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by Barb. Still mostly at home with the whole knee thing. But then, being stuck at home is good for the writing.
I first met Maine author Brenda Buchanan at Crime Bake, though I'd known who she was for awhile before that because she was on the board of the fabulous Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. In April, Brenda's first Joe Gale Mystery, Quick Pivot was released. And just two weeks ago, Cover Story, the second in the series debuted. So we thought it was time to have Brenda around for a visit here at Wicked Cozys World HQ.
Here's the skinny on Cover Story:
Maine newspaper reporter Joe Gale is at his best when covering the crime beat for the Portland Daily Chronicle. In the dead of winter he heads Downeast to cover the murder trial of fisherman Danny Boothby, charged with burying a filleting knife in the chest of politically well-connected social worker Frank O'Rourke.
O'Rourke held a thankless job in a hard place. Many locals found him arrogant, but say he didn't deserve to die. Others whisper that O'Rourke got himself killed through his own rogue behavior.
After Joe's hard-nosed reporting provokes someone to run him off an isolated road, he realizes his life depends on figuring out not only who committed the murder, but who's stalking him—O'Rourke's prominent brother, friends or enemies of the dead social worker or members of Boothby's family. As he digs deeper, Joe uncovers enough secrets and lies to fill a cemetery. He'll have to solve this one fast, or his next headline may be his own obituary
Barb: All the Wickeds write at least one series set in New England. I'm very interested in the idea of a New England voice. How do you think being a New Englander and writing a series set in Maine where you now live influences your writing?
Brenda: Being a New Englander has enormous influence on my work. I grew up in the central Massachusetts mill town of Fitchburg. I studied journalism at Northeastern University, and was fortunate to be able to spend my co-op terms learning about journalism in the newsroom at the Boston Globe. I've lived and worked in Maine for the past 35 years, twelve of them year-round on an island in Casco Bay. So the New England cadence comes through in my writing. That's true both with my narrative voice, and the voices of my characters.
For example, in Cover Story, my newspaper reporter protagonist Joe Gale is covering a trial in Machias, 40 miles from the Canadian border. He shares the courtroom's front bench with a pair of elderly spectators, twin sisters Arlette and Truelette Peabody. After a few days, they've become friendly enough for the Peabody sisters to invite Joe for after-court refreshments at their home:
I headed back toward the courthouse with the intention of finding a sheriff's department clerk to dig the police report about the May 22 bait truck accident out of the files, but was intercepted by the Peabody sisters, who had tea on their mind. Tea with me.
"We understand you need to meet a deadline, but our house is right around the corner, and the judge did adjourn early today," Trulette said.
"It will be a little civilized break," Arlette added. "And I make a potent cup of Darjeeling."
I was caffed out, but court had adjourned at three twenty, leaving plenty of time before my deadline, so we proceeded to the Peabody ancestral home. From the outside it murmured old New England. Center chimney. White clapboards. Black shutters flanking six-over-six windows.
As was local custom, we entered through the side door. After shucking our shoes onto a plastic boot tray, we shuffled in stocking feet into a large square kitchen with an antique stove radiating steady heat in the corner. While Trulette put the kettle on to boil, Arlette shoveled two scoops of pea coal into the stove's top hatch, then bent and shook the accumulated ash into the bottom pan, moving with the easy rhythm of someone who'd fed a coal stove her whole life.
If you're a New Englander, you know these women. Perhaps they're your aunt, or maybe your high school English teacher. They are as Maine as a Moxie ice cream float, and an important part of the emotional architecture of Cover Story.
In Quick Pivot, the first in the Joe Gale series, every third chapter takes the reader back to 1968. Those chapters are written in the third-person voice of Paulie Finnegan, Joe Gale's now-deceased mentor, who was a young reporter in the sixties. I had a great time writing the dialogue in those chapters, because I worked with reporters like Paulie when I was a journalist in Boston and Maine. Smart and savvy, working class, a bit of a wiseass, but sentimental beneath the surface. In this scene Paulie's on a jaunt with a source named Jay Preble to Old Orchard Beach (a place I understand is near and dear to the Wickeds):
They drove south as far as Old Orchard, a beachfront town that oozed fryolator grease from its pores. The main drag was lined with tourist emporiums—places that sold sweatshirts, cotton candy and inflatable balls—many of which were open but doing little business. Not so the bars.
Preble steered them to a waterfront joint where they ate fried clams and drank beer for a couple of hours before moving to a bar where a rougher crowd was pounding down booze as though it were Saturday instead of Sunday. They switched from beer to whisky while Paulie worked his way up the list of guys waiting to take on the resident darts champ, a scrawny man named Bo with hard eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lip.
Neither Preble nor Bo knew that Paulie held the all-time darts title at the South Portland Coast Guard base, capable of throwing with either hand, dead drunk or Sunday school sober. But they found out. By the time Preble dumped Paulie at his doorstep in Riverside, it was after eleven and he still had thirty fresh bucks in his wallet. Their bar bill had eaten the rest of what he'd won.
Barb: Your protagonist, Joe Gale, is a reporter and you were once a journalist as well. I've always wondered, how are the skills journalists develop applicable to writing a novel, and how are they a hindrance that must be unlearned or overcome? What was the best, most important thing you learned as a journalist?
Brenda: Most important? Not to fear the blank page. When I settle in to write I'm kind of like a musician sitting down at the piano. I tap out a few words, riff around a little, and pretty soon I'm pounding out a tune. It's not always good music, mind you, but I'm not one suffer blank page paralysis. For better or worse, my experience as a reporter taught me to jump right in.
It was important to break myself of the notion that I was writing to deadline. A journalist must submit to her editor the best story she can write in the time allowed. A novelist needs to take however much time is necessary to write a story worthy of submission. Big difference there.
One habit I had to resurrect was the daily writing routine. When you're a reporter, that's a given. It took me a little while to realize that writing fiction was going to demand the same daily commitment to the keyboard. When I decided eight or nine years ago to take a crack at writing a novel, my routine varied with my energy level. If I'd had a hectic day at work, I'd give myself a slide on writing that night. That meant I never got in the groove, and found myself endlessly fussing around with the first chapter. It was only when I committed myself to write two pages a night minimum, no matter what, that my first book began to take shape. That book, by the way, was Cover Story, the second book in the Joe Gale series. Like many first efforts, it needed a lot of cooking time.
Barb: In April, you crossed the line from unpublished to published author when, Quick Pivot, the first book in the Joe Gale series, was released. What is the most surprising thing that's happened since then?
Brenda: I have been delighted by how much I enjoy going to libraries and book groups to talk about my books and crime writing in general. I thought that would be a nerve-wracking experience, but it's turned out to be the opposite. A colleague offered some wise advice before my first appearance—folks who go out of their way to meet authors make for a dream audience. They're dedicated readers, she said. They want to like you and your work. Those words were like magic. They set my mind at ease.
Because my publisher is digital-first, the many wonderful bookstores in Maine are not available venues for me at this time. But libraries and book groups are a great fit. If any readers of this blog would like me to visit their local library or come (in person or by Skype) to hang out with their book group, they can contact me through my website, http://brendabuchananwrites.com
Barb: What are you working on now?
