Air Force Ready For Saturday's Armed Forces Bowl

We are pretty excited. Can you believe it's already been ten years? I reflect being back in the stands the very first year of this game as a fan and thinking where this game is going to be in the future. The first year was lightning in a bottle, two top 20 teams and that was the start of the Boise BCU rivalry that has grown over the past few years.

I was fortunate to come on board the second year, just got married, got this job with a little company called ESPN and started in late October and I strutted on that field in late December, 15 degrees, looking at empty frozen seats and going, what the heck have I gotten myself into here.

After the third year, we obviously needed a change. We have done well with tickets but what can we do to make this a better event. Collaboratively, we put our minds together and said hey, we need to do something special. Let's honor the Armed Forces, got ESPN to sign off on that and within a week after that announcement, Bell Helicopter stepped on board and became our title sponsor. We have had a fabulous relationship the last several years, now on board for next year as well. We could not be more proud of what they have done to enhance this Bowl game.

The last seven years, a lot of great memories on the field between the teams. A lot of things we do during the time outs of the games and at halftimes, we create some very special memories for the fans and the players who are the Wounded Warriors that we have at the game. We have created additional awards like the Great American Patriot Award that we will do at half time once again and I will get into that in a second.

But a lot of special memories the last seven years and we are excited about this thing and together with Air Force and Rice, perfect for what we are all about, two teams. The first one, Air Force, second in the nation in running this year, they are young, they have 18 or 19 kids from Texas. And you have got Rice on the other side with pretty much 90 percent of their team from Texas, and they are very young, only seven seniors on their team and they finished their year quite strong winning five of their last six and four in a row to finish the year. We feel they are going to give us a great game and we look forward to it very much.

Tickets, we have about 2,000 tickets left at this point. They are going quite well, both teams are taking care of their allotments. We have also had great a rush on our military tickets. I don't know if everybody knows, but our corporate partners are required to buy military tickets for the families to attend the game for free. We probably have 12,000, 13,000 tickets outs there just because of that program.

So the stands tomorrow should be more than half full with military families to be honored, so we are really looked forward to that.

THE MODERATOR: Obviously next year we have Navy here, a Mountain West team. Can I add fuel to the fire and say a rematch for Air Force next year?

BRANT RINGLER: I think Air Force would relish that for sure. You'd have to talk to Coach about that. We would always love to have a matchup like that. That would be phenomenal, but probably not. We'll see what happens.

We do want to point out a couple of things in regards to what we have done this year. We always like to say we are more than a Bowl game. We started a new program called the Armed Forces Merit Award and partnered with the Football Wives Association. You see the trophy in the back. Our first recipient this year was Nate Boyer, a long snapper for the University of Texas.

We thought this award was something we wanted to begin this year to honor people that have served our nation and have come back and given back to football, people, organizations. There are several conferences that do things for the military, as well but we thought it was a perfect match with our Bowl game with this award. We have something special and we hope it will continue to grow and thank you very much.

Our game tomorrow, want to share a couple of things with you that we will be doing. Starting in the morning we have great festivities outside the stadium. It's overflowing from the area we originally designed it for. And we have a pregame concert; I want everybody to in the stadium early because we are having one heck of a pregame show, and obviously the Rice fans are going and they are special.

We also have a dual jump team, the Wings of Blue and the Silver Wings of the Army jumping together. Dana Bowman will be jumping with them; he's a double amputee. And we are bringing in a 1,500 square foot American flag, one of the largest you'll ever see.

We also have the National Champions Rifle Drill Team, J.P. Elder Middle School, which is a middle school here, will be on the field doing that. And then throughout the game we will be honoring different people. We are doing a home giveaway and a $3,000 presentation to Operations Finding Homes, one of our partners.

And at half time we have some special events, too. We have a Great American Patriot Award recipient thanks to Armed Forces Insurance. We have General Norton Schwartz, which is the 22nd Air Force Chief of Staff just recently retired will be receiving the award. Following that General Whistler from the Marine Corps will be inducting over 125 recruits into the military, and then we have a very special Wounded Warrior tribute.

We have over 300 family members with Wounded Warriors at our game that we will be hosting in the south end zone thanks to the Air Power Foundation here locally, hosting with food and drink and everything. They are going to bring about 100 Wounded Warriors out on the field from half time, and it's not just from Afghanistan and Iraq; it goes all the way back to Vietnam, Korea. We have about 15 to 20 World War II veterans that will be with us, as well. It should be quite impressive for us to honor them.

But we are excited, excited about all the military and Armed Forces elements we have before the game and obviously the game itself, these two teams will put on a great show, you already know that.

Pennsylvania’s Banking Modernization Package

H.B. 2369 amended the DOBS Code to grant the Department the authority to impose a civil money penalty of up to $25,000 per violation against an institution, or any of its officers, employees, directors, or trustees for: violations of any law or Department order,engaging in any unsafe or unsound practice, or breaches of a fiduciary duty in conducting the institution’s business. This is a significant enforcement tool that the Department can use against institutions that violate Pennsylvania law.

Another very significant amendment to the DOBS Code is the repeal of the requirement that the Department issue prior warning to an institution, or its officers, employees, directors or trustees, before initiating an enforcement action. Thus, the Department can issue an order against an officer, employee, director, or trustee of an institution for a violation of law, engaging in an unsafe or unsound practice, or breaching a fiduciary duty. In addition, the Department can immediately suspend those individuals if the Department believes that the institution, its shareholders, or depositors have suffered or may suffer significant financial harm or other prejudice from that individual’s continued involvement with the institution. Should the Department prevail at a post-removal due process hearing, the individual could be disqualified from working not only for the institution he or she was removed from, but from working for any Pennsylvania institution, credit union or licensee, for a period of time to be determined by the Department. While the initial removal order will remain confidential, any final order issued will likely be published on the Department’s website.

Third, the amendments to the DOBS Code clarify the Department’s authority to issue "orders" such as cease-and-desist orders, orders to show cause, consent agreements and orders, and notices of fines pursuant to five of the 12 statutes under the Department’s jurisdiction, which, as codified, do not provide the Department with the ability to "order" corrective action or money penalties for violations of those acts. See the Check Casher Licensing Act, 63 P.S.  2304; the Consumer Discount Company Act, 7 P.S.  6212; the Credit Services Act, 73 P.S.  2190; the Money Transmitter Act, 7 P.S.  6110, and the Pawnbroker License Act, 63 P.S.  281-8. New section 202.D provides the Department with "order" authority so that it can better enforce the laws under its jurisdiction and no longer has to rely on the attorney general, district attorneys or other law enforcement authorities to initiate enforcement actions to enforce those statutes.

Fourth, the DOBS Code was amended to permit the release of certain information with the public regarding institutions and credit unions similar to the 2008 amendment to the DOBS Code, which permitted the Department and its employees to share certain information to the public without violating the confidentiality provisions of section 302. In addition, the institutions themselves will be permitted to disclose formal enforcement actions similar to orders issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve Board without making a prior written request to the Department.

 The DOBS Code amendments expand state "visitorial powers" over national banks to comply with Dodd-Frank’s codification of the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Cuomo v. Clearing House Association, 129 S.Ct. 2710. The Supreme Court held that the New York attorney general’s law enforcement power – for example, the power to enforce non-preempted laws such as New York’s fair lending law – is distinguishable from the supervisory power over national banks, which is a power exclusive to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency . Dodd-Frank codified the Cuomo opinion and provides that state attorneys general may initiate civil actions against national banks and federal savings associations in order to enforce regulations of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"), certain other applicable federal laws, and state laws not preempted by federal law. However, such power does not extend to enforcing Dodd-Frank in general, except as noted.

Accordingly, Pennsylvania’s attorney general can initiate civil actions against national banks, federal savings banks, and state-chartered institutions with respect to Pennsylvania’s non-preempted laws, as well as to enforce Title X of Dodd-Frank and regulations promulgated by the CFPB. It will be interesting to see if the attorney general attempts to initiate such actions against national banks, especially when Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general is sworn into office in January 2013.

The attorney general’s ability to initiate civil actions against financial institutions, credit unions, licensees, foreign financial institutions, national banks, federal savings associates or their subsidiaries will be subject to approval of, or brought at the request of, the Department. If the attorney general refuses to initiate an action at the request of the Department, new section 506 of the DOBS Code provides that the Office of General Counsel ("OGC") may initiate an action on behalf of the Commonwealth. However, Dodd-Frank only authorizes an attorney general or the attorney general’s equivalent to initiate actions against national banks or federal savings associations. It is questionable whether the OGC, as the attorneys representing the governor and agencies under the governor’s jurisdiction, is the equivalent of the Office of Attorney General, which is an independent agency with the authority to represent the governor or administrative agencies in civil action in Pennsylvania pursuant to the Commonwealth Attorneys Act. 71 P.S. 　732-201, 732-301.

The DOBS Code has further been amended in light of Dodd-Frank to clarify that the Department can examine subsidiaries of national banks and their employees in order to enforce state consumer financial laws to the extent not otherwise preempted by federal law. Subsidiaries of national banks and federal savings associations doing business in Pennsylvania should anticipate examinations by the Department for compliance with state and local laws and regulations as if such laws and regulations apply to Pennsylvania state-chartered institutions and their subsidiaries. In addition, the DOBS Code has been amended to grant the Department the authority to share information with the CFPB, such as reports of examination.

New section 506.I of the DOBS Code provides that Pennsylvania’s consumer financial laws not otherwise preempted by federal law apply to national banks and federal savings associations and their subsidiaries as though they are state-chartered institutions. Dodd-Frank provides that state consumer financial laws are preempted only if:the state consumer financial law would have a "discriminatory effect" on national banks; the state consumer financial law "prevents or significantly interferes with the exercise by the national bank of its powers" in accordance with the Supreme Court decision in Barnett Bank of Marion County, N.A. v. Nelson, Florida Insurance Commissioner, et al.the "State consumer financial law is preempted by a provision of Federal law other than." See section 1044 of Dodd-Frank. In addition, section 1044 of Dodd-Frank codified the Barnett holding by providing that a reviewing court shall assess the determinations of the OCC, the reasoning, the consistency with other determinations, and any other relevant factors for the court. Finally, the amendments clarify that state consumer financial laws also apply to foreign financial institutions, which include institutions regulated by other states and other countries.

