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An Empire Built on Bargains
Remakes the Working World
Los Angeles Times
November 23, 2003
Wal-Mart is so powerful that it moves the economies of entire countries, bringing profit and pain. The prices can't be beat, but the wages can.
By Abigail Goldman and Nancy Cleeland, Times Staff Writers
LAS VEGAS — Chastity Ferguson kept watch over four sleepy children late one Friday as she flipped a pack of corn dogs into a cart at her new favorite grocery store: Wal-Mart.
The Wal-Mart Supercenter, a pink stucco box twice as big as a Home Depot, combines a full-scale supermarket with the usual discount mega-store. For the 26-year-old Ferguson, the draw is simple.
"You can't beat the prices," said the hotel cashier, who makes $400 a week. "I come here because it's cheap."
Across town, another mother also is familiar with the Supercenter's low prices. Kelly Gray, the chief breadwinner for five children, lost her job as a Raley's grocery clerk last December after Wal-Mart expanded into the supermarket business here. California-based Raley's closed all 18 of its stores in the area, laying off 1,400 workers.
Gray earned $14.68 an hour with a pension and family health insurance. Wal-Mart grocery workers typically make less than $9 an hour.
"It's like somebody came and broke into your home and took something huge and important away from you," said the 36-year-old. "I was scared. I cried. I shook."
Wal-Mart gives. And Wal-Mart takes away.
From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world's largest corporation and a global economic force.
It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation's largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.
Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.
The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart's checkout lines.
Yet Wal-Mart's astonishing success exacts a heavy price.
By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.
Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.
Then there are casualties like Kelly Gray. As Wal-Mart expands rapidly into groceries, it is causing upheaval in yet another corner of the economy. When a Supercenter moves into town, competitors often are wiped out, taking high-paying union jobs with them.
Wal-Mart's plans to enter the grocery business in California early next year have thrown the state's supermarket industry into turmoil. Fearful of Wal-Mart's ability to undercut them on price, the Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons chains have sought concessions from their unionized workers in Southern and Central California, leading to a work stoppage now entering its seventh week.
Half a century ago, the nation's largest and most emulated employer was General Motors Corp. "Today," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at UC Santa Barbara, "for better or worse, it's Wal-Mart."
GM brought prosperity to factory towns and made American workers the envy of the world. With a high-wage union job, an assembly-line worker could afford a house, a decent car, maybe even a boat by the lake.
There was a bit of truth, Lichtenstein said, to the famous assertion by Charles Wilson, General Motors chief from 1941 to 1953, that what was good for GM was good for the country.
With Wal-Mart, the calculus is considerably more complex.
'We Have Split Brains'
Glenn Miraflor used to chide his wife for shopping at Wal-Mart.
As a member of Ironworkers Local 416, the 50-year-old father of four is well aware of the retailer's anti-union stance. But when the family's credit card debt topped $10,000, Wal-Mart's deals suddenly looked irresistible.
"Where else are you going to find a computer for $498?" he asked, looking for a PC with his wife, Debbie, at the Supercenter on Serene Avenue, far from the glitz of the Las Vegas Strip. "Everyone I work with shops here."
Surveys by the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers — the two unions most threatened by Wal-Mart — show that many of their own members shop at the discounter.
"We have split brains," said Robert Reich, U.S. secretary of Labor under President Clinton and now a professor of economic and social policy at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. "Most of the time, the half of our brain that wants the best deal prevails."
The connection may be lost on many, Reich said, but consumers' addiction to low prices is accelerating a shift toward a two-tiered U.S. economy, with a shrinking middle class and a growing pool of low-wage workers.
"Wal-Mart's prices may be lower," he said, "but that's small consolation to a lot of people who end up with less money to spend."
Others insist there is a net benefit whenever consumers can get more for less. "If you have lower real prices, you're saving money," said Arthur Laffer, a key advisor to President Reagan who is now an economic consultant in San Diego. "The prices' falling, in effect, raises the wages of everyone who buys their products."
That's basically the way the Miraflors saw it as they cruised the aisles of the Supercenter — Wal-Mart Store No. 2593 — and snapped up deals: Ragu pasta sauce for 89 cents, Aunt Jemima pancake mix for 48 cents, pork shoulder steaks for $1.49 a pound and five cans of Del Monte vegetables for $2.
After making their way through the groceries, the Miraflors turned their attention to the housewares section, stopping in front of a 20-inch box fan. Glenn Miraflor checked the price and made room for it in their cart.
"Ten bucks," he said. "You can't beat that. That's why we come here."
Vendors' Alley
The fan was made 1,700 miles away in Chicago at Lakewood Engineering & Manufacturing Co. A decade ago, the same fan carried a $20 price tag.
But that wasn't low enough for Wal-Mart. So Lakewood owner Carl Krauss cut costs at every turn. He automated production at the red-brick factory built by his grandfather on the city's West Side. Where it once took 22 people to put together a product, it now takes seven. Krauss also badgered his suppliers to knock down their prices for parts.
In 2000, he took the hardest step of all: He opened a factory in Shenzhen, China, where workers earn 25 cents an hour, compared with $13 in Chicago. About 40% of his products now are made in China, including most heaters and desktop fans. The Miraflors' box fan was assembled in Chicago, but its electronic guts were imported.
"My father was dead set against it," Krauss said of the move overseas. "I have the same respect for American workers, but I'm going to do what I have to do to survive."
Survival in an age when consumers are hyper-vigilant about prices means shaving expenses again and again. "Nobody wants to be on the shelf with the same item for $1 more," Krauss said.
All the retailers he supplies — including Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. — drive a hard bargain with manufacturers. But none is as tough as Wal-Mart, Krauss said.
Twice a year, his sales representatives travel to Wal-Mart headquarters to pitch their products. There, competitors sit side by side, waiting to be ushered into one of 60 glass-sided cubicles — a space some call Vendors' Alley.
Then the haggling begins. "You give them your price," Krauss said. "If they don't like it, they give you theirs."
The suppliers are at a disadvantage. The Wal-Mart buyer can always go out to the waiting room and find someone who will go lower. "Your price is going to be whittled down like you never thought possible," Krauss said.
After moving much of his manufacturing abroad, Krauss doesn't see any way to push costs lower. "If you're doing things legally, you can't," he said.
He may have to find a way.
At the Serene Avenue store, shopper Sarah Saxon, 17, pulled a $40 Lakewood heater off the shelf. She looked it over, then put it back in favor of an AirTech model selling for $34.88. She said it looked better than the Lakewood.
"Besides," she said, "it's cheaper."
Wal-Mart's culture of cheap emanates from Bentonville, a town of 20,000 tucked into the low green hills of northwest Arkansas, where a young Sam Walton opened his first five-and-dime in 1950. Even then, Walton had a vision of a different kind of retail.
Rather than charging a little less than his competitors, Walton wanted to slash prices as much as he could and still make a profit. Other stores would use price breaks from manufacturers as a way to boost their bottom lines, paying less at wholesale while leaving retail prices untouched.
Walton passed such savings on to his customers as his discount business evolved into Wal-Mart stores in 1962. He figured he would make up the difference in volume. He was right.
By the mid-1980s, Wal-Mart's success had catapulted Walton to No. 1 on the Forbes list of richest Americans. Still, he drove an old pickup truck to haul around his bird dogs, refused to fly first class and shared hotel rooms with colleagues on business trips.
Bentonville, like the man who put it on the map, is a combination of Southern charm and Midwestern practicality. The town square is anchored by the original Walton's five-and-dime (now a visitors' center) and dotted with small shops. But the real action is down Business Route 71, where the Wal-Mart Supercenter rises up, big enough to fit three 747s with room to spare.
Across the street is the base of Wal-Mart operations: the Home Office. The world's biggest company occupies an industrial-looking hodgepodge of windowless work spaces, connected by bunker-like hallways. The drab gray-and-blue walls display the visage and sayings of Sam Walton, who died in 1992:
"Listen to your associates.... They're the best idea generators."
"To succeed, stay out in front of change."
"Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom."
