An early still life by Vija Celmins that has been hanging in its owners' kitchen for almost 50 years will go up for auction in May at Los Angeles Modern Auctions.
Celmins once described this body of work to painter Chuck Close as a break with the emotional maelstrom of Abstract Expressionism that influenced her early on: “I decided to go back to looking at something outside of myself. I was going back to what I thought was this basic, stupid painting…. I don’t embellish anymore, I don’t compose, and I don’t jazz up the color.”
The couple who own the knife-and-dish image, who decline to be identified, say they bought the painting in 1964 for less than $100 from the artist. The auction house, which is increasingly known for contemporary art offerings as well as design and furniture, will offer the work in May with an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.
Los Angeles Modern Auctions founder Peter Loughrey said another dealer tipped him off to the Celmins one day in early January. He made an appointment to see the owners the same day. “I had the painting in my hand with a signed [consignment] agreement an hour and a half later,” he said.
And yes, the painting shows a bit of its domestic history: Loughrey said it is now being cleaned to eliminate “some particulates and grease” on its surface, though he described the overall condition as "excellent."
Did you just hear a giant sigh of relief? It came from General Electric after the White House announced the end of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
Two years ago, GE chief Jeff Immelt agreed to the lead the council after being asked by the president. It wasn’t long before the Tea Party was regularly blasting the CEO and painting GE as the poster child for perceived coziness between big business and big government. The decision also produced some grumbling among GE’s ranks, as some executives groused privately about the political fallout.
Today, Mr. Immelt sent a note to all the members of the council thanking them for their work. “After two years of work, I think we have helped build a broader understanding of what is needed to strengthen our economy,” Mr. Immelt wrote according to a copy of the email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “We leave behind a strong record of action and accomplishment.’
He noted that 90% of the council’s recommendations including fast-tracking key infrastructure projects and selling more leases for both oil and gas production were implemented. GE doubled the number of engineering interns it hires to 3,600 as part of its work on the Jobs Council, a spokesman said.
Well, it’s a start. Just for the record, the unemployment rate since the council was formed has come down from over 9% to under 8%, but that’s still considered to be high.
Mr. Immelt always defended his move as a call to duty. At GE’s 2011 annual shareholder meeting, Mr. Immelt said only 4% of the company’s revenue came from U.S. government contracts.
But his time on the council may have tired the 56-year-old CEO of Washington’s political paralysis. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose on PBS News, Mr. Immelt noted that President Obama enacted 54 of the 60 recommendations made by the Jobs Council that could be implemented with an executive order. But of the 30 recommendations that needed legislation, only four got done.
Asked whether he would answer a call from the president in his second term, Mr. Immelt said: “I’d say I’ve had the honor of serving you already, Mr. President.” Adding, “At the end of the day what you really want me doing is selling jet engines.”
"In our district, I feel like most of the art teachers are artists themselves. ... That doesn't always happen in a school district," says Garfinkel, who taught art in another county before coming to Lancaster.
"It's neat that the kids in the city are being taught by people who can really make art," Garfinkel says. "That's what I wanted to come across in the show."
Each of the 10 teachers is exhibiting between one and three pieces, ranging from paintings to sculpture and glassware to photography.
Garfinkel is showing his "Silo City," a mixed-media work in pastel colors that juxtaposes elements of urban and rural architecture.
"It's pretty much my take on Lancaster County, and since I teach in the city, it's the art of the city mixed with silos in the background," Garfinkel says.
"I love my students, and their energy is catching, and I love seeing what they create. They inspire me every day," he adds.
The exhibit represents the first non-school show for recent Messiah College graduate Diane Nicole Carroll, a new art teacher at Edward Hand Middle School.
Carroll, who works in wood and steel, is exhibiting "Answered Prayers," a steel base that holds a black-walnut bowl filled with wooden cubes.
2013年1月31日星期四
Owner of the Ravens Built His Success by Building Relationships
Inside the front door of the Baltimore Ravens’ chateau-with-shoulder-pads training center hangs an enormous portrait of the former owner who still hovers over the franchise and the city as surely as that oil painting over the big stone fireplace.
You have to look much harder, and down a hallway, to find a picture of the current owner, the one whose dollars financed that lavish building, the one who is quietly accompanying the Ravens to the Super Bowl here this week.
That man, Steve Bisciotti, 52, is as low-profile as the 8x10 picture of him at a news conference that hangs on an out-of-the-way wall at the Ravens’ facility. Bisciotti declined interview requests in the weeks leading to the Super Bowl, and spoke to reporters only after he arrived here Thursday.
So the conversation this week has been much more about whether the man in the oil painting, Art Modell, who took the Browns out of Cleveland and rebranded them the Ravens in Baltimore, will be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday than about Bisciotti’s first trip to the game as the primary owner of the team.
“I’m O.K. if I’m one of the least-known owners in sports,” Bisciotti was quoted as saying in the Ravens’ biography of him.
The last time the Ravens raised the Lombardi Trophy, it was in Modell’s hands in 2001. Only months before, Bisciotti had become a minority owner — Modell needed the infusion of cash to secure free agents for that team — with the promise that he could take majority ownership of the team in a few years. He stood unobtrusively in the back of a locker room in Oakland, Calif., as Modell beamed on national television about going to his first Super Bowl.
On Jan. 20, when the Ravens beat the Patriots to win the A.F.C. championship, most football fans finally got a glimpse of Bisciotti, the league’s second-youngest owner and perhaps its coolest: tanned; hair slicked back; wearing jeans, an open-collared shirt and a duster coat; gently rubbing the arm of Ray Lewis, who was draped over his back while wearing a Modell T-shirt.
“In a very positive way, he is engaged,” said Brian Billick, who was the Ravens’ coach when they won the Super Bowl in 2001. Billick was retained by Bisciotti when he took over and then was fired by him after the 2007 season. “He built his fortune on relationships and is very much about that. It’s not a ‘I’m in charge, do what I say’ mentality. It’s an ‘I don’t care if you’re the ball boy or the head coach, we’ve got to create partnerships here.’ He hires people he trusts and then keeps a purposefully, painfully low profile. He never wants to make it about him.”
Bisciotti grew up near Annapolis, Md., going to Orioles and Colts games — where he sat on the 10-yard line — with his older brother and sister, and with his father, Bernard. They would sometimes go to the Colts’ training camp, where Bisciotti asked players if he could try on their helmets. In the Ravens’ media guide, there is a picture of a young Bisciotti standing beside Johnny Unitas.
His father died when Bisciotti was 8, but Bisciotti’s mother, Patricia, is a huge fan of Baltimore sports teams and Notre Dame, and she fed her youngest son’s love of sports, although he played football only briefly in high school.
According to a profile in Forbes magazine, Bisciotti spent his high school summers building piers near Baltimore. But at 23, after he graduated from Salisbury State University, he started a staffing company in a basement with his cousin. It provided temporary employees — engineers — to the aerospace and technology industries.
Forbes reported that Bisciotti became obsessed with making enough money by the time he was 35 so his wife and children would not have to work if he, like his father, died young. According to the Ravens, the company he started, now known as the Allegis Group, is the largest privately held staffing concern in the country. Bisciotti is worth about $1.5 billion, according to calculations Forbes made last year.
In 2000, Bisciotti purchased a minority stake in the Ravens, then largely stayed hidden, trying to learn from Modell. That, Billick said, eased the transition for Ravens employees who might have been caught in a tense situation. Even after Bisciotti took full control of the team in 2004, Modell was a frequent presence, watching games from a suite at the stadium and practices from a perch on a golf cart.
“He treated him with dignity, compassion and made him feel he was still part of the organization,” the Giants owner John Mara said. “A lot of owners would not have handled it the same way. They would have loved to push the guy aside.”
Those at the Ravens who have worked with Bisciotti say he has a similar gentle touch with his employees. Billick said Bisciotti would go to the team’s training facility about once a week, but was just as apt to talk with the receptionist as he was with Billick or General Manager Ozzie Newsome. Bisciotti is not active in league matters, sometimes skipping meetings and sending the team president Dick Cass in his place. And he has stepped out of owners’ meetings, shutting the door behind him, to smoke one of his cigars.
The former Ravens kicker Matt Stover said he once heard Bisciotti say, “I know I don’t know football, therefore, I hire people who do,” a sentiment that Stover respected. Still, Bisciotti put his stamp on the Ravens when he made the unorthodox decision to hire John Harbaugh, a special-teams coach, to replace Billick. That reflected his real skill: making connections.
“He’s got a tremendous ability to have a good feel of people,” said the former Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams, who has been a friend of Bisciotti — a passionate Terrapins fan — for 20 years. “That is a big part of his decision-making. One of Steve’s strengths is his ability to read people. I coached a long time, that’s as important as anything I did: getting a feel for people you’re recruiting, coaches you work with. I just watch that, it’s a big part of his organization.”
Bisciotti became a sounding board for Williams when he was coaching, but at basketball games Bisciotti is thoroughly a fan, screaming at officials from courtside. Forbes reported that he shuttles friends to Maryland games on a private jet.
“He’s a man’s man,” Billick said. “He’ll go drink for drink, cigar for cigar. You’re going to lose that battle, I promise you.”
But it is at Ravens games that the full snapshot of Bisciotti appears. He has attended preseason games in shorts and flip-flops, and his closest friends — many of them from his youth — mingle in his box with his mother and an occasional priest, a reflection of his strong Catholic faith and his support of religious charities.
“When you get to Steve’s level of success, he worked really hard, you’re really grateful for how far you’ve come, you’re really grateful for the people who helped you,” said Kevin Plank, a friend of Bisciotti’s and the founder of the Under Armour apparel company, which is based in Baltimore. “There’s that idea of sitting around with four buddies in a treehouse — ‘If you hit the lottery, what would you do? I’d buy a team and bring you guys to games, we’d still hang out on weekends.’ You’d say, ‘Yeah, right, you’d change.’ ”
You have to look much harder, and down a hallway, to find a picture of the current owner, the one whose dollars financed that lavish building, the one who is quietly accompanying the Ravens to the Super Bowl here this week.
That man, Steve Bisciotti, 52, is as low-profile as the 8x10 picture of him at a news conference that hangs on an out-of-the-way wall at the Ravens’ facility. Bisciotti declined interview requests in the weeks leading to the Super Bowl, and spoke to reporters only after he arrived here Thursday.
So the conversation this week has been much more about whether the man in the oil painting, Art Modell, who took the Browns out of Cleveland and rebranded them the Ravens in Baltimore, will be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday than about Bisciotti’s first trip to the game as the primary owner of the team.
“I’m O.K. if I’m one of the least-known owners in sports,” Bisciotti was quoted as saying in the Ravens’ biography of him.
The last time the Ravens raised the Lombardi Trophy, it was in Modell’s hands in 2001. Only months before, Bisciotti had become a minority owner — Modell needed the infusion of cash to secure free agents for that team — with the promise that he could take majority ownership of the team in a few years. He stood unobtrusively in the back of a locker room in Oakland, Calif., as Modell beamed on national television about going to his first Super Bowl.
On Jan. 20, when the Ravens beat the Patriots to win the A.F.C. championship, most football fans finally got a glimpse of Bisciotti, the league’s second-youngest owner and perhaps its coolest: tanned; hair slicked back; wearing jeans, an open-collared shirt and a duster coat; gently rubbing the arm of Ray Lewis, who was draped over his back while wearing a Modell T-shirt.
“In a very positive way, he is engaged,” said Brian Billick, who was the Ravens’ coach when they won the Super Bowl in 2001. Billick was retained by Bisciotti when he took over and then was fired by him after the 2007 season. “He built his fortune on relationships and is very much about that. It’s not a ‘I’m in charge, do what I say’ mentality. It’s an ‘I don’t care if you’re the ball boy or the head coach, we’ve got to create partnerships here.’ He hires people he trusts and then keeps a purposefully, painfully low profile. He never wants to make it about him.”
Bisciotti grew up near Annapolis, Md., going to Orioles and Colts games — where he sat on the 10-yard line — with his older brother and sister, and with his father, Bernard. They would sometimes go to the Colts’ training camp, where Bisciotti asked players if he could try on their helmets. In the Ravens’ media guide, there is a picture of a young Bisciotti standing beside Johnny Unitas.
His father died when Bisciotti was 8, but Bisciotti’s mother, Patricia, is a huge fan of Baltimore sports teams and Notre Dame, and she fed her youngest son’s love of sports, although he played football only briefly in high school.
According to a profile in Forbes magazine, Bisciotti spent his high school summers building piers near Baltimore. But at 23, after he graduated from Salisbury State University, he started a staffing company in a basement with his cousin. It provided temporary employees — engineers — to the aerospace and technology industries.
Forbes reported that Bisciotti became obsessed with making enough money by the time he was 35 so his wife and children would not have to work if he, like his father, died young. According to the Ravens, the company he started, now known as the Allegis Group, is the largest privately held staffing concern in the country. Bisciotti is worth about $1.5 billion, according to calculations Forbes made last year.
In 2000, Bisciotti purchased a minority stake in the Ravens, then largely stayed hidden, trying to learn from Modell. That, Billick said, eased the transition for Ravens employees who might have been caught in a tense situation. Even after Bisciotti took full control of the team in 2004, Modell was a frequent presence, watching games from a suite at the stadium and practices from a perch on a golf cart.
“He treated him with dignity, compassion and made him feel he was still part of the organization,” the Giants owner John Mara said. “A lot of owners would not have handled it the same way. They would have loved to push the guy aside.”
Those at the Ravens who have worked with Bisciotti say he has a similar gentle touch with his employees. Billick said Bisciotti would go to the team’s training facility about once a week, but was just as apt to talk with the receptionist as he was with Billick or General Manager Ozzie Newsome. Bisciotti is not active in league matters, sometimes skipping meetings and sending the team president Dick Cass in his place. And he has stepped out of owners’ meetings, shutting the door behind him, to smoke one of his cigars.
The former Ravens kicker Matt Stover said he once heard Bisciotti say, “I know I don’t know football, therefore, I hire people who do,” a sentiment that Stover respected. Still, Bisciotti put his stamp on the Ravens when he made the unorthodox decision to hire John Harbaugh, a special-teams coach, to replace Billick. That reflected his real skill: making connections.
“He’s got a tremendous ability to have a good feel of people,” said the former Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams, who has been a friend of Bisciotti — a passionate Terrapins fan — for 20 years. “That is a big part of his decision-making. One of Steve’s strengths is his ability to read people. I coached a long time, that’s as important as anything I did: getting a feel for people you’re recruiting, coaches you work with. I just watch that, it’s a big part of his organization.”
Bisciotti became a sounding board for Williams when he was coaching, but at basketball games Bisciotti is thoroughly a fan, screaming at officials from courtside. Forbes reported that he shuttles friends to Maryland games on a private jet.
“He’s a man’s man,” Billick said. “He’ll go drink for drink, cigar for cigar. You’re going to lose that battle, I promise you.”
But it is at Ravens games that the full snapshot of Bisciotti appears. He has attended preseason games in shorts and flip-flops, and his closest friends — many of them from his youth — mingle in his box with his mother and an occasional priest, a reflection of his strong Catholic faith and his support of religious charities.
“When you get to Steve’s level of success, he worked really hard, you’re really grateful for how far you’ve come, you’re really grateful for the people who helped you,” said Kevin Plank, a friend of Bisciotti’s and the founder of the Under Armour apparel company, which is based in Baltimore. “There’s that idea of sitting around with four buddies in a treehouse — ‘If you hit the lottery, what would you do? I’d buy a team and bring you guys to games, we’d still hang out on weekends.’ You’d say, ‘Yeah, right, you’d change.’ ”
2013年1月29日星期二
Try something new: tofu and soybeans
My grandparents raised my father and his six siblings in the hub of Hanford’s Chinatown neighborhood that surrounded China Alley. Their five-room home sat at 64 Visalia St., which was located at the northeast end of where the United Market parking lot ends. Within their one-third of an acre, except for a small plot designated as “playground,” every square inch of usable space was devoted to my grandmother’s vegetable garden and livestock — she raised chickens and ducks.
My grandmother supplied the necessary provisions to my great-grandfather’s noodle house and eventually for my grandfather’s Chinese Pagoda from her carefully nurtured chickens and ducks and lush vegetable garden. Depending upon the seasons, my grandmother grew a variety a vegetables — from wintermelon and taro root to “ong choy” and snow peas, along with dozens of seasonal vegetables. She prepared her own soy sauce and grew water chestnuts. And grandmother made her own tofu.
t is her tofu-making that intrigues me these days. The soybean has been a basic food source for the Chinese since ancient times, the first making of tofu attributed to Prince Liu An of the Han Dynasty.
Tofu is made with soy milk from soy beans and a coagulant, then pressed into a wooden mold and finally pressed until excess water has been drained. I’ve been making my own ricotta and paneer cheeses for some time now. Tofu has been an integral ingredient in Chinese cooking since its origination. Perhaps it is time for me to tackle the lowly soybean and pick up in this way where my grandmother left off.
Called the “velvety-smooth cheese,” as well as “the poor man’s meat and the rich man’s delight,” tofu has a distinctive, bland taste, yet it is extremely versatile and takes on all types of shapes and flavors once the cooking begins.
Now I imagine some of you are sighing, “She’s written about squab and frog legs. Now it’s tofu. Time to turn the page.” Please bear with me. I’m not writing about “The Art of Tofu Making” this week. It’s just going to be on my list of “Things I Want To Try.”
And when I consider ways to explain my “I’m gonna make tofu” choice, I think Nicole Spriridakis said it best in her blog on NPR’s Kitchen Window: “When you look at tofu as its own delicious entity, a door opens. If you fry cubed tofu hoping it will resemble stir-fried chicken, you’re ensuring disappointment. You’ll be much happier if you can embrace the essence of the soybean.”
Here is a great “go-to” noodle recipe in which one could easily swap chicken or cooked shrimp with the tofu, unless you want to make the tofu leap with me.
My second recipe relies on the soy bean itself, and makes a great game day appetizer, particularly if the soybeans are cooked in the pod with the sauce reduced to a thick glaze that coats the pods.
Zest the orange, set zest aside. Juice the orange. In a small bowl mix shallots, black bean and garlic sauce and ginger. In another small bowl mix the sherry, soy sauce, sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of the orange juice.
Heat a wok or pan over high heat. When the wok is hot, add the edamame and stir until just starting to blister. Add shallot mixture and stir-fry for a few minutes until the shallots begin to brown. Add 1 tablespoon of the orange zest and stir-fry another minute. Add the dry sherry mixture and toss until the edamame are glazed.
Serve immediately and enjoy lapping up the sauce as you shell the edamame with your teeth and then licking your fingers. My personal preference is to use shelled edamame and double or triple the sauce and serve the saucy edamame over steamed rice.
