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CHANEL LEATHER WOVEN CHAIN EARRINGSCategories:Other Brands
Last week we talked extensively about the latest Chanel Fall Winter 2016 Earring Collection, but there was one particular pair of earrings that grabbed our attention. And that was the Chanel Leather Woven Chain Earrings.
Why are these special?
Well, the design is really creative yet so Chanelish. You see, when you combined the most-wanted color, the gorgeous CC signature and the popular Leather Woven Chain design, you get an irresistible accessory.
So for the ladies that already own a Chanel Classic Flap Bag (or any Chanel bags with Leather Woven Chain strap), wearing these beauties would make your outfit perfect.
Here are the details:
Chanel CC Leather Woven Chain Earrings
Style code: A96197
Price: $550 USD, €490 euro, £415 GBP, $780 SGD, $4100 HKD, $760 AUD, ¥65880 JPY
Tags: leather Chanel Chain EARRINGS woven
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CHANEL SPRING SUMMER 2016 EARRINGS COLLECTIONCategories:Other Brands
Style code: A86243
Price: $450 USD, €390 euro
Now let's talk about earrings, shall we? You know, besides handbags and shoes, what is the next thing that is exceptionally popular at Chanel?
Earrings of course…
Style code: A88847
Price: $700 USD, €620 euro
So we decided to give you as much information as possible about the earrings for this collection. Oh and our favorites is no other than these CC with pearls and gems in gold, light pink and white. These beauties are perfect for the evenings as well as important events. They just look so elegant.
Style code: A97002
Price: €1050 euro
What's more? These Chanel Clip-On Earrings looks sophisticated but amazing. Again, a lot of pearls below the beautiful CC in gold, white and crystals.
So what do you think? And which one would you choose?
Style code: A86242
Price: $500 USD, €440 euro
Style code: A95022
Price: $450 USD, €400 euro
Style code: A95024
Price: $475 USD, €420 euro
Style code: A95023
Price: €390 euro
Style code: A86265
Price: €420 euro
Style code: A96045
Price: €530 euro
Style code: A95164
Price: €620 euro
Tags: Chanel Spring Summer 2016 EARRINGS
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Louis Vuitton Presents Fortune Earrings Inspired by Zodiac SignsCategories:Louis Vuitton
Whether one believes in it or not, browsing through the yearly horoscopes and predictions is a fun way to spend free time after New Year's Eve. The zodiac signs have always provided character traits and motivations throughout the centuries, and astrology also has been perceived and practiced in different ways by many cultures and populations. The modern society is no less interested in astrology, and has frequently found eclectic ways to celebrate the zodiac signs. Of course, fashion often looks up to the horoscope to find some sort of inspirations for coming up with statement-making, unique collections, with Louis Vuitton just being one of the latest brands to launch jaw-dropping designs be inspired by the Zodiac signs.
The French fashion luxury house has, in fact, just presented The Fortune earrings collection, which has been inspired by the zodiac signs and is going to be available for purchase at the end of the year, from November 2016. Minimalistic, sleek and delicate, Louis Vuitton's Fortune jewelry line looks up to the stars to celebrate everyone's zodiac sign, pampering us with a collection of 12 gold earrings in miniature.
Mimicking well-known graphic shapes, each one of the earrings could be worn alone, left unpaired to celebrate the single earring trend, which is one of the biggest spring/ summer 2016 jewelry trends, or, for those who are really into astrology, combined with one's rising sign (the latter option may not be that thrilling for those who, like me, share the same zodiac and rising signs). Of course, Louis Vuitton made sure to have some room for its classic 'V' shapes within the pieces too, integrating the letter into each one of the designs in always-different and very creative ways.
Priced at €250 each, Louis Vuitton's Zodiac jewelry line is predicted (pun intended) to be as successful as the brand's last spring's Initiales line, wherein that same golden miniatures were forged to create letters. When it comes to the Zodiac Sign collection, those initials could be worn individually or combined together to spell out a name, a word or even a sentence and a message. Apparently, the French house wants us to be more prone to personalizing our style, without being afraid of showing off our individuality and passions. "Sold singularly, #LouisVuitton's Fortune zodiac earrings promise only good thing," @LouisVuitton_UK stated via twitter.
Launched just in time to serve as the upcoming Christmas presents (having to wait until November is the only flaw in the otherwise perfect plan to start getting more fashionable since these very first days of January), Louis Vuitton's zodiac jewelry line is already a must-have!
Tags: Louis Vuitton EARRINGS Presents Fortune
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CHANEL EARRINGS FOR FALL WINTER 2015 COLLECTION ACT 2Categories:Jewelry & Watches
Style code: A87413
Price: €360 EUR
Right now, it's all about the bling! Today, we're going to feature Chanel Earrings as seen on the luxury brand's Fall Winter 2015 Collection Act 2. We're not only about the bags and shoes here – we gotta have some of the luxe, shiny stuff too!
Style code: A88657
Price: €350 EUR
Style code: A87409
Price: €240 EUR
Style code: A85994
Price: €450 EUR
Style code: A89129
Price: €380 EUR
Style code: A89130
Price: €390 EUR
Style code: A88630
Price: €840 EUR
Get ahead with these shining, shimmering babies as you make them your primary accessories for the evening. Do you have any favorites from the pieces above? You can get your very own pair via Chanel boutique.
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CHANEL EARRINGS FOR FALL WINTER 2015 PRE-COLLECTION PART 1Categories:Jewelry & Watches
Ladies, you're in for a special treat today! We're going to feature the first part of our sneak peek for Chanel Earrings, which are part of the Fall Winter 2015 Pre-collection. We get how those bouncing bling and baubles can be super-addictive – and now, we're bringing it! So, what to choose?
Fresh Water Pearl Earrings
Style code: A88522
Price: €1040 EUR
We hope you're up for some amazing pearl earrings. The craftsmanship on this thing is amazing – super fancy and eye-catching, indeed!
Metal and Plexiglas Earrings
Style code: A87234
Price: €690 EUR
Beautiful…just, beautiful indeed. These earrings in metal and plexiglass shine because it's adorned with shimmering strass and finished-off with a CC signature.
Metal and Glass Pearl Earrings
Style code: A88580
Price: €580 EUR
This beauty is a metal set with strass, encrusted with glass pearls and also features the house's CC signature. Just imagine this thing glisten in your ear…
Glass Pearl, Metal and Resin Earrings
Style code: A85927
Price: €290 EUR
Are you the type to love drop earrings? Well, we're all for it! This earring, which comes in glass pearls, metal and resin can be your next best friend.
Glass Pearl, Metal and Resin Earrings
Style code: A85873
Price: €390 EUR
If you're more about the rounded string, this other variation could work just well.
So, what do you think about the first part of this collection? What is your favorite design from the choices, so far? Be heard, and talk to us! These pieces are available via Chanel boutique.
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DIOR TRIBAL EARRINGSCategories:Jewelry & Watches
Dior is offering us new treats to watch out for! Aside from their wonderful line of bags, shoes and other leather goods, they are releasing some fancy bling, in the form of their Tribal Earrings! We are so in-love with these pieces, which show some unique craftsmanship, and a design concept which spans multiple designs. These fabulous earrings are the real deal.
Made with only the finest material available, this is not your ordinary earring – it is inspired by tribal designs, which is eccentric and unique. The pieces are composed of a small pearl, which rests perfectly on the ear, and a large one which peeps out subtly from behind the lobe. The concept is mind-blowing – we've seen a lot of jewelry in our day, but nothing as fancy and innovative as this. If you would want to invest in a piece that would surely stand-out, then this is the one you're looking for! These pieces can give your outfit that added sparkle.
Designs can range from €280 EUR to €620 EUR, or around £260 GBP to £560 GBP. If you're looking for a piece that will rock your world, head over to the Dior e-store now!


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National Geographic has dubbed 2010 the year of adventure. I couldn't agree more with that. Travelers should get out of their comfort zone and explore!
I was delighted to see the editors list Friendly Planet on its "Best Deals for Adventurous Travelers." They highlighted the $400 savings customers get on the Borneo Adventure tour.
Take a peek and see who else stacked up in National Geographic's roundup of travel deals.

subset: commoncrawl


text: The Grand Ronde Housing Department (GRHD) was established by Tribal Ordinance on March 27, 1996 to develop and implement Tribal housing programs. Mission Statement To ensure that each CTGR Tribal member has the opportunity to reside in housing that is affordable, provides a safe and healthy living environment, and promotes self-sufficiency, Tribal pride and spirit. Objective To create affordable rental housing options for families, sensitive to their unique and special needs, and accommodating a diverse mix of one, two, three, four and five bedroom apartments. The project is located within the Grand Ronde community, near the Tribal government and related services, allowing Tribal members currently living in the area, or wanting to return to their homeland, a quality place to live and call home. The GRHD annually prepares a housing plan adopted by both the Housing Authority Board and Tribal Council based on information from a comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment performed every five years. This plan is submitted to HUD's Office of Native American Programs. GRHD's annual allocation from these Indian Housing Block Grants is approximately $3 million per year for the purpose of operating existing projects and developing new affordable housing communities and programs. Family Housing Chxi Musam Illihi - This development is a planned rental community for Tribal members of all income levels. Elder Housing Affordable rental housing options that accommodate the special needs of Elder Tribal members who wish to return to the homeland of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. Grand Meadows Tribal members having a desire to relocate to their homeland can move to Grand Meadows, a 36-lot manufactured home subdivision located in the community of Grand Ronde. Applications Housing Applications Programs Grand Ronde Housing Department Programs


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How Internet Companies Are Driving a Public Utility Regulation Approach to Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON, September 12, 2014 - In what would have seemed highly unlikely just a few months ago, growing support for public utility regulation is emerging. Tech companies, politicians, internet service providers, and component makers have started to outline their views regarding their policy approach to the issue of net neutrality. In order to understand the… Keep Reading