Lists abound. The best-performing stores. The worst-performing stores. Under a picture of the founder asking, "Who's taking your customers?" is a roster of competing retailers, including Costco Wholesale Corp., Circuit City Stores Inc. and Target, with the name and picture of each company's chief executive.
It's all part of the Wal-Mart culture: a zealous attention to competition, customers and costs.
Wal-Mart employees, unlike their counterparts at other retailers, are forbidden to accept so much as a soda from vendors — or anybody else the company does business with — on the theory that such frills ultimately are paid for by consumers. The company's meticulous management of the flow of goods, from the factory floor to the store shelf, has shaved shipping and inventory costs to a degree that retailing experts say is unprecedented.
"You could argue that some of what Wal-Mart does to cut costs has been win-win," said Richard S. Tedlow, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "What's being squeezed out is waste."
The company is so ruthlessly efficient that 4% of the growth in the U.S. economy's productivity from 1995 to 1999 was due to Wal-Mart alone, researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute estimated last year. No other single company had a measurable impact. Wal-Mart also has forced competitors to become more efficient, driving the nation's productivity — output per hour of work — even higher.
Walton, who still is referred to as Mr. Sam throughout the corporation, worked in a ground-floor office barely big enough for a conference table. The current occupant, Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr., is the keeper of Mr. Sam's vision. Like all Wal-Mart executives, he empties his own trash and shares budget hotel rooms when traveling. Everyone flies coach.
"We do not have limousines," said Scott, who certainly could afford one, having made nearly $18 million last year in salary, bonus and stock, plus options with an estimated value of $11.3 million. "I drive a Volkswagen Bug."
Wal-Mart's stinginess reaches from the executive suite to the loading dock.
Some truckers complain that they must unload their own cargo — or pay Wal-Mart to do it. Other big retail chains absorb that cost themselves. "They're awful," said independent driver George Hauschild of Palm Springs. "They don't even let you use the bathroom."
At every one of the 2,966 Wal-Marts in the U.S., thermostats are kept at a steady 73 degrees in summer, 70 degrees in winter; raising or lowering the temperature is considered a waste of money.
Such measures seem mild compared with what Wal-Mart has done to cut payroll costs. In one case, a jury in Oregon last year found that company managers had coerced hundreds of employees to work overtime without pay.
The managers were driven by intense pressure from Bentonville, witnesses said. Managers whose labor costs were considered too high were singled out during the company's weekly in-house satellite broadcasts. In response, managers tampered with electronic time cards or bullied employees to work off the clock, according to trial testimony.
The Oregon jury found last December that Wal-Mart's behavior was illegal and willful. A separate trial to determine damages for the 290 plaintiffs is set for early next year.
Wal-Mart settled similar overtime suits in Colorado and New Mexico for undisclosed amounts. More than 40 other cases are awaiting trial.
The company says it prohibits off-the-clock work and blames the problems on a small number of rogue managers.
Last month, Wal-Mart ran into trouble because of another cost-cutting practice: using dirt-cheap janitorial services.
A grand jury is investigating whether Wal-Mart knew that janitors provided by subcontractors were illegal immigrants cheated out of overtime pay. Federal agents raided 61 Wal-Marts across the country and seized boxes of documents from the Bentonville headquarters. Wal-Mart has denied wrongdoing.
Scott, the CEO, lauded Wal-Mart's employment record. Even in tight labor markets, he said, the company never has trouble finding workers.
"It is not forced labor," he said. "The truth is, I go to the stores and shake hands with the associates, and they like working at Wal-Mart."
On the Fast Track
Aaron Rios liked working at Wal-Mart so much that he decided to make his career there.
Like two-thirds of Wal-Mart's store managers, Rios started off as an hourly worker — in his case, stocking shoes on the graveyard shift at the Wal-Mart in his hometown of Hanford in the San Joaquin Valley.
After two years, Rios was recommended for management training — the company's fast track — leading him to quit community college and pursue a climb through the Wal-Mart ranks.
"There's just something about a Wal-Mart environment," said Rios, who became manager of the Serene Avenue Supercenter in Las Vegas at age 26. "It changed who I am, where I was going and what my career goals were."
Wal-Mart store managers earn about $95,000 annually, including bonuses, according to the company. Supercenter managers earn $130,000.
A management position requires long hours — as many as 80 a week — and, often, a willingness to relocate. Rios worked at six California Wal-Mart stores before taking the helm at Serene Avenue.
"It doesn't come free," said Rios, a divorced father who shares custody of his 2-year-old son.
Still, he said, the benefits outweigh the sacrifices.
"I have an open opportunity. I could go into real estate for Wal-Mart. I could do systems, analysis, accounting. It's endless," Rios said. "If I wanted to go to Germany or Japan or Brazil or any of the markets we have, I believe I could go."
A few weeks later, Rios snared another promotion, moving back to California as a district manager in the Antelope Valley, overseeing seven stores from Barstow to Palmdale.
Larry Allen had his own dreams of climbing the Wal-Mart ladder.
In the fall of 2001, he and his wife, Jacque, left Portland, Ore., where the economy was sputtering, and headed to Las Vegas. He was an executive chef and she worked in catering. They looked forward to a fresh start in unionized casino jobs, making more than $15 an hour, with health insurance and pensions.
But their timing was lousy. Recession and terrorism were hitting the gaming industry hard, and work of any kind was scarce.
Just before their money ran out, the Allens lowered their expectations and took jobs at the Serene Avenue Wal-Mart. Jacque, then 43, worked the counter at the in-store restaurant, Radio Grill. Larry, 46, stocked produce. They each earned $8 an hour.
Despite the letdown, Larry Allen said he attacked the job with enthusiasm. Inspired by tales of well-paid Wal-Mart managers who had started out as hourly employees, such as his manager Aaron Rios, he figured on working his way up. That was Sam's way, he said.
"I've been following Sam Walton since the 1970s," he said. "He's the American dream."
The glow faded quickly. At his 90-day review, Allen said, he received an unenthusiastic write-up and an hourly raise of 35 cents. His supervisor told him that if he continued working hard, in two years he might make his way up to $10 an hour.
Allen thinks he knows why he received such mediocre marks. For one thing, he was prone to question company policy. Then, Allen committed the ultimate act of disloyalty: He openly promoted unionization.
West Coast Ambitions
For decades, Wal-Mart has tantalized and frustrated union organizers. But the company's move into the grocery business — a labor stronghold — has raised the stakes dramatically.
Union organizers say the high wages and benefits of their members are at risk, as Wal-Mart expands its Supercenters beyond the South and Midwest. The company recently established a beachhead in Las Vegas, with five centers.
Next stop: California, where Wal-Mart plans to open 40 Supercenters starting early next year. In a sense, it has already arrived. Wal-Mart's low wages are a central factor in the labor dispute between California's three major supermarket chains and the United Food and Commercial Workers.
"They are the third party now that comes to every bargaining situation," said Mike Leonard, director of strategic programs for the UFCW.
Over many years of hard negotiating, the union has won and maintained premier contracts for its 800,000 grocery workers. But with the opening of each new Supercenter, the union's clout erodes.
Every one of the giant stores sucks away about 200 UFCW jobs, said retail consultant Burt P. Flickinger III, who runs Strategic Resource Group in New York. That means less power at the bargaining table and less money to hire organizers.
On average, Flickinger says, Wal-Mart's wage-and-benefit package is about $10 an hour less than those offered by unionized supermarkets.
For shoppers, that makes a big difference. A cartful of groceries is 17% to 39% cheaper at a Wal-Mart Supercenter than at a unionized supermarket, according to a survey last year in Las Vegas, Dallas and Tampa, Fla., by investment bank UBS Warburg.
Wal-Mart's move into groceries has led 25 regional supermarket chains around the nation to close or file for bankruptcy protection, eliminating 12,000 mostly union jobs, Flickinger said.
With this in mind, Safeway Inc. recently aired a videotaped message to employees, whose contract in Las Vegas expires next fall.
"Wal-Mart wants our customers and your jobs," said Safeway executive Larree Renda. Total wage and benefit costs represent 15% of sales at Safeway, Renda said. At Wal-Mart, they account for 9%.