3i has suspended fundraising plans and has been focusing on returning capital to shareholders since Simon Borrows, a former investment banker at Greenhill, took over as chief executive from Michael Queen last year. The company has been cutting 160 jobs – more than a third of its workforce – and shutting down offices after struggling to revive dealmaking in the wake of the financial crisis. It has diversified into debt management and hopes to be able to raise a new buyout fund in a couple of years.
3i is planning to sell four companies this year, including Canadian group Mold-Masters, UK software maker Cívica and Scandlines, a Danish-German ferry operator, people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.
Analysts cautioned that most of the company’s share price recovery had already occurred. Bill Barnard, a Société Générale analyst, said he saw “little value to add at 3i given the work already done.”
“Had they bought the shares a year ago, when former CEO Michael Queen was still there, I would have seen it as a restructuring play, but there’s a clear plan now,” said Oriel Securities analyst Iain Scouller, who downgraded the stock to sell last week following the company’s share price rally.
My grandmother supplied the necessary provisions to my great-grandfather’s noodle house and eventually for my grandfather’s Chinese Pagoda from her carefully nurtured chickens and ducks and lush vegetable garden. Depending upon the seasons, my grandmother grew a variety a vegetables — from wintermelon and taro root to “ong choy” and snow peas, along with dozens of seasonal vegetables. She prepared her own soy sauce and grew water chestnuts. And grandmother made her own tofu.
t is her tofu-making that intrigues me these days. The soybean has been a basic food source for the Chinese since ancient times, the first making of tofu attributed to Prince Liu An of the Han Dynasty.
Tofu is made with soy milk from soy beans and a coagulant, then pressed into a wooden mold and finally pressed until excess water has been drained. I’ve been making my own ricotta and paneer cheeses for some time now. Tofu has been an integral ingredient in Chinese cooking since its origination. Perhaps it is time for me to tackle the lowly soybean and pick up in this way where my grandmother left off.
Called the “velvety-smooth cheese,” as well as “the poor man’s meat and the rich man’s delight,” tofu has a distinctive, bland taste, yet it is extremely versatile and takes on all types of shapes and flavors once the cooking begins.
Now I imagine some of you are sighing, “She’s written about squab and frog legs. Now it’s tofu. Time to turn the page.” Please bear with me. I’m not writing about “The Art of Tofu Making” this week. It’s just going to be on my list of “Things I Want To Try.”
And when I consider ways to explain my “I’m gonna make tofu” choice, I think Nicole Spriridakis said it best in her blog on NPR’s Kitchen Window: “When you look at tofu as its own delicious entity, a door opens. If you fry cubed tofu hoping it will resemble stir-fried chicken, you’re ensuring disappointment. You’ll be much happier if you can embrace the essence of the soybean.”
Here is a great “go-to” noodle recipe in which one could easily swap chicken or cooked shrimp with the tofu, unless you want to make the tofu leap with me.
My second recipe relies on the soy bean itself, and makes a great game day appetizer, particularly if the soybeans are cooked in the pod with the sauce reduced to a thick glaze that coats the pods.
Zest the orange, set zest aside. Juice the orange. In a small bowl mix shallots, black bean and garlic sauce and ginger. In another small bowl mix the sherry, soy sauce, sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of the orange juice.
Heat a wok or pan over high heat. When the wok is hot, add the edamame and stir until just starting to blister. Add shallot mixture and stir-fry for a few minutes until the shallots begin to brown. Add 1 tablespoon of the orange zest and stir-fry another minute. Add the dry sherry mixture and toss until the edamame are glazed.
Serve immediately and enjoy lapping up the sauce as you shell the edamame with your teeth and then licking your fingers. My personal preference is to use shelled edamame and double or triple the sauce and serve the saucy edamame over steamed rice.
3i has suspended fundraising plans and has been focusing on returning capital to shareholders since Simon Borrows, a former investment banker at Greenhill, took over as chief executive from Michael Queen last year. The company has been cutting 160 jobs – more than a third of its workforce – and shutting down offices after struggling to revive dealmaking in the wake of the financial crisis. It has diversified into debt management and hopes to be able to raise a new buyout fund in a couple of years.
3i is planning to sell four companies this year, including Canadian group Mold-Masters, UK software maker Cívica and Scandlines, a Danish-German ferry operator, people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.
Analysts cautioned that most of the company’s share price recovery had already occurred. Bill Barnard, a Société Générale analyst, said he saw “little value to add at 3i given the work already done.”
“Had they bought the shares a year ago, when former CEO Michael Queen was still there, I would have seen it as a restructuring play, but there’s a clear plan now,” said Oriel Securities analyst Iain Scouller, who downgraded the stock to sell last week following the company’s share price rally.
Ashby Cross Adhesive Dispensers for Dual Barrel Cartridges
Ashby Cross AC Series Bench-Top Adhesive Dispensers convert standard 50-, 200-, and 400 ml dual barrel cartridges into ergonomic dispensing stations that eliminate operator fatigue from holding a gun and provide increased accuracy, repeatability, and productivity. Mounted on height-adjustable solid steel frames, they feature foot-pedal operation and have a positive shut-off valve at the mixer tip that prevents dripping between applications.
Available in several models including basic shot control, timer controlled shots with 10% repeatability, and linear encoder controlled models which provide volumetric dispensing and 2% repeatability, Ashby Cross AC Series Bench-Top Adhesive Dispensers are designed to match customer requirements. Capable of fractional gram shots to continuous flow, they are suitable for potting, bonding, filling, or any application using dual barrel cartridges.
Ashby Cross AC Series Bench-Top Adhesive Dispensers are priced from $995.00, depending upon cartridge size and model. Price quotations are available.
Founded in 1976, Ashby Cross Company is a leading manufacturer of adhesive dispensing and fluid dispensing equipment for both single and plural component reactive materials. The company offers a full line of multi-component adhesive dispensing equipment for epoxy, polyurethanes, silicones, acrylics, adhesive and structural bonding materials used in potting, encapsulation, coating, resin transfer molding (RTM), doming and sealing operations.
Ashby Cross Adhesive dispensing equipment is available in piston pump and gear pump versions, selected by viscosity and application. Their dispensing systems provide reliable, repeatable metering technology for a wide range of applications including; potting, encapsulating electrical circuits, molding and mold making, filter manufacturing, structural bonding, adhesive dispensing, filling and packaging, and gasket forming.
“Whatever he decides to do – he’s already graduated – he’s going to be successful, because he knows how to sacrifice for the benefit of other people,” Grant said.
“I don’t know what his ambition will be once he steps away, if he tries to get into coaching or if he wants to move onto something else, but I’m telling any of you guys out here that if you’ve got a chance to bring a guy like that into your organization, you need to jump at the opportunity. He’s tremendous.”
“So he was going to be a student coach. He was at practice every day, totally committed to helping the guys get better. Whatever he needed to do, in terms of talking to them, being part of the scout team, doing whatever he could. Watching the scout team, it was evident he could still play, and we got some information from the doctors that allowed him to come back.”
“The injuries can take a toll, not necessarily physically but mentally, where you get worn down by it,” Grant said. “He’s been through a lot over the course of his career, but the thing about him: Not one minute do you see a guy that’s hesitant, do you see a guy that’s wavering in terms of his desire to play, his passion for the game, his passion for his teammates, his understanding of his impact, whether it’s starting a game, playing 25 minutes, finishing a game, whatever he can do. …
“For me to not be able to physically help my teammates was really tough," he said earlier this month. “The whole time, I think I just tried to be encouraging and even try to lead the best that I could. It was a lot better feeling to be out there with them physically to help them navigate the road we were going through.”
Steele’s brother, Ronald, starred at Alabama from 2004 -09. Grant believes that has helped mold Andrew.
“The media talk about who’s the leader,” Grant said. “My job is to provide the leadership, but the players have to take the ownership of the program. Andrew’s a guy that’s vested in terms of ownership and pride and what the University of Alabama is all about.
“He obviously followed the career of his brother here. His passion for this university – everything about this university, not just or program – he’s a great ambassador for our program, and great ambassador for this city of Birmingham.”
This title would interest anyone that has a pool deck, not just those buying or selling a house. You are educating home owners, buyers and sellers. If you shared an article like this and asked your Facebook community what other issues they see or if they are having any of the issues mentioned you are starting a conversation. You are being social and engaging your audience. Most importantly you are educating people on taking care of their homes and people love to be educated.
It is great to let people know who you are and what you have accomplished, here or there, but NOT all of the time. If you spend your day bragging on social about how fantastic you are, what awards you have received, why your brochures are the most creative of all, how rich you are or why God broke the mold making you, please stop. No one cares and you are irritating people.
When you try to get people to believe you are wonderful it is obvious and it turns people off. As I said in point #2, educate people. Give them something and educate them.
Available in several models including basic shot control, timer controlled shots with 10% repeatability, and linear encoder controlled models which provide volumetric dispensing and 2% repeatability, Ashby Cross AC Series Bench-Top Adhesive Dispensers are designed to match customer requirements. Capable of fractional gram shots to continuous flow, they are suitable for potting, bonding, filling, or any application using dual barrel cartridges.
Ashby Cross AC Series Bench-Top Adhesive Dispensers are priced from $995.00, depending upon cartridge size and model. Price quotations are available.
Founded in 1976, Ashby Cross Company is a leading manufacturer of adhesive dispensing and fluid dispensing equipment for both single and plural component reactive materials. The company offers a full line of multi-component adhesive dispensing equipment for epoxy, polyurethanes, silicones, acrylics, adhesive and structural bonding materials used in potting, encapsulation, coating, resin transfer molding (RTM), doming and sealing operations.
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“Whatever he decides to do – he’s already graduated – he’s going to be successful, because he knows how to sacrifice for the benefit of other people,” Grant said.
“I don’t know what his ambition will be once he steps away, if he tries to get into coaching or if he wants to move onto something else, but I’m telling any of you guys out here that if you’ve got a chance to bring a guy like that into your organization, you need to jump at the opportunity. He’s tremendous.”
“So he was going to be a student coach. He was at practice every day, totally committed to helping the guys get better. Whatever he needed to do, in terms of talking to them, being part of the scout team, doing whatever he could. Watching the scout team, it was evident he could still play, and we got some information from the doctors that allowed him to come back.”
“The injuries can take a toll, not necessarily physically but mentally, where you get worn down by it,” Grant said. “He’s been through a lot over the course of his career, but the thing about him: Not one minute do you see a guy that’s hesitant, do you see a guy that’s wavering in terms of his desire to play, his passion for the game, his passion for his teammates, his understanding of his impact, whether it’s starting a game, playing 25 minutes, finishing a game, whatever he can do. …
“For me to not be able to physically help my teammates was really tough," he said earlier this month. “The whole time, I think I just tried to be encouraging and even try to lead the best that I could. It was a lot better feeling to be out there with them physically to help them navigate the road we were going through.”
Steele’s brother, Ronald, starred at Alabama from 2004 -09. Grant believes that has helped mold Andrew.
“The media talk about who’s the leader,” Grant said. “My job is to provide the leadership, but the players have to take the ownership of the program. Andrew’s a guy that’s vested in terms of ownership and pride and what the University of Alabama is all about.
“He obviously followed the career of his brother here. His passion for this university – everything about this university, not just or program – he’s a great ambassador for our program, and great ambassador for this city of Birmingham.”
This title would interest anyone that has a pool deck, not just those buying or selling a house. You are educating home owners, buyers and sellers. If you shared an article like this and asked your Facebook community what other issues they see or if they are having any of the issues mentioned you are starting a conversation. You are being social and engaging your audience. Most importantly you are educating people on taking care of their homes and people love to be educated.
It is great to let people know who you are and what you have accomplished, here or there, but NOT all of the time. If you spend your day bragging on social about how fantastic you are, what awards you have received, why your brochures are the most creative of all, how rich you are or why God broke the mold making you, please stop. No one cares and you are irritating people.
When you try to get people to believe you are wonderful it is obvious and it turns people off. As I said in point #2, educate people. Give them something and educate them.
2013年1月27日星期日
The Cloud Over China
Beijing has some seriously bad air. How bad? On a scale of 1 to 500, the United States Environmental Protection Agency says anything over 100 is unhealthy and anything above 400 is an emergency. Recently, the pollution index for Beijing hit 755. For purposes of breathing, it's like being downwind of a forest fire while smoking a cigar.
China's communist rulers normally suppress news like that. In 2009, when the U.S. embassy in Beijing started putting air quality numbers on its Twitter feed, the government demanded in vain that it stop.
But when your air contains enough foreign matter to mold bricks, it's hard to claim the sky is blue. And lately, the authorities have decided censorship of the topic is futile.
"I've never seen such broad Chinese media coverage of air pollution," a Beijing consultant named Jeremy Goldkorn told The New York Times. "From People's Daily to China Central Television, the story is being covered thoroughly, without trying to put a positive spin on it." In November, the outgoing president actually acknowledged the need to combat environmental destruction.
Pollution is not the only detectable thing in the Chinese air lately. This month, after the government interfered with an editorial in a national newspaper based in Guangzhou, protesters mounted some of the boldest demonstrations since the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement -- while for several days, police stood by and let them.
Chants were heard that ordinarily could have brought harsh punishment: "Down with the Communist Party!" Unlike Tiananmen, these didn't end in mass bloodshed. The newspaper whose staffers had threatened to strike was not closed down.
Almost unnoticed amid all this was a report by the official news agency that the government plans to dismantle its notorious system of "re-education through labor," where petty criminals, religious people and dissidents have often been imprisoned without trial. "If it can be abolished this year, I think it's an extremely important step toward rule of law," Peking University law professor He Weifang told Reuters.
That may be expecting too much. At least since 1989, human rights advocates have hoped China would soon evolve into a freer, more democratic society, but so far they have always been disappointed.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics were supposed to push the government toward openness and tolerance. Instead, the artist who helped design the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium, Ai Weiwei, wound up in detention for making noise about official abuses. In 2011, the government mounted a particularly brutal offensive against malcontents.
But authoritarian governments don't last forever, and this one faces changes it can't control. Back in 1996, Asia scholar Henry Rowen of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University noted that when countries reach a per capita income level of $8,000 (unless the money comes mostly from oil), they invariably become freer. Given China's pace of economic development, he predicted that it would become a democracy "around 2015."
When I called him the other day to ask about that forecast, Rowen sounded optimistic. Ever-growing incomes and a growing middle class are not the only stimuli for positive change, he noted: "Rising education levels also predispose people to voice their views on things that affect their sense of justice or that directly affect their lives."
Because of the rise of capitalism in China, the country's people have gained a large measure of freedom -- in such critical matters as where they work, where they live and where they may travel. The sphere of personal autonomy is vastly larger than it was in the dark days of Mao Zedong.
Technology holds promise. "The blogosphere is a very lively place, and it's huge," he says. "The censors have an impossible job to shut off things they don't like." People unhappy with the government can now easily find others who agree and mobilize to spread the word.
Chinese have also taken to traveling abroad -- particularly to Taiwan, which has fiercely contested elections, an aggressive press and wide-open debate. It's living proof that democracy can develop in China without disastrous social upheaval or mass violence.
It's no surprise that the Communist Party thinks it can prevent such change on the mainland. Autocratic regimes rarely leap at the chance to empower the citizenry. But this one is not exempt from the powerful forces unleashed by China's transformative economic miracle.
China's communist rulers normally suppress news like that. In 2009, when the U.S. embassy in Beijing started putting air quality numbers on its Twitter feed, the government demanded in vain that it stop.
But when your air contains enough foreign matter to mold bricks, it's hard to claim the sky is blue. And lately, the authorities have decided censorship of the topic is futile.
"I've never seen such broad Chinese media coverage of air pollution," a Beijing consultant named Jeremy Goldkorn told The New York Times. "From People's Daily to China Central Television, the story is being covered thoroughly, without trying to put a positive spin on it." In November, the outgoing president actually acknowledged the need to combat environmental destruction.
Pollution is not the only detectable thing in the Chinese air lately. This month, after the government interfered with an editorial in a national newspaper based in Guangzhou, protesters mounted some of the boldest demonstrations since the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement -- while for several days, police stood by and let them.
Chants were heard that ordinarily could have brought harsh punishment: "Down with the Communist Party!" Unlike Tiananmen, these didn't end in mass bloodshed. The newspaper whose staffers had threatened to strike was not closed down.
Almost unnoticed amid all this was a report by the official news agency that the government plans to dismantle its notorious system of "re-education through labor," where petty criminals, religious people and dissidents have often been imprisoned without trial. "If it can be abolished this year, I think it's an extremely important step toward rule of law," Peking University law professor He Weifang told Reuters.
That may be expecting too much. At least since 1989, human rights advocates have hoped China would soon evolve into a freer, more democratic society, but so far they have always been disappointed.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics were supposed to push the government toward openness and tolerance. Instead, the artist who helped design the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium, Ai Weiwei, wound up in detention for making noise about official abuses. In 2011, the government mounted a particularly brutal offensive against malcontents.
But authoritarian governments don't last forever, and this one faces changes it can't control. Back in 1996, Asia scholar Henry Rowen of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University noted that when countries reach a per capita income level of $8,000 (unless the money comes mostly from oil), they invariably become freer. Given China's pace of economic development, he predicted that it would become a democracy "around 2015."
When I called him the other day to ask about that forecast, Rowen sounded optimistic. Ever-growing incomes and a growing middle class are not the only stimuli for positive change, he noted: "Rising education levels also predispose people to voice their views on things that affect their sense of justice or that directly affect their lives."
Because of the rise of capitalism in China, the country's people have gained a large measure of freedom -- in such critical matters as where they work, where they live and where they may travel. The sphere of personal autonomy is vastly larger than it was in the dark days of Mao Zedong.
Technology holds promise. "The blogosphere is a very lively place, and it's huge," he says. "The censors have an impossible job to shut off things they don't like." People unhappy with the government can now easily find others who agree and mobilize to spread the word.
Chinese have also taken to traveling abroad -- particularly to Taiwan, which has fiercely contested elections, an aggressive press and wide-open debate. It's living proof that democracy can develop in China without disastrous social upheaval or mass violence.
It's no surprise that the Communist Party thinks it can prevent such change on the mainland. Autocratic regimes rarely leap at the chance to empower the citizenry. But this one is not exempt from the powerful forces unleashed by China's transformative economic miracle.
Omaha-based artist Zhu hopes
That’s how curator Teliza Rodriguez describes the work of Omaha-based artist Ying Zhu, whose installation, “Watch Your Steps,” continues on display through April 7 at the Museum of Nebraska Art. The piece, located in Skylight Gallery on the second floor of the museum, includes a floor constructed of uneven tiles and a wad of polyester batting shaped like a cloud and suspended at eye level in the middle of the room.