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Kidney Pain at 3am for Ten Days
Female, 52 yrs, hospitalized ten days 30 yrs ago severe kidney infection, approx 15 UTI`s since then, none in the last 5 yrs.
Mid October had cystitus and did 3 days (Nuproxin?) which cured but since then had odor and cloudiness in urine.
Had annual physical and asked to check was told no infection. At follow up Nov 28 I told doctor about intense pain that wakens me at 3am. for last 5 days. They cultured and called Dec 1, said take Cipro for two weeks. I started it that night.
The odor has faded and urine is less cloudy after three pills but both nights I am wakened with horrible pain at the same time. When I get up to urinate there is no cystitus type pain but when I finish the kidney pain is intensified. Heat comforts but does not change pain. Sitting up is better than lying down. Otc`s do nothing. After several hours sitting up it fades enough for me to walk upright but if I push in on left kidney from front or back it intensifies. No fever, even low grade. My question is what is with the exact timing of the pain??? And why no decrease since starting atibiotic?
I cannot give you definitive answers to your questions without knowing more about you (would have to see you, examine you, and review your labs and imaging studies). But here are some thoughts that may help, and that may give you ideas of questions to ask your doctor:
1) When you say you have "kidney pain," is it truly from your kidneys? Below is a link to our article about kidney pain, which should help you to know for sure whether your pain is actually originating from your kidneys (as opposed to your bladder or muscles in your back). If it is truly kidney pain, this is very concerning because it suggests that there is a source of infection in your kidney(s), and until the source is eradicated, the infection cannot be cured.
2) The pain you describe at the end of urination is interesting. Again, the question is whether or not it's coming from the kidney. If the pain is in the lower part of the abdomen it's most likely related to irritation of the bladder muscles, which contract particularly at the end of urination.
3) In any case, with your history of so many infections, it would be interesting to know what your imaging studies (such as ultrasound, CT scan, or MRI) have revealed. Is there evidence of kidney scarring from past infections? Is the kidney structure abnormal in a way that would allow bacteria to hide and grow, and not be normally washed out in the urine? If there anything in the kidney such as a kidney stone that may be causing pain, cloudy urine, and providing a place for bacteria to grow?
I hope these thoughts help. Please write again if you have more questions!
Related Resources:
For more information:
Go to the Kidney Diseases health topic.


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The digitization of manufacturing is driving constantly improving yield, productivity, and quality. We can help you optimize your manufacturing test processes to deliver wins to your customers.
In-Circuit Test
In-circuit test provides broad test coverage and higher board yield. PCB testing and test development is efficient because it is driven by design information from CAD/EDA tools.
Boundary Scan
Boundary scan technology allows the testing of the interconnection between integrated circuits for electronics manufacturing test. Boundary scan improves test coverage by seeing inside integrated circuits that may not be visible using other methods.
Functional Testing
Better functional testing improves product quality and yield for enhanced product performance.
Automated for Faster manufacturing Tests
Are you still writing your own test sequencing software?
There's never enough time for software and test development. Using the right software tools can reduce test time for pcb testing and functional testing, while accelerating manufacturing development.
Improve Device Yield
Functional test systems check the performance of an assembly or product while applying a range of input signals and stimuli. These test systems can employ full-featured box instruments or AXIe or PXI modular instruments.
Gain Insight From Data
Big data analytics is becoming an important driver for operational improvements. However, analyzing months or years of measurement and process data to isolate a root cause can be daunting and time-consuming.
PathWave Analytics is an automated analytics tool that provides you with greater insight into your operations with real-time actionable data. Monitor your global operations data anywhere, anytime. Get instantly alerted whenever an anomaly is detected in your measurement data, metadata, machine health data, or process data.
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Pre-compliance is a low risk, cost-effective method to ensure your product passes final compliance testing, and enters the market on time. Pre-compliance measurements are straight-forward and can be done at your lab bench.
Automotive Electronics Test
The intelligent and connected car is no longer a futuristic concept, but an exciting reality. With increasing levels of electronics powering sophisticated navigation, safety, and infotainment features, the industry is witnessing the rapid convergence of automotive and energy technologies.
IoT and Small Scale Electronics Test
It is projected that there will be more than 75 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices by 2025. Most of these devices will make use of wireless technology with many potential connection standards, including 802.11 WLAN, Bluetooth, NB IoT, NFC, and ZigBee. The next wave of IoT devices and the deployment of 5G mobile technology will create new opportunities and challenges in this area.
Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 is the fourth industrial revolution which focuses on end-to-end digitization of all physical assets and integration into digital ecosystems. It is the digital transformation of manufacturing, leveraging on technologies to enable connected factories, self-optimizing systems and digital supply chain.
Built on a solid foundation of security, connectivity and scalability, Keysight equips you with Industry 4.0 readiness in the 3 areas: "Automation" – which includes our Industry 4.0-ready inline in-circuit testers and automated test software, "Acquisition" – where our data acquisition instruments, IoT solutions and Machine to Machine connectivity standards come into play and "Analytics" – showcasing our strengths in Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning.
Master 5G Manufacturing Test
5G deployments are accelerating around the world. Successful rollout requires device makers and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to reduce cost while increasing test speed and throughput when validating product performance during manufacturing. Unfortunately, over-the-air testing without connectors in millimeter (mmWave) frequency bands introduces new test challenges related to chamber size and mmWave pathloss.
Keysight offers end-to-end 5G test solutions across the workflow – from design and validation to manufacturing – using common software and measurement science.
"Our company has success in using Keysight products due to its high measurement accuracy, reliability, and small footprint. We have a great working relationship."
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"Keysight provided a timely and innovative solution to our company. It was an excellent experience in collaborating with Keysight team to develop this first-in-industry package defect tester for wire bond defect inspection and screening."
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In the fast-moving world of Industry 4.0, it is critical to be both best and first. Keysight can help.


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Ryan Lochte, at the center of controversy for making up a story about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro, tweeted an apology on Friday morning for "not being more careful and candid in how I described the events".
You can read his full apology below and keep up with continuing developments on Lochte, his teammates and the actions in Rio here.
The head of Guinea's Olympic delegation says two athletes did not return to the West African nation after competing at the Rio Olympics.
Atef Chaloub said Saturday that swimmer Amadou Camara disappeared 48 hours before the team's scheduled departure. He said Mamadama Bangoura, who competed in judo, also did not return to Guinea, having disappeared after leaving a message saying she wanted to "try her luck" abroad.
A friend of Bangoura's, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid punishment for failing to stop her from fleeing, said Bangoura was ashamed she didn't earn a medal and wanted to try "working in a developed country."
The extent of the property damage Ryan Lochte and three of his fellow U.S. Olympic swimmers caused to a gas station eight days ago might have been exaggerated by Rio de Janeiro police, according to a report by USA Today.
At a news conference Thursday, Fernando Veloso, the head of Rio de Janeiro's civil police, said the Americans had broken a soap dispenser and mirror inside the restroom. Other reports have said the four also broke a bathroom door.
But one of the U.S. swimmers, Gunnar Bentz, said in a statement Friday that he didn't see anyone vandalize the bathroom and the only damage caused by the group occurred when Lochte pulled a "loosely attached" advertising sign from a wall.
On the first Saturday afternoon of the Olympics, NBC's images of road cycling were so dazzling that the scenes could have been lifted from a travel promotion ad by the Rio de Janeiro tourist board.
The mostly aerial shots that tracked the bikes along the coastline displayed charmingly winding roads, granite peaks, blue-green ocean waves splashing against rocks and houses (some pink) quaintly clinging to hillsides.
Who among us did not consider firing up our laptops to begin researching our next possible vacation destination?
He was branded a traitor, an opportunist, a coward. He was ridiculed in his neighborhood, resented in his workplace, mocked by his former fans.
When Kevin Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the powerful Golden State Warriors this summer, mere weeks after the Warriors knocked the Thunder out of the playoffs, he was generally described with a single adjective.
My medal platform of memories is filled by two people and a team that not only successfully defended their titles, but made history doing it.
The bronze goes to judoka Kayla Harrison, who become the first American to win two gold medals in her sport. The silver goes to middleweight boxer Claressa Shields, the first American — male or female — to win two Olympic boxing titles.
And the gold goes to the women's water polo team, which not only became the first repeat champion in the history of its sport, but did it with a heavy heart after the brother of Coach Adam Krikorian died of a heart attack two days before the Games began.
Dark clouds hovered over Maracana Stadium at dusk, with a sudden wind tugging at flags and whipping the Olympic flame.
Then a drenching rain began to fall.
The storm that intruded on Sunday night's closing ceremony at the Summer Olympics befit a mega-sporting event that, over the last few weeks, had blended spectacle with more than a few glitches and negative headlines.
See the best images from Times photographers Robert Gauthier and Wally Skalij
10:45 p.m.: That's all, folks, at least for the official part of the program. Partying might go deep into the night. Thanks, Rio.
10:40 p.m.: A taste of Carnival, some fireworks, some confetti. Athletes dancing with the performers.Exuberant and vibrant ending.
10:25 p.m.: Olympic flame is extinguished. Now, much dancing and merriment.


