The Iowa Attorney General’s office has introduced a measure to the state Senate designed to protect tenants of mobile-home parks across the state, including the embattled Regency Mobile Home Park just outside of Iowa City.
It lacks the teeth of last year’s failed proposal, but Bill Brauch, assistant to Attorney General Tom Miller, said this proposal stands a better chance of passing the Legislature.
The measure, approved 2-to-1 by a Senate subcommittee on Monday, outlines a set of conditions that would need to be met before a landlord could legitimately terminate or not renew a tenancy, it would require a one-year lease for all mobile-home park tenants, and it would give tenants 14 days — rather than the current three days — to pay rent after receiving a nonpayment notice before they’re evicted.
“We think that this legislation cuts across the board and addresses issues not only at Regency but also other mobile homes that we’ve been made aware of over the years,” said Brauch, also the director of the office’s Consumer Protection Division. “Not just to benefit Regency residents, but also others, and it gives them greater rights.”
Currently, landlords in Iowa don’t have to provide justification for evicting tenants, a departure from 33 other states that require a legitimate reason. The proposal also requires landlords who terminate a lease or deny renewal provide at least 60 days notice, including specific reasoning for the termination. Current law already provides for 60 days written notice, but it does not require justification.
Most mobile-home tenants operate on month-to-month agreements, and Brauch said the year-long leases are necessary because most mobile-home tenants have purchased their mobile homes and rent the space from the mobile-home park. Evicting a mobile-home tenant is akin to evicting a homeowner, and for most of them, moving the unit would be too expensive to be an option, Brauch said.
Mark Patton, executive director of the Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity, said that in some cases, it wouldn’t be possible given the time restraints. A permit is required to move a mobile home.
“The reality is different than a normal tenant; you’ve actually bought this object,” Patton said. “Once it’s parked, the chances of it being moved again are slim to none.”
Some measures of the current proposal are less ambitious than last year’s, and the current one excludes altogether several provisions that the previous bills pushed for. Last year’s legislation would have provided one month to pay an overdue rent before being evicted. It included language that would have required that someone selling a mobile home provide information on debt owed as well as its assessed value. It would have instituted a $500 penalty for a mobile-home retailer that doesn’t obtain a proper title from the county treasurer within 30 days of acquisition.
“We decided, rather than try to resurrect it, to go with a shorter version we thought would have a better chance of being enacted,” Brauch said.
Last year’s bills received intense opposition from the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association, which represents mobile-home park owners across the state. Joe Kelly, the group’s executive vice president, already has come out against the new proposal. He could not be reached for comment Monday.
Johnson County supervisor Janelle Rettig, who’s been following the mobile home issue for years, said last year’s bill already wouldn’t have done enough to address the problems at Regency and other mobile-home parks in the state, although she said anything is better than nothing. Rettig said the underlying problem is that the laws are written in mobile-home park owners’ favor, and the tenants don’t have a lot of protections.
Mobile homes built before 1976 — 17 percent of the nearly 3,000 mobile homes in Johnson County — were not constructed to meet current building codes, Patton said. That means many don’t have egress windows in bedrooms, they have aluminum wiring, which has since been banned because it’s a fire hazard, and they’re collecting molds and mildews as a result of particle board floors, he said.
Patton, who said the current legislation is unlikely to pass, estimates that about three-quarters of the mobile park owners in the state are upstanding companies. The rest, like Carbondale, Colo.-based Regency of Iowa Inc., are not.
“Regency has demonstrated that bad players play rough,” he said.
2012年1月31日星期二
2012年1月30日星期一
The General Fuckery Surrounding Rockstar Chefs
"Foodies!" shouts a large, be-khakied Mohegan Sun employee to her friend as they meander by us. The methodical clanging beeps of the slot machines almost drown out her voice. "They're all foodies. That's why they're here."
I stand on tiptoe and peer down the hefty line that is snaking around the casino floor. Shit, I think. There sure are a lot of us.
We're here, for the Mohegan Sun WineFest, more specifically, for the Celebrity Chef Dine Around. The dinner is billed as an intimate chance to mingle with some of the industry's best while noshing on gourmet grub, but the doors haven't even been opened and there are already three times more attendees than I was expecting.
"Do you know if this is like, a sit-down thing?" asks the guy in front of us. He tilts his head to a young woman slumped at a nearby slot machine. "My wife keeps telling me it's a sit-down dinner."
I try to imagine the chaos that might ensue from seating over 500 people for a formal dinner, and decide that logically, this is going to be a mess. Twenty minutes later, the doors swing open and the line finally begins to move.
Once inside, it's a mad dash, and I'm frantically trying to make notes of what's happening while simultaneously keeping up a breakneck stride with my fellow dinner companions. There's a table with champagne on my right! I mistakenly snatch a glass from a nicely-dressed man I take to be some sort of steward, but is actually just a dude trying to hand glasses to his friends. I realize my mistake and turn to apologize but he's lost in the crowd. Too late, I think, and slosh the bubbly back, trying to stay alert.
We enter the grand ballroom, and my heart sinks for a moment. There are tables, too many to count, sprinkled around the room. Chef stations are lined around the edges and through the middle, serving tiny creations on tiny plates. It's a walking dinner, and now my mind turns to the logistics behind stacking as many plates as I can on my arms.
There's a table piled high with glossy new cookbooks. There's a serious-faced DJ with a fedora. And there, surrounded by a mob of women with mom haircuts, is Bobby Flay.
As we flit from booth to booth, the food is surprisingly wonderful in some cases, but the atmosphere is so strange that neither of us can put a finger on what's wrong. The lesser-known stations are always empty, which allows for some genuine, eye-to-eye, thank-you-for-taking-the-time-to-make-me-this-plate time. I get to shake Blue, Inc.'s Jason Santos' hand and talk soup for a moment, which is nice.
The Hudson Valley people are offering an ethereal foie gras flan, surrounded by earthy, sensuous mushrooms that disappears the second it hits your tongue. I'm admiring the tiny flan molds and watching the culinary students work the line, when a round of teenybopper screams and whoops erupt at the next station over.
It's Robert Irvine, the kitchen G.I. Joe from Restaurant Impossible. I can't see what Irvine is actually serving through the hordes of people clutching cookbooks and cameras. The Hudson Valley chefs sneer just the teensiest bit.
I stand on tiptoe and peer down the hefty line that is snaking around the casino floor. Shit, I think. There sure are a lot of us.
We're here, for the Mohegan Sun WineFest, more specifically, for the Celebrity Chef Dine Around. The dinner is billed as an intimate chance to mingle with some of the industry's best while noshing on gourmet grub, but the doors haven't even been opened and there are already three times more attendees than I was expecting.
"Do you know if this is like, a sit-down thing?" asks the guy in front of us. He tilts his head to a young woman slumped at a nearby slot machine. "My wife keeps telling me it's a sit-down dinner."
I try to imagine the chaos that might ensue from seating over 500 people for a formal dinner, and decide that logically, this is going to be a mess. Twenty minutes later, the doors swing open and the line finally begins to move.
Once inside, it's a mad dash, and I'm frantically trying to make notes of what's happening while simultaneously keeping up a breakneck stride with my fellow dinner companions. There's a table with champagne on my right! I mistakenly snatch a glass from a nicely-dressed man I take to be some sort of steward, but is actually just a dude trying to hand glasses to his friends. I realize my mistake and turn to apologize but he's lost in the crowd. Too late, I think, and slosh the bubbly back, trying to stay alert.
We enter the grand ballroom, and my heart sinks for a moment. There are tables, too many to count, sprinkled around the room. Chef stations are lined around the edges and through the middle, serving tiny creations on tiny plates. It's a walking dinner, and now my mind turns to the logistics behind stacking as many plates as I can on my arms.
There's a table piled high with glossy new cookbooks. There's a serious-faced DJ with a fedora. And there, surrounded by a mob of women with mom haircuts, is Bobby Flay.
As we flit from booth to booth, the food is surprisingly wonderful in some cases, but the atmosphere is so strange that neither of us can put a finger on what's wrong. The lesser-known stations are always empty, which allows for some genuine, eye-to-eye, thank-you-for-taking-the-time-to-make-me-this-plate time. I get to shake Blue, Inc.'s Jason Santos' hand and talk soup for a moment, which is nice.
The Hudson Valley people are offering an ethereal foie gras flan, surrounded by earthy, sensuous mushrooms that disappears the second it hits your tongue. I'm admiring the tiny flan molds and watching the culinary students work the line, when a round of teenybopper screams and whoops erupt at the next station over.
It's Robert Irvine, the kitchen G.I. Joe from Restaurant Impossible. I can't see what Irvine is actually serving through the hordes of people clutching cookbooks and cameras. The Hudson Valley chefs sneer just the teensiest bit.
2012年1月29日星期日
'Gerrymander' seems too quaint a term for the Seventh
A 19th-century political cartoonist coined the term gerrymander to describe a salamander-shaped legislative district contrived to favor the party of then-Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry. The word, which came to describe any molding of voting districts to favor particular candidates, retained its accusatory punch for centuries.
But like the closely related Newt, this salamander of yore has come to seem dated. Gerrymander is too quaint - cute, even, like something you could keep in a terrarium - to describe the monstrous forces that gave birth to Pennsylvania's new Seventh Congressional District.
Even a cursory glimpse will reveal that the Seventh is no vertebrate. If I had to compare it to a class of carbon-based life-forms, I'd probably go with the slime molds.
Slime molds, as it happens, were once classified with the fungi - an uncanny coincidence, since the Seventh, once a suburban Philadelphia district, now manages to extend into a prime mushroom-growing region on the Maryland border. Maryland, by the way, is one of three states the new district borders. It also spans five Pennsylvania counties and nearly 100 municipalities. And it divides more than a quarter of those generally small cities, townships, and boroughs among more than one congressional district - a practice that likely persuaded the commonwealth's highest court to throw out similarly contorted new state legislative districts last week.
Also coincidentally, slime molds have been posited as the biological basis for the organism that devours Downingtown in the 1958 horror movie The Blob. As for the Seventh District, it narrowly misses that Chester County borough in its oleaginous creep across the region.
From the urban outskirts of Philadelphia, the Seventh's metastatic dimensions - heedless of geography and conventional understandings of democracy - stretch in almost every direction. The district's northern reaches go clear to the Berks County community of Woodchoppertown, whose forefathers appear to have chosen its name to ensure that no one would ever be cynical enough to assign their representation to a Philadelphia pol. As The Inquirer reported, many of the people who live there are, like most Americans, not even sure what a "hoagie" is.