“It’s deceptively simple, even in concept,” Rodriguez said while standing in the exhibit. “The thing I love about it is that she had to think architecturally and spatially about this. It wasn’t just the concept. She had to think about how it’s going to ‘read’ in this specific room with the skylight always changing.”
Rodriguez also believes the exhibit is user friendly by allowing — and in some ways, forcing — the viewers to walk on the uneven tiles.
Zhu, 33, wants viewers to share her excitement about life and experiencing art. Originally from China, she studied photography at Communication University of China followed by studies in management information systems at University of Nebraska – Omaha. Zhu finished her M.F.A. in studio art at University of Nebraska.
The installation is part of the Nebraska Now series in Skylight Gallery, a space dedicated to artwork created within two years from exhibiting, by emerging artists living in Nebraska.
“Sometimes we put traditional artwork in there,” Rodriguez said, “meaning painting, sculpture or those types of things. Sometimes we exhibit non-traditional art. The hope is that it presses your idea of what you think art is, or what it isn’t.”
Many of Zhu’s art pieces come from distilling her life through an artistic lens. Both of her parents still live in China. Her mother came to visit Zhu for six months in Nebraska. That visit became the basis for a piece of art.
During the legal process that resulted in the 16-year-old's being sent to the Delaware County school for court-adjudicated youth, Pierce had been portrayed as angry, undisciplined, disruptive. But that day, in that gloomy place, he was just a scared kid.
Pierce was there because he'd been involved in a brawl at Lower Merion High, where the football prodigy had encountered frequent trouble. One of the youngsters he hit had to be hospitalized.
"That was the big issue with him," said Rick Badanjek, the Glen Mills running backs coach. "He was very immature. As time went on, he blossomed. But it wasn't an easy road for him."
Somehow that road led the Ardmore native to all the right places. In 2009, Temple made the freshman its featured back. This season, despite being Ray Rice's backup, the Ravens' third-round pick has become one of the NFL's most accomplished rookies.
Next Sunday, of course, the road will land the 22-year-old in Super Bowl XLVII as Baltimore opposes the San Francisco 49ers on sports' ultimate stage.
"Bernard grew into a man here," said Kevin Owens, Glen Mills' coach. "By the time he left we all believed he could do something special. But the Super Bowl? As a rookie? I don't know if we thought that big."
Pierce's initial reaction to Glen Mills - a "Why-am-I-here-and-when-can-I-go?" attitude - wasn't unusual. Most of the teenagers who politely greet visitors to the sprawling rural campus were just as scared and disoriented.
"It's no easy adjustment," said Owens, a 29-year school employee. "They feel like, 'I'm coming to a school for juvenile delinquents. I've got to be a tough guy.' We don't allow that here. We create a culture where everyone can feel comfortable and learn to be a normal kid."
Before they helped mold his speed and muscle into rare football talent, Owens, Badanjek, and the Glen Mills staff had to rework his attitude.
Raised by his mother and grandmother in a working-class island on the Main Line - his estranged father died in a 2008 auto accident - Pierce exhibited a rebelliousness that was exacerbated by a group of friends he now calls "knuckleheads."
"I can't talk specifically about why he was here, but there are kids here who are worse and better than Bernard," Owens said. "He wasn't hard-core. He was a likable kid who made bad decisions.
"We're not a prep school. We're a school for juvenile delinquents. I always tell these kids, 'You've got to be willing to let the streets go.' With the help of everyone here, Bernard did."
Both coaches said Pierce's turning point came after his junior year. At that point, his sentence completed, he could have returned to Lower Merion. Instead, he asked to stay. And because his GPA and credit total met the school's standards, he was allowed to do so.
“It’s deceptively simple, even in concept,” Rodriguez said while standing in the exhibit. “The thing I love about it is that she had to think architecturally and spatially about this. It wasn’t just the concept. She had to think about how it’s going to ‘read’ in this specific room with the skylight always changing.”
Rodriguez also believes the exhibit is user friendly by allowing — and in some ways, forcing — the viewers to walk on the uneven tiles.
Zhu, 33, wants viewers to share her excitement about life and experiencing art. Originally from China, she studied photography at Communication University of China followed by studies in management information systems at University of Nebraska – Omaha. Zhu finished her M.F.A. in studio art at University of Nebraska.
The installation is part of the Nebraska Now series in Skylight Gallery, a space dedicated to artwork created within two years from exhibiting, by emerging artists living in Nebraska.
“Sometimes we put traditional artwork in there,” Rodriguez said, “meaning painting, sculpture or those types of things. Sometimes we exhibit non-traditional art. The hope is that it presses your idea of what you think art is, or what it isn’t.”
Many of Zhu’s art pieces come from distilling her life through an artistic lens. Both of her parents still live in China. Her mother came to visit Zhu for six months in Nebraska. That visit became the basis for a piece of art.
During the legal process that resulted in the 16-year-old's being sent to the Delaware County school for court-adjudicated youth, Pierce had been portrayed as angry, undisciplined, disruptive. But that day, in that gloomy place, he was just a scared kid.
Pierce was there because he'd been involved in a brawl at Lower Merion High, where the football prodigy had encountered frequent trouble. One of the youngsters he hit had to be hospitalized.
"That was the big issue with him," said Rick Badanjek, the Glen Mills running backs coach. "He was very immature. As time went on, he blossomed. But it wasn't an easy road for him."
Somehow that road led the Ardmore native to all the right places. In 2009, Temple made the freshman its featured back. This season, despite being Ray Rice's backup, the Ravens' third-round pick has become one of the NFL's most accomplished rookies.
Next Sunday, of course, the road will land the 22-year-old in Super Bowl XLVII as Baltimore opposes the San Francisco 49ers on sports' ultimate stage.
"Bernard grew into a man here," said Kevin Owens, Glen Mills' coach. "By the time he left we all believed he could do something special. But the Super Bowl? As a rookie? I don't know if we thought that big."
Pierce's initial reaction to Glen Mills - a "Why-am-I-here-and-when-can-I-go?" attitude - wasn't unusual. Most of the teenagers who politely greet visitors to the sprawling rural campus were just as scared and disoriented.
"It's no easy adjustment," said Owens, a 29-year school employee. "They feel like, 'I'm coming to a school for juvenile delinquents. I've got to be a tough guy.' We don't allow that here. We create a culture where everyone can feel comfortable and learn to be a normal kid."
Before they helped mold his speed and muscle into rare football talent, Owens, Badanjek, and the Glen Mills staff had to rework his attitude.
Raised by his mother and grandmother in a working-class island on the Main Line - his estranged father died in a 2008 auto accident - Pierce exhibited a rebelliousness that was exacerbated by a group of friends he now calls "knuckleheads."
"I can't talk specifically about why he was here, but there are kids here who are worse and better than Bernard," Owens said. "He wasn't hard-core. He was a likable kid who made bad decisions.
"We're not a prep school. We're a school for juvenile delinquents. I always tell these kids, 'You've got to be willing to let the streets go.' With the help of everyone here, Bernard did."
Both coaches said Pierce's turning point came after his junior year. At that point, his sentence completed, he could have returned to Lower Merion. Instead, he asked to stay. And because his GPA and credit total met the school's standards, he was allowed to do so.
2013年1月21日星期一
Obama's Destiny As The Next JFK Faces Second
As the sun rises on his second inaugural, President Obama is already a significant figure in American history. And he is poised to become a legend within the Democratic party.
He is the nation's first black president. He pushed a sweeping health care bill through Congress. And he got reelected. President Barack Obama is on a trajectory to be an inspiration to new generations of Democrats, in the mold of Kennedy and FDR.
Obama’s second term will be the crucible in which his legacy will either be burnished or brought down a notch.
"He had a legacy as something unique only in getting elected. He already had something," Robert Gibbs, the president's adviser and White House press secretary for the administration's first two years, told The Huffington Post.
"Regardless of what happened, he was always going to be something that was totally different," Gibbs said. "Now I think though he gets the real opportunity to add something other than election night in 2008 to that legacy."
But Obama’s second term will also put a spotlight on two tensions that are bound to grow. As the president begins to think about his place in history, he will be in unspoken competition with the man whose wife he defeated for the Democratic nomination in 2008, who may bid to succeed him in 2016. And second, some of the biggest policy challenges of the president’s second term are going to require him to take on his own base.
Going forward, whether Hillary Clinton, the outgoing secretary of state, decides to run will impact Bill's legacy. It would keep him firmly planted in the public spotlight, and give him his own historic achievement, as the first man to be both president and the spouse of a president.
Clinton will want to be known as the man who rescued the Democratic party from its doldrums, bringing it back from a swing too far to the left and making the idea of government action palatable again, while associating Democrats with economic growth.
"It's always a little controversial, because it's not classic liberal. But I do think he showed the Democratic party that there is a way of governing and campaigning that appeals to independent voters, even some conservative voters, and a way of putting a working majority together for Democrats," Joe Lockhart, Clinton's White House press secretary from 1998 to 2000, said in an interview with HuffPost.
Obama will want to be known as the man who brought the nation back from near disaster, expanded the Democratic party's reach and helped level the playing field for those who did not have power or resources, expanding opportunity for the lower and middle class.
There are three kinds of issues on the second term to-do list: first-term accomplishments that need to be followed through on, like health care; first-term failures that have become second-term initiatives, like immigration; and potential landmines to avoid and -- in the event they explode -- manage. This last category is most likely to include trouble on the foreign policy front, or the kind of scandal cum congressional probe that tends to bedevil second-term presidents.
Gibbs said implementing the health care bill, moving immigration reform legislation through Congress and passing substantive tax reform and entitlement reform deals are the keys to a successful second term for Obama.
"The onus is really on the administration to ensure [health care] is done correctly, because I think it is hugely important," Gibbs said.
Obama faces a Republican majority in the House that is determined to try to dismantle his signature achievement. A source close to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) told HuffPost that top Republicans believe there is bipartisan support to repeal key elements of Obamacare, including the Independent Advisory Payment Board, the medical device tax and the tax on health insurers.
Obama and his advisers also want to be known for keeping the country out of a second Great Depression. Economic growth is a key factor in his second term, and another downturn would not only bring great pain to many Americans, it would damage his reputation for the ages.
It is concern over the nation’s fiscal health that will drive the Obama White House toward its biggest showdowns with the progressive left.
For example, the White House sees energy as a huge economic factor, especially the potential for massively increased domestic production of oil and natural gas. But it is currently trying to figure out how to balance this domestic energy boom with environmental concerns.
Then there is the idea of tax reform. Obama appears to be changing the actual definition of the term from lowering marginal rates and closing loopholes to just doing the latter. But there will still be pressure on him to do both, since this concept has a lot of bipartisan support.
And then there’s entitlements. Gibbs has encouraged the administration to proactively propose changes to Medicare and Social Security, since "entitlements are going to be restructured at some point."
"Somebody needs to speak a little bit of truth to power to the Democratic party and say, 'Who do you want to restructure this?' Because if you keep saying no to anything, we will not always have a Democratic president and 55 Democratic senators. You know?" Gibbs said. "President Paul Ryan does entitlement reform a whole lot different, or president Marco Rubio does it a whole lot differently than President Barack Obama."
One starting point for Obama’s confrontation with his own base on entitlements is over using chained CPI to calculate annual increases in Social Security benefits. Chained CPI is a tool for measuring inflation that is more accurate than the current method but which would slow the rise of benefits. Obama offered to include it as a concession in talks with Republicans over the fiscal cliff in December, but it was not ultimately included.
Private conversations with administration officials indicate they will move again to support chained CPI, despite outcries from groups like AARP.
But every step that the president goes beyond chained CPI will bring him into another great tension of his second term: like with energy, entitlements is an issue with great impact on the country’s fiscal health, but it is also one that is causing great division and disagreement on the left.
And if Obama wants to compromise on these two big issues, he will have to weigh how much he wants to chip away at the monument to him that Democrats are already building in their minds.
He is the nation's first black president. He pushed a sweeping health care bill through Congress. And he got reelected. President Barack Obama is on a trajectory to be an inspiration to new generations of Democrats, in the mold of Kennedy and FDR.
Obama’s second term will be the crucible in which his legacy will either be burnished or brought down a notch.
"He had a legacy as something unique only in getting elected. He already had something," Robert Gibbs, the president's adviser and White House press secretary for the administration's first two years, told The Huffington Post.
"Regardless of what happened, he was always going to be something that was totally different," Gibbs said. "Now I think though he gets the real opportunity to add something other than election night in 2008 to that legacy."
But Obama’s second term will also put a spotlight on two tensions that are bound to grow. As the president begins to think about his place in history, he will be in unspoken competition with the man whose wife he defeated for the Democratic nomination in 2008, who may bid to succeed him in 2016. And second, some of the biggest policy challenges of the president’s second term are going to require him to take on his own base.
Going forward, whether Hillary Clinton, the outgoing secretary of state, decides to run will impact Bill's legacy. It would keep him firmly planted in the public spotlight, and give him his own historic achievement, as the first man to be both president and the spouse of a president.
Clinton will want to be known as the man who rescued the Democratic party from its doldrums, bringing it back from a swing too far to the left and making the idea of government action palatable again, while associating Democrats with economic growth.
"It's always a little controversial, because it's not classic liberal. But I do think he showed the Democratic party that there is a way of governing and campaigning that appeals to independent voters, even some conservative voters, and a way of putting a working majority together for Democrats," Joe Lockhart, Clinton's White House press secretary from 1998 to 2000, said in an interview with HuffPost.
Obama will want to be known as the man who brought the nation back from near disaster, expanded the Democratic party's reach and helped level the playing field for those who did not have power or resources, expanding opportunity for the lower and middle class.
There are three kinds of issues on the second term to-do list: first-term accomplishments that need to be followed through on, like health care; first-term failures that have become second-term initiatives, like immigration; and potential landmines to avoid and -- in the event they explode -- manage. This last category is most likely to include trouble on the foreign policy front, or the kind of scandal cum congressional probe that tends to bedevil second-term presidents.
Gibbs said implementing the health care bill, moving immigration reform legislation through Congress and passing substantive tax reform and entitlement reform deals are the keys to a successful second term for Obama.
"The onus is really on the administration to ensure [health care] is done correctly, because I think it is hugely important," Gibbs said.
Obama faces a Republican majority in the House that is determined to try to dismantle his signature achievement. A source close to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) told HuffPost that top Republicans believe there is bipartisan support to repeal key elements of Obamacare, including the Independent Advisory Payment Board, the medical device tax and the tax on health insurers.
Obama and his advisers also want to be known for keeping the country out of a second Great Depression. Economic growth is a key factor in his second term, and another downturn would not only bring great pain to many Americans, it would damage his reputation for the ages.
It is concern over the nation’s fiscal health that will drive the Obama White House toward its biggest showdowns with the progressive left.
For example, the White House sees energy as a huge economic factor, especially the potential for massively increased domestic production of oil and natural gas. But it is currently trying to figure out how to balance this domestic energy boom with environmental concerns.
Then there is the idea of tax reform. Obama appears to be changing the actual definition of the term from lowering marginal rates and closing loopholes to just doing the latter. But there will still be pressure on him to do both, since this concept has a lot of bipartisan support.
And then there’s entitlements. Gibbs has encouraged the administration to proactively propose changes to Medicare and Social Security, since "entitlements are going to be restructured at some point."
"Somebody needs to speak a little bit of truth to power to the Democratic party and say, 'Who do you want to restructure this?' Because if you keep saying no to anything, we will not always have a Democratic president and 55 Democratic senators. You know?" Gibbs said. "President Paul Ryan does entitlement reform a whole lot different, or president Marco Rubio does it a whole lot differently than President Barack Obama."
One starting point for Obama’s confrontation with his own base on entitlements is over using chained CPI to calculate annual increases in Social Security benefits. Chained CPI is a tool for measuring inflation that is more accurate than the current method but which would slow the rise of benefits. Obama offered to include it as a concession in talks with Republicans over the fiscal cliff in December, but it was not ultimately included.
Private conversations with administration officials indicate they will move again to support chained CPI, despite outcries from groups like AARP.
But every step that the president goes beyond chained CPI will bring him into another great tension of his second term: like with energy, entitlements is an issue with great impact on the country’s fiscal health, but it is also one that is causing great division and disagreement on the left.
And if Obama wants to compromise on these two big issues, he will have to weigh how much he wants to chip away at the monument to him that Democrats are already building in their minds.
Nevada Tourism Hits The Road With BuzzFeed
Nevada's tourism challenge is not boosting Sin City, but Nevada itself. The problem is that most people think the former is the landing strip for the latter. A new campaign by communications firm Burson-Marsteller and BuzzFeed is about changing that perception with a digital road show involving two BuzzFeed editors tooling around the state, reporting on different attractions and general Nevada must-sees.
The effort includes tweets, video and images of such things as Nevada's ghost towns and ski resorts.
Michael Bassik, chair of U.S. digital practice at the agency, says the campaign's limited budget required a rather imaginative approach that wraps interactive ads around the editors' travels. "We looked back at research from TNS that shed light on the effectiveness of their previous online ads." He says the agency found that the effectiveness of their efforts had begun to decrease as time went on.
"We could no longer rely on banner messages alone to determine that an integrated campaign was necessary." That meant partnerships with content providers who would marry content with ad opportunities. "We selected BuzzFeed as a partner because we had envisioned a perfect marriage of paid content and advertising working with a story of Nevada reaching a target that includes younger travelers," he says.
Challenges are ever increasing with global markets. Customers are expecting quicker response times on the solutions they seek. Companies are impacted by forces from all directions, but it all comes down to execution: if you don’t execute you will not win the market or launch the product. Execution is stopped by distractions from your core business and your business core processes; none of these distractions are new.
The pressure to increase sales drives the company to launch new products at unprecedented rates. These ideas for new products are dumped on engineering groups that are already busy and are unable to deliver new designs at the required speed and reliability enough to capture the market. Overcoming this hurdle is imperative.
Next the designs need to be built into a prototype since building prototypes conflicts with the monthly production and sales dollars. As managers place the focus of the resources on monthly results and local optima the prototypes fall farther behind schedule. Now the sales force which has been driven to increase sales are overloaded and are losing encouragement as the new product requests take too long to produce and your competitor just stole the market on the next great idea.
These new products have now distracted your operation and your sales force and the ability to execute drops even farther into the abyss. Companies are disrupted as the capacity and skill levels required to build these new products and prototypes are lacking and time slips farther away as the market is captured by those who execute and bring products to market quicker proving that Speed Wins.
Distractions kill your chances for success. These distractions may be as simple as too many projects, or too many products to develop at one time. The conflict on resources working on the current production vs. the future project with the current month’s shipments winning out stalls the development process project. Understaffed engineering departments and machinists that don’t have the time to focus on the building of prototypes needed for success will also stop the project. Engineering and Machinists are pulled off projects and prototypes to “firefight” today’s issues on the production floor again stall the process. Lastly the skills are lacking to take ideas from sketches to prototypes or samples.