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The Gadget: Rimless goggles with a locking lens plate for switching up the glass for sunny or cloudy days. A follow up to their I/O googles, but with improved foam sealing and shape.
The Price: $180
The Rundown: Smith Optics is my favorite goggle company. I usually use their sensor phenom lens on cloudy/storm days, and their full on mirror for sunny days. This goggle ships with both, in a clever zip up nylon box, so you're covered in all conditions. The original I/O had some seal issues around the nose (it, uh, didn't seal well on most people's faces, narrow or broad) but the IO/S (and the improved I/O) fixes that with a piece of foam slit above the nose, with more material for closure. (The S shape is for smaller faces, but is the same concept as the I/O) The shape of the original was also really round, so if you tried to put it on your face, the seal on the lens twisted off the frame. Less so with these, but try them on before you buy. Unlike old swappable lenses on cheap goggs, these lock into place by way of the strap holders and two switches on top. Very sturdy. And, Smith Optics almost never fog, unless you're a sweatball or in a swampy storm. I still prefer to run separate goggles for sunny and cloudy days, because I don't like handling my lenses any more than I have to, but if you can only have one set and these fit, I recommend them for their amazing versatility. [Smith Optics, Snowmodo]
Snowmodo is our snow sport winter meet up at Lake Tahoe, California, with prizes, discounts, tons of fun snow activities, a party and GADGETS. If you can make it please RSVP and find out more info by clicking on the banner below. I'll let you wear my hat (below).


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Click the arrows to see more images.
Monday, September 23, 2013
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36 comments
each garment is like a piece of heart.
The finish, all in gold, was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I'm usually not a fan of D&G, but this time they did a terrific job, love it!
Xoxo Cory
Really stunning !
Kisses from
Astounding effect! Great photo – thank you!
i love the polka dot look! :)
Wow this collection looks marvelous. Wish I could afford anything :)
xx Mira
This collection is just breathtaking love the whimsical touch to every single piece!!! D&G never disappoints!!!! And photos are incredible as well
what else do women need …. ♥
Great show! http://www.lavenue.com/
Best collection you have shown us by far!
I love D&G!! The flowered dresses and the flowers crowns are perfection!
Interesting dress. Great day.
Love floral prints, the belts and this baroque inspiration!
Wonderful dress! it reminds me of the fantastic fairy work my Grandmother used to produce in Rome at her workshop where she created the most wonderful embroidery designs for the designers! many of which I had the pleasure of taking to their ateliers when they were ready!
Ancient greek-roman blossom-ness in the hands of the sexy Italian duo..what more??
Beautiful photos!
I love Dolce & Gabbana so much!
They are always the best, my favourites ever!!!
My Fantabulous World
I have disliked DG in the past but recently everything is so pretty. I would actually wear one of two of these dresses (if I were taller :—)
What a stunning collection. Hoping someone copies this for the ready to wear ( and can't afford the D & G price tags ) crowd !!
How utterly romantic!!
amazing show!
Beautiful detail by D&G, the entire collection is truly a work of art.
Love the low-angle kinetic shot of the gold lace in its myriad variations. The movement, the magic of gold, as if descending upon one's dreams…
This collection is amazing, and I noticed a gorgeous short red coat!
The first dress makes me think of la Primavera de Botticelli.
This collection looks like a Visconti movie. Incredibly beautiful.
nice, looking from autumn to spring…
So beautiful..I love D&G. It's like a dream.
Looks like Valentino, but I love it anyways
I do not find this collection good. The red dress and the red coat are bulky. The flat sandals are ugly. There is nothing gracious about it. There is no consistency in the overall collection.
Wow, magnifique comme toujours!
Someone dressed well in Dolce and Gabbanna couture is always entertaining to watch.
Those Sicilian branches of almond tree are still filling my dreams.
I mostly prefer my jester outfits but this I love.


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Early birds may make Election Day's long lines a thing of the past
Numbers show trend becoming more popular in state and nation
The centuries-old tradition of long lines on Election Day, with voters patiently suffering on tired feet in order to do their patriotic duty, is quickly becoming a thing of the past. By the time early voting in Texas ended Friday night, an estimated two-thirds of those expected to cast a ballot in Harris County had already done so.
That trend is mirrored around the country and across the state. In 2008's record-setting general election, almost half the ballots in Texas were cast early. Fort Bend County saw three-quarters of its 200,000 votes come in before Election Day. Harris and Montgomery counties were around 65 percent. If politics are changing, elections are following suit - virtually all states are reporting spiraling early balloting.
"I think it will continue to be a higher and higher number," said Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart, whose office oversees most local elections. "The convenience of early voting brings people out. And we've been pushing hard on early voting this time so people can avoid the confusion of going to the wrong polling place on Election Day."
Avoiding confusion
He said that political redistricting resulted in about 20 percent of local voters being attached to a new polling place. Because many people don't follow redistricting wars carefully or look at freshly redrawn maps, the potential for confusion was significant.
"We encouraged people to vote early so there would not be a problem," he said.
Daily in-person voting totals in Harris County have topped 50,000 in nine of the last 12 days. The number of votes cast Friday at the county's 37 voting locations was not available at deadline. At least two polling places were still reporting voters in line as late as 10 p.m.
Du-Ha Kim Nguyen, voter outreach coordinator at the county clerk's office, said that as of 10 p.m., 700,019 ballots had been cast in the two weeks of early voting.
"We had people backing up traffic in some locations," Stanart said. "Those people were determined to vote early."
In 2000, when Texas Gov. George W. Bush claimed the White House in a bitter election that ended up in the courts, fewer than 20 percent of the registered voters in his home state cast an early ballot. In Houston, the number was even lower, barely topping 13 percent.
Eight years later, as Barack Obama made his historic run for the presidency, the concept had caught on so much that the state's early total was above 40 percent of registered voters. Although Houston was a few points lower, it almost tripled its previous early ballots in a presidential election year.
Early voting is becoming the new normal. In Colorado, about 80 percent of the ballots cast in the 2008 general election were through early voting. The entire U.S. total topped 41 million. The U.S. Elections Project at George Mason University reports that it has become a popular voting method in every state that has adopted it.
Stanart said he foresees a time when early ballots will account for most of the total vote. Candidates and political parties are bombard constituencies with emailed encouragement to vote early.
"It will go higher because the convenience of being able to vote anywhere," he said. "People get used to that. It's so much easier. And campaigns like it because they can chase down a smaller pool of voters on Election Day."
Sundays not so popular
In Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, early voting turnout has been high and steady every day this week. Saturday saw the biggest turnout in most Houston-area counties, offering a tidbit of evidence for those who argue that national elections should be moved to the weekend - or at least the first day of the weekend. That is because Sundays saw the lowest turnout each week, suggesting that politics and professional football don't mix.
Elections officials are big fans of early voting because it makes for fewer hassles on Election Day. The venerable day of destiny eventually may be mostly a counting day, with so relatively few voters going to the polls that day that many precincts will be consolidated with others nearby for sake of efficiency.
Suzie Harvey, elections administrator for Montgomery County, said convenience is the obvious draw, but the ever-increasing early votes also reflect a greater sense of participation and enthusiasm among the public.
"People are excited and want to get out there early and get their vote in," Harvey said. "I think that's a good sign. The voters just like the concept. And it seems to have caught on with our mail-in ballots. Those numbers are way up as well."


text: Etihad Airways Exclusive Offer Etihad Airways is now offering exclusive discounts for IE Business School members to travel to Madrid via Abu Dhabi. Search for your flights on the search engine and include the promo code "IEBS17" in the box. The search will show all the results for the selected dates, only the flights with the golden star have discounts applicable. Select your flight and proceed to payment, the final fare will be shown during the booking process. Reaching Madrid has never been so easy; enjoy the ride with Etihad Airways! Terms and conditions Terms and conditions This offer is valid for one way/round trip tickets. The offer is not valid for multicity destination/stopover. Bookings need to be made before 19 July 2017.Travel period 01 July until 31 August 2017. Payment needs to be made through www.etihad.com. Flights and fares available are displayed at the time of the booking. The discount is valid on Etihad flights operated by Etihad or any company with a codeshare agreement. Flights eligible for the discount are identified by a yellow star on the booking site. Please make sure the flight you want to book is eligible for the discount. The discount is valid on all Economy Saver, Economy Classic, Economy Flex, Business Saver, Business Classic, Business Flex, and First, excluding child or infant fares. The discount is done on the flight fare excluding airport taxes and other surcharges. Changes and cancellations are subject to charges and fees as per published fare rules. All changes and refunds need to be done via www.etihad.com or Etihad Airways call centres. Etihad Airways are the promoter and solely responsible for the fulfillment of the offer.


