08-2017 ore 20:57:51 (Italia) in zona: 1 km SW Casamicciola Terme (NA) cnt.rm.ingv.it, accessed 21 September 2019
^ Terremoto a Ischia, due morti e 52 feriti. Salvati i fratelli rimasti sepolti Borrelli: ‘Case con materiali scadenti’ www.corriere.it, accessed 21 September 2019
^ Forte terremoto a Ischia, crolli a Casamicciola. Due morti e almeno 39 feriti. Salvi tutti e tre i fratelli rimasti imprigionati sotto le macerie www.lastampa.it, accessed 21 September 2019
^ "Auden, Wystan Hugh (1907–1973), poet and writer - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". www.oxforddnb.com. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-30775. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
^ Kennedy, pp. 208–209
^ Kennedy, pp. 75, 140, 143, 144 and 208
^ The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) film locations Movie-Locations.com, Retrieved November 1, 2019
^ Fred Topel- Exclusive Interview: Kat Coiro on And While We Were Here 17 September 2013, www.mandatory.com, accessed 21 September 2019
^ Men In Black International (2019) film locations Movie-Locations.com] Retrieved November 1, 2019
^ a b c Saunders, P. (2004). Wine Label Language. Firefly Books. pp. 169–170. ISBN 1-55297-720-X.
^ a b "Museo Angelo Rizzoli – Museums – Ischia – Napoli". InCampania. Archived from the original on 2013-09-21. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
^ "Sister Cities of Los Angeles". Retrieved 2017-01-09.
^ "A Message from the Peace Commission: Information on Cambridge's Sister Cities," 15 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
^ Richard Thompson. "Looking to strengthen family ties with 'sister cities'," Boston Globe, October 12, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
^ Pleijel, Christian (2015-10-22). "ENERGY AUDIT ON ISCHIA" (PDF).
^ "Written question - Environmental catastrophe in Ischia - E-3253/2008". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, 1976: "Aenaria (Ischia), Italy".
Ridgway, D. "The First Western Greeks" Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-521-42164-0
Kennedy, Michael (1989). Portrait of Walton. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816705-1.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ischia (island).
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William Moerner
2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Harry Mosher Professor and Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University. He is a well- known expert in the field of imaging of single molecules and fluorescence spectroscopy.
In 2014, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”.
1982, Ph.D. in Physics at Cornell University
1981-1995, Research Staff Member and Project leader at IBM Almaden Research Center
1995-1998, Distinguished Chair in Physical Chemistry at University of California, San Diego
1998-Present, Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University
2007, Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences
2008, Wolf Prize in Chemistry
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Major Academic Achievements
Optical microscopy imaging has long been subject to an envisaged limit: the highest resolution will never exceed half the wavelength of a light wave, which is called the Abbe diffraction limit. The observation of sub-wavelength structures with microscopes is difficult because of the Abbe diffraction limit. Professor Mona is the first person in the world to be able to detect a single fluorescent molecule. The detection of a single fluorescent molecule is extremely important for super-resolution microscopy. With the
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Hillary R. Clinton | Article about Hillary R. Clinton by The Free Dictionary
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Clinton, Hillary Rodham
(rŏd`əm), 1947–, U.S. senator and secretary of state, wife of President Bill ClintonClinton, Bill
(William Jefferson Clinton), 1946–, 42d President of the United States (1993–2001), b. Hope, Ark. His father died before he was born, and he was originally named William Jefferson Blythe 4th, but after his mother remarried, he assumed the surname of his
..... Click the link for more information. , b. Chicago, grad. Wellesley College (B.A. 1969), Yale Law School (LL.B., 1973). After law school she served on the House panel that investigated the Watergate affairWatergate affair,
in U.S. history, series of scandals involving the administration of President Richard M. Nixon; more specifically, the burglarizing of the Democratic party national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C.
..... Click the link for more information. . She was in private practice from 1977 until 1992, becoming an expert on children's rights. After her husband's election as president, she initially played a highly visible role in his administration, co-chairing the task force that proposed changes in the U.S. health-care system. Less publicly involved in policy issues after that program failed to gain support, she won sympathy for her support of her husband during the Lewinsky scandalLewinsky scandal
, sensation that enveloped the presidency of Bill Clinton in 1998–99, leading to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and acquittal by the Senate.
..... Click the link for more information. and the subsequent impeachment proceedings. She became the first first lady to be subpoenaed by a grand jury when she testified about the WhitewaterWhitewater,
popular name for a failed 1970s Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in which Gov. (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were partners; the name is also used for the political ramifications of this scheme.
..... Click the link for more information. affair in 1996. In 2000, Clinton won election as a Democrat to the U.S. senate from New York, becoming the first wife of a president to win election to public office; she was reelected in 2006. A candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, she lost to Barack ObamaObama, Barack
(Barack Hussein Obama 2d), , 1961–, 44th president of the United States (2009–17), b. Honolulu, grad. Columbia (B.A. 1983), Harvard Law School (J.D. 1991).
..... Click the link for more information. , but she subsequently served (2009–13) as secretary of state after he was elected president. Her use of a private email server while at the State Dept. was widely criticized, including by the FBI, and it became an issue when she ran for president in 2016. After defeating Senator Bernie SandersSanders, Bernie
(Bernard Sanders), 1941–, American politician, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. The son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he spent a year at Brooklyn College and graduated from the Univ. of Chicago (B.A., 1964). He moved to Vermont in 1964.
..... Click the link for more information. to become the first woman nominated for U.S. president by a major political party, she chose Senator Tim KaineKaine, Tim
(Timothy Michael Kaine), 1958–, U.S. politician, b. St. Paul, Minn., B.A. Univ. of Missouri, 1979, J.D. Harvard, 1983. After a clerkship, he was a lawyer in private practice, and taught legal ethics as an adjunct professor (1988–94) at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. as her running mate. The Clinton-Kaine ticket subsequently lost the election (although it won the popular vote) to Donald TrumpTrump, Donald John,
1946–, 45th president of the United States (2017–), b. New York City. Prior to his election as president in 2016, he was a business executive and television personality rather than a political leader. After attending Fordham Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. and Mike PencePence, Mike
(Michael Richard Pence), 1959–, U.S. politician, b. Columbus, Ind., grad. Hanover College, 1981, Indiana Univ. law school, 1986. A Republican, he twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives before he won the first of his six terms in 2000.
..... Click the link for more information. in one of the bitterest, most personal, and socially divisive contests in recent U.S. history. In 2020 she was named chancellor of of Northern Ireland's Queen's Univ. Belfast. Clinton is the author of It Takes a Village (1996); two memoirs, Living History (2003) and Hard Choices (2014); and What Happened (2017), an account of the 2016 race from her perspective.
See biographies by D. Radcliffe (1994), D. Brock (1996), G. Sheehy (1999), G. Troy (2006), C. Bernstein (2007), and J. Gerth and D. Van Natta, Jr. (2007); W. H. Chafe, Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal (2012); J. Allen and A. Parnes, HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (2014).
(1947– ) lawyer, First Lady; born in Park Ridge, Ill. The daughter of a prosperous fabric store owner, she graduated from Wellesley College (1969) and Yale University Law School (1973). In 1975 she married Bill Clinton, a fellow Yale Law School graduate. She practiced law while he became attorney general and then governor of Arkansas, and during this time gained a national reputation for her contributions to issues of women's and children's rights and public education, through her publications, public advocacies, and court cases. (In 1991, before most Americans had heard of her, The National Law Journal named her one of the 100 most powerful lawyers in America.) During the 1992 presidential campaign, she emerged as a dynamic and valued partner of her husband, and as president he named her to head the Task Force on National Health Reform (1993). Inevitably there were charges of everything from old-fashioned nepotism to new-fashioned feminism, and she became the butt of both good-natured humor and vicious accusations, but less partisan observers recognized her as simply an example of the new American woman.
The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.
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Adm jabalpur vs shivkant shukla
A noticeable feature of our Constitutions is that, whereas the consequences given in Art. I was a novice at that time, a young judge…I was handling this type of litigation for the first time. It is difficult to see any such scope when enforcement itself is suspended.
In that sense, it could be viewed as, sub- stantially, an elaboration of what is found in Article 21although it also goes beyond it inasmuch as it imposes limits on ordinary legislative power. On November 16, ordinance 22 of was issued making certain amendments in the Maintenance of Internal security Act inserting also sub- section 2A ill s.
A day, which produced a judgment so shameful that even Hitler would have blushed, had he the opportunity to peruse it. The Supreme Court, instead, preferred to throw away this key to their own self-respect. The Constitution is the mandate. Aftermath of the judgment- Soon after the Emergency and all which was done for it were rejected by the majority of population inthe Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi v.
It is also called the Habeas Corpus To Produce the Body Case because usually, this is a writ filed in a supreme court when someone is arrested. The theory of eclipse is untenable. If any right existed before the commencement of the Constitution and the same right with its content is conferred by Part III as a Fundamental Right the source of that right is in Part III and not in any pre-existing right.
The majority judgment, literally taken, and as understood thereafter by all High Courts, clearly directed that detenues were to be stopped at the doors if not in the corridors of the halls of Justice.