Brenda: I'm in the middle of copyedits for Truth Beat, the third book in the Joe Gale Series. It's about the suspicious death of a Catholic priest who was well-known as a tireless advocate for victims of clerical sexual abuse. Set in the imaginary town of Riverside with scenes in Portland, Bangor and Bethel, Truth Beat will be out in February, 2016.
Thanks for inviting me to chat with the Wickeds today, Barb. I hope we can keep the conversation going in the comments.
What do you think, readers? Is there a New England regional voice? Is there a particular voice in your corner of the country or the world?


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A police officer checked a bus in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city and one where deadly militant attacks have increased in the past few years. Under the influence of Al Qaeda, militants' energies have been turned inward, against Pakistan's own government and people.
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and WAQAR GILLANI
Published: February 27, 2010
LAHORE, Pakistan — Umar Kundi was his parents' pride, an ambitious young man from a small town who made it to medical school in the big city. It seemed like a story of working-class success, living proof in this unequal society that a telephone operator's son could become a doctor.
The New York Times
Lahore has enduring social problems like chronic unemployment.
But things went wrong along the way. On campus Mr. Kundi fell in with a hard-line Islamic group. His degree did not get him a job, and he drifted in the urban crush of young people looking for work. His early radicalization helped channel his ambitions in a grander, more sinister way.
Instead of healing the sick, Mr. Kundi went on to become one of Pakistan's most accomplished militants. Working under a handler from Al Qaeda, he was part of a network that carried out some of the boldest attacks against the Pakistani state and its people last year, the police here say. Months of hunting him ended on Feb. 19, when he was killed in a shootout with the police at the age of 29.
Mr. Kundi and members of his circle — educated strivers who come from the lower middle class — are part of a new generation that has made militant networks in Pakistan more sophisticated and deadly. Al Qaeda has harnessed their aimless ambition and anger at Pakistan's alliance with the United States, their generation's most electrifying enemy.
"These are guys who use Google Maps to plan their attacks," said a senior Punjab Province police official. "Their training is better than our national police academy."
Like Mr. Kundi, many came of age in the 1990s, when jihad was state policy — aimed at challenging Indian control in Kashmir — and jihadi groups recruited openly in universities. Under the influence of Al Qaeda, their energies have been redirected and turned inward, against Pakistan's own government and people.
That shift has fractured long-established militant networks, which were once supported by the state, producing a patchwork of new associations that are fluid and defy easy categorization.
"The situation now is quite confusing," said Tariq Parvez, director of the National Counterterrorism Authority in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. "We can no longer talk in terms of organizations. Now it's a question of like-minded militants."
The result has been deadly. In 2009, militant attacks killed 3,021 Pakistanis, three times as many as in 2006.
The issue is urgent. Pakistan is in the midst of a youth bulge, with more than a million people a year pouring into the job market, and the economy — at its current rate — is not growing fast enough to absorb them. Only a tiny fraction choose militancy, but acute joblessness exacerbates the risk.
A Student's Education
Mr. Kundi's journey and the ways he veered off course parallel Pakistan's own recent history. Born to Pashtun parents, he grew up in a small town in southwestern Punjab, where camels lumber in slow clumps, and sand stings the eyes. His father's monthly income of $255 put them at the lower edge of Pakistan's middle class. But life still took patience. Meat was a luxury. His father could afford to visit him in medical school only once.
He brought that past — part shyness, part shame — with him to college in Faisalabad, the third-biggest city in Pakistan. The city was an explosion of things modern. Traffic jams. Fancy restaurants. Uncovered women. For young people from small towns, unfamiliar with city life, the atmosphere can arouse a rigid defensiveness, said Mughees-uddin Sheikh, a dean at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city.
"The student is tempted, but he doesn't understand it because he wasn't educated," said Mr. Sheikh. "He's been deprived of things like this."
To ease the adjustment, young people join student groups, which, like powerful inner-city gangs, help them navigate life — how to use a bank, which mosque to pray in — but also offer protection.
When Mr. Kundi arrived at Punjab Medical College in the late 1990s, he chose a group with an Islamic focus, according to a classmate and friend, Muhammad, who asked that his last name not be used because he feared association with a militant. It was a typical choice for students from devout families, who want their sons to stay out of trouble in the city.
Complete article at:

subset: commoncrawl


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Are there elements that should pretty much always be included in every blog post? Yep. But it's rare to find them all together in one, awesome post.
You don't have to do all of these things every single time, but my own mental checklist that I run through as I'm writing, and before I hit "Publish" looks like this:
- Write a compelling title. Run it through CoSchedule's headline analyzer?
- Use the first paragraph to motivate the reader to keep reading.
- Research some keywords to find out if anyone is actually searching for what I'm writing about.
- Include those keywords an appropriate number of times, especially in titles and headings.
- Include some bullet points.
- Include at least one image that looks good. Find them at Pexels.
- Assign a featured image and make sure it pops up in social posts. Debug if necessary.
- Include an average of two internal links to other posts within your blog.
- Include an average of two links to other relevant resources.
- Among those links, make one or two affiliate links.
- Pick an appropriate category or two.
- Add some relevant tags for cross-referencing purposes later on.
- Check the spelling.
- Evaluate the emotional impact of the post.
- Answer a question or solve a problem with the post.
- Be personal – use conversational language.
- Call the reader to act on what they're reading in some small way.
- Post it to social media profiles, pages, groups, etc.
- Invite readers to connect and subscribe (not always within the post, but in the site design).
- Email your mailing list inviting them to check it out.
- Go back and re-evaluate the title one more time. After writing, is it still the best it can be?
As I said, this isn't exhaustive. It's just the list I run through as I write a post.
Want to get even better at blogging? Here's a free mini-course…


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Three Anne Arundel Community College interior design students tied for first place in the 2011 MADE: In America Washington, D.C. Furniture Design Competition, capturing the BEST: Made in America Award.
The winning entries of AACC students Susan Wasilewski of St. Michaels, Nadia D. Vemuri Cataldi of Annapolis and Brandon P. King of Deale were showcased July 4 at the "Take Pride in America Cele ation and Awards Ceremony" in the U.S. Capitol. AACC also was invited to display furniture design entries from another five AACC interior design students as part of the event, which focused primarily on the furniture manufacturers receiving awards from MADE: in America based in Washington, D.C., the not-for-profit educational organization and sponsor.
Topping the awards ceremony, for Wasilewski, was the unveiling of her winning PHI chair design as fa icated by Bielecky Brothers Inc. of New York. In accordance with the competition rules, the top scorer was eligible to have their design executed by the 2010 BEST: Made in America award winner Bielecky Brothers (www.bielecky others.com) of New York.
The chair and the three first-place entries are on display now through August at "The All American Room" showcase at the Washington Design Center. The trio competed with peers from two- and four-year public and private universities in the competition. Cataldi created an elegant Hyannis Rocking Chaise and King crafted a space-saving Sky Box table outdoor table and chair series.
Referring to the AACC submittals, MADE: in America chairman and CEO James DeLorbe commented, "The students' designs are simply incredible."