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Buster Keaton the Inventor and Charlie Chaplin the Conjurer
The films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin share a fraternal vitality and invention.
Chaplin or Keaton? This question, common among film enthusiasts, refers less often to cinematic values than personal preference: Not, Who is better, but who do you like better. I'll state right now that I lean toward Keaton, simply because the mope in me responds more to his dourness, though this in no way detracts from my complete astonishment at the cinematic feats of Charles Chaplin.
Their differences have been compared fruitfully to those between dancers Fred Astaire (Chaplin) and Gene Kelly (Keaton). Astaire is all about the sophisticated line of the performance, his movements epitomizing the phrase "floating on air". Astaire always retains a sense of dignity, even when dancing on the walls.
Similarly, Chaplin, most especially as the Little Tramp, maintains a dignified manner, whether shuffling along in his dirty rags or kicking a cop in the rear. The eternally poised bum, wandering around in a wistful gloom, Chaplin often interacts with both men and women through over-elegant, slightly prissy antics full of subtle facility. Though he can be funny when still, movement is Chaplin's primary weapon. Even taking off a hat becomes a deft production.
Compared to Astaire, Gene Kelly is more compact and athletic. He is just as graceful, but there is more muscle in his movements, a bearing down. He's an intent dancer, exacting, like an athlete gauging the mechanics of his next physical feat.
Director: Buster Keaton, Eddie Cline
Cast: Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts
Release Date: 2011-07-12
Distributor: Kino
Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/c/crucianelli-busterkeaton-cvr.jpgThere's a similar acrobatic figuring in Keaton's choreography of gags. Behind those wide, unyielding Cleopatra-like eyes, absurd arithmetic tabulates in a split second: chased by scores of cops, he sees the opportunity of an oncoming car and simply holds out his hand to seize it. How does he refrain from expressing at that point, knowing what he is about to attempt?
Chaplin, too, makes snap decisions, adapting to predicaments in ridiculous ways, but because his face is more animate we sometimes see it coming, however surprising and satisfying the action. But Buster never lets on. Usually, an expression in the eyes, no matter how slight, gives at least a hint of what's coming. But with Buster, we never know.
Although a more apparent comparison might be made between their silent shorts, these two very fine releases, The Great Dictator and Buster Keaton: The Short Films Collection 1920-1923 , provide interesting reflections on their respective careers.
Chaplin's career may have been troubled, what with wives and countries turning against him, but from a strictly show business perspective it wasn't quite as sad as Keaton's. Chaplin's silent films had a strong implication of sound, as in the touching dialogues between the blind girl and the Tramp in City Lights (1931), and thus he was able to transition into sound more easily, though Modern Times (1936), and all his subsequent sound films, contain many if not silent scenes than wordless ones.
Perhaps Keaton had more difficulty making the leap into sound because his humor relied so heavily on his lack of expression, and thus expressing. Despite the artistic and commercial success of his silent features -- e.g., Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926) -- Keaton was dependent on, indeed had an abiding reverence for, the visual gag, a comic creation that works best in the short form and for which sound is superfluous. Think how terrible it would be to hear the sufferings of the people trapped in the whirling house in "One Week". When Keaton did talk, he was reduced to painful indignities, like his second-banana roles with that enemy of subtlety, Jimmy Durante.
Buster Keaton: The Short Films Collection 1920-1923 contains all 19 of Keaton's solo shorts, from "The High Sign" to "The Love Nest". Keaton learned well from his mentor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, down to stealing some of his gags, yet even if Arbuckle hadn't lost his career to trumped-up rape charges, it's clear that Keaton would've outshone him, anyway.
Appropriately, Keaton enters his first solo film, "The High Sign", back-end-first. This entrance follows an equally appropriate title card that could serve as his career summation: "Our Hero came from Nowhere, he wasn't going Anywhere and got kicked off Somewhere." Existentialism, meet Vaudeville.
Some of Keaton's funniest acting is in his post-gag reactions, small, animated non-expressions that almost pass unnoticed. In "The High Sign", after a shooting gallery attendant pops up from behind a counter, tumbling him, Buster does a funny arch over the counter to see where the man came from; or, in "Cops", finding himself in a policemen's parade, he thinks the people are applauding him, doffs his hat in confusion, then instantly assumes an air of deserving civic importance through the simple gesture of putting his fist on his hip. The explanations sound pedestrian, but the visual moments are perfection.
Such moments are also extensions of gags, or master classes in How To Milk A Gag, but Just Enough. Keaton is a professor of such things, pursuing a visual joke through permutations that, however contrived and multi-structured, end up feeling completely organic: a newspaper unfolds until it's the size of a blanket; the stubborn houses of "One Week" or "The Electric House" work against their owners.
Keaton is an on-the-spot inventor of primitive machines -- contraptions, more accurately -- and also replacement objects verging on a kind of rudimentary psychology, but more utilitarian: a banana gun, a cigar nail, a floating anchor…
In other words, Keaton's transformation of objects is always in the realm of utility, but a startling, alternate utility of illogical extremes which, only in Buster's universe, makes perfect logistical sense. In the exceedingly inventive "The Scarecrow", a kitchen table is hoisted onto the wall and flipped over to become a sentimental wall plaque, or a white picket fence splits apart for a completely unexpected but decidedly sensible exit.
Often Buster becomes a contraption himself, a near-inanimate prop, as in the manhandling of the brothers in "My Wife's Relations" or when he assumes a scarecrow position (in the "The Scarecrow") without a wooden frame to hang on. Sometimes this man-as-thing takes on darker tones. In "The Boat", Buster and his family endure a brutal beating from the elements that, if it wasn't for the tack piano accompaniment and Buster's superhuman malleability, would just be plain sadistic. As for "The Frozen North", it's simply a ruthless, murderous melodrama disguised as a comic dream.
Keaton relies often on this dream device, which would seem an easy way out if it were not so linked with the comedian's foundation in realism. Though he tricks big Joe Roberts (his Arbuckle-like foil) and whole police forces, he rarely fools the viewers, at least not without quickly letting them in on it. In the beginning of "The Balloonatic", it's unclear if Buster is in a haunted house or a fantasy of Hell, before he is ejected swiftly onto the street, and we see that he was merely in an amusement park ride called "House of Trouble".
Perhaps this is why "The Blacksmith" seems strangely anomalous. Not only is Buster not his usual responsible self -- hired to fix a rich man's car, he heedlessly destroys it instead -- the film is filled with cinematic trick shots (slow, fast, stop-motion, etc.) rather than pure gags, something Keaton himself draws attention to in the film's toy train crash finale.
The DVD extras are numerous but spotty. A few of the films have duplicate "enhanced prints", but the originals are more satisfying, as something about the crackling gaps suits the material. The inclusion of some "redundant footage" feels just that.
There are numerous visual essays, which, though not all critically in-depth, provide nice biographical and incidental information. Finally, there is a sampling of films by other comedians, such as Stan Laurel, with gags inspired by (read: stolen from) Buster. But then, Keaton himself stole from Arbuckle, not least what became his most iconic gag, the house front falling on him, previewed here in "One Week" before modified and perfected in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). Comedy, like all art, builds on what comes before.


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New VISTA Telescope Exposes Orion Nebula main content.
by AMNH on
The VISTA telescope at Chile's Paranal Observatory, which has been up and running since December 2009, has captured stunning new images of the Orion Nebula. By measuring infrared radiation emanating from the famous nebula, the telescope has finally seen into the heart of the vast stellar nursery.
This nebula, which is located below the "belt" of the constellation of Orion, can typically be seen from Earth with the naked eye. Large clouds of dust, however, have blocked optical wavelengths of light from reaching telescopes, preventing a clear view of the nebula's center. By detecting the infrared radiation that penetrates dust clouds, astronomers are finally getting a look at the young stars shining in this previously hidden portion of the nebula.
These images are some of the first to be released from the new VISTA telescope; already they hint at the valuable new perspective astronomers are gaining by looking at the sky in near-infrared wavelengths of light.


