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Reaching Latinos: Marry marketing psychographics to multidimensional demographics
by Andrés T. Tapia –
(This article was originally published on my LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/18562142)
In the last post, we finished talking about the second of three strategies corporations can use to seize the opportunities offered by the growing Latin talent pools. In this post, we'll cover the third and final strategy.
Strategy 3: Marry marketing psychographics to multidimensional demographics
A telltale sign that there is lack of clarity about how to best reach Latino talent and consumers is that many are confused by just the most basic terminology: is it Hispanic or Latino?
The very fact that these terms are often used interchangeably in the media, but have meaningful although not-so-simple-to-explain differences in their origins and who uses them and how, is telling in itself.
But which term to use is only the tip of the iceberg. When we say Latino or Hispanic are we referring to the first-, second-, third-, or fourth generation Latino? The Boomer, Xer, or Millennial Latino? The English-, Spanish-, or Spanglish-dominant Hispanic? The Peruvian immigrant or the Honduran American born in Wichita? Or any of the other hyphenated Latinos coming from 27 different national heritages? This is the demographic part.
Then, as marketers well know, there is a psychographic part—the drivers that influence consumers' purchasing decisions. Do they buy for comfort? For adventure? For status? For being on the cutting edge?
Latinos, like members of any other group, also have psychological drivers unique to the individual. Marketers have been able to group these individual psychological drivers to segment consumers. So even within the same demographic group they can go after segments such as hipsters, rebels, or security seekers. These are the psychographics.
The next step is to marry demographics with psychographics to create the most targeted approaches to attract talent and consumers. In other words, knowing the multidimensionality of demographic characteristics of Latinos is exceptionally important, but it is not enough without also layering in the various psychographic profiles.
This then gets us to the motivations of Latinos as it relates to cultural identity. How much do they or do they not want to identify with their ethnic roots versus how much do they want to embrace mainstream American culture as the core of who they are. Are they assimilationists? Are they Upwardly Mobile Aspirants? Are they Nationalistic in their ethnic country of origin pride?
The psychographic profiles that people will take are unpredictable to discern for individuals. But patterns do emerge. And now we can combine appealing to the demographic of the Millennial Puerto Rican to the psychographic or those who are Assimilationists or Nationalistic for example.
When the media zeros in on the undocumented (11 million) and the marketers on the Spanish speakers (34 million that is inclusive of the undocumented numbers), they are looking at important segments within the Latino umbrella but not the whole.
For example, they most often overlook the 26 million English-dominant Latino Millennials who paradoxically also tend to identify with the heritage of their parents' country of origin (Colombian, Costa Rican, Argentinian, etc.) according to Pew Hispanic Research.
Marisela, my daughter, is a case in point. I think back just a few years ago, tiara perched on her jet-black hair, looking radiant and happy, surrounded by her friends and family. It was her quinceañera—her fifteenth birthday—a rite of passage in the Latino culture where a girl becomes a young woman. Mom, a European-American, and Papi, proud…and torn. Our daughter was coming of age and this joyous celebration with 200 people, a live salsa band, and a Peruvian food buffet, also marked one major milestone in Marisela's passage toward independence and growing into her own identity.
So Marisela talks about being Peruvian American even though she was born and raised in the United States. She embraced becoming bilingual and multicultural as her friendships include young people who are Jewish, European-American, Black, and Latino. She spent extended time in Peru, where she found love and ended up marrying a Peruvian.
Adult choices
While Millennial Latinos are shaping their own Latino identities so are those in the older generations in the rapidly changing demographic landscape.
This was the lively topic of conversation at dinner in Boston's North End, at the outdoor patio of Ristorante Fiore, an Italian restaurant on Hanover Street, after a successful diversity conference. A group of us Latinos sat, sipping our wine or espressos, began debating the role of accented English as it related to Latino identity in the workplace. Why is it that having a French or British accent is seen as a plus, but having a Spanish accent a drawback? And because of this, should Latinos who speak English with a Spanish accent work at reducing their accent? As the alcohol and caffeine took its effect, the conversation around how we sound dipped into a discussion about identity and success when one is in the minority.
The answers are not easy, the implications uncomfortable. Here we are a table of Latinos from different countries, different migration stories, different choices. What path should each of us take? I described facing ridicule and teasing at best, discrimination at worst due to my heavily-accented English during visits to the United States when I was young. This experience motivated me to work on my accent when I came to back to the United States to attend college.
As I did, the change in responses to my words clearly shifted toward more positive reactions as I calibrated my inflections, pitches, and tones. From that point on, it was as clear as the Peruvian brandy pisco that many English-dominant European-Americans heavily weighed their assessment of the value of words by the density of the accent of Spanish-dominant speakers.
But others around the table at Ristorante Fiore have made a different choice, equally valid. For them, how they sound, including their accented English, is part of their Latino identity. It is a marker of who they are culturally in the same way that Martinez, Ochoa, Jimenez, and Castillo are name markers of a Latino identity that is so paramount that even when offered a choice through different circumstances of a more Anglicized name, they don't take it up. While others do.
We pick our cultural identity spots. 'Este es quien soy'. 'This is who I am'. Increasingly, for more Latinos, particularly Latino Millennials, the assimilation survival tactics of their parents are not as necessary or desirable.
Instead, our choices of how to let our Latino selves show up in American society are as diverse as the various peoples that make up the Latino/Hispanic fabric "en los United States de America."
Promising future For Latinos—and the companies who hire them
I hope you have enjoyed and taken some good takeaways from this series. It takes two to tango. If Latinopalooza and corporate America can learn to dance together, the benefits of the reverberations of this multicultural choreography will be felt in the workforce and marketplace for a long time to come.
Reaching Latinos: Understand and Embrace the Multidimensional Diversity Within the Latino Community
by Andrés T. Tapia –
(This article was originally published on my LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/0_2GLbzz5IxAOAl4u7o72q9a?trk=prof-sm)
In my previous post, I mentioned three strategies corporations can use to seize the opportunities offered by the growing Latin talent pools. We'll begin by discussing the first strategy in more depth.
Strategy 1: Understand and embrace the multidimensional diversity within the Latino community
First, we need to understand Latino diversity.
Though grouped together as Latinos or Hispanics, there are many layers of diversity within this population. Some are the same layers that every group faces, with their own unique twist, including:
Generational—For predominantly English speaking Latino Millennials, only 16 percent of them see themselves as white compared to twice as many older Latinos. They are less likely to have assimilated than their first-generation parents, who—as they faced discrimination due to their limited or accented English—chose not to teach their kids Spanish.
Plus you can add the dynamics of the creative tension among the generational diversity of Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Z also shows up in Latino communities.
Language—There are Latinos who are Spanish English or Spanglish dominant. Seven in 10 young Hispanics report they regularly blend English and Spanish into a Spanglish hybrid.
Identity—Many Latinos straddle the fusion of more than two identities. Millennial Latinos are more likely to be in mixed ethnic and racial backgrounds and they self- identify with the blended identities of "Blaxican," "Mexipino," or "China-Latina" and more. These young Latinos epitomize the new Latino-American multidimensional identity.
History in the USA—Latinos in the USA can be recent immigrants or be fourth or fifth generation. Latinos in the USA can either be economic or political refugees. Or be ancestors of families that were of that part of Mexico annexed by the United States in the Spanish American war.
Country of origin—Latinos come from 27 different nationalities with a wide range of races and ethnicities. Spanish speaking Blacks come from the Caribbean, Colombia, Perú, Panama, and other countries. Millions of those characterized as Latinos come from indigenous backgrounds from Tierra del Fuego in the farthest southern reaches of Latin America to the Rio Grande border with the US.
Given all this variety, Latino identity cuts across a wide spectrum of choices, so individual Latinos face complex choices of how much of it to embrace. This cultural identity spectrum can go from the fiercely nationalistic to the fully assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture.
Next, embrace this diverse multidimensionality of Latinos in talent and marketplace penetration.
We need to differentiate among the various Latino talent pools and segmented markets. There is no one Latino market in the same way there is no one Latino talent force; therefore, we must be wary of jumping to conclusions about your talent attraction materials. In order to have effective strategies for sourcing, attracting, hiring, engaging, advancing as well as selling to Latino talent, we must differentiate and define whether we are targeting the first, second, third, or fourth-generation Latinos. The Boomer, Xer, or Millennial Latino, The English-, Spanish-, or Spanglish-dominant Latino.
Be crossculturally agile. Ensure you don't inadvertently use slang, cultural references, and pictures that are meaningful to say, Puerto Ricans, when you are trying to reach those who are mostly Mexican.
Don't be paralyzed by fears of offending. By feeling you have to guess what the identity choices are of Latino talent or consumers. Watch, study, observe. And then, when necessary, which will be often, ask.
Be Latino diversity savvy by grasping the vast diversity among what often gets lumped under the simplistic umbrella of "Latinos." Learn this and shape your talent attraction and marketplace penetration strategies accordingly. Just by doing this you will go a long way in enhancing your attractiveness to this highly desired talent pool.
My next post will zero in on "Strategy 2: Become Self Aware of how Corporate Cultures Are and Are Not Attractive to Latino Talent." Stay tuned.
For Diversity to Work, Recognize Differences, Not Just Similarities
There is no question that embracing diversity by finding common ground with others has been a good idea. It has been a key to transcending racism, sexism, homophobia and other prejudices. Societies that have found a way to discover or create shared values to reconcile cultural clashes have experienced much healing and prosperity.