And then there's Bird-in-Hand, the heavily Amish community near Lancaster that's grasped by another of the district's tendrils - hence its newly proposed name, Bird-in-Tendril. The amoebic Seventh cares not that these pastures - and I use that word literally - are so alien to the crowded neighborhoods near Philadelphia International Airport. Its digestive juices coat commercial airliner and horse-and-buggy alike.
The Seventh's crazy gulfs, peninsulas, and isthmuses were designed to favor the Republican congressman who represents the district, Pat Meehan. But he and his party are incidental here: This kind of redistricting has become so commonplace and bipartisan that even the partisans are hard-pressed to pretend otherwise. In fact, Philadelphia party boss and Congressman Bob Brady was one of several Democrats who supported the redistricting plan.
Brady has been accused of doing so because the map makes his district more like him, which is to say white. One of his chief critics in this regard is a primary challenger, which is all Brady and most congressmen have to worry about these days. Because the increasing brazenness and sophistication of politically driven redistricting has made the overwhelming majority of districts safe for either Republicans or Democrats, most competition comes from within the parties. Therefore we have a nation of politicians wondering whether they are sufficiently extreme, even as we wonder why they are not accomplishing very much.
Our representatives, in short, are choosing their voters - which is exactly the opposite of how it was supposed to work.
So what should we do with the Seventh and its ilk? In The Blob, Downingtown's Lt. Dave has an excellent suggestion for the Air Force: "You should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere, and drop it where it will never thaw."
But like the closely related Newt, this salamander of yore has come to seem dated. Gerrymander is too quaint - cute, even, like something you could keep in a terrarium - to describe the monstrous forces that gave birth to Pennsylvania's new Seventh Congressional District.
Even a cursory glimpse will reveal that the Seventh is no vertebrate. If I had to compare it to a class of carbon-based life-forms, I'd probably go with the slime molds.
Slime molds, as it happens, were once classified with the fungi - an uncanny coincidence, since the Seventh, once a suburban Philadelphia district, now manages to extend into a prime mushroom-growing region on the Maryland border. Maryland, by the way, is one of three states the new district borders. It also spans five Pennsylvania counties and nearly 100 municipalities. And it divides more than a quarter of those generally small cities, townships, and boroughs among more than one congressional district - a practice that likely persuaded the commonwealth's highest court to throw out similarly contorted new state legislative districts last week.
Also coincidentally, slime molds have been posited as the biological basis for the organism that devours Downingtown in the 1958 horror movie The Blob. As for the Seventh District, it narrowly misses that Chester County borough in its oleaginous creep across the region.
From the urban outskirts of Philadelphia, the Seventh's metastatic dimensions - heedless of geography and conventional understandings of democracy - stretch in almost every direction. The district's northern reaches go clear to the Berks County community of Woodchoppertown, whose forefathers appear to have chosen its name to ensure that no one would ever be cynical enough to assign their representation to a Philadelphia pol. As The Inquirer reported, many of the people who live there are, like most Americans, not even sure what a "hoagie" is.
And then there's Bird-in-Hand, the heavily Amish community near Lancaster that's grasped by another of the district's tendrils - hence its newly proposed name, Bird-in-Tendril. The amoebic Seventh cares not that these pastures - and I use that word literally - are so alien to the crowded neighborhoods near Philadelphia International Airport. Its digestive juices coat commercial airliner and horse-and-buggy alike.
The Seventh's crazy gulfs, peninsulas, and isthmuses were designed to favor the Republican congressman who represents the district, Pat Meehan. But he and his party are incidental here: This kind of redistricting has become so commonplace and bipartisan that even the partisans are hard-pressed to pretend otherwise. In fact, Philadelphia party boss and Congressman Bob Brady was one of several Democrats who supported the redistricting plan.
Brady has been accused of doing so because the map makes his district more like him, which is to say white. One of his chief critics in this regard is a primary challenger, which is all Brady and most congressmen have to worry about these days. Because the increasing brazenness and sophistication of politically driven redistricting has made the overwhelming majority of districts safe for either Republicans or Democrats, most competition comes from within the parties. Therefore we have a nation of politicians wondering whether they are sufficiently extreme, even as we wonder why they are not accomplishing very much.
Our representatives, in short, are choosing their voters - which is exactly the opposite of how it was supposed to work.
So what should we do with the Seventh and its ilk? In The Blob, Downingtown's Lt. Dave has an excellent suggestion for the Air Force: "You should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere, and drop it where it will never thaw."
2012年1月19日星期四
Dentist educates kids on proper oral hygiene
Third-graders from Washington Elementary School in Marysville took a break Wednesday from reading, writing and arithmetic to learn about teeth.
The children took a field trip to Dr. Christopher Brieden's office to learn about the importance of dental hygiene.
Brieden, an orthodontist for 32 years, has had student field trips to his office for more than a decade. He started by visiting schools when his practice was new, he said. He pays for the bus transportation for the students to get to his office.
"Every February is National Children's Dental Health Month, and that's when us professionals are encouraged to go the extra mile," he said. "... I feel an obligation to give back to the community and teach the kids."
Students visited stations at the office to learn about giving a patient braces, taking X-rays and making dental molds. Children also learned the proper way to floss and brush their teeth.
"I liked it because they are teaching you why you should brush your teeth and what's gonna happen if you don't brush your teeth," said third-grader Kendell Lindsay, 8. "You're gonna lose your teeth because they're gonna rot. And once you lose your permanent teeth, you won't get any more."
Kendell said her favorite part of the trip was learning how dental molds are made and learning about braces.
"I think it's a good idea that they are starting to put braces on the inside of the mouth so people can't see it," she said.
Brandon Parsons, 8, and Kelsey Ureel, 9, enjoyed learning how dental molds are made, they said.
They said the field trip was cool.
"They teach us a lot of stuff, like what happens when you get a cavity," Brandon said.
In addition to learning about dental hygiene, Brieden said he hopes the field trip will help the children be less scared about going to the dentist or orthodontist.
"I think it takes away a lot of the fear factor," he said. "And, they learn a little bit of why early evaluation is one of the most important things."
The children took a field trip to Dr. Christopher Brieden's office to learn about the importance of dental hygiene.
Brieden, an orthodontist for 32 years, has had student field trips to his office for more than a decade. He started by visiting schools when his practice was new, he said. He pays for the bus transportation for the students to get to his office.
"Every February is National Children's Dental Health Month, and that's when us professionals are encouraged to go the extra mile," he said. "... I feel an obligation to give back to the community and teach the kids."
Students visited stations at the office to learn about giving a patient braces, taking X-rays and making dental molds. Children also learned the proper way to floss and brush their teeth.
"I liked it because they are teaching you why you should brush your teeth and what's gonna happen if you don't brush your teeth," said third-grader Kendell Lindsay, 8. "You're gonna lose your teeth because they're gonna rot. And once you lose your permanent teeth, you won't get any more."
Kendell said her favorite part of the trip was learning how dental molds are made and learning about braces.
"I think it's a good idea that they are starting to put braces on the inside of the mouth so people can't see it," she said.
Brandon Parsons, 8, and Kelsey Ureel, 9, enjoyed learning how dental molds are made, they said.
They said the field trip was cool.
"They teach us a lot of stuff, like what happens when you get a cavity," Brandon said.
In addition to learning about dental hygiene, Brieden said he hopes the field trip will help the children be less scared about going to the dentist or orthodontist.
"I think it takes away a lot of the fear factor," he said. "And, they learn a little bit of why early evaluation is one of the most important things."
2012年1月18日星期三
Machine and tooling maker thrives in a tough economy
The automotive industry was one of the hardest-hit sectors in the global financial downturn of 2008, resulting in numerous layoffs and plant closures in recent years.
But a Cambridge company, Upland Technologies, has shown that it is possible to survive and even grow in a tough economy, if you do what you know best and do it well.
Upland Technologies, which operates out of the MacDonald Steel plant on Avenue Road in Cambridge, designs and makes the tooling and machines, used in the automotive parts plants in North America and Mexico to make mufflers and exhaust systems.
Despite the downturn in the automotive sector, Upland, which was started by Mohamed Gharib as a one-man operation in 2000, now employs 15 to 25 people depending on the volume of work, and is gearing up to have a busy 2012.
“What happens in this type of economic environment is that although the market shrinks a lot, so do the number of suppliers,” Gharib explains. “In a way, our market has increased because the number of suppliers shrank, and now, we are seeing the market coming back and ordering big machines again,” he adds.
Gharib says a culture of innovation is a big reason that Upland survived while some competitors fell by the wayside over the years.
“We are an engineering-oriented company, and actually, we employ more engineers than shop people. What we do is an engineered product,” he says.
Even though the machines that Upland makes can look somewhat the same, each one has to be practically custom-built to handle a very specific job on the production line.
“We do not make the same machine many times, but if you look at the number of different machines we have built, and the size of the machines, we have done more than any other competitor in this business,” Gharib says.
Gharib is a mechanical engineer, with masters degrees from both Cairo University in Egypt and the University of Waterloo. He worked for many years at a similar plant in Brantford, but after that company came under new ownership, he left and decided to start his own business in Cambridge. As it turned out, the company in Brantford eventually shut down, so Gharib was then able to employ many of his former co-workers.
Gharib says he’s been in this industry since 1975, and when he started Upland in 2000, he decided to stick to his area of expertise. “This is what I know how to do,” he says.
It is also a niche market, which is perfect for this type of business. “There are actually very few suppliers of this type of equipment and even fewer that have a lot of experience,” he says.
All of the design and assembly is done at Upland, while the manufacturing of the parts is subcontracted to companies like MacDonald Steel. So the location of Upland inside the MacDonald Steel plant is very convenient. But as the volume of business at Upland grew, Gharib also had to feed some of that work to other companies in Ontario and the United States.
“We even had to go to places like Michigan and Ohio because of the volume of work and because we require specialized CNC machining and we had overloaded our subcontractors,” Gharib explains.
The other reason that Upland survived the automotive downturn is that the reliability of its work keeps the customers coming back. “We have very few customers, but we have repeat customers. The customers who buy from us continue to buy from us,” Gharib says.
With new materials now being used in making automobile parts, the machines and the tooling used to make those parts must be built to very rigid specifications, he adds.
“That is where our strength is, on the mechanical side of the machines and the tooling and we are totally up to date with the industry in terms of the automation and controls,” he says.