"If we don't change," Renda said, "you bet we'll lose jobs — and it will be in the thousands."
Staying Unorganized
From their first day on the job, Wal-Mart employees are advised to avoid unions and to report any organizing activities to their supervisors.
"If a union got in here, every benefit we've got could go on the negotiating table, every one of them," says a man identified as Russell, a veteran employee, in a video shown to new hires. "Unions will negotiate just about anything to get the right to have dues deducted out of paychecks. You see, they need big money to pay union bigwigs and their lawyers."
Company policy prohibits any union talk in work areas, and organizers say they routinely are asked to leave stores. The retailer sought, and last year received, a court order keeping organizers out of all of its stores in Arkansas. The state Supreme Court nullified the order in July.
At the first hint of union activity, Wal-Mart managers are supposed to call a hotline, usually prompting a team visit from Bentonville.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said the intervention was meant to help store managers respond effectively and legally.
"Our philosophy is that only an unhappy associate would be interested in joining a union," she said, "so that's why Wal-Mart does everything it can to make sure that we are providing our associates what they want and need."
But dozens of times in the last four years, attorneys for the National Labor Relations Board have claimed that the company infringed on the supermarket union's legal right to organize.
Although some of those claims have been thrown out, others have been upheld by administrative law judges, who have ruled that Wal-Mart illegally influenced employees with offers of raises, promotions and improved working conditions just before they were to vote on whether to join a union.
Judges also have found that Wal-Mart illegally implied that workers could lose benefits such as insurance and profit sharing if they unionized.
What's more, managers illegally confiscated union literature, threatened to close down a store if workers voted to join the union, fired several union supporters and failed to promote others, according to rulings from Minnesota to Florida.
Stymied in their previous attempts to organize Wal-Mart workers, UFCW leaders adopted a new strategy in 2000. They decided to marshal their resources for a concerted organizing effort in one place: Las Vegas.
The union reached out to workers with a Web site and a weekly radio talk show, and posted organizers outside Wal-Mart stores at all hours. When they could, UFCW members would leave union literature inside stores, hoping that workers would see it before managers ordered the material thrown away.
Larry Allen got his first glimpse at a union pamphlet last year as he carried it to the garbage at the Serene Avenue Supercenter. He was hooked, and began advocating for an election to bring in the union.
"Somebody has got to step up and fight for what is right," Allen said.
Ripple Effect
Less than a mile away from the Serene Avenue store, another shopping center stands deserted, in desperate need of an anchor.
A year ago, the Raley's grocery store here drew thousands of shoppers who spilled out to neighboring businesses, buying flowers, mailing packages, getting their nails done. Today, the store is gone. The remaining shops are struggling.
"I'm probably down 45%," said Bonnie Neisius, who owns a UPS Store franchise in the center. "I just don't get the foot traffic anymore."
A few doors away, Windmill Flowers owner Diana I. Murphy leaned on a table where she would have been arranging bouquets — had there been customers.
"There are a couple of things in play," Murphy said. "The recession, terrorism. And Wal-Mart. It's had a direct effect on me, because they sell flowers, too.... They even deliver."
Unlike small towns with boarded-up commercial centers, fast-growing Vegas quickly loses track of its Wal-Mart victims.
Wal-Mart's costs to the community tend to show up in subtler ways.
In an informal survey in the late 1990s of people who used Las Vegas emergency rooms for routine medical care, patients who said they were employed but uninsured were asked where they worked.
"Wal-Mart came up more than any other," said Dr. Raj Chanderraj, a Las Vegas cardiologist and chairman of the Clark County Health Care Access Consortium, a group that works to provide medical services to the uninsured.
The reason, say critics: Because Wal-Mart pays such low wages, many employees can't afford the health insurance the company offers. And those who do have health coverage through the company often can't afford deductibles that run as high as $3,000 a year.
"Their employees are ending up at the county hospital and become the burden of the county," said Clark County Manager Thom Reilly.
Wal-Mart disputes that. Williams, the company spokeswoman, said that 48% of employees are covered by Wal-Mart's health insurance plan. Among those who aren't, 26% have coverage from another source such as a spouse's employer or Medicare, Williams said.
The notion that Wal-Mart doesn't provide adequate health coverage is "just rhetoric," she said. "It's simply not true."
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, nearly 44% of workers in the retail sector as a whole have employer-provided health coverage. Among big companies in all industries, the figure is 66%.
Those who accuse Wal-Mart of shortchanging its employees, Williams suggested, don't understand the modern service economy. "Retail and service wages are what they are," she said, "whether you look at a department store, a discount store, the local dry cleaners, the bakery or whatever.
"Wal-Mart is a great match for a lot of people," Williams added. "But if you are the sole provider for your family and do not have the time or the skills to move up the ladder, then maybe it's not the right place for you."
'I Still Believe in Wal-Mart'
Larry Allen spent about a year advocating for the supermarket union while working at Wal-Mart.
In the parking lot and in the break room, he passed out fliers and talked up the benefits of unionizing. But he and his fellow union backers didn't get as far as they hoped. About 42% of workers in the grocery department at Serene Avenue signed UFCW cards — not enough for the union to feel confident about winning an election.
In August, Allen was fired. NLRB attorneys said it was because of his union activities and filed a complaint against Wal-Mart, seeking his reinstatement.
On a recent afternoon outside the Supercenter, dozens of union members rallied to support Allen. "Larry, Larry, Larry," they chanted. Over at the store entrance, the demonstration was a muffled, distant bit of noise. Store managers watched on a screen as surveillance cameras scanned the crowd.
Asked about the commotion, a gray-haired Wal-Mart greeter named Robert just smiled. "They want to make the store union," he said. "But that would make the prices go up for our customers. We can't let that happen."
On some level, even Larry Allen understands. "I still believe in Wal-Mart," said Allen, who now is on the union payroll as an organizer. "I like the idea of it — give a quality product at a low price. It's what the American public wants."
Part II: Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt
Part III: Grocery Unions Battle to Stop Invasion of the Giant Stores

subset: commoncrawl


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Lewis & Irene Small Things Pets--Cats on Light Blue
"This seasons collection of 'Small Things' includes some of our favourite pets! Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, Birds, Dog, Cats and Tortoises."
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You will receive one continuous cut of fabric unless you indicate otherwise in the "Special Instructions To Seller" box of your Cart.


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Date(s) - 18/12/2021
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The Presence Producers
On design and use of presence production systems
Time: Fri 2021-09-03 13.00
Location: https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/61833597692, F3, Lindstedsvägen 26, Stockholm (English)
Doctoral student: Leif Handberg , Medieteknik och interaktionsdesign, MID
Opponent: Morten Fjeld, Chalmers tekniska högskola
Supervisor: Kristina Höök, Medieteknik och interaktionsdesign, MID
Feeling present with others – as if we are in the same room even if we are apart – is a key experience in mediated communication situations. But how do we produce mediated communications so that we increase the likelihood of forgetting the mediating technology, letting participants engage as if they are all there?This thesis summarises the analyses of practice-led work on organising more than 35 presence productions over a period of more than 20 years.The presence productions go from small groups pursuing utilitarian work to large public concerts. This iterative longitudinal research process has been altered and informed by new technological developments and changes to setups, tools and dramaturgies. However, no matter whether we have advanced or less advanced technology, a range of pragmatic considerations of how to facilitate and orchestrate presence situations arises over and over in these productions. First, and perhaps most importantly, there is a need for a presence producer who arranges and takes responsibility for the overall experience. The presence production case studies clearly show how the layout of spaces (real and mediated); the choice of technology and how it is arranged to narrate the communication;alongside the overall social context all have bearing on the presence experience and are key components in a presence production system. Moreover, a meticulous analysis of these presence productions reveal ways by which components should be considered in the planning and execution phases so as to overcome the cracks and breaks that may disrupt participants' experience of presence, and thereby their communication.The analysis shows the need for three distinct presence producer roles:
Presence designer: Designer of the presence production systembefore it is put into action. Not a participant in the communication.
Presence facilitator: Facilitator/orchestrator in the presence production system as the presence production unfolds. Not a participant in the communication.