Equipment in-house is not designed for rapid prototype production. Most production machines lack the visibility and flexibility as they were purchased for a set production family. If machinery is in-house, it’s not dedicated to prototype production and production of current products happens first: the development project stops cold. Staff is not dedicated to the success of the prototypes as they are supporting current production first and foremost. Line Managers focus on shipping the day, the week, the month and not on the long term future as bonuses and accountability is measured based on these measures.
The capacity of the system must be flexible and meet the high demands on delivery so one day you may have the team sitting doing nothing and the next day need two or three 5-axis machines. So determining how much equipment is needed could be very challenging. Zero Conflicts “Production vs. Prototypes” will require a dedicated Team and a dedicated Department with the maintenance people.
Does this scare Top Management to know that building the team and the department with machines commits millions to the process so that most Managers will run from the idea and look for alternatives? One option of developing in-house talent looks bleak as the staff takes years to build and train and then is idle when the project list is short and spends millions on machines and tooling without knowing what the future looks like. If the floor space is not available, then there is the cost of another building added on to the development.
Project control increases as the correct partner has the resources to support the project. The partner works one-on-one with your Design people to ensure the output meets the requirements. Lead-times are reduced as the partner is a specialist and resolves issues quickly. The partner has the sub-tier suppliers that respond and deliver quicker and better than anyone. The cost topic is simple compared to missing the market or being late to the market; the costs are lower and are recovered quickly. If you compared the costs of building your own Team and purchasing the equipment to the costs, the cost is pennies on the dollar lower and has the flexibility to only pay as you need the resources. So this quickly becomes the winning choice.
Key advantages to picking the right partner is that you are in control of the project and the partner has an organization focused on prototypes to run on schedule with quicker Lead-times and lower costs. Speed-to-market is quicker and “Speed Wins”. Here is a short list of how you can find the right partner: what to look for and what ask.
The effort includes tweets, video and images of such things as Nevada's ghost towns and ski resorts.
Michael Bassik, chair of U.S. digital practice at the agency, says the campaign's limited budget required a rather imaginative approach that wraps interactive ads around the editors' travels. "We looked back at research from TNS that shed light on the effectiveness of their previous online ads." He says the agency found that the effectiveness of their efforts had begun to decrease as time went on.
"We could no longer rely on banner messages alone to determine that an integrated campaign was necessary." That meant partnerships with content providers who would marry content with ad opportunities. "We selected BuzzFeed as a partner because we had envisioned a perfect marriage of paid content and advertising working with a story of Nevada reaching a target that includes younger travelers," he says.
Challenges are ever increasing with global markets. Customers are expecting quicker response times on the solutions they seek. Companies are impacted by forces from all directions, but it all comes down to execution: if you don’t execute you will not win the market or launch the product. Execution is stopped by distractions from your core business and your business core processes; none of these distractions are new.
The pressure to increase sales drives the company to launch new products at unprecedented rates. These ideas for new products are dumped on engineering groups that are already busy and are unable to deliver new designs at the required speed and reliability enough to capture the market. Overcoming this hurdle is imperative.
Next the designs need to be built into a prototype since building prototypes conflicts with the monthly production and sales dollars. As managers place the focus of the resources on monthly results and local optima the prototypes fall farther behind schedule. Now the sales force which has been driven to increase sales are overloaded and are losing encouragement as the new product requests take too long to produce and your competitor just stole the market on the next great idea.
These new products have now distracted your operation and your sales force and the ability to execute drops even farther into the abyss. Companies are disrupted as the capacity and skill levels required to build these new products and prototypes are lacking and time slips farther away as the market is captured by those who execute and bring products to market quicker proving that Speed Wins.
Distractions kill your chances for success. These distractions may be as simple as too many projects, or too many products to develop at one time. The conflict on resources working on the current production vs. the future project with the current month’s shipments winning out stalls the development process project. Understaffed engineering departments and machinists that don’t have the time to focus on the building of prototypes needed for success will also stop the project. Engineering and Machinists are pulled off projects and prototypes to “firefight” today’s issues on the production floor again stall the process. Lastly the skills are lacking to take ideas from sketches to prototypes or samples.
Equipment in-house is not designed for rapid prototype production. Most production machines lack the visibility and flexibility as they were purchased for a set production family. If machinery is in-house, it’s not dedicated to prototype production and production of current products happens first: the development project stops cold. Staff is not dedicated to the success of the prototypes as they are supporting current production first and foremost. Line Managers focus on shipping the day, the week, the month and not on the long term future as bonuses and accountability is measured based on these measures.
The capacity of the system must be flexible and meet the high demands on delivery so one day you may have the team sitting doing nothing and the next day need two or three 5-axis machines. So determining how much equipment is needed could be very challenging. Zero Conflicts “Production vs. Prototypes” will require a dedicated Team and a dedicated Department with the maintenance people.
Does this scare Top Management to know that building the team and the department with machines commits millions to the process so that most Managers will run from the idea and look for alternatives? One option of developing in-house talent looks bleak as the staff takes years to build and train and then is idle when the project list is short and spends millions on machines and tooling without knowing what the future looks like. If the floor space is not available, then there is the cost of another building added on to the development.
Project control increases as the correct partner has the resources to support the project. The partner works one-on-one with your Design people to ensure the output meets the requirements. Lead-times are reduced as the partner is a specialist and resolves issues quickly. The partner has the sub-tier suppliers that respond and deliver quicker and better than anyone. The cost topic is simple compared to missing the market or being late to the market; the costs are lower and are recovered quickly. If you compared the costs of building your own Team and purchasing the equipment to the costs, the cost is pennies on the dollar lower and has the flexibility to only pay as you need the resources. So this quickly becomes the winning choice.
Key advantages to picking the right partner is that you are in control of the project and the partner has an organization focused on prototypes to run on schedule with quicker Lead-times and lower costs. Speed-to-market is quicker and “Speed Wins”. Here is a short list of how you can find the right partner: what to look for and what ask.
2013年1月17日星期四
Shiseido America To Expand East Windsor Facility
Shiseido America in East Windsor will be undergoing a 72,988 square foot two-phase expansion of their facility on Princeton-Hightstown Road. The building is currently 211,000 square feet and has 150 full-time employees and about 150 temporary employees. The expansion will bring an additional ten full-time employees to the building.
The first phase of the expansion (Phase I) is the construction of a 54,580 square foot office addition which will be tacked onto the existing warehouse building. Phase I will also include the creation of additional parking spaces, a storm water management bass, a widened driveway and an expanded loading area.
Phase II is the construction of an 18,408 square foot addition which will be located behind the existing office building. Both Phases of construction are expected to be completed by mid-summer 2013.
This expansion will allow Shiseido to gradually shift some distribution from their Oakland facility to the East Windsor facility. The manufacturing and warehouse additions will enlarge the space capacity for handing the company’s innovative cosmetics brands which include Shiseido, Nars, and Bare Escentuals.
The additions will also increase the exportation of products manufactured at the East Windsor facility to Europe and Asia. The expansion also lets the loading docks to be moved inside in order to create a more systematic floor loading system.
“Shiseido is one of our preeminent companies and community-minded corporate neighbors, and we are excited that East Windsor is such a great location to grow their company,” East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov said. “Shiseido’s continued success and decision to expand illustrates East Windsor’s business attractiveness, and will add tax dollars and new jobs for our community. With a long company history of promoting and protecting our green environment, the corporate leadership and staff of Shiseido America has set an admirable model for businesses in our community and around the world.”
Shiseido America is a subsidiary of the Japanese-based corporation Shiseido Company LTD, which established their operations in East Windsor in 1998 and serves as a manufacturing center for the company.
Shiseido Company LTD, is the fourth largest cosmetics company in the world. They develop upscale cosmetics, personal care items, toiletries, sun care products, fragrances, professional salon hair care products, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals.
Shiseido in East Windsor received a New Jersey Environmental Excellence Award in 2010 for reducing reliance on traditional sources of electricity by 80 percent through the installation of a roof-top solar array, a modest sized ground-based array, and various energy-saving initiatives.
“Shiseido is proud to have worked closely with Mayor Mironov and the Township for over a decade and is very appreciative of the partnership we have established with East Windsor’s local officials,” Shiseido America President and Chief Operating Officer Edward Houlihan said. “We are hopeful that we will continue to deepen our productive relationship with the community and continue to expand our presence and business activities in East Windsor for years to come.”
When it was announced the prison was reopening in the past, Five CAP, Inc. built affordable single-family and multi-family housing in Baldwin and Lake County to support individuals living and working in the county. At the time, they were selling as fast as they were being built, said Mary Trucks, Five CAP executive director. However, as soon as the prison closed, the houses were put up for sale and the owners moved.
All of the units built during that time are currently occupied, Trucks said, except for two that were in the process of being built when the prison closed. If the prison does reopen, Five CAP would be willing to build housing units again, she said.
"If (the prison) opens, I think it creates the market that allows for us to do many things in the community, including addressing the shortage of affordable housing," Trucks said. "We see an opportunity to do many things from an economic standpoint that would benefit the community, and from a social standpoint to benefit the community."
Bumstead admits the prison's past practices have made Lake County residents cautious, but he remains optimistic that the prison could stay open this time.
"Hopefully in the next six or eight years (the prison) proves itself that it is a huge savings to the state, which there would be because that's part of the deal that it has to be a minimum of 10 percent savings," Bumstead said. "If that facility is full, it is like $25 million (in savings). If we can get it maxed out, that is a huge savings to the state and jobs to our area."
Not everyone in Lake County will be qualified to work as a corrections officer, but residents could receive the necessary training to become employed at the prison, Bumstead said. Also, not all of the jobs will be in corrections, he added. Employees also will be needed in areas like food service.
The T Sheets paper templates are updated to reflect diagnostic and treatment protocols specific to H3N2, the primary influenza A virus circulating this season. It supports consistent charting and critical patient health information capture while ensuring hospitals meet regulatory and reimbursement needs.
"With the continued reports of rising flu levels this year, we felt it was critical to offer our assistance," said Sunny Sanyal, T-System chief executive officer. "In handling a public health crisis such as this latest seasonal epidemic, providers involuntarily find themselves lacking a sufficient strategy to keep up with the increased patient volumes. T Sheets offers an easy and structured way to help ED clinicians treat and document the surge of patients both onsite and offsite more efficiently."
According to news reports, the resulting overflows of patients complaining of flu-like symptoms are flooding EDs across the country. Many are operating at capacity and are setting up secondary EDs in parking lots and hospital hallways, conference rooms and clinics to meet demand and enacting emergency procedures.
The first phase of the expansion (Phase I) is the construction of a 54,580 square foot office addition which will be tacked onto the existing warehouse building. Phase I will also include the creation of additional parking spaces, a storm water management bass, a widened driveway and an expanded loading area.
Phase II is the construction of an 18,408 square foot addition which will be located behind the existing office building. Both Phases of construction are expected to be completed by mid-summer 2013.
This expansion will allow Shiseido to gradually shift some distribution from their Oakland facility to the East Windsor facility. The manufacturing and warehouse additions will enlarge the space capacity for handing the company’s innovative cosmetics brands which include Shiseido, Nars, and Bare Escentuals.
The additions will also increase the exportation of products manufactured at the East Windsor facility to Europe and Asia. The expansion also lets the loading docks to be moved inside in order to create a more systematic floor loading system.
“Shiseido is one of our preeminent companies and community-minded corporate neighbors, and we are excited that East Windsor is such a great location to grow their company,” East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov said. “Shiseido’s continued success and decision to expand illustrates East Windsor’s business attractiveness, and will add tax dollars and new jobs for our community. With a long company history of promoting and protecting our green environment, the corporate leadership and staff of Shiseido America has set an admirable model for businesses in our community and around the world.”
Shiseido America is a subsidiary of the Japanese-based corporation Shiseido Company LTD, which established their operations in East Windsor in 1998 and serves as a manufacturing center for the company.
Shiseido Company LTD, is the fourth largest cosmetics company in the world. They develop upscale cosmetics, personal care items, toiletries, sun care products, fragrances, professional salon hair care products, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals.
Shiseido in East Windsor received a New Jersey Environmental Excellence Award in 2010 for reducing reliance on traditional sources of electricity by 80 percent through the installation of a roof-top solar array, a modest sized ground-based array, and various energy-saving initiatives.
“Shiseido is proud to have worked closely with Mayor Mironov and the Township for over a decade and is very appreciative of the partnership we have established with East Windsor’s local officials,” Shiseido America President and Chief Operating Officer Edward Houlihan said. “We are hopeful that we will continue to deepen our productive relationship with the community and continue to expand our presence and business activities in East Windsor for years to come.”
When it was announced the prison was reopening in the past, Five CAP, Inc. built affordable single-family and multi-family housing in Baldwin and Lake County to support individuals living and working in the county. At the time, they were selling as fast as they were being built, said Mary Trucks, Five CAP executive director. However, as soon as the prison closed, the houses were put up for sale and the owners moved.
All of the units built during that time are currently occupied, Trucks said, except for two that were in the process of being built when the prison closed. If the prison does reopen, Five CAP would be willing to build housing units again, she said.
"If (the prison) opens, I think it creates the market that allows for us to do many things in the community, including addressing the shortage of affordable housing," Trucks said. "We see an opportunity to do many things from an economic standpoint that would benefit the community, and from a social standpoint to benefit the community."
Bumstead admits the prison's past practices have made Lake County residents cautious, but he remains optimistic that the prison could stay open this time.
"Hopefully in the next six or eight years (the prison) proves itself that it is a huge savings to the state, which there would be because that's part of the deal that it has to be a minimum of 10 percent savings," Bumstead said. "If that facility is full, it is like $25 million (in savings). If we can get it maxed out, that is a huge savings to the state and jobs to our area."
Not everyone in Lake County will be qualified to work as a corrections officer, but residents could receive the necessary training to become employed at the prison, Bumstead said. Also, not all of the jobs will be in corrections, he added. Employees also will be needed in areas like food service.
The T Sheets paper templates are updated to reflect diagnostic and treatment protocols specific to H3N2, the primary influenza A virus circulating this season. It supports consistent charting and critical patient health information capture while ensuring hospitals meet regulatory and reimbursement needs.
"With the continued reports of rising flu levels this year, we felt it was critical to offer our assistance," said Sunny Sanyal, T-System chief executive officer. "In handling a public health crisis such as this latest seasonal epidemic, providers involuntarily find themselves lacking a sufficient strategy to keep up with the increased patient volumes. T Sheets offers an easy and structured way to help ED clinicians treat and document the surge of patients both onsite and offsite more efficiently."
According to news reports, the resulting overflows of patients complaining of flu-like symptoms are flooding EDs across the country. Many are operating at capacity and are setting up secondary EDs in parking lots and hospital hallways, conference rooms and clinics to meet demand and enacting emergency procedures.
NLRB’s actions in 2012 highlight critical labor issues for nonunion employers
In 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) aggressively staked out positions on employment policies and practices prevalent in both union and nonunion workplaces. These issues include social media policies and practices, at-will statements in employee handbooks, statements to employees in internal investigations about the need to maintain confidentiality, and arbitration policies and agreements. The Board addressed them in the context of union and nonunion workplaces, and regularly brought enforcement actions against nonunion employers for alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Although nonunion employers have always been subject to the NLRA and to the enforcement powers of the NLRB, the developments in 2012 underscore the need for all employers to address the NLRA aspects of common workplace policies and practices. This alert provides background on the NLRA and NLRB and summarizes last year’s developments.
The NLRA sets forth the rights of employers and employees with respect to union organizing and collective action by employees. The NLRA applies to almost all private sector employers.
Section 7 of the NLRA states that in addition to the right to unionize, "employees shall have the right to . . . engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." An activity is "concerted" when an employee acts with or on the authority of other employees and not solely by and on behalf of the employee himself or herself. Concerted activity includes circumstances where individual employees seek to initiate or to induce or prepare for group action. Section 7 applies to all covered employees, regardless of whether the workplace is union or nonunion.
The NLRB is the federal agency charged with investigating and remedying alleged violations of the NLRA. The NLRB is comprised of a five-member Board and an Office of the General Counsel. Board members are appointed to staggered five-year terms, with a new Board vacancy coming up every year. The Board currently consists of only three members — all Democrats appointed by President Obama.
The NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel investigates and prosecutes unfair labor practices. This position is currently held by an Acting General Counsel, Lafe Solomon, whose nomination was sent to the Senate in January 2011 but has not come before the full Senate for a vote. The general counsel serves a four-year term.
In 2012, the NLRB addressed several workplace issues common to both union and nonunion workplaces. In addressing these issues, the NLRB focused on whether an employer’s policies or practices interfered with an employee’s ability to engage in protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA. The NLRB’s actions highlight the need for union and nonunion employers to review and evaluate their policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the NLRA.
In 2012, the NLRB emphasized that employees who use social media to interact with their co-workers about their working conditions may be engaged in protected concerted activity, and employer social media policies and practices that restrict such activity may violate Section 7. The Board explained these positions in a series of reports, enforcement actions and decisions.
The acting general counsel released two reportsin 2012 addressing social media policies and providing guidance to employers.1 A January 2012report detailed the outcomes of cases concerning the use of social media by employees and employer’s social media policies.2 A May 2012 report analyzed six social media policies that the NLRB found to contain unlawful provisions and a seventh policy that NLRB concluded was lawful (albeit after a revision).3
The NLRB also addressed the issue of social media policies in two cases decided in September 2012. In both cases, the Board concluded that social media policies and other employer rules that broadly limited employees’ posts and communications on social media violated employees' Section 7 rights to engage in protected concerted activity. In one case, the company’s policy stated that an employee’s on-line statements that "damage the Company, defame any individual or damage any person’s reputation" could result in discipline or termination of employment. The Board concluded that this rule was unlawful because employees would reasonably interpret the rule to restrict Section 7 rights — including the employees' right to criticize the company about their working conditions — and nothing in the rule suggested Section 7 activities were exempt from the rule. Similarly, in the second case, the employee handbook had a "Courtesy Rule" prohibiting an employee from being "disrespectful" or using "language which injures the image or reputation of the [employer]." The Board found the "Courtesy Rule" unlawful because employees would reasonably construe the broad prohibition to include Section 7 activity, such as objecting to working conditions or seeking support from others to improve working conditions.