“We are also able to comply with the industry safety requirements so that our customers don’t have to retrofit or add safety features to the machines. We pay a lot of attention to that,” he adds.
Right now, virtually all the sales are to automotive industries, mostly to plants that make the exhaust systems,” he says.
But Gharib is thinking ahead, and adjusting his company to the new reality of a world in which a lot of manufacturing has already shifted offshore and where the high Canadian dollar has become a huge challenge for manufacturers here.
“The manufacturing centre is moving to Asia and that is affecting everyone,” Gharib says. Upland exports more than 95 per cent of what it makes, so the high Canadian dollar “hurts a lot,” he adds. “The biggest obstacle we have is the high Canadian dollar.”
Gharib is now trying to expand his company’s sales into China. He’s recently made presentations to potential customers there.
“As the manufacturing in China increases, their demand for higher quality equipment will also increase. We are seeing that happening, so we are now trying to break into that market. It will take some time, but I think that will come. It is possible that our sales in China could someday be equal to our sales in North America,” he says.
A lot of people tell Gharib he should diversify into other types of industries. He says that isn’t entirely out of the question as the company grows, “but the reality is that the automotive industry is still the driving engine of the economy,” he says.
But a Cambridge company, Upland Technologies, has shown that it is possible to survive and even grow in a tough economy, if you do what you know best and do it well.
Upland Technologies, which operates out of the MacDonald Steel plant on Avenue Road in Cambridge, designs and makes the tooling and machines, used in the automotive parts plants in North America and Mexico to make mufflers and exhaust systems.
Despite the downturn in the automotive sector, Upland, which was started by Mohamed Gharib as a one-man operation in 2000, now employs 15 to 25 people depending on the volume of work, and is gearing up to have a busy 2012.
“What happens in this type of economic environment is that although the market shrinks a lot, so do the number of suppliers,” Gharib explains. “In a way, our market has increased because the number of suppliers shrank, and now, we are seeing the market coming back and ordering big machines again,” he adds.
Gharib says a culture of innovation is a big reason that Upland survived while some competitors fell by the wayside over the years.
“We are an engineering-oriented company, and actually, we employ more engineers than shop people. What we do is an engineered product,” he says.
Even though the machines that Upland makes can look somewhat the same, each one has to be practically custom-built to handle a very specific job on the production line.
“We do not make the same machine many times, but if you look at the number of different machines we have built, and the size of the machines, we have done more than any other competitor in this business,” Gharib says.
Gharib is a mechanical engineer, with masters degrees from both Cairo University in Egypt and the University of Waterloo. He worked for many years at a similar plant in Brantford, but after that company came under new ownership, he left and decided to start his own business in Cambridge. As it turned out, the company in Brantford eventually shut down, so Gharib was then able to employ many of his former co-workers.
Gharib says he’s been in this industry since 1975, and when he started Upland in 2000, he decided to stick to his area of expertise. “This is what I know how to do,” he says.
It is also a niche market, which is perfect for this type of business. “There are actually very few suppliers of this type of equipment and even fewer that have a lot of experience,” he says.
All of the design and assembly is done at Upland, while the manufacturing of the parts is subcontracted to companies like MacDonald Steel. So the location of Upland inside the MacDonald Steel plant is very convenient. But as the volume of business at Upland grew, Gharib also had to feed some of that work to other companies in Ontario and the United States.
“We even had to go to places like Michigan and Ohio because of the volume of work and because we require specialized CNC machining and we had overloaded our subcontractors,” Gharib explains.
The other reason that Upland survived the automotive downturn is that the reliability of its work keeps the customers coming back. “We have very few customers, but we have repeat customers. The customers who buy from us continue to buy from us,” Gharib says.
With new materials now being used in making automobile parts, the machines and the tooling used to make those parts must be built to very rigid specifications, he adds.
“That is where our strength is, on the mechanical side of the machines and the tooling and we are totally up to date with the industry in terms of the automation and controls,” he says.
“We are also able to comply with the industry safety requirements so that our customers don’t have to retrofit or add safety features to the machines. We pay a lot of attention to that,” he adds.
Right now, virtually all the sales are to automotive industries, mostly to plants that make the exhaust systems,” he says.
But Gharib is thinking ahead, and adjusting his company to the new reality of a world in which a lot of manufacturing has already shifted offshore and where the high Canadian dollar has become a huge challenge for manufacturers here.
“The manufacturing centre is moving to Asia and that is affecting everyone,” Gharib says. Upland exports more than 95 per cent of what it makes, so the high Canadian dollar “hurts a lot,” he adds. “The biggest obstacle we have is the high Canadian dollar.”
Gharib is now trying to expand his company’s sales into China. He’s recently made presentations to potential customers there.
“As the manufacturing in China increases, their demand for higher quality equipment will also increase. We are seeing that happening, so we are now trying to break into that market. It will take some time, but I think that will come. It is possible that our sales in China could someday be equal to our sales in North America,” he says.
A lot of people tell Gharib he should diversify into other types of industries. He says that isn’t entirely out of the question as the company grows, “but the reality is that the automotive industry is still the driving engine of the economy,” he says.
2012年1月17日星期二
L.L. Bean turns 100, biggest boot ever hits the road
The strange-looking vehicle is sure to turn heads as it makes its way around the country in celebration of the company's 100th birthday.
Although the "Bootmobile" was the attention grabber at the company's anniversary kick-off on Tuesday, the Bean boots on nearly everyone's feet were the real testament to the success of the company's iconic product.
Most people know the story of how the company founder, Leon Leonwood Bean, decided to go into the boot business after returning from a hunting trip with cold, wet feet. Since 1912, the original Maine Hunting Shoe has remained one of L.L. Bean's best-selling items, even as the company has grown to sell clothing, home furnishings and a myriad of outdoor products.
Last year, Bean reported $1.44 billion in annual sales.
For the past 22 years, the Bean boots have been produced in a building on Industrial Parkway in Brunswick. Last year they made 400,000 pairs – a new record, thanks to a surge in the boot's popularity.
John Camelio, operations manager at the Brunswick plant, said the boot has become popular with college-aged customers who increasingly wear the boots year-round. He said a shearling-lined boot has seen sales increase most dramatically, something he said could be related to the popularity of Ugg sheepskin boots.
The boots are taking off so much, he said, that L.L. Bean has had to hire close to 100 employees since the end of 2011 to meet demand.
Bean's boot makers also repair the iconic product, replacing soles and laces and patching holes on about 10,000 pairs a year. Jack Samson, senior manager for manufacturing, said most customers want to keep the original leather upper on their boots because, over time, the leather softens and molds to a perfect fit.
Occasionally, he said, the company will receive a pair of ancient Bean Boots with a red rubber sole, the color used during the company's early days – a testament to how much customers love their old boots, but also how long they can last with proper care.
This year, L.L. Bean is rolling out a new version of that original Maine Hunting Shoe, complete with the old-style logo, leather laces and red sole.
Bean employees appear proud to produce the iconic boot, and tenure at the Brunswick facility averages 18 years.
While assembled outside the building to watch the departure of the "Bootmobile" on its maiden voyage, L.L. Bean Chief Executive Officer Chris McCormick asked employees what they thought of the boot on wheels.
"Isn't it cool?" he asked.
Immediately one employee shot back with a more appropriate description: "It's wicked cool."
Although the "Bootmobile" was the attention grabber at the company's anniversary kick-off on Tuesday, the Bean boots on nearly everyone's feet were the real testament to the success of the company's iconic product.
Most people know the story of how the company founder, Leon Leonwood Bean, decided to go into the boot business after returning from a hunting trip with cold, wet feet. Since 1912, the original Maine Hunting Shoe has remained one of L.L. Bean's best-selling items, even as the company has grown to sell clothing, home furnishings and a myriad of outdoor products.
Last year, Bean reported $1.44 billion in annual sales.
For the past 22 years, the Bean boots have been produced in a building on Industrial Parkway in Brunswick. Last year they made 400,000 pairs – a new record, thanks to a surge in the boot's popularity.
John Camelio, operations manager at the Brunswick plant, said the boot has become popular with college-aged customers who increasingly wear the boots year-round. He said a shearling-lined boot has seen sales increase most dramatically, something he said could be related to the popularity of Ugg sheepskin boots.
The boots are taking off so much, he said, that L.L. Bean has had to hire close to 100 employees since the end of 2011 to meet demand.
Bean's boot makers also repair the iconic product, replacing soles and laces and patching holes on about 10,000 pairs a year. Jack Samson, senior manager for manufacturing, said most customers want to keep the original leather upper on their boots because, over time, the leather softens and molds to a perfect fit.
Occasionally, he said, the company will receive a pair of ancient Bean Boots with a red rubber sole, the color used during the company's early days – a testament to how much customers love their old boots, but also how long they can last with proper care.
This year, L.L. Bean is rolling out a new version of that original Maine Hunting Shoe, complete with the old-style logo, leather laces and red sole.
Bean employees appear proud to produce the iconic boot, and tenure at the Brunswick facility averages 18 years.
While assembled outside the building to watch the departure of the "Bootmobile" on its maiden voyage, L.L. Bean Chief Executive Officer Chris McCormick asked employees what they thought of the boot on wheels.
"Isn't it cool?" he asked.
Immediately one employee shot back with a more appropriate description: "It's wicked cool."
2012年1月16日星期一
So many green cars, so few buyers
As is the norm, Cobo Hall, the home of the North American International Auto Show, was littered with hybrids of one stripe or another, along with a smattering of full-on electric cars. There was even an indoor arena where journalists and punters alike could take the electrified ride of their choice for a drive. That's the good news. The bad news is that hybrids are simply not selling.
While the number of hybrid and/or pure electric vehicles has grown enormously of late, the number of buyers willing to put their cash on the barrel has not. Canadians have purchased almost 18 million vehicles over the past 11 years. Of that number, just 58,000 were hybrids. So, why the antipathy?
In the earlier days, the reason was likely the fact that this was emerging, untested technology. As such, many — wisely to my mind — applied that old axiom of not buying a new car in its first year.
That was then. To date, the modern hybrid has proven to be as reliable as anything on the road. There are many Toyota Prius taxis that have 300,000 and 400,000 kilometres on the odometer, and they still purr away as quietly and efficiently as ever. And many of them are still storing electric energy in the original battery.