But this approach, heavily shaped by the gospel of tolerance and sensitivity, can also have a shadowy side. Assuming sameness can mask ways in which we are different. If key gaps are not recognized by assuming differences, it can lead to a different form of bias. When we assume that everyone is the same, we are assuming that everyone is "just like me." This, ironically, is the very essence of self-centeredness.
Tolerance is an antidote to defensiveness on the part of majorities toward those who are different. It's manifested in statements such as: "I'm O.K., you're O.K." "We'll agree to disagree." "Live and let live." It's the answer to, "Why can't we all just get along?" But tolerance does not delve into differences. It maintains a "truce," rather than "seeking the truth" and the awkwardness that often accompanies uncompromising candor.
Sensitivity takes the cultural "cease-fire" a few steps further. It finds its voice in statements such as: "I will work at understanding that you have unique needs and preferences." "When you say something bothers you and it doesn't make sense to me, I accept that it is important to you." Between the lines, it says, "I'll let you have that, 'gimme'."
But sensitivity and tolerance are not enough to guarantee progress after a "culture war" ends. Ignoring or glossing over differences won't make them go away.
Here is one example of how I made a mistake in assuming similarity, and my co-workers erred as well.
I was working on the leadership team for one of the largest human resources consulting companies in the world. Most of my colleagues were white, Midwestern and female. I was a male from Peru. We liked each other personally and professionally. We seemingly wanted the same thing, which was to serve the organization well with our best thinking while living by the company's values of collaboration, integrity and respect.
So when the breakdown happened, none of us saw it coming. It played out like this: I would present an idea to the group, and I would hear responses such as "Andrés, I agree with you 100 percent."
So after the meeting, I thought I had gained agreement from the group and took the next steps with assurance. But then the e-mails and voicemails started flying in: "What are you doing? This is something we did not agree to!" Confused, I replied, "What part of '100 percent' didn't I understand?"
World Cup Fervor Shows How USA Has Assimilated to Immigrant Cultures
by Andrés T. Tapia
Watching the World Cup in Brazil got me to thinking about how World Cup fever has exploded in the States. From sports bars and airports to public arenas, a cross-section of Americans have joined with the rest of the world to watch in rapt attention. It just goes to show how assimilation has turned into a two-way phenomenon. Check out my recent Huffington Post piece on how "World Cup Fever Shows How USA has Assimilated to Immigrant Cultures."
The Metamorphosis of Global Diversity
In recent months, I've given in to my global wanderlust. In November, it was immersion in São Paulo, Brazil for our Diversity Best Practices Global Member Conference. In December, it was homecoming, visiting family in my native Peru.
There's nothing like jet lag, the cacophony of different languages, new and childhood taste experiences, and newspaper headlines not about fiscal cliffs and sequesters to freshen up one's perspective—and prompt these few thoughts on the state of global diversity today.
Global diversity continues to accelerate its rise in importance and, with that, it's metamorphosing into something much more multidimensional and unexpected than the first wave of exported Made-in-USA diversity.
Take, for instance, three different invitations I have received in the past six months. The U.S. subsidiary of a Belgium-headquartered company calls asking for help on building out its diversity strategy. Then, a German company calls seeking help with getting its American affiliate to come up with a U.S. response to their global diversity imperative because they are behind their counterparts in Europe and Asia. And last year, a Korean multinational asked me to present to 500 company leaders from all over the world on how they can be more inclusive in the various countries it is expanding to, from Vietnam to India to the USA.
This is all part of a trend of non-U.S.-based multinational companies making diversity an imperative—not only in their countries of origin but throughout the globe. Now Not-Made-in-USA diversity accountabilities are adding to the rising calls-to-action that an increasing number of American business leaders are facing regarding diversity and inclusion.
This is just one way in which diversity is changing globally. A few others:
- To be a woman is to be rising in opportunities. Women's advancement is the most frequently cited diversity issue today. It's the one global diversity issue that arises on all continents as the common and urgent issue we must address now. The challenges are often the same regardless of country. From Chicago to Shanghai, women are pressing to fulfill their ambitions for leadership positions and a growing number in profit and loss roles. And women, at all levels of the organization, no matter where in the world, yearn, fret, and fight for work life flexibility.
- Socioeconomic disparities are masking the realities of colorism. The United States isn't the only country facing race and class disparities. In a host of countries, societies are stratified based on one's economic status. Yet, in countries such as India, Brazil, and Peru those with darker skin are more likely than their fairer counterparts to be members of the lower socioeconomic classes. This is far from a coincidence. While there's a great deal of denial about this reality, it's true that in many countries a preference for those of a lighter hue is blocking access to educational and employment opportunities for a significant percentage people. Until countries where colorism prevails recognize the impact of this form of discrimination, companies in these countries will continue to struggle to have true diversity in the workforce.
- Millennials are civilization's first global cohort. Whether they grew up in South Africa, Egypt, Romania, Laos, or Venezuela, many members of this generation shared the reality of growing up digitally and interconnected to the rest of the world. Global terrorism, global recession, global warming, and global social media have meant a common experience in many formative ways of how the world works. When a billion go "Gangnam Style" around the world in a matter of weeks, when the Arab Spring inspires Occupy Wall Street (and not vice versa), and when the Twitter-nation transcends all borders with 500 million users (making it the third largest population in the world), an unprecedented shared upbringing across the world's 24 time zones is in the making.
- Employment gains for people with disabilities. While in the United States the Americans with Disabilities Acts made it the law to make workplaces physically accessible to those with disabilities, there is a growing global trend to actually make it the law to employ those with disabilities. Brazilian law stipulates that depending on the size of your employee base, 2 percent to 5 percent of your workers must be people with disabilities. On Christmas Day 2012, a similar law went into effect in Peru. And in the United States, the Federal Government has put into place guidelines that those doing business with the government must have 7 percent of employees be people with disabilities.
- LGBT rights on the march. The wall of resistance around LGBT rights is tumbling in countries across the globe. In 2009, the high court in New Delhi, India struck down the law that made same-sex sexual activity illegal. In 2010, Mexico City and Argentina legalized same-sex marriage while Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Uruguay all started to recognize same-sex relationships, such as civil unions. This is an enormous gain for the LGBT community in Latin America, which has long been characterized by its strong Catholic roots and machismo undertones. And putting an exclamation point on the importance of worldwide LGBT rights, in 2011, President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced that LGBT rights would be a criteria for whether a country will receive U.S. foreign aid.
Just a few examples of how diversity and inclusion are playing out globally. This trend is unstoppable. Next generation diversity practitioners would be wise to track and then ride these trends for the good of their organizations.
When's your next trip to another land?
Peru Election 2011: Peru's Poor Make Their Voices Heard
by Andrés T. Tapia –
This article was published by the New America Media
No to trickle down economics. No to corruption. No to human rights abuses.
These were the electoral reasons why the Peruvian public elected Ollanta Humala, 49, as their 94th President, marking the sixth consecutive peaceful transfer of power since 1980.
In sending Keiko Fujimori to defeat, a very narrow majority of Peruvians indicated they were more troubled by her filial links to her father, former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori who was imprisoned for corruption and human rights abuses, than with Ollanta's two failed insurrections against democratically elected governments.
In fact, for many voters, these rebellions were seen as bona fides for his willingness to take matters into his own hands to bring about change. Those more ambivalent about this recent past were able to put their fears at bay either through wishful thinking, hope, or real belief that Humala's radical, Hugo Chavez-like ways from five years ago were merely a phase, and that there was real substance to his recast image as a reasonable non-radical who could address the needs of the destitute poor without pitting them against the rich.
This is the first time in 40 years, since the Cuban-Revolution-inspired military coup of Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado under which I grew up, that a leftist president will be ruling Peru. The big question is whether it will be in the mold of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, or that of Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The first would deeply and destructively divide the country. The second, which simultaneously and successfully made the poor a priority, while stimulating the economy, would be transcendent.
Key to Humala's win was the full endorsement of Alejandro Toledo, former Peruvian president, who was originally one of the first round candidates in the presidential election. True to the twists and turns of Peruvian politics, one of Humala's insurrections was against then-President Toledo.
While the recurring story lines of the election campaign were the Fujimori family's disgrace and the radical past of Humala, the most profound back story was that Peru's poor — heavily represented in the rural areas and outside the power center of the capital in Lima — decided Peru's new President.
Despite the fact that in the last five out of six years Peru's GNP grew at a steady 8% annually, making Peru a much richer country that could invest in infrastructure that brought in foreign investment, nurtured local industry, and helped make Peru a global tourist magnet, many of Peru's poor have been left behind.
While it's true that the poor of Peru have seen their numbers drop, from 50% of the population to 30% during the economic boom, Sunday's vote declared that it is still unacceptable that one-third of the country is below the poverty line of $2 a day in earnings. Peru's prosperity should be beneficial for all Peruvians, their vote proclaimed.
They believed Ollanta Humala, the maverick outsider with no links to the elite in Peru, the United States, Europe, or Japan, would be the one who would deliver. But there are jitters that his nationalistic, populist ways will derail the Peruvian economic miracle of the past few years.
His immediate top priority between now and his inauguration on July 28th, Peruvian Independence Day, will need to be calming nervous investors and markets, assuring them that his promises for the poorest of the poor can be fulfilled, while still nurturing the long Peruvian boom. This should not be difficult to do, at least rhetorically.
Already, some of those who did not support him are working on reassuring themselves that Humala will do right by the markets. As a commentator said on Panamericana TV, "There is no appetite to mess around with prosperity. Not even Humala is going to want to do that."