Lastly, the provisions of new section 506 of the DOBS Code make it clear that no other Pennsylvania agency or political subdivision may exercise the Department’s powers and responsibilities without express authorization by the Department. Such agencies would be permitted to enforce any other permitted power so long as enforcement is not related to or incidental to the banking or financial activities, or operations or conditions of such entities. The restrictions on initiating enforcement actions in no way impact the Pennsylvania attorney general or municipal and law enforcement agencies’ ability to commence criminal proceedings against financial institutions.

US wanted to warn Argentina about South Georgia

 The proposal, by US secretary of state Alexander Haig, was intended to show the military junta in Buenos Aires that America was a neutral player and could be trusted to act impartially during negotiations to end the conflict.

However, the British ambassador in Washington was so appalled that he demanded a categorical assurance it would not happen and warned that any advance notice could lead to devastating submarine or air attacks.

The heated exchanges are detailed in previously secret files released by the National Archives, which show how strained the special relationship became during the British campaign in the Falkland Islands.

Ronald Reagan, the then US President, made repeated last-ditch attempts to persuade Margaret Thatcher to negotiate a truce so the Argentinians could save face and avoid "complete humiliation".

He feared that support for a European colonial power would undermine ties with Latin America and hamper Washington’s covert campaign against communism in the western hemisphere.

 Thatcher refused, telling Mr Reagan in a late night phone call on May 31st, 1982 that she would "not contemplate" a ceasfire after the loss of "precious British lives".

She also rejected demands to hand the Falklands over to a joint US-Brazilian peacekeeping force, saying that she had not sent British forces across the globe just to "hand over the Queen's islands to a contact group".

Separately, Mrs Thatcher found herself subject to demands from the Pope John Paul II. In one telegram, he calls on God to help "secure an immediate ceasefire. Thatcher, however, stood her ground, replying that Argentine aggression "cannot be allowed to succeed".

The British government also warned the Holy Father that if he cancelled a visit during the Falklands it would be "interpreted by the British public and others as a pro-Argentine gesture"

While US defense secretary Caspar Weinberger proved a staunch ally of Britain from the outbreak of war on April 2 1982, authorising secret shipments of weapons vital to the task force, the US state department was anything but sympathetic to British interests.

Despite secretly supplying Britain with weapons and equipment, relations with the US were strained even before the task force landings. During a meeting with Sir Nicholas on April 21, just as SAS forces were landing in South Georgia, Haig said he was considering sharing intelligence with the Argentineans.

It feared support for a European colonial power would undermine ties with Latin America and hamper Washington’s covert campaign against communism in the western hemisphere.

During a meeting on April 21, as SAS troops were already landing on South Georgia to reconnoitre Argentinian positions, Haig explained his thinking to Sir Nicholas Henderson, Britain’s ambassador to the United States.

“Haig said that he had been giving further thought to our proposed operation, an event that he was sure would alter the whole scene,” wrote Henderson in a cable to London. “His immediate concern was the problem that it would cause for the US in their dealings with Argentina.

"The latter would regard it as an act of collusion between Washington and London. The Argentinians would know that they, the Americans, must have had prior knowledge of the intended invasion. Haig told me that in fact they had collateral intelligence now of the presence of the task force off South Georgia.

"The Argentinians would be deeply suspicious if the Americans had done nothing, having received information of British military intentions. He therefore thought that he would have to give the Argentinian junta advance notice of our intended operation.

"He would say that they knew about this from their own intelligence sources. He would only notify them at a sufficiently late time so that this would involve no military threat to us.

"If the Americans acted in this way they would be able to show even-handedness to the Argentinians and this would enable them to continue their role as go-between.”

In fact, any warning could have been disastrous. Neither the British nor the Americans were aware of the presence of the Argentinian submarine Santa Fe in the area, and the junta had also planned a long-range attack on an invading force using Canberra bombers.

South Georgia, a mountainous wasteland of rock and ice, was defended by 140 troops who would have benefitted from even a few hours’ notice of an attack. Henderson was flabbergasted.

“I expressed strong objection to what Haig had told me,” he wrote. “It would be taken extremely adversely in London as going much further than the requirements of negotiating neutrally required. To hand on to the Argentinians US intelligence about British movements and intentions at an extremely delicate moment was to help them and was not simply to be neutral.

“The Argentinians might well turn such prior intelligence to their own use against our invasion force. They would certainly give the marines and other Argentinians present in South Georgia advance warning. They might well give their submarines instructions to attack our ships. They could mount a suicide air attack upon our naval forces.”

In what must at times have been a heated exchange, Haig and his deputy, Lawrence Eagleburger, backed down, saying it “would not do” at if prior warning led to “military difficulties” for the British.

But they wanted to know how the US could preserve its status as a neutral negotiator.

“I said that I must insist beyond shadow of doubt that they would not give prior notice to the Argentinians,” wrote Henderson. “Haig gave me an absolute assurance on that point.”

Pym, who had replaced Lord Carrington as Foreign Secretary following the latter’s resignation over the seizure of the Falklands, was equally appalled.

“I am grateful to you for having averted what could have been a very dangerous development,” he wrote to Henderson. “I find it amazing that it should have crossed the Americans’ mind that they ought to tell the Argentinians about our impending move.”

In a sign that he did not trust the Americans, Pym told Henderson to be deliberately vague about the timing of the South Georgia operation, citing the uncertain weather.

On May 25, four days after the British landing at San Carlos, Haig was asserting US interests again.

“We are fast approaching the point at which the UK will have a decisive local military advantage, with success clearly within

your reach,” he told Pym. “At that point, the Argentines could feel compelled to turn to the Cubans and Soviets as their last hope to avert total humiliation. Should Galtieri resist these pressures, he could be swept aside and replaced by those far more hostile to fundamental western interests.

Even if the Argentines do not open themselves to the Soviets and Cubans, they are virtually certain to want to continue a state of war.”

That, he warned, would result in an open-ended conflict and international isolation for the UK and US. The solution was for British forces to withdraw once Port Stanley had fallen. “

The US would be prepared to provide a battalion-sized force for the purpose of ensuring that there would no violation of any interim agreement preceding a final settlement,” he continued.

“Because of what has happened to our standing with the Argentines as a result of our support for you, there is no chance a US-only force would be acceptable. We would therefore need to persuade the most trustworthy major hemispheric power – Brazil – to join us. A combined force would represent a credible deterrent and assure the security of the islanders for the period of an interim agreement.”

Dark Money Helped Democrats Hold a Key Senate Seat

In the waning days of Montana's hotly contested Senate race, a small outfit called Montana Hunters and Anglers, launched by liberal activists, tried something drastic.

 It didn't buy ads supporting the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Jon Tester. Instead, it put up radio and TV commercials that urged voters to choose the third-party candidate, libertarian Dan Cox, describing Cox as the "real conservative" or the "true conservative."

The pro-Cox ads were part of a national pattern in which groups that did not disclose their donors, including social welfare nonprofits and trade associations, played a larger role than ever before in trying to sway U.S. elections. Throughout the 2012 election, ProPublica has focused on the growing importance of this so-called dark money in national and local races.

Such spending played a greater role in the Montana Senate race than almost any other. With control of the U.S. Senate potentially at stake, candidates, parties and independent groups spent more than $51 million on this contest, all to win over fewer than 500,000 voters. That's twice as much as was spent when Tester was elected in 2006.

"It just seems so out of place here," said Democrat Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana who leaves office at the end of this year. "About one hundred dollars spent for every person who cast a vote. Pretty spectacular, huh? And most of it, we don't have any idea where it came from. Day after the election, they closed up shop and disappeared into the dark."

Political insiders say the Montana Senate race provided a particularly telling glimpse at how campaigns are run in the no-holds-barred climate created by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, giving a real-world counterpoint to the court's assertion that voters could learn all they needed to know about campaign funding from disclosure.

In many ways, Montana was a microcosm of how outside spending worked nationally, but it also points to the future. Candidates will be forced to start raising money earlier to compete in an arms race with outside groups. Voters will be bombarded with TV ads, mailers and phone calls. And then on Election Day, they will be largely left in the dark, unable to determine who's behind which message.

All told, 64 outside groups poured $21 million into the Montana Senate election, almost as much as the candidates. Party committees spent another $8.9 million on the race.

The groups started spending money a year before either candidate put up a TV ad, defining the issues and marginalizing the role of political parties. In a state where ads were cheap, they took to the airwaves. More TV commercials ran in the Montana race between June and the election than in any other Senate contest nationwide.

The Montana Senate race also shows how liberal groups have learned to play the outside money game — despite griping by Democratic officials about the influence of such organizations.

Liberal outside groups spent $10.2 million on the race, almost as much as conservatives. Conservatives spent almost twice as much from anonymous donors, but the $4.2 million in dark money that liberal groups pumped into Montana significantly outstripped the left's spending in many other races nationwide.

As in other key states, conservative groups devoted the bulk of their money in Montana to TV and radio ads. But sometimes the ads came across as generic and missed their mark.

Liberal groups set up field offices, knocked on doors, featured "Montana" in their names or put horses in their TV ads. Many of them, including Montana Hunters and Anglers, were tied to a consultancy firm where a good friend of Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's campaign manager, is a partner.

The end result? Tester beat Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg by a narrow margin. And the libertarian Cox, who had so little money he didn't even have to report to federal election authorities, picked up more votes than any other libertarian in a competitive race on the Montana ballot.