Its meaning cannot be what anyone wants to make it. Exceeding all that, this judgment did not even favor the rule of law. Any person who was considered to be a political threat, or who could politically voice his opposition was detained without trial under Preventive Detention laws one of which was the dreaded MISA Maintenance of Internal Security Act.
They are only implied because the functions which the statute imposes are presumed to be meant to be exercised in accordance with these rules, and therefore treated as though they were parts of enacted law.
The negative language is worded to emphasize the immunity from State action as Fundamental Right. If it was open to me to come to a fresh decision in that case, I would agree with what Justice Khanna did. Another shocking aspect of A. Without batting an eyelid Niren De answered, 'Even if life was taken away illegally, courts are helpless'.
Therefore, he reasoned that even in the absence of Article 21 in the constitution, the state has got no power to deprive a person of his life or liberty without the authority of law.
These leaders then filed petitions in several High Courts challenging the arrest. In the event that any condition is unfulfilled then detention is past the powers of State. The majority view in the Shivkant Shukla case has been completely negatived by 44th Amendment of the Constitution as well as judicial interpretation and therefore, it is no more longer a law.
It lies even against illegal detentions by private persons although not under Art. Last year on 25th June we brought back to mind the proclamation of Emergency being the start of the darkest period in Indian democracy.
If the locus standi of a detenu is suspended, no one car. Such misdeeds have not tarnished the record of Free India and I have a diamond-bright, diamond-hard hope that such things will never come to pass. Against the unanimous decision of the High Courts, four of the five senior most Hon'ble Justices of the Supreme Court thought it fit to rule otherwise.
Any pre- constitution rights which are included in Art. Finally, it was urged that Preamble to the constitution speaks of a Sovereign, Democratic Republic and therefore, the Executive which is subordinate to the Legislature cannot act to the prejudice of the citizen save to the extent permitted by laws validly made by the legislature which is the chosen representative of the people.
State of Mysore and Anr. But I do not think it would be right for me to allow my love of personal liberty to cloud my vision or to persuade me to place on the relevant provision of the Constitution a construction which its language cannot reasonably bear. Rule of law Concept of is inapplicable to emergency provisions since the emergency provisions themselves contain the rule of law for such situations.
Section 16A 9 imposes a bar which cannot be overcome in habeas corpus proceedings during the emergency. Section 16A of the Act contains definite indications of implied exclusion of judicial review on the allegations of mala fide.
And so was delivered the biggest blow to the Supreme Court, by the Supreme Court. But, if the locus standi of the person to move the court is gone and the competence of the court to enquire into the grievance is also impaired by inability to peruse the ground of executive action or their relationship with the power to act, it is no use appalling to this particular concept of the Rule of Law.
In an interview with makomamoa.com on 15/9/, Justice P.N. Bhagwati confesses that the Supreme Court decision in ADM Jabalpur was wrong and he pleads guilty for the same.
The reason attributed for him joining the majority (Justices A. N. Ray, Y. V. Chandrachud, and M.H. Beg) in the case was that he was persuaded by his colleagues and he admits.
A.D.M. Jabalpur vs Shukla When the Supreme Court struck down the Habeas Corpus-- By Jos. Peter D 'SouzaApril 28th, is a day never to be forgotten by any of us Indians who love the pledges of Justice and Liberty which we gave to ourselves in the Preamble of our Constitution.
The ADM Jabalpur v. Shiv Kant Shukla was an offshoot of the declaration of Emergency under Article of the Constitution of India on the ground of “internal disturbances”.
Many people were arrested (usually political rivals and journalists) by the government on the basis of the Preventive Detention Laws under the MISA (Maintenance of Internal. PETITIONER: ADDITIONAL DISTRICT MAGISTRATE, JABALPUR Vs.
RESPONDENT: S. S. SHUKLA ETC. ETC. DATE OF JUDGMENT28/04/ BENCH: RAY, A.N. (CJ) BENCH: RAY, A.N. (CJ) KHANNA, HANS RAJ BEG, M. HAMEEDULLAH CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. BHAGWATI, P.N. CITATION: AIR SCR SCC (2) CITATOR INFO: R SC (12) RF.
adm jabalpur vs shivkant shukla. Topics: Law, This means that each day a student is absent, the ADA score goes down. In contrast, Average Daily Membership (ADM) is a specific count of enrollment at a particular school gathered at differing times throughout the school year.
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An Outrageous Emergency-Era Supreme Court Judgment That Still Stands, Technically
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Another Grim Year with Obama
The fifth year in the political marriage between Barack Obama and the rest of America has the look of a divorce in which a lot of Americans are wondering how we can rid ourselves of the worst President in the history of the nation. That’s not just my opinion.
As 2013 comes to a close it is abundantly clear that even the starry-eyed journalists and political pundits who thought Obama was as close to the Second Coming as American politics had ever known were having, not just doubts, but serious regrets. The White House press corps is now in a state of rebellion.
As the year began, Victor David Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and respected conservative commentator, took a look back at George W. Bush, the predecessor that Obama blamed for everything so often it became a joke.
“George W. Bush left office in January 2009 with one of the lowest job-approval ratings for a president (34%) since Gallup started compiling them—as compared to Harry Truman’s low of 32%, Richard Nixon’s of 24%, and Jimmy Carter’s of 34%--and to the general derision of the media,” wrote Hanson. Obama is likely to achieve a rating less than these predecessors.
Bush has distinguished himself by never publicly commenting on Obama while he has held office. When his presidential library was opened in April, Bush’s approval rating was 47%, but it is worth noting that Bush was in office when 9/11 occurred, followed by combat action in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Just before Bush left office, a financial crisis struck the nation.
The signs of dissatisfaction with Obama and his policies were evident as 2013 began. A January Gallup poll found that American opinion of the country’s state of affairs was at its lowest point since 1979. Fewer than four-in-ten Americans (39%) rated the U.S. in a positive manner. By February, the national debt during Obama’s presidency had increased $5.9 trillion, more than it had increased under all presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined.
By April the New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, was continuing to put distance between Obama and herself. “Unfortunately, he still has not learned how to govern” wrote Dowd, adding “No one on Capitol Hill is scared of him.” Obama had devoted so much time to fund-raising and non-stop campaigning, that governing was obviously not a priority, but that is exactly why Presidents are elected.
By May, Politico.com reporters, Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei noted that Republicans in the House had one-third of its committees investigating scandals and wrong-doing by the Obama administration. “Establishment Democrats, never big fans of this President to begin with, are starting to speak out. And reporters are tripping over themselves to condemn lies, bullying and shadiness in the Obama administration.”
By July, a Washington Times editorial, “Obama’s Feats of Weakness” observed that “Since Mr. Obama took office, the opinion of the United States generally has declined in every country surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project…Despite the vaunted White House effort to reach out to Muslim-majority countries, U.S. favorability ratings in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Pakistan are below where they were in 2008 when George W. Bush was at the helm.”
As 2013 comes to a close, longtime former allies such as Saudi Arabia are openly berating Obama for the secret deal negotiated with Iran. Egypt, a former ally, feels betrayed by Obama for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood and, Israel was being visited by Secretary John Kerry to express his opposition to new housing in Jerusalem, but he has put Israel at great risk of annihilation by Iranian nuclear weapon. The Washington Times opined that “There’s a reason Mr. Obama has not been a strong leader internationally. He never set out to be one because he has never believed in the exceptional mission of the United States.”
During the October government shutdown, Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standards, noted that Obama “won’t negotiate with Republicans, though the fate of Obamacare, funding of the government, and the future of the economic recovery are at stake.” A veteran observer of the White House, Barnes said, “His approach—dealing with a deadlock by not dealing with it—is unprecedented. He has gone where no president has gone before.”
Earlier, in June, Barnes said “the Obama administration is in an unexpected and sharp state of decline. Mr. Obama has little influence on Congress. His presidency has no theme. He pivots nervously from issue to issue.”
When the Obamacare website debuted on October 1st, it was such a disaster that it was a perfect reflection of a horrendous piece of legislation that is causing widespread dismay and disruption affecting millions of Americans.
When you add in the residue from first term scandals such as Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the use of the IRS to harass conservative groups seeking non-profit tax status, it was obvious to all but mindless Obama devotees that we face three years of further decline at home and internationally.
There is still massive unemployment. There are still massive numbers on government welfare programs and the nation’s health care system and insurance industry is being massively disrupted. The economy is improving incrementally, almost despite the administration’s policies.
To say that 2013 has been a bad year for Obama is also to say it has been a bad year for over three hundred million Americans. As Obamacare kicks in, 2014 will be a year its hidden taxes take effect. In November, voters will have the midterm elections to begin ending the a record of failed domestic and foreign affairs.
RStabb said...
I never knew a President could rule by Executive Order. It's like Congress doesn't exist. This guy needs to go now. I doubt this country can survive three more years of this clown.
Ron, I don't think there is a means to remove him from office at this point, but if the midterm elections give full power in Congress to the GOP, they can shut down the efforts he is making to harm the economy, increase debt, etc.
Lime Lite said...
Happy New Year Alan!! May it be a good one for you and all your readers.