The next step is the addition of plug-in capability to a regular hybrid. Ford will launch no fewer than three plug-in hybrids within the next year or so, including the next C-Max. The plug-in advantage is simple — the electric-only driving range rises enormously, which cuts fuel consumption and emissions. This is one part of the green solution. The better solution, however, is found with the extended-range electric vehicle. At this point, the only extended-range electric vehicle available — and, make no mistake, it is an electric vehicle and not a glorified hybrid — is the Chevrolet Volt.
The Volt's strategy is very simple. Plug it in, recharge the main battery and, for the first 60 km of the drive, the car is powered electrically. When the battery is exhausted, a gasoline engine comes to life and begins to drive a generator that then powers the electric motor. At no time does the gasoline engine ever drive the vehicle — there is no physical connection.
The Volt also stores excess power produced by the engine as well as energy captured through regenerative braking. This allows it to run on electricity even after the battery's driving range has been exhausted. It all sounds very complex, which it is, but it also works so seamlessly that, when tooling about town, the Volt drives like an electric vehicle, and that includes the time the gasoline engine is servicing the electric motor.
The proof of how well the whole lot comes together is found in the numbers of my Volt tester: It had consumed an average of 3.6 litres per 100 km over the first 4,353 km put on its odometer. That, by any standard, is exceptionally good. For the commuter who has a round trip of less than 60 km, the Volt could actually suffer from a problem, albeit a welcome one — bad gas!
The Volt is about to get some competition in the form of the Mercedes B-Class E-Cell Plus concept shown in Detroit, which will go into production in 2014. When the B-Class was totally redesigned (the next-generation model will hit Canadian roads later this year), it was designed to accommodate all powertrain forms. As such, the platform will accept anything from a conventional gasoline engine and gearbox to the fuel cell-powered version coming down the road. Between these two bookends sits the E-Cell Plus. In principle, it operates just like the Volt but with a twist — as well as driving a generator at speeds below 60 km an hour, the engine can be used to power the E-Cell at highway speeds. It uses both the electric motor and gasoline engine to drive the vehicle through a newly developed automatic transmission.
The E-Cell's electric side comprises a 136-horsepower electric motor and a lithium ion battery. While Mercedes-Benz does not list the battery's size at this point, the company says it will supply 100 km of electric-only driving, which is enough to satisfy the demands of 80% of all commuters. The gasoline side features a three-cylinder turbocharged engine that puts out 67 hp. While this may seem a little on the light side, Mercedes says the electric/gasoline combination delivers enough power to whisk the E-Cell Plus to 100 km/h in less than 11 seconds and on to a top speed of 150 km/h while returning an extended range of 600 km.
The extended-range electric vehicle is going to provide the bridge between the need to cut automotive pollution and the dawning of the hydrogen age. These vehicles are extremely frugal, which means they produce significantly fewer emission than the very best gasoline-only automobile and conventional hybrids. However, key to this technology's success is found in the fact that it does not leave the driver with a bad dose of range anxiety after driving 80 km. That is the single biggest hurdle facing all pure electric rides such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf.
While the number of hybrid and/or pure electric vehicles has grown enormously of late, the number of buyers willing to put their cash on the barrel has not. Canadians have purchased almost 18 million vehicles over the past 11 years. Of that number, just 58,000 were hybrids. So, why the antipathy?
In the earlier days, the reason was likely the fact that this was emerging, untested technology. As such, many — wisely to my mind — applied that old axiom of not buying a new car in its first year.
That was then. To date, the modern hybrid has proven to be as reliable as anything on the road. There are many Toyota Prius taxis that have 300,000 and 400,000 kilometres on the odometer, and they still purr away as quietly and efficiently as ever. And many of them are still storing electric energy in the original battery.
The next step is the addition of plug-in capability to a regular hybrid. Ford will launch no fewer than three plug-in hybrids within the next year or so, including the next C-Max. The plug-in advantage is simple — the electric-only driving range rises enormously, which cuts fuel consumption and emissions. This is one part of the green solution. The better solution, however, is found with the extended-range electric vehicle. At this point, the only extended-range electric vehicle available — and, make no mistake, it is an electric vehicle and not a glorified hybrid — is the Chevrolet Volt.
The Volt's strategy is very simple. Plug it in, recharge the main battery and, for the first 60 km of the drive, the car is powered electrically. When the battery is exhausted, a gasoline engine comes to life and begins to drive a generator that then powers the electric motor. At no time does the gasoline engine ever drive the vehicle — there is no physical connection.
The Volt also stores excess power produced by the engine as well as energy captured through regenerative braking. This allows it to run on electricity even after the battery's driving range has been exhausted. It all sounds very complex, which it is, but it also works so seamlessly that, when tooling about town, the Volt drives like an electric vehicle, and that includes the time the gasoline engine is servicing the electric motor.
The proof of how well the whole lot comes together is found in the numbers of my Volt tester: It had consumed an average of 3.6 litres per 100 km over the first 4,353 km put on its odometer. That, by any standard, is exceptionally good. For the commuter who has a round trip of less than 60 km, the Volt could actually suffer from a problem, albeit a welcome one — bad gas!
The Volt is about to get some competition in the form of the Mercedes B-Class E-Cell Plus concept shown in Detroit, which will go into production in 2014. When the B-Class was totally redesigned (the next-generation model will hit Canadian roads later this year), it was designed to accommodate all powertrain forms. As such, the platform will accept anything from a conventional gasoline engine and gearbox to the fuel cell-powered version coming down the road. Between these two bookends sits the E-Cell Plus. In principle, it operates just like the Volt but with a twist — as well as driving a generator at speeds below 60 km an hour, the engine can be used to power the E-Cell at highway speeds. It uses both the electric motor and gasoline engine to drive the vehicle through a newly developed automatic transmission.
The E-Cell's electric side comprises a 136-horsepower electric motor and a lithium ion battery. While Mercedes-Benz does not list the battery's size at this point, the company says it will supply 100 km of electric-only driving, which is enough to satisfy the demands of 80% of all commuters. The gasoline side features a three-cylinder turbocharged engine that puts out 67 hp. While this may seem a little on the light side, Mercedes says the electric/gasoline combination delivers enough power to whisk the E-Cell Plus to 100 km/h in less than 11 seconds and on to a top speed of 150 km/h while returning an extended range of 600 km.
The extended-range electric vehicle is going to provide the bridge between the need to cut automotive pollution and the dawning of the hydrogen age. These vehicles are extremely frugal, which means they produce significantly fewer emission than the very best gasoline-only automobile and conventional hybrids. However, key to this technology's success is found in the fact that it does not leave the driver with a bad dose of range anxiety after driving 80 km. That is the single biggest hurdle facing all pure electric rides such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf.
2012年1月15日星期日
A pitch-perfect pitch at CES
Concert pianist Bob Taub watched his teenage daughter strive to learn the violin, and wondered: Could he design a digital tool to help her see and hear the exact notes where she was going astray?
Last week, six years into an add-on career as an inventor, Taub was here at the massive International Consumer Electronics Show, moving his idea a bit closer to reality.
His invention, MuseAmi, is already at the heart of an iPhone app that may prove to be the ultimate Karaoke tool. You sing into your phone, and ImproVox corrects your pitch, adds harmonies, and even mixes in effects such as echo and reverb.
But that is just the start for a software engine so powerful that it can read a musical score and translate it into sound, or listen to sound and transform it into a musical score.
As Taub, who lives in Princeton, sees it, MuseAmi could transform how people learn, sing, record, and perform all kinds of music. And it could eventually be at the heart of devices that will hear words spoken in one language and play them back - in real time - in another.
Big ideas are the lifeblood of the Consumer Electronics Show - an event that's known to geeks and engineers everywhere simply as CES and that for a few days each year turns Sin City into Technopolis.
CES is a glitzy stage and showcase for many of the biggest names in technology. But it is also a magnet for budding entrepreneurs, inventors, and start-ups that want to change the world, or at least a small slice of it, and perhaps make a fortune along the way.
Some, such as FreeOneHand, are here to show off inventions that, strictly speaking, are not electronic at all but capitalize on devices such as the iPhone and iPad. A spin-off of a Northeast Philadelphia injection-molding company, Engineered Plastics, FreeOneHand developed an ergonomically improved iPad holder. With the $40 device, the company says, an iPad user can read for hours without the usual fatigue.
Others, such as Chalfont-based Telikin, are trying to carve a niche directly into the businesses of industry giants. Telikin makes two simple-to-use touch-screen computers geared to customers, such as senior citizens, who might be scared away by the complexity of a Windows computer or the price tag of an Apple.
Based on the open-source Linux operating system, the $699, 18-inch Telikin Touch and the $999, 20-inch Telikin Elite offer virtually everything a home user might want, including access to e-mail, the Web, photos, video, and documents. They also come with features especially appealing to newbies - or to children or grandchildren who might want to buy one for a family member.
One feature, Tech Buddy, allows the computer's owner to grant remote-control access to a relative or friend - say, in case Mom needs help or a refresher lesson. Another is a special link that shows Facebook photos without a visit to the social network's website.
"We have a lot of baby boomer customers who have parents who want to see pictures but are leery of Facebook," said sales manager Cheryl Lewis.
A large part of what matters at CES happens behind the scenes, however - the place where Bob Taub and a colleague met with representatives of some of the biggest names in the electronics and music businesses, although he is barred from naming names by nondisclosure agreements.
One clue came from where Taub camped out during his days at the show: at the booth of Qualcomm, a leading chip-maker that makes the brains for iPhones, Androids, and other cutting-edge devices.
The booth displayed a demonstration product that MuseAmi created with Qualcomm, which has technology that allows two people using separate microphones to participate together in an activity. The demo was a game in which players compete to identify a song when a brief snippet is played - similar to a one-player game, Drop the Needle, that MuseAmi has offered since the summer as an iPhone app.
Taub said the apps were just a taste of what MuseAmi can do, thanks to elegant "machine learning" algorithms developed by an impressive team that includes Yann LeCun, a professor of computer science and neural science at New York University and a leading developer of a kind of artificial intelligence known as "convolutional neural networks."
LeCun's networks play a key role in software that can distinguish between a genuine signature and a forgery with nearly 100 percent accuracy. Bob Stockman, chief executive officer of a biotechnology company, Reva Medical Inc., and MuseAmi's lead angel investor, agrees with Taub that they can play a similar role in machine learning of music and voice.
"The largest music studios, and people developing chipsets for computers and handsets and businesses, see the power of this technology," Stockman said. "The demonstrations blow everybody away, and they all want to figure out a way to incorporate it."