Participant presence producer: Users of the presence production system, actively taking part in the communication butalso serving as facilitators/orchestrators, controlling or adjusting aspects of the mediated situation to support the presence experience.
Furthermore, the following design elements and how they can be shapedare discussed: ways of using video as a storytelling tool; dividing the spaceinto rooms as a path to organising the production; and use of dramaturgyand stage directions to guide the production.


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Piotr Cielebiaś has created a surprisingly interesting and detailed account of UFO cases in Poland. I love his title of "UFOs over Poland" since I have written a book called "UFOs over Pennsylvania" and I also do a talk show called "UFOs over Pittsburgh". I agree that there is a link of lore to modern UFO cases, Ufologists need funding for their research and not all of the best cases took place 70 years ago. It was interesting to learn that Poland's first flying disk case occurred in 1922 and that 22% of Poland's population was killed by the Nazi's. There is an underlying theme in this book of UFOs and/or the paranormal.
This book is full of remarkable cases and photos. Who knew of the 1959 Polish Roswell case of a small craft plunging into the water, emitting a red liquid and the coast guard finding a humanoid with more than ten fingers? We in the U.S. think that UFOs mostly occur here and are ignorant of the rich UFO history abroad; especially in "haunted" Eastern Europe where much folklore originated. It is also interesting that the Gray alien abduction is a U.S. phenomenon where as in Poland; they tend to be dark hooded figures much like in the early days of U.S. UFO reports. Although many UFO groups were formed in Poland, there is no official reporting agency for UFOs. In the U.S., MUFON does the job that the air force claims they do not do and Polish Ufologists can start their own MUFON chapter if they wish to.
It was interesting to read that when Poland joined NATO in 1999, the UFO subject became taboo. The government followed western protocols to debunk and ridicule cases and witnesses. I believe part of the agreement to obtain U.S. foreign aid and cooperation includes following U.S. policy on the handling of UFOs. It was also interesting to learn that the U.S. operates "Gitmo" type prisons on Polish soil and that Poland had more than 400 UFO cases from 1978-1989. Many of these cases involved green aliens or green clothed aliens and that many Polish scientists believed these were actually Russian experiments and technology. The chapter on pilot cases contained encounters of trying to shoot them down and instructions to report the case to their superior, follow safety protocol and not to speak to the media. Silence may be driven by the fact that the UFOs were not hostile and publicly reporting the case would entail having to thoroughly investigate each case. Similar conclusions were drawn in the U.S. in the early years of Project Blue Book although that opinion has changed over the past twenty years as the alien seems to have also changed, evolved or been replaced by a more aggressive type.
Other chapters included evidence of mass sightings, space dwarves, hot spots, flying humanoids, a fisherman that was paralyzed, morphing craft and semitransparent triangular craft. Chapter 14 was particularly interesting regarding UFOs that cannot be photographed. Some of these craft appear to be out of the range of human awareness and electronic surveillance.
Many Polish Ufologists seek answers in John Keel and Jacque Vallee books who concluded that UFOs are real but not from space. Many of the anomalous cases presented in this book appear to be a missing link between UFOs and the paranormal. UFO encounters can make you see things that did not occur. No two cases are the same and the search for the UFO seems to go well beyond ETs from space in nuts and bolt craft.
I highly recommend this book for the quality of the cases presented and the unique view of UFOs over Poland.
John Ventre is a MUFON multi State Director and has appeared in numerous TV shows like "Hangar 1: The UFO Files".
UFOS OVER POLAND – The Land of High Strangeness is on sale now via AMAZON


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(the arguments outlined in this commentary apply equally to any politician, civil servant, journalist, NGO or business leader calling for stringent mitigation)
The commentary is also available as a pdf: Hypocrites in the air and is now a chapter in Beyond Flying
From the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers through to Stern and the International Energy Agency, analyses increasingly demonstrate how, without urgent and radical reductions in emissions, global temperatures are set to rise by 4°C or higher – with, as the IEA emphasise, "devastating" repercussions for the planet.
But whose responsibility is it to initiate such radical mitigation?
My partner and I recently arrived in Sicily for a couple of weeks' camping and rock climbing – not exactly sun-kissed limestone (15°C and damp), but still a little warmer than the Arctic blasts battering the UK at the moment.
As we try to avoid flying we've travelled here by train: Manchester to London and then onto Paris, overnight Paris to Rome, a day strolling between the Pantheon and the Colosseum, before another overnight train to Palermo in the North West corner of Sicily.
The journey took longer than flying, but we get a day each way to explore Rome and overnight travel to and from Sicily, so in terms of price and time it isn't that different to flying. But when it comes to emissions I stand by the arguments I made following my train trip to Shanghai in 2011 (for work on that occasion). At a system level, trains have an order of magnitude lower emissions than the metal bird alternative – the saving is that significant.
If my arguments are valid, surely those of us intimately engaged in climate change should, at the very least, curtail our use of the most carbon-profligate activity (per hour) humankind has thus far developed.
For those interested, the arguments I previously posted on the Tyndall Centre website are repeated below. In addition, I've included a few thoughts in response to the comeback often made – "those of us with children can't afford the longer journey times as we have overriding parental commitments".
Slow and low – the way to go: A systems view of travel emissions
When planning the journey from Broadbottom (UK), to Shanghai, and also since my return, I have been asked frequently about the associated emissions:
- "I thought trains weren't much better than planes, what's the difference?"
- "Was it worth the effort for whatever you saved?"
On the face of it, these and many similar queries are completely reasonable questions to ask. But, in my view, they miss the point, and without trying to be overly provocative (that's for later), I don't think they are so reasonable – particularly from the array of informed experts who asked them. So why do I think the questions are unreasonable – and what would I suggest as an alternative framing for assessing emissions from travel?
The following blog-style analysis is a mix of provocation, parody and some different ways of thinking about emissions from our travel. I've tried to make a coherent case on the basis of argument, but some of the language may not be what you would typically find in an academic paper. Nonetheless, I stand by the well-intentioned thrust of the case and if anyone has any substantive disagreements I'd be pleased to hear them. It is intended to hold a mirror up to the climate change community – and as with all mirrors, it can make for grim viewing. I know: it's a fit 36-year-old who looks in the mirror – but a less fit grey-haired and 49-year-old bloke who stares back at me!
My concerns about the questions I've been asked fall into three broad and related categories. They were asked by folk who work intimately on climate change as a system. But not one person asked a systems-level question, 'How are you going to compare the plane and train emissions?' – or – 'Have you thought about rebound, where time saved via faster travel is spent on additional carbon-emitting activities?'
Instead, all of the questions relegated climate change to a purely technical, quantitative or efficiency issue – none of which address what we need to do to reduce total emissions
The opportunity costs, rebound effect, carbon intensity of time, technical and financial lock-in/lock-out, early adoption, role models, diffusion and so on, are all concepts the climate change community are familiar with. Asking emissions questions without direct or indirect recourse to any of these is, in my view, neither responsible nor reasonable.
Unreasonable reasonableness – another Rumsfeldian paradox
The first argument for my concluding the reasonable questions aren't so reasonable relates to it being academics working on climate change (amongst others) who asked them.
For the last decade the language of climate change used in proposals for funding, research council calls, brochures, government documents and so on, has been awash with terms such as 'whole systems', 'systems thinking', 'interdisciplinary', and the like. Put us in a room and we'll espouse eloquently the virtues of such approaches, noting if we're to tackle big issues like climate change we have to think on a systems level. But as soon as there's something that can be readily quantified we're like moths to a flame: here's something familiar to our 2000 years of reductionism, some knowledge – but without understanding. The virtues of systems thinking that we were waxing lyrical about moments before are quickly forgotten in the mad scrabble to get to the numbers. We know what to do with numbers and, as Lord Kelvin so persuasively put it, 'When you measure what you are speaking of and express it in numbers, you know that on which you are discoursing, but when you cannot measure it and express it in numbers your knowledge is of a very meagre and unsatisfactory kind.' Well I'm not sure this always holds, and when we do use numbers they have to be meaningful. Isolated numbers tell us little about the system, and worse, they can lead to decisions based only on the bit we can measure. This may be worse than doing nothing or taking random action; at the very least numbers have to be contextual.