The Board concluded that the Facebook postings constituted protected concerted activity under Section 7 and that the employer violated the NLRA. The Board determined that the initial Facebook comment and the responses were concerted activity because the employees made the comments in "common cause" and because the comments constituted a "first step towards taking group action" to defend themselves against a co-worker’s accusation. The Board rejected the employer’s position that the comments were unprotected harassing and bullying comments in violation of its "no tolerance" policy because the comments were not based on any protected category (e.g., race, sex, religion) and therefore were outside the scope of the employer’s anti-harassment policy. Further, the Board noted that any legitimate managerial concerns to prevent harassment "do not justify policies that discourage the free exercise of Section 7 rights by subjecting employees to . . . discipline on the basis of the subjective reactions of others to their protected activity." The Board ordered that the employer reinstate the five employees and make them whole for lost earnings and benefits, among other remedies.
Social media policies serve legitimate purposes, including protecting against the disclosure of confidential information, prohibiting defamatory statements and prohibiting an employee from making disparaging comments about the employer’s products, services, or customers. But as the NLRB’s recent actions demonstrate, an overbroad social media policy potentially raises NLRA concerns. Unions, in turn, can use a challenge to a nonunion employer’s social media policy as a springboard to organizing.
Employers should review their social media policies in light of the NLRB’s guidance. They also should carefully evaluate the enforcement of harassment or bullying policies to ensure that those policies are not applied so broadly as to prohibit activity protected by the NLRA. And when considering taking an adverse employment action against an employee for the employee’s statement on social media, employers should consider carefully the relevant NLRA issues.
Nonunion employers regularly include statements in employee handbooks confirming that employment is terminable at-will and limiting the authority of managers to change such policies. The NLRB has concluded that certain at-will statements in employee handbooks violate the NLRA because the statements suggest that employees cannot modify their at-will status through collective action and other protected concerted activity. The recent cases and NLRB guidance are instructive to employers.
In a case decided on February 1, 2012, an NLRB administrative law judge concluded that an employer violated the NLRA when its handbook required employees to acknowledge that "the at-will employment relationship cannot be amended, modified or altered in any way." In that case, an employee refused to sign the acknowledgement and her employment was terminated, leading to an unfair labor practice charge. The judge concluded that the at-will statement effectively required an employee to waive his or her Section 7 right to take concerted action to change the at-will status of employment. The judge concluded that such a provision may restrict employees from working together to collectively bargain for a change in their employment status.
Although nonunion employers have always been subject to the NLRA and to the enforcement powers of the NLRB, the developments in 2012 underscore the need for all employers to address the NLRA aspects of common workplace policies and practices. This alert provides background on the NLRA and NLRB and summarizes last year’s developments.
The NLRA sets forth the rights of employers and employees with respect to union organizing and collective action by employees. The NLRA applies to almost all private sector employers.
Section 7 of the NLRA states that in addition to the right to unionize, "employees shall have the right to . . . engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." An activity is "concerted" when an employee acts with or on the authority of other employees and not solely by and on behalf of the employee himself or herself. Concerted activity includes circumstances where individual employees seek to initiate or to induce or prepare for group action. Section 7 applies to all covered employees, regardless of whether the workplace is union or nonunion.
The NLRB is the federal agency charged with investigating and remedying alleged violations of the NLRA. The NLRB is comprised of a five-member Board and an Office of the General Counsel. Board members are appointed to staggered five-year terms, with a new Board vacancy coming up every year. The Board currently consists of only three members — all Democrats appointed by President Obama.
The NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel investigates and prosecutes unfair labor practices. This position is currently held by an Acting General Counsel, Lafe Solomon, whose nomination was sent to the Senate in January 2011 but has not come before the full Senate for a vote. The general counsel serves a four-year term.
In 2012, the NLRB addressed several workplace issues common to both union and nonunion workplaces. In addressing these issues, the NLRB focused on whether an employer’s policies or practices interfered with an employee’s ability to engage in protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA. The NLRB’s actions highlight the need for union and nonunion employers to review and evaluate their policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the NLRA.
In 2012, the NLRB emphasized that employees who use social media to interact with their co-workers about their working conditions may be engaged in protected concerted activity, and employer social media policies and practices that restrict such activity may violate Section 7. The Board explained these positions in a series of reports, enforcement actions and decisions.
The acting general counsel released two reportsin 2012 addressing social media policies and providing guidance to employers.1 A January 2012report detailed the outcomes of cases concerning the use of social media by employees and employer’s social media policies.2 A May 2012 report analyzed six social media policies that the NLRB found to contain unlawful provisions and a seventh policy that NLRB concluded was lawful (albeit after a revision).3
The NLRB also addressed the issue of social media policies in two cases decided in September 2012. In both cases, the Board concluded that social media policies and other employer rules that broadly limited employees’ posts and communications on social media violated employees' Section 7 rights to engage in protected concerted activity. In one case, the company’s policy stated that an employee’s on-line statements that "damage the Company, defame any individual or damage any person’s reputation" could result in discipline or termination of employment. The Board concluded that this rule was unlawful because employees would reasonably interpret the rule to restrict Section 7 rights — including the employees' right to criticize the company about their working conditions — and nothing in the rule suggested Section 7 activities were exempt from the rule. Similarly, in the second case, the employee handbook had a "Courtesy Rule" prohibiting an employee from being "disrespectful" or using "language which injures the image or reputation of the [employer]." The Board found the "Courtesy Rule" unlawful because employees would reasonably construe the broad prohibition to include Section 7 activity, such as objecting to working conditions or seeking support from others to improve working conditions.
The Board concluded that the Facebook postings constituted protected concerted activity under Section 7 and that the employer violated the NLRA. The Board determined that the initial Facebook comment and the responses were concerted activity because the employees made the comments in "common cause" and because the comments constituted a "first step towards taking group action" to defend themselves against a co-worker’s accusation. The Board rejected the employer’s position that the comments were unprotected harassing and bullying comments in violation of its "no tolerance" policy because the comments were not based on any protected category (e.g., race, sex, religion) and therefore were outside the scope of the employer’s anti-harassment policy. Further, the Board noted that any legitimate managerial concerns to prevent harassment "do not justify policies that discourage the free exercise of Section 7 rights by subjecting employees to . . . discipline on the basis of the subjective reactions of others to their protected activity." The Board ordered that the employer reinstate the five employees and make them whole for lost earnings and benefits, among other remedies.
Social media policies serve legitimate purposes, including protecting against the disclosure of confidential information, prohibiting defamatory statements and prohibiting an employee from making disparaging comments about the employer’s products, services, or customers. But as the NLRB’s recent actions demonstrate, an overbroad social media policy potentially raises NLRA concerns. Unions, in turn, can use a challenge to a nonunion employer’s social media policy as a springboard to organizing.
Employers should review their social media policies in light of the NLRB’s guidance. They also should carefully evaluate the enforcement of harassment or bullying policies to ensure that those policies are not applied so broadly as to prohibit activity protected by the NLRA. And when considering taking an adverse employment action against an employee for the employee’s statement on social media, employers should consider carefully the relevant NLRA issues.
Nonunion employers regularly include statements in employee handbooks confirming that employment is terminable at-will and limiting the authority of managers to change such policies. The NLRB has concluded that certain at-will statements in employee handbooks violate the NLRA because the statements suggest that employees cannot modify their at-will status through collective action and other protected concerted activity. The recent cases and NLRB guidance are instructive to employers.
In a case decided on February 1, 2012, an NLRB administrative law judge concluded that an employer violated the NLRA when its handbook required employees to acknowledge that "the at-will employment relationship cannot be amended, modified or altered in any way." In that case, an employee refused to sign the acknowledgement and her employment was terminated, leading to an unfair labor practice charge. The judge concluded that the at-will statement effectively required an employee to waive his or her Section 7 right to take concerted action to change the at-will status of employment. The judge concluded that such a provision may restrict employees from working together to collectively bargain for a change in their employment status.
2013年1月15日星期二
Kenya’s new kid steals show in Spanish race
Reigning 3,000metres SC world junior champion, Conseslus Kipruto and Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka stole limelight with victories at the 70th Cross International Juan Muguerza in Elgoibar on Sunday.
Competing under tough weather, the winners’ task included braving heavy rainfall during the second half of the men’s race on ground that had absorbed relentless rain the previous night.
The men’s 10.8km tussle had been billed as a thrilling encounter among four top Kenyans in the guise of the three-time winner Leonard Komon, last year’s 10,000m world leader Emmanuel Bett, 2011 World cross-country bronze medalist Vincent Chepkok and Conseslus Kipruto.
Kipruto was an impressive winner of the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona last year with a championship record of 8:06.10 in the 3,000m SC.
With fears of the course being muddy, the race didn’t begin particularly fast with Italy’s Andrea Sanguinetti and Spain’s 2008 World indoor 1500m bronze medalist Juan Carlos Higuero setting the early pace.
At the third kilometer covered in 9:15, eight men still remained in the leading group, among them four Kenyans, led by the current 10 miles World record holder Leonard Komon and another group commanded by four Spaniards, who included former European cross-country silver medalist Ayad Lamdassem, Higuero, European Cross eighth-place finisher Javier Guerra and Iván Fernández.
Afterwards, Kipruto took command of the pace for the first time but he was soon relegated to second position as the 2008 World Cross silver medalist Komon regained the leadership.
As a result of his relentless pace, Guerra and Higuero lost ground and the slim chance of victory halfway while Lamdassem struggled at the back of the pack.
The penultimate 2100m loop didn’t produce any major changes as Kipruto and Komon took turns at the front with Bett and Chepkok positioning themselves just behind them with ferocious rain beginning to fall.
By the bell Komon, Bett and Kipruto ran in a single file to build a 30-metre margin on Chepkok and Lamdassem.
Kipruto, 18-years old, regained the lead with 1200m remaining and opened up a sizeable gap on Bett within the space of 200m while Komon was alone in third.
Conditions became more grueling as the downpour intensified and a spot of drama took place when the eventual winner Kipruto fell into the mud just 400m from the finish line.
Early in the morning, not long after the sun rises above the Zambian plains, they map out their plan of attack. A detailed strategy is needed. After all, they are on the trail of a killer.
Dressed in orange t-shirts, riding on bicycles, motorcycles, in cars, trucks and occasionally in ox carts, they fan out across their target or ‘catchment’ areas. They travel along paved roads, dirt tracks, through fields and villages, and eventually go door-to-door on the hunt for Plasmodium falciparum – the mosquito-borne parasite that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them children under five. A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds, according to the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF.
"What's the alternative?" to elimination, asks Duncan Earle, director of MACEPA. "There are those who think we can tread water, but it's an unending investment, because if you don't eliminate it then you have to continue preventing, controlling and treating. So we have to go for it. We have done it in 111 countries around the world, why not another 90?"
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in December said in its World Malaria Report 2012 that a "concerted effort by endemic countries, donors and global malaria partners" had led to strengthened malaria control around the world.
While this strategy now includes testing and treatment in certain areas as transmission drops, its primary tools have been the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying of insecticide. As a result of all these efforts, malaria transmission rates have dropped to near zero in some parts of Zambia. Large-scale distribution of free bed nets has had a particularly significant impact.
"The campaign for the past five to eight years has been trying to get bed nets out and get a high level of usage of those bed nets to understand what that single intervention could do in terms of a key health outcome, which is childhood deaths", explains MACEPA's veteran malariologist Carlos (Kent) Campbell. "To our tremendous amazement, the impact has been even greater than we could have imagined."
Campbell says there was a 29% reduction in all childhood deaths within the first two years. "To put that in perspective: there's nothing matching that, which is reflective of how much death malaria caused in Zambia and how powerful bed nets are to decrease transmission.”
Since 2000, childhood deaths from malaria have dropped by 20% in other African nations using the SUFI approach, according to MACEPA. An estimated 300,000 children were saved from dying from malaria in 2010 alone, it said.
The latest step in Zambia's programme includes the Test and Treat campaign that began in December 2011 in certain districts of the country. Malaria trackers visit communities in those districts three times a year to conduct malaria tests, collect information, administer medication and deliver bed nets.
But the trackers are up against major challenges, including transportation. "Some of these areas are pretty rural, and even if you try to look for vehicles locally it is very difficult", says Kafula Silumbe, monitoring and evaluation officer with MACEPA/PATH in Zambia. "You find they have ox carts and things like that, and even when you get a vehicle sometimes it is not a vehicle that can go to some of these terrains...and you either have to walk or use a bicycle."
And once the malaria trackers do reach a community, finding the people they need to test or treat for the infection can be difficult as well.
"This is an area that has polygamous marriages, and household size can be anything from three people to 35 people", says Silumbe. "So you get to the household, you have to test each and every one of them. You may find that a quarter of them are positive for malaria. So you have to make sure that you just treat everyone."
But, he says, sometimes many of the people aren't home. The children could be at school and the parents might be out in the fields. In that case, the malaria trackers will have to return at a different time when more people are likely to be home.
Competing under tough weather, the winners’ task included braving heavy rainfall during the second half of the men’s race on ground that had absorbed relentless rain the previous night.
The men’s 10.8km tussle had been billed as a thrilling encounter among four top Kenyans in the guise of the three-time winner Leonard Komon, last year’s 10,000m world leader Emmanuel Bett, 2011 World cross-country bronze medalist Vincent Chepkok and Conseslus Kipruto.
Kipruto was an impressive winner of the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona last year with a championship record of 8:06.10 in the 3,000m SC.
With fears of the course being muddy, the race didn’t begin particularly fast with Italy’s Andrea Sanguinetti and Spain’s 2008 World indoor 1500m bronze medalist Juan Carlos Higuero setting the early pace.
At the third kilometer covered in 9:15, eight men still remained in the leading group, among them four Kenyans, led by the current 10 miles World record holder Leonard Komon and another group commanded by four Spaniards, who included former European cross-country silver medalist Ayad Lamdassem, Higuero, European Cross eighth-place finisher Javier Guerra and Iván Fernández.
Afterwards, Kipruto took command of the pace for the first time but he was soon relegated to second position as the 2008 World Cross silver medalist Komon regained the leadership.
As a result of his relentless pace, Guerra and Higuero lost ground and the slim chance of victory halfway while Lamdassem struggled at the back of the pack.
The penultimate 2100m loop didn’t produce any major changes as Kipruto and Komon took turns at the front with Bett and Chepkok positioning themselves just behind them with ferocious rain beginning to fall.
By the bell Komon, Bett and Kipruto ran in a single file to build a 30-metre margin on Chepkok and Lamdassem.
Kipruto, 18-years old, regained the lead with 1200m remaining and opened up a sizeable gap on Bett within the space of 200m while Komon was alone in third.
Conditions became more grueling as the downpour intensified and a spot of drama took place when the eventual winner Kipruto fell into the mud just 400m from the finish line.
Early in the morning, not long after the sun rises above the Zambian plains, they map out their plan of attack. A detailed strategy is needed. After all, they are on the trail of a killer.
Dressed in orange t-shirts, riding on bicycles, motorcycles, in cars, trucks and occasionally in ox carts, they fan out across their target or ‘catchment’ areas. They travel along paved roads, dirt tracks, through fields and villages, and eventually go door-to-door on the hunt for Plasmodium falciparum – the mosquito-borne parasite that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them children under five. A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds, according to the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF.
"What's the alternative?" to elimination, asks Duncan Earle, director of MACEPA. "There are those who think we can tread water, but it's an unending investment, because if you don't eliminate it then you have to continue preventing, controlling and treating. So we have to go for it. We have done it in 111 countries around the world, why not another 90?"
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in December said in its World Malaria Report 2012 that a "concerted effort by endemic countries, donors and global malaria partners" had led to strengthened malaria control around the world.
While this strategy now includes testing and treatment in certain areas as transmission drops, its primary tools have been the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying of insecticide. As a result of all these efforts, malaria transmission rates have dropped to near zero in some parts of Zambia. Large-scale distribution of free bed nets has had a particularly significant impact.
"The campaign for the past five to eight years has been trying to get bed nets out and get a high level of usage of those bed nets to understand what that single intervention could do in terms of a key health outcome, which is childhood deaths", explains MACEPA's veteran malariologist Carlos (Kent) Campbell. "To our tremendous amazement, the impact has been even greater than we could have imagined."
Campbell says there was a 29% reduction in all childhood deaths within the first two years. "To put that in perspective: there's nothing matching that, which is reflective of how much death malaria caused in Zambia and how powerful bed nets are to decrease transmission.”
Since 2000, childhood deaths from malaria have dropped by 20% in other African nations using the SUFI approach, according to MACEPA. An estimated 300,000 children were saved from dying from malaria in 2010 alone, it said.
The latest step in Zambia's programme includes the Test and Treat campaign that began in December 2011 in certain districts of the country. Malaria trackers visit communities in those districts three times a year to conduct malaria tests, collect information, administer medication and deliver bed nets.
But the trackers are up against major challenges, including transportation. "Some of these areas are pretty rural, and even if you try to look for vehicles locally it is very difficult", says Kafula Silumbe, monitoring and evaluation officer with MACEPA/PATH in Zambia. "You find they have ox carts and things like that, and even when you get a vehicle sometimes it is not a vehicle that can go to some of these terrains...and you either have to walk or use a bicycle."
And once the malaria trackers do reach a community, finding the people they need to test or treat for the infection can be difficult as well.
"This is an area that has polygamous marriages, and household size can be anything from three people to 35 people", says Silumbe. "So you get to the household, you have to test each and every one of them. You may find that a quarter of them are positive for malaria. So you have to make sure that you just treat everyone."
But, he says, sometimes many of the people aren't home. The children could be at school and the parents might be out in the fields. In that case, the malaria trackers will have to return at a different time when more people are likely to be home.
Rotunda buzzes with activity ahead of legislative session
More than 600 seasonal employees and dozens of year-round staff keep the show running smoothly so lawmakers can concentrate on the work at hand. With 20 newly minted representatives and new leadership in both the House and the Senate, it's been a little crazier than usual getting ready.
On Thursday, staffers double-checked all the desks on the House and Senate floors, making sure they were ready for lawmakers. Thousands of pages of pre-filed bills were copied and made ready for legislators and lobbyists. On Friday, new secretaries for House representatives were learning the computer system to help their assigned legislators.
Saturday marked the beginning of the session's long haul for Senate Chief Clerk Lenore Naranjo and longtime House Chief Clerk Stephen Arias.
Naranjo still hadn't eaten her sandwich at 2 p.m. Thursday before the session. No time for lunch. "I liken this to a roller coaster," said Naranjo, who was deputy clerk for years under the late Margaret Larragoite.
During the session, there will be many nights she doesn't return to her home in Espa?ola until 2 a.m. She'll be back at the Legislature well before 8 a.m. "Luckily, I don't need a lot of sleep," Naranjo said.
Arias keeps an extra razor, toothbrush and clean shirts at his office in Room 100. He'll spend a few nights sleeping on the brown couch in his office, especially toward the end of the session, as lawmakers begin pulling all-nighters to get bills passed. Arias expects to be at the Roundhouse for 80 days straight, no days off. "I eat, sleep and drink the Legislature beginning in October," Arias said.
