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'Not good value' to report on confab of global power brokers
Paul Joseph Watson
May 28, 2013
You would think that over a hundred of the world's most influential power brokers meeting in secret would make for an interesting news story, but not according to Irish national broadcaster RTE, which has refused to send reporters to cover the 2013 Bilderberg Group conference.
Asked by Infowars reader Billy Quilter if RTE intended to report on a confab involving, "the most wealthy, powerful and influential people in the world of politics, finance and business," set to take place in Watford, England next week, the broadcaster responded by saying it didn't think such an event was worthy of attention.
"The world's media doesn't cover these meetings generally because we get no access, no interviews and are told nothing about the private discussions that go on inside. This group is one of many that happen every year as a talking shop, although as you rightly point out a high-level one. In RTE's case, I don't think it would be good value to stand outside the Grove for 3 days on that basis," replied Kevin Bakhurst, RTE's Managing Director of news and current affairs.
Is it really any wonder why mainstream media is losing its audience to independent broadcasters given that companies like RTE refuse to perform the very task for which they were supposedly founded – investigative journalism – and instead will only cover issues if they are given "access" and spoon fed talking points to blithely regurgitate?
Does RTE not think its very role is to find out what private discussions are taking place given that Bilderberg is setting the consensus for policy which directly affects RTE viewers?
The claim that Bilderberg is a mere "talking shop" has been debunked by the innumerable examples of Bilderberg having a direct influence on world affairs, most notably in setting up the framework for the introduction of the euro single currency which is used by the 4.6 million inhabitants of the Republic of Ireland.
In addition the claim that it would not be "good value" for RTE to have its reporters stand outside the Grove for 3 days is ludicrous given that live streams of Infowars reporters doing precisely that in St. St. Moritz and Chantilly over the last two years attracted millions upon millions of views.
RTE is partly funded by revenue from TV licenses, which are mandatory for Irish citizens who wish to legally possess a television. Failure to obtain a TV license, at a cost of €160 per annum, can result in a fine and a criminal record, with TV license inspectors having the power to obtain and execute search warrants of houses.
"This is from our national broadcaster which is a non-commercial entity, which all Irish people pay TV licence fees to each year, who get government subsidies from taxpayers' money, and who applaud themselves on their investigative journalism, they regularly get awards for their work," Quilter told Infowars.
"RTE have never had a problem covering the private lives of others in this country. They have no problem entering and sneaking into hospitals, private nursing homes and school creshes (easy targets), delving into their work, prying on their businesses in order to build up a reputation for themselves, yet they cannot be bothered to send a team on a 2 hour journey from Dublin to England to look into the Bilderberg meeting," he adds.
In refusing to cover the Bilderberg conference, RTE follows the trend of other establishment media outlets which offer scant coverage of the event, no coverage at all, or merely attempt to belittle the whole thing as an invention of conspiracy theorists.
Given the castrated and controlled behavior of corporate media outlets, a number of which are actually represented at Bilderberg, it's unsurprising that David Rockefeller actually thanked the press for their compliance in keeping Bilderberg's agenda hidden during the 1991 Bilderberg confab in Baden, Germany.
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years," said Rockefeller, going on to explain, "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."
Read the letter sent by RTE below.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
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Home > Barcode Printer > Desktop Barcode Printer (Additional) > Datamax-O´Neil E-Class Mark II > JA2-00-1J000Q00
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|Product Breakdown
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Resolution: 203 or 300 dpi
Print Style: Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer
Core Printing Language: PLZ, PLI, PLB
Maximum Print Speed: 4 to 5 inch per second
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Label and liner width: 0.75" to 4.3"
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1 Years

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text:
It's Ocean Celebration Day at DRC. Lots of students, 19 activities and exhibits. It's going to be a great day!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Posted by The DRC Family at 9:18 AM 0 comments
Monday, April 25, 2011
Overheard at DRC, a child excitedly exclaiming, "Mommy! The dolphin's talking to me!"
Posted by The DRC Family at 9:56 AM 2 comments
Friday, April 22, 2011
It's Earth Day - Practice random acts of greenness!
It's the beginning of Easter weekend - happy holiday to all who celebrate.
Posted by The DRC Family at 11:56 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
No Easter Bunny at DRC this week - but beautiful dolphins and sea lions to visit.
Posted by The DRC Family at 9:28 AM 0 comments
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wishing a good Passover to all of our friends who mark this special day.
Posted by The DRC Family at 10:09 AM 0 comments
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Got a great photo from a recent trip to DRC? Share it at visitflorida.com. Click on Fan Photos & Videos to show the world dolphins you love.
Posted by The DRC Family at 10:18 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
It's a "taxing" week. Wouldn't a visit to the dolphins at DRC feel good?
Posted by The DRC Family at 9:21 AM 0 comments
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Theresa & DRC Featured on Navy TV
Ahoy! Back in January, a television crew from the U.S. Navy visited DRC. They captured footage and interviews with service personnel who were at DRC participating in Dolphin Encounter swims as part of the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride visit. They also wanted to feature our own Navy veteran - Theresa!
Theresa's story is now available to view online and it's a lovely profile of our wonderful T-bear. Please check out this link to watch. Click here and when you arrive at the page, scroll down to the story.
Posted by The DRC Family at 1:00 PM 3 comments
We're happy to report that our Louisiana youngster, Louie, successfully transitioned into the lagoons. He's getting to know Aleta and Delta!
Posted by The DRC Family at 12:38 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
DRC Appeals for Community Support to Fund Trip for Students!
|DRC's Co-Founder Mandy Rodriguez (center) engages students at the Manatee Rescue exhibit
|DRC was filled with students eagerly learning and enjoying the day
"Education is a huge part of Dolphin Research Center's mission. Every year we are excited to offer Ocean Celebration Day free of charge to these students in the Florida Keys. It's a terrible shame that so many eager young minds could miss out on the event for lack of funds. We hope that the community will rally around and help us raise the money so these kids can attend," says Rita Irwin, DRC's President and CEO.
Founded in 1984, Dolphin Research Center is home to a family of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions. Located at 58901 (mile marker 59) Overseas Highway, Grassy Key, Florida, the nonprofit organization is funded by admission and program fees as well as by private donors and members. In addition to being one of the most highly respected education and research facilities in the world, DRC is the Licensed Manatee Rescue Team for the Florida Keys and is an accredited member of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums.
|Students at a previous Ocean Celebration Day were capitvated by marine mammal artifacts
Posted by The DRC Family at 1:02 PM 1 comments
Monday, April 4, 2011
April - Showers of Fun!
Here we are in the first week of April. Can you believe it? It's been a busy few months at DRC. The Sprayground is officially open and, wow, is it ever a hit with visitors! Lina and Louie are acclimating well to their Florida Keys home and we're enjoying getting to know our newest family members.
|The Shawn Rodriguez Family Sprayground on the day of its dedication.
|The joy of a dorsal tow in Dolphin Encounter
Posted by The DRC Family at 9:11 AM 2 comments