So having made the argument that systems thinking requires some systems thinking itself, the following sections outline more precisely defined and technical matters that underpin my concern that the climate change community continues to take overly narrow views of systems-level issues. In 2011, we ought to know better.
System saving no.1: Relative dimensions in distance, time and emissions
If we accept temperature as an adequate proxy for our various concerns about climate change, then there is broad acceptance we must stay below a 2°C increase in global temperature. Thus the climate is only really concerned with our cumulative emissions over a relatively short period of time – a period longer than the Broadbottom–Shanghai train journey, but stretching only about as far as 2020 for 2°C (and for 4°C sometime around 2030). There is some maths behind these dates linked to how high we are already on the emissions curves, the 'real' emission growth trend, realistic peaks and the proportion of our carbon budget we've squandered already (see: beyond dangerous climate change).
Coming back to the train and its emissions relative to other transport modes: from a systems perspective, it's a good enough approximation to consider the CO2 per passenger kilometre for planes, trains and automobiles to be similar. Ok, alone in a Ferrari with your foot to the floor will be many times worse than being sardined into one of EasyJet's relatively new aircraft. Similarly, four people cosying up in a small Fiat Panda will knock the socks off any scheduled airline (that is, have much lower CO2 emissions). But put a couple of academics in a diesel family saloon and any disparity in emissions between the modes over the same distance will be lost in the system noise. The difference, of course, arises from the distance we deem reasonable to travel – and really this is less about the distance and more about the time.
Attending an 'essential' conference to save the world from climate change in Venice, Cancun or some other holiday resort, is perfectly do-able by plane. However, the rising emission trends don't seem to have registered the sterling work we have achieved at such events. Perhaps if we flew to more of them, emissions would really start to come down – we may even spot some flying pigs en route. Instead, junk the plane and get together with a few other UK speakers heading to the same event, cram yourself in a trusty Fiat Panda and set off for Venice. Somewhere around Dartford, what was previously 'essential' begins to take on a different hue, and by Dover a whole new meaning has evolved. Essential has become a relative term, dependent on: Can we get there by plane? Are our friends also attending? Is it somewhere nice to visit (or name-drop)? Will we be taxied around? Are we staying in a plush hotel?
This is where the first major saving resides: slow forms of travel fundamentally change our perception of the essential. We consequently travel less (at least in distance), and given that air travel is the most emission-profligate activity per hour (short of Formula 1 and possibly space tourism) the emission-related opportunity costs are knocked into a cocked hat. Of course, as climate change specialists we are exempt from such analysis – our message truly is essential – so we're the exception that should be able to carry on emitting as before.
Ah, yes, and business folk – we need them to drive the economy. Tourists are yet another really important economic driver (not to mention the great cultural gains from staying in western-style hotels with like-minded folk and observing other cultures pass by the windscreens of our air conditioned taxis). Next there are the pop stars and celebrities – the world would be such a dull place if they weren't able to prance about at international festivals. The football and tennis players must test their mettle in the international arena – and of course they need their fans to cheer them on.
We can then turn to whole industrial sectors' that put forward an equally bewildering array of 'reasons' why they should be the exceptions and exempt from major emission reductions. This extends to government departments, climate change think tanks and some NGOs – with the remaining less deserving sectors and individuals taking up the slack. It really is a puzzler as to why emissions keep on rising – all the more so since fuel prices have rocketed to levels way in excess of any carbon price economists previously told us would collapse the economy! Still, a few more international conferences and guidance from the carbon-market gurus will have us turn the corner on this one, I'm sure.
Obviously these caricatures are so far from reality that we don't recognise ourselves in any of them – but nevertheless the message is clear. Travelling slowly forces us to travel much less, to be much more selective in what events we attend, and to endeavour to get more out of those trips we do take. Fewer trips and potentially longer stays: not rocket science – just climate change basics.
System saving no.2: Iteration, adaptive capacity and indulgences – how to avoid carbon lock-in
It may be apocryphal, but I have heard from several reputable sources that China is in the process of constructing 150 new international airports. This perhaps sounds implausible, but China's population is approximately 22 times the UK's, and the UK has around 25 international airports. Proportionately, China would need 550 international airports to match the per capita equivalent of the UK. Suddenly their construction rate seems less implausible. Either way, flying to Shanghai sends a very clear market signal: expand your airport. And that is exactly what they're doing right now, so they're reading our repeated signal loud and clear.
But how is that worse than expanding the rail network? Firstly, there is potential to radically improve the efficiency of train travel – until very recently efficiency has not been a major concern for the industry. This is not the case for aviation. Jet engines and current plane designs have pushed the orthodox design envelope about as far as it can go; so 1 to 2 per cent per annum improvement is about as much as can be wrung out of the aviation industry in the short to medium term. In the longer term things may change, but this will not be within the short timeframe associated with climate change. Consequently, flying now locks the future into a high-carbon aviation infrastructure. By contrast, trains have substantial efficiency potential (though this may be compromised with the very high-speed trains) and, more significantly, trains can run on electricity (many already do) and electricity can be low-carbon (some of it already is). Trains can also have regenerative breaking (tricky with aircraft) and overnight trains can be used to flatten demand curves (and cut back on hotel emissions). Planes are currently locked into high-carbon kerosene whilst trains already have several low-carbon options.
So there you have it. Jump on a plane and you send a suite of very clear market signals. Please buy some more aircraft that will operate for 20-to-30 years and have a design life of 40 years. Please build some more airports. Please divert public transport funds so passengers (and shoppers) can travel to the airport on low-carbon trains or trams. Please expand the airport car park for when bags are just too heavy to lug on a tram. Please keep producing the black stuff – without it we will have invested billions in an industry dependent on kerosene; lock-in par excellence. They don't tell you all this on the back of the ticket – though there may be some oh so useful advice on carbon offsetting. Again, is it any wonder that emissions aren't coming down when we, the high-emitters, can buy indulgences so easily and cheaply?
System saving no. 3a: Opportunity costs constrain carbon
Here we turn to the old chestnut, opportunity costs. Basically if I had flown – and assuming the direct emissions per capita were the same between the plane and the Trans-Siberian Express – then what would I have been doing for the time I wasn't on the train?
Let's say the plane took two days – one day each way (UK to Shanghai), while the train took a total of 20 days (10 each way), leaving an opportunity cost period of 18 days. If at home, I certainly would have been taking the train to and from work each day. I'd probably have had around four longer UK trips, typically at around 650 kilometres per return trip. I'd have visited a few rock-climbing venues in my immediate vicinity around the Peak District (say 200–300 kilometres in total, probably shared with a couple of others in the car); I'd have watched a few movies, listened to the radio a lot – and all the usual stuff. The total distance travelled would be equivalent to 3000–5000 kilometres, that is, very roughly 10–20 per cent of the Trans-Siberian trip distance. But if I was a regular flyer, in 20 days I may have taken a flight or two, and if I was one of the great and the good this would have been business or first class. Added to this (if we treat offsetting with the disdain it deserves) the opportunity-cost emissions could easily have exceeded those from the full return journey to China by train. And if offsetting had been used, I take the view that the emissions would have been still higher (increased lock-in, reduced incentive for the 'donor' to change behaviour and the economic multiplier effect for the 'recipient' – see: the inconvenient truth of carbon offsetting). All of this assumes that during my 12 days in China I emitted roughly the same quantity of CO2 per day as if I'd remained at home in the UK. This is probably not too unreasonable, but again if I were one of the great and good, I'd no doubt would have had much higher emissions from further business-class travel to champion my low carbon message in yet more exotic venues.
By including opportunity costs, this slow-travel stuff really starts to notch up the carbon savings for those of us who travel a lot – particularly if it includes international travel.