Montana Republicans blamed Montana Hunters and Anglers, made up of a super PAC and a sister dark money nonprofit, for tipping the race. Even though super PACs have to report their donors, the Montana Hunters and Anglers super PAC functioned almost like a dark money group. Records show its major donors included an environmentalist group that didn't report its donors and two super PACs that in turn raised the bulk of their money from the environmentalist group, other dark money groups and unions.

"Part of what's frustrating to me is I look at Montana Hunters and Anglers and say, 'That is not fair,'" said Bowen Greenwood, executive director for the Montana Republican Party. "I am a hunter. I know plenty of hunters. And Montana hunters don't have their positions. It would be fairer if it was called Montana Environmental Activists. That would change the effect of their ads."

Cox and Tester deny the group's efforts swung the race. No one from Montana Hunters and Anglers returned calls for comment.

Tester, who's argued that all groups spending on elections should disclose their donors and also pushed against super PACs, said he wasn't familiar with any of the outside groups running ads. By law, candidates are not allowed to coordinate with outside spending groups, which are supposed to be independent.

"If we wouldn't have had folks come in on our side, it would have been much tougher to keep a message out there," Tester said. "We had no control over what they were saying. But by the same token, I think probably in the end if you look at it, they were helpful."

Caution, quality reigned in the art market

The recovering art market following the meltdown of the last few years brought along with it a degree of caution, heightened awareness about quality, more bargaining to get value for money and bigger canvases and ambition in the world of Indian contemporary and modern art in 2012.

India also saw the inauguraion of its first art biennale at Kochi Dec 12, drawing on a cast of 88 artists from 34 countries and 1,500 performers.

Business picked up this year powered by the new segments of young buyers who looked for affordable art to begin new collections, brisk e-commerce, a diversified and bouyant auction market and new art fairs like the United Art Fair pushing education and hand-holding to new levels for first-time buyers.

Galleries with deeper pockets and a new rush of private archives - owned by collectors and entreprenuers - have given fresh life to exhibitions with multi-media displays that are more interactive, long-haul and socially relevant. Art, in some ways, freed itself from the confines of institutionalised spaces to move to democratic and public venues to trigger fresh dialogues and engagement between people, issues, aesthetics and societies at large.

Since the beginning of this year art was used as a frequent tool for soft diplomacy with the government hosting South Asian art camps and galleries choreographing their group showcases with Asian, western and Indian artists to facilitate cultural exchanges. The globalisation of Indian art changed track in 2012, with art falling back on traditional roots to compete with western ethos in international arenas - at biennales and art fairs across Asia, Europe and the US.

Till a few years ago, an emerging group of artists was aping the West to develop a univeral global language in art with new media expressions - to address issues common to the world, art analysts said.

Artist Paresh Maity, who was honoured with the Dayawati Mody Award for 2012 for contribution to art and culture, said: "Indian artists could have a different language, but the content had to be from our culture."

Two major exhibitions mirrored the nuanced history of Indian art. "Indian Highways" was a travelling exhibition of contemporary Indian art in China reflecting new social realities within the mosaic of Indian sensibilities, while "The Last Harvest: Sesquicentennial Exhibition of Paintings by Tagore," was a collection of nearly 100 paintings that came to the country in November.

A series of South Asian and ASEAN artists' camps and exhbitions backed by the government opened up new engagements in the regional front to look at shared realities.

"Art fairs, galleries to the Kochi Biennale... Artists are getting more ambitious. Works are getting larger but our aesthetics still remain decorative - grounded in Indian figurative motifs. Our legacy has always been decorative. And the world which has gone through major changes in art is coming round to appreciating our decorative
aesthetics. I genuinely think it is India's moment in the sun," art critic, curator and writer Kishore Singh told IANS.

Kishore Singh, who heads the publications, exhibitions and curations wings at the Delhi Art Gallery, one of the leading art houses in the capital, said the business trend in arts in 2012 has been "bargaining".

"Buyers have been demanding more for less. I think it is a trend which will continue for a while," he said.

The dividing line between art, sculpture and the new media has been melting down since the beginning of this year, says curator and writer Sushma Bahl.

"There is crossover between different art forms. Works are conceptually stronger because artists are becoming more articulate with stories to narrate through their art. The concepts are serious," Bahl said.

"Post-conceptual" as a trend is being chanted by many younger Indian artists - who are falling back on simple everyday realities as the basis of their narrative art.

The stories told through art this year had more to do with engagement with community, social ills, state of the country and history. The utilitarian aspect of art was in sharp focus this year than the years before.

A flip side in the campaign to make art more identifiable with issues was an element of "phony conceptualisation and commitment to causes". It crept into the works of several leading multi-media artists.

"Everybody was trying to make art more socially revelant in an attempt to think out of the box... I think our artists were trying to ape the west. The western artists have been doing it (concepts) for several years and we are years behind," Bahl told IANS.

As a result, the spotlight was back on paintings this year rather than on conceptual aesthetics work happening. It had more to do with the mind than the skill of the body," gallerist and curator Sunaina Anand of Art Alive told IANS.

In terms of market, "the focus was on quality and the correct market price".

"Several works of F.N. Souza were available in the market, but their prices were varied. Anything and everything could not pass off because the buyers were more well-informed and were cautious about what they were spending on," Anand said. Masters of modern art ruled the price chain like in other years.

"When I arrived in 2009 I realised that this beautiful theatre in particular had sparked-off memories for generations of audiences in a very special way," he said.

"It's one of the most loved theatres in the country and it belongs to its audience, so we decided we would invite members of the public who had been to the theatre to return with a memory of it so that we could record it."

One man who responded to the invitation had come as a child to see pantomimes in the 1930s but had not been since.

"He was away for over 70 years and he took us back into the theatre, sat down in the seat where there used to be a bench and as he was sitting there he suddenly remembered a song which a pantomime dame had sung to him and he sang it for us and we recorded it," said Mr Morris.

More recently 26-year-old Ava Maginnis, from the Totterdown area of Bristol, remembered waiting in the wings on the right-hand side of the stage before a performance.

"It was May Fest 2010 and it was a cold, dark night," she said.

"There were 15 or 16 of us waiting to go on and we had to be quiet even though we were really nervous.

"I sat in a big armchair so I wasn't buzzing when I went on stage naked. I remember feeling fear because it was a big event, but not because I was going to be naked."

The archive also includes a memory from the senior project manager working on the theatre's recent refurbishment.

Andrew Stocker, the duty manager who has worked at the theatre for 30 years and who also conducts tours, tells how one night a security guard was checking the back door in the Pitt corridor was locked when he suddenly smelled lavender perfume waft across his face.

"His dog, an Alsatian, wouldn't move and started barking and he absolutely didn't believe in ghosts and just told the dog to shut up. Then he heard a woman's voice behind him," said Mr Stocker.

"He turned around but there was no-one there. Then he heard two words: 'Get out'."

The most famous person to leave a memory tag in the theatre is the director Richard Air.

"Richard Air works in theatre because he remembers seeing Peter O'Toole playing Hamlet here in the 1950s," said Mr Morris.

"That was the memory which for him sparked off a whole career in theatre."

The new archive uses an indoor positioning system accessed via smartphones.

"Anyone will be able to come in and essentially you'll have a pair of headphones on and then you'll be able to walk through the building and when you get near the place where someone has left a memory you'll get some clues there's a memory there," said Mr Morris.

The Kettle Hits Back

The systematic demonisation of Narendra Modi in the media began with Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan. Though Patkar has played a historic role in raising awareness about the plight of villagers whose lands are arbitrarily taken away for mega dams and “development projects”, she did an incalculable harm to her own cause by overstating her case, especially with regard to resettlement operations of dam oustees in Gujarat. It projected Modi government in particular and all Gujaratis in general as intrinsically demonic forces that were out to decimate the “poor tribals”.

But when I went to Gujarat to do a small reality check first hand, I was appalled at the wide gap between the NBA propaganda and the reality on the ground. There was serious mismatch between the NBA critique of Modi and the reality of resettlement in Gujarat. That gave me the first glimpse of the power of Modi the doer, an able administrator capable of delivering what he promised. He took up the challenge posed by NBA in all seriousness and provided the first of its kind rehabilitation anywhere in India. That is why dam oustees voted with their feet and abandoned the NBA plank. I hope to tell that story another time. But from then on, Modi became the most favoured hate object of leftists, liberals, feminists, radicals, environmentalists et al.

However, the Gujarat riots of 2002 converted Modi bashing into an extremely rewarding career advancement strategy for media persons, NGO activists, academics and sundry intellectuals. Conversely, you are condemned to lifelong perdition, treated as a political and intellectual outcast subject to unending vilification campaigns starting with being labelled a fascist if you dare say one word either in defence of Modi or suggest a bit of caution to Modi bashers.

As the Congress party seems on decline there is increasing desperation in the air for all those who have survived on the Party’s patronage. The possibility of Modi emerging as a winner has put them in panic. That is why the media in general and TV anchors in particular have gone so overboard in demonizing Modi that even people like me who have been consistent critics of BJP feel revolted enough to say: “This has gone too far. Please don’t manipulate us beyond our tolerance limit.”

The most unforgivable crime attributed to Modi is that he orchestrated the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in 2002. He is alleged to be a man with a fascist mindset with Muslims of Gujarat supposedly living as an endangered minority in perpetual fear and insecurity.  Interestingly this charge is most loudly and aggressively levelled by NGO activists who have received massive support—financial material and political form the Congress party and its governments as well as powerful international donor agencies.

As far as riots, communal massacres and divisive politics is concerned, no party in India dares match the track record of Congress party in post independence years. It starts with gross mishandling of Kashmir through rigged elections, installing puppet regimes and then misusing the army to deal with the resulting popular discontent and disaffection. The result is for all to see—tens of thousands of killings and 'disappearance' of Kashmiri Muslims, near total cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley, and permanent regional and communal polarisation in the state.