The chief clerks are like the Legislature's stage managers. They're in charge of hiring seasonal staff, tracking legislation, keeping communication between the House and Senate flowing smoothly and issuing checks, including to lawmakers. Each is elected by their respective houses. Arias answers to the House speaker while Naranjo gets direction from the Senate Committee.
Naranjo and Arias both worked up through the ranks to their chief clerk jobs. Naranjo was a stay-at-home mom in 1976 when a lawmaker asked her to work for him. The initial 30-day assignment turned into a career. "I've probably worked almost every position here, mostly with the Senate -- attendant, a regular secretary, a committee secretary, a floater," she said.
Arias started in 1966 as a clerk reading legislation for the House when the Legislature was still housed in the Bataan Memorial Building. Over the years, he worked as a payroll officer and even a coat checker, before becoming chief clerk in 1983. Back then, the chief clerk positions were part-time. The positions weren't made full time until 1993.
Arias and Naranjo have a slew of staff to hire and train before the session starts -- secretaries for lawmakers, computer technicians, clerks to read the bills out loud into the record, security officers, committee room attendants and more. Arias hires about 270 seasonal staff, Naranjo about 200.
Those don't include seasonal staff hired by the Legislative Council Service and the Legislative Finance Committee.
Through the year, the chief clerks and their staff work with interim committees and help lawmakers address issues raised by constituents. "Any person in New Mexico that goes to a legislator and complains, whether it's about a washed-out road, a leaking roof at the senior center, we check into it," Arias said. "We have a constituent liaison we can call at every state agency."
In October, computer staff set up new equipment. A third of the computers are replaced every four years.
On Dec. 1, everything in the Roundhouse is inventoried, from furniture to paintings. "To make sure nothing has been pilfered during the interim," Arias said.
Seasonal secretaries start coming in the first week of January. The House hires one secretary for every two representatives, except for committee chairs who get their own. In the Senate, each lawmaker has a secretary.
The chief clerks have to make sure every lawmaker has an office and that the nameplates over the doors are correctly labeled. Naranjo still had four senators without assigned office space Friday.
The chief clerks have to put together a budget by the weekend prior to the session's opening day. The House budget alone is $3.5 million, Arias said. Just the printing needed for the House through the session will run about $400,000.
More than 1,000 bills are likely to be filed in the House and several hundred in the Senate for lawmakers to wrangle over this session. Each of those may be amended several times and must then be recopied and distributed. The chief clerks are in charge of tracking those bills and knowing the status of every single one at a moment's notice.
On opening day, as every day of the session, the chief clerks will call the roll. Then everyone gets down to the business at hand -- crafting the laws that guide New Mexico's future.
Robert Padilla made his way across the polished floor of the Roundhouse Rotunda last week, his arms loaded down with two cases of Clorox wipes. Padilla, acting supervisor for building maintenance services, joked that his crew is in charge of the most important paper at the Legislature. "The toilet paper," he said with a grin.
About 300 rolls of toilet paper and 15 cases of paper towels were stocked and ready to go by Monday. Padilla estimates those supplies will last about two weeks.
Indoor maintenance crews empty the trash cans, clean the floors, mop up spills and disinfect the restrooms. Often they're the ones who find ill or exhausted adults passed out in the restrooms and call for help. They care for all four floors of the Roundhouse, plus the annex, a total of 25 bathrooms alone to clean. The year-round maintenance crew swells with seasonal help during the session to keep up with the work.
Landscape crews are responsible for clearing the walkways of ice in the winter and caring for the hundreds of trees, flowers and lawns around the 6.5-acre Capitol grounds.
Terry Ebell, a Roy rancher who has managed the Legislature's food service for 16 years, was in the downstairs cafeteria space wrestling a big rack of bread in a tiny space. "You have to love to cook to do this job," Ebell said.
Ebell manages two eateries at the Legislature. Both are open only during the session. In between sessions, all the cookware and utensils are stored away. A ground-level cafeteria is open to the public and staff from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the session. The first level lounge is open only to legislators and their families when the session begins. The cafeterias serve hamburgers, red and green chile, homemade soups and specials each week.
Ebell can only order some food ahead of time. She and her 13-member staff have little storage or refrigerator space. Almost every day she orders 15 pounds of beans and 40 pounds of hamburger ("20 for red and 20 for green chile," she said). She orders countless cartons of eggs, packages of bacon and tons of vegetables.
On Thursday, staffers double-checked all the desks on the House and Senate floors, making sure they were ready for lawmakers. Thousands of pages of pre-filed bills were copied and made ready for legislators and lobbyists. On Friday, new secretaries for House representatives were learning the computer system to help their assigned legislators.
Saturday marked the beginning of the session's long haul for Senate Chief Clerk Lenore Naranjo and longtime House Chief Clerk Stephen Arias.
Naranjo still hadn't eaten her sandwich at 2 p.m. Thursday before the session. No time for lunch. "I liken this to a roller coaster," said Naranjo, who was deputy clerk for years under the late Margaret Larragoite.
During the session, there will be many nights she doesn't return to her home in Espa?ola until 2 a.m. She'll be back at the Legislature well before 8 a.m. "Luckily, I don't need a lot of sleep," Naranjo said.
Arias keeps an extra razor, toothbrush and clean shirts at his office in Room 100. He'll spend a few nights sleeping on the brown couch in his office, especially toward the end of the session, as lawmakers begin pulling all-nighters to get bills passed. Arias expects to be at the Roundhouse for 80 days straight, no days off. "I eat, sleep and drink the Legislature beginning in October," Arias said.
The chief clerks are like the Legislature's stage managers. They're in charge of hiring seasonal staff, tracking legislation, keeping communication between the House and Senate flowing smoothly and issuing checks, including to lawmakers. Each is elected by their respective houses. Arias answers to the House speaker while Naranjo gets direction from the Senate Committee.
Naranjo and Arias both worked up through the ranks to their chief clerk jobs. Naranjo was a stay-at-home mom in 1976 when a lawmaker asked her to work for him. The initial 30-day assignment turned into a career. "I've probably worked almost every position here, mostly with the Senate -- attendant, a regular secretary, a committee secretary, a floater," she said.
Arias started in 1966 as a clerk reading legislation for the House when the Legislature was still housed in the Bataan Memorial Building. Over the years, he worked as a payroll officer and even a coat checker, before becoming chief clerk in 1983. Back then, the chief clerk positions were part-time. The positions weren't made full time until 1993.
Arias and Naranjo have a slew of staff to hire and train before the session starts -- secretaries for lawmakers, computer technicians, clerks to read the bills out loud into the record, security officers, committee room attendants and more. Arias hires about 270 seasonal staff, Naranjo about 200.
Those don't include seasonal staff hired by the Legislative Council Service and the Legislative Finance Committee.
Through the year, the chief clerks and their staff work with interim committees and help lawmakers address issues raised by constituents. "Any person in New Mexico that goes to a legislator and complains, whether it's about a washed-out road, a leaking roof at the senior center, we check into it," Arias said. "We have a constituent liaison we can call at every state agency."
In October, computer staff set up new equipment. A third of the computers are replaced every four years.
On Dec. 1, everything in the Roundhouse is inventoried, from furniture to paintings. "To make sure nothing has been pilfered during the interim," Arias said.
Seasonal secretaries start coming in the first week of January. The House hires one secretary for every two representatives, except for committee chairs who get their own. In the Senate, each lawmaker has a secretary.
The chief clerks have to make sure every lawmaker has an office and that the nameplates over the doors are correctly labeled. Naranjo still had four senators without assigned office space Friday.
The chief clerks have to put together a budget by the weekend prior to the session's opening day. The House budget alone is $3.5 million, Arias said. Just the printing needed for the House through the session will run about $400,000.
More than 1,000 bills are likely to be filed in the House and several hundred in the Senate for lawmakers to wrangle over this session. Each of those may be amended several times and must then be recopied and distributed. The chief clerks are in charge of tracking those bills and knowing the status of every single one at a moment's notice.
On opening day, as every day of the session, the chief clerks will call the roll. Then everyone gets down to the business at hand -- crafting the laws that guide New Mexico's future.
Robert Padilla made his way across the polished floor of the Roundhouse Rotunda last week, his arms loaded down with two cases of Clorox wipes. Padilla, acting supervisor for building maintenance services, joked that his crew is in charge of the most important paper at the Legislature. "The toilet paper," he said with a grin.
About 300 rolls of toilet paper and 15 cases of paper towels were stocked and ready to go by Monday. Padilla estimates those supplies will last about two weeks.
Indoor maintenance crews empty the trash cans, clean the floors, mop up spills and disinfect the restrooms. Often they're the ones who find ill or exhausted adults passed out in the restrooms and call for help. They care for all four floors of the Roundhouse, plus the annex, a total of 25 bathrooms alone to clean. The year-round maintenance crew swells with seasonal help during the session to keep up with the work.
Landscape crews are responsible for clearing the walkways of ice in the winter and caring for the hundreds of trees, flowers and lawns around the 6.5-acre Capitol grounds.
Terry Ebell, a Roy rancher who has managed the Legislature's food service for 16 years, was in the downstairs cafeteria space wrestling a big rack of bread in a tiny space. "You have to love to cook to do this job," Ebell said.
Ebell manages two eateries at the Legislature. Both are open only during the session. In between sessions, all the cookware and utensils are stored away. A ground-level cafeteria is open to the public and staff from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the session. The first level lounge is open only to legislators and their families when the session begins. The cafeterias serve hamburgers, red and green chile, homemade soups and specials each week.
Ebell can only order some food ahead of time. She and her 13-member staff have little storage or refrigerator space. Almost every day she orders 15 pounds of beans and 40 pounds of hamburger ("20 for red and 20 for green chile," she said). She orders countless cartons of eggs, packages of bacon and tons of vegetables.
2013年1月13日星期日
Corbett at a crossroads
The governor's budget policies have serious consequences for those hit by economic hard times in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, which had a 9.4 percent unemployment rate in November, the highest among the 14 metro areas in the state. State and federal budget cuts have created a crisis for local nonprofits operating food pantries and other programs to help the poor, homeless and jobless, said Gary Drapek, president of the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne counties.
"What we are seeing now especially is the cold weather starting to hit," Drapek said.
The United Way of Pennsylvania released a statewide survey in late November indicating that state budget cuts in fiscal 2012-13 impacted 69 percent of some 800 responding nonprofits. As a result, 51 percent of respondents implemented layoffs, 38 percent reduced hours and 47 percent expanded waiting lists for services.
Corbett got legislative approval to end a state welfare program dating back to the Great Depression last summer. The General Assistance program had provided $200 monthly payments to some 70,000 Pennsylvanians, including the disabled, domestic violence victims and people getting addiction treatments.
The governor said he wants to shift priority instead to helping thousands of individuals with mental disabilities on long-standing waiting lists for placement in group homes and other care services. He plans to propose an additional $20 million to reduce those waiting lists in the next budget.
"We are doing that (GA program) before we take care of people who can't help themselves?" Corbett asked, questioning past policies. "That's out of sync."
The general assistance recipients used those payments for rent or heating bills, Drapek said. They are now seeking help from local programs that have less money to go around because of other cuts.
State aid to county-run human services programs has been cut by Corbett, continuing a long-running trend. The current budget slashed aid for human services by $84 million, or 10 percent, while a pilot project giving 20 counties flexibility to allocate the money is tested. Luzerne and Wayne counties are participating in the pilot, which has the support of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The cuts have led to waiting lists for individuals seeking mental health and drug and alcohol services, said Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bensalem, chairman of the House Human Services Committee.
"I would really like to see that 10 percent cut restored," DiGirolamo said.
No issue dogged the governor more during 2012 than questions about why the state investigation of Sandusky - first under Corbett and then his appointed successor Attorney General Linda Kelly - took nearly three years. Incoming Attorney General Kathleen Kane said a top priority is investigating the pace of the Sandusky probe. Corbett said it was important to use the secrecy of a state grand jury to obtain testimony from a number of witnesses against Sandusky, and that took some time.
A statewide poll by Franklin and Marshall College last fall found only one in six - or 17 percent - of respondents believe Corbett did an excellent or good job investigating the Sandusky case, while nearly two-thirds - or 65 percent - think he did a fair or poor job.
The poll of 632 registered state voters conducted between Sept. 18 and Sept. 23 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
As the new year began, Corbett dropped a bombshell by filing a federal antitrust lawsuit to block the NCAA from imposing sanctions and a $60 million fine against Penn State for its handling of the Sandusky case. He said he initially thought the sanctions were excessive but immune to challenge. He then discovered evidence that the NCAA didn't follow its own rules in imposing the sanctions.
"The stakes for Corbett in this bold strategy are immense," wrote Terry Madonna, Ph.D., pollster at Franklin and Marshall College and Michael Young, Ph.D., of Michael Young Strategic Research in their "Politically Uncorrected" column.
"In going after the sanctions and the NCAA, he is adopting a politically popular policy. At the same time, he risks the credible criticism that he is a hypocritical politician who initially supported the NCAA actions as necessary 'corrective actions,' but is now changing course because he is in political trouble."
The current state budget provides essentially flat funding for basic and higher education, a negotiated agreement made possible as state tax revenues improved last year. But public schools are still coping with the loss of almost $1 billion because of statewide cuts in fiscal 2011-12.
Corbett said the first-year cuts are a consequence of the end of federal stimulus aid, while the House Democratic Appropriations Committee said locking in those cuts meant more hikes in local school property taxes and reductions to programs and staff.
Corbett cited a new law requiring that teachers be evaluated on how well their students perform on standardized tests as one of his major achievements.
The current budget expands the amount of state tax credits available to businesses that make donations to schools for scholarships and other programs from $75 million to $100 million. Corbett has yet to win legislative approval for proposals to give scholarships to low-income students attending the worst-performing public schools and to change charter school oversight.
Corbett has pointed to the creation of more than 100,000 private sector jobs - many in the natural gas industry - as a sign his business policies are working. He attributes the gain to holding the line on state tax rates while continuing to phase out the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax and enacting state laws to bring solvency to the state Unemployment Compensation Fund and limit corporate liability in some civil lawsuits. A new law exempting family farms from paying the state inheritance and realty transfer taxes means families will no longer have to sell farms to settle estates, Corbett said.
Providing a long-term state tax credit for an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County starting in 2017 offers an opportunity to re-industrialize western Pennsylvania and create a new industry sector, Corbett said.
The cuts in state aid to education and human services funding have cost public sector jobs during the past two years, said Sharon Ward, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a Harrisburg think tank critical of Corbett's budget cuts.
"In the 2011-12 school year, Pennsylvania lost 20,000 jobs, more than were added through gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale since the start of 2010," she said.
Corbett's 2010 campaign pledge not to hike state taxes led to enactment early last year of the alternative he offered - the county impact fee on natural gas production to offset the impacts of drilling operations. Corbett said the impact fee puts revenue directly in the hands of local officials.
The impact fee law provides for 60 percent of revenue going to counties and local governments covered under impact fee drilling ordinances and 40 percent distributed for statewide programs. An initial $204 million in impact fee revenue was generated based on natural gas production in 2011. That amount is half what a state severance tax would have generated in revenue had it been in effect between July 2009 and December 2011, the Budget and Policy Center estimated.
"There are real questions about whether Pennsylvania's fee is enough to pay for the impacts of drilling on local communities," Ward said.
A key provision of the impact fee law remains on hold. The state Supreme Court is weighing an appeal of a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down a provision limiting the ability of municipalities to control the location of drilling activity.
Corbett is expected to unveil his long-awaited transportation funding policy ahead of the budget address. It's been 1? years since a gubernatorial commission that he created issued a report making recommendations to generate $2.5 billion in new transportation revenue annually to fix deteriorating roads and bridges. The commission's recommendations include lifting the cap on the state oil company franchise tax. The governor said he's considering that and other recommendations in the report.
The delay in action prompted House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny County, to suggest renaming the state Transportation Department as the "Department of Deferred Maintenance."
Corbett cut a high profile directing the quick emergency response during the devastating flooding in the Susquehanna River Basin in 2011.
The governor was less visible when a stalemate developed in the Republican-controlled state House over a recovery aid package to supplement federal disaster assistance. The Senate approved a $150 million bond issue to underwrite the state's share of aid. The House approved no-borrow bills that drew money from the Motor License Fund and other transfers.
Corbett eventually supported the House approach, but the bills weren't reconciled in the last session. Meanwhile, PennDOT shuffled money to fix washed-out roads and erect bridges, sometimes on a temporary basis, in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Corbett added $11 million this year to a state program to help financially distressed cities. The funding was added in anticipation of additional cities coming under Act 47. This was the source of a $2 million no-interest state loan last summer to the city of Scranton.
Within months of taking office, Corbett signed off on an inherited issue by approving a $20 million state grant to help renovate PNC Field in Moosic.
Corbett said he's making good on a campaign promise by reducing the size of the state vehicle fleet by 14 percent, with a planned 20 percent reduction by 2019. He touted the new PennWatch website offering information on state employee salaries and state contracts, increased efforts to combat welfare fraud and tighter review of applications for community development funding under the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program among reform accomplishments.
At year's end, Corbett amended his 2011 financial interest statement to include trips worth more than $2,300 that were paid for by a Pennsylvania businessman and campaign contributor. The omission was attributed to clerical error.
"What we are seeing now especially is the cold weather starting to hit," Drapek said.
The United Way of Pennsylvania released a statewide survey in late November indicating that state budget cuts in fiscal 2012-13 impacted 69 percent of some 800 responding nonprofits. As a result, 51 percent of respondents implemented layoffs, 38 percent reduced hours and 47 percent expanded waiting lists for services.
Corbett got legislative approval to end a state welfare program dating back to the Great Depression last summer. The General Assistance program had provided $200 monthly payments to some 70,000 Pennsylvanians, including the disabled, domestic violence victims and people getting addiction treatments.
The governor said he wants to shift priority instead to helping thousands of individuals with mental disabilities on long-standing waiting lists for placement in group homes and other care services. He plans to propose an additional $20 million to reduce those waiting lists in the next budget.
"We are doing that (GA program) before we take care of people who can't help themselves?" Corbett asked, questioning past policies. "That's out of sync."
The general assistance recipients used those payments for rent or heating bills, Drapek said. They are now seeking help from local programs that have less money to go around because of other cuts.
State aid to county-run human services programs has been cut by Corbett, continuing a long-running trend. The current budget slashed aid for human services by $84 million, or 10 percent, while a pilot project giving 20 counties flexibility to allocate the money is tested. Luzerne and Wayne counties are participating in the pilot, which has the support of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The cuts have led to waiting lists for individuals seeking mental health and drug and alcohol services, said Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bensalem, chairman of the House Human Services Committee.