System saving no. 3b: The slippery slope: thinking low-carbon engenders thinking low-carbon which engenders …
A final point worthy of a brief note: making the transition from fast to slower forms of long-distance travel may engender slower forms of travel elsewhere. Once we've made such a transition, it becomes more 'natural' to avoid taxis and instead to seek out the public transport, walking or cycling options we espouse for others. Taxis are another market signal for more roads. Jamming our bodies onto the Tube (or Beijing subway), or waiting for the reliable late-night bus from Norwich station to the University of East Anglia, all give much lower carbon signals, especially if supported with the occasional letter, either chastising the London Mayor for not doing more with the Tube and local trains, or complimenting Norwich bus planners – or however we think admonishment and praise should be meted out.
So there you have it: my potted account as to why I think the climate change community needs to put its own house in order before wagging its hypocritical finger at others or espousing low-carbon solutions to ministers that we simply wouldn't accept for ourselves.
Final thoughts: Can slow travel be justified in a busy university life?
My guess is that a common retort to my ramblings will be, 'it's ok for him, I'm too busy to take such a long time off work, it's just not practical – I've got to live in the real world.' But the real world has us flying half way around the world to give banal 20 minute presentations to audiences who know what we're going to say. Even if our talks are riveting canters through the intellectual surf, are they really so important that we have to be there in person and in an instant, before launching off to dispense our pearls of wisdom to another packed house in another exotic location? Isn't our situation emblematic of the problems (such as fast and self-important lives for the few, no time for thinking, reflexivity and humility) that we are abjectly failing to shed any light on?
My life is perhaps not as busy as some, but I still clock up a fair few work hours, have meetings to attend, admin to do and research to deliver on. The train was certainly not as simple to organise as a plane – though next time it would be much easier, and I wouldn't worry so much about getting everything perfect and having back-up plans in place. Long and unusual journeys inevitably take more planning, not least to ensure the time spent travelling can be productive. And in terms of cost, the reimbursement system is just not set yet up to support such journeys, so you'll likely have to dip into your pocket, as long train journeys typically cost more than taking to the air. Moreover, receipts don't come with purchases of strange foods from sellers on station platforms and odd bits of accommodation.
So what of the work you can do while travelling? I had planned and expected my many hours of mildly enforced confinement to provide a good working environment. But I wasn't prepared for what turned out to be the most productive period of my academic career, particularly on the return journey. During the outward trip, I read a range of papers and managed to write another on shipping and climate change. However, after having spent 12 days in China bombarded with fresh experiences, new ways of thinking and new information, the return journey was a wonderful opportunity to begin to make sense of it all, embedding much of it in a paper which a colleague and I had been working on for the past year. This was the first time I had actually put pen to paper with regard to that research.
The train's ability to remove many of the choices that clutter my daily life gave me the seclusion and concentration I needed to set to work on what has proved a very challenging paper. By the time Moscow arrived, I had completed about 75 per cent of the writing; this would have taken another six months had I flown to Shanghai.
From a productivity perspective, the 20-day train journey easily trumped the two-day flight. Counter-intuitive perhaps, but I remain convinced that a carefully planned train journey not only delivers lower emissions by an order of magnitude, but facilitates the process of research in a way that universities and daily life simply can't match. Add to that the 'slower' ethos that such journeys engender, and I think there may be early signs of making a meaningful transition to a low-carbon future – or at least a bridging ethos – while we wait for the panacea of low-carbon technologies to become the norm.
Addendum: Children, families and slow travel …
Amongst the wealth of responses to the original blog, a recurrent theme was "I really can't see how those of us with young children could spend so much time travelling slowly when we could, by flying, be back home quickly and spend more time with our families". On a more altruistic note, several colleagues with children suggested that they "should perhaps avoid any longer-distance travel, as the emotional pull to return quickly is inevitably very strong".
I certainly can empathise with the challenge of balancing work and family pulls on our time. Ultimately, climate change is mostly about families and friends – but surely not only ours in the here and now?
If the science is broadly correct and the emissions trends continue, then we're heading for enormous changes for many families even in the short term. These families may not be our own – much more likely they'll be those who have not contributed to the problem, have little income and live in areas geographically more vulnerable to climate change impacts. So the choice is about whose family and friends matter most. We choose to fly back to be with our family as quickly as possible – so as not to be away for more than a few days. But the repercussions (ok, not on a 1-to-1 basis perhaps) are for another family in another place to lose their home, suffer food and water shortages, social and community pressures and wider conflicts – to put at risk the very fabric of their families and communities.
Moreover, our reducing time away from our families by using fast and high carbon travel also has longer-term repercussions for our own children. Are we rushing back for the sake of our own families or for 'our' individual engagement with our own families? This is a subtle but I think important distinction. Are we concerned about our families only whilst we're around to enjoy and benefit from them, or are we more altruistically concerned regardless of our own immediate returns? When we're dead and buried our children will likely still be here dealing with the legacy of our inaction today; do we discount their futures at such a rate as to always favour those family activities that 'we' can join in with?
I'm not talking about this solely in an abstract manner; most of my immediate family have gone on to more ethereal activity leaving me with an uncle in Scotland and another in Australia who is getting on in years and not in the best of health. I last saw him in 2004 and have since stuck to the difficult decision not to return to visit him. Ok I may relent one day, but for now I'm unable to reconcile my desire to share family memories with my fine Ozzie uncle and the fact that my visiting him jeopardises others' abilities to lead good lives with their families.
Life in a changing climate is awash with such thorny issues and tough decisions. To me the guiding principle (supported by the maths) is that those of us responsible for the lion's share of emissions are the same group that need to drive emissions down – and fast.
Technology alone cannot deliver the low carbon promise land in a timely manner. The future is in our hands now, our lifestyles, behaviours, practices and habits. If we are truly concerned about families (others as well as our own – now and in the future), then perhaps the overseas trip is not as 'essential' as when we could travel quickly by plane. Alternatively, if we still consider it an important trip, we must assess whether the additional time away from our family as a consequence of slower travel is compensated by the value of our message. The decisions just got tougher. Of course, it could be that we are that shining example of an exception to the rule – enlightened beings preaching real mitigation to our parishioners 32 thousand feet below.
Is it really surprising that the hoi polloi are indifferent to our pronouncements and politicians pay only lip service to our analyses, when those of us working on climate change exhibit no desire to forego our own high-carbon lifestyles?


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Goya Sock Bundle
75% superwash merino, 25% nylon
5 x 80m/87y per 20g
Colorway: Electro
27 micron superwash merino wool, combined with nylon for a very durable and springy sock yarn, designed for items that will be worn and washed a lot. Whilst not quite as soft as Goya Merino, this yarn is fantastic for hard wearing socks, gloves and jumpers.
Even though this yarn is super wash I recommend a cool hand wash in a mild detergent. Although every effort is made to exhaust the dye bath of color you may find a little color bleed on the first wash.
I try to depict the true color of yarn but please remember each monitor will be different.
If you have any questions regarding the color, feel free to contact me via email.
Goya Sock Bundle - Electro
I want you to be satisfied with your order, and I'm happy to accept returns if you change your mind once you receive your order. Please read Store Policies for more detail.
Note: SALE items cannot be returned unless faulty or wrongly delivered. Items that are pre-ordered are not refundable as the items will be made to order.
The products are delivered all over the world. Shipping costs include postage and packaging cost. We try to ship within 5 business days of receiving your payment. All parcels are sent using national services, contact us for courier services upon purchase.
Shipping is flatrate and depends on your country, it will be calculated at checkout. Free worldwide shipping for orders over €300.
Domestic shipping for orders up to €100 is €4,50 flatrate. From €100 the shipping is free.


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Game: Platform: Product: USD EUR GBP AUD CAD
In order to receive FC 24 Coins for the PC/PS/XB, you should just simply list a player you don't want for coins and provide us with the details of the player, once we receive your order and payment, we will purchase that player in the trade and you will receive FUT Coins Instantly receive a boost to your team with FC 24 Ultimate Team Coins. Use FC 24 Coins to buy new players, add contracts or change formations and watch your results improve with every game!
Before buying, please add a player auction into FC 24 as direct purchase.
The requested amount for the player has to match the ordered shop product.
Duration of the player offer should be 3 days.
The Ultimate Team name is NOT the name of the player's club but your self-chosen name of your own team.