The three winners and five AACC classmates were enrolled in the college's "Interior Construction Detailing" class taught by Dimi Tangires of Easton, an instructor in the AACC Department of Architecture and Interior Design. A member of IDEC and an American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Allied Educator, Tangires serves as senior faculty adviser for the program and its student ASID chapter.
Having established AACC's interior design program based on real-life learning, Tangires is credited with winning and helping the students and the program win more than 30 state and regional awards and an unprecedented seven national awards in eight years.
"I am so proud of my students and so proud to work for Anne Arundel Community College," Tangires said. After attending the competition's orientation session in Fe uary, she and her students agreed to take on the challenge of the design contest, implementing it into the curriculum despite the expanded workload for a 15-week course.
"Professor Tangires did a remarkable job in integrating her coursework with the competition and her professionalism and academic course of study are second to none!" DeLorbe said. "Seasoned designers, industry executives and Merchandise Mart Properties officials all have expressed their praise for her program and her students, which focused a major spotlight on AACC."
In addition to the July 4 festivities, Wasilewski got to travel to the Bielecky Brothers' New York factory to see her chair design come to life. The prototype of the chair, which could be sold worldwide, epitomizes Wasilewski's design philosophy: good design + craftsmanship = happiness.
"This is a historic moment in her career," Tangires said. "Few interior design students have the honor of working with a prestigious manufacturer and seeing their own design become reality."
The five AACC classmates who saw their competition design entries on display at the event are Taylor E. Beck of Davidsonville, Kershell L. Ford of Arnold, Ana Laura Gonzalez of Laurel, Rose M. Hilgartner of Monkton and Tracy A. McGuinness of Annapolis.
CUTLINE: Susan Wasilewski of St. Michaels, the top scorer of AACC's three first-place winners in the 2011 MADE: In America Washington, D.C. Furniture Design Competition, got to see her PHI chair design executed into this prototype by a New York furniture company.
About Made: In America (www.dcdesigncenter.com/MADEUSA)
A not-for-profit educational organization based in Washington, D.C., MADE: In America's mission is to create and foster a business climate conducive to the free exchange of ideas and information for the purpose of revitalizing and sustaining the competitiveness of American commerce and industry in a global economy.
About AACC (www.aacc.edu)
Anne Arundel Community College is an award-winning, fully accredited public two-year institution serving approximately 53,000 students each year through classes offered at more than 100 sites in Anne Arundel County or online. National and regional award-winning studies can lead to a degree, certificate, industry credential, transfer to a four-year institution or career enhancement, personal enrichment and lifelong learning. AACC cele ates its 50th Anniversary beginning this fall.
Anne Arundel Community College News
Contacts: Debbie McDaniel-Shaughney, public relations manager 410-777-7259; firstname.lastname@example.com
Dan Baum, executive director, public relations and marketing 410-777-2011; firstname.lastname@example.com


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Three years ago, Sun Microsystems all but promised us smart appliances, but there aren't too many fridges out there that tell you when they're out of ice cubes.
The Sun technology in question is called Jini, and it hasn't really delivered beyond a few isolated examples. One of its more recent
applications is in a software program for U.S. Naval exercises. ""But so what?"" says IDC analyst Rikki Kerzner. ""There are a whole bunch of cases where it's a nice idea, but it didn't work. Sun has de-emphasized it for the last couple of years. . . . That's part of the reason why acceptance is sort of the way it is. It has to be different from what it was originally introduced as.""
Sun software engineer Simon Roberts has moved out of the lab and into the classroom to teach developers about Jini and RMI (Remote Method Invocation), a standard for distributed objects written in Java. ""I used to write software once upon a time, then I discovered that when you start teaching people things, that's when you really start understanding it,"" he says.
Computing Canada spoke with Roberts to check in on the progress of Jini and if it will ever really know when you're low on ice.
Computing Canada: What type of Jini questions do you field in the classroom?
Simon Roberts: The question that I like to be able to give an answer to most . . . are where people don't understand what Jini, or indeed RMI, is really about. There's a tendency for most people to start with what they know then try to map new stuff on.
The usual question is, 'So what can I do with Jini?' The assumption most people start from is that it does something they fundamentally couldn't do before. Well, it does, but mostly what it's doing is the same thing better, more elegantly, more flexibly. Really, the argument with Jini, in my view at least, is that you now have a system. Most of the strength of Jini derives from the fact that it's based on RMI, where you're dealing with true distributed objects and here you're dealing with all the benefits of object orientation.
When OO first came out — I started using it 15 years ago — some of us said, myself included, ""What can I do with this?"" (The answer was), ""But I can do that anyway."" As time when on, the light dawned that this was not about doing new things so much as doing things in a fundamentally better way.
CC: Why haven't we seen the development of Jini-based smart appliances?
Roberts: For the most part, it is not that unreasonable to believe we can build environments with Jini and Java that would be suitable for use in the home and allow appropriate levels of access for people's convenience from the outside. The issues are not so much technical ones as user and cultural ones.
CC: What is Jini now compared to its original vision of making appliances smarter?
Roberts: That's an unfortunate side effect of what appeared to be good marketing in the first place. That actually wasn't the original intention. It was a very powerful and expressive way of describing it. Unfortunately the analogy got a little carried away and people failed to realize it was actually much more than that.
The idea, essentially, behind Jini, is that most networks are fundamentally unreliable. That's not to say the pieces they're made out of are not incredibly high quality, but if you have pieces with a meantime between failure of 100,000 hours — which would be good by anybody's standards — and you have 10 million of them, clearly you can reasonably expect that 100 pieces will be broken in any given hour.
If you keep the system as a whole working, even if individual pieces keep failing and are replaced, (Jini) automatically will deal very elegantly and transparently with a more dynamic network where you deliberately plug things in at random. That fits very neatly into the notions of home networks where you don't have a system administrator, but somebody goes down to the electronics store, buying a new piece and plugs in into the network. They just want it to work and that was the compelling description of it, which unfortunately seems to be perceived that that's all that it's for.
CC: Does Sun suffer from developing technologies without any real applications?
Roberts: I think one of the problems with a technology like Jini is that it is not about solving a specific problem, it's about a better way to solve all sorts of problems. The people who talk about how to market a new product say you should start with a vertical market and when you've got penetration in that market, you spread out. That may be one of the issues.
There are devices out there. For example, there's a printer out there that's Jini-enabled. But with that kind of thing, for a home market, you clearly have to have a certain weight of acceptance before anything is worth having. One of the things I hope people will realize is that with Jini, you're not compelled to do it, it's an option. It's very open and very flexible. With a little bit of luck, people will realize that. Eventually, there will be so many things you could do with it, and people will. But at the moment that isn't the situation.
CC: What is preventing major vendors from putting their weight behind a technology like Jini?
Roberts: I'm not honestly that sure. I think quite a few of them have, but there are the issues of interface compatibility. SOAP (was) this supposed wonderful idea that you just publish your interface specifications as XML and magically the thing at the other end of it will deal with it. That's complete nonsense, which anyone that's been through computing 101 would immediately recognize if they stopped to think about it. It's a very nice idea, but it just doesn't work that way. Computers cannot yet program themselves and it's unlikely they ever will. That means you have to have the standardization of the interfaces. As soon as you start talking to standards bodies, you know how long it takes to produce something. They took two years and more to decide on the interface for printers and it seems that the interfaces for other things are similarly slow-moving.