Thank you, Lime Life, and I wish you and all my readers a Happy New Year.
MrGarabaldi said...
I have been a longtime fan of your website. I have used excerpts from some of your past postings on my blog to buttress some arguments I was making. I consider you extremely knowledgeable and a great writer. I hate to say it, but there would be no impeachment of Obama, no matter what he does. He controls the mob and the media. It would be political suicide for the GOP to even try. I am hopeful that the 2014 election will take the senate from the democrats. But the 2016 elections with Hillery as the anointed one, by the same media that anointed Obama, and the GOP will run another inept campaign and the democrats will promise the *gimmedats* more stuff to secure their vote or they will use the threats of peoples gov't benefits being taken away by the mean old GOP or both, and the ever popular "raising the dead so they can vote democrat". I really hope I am wrong I really do, I don't mean to sound negative but the balance point is almost here if we don't change things back, we may start the slide in history as the post Americana era. pushed by the large debt, the unfunded liabilities, the mindset of the low information voters and the keystone kops foreign policies of the present administration.
@Garibaldi. Yes, you're right. Obama will not be impeached and it would be bad politics this year for the GOP in the House to even go through the motions to do so. Chalk it up to wishful thinking.
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The Power of Stillness – Ty Mansfield
Faith MattersPodcasts April 11, 2020
Deseret Book recently published a remarkable book titled: The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints. Mindfulness practices like meditation have become central to an emerging spirituality in the broader world. Latter-day Saints are busy people; we’re doers. Our lives and our faith seem to keep us constantly in motion. But our souls yearn for stillness. This book explores how to infuse our daily lives and our spiritual and religious practices with a quality of mindfulness.
We think this is an incredibly important book. So we invited one of its authors, Ty Mansfield, to explore this topic with us at a gathering in February. He was wonderful, so we decided to share it with you. Ty is a marriage and family therapist at the Marital Intimacy Group and teaches at Brigham Young University. We hope you enjoy this episode.
The best way to listen to this conversation with Ty Mansfield is on one of these podcast platforms:
Aubrey Chaves: Hi, and welcome to the Faith Matters podcast. This is Aubrey Chaves. Deseret Book recently published a remarkable book called The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-Day Saints. Mindfulness practices like meditation have become central to an emerging spirituality in the broader world. Latter-day Saints are busy people, we’re doers. Our lives and our faith seem to keep us constantly in motion, but our souls yearn for stillness.
This book explores how to infuse our daily lives and our spiritual and religious practices with a quality of mindfulness. We think this is an incredibly important book, so we invited one of its authors, Ty Mansfield, to explore this topic with us at a gathering in February. He was so wonderful, we decided to share it with you.
Ty is a marriage and family therapist at the Marital Intimacy Group and teaches at Brigham Young University. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Ty Mansfield: So, thank you for coming. I feel very much like I’m very intimidated. This is a very intimidating group and I feel a little like I landed here accidentally. I don’t think I could have planned my life if I wanted to. And a lot of what I’ve come to especially this, kind of happened by accident, it was part of a larger God journey and a conflicted one. I’ll tell you a little bit about that story. But I think even just recently, when he said maybe six, so we have five children in this last summer. I started a practice of mindfulness and I’ll talk about how I got here and how a lot of this came together and where I think a lot of the intersections are with this broader conversation that’s happening with Latter-day Saint faith practice. But this last summer, for a long time I wanted to do, if you’ve ever heard of these sort of in depth, they have these seven day, 10 day in depth Vipassanā retreats is what they’re called, silent meditation retreats. Where you go and for seven days you don’t talk to anyone, you’re not supposed to look them in the eye, you sit in silence.
I was just telling Bill this last summer, I did a seven day silent retreat, and probably three days into just not talking and practicing stillness, I felt more me than I had in a really long time ago, I felt very centered. But in that moment, and most of the retreat was just practicing silence. But in that moment, I had a very strong spiritual impression that somebody is waiting and it’s time to invite them here. And so we don’t know when that person is coming. But I was telling Bill that story, so now it’s five almost six, someday six.
Audience: I’m not pregnant.
Ty Mansfield: And she’s not pregnant.
So to give you a little bit of my story at least as it relates to, I feel like my story is pretty multi-dimensional, but at least the part of my story that brings us here I graduated from BYU and in my undergrad was Chinese studies. I came back from my mission. I was electrical engineering and I think I had, I don’t know, I think I was trying to figure still out where I was supposed to go. But I had a really strong spiritual impression that I was to study Chinese studies.
And at the time, I was business minded and China had just entered the WTO. And I thought this is probably why, to intersect these worlds, the business world, the Asian world. And there was a lot of speculation around what China entering the global market would look like and what that would mean for business. And so I thought this was great.
I minored in business as opposed to majoring in business, I majored in Chinese studies and just spent a lot of time, I spent two summers in China. I remember never ever thinking that I would be here doing this. So it was either like international relations of some kind, business of some kind.
But I remember at one point, it was one of those moments that I just felt very impressed by, we were visiting… you visit different shrines and whatnot. And we visited a Buddhist monastery. I remember the gentleman that was leading us, I didn’t speak very good Chinese. And so there was a translator, but there was a kind of stillness and presence that was so palpable, I could feel it.
I remember wondering about this and wondering what he had that I didn’t. And in the context of, often as we think about in a Gospel of Latter-day Saint context, we have the truth, the dispensation of the fullness of times and where to take the message of Christ to all the world. And here was this very distinct moment where I felt that this person had something that I didn’t and I wanted it. But I had no context at that time for what that would look like or how you’d get that.
But the impression stayed with me for years. So finished, majored in Chinese studies, graduated from BYU, moved to Washington, DC, where by that point, by the time I graduated I was leaning more towards international relations. Washington DC is an international hub. It was a perfect place to be.
But while I was there, studying to take the Foreign Service exam, I had a really strong impression that I was to change course and go into mental health. And so from there, I did my graduate work, my master’s program in marriage and family therapy, and I did my doctorate in marriage and family therapy as well. And then I have a full-time practice in Provo, and then I teach part time at BYU.
But as part of that journey, as I was looking at programs and I was just listed, and I haven’t had a lot of these experiences in my life. I felt spiritual guidance at times, but there had been only a few times where something felt very, very clear and almost confusingly clear. I was just looking through a list of accredited programs and one of the accredited programs was a little school in the middle of West Texas called Abilene Christian University.
I never heard of Abilene. I never heard of the school. But it was as I was just looking at the names of these schools, I had a very again clear impression that this is where I would be going to graduate school. And again, not having any experiential context for what that would mean or where Abilene was or what kind of school it was, outside of it being an accredited school, I just decided to apply and pray that I was right. That I was interpreting this right or something.
Ty Mansfield: So I went down and as I was interviewing at the program, and this was… I was 28 years old at the time. I’d already been in the professional world for a little bit before I went back to school. I was feeling a little old and leftover in Mormon culture, 28 is not young.
But here I am being sent to West Texas where I had no idea what my future was going to look like.
Audience: You were single.
Ty Mansfield: I was single, and young adults don’t move to Abilene, they move away from Abilene. If they’re in the church.
And so, here I was in this space and when I went to the interview, one of the faculty members, and I actually reference her in the acknowledgments in the book. Because the first time I shook her hand, she had that same kind of presence that this Buddhist monk did.
I remember as soon as I shook her hand, it was like I had this moment of confirmation that this is where you’re supposed to be. I still didn’t know why. But she radiated this very centeredness, this kind of calmness, again, I certainly didn’t feel. I felt like I was doing well and I felt pretty basically solid in life, but I felt like again, this moment, she had something that I didn’t.
So there was a lot of things that happened. It wasn’t a clear trajectory. But as part of this, I found out she was very much involved in a Christian contemplative movement, Bill mentioned Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr. There’s a number of thinkers and writers in a movement that’s sort of a Christian iteration of a lot of Eastern, Buddhist or meditative contemplative practices.
So mindfulness, the word mindfulness comes from Eastern practice. On the Christian side of it, they typically just talk about it as contemplative practice. But there’s a lot of intersection, a lot of overlap. And in that movement, there’s a lot of conversation around mindfulness and the culture really because of, again, the Buddhist influence, and specifically some work that a prominent physician at University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn did, in mindfulness, integrating mindfulness into work with chronic pain patients, really began to revolutionize mental health about 30 or 40 years ago.
Ty Mansfield: But again, that’s where word mindfulness comes from. And again, it’s really become a catchphrase in our culture, or at least in the way that it’s used to be synonymous with meditation. But mindfulness is one kind of meditation. To say mindfulness or meditation is kind of like saying athletics, right? There’s lots of different kinds of athletics. There are a number of different sports. Mindfulness is one kind of meditation.
And it’s become very popular, one, because there are a lot of mental health benefits. But it’s also very accessible. And I remember the first time as I was turned on to this, his first book that he ever wrote about the work that he did at University of Massachusetts Medical School was called full catastrophe living. And that was something that I felt like I could sign up for, because my life felt crazy. It felt very busy. There was lots going on.