Still, there is a significant amount of apprehension about whether he has a hidden agenda against the powers that be. And so when the stock market opened on Monday, it dropped 12.5%, the biggest one-day drop in its history, before regulators closed the market down.
Keeping a close eye will be his defeated rival. At 36-years-old, and having won nearly half the vote (she lost by just a few percentage points), Keiko Fujimori will remain a force to be reckoned with for some time to come.
But for now, this is Humala's moment. As he addressed his supporters in his victory speech around midnight in rolled-up shirt sleeves and no coat and tie, on a stage that jutted out into the crowd at Plaza 2 de Mayo, he laid it out plain and simple. Without thundering against the elite, and without specifics, his message was all about the poor's plight — lack of potable water, electricity, education, nutrition, health and living wages.
The poor have spoken. This is their man.
Keiko Fujimori Loses Peru's Election, But Diversity Message Struck a Chord
by Andrés T. Tapia –
This article was published by the New America Media.
Keiko Fujimori lost Peru's presidential election Sunday. But don't expect the dynamic, if difficult, Keiko–age 36, female, Gen Xer, of Japanese descent, mother of two toddlers, spouse of an American and daughter of a former president, who is now incarcerated–to fade into the shadows of Latin American politics.
Keiko–as she's known universally in Peru–has been the candidate of the unexpected and a force that likely altered Peruvian national politics for years to come.
At the presidential debate last week with her second round opponent–and Peru's new president–Ollanta Humala, her opening statement had a greeting in Quechua–the language of the descendants of the Incas in the Andes of Peru. And her closing statement concluded with sign language.
What's more, Keiko appealed to the youth vote by laying out her "Mi Primera Chamba"–My First Gig–scholarship program and to the Mom vote by promising to create nutrition programs and quality education for children.
This is not just typical political pandering in Peru, but stem from who Keiko is. She allowed TV hostess Magaly to come to her home. After they chatted like two girlfriends, she gave Magaly a tour of her middle-class home. Along the way she showed off Peruvian Andean landscape paintings her imprisoned father has done in jail, and then the pair ended up in Keiko's kitchen, where she expertly chopped vegetables for that evening's dinner.
Defying Expectations
Keiko–as everyone calls her–has become adept at presenting herself in visuals that defy traditional expectations.
When her parents split up in a bitter divorce during her father's presidency, Keiko, then age 19, officially became First Lady to fill in for her exiting mother's responsibilities.
Despite ample opportunities to go anywhere for college, she headed to Boston University to earn a degree in business administration. She returned married to Mark Vito, an U.S.-born IBM consultant, who did not speak Spanish.
Without a hint of self-consciousness, Keiko projected her Japanese visage on big screens at political rallies surrounded by a sea of dark-skinned indigenous Peruvians. Though her roots are Asian, she appealed to them as one of them, her racial minority physical features presenting a kindred-outsider status to the marginalized people of Peru–just as happened when her father ascended to power.
The elements of her biography don't merely translate into images defying the status quo; they drive her fusion of a right-of-center and a populist political platform. Her ease with crossing socioeconomic and racial barriers has influenced a right-brain/left-brain, left-wing/right-wing heterodoxy that is both pragmatic and passionate.
Despite deeply held reservations by many Peruvians about her filial links to her father, jailed for corruption and human rights abuses, Keiko's implicit and explicit diversity and her messages of inclusion, helped propel her into the second and final electoral round having beat out another former president, Alejandro Toledo, and a successful former minister of finance and economy, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski–a graduate of both Oxford and Princeton Universities, no less.
Presidential Candidate Mom
Keiko was also nearly the first Latin American female president with young children and, therefore, the first high-profile role model for work-and-family flexibility. As is typical of middle-class Peruvians, she has live-in childcare help. But her fluid movement in and out of her roles as leader and mother seems remarkably seamless.
After the first-round election results were announced and Keiko was declared one of the two finalists, Keiko handled her press conference with ease.
Afterward as she exited through the phalanx of journalists, her 18-month-old, Kaori Marcela, straddled in her left arm, Keiko took impromptu questions shouted out by journalists. As the child began to fuss, she switched from potential president of Peru to attentive Mom. With a smile, Keiko said, "Ok, it's time–got to go."
And with no apology, she left. Whatever else may come for Keiko, that's what her multicultural country folk will remember. Keiko–young, centered and, without apologies, very much herself.
Now in her loss, she must plot out her next career move while Dad sits in jail with no chance of a pardon and her children continue to make their toddler demands. Meanwhile, she will watch as her rival takes the reins of the future she had been so certain was destined to be hers.
She has time – a lot of it – to let things play out. Five years from now Keiko's Magical Diversity Tour still likely to be fueled up and waiting for her to lead the way.
Peru Election 2011: Keiko Fujimori's Magical Diversity Tour
by Andrés T. Tapia –
This article was published by the New America Media.
Keiko Fujimori–age 36, female, Gen Xer, of Japanese descent, mother of two toddlers, spouse of an American and daughter of a former president, who is now incarcerated–may be Peru's next president.
If chosen in Sunday's election, Fujimori would be Peru's first woman president and one of four today in Latin America—and one of only seven in the region's history. Like Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica, Cristina Kirchner in Argentina and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, her gender will influence her agenda. But so will her youth.
At the presidential debate last week with her second round opponent, Ollanta Humala, her opening statement had a greeting in Quechua–the language of the descendants of the Incas in the Andes of Peru. And her closing statement concluded with sign language.
What's more, Fujimori appealed to the youth vote by laying out her "Mi Primera Chamba"–My First Gig–scholarship program and to the Mom vote by promising to create nutrition programs and quality education for children.
This is not just typical political pandering in Peru, but stem from who Fujimori is. She allowed TV hostess Magaly to come to her home. After they chatted like two girlfriends, she gave Magaly a tour of her middle-class home. Along the way she showed off Peruvian Andean landscape paintings her imprisoned father has done in jail, and then the pair ended up in Fujimori's kitchen, where she expertly chopped vegetables for that evening's dinner.
Defying Expectations
Keiko—as everyone calls her—has become adept at presenting herself in visuals that defy traditional expectations.
When her parents split up in a bitter divorce during her father's presidency, Keiko, then age19, officially became First Lady to fill in for her exiting mother's responsibilities.
Despite ample opportunities to go anywhere for college, she headed to Boston University to earn a degree in business administration. She returned married to Mark Vito, an U.S.-born IBM consultant, who did not speak Spanish.
Without a hint of self-consciousness, Keiko projects her Japanese visage on big screens at political rallies surrounded by a sea of dark-skinned indigenous Peruvians. Though her roots are Asian, she appeals to them as one of them, her racial minority physical features presenting a kindred-outsider status to the marginalized people of Peru–just as happened when her father ascended to power.
The elements of her biography don't merely translate into images defying the status quo; they drive her fusion of a right-of-center and a populist political platform. Her ease with crossing socioeconomic and racial barriers has influenced a right-brain/left-brain, left-wing/right-wing heterodoxy that is both pragmatic and passionate.
Despite deeply held reservations by many Peruvians about her filial links to her father, jailed for corruption and human rights abuses, Keiko's implicit and explicit diversity and her messages of inclusion, helped propel her into the second and final electoral round having beat out another former president, Alejandro Toledo, and a successful former minister of finance and economy, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski—a graduate of both Oxford and Princeton Universities, no less.
Presidential Candidate Mom
Keiko would also be the first Latin American female president with young children and, therefore, the first high-profile role model for work-and-family flexibility. As is typical of middle-class Peruvians, she has live-in childcare help. But her fluid movement in and out of her roles as leader and mother seems remarkably seamless.
After the first-round election results were announced and Keiko was declared one of the two finalists, Keiko handled her press conference with ease.
Afterward as she exited through the phalanx of journalists, her 18-month-old, Kaori Marcela, straddled in her left arm, Keiko took impromptu questions shouted out by journalists. As the child began to fuss, she switched from potential president of Peru to attentive Mom. With a smile, Keiko said, "Ok, it's time–got to go."
And with no apology, she left.
Peru Election 2011: Democracy's Faustian Choices
by Andrés T. Tapia —
This article was published by the New America Media.
On Sunday, June 5, I will join thousands of expat Peruvians at St. Agustin College in Chicago to vote in the second and final electoral round in choosing the next president of Peru.
The collective mood of Peruvians is highly apprehensive about what's next, despite–or perhaps because ofthe country's substantial eight percent growth in gross national product in five of the last six years. That is among the highest in the world.
Sunday's election is where the red-hot issues of race, gender, age, imprisonment, insurrection, poverty and economic boom will be shaken in a volatile political cocktail.
The choice between Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala has come down to two candidates with a lot of potentially problematic baggage. Keiko is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori who is serving multiple multiyear sentences in a maximum-security prison in Lima, convicted of corruption and human rights abuses.
Ollanta led two failed insurrections in the Andes against democratically elected governments, and his father espouses an indigenous nationalistic ideology that borders on reverse racism.
These are not the kind of pedigrees that inspire change Peruvians can believe in.
Below the Surface
Yet…Yet, as is often the case in surrealistic Peru, what is on and below the surface, confounds logic. And unexpected turns of events can be equally damming or redemptive. Both candidates are exercising considerable effort to cut the binds of their political past.
In the final debate last Sunday between the two, Fujimori did her best to paint Humala as a destabilizing force, but he held his ground as someone who has recast his persona–aided by Brazilian political consultants–as a man of reason, rather than as a firebrand revolutionary.