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Sunday, June 03, 2018
AARP's latest caregiver report places the spotlight on the Millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 1996, ages 22 to 38 in 2018. "Millennials: The Emerging Generation of Family Caregivers," using data based primarily from the 2015 Caregiving in the U.S. study, notes that one-in-four of the nearly 40 million family caregivers in America is now a Millennial.
The 11-page report, released by AARP's Public Policy Institute on May 22, 2018, takes a look at the Millennial's generational experiences and challenges as they support an aging parent, grandparent, friend or neighbor with basic living and medical needs.
"Caregiving responsibilities can have an impact on the futures of younger family caregivers, who are at a particular time in their lives when pivotal social and professional networks are being formed," said Jean Accius, PhD, Vice President, AARP Public Policy Institute, in a statement with the report's release. "We must consider the unique needs of millennial family caregivers and ensure that they are included in programs and have the support they need to care for themselves as well as their loved ones," she says.
The Millennial Caregiver
According to the AARP report, Millennial caregivers are evenly split by gender but also the most diverse group of family caregivers to date, notes the report. More than 27 percent of the millennial caregivers are Hispanic/Latino, or 38 percent of all family caregivers among Hispanic/Latinos.
The AARP report notes that Millennials are the most diverse generation of family caregivers when compared to other generations. Eighteen percent are African-American/Black, or 34 percent of all African-American/Black family caregivers. Eight percent are Asian American/Pacific Islander, or 30 percent of all the AAPI family caregivers, says the report, noting that less than 44 percent are white, or 17 percent of all white family caregivers. Finally, twelve percent self-identify as LGBT, which makes them the largest portion of LGBT family caregivers (34 percent) than any other generation.
About half of the Millennial caregivers (44 percent) are single and never married while 33 percent are married. If this demographic trend continues a smaller family structure will make it more likely to have a caregiver when you need one.
More than half of the Millennial caregivers perform complex Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), including assisting a person to eat, bath, and to use the bathroom, along with medical nursing tasks, at a rate similar to older generations. But, nearly all Millennials help with one instrumental activity of daily living including helping a person to shop and prepare meals.
While Millennial caregivers are more likely than caregivers from other generations to be working, one in three earn less than $30,000 per year. These low-income individual's higher out-of-pocket costs (about $ 6,800 per year) related to their caregiving role than those with higher salaries, says the AARP report.
As to education, Millennial caregivers have a high school diploma or has taken some college courses but not finished. But, one in three have a Bachelor's Degree or higher.
According to the AARP report, 65 percent of the Millennial caregivers surveyed care for a parent or grandparent usually over age 50 and more than half are the only one in the family providing this support. However, these young caregivers are more likely to care for someone with a mental health or emotional issue — 33 percent compared to 18 percent of older caregivers. As a result, these younger caregivers will face higher emotional, physical and financial strains.
The AARP report notes that Millennials are the most likely of any generation to be a family caregiver and employed (about 73 percent). Sixty two percent of the boomers were employed and were caregivers. On top of spending an average of more than 20 hours a week (equivalent to a part-time job) in their caregiving duties, more than half of the Millennials worked full-time, over 40 hours a week. However, 26 percent spend more than 20 hours of week providing family care.
Although most Millennial caregivers seek out consumer information to assist them in their caregiving duties, usually from the internet and from a health care professional, the most frequent source of information is from other family members and friends.
While Millennial caregivers consume information at a higher rate, most (83 percent) want more information to supplement what they have. The top areas include stress management (44 percent) and tips for coping with caregiving challenges (41 percent).
A Changing Workforce
Millennials are encountering workplace challenges because they are less understood by supervisors and managers than their older worker colleagues. More than half say their caregiving role affected their work in a significant way, says the AARP report. The most common impacts are going to work late or leaving early (39 percent) and cutting back on work hours (14 percent).
As we see the graying of America, it makes sense for employers to change their policies and benefits to become more family friendly to all caregivers, including Millennials, to allow them to balance their work with their caregiving activities.
It's the right thing to do.
To read the full report, click here.
Visit here for more resources and information on family caregiving, including AARP's Prepare to Care Guides.
Herb Weiss, LRI'12, is a Pawtucket writer covering aging, healthcare and medical issues. To purchase Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly, a collection of 79 of his weekly commentaries, go to herbweiss.com.
Richard Grosvenor
Born in France, educated at Harvard, Grosvenor has been the head of the art department at St. George's for decades.
A brilliant water colorist, Grosvenor was selected by the White House Historical Society to paint a scene of the White House for their bi-centennial calendar for the year 2000. That same year, the Newport Art Museum honored Grosvenor with a 50-year retrospective of his artwork. Grosvenor was also commissioned by the Tall Ships Committee to create an oil painting commemorating the Tall Ships' visit to Newport in 2000.
Vinnie Paz
Professional Boxer
Paz, formerly Pazienza, fought 60 professional bouts at the Lightweight, Light Middleweight and Super Middleweight weight classes.
He won the IBF World Lightweight Championship. His overall record was 50 and 10, and he fought in one of the golden ages of boxing. He fought Roberto Duran, Roy Jones, Jr., and Joe Frazier, Jr..
Far from perfect, he has been arrested a number of times on a range of charges. His colorful life story is the subject of a feature movie, "Bleed for This," developed by Executive Producer Martin Scorcese.
Howard Ben Tré
Ben Tré is a world leader in innovating cast glass as a sculptural medium, and his work has been exhibited at more than 100 museum and public collections worldwide — and his studio is located in Pawtucket, RI.
His works have been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice.
Bill Reynolds
Reynolds' books use sports as the framework, but are deeper examinations of poverty, race, and addiction.
His book "Fall River Dreams" defined him a leading American writer who uniquely captures the intersection of sports and culture.
"Bill Reynolds is one of the best writers around, and this book is the Friday Night Lights of high school basketball," said Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe.
"Success is a Choice," which he co-wrote with Rick Pitino, is a business "how to" book that was a New York Times best-seller.
Reynolds has written 11 books and is a sports reporter for the Providence Journal.
John McCauley (Deer Tick)
McCauley has been a leading voice in the alternative, indie rock sphere for more than a decade. His work is a mix of rock with folk, blues, and country influences.
Along with his band, McCauley won Rock Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards (beating out Aerosmith) in 2013. He is married to fellow musician Vanessa Carlton — Stevie Nicks officiated their wedding.
With Deer Tick he has produced five albums.
Ira Magaziner
Business Consultant
He created one of the most innovative university curriculums in America while he was an undergraduate at Brown, and went on to a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford.
Magaziner founded a leading business consulting firm – Telesis — and then sold it to Towers Perrin. He served as the policy point person in President Bill Clinton's Health Reform initiative that was led by Hillary Clinton. The effort failed and Magaziner was sued and fined — it ultimately was overturned
Today, he serves as the vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). His son Seth is RI's General Treasurer.
Angus Davis
Few business innovators in America have had the success of native Rhode Islander Davis.
He co-founded Tellme, raised raised more than $200M in capital, and helped to lead the company to more than $100 million in sales and 300 employees. Tellme was acquired by Microsoft for nearly $1 billion.
Now, he is trying to do it again with Upserve, formerly Swipely. The company is "the smart management assistant serving up clear guidance that makes your restaurant thrive" – a tech firm that creates an information infrastructure for restaurants. He has raised upwards of $50 million for Upserve. Davis is a leading American business thinker — all before the age of 40.
Terry "Mother" Moy
Navy SEAL
If the Navy SEALs are the best trained and most respected in the United State Armed Forces, Moy is the "Mother" of the SEALs.
The Newport native is the embodiment of military lore. He was a famous SEAL instructor and one of his most infamous trainees was Jesse "The Body" Venture – Seal, professional Wrestler and Governor of Minnesota.
While most SEAL activity is undisclosed, his effort to recover Apollo 17 was globally broadcast.
Phil West
Government Reformer
Once dubbed the Godfather of Ethics Reform, West has been the driving force in reforming governmental ethics for three decades in Rhode Island.
His successes include a then-record fine against Governor Ed DiPrete, Separation of Powers, downsizing and modernizing the legislature, and the requirement of electronic filing of bills and making hearings accessible to the public.
He was the head of Common Cause RI for eighteen years and retired in 2006, but still remains a guiding force in reform. Two years ago, the master lever was eliminated and this year major ethics reform is moving through the General Assembly — all under the watchful eye of West.
West has taken on the most powerful forces — sometimes alone — and made Rhode Island a better place as a result.
Richard Jenkins
Jenkins is the consummate American actor. His work ranges from everything from "The Witches of Eastwick" to "Hannah and Her Sisters" to HBO's "Six Feet Under" to his award winning role in "Olive Kitteridge"
His formative acting years took place at Trinity Repertory Company (now Trinity Rep). Jenkins then returned later in his career to help save the financially struggling theater.
He has starred and appeared in more than 80 movies and television series or movies. In 2014, Jenkins and his wife Sharon received the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.
Alan Hassenfeld
The former CEO and Chairman of Hasbro was a driving force in transforming the company from a toy manufacturer to an entertainment company.
Michael Jackson and slews of others came to Rhode Island to tour the company and negotiate licensing deals.
In the early 1990's he became a force in initiating ethics reform in Rhode Island. More recently, he endowed the creation of the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University.
The Rhode Island-based Hassenfeld Foundation gave out roughly $4.7 million in donations in the most recently reported year.
M. Therese Antone, RSM, Ed.D
Sister Antone was born in Central Falls, and educated at Salve Regina University, Villanova University, Harvard University and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Correspondingly, she has taught almost every level of education, rising to President of Salve Regina. There, she transformed the school, and Salve Regina's national rankings and student profile vastly improved under her leadership.
During her tenure, the University's endowment grew from $1 million to more than $50 million and the University invested $76 million on renovations and expansions and has received numerous awards for restoring the historic mansions, cottages, and gatehouses on its campus. She transformed the University and correspondingly has won countless awards for her service.
Umberto Crenca
Artist and Entrepreneur
Artist, visionary and business leader, Crenca took a crazy idea of developing a sustainable art cluster in Downtown Providence and made it the most unimaginable success, and has become a national model.
AS220 was founded in 1985 to "provide a local, unjuried, and uncensored home for the arts," and has grown to own and operate multiple facilities, currently providing fifty eight artist live and/or work spaces, four exhibition spaces, a print shop, a media lab including a black and white darkroom, a fabrication lab, a stage, a recording studio, a black box theater, a dance studio, and a bar and restaurant.
In 2016, Crenca was awarded Honorary Degrees from two different Rhode Island Universities.
Flynn Brothers
U.S. Army
In the history of the modern U.S. Military, there are only a handful of brothers that served as Generals simultaneously — Charlie and Michael Flynn of Middletown were one such case.
Michael Flynn recently retired from service, and has been seen on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC — not surprising, given the latest news.
On Tuesday, GoLocal cited a story in the The New York Post that Michael is on the short list of Vice Presidential candidates for Donald Trump The Post wrote:
"A surprise name on the list is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a national security adviser to Trump who has emerged as one of the most buzzed-about veep contenders, sources familiar with the deliberations said.
Regardless of his national political future, these two brothers are two of America's most accomplished military leaders in the past half century.
Louise Durfee
Environmentalist and Attorney
When one talks about trail blazers in Rhode Island, Louise Durfee's image should be the first thing that comes to mind. She was the first female partner at a major Providence law firm at a time when most law firms did not employ women attorneys. She was one of a small group of Tiverton residents who joined together in the early 1970's to oppose a proposal to build a major oil refinery.
The fight was so profound that it was featured in 1971 in Life Magazine and resulted in the founding of an organization that ultimately became Save the Bay. Again, Durfee the trail blazer.
In the 1980's she helped to clean up the aftermath at Rhode Housing after widespread corruption was found. In 1991, Governor Bruce Sundlun named her Director of the Department of Environmental Management and just three years later, he fired her.
So she ran against him in the Democratic primary for Governor.
Ron Machtley
Politician and University President
Rhode Islanders were first introduced to Ron Machtley in 1988 when he traveled around Rhode Island with a pig named Lester "Less" Pork to point out the wasteful spending of then-Congressman Fred St. Germain.
Machtley upset the 28-year veteran and Chairman of the House Banking Committee to take the Congressional seat. In 1994, he was the odds-on-favorite to win the Governorship, but was upset in the GOP primary by Lincoln Almond, who went on to serve eight years as Governor.
After his defeat, he was the surprise choice to serve as President of then-Bryant College. At first appearances it was a strange choice, but Machtley could not have turned out to be a better selection.
Under his leadership, the college transformed to a University, with massive improvements in the University's campus, an elevation to Division I Sports, and an overall improvement in Bryant's academic position.
When he assumed office Bryant had a $1.7 million operating deficit and a tiny endowment. Today, the University's endowment is nearing $200 million. Over the past 20 years, Bryant has become one of the most improved higher education institutions in America.
U.S. Senator Jack Reed
If this list of greatest living Rhode Islanders had been developed twenty years ago, it might have been rich with elected officials – the likes of Senators Claiborne Pell and John Chafee, the retired John O. Pastore and Bruce Sundlun, but today there are few with the gravitas of achievement of those politicians.
However, there is the now-senior Senator from Rhode Island, who has a national reputation as an expert on issues of national defense and is a constantly rumored to serve as the Secretary of Defense.
The former Army ranger worked his way up the political ladder as a State legislator and Congressman before winning the Senate seat of the retiring Pell.
In a time of great diverseness, he is a rare member that has conversations across the aisle.
Trudy Coxe
Environmentalist and Historic Preservationist
Coxe has now headed three of the most most important preservation organizations in New England. As the long-time Executive Director of Save the Bay in the 1980's and 1990's, she was a powerful force in driving the preservation of Rhode Island's open space and improvements to Narragansett Bay.
Coxe lost a close race for Congress against Jack Reed, but was later appointed head of the largest Environmental Agency in New England when then-Governor Bill Weld named her head of the Massachusetts environmental agency – the Department of Environmental Protection.
After a multi-year stint in the Commonwealth, she came back to Rhode Island to lead and transform the Preservation Society of Newport. In that role she has helped to recpaitalize and modernize the non-profit that stewards the mansions and other assets in Newport and across Aquidneck Island.
Ken Read
No one on this list may be more accomplished in their individual field than Ken Read is to sailing. Twice the Rolex United States Yachtsman of the Year, three times leading America's Cup yachts, and dominant in the Volvo Ocean Races for decades.
One could argue Read may be the most accomplished sailor in the world. He was a three-time college All-American at Boston University.
Today, he sails leading privately owned yachts and has been involved with the North Sail company.
Michael Littman
There are few computer science professors that get tapped for their celebrity for a national television commercial (see below), but Brown University's Littman is an academic rock star. After ten years at Rutgers he left to join the faculty at Brown
He leads an effort called Humanity-Centered Robotics Initiative (HCRI) in which Brown University aims to become a global leader in the field of creating robots that benefit, learn from, teach, support, and collaborate with people.
One of his recent journal articles he co-wrote was titled, "Learning behaviors via human-delivered discrete feedback: modeling implicit feedback strategies to speed up learning."
His commercial was easier to understand — it has been viewed 550,000 times.
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Johanne Killeen
For decades the nicest restaurant in Providence might have been the old Rusty Scupper, but in the 1980's, Johanne Killeen and George Germon not only transformed the restaurant scene in Providence, but also proved that small cities with brilliant chefs could compete.
Food & Wine honored Al Forno for launching 'a new era of ambitious cooking in Providence [in 1980] with their thin-crusted grilled pizzas topped with superfresh ingredients.' The editors singled out Al Forno's Margarita Pizza (with house-made pomodoro, fresh herbs, two cheeses and extra virgin olive oil) as the signature item.
John Mariani, the food writer for Esquire put the new restaurant, Al Forno, on the national map by naming it the best new restaurant in America. Other food and travel magazines followed and the recognition transformed Providence, and as a result other mid-sized cities.
Al Forno put Providence on the food map and sparked many other creative and smart chefs. George Germon passed away in October of 2015.
Terry Murray
It has been a number of years since Terry Murray ran one of the biggest banks in America. In 2004, Fleet Bank was acquired by Bank of America. Even today, Bank of America is headed up by a former Fleet executive — Brian Moynihan.
In the 1990's, Fleet was a superstar financial service firm — it gobbled up bank after bank in the U.S. and in 1999 Murray and Fleet made the biggest buy – acquiring BankBoston. The new FleetBoston was a megabank.
FleetBoston was the seventh-largest bank in the United States, as measured by assets (US$197 billion in 2003). It employed over 50,000, served more than 20 million customers globally, and revenues of $12 billion per year.
Murray grew Fleet from a small RI community bank to a global player.
Farrelly Brothers
Movie Producers
The Cumberland brothers – Peter and Bobby – are two of the most prolific comedic movie makers in Hollywood. They created a genre of politically incorrect, slapstick humor that has generated billions in box office sales.
Their movies include Kingpin, There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber — to name a few of their 15 movies.
The Farrelly Brothers also co-wrote one of the all-time great Seinfeld episodes — titled "The Virgin."
Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson
In 1965 Thompson came to Providence from South Carolina to attend Brown University and never went home. Today, she serves on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals – one of the highest federal courts in America.