The supplier will buy your player offer and thus you get the coins.
Delivery time: Sometimes the delivery time may be altered due to out of stock. However, we can fulfill 90% of our orders within 10-30 minute after payment is received.


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The man poking his head out of the water had one hand on the dock, but he was losing his grip after several minutes in the Chicago River this morning, large ice chunks floating feet away.
Kneeling above him was Officer Wayne Kramer, who had sprinted down a flight of stairs after hearing the man's screams from his squad car on the lower level of Lake Shore Drive.
A former lifeguard, Kramer had one arm around the man as he called to his partner, Officer Fred Estrada, who was parking the squad car and calling for an ambulance.
"I said, Fred, I can't get this guy up by myself," said Kramer, 47.
Estrada and a bystander stooped next to Kramer on the four-foot-wide dock, trying to wrestle the man out of the water without getting pulled in.
"By the time we dragged him out of the water, we couldn't even get him to use his legs or his hands," Kramer said.
Paramedics arrived and brought the man into an ambulance. As police blocked traffic on the lower level of Lake Shore Drive, the ambulance turned around, briefly driving north in the southbound lane before making a right and merging onto the upper level of the drive toward Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The man remained in critical condition this morning.
The rescue unfolded around 12:15 a.m. when residents heard someone screaming for help and called police. The calls came from several locations, and Kramer and Estrada drove down streets adjacent to the dark riverbank, windows down, listening for shouts.
On the lower level of Lake Shore Drive just south of East Illinois Street, they heard yelling from the river.
Kramer sprinted down the stairs toward the docks as the bystander's pointed toward the source of the shouting. Kramer vaulted a locked fence and made his way down a snow-caked ramp, slipping in the process -- probably, he said later, the same way the 31-year-old man had fallen into the water.
"I had no footing at all," said Kramer, a 15-year veteran of the department. "It was all ice and snow."
Kramer quickly regained his balance and soon was stooping next the man, whose head was bobbing near the water's surface, he said.
"He was completely submerged in the water, actually all the way up to his hairline," Kramer said. "He was just lifting his head up to yell, and to breathe."
The man thanked Kramer, but soon his words became unintelligible. Remembering his training from five years as a Chicago Park District lifeguard, Kramer hooked his arm around a railing to anchor himself. The railing was too cold to hold with his hand.
Kramer tried pulling the man's dark-colored pea coat, but it began slipping off of him. So Kramer grabbed under the man's arm. By that time, the man was too weak to use his arms or his legs. Kramer was able to keep hold of the man until his partner and the bystander came to his aid.
Estrada said the outcome would have been vastly different without the people who called police and the bystander who pointed out where the man was. Even then, the rescue was dangerous because of the ice and snow.
"The ground was slippery," Estrada said. "I was worried about my partner slipping in there, and also the citizen, and also me.
"But we have to do what we have to do," said Estrada, who has been on the force for eight years. "I was just glad we were able to get ahold of him and bring him out."
Copyright 2013 - Chicago Tribune
McClatchy-Tribune News Service


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"True Detective meets Swamp Thing in the Artemis Fowl author's neo-noirish thriller about a curmudgeonly dragon in Louisiana." —Guardian
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series comes a hilarious and high-octane adult novel about a vodka-drinking, Flashdance-loving dragon who lives an isolated life in the bayous of Louisiana—and the raucous adventures that ensue when he crosses paths with a fifteen-year-old troublemaker on the run from a crooked sheriff.
In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs—now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. Laying low in the bayou, this once-magnificent fire breather has been reduced to lighting Marlboros with nose sparks, swilling Absolut in a Flashdance T-shirt, and binging Netflix in a fishing shack. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie—now he goes by Vern. However...he has survived, unlike the rest. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. Still, no amount of vodka can drown the loneliness in his molten core. Vern's glory days are long gone. Or are they?
A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett "Squib" Moreau does what he can to survive, trying not to break the heart of his saintly single mother. He's finally decided to work for a shady smuggler—but on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable.
Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop, he's a despicable human being—who happens to want Squib's momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by…a dragon?
The swamp can make strange bedfellows, and rather than be fried alive so the dragon can keep his secret, Squib strikes a deal with the scaly apex predator. He can act as his go-between (aka familiar)—fetch his vodka, keep him company, etc.—in exchange for protection from Hooke. Soon the three of them are careening headlong toward a combustible confrontation. There's about to be a fiery reckoning, in which either dragons finally go extinct—or Vern's glory days are back.
A triumphant return to the genre-bending fantasy that Eoin Colfer is so well known for, Highfire is an effortlessly clever and relentlessly funny tour-de-force of comedy and action.


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Gifts For Your Boyfriend
Your boyfriend has an important place in your heart and so you want to make sure that you pick up gifts that you know he'll want. The easiest way is to just figure out what his hobbies are. Once you know that, getting gifts are easy.
Tools, whether single purchase or sold in kits, are some of the best gifts you can buy. There are power tools like drills and electric screwdrivers and kits that have multitools and all of the bit accessories. If he likes working with his hands, there are plenty of precision tools you can pick up. Getting a container like a toolbox will help him keep all of the tools organized.
Watches for men can be either everyday wear or elegant men's gold watches that are perfect in a business or eveningwear situation. For everyday watches, take a look at some of the great sport analog models. These have the rubber straps so they can handle being bumped against stuff. Specialty watches for certain hobbies like diving can be found online, too.
Desktop computers, especially the ones that are loaded with the most up-to-date features, make exciting holiday gifts. Portable music devices or DVD or Blu Ray players are popular Christmas gifts for boyfriends. And along with DVD players, video gaming systems are gifts that he'll enjoy day after day the entire year.
The consoles on all of the popular systems are so affordable now that you can pick up accessories like the chat gear and extra controllers for when he has his buddies over. Handheld video games are also popular gifts for men, because he can take these with him wherever he goes – which will eliminate any boring wait times he encounters.
If he's into sports, then sports gear like a basketball hoop with a top quality backboard will make him smile. Don't forget to pick up a basketball! But, not all guys like to play sports. Some of them just enjoy watching the games and rooting their teams on to victory.
For men like that, you can get just the right gift with fan gear. Not only can you get jerseys with team logos and favorite player numbers, but you can get cell phone covers that show off his loyalty to the team. There are even hitch covers featuring his team or other car accessories that show off his devotion.
Men's cologne can be part of a nice Christmas for him when you give him a bottle of the cologne he enjoys wearing. There are mini and designer sets that come ready in attractive decorative boxes. During the season, most cologne box sets have a gift with purchase, like a sports bag or wallet, for example, so shop around and see what kind of deal you can get.


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Flake food
You can contribute to the Aquarium Wiki by expanding this article. Dont be shy!. |
About Flake Food[edit]
Flake food is any foodstuffs suitable for use with fish that has been processed into thin layers or flakes which float on the surface of the water. It is produced by mixing the chosen ingredients together in large vats and then baking the resultant sludge until it has lost almost all of its moisture and begins to flake away into thin layers.
Various ingredients are used and there are many variants of flake food formulated for different fish types, i.e Cichlid flakes, pond flakes etc.
Flake food is probably the most popular food fed to fish throughout the world. It is cheap and found in all pet shops and even the local supermarket or corner shop.
However flake food is a soft, messy food and tends to float for a short time before it sinks and breaks apart into tiny fragments. Most fish will spit out a large flake to break it up and so most of a flake tends to go to waste. The product is however easily crumbled into smaller pieces for your small fish.
What's in it[edit]
The different colours of the flake food indicate different foods. Green is typically an algae like spirulina, red is shrimp, others may be white fish flesh.
Some flake foods contain colour enhancers and may contain health booster chemicals.
The quality of flake food varies enormously. Some companies sell basic flake food and some sell 'premium' flake food with claims that their product contains only the best ingredients. Such is the state of the flake food industry. Basically you get what you pay for.
Contents of a typical flake food tub - Aquarian Tropical flake food 25g[edit]
Fish and fish derivatives, Cereals, Derivatives of vegetable origin, Oils and fats, Algae, vegetables,Minerals, Molluscs and crustaceans, Egg and egg derivatives,Yeast, EEC permitted antioxidants and preservatives.