I thought there’s no way I’m going to be able to set aside lots of time to just sit in silence. But if this is something that you can do in a busy life, like sign me up, I want to figure out how I can do life better. And again, that’s been a lot of the appeal to a Western busy audience. Busyness almost becomes a kind of status in our culture right.
But interestingly enough, the Chinese character for busy means heart killer or to experience the death or loss of heart. And there is a very real way in which busyness numbs us. Busyness is associated with increases in anxiety, increases in depression. And the word mindfulness in Chinese means to bring the heart into the present.
Ty Mansfield: So in a lot of Eastern languages, Sanskrit, other Eastern languages, they really don’t differentiate between mind and heart, mind and heart are the same. So the word mindfulness could also be translated into a lot of languages, heartfulness. So the practice of mindfulness is really about being present with the fullness of our heart in every moment. I’ll share some definitions of what that looks like.
But in all of this, at one point I had… So I came across this teacher, I learned that she was really involved in this Christian contemplative movement, she’d come back at one point from a seven day silent retreat in a Christian contemplative tradition.
And I remember having a conversation with her after she had just gotten back from this retreat. And you could feel that the world felt a little jarring to her, like everything just seemed a little loud and overwhelming, after having been in this silent retreat. I remember talking to her about her experience, and thinking I want to do this someday. But the idea of sitting in silence for seven days was terrifying to me.
Ty Mansfield: But again, I was drawn to this idea-
Audience: Until we had kids. And he was like, let me go.
Ty Mansfield: And to have a wife who was willing to let me go for seven days while she stayed with five kids, you know you’ve married up. So she was very, very gracious about that.
So but at one point in this, I was specifically praying because I felt conflicted. I’m like, I felt very strongly that I was supposed to be there. But I had no idea why. Other than I could have gone to a lot of different schools but it was very lonely too. I was in a family ward. There was really no one my age.
In my program, I get along well with people in my program, but they were younger. And again, it was a Christian program, but people like to go drink and do karaoke on the weekends and that’s fun to watch maybe once. And so I just felt lonely a lot.
But in that I had, it was sort of a theme. It wasn’t really clear at first, but there started to be this oppression. My prayer was, why am I here? Why did you bring me here? I offered that prayer very often.
I started to just feel this phrase, came back to me again and again and it was to learn meaningful solitude. I want you to learn meaningful solitude. And ultimately the question came, can you be alone, but not be lonely? Can you be alone and feel full in me? And I didn’t know how to do that. I spent a lot of my life trying to be a good member of the church and trying to do the right things. But to just sit in silence with God and feel full in God, I really didn’t have any concept of that.
Ty Mansfield: So I began this intentional practice of mindfulness. And that was again in my master’s program. And then for my doctorate, I went up to Lubbock, which was just about a couple hours north. I did my doctorate at Texas Tech University, and they actually had a Buddhist sangha in Lubbock, Texas of all places. And so it’s just a Buddhist community that would gather to meditate.
So on Saturdays I would go, they would do these half day, silent meditation retreats where there was a Buddhist temple in that… It’s a tradition that’s associated with Theravāda Buddhism. But there was someone from the temple in Dallas, they had a big temple in Dallas, they would come and just guide us in the red and yellow robes that you often think of, as you’ve seen Buddhist monks.
And here was this person, again, who just radiated this kind of calmness and life and happiness and it was beautiful. I would relish in these moments on Saturdays when I would sit with these Buddhist practitioners and he would do a teaching and then we’d sit for usually 45 minutes, it’d be a couple sittings of 45 minutes each.
And in those moments of just sitting and slowing down, like I would find myself wandering into prayer. And the prayers that I wandered into in those moments were some of the most richest and clear prayers. Again, sometimes we get into these very transactional prayers in the way that we approach God. And prayer ends up being some kind of wish list and gratitude list and we make sure we cover all of our bases in what we are saying, but at least in the way that I had experienced prayer growing up, you just say your prayers and you continue to say your prayers. It wasn’t even really conversational, to say anything of transactional.
And so I remember just sitting there wandering into these prayers and feeling this kind of communion, kind of relationship. I think my relationship with God up to that point, even as a very strong believer, I’ve always been a very strong believer, I think my relationship felt probably a little more theological than actual relational.
And even my conceptions, I’d had some spiritual experiences before this of really feeling God’s love. But I think even up to those, my experience of God’s love until I had some more, again, mystical experiences with that, it was just theological. I believed that God loved me. And I trusted that. But I don’t know that I could say that I have felt it. I think the first time I really felt it in any real, tangible way I was, again, probably 26, 27 years old.
Ty Mansfield: And so in this, I spent the next four years and it was after that year, I met Danielle and she came with me to one of them, I think.
Audience: I did two.
Ty Mansfield: Do you remember, did you come to two?
Audience: I really liked it.
Ty Mansfield: But, again, I just felt and I would find myself wanting even in the temple, I would want to just sit in that open stance, right? And I remember even one time, but again, it felt like a little bit of colliding of worlds because it didn’t feel like inherently it should have been conflicting. Because just sitting in an open posture in a receptive, I want to receive God.
And I remember one time I was sitting in an initiatory, listening to the language. And the guy stopped, who was leading, because I was just sitting like this with my eyes closed and just open. And he stopped. And then it was long enough that I wondered what was going on. I opened my eyes and he was just looking at me confused. And he says, what are you doing? And I said, I’m just listening. And he just shook his head a little bit and then continued on, but it wasn’t a huge deal. But it was enough that like, he’s like this, I don’t understand, this is odd.
Audience: What are you doing?
Ty Mansfield: Just with my arms open.
But that was very meaningful to me. And it became a meaningful way to just listen and to receive the words of the initiatory and to contemplate on the words of the initiatory and the same thing in endowments. I started just doing this practice. And I didn’t know anybody else who was doing this.
And then at some point, I came across a blog started by Jacob Hess. This was before I had met Jacob, and he’s become a very good friend since then. But he had a blog called Mindfully Mormon. And a total side note, when we submitted the manuscript to Deseret Book, we submitted it on the Friday before the General Conference that Elder Nelson, President Nelson asked us to move past Mormon, right?
And so here at Deseret book, they’re like, we love the title, and even the proposed title, and then by Monday, it was like, we’re going to have to find a different title. Anyway, so hence, we have The Power of Stillness, as opposed to instead of Mindfully Mourning.
But he had this blog and so at least I had some kind of sense. There are other people out there who have come across these ideas. Now for me, it was an intersection of the mindfulness, really the mental health literature and I still, a lot of my practice is in a mental health context. But some of this experience and this Buddhist sangha in Dallas, I was getting a lot more of the Buddhist side of things. And there were a lot of things.
Ty Mansfield: My world and my heart is just very much, it’s restoration. And my thinking is very much Latter-day Saints and restoration. And so even though I was hearing a lot of things through a Buddhist lens, there was still a lot that was just resonating with me as truth. I loved those intersections and I loved those feelings. And I even started thinking then like, what would something look like? Is there a way to translate some of these ideas for an LDS audience?
Then I’d heard of Jacob and I really didn’t intersect with him until much later. But then, I’m sure most of you have heard of Thomas McConkie and some of the stuff that he had been doing and it just seemed like there were a growing number of people who were looking at this and exploring the intersections of contemplative practice, who were believing Latter-day Saints.
At one point it was like you started looking at Buddhism and you were kind of on the fringe and you were on the way out, right? People started, they were a little skeptical of your testimony. But again, there were a growing number of people who were very rooted in the faith, who were experiencing these as very rich.
Carrie Skarda, who’s one of the co-authors, she was going, she talks about this in the book, but she was going through a very painful divorce at one point and was just feeling like she was reeling and had a very specific spiritual experience to practice yoga. And so she started exploring yoga as a way to just ground and to center.
Ty Mansfield: So there was a lot of this and then eventually started coming into more personal relationship with individuals. Kim, of course, met Jacob. And then Jacob had this idea for a book and he had connections with Carrie and he had a connection with Kyle Anderson. So Carrie is also a psychologist and her coming across this first yoga and this spiritual experience. But then she uses a lot in her mental health practice, and she does day long workshops primarily for women, as an introduction to Latter-day Saint women for mindfulness in Alpine. And then Kyle Anderson is the head of a, he’s a core faculty in an Asian Studies program at Clemson right now.
And so again, that’s where the intersections happened for me in this, but I feel like that piece of just learning how to be in solitude with God has been one of the most impacting, one, impressions and ultimately spiritual practices for me, that I feel like has really transformed my spiritual life, and ultimately, my relationship with God. And one of the things that Jacob talks about this in the book a little bit, but he talks about this, he mentions this in the book, but he talks about it often, where his feeling is that a lot of people who are struggling with their faith, and there’s a lot of, most of people who have struggled with their faith, and maybe some of you in this room do.
But one of his feelings is that, it’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ that people are rejecting. It’s an impoverished experience. And I think sometimes our faith practice, sometimes our culture, and sometimes even getting lost in the busyness of institutional practice can actually overwhelm our ability to really be in relationship with God. And that’s where for me life has been.
And at one point, there’s a whole other intersecting less faith crisis and more existential crisis for me, came in, again, I had spent most of my life trying to be a good member of the church. But it wasn’t until I had this real existential crisis for me, and some spiritual experiences that happened there, that I felt the saving power of Christ. I remember just feeling overwhelmed in some of these experiences and the love and the grace and the mercy that I felt in some of these experiences.