CC: How will Jini be affected of the growth of wireless technologies like Bluetooth?
Roberts: It's actually going to help enormously. One of the nice things about Jini is that although it's essentially a Java-based technology, it doesn't care what your network transport is. Strictly speaking RMI doesn't care either, but it's normal to run RMI over a TCP network. But Jini was designed very specifically on the assumption that you might be running over any kind of network, including some highly unreliable ones. Unreliable is not a fair criticism to aim at Bluetooth, but it's dynamic by design. You walk into the room, Bluetooth lights up, you walk out of the room, Bluetooth disconnects. That kind of dynamic nature is indistinguishable from a programming point of view from unreliability. (Jini) makes the fundamental assumption that ""whatever I'm running over, I must assume it's unreliable,"" so you can handle Bluetooth extremely effectively.
CC: Is Jini more of a niche technology now?
Roberts: I don't think so. It's crystal ball time, but I tend to look at history. The history of computing has shown that some ideas are just so essentially right that, little by little, regardless of what is happening around them, they eventually get there. One example is object orientation. That started in people's labs and in back rooms and was used very occasionally for commercial-type projects for 20 years or more. But eventually people recognized that this is just right.
Macromedia has produced a J2EE server. They have used Jini in it as a way of doing their load-balancing and distribution. So, little by little, I think what will happen is that people will discover they can use it without jeopardizing the other things they're doing.


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1) News Articles:
* Oscar Win Leads Thousands of Icelanders to Genealogical Site
* Oscar Win Leads Thousands of Icelanders to Genealogical Site
2) New or Updated Record Collections:
3) Genealogy Education - Webinars (times are US Pacific):
* GeneaWebinars Calendar
* GeneaWebinars Calendar
* Upcoming Family Tree Webinar - Tuesday, 18 February, 5 p.m.: A Convincing Argument or a Convoluted Mess, by Barbara Vines Little
* Upcoming Family Tree Webinar - Wednesday, 19 February, 11 a.m.: Newspapers for People of Color Genealogy Research, by Nicka Smith
* Archived Family Tree Webinar: Best Practices for Success in Facebook Groups for Genealogy, by Cyndi Ingle
* Archived Family Tree Webinar: Tech Zone - Your Black & White Photograph to Full Color in 1 Step, by Geoff Rasmussen
* Archived Family Tree Webinar: Pull Your Favorite Apps into Trello with Power-Ups, by Lisa Alzo
4) Genealogy Education - Podcasts:
* Genealogy Gems: Podcast Episode 238
* Fisher's Top Tips: #154r - Genealogical Sources
* The Photo Detective: Episode 73: What I Learned by Digitally Organizing My Photographs
* Ancestral Findings: The Lost Treasure of Francis Wainwright: Chapter 7 | AF-319
5) Genealogy Videos (YouTube):
* Boundless Genealogy: Go BEYOND the Marriage Records Index on FamilySearch
* Cheri Hudson Passey: GenFriends: Talking RootsTech 2020 with Tyler Stahle
* DNA Family Trees: Grow your Ancestry tree using Familysearch.org!
* DNA Family Trees: Super Clustering DNA matches from Ancestry with FTDNA and 23andMe!
* DNA Family Trees: New MyHeritage B&W Photo Colorizer!
* DNA Family Trees: How to Edit kinship on FamilySearch.org
* Family History Fanatics: RootsTech 2020 - Survival Guide for a Great Experience
* Family History Ron: Family History Ron Q&A 13 Feb 2020
* Findmypast: Vintage Wedding Photos | Valentine's Day
* Genealogy TV: Marriage Records for Family History: Where to find them on Ancestry.com & FamilySearch.org
* GeneaVlogger: Professional Genealogist Reacts - 10 Shocking Results from DNA Ancestry Tests - TopTenz
* Genetic Genealogy Ireland: Double Helix History (Jerome de Groot)
* Genetic Genealogy Ireland: Using Y-DNA in Practice (James Irvine)
* Lisa Lisson: Google Photos for Genealogy
* Lisa Lisson: Favorite Tools for Genealogy Research
* Who Is Nicka Smith? BlackProGen LIVE! Ep 104: Jumping the Broom: Researching Marriages and Unions
6) Genealogy Bargains:
* Free Marriage Records at MyHeritage for Valentine's Day! [February 14-18]
7) DNA Stories:
8) Did you miss the last Genealogy News Bytes - 11 February 2020 ?
The URL for this post is: https://www.geneamusings.com/2020/02/genealogy-news-bytes-tuesday-14.html
Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver
Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Well, we are but in general, research shows that our chemical industry is not very digital.
HBR published an article that reflects on the level of digitalization across industries and research shows that the chemical industry has a way to go before it can reap benefits in the form of higher revenues through lowering administration costs, shortening sales cycles and directly engaging with customers with relevant content for them.
Research shows that the chemical industry has the potential to digitize its' B2B industry and to digitally engage customers directly. However, more often than not an internal organization is the main hurdle in the path of digitalization. Legacy systems, traditional ways of doing business and storing data in separate systems and even filing cabinets, are just a few we can mention.
The primary concern is very low customer-facing digitalization of sales and marketing funnels.
But how can we overcome the obstacles and become successful in the digitalization of our business?
Digitalization means Change
McKinsey's research shows that almost 50 percent of chemical companies in the top quintile from 2000 to 2004 no longer were from 2010 to 2014 [McKinsey on Chemicals, July 2016].
Today's chemical companies can't expect to keep delivering above-market returns by continuing on the same path. But then again changing the way we do business can be stressful.
However, digitalization is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities, according to Gartner's glossary.
Digitalization without changing anything will not happen. Whenever we implement digital solutions and digitize processes, the way we do business changes, people's jobs change and with that perception of what is important. Being aware of this will definitely make it easier for digitalization to succeed but it is just one stepping stone to success.
Driving these projects inside an organization always demands a champion of digitalization that will drive development, stimulate everyone involved to get better, engage in development and embrace a new way of doing business as their own.
Source: Harvard Business Review [https://hbr.org/2016/04/a-chart-that-shows-which-industries-are-the-most-digital-and-why]
Get everyone on board
Every minor or major change in a company cannot be successful if people do not believe in it or if they don't perceive it as their own. The first step towards a successful transition is onboarding everyone who is working on a particular part of the company we're digitizing behind one single goal broken down to as many milestones as needed to succeed. The second step is the cooperation of these individual experts in order to successfully transform a business model. It is vitally important that we thoroughly understand what we are changing and how it connects into all aspects of the business.
Sometimes small smart changes locally can turn into big dumb surprises for the business.
Only a comprehensive analysis and thorough understanding of company culture and its processes will eventually bring higher revenues and lower costs. And in turn, this will be a gateway to happy customers that are in habit of doing business with us.
Choosing the right platform to fit organizations' needs is just as important as anything else. Keeping in mind that no platform fits universally to every business, it is vitally important to understand that before the integration and to figure out how the best match between the two can be achieved. Mapping success path and understanding milestones that have to be hit in order for implementation to be successful, is the key in every digitalization of business.