"I would really like to see that 10 percent cut restored," DiGirolamo said.
No issue dogged the governor more during 2012 than questions about why the state investigation of Sandusky - first under Corbett and then his appointed successor Attorney General Linda Kelly - took nearly three years. Incoming Attorney General Kathleen Kane said a top priority is investigating the pace of the Sandusky probe. Corbett said it was important to use the secrecy of a state grand jury to obtain testimony from a number of witnesses against Sandusky, and that took some time.
A statewide poll by Franklin and Marshall College last fall found only one in six - or 17 percent - of respondents believe Corbett did an excellent or good job investigating the Sandusky case, while nearly two-thirds - or 65 percent - think he did a fair or poor job.
The poll of 632 registered state voters conducted between Sept. 18 and Sept. 23 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
As the new year began, Corbett dropped a bombshell by filing a federal antitrust lawsuit to block the NCAA from imposing sanctions and a $60 million fine against Penn State for its handling of the Sandusky case. He said he initially thought the sanctions were excessive but immune to challenge. He then discovered evidence that the NCAA didn't follow its own rules in imposing the sanctions.
"The stakes for Corbett in this bold strategy are immense," wrote Terry Madonna, Ph.D., pollster at Franklin and Marshall College and Michael Young, Ph.D., of Michael Young Strategic Research in their "Politically Uncorrected" column.
"In going after the sanctions and the NCAA, he is adopting a politically popular policy. At the same time, he risks the credible criticism that he is a hypocritical politician who initially supported the NCAA actions as necessary 'corrective actions,' but is now changing course because he is in political trouble."
The current state budget provides essentially flat funding for basic and higher education, a negotiated agreement made possible as state tax revenues improved last year. But public schools are still coping with the loss of almost $1 billion because of statewide cuts in fiscal 2011-12.
Corbett said the first-year cuts are a consequence of the end of federal stimulus aid, while the House Democratic Appropriations Committee said locking in those cuts meant more hikes in local school property taxes and reductions to programs and staff.
Corbett cited a new law requiring that teachers be evaluated on how well their students perform on standardized tests as one of his major achievements.
The current budget expands the amount of state tax credits available to businesses that make donations to schools for scholarships and other programs from $75 million to $100 million. Corbett has yet to win legislative approval for proposals to give scholarships to low-income students attending the worst-performing public schools and to change charter school oversight.
Corbett has pointed to the creation of more than 100,000 private sector jobs - many in the natural gas industry - as a sign his business policies are working. He attributes the gain to holding the line on state tax rates while continuing to phase out the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax and enacting state laws to bring solvency to the state Unemployment Compensation Fund and limit corporate liability in some civil lawsuits. A new law exempting family farms from paying the state inheritance and realty transfer taxes means families will no longer have to sell farms to settle estates, Corbett said.
Providing a long-term state tax credit for an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County starting in 2017 offers an opportunity to re-industrialize western Pennsylvania and create a new industry sector, Corbett said.
The cuts in state aid to education and human services funding have cost public sector jobs during the past two years, said Sharon Ward, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a Harrisburg think tank critical of Corbett's budget cuts.
"In the 2011-12 school year, Pennsylvania lost 20,000 jobs, more than were added through gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale since the start of 2010," she said.
Corbett's 2010 campaign pledge not to hike state taxes led to enactment early last year of the alternative he offered - the county impact fee on natural gas production to offset the impacts of drilling operations. Corbett said the impact fee puts revenue directly in the hands of local officials.
The impact fee law provides for 60 percent of revenue going to counties and local governments covered under impact fee drilling ordinances and 40 percent distributed for statewide programs. An initial $204 million in impact fee revenue was generated based on natural gas production in 2011. That amount is half what a state severance tax would have generated in revenue had it been in effect between July 2009 and December 2011, the Budget and Policy Center estimated.
"There are real questions about whether Pennsylvania's fee is enough to pay for the impacts of drilling on local communities," Ward said.
A key provision of the impact fee law remains on hold. The state Supreme Court is weighing an appeal of a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down a provision limiting the ability of municipalities to control the location of drilling activity.
Corbett is expected to unveil his long-awaited transportation funding policy ahead of the budget address. It's been 1? years since a gubernatorial commission that he created issued a report making recommendations to generate $2.5 billion in new transportation revenue annually to fix deteriorating roads and bridges. The commission's recommendations include lifting the cap on the state oil company franchise tax. The governor said he's considering that and other recommendations in the report.
The delay in action prompted House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny County, to suggest renaming the state Transportation Department as the "Department of Deferred Maintenance."
Corbett cut a high profile directing the quick emergency response during the devastating flooding in the Susquehanna River Basin in 2011.
The governor was less visible when a stalemate developed in the Republican-controlled state House over a recovery aid package to supplement federal disaster assistance. The Senate approved a $150 million bond issue to underwrite the state's share of aid. The House approved no-borrow bills that drew money from the Motor License Fund and other transfers.
Corbett eventually supported the House approach, but the bills weren't reconciled in the last session. Meanwhile, PennDOT shuffled money to fix washed-out roads and erect bridges, sometimes on a temporary basis, in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Corbett added $11 million this year to a state program to help financially distressed cities. The funding was added in anticipation of additional cities coming under Act 47. This was the source of a $2 million no-interest state loan last summer to the city of Scranton.
Within months of taking office, Corbett signed off on an inherited issue by approving a $20 million state grant to help renovate PNC Field in Moosic.
Corbett said he's making good on a campaign promise by reducing the size of the state vehicle fleet by 14 percent, with a planned 20 percent reduction by 2019. He touted the new PennWatch website offering information on state employee salaries and state contracts, increased efforts to combat welfare fraud and tighter review of applications for community development funding under the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program among reform accomplishments.
At year's end, Corbett amended his 2011 financial interest statement to include trips worth more than $2,300 that were paid for by a Pennsylvania businessman and campaign contributor. The omission was attributed to clerical error.
Tampa looks to expand downtown WiFi access
When Eric and Larisa Hawk moved to the SkyPoint high-rise in downtown Tampa last year, they looked forward to taking a laptop and working while their son David played at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.
That's because the riverfront park, while a lively place for kids and dogs, is a dead zone for free, publicly accessible WiFi.
That galls Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who places a high priority on attracting young families and creative professionals to Tampa.
"Intellectual capital is mobile, and some of these people work from home," he said. "They could just as easily work from Curtis Hixon park. But they've got to have the tools to be able to do that."
So now the city is launching a two-part project to expand downtown WiFi coverage in a handful of key spots.
The first, cheaper phase will create free WiFi hot spots at about a half-dozen city buildings, including the main municipal office building, City Council chambers and the lobbies of the Police Department and construction services center.
Those hot spots should be in place in the next four to eight weeks. The cost will be about $9,500 for equipment and installation and an estimated $5,000 a year in Internet and software maintenance charges.
"That's done as a convenience to our customers," Buckhorn said. "I want people who are down here to have the ability to do business while they're here."
The second, more expensive phase will be to work with telecommunications companies like Bright House Networks and Verizon to bring free WiFi to a small handful of popular public spaces such as Curtis Hixon, the Riverwalk and Lykes Gaslight Square Park.
"Ideally, what you would like to see is people hanging out on Curtis Hixon lawn, with their laptop, being able to work while at the same time they enjoy the Riverwalk and the water," Buckhorn said. "That's a far more expensive endeavour."
It also can have a high degree of difficulty. In 2008, Earthlink announced it was shutting down a $17 million citywide WiFi network it created in Philadelphia because it couldn't come to terms with that city or a local non-profit on transferring the assets. One sticking point was who would pay to maintain the system, a cost that could have amounted to millions of dollars a year.
Tampa officials and Bright House have begun preliminary talks, both sides say, but there's no estimates yet of potential costs or other details. Bright House already has two WiFi hot spots inside the park (Bright House customers can sign on as part of their service; non-customers pay a small fee to do so). Buckhorn aims to bring free WiFi to the park, "but there may be some middle ground there."
Buckhorn says he hopes it takes no more than a couple of months. That, at least, would silence a couple of aides in their 20s who remind him virtually every week how lame the city's WiFi access is, how even his office lacks WiFi and how they have to go somewhere else if they need to work on their laptops.
Now you might ask: Didn't telecommunications companies spend millions of dollars before last year's Republican National Convention to improve digital connectivity in downtown Tampa?
The answer is yes, though the improvements didn't create publicly accessible WiFi hotspots where Buckhorn wants them.
For example, AT&T spent $15 million on nearly 500 upgrades around the Tampa Bay area, including more than 200 WiFi hot spots. But the access points added for the convention didn't include any that "would be considered leveraged in outdoor areas," company spokeswoman Michele Money-Carson said in an e-mail.
As a result, Curtis Hixon and Lykes Gaslight Square don't have AT&T WiFi, though that's no snub of Tampa. The company hasn't put WiFi in any parks outside of New York and California.
Buckhorn's push for WiFi comes amid a couple of other technology initiatives at the city. Last week, the City Council approved the promotion of Russell Haupert as the city's new director of technology and innovation.
Along with looking at WiFi, the department has a big project on its hands: implementing the joint city-county Enterprise Resource Planning software program, which will support administrative functions like budgeting, accounting, procurement and human resources. The ERP is meant to replace out-of-date and expensive-to-maintain systems while saving money and maximizing economies of scale. If successful, city officials have said, the partnership would be the second of its kind in the nation.
Funding for school resource officers aside, Brewer already has said she intends to seek more funding for K-12 education. And the governor has acknowledged that additional cash is needed for Child Protective Services to keep up with the caseload.
Then there's the question of whether to expand eligibility for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year states need not comply with a provision of the federal Affordable Care Act to expand their program. But the federal law contains some financial "sweeteners'' designed to induce states to expand eligibility to everyone up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- really closer to 138 percent with some changes in methodology -- by promising to pick up most of the cost.
The offer comes at a time when there is pressure on lawmakers to restore prior cuts to the AHCCCS program, notably the decision to stop enrolling single adults even if their income puts them below the federal poverty level. That has led to complaints from hospitals that they are being inundated by the number of uninsured at the state who go to hospital emergency rooms and then cannot afford to pay their bills.
The guns side of the legislative agenda comes down to what, if anything, Arizona will do in the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
That shooting, two years after the Tucson incident that killed six and left then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has resulted in some calls for stronger limits on who can carry guns and where they can bring them.
Brewer, however, has already made it clear she likes the gun laws the way they are just fine. And given the legislative makeup, the chances of stiffer gun laws even getting approved are virtually nil.
A more likely scenario involves the debate over how best to protect schools. And the proposals on that are all over the board.
At one extreme are calls for allowing any teacher who is properly trained to carry his or her own weapon into the classroom. Proponents contend someone who is armed is the best defense against someone who is deranged and looking to shoot as many children as possible.
Scaled back from that is the proposal by Attorney General Tom Horne to have schools designate a single person who would have access to a weapon in case of emergency.
And the history of the Arizona Legislature shows lawmakers are more than willing to expand where guns can be carried: They approved measures allowing guns in public buildings and on the rights-of-way of college and university campuses.
That's because the riverfront park, while a lively place for kids and dogs, is a dead zone for free, publicly accessible WiFi.
That galls Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who places a high priority on attracting young families and creative professionals to Tampa.
"Intellectual capital is mobile, and some of these people work from home," he said. "They could just as easily work from Curtis Hixon park. But they've got to have the tools to be able to do that."
So now the city is launching a two-part project to expand downtown WiFi coverage in a handful of key spots.
The first, cheaper phase will create free WiFi hot spots at about a half-dozen city buildings, including the main municipal office building, City Council chambers and the lobbies of the Police Department and construction services center.
Those hot spots should be in place in the next four to eight weeks. The cost will be about $9,500 for equipment and installation and an estimated $5,000 a year in Internet and software maintenance charges.
"That's done as a convenience to our customers," Buckhorn said. "I want people who are down here to have the ability to do business while they're here."
The second, more expensive phase will be to work with telecommunications companies like Bright House Networks and Verizon to bring free WiFi to a small handful of popular public spaces such as Curtis Hixon, the Riverwalk and Lykes Gaslight Square Park.
"Ideally, what you would like to see is people hanging out on Curtis Hixon lawn, with their laptop, being able to work while at the same time they enjoy the Riverwalk and the water," Buckhorn said. "That's a far more expensive endeavour."
It also can have a high degree of difficulty. In 2008, Earthlink announced it was shutting down a $17 million citywide WiFi network it created in Philadelphia because it couldn't come to terms with that city or a local non-profit on transferring the assets. One sticking point was who would pay to maintain the system, a cost that could have amounted to millions of dollars a year.
Tampa officials and Bright House have begun preliminary talks, both sides say, but there's no estimates yet of potential costs or other details. Bright House already has two WiFi hot spots inside the park (Bright House customers can sign on as part of their service; non-customers pay a small fee to do so). Buckhorn aims to bring free WiFi to the park, "but there may be some middle ground there."
Buckhorn says he hopes it takes no more than a couple of months. That, at least, would silence a couple of aides in their 20s who remind him virtually every week how lame the city's WiFi access is, how even his office lacks WiFi and how they have to go somewhere else if they need to work on their laptops.
Now you might ask: Didn't telecommunications companies spend millions of dollars before last year's Republican National Convention to improve digital connectivity in downtown Tampa?
The answer is yes, though the improvements didn't create publicly accessible WiFi hotspots where Buckhorn wants them.
For example, AT&T spent $15 million on nearly 500 upgrades around the Tampa Bay area, including more than 200 WiFi hot spots. But the access points added for the convention didn't include any that "would be considered leveraged in outdoor areas," company spokeswoman Michele Money-Carson said in an e-mail.
As a result, Curtis Hixon and Lykes Gaslight Square don't have AT&T WiFi, though that's no snub of Tampa. The company hasn't put WiFi in any parks outside of New York and California.
Buckhorn's push for WiFi comes amid a couple of other technology initiatives at the city. Last week, the City Council approved the promotion of Russell Haupert as the city's new director of technology and innovation.
Along with looking at WiFi, the department has a big project on its hands: implementing the joint city-county Enterprise Resource Planning software program, which will support administrative functions like budgeting, accounting, procurement and human resources. The ERP is meant to replace out-of-date and expensive-to-maintain systems while saving money and maximizing economies of scale. If successful, city officials have said, the partnership would be the second of its kind in the nation.
Funding for school resource officers aside, Brewer already has said she intends to seek more funding for K-12 education. And the governor has acknowledged that additional cash is needed for Child Protective Services to keep up with the caseload.
Then there's the question of whether to expand eligibility for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year states need not comply with a provision of the federal Affordable Care Act to expand their program. But the federal law contains some financial "sweeteners'' designed to induce states to expand eligibility to everyone up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- really closer to 138 percent with some changes in methodology -- by promising to pick up most of the cost.
The offer comes at a time when there is pressure on lawmakers to restore prior cuts to the AHCCCS program, notably the decision to stop enrolling single adults even if their income puts them below the federal poverty level. That has led to complaints from hospitals that they are being inundated by the number of uninsured at the state who go to hospital emergency rooms and then cannot afford to pay their bills.
The guns side of the legislative agenda comes down to what, if anything, Arizona will do in the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
That shooting, two years after the Tucson incident that killed six and left then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has resulted in some calls for stronger limits on who can carry guns and where they can bring them.
Brewer, however, has already made it clear she likes the gun laws the way they are just fine. And given the legislative makeup, the chances of stiffer gun laws even getting approved are virtually nil.
A more likely scenario involves the debate over how best to protect schools. And the proposals on that are all over the board.
At one extreme are calls for allowing any teacher who is properly trained to carry his or her own weapon into the classroom. Proponents contend someone who is armed is the best defense against someone who is deranged and looking to shoot as many children as possible.
Scaled back from that is the proposal by Attorney General Tom Horne to have schools designate a single person who would have access to a weapon in case of emergency.
And the history of the Arizona Legislature shows lawmakers are more than willing to expand where guns can be carried: They approved measures allowing guns in public buildings and on the rights-of-way of college and university campuses.
2013年1月10日星期四
Surgical Technique Spots Cancer Invasion with Fluorescence
One of the greatest challenges faced by cancer surgeons is to know exactly which tissue to remove, or not, while the patient is under anesthesia. A team of surgeons and scientists at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have developed a new technique that will allow surgeons to identify during surgery which lymph nodes are cancerous so that healthy tissue can be saved. The findings will be published in the January 15 print edition of Cancer Research.
“This research is significant because it shows real-time intraoperative detection of cancer metastases in mice,” said Quyen T. Nguyen, MD, PhD, associate professor of Head and Neck Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “In the future, surgeons will be better able to detect and stage cancer that has spread to the patient’s lymph nodes using molecules that were designed and developed at UC San Diego.”
Lymph nodes, located throughout the body, serve as filters that contain immune cells to fight infection and clean the blood. When cancer cells break away from a tumor, the cells can travel through the lymph system and hide in these tiny organs. Surgeons remove the nodes to determine if a cancer has spread. However, human nodes, only half a centimeter in size, are difficult to discern among the surrounding tissue during surgery. Furthermore, even when surgeons are able to map the location of the nodes, there is no current technique that indicates whether or not the lymph nodes contain cancer, requiring removal of more lymph nodes than necessary.
“With molecular-targeted imaging, surgeons can avoid unnecessary removal of healthy lymph nodes which is better long-term for patients,” said Nguyen, director of the facial nerve clinic at UC San Diego Health System. “The range of the surgeon’s visual field is greatly enhanced by a molecular tool that can help achieve accurate surgical margins and detection of metastases so that no tumor is left behind.”
The fluorescently labeled molecules, known as ratiometric activatable cell-penetrating peptides (RACPP), are injectable. When used in mouse models, surgeons could see where the cancer had spread with high sensitivity and specificity even when the metastatic sites were only a few millimeters in size.
This form of instant pathology is an improvement over traditional sentinel node mapping, whereby only the location of the lymph node is detected without gleaning any information on actual cancer involvement.
Current methods for managing prostate cancer and neck squamous cell carcinoma only reveal the extent of cancer involvement after the patient has undergone surgical removal of all susceptible lymph nodes.
This new technique will decrease OR time because the surgical team need not wait for pathology reports, decrease time under anesthesia, and decrease unnecessary surgery on noncancerous lymph nodes.
Nyguyen’s earlier research with Nobel Prize winner Roger Tsien, PhD, professor of pharmacology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, showed in animal models how injectable fluorescent peptides could be used to highlight hard-to-see peripheral nerves, allowing surgeons to avoid them when removing or repairing other tissues.
Cheniere's stock may continue to rise on news events, or macroeconomic trends that intimate that the price of gas in Asia and Europe will stay higher than the price of gas in the U.S., but this is a speculative play I'm happy to avoid. Energy markets are incredibly volatile, and the future of the world gas market is far from certain. Heck, Cheniere's own company history tells us that.