And try as Humala did to link Fujimori to the corruption that had led to her father's imprisonment, she stopped him in his tracks by asserting that Humala had spent most of his time debating the wrong person. "I am the candidate, not the man who is sitting in prison." The sins of the fathers, she insisted, should not be visited upon their offspring.
While many Peruvians are willing to give Fujimori this pass–as she leads in the polls by about four percentage points but with a very large percentage of undecided voters– many are not.
Bitterness still surfaces at what many consider betrayal on the part of Alberto Fujimori, who arguably could have gone down in history as one of Peru's greatest presidents after he tamed hyperinflation, defeated two terrorist movements, and laid the foundation for Peru's sustained economic boom.
His downfall?
Whether it was willingly or coerced, Fujimori entered a Faustian pact with Vladimiro Montesinos, his head of DINCOTE, the Peruvian secret service. Montesinos bribed politicians, generals, TV station owners and journalists with bundles of cash, while he lead a brutal, no-holds-barred war against terrorism.
After separate fugitive escapes to other countries both men were dramatically captured and ended up in the same prison convicted by Peruvian courts on multiple counts. As befitting of a Latin American novel, they were initially incarcerated in the same jail holding Abimael Guzman, the Peruvian Osama bin Laden. Through his Shining Path movement, Guzman had unleashed real and psychological destruction on Peruvian society. He had heroically been captured under the leadership of his current prison mates.
Terrorism, Torture and Human Rights
So it is that Peruvian society is highly polarized about Keiko Fujimori's father in a way echoing the U.S. debate around whether torture– along with its the suspension of human rights– is justifiable when facing nihilistic terrorists willing to kill anyone and everyone.
But it wasn't the human rights debate that sunk Peru's first president of Japanese descent. Most Peruvians, who lived the sheer terror of Guzman's Shining Path, with its car bombs and massacres, were willing to make their own Faustian deal by looking the other way as Fujimori's regime put an end to the Shining Path's madness–but only by responding in kind.
No, what did Fujimori in for many Peruvians, was the blatant bribery conducted in the name of a leader, who had established a new pragmatic, non-ideological paradigm for bringing about change.
It was under Fujimori that the longstanding practices of massive disregard for paying taxes came to an end, as he prosecuted many of the nonbelievers in paying state tribute.
Even as people were pissed off at having to pay taxes, grudging respect became growing respect for a president, who made it clear that there were rules all–with no exceptions even among the elite–had to follow.
As Peruvians got in line with the country's new path, state revenues grew and were put into transformational use, building thousands of schools, kilometers of highways, electrical grids and water systems.
That the exemplar of rectitude had under his nose one of the most blatant bribery campaigns the country had ever seen was unforgivable.
It's forgiveness, however, that's on Keiko's mind–or more accurately, a pardon. It's no secret that she does not believe innocent people should be in jail and since she insists her father is not guilty, she would likely pardon him.
While Peruvians debate the limits of forgiveness, Ollanta offers another test.
His first presidential campaign five years ago when he lost to Alan Garcia was partially bankrolled by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. His policies are antithetical to the free market economic programs that have reduced extreme poverty in Peru from 50 percent to 30 percent. Massive foreign investment in Peru has fueled the economic transformation.
Still, that leaves one-third of the country in abject poverty, a damning metric. It is this proportion of the population that has declared trickle down a fiction and see in Humala someone who will plead their cause regardless of his history of insurrection or suspect influences. They are willing to make this Faustian tradeoff.
For Ollanta, though, Chavez's well documented ambition to extend the Cuban Revolution into modern day Venezuela–and his eagerness to influence other parts of South America via Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa–are the very things that may make enough Peruvians turn away from him and look the other way, yet again.
If so, they in turn will cast their own Faustian vote that may indeed free Alberto Fujimori, as the price for hopefully preserving the economic boom.
Brazilian Particularism – The Ying and Yang of Going With the Flow
by Andres T. Tapia —
Milton really had me. As my driver in Rio for a full day of sightseeing, attending a futbol match, and then taking me to the airport, he had me fully enthralled by his stories, carioca philosophy, humor, and ability to tap into my Latin sense of solidarity. And by the end of the day he also had me in that he cheated me out of an extra $50.
Or maybe he didn't. And it's in the ambiguity of what happened that doing business in Brazil is often like.
So, to understand the rest of the story, a rapid explanation of two contrasting worldviews in how fairness is interpreted: Particularism is a worldview that is comfortable determining what is fair based on circumstances vs Universalism which believes that what is fair is based on rules that apply to everyone equally.
The day had unfolded in a comfortable particularistic way for this Peruvian who also comes from a spontaneous society. On a whim here and there, I had Milton stop there and here. The beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana, Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain), Corcovado (Christ the Redeemer). We stopped to see a samba school practice on a side street. I got out and walked on the malecon along the coast with azure waters to the East and lush green mountains to the West.
Near Copacabana he convinced me to check out an exclusive jewelry sale where, if he dropped off someone he had "recruited," he would get a "drop off" commission. I was willing to help him get some extra cash because I saw it as a good opportunity to journalistically experience one of those exclusive sales where smartly dressed women and men pull out thin drawers of the most exquisite and expensive jewelry. Half a million dollars worth of jewelry were paraded in front of me with the salesperson's promise that my wife would love me forever if I succumbed to their rubied and topazed enchantments.
After extricating myself from the hard sale hiding behind a veneer of upper class feigned detachment, I found Milton waiting for me, engine running to scoot me over to that famed soccer temple, Maracana Stadium, where two of Rio's archrival soccer teams were playing against each other. The elite's favorite, Fluminense, and the passion of those living in the impoverished favelas, Botafogo. Thanks to his connections he helped me get last minute tickets to the sold-out game where the torcidas, fan sections, shashayed for 90 minutes to the samba rhythms drummed out of the baterias.
As he dropped me off, the easy camaraderie that we had developed was reinforced as he pumped me up with fascinating stories of the long standing soccer rivalry. He gave me explicit instructions about leaving the game 5 minutes before the final whistle no matter how exciting the game was to ensure we would not get caught in the sea of jubilant and dejected fans from the two different teams and where to find him so he could whisk me off to the airport to catch my flight in time.
And true to plan, there he was in the designated spot. I hopped in, he shook my hand, and we celebrated the eventful game. He had listened to the game on the radio so we easily shared in the replays of the great moments.
The day had been fun and joyous, and I gotten to do all that I had hoped for during my last day in Rio. As we neared the airport and I was pulling out the cash to cover the agreed-to fare for the full day with multiple stops, he had "unfortunate" news to share with me. While waiting for me outside the stadium, he had had to take a risk and had parked in a no-wait zone and a policeman had fined him $50 and could I include that in my fare since he had risked it just for me? Hmmmmm…..
One of Brazil's greatest assets, as well as challenge, in consolidating its position as the fifth largest economy on the world stage, is a cultural trait of being able to flex to whatever gets put in front its people. Whether it be unexpected events, laws, circumstances, Brazilians are adept at going with the flow, a trait caricaturized by the brilliant soccer metaphor of joie de cintura, game of the waist, full of flourishes, feints, dips, knee bends, and hip throws.
What Is Right?
For Americans and other cultures that are more universalist, this can be challenging. I realized then that Brazilians were even more particularist than the particularist Peru I had grown up with. But was this truly a particularist situation where Milton was asking me to partake of the risk and rewards of going with the flow that sometimes included bending the rules? Or was this a con?
I was conflicted. I felt the twinge of this being a set up, but on the other hand Milton had truly provided me with an extraordinary day. Was this a way of him making sure I tipped him? Was it an indirect way of recoupping the low ball day fare he had offered me before he realized how many places I would ask to go to? Was there a real fine in the mix or a bribe he had to offer the police officer to get his driver's license back? I had no idea. And there I was in the back of the seat of Milton's cab, door open, next to the TAM Airlines departures entrance.
So I split the difference and said, l didn't ask you to park illegally but since you did it for my benefit, I'll pay for half of that fine. I added $25 to the total agreed to amount for the day. Milton's mood darkened as he took the money. We said our tchaus (goodbyes), and I had many obrigados (thank yous) to shower on him, but the spell had been broken. And so with my carry-on to my side, I lingered standing on the curb, as I watched Milton drive away. The Brazilian saying, "to a friend, everything; to an enemy, the law" scrolled through my mind.
As I have written in The Inclusion Paradox I believe that every culture has the virtues of its worldview plus the shadow side of that worldview that, when left unchecked, leads to less than ideal behaviors. Is the shadow side of particularism that with ever changing rules others can be more easily manipulated? Is the shadow side of universalism mercilessness when not considering individual circumstances in the imposition of the law?
To this day I don't know what Milton had intended, if anything. I just know that I was uncertain in the moment of the ask, and in my response. I simply did not know what was below the waterline. I just knew that I could not rely on what I felt.
And that did not feel good.
World Cup: Welcome to Fútbol, Middle America
by Andrés T. Tapia —
In the waning minutes of the USA – Ghana World Cup 2010 game, as it became clear that the USA was out of come-from-behind memes, the sadness and disappointment descending on American crowds from Manhattan oyster bars to Kansas City plazas to San Francisco cafes signaled a cultural transformation. Middle America had gotten seduced by the beautiful game and it broke its heart.