What can we do for you?
At BENS Consulting we are helping professionals succeed for the last 25 years in the chemical business.
Allchemist is a platform that embodies all of our know-how and past efforts to digitalize our partners' businesses. Allchemist is a great tool if you feel that you're up to the task yourself and you only need a binding agent to make everything work.
On the other hand, it can be a platform that does all of the heavy liftings inside an organization.
Want to know more
If you would like to find out how Allchemist can help you out dealing with these efforts, get in touch with us HERE and we will help you explore all options.


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- Donklephant – The Cadbury Egg Coverup – haha.
- LaTeX for your thesis in 3 10 16 (?) easy steps
This, for those who don't know, would be analogous to getting up and walking to the TV to change the channel instead of spending several hours looking for the remote control, which is what I did. Using FinkCommander is then kind of like asking your manservant to change the channel for you. He had been standing there the whole time blinking at you as you tore apart your living room looking for the &%*#ing remote.
– good stuff.
- PGATOUR.COM – Johnson's victory reminds many of Fleck's over Hogan in 1955
- Some Facts About AAC
AAC is not "unique� to Apple. It's not even controlled or invented by Apple, or any other single company. It is an ISO standard that was invented by engineers at Dolby, working with companies like Fraunhofer, Sony, AT&T, and Nokia.
– I didn't know this.
- Boulder Open Coffee Club Opens For Business! – OpenCoffee Club – 8am?
- Faster blogging through Markdown | Turbocharged – I find the keyboard shortcuts in my Quicktags gives me the same benefits. (thanks Mark)
- About the Boulder Software Club
- Tip: Changing Sprint Home Agent Speeds Up EVDO : EVDOinfo.com
- 5 Question Interview with Twitter Developer Alex Payne – great interview.
- Twitter, Ruby, and Scaling
- Daring Fireball: Bottleneck
- Summing Up Felix – yes it's a small sample size, but is sure is encouraging. 🙂
- Sveinbjorn Thordarson's Website – DataURLMaker – could be pretty handy for CSS distribution.
- U.S.S. Mariner – MLB Trade Value for 2007 – fun stuff!
- Working with the system – O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog
- The Rules of Toys
- Pukka 1.5 adds support for Ma.gnolia – smart move by Ma.gnolia.
- The Two Things about Computer Programming – interesting.


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Thursday 24 September 2015
Service of the Month
This month's 'Service of the Month' goes to our signage service. Trailways offers a complete signage service, whatever your business or product. No vehicle is too large or too small. For more information about our signage service visit our website: http://www.trailways-uk.com/index.php?webpage=signage
Thursday 17 September 2015
Trailways UK - Coach Repairs Video
At Trailways UK, we are experts in coach repair and are one of the leading companies in the UK for providing this service. Find out more about what we offer in our video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTXeVq6PBrs
Thursday 10 September 2015
Modern, classic and vintage bus refurbishment
Here at Trailways, no job is too big, too small or too complicated. Some of our customers even refer to us as the "A-Team" because of our willingness to take on and complete any task that others in the industry would turn away! For more information, please visit our website - http://www.trailways-uk.com/index.php?webpage=refurbishment
Friday 4 September 2015
Get your bus repair done today.
Get your bus repair done correctly! Get in touch today. http://www.trailways-uk.com/
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Can I use the Bluetooth function of my smart speaker when it is not connected to a network?
You can't use the Bluetooth function without an established Wi-Fi connection.
Connect it to an active network during initial setup, then pair and connect it to a Bluetooth device.
For LF-S50G:
If network connection shuts off after initial setup, connection and playback via Bluetooth are possible. However, the speaker will power off one hour later.


text:
(disclaimer: this is in part me practicing for nanowrimo. I do hope that you "enjoy" this Halloween ghost story regardless.)
Lil looks at the four faces staring at the handprint and the rearranged salt pattern. "I take it that's not a good sign?"
Brenda is biting her bottom lip and Lil decides that is definitely not a good sign. Brenda and Josh seem pretty unflappable. Just that thought makes Lil glance at Josh.
"Okay, speak to me people. What do you think's going on?" he asks.
"This is one freaking powerful entity," Arturo says, nodding at the handprint.
"What in the hell made that?" Brian asks as he squats and is about to touch the mark with his fingers.
"Don't touch it," Brenda yells.
Brian jerks his hand back and glances up at her, fear marring his boyish features. "Why not?"
"It's still smoking," she says.
"Crap," Brian says.
Lil watches the telltale wave of smoke rise from the print and figures that a burned in handprint is definitely going to be difficult to get up from vinyl. "How?"
"How what?" Brenda asks.
"How did that handprint get there? If a 'thing' can make a handprint like that, what's to stop it from doing the same to any of us?" Lil asks, the fearful realization giving her shivers.
No one says anything. Lil looks at Josh, but it's as if he refuses to meet her gaze.
"This is really very bad, isn't it?" she asks.
Lil watches as Brenda and Josh share a significant look. The significance of it being that they don't have the slightest idea in hell what's going on. And, Lil wonders if that thought, "hell," isn't significant in itself.
Josh shakes his head as if to clear it. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out."
Funny, Lil can almost hear him say: or we'll die trying.
end 10/28/2016 (2)
S. Darlington


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Function Elements and Syntax
Both MDX and PQL use a collection of other syntactical elements when using functions. Both languages use a very syntactical structure and many of these functional elements are identical or similar. The following provides an overview of these elements.
- Arguments: These are the necessary 'inputs' needed for each function. Apply to both PQL and MDX.
- Returns: These are the 'outputs' returned from each function. Apply to both PQL and MDX.
- Operators: Operators are used both within and across multiple functions in the process of building formulas - and they apply to all parts of the calculation engine - both PQL and MDX.
- Data Objects: applies to the Granular, Semantic, and Context engines only. These items are common to both PQL and MDX.


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VW Golf Plug-in Hybrid Coming Soon
The Volkswagen Golf is one of the top-selling cars ever, with about 30 million sold. (The first Golfs came out in the mid-1970s.) Recently, it was announced that there will be a gas-electric plug-in hybrid version coming soon. Called the GTE, it will have two engines. The gas-powered engine will be 1.4 liters, will be turbo-charged, and will have direct injection. Also, a 107 hp electric motor will be paired with a 8.8 kwh lithium-ion battery.
The cost isn't known yet, but the folks at Inside EVs said it might be in the low to mid $30,000s, a bit higher than we heard in November.
Some other specs:
Total driving range with gas and electric motors: 600 miles
Electric-only range: 31 miles
Recharging time: 2 hours
AutoWeek test drove a prototype and said it got almost 60 mpg. The GTE might be an effective head-to-head competitor with the Toyota Prius Plug-in, especially with its sportier appeal. Its sibling, the GTI, has been known to be both quick and nimble, so the GTE might inherit some of these same characteristics. The Prius seems to be more of a typical sedate, but efficient commuter vehicle. Another hybrid competitor in the same price range is the Chevy Volt, which may not be as quick or as athletic in its handling as the forthcoming GTE, so the GTE might do well competing against the Volt as well.