Taub's musical prowess certainly helps. A graduate of Princeton University and the Juilliard School, he has performed since the 1980s with the Philadelphia Orchestra and other leading orchestras around the world.
So, undoubtedly, does a lifelong fondness for tinkering with things, such as the vintage motorbikes he has rebuilt.
Taub said MuseAmi analyzes six parameters of music: frequency; rhythm; note clarity; volume; and vibrato. Its intelligence is so sophisticated that it should be able to identify a song even when a bad singer is attempting it, he said.
But MuseAmi's most impressive feature may be the simplicity of its software. Taub said ImproVox, which contains many of MuseAmi's key features, uses only about 20 percent of an iPhone's processing power.
Even with that, it is powerful enough to fix your pitch, create harmonies - even build four separate lines, so you can sing with yourself like a barbershop quartet.
Last week, six years into an add-on career as an inventor, Taub was here at the massive International Consumer Electronics Show, moving his idea a bit closer to reality.
His invention, MuseAmi, is already at the heart of an iPhone app that may prove to be the ultimate Karaoke tool. You sing into your phone, and ImproVox corrects your pitch, adds harmonies, and even mixes in effects such as echo and reverb.
But that is just the start for a software engine so powerful that it can read a musical score and translate it into sound, or listen to sound and transform it into a musical score.
As Taub, who lives in Princeton, sees it, MuseAmi could transform how people learn, sing, record, and perform all kinds of music. And it could eventually be at the heart of devices that will hear words spoken in one language and play them back - in real time - in another.
Big ideas are the lifeblood of the Consumer Electronics Show - an event that's known to geeks and engineers everywhere simply as CES and that for a few days each year turns Sin City into Technopolis.
CES is a glitzy stage and showcase for many of the biggest names in technology. But it is also a magnet for budding entrepreneurs, inventors, and start-ups that want to change the world, or at least a small slice of it, and perhaps make a fortune along the way.
Some, such as FreeOneHand, are here to show off inventions that, strictly speaking, are not electronic at all but capitalize on devices such as the iPhone and iPad. A spin-off of a Northeast Philadelphia injection-molding company, Engineered Plastics, FreeOneHand developed an ergonomically improved iPad holder. With the $40 device, the company says, an iPad user can read for hours without the usual fatigue.
Others, such as Chalfont-based Telikin, are trying to carve a niche directly into the businesses of industry giants. Telikin makes two simple-to-use touch-screen computers geared to customers, such as senior citizens, who might be scared away by the complexity of a Windows computer or the price tag of an Apple.
Based on the open-source Linux operating system, the $699, 18-inch Telikin Touch and the $999, 20-inch Telikin Elite offer virtually everything a home user might want, including access to e-mail, the Web, photos, video, and documents. They also come with features especially appealing to newbies - or to children or grandchildren who might want to buy one for a family member.
One feature, Tech Buddy, allows the computer's owner to grant remote-control access to a relative or friend - say, in case Mom needs help or a refresher lesson. Another is a special link that shows Facebook photos without a visit to the social network's website.
"We have a lot of baby boomer customers who have parents who want to see pictures but are leery of Facebook," said sales manager Cheryl Lewis.
A large part of what matters at CES happens behind the scenes, however - the place where Bob Taub and a colleague met with representatives of some of the biggest names in the electronics and music businesses, although he is barred from naming names by nondisclosure agreements.
One clue came from where Taub camped out during his days at the show: at the booth of Qualcomm, a leading chip-maker that makes the brains for iPhones, Androids, and other cutting-edge devices.
The booth displayed a demonstration product that MuseAmi created with Qualcomm, which has technology that allows two people using separate microphones to participate together in an activity. The demo was a game in which players compete to identify a song when a brief snippet is played - similar to a one-player game, Drop the Needle, that MuseAmi has offered since the summer as an iPhone app.
Taub said the apps were just a taste of what MuseAmi can do, thanks to elegant "machine learning" algorithms developed by an impressive team that includes Yann LeCun, a professor of computer science and neural science at New York University and a leading developer of a kind of artificial intelligence known as "convolutional neural networks."
LeCun's networks play a key role in software that can distinguish between a genuine signature and a forgery with nearly 100 percent accuracy. Bob Stockman, chief executive officer of a biotechnology company, Reva Medical Inc., and MuseAmi's lead angel investor, agrees with Taub that they can play a similar role in machine learning of music and voice.
"The largest music studios, and people developing chipsets for computers and handsets and businesses, see the power of this technology," Stockman said. "The demonstrations blow everybody away, and they all want to figure out a way to incorporate it."
Taub's musical prowess certainly helps. A graduate of Princeton University and the Juilliard School, he has performed since the 1980s with the Philadelphia Orchestra and other leading orchestras around the world.
So, undoubtedly, does a lifelong fondness for tinkering with things, such as the vintage motorbikes he has rebuilt.
Taub said MuseAmi analyzes six parameters of music: frequency; rhythm; note clarity; volume; and vibrato. Its intelligence is so sophisticated that it should be able to identify a song even when a bad singer is attempting it, he said.
But MuseAmi's most impressive feature may be the simplicity of its software. Taub said ImproVox, which contains many of MuseAmi's key features, uses only about 20 percent of an iPhone's processing power.
Even with that, it is powerful enough to fix your pitch, create harmonies - even build four separate lines, so you can sing with yourself like a barbershop quartet.
2012年1月12日星期四
Méndez asks Gov't to revise AFIP's import resolution
Following on from a decision taken on Tuesday that written legal documents must be submitted to the AFIP tax agency ahead of goods entering Argentina from February 1, the former head of the Argentine Industrial Union, Héctor Méndez, said the government “should find a balance since measures like this put the national industry under risk.”
During radio conversations the lobbyist indicated that “Limitations always provoke reactions and worries among the affected sector. I do understand the government’s need to control imports in order to protect our domestic industry and the foreign currency reserves; it should look for reaching a healthy balance.”
Likewise, Méndez warned the domestic industry’s dependence on imports, “My expertise in the plastic industry, where it currently takes one and a half years to bring a plastic injection mold. So, I can assure that in case imports stop or get blocked, I’ll have to stop all factory production.”
“It’s a delicate situation. At this point Argentina should have learnt what the cons of foreign dependence are. But it seems not to be the case. This is a country in which cars, just to give an example, are manufactured with 70 percent of their materials being imported. There is still much to be done in order to achieve a true national industry.”
Importers yesterday also questioned the government measure that sets a greater control on purchases made abroad.
Head of the Chamber of Importers of Argentina (CIRA), Diego Pérez Santisteban, bashed the measure: “More than 80 percent of imports go toward production in Argentina... given that there isn’t the fluency necessary for importing these types of products, there will be problems ahead,” he said.
The CERA exporters’ chamber also asked the AFIP to “suspend” the resolution, which requires an advance import sworn statement to be submitted to the agency, and that the importing sector is calling a “super license.”
During radio conversations the lobbyist indicated that “Limitations always provoke reactions and worries among the affected sector. I do understand the government’s need to control imports in order to protect our domestic industry and the foreign currency reserves; it should look for reaching a healthy balance.”
Likewise, Méndez warned the domestic industry’s dependence on imports, “My expertise in the plastic industry, where it currently takes one and a half years to bring a plastic injection mold. So, I can assure that in case imports stop or get blocked, I’ll have to stop all factory production.”
“It’s a delicate situation. At this point Argentina should have learnt what the cons of foreign dependence are. But it seems not to be the case. This is a country in which cars, just to give an example, are manufactured with 70 percent of their materials being imported. There is still much to be done in order to achieve a true national industry.”
Importers yesterday also questioned the government measure that sets a greater control on purchases made abroad.
Head of the Chamber of Importers of Argentina (CIRA), Diego Pérez Santisteban, bashed the measure: “More than 80 percent of imports go toward production in Argentina... given that there isn’t the fluency necessary for importing these types of products, there will be problems ahead,” he said.
The CERA exporters’ chamber also asked the AFIP to “suspend” the resolution, which requires an advance import sworn statement to be submitted to the agency, and that the importing sector is calling a “super license.”
High-tech, close to home
Are high-tech companies at home in Licking County?
The answer is a resounding yes — for two reasons. The central location — several of the following businesses are located along the 79|Seventy Advanced Materials Corridor — makes distribution easier. And the work force is ready, willing and more than able.
"We have found the local talent to meet our current needs, and they continue to receive training to meet our future needs," says Lora Rand, head of production and development at Bayer MaterialScience LLC for the Polycarbonates business unit in Hebron. With 135 full-time employees, the company is an expert in thermoplastics compounding and color.
"It's an excellent location due to the centralized location of our North American injection molding customers," Rand says.
Little wonder. Education and training are within reach.
"Bionetics has been successful over the years in hiring from the pool of workers in the local area to fill a number of calibration engineer, technician and support staff vacancies," says Ben G. Fullen, program director at the Air Force Primary Standards Laboratory in Heath.
The Bionetics Corp. was selected in 2001 as the contractor of choice to operate and manage the AFPSL, the highest-echelon metrology and calibration laboratory in the U.S. Air Force.
"Quite a few of Bionetics' employees hold degrees from local Ohio educational institutions at Central Ohio Technical College, Zane State, Cleveland Institute of Electronics, Denison University, Ohio State University, Ohio University, Hocking College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, DeVry University, Park University and Miami University," Fullen says.
To location and a trained workforce, add community support.
So says Mike Jones, plant manager of Momentive Performance Materials in Hebron. Momentive's 250 employees have been making quartz products supporting semiconductor, electronics and specialty lighting markets since 1973.
"This is a good location for our business because of the experienced production and manufacturing pool of employees, and the community support," Jones says.
Ditto, says Steve Stauffer, plant manager at Arboris LLC in Newark, the world's largest phytosterol producer. Workers extract a natural cholesterol-lowering food additive called phytosterols from pine trees.
Stauffer describes the area's pool of workers as excellent, very hard-working, dedicated and engaged.
"We purchased the facility because this location was able to reliably produce a competitive, high-quality product," he says. "There's an excellent workforce, business-friendly environment, easy access to major transportation, very well covered area as far as vendors and suppliers … to name a few."
The answer is a resounding yes — for two reasons. The central location — several of the following businesses are located along the 79|Seventy Advanced Materials Corridor — makes distribution easier. And the work force is ready, willing and more than able.