Ty Mansfield: And after that, even though I’ve always been, again, a very strong believer, my frame changed for me. And even now, I don’t necessarily, my goal is not to be a good member of the church. It’s to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I believe in the church, and I believe in the church as a framework and as a scaffolding for that. But it’s these relational pieces. It’s experiencing Christ and it’s experiencing this relationship with God in solitude, that has been really transformative, most transformative for me.
There’s a Catholic thinker that I really like, his name is Henri Nouwen and this is part of where I wanted to go tonight and maybe drawing out some pieces of this that I think are very valuable for us. I think regardless of where people are in their faith journey, are really at the core of the gospel and I think get lost to some degree, and are really going to be beneficial to anyone at any point of their journey that they might be in.
But he said, he wrote a piece before he passed away called moving from solitude to community to ministry. And in this piece, he draws on this experience from the life of the Savior, where he goes into the mountain, communes with God in solitude. And then after that experience, comes down, surrounds himself in community with the apostles and then they together go out into ministry. And in this, he’s like, each of these three pieces are important, but the order in which they happen is also important.
And he says very often if we get them out of order, our relationships will also likely be disordered. If I move to community or before I experience God or I look for from community, that which only God can give me, I’m going to expect a lot more from people than they can realistically deliver. And so I have to let God be God first. And the more I can be in relationship with God first, the more I can let people be people.
Ty Mansfield: And then we surround ourselves, as we experience fullness, as we experience relationship with God first, then we come out into community and then in community we reach out in ministry. And that to me has felt very transformational and very key.
But one piece of this that he said, actually, I’m going to go back for a second, because in all of this, I think even though some of this for some reason, well, for a lot of people, this is really new. And to some degree, it’s been a part of our tradition for a really long time. There’s a sense in which there are religious symbols, we have the sacred grove, which is a symbol of the restoration. And especially as we come up towards general conference with this being the bicentennial of the First Division.
We have that as one representation of the First Division, which is really about communion with God and solitude. And then we have the beehive, which is all about industry and creating and doing and community. And it seems like both of those are valuable and in all of this stuff that we’ve done to want to talk more about being, isn’t to take away from doing. There are things that need to be done.
But if our doing is out of harmony or a healthy balance with being, then we lose ourselves in the doing. I think that happens with a lot of people and I think a lot of our church experiences probably more resonant with the beehive than it is with the sacred grove, at least for a lot of individuals who just get burned out in the doing and all the industry and the participating and the activity. And we even frame a lot of our church experience as, are you active or are they inactive or going to the temple and saying your prayers. And the language that we use to describe our faith experience is very behavioral, doing, active language.
But at one point, President McKay said this and this is one of my favorite, well, first of all, he defined spirituality this way, if I could… He said spirituality, this is how president McKay defined spirituality. He said spirituality is the consciousness of victory over self and of communion with the infinite. The consciousness of victory over self and a communion with the infinite. And to me, that’s a definition of spirituality that really resonates.
And then he said this, he said we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. In our worship, there are two elements. One is spiritual communion arising from our own meditation. The other, instruction from others, particularly those who have authority to guide and instruct us.
Ty Mansfield: Of the two, the more profitable introspectively is the meditation. Meditation is the language of the soul. So just reflect, if you were to reflect on your spiritual practice, your worship, how much of your faith practice or just how we even talk about it in the church is in listening? Here you are listening to instruction or listening to others. How much time do we spend listening to others and how much time do we spend proportionally in silence, just sitting with God?
And I would say for most people, and actually later on President Hinckley, something about President McKay, he resonated with this and he spoke to it often. Because even other teachers who spoke to it later, other presidents of the church, President Lee spoke to it, President Kimball spoke about it, President Hinckley spoke about it. But they all reference back to President Kimball.
Audience: President McKay.
Ty Mansfield: President McKay. And they’ll say something to the effect of, we remember, there was some specific meeting in which he really talked about this. And we all remember sitting with President McKay, when he talked about the importance of meditation, right? That will sit with us forever.
So whatever meeting that was, I’m really interested to, if we ever get a… I’m going to get to look back and see all things at all times. I want to know what happened in that meeting. Because it impressed other members of the 12 enough that later teachings on meditation, because sometimes we give lip service to the idea of meditation and pondering and that kind of thing.
But as far as any real formal practice or introductory practice or really giving it any sort of substance, we just don’t, in my experience, we just don’t do much. But they often reference back to President McKay, but he said meditation, again, is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord. And Jesus set the example for us. And then he goes on to share the experience of Jesus going into the mountain where he communed with God for 40 days in solitude. And again referencing back on this.
But one other thought here is that, and some of you may know the name John Kessler, he’s a Latter-day Saint attorney, but he’s also-
Audience: Sorry, that last quote, you just said was that was President McKay or was that Henri Nouwen?
Ty Mansfield: That was all President McKay. John Kessler, who’s a Zen meditation teacher, he said this, Latter-day Saint, believing Latter-day Saint and a Zen meditation teacher, he said, I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the potential to engender the most profound meditative tradition in the world. This may be a surprising assertion, since we Latter-day Saints tend to be pragmatic, and often emphasize doing rather than being.
However, the restored gospel is uniquely inclusive of being and becoming, and through the gift of the Holy Ghost sourcing inspiration and revelation by being still even for a moment, I have faith that over time we will increasingly integrate and develop meditative practices as a complement to our more active prayers, which will optimize experiencing a personal stillness, an inner peace and an inspired life grounded in our relationship to our Father in heaven and Savior.
I think it’s a very strong statement, but I absolutely believe it and in the spirit of Mormonism, where I think a lot of the teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and others, where Brigham Young said, we commissioned the elders of Israel to go out into the world and gather every truth that you can find and bring it home to Zion. For every truth belongs in Zion.
Ty Mansfield: There was a sentiment in the early church that the restoration or the Restored Church was as much a receptacle of truth as it would be a dispenser of truth. I believe there is a symbiotic receptacle or a symbiotic receiving and gifting relationship as the church is receiving truth. Because even in the church, a lot of what’s happening in the world and whatnot, when I sent the first Deseret Book to see if they would be interested in something like this, there’d already been conversations about, because again, it’s so prominent in our culture and for good reason.
There’d already been conversations around what would this look like? Is there value here? And what would that value look like specifically for Latter-day Saints? And so the timing of just sending this inquiry we would be interesting. She got back with me within an hour and said if you could send me a proposal by this afternoon, we have a product meeting and I’d like to propose it. Because it was like a Facebook message, the original one just because I’m friends with one of the product managers.
So anyway, so I put together, I spent the next hour putting together a statement, sent it to her, she took it to a product meeting, and she came back within an hour of that and said everybody loved it. Let’s move forward.
Ty Mansfield: And so here is The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-Day Saints. And I really feel like the spirit has guided us as a team and I think just everybody has been very, I don’t know, there’s a kindling there. And there’s been an excitement because there is something I think deeply resonant in it and that is deeply Latter-day Saint.
And part of our thinking around this, and a lot of the conversations that we as a research team have had, has been that even though a lot of our access to these principles has been through external traditions and resources and that kind of thing, when you get into the scriptures, and you really look at the life of Jesus and how often he took retreat, and how often he went to commune with the Father and would sit in stillness and silence and these sorts of things, there’s so much that’s implicit in our tradition. It’s already there. These external things have been, I think they’ve been triggers and I think they’ve caught a lot of people’s attention, really interested them.
But a lot of our work has to say, one, there is a lot outside of our tradition that we can value from it. Two, so much of this is already inherently and implicitly there, we just need to be able to tease it out. And so we have statements from President Kimball and next to Thích Nhất Hạnh. If you don’t know that name, Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who is just this beautiful soul. And at the same time that I was being introduced to all of this and these little kind of intersecting pieces, I was listening to a podcast episode.
And it was an interview with Thích Nhất Hạnh this Vietnamese Buddhist monk that I’d never heard of at the time. And listening to this podcast, this interview with him, I could feel his soul and it was beautiful. I feel like I just fell in love with this little man that was hard to understand. And yet you could just feel life flowing out of him and people, a lot of my teachers the last two and a half years or so, I’ve been in a formal meditation instructor training program with two prominent Buddhist psychologists, Tara Brach, and Jack Kornfield. But they often will talk about their experiences having, met with Thích Nhất Hạnh.
And it’s like, he has a book called Every Breath A Step. It’s just like, you’re in his presence, and he’s there and you feel him and you feel his energy and you know that he feels yours. I think this is the piece that for all of us, because the gospel of Jesus Christ or more particularly the body of Christ, is a relational body, it’s not just a theology. It’s us being with each other. This is a lot of the piece that I felt like has really been most healing for me.
And most impressive because I grew up always feeling like I’m kind of an empath, and I feel like I always want a deeper connection with other people than they want, period. So I remember being like in third grade and at a sleepover with two friends. I just wanted to connect. I don’t think I had language for that. But I was like let’s just talk about… and they didn’t want to talk about it. And I just felt like I’d always hungered for this kind of connection that other people didn’t seem to want as much of.