Image Credit: Volkswagen
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3-Tiered Wagon With Handle – Black
This minimalist yet spacious shelf on wheels is suitable for storing things in the kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom. Thanks to the handle and steel wheels, the wagon is particularly easy and comfortable to move. The set includes hooks that can be attached to the side handles of the shelf to hang items.
Designed and made in Japan
Material: powder coated steel
Size: 38 x 49 x H81,5cm
Colors: black, white
Weight: 6,7 kg
Upper and lower board hold up to 4kg
Top board holds up to 5kg, Each hook supports up to 0.25kg.
150,00 €
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Cornbread crumbs piled high atop Cabbage Squash Cornbread Casserole. Cornbread freezes well so make a couple of skillets at a time. Wonderful stuff.
My passion for cornbread goes way back. I hold an early memory of talking with my grandmother Johnye in Carlsbad, NM. We were discussing whether we were a yellow or a white cornmeal family. Johnye said we're white cornmeal. We were probably unusual for the yellow-skewed cornmeal Southwest and at the time I didn't really get what she meant, but I never forgot this conversation with her.
Twenty-some years ago, when I moved to Nashville and worked in the Martha White Test kitchen developing recipes for the iconic Southern flour and cornmeal brand, I cooked a lot of cornmeal. I wondered about the yellow and white styles, and how they differed. Turns out, the bottom line is it's just color, a difference in geography, not in goodness. We all like what we know and that's traditionally what's around us. In America, the South tends to go white, while the rest of the country skews yellow, except feisty little Rhode Island, which prefers white.
Almost 20 years ago Martha White and Lodge Cast Iron of South Pittsburg, TN, another famous Tennessee brand, teamed up to host the popular National Cornbread Cook-Off, part of the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg. The festival is a fun family trip to a beautiful small town on the banks of the Tennessee River, not far from Chattanooga.
During the years I worked the festival's Cook-Off I often wondered how a contestant decided on white or yellow cornmeal. No matter who chose what style, the creative recipes in the contest each year are a testament to the versatility of cornmeal. Check them out on the Martha White website.
As regional southern cuisines continue upward on the celebrity track, I am thrilled to see that cornbread, sustainer of generations of rural southerners (and swamp Yankees, too), is, at last, enjoying 15 minutes of fame. This time is right because so many home cooks today struggle with a good skillet of cornbread, yellow or white. It's why we teach our Cornbread Lab at the Nashville Farmers' Market. For a little refresher course, here's the Cheater Chef Cornbread Lab Manual.
Just looking over the Cheater Chef website, I see we've devoted quite a bit of space to cornbread–from dressings to desserts. Some of our favorites are these:
Skillet Cornbread, Collard Cornbread Pudding, Cornbread Waffles, Cornbread Dressing, Cornbread Crepes, Cornbread Barrel Bungs, Cornbread Clafoutis, Homemade Corndogs, New England Clam Stuffie Dressing, Nashville Cornmeal Cookies, Green Chile Corncakes, and Blueberry Ricotta Cornmeal Pancakes.
Leftover cornbread stored in the freezer makes a great pan of dressing or a cornbread salad, and it's a fantastic casserole topping. Cornbread crumbs add a hefty dimension to beans, vegetables, chile, beef, and creamed chicken. This spring I've been combining cooked cabbage and yellow squash and topping it with a thick layer of crumbled cornbread. It's a vegetable casserole/cornbread dressing mash-up. Serve a cornbread-topped hearty casserole with simply grilled meats; it also makes a grand meatless main dish. Don't shy away from the cabbage, it becomes wonderfully nutty and sweet as it cooks.
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoon butter, plus more for dotting on top of the casserole
- 1 large onion
- 4 to 6 medium yellow squash, sliced
- About 6 cups chopped green cabbage
- 11/2 to 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice.
- 3 cups homemade cornbread crumbs
Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Butter a 3-quart or 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
Melt two tablespoons of the oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in two large skillets or wide pots with lids.
Add the onion to one of the pots and cook until tender and lightly browned.
While the onion is cooking, add the cabbage to the other pot along with a half cup of water.
Cook over medium-high heat until soft and sweet, about 10 minutes.
Add the squash to the onions along with 1/2 cup of water and cook until very tender, about 10 minutes.
Combine the vegetables in the buttered baking dish.
Combine the cornbread with the cheese in a medium mixing bowl and sprinkle over the casserole. Dot with butter.
Bake about 20 to 30 minutes or until the casserole is hot and the cornbread is crisp.
Cooking the vegetables separately just seems to keep them more distinct. If you prefer, you can cook them together and just dirty one big pot.


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Carbohydrates, which now make up the bulk of most of what we eat, only became a significant part of the human diet after we began practising agriculture some 10-12,000 years ago.
Before then, our ancestors would have had a much higher protein and much lower carbohydrate intake than we do. They would also have had much more active (if considerably shorter) lives than us.
The one thing they did not have was an obesity epidemic, a phenomenon that began in the early 1980s.
It so happens that this was around the time when so-called "low fat" processed foods began to feature heavily in our diet, accompanied by a profusion of books and magazine articles promoting variations of the "low-fat" diet.
Four decades later, and despite all these low-fat foods and low-fat diets, our average weight has ballooned dramatically. An alarming majority of the population is now overweight or obese, and a growing percentage have Type 2 diabetes.
How did this happen? Is it possible that there a connection between these low-fat foods and low-fat diets and the obesity crisis? Have we – all this time – been encouraged to eat the very foods which are making us fat? Could the fact that we have been replacing fat in our diet with (more) carbohydrates, be the real reason behind the obesity epidemic?
The "low-fat" diet industry can be traced back to a piece of research (the veracity of which has since been called into question) by an American nutritionist called Ancel Keys. His study suggested there was a link between fatty foods and coronary vascular disease.
Keys was very active in promoting these findings, and equally active in attacking research by others (most notably by a British scientist called John Yudkin) that came to different conclusion. Yudkin, in contrast to Keys, claimed that sugar, not fat, was the real culprit.
But Keys' findings quickly found support within the processed industry because it gave it an opportunity to replace expensive fats with much cheaper bulking agents such as sugar and salt. These "low-fat" foods were then given huge advertising budgets to promote then to the public. Diet faddists similarly saw an opportunity to pursue their agendas.
When you throw in our sedentary lifestyles, you can see how this makes for a toxic cocktail.
There is a whole panoply of vested interests behind low-fat foods and low-fat diets, and a lot of money being made out of people who are unhappy and miserable because they cannot shift their excess weight.
A big part of the answer lies not in more dieting, but in a return to good, home cooked, wholesome food. The only processed foods you should be putting into your bodies are ones you have processed in your own kitchen.
Grilling a whole aubergine until the skin becomes wrinkled, blistered and charred imparts a wonderfully rich, smoky flavour to the flesh inside.