She was elevated to the seat previously held by Judge Bruce Selya. Before serving on the court she served on the District and Superior Courts in the Rhode Island Courts.
Today, she serves on the Brown Corporation, the Board for College Unbound and Save the Bay.
Sid Abruzzi (Johnny Morocco)
Abruzzi is known as the "godfather of the New England surf/skate mafia."
"With a face that launched a thousand spliffs, 'The Package' has skated, surfed, and partied over the last 50 years with no end in sight. After reaching rockstar status with Big World in the mid '80s, Sid's infamous Water Bros. Surf shop brought vert skating to the beaches of Newport, RI," wrote Jim Murphy in Juice Magazine.
Before ESPN's X Games (Extreme Games) or the Gravity Games were envisioned, Abruzzi was an innovator helping to create a movement and industry that was primarily a West Coast phenomenon.
Duke Robillard
The blues guitarist and Woonsocket native is well-known locally for co-founding Roomful of Blues, but his presence on the national stage, performing with The Fabulous Thunderbirds and recording with the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits has helped make Robillard a bona fide star in American music.
He is a two-time Grammy nominee, won the W.C. Handy Award in 2000 and 2001 for Best Blues Guitarist, and in 2007 received a Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. But don't take our word for it — Tom Clarke with Elmore Magazine extolled Robillard's virtues when he reviewed "The Acoustic Blues & Roots of Duke Robillard" in 2015."
"A jazz man, a front porch pickin' blues man and one-time guitarist for Dylan. A string band, jug band, ragtime, delta, Louisiana, Appalachian folk and Jimmie Rodgers-country aficionado. A backwards traveler, but forward thinker. A writer and singer with distinct style, and a studio owner and in-demand producer. Did I miss anything? Duke Robillard may wear a handsome, if nondescript, lid lounging on the cover of The Acoustic Blues,but he almost literally wears a hundred hats—all of them damn well. It's hard to believe any one man can be as prolific as this Rhode Island Duke of the blues," wrote Clarke.
John Ghiorse
Ghiorse may be Rhode Island's most trusted and beloved television and digital news personality of all time. The Air Force Veteran and Harvard educated weatherman studied Meteorology at Penn State. He transformed weather reporting in Rhode Island and created his own branded measure — the Ghiorse Factor.
He first joined WJAR-10 in 1968, then moved to Channel 6 for nearly a decade and then back to WJAR. He retired from Channel 10 in 2009 and joined GoLocal and helped the digital media company launch its first site in 2010. He has delivered the daily Ghiorse Factor to GoLocal for the past five plus years.
Ghiorse continues to be one of Southeastern New England's most beloved news personalities.
Eugene Lee
Set Designer
If you have watched Saturday Night Live, the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon or many a production of A Christmas Carol at Trinity Rep, you have seen the work of Eugene Lee. He is one of America's most creative and accomplished set designers.
The Providence resident has won three Tonys for Wicked, Sweeney Todd, and Candide. He has won multiple Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Set Design and has won an Emmy for the design of the set for Saturday Night Live.
He is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Claire Andrade Watkins
Rhode Island has always been one of the top destinations for Cape Verde emigres — and next month, Emerson College Professor and Brown University Fellow Andrade-Watkins, who grew up in Fox Point, will have a thirty year retrospective of her work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The subject? "Our Rhode: 30 Years of Cinema by and About Cape Verdian Rhode Islanders."
Andrade-Watkins, a PhD, is Professor of Africana and Postcolonial Media Studies at Emerson, and is a Fellow at the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown (as well as a visiting scholar). She is the Director of the Fox Point Cape Verdean Project, President, SPIA Media Productions, Inc., and a pioneer of global, intercultural media, marketing and distribution. Her CV of work and accomplishments is 17 pages long.
In 2006 Dr. Andrade-Watkins released "Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?" A Cape Verdean American Story" (SKFPR), the "popular and critically acclaimed feature documentary about the Cape Verdean community in the Fox Point section of Providence, RI, and the first in a trilogy of documentaries about this unique and important community of the Africana Diaspora," states her Emerson bio.
She's won numerous awards including the 2008 Community Service Award from Fox Point Boys & Girls Club Alumni Association.
Freidrich St. Florian
St. Florian is one of the most accomplished and varied architects in America. At one extreme he was the architect of the critically acclaimed World War II memorial in Washington, DC and on the other he designed the Providence Place Mall.
St.Florian has won numerous awards for his architectural achievements. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. His drawings are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. In 2006 he was an awarded an honorary degree from Brown University.
Brad Read
Over the past few decades, Brad Read has built Sail Newport into a leading world class sailing education organization. Their programs vary from a partnership with the MET school that introduces urban children to sailing to running world class sailing events.
In 2015, Read was the driving force to bringing the Volvo Ocean Race to Rhode Island and then followed it up by leading the state's effort to successfully bring the Volvo race back in 2017.
Read is a leading sailor, educator, facilitator, organizer and leader. His impact on Newport — and Rhode Island — has been remarkable.
Gordon Wood
In a scene in the movie Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon humiliates a Harvard grad student by picking apart the student's thesis regarding Wood's "pre-revolutionary utopia." (see scene below)
Matt Damon aside, Wood is one of America's most accomplished scholars on the American Revolution — he won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work The Radicalism of the American Revolution. In 2010 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
He is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His list of academic awards over the past 50 years is unmatched – he is the leading Revolutionary era historian.
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Barrett Hazeltine
Business Mentor
For the past 60 years Hazeltine has been one of the most important educators at Brown University. While Brown does not have a traditional B-School like Penn's Wharton, it does have one of the top American business mentors. According to many of the top business leaders in America, Hazeltine was a guiding influence on their careers.
A 2000 article in Brown Alumni Monthly unveiled in 2000 that 10% of the freshman class at Brown University took his "Engin. 9" class — short for Engineering 9.
Entrepreneurs as diverse as "Tom and Tom" (First and Scott, who met at Brown), Founders of Nantucket Nectars to John Koudounis, the CEO of Calamos Investment to Marques Coleman at Carlyle Group all identify Hazeltine as being a driving force in their business careers.
John Donoghue
Brain Scientist
Donoghue is one of the leading brain science researchers and entrepreneurs in the world. At Brown, he led the enhancement and growth of the Brain Science Center and his work to develop BrainGate, a mind-to-movement system developed in Donoghue's lab.
Donoghue has published over 80 scientific articles in leading journals including Nature and Science. His work was featured on 60 Minutes and he has served on advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Presently, he is on sabbatical in Europe.
James Woods
The Warwick native is a two-time Academy award nominee and winner of a Golden Globe, and three time Emmy Award winner. His acting career ranges from The Onion Field to Casino and Nixon.
More recently his voice work has been featured on The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Stuart Little 2.
Between TV, voiceover work and movies he has played roles in more than 100 productions.
Once dubbed as a genius by Business Insider for his attendance at MIT and his reported near perfect SAT score and IQ of 184.
Today he is a Republican activist and supported Ted Cruz for President.
Arlene Violet
Violet was one of a group of pioneering women who changed the face of politics in Rhode Island.
Claudine Schneider had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 in the 2nd Congressional District. Susan Farmer won the Secretary of State post two years later in 1982. Violet was the first female Attorney General in the United States when she was elected by Rhode Island voters in 1984. The new decade had ushered in a new era in Rhode Island politics. All three were Republicans.
It was her work and the work of other women that set the stage for Governor Gina Raimondo to be elected Rhode Island's first woman Governor in 2014.
Violet was beat in her re-election bid in 1986, but her political presence continued in the state.
She was a talk radio host.
She penned two books, Convictions: My Journey from the Convent to the Courtroom and Me and the Mob, a book about the witness protection program. Violet was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1996.
Meredith Viera
A native Rhode Islander, TV-journalist Vieira is one of the leading Portuguese Americans in the United States. She attended Lincoln School and Tufts before landing her first job in Worcester in radio and on television as a reporter at WJAR-TV in Providence.
Her hard news journalism bona fides were earned while working on the CBS news magazine West 57th, then as an investigative report for 60 Minutes.
Then in the late 1990s she shifted to more entertainment focused broadcast as a co-host to The View, hosting the game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," co-hosting the Today Show and Dateline NBC. She hosted her own show, The Meredith Viera Show for two years.
More recently she has been involved with a range of event and initiatives in Rhode Island including speaking at RIC regarding her heritage — all four of her grandparents were born in the Azores. Last year, URI's Harrington School of Communication traveled down to Viera's show at NBC Universal.
Leon Cooper
Leon Cooper is Brown University and Rhode Island's only Nobel Prize winner.
Cooper won the Nobel Prize in 1972 for Physics (along with J. Bardeen and J.R. Schrieffer) for his studies on the theory of superconductivity. The winning work was completed while still in his 20s.
He has received seven honorary degrees from leading academic institutions from across the globe.
In the past few years, his work at Brown has focused on neural and cognitive sciences and has been "working towards an understanding of memory and other brain functions, and thus formulating a scientific model of how the human mind works."
Ernie DiGregorio
There are certain athletes who transcend the game and elevate it from sports to a higher level of entertainment. Ernie D. was one of those rare athletes. He was am epic story, the 6 foot guard from North Providence who helped to take the beloved Providence College Friars to the final four. His skills and showmanship helped to transform the game from fundamentals to entertainment along with players like Connie Hawkins, Pistol Pete Maravich, Dr. J, and then Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. They all may have had better and longer careers, but none of them put on any better a show.
His NBA career was cut short due to injury but in his first year in the league he dazzled and won the NBA Rookie of the year. He was the third pick in the NBA draft.
For Rhode Islanders at the time his achievements were mythical. He teamed with fellow local boy Marvin Barnes and put little Providence College in the same sentence with powerhouse programs like UCLA.
Elizabeth Beisel
Arguably the best swimmer to come out of Rhode Island, the Saunderstown native and North Kingstown high school grad first competed in the 2007 World Championships at the tender age of 14, placing 12th in the world in the 200 meter backstroke after advancing to the semi-finals.
Beisel was the youngest member of the U.S. swim team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, finishing just out of medal contention with a fourth place in the 400-meter individual medley and fifth in the 200 meter backstroke. Four years later in London, Beisel made it to the Olympic podium with a silver in the 400 meter individual relay and a bronze in the 200 meter backstroke.
The SEC Female Swimmer of the Year in 2012, Beisel won two individual national titles and was an eighteen-time All-American at the University of Florida, and a first-team Academic All-American. According to her USA Swimming bio, the college communications major had dreams as a child of being an actress, but now has professional aspirations of being a news anchor. As someone accustomed to being in the headlines, it's not hard to imagine we'll be seeing more from Beisel in the future.
George Wein
The Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals would not be among the top American music festivals were it not for Wein, who celebrated his 90th birthday last year.
Trained as a jazz pianist, Wein might be Boston-born and educated, but it was the Newport Lorillards who invited Wein down in 1954 to the City by the Sea to establish the first outdoor jazz festival in the country. Wein went on to form Festival Productions to promote large-scale jazz events, and has been well-lauded for his efforts — both nationally, and internationally.
In 1995, Wein received the Patron of the Arts Award from the Studio Museum of Harlem, and in 2004 given an Impact Award from the AARP. He was decorated with France's Légion d'honneur and appointed a Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Commander of the Order of Arts and Literature) by the French government, and has been honored at the White House twice, by Jimmy Carter in 1978 and Bill Clinton in 1993. In 2005 he was named a "Jazz Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music and Rhode Island College of Music.
GoLocal's Ken Abrams sat down with Wein for a one-on-one last summer — read more here.
Jeffrey Osborne
Grammy Award-winning Osborne, born and raised in Providence, came from musical lineage. His father, Clarence "Legs" Osborne was a trumpeter who played with the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. And the Osborne roots are firmly planted here — in 2012, the city named a portion of Olney Street "Jeffrey Osborne Way," to honor him.
Osborne's biggest hits include "On the Wings of Love" and a duet with Dionne Warwick, "Love Power." He wrote the lyrics for Whitney Houston's "All at Once," appeared in the fundraising "We Are the World" video in 1985, and has sung the national anthem at multiple World Series and NBA finals games.
While Osborne is an international legend in his own right, his star status continues to grow and impact the community here through his charity work. He's done golf and softball classics, comedy nights, celebrity basketball games. And he brings in the big names, from Magic Johnson to Smokey Robinson to Kareem Abdul Jabbar — the list is extensive. Osborne is the epitome of a "greatest Rhode Islander" — one who's gone on to make the state proud, and keeps coming back to help use his celebrity to benefit the community.
Tom Ryan
Ryan helped to build one of America's Fortune 500 top 10 companies, as CVS is a leading retail and healthcare force in America.
More recently, the URI pharmacy grad has been involved with two of the biggest initiatives in Rhode Island in the past few years.
He and his wife Anne donated $15 million to fund the George and Anne Ryan Center on Neuroscience at URI. The effort is one of the key elements in bringing together major educational and health organizations in a broad-based neuroscience initiative in Rhode Island.
Ryan's neuroscience gift coupled with his fundraising leadership and donations to build the Ryan Center have made him the single biggest individual donor to URI.
Ann Hood
Born in West Warwick and a URI grad, Hood is a best-selling novelist and short story writer; and the author of fifteen books, with her latest, The Book That Matters the Most, due out this August.
Hood has won two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Food Writing Awards, Best American Spiritual Writing and Travel Writing Awards, and a Boston Public Library Literary Light Award. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Hood is a regular contributor to The New York Times' Op-Ed page, and is a faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing program at The New School in New York City. Hood's "An Italian Wife" was recently featured as a play at the Contemporary Theater Company in South Kingstown.
Of Hood's The Knitting Circle, The Washington Post wrote, "A wondrously simple book about something complicated: the nearly unendurable process of enduring a great loss." Fellow best-selling writer Jodi Picoult even asked if anyone could top Hood. "Is there anyone who can write about the connections of ordinary people better than Ann Hood?" posed Picoult.
While her reach is worldwide, Hood, who is married to businessman Lorne Adrain, lives in Providence and is a fixture in the Rhode Island community.
Bob Ballard
Ballard found the Titanic. And yes, he was a URI undergrad and now serves multiple leading roles at URI as a Professor of Oceanography; Director, Center for Ocean Exploration; and head of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography.
Today, the Archeological Oceanography, which he started in 2003 is a unique institute "combines the disciplines of oceanography, ocean engineering, maritime history, anthropology and archeology into one academic program." The institute involves a broad cross section of URI faculty and includes faculty from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Florida State University, MIT and Woods Hole.
He is the rockstar face of oceanography in the world.
Jonathan Nelson
Nelson is one of America's leading investors. In an era of Wall Street mega firms, Rhode Islander Nelson has built in Downtown Providence a $40 billion private equity fund Providence Equity Group.
Once the golden boys of private equity and lauded for putting together "the biggest deal in the world," he and the firm have had a series of set backs.
The highest profile bump was the firm's loss of nearly $800 million in the firm, Altegrity, that was contracted to review federal contractors like Edward Snowden.
As GoLocal previously reported, the domino effect of Snowden's absconding with federal data bases exposed the deficiencies of Altegrity's vetting process.
He has become more active as a philanthropist and is listed by Forbes richest in Rhode Island.
Dennis Littky
Littky is a rebel, a disruptor, an innovator, a trouble maker, and an educator. They made a movie about him, Newsweek has featured his schools, President Obama talks about his schools and Bill and Melinda Gates gave him millions to grow, refine and scale is model of disruption.
In 2009, Littky defied all and created an alternative college and by 2015 the Rhode Island Council on Postsecondary Education approved College Unbound as a degree-granting postsecondary option in the state.
In Rhode Island, The Met School celebrated its 20th Anniversary this past week. Thousands of students who would not have finished high school have graduated and moved on to college, business and beyond.
There may be no more accomplished innovator than Littky.
Bill and David Belisle
Bill and David Belisle may be the best high school and youth coaches in history. Going by the statistics, the record of twenty-six consecutive state hockey championship (1978 to 2003) and a total of 32 may be a record never to be matched. Bill Belisle (the father) has coached at Mount for 42 years and his son David has been his assistant for years.
The younger Belisle made national headlines with his post game speech to the Little League team he was coaching was defeated in the Little League World Series.
Twice their players have been selected #1 in the NHL Draft, countless others played in the NHL, and dozens played college hockey. There are movies and books on the exploits of Mount Hockey under the Belisles.
Photo courtesy of Dave Belisle
Nick Benson
There are few people in the world that are recognized as the very best in their craft, but Nick Benson of the John Stevens Shop in Newport is globally recognized as the best stone cutter in the world.
Founded in 1705, The John Stevens Shop specializes in the design and execution of one-of-a-kind inscriptions in stone — the MLK Memorial, FDR's Four Freedoms Park, and the inscription for the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, to name a few.
Benson won a Genius Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation, and was recently featured on CBS news. The John Stevens Shop is one of America's longest continuously running businesses.
Viola Davis
Davis is one of the most accomplished actors in the United States. She is the winner of two Tony awards, an Emmy and a SAG award as well as being nominated for an Oscar. With regards to her Emmy, she became the first African-American to win the Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2015. Amazingly, she did not earn her SAG card until she was 30 years old.
Davis self-describes that she grew up in abject poverty in Central Falls and worked her way to Rhode Island College and now beyond but has been a constant force in helping Central Falls to recover from its bankruptcy and rebuilding its spirit.
She is a leading fundraiser for a range of Rhode Island causes. Davis is the embodiment of the Rhode Island spirit and a model of how to overcome the greatest challenges to reach greatness.