Immigrants in the US have long stoked their passion for soccer by filling Giants Stadium and Soldier Field to capacity for exhibition matches between foreign teams such as Barcelona FBC of Spain vs Chivas of Mexico, and on a regular basis filling the smaller soccer friendly Major League Soccer (MLS) soccer stadiums. And quadrennially they have packed their ethnic neighborhood bodegas, bars, and homes with painted faces and national team jerseys to cheer on their teams till hoarse. But the big story in the US this time were the ecstatic white male crowds in the American heartland — in Louisville, Kentucky, in Kansas City, Missouri, in Burlington, Vermont — emotionally committed to how the USA did.
(Despite it's ethnocentric view that equates "the world" to the USA, a compelling bit of video.)
There they were at 9 on a Tuesday morning glued to the TV sets either at home or in a public place grabbing their heads in response to the near American misses, holding their breaths as the British, Ghanaians, Slovenians, and Algerians counterattacked, yelling out in ecstasy as American strikers drilled the ball into the back of the net.
Here's how Kansas City Star described one of these new fans:
He'd rather stay anonymous because he's a grown man with a family and, well, otherwise respectable adults just aren't supposed to paint their faces and be half-tilted in the early afternoon. But then again here he is, in the middle of a Saturday wearing an American flag across his face that he strategically kept away from his lips because he didn't want to taste it with his Miller Lite. "I usually don't like to watch big games in big crowds," he says. "But how could I not come out here?"
As I witnessed all this, I flashbacked to when I first moved to the US as a college student. I had made the Northwestern soccer team as a midfielder the first year it was upgraded from a club to a varsity sport but while through this I connected to nomadic tribes of a cult sport, in mainstream America soccer was invisible. It was hard to find fields with soccer goal posts. Our games were sparsely attended. As I traveled to Big Ten Tournaments across the Midwest, my non-soccer friends at the university kept forgetting I would be out for the weekend at a soccer tourney. Sports columnists either disparaged soccer or apologized sheepishly if they had happened to be excited about a great play.
Worst of all, during the 1986 World Cup hosted by Mexico I couldn't find a single channel on TV that was broadcasting the games. This was inconceivable to me.
Back in Peru at World Cup time, whether Peru was in it or not, the World Cup was the talk of the day whether we were in the middle of a dictatorship, a financial meltdown, or a natural disaster. If a World Cup game where Peru was playing happened to be on during the school day, one of us would bring a portable 2′ by 2′ black and white TV, plug it into a classroom socket, move the rabbit ears to reduce the fuzziness, and gather round on the floor amidst our history textbooks and spiral notepads. This was la vida. Life! But in the US, this biggest of stages with billions around the world mesmerized, was mostly invisible. In Chicago, our small band of sports renegades had to scour for bars doing special live satellite transmissions.
Fast forward to today in the USA. Every single game is transmitted on ESPN/ABC and on Univisión, the Spanish language network. There are pre and post game shows. There are experienced commentators from around the world. There is an iphone app that answers every game stat query imaginable, and — wouldn't you know it — there's even a live feed of the games to feed the addiction.
Soccer fields dot the American landscape, not only in the multiethnic cities but also across the Nebraska tundra. In fact, now it's the most common sports field around. More male and female kids, teens, and college students play soccer than any other sport. While in college it was rare for me to meet someone who had grown up playing soccer, today most Millennials talk about their firsthand experience with the sport. When I coached AYSO teams for seven years as our daughter was growing up, I never got over the fact that in our city of Highland Park in Illinois we had over 450 kids enrolled on teams.
During this South Africa World Cup the trend and movement have crested. In the US, after sweeping up immigrant groups, then kids and, by default their parents, this time it rolled in that group that did not grow up with it, did not understand it, had made fun of it for the longest time. And when the USA team began unfolding a Hollywood style story (as described here in earlier post), it finally fit an American narrative that got Middle America's attention. We can now add fútbol to globalization's financial, technological, and environmental tendrils that have interconnected the entire world.
Suddenly what had been the love of affair of handfuls has become the love affair of millions.
But will it be a lasting relationship or simply a summer fling?


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FLASHPOINT FACTS: Glass Overhauls the "Legion of Doom"
Adam Glass made his comics writing debut for DC Comics earlier this year with "JLA 80-Page Giant." With the Super Friends tucked away into his bat-belt bucket list, the supervising producer of Warner Bros.' hit genre series "Supernatural" is now playing both sides of the oversized penny as his next challenge is re-imagining some of the most sinister villains of all time for the "Flashpoint" tie-in miniseries "Flashpoint: Legion of Doom."
And while this alternate reality incarnation of the Legion of Doom is without classic members of the team from the original "Challenge of the Super Friends" animated series like Lex Luthor, Bizarro and Gorilla Grodd, there is Black Manta. And Sportsmaster? And…Animal Man?
Remember, this is "Flashpoint." That means Bruce Wayne died in Crime Alley, not his father; Cyborg is the new Superman; and Heat Wave, the miniseries' featured ne'er-do-well, is badder than Leroy Brown.
Created by John Broome, Heat Wave originally appeared in "Flash" #140 in 1963. A long-time "member" of the scarlet speedster's famed Rogues Gallery, Heat Wave was also affiliated with the Secret Society of Super Villains during "Infinite Crisis" and "Final Crisis." However, Glass told CBR News, in "Flashpoint: Legion of Doom," Heat Wave doesn't play nice with the other supervillains; he's more of a one-man wolf pack. And more importantly, he's Cyborg's greatest threat.
Glass also revealed that while the Darth Vader-looking Hall of Doom does exist in this altered reality, it's no longer the Legion of Doom's secret hideaway. Instead, it's a supermax prison containing Heat Wave and all the other rogues — meta and non-meta — that Cyborg has decommissioned.
Kicking off June 22, the three-issue "Flashpoint: Legion of Doom" features art by Brazilian illustrator Rodney Buchemi ("Incredible Hercules") and long-time "The Flash" inker Jose Marzan, Jr., with covers by Miguel Sepulveda ("Thunderbolts").
CBR News: When we spoke about "JLA 80-Page Giant," you mentioned you were a fan of "Super Friends" when you were a kid. So I guess writing a Legion of Doom comic fulfills some kind of childhood fantasy.
Adam Glass: I loved the Legion of Doom, especially the Hall of Doom, which looked like a big, floating Darth Vader helmet. It's funny. When I first started talking to Patrick McCallum, who is editing the book, I said, "We get to use the big Darth Vader head, right?" And he said, "Absolutely." So I was like, "Great. And it has to come out of the swamp — I want to see that."
The Hall of Doom, and even the Legion of Doom, rarely, if ever, appears in the DCU proper. That, in and of itself, must make this assignment particularly rewarding.
As you know, "Flashpoint" is very much not regular continuity. It is set within the DCU proper, but it's very much an altered version.
I guess the best way to explain it is, this is basically Heat Wave's story, and it's a classic revenge story. Cyborg, who is the Superman of this world, is his target because he stopped Heat Wave from doing something he really wanted. In the process, Heat Wave received burns over 60 percent of his body and he loses his sense of smell and taste. So he can't smell or feel fire, which sets him off even more.
What he was trying to get to was, he found a way, which I can't reveal, to become the ultimate weapon of fire but was stopped in the process by Cyborg and sent to prison.
So the Hall of Doom, in this setting, in our world, is a maximum security prison for supervillains. It literally flies to the villains and picks them up from wherever they have been incarcerated. It's really cool. You actually see it coming out of the swamp, flying to these places and coming down to pick these guys up.
Amazo is the superguard and inside, the supervillains are separated by metas and non-metas. So instead of the classic ethnic structure that would be in a regular prison, it's the guys with powers versus no powers. All of the metas have collars that sap their energy and powers.
Heat Wave is a total lone wolf. He's up against everyone. He hasn't joined anyone. He has his mind set on revenge and how he is going to escape. No one has ever escaped from there, so he's attempting the impossible.
But he has an ace up his sleeve. We're going to take one of DC's most beloved heroes and give him a villainous makeover. I can't say who it is. You may have already figured it out, but you're not going to hear it from me.
Well, Plastic Man doesn't look too friendly on the solicited cover for "Flashpoint: Legion of Doom" #2…
Let's just say that he is definitely a big part of our story.
Which other DCU supervillains have you cast in "Flashpoint: Legion of Doom"?
You have KGBeast, Black Manta, Atomic Skull, Sportsmaster. You have Animal Man, who has been wrongly accused, but he is in the prison dealing with prison life.
I love Animal Man. I'm actually currently re-reading Grant Morrison's epic run with Buddy Baker. Why explore his fall from grace in this venue?
He's in there because he's wrongly accused of killing his wife. But like anything, the prison has turned him into something else. He's trying to stay straight and trying to be hero, but you have to make your bed with somebody sooner or later, and he makes his bed with the meta gang. Eventually, they say, "Look, we've been protecting you for a long time and we're not going to protect you anymore unless you start doing our bidding."
So he's forced into a big fight with Heat Wave to prove himself. He doesn't want to do it, but if he doesn't, his days inside are numbered.
What was the thinking behind the decision to cast Amazo as the Hall of Doom's superguard?
He's the ultimate guard. He's also the guy these villains hate because as soon as you show up, he sucks your powers. But we're also going to see with Amazo that everything isn't as it seems.
We also learn Ollie Queen owns this prison, so the villains find out that their weapons and their powers are being used for other things. And this isn't all on the up and up. They're actually being used too.
There's also an Oz-like character that is behind everything.
Black Manta is another one of my favorite bad guys. How did you round out the cast? Is tit made up of your choices or were there specific villains you had to use?