Here it is combined with a few simple, complementary ingredients to produce a stunningly good soup.
smoked aubergine and lemon soup
600 g fresh aubergines
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 litre vegetable stock
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp smoked sea salt
1 tsp tahini
1 tsp za'atar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1. Pre-heat the grill to its highest setting. Use a fork to prick the aubergine skin all over. Place under the grill and cook, turning, until the skin becomes wrinkled and charred and the flesh is soft. This will take around 30 minutes. Set the aubergine to one side to cool, then carefully scoop out the flesh into a clean bowl, taking care to remove any bits of burnt skin.
2. Pour the olive oil into a large pan and place over a medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and cook, stirring, until it is soft and translucent. Add the garlic. Cook, stirring, for a further two minutes then add the aubergine flesh, smoked sea salt and the stock.
3. Bring the soup to a simmer then lower the heat and cook at a gentle simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the tahini and lemon juice and set aside to cool.
4. Once the soup is cool, blend it until smooth using a food processor or blender. You will need to do this in batches.
5. To serve, reheat the soup gently in a clean pan but do not allow it to boil. Serve in bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and a scattering of za'atar.
Categories: dairy free, gluten free, vegan, vegetarian
Tags: food additives, obesity
8 replies ›
Of course you are correct about the need to bring food preparation largely back into the home ! The unhealthy 'fattening' of the Western world is largely linked not just to processed foods but to rise of 'fast food' becoming the norm ! This week a 40-years-old chain called 'Sizzlers' ceased to be here . . . not joking – people were having virtual breakdowns because they did not know what to eat. Can't happen fast enough for me !!! Fully agree with you on 'processed foods' . . . do think 'low-fat' has a place in the cart were it not so difficult to create missing tastes – you are so right about substitute sugars !!! Absolutely love your eggplant soup – cannot wait to get the hero . . . think that recipe of yours is a real keeper . . .
You are inspiring me to get some aubergines into our smoker… I wonder if the smoky effect would be too much then???? Worth a try!
nice post!
Processed foods do have a lot to answer for and I agree that moving back to meals made from scratch (which has become a bit of a lost art) will help more than dieting. Tasty sounding recipe .. always looking for new ways to use an aubergine.
Haven't read one of your posts for ages and this is a great one. Low fat and high carb have a lot to answer for in the obesity stakes. It's great to see your thoughts laid out without the rants that often go with similar thoughts from other people. The soup sounds wonderful – aubergine is a great favourite with me and I can't wait to try it. Thank you.


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Where We Work
Solidaridad operates both in production and market sectors in Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with more than 425 experts operating from its 38 offices. It is crucial that Solidaridad works to stimulate sustainable production in the region, starting with encouraging the use of deforestation-free commodities.
Growing inequities
Asia faces a challenge of two kinds. It is home to the world's largest middle-class population, and yet poverty persists in the region. Using a revised World Bank benchmark of poverty at $3.20/day and accounting for food insecurity and vulnerability, the estimated poverty rate in the region is significant. Not only that, but the middle-class' increasing consumption is putting a huge demand on agriculture.
Capacity and collaboration across the region
Solidaridad has placed emphasis on regional cooperation around sustainability issues through its signature Regional Sustainable Trade Initiatives. Solidaridad is now facilitating joint programmes in India, Indonesia, and China on sustainable palm oil, industrial minerals and tea with a focus on attaining Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
Establishing a new norm
The year 2022 was about setting a new norm and many firsts! Solidaridad's first regenerative agriculture certification paved the path for securing the health of the land in an economically viable way for the farmers in 5 commodities covering the four Asian countries. Solidaridad's in-house developed QR code-based farm-to-cup traceability solution by the name of Soli-Trace was introduced to Indian tea consumers. And for the first time, at the initiative of Solidaridad, five major Asian palm oil consuming countries came together to form the Asian Palm Oil Alliance to work on sustainable palm oil consumption.
Growing impact
In Asia, the team engaged farmers and workers through digital outreach and market access. We continued to strive for policies that support farmer welfare by establishing National Frameworks in soy and medicinal and aromatic plants in India and cotton in China. A multi-country scientific publication on the role of palm oil in national development was unveiled in Sri Lanka. In the face of disruptions caused by the pandemic, reaching over 170,000 additional farmers in 2021 (overall 620,000) was a testament of translating intent to action.
Surpassing goals
Despite Covid-19 challenges, we supported more than 500,000 producers to adopt good practices, with more than 383,000 hectares now under sustainable management. Work continued at the market level, with more than 50,000 farmers engaged in a federated model, who now own the Village Super Market. On the policy level, we contributed to 20 policy recommendations across 37 multi-stakeholder platforms.
New pathways
This was the first full year of operations for Solidaridad Asia following the merger of Solidaridad South and South East Asia, and China. In 2019, we expanded our market-based approach to cleaner water to two new locations. We also adopted Fair Data – a unique solution beyond certification – for our Tea and Sugarcane programmes. And on the sustainable palm oil front, we supported a much-awaited consensus between Indonesia, Malaysia and India.
Joining forces
In 2018, the Solidaridad South and South-East Asia and China regional offices joined together to form one continental office: Solidaridad Asia. Over the last 12 years, Solidaridad has emerged as an innovative sustainable solutions provider in Asia, working in India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Hong Kong and Israel. Solidaridad Asia provides training on climate-smart sustainable agriculture and decent work for 500,000 farmers and 200,000 workers in 13 commodity areas. All our work is tailored towards creating practical solutions at scale for feeding the ever-growing demands of the Asian population through a more-with-less approach.
Partnerships for good
In India Solidaridad launched a partnership to clean up the Ganges River. The partnership's aim was to make Kanpur leather more sustainable by reducing pollution levels from effluent water, creating a safer environment for 250,000 workers and cleaner water for 30,000 smallholder farmers who depend on wastewater for agricultural production.
In China Solidaridad supported 1,650 farmers in cultivating sustainable cotton in Guazhou City. The project focused on reducing the application of fertilizers and chemicals, promoting water saving technology and integrated pest management. By the end of the year a total of 7,085 tonnes of seed cotton were certificated by the Better Cotton Initiative.
Breaking barriers
The Malaysian Palm Oil Board signed an agreement with Solidaridad, the first such agreement with an international development organization to enhance the effective implementation and adoption of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil standard for 100,000 smallholders. Similarly, The Solvent Extractors' Association of India signed an agreement for the first time with Solidaridad to develop a framework for the sustainable production and trade of oilseeds and vegetable oils.
In China, sustainable development found a new place at the forefront of the political and economic agendas. Solidaridad worked directly in the manufacturing, agriculture and international commodity trade sectors to improve environmental and social performance alongside economic growth.
Growing impact
Solidaridad's sustainable soy programme in India successfully supported 80,085 smallholders in major soy growing provinces. The programme covered 93,154 hectares of socially and environmentally sustainable soy in line with RTRS principles. Watch this video about Solidaridad's Soy programme.
Big ambitions
Solidaridad initiated an ambitious programme on responsible mineral extraction together with Unilever. A Code for Responsible Extraction (CORE) was jointly developed and is one of the first independently auditable global codes for minerals at the extraction site, supported by leading companies and civil society organizations. CORE verification offers a globally acceptable and credible assurance to buyers and other stakeholders that the industrial minerals are extracted in a responsible way.