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Like every other shoemaker, third-generation family business Rocky Shoes and Boots has seen its industry transformed by imports, mergers, offshore manufacturing, and new technologies. Unlike most, Rocky has managed to come out ahead
The years haven't been kind to America's small old-line manufacturers.
Time was, those businesses were the economic heart of small towns and city neighborhoods. Their employees were often longtimers, on a first-name basis with the boss.
The companies provided steady work, steady pay, and the self-respect that accompanies both.
Then came the maelstrom of the past two decades, the imports and the new technologies and everything else that turned the business world upside down. The market's demands grew relentless. A new economy, fast-paced and tumultuous, came into being.
Like beachfront cottages in a hurricane, the old manufacturers were buffeted and battered. Many collapsed. Others were sold off, bought out, combined, and recombined until they were scarcely recognizable. Gone were the original owners. Gone, too, were most of the workers.
But now and then you stumble across a survivor, a small old-line manufacturing company that has stood its ground against the tides of history -- a company that somehow, on the fly, learned to compete in today's turbulent marketplace.
The scene of one such unlikely story is Nelsonville, Ohio, a dot on the map near the West Virginia border. The industry is shoe manufacturing, as brutal a business as you'll find anywhere. The company is Rocky Shoes and Boots Inc., the fellow in charge Mike Brooks.
Brooks, like his father before him, belongs to that uncommon and unheralded breed of American businessperson: the kind who doesn't know when -- or maybe doesn't know how -- to quit.
Mike Brooks could scarcely contain himself. It was the spring of 1975, and he had taken the phone call at his office in Milwaukee. Now he was excited, antsy. Back home in Nelsonville, Ohio, Dad was buying the William Brooks Shoe Co.
By one reckoning it was a predictable, even inevitable, move. Bill Brooks, Mike's great-uncle, had started the business back in 1932, in the heart of the Great Depression. Mike's dad, John Brooks, worked in the plant full-time since age 17. The company was his whole life.
By another reckoning, though, buying the company was crazy. Shoe manufacturing in the United States had been on a long downhill slope. Great-uncle Bill had announced he was selling the company way back in 1958, and Mike's dad had asked for a chance to match the buyer's price. But Bill had refused point-blank. John, he had said, you have a family to support. The shoe industry has no future. I'm doing you a favor.
So the business had gone to outsiders, a women's-shoe company in nearby Lancaster. John stayed on, eventually rising to plant manager. Mike worked summers at the factory, but he could see it held no long-term opportunities. Nor was there much else to do in Nelsonville, a down-at-the-heels town of maybe 5,000 in the hilly, rural countryside southeast of Columbus. Mike loved the place. But when he left after high school, he never expected to return.
Now, in 1975, the owners were getting ready to unload or shut down the business. And John Brooks was telling Mike that this time, finally, he was really going to buy it.
The next day, Mike walked into his employer's office and resigned. "I told my boss," he recalls, "that my father was buying a business and needed his son back."
Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. Maybe buying a business never is. The company wasn't worth much as a going concern, but it owned plant and equipment worth close to $1.3 million. John had bargained the owners down to 50¢ on the dollar, so the purchase price was $640,000. He had worked for a modest salary all his life and had raised five children. He figured he could put up $500. The rest would have to come from somewhere else. Where, he wasn't quite sure. Mike didn't know, either. The William Brooks Shoe Co. wouldn't be high on anyone's list of hot investments or good loan prospects. Its machinery was aging. Its work force was discouraged. The company had lost money for three years running.
On the other hand, there were dreams at stake here. Mike's father's, certainly. Mike's own, increasingly. And maybe those of his four siblings. Then there were the jobs and livelihoods of the 140 or so people who worked at the company, most of them neighbors or acquaintances of the Brooks family. Mike, the oldest son in the family, had never lacked self-confidence. When college hadn't worked out, he set off for Milan, Italy, and spent a year studying shoe design at the well-known Ars Satoria trade school. His business career already showed promise; it included stints at U.S. Shoe Corp. and at two tanning companies. Now, at age 30, energetic and ambitious, he'd be damned if a few hundred thousand dollars would get in the way of those dreams. He and his father visited banks. They looked into government-guaranteed loans. They began talking about saving jobs. They called their congressman.
Soon enough, the Farmers Home Administration agreed to guarantee 90% of the purchase price. A five-bank consortium would provide the rest. Some of those banks were nervous and showed up at the closing with lawyers, forms to sign, and a barrage of questions. Vic Oakley, president of the lead bank in the consortium, the one picking up most of the risk, was a Nelsonville neighbor of the Brookses'. He arrived late, with no forms or lawyers, just a check. He threw it onto the table. "If John Brooks says he'll pay me back," he announced, "he'll pay me back." Then he walked out.
So the papers were signed, the money was provided, and the William Brooks Shoe Co., occupant of a 1919-vintage brick factory on Main Street, the largest employer in Nelsonville, finally belonged to John Brooks. John rechristened the business John W. Brooks Inc. Then he went back to managing the factory, which was his first love. As for running the business, that would be mostly up to Mike.
The year is 1975. The United States is emerging from the worst downturn since the 1930s. But the next few years won't bring the kind of swift, sure recovery Americans once could expect. Growth is slow. Inflation threatens to spiral out of control. U.S. manufacturers find themselves attacked by powerful overseas competitors. Imports from steel to semiconductors flood onto American shores, eating up market share.
The Midwest is hit hard. So many plants close that pundits coin the term Rustbelt to describe the region. As for the shoe industry, it has gone from the stagnation of the late 1950s into sharp decline. In 1970 imports accounted for 30% of the market. Ten years later the figure will be 50% and rising. During this decade more than 300 domestic shoe plants will shut their doors -- for good.
For a while Mike didn't worry much about the economy or about the sorry state of his industry. He had too much to do, and he was having too good a time doing it.
He designed a new product, a good-looking pair of hiking boots with red laces, and hit the road to sell it. He worked with his father to speed up production, thus easing the company's cash needs. He spent time on the factory floor, trying to pep up a demoralized work force. What made the whole proj-ect seem possible, even exciting, was that a couple of other young men, age-mates, were already at the company and were eager to join the fray. Dave Fraedrich, hired by John Brooks right out of college, was the financial guy. Bob Hollenbaugh, a childhood buddy of Mike's, managed shipping and personnel and purchasing. The group became a kind of entrepreneurial troika. Each did a little of everything. After work they'd get together over a beer and plot out their collective future. In their dreams, it was exhilarating. In reality, it was the late 1970s, and no one could ignore the tides of history for long. Mike and his pals might be young and hopeful, but they were caught in the squeeze on margins that was strangling manufacturers all over the United States.
On the revenue side, Brooks's customers were the same big chains the company had always sold to. Sears and J.C. Penney bought 80% of the plant's output. The chains might like new designs, such as the red-laced hiking boots. They might appreciate Brooks's reputation for quality. But what they really cared about was price -- and now, with the growing availability of imports, they could put the screws on. Mike could sell a lot of shoes to those customers. He just couldn't sell them at prices that would keep his company in business over the long haul.
The cost side of the ledger looked equally bleak. All the Brooks shoes were made by union workers at the Nelsonville plant. Manufacturing techniques such as just-in-time and Toyota-style "lean production" hadn't yet made their way across the Pacific. Big corporations in a similar situation might have cut costs by eliminating layers of management. Here, that was hardly an option. Brooks was an $8-million company run by a few managers and their helpers, all crammed into a tiny warren of offices on the second floor of the aging plant. None of them took much of a salary.
One day in 1979, in a meeting with a buyer for Sears, Mike finally understood that he was losing the battle.
At an earlier meeting he had asked the buyer for a price increase of 50¢ a pair. He knew it would be a shock, but he had steeled himself; the company couldn't survive without higher margins. The buyer, an old-timer, wasn't just shocked, he was outraged. He asked Mike if his father knew what he was doing, and demanded to speak with John in person. The next week, Mike drove John, who didn't like to fly, the 400 miles from Nelsonville to Chicago.
At the meeting, Mike felt he was hung out to dry. John, worried about losing Sears's orders, waffled on the price hike. Mike, stubborn, stuck to his guns. "I said, 'Look, we want your business. But we don't want to be at breakeven anymore."
At the end, Mike thought grimly, the meeting degenerated into a good news, bad news joke. The good news: Sears agreed to the 50¢ hike. The bad news: the deal was good only until the big chain could replace Brooks as a supplier, probably with a Korean manufacturer.
"It was a long drive home," recalls Mike, sighing. "We had been promised the increase. But we had only a few months to live."
The 1980s. The floundering economy is now showing signs of life -- even in manufacturing. America's industrial giants -- some of them, anyway -- begin to learn to compete with the Japanese. Entrepreneurial companies elbow their way into the marketplace.
In shoes, the rejuvenation is dramatic: several upstart companies begin to prosper. Making an end run around the classic margin squeeze, they develop distinctive products, stamp a brand name on them, and charge premium prices. They sell their shoes through new retail channels, not just the old shoe stores and department stores. They advertise heavily. In athletic shoes the leading practitioner of this strategy is Nike. In boots it is Timberland.
But there is no middle ground. Old manufacturers in the Midwest and elsewhere keep going under. The shoe business loses another 300 plants. Grow or die, goes the saying.
As if by intuition, Mike Brooks had already begun to position his company for success in what was then an unfamiliar new marketplace.
While selling to Sears, for example, he had tacked a name onto some of the red-laced hiking boots. Rocky, he decided, "sounded strong and bold and all-American." He had a new box designed, with a picture of a bighorn sheep on it, and he put the boots in it. Then he took Bob Hollenbaugh out of the factory and told him to start selling. Hollenbaugh knocked on the doors of independent stores in Ohio and nearby states. He made sales at margins far higher than Sears would ever have given the company. In 1983 the company began marketing "occupational" shoes, the kind worn by police officers and letter carriers, under the Rocky brand. The move opened up not only a new market but a new distribution network. Gradually, Mike saw that he had to reinvent the whole business. Like Timberland, his company had to be capable of making a distinctive product -- and then selling it, at comfortable margins, through whatever channels might be most appropriate. The company also had to broaden and deepen its line. You couldn't build a powerful brand with just the four Rocky boots it was then offering.
What Mike didn't know -- couldn't know -- was whether his father, still the company's sole stockholder, would accept the radical changes growth would entail. He knew that the older man didn't like change. What John wanted was to protect the company and the jobs it provided for his family and his Nelsonville neighbors. In John's mind, Mike understood, that meant this: Keep it small. Keep it manageable.
So far, the unusual father-son arrangement had worked out surprisingly well. John ran the plant. He gave Mike his head in other areas. They didn't always see eye to eye, but they rarely argued. Mike made a point of listening to John's advice. John took quiet pride in how Mike managed the business, and let him set the course. And in two critical areas, Mike's new strategy clicked into place perfectly.
For one thing, Mike created a line of products that was innovative and distinctive -- and that couldn't be knocked off the next month in Korea or Taiwan.