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Pew's Claussen compares cap-and-trade and carbon tax approaches for emissions reduction
With the Senate already having voted on an energy bill and the House expected to take up energy legislation this month, the next course of action expected after the August recess will be a debate on emissions reduction legislation. Will Congress favor a cap-and-trade approach or a carbon tax? Are there enough votes in the House and Senate to pass a climate bill? During today's OnPoint, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, discusses Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Arlen Specter's (R-Pa.) recently introduced climate bill. She explains why she believes the safety valve option is not the best approach and compares cap-and-trade to a carbon tax.


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Mark Simon Davies is a counsel at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, where he works on appellate matters in one of the top Supreme Court and Appellate practices in the country. Davies is the author of Patent Appeals: The Elements of Effective Advocacy in the Federal Circuit.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued another significant opinion in patent law. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Thomas, the Court held that a patent owner who licenses the sale of components has "exhausted" patent rights even where the components must be combined with additional components to practice the patent. In so deciding, the Court reasoned that the exhaustion doctrine applies to sales of products that include only the "inventive aspect" of the patent. This unanticipated focus of the Court's decision reflects the Court's apparent continuing interest in refocusing patent law on protecting the "inventive" contribution.
The question before the Court was whether the patent rights of LG Electronics, Inc. were "exhausted" by its license agreement with Intel Corporation. Under the exhaustion (or first sale) doctrine, "the initial authorized sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item." Here, LGE owns patents covering various methods of managing main computer memory. LGE licensed Intel to manufacture and sell microprocessors and chipsets that practice the LGE patents. Intel sold the parts to Quanta Computer, a group of computer manufacturers, who made computers using the LGE/Intel microprocessors and chipsets in combination with non-LGE/Intel computer parts. LGE filed a complaint against Quanta, asserting that the combination of the LGE/Intel products with other computer parts infringed its patents. Quanta defended on the ground that LGE's license to Intel "exhausted" and thus terminated its patent rights.
In siding with Quanta to find that LGE had exhausted its patent rights, the Supreme Court's opinion proceeds in three steps. The Court begins by rejecting LGE's argument that the exhaustion doctrine does not apply to "method" claims (i.e., claims that are not linked to a tangible article). The Court was wary that "[e]liminating exhaustion for method patents would seriously undermine the exhaustion doctrine" because patentees "could simply draft their patent claims to describe a method rather than an apparatus." Next, the Court considered the "extent to which a product must embody a patent in order to trigger exhaustion." On that question, the Court found that United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U.S. 241 (1942), "governs this case." Just as the product in Univis "embodie[d] essential features of [the] patented invention," so too Intel's products embody "[e]verything inventive about each patent" and thus triggered patent exhaustion. "The Intel Products embody the essential features of the LGE Patents because they carry out all the inventive processes when combined, according to their design, with standard components." Last, the Court determined that LGE's contract with Intel "authorized" the sale of the products that practiced LGE's patents ("Intel's authority to sell its products embodying the LGE Patents was not conditioned on the notice"), and the Court expressed "no opinion on whether contract damages might be available even though exhaustion operates to eliminate patent damages."
In various procedural respects, today's decision resembles the Supreme Court's patent law decisions of the past few terms. As it did most prominently in KSR Intn'l v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727 (2007), the Court has once again unanimously reversed a lower court decision based on a long-settled Federal Circuit rule favoring patent owners. As the briefing before the Court had emphasized, the Federal Circuit's decision in Mallinckrodt, Inc. v. Medipart, Inc., 976 F.2d 700 (Fed. Cir. 1992), held that the patent-exhaustion doctrine does not apply to an "expressly conditional sale." As in KSR, the Supreme Court declined to endorse the Federal Circuit's "conditional sale" test. Instead, the Supreme Court again emphasized the abiding relevance of its older patent law decisions. Thus, here the Court found that Univis "governs this case" much like the KSR Court found that Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), provides the current "framework" for whether a claimed invention is "obvious." Unlike KSR, however, the Court did not directly fault the Federal Circuit for a "rigid rule" (or even specifically refer to Mallinckrodt).
As is often the case with Supreme Court opinions, the immediate practical consequences of today's decision may well be limited. The Court's ruling that the sale here was not in fact conditional arguably leaves parties free to argue that the Federal Circuit's "conditional sale" bar on exhaustion remains the law. Moreover, the Court expressly declined to consider whether LGE could use contract law to achieve its apparent objective of requiring its patent devices only to be used in computers manufactured with LGE parts.
Nevertheless, today's Quanta decision provides a strong indication that the Supreme Court intends to continue restricting the enforceable scope of patents. The Solicitor General recommended that the Court hear Quanta. But the Supreme Court went beyond the Solicitor General's request. Rejecting the advice of the Solicitor General not to reach the question, the Court relied on Univis to hold that the exhaustion doctrine applies to a product that embodies "[e]verything inventive" about the patent even if further "common and noninventive" steps are necessary to practice the patented invention. In this respect, Quanta is in close step with KSR. KSR closed by emphasizing that "the results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws." So too in Quanta, the Court explained that a patent owner could not avoid the impact of the patent exhaustion doctrine merely because the patent includes "common" steps. In both cases, the Court has refocused patent law on protecting the "inventive aspect" of a patented invention.