"We have found the local talent to meet our current needs, and they continue to receive training to meet our future needs," says Lora Rand, head of production and development at Bayer MaterialScience LLC for the Polycarbonates business unit in Hebron. With 135 full-time employees, the company is an expert in thermoplastics compounding and color.
"It's an excellent location due to the centralized location of our North American injection molding customers," Rand says.
Little wonder. Education and training are within reach.
"Bionetics has been successful over the years in hiring from the pool of workers in the local area to fill a number of calibration engineer, technician and support staff vacancies," says Ben G. Fullen, program director at the Air Force Primary Standards Laboratory in Heath.
The Bionetics Corp. was selected in 2001 as the contractor of choice to operate and manage the AFPSL, the highest-echelon metrology and calibration laboratory in the U.S. Air Force.
"Quite a few of Bionetics' employees hold degrees from local Ohio educational institutions at Central Ohio Technical College, Zane State, Cleveland Institute of Electronics, Denison University, Ohio State University, Ohio University, Hocking College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, DeVry University, Park University and Miami University," Fullen says.
To location and a trained workforce, add community support.
So says Mike Jones, plant manager of Momentive Performance Materials in Hebron. Momentive's 250 employees have been making quartz products supporting semiconductor, electronics and specialty lighting markets since 1973.
"This is a good location for our business because of the experienced production and manufacturing pool of employees, and the community support," Jones says.
Ditto, says Steve Stauffer, plant manager at Arboris LLC in Newark, the world's largest phytosterol producer. Workers extract a natural cholesterol-lowering food additive called phytosterols from pine trees.
Stauffer describes the area's pool of workers as excellent, very hard-working, dedicated and engaged.
"We purchased the facility because this location was able to reliably produce a competitive, high-quality product," he says. "There's an excellent workforce, business-friendly environment, easy access to major transportation, very well covered area as far as vendors and suppliers … to name a few."
2012年1月9日星期一
Firm highlights risk that UK defence IP may go abroad
Cubewano, a Midlands engineering firm, has today warned the government that the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) must purchase more from SMEs, or risk intellectual property developed in the UK being sold to foreign-owned defence conglomerates in order to secure a route to market.
The company, which has 11 patents for its engine and military generator technologies, met today with its MP Andrew Mitchell and asked him to encourage the minister for defence equipment, support and technology to provide more backing to firms who are looking to supply to the MoD.
Last year, Cubewano completed a multi-million-dollar contract supplying its engines to the US Army and has since then adapted its core technology to create a new portable generator that runs on military-standard heavy fuel and can be carried into theatre by just one soldier.
However, the company must now gain an initial order from either the MoD or a foreign military in order to secure the capital to take its Hornet generator range from prototype to production.
Craig Fletcher, founder and managing director of Cubewano, said: ’Tooling to bring Hornet into production will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, so we now need to decide how we fund this.
‘While the MoD provides various grants through the Centre for Defence Enterprise and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, these invariably are for “proof-of-concept” projects rather than taking a proven technology into production. We could probably secure grants from the MoD to help us develop even more patents and innovative technology — but this doesn’t help us get our latest product to market.
‘It means we must now look to one of the larger players in the defence industry to either partner with or sell our IP to completely so they can invest in production and provide a procurement pipeline into the military. We have already had interest from major defence players in the USA and India who want to acquire our patents wholesale — however this would come at an unfortunate production and intellectual cost to both the region and the UK.’
The company, which has 11 patents for its engine and military generator technologies, met today with its MP Andrew Mitchell and asked him to encourage the minister for defence equipment, support and technology to provide more backing to firms who are looking to supply to the MoD.
Last year, Cubewano completed a multi-million-dollar contract supplying its engines to the US Army and has since then adapted its core technology to create a new portable generator that runs on military-standard heavy fuel and can be carried into theatre by just one soldier.
However, the company must now gain an initial order from either the MoD or a foreign military in order to secure the capital to take its Hornet generator range from prototype to production.
Craig Fletcher, founder and managing director of Cubewano, said: ’Tooling to bring Hornet into production will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, so we now need to decide how we fund this.
‘While the MoD provides various grants through the Centre for Defence Enterprise and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, these invariably are for “proof-of-concept” projects rather than taking a proven technology into production. We could probably secure grants from the MoD to help us develop even more patents and innovative technology — but this doesn’t help us get our latest product to market.
‘It means we must now look to one of the larger players in the defence industry to either partner with or sell our IP to completely so they can invest in production and provide a procurement pipeline into the military. We have already had interest from major defence players in the USA and India who want to acquire our patents wholesale — however this would come at an unfortunate production and intellectual cost to both the region and the UK.’
2012年1月6日星期五
Trapped in a World He Did Not Make
Howard the Duck is, on the surface, a comical romp through Cleveland lead by a cute punk rocker, a clumsy lab assistant, a possessed physicist, and a crass duck from another world; but a deeper look reveals that this film is also an allegorical piece which offers the audience an unprecedented understanding of an outsider’s view of our world. While a plethora of films have come out of Hollywood sporting out-of-this-world characters Howard the Duck is the only film to look at the experience from an alien point of view in a realistic way. By examining the world that title character Howard came from, the world that he literally fell into, and the ways in which he adapted to his new home, the audience is left with a true-to-life look at an outsider looking in.
To fully understand how Howard the Duck differs from silver screen traditional renditions of alien encounters one must first define a “typical” alien encounter. Hollywood alien encounters can be boiled down to a pretty simple formula; the alien is extremely different from humans both physically and emotionally with an often outrageous sense of morality or lack thereof, the alien is either super intelligent or acts like a pet or human child, aliens come with a huge amount of luck and serendipity as evidenced by their ability to always find the right person at the right time, and lastly, the alien can in no way be considered an equal to humans—it is just too different.
Howard the Duck breaks all of these molds in that it delivers a very “human” character who is neither extremely different nor extremely similar, neither friendly nor violent, neither a genius nor an idiot, and does not offer Earth anything that it didn’t already have—aside from a talking duck. Not only that, but throughout the film Howard is not treated as though he is “too different” due to his “duckyness”. It is worth mentioning that his on screen co-stars do notice that Howard looks different, obviously he is a duck, however the distinction which I am making is that they do not immediately brand Howard as “out-of-this-world” thus they do not condemn him to a status which would not allow him to be seen as human.
Looking at the film one can see that it differs from the traditional blockbuster alien flick early on. The camera work showing Howard’s arrival in his home on Duckworld is of particular interest because it seems to attempt to hide Howard’s obvious “duckyness”. An extreme close up of Howard’s hand throwing keys onto a side table is careful to not reveal much of Howard’s appearance. However, the audience is then shown items which are strewn about Howard’s home; family photos (all ducks), movie posters denoting Duckworld hits (including Mae Nest and W.C. Fowls in My Little Chickadee as well as a Lucasfilm parody Breeders of the Lost Ark) and a postcard from Michelle, who is presumed to be a love interest of Howard’s. In her message, Michelle says that, “I miss your bill pressed up against mine. Flying home soon.” which offers yet more clues that Howard is unmistakably, a duck.
Although the title clearly establishes that Howard is a duck the director of the film, Willard Huyck, saw to it that the audience would not immediately be alienated from him. The scene shows Howard going through the motions of a “normal human experience”. While the director does not hide Howard’s “duckyness” per se, he does make clear that it is not the ‘duck’ that defines Howard but instead Howard that defines the ‘duck’. The director is careful to introduce Howard as a character first; someone that the audience can relate to, and only after the audience has been made comfortable with him is it unequivocally revealed that Howard is a duck.
Creating this Howard-to-audience connection early on proves paramount to the piece in that while it would be easy for an audience to dismiss Howard as an anthropomorphic duck it is far more important for the audience to understand that Howard is not trying to “act human”. He acts as he always has whether in Duckworld, his home planet, or on Earth. This connection between humans and Howard is also played out on screen as Howard encounters human beings for the first time.
When Howard lands in Cleveland he is met by tall leather-clad punks wearing feathered belts that harken to the ornamental scalpings of America’s early culture clashings—they all seem to want nothing more than to make his life miserable. Howard is literally thrown into American pop culture as the punks toss him into a seedy night club. What follows is a montage style sequence showing Howard’s first haphazard minutes on Earth. While much was created for comic relief and action one interaction between Howard and a human stands out as different. Howard falls into the dilapidated “home” of a street woman who doesn’t seem to notice that Howard is a duck but does accuse him of attempting to steal from her and calls him a ‘degenerate’. This is the unique realism of Howard the Duck as it shows the ‘blindness’ of xenophobia, in that the woman doesn’t fear Howard because he is a duck, she fears him because he is different.
To fully understand how Howard the Duck differs from silver screen traditional renditions of alien encounters one must first define a “typical” alien encounter. Hollywood alien encounters can be boiled down to a pretty simple formula; the alien is extremely different from humans both physically and emotionally with an often outrageous sense of morality or lack thereof, the alien is either super intelligent or acts like a pet or human child, aliens come with a huge amount of luck and serendipity as evidenced by their ability to always find the right person at the right time, and lastly, the alien can in no way be considered an equal to humans—it is just too different.
Howard the Duck breaks all of these molds in that it delivers a very “human” character who is neither extremely different nor extremely similar, neither friendly nor violent, neither a genius nor an idiot, and does not offer Earth anything that it didn’t already have—aside from a talking duck. Not only that, but throughout the film Howard is not treated as though he is “too different” due to his “duckyness”. It is worth mentioning that his on screen co-stars do notice that Howard looks different, obviously he is a duck, however the distinction which I am making is that they do not immediately brand Howard as “out-of-this-world” thus they do not condemn him to a status which would not allow him to be seen as human.
Looking at the film one can see that it differs from the traditional blockbuster alien flick early on. The camera work showing Howard’s arrival in his home on Duckworld is of particular interest because it seems to attempt to hide Howard’s obvious “duckyness”. An extreme close up of Howard’s hand throwing keys onto a side table is careful to not reveal much of Howard’s appearance. However, the audience is then shown items which are strewn about Howard’s home; family photos (all ducks), movie posters denoting Duckworld hits (including Mae Nest and W.C. Fowls in My Little Chickadee as well as a Lucasfilm parody Breeders of the Lost Ark) and a postcard from Michelle, who is presumed to be a love interest of Howard’s. In her message, Michelle says that, “I miss your bill pressed up against mine. Flying home soon.” which offers yet more clues that Howard is unmistakably, a duck.