The ace up Mike's sleeve was Gore-Tex, the patented membrane that lets moisture escape but keeps water droplets out. Cobbling together some early Gore-Tex boots, Mike and his colleagues had realized they were onto something. Retailers and customers loved the boots. No competitor could duplicate them without a serious investment of time and money. Expanding the Gore-Tex line, Mike developed a close relationship with W. L. Gore & Associates, the material's manufacturer. In 1989 Gore announced that it would thenceforth require all footwear customers to pay $25,000 for a license. Other manufacturers were furious at Gore's audacity. To Mike, it was as if someone had erected a fence around his market, saying, Competitors Keep Out. Arriving on Gore's doorstep with a check, he broke open a bottle of champagne with Bob Gore, the company's chief executive.
The second strategic victory was equally important. In just a few years the Brooks company had created a new distribution network and a marketing strategy capable of selling to it.
Most of the marketing effort fell to Hollenbaugh, now sales manager. Hitting the road, he visited stores and lined up reps. Soon Brooks was selling to hundreds of retailers, mostly hunting and sporting-goods stores, mostly in the Midwest. It was a perfect market. The hunters and outdoorsmen who bought the boots valued their waterproof properties and would pay a premium for them. The fact that the boots carried the "Made in the USA" label was a plus. Hollenbaugh developed catalogs for the retailers. He learned how to do advertising. He masterminded campaigns in outdoor magazines. Sales rose. In 1988 the company passed the $20-million mark.
The late 1980s. Growing entrepreneurial companies are reshaping industry after industry. Most start with a clean slate -- new technologies, a new work force, a "smart team" of savvy, seasoned executives. Typically, they boast the kind of managerial sophistication that was once found only in the Fortune 500.
Old-line, family-owned companies aren't so lucky. Top executives tend to be blood relatives, which limits the talent pool. Family issues spill over into the business. Can family businesses even compete in this new economy? The answer is murky.
As the '80s waned, Mike Brooks pushed ahead, one innovation or initiative following hard on the heels of another.
In 1989, for example, the company brought out a waterproof boot made with Du Pont's tough Cordura nylon in a camouflage pattern popular with hunters. Dubbed the Cornstalker, the boot became the company's top seller.
A couple of years earlier Mike even took a step he once would have found difficult: he established first one offshore factory, and then another.
The reasons weren't hard to fathom. One, the Brooks boots, particularly their uppers, required huge amounts of hand labor. Two, the Nelsonville plant was running at capacity. It couldn't easily be expanded, and doing so probably didn't make economic sense, anyway. In 1987, looking for contractors in the Dominican Republic, Mike met Eric Beraza, a Spanish-speaking American and shoe-industry veteran who was running a plant there. Mike proposed that Beraza set up a Brooks plant and train its work force. By late 1987 the plant was up and running. With wages at that time less than $1 an hour there, the cost was competitive with anywhere else in the world. Later Beraza set up another factory, this one in Puerto Rico. Wages there were higher, but products made in Puerto Rico could be stamped Made in the USA. In the occupational-shoe market, that was a requirement.
And yet: the fact was, by 1990, Mike Brooks was not a happy man.
Part of it, he knew, was the gnawing, stomach-churning feeling of never having enough cash. Making a seasonal product like hunting boots, the company had huge amounts of money tied up in raw materials and inventory for months at a time. Worse, every step along the growth path consumed capital. Fraedrich worked tirelessly on the finances, but he could never bring in as much cash as the company needed. Stores were clamoring for more hunting boots? Tough luck: Brooks couldn't finance the additional production. The plant and equipment were old? Live with it: there was no money to replace them.
Then there was the difficulty of coping with crises in what had become a far-flung enterprise. Mike had grown accustomed, for example, to hearing that the power in the Dominican plant had gone off for a few hours. He had bought some big diesel generators and sent them down so Beraza could keep the cutting and stitching machines running. But then, in 1990, oil prices rose. The Dominican government abruptly ended its policy of subsidizing oil purchases. The country's oil supply dropped to a trickle. Mike grew desperate. Without oil, the plant would shut down. He began loading the raw-materials containers that he shipped from Ohio to the Dominican plant with 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel. Was it legal? He had no idea.
All those problems seemed to coalesce in what was an increasingly strained relationship with his father.
For most of the '80s, John Brooks had supported Mike, just as he had in the early years. To be sure, he hadn't always agreed with Mike's moves. The labor-intensive complexities of using Gore-Tex, he liked to say, set shoemaking back a hundred years. He looked back wistfully on the days when you didn't make shoes until you had an order from someone like Sears. But John had given Mike both his blessing and his financial imprimatur. The more the company grew, the more debt it had to take on. John wasn't a rich man, but he had personally signed for every nickel, as the banks required. By the end of the decade, he was on the hook for some $10 million.
When Mike had proposed the first offshore factory, though, John drew a line in the sand. It wasn't that he thought it was a terrible idea; he was willing to let Mike build the Dominican plant. But do it with company funds? No chance. Too risky. For almost the first time, the two men found themselves shouting at each other. Eventually, they found a compromise: Mike, John, and the three other managers, including Beraza, would each put up some money of their own. Mike had to borrow his share from the bank. It irked him that he couldn't spend company funds on a move he thought necessary for the company's very survival.
From then on, the relationship was never quite as smooth. Mike wanted to expand the Dominican operation; John was opposed. Mike talked about taking the company public; John wouldn't hear of it. "I got close to leaving," Mike says now, pausing to reflect. "Very close. Very, very close." He had plenty of opportunities in the industry. But he didn't want to let the family down.
And then, one day in August 1991, it was over. John came into Mike's office. That's it, he said. I'm retiring. I'm giving the business to you and your brothers and sisters. There were reasons. John was then 70. His wife -- Mike's mother -- was ill and needed care. And there was a wrinkle. Since John would no longer be the owner of the company, the banks wanted him off the note. All five siblings and their spouses would have to sign it. The total debt, by then, was $11.25 million. None of the Brooks siblings had significant funds of their own.
The 1990s. The new economy is in full bloom. Now the issue is who will get to play in it. Over time, entrepreneurial companies sort themselves out. Some stay small, content with tiny niches. Some look for bigger partners and vanish into the mergers-and-acquisitions maw.
But some go for the gold ring. They seek out the capital that will enable them to develop their lines, to expand their markets, to operate nationally or even internationally.
Looked at coldly, the logical next step for the Brooks family would have been to sell the company. It wouldn't have been hard. Rocky had a well-known brand and a solid niche in the marketplace. It had a well-developed distribution network, not to mention plants and equipment in three locations. But Mike, with his siblings, had just inherited a company -- and he wasn't selling, he was dreaming. By 1992 sales were nearing $30 million. He had just introduced a line of hand-sewn shoes, and he had some ideas about other lines. Put them together, he figured, and you could imagine a $100-million -- even a $200-million -- company.
But without money, it was all just fantasy. And Rocky had no money beyond what was needed to finance the factory and pay the interest. There was only one place to get the capital he needed: from the public markets. Mike and Dave Fraedrich met with potential underwriters. Eventually, they chose J. C. Bradford & Co., out of Nashville, and set in motion the complex mechanisms of an initial public offering.
You have to spend money to make money, Mike told himself. But he hadn't quite realized how expensive and risky an IPO could be. The accountants got busy. So did the lawyers. The corporations that operated the Dominican and Puerto Rican plants had to be folded into the parent company, which was being renamed Rocky Shoes and Boots. By the time the prospectus was drafted and printed, the offering had cost Rocky some $630,000, plus the time and expense Mike and Fraedrich had put into it. Yet no one could know how Wall Street would view an IPO from an obscure little shoe company in Ohio.
As it happened, by late 1992 initial public offerings were back in favor on the Street. Timberland stock was hot -- it had more than doubled during 1992 -- so another outdoor-shoe company looked good. In January 1993 Mike and Fraedrich began the road show.
Like all road shows, it was grueling. After 10 days Mike was played out. At his last meeting -- with a group of eager young analysts from Fidelity Investments, the big Boston-based mutual-fund house -- he hit the wall. They asked questions. Why are you any different from Timberland? How can you make money with U.S. manufacturing? Mike had answered the same questions once too often. "I said, 'Look, guys, we're going to take this company public whether you buy any stock or not.' I said, 'You can buy it at $10 a share, or don't buy it. I don't care." He left for Logan airport in Boston and ordered up a double martini.
Before drinking it, he called his contact at Bradford to apologize for his behavior. Never mind, the Bradford guy said -- Fidelity just ordered 150,000 shares.
Rocky Shoes and Boots went public on February 3, 1993, netting about $15 million. Ever since, money has been flowing through the parched company like water through an irrigation ditch, bringing dreams to fruition.
The old Nelsonville plant has undergone a metamorphosis. Last fall you could have caught it in midtransformation. Some sections of the plant were dark and dingy. Workers in those areas moved rack after rack of shoes-in-the-making from one station to another, much as they had done for the past 60 years. In the new areas, by contrast, teams assembled a constant flow of shoes under bright lights. Paid by their team's output rather than by the traditional piece-rate system -- and earning from $1 to $1.50 an hour more now than before -- team members scurried to help one another with their jobs. Plant manager Allen Sheets estimated that the new system cut throughput time from 10 days to 3, and that the 3 would soon be 2. Mike figured that the cost of making a shoe dropped by 7%, even with the higher wages. In a business like shoemaking, that was the difference between scraping by and making decent money.
Behind the Nelsonville plant, ground has been broken for a new 12,000-square-foot retail store, a "mini L.L. Bean," as Mike describes it. Nelsonville isn't on anybody's main road, but so many people in this rural section of Ohio stop by Rocky that even the old store last year did $2.2 million. The new one, says Mike, should do more than $4 million. A little ways down the road, out behind the company's offices, is a 60,000-square-foot addition to its already-cavernous warehouse facilities.
How much more the company will grow is anybody's guess. Already it's the largest producer of Gore-Tex footwear in the world. This fiscal year, analysts say, it should top $50 million in sales. Investors are optimistic. Rocky's stock, initially offered at $10 a share, peaked at more than $20 a share last November. As Inc. went to press, it was around $13. To be sure, the footwear industry is still hazardous. By the end of 1993 the IPO money was invested, and the company again was back to bank loans. It had boosted production, but it still couldn't meet existing demand.
For the moment, however, at least a few dreams have been realized.
John Brooks, nearing 73, still comes in every morning at 7:30. He hasn't moved his office down the road, where Mike and the other managers sit; it's still in the plant. On John's wall is a meticulous, hand-lettered chart of the week's production. There are no hard feelings about the disagreements over the offshore manufacturing. Though John divvied up the company among his children, he retained an interest in the Dominican plant. That interest, translated into Rocky stock, was worth about a million dollars. At the IPO, John cashed it in. When Mike gave him the check, John smiled. He said, "Hard to believe, isn't it, son?"
Mike Brooks, 48, has many of his dreams ahead of him. Right now what he feels is responsibility -- for the business, for its employees, for its investors. The payroll now numbers more than 1,000. There are 565 workers in the Dominican Republic, 230 in Puerto Rico, nearly 300 in Nelsonville. The list of investors includes a sizable number of individuals, many of whom are local. "A lot of people are counting on the company to be successful," says Mike. "I feel a lot of pressure."
But he can already point to one accomplishment: the effect his company has had on Nelsonville. Near the Rocky factory is the remains of what was once a brewery. The Rocky plant itself might have become the remains of a shoe factory. Nelsonville might be dying. It isn't. That's because Rocky Shoes and Boots -- and Mike Brooks, who runs the company -- are survivors.
Research assistance for this article was provided by Vera Gibbons.