Demand for change
Solidaridad and Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF) jointly launched one of the largest demand-side agricultural water efficiency programmes for Indian sugarcane, cotton, soy and tea sectors spread across 4,000 villages in 38 districts of nine states covering an area of 677,880 hectares in India. The programme aims to save 0.4 to 1 trillion litres of water cumulatively in three years through sustainable agriculture.
A consolidated approach
With 12 million euros in support from the Dutch embassy, Solidaridad launched the Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Market Linkages (SaFaL) programme in Bangladesh to improve the lives of 57,000 families and 1,000 producers' groups for aquaculture, fruits and vegetables, and dairy. This was the first time sustainable agriculture, sustainable supply chain development and traditional nutritional security approaches were combined to develop a unique consolidated approach towards a market-based food security solution.
A sustainability first
Solidaridad pioneered the development of a national sustainability standard from a bottom-up national perspective. The Lestari sustainability standard for tea became first the domestic sustainability standard ever launched in Indonesia. Pilots were initiated in partnership with Hindustan Unilever to develop a "stepping stone" sustainability standard for the first time in the Indian domestic market.
Promoting water efficiency
Solidaridad initiated one of the largest interventions around water efficient sugarcane production with EID Parry to supporting 40,000 smallholder farmers in southern India.
Smallholder certification for coffee
Around 4,000 coffee smallholders from three Indian states joined forces under one forum and were supported to be certified under UTZ Certified sustainability standard. This was the first smallholder certification for coffee in India under UTZ with support from seven coffee curing operations in the region. The UTZ Certified sustainability code for tea was also launched for the first time in India.
Bringing people together
The UTZ Certified tea standard was implemented in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam for the first time with large plantations as well as smallholders. National Reference Groups (NRGs) were set up in all the four countries. The NRGs are an informal assembly of key national tea industry stakeholders committed to working together for enhancing the accountability and credibility of different national and international CSR standards applicable to the tea sector at the production end.
Fair say and fair share
Solidaridad supported 7,000 cotton farmers to have "Fair Say and Fair Share" in the supply chain. Cotton farmers were supported in organizing under Chetna Organic Producers' Company and Solidaridad facilitated farmers for the first time in gaining about 10% shareholding in a garment company.
Regional Programmes
Exploring emerging markets
Globally, Bangladesh ranks third in terms of production of vegetables and eighth in mango. The Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Linkages (SaFaL) is supporting 11,715 farmers (58% women) and the market to tap the potential of productive gains by adopting sustainable technologies in production and post-harvest management.
The white gold revolution
The dairy industry in Bangladesh is transforming with the economic growth and the demand of a growing population. The dairy production in Bangladesh largely depends on the smallholders, engaged in subsistence farming. They can hardly supply quality and quantity of milk to meet the demand of the dairy industry.
Improving sustainable business
Aquaculture is the most important sub-sector of Bangladesh providing 60% of the animal protein intake, food security, poverty reduction and export earnings. Bangladesh is the fifth largest aquaculture producing country in the world.
Inclusive empowerment
Globally, around 33 million hectares are planted with cotton, out of which 12 million hectares are in India. Cotton is a very important fibre crop for India as it provides the basic raw material to cotton textile industry. India has nine major cotton producing states and Solidaridad has been working on improving the cotton since 2004 by promoting the use of both organic cotton and BCI cotton projects initially in states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. It then gradually expanded its scope of work to other states as well.
Scaling up impacts
The focus of Solidaridad Asia's textiles programme is to prove and scale up best practice among large, established textile producers. It also seeks to guide the sector's sustainable development with emerging producers.
A pioneer in leather
In India, Solidaridad ventured into the global leather sector by choosing Kanpur-Unnao leather cluster to make a real contribution to the "CLEAN GANGA" project. For this intervention, Solidaridad conceptualized a potential project to strengthen the value chain of the Kanpur-Unnao leather cluster through building capacities of relevant stakeholders on eco-friendly and innovative technologies. The project would also establish a few pilots to demonstrate the value of best practices.
Inspiring sustainable practices
Together with key industry stakeholders, Solidaridad has instituted the "India Sustainable Tea program" called "Trustea" since July 2013. The Tea Board of India (TBOI), IDH, Unilever, Tata Global Beverages (TGB), Wagh Bakri, Rainforest Alliance and the Ethical Tea Partnership are the key partners in the programme.
Moving beyond certification
Solidaridad's sugarcane programme strategy is embedded in the local reality. The model of Solidaridad builds on an aligned agenda driven by a strong business case for producers, processors and end users. The programme not only allows buyers to move beyond their immediate supply chain but also diversify their base of sustainable suppliers while addressing the most critical issues faced by sugarcane farming sector in India.
Empowering smallholders
Solidaridad has been supporting smallholder soy producers in India since 2009. It does so by promoting sustainability principles with coalitions of partners, including governments and businesses. Solidaridad strategies are based on a combination of good agricultural practices and robust rural infrastructures integrated with market solutions to develop "proof of concepts" for scale and impact investments.
Sustainable and inclusive
Palm oil has been a source of significant livelihood improvements for many rural communities in Indonesia and Malaysia. Demand for palm oil from India and China is growing rapidly given their population and economic growth. Solidaridad is aiming for improving sustainability performances for inclusive and long-term sustainability of palm oil sector in Asia through better inclusion of smallholders, sustainable production and trade while safeguarding the environmental value.
Promoting responsible practices
Solidaridad and Unilever developed the Code for Responsible Extraction (CORE) to address issues in the mining industry. It is one of the first independently auditable global codes for minerals at the extraction site, supported by leading companies and civil society organizations.
Change that matters with partners who care. Find out what we can achieve together.
Get in touch
Want to know more about our work in Asia? Get in touch with our team!
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A-5, Shankar Garden, Main Najafgarh Road, Vikaspuri, New Delhi-110018
+ 91-011-45134500
Shatadru Chattopadhayay
Managing Director
Saroj Kumar Sahu
Regional HR Manager
Nitin Rao
Regional lead, PME
Prashant Pastore
General Manager, Water and Sustainable Agriculture
Continental Supervisory Board
Our board members are (left to right): Dr. Shatadru Chattopadhayay, Padmashri Dr. M. H. Mehta, Jeroen Douglas, Shahamin S Zaman, Kan Hiroshi Sato, Dr. Xiaohui Liang, M. Subbramanium


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The project investigated small-scale biotic interactions between laminated microbial communities and meiofauna at light-exposed sediment-water boundaries of estuarine lagoons. The production and biological structure of these systems is mainly determined by complex processes at the sediment-water interface which depend on finely scaled patterns, requiring appreciation of how the biota interact within these scales. We tested whether changing light conditions and active emergence of the harpacticoid species Mesochra lilljeborgi and Tachidius discipes are mediated by the activity of benthic oxygenic and anoxygenic phototrophic microbes. Two hypotheses were tested which addresses to the question of causality between changing light conditions and active emergence of the harpacticoid copepods. (1)The harpacticoid copepods T. discipes and M. lilljeborgi will enter the bottom water during daylight when oxygenic photosynthesis of cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae is blocked and conditions at the sediment-water interface have turned anoxic. (2)Both species will not emerge during dark exposures when transferred to sterilized sediments.