Let's explore, for a minute, what would happen if a country in one of the big LNG importing regions suddenly tapped into a vast amount of gas. I'll use China, as it is a very real possibility right now.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that China's technically recoverable shale gas resources are 50% larger than what the U.S. has . For a country that's expected to quadruple its LNG consumption over the next seven years, an ability to exploit that resource is game-changing on a global scale . China is trying to move from zero to 60, given that it produced no shale gas in 2011, and hopes to produce 230 billion cubic feet by 2015. The goal is nothing if not ambitious, given the industry expertise and manpower that China currently lacks.
Critics of China's shale future are quick to point out that the country doesn't have the pipeline system we do, nor does it have the water resources to scale up technologies, like hydraulic fracturing, that are necessary in shale gas production. But, where there's a will, there's a way, and China's shale gas reserves proved willful enough to send ConocoPhillips overseas to join forces with Sinopec to figure out how to get that gas out of the ground.
In an effort to kick-start production, China put 20 shale blocks up for auction in September and October of last year. Eighty-three companies made 152 bids for the blocks, so the game is officially afoot . That being said, even Chinese energy analysts doubt there will be much to note in this sector before 2015 .
But remember, the first well was drilled in the U.S.' Marcellus Shale in 2004 , and it only took four years for the price of natural gas to begin collapsing, finally bottoming out (hopefully) around the halfway point of last year. Though part of that drop can be blamed on the recession, most of it is because of a huge increase in production.
If -- and that is definitely an "if" -- this precedent were to hold true in China, it could change the U.S. LNG export story dramatically. A price collapse in Asia would decimate Cheniere's ability to make money. The long-term contracts the company has in place lock-in sales volumes, not prices. Margins are what make LNG export attractive, and Cheniere's future is more or less dependent on arbitrage. In order for it to be worthwhile for Cheniere to export LNG, the company needs to beat what it estimates are break-even delivery costs of $7.70 and $9.45 per mmbtu in Europe and Asia, respectively .
That model is built on several assumptions, however, including the price of the U.S.-produced gas that Cheniere must purchase, and shipping costs, not to mention the price gas is selling for in target markets. The import price of natural gas in Europe has ranged from a low of $9.36 to a high of $11.97 per mmbtu over the past two years, while Japan has seen prices hit a low of $11.45 and a high of $18.11 per mmbtu over the same period. The price of gas in the U.S. has ranged from $2.00 to around $3.50 in 2012.
The opportunity is obvious, but markets are unpredictable beasts; if the global price of natural gas drops too low, or the domestic price of natural gas climbs too high, Cheniere's margins will suffer.
“This research is significant because it shows real-time intraoperative detection of cancer metastases in mice,” said Quyen T. Nguyen, MD, PhD, associate professor of Head and Neck Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “In the future, surgeons will be better able to detect and stage cancer that has spread to the patient’s lymph nodes using molecules that were designed and developed at UC San Diego.”
Lymph nodes, located throughout the body, serve as filters that contain immune cells to fight infection and clean the blood. When cancer cells break away from a tumor, the cells can travel through the lymph system and hide in these tiny organs. Surgeons remove the nodes to determine if a cancer has spread. However, human nodes, only half a centimeter in size, are difficult to discern among the surrounding tissue during surgery. Furthermore, even when surgeons are able to map the location of the nodes, there is no current technique that indicates whether or not the lymph nodes contain cancer, requiring removal of more lymph nodes than necessary.
“With molecular-targeted imaging, surgeons can avoid unnecessary removal of healthy lymph nodes which is better long-term for patients,” said Nguyen, director of the facial nerve clinic at UC San Diego Health System. “The range of the surgeon’s visual field is greatly enhanced by a molecular tool that can help achieve accurate surgical margins and detection of metastases so that no tumor is left behind.”
The fluorescently labeled molecules, known as ratiometric activatable cell-penetrating peptides (RACPP), are injectable. When used in mouse models, surgeons could see where the cancer had spread with high sensitivity and specificity even when the metastatic sites were only a few millimeters in size.
This form of instant pathology is an improvement over traditional sentinel node mapping, whereby only the location of the lymph node is detected without gleaning any information on actual cancer involvement.
Current methods for managing prostate cancer and neck squamous cell carcinoma only reveal the extent of cancer involvement after the patient has undergone surgical removal of all susceptible lymph nodes.
This new technique will decrease OR time because the surgical team need not wait for pathology reports, decrease time under anesthesia, and decrease unnecessary surgery on noncancerous lymph nodes.
Nyguyen’s earlier research with Nobel Prize winner Roger Tsien, PhD, professor of pharmacology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, showed in animal models how injectable fluorescent peptides could be used to highlight hard-to-see peripheral nerves, allowing surgeons to avoid them when removing or repairing other tissues.
Cheniere's stock may continue to rise on news events, or macroeconomic trends that intimate that the price of gas in Asia and Europe will stay higher than the price of gas in the U.S., but this is a speculative play I'm happy to avoid. Energy markets are incredibly volatile, and the future of the world gas market is far from certain. Heck, Cheniere's own company history tells us that.
Let's explore, for a minute, what would happen if a country in one of the big LNG importing regions suddenly tapped into a vast amount of gas. I'll use China, as it is a very real possibility right now.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that China's technically recoverable shale gas resources are 50% larger than what the U.S. has . For a country that's expected to quadruple its LNG consumption over the next seven years, an ability to exploit that resource is game-changing on a global scale . China is trying to move from zero to 60, given that it produced no shale gas in 2011, and hopes to produce 230 billion cubic feet by 2015. The goal is nothing if not ambitious, given the industry expertise and manpower that China currently lacks.
Critics of China's shale future are quick to point out that the country doesn't have the pipeline system we do, nor does it have the water resources to scale up technologies, like hydraulic fracturing, that are necessary in shale gas production. But, where there's a will, there's a way, and China's shale gas reserves proved willful enough to send ConocoPhillips overseas to join forces with Sinopec to figure out how to get that gas out of the ground.
In an effort to kick-start production, China put 20 shale blocks up for auction in September and October of last year. Eighty-three companies made 152 bids for the blocks, so the game is officially afoot . That being said, even Chinese energy analysts doubt there will be much to note in this sector before 2015 .
But remember, the first well was drilled in the U.S.' Marcellus Shale in 2004 , and it only took four years for the price of natural gas to begin collapsing, finally bottoming out (hopefully) around the halfway point of last year. Though part of that drop can be blamed on the recession, most of it is because of a huge increase in production.
If -- and that is definitely an "if" -- this precedent were to hold true in China, it could change the U.S. LNG export story dramatically. A price collapse in Asia would decimate Cheniere's ability to make money. The long-term contracts the company has in place lock-in sales volumes, not prices. Margins are what make LNG export attractive, and Cheniere's future is more or less dependent on arbitrage. In order for it to be worthwhile for Cheniere to export LNG, the company needs to beat what it estimates are break-even delivery costs of $7.70 and $9.45 per mmbtu in Europe and Asia, respectively .
That model is built on several assumptions, however, including the price of the U.S.-produced gas that Cheniere must purchase, and shipping costs, not to mention the price gas is selling for in target markets. The import price of natural gas in Europe has ranged from a low of $9.36 to a high of $11.97 per mmbtu over the past two years, while Japan has seen prices hit a low of $11.45 and a high of $18.11 per mmbtu over the same period. The price of gas in the U.S. has ranged from $2.00 to around $3.50 in 2012.
The opportunity is obvious, but markets are unpredictable beasts; if the global price of natural gas drops too low, or the domestic price of natural gas climbs too high, Cheniere's margins will suffer.
Nurse gives healing to grieving parents
Parents who face a devastating tragedy – the loss of a newborn infant – are given a treasured memory by a nurse at Valley View Medical Center who has volunteered her time to learn the craft of creating molds of the tiny hands parents will not have the joy to hold and see grow.
Vicki Swasey learned to make molds of tiny newborn hands 10 years ago when she was a Certified Nurses Aid in Labor and Delivery at Valley View. As of May, Vicki is now an R.N. in Labor and Delivery, and has been on call, coming into the hospital at all hours, day or night, to offer parents a mold of their baby’s hands whenever there is a demise for all of those 10 years.
Annie Gibson has been a nurse in Labor and Delivery for five years and said Vicki not only does an amazing job creating beautiful molds, but always comes in as soon as they call to inform her there is a demise, and she never says no.
“She is simply amazing, and the mothers absolutely love the molds,” Gibson said, “Vicki gives a true treasure to families that help in their healing, and gives them something to hang onto when they have to go home without their baby.”
Vicki has also been called by the E.R. and even the mortuaries when tragic accidents have taken children, and parents are in need of something tangible they can take with them. After making the molds at the hospital, Vicki takes the molds home and cleans and sands them, making them look smooth and perfect. The molds are then placed under a glass dome, and the families pick them up at the hospital.
Vicki said she has never had a mother say no to her offer to create a little mold of her baby’s hands, and sometimes she will also make molds of the tiny feet as well, depending on the family’s wishes and the condition of the baby.
Kari Pickett is in her 26th year as a Labor and Delivery nurse and said when a mother does not get to take her baby home, it is the little things that give that needed bit of comfort.
“The molds are a small bit of comfort we can offer to mothers,” she said. “It’s the little personal touches that can make all the difference – little things mean a lot to people.”
All the nurses interviewed for the story including Labor and Delivery Manager Caralee Lyon said they never forget a mother they cared for who had a demise – they remember the little things they did that helped the mother in a crucial moment, like Kari moving a mother to a new bed, Annie rubbing a mother’s feet, or Caralee wrapping a mother’s stillborn baby in a warm blanket.
“As nurses we are supposed to heal or help,” Annie said. “And when all we can do is provide a hand mold of their precious baby, or give them a new bed or rub their feet or whatever they need – then that’s what we do – and just being able to offer the molds helps us as nurses do our job.”
Vicki said she has learned a lot about grief in her experiences.
Carilee said she has watched Vicki stay with a mother for hours in the E.R. when a toddler was lost to a car accident, comforting and staying with the mother, attending to whatever needs she had before making a mold of the child’s hand.
“I never have known what to say to a parent who has lost their child – I still don’t know what say, but at least I can give them something to hold onto,” Vicki said. “It helps for them to have something tangible – it makes their baby feel real – like a part of the family, and that helps.”
Vicki only performs about six molds for the hospital a year, not including requests from the mortuary or the E.R.
One should take all statistical measurement with a grain of salt where it concerns Johnny Boychuk. A beneficiary of the "Redden Effect," Boychuk receives the Chara bump across all metrics, spending the lion's share of his ice time with the Captain. Yet even with one of if not the best partner in the league, an increase in TOI, and an almost completely healthy season, Boychuk's offensive production plateaued. That Johnny Rocket's not getting any more accurate and Z's handling the bulk of the puck distribution. However, Boychuk's defensive positioning and decision making have improved markedly, with far fewer misadventures resulting in adverse breakaways. His devastating hits still put him out of the play on occasion, but thorough boneheadedness seems to be working its way out of his game. He's not top pair material on any team lacking an all-world partner to pair him with, but he's capably munching minutes for a relatively reasonable fee. Why he deserves an NTC I'll never know, but that's a story for another day.
Coming off a stellar performance in the 2011 playoffs, forming a formidable shut-down pair with Chara, Der Hammer spent most of the 2011-12 season saddled with paired with the year's Dennis Wideman stand-in, Joe Corvo. While not an out-and-out failed experiment, as they did largely succeceed in keeping play going the right direction, both players experienced dips in their offensive output. Covering your partner's gaffs tends to do that, I suppose. Even so, Seidenberg remains a rugged all-around defensive presence with top-notch own-zone instincts and a tendency to become a shot-blocking and rebound-clearing machine when the going gets tough. His contract has become a veritable steal given comparables around the league, though we'll selectively ignore the fact he could have been had for cheaper instead of Derrick Morris in the first place.
Darth Quaider. Lone Wolf McQuaid. The Mullet. Quickly erasing the memory of Mark Stuart with each earth-shattering hit and maniacal mid-fight grin, McQuaid has contributed solid stay-at-home D and pest deterrent to the third pair for the past few years. He and his frequent partner Ference boast the best on-ice team save percentage on the roster – admittedly owing in part to quality goaltending and lesser ice time, but commendable nonetheless. He's incrementally gaining Julien's trust and has seen his icetime creep up as his Corsi modestly improved. Unfortunately, recovery from surgery to remove a blood clot will delay McQuaid's return to the lineup, opening up a temporary vacancy.
"Friend of the blog” and to trees everywhere, Alt-Captain Planet has established himself as a leader on the team with some memorable playoff heroics and wardrobe malfunctions. However, while he may have captured the hearts and minds of some of the crunchier among you, he ranks at the bottom of the team's depth chart. He's the worst possession defenseman on the team, getting trapped in his own end and permitting the most shots of any regular. His slight uptick in production last year is owed almost entirely to defense-wide highs in shooting percentage and PDO. I'm among the biggest Ference-boosters out there due to the content of his character (and because I'm a damn hipster), but I think we're about to see his swan song in the Black and Gold, with a few youngsters in his mold developing down I-95. And unless he's had his skeleton replaced with adamantium in the offseason, he's long overdue for some LTIR time. The past two years of 70+ games are anomalous for Ference's career.
Vicki Swasey learned to make molds of tiny newborn hands 10 years ago when she was a Certified Nurses Aid in Labor and Delivery at Valley View. As of May, Vicki is now an R.N. in Labor and Delivery, and has been on call, coming into the hospital at all hours, day or night, to offer parents a mold of their baby’s hands whenever there is a demise for all of those 10 years.
Annie Gibson has been a nurse in Labor and Delivery for five years and said Vicki not only does an amazing job creating beautiful molds, but always comes in as soon as they call to inform her there is a demise, and she never says no.
“She is simply amazing, and the mothers absolutely love the molds,” Gibson said, “Vicki gives a true treasure to families that help in their healing, and gives them something to hang onto when they have to go home without their baby.”
Vicki has also been called by the E.R. and even the mortuaries when tragic accidents have taken children, and parents are in need of something tangible they can take with them. After making the molds at the hospital, Vicki takes the molds home and cleans and sands them, making them look smooth and perfect. The molds are then placed under a glass dome, and the families pick them up at the hospital.
Vicki said she has never had a mother say no to her offer to create a little mold of her baby’s hands, and sometimes she will also make molds of the tiny feet as well, depending on the family’s wishes and the condition of the baby.
Kari Pickett is in her 26th year as a Labor and Delivery nurse and said when a mother does not get to take her baby home, it is the little things that give that needed bit of comfort.
“The molds are a small bit of comfort we can offer to mothers,” she said. “It’s the little personal touches that can make all the difference – little things mean a lot to people.”
All the nurses interviewed for the story including Labor and Delivery Manager Caralee Lyon said they never forget a mother they cared for who had a demise – they remember the little things they did that helped the mother in a crucial moment, like Kari moving a mother to a new bed, Annie rubbing a mother’s feet, or Caralee wrapping a mother’s stillborn baby in a warm blanket.
“As nurses we are supposed to heal or help,” Annie said. “And when all we can do is provide a hand mold of their precious baby, or give them a new bed or rub their feet or whatever they need – then that’s what we do – and just being able to offer the molds helps us as nurses do our job.”
Vicki said she has learned a lot about grief in her experiences.
Carilee said she has watched Vicki stay with a mother for hours in the E.R. when a toddler was lost to a car accident, comforting and staying with the mother, attending to whatever needs she had before making a mold of the child’s hand.
“I never have known what to say to a parent who has lost their child – I still don’t know what say, but at least I can give them something to hold onto,” Vicki said. “It helps for them to have something tangible – it makes their baby feel real – like a part of the family, and that helps.”
Vicki only performs about six molds for the hospital a year, not including requests from the mortuary or the E.R.
One should take all statistical measurement with a grain of salt where it concerns Johnny Boychuk. A beneficiary of the "Redden Effect," Boychuk receives the Chara bump across all metrics, spending the lion's share of his ice time with the Captain. Yet even with one of if not the best partner in the league, an increase in TOI, and an almost completely healthy season, Boychuk's offensive production plateaued. That Johnny Rocket's not getting any more accurate and Z's handling the bulk of the puck distribution. However, Boychuk's defensive positioning and decision making have improved markedly, with far fewer misadventures resulting in adverse breakaways. His devastating hits still put him out of the play on occasion, but thorough boneheadedness seems to be working its way out of his game. He's not top pair material on any team lacking an all-world partner to pair him with, but he's capably munching minutes for a relatively reasonable fee. Why he deserves an NTC I'll never know, but that's a story for another day.
Coming off a stellar performance in the 2011 playoffs, forming a formidable shut-down pair with Chara, Der Hammer spent most of the 2011-12 season saddled with paired with the year's Dennis Wideman stand-in, Joe Corvo. While not an out-and-out failed experiment, as they did largely succeceed in keeping play going the right direction, both players experienced dips in their offensive output. Covering your partner's gaffs tends to do that, I suppose. Even so, Seidenberg remains a rugged all-around defensive presence with top-notch own-zone instincts and a tendency to become a shot-blocking and rebound-clearing machine when the going gets tough. His contract has become a veritable steal given comparables around the league, though we'll selectively ignore the fact he could have been had for cheaper instead of Derrick Morris in the first place.
Darth Quaider. Lone Wolf McQuaid. The Mullet. Quickly erasing the memory of Mark Stuart with each earth-shattering hit and maniacal mid-fight grin, McQuaid has contributed solid stay-at-home D and pest deterrent to the third pair for the past few years. He and his frequent partner Ference boast the best on-ice team save percentage on the roster – admittedly owing in part to quality goaltending and lesser ice time, but commendable nonetheless. He's incrementally gaining Julien's trust and has seen his icetime creep up as his Corsi modestly improved. Unfortunately, recovery from surgery to remove a blood clot will delay McQuaid's return to the lineup, opening up a temporary vacancy.
"Friend of the blog” and to trees everywhere, Alt-Captain Planet has established himself as a leader on the team with some memorable playoff heroics and wardrobe malfunctions. However, while he may have captured the hearts and minds of some of the crunchier among you, he ranks at the bottom of the team's depth chart. He's the worst possession defenseman on the team, getting trapped in his own end and permitting the most shots of any regular. His slight uptick in production last year is owed almost entirely to defense-wide highs in shooting percentage and PDO. I'm among the biggest Ference-boosters out there due to the content of his character (and because I'm a damn hipster), but I think we're about to see his swan song in the Black and Gold, with a few youngsters in his mold developing down I-95. And unless he's had his skeleton replaced with adamantium in the offseason, he's long overdue for some LTIR time. The past two years of 70+ games are anomalous for Ference's career.
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