Ty Mansfield: But one of the Scriptures that’s always spoke to me was in D&C 76, when Joseph and Sidney Rigdon have this vision of the celestial glory, there’s one phrase in there as they describe the sociality of the celestial world that has spoken to me on such a deep level, and that’s this space where we collectively… There’s no theology of marriage at this point, when this revelation is received, where we collectively as members of the church of the firstborn, see as we are seen, and we know as we are known.
Ty Mansfield: That phrase, I’ve always kind of been interested in that phrase, but it was passing until I started really getting into contemplative practice. And that phrase, those words, seeing as we are seen and knowing as we are known and for any of you who have followed any of the work of Brené Brown, her TED Talk, power of vulnerability that went really viral, like a lot of her work, I think even though she doesn’t talk about it in spiritual terms, per se, I feel like what she is doing is preparing us to experience relationship in the way that God is calling us to experience relationship.
There’s a Christian writer, Tim Keller, and he said that to be loved but not known is sweet but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is what the heart longs for and it is our birthright. And to me, this is the quality of relationship I think all of us really hunger for. We want to be seen.
Some of you may have had a different experience. But I can’t tell you that I’ve ever had somebody stand up at the pulpit and say I love all of you so much. And we just want to pass on the love. And I’m like it’s meaningful, but you don’t know me. And that’s the story that we often… At least that’s my internal dialogue. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt overwhelming love by someone who doesn’t know me saying I love all of you in this congregation of however many hundreds of people and we’ve never met. And that’s not to say the experience of love can’t be real. I just had not received it that way.
And so there’s a sense in which we hunger to be seen and known. And I think a lot of this spiritual practice really is about opening ourselves up, being present with each other. There are different definitions of mindfulness. But one of those is a compassionate, affectionate awareness of the moment. Think about that as a definition for mindfulness. A compassionate, affectionate awareness of the moment.
And to be mindful is really just to be fully present right now. If you’ve ever read or heard of Eckhart Tolle’s the power of now, right? He’s kind of speaking to some of these same principles where we get so lost in the future, we get in our heads, we’re in the past.
Each of the chapters in the book has a comic. And one of my favorites is this woman, it’s just of this woman standing in a grocery line, if I can find this really quickly. She’s standing in this long line with like rowdy kids, and she says, I want to learn how to live in the moment, just not this moment. Some other moment, like a moment at the beach, right?
And we get in this space where we think some other time, some other place is going to better than this one. But mindfulness is really about practicing to be in this moment. And can I learn to love this moment and can I learn to be with this person and to love this person that’s in front of me?
Ty Mansfield: I get to practice this every day in a therapeutic context. And when you really get to know people, I’ve never met anybody who after hearing their story, I didn’t feel closer to them and I didn’t love them more and I didn’t feel greater compassion and empathy. I love what I do for that reason, because I get to relate to humans on a more real level, I get to see their pain more and that’s what I want. I want that quality of relationship, and to be in the world in a way where we see each other better.
One thought too is that different traditions, greeting traditions and different cultures come from different meanings. And does anybody here know where the handshake, the tradition of the handshake actually comes from? It was a gesture that I don’t have a sword or I don’t have a gun, I’m not going to kill you. So our Western greeting, our Western gesture of connection is I’m not going to hurt you, right? This is where it stems from. That’s a pretty low bar for connection.
And one of the things that if you’ve heard the term, namaste, where the meaning of that is, the divine in me sees the divine in you. And Virginia Pierce, President Hinckley’s daughter, she said this, she says, namaste roughly translated means I honor the deity within you. And that is precisely what we do when we open our hearts to one another. We honor the fact that he or she, like us, is a child of the same loving father worthy of all respect and careful attention.
I see the divine in you or the divine in me sees the divine in you, has a bit of a different feeling than I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t need to be afraid of me. And I think if we all, the spirit of that gesture, obviously, even in cultures where they say namaste, it still takes on a pretty empty meaning and people will talk about that.
Ty Mansfield: But I think the spirit of that is very meaningful to me. And what would that look like if we really practiced seeing each other? There’s the same teacher, Henri Nouwen, this Catholic writer, he said this, he said, let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate.
Now, I would dare say that there’s probably not a person in this room who thinks compassion is probably not a good thing. Why would anybody want to be compassionate? It seems like a waste. I think most of us resonate with the idea that compassion is good.
But he says this, compassion is hard, right? Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard, because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering, by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it, right?
How often have you shared something with somebody and they’ve got an answer for you because they’re there to help you, right? Or they want to help you. And there can be something meaningful in that too, but sometimes we can’t help, but we also struggle with the ability to just sit.
So he says this, as busy active, relevant ministers we want to earn our bread by making real contribution. This means first and foremost, doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is the ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow men, not knowing what to say, but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life to a dying heart.
Ty Mansfield: Think about that. Jacob Hess, again, in one of the stories that he shares, so his mother died of cancer. And while she was, she knew the end was coming, and there were people that would come to her house to visit her from the ward. But one of her comments was that so often people would be there and they didn’t know what to say. So they wouldn’t say very much and there was an awkwardness about it.
And she would find herself trying to comfort the people who were there to cover her. And somehow developing a capacity to just be with others in their pain, I think is a spiritual discipline. Without trying to fix it and without trying to take it away and simply to just say, I’m here and I’m with you and I don’t know what to say. And if I did, I would, but I don’t. But I want to be here. So I’m here. I think that’s a space that all of us can practice, I think that ultimately God wants to invite us into.
There’s a Mennonite teacher, he said this, being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they’re almost indistinguishable. Think about that. Being heard is so close to being loved that to the average person, they’re indistinguishable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with a client who one they’re sad because they feel like they have to pay somebody to hear them. But who just in that space of being heard…
There was this one young man who just… one of his frustrations was in his interactions with his family and his parents every time he tried to just talk to them, they just were always trying to help him and teach him and help him to realize what he needed to do. And anyway, but just this space of listening, as soon as we just slowed down enough to say let’s talk like, what’s going on, just taking a breath, all of a sudden the tears would begin to flow. And that was his pain. He said nobody else will just be with me, nobody else can just hear me. I think a lot of our practice, our spiritual practice as aspiring saints is to be with each other more.
For a second, in the spirit of the second great commandment, to love one another as…
Audience: Yourself.
Ty Mansfield: Yourself. I would assume that this meaning is implied. But I think an important part of that is to love one another as you love yourself. One, love others as you love yourself, but also you need to love yourself. And just as much as Jesus is concerned about mercy, having mercy for others, he conditioned mercy and he conditioned forgiveness not on doing all the right things. He conditioned mercy on how merciful are you with others? If you want to be forgiven, how quick are you to forgive others?
I think, I believe, really all of this is just about my inner world and some my resonate and some may not and that’s all okay. But I really believe that a key part of what a lot of mindfulness is, there’s a prominent researcher in mindfulness, who at the time, one of the things that brought her into, she recently gave a teaching, and she talked about what she calls the secret sauce of mindfulness. And she said, she comes, I don’t know exactly what her background is, but she came from a background where in her family, marriage was sacrosanct. Her grandparents were still alive, and they’d been married 70 years, her parents were still alive. They’d been married 50 years. And here she was a young mother with two kids and she was getting divorced. And this was just something that didn’t happen in her family.
And there was such a negative dialogue about that, and so much shame around that. And the feelings of brokenness and failure and those kinds of things. And in mindfulness practice, this idea of bringing your heart into the present, there’s very much a spirit of, are you as kind to yourself, metta is the term in Sanskrit, loving kindness. Are you as loving and kind with yourself as you are with others?
And there’s sort of a story, Sharon Salzberg, she’s not a Latter-day Saint but a Western Buddhist teacher. She shares an experience back in 1990. There’s an institute called the Mind and Life Institute that sponsored these dialogues with the Dalai Lama. And it would be Western psychologists, philosophers, medical practitioners, who would dialogue with Eastern counterparts. And all of these dialogues included the Dalai Lama.
And at one point here was this newer, younger Western practitioner who said she asked the Dalai Lama in this meeting what… and this has almost become like classic teaching, if you ever you hear Buddhist teachings or whatever, mindfulness teachings. But she asked the Dalai Lama what he thought about self-hatred.
And he said this to her, what is that? What is that? Through a translator, he’s kind of learned some English along the way, but this was back in 1990. But through this translator, he was like… and they were explaining what that meant. And he said, his response in his confusion was, why would anybody do that? Why would anybody talk negatively about themselves? Or why would anybody hate themselves?
Something about this practice and every culture has their problems. So this isn’t to deify Eastern culture and they’re great at this, all of them. But there was something about this idea that in Western culture, there’s something pandemic in the way that we do life and that’s really problematic and this inner critic and this critical voice and perfectionism and we’re never enough, and there’s always this doing, doing, doing and we’re never enough. And again, perfectionism in the church, I think becomes really problematic and rampant.
Ty Mansfield: But as part of this Eastern contemplative practice, practicing compassion with the self and learning how to be with self is just as important as learning how to be with others. And that ultimately, the degree to which we can’t be that with self is the degree to which we cannot be with others.