The Khalistan wave in Punjab was also a creation of the Congress party through propping up Bhindranwale with a view to wresting control of resource rich gurudwaras and Punjab Assembly from the Akali Dal. The same foolish formula was applied in Sri Lanka by propping up the murderous LTTE which exacerbated ethnic strife leading to endless massacres total brutalisation and marginalisation of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Even with regard to Muslims, the riots politically orchestrated by the Congress in Jamshedpur, Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur, Hyderabad, Bokaro, Meerut, Malliana, Mumbai, Nellie and a host of other towns and cities as well as the most recent riots in Assam—all under Congress rule are not forgotten by the Muslim community which has stopped being a captive vote bank of the Congress.

Media collaborates with the Congress party in trying to make the country forget that the guilty of all these massacres have not been punished.

Gujarat itself was a tinderbox since the 1960s ever exploding into communal and caste riots after Indira Gandhi assumed power at the centre and Gujarat was ruled by her hand-picked chief ministers. Congress not only sowed the seeds of communal discord but also harvested several bloody crops from those poisonous seeds. The killings in 1969 and 1985 were on much larger scale and the violence lasted far longer than in 2002. By contrast BJP tried harvesting only one crop—that too in collaboration with the Congress party. The difference is the Congress party has not learnt any lessons whereas Modi became far wiser from the blunder of 2002.

Those pillorying Modi for 2002, display total amnesia over the fact that Congressmen and women had gleefully joined VHP/BJP goons in the 2002 massacre as well. It has consistently projected 2002 riots as a one way massacre of Muslims by Hindus. But as per figures given by the Congress party’s minister of state for home Shri Prakash Jaiswal on 11 May 2005 in Parliament, those killed included 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus while 223 persons were reported missing. But anti- Modi brigade routinely overstates the case by talking of “thousands of Muslims” being butchered without every acknowledging Hindu casualties. Nor is the death of 59 Hindus burnt to death at Godhra railway station ever treated with the same seriousness. In fact, many among the Modi-bashers brazenly allege that the Godhra train massacre was a VHP/BJP conspiracy, even though several known Congressmen have been convicted by the courts for that mass murder.

Compare 2002 Ahmedabad to 1984 anti Sikh riots in Delhi. Over 3000 Sikhs were butchered in Delhi alone, with thousands more in different towns and cities of north India. The anti-Sikh massacre of 1984 saw Congressmen lead killer-mobs who gang raped Sikh women, looted and burnt innumerable Sikh homes and properties, and roasted alive thousands of Sikh men in broad day light with the police merrily assisting the gangsters. Not a single Hindu rioter died at the hands of Sikhs or in police firing. The massacre was not confined to Delhi. Similar mode of butchery took place in several north Indian cities and towns. Uncounted Sikhs were pulled out of trains and set on fire. For three long days and nights the police either stood and watched the fun or actively assisted hired assassins. No Hindu homes were burnt in retaliatory violence by Sikhs. No Hindu had to go and live in refugee camps.  But in Ahmedabad, thousands of Hindus, a large number of them Dalits, had to take shelter in refugee camps. There were several instances of Muslim attacks on Hindu homes and shops. 34 Muslims have been sentenced by courts in Gujarat. But this is never mentioned even in passing in media discussion on 2002.

Hunters in the Snow

The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder was instrumental in developing landscape painting as a genre in its own right. Hunters in the Snow, 1565, is one of five surviving paintings (Bruegel painted six) in his cycle depicting The Labours of the Months. Populated by villagers, peasant workers, farmers, hunters and children, each painting is of a panoramic landscape at a different time of year. 

This chilly winter scene is a Christmas card favourite. But Bruegel is an artist whose work has also inspired art house directors, contemporary writers and modernist poets. Hunters in the Snow features in two Tarkovsky films, Solaris and The Mirror. More recently, it featured in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. That an image so closely associated with festive jollity should also be used in a way that underlines a sense of haunting unease isn't actually that surprising: Bruegel’s painting is powerful exactly because it provokes a sense of uneasy ambivalence.

It’s certainly an idealised scene, this snow-muffled land that dips steeply into a flat-bottomed valley where children in silhouette can be seen skating and playing ice hockey on a frozen lake. The spectacular peaks in the distance also make you wonder just how many mountainous ranges can be found in the Low Countries. Painted at a time of religious upheaval in the Netherlands, Bruegel was probably depicting country life how he imagined it once was, or how it should or could be.

Bruegel popularised the snowy landscape, influencing artists such as the deaf-mute painter Hendrick Avercamp, who specialised in jolly, silvery-hued scenes of ice-skaters, young, old, rich and poor. It was the epoch of the Little Ice Age, which chilled the Northern Hemisphere from the 16th to the 19th centuries (the Thames was last frozen solid in 1814, the year of the river’s last frost fair). In Hunters in the Snow one can almost feel the biting cold penetrate one’s bones, and even though most of the picture is taken up by landscape Bruegel has managed to give an extraordinary sense of light and space.

So what story does this painting tell? To our left, with their stooped backs presenting a strong outline against the snow and the light, we encounter the three hunters, trudging wearily through a carpet of white. Following close behind are their hunting dogs, each looking really rather sorry for itself. Two of the huntsmen are returning empty-handed, whilst a third, the most prominent, has only a dead fox hanging limply from his spear. It has been a disappointing day.

Further left, there is an inn, its wonky sign threatening to fall with just one gust of wind. Outside, a small group tend an open fire, which is beginning to look decidedly out of control. Everything feels a little provisional and precarious. A black bird is swooping low, while four are perched on branches. Do they convey a sense of foreboding? Cutting across the foreground in a sharp diagonal, and descending the snowy precipice, are the frost-dappled trees, their thin, black trunks rising high into the heavens, their branches creating a delicate pattern against the mint-grey sky. Beyond, the whole town is laid out dizzyingly before us, and indeed, there is something almost vertigo-inducing in this scene. It is both exhilarating and slightly unsettling.

This is a painting that offers us the light and shade of human existence. Bruegel’s hardy peasants toil through long, bitter winters, often gaining little or no reward. We see, however, that there is also delight to be had from being part of the cycle of nature. The tired hunters look down at a joyful, playful scene, but play no part in it themselves. Joy is ephemeral – or perhaps like the children on the ice, it belongs just over there, out of reach. We can chase it, but there are no guarantees. We might even catch snatches of it, but, like snow, it is likely to evaporate.



War has been the defining challenge for artists, as for society, for virtually all of history. And for most of the last century and a half the painting and sculpture have vied with photography as the means of best expressing its reality and its consequences. Nowhere more so than in the American Civil War.

Before then it was possible to picture a battle within the frame of a painting. It was not that artists ignored the horrors of war. Goya depicted the ravages of the decade-long Peninsular War in a series of engraving that have never been equalled for their honesty and their anger at what it was doing to victim and perpetrator alike. Turner took a particularly mournful view of the dead and dying that remained on the field of Waterloo the day after. But the portrayal of war was largely left in the hands of the celebrators of the victorious: Benjamin West, Jacques Louis-David and others. War was terrible but it was also heroic.

The American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, changed all that. It was the first full-out conflict in which the mechanics and destruction overwhelmed the individual actions of men, the first to be fought in prolonged and unremitting trench warfare. It was also the first to be covered by the new art of photography. Roger Fenton had been out in the Crimea a decade earlier, in a conflict that had seen the first signs of machine over man, but his pictures were largely traditional in composition, capturing the landscape, the encampments and the troops but not the destruction. The American Civil War was different. As many as 200 photographers are thought to have taken pictures and, in the hands of the best of them, the full reality of what it did to body and place was brought home to the public.

The impact of the photographers and the efforts of the painters to find a way of responding to the cataclysm that had fallen on their country is the subject of a quite remarkable and searching exhibition, The Civil War and American Art, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC. It is not a grand show. It is certainly not a comprehensive one. But what it does is to give a sense of the actuality that was now being shown by the photographers and the struggle traditional painters had in trying to respond in their own way to the conflict about them.

The photographs – new to me – taken by George Barnard of the devastation wreaked by Sherman's famous March to the Sea are stark evocations of the ruination of war. Alexander Gardner's shots of the dead after the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg are as great and as grim as any photographer achieved in the European world wars or Vietnam.

Painters couldn't compete with that, nor did they try. There were those, such as Thomas Buchanan Read and Fabrino Julio, who attempted to crown the conflict with works that glorified the heroism and the generals. But the Smithsonian, which eschews them, makes the point that these seemed archaic even then. By the time war broke out, American artists had moved away from painting in the European Grand Manner. Instead, they preferred landscape painting as a means of expressing the unique character of American "nature" and a folksy genre painting to describe its people. That hopefulness and fondness couldn't survive the war, for all the first belief that it would all be over in few weeks or months.

The skies of the painters became darker, the clouds more threatening, the mood more melancholy. Our Banner in the Sky painted by Frederic Edwin Church, the finest landscape artist of the day, as war broke out in 1861, has the sky violently streaked in red show. His pictures from a visit to the far north of the same period show nature, majestic but remorseless in its solitude, with man's presence puny and perished. Sanford Robinson Gifford's Twilight in the Catskills from the same year paints a picture of eerie silence, the sky dark red and the trees in the foreground bare of leaves and branches. A haunting pairing of two views of precisely the same spot, Paradise Rocks, Newport, painted by John Frederick Kensett in 1859 and then in 1865, has the former peopled with ducks and aglow with the sunrise while the latter is without life and only a dim light coming from behind lowering clouds.

Modern-day Flagstaff has deep centennial roots

A centennial anniversary out West is a wondrous thing -- unlike back East, anything lasting a hundred years here is automatically historic and worth examining more closely for its staying power.

Thus, as we come to the end of Arizona's first century as a state, it's a good time to look at how the ways that we live in Flagstaff today might have been shaped by forces at work at the beginning of statehood.