text: Sijun Forums :: View topic - Spawn Pic Log in to check your private messages Sijun Forums Forum Index >> Archive : Sep99 - Dec00 View previous topic :: View next topic Author Topic : "Spawn Pic" Leethaljunior memberMember #Joined: 28 Dec 2000Posts: 23Location: Huntington Beach, CA Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2000 4:17 pm Im made this pic pretty fast. It is very crappy. I personally hate it. Oh well. Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Sijun Forums Forum Index -> Archive : Sep99 - Dec00 All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Digital Art----------------Digital Art DiscussionWork in ProgressGallery/Finished Work Miscellaneous----------------Random MusingsArchive : Sep99 - Dec00 You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2005 phpBB Group


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| 12.3°C Belfast
Tom Cruise has revealed that Mission: Impossible 5 will be "very entertaining".
The Hollywood star, who will reprise his role as IMF agent Ethan Hunt in the next instalment, said a script has already been written.
Asked how they would top the fourth film, he said: "I never think like 'we're going to top it', we're just going to try to make the film as entertaining as possible."
Tom, who was given the Empire Legend of a Lifetime gong at the 2014 Jameson Empire Awards, said fans of the franchise will not be disappointed.
He added: "We've come up with a lot of fun things. I don't know. I think it's going to be a very entertaining movie, very thrilling."
His co-star Simon Pegg, who will return to play scientist Benji Dunn, also revealed that they plan to start shooting in the summer.
"We're not far off (from starting). I think we're going to start in the summer and I'm looking forward to getting back with that team. I'm very excited about working with Christopher McQuarrie. The script is exciting, so I'm excited about that," he said.
Jeremy Renner is also tipped to return for Mission: Impossible 5, which will be released in December 2015.


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Cyclophage Preserve
|Cyclophage Preserve
|Inhabited by
|Member of
|Department of Parks and Monsters
|First appearance
|"Rebirth" (6ACV01)
The Cyclophage Preserve is a reserve whose function is to preserve the Cyclophages, an endangered species. This preserve is administered by the Department of Parks and Monsters. It was once visited by the Planet Express crew to sacrifice Leela to the Cyclophages, which was her wish if she went in a permanent coma.


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Peter Jackson took to Facebook to day to tell the world, The Hobbit Pt. 3 has a new title. Feeling that "There and Back Again" just wouldn't work, because hey, Bilbo's already there, Jackson Has decided to rename the picture The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The battle, involving Men, Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and Eagles will more than likely be Helm's Deep part two and last the majority of the film.
Do you think the new title is better?


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To ignore this incredibly cliché header image!
Yes, that's right. B-TEN is now expanding from just video games to anime. And guess who's idea that was and is subsequently also head of the new anime department?
Yes! it's me! I'm in charge of everything about this new anime part, including recruiting writers. Now, here's my question: Do you want to write about anime for B-TEN? (You can also write about video games if you want, but I really need people to write about anime).
I'm looking for people to write about anime news, to write reviews, or write about anything else related to the otaku lifestyle. The environment you'll be working in is insanely casual (what would you expect if I'm supposed to be keeping order?). Any one from TAY will be accepted. Oh, and you'll need a Facebook account (you can make a new one though if you don't like getting too personal, it's just for a means to communicate). Oh yeah, you'll probably get a picture like this one too:
my curls are just as beautiful as you think they are
What you'll need to do when you work for B-TEN is simply write stuff. There's no limitation to how often you'll have to write. I'll be taking care of (some) marketing (or whatever that is) and trying to get contacts in the anime world (you know, free stuff). But help is always appreciated on that area (because I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just some guy who likes to watch Gantz and talk about anime).
You also won't get paid YET. I'm terribly sorry for that, but we're still growing and aren't even making profit yet (though I think we broke even this month, so we're getting better). But, as soon as we start pulling enough green we can give you guys all the manay in the wurld (ok, not that much). But, that doesn't mean you won't get free stuff, you can ask developers and people like that to give you stuff to write about. Quite a few people on B-TEN have been doing that already.
So, if you're interested or have any questions please let me know
Ps. GBD, if you don't want me to have this up here I can edit it to be full of cat gifs instead. Also, to the Kotaku staff, you're welcome to write for B-TEN too.