And so as kind of a final piece here, and just something to think about, because even with emotions, and I think about this all the time as a therapist, some of our language obstructs our ability, obstructs mental health, and we’ll use language like I feel bad or I feel good. Bad is not a feeling, bad is a judgment. And good is not a feeling, good is a judgment. I could go smoke a joint, feel awesome, it doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for me. And there are emotions that are uncomfortable or that are difficult that I would like to not be feeling that are actually healthy.
And so part of learning how to be healthy is learning how to sit with ourselves in uncomfortable emotions. And so a lot of the work that I do is really at least from a mental health standpoint, but I think that there are a lot of spiritual pieces of this, is helping people reframe their experience with their emotions, so that it’s kind of a process piece. How do you be with your emotions from a more compassionate place? And mindfulness is all about non-judgment, compassionate, acceptance, non-judgment, right?
And so we have to get away from judgment language, in order to be with ourselves and to learn. So fear may not be uncomfortable emotion, but fear has something to communicate to us. Its role from an evolutionary standpoint is to protect us when there’s a threat to our safety.
Ty Mansfield: Anger is an emotion of boundary. Jesus was angry when there were so money exchanges at the temple. Sadness is an emotion of grief and loss, right? But I don’t want to feel my grief, I’d rather go eat a bowl of ice cream. Or, I’d rather go binge on the new season of my favorite show on Netflix, right? We don’t want to feel our feelings, we want to numb, distract or avoid them. And so being a healthy human being first is about learning how to be with ourself in a more compassionate way. And learning how to forgive ourselves when we’re not.
If I could leave just a brief invitation for each of you to consider, when you leave here tonight, what would it look like to practice presence for you with another and to practice kindness for yourself? Where do you find yourself feeling the most short, falling short in your life? Or, feeling the most vulnerable to your own inner critic? And what would it look like for you to offer just a compassionate offering to yourself?
And again, practice looking for those moments of stillness, of slowing down and letting, stepping back as observer and just letting things be in this world. There’s sort of this mantra that our awareness, our thoughts are not us. Our emotions are not us. They’re like clouds in the sky, they move and flow at every moment, but our awareness is the sky, we are the observer of those things.
And as we step back, we just observe, there’s a lot of space for the universe to speak, for God to speak and to just feel and connect. But I do believe in the spirit of the title of the book, that there’s a lot of power and that real spiritual power ultimately comes in that stillness, and in the now-ness of life, of being with God and that a lot of God’s practice, in ancient Israel, it was teaching them to just be in the moment. To stop focusing on tomorrow’s mana and just focus on today’s mana. Give us today’s bread today. And that true powerful spiritual living is in that surrender to God and loosening the grip that we seek to have on our own lives and sometimes other people, letting go of control, surrender that to God.
But anyway, but I want to thank you again for letting me be here. It’s been an honor to be with you. And thank you. Thanks Doug.
Aubrey Chaves: Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you’re interested in learning more, make sure to check out the book, The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-Day Saints. And as always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a rating or a thumbs up. You can check out more at faithmatters.org.
Consecrating a Crisis – Thomas McConkie
Faith MattersPodcasts March 28, 2020
We know it’s been an eventful, and uncertain, and even scary couple of weeks for everybody. We’ve been grappling with …
Richard Bushman – A Conversation With The Preeminent LDS Historian Of Our Time
Faith MattersPodcasts August 25, 2018
Richard L. Bushman is generally considered the finest LDS Historian of our age. His biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling, …
Steven Peck – An Interview About The God Who Marvels
Faith MattersConversations with Terryl Givens, Inspiration, Podcasts June 30, 2018
Steve Peck is an award-winning author and scientist; one of brightest and most interesting Latter-day Saints you’ll ever meet. For …
Can Creation Heal Us? An Interview With George Handley
Faith MattersConversations with Terryl Givens, Podcasts May 29, 2018
George Handley, both our physical and spiritual natures are inseparably connected with the natural world. An important aspect of the …
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Dewey County, South Dakota
Pick a county South Dakota State Total Aurora County, South Dakota Beadle County, South Dakota Bennett County, South Dakota Bon Homme County, South Dakota Brookings County, South Dakota Brown County, South Dakota Brule County, South Dakota Buffalo County, South Dakota Butte County, South Dakota Campbell County, South Dakota Charles Mix County, South Dakota Clark County, South Dakota Clay County, South Dakota Codington County, South Dakota Corson County, South Dakota Custer County, South Dakota Davison County, South Dakota Day County, South Dakota Deuel County, South Dakota Dewey County, South Dakota Douglas County, South Dakota Edmunds County, South Dakota Fall River County, South Dakota Faulk County, South Dakota Grant County, South Dakota Gregory County, South Dakota Haakon County, South Dakota Hamlin County, South Dakota Hand County, South Dakota Hanson County, South Dakota Harding County, South Dakota Hughes County, South Dakota Hutchinson County, South Dakota Hyde County, South Dakota Jackson County, South Dakota Jerauld County, South Dakota Jones County, South Dakota Kingsbury County, South Dakota Lake County, South Dakota Lawrence County, South Dakota Lincoln County, South Dakota Lyman County, South Dakota McCook County, South Dakota McPherson County, South Dakota Marshall County, South Dakota Meade County, South Dakota Mellette County, South Dakota Miner County, South Dakota Minnehaha County, South Dakota Moody County, South Dakota Pennington County, South Dakota Perkins County, South Dakota Potter County, South Dakota Roberts County, South Dakota Sanborn County, South Dakota Shannon County, South Dakota Spink County, South Dakota Stanley County, South Dakota Sully County, South Dakota Todd County, South Dakota Tripp County, South Dakota Turner County, South Dakota Union County, South Dakota Walworth County, South Dakota Yankton County, South Dakota Ziebach County, South Dakota South Dakota NRCS
Average Crop Revenue Election Program (ACRE) payments in Dewey County, South Dakota totaled $1.2 million from 1995-2020‡.
States Receiving Average Crop Revenue Election Program (ACRE) payments, 1995-2020‡
1 Nebraska $466,345,427 14.6% 14.6%
2 Illinois $459,501,799 14.4% 29.0%
3 Iowa $334,220,475 10.5% 39.4%
4 Oklahoma $274,495,563 8.6% 48.0%
5 South Dakota $230,118,354 7.2% 55.2%
6 North Dakota $218,850,477 6.8% 62.1%
7 Washington $179,935,829 5.6% 67.7%
8 Minnesota $165,204,935 5.2% 72.9%
9 Texas $154,492,657 4.8% 77.7%
10 Indiana $122,114,566 3.8% 81.5%
11 Missouri $81,106,350 2.5% 84.1%
12 Idaho $75,123,351 2.4% 86.4%
13 Kentucky $67,394,004 2.1% 88.5%
14 Ohio $64,708,211 2.0% 90.5%
15 Kansas $59,377,542 1.9% 92.4%
16 Montana $58,057,783 1.8% 94.2%
17 Michigan $40,689,367 1.3% 95.5%
18 Wisconsin $38,403,941 1.2% 96.7%
19 Oregon $33,051,277 1.0% 97.7%
20 Colorado $20,629,843 0.6% 98.4%
21 California $14,696,582 0.5% 98.8%
22 Delaware $6,457,257 0.2% 99.0%
23 New Mexico $4,860,544 0.2% 99.2%
24 Tennessee $4,293,871 0.1% 99.3%
25 New York $3,880,406 0.1% 99.4%
26 Pennsylvania $3,661,687 0.1% 99.6%
27 North Carolina $2,835,589 0.1% 99.6%
28 Louisiana $2,701,212 0.1% 99.7%
29 Virginia $2,053,872 0.1% 99.8%
30 Vermont $1,786,453 0.1% 99.8%
31 Maryland $1,676,848 0.1% 99.9%
32 Mississippi $1,248,221 0.0% 99.9%
33 Utah $795,967 0.0% 100.0%
34 Massachusetts $530,950 0.0% 100.0%
35 Wyoming $305,843 0.0% 100.0%
36 Alabama $220,248 0.0% 100.0%
37 Maine $89,191 0.0% 100.0%
38 Arkansas $45,733 0.0% 100.0%
39 New Jersey $31,541 0.0% 100.0%
40 West Virginia $16,569 0.0% 100.0%
41 New Hampshire $5,890 0.0% 100.0%
42 South Carolina $1,375 0.0% 100.0%
43 Georgia $275 0.0% 100.0%
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The Destructive Idol of Statism in America: The Takers and the Givers
David Whitney June 16, 2016
There are two types of people in this world: the takers and the givers. The takers give no thought to the effect their decisions have on others. Consider, for example, the transgendered bathroom insanity. The elite in Washington don’t care one iota for how it impacts the families of America. Well, an interesting development in the world of the elite took place in Georgia this week. The head of Georgia’s ACLU, an organization committed to and powerfully promoting the transgender insanity, had never considered the impact this would have on families. Then it happened to her.
Dillard Smith said her daughters had experienced trauma over the issue.
“I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults over six feet with deep voices entered,” she said in a statement reported by Atlanta Progressive News.