Flagstaff was incorporated in 1894, 18 years before statehood. Susannah Carney's excerpts this year from the Coconino Sun of both 125 years ago in 1887 and a hundred years ago in 1912 show what a difference 25 years can make -- a nearly lawless frontier town tamed by the leading families into a small but growing civic and business center.

Fast forward another hundred years, and some might say the Flagstaff of today would be nearly unrecognizable to those early settlers. But let's dig deeper into what gives Flagstaff its special sense of place and see how or if we recognize ourselves in the Flagstaff of 1912.

This is perhaps the most consistent theme over the course of the last century, thanks to Percival Lowell and his choice of what is now known as Observatory Mesa for his first telescope. But it hasn't been easy maintaining the momentum, despite the discovery of Pluto in 1931 and the arrival of more telescopes and astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory, the U.S. Geological Survey and Northern Arizona University. As the city and state grew, the clear night air at 7,000 feet began to be polluted by electric lighting, and only the pathbreaking Dark Skies initiative staved off what could have been the ruination of Flagstaff's astronomy industry.

This year, 100 years into statehood, Lowell Observatory dedicated a new telescope 40 miles southeast of Mars Hill at Happy Jack in partnership with the Discovery Channel. Meanwhile, the Flagstaff Festival of Science has grown into a 10-day extravaganza showcasing this region's deep interest in and love of science and discovery. It's almost like Uncle Percy never left us.

This is another Flagstaff narrative that won't go away as long as the Grand Canyon's South Rim remains just 80 miles from the city limits. Throw in other unique natural areas like the nearby Red Rocks of Sedona and the San Francisco Peaks and nearby volcanic fields, and it's unlikely that Flagstaff will ever lose its identity as a gateway city to these wonders.

Back in 1912, the Canyon was just becoming Grand, thanks to its dedication as a national park four years earlier and the paintings of Thomas Moran and other artists who brought the iconic landscape to life for Easterners. Miners had already staked claims and built trails below the rim, and Flagstaff's contribution was to promote better roads to get tourists in newfangled automobiles to the South Rim and back in one day.

Today, those roads and motor vehicles are even better, making the Canyon almost a backyard playground for many locals. But Flagstaff is no longer the main point of access -- the interstate highway system brings tourists each summer through our city but not necessarily to stay. And the rise of Las Vegas as a gaming and conference mecca has turned the Canyon into a half-day helicopter ride when luck is running low at the casinos.

It used to be that as the Canyon tourism season went, so went Flagstaff's hospitality industry that year. But today, the city's restaurant owners and hoteliers have realized they need to market Flagstaff as a two- or three-day hub destination in its own right and let the Vegas crowd do their own thing.

Even without the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff would still attract people who see in the four-season climate, high-elevation clean air and million-acre ponderosa pine forest a reason to get closer to the natural world.

A century ago, the early settlers saw the forest and grassy meadows as providing them with a way to not only get closer to the land but literally live off it. The lumber mills and cattle ranches that drove the local economy sprang from a verdant landscape that didn't exist in most of the rest of Arizona. If they overcut and overgrazed, it was mainly out of ignorance over just how much longer it would take the land to recover than back East or farther north in the even wetter Rockies.

The difference today is a greater scientific understanding of what it takes to restore conditions that will allow the forest just to survive, much less resemble preindustrial landscapes.

The recent drought decades have raised concerns over the forest even higher, as have the pressures that motorized access has placed on it. The old saying is that a healthy Flagstaff depends on a healthy forest, and residents today are much more attuned to just what "healthy" means. They will soon see the return of logging trucks to local roads, but this time hauling out small-diameter timber, not the big yellow-bellies of yesteryear.

Modern Flagstaff is more a hub than a crossroad -- various highways all lead to a city that is not only a county seat but also a center for shopping, health care, college education, government and legal services.

A century ago in 1912, the railroad had been in town for 30 years and roads for automobiles were just beginning to get attention from local officials as potential growth engines. Local residents could get more easily by rail to Los Angeles than to Phoenix.

In succeeding decades, air travel arrived after the first World War and cross-country highway travel after the second. People discovered Flagstaff sometimes by accident or while on vacation and decided to stay -- it's how W.L. Gore & Associates came to be located here.

But with easy access comes impermanence and transience. Flagstaff has long been a place to stop and try to make a new start after things didn't work out in California or back East. But it's not a cheap or easy place to put down roots, and the high turnover of a crossroads town endures today as it did when the railroad was carrying free spirits to a city that had a hard time holding them.

In some ways, the intentional community that persists today in the face of the higher cost of living caused by more expensive land in such a stunning natural setting has deep roots. The Babbitts, Riordans and other early entrepreneurs and their hired workers were risk-takers in an alien but fruitful land. The difference is that Flagstaff today relies not so much on its brawn as on its brains, even as it struggles to add better-paying jobs in sectors other than second-home construction, retail, government and hospitality. Some of the economic limitations the Flagstaff of 2012 is facing will test the resolve of community leaders to think outside the box in ways that Flagstaff's leaders of 1912 had already demonstrated by successfully courting not only Percival Lowell but also Northern Arizona Normal School.

Exhibit reveals the faces of Cambridge's homeless youth

Standing next to an image of himself staring out from behind a 3-foot poster, Ethan Stein said there was a lot that passersby don’t understand about the young people they see in the streets of Harvard Square.

“It’s not that I wanted to be homeless, but that’s where I am right now, and I’m just taking it one day at a time,” Stein said. “It’s better than being some place where people are angry all the time.”

The 24-year-old is one of hundreds of homeless youth filling the streets of the square and as of last Saturday, lining the walls of the Palmer Street pedestrian arcade as part of a national “Outside In Project,” which launched in Cambridge over the weekend.

“We’re all homeless and we’re all really young,” said Youth on Fire member Jerrod “Biggie” Basuscci, 24. “We don’t have a direction, but we’re trying to make something of ourselves.”

The exhibit, a partnership between Youth on Fire – a drop-in center for homeless youth in Harvard Square and a prevention program of the AIDS Action Committee – and the Center for Social Innovation, features 35 photographs on three-by-four-and-a-half-foot posters by local artist Anthony Pira. Pira said the idea is to bring the faces of homeless youth to the forefront.

“When you put a face on homelessness, it becomes real and people see it as a real problem,” Pira said. “People think homelessness is just the old guy on the park bench or they have stereotypes they associate with guys getting drunk, or people being in jail, but they don’t understand youth homelessness. …When you put these faces up there and associate with words like homelessness, that becomes real to people.”

Pira said they chose the Harvard Square location not only because it’s a mere two blocks from the Youth of Fire center, but also because the participants frequent the square.

“It’s such an important part for not only the community to see the images and raise awareness but also for the kids to see themselves because for the first time they’ll be able to see themselves as part of the community,” Pira said. “For so long their mentality is that they’ve been ignored or degraded.”

A fine-art-photographer-turned-social-work student, Pira said he initially began working on the project, which he called Invisible Faces, in March as part of an effort to raise awareness about funding needs for programs and organizations that serve homeless youth. Simultaneously, the Center for Social Innovation CEO Jeff Olivet said he was also beginning to work with French street artist JR, a photographer who won a TED Prize for pioneering the practice of plastering poster-sized portraits of vulnerable populations in public spaces.

 Olivet and JR envisioned a national campaign, but wanted to start in Cambridge where Olivet has an office. He reached out to Youth on Fire in the fall when he was informed the work was already underway.

“They said we’ve also got a photographer who has this Invisible Faces project going on and could we merge the two projects,” Olivet said. “So basically, we said, ‘Sure.’ We let Anthony’s photographs drive the national Outside In Project and we dovetailed the two for the action in Harvard Square over the weekend.”

Olivet said the Outside In Project was initially conceived with a broad focus on homelessness but the organization became “enamored” with the more narrowly focused youth campaign. Olivet said the Center for Innovation plans to replicate the work in a dozen or so cities across the country that will eventually culminate in what he called a “Youth Homeless Congress” in Washington D.C. comprised of homeless youth.

“The primary need is housing. It’s access to a decent space and affordable housing to end youth homelessness,” Olivet said. “It’s possible to end homelessness if we target our resources in the right way. …There’s also more funding needed for youth job training, and in the wake of the Connecticut shootings, more access to mental health care.”

Youth on Fire program manager, Ayala Livny, said the organization is facing a $10,000 shortfall in funding its meals program after several years of budget cuts eroded state funding for the non-profit. Masucci said Youth on Fire helped him get back on track. He’s ready to “age out” of the organization in a few months when he turns 25.

“The services they provide are so helpful – whether it’s food stamps, housing, getting an ID, finding a job,” Masucci said, adding the organization also takes the time to meet young people where they are in life. “A lot of people get too caught up in the homeless lifestyle to take time to go back to school. … But no matter what steps you take, however small, you’re still making progress and furthering your goals and they really get that.”

Although she said that raising awareness on a legislative level is important for Youth on Fire, Livny said the impetus behind the project was equally important.

“I say all the time that homeless youth are used to being invisible. People are rude or avoid making eye contact or looking them in the face. They’re used to people wishing they didn’t exist or pretending they didn’t exist and feeling small in the world,” Livny said. “To have those images writ large in the community is the opposite of being invisible; it’s being larger than life. It’s a really powerful and profound experience especially for people who are used to being marginalized.”

Olivet said the exhibit would be up as long as the wheat plaster holding up the portraits stays stuck, which he said could be anywhere from several weeks to several months.

Why big data means big business for online retailers

The explosive growth of online – and now omni-channel retailing – has resulted in a tremendous increase in transactional and shopper data. Retailers see opportunities to use this data not only to better personalise the shopping experience, but also to influence merchandising decisions on their sites, and in the case of multi-channel retailers, at store level.

Retailers that are harnessing the power of big data – companies such as Boots, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis – are seeing their efforts pay off with higher customer spending and improved retention rates.