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George Enescu
On the trail of Romania's national composer
If Britain has a national composer, it's probably Elgar. But compared to the honours lavished on Romanian composer George Enescu in his homeland, Elgar is languishing in obscurity here in the UK.
Enescu, who lived from 1881 to 1955, not only appears on one of the country's bank notes, there are also a handful of museums dedicated to him, roads named in his honour, a festival set up in his memory, an airport named after him and even a 'George Enescu town'.
It's difficult, therefore, to judge his music fairly – to fight through the layers of hagiography that have built up around him.
Without doubt, he was an important figure in 20th-century music – there are photographs in the museum in Bucharest of him performing with David Ostrakh, chatting at dinner with Shostakovich and advising a young Yehudi Menuhin, there are posters and programmes for concerts in which he conducted landmark performances of Wagner, or performed alongside Wanda Landowski.
But his music – and indeed even his name – is largely unknown outside of Romania. And without the encouragement of the George Enescu Festival his music would be largely unperformed (when an orchestra comes to the festival for the first time, they're invited to perform a work by the composer).
Enescu enrolled in the Vienna Conservatoire 1888 before going to Paris to study in 1895 under the likes of Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. He became well-known for his brilliant violin playing, though his dream was to taken seriously as a composer. 'I wasn't thinking too much about violin,' he once said. 'I was drunk with music and not with giving performances on an instrument. I dreamt only about composing, composing, and again composing.'
His best know works include the two Romanian Rhapsodies from 1902, and his opera Oedipe, which he worked on for ten years, finally completing it in 1931. The George Enescu Festival is staging a rare performance of the work at this year's festival.
Later on he became an important violin teacher, numbering among his pupils Yehudi Menuhin, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel and Arthur Grumiaux.
But his current ubiquity also has a lot to do with good fortune. Enescu married Mária Rosetti, known as a princess Cantacuzino, who inherited one of the most lavish palaces in Bucharest – the Cantacuzino Palace (pictured above), though the composer and his wife actually lived in a much more modest, though equally beautiful, house behind the palace (pictured below). When Enescu died, his widow drew up a will which directed that the house should become part of a museum celebrating Enescu's life and achievements.
Enescu died in Paris in 1955 – he'd left Romania during the Second World War. And among the museum's most hallowed items on display are his death mask and two casts of his hands.
All of which feels a bit irrelevant for a man who was so keen for people to pay attention to his music. So rather than make the pilgrimage to his house, stick on one of his discs – try the Romanian Rhapsodies. Meanwhile, how about a petition to rename Heathrow 'Edward Elgar airport'?
- Article Type: | Blog |


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