Although the title clearly establishes that Howard is a duck the director of the film, Willard Huyck, saw to it that the audience would not immediately be alienated from him. The scene shows Howard going through the motions of a “normal human experience”. While the director does not hide Howard’s “duckyness” per se, he does make clear that it is not the ‘duck’ that defines Howard but instead Howard that defines the ‘duck’. The director is careful to introduce Howard as a character first; someone that the audience can relate to, and only after the audience has been made comfortable with him is it unequivocally revealed that Howard is a duck.
Creating this Howard-to-audience connection early on proves paramount to the piece in that while it would be easy for an audience to dismiss Howard as an anthropomorphic duck it is far more important for the audience to understand that Howard is not trying to “act human”. He acts as he always has whether in Duckworld, his home planet, or on Earth. This connection between humans and Howard is also played out on screen as Howard encounters human beings for the first time.
When Howard lands in Cleveland he is met by tall leather-clad punks wearing feathered belts that harken to the ornamental scalpings of America’s early culture clashings—they all seem to want nothing more than to make his life miserable. Howard is literally thrown into American pop culture as the punks toss him into a seedy night club. What follows is a montage style sequence showing Howard’s first haphazard minutes on Earth. While much was created for comic relief and action one interaction between Howard and a human stands out as different. Howard falls into the dilapidated “home” of a street woman who doesn’t seem to notice that Howard is a duck but does accuse him of attempting to steal from her and calls him a ‘degenerate’. This is the unique realism of Howard the Duck as it shows the ‘blindness’ of xenophobia, in that the woman doesn’t fear Howard because he is a duck, she fears him because he is different.
Scientific Specialties brings innovation, jobs to Lodi
In a compound of buildings on Lodi's Eastside, K.R. Hovatter is masterminding a world of plastic to help change the world.
Hovatter designs and builds an array of products used around the world, from Korea to Germany. The company he founded with his wife Robbie, Scientific Specialties, creates thousands of products each day for medical research.
In 2011, as many Lodi firms retracted, Scientific Specialties expanded, and dramatically. An $8 million project added 70,000 square feet to the company's development and manufacturing center on Thurman Street in Lodi's industrial district. The company now employs 120 workers, including laborers, product testers, designers and managers.
The company started in 1990 with a 3,000-square-foot building and two employees — K.R. and Robbie. Their family-owned company is now a dynamo of productivity, creating products seven days a week, 24-hours a day.
The Hovatters met at Willow Glen High School in San Jose, then attended San Jose State University. K.R. studied chemistry while Robbie studied nursing and art. At the University of California, Los Angeles, K.R. earned a doctorate in chemistry. The couple has three children: Kyle, 25; Danielle, 22 and Peter, 20.
K.R. Hovatter's career has been a blend of science, art, and enterprise. He holds several patents and takes great pride in building products that are both elegant and functional.
"Essentially, we try to build a better mousetrap," he said. His company's growth is propelled in large measure by the stepped-up government funding of medical research in recent years.
The products are diverse and specialized. Among their primary products are compact tubes of various ilk and the racks to hold them.
Many of K.R. Hovatter's little pieces of plastic are used for a process called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction. It is a fast and relatively inexpensive way to make many copies of small segments of DNA for testing and research.
The products are sold through dealers to medical and research operations worldwide.
The business of building medical plastics is brutally competitive, with Asian and Indian companies offering similar products. But while the business is competitive, it is also selective. Technicians and researchers need products that are of supreme consistency and quality.
Hovatter, on a tour of his company, pointed out large plastic injection machines, each a marvel of mechanical and electronic integration.
"These come from Germany. We could have bought less expensive injectors, but they are not as good. We felt it was worth the investment."
Scientific Specialties focuses on quality, customer service, and flexibility. If a customer wants a customized product, or one that bears a special logo, that can happen with minimal fuss. With its array of injection machines and molds, the company can make more than 1,000 different products.
Last year, in fact, the company shipped more than one billion parts.
It is a balancing act, though, between maintaining strict standards of quality and meeting sometimes-aggressive production demands.
"We are innovative and customer-driven, but we are also honest, at times painfully so," said Paul Connelly, sales and marketing manager. "If the customer wants something that can't be done, we tell them that. You can't just wave a magic wand and make something happen if it doesn't align with our standards of quality."
Why did the Hovatters choose Lodi?
The couple knew of a moldmaker in Lodi that introduced them to the community.
They built the business here, in part, because of good electric rates and a large labor pool willing to work for reasonable wages.
When the decision was made to move to Lodi, Robbie Hovatter was eager but a bit curious, too.
"My thought was, 'What is Lodi?' Coming from the Bay Area, we didn't know quite what to expect," she said. "Now, we absolutely love it. It is home."
The expansion last year was ambitious, but several thousand square feet remain unfinished.
Hovatter designs and builds an array of products used around the world, from Korea to Germany. The company he founded with his wife Robbie, Scientific Specialties, creates thousands of products each day for medical research.
In 2011, as many Lodi firms retracted, Scientific Specialties expanded, and dramatically. An $8 million project added 70,000 square feet to the company's development and manufacturing center on Thurman Street in Lodi's industrial district. The company now employs 120 workers, including laborers, product testers, designers and managers.
The company started in 1990 with a 3,000-square-foot building and two employees — K.R. and Robbie. Their family-owned company is now a dynamo of productivity, creating products seven days a week, 24-hours a day.
The Hovatters met at Willow Glen High School in San Jose, then attended San Jose State University. K.R. studied chemistry while Robbie studied nursing and art. At the University of California, Los Angeles, K.R. earned a doctorate in chemistry. The couple has three children: Kyle, 25; Danielle, 22 and Peter, 20.
K.R. Hovatter's career has been a blend of science, art, and enterprise. He holds several patents and takes great pride in building products that are both elegant and functional.
"Essentially, we try to build a better mousetrap," he said. His company's growth is propelled in large measure by the stepped-up government funding of medical research in recent years.
The products are diverse and specialized. Among their primary products are compact tubes of various ilk and the racks to hold them.
Many of K.R. Hovatter's little pieces of plastic are used for a process called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction. It is a fast and relatively inexpensive way to make many copies of small segments of DNA for testing and research.
The products are sold through dealers to medical and research operations worldwide.
The business of building medical plastics is brutally competitive, with Asian and Indian companies offering similar products. But while the business is competitive, it is also selective. Technicians and researchers need products that are of supreme consistency and quality.
Hovatter, on a tour of his company, pointed out large plastic injection machines, each a marvel of mechanical and electronic integration.
"These come from Germany. We could have bought less expensive injectors, but they are not as good. We felt it was worth the investment."
Scientific Specialties focuses on quality, customer service, and flexibility. If a customer wants a customized product, or one that bears a special logo, that can happen with minimal fuss. With its array of injection machines and molds, the company can make more than 1,000 different products.
Last year, in fact, the company shipped more than one billion parts.
It is a balancing act, though, between maintaining strict standards of quality and meeting sometimes-aggressive production demands.
"We are innovative and customer-driven, but we are also honest, at times painfully so," said Paul Connelly, sales and marketing manager. "If the customer wants something that can't be done, we tell them that. You can't just wave a magic wand and make something happen if it doesn't align with our standards of quality."
Why did the Hovatters choose Lodi?
The couple knew of a moldmaker in Lodi that introduced them to the community.
They built the business here, in part, because of good electric rates and a large labor pool willing to work for reasonable wages.
When the decision was made to move to Lodi, Robbie Hovatter was eager but a bit curious, too.
"My thought was, 'What is Lodi?' Coming from the Bay Area, we didn't know quite what to expect," she said. "Now, we absolutely love it. It is home."
The expansion last year was ambitious, but several thousand square feet remain unfinished.
2012年1月4日星期三
Stuffing Stockings At A New Venue
What do a hockey puck, a string of beads, a Hummel figure, a Christmas tree ornament and a old box camera have in common? The answer: they are all less than 6 inches tall and therefore fit the bill to be included in Vivien Cord's annual Antique Stocking Stuffers Show & Sale. And all of the aforementioned items were there, joining a countless number of other things to please the 600 visitors who came to the show on Sunday, December 18.
Prior to Sunday, the show spent many years in the Civic Center in Old Greenwich, a venue that, over the years, has been neglected to the point that the roof leaked and the exhibition areas became very worn. "It was time to relocate to a clean and bright location, thus the move to the John Jay High School in Cross River, where we are very happy and welcomed," Cord said.
The show filled the cafeteria, a smaller exhibition area and some of the hallways, making it comfortable and easy to maneuver for both the dealers and the customers. The dealers and visitors concurred with her move. Exhibitor Marcia Chaloux of Newtown, Conn., noted, "I wasn't going to do the show if it was to be held in Old Greenwich again, but with the new venue, it turned out to be one of the best choices I made this year."
The show opened at 10 am to a lobby of early shoppers, and people continued to trickled in all day long. Just inside the front entrance, Nancy Craig of Dover, N.H., was set up, offering memorabilia, a selection of still banks, commemorative buttons and many baskets filled with everything from soup to nuts. "Best show since the recession started," she said, "I couldn't blink for the first 3 hours."
Just the opposite was true for Judy Ravnitzky of Mahopac, N.Y. "I did $65 in the morning, wanted to slit my wrists, but it was a good thing I didn't, because in the afternoon I sold four sets of fine quality stemware, mostly Moser, to a very knowledgeable buyer," she said.
An advertisement for the show, appearing in Antiques and The Arts Weekly , featured a Christmas tree made with a stack of words naming the objects one would expect to find at the show. Starting from the bottom with vintage designer costume jewelry, the tree topped off with tins, and in between the list included toys, bells, linens, frames, buttons, folk art, bookends, candlesticks, purses, doorstops, bottles, dollhouse furniture, shakers, figurines, advertising, tokens, molds and clocks, just 20 of the 80 different categories mentioned. And, indeed, there were lots more.
Many of the exhibitors rated the show's visitors highly, including Ryan Downer of Wolfeboro Falls, N.H., who said, "Customers flocked in droves and they were serious buyers with good Christmas spirit. They were interested in a variety of things, and were not afraid to spend." Olivia Garay of Whitehouse Station, N.J., added, "Awesome show, pleased with clientele. I do a lot of shows, and this one saw well-educated customers who knew their stuff, which made them easy to sell to."