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So. You guys have really, really strong opinions about the Battle of Hoth.
Many took issue with my argument that Hoth represented a military debacle for the Galactic Empire. Some questioned the (meta)factual premises of my case (are TIE Fighters even capable of in-atmospheric flight?). Others argued that Vader was deliberately trying to lose, rendering my essay myopic. Still others desired to travel back in time and physically accost my childhood self, so as to spare me the error of even thinking about Hoth. Anger, fear, aggression: the dark side are they.
My responses are less interesting than those that others can provide. So we at Danger Room widened the aperture and brought in six military nerds — soldiers, academics, bloggers — with a similarly abiding love for Star Wars. Some agree with me, most disagree with me, and all add keen insights, except for when they disagree with me. In any event, check out their thoughts on Hoth, for the Force is strong with them.
Vader Lost Bigger at Bespin
If Hoth was a defeat for Darth Vader, as Spencer Ackerman contends, it was a short-lived one at best. Thanks to well-conceived contingency plans, and a judicious use of nefarious private military contractors, Darth Vader was still well along the path to achieving his ultimate strategic objective: turning Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force, and finally overthrowing the Emperor. Of course, Vader's agenda only tangentially marries up with that of the Imperial Forces at large, and is cross-purposes with that of the Emperor. Thus, Vader's true objective in the attack on Hoth is not the destruction of the Rebel Alliance, but rather, capturing Luke. In many ways, Darth Vader is a one-man shadow government, who seeks to find and shelter the religious extremist responsible for the greatest terrorist act ever perpetrated against the Empire — all to further his own personal political agenda.
Luke Skywalker may have escaped to Dagobah, sure, but Yoda saves Vader the expense and hassle of having to train young Luke. In fact, Luke's escape actually gives Vader plausible deniability when Emperor Palpatine confronts Vader via hologram on Luke's paternity.
Vader's true strategic failure comes not at Hoth, but at Bespin, when he fails to turn Luke to the Dark Side. By the next film, Vader's been removed from field command, relegated to overseeing defense contractors working on yet another flawed and bloated acquisitions program. And of course, in Return of the Jedi, it's Emperor Palpatine's turn to take the offensive, using Luke to dispatch his weakened apprentice, and carry on the Sith legacy. In Star Wars, intergalactic civil war is little more than a vehicle to advance the grand plan of the Sith.
Major Crispin J. Burke is a U.S. Army Aviator who blogs at Wings Over Iraq. Follow him on Twitter at @CrispinBurke.
Losing the Death Star Was Worse
If you ask Old Moff Tarkin, at the heart of the Imperial failure at Hoth are the failures of his subordinates during the Battle of Yavin 4. Had the Imperial Navy been able to protect a 3-meter vulnerability with all of the resources and TIE Fighters it had available, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The Death Star would have ended the Rebel Alliance then and there, and a galaxy cowed by fear would be kept in check by the Tarkin Doctrine.
This is not what happened. With the failure at Yavin 4 the Empire lost two of its greatest assets: a planet-killing doom gun and the strategist who understood it best. Grand Moff Tarkin's fondness for enhanced interrogation techniques offends our modern sensibilities, especially when one of those interrogation tools is to blow up Princess Leia's homeworld and everyone on it. But one doesn't end up in command of the Empire's deadliest weapon without a willingness to use it and the ruthlessness to use it for minor objectives. By threatening to destroy Alderaan, Tarkin forced Leia to reveal Dantooine as a rebel base. By destroying it anyway, he eliminated a world sympathetic to rebels, whose very princess had joined the rebellion, and denied a potential safe haven.
Had Vader not botched the defense of the Death Star, the Battle of Hoth would have been precluded and Grand Moff Tarkin would be rightly recognized as the greatest strategist the galaxy has ever seen. Or, if the rebellion somehow survived the destruction of Yavin to evacuate to Hoth, there is nothing in the Rebel defenses that could have prevented the planet from being destroyed. As others here discuss, this was not just incompetence on behalf of Vader, it was ulterior motives and willful failure. Betrayed by his ally, let down by his subordinates, and undermined by weak InfoSec against Bothans, the defeat at Yavin meant Hoth was lost before it had even begun.
Kelsey Atherton is Popular Science's online Defense Tech writer, and the founder of Grand Blog Tarkin.
Feel the Power of the Dark Side
Ackerman's account of imperial tactics at the Battle of Hoth relies far too much on hearsay and questionable inferences. The Empire Strikes Back provides no evidence that Lord Vader intended to obliterate the rebel base from space. His orders to Admiral Piett are not to destroy every rebel ship, but to "deploy the fleet so that nothing gets off that system." But such errors pale in significance to Ackerman's disturbing lack of faith. He dismisses Vader's approach as a "classic fiasco" of "theology masquerading as military judgment." Ackerman clearly underestimates the power of the Force — and thus the strategic context of the Hoth engagement. The rebellion was a relatively "insignificant" component of the true battlespace of Star Wars: the Force itself and the Jedi-Sith struggle over its proper balance.
Star Wars chronicles a pivotal period in this conflict: the near-total victory of the Sith. Palpatine (Darth Sidius) rose to the position of Chancellor in the Old Republic by engineering a civil war between the Republic and the secessionist Confederacy of Independent Systems. As we all know, Palpatine used this conflict to lay the political and ideological groundwork for the creation of the Galactic Empire. But few historians appreciate the extent to which all of this amounted to a means to a different end: the revenge of the Sith in the form of the permanent eradication of the Jedi Order. The perpetuation of the Clone Wars distracted and corrupted the Order. The eventual Jedi attempt at a coup d'état against Palpatine — at a time of his own engineering — provided the pretext for shifting the entire security apparatus of the Republic-turned-Empire to the task of their destruction. By the time of the Battle of Hoth, this task was all but complete: Luke Skywalker was the only (known) threat to the ultimate victory of the Sith.
As other critics document here, a major feature of the Jedi-Sith conflict of this era involved the Sith Master-Apprentice dialectic. Attention to this dialectic reveals the tactical wisdom behind Vader's choices at Hoth — choices driven by the overriding imperative of capturing Luke Skywalker — including his decision to lead the ground assault on Echo Base. Yes, Vader's approach was undermined by the mistakes of his subordinates. Yes, Skywalker escaped. But capturing an extremely powerful Force-sensitive, even one inadequately trained, presents enormous difficulties even under the best of circumstances. Yes, the rebellion managed to survive their defeat at Hoth. But a broader appreciation of the rebellion puts it in its proper place: little more than a sideshow in the Jedi-Sith Long War. The outcome of that conflict depended entirely on the Palpatine-Vader-Skywalker struggle. Palpatine and Vader understood this reality, even if it eludes certain armchair Grand Moffs.
Daniel Nexon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He blogs at The Duck of Minerva.
Hoth Showed Imperial Overstretch
The Battle of Hoth is difficult to understand without considering Imperial political order. Professor Daniel Nexon argues that empires maintain control through indirect rule and contractual relationships. The Empire is no exception, as coercion alone would be prohibitively expensive in a galactic polity. We don't know how much wealth the Empire could draw on from its subordinate polities, but even an optimistic estimate still doesn't change the fact that military operations in space require expensive capital-intensive military platforms, logistics, and expert technical personnel.
The Empire had no local partners on Hoth, and Vader commanded a large personal armada that was nonetheless barely adequate for the daunting task of completely blocking off both Hoth's surface and orbital expanse. A much larger ground force with air superiority met with similarly subpar results during the Clone War's Battle of Geonosis. In contrast, all the Rebel Alliance needed to do was evacuate its elites and reconstitute its forces elsewhere. As Graham Jenkins points out in this roundtable, the Rebels deserve credit for their tenacious — and effective — delaying battle.
Why didn't the Empire devote more resources to Hoth? It's hard to tell from the Canon alone. Maybe other political machinations necessitated competing Imperial deployments. Palpatine, intending to replace Vader with Luke Skywalker, may also have been wary about giving his heavy-breathing subordinate a larger force than the substantial units Vader already commanded. Finally, supporting large expeditionary forces and building the second Death Star likely strained Imperial finances. Despite Vader's operational errors and structural disadvantages, the outcome was still dangerously close for the Rebel Alliance. Imperial command decisions were not the dominant factor in Imperial strategic failure.
Adam Elkus is a Ph.D. student in International Relations at American University.
What Matters for Vader Is Luke, Not Hoth
There's one key element of the Empire's failure at Hoth that Ackerman never fully explores when he warns not to "place unaccountable religious fanatics in wartime command": To Vader, the Imperial force at Hoth — and the battle against the rebels — was a pretext for his real goal, finding Luke. He wouldn't have minded wiping out the rest of the rebels, and he was happy enough to use the Imperial fleet to try to stop rebel ships (Luke's ship) from leaving the system, but that's not why he was there. Vader didn't care at all whether or not they defeated the rebels that day. Understanding why that is requires understanding Vader's personality.
Vader wasn't a strategist, he was a tragic hero. He was Anakin Skywalker, supremely talented, painfully sensitive, devilishly impatient, stubbornly sure of his own rightness, and most of all ruled by instinct and emotion. Anakin Skywalker never listened much to what other people wanted him to do, no matter their nominal authority over him. He ignored his mother and Qui-Gon, resisted Obi-Wan on matters large and small, and defied the Jedi Council. He was passionate and impulsive, prone to leaping before he looked and taking off on unapproved missions if he felt they were right. He hared off to Tatooine after his mother against Obi-Wan's orders. He married Padme in violation of the Jedi Code.
As unsuccessful as George Lucas might have been in depicting this, Anakin loved Padme so passionately and so beyond reason that he was willing to burn down the whole galaxy for just a chance to save her. Luke was his son, and more importantly, Luke was Padme's son. As soon as Vader knew he was out there, Palpatine's wishes no longer mattered, and Vader was once more in service only to his own motivations. He continued to follow the Emperor's orders where it was convenient for him, but on Hoth and everywhere else for the rest of the series, he was doing what he wanted, to the inevitable detriment of the Empire's military effectiveness.
Caitlin Fitz Gerald is the Boston-based writer and artist behind the Children's Illustrated Clausewitz.
Vader Forgot the Clone Wars
Ackerman's discussion of the fiasco at the Battle of Hoth is fine as far as it goes, but makes no effort to understand the sources of Imperial failure. We shall concentrate on the ground assault, which was emblematic of the state of the late Imperial armed forces. The main Imperial ground force carried out a poorly organized frontal assault, over unbroken ground, against prepared defenses, with minimal provision for either air defense or air superiority, without integrated tactical airlift, without serious attempt to flank the rebel position, and without sufficient artillery. Although the Rebel base was reduced, Imperial forces took unacceptable casualties, and allowed a high proportion (over 50 percent) of fielded Rebel forces to escape destruction. Given the rarity of such an opportunity during the Galactic Civil War, this failure represented nothing if not a strategic catastrophe.
We do not speak of the sources of failure, but they should be well known. The first was the commitment of extensive resources to the construction of strategic weapons which could, by their very nature, make no tactical contribution. The second was the decision to abandon the tactics and procedures which had won the Clone Wars; well equipped clone armies honed to razor sharp conventional military effectiveness. We have little space here to revisit the destructive "Clones can't do Counterinsurgency" debates that helped lead to a shift in personnel policies, but it is clear that these misguided efforts to defuse the rebellion by co-opting individual insurgents inevitably produced a force unready to fight high intensity, conventional battles against dedicated, well-equipped, and well-trained foes.
Instead, Imperial commanders marched blithely forward, relying on the strength of their armor in lieu of tactics, training, and professional excellence. To be sure, these failures were not limited to Imperial ground forces, as the Imperial Navy's disgraceful performance at the Battle of Endor should make clear. The strategists of the Empire put technology and politics ahead of tactics, and individual proficiency became a joke; we saw the consequences not just at Hoth, but also at Yavin, Endor, and a dozen other battles.
Robert Farley is assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.