"Flashpoint" is such a big, wide, gigantic series that I had to make a big list of guys I wanted to use. There were definitely a lot of people who I wanted that didn't make the cut because they were involved in other books, but I've always been a big fan of Black Manta and a big fan of Sportsmaster. I'm an old "JSA"/"All-Star Squadron" guy. Back when I was growing up, it was the Earth-Two Sportsmaster character.
But again, this is Heat Wave's story and these guys are all playing supporting roles.
Legion of Doom featured some heavy hitters back in the day, including Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Does Heat Wave have the chops to be this book's big villain?
Geoff Johns did a great one-shot on him, which I used as my jumping-off point. In that book, what Geoff really got down to was that this guy is psychotic. He's the worst kind of psychotic because he actually has something that motivates him, which is fire.
He's more than an arsonist. Fire drives him. It's his everything. In that book, and we talk about it a little in our book, he burns his house down with his family in it when he was a kid. And he didn't go running to the police. He was excited about it. Once you get under the layers of the guy, he's fucking crazy. He's a true, true psychotic, so I used that as the jumping off point for him and like I said, I took from him the thing that he loved. And if you love something and all of sudden, you can't feel it anymore, smell it anymore, taste it anymore, it just amps you up even more.
You'll see when you read the book, right from the jump, he has this ultimate plan for how he can basically become this living inferno and be one with the fire. And when that gets taken away from him, he's a dog with a bone. He is literally obsessed, and his obsession is not only, "I am going to hurt Cyborg," it's, "I am going to destroy everything that Cyborg loves, to whatever extent that means." And you'll see that's a pretty far extension.
It's a classic revenge story, but on a really big, global level. It's not about how powerful you are. Our history shows that. Look who shot JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr. It's not some supervillain. One man can change the world. He doesn't have to have superpowers. All he needs is drive, and Heat Wave has that in spades.
So we're obviously going to see a really dark side of Heat Wave and a dark side of humanity. When someone is out for revenge like him, a twisted psychotic like he is, it's a really interesting journey. I think people are going to be surprised by how the book has a ton of action but also, how psychological the book is.
With Heatwave and the other supervillains serving as the lead characters in your series, are we supposed to be cheering for them or are they portrayed very much as villains?
I think it's much like the way that you root for Hannibal Lecter. [Laughs] It's sort of the same thing.
For the first two books, it's really a prison story. It's all about Heat Wave's revenge, how he's going to escape and the politics and the pecking order of what's going on inside.
How does this series reflect what's going on in "Flashpoint" and the other "Flashpoint" tie-in miniseries?
It's an isolated story, and yet you feel the influence from what's going on outside the Hall of Doom. They speak about it, they talk about it. Cyborg, obviously, is a gigantic character in it. He's our Superman. He's sort of the big device that our revenge plot is all pitted around. So you feel it more than you live with it everyday. It's around them. They talk about Atlanteans. They talk about the Amazons. But it's Cyborg who makes it all connect because he is the Superman of this universe.
Cyborg versus Heatwave isn't a classic DCU confrontation. Was this your idea or were these two main adversaries handed to you?
They pretty much said these are going to be the two guys, and I had to figure it out. You have to find ways to make that into an interesting fight. And we do. You've got one guy that is obviously much more powerful than the other guy but in this book, Heat Wave is really a criminal mastermind. He's really smart and is always two steps ahead of everybody. Putting the pieces together and figuring out how Heat Wave can basically bring Cyborg to his knees — well, you'll have to read the book to see how that plays out.
Cyborg has a long history within the DCU, starting out as a member of the Wolfman/Perez "New Teen Titans." He's also been featured on TV for more the 25 years, dating back to the old "Super Powers" cartoon and most recently on "Smallville." I know Brad Meltzer wanted to use him in his relaunch of "Justice League of America" a few years back, but it never really came together. All that said, Cyborg has never really been considered by fans, or creators, as an A-lister. Is it finally Vic Stone's time to shine?
I think so. Cyborg has always been an amazing character and his time has finally come. I think what this book will show is that he is a Superman-esque character. He has the ability and powers to not only be a team member but an amazing leader.
The other thing, too, and it's something you mentioned, the Wolfman/Perez "New Teen Titans" had a big influence on me when I was a kid. I'm 42, so "The Judas Contract" was a big series for me. I've been a fan of Cyborg's for a long time. Think about it; how many guys are super strong, super smart, super big and at the same time, seem to be a pretty nice guy?
There are not enough African American superhero characters out there, and here we have a great one that has been underused and is finally getting his shot in the spotlight. He's hip. He's cool. I always used to think when I was a kid, with that kind of armor, what could I do? Now I get to see what I would do.
And by the way, I think technology has caught up to him. When he first appeared, he was a little sci-fi. Now, the world has caught up with him and he's the kind of character that people can identify with. He's the supercomputer.
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Uncorked Canvas™ provides a fun and social atmosphere
in which to be creative! A skilled artist will guide
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Buick Avista concept car makes stunning debut
Journalists at the 2016 North American International Auto Show were abuzz this week regarding the new concept design from a familiar manufacturer that has struggled to shake off the nostalgia left in peoples mind from the late 80's and early 90's. Yes, we are talking about Buick.
This past week Buick took standing ovations and honors for its concept car, the Buick Avista.
Sophisticated curves and a bold face, the Avista gave consumers a glimpse into the future and what the modern day coupe may look like. A bold face with sophisticated lines and curves, this coupe left nothing to the imagination. Built on the same platform as GM's legendary Camaro, this coupe delivers 400 horsepower, made possible by a twin turbo V6 engine. Although I am hard pressed to believe it would be needed, it is almost certain that Buick would also offer a bigger performance V8, perhaps even choosing to use the Magnetic Ride suspension it currently offers in its Yukon and Tahoe to up the ante even further.
Although the interior was not mentioned, we can only assume that GM will give Buick all the same brilliant technology that it has invested in and put inside many of the Cadillac, Chevrolet lineup and GMC lineup. Bluetooth to Navigation, Voice Command to Media Streaming, General Motors has take the bold step and become an industry leader in integrating cutting edge technology into its vehicles.
As for when the new Buick Avista will be available at Davis Chevrolet GMC Buick in Claresholm is unknown but we can't wait for the day we have one on our lot.


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- Worldwide Rank #89,169,125
- Follower/Following Ratio 0.43
- Daily New Followers 0
. Twitter Stats
@013_____ - Tracking . Twitter profile since March 15, 2015
013_____'s story
013_____, also known as @013_____ has a reasonably significant presence on Twitter and is ranked by us in the 30% percentile for account strength. Active on Twitter since August 2014, 013_____ made it to having a respectable 107 Twitter followers and to being ranked 89,169,125 for number of followers among all Twitter users.
Uh-oh... seems like someone has fallen asleep while on duty and is dropping in social relevance. The plot thickens when considering 013_____'s follower-to-following ratio, which is 0.43. This actually doesn't reflect so well on this account's strength.
Tweeting is apparently one of @013_____'s favorite pastimes, with an average of 0 tweet(s) per day in the past 30 days. That's pretty consistent with a total of 7,267 since @013_____ joined Twitter.
This account is tracked by us Only March 2015. As of August 15 2018 we track 290722354 Twitter accounts, so feel free to search for other accounts you're interested in and reveal their Twitter story!
. Tweets
@013_____ has posted 0 tweets in the last 15 days, which translates to an average of 0 tweets per day.
. Twitter Followers
@013_____ has 107 followers on Twitter.
This account is #89,169,125 in the worldwide rank of the most popular Twitter users.
. Following on Twitter
@013_____ is following 250 Twitter accounts.
Last month this account stopped following 27 users.
. Predictions & Milestones
@013_____ will hit 107 followers in the next 3 months, and 107 in one year.
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No products
40,00 Kč tax incl.
tax incl.
New product
Adding a new dimension to ant keeping.
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Availability date:
Thanks to this vertical connector you can connect the modules also in vertical direction.
By moving the plastic part inside the connector, you can choose the possible directions the ants can go.
Dimensions: 10x10x130 mm
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Center for Leisure and Culture Services
At CLCS, members are engaged with scholars and the practice community at various levels.
Partnership projects include:
All members of CLCS are also members of Imagine.. Creative Industries Research, CBS. Can Seng Ooi and Ana María Munar are members of the board.
Can-Seng Ooi and Ana Maria Munar are part of the project – Creativity for Innovation & Growth in Europe. This EU-funded project has many partners. Besides CBS, project partners include University of Manchester, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, University of Brighton, Corvinus University of Budapest, Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands), National Technical University of Athens, Polytechnic of Milan, Technical University of Munich, University of Gothenburg, ZEW (Centre for European Economic Research), Germany.
CLCS is hosting the international conference "Celebrating and Enhancing the Tourism Knowledge-based Platform: A Tribute to Jafar Jafari", 23-25 October 2013, together with the University of the Balearic Islands. Ana María Munar is the conference convenor.
Can-Seng Ooi is Editor of Asia Matters: Business, Society and Theory, in partnership with Heidi Dahles (Griffith University, Australia) and Juliette Koning (Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom).
Can-Seng Ooi is an International Advisory Board member of the Yellow River Arts Centre at Yinchuan, China. This eight-member board is the first and only international advisory board for a museum in the country.
Kristian Anders Hvass is a co-editor with other members of the Association of Tourism Researchers in Denmark on a forth-coming book concerning qualitative research methodologies within tourism research.
CLCS is organizing together with colleagues from Aalborg University, the 23rd Nordic Symposium of Tourism and Hospitality Research, in fall 2014. Adriana Budeanu is responsible with the organization of the event.