While retailers are increasingly using data to improve the customer experience, there is still a long way to go before we can say the industry is truly data-driven. Due to the complexity of accessing, integrating and analysing data, as well as the time and cost of implementing data management systems, there is a bottleneck between retailers and this valuable asset. In a study by CEB, it was found that only 11% of retailers look at data to make decisions – let alone use data to drive real-time decision-making.

To thrive in today's business world, companies must adopt not just the technologies and talent to manage big data, but also the organisational culture. A data-driven company is a more meritocratic company, allowing numbers and results (instead of someone's rank or tenure) to provide the baseline for decision-making.

Companies such as Amazon and Google thrive on the principle that nobody's idea is above or below being tested. This type of flat hierarchical structure empowers everyone in the organisation to generate and test ideas. By using data to not only deliver an exceptional user experience, but also to drive incremental change, organisations will reduce time and costs spent on IT while also encouraging innovation.

Not all data is created equally. What sources of data should you acquire, and how can you get them? Can you ask your customers nicely for it? If so, what should you provide in return for data? You need to be asking yourselves all of these questions.

Securing the most meaningful data upfront will enable you to truly personalise your shoppers' experience. Being transparent with what information is collected, and providing options for how any such data are used, offers customers a sense of control and ownership in exchange for what they've shared.

Once you determine which data matters most for your business, consider and test the available data platforms to understand how you can best analyse and act upon your acquired data. Traditional relational databases may be prohibitively expensive and less suited to the vast majority of unstructured customer data that is generated today – increasingly, cloud-based, open-source, non-relational database systems are enabling in-house analytics teams to perform ad hoc queries on complex data sets to quickly monetise customer data.

Customers don't think in channels – they expect a consistent experience from a retailer, whether they choose to shop in-store, online or by mobile. All retailers, whether multi-channel or not, need to develop a single view of the customer in order to provide this consistency and drive the execution of personalised, relevant marketing campaigns.

Getting this right can be extremely difficult, but becomes much easier when using open-source tools that can more easily integrate unstructured data sets from online transactions, in-store loyalty card activity and a myriad other sources.

Once a single view has been created, it is possible to tie together the execution of a message between multiple channels and target customers, allowing for personalised campaigns such as banner adverts, emails and website views. Personalisation brings better and more relevant retail experiences for consumers and helps retailers to accelerate shopping decisions through more relevant product exposure.

Data-driven companies such as Amazon and Google never stop testing. Retailers should adopt a robust experimental platform and replace costly IT project expenditures with small, low-cost and easy-to-execute tests. This is only possible if data can be easily accessed for ad hoc queries by the analytics team. By performing constant and ongoing tests of business process design, pricing, offer management, user interface design and marketing programmes, solutions can be improved incrementally and with a higher success rate.

Most retailers can only allocate the budget and resources for an average of three major IT projects each year, yet some projects that may not necessarily have the strongest ROI – such as social tool development – make their way on to the roadmap. Testing these innovations before committing to a major implementation will provide an accurate forecast of the results and help retailers steer clear of frivolous IT expenditures.

Amazon has a virtually unlimited budget, yet they test every move they make before implementing it across the site. Take a page from their playbook and add rigorous testing to your decision-making process.

Consumer purchasing decisions are influenced by a variety of external factors, including weather, location and special events. Weather, census and calendar data are just a few samples of data sets that can all be integrated into data management systems so that it becomes possible to more accurately predict customers' needs. By using this data, retailers have the opportunity to be creative when delivering the most relevant product recommendations and promotions to customers. One example of this is highlighted in the results of a study conducted by Lovehoney, which showed that levels of shopping activity were directly proportionate to the level of customer alcohol consumption. This allowed them to target customers between the hours of 4pm and 10pm, at times when they were most relaxed with the purchasing process.

The ability to identify, harness and (crucially) monetise relevant data can create a powerful advantage for retailers, yet many companies are only just starting to come to terms with how to turn data into meaningful customer insight. To become a data-driven organisation, retailers must adopt a culture of innovation, embrace open-source technologies and put data at the heart of every decision they make. Big data is only going to get bigger so there's no better time than the present for retailers to start treating data as their most cherished asset.

Pension schemes in need of their own superhero

The primary difficulty is the scale of change. In the UK and the Netherlands, Europe’s two biggest pensions markets, national authorities have embarked on overhauls of their systems. In the UK, the Government has decided to coerce companies into the paternalistic provision of pensions for all under the auto-enrolment plan, something from which many had been beating a retreat due to the onerous funding regulations.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch authorities have opted to relax funding standards – possibly at the cost of guaranteed benefits – to try to preserve a system acknowledged as one of Europe’s best.

Further east, governments have even begun to view pension funds as a source of capital to plug holes in their own budgets. At a recent conference in Frankfurt, Joanne Segars, chief executive of the UK’s National Association of Pension Funds and recently elected chairman of PensionsEurope, the EU-level trade association, reminded delegates of Hungary’s “effective nationalisation” of €10bn of private pension funds in 2011. Similar moves are now afoot in Russia.

At the same time, central banks have made the lives of pension schemes even more difficult with aggressive monetary easing policies. These are intended to save the wider economy from disaster but come at a cost for pension funds; by keeping bond yields low, monetary easing makes the pension liabilities, calculated using bond yields, appear much larger.

EU authorities are also persisting with efforts to add their own supranational pensions regulation. The European Commission remains publicly committed to the introduction of new funding standards based on the regulation that governs the insurance industry, Solvency II. The Commission is demanding a draft directive within seven months.

The speed of this timetable fills the pensions industries in the UK, the Netherlands and Ireland with dismay: the CBI recently warned the proposed reforms were a “disaster” that would cost the UK economy ￡350bn and 16,000 jobs.

The industry’s trade associations have been fighting battles on multiple fronts. Mike Taylor, chief executive of the ￡4.2bn London Pensions Fund Authority, said: “The trade associations are under-resourced, so pension funds find themselves relying to a large extent on the lobbying efforts of the fund managers.

“Firms such as BlackRock and JP Morgan do a lot putting the buyside’s case to regulators and Insight Investment has been particularly good too on European swaps and derivatives reforms.”

Europe’s biggest pension funds – which include the Dutch megafund ABP, with €240bn under management – have the scale to employ their own public affairs staff and make their own representations to regulators.

Managers certainly have an interest in lobbying on the more technical aspects of financial market reform and they have been involved in EU consultations on everything from new derivatives rules that threaten pension funds’ liability-hedging strategies, to new rules on corporate governance that call for schemes and managers to do more and disclose more of their efforts to hold company managements to account.

Taken together, the increased burdens of funding and governance could threaten the survival of the occupational pensions sector. The insurance industry stands ready to absorb the pension obligations companies no longer want or can afford.

Guy Freeman, co-head of business development at Rothesay Life, the buyout insurance subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, said: “It does create opportunities for us in the sense that corporates are becoming more focussed on settling their pension liabilities because of the complexity – and the gradually increasing scrutiny – they are facing. It reinforces the trend of money moving from the pensions sector to the insurance sector. This is a multi-year and a multi-decade trend.”

Last week, Rothesay struck this year’s biggest pensions buy-in with the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund. It is a partial buy-in, Rothesay agreeing to pay pensions only to the funds’ retired members, in return for a portion of the funds’ assets. The insurer is taking on 40,000 retired seafarers and ￡680m of assets.

But lobbying from the UK industry is not all without success. In October, the UK’s National Association of Pension Funds suggested a temporary relaxation of discount rates – the bond-yield-based rates used by funds to estimate their liabilities – and two months later, in his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor George Osborne announced these would be reviewed.

Three major upgrades include the furnace, windows and insulation and draft proofing the attic. The havoc is condensation on the inside of new windows, even when old aluminum framed windows are replaced with vinyl framed windows.

High-efficiency furnace: These no longer takes combustion air from the basement or furnace room area, removing moist air that has settled in the furnace area through the combustion process, thus reducing the moisture in the home. High-efficient furnaces draw combustion air through plastic pipes from the outside directly to the combustion chamber, and have a continual flow furnace fan to maintain a balanced ambient temperature.

Windows: New vinyl windows, if installed properly, are tight and sealed to the house envelop to stop drafts, as well as any excess humidity - or moisture - from being exhausted out around the old frames.

Insulation and draft proofing: Many homeowners have had insulation upgrades in their attics with NO draft proofing. Draft proofing is done before insulation upgrades are complete by caulking and sealing around electrical house wiring coming up through partition and exterior walls of the home, sealing vent stacks, light fixtures, plumbing stacks, chimney stacks and exhaust ventilation ducts. When draft proofing is overlooked, one sign would be dark stains on the underside of roof sheathing in the attic cavity. This movement of air containing moisture is pushed into the attic cavity by the forced air furnace when operating, pressurizing the home and pushing air anywhere there is a weakness .

Taking all three upgrades into consideration, review your home as a system. The question is: What did you do about the humidity building up inside your home if you didn't address the exhaust ventilation in the bathroom, kitchen and any moisture created within the home?

Cash business problematic for medical pot dispensaries

Checking accounts and credit-card machines for state-licensed dispensaries have become casualties of a crossfire between state and federal laws. Although Arizona voters approved marijuana in 2010 for certain medical conditions such as chronic pain and cancer, it remains illegal under federal law.

That means banks and credit unions, which are federally insured, steer clear of Arizona's new health buzz, citing federal regulators. Medical-marijuana proponents say banks also won't lend to the marijuana industry out of fear of federal seizures.

The cash-only conundrum is a nightmare for dispensaries, which have to set up safe houses and potentially use armored transport for the cash they collect. Just like any other business, dispensaries have to pay bills and taxes and meet payroll, but that's a lot trickier without a checking account or a revolving line of credit.

It also poses a safety risk for cash-wielding customers, who may become robbery targets. And Arizona's health director said the lack of bank accounts will make annual audits of dispensaries more challenging and potential fraud easier to pull off.

"I have personally been in all of the major banks, and all of the smaller banks, and a fair amount of the credit unions, and they've been told not to do business with us," said Bill Myer, of Arizona Organix in Glendale, which opened earlier this month and is the state's first dispensary.