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Investigators believe a woman furious about her missing cell phone may have set a fire in a Manhattan apartment building that injured three early Friday.
The fire broke out just after 1 a.m. Friday on the eighth floor of the 18-story building at 109th Street and Lexington Avenue, the fire department said. The fire was brought under control in about 45 minutes.
Two people had minor injuries. Another man is in critical condition, according to officials.
Police say a man and a woman were in the apartment apparently arguing over a cell phone. When the 21-year-old woman couldn't find her phone, in a rage, she set fire to a pile of clothes with a cigarette.
Neighbor Stalin Maldonado said his friends were also in the apartment with their 1-year-old baby daughter, and heard the cries for help.
"'Somebody help us, there's a baby in here!'" he recalled hearing. "'Help us, help us.'"
Other neighbors said they stayed in their apartments as thick black smoke enveloped the hallways and seeped into the elevators.
"I heard somebody screaming outside, and we opened the thing there was smoke and we closed it," said Angel Quiles. "It was dark, very dark."
Maldanado couldn't believe the arson allegation. Thousands of people live in the high-rise building, part of the DeWitt Clinton Houses.
"It's not just that apartment that could have been destroyed," he said. "That's crazy."
The woman who allegedly set the fire was being questioned by police. Police have not yet announced any charges.


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Live Chat
Contact us
Sign in to MyChart
Influenza (flu) is a highly contagious viral infection and is one of the most severe illnesses of the winter season.
Influenza is a viral infection of the upper respiratory system, which includes the nose, bronchial tubes, and lungs. Influenza has these common symptoms:
Muscle aches
Sore throat
Nonproductive cough
Influenza can make people of any age ill. Although most people, including children, are ill with influenza for less than a week, some have a much more serious illness and may need to be hospitalized. Influenza may also lead to pneumonia or death.
Influenza viruses are divided into three types designated as A, B, and C:
Influenza types A and B cause epidemics of respiratory illness that happen almost every winter. They often lead to increased rates of hospitalization and death. Public health efforts to control the spread of influenza focus on types A and B. One of the reasons the flu remains a problem is because the viruses actually change their structure regularly. This means that people are exposed to new types of the virus each year.
Influenza type C usually causes either a very mild respiratory illness or no symptoms at all. It does not cause epidemics and does not have the severe public health impact that influenza types A and B do.
Influenza viruses continually change (mutate), which helps the virus to evade the immune system of both children and adults. People can get the flu no matter what their age. The process works like this:
A person infected with an influenza virus develops antibodies against that virus.
The virus changes.
The "older" antibodies no longer recognize the "newer" virus when the next flu season comes around.
The person becomes infected again.
The older antibodies can give some protection against getting the flu again. Vaccines given each year to protect against the flu contain the influenza virus strain from each type that is expected to cause the flu that year.
An influenza virus is generally passed from person to person through the air. This means your child can get the flu by coming in contact with an infected person who sneezes or coughs. The virus can also live for a short time on things like doorknobs, pens or pencils, keyboards, telephone receivers, and eating or drinking utensils. So your child can get the flu virus by touching something that has been handled by someone infected with the virus and then touching his or her own mouth, nose, or eyes.
People are generally the most contagious with the flu 24 hours before they start having symptoms and during the time they have the most symptoms. That's why it is hard to prevent the spread of the flu, especially among children, because they do not always know they are sick while they are still spreading the disease. The risk of infecting others usually stops around the seventh day of the infection.
Influenza is called a respiratory disease, but the whole body seems to suffer when a child has it. Children usually become suddenly ill with any or all of the following symptoms:
Fever, which may be as high as 103° F (39.4° C) to 105° F (40.5° C)
Muscle and joint aches and pains
Not feeling well "all over"
Runny or stuffy nose
Worsening cough
Most people recover from influenza within a week, but they still feel exhausted for as long as 3 to 4 weeks.
The symptoms of influenza may resemble other conditions or medical problems. Always see your child's health care provider for a diagnosis.
A cold and the flu are two different illnesses. A cold is relatively harmless and usually clears up by itself after a period of time. Sometimes a cold may lead to a secondary infection, such as an ear infection. But the flu can lead to complications, such as pneumonia and even death. What may seem like a cold may be the flu. Be aware of these differences:
Cold symptoms
Flu symptoms
Low or no fever
High fever
Sometimes a headache
Headache (very common)
Stuffy, runny nose
Clear nose or stuffy nose
Sometimes sneezing
Mild, hacking cough
Cough, often becoming severe
Slight aches and pains
Often severe aches and pains
Mild fatigue
Several weeks of fatigue
Sometimes a sore throat
Normal energy level or may feel sluggish
Extreme exhaustion
A new influenza vaccine is available each year, before the start of flu season. All children, beginning at 6 months, should get the flu vaccine each year, as soon as it is available in their community.
The flu vaccine is available as a shot and a nasal spray. The nasal spray vaccine is for healthy children and adolescents ages 2 to 17 (and in healthy adults ages 18 to 49). It is recommended, instead of the shot, for healthy children ages 2 to 8 years old. The nasal spray vaccine should not be given to those who:
Are pregnant
Have weakened immune systems
Have an egg allergy
Have asthma or wheezing (young children)
Are taking aspirin ling-term (children and adolescents)
Will have close contact with someone with a weakened immune system within 7 days
Took antiviral medication in the past 2 days
The flu shot, instead of the nasal spray, should be given to those people. Be sure to talk with your health care provider about which flu vaccine is right for your child.
Antiviral medications can be prescribed to help prevent someone from getting severe long-lasting symptoms or from getting the flu. Talk with your child's health care provider about antiviral medication if your child was around someone with the flu.
Following these precautions may be helpful:
When possible, avoid or limit contact with infected people.
Frequent handwashing may reduce, but not eliminate, the risk for infection.
A person who is coughing or sneezing should cover his or her nose and mouth with a tissue or inside elbow to limit spread of the virus.
Vaccine effectiveness varies from year to year, depending on how close the influenza virus strains included in the vaccine match strain or strains that actually circulate during the influenza season. Vaccine strains must be chosen 9 to 10 months before the influenza season. Sometimes, changes occur in the circulating strains of viruses between the time vaccine strains are chosen and the next influenza season. These changes may reduce the ability of the vaccine-induced antibodies to stop the newly mutated virus. This decreases the chance that the vaccine will work.
Vaccine effectiveness also varies from one person to another, depending on factors like age and overall health.
The most serious side effect of an influenza vaccination is an allergic reaction in people who have a severe allergy to eggs. There are vaccines available for those with an egg allergy.
Some people who get the vaccine have soreness at the vaccine site. Some people have mild side effects, such as a headache or a low-grade fever for about a day after vaccination. Because these mild side effects are like some influenza symptoms, some people believe influenza vaccine causes them to get influenza. But the CDC says that "influenza vaccine produced in the United States has never been capable of causing influenza because the only type of influenza vaccine that has been licensed in the United States to the present time is made from killed influenza viruses, which cannot cause infection."
The vaccine is recommended for all people 6 months and older, including pregnant women. People who are allergic to eggs may be given a different flu vaccine for people with an egg allergy. It is especially important that people in these groups get a flu shot:
Pregnant women and women who plan to be pregnant during flu season
People 50 and older. Vaccine effectiveness may be lower for older adults, but it can significantly reduce their chances of serious illness or death from influenza.
Children 6 months to 19 years old
Residents of nursing homes and any other long-term care facilities that house people of any age who have chronic medical conditions
Adults and children who have long-term heart or lung conditions
Adults and children who have the following medical conditions:
Endocrine disorders, such as diabetes
Kidney or liver disorders
Weakened immune system from diseases such as HIV or AIDS or taking long-term steroids
Blood disorders such as sickle cell disease
Children and teenagers ages 6 months to 19 years who are taking aspirin as long-term therapy
Health care providers and other staff that provide care in hospitals, nursing homes, home healthy and other facilities
Household members, including children, of people in high-risk groups
Specific treatment for influenza will be determined by your child's doctor based on:
Your child's age, overall health, and medical history
The severity of symptoms
Your child's tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
Expectations for the course of the condition
Your opinion or preference
The goal of treatment for influenza is to help prevent or decrease the severity of symptoms. Treatment may include:
Medications, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, to relieve aches and fever. Aspirin should not be given to children with a fever without talking to your child's health care provider first. The drug of choice for children is acetaminophen.
Bed rest
Increased fluid intake
Medication for your child's cough may be prescribed by your child's provider after a thorough check-up.
Antiviral medications may help to shorten the length of the illness and decrease the severity of symptoms, but do not cure the flu. They must be started within three days after symptoms begin to have an effect on the virus. The length of therapy will be determined by your child's provider. Antiviral medications may also be given as prophylaxis or prevention following exposure to someone with influenza.
Vidant Health can connect you to health care professionals to help you understand your condition and guide you through the treatment process. Let's chat.