Brenda Perrone of Pound Ridge, N.Y., one of the several dealers who offered early Christmas ornaments and decoration, noted that "people were looking for vintage Christmas and, as always, I did well." Other dealers pleased with the show included Arlene Kahn of New York City, who said, "We did well, just as we have always done in Old Greenwich," and Walter-John Kazeka, Sparta, N.Y., was also pleased, saying, "I'm happy, I did what I wanted to do."
Cord was impressed with several of the visitors who told her that they went to Old Greenwich looking for the show, and when they found it was not there, went home and Googled it and then came up to Cross River. The Stocking Stuffers Show replaces the March Cross River Winter Antiques Fair and is the major fundraiser for the John Jay High School PTO.
Next year the show will be at the same location on Sunday, December 16, and among the dealers you will meet will be Kathleen Otranto of Farmingville, N.Y., who said, "I'm smiling! Will do it again!"
Prior to Sunday, the show spent many years in the Civic Center in Old Greenwich, a venue that, over the years, has been neglected to the point that the roof leaked and the exhibition areas became very worn. "It was time to relocate to a clean and bright location, thus the move to the John Jay High School in Cross River, where we are very happy and welcomed," Cord said.
The show filled the cafeteria, a smaller exhibition area and some of the hallways, making it comfortable and easy to maneuver for both the dealers and the customers. The dealers and visitors concurred with her move. Exhibitor Marcia Chaloux of Newtown, Conn., noted, "I wasn't going to do the show if it was to be held in Old Greenwich again, but with the new venue, it turned out to be one of the best choices I made this year."
The show opened at 10 am to a lobby of early shoppers, and people continued to trickled in all day long. Just inside the front entrance, Nancy Craig of Dover, N.H., was set up, offering memorabilia, a selection of still banks, commemorative buttons and many baskets filled with everything from soup to nuts. "Best show since the recession started," she said, "I couldn't blink for the first 3 hours."
Just the opposite was true for Judy Ravnitzky of Mahopac, N.Y. "I did $65 in the morning, wanted to slit my wrists, but it was a good thing I didn't, because in the afternoon I sold four sets of fine quality stemware, mostly Moser, to a very knowledgeable buyer," she said.
An advertisement for the show, appearing in Antiques and The Arts Weekly , featured a Christmas tree made with a stack of words naming the objects one would expect to find at the show. Starting from the bottom with vintage designer costume jewelry, the tree topped off with tins, and in between the list included toys, bells, linens, frames, buttons, folk art, bookends, candlesticks, purses, doorstops, bottles, dollhouse furniture, shakers, figurines, advertising, tokens, molds and clocks, just 20 of the 80 different categories mentioned. And, indeed, there were lots more.
Many of the exhibitors rated the show's visitors highly, including Ryan Downer of Wolfeboro Falls, N.H., who said, "Customers flocked in droves and they were serious buyers with good Christmas spirit. They were interested in a variety of things, and were not afraid to spend." Olivia Garay of Whitehouse Station, N.J., added, "Awesome show, pleased with clientele. I do a lot of shows, and this one saw well-educated customers who knew their stuff, which made them easy to sell to."
Brenda Perrone of Pound Ridge, N.Y., one of the several dealers who offered early Christmas ornaments and decoration, noted that "people were looking for vintage Christmas and, as always, I did well." Other dealers pleased with the show included Arlene Kahn of New York City, who said, "We did well, just as we have always done in Old Greenwich," and Walter-John Kazeka, Sparta, N.Y., was also pleased, saying, "I'm happy, I did what I wanted to do."
Cord was impressed with several of the visitors who told her that they went to Old Greenwich looking for the show, and when they found it was not there, went home and Googled it and then came up to Cross River. The Stocking Stuffers Show replaces the March Cross River Winter Antiques Fair and is the major fundraiser for the John Jay High School PTO.
Next year the show will be at the same location on Sunday, December 16, and among the dealers you will meet will be Kathleen Otranto of Farmingville, N.Y., who said, "I'm smiling! Will do it again!"
2012年1月3日星期二
An Unknown Fighter for Human Rights
"Bernard Délicieux was a troublemaker of the first order, in the mold of Martin Luther, John Brown, and Mahatma Gandhi." Stephen O'Shea knows that you know those other guys, but Bernard is known to few, mostly to experts on Medieval France, like O'Shea himself. His book The Friar of Carcassonne: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars (Walker) intends to make Bernard better known and admired. Bernard lived in a strange time, around 1265 to 1320, a time covered by O'Shea's previous books The Perfect Heresy and Sea of Faith, and O'Shea's broad knowledge of the time helps to make it a little less strange for his readers. What makes Bernard an ideal subject for our time to contemplate is that he challenged his church and he challenged his king at a time when such things just were not done. Nowadays, to paraphrase Monty Python, "No one respects the Spanish Inquisition!", but Bernard operated at a time when the inquisition was forming and was becoming the way of enforcing belief, a way that would be codified about a century later. He had sensible and humane objections to the inquisition (O'Shea uses the uncapitalized word since in Bernard's time it was not yet the dark bureaucracy it was to become), and if he failed in keeping it from becoming a blot on human and religious history, he was still on the right side and his was a heroic failure.
We have Bernard's story because the inquisition kept it in its archives, when Bernard was finally brought to it for trial and was broken and imprisoned. Bernard was a Franciscan in the convent in Carcassonne, in southern France. The Franciscans of the time were the underdogs to the other mendicant order, the Dominicans who had been founded by a Castillian priest named Dominic. The Dominicans were thought of as "the hounds of God" (from "Domini canes," get it?), and were in charge of the incipient inquisition. This was despite Dominic's seemingly liberal view of his religious opponents. After all, he had invited the heterodox Cathars to debate. The Cathars were a thorn in the side of Catholicism; they preached, for instance, that Catholic sacraments were illegitimate, that Hell was a fabrication, and that the cross was a symbol merely of imperial Roman torture. The Dominican-dominated inquisition held Cathars as a special target, and the Cathars were persecuted by the church in the Albigensian Crusade begun in 1209. The crusade failed to extirpate them from the region of Languedoc, but it ended the region's independence and brought it into France. Those who were tortured and condemned were executed, or if not executed they were confined within "the Wall," the notorious prison in Carcassonne. Their lands and possessions were confiscated.
Bernard knew unfairness when he saw it. He was to think of the Cathars as fellow Christians who sought salvation as fervently as he and other members of his own church did; he did not consider them diabolical enemies. He believed that there were limits on what society could enforce, and he felt that his church's eager use of the rack and the stake was a betrayal of principles, a betrayal that would have been obvious to Jesus or to Francis of Assisi. Inhumane incarceration, unlawful detention, and the persecutory mindset of the inquisition were to him not part of civilized society. With the Catholic Church overwhelmingly supporting terror, torture, and betrayal (the techniques of which are described here in distressing detail), Barnard's stance was one of principled courage, an example unique in his time. He knew his village was being torn apart by the inquisition, and he determined to make things different.
Bernard was a natural leader, with a gift for oratory. He was able to rally the townspeople to storm the prison. He objected that citizens were being left to rot in the Wall, and that years of merciless persecution had rendered his townsmen fractious and distrustful. He actually nailed these objections to the door of the stronghold of the inquisitors, a foretaste of Luther's similar action. He was able to appeal directly to King Philip the Fair, with the sensible objection that the inquisitors were ruining civic life and trust and thus endangering their devotion to the kingdom. King Philip was won over because he feared unrest in the region. As of 1301, the Dominicans were powerless to arrest those they suspected of heresy, unless the arrests were cleared beforehand by the local hierarchy, including Bernard. It is notable that Bernard did not argue, at least in his presentation to the king, against torture, because torture was simply a legal way of efficiently getting confessions, and a confession was regarded as the "queen of proofs." It is also notable that Philip did not abolish the office of inquisitor. He wanted it harmless, and indeed it was made harmless for a time.
We have Bernard's story because the inquisition kept it in its archives, when Bernard was finally brought to it for trial and was broken and imprisoned. Bernard was a Franciscan in the convent in Carcassonne, in southern France. The Franciscans of the time were the underdogs to the other mendicant order, the Dominicans who had been founded by a Castillian priest named Dominic. The Dominicans were thought of as "the hounds of God" (from "Domini canes," get it?), and were in charge of the incipient inquisition. This was despite Dominic's seemingly liberal view of his religious opponents. After all, he had invited the heterodox Cathars to debate. The Cathars were a thorn in the side of Catholicism; they preached, for instance, that Catholic sacraments were illegitimate, that Hell was a fabrication, and that the cross was a symbol merely of imperial Roman torture. The Dominican-dominated inquisition held Cathars as a special target, and the Cathars were persecuted by the church in the Albigensian Crusade begun in 1209. The crusade failed to extirpate them from the region of Languedoc, but it ended the region's independence and brought it into France. Those who were tortured and condemned were executed, or if not executed they were confined within "the Wall," the notorious prison in Carcassonne. Their lands and possessions were confiscated.
Bernard knew unfairness when he saw it. He was to think of the Cathars as fellow Christians who sought salvation as fervently as he and other members of his own church did; he did not consider them diabolical enemies. He believed that there were limits on what society could enforce, and he felt that his church's eager use of the rack and the stake was a betrayal of principles, a betrayal that would have been obvious to Jesus or to Francis of Assisi. Inhumane incarceration, unlawful detention, and the persecutory mindset of the inquisition were to him not part of civilized society. With the Catholic Church overwhelmingly supporting terror, torture, and betrayal (the techniques of which are described here in distressing detail), Barnard's stance was one of principled courage, an example unique in his time. He knew his village was being torn apart by the inquisition, and he determined to make things different.
Bernard was a natural leader, with a gift for oratory. He was able to rally the townspeople to storm the prison. He objected that citizens were being left to rot in the Wall, and that years of merciless persecution had rendered his townsmen fractious and distrustful. He actually nailed these objections to the door of the stronghold of the inquisitors, a foretaste of Luther's similar action. He was able to appeal directly to King Philip the Fair, with the sensible objection that the inquisitors were ruining civic life and trust and thus endangering their devotion to the kingdom. King Philip was won over because he feared unrest in the region. As of 1301, the Dominicans were powerless to arrest those they suspected of heresy, unless the arrests were cleared beforehand by the local hierarchy, including Bernard. It is notable that Bernard did not argue, at least in his presentation to the king, against torture, because torture was simply a legal way of efficiently getting confessions, and a confession was regarded as the "queen of proofs." It is also notable that Philip did not abolish the office of inquisitor. He wanted it harmless, and indeed it was made harmless for a time.
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