Protein - 36.5%, oil - 12.5%, ash - 14.0% fibre - 3.0
Vitamins : A 10000IU/kg, D3 2400IU/kg, E 500IU/kg
Flake food comes sealed against the air and light. This is because the food is highly processed and the artificial vitamins in it are easily destroyed if exposed to heat, light or oxygen.
The product will have a 'best-before' date on it (typically 2 years) and this should be noted that this is for the food in the sealed condition. Once unsealed the product's vitamins will rapidly lose their nutritional value. The product should be disposed off after 3 months. Keep in the refrigerator if you wish it to last 6 months.
- Be wary of flake food sold in see-through packaging as light damages the flake. Also normal transparent plastic lets moisture slowly through.


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Mukikim - Rainbow Piano - Debbie's Hallmark
Foldable Piano Set: Electronic piano pad is portable and flexible. Easily roll out the set while playing and roll it back up into its box or your bag after you are done playing. Take it with you anywhere, even when you go outdoors for picnic or birthday party!
A Real Keyboard But Won't Occupy Extra Space: It is a 49-key piano that perfect for beginner to master/all ages. (Recommended 6+) Promote tactile learning and hand-eye coordination and included song book let kids to play the songs by color! Simply enjoy this well-made rainbow piano to learn or to use it for fun!
Play-By-Color Song Book: Features a unique Play-By-Color song booklet allows you to follow the colors and learn to play whole songs. The songs include Twinkle Jingle Bells, Twinkle Little Star and Happy Birthday To You. Playing piano is so easy and has so much fun!
Multiple Functions Piano Pad: The piano set installs 8 different keyboard tones and 6 demo songs, record & playback, and echo/sustain functions. Built-in speaker with volume control and audio output for your headphones or speakers allow you to play it loud or play it quietly!
A rainbow in the box: The box includes play-by-color rainbow piano, color coded song booklet, USB power cord, and user manual. The piano set is well-designed with rainbow color coded keys that it is easy to learn. Powered by USB (cord included) or battery (AAA batteries x4). Play it anytime without waiting!


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9. Kirtland Temple
The Kirtland Temple is located in Kirtland, Ohio.
Significant Events: The Kirtland Temple was the first temple built in this dispensation (D&C 88:119; 95). In this temple, Joseph Smith saw a vision of the celestial kingdom (D&C 137). It was dedicated on March 27, 1836 (D&C 109). On April 3, 1836, the Savior appeared and accepted the temple as a place in which He would reveal His word to His people (D&C 110:1–10). Following this appearance, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received visits from Moses, Elias, and Elijah, all of whom gave them certain priesthood keys and important information (D&C 110:11–16). This temple served the Saints for some two years before they had to flee Kirtland because of persecution.


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Scientific team sounds the alarm on sugar as a source of disease
Is sugar making us sick? A team of scientists at the University of California in San Francisco believes so, and they're doing something about it. They launched an initiative to bring information on food and drink and added sugar to the public by reviewing more than 8,000 scientific papers that show a strong link between the consumption of added sugar and chronic diseases.
The common belief until now was that sugar just makes us fat, but it's become clear through research that it's making us sick. For example, there's the rise in fatty-liver disease, the emergence of Type 2 diabetes as an epidemic in children and the dramatic increase in metabolic disorders.
Laura Schmidt, a UCSF professor at the School of Medicine and the lead investigator on the project, SugarScience, said the idea is to make the findings comprehensible and clear to everyone. The results will be available to all on a website (SugarScience.org) and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Added sugars, Schmidt said, are sugars that don't occur naturally in foods. They are found in 74 percent of all packaged foods, have 61 names and often are difficult to decipher on food labels. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires food companies to list ingredients on packaging, the suggested daily values of natural and added sugars can't be found.
The FDA is considering a proposal to require food manufacturers to list information on sugars in the same way they do for fats, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates and protein. But because so much added sugar is dumped into so many products, one average American breakfast of cereal would likely exceed a reasonable daily limit.
"SugarScience shows that a calorie is not a calorie but rather that the source of a calorie determines how it's metabolized," said pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, a member of the SugarScience team and the author of "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease." Lustig said that more than half of the U.S. population is sick with metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors for chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and liver disease that are directly related to the excessive consumption of added sugars in the Western diet.
Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the category of heart attack/stroke as the leading cause of death in the United States. Every day, 2,200 Americans die of cardiovascular disease. That's about 800,000 a year, or one in three deaths.
The latest statistics from the American Diabetes Association show that 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3 percent, have diabetes. Of that number, 21 million have been diagnosed and 8.1 million have not, and the numbers continue to grow, according to the association.
It doesn't stop there. The American Liver Foundation says at least 30 million Americans, or 1 in 10, has one of 100 kinds of liver disease.
Clinicians widely believe that obesity is the cause of metabolic disease. Although it is a marker for these diseases, Lustig said, it's not the cause. "Too much sugar causes chronic metabolic disease in both fat and thin people," he said, "and instead of focusing on obesity as the problem, we should be focusing on our processed-food supply."
The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons (78 grams) of sugar a day, substantially more than the amount recommended by the American Heart Association. The association sets these limits: 6 teaspoons (24 grams) for women, 9 teaspoons (36 grams) for men, and 3-6 teaspoons (12-24 grams) for children, depending on age. Just one 12-ounce soda contains 8 to 9 teaspoons (32-36 grams) of sugar.
Liquid sugar in sodas, energy drinks and sports drinks is the leading source of added sugar in the American diet. That represents 36 percent of all added sugars consumed, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And because liquid does not include fiber, the body processes it quickly. That causes more sugar to be sent to the pancreas and liver than either can process properly, and the resulting buildup of sugar leads to heart disease, diabetes and liver disease.
Consuming too much sugar causes the level of glucose sugar in the bloodstream to increase. That, in turn, causes the pancreas to release high levels of insulin that cause the body to store extra calories as fat.
Too much insulin also affects the hormone leptin, a natural appetite suppressant that signals the brain to stop eating when full. But the imbalance of insulin levels caused by the intake of too much sugar causes lipid resistance, and the brain no longer gets that signal.
Another member of the SugarScience team, Dean Schillinger, is a professor of medicine at UCSF and a practicing primary care doctor at San Francisco General Hospital. He believes the overconsumption of added sugars is a social problem, not a problem of individual choice and freedom.
"People are becoming literate about the toxic effects of sugar," Schillinger said, "and have more understanding of the idea that high doses are bad for one's health." He sees evidence that those in a higher socioeconomic bracket are taking steps to limit intake of sugar when compared with poorer, less literate people.
Healthy food is expensive and less readily accessible in poorer neighborhoods, and because corn is so abundant and cheap, it is added to many food products. "Dumping high fructose corn syrup into cheap foods, sodas, sports drinks and energy drinks is toxic to the body, causing epidemic metabolic diseases and a serious health crisis," Schillinger said.
To underscore the scope of the problem, he pointed out that during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 1,500 American soldiers lost a limb in combat. In that same period, 1.5 million people in the U.S. lost limbs to amputations from Type 2 diabetes, a preventable disease. "We have yet to mobilize for a public health war," he said, "but the time has come to do so."
Such a war would have to take on the root causes of the problem. As a nation, Schillinger added, we would need to look at our food policies, food pricing, availability of healthy foods, and the marketing being carried out by food and beverage industries to hook the public on unhealthy choices loaded with added sugar.
Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, is not a SugarScience researcher, but he agreed that the amount of sugar consumed by the American public is too high. SugarScience, he said, is being helpful by bringing the information about added sugar to public attention.
"It's just about impossible," Hu said, "to know from food labels what kinds and amounts of sugars are in a product." That's why he thinks the FDA should require food companies to list those amounts on all food labels so people know what they're eating, in what amounts they're eating it, and what amounts are safe.
Food labels are important, Schillinger said, and they need to be revised, but the most important change needed is to make the healthier choice the easier choice.
©2014 Chicago Tribune
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC