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Evelyn D. Hill
November 4, 1931 - January 19, 2020
Kilpatrick Funeral Homes - Monroe
Tuesday 1/21, 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Tuesday 1/21, 2:00 pm
Mulhearn Memorial Park Cemetery
623 Hwy 80E
Funeral Services for Evelyn D. Hill will be held at 2:00 PM, Tuesday, January 21, 2020 at Kilpatrick Funeral Home of Monroe, Louisiana. Bro. Floyd Duchesne and Bro. Ricky Baker will be officiating the services and interment will follow at Mulhearn Memorial Park. Visitation will be from Noon until service time.Mrs. Hill was born on November 4, 1931 in Hebert, LA and passed away on January 19, 2020 in West Monroe, LA. She was preceded in death by her parents Clyde and Eula Duchesne; husband Carl Hill; her brothers Clyde Duchesne, Jr., Robert Duchesne, Thomas Duchesne,Pete Duchesne and Roy Duchesne. Mrs. Hill was a member of Grace Baptist Church in Monroe, LA.Mrs. Hill is survived by her 4 sons, Charles Hill and wife Renee, Kevin Hill and wife Belinda, Gary Hill and wife Nancy, and Mark Hill and wife Shelia; eleven grandchildren, Brittany (husband, Joey), Jason Hill, Justin Hill, Samantha (partner, Jacob), Kyle (wife, Samantha Kay), Bryan (husband, James), David (wife, Cheryl), Nathan (partner, Ramie), Matt (wife, Candi), Daphne (husband, Colt) and Jamie (husband, Chris); 15 great grandchildren; brother Floyd Duchesne and wife Elaine, and a host of nieces and nephews.Pallbearers will be Tommy Duchesne, Roy Duchesne, Jr., Kyle Hill, Bryan Hill, David Hill, Matt Hill, and Nathan Hill.Online condolences may be made to the family at www.kilpatrickfuneralhomes.com.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Add some colour to your kitchen with the new range of Visiotherm® colours. The Black Visiotherm® has a built in thermometer essential to cooking the AMC way. Heat resistant and with a built in themometer it enables you to easily cook at low to medium temperatures, retaining more flavour and nutrients in your food and helping you prepare healthier meals.


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Tag: Sydney Comedy Festival 2019
Sydney Comedy Festival – Reece Boyall
Reece Boyall's sold out first performance of Unexpected Times of Learning at this year's Sydney Comedy Festival, has to be one of my favourites by a newcomer. He may be new to the Sydney comedy scene but his stage presence, quality timing and…
Sydney Comedy Festival; Ross Noble, Humournoid
Stand-up comics take heed, if you want your audience to show up on time, take a step out of Ross Noble's book. Fans of his know that latecomers to the show risk being picked on and having the whole show centered around…
Sydney Comedy Festival 2019: The Game is Afoot
In my experience, improv can go really well or, not so well. And so when, on a whim, I decided to go and see The Game is Afoot! An Improvised Sherlock Holmes Mystery, I tried to keep my expectations in…
THEATRESPORTS® All-Stars: Battle of the Champions @ Sydney Comedy Festival
One of the highlights of the Sydney Comedy Fest running till 19 May 2019 is always Theatresports®. For those who don't know, Theatresports® is an improv competition where a director or the audience provide input for the improv scenes and…
Sydney Comedy Festival: Arj Barker – We Need to Talk
Opening for the night was Joel Ozborn, self-confessed friend and fan of Arj Barker's. Just back from touring in America with Arj, Joel treated the audience to insightful material about seeing America through the eyes of an Aussie. His timing…
Sydney Comedy Festival: David O'Doherty Ultrasound
David O'Doherty and his keyboard made their return to Enmore Theatre for this year's Sydney Comedy Festival performing his new show: Ultrasound in his ongoing mission to fix everything. His performance marked the end of his five-month tour of Ultrasound….
Sydney Comedy Festival: Gillian English – 10 Things I Hate About The Taming of the Shrew
Fans of Shakespeare, I'm sorry to break it to you: you might not think the same way about The Bard after you see Gillian English's new show, 10 Things I Hate About The Taming of The Shrew. English brings her…
Sydney Comedy Festival: Having the Craic with Foil, Arms and Hog
Irish comedy trio Foil, Arms and Hog made their Sydney Comedy Festival debut at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville with a performance that brought the house down. CRAIC-LING, as its name suggests, is great craic. It's a fast-paced sketch comedy…
Sydney Comedy Festival 2019 – Top Picks
2019 rolled in with resolutions of hard work and achievement and, needless to say, we're already slightly behind schedule. Overhearing a colleague look at the calendar and say that hated phrase 'April already! Where has the time gone?!' was a…
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The Plus Ones
4/51 Queen Street Melbourne, VIC 3000


Blockchain – What is it, and what does it do for renewables?
Blockchain, developed to enable trading in such cryptocurrencies, is a familiar buzzword in financial markets. However, its application is finding many more fields than simply digital currency, including energy markets and the renewables sector.
Blockchain is defined as a persistent and transparent public append only ledger. A chain is formed of a series of transactions, with each transaction recorded by adding a block to the chain, thus providing assured traceability, and then secured using cryptography. Many opportunities have been identified for using blockchain within the energy sector and many more remain untapped. There has been an explosion of companies created to exploit the technology and major utility players are also developing applications.
In parallel with the growth of renewable energy, the electricity industry has been grappling with the shift from centralised to decentralised generation and distributed energy sources. This requires a new view on how the electricity network is operated and changes in roles of the incumbents.
As consumers have begun to own generation assets (typically rooftop solar photovoltaics), storage (in electric vehicles) and smart home technology, they desire more control over their electricity use and administration. Small-scale trials of peer-to-peer trading have also begun.
At the same time, power grid owners and operators must maintain the networks, keep them safe, and ensure the overall system remains stable and secure with sufficient generation capacity. The price signal to ensure generation is appropriately located near demand must remain.
Blockchain is the key that could unlock the present disconnect between these two interest groups and sets of objectives. How exactly this is going to be implemented is up to market players and regulators and could herald the most interesting period within the electricity industry since its inception.
RCG recently presented a paper at The Global Wind Summit in Hamburg, an event combining the global conference of WindEurope.
Elaine Greig from RCG presented "Blockchain – What is it, and what does it do for renewables?", by Elaine Greig and Max Langtry, in the following session: "System Integration & Digitalisation", Thursday, 27 September 2018.


Emphasizing on color and form is important in my artworks. It has become a way for me to relate to the human psyche and existence. I am interested in how we instinctively react to color with innate responses. I allow individual pieces to present different emotional drama, whether it is based on vulnerability, chaos, or inquisitiveness. Also by using particular color combinations and marks I find this as a was to relate to anthropological cues of social and cultural histories. In all I believe this intimate experience translates as a visual language and offers dialogues that can lead to questions of how we mark ourselves in time.


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New York City on High Alert for 2004 Republican Convention
Aug 30, 2004 Mar 26, 2019 | by Leon Lazaroff
NEW YORK — The twin threats of terrorism and protest violence have put the New York Police Department in the global spotlight again on the eve of the Republican National Convention, and New York's finest appeared well prepared for the task during Sunday's march by more than 100,000 protesters.
While the nation well remembers the heroics and sacrifice of New York's police and firefighters on Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD faces some tricky public relations challenges in keeping its image exemplary while dealing firmly but humanely with protesters — as well as policing the convention amid heightened threats and unprecedented security for such a national political gathering.
In the months leading up to Sunday's march, New York police commissioner Ray Kelly had emphasized that rather than street protests, his greatest concern was terrorism.
Yet the antiwar group United for Peace and Justice had repeatedly warned as well that the city should not use Sept. 11 or threats of terrorism to curb constitutional rights to protest.
By day's end, Kelly was applauding march organizers for what he called an event that ''by and large was peaceful and orderly." Though about 200 people were arrested, most for disorderly conduct, Kelly stressed that most of the arrests occurred far off the parade route.
''The organizers for United for Peace and Justice ought to be commended for keeping their word: They pledged that the demonstrators would follow the march route, and that's exactly what happened," he said.
Chris Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and a key march organizer, said that during the nearly six-hour march both police and protesters acted admirably. ''What really helped was that the protesters wanted things to be peaceful, and the cops for the most part were extremely well behaved," he said.
As groups of protesters were beginning to mass along Seventh Avenue Sunday morning, police Inspector Joseph Riley shook hands with Dunn and went over logistics for the march.
It was a friendly if guarded greeting of two men who had talked many times over the past six months as the city and the antiwar coalition negotiated the route of the march.
''We haven't always seen eye to eye, but there's been a real effort to coordinate our activities," said Riley.
The day went much as expected. Thousands of people — The Associated Press reported 100,000 while march organizers estimated 400,000 — marched for six hours through midtown Manhattan past Madison Square Garden, the convention site.
Still fresh in the minds of march organizers was the antiwar rally held on Manhattan's East Side on a cold day in February 2003. Organizers charged afterward that the city had abused the use of so-called ''pens," interlocking metal barricades that police have used since the mid-1990s to control crowd movements. Later the New York Civil Liberties Union later sued the police department, leading to a July court order to modify policies regarding restrictions on access to events and searching of demonstrators.
At Sunday's march, Dunn said, the use of pens had been so heavily modified as to have been all but eliminated. ''They got beat up by the February '03 event, and to their credit they made some important changes," he said.
For the NYPD, the greatest concern was — and remains — a terrorist attack.
Helicopters hovered high above the rally while more than 10,000 police — about one-fourth of the city's force — worked the march and the convention site, and prepared to protect other public events this week, such as the start of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and baseball games of the Yankees and the Mets.
The large police presence, said George Bauries, crisis management director for Criterion Strategies, an international security firm based in Manhattan, ''set a tone that if any terror group was going to take advantage there would be second thoughts to that."
In the days leading up to the march, police stepped up their rounds at the city's major transportation spots, its subway system, train terminals, bridges and tunnels. New equipment such as metal barriers to halt a speeding vehicle and ''sally ports" to inspect trucks were positioned around Madison Square Garden.
Police clearly were bracing for many more arrests. In the event that large numbers of protesters had to be detained, the city recently erected a facility on a Chelsea pier that could hold as many as 1,000 people. Courts had also been readied to process large numbers.
''The department is very mindful of its image," Bauries said. ''There can't be an overwhelming hand that would crush demonstrators, but at the same time, we have to be sure that groups such as al-Qaida don't take advantage of weakened security."
Posted in U.S. Politics
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Lupita Nyong'o can claim both African and Latin American nationalities, as she was born in Mexico while her family is of Kenyan heritage.
Lupita Nyong'o shares the same ethnic identity as President Barack Obama, whose father was a prominent member of the Luo community.
Yale School of Drama, Hampshire College
Who Is Lupita Nyong'o?
Background and Travels
Documentary and HIV Awareness
Oscar for '12 Years a Slave'
"As an actor, although the cameras are on me and the lights are on me, it's really not about me at all, and that always helps me get out there and do the thing I've been hired to do, because I am fighting for what my character wants. And if I'm pursuing that, then I'm OK. I'm good.""I grew up watching foreign programs—American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.""Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me ... he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do—only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'""I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.""When we started this film [12 Years a Slave], I knew we were embarking on something that would make a huge difference ..."
Lupita Nyong'o Biography
Lupita Nyong'o is an international filmmaker and actress known for her Academy Award-winning role as Patsey in '12 Years a Slave' and as Nakia in 'Black Panther.'
Who Is Lupita Nyong'o?
Born in 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico, Lupita Nyong'o started acting as a teen in Kenya and went on to work behind the scenes of the film The Constant Gardener. She directed and produced the albinism documentary In My Genes and starred in the TV series Shuga. Nyong'o went on to earn acclaim for her role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which she won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The following year, she starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the Off-Broadway play Eclipsed. The actress also featured prominently in the box office-shattering superhero flick Black Panther (2018).
Lupita Nyong'o was born in 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico. Her parents, Dorothy and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, were in political exile at the time of her birth, but were able to return to their homeland of Kenya during their daughter's childhood. Her father later became part of the country's senate while her mother, who worked in family planning, took a leadership position with the Africa Cancer Foundation.
Having taken to drama and obtaining the lead role in a production of Romeo and Juliet, Nyong'o also returned to Mexico during her teens to learn Spanish. She went to college in the United States, studying at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and earning her degree in film in 2003. Upon her return to Kenya during school summer vacation, Nyong'o discovered that filming for the drama The Constant Gardener was happening in her area. She joined the set as a production assistant and met Ralph Fiennes, who told her to become an actor only if it was something she couldn't imagine doing without.
Nyong'o honed her craft as a filmmaker by directing, editing and producing the 2009 documentary In My Genes, which followed the stories of several Kenyans who are living with albinism. And she became a star of Kenyan television in Shuga, an MTV/UNICEF-backed series that looked at sexual relationships among youth in Nairobi, aiming to promote HIV awareness and safe sex via storytelling.
Oscar for '12 Years a Slave'
Nyong'o returned to the States and, pursuing her interest in acting, earned a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama in 2012, having performed in works like The Winter's Tale with the school's Repertory Theatre.
Weeks before graduating she found out that she had landed a part in director Steve McQueen's drama 12 Years a Slave. The Brad Pitt-produced film is based on the 19th century narrative written by Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Northern-based free man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Nyong'o played the role of Patsey, an enslaved young woman who befriends Northup while being horrifically abused by plantation master Edwin Epps and his wife, portrayed by Michael Fassbender and Sarah Paulson. For her performance in the film, Nyong'o earned a slew of award nominations, before taking home the 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Thank you to the Academy for this incredible recognition. It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's. And so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey for her guidance. And for Solomon, thank you for telling her story and your own.
Nyong'o has become a majestic fashion icon, with red-carpet appearances and pics in publications like InStyle and W. She also twice graced the cover of Vogue in a short span of time, appearing on the publication's July 2014 and October 2015 issues.
However, Nyong'o's appearance on the November 2017 issue of Grazia U.K. fueled controversy, after the actress slammed the magazine for retouching the photo to chop off her ponytail and smooth out her hair. The magazine subsequently apologized for the editorial mishap, with photographer An Le taking the blame for his "incredibly monumental mistake."
'Star Wars' and 'Eclipsed'
Nyong'o starred opposite Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore in 2014's Non-Stop, a thriller about an air marshal confronted by a deadly ransom threat. In June 2014, Disney's Lucasfilm announced that the Oscar winner was joining the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with the film having a December 2015 release. On her Instagram account, Nyong'o posted, "I can finally say it out loud and proud: I'm going to a galaxy far far away!" The actress portrays CGI space pirate Maz Kanata in what became the biggest domestic box office outing of all time, a role she reprised for the 2017 sequel, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Nyong'o also prepared for her New York stage debut in autumn 2015 with the Public Theater's Off-Broadway production of Eclipsed, a drama about the struggles of several Liberian women during civil war. Eclipsed made its way to Broadway the following year in February, and both the play and Nyong'o herself soon earned Tony nominations.
Nyong'o returned to the big screen in 2016 with the feel-good Queen of Katwe, about an African girl who becomes a chess champion, and as the voice of the maternal wolf Raksha in a remake of Disney's The Jungle Book.
'Black Panther'
Nyong'o found herself in the middle of another buzzworthy project when she was tapped to join the Marvel flick Black Panther as Nakia, the love interest of Chadwick Boseman's titular superhero.
The film proved a box office smash upon its release for the four-day President's Day weekend in February 2018, raking in more than $200 million domestically and over $360 worldwide. Additionally, the production was notable for shattering stereotypes about the limitations of marketing a largely black cast.
Later that summer, the actress was honored with induction into Hollywood's Walk of Fame class of 2019.
Nyong'o went on to a co-starring role in the comedy-horror Little Monsters, which premiered at Sundance in early 2019. She followed with a turn to scream-out-loud horror in Jordan Peele's Us, about a family confronted by a sinister group of doppelgängers.
https://www.biography.com/actor/lupita-nyongo
Salma Hayek is an actress, director and producer of Mexican and Lebanese descent who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in 'Frida.'
Susan Sarandon is an Academy Award-winning American film actress known for roles in films like Bull Durham, Thelma and Louise and Dead Man Walking.
Actor and producer Brad Pitt is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winner known for such films as 'Legends of the Fall,' 'Fight Club,' 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' 'Moneyball' and '12 Years a Slave.'
There's a Hattie McDaniel biopic in the works, according to the 'Hollywood Reporter.' Born to slave parents, McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award in 1940 for her supporting role as Mammy in 'Gone With the Wind.'
Sarah Jessica Parker is an award-winning TV and film actress whose starring role in the series Sex and the City catapulted her to stardom.
Cate Blanchett is an Academy Award-winning actress known for roles in an films, including 'Elizabeth,' 'The Aviator,' 'Blue Jasmine' and 'Carol.' Blanchett is slated to play Lucille Ball in 'Lucy and Desi,' a biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and acquired by Amazon Studios.
Painter Frida Kahlo was a Mexican self-portrait artist who was married to Diego Rivera and is still admired as a feminist icon.
Joanne Woodward is an award-winning American actress best known for her roles in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Rachel Rachel (1968) and Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973). Woodward is the widow of actor Paul Newman.
Sharon Stone is an Oscar-nominated actress known for her roles in a variety of films, including Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Sliver, Casino and Lovelace.


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Funding >
Permanent Supportive Housing >
Permanent Supportive Housing
Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is defined as "a cost-effective combination of permanent, affordable housing with services that help people live more stable, productive lives." For more information about PSH in St. Louis, download the Corporation for Supportive Housing's "Report to the St. Louis Partnership for Mental Health and Housing Transformation Grant".
PSH works well for people who face the most complex challenges – individuals and families who are not only homeless, but who also have very low incomes and serious, persistent issues that may include substance use, mental illness and HIV/AIDS.
In conjunction with the Corporation for Supportive Housing's report, St. Louis set the goal of providing 1,227 units of PSH, of which 882 were to be specifically set aside for populations with serious mental illness who are homeless or who may be at risk of homelessness.
Since FY11, Saint Louis MHB has supported this goal through the offering of funds, usually in the form of 10-year forgivable loans, to support the development of PSH through either renovating existing infrastructure or through construction of new sites that provide behavioral health services in conjunction with PSH. To date, MHB has awarded nearly $2.9 million for 15 sites dedicating 170 units of permanent supportive housing.
How to Apply for PSH Funding
Consideration for PSH funding is a two-step process. At present there are no hard deadlines. Letters of Intent and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The steps applicants must follow are detailed below, as well as forms and other resources you'll need during the process.
Submit a Letter of Intent (LOI), using this official Letter of Intent Form, to the attention of "PSH Letter of Intent."
After the LOI is submitted, the MHB Housing Committee will review it and recommend whether or not to invite the applicant to submit a full application.
Step 2 – If invited to submit a full application
Submit a cover letter signed by an individual authorized to enter into contractual agreements on behalf of the organization. The cover letter must include:
A brief summary of the project
The amount of funding requested
The number of PSH units expected to be produced
In addition to the letter, submit one complete application packet, including:
The "Application for Funding" template, completed in full, with the applicant's name entered in the footer (access the Application for PSH)
Continuation pages as needed, indicating the appropriate question number and the applicant's name entered in the footer
The attachments requested on page 6 of the Application for Funding
Send the cover letter and application packet to MHB's office, to the attention of "PSH Application."
Letter of Intent Form
Application for PSH
Notice of Funding Availability
PSH FAQ
CSH Report to the St. Louis Partnership for Mental Health and Housing: Permanent Supportive Housing Unit Goal


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USDA Decides GM-Alfalfa Is No Little Rascal
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is one of the most important crop plants in the world. Its uses range from cattle forage to human food. Worldwide, it is cultivated more than any other legume crop. Monsanto Corporation developed a patented genetically modified ("GM") variety of alfalfa - Roundup Ready Alfalfa - that is resistant to glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine), a powerful herbicide used to eliminate weeds from agricultural fields.
As discussed earlier at LEXVIVO, Roundup Ready Alfalfa has inspired considerable legal controversy - controversy that has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 27, 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture ("USDA"), after completing an Environmental Impact Statement, announced in a press release that it has opted for full deregulation of Roundup Ready Alfalfa. This decision will place no more restrictions on Monsanto's GM-alfalfa than on non-GM varieties. As the USDA's press release relates,
"After conducting a thorough and transparent examination of alfalfa through a multi-alternative environmental impact statement (EIS) and several public comment opportunities, APHIS has determined that Roundup Ready alfalfa is as safe as traditionally bred alfalfa," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
This decision comes on the heels of a January 19, 2011, letter that U.S. Representative Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) sent to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, warning that taking into account non-scientific factors in the regulation of GM-alfalfa would exceed the statutory authority granted to his agency by the Plant Protection Act:
It is unfortunate that those critical of the technology have decided to litigate and as you rightly point out that courts may unwisely interfere in normal commerce. However, the alternative you propose and include in the EIS is equally disturbing since it politicizes the regulatory process and goes beyond your statutory authority and indeed Congress' intent in the Plant Protection Act (PPA). The PPA requires the Secretary to make a scientific determination if the product under review is a plant pest (7 U.S.C. 7711(c)(3)). If the final decision is that the product is not a plant pest, nor would the movement of the product in question impose the risk of dissemination of a plant pest, then USDA has no authority to impose further restrictions (7 U.S.C. 7712(a)).
Further legal challenges of GM-alfalfa are certain, especially from organic farmers who worry that GM-pollen will infect the their non-GM crops. As a signal that it takes the growing war between advocates of agricultural biotechnology and organic farming seriously, USDA has decided to resurrect its Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture and the National Genetic Resources Advisory Committee to
tackle a broad range of issues, from ensuring the availability of high quality seed, to helping ensure that growers have access to the best tools available to support their production choices, to whether risk management and indemnification options can play a role.
Victory in this battle goes to agricultural biotechnology, but the wider war will assuredly continue. In the meantime, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ("FAO") has reported that food prices reached near-record heights in 2010.
Posted by Andrew W. Torrance at 5:47 PM
Innovation As An Innovation
On January 25, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a State of the Union Address packed with references to innovation. In fact, he mentioned "innovation" no fewer than nine times during his speech. In each of his 2010 and 2009 Addresses, President Obama mentioned innovation only twice. During his entire eight years as U.S. President, George W. Bush mentioned innovation quite sparingly in State of the Union Addresses: twice each in 2006 and 2003. Even technophile President William J. Clinton employed the word only four times in his two terms in office. So, why is innovation suddenly so popular with President Obama?
There are a number of possible explanations for why innovation has caught the presidential, and national, Zeitgeist. One reason is that technological innovation is closely associated with economic growth. From Robert Solow's neoclassical growth model, which estimated that about four fifths of productivity gains stem from new technology, to Paul Romer's suggestion that investments in research and development may be particularly effective means of encouraging technological improvements, much modern economic thought recommends the promotion of innovation as an especially wise policy goal.
Another motivation is the fashionable fear that the United States is at risk from being overtaken by China, whose students (along with students from South Korea, Finland, Canada, and quite a few other countries) recently outperformed their American colleagues in science, mathematics, and other subjects in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment ("PISA"). The sensation caused several weeks ago by Amy Chua's publication of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she critiques the results of what she pejoratively terms "Western" parenting, tapped this Angst and found a gusher.
A third explanation may arise from a dawning realization that classical models of innovation may not be succeeding as well as they once did. Witness the National Institutes of Health's new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences ("NCATS"), whose euphemistic goal, "to leverage science to bring new ideas and materials to the attention of industry by demonstrating their value," is a reaction to the worrying relative decline in the rate of discovery, development, and market-availability of new pharmaceutical drugs, coupled with a looming "patent cliff" off which many existing medicines are beginning to tumble.
Finally, the fruits of innovation, such as the iPad, the Nissan Leaf, and Roundup Ready alfalfa, are usually viewed as cool, compelling, and a welcome distraction from the distressing realities of slow economic growth and high unemployment. Where the Romans had panem et circenses, one can now enjoy the latest update of Angry Birds.
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Six
Every year, the students in Biodiversity Law travel with Professor Andrew W. Torrance to the Virgin Islands (U.S. and British) for an intensive week-long fieldtrip. This is their dispatch from January 19, 2011:
Today, we got up early to drop our fearless leader and professor off at the airport. We immediately left the airport to make our way to the beach beside the University of the Virgin Islands ("UVI") MacLean Marine Science Center docks. We are grateful that the local United States Virgin Islands laws require that the public be given access to all beaches on the islands. After visiting UVI multiple times this past week as a transit point, it was great to be able to go to the beautiful beach there and do some snorkeling close to the shore.
Formal lectures and field activities having finished, we lounged around the beach as we waited for the sun to rise over the palm trees to illuminate the water for clear-visibility snorkeling. While on the beach, we watched a Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) dive repeatedly from the air into the water to catch fish. Also, we saw a Puerto Rican Anole (Anolis pulchellus), a lizard that falls into the grass/bush morphotype. Two other anole lizards, the Puerto Rican Crested Anole (Anolis cristatellus), a trunk/ground morphotype, and the Barred Anole (Anolis stratulus), a crown/trunk morphotype, are native to the Virgin Islands, and we saw these as well. Part of our reading assignments were about the anole lizards of the Virgin Islands, and we used these organisms in legal hypos throughout the week of the fieldtrip. We tried to catch these lizards all week to examine them up close, but without success. Finally, the Anolis pulchellus that we found near the beach's tree line took pity on us, and decided to jump on an arm.
Once the sun was shining over the bay, we went snorkeling. We saw schools of Ballyhoo (Hemiramphus brasiliensis) fish almost immediately. The bay, which is called Brewer's Bay, itself was largely sandy-bottomed, and had almost no coral. However, plenty of small fish were nibbling at the few pieces of coral that are present. One fish appeared to be territorial, aggressively protecting its part of the coral from all other fish who swam too close. As we swan out towards the moored boats, we saw some Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas), a turtle federally-listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, enjoying morning swims. One particular turtle alarmed us by lunging towards us. It became very clear that Green Sea Turtles are much more agile in the water then we were. Luckily, the turtle decided we represented no threat, and subsequently left us alone. Surprising, we also saw a Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana), our first of the fieldtrip. We found it amazing how each snorkeling trip this week revealed new species. It is precisely this richness and variety of biodiversity, along with the many legal issues that confront and surround it, that makes the Virgin Islands such an ideal place to study biodiversity law.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Our trip has officially ended, but we will carry with us all the knowledge we gathered in our unique 'classroom' this week.
That brings to an end the daily dispatches from the 2011 Biodiversity Law class. See you again this time next year for the 2012 class of Biodiversity Law.
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Five
Today, Ron, an experienced sea captain, and the owner of our hotel, took us on his speedboat to the U.S. Virgin Island of Saint John. St. John is unique in the Caribbean in consisting mainly of national park. Made possible by land donated by Laurance Rockefeller, Virgin Islands National Park covers most of St. John, and has allowed the island to maintain more of its natural character and native biodiversity than any other Caribbean island. Unlike the largely unsuccessful laissez-faire approach to conservation that characterizes St. Thomas and St. Croix, the National Park Service provides strong federal enforcement of national biodiversity law on St. John. For example, where St. Thomas hosts hillsides dotted with structures and cleared vegetation, the only structures visible on the North side of St. John, aside from a few privately-owned enclaves yet to be acquired by the National Park, are abandoned colonial sugar mills and the ecotourism tents of Maho Bay. The habitats on St. John vary from mature seasonally-moist rainforest to dry sclerophyll forest, surrounded by an unspoiled shoreline of rocky cliffs and gorgeous white sand beaches, with spectacular coral reefs just offshore.
We moored the boat at Leinster Bay, and snorkeled around Waterlemon Cay. The snorkeling here differed markedly from our previous snorkling sites South of St. Thomas. Here, the fish tended to be much bigger and more plentiful, and we were able more easily to identify more species. In addition, we saw many large fish hiding in crevices in the coral. Much of the coral surrounding Waterlemon Cay was soft and flexible, allowing it to bend and 'wave' in the strong water currents and larger waves. We observed more endangered Staghorn Coral (Acropora cervicornis) and Elkhorn Coral (Acropora palmata), though not in the same abundance as at Flat Key. One more fascinating characteristic of Waterlemon Cay was the abundance of tiny translucent Sea Walnuts (Mnemiopsis leidy), which, fortunately, tend not to sting.
After snorkeling, we returned to our al fresco classroom, where we discussed our favorite creatures (especially legal issues involved in their conservation), and then calculated the species richness, evenness, and diversity of the three St. Thomas locations (Botany Bay, Crown Mountain, and Magen's Bay) at which we carried out leaf surveys. The largest species richness and biodiversity was at Crown Mountain (the highest point in St. Thomas), followed by Magen's Bay (halfway down the mountain), and then Botany Bay (near the beach). Crown Mountain is a moist rainforest area, whereas Magen's Bay and Botany Bay (in that order) are generally drier. Additionally, results revealed that Botany Bay had less species richness and biodiversity. Again, this was not very surprising because the area is near water and very sandy. In terms of species richness, diversity, and evenness, the Magen's Bay area is intermediate to the other two sites in richness, evenness, and diversity. Our calculations confirmed our expectation that the Virgin Islands host prodigious quantities of biodiversity, but that the local patterns of biodiversity vary immensely.
Stay tuned for more daily dispatches.
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Four
Today, we drove down to Estate Botany Bay in the far westend of Saint Thomas. There, we visited the lowlands area surrounding the former Corning family beach house, Mermaid's Chair, and The Nature Conservancy ("TNC") property called Little Saint Thomas, which is situated where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean (and creates the best surfing in the Virgin Islands). We learned how TNC pioneered the use of conservation easements to conserve parcels of land without having to pay the total cost of purchasing land fee simple. A conservation easement prevents activities on a parcel of land that might endanger biodiversity. Unlike their usual legal strategy of obtaining conservation easements from property owners, TNC actually does own Little Saint Thomas fee simple, having been given the land by the Corning family as a gift. Per USVI law, public access to the beach and ocean is required so that the public can use and enjoy the land. However, those wishing to enjoy these access rights must walk (not drive) the 3 kilometers down to the beach, and then walk back up. Fortunately, we were guests of private owners of Botany Bay, so we were allowed to explore the entire 160 hectare property and its spectacular tropical biodiversity.
One of the most interesting features of Little Saint Thomas was the abundance of rocks that allow for the formation of transient tide pools. These tide pools serve as an area where small, often juvenile, fish can live protected from larger predator fish. Also, we saw an abundance of Soldier Crabs (Coenobita clypeatus) making their way inland, and uphill, to mate and lay eggs, a behavior they share, at least in part, with sea turtles. Unfortunately, roads cut into the sides of the steep hills of Estate Botany Bay can create vertical barriers impossible to pass, thus thwarting their uphill reproductive trek.
After leaving Estate Botany Bay, we drove up to Crown Mountain, which is the highest point in the USVI, and home to a dense biodiverse moist rainforest, and then down to the trailhead of another TNC property above Magen's Bay. At both of these sites, and at Botany Bay, we systematically collected fallen leaves as part of an experiment to estimate forest diversity. We then took bags of our leaves back to our hotel, where we carefully categorized and tallied the different types of leaves we collected at each of the three experimental sites. Tomorrow, we will use a variety of statistical formulae to estimate forest tree richness, diversity, and evenness across these sites, and will then attempt to understand any differences we find.
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Three
Today, Dr. Richard Nemeth, a specialist in ecology and management of tropical fisheries and coral reefs, and the Director of the Maclean Marine Science Center at the University of the Virgin Islands, took us out on his sailboat. He took us for a sail around a few of the small islands surrounding the southern side of St. Thomas. After serving as his crew to sail out to Flat Cay, a small, uninhibited island, and federally-protected bird sanctuary, we moored to a fixed buoy, thus avoiding the need to drop anchor onto the spectacular, yet fragile, coral reef below. We saw a bewildering diversity of fish, echinoderms, crustaceans, coral, and sponges. Dr. Nemeth graciously and expertly pointed out a number of interesting species. For instance, he pointed out a school of Blue-Headed Wrasse, and explained that their unusual closely-synchronized swimming pattern was part of a mating ritual, in which as many as twenty male fish attempted to follow a single female fish to fertilize the eggs she occasionally released into the water. Although comical to watch, this mating aggregation behavior is crucial to producing the next generation of this species on the coral reef. Dr. Nemeth also drew our attention to endangered Fused Staghorn Coral (Acropora prolifera), a rare species of coral that results from the hybridization of endangered Elkhorn Coral (Acropora palmata) and Staghorn Coral (Acropora cervicornis). In addition, he showed us a coral nursery set up by The Nature Conservancy intended to produce individuals of these three coral species that can be used to establish new populations where they have previously been wiped out. We were also very excited to see, and swim with, two Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas), an inspiring sight because these turtles are currently making a comeback in the waters surrounding the Virgin Islands.
After sailing back to the docks at the Maclean Marine Science Center, Dr. Nemeth showed us a captured Red Lionfish (Pterois voltans). Red Lionfish are an increasingly problematic invasive species in the Virgin Islands, and throughout the Caribbean, and anyone spotting one of these fish in the wild is strongly encouraged to report their sighting to the fish and wildlife authorities. Native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Red Lionfish has rapidly spread throughout the Caribbean Sea after Hurricane Andrew smashed a Miami aquarium, spilling six individual Red Lionfish into the Atlantic Ocean who subsequently spawned the entire invasive plague. Since the Red Lionfish has no natural predators outside its natural range, and each individual is capable of consuming vast numbers of coral reef fish, its spread is currently devastating native fish biodiversity in the Caribbean region. Though beautiful, this fish symbolizes the current lack of effective legal responses to the threat of invasive species.
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day Two
Today we had the amazing opportunity to visit with the USVI's most distinguished attorney, Jeff Weiss. Jeff Weiss is a jack of all trades. He handles issues varying from complex class action litigations, such as the recovery of insurance money from a hurricane that devastated the island of St. Thomas over a decade ago, and also advocates zealously for the protection of endangered species, such as the endangered Atlantic Hawksbill Sea Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and Virgin Island Tree Boa (Epicrates monensis granti). Jeff explained the intricacies of practicing law in a U.S. territory that is a biodiversity hotspot. The most interesting aspect of our conversation was the balancing of interests between the Virgin Island Tree Boa and the Hawksbill Sea Turtle and the people who lost their homes because of Hurricane Marilyn. Jeff ardently fought for the protection of endangered species whose habitat would have been destroyed through habitat destruction by relying on the Endangered Species Act. And he won!
Biodiversity Law In Paradise - Day One
Professor Torrance informed us that we would partake in a traditional Saint Thomas Friday night activity; we went bat catching. We trekked along the beautiful shoreline of Magen's Bay before having the honor of meeting Saint Thomas' foremost advocate for terrestrial ecosystem preservation, Dr. Renata Platenberg. She and two assistants, her devoted husband and a University of the Virgin Islands graduate student, mount mistnets in the forest once a month at dusk. Various specimens of the island's five native species of bats occasionally find themselves tangled in the nets, perhaps a bit confused that their sonar failed them. Promptly, the researchers delicately remove the tiny mammals (unfortunately, the process is delicate only for the bats-- a bat bite and some mild cursing was in progress when we arrived) and place them in pillow cases for weighing, measuring, and then safe release. While the idea of petting a bat was both exciting and off-putting, the consensus among the class was that explaining a bat bite scar would be rather impressive, thus worth the risk. We introduced ourselves to the little lady in the photo, who was soft as velvet and surprisingly cute. Renata and her crew then examined the bats, recorded data, and returned them to their homes among the palm tree silhouettes. The promise of Friday night island excitement panned out beautifully as we found a friend in Molossus molossus. And we got a taste of the first step in determining whether a species might be threatened: someone has to venture into the trenches, observe species first hand, and establish the scientific baseline that triggers the protective provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
An Apple Patent A Day Keeps Competitors At Bay
The big news about Apple Inc. is not their new agreement to sell iPhones that work on Verizon Wireless' 3G network. Much more significant is newly released evidence that Apple aspires to become a patent superpower. On January 12, 2010, patent information company IFI CLAIMS Patent Services published a new league table ranking the assignees of the most U.S. patents granted in 2010. For the first time, Apple, at 46th, made it into the top 50, and was the assignee of 563 newly granted patents. Although it leads the top 50 in growth rate, with a 94% increase in assigned patents since 2009, Apple still has a long climb to match the top patent assignee, International Business Machines Corporation, which received an astonishing 5,896 patents in 2010. Nevertheless, Apple has already begun to flex its patent-strengthened muscles, particularly in the increasingly important market for smartphones. Apple appears to be investing in an expansive patent estate to protect its prodigious profits, perhaps signaling its transition from iPhone to iSue.
The Foody Blues - FDA Of Future Passed
On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act ("FSMA"), which the U.S. Senate and House both passed in late 2010. The FSMA amends the existing Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act in numerous ways, but four changes stand out in particular:
(1) FDA must develop and employ science-based standards that govern the growing and harvesting of fruits and vegetables, and these standards must take into account both anthropogenic and "natural" risks to food safety,
(2) Food facilities must produce written assessments that identify risks to the food they handle, and specify prophylactic measures to minimum these identified risks,
(3) FDA must greatly step up its inspections of food facilities, both in the U.S. and abroad, and
(4) FDA will now possess enhanced recall authority, allowing the agency to force recalls of unsafe food if the producer of the food fails to do so voluntarily, and will be able to suspend registration of food facilities connected to unsafe food.
Here is how Food and Drugs Commissioner Margaret Hamburg describes the new FSMA:
Each year, foodborne illness strikes 48 million Americans, hospitalizing a hundred thousand and killing thousands. I thank the President and members of Congress for recognizing that the burden that foodborne illness places on the American people is too great, and for taking this action.
The historic legislation the President will sign tomorrow directs the Food and Drug Administration, working with a wide range of public and private partners, to build a new system of food safety oversight – one focused on applying, more comprehensively than ever, the best available science and good common sense to prevent the problems that can make people sick...
This law represents a sea change for food safety in America, bringing a new focus on prevention, and I expect that in the coming years it will have a dramatic and positive effect on the safety of the food supply.
Two of the greatest challenges faced by the FDA in implementing the FSMA will be time and money. To meet the aggressive schedule of inspections and other actions mandated by the FSMA, the agency will have to hire many new employees with expensive scientific credentials. The new Republican-dominated House may balk at supplying any new funds in the new era of austerity they have announced. However, food safety is a very popular political issue, and woe betide the future electoral prospects of any politician seen to be advocating less of it.
Patently Innovative China
China long ago became a manufacturing superpower. However, its earlier-industrialized competitors have consoled themselves that China is merely a copycat of others' innovation. The government of China is not content with such a role. Even though the evidence that patents best spur innovation is far from conclusive, the Sunday New York Times today (January 2, 2011) reports that patents are a central pillar in the official Chinese strategy to foster a culture of home-grown invention.
The article, "When Innovation, Too, Is Made in China," references a document entitled "National Patent Development Strategy (2011-2020)," recently published by the State Intellectual Property Office of China ("SIPO"), and suggests that China plans to double its complement of patent examiners and to increase its utility patent filings to an impressive 1,000,000 by 2015. By contrast, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") employed 6,413 utility, plant, and reissue patent examiners in the fourth quarter of 2009, and, during the whole of 2009, received 456,106 utility patent applications, of which 49.3% had a U.S. resident as first-listed inventor. As the article also notes, to increase patent filings by its own residents, "China has introduced an array of incentives [including] cash bonuses, better housing for individual filers and tax breaks for companies that are prolific patent producers."
China may find, as other countries have before, that the connections between patents and innovation remain less than fully elucidated. As Eric von Hippel has persuasively demonstrated, much innovation is either open (that is, non-proprietary), generated by users rather than producers, or both. James Besson and Michael Meurer have shown that the relative costs and benefits of patents differ between fields, and the costs may sometimes outweigh the benefits. And, the results of experiments (for example, see the article "Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts," published in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review (2009)) by Profs. Bill Tomlinson and Andrew W. Torrance (author of LEXVIVO) using a variety of simplified computer-based simulations of patent systems have found relatively greater rates of innovation in systems lacking patent protection (for more, see the August 16, 2010, Google Tech Talk "The Patent Game: Experiments in the Cathedral of Law").
Patent law, patent economics, and the innovation process are all exceedingly complicated. Even an otherwise fascinating New York Times article stumbles on specifics, stating that, unlike China, "[i]n the American system, there are no utility patents," despite the fact the United States patent system does, indeed, offer utility patents; where China does differ is in offering petty patents ("utility model" protection) for minor incremental innovations. Better public understanding of the specifics of patent systems would help improve policy debates about innovation. More fundamentally, much additional research will be required to determine the conditions under which patent systems best spur innovation. By setting an aggressive set of patenting goals, China is clearly signaling its intentions to become a patent superpower. However, achieving the status of innovation superpower may require more than patents alone.