“My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer …
“Maya Dillard Smith said Thursday she resigned because she was met with hostility when she questioned the organization’s stance on the policy, adding that she risked being branded a homophobe by even raising her critique. There are real concerns about the safety of women and girls in regards to this bathroom debate,” Dillard Smith said in an interview. “It seems to me that instead of stifling the dialogue, we want to encourage a robust debate to come up with an effective solution.”[1]
Very interesting, in my view, that she had no qualms about it: she lead an organization supporting it until her own daughters were visibly frightened and began to ask questions she could not answer. The children have more common sense? They understand that it is an insane policy and they have to be the ones to persuade the adults? That’s what appears to be the case.
When the tyrants are in control, your needs are never considered. They toss off decisions daily that are ruinous to millions of those suffering under their hob nailed boots. We can see there is no mercy from these evil beasts. Yet people continue to bow and worship this worthless idol of Statism – the idea that civil government will provide cradle to grave, that any and every problem that comes up in life can and will be solved by this idol called civil government. Yet the facts belie that belief. This idol is incompetent in almost everything it does, it consumes enormous resources, impoverishing the people thereby and enriching itself. It is an unmerciful beast, cruel and evil beyond compare, and it is turing our land into a police state.
Consider the stark contrast between that evil idol with the one true God.
Just look at God’s Invitation to the Children of Israel – Exodus 25:1-2,
“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.” The One True God invites His people to give, willingly, freely, without any compulsion. He, unlike the idol of civil government, does not hold a gun to your head and demand you hand over the fruit of your labor, hand over your wealth, hand over your children, and hand over your future. Instead, He invites you to give.
This magnificent structure was unlike any other in many ways; not only in its beauty, structure, purpose and design;
This tabernacle would not be built by slave labor – all those working on the project would choose to do so. Consider where Israel had spent the past 400 years; they were slaves in Egypt. And the great buildings and monuments that remain in that land today just give us a hint and the grandeur and glory of Egypt in its heyday as the world’s superpower. Most of those buildings were constructed with slave labor. The Israelites were on many of those slave projects. They knew what it meant to be forced to build a project conceived by the tyrant. He got the glory and honor while they shed blood, sweat, and tears. Now we think we live in the land of the free; we are told it is the freest country in the world. As you well know, that is a myth.
Did you know that the White House and the Capital building in Washington were built in part by slave labor. The Federal government did not actually directly own those slaves, but it rented them from their owners and paid their owners for the labor of their slaves. Slavery built essential parts of the palatial city at the heart of a world wide empire.
The second thing we see about the tabernacle is that …
It would not be built with materials forcibly taken from the people
The people would choose to give. What a stark contrast with the idol in our land called civil government. We could talk about taxation, as there is a whole lengthy study on the subject of Biblical taxation – what is just and unjust. But let’s consider an altogether different area: “Civil Asset Forfeiture.” As practiced today, the police can pull you over and essentially at gun point take all the cash you have in your wallet. They can do this without you being charged with any crime whatsoever, and no evidence necessary that you even committed a crime at all. They claim in their wicked scheme that the money itself has committed a crime, and that money is guilty until proven innocent. The only way to get it back is to go to court to attempt to prove your money is innocent. Then the kicker is that the police department that stole your money gets to keep 80%, as long as they give a tribute of 20% to Washington. This outrageous practice has netted billions of dollars to the cops in our once fair land.
Among the police departments themselves, however, there is one that completely takes the cake.
“Police in Oklahoma are now able to seize money from motorists even if they don’t have physical cash on them” – and even if those people are merely suspected of a crime.
Using a new device called an ERAD, or Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machine, Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers can now swipe debit or prepaid cards if they suspect a driver of obtaining money contained in their bank accounts illegally.
Officers say they’re instituting new procedures to assess peculiar behavior, and may conduct roadside interrogations to spot motorists who may have to fork over their bank funds.”[2]
So the police in America have trans morphed from highway patrol to highway robbers. The civil government has no qualms about robbing its citizens in broad daylight and claiming it is lawful. That’s what the Statist idol looks like. In contrast, the one true God invites us to give to the work of building His Kingdom.
[1] http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ACLU-maya-dillard-smith-quits-transgender/2016/06/02/id/731990/#ixzz4B7QJEYAb
[2] http://www.infowars.com/state-police-swiping-motorists-debit-prepaid-cards-to-seize-money/
david whitney
Previous FBI Told the Orlando Shooter’s Wife Not to Tell This to the American Media
Next From Serfs to Sovereigns
Rev. David Whitney has been teaching the Christian heritage and history of our country with Institute on the Constitution for over a decade where he serves as Senior Instructor, and Radio show host on Dr. Stan Monteith’s Radio Liberty.
David is an Honors Scholar graduate from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree from Denver Seminary. A minister for 32 years he is currently the Pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church of Pasadena, Maryland.
As an member of Clergy, Activist and Radio personality David has appeared in Washington Times, on Voice of America, Fox, ABC, NBC, CSPAN, BBC, and more…
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365 Prince Songs
Stevie Nicks ‘Stands Back’ While Prince Works His Magic: 365 Prince Songs in a Year
Debra Filcman
Modern Records / Warner Brothers
To celebrate the incredibly prolific, influential and diverse body of work left behind by Prince, we will be exploring a different song of his each day for an entire year with the series 365 Prince Songs in a Year.
Even on the day in 1983 that she married now ex-husband Kim Anderson, Stevie Nicks couldn't refuse her muse. As the couple drove out to Santa Barbara for their honeymoon, Nicks heard Prince's "Little Red Corvette," his big hit at the time off of 1999, on the radio. She spent the rest of the night writing the song it inspired: "Stand Back," which she recorded for 1983's The Wild Heart.
"It just gave me an incredible idea, so I spent many hours that night writing a song about some kind of crazy argument, and it was to become one of the most important of my songs," Nicks wrote in the liner notes for her greatest hits album Timespace in 1991. "I've been doing this song for years, Fleetwood Mac does it also, and I never get tired of it. 'Stand Back' has always been my favorite song onstage, because...when it starts, it has an energy that comes from somewhere unknown...and it seems to have no timespace. I've never quite understood this sound...but I have NEVER questioned it."
And while the Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter technically wrote it, she's long admitted the song "belongs" to Prince, whose synthesizer work is even on the recording, but never received a credit on the album. Once it was written borrowing the "Little Red Corvette" melody, she called Prince, told him of her inspiration, and asked him if he would meet her at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. Twenty minutes later, he was there.
"I didn't have to call and tell him that I kind of ripped off his song, but I did because I'm honest," she told Billboard. Nicks played the song for him and asked if he hated it.
"He said, 'No,' and walked over to the synthesizers that were set up, was absolutely brilliant for about 25 minutes, and then left," she told Timothy White for his 1991 book Rock Lives. "He was so uncanny, so wild, he spoiled me for every band I've ever had because nobody can exactly re-create — not even with two piano players —what Prince did all by his little self.
The song went to No. 5 in the U.S. Billboard Top 100, and it marked the beginning of a long relationship, though the two didn't spend a lot of time together. At one point, following a Fleetwood Mac show, she was flattered to realize Prince was putting the moves on her.
"We get into his purple Camaro and bomb out onto the freeway at 100 m.p.h. I’m terrified, but kind of excited too,” she recalled, but quickly added that things stayed platonic. “I get on the plane and the rest of the band are like [drum fingers, rolls eyes],” she laughed. “I’m like, ‘What? Nothing happened.'”
Nonetheless, their musical collaboration "turned into a really amazing relationship. Is my heart broken? Absolutely," Nicks told Billboard after Prince's death, and noted that she regrets having never performed the song live with him.
One thing they disagreed on was drug use: "He hated them. And he hated that I did drugs and that's probably why we didn't hang out more," she told the Associated Press. "He was worried that I would die of an accidental drug overdose and my sadness is that he did die of an accidental drug overdose. He's up there looking down, saying to me, 'Sweetie, I can't believe it happened either.'"
As she began a tour in September 2016, Nicks acknowledged that performing her hit will take on new resonance. "I will be singing it for the first time without Prince being on the planet," she continued. "That is going to be horrible, but it doesn't mean that I don't want to pay homage to my 'Little Red Corvette' friend. I'll sing it forever for him now."
"Stand Back" wasn't their last attempt at a collaboration. After working together on her song, she asked him if they might ever write a song together. In response, Prince sent Nicks a demo of the title track to the soundtrack for Purple Rain, asking her to write lyrics for the music.
“It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track, that I listened to it and I just got scared,” Nicks remembered. “I called him back and said, ‘I can’t do it. I wish I could. It’s too much for me.’ I’m so glad that I didn’t, because he wrote it, and it became ‘Purple Rain.'”
There was also a demo, posted to Fleetwood Mac's YouTube channel on the day of Prince's death, that was reportedly recorded by the pair but never released. It's called "All Over You."
Listen to Prince and Stevie Nicks' "All Over You"
Prince Year by Year: 1977-2016 Photographs
Next: Prince Defies Expectations on 'Raspberry Beret'
Filed Under: Prince
Categories: 365 Prince Songs
25 Big Things That Didn't Exist Before Nirvana's Last Concert
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