Center for Leisure and Culture Services
Copenhagen Business School
Porcelænshaven 24A, 3. floor
2000 Frederiksberg
Find us here
Telephone: +45 3815 2501
Director of the center: Ana Maria Munar


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Since my thrice-Holy, sovereign God committed to bring glory to Himself by redeeming sinful men and women, it makes logical sense that He will never allow the redeemed to be "unredeemed". Since God committed to saving me before the foundation of the world, it is logical, for the display of His own glory, that He will remain true and not let me go. Since God demonstrated His commitment to save me by the work of Christ on the Cross, He would not discredit that perfect work by allowing or causing me to fall away from His grace.
There is no greater encouragement to obey God's Word than His promise to never leave us or forsake us. Jude's beautiful doxological statement to end his epistle captures the essence of the matter-
Jude 1:24-25 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
It takes great ability to make the heavens and the earth.
It takes great ability to create all the fish of the sea, birds of the air, plants of the earth, and the creeping things.
It takes great ability to create man in His image.
It takes great ability to be patient with Man in all His rebellion.
It takes great ability to bring forth a nation in order to bring forth a Savior who will redeem His people.
It takes great ability in all the events that took place in forming that nation- miracles of physical redemption, miracles of personal intervention, great act after great act.
It takes great ability to send His only begotten Son to die for us.
It takes great ability to raise Him again on the Third day.
All the various acts of God reveal a glorious and great God who is able to do all these things- but let me tell you what ability impresses me most personally- it is the ability of God the Father to take a lying, gluttonous, idolatrous, arrogant, prideful, lustful, wicked, rebellious, sinner like me and present me on the great and glorious day of the Lord Jesus' appearing as one who is BLAMELESS. Yes! Me! He will present me blameless. I will be able to stand in my Father's presence without doubt, without fear, without shame for all my many sins! All because of Christ's death for me! I'm impressed by God's manifold abilities as expressed in creation and redemption, but nothing strikes me more personally than His ability to present me blameless in front of Him and all the heavenly hosts!
I look forward to Easter Sunday, but for now, on "Good" Friday, I will continue to reflect on the glory and grace of Christ's work on the cross for me.
Friday, April 6, 2007
God made a commitment to never let me go
Posted by Reepicheep at 9:59 AM
Labels: Bible, Devotional, Easter, Theology
2 comments:
- Frontier Forest said...
On this most holy of all Fridays, I want to be still, ponder His goodness, thank Him for His mercy, praise Him for His gift of eternal salvation, and seek to strength my own commitment unto Him.
- April 6, 2007 at 12:51 PM
- TB said...
I have never mediated more about what God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) has done for me leading up to this "Good Friday" then any past or combined "Good Fridays".
The Plan, The Willingness, The Sacrifice for me - Praise God.
- April 6, 2007 at 3:06 PM
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NYSEG Asks Natural Gas Customers in Broome and Parts of Tioga and Delaware Counties to Reduce Use While Interstate Pipeline Leak Is Repaired
Millennium Pipeline, a New York-based interstate natural gas pipeline serving the Northeast, will shut down a section of its supply line from Owego to Johnson City beginning on Saturday morning to repair the leak north of Owego. Millennium has informed NYSEG that, barring unforeseen circumstances, it expects to complete repairs to the pipeline by Tuesday.
To help offset the loss of natural gas supply to the area, NYSEG has already:
• Reduced use at its own facilities.• Informed certain large businesses that pay a lower interruptible rate for natural gas that their supply will be interrupted while the pipeline is repaired.• Informed businesses with alternate fuels to begin using those alternate fuels.• To the extent possible, reconfigured its local natural gas system to lessen the amount of natural gas being taken from the Millennium pipeline.
NYSEG offers customers the following tips to reduce natural gas use:
• Set thermostats no higher than 70° and at 58° when you're away from home for more than a few hours or in bed for the night. (This may not be advisable if you have frail, ill or elderly people or infants in your home.)
• Run clothes washers and dishwashers only when they are full, and postpone washing clothes, if possible.
• Consider hanging clothes to dry instead of using natural gas dryers.
• Keep drapes, curtains and blinds closed to conserve heat.
The steps NYSEG has taken, as well as other measures Millennium has implemented to reduce demand, and the cooperation of NYSEG residential and commercial customers in reducing use should enable NYSEG to maintain natural gas service. In the unlikely event that the situation escalates as a result of the Millennium Pipeline leak or other major system problems, NYSEG would be forced to curtail service to at least some residential and commercial customers in the affected areas.
Affected communities in Broome County include the City of Binghamton; the villages of Endicott, Johnson City, Port Dickinson and Deposit; and the towns of Union, Vestal, Maine, Chenango, Fenton, Conklin, Kirkwood, Colesville and Sanford.
Affected communities in Tioga County include Apalachin and Tioga Terrace in the Town of Owego.
Affected communities in Delaware County include the villages of Deposit and Walton and the towns of Deposit, Walton and Tompkins.
As always, to report natural gas emergencies and suspected natural gas odors, NYSEG customers should call 1.800.572.1121.
About NYSEG: NYSEG is a subsidiary of Iberdrola USA. NYSEG serves 873,000 electricity customers and 259,000 natural gas customers across more than 40% of upstate New York. Providing outstanding customer service and meeting our customers' energy requirements in an environmentally-responsible manner, NYSEG is a valuable asset to the communities we serve. For more information, visit www.nyseg.com.
About Iberdrola USA: Iberdrola USA, a subsidiary of global energy leader Iberdrola, S.A., is an energy services and delivery company serving more than 2.4 million customers in upstate New York and New England. For more information about Iberdrola USA, visit www.iberdrolausa.com.
About Millennium Pipeline: Millennium Pipeline is a New York-based interstate natural gas pipeline serving the Northeast. Millennium is anchored by its customers National Grid, Consolidated Edison of New York, Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation and Columbia Gas Transmission L.L.C. Millennium's design will allow it to transport up to 525,400 dekatherms per day, based on market needs. Millennium is jointly owned by affiliates of NiSource Inc., National Grid and DTE Energy.


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Health Fidelity, a risk adjustment vendor funded by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, has developed software that more accurately assesses risk adjustment results and reduce audit risk.
The software, called HF360 Compliance, uses natural language processing technology and statistical inference engines, mixed with analytics to identify and correct compliance risks. An inference engine uses artificial intelligence to apply rules to a specific knowledge base to arrive at a conclusion.
Use of the software is targeted at risk adjustment professionals such as coders, managers, quality assurance staff and internal auditors.
"Given that 80 percent to 90 percent of risk adjusted codes get submitted directly via claims from providers, only focusing on compliance of your coders is an incomplete strategy," says Steve Whitehouse, CEO at Health Fidelity.
For instance, the software identifies diagnoses that were previously submitted to and confirmed by CMS but for which there isn't sufficient clinical evidence within medical records to substantiate the diagnoses. Incorrect diagnoses then can be identified for review by risk adjusters or internal auditors. The end result is to streamline validation of diagnoses previously submitted on claims or prior supplemental submissions.
The HF360 Compliance software further can identify gaps in provider education, such as coding and documentation gaps and offer feedback to facilitate continuous improvement, according to the vendor.
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Mutt is "a small but very powerful text-based mail client for Unix operating systems".
The problem I find with many clever computer programs, is that they are written by people who are exceptionally intelligent and demand a large amount of specific knowledge to install and use. Considering myself competent in using computers, but not knowing much about the command-line, nor *nix of any kind, exploring the possibilities can be a devilish but rewarding challenge.
For free software to be truly free (as in both beer and speech), it should be easily installable and configurable by any literate adult. By that, I mean my mum should be able to follow the documentation to install and use the software. Any prerequisite knowledge not in the documentation should be referenced right at the start. There should be no or as low as possible a barrier to entry for everyone.
Why should we care about free and open source software? That's a discussion for another day. But I will say this. People are working together to develop software that is useful to us, and sharing their working so anyone can contribute and make the software better.
I propose all software should have a mum's guide. Especially free software:
- As a way to attract newcomers who feel generally that free (as in speech) software is unfamiliar and hard to learn, and;
- To lead with a good example for others to follow.
If the software cannot be installed and configured successfully, is that a fault of the user or the developer(s)?
So here is mutt for mums (on Mac OS X). Basic muttrc supplied by Koralatov.
Note: Although this is written up to be informative (and a little tongue-in cheek), I will be user-testing this with my mum. Don't slam me for errors in this case, as I am proving a concept. And yes, I am also aware that my mum would not use Mutt over a GUI mail client.
- A computer running Mac OS X 10.5 or above (check by clicking the Apple icon at the top left of your screen, then clicking 'About This Mac')-
- Homebrew and it's prerequisites, here: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/Installation
Installing Mutt
- Open Terminal by pressing the cmd key and space bar together, begin typing terminal, and hit enter when terminal is highlighted. Or, you can go to your Applications folder, open the Utlities folder, then double-click on Terminal.
- (You will have installed Homebrew per the prerequisites section above.) type the following command:
brew install mutt
- Next install msmtp. (a smtp mail client for sending email). Type the following command:
brew install msmtp
Setting up Mutt
This should be enough to get your started, but you'll need to fill in your password in the appropriate places, and create the following folders by typing the command
mkdir, leave a space, then type the folder name, and finally hit enter):
mkdir ~/mutt
mkdir ~/mutt/cache
mkdir ~/mutt/cache/bodies
You also need to create the following files (create files by typing the command
touch, leave a space, then type the file name):
touch ~/mutt/sig
touch ~/mutt/aliases
To edit text files, we will be using a program called Nano. To use nano we type the command into our terminal.
nano ~/mutt/sig
Type in your signature, e.g., mine below. Use ctrl key and oh key together to save, hit enter, then use ctrl key and ex key together to exit.