A second dispensary in Tucson, Southern Arizona Integrated Therapies, is also taking only cash. Rouben Beglarian, president of the dispensary, said he's managed to land a business account with Wells Fargo, but he still can't get a credit-card machine.

"We are a small operation," he said, noting the dispensary is taking patients by appointment only. "We're not going to keep much cash on hand."

Wells Fargo could neither confirm nor discuss whether it had provided a bank account to Southern Arizona Integrated Therapies. But it did issue a statement saying, "Wells Fargo has opted not to bank these businesses.

"While marijuana legalization initiatives were recently approved in Colorado and Washington, and medical marijuana dispensaries are legal in some states, the sale and use of marijuana is illegal under federal law," the statement says.

State dispensaries must be nonprofits, and independent accountants will audit them each year.

Will Humble, director of Arizona's Department of Health Services, said the dispensaries will be regulated in a number of ways to ensure inventory control and that they truly are nonprofits. He said outside auditors will examine staff and board compensation, but he also said having dispensaries operate only in cash does open the door for fraud.

"When you operate a cash business, it certainly makes it easier to shift resources around," he said.

To keep tabs on transactions, dispensaries are required to log each sale on the date it's created.

"You walk in with your card, they verify the validity of your card, discuss how much you need and they sell that to you," he said. "But before you take possession, and you pay for it, they log into our database how much they sold to you."

Dispensaries log volume, not purchase price. It's a way of tracking inventory.

Because all banks are required to have insurance, the FDIC is a primary or secondary regulator, said Paul Hickman, president and chief executive of Arizona Bankers Association. Even state-chartered banks doing business only in Arizona need insurance provided by the FDIC.

But Ryan Hurley, an attorney with Rose Law Group in Scottsdale, Ariz., said banks could provide merchant services. The hangup is really over lending, he said. Banks are wary of lending to marijuana dispensaries because of the threat of federal seizures.

"It doesn't come down to the fact that they are FDIC insured," he said. "They have potentially legitimate concerns that the federal government might come in and seize that property, in which case their loan is worthless."

Branding also plays a role, said Lance Ott, of Washington-based Guardian Data Systems, which provides merchant services, particularly to businesses that might have stigmas.

No bank wants to be identified as a lender for a dispensary that the federal government has shut down.

For dispensaries, short of changes to federal law, there is no clear way around an all-cash business.

Ott has helped create a PayPal-like system for dispensaries to avoid doing business in cash. But he said the system — known as PaySafe Solutions — has been slow to catch on with dispensaries. Many dispensary owners would prefer to wait it out and eventually link with Visa or MasterCard.

Ben Myer, of Arizona Organix and Bill Myer's son, said the dispensary has bought safes and security equipment from a now-closed bank branch. He wouldn't provide details about how the cash will be transported or where it will be stored, but he has looked at how it's been done outside Arizona.

"We have in a sense modeled after different dispensaries back in Colorado and figured out what you do and how you operate," he said. "It's created a lot of hurdles. But people are determined in this industry, and we just find ways to make it work."

However, DoD officials say the successful sale of NMDC shares last week, in which foreign institutional investors bid for half the shares on offer, was proof that issues priced attractively will do well.

The DoD set a floor price of Rs 147 a share in the NMDC auction, going against views that wanted it higher at Rs 150 per share. "Had we fixed the floor at Rs 150, the issue would have failed, but at Rs 147, the demand was twice the size of the issue and finally the government got about Rs 149 per share," one DoD official said.

"The intent behind having a lower floor price is not to sell cheap, but to discover the genuine price," the official said, adding a realistic pricing helps convince more investors to participate and greater participation helps improve the final price. "Forthcoming divestments would not be dependent on government-owned financial institutions such as Life Insurance Corporation."

Additionally, officials and bankers said, the department has also sought the views of merchant banks on fixing the incentives for them at between 0.25 per cent and 0.5 per cent of the sale proceeds to encourage them to attract foreign investors. Banks currently charge as little as Re 1 as fees, partly because of the prestige of being identified with disinvestment mandates and also on account of peculiarities in the selection rules.

In the selection of merchant bankers, some 70 per cent weightage is given to technical qualifications and the rest to financial bids. This has resulted in banks quoting Re 1 as fees because it helps them score full marks on the financial criterion. "We cannot change the selection process, but we will fix the incentives so that bankers work hard to make the process successful," said the DoD official.

For managing initial public offerings of private sector firms, banks charge 1-2 per cent of the proceeds, even though managing IPOs and disinvestments, which are primarily executed through offers of sale (OFS) of shares, may not be strictly comparable.

Nature that goes beyond its course

The easiest way to describe this exhibition is "The meeting of two Mets," with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Tokyo serving as a venue for 133 works from its much more renowned New York version, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, known simply as "The Met."

But despite all its fame and grandeur, and the copiousness of a collection that includes more than 2 million works, the New York institution shares the major defect of American culture, namely an all-embracing universalism that works against a unique and easily marketable cultural identity.

Exhibitions drawn from the collections of the Louvre, Prado, or Tretyakov, instantly evoke their countries' rich cultural histories. This is much less true of the Met, where the global clearly eclipses the national.

In order to give this exhibition a more characteristic and appealing identity, it has therefore been themed around the idea of nature, with the rather unwieldy portmanteau title of "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art: Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art."

This straggling name suggests two thingsthat at least two separate committees had to sign off on it,they wanted a theme that would allow almost anything to be slotted into the exhibition.

The broadness of the theme is stretched even wider by interpreting "nature" in the loosest possible terms. For example, the word apparently includes cityscapes, as we are treated to two rather lovely views of Venice, one by J. M. W. Turner, the other by Canaletto. There is also a close-up of a pelvic bone painted by Georgia O'Keeffe.

By these standards anything with a bit of sky or water in it, or any organic matter at all, can be considered "nature." This then raises the question of which 1 percent of all paintings are not connected to nature. This may sound like quibbling, but the fact is the show lacks a clear identity and will be liable to fade from visitor's memories.

The main problem is that there is so much unconnected variety. Most visitors seemed to be reduced to staggering from one uncomprehending encounter to another. As an example of this, opening the catalogue randomly at three different pages produces the following: a silver Art Nouveau punch bowl with anthropomorphic figures of Night and Morning from 1901; a bull's head ornament from ancient Mesopotamia, and a Dutch landscape, "Grainfields", by Jacob van Ruisdael.

While it seeks to encompass most of human history, the exhibition invariably leaves massive gaps. If the mental gear changes and amplitude of background knowledge required to fully appreciate each consecutive object are taken into account, then diversity is certainly not this exhibition's strength.

But the curators have not been entirely negligent. One point of mild interest is the echoes of composition and subject matter that exist between various pairs of works. The most obvious is Paul Gauguin's "Tahitian Women Bathing" and Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Figures on a Beach" (1890), which both feature standing and sitting women in a coastal setting. This similarity throws their stylistic divergence into sharp relief. Renoir's feathery brush strokes capture the breezy atmosphere of the French beach. This contrasts with Gauguin's fat blocks of color that serve to focus our attention on the exotic nudity of his figures.

These occasional "visual chimes" however are not enough to bring coherence to the exhibition. To counter the note of bewildering randomness that prevails, the visitors are forced to thread together their own narratives. The most intriguing one for me was that concerning American artists. They are comparatively few, but there are enough of them and they are spread widely enough throughout the exhibition to tell a continuous story.

As essentially a European colony, America has historically had a cultural inferiority complex. This means that American art usually falls into three categories — art that defers to Europe, art that rejects Europe, and art that does neither and therefore expresses a true American spirit. Most "serious" American art is included in the first two categories, while the third category is dominated by naive and folk art.

The Met started out as an institute that enshrined this inferiority complex, striving to acquire the best European masters. The magic of Claude Monet's seascape "The Manneporte"and Vincent van Gogh's "Cypresses" demonstrate the power of the best European artworks. These then served as models for aspiring American artists. Most of the American artists represented here fall into this deferential category. For example Thomas Cole's landscape "View of the Catskills: Early Autumn" transposes Claude Lorrain's idyllic Arcadianism to upstate New York.

Edward Hopper's "The Lighthouse at Two Lights" by contrast has an atmosphere of self-consciously trying to be "American." The composition, clean surfaces, functional shapes and clear sky infuse the painting with a brash, breezy, almost puritanical Americanism. Set defiantly atop its windswept ridge, the lighthouse seems to tilt its hat and snub its nose at Europe, far, far away across the water.

Sir Alex Ferguson needs to figure out that two into one won't go

The Outsider, by Jonathan Wilson, is a forensic study of the position, the people who have played there and the intricacies of the role. The chapter about Thomas Nkono and Joseph-Antoine Bell, "Tommy and JoJo", may be of particular interest to Ferguson at a time when the Manchester United manager appears to be suffering from an unusual lack of clarity.

Nkono and Bell were rivals in the Cameroon team for almost two decades, and are probably the best African goalkeepers there have ever been. In different circumstances they would have been undisputed number ones in their own right. It was just their misfortune to come up against one another at the same time. Just as David de Gea and Anders Lindegaard are doing at United, they shared the role. Both men came to think it did nothing but confuse the team's defence.

Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence used to think the same when Ron Greenwood was alternating them. On one occasion – England's 4-3 defeat in Austria in 1979 – Greenwood selected Shilton for the first half and Clemence for the second. Yet the policy did not take into account that a defence needs an understanding with its goalkeeper, and vice versa, and that for this position – perhaps more than any other on the pitch – there is clear sense in nominating a regular first-choice and sticking with him. The bottom line is, goalkeeper rotation does not work. It probably speaks for itself that there are so few other examples (César Sánchez and the young Iker Casillas is one, though Real Madrid's coach, Vicente del Bosque, soon realised "San Iker" was the better option) at a time when Ferguson continues to swap around De Gea and Lindegaard while complaining he can barely remember United being so vulnerable defensively.