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I have this friend. (Really, I swear it's not me.) She never really had a breakup, despite the fact that she dated a lot. And dated a lot of losers. But no matter how bad the cad, she strove to end things peacefully, operating according to a simple mantra she called "keeping the door open."
Makes sense. There's a certain comfort that comes from knowing we have options. It mitigates risk. We're told, after all, that keeping all one's eggs in one basket is a bad plan. Unless one is planning on making a large omelet.
I was reminded of this after a conversation I recently had with a couple of girlfriends, discussing the post I wrote about New York Mag's "Sex Diaries" piece, during which, one declared: "I think, for our generation, commitment is kind of like death."
Well then.
These ideas, I'd argue to say they're almost an indelible part of the current condition. Choice is a blessing. To commit to one is to be, at best, a fool; at worst, well, dead. Stagnated. You can be anything you want! You can do anything you want! You can Have. It. All. You don't know how lucky you are, to live in an era marked by the number of open doors you have before you! So what kind of fool would suggest we'd be better off closing them?
Dan Ariely, for one. Check this tidy summary:
In Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely suggests that there is a price to be paid for having many options. He claims that we have an irrational compulsion to keep 'doors' open. He suggests that we ought to shut a lot of them because they draw energy and commitment away from those that we should keep open.
Buzzkill, no? And yet. Of course it makes sense. And it's so funny, because, in all likelihood, closing a bunch of those doors probably would go a long way to ease so many of the problems we talk about here: the pain of multitasking; the impossibility of achieving the perfect work-life balance; the angsting over the roads not traveled. (The baking of the ever-lovin cupcakes.) So why should suggesting we just stick to the path we're on and forget about all the others be such a buzzkill?
Psychological theorizing is all well and good, of course. But does it really change anything? Does knowing that we're making ourselves crazy make us any less crazy? But what if we took this advice to heart, if we were to just decide, once and for all: This is it! Those roads not traveled? Screw 'em! Would that really make us feel better?
Honestly, I don't know. But I don't really want to find out, either. I mean, ignorance may be bliss, but it's a bliss in which I am one hundred percent uninterested. I'll admit, I am a product of my times, and I am happy for all those doors. No matter how crazy they make me. And, the blessing and the curse of these modern times is this: no matter how much we might buy into this idea that closing off a bunch of them would make our lives easier, no matter how much we might want to pretend that those other doors are not open to us, the fact remains: they're there. You can't unring this (door)bell.
And as long as they're there, I'll be wondering what's going on behind each and every one of them.


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Interactions Between Jail Detainees and Correctional Officers at Hardin County Jail are Automatically Tracked with PDC's Clincher® RFID Wristbands
Jail Achieves Defensible Regulatory Compliance through Automated RFID Technology
San Fernando, CA (February 18, 2010) - In a new initiative to automatically track and document critical interactions between inpidual jail detainees and guards, Hardin County Jail in Eldora, Iowa has implemented Clincher® RFID (radio frequency identification) Wristbands as a major enhancement to its GUARDIAN® RFID Corrections System from Codex Corp.
Nick Whitmore, Jail Administrator, states, "Clincher RFID Wristbands provide a new level of precise, point-of-contact verification of one-on-one interaction between the detainee and our correctional officers. The Clincher RFID Wristbands, with GUARDIAN® Mobile software, electronically validate our officer's physical contact with detainees whether it's to log headcounts, supply passes, jail rounds, or more." Whitmore continues, "Before using Clincher RFID Wristbands, we solely relied on RFID tags positioned throughout the facility, which only provide our officer's proof-of-presence within the general vicinity of the detainee. With Clincher, we now have electronic documentation of the inmate, date, time, location, and guard officer that were involved in each interaction."
Hardin County Jail first installed the GUARDIAN RFID Corrections System in 2005 as a Correctional Compliance™ system for its 107 inmate capacity facility. Implemented in December 2009, the adoption of Clincher RFID Wristbands enhances the jail's safety and security by providing non-transferable identification of detainees. Previously, Hardin County Jail used ID badges for detainee identification, but as Whitmore points out, "ID cards were sometimes lost by the detainees or taken by another inmate. With Clincher RFID Wristbands, the detainee's ID stays intact at all times." Clincher's read/write technology interfaces with the GUARDIAN RFID Corrections System for real-time, electronic recordkeeping, tracking, and reporting.
Regulatory compliance within the jail is a key driver for the RFID applications now used at Hardin County Jail. As the officers scan an inpidual detainee's Clincher RFID Wristband with their ruggedized mobile computers, powered by GUARDIAN Mobile software, the GUARDIAN system records the interaction at the point of contact which provides defensible documentation for regulatory compliance. "If there is an investigation on an assault or suicide occurrence, we're able to document and prove in court that there was one-on-one contact between the inpidual detainee and jail guard. Being able to manage and document the inpidual interactions between guards and detainees is critical to several of our safety programs, including suicide prevention, drug abuse prevention, and medical care administration," said Whitmore.
There are several applications designed to improve jail security and detainee safety, while also automating manual processes to save time and labor. Tracking the issuance and return of supplies—especially dangerous supplies, such as shaving razors—to inpidual detainees is now administered using Clincher RFID Wristbands. Another application is tracking the transfer of detainees from the jail to court and back to ensure all detainees are accounted.
Plans are underway for further application development at Hardin County Jail for automated documentation of other key compliance programs using the GUARDIAN RFID Corrections System and Clincher® RFID Wristbands.
For additional information regarding PDC's Clincher® RFID Wristbands please call 800.838.3683 or visit www.pdcorp.com/clincher. For additional information on the GUARDIAN® RFID Corrections System by Codex Corp. call 866-382-6339 or visit www.codexcorp.com/guardian.
About Precision Dynamics Corporation
With over 50 years of experience, PDC is the global leader and pacesetter in the development of wristband and label systems for healthcare, leisure and entertainment, and law enforcement. The company introduced the first patient bar code ID wristband, patented Smart Band® Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) wristbands, and the award winning PDC Smart® Kiosk. PDC is committed to 100% quality in service, design, and manufacturing and has ISO-9001: 2000 and ISO-13485: 2003 certification. For more information, visit www.pdcorp.com.
About Codex Corp.
Codex Corp. is a provider of Correctional Compliance Software delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) to government agencies and companies to address legal, corporate, and government compliance and risk management. Codex blends innovation and emerging technologies, including Web, radio frequency identification (RFID), and mobile computing to create practical, value-driven software solutions.
Information included in the press releases is accurate as of the date of the release and can be subject to change.


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InFocus Touchscreens
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You do important work every day. Whether it's monitoring traffic systems, deploying first responders, teaching or presenting your quarterly numbers, what you do matters. We respect that. You rely on your digital tools to enable you to get work done faster and better. Your PC. Your smartphone. Dozens of apps. And when you need to connect with one person or a thousand anywhere, any time from any device, we have the right solution for you. More than just conference room, classroom, display wall and boardroom solutions, we offer tools that connect global enterprise infrastructures and employees from any and everywhere. And while technology innovation is important, sharing ideas, information and connecting with people beyond what you can do with a traditional conference call is what we care about. Because that's how successful companies connect teams and monitor information. That's how you do it better and faster. We do important work every day, too – we work with a passion to provide you seamless solutions that enable you to share more, do more, work faster, be smarter and succeed beyond what you'd expect every single day. We're powering great work. We're InFocus.