Your aliases file is populated in the following fashion, one entry per line (spacing is optional, but there must be at least one space between each part of the entry):
alias son Iain Simpson <email@example.com>
alias bob1 Bob Robertson <email@example.com>
Setting aliases is handy for later. When you are sending mail to someone, you can write bob1 in the To: field, rather than email@example.com
Setting muttrc
This step involves editing two files (muttrc and msmtprc) using Nano, e.g.,
nano ~/muttrc
Firstly copy the text below (highlight with your mouse then press cmd key and c key together to copy). (We will paste this into Nano later.)
COPY FROM NEXT LINE, starting # muttrc
# muttrc
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
set realname = "Your Name"
set from = "firstname.lastname@example.com"
set use_from = yes
set hidden_host
set envelope_from = yes
source ~/mutt/aliases
set alias_file = ~/mutt/aliases
set sort_alias = alias
set reverse_alias = yes
set certificate_file = ~/mutt/certificates
set header_cache = ~/mutt/cache/headers
set message_cachedir = ~/mutt/cache/bodies
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
set sort = "reverse-date-received"
set index_format = "%4C %Z %-18.18L %-30.30s %{%b %d %H:%M}"
set markers = no
ignore *
unignore From Date Subject To CC
hdr_order From To CC Date Subject
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
set autoedit = yes
set recall = no
set include = yes
set tilde
set editor = nano
set signature = ~/mutt/sig
set delete = yes
set fast_reply = yes
set fcc_clear
set include = ask-yes
set move = no
unset reply_self
set allow_8bit = yes
set charset = "utf-8"
set send_charset = "utf-8"
set locale = en_GB
set use_8bitmime = yes
set indent_string = "> "
set wrap = 78
set smart_wrap
set attribution = "On %D, %n wrote:\n"
set date_format = "!%a, %b %d, %Y at %H:%M"
set forward_format = "Fwd: %s"
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
set imap_user = "firstname.lastname@example.com"
set imap_pass = "your password"
set mail_check = 60
set check_new = yes
set imap_keepalive = 900
set sendmail = "/usr/bin/msmtp"
set sendmail_wait = -1
set spoolfile = "imaps://imap.1and1.co.uk:993"
set folder = "imaps://imap.1and1.co.uk:993"
set record = "imaps://imap.1and1.co.uk/Sent"
set postponed = "imaps://imap.1and1.co.uk/Drafts"
set mbox = "imaps://imap.1and1.co.uk/Archives/2012"
set pager_stop
STOP COPYING after
set pager stop
- Type the following command
nano ~/muttrc
- To paste into Nano, click within Nano, then press the cmd key and vee key together, or secondary click (right-click). That's it.
- You will need to look through the file using the arrow keys and change the IDENTITY, IMAP and FOLDERS settings. (You may need to google your IMAP settings, e.g., google search for AOL IMAP settings)
- As before, when finished editing, press ctrl key and oh key to save, hit enter, then ctrl key and ex key to exit.
Setting msmtprc
Lastly we will edit msmtprc. Following the same steps as above, copy the below and edit. Edit your host (per your googled IMAP settings), user and password.
nano ~/msmtprc
COPY FROM NEXT LINE, starting # msmtprc
# msmtprc:
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
account default
host auth.smtp.1and1.co.uk
port 587
auth on
user email@example.com
password xxxxx
auto_from off
from firstname.lastname@example.com
tls on
tls_starttls on
tls_certcheck off
STOP COPYING after tls_certcheck off
Edit your host (per your googled IMAP settings), user and password.
To run Mutt, open a Terminal window (by pressing the cmd key and space bar together, begin typing terminal, and hit enter when terminal is highlighted), type mutt and hit enter. Mutt will open and provided you entered your settings correctly in muttrc and msmtprc, you will be receive and send mail. Now you just have to learn the keyboard shortcuts, and you'll be navigating and managing your mail very speedily indeed. To exit mutt, just hit the ex key.


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While many California couples may recognize the importance of a prenuptial agreement, some may not realize the importance of ensuring that such an important document complies with all the legal requirements of the state. The first requirement may seem obvious; however, it is crucial not to make verbal agreements, as only a written prenuptial agreement will be valid. Furthermore, the signatures of both parties should be present on the document that should carry a date prior to the marriage.
In the unfortunate event of future litigation, the court will consider whether one party may have been coerced by the other party, his or her family or legal counsel to sign the document. If one party can show that he or she were not given the opportunity to read and consider the document before signing it, the agreement may be declared invalid. Both parties should be afforded the time to carefully consider the agreement, and even have it checked for legality, before signing it.
Premarital agreements may not contain any provisions that are unlawful; this includes any provisions related to child custody and the modification of child support orders. The court may choose to strike any invalid provisions, rather than declaring the complete contract invalid. The court also expects both parties to have provided full disclosure related to their assets and liabilities, along with fully disclosed income. Any false or incomplete financial information may result in an agreement being rejected.
Contracts that contain grossly unfair provisions that may leave one party prosperous and the other facing extreme financial hardship may be found invalid. To ensure validity, the law requires each party to have his or her own legal representation who will ensure a fair premarital agreement is crafted. California couples who want to ensure that their prenuptial agreement meets all legal requirements may benefit from visiting our prenuptial and postnuptial website for more information.
Source: FindLaw, "Top 10 Reasons a Premarital Agreement May be Invalid", , Sept. 4, 2014


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Long Form, In-depth & Data Driven Blog Posts
Remember the days of the old school yard? No cameras, no fears, no worries.
Everyone wants a piece of me: metadata, scientists & the big data frontier
Project Management: Video Game Pitch
While completing a Communications major at Deakin University, I have gained significant experience with online project management. The above clip features – a first-person shooter conceptual pitch I conceived including the narrative, strategy and design. The project went from concept to completion within two weeks and was completed entirely online. I coordinated the project while studying in the Cloud with Deakin and three other students. The project received a High Distinction.
Here's an edition of the internal newsletter that I produced while working as a Client Services Officer. Please click link above to view.
Sports Editor – Naracoorte Herald, South Australia
News & Sports Items Collated, Written & Edited for Publication.


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Pinn is an attribution and attestation cybersecurity company that utilizes behavioral biometrics to verify a person's identity.
Muse is an artificial intelligence company teaming up with creatives to better store and organize the world's video content.
Stae is a software infrastructure platform that helps municipalities and partner institutions better understand, utilize, and monetize urban data.
Jiko is a decentralized full stack bank that empowers customers with an end-to-end secure, seamless, and safe banking experience.


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The West Virginia Board of Treasury Investments was created as a public body corporate and established to provide prudent investment management for the State's short term operating funds. The Board consists of five members. The Governor, State Treasurer, and State Auditor serve by virtue of their offices. The State Treasurer is Chairman of the Board. Two additional members are appointed by the Governor. All board members boast an impressive resume in state government and financial administration.
Read more...
Enter the code shown above:
(Note: If you cannot read the numbers in the above
image, Click the Image to generate a new one.)
BTI State Code


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Us brewers get a little excited about the annual hop harvest. Our cool rooms are getting bare, and we look forward to the sweet smell of the new crops. Ash caught up with Renn Blackman (Blackman's Brewery, Torquay) and got chatting about how great amazing fresh hops are. The conversation quickly steered toward collaborating together and creating a beer using the new season pickings. Before long it was collectively agreed on one of the most defined, fruity and pungent hop varieties grown locally, called Galaxy. Galaxy was to shine through as the star for our collaboration beer. These hops would be taken straight from the 'Bine' from the farm, without any form of drying or processing.
Collectively we share a passion for a carefully made lager. In fact we both have a lager as our lead beer. The tropical passion fruit aroma of Galaxy Hops was going to need a rich malt bill in order for balance, and in this 'Wet Hop Red Bock' was conceived. A 5.8% malty, red bock Lager that is. We chose Pilsner, two different Munich's and 'CaraRed' malt to provide the backbone. Once we locked in the recipe (over a beer of course) we just had to wait patiently for word from the farmers that the hops were ripe for the picking.
Ash made the trek out to Rostrevor Hop Farm in the Victorian highlands, near Bright. The farmers were pulling down the Galaxy bines and the whole landscape smelt like a glass of a dank, potent IPA. Fresh, moist hops don't last long so once harvested they were quickly loaded into Ash's car and he putted his way back toward Blackman's Brewery.
"We are going to need a lot of hops" was the quote of the whole experience, mentioned by both brewers at multiple points. When wet, hops weigh 4-5 times the equivalent weight of when they are dry. In order to extract all the citrusy goodness from the 'Galaxy' hops, we crammed in several bucket loads (20kg to be precise), using the Lauter tun which is usually used for malt, beer's primary ingredient.
After a long wait of cold fermentation and the results from a healthy yeast strain the beer is now ready and we'll be serving it first at these fine venues this weekend.
Friday April 22nd – The Alehouse Project, Brunswick East.
Sunday April 24th – Dr Morse, Abbotsford.
And then
Wednesday April 27th – Blackman's Brewery, Torquay
Please let us know what you think of our collaboration.
The Boys
(Photos by Heidi Atkins & Ash)