There are not many times when Ferguson can be accused of sustained indecision, but this is one of them and the longer it goes on the more confusing it gets.

De Gea played the first two games of the season but was dropped because of a mistake against Fulham. Lindegaard came in for the next two and then they took turns, one after the other, for the following four games. De Gea was back for the next five, then Lindegaard for one, and then De Gea played three in a row before needing a wisdom tooth removing.

Lindegaard kept his place for five games until De Gea was recalled for the match against Cluj on Wednesday. United, meanwhile, have conceded 33 goals in the various competitions and been derided by their manager for Cartoon Cavalcade defending. It is not an exact science, but it is difficult not to think the two things are linked.

The lesson of history is fairly clear. Of Ferguson's 12 titles, Peter Schmeichel played every game in 1992?93, missed two in 1993-94, 1995-96 and 1996?97, and four in 1998-99. Post?Schmeichel, United struggled to fill the position, but Mark Bosnich still played 23 of the 38 league fixtures in 1999-2000, the year of Massimo Taibi. Fabien Barthez played 32 times the next season and 30 in 2002-03. Edwin van der Sar made 32, 29, 33 and 33 appearances in his title-winning seasons.

This is the pattern of just about every successful team. Petr Cech played in all but 11 games during three championships with Chelsea. Joe Hart did not miss a single match for Manchester City last season.

How Ferguson must wish he had paid the ￡100,000 that Shrewsbury Town wanted for Hart a few years back. "We all make mistakes," he says.

That is not to say Hart has been flawless this season. In fact, broadening the argument, it has been a pretty undistinguished campaign so far for goalkeeping in the Premier League. Rob Green, Pepe Reina, Shay Given and Adam Federici have all, at one point of another, lost their places because of mistakes. If Southampton are trying to work out why they have been in the relegation zone, the performances of Kelvin Davis, Artur Boruc and Paulo Gazzaniga represent Exhibit A. For Arsenal, Wojciech Szczesny and Vito Mannone have taken turns making supporters pine for the security of David Seaman. Tim Howard, Jussi Jaaskelainen, Mark Schwarzer, Simon Mignolet and Ali al-Habsi have all let in soft goals. It is a long list.

Yet Ferguson is currently the only manager unable to decide on a first-choice and it is rare to see him this indecisive. Just as perplexing, there is little consistency. At the start of last season, when De Gea genuinely looked a danger to his own team, Ferguson persisted with him until a particularly bad run at Christmas. This season, one mistake and the Spaniard was out.

The problem for Ferguson is that neither De Gea nor Lindegaard have an exceptional case. A few days ago I asked a former pro – a striker who studied goalkeepers for potential weaknesses – who he would choose. "Neither," he replied. "They're not good enough for Manchester United."

Gary Neville seems unenthused, too, noting the goals his old club have conceded from set pieces and the absence of a goalkeeper dominating the penalty area. Neville knows what he is talking about. "The defenders will be nervous about what's behind them," he says.

So who should it be? At a push, I'd say De Gea would edge the kind of vote London's now defunct Evening News held in 1978, when it asked 22 players whom they would choose for England: Shilton or Clemence? Nine voted for Shilton and two for Clemence, one being his Liverpool team-mate David Johnson. Eleven could not decide.

De Gea has, after all, shown flashes of brilliance and, though far from perfect, who would expect him to be, just a month after he turned 22? His potential is considerable and it would be a poor judge who could not see it. It is just that it is the manager after Ferguson – or maybe even further down the line – who will probably see it realised on a more consistent basis. For now, De Gea has been lucky United have had enough firepower over the past couple of seasons to ensure the goals conceded from his mistakes have not cost the team more points.

Equally, however, it was always going to be the case that a new player, in a new country, would make errors. Overall, he has done about as well as could be expected since that bruising crash-course two autumns ago. It is easy, in fact, to feel a little sorry for him. It cannot be helping his confidence that his manager keeps playing football's equivalent of musical chairs.

More than anything, it disrupts the team. Goalkeepers are different. This is the point Bell and Nkono make. Nkono, for example, always wanted a man on each post at set pieces, whereas Bell left them free. Bell liked to sweep up behind his defence, allowing them to play a higher line. With Nkono, the back four had to drop deeper.

It was the same for Shilton and Clemence. Shilton hung back, Clemence moved forward. Shilton always wanted the area in front of him to be free, whereas Clemence liked the defenders nearer to him. Subtle yet important differences.

De Gea, talented yet erratic, and Lindegaard, steady but not a man for the outstanding save, have their own styles. Together, they have been part of a team that are top of the league. Ultimately, though, the policy isn't working. Just look at United's goals-against column, 10 worse than City's.

What is most surprising is that a manager of Ferguson's normally clear judgment is involved. He says it is because he has confidence in both goalkeepers. The impression it actually leaves is that he does not have total confidence in either.

The NZ iSchool

iPads and other portable computing devices are integrating into New Zealand schools. I talked to deputy principal Lenva Shearing, an Apple Distinguished Educator, at Bucklands Beach Intermediate about how the iPad is working out for education.

Bucklands Beach Intermediate, with a roll of 850, has a long association with computers, having started with BBCs back in the early 1990s.

As for devices, BBI experimented with iPods a few years ago but found them too small, from a pure readability viewpoint, to be useful.

Bucklands Beach is an Apple-using school, but is finding the distinction blurring between that and other platforms thanks to increased usability, compatibility, cloud services and wireless networks. Also, Bucklands Beach has iPads, with 50 available for whoever books them.

After those initial BBC computers, the school changed to Apple on the basis of ease of use for younger students and for its graphics capabilities. Almost two decades on, "Out of our four main contributing Primary Schools, two are Mac and two are PC, and the college most of our students go to is PC."

Looming on the horizon is Google Chromebook laptops - for reasons of usability, portability and, possibly most of all, price, many New Zealand schools are considering them, especially since many are already using Google Docs as their document creation, sharing and scheduling platforms.

 Another reason, of course, is platform independence. All the docs are housed by Google's servers - the school only locally backs up its own office requirements. The student's work is always accessible, therefore, password protected, from Google.

"All the computers we buy are Macs, from desktops to laptops and iPads. But options are open on the Chromebook for next year. We'll get a few and have a look, since all we need to do with them is get online for Google Apps.

"But the Macs and iPads have a different role, for creating, using GarageBand and iMovie. You wouldn't use things like that on Chromebooks - they'd be just for uploading content.

"GarageBand is amazing, and our music teacher has an awesome education program with GarageBand. And iMovie is probably one of the most powerful apps we could have - even little kids can become very good editors with iMovie. And the pathway to Final Cut is excellent - I only learnt some Final Cut this year for the first time and I couldn't believe how easy it was, after iMovie. So students have access to really sophisticated tools at a young age.

"For school-bought equipment, we only have Apple. So far. For student-owned, we do have a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme. And 53 per cent of students bring their own. But we don't allow physical connections to our systems if they have PCs, as we don't want viruses on our school system. If they want to print something out, they have to use a school machine. But the high percentage of the students bring Apple laptops or iPads; probably only a quarter of those students bring non-Apple."

The school's 50 iPads were bought for portability and wireless connectivity. "Students can film directly on the iPads and then edit them on them and upload them, all from the same iPad. We have high access to the internet thanks to the reliance on Google Docs. Wirelessly, we can have half the school online all at the same time."

Lenva has found the Bucklands Beach Intermediate students leave with effective technology skill sets. "Going from here to [PC-based] Macleans College, the change of platform doesn't seem to matter that much. Students these days, especially teenagers, know what they want to do, they are very adept at working it out and just doing it. They have enough skills to do that."

Lenva herself is a long term computer user. With iPads, she thinks the touch-interface of iPads and other tablets has removed a barrier to computing. "Particularly younger students thrive on the direct tactile connectivity to the applications they can use and things they can do."

The school iPads are bookable from a central place. Teachers book them online, via Google scheduling, for whatever they need for any tasks.

BBI works with New Era for their Apple needs, one of the entities that arose once Renaissance ended its Education Division (RED). New Era also arranges Apple packages for parents to buy or lease as BYOD if they want: laptop, backpack, hard case and Apple Care.

For educative issues, Lenva also deals directly with Apple representatives, which she really appreciates.

Which brings up damage and care. "We've had a few problems, like cracked screens. We've had some laptops damaged from people tripping over power cables - the Apple ones pop out (thanks to their MagSafe connectors) but the PC ones don't, so they can get dragged onto the floor." But theft and deliberate damage to devices haven't been issues in the school.

The cultural diversity of the school seems to have posed no problems to device use and take-up. Every ethnic group seems happy with the way things are used, although the school isn't as diverse as some, with the largest ethnic minority being Chinese.

For the most part, there seems to be no problems with the spend required for BYOD.
Parents can access their children's e-portfolios online, directly in Google Docs. "We like the parents being able to directly interact with the e-portfolios, and this is encouraged, but there's also a Google Share function if students don't want to tell parents their passwords."

With the teachers, Microsoft Word is still very popular, although many have made the switch from PowerPoint to Keynote for presentations. But Lenva only uses Google Docs herself, as she moves between three computer and an iPad.

Lenva believes the intermediate couldn't do what the school needs to do if it wasn't for devices and Google Docs. "It's extremely successful. We want each of our students to have an e-portfolio they can work on from school and from home, and preferably almost every day. And we want parents to be involved in it." With BYOD and Google Docs, the school doesn't have to supply hardware for every student.

This mode effectively blurs the distinction between school time and home time, which she sees as very a positive change compared to former perceptions of school versus home.

On the future for these students, Lenva says it's all bright. "The world's their oyster. Next year we are starting a Media course like Unitec's - they'll be filming, editing, producing and hopefully, showing their work in the local theatre. Creativity is now at everyone's fingertips.

"The students have got incredible problem solving skills, and they seem to be able to solve everything."