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Does My Return Have To Be on Paper?IRS
Qualifying Widow(er) With Dependent Child
Social Security Numbers for Dependents
Credit for Withholding and Estimated Tax for 2014Withholding
Special Rules for Certain EmployeesClergy
Reporting Tips to Your Employer
Reporting Tips on Your Tax Return
When To Report Interest Income
Property Changed to Rental Use
Personal Use of Dwelling Unit (Including Vacation Home)Dividing Expenses
How To Report Rental Income and ExpensesSchedule E (Form 1040)
Cost (Investment in the Contract)Simplified Method
Taxation of Nonperiodic PaymentsLump-Sum Distributions
Are Any of Your Benefits Taxable?How Much Is Taxable?
Deductions Related to Your BenefitsRepayments More Than Gross Benefits
Welfare and Other Public Assistance Benefits
Business Use or Rental of Home
Recapturing (Paying Back) a Federal Mortgage Subsidy
Reporting Capital Gains and LossesCapital Losses
Instruments Executed After 1984
How To Report Alimony Received
Student Loan Interest DeductionStudent Loan Interest Defined
Standard Deduction for Dependents
What Expenses Can You Include This Year?
How Much of the Expenses Can You Deduct?
Whose Medical Expenses Can You Include?Spouse
What Medical Expenses Are Includible?Insurance Premiums
How Do You Treat Reimbursements?Insurance Reimbursement
How Do You Figure and Report the Deduction on Your Tax Return?What Tax Form Do You Use?
Impairment-Related Work Expenses
Health Insurance Costs for Self-Employed Persons
Taxes and Fees You Cannot Deduct
Organizations That Qualify To Receive Deductible ContributionsTypes of Qualified Organizations
Contributions You Cannot DeductContributions to Individuals
When To Report Gains and LossesDisaster Area Loss
How To Report Gains and Losses
Qualifying Work-Related EducationEducation Required by Employer or by Law
Deductions Subject to the 2% LimitUnreimbursed Employee Expenses (Line 21)
Deductions Not Subject to the 2% LimitList of Deductions
Which Itemized Deductions Are Limited?
Which Itemized Deductions Are Not Limited?Example
Parent's Election To Report Child's Interest and DividendsEffect of Making the Election
Tax for Certain Children Who Have Unearned IncomeProviding Parental Information (Form 8615, lines A–C)
Employment Taxes for Household Employers
Are You Eligible for the Credit?Qualified Individual
Completing Schedule 8812 (Form 1040A or 1040)Part I
Who Can Claim an Education CreditNo Double Benefit Allowed
Do You Qualify for the Credit?If Improper Claim Made in Prior Year
Part B. Rules If You Have a Qualifying ChildRule 8. Your Child Must Meet the Relationship, Age, Residency, and Joint Return Tests
Part C. Rules If You Do Not Have a Qualifying ChildRule 11. You Must Be at Least Age 25 but Under Age 65
Part D. Figuring and Claiming the EICRule 15. Your Earned Income Must Be Less Than:
What is the Premium Tax Credit (PTC)?Terms You May Need to Know


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It ain't hype when you live up to it (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.
It was Danica Patrick's day to make something happen, and, boy, did she.
Sunday's Daytona 500 may have been her finest three hours on a race track.
And now she can say that she is one of only 13 in racing history to lead laps at both Daytona International Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
She calls that "cool."
Half of the 22 potential winners of the 500 either crashed or blew up before the finish. But as the field took the white, Jimmie Johnson leading Greg Biffle....here was Danica Patrick a tight third behind Biffle, looking for anything that might work.
"What could I have, should I have done to give myself that opportunity to win?" she was pondering after the race.
Given the fact that there was virtually no passing in the race, there probably wasn't much she or Biffle could have done.
Then when David Reutimann hit the wall less than two miles from the finish line, things got a bit unsettled, as drivers and crews watched to see if NASCAR would throw the yellow. NASCAR didn't.
Tony Gibson, Danica Patrick's crew chief, delivers (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
But through the afternoon Patrick kept talking with crew chief Tony Gibson about how things were going on around her: "What do you see people doing? What's working, what is not?"
She certainly had plenty of time during the race to think. So did everyone else. Nothing much was really going on.
"I spent most of the day half-throttle running behind people," she said. "When you get in that line, that nice outside line where it's just single-file, I didn't feel like it was a wise idea to drop low and try to figure out how to pass. You were going to probably find yourself much further back."
She conceded that she never got much practice passing during SpeedWeeks. Of course most other drivers could say the same.
Late in the race, for a few moments, the inside line did suddenly show strength, but not for long.
"Once Jimmie got in the outside line, he was fast," Patrick said.
The new 2013 Chevy has won three of the first four races (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
After the race, Patrick was told that Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner of Red Bull, was offering her a Formula One test. Red Bull, which gave up NASCAR racing after five years, has won three straight F1 titles.
Patrick, now 30, was considered for a Honda F1 ride a few years ago. Would she be interested in F1 now?
"I didn't hear about that," she said. "That's nice.
"I have been in that situation before, where someone has offered for me to test the car. It was a long time ago, quite a few years ago. Where do they test, in South Africa or something in the winter.
"Anyway, for me, if I'm not serious about driving a Formula One car, I'm not a car geek. I don't feel like I have to drive a Formula One car to make my life complete.
"Unless it was something I was serious about doing, my schedule is rather full anyway.
"Then it just opens you up for criticism. If it doesn't go well, what are people going to say?
"That's something that I don't like to put myself in.
"But it's a very kind offer."
Brad Keselowski makes it to victory lane to congratulate Jimmie Johnson. These guys do have something going (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
On a more practical level Patrick and crew chief Tony Gibson have to switch gears to Phoenix and Las Vegas, two very different tracks from Daytona.
Patrick concedes she does not want to get ahead of herself: "It would be unwise to sort of start telling myself that top-10 is where we need to be every week. I think that's setting up for failure.
"These tracks are different and unique. A lot is about the car. I mean you have to be smart enough to do the right thing at the right time, but it's very much about the car.
"I'm still sticking to 'Let's see how these first five races go,' where we go to a bunch of different kinds of tracks, see where we settle in, start to establish goals from there on out."
What to make of Sunday's single-file non-thriller?
It was just what drivers had predicted. But this sport needs a big shot in the arm to get back on top of the sports world, to get some good tv ratings, to put more fans in the stands. And it's hard to see how this 500 did that.
Mark Martin: "One of the things that made it hard to pass was nobody would get organized on the bottom (lane).
"I think you could (have passed low), because there at the end when they got a good line organized, it got to be pretty dangerous.
"The problem was that the car on the inside of the front line wasn't the fastest car (at the end, which was banged up Brad Keselowski). If you would have had the fastest car in the field on the inside, you would have had a whale of a race there at the end.
"But the top groove was the preferred groove. And I don't think that had a lot to do with the Gen-6 as much as everybody was flying -- the cars were fast, and the cars seemed to like the momentum you'd get off the corner."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said much the same thing: "That first 150 miles, everybody commits to the top, there are not enough guys to organize on the bottom -- you'd get freight-trained. There's too much risk.
"You work all day on track position, because you got to be toward the front to have a shot at it. You hate to give up any track position.
"I saw guys like Jeff Gordon pull out (to pass) and go to the back. Too much of a risk."
So much for Tony Stewart's day (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Keselowski nearly pulled the best comeback of the race. In fact he was the man to beat until that last caution.
"All day that the high lane was so much faster than the lower lanes that the guy that had the high lane was in charge," Keselowski said.
"We got real fortunate because we caught a big break when the yellow came out and we had just pitted. That got us to the lead.
"Then we caught a bad break when the yellow came out as we were battling with Jimmie. He was an inch in front of me when the yellow came out and that gave him the high line on the restart, and there was nothing we could do. We weren't strong enough to hold our own there on the bottom.
"I kept trying everything I could to make a pass on the lower lanes, but it wasn't going to work. I didn't want to run single file, but when you try to make a move and go to the bottom, you just go backwards."
Biffle was running second at the white but wound up sixth.
"I was going to make my move in the middle of three and four," Biffle said. "Off four I was going to back up to Danica (third).
"I knew Junior was backing up....
"And then they said Junior is coming on the bottom. I'm thinking 'There's no way he's going to have enough momentum to get by us.
"But he was coming so fast I don't think I could have blocked him. We would have had a wreck like yesterday.
"I would have never thought the bottom lane would have gotten a run like that at the end.
"That's what's so frustrating.
"I figured Jimmie would side-draft (and slow) Junior, and then I'd have a chance to pass them both.
"That was my plan. I had it figured out.
"But my plan didn't quite come together."
The race was only a few minutes old when half a dozen contenders got crashed out (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Mark Martin, a big rap fan, told 50 Cent he'd have to change his name to 55 Cent if Martin won the Daytona 500 (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
So who are the thirteen drivers that have led laps at Daytona and Indy? I will guess a few. AJ Foyt, Tony Stewart, Mark Donahue, Jim Hall, Mario Andretti, John Andretti, Bobby Unser, Clifford Hill, and I am out of guesses.
Mario Andretti, A.J.Foyt, Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon, John Andretti, Tim Richmond, Bobby Allison, Al Unser, Juan Pablo Montoya, Johnny Rutherford, Bobby Unser, jim hurtubise.
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Unique house in Unusual shape, it named Slash house Located in Japan, Slash house is one of unique houses in Japan 2014, A sufficiently large part of Slash House occupies second light, which gives lightness all rooms
Unique House with an unusual roof and unusual shape that hangs almost to the ground. Design of this structure involved in the company Mamiya Shinichi Design Studio, whose task was to make comfortable, but at the same time a beautiful home for a family with two kids. it's one of unique houses in Japan
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|Unique house in unusual shape, Slash house in Japan